Media Campaign Goes After Four GOP Senators for Their Iraq Support [VIDEO]

AlterNet Staff, AlterNet

War on Iraq: Leading Republican senators who have supported Bush's Iraq policy to the hilt are the targets of a major ad campaign by Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.

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The Way Out

A roundtable discussion of our options for exiting Iraq.


Flynt Leverett, Suzanne Nossel, Charles A. Kupchan, Lawrence J. Korb and Peter W. Galbraith | July 10, 2007 | web only



The Way Out


Art by John Ritter.

In our June issue, Flynt Leverett penned a memo to the incoming president laying out the options for an exit from Iraq. Below, several prominent progressives respond and offer their own suggestions.

Peter W. Galbraith
Lawrence J. Korb
Suzanne Nossel and Charles A. Kupchan

Plus, Flynt Leverett responds.

- - -

Peter W. Galbraith: An Internal Solution for an Internal Problem

Flynt Leverett is exactly right in his analysis in the shortcomings of Bush's Iraq strategy and the alternatives put forward by his mainstream Democratic critiques.

Having inadvertently broken up Iraq in April 2003, the administration has been trying since then to recentralize the country. It has been a fool's errand (implemented at times by fools), not that President Bush has noticed.

Bush repeatedly says that the Iraqi people have chosen national unity, although they voted twice in 2005 almost entirely for ethnic or sectarian parties. The goal of the current surge is to buy enough time so that Iraq's leaders can make the compromises necessary to bring the disaffected Sunnis into the political process which in turn will isolate the Sunni and Shiite extremists and ultimately bring stability, if not peace.

The Democrats, while rightly caustic on the subject of the administration's competence, have bought into the notion that meeting benchmarks for reconciliation -- an oil law, constitutional changes, relaxing de-Baathification -- will improve the internal situation in Iraq. As Leverett points out, Iraq's Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds have not reached compromises "not because they are unwilling to do so, but because they are unable to do so."

Proposed changes in Iraq's constitution are a case in point. Every change sought by the Sunnis (with support from some Shiites) comes at the expense of Kurdistan's autonomy. Even if Kurdistan's leaders could be cajoled into ceding some powers to the central government (such as a power to impose taxes which Baghdad does not now have), this would be overwhelmingly rejected by the independence-minded Kurdish public. With characteristic lack of foresight, the administration is pushing ahead with constitutional revisions, seemingly oblivious to the consequences of the entire package being defeated in the required referendum, where the three purely Kurdish governorates exercise a veto.

In fact, few (and possibly none) of the benchmarks will be met by the September deadline in the congressional appropriations legislation. But, even if all the benchmarks were met, it would not make any difference. The Sunni-Shiite civil war is not being fought over sharing oil revenues, employment for a few Sunni ex-Baathists, or changes to the constitution. Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites have irreconcilable views about the nature of their country. The Shiites believe their majority and electoral victories entitle them -- as Shiites -- to rule Iraq. The Sunnis, who rightly see themselves as the creators of modern Iraq, cannot accept that Iraq is a Shiite state ruled by religious parties installed by the United States and aligned (as they see it) with Iraq's national enemy, Iran. This divide has been impossibly exacerbated by a civil war in which Sunni insurgents have blown up thousands of Shiites simply for being Shiites and where government-sponsored death squads kill Sunnis for being Sunnis.

Meanwhile, the Kurds have created what is -- except for formal recognition -- an independent state with its own government, army, and separate economy. And it is not just that all Kurds want independence. Most hate Iraq as a country that they never wanted to join, that repressed them for its entire 80-year history, and that committed genocide against them in the 1980s. There is nothing that will ever reconcile the Iraqi Kurds to Iraq, even if their leaders make rhetorical concessions to national unity that they have no intention of implementing.

Iraq's security forces are, as Leverett points out, as sectarian as the country itself. The national army and police are predominantly Shiite, serving Iraq's Shiite Government (which Bush insists on calling a government of national unity). Training and arming these supposed Iraqi forces is to choose one side in the civil war or as Leverett puts it, "to pour gasoline on the already raging fire of communal violence." Now, the administration is moving to arm the other side in the civil war. It has set up a Sunni militia in Anbar to fight al-Qaeda, but with the strong likelihood they will end of fighting the Shiite military and police, and American forces to the extent they see us as the Shiite's allies.

Leverett would have the United States play an active role in fostering the soft partition of Iraq into ethnic and sectarian regions. I think the U.S. should get out of the business of nation-building in Iraq. The Iraq Constitution is a road map to partition and Iraq's dominant Shiite-Kurdish alliance will have a better chance of making this work (and even to strike a deal with the Sunnis) without U.S. involvement. Over the long term, I don't see how partition will be soft. Sooner or later, and probably sooner, the Kurds will want to formalize their own state.

Several leading Democrats, including Senator Clinton, have rightly stressed America's obligation to the Kurds. Not only have the Kurds created the one stable and western-oriented part of Iraq, they are also on our side. They can be supported by arming and training their own army, the peshmerga, and by deploying a small U.S. force to Kurdistan where it would be welcomed by the government and people.

Leverett places considerable weight on the involvement of Iraq's Arab neighbors and Iran in a settlement in Iraq, a position supported by the Baker-Hamilton Commission and many other commentators. I have never understood what these neighbors have to offer. Iran strongly supports Iraq's current Shiite-led government, which after all is led by the people Iran sheltered, financed, and supported for decades. What more would we have Iran do? While Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors have a dim view of Baghdad's Shiite government, they do not contribute significantly to Iraq's Sunni insurgency, which is an indigenous affair. I am very much for dialogue with Iran and Syria on the range of issues that divide us, but would not make Iraq central to that agenda. Iraq's problems are internal and will need an internal solution.

The next U.S. president could do a lot worse than take the advice Flynt Leverett offers. By not listening to him -- and other professionals in his administration -- the current U.S. president did a lot worse.

- - -

Lawrence J. Korb: Withdraw from Iraq, Not from the Region

Flynt Leverett's analysis of the why and how we got ourselves mired in Iraq is right on the mark. The project failed not because of tactical mistakes but because of fundamental strategic flaws; that is, the United States naively believed that it could overthrow an autonomous regime, which ruled over a divided country, and in the process enhance our strategic interests while making the entire region better.

However, the next president also needs to acknowledge that tactical mistakes were made and that we must learn from them, so that if we ever have to intervene militarily in another place, we must send enough troops not only to win the war but also to secure the peace.

He is also correct in his diagnoses of the hard realities of the current situation in Iraq, namely, that a more robust regional diplomacy must be linked to the withdrawal of all American forces from Iraq, and that the U.S. must stop training Iraqi forces if we are to have any chance of minimizing the damage to our security.

I do, however, have some concerns about how Leverett presents the options that would be available to the next president.

First, phased redeployment does not necessarily mean leaving forces in Iraq. It can and should mean an orderly withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq at a realistic rate of about 10,000 personnel a month or in about a year after the withdrawal starts. This pace would minimize the risks to American forces as they leave. Phased withdrawal would also mean taking U.S. forces out of the midst of the civil war raging in Baghdad and letting them focus on battling Al Qaeda in Anbar during their remaining time in Iraq.

Second, Leverett overestimates the negative impact of placing some ground forces in Kuwait and does not deal with the fact that we have bases and forces in both Bahrain and Qatar. Would these facilities be closed as well? While keeping some forces in Kuwait (I would place an army brigade and tactical air squadron there, at least for the short term) could reinforce the notion of the United States as an occupying power, it would not have the same impact on the Muslim world as our stationing forces in Saudi Arabia.

The Kuwaitis welcome our presence because we liberated them from Saddam in 1991. Moreover Kuwait is not home to any places, such as Mecca or Medina, that are considered holy by Muslims around the world. In addition, the forces in Kuwait would only remain until the situation in Iraq stabilizes. Finally, while Al Qaeda and its associates will use our presence in any Arab country as a pretext for attacking us, we must balance that risk against protecting our overall security interests.

Third, while the United States should not advocate a soft partition (or any other arrangement) of Iraq, it must partition its policy. It must move its diplomatic, reconstruction and governance efforts away from Iraq's center and toward its localities and regions and let the Iraqis themselves decide on their formal legal structure.

The forces in Kuwait, plus the offshore balancing of the carrier battle groups and the Marine Expeditionary Force, would give us sufficient military power to protect our existential interests in the Gulf, that is, preventing Iraq from becoming a launching pad for international terrorism or a catalyst for regional instability that is so great that it jeopardizes U.S. economic or security interests.

Leverett is right that the only feasible military solution for Iraq in the short term is to deploy a multinational force that is authorized by the United Nations. However, he fails to note that the U.N. mandate authorizing the U.S. occupation expires at the end of 2007, and that the U.S. should take the lead in getting a new mandate that gives the U.N. responsibility for Iraq.

These concerns are comparatively minor and do not distract from the overall thrust of the memo. It is unfortunate that the current administration continues to ignore the "hard realities" and continues to double down on a failed policy.

- - -

Suzanne Nossel and Charles A. Kupchan: Maintain a Residual Force, Support a Political Solution

While we agree with important parts of Leverett's analysis, we offer the following comments:

Need for Broader Efforts to Contain Violence and Stabilize Iraq Throughout the Withdrawal Process -- The memo references the president's commitment to near-term drawdown of U.S. troops, but also indicates that a regional deal on "soft partition" should be a precondition for significant withdrawal. This plan presumes that grand bargains will be reached with Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia and that a U.N. peacekeeping force will be deployed to oversee the partition process, at which point the promised pullback can begin. But it is far from certain that the contemplated bargains can be struck, or that the U.N. Security Council and troop-contributing countries will be prepared to deploy amid the ongoing violence in Iraq.

