Fresh off their victory in Iraq, Iran is feeling pretty good these days

[Bman]

Coming off its greatest foreign policy achievement in history (that is, the duping of the United States into invading Iraq, desposing Saddam and installing a pro-Iranian regime), Iran is basking in the glory these days.

Has there ever been a more "pro-Iran" President than Bush??





Tuesday, May. 24, 2005
Why Iran's Mullahs Are Feeling Lucky
Nuclear positions and election moves suggest the regime believes it has little to fear

By TONY KARON

Grand Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the conservative supreme leader of Iran's clerical regime, raised eyebrows this week when he overrode his country's electoral system to restore the candidacy of two reformers in the June 17 presidential election. "It is appropriate that all individuals in the country be given the choice from various political tendencies," the Ayatollah scolded, prompting the Guardian Council to hastily reinstate former education minister Mostafa Moein and vice president for sport, Mohsen Mehralizadeh as candidates.

It was an extraordinary intervention, coming as it did in the same week that Iranian officials took an uncompromising position into talks with European negotiators over Tehran's nuclear program. Despite warnings from U.S. and European leaders, Iran has indicated that it plans to back out of a voluntary suspension of its uranium enrichment activities. Taken together, the response to the nuclear talks and the looming elections suggest that Iran's mullahs are, however improbably, feeling rather confident right now.
Domestically, Khameini appears to realize that the challenge of the reform movement headed by current President Mohmammed Khatami has long since run out of steam. Foiled at every turn by the overriding authority of conservative clerics within the state but unable or unwilling to mount a people-power challenge to clerical authority, Khatami's movement has lost much of its ability to convince Iran's voters of its ability to secure change. Khameini appears to see little to fear — and much to gain — in allowing the lead reformist candidate Moein to run for president.

Reformers thwarted

With the reformists sidelined, the more important political cleavage now is between hardliners and pragmatists within conservative ranks. Khameini is said to disapprove of the policies of leading pragmatist candidate Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former speaker of parliament who might have drawn "lesser-evil" backing from reformist voters if they lacked a candidate of their own. Allowing the reformists to run potentially splits Rafsanjani's vote, improving the chances of hard-liners. Even if the reformers win, the Khatami years have proven that the clerical bodies controlled by the conservatives trump the power of the presidency. The Supreme Leader is also concerned to maintain a modicum of popular consent for Iran's institutions. Reformers had threatened to boycott the election, which could damage the state's legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens — voter turnout in the tightly controlled elections has consistently been above 50 percent since the 1979 revolution.

Tehran's confidence on the nuclear front is based less on its widespread domestic support on the issue than on the international balance of forces that will dictate how the crisis plays out. A top delegation of European leaders, including Britain's foreign secretary Jack Straw and EU security chief Javier Solana, are expected to meet Iranian negotiators in Geneva on Wednesday, anxious to walk Tehran back from resuming uranium enrichment activities. Those are allowed under the rules of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but the EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany), like the U.S. and Israel, suspect that Iran is taking advantage of the considerable latitude allowed by the NPT to create nuclear infrastructure that could put it within months of assembling a nuclear weapon should it withdraw from the treaty as North Korea has done.

Those fears were compounded late in 2003 by news that Iran had failed to reveal some of its enrichment activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN body that polices the NPT. Tehran defused the crisis with nimble diplomacy, opening up its facilities to inspection and allowing unannounced and more intrusive inspections of its nuclear sites. That's not enough for the Europeans, and particularly the Americans, who insist on Iran abandoning all enrichment activity and making do with low-grade reactor fuel imported from Europe. (The concern is that enrichment is a route to bomb material — low levels of enrichment make reactor fuel, but much higher levels can create bomb-grade material.) Iran rejects this offer, refusing to make its nuclear energy program dependent on the goodwill of outsiders. Tehran insists that the NPT grants it the right to an independent nuclear-fuel cycle, and has rallied wide domestic political backing — and the support of most of the developing countries on the IAEA board — for its position.

Irreconcilable differences?

The reason neither side is voicing much optimism over the latest round of nuclear talks is that Iran insists on exercising all the rights granted it by the NPT, while the Europeans (the U.S. is staying away from direct talks with Tehran) are trying to persuade the Iranians to accept a far more limited nuclear program in exchange for concessions on issues such as trade.

So far, the Iranians don't seem overly tempted by the carrots the Europeans have offered, or overly concerned by the sticks available to the U.S. and its allies should the talks break down. Iran's leaders see the U.S. military bogged down and stretched by the intractable insurgency in Iraq, and don't believe it will be in a position, any time soon, to invade and occupy a country three times as large.

While insisting that no options have been taken off the table, the Bush administration is, for now, emphasizing the threat of UN sanctions if Iran refuses to end uranium enrichment. The problem for Washington: Iran is arguably within its NPT rights to enrich uranium, and isn't nearly as isolated as the U.S. would like. Russia continues to help Iran build its nuclear infrastructure; China has committed some $70 billion in projected investments in Iranian oil and natural gas; and despite the presence of 140,000 U.S. troops in neighboring Iraq, the new government in Baghdad is closer to Tehran than it is to Washington.

Careful of what you wish for

In order to get the matter discussed at the Security Council, Iran would have to be reported by the IAEA as in breach of its NPT obligations. Right now it's unlikely the U.S. and the Europeans would be able to muster the votes on the IAEA board of governors to refer Iran to the Security Council. The developing countries on the board are increasingly critical of what they see as efforts to use the NPT to enforce a nuclear-weapons monopoly on the part of the current nuclear-weapons states, rather than the treaty's original intent, which was to facilitate global disarmament. And in the wake of the Iraq WMD debacle, they're less inclined than ever to accept U.S. claims about Iran's real intent.

Even if the matter did reach the Council, Tehran may be assuming that Russia and China would veto any attempt to impose sanctions. "In legal terms, nothing has been done wrong by Iran that can be taken to the Security Council," Iran's foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi said in a recent interview with TIME. If the U.S. presents the matter to the Council, he added, "I don't think that would lead to any result that would be wished by the Americans."

While the U.S. and the Europeans have managed to unite, despite their Iraq rift, on the principle that Iran should be dissuaded from acquiring nuclear weapons, it's far from clear that the Europeans see preventing such an outcome as worth the risk of confrontation. Gloomy discussions in European foreign policy circles suggest that many European countries would be far more inclined than the U.S. to accommodate themselves to the inevitability of Iran going nuclear if the only way to stop them was going to war. Even though the positions of the two sides appear to be irreconcilable going into the Geneva talks, both parties may see an interest in keeping the other side talking.

http://www.time.com/time/world/printout/0,8816,1065213,00.html

[Bman]

http://www.atimes.com

Iran wins big in Iraq's elections

By M K Bhadrakumar

"We knew ever since the beginning [of the Iraq war] that the Americans would become trapped in a quagmire ... Iraq has become a turning point in the history of the Middle East. If the Americans had succeeded in subjugating Iraq, our region would have suffered once again from colonialism, but if Iraq becomes a democratic country that can stand on its own feet, the Americans will face the greatest loss. In such an eventuality, Iran and other regional states will be able to play an important role in world issues since they provide a huge share of the world's energy needs. We see now that the United States has been defeated."

Such a statement has to have come out of Iran, and without a
doubt President George W Bush would attribute it to that "odd guy", as he referred to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in a recent PBS TV interview.

But, as with just about anything else these days concerning the Middle East, Bush would be dead wrong, as would be many others who have misread Iran at this momentous juncture in the region. The excerpts are from a speech at Friday prayers at Tehran University, made by someone whom the Western world has come to regard as the consummate "pragmatic conservative" (whatever that might mean) of Iranian politics, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

There is one thing for which Rafsanjani is famous - he seldom mixes illusions with reality. And the reality is that the Middle East's political compass shifted last week.

As the trends became available regarding the Iraqi elections of last Thursday, what has emerged is that contrary to all pre-poll projections, the Shi'ite religious coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), not only held together, but also can be expected to dominate the new 275-member National Assembly for the next four years.

