- By The Associated Press
Friday, February 2, 2007
(02-02) 12:10 PST , (AP) --
Main findings of the declassified portion of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq:
_ Growing polarization of Iraqi society, weak security forces and a weak government are driving violence and political extremism.
_ If new plans for Iraq don't work over the coming year to 18 months, security in Iraq will continue to deteriorate as in the second half of 2006.
_ Even if the violence lessens, Iraqi leaders will be hard-pressed to stabilize the country by mid-2008.
_ Iraq faces "daunting" challenges driven by Shiite insecurity after years of Sunni domination, Sunni unwillingness to accept minority status, divided leaders who can't control the groups they represent, a Kurdish movement toward autonomy, an ineffective Iraqi army, extremist groups inside and outside Iraq and problems with refugees.
_ The term "civil war" accurately describes key aspects of the conflict in Iraq but doesn't encompass all of its complexities.
_ American and international forces play a key role in the country, and the Iraqi army probably wouldn't survive a rapid U.S. withdrawal.
_ Political developments — particularly Sunni acceptance of the current government, concessions from the Shiites and the Kurds, and efforts to reduce violence in neighborhoods — could help calm the conflict. Having stronger Iraqi leaders would help this to happen.
_ Iraq's neighbors have some influence in the country and in some cases have intensified the conflict, but they don't play a major role because the sectarian divisions are firmly entrenched and driven by internal political forces.
_ Other Sunni Arab regimes in the region are reluctant to support the Shiite-dominated Baghdad government and are considering supporting Sunni groups in Iraq. Turkey wants a stable Iraq to keep a Turkish Kurdish terrorist group from finding safe haven in northern Iraq.
_ The security situation in Iraq could take a sharp turn for the worse if there is a political crisis such as sustained mass killings, a high-profile assassination or complete Sunni withdrawal from the government. If that happens, one of three scenarios might emerge: The central government could disintegrate and lead to a de facto partition of Iraq along sectarian lines, resulting in protracted violence; a Shiite strongman could emerge, or an anarchic pattern of local control could arise, leading to chaos and extreme violence.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Republicans Plan to Block Iraq Debate
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said Friday that his party would unite to block Senate debate next week on a bipartisan resolution opposing President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq unless the Democrats allowed votes on at least two Republican alternatives.
Mr. McConnell said even Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who is the chief author of the bipartisan proposal, and other Republicans backing his plan had agreed to prevent the resolution from reaching the floor Monday if Democrats did not agree to that demand.
“We’re in a position to insist on a procedure for considering these matters that we think is fair to us,” said Mr. McConnell, who has been negotiating the framework of the debate with Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader. “We can’t dictate the outcome necessarily, but we’re insistent upon a process that we are comfortable with.”
By CARL HULSE
Bush would use Iraq as the pretext to attack Iran
Friday, February 02, 2007
Although I'm not as convinced as a lot of progressive bloggers that Bush is about to launch a military campaign against Iran, there's certainly enough smoke out there to legitimately worry about fire.
There are actually two separate reasons to worry.
On the one hand, you've got renewed saber-rattling in Israel about the intolerability of a nuclear Iran. Israeli fears about Iran were nicely summarized last week in a New Republic piece by Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael Oren. I'm not about to tell Israelis what they should think or do about defending their own country, but still, the apparent conviction of 66% of Israelis that Ahmadinejad would happily sacrifice half his population (a realistic assessment, given Israel's own massive nuclear arsenal) in order to hit Israel with a nuclear strike is, well, a bit counter-intuitive. Missing from this scary calculus is the virtual certainty that Ahmadinejad would be strangled in his bed if he made a single move in the direction of wiping out his own people.
I'm not one to dismiss Ahmadinejad's anti-semitic ravings as just some sort of "populist" claptrap, but we might as well remember that the very model of anti-semitic madmen, Adolph Hitler (who unlike the Iranian really did enjoy total personal power over his state) refrained from using chemical weapons during World War II out of fear of Allied retaliation.
Even if Israelis are in fact losing faith in the power of their nuclear deterrent, you do have to wonder if some of the war talk is in fact aimed at psychological deterrence. A quick Google search produced reliable-sounding articles from 2005 and 2006 (here and here) reporting that an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities was imminent. Perhaps Israelis are trying to convince Iranians that if they are unwilling to halt their nuclear program, they'd better find a leader who doesn't threaten the destruction of Israel every other day.