While "soft partition" in some form -- be it three regions or a loose federation of provinces -- may be the best path to stability and the restoration of civilian life, it may well prove unattainable even with the best efforts of the United States. The danger is that if these conditions cannot be met, political pressures will result in a hasty retreat with no accompanying strategy to minimize chaos and loss of life. The drawdown strategy needs to include comprehensive efforts to contain the crisis, including steps that do not depend on potentially elusive outside support.

At the very least, achieving "soft partition" will require an active U.S. role in affording Iraqis secure passage to regions where they will be safe. Additional measures should include steps to ensure that U.S. munitions and weaponry are secured and to address Iraq's worsening humanitarian crisis. Rather than imposing what amounts to new conditions that must be met prior to withdrawal, the Administration should focus on efforts to implement its stated policy of withdrawal in combination with a broad range of steps – diplomatic, military and humanitarian – to stem the violence and hardship likely to accompany the U.S. departure.

Regional Cooperation Should Buttress, Not Come at the Expense of, Regional Reform -- To create incentives for Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia to help the United States stabilize Iraq, Washington will have to fashion new bargains with each. With Iran, in particular, the administration will have to countenance a major change of course, agreeing to pursue a meaningful normalization of relations in return for Tehran's cooperation on Iraq, Hamas, Hezbollah, and on its nuclear program.

In Iran, the Bush administration's unwillingness to take regime change off the table had the paradoxical effect of fostering nationalist sentiment and suffocating internal dissent. That promotion of democracy got a bad name in the Middle East during the Bush years is not, however, grounds to take reform off the agenda in relations with Tehran -- and likewise Damascus and Riyadh. Agreeing to back off from support for democracy, freedom and human rights in the region, for example, would betray the faith of people living under these repressive regimes and undercut perceptions of the United States in the Mideast and beyond. At a time when restoring U.S. legitimacy is a paramount goal and a precursor to the achievement of many other policy objectives, Washington must not be seen to revert to "business as usual" when it comes to abusive Middle Eastern governments.

100% Withdrawal Carries its Own Risks -- Leverett's memo overstates the case for wholesale U.S. withdrawal from Iraq with no residual forces. Even if Robert Pape is right that prolonged U.S. deployments on Arab soil are the primary fuel for suicide attacks, sectarian and anti-American violence is likely to plague Iraq with or without a full withdrawal. Furthermore, the complete drawdown of U.S. troops would deny the U.S. the ability to prevent terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda, to deter sectarian atrocities, to secure U.S.-financed socioeconomic reconstruction projects, or to provide humanitarian assistance and safe passage to Iraqis caught in the conflict.

By committing to complete withdrawal, it would be difficult to reinsert troops, deploy special operations forces, or back up a U.N. operation -- developments the memo contemplates -- without such steps being portrayed as inconsistent with our own policy. Full-scale withdrawal would also send a signal regarding U.S. disengagement from the region that is inconsistent with the idea of continued American efforts to bring about a political settlement and an end to the bloodshed in Iraq. .

Accordingly, the strategy outlined should be modified in the following respects:

Maintain a Residual Force to Stem the Chaos in the Wake of U.S. Withdrawal -- As the memo notes, the President has committed to beginning a drawdown almost immediately. In doing so, however, a residual force of at least 20,000 troops should remain in Iraq to focus on containing al Qaeda's ability to carry out terror attacks and assisting with socio-economic reconstruction and humanitarian efforts in more peaceful parts of Iraq. We should make clear that this force, too, is temporary.

Afford All Possible Support for a Political End to the Bloodshed -- Having extracted ourselves from Iraq's civil war, we should concentrate political efforts on backing whatever form of settlement should emerge, including a tri-partite structure or provincial federation. The conflict's toll on both American and Iraqi lives mandate a focus on minimizing the duration of the conflict, containing its spread, and limiting the harm to Iraqi civilians in particular. In doing so, we should accept both that the vision of a unitary, peaceful Iraq has failed to materialize despite years of U.S. effort, and that American influence over political outcomes in Iraq is limited. In this context, the support we offer should include both political and financial support for credible diplomatic initiatives by Iraqis that can lead to an end to the carnage, and backing for U.N. or other multilateral engagement to protect civilians and restore Iraq to stability.

Facilitate safe passage of civilians from conflict zones -- The United States has a moral obligation to assist Iraqi civilians seeking to relocate from violent areas. It should designate safe corridors to peaceful parts of Iraq and work with international agencies to provide displaced persons adequate food and shelter and the opportunity to return home when conditions permit.

Reopen Robust but Principled Political Dialogues In the Region -- We should open broad-ranging and unconditional talks with Iran and Syria but, in doing so, not offer unequivocal support to these regimes, nor drop our concerns with their domestic political and human rights records. While Bush's misguided approach to democracy promotion had grievous consequences, offering an uncritical embrace for repressive regimes in return for near-term cooperation in Iraq would send the pendulum swinging too far in the opposite direction.

- - -

Flynt Leverett Responds

I thank Peter Galbraith, Lawrence Korb, and Suzanne Nossel and Charles Kupchan for their thoughtful comments. To address their arguments, I will group their points of difference with me under four headings.

Residual Forces. Nossel/Kupchan, Galbraith, and Korb all take on my argument that, to restore America's strategic position in the Persian Gulf, the next administration must commit itself to withdrawing all conventional forces from Iraq and return to an "over the horizon" military posture in the region. Nossel/Kupchan, for their part, advocate drawing down current troop levels in Iraq but keeping significant residual forces there.

Unfortunately, this model of "phased redeployment", originally introduced by the Iraq Study Group in a classic example of lowest-common-denominator policy recommendations, does not stand up to hard-edged analysis. Proponents of "phased redeployment" have to answer the question, "What will residual U.S. forces in Iraq do?" To their credit, Nossel/Kupchan do not repeat the surreal argument that residual U.S. forces are needed to train "Iraqi security forces". (Training "national" security forces in the midst of a communal civil war is a euphemism for picking sides and making things worse, as Galbraith and Korb also recognize.) But they buy into other platitudes to justify the retention of residual ground forces in Iraq -- especially, that such forces are needed to conduct counterterrorism operations against Al Qaeda elements.

In this regard, it is particularly disappointing that Nossel/Kupchan ignore the critical point that conventional ground forces are essentially useless for counterterrorism missions. Keeping ground forces in Iraq gives the U.S. military no meaningful increase in its operational options against terrorists or other threats to regional stability. It will only perpetuate the enormous human costs, be a boon to jihadist recruitment, and further erode American standing in the world's most critical region.

Unfortunately, the same flawed assumptions that led too many Democratic foreign policy hands to support the invasion of Iraq are displacing real analysis once again, leading too many of the same people to argue that the United States cannot withdraw. Increasingly, Democrats' embrace of phased redeployment primarily reflects a domestic political calculation, whereby Democrats running for national office can appear to address the concerns of their party's antiwar base without alienating neoconservative fellow travelers in its "national security wing" or exposing themselves to Republican charges of "cutting and running" and being "weak" on national security. This may look like smart politics, but it is bad policy.

Galbraith argues for another version of phased redeployment, with the United States maintaining residual forces in Iraqi Kurdistan. While redeploying U.S. forces to Kurdish areas might provide military cover for eventual Kurdish independence (more on this below), this option, like phased redeployment à la Nossel/Kupchan, would do nothing to bolster U.S. military capabilities against terrorists or other regional threats. Furthermore, redeploying to Kurdish areas will not be perceived by anyone as ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Bases in northern Iraq would be a jihadist recruiting tool; their establishment could potentially pit the United States against Turkey, a major NATO ally.

Korb advocates yet a third alternative model of phased redeployment, which I describe as "withdraw and contain". Korb forthrightly supports the withdrawal of all U.S. conventional forces from Iraq, but wants to redeploy at least some ground and tactical air units to Kuwait. This option is arguably less damaging to long-term U.S. interests than "phased redeployment" within Iraq, but it, too, has significant political and security downsides with no operational upsides.

Korb writes that "forces in Kuwait plus the offshore balancing of the carrier battle groups and the Marine Expeditionary Force would give us sufficient military power to protect our existential interests in the Gulf". Take out "forces in Kuwait" and the sentence is just as true; returning to a true "over the horizon" posture would leave the United States a full range of military capabilities and options in the region while avoiding the profoundly negative blowback that an expanded "on the ground" presence would generate.

Korb argues that, unlike Saudi Arabia -- where the retention of U.S. forces on the ground after the first Gulf war was the direct catalyst for Al Qaeda's emergence -- Kuwait is not sacred territory for Muslims. This may once have been true, but after America's prolonged occupation of Iraq, the terms of reference used by Sunni jihadists to define Islam's "holy land" have expanded to encompass virtually any Muslim country. U.S. bases in Bahrain, where the Fifth Fleet is based, and Qatar, where Central Command maintains a combat air operations center and facilities to support ground force deployments during a crisis, are essential to an effective "over the horizon" posture, and their existence has not so far been a major focus for jihadist agitation. An expanded U.S. presence in Kuwait, however, would almost certainly become such a focus, because it would entail deployment of significant ground forces.