More importantly, the "secular" candidates who were believed to enjoy links with the US security agencies would seem to have been routed. Former premier Iyad Allawi's prospects of leading the new government seem virtually nil. And Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Accord suffered a shattering defeat.

The prognosis that Sunnis would flock to Allawi or that Shi'ite constituents were disillusioned with the "fundamentalist" UIA and would be drawn to Allawi's secular platform has also proved to be highly faulty.

All indications are that in the Shi'ite provinces such as Najaf, Karbala, Qadisiyah, Maysan, Diwaniya, Amara, Nasiriyah and Samawa, anywhere between 70% to 90% of the votes may have gone to the UIA, and that even in the mixed Babil, Diyala and Baghdad provinces the UIA may well secure the most number of seats. Some reports indicate the UIA as getting probably as high as 70% of the votes in Babil - a magnificent performance in a mixed Shi'ite-Sunni province.

According to reports, early returns show a strong performance by the followers of the outspoken Shi'ite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, on the UIA slate. Some reports estimate Muqtada's nominees winning almost one third of the UIA slate.

Worse still for the US, the "Sunni factor" choreographed by the American viceroys also seems to have come up with surprises. Al-Hayat newspaper commented that the two Sunni politicians who would appear to have done extremely well were Islamist leader Adnan Dulaimi and Ba'athist leader Salih al-Mutlak. (The latter is already being billed as the "Gerry Adams of Iraq", a reference to the mercurial Sinn Fein leader.)

Moreover, former members of the Ba'ath Party and other militia leaders have lost no time asserting that despite the Sunni participation in the elections, their armed resistance to the American military occupation would be resumed. (Since the elections, 10 Iraqis, including five police officers and an American, have been killed.)

Al-Hayat quoted a Ba'ath communique condemning the elections as an American plot to divide Iraq along ethnic and religious lines and vowing that resistance would not end until US troops left Iraqi soil. So much for the delicate distinction that American spokesmen were making between "Ba'athists" and "Saddamists".

With the ascendancy of Muqtada and Mutlak in the fragmented political spectrum, the calls for American troops to leave Iraq can be expected to become more strident. In the new climate, the incoming parliament itself may well make such a formal demand on the Americans. The hurried visit by US Vice President Dick Cheney to Baghdad on Sunday, his first ever since the US invasion in 2003, underscores the disarray surfacing in Washington.

Iran has, therefore, every reason to be pleased with the outcome of the election. Tehran sees that Iraq is now irreversibly on the verge of profound change, and transition is already in the air. The US is increasingly finding that it must come up with a clear plan to withdraw its troops from Iraq. As prominent Lebanese political observer Rami Khouri wrote on Saturday, "Starting the American military retreat from Iraq is important because American troops will continue to be a divisive and destabilizing force, just as the American military presence in Saudi Arabia after the 1991 war was a major provocation leading to Osama bin Laden-type resistance and terror."

Khouri (who cannot be described even remotely as "anti-American" on the intellectual plane) suggested 18 months as a "target date" for Washington to pull out its troops from Iraq. Tehran is conscious that any American withdrawal from Iraq cannot be summarily done. It will have to be preceded by a broader regional understanding over Iraq's stability and cohesion, which inevitably involves Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Equally so, new regional security arrangements also become necessary.

No less important for Tehran were the local Palestinian elections last week in West Bank cities. According to the preliminary results, the Islamic militant group Hamas won resounding victories. Coming as it does barely six weeks ahead of crucial parliamentary elections (scheduled for January 25), this development significantly impacts on the Palestinian problem and also alters the scope and dimensions of Middle East politics as a whole.

Hamas remains committed to the destruction of Israel, and is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the US and the European Union. The implications for the tepid peace process with Israel are bound to be serious. An existential dilemma forthwith arises for the "international community": can it any longer remain myopic and exclude Hamas from the the Middle East's political landscape?

But, more importantly, along with the significant showing by the Muslim Brotherhood in last month's elections in Egypt and the incremental "Islamization" of Iraq that is unmistakably under way (and that will get a fillip from the Iraqi elections), Hamas' emergence at the forefront of Palestinian politics signifies a huge eruption of popular disenchantment with the prevailing governance systems. Simply put, Islamism has placed itself in the vanguard of the Middle East's democratization - like "liberation theology" did at one time in Latin America.

There was a great deal of political symbolism in the fact that Hamas' chief, Khaled Meshaal, happened to be visiting Tehran as the results of the Palestinian elections became known. (Interestingly, Rafsanjani was among those in the top echelons of the Iranian leadership who received Meshaal.)

The Hamas leader seized the opportunity to hold a press conference, during which he said: "If Israel attacks Iran, then Hamas will widen and step up its confrontation of Israelis inside Palestine ... Hamas and other Islamic groups will stand by Iran's side. We are defenders of Iran's obvious right [to have a nuclear program] ... Iran is our source of pride."

Britain has done well by scheduling exploratory talks between the EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany) and Iran at the official level on Wednesday. The political geography of the Middle East is transforming so rapidly that the protagonists cannot but factor in an entirely new matrix of regional security and stability. The time for indulging in sophistries and vacuous rhetoric over Iran's nuclear issue is running out.

The challenge facing the EU-3 lies in breaking the deadlock by advancing its offer to Iran made in August under the terms of the Paris Agreement. As the former International Atomic Energy Agency head (1981-1997) and UN chief weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, said last week, "I am not convinced that the EU has offered sufficiently interesting things to the Iranians ... when you compare these things that have been offered to Iran with what has been offered to North Korea, I am not sure that one is at the negotiations' end."

Blix was caustic that up to now, the EU-3 remained "constrained by the backseat driver whom they have in the car, the Americans".

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing .)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL20Ak01.html

[Bman]

Refreshing your memory:

How did we get to where we are, with regard to Iran and Iraq??




2004 May 22 Saturday

Did Iran Trick The Bush Administration About Iraq's WMD?

Knut Royce of Newsday reports that the Defense Intelligence Agency believes the Iraqi National Congress (INC) headed Ahmed Chalabi has been used as a tool to fool US intelligence about Iraq and to collect information about US activities. (same article here)

"Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source Friday who was briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions, which were based on a review of thousands of internal documents.
...

Patrick Lang, former director of the intelligence agency's Middle East branch, said he had been told by colleagues in the intelligence community that Chalabi's U.S.-funded program to provide information about weapons of mass destruction and insurgents was effectively an Iranian intelligence operation. "They [the Iranians] knew exactly what we were up to," he said.

He described it as "one of the most sophisticated and successful intelligence operations in history."

"I'm a spook. I appreciate good work. This was good work," he said.

Kurdish INC officlal Aras Karim (aka Aras Habib) is suspected of being a spy for Iran.

The inquiries are focusing on allegations of corruption, kidnapping and robbery, and on a U.S. suspicion that one of Chalabi's closest advisers is a paid agent of the Iranian intelligence service, according to U.S., INC and Iraqi police officials. The adviser, Aras Habib, has a long working relationship with the Defense Intelligence Agency and is now a fugitive.

Karim/Habib is (perhaps about to become "was") Chalabi's chief of security.

Two U.S. officials said that evidence suggests that Arras Habib, Chalabi's security chief, is a longtime agent of Iran's intelligence service, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, or MOIS.

A group of INC officials are alleged to have been going around Baghdad kidnapping people.

Andrew Cockburn reports that as early as 1995 the International Atomic Energy Agency found a document that appeared to be an Iranian forgery to make it look like the Iraqis were developing a nuclear bomb.

The document was almost faultless, but not quite. The scientists noticed that some of the technical descriptions used terms that would only be used by an Iranian. "Most notable," says one scientist, "was the use of the term 'dome'--'Qubba' in Iranian, instead of 'hemisphere'--'Nisuf Kura' in Arabic." In other words, the document had to have been originally written in Farsi by an Iranian scientist and then translated into Arabic.

Tom Killeen, of the Iraq Nuclear Verification Office at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, confirms this account of the incident. "After a thorough investigation the documents were determined not to be authentic and the matter was closed."

