I don’t have time right now to write anything substantive on the whole campaign the Bushists have been waging to build a “casus belli” against Iran… Dan Froomkin had an excellent roundup of the coverage on Monday in a broad range of US media. I’ve put that link and a few other relevant ones into the Delicious section of the sidebar here.
The total money quote in the Froomkin roundup is this one, from Newsweek’s Michael Hirsh and Maziar Bahari:
- At least one former White House official contends that some Bush advisers secretly want an excuse to attack Iran. ‘They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for,’ says Hillary Mann, the administration’s former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs. U.S. officials insist they have no intention of provoking or otherwise starting a war with Iran.
No word on the circumstances or timing of Ms. Mann’s exit from her post there, by which almost certainly hangs an intriguing tale…
Meanwhile some commenters here have gone off-topic and started discussing this “casus-belli-building” issue in the previous thread, which was on the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution. Tsk, tsk, friends! Henceforth, please try to keep these discussions separate… Thanks!
Update: One intriguing tidbit in the Hirsh-Bahari piece is that they quote James Dobbins, who was the Bush admin’s chief representative at the crucial talks on the political future of Afghanistan that were held in Bonn in December 2001 as recalling this about a discussion he had in Bonn with Javad Zarif, the head of the Iranian government team there (who later became Iran’s ambassador to the UN):
- Dobbins… recalls sharing coffee with Zarif in one of the sitting rooms, poring over a draft of the agreement laying out the new Afghan government. “Zarif asked me, ‘Have you looked at it?’ I said, ‘Yes, I read it over once’,” Dobbins recalls. “Then he said, with a certain twinkle in his eye: ‘I don’t think there’s anything in it that mentions democracy. Don’t you think there could be some commitment to democratization?’ This was before the Bush administration had discovered democracy as a panacea for the Middle East. I said that’s a good idea.”
Lots more there, too, about other strands of the US-Iranian cooperation in the months right after 9/11… That is, until a neocon Bush speechwriter in decided to put the whole “Axis of Evil” thing into Bush’s SOTU speech in late January 2002…
But anyway, that was just my little digression there. The main topic of this post is still the Bushists’ casus-belli-building campaign.
“People can thus see that a new round of psychological warfare between the U.S. and Iran has started. What hidden behind the heated verbal exchange is precisely an intention of both sides to ease their prolonged strained relations.”
What is hidden behind a heated verbal exchange between the U.S., Iran?
I believe Hillary Mann and Flynt Leverett left (forced resignation?) after a dispute with Elliott Abrams. http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=28817
Iran and the US have been acting out an Elizabethan tragicomedy for decades…the one bellicosely shouts “Death to America” on any public occasion…the offended other retorts “Axis of Evil”…like two incorrigible schoolyard rivals.
Only two words are needed in such a discussion:
Typical Bushs***
Truesdell, if only the Bushite role in your little play were as harmless as you make it sound.
Iran is not now and never has been a threat to its neighbors, to Israel, and most of all to the United States. The Bush regime is pulling the exact same crap regarding Iran that they pulled starting on Sept. 11, 2001 regarding Iraq. They are manufacturing a crisis in order to…..do what? Start yet another war of pure, naked aggression? Distract attention from the catastropnic failure of their endeavors in Iraq (and let us not forget Afghanistan, another unnecessary war of choice)? Make themselves feel all manly after they have managed to castrate themselves so many times?
And how many times will they manage to pull the wool over the eyes of Americans? I am beginning to believe that Americans are quite as stupid and ignorant and naive as they appear to be.
One (sort of) worthwhile outcome of the looming Iran debacle is that it is bringing out the true colours of some of the 2008 hopefuls. I do believe I have heard Barak Obama beginning to beat the Iran war drums, and as for Hillary – well, THAT unpricincipled political sharmuta will support whatever she thinks will bring her the most donations and votes.
Actually, Mr. Truesdale, it has long been noted how the slogan, Margh bar Amrika, is heard less and less in Iran, as the ole saw about “Shatan-e Bozorgh.” Oh, sure, the slogans get trotted out on key anniversary events (like during the recent “ten days of dawn” commemoration of the Iranian revolution) The trend toward changing the rhetoric began over a decade ago…. even before Khatami became President. Even the newest throwback, Ahmadinejad, doesn’t use it in his populist appeals…. (tarnished as it has become inside Iran in recent months)
With apologies to Helena for posting this on the wrong thread, I will put it where it belongs. Anyone have any ideas about this inner inconsistency?
