We're Not Scaremongering...This is Really Happening

Title lyrics from Radiohead's "Idioteque."

The immortal Republican claim that the media apparatchik in the United States is some sort of liberal (in the US sense of the word) behemoth is so demonstrably false that it hardly bears rebuttal. This is not to say, as some do, that they are inherently Conservative (again, in the US lexicographical form). Rather, the failure of the US media is that they are entirely devoid of skepticism and the ability for critical thought processes.

Very rare is the moment when they even take a detour from the tabloid-driven drivel they typically spew forth at equally-uncritical viewers and readers, but when they do, reporting comes only in the form of blandly reporting who said or did what. Never is the veracity of these statements examined.

This method is wholly responsible for the drive to the war in Iraq in the 2002-2003 period, and, despite the hand-wringing and mea culpas in the interim, the American media is again willing to sell an unwitting public another war, this time in Iran. The script could not be any clearer. And, like Hollywood, when the government finds a formula that works, they throw creativity out the window.

Again the country is being treated to breathless front-page articles about a secret Iranian nuclear site. Just as with the Iraqi sale, we are shown pictures of buildings and must take at face value everything the government tells us they mean. Iran, of course, has declared that it is indeed a nuclear facility, but what does that mean? Without any evidence, we are told that we must assume that the site is weeks away from producing weapons-grade nuclear material. This despite the fact that not one ounce of intelligence has been produced which indicates Iran has any such ability.

Simply indicating that Iran has a nuclear facility is not a cause for war. They are entitled, by all treaties to which they are a party, to build and maintain nuclear-power facilities. Is it inconceivable that Iran would pursue nuclear weapons technology? Of course not. But one picture and bloviating does not make a sufficient case that they already have.

Even if they have, one is then forced to make the case that they are not, as a sovereign nation, allowed to pursue such ends. After all, every single one of the countries now engaging in the typical international demagoguery currently maintain vast arsenals of nuclear weapons. That Iran is not allowed to do the same is simply taken as granted, not even worth arguing. That Israel is none-too-subtle about threats to Iran is never addressed. It is just accepted that should Israel choose to attack Iran with nuclear weapons, Iran has no choice but to throw up their hands and accept their fate.

No other country on Earth spends as much money on war-making as the United States. No other country deals as many armaments as the United States. And no other country comes close in the number of fortresses on foreign soil. All this is ignored. In this current dystopian universe, the world's foremost warmongering country is still allowed to parade around the halls of the UN as a beacon of peace. This view is not anti-American, it's pro-reality.

And while Obama does his best Bush impersonation, his beating of the war drums is still too muted for the blood-thirsty press and opinion-makers. And the "liberal" press has re-assumed the role they play some handsomely, that of unquestioning sidekick for an imperial President.

Related posts:

Truth From Power April 20, 2008
Missile Defense: Rehabbing the Cold War July 13, 2008

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On Priorities

Updated below @ 1820, 9/29

The American political scene will never be accused of being held captive by perspective. When even something as basic as "which of these numbers is larger?" can't be harnessed by the blathering press and political leaders, one can hardly expect to find the ability for relative comparisons running rampant. Two disparate issues stand out for me as cases-in-point: election fraud vis Iran and Afghanistan, and the Defund ACORN Act.

Everyone knows about the election fraud in Iran. It was on every channel for nearly a month, demonstrating the journalistic acumen of the American media (re: Bringing you the news in 140 characters or less!), and proving once and for all Iranian leaders are the evilest of all evil-doers the world has ever seen. Granted, said leaders are not great ambassadors for democracy (no one would make such a claim), but the elections were in the news for a reason. The same reason the brutal Egyptian and Saudi regimes don't make the news.

Compare that coverage with that of electoral fraud in Afghanistan. It's okay if you haven't heard of it. Not many have. Why would you? The person accused of fraud is our guy. That's enough to keep him under wraps. If electoral shenanigans were mentioned, it was only to point out Taliban violence. CNN did not do wall-to-wall coverage on things like this:

The shaky footage shows two election monitors inspecting a book of 100 ballot papers that are still stitched together, as they were intended to arrive at the polling station in rural Afghanistan. But something is wrong; instead of being pristine, ready for the voter to make his or her mark, each paper bears a large blue tick next to the name of one candidate: Hamid Karzai.

As the monitors flick through the pad, the back of the ballots clearly show the authorisation stamp of election monitors, validating them as votes ready to be put in the ballot box and counted.

"We found it the day after the elections," one of the monitors in the footage told me. "They were trying to put it in one of the [ballot] boxes but didn't have time, so we took it home and filmed it. If we had given it back to the election committee they would have used it again, so we burned it, but filmed it to protect ourselves if they come and threaten us."

Or this:

The Afghan elections, already tainted by widespread accusations of misconduct and fraud, received another body blow Wednesday when the head of the European Union's election-monitoring commission said that as many as 1.1 million votes cast in the vote were "suspect."

The latest dark cloud over the Aug. 20 election came as Afghanistan's election commission released a preliminary vote tally Wednesday showing President Hamid Karzai with 54.6 percent of the votes cast – enough to avoid a runoff if the total stands up to one official recount already launched and to mounting doubts like those from the EU.

The EU's general depiction of fraud was bad enough. But even more damaging to the Western-backed government of President Karzai was the finding by Phillippe Morillon, head of the EU monitor, that more than one-third of the votes Mr. Karzai received in his reelection bid – 1.1 million of about 3 million votes for Karzai – could be fraudulent and must be investigated.

None of this minimizes Taliban violence, but it does clearly indicate that American views on the world are guided more by a commitment to its allies and stock assumptions than democracy, despite public claims. President Obama has parlayed his campaign speeches into an Afghanistan policy still riding the opinion of Afghanistan as the good war. Meanwhile, the world's beacon of democracy has attached itself to the falling star of a loose coalition of corrupt warlords, most of whom are politicians in name alone. Any lingering notion that the Afghan government holds its own people in any due regard would have fallen away if such fraud was reported with the same fervency as it was regarding Iran.

The furor surrounding ACORN is better covered, mainly because it fits the tabloid model of American journalism. ACORN has always been a target of Republicans, but who would have thought the end would come with a topic so dear to their hearts: prostitution. David Vitter is surely proud.

Consider the thought process here. The defunding act would have no chance were it not for two random ACORN staffers doling out some helpful information on how to get in the flesh business. Okay, but consider the implication here. If followed to its logical conclusion, this would mean that any company that had any employee commit a federal offense would soon be off the government roll. Like these companies, for instance.

While we await that action with baited breath, let's consider a few of these offenses which might rise a little higher on the immorality of the scale. Maybe electrocuting US soldiers.

And while the Pentagon has previously reported that 13 Americans have been electrocuted in Iraq, many more have been injured, some seriously, by shocks, according to the documents. A log compiled earlier this year at one building complex in Baghdad disclosed that soldiers complained of receiving electrical shocks in their living quarters on an almost daily basis.

One study called electrocution "the most urgent noncombat safety hazard for soldiers in Iraq." And what bastion of liberalism made such a claim? The US Army. Nearly every facility constructed in Iraq by KBR/Halliburton contained dangerous electrical wiring. But, rest assured, putting American soldiers in mortal danger has not hurt the company's bottom line. Nor has the fact that its employees engaged in the gang rape and imprisonment of a female employee.

Then there's Blackwater. In the past months, Blackwater's compound has been raided by the ATF for illegal weapons trafficking, been accused of tax evasion through offshore havens, employed young Iraqi girls for oral sex, and had employees indicted on manslaughter. Yet, 90 percent of its income continues to come from the government.

So let's not kid ourselves as to the magnitude of these crimes here. If the actions of random employees loses a organization government funding, it's only fair to ask when rampant corruption and misdeeds will have their day in the self-aggrandizing Congressional theater. The bill itself states that the organization must be involved in elections, but surely the Republicans leading the charge don't intend for us to consider funneling millions into campaign coffers fitting the bill. But occasionally we may have to accept English at face value, rather than waiting for the political/media filter to deliver it to us.


Update:

The US has decided that Karzai will remain president regardless of final results.

The White House has ended weeks of hesitation over how to respond to the Afghan election by accepting President Karzai as the winner despite evidence that up to 20 per cent of ballots cast may have been fraudulent.

Abandoning its previous policy of not prejudging investigations of vote rigging, the Obama Administration has conceded that Mr Karzai will be President for another five years on the basis that even if he were forced into a second round of voting he would almost certainly win it.

