Gary Sick Lays Out Probabilities in US-Iran Arena
I have just come by a lucid, excellent analysis of the recent "formal negotiations" between Iran and the U.S. which took place in Baghdad written by Iran expert and Columbia University/School of International and Public Affairs scholar Gary Sick.
I reprint this analysis with permission, as it is not currently available on the web:
US-Iran Talks, 3 June 2007by Gary Sick
On Monday [May 28], the United States and Iran sat down together in the office of the Iraqi prime minister in Baghdad to discuss mutual concerns about Iraqi security. It marked a turning point in the hostile but impersonal relations between the two countries that many had feared would turn to war. That has not happened. In case there was any doubt about it, Condoleezza Rice said on Friday that "The president of the United States has made it clear that we are on a course that is a diplomatic course," and she refused to speculate on a military option. Skepticism is still in order, but it is evident that something is happening in US policy. Here is my own take in the form of a Q & A:
Q -- Is this meeting really a big deal?
A -- It is a big deal. Iran and the United States have not met face-to-face in a formally acknowledged bilateral meeting of substance (even in the presence of a mediator) since before the hostage crisis in November 1979. The respective domestic policies and political sensitivities of both countries have conspired -- the word is deliberate and accurate -- to prevent such a meeting for nearly 28 years.Q -- Then why now?
A -- The decision-making process in both Washington and Tehran is extremely murky, and one is reduced to reading tea leaves to divine meaning and purpose in either capital. But in my view, the imminent dangers of the Iraq crisis have persuaded both countries to reject the advice of their respective hardline factions, at least for the moment, since neither Iran nor the United States can expect to construct a coherent policy in Iraq and the Persian Gulf region without some measure of cooperation from the other.
Q -- Aren't their objectives too far apart to permit meaningful negotiations?A -- Actually, as US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and others noted after the meeting in Baghdad, the two sides started in almost perfect agreement about their mutual objectives. Both sides would like to see Iraq remain a single political entity, with central authority in the hands of a freely elected government, and with no sectarian/civil war. That would permit the US to declare a victory of democracy-building and would likely insure Iran of a relatively sympathetic Shia-dominated government and relative quiet on their western border. The big questions are tactical -- what does each party do to get to that outcome? -- and that is the essence of negotiation.
Q -- Won't this be sabotaged by hardliners on either side who are opposed to any kind of reconciliation between the US and Iran?
A -- They are trying and will continue to try. Thus far, and quite surprising to me, the political leadership in Washington and Tehran, who despise and distrust each other, have stuck to their guns even as they showed a lot of defensiveness in justifying their decision to talk. There have been no shortage of pretexts for a breakdown. In the days leading up to the talks in Baghdad, Iran arrested a number of Iranian-American scholars and the US introduced the largest naval armada in recent history into the Persian Gulf for rather provocative exercises. The United States continued to hold five Iranian Revolutionary Guards who were arrested in Irbil in January and have been held incommunicado ever since on charges of espionage. Iran claimed that the US had sent agents into Iran to foment dissent among separatist movements from the Turkish to the Pakistani borders. Yet both sides simply continued with the talks.
Q -- Are both sides willing to make the kind of domestically unpopular political decisions and tradeoffs that would be required for any kind of real progress?
A -- I'm not sure that either the Iranians or the American leadership are sure of the answer. It depends on what the other side has to offer. I suspect that the Bush administration has chosen to ignore all of its past rejections of bilateral talks with Iran because it is convinced that no orderly withdrawal of US forces in Iraq is possible without some measure of Iranian cooperation. Similarly, Iran must think that some measure of cooperation with the Great Satan is required -- despite the howls of anguish from their ultra-conservative base -- if order is to be preserved in Iraq as the US occupation begins to wind down.
Q -- This doesn't sound like George Bush. What makes you think he has changed his stripes?A -- I suppose that whatever change has occurred is strictly due to necessity, not choice. As Peggy Noonan puts it with incomparable brevity, speaking of Bush and his advisers in the Wall Street Journal, "Desperate straits have left them liberated" from their conservative base. Remember, we are talking four years after the invasion of Iraq: a lot of the enthusiasm for foreign adventures has cooled.
