Reality, of the military and petroleum-based variety, forced the administration to change course. Now Bush sounds like Obama.
By Juan Cole
Jul. 31, 2008 Pundits and diplomats nearly got whiplash from the double take they did when George W. Bush sent the No. 3 man in the State Department to sit at a table on July 19 across from an Iranian negotiator, without any preconditions. When Bush had addressed the Israeli Knesset in May, he made headlines by denouncing any negotiation with "terrorists and radicals" as "the false comfort of appeasement." What drove W. to undermine John McCain by suddenly adopting Barack Obama's foreign policy prescription on Iran?
Back in mid-July, the Geneva talks were attended by representatives of the five veto-wielding nations on the United Nations Security Council, including the U.S., along with a delegate from Germany and chief European Union negotiator Javier Solana. E.U. parleys with Tehran have been going on for years, but the presence of undersecretary of state for political affairs William Burns signaled a new seriousness to Washington's commitment to the diplomatic track. What the U.S. and its European allies were offering Iran at the Geneva meeting was termed a "freeze for freeze" deal. Iran would not attempt to improve on its rudimentary ability to enrich uranium to low levels, or go beyond running 3,000 centrifuges, in return for a pause in the spiral of economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.N. Security Council.
The blogosphere and Op-Ed pages were rife with speculation about the reason for Bush's startling reversal. Former National Security Council staffer and Columbia University Iran expert Gary Sick implied that Vice President Dick Cheney and the hawks had lost control of Iran policy to foreign policy realists such as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in a behind-the-scenes Oval Office rumble. His thesis was supported by the howls of outrage against Bush's "appeasement" of Iran published in the Wall Street Journal opinion pages by former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and by the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Rubin, both prominently associated with the neoconservative movement and with propagandizing for the Iraq war.
As usual, the neocon doth protest too much. Burns conducted no real negotiations with the Iranian delegation, simply restating Washington's insistence that Iran cease its enrichment activities. His presence at the negotiations was mainly symbolic. Still, on the symbolic level of politics, Washington's change of direction was momentous. Bush had clearly executed a "Rockford" or reverse 180 of the sort you see stunt drivers pull off in spy movies. And the reason for that reversal of course was, indeed, reality -- not just a recognition of the limits of the U.S. military, but a taste of $5-per-gallon gas. Bush and Cheney, both oilmen, invaded one oil-rich country and said its reconstruction would be paid for by a flood of cheap oil. Now, ironically, one of the main reasons they have had to scale back their ambitions for a second oil-rich country, Iran, is the crushing effect of expensive oil on the U.S. and world economy.
It was just a year ago that war with Iran seemed imminent. Last August David Wurmser, a major neoconservative figure who had just left Cheney's staff revealed that the vice president was talking about having Israel hit Iran's nuclear research facilities. At the same time, Afghanistan expert Barnett Rubin went public with what he was told by a Bush administration insider -- that Cheney would make a big push for a strike on Iran in the fall of 2007. Journalist Seymour Hersh reported that Cheney was attempting to reconfigure the Iraq war as a struggle with Iran. And, indeed, Cheney did make threats against Iran at institutions of the Israel lobby such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
In December 2007, however, the intelligence community pushed back. Key findings from the National Intelligence Estimate, released that month, showed that Iran had mothballed any weapons-related research since early 2003. The Cheney push for one more war was effectively blocked.
In recent months, several major developments have strengthened the case for dealing with Iran diplomatically rather than militarily. The U.S. military is more overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan than ever. The resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan has required a significant increase in the number of U.S. and NATO troops during the past year. Iranian proxies in Iraq and Afghanistan could easily target U.S. bases with Katyusha rockets in retaliation for any U.S. strike on the nuclear research facilities at Natanz near Isfahan.
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Showing posts with label Bush administration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bush administration. Show all posts
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
What is the Future of Iraqi Sovereignty? by Sadegh Kabeer
Negotiations over the future role and status of America’s armed forces in Iraq have been underway for some time, while any sign of agreement between the respective parties appears inconclusive and highly precarious. With the July 31st deadline already passed, the ongoing dispute over the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) shows little sign of resolution. The Bush administration has been somewhat desperate to push the measure through and establish a legal framework for the continued presence of US forces in Iraq since the UN Security Council mandate is due to expire this December.
This so-called “strategic alliance” was immediately met with fierce and unremitting opposition by Iraqi politicians, religious dignitaries and the general public. The tide of opposition is such that Iraqi politicians on all sides know that whoever uncritically accedes to American demands will never be forgiven or forgotten. Their political credibility will quite simply be left in tatters.
In a story first broken in early June by the UK Independent’s Middle East Correspondent Patrick Cockburn, it became clear that the aim of the Bush administration was to ensure the permanent presence of US forces inside Iraq possessed a legal footing, so that the subsequent occupant of the Oval Office, would feel little compulsion to embark upon a course of large-scale troop withdrawals. The other and more damning implication of Baghdad’s “strategic alliance” with Washington would be that Iraq for all intents and purposes would be transformed into an American client-state, without sovereignty in any meaningful sense of the word.[i]
In his article, Cockburn, who is amongst the most well-informed and astute foreign observers of Iraqi politics, details the content of the would-be US-Iraqi agreement. When the conditions laid down by SOFA originally came to light, it was said to include the long-term use of more than 50 US military bases in Iraq; immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military operations inside Iraq without consultation of the Iraqi government. Even US total control over Iraqi airspace was deemed a very real possibility, sparking fears that the US might either use Iraq as a base from which to attack Iran, or permit the Israelis to attack Iran via Iraqi airspace.
Iraqi officials, however, haven’t been quiescent and by contrast have quite forcefully complained that such plans would transform their country into an ‘American colony’ and sow the seeds of conflict inside Iraq and the broader Middle East for years to come.[ii] Former Iraqi Finance Minister, Ali Allawi has pointedly stated that the US-Iraqi agreement “raises serious alarm about its long-term significance for Iraq’s sovereignty and independence.”[iii]
Opposition has only grown over time as the envisioned content of the agreement has steadily drizzled downward and become know to the Iraqi public at large. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has also voiced his dissatisfaction with the current direction of talks, and even at one point stated with apparent candor that they were at a ‘dead end’.[iv] As a result much has been made in the western press of ‘Washington’s man, turning on his US-backers’.
Al-Maliki in early July made a further bold move much to the chagrin of Washington by declaring his government may soon consider a timetable for a US withdrawal of forces. "Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty".[v] Whether this is anything more than mere bluster or a stratagem to shore up the short-term approval of Iraqi nationalists is not entirely clear. That Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari later opined, al-Maliki’s protestations were more a performance for the sake of strengthening the government’s negotiating position vis-à-vis the Americans, deftly rehashing the popular mood of disaffection with the talks. This for one makes the actual stance of the Iraqi government more nebulous and harder to espy.
It seems that al-Maliki’s frosty musings on SOFA and regurgitation of nationalist sentiment have elicited some minor concessions from the Americans. First of all, it has been reported that private contractors inside Iraq will cease to possess immunity and instead be subject to Iraqi law. This was of particular concern to many Iraqis who view the privately funded, armed mercenaries who are said to be equal in number to American military personnel inside Iraq, as careless, dangerous and unaccountable. The original demand of well-over 50 military bases is also reported to have been tempered into “the low dozens”.[vi]
The number of bases although important, by no means resolves the crux over who’ll in the final instance, exercise military control over Iraqi territory, airspace and territorial waters. The problem of Iraqi sovereignty will remain unresolved and continue to reside on shaky foundations.
The progress of negotiations is said to have become so fraught that President Bush was compelled to personally intervene and assure his Iraqi counterparts that SOFA wouldn’t undermine Iraqi sovereignty. Given the content of SOFA, little else, however, could be inferred and Iraqis are right to fear for their nation’s future independence since the treaty is tantamount to the US occupation’s legitimation for an indefinite period of time. Michael Schwartz, professor of sociology at Stony Brook University, wasn’t being facetious when he branded the Iraqi government “a government with no military, no territory”,[vii] it was a statement of fact.
This so-called “strategic alliance” was immediately met with fierce and unremitting opposition by Iraqi politicians, religious dignitaries and the general public. The tide of opposition is such that Iraqi politicians on all sides know that whoever uncritically accedes to American demands will never be forgiven or forgotten. Their political credibility will quite simply be left in tatters.
In a story first broken in early June by the UK Independent’s Middle East Correspondent Patrick Cockburn, it became clear that the aim of the Bush administration was to ensure the permanent presence of US forces inside Iraq possessed a legal footing, so that the subsequent occupant of the Oval Office, would feel little compulsion to embark upon a course of large-scale troop withdrawals. The other and more damning implication of Baghdad’s “strategic alliance” with Washington would be that Iraq for all intents and purposes would be transformed into an American client-state, without sovereignty in any meaningful sense of the word.[i]
In his article, Cockburn, who is amongst the most well-informed and astute foreign observers of Iraqi politics, details the content of the would-be US-Iraqi agreement. When the conditions laid down by SOFA originally came to light, it was said to include the long-term use of more than 50 US military bases in Iraq; immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military operations inside Iraq without consultation of the Iraqi government. Even US total control over Iraqi airspace was deemed a very real possibility, sparking fears that the US might either use Iraq as a base from which to attack Iran, or permit the Israelis to attack Iran via Iraqi airspace.
Iraqi officials, however, haven’t been quiescent and by contrast have quite forcefully complained that such plans would transform their country into an ‘American colony’ and sow the seeds of conflict inside Iraq and the broader Middle East for years to come.[ii] Former Iraqi Finance Minister, Ali Allawi has pointedly stated that the US-Iraqi agreement “raises serious alarm about its long-term significance for Iraq’s sovereignty and independence.”[iii]
Opposition has only grown over time as the envisioned content of the agreement has steadily drizzled downward and become know to the Iraqi public at large. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has also voiced his dissatisfaction with the current direction of talks, and even at one point stated with apparent candor that they were at a ‘dead end’.[iv] As a result much has been made in the western press of ‘Washington’s man, turning on his US-backers’.