The decision will increase pressure on President Obama to justify further US troop deployments to Afghanistan to prop up a regime now regarded as systemically corrupt.

[...]

Mrs Clinton told Rangin Dadfar Spanta, the Afghan Foreign Minister, that...Mr Karzai would remain President even if investigations now under way cut his share of the first-round vote to below 50 per cent.

Better get something to wash that democracy down with, Afghanistan. It's a bit bitter.


Related:

Supporting the Troops Through No-Bid Contracts May 6, 2008
When You Were Here Before...Couldn't Look You in the Eye August 9, 2009

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Maliki May Attack Sunni Awakening Councils

One of the more significant factors in the tempering of violence coinciding with the US Surge has been the willingness of Sunnis in the Anbar province to accept money to stop fighting the Americans. While that tact has certainly aided the US, especially on the PR front, it has also created new problems, such as a well-armed block of Sunnis seen as a threat by the predominantly-Shiite government. Garreth Porter, writing for IPS, recounts several issues seen by Colin Kahl, a fellow at the Centre for a New American Security (which supports a long-term US presence in Iraq), during his recent trip to Iraq.

Kahl and the CNAS, as they support a long-term US presence, are put off by Maliki's growing confidence in his security forces and find that he is becoming harder to work with. I interpret that as he's become less receptive to unilateral US demands in the area of a long-term legal framework, which is sour news for the administration. Maliki's confidence has left him opposed to any SOFA without a specific withdrawal date, something the US is loathe to offer, choosing instead to play hardball, saying that without an agreement, the US forces would be pulled out at the turn of the year.

It's hard to fathom Bush following through on such a threat, but that negotiations have deteriorated to such a point is surprising. Most of the tension stems from the US's decision to put its lot in with the Sunnis in an effort to thwart Iranian influence in Iraq. The Iraqi government is overwhelmingly Shiite, and are not open to allowing the freshly-armed Sunnis into the ISF as promised.

Kahl said in the briefing that, of the 103,000 Sunnis belonging to those militias, the Iraqi government had promised to take into the security forces only about 16,000. But in fact, it has approved only 600 applicants thus far, according to Kahl, and most of those have turned out to be Shi’a rather than Sunni militiamen. [Which does nothing to dispel the prevailing notions of Sunnis that the Iraqi government is a Shiite-run militia. -Tim]

"There’s even some evidence that [al-Maliki] wants to start a fight with the Sons of Iraq," said Kahl. "Al-Maliki doesn’t believe he has to accommodate these people. He will only do it if we twist his arm to the breaking point."

Bush was entirely incapable of tempering the ISI's support of militants in Afghanistan, and there is no reason to suspect that his foreign policy has become any more in tune with reality or that he has any strategy up his sleeve for heading off such a conflict should it materialize. If Maliki did decide to go after the Sons of Iraq, the US would be in a position where it was forced to support the established government in a battle with a contingent it has armed and funded for over a year.

Kahl also noted that al Sadr has been drawing his Mahdi army down at the behest of the Iranians. As I noted before, the Iranians do have inroads into the Iraqi government through Shiite militias, but it's Badr and ISCI, not the Mahdi Army. Despite that reality, the US has focused almost entirely on al Sadr's forces. As such, the Iranians seem to be asking al Sadr to draw down so as to remove one of the major reasons for the US to stay in Iraq long-term. By eliminating a US bugaboo, the Iranians hope to see vacation by US forces without suffering any effect on their influence in the Iraqi government.

Kahl's concern are coming from his position in support of a long-term US presence, and cannot be construed as the ramblings of an anti-war hack as the Bush administration loves to do. These are real concerns about the reality on the ground in Iraq, a reality that the Bush administration uniformly fails to address in any of its rhetoric. Iran is serving as a stabilizing force -- for purely selfish motives, to be sure -- and al Maliki is threatening to attack the US's strongest block of allies. These are serious issues that need to be addressed as the deadline for a SOFA quickly approaches.


Related:

Fences Make Good Neighbors, April 11
Iraqi SOFA: Out on the Curb?, July 14

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Missile Defense: Rehabbing the Cold War

Apparently not content with starting a new Cold War with Iran and Islamist countries in general, the Bush administration is pushing hard for a reprise of the old Cold War through installation of a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. The inclusion of the term 'defense' of course is meant to obfuscate the reality that the sites will include missiles, and thus be fully capable of playing offense just as well.

The posturing began long ago, in Bush's first term, when Congress first established that it would do absolutely nothing to fulfill its Constitutional duties and allow the separation on powers to simply fade into the abyss. In December of 2001, in a move which telegraphed quite transparently the current maneuvers, Bush decided on his own to pull out of the US's 30-year commitment to the ABM treaty with Russia.

"Today I am giving formal notice to Russia that the United States of America is withdrawing from this almost 30-year-old treaty," Bush said in the White House Rose Garden. "I have concluded the ABM treaty hinders our government's ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks."

Under US Code, "treaties to which the United States is a party are equivalent in status to Federal legislation, forming part of what the Constitution calls ‘the supreme Law of the Land.’" So, in withdrawal from the ABM without congressional consultation, Bush was essentially unilaterally striking a law from the books, using his newfound (invented) status as President-at-war powers, which of course would eventually be used to justify everything from war without Congressional declaration to torture. Congress, though, was still in a conciliatory mood only months after the WTC collapse and not about to assert itself on a seemingly minor infraction.

Yet, as we have seen, the administration has out-maneuvered Congress at nearly every turn since, and the last week has begun to bear the fruit of the ABM withdrawal, leaving Russia is none too pleased.

"If the real deployment of an American strategic missile defense shield begins close to our borders, then we will be forced to react not with diplomatic methods, but with military-technical methods," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

In a world governed by principles of universality, US leaders would understand that their response should the roles be reversed would be similar. But, as we know, to suggest that the same rules that the US applies to other countries be applied in turn is sacrilege and anti-American. Not pro-logic or rational, but anti-American. It doesn't put too much of a strain on the imagination to consider what would happen if Russia, say, tried to install missiles on Cuba.

The stoking of the old Cold War flames returns us to the prevailing theory in American politics, namely, that all other countries should have a foreign policy that aims to support US interests rather than protecting their own. Thus, while Bush claims the Czech (and maybe Polish) shield is necessary to protect his own citizens, he declares it unfair for the Russians to see said shields as a threat to the security of their own people.

In the long run, the US is essentially in the process of doing whatever it can to provoke Iran into doing something stupid and provide the US-Israel alliance a justification for attack. All rhetoric aside, these actions still hide the fact that any uranium enrichment being undertaken in Iran is supervised by the IAEA, is legal under the terms of the NPT, and at a level 20 times too low for weaponization.

But, of course, this is all according to plan. By continuously stoking the embers of international animosity, the government is able to provide the populace with an outward enemy. An enemy which requires their quiet ceding of civil rights and provides an imperative of electing yet another administration which will continue down the same path. By directing attention outward, the government ensures that there are enough voters willing to vote against their own self-interests in November and accept quietly the assault on their freedom and pocketbooks.

Related:

US Steps Up Covert Action Against Iran, June 29
US Foreign Policy Principles, June 25

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Obama's Predictable Posturing as Centrist and the Shocked Libs in His Wake

To hear the Kossacks tell it, you'd think Barack Obama's Centrist pose was something shocking and wholly unexpected, rather than the flagrantly predicable product of the typical American campaign season. What the Koskeyites forget is that Obama knows he's already got them in his pocket, and he won't spend a minute of his general election campaign tending to that particular flock. And why should he?

American campaigns have never been about ideas, and this year's product offers nothing contradictory to that nature, despite the presence of the Orator-in-Chief and Maverick himself. McCain has spent the campaign trying to prove he's just as crazy as Bush, and Obama will spend the rest of it proving to middle class, white America he's just like them. If the Joneses get a flag pin, he'll wear a bigger one. If McCain wears a flag tie on Independence Day, Obama and Hillary will wear a matching flag blazer and pantsuit.

You see, Americans don't really care about ideas. Most Americans don't even care enough to inform themselves about anything at all that can't be found by reading US, Star, or watching TMZ. What the liberal blog denizens forget is that the opposition to the Iraq occupation isn't so prevalent because of opposition to war in general, it exists because the war turned out to be more difficult than it was supposed to be. Americans don't like long wars, but that doesn't mean they don't support sending 18-year-old men into foreign nations to teach them the ways of being a better country.