As to Bush's personal role in all this, just look at the people he has lately nominated for all the major posts in his administration who are major players on this issue: Josh Bolten as White House chief of staff, Bob Gates at Defense, General Petraeus in Iraq, Adm. Fallon as Centcom, Ryan Crocker as ambassador in Baghdad. Whatever their personal differences and backgrounds, these are not ideologues, and several of them have expressed forcefully and publicly their lack of interest in an expanded war and/or their interest in engaging Iran diplomatically.
Bush could not have been unaware of the political pedigrees of all these recent appointees, and he must have had more ideological candidates to choose from -- did Dick Cheney have nothing to do with the selection process? A few days ago, in response to charges that the "crazies" might still choose to go to war, Condoleezza Rice said (with perhaps just the slightest touch of exaggeration?) "That policy [the diplomatic course] is supported by all of the members of the cabinet, and by the vice president of the United States." We don't have to accept that as revealed truth, but however he got to this point, Bush now openly talks about his "Plan B-H" referring to the Baker Hamilton report -- something that was unthinkable just a few months ago.
Q -- Can you attach a timeline to this change? If you're right about a fundamental shift, when did it happen?
A -- The Bush administration does not share its innermost deliberations with me or any outsider, so one has to judge on the basis of external behavior. On April 11 undersecretary of state Nicholas Burns gave a speech at the Kennedy School at Harvard. Burns is a cautious diplomat who protects his flanks and never gets out ahead of the action. In that speech, referring to his congressional testimony a few days earlier, Burns said that "diplomacy is our best course of action in blocking and containing the Iranian regime; that a military confrontation with Iran is not desirable, nor is it inevitable if we continue our skilled diplomatic course and have the patience to see it play out over the mid- to long-term. I am confident that we can avoid a conflict and see our strategy succeed." I take that as evidence that the internal battle was over by the end of March and that Cheney and those around him had lost, at least for the moment.Q -- You paint a very rosy scenario. Does this mean that the path of US-Iran relations will be smooth from here out?
A -- I am very conscious of the fact that political analysts earn their keep by being cynical and negative. They can tell you fifty reasons why something desirable will not happen -- then, if it happens, give you an instant fifty reasons why it was inevitable all along. I don't want to lose my good standing in the fraternity by being too positive, so let me toss in a few negatives.
Although the hardliners in Iran and the US seem to have been outflanked for the moment, they are still there and they are very persistent and powerful.
According to blogger Steve Clemons, "The person in the Bush administration who most wants a hot conflict with Iran is Vice President Cheney. The person in Iran who most wants a conflict is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force would be big winners in a conflict as well -- as the political support that both have inside Iran has been flagging.
"Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously." Helene Cooper, in Saturday's New York Times, identifies the individual as David Wurmser, the principal deputy assistant to Mr. Cheney for national security affairs.
In Tehran, the security services are arresting every American scholar or journalist who is working in Iran or simply visiting a relative and tossing them into the dungeons of Evin prison, at least in part as an effort to pressure the US to release the five Iranians who have disappeared into the secret American dungeons in Iraq.
In the past weeks we have had unprecedented shows of military force, ugly demonstrations of individual persecution, reports of US subversive actions inside Iran, and capture of 15 British sailors and marines in the Persian Gulf. Both sides are being creative and insidious.
So fasten your seat belts. This ride has just begun.-- Gary Sick
Sick's material is important to ponder and digest. It's not naive and full of wistful thinking about what might be doable in ideal circumstances between Iran and the U.S., but it does give us insight into the possible and practical, given the enormous mistrust between both sides.
I think he lays out the probabilities compellingly -- and I agree with him that what Ryan Crocker and those behind him like Nick Burns, Negroponte, and Rice achieved in Baghdad is good news -- though the American and Iranian efforts to lay new track in the relationship is fragile and subject to potential serious sabotage by stakeholders in both governments.
-- Steve Clemons is Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note
Steve, I hope you're right, and I appreciate the read of a good article. I still have my doubts about any new-found progressive direction for the Bush team. I appreciate that Rice is meeting people, but otherwise I don't see a direction at all. I mentioned recent news of some of the other wise people with the last post, but here we today have Gates making excuses for Taliban resurgence (and, by extension, of the misdirection of resources to Iraq).