Al-Maliki in early July made a further bold move much to the chagrin of Washington by declaring his government may soon consider a timetable for a US withdrawal of forces. "Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty".[v] Whether this is anything more than mere bluster or a stratagem to shore up the short-term approval of Iraqi nationalists is not entirely clear. That Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari later opined, al-Maliki’s protestations were more a performance for the sake of strengthening the government’s negotiating position vis-à-vis the Americans, deftly rehashing the popular mood of disaffection with the talks. This for one makes the actual stance of the Iraqi government more nebulous and harder to espy.
It seems that al-Maliki’s frosty musings on SOFA and regurgitation of nationalist sentiment have elicited some minor concessions from the Americans. First of all, it has been reported that private contractors inside Iraq will cease to possess immunity and instead be subject to Iraqi law. This was of particular concern to many Iraqis who view the privately funded, armed mercenaries who are said to be equal in number to American military personnel inside Iraq, as careless, dangerous and unaccountable. The original demand of well-over 50 military bases is also reported to have been tempered into “the low dozens”.[vi]
The number of bases although important, by no means resolves the crux over who’ll in the final instance, exercise military control over Iraqi territory, airspace and territorial waters. The problem of Iraqi sovereignty will remain unresolved and continue to reside on shaky foundations.
The progress of negotiations is said to have become so fraught that President Bush was compelled to personally intervene and assure his Iraqi counterparts that SOFA wouldn’t undermine Iraqi sovereignty. Given the content of SOFA, little else, however, could be inferred and Iraqis are right to fear for their nation’s future independence since the treaty is tantamount to the US occupation’s legitimation for an indefinite period of time. Michael Schwartz, professor of sociology at Stony Brook University, wasn’t being facetious when he branded the Iraqi government “a government with no military, no territory”,[vii] it was a statement of fact.
Despite the official transfer of sovereignty on June 28, 2004, the extent of control wielded by the Iraqi government over security forces operating on its own territory has been highly questionable and SOFA endeavors to valorize such ambiguity in principle. Rather than the Iraqi state, it’s the occupying forces who in the final analysis issue military orders and objectives and possess a legitimate monopoly on violence.
In all seriousness it has become evident that Iraqis will not suffer any such deal lightly, nor play the role of feckless spectator. Earlier in the year it looked as if the views and input of Iraqis were redundant, but as opposition has mounted and the behemoth of Iraqi nationalism intermittently flares up, it’s become virtually impossible for Iraq’s politicians to be dismissive without fear of severe backlash. If the government chooses to accede to any such agreement we can surmise the remaining vestiges of its 'legitimacy' will go up in flames, even if it’s able to weather the storm with US military backing.
Iraq's present leaders are caught between a rock and a hard place. Some commentators have argued it's only the 150,000 or so American troops who have thus far prevented their overthrow and destruction, while at the same time their embrace of the US's plans to turn Iraq into a de jure American protectorate will surely sound the death-knell for the al-Maliki government, isolated as it already is in the heavily fortified Green Zone. Similarly, while the so-called Sons of Iraq sahwa ("Awakening") movement, comprised of elements of the former Ba'athist regime, Salafist jihadists and Sunni sheikhs, has of late been relatively quiescent and even abetted US forces in combating al-Qaeda in Iraq; such support is tenuous and could dry up relatively quickly if the right circumstances were forthcoming. Surprisingly few have pointed out that the US is currently funding and arming one of Iraq’s biggest and most battle-worn militias.
A 90,000 man strong Sunni militia, with no guarantees of disbandment in the longer-term poses a worrisome question mark over the possibility of a return to sectarian hostilities. Some argue that General Petraeus has merely hit the pause button on intra-faith violence, while actually laying the ground for future violence on a hitherto unseen scale. Arab-Kurdish violence is also set to blow over the battle for Kirkuk. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Thomas Powers, puts the issue succinctly when he writes:
“At the beginning of the occupation a key goal of the Americans was to disband the militias. In creating the awakening councils, the United States has armed, paid, and in effect sponsored the largest Iraqi militia of them all…The surge, therefore, has not so much ended the sectarian strife as it has set the stage for a renewal of civil war at a higher level of violence.”[viii]
“At the beginning of the occupation a key goal of the Americans was to disband the militias. In creating the awakening councils, the United States has armed, paid, and in effect sponsored the largest Iraqi militia of them all…The surge, therefore, has not so much ended the sectarian strife as it has set the stage for a renewal of civil war at a higher level of violence.”[viii]
The “strategic alliance” could also embolden al-Qaeda in Iraq, since the continued presence of a foreign occupation would provide plenty of grist to the jihadist mill and its very own formidable propaganda machine.
Furthermore, Muqtada al-Sadr and his Shi’a militia, the Mahdi Army, the staunchly anti-American clergyman who has been relatively quiet of late as a result of a declared ceasefire in all likelihood will renew his efforts to antagonize occupation forces with alacrity and much popular backing once it becomes politically expedient to do so. Al-Sadr’s hostility to the agreement hasn’t been tamed or assuaged in the slightest. He has openly called for a national referendum, certain that Iraqi public opinion vehemently opposes the US occupation’s retrenchment. In September 2007, opinion polls found that 73% of the Shi’a held the presence of US troops in Iraq as exacerbating the security situation,[ix] and there is little evidence that such unequivocal opposition to an American military presence inside Iraq has since foundered.
Finally, Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, the most significant Shi’a religious figure inside Iraq, whose tolerance of the occupation has been on the wane since the occupation's inception; declining from a position of relative quietism to a critical position vis-à-vis American hubris. SOFA could be the straw which breaks the camel’s back, transforming the Grand Ayatollah’s restrained criticism into untrammeled polemic. He has already been reported to have said on the one hand, that he’ll oppose any Iraq-US agreement that would jeopardize Iraqi sovereignty as long as he is alive, and also that any such agreement should be subject to a national referendum.[x]
As a marja' taqlid, or source of emulation, with an unrivalled following inside Iraq, he could issue a fatwa, decrying SOFA, leaving it stillborn and in profound need of re-evaluation. Since the beginnings of the occupation, al-Sistani has endeavored to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Grand Ayatollah al-Khoei and eschew confrontation with the occupation forces, realizing that their alienation could only hurt the Shi’a, who by virtue of Iraq’s demography (they make up some 60% of the population) are bound to win in any popular elections.
The US, however, is using $50 billion held in the US Federal Reserve Bank to coerce the fledgling Baghdad government into accepting SOFA on American terms. Thus far the Iraqi government has stuck to its guns and refused to cave, but remains under severe pressure. As Cockburn has explained:
"Iraq's foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq's funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn. The US is able to threaten Iraq with the loss of 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves because Iraq's independence is still limited by the legacy of UN sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the 1990s. This means that Iraq is still considered a threat to international security and stability under Chapter Seven of the UN charter. The US negotiators say the price of Iraq escaping Chapter Seven is to sign up to a new "strategic alliance" with the United States."[xi]
The Bush administration has gone to the lengths of describing, what is a "treaty" by any other name as an "alliance", so that they’re not compelled to submit it for congressional approval. Some Democrats have been searing in their criticism of this move, which they take as further evidence of this administration’s contempt for Congress and democratic institutions more generally. Though it’s still unclear what form a US-Iraqi “strategic alliance” will take, few possess any illusions as to whether it will eventually be pushed through. Iraqi politicians have said as much, stating that the treaty will be enacted into law in exchange for a few paltry concessions.
If public protest were to reach fever-pitch, or al-Sistani and al-Sadr, alongside prominent voices in the Sunni community were to vociferously urge the necessity for a referendum on the matter, the Iraqi government may well be forced to bow to public pressure. Though a distinct possibility, it is just that and as a result we should perhaps side with the more sober evaluations and conclude that despite massive public opposition the al-Maliki government with pass a more watered-down version of SOFA. And it’s in this respect that Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, may prove to be correct, American forces are destined to be in Mesopotamia for another 100 years.
If public protest were to reach fever-pitch, or al-Sistani and al-Sadr, alongside prominent voices in the Sunni community were to vociferously urge the necessity for a referendum on the matter, the Iraqi government may well be forced to bow to public pressure. Though a distinct possibility, it is just that and as a result we should perhaps side with the more sober evaluations and conclude that despite massive public opposition the al-Maliki government with pass a more watered-down version of SOFA. And it’s in this respect that Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, may prove to be correct, American forces are destined to be in Mesopotamia for another 100 years.
[i] Secret Plan to Keep Iraq Under US Control, Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, June 5, 2008
[ii] Bush Forced to Rethink Plan to Keep Iraq Bases, Leonard Doyle, The Independent, 12 June, 2008
[iii] This Raises Huge Questions Over Our Independence, Ali Allawi, The Independent, June 5, 2008
[iv] Iraqi PM: U.S. Security Deal at a Dead End, MSNBC, June 13, 2008
[v] Has Maliki Turned on the US?, Abigail Hauslohner, Time, July 9, 2008
[vi] Iraqi Sovereignty and US Bases, Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, June 12, 2008
[vii] Iraq’s Sovereignty Vacuum: A Government with No Military, No Territory, Michael Schwartz, Asia Times Online, March 11, 2006
[viii] Iraq: Will We Ever Get Out?, Thomas Powers, New York Review of Books, Volume 55, Number 9, May 29, 2008
[ix] Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq, Patrick Cockburn, Faber & Faber, 2008, p248
[x] Sadr Demands Referendum on SOFA; Sistani said to Support Referendum, Juan Cole, Informed Comment, May 29, 2008
[xi] US Issues Threat to Iraq’s $50 bn Foreign Reserves in Military Deal, Patrick Cockburn, June 6, 2008
© Sadegh Kabeer
Friday, July 18, 2008
Condi's coup: how the neo-cons lost the argument over Iran
Originally published here in the Independent...
Secretary of State's influence pivotal to Bush's change of policy
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Friday, 18 July 2008
Condoleezza Rice was George Bush's handmaiden for the war in Iraq but she is now emerging as the best hope for avoiding a military conflict between the United States and Iran.
The Secretary of State, who is one of the few people with the President's ear, has shown the door to Vice-President Dick Cheney's cabal of war-hungry advisers. Ms Rice was able to declare yesterday that the administration's decision to break with past policy proves that there is international unity in opposing Iran's nuclear programme. "The point that we're making is the United States is firmly behind this diplomacy, firmly behind and unified with our allies and hopefully the Iranians will take that message," Ms Rice said.