Americans don't want to hear about Shia and Sunni. Americans don't want to know that there are different factions within those delineations. That's complicated. What Americans want is an enemy. An 'other.' And, Obama, in his quest to get elected is not about to break tradition in the rush to give them one.

We will also use all elements of American power to pressure Iran. I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, everything.

What the left generally forgets is that Americans have a short memory. While the boys and girls at Kos hold out hope that the country has learned the lessons of Vietnam, Americans demonstrate quite readily that they have already lost the lessons in Iraq that are still ongoing.

American foreign policy should serve American interests, but what American can't fathom is that every other country's foreign policy doesn't do the same. It's inconceivable that the Iranians would foster relationships they found beneficial to their own interests rather than seek America's guidance. It baffles the US that Russia would have the gall to support Russian interests.

That is why, with a prescient example of the likely outcome of an attack on Iran still happening in Iraq, the public is still hungry for candidates tripping over themselves to prove their willingness to do the same in Iran. That is why, despite all available evidence to the contrary, Iran can still be discussed as a nuclear power, and a blockade of Iranian trade can be considered without the slightest concern of its impact on the Iranian population.

But foreign policy isn't the only arena in which Obama has shown himself to be par-for-the-course. Timed well with the coming holiday, he has donned his best Super-Patriot cape and trotted out the dual symbols of flag and Cross.

I believe those who attack America's flaws without acknowledging the singular greatness of our ideals, and their proven capacity to inspire a better world, do not truly understand America.

This statement seems innocuous enough, as some tend to see flaws in America without recognizing its positive qualities, but then it diverges into a Bushian worldview in which those ideals, instead of being admired, are thrust forcibly upon the rest of the world. Patriotism no longer means an appreciation of America, it means the militaristic imposition of that appreciation on the 'others.' In that regard, Obama proves himself no different than the current administration or the potential next administration of his rival.

Asking for America to back off dictating how Iraqis or Iranians should live is not unpatriotic. It's anti-imperialistic. Bushian rhetoric dictates that America has, rather than colonized, liberated Iraq, and that instead of forcing its view on Babylon it has merely presented them the opportunity to choose their own path. But looking beyond the rhetoric and into the reality paints an entirely different picture.

The status of forces agreement that infinitely-benevolent America planned to foist on the Iraqis was nothing more than a contract in which the Iraqis would sign over any potential sovereignty to the Americans. But a position which holds that the Iraqis should choose their own path is indeed very rare in America. When it does appear, it is is instantly denounced as anti-American, rather than pro Iraqi sovereignty.

Americans aren't tired of war. They're tired of wars that can't be won post haste. That makes them open to conjecture on Iran, and Obama proves he has the audacity to conform to that ideal in his quest for the Presidency. Encyclopedic knowledge of world affairs is cute, but it won't win the hearts and minds of Americans anytime soon. In the two-party buffoonery of American politics, he who wears the biggest lapel pin wins the race.

Watching the coverage of the Presidential campaign, it becomes clear that it is not about ideas, it's about building constituencies. That means pandering to the ones you don't have and ignoring the ones you do. Where the liberals blindsided by Barack's about-face are mistaken is in their belief that his posturing is somehow antithetical to the system we've built. It's not.

On the contrary, it is the very essence of American politics. Pick out a demographic, tell 'em what they want to hear, then move on to the next. Those that see that aspect of politics as the sham it is are still lost on how to resolve it. The solution never hinges on making significant changes to the system, but always on finding better politicians. But politics is a capitalistic exchange, and as long as there's a market for bullshit, there'll be rich lawyers willing to exploit it.

The system won't be changed by better politicians, and they certainly won't come from the current bi-polar universe. No, change will come when Americans take away the market for hollow rhetoric and empty platitudes.

I'm not holding my breath.

Related:

American Foreign Policy, June 25
Obama Would Retain Contractors, March 3
The Folly of Iranian Policy, May 19

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US Steps Up Covert Action Against Iran

With the aid of Congressional Democrats, the Bush administration has received funding for covert action within Iran, with the aim of gathering intelligence on its nuclear program and destabilizing the regime.

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.

In order to have funding diverted to the operations, the Executive branch must submit a Presidential Finding to the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House, Senate, and both Intelligence committees, which means that the Democratic leadership, while outwardly pretending to enforce the mandate given to it in the 2006 elections, have instead been complicit in allowing the brinksmanship to continue. This is part-and-parcel of the false foreign policy spectrum I detailed last week.

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.

The Bush administration going well beyond the scope of Congressional authorization is nothing new, as it remains committed to the idea, within the scope of the Unitary Executive theory, that there is absolutely nothing in the power of Congress to prevent the President from directing the military to do anything in the field. That the framers could not possibly have had that it mind when writing the Constitution should be evident, but nonetheless it is a tact the administration has taken since its inauguration. Taking the Unitary Executive to its logical conclusion, however, would stipulate that should the President direct US forces to assassinate a foreign official, it would acceptable despite the law against such actions.

In this instance, the Bush administration has claimed that any operations undertaken by the JSOC, rather than the CIA, need not be included in the Finding submitted to Congress, and is thus immune from any oversight or required approval. Again, there is nothing inherent in that principle which would prohibit the JSOC from carrying out assassinations or other illegal activities. Indeed, one Congressman sent a letter to President Bush insisting that lethal action was prohibited, but the White House has not seen fit to answer.

In order to bypass military officers who object to the preconceived objective of a war with Iran, the administration has created an atmosphere in which the decision-making for these operations is handed instead to civilians. Civilians, one would assume, more slaves to ideology than military pragmatism, making them obvious allies for Bush and Cheney.

The law cited by Sheehan is the 1986 Defense Reorganization Act, known as Goldwater-Nichols, which defined the chain of command: from the President to the Secretary of Defense, through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and on to the various combatant commanders, who were put in charge of all aspects of military operations, including joint training and logistics. That authority, the act stated, was not to be shared with other echelons of command. But the Bush Administration, as part of its global war on terror, instituted new policies that undercut regional commanders-in-chief; for example, it gave Special Operations teams, at military commands around the world, the highest priority in terms of securing support and equipment. The degradation of the traditional chain of command in the past few years has been a point of tension between the White House and the uniformed military.

“The coherence of military strategy is being eroded because of undue civilian influence and direction of nonconventional military operations,” [John] Sheehan [former commander of US Atlantic Command] said. “If you have small groups planning and conducting military operations outside the knowledge and control of the combatant commander, by default you can’t have a coherent military strategy. You end up with a disaster, like the reconstruction efforts in Iraq.”

The covert action within Iran is merely a continuation of two running themes: one, the Bush administration invoking Executive Privilege to engage in any action it wants, legality be damned, and two, the Democrats in Congress more than willing to offer no obstacles.

More than simply frustrating, the shear incompetence of the Democratic leadership to prevent any of the administration's efforts is a clear dereliction of duty. Bush likes to say that he listens to his commanders in the field, but the line of military officers opposing an attack of Iran is growing by the day, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and of course Admiral Fallon, who was forced out as commander of CENTCOM for his insolence on the issue.

Unlike the officers, though, Democrats in Congress control funding, and could put a halt to any of Bush's operations, but continue to be steamrolled by the fancy packaging and refuse to uphold the clear will of the voters, who overwhelmingly want the US out of Iraq and oppose a war with Iran.

Perhaps most glaring, though, is the large historical elephant in the room in the form of Afghanistan. We've seen the result of this kind of covert action before: the Taliban, al Qaeda, and the destruction of the World Trade Center. As part of the operations, the US is cooperating with Sunni dissident groups who, apart from being closely tied to al Qaeda--enemy number one--are believed to have "operated against American interests in the past."

The use of Baluchi elements, for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda,” Baer told me. “These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers—in this case, it’s Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we’re once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties.” Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is considered one of the leading planners of the September 11th attacks, are Baluchi Sunni fundamentalists.

Another fine friend is the Jundallah, described as "a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists" by Vali Nasr of Tufts University, who continues to suggest that the group has ties to both al Qaeda and the drug trade.

