| Alpha | | Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2004 3:40 am Post subject: Left Margin - Next Stop Iran? Neocons set US policy |
| From: "Ronald" <rbleier@igc.org>
To: "rbleier" <rbleier@igc.org>
Subject: Left Margin - Next Stop Iran? Neocons set US policy
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 22:09:00 -0400
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Subject: Left Margin - Next Stop Iran?
> Left Margin
>
> Next Stop Iran?
>
> By Carl Bloice
>
> Born in the Chicago, Caroline Glick, graduated from
> Columbia University in 1991 and two weeks later moved
> to Israel. After a stint in the Israeli Defense Forces,
> where she rose to officer status, she assumed a key
> position in negotiations with the Palestinian
> Liberation Organization taking place in Oslo, Norway
> under former Israeli Prime Minister Rabin. Later Glick
> served as a foreign policy adviser for then Prime
> Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In 2002, Glick became a
> journalist at the English-language Jerusalem Post and
> was quickly embedded with U.S. troops, joining the
> infantry unit that was the first to reach Baghdad.
> Glick created considerable controversy when she
> reported that invading troops had discovered a chemical
> weapons facility in Najaf, prompting a top Pentagon
> official to appeal to battlefield reporters for "great
> caution" on such matters. Glick was later awarded a
> distinguished civilian service award from the U.S.
> Secretary of the Army in recognition of her battlefield
> reporting. She is now the Post's deputy managing editor
> and front page columnist. Last year, she was named "the
> Most Prominent Women in Israel" by the newspaper,
> Maariv.
>
> Glick is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at
> the U.S.-based Center for Security Policy and a member
> of the group's National Security Advisory Council. In
> 2001, the Center gave its "Keeper of the Flame" award
> to Defense Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; in
> 2002, the plaque was presented to then Chair of the
> Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, by Under
> Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith; in 2003
> the honor was bestowed on Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
> Wolfowitz
>
> >From the above it is obvious Glick is well-connected,
> knows of what she speaks, wields considerable political
> influence and has important links to the U.S. military
> establishment and the circle of "neo-conservative"
> civilian employees at the Pentagon.
>
> On September 3, Glick wrote that from what has been
> reported about the Federal Bureau of Investigation's
> probe into the activities of the American Israeli
> Public Affairs Committee and Pentagon Iran policy
> analyst Lawrence Franklin, "it is hard to escape the
> impression that the story is more of a smear campaign
> than an espionage investigation." However, in Glick's
> view, the real significance of the reports of Israeli
> spying in Washington lies not -- as others have
> suggested -- in Bush Administration bureaucratic
> infighting; score-settling between the Central
> Intelligence Agency and the State Department; or a spat
> between Secretary Rumsfeld and career military
> officials. "But even if nothing comes from the story,
> the obvious target of the leak has been hit," she
> wrote. "That target is not specifically AIPAC. Nor is
> it Douglas Feith or Paul Wolfowitz. And the target is
> also not the Israeli Embassy or Israel per se. The
> target of the leak is a policy direction, and the
> leaked story, regardless of its as-yet-amorphous legal
> grounding, has dealt that policy direction a below-the-
> belt punch."
>
> In Glick's view the central issue of debate in
> Washington policy circles today is Iran which "is today
> the epicenter of global terrorism."
>
> "And Iran, with its now all-but-declared pursuit of
> nuclear weapons, its proven ballistic missile
> capabilities, and its long suspected chemical and
> biological weapons arsenal, is both an active enemy and
> a looming threat to US national security and of course
> to the physical existence of Israel, which is a major
> non-NATO ally of the US," she wrote. "Which is why
> policy directions become so important. The Pentagon,
> along with Israel and AIPAC, is the leading proponent
> of a view that says Iran cannot be contained and cannot
> be appeased. On the other side, the CIA, the State
> Department, and the Democratic Party, as well as
> Germany, France and Britain, believe that it can be
> contained and appeased," she concluded.
>
> Among those pushing the policy of appeasement,
> according to Glick is Democratic presidential candidate
> John Kerry.
>
> Citing an unnamed Bush Administration official who told
> the New York Times that in dealing with the government
> in Tehran, "There's no military option," Glick wrote,
> "This statement leads to the inevitable question of
> why? Given Iran's refusal to reach any accommodation on
> either its support for international terrorism or its
> nuclear program, why hasn't a directive been given to
> the responsible authorities to put together a plan for
> action against Iran's nuclear installations? No doubt,
> with US forces now bordering Iran in both Iraq and
> Afghanistan, there is no military option because no one
> has been given instructions or even permission to
> develop one."
>
> Glick went on to complain that the spy charges in
> Washington will now make it even harder to plan a
> military attack on Iran. "After all, a victory for the
> Pentagon (which now stands officially accused of
> working for Israel) on the issue of Iran policy would
> make the job of those claiming that the US policy is
> dictated from Jerusalem all the easier," she wrote.
