Able Archer

Greenwald on the military's Iran problem

Glenn Greenwald has a valuable analysis of the complex political forces influencing the U.S.’s simmering conflict with Iran. The important revelation: the military might be the only institution willing or able to try to stop a war with Iran.

-- Douglas Carlucci

Giuliani, Thompson, Romney, McCain skip debate at African-American university

Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, and Senator John McCain all skipped a long-planned debate on minority issues at Morgan State University in Maryland last night.

Many people have condemned the candidate’s cynicism, but I don’t think it can be condemned strongly enough. Obviously, a calculation was made by their staff members that it simply wasn’t worth their time to answer questions for blacks folks. They must have figured they wouldn’t get the black vote anyway, so why risk saying something that might upset the retrograde southern G.O.P. primary voters they’ve spent so much courting? Can at least one of them provide a better reason for not showing up than scheduling conflicts? It’s funny how none of their schedules conflicted with previous debates.

As far as I know, these four candidates each intend to run for president should he win the Republican nomination. Therefore, they don’t want to be simply the most popular Republican, but the nation’s leader. This was a cowardly act by men with pretensions to leadership.

To their credit, Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, and Alan Keyes participated in the debate. To his credit, Mike Huckabee admitted the absence of the top four candidates made him ashamed of his party.

Guiliani, Thompson, Romney, and McCain all demonstrated that when they have to chose between strategic self-preservation and the difficult obligations of political leadership, they're not only comfortable with choosing the former but also think so little of voters they have no problem directing their staffs to lie about the choice. It’s funny how a person’s disingenuousness can sometimes reveal an essential fact about his character.

-- Doug Carlucci

Update

What they did instead.

THE GOOD NEWS: Dorms dominate detention

[Ed. note—THE GOOD NEWS is an irregular series on pleasing news.]

The Census Bureau says more Americans
live in dorms than in jail cells. Although the number of American adults inside reached a new high of 2.1 million, more adults are living at school than are doing a bid. Think of how many more must be enrolled in college and living off-campus! This is the reverse of the 2000 statistics, which said more people were dressed in jail-issue smocks* than in college sweatshirts. This is absolutely good news.

* Other highlights from the jail supply company Web site here, here, and the best one is here.

EXTRA

From the same page (A17) of the Times, the Navy is forced to reveal it built a barracks in the pattern of a swastika after aerial photographs turn up on the internet.

The good news is the Navy is going to spend $600,000 to alter the barracks’ appearance so they no longer evoke the terrible Nazis when viewed from above. The regional head of the Anti-Defamation League agrees this is an adequate response. He also says the Navy was responsive to a complaint and his organization does not suspect the sailors of having insidious intentions.

Project Vote on 'caging'

Project Vote has a new report that finds Republicans challenged as many as 500,000 voters, mostly minorities, in "caging" operations during the 2004 elections.

Caging refers to the practice of mass-mailing letters to newly-registered voters. The purpose is to test the address a voter used to register. If a letter is returned, the group doing the "caging" (in this case state Republican organizations) adds the voter's name to a list of registrations that are to be challenged if the voter shows up to vote on election day.

This is legal in most states, but it is ethically dubious for a number of reasons. First, mail delivery is not infallible and as the report notes, mail delivery rates are lower in the majority-minority areas where most of the Republican caging is going on. Second, in this case the caging is being directed at a specific group of voters, minorities in districts that typically support Democrats. That's not just unethical; it's illegal according to two federal court decisions. But, as Steven Rosenfeld notes at AlterNet, state Republican parties have decided they are separate political entities and the rulings do not apply to them.

The goal of caging is not to police the voter rolls for fraud; there are simpler and more effective ways to do that. The real goal is to create a plausible reason to challenge a voter likely to cast his ballot for the opposition, in order to intimidate him or force him to give up his vote because he simply doesn't have time to defend the challenge. It's not impossible that caging might detect real fraud, but I think that's a disingenuous explanation when you consider how broad the effort is and to what areas its actually being targeted.

I plan to write more about vote suppression this election year. It's a topic that is misunderstood and often ignored by newspapers, and almost totally absent from political coverage on television.

Read the whole report here.

-- Douglas Carlucci

More on the El Pais transcript

The Washington Post has a good report on the El Pais transcript published yesterday.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe offers this lame response to the revelations: “We’re more focused on the task at hand rather than 2003.” All things considered, I think they’re interested in neither, but I suppose a White House spokesman is entitled to a flaccid excuse.

