Iran said Wednesday that it was ready to contribute to Iraq's reconstruction and promotion of its security, as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was making his second visit to Tehran in less than one year, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Meanwhile Bush, with his Neoconservative idealist vision for Iraq, is at odds with Maliki and Afghan President Hamid Karzai over Iran, and contradicted them over their positive words about Iran and its efforts to help their respective countries. Cheney goes even further and urges a military strike on Iran.
President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues.
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Behind the scenes, however, the president's top aides have been engaged in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran's support for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.
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For now, however, the president appears to have settled on a policy of stepped-up military operations in Iraq aimed at the suspected Iranian networks there, combined with direct American-Iranian talks in Baghdad to try to persuade Tehran to halt its alleged meddling.
The U.S. military launched one such raid Wednesday in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite Sadr City district.
As per the above last sentence about Wednesday's raid, which took place while Maliki was in Tehran seeking assistance, that raid was an embarrassment to Maliki and thus a potential threat to his already crumbling position in a crumbling government:
quote:
US-led forces killed 32 suspected militants in a raid on the Sadr City district of eastern Baghdad, the US military said today.
It said the raid was part of an operation targeting fighters allegedly smuggling arms from Iran. Tehran has repeatedly denied providing lethal assistance to Iraqi groups.
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The statement was issued after Iraqi police and witnesses in Sadr City said a bombardment by US helicopters and armoured vehicles killed nine civilians, including two women, and wounded six others.
One can only imagine that the Realists, who include increasing numbers of the administration now, as the Idealist Neoconservatives are being phased out of their positions, may tend to look at these negotiations between Maliki and Iran as a ray of hope:
Iran gave full backing to al-Maliki in talks that sparked unease in Washington.
The Iraqi prime minister emphasized the growing strength of bilateral ties during his two-day visit to Iran, describing his talks in Iran as "successful".
Maliki received a warm welcome from Iran's top officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Maliki praised Iran's "positive and constructive'' role in helping improve security in Iraq and that violence will not undermine the ties between Tehran and Baghdad.
Keep in mind that most of the people in Maliki's Da'wa party took refuge in Iran while Saddam was in power, so they owe much to Iran, not to mention they are tied by kinship to many Iranians.
In his news conference yesterday, Bush warned Maliki:
"If the signal is that Iran is constructive, I will have to have a heart-to-heart with my friend the prime minister because I do not believe they are constructive. I don't think he, in his heart of heart[s], thinks they are constructive either," he said.
Bush seems to have difficulty grasping that he has somehow managed to get Iran's allies in power in Iraq.
Goading Xerxes: A New Tactical Twist in the Coming War on Iran Written by Chris Floyd Friday, 10 August 2007 An American strike on Iran is coming closer. It probably won't take place in the next few weeks, because Bush is on vacation and will not want to be disturbed. And it probably won't take the form that many have expected (including this writer). But Bush himself has raised the ante in recent days, warning of vague punishments for alleged Iranian misdeeds – and unleashing an outright lie that Iran has openly "proclaimed its desire for nuclear weapons," when of course the very opposite is true. And now McClatchy Newspapers brings fresh confirmation that the decider behind the Decider – Dick Cheney – is calling for airstrikes against Iran. Indeed, it seems Cheney has already chosen the casus belli for such an attack – a provocation that we will doubtless see occuring any day now.
For some time, it has been thought – with good reason – that the coming Bush-Cheney attack on Iran would be aimed at the country's rudimentary nuclear power facilities. And it's true the old "mushroom cloud in American cities" ploy continues to be the Administration's best propaganda gambit in demonizing Iran and instilling fear of this demon in the public, as Bush demonstrated with his Goebbelsian lie this week. But even a ruthless, authoritarian "Unitary Executive" regime faces some political restraints on its brutal ambitions, as we noted here yesterday. It cannot act on its most radical plans until the PR ground has been properly prepared. (Even a supreme despot like Hitler was forced by public opposition to cancel his "Action T4" program of murdering the "inferior stock" of mentally and physically disabled people in Germany.) And the fact remains that it would be difficult to move even the docile American public to any great support for a sudden, massive assault on Iran's nuclear sites, when even the White House has to admit that Iran does not have nuclear weapons yet.
Recall that in the mendacious warmongering for the Iraq invasion, Bush and Cheney repeatedly insisted that Saddam Hussein did possess a vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, as Cheney himself declared outright on national television just before the attack: "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." [Which would have been quite a feat in itself, seeing as how Saddam never had any nuclear weapons to "reconstitute."] To sell the war to the American people, they had to sell the idea of Iraq actually possessing WMD. They have not been able to do that with Iran.