If indeed Israel is on the edge of attacking Iran, you could understand why the Bush administration might be looking at what it would do in that contingency. But that's the really weird thing: reports are now coming out that Bush and Cheney are considering a military confrontation with Iran that has nothing to do with its nuclear program.
Check out this report yesterday from U.S. News:The US News Political Bulletin has learned Democrats on Capitol Hill are increasingly concerned that President Bush will order air strikes against targets in Iran in the next few months or even weeks. They cite as evidence the tough warnings from senior Administration officials, including the Commander in Chief, that Iranian help for insurgents in Iraq is leading to the deaths of US troops and Iraqi civilians. Democratic insiders tell the Political Bulletin that they suspect Bush will order the bombing of Iranian supply routes, camps, training facilities, and other sites that Administration officials say contribute to American losses in Iraq. Under this scenario, Bush would not invade Iran with ground forces or zero in on Iranian nuclear facilities.
If true, this is a much crazier idea than anything being contemplated in Israel. Whatever Iran is up to in Iraq, the reality is that its primary agents in Iraq are SCIRI and its Badr Corps militia, which the Bush administration has called the great hope for marginalizing the Mahdi Army and building a "unity" government. And for that matter, the Maliki government is unmistakably pro-Iran as well. It's hard to overestimate the extent to which a shooting war with Iran could destroy what little influence the U.S. still has in Iraq, unless we're going to make the Sunni insurgency our new base of support. To risk all that, and not even make Iran's nuclear facilities the target, makes absolutely no sense.
Moreover, and this is the factor that neither Israeli nor American anti-Iranian saber-rattlers seem to want to talk about, any military confrontation with Iran would almost certaintly unite the Iranian people behind their government. While hardly a perfect democracy, Iran does have elections; that's how Ahmadinejad gained power in the first place. His party recently got waxed in local elections, a fact that seems to elude those who view Iran as a theocracy where elections are entirely rigged. The simplest and least dangerous path to a less dangerous Iran is to encourage its people to get rid of Ahmadinejad. An attack on Iran would likely take this option off the table, perhaps forever.
There's already growing paranoia among progressive bloggers that "cowardly" DC Democrats would go along with the above-described plan for military strikes against Iran over its role in Iraq. I guess I would qualify as a "liberal hawk"' by the standards of many such bloggers, and when it comes to this crazy plan, let me say: not me, buddy. It would be a strategic disaster, and Democrats along with sane Republicans ought to fight it tooth and nail.
The Next War Has Already Begun
BLOG | Posted 02/02/2007 @ 2:25pm
Laura Flanders
Last weekend's peace march in Washington was short a few bodies. A plane-load of potential marchers was held up by British Airways on our way back from the World Social Forum in Nairobi. No, we weren't detained, just delayed, by an engine failure discovered late at night on the runway.
Laura Flanders
Last weekend's peace march in Washington was short a few bodies. A plane-load of potential marchers was held up by British Airways on our way back from the World Social Forum in Nairobi. No, we weren't detained, just delayed, by an engine failure discovered late at night on the runway.
There we were, packed, pumped up, and eager for action after a week of talk when the pilot came on the sound system and announced that one of the jumbo jet's four engines had failed and our departure was put off for a day.
We missed the marching, but I've been thinking about our engine failure as I've read the coverage of the demonstration. Turnout wasn't bad. Organizers estimate the crowd at half a million. But after ten days in Kenya, the contrast in priorities between the peace agenda in DC and that in Nairobi couldn't be starker. Dig as I might into the reporting on Saturday's event, I can't find any serious mention of the US intervention in Somalia. While many US activists are quoted talking about the threat of a US operation against Iran (and I think the Iran threat is serious) the US is already engaged in a military intervention in the Horn of Africa, yet it's barely mentioned. It's enough to make you wonder if the US peace movement is firing on all cylinders.
It is the stuff of daily concern and discussion in much of Africa, but here's an update for US readers: American gunships stationed at the US base in Dijbouti carried out two deadly air strikes on Somalia this January. The Pentagon delayed confirming the January 8 attack for more than twenty-four hours but Oxfam claims that US bombs killed seventy nomads as they searched for water near the Kenya border. Two weeks later, a second strike claimed more lives, but still not the supposed targets--suspects wanted for their alleged role in the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
Speaking to the East African newspaper January 22, Michael Ranneberger, the US Ambassador to Kenya, cast the US intervention as pro-peace, pro-democracy move. "We want to ensure security on the ground and that includes trying to interdict these foreign terrorists connected with Al-Quaeda that have been operating in Somalia," Rannenberger told the East African. "Second, we want to promote stability in Somalia." The Somalia operation will take a while, the ambassador admitted. "It would be a mistake to put an artificial time line and say it will take four months or six months." All of this sounds dreadfully familiar.