Mr Bush's decision to send the number three in the State Department, William Burns, to attend talks with Iran in Geneva at the weekend caused howls of outrage that were heard all the way from the State Department's sanctuary of Foggy Bottom to the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. A parallel initiative to reopen the interest's section of the American embassy in Tehran, which would be the first return of a diplomatic presence on Iranian territory since 1979, has also received a cool response from neo-conservatives.
"This is a complete capitulation on the whole idea of suspending enrichment," said Mr Bush's former UN envoy, John Bolton. "Just when the administration has no more U-turns to pull, it does another."
In public, Ms Rice has been as bellicose as any neo-con when it comes to Iran, calling dialogue with its leaders "pointless" and declaring: "For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons."
She had been the prime mover behind Mr Bush's disastrous policy of "preventive wars" and cheerleader of his expansive plans to reorganise the entire Middle East and to "export democracy". But with the rumblings of war with Iran growing steadily louder, Ms Rice worked feverishly behind the scenes to stop sparks from flying in the drive by the US and Israel to shut down Iran's nuclear programme.
The breakthrough, if that is what it turns out to be, that persuaded Mr Bush that it was time to end the 30-year boycott of high-level diplomatic contacts with Iran, came from the simple act of Ms Rice signing her name to a joint letter offering sweeter terms to Tehran than it had seen before.
The very act of putting her name to a package of incentives presented in Tehran last month persuaded the Iranian authorities that there was movement that would allow them to proclaim victory over the US, while ending their nuclear programme.
When he saw Ms Rice's signature on the document, Iran's Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, was visibly stunned, according to those present at the meeting. He formally responded to the offer with a letter addressed to Ms Rice and the EU's foreign policy envoy, Javier Solana, as well as foreign ministers of the five other countries at the talks.
His letter skirted around the hot-button issue of Iran's uranium enrichment programme, but it contained an olive branch of an offer to "find common ground through logical and constructive actions", according to reports.
Hearing of Mr Mottaki's reaction and then receiving a formal response persuaded Ms Rice that Iran was finally willing to have meaningful talks with the US that could avoid a war.
Before approaching the President with a plan to avoid war in the last six months of his presidency, Ms Rice had to persuade Mr Cheney, chief among those described as the "Vulcans" of his administration. She made her pitch at a meeting that included Mr Cheney, Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, Joshua Bolton, the White House Chief of Staff, and Mr Burns, who is heading to Geneva at the weekend to take part in the "one time only deal". Iran welcomed the American change of attitude yesterday, but with governments from France to China also welcoming the shift, Tehran also signalled that there was a long way to go before the diplomats break out the champagne. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared that there are still "clearly defined red lines", meaning that Iran is insisting that it has the right to peaceful nuclear energy. This is a position that Israel and the American conservatives still find unacceptable.
Thirty years on from the humiliation of the US embassy hostage crisis in Tehran, the country's boycott of all high-level direct contact with Iran has achieved little beyond making it impossible for the two sides to learn to trust one another and employ diplomatic skills to avoid conflict.
But there are also doubts about the effectiveness of using sophisticated weaponry against a nuclear programme that is secreted deep underground and in multiple sitesacross Iran. The US administration was recently advised that it would be folly to expect the regime to fall in Iran if it was attacked. If anything, a US and Israeli attack would strengthen the rule of the mullahs while causing further tension on the oil market.
From hawk to dove
Condoleezza Rice may have a bright political future ahead, despite the many roles she has played in the discredited Bush White House. Her soundbites have often come back to haunt her. She wilfully distorted the truth while pressing the case for the invasion of Iraq: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." No one, she declared, "could have predicted" that al-Qai'da would try to fly planes into buildings before 11 September 2001; "I'm proud of the decision of this administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein," she said. And when George Bush asked her about the looming war saying: "Should we do this?", Ms Rice replied in a heartbeat "Yes." The book Rise of the Vulcans, by James Mann, describes Ms Rice as a major player in the Iraq war, detailing how she served as the White House co-ordinator and as the President's closest adviser, throughout the entire operation. Despite this, the future looks bright for the 52-year-old. Stopping a war with Iran could even catapult her into the vice-presidency under a John McCain presidency.
Secretary of State's influence pivotal to Bush's change of policy
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Friday, 18 July 2008
Condoleezza Rice was George Bush's handmaiden for the war in Iraq but she is now emerging as the best hope for avoiding a military conflict between the United States and Iran.
The Secretary of State, who is one of the few people with the President's ear, has shown the door to Vice-President Dick Cheney's cabal of war-hungry advisers. Ms Rice was able to declare yesterday that the administration's decision to break with past policy proves that there is international unity in opposing Iran's nuclear programme. "The point that we're making is the United States is firmly behind this diplomacy, firmly behind and unified with our allies and hopefully the Iranians will take that message," Ms Rice said.
Mr Bush's decision to send the number three in the State Department, William Burns, to attend talks with Iran in Geneva at the weekend caused howls of outrage that were heard all the way from the State Department's sanctuary of Foggy Bottom to the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. A parallel initiative to reopen the interest's section of the American embassy in Tehran, which would be the first return of a diplomatic presence on Iranian territory since 1979, has also received a cool response from neo-conservatives.
"This is a complete capitulation on the whole idea of suspending enrichment," said Mr Bush's former UN envoy, John Bolton. "Just when the administration has no more U-turns to pull, it does another."
In public, Ms Rice has been as bellicose as any neo-con when it comes to Iran, calling dialogue with its leaders "pointless" and declaring: "For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons."
She had been the prime mover behind Mr Bush's disastrous policy of "preventive wars" and cheerleader of his expansive plans to reorganise the entire Middle East and to "export democracy". But with the rumblings of war with Iran growing steadily louder, Ms Rice worked feverishly behind the scenes to stop sparks from flying in the drive by the US and Israel to shut down Iran's nuclear programme.
The breakthrough, if that is what it turns out to be, that persuaded Mr Bush that it was time to end the 30-year boycott of high-level diplomatic contacts with Iran, came from the simple act of Ms Rice signing her name to a joint letter offering sweeter terms to Tehran than it had seen before.
The very act of putting her name to a package of incentives presented in Tehran last month persuaded the Iranian authorities that there was movement that would allow them to proclaim victory over the US, while ending their nuclear programme.
When he saw Ms Rice's signature on the document, Iran's Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, was visibly stunned, according to those present at the meeting. He formally responded to the offer with a letter addressed to Ms Rice and the EU's foreign policy envoy, Javier Solana, as well as foreign ministers of the five other countries at the talks.
His letter skirted around the hot-button issue of Iran's uranium enrichment programme, but it contained an olive branch of an offer to "find common ground through logical and constructive actions", according to reports.
Hearing of Mr Mottaki's reaction and then receiving a formal response persuaded Ms Rice that Iran was finally willing to have meaningful talks with the US that could avoid a war.
Before approaching the President with a plan to avoid war in the last six months of his presidency, Ms Rice had to persuade Mr Cheney, chief among those described as the "Vulcans" of his administration. She made her pitch at a meeting that included Mr Cheney, Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, Joshua Bolton, the White House Chief of Staff, and Mr Burns, who is heading to Geneva at the weekend to take part in the "one time only deal". Iran welcomed the American change of attitude yesterday, but with governments from France to China also welcoming the shift, Tehran also signalled that there was a long way to go before the diplomats break out the champagne. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared that there are still "clearly defined red lines", meaning that Iran is insisting that it has the right to peaceful nuclear energy. This is a position that Israel and the American conservatives still find unacceptable.
Thirty years on from the humiliation of the US embassy hostage crisis in Tehran, the country's boycott of all high-level direct contact with Iran has achieved little beyond making it impossible for the two sides to learn to trust one another and employ diplomatic skills to avoid conflict.
But there are also doubts about the effectiveness of using sophisticated weaponry against a nuclear programme that is secreted deep underground and in multiple sitesacross Iran. The US administration was recently advised that it would be folly to expect the regime to fall in Iran if it was attacked. If anything, a US and Israeli attack would strengthen the rule of the mullahs while causing further tension on the oil market.
From hawk to dove
Condoleezza Rice may have a bright political future ahead, despite the many roles she has played in the discredited Bush White House. Her soundbites have often come back to haunt her. She wilfully distorted the truth while pressing the case for the invasion of Iraq: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." No one, she declared, "could have predicted" that al-Qai'da would try to fly planes into buildings before 11 September 2001; "I'm proud of the decision of this administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein," she said. And when George Bush asked her about the looming war saying: "Should we do this?", Ms Rice replied in a heartbeat "Yes." The book Rise of the Vulcans, by James Mann, describes Ms Rice as a major player in the Iraq war, detailing how she served as the White House co-ordinator and as the President's closest adviser, throughout the entire operation. Despite this, the future looks bright for the 52-year-old. Stopping a war with Iran could even catapult her into the vice-presidency under a John McCain presidency.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Has Bush Shifted his Iran Policy?
For the first time during the Bush administration, the president will send a top diplomat to meet with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. Bill Plante reports. - Youtube
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Admiral Mullen Warns Against Conflict with Iran!
The US military's top officer has warned that conflict in Iran could prove "extremely stressful" for his forces. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would be a high-risk move that could destabilise the whole Middle East.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Preparing the Battlefield by Seymour M. Hersh (Excerpt)
The New Yorker
Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran
By Seymour M. Hersh
July 7, 2008
Excerpt:
Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.
Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.
“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.” The Finding provided for a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said.
Although some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding, and “there was a significant amount of high-level discussion” about it, according to the source familiar with it, the funding for the escalation was approved. In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.
The request for funding came in the same period in which the Administration was coming to terms with a National Intelligence Estimate, released in December, that concluded that Iran had halted its work on nuclear weapons in 2003. The Administration downplayed the significance of the N.I.E., and, while saying that it was committed to diplomacy, continued to emphasize that urgent action was essential to counter the Iranian nuclear threat. President Bush questioned the N.I.E.’s conclusions, and senior national-security officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, made similar statements. (So did Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee.) Meanwhile, the Administration also revived charges that the Iranian leadership has been involved in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq: both directly, by dispatching commando units into Iraq, and indirectly, by supplying materials used for roadside bombs and other lethal goods. (There have been questions about the accuracy of the claims; the Times, among others, has reported that “significant uncertainties remain about the extent of that involvement.”)