As I said yesterday, this is an important historical document. Read closely and in the context of what was said publicly by the government in February 2003, it tells the reader how the Bush administration actually regarded its policy opponents. Opposition to the war was illegitimate; Bush could only explain the war’s opponents as deluded about Saddam Hussein or lacking empathy for Iraqis. More than anything else, this will be President Bush's intellectual legacy: instead of establishing facts to make a decision, he encouraged establishing a decision and then making facts.

-- Douglas Carlucci

Update

I should have talked about the part of transcript where Bush and Aznar talk about terms for his exile Saddam Hussein apparently communicated to European leaders through Egyptians diplomats. It's interesting, but it seems kind of fantastic, like it was just a rumor. But I guess Saddam Hussein was probably panicking by February 2003 and sending lots of conflicting messages.

A rude guest

I want to make one point about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's brief sojourn in the Big Satan.

Notice how the visit caused the media to force the Iran issue. Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran in 2005. The president of Iran is largely powerless; the country's clerical rulers get to decide who runs for the office and the president is not the commander of the military. Ahmadinejad is old news.

Yet his boring diplomatic visit to the U.N. General Assembly, which was dedicated mainly to reciting previous ignorant and disingenuous remarks about Israel and the Holocaust, led to a moral crisis requiring everyone to come to a conclusion about Iran. He's suddenly everywhere and suddenly everyone has a reaction to him.

The problem is one cannot come to a reasonable conclusion about Iran based on Ahmadinejad or his brief visit. He is not Iran; he is not even representative of Iran's government. His opinions do not represent the policies of Iran.

It should be obvious to anyone who has lived in this country for any period of time that Ahmadinejad was bound to be profoundly unpopular in the U.S, and rightly so. He offends both liberal and conservative notions of American ideals with his arrogant parochialism; he offends arrogantly parochial Americans by his belief in Allah. So if one is a government official hoping to confront Iran, Ahmadinejad would be an ideal face to represent that nation. Think about that the next time you see his mug on the local news.

-- Douglas Carlucci

....

Update

When I wrote this, I didn't know there was such a concerted anti-Ahmadinejad campaign (see here and here, for example) among right-wing blogs. He's all over them, portrayed as the new leader of an Islamic vanguard seeking to impose its religious jurisprudence on the country. One would be able to identify this as nonsense unless one really, really wanted to believe it -- and that's the key. These writers really, really want to believe the U.S. is in danger of falling into the hands of some sort of Muslim government. It's an absurd notion; the terrorist groups who have attacked this country have never included among their motivations a wish to alter the U.S. government. They want to kill Americans, but they don't care even a bit under what sort of government the heathens live under.

But they're not even sure who is seeking the Islamic government. Is it terrorists? Is it Iran? Is it the minority of U.S. citizens who live peacefully in this country worshipping Allah? If we're to believe the semi-literate blogs, it's just Muslims, who according to these keen observers of human events all share the same goal.

It is amazing to read a writer who goes from decrying the rank anti-Semitism of Ahmadinejad in one paragraph to repeating such rank libel against Muslims in the next. Can one only be ignorant and prejudiced toward Jews?

I think all of this is quite simple. These writers find easy martyrdom in bravely standing up to a straw man. When they are confronted with faults in their argument, like the fact that Muslims in the United States represent a small part of the population and are no more well-organized than any other religious group, they simply trot out the old "Why England Slept" cliches and congratulate themselves for standing up to the stealthy enemy when it's not the P.C. thing to do. So no one is any safer, no knowledge is gained, but they get to feel brave; I guess they consider it a worthy trade-off.

I should also note the trend among these blogs to refer to Ahmadinejad as a dictator. He's a president, a fool, a bigot, but he can't dictate very much in matters of state. The man they're looking for is Ayatollah Khamenei.

"I am optimistic because I am right. I am at peace with myself."

El Pais published today what it says is a transcript (in Spanish) of a February 22, 2003, conversation in which President Bush tells Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar the U.S. "will be in Baghdad at the end of March."

El Pais is Spain's largest daily newspaper. It says the transcript was made by Spain's ambassador to the U.S. The conversation took place at Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch.

Editor & Publisher's staff used the following translation in a story on the transcript; it's terrible but you can get the gist of what was said from it. I'll post a more authoritative translation when it becomes available.

BUSH: Saddam Husein will not change and will continue playing. The moment has arrived for undoing of him. It is thus. I, as for me, will from now on try to use the possible subtlest rhetoric, while we looked for the approval of the resolution....Saddam Hussein is not being disarmed. We must take to him right now. We have shown an incredible degree of patience until now. They are left two weeks. In two weeks we will be militarily ready. I believe that we will obtain the second resolution.... We will be in Bagdad at the end of March. A 15% of possibilities that exist then Saddam Hussein is dead or has gone away...

