Choice time: unravel Al-Qaeda or fight Iran?

So just how firmly do the Bushists want to pursue the campaign to unravel Al-Qaeda? In today’s WaPo, Dafna Linzer has a story, attributed largely to unnamed but concerned administration insiders, in which she gives some disturbing new information about the extent to which they have subordinated this campaign to their current push to escalate tensions with Iran.
The back-story is that, as Linzer writes,

    Since… the winter of 2001, Tehran had turned over hundreds of people to U.S. allies and provided U.S. intelligence with the names, photographs and fingerprints of those it held in custody, according to senior U.S. intelligence and administration officials. In early 2003, it offered to hand over the remaining high-value targets directly to the United States if Washington would turn over a group of exiled Iranian militants hiding in Iraq.
    Some of Bush’s top advisers pushed for the trade, arguing that taking custody of bin Laden’s son and the others would produce new leads on al-Qaeda. They were also willing to trade away the exiles — members of a group on the State Department’s terrorist list — who had aligned with Saddam Hussein in an effort to overthrow the Iranian government.
    Officials have said Bush ultimately rejected the exchange on the advice of Vice President Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who argued that any engagement would legitimize Iran and other state sponsors of terrorism. Bush’s National Security Council agreed to accept information from Iran on al-Qaeda but offer nothing in return, officials said.

Now, Linzer has learned that, in addition to Osama Bin Laden’s son Saad, those in Iranian custody include al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith of Kuwait and Saif al-Adel of Egypt, both of whom are reportedly members of the “al-Qaeda operational management committee.”
It is not clear to me how much the Bushists really care about the interests of that militant Iranian opposition group, the Mojahideen e-Khalq (MEK), around 3,000 or so of whose members had been in armed training camps in Iraq back in Saddam’s day, and have been kept in a detention camp in Iraq under the Americans. It is important to remember that, as Linzer noted there, the MEK is still on the State Department terrorism list, in connection with some very lethal acts its members carried out inside Iran in the 1980s.
(So you’d think the US government might want to actually put on trial at least the leaders of the MEK people they have under their control in Iraq, wouldn’t you? Nah… instead they have kept them there– under conditions that may or may not at this point include their complete disarming– as a way of keeping up the pressure on Teheran.)
You can see there, of course, the extent to which the Bushists have been willing to manipulate the quite legitimate global “concern” about terrorism for their own ideological ends.
What also seems very clear from Linzer’s article is the degree to which the top levels of the Bush administration are ready to compromise the anti-Qaeda campaign in the interests of maintaining their current campaign to isolate, encircle, and threaten Iran.
This is completely cock-eyed. Yes, Americans and others have a number of remaining concerns about Iran’s behavior. (And Iranians, about ours.) But numerous diplomatic channels remain, through which all these concerns can be put on the table, fairly addressed, and resolved. If the Bushists continue with their campaign to isolate and threaten Iran, this runs the risk of unleashing not only a war between these two nations but also a tsunami of instability that will “surge” throughout the region and the world…
But already, even before we have got to that point, it is clear that the Bushists’ campaign of anti-Iran escalation has forced many unwelcome costs on the world community. One of these is that the anti-Qaeda campaign– to which the Iranians have already made many significant contributions– is being compromised. We should all be very, very concerned.

27 thoughts on “Choice time: unravel Al-Qaeda or fight Iran?”

  2. Helena
    The game has moved on. Al Qaeda no longer figures highly on the list
    The creation of Africa Command, a piece of fallout from Mr Rumsfeld’s imagination gives the game away in its mission ststement.
    http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070108-124327-6405r
    What is actually happening is that target states are being driven into the arms of the Russians.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6349287.stm
    Life will get interesting if Mr Putin sells S300 misiles to the Iranians.
    His Defense minister agrees with Mr Baker.
    http://www.mosnews.com/news/2007/02/09/lavroviraq.shtml

  3. Eatbees, thanks for that tip. I did go to Gardiner’s original paper on the topic, issued I guess last fall, where the most he said was this: press reports suggest that the United States may be sponsoring former members of the Iraq-based MEK (Mojahedin-e Khalq) in
    Baluchistan.     (p.10) That is a far from definitive statement, though the general point about the distinct possibility that some MEK elements have actually been pressed into service by the US is a good one.
    Anyway, thanks for the general tip toward that paper which is a good one.