Military and civilian leaders in the Pentagon share the White House’s concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but there is disagreement about whether a military strike is the right solution. Some Pentagon officials believe, as they have let Congress and the media know, that bombing Iran is not a viable response to the nuclear-proliferation issue, and that more diplomacy is necessary.
A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.) Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates’s answer, the senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for myself.” (A spokesman for Gates confirmed that he discussed the consequences of a strike at the meeting, but would not address what he said, other than to dispute the senator’s characterization.)
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman is Admiral Mike Mullen, were “pushing back very hard” against White House pressure to undertake a military strike against Iran, the person familiar with the Finding told me. Similarly, a Pentagon consultant who is involved in the war on terror said that “at least ten senior flag and general officers, including combatant commanders”—the four-star officers who direct military operations around the world—“have weighed in on that issue.”
The most outspoken of those officers is Admiral William Fallon, who until recently was the head of U.S. Central Command, and thus in charge of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In March, Fallon resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating his reservations about an armed attack on Iran. For example, late last year he told the Financial Times that the “real objective” of U.S. policy was to change the Iranians’ behavior, and that “attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice.”
Admiral Fallon acknowledged, when I spoke to him in June, that he had heard that there were people in the White House who were upset by his public statements. “Too many people believe you have to be either for or against the Iranians,” he told me. “Let’s get serious. Eighty million people live there, and everyone’s an individual. The idea that they’re only one way or another is nonsense.”
When it came to the Iraq war, Fallon said, “Did I bitch about some of the things that were being proposed? You bet. Some of them were very stupid.”
The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others. “The oversight process has not kept pace—it’s been coöpted” by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. “The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing.”
Read the Full Article Here >>
Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran
By Seymour M. Hersh
July 7, 2008
Excerpt:
Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.
Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.
“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.” The Finding provided for a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said.
Although some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding, and “there was a significant amount of high-level discussion” about it, according to the source familiar with it, the funding for the escalation was approved. In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.
The request for funding came in the same period in which the Administration was coming to terms with a National Intelligence Estimate, released in December, that concluded that Iran had halted its work on nuclear weapons in 2003. The Administration downplayed the significance of the N.I.E., and, while saying that it was committed to diplomacy, continued to emphasize that urgent action was essential to counter the Iranian nuclear threat. President Bush questioned the N.I.E.’s conclusions, and senior national-security officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, made similar statements. (So did Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee.) Meanwhile, the Administration also revived charges that the Iranian leadership has been involved in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq: both directly, by dispatching commando units into Iraq, and indirectly, by supplying materials used for roadside bombs and other lethal goods. (There have been questions about the accuracy of the claims; the Times, among others, has reported that “significant uncertainties remain about the extent of that involvement.”)
Military and civilian leaders in the Pentagon share the White House’s concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but there is disagreement about whether a military strike is the right solution. Some Pentagon officials believe, as they have let Congress and the media know, that bombing Iran is not a viable response to the nuclear-proliferation issue, and that more diplomacy is necessary.
A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.) Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates’s answer, the senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for myself.” (A spokesman for Gates confirmed that he discussed the consequences of a strike at the meeting, but would not address what he said, other than to dispute the senator’s characterization.)
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman is Admiral Mike Mullen, were “pushing back very hard” against White House pressure to undertake a military strike against Iran, the person familiar with the Finding told me. Similarly, a Pentagon consultant who is involved in the war on terror said that “at least ten senior flag and general officers, including combatant commanders”—the four-star officers who direct military operations around the world—“have weighed in on that issue.”
The most outspoken of those officers is Admiral William Fallon, who until recently was the head of U.S. Central Command, and thus in charge of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In March, Fallon resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating his reservations about an armed attack on Iran. For example, late last year he told the Financial Times that the “real objective” of U.S. policy was to change the Iranians’ behavior, and that “attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice.”
Admiral Fallon acknowledged, when I spoke to him in June, that he had heard that there were people in the White House who were upset by his public statements. “Too many people believe you have to be either for or against the Iranians,” he told me. “Let’s get serious. Eighty million people live there, and everyone’s an individual. The idea that they’re only one way or another is nonsense.”
When it came to the Iraq war, Fallon said, “Did I bitch about some of the things that were being proposed? You bet. Some of them were very stupid.”
The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others. “The oversight process has not kept pace—it’s been coöpted” by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. “The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing.”
Read the Full Article Here >>
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Iran War Resolution May Be Passed Next Week: Please Contact Your Local Representatives
CALLING ALL CARS:
This Action alert has been put out by Antiwar.com and details two resolutions which are due to be pass in Congress that will in effect give the Bush administration the right to initiate a casus belli against Iran and all the terrible repercussions that will inevitably result therefrom. Please contact and lobby your local representatives to prevent this Administration from launching yet another foreign policy and human disaster.
Antiwar.com Action Alert
Iran War Resolution May Be Passed Next Week
Quick Links
H. Con. Res. 362 S. Res. 580 Newsletter Take Action Donate Introduced less than a month ago, Resolution 362, also known as the Iran War Resolution, could be passed by the House as early as next week. The bill is the chief legislative priority of AIPAC. On its Web site, AIPAC endorses the resolutions as a way to ''Stop Iran's Nuclear Program" and tells readers to lobby Congress to pass the bill. In the Senate, a sister resolution, Resolution 580, has gained co-sponsors with similar speed. The Senate measure was introduced by Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh on June 2. It has since gained 19 co-sponsors. The bill's key section "demands that the president initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program." "Imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran" can be read to mean that the president should initiate a naval blockade of Iran. A unilateral naval blockade without UN sanction is an act of war. Resolution 362 has already gained 170 co-sponsors, or nearly 40 percent of the House. It has been referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which has 49 members, 24 of whom, including the ranking Republican, are co-sponsors. The Iran Nuclear Watch Web site writes, "According to the House leadership, this resolution is going to 'pass like a hot knife through butter' before the end of June on what is called suspension - meaning no amendments can be introduced during the 20-minute maximum debate. It also means it is assumed the bill will pass by a 2/3 majority and is non-controversial." Our national legislators deem it non-controversial to recommend to a president known for his recklessness and bad judgment that he consider engaging in an act of war against Iran. Those of you who consider this issue controversial can go to the Just Foreign Policy Web site and tell your representative to oppose this resolution.
For more information about this action item, media requests, donations or other information, please contact Angela Keaton at 310-729-3760 or akeaton@antiwar.com.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Perspiration Devoid of Inspiration: Wither the Dream of a Palestinian State?
The objective of forging a lasting peace to the Israel-Palestine conflict has, at least on the surface, acted as a kind of Holy Grail for a number of American presidents – Kennedy, Carter and Clinton all made gestures toward peace and all failed on the count of co-birthing a Palestinian state. A myriad of promises have been made, and broken, thousands of pages and buckets of ink have been spent on documents and memoranda, whose stated objective was to bring peace to a troubled, turbulent and relatively small stretch of land deemed ‘holy’ by Christians, Jews and Muslims.
A broad consensus that cuts across party, religious, ethnic and national lines concedes that peace in the Middle East is inconceivable and to a large extent dependent on a just and equitable solution to the Palestinian issue. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security advisor to the Carter administration, generally seen as a staunch ‘realist’ in foreign policy circles wrote in 2004 that:
‘The U.S. inclination, in the spring of 2002, to embrace even the more extreme forms of Israeli suppression of the Palestinians as part of the struggle against terrorism…The unwillingness to recognize a historical connection between the rise of anti-American terrorism and America’s involvement in the Middle East makes the formulation of an effective strategic response to terrorism that much more difficult.’[i]
Brzezinski elucidates a point which is approaching self-evidence to those in the region and the overwhelming majority without: that the Israel-Palestine conflict is the biggest and most enduring impediment to peace in the Middle East. Moreover, the United States unwavering support for Israel despite the latter’s complete disregard for international law and tens of UN Resolutions, is an all-too-real source of resentment and discontent in the Arab and Islamic worlds, fuelling anti-American sentiment and forestalling Israel’s full integration into the region. This is not a revolutionary idea by any means, and has been put forward by countless politicians, journalist, intellectuals, and concerned citizens. For example, Stephen Walt of Harvard University and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago in their recent book, The Israel Lobby contend just that.[ii] And just last week, King Abdullah of Jordan reiterated in an interview with The Washington Post that the tapering off of the peace process is the most significant threat to peace in the region.[iii]
This dusty and time-worn argument has been echoed throughout the decades since the creation of the Jewish state and the concomitant issue of Palestinian refugees in 1948. This conviction has only intensified since the Six Day War in 1967 when Israel attacked Egypt, Jordan and Syria, and annexed the Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, and the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Despite the prevailing consensus, which advocates a two-state solution and that Israel withdraw to its pre-June 1967 borders, a peace initiative in which a viable Palestinian state will emerge and stand alongside its Israeli neighbor remains a distant, if not farfetched prospect. Amongst both Palestinians and Israelis it appears that a severe bout of apathy has set in and is amongst the most significant factors stalling the realization of the much feted two-state solution promised to both peoples, whose leaders have rarely failed to disappoint. The prime source of such disappointment: the abject failure of the Oslo Accords, which were flawed from the very outset, and yet at the time of their announcement couldn’t receive enough praise. Why were the Oslo Accords doomed to fail?: they never mentioned statehood or independence. They did not define boundaries or the fate of Jerusalem, and they did absolutely nothing to arrest the ‘settlement enterprise’.[iv] In fact, the rate of settlement construction continued to increase in the aftermath of Oslo and precipitously so under the supposedly ‘dovish’ Prime Minister, and present Minister of Defense Ehud Barak;[v] even by comparison with the notoriously hawkish former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Apathy but also the Bush administration’s pre-occupation with Afghanistan, Iraq and the possibility of a looming war with Iran have all forced the Arab-Israeli conflict onto the back burner.
