War Without End

Alpha

A NOT-SO-NEUTRAL CORNER
By Ciro Scotti *
Senior Editor, Business Week

April 14, 2004

(From) Blame Bush for What Came After 9/11

"THE REAL THREAT"? Philip Zelikow, now the executive director of the September 11 commission, served on the National Security Council, was on the Bush transition team, and was a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 2001 to 2003. According to the Inter Press Service, he said during a war-on-terror forum at the University of Virginia Law School on Sept. 10, 2002: "I'll tell you what the real threat [is] and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dares not speak its name because...the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically because it's not a popular sell."

So to boil all this down, we went to war, sacrificed thousands of human lives, racked up billions in bills, and flouted the rules of international law for three basic reasons: Israel, oil, and the vengeance of a son whose father didn't finish off Saddam and then was targeted for assassination by the Iraqi Horror Show in 1993?

* Ciro Scotti, senior editor for government and sports business, offers his views in
A Not-So-Neutral Corner, only for BusinessWeek Online Edited by Douglas Harbrecht

Alpha

Subj: Neocon Call for Tougher US Policy in Iraq
Date: 4/18/04 7:02:24 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: hectorpv@comcast.net
To: hectorpv@comcast.net

Friends,

Neocon Call for Tougher US Policy in Iraq

A common theme among the neocons and even more so among the rightist talk radio folk is that the US has to get tougher in Iraq. This appeals to the super-patriot and Muslim-hating pro-war masses who don’t have much of an understanding of foreign relations. Sometimes I have heard people who call in to the radio talk shows advocating using nuclear weapons.

Mona Charen makes the more educated and respectable neocon call for toughness. The US is not out to kill Iraqis. Heavens no! But the only way to democratize them is to establish order—and this entails a much tougher policy. "But Iraq cannot be truly liberated until it has been transformed. And it cannot be transformed if the bad elements are not afraid of American soldiers. Those gleeful faces in Fallujah make the point: They think we are patsies."

"Toughness" includes the prohibition of telling "lies" about the US—i.e., criticism of US policy must be prohibited. There is no reason to allow civil liberties in present-day Iraq. "Baghdad is not Boston. You can't teach democracy until you first have order. And you cannot have order if people like Al-Sadr think they can bully you." To achieve freedom and democracy you first need censorship and suppression. One thinks again of the words of Dostoyevsky’s character Shigalov in "The Possessed": "I have started out with the idea of unrestricted freedom and I have arrived at unrestricted despotism."

Note the transformation and presumably military occupation is not just for Iraq but for the entire region. "The work of transforming the Middle East is going to be messy and difficult. But there is no alternative. To permit the region to simmer in ignorance, tyranny and fantasies of revenge is to incubate terrorism."

In short, America has to transform the entire Middle East, which will require harsh military measures, in order to achieve security. This is the neocon World War IV scenario. The original author of the World War IV concept is Elliot Cohen, but it was popularized by Norman Podhoretz, whose article entitled "How to Win World War IV" appeared in Commentary shortly after 9/1.http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j040403.html Richard Perle and his co-author David Frum emphasize this same theme in their new book _An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror_"

Right now the American people would not accept the World War IV approach. However, an increasing toughness in Iraq could have a snowball effect. The more killing of Iraqis can so inflame the Islamic world as to bring about more attacks on the Americans throughout the world and in the US itself. Numerous Americans (listen to Talk Radio or read the News groups) are already calling for brutal policies against the Arabs/Muslims, including nuclear weapons and outright genocide. If the Iraqis somehow manage to slaughter large numbers of American troops or if terrorists manage to pull off a significant attack in the US, the neocons might be able to gain a majority of Americans behind their World War IV final solution.

Obviously, this could not transform the Arabs/Muslims into American/Israel loving democrats but it could lead to a lot of killing and make the Arabs/Muslims hate the US forever—a situation that Likudnik Israel could exploit for its own aggrandizement.

______________________

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/charen.html

Jewish World Review April 9, 2004 / 19 Nissan, 5764

Mona Charen

Are we tough enough?

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |

As American and coalition soldiers are fired upon in Iraq, we may be seeing the radiating ripples of the Spanish election. If terror can succeed in Madrid, why not in Fallujah and Basra and Ramadi?

