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Five+One… +One => Seven

A LOT has been happening the past two weeks relating to US-Iran relations, much of it catalyzed by President Obama’s NowRuz Address to Iran. Scott Peterson summarizes major developments in this CSMonitor article. Note especially Farideh Farhi’s comments, explaining what’s potentially different from previous Bush and Clinton era approaches.
In the same realm, Roger Cohen continues to make waves with his extraordinary NYTimes opeds, variations on the taboo theme of how the “treacherous alliance” involving the US, Israel & Iran needs… rebalancing. Who wags this dog? Today’s Cohen essay entitled “Realpolitik for Iran” features memorable quotes from an interview with IAEA chief Mohammad El-Baradei, like these two:

“I don’t believe the Iranians have made a decision to go for a nuclear weapon, but they are absolutely determined to have the (nuclear) technology because they believe it brings you power, prestige and an insurance policy….
Israel would be utterly crazy to attack Iran,… I worry about it. If you bomb, you will turn the region into a ball of fire and put Iran on a crash course for nuclear weapons with the support of the whole Muslim world.”

Now for the higher math: And it likely won’t quite make the headlines, but it matters: 5+1…+1 => 7 equals. My turn to explain:

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Give Us Nine Leaders More

Let me explain:
from the Pakistan press:

    Lahore, Pakistan: Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians.

Fourteen “wanted al-Qaeda leaders” and 687 innocent Pakistanis — men, women and children — killed by unmanned, controlled Predator airplanes firing AGM-114 Hellfire missiles with blast fragmentation warheads.

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Why A Military?

Government programs normally have an objective, a goal. There are funded programs to educate children, help the elderly, provide housing for the poor, build bridges and highways, etc. These programs normally have recognized, specific goals and are funded commensurate with the goals.
The government also has programs to provide security. Currently “homeland security” is a program to secure the ports and borders of the country, and there is also a program, costing hundreds of billions of dollars, as much as all other countries on the planet spend combined, to provide what are called conventional military forces.
The question is, do these very expensive military programs have an objective, a goal?

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Let’s Be Patient

President Obama in Iraq:

    This is going to be a critical period, these next 18 months.

Three Friedman Units.
from Wikipedia:

    The term [Friedman Unit] is in reference to a May 16, 2006 article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) detailing journalist Thomas Friedman’s repeated use of “the next six months” as the period in which, according to Friedman, “we’re going to find out…whether a decent outcome is possible” in the Iraq War.

President Obama also said:

    It is time for us to transition to the Iraqis. (Applause.) They need to take responsibility for their country and for their sovereignty. (Applause.)
    And in order for them to do that, they have got to make political accommodations. They’re going to have to decide that they want to resolve their differences through constitutional means and legal means. They are going to have to focus on providing government services that encourage confidence among their citizens.
    All those things they have to do. We can’t do it for them. But what we can do is make sure that we are a stalwart partner, that we are working alongside them, that we are committed to their success, that in terms of training their security forces, training their civilian forces in order to achieve a more effective government, they know that they have a steady partner with us.
    And so just as we thank you for what you’ve already accomplished, I want to say thank you because you will be critical in terms of us being able to make sure that Iraq is stable, that it is not a safe haven for terrorists, that it is a good neighbor and a good ally, and we can start bringing our folks home.

“We can start bringing our folks home.” When? Silly me, I thought that was going to happen right away. (Obama also said the Iraq war “is an extraordinary achievement,” but we’ll let that go, not without noting the million deaths and the four million displaced.)

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A Turning Point?

from President Obama‘s press conference on the results of the recently concluded G20 Summit Meeting in London:

    Earlier today, we finished a very productive summit that will be, I believe, a turning point in our pursuit of global economic recovery. By any measure, the London summit was historic. It was historic because of the size and the scope of the challenges that we face, and because of the timeliness and magnitude of our response.

The G-20 is made up of the finance ministers and central bank governors of 19 countries plus a representative of the European Union, established in 1999 “to bring together systemically important industrialized and developing economies to discuss key issues in the global economy”. The G20 had high hopes for its recent summit meeting in London.

    The G-20 will need to send a strong signal that it is prepared to take whatever further actions are necessary to stabilise the financial system and to provide further macroeconomic support.

What happened? Was it really a turning point? Here are comments on the major G20 promises from me and others.

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Startling news

First, Iran and the US have just announced the appointment of ambassadors to each other. Impressive choices. According to The Iranian,

Mr. Haji Firooz will be representing the Islamic Republic of Iran as ambassador to Washington and Dr. Azar Nafisi will serve as the U.S. ambassador to Tehran. These distinguished individuals have been carefully selected for their deep understanding of political and cultural matters in our respective countries and we are confident that they will take important steps in rebuilding ties between our two great nations.

No doubt. As will the recent exceptionally balanced Miller Center/PBS debate over whether or not to bomb Iran.
The most startling news of the day comes from Jim Wallis who explains here how he parted the Red Sea in getting Rush Limbaugh to speak at a Sojourners “Mobilization to End Poverty.” I had heard Wallis was building bridges to conservatives, but this one surprised me. Just the other day, I heard Rush going on and on about how the “the vast majority” of CEO’s getting huge bonuses and government bailouts were “liberals.” Here’s the youtube clip from Limbaugh’s Sojourners address.

The Devil Made Us Do It

The Devil, like the Lord, works in mysterious ways.

    ARLINGTON, Wash. (AP) – A woman accused of taking more than $73,000 from the Arlington church where she was an administrative assistant blames the devil.
    Papers filed with a theft charge Wednesday in Snohomish County Superior Court say Collen R. Okeson told detectives she guessed “Satan had a big part in the theft.”