Last week saw the announcement of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip between Palestinian armed groups, including the ruling party Hamas and Israeli authorities. Only days since its announcement this fragile and precarious ceasefire already appears to be in jeopardy as the Israeli army shot dead two Palestinians in the West Bank, which was returned with rocket fire from the militant group Islamic Jihad, and the fear is that the violence may well spread to Gaza.
When the dominant trend has been once of attacks, followed by retaliation and counter-retaliation it’s hardly a surprise that Israelis and Palestinians are skeptical about whether this most recent ceasefire shows signs of longevity or will turn out to be just another exercise in futility and wishful thinking. While Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev claims that this latest ceasefire could engender ‘a new reality’,[vi] few see this as anything more than a band-aid solution, greeted to the extent that it will temporarily quell the violence which has claimed the lives of over 560 Palestinians and 14 Israelis, since Hamas took control of Gaza at the expense of Muhammad Dahlan’s militia in June 2007. Dahlan’s militia receives funding from the US and some European countries, such as Britain, and some commentators opine that he’s currently being groomed as the next ‘strong man’ to accede to the presidency and restore Fatah to power.[vii]
If peace is to be realized it’s clear that Hamas cannot be excluded from the process as the International Quartet have pressed President Abbas to. President Carter in his most recent visit to the region frankly acknowledged just as much. Not only do they have deep communal ties inside the occupied territories, providing numerous social, welfare and health services to a population forsaken by the international community, and at the mercy of the IDF and Israeli policy makers. The extra-judicial assassinations of key Hamas figures and the international blockade of Gaza which has reduced Gazans to a new low in their long-established destitution has only gone to buttress support for the Hamas government elected in the January 2006 parliamentary elections with a majority of 74 out of 132 seats. In addition, its acceptance of the two-state solution as a basis for negotiations, not only bespeaks an ideological moderation since its inception in the 1987, but also its tacit recognition that Israel is here to stay. Hamas is going through the same process of maturation as the PLO had done previously. Though by no means ideal, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.
The pressure brought to bear by the International Quartet has further been viewed as an ultimatum to Gazans that they overthrow their own elected government or suffer the consequences. Abbas was urged not to yield security control to the government and its Interior Ministry, as stipulated in the constitution. The Quartet also demanded that he quickly reclaim powers from the new government and incorporate them into the executive branch: financial responsibilities would be removed from the Ministry of Finance; the salaries of government officials would be paid by the president’s office and finally, all key policy decisions would be enacted by presidential decree.
The international community’s economic blockade of Gaza, rather than initiating Hamas’ downfall has strengthened the resolve of Palestinians, who refuse to be cowed. The actions of the Quartet have only reinforced many Palestinians profound sense of isolation and further entrenched the perception of Western double-standards. Palestinians democratically elected a government in free and fair elections and were punished for having done so. For critics of the Bush administration’s policy vis-à-vis the Israel/Palestine impasse, ample evidence has been provided that the US will only accept a democratically elected government if the democratically elected government in question is one of which the administration approves. A similar trend is deemed to be present in the analogous cases in Algeria, Egypt and Iraq.
Despite the hollow and evermore distant prospect of a Palestinian state, President Bush has said repeatedly that it might be realized before he leaves office. A crucial omission however, is that the Bush administration has entirely undercut the pre-existing international consensus, i.e. that Israel should withdraw to the pre-June 1967 border in exchange for peace. When Bush gave a letter to the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, whereby he committed his government to recognition of the de facto legitimacy of the settlement blocks inside the West Bank, he lent credence to Israel’s transformation of any future Palestinian state into a series of non-contiguous cantons, without meaningful sovereignty in any sense of the word i.e. control of its airspace, borders, trade and armed forces.[viii] The consequence: in March 2006 Olmert, announced a unilateral program of withdrawal, postulating that Israel intended to keep 36.5% of the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem and the Jordan valley that represents almost half of the 22% of the post-1949 Palestine upon which many Palestinians had dreamt of building their very own state.[ix]
The settlement enterprise continues unabated as we speak, while armed settlers, protected by the Israeli army travel back and forth to Tel Aviv on modern roads strictly for the use of Israeli Jews, from which Palestinians are barred. Israeli settlers are furthermore permitted to harass, maim and kill Palestinians with impunity; and it is exactly because Jimmy Carter has underscored the presence of parallel legal and lived worlds predicated on race and religion in his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that he has created such a stir inside the American mainstream.
Finally of course there is the issue of the Israeli ‘security wall’. The illegality of the wall was unequivocally condemned by the International Court of Justice in July 2004, since it violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids any occupying power from transferring part of its civilian population into territories seized by military force. The wall is projected to be at least three and a half times as long as Israel's internationally recognized border and cuts directly through Palestinian villages, breaking up families and dividing farmland. Some 375,000 Palestinians have been included on the 'Israeli' side of the wall. Moreover, the wall completely encircles the Palestinian city of Qalqiliya and its 45,000 inhabitants, with the overwhelming majority of their land and one third of their water supply seized unlawfully by the Israelis.[x] Scores of communities have been bulldozed. The concrete and electrified fencing materials are supplemented by two-meter-deep trenches, roads for patrol vehicles, electronic ground and fence sensors, thermal imaging and video cameras, sniper towers and razor wire, all of which have been erected on Palestinian land.
Both Israelis and Palestinians have become attached to the idea of having their own states, and Israelis have had just that going on 60 years. A solution has long been supported by international law and more recently the March 2002 Arab Peace Initiative which affirmed the basic principle of ‘land for peace’. The overwhelming majority of both Israelis (62% of which favor direct talks with Hamas) and Palestinians desire peace: the only question which remains is when their tired, weary and uninspired leaders will finally deliver on a promise which has been a long time in coming and whose solution we continue to ignore at our own peril?
[i] The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic Books, 2004, p31
[ii] The Israel Lobby, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, Allen Lane, 2007
[iii] A Conversation with King Abdullah of Jordan, Lally Weymouth, The Washington Post,
[iv] Into the Lion’s Den, Robert Malley & Hussein Agha, The New York Review of Books, Volume 55, Number 7, May 1, 2008
[v] Siegman: After Arafat, Key Question Is Whether U.S. and Israel Will Resume Peace Talks with Palestinians, November 9, 2004, http://www.cfr.org/publication/7500/siegman.html
[vi] Hamas Ceasefire Could Bring ‘New Reality’ to Gaza, Donald Macintyre, The Independent, June 18, 2008
[vii] Our Second Biggest Mistake in the Middle East, Alistair Cooke, London Review of Books, July 5, 2007
[viii] Israelis Claim Secret Agreement with U.S., Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, April 24, 2008
[ix] What Hamas Wants: The Sunni Islamists’ Changing Agendas, Paul Delmotte, Le Monde Diplomatique, January 2007
[x] Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Jimmy Carter, Simon and Shuster, 2007, 190-193
©Sadegh Kabeer
A broad consensus that cuts across party, religious, ethnic and national lines concedes that peace in the Middle East is inconceivable and to a large extent dependent on a just and equitable solution to the Palestinian issue. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security advisor to the Carter administration, generally seen as a staunch ‘realist’ in foreign policy circles wrote in 2004 that:
‘The U.S. inclination, in the spring of 2002, to embrace even the more extreme forms of Israeli suppression of the Palestinians as part of the struggle against terrorism…The unwillingness to recognize a historical connection between the rise of anti-American terrorism and America’s involvement in the Middle East makes the formulation of an effective strategic response to terrorism that much more difficult.’[i]
Brzezinski elucidates a point which is approaching self-evidence to those in the region and the overwhelming majority without: that the Israel-Palestine conflict is the biggest and most enduring impediment to peace in the Middle East. Moreover, the United States unwavering support for Israel despite the latter’s complete disregard for international law and tens of UN Resolutions, is an all-too-real source of resentment and discontent in the Arab and Islamic worlds, fuelling anti-American sentiment and forestalling Israel’s full integration into the region. This is not a revolutionary idea by any means, and has been put forward by countless politicians, journalist, intellectuals, and concerned citizens. For example, Stephen Walt of Harvard University and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago in their recent book, The Israel Lobby contend just that.[ii] And just last week, King Abdullah of Jordan reiterated in an interview with The Washington Post that the tapering off of the peace process is the most significant threat to peace in the region.[iii]
This dusty and time-worn argument has been echoed throughout the decades since the creation of the Jewish state and the concomitant issue of Palestinian refugees in 1948. This conviction has only intensified since the Six Day War in 1967 when Israel attacked Egypt, Jordan and Syria, and annexed the Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, and the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Despite the prevailing consensus, which advocates a two-state solution and that Israel withdraw to its pre-June 1967 borders, a peace initiative in which a viable Palestinian state will emerge and stand alongside its Israeli neighbor remains a distant, if not farfetched prospect. Amongst both Palestinians and Israelis it appears that a severe bout of apathy has set in and is amongst the most significant factors stalling the realization of the much feted two-state solution promised to both peoples, whose leaders have rarely failed to disappoint. The prime source of such disappointment: the abject failure of the Oslo Accords, which were flawed from the very outset, and yet at the time of their announcement couldn’t receive enough praise. Why were the Oslo Accords doomed to fail?: they never mentioned statehood or independence. They did not define boundaries or the fate of Jerusalem, and they did absolutely nothing to arrest the ‘settlement enterprise’.[iv] In fact, the rate of settlement construction continued to increase in the aftermath of Oslo and precipitously so under the supposedly ‘dovish’ Prime Minister, and present Minister of Defense Ehud Barak;[v] even by comparison with the notoriously hawkish former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Apathy but also the Bush administration’s pre-occupation with Afghanistan, Iraq and the possibility of a looming war with Iran have all forced the Arab-Israeli conflict onto the back burner.
Last week saw the announcement of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip between Palestinian armed groups, including the ruling party Hamas and Israeli authorities. Only days since its announcement this fragile and precarious ceasefire already appears to be in jeopardy as the Israeli army shot dead two Palestinians in the West Bank, which was returned with rocket fire from the militant group Islamic Jihad, and the fear is that the violence may well spread to Gaza.