At least not yet. But Bush's lie about Iran's "open desire" for nuclear weapons is probably the beginning of a broader push to establish a fantasy scenario of a nuclear-armed Iran. If he is allowed to get away with an utterly false and easily disproven assertion about Tehran's open desire to build a bomb –and he has gotten away with it, completely, as Arthur Sibler notes – then what's to stop him from moving on to the next level, and declaring that Iran now possesses nuclear weapons? The Administration could simply assert that its secret intelligence sources have confirmed the existence of an Iranian nuke, despite the insistence of the International Atomic Energy Agency that it is not so.
There is ample precedent for this – in very interview with Cheney cited above. Speaking to the ever-obliging Tim Russert in March 2003, Cheney flatly rejected the IAEA's declaration that Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program at the time of the invasion. Here's the exchange:
Russert: And even though the International Atomic Energy Agency said he does not have a nuclear program, we disagree?
Cheney: I disagree, yes. And you’ll find the CIA, for example, and other key parts of our intelligence community disagree. [CF: Those "key parts" included the "Office of Special Plans" set up by Cheney to cherry-pick intelligence data and stovepipe the admitted lies of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress straight into the White House.]…. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong. And I think if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency and this kind of issue, especially where Iraq’s concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don’t have any reason to believe they’re any more valid this time than they’ve been in the past.
The Bush Regime already has a long track record of attacking and undermining the IAEA, and any other international body that hampers its agenda. There is absolutely nothing to prevent Cheney sidling up to his pal Timmy once again and declaring that "we disagree" with the IAEA's position on Iran's nuclear program: "they've got a bomb, we know it, and we will not wait on events when the American people are in danger."
So in the long run, for the kind of "regime change" operation that the Bush Administration and its bloodthirsty sycophant on the Right (and in the Center) have in mind, the nuclear fantasy is still the trump card. But as we know, the Bushists have opened a second propaganda front: the repeated, unproven charges that the Iranian government is directly involved in supplying deadly weapons and training fighters to kill Americans in Iraq. The New York Times' Michael Gordon – like Russert, one of the most reliable conduits of Bush Regime spin in the "respectable" corporate media – was hammering away at this theme again just a few days ago, stressing the Pentagon spin that the more sophisticated bombs shredding Americans in Iraq could only have come from Iran – when factories to produce such weapons have been found in Iraq, where native insurgents were making them, as Atrios pointed out – while further noting that the same Bushists who once claimed that Iraqis were capable of making the most advanced weapons on earth now say the grubby Arabs are too primitive to put together a roadside bomb without help from the wily Persians.
The latest Gordon servicing of his Pentagon spinners is one more fusilade in the Bushists' relentless drang nach Osten. In addition to advancing the demonization required for the larger strategy of violent regime change in Iran, it also aids what is now emerging as an important tactical move: a smaller-scale strike "at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps," McClatchy reports. This is what Cheney is now calling for, putting red, bloody meat on the bones of Bush's vaguely menacing statements. From McClatchy:
"President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues. At a news conference Thursday, Bush said Iran had been warned of unspecified consequences if it continued its alleged support for anti-American forces in Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had conveyed the warning in meetings with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad, the president said. Bush wasn't specific, and a State Department official refused to elaborate on the warning.
"Behind the scenes, however, the president's top aides have been engaged in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran's support for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy."
And as we noted above, Cheney is already drawing up plausible scenarios to "justify" this act of aggression:
"Cheney, who's long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran's complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one official said."
I think we can expect to see the "capture" of a truckload of people identified as fighters, carrying weapons – perhaps some of those 190,000 weapons conveniently misplaced by the Pentagon in Iraq –coming over from Iran very soon. (Can you say "Gleiwitz radio station"?) Or some similar incident to "confirm" direct Quds involvement in killing American soldiers.
A smaller-scale "punitive" raid on Quds bases in Iran would almost certainly be acceptable to the American public. After all, the United States has launched such raids repeatedly over the years, all over the world, under Democrats and Republicans, with widespread public support. From Reagan's bold strike on Moamar Gadafy's two-year-old daughter to Bill Clinton's brave destruction of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan (not to mention his continual bombardment of Iraq throughout his term) to Bush's noble bombing of refugees in Somalia this year, the American people have always stood ready to applaud (or ignore) quick punches at countries with which they are not at war. (We're leaving out here the larger-scale "incursions" and "pre-dawn vertical insertions" like Panama, Somalia (in the "Black Hawk Down" days), Grenada, Haiti, etc. – all of which were pretty acceptable too, come to think of it. As was the aggression in Iraq, of course, in its early days.)