The US has also provided funds and intelligence to the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), a group which has been on the State Department's terrorist list for more than a decade. This relationship, by definition, makes the US a sponsor of terrorism. If the MEK are terrorists, and the US is sponsoring them, there is only one possible logical conclusion. So, while the US decries Iran's cross-border activity in Iraq, it continues to engage in its own meddling. Yet one is wrong and one is right? One doubts President Bush will call for the freezing of the assets flowing to that particular known terrorist group.

More likely than not, the real plan here is to provoke Iran into an action which would justify military activity within the short time Bush has in office. The likelihood of any of these groups achieving a regime change or destabilization they haven't in the past decade of trying is not large, but the chances of Iran finding signs of American weapons on any captured militants are not all that small. Such findings could invoke Iranian action, and deliver Cheney his war.

John Bolton has already floated the idea that Bush will attack if McCain loses the election, and it seems he is indeed laying the framework for what is sure to be yet another foreign policy disaster as we speak. History only serves as a lesson to those who pay attention to it.

Related:

North Korea contrasted with Iran, June 28
False choices in foreign policy, June 26
Ignoring history's lessons, May 19

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Appeasement in North Korea

When President Bush addressed members of the Knesset on May 15, he compared those that seek a diplomatic tact to foreign policy to Neville Chamberlain and Nazi appeasers.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Yet, a little more than a month later, Bush stood outside the White House to announce his administration's success in appeasing the third member of the 'Axis of Evil' regarding its nuclear ambitions.

First, I'm issuing a proclamation that lifts the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to North Korea.

And secondly, I am notifying Congress of my intent to rescind North Korea's designation as a state sponsor of terror in 45 days. The next 45 days will be an important period for North Korea to show its seriousness of its cooperation. We will work through the six-party talks to develop a comprehensive and rigorous verification protocol. And during this period, the United States will carefully observe North Korea's actions -- and act accordingly.

Only a political system in which party affiliation trumps logical consistency could such an agreement be met with any reaction other than indignation at the glaring hypocrisy. In addition to portraying the Democrats asking for discussions with Iran prior to bombing the Islamic republic as appeasers, Republicans have made a career of mocking the Clinton administration's negotiations with the very same North Korea in the mid-90s. Colin Powell was once forced to apologize for suggesting that the Clinton negotiations were a good start, although unsuccessful. One would be hard-pressed to find many differences between those two negotiations, but Stephen Hadley did his best to dissemble.

This has been a pretty ongoing process. Let me say a little bit about the -- this is the '94 framework agreement under the prior administration. I would say that was a good-faith effort to deal with this problem, and -- but it went awry. And unbeknownst to that administration, while they were moving forward under the framework agreement to deal with North Korea's plutonium program we discovered North Korea was pursuing a uranium enrichment program, which is one of two paths to get the nuclear material you need for a bomb, either through the plutonium path, uranium enrichment.

He continues to detail some of the differences between the negotiations, but in doing so admits that the efforts to negotiate were a good effort despite the fact that "the North Koreans did not want them to succeed." Such a statement, of course, is prefaced on the idea that this time around, the North Koreans have abandoned all attempts to obfuscate the true level of its cooperation, something any trace of cynicism would not allow.

The only safety net the Bush administration has given itself is the 45 days between now and Korea's removal from the state sponsor list, but one assumes that the sham republic could stay straight for a month and a half, regardless of its true intentions.

Even the recent declarations by North Korea, the impetus to the moves, fall well short of 'forthright' and 'open.' Besides coming six months after the December 31 deadline established last October, the declaration still fails to acknowledge Pyongyang's uranium enrichment program. This program was the same program that Hadley pointed to as part of the breakdown of the Clinton-era agreements, which should at least instill some caution regarding the most recent developments.

Regardless of the outcome, the looming question still remains. Namely, how can a President decry diplomacy in no uncertain terms in May and then blissfully detail the outcome of his own diplomacy in June? If his central suggestion in Israel was that agreements are often made disingenuously by one party, then there is nothing about his own concessions which suggest that same criterion does not apply, especially given the same party--North Korea--has shown a propensity for backing out of previous deals, deals which Bush's own administration has decried as failed diplomacy and "the false comfort of appeasement." The only difference I can discern? The 'R' next to the name.

Of course, not all administration officials were pleased with the developments, especially Diplomat-in-Chief Dick Cheney, a point which may have more import than a first glance would indicate. On Thursday's Countdown, former NSC staffer Hillary Mann Leverett floated the idea that apart from the concessions with North Korea, the Bush administration may have to make some within its own ranks.

Internally, inside the U.S. government, my concern is, that the—for lack of a better word, hard-liners epitomized, I think, by Vice President Cheney, they don‘t ever give away nothing, something for nothing.

I think in terms of their agreeing with this deal on North Korea today, we could very well see and my concern is, that we could very well see a more militaristic push on dealing with the Iranians.

In other words, despite pushing the North Korea deal as the successful end to diplomacy over militarism, the Bush administration will still pursue, possibly with even more force, a militaristic angle to Iran in a quid pro quo for its own officials. It can be safely assumed, I think, that this level of logical inconsistency will be met with limp credulity, as most hypocritical elements of American politics are.

There are stark differences, though, the most glaring of which being that North Korea actually possesses nuclear weapons capability while Iran does not. While the IAEA has expressed concern over the forthrightness of the Iranian regime, it has given no indication that it believes the Iranians are pursuing weaponization, despite claims to the contrary by surrogates and spokesman such as Sean Hannity, who apparently is privy to classified information no one else is. The most recent NIE released by the State Department declared that Iran hasn't been pursuing such a program for years, but such troubling realities can never be allowed to stand in the way of a good war.

Related:

Proof President Bush Has a Sense of Irony, June 7
Israel Engages in Appeasement, May 21

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Foreign Policy Redux

Earlier, I questioned the traditional narrative on national security, but there is more I'd like to delve into on the subject. Namely, the false diversity provided by the decrepit, doddering two-party political system of the United States.

One need only look at Barack Obama's suckling at the AIPAC teat to see the fallacy in full bloom.

Our alliance is based on shared interests and shared values. Those who threaten Israel threaten us. Israel always faced these threats on the front lines.

And I will bring to the White House an unshakable commitment to Israel's security. That starts with ensuring Israel's qualitative military advantage.

[...]

We will also use all elements of American power to pressure Iran. I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, everything.

Here we see false dichotomy in all its imperialist glory. There are only two acceptable positions in American foreign policy discussion: one, promise the obliteration of all who dare question the moral authority of the US, or, two, promise cursory discussions, concurrent sanctions which harm the innocent population more than the leaders, and then obliteration of said parties.

Any position which questions America's moral authority to dictate to the world what its obligations to America are, what its rights to pursue energy programs are, and with whom they may ally themselves is off the table entirely. Not only is any utterance of such thoughts quickly portrayed as radical, but aside from the occasional peep, the very existence of such a kooky theory is ignored entirely.

Only in this atmosphere could two parties which differ only on the specifics of America's right of dictatorial powers over the globe be presented as the opposite extremes of the rational thought spectrum. Even the Democrats' cursory nods to diplomacy are treated as cowardice, though any examination of Clinton's foreign policy would reveal that he was no stranger to bombing the rest of the world back into its rightful place.

We scoff at Robert Mugabe's claims to be divinely anointed to continue running Zimbabwe into the ground, but we cannot question in polite company the United States' right to allow some Middle Eastern nations to build nuclear arsenals, supplying them the technology and know-how along the way, while promising destruction to others. The only lesson that can be gleaned from the choice of which countries are worthy is that only friends of the US are allowed such transgressions. Consider Saudi Arabia, one of the most regressive, tyrannical regimes in contemporary times, yet provided by the US the tools to build a nuclear arsenal.

Iran, on the other hand, is no friend of the US, and it thus becomes implied with nary a second thought that they will be wiped out before even a hint of their developing weapons becomes available. Bear in mind that for all the bluster of Bush, McCain, and Presidential-candidate-version Obama, there has not been one inspection or intelligence paper which suggests that Iran is capable of weaponizing uranium. It is this unquestioned moral authority which allows the discussion over attacking Iran to proceed with the proof of its errant nature only five years in the rear-view mirror to proceed without guttural laughter.