Pace says he hasn’t seen evidence of Iranian meddling
By Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON – A day after the U.S. military charged Iran’s government with shipping powerful explosive devices to Shiite Muslim fighters in Iraq to use against American troops, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday that he hasn’t seen any intelligence to support the claim.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/16683888.htm
Helena has already “tagged” today’s NYTimes editorial “Iran and the Nameless briefers.” Sorry Helena, I am NOT nearly so impressed. Indeed. I protest on two counts. First, even though the editorial whines a bit about the Pentagon briefers being nameless, the editorial goes on to concede the gist of the foul enterprise’s assumptions – that Iran has “malign intent” and that the US should be concerned about Shias in Iraq targetting Americans, or about Iran “fanning flames” in Iraq. In effect, this editorial is complaining about the manner of the briefing (anonymously) and insufficient evidence presented rather than about the substance and “malign intent” of the briefing.
Secondly, come now…. it was precisely the New York Times in that slimely Saturday cover story, the day before the Pentagon briefing, that was hyperventilating (on pathetic evidence) about Iran somehow being responsible for the deaths of Americans in Iran. (as Froomkin correctly emphasizes in his excellent, but oh so gentle, blog)
If the New York Times wants to get my respect back, it needs to clean out its own obvious neocon plants in their newsroom. Otherwise, Judith Miller might just as well still be running the NYTimes.
Say Shirin, the correct “new” term to add to your dictionary is:
“Bushit”
Of course, the more familiar term is widely being heard among dissenters and among “young turks” less polite than Helena:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/i-call-bullshit-on-the-ev_b_41022.html
Scott,
You are absolutely right. The NYT is more harmful to discourse in this country than Fox News, Washington Times, etc. They have a facade of pseudo-liberal fake onjectivism, yet insidiously and shrewdly dress their pro-imperialist jingoism as rational analysis. I would take Tony Snow over the NYT any day. The only thing I differ with you on, they cannot get my respect back, period. And that goes for a lot of people I know.
The Saudi’s are applying for a spot on the list of the coalition of the shameless and the groveling:
[Note to those who were optimistic in their “historic role”!]
Report: Saudi Arabia reaching out to Israel
Saudi Arabia is leading outreach campaign to Israel in bid to dent Iranian influence in Middle East
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have been sending overtures to Israel and US Jews in a campaign aimed at countering Iran ‘s rising sway in the region and denting its nuclear program, USA Today reported Monday.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3363991,00.html
Thanks David, You had posted the helpful McClatchy report about General Pace. You ask a fair question, focusing on the headline, which appears to indicate that General Pace says he “hasn’t seen evidence of Iranian meddling.”
I haven’t yet found a full transcript of Pace’s remarks, but consider the quoted words McClatchy provides for Pace (which suggest the headline isn’t quite accurate):
“We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government per se knows about this,” Pace replied. “It is clear that Iranians are involved and it is clear that materials from Iran are involved. But I would not say based on what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.”
In other words, Pace is being careful not to let the evidence he’s seen (about Iranian components showing up in Iraq) be extrapolated to separate speculative questions about how and why those elements got there…. (Even then, if we did know that certain elements in Iran were providing arms to certain Iraqi forces, can we say what the intent might be?)
And another separate question – when? Is this the old stale 2004 story being recirculated?
This isn’t the first time Pace has stuck his neck out against the tide of sweeping allegations against Iran in Iraq…. I recall somewhere (perhaps here) suggesting that Pace deserved a Kennedy “profile in courage” for not drinking the koolaid….
Say David, I haven’t yet found the original USA Today report that Ynet is citing. But I’m inclined not to over-read into it. Qatar today sentenced a US engineer to a life in prison term (for selling secrets to a “foreign embassy?”)
Yet while at USA2da, I found this hot off the press item: (Pace vs. Snow-job)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-13-pace-iran_x.htm
I’ll bet ya’all that ynet won’t be reporting this one….
The plot thickens. I can’t wait to find out just who released that report on Sunday…. (I wonder if Gates, Pace and/or Rice had any idea it was about to happen…. )
Ah, but now we have the once venerable Christian Science Monitor out with a bizarre report claiming that the “revelations” were merely “diplomacy by other means.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0214/p01s01-usfp.html?s=hns
Perkovich, as he so often does, is “lost” when the subject becomes Iran. (sorry George , have you applied for a Bush slot?)
His explanation is just flat out bizarre – and ignores the far more obvious explanations about the “bushit” afoot…..
