Quote of the Day

I thought I was dreaming when I read this:

"After the Iran war, we'll probably be walked back and shown that President Bush never really said that the Qods force was giving these weapons to the people using them against US troops. He didn't fib. We just didn't listen closely enough. He was just saying that the Qods folks gave them to someone. But he wasn't saying who. So before all our soldiers die and before the president makes yet a million more screw ups for which we'll pay for decades into the future, let's look closely at what he's actually saying."

-- Josh Marshall

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Josh Marshall is the publisher of Talkingpointsmemo.com, TPMCafe.com and TPMmuckraker.com. He also writes a weekly column for capitol hill newspaper The Hill.

His articles on politics, culture and foreign affairs have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers such as The American Prospect, The Atlantic Monthly, The Boston Globe, The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Post, The New York Times, Salon and Slate. He has appeared on CNN, CNBC, C-SPAN, FOX and MSNBC and is a frequent guest on radio stations across the country.

Previously, he was a contributing writer for The Washington Monthly and the Washington Editor of The American Prospect.

Marshall graduated from Princeton in 1991 and holds a doctorate in American history from Brown.

After five years living in Washington DC, he recently moved to New York City, where he lives with his wife Millet and their dog Simon.

War, Iran, and Who will Pay!

by Dana Smith

February 14, 2007 12:00 PM EST

Many people have mention that they thought from the start our President George Bush intended to attack Iraq all along. The evidence today points to the fact that it was far from just Iraq, and looks to the nation of Iran as a potential target. The New Yorker magazine, in an article on the possibility of war with Iran, mentions that the White House views the President of Iran as another Hitler. With this view, there is real potential for a war with Iran.

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be "wiped off the map." Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. "That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ "

Further, the New Yorker quotes a military planner who said that "in my view, if you had to name one nation that was his (George Bush) focus all the way along, it was Iran...

There is no doubt that this President and those who share power with him, surely will go to war. They have invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Iran is on the marker. The words coming from Iran don’t help any. As a matter of fact, the words help seal the deal for most Americans. We are told plainly by our President "If Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly," George Bush, in an interview with National Public Radio.

That leaves little doubt as to whether we will go to war. The President of Iran believes the Madhi, the Islamic Messiah will arrive in the spring and he has said so. With the teachings of this Madhi come the future visions of Islamic war with the brutal invader and chief rival of the devil. Of course, this refers to all unbelievers against this regime in Iran. If we are waiting for Iran to quiet down, we are in for a very long wait. There is no doubt; they will chomp at the bit to have it out with us. The question remains whether Russia and China will keep sitting still for the American taste for bloodshed and war. No doubt, if our invading continues, these countries will attack us.

Planning is going on within the walls of the White House rooms and in Washington D C. A Washington based intelligence analyst named Vincent Cannistraro, was quoted by the Guardian in an article saying: "Planning is going on, in spite of public disavowals by Gates. Targets have been selected. For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place."

He added: "We are planning for war. It is incredibly dangerous."

In another article posted by Arab American news, John Pilger wrote in his article "Iran: The War has already begun" saying the attack on Iran is due by spring. This backs up the news stories, and analysts who are saying the same thing. War with Iran in the spring is not a certainty, but is likely. The attack, said author Pilger will be one of a catastrophic nature. He comes to the conclusion as others who all say that "tactical nuclear weapons" will be used.

The one piece of "solid evidence" is the threat posed by the United States. An American naval build-up in the eastern Mediterranean has begun. This is almost certainly part of what the Pentagon calls CONPLAN 8022-02, which is the aerial bombing of Iran. In 2004, National Security Presidential Directive 35, entitled "Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization," was issued. It is classified, of course, but the presumption has long been that NSPD 35 authorized the stockpiling and deployment of "tactical" nuclear weapons in the Middle East. This does not mean Bush will use them against Iran, but for the first time since the most dangerous years of the cold war, the use of what were then called "limited" nuclear weapons is being discussed openly in Washington. What they are debating is the prospect of other Hiroshima’s and of radioactive fallout across the Middle East and central Asia. Seymour Hersh disclosed in the "New Yorker" last year that American bombers "have been flying simulated nuclear weapons delivery missions . . . since last summer."

The war that is coming is not the same as one with Iraq. This nation has been building up their jihadists for years. With the failure of the Bush administration to secure our borders, there is a certainty we have Iranian agents already in place in America. This is one part of the equation that most Americans have never faced. That is nuclear terror, bombs, and death on our own streets. From the corridors of the White house to the plains of Texas and beyond, we have people in our nation that will use these devices. All they are waiting for is the day of the Mahdi and jihad.