We would like to act with the mandate of the United Nations. If we acted militarily we will do it with high accuracy and focusing much our objectives. We will decimate the loyal troops and the regular army quickly will know which it is.... We are developing a package of humanitarian aid very hard. We can win without destruction. We are raising Iraq already post Sadam, and I believe that there are good bases for a future better. Iraq relatively hard has a good bureaucracy and a civil society. It would be possible to be organized in a federation. Meanwhile we are doing all the possible one to take care of the necessities political of our friends and allies.

AZNAR: It is very important to count on a resolution. ... The next Wednesday [16 of February] I see myself with Chirac. The resolution already will have begun to circulate.

BUSH: It seems to me very well. Chirac knows the reality perfectly. Their intelligence services have explained it. The Arabs are transmitting him to Chirac a very clear message: Sadam Hussein must go away. The problem is that Chirac is created Mister Arab and in fact the life is making them impossible. But I do not want to have no rivalry with Chirac....

This is as the Chinese torture of the water. We must end it.

AZNAR: I agree, but it would be good for counting on the maximum number of possible people. Then a little patience.

BUSH: My patience is exhausted. I do not think to go beyond half of March.

[Saddam] is a thief, a terrorist, a criminal military. Compared with Saddam, Milosevic would be a Mother Teresa. When we enter we are going to discover many more crimes and we will take to the Court the International to him of Justice of Is It. Saddam Hussein thinks that already it has escaped. Think that France and Germany have stopped the process of their responsibilities....

AZNAR: In fact the greater success would be to gain the game without shooting a single shot and entering Bagdad.

BUSH: For me it would be the perfect solution. I do not want the war. I know what they are, the wars. I know the destruction and the death that bring with himself. I am the one that she has to console to the mothers and the widows of deads. By all means, for us that would be the best solution...

AZNAR: We needed that you help us with our public opinion....

BUSH: When within years History judges us I do not want that people ask themselves so that Bush, or Aznar, or Blair did not face their responsibilities. In the end, which people wants is to enjoy freedom. ..

AZNAR: The only thing which it worries to me about you is your optimism.

BUSH: I am optimistic because I believe that I am in the certain thing. I am peacefully with me same.

-- Douglas Carlucci

Update

Ken Silverstein at Washington Babylon translates to clear English the story's lead:

Four weeks before the invasion of Iraq . . . George W. Bush made a public demand to Saddam Hussein in the following terms: disarmament or war. Behind closed doors, Bush acknowledged that the war was inevitable. During a long private conversation with [Aznar], which took place on Saturday, February 22, 2003, Bush made clear that the time had come to take out Saddam: “There are two weeks left. In two weeks we’ll be militarily ready. We’ll be in Baghdad by the end of March.”

He also has key parts of the transcript. Here, President Bush seems a lot more aware of practical power than he has previously been portrayed:

[Condoleezza Rice has just described the diplomatic situation to Bush and Aznar, explaining that Iraq is continuing to insist that it has no weapons of mass destruction.]

Bush: This is like Chinese water torture. We have to put an end to it.

Aznar: I agree, but it would be best to have as much support as possible. Have a little patience.

Bush: My patience has ended. I’m not thinking of waiting beyond mid-March.

Aznar: I’m not asking that you have endless patience. Simply that everything is done to [have maximum international support].

Bush: Countries like Mexico, Chile, Angola, and Cameroon should know that what’s at stake is the security of the United States . . . [Chilean President Ricardo] Lagos should know that the Free Trade Accord with Chile is awaiting Senate confirmation and a negative attitude about this could put ratification in danger. Angola is receiving Millennium Account funds [to help alleviate poverty] and that could be jeopardized also if he’s not supportive…

Aznar: Tony [Blair] wants to wait until March 14.

Read more here.

Here's a translation of the whole thing. I'm not familiar with the blog that published it, but it lines up with the other translations.

Some writers are dismissing this as similar to the Downing Street Memo. That's true in a superficial way. They both seem to prove that the decision to invade Iraq was made well before the Bush administration claimed it was. This transcript, however, fills in the picture of how the U.S. dealt with its second-tier allies, which is an important story, too.

Scott Horton on military command

Scott Horton, author of the great No Comment blog at Harper's, adds to and clarifies the points I made yesterday about military command in the U.S.