Iraq is obviously not among the more civilized nations on earth. Saddam's barbarism was extreme, but it and he arose from a culture of terror and fear. One can imagine Saddam watching TV in his jail cell and chortling over the mutilated bodies of our aid workers in Fallujah. "Now maybe you Americans see why I ruled with an iron fist?"

Of course, in truth, Saddam's rule only further brutalized a people already accustomed to tyranny.

President Bush has been forceful in his commitment to democratizing the Middle East. What remains up for debate is how long it will take before Iraq is ready for free elections. A simple respect for the rule of law must precede self-government. Among the fractious, suspicious, violent and emotional Iraqi people, such respect has not been much in evidence yet.

Rumors, for example, are Iraq's principle communications media. Among the legends that have circulated widely in the past year, reports Tom Squitieri of USA Today, include: 1) that toys distributed by U.S. soldiers to Iraqi children cause deadly diseases; 2) that Saddam is in a Colorado ski resort; 3) that the United States is holding back electricity to punish the Iraqi people; 4) that Israel is behind the U.S. invasion; and 5) that night vision goggles permit U.S. soldiers to see through the clothing of Iraqi women.

The U.S.-led coalition has already accomplished an enormous amount, including introducing a new currency, reopening schools (with revised textbooks), re-establishing power grids, arranging for adequate water supplies, presiding over the opening of more than 100 newspapers and numerous radio and television stations, helping to establish democratically elected local councils, training new police and a professional and non-terrorist army, and more. The task we have set ourselves is Herculean. And most Americans do not speak the language.

But the question of the moment is not whether we've done enough good, but whether we've been tough enough. We Americans hate being occupiers. We are liberators. But Iraq cannot be truly liberated until it has been transformed. And it cannot be transformed if the bad elements are not afraid of American soldiers. Those gleeful faces in Fallujah make the point: They think we are patsies.

Are we? Moqtada al-Sadr, the 30-ish cleric who only now has been issued an arrest warrant for a murder committed (supposedly on his order) a year ago, has been handled with kid gloves until now. His newspaper has printed the vilest incitement, accusing the United States for example, of using an Apache helicopter to bomb 50 police recruits on Feb. 10 in front of an Iraqi police station. In truth, the attack was actually the work of terrorists.

Why would the U.S. bomb Iraqis attempting to cooperate with the coalition in building a new police force? It doesn't matter that it defies common sense. The rumor mill churns on. Al-Sadr has used his newspaper, Al Hawza, to urge "terrorism" against American forces. And what has been the result? Several stern warnings. Only when Sadr's "Mahdi Army," a mob of criminals, former Baathists (ironic since Saddam executed Sadr's father) and Islamists, began firing at Americans did the civil administrator shut Al Hawza down.

Perhaps they stayed their hand because they knew closing a newspaper would provoke criticism stateside. And it did. Editorials across the nation, from The New York Times to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, to the Detroit News to The San Francisco Chronicle scolded the administration for hypocrisy.

"Shutting down a newspaper," explained the Hartford Courant's editorial, "even an anti-American publication, doesn't teach democracy."

Well, hold on a minute. Baghdad is not Boston. You can't teach democracy until you first have order. And you cannot have order if people like Al-Sadr think they can bully you.

Why did we let ourselves in for all of this? As James Burnham used to say, "Where there's no alternative, there's no problem." The work of transforming the Middle East is going to be messy and difficult. But there is no alternative. To permit the region to simmer in ignorance, tyranny and fantasies of revenge is to incubate terrorism.

http://www.nowarforisrael.com

http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html

US warned that continued US support for Israel would result in attacks on US soil (but the 'protect Israel first' US press/media did not convey this warning to Americans to the extent that it should have back in 1998):

http://www.investigate911.com/binladensez.htm

Alpha · Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 12:50 am Post subject: Bush's dangerous arrogance

Subj: Bush's dangerous arrogance
Date: 4/18/04 4:02:05 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: jblankfort@earthlink.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)

What is significant about this article, apart from its contents, is that its author is a veteran correspondent who has been unabashedly pro-American.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1194276,00.html

Bush's dangerous arrogance
HenryPorter
Sunday April 18, 2004
The Observer

Somewhere in the mesmerising performance by RobertS.McNamara, the former US Defence Secretary, in the film The Fog of War, he says: 'America has no friends, only allies.'

It's a phrase that should be chiselled into the Cabinet table because each new Prime Minister believes that the special relationship, a phrase that is unrecognised in the States, entails special favours, access and status.