The case of Saudi Arabia has more parallels to that of Iran than it may seem at first glance. Before the revolution in 1979, the US was in the process of a similar agreement with the US-allied Shah. Given more time, the possibility remains that the change of power could have occurred after the acquisition of a working nuclear program in Iran which would have then been in the hands of the ayatollahs. Yet 30 years later, the US is prepared again to assume that the current regime in Saudi Arabia will always be in power and a friend of the US, and it is not the least bit concerned that the nuclear program it denies others as if it has the right but provides to the Eden of terrorism will never change hands to an overt enemy. McCain has spoken of a League of Democracies, but one imagines his commitment to that ideal would not extend to the House of Saud.

The November election, then, provides the voters with the false choice of just how many months down the road they want an unprovoked attack on Iran to happen. The question of 'if' will not be addressed, only the duration of the run-up to zero hour. What voters will not see on the ballot is a checkbox which offers a foreign policy that allows the citizens of other countries which have not attacked us, and do not currently possess the capability to do so, to live free from the fear of US humanitarianism. Americans love the idea of humanitarian intervention, which is why the invasion of Iraq was portrayed as such, but to the denizens of the Middle East, bombs dropped in the name of goodwill explode just the same.

Related:

The Fallacious Nature of Conventional Wisdom on National Security, June 25
Changing the Rules of the Game, April 1

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Maliki Assures Iran SOFA Not a Threat

Despite of the image propagated by the Bush administration and its media stenographers, the Iraq-Iran relationship is a mutual alliance and not merely one-sided meddling, with Iran aiding assorted rabble allied against the US occupation. It is little surprise, then, that Nouri al Maliki traveled to Tehran this week to assuage Iranian fears of a permanent US presence in Iraq spurred by news of the looming status of forces agreement.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pushed Iran on Sunday to back off its fierce opposition to a U.S.-Iraqi security pact, promising Iranian leaders that Iraq will not be a launching pad for any attack on their country.

The agreement has become a center of contention as Baghdad tries to balance its close ties to Washington and Tehran. Iran fiercely opposes the deal, fearing it will lead to permanent U.S bases on its doorstep in Iraq amid fears of an eventual American attack.

The Iranian fears seem well-founded if current events are any guide, especially given that the proposed SOFA includes freedom of movement for US forces both within Iraq and across its borders. Neither would require the knowledge or consent of the sovereign-in-name-only Iraqi government. It is ludicrous to believe that the US, in the event of an attack on Iran, would hesitate to use some of its 50-base windfall as a launching pad.

The question, then, becomes how can Maliki make any such guarantee to the Iranians? The Bush administration has been eerily silent on the meetings, and the promise. Ostensibly, by refusing to ever acknowledge the cozy relationship between Maliki and Ahmadinejad it can continue to play up the 'special groups' angle, despite its demonstrably farcical premise. If the SOFA were signed 'as is,' Maliki would be helpless in backing up his promise, leaving a parliamentary opposition strong enough to elicit major changes in the terms.

Maliki, however, must side with Washington while still appearing to protect Iraqi sovereignty, a task becoming more difficult daily as his Da'wa Party frays beneath him. Former Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has formed a splinter group, taking MPs with him along the way. Together, they are forming a broad nationalist coalition which will virulently oppose any deal with permanent US bases or freedom of operations for US forces.

Whatever his ability to follow through, Maliki's commitment to Iran is in stark contrast to the picture painted by President Bush.

"Iraq, today, does not represent a threat as it was during the former regime because it has become a constitutional country based on the rule of law," a statement released by his Baghdad office quoted him as saying.

"Iraq is working on developing its relations with the countries of the region on the basis of mutual understanding and cooperation," it added.

[...]

Al-Maliki also appeared to signal that Tehran would not be squeezed out by any agreement, saying Iraq's "development and stability will be provided through more bilateral cooperation" with Iran.

For its part, the US again illustrates a brilliant lack of foreign policy comprehension, unwilling to accept that Iraqis would disapprove of a deal making their country a playground for Americans devoid of Iranian influence.

U.S. officials increasingly see the criticism against the security deal as driven by Iran — particularly through al-Sadr.

"The U.S.-Iraqi negotiations (on the pact) concern the American and the Iraqi sides. As we have noticed, the Iranian contribution again is not positive regarding this," U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo told journalists Sunday in Baghdad.

While Sadr surely opposes the relationship, Maliki allies (or non-enemies, maybe) al Sistani and al Hakim have spoken out as well. IHT also reports that the Iraqi National Security Council rejected several drafts of the agreement because of blatant infringements on Iraqi sovereignty. To paint Iran as the only catalyst for opposition fits only one purpose, and it's not "description of reality."

The US has thus far engaged in a little willful ignorance on the role of Iran. By refusing to acknowledge the close relationship with the Maliki government, it can continue to play up the destructive aspects and meddling. But eventually, the reality of the Iraq-Iran ties will have to figure in to foreign policy calculations.

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The Iranian Answer to Ahmed Chalabi Plays the Pentagon

Lost amidst the yawns greeting the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on pre-war intelligence [Is it news, anymore?] was the supplemental report on the 2001 visit between Americans and Iranian exiles in Rome, in which the US solicited yet more faulty intelligence from previously-debunked exiles.

Defense Department counterintelligence investigators suspected that Iranian exiles who provided dubious intelligence on Iraq and Iran to a small group of Pentagon officials might have "been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service ... to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government," a Senate Intelligence Committee report said Thursday.

A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials' activities after only a month, and the Defense Department's top brass never followed up on the investigators' recommendation for a more thorough investigation, the Senate report said.

The revelation raises questions about whether Iran may have used a small cabal of officials in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney's office to feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator.

Much as Ahmad Chalabi sold his bill of goods to eager and unwitting Bush officials like Doug Feith long after the CIA declared him an unreliable charlatan, US officials eager to depose Saddam and topple the Iranian regime eagerly soaked up faulty intelligence from Iranian exile Manucher Ghorbanifar.

Ghorbanifar, who was a middle man in the Iran-Contra dealings, was labeled a 'fabricator' by the CIA in 1984 in a notice which said Ghorbanifar "should be regarded as an intelligence fabricator and a nuisance. Any future approaches by subject...should...not be taken seriously." [SIC, pg 5] The situation mirrors that with Chalabi, whereas an exile who's been long regarded as unreliable continued to be welcomed, and paid well, by hawks in and out of the administration who were fixing the intelligence around the preordained end, rather than setting the end goal based on reliable intelligence.

Among the three members of the US party were Larry Franklin, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to passing classified information to AIPAC, Michael Ledeen, employed by the American Enterprise Institute and traveling as a citizen, and Harold Rhode, personally charged with "purging the DoD of anyone opposing the anti-Iraq policy." Surrounding Franklin's conviction, the Pentagon released a statement indicating that Franklin, in spite of the accusations, never influence Middle East policy and was thus not a liability. The Rome visits, however, belie that claim outright.

Returning to McClatchy:

The Senate committee also found that Pentagon officials concealed the contacts with Ghorbanifar from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department. Pentagon officials also provided Senate investigators with an inaccurate account of events and, with support from two unnamed officials in Cheney's office, continued meeting with Ghorbanifar after contact with him was officially ordered to stop.

Again, the Defense Department, and Feith's Office of Special Plans, was soliciting dubious intelligence from exiles, but had to conceal that it was doing so because it knew that the other US intelligence agencies would not accept any intelligence culled from meetings with Ghorbanifar as reliable. There is only one explanation for continually seeking the consult of long-debunked sources, and that is because the US team knew what they were getting. As Chalabi and Ghorbanifar supplied the stories the OSP wanted to hear, there was little concern for veracity.

Indeed, when other agencies learned of the meetings, they were none too pleased:

When the CIA and the State Department discovered that Ledeen and Ghorbanifar were involved, they opposed any further contact with the two. Ledeen's contacts, the Defense Human Intelligence Service concluded, were "nefarious and unreliable," the Senate committee reported.

On the surface, the Iranian exiles were concerned with the toppling of the Iranian regime [including a curious--and expensive--plan for a regime-crushing traffic jam], but Ledeen's association with Ghorbanifar "was widely known, and therefore it should be presumed other foreign intelligence services, including those of Iran, would know." As Iran has been the biggest strategic beneficiary of the Iraq invasion, it is not inconceivable that information could have been peddled by Iranian intelligence covertly in order to expedite the toppling of their arch-nemesis, Saddam Hussein. The animosity between Saddam and Iran seemed invisible to the OSP, however:

According to the report, Ledeen, however, persisted, presenting then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith with a new 100-day plan to provide, among other things, evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that supposedly had been moved to Iran — Saddam Hussein's archenemy.