Asked how the IAEA obtained the document in the first place, Killeen replied "Khidir Hamza." Hamza was the former member of the Iraqi weapons team who briefly headed the bomb design group before being relegated to a sinecure posting (his effectiveness as a nuclear engineer was limited by his pathological fear of radioactivity and consequent refusal to enter any building where experiments were underway.) In 1994 he made his way to Ahmed Chalabi's headquarters in Iraqi Kurdistan, and eventually arrived in Washington. where he carved out a career based on an imaginative claim to have been "Saddam's Bombmaker."

As late as the summer of 2002 Hamza was being escorted by Chalabi's Washington representative Francis Brooke to the Pentagon to brief Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on details of Saddam's allegedly burgeoning nuclear weapons program.

The secrets that Iran learned were known by very few in Washington DC.

U.S. intelligence officials on Friday said Ahmed Chalabi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council with ties to senior Pentagon officials, gave intelligence secrets to Iran so closely held in the U.S. government that only "a handful" of senior officials know them.

Did the US official that gave Chalabi the information that he gave to the Iranians break national security laws by providing that information? Should, say, Wolfowitz or Feith be prosecuted for this?

The New York Post is reporting that King Abdullah of Jordan recently provided key information that Chalabi was extorting money Baathists to allow them to avoid arrest or to be eligible for jobs that were supposed to be off-limits to Baathists.

King Abdullah's dossier provided critical confirmation of U.S intelligence gathered elsewhere that the INC was playing a double game with Ba'athists and that Chalabi and his security chief were passing sensitive information to Iran.

It looks like the United States was played by Iran to go after Saddam Hussein's regime. The Bush Administration's professed main reason for invading Iraq was Iraq's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. But the most dangerous WMDs at this point in time are nuclear weapons and it seemed obvious before the war that Iran had (and still has) a bigger effort to develop nuclear weapons. After all, Iran had very visible nuclear facilities under construction and more money and a larger population to support a nuclear program.

At this point the Bush Administration is rather like the boy who cried wolf. Who is going to believe the Bushies about Iran as a threat? The Bush Administration underestimated and didn't prepare for post-war occupation of Iraq, was incredibly naive about the obstacles in the way of building a democracy, and all the WMD news and the post-war events in Iraq have seriously undermined the US government's ability to stop Iran's or North Korea's nuclear weapons programs. The US has spent more than $100 billion on Iraq and the amount is still rising with estimates of total cost running between $300 billion and $450 billion.

If these reports about Iran fooling the United States come to be widely believed what is the political fall-out?

Even as the revelations about Chalabi and other INC officlals continue to pile up we can still find an assortment of neoconservatives defending Chalabi. See, for example, recent Chalabi defenses (and implicitly defenses of themselves for their long term support of Chalabi) by Kenneth Timmerman and Michael Rubin, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, and David Frum. For a excellent critical analysis of another recent Frum article defending Chalabi see Noah Millman's dissection of Frum on Chalabi. In retrospect I really didn't pay enough attention either to Chalabi or to the top neocons such as Feith and Perle. I naively thought the US government foreign policy couldn't be under control of a bunch of ideologues and expected that Bush would have appointed people to the Defense Department who were more empirical and practical.

At this point the neocons are arguing that their critics are making too much of the leaks and speculation about INC links to Iran. But the major neocons active in Washington policy circles now suffer from serious credibility problems. The neocon judgements about Chalabi and the INC deserve the skeptical treatment they are receiving because so many other decisions made by neocon policy makers on Iraq both before and after the war were big mistakes. Many of the mistakes that might have been corrected were responded to with a recurring pattern of too little too late. These guys don't just make mistakes. They resist learning from their mistakes when the lessons would require them to abandon their incorrect models of the world. These guys are hopeless. The Bush Administration needs a housecleaning of its foreign policy apparatus. Most of Bush's major foreign policy figures should be replaced.

After pointing that confirmation of this report will be extremely humiliating to the US in the eyes of the world Steve Sailer asks two questions about these revelations:

First question: If the spin doesn't work, legally speaking, how does the Republican Party dump Bush? The primaries are all over and he won almost all the delegates. Can the delegates legally rebel at the GOP Convention or are they bound by law to vote for the Chump-in-Chief?

Second question: Who should replace Bush on the GOP ticket? The Cabinet is discredited, even Powell. For instant name recognition, the obvious choice would be Ah-nold, but he ain't eligible.

There's an added twist here: We can tell the Europeans and Arabs that they should be more mad at Iran than at the United States for the invasion of Iraq. We can't help we are a bunch of country hick rubes.

On the subject of who is to blame for what has gone wrong in Iraq: If Iran tricked the United States then why didn't the French intelligence agency figure it out in advance? The French or Russians could have stopped the war by digging up the intelligence in Iran that would show that was really happening. This whole affair demonstrates the need for absolutely great intelligence. The CIA didn't catch this one either. It is finally time for George Tenet to resign too?

Update: There are more twists and turns to this story than we can hope to get our minds around. Knut Royce says a Guantanamo prisoner provided information implicating Aras Karim Habib as an Iranian agent.

A U.S. intelligence source said that information about Karim's activities came in part from a detainee at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters are being held.

But of course those people at Guantanamo are Taliban and Ql Qaeda. So what does that say about the connections between those groups and Iran as well?

A November 24, 2003 profile of Chalabi by Sally Quinn in the Washington Post shows the depth of the divisions in Washington DC over Chalabi. It is worth reading in full.

"He's a patriot who has the best interests of his country at heart," says Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

"He's a fake, one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on the American people," says Pat Lang, the man who headed counterterrorism in the Middle East and South Asia for eight years at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

"He's a class act," says former CIA director Jim Woolsey.

"He is exasperating, frustrating and not a team player," says Whitley Bruner, a former CIA agent who worked with Chalabi in London.

"Unlike so many Iraqi oppositionists, he actually does what he says he's going to do," says Ken Pollack, research director at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

"If we pulled out he wouldn't last two hours," says former CIA agent Bob Baer. "He's like Rockefeller. He couldn't be president. He's a rich boy."

A July 23 2000 piece by Andrew Cockburn (see my previous link to another Cockburn piece above) about James Woolsey shows Woolsey was defending Aras Karim's brother Ali Karim and found out in a court case then that Aras Karim was already suspected by the CIA in the 1990s of being an Iranian agent.

There was one more surprise in store. For two years, Woolsey had been eloquent in denouncing the "blithering incompetence" of the I.N.S., which behaved "as if it were plucked from Pinochet's Chile." Now, in cross-examination by Woolsey and his fellow counsel, it emerged that all along, in the background, the C.I.A. had been pulling the strings. F.B.I. agents testified that Ali had been targeted because his cousin, Aras, the resistance commander in northern Iraq, was deemed by the C.I.A. to be on the Iranian payroll. Former colleagues of Aras's, including his leader, Ahmad Chalabi, and Warren Marik, a former agency case officer who had worked closely with him, testified eloquently and convincingly that the charges were groundless. So what was really going on here?

Woolsey had his suspicions. Operating in northern Iraq, Aras was known to have seriously irritated a senior C.I.A. official who resented Aras's and Chalabi's disinclination to follow orders. It was indeed possible, Woolsey speculated, that Ali had simply been the victim of a private C.I.A. "jihad" against his cousin and ended up spending three years in jail. "Jim has always operated at the top level," says Bill Butler, a fellow Washington lawyer and Woolsey's close friend and next-door neighbor. "It's educational for someone like him to see what happens at the bottom."

The use of the term "Jihad" is spin that ignores the possibility of a more Machiavellian motive on the part of the CIA. Sounds like the CIA might have been trying to use the threat of extradition of Ali Karim as a tool for leverage against Aras Karim.

Josh Marshall reports that already in 1998 Aras Karim Habib was suspected by the FBI to be an Iranian spy.

We've been discussing for some time that Chalabi's connections to the Iranians and his flow of money from the Iranians has been known about among Chalabi's Washington supporters for years. But suspicions that Aras Karim was an Iranian agent are not new either.

Take this October 13th, 1998 New York Times article, which says that "An F.B.I. report said Mr. Karim's cousin Aras Habib Muhamad Al-Ufayli, who had been the intelligence chief for the Iraqi National Congress, had a 'well-documented connection to Iranian intelligence.'"