When the dominant trend has been once of attacks, followed by retaliation and counter-retaliation it’s hardly a surprise that Israelis and Palestinians are skeptical about whether this most recent ceasefire shows signs of longevity or will turn out to be just another exercise in futility and wishful thinking. While Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev claims that this latest ceasefire could engender ‘a new reality’,[vi] few see this as anything more than a band-aid solution, greeted to the extent that it will temporarily quell the violence which has claimed the lives of over 560 Palestinians and 14 Israelis, since Hamas took control of Gaza at the expense of Muhammad Dahlan’s militia in June 2007. Dahlan’s militia receives funding from the US and some European countries, such as Britain, and some commentators opine that he’s currently being groomed as the next ‘strong man’ to accede to the presidency and restore Fatah to power.[vii]
If peace is to be realized it’s clear that Hamas cannot be excluded from the process as the International Quartet have pressed President Abbas to. President Carter in his most recent visit to the region frankly acknowledged just as much. Not only do they have deep communal ties inside the occupied territories, providing numerous social, welfare and health services to a population forsaken by the international community, and at the mercy of the IDF and Israeli policy makers. The extra-judicial assassinations of key Hamas figures and the international blockade of Gaza which has reduced Gazans to a new low in their long-established destitution has only gone to buttress support for the Hamas government elected in the January 2006 parliamentary elections with a majority of 74 out of 132 seats. In addition, its acceptance of the two-state solution as a basis for negotiations, not only bespeaks an ideological moderation since its inception in the 1987, but also its tacit recognition that Israel is here to stay. Hamas is going through the same process of maturation as the PLO had done previously. Though by no means ideal, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.
The pressure brought to bear by the International Quartet has further been viewed as an ultimatum to Gazans that they overthrow their own elected government or suffer the consequences. Abbas was urged not to yield security control to the government and its Interior Ministry, as stipulated in the constitution. The Quartet also demanded that he quickly reclaim powers from the new government and incorporate them into the executive branch: financial responsibilities would be removed from the Ministry of Finance; the salaries of government officials would be paid by the president’s office and finally, all key policy decisions would be enacted by presidential decree.
The international community’s economic blockade of Gaza, rather than initiating Hamas’ downfall has strengthened the resolve of Palestinians, who refuse to be cowed. The actions of the Quartet have only reinforced many Palestinians profound sense of isolation and further entrenched the perception of Western double-standards. Palestinians democratically elected a government in free and fair elections and were punished for having done so. For critics of the Bush administration’s policy vis-à-vis the Israel/Palestine impasse, ample evidence has been provided that the US will only accept a democratically elected government if the democratically elected government in question is one of which the administration approves. A similar trend is deemed to be present in the analogous cases in Algeria, Egypt and Iraq.
Despite the hollow and evermore distant prospect of a Palestinian state, President Bush has said repeatedly that it might be realized before he leaves office. A crucial omission however, is that the Bush administration has entirely undercut the pre-existing international consensus, i.e. that Israel should withdraw to the pre-June 1967 border in exchange for peace. When Bush gave a letter to the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, whereby he committed his government to recognition of the de facto legitimacy of the settlement blocks inside the West Bank, he lent credence to Israel’s transformation of any future Palestinian state into a series of non-contiguous cantons, without meaningful sovereignty in any sense of the word i.e. control of its airspace, borders, trade and armed forces.[viii] The consequence: in March 2006 Olmert, announced a unilateral program of withdrawal, postulating that Israel intended to keep 36.5% of the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem and the Jordan valley that represents almost half of the 22% of the post-1949 Palestine upon which many Palestinians had dreamt of building their very own state.[ix]
The settlement enterprise continues unabated as we speak, while armed settlers, protected by the Israeli army travel back and forth to Tel Aviv on modern roads strictly for the use of Israeli Jews, from which Palestinians are barred. Israeli settlers are furthermore permitted to harass, maim and kill Palestinians with impunity; and it is exactly because Jimmy Carter has underscored the presence of parallel legal and lived worlds predicated on race and religion in his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that he has created such a stir inside the American mainstream.
Finally of course there is the issue of the Israeli ‘security wall’. The illegality of the wall was unequivocally condemned by the International Court of Justice in July 2004, since it violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids any occupying power from transferring part of its civilian population into territories seized by military force. The wall is projected to be at least three and a half times as long as Israel's internationally recognized border and cuts directly through Palestinian villages, breaking up families and dividing farmland. Some 375,000 Palestinians have been included on the 'Israeli' side of the wall. Moreover, the wall completely encircles the Palestinian city of Qalqiliya and its 45,000 inhabitants, with the overwhelming majority of their land and one third of their water supply seized unlawfully by the Israelis.[x] Scores of communities have been bulldozed. The concrete and electrified fencing materials are supplemented by two-meter-deep trenches, roads for patrol vehicles, electronic ground and fence sensors, thermal imaging and video cameras, sniper towers and razor wire, all of which have been erected on Palestinian land.
Both Israelis and Palestinians have become attached to the idea of having their own states, and Israelis have had just that going on 60 years. A solution has long been supported by international law and more recently the March 2002 Arab Peace Initiative which affirmed the basic principle of ‘land for peace’. The overwhelming majority of both Israelis (62% of which favor direct talks with Hamas) and Palestinians desire peace: the only question which remains is when their tired, weary and uninspired leaders will finally deliver on a promise which has been a long time in coming and whose solution we continue to ignore at our own peril?
[i] The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic Books, 2004, p31
[ii] The Israel Lobby, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, Allen Lane, 2007
[iii] A Conversation with King Abdullah of Jordan, Lally Weymouth, The Washington Post,
[iv] Into the Lion’s Den, Robert Malley & Hussein Agha, The New York Review of Books, Volume 55, Number 7, May 1, 2008
[v] Siegman: After Arafat, Key Question Is Whether U.S. and Israel Will Resume Peace Talks with Palestinians, November 9, 2004, http://www.cfr.org/publication/7500/siegman.html
[vi] Hamas Ceasefire Could Bring ‘New Reality’ to Gaza, Donald Macintyre, The Independent, June 18, 2008
[vii] Our Second Biggest Mistake in the Middle East, Alistair Cooke, London Review of Books, July 5, 2007
[viii] Israelis Claim Secret Agreement with U.S., Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, April 24, 2008
[ix] What Hamas Wants: The Sunni Islamists’ Changing Agendas, Paul Delmotte, Le Monde Diplomatique, January 2007
[x] Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Jimmy Carter, Simon and Shuster, 2007, 190-193
©Sadegh Kabeer
Is a Military Strike Against Iran On the Cards?
While political scientist and fierce critic of Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories, Norman G. Finkelstein discounts the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran as posturing (see his interview with Press TV here), it seems that the hawkish brute John Bolton begs to differ in a recent interview with The Daily Telegraph and regards it as a near certainty, before Bush leaves office in the fall. Unwavering neocon, Bill Kristol has even claimed that Bush is more likely to launch a strike himself if it looks like Obama is next in line to be Commander-in-Chief.
Bolton's prediction is, at least in part, consonant with those of Seymour Hersh in his New Yorker series on the administration's plans to attack Iran, spearheaded by the vice-president, Dick Cheney's office. Former UN weapons inspector, Scott Ritter's pronouncements also seem to side with the conviction that the Bush administration is staunchly committed to an attack on Iran before the end of the president's term, irrespective of its repercussions for the region, Iranian civilians (obviously), American troops based in Iraq and Afghanistan, oil prices and the global economy. The only question remaining, is whether it will be Israel or the United States that carries out the dastardly deed.
Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh on Iran and the possibility of a US or Israeli attack: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3777614199046042311&hl=en
The obvious key difference which separates Bolton from Hersh and Ritter, is that the former has for some time been vociferously calling for an attack on Iran on Fox News and other sympathetic venues and railing against the administration's lack of 'resolve' when it comes to Iran. While at present, it's undeniable that a storm is brewing and pressure has intensified on Iran as the two presidential nominees square off and the twilight of Bush’s presidency lies on the horizon.
Though predominantly anecdotal (there are some articles which I've linked below), I've been told by numerous individuals, friends and relatives who regularly conduct business transactions internationally from inside of Iran, that the present sanctions are seriously hampering Iran's economic health, prospects etc... and have had a terrible impact far beyond Iran's nuclear activities or the personnel associated with it. I don't know of any full-length study which has been undertaken to demonstrate the wider effects of the current sanctions regime on the Iranian economy, so if anyone knows of one, please let me know.
The UAE has thus far acted like an economic lifeline, and much trade is first 'laundered' via the UAE before reaching Iran; but the Americans are bringing serious pressure to bear on the Emirati authorities to curb 'illicit trade' with Iranian companies. This week the European Union passed a new series of sanctions targeting Iranian financial institutions and most importantly Iran's Bank-e-Melli. What is being undertaken on all fronts by the so-called 'international community' i.e. the US and its European cheerleader squad, is nothing less than an asymmetrical effort to buttress the economic stranglehold on the Iranian economy in the hope of coercing Iran into divesting itself of the right to enrich uranium, guaranteed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. No wonder that some are exclaiming that sanctions are merely warfare by other means. Clausewitz would have undoubtedly seen the parallel with his own dictum that 'war is a continuation of politics by other means' very quickly, although in this case it's a matter of economic warfare waged by means of sanctions, psychological warfare through the ceaseless threat of military force and even 'obliteration', and finally the very real and tangible threat of coercion in the form of military maneuvers, by both American warships in the Gulf and Israeli F-16s over the Mediterranean.
The choice we face is whether we are going to voice our opposition to yet another foreign policy and morally bankrupt disaster or applaud while the bombs fall and innocents are torn limb from limb. If and when a strike does occur, we can be sure Bolton will applaud, do a little dance and throw in a couple of 'hell yeahs', all in the name of 'liberty', 'justice' and 'security' for Israel...errr...I mean the world...
Telegraph.co.uk:
Israel 'will attack Iran' before new US president sworn in, John Bolton predicts
By Toby Harnden in Washington
Last updated: 9:50 AM BST 24/06/2008
John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush's successor is sworn in.
The Arab world would be "pleased" by Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
"It [the reaction] will be positive privately. I think there'll be public denunciations but no action," he said.
Mr Bolton, an unflinching hawk who proposes military action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons, bemoaned what he sees as a lack of will by the Bush administration to itself contemplate military strikes.