Again Ledeen is providing a plan for the evidence he will supposedly find, rather than finding evidence and reaching a conclusion based upon it.

The Rome meetings illustrate a contradiction to the running narrative of those on the defensive over pre-war intelligence. People such as John McCain are fond of saying that, while faulty, the intelligence available at the time all told the same story and was without conflict. The reports released today tell a much different story. Aside from the shading of intelligence to fit preordained conclusions, the Bush administration actively sought the council of sources long known as "nefarious and unreliable."

That the reliability of the sources was of no concern to the DoD is perhaps one of the clearest indications of the reverse relationship between intelligence and conclusions in the years prior to the invasion of Iraq.

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Have You No Sense of History, Sir?

Now that the initial furor over President Bush's recent 'appeasement' remarks in Israel has died down a bit, perhaps a rational spin can be put on it. Accepting President Bush's remarks as accurate for a moment, it becomes necessary to map out an alternative to talking with Iran which will elicit the desired results. It is easy to bluster about the folly of conversation, but is inevitably hollow without a suitable plan with which to substitute it.

One alternative, and the one on which the administration seems most keen, is regime change by force. One need not gaze too far back into the abyss of history to imagine how that scenario might play out. In fact, only as far as the present day. It would be quite a feat for anyone to offer compelling evidence why any future conditions in Iran after invasion would vary substantially from those of present-day Iraq. Especially if Iran is seen as the main purveyor of unrest in Iraq. The validity of the previous sentence is immaterial to the point, since those that would invade Iran believe it fully, and, as such, must apply it to their reasoning.

Another alternative, offered by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, is the tried-and-true method of economic sanctions and forced isolation. Again, Iraq need be the only model here. Economic sanctions there surely hampered Saddam's military capacity, but also deprived the general population of much more. The thought that if faced with a slighter influx of cash, a despotic regime will allow itself to be deprived in equal proportion with its subjects is farcical.

But what Morris and McGann see is not a slow bleed, but a regime change from within:

Without subsidies, the Iranian people, half of whom are under 30 and only 40 percent of whom are ethnically Farsi, will become restive and resentful. Already, many complain that Ahmadinejad’s policies have led to global isolation of Iran and stymied economic growth and social upward mobility. While opinion surveys in Iran indicate that the people support the nuclear aspirations of the regime, they are not willing to pay a price of international isolation.

If a President Obama were to meet with President Ahmadinejad, it would send a signal to the Iranian people that they are not isolated but that the rest of the world has come to respect them and to have to deal with them. The leading argument for toppling the current regime will have been fatally undermined.

The authors seem here to be engaging in willful ignorance both of the mechanics of tyranny and the datum of history. Sanctions and isolation surely bred resentment in Saddam's Iraq, but part was surely directed outward (UN/US), and that which was directed inward was ineffectual (such is the case in tyranny). 12 years of wishing for regime change and starving (with the help of a corrupt dictator, to be sure) Iraqi children through sanctions didn't effect the end sought in Iraq. Why should it be any different in Iran?

Morris and McGann make two other common mistakes: First, they assign to the Iranian population all the traits of Ahmadinejad, and treat them as one in the same. Second, they assume that the power to lead Iran lies with Ahmadinejad when, in fact, it lies with the Supreme Ayatollah, Ali Khamenei.

The West's fight with Ahmadinejad is not a battle with a Hitler or Stalin, both of whom held absolute power and control of a sizable military apparatus. Ahmadinejad is more like the bully's scrawny friend who gets to taunt the bully's prey only while in his orbit. Ahmadinejad, apart from not being the supreme lawmaker of Iran, is not even the commander-in-chief of the Iranian forces.

But it is because of his provocative remarks, like denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, that the United States and Europe have never known quite how to handle the firebrand president, say politicians, officials and experts in Iran.

In demonizing Ahmadinejad, they say, the West has served him well, elevating his status at home and across the region at a time when he is increasingly isolated politically because of his go-it-alone style and ineffective economic policies.

Like Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad has been propelled to cult status precisely because of, and not in spite of, the West's constant denunciations and focus. I am not suggesting for a moment that the man is anything less than a buffoon, but some perspective is needed on his real place within Iran's power structure.

One can debate whether to talk with leaders like the Iranian charlatan or give them the cold shoulder. What is irrational and illogical, though, is to suppose--as Morris and McGann have--that the history of but 5 years ago will not serve as a guide.

The lesson of history can be taken in the first. Or it can be learned upon repetition. The US seems to be aiming at the latter.

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This Time We Mean It. Really.

As a parent counts to three using a series of inane fractions, so has the United States government dealt with the Iraqi exile and charlatan, Ahmed Chalabi. McClatchy reports that the US has again cut ties with one of the men most responsible for war in Iraq and the concomitant faulty intelligence.

The U.S. decision...is the fourth time that the U.S. has ended an alliance with Chalabi, whom officials in the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office once touted as a successor to Saddam Hussein. The State Department and U.S. intelligence agencies, however, have long regarded Chalabi as untrustworthy and a "charlatan."

Ahmed Chalabi began working with the US in the late 80s in fits and starts, but rose to prominence following the first Gulf War. At that time, he was being paid by the CIA, but that agency cut him off in 1995 after it became clear to them that he was selling fraudulent goods. Despite being known by US Intelligence as a source of false information, Chalabi used his friends in Congress to convince the State Department to pick up his tab, and he continued to fight to depose Saddam Hussein.

Perhaps no single person is more responsible for building the case for invasion than Chalabi. And certainly no one intentionally provided more false information to the government and journalists, most famously Judith Miller. This false information ranged from WMD caches to phantom ties to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Chalabi wanted Hussein gone, and wasn't the slightest bit concerned with the means, so long as he got the end he wanted.

Aram Roston, author of "The Man Who Pushed America to War," spoke to Amy Goodman in March and detailed how Chalabi got his false information into America's stream of consciousness:

No, exactly. It was—it’s all a slew of journals and a slew of television programs, but each one typically would get a piece of the pie that he was producing, a piece of the product of what ended up being phony propaganda that the Iraqi National Congress was coming up with. And they had a very elaborate system set in place to get these stories in the press and into the intelligence stream.

They weren’t very successful getting these stories into the intelligence stream. And what I found was they were most successful after the attacks of 9/11. People were very—they wanted stories about terror and about Saddam Hussein, about weapons of mass destruction. So Chalabi’s group became very successful at planting these stories. They weren’t that successful, it seems, in getting it into the CIA, because the CIA at that point didn’t trust a word that Chalabi’s group said. But they were much more successful in impacting public opinion. And that had an immense impact, obviously, on America.

Essentially, Chalabi was very good at running a propaganda campaign utilizing a cabal of journalist dupes and a credulous American public. The Bush administration, for its part, was all too happy to stoke the fire. But that the CIA didn't want any part of the intelligence speaks volumes about the run-up to the war. When the central agency for gathering foreign intelligence knows it's being sold rotten fruit, the policy makers and opinion shapers should have looked twice before biting down.

From a March, 2004, McClatchy article:

Feeding the information to the news media, as well as to selected administration officials and members of Congress, helped foster an impression that there were multiple sources of intelligence on Iraq's illicit weapons programs and links to bin Laden.

In fact, many of the allegations came from the same half-dozen defectors, weren't confirmed by other intelligence and were hotly disputed by intelligence professionals at the CIA, the Defense Department and the State Department.

Nevertheless, U.S. officials and others who supported a pre-emptive invasion quoted the allegations in statements and interviews without running afoul of restrictions on classified information or doubts about the defectors' reliability.

Aside from the now-obviously lack of truth to his intelligence, Chalabi has a long history of fraud and embezzlement.

Chalabi, who lives in London, fled Jordan in 1989 after his Petra Bank collapsed and was convicted in absentia three years later for embezzlement. [...]

Earlier this year, the State Department threatened to cut off the INC's funding for information programs and other nonmilitary activities after an audit turned up expenditures that were deemed questionable or were unaccounted for.

The inspector general's audit of $4.3 million in grants mostly criticized the group's accounting and payroll procedures. But it also found questionable expenses, including $2,070 for a gym membership, $5,541 for legal fees related to a rental dispute and other money used for first-class plane tickets.

The audit also suggests the INC may have used taxpayers' money to lobby in Washington, which is illegal.