Chalabi may benefit by being seen as an enemy of the United States.

By the time of the raid, Chalabi was already engaged in open political warfare with the Bush administration.

On Thursday he took that war a step further, declaring that now that the United States had liberated Iraq, it was time to get out of the way.

"My message . . . is let my people go, let my people be free,'' he said, clearly angry that his bedroom had been invaded, his computers and papers confiscated. "We are grateful to President Bush for liberating Iraq, but it is time for the Iraqi people to run their affairs,'' he said.

In order to remain a player in Iraq Chalabi had to distance himself from the United States anyhow. So this turning on the United States was predictable. Expect similar attempts by other major Iraqi figures to put distance between themselves and the United States as they all try to pose as ardent nationalsts (or ardent defenders of their sects).

Chalabi advisor Francis Brooke says the INC knew about the raid in advance and says it has helped the INC in Iraq.

One of Chalabi's advisers said Friday that INC officials received advance notice of U.S. plans to search the INC intelligence building and removed their computers weeks ago. The adviser, Francis Brooke, said "nothing of any intelligence value" was recovered in the raids.

...

But Brooke said the fallout has had political benefits, particularly in galvanizing council support for Chalabi.

Of course Chalabi wants to distance himself from the United States. He wants to portray himself as an Iraqi nationalist. It still seems unlikely he will succeed, what with INC members apparently running a kidnapping ring for profit and corruption charges being levelled at INC leaders he's not exactly as popular among Iraqis as he is among neoconservatives.

Leaders of Jewish political groups have apparently been arguing with each other for years over whether Chalabi could deliver friendlier Iraqi relations with Israel.

Some also worry that Chalabi's good words won't translate into a pro- Israel foreign policy. Pressure to garner support from inside Iraq and the rest of the Arab world could force the INC to abandon its pro-Israel position.

In addition, the Bush administration's appointment of a military leader and encouragement of a dissident group with ties to Israel has played into conspiracy theories in the Arab world that the United States went to war in Iraq for Israel's benefit — perhaps constraining the next Iraqi government's latitude to approach Israel.

"It's far too early to even speculate where any of them will be and what their positions will be," said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "It never works out the way people think it is going to work out."

Neoconsevative hopes that a regime change in Iraq would produce a government friendly to Israel were always naive and never had a chance of succeeding. Any new government in Iraq is going to need to prove itself to the populace as a nationalistic government which is not a puppet of the United States or Israel. Therefore such a government will not be able to afford to take a foreign policy position that is out of sync with general Arab sentiments against Israel. Chalabi conned the neocons. Iran, Chalabi, and the neocons conned the American people. That's a bitter pill to swallow. But we can begin to limit the extent of the damage if we accept what happened.

Update II: The neocons who believed Chalabi as leader of Iraq would want to make peace with Israel are naive not just because of the sentiments of the masses in Iraq but also because of the likely motives of Chalabi himself. Why would Chalabi personally want to make peace with Israel? What would have been in it for him to even attach much importance to that as a goal? The neocon expectations about him seem ridiculous on so many levels. Why would any ardent Iraqi nationalist who rises to power in Iraq see any reason to make peace with Israel? Also, why would an extremely ambitious Iraqi living in exile desperate for backing from powerful Americans be expected to be honest in his pursuit of that influence? The neocons are so parochial with their interest in Israel that they have a real problem understanding people who have radically different sets of priorities.

http://www.parapundit.com/archives/002125.html

[Bman]

game, set, match, Iran

That's what we get for allowing Bush to represent us in the "Great Game"

The guy simply sucks. He's not up to the task.. He lacks the intelligence of Jimmy Carter, the Diplomacy of his old man and the shrewdness of Clinton

In the coming years when you ask yourself, "how did Iran become the major dominant power in the entire Middle East"? I want you to go back and REMEMBER the answer

Because they DUPED Bush, and made him their bitch.



Now in Israel, Iran is making its next move.. and playing the game masterfully

They've got Israel tied up, and the US too... neither country would DARE try to invade Iran at this point.. Both countries already have their hands full fighting IRAN'S PROXIES!!!!

Meanwhile, the price of oil goes UP UP UP filling the treasury in Tehran.....

Meanwhile, somewhere under the Alborz mountains, a centrifuge designed by AQ Khan hums away.............

.........to be continued................

[mez31]

game, set, match, Iran

That's what we get for allowing Bush to represent us in the "Great Game"

The guy simply sucks. He's not up to the task.. He lacks the intelligence of Jimmy Carter, the Diplomacy of his old man and the shrewdness of Clinton

In the coming years when you ask yourself, "how did Iran become the major dominant power in the entire Middle East"? I want you to go back and REMEMBER the answer

Because they DUPED Bush, and made him their bitch.



Now in Israel, Iran is making its next move.. and playing the game masterfully

They've got Israel tied up, and the US too... neither country would DARE try to invade Iran at this point.. Both countries already have their hands full fighting IRAN'S PROXIES!!!!

Meanwhile, the price of oil goes UP UP UP filling the treasury in Tehrah.....

Meanwhile, somewhere under the Alborz mountains, a centrifuge designed by AQ Khan hums away.............

.........to be continued................


I think our hubris got the best of us. Now we are caught naked with one hand in front and the other in the back standing next to our neighbors wife, whilst husband is coming up stairs. :happy_12:

[Bman]

I think our hubris got the best of us. Now we are caught naked with one hand in front and the other in the back standing next to our neighbors wife, whilst husband is coming up stairs. :happy_12:



Well, it was a perfect storm of disaster for the US

You had an arrogant leader, who also happened to be stupid (and yes, he IS stupid.. just try to get through one of his unplanned speeches), who surrounded himself with delusional "necons" who had convinced themselves that the world WANTED to be conquered by the US and would kiss our asses when we came to kill them.

Honest to God, it was the perfect storm

But you have to hand it to Iran, for recognizing their chance and striking while the iron was hot.

They owned Bush.

[Bman]

Wed 23 Aug 2006

Iran 'the real winner' in war on terror


IRAN has been the main winner of the West's war on terror, an influential foreign policy think tank concluded today.

And it warned the extremist Islamic republic could get more powerful rather than less unless the US, UK and their allies tread carefully.

London's Chatham House - one of the world's leading experts on international affairs - said the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan had boosted Iran's power.

Eliminating Saddam Hussein and the Taliban had taken out Iran's main regional rivals.

Now Iran had filled the hole, leaving the West with a major problem, as illustrated by the country's nuclear ambitions and the recent fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.

The Chatham House report goes on to say: "There is little doubt that Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the war on terror in the Middle East."


http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1240492006&format=print

[truthbtold]

Yeah once Iran get's their ass kicked by the US then all this info will turn false and the globe will scream, bush lied and Iran died!! :add09:

[Cypher]

Well, it's finally coming out.

Yes. Iran has been playing us for well over a decade. I don't know who their strategy wonks are, but they've taken us. Our leadership, dumbfucks that they are, completely walked into it.

[SmokedYourDSM]

Well, it's finally coming out.

Yes. Iran has been playing us for well over a decade. I don't know who their strategy wonks are, but they've taken us. Our leadership, dumbfucks that they are, completely walked into it.

Only a decade?

I'd say since the 70's.....

[Bman]

Ironically, Iran's victory in Iraq, has now made an attack on Iran, probably inevitable.....





The Business Times Singapore

September 22, 2006 Friday

US-Iran shootout is inevitable;

As Bush supporters see it, they need to 'do something' to 'correct' the balance of power which is shifting in favour of Iran

Leon Hadar Washington Correspondent


WOULD US President George W Bush and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad run into each other by chance during their opening session of the United Nations General Assembly this week? That seemed to be the major concern occupying US officials. It seems White House aides were doing their best to avoid a run-in between Mr Bush and Mr Ahmadinejad in the hallways of the UN building in Manhattan; for example, the Iranian leader 'ambushing' Mr Bush as he tries to enter the lavatory, igniting a Clash of Civilisations in front of the Man's Room.

