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Today's Must Read
Last summer, the administration decided to make an aggressive shift against Iran in Iraq, The Washington Post reveals this morning. Commanders, the paper reports, are now under orders to "kill or capture" Iranian operatives in Iraq, a strategy calculated to make Iran "back down" by "[hitting them] hard."
The change came because the administration decided that their policy of "catch and release" of Iranian agents in Iraq wasn't aggressive enough. The U.S. has detained and then released "dozens of suspected Iranian agents" in the past year, the Post reports.
But the policy is meant to reach beyond Iraq:
Advocates of the new policy -- some of whom are in the NSC, the vice president's office, the Pentagon and the State Department -- said that only direct and aggressive efforts can shatter Iran's growing influence. A less confident Iran, with fewer cards, may be more willing to cut the kind of deal the Bush administration is hoping for on its nuclear program. "The Iranians respond to the international community only when they are under pressure, not when they are feeling strong," one official said.
It's a policy with a long list of potential consequences, especially "if Iran responds with escalation," putting "U.S. citizens and national interests at greater risk in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere."
But perhaps that's the point?
A senior intelligence officer was more wary of the ambitions of the strategy."This has little to do with Iraq. It's all about pushing Iran's buttons. It is purely political," the official said. The official expressed similar views about other new efforts aimed at Iran, suggesting that the United States is escalating toward an unnecessary conflict to shift attention away from Iraq and to blame Iran for the United States' increasing inability to stanch the violence there.
Note: In a second must read today, The New York Times provides yet another unflattering portrait of the Iraqi parliament, this one featuring the parliament's speaker yelling "shut up" to quiet the din caused by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's (a Shiite) accusation that a Sunni leader in parliament had been involved in Shiite kidnappings.
It's becoming increasingly clear from the news reports that the US government has one tactical goal in Iraq (I wouldn't even describe it as having a strategic component at the moment), and the Iraqi leadership a different one (I wouldn't even describe them as a "government" when they are threatening to arrest each other during Parliamentary sessions). We're fighting a battle with Sunnis and Iranians, while they are fighting proxy campaigns against Sunnis (and thus we both support the Haifa street Campaign) with Iranian help (and thus we arrest the Iranians that they're trying to get into the country). It's not so much that we're at cross-purposes, it's more that there is little logical connection at all between what we're trying to do and what they are. Sometimes it overlaps, sometimes it's in opposition. Either way, could someone remind me why it's so important that we stay?
January 26, 2007 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Watch carefully the whole "we are only pushing Iran's buttons" claim. The neocons know they don't have a casus belli for invading Iran...yet. So you really have to question what "pusing Iran's buttons" really means. To me, it could any of three things:
1. Intimidate Iran into submission. Unlikely.
2. Provoke Iran into a genuinely aggressive act. Unlikely.
3. Provoke Ahmadinejad into more macho threats and saber rattling, to make future US airstrikes more palatable. More likely.
4. Set the stage for a ficticious/manufactured "act of agression" by Iran by stoking everyone's imagination about Iran's current activities. More likely.
The neocons know they have an ally in Ahmadinejad. He will react with the kind of strong, hyper-aggressive language that will make headlines -- and help build the neocon case for airstrikes in the absence of real intelligence. In "pushing Iran's buttons," I suspect they are setting the stage to make some future act of Iranian aggression - either real or fabricated - into a logical pretext for military strikes.
So why is Ahmadinejad playing along? I suspect two reasons: (1) with his political status in Iran on the decline, he knonws nothing would increase his domestic popularity more than US airstrikes and (2) he knows that "regime change" in Iran is unlikely, that US airstrikes would detroy any moderate movement in Iran, and that the US lacks the military strength to do anything more than drop bombs. In short, he knows the neocons live in a fantasy world and he is more than willing to exploit their magical thinking for his own gain, even if it means absorbing US airstrikes.
January 26, 2007 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
isn't it only our media reporting Ahmadinejad is "losing control"?
it would make sense for their actual leaders to try to quiet him down, and it could simply be to try to prevent the insane rhetoric they are hearing from the US about attacking them.
we should be scared, vewy vewy scared. Because that is what george wants us to be.
scared of george, not Iran
January 26, 2007 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bingo, jfaberuiuc--you hit the nail on the head with one blow.
(1) We remove Saddam Hussein and create a Shiite sectarian state in Iraq, thereby promoting Iran's regional aims.
(2) The new Iraqi Shiite state solicits our help to crush the remaining Sunnis. Iran also offers assistance to its Shiite neighbors in Iraq to accomplish this same task.