The funding continued, however, illustrating a recurring theme. Chalibi, having been convicted of embezzlement and cut-off by the CIA for providing faulty intelligence, continued to misuse tax dollars with relative impunity. He would receive several threats, always to have his funding restored in the end. He would be similarly 'cut-off' in 2004, this week [which, of course, is unresolved,] and intermittently in between.

So, given that it is now indisputable that Chalabi was selling faulty goods, the only question remaining is whether the administration was simply mislead in good faith, or bought into intelligence they should have knownn was bad from the start. The former is a favorite line of defense for supporters of the invasion, but the theory doesn't hold water.

As far back as the mid-90s, the CIA knew Chalabi's story. When the Central Intelligence Agency doesn't trust the intelligence, you might want to get a second opinion before spouting it out in knee-jerk fashion.

Also, in October 2002, it was clear to many that there was plenty of dispute over the veracity of Chalabi's claims.

The Pentagon and the CIA are waging a bitter feud over secret intelligence that is being used to shape U.S. policy toward Iraq, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The dispute has been fueled by the creation within the Pentagon of a special unit that provides senior policymakers with alternate assessments of Iraq intelligence.

[...]

A major source of contention is the Pentagon's heavy reliance on data supplied by the Iraqi National Congress. The INC, the largest group within the divided Iraqi opposition, has a mixed reputation in Washington and a huge stake in whether President Bush makes good on his threat to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam by force. Its leader, Ahmed Chalabi, sees himself as a potential successor.

[...]

It is not clear whether the Pentagon solicits the views of the U.S. intelligence community on the material it collects directly from the Iraqi opposition.

A senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed grave fears that civilian officials in the Pentagon may be blindly accepting assertions by Chalabi and his aides that a U.S. invasion would trigger mass defections of Iraqi troops and a quick collapse of Iraqi resistance.

"Our guys working this area for a living all believe Chalabi and all those guys in their Bond Street suits are charlatans. To take them for a source of anything except a fantasy trip would be a real stretch," one official said.

The special unit within the Pentagon was Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans, now known as a farcical cherry-picking operation based, not on gathering intelligence, but on manufacturing a case for war.

To claim that there was insufficient evidence as to the shaky foundation upon which the case for war was built prior to invasion is to ignore the facts. Chalabi was long known as a snake-oil salesman, and it was his un-verified intelligence that provided the crux of the case. Lifelong intelligence officers were pleading with the administration to take his information lightly, but the suits who wanted war were hearing none of it.

All of this information was available before the war. Feith and his cohorts can revise history all they want, but the evidence is there.

If Chalabi had two strikes for misusing funds and selling false information, then strike three comes from his dealings with Iran.

Roston:

Well, the Iranian group that is charged by Iran with exporting...the Islamic revolution is called the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards. And...the man who runs their operations in Iraq now, and did before the war, is a general named Ahmed Foruzandeh. And Ahmed Foruzandeh is considered a very talented intelligence officer, and he’s very good at covert operations for the Iranians, and he’s very committed, he’s very sophisticated, and he’s no joke. And it’s certainly true that Chalabi had met with him before the war, before the US invasion.

What concerned American intelligence officers was when they found out—they believed he was meeting—he had met with him after the invasion, while the DIA was still funding the Iraqi National Congress’s intelligence operations in Iraq. It would have been in the spring of 2004. And they had serious concerns about that.

Now, more recently, Ahmed Foruzandeh, this man I mention in the book, he’s been named by the US government itself publicly as supporting terror, supporting insurgency. He’s been designated by the Treasury Department under an executive order as a real threat to efforts in Iraq.

Passing US intelligence to Iran:

The U.S. government has launched an investigation to determine how Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi obtained highly classified American intelligence that was then passed to Iran, Bush administration officials said Friday.

A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity, said the compromised intelligence was "highly classified and damaging."

Chalabi's most recent ouster comes as "U.S. military and intelligence officials said Chalabi is close to Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force." Suleimani, you may recall, brokered the cease-fire in Basra in March, and is also a proud member of the US terrorist watch list.

It is hard to imagine any single person who has done more harm to the United States as an outsider. Chalabi has pilfered money from tax payers to provide incredible, false intelligence claims that led the nation into a drawn-out, destructive occupation. Concurrently, he is negotiating and dealing intelligence secrets to Iran, our next target and current replacement for the USSR. Not only should Chalabi not be receiving US funds, he should be in a prison somewhere. Maybe he can be extradited to Jordan for his prior conviction, I hear they treat their prisoners real nice.

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Iran Continues to Confound the US

With Afghanistan and Iraq vanquished, along with their stability, US attention has turned to Iran as enemy number one. Nevermind that North Korea actually possesses nuclear weapon capability, war must be perpetuated to prevent Iran from gaining even a sniff of such a disaster.

As noted before, the US loves to portray Iran as a purely destructive force in Iraq, funding only those militias the US isn't allied with, negotiating with only those the US doesn't want to know about. That stance is not only oversimplification, but demonstrably false.

In fact, the US and Iran occasionally find themselves on the same side of a fight, as was the case in Basra.

The causes of this convergence boil down to the logic of self-interest, although it is logic in a place where even the most basic reasoning refuses to go in a straight line. In essence, though, the calculation by the United States is that it must back the government it helped to create and take the steps needed to protect American troops and civilian officials.

Iranian motivations appear to hinge on the possibility that Mr. Sadr’s political and military followers could gain power in provincial elections this fall, and disrupt the creation of a semi autonomous region in the south that the Iranians see as beneficial.

An Iranian interest in a large Shiite swath across the region--from Iran to Lebanon--is not a secret, and the Mahdi army threatens that goal more than a US-allied Badr Brigade does, whether or not Admiral Mullen and President Bush want to admit it. Muqtada al Sadr is above all an Iraqi nationalist and one of the few Iraqi leaders who remained in Iraq throughout Saddam Hussein's rule. al Sadr would be as opposed to the subjugation of Iraq to Iran as the US.

Of course, this is not to suggest that he won't accept any free funding Iran wants to send his way, or that his idea of an independent Iraq merges at any point with the United States' idea.

But, with provincial elections coming in October, it is in Iran's interest to see as many members of the ISCI, of which the Badr Brigade is part, elected in lieu of members of Sadr's political faction as possible.

When it comes to which Shiite leader Iran and the United States want to see in power, at least for now they largely see Mr. Sadr’s ascendance as a common threat — nowhere more so than in Basra, the oil-rich capital of Iraq’s most populous region, the Shiite south.

Fred Kaplan at Slate:

It is now clear that the Badr Organization's ties to Iran are not merely as close as Sadr's; they are much closer. In fact, as the Times reports, Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, expressed full support for Maliki's offensive in Basra and denounced Sadr's fighters as "outlaws."

Why Iran would support an offensive portrayed in the US as a fight against both al Sadr and Iran is less vague to anyone keeping realistic tabs on foreign affairs independent of the tale spun by the Bush administration.

...in the end the geopolitical calculus of the United States and Iran has to do with what kind of Shiite government they want in control.

The party that Iran and the United States are backing, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq [ISCI], is a bitter rival of Mr. Sadr’s political movement and has managed to play to the interests of both countries. Under Iraq’s Constitution, provinces can form regions with considerable independence from Baghdad. The Supreme Council advocates a large, semi autonomous region in the south, similar to Kurdistan in the north, made up of the nine southern provinces. And because many of the council’s leaders lived in exile in Iran during the rule of Saddam Hussein, Iran has political ties to the group.

Coupled with Iran’s shared Shiite heritage, such a region would amplify Iran’s influence over the oil-rich area.

The recent crack-down on the Mahdi Army and the upcoming provincial elections cannot be divorced in any realistic assessment of the political environment of Iraq:

During the elections in 2005, Mr. Sadr’s supporters did not vote in most southern provinces, so despite having grass-roots support they were not represented in local governments.

But the Supreme Council encouraged its followers to go to the polls, and they dominated even in places where their supporters made up a comparatively small percentage of the electorate. If Mr. Sadr’s movement participates in the next elections, scheduled for October, they are sure to fare better than they did when they did not field candidates, and the Supreme Council is likely to lose some of its power.

All this illustrates that the battle of southern Iraq is more an intra-Shiite power play, with the ISCI reluctant to give up any of its influence, than a simplified battle of good versus evil.