Well, that did not happen. Instead, the US and Iranian presidents engaged in diplomatic histrionics, clashing at the UN on Tuesday during the opening debate in the General Assembly. Mr Bush made a direct appeal to the Iranian people stressing that Washington has 'no objection to Iran's pursuit of a truly peaceful nuclear power programme', while Mr Ahmadinejad stressed several hours later that his government was pursuing such a peaceful nuclear power programme.

And if Mr Bush was arguing that the US confrontation with Iran was part of a US-led campaign to establish democracy in the Middle East, his Iranian nemesis contended that his proud nation was standing up against US hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East and worldwide.

Neocon hysteria

It is difficult to figure out who had 'won' this latest battle in the arena of public theatre. But the 'narrative' that it helped create seemed to play into the hands of Mr Ahmadinejad whose interest was to assert his nation's status as a Middle Eastern and global power. Indeed, even The New York Times carried on its front page on Wednesday the pictures side by side of Presidents Bush and Ahmadinejad addressing the General Assembly with quotes from their respective speeches, recalling the Cold War era when the newspaper would apply similar editorial choices to cover UN speeches by the US and Soviet leaders.

Moreover, the conventional wisdom in Washington is that Mr Bush's address reflected a more accommodative approach towards Iran. After all, even Mr Bush's insistence that his administration does not object to a 'truly peaceful' Iranian nuclear power programme could be considered a reversal from an earlier US policy that rejected any Iranian effort to develop nuclear power.

At the same time, all indications are that the Bush administration is continuing to support the negotiations between the European Union members and Iran that could lead to a peaceful diplomatic resolution of the nuclear crisis with Teheran. Even Mr Bush in his address expressed his hopes that the United States and Iran one day will 'be good friends and close partners in the cause of peace'.

The notion that Washington may be pursuing a more accommodative approach towards Teheran seemed to be creating a certain hysteria among the ranks of the neoconservative intellectuals in Washington for whom diplomatic 'accommodation' is almost always equated with 'appeasement'.

Mr Bush's speech marked 'the final fizzling out of his Iran policy of the past three years' David Frum, one of the leading neoconservative ideologues (who as a former speech writer to Mr Bush coined the term 'Axis of Evil'), argued this week. 'The tough talk of the 'axis of evil' speech of 2002 faded into the background,' wrote Mr Frum, a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, a neoconservative think-tank in Washington.

'Did (Bush) challenge the Iranian bomb programme before the world?' he asked. 'He did not. He said nothing about it. There will be no UN action, no Security Council sanctions, nothing.' And Mr Frum concluded: 'America's dwindling list of Iran options has dwindled further to just two: unilateral military action without any semblance of international approval to pre-empt the Iranian bomb programme - or acquiescence in that programme.'

But such conclusions seem to be based on either fears - on the part of the neocons who are urging the administration to do a 'regime change' in Teheran, and on wishful thinking - on the part of those in Washington who are calling for pursuing a diplomatic detente towards Teheran.

But investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and other analysts have reported that President Bush and his aides have already ordered the US military to prepare for operation against Iran's nuclear military sites and have also been providing assistance to Iranian exile groups. Indeed, retired Air Force colonel Sam Gardiner, interviewed on CNN, said the Bush administration had already given a 'go ahead' to US military operation against Iran.

'In fact, we've probably been executing military operations inside Iran for at least 18 months,' Col Gardner said. 'The evidence is overwhelming.'

There are several important reasons that are being advanced to claim that US would not take a military action against Iran.

First, the US military is overstretched in Iran and Afghanistan and does not have the manpower that will be required for widening ground troops operations in Iran.

Secondly, it is doubtful that the Americans could win the backing from the UN Security Council for using military force against Iran. Russia and China will probably veto such a move, while France and Britain will probably not support it.

Thirdly, a unilateral US attack on Iran could produce powerful anti-American reactions among the Shi'ites in Iraq (that control the government), in Lebanon (which could trigger a military confrontation with Israel) and in other parts of the Middle East. Iran could also succeed in rallying support for its cause in the entire Middle East and the Muslim world, threatening pro-US regimes there.

And, finally, a military confrontation between the US and Iran could force the global price of oil into the stratosphere and devastate the American and global economy.

But this line of thinking, which assumes that Iran is now in a position to threaten US interests in the Middle East and around the world and thus deter the Americans from using their military power, also explains why the Bush administration will probably end up doing exactly that - taking military action against Iran. In a way, the Bush administration's policies have created the conditions in which such an American move becomes almost inevitable.

First, the ousting of the Ba'athist regime in Iraq and the Taleban in Afghanistan enhanced Iran's position in the Persian Gulf by removing two strategic threats to Iran.

Secondly, the coming to power in Baghdad of Shi'ite religious parties with strong ties to the Shi'ite mullahs in Teheran has strengthened the political power of Iran and Shi'ite communities around the Middle East, threatening the interest of the pro-American Arab-Sunni regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.

Thirdly, the green light that Washington had given to Israel to attack the Hizbollah guerillas in Lebanon has strengthened the political power of that Shi'ite group and its leading ally, Iran, increasing the long-term threats to America's ally, Israel.

And fourthly, the acquisition of nuclear military power by Iran will formalise its position as the main regional hegemon in the Persian Gulf, and make it likely that Saudi Arabia and other governments will try to appease it. At the same time, a nuclear military stalemate between Israel and Iran could weaken the strategic position of Israel and by extension that of the US in the Middle East.

Bush-Cheney 'legacy'

As the Bushies see it, they need to 'do something' to 'correct' the current balance of power which has been shifting in favour of Iran (thanks to US policies, that is). While the diplomatic, military and economic costs of a unilateral US military action against Iran could be high, even if they involve only 'surgical' attacks against that country's nuclear military sites, it is important to remember that in the aftermath of the mid-term Congressional elections in November, President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney will be free to pursue even very politically costly moves since neither of them will be running for office in 2008.

Instead, they are now in the process of writing their historical legacy which will centre on their policies in the Middle East. Leaving office with Iraq in ruins and Iran emerging as the military hegemon the Persian Gulf - equipped with nuclear military power! - would damage whatever remains of the Bush-Cheney 'legacy'.

While the possibility of the Democrats taking over the House of Representatives and even the Senate could make it difficult for the administration to deploy more troops in Iraq, it will not face major opposition from the mostly pro-Israeli Democrats on Capitol Hill if and when it decides to take military action against Iran.

Of course, there is another way for Mr Bush and Mr Cheney to deal with the challenges they are facing in the Middle East: a diplomatic dialogue with Iran (and Syria) combined with an effort to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But for an administration that has portrayed the Iranian regime as a member of the axis of evil and has placed itself squarely behind Israel, such a move would be out of character.

[Alli]

The only "Neocon hysteria" regarding military action in Iran, I've seen (at least on this site) is from the left.

[Bman]

The only "Neocon hysteria" regarding military action in Iran, I've seen (at least on this site) is from the left.


That's because you don't look, with honest eyes

Here's the usual, "We need to be at war with all muslims" cry

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=40088&page=10&highlight=Iran+nuke

Here we have the "Why aren't we nuking Iran" usual philosophizing


http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39774&highlight=Iran+nuke


http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39688&page=3&highlight=Iran+nuke

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38134&page=2&highlight=Iran+nuke


http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25278&page=4&highlight=Iran+nuke

[sweetnsassee3]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Bman again. :sad_01:

[Alli]

Honest eyes? I was referring to these:

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41334&highlight=iran+strike

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41444&highlight=iran+strike

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41286&highlight=iran+strike

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41274&highlight=iran+strike

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41122&highlight=iran+strike

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=40351&highlight=iran+strike

[Bman]

Honest eyes? I was referring to these:



ahhh, but you said that the ONLY hysteria regarding attacking Iran, was from the Lefties.

Yes, the lefties have been very excited about it... They're worried.

the righties however, are banging the drum for more war, more war, more war.


So, I don't think you're honest when you're saying that all that you see is the Lefties harping on it.

[knightroar]

well Alli, apparently you've been ignoring zapcomix public multiple orgasms over the thought of war with Iran for the last two years. Or do you consider him a lefty?

