How Bush's Policies in the Muslim World Played into Terrorists' Hands

from Robert Cramer:

I just returned from Jordan where I attended a seminar on Islam and American Foreign Policy. What struck me most is that the more you talk to leaders from the Muslim world - the more you study the polling of Muslim attitudes - the clearer it is that George Bush didn't just get the "War on Terror" a little wrong. The basic thrust of the "War on Terror" was 100% wrong - 180 degrees off the mark.

In fact, you could argue, that if Osama Bin Laden himself had designed the strategy, it is hard to imagine how - in its essentials - it could have done more to play into the hands of the small fraction of Muslim extremists who resort to terror.

Bush's policy seemed to presume that if the military could just track down and kill enough Islamic radicals and terrorists, terrorism could be wiped out. But even the Bush administration understood that the small, hard core of Muslim terrorists depends upon support from a much broader group of radicalized Muslims - for new recruits, for money, for protection.

... read the rest after the click. It summarizes some interesting Gallup Poll findings obtained from tens of thousands of random interviews in the Muslim world between 2001 and 2007.

Hint: They DON'T hate us for our freedoms.

Strategic Manure

by Charley Reese / on AntiWar

Sen. John McCain is already spreading the old "strategic interests" fertilizer along the presidential campaign trail while pretending to be an expert.

Let's hope he really can explain what interests require us to maintain troops in Germany and Japan 63 years after the end of the war. What exactly is the purpose of those troops? Are we expecting the Mongols to descend on Japan? Does he expect the Cossacks will ride across the plains to attack Europe? Does he think that two of the greatest economic powers on Earth – Japan and Europe – are too poor to defend themselves? The old boy is living in the past.

When American politicians talk about strategic interests, they are talking about just what I called it, manure. We have no strategic interests in the Middle East whatsoever. We wish to buy oil there. Last time I checked, those countries that produce oil were selling it to any country willing to buy it, whether that country had troops in the area or not. Since oil isn't edible, there's not a heck of a lot you can do with it if you don't sell it.

More after the click ...

Between Iraq and a Hard Place

A freind sent me a rant about the situation in Iran and Iraq. I had to respond ... so, for the heck of it, here's my response:

Regarding the situation in the Middle east ... I think you've been handed a slightly distorted view of the world.

"They" are the aggressor if history starts at 9/11. Even that's not true. Remember, Saddam didn't have WMDs and Saddam had nothing to do with al Qaeda ... and absolutely no connection with 9/11 when we invaded Iraq.

I refer you to bed Linen's video tape of late September 2001 in which he outlines his reason for the attack. It had nothing to do with him hating our freedoms (as we've been told by the simple minded) or anything of the like. He quite plainly says he hated us because we had a military presence in Saudi Arabia. That's gotten lost in the national conversation.

They weren't that kind of pissed when we were in Afghanistan! Iran praised us and provided support for our mission in Afghanistan! Pakistan had gotten tired of the Talibam that they'd supported since the Soviets had been kicked ot of Afghanistan .. and were glad to see someone doing something about them. Our response was to invade and establish a military presence in the second most holy country in the Muslim world. Duh! That'll cool things down. Right? Does the image of throwing gasoline on an open fire ring a bell? (how ironic that gasoline comes from OIL)

As for wanting to kill us ... probably. Given the carnage we've left behind us, I'm quite sure there's a lot of support in certain quarters for that sentiment.

However, al Qaeda doesn't have a Navy or an Air Force so I don't think we need to worry a lot about a full scale attack on our soil ... not like we feared (with reason) with regard to the Soviet Union

In the meantime, your description of the facts on the ground in Iran and Iraq and throughout the region sounds like a page from the Neocon interpretation that's put us right where we are today.

McCain already tipped his hand ... but let me say first that I sincerely appreciate his service in Vietnam. He has gone on record at least 4 times in the last couple weeks - even after being corrected by Lieberman - as believing that it has been reported in the media and that its common knowledge that al Qaeda in Iraq has been traveling to Iran for training. Al Qaeda is Sunni. Iraq is Shi'ite. Sunnis and Shiites would sooner stick electric drills in each others ears (a favorite pass time in the streets of Baghdad until fairly recently) than spit on each other ... much less provide aid and training to each other. Further, McCain has also gone on record as believing that the rivalry between the Shiites and the Sunni have never been particularly violent ... I suppose that has some element of truth in it ... if you're willing to ignore the last 1,400 years of history. It is indiscreet a best and irresponsible at worst to express opinions like that when one obviously doesn't know Shi'ite from Shinola!

Let's start with some numbers that I've been able to glean from various sources.

Al Qaeda in Iraq - the franchise of bed Linen's outfit over in Afghanistan/Pakistan represents about 2% of the fighters and they've managed to make themselves very unpopular, even among their Sunni brethren. Their numbers are shrinking as a result. They lost recruiting power for their indiscriminate killing of anything that walks, crawls or flys. They supplement their numbers with foreign fighters - Islamic extremists who buy into the American Satan story and take the jihad express from Saudi Arabia (our hand-holding, kiss the prince on the lips ally, home of most of the 9/11 hijackers, and primary source of most of bed Linen's income).