  5. Al Qaeda is not a real threat to US interests, and never has been. All they can do is kill a few people here and there. These are flea bites that only serve propaganda purposes. The GWOT is a hoax, and a pretext for military occupation of foreign countries and lawless kidnapping, detention, surveilance and torture of political enemies. If Al Qaeda did not exist, we would have to invent it.

  7. “(So you’d think the US government might want to actually put on trial at least the leaders of the MEK people they have under their control in Iraq, wouldn’t you? Nah… instead they have kept them there– under conditions that may or may not at this point include their complete disarming– as a way of keeping up the pressure on Teheran.)”
    I never had the least suspicion that the MEK would be put on trial, myself; or at least not with this administration. The US is currently ready to sponsor or at least tolerate nearly any group so long as we agree with their ends. The MEK’s end is the downfall of the Iranian clerical regime. In the Senate, you have both Democratic and Republican leaders citing things that the MEK say, as if they give the US leverage over Iran.
    The MEK are by any standards one of the worst terrorist groups on earth. This has to do with the fact that the MEK is responsible for many civilian deaths in Iran, and all they are interested in is spreading propaganda and sowing the seeds of hatred, rather than constructively engaging anyone beyond their foreign patrons.
    If you ask me, it’s way past time to put MEK and its leaders on trial. We have strong evidence that they are responsible for civilian deaths, and their leaders are easily accessible to us in Iraq.
    Also, if you ask me, this is precisely the area where Iran-US contacts will begin to be reformed. It will be first on basic security issues like these, where we have a clear common interest. It’s kind of silly how the US doesn’t realize that Iran suffers from similar problems, such as terrorism- though they have in the past suffered a far bigger problem with this issue in terms of how exposed their citizens are to actual attack.
    Imagine if you were forced to live with hundreds of terrorists who wanted to bomb your country’s civilians right next door. Really goes a long way to destabilize any regional conflicts and create the conditions for long-term stability.

  8. The ABM treaty was supposed to avoid this kind of escalation.
    Radar in Poland gives visibility at least as far as St Petersburg. Now if you add offensive missiles to that radar capability and take into account the air bases in Romania suddenly you feel a bit uncomfortable if you are commander of Frontal Aviation.
    If people really feel like doing some interesting reading. Try Treaty of Sevres about passage of warships through the Dardanelles.

  10. Bush also let zarqawi get away in 02 because he was trying to drum up support for an iraq invasion. letting go off this many al queda has to be criminal

  11. You should also make note that the MKO (MEK) killed American personnel in Iran before the Revolution as part of its “revolutionary struggle” against the Shah. These people are our enemies. They hate us. They still oppose us. They are terrorists. Even if “regime change” were a reasonable goal, it should not be so that these thugs can replace the current set.

  12. Helena
    in connection with some very lethal acts its members carried out inside Iran in the 1980s.
    Wonder why your words not as same when you talking about Da’awa party acts inside Iraq and Bader Brigade/ SCIRI party acts to Iraqi POW and inside Iraq before US invasion in 2003

  14. John,
    You write: “These people are our enemies. They hate us.” Who do you think “us” is? Is it “American personnel”?
    I think you are not able to criticise them because if you were to bring the instruments of criticism into play then these would naturally have to be applied to US terrorism.
    So you revive the “good guys” versus “bad guys” appeal to “American” solidarity. But my dear Johan, this is not Kansas, mate, it is the Internet. Don’t you see how ridiculous your kind of interventions looks?
    The US is obviously the biggest terrorists of all, and often, as in the case of the MEK, the US is directly involved in terrorism, in plain view of the whole world.
    Please cut out the “us and them” stuff.
    By all means criticise the MEK, but you will have to find some humanist grounds for doing so, and naturally you will have to expose all other “personnel” to the same critical yardsticks.