Steve Emerson was the first American journalist to document in chilling video format the militant Islamic support networks and terrorist groups secretly operating on American soil. Counter-terrorism officials from the National Security Council, Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have acknowledged that Emerson's documentary demonstrated that he had more reliable and accurate information about the secret terrorist networks on American soil than the US Government. There have been many reports of the Islamic Jihadist sleeper cells in the US. Only the terrorists know for sure. We can know this, our borders have been unsecured, and as a result, many enemies could have gotten through.

With the war in Iran, many say this will be an air campaign, which is another word for no need for troops. This we know is false. For you cannot secure anything without troops. Some say that the opposition party in Iran will step up to the plate, but how do we know this. One thing for sure is, Americans will pay the price. More blood will flow, and this time, the war will come to our shores.

Add to this the need for energy and you have real trouble. There is no doubt that the price of oil will surge as well. I have seen estimates ranging from ninety dollars a barrel to two hundred and fifty dollars a barrel for oil. According to the head of the National Security Foundation and Center for Asian studies, Peter brooks, this price could increase to Two hundred dollars per barrel. This was reported by Regnum online. They stated, quoting Peter Brooks the following:

If war begins in Iran, oil price can increase up to $200 per barrel. Head of the National Security Foundation and Center for Asian Studies, Peter Brooks declared it during a round table in Washington. Answering a question, to what extent the situation of beginning military actions with US participation in Iran is real, Brooks said, it could not be excluded but, at first, the existing problem should be resolved at negotiating table. At the same time Brooks’s added, military actions in Iran will differ from Iraqi ones, because the Iranian army is better trained and armed, reports RSN.

Either way, our nation always seems to want to go to war. The problem this time is that the war will make the American public pay more than ever before. We have gone through wars and never have seen the carnage as in WWII, and other conflicts overseas occur on our own streets. Our nation has lived in peace, security, and was better off during these times. We have not seen the devastation that other nations have seen when war came to their nation. This time, though, war will come. You can thank the policies of our war machine, the lack of border security, and the rise of the militancy that has gripped our leaders. With this will come much more bloodshed, both abroad and at home.

The state of the (dis)union

Jan 25, 2007

THE ROVING EYE
While US President George W Bush's State of the Union address was a non-event in terms of a new strategy for the Middle East, what the "enemy" is thinking has been personified by al-Qaeda's No 2, Sunni Arab Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Iraqi Shi'ite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr. It is unclear who in Iraq will be the ultimate winner of the conflict, but it is clear that the US "surge" - probably in tandem with the aerial bombing of Baghdad - will lead to "one, two, a thousand Fallujahs".

By Pepe Escobar

"Security is a shared destiny. If we are secure, you might be secure, and if we are safe, you might be safe. And if we are struck and killed, you will definitely - with Allah's permission - be struck and killed."
- Ayman al-Zawahiri, in the new al-Qaeda video The Correct Equation.


US President George W Bush's State of the Union address - apart from the amalgam of al-Qaeda and Iran in the same sentence - was a non-event in terms of a new strategy for the Middle East.

Bush said, "We could expect an epic battle between Shi'ite extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al-Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country [Iraq] - and in time the entire region could be drawn into the conflict."

Bush did admit that "we have been sobered by the enemy's fierce reaction" in Iraq, adding that the war, with its sectarian fury, "is not the fight we entered in Iraq. But it is the fight we are in. It is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle. So let us find our resolve, and turn events toward victory."

With Bush offering nothing new, US and world public opinion might do well to focus on the state of the (dis)union in the heart of Islam. What the "enemy" is thinking has been personified by a video starring al-Qaeda's No 2, Sunni Arab Ayman al-Zawahiri, and an interview by Iraqi Shi'ite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr.

Zawahiri, looking like a bearded Woody Allen in a slick, al-Sahab-produced, 14-minute-plus video with English subtitles, once again repeated what al-Qaeda has been stressing for years: if Islam is not attacked, the West won't be attacked. He took great pains to stress that security is a "shared destiny" between Islam and the West. The White House hasn't exactly been listening.

When Zawahiri taunts Bush to send the entire US Army to Iraq, it is not because he believes Arab mujahideen will pull a 1980s Afghanistan remix and "destroy the equivalent of 10 armies". It's because he knows Bush's "surge" and "new way forward" multiply the quagmire while further enraging US public opinion. Al-Qaeda has already telegraphed many times that it would consider an unthinkable (what about the oil?) US withdrawal as an invaluable strategic victory.