It also parallels a Monitor story by Howard LaFranchi, claiming that both sides were ratcheting down the tension…. (and that was BEFORE the Sunday revelations)
And now after the tensions went through the roof, we have the Monitor yet again telling us, (relying mainly on one off-the-wall “expert”) in effect, to trust Bush….? (that it was all just a neogotiating ploy?) Huh? Have they changed editors again at the Monitor?
By the way, see Monday report in the Monitor by Scott Peterson: (on remarkably restrained comments from Iran)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0212/p01s03-wome.html
If fool-me-once was the Bush Administration’s reams of faked intelligence about Iraq’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and nonexistent ties to Al Qaeda, then fool-me-twice is the Administration’s shameless effort to shift the blame for American casualties in Iraq from the Sunni-led resistance, where it belongs, to a make-believe threat from Iran and allied Shiite militias.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070226/dreyfuss
Its really a waste of time and ironic that all talk from this administration been taken seriously or that leaking any ideas or thought keep people discussing the matter further that what its worth from administration in US UK, and others all well approved liars.
Why the people keep telling, may believen their new lies?
Is there better talk than spreading these lies?
It has long been noted how the slogan, Margh bar Amrika, is heard less and less in Iran
One doesn’t have to defend the Bush Administration’s incredibly inept Iraq policy over the past 4 years or its recent demonization of Iran to distract the increasingly disaffected American public to point out that it is not surprising that the mullahs’ 28 year “Death to America” campaign may come back to bite them in the arse.
It is one thing to stoke revolutionary fervor in 1979 when the mullahs were trying to outmaneuver Prime Minister Ghotzbadeh, President Bani Sadr and other secular elements for power (not that unlike Lenin’s crowd outmaneuvering Kerensky in 1917). People forget that various nationalists, socialists, communist Tudeh party, etc. were part of the group that overthrew the Shah and it wasn’t foreordained that the mullahs would wind up on top.
But the 28 year regime orchestrated “Death to America” mantra, even if somewhat muted of late as a poster here maintains, was not without its risks. Not to excuse the incredible stupidity and recklessness of the Bush Administration but is it so surprising that the mullahs may yet reap what they wished for…a Life and Death struggle with America?
With Iraq neutered for all practical purposes, and now North Korea starting to fold, all that is left is Iran for an Axis of Evil trifecta. The principled and recalcitrant North Koreans are about to do an about face for some fuel oil to keep the lights on. When I visited Seoul I could not believe that literally on the North side the night is dark…Their people illegale emigrate to China to give you an idea of how low they are.
If Iran folds, and I pray it does without violence, it may be time to nominate Rumsfeld for the Nobel prize in whatever. In the meantime I read that Sadr has escaped to Iran. So much for sacrificing his life like he asks others. This proves that 20k troops make a difference or this cat would not be on the run.
May God keep our resolve firm in light of so many turncoats on the web and on our land.
Truesdell
But the 28 year regime orchestrated “Death to America” mantra,
“Freedom is the essential element and foundation of our religion, and the United States of America stands for freedom,” says Hussein Khomeini, heir to the Khomeini name.
His grandfather, the late-Ayatollah Khomeini, once called America “the Great Satan.” So why has his grandson now come forward to speak to Americans?
“Because those who promote this radical form of Islam have strayed from true Islam, and they’ve have created the foundations of prejudice and religious blindness,” says Khomeini, who decided this summer to leave his home in Iran and flee to Iraq.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/21/60II/main579155.shtml
“Hussien Khomeini, who has strong ties to some Iranian Revolutionary Guards commanders and members of the Iranian parliament and the Iranian security apparatuses, emphasized that he was continuing his struggle in order to bring about a change in the situation in Iran. He stated: “Freedom is more important than bread. If the Americans will provide it, let them come – but the Iranian people is capable of determining the fate of the current regime by itself… What we need is international sympathy and understanding for our legitimate needs.” [6]”
* Khomeini’s grandson: “Iran needs democracy, not the bomb”
* In a ground-breaking interview, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini tells al-Arabiya TV: The West must free Iran from the “dictatorship of clerics who control every aspect of life. My grandfather’s revolution has devoured its children”
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000736.html
Truesdell,
“…were part of the group that overthrew the Shah and it wasn’t foreordained that the mullahs would wind up on top.”
Ordained is a strong word, and nothing is really ‘ordained’ in the absolute sense in politics, especially 3rd world politics. Yet your statement is not accurate. The groups you name, and many others participated in the revolution. But they “tagged along”, although they would claim otherwise. The street slogans were all about Khomeini. He ran the show from his temporary home in Neuf le Chateau. In his interviews he repeatedly stated his mantra “Islamic republic, not one word more or less.” He had promised to prevent the clergy from running the day-to-day acts of government, and he clearly broke that promise. But he was always on top, and stated exactly what he wanted to do, and his “velayateh-fagheeh” (kind of like Iran’s version of Mao’s Red Book) was written 15 years before 1979. If anyone didn’t see at the time that the mullahs are on top, well they weren’t looking in the right places.