That leaves the other 98% of the fighters on the ground in Iraq. Some Sunni, some Shi'a, a few Kurd. They are responsible for the vast majority of the deaths, both American and Iraqi. They have no desire to follow us home. As a matter of fact, they're only reason for fighting against us is because we're there ... in their country. Sorta like the way you feel about Mexicans being here? Only imagine that the Mexicans came with tanks and assault rifles and flack jackets and F-16s and Cobras and set up bases surrounded by concertina wire and high voltage lighting. Imagine the Mexicans kicking your door down in the middle of the night and dragging you and your wife into the streets. Imagine the depth of your abiding love for Mexicans at that point. Then imagine hearing on the nightly news that the government they'd installed said it was OK for them to be here. I have no doubt that you'd be mass producing Improvised Explosive Devices in your basement. Anyway, they DON'T want to follow us home. They just want us to get the flock outa THEIR country. Thats the 98% of the fighters ... who are, for the most part, killing each other over a theological detail ... when they're not taking pot shots at us. Because, ya see, they believe they have the one true religion ... revealed to them through the inspiration of God ... sorta like everybody else's religion in that regard. Of course, somebody has to be wrong because all the different religions can't be the one true religion, can they? (Did you by any chance see Jesus Camp.)

Anyway, scenario - we leave. They have what's left of al Qaeda in Iraq for breakfast. End of story for those who want to kills US as a result of their religious insanity. With that minor task out of the way they will then set about resuming the Sunni / Shi'ite (read Hatfield and McCoy) feuding that has been going on for the last 1,400 years - with a little break for about 30 years while Saddam garroted ANYONE who stepped out of line ... particularly the Shi'a and the Kurds. The only thing our presence is doing there is extending interrupted feud.

So ... what would leaving accomplish that staying wouldn't? a.) no more reason for foreign fighters to enter Iraq in order to use our boys for target practice. They'd have to move over to Afghanistan where we have some semblance of world support, and b.) they could resume the 1.400 year old blood bath a little sooner because it's going to happen. We took the cork out of the bottle (Saddam) and we don't have the kind of horse power to put it back in - besides, he's dead.

Bush I and Clinton had a policy of containment that worked. Bush II introduced Cowboy Diplomacy to the world stage. It didn't work .. in spades! Now, with McCain's obvious total lack of understanding regarding even who the friggin' players are and complete obliviousness to the history of the region ... we move from Cowboy Diplomacy directly into Blazing Saddles Diplomacy. (and I quote: "Bomb, bomb, bomb. Bomb, bomb Iran ... for 100 years.") Five years in a 1960-70s VC prison camp dose NOT make a foreign policy genius. It is NOT foreign POLICY experience ... it's certainly foreign. It's certainly experience ... but it don't friggin' count in this arena.

And Now for a LIttle Propoganda

The vast Right Wing ... uh ... Left Wing ... conspiracy
as seen by Iran.


or watch the video here.

My comment:

It would appear that Iran is waging it's own war on terrorism ... I guess it's all in how you define it? But it sure has a familiar ring to it ... I guess there are certain similarities in everyone's war on terrorism, only the targets change.

Iran: A brief lesson in history

or watch the video here.

My comment:

More often than not, "spreading democracy" and "fighting communism" are code phrases for establishing compliant regimes in other countries that support American corporate interests against the interests of the people of the country.

By labeling something "communistic", whether it is or isn't, has been a rallying cry for disrupting democratically elected governments around the world. It rallies the support of those who don't know the difference.

Side bar: Soviet Communism failed for a reason. The reason was that it devoted more of its resources to military spending than it could sustain in order to compete in an arms race with the United States. It went bankrupt in the process. It failed to attend to the needs of the people of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union crashed and burned ... it deserved to.

Interestingly enough, we are still in an arms race and increasing military spending ... but no one else is playing. In the meantime, our economy is in shambles.

There's a lesson in here somewhere.

Gulf of Tonkin Will Be Tough to Repeat

by Ray McGovern

When the Tonkin Gulf incident took place in early August 1964, I was a journeyman CIA analyst in what Condoleezza Rice refers to as "the bowels of the agency."

As a current intelligence analyst responsible for Russian policy toward Southeast Asia and China, I worked very closely with those responsible for analysis of Vietnam and China.

Out of that experience I must say that, as much as one might be tempted to laugh at the bizarre, theatrical accounts of last week's incident involving small Iranian boats and U.S. naval ships in the Strait of Hormuz, this is – as my old Russian professor used to insist – nothing to laugh.

The situation is so reminiscent of what happened – and didn't happen – from Aug. 2-4, 1964, in the Gulf of Tonkin and in Washington, it is in no way funny.

At the time, the U.S. had about 16,000 troops in South Vietnam. The war that was "justified" by the Tonkin Gulf resolution of Aug. 7, 1964, led to a buildup of 535,000 U.S. troops in the late Sixties, 58,000 of whom were killed – not to mention the estimated 2 million Vietnamese who lost their lives by then and in the ensuing 10 years.

Ten years. How can our president speak so glibly about 10 more years of a U.S. armed presence in Iraq? He must not remember Vietnam.

Get the rest after the click ...

My comment: "He must not remember Vietnam." Do you suppose that might be a thinly veiled put-down directed at the head of an administration who never served in combat (though he says he did) ... or any of the others in that administration who, as Dick Cheney said of his absence from Vietnam service, "... had other priorities."

Read a little more about the Tonkin Gulf here.

And its 1-2-3 what are we fightin' for, don't ask me, I don't give a damn ...

(CNN) --

A Saudi Arabian human rights attorney is asking the government to allow him to represent a woman who was gang-raped -- and then sentenced to prison for speaking out about the case.

Human rights groups want Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to drop charges against the rape victim.

The attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, had his license revoked last week by a judge for speaking to the Saudi-controlled media about the case, al-Lahim told CNN.

The judge more than doubled the sentence against al-Lahim's 19-year-old client because she spoke to the media about the case, a court source told Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.

The woman -- who was initially sentenced in October 2006 to 90 lashes -- had her sentenced increased to 200 lashes and was ordered to serve six months in prison under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic law.