Zawahiri's geopolitical reading could not but be optimistic. He states the obvious: al-Qaeda is thriving again in Afghanistan, with Taliban offensives running rings around the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He knows al-Anbar province in Iraq is practically an al-Qaeda-secured emirate. So there's plenty of room left in his address to regiment moderate Muslims and "Arab nationalists and leftists" and incite them to become jihadis in the name of pan-Islamism. There's no guarantee moderate Muslims will be swayed. But "al-Qaeda" - the brand - is set to remain on a roll among poor, disfranchised Muslims on the peripheries of Islam, especially after the US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia.

Paradise now for martyr Muqtada
Muqtada al-Sadr's interview with Italy's La Repubblica, published late last week - his first interview with a Western news medium in recent memory - was also tremendously enlightening. The core of his platform might place him close to Zawahiri: Americans out, now. But that's where the similarities end. Both may be US Public Enemies 2 and 3 (assuming Osama bin Laden is still No 1). But al-Qaeda wants a Sunni Arab-dominated emirate in Iraq, while Muqtada wants a light, Shi'ite-dominated nationalist theocracy not submissive to Iran.

Muqtada regards Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki - whom the Sadrists theoretically support in Parliament - as little more than a puppet ("I never trusted him"). He insists Maliki told him he was "forced to fight us". But most of all he correctly evaluates that former interim prime minister Iyad "Butcher of Fallujah" Allawi is the Americans' man, the new "Saddam without a mustache" who would be able, in Washington's scheme, to pacify Iraq with an iron fist.

Muqtada is well aware he's being hunted. He telegraphs that his Mehdi Army won't oppose any resistance to the current Maliki-ordered sort-of-crackdown prior to the upcoming US surge/escalation/"new way forward". And it makes total sense: after all, this is the sacred Shi'ite month of Muharram, which celebrates the martyrdom of Imam Hussein. Muqtada emphasizes that for a true believer, there could not be a better time to become a martyr: "Paradise is assured." Next month - or a year from now, for that matter - is another story.

Muqtada meanwhile plays a clever game with Maliki. The Sadrists are back in Parliament, but with the promise of a formal timetable to be set in the next few months by the Maliki government for US withdrawal, and with any possible extension submitted to a parliamentary vote. This is a key point uniting the Sadrists and the Sunni parties.

Muqtada characterizes the 80,000-plus Mehdi Army as a free-flowing "popular army" - which is correct; this means it is porous, and infiltrated by all sides. There are at least two major, violent Mehdi Army splinter groups - the ones who may be acting as death squads. What Muqtada does not say is that he is more than happy to have these splinter groups being arrested by Maliki's soldiers. At the same time, he's confident that the majority of the Baghdad police are still Mehdi Army infiltrators.

The Mehdi Army's core - better-trained soldiers loyal to Muqtada, currently lying very low - may be preserved. But Muqtada is also more than aware he may soon have to confront no fewer than four armies: a "shadow army", trained in the Jordanian desert by the Americans; Allawi's private goons, who are training "in the former Muthanna military airport"; the Kurdish peshmerga, who are coming to patrol Baghdad alongside the Americans; and the US surge.

Muqtada does not need to say that the Pentagon escalation could force up to 3 million poor Shi'ites (including more than a million kids under 14), who barely survive in the monster slum that is Sadr City, to become Sadrists - making the "surge" one of the most stupidest follies in the history of the Middle East. But he secretly fears that hundreds of thousands may perish under US bombs in the Battle of Sadr City.

Muqtada denied he was part of the Shi'ite lynch mob present at the hanging of Saddam Hussein: "The objective was to depict Muqtada as the real enemy of the Sunnis. And they succeeded." But who are "they"? The Maliki government? The Americans? Muqtada has been trying a rapprochement with moderate Sunnis for almost two years now. But his conditions are clear: Sunnis must reject Ba'athists and al-Qaeda. He believes this still might happen. Reality, for the moment, suggests otherwise.

(Dis)united we fight
What both Zawahiri and Muqtada are saying torpedoes the heavily spun Bush-system propaganda according to which Iranian "networks" inside Iraq are allied with the Iraqi resistance to kill Americans. The last thing on Earth Iranian Shi'ites would do is smuggle weapons to Ba'athists, Saddam allies and/or al-Qaeda. The surefire way for the leadership in Tehran to raise hell in Iraq against the United States would be to help the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq's (SCIRI's) Badr Organization, or the Mehdi Army for that matter, to launch its own anti-US guerrilla war. That is obviously not happening - at least while Iran has not been the victim of a US/Israeli attack.