Any such illusion must have disintegrated for Blair last week after Sharon and Bush, operating in the exclusive club of their victimhood, made an announcement about the future of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Naturally, the Palestinians were not consulted; it is merely their land.

More surprising in a way was that Blair remained outside the loop from last Sunday onwards when Sharon's people met two members of the National Security Council and a senior American diplomat in Washington's Hay Adams Hotel to thrash out an agreement before Sharon arrived 48 hours later.

Blair gave no hint of bitterness in the RoseGarden press conference on Friday, but considering the risks he has taken to support America since 9/11, it was astonishingly ungracious of Bush to keep him out of these negotiations. The 'Road Map' and the promise of multilateral action in Palestine and the West Bank were, after all, the only real concession that Blair won in exchange for British help in Iraq. Yet before he had even touched down in America, the deal was done. Bush's undertaking to his 'friend' had been chucked away like a motto in Christmas cracker.

I am one of those who believe that Blair should be relieved of his duties because of the failure to find WMD but, even so, I would not wish the humiliation he has suffered on him or any British Prime Minister. He has been one of America's staunchest allies, biting his lip at the serial crassness of US commanders and arguing the American case tirelessly, as he did last weekend in these pages. Yet, despite the enthusiastic tone at the White House, the reality is that he was cast aside as soon as Bush didn't need him.

American foreign policy consists entirely of self-interest, never more so than in an election year when a first-term President is pursuing an extra couple of per cent of Jewish votes in Florida and Ohio. For this, the President attempts to put the world's most serious problem into storage, leaving the destiny of people hanging in the air and the world open-mouthed at the nakedness of his motives.

The Prime Minister has argued that the Sharon plan is, in effect, stage one of the 'Road Map' and that it may contain an opportunity for progress, but the signs are not hopeful for the simple reason that it dismisses Security Council resolution 242 which demands an Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 borders. Drafted by the British, 242 is the central pillar of the Palestinian case and to have it dismissed by the Americans and Israelis will add to their rage and sense of injustice.

In his Observer article last week about Iraq, the Prime Minister wrote that a 'significant part of Western opinion is sitting back, if not half-hoping we fail, certainly replete with Schadenfreude at the difficulty we find'. There's a reason for this which he may have appreciated better at the end of last week than he did at the beginning. A vast proportion of intelligent Western opinion is sick of the world's most delicate problems being subsumed to the ambitions of a few American politicians.

We hurried to war last year so that it wouldn't overlap with Bush's election campaign. We are about to hand over to a sovereign authority in Iraq, the nature of which is still unclear, so that he can distance himself from events there during the run-up to 4 November. Now, Bush dispatches the Palestinian problem to the distant rim of the agenda with this shoddy fix in a hotel room.

TonyBlair was wrong to suggest that some wish for failure. The world is too perilous for that; they just pray that the American and British governments understand the reasons for the failures so far. Opponents of the war may have given up worrying about the WMD, mostly because Blair and Bush no longer feel the need to answer for their mistake. But this doesn't allay their fears about the disastrous mishandling of the peace. The mistakes are ongoing and cumulative, chiefly because America is perceived as having a distinct bias against Arabs and Islam. Britain, though more balanced in its attitude, is dragged along in the slipstream and no one inIraq is in the mood to make fine distinctions.

A valuable lesson, which RobertMcNamara has lived long enough to learn and which he expresses with a certain gritty sadness in The Fog of War, is the need to empathise with your foe.

America and Britain have failed to do that at practically every turn. Western troops are not regarded as bearers of the gift of democracy but an invading force that has ripped pride and sovereignty from the Iraqi people. This is not to say that Iraqis don't appreciate the beginnings of a free press and increased civil liberties, but other religious and cultural emotions have come into play. We must recognise them in order to isolate the real troublemakers.

The most worrying trend has been the way so many stories have merged into a single current: Palestine, Iraq, the warnings to US citizens in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden's tape and the 9/11 hearings have all come together to create a sense of general intractability. The clash of civilisations predicted by American neoconservative thinkers seems to be happening before our eyes.

There are solutions to many of these problems, chiefly an increased role for the United Nations, now being wooed by the Prime Minister and Bush. Kofi Annan should use this to his advantage, for the only way to establish peace in Iraq, or Palestine, is with the international community's reinvigorated will.

