Iran is pissed so, naturally, the U.S. throws gasoline on the fire

typical bush administration response...

"stop the crackdown...? i got yer crackdown right he-e-e-e-ere, ya wussies...!"

Iran called off further Iraq security talks with Washington until U.S. forces stop their crackdown on Shiite militias, but the military brought more air power into the fight Monday and escalated its accusations of Iranian backing for extremists.

The latest flare-up has put Iraq's government in a bind as it seeks to stamp out armed Shiite gangs but worries about angering Shiite heavyweight Iran, which has close ties to the core of Iraq's political leadership.

so, what does an honest-to-god expert, with all the right bona-fides think about this unholy mess...?

nir rosen in a post at steve clemons' washington note, entitled "selling the war"...

[T]here is nothing legitimate in the government of Iraq, it provides none of the services we would associate with a government, not even the pretense of a monopoly on violence, it was established under an illegitimate foreign military occupation and it is entirely unrepresentative of the majority of Sunnis and Shiites who are opposed to the American occupation and despise the Iraqi government.

Moreover the dominant parties in the government and in those units of the security forces that battled their political rivals in Basra and elsewhere are the ones closest to Iran. The leadership of the Iraqi government regularly consults Iranian officials and is closer to Iran than any other element in Iraq today. Moreover, the Americans have always blamed their failures in Iraq on outsiders, Baathists, al Qaeda, Iranians, because they refuse to admit that the Iraqi people don't want them. So Iran is a convenient scapegoat to explain the strength of the Sadrists, a strength actually resulting from the fact that they are a genuinely popular mass movement. Blaming Iran also lets the Americans maintain the illusion that the Mahdi Army's ceasefire is still in effect.

[...]

The truth is, most allegations about Iran's role in Iraq and the region are unfounded or dishonest. Iran was responsible for ending the recent fighting in Basra and calming the situation after Iraqi parliamentarians who backed Prime Minister Maliki approached it. The Iranians, never close to Muqtada or his family, were so annoyed with Muqtada and his presence that they reportedly ordered him out of Iran where he had been living in virtual house arrest anyway since arriving six months earlier. Iranian officials and the state media clearly supported Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi government against what they described as "illegal armed groups" in the recent conflict in Basra, which is not surprising given that their main proxy in Iraq, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council dominates the Iraqi state and is Maliki's main backer.

The Supreme Council is of course also the main proxy for the US in Iraq and somehow in the Senate testimony it was forgotten that its large Badr militia was established in Iran and is actually the only Iraqi opposition group to have fought on the Iranian side against Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. Moreover, the Badr militia was a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that is so demonized today, and Badr dominates the ministry of interior, if not most of Iraq at the higher echelons. But none of this openly available information made its way to the Post's editorial writers or the dominant discourse in the US.

then we have scott ritter, another honest-to-god expert, who sees the writing on the wall...

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who was among the original experts to question Bush Administration claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, now says he believes an attack on Iran is a "virtual guarantee."

"We take a look at the military buildup, we take a look at the rhetoric, we take a look at the diplomatic posturing, and I would say that it’s a virtual guarantee that there will be a limited aerial strike against Iran in the not-so-near future—or not-so-distant future, that focuses on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command," Ritter said last week in a little-noted interview with Amy Goodman's Democracy Now. "And if this situation spins further out of control, you would see these aerial strikes expanding to include Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and some significant command and control targets."

as horrified observers, all we can do in a situation like this is to try and connect the dots, and when the picture starts to emerge, start screaming bloody murder (not that screaming bloody murder has ever even slowed the white house criminals down)...

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The case for war crimes charges against Tony Blair

steve clemons has a post up about an upcoming bbc radio drama...

The BBC has a must-listen show on radio tomorrow titled Called to Account [Saturday, 14 July 2007, at 2:30 pm UK Time and at 9:30 am EST. This can be listened to over the web live or downloaded to a podcast for later listening] offering a theatrical version of Tony Blair's indictment for Iraq War-related crimes. This may inspire many on this side of the Atlantic pond to think about various strategies to hold America's current political leadership accountable for duplicity and mismanagement of America's national security portfolio -- and particularly for the Iraq War.

while i am in complete agreement with the need for accountability, i would certainly see it extending to much more than the "duplicity and mismanagement of America's national security portfolio -- and particularly for the Iraq War"... the failure to uphold the u.s. constitution, violation of fisa, the list is too long to enumerate here...

steve goes on...