Air strikes are just one face of the US intervention. The US is also backing Ethiopian forces which last month invaded in an effort to drive forces loyal to the Islamic Courts Union out of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. (The operation is said to have been in the planning since the Courts Union took control over the city the last summer.) The Somali political picture is complex--the Courts Union is the closest thing much of Somalia has had to an effective government in more than 16 years--but a few things are clear: the country is situated in a strategic region, with the continent's longest coastline, rich mineral and oil reserves and several deep sea ports. It's no surprise the US wants a client regime there. With US troops stretched thin, the next best way for the administration to fight its wars is with a mobile force (like the one stationed at Djibouti) and proxy ground forces that may not be popular on the ground but will do their paymaster's bidding (like the Ethiopians' and local warlords.)
So far, so bad. While most of us haven't been paying much attention, the US action in the Horn has stirred up Somalia's civil war, sent an armory of new weapons to local warlords and sparked a new refugee crisis. (Last month, the Kenyan government closed its borders those fleeing the bombing.) According to local reports, Courts Union Islamists gain favor with every assault, as they cast themselves as victims of US imperialism.
Welcome to the next war now. The US engagement in Somalia is what the new generation of US wars is likely to look like and it would behoove the US peace movement to pay attention.
The American proxy war in Gaza
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 3 February 2007
In recent days the unremitting, murderous brutality of the Israeli occupation has been eclipsed by the carnage in Gaza as dozens of Palestinians have been killed in what is commonly referred to as "interfactional fighting" between forces loyal to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction on the one hand, and the Hamas-led government on the other.
The airwaves have been filled with anguished calls from every sector of Palestinian society -- political parties, nongovermental organizations, and Christian and Muslim religious leaders -- for the fighting to cease and for a return to dialogue.
Perhaps for fear of exacerbating the already bitter situation, few of these voices have directly confronted the engine of this violence.
In the fevered minds of Bush administration ideologues, Palestine has become another front in what they conceive of as a new Cold War against "Islamofascism." They see Iran as the central target and proxy battles are being waged against a phantom enemy from Afghanistan and Pakistan, through Iraq into Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia and ever onwards wherever Arabs and Muslims are to be found. In every case, local conflicts with specific histories are being escalated and marshalled into this grand narrative .
Mahmoud Abbas and Gaza warlord Muhammad Dahlan have become the willing proxies for the Palestine franchise of this wider project, as their tactics and loyalists' statements reveal.
The latest round of fighting began on February 1, when forces of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior, run by the Hamas government, attempted to interdict a convoy of trucks that crossed into Gaza from Israel. Officials alleged that the trucks were carrying weapons destined for the Presidential Guard.
Fatah figures, speaking on the BBC Arabic Service, vehemently denied the allegation, making contradictory claims about the contents of the trucks. One said they contained "food and medicine for the Palestinian people," another "tents and equipment," and another still "electrical generators and spare parts." No two denials matched.
Yet the fact that the Presidential Guard is receiving arms via Israel is common knowledge to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and has been talked about openly in the Israeli media for months. Since October, eight truckloads of AK-47 rifles and machine guns and several million rounds of ammunition have entered Gaza from Israel through the Nahal Oz and Kerem Shalom crossings, according to a high-ranking officer of the Force-17 Fatah militia who conveyed this information to Hebron-based journalist Khaled Amayreh. Not all these guns go solely to the Presidential Guard; many are sold on to the highest bidder.
And just days ago, President Bush announced that he would transfer $86 million dollars in the near future to further boost Abbas.
In order to change the subject from the scandal of the Palestinian "presidency" receiving US arms through Israel to use against the Palestinian people, the Presidential Guard launched a counterattack against the Islamic University in Gaza shelling, burning and destroying parts of it. Abbas' officials claimed that their forces had arrested seven Iranian weapons experts working for Hamas, and labelled Hamas leaders "extremists" and "putschists." Fatah and Fatah-backed local radio even accused Hamas of burning down the Islamic University themselves in order to blacken Fatah's 'glorious image.' The allegations about Iranians were universally dismissed but they revealed the extent to which Abbas officials have adopted the Israeli and American paradigm as their own.
