Author: Adil E. Shamoo

Like other totalitarian regimes that have no legitimacy and no base of support, the Saudis are wrapping themselves in religion. Saddam Hussein in the 1990s and currently Bashar al-Assad – the heads of the Baath party in Iraq and Syria – both played the religious card. However, Baathist doctrine in Iraq and Syria is basically irreligious. The Saudis are using religion as their excuse now, labeling the recent mass executions as preserving their religion when they are actually a message to frighten their citizens into submission.

Early in the Arab Spring of 2011, out of fear of losing its grip on the country’s citizens, the Saudi government allocated $35 billion in open giveaways and services to Saudi citizens. Although this monetary inducement succeeded in tamping down any thoughts of revolution at the time, the Saudis only deferred the day of reckoning. The impulse to fight against the sense of injustice is strong among those who live in that police state, with no democracy, and obscene inequality (many Saudi residents are working residents, with no rights at all).

The Saudis began this new year by executing 47 citizens on January 2, some by the barbaric method of beheading. These executions came after a total of 158 in 2015. Presumably the Saudi government sought to begin the year with a warning that it will not tolerate the crime of opposing the Saudi regime. These executions, some of them for people who merely spoke out against the state, is a slap in the face of all those democracies in the world.

Continue reading “The US Should Not Accompany Saudi Arabia Over the Cliff”

The good news? President Obama’s surprise decision to consult Congress about launching a U.S. strike on Syria has returned crucial powers to the people’s representatives, allowing a much-needed public discussion about the U.S. stake – or lack thereof – in Syria’s civil war.

The bad news? Obama has claimed the authority to attack Syria no matter what Congress decides. This arrogance, which mirrors America’s own hubris on the world stage, will no doubt escalate the threat of terrorism against the United States and could embroil the country in a broader Middle Eastern war.

The White House has justified its proposed attack by asserting that Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons violated international “standards” and “norms.” However, if the Obama administration does go ahead with its proposed strikes, the United States itself will be acting in violation of international law. According to the U.N. Charter, the United Nations “prohibits any and all use of force against other states, except for the purpose of individual or collective self-defense, or as authorized by the U.N. Security Council for the purposes of restoring or maintaining collective security.” None of these conditions currently apply.

The president and his national security team have apparently already concluded that intervention in Syria serves America’s interests, and appear determined to act accordingly. Chemical weapons merely provide a justification to assert those interests, among which are to ensure access to oil and to help allies, especially Israel, in the Middle East. Moreover, the intervention has a global and regional component: the administration is warning the Russian Federation and China that the United States will defend its interests in the Middle East, with military force if necessary. As for Iran, it is a warning that the United States is determined to reduce Iranian influence in the region, sending a signal that Washington has the will and capability to retaliate if Iran decides to develop nuclear weapons.

What are the facts of the case? Obama has concluded “that the Syrian government, in fact, carried out” a chemical attack on civilians, and that we need to send “a pretty strong signal that they better not do it again.” Secretary of State John Kerry claimed that the White House has overwhelming evidence and “high confidence” that the government of Syria used chemical weapons, and released a declassified intelligence dossier to back up these charges. But the United States does not in fact have ironclad proof that Assad used chemical weapons in August. To be sure, the UN envoy has suggested that some chemical substance was used but has not released any definitive findings about the culprit. While it’s likely that Assad is guilty, it is also conceivable that a rogue military unit or a segment of the rebel opposition could be the culprit.

Continue reading “Forget Red Lines: Obama Should Eat His Words on Syria”

The only message our children will take away from the war in Iraq is that if you repeat a boldfaced lie enough, it will someday become accepted truth. And as a corollary, saving face is much more important than admitting a mistake, no matter how destructive the outcome.

Unfortunately for our children, manipulating the truth became the norm for the Bush administration, which invaded Iraq on what we know now (and the administration almost certainly knew then) were utterly false pretenses. Thanks to these lies, Americans, including our soldiers and civilians serving in Iraq, were convinced Saddam Hussein was linked to the 9/11 attacks and had weapons of mass destruction, two of the ever-evolving reasons for getting into the war. Many still believe this. Engaging in mass deception in order to justify official policy both degrades and endangers democracy. But by far, it is ordinary Iraqis who have suffered the most.

We know now beyond any doubt that Iraq was not involved in 9/11 and had no weapons of mass destruction. But as Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA analyst with the Iraqi portfolio, wrote on March 14, “Intelligence did not drive the decision to invade Iraq – not by a long shot, despite the aggressive use by the Bush administration of cherry-picked fragments of intelligence reporting in its public sales campaign for the war.” Indeed, this was a war in search of a justification from the very beginning, and any little lie would have worked.

It is very fortuitous for all those politicians, policy makers, and bureaucrats with Iraqi blood on their hands — Republicans and Democrats both — that the only courtroom they’ve been shuffled into is the court of public opinion, where most received light sentences.

Indeed, the Iraq war boosters are still a fixture on our television screens. Dan Senor, who served as a spokesman for the U.S occupation authorities and willfully misrepresented events on the ground during that time, is a regular commentator on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” a veritable roundtable of Washington establishment punditry. Kenneth Pollack, a longtime Brookings fellow and CIA analyst who wrote the 2002 book The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq (which is barely mentioned today on the Brookings website), is a familiar face on the commentary circuit and among think tank salons. Ex-Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, who each left their most recent posts in disgrace, are raking in thousands of dollars for speeches, lectures, and consulting work.

Continue reading “After Iraq, Climbing Out of the Moral Abyss”