As for the "incomparable" Noonan, two things. First, we shouldn't read her as finding Bush's sudden liberation. She's complaining as loudly as possible that he disdains people like her. It's a line that's emerged a lot among conservatives recently, and I suspect it's a mix of frustrations at their objectives increasingly going nowhere and hope to distance themselves from failure lest they be tarred with it forever. Up to you whether to call it progress. And second, she's still doing the "right = macho" line. It's in her praise for Thompson in her last column and in the quote from her via Safire Sunday about Giuliani's alleged native New York confrontational style.
My only hope is that Rice, in conjunction with the likely pressures on Bush to offer some promise of troop withdrawal before the 2008 election puts the GOP candidate on the spot, continues to temper Bush's vacuity and wingnut temper long enough that the incoming president has no more to salvage than, well, now. But don't fool yourself. It's going to take a 180 degree turnaround, even with limited home of recovering what we've lost.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
June 4, 2007 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Very compelling and encouraging. I see two problems:
1) Say it's true that Iran and the US have the same goals for Iraq (peaceful, functioning Democracy that won't try to start a war with Iran...) Okay, I buy that. That doesn't mean the goal is achievable. Since The US can't seem to establish a government or stop the civil war, I rather doubt Iran can help much. At best, Iran can do a better job of not making things worse.
Anyway, when if we fail, as seems likely, won't tensions between the US and Iran ratchet up again?
2) I feel like the only thing holding us back is that we don't have enough military available to do more than a few surgical strikes at Iran that wouldn't accomplish anything. Maybe lack of capability and lack of popular will for yet another war will force Bush to behave for his last two years. But there's also the chance that he takes one last gamble. I mean, what are we going to do, not elect him in 2008?
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 4, 2007 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
Surprise Surprise..back in the day before America Abroad went moribund, I kept telling Prof. Jentleson that this would happen.
Folks we're dealing with nothing less than a
Hamburger Eating Surrender Monkey
Trouble is that Iran holds all the cards. Bush is looking at a dead man's hand
June 4, 2007 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is that powerful forces in the US do NOT want to see any improvement in US-Iran relations, and won't rest until they've driven the US to another war to suit their own interests:
US Catholic June 2007
June 4, 2007 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hope you're right, because my son is in Iraq and I believe he's sitting on a poweder keg with a madman holding the match.
I'd like to think Condi has some influence over her boss's irrational mind, but I still think she's more about loyalty to Bush and what his connections can do to further her carerr than about good citizenship and altruism.
And I've always believed that Cheney and Rumsfeld play the role of TweedleDum-TweedleDee to this president.
What's Rummy doing these days? Is he the "secret visitor" to Cheney's house that he's trying to keep secret by blocking access to the CIA visitor records?
Rummy doesn't give up easily; my guess he's just gone underground and they're letting Condi play decoy while those Twin Toadies hatch new plots to start WWIII
Debra Morgan Pardee
"The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -- George Bernard Shaw
June 4, 2007 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
deleted
June 4, 2007 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
By all means, we should talk with Iran, but my list of expectations is very short.
Eventually, we have to withdraw from Iraq, and it would be nice to avoid abject humiliation in the process. As we can inflict quite a lot of damage in a futile attempt to avoid that humiliation, Iran has somewhat similar interests.
June 4, 2007 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's Rummy up to these days? Denying that he ever claimed there were WMDs in Iraq, that's what:
But in fact here's what he really said:
June 4, 2007 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sick looks at a glass 1/10 full and reads it as an excellent sign. Starting talks is the only positive sign; what happens next anything you want to predict is fair game.
There also one assumption I disagree with.
June 4, 2007 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re Cheney aide: "explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously."
If this is true, Bush had better watch his back. He has always been an indiscreet punk, and Cheney's thugs may have some incriminating film or tapes, or other more dire plans.
Radical? Yes, but they have already invaded Iran, killed a quarter of a million people, and put the US on the road to financial ruin, all with nothing to show. Now all they can do is play double or nothing.