> Then, in a chilling omen of what may be in the offing,
> Glick observed, "It may be that given the damage now
> wrought on the reputations of apparently the only
> forces in Washington who may be willing to admit that
> the US non-policy towards Iran, in all its
> permutations, is a colossal failure, means that the US
> will not take any action against Iran's nuclear
> installations. If this is the case, Israel may quite
> simply be forced into a position of having to ignore
> America for now and do what needs to be done."
>
> Glick lends much substance to the recent comment by the
> editors of the Boston Globe that behind the spy
> controversy lies "a policy quarrel" among those around
> President Bush "that one faction has been waging
> surreptitiously" and their warning that "the nation
> could be drawn into another Gulf war by one faction of
> the conservative constellation in his own
> administration."
>
> On Sept. 13, the London-based Financial Times said
> editorially, "recently there has been open, informed,
> and possibly directed, speculation that the U.S. or its
> ally Israel may take preemptive action and attack Iran,
> presumably by bombing its nuclear facilities in a
> reprise of the Israeli attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor
> in 1981." The paper went on to say, "After a century of
> being invaded, surrounded by nuclear powers, including
> Israel and U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Central
> Asia and the Gulf, Iran has legitimate security
> concerns. The policy challenge is how to match these
> with non-proliferation goals."
>
> One Bush Administration official who has been speaking
> bluntly about Iran is Secretary Rumsfeld. He recently
> complained that the U.S. has limited options because
> other nations are "not willing" to join in pressuring
> Iran, which has shown behavior that is "not part of
> the civilized world."
>
> Joel Mowbray, writing in the Washington Times September
> 10, and citing "someone with intimate knowledge of the
> draft presidential directive" Lawrence Franklin is said
> to have passed to AIPAC and Israeli intelligence,
> claimed it "contained no sources and no methods. It had
> no sensitive material of any kind. It was nothing more
> than a policy paper - just a few pages that resembled
> an op-ed - advocating tougher diplomacy, not war, in
> dealing with Iran." Probably so; Israel most likely has
> as good, if not better, intelligence on what's goes on
> in Tehran than the U.S. and as the Israelis have
> repeatedly suggested it all goes into the same pot
> anyway. What the Sharon government covets most at this
> point is intelligence on what's a going on in the White
> House.
>
> Imagine, for a moment, how that conversation must have
> gone: Look, here it is on paper. They say they are not
> going to act militarily, not even to arm and encourage
> action by the Mojahedin. Nothing will happen until
> after the elections.
>
> All the elements are in place for a repeat of the
> attack on Iraq: charges of existing "weapons of mass
> destruction" fortified by data from "dissident" imigri
> groups; a refusal of major European governments to
> contemplate military action without exhausting
> diplomatic options; and a coordinated propaganda
> campaign to influence U.S.policy emanating from neo-
> conservative think tanks and media outlets. The problem
> for the Israel hawks is the possibility that the Bush
> Administration will not be in office in January or,
> that even if it is, the neo-cons will find themselves
> no longer in the driver's seat at the Pentagon. Which
> raises the danger that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
> Sharon - with or without a wink from Washington - might
> decide to move unilaterally. The London Times recently
> reported that Israel has conducted military rehearsals
> for a preemptive strike against an Iranian nuclear
> power plant now under construction.
>
> On Sept. 12, Los Angeles Times staff writer Tyler
> Marshall reported, "Top military officials in Israel
> have hinted at air strikes against Iran's nuclear
> facilities, as voices from across the Israeli political
> spectrum point to the danger and press Washington for a
> stronger response." Sharon, Tyler wrote, has said,
> "actions [against Iran] are being taken, but I don't
> think the pressure is enough."
>
> Tyler went on, "Despite such accounts, some respected
> American voices in foreign affairs caution that the
> U.S. must resist what one called 'strong-arm tactics'
> against Iran. 'This would not just unite the
> fundamentalist mullahs and the democratic opposition
> [in Iran] against the U.S., but would give Iran the
> chance to leverage Shia populations in Iraq and
> Afghanistan against us,' said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who
> served as President Carter's national security advisor.
> 'It would be disastrous for the United States'."
>
> "If, as a result of the prominence of the appeasers in
> US policy circles and their fast and dirty tactics, the
> US is no longer able to take military action against
> threats to its national security that happen to
> constitute even larger threats to Israel's national
> security, then going it alone, and as quickly as
> possible, may be Israel's only option," wrote Glick
> (who has previously complained of "U.S. placation of
> the Arab world at Israel's expense"). "Israel can
> simply not afford to be paralyzed by American policies
> on Iran that have already failed or by spy scandals
> that make no sense."
>
> Carl Bloice is a freelance journalist in San Francisco,
> California
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