[wanderer1]

The only "Neocon hysteria" regarding military action in Iran, I've seen (at least on this site) is from the left.

Relax Mrs. Alli. By the time the alcoholic starts dropping bombs, he'll have you convinced Iran has WMD aimed directly at your house, Iranian oil will pay for the war, it'll be a cake walk just like Iraq... You'll see, you and your ilk will fully aboard the next quagmire.

Besides, more is better; that is to say, three military debacles to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives is always better than two.:add09:

[Alli]

ahhh, but you said that the ONLY hysteria regarding attacking Iran, was from the Lefties.

Yes, the lefties have been very excited about it... They're worried.

the righties however, are banging the drum for more war, more war, more war.


So, I don't think you're honest when you're saying that all that you see is the Lefties harping on it.
Yes, I shouldn't have said "only".:sad_01:
I also consider myself a 'rightie' and loathe the idea of another war, if that matters.

[wanderer1]

Yes, I shouldn't have said "only".:sad_01:
I also consider myself a 'rightie' and loathe the idea of another war, if that matters.

You'll like it just fine once junior puts on his toy uniform and tells the nation how well things are going.

[Alli]

You'll like it just fine once junior puts on his toy uniform and tells the nation how well things are going.
Sorry, you've got the wrong rightie, but thanks for telling me how I think again. I was beginning to get a complex.

:mad_01:

[Alli]

well Alli, apparently you've been ignoring zapcomix public multiple orgasms over the thought of war with Iran for the last two years. Or do you consider him a lefty?
Not at all. :)
I pointed out the other side (which was strangely missing from Bman's list) is all.

Bman had the rightie list. Then again, we used different search criteria.

[Bman]

Turkish Daily News

November 27, 2006 Monday


IRAN 'WILLING TO HELP US ON IRAQ'



As bomb attacks, kidnappings and clashes in Iraq continue unabated, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed that he would help the United States calm Iraq, if Washington changes "its bullying policy toward Iran".

"We are ready to help you," Ahmadinejad declared yesterday, while addressing a group of members of the Basij paramilitary group, affiliated to the elite Revolutionary Guard. But Iran's firebrand president took the U.S. to task, questioning its motives for invading Iraq. "You went to Iraq to topple Saddam and find weapons of mass destruction, but it was clear to us that you came in order to dominate the region and its oil." Ahmadinejad said that the U.S. and Britain are paying for the instability and violence in Iraq, reported The Associated Press

"The Iranian nation is ready to help you to get out of the quagmire - on condition that you resume behaving in a just manner and avoid bullying and invading," he added

"Then, nations of the region, headed by the Iranian nation, will be ready to show you the path of salvation," Ahmadinejad said. "It is the time for the leaders of the U.S. and U.K to listen. You have reached a dead end in our region as well as in the world."Police commander removed: Meanwhile Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obaidi, Gen. George Casey, Iraq's top U.S. commander in Iraq, and other officials met Saturday and decided to sack Diyala's police commander, Maj. Gen. Ghassan Bawi, saying he was unable to stop infiltration of the force by Sunni insurgents.

Bawi was temporarily replaced by Maj. Gen. Shaker Flaieh, the commander of the Iraqi army's 5th Division.Car bomb kills 8: A car bomb killed eight people and wounded 28 in a crowded market in Haswa, a small town 50 km (30 miles) south of Baghdad.

The U.S. military said it launched air strikes and fired artillery to help a tribe in western Anbar after an attack by al Qaeda. "Al Qaeda burned homes and killed members of the tribe using small arms fire and mortars," the military said in a statement, adding it had no casualty figures.

Sattar al-Buzayi, head of the Anbar Salvation Council, an umbrella group of tribes in Anbar, said tribal fighters had raided an al Qaeda stronghold and killed 55 militants and arrested 25. He said nine tribal fighters were killed

Three men and one woman were shot by gunmen who attacked their car at a road junction in central Basra, while an office worker for Iraqiya state television in the northern city of Mosul was killed on her doorstep

Two members of the local town council were dragged from their car and killed by gunmen in Mahaweel, 75 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, on Saturday night, police said.Three U.S. service members were also killed and three wounded in Iraq, the military said yesterday.

[Bman]

How the US is doing Iran's killing in Iraq
By Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily

NAJAF, Iraq - New evidence is emerging on the ground of an Iranian hand in growing violence within Iraq, but not necessarily as the US claims Tehran is involved, that is, by providing arms to Shi'ite Muslim militants.

The massacre in Najaf last month indicates that Iran could be working through the Iraqi government, local leaders in Najaf say. The killing of 263 people in Najaf by Iraqi and US forces on January 29 provoked outrage and vows of revenge among residents in and around the sacred Shi'ite city in the south. The killings have deepened a split among Shi'ites.

Iran is predominantly Shi'ite, one of the two main groupings within Islam along with the Sunnis. Iraq has for the first time a Shi'ite-dominated government, comprising groups that have been openly supportive of Iran.

The people killed in Najaf were mostly Shi'ites from the Hawatim tribe that opposes the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq as well as the Da'wa Party. These two pro-Iranian groups control the local government in Najaf and the central government in Baghdad.

The Najaf attack has provoked strong reactions among members of the Hawatim tribe and among other Shi'ite groups who are not loyal to Iran - and who became the target in those killings.

An attack on a local tribal leader led to an assault on members of the tribe by US, British and Iraqi forces. The tribe was described by government officials as a "messianic cult".

Abid Ali, who witnessed the Najaf fighting, said a procession of about 200 pilgrims from the Hawatim tribe had arrived in the Zarqa area near Najaf to celebrate the Ashura festival. After a confrontation over the procession, Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint shot dead Hajj Sa'ad Sa'ad Nayif al-Hatemi, chief of the tribe, as he and his wife sat in their car. Members of the tribe then attacked the checkpoint to avenge the death of their chief.

"It was after this that the Iraqi army called in the Americans, and the planes began bombing civilians," Ali said. "It was a massacre. Now I believe internal Shi'ite fighting has entered a very dangerous phase."

Ali said most people in the area believe the US military was told by Iraqi security forces loyal to the pro-Iranian government in Baghdad that "terrorists" or the "messianic cult" were attacking Najaf. They say the misinformation was intended to mislead occupation forces into attacking the tribe.

Many Shi'ites in the southern parts of the country and in Baghdad now say they had been fooled earlier by US promises to help them, but that the Najaf massacre has dramatically changed their views.

Significantly, the Association of Muslim Scholars, a group of Sunni Muslims headed by Dr Harith al-Dhari, issued a statement condemning the Iraqi-US military attack in Najaf against the Hawatim tribe. The statement, which seeks to bridge a Shi'ite-Sunni divide, denounced the killing of dozens of women and children and added, "It was an act of vengeance and political termination."

Jaafar al-Jawadi, a political analyst from Baghdad, said the Americans "were misled, and their last move in Najaf shows how smart the Iranians are in leading the Americans deeper into the Iraqi sands".

"I really admire the way the Iranians are dealing with the situation in a professional way while the Americans are walking with their eyes closed," Jawadi said. "They are losing the last Iraqi fort they were hiding behind, and that was the peaceful way Arab Shi'ites were dealing with the occupation."

Jawadi, who is a former Shi'ite politician, said he once believed in US promises of liberation for Iraqis, particularly the Shi'ite population. Like many other Iraqis, he now believes that the United States has been used by the pro-Iranian government in Baghdad to carry out attacks against Shi'ite tribes in southern Iraq who have recently become more anti-occupation.

Talib Ahmad, a lawyer and human-rights activist in Najaf, said, "I do not really understand what those Americans are doing because now they are just like an elephant in a china shop, and everything they do is terribly wrong, as if they are committing suicide.

"Iran is benefiting from that for sure. Americans are simply fighting for Iran, which appears to be the winner in Iraq after all," said Ahmad.

Many Iraqis are amazed at the unlimited support the US administration has been presenting to what many now call an Iranian-Iraqi government. The new US condemnation of Iran could be a first sign that the United States is getting wise to the fact that it is being fooled by Tehran.