"Hard" or "Soft" Partition? All three commentaries share my deep skepticism of the "centralist" illusions undergirding the Bush administration's approach to political reconstitution in post-Saddam Iraq. Galbraith, however, takes issue with my recommendation of "soft" partition as an alternative political model. He argues that "hard" partition -- with three independent entities emerging out of a failed Iraqi state, rather than the consolidation of three autonomous regions within a nominally unitary state -- is a more likely and realistic political outcome.

Galbraith is certainly correct that pursuing "soft" partition would present U.S. policymakers with daunting diplomatic and political challenges. But can anyone other than a dedicated advocate of the Kurdish cause really believe that "hard" partition is preferable to the "soft" alternative? Serious moves toward the "hard" partition of Iraq would, among other things, dramatically raise the risks of military intervention by neighboring states -- including the risks of Turkish intervention in the Kurdish areas, which is becoming an increasingly imminent regional flash point. Galbraith argues for the redeployment of U.S. forces to Kurdish areas as partial fulfillment of America's "obligation" to the Kurds, but the negative consequences of such as move have already been discussed. "Soft" partition is the only way to accommodate the regionalist realities of Iraqi politics while avoiding the negative consequences of "hard" partition.

Involving the Neighbors. Galbraith and Nossel/Kupchan are skeptical about my recommendations regarding the engagement of Iraq's neighbors in managing the partition process. Galbraith's sense that "hard" partition is inevitable leads him to question what neighboring states could contribute to a process aimed at "soft" partition. However, as Galbraith himself acknowledges, Iran has established enormous influence over the full range of important Shia players in Iraq -- and, it should be noted, over the major Kurdish parties as well. More broadly, there are plenty of deals to be struck between Iraq's major communal groups and neighboring states -- including between Iraqi Kurds and Turkey -- that would keep these increasingly autonomous communities within a nominally unitary state. But these deals will not be struck in a strategic vacuum. Creating a strategic framework for the region within which such deals can be struck needs to become a priority objective for American diplomacy.

Nossel/Kupchan are exercised that forging new strategic bargains between the United States and key regional players -- Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia -- will come at the expense of American efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East. Looking at the post-9/11 experience of democracy promotion in the region, their concern over this point astounds me. The Iraq war was not a basically good idea that President Bush ruined through poor implementation; it was from the outset a bad idea, rooted in profoundly flawed strategic assumptions. Similarly, democracy promotion in the Middle East is not another vital imperative for U.S. foreign policy that the Bush administration mishandled; it is also a bad idea, rooted in some of the same flawed and uninformed strategic assumption as the Iraq war.

As I wrote in The American Prospect in September 2006, "there is no evidence that democracy reduces the incidence of terrorism, and ample evidence from places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia that holding more open elections in most Arab societies would produce governments that are more anti-American and less reformist than incumbent 'authoritarians.'" I have advocated elsewhere that the United States should be doing more to support economic reform and the protection of human rights in Middle Eastern states, but to let "democracy promotion" stand in the way of significant strategic gains for the United States and its allies in the region would be profoundly misguided.

Conditionality. Finally, Nossel/Kupchan argue that, by linking the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq with robust diplomatic efforts to forge a new strategic framework for the region, I am imposing "new conditions" for withdrawal. I am doing nothing of the sort.

My original piece started from the premise that a newly inaugurated Democratic president will be under enormous political pressure to keep campaign commitments to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq. Thus, I take it for granted that the next administration will preside over a fundamental reconfiguration of the American military presence there -- through some version of phased redeployment, "withdraw and contain", or -- as I recommend -- a comprehensive withdrawal that returns the United States to an "over the horizon" military posture in the Persian Gulf. I also believe that the dominant political tendencies in Iraq are regionalist, not centralist. One goal of my original piece is to show it could be possible to leverage the reconfiguration of America's military posture in the region and the transition to new approach to Iraq's political reconstitution to bring about a new regional bargain.

The next administration may not be up to that task. In that case, we will get a reconfiguration of America's military presence in Iraq that not grounded in hard-nosed analysis or linked to any broader strategy for the region. After eight years of the Bush administration, I would hope, for my country, that Democrats would have higher aspirations than that.

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COMMENTS (12)



Also by Flynt Leverett:

To the Incoming President: On Iraq

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Flynt Leverett is senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a visiting professor of political science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He served as senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council and on the State Department's Policy Planning Staff during President Bush's first term. After leaving the Bush administration because of policy disagreements, he was a foreign-policy adviser to Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign.
Suzanne Nossel is a former senior adviser at the United States Mission to the United Nations and is currently a senior fellow at the Security and Peace Initiative, a joint project of the Center for American Progress and The Century Foundation. She is the founder of the www.democracyarsenal.org weblog.
Charles A. Kupchan is a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Lawrence J. Korb a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Senior Adviser to the Center for Defense Information, was the assistant secretary of defense from 1981 to 1985.
Peter W. Galbraith, the first U.S. ambassador to Croatia, is the Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. As a staff member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 1980s, he uncovered and documented Saddam Hussein's “al-Anfal” campaign against Iraq's Kurds.

Nuclear Hypocrisy in the Middle East
Bush, Iran and Israel's Hidden Hand

By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
Former CIA Analysts

The internet is loaded these days with reports of the inevitability of a U.S., or a U.S.-Israeli, attack on Iran. Some writers allege that the attack is imminent. Others, including the writers of this article, argue only that the attack will happen sometime before January 2009, when the Bush administration leaves office. Many of these stories have by now been picked up by the mainstream media. In fact, it is probably safe to say that today a majority of the traditionally cautious and so-called respectable foreign policy experts in the U.S. think it is at least possible that Bush will attack Iran before he leaves office.

Such is the power of recollection with respect to how Bush bulled his way into invading Iraq in 2003 that many people simply accept that he might gamble on doing it again. He has made it clear that in this "War on Terror," victory means everything to him. He might also believe that a win in Iran could reverse current setbacks in Iraq and also bring victory closer for the U.S. and Israel in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. And he has already shown that he is willing to accept the killings of hundreds of thousands or even a million people in the hope of going down in history as a great commander-in-chief.

The people of the United States are the only ones with a chance of stopping him, and it can only happen if a powerful majority of voters will join in a maximum effort to impeach both Bush and Cheney right now. This has to happen before the U.S. and/or Israel undertake any expanded military efforts against Iran.

All of this will be difficult, and many will think it impossible. We citizens of the U.S. who do not want our country to become involved in a greater war with Iran will not have most of the print and TV media with us, nor the military-industrial complex that wants more wars. The Israel lobby will desperately oppose efforts to impeach Bush and Cheney, because it will recognize instantly that the two top U.S. leaders are the lobby's strongest backers of war with Iran. At the same time, most of the Democratic Party leadership and all but one or two of the Democratic presidential candidates will be reluctant to support impeachment because they are competing with the Republicans in an effort to show that each party supports Israel more strongly than the other.

But the people of this country have plenty of power to defeat all these forces if they will use it to support justice, particularly in the Middle East, which is today the highest priority area where U.S. and Israeli foreign policies play a major role, and the area where those policies are the most unjust. We believe it will be by no means impossible to persuade a majority of American voters, given their already established distaste for U.S. failures in Iraq, to rip off the cocoon of pleasant but apathetic consumerism in which they have encased themselves, and participate more seriously in the political processes of our country than they ever have in recent years.

The impeachment itself will have more to do with the past than the future, since a legal action can only indict (impeach) and then convict a person for past actions, not for actions that may be likely in the future. So impeachment will concern Iraq and domestic policies of the Bush administration, not Iran. But at the same time, once we get their interest, people should have a heightened awareness of future planned acts as well as of past policies of the government. If we can move fast, we will have time to show how the plans to attack Iran create a greater need than ever for an impeachment effort to succeed, and to succeed now.

The first point to make in persuading people is that Iran itself claims it has no nuclear weapons now, and no intention to produce them in the future. The first part of this statement is true; the supporting evidence is overwhelming. But Iran's claim that it will not in the future develop nuclear weapons is subject to doubt, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency has found no evidence to the contrary. The other nations in the Middle East and South Asia that have been developing nuclear weapons over the last 50 years -- Israel, India, and Pakistan -- all lied to the U.S., the U.N., and other countries, claiming that they were not building nuclear weapons when in fact they were. Iran might well do the same.

More important is the sheer logic of the situation. As one nation-state in a world of nation-states, Iran knows that it has every bit as much right to develop nuclear weapons as the U.S., Israel, and other present nuclear powers. Compared to Israel, Iran has both a population and a land mass that are much larger. So why is it permissible for Israel to have several hundred nuclear weapons and impermissible for Iran to have any? The answer given by Israel supporters that Israel never signed the NonProliferation Treaty of 1970 while Iran did, is spurious. The NPT is, for practical purposes, a dead letter. Under the treaty, the U.S. and other signatory states already possessing nuclear weapons promised to begin serious negotiations to eliminate their own weapons, but they have never done so, or even tried, in the years since 1970. If Iran were in fact discovered to be developing its own weapons, Iranian officials could say, hand on heart, that they would be pleased to quit violating the treaty when the U.S. did.