In several recent demonstrations, Dahlan loyalists have shouted "Shia, Shia," at Hamas supporters. This was perhaps supposed to draw attention to Iranian support for Hamas (the movement, like the rest of the Palestinian Muslim community, is Sunni) but this hateful sectarian incitement, hitherto unknown in Palestinian society, serves (for now) the wider strategic agenda of Abbas' and Dahlan's sponsors.
After Hizbullah defeated Israel last summer, the Lebanese Shia movement, backed by Iran, gained enormous prestige among the region's people, especially Palestinians, as an Arab nationalist and pan-Islamic movement, standing firm against Israeli aggression, in contrast to toothless, unpopular and corrupt governments. Hence the active promotion of Sunni fear of their Shia brethren is designed to limit the influence of Iran -- and serve up a good old-fashioned dose of divide and rule. (Thus from this perspective, the carnage in Iraq and the outrage at the brutal televised hanging of the Sunni-identified Saddam Hussein by a Shia-identified militia was a real bonus.)
Abbas is at last doing what Arafat was always urged to do, while Israel and the US watch with glee. As Ha'aretz explained, Israel felt no need to launch a large scale revenge operation against Gaza following the January 29 Eilat bombing: "When Fatah and Hamas are so good at killing each other, why should Israel intervene and spur them to close ranks against the common enemy?"
As the battles were raging in Gaza, the mouthpiece of American policy, the so-called Quartet (made up of representatives of the US, European Union, the United Nations and Russia) met to discuss the long-dead "peace process." The body voiced its "deep concern at the violence among Palestinians and called for respect for law and order." In a repeat of the American approach to last summer's Lebanon war, the Quartet pointedly did not call for a ceasefire.
It did however call "for Palestinian unity behind a government committed to non-violence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of the obligations under the Roadmap," while remaining totally silent about Israel's continued slow-motion ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, particularly last week's announcement by Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert that Israel was extending the illegal West Bank separation wall further east to annex several large Jewish-only colonies. This measure will add twenty thousand to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians already cut off in walled ghettos that former US President Carter has likened to "apartheid."
The Quartet even "welcomed" US arming of the Presidential Guard, though in diplomatic doublespeak this was euphemized as "efforts to reform the Palestinian security sector and thus to help improve law and order for the Palestinian people."
Bleak as things are, cracks are starting to appear. Although US propaganda asserts that the arming of the Abbas militia is in part a response to growing Iranian influence, the British parliament's International Development Committee last week concluded that it was Western sanctions and isolation that had driven Hamas to seek Iranian support. The committee condemned the UK government's refusal to talk to Hamas, urged it to do so as it did with the IRA, and urged consideration of EU sanctions against Israel, such as suspending the Association agreement granting the Jewish state special trade privileges.
Israeli and American propaganda, now also adopted by the European Union, attempts to obscure the basic understanding that Palestine is the struggle of a colonized people for liberation. The policy of supporting a quisling group to fight as a proxy on behalf of empire, colonizer and occupier will only increase the bloodshed. But it will ultimately fail in Palestine as it did before in Northern Ireland, Southern Africa and Central and Southern America, and as it is failing in Iraq.
Ali Abunimah is the co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
Related Links:
U.S. Backing for Fatah Stirs New Conflict (2 February 2007)
BY TOPIC: Key Events: Civil War in Palestine? (11 December 2006)
In recent days the unremitting, murderous brutality of the Israeli occupation has been eclipsed by the carnage in Gaza as dozens of Palestinians have been killed in what is commonly referred to as "interfactional fighting" between forces loyal to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction on the one hand, and the Hamas-led government on the other.
The airwaves have been filled with anguished calls from every sector of Palestinian society -- political parties, nongovermental organizations, and Christian and Muslim religious leaders -- for the fighting to cease and for a return to dialogue.
Perhaps for fear of exacerbating the already bitter situation, few of these voices have directly confronted the engine of this violence.
In the fevered minds of Bush administration ideologues, Palestine has become another front in what they conceive of as a new Cold War against "Islamofascism." They see Iran as the central target and proxy battles are being waged against a phantom enemy from Afghanistan and Pakistan, through Iraq into Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia and ever onwards wherever Arabs and Muslims are to be found. In every case, local conflicts with specific histories are being escalated and marshalled into this grand narrative .
Mahmoud Abbas and Gaza warlord Muhammad Dahlan have become the willing proxies for the Palestine franchise of this wider project, as their tactics and loyalists' statements reveal.