If 'Democracy' is ever going to shed its bad name, accountability must be one of its fundamental pillars in any genuine system of checks and balances. There should be a price paid for serious errors by national leaders -- and an even higher price paid by those who wield power with impunity and who lie to their publics in so-called democracies.

again, "serious errors" is a serious understatement... "lying to the public" is a better description, but the "commission of deliberate and conscious crimes" i think says it best overall...

a few more thoughts...

if the u.s. isn't yet at a tipping point, we are getting damn close... the extension of executive privilege to include not only spurning a subpoena but also an outright refusal to appear (as in harriet miers no-show before the house judiciary committee yesterday) is an in-your-face demonstration of the stunning degree of lawlessness that is the hallmark of this presidential administration...

the first order of business, superseding anything else, is getting this crowd OUT of the white house before they can wreak more havoc... the second is undoing the outrages they have perpetrated against our constitutional framework BEFORE a new president takes office... the third requires that we hold these criminals accountable in the fullest possible sense and insure that the maximum consequences are imposed, and that needs to take place both domestically as well as on the world stage... our future as a nation, our future in the world of nations, and our ability to look ourselves in the mirror each morning depend on it...

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Kellems bids adieu to Wolfie. Who's next?

ah-HA...! this is good, very good... kellem's job reportedly entailed being the one who moved between wolfie's bubble and the outside world... maybe he's seen the writing on the wall...

Kevin Kellems, a key Wolfowitz aide at the World Bank who served previously as an adviser at the Pentagon in the run-up to the war and as Dick Cheney’s communications director, told Reuters he was “leaving for other opportunities.”

steve clemons' take on wolfie's immediate staff, including kellems...

According to one senior insider who feels as if Wolfowitz is gut-punching the most talented teams at the bank and indicated that morale is plummeting, "Wolfowitz just does not talk to his Vice Presidents. He speaks to a few close advisors -- Kevin Kellems, Robin Cleveland, Karl Jackson, some others -- but a lot of very good people are leaving."

What Wolfowitz has done that has started a serious wave of negative sentiment against him among his ranks is that he has appointed Kevin Kellems -- Vice President Cheney's former Communications Director and Spokesman -- as a "director" of the bank, which formally reports to a Vice President of the Bank -- while at the same time making him Senior Advisor to Wolfowitz.

In other words, Wolfowitz is forcing a political appointment at the "director level" of the bank -- which is never done. "Director" positions are fairly low in the World Bank bureaucracy and are filled by a competitive process and the merits of one's work -- not political imposition.

However, Wolfowitz on January 10, 2006 made Kellems Director of Strategy in the External Affairs, Communications and United Nations Affairs Vice Presidency while at the same time Senior Advisor to the President of the Bank.

just a small insight into why wolfie has engendered such negativity among world bank employees...

and, yes, naomi klein, i am definitely one of those american liberals who are "addicted to the fleeting rush that comes from forcing neocons to resign..."

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Steve Clemons, Mr. Insider, has some inside info on Bush's siege state of mind

go read it here... it's better when it's fresh from the oven...

siege mentality
Function: noun
: a defensive or overly fearful attitude

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Help fire Paul Wolfowitz

go read steve clemons' post at the washington note and then click here to sign the petition...

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Is Wolfie going to bite the big one...?

steve clemons, never too far off the mark, thinks it may be sooner rather than later...

Paul Wolfowitz's tenure at the World Bank may end in the next day or two. Rumors are spreading like wild fire at the Bank that he plans to resign tomorrow.

I have no official information confirming this -- other than that several senior staff in two specific Executive Directorships at the World Bank and some other senior staff at the IMF and other staff are reporting to me that Wolfowitz's resignation is imminent. I'm not sure, however, that there views are not collective speculation.

this would truly be a wonderful turn of events... wolfowitz is a despicable human being who was placed in his world bank position for the precise same reason alberto gonzales was placed at the department of justice, and the precise same reason john bolton was placed at the u.n. - to extend the power and leverage of the criminal, neocon cabal into every aspect of domestic and international organizations...