June 4, 2007 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
June 4, 2007 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
The very fact that talks with Iran took place, President Bush's references to Plan B-H and the public if incredulous repudiation of the Cheney aides comments by Secretary Rice are the best news about the Middle East and White House policy in years and years. Even if they are small steps, for once the steps are in the right direction.
June 4, 2007 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Until Cheney and Bush and Rice and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Feith and Perle..... et al. are indicted for war crimes and convicted of said crimes, i'm not going to believe anything the Bush administration does, says or "decides."
They're all a bunch of liars, thieves and murderers, so why should anyone trust them?
Iran knows this and is probably running out the clock.
June 4, 2007 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gary Sick's analysis is hopeful and the signs that Bush may be listening more to Rice than to Cheney are indeed there.
But the evidence of continuing idealogical battles acted out on the world stage, is more than just a little disconcerting. Bush either has no control over Cheney or refuses to rein him in. Must be a loyalty thing. But it certainly suggests that we are closer to a hot conflict with Iran than anyone would care to admit. The consequences of that are unimagineable.
June 4, 2007 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect I know the answer to this question but I'm actually not sure.
What military options to we really have regarding Iran?
I suppose surgical strikes. But we can't invade the place, can we? Is it silly that we're even debating war with Iran when we don't have the troops to do the job, or am I just wrong?
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 4, 2007 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice to see that the two sides share the same values and can frankly discuss problems like a dictator to a dictator.
Actually, how can one tell that we have any common interests with Iran without some articulation what our interests are? Security of oil supplies and security of Israel can be rather low on Iranian priority list, stopping the flow of drugs to Iran (from Afghanistan) was low on our priority list, and so is normalization of the status of Hezbollah and Hamas. No one told what our priorities are and what are we willing to give up.
American envoy: end meddling in Iraq and the fooolishness with uranium.
Iranian envoy:
Mene -- God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.
Tekel -- You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. (Alternative: oil was measured and the amount found wanting.)
Peres -- Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians."
American envoy: I also have a copy of
Complete Idiot's Guide to Biblical Mysteries but if you will not mend your ways, there will be meaningful economic sanctions.
Iranian envoy: Brent at 70, and you talk about economic sanctions?
June 4, 2007 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, there is a very good basis for this assumption. The alternative to a single political entity in Iraq, freely elected, is a failed state, and neither the US or Iran want that. Do you really think that Iran would rather have a failed state next door than a non-Shia dominated government? I doubt it. Recall that Iran was the country screaming about the Taliban years before it was fashionable. A failed state, for obvious reasons, is not in the interest of the US, either.
June 4, 2007 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
We see the results of a lightweight tool of a president being used by the faction with the best PR ammo. As of now we have to hope that Bush has found some actual cojones to continue ignoring Cheney. But Cheney is scrounging for hot (unvetted) intel to stampede Bush into more military action.
If Bush is merely temporarily persuaded by B-H we risk the crazies winning him over again. In the meantime, professionals, the few that remain, are trying to clean up the mess.
June 4, 2007 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Steve wrote last week about Cheney possibly planning an end run around Bush by giving Israel the green light to attack Iran with conventional missiles. Iran would then probably retaliate against the US ships now cruising the Persian Gulf, or the troops in Iraq.
In anticipation of this, the Air Force has already 'surged' to Iraq and is upgrading and expanding the bases. (When is the last time we heard of using the Air Force to fight an insurgency?) The space command will conduct the air intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance division and battlefield coordination detachment. (Again, just for an insurgency?)
Podhoretz's article in Commentary this month makes the neocon case for Bombing Iran.
As far as I can tell, nobody is worried about having the troops to do the job. It's the favorite neocon dream; carpet bombing Iran from the air.
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. H.L. Mencken
June 4, 2007 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
So we'd fight this as a total air war?
I might be mistaken, but I think that Iran is in far better military shape than Iraq was in 2003 and we couldn't beat Iraq by air alone.
Thanks for letting me know, though.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 4, 2007 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
That bastard ... he should be rotting in prison for war crimes.
Debra Morgan Pardee
"The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -- George Bernard Shaw
June 4, 2007 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whadya mean unimaginable? Why, bombing would lead to a popular uprising in support of Bush, Freedom and the USA, and the mullahs would be in their 'last throes'! Islamofacism would be buried beneath the rubble of Iran's nuke installations. Ask Dick Cheney.