Naturally, such a strike would provoke a reaction from Iran – or rather, it would allow the Administration to frame any untoward incident or attack on American positions anywhere in the world as a "reaction from Iran." (It's not likely that the indeed wily Persians would launch some crude, obvious counterstroke to such a raid, thus falling into the Administration's trap.) The initial, small-scale raid would then itself become a justification for further action against Iran: "Did you see that bombing in the Green Zone yesterday? Of course it was the Iranians! It was obviously a revenge attack for the Quds raid. Now we have to retaliate for the tragic loss of our personnel in this cowardly terrorist action." And so on and so on, ratcheting up the level of military response – and public support – with each new iteration of the cycle.
Thus a small-scale raid would actually be a masterstroke in the Administration's psy-ops scheme to build support for a larger action to destroy the Iranian regime. The McClatchy story, like the recent FISA fiasco, is another reminder that the Bush Administration has not lost its ability to advance its agenda and steer the country into more and more sinister actions, even in the face of poor poll ratings and innumerable scandals. As long as they control the levers of power, without any genuine institutional opposition, they will continue to manipulate events to their liking, relying on their tried-and-tested fearmongering techniques (with the mighty assistance of the corporate media) to drag the American people along with them -- either as open supporters or as dazed and confused bystanders, vaguely dissatisfied but unwilling to rise up and cast down the criminals and their accomplices http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/Goading_Xe...e_Coming_War_on_Iran
" Government is the entertainment arm of the Military-Industrial-Complex."- Frank Zappa
Posts: 261 | Location: Erehwon | Registered: 09 March 2006
One can only imagine that the Realists, who include increasing numbers of the administration now, as the Idealist Neoconservatives are being phased out of their positions...
Is anyone keeping track of them all?
Sue N.
Posts: 4624 | Location: UK | Registered: 16 November 2004
One can only imagine that the Realists, who include increasing numbers of the administration now, as the Idealist Neoconservatives are being phased out of their positions...
Is anyone keeping track of them all?
I haven't been keeping track of them all, but I began noticing the trend after the second term began. Gates is considered a realist, though a complex one.
Rice's mentor, Scowcraft is a realist, and he mentored her choice for her deputy, Zelikow, so while Rice has been looked upon as a parrot for Bush, she has moved in the second term towards what is considered more likely to be her deeper realist stance, just as it was Colin Powell's, who was in the current analysis by many, politically embarrassed by the Bush Administration in a number of ways, particularly his speech to sell the invasion of Iraq to the UN.
Undersecretary of defense for policy, Edelman, a career diplomat who replaced Neoconservative Feith, was called the "last Neoconservative" when he insulted Hillary Clinton in mid July, and some thought Gates should have fired him on the spot, not for insulting Clinton per ce, but for what he actually said, which it was felt did not coincide with the direction Gates is quietly moving with the military since he replaced Rumsfeld last year. The Pentagon Insults Hillary Clinton
Baker and his Iraq report is a voice from the realist camp, his committee of five Democrats and five Republicans were all considered realists (Baker's 'realism' must not be a cover for retreat), and the report reflected the philosophy that Bush I represented in the first Gulf War. It would appear from the news I was following and commenting on in the "Who Wants an Escalation" thread, that Gates has gone about his own set of designs for the U.S. military in Iraq, and it reflects much of what was recommended in the Baker Report.
There's probably more to dig up if someone has the time. My sense is that the tone of this administration has changed. I hope enough to prevent Cheney from having enough influence to get his way in attacking Iran.
I was just wondering if there is a pattern to where they go when they leave the Bush administration; are they perhaps preparing for a new international phase, or are they headed for the scrap heap?
It would be a nice research project for somebody, perhaps, starting with the PNAC people.
Sue N.
Posts: 4624 | Location: UK | Registered: 16 November 2004
I'll look into it some more, Sue. By the way, Zoellick, who was Condi Rice's "realist" Deputy replaced Wolfowitz at the World Bank, Wolfowitz, a Neoconservative architect for the war had been moved from his Pentagon position, Deputy Secretary of Defense, to the World Bank in 2005, so part of that second term purge. I guess that's kind of along the lines of that pathway you are suggesting. Where he goes next may be interesting to watch.
John Negroponte replaced Zoellick as Deputy Secretary of State, and he's considered a pragmatic realist. "Negroponte was apparently “the only person acceptable to both Rice and [Vice President Dick] Cheney.”" according to a Source watch site. Rice's primary two preferences were also realists, but were considered too liberal for Cheney's standards. I read that as Cheney had reasserted his control after the first of the year, apparently in defiance of Daddy Bush's influence which brought Baker back to "help" his son out of the Iraq quagmire, which might help to explain the reason the "surge" was implemented and the Baker report sidelined.
