Politics and Press

Déjà vu, Iran

It is not at all clear about the administration and its plans for Iran, but it seems that an attack of some kind is still on the Bush-Cheney agenda. Among the troubling signs:

*The briefing by unidentified officials held in Baghdad about Iran-produced armor penetrating bombs;

*Secretary Rice either forgetting or lying about a May 2003 offer to negotiate delivered to Washington by the Swiss ambassador in Tehran (the Swiss represent U.S. interests in Iran);

*The report by Michael Gordon in the NY Times last week taking unnamed administration sources at face value in a way very much like what the Times’ Judith Miller did in sexing up the weapons of mass destruction stories in the run-up to Iraq;

*The U.S.’s sending a second aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf;

*The fact of Bush’s lame duck status, along with his unwillingness to recognize the incredible folly of his Iraq fiasco and his visions of himself morphing into some mix of Harry Truman, Teddy Roosevelt and George Washington.

While Bush seems to be flirting with one last blast, so to speak, the Iraq Study Group urged diplomacy with Iran and that idea has developed increased resonance since the administration finally negotiated directly with N. Korea in Berlin with some positive possibilities emerging. And while the U.S. military can apparently mount a more or less surgical air strike against Iran, anything beyond that involving ground troops would push the limits of current capabilities.

25% of the Bush Presidency is Still to Come.

Reality hasn’t changed just because the TV camera is now focused on the 2008 Presidential election. Bush is still in charge and Congress is still ineffectual.

When the Democrats won their Congressional majority a perception took root. Somehow folk started thinking that things had changed. In fact the only change was one of possibilities.

It became possible that one branch of government might restrain another. Possibilities don’t become realities by virtue of perception. Regardless of where the TV camera points.

Bush is unrestrained. One completely unchained –though perceptively lame– duck. Everyday he waddles toward a strike on Iran. With every quack he makes his intention clear.

He is not playing out the clock. He’s not idly watching “Congressional maneuvering.” He’s not reacting to events. He isn’t dishing dirt in Hollywood with fag hag columnists. Not scoring points or “positioning his candidate” for an election that is twenty-one months away.

Bush is acting. He’s creating the future in which that election will be held. He’s telling anybody who will listen that he’s not gonna tolerate an Iranian nuclear bomb.

He’s as serious as death.

Either he’s not the guy who has been President for the past six years or he is going to strike Iran. He’s not going to retire and hope his successor acts.

He’s going to push ’til he draws a foul or he’s going to do it without provocation.

But what he’s not going to do is go quietly.

He’s not going to blow off a quarter of his Presidency. He’s going to create the reality with which the next Presidency will have to contend.

New Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty President

The Board of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has selected Jeffrey Gedmin as RFE/RL’s new president. Since 2001 Gedmin has served as Director of the Aspen institute in Berlin and prior to that served for five years as Executive Director of the New Atlantic Initiative.

Looking at his background and some recent writings Gedmin appears to be a strong choice for what is a challenging position. His work is cut out for him. Radio Liberty’s Russian Broadcast Service has had some difficulties with President Putin’s government and to his credit Gedmin has been critical of the undemocratic (and worse) directions that Putin has taken Russia. In so doing he has taken a stronger stance for freedom and democracy in Russia than the U.S. government. Also, the Radio’s successful Persian Service was turned into a shadow of itself a few years ago when the Board of Broadcast Governors forced it to join with VOA’s service and to move from providing substantive news, analysis and culture aimed at Iran’s influential elites to a popular music format aimed at people with little influence and perhaps even interest in the issues of freedom and democracy within Iran. Given the current state of Iran-U.S. relations this is an issue that Gedmin might usefully put at the top of his “to do” list.

EL-BARADEI VS. BUSH-CHENEY

One of the key ingredients to Bush-Cheney’s**, successful selling of the Iraq invasion was its PR campaign aimed at belittling Hans Blix on the weapons of mass destruction issue. As we know Bush lied and Blix turned out to be both honorable and correct. But Bush-Cheney was intent on invading and invade we did. The cost of that decision has been enormous and continues to grow as Bush-Cheney flounders around looking for a way out and perhaps finding Iran.

