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Iran Responds To EU Offer

By Cernig

Iran has sent an official letter of response to the P5+1 group's latest offer on nuclear negotiations. No-one knows what's in it yet but the Iranians telephoned to confirm it has been sent and diplomats expect it to arrive today. The FT reports that the Iranian senior negotiator had been “positive and ­constructive” during the phonecall, according to a spokes man for Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief.

Iranian media reported Mr Jalili as saying that Iran’s answer “focused on commonalities and a constructive and innovative view”.

Western diplomats believe that Iran’s response will be critical in determining how the next phase of negotiations between Iran and the international community plays out.

If Iran responds positively, both sides might move to the first stage of negotiations, called “freeze for freeze”. This would see Iran freezing any expansion of its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. However, it would be able to continue the uranium enrichment process. The international community would, in turn, freeze moves to apply further sanctions on Iran.

Western diplomats insist that this phase can last no more than six weeks before Iran comes under pressure to suspend the enrichment process altogether. But some suspect that Iran might demand that the “freeze-for-freeze” phase lasts longer.

A diplomat from one of the six countries involved in talks with Iran – the US, UK, France, China and Russia plus Germany – said it was unlikely Iran would give a clear-cut answer in its letter. “The Iranians will play for time, it won’t be a straightforward response.”

If, however, the response is deemed insufficiently positive, pressure will mount for a new round of United Nations sanctions in the autumn. It would also add to the growing speculation that Israel might bomb Iran’s nuclear facility before the end of the year.

Here's hoping that Iran has indeed accepted the notion of a "freeze-on-freeze" which would defuse some tension in the region, and that hawks in the P5+1 nations, especially the US, don't decide to torpedo possible negotiations by dismissing any Iranian offer as unrealistic whether it is or not.

Doubtless more on this tomorrow.

Independence Day

By Cernig

Being a Scottish ex-pat, every year I get asked what I think about the U.S. Fourth of July holiday. Few expect the answer that I'm jealous, as I explained in a post way back in 2005. Still, recent events suggest that the Scottish Independence Day is getting closer - that's going to be the World's biggest party ever!

And while I'm archive trawling, I want to point to James Joyner's excellent post from 2006, in which he blogged the signing of the Declaration of Independence as if he were observing the event with a modern hard-right conservative's love for the unitary executive, the trade off of liberty for safety and the belief that the military should be exempt from foreign law even while in foreign places. Great stuff.

Have a great day, folks. I plan to spend a large chunk of it in pursuit of geekyness, playing GURPS role-playing game with my teen sons.

More On The US/Iraq Security Deal

By Cernig

Here's a tale of two very different reports about the same news conference. It was held by Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, in Baghdad and concerned negotiations on a US/Iraqi security agreement to extend the occupation beyond the expiry of the UN mandate in December.

The WaPo's version, written by Sudarsan Raghavan, is headlined "Progress Cited on U.S.-Iraq Pacts" and the lede runs:

The United States and Iraq are making progress on complex political and security agreements that would allow U.S. troops to operate in the country next year, Iraq's foreign minister said Wednesday.

"We have reached a comfortable stage of negotiations, and the differences have been narrowed," Hoshyar Zebari told reporters.

However, the NYT's Alissa J. Rubin has as her headline "Iraq Hints at Delay in U.S. Security Deal" and the lede is:

Declaring that there will not be “another colonization of Iraq,” Iraq’s foreign minister raised the possibility on Wednesday that a full security agreement with the United States might not be reached this year, and that if one was, it would be a short-term pact.

American officials, speaking anonymously because of the delicate state of negotiations, said they were no longer optimistic that a complete security agreement could be reached by the year’s end.

At a news conference in Baghdad, the foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told reporters that some headway had been made, but that negotiators were deadlocked over issues like the extent of Iraqi control over American military operations and the right of American soldiers to detain suspects without the approval of Iraqi authorities.

That's quite a difference in tone and content, leading one to wonder if the two Bagdad reporters witnessed a Fortean event - Zebari defying the laws of physics to appear in two places with two different messages at the same time. You have to go all the way to Raghavan's ninth paragraph before he mentions the deal-breakers Rubin led with, and then he plays them down with a weasely "Despite the progress, many hurdles remain that could delay the signing of the pacts". He also writes:

But Zebari said U.S. negotiators were open to the idea of Iraqis controlling their own airspace, as long as they have proper air power and technology.