Since the U.S. right now is embarking on a program to upgrade its nuclear weapons and delivery systems capabilities, and shows absolutely no intention to negotiate toward eliminating those capabilities, Iran would seem to have quite a strong legal case. Iran might also argue that the situation has so changed in its region of the world (with Israel, India, and Pakistan all now having their own nukes) that it must withdraw from the treaty and obtain its own deterrent force. It has not done that yet because it still claims that it does not want any nuclear weapons, but that option is always, and quite legally, open to it. By the way, any argument that Israel is a more moral and "better" country than Iran -- and thus more deserving of nuclear weapons -- is a bit of sanctimony worthy only of being rejected out of hand.

The key point here is that Iran's nuclear capabilities are not now, and will not be at least for a few more years, a significant threat to the U.S., although over the same period they could be seen in Israel as a somewhat greater threat. Therefore, to the extent that Iran's nuclear weapons potential is at all a real cause of present U.S. and Israeli aggressive policies toward Iran, these aggressive policies are being carried out more to benefit Israel than the U.S. It is actually likely that the main motive behind U.S. and Israeli policies (as was the case in Iraq) has nothing to do with nuclear weapons but is rather to bring about regime change in Iran and strengthen the joint dominion of the U.S. and Israel over the entire Middle East. This raises the broader question of whether such joint dominion is truly in the best interest of the United States, or whether it is favored in Washington mainly because it is being pushed by the Israel lobby.

Another point needs to be made that should also help persuade U.S. voters to oppose a war against Iran with all their strength. Bush is fond of saying that Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. Of course, when he says this, he never tells his listeners what his definition of terrorism is. In fact, we cannot recall any occasion or speech since the so-called War on Terror was launched in which Bush has spelled out what he means when he uses the word.

The best definition of terrorism is "the use of violence against civilians for a political purpose." If one buys this definition, which is widely used, Bush's statement that Iran is the leading state sponsor is plainly false. Using any criterion you choose that covers all civilians -- killings, destruction of homes, shootings or beatings or mistreatment of the sick at checkpoints -- what governments would you say were the leading purveyors of terrorism in the last five years? Hint: creating "shock and awe" is a good definition of at least one form of terrorism using aircraft, modern bombs, and missiles. Sniper shootings of children in Gaza is another. Destroying the olive trees that provide basic income for an entire family and then forcibly confiscating the land on which the olive trees stood is yet another form. But then, there are numerous others, including the use of torture on prisoners.

It is so easy, yet so reprehensible to list Iran as the number-one terrorism culprit. At a minimum, we Americans must understand that many others around the world regard us as far worse terrorists than any in Iran. For pushing "terrorism" as a justification for waging war against Iran when the U.S. is just as guilty of even greater terrorism, Bush and Cheney must beyond question be impeached and convicted with all possible speed, so that they can never start that war.

Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. He served as a National Intelligence Officer and as Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis.

Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession.

They can be reached at kathy.bill.christison@comcast.net

Allan J. Lichtman
When General Petraeus Speaks, Don't Listen ...

Norman Solomon
The Secret Addiction of Thomas Friedman

Iran Plan for Iraq

By Walid Phares


This is a part one of a series on "Freedom Lines," adapted from seminars conducted for the U.S. House of Representatives' Caucus on Counter Terrorism, summer 2007. It addresses the various plans in the region regarding Iraq, Lebanon and beyond. It was initially published by the World Defense Review. This piece attempts to summarize the Iranian strategic goals in Iraq, if they can achieve a US collapse. The piece is analytical and based on projections and some information not on strict intelligence sources.

Read More »


In March 2003, the United States made a strategic decision to send troops into Iraq and defeat the Saddam Hussein regime militarily. This decision is still being debated nationwide and internationally as to its legitimacy and rationality.

One camp claims Washington didn't have a right to change the regime and engage in an armed confrontation with Iraqis. Another camp says Saddam was a threat, the region is now better off without him, and Iraqis have been liberated from a bloody dictatorship.

In reality, only historians will determine if it was the right decision at the right time for one simple reason: While U.S. military operations aimed at dismantling the regime's military power ended in April 2003 – very successfully as a matter of fact – the second much longer road for the following set of U.S. goals is now under scrutiny.

Should American and Coalition forces withdraw immediately, begin pulling out, or staying the course, is the center of the ongoing debate. But to answer, one has to understand the goals of the adversaries in this ongoing conflict. Al Qaeda has a plan for Iraq, and U.S. forces are fighting it along with Iraqi units. But the direct geopolitical threat that is linked to the role of U.S. troops in that country is the Iranian regime and its allies in the region and inside Iraq. How does Tehran see the American presence, what are its plans for Iraq, and what will happen if U.S. forces are withdrawn abruptly?

Prior to 2001, the Iranian regime had developed regional ambitions, including a military alliance with Syria, continuous support of Hezbollah in Lebanon and a slow-pace development of a nuclear weapon. In the 1980s, its proxies delivered blows to the U.S. in Beirut and by May 2000, its allies in Lebanon had reached international borders with Israel.

During the decade following the first Gulf War, the Pasdaran were training and arming Iraqi militias for future mission in Iraq. The Khomeinists and Hafez Assad had an Iraq plan years before the U.S. invaded in 2003: overrun the Shia areas in the center and the south and open a land bridge between Iran and Syria.[1] But 9/11 shook off the foundations of the Iranian plan. By December of that year, U.S. and Coalition forces removed the Taliban and opened the path for a democratic government in Afghanistan.

The regime change in Kabul was a first problem for the Mullahs in Tehran: democracy defeating a Jihadi regime wasn't a good example to watch. By April 2003, a second catastrophe hit the Islamic Republic: Saddam was removed, but worse, democratic elections were succeeding each other in Iraq. But more dramatic was the fact that U.S and NATO forces were deployed to the East and to the West of Iran.

In strategic reading, the Khomeinist project was geographically contained: no more bridge to Syria and a greater menace was hovering over the nuclear program. Even more catastrophic was the proximity of two democratic experiments to the Iranian society. Students, women and workers have been challenging the theocratic regime since the late 1990s.

To Khamanei's ruling elite, successes across the borders meant a condemnation to the regime inside Iran. Thus the Pasdaran were tasked with a plan to destabilize Afghanistan and crumble the political process in Iraq. Since the summer of 2003 and for the following four years, Iranian backed Terrorism against civilians, Syrian passage for the Jihadists and pressures against U.S. and Coalition forces aimed at provoking a quicker and chaotic pull out.

If Washington withdraws catastrophically from Iraq what would the Iranian regime do? In about six to nine months, this is what would happen:

1) The pro-Iranian militias (SCIRI, Badr Brigade, Muqtada al Sadr, act.) would seize the control of two thirds of Iraq between Baghdad and Basra. The militias would create "security enclaves," perform several terror acts and assassinations leading to a crumbling of the central Government, and a pro-Khomeinist regime established.


2) Most moderate Shiite politicians and liberal elements in those areas would be eliminated, as did Khomeini with his partners in the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Within less than a year, most Shia partners of the Pro-Iranian forces would be eliminated.


3) And as it was practiced in Lebanon in 1990, the pro-Iranian future regime of Iraq will call in Iranian "brotherly" forces to assist in security and in the defense of the borders. The Pasdaran and the Iranian army will deploy in the southern Oil fields, along the borders with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan and would connect with the Syrian forces across the borders. The latter will be asked to help in the Anbar province.


4) The Sunni areas will be left to be dealt with later, along with Syrian interventions.


5) The Kurdish areas will be submitted to isolation, pressure and internal divisions, in a concerted effort with Syria and the Islamic Government of Turkey.

This is not a purely theoretical scenario. This is the projected reality if U.S. forces would prematurely and abruptly withdraw from Iraq before achieving one major strategic objective in Iraq and the region: Helping the independently minded Iraqis to reform and solidify their Government, erect their Army to a regional level and along with U.S. forces establish a containment system for Iranian expansionist ambitions. Any lesser goal achieved in Iraq is a direct invitation to the Iranian regime to become the greatest threat in the 21st century against Peace and Security, in the region and worldwide.


[1] See Phares, Walid "The Syrian-Iranian Axis" Global Affairs. Spring 1992.


Dr. Walid Phares is a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, D.C., and director of the Future Terrorism Project of the FDD. He is a visiting fellow with the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels. His most recent books are Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West (2006) and The War of Ideas: Terrorist Strategies against the West (2007

Article originally appeared at http://worlddefensereview.com/phares090507.shtml

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September 6, 2007 11:28 PM Link TrackBack (0) Print
9/11 6th Anniversary: New Bin Laden Video Coming and Islamist "Special Gift" Promised

By Jeffrey Imm


The SITE Intelligence Group and Laura Mansfield report that a new Osama Bin Laden video message is forthcoming. SITE states that the new Osama Bin Laden message will be "addressing the American people on the sixth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001."

ABC also reports this stating that a Jihadist web site posting made this afternoon announced the planned Osama Bin Laden video stating: "Soon, with the permission of God, a new visual tape, the Sheikh, the Lion, Osama bin Laden. May God protect him."

ABC also reported that "U.S. officials are skeptical the tape will show a new message from bin Laden. One said, 'We will believe it when we see it.' "

Associated Press has also reported this stating: "Intelcenter, which is based in Alexandria, Va., and also monitors Islamic Web sites, said the video was expected within the next 72 hours, or by Sunday. That would come before the sixth anniversary next Tuesday of the World Trade Center attack."

The SITE Intelligence Group also states that "image of bin Laden contained in the banner found on jihadist forums is reminiscent of his last video appearance in 2004, but his beard is now completely black, as it was previously streaked with grey." AP reports SITE's Rita Katz as speculating that Bin Laden has dyed his beard: " 'I think it works for their benefit that he looks young, he looks healthy,' Katz said of the new image."