Blix’s successor as Head of the International Atomic Energy Commission is Muhammad el-Baradei and yesterday he spoke out strongly at the World Economic Forum in Davos, warning the West, and particularly Bush-Cheney, that attempting to bomb Iran’s nuclear capability would be unjustified at this point, probably counter–productive and a catastrophe.

Golnaz Esfandiari, an Iranian émigré journalist, has written a solid review of the situation for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s website. It places el-Baradei’s comments in a broader context than that which Americans normally get from their press (and politicians) and describes a fairly broad international consensus that an attack by either Bush-Cheney or Israel could be catastrophic, and that as in the Iraq invasion in 2003, there is insufficient evidence to support military action.

We shall see – cornered beasts do desperate things.

**Note: In this context Bush-Cheney is seen as a kind of Chimaera - the two-headed beast of mythology

The State of U.S. Broadcasting to Iran

International broadcasting, a major component of America’s public diplomacy program, has fallen on hard times. This is due partly to major misunderstandings about the nature and value of surrogate broadcasting versus a recent emphasis on building listenership numbers by following a strategy of “dumbing down” the content, most notably in major changes made to Radio Free Europe’s Persian broadcast service and Iraq broadcast service. These services were originally funded by the Congress in the late nineties to provide the kind of surrogate broadcasts that Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty provided to the Soviet Union and the Eastern European bloc during the Cold War: programming of domestic and international news and analysis, cultural developments and interviews and panel discussions with émigrés.

However, early in this decade the Broadcasting Board of Governors were sold on the concept of building an audience of the young by providing a kind of “radio lite”: rock and roll music and brief, light news updates. A serious discussion of the weakness of this approach has recently begun in Washington.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey testified on the Iran broadcasts to the House Committee for Foreign Affairs on January 11, that: “We should … engage in ways similar to those techniques we used in the 1980’s to engage with the Polish people and Solidarity — by communicating directly, now via the Web and modern communications technology, with Iranian student groups, labor unions, and other potential sources of resistance. … We should abandon the approaches of Radio Farda and the Farsi Service of VOA and return to the approach that served us so well in the Cold War. Ion Pacepa, the most senior Soviet Bloc intelligence officer to defect during the Cold War (when he was Acting Director of Romanian Intelligence) recently wrote that two missiles brought down the Soviet Union: Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Our current broadcasting does not inform Iranians about what is happening in Iran, as RFE and RL did about matters in the Bloc.”

Earlier, Enders Wimbush, a former Director of Radio Liberty published a lengthy article on the need to change the current approach in the December 18 issue of the Weekly Standard; a follow-up discussion by Edward Kaufman, a member of the Board and Wimbush followed in the January 15 issue of the Weekly Standard. Both are worth reading for insight into the issue

Bush, Iran, Diplomacy and War

Last April in an exchange with a friend I wrote about the possible role of diplomacy in the Bush Universe. I post it now as Bush appears to be embarking on a widening of his Iraq fiasco; much of what was said in April seems worth considering nine months later:

“In general I think diplomacy trumps war almost every time. There are no guarantees in diplomacy but neither are there any in war that I am aware of, but the search for common ground - or at least a modus vivendi - is to me worth a better effort than this administration (and I suppose earlier ones) has put forth. But this administration has a special place in the Land of Oz, crippled by its blind arrogance of (illusionary) power. And yes I would say the same about N. Korea. I think we have refused to talk to either country directly because they are “evil” and we are “good” - and we have therefore a self-induced consequence. And it is the consequence that the administration wants so it can change the world to fit its picture of what reality should be. Iraq is the current best example of the results of this kind of thinking.

I think the N. Korean situation is in some ways more complicated. We did a deal with them in which we and the S. Koreans and the Japanese would build nuclear energy plants in return for their not building nuclear weapons. It was, according to the diplomat who was given the unenviable task of managing that agreement - an “orphan” from the start. The U.S. (particularly the Congress - not the smartest lamps in the light store) never really made a serious effort to fulfill their part of the deal and when The Glorious Leader wanted to talk directly to the U.S. there was simply no way anyone could do that and retain domestic political support.