Nice of the Bush administration to put preconditions on Iraq's exercising sovereignty over its own airspace, isn't it? Especially since the Bush administration made sure that not even a beginning has been made in providing Iraq with such air superiority aircraft, radars or SAM missiles. Indeed, they made sure that the Iraqi military's plans don't include anything of the sort until at least 2012 and probably longer.

So what happens now? Back to Rubin:

Noting that the United States cannot stay in Iraq without legal authorization, Mr. Zebari cited three options: “Either we conclude a status of forces agreement; or we have an interim agreement until a SOFA can be completed; or we go back to the Security Council at the end of the year and ask for another extension.”

An interim pact, he said, could take the form of a memorandum of understanding and related documents, which would be less extensive than a formal security agreement.

They probably would be appended to the document that President Bush and the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, signed last year that laid out the principles for a continuing relationship between the countries.

...Zebari said any agreement would be in place for perhaps a year or two and then subject to review. If no agreements are reached by the end of the year, he said, the sides would have to negotiate an interim deal.

Which, of course, is a sideways way of saying the Iraqis would rather negotiate a deal with the next US president than the current one - because that way they might actually get a deal that gave their sovereignty more than the mildest of lipservice.

And Zebari had some news for John McCain:

Mr. Zebari also indicated that even a full agreement would be short. “We are not talking about 50 years, 25 years or 10 years; we are negotiating about one or two years, so this is not going to be another colonization of Iraq,” he said.

I think Zebari just endorsed Obama. Maybe that was what the WaPo wanted to bury.

Get Smart

By Cernig

David Ignatius writing at the Washington Post yesterday confirmed Sy Hersh's revelations about US covert action inside Iran, but characterised those covert efforts as being piecemeal and directionless - the kind of "Get Smart" comedy-of--errors operations we should have expected from the cakewalk crowd.

In the new cold war between America and Iran, the United States appears to be running some limited covert operations across the Iranian border. But according to knowledgeable sources, this effort shares the defect of broader U.S. policy toward Iran -- it is tentative and ill-coordinated, and it undermines diplomacy without bringing serious pressure on the regime.

"Tell us what's your policy with Iran," says one Arab official familiar with the covert program. "Are you going to talk to them or go to war with them?" This official describes U.S. operations this way: "There are attempts to cause mischief inside Iran and go after the Quds Force. Some things are being done, but not with the seriousness that's needed."

Argues a former intelligence official, "It's a PowerPoint covert-action program. It looks aggressive, but it's not a tied-together, long-term strategy that would make Iran change its policy."

...The danger of these cross-border activities was explained to me by one intelligence source. He said the Iranians had recently captured several dissident Iranian operatives who had been recruited by U.S. military officers inside Iraq and then sent into Iran. The Iranians, whose intelligence network inside Iraq is pervasive, surveilled the meeting, then followed the agents across the border and seized them.

The U.S. program appears to focus on political action and the collection of intelligence rather than on lethal operations. Lethal action inside Iran may be conducted independently by some groups. There are reports, for example, that Kurdish guerrillas have retaliated for Iranian shelling of Kurdistan.

Those Kurdish guerillas - the PJAK - have in the past claimed that the US military was supporting them with money and intelligence help, although since Turkey became more aggressive in pursuing the PKK and PJAK that aid seems to have halted. So it might be more accurate to say that their actions are conduscted independently now.

Ignatius goes on to contrast this "Power-Point" progam with Iran's covert efforts against the US and against Israel, which seem to him to be far better thought out and directed. Outperforming the administration that "oversaw" the CPA, moved covert assets in Afghanistan to their war-of-choice in Iraq and now wants to believe that entirely subjective  and belated "satisfactory progress" towards Iraqi reconcilliation benchmarks by Iran's closest allies (Maliki and the ISCI) is actually the same as attaining those benchmarks wouldn't be difficult. Where other governments play international chess the Bush administration plays tiddliewinks.