When it comes to stealing money from the peoples’ till, the United States government has its own Satan. Currently for the US it’s al-Qaeda and the guy in the cave, Osama bin Laden.
President Obama is waving the trusty 9/11 flag just as President Bush did. He mentioned al-Qaeda fifteen times in his recent Afghanistan speech, including:

    “So let me be clear: al-Qaeda and its allies – the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks – are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al-Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the U.S. homeland from its safe-haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.”

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Play It Again, Barry

I thought it might be interesting to look at two speeches, comparing President Obama’s speech on Afghanistan Friday to President Nixon’s Vietnamization speech on November 3, 1969. Comparative excerpts follow.
First, announce the New Strategy–
Nixon:
We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat ground forces, and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable. This withdrawal will be made from strength and not from weakness. As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater.
Obama:
Today, I’m announcing a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. And this marks the conclusion of a careful policy review, led by Bruce, that I ordered as soon as I took office. My administration has heard from our military commanders, as well as our diplomats. We’ve consulted with the Afghan and Pakistani governments, with our partners and our NATO allies, and with other donors and international organizations.
Then the scary part–
Nixon:
Fifteen years ago North Vietnam, with the logistical support of Communist China and the Soviet Union, launched a campaign to impose a Communist government on South Vietnam by instigating and supporting a revolution. But the question facing us today is: Now that we are in the war, what is the best way to end it?
Obama:
The situation is increasingly perilous. It’s been more than seven years since the Taliban was removed from power, yet war rages on, and insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Attacks against our troops, our NATO allies, and the Afghan government have risen steadily. And most painfully, 2008 was the deadliest year of the war for American forces.

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Was Peres trying to “Sabotage” Obama?

Two days ago, in the discussion under my entry about Obama’s NowRuz message to Iran, I noted that Israel’s President Shimon Peres had issued his own NowRuz message to Iran and suggested that it appeared calculated to “sabotage” Obama’s intentions. In the extension, I transcribe an Israeli press release (dated March 22nd) that provides translated text of both Peres’s NowRuz message, as well as excerpts from a separate interview, also broadcast to Iran.
Readers can consider it themselves.
The tonal contrast between the Obama and Peres NowRuz messages could not be sharper. Peres morphs George Bush. Unlike Obama, Peres is not speaking to the Islamic Republic, waxes nostalgic about the Shah, predicts that Iran’s people will “bring down” these “religious fanatics,” and characterizes the Islamic Republic’s disposition towards Israel as driven by “blind hatred” rather than anything Israel does.
As M.J. Rosenberg asked, it hardly seemed coincidental that Peres, long an Israeli superhawk on Iran,

suddenly sends “greetings” to the Iran people urging them to rise up against their government at the same moment that Obama respectfully addressed the “Islamic Republic of Iran” with the most conciliatory US message in decades…. [Was Peres responding] “with a hasty and insulting message in order to kill the effect of President Obama’s? If so, it was a serious breach. If the shoe was on the other foot, Jerusalem would go ballistic.”

As one friend and close observer of Iran/Israel matters puts it,here at tpmcafe, “there is little doubt that Shimon Peres’ subversion of Obama’s Nowruz message was as deliberate as it was destructive.”
Not surprisingly, some Israeli sources have claimed that the Peres message and comments were “coordinated” with Obama’s, and “similar.”
“Similar” as oil and water, night and day, maybe.
Ironically, the same Israeli and neoconservative voices who fret loudest over whether Iran will seriously talk to the US seem determined to undermine and prevent the US from seriously talking to Iran.
In a column in The International Herald Tribune, Roger Cohen reviews the Khamenei, Obama, and Peres messages, and adds this sober assessment of what may be required for a US-Iran dialogue to bear fruit:

“Obama’s new policies of Middle Eastern diplomacy and engagement will involve reining in Israeli bellicosity and a probable cooling of U.S.-Israeli relations. It’s about time. America’s Israel-can-do-no-wrong policy has been disastrous, not least for Israel’s long-term security.”

(Israeli press release in continuation)

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What Khamenei really said. (text)

To hear the rolling US corporate media refrain, US President Obama’s extraordinary NowRuz day message to Iran was dismissed, rejected, rebuffed, and trashed by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in a speech delivered yesterday in Mashhad, Iran. See, for examples, the Fox, MSNBC, Washington Post, Voice of America, variations on the theme .
The Associated Press, the source for much of the negative reporting, even carried a commentary characterizing the rebuff as illustrating Iran’s “mindset.”
So say we all? Deja vu to 2003? Kool-aid anyone?
Not quite. At Reuters, a very different headline read: “Iran Sets Terms for US Ties,” and similarly, at the French News Agency (AFP): “Iran ready to change if US leads way.”
Ignored in most US media reports about Iran’s reactions was this rather positive comment from Iran’s foreign minister, as reported by the Iranian news agency:

Concerning US President Barack Obama’s message to Iranians on the occasion of Nowroz, Mottaki said,” We are glad that Nowroz has been a source for friendship and we are pleased that Nowroz message is a message for coexistence, peace and friendship for the whole world.”

In the extension here, see the full text of Khamenei’s remarks in English as pertain to ties to America. (Translation provided late today by BBC/OSC — the latter being the valuable US government “open source center” service.) Underlining highlights are my own.
For commentary, consider Farideh Farhi’s excellent analysis.
For my own part, Khamenei’s speech covers the standard list of Iran’s grievances with the US since the revolution, some old, some ongoing, like still frozen assets and the perceived US support of various “bandit” and “dise\integrating” forces around Iran’s periphery….

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