The US administration is, however, pointing the finger at Iran, and not at the government in Baghdad that it props up.

(Inter Press Service)



http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IB13Ak04.html

[Bag Sniper]

Still spewing your pro-islamofacist propaganda eh Bboy ..... that's a nice little sandnigger .... bend over for allah the pig fucker Bboy ..... and grimace ...

[Bman]

Still spewing your pro-islamofacist propaganda eh Bboy ..... that's a nice little sandnigger .... bend over for allah the pig fucker Bboy ..... and grimace ...



LOL... I'm not the guy fighting for the Islmo-fascist government of Iraq.

If I had my way, Zarqawi would still be alive, the US would be out of Iraq and Sadr and Zarqawi would be duking it out to see who could kill more of the other side's "heretics".

It would be a beautiful thing, like when Saddam went up against Ayatollah Khomeini and the two of them combined to kill millions of islamic radicals on either side of the border.

[Bman]

Iran Prepared to Fill Iraq Power Vacuum

Aug 28 10:07 AM US/Eastern
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Tuesday that a power vacuum is imminent in Iraq and said that Iran was ready to help fill the gap.

"The political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly," Ahmadinejad said at a press conference in Tehran, referring to U.S. troops in Iraq. "Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation."



Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RA2P9O1&show_article=1

[Bman]

The Observer (England)

March 16, 2008

The Iraq War: Five Years On: And the biggest winner is... Iran: The invasion had one clear purpose - the removal of a tyrant. But the consequences have been far more complex, throwing up a new regional power, intensifying Sunni-Shia divisions, and prompting a painful US rethink, says Jason Burke: THE GLOBAL LEGACY

Jason Burke


On a brisk spring morning four years and 11 months ago, a truck driver on the Iraqi-Turkish border killed time in a queue at customs by telling a Western reporter of the terrible consequences of the fall of Baghdad a month earlier. At the time, his doom-laden predictions of civil war and regional chaos seemed far-fetched. Now they seem far less so.

From the distant, tsunami-struck tip of Sumatra to Wall Street, from the specialist world of counter-terrorism to that of contemporary feminist literary criticism, the war, the occupation and the continuing conflict in Iraq have left their mark. The effects will not be known for some time, but some broad effects are already all too evident. The Iraq of the Nineties - run by a nationalist, broadly secular Sunni Muslim elite; brutalised and terrorised, but stable under Saddam Hussein - has been replaced by a weak, violent, unstable state racked by a largely communitarian civil war and crime. Where once the fear in Ankara, Riyadh, Tehran or Tel Aviv was of an unpredictable dictator, now it is of a spillover of chaos.

Though we should be mindful always that the events of 2003-2008 in Iraq were not inscribed on a blank slate but in a region rich in historical events, processes and actors, clearly the war has wrought radical change in its own right as well as accelerating or exposing ongoing evolution. Watching the American tanks lined up on the embankments of the Tigris in Baghdad in the spring of 2003 was, for me at least, a shock. The incongruity of these men and machines in the streets where, a year earlier, visiting reporters had sat to eat grilled fish at outdoor restaurants with their Ministry of Information minders was stunning.

From being a distant superpower, whose interest in the Middle East was always intermittent, the US is now implanted in the region. 'America has become a neighbour, not a superpower,' said Shmuel Bar of the Multidisciplinary Research Centre in Israel. There is little chance, whatever presidential candidates pledge, of American disengagement in the near future.

The war has brought about a major shift in the local balance of power - though not the one the White House planned. The biggest regional winner in the conflict appears to be Iran. Tehran's major historical rival has been profoundly weakened, and there is a leadership vacuum in the Islamic world, in no small part due to the loss of credibility with 'the street' of rulers such as King Abdullah of Jordan or the House of al-Saud. Iran has been assuming, as it did after the Islamic revolution of 1979, the role of spearhead state leading the Muslim masses against those international enemies who oppose their interests.

Iran's position is also bolstered by the democracy and demography in Iraq. Though their national identity remains strong, Iraq's Shia majority have closer cultural, social, religious and commercial links with Iran than with the minority Sunni. Given their numbers and thus their dominance of any conceivable democratic system in their homeland, it is difficult to see how the Iraqi Sunnis can seriously threaten their Shia compatriots' power. The result: though fears of a regional Shia alliance of Lebanese Hizbollah (backed by Iran), Shia Iraqis and Shia hardliners in Tehran may be exaggerated, the Shia-Sunni tensions that rack the region are, if not unprecedented, then certainly impressive in their intensity. They are a consequence of the war. The fact that a Shia community is running an Arab country for the first time cannot but profoundly change the balance of power in the region.

If things were going better for America in Iraq, the new strength of Iran would matter less. However, the quagmire in which 140,000 American troops have become mired means that few can now be expected to follow Libya's Colonel Gadaffi and renounce opposition to 'the West' through fear of US-led retribution. This has led to a paradoxical position. Now they have broken the taboo that for decades meant that marching on capitals to overturn regimes was unacceptable, the Americans cannot now exploit their new theoretical freedom to act.

'The most dangerous consequence of the war in Iraq is that it has destroyed America's ability to intervene where necessary,' said Yahia Saeed of the London School of Economics. 'It has shown the US to be vulnerable and incapable in many ways.' The hardline Iranian leadership is therefore confident enough to ignore American sabre-rattling and continue with its controversial nuclear programme. This, in turn, according to Shmuel Bar, could mean the end of the control of nuclear proliferation, leading to a 'poly-nuclear' Middle East, with consequences for states like North Korea.

The American ability to intervene has suffered for other reasons too, perhaps harder to remedy than military weakness. 'The war in Iraq has led to the loss of the moral authority of the West. No one takes the UK and the US seriously any more,' said Professor Ali Ansari of St Andrews University in Scotland. 'Playing fast and loose with international law means it is now very difficult to invoke the same body of law when we need to.'

Certainly the credibility of the involvement of such figures as Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is now shaky, and the continuing existence of Guantanamo Bay and the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison has also undermined any criticism of human rights abuses anywhere else.

The Bush administration's abandonment of its previously vociferous, if unconvincing, advocacy of democratic reform in the Islamic world is one indirect result.

Another consequence of the various failures of the Iraq war has been to discredit the post-Cold War doctrines of intervention formulated and tested in the Nineties. From early disasters such as that of Somalia in 1993, through to more successful operations in Sierra Leone, Kosovo and Afghanistan, a range of new foreign policy options were tried out. Iraq was their apogee and their grave. One reason is the huge impact the war has had on public opinion in the countries from which the troops and the cash for such operations have to come.

For Afghanistan, this indirect effect of the war in Iraq has had devastating consequences. The country was already struggling to keep global attention only a few months after the blitzkrieg that removed the Taliban and evicted Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda from its training camps was over.

Not only were crucial military resources being diverted to Iraq by the autumn of 2002, but political attention thinned out too. The lack of serious reconstruction or military effort was obvious to anyone travelling through south-east Afghanistan even in late 2004. Thousands of square miles of strategically crucial territory had been left to rot. Villagers in the back country around Kandahar saw no benefit from the invasion, merely growing insecurity. No one should have been surprised in 2006 to find that, while the world had been looking away, the Taliban had quietly returned to their old haunts.

In addition, the marketing of the Iraq war means that Western governments are having a hard time selling another unpopular war to domestic populations sceptical after swallowing the various empty claims about weapons of mass destruction. And what of the global battle for hearts and minds, the struggle that is now widely agreed to be the 'strategic centre of gravity' of what was once known as the 'war on terror' but, in Britain at least, has been relabelled in less inflammatory language?

Few now try, as British ministers once did, to argue that the invasion of Iraq and the continuing threat from modern radical Islamic militancy are not related. Interview Muslim militants anywhere in the world and they will tell you how the West is set on the division, humiliation and subordination of the Ummah, the world's Muslim community. That the invasion of Iraq has reinforced this 'single narrative' is now taken as a given by intelligence services in the UK, the US and elsewhere. Their analytic efforts are now directed at understanding why certain individuals are vulnerable to that ideology, not whether the invasion of Iraq has boosted militants' propaganda.

