War in Context

Informal Obama adviser steps aside over Hamas talks
By Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, May 9, 2008

One of the Obama campaign’s informal Middle East advisers, Robert Malley, confirms to NBC NEWS that he has resigned from any role in the campaign because critics have tried to make an issue of his meetings with Hamas. The Times of London called him about it this morning, and has posted a story online. As a result, he called Obama’s campaign today and took himself out of any future role.

Malley’s paid job is with the International Crisis Group, which, he says, requires him to meet with Hamas and others. Malley worked for six and a half years at the Clinton National Security Council under Tony Lake and Sandy Berger. Lake is now one of Obama’s top foreign policy advisors.

Speaking to NBC NEWS, Malley said, “I decided based on the fact that this was becoming a distraction that it was best that I remove myself from any association with the campaign.” [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Even though Malley resigned, the Murdoch-owned Times couldn’t resist giving this story the headline: “Barack Obama sacks adviser over talks with Hamas.” Neither The Times nor NBC News saw fit to reprint a statement in defense of Robert Malley that was issued in February and that was signed by Bill Clinton’s former National Security Adviser and two former US ambassadors to Israel. This is what they wrote:

Over the past several weeks, a series of vicious, personal attacks have been launched against one of our colleagues, Robert Malley, who served as President Clinton’s Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs. They claim that he harbours an anti-Israeli agenda and has sought to undermine Israel’s security. These attacks are unfair, inappropriate and wrong. They are an effort to undermine the credibility of a talented public servant who has worked tirelessly over the years to promote Arab-Israeli peace and US national interests. They must stop.

We have real differences among us about how best to conduct US policy toward the Middle East and what is the right way to build a lasting two-state solution that protects Israel’s security. But whatever differences do exist, there is no disagreement among us on one core issue that transcends partisan or other divides: that the US should not and will not do anything to undermine Israel’s safety or the special relationship between our two nations. We have worked with Rob closely over the years and have no doubt he shares this view and has acted consistent with it.

We face a critical period in the Middle East that demands sustained, determined and far-sighted engagement by the United States. It is not a time for scurrilous attacks against someone who deserves our respect.
Sincerely,

Samuel (Sandy) Berger
Former National Security Advisor
Amb. Martin Indyk
Former Ambassador to Israel and Egypt
and Assistant Secretary of
State for Near East Affairs
Amb. Daniel C. Kurtzer
Former Ambassador to Israel
Aaron David Miller
Former Senior Adviser for Arab-
Israeli Negotiations, Department
of State
Amb. Dennis Ross
Former Special Envoy of the President to the Middle East

I guess having influential and highly respected friends and colleagues ultimately doesn’t count for much in a political environment that has been shaped by the New McCarthyism.

McCain’s pastor problem: the video
By David Corn, Mother Jones, May 8, 2008

During a 2005 sermon, a fundamentalist pastor whom Senator John McCain has praised and campaigned with called Islam “the greatest religious enemy of our civilization and the world,” claiming that the historic mission of America is to see “this false religion destroyed.” In this taped sermon, currently sold by his megachurch, the Reverend Rod Parsley reiterates and amplifies harsh and derogatory comments about Islam he made in his book, Silent No More, published the same year he delivered these remarks. Meanwhile, McCain has stuck to his stance of not criticizing Parsley, an important political ally in a crucial swing state.

In March 2008—two weeks after McCain appeared with Parsley at a Cincinnati campaign rally, hailing him as “one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide”—Mother Jones reported that Parsley had urged Christians to wage a “war” to eradicate Islam in his 2005 book. McCain’s campaign refused to respond to questions about Parsley, and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee declined to denounce Parsley’s anti-Islam remarks or renounce his endorsement. At a time when Barack Obama was mired in a searing controversy involving Reverend Jeremiah Wright, McCain escaped any trouble for his political alliance with Parsley, who leads the World Harvest Church, a supersized Pentecostal institution in Columbus, Ohio. Parsley, whose sermons are broadcast around the world, has been credited with helping George W. Bush win Ohio in 2004 by registering social conservatives and encouraging them to vote. McCain certainly would like to see Parsley do the same for him—which could explain his reluctance to do any harm to his relationship with this anti-Islam extremist. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Robert Greenwald’s new video (above) is clearly crafted as a “gotcha” that’s meant to nail the Republicans in response for their exploitation of the Wright videos.

At face value, it’s perfectly legitimate. Rod Parsley is a vociferous Islamophobic hatemonger and McCain should have nothing to do with him. But given that McCain’s association is not particularly personal, is recent and is explicitly political, it’s worth pausing to consider what McCain’s calculations are here and whether he’s taken on the kind of liability of some of us might imagine.

In a Pew poll conducted just over a year ago, Americans ranked “Muslim” as a trait that would make 66% of Republicans less likely to vote for a presidential candidate. Overall, 46% of those polled said they would be less likely to vote for a Muslim candidate and 49% said it would make no difference.