The winner in the short term in Iraq will be the clever chess player who has managed to ingratiate himself as Bush's man - apart from the momentarily shadowy Allawi: SCIRI's Abdulaziz al-Hakim, whose Badr Organization, holed up in the Ministry of the Interior, actually deploys anti-Sunni death squads.

Why is he Bush's man? Simple: he supports the soon-to-be-voted-on Iraqi oil law, the Holy Grail for Anglo-American Big Oil. Muqtada, on the other hand, is fiercely against it. From the Bush/Cheney system's perspective, two crucial "sins" - Muqtada's courtship of moderate Sunnis to get their act together against the occupation, and his admiration of Hezbollah's strategy - pale before the ultimate sin: Muqtada wants Iraqi oil for Iraqis.

The US plan B anyway is on. If Maliki does not deliver and defang the Mehdi Army - as he certainly won't - a US-engineered white coup will be inevitable, and there are only two possibilities: "Saddam without a mustache" Allawi, or a Hakim-blessed candidate.

Hakim is already cleverly manipulating the US escalation to strike against his two real mortal enemies - the muqawama (resistance) and the Mehdi Army - at the same time. No wonder Sunni tribal leaders started accusing the US of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad. So there's no way for Iraqification-cum-surge to appeal to Sunnis. The muqawama knows it - and it is already making plans to lie low at times, hide its constant flow of weapons bought with funding from private, wealthy Saudi and Persian Gulf individuals, or retreat from Baghdad and melt away in the desert province of al-Anbar.

Bush's surge is perfect if the template is divide and rule. The Battle of Sadr City will divide the Shi'ites into a pro-US "elite" (SCIRI and Da'wa) and a guerrilla force of the damned (the Sadrists). It will divide the Shi'ites from the Kurds (peshmergas from Kurdistan killing Shi'ites in Baghdad). It will keep Shi'ites and Sunnis bitterly divided (the other battle front in the surge is against the Sunni Arab resistance). Hakim may consider himself the winner. But Zawahiri, of course, will also love it, confident that his emirate in al-Anbar - led by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir - will ride the storm. Like the White House/Pentagon, al-Qaeda after all insists on also fighting a two-pronged war, in al-Qaeda's case against the Americans and the Shi'ites.

With Baghdad to be divided into nine military districts, each with its dedicated Iraqi army/police and its embedded US battalion, the muqawama is also more than relishing the prospect of laying siege to the sitting-duck Fort Apaches that will spring up in each of these districts. What happened in Karbala last Sunday will be quite common in Fort Apache land: attacks by guerrilla commandos disguised as American soldiers, driving in a convoy of GMCs. And Black Hawk Down will be endlessly replayed - just like last Saturday, when a helicopter was shot down by a clumsy Russian SA-7 shoulder-fired missile.

Most of all, the dire prospect is of a devastating air war over Baghdad - followed by wholesale slaughter of Sunnis and Shi'ites alike as counterinsurgency fails (there are no hearts and minds to be won; everyone wants US troops out). But as US bombs and missiles now define who is a "terrorist" and who is not - see the recent bombing of Somali nomadic herdsmen sold as dangerous al-Qaeda operatives - Iraqification-cum-surge will be a disaster mostly for every Baghdadi caught in the crossfire.

The Pentagon cannot at the same time launch the Battle of Sadr City, fight the muqawama spread out and in control all over western Baghdad, and fight al-Qaeda in al-Anbar province. Or maybe it could: if bombs and missiles from above are The Great Decider on who's a terrorist, why not take out everybody down there on the ground? Forty years after Che Guevara's "one, two, a thousand Vietnams", meet "one, two, a thousand Fallujahs".

Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd

Bush's tough tactics are a 'declaration of war' on Iran

By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
Published: 12 January 2007

American forces stormed Iranian government offices in northern Iraq, hours after President George Bush issued a warning to Tehran that was described as a "declaration of war".

The soldiers detained six people, including diplomats, according to the Iranians, and seized documents and computers in the pre-dawn raid which was condemned by Iran. A leading UK-based Iran specialist, Ali Ansari, said the incident was an "extreme provocation". Dr Ansari said that Mr Bush's speech on future Iraq strategy amounted to "a declaration of war" on Iran.

"The risk is a wider war. Because of the underlying tensions, we are transferring from a 'cold war' into a 'hot war'," he said.

In his speech, the President accused Iran and Syria of providing material support for attacks on US troops, and vowed to stop the "flow of support" from across the border. "We will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq," he said.

Dr Ansari argued that the Bush administration had decided to confront Iran at a time when public opinion has been focused on the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. "There's been a shift of emphasis without anyone noticing," he said.