"It's clear that the administration has essentially given up that possibility," he said. "I don't think it's serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don't think it's in the cards."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/2182070/Israel-%27will-attack-Iran%27-before-new-US-president-sworn-in%2C-John-Bolton-predicts.html
Bolton's prediction is, at least in part, consonant with those of Seymour Hersh in his New Yorker series on the administration's plans to attack Iran, spearheaded by the vice-president, Dick Cheney's office. Former UN weapons inspector, Scott Ritter's pronouncements also seem to side with the conviction that the Bush administration is staunchly committed to an attack on Iran before the end of the president's term, irrespective of its repercussions for the region, Iranian civilians (obviously), American troops based in Iraq and Afghanistan, oil prices and the global economy. The only question remaining, is whether it will be Israel or the United States that carries out the dastardly deed.
Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh on Iran and the possibility of a US or Israeli attack: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3777614199046042311&hl=en
The obvious key difference which separates Bolton from Hersh and Ritter, is that the former has for some time been vociferously calling for an attack on Iran on Fox News and other sympathetic venues and railing against the administration's lack of 'resolve' when it comes to Iran. While at present, it's undeniable that a storm is brewing and pressure has intensified on Iran as the two presidential nominees square off and the twilight of Bush’s presidency lies on the horizon.
Though predominantly anecdotal (there are some articles which I've linked below), I've been told by numerous individuals, friends and relatives who regularly conduct business transactions internationally from inside of Iran, that the present sanctions are seriously hampering Iran's economic health, prospects etc... and have had a terrible impact far beyond Iran's nuclear activities or the personnel associated with it. I don't know of any full-length study which has been undertaken to demonstrate the wider effects of the current sanctions regime on the Iranian economy, so if anyone knows of one, please let me know.
The UAE has thus far acted like an economic lifeline, and much trade is first 'laundered' via the UAE before reaching Iran; but the Americans are bringing serious pressure to bear on the Emirati authorities to curb 'illicit trade' with Iranian companies. This week the European Union passed a new series of sanctions targeting Iranian financial institutions and most importantly Iran's Bank-e-Melli. What is being undertaken on all fronts by the so-called 'international community' i.e. the US and its European cheerleader squad, is nothing less than an asymmetrical effort to buttress the economic stranglehold on the Iranian economy in the hope of coercing Iran into divesting itself of the right to enrich uranium, guaranteed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. No wonder that some are exclaiming that sanctions are merely warfare by other means. Clausewitz would have undoubtedly seen the parallel with his own dictum that 'war is a continuation of politics by other means' very quickly, although in this case it's a matter of economic warfare waged by means of sanctions, psychological warfare through the ceaseless threat of military force and even 'obliteration', and finally the very real and tangible threat of coercion in the form of military maneuvers, by both American warships in the Gulf and Israeli F-16s over the Mediterranean.
The choice we face is whether we are going to voice our opposition to yet another foreign policy and morally bankrupt disaster or applaud while the bombs fall and innocents are torn limb from limb. If and when a strike does occur, we can be sure Bolton will applaud, do a little dance and throw in a couple of 'hell yeahs', all in the name of 'liberty', 'justice' and 'security' for Israel...errr...I mean the world...
Telegraph.co.uk:
Israel 'will attack Iran' before new US president sworn in, John Bolton predicts
By Toby Harnden in Washington
Last updated: 9:50 AM BST 24/06/2008
John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush's successor is sworn in.
The Arab world would be "pleased" by Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
"It [the reaction] will be positive privately. I think there'll be public denunciations but no action," he said.
Mr Bolton, an unflinching hawk who proposes military action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons, bemoaned what he sees as a lack of will by the Bush administration to itself contemplate military strikes.
"It's clear that the administration has essentially given up that possibility," he said. "I don't think it's serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don't think it's in the cards."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/2182070/Israel-%27will-attack-Iran%27-before-new-US-president-sworn-in%2C-John-Bolton-predicts.html
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Explosively False Propaganda by Muhammad Sahimi
Make sure you read Muhammad Sahimi's excellent and highly flammable article on Antiwar.com in which he documents country by country, through Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, the Bush administrations failures and depredations across the Middle East and South Asia.
June 24, 2008
Explosively False Propaganda Bush's Middle East legacy
by Muhammad Sahimi
"No part of the world, not even the United States, has been more deeply affected by George W. Bush's presidency than the Middle East. From the lofty goals of starting a "democratic revolution," making a "new Middle East," and helping the Palestinians to have their own independent state, to the bogus "war on terror," invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and meddling in Lebanon, Bush's Middle East policy has been simply one disaster after another."
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/sahimi.php?articleid=13036
June 24, 2008
Explosively False Propaganda Bush's Middle East legacy
by Muhammad Sahimi
"No part of the world, not even the United States, has been more deeply affected by George W. Bush's presidency than the Middle East. From the lofty goals of starting a "democratic revolution," making a "new Middle East," and helping the Palestinians to have their own independent state, to the bogus "war on terror," invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and meddling in Lebanon, Bush's Middle East policy has been simply one disaster after another."
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/sahimi.php?articleid=13036
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Bush Pledges on Iraq Bases Pact Were a Ruse
Excerpt of Gareth Porter's article for IPS:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42773
WASHINGTON, Jun 12 (IPS) - Two key pledges made by the George W. Bush administration on military bases in its negotiations with the government of Iraq have now been revealed as carefully-worded ruses aimed at concealing U.S. negotiating aims from both U.S. citizens and Iraqis who would object to them if they were made clear.
Recent statements by Iraqis familiar with U.S. demands in negotiations on the U.S.-Iraq "strategic framework" agreement have highlighted the fact that administration promises that it would not seek "permanent bases" or the use of bases to attack Iran or any other neighbouring countries were deliberately misleading. The wording used by the Bush administration appears to have been chosen to obscure its intention to have both long-term access to Iraqi bases and complete freedom to use them to launch operations against Iran and Syria.
When Defence Secretary Robert Gates first informed the public about U.S. aims in negotiating Jan. 24, he renounced the aim of "permanent bases" in Iraq. Gates said the U.S.-Iraq agreement "would not involve -- we have no interest in permanent bases". The same day, State Department spokesman Tom Casey, asked if the agreement would include any reference to "permanent bases", replied, "We're not seeking permanent bases in Iraq. That's been a clear matter of policy for some time."
Casey went on to say, "No, the agreement is not a basing agreement."
In Congressional testimony Apr. 8, Ambassador Ryan Crocker said the agreements "will not establish permanent bases in Iraq and we anticipate that it will expressly foreswear them."
These public reassurances, moreover, mirrored the actual language used in the U.S. draft of the agreement given to the Iraqi negotiators. A draft dated Mar. 8, which was leaked to The Guardian's Seumas Milne and reported Apr. 8, includes the statement that the United States "does not desire permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq".
That commitment, which seems definitive at first glance, actually incorporates deliberate ambiguity on at least two different levels. The term "permanent military base" appears to represent a substantive legal term, but in fact is a completely misleading term.
When Democratic Sen. James Webb asked the State Department's David Satterfield, "What is a permanent base?" Satterfield tried to avoid answering the question. But Assistant Defence Secretary Mary Beth Long was more responsive. She said, "I have looked into this. As far as the department is concerned, we don't have a worldwide or even a department-wide definition of permanent bases."
Webb then observed, "It doesn't really mean anything," to which Long replied, "Yes, senator, you're right. It doesn't." She added that "most lawyers... would say that the word 'permanent' probably refers more to the state of mind contemplated by the use of the term".
Iraqi officials quickly figured out that the real significance of the draft's wording on access to military bases was that it contained neither a time limit on access to Iraqi bases nor any restrictions on the U.S. to "conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security".
Authorisation for such operations was called "temporary", but the absence of any time limit makes that seemingly reassuring term meaningless as well.
The Bush administration's renunciation of "permanent bases" was a ploy to lull the key committees of the U.S. Congress on an issue which had aroused many Democratic critics of the war, who had repeatedly used that term in demanding a legal commitment on the issue.
The administration also used such ambiguous language to help the Iraqi government sell the agreement to Iraqi nationalists who object to long-term U.S. bases in their country. Thus as early as last December, Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubayi declared in a television interview, "The Iraqi people reject the presence of permanent bases in Iraq" and reassured Iraqis that the government would not accept such bases "in any form whatever and will not approve, and I believe the Council of Representatives will not approve it."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42773
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42773
WASHINGTON, Jun 12 (IPS) - Two key pledges made by the George W. Bush administration on military bases in its negotiations with the government of Iraq have now been revealed as carefully-worded ruses aimed at concealing U.S. negotiating aims from both U.S. citizens and Iraqis who would object to them if they were made clear.
Recent statements by Iraqis familiar with U.S. demands in negotiations on the U.S.-Iraq "strategic framework" agreement have highlighted the fact that administration promises that it would not seek "permanent bases" or the use of bases to attack Iran or any other neighbouring countries were deliberately misleading. The wording used by the Bush administration appears to have been chosen to obscure its intention to have both long-term access to Iraqi bases and complete freedom to use them to launch operations against Iran and Syria.
When Defence Secretary Robert Gates first informed the public about U.S. aims in negotiating Jan. 24, he renounced the aim of "permanent bases" in Iraq. Gates said the U.S.-Iraq agreement "would not involve -- we have no interest in permanent bases". The same day, State Department spokesman Tom Casey, asked if the agreement would include any reference to "permanent bases", replied, "We're not seeking permanent bases in Iraq. That's been a clear matter of policy for some time."
Casey went on to say, "No, the agreement is not a basing agreement."
In Congressional testimony Apr. 8, Ambassador Ryan Crocker said the agreements "will not establish permanent bases in Iraq and we anticipate that it will expressly foreswear them."
These public reassurances, moreover, mirrored the actual language used in the U.S. draft of the agreement given to the Iraqi negotiators. A draft dated Mar. 8, which was leaked to The Guardian's Seumas Milne and reported Apr. 8, includes the statement that the United States "does not desire permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq".
That commitment, which seems definitive at first glance, actually incorporates deliberate ambiguity on at least two different levels. The term "permanent military base" appears to represent a substantive legal term, but in fact is a completely misleading term.