Given that there have been no Muslim candidates in this election, the fact that the question was even being polled is a reflection of the effectiveness of the propaganda campaign that has been waged by Daniel Pipes and others in promoting what has become a widely held belief: that Barak Obama is or was a Muslim.

Were it not for the fact that hostility towards Muslims is widespread in America, and the fact that negative views of Islam and of the Middle East constitute a broadly accepted form of bigotry in this country, Obama could not be “accused” of being a Muslim. Most of those who have defended Obama against this false accusation have chosen to focus almost exclusively on the fact that it’s false while passing over the fact that it could be used as an accusation.

Those who think that McCain’s association with Rod Parsley (or Pastor Hagee) is something for which he might pay a political penalty, seem to be underestimating how deeply Islamophobia has permeated American culture. Yet what’s particularly noteworthy about this prejudice and the way it colors perceptions of all things Middle Eastern is that in a culture where political correctness has had the dubious success of curtailing so many other overt expressions of bigotry, what Parsley and Hagee have to say are things that many and perhaps even the majority of Americans do not find shocking. Islamophobia is the anti-Semiticism of this era. It’s a form of hatred that many people feel comfortable with and which few stand up to oppose.

When one considers the kinds of cultural stereotypes that have shaped America’s views of the Middle East and Islam, it’s not hard to understand why the Islamophobes find it easy to connect with a broad constituency. This isn’t something that started with 9/11. That event merely brought into focus attitudes that had long prevailed.

Check out “Planet of the Arabs” (9 minute video) if you haven’t seen it before and see how far back the fear and hostility goes:

By associating himself with this particular brand of hatemonger, McCain has taken a risk, yet it would seem to be a carefully calculated risk. I suspect his calculations are sound.

Those who want to rebuke him have every reason to feel righteous, but the rebukes are likely to provoke a backlash. We will be accused of being anti-Semitic, of being hostile towards Israel, of undermining the Christian values of America, and of giving comfort to the enemy.

What McCain seems to be doing is hanging out bait in the hope of a double catch: right wing evangelicals who feel culturally embattled and those on the left for whom being righteous serves as a substitute for broad political influence.

If McCain’s pastors really do end up becoming central to the general election, they will likely ending up serving the purpose for which they are intended: to turn this into a contest about which candidate is the most stalwart friend of Israel; who is going to stand up to the threat from Islamic extremism; who will be the most trustworthy defender of American values.

Parsley and Hagee are not McCain’s counterpart to the Wright issue. They are there to help him frame this campaign exactly the way he wants. The media will willingly play its part, and if we are so unwitting, so will we!

Hezbollah overruns west Beirut as Lebanon on brink
AFP, May 9, 2008
Hezbollah gunmen seized control of west Beirut on Friday after a third day of battles with pro-government foes in the Lebanese capital pushed the nation dangerously close to all-out civil war.

Hizballah prevailing in Beirut siege
By Andrew Lee Butler, Time, May 9, 2008
Just why the government chose this particular moment to move against Hizballah’s telecoms remains unclear. Hizballah, which fought Israel to a stand-still in the summer war of 2006, is much stronger on the ground than the government and is certain to win any confrontation. Still, Hizballah would have much to lose in an open civil war. Not only would the chaos distract the group from the far more dangerous struggle with Israel, but it could also help radical al-Qaeda-affiliated Sunni jihadi groups infiltrate Lebanon. Tellingly, Hizballah regulars have so far stayed out of the fighting, leaving the wet work to street gangs and a few regular fighters belonging to the Amal movement, an allied Shia opposition party.

But the government officials who moved against the Hizballah network are known to coordinate their actions with the United States, and the Bush administration may be digging in its heels into Lebanon while its days in office are on the wane. The Bush administration is keen both to preserve Lebanon’s independence from Syria, which ended its occupation of Lebanon in 2005 under American pressure, and to push for the disarmament of Hizballah, which the U.S. regards as a terrorist organization and a major threat to Israel. “Hizbollah needs to make a choice: Be a terrorist organization or be a political party, but quit trying to be both,” said a White House spokesman yesterday.

A secret Afghanistan mission prepares for war with Iran
By William M Arkin, Washington Post, May 8, 2008
Those predicting war with Iran or some Bush-Cheney October surprise attack on Tehran are constantly looking for signs of military preparations: a B-52 bomber that mistakenly takes off from North Dakota with nuclear-armed cruise missiles; a second or third aircraft carrier entering the Persian Gulf; a B-1 crashing in Qatar.

Since the most likely path to war with Iran is not Marines storming the beach but a strike on nuclear facilities and “regime” targets, signs such as these can often just be mirages. The true strike is not necessarily going to come with any warning, and the U.S. military has developed an entire system called “global strike” to implement such a preemptive strike.

A secret mission conducted last August over Afghanistan caught my eye because it tells us everything we need to know about the ability of the U.S. military to conduct a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack in Iran. It also tells us how useless such a strike might be.