More after the click ...

My comment:

Let's see if I got this straight.

Saudi Arabia is our friend ... though most of the 9/11 hi-jackers came from Saudi Arabia, though women can't even drive a car in Saudi Arabia and there are no elections to speak of ... royal families don't need no steeeenkin' elections.

We're told we're fighting in the Middle East to spread democracy. (Seeing that WMDs and Saddam's ties to al Qaeda didn't wash.)

Iran holds relatively free elections; women can drive and even go to college and Iran was among the first to offer us support after 9/11 as we sent troops to Afghanistan to root out al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The obvious choice is to "bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran".

... and its 5-6-7 open up the Pearly Gates. We ain't got time to wonder why, whoopie, we're all gonna die!



The only problem with this damned war is it ain't got no decent music to go with it.

Former Aide Blames Bush for Leak Deceit

WASHINGTON (AP) --

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby were ''not involved'' in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

''There was one problem. It was not true,'' McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. ''I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself.''

More in the New York Times after the click ...

My Comment: You really have to ask yourself,

after herding American into a needless war with lies about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's connection to al Qaeda;

after violating the Constitution by arbitrarily detaining Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans, without due process, without charge, and without access to counsel;

after violating U.S. law and the Constitution through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of Americans without a warrant;

after subverting the Constitution and abusing Presidential power by asserting a "Unitary Executive Theory" giving unlimited powers to the President, by obstructing efforts by Congress and the Courts to review and restrict Presidential actions, and by promoting and signing legislation negating the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus;

and now the light of day shines on the outing of an undercover agent of this country's intelligence service, not only jeopardizing that person's life but also a.) jeopardizing any foreign nationals who might have worked with her, b.) jeopardizing any other American intelligence agents who might have been seen in contact with her in a foreign country c.) compromising ongoing covert intelligence operations specifically related to Iran's nuclear program -- which, by the laws of this country constitute treason ...

WTF else has to happen before it is universally recognized that these people MUST be impeached?

If lying to Congress about an extra-marital affair constitutes sufficient "crimes and misdemeanors" to impeach a president, you can't tell me that lying to congress about the reasons for war, the subversion of the Constitution they're sworn to uphold and defend and the sabotaging of ongoing intelligence operations being conducted on behalf of this country don't reach that standard!

There are those who contend that Plame was merely a secretary who's greatest responsibility was to fetch coffee in the CIA's DC area offices, but if the CIA is any good at all in providing covers for its covert agents ... how the hell would those people know?

Review the sequence of events here on FactCheck.org.

So, who are we fighting, anyway?

Richard Dreyfuss on AntiWar

Who is the enemy? Who, exactly, are we fighting in Iraq? Why are we there? And what's our objective?

Nearly five years into the war, the answers to basic questions like these ought to be obvious. In the Alice in Wonderland-like wilderness of mirrors that is Iraq, though, they're anything but.

We aren't fighting the Sunnis. Not any more, anyway. Virtually the entire Sunni establishment, from the moderate Muslim Brotherhood-linked Iraqi Islamic Party (which has been part of every Iraqi government since 2003) to the Anbar tribal alliance (which has been begging for U.S. support since 2004 and only recently got it) is either actively cooperating with the American military or sullenly tolerating what it hopes will be a receding occupation. Across Sunni-dominated parts of Iraq, the United States is helping to build army and police units as well as neighborhood patrols – the Pentagon calls them "concerned citizens" – out of former resistance fighters, with the blessing of tribal leaders in Anbar, Diyala, and Salahuddin provinces, parts of Baghdad, and areas to the south of the capital. We have met the enemy, and – surprise! – they are friends or, if not that, at least not active enemies. Attacks on U.S. forces in Sunni-dominated areas, including the once-violent hotbed city of Ramadi, Anbar's capital, have fallen dramatically.

Among the hard-core Sunni resistance, there is also significant movement toward a political accord – if the United States were willing to accept it. Twenty-two Iraqi insurgent groups announced the creation of a united front, under the leadership of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former top Ba'ath Party official of the Saddam era, and they have opened talks with Iyad Allawi, a secular Shia who was Iraq's first post-Saddam prime minister.

We aren't fighting the Shia. The Shia merchant class and elite, organized into the mostly pro-Iranian Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council and the Islamic Dawa Party, are part of the Iraqi government that the United States created and supports – and whose army and police are armed and trained by the United States. The far more popular forces of Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army aren't the enemy either. In late August, Sadr declared a cease-fire, ordering his militia to stand down; and, since then, attacks on U.S. forces in Shia-dominated areas of Iraq have fallen off very sharply, too. Though recent, provocative attacks by U.S. troops, in conjunction with Iraqi forces, on Sadr strongholds in Baghdad, Diwaniya, and Karbala have caused Sadr to threaten to cancel the cease-fire order, and though intra-Shia fighting is still occurring in many parts of southern Iraq, there is no Shia enemy that justifies a continued American presence in Iraq, either.

And we certainly aren't fighting the Kurds. For decades, the Kurds have been America's (and Israel's) closest allies in Iraq. Since 2003, the three Kurdish-dominated provinces have been relatively peaceful.

We're not exactly fighting al-Qaeda any more either. Despite President Bush's near-frantic efforts to portray the war in Iraq as a last-ditch, Alamo-like stand against Osama bin Laden's army, U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq are having a hard time finding pockets of al-Qaeda to attack these days, though the group still has the power to conduct deadly attacks now and then. In recent weeks, Gen. David Petraeus, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and other authorities have pretty much declared al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) dead and buried. That happy funeral is the result not of brilliant U.S. counterinsurgency efforts, but of the determination of our newfound Sunni allies to exterminate the group. No lesser authority than Gen. Petraeus himself now admits that al-Qaeda has been expelled from every single one of its strongholds in Baghdad. In Anbar province, according to Crocker, "People do feel the weight's off. Al-Qaeda is simply gone."