When Democratic Sen. James Webb asked the State Department's David Satterfield, "What is a permanent base?" Satterfield tried to avoid answering the question. But Assistant Defence Secretary Mary Beth Long was more responsive. She said, "I have looked into this. As far as the department is concerned, we don't have a worldwide or even a department-wide definition of permanent bases."
Webb then observed, "It doesn't really mean anything," to which Long replied, "Yes, senator, you're right. It doesn't." She added that "most lawyers... would say that the word 'permanent' probably refers more to the state of mind contemplated by the use of the term".
Iraqi officials quickly figured out that the real significance of the draft's wording on access to military bases was that it contained neither a time limit on access to Iraqi bases nor any restrictions on the U.S. to "conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security".
Authorisation for such operations was called "temporary", but the absence of any time limit makes that seemingly reassuring term meaningless as well.
The Bush administration's renunciation of "permanent bases" was a ploy to lull the key committees of the U.S. Congress on an issue which had aroused many Democratic critics of the war, who had repeatedly used that term in demanding a legal commitment on the issue.
The administration also used such ambiguous language to help the Iraqi government sell the agreement to Iraqi nationalists who object to long-term U.S. bases in their country. Thus as early as last December, Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubayi declared in a television interview, "The Iraqi people reject the presence of permanent bases in Iraq" and reassured Iraqis that the government would not accept such bases "in any form whatever and will not approve, and I believe the Council of Representatives will not approve it."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42773
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
What's an Iraqi or Iranian Life Worth?
After detailing the manifold experiments with LSD, radiation, chemical and biological agents undertaken by the US government and the Pentagon on American servicemen and women, often without their consent and without legal recourse, the exposure of American servicemen and woman to chemical weapons in the first Gulf War (expressly denied until fairly recently by the Pentagon), the existence and continue denial of Gulf War syndrome, and more recently in the Bush administration’s Iraq War, the fact that families have been forced to purchase bullet proof vests, GPS equipment and other paraphernalia in order to better the chances of their sons and daughters’ survival, because the standard of equipment provided to military personnel has proven to be astoundingly inadequate, and unnecessarily cost a great many lives, the famous political commentator and ex-State Department official, William Blum, in his book, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, writes:
"The moral of this little slice of history is simple: If the United States government does not care about the health and welfare of its own soldiers, if American leaders are not moved by the prolonged pain and suffering of the wretched warriors they enlist to fight the empire's wars, how can it be argued, how can it be believed, that they care about foreign peoples? At all."
So in this context I would like to ask a question to which many of us almost intuitively know the answer: is an Iraqi life worth as much as an American life? Madeleine Albright, the first woman Secretary of State clearly didn't think so. Albright was more than happy to sacrifice 500,000 Iraqi children to keep the UN sanctions regime in place, spearheaded by the administration of Bush Snr, and buttressed by the firm ‘resolve’ of the Clinton administration.
And they say that a woman president might let her 'emotions’, 'sensitivities' or even ‘innate compassion’ cloud her judgement to prevent her acting decisively in a time of ‘national emergency’ or god forbid, from pushing ‘the nuclear button’.
If we weren't already disabused of this deeply ingrained and inveterate misconception, then Hillary certainly put it to bed when she threatened to 'obliterate' Iran in the event of an Iranian nuclear strike against Israel (a scaremongering ploy pulled right out of the Karl Rove playbook, which has no place in a presidential campaign, not only because Iran has no nuclear weapons program according to even the US’s own most recent intelligence estimate, but because such a scenario is so far detached from the reality of the region’s geopolitics, which is foremost rooted in the ‘ethics’ of realpolitik, to warrant serious discussion and be anything more than a clumsy invocation of the ‘politics of fear’ to net a couple of cheap votes).
This trend of indifference to the lives of Iraqis has of course been continued by the Bush administration, all under the guise of ‘humanitarian intervention’, the latest metamorphosis of imperial ideology. Just turn on the tube and we’re incessantly bombarded with the prattling of Bush administration officials who from the comfort of plush studios in Washington have the gall to tell us that ‘Iraqi civilian causalities are a necessary part of war’, ‘collateral damage is inevitable’, ‘Iraqis must die so they can one day be free’, ‘Iraqi lives are the price that needs to be paid for stability’, and all the many other platitudes trotted out to justify mass-death.
And (some) Iranians, please don't except yourselves and be fooled by subscribing to the racial-supremacist ideology of Aryanism and the many other pseudo-scientific myths and mumbo-jumbo, which pass for polite conversation in some circles. One gentleman who was a former general in the Shah's army even confessed to me once that he wished Hitler had won WWII since Iran would today be in a much better position as a result, because 'we' share the same 'pure and unsullied racial descent'!. This is the startling level of self-delusion which possesses many and continues to grip those Iranians calling for a military strike against their country and compatriots. Sorry to shatter (some of) your 'lofty' vision of yourselves but as far as the administration is concerned, you’re not the scions of 'the glorious Aryans of yore' (yeah, right), you're just a bunch of 'brown skinned savages’...and it is of absolutely no consequence how many must die in order to ensure American interests i.e. access to plentiful energy resources, Israel’s regional hegemony and above all the preponderance of Pax Americana.
We need to come to terms with the fact that the Bush administration and other hawks (including a vast swathe of so-called ‘native informers’ are calling for an attack on Iran and how they couldn’t care less about Iranian lives and the sacrifice that must be borne out, solely by the Iranian people, mind you, in order to fulfil their agenda and their vision for the ‘redrawing’ of Middle East i.e. a bunch of compliant client regimes which function as little more than American bases and gas stations…Civilian deaths in the Bush administration’s imperial wars of aggression and amoral calculus have been reduced to statistics and virtual bodies without families, feelings, dreams or ambitions…
This is exactly what the German-Jewish political philosopher Hannah Arendt called ‘the banality of evil’. Though much of the Bush administration’s chicanery is the result of orchestrated plans for global hegemony, at the lower levels of bureaucracy and the media’s depiction of events, there remains a clear disconnect and dissonance between the bureaucrats who perpetuate the war in the terms of their own careerism and instincts to ‘self-preservation’ and the deeply human tragedy which befalls the victims of what, when all is said and done, is a man-made catastrophe…
"The moral of this little slice of history is simple: If the United States government does not care about the health and welfare of its own soldiers, if American leaders are not moved by the prolonged pain and suffering of the wretched warriors they enlist to fight the empire's wars, how can it be argued, how can it be believed, that they care about foreign peoples? At all."
So in this context I would like to ask a question to which many of us almost intuitively know the answer: is an Iraqi life worth as much as an American life? Madeleine Albright, the first woman Secretary of State clearly didn't think so. Albright was more than happy to sacrifice 500,000 Iraqi children to keep the UN sanctions regime in place, spearheaded by the administration of Bush Snr, and buttressed by the firm ‘resolve’ of the Clinton administration.
And they say that a woman president might let her 'emotions’, 'sensitivities' or even ‘innate compassion’ cloud her judgement to prevent her acting decisively in a time of ‘national emergency’ or god forbid, from pushing ‘the nuclear button’.
If we weren't already disabused of this deeply ingrained and inveterate misconception, then Hillary certainly put it to bed when she threatened to 'obliterate' Iran in the event of an Iranian nuclear strike against Israel (a scaremongering ploy pulled right out of the Karl Rove playbook, which has no place in a presidential campaign, not only because Iran has no nuclear weapons program according to even the US’s own most recent intelligence estimate, but because such a scenario is so far detached from the reality of the region’s geopolitics, which is foremost rooted in the ‘ethics’ of realpolitik, to warrant serious discussion and be anything more than a clumsy invocation of the ‘politics of fear’ to net a couple of cheap votes).
This trend of indifference to the lives of Iraqis has of course been continued by the Bush administration, all under the guise of ‘humanitarian intervention’, the latest metamorphosis of imperial ideology. Just turn on the tube and we’re incessantly bombarded with the prattling of Bush administration officials who from the comfort of plush studios in Washington have the gall to tell us that ‘Iraqi civilian causalities are a necessary part of war’, ‘collateral damage is inevitable’, ‘Iraqis must die so they can one day be free’, ‘Iraqi lives are the price that needs to be paid for stability’, and all the many other platitudes trotted out to justify mass-death.
And (some) Iranians, please don't except yourselves and be fooled by subscribing to the racial-supremacist ideology of Aryanism and the many other pseudo-scientific myths and mumbo-jumbo, which pass for polite conversation in some circles. One gentleman who was a former general in the Shah's army even confessed to me once that he wished Hitler had won WWII since Iran would today be in a much better position as a result, because 'we' share the same 'pure and unsullied racial descent'!. This is the startling level of self-delusion which possesses many and continues to grip those Iranians calling for a military strike against their country and compatriots. Sorry to shatter (some of) your 'lofty' vision of yourselves but as far as the administration is concerned, you’re not the scions of 'the glorious Aryans of yore' (yeah, right), you're just a bunch of 'brown skinned savages’...and it is of absolutely no consequence how many must die in order to ensure American interests i.e. access to plentiful energy resources, Israel’s regional hegemony and above all the preponderance of Pax Americana.
We need to come to terms with the fact that the Bush administration and other hawks (including a vast swathe of so-called ‘native informers’ are calling for an attack on Iran and how they couldn’t care less about Iranian lives and the sacrifice that must be borne out, solely by the Iranian people, mind you, in order to fulfil their agenda and their vision for the ‘redrawing’ of Middle East i.e. a bunch of compliant client regimes which function as little more than American bases and gas stations…Civilian deaths in the Bush administration’s imperial wars of aggression and amoral calculus have been reduced to statistics and virtual bodies without families, feelings, dreams or ambitions…
This is exactly what the German-Jewish political philosopher Hannah Arendt called ‘the banality of evil’. Though much of the Bush administration’s chicanery is the result of orchestrated plans for global hegemony, at the lower levels of bureaucracy and the media’s depiction of events, there remains a clear disconnect and dissonance between the bureaucrats who perpetuate the war in the terms of their own careerism and instincts to ‘self-preservation’ and the deeply human tragedy which befalls the victims of what, when all is said and done, is a man-made catastrophe…
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