Bushites forced to deal with Syria and Iran

It is excellent news that the Bushites have finally been forced— by their own puppet government in Baghdad, no less– to sit down at the same table with representatives of Iraq and all its neighbors, including Iran and Syria.
That WaPo report says this:

    Rice told the Senate Appropriations Committee,”We hope that all governments will seize this opportunity to improve the relations with Iraq and to work for peace and stability in the region.”
    The first meeting, at the ambassadorial level, will be held next month. Then Rice will sit down at the table with the foreign ministers from Damascus and Tehran at a second meeting in April elsewhere in the region, possibly in Istanbul.
    …Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has long advocated a regional conference, though originally it was meant to include only Iraq’s neighbors. The administration decided in recent weeks to attend the conference, but in an effort to avoid the spotlight it ensured that it will be joined at the table in March by other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, U.S. officials said. The foreign ministers’ meeting in April will be further expanded to include representatives of the Group of Eight industrialized countries.
    It was decided “relatively recently” to include the permanent Security Council members, and the G-8 was invited “as of last night,” a senior administration official said. Rice’s announcement appeared intended to assuage congressional concerns about the administration’s Iraq policy, which have threatened to derail passage of a nearly $100 billion supplemental spending request for Iraq.
    Administration officials noted that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell attended a regional conference on Iraq in 2004, where at one point he found himself seated next to the Iranian foreign minister and made idle chitchat. But that meeting took place in a different context, before Iran had started uranium enrichment and before Syria was implicated in the killing of a Lebanese political figure — two reasons the administration has frequently cited for limited diplomatic engagement with Tehran and Damascus.

Of course these meetings won’t be the end of the sorry tale of the US’s extremely destructive involvement in Iraq. But they point the way to possible process in which a steady, orderly– and let’s hope complete and speedy!– US withdrawal from Iraq might occur.

26 thoughts on “Bushites forced to deal with Syria and Iran”

  1. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/washington/28diplo.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
    The NYTimes reportorial “spin” on this is bizarre – a., that it somehow was an American idea (the “international compact on Iraq” – but only after the US “forced” Iraq to get domestic issues – oil – cleared up first??? huh? ) and b. that the US had brought threats of force against Iran first – to get them to take “US” seriously – before we could try diplomacy.”
    Note especially the puzzling quote from our C’ville neighbor (and former Rice aide/ fellow Soviet analyst) Zelikow:
    “We became convinced that the Iranians were not taking us seriously… So we’ve done some things to get them to take us seriously, so now we can try diplomacy.”
    So to hear Zelikow, we “forced” Iran to come to the very diplomatic roundtable that we had so painstakingly shunned after the Baker-Hamilton report….
    And no doubt both “neocon” and “realist” circles will buy such utter nonsense…..

  2. “Iran is no different than Nazi Germany”, the [Israeil Ministry for Foreign Affairs] source said. “They too built up an army, resources and created the V-2.” . . . “While Germany was putting the finishing touches to the V-2 which was eventually used against Britain, the world stood by wanting to talk. Now we have Iran repeating history, declaring to “wipe Israel off the map” while planting bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, one which nearly killed US Vice President Cherney during his visit there a few days ago.”
    http://www.israelnewsagency.com/irannuclearweaponseuropeeconomicsanctionsisrael4899022807.html
    So Iran is just like Nazi Germany because it has an army and a rocket. But imagine how much worse it would have been if some country had actually launched a covert program after WWII to protect and exploit the very Nazi scientists responsible for the V-2 program, and utilize them to develop its own arsenal of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles in an outright grab for world domination. Oh wait . . .
    Also, how surprising that Iran is now arming Taliban suicide bombers in Afghanistan. What would we do without Israeli intelligence?

  3. Readers of the Huffington Post, a popular blog run by pundit Arianna Huffington, responded to an Associated Press account of the attack with at least a dozen pages of vitriol
    Comments posted to the site include:
    • Better luck next time! (TDB)
    • Dr Evil escapes again … damn. (truthtopower01)
    • So Cheney is personally responsible for the deaths of 14 innocent people … and then he waddles off to lunch!! What a piece of sh–! (fantanfanny)
    • Jesus Christ and General Jackson too, can’t the Taliban do anything right? They must know we would be so gratefull (sic) to them for such a remarkable achievement. (hankster2)
    • Hey, Thalia, lighten up. I, for one, don’t wish Cheny (sic) had been killed. I wish he had been horribly maimed and had to spend the rest of his life hooked to a respirator. Feel better now? (raisarooney)
    • Let’s see … they’re killing him over there so we don’t have to kill him over here? (ncjohn)
    • And they missed!? Oh, Hell. Like Mamma used to say, I guess it’s the thought that counts … (Anachro1)
    • You can never find a competent suicide bomber when you need one. (Mark701)
    Wounder what’s the post will be if other in US administration have same….?