"Moderate" Sunni Arab states who feel threatened by the rise of Shia Iran, thanks to its influence in Iraq and its refusal to curb its nuclear programme, could be expected to back the Bush approach, he said. The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, is due to visit Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia this week.

Until now, the Bush administration had been content to deal with the perceived Iranian threat diplomatically. The United Nations adopted sanctions against Tehran on 23 December. However, the economic measures adopted by the UN have failed to convince Iran to halt its uranium-enrichment programme which could lead to production of a nuclear weapon. The US is calling on allied states to adopt tougher unilateral sanctions.

President Bush appointed Admiral William Fallon to replace General John Abizaid as head of Central Command for Iraq and Afghanistan last week in a sign that change could be afoot. This week, Mr Bush ordered a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, along with its support ships, which could be used to contain Iran.

The US Treasury named Iran's Bank Sepah as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction on Tuesday, banned US companies or citizens from doing business with it and blocked any of its assets that come under American jurisdiction.

But if the US is preparing to confront Iran militarily - which some top military officials in Israel are reportedly recommending - the Bush administration will find itself involved in conflicts on four fronts.

In Somalia, US special forces have been pounding suspected al-Qa'ida suspects since early on Monday, in a continuing operation that risks pulling the Americans back into a conflict in a failed state. US forces are also active in southern Afghanistan in the hunt for the al-Qa'ida leader, Osama bin Laden, and his top associates. Al-Qa'ida has reactivated its Taliban allies who have become bolder in their attacks on coalition forces.

In Iraq, US troops are losing soldiers on an almost daily basis to the bombs of Sunni and Shia insurgents. The Shia-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was warned by Ms Rice yesterday that his days were numbered unless he was able to take on Shia militias who are his allies in government.

Ms Rice followed up President Bush's tough words on Iran by saying: "The President made very clear last night that we know Iran is engaged in activities endangering our troops... and that we're going to pursue those who may be involved in those activities."

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, protested against the raid by US forces in Arbil, saying on Iranian state-run radio that it targeted a "diplomatic mission" since the "presence of Iranian staffers in Irbil was legal".

Ironically, Iran had been contained by Saddam Hussein, until his overthrow by the Americans in 2003. Obsessed by a threat from "Persian hordes", Saddam maintained ambiguity about his weapons of mass destruction so Iran would believe that it had reason to fear its western neighbour. So have the Americans made a strategic mistake by refusing to engage with Iran? "There's no doubt that nothing good will come of this," said Dr Ansari.

As Bush Readies Iraq Speech -- An Amazing TV Clip on Vietnam War and Protest, 1969

YOUR NIGHTLY VIDEO
By Greg Mitchell

Published: January 08, 2007 4:15 PM ET

NEW YORK It was once fashionable to mock those who, back in 2003, warned that the mission was not yet accomplished in Iraq and that the war there could drag on for years, much like Vietnam. Unfortunately, those warnings have turned out to be on the mark, and then some.

Now, as the war nears its fourth year, President Bush will be taking to the air on Wednesday to announce -- it is reported -- not the beginning of U.S. disengagement (a la Nixon and Vietnam in 1969) but a decison to commit at least 20,000 more troops to Iraq. So it seems appropriate to take a break from our usual musical and comedic offerings in our video feature, and take a look back at a key moment in Vietnam era politics with this remarkable clip from ABC's nightly news broadcast on Oct. 16, 1969.

It's the day after the massive antiwar "moratorium" protests. In four minutes, the ABC segment covers the White House reaction to the protests, congressional approval for a draft lottery and, if that isn't enough, what happened that day at the Chicago conspiracy trial.

Note the White House stating that the war will soon turn around because the enemy is in "disarray." The U.S. will be able to wrap it up in "two or three years" -- but not because of a U.S. build up but due to U.S. withdrawals. Publicly, Nixon's people say the protests have no effect, but privately they indicate that now they know they must speak more openly and frankly to Americans about their plans.

If the ABC anchor, Howard K. Smith, seems decidely unfriendly to the antiwar side, keep in mind that Smith was then known as the most hawkish of the leading newsmen.

Click here to watch.

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Previous: Alec Baldwin and Tony Bennett do "Phony Bennett" on SNL:

Click here to watch.
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The meeting of two giants, sax fiend Sonny Rollins and poet/winger Leonard Cohen.

Click here to watch.

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As Gerald R. Ford is laid to rest, Stephen Colbert roasts Chevy Chase:

Click here to watch.

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Richard and son Teddy Thompson sing a rarity, "Persuasion":

Click here to watch.

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Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor of E&P.