Month: August 2010

Friday Iran Talking Points

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for August 20th, 2010:

New York Times: Mark Manzetti and David Sanger report that the Obama administration has “persuaded” Israel that Iran is at least one year — if not more — away from having the potential to build a nuclear bomb. (This is consistent with the “at least 18 months” figure reported by Sanger and William Broad in January.) In the latest piece, an anonymous U.S. official said Iran was currently questioning how far to push its program: “The argument is over how far to push the program, how close to a weapon they can get without paying an even higher price.”

The Atlantic blog: In an interesting forum on Jeffrey Goldberg’s recent piece on Israel and Iran, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Patrick Clawson writes that, “Washington and Jerusalem see eye-to-eye in their assessment of where Iran stands and how quickly it is moving forward.” He concludes that while this is the case, differing threat perceptions and military doctrines — the “Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force” vs. Israel’s “mow the grass,” quick, incremental mentality — might cause Israeli and U.S. intentions to diverge again later this year.

The Jewish Week: The Jewish Week’s editorial board summarizes Jeffrey Goldberg’s article on Israel and Washington’s potential military response to Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. The authors endorse the sanctions track but share Goldberg’s doubt that Iran can be deterred from acquiring nuclear weapons. “…Goldberg told The Jewish Week on Tuesday that ‘Iran loves nukes and will do anything to have them.’” The editorial concludes that, “For now, we must do all we can in support of the administration’s efforts to convince Iran to end its nuclear program voluntarily. But Washington needs to address what happens when that fails.”

Wikipedia: Iraq War ‘Over’

Wikipedia as Democratic mouthpiece? The user-written and -edited site has been accused of left-leaning judgments on the part of its dominant editors, but not necessarily of hewing to any party line. But now, one must wonder: Wikipedia trumpets the White House talking point that today, August 19, 2010, was the “end” of the Iraq War.

The reason this can’t be considered the typical imperial stenography we’re all used to from the likes of CNN — they’ll report the truth as handed down to them from whoever is in power — is that, in fact, the war is not over by any meaningful metric. If they were simply going on authority-declared technicalities, Wikipedia would have listed the war as over on the “Mission Accomplished” day of May 1, 2003. After all, Iraq’s army had been defeated and “major” combat operations after that date had officially ended. One wonders what the effective nuking of Fallujah would be considered.

Almost immediately, some discussion was sparked by users. “This is a scam. The US is not the sole participant,” said one. Not only that, the US is still itself very much a participant, as 50,000 combat troops will simply be redefined, as Bush did with “operations,” as “transitional” troops. See how easy? Voila! But that’s not all. The State Dept., as we have been reporting for several months, plans its own 50,000-strong auxiliary force. We do need to protect our diplomats, naturally, and there will be ever so many of them!

I won’t restate the details of the true fact that the Iraq War, whatever the politicians want to call it, is not over — Jason Ditz spelled it out just fine today. But be sure, as over 100 Iraqis just this week would tell you if they had not been blown to bits, this war is still on and the US military is in it up to its neck. No matter what the Obamadrones at Wikipedia want to think.

Thursday Iran Talking Points

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for August 19th, 2010:

Washington Post: Columnist David Ignatius takes a broad view of the Obama administration’s diplomatic trouble spots and prescribes “patience plus” because time is actually on the side of U.S. counterparts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, and Iran. Ignatius admires the current “diplomatic ambiguity,” but thinks Obama needs to “promptly seize opportunities for negotiation when they arise,” noting that this will hopefully be accomplished in September or October when Iran and the P5 + 1 sit down for talks on the nuclear issue and probably Afghanistan.

Washington Post (AP): Iran’s ambassador to the UN is angered that top Pentagon brass acknowledged a U.S. contingency plan to bomb Iran, denouncing the rhetoric as an unprovoked “threat.” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made similar statements, adding that, should the United States attack, “the field of the Iranian nation’s confrontation will not be only our region.” Khamanei also warned that belligerent talk would end negotiations.