The latest round of fighting began on February 1, when forces of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior, run by the Hamas government, attempted to interdict a convoy of trucks that crossed into Gaza from Israel. Officials alleged that the trucks were carrying weapons destined for the Presidential Guard.
Fatah figures, speaking on the BBC Arabic Service, vehemently denied the allegation, making contradictory claims about the contents of the trucks. One said they contained "food and medicine for the Palestinian people," another "tents and equipment," and another still "electrical generators and spare parts." No two denials matched.
Yet the fact that the Presidential Guard is receiving arms via Israel is common knowledge to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and has been talked about openly in the Israeli media for months. Since October, eight truckloads of AK-47 rifles and machine guns and several million rounds of ammunition have entered Gaza from Israel through the Nahal Oz and Kerem Shalom crossings, according to a high-ranking officer of the Force-17 Fatah militia who conveyed this information to Hebron-based journalist Khaled Amayreh. Not all these guns go solely to the Presidential Guard; many are sold on to the highest bidder.
And just days ago, President Bush announced that he would transfer $86 million dollars in the near future to further boost Abbas.
In order to change the subject from the scandal of the Palestinian "presidency" receiving US arms through Israel to use against the Palestinian people, the Presidential Guard launched a counterattack against the Islamic University in Gaza shelling, burning and destroying parts of it. Abbas' officials claimed that their forces had arrested seven Iranian weapons experts working for Hamas, and labelled Hamas leaders "extremists" and "putschists." Fatah and Fatah-backed local radio even accused Hamas of burning down the Islamic University themselves in order to blacken Fatah's 'glorious image.' The allegations about Iranians were universally dismissed but they revealed the extent to which Abbas officials have adopted the Israeli and American paradigm as their own.
In several recent demonstrations, Dahlan loyalists have shouted "Shia, Shia," at Hamas supporters. This was perhaps supposed to draw attention to Iranian support for Hamas (the movement, like the rest of the Palestinian Muslim community, is Sunni) but this hateful sectarian incitement, hitherto unknown in Palestinian society, serves (for now) the wider strategic agenda of Abbas' and Dahlan's sponsors.
After Hizbullah defeated Israel last summer, the Lebanese Shia movement, backed by Iran, gained enormous prestige among the region's people, especially Palestinians, as an Arab nationalist and pan-Islamic movement, standing firm against Israeli aggression, in contrast to toothless, unpopular and corrupt governments. Hence the active promotion of Sunni fear of their Shia brethren is designed to limit the influence of Iran -- and serve up a good old-fashioned dose of divide and rule. (Thus from this perspective, the carnage in Iraq and the outrage at the brutal televised hanging of the Sunni-identified Saddam Hussein by a Shia-identified militia was a real bonus.)
Abbas is at last doing what Arafat was always urged to do, while Israel and the US watch with glee. As Ha'aretz explained, Israel felt no need to launch a large scale revenge operation against Gaza following the January 29 Eilat bombing: "When Fatah and Hamas are so good at killing each other, why should Israel intervene and spur them to close ranks against the common enemy?"
As the battles were raging in Gaza, the mouthpiece of American policy, the so-called Quartet (made up of representatives of the US, European Union, the United Nations and Russia) met to discuss the long-dead "peace process." The body voiced its "deep concern at the violence among Palestinians and called for respect for law and order." In a repeat of the American approach to last summer's Lebanon war, the Quartet pointedly did not call for a ceasefire.
It did however call "for Palestinian unity behind a government committed to non-violence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of the obligations under the Roadmap," while remaining totally silent about Israel's continued slow-motion ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, particularly last week's announcement by Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert that Israel was extending the illegal West Bank separation wall further east to annex several large Jewish-only colonies. This measure will add twenty thousand to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians already cut off in walled ghettos that former US President Carter has likened to "apartheid."
The Quartet even "welcomed" US arming of the Presidential Guard, though in diplomatic doublespeak this was euphemized as "efforts to reform the Palestinian security sector and thus to help improve law and order for the Palestinian people."
Bleak as things are, cracks are starting to appear. Although US propaganda asserts that the arming of the Abbas militia is in part a response to growing Iranian influence, the British parliament's International Development Committee last week concluded that it was Western sanctions and isolation that had driven Hamas to seek Iranian support. The committee condemned the UK government's refusal to talk to Hamas, urged it to do so as it did with the IRA, and urged consideration of EU sanctions against Israel, such as suspending the Association agreement granting the Jewish state special trade privileges.