In a potentially related story, FOX News is reporting that "Federal counterterrorism officials are analyzing a posting on an Islamic forum Web site that warns of "a special gift" to be given on the sixth anniversary of Sept. 11".

FOX News reports that "warning was posted Sept. 2 on a site frequented by radical groups and said in part that 'there will be a special gift coming on the day of the blessed invasion of Manhattan.' "

In addition, both Laura Mansfield and the SITE Institute report the release of a new 40 minute video from Al Qaeda's "Azzam the American" to jihadist forums on September 5. Laura Mansfield has provided the video link for download.


Sources:

The SITE Institute Web Site

SITE: Image of Bin Laden in Jihadist Banners

September 6, 2007 - ABC: Al Qaeda Announces New Bin Laden Video

September 6, 2007 -- AP: "Groups: Bin Laden plans video on 9/11"

September 6, 2007 - Reuters: Web site says to carry new bin Laden video

September 6, 2007 -- FOX News: "Counterterrorism Officials Analyzing Islamic Web Post Warning of 'Special Gift' "

SITE: As-Sahab Issues English-Subtitled Version of “The Winds of Paradise”, Narrated by Adam Gadahn AKA Azzam the American

Laura Mansfield: As Sahab releases English translation of Winds of Marytrs Part 1 - video link

September 6, 2007 05:30 PM Link

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Jacob Hornberger’s Blog [Blog Archives]


Lessons About Dictatorship from Pakistan
by Jacob G. Hornberger

The Washington Post carried an interesting article yesterday about dictatorship that provides valuable lessons in both domestic and foreign policy for the American people.

The article was about Pervez Musharraf, the military dictator of Pakistan who took power in a coup in 1999 and has refused to permit democratic elections to take place in the country since then.

Musharraf is a good friend and ally of President Bush, a fact that constitutes strong circumstantial evidence that President Bush’s claim that he ordered the invasion of Iraq in order to spread democracy was a lie. If Bush was really committed to democracy-spreading, as he claims he is, then why would he be an ardent supporter of one of the biggest anti-democratic regimes in the world — that of Pakistan’s army General Pervez Musharraf?

Another lesson from the article relates to how dictators use national emergencies to expand power. Since Pakistani law prevents Musharraf from remaining as president, he is considering declaring a national emergency, which would enable him to cancel elections and crack down on civil liberties. Musharraf, like Bush, understands that emergencies provide a time-honored way for government officials to expand power and take away people’s freedom.

That, of course, is what 9/11 was all about — using the terrorist “emergency” to secure passage of the USA PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act, expand the warrantless wiretapping, increase secret judicial proceedings, implement the “enemy-combatant” doctrine, cancel habeas corpus, engage in torture, sex abuse, and rendition, and deny people due process of law, right to counsel, and trial by jury.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that politicians use emergencies to expand their powers. Consider, for example, scorpions. They sting because that’s what scorpions do — they sting. It’s their nature. Politicians do whatever they can to get more power over more human beings. It’s their nature. Of course they rely on emergencies to expand their power because they know that emergencies are among the best ways to accomplish that.

What has been so disappointing since 9/11 has been the reaction of the American people. They fell for the whole shebang, hook, line, and sinker. Frightened and quaking after 9/11, Americans told the politicians — “Do whatever you need to do to keep us safe, even if you have to cancel the entire Bill of Rights and Constitution. We don’t care. We’re not terrorists and therefore we have nothing to worry about.”

Thus, Americans of our time became one of the many people in history who traded their freedom for security. Of course, they have now learned what others in history have learned when they made that trade — they got neither liberty nor security. After all, despite all the infringements on their freedom, how secure do Americans really feel? The irony is that despite the most powerful government in history, Americans are the most frightened people in the world. It’s not a coincidence. It’s causation. Big governments result in little citizens.

If President Bush follows through with Vice President Cheney’s wish to attack Iran, you can rest assured that there will be plenty of new “emergencies” to justify new dictatorial powers that Bush and Cheney will be exercising. Let’s just hope that Bush’s close friend Pervez Musharraf, the unelected military dictator of Pakistan, doesn’t convince Bush to use the “emergencies” as a way to postpone the 2008 presidential election.

Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

<h3 class="post-title entry-title"> Update on Iran War Rollout </h3> At UPI's "Outside View" feature, David Isenberg of the British American Security Information Council and the Cato Institute provides a summary of the campaign for war with Iran so far. He missed the Newsweek article by AEI fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht about why war is inevitable, the Washington Post's shameless reprise yesterday of its 2003 attack on Mohamed El-Baradei of the IAEA, the Anti-Defamation League's opening of its No Nuclear Iran campaign, and William Kristol's call for attacks on "Terrorist Training Camps" in Iran.

Update: The New Yorker used to have a capsule review of Night at the Opera which said, "The Marx Brothers do to Il Trovatore what ought to be done to Il Trovatore." See Salon, where Glenn Greewald does to Fred Hiatt and Michael Ledeen what ought to be done to Fred Hiatt and Michael Ledeen.

Update II: Interviewed by Spencer Ackerman of TPMMuckraker, Reuel Marc Gerecht of AEI good naturedly denies that he or AEI received any instructions from the Office of the Vice President to beat the drums for war with Iran. He even says something nice about me. Let's hope that he is right and my source is mistaken. For the record: I did not accuse "hardliners in Dick Cheney's office of giving right-leaning think tanks in Washington 'instructions' to start a drumbeat for war with Iran," as Ackerman writes. I passed on a credible report to that effect, explicitly saying I could not verify it, in order to draw attention to something I consider very dangerous. Let's see if empirical evidence confirms or disconfirms the hypothesis.


Posted by Barnett R. Rubin at 10:07 AM 3 comments

Labels: American Enterprise Institute, Iran, US Iran policy, Washington Post

<h2 class="date-header">Wednesday, September 5, 2007</h2> <h3 class="post-title entry-title"> <a href="http://icga.blogspot.com/2007/09/theses-on-policy-toward-iran.html">Theses on Policy toward Iran </h3> As I and many others have noted, there are increasing signs that the administration has decided or has nearly decided to launch an air and sea attack on Iran, which will include but not be limited to all installations connected to the country’s nuclear program. All military equipment is in place for such an attack (three carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf). As I wrote in a recent blog, there are credible reports of a concerted campaign to build public support for such an attack. The aim is said to be to get support in polls up to about 35-40%, but the most important goal is to intimidate the Democrats in Congress, in particular through AIPAC and allied groups, so that they will not use either the power of the purse or Congress’ war powers to impede the attack. The administration is counting on Democrats saying they don’t want to “tie the president’s hands” as he deals with this mortal threat to the U.S. and Israel. The Anti-Defamation League announced today a campaign with the theme "No Nuclear Iran."


Under the Cheney-Addington interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, there is no need for any Congressional consent to such an action by the President. In any case, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force of September 18, 2001, suffices, as it authorizes the use of such force against any terrorists or states harboring terrorists. There is no requirement that the President certify or Congress approve any such designation. The argument would be strengthened, however, if the administration formally designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (Sepah-e Pasdaran) or its elite unit, the Qods (Jerusalem) Force, as a terrorist organization, a proposal that has been floated in the press. In that case the Iranian state would be officially designated as harboring terrorists.

The rationale for such an act of war is likely to be that it is necessary to prevent a terrorist state from acquiring nuclear weapons. Any hint of Iranian compliance with international demands would interfere with the campaign. Hence part of the PR campaign that has started for the war will consist of attacks on Mohamed El-Baradei and the IAEA, as in 2002-2003 over Iraq, when, of course, the IAEA was proved right and its critics wrong. Such at attack, presumably authored by Fred Hiatt, commenced on the editorial page of the Washington Post today. For some reason, the Post editorial does not mention its similar editorial from January 28, 2003, where it made identical false charges against El-Baradei.

The Bush-Cheney policy on Iran is unlikely to have any outcome but war, not because of the threat of the use of force, but because of its objective: regime change. The President and Vice-President have never echoed the disavowals of this goal by other officials. Their supporters at AEI, the Weekly Standard, and elsewhere, make it clear that the goal of the policy is destroying the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Even if this were not true, the government (and not only the government) of Iran believes it is true. In repeated discussions on several continents over the past five years, Iranian officials have told me that the main obstacle to improvement in U.S.-Iran relations is the agenda of regime change – not Israel, not Iraq, nothing else. No amount of pressure or threats will force the Iranian government to negotiate its own destruction. Therefore as long as regime change is the goal, or appears to be the goal, Iran has no credible incentives to comply with any demands. Threats are useless. Sanctions are useless. In any case, sanctions will strengthen and enrich the regime, as they almost always do.

The Bush administration discarded an opportunity to expand cooperation with the government of President Muhammad Khatami after the U.S. and Iran collaborated to remove the Taliban regime and establish the Government of Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. I witnessed that cooperation as a member of the UN team at the Bonn conference. The Bush administration threw that chance away, declaring Iran a member of the Axis of Evil. It did so under President Khatami, who never denied the Holocaust or said that the Israeli regime, like the Soviet Union, was destined to disappear from the pages of time (which is what Ahmadinejad actually said, not that Israel should be wiped off the map). Therefore Iran does not believe that there is any genuine link between the extremist statements of President Ahmadinejad and U.S. policy, as the Bush administration had exactly the same policy toward the Government of President Khatami. Ahmadinejad has indeed called Israel the “bearer of Satan,” the equivalent in Persian of calling a country a member of the “axis of evil.” There is a fearful symmetry of demonization.