(3) The medieval monarchies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, as well as the somewhat less medieval monarchy in Jordan, sound the alarm about rising Iranian influence in Iraq and the region.
(3) So the Bush White House insists that the U.S. will be the chief patron of its sectarian Shiite creation in Iraq and will prevent Iran from playing this role.
(4) To ensure that the U.S. can continue to pour lives and treasure down the sinkhole of Iraq (apparently in the vain hope that ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, etc. can securely loot Iraq's oilfields), the Bush/Cheney team now is building momentum to justify military strikes against Iran, its chief rival to serve as Iraq's Big Daddy in the region.
Of course, this "policy" is totally incoherent--unless the goal really is simply to foment perpetual war, just as George Orwell foresaw.
January 26, 2007 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
A while back, Iran lost hundreds of thousands of troops in their re-creation of WW I trench warfare with Iraq.
Losing a few dozen (or even hundred) troops in Iraq?
Big whoop.
We are still ruled by morons.
January 26, 2007 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please examine where the "intelligence" is coming from which is telling the USA that Iran is developing a nuclear program. It is from the same people who told the USA that Saddam had WMD's, mobile biological weapons labs, aluminum tubes for uranium centrifuges, and the list goes on and on.
Why are these people given any credibility after their blunders in the past?
January 26, 2007 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
One thing, owenz. On No. 2: Provoke Iran into a genuinely aggressive act. Unlikely.
This administration only needs one Iranian to do something crazy, and they'll pump that up into a reason to strike.
And if that doesn't happen, they can always say Iran was trying to buy yellow-cake in Niger.
January 26, 2007 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Senator Joe Biden has stated that Congress has explicitly not given the president the authorization to engage Iran in military actions. This seems to be an attempt by the administration to pull an end-run. If Bush can provoke the Iranians into taking some sort of aggressive action against U.S. troops, Biden's argument will be moot: anyone who opposes retaliation will be branded an anti-American coward by the administration. This is CLEARLY, and without any doubt an attempt to create a casus belli for declaring war against Iran.
I sincerely believe that the ONLY way to stop this insanity is to impeach both Bush and Cheney. Since that event seems highly unlikely, I would say there is a 100% chance we will be at war with Iran before Bush leaves office.
January 26, 2007 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Long Memory: I totally agree.
I was talking about an aggressive act on the part of the Iranian government. Clearly, the Bush Administration would happily use an act by a lone actor as a cassus belli.
January 26, 2007 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
P.S.: If you can find a copy of the SotU, watch the part where the president talks about Iran. If it doesn't sound to you like a near carbon copy of the phony case against Saddam, you weren't listening the first time. This president is not intelligent enough or humble enough for subtleties. In Bush's case, Occam's Razor is always the operating principle. The stupidest possible thing he appears to be up to is exactly what he is up to.
January 26, 2007 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
When Israel invaded Lebanon in July of 2006, Seymour Hersh, in an article entitled "Watching Lebanon: Washington's Interests in Israel’s War", stated his opinion that the invasion was a test and a trial run for America's upcoming invasion of Iran. Remember the minor event that "justified" Israel's invasion of Lebanon. With Bush at the helm, it won't take much to provoke America's "outrage" and the subsequent "necessity" to invade. A few convincing lies ought to do it...
January 26, 2007 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm curious; the article states that, "The new "kill or capture" program was authorized by President Bush in a meeting of his most senior advisers last fall, along with other measures meant to curtail Iranian influence..."
If it's been in place since last Fall, I can't see where it's translated into very much positive results on the ground.
January 26, 2007 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Presumably, the American army of occupation - and its Blackstone Group surrogates - already had authority to capture or kill anyone participating in active violence in Iraq. How is this new executive order anything but a dry fig leaf for ratcheting up the campaign to justify war against Iran? At least to a crescendo loud enough to last until the end of 2008, when Mr. Bush can hand another "fine mess" to a receiver.
January 26, 2007 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Percentage of Christians in Muslim lands.
Turkey 1923 15 percent, Now 1 percent
Syria 1920 33 percent, Now 10 percent
Iraq 1970 5.8 percent, Now 2.65 percent
Jerusalem 1922 53 percent, Now 2 percent
Bethlehem 1948 85 percent, Now 12 percent
The same applies to Jews in Muslim countries in the last 75 years. from quote 'All my staff at the church have been killed - they disappeared'
Stephen Farrell, Jerusalem and Rana Sabbagh Gargour, Amman Times Online
December 23, 2006 end quote.
The greater the Muslim population, the more genocide they do. That applies there and here.
More info on Turkey's genocide of Christians at link at my name.
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