But it seems to me that the available evidence, rather than the hype, points towards Iranian actions which are just as bemuddled by differences between internal government factions on what to do and how to do it, as well as being confused by private entrepreneurship in black markets (some, no doubt, by Iranian officers and officials lining their own pockets on company time) which are being erroneously ascribed to concerted Iranian action. We should be careful of the kind of groupthink that resulted in the Iraq WMD Hunt, where a wish to fix the facts around the policy at high levels leads to a presumption of diabolical intent and evil-genius mastery of subterfuge at lower ones which then underlies all intelligence assessments and ends up hyping the threat outrageously. That way lies another debacle like Iraq.

Which is why I'm so happy to see General Mullen push back against the "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" crowd. He may believe the hyped Iranian threat, but he is far more level-headed in his own clear assessment of the US military's ability to both prosecute an attack and then deal with the aftermath.

At a US defence department news conference, Adm Mullen refused to say what Israeli leaders told him during meetings last week about any plan to strike Iran.

But he warned that opening up a third front, after Iraq and Afghanistan, would be "extremely stressful, very challenging, with consequences that would be difficult to predict".

Asked if he was concerned Israel would strike before the end of the year, he said: "This is a very unstable part of the world and I don't need it to be more unstable."

The admiral said that if a conflict began, he believed Iran would have the capability to disrupt ship traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a waterway near the Gulf, but he would not say if the US Navy was stepping up its patrols in the region.

He said: "I believe [Iran is] still on a path to get nuclear weapons and I think that's something that needs to be deterred."

He added: "My position with regard to the Iranian regime hasn't changed. They remain a destabilising factor in the region.

"But I'm convinced that the solution still lies in using other elements of national power to change Iranian behaviour, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure."

He called for dialogue between the US and Tehran.

His bosses, though, don't seem to want to listen. They and their fellow-travellers are already following up news that Iran might well be ready for a "freeze on freeze" deal with rhetoric suggesting that Iran blinked in the face of hightened threats of an attack. In actuality, however, some experts indicate that the opposite is true - "in anticipation (or with advance information) of a greater Iranian willingness to demonstrate flexibility on the enrichment freeze, the threats were escalated in order to allow the claim that chest-thumping was working." More hapless "Get Smart" style game-playing instead of just getting smart.

Torture And Moral Causistry

By Cernig

Via our colleague Eric Martin, writing at Obsidian Wings, comes an LA Times story which really puts the seal on the whole sorry tale of Gitmo, renditions and evidence obtained by torture.

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

There's no doubt in my mind, certainly, that the Bush administration knew that these techniques were best for eliciting false confessions - after all, that's the main use torture has always been put to by authoritarian regimes since the Witch Trails of Europe and before. The same techniques were used to elicit a false conviction from John McCain when he was incarcerated during the Vietnam War - yet he's just fine nowadays with accepting the Bush administration's parsing of such methods as somehow not being, precisely, torture.

Christopher Hitchens used to join in that parsing - he has now tried waterboarding for himself and has now unequivocally changed his mind.

Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and—as you might expect—inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.

...The interrogators would hardly have had time to ask me any questions, and I knew that I would quite readily have agreed to supply any answer. I still feel ashamed when I think about it. Also, in case it’s of interest, I have since woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia. No doubt this will pass. As if detecting my misery and shame, one of my interrogators comfortingly said, “Any time is a long time when you’re breathing water.” I could have hugged him for saying so, and just then I was hit with a ghastly sense of the sadomasochistic dimension that underlies the relationship between the torturer and the tortured. I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

America under Bush tortures people - bad people and people it believes are bad who later turn out to be innocent. It gets confessions - many false - from those people. It parses - lies by ommission and misdirection - about whether it actually does torture or not. It commits war crimes thereby. And John McCain, despite having had these things done to him, would continue that program by continuing to parse reality. He may have spoken up against waterboarding, but he's just fine with following the Bush lead in defining other torture techniques as 'enhanced interrogation". It is, as Hitchens says "moral causistry" of the most horrid sort. Do you really need another reason why he shouldn't be president?

More On Iran Accepting P5+1 Talks

By Cernig

The always-excellent Gareth Porter at IPS has been busy chasing down the rumors.

The head of Iran's atomic energy agency, Gholam-Reza Aghazadeh, told members of the Majlis energy committee Monday that Iran has agreed to start the talks, according to the Farsi-language Iranian website Fararou. It said "informed sources" had specified that Iran had accepted a six-week freeze on any expansion of enrichment as a condition on such negotiations, as proposed by European Union foreign affairs chief Javier Solana.