The advocates of war claim that the Iranian regime is a monolithic, revolutionary regime whose aim is destruction of world order and in particular the U.S. and Israel. The argument is identical to that of Cold Warriors who argued that the USSR was a monolithic revolutionary regime with exactly the same aims. Because the regime is “evil” and monolithic, negotiations are impossible (see AEI fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht’s article in the current Newsweek). Internal change or reform is also impossible. There are no Iranian moderates or realists with whom one can work for change, just as there were no moderate or reform communists in the USSR. These same people argued that everything Gorbachev did was part of a plot to trick the West and strengthen Soviet Communism. They now make the same arguments about Iran.

In part thanks to them, we are now dealing not with the Iranian Gorbachev, but with the Iranian Putin, who is rather worse than the original. Nonetheless, the Iranian power structure still includes people with a range of views, from conservative realist to reformist, with whom it is possible to engage, if an agenda of regime change did not sabotage any efforts on their part. I meet with such people regularly. Certainly the Iranian democratic opposition has made clear its opposition to forcible regime change.


There is an alternative to war, but it has to start with an end to regime change as a policy goal. There are then a number of areas, such as counter-narcotics in Afghanistan and the territorial integrity of Iraq, where the U.S. and Iran have clearly complementary interests and could start a dialogue. I will not attempt to sketch a road map here, and it will be difficult to move far as long as the current administrations are in power in both countries.


The alternative of war will have terrible effects including:

• No support for the U.S. from any country but Israel (though Saudi Arabia and other Arab states may not be too unhappy) and the demolition of whatever still remains of the U.S.’s international standing except as a warmaking power; that reputation will also quickly dissipate as this war, too, fails to achieve its objectives.
• Rapid deterioration of security in (at least) Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; note that much of the support for Benazir Bhutto, whom the U.S. hopes will help shepherd a political transition in Pakistan, comes from Pakistani Shi’a, who will turn violently anti-American in the event of an attack on Iran; northern Afghanistan is also under the de facto control of groups supported by Iran against the Taliban; the government of Iraq in Baghdad will oppose an attack on Iran, but our new friends in Anbar province, whom President Bush visited on Labor Day and who fought Iran for Saddam Hussein, will support it and maybe even volunteer to fight.
• Gasoline prices may reach $7/gallon within a week and probably go higher rapidly, especially if Iran makes even partially successful attempts to block the Strait of Hormuz.
• Either there will be a movement of national solidarity against invasion in Iran from across the entire Iranian political spectrum, or (less likely) Iran will collapse into some kind of civil disorder, with nuclear materials littered about.
• Hizbullah and Hamas will unleash missile attacks and perhaps suicide bombings on Israel, and Israel will respond harshly in Lebanon and Gaza (at least).
• Such an attack will also have other unpredictable consequences, which I will therefore not try to predict.

What course of action do I suggest?

The immediate goal for Democratic presidential candidates and the Democrats (and sensible Republicans) in Congress should be to use the power of the legislative branch to prevent the administration from launching a war. I can think of two possible ways to do this:

• Pass an Act of Congress stating that the 2001 AUMF does not authorize a preemptive strike against Iran (or a strike in response to an alleged provocation – recall Tonkin Gulf). In this case, Congress would claim that war with Iran requires new authorization.
• Cut off funding for any war with Iran not specifically authorized by Congress in accordance with the law after September 30, when spending starts out of next year’s budget. Presumably they won’t be able to start the war by then and rely on the “support the troops” argument.

In coordination with this immediate response, responsible leaders in both parties should articulate an alternative policy toward Iran starting with the same principle as the Helsinki Accords of 1975 – no regime change. The same political groups that want war with Iran today opposed the Helsinki Accords of 1975 because they recognized the Soviet control of Eastern Europe. But these Accords were instrumental in bringing about the collapse of the USSR and rise of independent forces in Central and Eastern Europe.

Under different leaders, the U.S. could start work on such a détente today. It will take years and it cannot advance much while Bush-Cheney and Ahmadinejad are in power. But we should not let them destroy such opportunities for the future.

Posted by Barnett R. Rubin at 9:58 PM 25 comments

Labels: Iran, Israel, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, US Iran policy

As Sahab announces new video from Osama Bin Laden

A new banner posted on various jihadist websites claims a video release from Osama bin Laden is imminent.

We will update as the evening progresses.

As Sahab releases English version of Winds of Martyrs Part 1, with voice overs by Adam Gaddahn

This afternoon, As Sahab released an English translation of Winds of Martyrs, Part 1. The Arabic version was released earlier this summer.

This English version includes voice-over translations read by Adam Gaddahn, the Orange County native who has emerged as an Al Qaeda spokesman. (Subscribers to Strategic Translations received an English translation at the time the initial video was released.)

The video can be downloaded from http://www.lauramansfield.com/shuhada3e.rm.

They Hate Our Freedoms
The neocons, that is. Article by Thomas J. DiLorenzo.

The General vs. the Ambassador – Joe Klein, Time Magazine

A few months ago, after a sweltering day in the field surveying the progress his troops were making in turning Sunni tribes against al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) extremists, General David Petraeus squinted into the Baghdad sun and allowed himself a moment of astonishment. "It's just amazing how quickly some of these tribes are flipping," he said. Amazing, indeed. Petraeus has presided over a remarkable turn of events in Iraq. The most recalcitrant areas of the country—the heartland of the Sunni insurgency—have suddenly become the most placid. The safest place for President George W. Bush to land when he visited Iraq on Labor Day was al-Asad air base in Anbar province; a year ago, a military-intelligence report said the province had been "lost" to the jihadis. Now AQI seems to have been kicked out of Anbar, pushed back from Baghdad, forced to carry out its most lethal attacks on the northern periphery of the country. It was feared that the weeks before Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker made their September reports to Congress would be dominated by the insurgency's State of Iraq report: spectacular bombings, perhaps even a Tet-style offensive. But—fingers crossed as I write this—Baghdad seems merely murderous these days, without the efflorescence of gore that would have undercut the Bush Administration's story line…

The Partitioning of Iraq - Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post

It took political Washington a good six months to catch up to the fact that something significant was happening in Iraq's Anbar province, where the former-insurgent Sunni tribes switched sides and joined the fight against al-Qaeda. Not surprisingly, Washington has not yet caught up to the next reality: Iraq is being partitioned -- and, like everything else in Iraq today, it is happening from the ground up. 1. The Sunni provinces. The essence of our deal with the Anbar tribes and those in Diyala, Salahuddin and elsewhere is this: You end the insurgency and drive out al-Qaeda, and we assist you in arming and policing yourselves. We'd like you to have an official relationship with the Maliki government, but we're not waiting on Baghdad.

2. The Shiite south. This week the British pulled out of Basra, retired to their air base and essentially left the southern Shiites to their own devices -- meaning domination by the Shiite militias now fighting each other for control.

3. The Kurdish north. Kurdistan has been independent in all but name for a decade and a half...

The Rising Tensions Between Allies in Action - Bronwen Maddox, London Times

If Britain had not just clashed with the US over its plans to leave Iraq, it might have been easier to avoid the rising tension over Afghanistan. But not very easy: there are half a dozen disagreements over tactics, and a longer-term distinct difference of interest. Tension was on the cards since Tony Blair decided that Britain should take a leading role in Afghanistan, giving it a responsibility for the overall outcome that it would never have had in Iraq. From the beginning its aims and style of operation have been different from those of the US.

Washington wanted the capture of Osama bin Laden, the expulsion of the Taleban, the installation of a pro-Western government, and enough stabilisation to stop Afghanistan remaining a fountain of terrorism. Britain, early on, began using the far reaches of the vocabulary of nation-building; given its huge setbacks in the battle against the opium trade, it has begun to talk of a 20-year project…

World War IV? – William F. Buckley, National Review / Real Clear Politics

… Begin with our military superiority, which would appear to make victory inevitable. "Islamists have nothing like the military machine the Axis deployed in World War II, nor the Soviet Union during the Cold War. What do the Islamists have to compare with the Wehrmacht or the Red Army? The SS or Spetznaz? The Gestapo or the KGB? Or, for that matter, to Auschwitz or the Gulag?" A thoughtful answer to that question is sobering. The Islamists have:

"-- A potential access to weapons of mass destruction that could devastate Western life.

"-- A religious appeal that provides deeper resonance and greater staying power than the artificial ideologies of fascism or communism.

"-- An impressively conceptualized, funded and organized institutional machinery that successfully builds credibility, goodwill and electoral success.

"-- An ideology capable of appealing to Muslims of every size and shape, from Lumpenproletariat to privileged, from illiterates to Ph.D.s, from the well-adjusted to psychopaths, from Yemenis to Canadians."

Add to the above "a huge number of committed cadres. If Islamists constitute 10 percent to 15 percent of the Muslim population worldwide, they number some 125 million to 200 million persons, or a far greater total than all the fascists and communists, combined, who ever lived." …

Progress in the Iraqi Security Forces – Frederick Kagan, Weekly Standard

… In other words, the Iraqi Army has made tremendous strides, is fighting hard and skillfully, and is now a critical component of the counter-terrorism campaign in Iraq, but it cannot continue that campaign without continued Coalition combat and logistics support over the coming months (for more on this, see a new report from the American Enterprise Institute released today, "No Middle Way"). Almost all of the trendlines for the Iraqi Army and for security in Iraq noted in the report are positive. The Iraqi Police are more problematic, but even here, the report notes that training is improving and local recruiting is making a significant positive difference. The National Police, the report rightly notes, are broken, and the media has made much of this. But the National Police consist of around 25,000 members, compared to perhaps 300,000 members of the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police. The Iraqi Security Forces can hardly be judged a failure on such grounds.