Weekly Standard Blog: Gabriel Schoenfeld tries to sort the recent chatter about the Iranian nuclear clock writing, “Time may be on our side in dealing with Iran—but then again it may not.” Not quite endorsing the nuclear time line in Jeffrey Goldberg’s latest piece (the Israel contention that next July is the doomsday), Schoenfeld then takes on the Atlantic’s James Fallows, who thinks the United States has some time. “For an analyst as thoughtful as James Fallows to assert categorically that we will not be taken by surprise is itself a surprise. One might even call it an intelligence failure,” writes Schoenfeld.

Pajames Media: Hudson Institute Fellow Anne Bayefsky writes that the “Ground Zero Mosque” has “an Iranian connection.” Bayefsky cites a photograph of Cordoba Initiative chairman, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, and Iranian Mohammad Javad Larijani at a 2008 event sponsored by the Initiative in Kuala Lumpur. Larijani defended Iran at the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year. Bayefsky warns that, “The Iranian connection to the launch of Cordoba House may go beyond a relationship between Rauf and Larijani. The Cordoba Initiative lists one of its three major partners as the UN’s Alliance of Civilizations. The Alliance has its roots in the Iranian-driven “Dialogue Among Civilizations,” the brainchild of former Iranian President Hojjatoleslam Seyyed Mohammad Khatami.”

Sunday Morning Needs a Real War Debate

This alert just came in from Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR):

Tell NBC: Sunday Morning Needs a Real War Debate
Meet the Press features a parade of Afghanistan hawks

The war in Afghanistan has re-emerged as a major news story, thanks to the controversies surrounding the removal of Gen. Stanley McChrystal and the WikiLeaks release of classified documents. But on NBC’s Meet the Press, the opportunity to engage in a robust debate about the war has taken a back seat to promoting the views of the military and supporters of Obama’s Afghanistan policies.

The most recent example came on August 15, when Meet the Press devoted the entire episode to a profile of Gen. David Petraeus. Host David Gregory’s opening indicated it wasn’t going to be a feet-to-the-fire interview: “At 57, General David Petraeus is easily America’s most famous warrior. On this morning we find him in the middle of physical training as this fiercely competitive four-star general works over soldiers half his age with the same intensity as he works the war plan.”

Gregory questioned Petraeus about the timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops as if it were an irritant: “How stifling is the concept of this deadline and this Washington debate to what you’re trying to do here?” At the close of the broadcast, Gregory echoed that sentiment and worried about the public’s lack of support:

General Petraeus is a military leader with great commitment and great intellectual rigor, but you have to wonder whether he has enough time politically to achieve what he thinks is possible here…. The question now for the American public is whether it has the stomach and the will to do what it takes to succeed here, and whether it has the stomach for what could happen here if the U.S. and its allies fail.

The hour with Petraeus was in keeping with recent patterns on the show. Right after the WikiLeaks disclosure, the show’s August 1 broadcast led with Gregory announcing, “The leaking of secret Afghanistan war documents has enraged U.S. military officials who warn of serious consequences for the leaker and the man behind the Web site WikiLeaks.” The featured one-on-one interview was with Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There were no guests on hand to comment from an antiwar perspective.

On July 11, the program featured a one-on-one interview with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs that touched briefly on the war. The show’s panel discussion featured MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who offered a somewhat mild critique of the war, mostly stressing that a withdrawal timeline improves the performance of the Afghan government. Her co-panelists were conservative pundit David Brooks and Ed Gillespie of the Republican State Leadership Committee, both of whom support the war effort to varying degrees (Brooks called himself a “strong supporter,” while Gillespie opposes any talk of a withdrawal timeline).

On June 27, Meet the Press devoted significant time to Afghanistan, thanks to the McChrystal controversy. The one-on-one interview was with Republican Sen. John McCain, a die-hard supporter of the war who opposes a withdrawal timetable.