...ISNA reported in a brief item on Monday that an Iranian parliamentary energy committee member, whom it did not name, had declared that Iran "has agreed to start talks with 5+1 countries group". It added that the talks "will begin next week".

Although ISNA did not report that the official had said Iran would freeze its nuclear activities, in the sense of foregoing any increase in centrifuges, it implied as much by reporting that the P5+1 proposal delivered by Solana Jun. 14 "required Iran to suspend nuclear activities in exchange for a set of economic and security incentives".

The news further quoted unnamed "Iranian officials" as saying that "common points of the two packages can be a launching pad to start talks".

...The formal P5+1 proposal given to Iranian officials by EU foreign affairs commissioner Javier Solana Jun. 14 was a repackaging of the mid-2006 proposal to Tehran. But it was accompanied by a six-week "freeze for freeze" proposal under which Iran would not increase the level of its enrichment efforts and the P5+1 would freeze the movement towards tougher sanctions against Iran, according to diplomats in London quoted by Reuters Jun. 21.

That would enable "pre-negotiations" to begin between the two sides on "parameters for formal negotiations", according to the diplomats.

Beginning formal negotiations, however, were said to require that Iran to "fully suspend" enrichment, meaning that it would actually temporarily halt the enrichment.

The formal negotiations envisaged would last "up to six months", according to the diplomats cited by Reuters, during which time the halt to enrichment would have to continue.

The remarks by energy committee secretary Hosseini implied that Iran's commitment was only to the six-week freeze on the level of its nuclear activities and not to an actual suspension of enrichment as required for the formal stage of negotiations.

But Mottaki, in remarks at a luncheon meeting with reporters at the Iranian mission in New York, suggested that the Iranians might be prepared to go further.

Mottaki said that there were sufficient commonalities between the Solana proposal on behalf of the P5+1 and Iran's own proposals for negotiations to provide the basis for talks. That remark, paralleling the unattributed view reported by ISNA on Monday, suggested that Iran was preparing to enter into substantive negotiations. Furthermore, Mottaki failed to repeat the standard Iranian statement that enrichment is Iran's legitimate right, even though he was repeatedly questioned on the point.

Those who are hawkish about Iran will see this as a stalling tactic and won't believe that Iran will ever be a good-faith actor in negotiations. I find that position reminiscent of John Bolton's assertions that negotiating with North Korea wouldn't lead to any substantial disarmament breakthroughs, just stalling while secret development continued. Others will say that Iran is simply trying to run out the Bush clock and hopefully deal with a less aggressively hawkish US. That's almsot certainly true. But then again, it seems to me that there's also a damn good chance Iran really wants to come to a negotiated settlement on this issue. Being sanctioned and continually threatened with attack for doing something that's within every NPT member nation's rights isn't good for Iran, and they must surely want that situation to end well rather than badly.

And A Sunni Pony Too

By Cernig

There are new reports that the Sunni bloc is about to rejoin the Iraqi government. But then again, there have been reports of their imminent rejoining on an almost weekly basis ever since they left last August and it hasn't happened yet. The last two cabinet minister lists the Sunnis put forward were rejected by Maliki for no other reason than that they weren't Shiite enough and there are signs that this list won't be any better.

(And doesn't it speak volumes that the accompanying WaPo photo of Sunni and Shiite lawmakers "at a reconciliation meeting outside Baghdad in June" shows said lawmakers only in silhouette, presumably to prevent them being identified as talking to their opposite numbers?)

Ed Morrissey is hoisting the mission accomplished banner over at Hot Air, touting this as a sign of the arrival of the reconcilliation pony, along with an AP report (I won't link to because we don't do AP here) saying that the White House has judged that the titles of laws passed can substitute for actually carrying out those laws, and so the Iraqi government has passed "15 out of 18" benchmarks. One of those benchmark ponys is agreeing to hold provincial elections on October 1st - yet anyone listening to Maliki's government already knows it has said that won't happen. According to the Iraqi government's own announcements, the elections might happen in November, might happen after status of forces agreements with the US are concluded, might happen piecemeal over the course of months...but definitely won't happen on October 1st.