The UN is the only organisation that can get Britain and America out of the mess they are in. Rather than being polite and diplomatic, the Secretary General should ram that message home, reminding them how America swept aside the reservations of the international community last year.

The UN has suffered greatly from Bush's arrogance. He must now concede that US military might is not everything. Iraq was a mistake of a very large order and that should be entered into the public record so that the American public may consider it on 4 November.

All is not lost. The solutions are there and we can reach for them if only we have the will to push back the American influence and rein in our Prime Minister's ludicrous attempt to strut the world stage.

There were smiles of conviction and staunchness in the RoseGarden on Friday, indicating to some that the special relationship was not dead. But the only foreign leader who has any claim to be America's friend had just left town with the deeds to the West Bank in his back pocket.

Alpha · Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 1:22 am Post subject: Russert Asks, Kerry Avoids

Subj: Russert Asks, Kerry Avoids
Date: 4/18/04 4:37:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: jblankfort@earthlink.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)

If anyone still thinks that John Kerry will be a whit better that the Resident on foreign policy, each day seems to bring with it further proof that is a foolish illusion. This man, who is not "a useful idiot" like Bush and is able to string at least several coherent sentences together at a time, has clearly placed himself in the pocket of the pro-Israel lobby. His refusal to give answers to what are straightforward questions by Russert is as inexcusable as Bush's performance on Tuesday night. Moreover, while Bush is trying to get the US out from under what has become a debacle in Iraq and get US troops out of there, Kerry and his supporters are calling for more troops to be sent. Meanwhile, Nader seems to be silent on both issues. (Thanks to Jim Harris for the transcript.)
Jeff

From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4772030/
EXCERPT:
MR. RUSSERT: Israel assassinated Hamas leader Rantisi. Do you support that assassination?

SEN. KERRY: I believe Israel has every right in the world to respond to any act of terror against it. Hamas is a terrorist, brutal organization. It has had years to make up its mind to take part in a peaceful process. They refuse to. Arafat refuses to. And I support Israel's efforts to try to separate itself and to try to be secure. The moment Hamas says, "We've given up violence, we're prepared to negotiate," I am absolutely confident they will find an Israel that is thirsty to have that negotiation.

MR. RUSSERT: On Thursday, President Bush broke with the tradition and policy of six predecessors when he said that Israel can keep part of the land seized in the 1967 Middle East War and asserted the Palestinian refugees cannot go back to their particular homes. Do you support President Bush?

SEN. KERRY: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: Completely?

SEN. KERRY: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: You also said in December that you would consider as presidential ambassadors to the Middle East President Clinton, but also former President Carter and Secretary of State Baker. You then met with Jewish leaders and said, "I will not send Carter or Baker." Why?

SEN. KERRY: I think that what I was trying to talk about, Tim, was a kind of potential for
bipartisanship as to how you might be able to approach putting a special envoy in place. The names obviously need to be acceptable to everybody within the community. You've got to do that as a matter of diplomacy. Subsequent to those names being floated, obviously, some people have different views about it.

MR. RUSSERT: Why do you think Carter and Baker are not acceptable?

SEN. KERRY: Well, that's not important. What's important is how to resolve the crisis, how do you move forward. I believe there's a way to move forward, I'm convinced of that. Now, I think what the president did in the last few days is to recognize a reality that even President Clinton came to. If you're going to have a Jewish state, and that is what we are committed to do and that is what Israel is, you cannot have a right of return that's open-ended or something. You just can't do it. It's always been a non-starter. I personally said that at a speech I gave to the Arab community in New York at the World Economic Forum. I've said that. I've also said that it is realistic because we know that at Taba they negotiated the annexation of certain territory. So it's really stating a reality.

What this administration has not done that it needs to do, what we need is a diplomacy that is ongoing and engaged with the Arab community in order to help to create and help emerge the kind of entity that will provide a peaceful resolution to this. Israel has no partner, no one to be able to negotiate with today. I think the United States and this administration could have done a much more effective job of helping that to emerge, but they were completely disengaged. I will not be disengaged. And I will have somebody involved in that at the highest level that has the respect of the community, the trust of Israel, and we will be able to move forward.

Top · Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 5:21 am Post subject: Re: Russert Asks, Kerry Avoids

Jefferson Davis · Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 5:39 am Post subject:

It's always good to get Israel's permission as to who our President should be and that they meet their approval.