Israel is 60, Zionism is dead, what now?
By Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan, May 8, 2008
Israel at 60 is an intractable historical fact. It has one of the world’s strongest armies, without peer in the Middle East, and its 200 or so nuclear warheads give it the last word in any military showdown with any of its neighbors. Don’t believe the hype about an Iranian threat – Israel certainly fears Iran attaining strategic nuclear capability, but not because it expects Iran to launch a suicidal nuclear exchange. That’s the sort of scare-story that gets trotted out for public consumption in Israel and the U.S. Behind closed doors, Israeli leaders admit that even a nuclear-armed Iran does not threaten Israel’s existence. (Israel’s security doctrine, however, is based on maintaining an overwhelming strategic advantage over all challengers, so the notion of parity along the lines of Cold War “Mutually Assured Destruction” with Iran is a major challenge, because without a nuclear monopoly, Israel loses a trump card in the regional power battle.)

Palestinian militants may be able to make life in certain parts of Israel exceedingly unpleasant at times, but they are unable to reverse the Nakbah of 1948 through military means. (Hamas knows this as well as Fatah does, which is why it is ready to talk about a long-term hudna and coexistence – although it won’t roll over and accept Israel’s terms as relayed by Washington in the way that the current Fatah leadership might.)

Portrait of an oil-addicted former superpower
By Michael Klare, TomDispatch, May 8, 2008
Nineteen years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall effectively eliminated the Soviet Union as the world’s other superpower. Yes, the USSR as a political entity stumbled on for another two years, but it was clearly an ex-superpower from the moment it lost control over its satellites in Eastern Europe.

Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel crude oil roared past $110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the $3.50 threshold at American pumps, and diesel fuel topped $4.00. As was true of the USSR following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the USA will no doubt continue to stumble on like the superpower it once was; but as the nation’s economy continues to be eviscerated to pay for its daily oil fix, it, too, will be seen by increasing numbers of savvy observers as an ex-superpower-in-the-making.

That the fall of the Berlin Wall spelled the erasure of the Soviet Union’s superpower status was obvious to international observers at the time. After all, the USSR visibly ceased to exercise dominion over an empire (and an associated military-industrial complex) encompassing nearly half of Europe and much of Central Asia. The relationship between rising oil prices and the obliteration of America’s superpower status is, however, hardly as self-evident. So let’s consider the connection.

U.S. officials urged to avoid linking Islam, jihad with terrorism
By Shaun Waterman, UPI, May 6, 2008
U.S. officials are being advised in internal government documents to avoid referring publicly to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups as Islamic or Muslim, and not to use terms like jihad or mujahedin, which “unintentionally legitimize” terrorism.

“There’s a growing consensus (in the administration) that we need to move away from that language,” said a former senior administration official who was involved until recently in policy debates on the issue.

Instead, in two documents circulated last month by the National Counter-Terrorism Center, the multiagency center charged with strategic coordination of the U.S. war on terrorism, officials are urged to use terms like violent extremists, totalitarian and death cult to characterize al-Qaida and other terror groups.

U.S. deploys more than 43,000 unfit for combat
By Gregg Zoroya, USA Today, May 7, 2008
More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.

This reliance on troops found medically “non-deployable” is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million servicemembers to the war zones, soldier advocacy groups say.

“It is a consequence of the consistent churning of our troops,” said Bobby Muller, president of Veterans For America. “They are repeatedly exposed to high-intensity combat with insufficient time at home to rest and heal before redeploying.”

Killing by the numbers
By Mark Benjamin and Christopher Weaver, Salon, May 9, 2008
Three snipers with exemplary military records from the 1st Battalion of the 25th Infantry Division’s 501st Regiment were charged in Khudair’s killing. They were tried by the military judicial system in Iraq beginning in 2007. But the most important question raised by his death remains unanswered. Why would these elite American soldiers kill an unarmed prisoner in cold blood? The answer: pressure from their commanding officers to pump up a statistic straight out of America’s last long war against an intractable insurgency.

A review of thousands of pages of documents from the legal proceedings obtained by Salon shows that in the months prior to Khudair’s death, the young snipers, already frustrated by guerrilla tactics, were pressed to their physical limits and pushed by officers to stretch the bounds of the laws of war in order to increase the enemy body count. When the United States wallowed in Vietnam’s counterinsurgency quagmire decades ago, the same pressure placed on soldiers resulted in some of the worst atrocities of that war. A paratrooper who remembered the insidious influence of body counts in Vietnam warned Salon in 2005 that the practice could also ensnare good soldiers in Iraq. “The problem is that in Iraq, we are in a guerrilla war,” said Dennis Stout. “How do you keep score? How do you prove you are winning?”

The plight of Myanmar
By Paul Woodward, The National, May 8, 2008
CNN reported: “The death toll from the cyclone that ravaged the Irrawaddy delta in Myanmar may exceed 100,000, the senior US diplomat in the military-ruled country said on Wednesday.

“‘The information we are receiving indicates over 100,000 deaths,’ said the US charge d’affaires in Yangon, Shari Villarosa…

The Rule of Lords blog carries first hand testimonies of the plight of survivors on the Irrawaddy delta, as told to the Yoma 3 television channel in Thailand: “Along every road … whatever road, there are so many dead they’re uncountable. For this reason many more in the villages could die. My mother, father, brothers and sisters are all dead. I can’t do anything. I’m left all alone.”