It would be a real shock if Bush, who was described as a psychopathic personality by the late Kurt Vonnegut, did not double down on his losing bet-the invasion of Iraq with his final roll of the dice, an even bigger catastrophe for America and the world, war with Iran.
June 4, 2007 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whoops, forgot.
Obviously all the flowers and candy that were meant to greet us in Iraq were in Iran the whole time!
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
June 4, 2007 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Iran is in substantially better shape, and in a better strategic position than was Iraq in 1992 in the Gulf War.
June 4, 2007 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
IMO Bush is sandbagging. Bush Inc intends to attack Iran and have planed on doing so since their fist days in office. Bush also said he was going to wait for the UN and the weapons inspectors before he decided to attack Iraq. I think he and his puppet masters just trying to lull the public to sleep while they get their intelligence, force suture and perhaps a precipitating incident in place for their long planed attack. Bush and the majority of his foreign policy team are proven liars who believe any means are justified by the ends they desire. Quite frankly I don’t think they don't give a fig what the citizenry thinks after the fact of an attack on Iran, they just do not want much attention focused on their pre attack activities.
The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
Gen. Omar Bradley
June 4, 2007 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
No no - you don't get it. They'll be welcoming us with flowers!
June 4, 2007 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
You may have a point there. A failed Iraq could become a new homeland to all the radical Islamic fundamentalists scattered throughout the Middle East. Now there's a nightmare scenario!
But it ain't going to happen -- Bush has already promised to give Halliburton et al two-thirds of Iraq's oil.
Debra Morgan Pardee
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.
-- William Lloyd Garrison (1805 - 1879)
June 4, 2007 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're wrong ... there's about 120,000 troops sitting at or near Iran's border in Iraq and another 14,000 marines aboard an a fleet of warships floating in the Persian Gulf -- and "conducting exercises."
Debra Morgan Pardee
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.
-- William Lloyd Garrison (1805 - 1879)
June 4, 2007 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
China owns our debt, they underwrite our currency, they have the inside track on long term resource concessions with Iran.
Follow the Money.
Condi is doing China's bidding at this time, along the lines of traditional Baker/Bush Sr policy.
Israel/Lebanon provided a cookie cutter example of this.
The rockets and bombings went on, the world community practically begged the USA to say something, anything, to stop this strife or provide a starting point for one side to make demands towards concessions.
Nothing.
China made an official statement, later that day the USA did. The next day Israel strikes a Chinese manned UN observers post with accurate USA ordinance.
China could end our desire to do anything in the Gulf, one strike of a monitor satellite, and we're beggars. China taking out one of its own satellites was a shot across the bow.
Bush seeing this, took his march orders and followed them. He isolated Iran from the West with hopes of giving China leverage to securing long term concessions, less competitively so.
Mission Accomplished.
That said, there are still things to gain from this. Iran can be the boots on ground group to secure Iraq. A sister state with the strongest and largest ground presence. They must still honor the Cheney cabal inside track to oil concessions, along with BP, who bought poodle Blair into the war(along with help from Arthur Andersen).
What we must strive for, is an agreement for China to buy its oil in our currency, the dollar's return would significantly boost our declining influence. We must pattern progress on fiscal terms best able to help us grow.
China underwrites the deal, using energy from both countries to drive the growth. Iran becomes the beat cop, we run the shift.
The problem we have alongside this is the fact China is fueling the Darfur genocide, arming Muslim radicals through Saudi back channels whilst they get no reprimand from client state mogul Cheney.
The same isolation that did benefit China in the Iran bids must see its tables turned vs. the Saudi expansion through terror groups into East/North central Africa. That would require even more tact, and most likely multi party talks with the entire EU threatening an Olympic boycott.
Again, China needs fuel for growth and is on pace to surpass the market's ability to do it. We help them get inside both deals in order to continue tax cuts for the wealthiest and still wage war. They want Iran brought into wider recognition, and see it a way to secure value vs. the various Cheney-propped factions, Chalabi brokers, etc. who have made Iraq such a clusterflop.