More after the click ...

The Freedom Agenda Fizzles

How George Bush and Condoleezza Rice made a mess of Pakistan.

By Fred Kaplan on Slate

Now we've really got problems.

The state of emergency in Pakistan signals yet another low point in President George W. Bush's foreign policy — a stark demonstration of his paltry influence and his bankrupt principles. More than that, the crackdown locks us in a crisis — a potentially dangerous dynamic—from which there appears to be no escape route.

For much of last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top U.S. officials had been urging Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, not to declare martial law. He not only ignored these pleas; he defied them.

More here.

Lawyers Against Musharraf
Why are attorneys taking to the streets in Pakistan?

By Michelle Tsai also on Slate

Lawyers demonstrating in their black suits and ties clashed with police in Pakistan on Monday, two days after Pervez Musharraf declared martial law. In Lahore, about 2,000 lawyers gathered at the high court, even as some news outlets reported 1,500 arrests of lawyers across the country. Why are attorneys leading this round of protests?

Because they want to, and they can. When Musharraf came to power in 1999, he effectively paralyzed the two major political parties that opposed him. The leaders of those groups, Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan People's Party and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistani Muslim League, went into exile. Other political figures were arrested, and public rallies were generally not permitted. (The gathering of hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis to greet Bhutto's return in October was a rare exception.) Thus weakened, the parties couldn't lead a mass response to Musharraf's takeover. Lawyers, on the other hand, could circumvent some of the general's restrictions. Since they still had to go to court, lawyers were able to use the courts as public meeting places. They also couldn't be easily targeted as a group, since bar associations carry out necessary functions for the government, like ensuring that local political campaigns follow the rules and authenticating applicants for a national ID card. This appears to have changed, however; one eyewitness said the police were now arresting "anyone wearing the lawyer's uniform."

More here.

My comment: I hope you're paying attention. Pakistan is a real nuclear power with real, test-proven nuclear weapons (as opposed to the trumped up allegations about Iran). Bin Laden lives there and the tibal border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan are controlled by al Qauda and the Taliban. If Pakistan falls apart at the seams, it's very likely that we'll be confronting a nuclear jihad.

We should have been tracking down bin Laden all this time instead of playing wack-a-mole in Iraq. We were off to a good start, but we got distracted. Now we're not very well positioned to do anything about the changes.

Ya wanna WAR? Think it through ...

Thinking it through is not one of the strong suits on the Right. As evidence let me offer:

"... welcomed as liberators."
"... walk in the park."
"... MISSION ACCOMPLISHED."
and a myriad of other examples of getting it totally wrong.

Fortunately, there are people who do try to think these things through ... cooly, without political spin. the folks at StratFor (Strategic Forecasting) are among those. Here's their assessment of the situation with regard to a war with Iran ... the next adventure on the drawing boards of saber rattling, myopic, short sighted chicken hawks:

---

GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT

War Plans: United States and Iran
By George Friedman

A possible U.S. attack against Iran has been a hot topic in the news for many months now. In some quarters it has become an article of faith that the Bush administration intends to order such an attack before it leaves office. It remains a mystery whether the administration plans an actual attack or whether it is using the threat of attack to try to intimidate Iran -- and thus shape its behavior in Iraq and elsewhere.

Unraveling the mystery lies, at least in part, in examining what a U.S. attack would look like, given U.S. goals and resources, as well as in considering the potential Iranian response. Before turning to intentions, it is important to discuss the desired outcomes and capabilities. Unfortunately, those discussions have taken a backseat to speculations about the sheer probability of war.

Let's begin with goals. What would the United States hope to achieve by attacking Iran? On the broadest strategic level, the answer is actually quite simple. After 9/11, the United States launched counterstrikes in the Islamic world. The goal was to disrupt the al Qaeda core in order to prevent further attacks against the United States. The counterstrikes also were aimed at preventing the emergence of a follow-on threat from the Islamic world that would replace the threat that had been posed by al Qaeda. The disruption of all Islamic centers of power that have the ability and intent to launch terrorist attacks against the United States is a general goal of U.S. strategy. With the decline of Sunni radicalism, Iran has emerged as an alternative Shiite threat. Hence, under this logic, Iran must be dealt with.

Obviously, the greater the disruption of radically anti-American elements in the Islamic world, the better it is for the United States. But there are three problems here. First, the United States has a far more complex relationship with Iran than it does with al Qaeda. Iran supported the U.S. attack against the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- for its own reasons, of course. Second, the grand strategy of the United States might include annihilating Islamic radicalism, but at the end of the day, maintaining the balance of power between Sunnis and Shia and between Arab and non-Arab Muslims is a far more practical approach. Finally, the question of what to do about Iran depends on the military capabilities of the United States in the immediate future. The intentions are shaped by the capabilities.

What, therefore, would the U.S. goals be in an attack against Iran? They divide into three (not mutually exclusive) strategies:

1. Eliminating Iran's nuclear program.
2. Crippling Iran by hitting its internal infrastructure -- political, industrial and military -- ideally forcing regime change that would favor U.S. interests.
3. Using an attack -- or threatening an attack -- to change Iranian behavior in Iraq, Lebanon or other areas of the world.

It is important to note the option that is not on the table: invasion by U.S. ground forces, beyond the possible use of small numbers of Special Operations forces. Regardless of the state of Iranian conventional forces after a sustained air attack, the United States simply does not have the numbers of ground troops needed to invade and occupy Iran – particularly given the geography and topography of the country. Therefore, any U.S. attack would rely on the forces available, namely air and naval forces.