Control of the southern region brings with it control of Iraqi oil. So, in effect, by backing the ISCI the US is placing a Iranian-allied Shiite political party in essentially-autonomous control of Iraq's oil-exporting functions. As far as geopolitical strife is responsible for a good portion of oil prices, the situation being fostered in Basra and the surrounding region cannot help.

With Iranian-backed Hezbollah exerting its influence in Lebanon, the Iranian-backed ISCI exerting control over southern Iraq--and Iranian-friendly Syria in between--it becomes exceedingly clear that the US invasion of Iraq was the greatest strategic windfall to befall Iran in decades.

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Fences Make Good Neighbors

One of the prevailing themes to this week's Capitol Hill testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker was an increase in rhetoric bemoaning the influence of Iran in the Iraqi occupation. While I don't see any chance Bush gets away with starting an active conflict with Iran in the next nine months, nothing will prevent him from escalating the verbal conflict.

That said, in the theatrical framework we've become accustomed to in hearings such as the ones held this week, Iran in the abstract can be bandied about as nemesis without any real exploration into just what that influence entails. Or, for that matter, how it is that hundreds of people all started saying 'special groups' on the same day. Was 'freedom haters' taken? I didn't get the memo.

That Iran wants to increase its influence in the region can pretty much be accepted without argument. It's how the Shiite theocracy is going about it that seems to be a source of confusion for some.

There seems, among supporters of prolonged occupation, a belief that the only way for Iran to garner influence in its neighbor to the West is by funding Shiite militias. Well, scratch that. Shiite militias who object to the American presence. That Iran provides assistance and support to all of the various Shiite militias--whether they are allied with the Maliki government or not--seems a fact either too cumbersome or too incongruent with the reigning narrative to lend much credence to.

To believe that, though, one must be of the assumption that Iran, having surveyed the landscape, has decided that the best way to ensconce itself in the Iraqi reality is to ally itself most closely with the Shiite militias opposed to the government, choosing them over those militias allied with al Maliki. Common sense dictates that logic is somewhat backward.

Iran has plenty of access to the Iraqi government itself. Why, then, would a distraction of resources among less-productive alliances be beneficial? While Iran is no doubt aiding al Sadr, there is no reason to believe that this is done to the exclusion of relationships with other, better-connected groups.

Consider this CBS News report from Christmas, 2006:

U.S. troops in Iraq detained at least two Iranians and released two others who had diplomatic immunity in an exercise the White House says may support its charge that Iran is helping fuel the insurgency there.

Two of those detained were visiting as guests of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, his spokesman said.

"We suspect this event validates our claims about Iranian meddling, but we want to finish our investigation of the detained Iranians before characterizing their activities," White House spokesman Alex Conant said Monday.

[...]

The New York Times reported Monday that U.S. forces were holding four Iranians, including some seized at the compound of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the largest Shiite bloc in Iraq's parliament, who met with President Bush earlier this month at the White House.[...]

Hakim is not only one of Iraq's leading Shiites,...he is often thought of as an alternative to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki if al-Maliki proves unable to control the violence.

Okay, so it proves the contention that Iran is meddling, but in this case as a guest of the President. Or the leader of the ISCI. Both of which are presumed American allies, not a nefarious splinter group or marginalized radical. This is not to point to an exclusion of that influence, but rather to illustrate the existence aid to US allies as well.

It is beyond doubt at this point that the seminal event in the expansion of Iranian influence in the region was the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime. Saddam was just as much a thorn in the side of the Iranians as he was to the US, a check on their power and a geographical buffer between Syria and Iran. With Hussein out of the way, the US virtually guaranteed a Shiite-led government sympathetic to the Iranians and paved the way for a Shiite swath across the midsection of the Middle East.

Clearly there is a crossing of signals between US policy makers and the leadership of Iraq. John McCain recently said that a 'successful' Iraq would be an 'enemy of Iran.' This thought process offers so little in the way of reason it's astounding. First, for a struggling, inefficient, and weak nation such as Iraq to start making enemies with its neighbor right out of the gate would be ludicrous and suicidal. Second, the Iraqi and Iranian leadership are natural allies. Most of the current leaders of Iraq spent their time in exile under Saddam in Iran. That the Iraqi leadership doesn't acquire the US animosity toward Iran simply as quid pro quo for greasing the tracks to their positions of authority is no surprise, nor should such a relationship be expected.

Remarking at Ahmadinejad's March 2 visit:

"I think that the level of trust is very high," Maliki said. "And I say frankly that the position Iran has taken recently was very helpful in bringing back security and stability."

Again, this argument speaks not to Iran as a constructive player on the world stage, only the relationship between the neighboring countries.

The New American:

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Baghdad on March 2 on an historic trip to Iraq, the first ever for an Iranian president. Iraq’s political and religious leaders greeted him with great fanfare, laying out red carpets and having military bands play for him. Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani fondly asked Ahmadinejad to call him “Uncle Jalal.”

Ahmadinejad also held meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, and Shiite religious leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, chairman of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council.

Perhaps nothing exemplifies the myriad allegiances of Iran more than the al Hakim-led ISCI and its military arm, the Badr Brigade.

From Globalsecurity.org:

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shi'i resistance group also known as the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), was formed in Iran in 1982 to provide an opposition to Iraqi aggression against Iran. Following the Iran-Iraq war, the organization continued to operate with the aim of toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein. SCIRI was directly supported with funds by Tehran and with arms by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard. The movement advocated theocratic rule for Iraq and conducted a low-level, cross-border guerrilla war against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Absent Saddam, ISCI was in a position for a slight makeover, as this Reuters article explains. Aside from dropping the 'Revolution' part of its name, ISCI also aligned itself more visibly with Iraq and Grand Ayatollah al Sistani. But, as the article states, as of May 2007 "the group [got] its guidance from the religious establishment of Welayat al Faqih, led by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran."

The reason behind the change is not difficult to discern. Surely, it is less an attempt to side-step Iran and more a strategic maneuver borne of an accurate perception that allying themselves with the Iraqis and the Americans would put them in a much better position to obtain further power. It's a relationship of convenience more than an altruistic change of heart.

Consider the influence the ISCI has already gained in light of its archrival Muqtada al Sadr's political party's increasingly marginalized position within the political sphere.

Peter Galbraith for Salon:

At the same time, L. Paul Bremer's CPA appointed party officials from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) to be governors and serve on governorate councils throughout southern Iraq. SCIRI, recently renamed the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), was founded at the Ayatollah Khomeini's direction in Tehran in 1982. The Badr Organization is the militia associated with SCIRI.

In the January 2005 elections, SCIRI became the most important component of Iraq's ruling Shiite coalition. In exchange for not taking the prime minister's slot, SCIRI won the right to name key ministers, including the minister of the interior. From that ministry, SCIRI placed Badr militiamen throughout Iraq's national police.

In short, George W. Bush had from the first facilitated the very event he warned would be a disastrous consequence of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq: the takeover of a large part of the country by an Iranian-backed militia.

Indeed, despite having told the Sunni Awakening Councils that there wasn't room for them in the Iraqi Security Forces, 10,000 Badr militia men were inducted into the ISF after the recent fighting in Basra. This is the same organization that until a year ago was not shy about its origins in--and continued ties with--Iran.

Just today, Dick Cheney raised the specter of al Qaeda control of Iraqi oil reserves upon a US withdrawal. But reality suggests Iran is already in a significantly better position to do just that. Basra contains 70 percent of the Iraqi oil reserves, and that town is solidly in the hands of Iranian-backed Shiite militias.

Galbraith:

Since 2005, Iraq's Shiite-led government has concluded numerous economic, political and military agreements with Iran. The most important would link the two countries' strategic oil reserves by building a pipeline from southern Iraq to Iran, while another commits Iran to providing extensive military assistance to the Iraqi government. According to a senior official in Iraq's Oil Ministry, smugglers divert at least 150,000 barrels of Iraq's daily oil exports through Iran, a figure that approaches 10 percent of Iraq's production.

Given the complex political scene that is Iraq, any over simplification is sure to fall short of the mark. But to insist without a hint of uncertainty that Iran is backing the opponents of the US-backed Maliki government to the exclusion of all other elements is foolish.

Iran most certainly desires significant influence in Iraq, and it undoubtedly has a pipeline toward that end. That path leads through ISCI and Da'awa, though, not al Sadr. Why would Iran put all its force behind pushing al Sadr alone, when it can ride the coattails of the US-allied government and its surrogates all the way to the top?

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