A terrible crime – the punishment of a whole population
By Jimmy Carter, The National, May 7, 2008
The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world by sea, air, or land. An entire population is being brutally punished.

This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international observers.

Born at the dawn of a new state
By Griff Witte, Washington Post, May 8, 2008
Sixty years ago, Dror Gurel and Nabil Zaharan were born into a land at war.

Sons of middle-class families, they entered the world during the same week and along the same stretch of sun-splashed Mediterranean coast. Gurel was born in Jewish Tel Aviv; Zaharan’s mother gave birth just down the road, in Arab Jaffa.

Yet it was a third birth that week that, more than anything, has shaped their lives.

Clinton enters the twilight zone
By John M Broder, New York Times, May 8, 2008
End the dynasty!” a young man holding an Obama poster shouted when Chelsea Clinton stepped to the microphone.

All the while, a smile was fixed on Mrs. Clinton’s perfectly made-up face — not a hair was out of place — and she betrayed only an occasional glimmer of recognition of the exceedingly narrow straits she must now navigate.

Government in secret
By Russ Feingold, Los Angeles Times, May 8, 2008
The Bush administration recently announced it will allow select members of Congress to read Justice Department legal opinions about the CIA’s controversial detainee interrogation program that have been hidden from Congress until now. But as the administration allows a glimpse of this secret law — and it is law — we are left wondering what other laws it is still keeping under lock and key.

It’s a given in our democracy that laws should be a matter of public record. But the law in this country includes not just statutes and regulations, which the public can readily access. It also includes binding legal interpretations made by courts and the executive branch. These interpretations are increasingly being withheld from the public and Congress.

Ex-Guantanamo detainee joined Iraq suicide attack
By Josh White, Washington Post, May 8, 2008
A Kuwaiti man who complained about maltreatment during a three-year stay in the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was involved in a deadly suicide bombing in northern Iraq last month, the U.S. military confirmed yesterday.

Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi, 29, whom the U.S. military accused of fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan and wanting to kill Americans, was involved in one of three suicide bombings that killed seven Iraqi security forces in Mosul on April 26, Defense Department officials said.

Editor’s Comment — There are a series of questions here that can be peeled away like the layers of an onion. On the outside, the one that Gitmo fans will say has an obvious answer: Was it a mistake for al Ajmi to have been released? Next: Would he have been likely to become a suicide bomber had he never been detained? Would he have become a suicide bomber had he not been tortured?

But most important of all: How many suicide bombings would there have been in the last seven years had Guantanamo never become the globally recognized emblem of American vengeance?

The next big mistake in Iraq: trying to shut out Moqtada al Sadr
By Mohamad Bazzi, The National, May 7, 2008
In hindsight, it is easy to see the mistakes that the United States made in Iraq: the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the whole-scale purge of Ba’ath Party members that crippled any effort to build a new government. It is harder to see mistakes about to be made. But there’s one major error unfolding right now, and it’s not too late to prevent it: the exclusion of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr from the political process.

The consequences of trying to isolate Sadr and his political movement are profound: he will lash out further at the Iraqi government and US troops, his supporters will completely abandon the ceasefire he imposed last August, and violence will spiral out of control once again. US commanders credit Sadr’s ceasefire with a significant drop in both attacks on US forces and sectarian bloodletting. Those highly touted gains made during the “surge” of US troops will evaporate.

Why no HageeGate? Russert explains
By Liz Cox Barrett, CJR, May 6, 2008

On Imus in the Morning yesterday, Tim Russert supplied an answer to that question — bubbling online and, yesterday, on the New York Times’ op-ed page — given WrightGate, where is HageeGate? You know, not that it’s an apples-to-apples comparison (Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and McCain’s relationship with Rev. John Hagee) but why have Wright’s way-out words received wall-to-wall coverage while Hagee’s hateful homilies have hardly been mentioned? [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — If there’s a lesson to take away from the Wright issue, I’d say it’s that we should hope that there will not be a HageeGate?

How come? Wouldn’t there be some sort of parity in that?

Firstly, McCain insulated himself quite effectively from the get go by saying, “It’s simply not accurate to say that because someone endorses me that I therefore embrace their views.”

Secondly, Hagee is a slimy hatemonger who will gladly appear on any “telecast” and tailor his message to fit his audience.

Thirdly, bringing attention to Hagee will help him serve as a proxy who will fire up xenophobic support for McCain that McCain himself might not want overtly solicit.

Fourthly, attacks on Hagee will be used to imply that his critics are anti-Semites.

Fifthly, HageeGate could easily become as big a distraction from the slim possibility of there being a substantive campaign as has been the Wright issue.

Sixthly, to compare Wright to Hagee is an insult to Wright.