I don’t know whether direct negotiations would have or could have led to different scenarios - but then neither does anyone since it was never tried. I trust Iran and N. Korea about as much as I would trust Cheney/Bush if I were an Iranian given our Iraq adventure….

Would the world be a better place if Iran and N. Korea did not ever have nuclear weapons? Of course. But is it worth going to what amounts to war to stop it without attempting to negotiate? In my view, “no”. We could kiss S. Korea goodbye and we could kiss any hopes for peace on any level in the Middle East goodbye.

Also - I am not sure that the IAEA is as guilty of incompetence on the Iran issue as some say - they were aware as far back as 1996 that Iran was screwing around with nuclear stuff and Blix reported that concern. And it does not help IAEA with policing the nonproliferation pact when Bush plays it fast and loose with India, Brazil etc. We discussed this earlier and I remain concerned on the existential issue - if we give permission to India then we give it to others (in the existential sense - we lose the moral edge).
Of course we cannot blame Bush for every bad thing that happens - but I blame him for the mess in Iraq - we were better off with Saddam in power in a secular country with no WMD than we are now - it has cost us billions of dollars and thousands of lives (many thousands if we want to include Iraqis), has diverted our attention from the important work at hand and has made it easier for the likes of Iran to screw around with us.

I think this is a disaster that has no foreseeable end. It is a mess and the U.S. has played the major role in making it worse than it needed to be. As to whether anything else would have worked better - we will never know.”

April 18, 2006

Watching the oil gauge

Crude prices dropped 4% in the hours after Bush announced that US ground forces would counter the Shiite militias and the US Navy would be stationing an additional carrier battle group off Iran (Surging total force numbers way beyond 20K or don’t sailors count?).

Given that the war premium in the oil price could be expected to escalate with the war’s escalation, a price REDUCTION might seem puzzling. Or not. It looks as if the Saudis are flooding the market to limit Tehran’s revenues. Saudi Sunnis want to contain Persian Shiites and destabilize Iran’s domestic politics. Or did the Saudis opened the oil spigot merely as a thank-you gesture for Bush’s tilt towards the Iraqi Sunnis?

Are we hearing the opening economic shots in a regional sectarian war? A war we are supposedly “surging” to forestall?

For BUSH, All The World’s a Stage

Three events in the last 24 hours suggest that Bush’s struggle to save his presidency from history’s dustbin is heading toward some kind of a military intervention aimed at Iran. Bush threatened Iran in his speech last night; today U.S. forces in Iraq raided an Iranian government office in Irbil, and today in Washington Secretary Rice refused to rule out military operations against Iran while testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Having lied to get us into Iraq there is little question that he would lie to get us into Iran if he thought it might save his deeply diminished reputation. While the governor of Kurdistan and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, expressed their “disturbance and condemnation” over the predawn operation and urged the US military to release individuals arrested during the raid, this is likely to mean nothing to Bush who has transformed himself into a cross between Lady MacBeth and Falstaff when what we need is a Henry the Fifth.

Also fitting into this pattern of fantasy face-saving, it is apparent that the blame for failure in Iraq is being not so subtly shifted to the Iraqis who did not actually invite us in, who did not ask to have their infrastructure destroyed, who did not ask to be transformed from a secular to a Muslim fundamentalist society, who did not ask for its borders to be opened to Al Quada operatives, and who did not ask  for American troops to occupy their country. They want us out and the American people want us out. The administration retains its dogged stupidity and arrogance in the face of advice from military leaders, analysts, world leaders and the American people. Go figure.

BUSH’s SURGE

There is so much that could be said about the latest Bush “plan” for Iraq but it is almost impossible to consider wasting time expounding so much on the obvious. Below are some excerpts from emails sent among some of the politicsandpress regulars. While these are random and somewhat disconnected it is just not worthwhile to develop a coherent response to the pile of nonsense served up by Bush last night.