In fact, the Jones Report offers no suggestion that the Iraqi Security Forces should be judged a failure at all. On the contrary, they have made great progress and the report sees every reason for them to continue to make better progress. The issue of their "independent" operations is and always has been a red herring. For Americans concerned about how long their sons and daughters will have to be in harm's way in Iraq, which is everyone, the point isn't how long it will take the Iraqis to operate independently, but how long it will take before they can carry more of the burden of fighting the enemy. The Jones Report makes it clear that they are already carrying a significant part of that burden, and that their ability to do so will increase steadily and rapidly in the coming months--as long as we maintain our presence and our current strategy, which the report clearly judges to be working. Presenting the Jones Report as a condemnation of the Iraqi Security Forces, proof of their hopelessness, or support for a rapid withdrawal of American forces or a "change of mission" goes beyond spin. It is simple dishonesty…

Time to Take a Stand - Paul Krugman, New York Times (subscription required)

Here’s what will definitely happen when Gen. David Petraeus testifies before Congress next week: he’ll assert that the surge has reduced violence in Iraq — as long as you don’t count Sunnis killed by Sunnis, Shiites killed by Shiites, Iraqis killed by car bombs and people shot in the front of the head.

Here’s what I’m afraid will happen: Democrats will look at Gen. Petraeus’s uniform and medals and fall into their usual cringe. They won’t ask hard questions out of fear that someone might accuse them of attacking the military. After the testimony, they’ll desperately try to get Republicans to agree to a resolution that politely asks President Bush to maybe, possibly, withdraw some troops, if he feels like it...

The Long Knives - Washington Times editorial

There's barely more than a week to go before Army Gen. David Petraeus arrives in Washington with his eagerly awaited assessment of progress in Iraq, and the Democrats are making their own war strategy abundantly clear. Gen. Petraeus must be portrayed as a White House stooge and the men and women risking their lives to defeat jihadists in Iraq but his innocent lackeys. The propagandists mean to demoralize the troops by declaring their efforts doomed to failure, and even if they don't fail their substantial military successes don't amount to much.

The most disgraceful player so far is Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who in speech ridiculed as "desperate" the successful strategy implemented by Gen. Petraeus, which has dramatically reduced violence in Anbar province and saved both American and Iraqi lives. The alliance between the U.S. military and Sunni tribesmen has encouraged the Sunnis to stand against al Qaeda. "Are we placing our faith in the future of Iraq in the hands of some warlords?" asked Mr. Schumer with a sour verbal sneer. "Some tribal leaders who at the moment dislike al Qaeda more than they dislike us? Is this the vaunted clarion cry for democracy in the Middle East that the President announced when he started the build-up in Iraq?... This is a policy of desperation." ...

Moment of Truth in Iraq – Michael Duffy, Time Magazine

… Did the surge work?

Yes and no. After Bush kicked a handful of other generals out or upstairs early this year, Petraeus changed tactics abruptly, threw a ring of fresh troops around most of Baghdad and crimped the flow of explosives into the city, making life there markedly better. The surge took place in a belt of outposts around the capital, where troops barricaded roads into the city, worked with local residents to flush out insurgents and spent millions creating safe zones where markets and normal life could return. Average Iraqis tell Time that Baghdad feels safer; sectarian violence in the capital has been reduced, Pentagon officials say, and many Baghdad residents want the surge to continue. That's in part what the operation's architects had in mind when they sketched it out last fall.

But from the beginning, the surge was as much a political strategy as a military campaign. U.S. commanders in Iraq repeatedly stressed that American troops were simply buying time for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to do two things: buck up Iraqi security forces and take steps toward reconciliation that would, everyone hoped, lessen violence. The surge was designed to carve out a quiet space in which compromise rather than violence would rule. On this front, there is not much good news. Al-Maliki does not appear to need — or even want — to lead any hard negotiations. That's largely because the three major Shi'ite blocs in the Iraqi government are operating under what they feel is a historical mandate to undo centuries of injustice against them by Sunnis. In practice, this means giving the Sunnis no quarter in negotiations. "The Shi'ites feel they are carrying the burden of history and that they will betray their entire community if they agree to even one concession," says an Iraqi political analyst who asked not be be named. "This is not a matter of practical politics. It is a holy duty." …

The Measure of Progress - Wall Street Journal editorial

Progress toward a more secure Iraq has now reached a point where the President of the United States and his Secretaries of State and Defense can make a visit to Anbar province and meet with Sunni tribal chieftains once allied with al Qaeda. So what better time to trot out a Congressional report that suggests, in effect, that no progress is being made at all? We'll get to that report in a moment. What's more important is to note the changes that have taken place in Iraq, all of which indicate that the "surge" is working and that we are at last on our way toward a positive military outcome...

None of this is to say that we are out of the woods in Iraq, nor that there aren't risks associated with the alliances the U.S. military is now forming with Sunni sheiks who were previously allied with the insurgents. But neither would the gains that have plainly been made been possible without a new commander, a new strategy, a heightened tempo of operations and the military resources needed to sustain them.

In some other war, under some other Administration, all this would be cause for bipartisan rejoicing. So leave it to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to pounce on the Congressional report, written by the Government Accountability Office, to salvage the bad news from the good. "We can't continue to sacrifice American lives, deplete our treasure and weaken our national security in pursuit of a goal that the Iraqi people themselves show no interest in achieving," said the Nevada Democrat on Tuesday...

Troops Political Pawn in Iraq War – Marco Martinez, USA Today

You can tell a lot about a nation by whom it trusts.

I am a former gang member-turned-Marine, not a statistician. But when I read that a Pew Research Center survey recently found that 76% of Republicans "have confidence" in the U.S. military to give an accurate picture of the war vs. only 36% of Democrats, the long-range consequences of a divided country became clear: We've become a nation that sees its soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines as political pawns, not patriots. Like thousands of combat veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I am now home, working and attending college. Yet it is the pre-presidential election climate I see stateside that concerns me most for my brothers and sisters in arms.

Gen. David Petraeus, who has faced Herculean challenges of mortal consequence, will issue his report on progress in Iraq next week. Regardless of what he reports, it's worth reminding the American people — and all politicians in Washington — that the troops must not become the rope in a political tug of war on Capitol Hill.

When I hear members of Congress, such as House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., say that progress with the surge might create a "real big problem for us" in moving toward withdrawal, I think back to the hellish fighting my fellow Marines and I endured — and I feel ashamed that any American would make such a seemingly reckless political calculation. Knowing that a politician might view success in Iraq as an electoral problem is political zealotry in the extreme. Does Clyburn's remark, though his alone, reflect a growing anxiety among Democrats that success in Iraq might complicate plans for ending the war? ...

War Question - Diana West, Washington Times

The worst possible outcome of next week's congressional hearings on Iraq — already dubbed "Petraeus Week" after Gen. David Petraeus' dramatically anticipated testimony on whether "the surge" is working in Iraq — would be a political haggle over whether the surge is working in Iraq. Let's just say the surge defined as a military plan to enhance security in targeted sections of Iraqis working. As even The Washington Post owned up, "If there is one indisputable truth regarding the current offensive, it is this: When large numbers of U.S. troops are funneled into areas, security improves." No one needs four years at West Point or even two hours watching "Battleground" to figure that out. The cavalry rides in, things get better.

But there are other, more significant questions to hash out: namely, whether the strategy behind the surge still makes national security sense for the United States. That is, should a functioning state of Iraq — the ultimate goal of the surge (aside from the president's mirage-like vision of Iraq as a "friend" and "ally") — remain the overriding objective of U.S. foreign policy? ...

Iraq's Persian Puzzle - Christian Science Monitor editorial

As Congress tries again for consensus on Iraq, it can't ignore the other I-nation next door. Will Iran further deepen its hold over fellow Shiites in Iraq after an eventual US drawdown? That question underlies the renewed debate on Capitol Hill like a Persian rug. President Bush keeps raising the issue of Iran's ominous presence, both in influence over its neighbor as well as its ambitions as a nuclear and regional power. His claim is part of the administration's ever-evolving definition of threats in Iraq and of a US success. If Congress is to dismiss Mr. Bush's warnings and order troops to begin pulling out, it first needs to look hard at Iran's intentions and potential.

Fortunately, the Bush administration has tried to probe Tehran's designs. Since 2003, it has had indirect talks with Iran about its nuclear program (through European allies) and this year started a series of direct talks about Iraq.

Both negotiations, however, appear to be failing as Iran has ramped up its uranium enrichment and still materially supports Iraqi militants' attacks on US soldiers. It seems to prefer an American quagmire in Iraq so the US can't strike Iran's nuclear facilities. This has led to a rising diplomatic confrontation and added UN sanctions against Iran...

Adding Centrifuges to the Fire - Claude Salhani, Washington Times

New reports from Iran say the Islamic Republic is running more than 3,000 centrifuges, which is certain to augment fears in Washington and Western Europe that Iran's nuclear program is for military, rather than civilian, use, as Iran's leadership insists.