Yes, Wolfowitz going to the World Bank and Bolton to the U.N. got me to wondering if there was a strategy behind the moves, and of course some will be moving on after the elections. I was wondering if there was a pattern emerging.
Sue N.
Posts: 4624 | Location: UK | Registered: 16 November 2004
I'm seeing plenty of patterns, and I think it's good to keep an eye on what Gates is doing as Secretary of Defense while this surge works as a political smokescreen. He's working on a post occupation model that would possibly fit some of the Democratic presidential hopefuls' visions, like Clinton's and Obama's, and would possibly be enough pacify congress from requiring a complete withdrawal of forces, and that's a model being called "Plan B" which was originally "Plan A" after the invasion -- 30-40,000 troups on "permanent" bases.
I see this latest move by the US and UK with a resolution to increase the UN involvement in Iraq, which includes working to mediate with Iraq's neighbors as part of it as well, as a way to deal with the embarrassment of having geopolitically polarized Iran and Syria the way Bush and the Neocons have. The Neoconservatives, whose lead voice in the White House continues to be Cheney's and his tight little staff of mostly Neoconservatives, are probably looking for ways to save as much face as possible so that they don't have to start from scratch to get back into the seats of influence at the political boardroom tables. They worked very hard from the beginning of the Reagan administration and this invasion of Iraq was their big shot. No matter how hard it's spun, the public doesn't seem to see it as a success right now. Never mind critics like me who were against it from the get go.
Regarding your own country, Sue, perhaps you could tell us where you think this latest PM, Brown, stands on this school of IR theory and how it may relate to the joint effort to put the latest UN resolution together for Iraq:
A great deal of the English School of thought concerns itself with the examination of traditional international theory, casting it--as Martin Wight did in his 1950s-era lectures at the London School of Economics--into three divisions (called by Buzan as the English schools' triad):
1. Realist or Hobbesian (after Thomas Hobbes) 2. Rationalist (or Grotian, after Hugo Grotius) 3. Revolutionist (or Kantian, after Immanuel Kant).
In broad terms, the English School itself has supported the rationalist or Grotian tradition, seeking a middle way (or via media) between the 'power politics' of realism and the 'utopianism' of revolutionism.
Later Wight changed his triad into a four part division by adding Mazzini (see: Martin Wight, Four Seminal Thinkers in International Theory: Machiavelli, Grotius, Kant, and Mazzini).
[edit] Internal divisions
The English School is often understood to be split into two main wings, named after two categories described by Hedley Bull:
* The pluralists argue that the diversity of humankind - their differing political and religious views, ethnic and linguistic traditions, and so on - is best contained within a society that allows for the greatest possible independence for states, which can, in their forms of government, express those differing conceptions of the 'good life'. This position is expressed most forcefully by the Canadian academic Robert H. Jackson, especially in The Global Covenant (2001). * The solidarists, by contrast, argue that the society of states should do more to promote the causes of human rights and, perhaps, emancipation - as opposed to the rights of states to political independence and non-intervention in their internal affairs. This position may be located in the work on humanitarian intervention by, amongst others, Nicholas Wheeler, in Saving Strangers (2003).
There, however, further divisions within the school. The most obvious is that between those who argue that the school's approach should be historical and normative (such as Robert Jackson or Tim Dunne) and those who think it can be methodologically 'pluralist', making use of 'positivist' approaches to the field (like Barry Buzan and Richard Little).
In general, however, the English school stands for the conviction that ideas, rather than simply material capabilities, shape the conduct of international politics, and therefore deserve analysis and critique.
quote: "I see this latest move by the US and UK with a resolution to increase the UN involvement in Iraq, which includes working to mediate with Iraq's neighbors as part of it as well, as a way to deal with the embarrassment of having geopolitically polarized Iran and Syria the way Bush and the Neocons have."
Could be also that the neocons in the Bush Admin. hope for the UN to bear the brunt of some allegedly Iranian-sponsored action, which would increase the possibilty of a resolution of war.
Of late:
-most restrictive Bush exec order applies to anyone connected to anyone connected to Hizbollah
-Hizbollah put on terrorist list
-proposed arms sales to all of Iran's potential enemies (with the exceptions of al-Qaeda/Taliban)
-US claims intel that Iran is behind 73% of anti-US attacks within Iraq
-news reports of plan to blow up fuel tanks at JFK sought Iranian gov't assistance
-US naval buildup in the Gulf
(just saying The Admin.'s pattern shows utter disregard for constructive talk with Iran)
This message has been edited. Last edited by: BrentBoz-Hell,
Regarding your own country, Sue, perhaps you could tell us where you think this latest PM, Brown, stands on this school of IR theory and how it may relate to the joint effort to put the latest UN resolution together for Iraq
To be honest, Ren, theories don't mean anything to me.
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