The destruction of Iran's nuclear capabilities would be the easiest to achieve, assuming that U.S. intelligence has a clear picture of the infrastructure of that program and that the infrastructure has not been hardened to the point of being invulnerable to conventional attack. Iran, however, learned a great deal from Iraq's Osirak experience and has spread out and hardened its nuclear facilities. Also, given Iran's location and the proximity of U.S. forces and allies, we can assume the United States would not be interested in a massive nuclear attack with the resulting fallout. Moreover, we would argue that, in a world of proliferation, it would not be in the interest of the United States to set a precedent by being the first use to use nuclear weapons since World War II.

Therefore, the U.S. option is to carry out precision strikes against Iran's nuclear program using air- and sea-launched munitions. As a threat, this is in an interesting option. As an actual operation, it is less interesting.

First, the available evidence is that Iran is years away from achieving a deliverable nuclear weapon. Second, Iran might be more interested in trading its nuclear program for other political benefits -- specifically in Iraq. An attack against the country's nuclear facilities would make Tehran less motivated than before to change its behavior. Furthermore, even if its facilities were destroyed, Iran would retain its capabilities in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere in the world. Therefore, unless the United States believed there was an imminent threat of the creation of a deliverable nuclear system, the destruction of a long-term program would eliminate the long-term threat, but leave Iran's short-term capabilities intact. Barring imminent deployment, a stand-alone attack against Iran's nuclear capabilities makes little sense.

That leaves the second option -- a much broader air and sea campaign against Iran. This would have four potential components:

1. Attacks against its economic infrastructure, particularly its refineries.
2. Attacks against its military infrastructure.
3. Attacks against its political infrastructure, particularly its leadership.
4. A blockade and sanctions.

Let's begin in reverse order. The United States has the ability to blockade Iran's ports, limiting the importation of oil and refined products, as well as food. It does not have the ability to impose a general land blockade against Iran, which has long land borders, including with Iraq. Because the United States lacks the military capability to seal those borders, goods from around Iran's periphery would continue to flow, including, we emphasize, from Iraq, where U.S. control of transportation systems, particularly in the Shiite south, is limited. In addition, it is unclear whether the United States would be willing to intercept, board and seize ships from third-party countries (Russia, China and a large number of small countries) that are not prepared to participate in sanctions or might not choose to respect an embargo. The United States is stretched thin, and everyone knows it. A blockade could invite deliberate challenges, while enforcement would justify other actions against U.S. interests elsewhere. Any blockade strategy assumes that Iran is internationally isolated, which it is not, that the United States can impose a military blockade on land, which it cannot, and that it can withstand the consequences elsewhere should a third party use U.S. actions to justify counteraction, which is questionable. A blockade could hurt Iran's energy economy, but Iran has been preparing for this for years and can mitigate the effect by extensive smuggling operations. Ultimately, Iran is not likely to crumble unless the United States can maintain and strengthen the blockade process over a matter of many months at the very least.

Another option is a decapitation strike against Iran's leadership – though it is important to recall how this strategy failed in Iraq at the beginning of the 2003 invasion. Decapitation assumes superb intelligence on the location of the leadership at a given time -- and that level of intelligence is hard to come by. Iraq had a much smaller political elite than Iran has, and the United States couldn't nail down its whereabouts. It also is important to remember that Iran has a much deeper and more diverse leadership structure than Iraq had. Iraq's highly centralized system included few significant leaders. Iran is more decentralized and thus has a much larger and deeper leadership cadre. We doubt the United States has the real-time intelligence capability to carry out such a broad decapitation strike.

The second option is an assault against the Iranian military. Obviously, the United States has the ability to carry out a very effective assault against the military's technical infrastructure -- air defense, command and control, aircraft, armor and so on. But the Iranian military is primarily an infantry force, designed for internal control and operations in mountainous terrain -- the bulk of Iran's borders. Once combat operations began, the force would disperse and tend to become indistinguishable from the general population. A counterpersonnel operation would rapidly become a counterpopulation operation. Under any circumstances, an attack against a dispersed personnel pool numbering in the high hundreds of thousands would be sortie intensive, to say the least. An air campaign designed to impose high attrition on an infantry force, leaving aside civilian casualties, would require an extremely large number of sorties, in which the use of precision-guided munitions would be of minimal value and the use of area weapons would be at a premium. Given the fog of war and intelligence issues, the ability to evaluate the status of this campaign would be questionable.

In our view, the Iranians are prepared to lose their technical infrastructure and devolve command and control to regional and local levels. The collapse of the armed forces -- most of whose senior officers and noncoms fought in the Iran-Iraq war with very flexible command and control -- is unlikely. The force would continue to be able to control the frontiers as well as maintain internal security functions. The United States would rapidly establish command of the air, and destroy noninfantry forces. But even here there is a cautionary note. In Yugoslavia, the United States learned that relatively simple camouflage and deception techniques were quite effective in protecting tactical assets. The Iranians have studied both the Kosovo war and U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and have extensive tactical combat experience themselves. A forced collapse from the air of the Iranian infantry capability -- the backbone of Iran's military -- is unlikely.

This leaves a direct assault against the Iranian economic infrastructure. Although this is the most promising path, it must be remembered that counterinfrastructure and counterpopulation strategic air operations have been tried extensively. The assumption has been that the economic cost of resistance would drive a wedge between the population and the regime, but there is no precedent in the history of air campaigns for this assumption. Such operations have succeeded in only two instances: Japan and Kosovo. In Japan, counterpopulation operations of massive proportions involving conventional weapons were followed by two atomic strikes. Even in that case, there was no split between regime and population, but a decision by the regime to capitulate. The occupation in Kosovo was not so much because of military success as diplomatic isolation. That isolation is not likely to happen in Iran.