As for whether Tim Russert has any interest in digging into this: On MSNBC last night, he actually said there’s plenty of time for this issue to be brought up. That sounds like he was saying, when a news organization decides that now is the time to air a Hagee video, that’s exactly what they’ll do. But if instead of it being one of his attacks on Catholicism, it’s one of his attacks on Islam, this election will turn uglier than anything that’s happened so far.

It’s all over now, baby blue
By John B Judis, New Republic, May 7, 2008

The Democratic primary is over. Hillary Clinton might still run in West Virginia and Kentucky, which she’ll win handily, but by failing to win Indiana decisively and by losing North Carolina decisively, she lost the argument for her own candidacy. She can’t surpass Barack Obama’s delegate or popular vote count. The question is no longer who will be the Democratic nominee, but whether Obama can defeat Republican John McCain in November. And the answer to that is still unclear.

During the last two months, Obama has faltered as a candidate. He has seen his political base narrow rather than widen, and some of his strengths turn into weaknesses. Of course, he has had to deal with the scandal surrounding Reverend Jeremiah Wright, but even so, he needs to remedy certain flaws in his political approach if he wants to defeat McCain in the fall. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Judis continues a spurious line of argument that the media has pushed throughout this primary: that there is some form of equivalence between a contest between Obama and Clinton and between Obama and McCain — as though there is no inherent difference between a primary and the general election. But of course there is.

Let’s just take one of what Judis lists as Obama’s “flaws” - lack of forcefulness.

As much as Obama has said he has never taken getting the nomination for granted, unlike his opponent he has campaigned with an eye to winning the support of her supporters. He hopes that hardcore Clinton supporters can become willing Obama voters. Hillary’s forcefulness on the other hand — the fighting spirit that the media has become so enamored with in recent weeks — has been applied without the slightest consideration about how she would repair the damage if, against all odds, she was to win the nomination. Her willingness to trample on her opponent might have created the perception that she’s tough, but what she has really displayed is a form of political recklessness that veers towards being self-destructive.

Instead of talking about forcefulness — something that can amount to nothing more than political theater — what really counts is steel and determination: an unwavering focus not only on winning the election but on what comes after that. By this measure Obama has already demonstrated that he’s made of the right stuff and perfectly capable of standing up against a fumbling McCain.

Pins and panders
By Richard Cohen, Washington Post, May 6, 2008

Sometimes I think the best thing about Barack Obama is that little empty space on his lapel. It is where other politicians wear the American flag pin, a kitschy piece of empty symbolism that tells you nothing about that particular person except that he or she thinks like everyone else. Obama’s flag, invisible to the naked eye, is the Jolly Roger of a politician thinking for himself. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — The flag issue - relating to lapels or anywhere else - exposes the divisiveness that so often parades itself as patriotism.

When one American turns to another and says or insinuates, “I am more American than you are; I love my country more deeply than you do,” he is paradoxically expressing a revulsion for this nation. For he sees in it on the one side, greater Americans, and on the other side, lesser Americans. The Americanness to which he holds so fast, has embedded within it a contempt for those fellow Americans who do not see their own identity wrapped up in a flag. How can this square with the principle of equality upon which America was founded?

Doubting the evidence against Iran
By Mark Kukis and Abigail Hauslohner, Time, May 5, 2008

American circles in Baghdad and Washington are probably not pleased with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s plan for a special panel to investigate allegations of Iranian interference in Iraq. Many U.S. officials are already convinced of the worst and, for years, U.S. officials have now aired accusations against Iran, insisting that Tehran is stoking Iraq’s violence by keeping up a flow of money, weapons and trained fighters into the country. The Iraqi government, however, remains unconvinced — with good reason.

“We want to find really good evidence and not evidence made on speculations,” Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the Iraqi government, told reporters in Baghdad on Sunday. Last week an Iraqi government delegation went to Tehran to discuss the allegations of Iranian involvement in the Iraqi militias, the government said. Details of the evidence presented in Tehran remains hazy, but at the same time American officials in Baghdad and Washington have never offered a convincing case publicly to support their allegations. [complete article]

Iraqi government caught in the middle as US directs new accusations at Iran
By Paul Woodward, The National, May 6, 2008

In line with the American accusations, the Iraqi government has confirmed that it has “concrete evidence” that Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq. Even so, Iraqi officials have been at pains to draw a distinction between saying that these weapons were produced in Iran without necessarily concluding that they were supplied by Iran.

In an interview with The Washington Post, the Iraqi government spokesman Ali al Dabbagh said: “The truth came out; there is evidence of Iranian weapons in Iraq. Now we need to document who sent them.”

The Christian Science Monitor noted that the Iraqi delegation’s visit to Tehran “coincided with the release of the annual US terrorism report, which declared Iran, as in years past, to be the ‘most significant’ state sponsor of terrorism.” The report added: “It also quietly raised the official number of US and Iraqi soldiers allegedly ‘killed’ by Iranian actions in Iraq from ‘hundreds’ to ‘thousands’ - a surprise to analysts sceptical even of the lower figure.” [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — If the Iranians are guilty as charged, there does seem to be something thoroughly American in their approach — the training and arming of a proxy force and studious application of the principle of “plausible deniability.” It has more than the aroma of Reagan-era support for the Contras. Shouldn’t Elliot Abrams, John Negroponte, Oliver North et al feel flattered?