  15. Helena,
    “connection with some very lethal acts its members carried out inside Iran in the 1980s.”
    The MEK (aka “Jonbesheh Mellieh Mojahedeen” pre-1979) killed at least 6 US military attaches and diplomatic personnel from 1972-78. Do you really think the US DoS is heartbroken for the MEK’s “lethal acts” against Iranian citizens? Do you sense any real remorse for the 300 they killed on board the airliner? Or the 1 million Iranians and Iraqis killed in the 1980-88 war? Or the half million+ Iraqis killed since 2003?
    “the distinct possibility that some MEK elements have actually been pressed into service by the US is a good one”
    Do you have any logical reason that they would have not been using them since 1981? Ethical reasons ?!! If you’d see their headquarters in Paris you would definitely wonder where all that money and support comes from. Who do you think has kept a military establishment (“Camp Ashraf”) with 3000+ personnel going for the past 4 years? Can you iamgine what it takes to just feed that many people?

  16. Helena,
    Have you seen this:
    Arabs Less Worried About Iran, Poll Finds
    “WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (IPS) – U.S. and Israeli hopes of forging of a Sunni Arab alliance to contain Iran and its regional allies may be misplaced, at least at the popular level, according to a major survey of six Arab countries released here Thursday.
    The face-to-face survey of a total of 3,850 respondents in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates found that close to 80 percent of Arabs consider Israel and the United States the two biggest external threats to their security. Only six percent cited Iran.
    And less than one in four Arabs believe Iran should be pressured to halt its nuclear programme, while 61 percent, including majorities in all six countries, said Tehran had the right to pursue it even if, as most believe, the programme is designed to develop nuclear weapons.”
    http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6538.shtml

  18. Five years ago the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan were squashed; if they are now resurgent there, gross dereliction of leadership is responsible. Why hasn’t Bush been held accountable for this?

  19. bob h,
    What is this squashing that you are talking about? It does not exist and cannot exist. Why don’t you go and read Clausewitz and find out why? Otherwise you are only repeating the folly of Bush.
    There is no such thing as unconditional surrender. It is even possible that Bush knows this. It is even likely that he knows and that he quite content because he wants endless war. He has no leverage on anybody except as a “war president” and a “decider”.
    Now he is bringing his endless war to Africa. I wish you could see what is going on. Because you cannot, you are in effect asking for a replay of the same wars allover again. That will suit Bush and co very nicely.

  20. David
    There is a rather good critique of the gordon piece at Salon.com
    Glenn Greenwald
    Saturday February 10, 2007 17:10 EST
    The NY Times returns to pre-Iraq-war “journalism”
    Over the past few weeks, The Los Angeles Times has published several detailed and well-documented articles casting serious doubt on the administration’s claims that Iran is fueling the Iraqi insurgency with weapons. A couple of months ago, The Washington Post published a very well-researched article reporting that extensive searches by British military brigades in Southern Iraq — specifically in the areas where such weapons would almost certainly be transported and maintained — have turned up nothing. It seemed as though the media was treating the war-inflaming claims of Bush officials against Iran much more skeptically, refusing to simply pass along accusations without first conducting an investigation to determine if those claims were true.
    But today, The New York Times does precisely the opposite — it has published a lengthy, prominent front-page article by Michael Gordon that does nothing, literally, but mindlessly recite administration claims about Iran’s weapons-supplying activities without the slightest questioning, investigation, or presentation of ample counter-evidence. The entire article is nothing more than one accusatory claim about Iran after the next, all emanating from the mouths of anonymous military and “intelligence officials” without the slightest verified evidence, and Gordon just mindlessly repeats what he has been told in one provocative paragraph after the next.
    Start with the headline: Deadliest Bomb in Iraq is Made by Iran, U.S. Says. That is a proposition that is extremely inflammatory — it suggests that Iranians bear responsibility for attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, even though that is a claim for which almost no evidence has been presented and which is very much in dispute. Why should that be the basis for a prominent headline when Gordon’s sole basis for it are the uncorroborated assertions of the Bush administration?
    Subsrription to Salon is ridiculously cheap especially for us europeans now that Bush has undermined the dollar.
    Sign up and read the rest.