In all other cases -- Britain, Germany, Vietnam, Iraq -- air campaigns by themselves did not split the population from the regime or force the regime to change course. In Britain and Vietnam, the campaigns failed completely. In Germany and Iraq (and Kuwait), they succeeded because of follow-on attacks by overwhelming ground forces.

The United States could indeed inflict heavy economic hardship, but history suggests that this is more likely to tighten the people's identification with the government -- not the other way around. In most circumstances, air campaigns have solidified the regime's control over the population, allowing it to justify extreme security measures and generating a condition of intense psychological resistance. In no case has a campaign led to an uprising against the regime. Moreover, a meaningful campaign against economic infrastructure would take some 4 million barrels per day off of the global oil market at a time when oil prices already are closing in on $100 a barrel. Such a campaign is more likely to drive a wedge between the
American people and the American government than between the Iranians and their government.

For an air campaign to work, the attacking power must be prepared to bring in an army on the ground to defeat the army that has been weakened by the air campaign -- a tactic Israel failed to apply last summer in Lebanon. Combined arms operations do work, repeatedly. But the condition of the U.S. Army and Marines does not permit the opening of a new theater of operations in Iran. Most important, even if conditions did permit the use of U.S. ground forces to engage and defeat the Iranian army -- a massive operation simply by the size of the country -- the United States does not have the ability to occupy Iran against a hostile population. The Japanese and German nations were crushed completely over many years before an
overwhelming force occupied them. What was present there, but not in Iraq, was overwhelming force. That is not an option for Iran.

Finally, consider the Iranian response. Iran does not expect to defeat the U.S. Air Force or Navy, although the use of mine warfare and anti-ship cruise missiles against tankers in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz should not be dismissed. The Iranian solution would be classically asymmetrical. First, they would respond in Iraq, using their assets in the country to further complicate the occupation, as well as to impose as many casualties as possible on the United States. And they would use their forces to increase the difficulty of moving supplies from Kuwait to U.S. forces in central Iraq. They also would try to respond globally using their own forces (the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), as well as Hezbollah and other trained Shiite militant assets, to carry out counterpopulation attacks against U.S. assets around the world, including in the United States.

If the goal is to eliminate Iran's nuclear program, we expect the United States would be able to carry out the mission. If, however, the goal is to compel a change in the Iranian regime or Iranian policy, we do not think the United States can succeed with air forces alone. It would need to be prepared for a follow-on invasion by U.S. forces, coming out of both Afghanistan and Iraq. Those forces are not available at this point and would require several years to develop. That the United States could defeat and occupy Iran is certain. Whether the United States has a national interest in devoting the time and the resources to Iran's occupation is unclear.

The United States could have defeated North Vietnam with a greater mobilization of forces. However, Washington determined that the defeat of North Vietnam and the defense of Indochina were not worth the level of effort required. Instead, it tried to achieve its ends with the resources it was prepared to devote to the mission. As a result, resources were squandered and the North Vietnamese flag flies over what was Saigon.

The danger of war is that politicians and generals, desiring a particular end, fantasize that they can achieve that end with insufficient resources. This lesson is applicable to Iran.

---

My thoughts:


Dead, suffered a terminal case of war.

One scenario that is conspicuous by its absence from the above analysis (and a surprise to me) is the use of mercenaries contractors to conduct the war. They currently make up close to 50% of the US personnel on the ground in Iraq and the corporations such as Blackwater are looking for opportunities to increase their "market".

"... in 2003 the government handed out 3,512 contracts to companies to perform security functions; in the twenty-two-month period ending in August 2006, the Department of Homeland Security had issued more than 115,000 such contracts. The Global Homeland Security 'industry' - economically insignificant before 2001 - is now a $200 Billion sector."*

There are no precedents for a war being waged and won solely with "contractors". However, there are several cases where the outcomes were negative (for example, the Hessians didn't do very well against citizen soldiers during the American Revolution). But, I would guess if government "merged" with corporations, and they effectively became the same thing (as they seem to be doing) the total privatization of war would be a logical following.

The current administration appears to have the goal of privatizing everything. They are students of Milton Freedman and this is THE opportunity. Unfortunately, one of the "unforeseen" consequences of turning war into a profitable business is that suddenly, war becomes something we look for ... each war we become involved in becomes a market and a means for making profit. Suddenly, we cease to have a need for diplomacy. As a matter of fact, diplomacy becomes the last thing we want. War, which was once the least desirable consequence of a given set of circumstances, becomes the most desirable set of consequences. If war becomes desirable because its profitable, expect a future filled with "shoot first, ask questions later" or, as it has been suggested about Blackwater, our foreign policy becomes "spray and pray". Keeping us out of a war becomes keeping us from making a profit. So, put on your seat belts, kids. It's going to be a very long and dangerous ride. And don't forget to thank Uncle Milty for all the excitement.

If you look at it from that point of view, its no wonder we don't talk to our enemies.

* Constable and Valenzuela, A Nation of Enemies, 172-73.

Spin Alert

by Sam Sedaei on Huffington Post| BIO |

As the Bush Administration beats the drums for another war of choice with another country that had nothing to do with 9/11, they are using another series of fabricated facts to indoctrinate the American people into thinking that Iran poses a serious threat to our security. At the core of these fabrications is the claim that on October 25, 2005, during a speech at the Ministry of Interior conference hall, the then newly-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remarked that "Israel must be wiped off the map." As someone who was born in Tehran, lived there for seventeen years and is a native Farsi speaker, I have read the original transcripts of the speech in Farsi and want to inform you that Ahmadinejad never said "Israel must be wiped off the map," but rather, his statement was grossly mistranslated and taken out of context, perhaps to help make a case for military action against Iran.