Pentagon targeted Iran for regime change after 9/11
By Gareth Porter, IPS , May 5, 2008
Three weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith’s recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.

Feith’s account further indicates that this aggressive aim of remaking the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat of force was supported explicitly by the country’s top military leaders.

The new immorality of Iraq war
By James Carroll, Boston Globe, May 5, 2008
Insanity is defined as repeating one mistaken action again and again, each time expecting a better result that never comes. Prime example: the United States in Iraq. Washington perceived a weapons of mass destruction threat from Saddam Hussein, but instead of responding with diplomacy - internationally coordinated weapons inspections - it went to war. When Saddam Hussein was toppled, the initiative should have passed from the Pentagon to a State Department-led program of stabilization and reconstruction, but instead a crudely violent military occupation was begun. Diplomacy was once again rejected.

Today, the United States, fearing a geo-political setback that will undercut the broader “war on terror,” is putting the diehard goal of military “victory” ahead of the diplomatic initiatives that alone can enable the reconstruction of Iraqi society. The needed spirit of cooperation among Iraqi factions, and from other nations, will never materialize as long as the United States pursues the fantasy that its armed might will at last prevail. Once again, diplomacy is being rejected in favor of war. This is insane.

The last war and the next one
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch, May 4, 2008
The last war won’t end, but in the Pentagon they’re already arguing about the next one.

Let’s start with that “last war” and see if we can get things straight. Just over five years ago, American troops entered Baghdad in battle mode, felling the Sunni-dominated government of dictator Saddam Hussein and declaring Iraq “liberated.” In the wake of the city’s fall, after widespread looting, the new American administrators dismantled the remains of Saddam’s government in its hollowed out, trashed ministries; disassembled the Sunni-dominated Baathist Party which had ruled Iraq since the 1960s, sending its members home with news that there was no coming back; dismantled Saddam’s 400,000 man army; and began to denationalize the economy. Soon, an insurgency of outraged Sunnis was raging against the American occupation.

America’s newshounds have turned into a pack of poodles
By James Zogby, The National, May 4, 2008
The Arab media may not be free, in the sense that there is government ownership and, in varying degrees, interference and censorship. But Arab journalists are free thinkers, and quite serious about expanding their freedom to examine critical issues.

All this stands in interesting contrast to the US media that, while cherishing and boasting of its freedom, is increasingly constrained by factors that have resulted in limiting that freedom. The US press is technically free of government influence, but there are a combination of political, cultural and commercial considerations that have made the US media less free and less inquisitive. The controls are not overt, but subtle and at all times pervasive — and decisive.

There is, for example, the “corporatisation” of the media, which has resulted both in a dumbing down of content and the push to mimic, rather than compete in the ever-demanding need to increase ratings. There is the incestuous nature of the Washington scene: its revolving door of journalists going into government and vice versa; the self-serving need to protect access, and the shared social circle of too many government and media elites that results in self-imposed restraint.

Hezbollah trains Iraqis in Iran, Pentagon’s New York Times spokesman says
By Michael R Gordon, New York Times, May 5, 2008

Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran, according to American interrogation reports that the United States has supplied to the Iraqi government.

An American official said the account of Hezbollah’s role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately.

The United States has long charged that the Iranians were training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran, which Iran has consistently denied, and there have been previous reports about Hezbollah operatives in Iraq.

But the Americans say the reports of Hezbollah’s role at the Iranian camp offer important details about Iranian assistance to the militias, including efforts Iran appears to be making to train the fighters in unobtrusive ways. [complete article]

Iraq: Al-Sadr refuses to meet Baghdad delegation In Iran
By Kathleen Ridolfo, RFE/RL, May 3, 2008

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki dispatched a delegation of leading Shi’ite figures to Iran last week in order to present Tehran with mounting evidence of Iran’s support for rogue militias in Iraq. But Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia continues to battle Iraqi and U.S. forces in Baghdad and other areas and who has been in Iran for months, refused to meet with the delegation.

The Iraqi delegation reportedly met with Qasim Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps’ Qods Force, on May 1, and was expected to meet again with him on May 2. The force is suspected of being the main supplier of Iranian-made weapons to Iraq. It has also been linked to the training of Iraqi militiamen. The delegation was also slated to meet with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

On May 2, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini downplayed the delegation’s visit, saying, “Iranian officials will hold talks with this delegation in line with helping settle differences and ongoing clashes in Iraq.” [complete article]

Interview with Mohsen Hakim
Los Angeles Times, May 4, 2008

Mohsen Hakim is the Tehran representative of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, and a son of the SIIC leader, Abdelaziz Hakim.

LAT: So why is there postponement of the next round of talks between Iran and the U.S.?
HAKIM: There are technical problems.