  6. “>http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/4587906.html”> Baker: U.S. must change as events change
    Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III said Tuesday the United States should be prepared to change course in its foreign policy, and “we are doing just that in Iraq.” A consistent foreign policy promotes stability, he said. “But when events change, we must be prepared to change with them.”
    Baker spoke in a lecture series at the Library of Congress just a few hours after the Bush administration, in a reversal, said it would join an Iraq-sponsored “neighbors meeting” with Iran and Syria.

  8. US commanders admit: we face a Vietnam-style collapse
    “An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq – or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.
    The officers – combat veterans who are experts in counter-insurgency – are charged with implementing the “new way forward” strategy announced by George Bush on January 10. The plan includes a controversial “surge” of 21,500 additional American troops to establish security in the Iraqi capital and Anbar province.
    But the team, known as the “Baghdad brains trust” and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, according to a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations.
    “They know they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more talk in Washington about ‘Plan B’ by the autumn – meaning withdrawal. They know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it’s getting harder every day,” he said.”

  9. The foreign ministers’ meeting in April will be further expanded to include representatives of the Group of Eight industrialized countries.
    Sooo as the US sees it, the conference will be the new Yalta : industrialized countries will decide how they want to partake ME oil. Geeezzz. The only difference is that at Yalta, afaik those who loose the war didn’t have a seat. So after all, that may make a difference.. would Russia and China be there ? if I was an Iraqi that’s what I’d want.

  10. Ahmadinejad, our secret agent in Iran
    ‘Why Are We In Iraq?’
    “But he said: “To die at 21 years of age is incomprehensible and beyond belief.
    “Now is not the time to talk political agendas but I will say this, I struggle to comprehend just why our troops are in Iraq at all.
    “I can understand that if our country was indeed at war with an aggressor who was hell bent on destroying our own country, we then have a right to defend ourselves and take war to the aggressor.
    “But we are not facing an aggressor or at war with a country at our borders, so why then are we in Iraq in the first place?”
    He added: “God save us all from political leaders who are not only blind in world vision, but also blind and deaf to the will of the country, and the people who put them into power in the first place.””

  11. would Russia and China be there ? if I was an Iraqi that’s what I’d want.
    Of course, the Russian govt is well known for its fairness and generosity toward Iraqis. Take its 1997 West Qurna PSA, when it offered them a princely 25% of revenues over 23 years from Iraq’s 3rd largest field. Of course China’s been a bit stingier with its oil plays. I think it offered the Sudanese government 5 percent of its controversial concession there? If I were an Iraqi I’d sure want those guys on my team. “Anybody but Bush” eh?

  12. NPR today reported that the US army is using artillery fire to try to take out supposed car bomb factories located in densely populated Baghdad neighborhoods. I can’t find a link to the story anywhere, but I heard on the car radio a couple hours ago. The NPR correspondent described it as “precision artillery.” Isn’t that an oxymoron?
    I’m pretty sure that using artillery against neighborhoods in the capital city of a country we’ve occupied for four years is another war crime. Not that anyone’s counting.

  13. It just gets more and more and more unbelievable. Is there NOTHING these criminals will not resort to?
    John, did you hear which neighborhoods they are bombarding? I am horribly frightened for my friends and family.

  15. if I were an Iraqi I’d sure want those guys on my team. “Anybody but Bush” eh?
    Its not the matter who looting “take” the oil, the matter is other parties does not killing Iraqis dose not loot their country resources, dose not interferes the nation (mangling in ethnic cleansing) as US, UK, Israel and other involved doing in Iraq now.
    This is the matter for Iraqis vadim, as John C. mentioned in his post there are war crime doing every day no one from the western” civilized” world care, there are 26 Millions in Iraq living under man made chaos, in addition to 20 millions in Afghanistan in same case. What these nations “millions” of human done to you that you make they living like not human?