Let's analyze what Ahmadinejad said. His exact words in Farsi were as follows: "Emam goft een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzegar mahv shavad."

All of it following the click ...

My comment: Often things are lost in translation. Translations are, in the final analysis, interpretations. I think you have to be very careful when listening to an "interpreter" when the "interpreter" has an agenda. When you consider a translation from one language to another, it's probably a good idea to think about who stands to gain the most from the words that are used.

Fearing Fear

Paul Krugman / New York Times

[...]

For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.

Meanwhile, the idea that bombing will bring the Iranian regime to its knees — and bombing is the only option, since we’ve run out of troops — is pure wishful thinking. Last year Israel tried to cripple Hezbollah with an air campaign, and ended up strengthening it instead. There’s every reason to believe that an attack on Iran would produce the same result, with the added effects of endangering U.S. forces in Iraq and driving oil prices well into triple digits.

[...]

And Mike Huckabee, whom reporters like to portray as a nice, reasonable guy, says that if Hillary Clinton is elected, “I’m not sure we’ll have the courage and the will and the resolve to fight the greatest threat this country’s ever faced in Islamofascism.” Yep, a bunch of lightly armed terrorists and a fourth-rate military power — which aren’t even allies — pose a greater danger than Hitler’s panzers or the Soviet nuclear arsenal ever did.

All of this would be funny if it weren’t so serious.

[...]

Just to be clear, Al Qaeda is a real threat, and so is the Iranian nuclear program. But neither of these threats frightens me as much as fear itself — the unreasoning fear that has taken over one of America’s two great political parties.

Read it all after the click ...

My thought:

• Global Military spending in 2005 = $1,001 Billion



• US Military spending in 2005 = $420.7 Billion
  
  (or roughly 42% of the total military spending for the ENTIRE PLANET ... it has not changed significantly in the two intervening years between 2005 and the present ... and this number does not include the supplementary spending bills passed by Congress specifically to fund actions in Afghanistan and Iraq ... this is just the normal, non-war, operating budget. When taken in total, the budget plus the supplementary spending provisions, the US spends MORE than 50% of the total Global Military budget )



• Iran Military spending 2005 = $4.9 Billion
  
  (less than 1/2 of 1% of the total military spending for the entire planet; or roughly 1% of the military budget for the United States)



• Who has nuclear weapons and how many do they have?
  
  
  
  (Note that Iran is NOT on the list of nations that have nuclear weapons. Also note that Pakistan, the place where Ossama bed Linen is hiding out and where al Qaeda has a "don't ask, don't tell" agreement with the ruling, right-wing, military dictatorship government friendly to the US and which is a huge help in the war on terror -- DOES have nuclear weapons.)
  
  (Keep in mind that Pakistan's chief nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan, was caught red handed selling nuclear secrets to the highest bidder not too long ago. The consequences? He got a little slap on the wrist only because our government demanded something be done about it.)

If that doesn't give you a little perspective about the size of the latest boogieman that has all those Curly, Larry and Mo sounds coming out of the Right, nothing will and you're beyond hope.


Wo, wo, wo, wo, wo, wo, wo!

Jingoism defined

"That inverted patriotism whereby the love of one's own nation is transformed into the hatred of another nation, and the fierce craving to destroy individual members of that other nation ...

Jingoism is the passion of the spectator, the inciter, the backer, not of the fighter."

Sourced here ...

$2,400,000,000,000

from Crooks & Liars

That’s right. Eleven zeros. New estimates out this week by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office place the cost of the Iraq occupation through 2017 at 2.4 TRILLION dollars, or put another way, $8,000 for every man, woman and child in the US. And that does not include the interest on the foreign loans being used to finance it so that the top 1% can still enjoy their tax cuts.

Pick up on it after the click ...

My comment: OK ... so you don't like the source. You think the source is suspect? Maybe questioning the facts would be more productive.

Your kid's future is secure. Add that $8K to the $30K burden they have as a result of the current national indebtedness plus anything more accumulated along the way to 2017 and they'll be paying this debt off 'til hell freezes over.

Who'd you vote for again?

What are they smoking and where can I get some?

At a meeting with reporters last week, President Bush said that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." These were not the barbs of some neoconservative crank or sidelined politician looking for publicity. This was the president of the United States, invoking the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon.

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

From Newsweek columnist, Fareed Zakaria.

Sy Hersh on White House plans to attack Iran

Sy Hersh: "You heard the White House spokeswoman say today we're interested in a diplomatic track. Well, all [Bush] has to do is start talking to them, and then you get diplomacy. And he's not talking to them. He has no interest in talking to people he doesn't like. He doesn't want to talk to the Syrians, the Iranians, Hamas. . . . If he would talk to them, I could say to you that there was some reason we might not go to war. But the only thing you hear, from inside, is that these guys really want to do it."

As for the White House attack on his credibility? "This was light," Hersh said. "Usually they go after me personally. When I did Abu Ghraib-- stuff on Abu Ghraib -- they had a deputy assistant secretary of defense accuse me, literally, he said, of throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks -- and this is when I had photographs in print. So this is a pretty light response to say: 'How dare you commit journalism?'"

Get the full article in the WaPo.

(Emphasis added)

My comment: Sy Hersh has more credibility and better credentials for what he does than anyone I'm familiar with in the White House have for what they do ... from the top down.