The EU has undergone some fairly radical changes of late, an energy minister from Latvia has appeared to help Putin emerge stronger in market sector control. Blair is fading back, France was supposed to have to taken the banner forward and appears to have bait and switched its country's conservative wing, and Merkel has continued engagement with the USA to new levels and appears to have backed Poland's buildup as a buffer zone.
This all points back to China/Iran. France lost colonial design on Iran, but still sees it as an engagement chance. The extent to which they engage China could be a new item, one that brings the West along in triangulation vs. Putin, as recent unflattering media suggests.
All the signs point China's way as the major player. The ability to keep American dollars in the equation, to pool European pressure for diplomatic leverage in the Sudan, and still triangulate Putin are what must be maintained.
The last item appears set. They ability to do both of the others is important, though it may conflict with the fundamentals of traditional client states that are party to US influence.
Can we make the Chinese keep the dollar in this, and ask them to restrain Sudan's enemies new client state backing? The Sauds have dollars to throw around and want to buy into greater EU currency shares, China can essentially ignore our requests and still push the other talks, those items strain against the Cheney model even greater than they do Rice's new found plans.
Thus it remains clear that China gets the greater share of either deal. We wanted that already so American oil stays high to profit Bushco. support the most. Iran is their deal now and we're following their lead. The first item may finally buck Cheney if China finds a way to stay dollar friendly in said region.
China is the strategic influence. Iran is the regional key. The dollar can bridge both items and let us score other concessions with the EU and humanitarian needs at a later time to everyone's expediency.
June 5, 2007 1:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Holding talks with Iran is a necessary political move prior to launching an attack. It is always easier to justify provocative action when you can claim that you tried the diplomatic route and that it didn't work. George Bush believes that it is his destiny to reshape the middle east. Further, he is of the opinion that no future President will have the guts to do what needs to be done in that region. So, he must do the heavy lifting and make sure that future Presidents cannot deprive America of "her destiny."
June 5, 2007 1:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
China owns our debt, the only way this can happen is if we go bust immediately.
Unless we plan to cancel the debt early and push Taiwan to stop, as some have claimed neocons are trying to do
"Lawrence B. Wilkerson, the U.S. Army colonel who was Powell's chief of staff through two administrations, said in little-noted remarks early last month that "neocons" in the top rungs of the administration quietly encouraged Taiwanese politicians to move toward a declaration of independence from mainland China -- an act that the communist regime has repeatedly warned would provoke a military strike.
The top U.S. diplomat in Taiwan at the time, Douglas Paal, backs up Wilkerson's account, which is being hotly disputed by key former defense officials."
You don't understand, we go all or nothing here. There's no middle ground for Cheney.
That is why he is being isloated with the Executive office, the hope is Libby's items and Cheney's new focus go forward as a prosecution target.
June 5, 2007 2:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bush's promises to Halliburton mean nothing if he can't keep the pipelines operational. Didn't he also promise that Iraq's oil revenues would pay for the war? Oh...Right.
June 5, 2007 4:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Trying to decide what I think about this assertion... I can certainly see how this is in Iran's strategic interest - having a natural Shi'a ally on its western flank. But are as committed to a unified Iraq? We might have some difficulty coping with an independent Kurdistan given the strategic dimensions vis a vis Turkey, but would we be distraught if Iraq fragmented? Biden, for one, has openly promoted fragmentation as a potential solution.
For my part, I can't help but think back at Cheney's summoning by the House of Saud (they are still allies, right?) at the end of last year. In the wake of the midterms and shortly before Baker-Hamilton, just what exactly did the Saudis demand? And what did Cheney agree to?
According to Woodward, the Saudis opposed the Iraq invasion (Bandar warned Bush that removing Saddam would solve one problem and create five new ones), and now presumably they are lobbying furiously for some kind of strategic direction that that won't harm their interests. And I don't see that a unified Iraq is an absolute as far as the Saudis are concerned. A stable but hostile Shi'ite neighbor is what they surely don't want.
So I don't know just how closely aligned our interests are with the Iran's. I guess we both want stability; I happen to think we have quite different ideas of what stability might look like.