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Clemons and Greenwald on Eliot Cohen's appointment to the State Department

glenn is alarmed...

This continues to be the most astounding, significant, and alarming trend -- as the recognition grows even in Beltway elite media circles that the people who designed and sold the Iraq war to the American public are completely untrustworthy and discredited figures, they are exactly the ones who continue to exert the most influence, by far, on the President, and their influence seems only to be growing ...

... Why should the American people continue to believe in those same people who had so many misjudgments leading up to and executing the war?" They should not, of course. And we know exactly who "those same people" are. Eliot Cohen is not just one of them, but he is one of their leaders. He has been wrong about everything. If he had his way, we would have far more wars than we have already.

steve thinks condi put cohen in there to keep cheney away from her...

I believe that Cohen's appointment is in part an effort to get someone past the Cheney foreign policy wing. Rice does not like to do direct battle with the Vice President and views personnel appointments as a way to inoculate herself and her efforts against sabotage from the Cheney team.

In other words, Cohen has joined Condi's team both to create back-channel communications with Cheney's spear-carriers but also to protect Condi from all-out assault from the Vice President.

ok, all that is well and good... but it's when glenn says this that i start to get flutters in the tummy...

"As they have done many times before, neoconservatives, with Iran in their sights, have installed one of their own at State to block any war-avoiding rapprochement," writes Glenn Greewald for Salon.

[...]

"It is not hyperbole to say that Cohen is as extremist a neoconservative and warmonger as it gets," says Greenwald, who quotes a conservative writer's point that Cohen "was an early supporter of the military intervention in Iraq" and opposed negotiations with Iran and Syria.

Greenwald argues that Cohen is even "far more extremist than just that."

In a November 2001 Wall Street Journal column, says Greenwald, "Cohen criticized the attempts up to that point to name 'The new War' -- all the names chosen were far too limited and unglorious. Rejecting all the possibilities, Cohen insisted that 'a less palatable but more accurate name is World War IV.'"

Greenwald describes Cohen as having become "one of the most militant advocates of expanded regional war in the Middle East" in the years since 9/11.

"The Cohen appointment," he says, "is clearly another instance where neoconservatives place a watchdog in potential trouble spots in the government to ensure that diplomats do not stray by trying to facilitate rapproachments between the U.S. and the countries on the neoconservative War hit list."

so, then my question is, was cohen really condi's choice or was he foisted on her by dick and the other resident forces of darkness...?

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Flexibility...? In the Bush administration...?

a headline i didn't ever expect to see...

U.S. Flexibility Credited in Nuclear Deal With N. Korea

The six-nation deal to shut down North Korea's nuclear facility, four months after Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test, was reached yesterday largely because President Bush was willing to give U.S. negotiators new flexibility to reach an agreement, U.S. officials and Asian diplomats said yesterday.

but, no surprise, the hard-ass neocons think bush wussed out, and the dems reflexively oppose it...

[T]he agreement came under attack yesterday, with conservatives labeling it a betrayal and Democrats charging that Bush allowed North Korea to become a nuclear-weapon state without gaining much improvement over a Clinton-era deal that collapsed during Bush's first term.

no surprise either that condi, barely treading water after being increasingly (and accurately, imho) labeled as worthless, wants to grab the credit...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a prime architect of the accord, said it is just the beginning of a long process. "This is not the end of the story," she said, calling it the result of "patient, creative and tough diplomacy."

if you believe steve clemons - and i do - it's this guy that did the yeoman's work...

I have written about Asst. Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Christopher Hill before and surmised that if he was given some running room to construct a deal with North Korea, he could walk the situation back from the brink.

[...]

[S]omehow Hill has been able to successfully sideline and silence naysayers in Cheney's wing of the national security establishment and keep them from undermining his work.

but, steve concludes with this sober caveat...

One hopes today that Chris Hill has not succeeded in securing a positive arrangement in North Korea in some sort of quid pro quo that State will acquiesce to Cheney's desire for military action against Iran.

it's about friggin' time that "patient, creative, and tough diplomacy," supposedly the first and best tool of honest and sincere governments, was given a shot, and, even better, that it carried the day... why, then, i would like to know, is it not being given a chance with iran, syria, and palestine...?

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