Hersh has never lied to me. I can't say that for the White House.

Infantile Nation

by Patrick J. Buchanan on AntiWar

Does this generation possess the gravitas to lead the world?

"Considering the hysteria that greeted the request of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to lay a wreath at Ground Zero, the answer is no.

"What is it about this tiny man that induces such irrationality?

"Answer: He is president of a nation that is a "state sponsor of terror," is seeking nuclear weapons, and is moving munitions to the Taliban and insurgents in Iraq.

"But Libya was a "state sponsor of terror," and Col. Ghadafi was responsible for Pan Am 103, the Lockerbie massacre of school kids coming home for Christmas. And President Bush secretly negotiated a renewal of relations in return for Ghadafi giving up his nuclear program and compensating the families of the victims of that atrocity. Has Ahmadinejad ever committed an act of terror like this?"

• ... but Nixon went to Moscow
• Nixon went to China to toast Mao
• Eisenhower met with Khrushchev
• Kennedy negotiated with Khrushchev over the Cuban missile crisis
  
• Holocaust deniers meet regularly here in the US
• but somehow Ahmadinejad, with no air force or navy to speak of, no nuclear weapons (Israel has 3,000 thermonuclear warheads and will pave the entire nation of Iran with glass - the product of sand melted by extreme heat - in a heartbeat if they feel threatened) ... somehow Ahmadinejad is a real major threat as far as the Republicans are concerned.

Read the rest here ...

My comment: Does this generation possess the gravitas to lead the world? The answer seems to be a resounding no and will continue to be as long as those who lead us do so by using fear, the demonization of the enemy-du-jour and dream of world domination through military might.

We have dealt with real threats in the past but we are no longer capable of doing so. We have lost our sense of proportion and perspective. We have become, under Republican Reich-wing leadership, a nation of little children who have become afraid of shadows on the wall. Over the last 65 years we've gone from the "Greatest Generation" to this ... and it looks like its downhill from here as far as being a light unto the world and a beacon of freedom. We have gone from the example to which every one aspired and become the vision of what no one wants to be. We have taken the good will from around the world, resulting from fostering peace through the Marshall Plan, the Peace Corps and a thousand-and-one humanitarian acts around the globe and squandered it ... and in seven short years, we've become the preemptive, rogue state we'd warned the world about for three generations.

I rarely agree with Pat Buchanan but this time around, I have to admit, he has a point.

What World War III May Look Like

Philip Giraldi on AntiWar

Neoconservatives are great observers of war and warriors, though they are sometimes not in complete agreement about the numbering of the conflicts that they send other people's sons and daughters to fight. Norman Podhoretz, the patriarch of the neocons, believes that the Cold War was World War III and that the U.S. is now fighting World War IV against "Islamofascism." He intends to expand World War IV by slating Iran as the next domino to fall to America's military might. Podhoretz undoubtedly sees the current global conflict as something that is good and necessary, both containable and winnable, but as his judgment on Iraq was fallible, his prediction of Iran's rapid destruction is also unreliable. It might be useful to imagine just how war with Iran could play out if the Iranians don't roll over and surrender at the first whiff of grapeshot.

It might start with a minor incident, possibly involving an American Marine patrol operating out of the new base at Badrah near the Iranian border. The Marines are surrounded by superior Iranian forces claiming that the Americans have strayed inside Iranian territory. The Marines refuse to surrender their weapons and instead open fire. The Iranians respond. Helicopter gunships are called in to support the Marines, and artillery fire is directed against Iranian military targets close to the border. President Bush calls the incident an act of war and, in an emotional speech to the nation, orders U.S. forces to attack. A hastily called meeting of the UN Security Council results in a 17-1 vote urging the United States to exercise restraint, with only Washington voting "no." In the UN General Assembly, only the U.S., Israel, Micronesia, and Costa Rica support the military action. The U.S. is effectively alone.

Read how it might play out here ...

60 Minutes Grills Ahmadinejad

I watched the 60 Minutes interview with Ahmadinejad this evening. It was a very probing interview. Scott Pelley asked direct questions and demanded direct answers. He refused to allow evasiveness pass without at least commenting on it.

Pelley: "Are you saying that it is not the policy of this government to send weapons into Iraq? Sir, forgive me, you're smiling, but this is a very serious matter to America,"

Ahmadinejad: "Well, it's serious for us as well. I daresay it's serious for everyone. It seems to me it's laughable for someone to turn a blind eye to the truth and accuse others. It doesn't help. And the reason that I'm smiling, again, it's because that the picture is so clear. But American officials refuse to see it."

Asked if he could very simply and directly say that Iran is not sending weapons to Iraq, Ahmadinejad said, "We don't need to do that. We are very much opposed to war and insecurity…"

Pelley: "Is that a 'No,' sir?"

"…by Iraq. It's very clear the situation. The insecurity in Iraq is detrimental to our interests," Ahmadinejad said.

Absolutely fine and well done. It was a good interview and it illuminated Ahmadinejad's thinking.

My question is this.

Why doesn't our press pursue answers with our own politicians in a similar manner? Why does our press accept what a demonstrable liar, like Bush, has to say without follow up or some indication that they notice the fellow is "tap dancing" around an issue?

How come out press is so much easier on our politicians where it really counts than it is in situations like the interview with Ahmadinejad, where the outcome can, at this point, be considered a foregone conclusion?

I'm not saying Ahmadinejad should not be pursued with vigor. I'm not saying that he shouldn't be pressed hard for straight answers. What I am saying is that, in order for us to maintain a free press, it is incumbent on our media to pursue our politicians with equal vigor, demanding equally straight answers.