The announcement by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Sunday also will likely augment the likelihood of an attack by the United States on Iran's nuclear production plants and installations. Iran's main nuclear facilities, according to Alireza Jafarzadeh, an exile with close links to the Iranian opposition, are those at Natanz and Arak.

According to a report published in the London Sunday Times, the Pentagon has drawn up plans to conduct "massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians' military capability in three days." The Times quotes Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, a conservative policy institute. Mr. Debat told a conference in Washington last week that U.S. military planners are talking "about taking out the entire Iranian military." ...

Al Qaeda’s Hope – Clifford May, National Review

As the sixth anniversary of September 11, 2001 approaches, we should be grateful: Al Qaeda has not successfully attacked Americans a second time on American soil. We also should be distressed: Americans are debating whether to fight al Qaeda — or whether to retreat from the one battlefield on which we have a chance to seriously damage al Qaeda, both militarily and ideologically. That battlefield is in Iraq. True, a case can be made that had President Bush not invaded Iraq, we would not need to fight al Qaeda in Iraq. But that is irrelevant to the question policy makers need to decide: Do we continue battling al Qaeda in Iraq? Or do we stop — and let al Qaeda combatants in Iraq live to fight another day? …

Avoiding Surprise – Austin Bay, Washington Times

… The sixth anniversary of September 11 is an appropriate moment to reflect on the vexingly complex problem of surprise, and particularly strategic surprise. The problem has no solution, at least no perfect solution. Unless you know the future, surprise is inevitable. Limiting the more devastating effects of surprise is the elegant trick that defines the best-prepared. I think the insurance industry uses the term "lowering the risk premium." That means limiting the number of lives lost, the property damage and the costs of assuring security.

Last month, the CIA inspector general's office released its assessment of the CIA's pre-September 11 efforts. The report was damning. The CIA had sources, leads and facts, but it lacked imagination — the dynamic imagination to foresee al Qaeda's planned attack…

A Weird Way to Wage War – Adam Brodsky, New York Post

As Americans mark the sixth anniversary of the start of the War on Terror this Tuesday, we can be thankful that our response to the attack, so far, has averted any follow-up on our shores. At the same time, though, some of our actions post-9/11 have been, well . . . weird.

And potentially self-destructive.

What's been most inexplicable is the urge to accommodate the enemy. It's almost as if we've felt guilty about our ability to prevail and want to even the sides, handicapping ourselves and giving the enemy every edge…

Domestic Focus Deflects from Need to Rein in Iran – Michael Costello, The Australian

… This is a distraction from the opportunity to confront much bigger issues for Australia's future, none more so than the risk of two extremely dangerous countries getting nuclear weapons. One is North Korea. The six-nation talks, made up of North Korea and five partners, have made some progress in getting Pyongyang's agreement to cease and desist from developing nuclear weapons. But we have been there before. North Korea has given similar undertakings in the past and cheated. The verification arrangements in this deal are weak.

Note that the leaders of all five partner nations are here in Australia: Russia, South Korea, Japan, China and the US. This is a tremendous opportunity for them to agree to push for much tougher verification requirements on North Korea. This applies particularly to China, which has more leverage on North Korea than anyone.

Even more dangerous, however, is the situation in Iran. For years, Iran has been cheating on its nuclear undertakings. It continues to do so. The US agreed several years ago to use the diplomacy route to try to get Iran to abide by its undertakings and has worked conscientiously during the past several years to see what progress can be made. It agreed to let the European Union take the lead because the EU thought it was better at this sort of thing than the Americans. Yet Iran remains defiant…

Rudd Offers a Cheeky Lesson in Soft Power - Peter Hartcher, Sydney Morning Herald

When Kevin Rudd met George Bush yesterday, he handed the leader of the free world two books. One was David Day's biography of John Curtin, Australia's much admired leader during World War II. Curtin was the man who, in Australia's most desperate hour, unprotected by Britain and facing Japanese invasion, famously issued the declaration that "Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom." It was the origin of the Australia-US alliance.

Rudd chose to give Bush this book to make the point that, as he put it yesterday, "there had been earlier relationships between Australian Labor prime ministers and American presidents and we faced common challenges together."

The other book? It was The Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power is Transforming the World…

Post-9/11 Hubris – Victor Davis Hanson, National Review

Another anniversary of 9/11 is near. It’s been nearly six long years since a catastrophic attack on our shores, and we’ve understandably turned to infighting and second-guessing — about everything from Guantanamo to wiretaps. But this six-year calm, unfortunately, has allowed some Americans to believe that “our war on terror” remedy is worse than the original Islamic terrorist disease.

We see this self-recrimination reflected in our current Hollywood fare, which dwells on the evil of American interventions overseas, largely ignoring the courage of our soldiers or the atrocities committed by jihadists. Our tell-all bestsellers, endless lawsuits and congressional investigations have deflected our 9/11-era furor away from the terrorists to ourselves…

Forget Our Peril – Cal Thomas, Washington Times

Throughout our young history, Americans have been admonished to "Remember the Alamo," "Remember the Maine" and "Remember Pearl Harbor." These remembrances — and others — were for the purpose of motivating the public to fight on until an enemy was vanquished. When victory was assured, the memory faded into history.

Now, as we approach the sixth anniversary of September 11, 2001, there are suggestions we should begin to forget the worst terrorist incident in America's history. Recently, a Page One story in the New York Times suggested it is becoming too much of a burden to remember the attack, that nothing new can be said about it and that, perhaps, September 11 "fatigue" may be setting in…

The Detainee Quagmire - Michael Gerson, Washington Post

If the president, the secretary of state and the secretary of defense all want to see the Guantanamo Bay prison closed before they leave office -- as they do -- why does it remain open? When asked this question directly, senior administration officials -- some of the ones charged with implementing such changes -- reveal the difficulties of turning a gesture into a policy...

As much as we'd like this facility to simply disappear, it exists for a reason. Captured terrorists remain dangerous; they know they are at war with us even when we question it ourselves. And the circumstances of their capture often make normal legal prosecutions -- witnesses and proof beyond a reasonable doubt -- impossible. Some were captured by other countries. Some were identified by classified or inadmissible evidence. And in a war zone such as Afghanistan, there is little concern for preserving an unbroken chain of evidence. For all these reasons, the long tradition of war allows captured combatants to be detained until hostilities end -- not to punish them but to prevent them from returning to the battlefield...

MacFarquhar Strikes Again - Steve Emerson, National Review

Another New York Times article by Neil MacFarquhar on an Islamist group in America means another complete whitewash.

In his latest effort (Abandon Stereotypes, Muslims in America Say) in what has become a disturbing trend, MacFarquhar covered the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) convention over Labor Day Weekend. In his article, MacFarquhar not only gives a free pass to Islamists, but at the same time dismisses legitimate criticism of the Department of Justice’s presence at the conference (which seems especially inappropriate, and newsworthy, when it is considered that ISNA has been named as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the ongoing Hamas fundraising trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF)). In the process, MacFarquhar completely ignores damning information about ISNA that came out during trial, including such things as its foundations in the Muslim Brotherhood, and its multiple financial contributions to Hamas through its subsidiary, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT)...

Unprotected Darfur – Boston Globe editorial

This is the fifth year of the Darfur genocide. The protracted failure of the international community to rescue the victims has made a mockery of the United Nations' 2005 resolution declaring a responsibility to protect civilians who are not protected, or who are being killed, by their governments. Given the UN's sad record of allowing Sudan's National Islamic Front regime to thwart efforts to halt the ethnic cleansing, murdering, and raping of villagers in Darfur, it is hard not to be skeptical about the outcome of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's visit this week to Sudan.

Ban went there to prepare the way for deployment of a "hybrid" force of 26,000 African Union and UN peacekeepers, as mandated in a Security Council resolution that was approved in July (after being watered down at China's insistence). During his visit, Ban justifiably stressed that "it is crucially important that a political negotiation process start now."

If there is no peace to keep, the UN and AU soldiers and police will be hard-pressed to carry out their mission: to protect more than 2 million uprooted refugees so that they can eventually return to their villages; to protect humanitarian workers along with the food and medical supplies they deliver to the at-risk population; and to defend themselves…

Kosovo: Europe’s Challenge - Bernard Kouchner and David Miliband, Guardian

No European can forget the atrocities that took place in the Balkans during the 1990s. No European can forget the scenes of brutality, murder and mass deportation. At the moment when the fate of Kosovo returns to the forefront of international attention, no European should forget the tragic events that motivated the international community to intervene: we are confronted today with the last stage in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. The region's return to stability and normality has been thanks in large part to the action of the European Union: European countries have contributed international troops and police as well as significant financial assistance to the Balkans. And the perspective of entering Europe has encouraged the countries of the region to adopt crucial reforms.

That commitment to ensuring the stability of Europe and the future of the Balkans must today guide our approach to Kosovo. The approach we take must also recognise the particular circumstances of Kosovo's recent history and the unique nature of this issue…

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CHAN AKYA
In gold we trust

The global financial system is broken, with banks refusing to lend to one another at any cost, even as central banks attempt to increase system liquidity. As the interbank lending rate surges well past normal levels, usual circuit-breakers such as liquidity facilities have simply failed. In this environment, only the holders of physical assets such as gold and oil appear to have the upper hand. Sell your equities, by the way. (Sep 7, '07)

COMMENT
US trashes Iran agreement at its own peril