“It is one thing to stoke revolutionary fervor in 1979…”
The anti-US chants were part of the Iranian revolution from long before 1979. One quick anecdote would be from V.P. Richard Nixon’s December 7, 1953 trip to Tehran after the coup. Universities and the bazaar in Tehran are said to have erupted in demonstrations, and the Shah, embarrassed that he could not keep order even after they had reinstalled him, had the army attack the demonstrators. Three students were killed and many wounded, and Nixon’s motorcade was pelted with stones, and the car he was traveling in was damaged. And yes, “marg-bar-amrica” was one of the reported chants that day.
“… Prime Minister Ghotzbadeh…”
He never went higher than foreign minister.
Zbigniew Brzezinski:
“Here, for instance, is a plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran: Iraq fails to meet the benchmarks for progress toward stability set by the Bush administration. This is followed by U.S. accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the United States blamed on Iran, culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran. This plunges a lonely United States into a spreading and deepening quagmire lasting 20 years or more and eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-brzezinski11feb11,0,5802042.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Scott, here’s your link:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-11-arabs-outreach_x.htm
I also missed this doozy from Pat Buchanan, re. Does the President have authority to pick a war with Iran?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20070209/cm_uc_crpbux/op_33580
Naturally, I’m especially impressed that “Pat” invokes Jefferson to close his case:
So, will the neocons get their way and their new war — on Iran?
Or will Congress follow the guidance of Jefferson: “In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
Those member of Congress today apologizing for having voted Bush a blank check for war on Iraq might better tell Bush, by joint resolution, that he has no blank check for a war on Iran.
Scott & David
Whenever I think of the slimy and unforgiveable role the NYT played in the misinformation campaign that led the US into the current disaster in Irak, I long for the return of the all-too-short-lived newspaper “The Lies of Our Times” It was founded for just that purpose – to expose the subtle and insidious lies of the “National newspaper of reference.” It, unfortunately, folded in the mid 1990’s, I think.
I just heard GWB’s live interview. He had a great Freudian slip regarding the relationship between money and peace. Asked a question in another context, his response was:
“Fact of the matter is [pause] money trumps peace [hehe] sometimes!
Zbigniew Brzezinski: “Here, for instance, is a plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran
ah Zbig baby…the architect of Carter’s policy to fund and arm the mujahideen in Afghanistan to bloody his Russian archenemies, the good Polish nationalist that he is.
This plunges a lonely United States into a spreading and deepening quagmire lasting 20 years or more and eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
I recall some thing similar mentioned to this few times by US policy Think-Tank or you can call them US Policy Advisers! May be in this or this??
Scott, David & Roger –
You guys slam the NYT too much. You read it, don’t you? Would you rather it didn’t exist? Dick & W would dearly love to shut it down, and they may yet succeed. It’s a public for-profit corporation, and as such is subject to various institutional constraints such as the requirement to generate shareholder value. However, that also gives it the resources to do far more than most independent news organizations or internet bloggers. You have to take the good with the bad, learn to read between the lines and find the nuggets of actual information hidden in all the propaganda.
John C.
I don’t see it that way. The NYT, in a lot of ways, is like many of the rich NYC intelligentsia who own and read it. They used to think left, hate unbridled capitalism, support struggles against oppression in the third world, see the Patrice Lumumba and Frantz Fanon types as heros, … you know what I mean. But in the 80s and 90s, with the advent of neoliberalism, they gradually inched toward the positions of the people they had always called reactionary. In the good old days, I do not know of a major Jewish institution in this country that had close ties with the reactionary elements of the religious deep south, those who still mourn confederate-style slavery. There may be one that I don’t know. But now, many of these same institutions can’t hug the far-right any closer. This was only an example of the NYT crowd. I know of quite a few Republican nuts who used to treat the NYT like Soviet-era Pravda. Now they are subscribers. And I know many 60s era hippies and lefties who have cancelled their subscription, and taken them off their browser homepage [of course the NYT doesn’t give a flying …]. Yes, every once in a while they may throw the left a bone not to lose complete credibility, but all in all, they are the soft-spoken advocators of empire. In the 2003 Socialist convention in NYC’s Cooper Hall, they were invited. They did not come for any of the 3 days, and basically gave all the speakers, including Chomsky, Arhundati Roy, Zinn, Molly Ivins, Naomi Klein, … all a snubbing cold shoulder. But that weekend the NYT magazine had a 4 page special on kosher food in Long Island kindergartens! This summer, during the Israel-Lebanon war, they were more partisan than many of the editorialists in Israeli papers.