It's disgusting.

Alpha · Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 8:29 am Post subject: Uprising in Iraq, Attack Iran.

Subj: Uprising in Iraq, Attack Iran.
Date: 4/18/04 7:47:16 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: hectorpv@comcast.net
To: hectorpv@comcast.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)

Friends,

Uprising in Iraq, Attack Iran.

I just saw arch-neocon (JINSA Zionist extremist Jew) Michael Ledeen on Fox News stressing that Iran was behind the uprising in Iraq. The only way the US could have peace in Iraq would be to overthrow the governments in Iran and Syria (and even Saudi Arabia). America was facing a regional problem, he claimed, and it would have to deal with it regionally. In short, the worse things get in Iraq, the greater the need for the US to attack Iraq’s neighbors--in short the neocons’ World War IV scenario. It is an obvious case of worse is better—better for the implementation of neocons’ ultimate plan, that is. In the following article, Jim Lobe points out that a number of neocons are now claiming Iran is directing the revolt in Iraq and are arguing for various types of US military measures directed at Iraq. Lobe writes: "The Iran hand was first raised in connection with Sadr's revolt by Michael Rubin, who just returned as a ‘governance team advisor’ for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq to his previous position as a resident fellow at AEI." _The Wall Street Journal_ states: "If warnings to Tehran from Washington don't impress them [the Iranian government], perhaps some cruise missiles aimed at the Bushehr nuclear site will concentrate their minds." _New York Times_ columnist William Safire advocates using special forces against Iran.

_______________________

http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=2282

April 10, 2004

Neocons See Iran Behind Shi'ite Uprising

by Jim Lobe

Neo-conservatives close to the administration of President George W Bush are pushing for retribution against Iran for, they say, sponsoring this week's Shiite uprising in Iraq led by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Despite the growing number of reports that depict the fighting as a spontaneous and indigenous revolt against the U.S.-led occupation, the influential neo-cons are calling on Bush to warn Tehran to cease its alleged backing for al-Sadr and other Shia militias or face retaliation, ranging from an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities to covert action designed to overthrow the government.

But independent experts say that while Iran has no doubt provided various forms of assistance to Shia factions in Iraq since the ouster of former President Saddam Hussein one year ago, its relations with Sadr have long been rocky, and that it has opposed radical actions that could destabilize the situation.

"Those elements closest to Iran among the Shiite clerics (in Iraq) have been the most moderate through all of this," according to Shaul Bakhash, an Iran expert at George Mason University here.

Many regional specialists agree that Iran has a strategic interest in avoiding any train of events that risks plunging Iraq into chaos or civil war and partition.

Neo-conservatives centered in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and among the civilian leadership in the Pentagon have strongly opposed any détente with Iran, and have frequently blamed it for problems the United States has encountered in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Neo-conservatives outside the administration, such as former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and his colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht, called even before the Iraq war for Washington to support indigenous efforts to oust the "mullahcracy" in Tehran, which is seen as an archenemy of both the United States and Israel.

Some neo-conservatives have seized on Sadr's uprising as a new opportunity both to raise tensions against Iran and to divert attention from Washington's bungling of relations with the Shia community in Iraq.

Top U.S. officials both here and in Iraq have not yet named Iran as the hidden hand behind Sadr, although a senior reporter at the right-wing Washington Times, Rowan Scarborough, quoted unnamed "military sources" Wednesday as telling him that Sadr "is being aided directly by Iran's Revolutionary Guard and by Hezbollah, an Iranian-created terrorist group based in Lebanon."

Unnamed "Pentagon officials" gave a similar account to the New York Times, although Times reporter James Risen stressed that CIA officials disagreed with that analysis, adding, "some intelligence officials believe that the Pentagon has been eager to link Hezbollah to the violence in Iraq to link the Iranian regime more closely to anti-American terrorism."

The Iran hand was first raised in connection with Sadr's revolt by Michael Rubin, who just returned as a "governance team advisor" for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq to his previous position as a resident fellow at AEI.

In a column published in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, he complained that Washington and the CPA had failed to provide liberal and democratic Iraqi leaders with anything like the kind of support that Iran was supplying to radical Shia leaders and their "gangs."

Rubin said that on a visit to the Shia-dominated south he found that Iranians were pouring money and arms to key Islamist parties, including the Da'wa, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and Sadr himself, whose rise over the past year, according to Rubin, is explained by the "ample funding he receives through Iran-based cleric Ayatollah Kazem al Haeri, a close associate of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini."