Israeli and American propaganda, now also adopted by the European Union, attempts to obscure the basic understanding that Palestine is the struggle of a colonized people for liberation. The policy of supporting a quisling group to fight as a proxy on behalf of empire, colonizer and occupier will only increase the bloodshed. But it will ultimately fail in Palestine as it did before in Northern Ireland, Southern Africa and Central and Southern America, and as it is failing in Iraq.
Ali Abunimah is the co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
Related Links:
Where Congress Can Draw the Line
Atlantic Unbound | February 2, 2007
Fallows@Large |
No war with Iran
Fallows@Large |
No war with Iran
.....
eciding what to do next about Iraq is hard — on the merits, and in the politics. It’s hard on the merits because whatever comes next, from “surge” to “get out now” and everything in between, will involve suffering, misery, and dishonor. It’s just a question of by whom and for how long. On a balance-of-misery basis, my own view changed last year from “we can’t afford to leave” to “we can’t afford to stay.” And the whole issue is hard in its politics because even Democrats too young to remember Vietnam know that future Karl Roves will dog them for decades with accusations of “cut-and-run” and “betraying” troops unless they can get Republicans to stand with them on limiting funding and forcing the policy to change.
By comparison, Iran is easy: on the merits, in the politics. War with Iran would be a catastrophe that would make us look back fondly on the minor inconvenience of being bogged down in Iraq. While the Congress flounders about what, exactly, it can do about Iraq, it can do something useful, while it still matters, in making clear that it will authorize no money and provide no endorsement for military action against Iran.
Why? Think of the three ways war between the United States and Iran might start.
One is the surprise, “surgical” air operation against Iranian nuclear facilities to take them out before they cause too much trouble. This option is beloved of the kind of tough-guy op-ed writers who earlier cheered on a war with Iraq. It is not at all beloved within the U.S. military. That is because military officials know what would happen roughly five minutes after the attacks were over: a short-term effort to make things really difficult for Americans in Iraq (where Iran obviously has huge leverage), in world energy markets, and everywhere else — plus a long-term, renewed effort to build Iran’s own bomb. More than two years ago, this exercise in the Atlantic indicated that it was simply too late for the United States (much less Israel) to deny Iran a nuclear option via surprise attack. Since then — well, it’s even later.
The second option would be land war. Please. Iran is nearly four times as large and has nearly three times as many people as Iraq. With what army will the U.S. attack and occupy such a state?
Also see:
JamesFallows.com
James Fallows's Web site, with regularly updated dispatches, and information about his writings and appearances.
JamesFallows.com
James Fallows's Web site, with regularly updated dispatches, and information about his writings and appearances.
And the third would be some kind of drift into war, Cuban Missile Crisis-style. Threats and bombast on both sides, hair-trigger preparations, each side hurrying to strike because it thinks it’s too dangerous to wait for the other side to strike first. (Come to think of it, wasn’t this the essence of the “National Security Strategy” the Bush administration laid out in 2002, with its concept of “preventive” war?) For the likely consequences, see Option One.
Would it be better if Iran did not acquire nuclear weapons? Of course. But there are certain important goals that cannot realistically be attained by war. This is one of them. Analogy: it would be far better if North Korea did not build a full nuclear arsenal. The United States should do all it can to keep that from happening — but no sane person thinks that attacking North Korea, and provoking an instant assault on Seoul and neighboring cities, is the way to go.
If we could trust the Administration’s ability to judge America’s rational self-interest, there would be no need to constrain its threatening gestures toward Iran. Everyone would understand that this was part of the negotiation process; no one would worry that the Administration would finally take a step as self-destructive as beginning or inviting a war.
But no one can any longer trust the Administration to recognize and defend America’s rational self-interest — not when the President says he will carry out a policy even if opposed by everyone except his wife and dog, not when the Vice President refuses to concede any mistake or misjudgment in the handling of Iraq. According to the constitutional chain of command, those two men literally have the power to order a strike that would be disastrous for their nation. The Congress has no official way to prevent them from doing so — it is interesting, and alarming, to think that in practice the safety valve might be the professional military, trained to revere the chain of command but faced with what its members would recognize as ruinous instructions.
What the Congress can do is draw the line. It can say that war with Iran is anathema to the interests of the United States and contrary to the will of its elected representatives. And it should do that now.
James Fallows
James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and has worked for the magazine for more than 25 years. He has written for the magazine on a wide range of topics, including national security policy, American politics, the development and impact of technology, economic trends and patterns, and U.S. relations with the Middle East, Asia, and other parts of the world.