I think you get the gist of my argument. I see them as the print version of NPR (Nice Polite Republicans).
Hi Doris
Welcome back. I missed you.
Did you catch Vladimir Vladimirovich in Munich. Great speech.
Did you see he is thinking of selling Nuclear reactors to the Saudis? Desalination plants are seriously power hungry.
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=170166&Sn=WORL&IssueID=29332
“I think you get the gist of my argument.”
Yes, but I don’t think it contradicts mine. The NYT doesn’t need me to defend it, and I’m not particularly interested in doing so. However, I find it to be a useful resource, and would miss it if it was gone. If you give up expecting it to be something it’s not, you can get a lot out of it, including keeping up with how the “rich NYC intelligentsia” view the world. I like to know that. There are no unbiased sources of information. I don’t know whether there is such a thing as The Truth, do you?
John C.,
Fair argument. I had misunderstood your previous point. The way you see it, it’s fine. It does some reporting on certain things, and as you say is a window to the minds of a certain prominent class in this country. The same way that the Weekly Standard and Washington Times are other windows to other groups. What I was opposing was the nostalgic sentiment that I have seen many on the “left” express, seeing the NYT as the flagship of American liberalism. Far from it, as we both agree. Thank you for your note.
Andrew Cockburn tells it like it is:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-cockburn16feb16,1,7126527.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
Cost of M1 tank: $4,300,000
Cost of tank-disabling EFP: $20
Since the lesson of this price comparison is obvious to anyone, we must conclude that the purpose of the M1 tank is not to win wars, but to enrich General Dynamics.
Nice comparison John re. the tank & efp. !
I do share your sense of the value of the NYT as a paper of record. (and its oped page is, for the most part, light years better that the WaPo….)
On the other hand, the NYT is obviously still not cleansed of the sort of slime that ruined the paper back in 2003. (I’ll try to find you a link on that “scoop” last week.)
for the moment, here’s a splendid question from the “young turk” at Huffington…. Namely, if Bush really is concerned about our troops in Iraq, then just who is funding the Sunni rebels? (but to dig into that question apparently is so rarely touched by US media – including the NYT. Krugman did mention it in one exceptional line in his last column)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/whos-funding-the-sunnis_b_41376.html
Scott, once you start trying to dissect the absurdities of the GWOT, you become quickly overwhelmed, like Alice in Wonderland. To the extent that there is any actual threat to the US from Islamic extremists, that threat clearly emanates from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, our two “allies.” Iraq under Saddam Hussein was far less of a security threat to the US than the situation we will leave behind when our troops are finally withdrawn. Our government can afford to ignore these facts, because the actual threat to the US “homeland” is miniscule. What matters is the flow of energy and the concentration of wealth.
I wanted to write something about Iran, but I’m on a deadline and had few time during the past week. I was shocked that the US press made more rumors about the Austrian guns supposedly shipped by Iran to the Shiites militiae of Iraq than about a change of tone among Iran high authorities concerning the nuclear question and about the Munich summit to which Larijani met with several EU diplomates. I only read a short article in the WP about this and I’ve not found anything concerning rumors of possible compromises in which Switzerland is trying to play more than a go between, perhaps a mediator role. Naturally the EU had to decide to apply the UN sanctions right two days after and so did Switzerland. Happily Pepe Escobar has a great albeit short report on the subject which you can read here. Somewhat more transpired in the Swisspress concerning compromises which could allow for further negotiations. And SwissInfo has the news here. There was more about it in the Swisspress, but it’s in French right now I don’t have the time to translate it, I only have a paper version, it is not on the web.
Frankly, Bush denied having the intention to attack Iran, yet if that wasn’t the case, why would the US press and the US government ignore the aperture of the Iranian government ?
Thanks Christiane.
Of course, Bush & Co. also lied right up to the last minute about their intentions toward Iraq, so why should we believe them this time when they say they are not looking for a pretext to attack Iran? I would not believe them EVEN IF all their actions were not pointing toward preparation for an attack. Given that they clearly ARE preparing to attack, I most certainly do not believe them.
Shirin,
They can’t all agree about such a desperate and suiccidal move against Iran ? can they ? My hope is that not all are agreeing and that factions both in the GOP and in the government and administration will stop it before it’s to late.