LAT: What do you mean by “technical”?
HAKIM: I mean, anything that happens in the negotiations has an impact on Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan. Look, Iraqi security issue is not separated from other issues in the Middle East. On the whole, security in the region is not divisible. If there is no security in Iraq, there is no security anywhere in the region. We look at the security of Iraq as a organic security package for the whole region.

LAT: In fact, you want Iran and U.S. negotiations in Iraq to be all-encompassing negotiations?
HAKIM: Look, we as Iraqis care most now about our own problems. But we look at the security of Iraq as a common case between Iran and the U.S. I tell you with 100% certainty that if the security of Iraq is settled, the region will be affected positively. Iraq is not an isolated issue. Remember that. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — “Unobtrusive ways” — now Michael Gordon could have chose an equally suitable phrase: plausible deniability.

The fact that the US military keeps pushing the story that Hezbollah is training Shia militia fighters in Iran raises a question that, as far as I know, still remains unanswered: Did the US have a role in the assassination of top Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh on February 12 in Damascus? At the time it was assumed that Mossad was behind the killing, but last month M K Bhadrakumar wrote in >Asia Times:

Fars [the Iranian news agency, which is close to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps] named Saudi Prince Banda al-Sultan, formerly Saudi ambassador in Washington, as responsible and that the Saudis were retaliating for the 1996 car bomb attack at the Abdul Aziz airbase in Khobar near Dahran in Saudi Arabia, which was allegedly planned and executed by Mughniyeh. The Fars report would have brought a welcome relief to Israeli intelligence, since the prevailing impression in the region was that Syria would accuse Israel of involvement in Mughniyeh’s assassination, which in turn would be the signal for Hezbollah to retaliate and for Israel to hit at Lebanon and possibly even Syria.

The fact that Iran would push a story blaming the Saudis may imply that they were willing to disown Mughniyeh and also that he wasn’t the strategic asset that the US imagined him to be.

If there is a consistent failing in American analysis it seems to be in, 1. over emphasizing the significance of individuals — we have a fascination with the acquisition of personal power and thus find it difficult to discern networks and social trends whose existence doesn’t depend on kingpins, and 2. in the homogenization of diversity — we see entities instead of seeing complexity. Any time anyone says “the Iranians”, one has to wonder, who are they talking about?

It’s not hard to understand why the US government has always found foreign relations easier when it can work with dictators. If you can cut deals with The Man, you don’t have to worry about the people.

Wright and ridiculous
By Sebastian Mallaby, Washington Post, May 5, 2008

Of all the strange features of this presidential race, the tarnishing of Barack Obama has got to be the most ridiculous. First Obama was accused of anti-religious elitism. Then he was accused of identifying with the underclass anger of his spiritual mentor. Excuse me, but which is it? Am I supposed to believe that Obama is a supercilious elitist or a menacing ghetto radical? Is he contemptuous of religion or too close to a religious leader? Obama’s critics don’t bother to say. Meanwhile, real character issues go relatively unheeded.

Start with Obama’s turbulent preacher. Yes, Jeremiah Wright says some disgraceful things. But can anyone explain how that changes Obama’s qualities as a candidate? Is anyone suggesting that an Obama administration would view AIDS as a government plot to kill African Americans? Or that it would govern from the perspective that the United States is a terrorist nation? Obviously an Obama administration would do no such thing. Which makes the storm over the preacher an absurd digression.

The Wright affair tells us that Obama bonded with someone whose political views are sometimes toxic. But as a young man trying to make sense of his mixed heritage, Obama looked to Wright for spiritual guidance, not political tutorials; as a community organizer, Obama focused on Wright’s admirable social work, not his resentment of the white establishment. Indeed, Obama’s own views on race and politics were diametrically opposed to those of his pastor. This is the candidate who campaigned for as long as possible as though race were irrelevant — as though the tantalizing prospect that the United States might elect its first black president were merely incidental. A few months ago, there were those who suggested that Obama was not black enough. Now he is too black? This is preposterous. [complete article]

Clinton camp considering nuclear option to overtake delegate lead
By Thomas B Edsall, Huffington Post, May 4, 2008

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has a secret weapon to build its delegate count, but her top strategists say privately that any attempt to deploy it would require a sharp (and by no means inevitable) shift in the political climate within Democratic circles by the end of this month.

With at least 50 percent of the Democratic Party’s 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee committed to Clinton, her backers could — when the committee meets at the end of this month — try to ram through a decision to seat the disputed 210-member Florida and 156-member Michigan delegations. [complete article]

How Hillary Clinton botched the black vote
By Thomas F. Schaller, Salon, May 5, 2008

If Hillary Clinton fails to wrest the Democratic presidential nomination from Barack Obama, there will be plenty of second-guessing about how she ran her campaign. What if her loyalty to campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle and chief strategist Mark Penn had not prevented her from demoting them sooner? What if her electoral strategists had better understood the power of caucus states and the way in which votes cast there translated into delegates? What if she had actually planned for the month following Super Tuesday, thereby preventing Obama from posting the 11 straight wins after Feb. 5 that provided him the pledged delegate lead he enjoys today? But beyond these questions, one little-discussed factor (with direct or indirect relation to all of the above) appears to have had fatal consequences for Clinton’s campaign: She failed to mount a strong enough challenge to Obama’s claim on the African-American vote. [complete article]

Hillary Clinton doesn’t listen to economists
By Robert Reich, May 4, 2008

When asked this morning by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos if she could name a single economist who backs her call for a gas tax holiday this summer, HRC said “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”

I know several of the economists who have been advising Senator Clinton, so I phoned them right after I heard this. I reached two of them. One hadn’t heard her remark and said he couldn’t believe she’d say it. The other had heard it and shrugged it off as “politics as usual.”