Fallows grew up in Redlands, California and then attended Harvard, where he was president of the newspaper The Crimson. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1970 and then studied economics at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He has been an editor of The Washington Monthly and of Texas Monthly, and from 1977 to 1979 he served as President Jimmy Carter's chief speechwriter. His first book, National Defense, won the American Book Award in 1981; he has written seven others. He has worked as a software designer at Microsoft and from 1996 to 1998 he was the editor of U.S. News & World Report.
In the five years after the 9/11 attacks, Fallows was based in Washington and wrote a number of articles about the evolution of U.S. policies for dealing with terrorism and about the war in Iraq. One of these articles, "The Fifty First State?," won the National Magazine Award, and another, "Why Iraq has no Army," was a finalist. He also writes a monthly technology column for the magazine.
His books Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy (January 1996), and Free Flight: From Airline Hell to a New Age of Travel were excerpted in the February, 1996, and June, 2001, issues respectively. Looking at the Sun (1994) was excerpted in several installments in the early 1990s. His latest book, Blind into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq (2006) is based on several of his Atlantic articles.
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Recent articles by James Fallows
THE MUSLIMS AREN'T COMING ... THEY'RE HERE!
Feb 3, 2006
By Dr. Mohamed Elmasry
Two disturbing events, one in Israel and one in Canada, occurred in the first month of the seventh year of the twenty-first century. Both carry a frightening message: "it's all right to discriminate against Muslims."
The first event was a quotation in a Jerusalem Post article saying, "Islam could soon be the dominant force in Europe." It was attributed to an American professor who Herouxville has a population of 1,300 and is home to only one immigrant family; the rest of its citizens are white, French-speaking and Catholic.
If you read the declaration, which first attracted notice on the town's website, you can't help wondering, "are these people real?"
Included in the declaration are the following items: women should be able to show their faces in public (aside from costumes worn on Halloween); women should be permitted to drive cars and write cheques; and women should not be publicly beaten to death or burned alive.
As a rule, new immigrants to Canada do not go out of their way to settle in
small towns where unemployment is high and jobs prospects are low. So the likelihood that any immigrant would wish to live in Herouxville is almost zero.
Yet town councilor Andre Drouin defended the declaration, saying he has received some 2,000 e-mails of support -- 700 more than Herouxville's population! Good for Drouin -- as if racists needed the support of other racists.
"We have just published a small document saying who we are and what's our standard," Drouin told a Canadian TV reporter.
Now I doubt if any citizens of Herouxville actually read the xenophobic Jerusalem Post statements by Prof. Lewis. But the irony is that most of their ancestors -- including perhaps even Drouin's own -- probably suffered under British rule in early Canada just because they were French. Similarly, it would not be surprising that some of Prof. Lewis's Jewish ancestors also suffered in Europe, just because they were Jews.
Yet the Jerusalem Post cited Lewis as saying, "Europeans are losing their own loyalties and their own self-confidence. They have no respect for their own culture." Furthermore, he continued, Europeans have "surrendered" on every issue with regard to Islam, in a mood of "self-abasement," "political correctness" and "multi-culturalism." The Post identified Lewis as having been born "in London to middle-class Jewish parents but has long lived in the United States."
Back in Canada, Montréal radio commentator Stephane Gendron has also taken a hard line against religious groups, publicly criticizing acts like darkening windows at one of the city's gyms to satisfy neighboring Orthodox Jews; allowing Sikhs to carry ceremonial daggers; and providing Muslims with their own prayer rooms in schools and other institutions.
"We should have zero tolerance for that," said Gendron. "You're just a regular citizen. Religion at home is fine. Otherwise, it's too much."
Can you see the parallels between Herouxville councilor Drouin, radio personality Gendron, and Lewis?
But Lewis is not a Gendron or a Drouin. He is a high-profile senior academic with many books and research papers to his credit. Should he know better?
Lewis stopped short of listing exactly what Europe should do to control its Muslim populations. He warned instead that the Islamizing of Europe will be assisted by "immigration and democracy." Instead of fighting the threat, he complained, "Europeans [have] given up."
Lewis knows that Europe, with its steadily declining birth-rate, urgently needs immigrants and that there is no pool of cheap immigrant labour or qualified professionals left in the developing world -- except in Muslim countries.
And Lewis also knows damn well that democracy will allow Muslims to catch up with Jews in their level of political influence. This trend may well affect Europe’s blind support of Israel. It could even mean that Israel actually achieves peace with the long-oppressed Palestinians.