He also sums up and proves to be fact better than I did the political process at work:

As Roll Call reports, conservative columnist Morton Kondracke was recently at a meeting with President Bush at which “the Decider” laid out the strategy in plain terms: “The people listen to Petraeus, not to me.” So the plan was simple: pretend to be undecided about this, channel the message through General Petraeus, and then viciously challenge anyone who criticizes Petraeus. They’re un-American, that’s the line, they disrespect our generals and our men and women in uniform.

Horton calls out the media for blindly following this political plan. Please, read the article.

-- Douglas Carlucci

Congressman, can you spare a dime?

Republicans have always been proud that theirs was the party of business. Well, as they say in business, the numbers don't lie. From Josh Kraushaar at Politico:

At the end of August, the National Republican Congressional Committee reported only $1.6 million cash on hand, with $4 million in debt. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, by comparison, had banked over $22 million, with only $3 million in debt.

This is a symptom of a very serious problem in the Republican party. Fundraising numbers mean a lot more than just how much money a party has; the figures reflect the party's ability to organize its members and the members' confidence in the party.

Debt is hardly the committee's only problem. Republican House leader John Boehner, of Ohio, is trying to wrest control of the committee from Oklahoma Representative Tom Cole, according to Kraushaar.

The rift and debt is still more troubling as it comes in the middle of a series of retirements by Republican representatives. Few are leaving to run for higher office. Representatives such as Dennis Hastert and Rick Renzi are leaving after losing party support in a scandal. The turnover is not occurring because the party is pushing its House veterans to run for Senate or a governorship to make room for younger politicians. To the contrary, the retirees are more often slinking out of the House to avoid becoming the next prominent Republican to embarrass his party.

None of this is good for the Republicans, and in our zero-sum two-party system, what's bad for one party is usually good for the opposition. In other words, if the Republicans don't have the money or volunteers to defend Dennis Hastert's old seat, don't expect it to go to a member of the Green or Libertarian parties.

-- Douglas Carlucci

Will They, Won't We?: Speculation on Iran

Newsweek becomes the first big-media publication to speculate on how the secret raid by the Israel Defense Forces into Syria on Sept. 6 might relate to the vice-president's plans for Iran. The Israeli raid into Syria didn't receive much attention by the U.S. press -- most likely because none of the governments involved made an official statement about it.

The magazine reports:

A few months before he quit, according to two knowledgeable sources, [Vice President Dick Cheney's former middle east adviser David] Wurmser told a small group of people that Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz—and perhaps other sites—in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out. The Iranian reaction would then give Washington a pretext to launch strikes against military and nuclear targets in Iran. (Wurmser's remarks were first reported last week by Washington foreign-policy blogger Steven Clemons and corroborated by NEWSWEEK.) When NEWSWEEK attempted to reach Wurmser for comment, his wife, Meyrav, declined to put him on the phone and said the allegations were untrue. A spokeswoman at Cheney's office said the vice president "supports the president's policy on Iran."

This important paragraph is hidden deep in the story. (The cover of the issue in which this story is published reads 'How to Heal the World;' the juxtaposition is a good example of how easily these general-interest magazine can become absurdities.)

But this is just another clue. Many people are admitting to many different things, but no one is disclosing the relationships between these actions. For example, Uzi Arad, a former Mossad man and Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, almost totally abandons discretion in his interview with Newsweek: "I do know what happened, and when it comes out it will stun everyone."

Debka, which has a rightward editorial slant but is frequently correct about these things, says the Israeli raid proves that anti-aircraft guns recently purchased by Syria and Iran from Russia cannot protect either country's airspace. Although the raid was not simply to test the guns, the article intimates this proof was required for the U.S. to consider bombing Iran.

Although the Newsweek article notes firm opposition to war with Iran in bureaucratic Washington, this is much more revealing of what actually might be going on:

In Iran, preparations for war are underway. "Crisis committees" have been established in each government ministry to draw up contingency plans, according to an Iranian official who asked for anonymity in order to speak freely. The regime has ordered radio and TV stations to prepare enough prerecorded programming to last for months, in case the studios are sabotaged or employees are unable to get to work. The ministries of electricity and water are working on plans to maintain service under war conditions. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has also sent envoys to reach out to European negotiators recently, in the hopes of heading off further sanctions or military action.

Presumably, Iran's government is working with information that indicates war is a strong possibility. These preparations do not seem to serve any propaganda purpose.

Considering the evidence of Bush administration's past influence on the current Israeli government -- especially during last year's war with Hezbollah in Lebanon -- perhaps the Syria raid was meant to both pacify Cheney's calls for action and test Iran's response.

This might all mean nothing, but since no one is telling the public anything worth hearing, educated speculation is fine by me.

-- Douglas Carlucci