  21. Dominic – you misunderstand me. Plus, I think you are mistaking me for someone else. This is only my second post here. The “they hate us” refers to the MKO which has actively fought against and killed US personnel. They do in fact hate the US (and the western capitalism for which it stands). They are a Marxist-Islamist cult. My point was that the principle of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is wrong headed, misguided and that kind of thinking led us (the US) into supporting a movement in Afghanistan that with help from our allies spawned the Taliban. The point is that it is inherently short sighted for the US to be supporting groups that have as one of their core principles opposition to the US. I was speaking of rational self-interest. Nothing more. BTW, I am opposed to war/violence as a solution to any dispute.

  22. John C.,
    struggles for wealth and power that will continue to rock this region for the foreseeable future.
    This will continue to the last day “Judgment Day” John C.
    We will see the worse when Israelis built their temple (according to article that appeared in
    Ma’ariv’s newspaper also her ) over Al-aqsa and more and more.

  23. Hi John,
    Nothing personal. Also I am suffering from a cold so I not totally compus mentis. No, the first thing is that I am a South African, in Johannesburg. So the first thing is that it is not good to talk on here of a collective “we” or “us”. It’s a little bit presumptuous.
    On the face of it your argument seems reasonable. The trouble with it is that it begs the main question which is the terrorism of the United States. Maybe you think I am joking? But you must know that opinion polls all over the world confirm that those who are not “us”, meaning USA, do mostly regard the USA as a threat.
    The case of the Mujahideen-E-Kalk is only one among many blatant, open alliances of the USA with terrorist organisations. In my opinion it a an instructive one. This MEK is a good example of what is often called “ultra-leftism” protected, promoted and funded by the Imperialists.
    It is not a case “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Nor was Afghanistan a mistake, as you seem to think.
    The USA is the main source of terrorism in this world.

  24. bob h,
    If you’d like to take Dominic’s sound advice, here it is:
    http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/VomKriege/VKTOC2.htm
    Frank,
    Thanks. The Salon.com critique was to the point.
    John (non-C.),
    As a quick example, take a look at link above from the electronicintifada website, or check out some of the studies in pewglobal.org/reports/
    John C.,
    I agree with Salah. It seems like much worse is to come. There is a lot of that crazy talk in Israeli papers over the past few weeks. I am not sure if it is all fed from a single source, but it sounds ominous and non-coincidental.

  27. Guys
    Today I had an email from an academic seeking papers for his new journal.
    Even if you aren’t an engineer, with an interest in modern technology it might be nice to send him an email.
    Isfahan is on the target list.
    nematbakhsh@eng.ui.ac.ir
    ================================================
    Dear Colleagues,
    I am pleased to inform you that The Iranian Journal of Engineering
    Sciences is launching special issues on computer and information
    technology every quarter in the following subjects:
    1. Algorithms and theory of computing
    2. Artificial intelligence
    3. Computer architecture and arithmetic
    4. Computer science and engineering education
    5. Computer networks and data communications
    6. Computer security and cryptography
    7. Computer vision, image processing and graphics
    8. Information communication and technology
    9. Internet, grid and cluster computing
    10. Parallel processing and distributed systems
    11. Performance modeling and evaluation
    12. Scientific computing with applications
    13. Electronic commerce
    14. Software engineering and formal methods
    15. Speech and signal processing
    16. VLSI, ULSI, and WSI
    17. Advanced topics
    In this year, the special issues are going to be published on May,
    Sept, Dec. 2007. The important dates for the May issue are:
    Submission of full paper Deadline :Feb 20, 2007
    paper notification April 20, 2007
    Camera ready Due May 10, 2007
    For submission instruction and more informatiom please go to:
    http://ijes.ui.ac.ir
    Should you have any question please do contact me.
    M. Nematbakhsh, Ph.D.
    Co-Editor of computer and infromation Technology issues

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