One question worrying Western intelligence services is why the 'blowback' that was so feared - the hundreds or even thousands of hardened 'Iraqi veterans' who would return to Europe or elsewhere to sow terror - has not yet occurred. This is 'the dog that so far has not barked,' according to one intelligence official. It may just be a question of time. The dog has very definitely barked in Lebanon, where a militant Sunni group fought a small war against local forces last year, and in Algeria, where Iraq veterans have spearheaded a fusion between local militants and the 'al-Qaeda central' high command based in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Yet al-Qaeda itself has struggled with Iraq, never succeeding in imposing itself on a complex, evolving insurgency. Bin Laden's attempt to appropriate the Iraqi 'jihad' has failed. Instead, the excesses of psychopathic commanders like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have revolted many potential militant supporters inside and outside the country, and a fierce row has now broken out among jihadi ideologues in the Middle East about the viability and desirability of violent strategies. Indeed, it is noticeable that the closer you get to the experience of terrorist violence - dismembered babies, bereaved mothers, incinerated corpses of policemen - the lower the support for the militants is among the general population. It is in Morocco, Syria, Saudi Arabia and among the troubled elements of European Muslim communities that the call to arms of the 'Iraqi Islamic mujahideen' has had significant resonance - not in 'the land of the two rivers', as the militants know it.

Good news is thin, but Saddam is gone, though what followed him is arguably a greater threat than he ever was and tens, if not hundreds of thousands, have died. Much is still unclear - such as the consequences of the massive outflow of Iraqi refugees or the potential of newly discovered oilfields.

One positive outcome is that, having learnt from their mistakes, the Americans and their allies are building a body of counter-insurgency, reconstruction and peace-building know-how that could, given the right circumstances, serve well in the decades to come. Ansari at St Andrews notes that Britain is now engaging seriously with the Middle East - with army officers going on Arabic or Farsi courses - for the first time since the early Seventies.

These are expensive 'silver linings' to a fairly dark cloud, says Saeed at the LSE, though they may augur better times for the future. The war of 2003 was supposed to transform the Middle East, the broader Islamic world and its relations with the West. It was meant to release a wave of beneficial change.

A transformation has happened, but not the one desired by the US and UK. If there is one law that has dominated events, it is the law of unintended consequences. Sadly, the result is that the gloomy predictions of the illiterate truck driver I interviewed at Zakho have largely come to pass.

[Cypher]

Still spewing your pro-islamofacist propaganda eh Bboy ..... that's a nice little sandnigger .... bend over for allah the pig fucker Bboy ..... and grimace ...

Pardon me, Baggy. Al Sadr's back.

:add09:

[Noovuss]

Iran: Enemies & Obama Have Admitted Defeat In Iranian Nuclear Realities


It's a done deal.
The regime in Iran announced today that it has installed around 7,000 centrifuges (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.648c7f446c0adbd8abd546a57259eed 4.271&show_article=1)at its uranium enrichment facility.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L6pDyjqqsvY/Sd4l-5Fmv-I/AAAAAAAAbBQ/YeAvCldo_4Y/s400/mahmoud+nukes.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L6pDyjqqsvY/Sd4l-5Fmv-I/AAAAAAAAbBQ/YeAvCldo_4Y/s1600-h/mahmoud+nukes.jpg)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmainejad opened Iran's first nuclear fuel plant (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJtuLXHUiaMM&refer=home) today in Isfahan province. Mahmoud handed out awards to the team members at the nuke plant. (ISNA (http://www.isna.ir/ISNA/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-1314428&Lang=P))

An Iranian official said today that the enemies of Iran have given in to the regime's nuclear realities.
Fars News (http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8801191200) reported:


Head of the Presidential Strategic Studies Center Ali Reza Zaker Isfahani said on Wednesday that enemies of Iran have given in to the Islamic Republic and accepted the country's nuclear realities.

"Fortunately, revolutionary steps of the Iranian people pave the ground for the enemies' failure as well as acceptance of Iran's nuclear realities," Zaker Isfahani stated.

He underlined that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government could break the dominating international order by following the Late Imam Khomeini's path, adding, "This has led to the acceptance of Iran's nuclear energy right by the new US president, Barack Obama."

Meantime, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced on Wednesday that his country views the nuclear issue as a "closed case".

"Today we consider the nuclear issue a closed case for the Iranian nation," Ahmadinejad said, addressing a large and fervent congregation of local people in the central province of Isfahan.
posted by Gateway Pundit at 4/09/2009 05:56:00 AM (http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/04/iran-enemies-obama-have-admitted-defeat.html)

[Mars S]

Sadr City has been quelled and the Mehdi Army is quelled with it. Sadr's party lost seats in the Iraqi parliament in the last election plus Iran isn't very popular with the Iraqis just now.
I'm sure Iran will use those centrifuges for peace though...

[spotdogg]

Sadr City has been quelled and the Mehdi Army is quelled with it. Sadr's party lost seats in the Iraqi parliament in the last election plus Iran isn't very popular with the Iraqis just now.
I'm sure Iran will use those centrifuges for peace though...

Seemingly not, Moe...Dang, I didn't even know you were gone...Your minions, Larry and Curly Joe Derita had your back...Interesting...:add09:

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88521

[Mars S]

Seemingly not, Moe...Dang, I didn't even know you were gone...Your minions, Larry and Curly Joe had your back...Interesting...:add09:

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88521

blow me, pusbag.
:add09:

[spotdogg]

blow me, pusbag.
:add09:

Still with the oral sex fixation...Tsk, tsk...

[Mars S]

Still with the oral sex fixation...Tsk, tsk...

spotty, you can blow me or you can fuck off...seems to me you have a choice.
Unless you have something cogent to offer to the thread, you're just trolling.
Copy that??:add09:

[spotdogg]

spotty, you can blow me or you can fuck off...seems to me you have a choice.
Unless you have something cogent to offer to the thread, you're just trolling.
Copy that??:add09:

Not trolling at all...I responded to a terribly stupid post of yours and commended you on your other two stooges and how they had your back while you were 'away'...Then, you ask me to perform oral sex on you...It's something you do every time...Get over me, will you?...Ain't ever gonna happen...Your school district simply must be informed...Where is it again?...

[Mars S]

Not trolling at all...I responded to a terribly stupid post of yours and commended you on your other two stooges and how they had your back while you were 'away'...Then, you ask me to perform oral sex on you...It's something you do every time...Get over me, will you?...Ain't ever gonna happen...Your school district simply must be informed...Where is it again?...

Blow me, whiner.

[spotdogg]

Blow me, whiner.

Yet AGAIN with the oral sex!!!...That is foremost in what 'brain' you have...Sad, sad, sad...Oh, well...To each her own...

[Mars S]

Yet AGAIN with the oral sex!!!...That is foremost in what 'brain' you have...Sad, sad, sad...Oh, well...To each her own...
I feel your pain, whiner. You can't manage to say something intelligent about the thread so you deflect to personalities. No wonder you're a joke.
:add09:

[Cypher]

More and more, I'm glad to have wiped that slug from my screen. Only one I've ever ignored forever.

But without question, the most deserving.

It's an insect, nothing more.

[Mars S]

More and more, I'm glad to have wiped that slug from my screen. Only one I've ever ignored forever.

But without question, the most deserving.

It's an insect, nothing more.

But not so completely "wiped" that he can resist trying to get in a feeble little slap...
what a dumbass.
I wonder if he's ever going to back up his bullshit about Bush killing science.
:add09:

[Cypher]

This message is hidden because Mars S is on your ignore list.
:happy_11:

[Mars S]

ya know cypher, if you were any more lame you'd be in a wheelchair.
dumbass
:add09:

[Cypher]

I presume Marcie's dribblings are attempted apologies for the flawed policies that recklessly handed the keys to the region to Iran.

I'm sure he'll rapidly turn to Israel to solve the problem before realizing its motives and preconceived notions were mindless to begin with.

And then, every American was given a free lollipop and a pot of mules.

Later, Mars. Might as well ignore me too.

Next life, bitch.

[Mars S]

wipe the drool off your chin, cypher...or is that jiz from blowing your dog?