Another senior CPA adviser, Larry Diamond, a neo-conservative who specializes in democratization at the California-based Hoover Institution, told IPS this week that Sadr's Mahdi Army, and other Shia militias, are being armed and financed by Iran with the aim of imposing "another Iranian-style theocracy."

"Iran is embarked on a concerned, clever, lavishly-resourced campaign to defeat any effort for any genuine pluralist democracy in Iraq," said Diamond. "The longer we wait to confront the thug, the more troops he'll have in his army, the more arms he'll have and financial support – virtually all coming from Iran – the more he will intimidate and kill sincere democratic actors in the country, and the more impossible our task at building democracy will become."

"I think we should tell the Iranian regime that if they don't cease and desist, we will play the same game, that we will destabilize them," he added.

On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page took up the same theme, arguing that Sadr has talked "openly of creating an Iranian-style Islamic Republic in Iraq (and) has visited Tehran since the fall of Saddam. "His Mahdi militia is almost certainly financed and trained by Iranians," the editorial continued, adding, "Revolutionary Guards may be instigating some of the current unrest."

"As for Tehran, we would hope the Sadr uprising puts to rest the illusion that the mullahs (in Tehran) can be appeased. As Bernard Lewis teaches, Middle Eastern leaders interpret American restraint as weakness. Iran's mullahs fear a Muslim democracy in Iraq because is it a direct threat to their own rule."

"If warnings to Tehran from Washington don't impress them, perhaps some cruise missiles aimed at the Bushehr nuclear site will concentrate their minds," the Journal suggested.

On Wednesday, New York Times columnist William Safire asserted the existence of an axis involving Sadr, Iran, Hezbollah and Syria. "We should break the Iranian-Hezbollah-Sadr connection in ways that our special forces know how to do," he wrote.

But this line of reasoning appears particularly curious to Bakhash, who notes that the Sadr family, including Moqtada himself, is precisely the kind of Iraqi Shiite who would be deeply suspicious of Tehran.

"Sadr's father was a strong Iraqi nationalist, like Moqtada himself," he told IPS. "He often used to question why there were in Iraq ayatollahs who spoke Arabic with a Persian accent."

Like other experts, Bakhash believes that Iran has indeed been heavily involved with the Iraqi Shia community, but sees the leadership providing far more support to SCIRI and its Badr brigades than to Sadr, who, from Tehran's point of view, is seen as untrustworthy.

Bakhash also questions the neo-conservative assumption that Iran wants to destabilize Iraq now. "Obviously the Iranians are not unhappy to see the Americans discomfited in Iraq, but I don't think it's the policy of the Iranian government to destabilize Iraq right along its own border," he said.

Middle East historian Juan Cole of the University of Michigan also questions the notion of a link between Iran and Sadr in the current uprising. While Sadr's views on theocratic government are consistent with those of Iranian hardliners, according to Cole, his outspoken Iraqi nationalism poses a major challenge to Khameini's claim to authority over all Shiite religious communities, including those outside Iran.

Contrary to the Journal's assumptions, adds Cole, Sadr did not receive much encouragement from the Iranian leaders he met in Tehran. "The message he got was that he should stop being so divisive and should cooperate more with the other Shiite leaders."

Geoffrey Kemp, an Iran specialist at the Nixon Center and Middle East adviser on former president Ronald Reagan's National Security Council staff, says he has little doubt the Iranians have influence with several different Shiite groups, and that there might even be "rogue elements" inside Iraq who back Sadr.

But he agrees that Tehran's strongest ties are with SCIRI and the Badr Brigades, who were trained by the Revolutionary Guard inside Iran during Hussein's rule. "The situation is far too complex to make simplistic statements about what Iran is or is not doing," Kemp told IPS. "But to suggest that this is an Iranian-inspired insurrection is a stretch."

"The neo-conservatives are all so heavily invested in the success of Iraq that instead of blaming the Pentagon for some extraordinary blunders, they want to blame everyone else – the State Department, the Iranians, the Syrians for the mess that was partly of their own making.