That’s the problem: Politics as usual. [complete article]

The all-white elephant in the room
By Frank Rich, New York Times, May 4, 2008

Bored by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.

What you’ll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

Mr. Hagee is not a fringe kook but the pastor of a Texas megachurch. On Feb. 27, he stood with John McCain and endorsed him over the religious conservatives’ favorite, Mike Huckabee, who was then still in the race. [complete article]

Essay on Jeremiah Wright
By Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal, May 2, 2008

I once asked a reporter back from Vietnam, “Who’s telling the truth over there?” “Everyone, he said. “Everyone sees what’s happening through the lens of their own experience.” That’s how people see Jeremiah Wright. In my conversation with him on this broadcast a week ago and in his dramatic public appearances since, he revealed himself to be far more complex than the sound bites that propelled him onto the public stage. Over 2000 of you have written me about him, and your opinions vary widely. Some sting: “Jeremiah Wright is nothing more than a race-hustling, American hating radical,” one viewer wrote. A “nut case,” said another. Others were far more were sympathetic to him.

Many of you have asked for some rational explanation for Wright’s transition from reasonable conversation to shocking anger at the National Press Club. A psychologist might pull back some of the layers and see this complicated man more clearly, but I’m not a psychologist. Many black preachers I’ve known — scholarly, smart, and gentle in person — uncorked fire and brimstone in the pulpit. Of course I’ve known many white preachers like that, too.

But where I grew up in the south, before the civil rights movement, the pulpit was a safe place for black men to express anger for which they would have been punished anywhere else; a safe place for the fierce thunder of dignity denied, justice delayed. I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated, whipped, and lynched. Or if my great-great grandfather had been but three-fifths of a person in a constitution that proclaimed, “We the people.” Or if my own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Connor, and Jesse Helms. Even so, the anger of black preachers I’ve known and heard about and reported on was, for them, very personal and cathartic. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — At this point, the media’s lack of interest in Hagee is proportionate to its lack of interest in McCain. The election story for now is above all else the Clinton-Obama fight. And this begs a different question on double standards: Why has the Doug Coe/The Fellowship story been so resolutely ignored?

It hasn’t even generated that much interest in the hyper-reactive blogosphere, and even when NBC News picked up the story a month ago, no one followed. Is it because delving into The Fellowship is going to open up such a big can of worms that involves so many leading figures from both parties that no one wants to take the risk? Or is it because The Fellowship has inserted itself so deeply into the establishment that its powerful defenders make it well nigh invulnerable to public scrutiny?

Obama has been pummeled with questions about his relationship with Wright. Isn’t it time for Hillary to answer a few on what she thinks about Doug Coe’s views on Hitler’s approach to leadership?

One last thought on the Wright issue: Everyone is a captive of their own form of parochiality and in one respect, Jeremiah Wright is in the same company as the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Each has demonstrated an apparent ineptness in handling the media, but the explanation for why they could so easily be misrepresented may be quite obvious: The privilege of those who preach is that they can expect an attentive audience, willing to listen to fully formed statements that take an hour to hear and several more to digest. They have polished their communication skills in a form that does not lend itself to the reductions that the media demands.

A blacklash?
By Charles M Blow, New York Times, May 3, 2008

Since January, the Clintons have pummeled Barack Obama with racially tinged comments and questions about his character.

Hillary Clinton has questioned why he didn’t walk out on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.; why he “denounced” but didn’t “reject” Louis Farrakhan; and whether he is too chummy with the former radical Bill Ayers. She chastised his characterization of white working-class voters as being highfalutin and chided him for not agreeing to a street-fight-style debate.

Bill Clinton has called Obama’s stance on the war a fairy tale, dismissed an early primary win as mere Jesse Jackson redux and recently claimed that Obama was playing the race card against him. Some of this is valid, the result of Obama’s own missteps, but some of it is baffling.

The rhetoric appears to be trafficking in old fears and historic stereotypes. The unspoken (and confusing) characterization of Obama is that he’s militant yet cowardly; uppity yet too cool for school.

The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much.

On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period). [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — The calculus for Superdelegates seems to come down to this: Will it be easier for Obama to win over disappointed or wary white Clinton supporters, or for Hillary to win back angry and alienated black voters (along with first-time voters inspired by Obama)? Building trust with those you’ve betrayed takes more than a fighting spirit and a candidate already perceived as untrustworthy hardly stands a chance.

United States is drawing up plans to strike on Iranian insurgency camp