1. This one showed up from New Zealand several hours before the speech but after the details had been reported:
GENTS : I say cut and run and quit arguing about surges. I am not being partisan. Strategically it makes sense to me to get out, let the region descend into the fratricide it needs to get out of its system. As long as we are there we are supporting the perception that it is a clash of West vs Islam which is bullshit. The West is way over being about religion. Let the region see that their problems are of their own making and that they can’t rely on selling their resources to feed their religious habit; they have to work and make a life. Anyway,if we’re not there they can attend to their own homemade hell. PLUS oil will go to $100 and we will then HAVE to cut consumption and find better, safer fuels. Cut and run. That’s the ticket.

2. From after the speech also from kiwiland: Watched Bush and the responses. Sick. There is so much differentiated push-back that there is no effective opposition. Obama got’s his plan coming but it isn’t Teddy’s; Edwards has his; Durbin gives the reaction speech but then Pelosi and Reid even nuance that.
… O’Maliki won’t be able to resist sodder-man’s militia; Saudis etc will be tempted to help the Sunnis b4 long….. The presidential race virtually assures there will be no meaningful w/drawal b4 elections.

3. From Washington DC: Listened to the Man myself last night too. He said absolutely nothing to convince any reasonable person that his SURGE was going to accomplish anything other than kill more troops. Caught David Brooks prior to the wizard’s appearance [well, not the wizard actually - the guy in front of the curtain – the wizard is behind the curtain] saying that we don’t have any choice but to add the troops and give it six months. Six months - Brooks is an idiot too. And who should the idiot name for praise in his speech last night, alone of the 535 members of Congress, but one Joe Lieberman. And Reid is saying, well, we’ll have to see. …

4. From Massachusetts: Ken Adelman was on NPR this morning while I was driving to the dump and I felt like ripping out my radio and chucking in with the trash.

The message is partly: “If we leave, the Middle East will become unstable” . What planet are they living on? The middle East and Gulf region MIGHT become UNSATABLE?? Maintaining some semblance of stability in the region was historically our strategic policy - until Dubya invaded. We now have a war in which we are fulfilling the interests of Iran and Syria - our actual “enemies”. Creating a Shiite state leaves the Saudis with no choice but to fund the Sunnis. Al Queda had no operational ability in Iraq pre-invasion; they are now using it as a terrific recruiting and training ground. Iraq used to be a secular state; it will now become a fundamentalist Muslim state. Turkey now also has interests which we have screwed with, and apparently throwing our support to the Shiites screws the Kurds - again. I don’t even think that Israel gains from this mess - even though it is likely that the neocons who masterminded this did it for Israeli reasons. As long as we send troops there we have no hope of getting serious negotiations going within the region and instability - which we have mightily increased will be the rule for a long long time.

It is hard to think of a more disastrous administration than this one In the history of America. Two more years is too long a time to wait for the Congress to find its backbone.

Bush and Iran: Preparing us for the Worst, Part II

Here is the second portion of the statement begun in the preceding posting:

 ”…    Within the last two week, the CIA found the wherewithal to approve an
op-ed — published in the New York Times on December 8, 2006 — by Kenneth Pollack, another former CIA employee. This op-ed includes the statement
that “..Iran provided us with extensive assistance on intelligence,
logistics, diplomacy, and Afghan internal politics.”

     Similar statements by me have been deleted from my draft op-ed by the
Whit e House. But Kenneth Pollack is someone who presented unfounded
assessments of the Iraqi WMD threat — the same assessments expounded by
the Bush White House — to make a high-profile public case for going to
war in Iraq.

     Mr. Pollack also supports the administration’s reluctance to engage
with Iran, in contrast to my consistent and sharp criticism of that
position. It would seem that, if one is expounding views congenial to the
White House, it does not intervene in prepublication censorship, but, if
one is a critic, White House officials will use fraudulent charges of
revealing classified information to keep critical views from being heard.

     My understanding is that the White House staffers who have injected
themselves into this process are working for Elliott Abrams and Megan
O’Sullivan, both politically appointed deputies to President Bush’s
National Security Adviser, Stephe n Hadley.

     Their conduct in this matter is despicable and un-American in the
profoundest sense of that term. I am also deeply disappointed that former
colleagues at the Central Intelligence Agency have proven so supine in the
face of tawdry political pressure. Intelligence officers are supposed to
act better than that.