  17. Ambassador TIMOTHY M. CARNEY
    Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks to Ambassador Timothy Carney, recently appointed Coordinator for Economic Transition in Iraq, about the current state of reconstruction in Iraq.
    *-One element in that equation a Firm believe in privations of Iraqi state factories
    *-Ministry of industry and minerals had 48 state owned enterprises attached to it 2/3 of them ready for production during Paul Bremer time.
    John C.
    ‘m pretty sure that using artillery against neighborhoods in the capital city of a country we’ve occupied for four years is another war crime. Not that anyone’s counting.
    from the coming six months as “General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq – or face a Vietnam-style collapse” the scenario now is let take the “Morphine” US call for the conference include industrialized countries so within six months this will go and in mean time I use your words John C. “Kill’m all”

  18. Diplomat Tim Carney left Iraq three years ago — angry and outspoken about United States policy there. Now the administration has asked him to return as the economic coordinator.
    It’s a surprise invitation for an official who has said that the U.S. was not listening to Iraqis after the invasion, and formulating policy in isolation from the people it affected.
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7648717

  19. John C. & Shirin,
    I heard a very heartbreaking report of the “targeted precision artillery rounds” being used against “terrorist caches” that are too deep in Baghdad neighborhoods to be safely raided by “coalition forces” on BBC World Service. I am no military expert, but remembering basic college physics, doesn’t artillery by definition fall based on the law of projectiles, from maximum altitude attained, with g vertical acceleration, and a horizontal deceleration factor equivalent to friction (air resistance) and wind factor? If it is “precison” it would be a guided missile of sorts, not artillery, right? Isn’t this a dishonest way of saying that they are barraging neighborhoods with cannon fire, burning the wet and dry alike? And if the “caches” are too far to be raided, how do they know they are there? Couldn’t mis-informants just produce false “intelligence” to have the other side’s neighborhood shattered?
    Salah,
    The “Agent Ahmadinejad” post was great.

  20. I think the “meetings” with Syria and Iran are Necessary for American Propaganda Efforts.
    or something like that………
    (personally, I don’t think they will bomb Iran. “they” are working on getting a big fight going between the Sunni Arabs in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, etc….. and the Shi’as, especially Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran. The “they” is bush/cheney/whoever in Israel. I like to call it “let’s you and him fight” or it could be called “divide and conquor”

  21. Technology Will Be Key to Iraq Buildup

    “Will there be more airpower going to Iraq in the next days, weeks, months? Hell, yes,” says a senior Air Force official. “The plan is to clear some insurgent areas and militia strongholds in Baghdad and keep them cleared. There will be precision weapons applied wherever there’s an enclave, a storage area or logistics activity–boom, boom, boom. It will be fixed-wing attack of critical targets within urban areas.”

  22. Artillery & Air Power & Dr. Gen. Petraeus
    I decided not to mention this link after rereading the above and noticing that whatever happened in Baghdad just now involved artillery fire rather than aerial bombing. But considered in connection with “Salah”‘s Aviation Post reference, there are interesting questions about exactly who is in charge of the Surge of ’07 and exactly how it is supposed to work.
    There was also a piece I read yesterday, but did not save, that suggested that of course the militant Republicans are bound to attack Iran, so as to let the Navy and Air Force be part of the big show also.
    Happy days.

  23. JHM-
    I think it is clear to everybody that we don’t have nearly enough ground troops to produce an actual “surge.” This is just a propaganda word, not a description of actual military tactics. In fact, air and naval power are all we have left (besides ICBMs). I presume, alghough I don’t know, that they are using artillery in Baghdad because they are targeting densely populated neighborhoods, not despite that fact. The only other option is aerial bombardment, which would cause even more “collateral damage.” Of course, they’ll end up doing both.
    Beware Air Force generals!!

  25. Most reconstruction progress in Iraq on track
    “Americans need to hear and see more about reconstruction in Iraq to fully understand the situation there, the general in charge of Army Corps of Engineers efforts in the Persian Gulf region said.”
    Lt. Col. Lorenzo Valenzuela, Army Corps of Engineers, Multinational Division-Central South, poses for a photo with Iraqi children prior to the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Salah Hadi Obid Elementary School in Afak. Projects like this are being completed throughout Iraq with little or no press coverage. Photo by Tech. Sgt. Dawn M. Price.
    http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10324&Itemid=128
    Is this a US Solders Job? Can Iraqi do same my better job than them? Why they not go and build After Katrina their in their homeland?
    Wonder why those     Projects like this are being completed throughout Iraq with little or no press coverage had not covered by very restricted and filtered media from Iraq….
    Tomorrow boom……boom its all gone, and those millions of dollars in the pockets of those tropes and foreign contactors to put this demo project, like that US contractor who got paid US$20 Millions for painting 150 School.

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