The panel discussion that followed was notable in that it featured a rarity: a bona fide anti-war voice in Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). But Lee was surrounded by pro-war guests: writer Sebastian Junger, retired U.S. Army captain Wes Moore, retired general Barry McCaffrey and Tom Ricks of the Center for a New American Security. Any talk of leaving Afghanistan was outnumbered by the pro-war majority. Junger stated that if U.S troops leave, the Taliban are “going to be right back in Afghanistan.” Ricks added, “I think if you want an endless war, Congresswoman, leave Afghanistan right now, and you’ll find us having to go after Al-Qaeda again and again there for decades.” At one point Junger even objected to Lee’s terminology, arguing that “the word occupation really is not accurate.”

So in weeks when public support for the war has continued to drop (CNN‘s most recent poll shows 62 percent oppose the war–8/6-10/10), why has NBC been so intent on promoting the war? It is hard to overlook the fact that NBC‘s parent company General Electric is heavily involved in weapons-related contracts with the U.S. military, and has also benefited from reconstruction contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan (Center for Public Integrity, 10/31/03).

On one recent show (7/11/10), Gregory mused that “finding the ideological fault lines here are difficult between left and right, frankly.” But the host of Meet the Press can’t “find” a debate only because he refuses to have one on his show.

Click here to sign FAIR’s petition today!

‘Hallowed Ground’ and the Scary Scary ‘Mosque’

It’s rather shocking that this is really happening, here, in the United States, in 2010. Park51/The Cordoba House, an Islamic community center that, mark my words and those of the mayor, will be built in Lower Manhattan, is being hysterically opposed by all manner of dingbat in the land, though it is likely to have more square feet of basketball court than prayer space. Which doesn’t quite make it a mosque. And yes, peeling back further layers of this stupid onion, who does care even if it were a mosque? In fact, there already are two mosques in the “Ground Zero” area! I could go peeling more, but this onion is boring. The fun one is Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich, impossibly to my mind looking toward the presidency in 2012, is demagoguing his way into a Twilight Zone of logic that makes me want to just sit in front of him and stare at his face as if he were talking in tongues, because that’s about as much sense as he’s making. The most scintillating bit of Gingrich logic goes something like this: Why should “we” allow a mosque to be built near Ground Zero when one can’t build a church or synagogue in Mecca? You see, now the West is using the likes of Saudi Arabia as a moral barometer. Not that Gingrich is the type to be shy about the idea of theocracy. If they start building Park51, I say Newt should go stone those infidels.

Speaking of Bush allies, don’t you almost long for the days when Bush would just declare Islam a religion of peace and blithely continue his war on Muslims? It was insane in its own way but it kept the rest of Insane America quiet. Indeed, many are calling for the former president to weigh in on the issue, because of Obama’s typical waffling.

I’ve been to this area several times — “several,” as opposed to “often,” because the Financial District, and especially that part of it, is not a place to hang out. In fact it was a “Ground Zero” decades ago when a real neighborhood was evaporated through the power of eminent domain to build a complex of monstrous, needlessly tall office towers in a public-private Corbusian nightmare of setbacks and concrete. And what is replacing this is hardly an improvement. But I digress, as usual. I have really only ever been there to go digging through cheap designer clothing at Century 21 department store, across the street from that big hole in the ground.

This all brings me to the point — is “Ground Zero” particularly hallowed? Across the street, you can dig through bargain bins. All around the site are ugly, tacky, trashy, vulgar, base things for sale. In this vein, New Yorker Daryl Lang set out to photodocument the vicinity. Titty bars, gambling dens, Irish pubs, fast food, schmata hovels, and even, yes, tables on the street selling little jingoistic lucite Twin Towers emblazoned with The Flag. And people are upset about an Islamic YMCA?

But even if it were a mosque, and even if this were “hallowed ground,” one can’t help but notice the hypocritical heights to which the Stupid American will soar to keep something scary and alien at bay. In the course of a Facebook conversation, someone mentioned a comment she heard from a high school student, unknown to me (such is the nature of Facebook):

“Well, to be fair, we’ve built a lot of ‘Ground Zeros’ near mosques in the Middle East since 2003.”

At least someone is thinking in our schools.

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