Find this article at:

http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=2282

Alpha

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/04/14/analysis-us-emulates-israeli-tactics.php

Alpha

WOODWARD BLOWS LID OFF NEOCON CONSPIRACY FOR IRAQ WAR:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/04/19/woodward-blows-lid-off-neocon-conspiracy-for-iraq-war.php

Alpha

Israel is the Problem (Our Problem as the 'A Clean Break' JINSA/PNAC Neoconservative document for wider war in the Middle East for Israel is linked in the following URL):

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=1032

Plan of Attack:

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2340

George Bush: Neocon Napolean:

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2325

** Analysis: US 'emulates' Israeli tactics **:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/04/14/analysis-us-emulates-israeli-tactics.php

The following is in accordance with the JINSA/PNAC Neocon ('A Clean Break' document which is linked in the first URL above) agenda of widening the Iraq war to Syria (with even more American soldiers/marines dying in the process as you can see the coffins coming home from Iraq in the picture at the top of www.whatreallyhappened.com -but the JINSA/CSP/PNAC Neocon 'Israel firsters' in the Pentagon don't have too much of a concern about Americans dying for Israel in Iraq and beyond -see the 'War Conceived in Israel' article which is linked under the map of 'greater Israel' after scrolling down to it on the left at http://www.nowarforisrael.com):

NO US SOLDIER SHOULD HAVE TO DIE IN IRAQ FOR ISRAEL TO GET OIL:

http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html

Eleven US soldiers die as revolt spreads to Syrian border

"Revolt"? How can the people revolt against a foreign government that claims to be liberating them????

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=512807

U.S. Marines engaged in 'silent war' near Syrian border:

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_9.html

Yep, Sharon (with the support of the JINSA/CSP/PNAC Zionist extremist Neocons at the Pentagon) is out to start a regional war!

Israel yesterday threatened to strike Damascus. It also warned that the Damascus-based political bureau chief of Hamas, Khalid Meshaal would meet "an identical" fate to the movement's assassinated leader in the Palestinian territories, Abdelaziz Rantissi. "When the opportunity comes to strike at Damascus, we will do it," Minister for Parliamentary Relations Gideon Erza was quoted as saying at Israel's cabinet meeting.
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Articles.asp?Article=79543&Sn=WORL

John Kerry - An Ultra Right Wing Zionist
Israel, more than any other factor or faction, including the oil industry and the WASP old guard, is presently controlling the American political agenda, through its network of influence in the media, the Congress, the policy think tanks and other centers of power."

http://rense.com/general51/kerry.htm

Are Bush and Neo-Cons Finished?

Not until it is revealed that Bush and the Neocons MADE 9-11 happen to jump-start their little war. The subversion of the US to fight a war of conquest for personal profit and for a foreign power is a crime against the people and the world. As commander-in-chief, Bush is personally responsible for the war crimes now being comitted in Iraq.

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=716

Without Reservation

http://militaryweek.com/withoutreservation.shtml

by Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col. USAF (ret.)

An Honest Appraisal, and the Way Ahead

"April is the cruelest month" is the first line of T.S. Eliot's 1922 epic The Wasteland. These days, our man in Baghdad, Civilian Administrator L. Paul Bremer III, must be wondering if his memoirs of the last year should start with the same line. Upon reflection, back home in Washington, Bremer may wish to appropriate Eliot's title as well.

This April is particularly cruel with bills coming due for a lack of post-invasion planning, failure to develop an exit strategy, and for a persistent glaring void between the ears of the Bush administration regarding Iraq's history, economy and culture. As of this writing, nearly 700 American soldiers have paid the ultimate price for these oversights.

Neoconservatives pleaded and postured for preemptive war in Iraq, but they under-estimated one of the few "successes" of Saddam Hussein's secular dictatorship. Saddam's costly, protracted war with Iran, his failed invasion of Kuwait and the resultant humiliation of a Versailles-esque settlement, plus a dozen years of global sanctions and U.S./U.K. bombings combined, have produced many negative effects. But these realities have transformed various religious and ethnic groups from the provinces into something new: Iraqis against the world.

Iraqi national identity need not be permanent to throw a monkey wrench into the U.S. self-help project in Mesopotamia. Violent civil war or a Czech and Slovak style "velvet divorce" are future options for Iraq. But this month, we've witnessed a predictable side effect of our military and political occupation. Iraqis have heard the words of Mr. Bush, and they seem to agree. You're either with us, or you're against us.

The lies and executive pressure that convinced Congress to grant the current president extraordinary war powers are now behind us. Indeed, politicians usually prove more adept at killing and maiming the younger generations than saving them.