June 5, 2007 5:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
This whole situation is a conspiracy fan's fantasy come true. Makes you worry if the Bush administration is so deep into plots, counterplots and hidden agendas that it's become incoherent.
June 5, 2007 6:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Another of Steve's heroes, Gates, is in the news again today accusing Iran of funneling arms to, not Iraq this time, but more baddies the U.S. was supposed to have eliminated, the Taliban. I do not share the views of so many comments that we're going to attack Iran, as if at this point Bush could fight his way out of a paper bag much less into another country. Here it's just the usual incoherence of talking tought in one spot, nice in another, while failing to do anything (other than to blame someone for administration failure). But I again want to emphasize that Steve puts his Beltway friendships and love of mainstream Republicans over reality.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
June 5, 2007 6:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Iraq war is to neo-con what Sicilian Expedition was to Athens during the Peloponesian war. The beginning of undoing.
I think that we have a choice: face the failure or delay it. Internally, it is the matter how to distribute the blame: incompetent Republicans or backstabbing Democrats. Externally, there is a small matter of implications for the security of Israel (defending Sunni-Arab part of the Gulf is relatively straightforward because they are willing to be defended, especially the smaller states).
I think that the common interests of Iran and USA in respect to Iraq is that the situation does not deteriorate much. We would prefer the situation to improve, but here our ways with Iran part. The rational policy of USA would be to delay Iranian domination in Iraq while stabilizing the situation in Syria-Lebanon-Israel-Palestine region. Otherwise we just buy time to waste it.
June 5, 2007 7:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
This wasn't my reasoning, it is how the neocons see the potential attack. From Podhoretz in the June issue of Commentary Online...
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. H.L. Mencken
June 5, 2007 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought the first step would be the use of 'tactical nukes' then who knows?
June 5, 2007 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
RogerGathman
We really need to question the whole basis of our relationship with Iran. Why is Iran an "enemy"? The usual hawkish answer is to point to the hostage crisis. However, in 1979, another American embassy was attacked and pillaged, and Americans were actually killed - in Pakistan - and there is zero memory of that now. There's a nice description of that in Steve Coll's Ghost Wars. Although the premiere time for detente with Iran was in 2002, it is as necessary today. Ahmadenejad's response to his losses in last year's elections have been the same as Bush's - double down - but there's no evidence that the discontent with him has diminished. The best way for the U.S. to have influence in Iran is, really, to have influence - recognize the place, establish commercial ties with the place, and let the spirit of influence grow there, as it has grown in many another country. There's no military solution.
Sadly, in 2002, the most logical course for the U.S. vis a vis Iraq was to destroy the double sanction policy, double the aid we'd been sending to Northern Iraq, and recognize Iran - all of which would have sent shock waves through Saddam Hussein's remaining support in the army and in the Ba'athist structure, preparing the way for his downfall as an internal Iraqi matter. The attempt to create a middle east policy that 'contains' Iran by ignoring its reality is doomed to fail. Solving problems by ignoring the reality they signal is a symptom of neurosis - and that is precisely the problem with American foreign policy: it is neurotic.
June 6, 2007 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
You gotta love that KGB sense of humor
June 8, 2007 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
While I believe that attacking Iran would be insane, there's no particular military reason to use tactical nuclear weapons. There actually aren't that many true tactical weapons in the inventory; most of the tactical nuclear weapons were replaced with precision-guided conventional munitions that can be more effective.
When one actually looks at scenarios, about the only "tactical" weapon mentioned is the B61-11 bomb, which can be set for low yield and has a very limited ground-penetrating capability, less than conventional bombs such as the GBU-28, GBU-37, EGBU-28. Here's a MIT study of a hypothetical Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, which requires no nuclear weapons. The US still has conventional capabilities that the Israelis do not.
There's also little evidence that the Iranians have bistatic radar or anything that would give them a defense against stealthy aircraft. They probably do have reasonably up-to-date Russian missiles protecting high-value targets, but these can't be fully efficient without other resources.
Just to be absolutely clear, I am in no way advocating an attack on Iran. Don't allow nuclear phobia, however, to water down any Congressional resolutions against attack, by excluding nuclear weapons.
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Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia"
June 9, 2007 8:17 AM | Reply | Permalink