Thus Lewis is really telling Europeans:
1. If Muslim immigrants are necessary to your economic prosperity, let them in; but for your own good, don't give them citizenship or allow them to practice their democratic rights.
2. As for those European Muslims who already live among you, don't give them the vote; instead, gather them in protected areas (i.e. concentration camps); or, even better, follow the infamous historic blueprint of what the Nazis did to the Jews.
Perhaps Drouin, Gendron and Lewis are not that far apart after all. And that is both sad and frightening.
Dr. Mohamed Elmasry is national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. He can be reached at np@canadianislamiccongress.com.
By Dr. Mohamed Elmasry
Two disturbing events, one in Israel and one in Canada, occurred in the first month of the seventh year of the twenty-first century. Both carry a frightening message: "it's all right to discriminate against Muslims."
The first event was a quotation in a Jerusalem Post article saying, "Islam could soon be the dominant force in Europe." It was attributed to an American professor who Herouxville has a population of 1,300 and is home to only one immigrant family; the rest of its citizens are white, French-speaking and Catholic.
If you read the declaration, which first attracted notice on the town's website, you can't help wondering, "are these people real?"
Included in the declaration are the following items: women should be able to show their faces in public (aside from costumes worn on Halloween); women should be permitted to drive cars and write cheques; and women should not be publicly beaten to death or burned alive.
As a rule, new immigrants to Canada do not go out of their way to settle in
small towns where unemployment is high and jobs prospects are low. So the likelihood that any immigrant would wish to live in Herouxville is almost zero.
Yet town councilor Andre Drouin defended the declaration, saying he has received some 2,000 e-mails of support -- 700 more than Herouxville's population! Good for Drouin -- as if racists needed the support of other racists.
"We have just published a small document saying who we are and what's our standard," Drouin told a Canadian TV reporter.
Now I doubt if any citizens of Herouxville actually read the xenophobic Jerusalem Post statements by Prof. Lewis. But the irony is that most of their ancestors -- including perhaps even Drouin's own -- probably suffered under British rule in early Canada just because they were French. Similarly, it would not be surprising that some of Prof. Lewis's Jewish ancestors also suffered in Europe, just because they were Jews.
Yet the Jerusalem Post cited Lewis as saying, "Europeans are losing their own loyalties and their own self-confidence. They have no respect for their own culture." Furthermore, he continued, Europeans have "surrendered" on every issue with regard to Islam, in a mood of "self-abasement," "political correctness" and "multi-culturalism." The Post identified Lewis as having been born "in London to middle-class Jewish parents but has long lived in the United States."
Back in Canada, Montréal radio commentator Stephane Gendron has also taken a hard line against religious groups, publicly criticizing acts like darkening windows at one of the city's gyms to satisfy neighboring Orthodox Jews; allowing Sikhs to carry ceremonial daggers; and providing Muslims with their own prayer rooms in schools and other institutions.
"We should have zero tolerance for that," said Gendron. "You're just a regular citizen. Religion at home is fine. Otherwise, it's too much."
Can you see the parallels between Herouxville councilor Drouin, radio personality Gendron, and Lewis?
But Lewis is not a Gendron or a Drouin. He is a high-profile senior academic with many books and research papers to his credit. Should he know better?
Lewis stopped short of listing exactly what Europe should do to control its Muslim populations. He warned instead that the Islamizing of Europe will be assisted by "immigration and democracy." Instead of fighting the threat, he complained, "Europeans [have] given up."
Lewis knows that Europe, with its steadily declining birth-rate, urgently needs immigrants and that there is no pool of cheap immigrant labour or qualified professionals left in the developing world -- except in Muslim countries.
And Lewis also knows damn well that democracy will allow Muslims to catch up with Jews in their level of political influence. This trend may well affect Europe’s blind support of Israel. It could even mean that Israel actually achieves peace with the long-oppressed Palestinians.
Thus Lewis is really telling Europeans:
1. If Muslim immigrants are necessary to your economic prosperity, let them in; but for your own good, don't give them citizenship or allow them to practice their democratic rights.
2. As for those European Muslims who already live among you, don't give them the vote; instead, gather them in protected areas (i.e. concentration camps); or, even better, follow the infamous historic blueprint of what the Nazis did to the Jews.
Perhaps Drouin, Gendron and Lewis are not that far apart after all. And that is both sad and frightening.
Dr. Mohamed Elmasry is national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. He can be reached at np@canadianislamiccongress.com.
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