Now is the time for practical, not political, minds to hold sway.

In discussing Iraq, Senator Ted Kennedy recalls Vietnam. He takes grief not for his facts, but because, as a natty neoconservative talking point goes, "Why, his own brother got us into Vietnam!" Robert Dreyfuss reminds us that in 1968, following the Tet Offensive, the party in the White House became traumatized by that war's reality, and fell into disarray. Perhaps this is the one dangerous parallel that agonizes 21st century Republicans. And Senator Robert Byrd equates Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade to the modern military blunders of the current administration in a moving address before a nearly empty Senate Chamber.

Conversely, the twenty most influential American newspapers editorialized this week: when it comes to Iraq, we need to stay the course. These editorial boards mean well. But it is clear that they either honestly don't know or perversely refuse to recognize the one fundamental reason why we have had over 135,000 American troops under deadly fire for the past year in Iraq.

Here's a hint: It isn't liberation, democracy, counter-terrorism, a search for weapons of mass destruction, humanitarian concerns, or even oil or Israel's security interests. It is simple geo-strategic military positioning, a classic Cold War model, aimed at punishing future enemies and rewarding allies by leveraging regional oil flow, water allocations, and weapons development. This, and nothing else, explains why the EU is nervous, the Russian President antsy, and the Chinese Prime Minister coy.

Fortunately, we don't have to take the self-serving advice of neoconservatives and editorial boards. We can save our working class sons and daughters from unnecessary death, disease, or lifelong debilitation courtesy this boutique war imposed on us by chickenhawk academics and lying old men. We do have options.

One option is to simply withdraw. Toss a key, or not, over the fence and redeploy home. Write off the whole experiment as a bad decision taken by a mediocre president unrestrained by a frightened Congress, a docile Supreme Court, a lazy domestic media, and a too-busy-to-pay-attention electorate.

This option is typically rejected as immoral and bad for the Iraqi people. Of course, the Bush Doctrine of selective, preemptive, full-scale war based on jury-rigged or incompetent intelligence, and severely outmoded, but cherished, security paradigms gets first prize in the "immoral and bad for the Iraqi people" category.

In keeping with the Administration's preference that things be either/or, there is another option. Toss a hundred keys over a hundred city walls, and militarily pull back into a subset of friendly Guantanamo-style Iraqi outposts. In places like Kurdish Mosul or Shia Basra, we can pick our own friendly hosts and spend the bulk of the $67 billion base building and security money on these must-have facilities. As we withdraw to our friendly zones, we get to keep military access. As cities like Baghdad and Fallujah settle down, we might negotiate with the emergent leadership there for additional military access. Or not.

This is an approach that will save American lives and American tax dollars. It compromises on the American oil and infrastructure development contracts. It won't guarantee that the Mosul-to-Haifa oil pipeline – a booster for the Israeli economy – will be finished on schedule, if ever. It does not protect the right of expatriate crooks like Ahmad Chalabi to run the country under our tutelage.

The "hundred keys" option offers Iraq self rule, but it sacrifices the neoconservatives' adoration for overwhelmingly strong and centralized federal governments. Adding neoconservative insult to injury, this option also requires us to not only decentralize, but give up U.S. control over Iraqi banks and Iraqi oil production.

Yes, changes would have to be made. Doing so sooner rather than later will save American lives, while preserving at least some existing American contracts. It will, in a small way increase unemployment in Iraq, as the U.S. appointed Governing Council, the U.S. appointed bureaucratic Ministers, and the entire American staff of handlers will all be kicked off the rebuild Iraq gravy train funded by American tax dollars.

These are the types of choices that originate from an honest assessment of why we are in Iraq in the first place: military geo-strategic positioning, with a side of economic welfare for a few fat cat American companies. The neoconservative pipe dream of the reformation of Islam, and a stirring of the democratic heart of the Middle East is, as it always was, delusional window dressing.

April was the cruelest month for T.S. Eliot. It is a month of change; a month that breaks comfortable habits without kindness or remorse. When it comes to fixing our Iraq policy, we need only to appraise, with brutal honesty, what we really want and what we are really willing to spend to achieve it. The practical compromises are self-evident. One hopes we might make them before another April rolls around.
© 2004 Karen Kwiatkowski

Lt. Col. Kwiatkowski can be reached at karen@militaryweek.com.

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