As is usual with talk of reconcilliation, I'll believe it when it actually happens - not when laws are passed saying it should happen or politicians say it is going to happen. "Fool me twice...won't get fooled again."

Breaking Reports - Iran Agrees To Short Enrichment Suspension

By Cernig

Various people are telling me about reports that Iran has agreed to a short suspension of uranium enrichment activities. Mother Jones has the best of the rumors so far.

A Farsi-reading academic writes to a Gulf oriented list that it appears that Iran has decided to suspend uranium enrichment, as a goodwill gesture, for a period of six weeks. "This action will be taken in return for no further sanctions, and resumption of negotiations with the 5+1 group during this period based on the latest proposed package."

If true that Iran has accepted the West's "suspension for suspension" proposal, as former US Iran envoy Nick Burns has called it, it would make way for the US to join international talks with Iran over its nuclear program. Secretary of State Condolezza Rice has made clear the US would be willing to talk directly with Iran if Iran agreed to suspend its enrichment program. And it's a position that the State Department reiterated as recently as yesterday.

One journalist who has followed neo-whatever war hype, however, tells me that the announcement may have already been made in the Iranian press and he's trying to chase down confirmation. We'll see.

MoJo wonders whether, if true, "the massive 'they're gonna bomb' campaign" will turn out to have been the deciding factor in any Iranian decision. That seems unlikely to me. There's absolutely no sign that the politically powerful in favor of bombing Iran would halt their warmongering if Iran made concessions on its nuclear program - they's just shift their rhetoric to a new causus belli de jour and pretty much everyone knows it, including the Iranians. On the other hand, we have the US State Dept. today fairly forcibly debunking rumors of "red lines" and an Israeli diplomat telling Reuters that there was unlikely to be any Israeli or U.S. attack on Iran in the next six months "because the military option is the last thing that we need to do and it will not be used easily."

No, what seems more likley is that increasing diplomatic pressure, brought to a head by France taking over the EU presidency tomorrow and therefore more of an organised hardline on sanctions from the Europeans, may have prompted an Iranian decision that a show of good faith, following new proposals from both the EU and Iran, was in order. In other words, a victory for talking to ones 'enemies'.

Update: The offer comes, kinda sideways, from Grand Ayatollah Khamenei's foreign affairs advisor. The Ayatollha is, as supreme leader, the final authority on matters nuclear and diplomatic, no matter what neo-whatevers have tried to drum up about Ahmadinejad.

Ali-Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister who advises Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on international issues, said it was "expedient" for Iran to resume negotiations on the offer, which is designed to encourage the country to suspend parts of its nuclear programme.

The proposal was made by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany.

Mr Velayati said the US and Israel, unlike Europe, wished to see Iran "isolated" and "tell the public opinion in the world that Iran is not for international work and negotiations", in order to push for support on UN resolutions, military threats and economic -sanctions.

"[If] those who act against our interests want us not to accept [the proposal], then our expedience is in accepting it," he told JomhouriEslami newspaper.

According to Mr Velayati, talks on the package of incentives delivered to Tehran last month could start with a pre-negotiation phase.

This so-called "freeze-for-freeze", during which Iran would stop expanding its uranium enrichment programme while the UN Security Council would refrain from further sanctions, was a sweetener included in the offer handed to Iranian authorities by Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief.

...While the proposal envisaged a six-week deadline for this phase, Mr Velayati said this time limit was unacceptable because it was not clear how long it could take to set an agenda for the full negotiations.

Mr Velayati suggested the two sides stick to their fundamentals: "They say Iran should not make an atomic bomb and we say Iran needs nuclear energy. These two principles are your and our red lines, which should be the basis for negotiations and [can be] agreed on."

Iran has not officially responded to the offer and it is not clear to what extent Mr Velayati was expressing the leader's position.

However, analysts usually take Mr Velayati's statements on international issues as being close to Ayatollah Khamenei's position. Diplomats said his statements showed the regime was reflecting seriously on the package.

Very encouraging. Laura Rozen has more from Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council:

Some may draw the conclusion that the sudden shift in Iran's position is a reaction to the recent bluster and threats of war. Several factors dispute this interpretation. [...] Iran's reaction to the P5+1 proposal has been remarkably different than its reaction to the earlier proposal. Note also the relative silence from Ahmadinejad. This preceded the recent spike in bluster between the US, Israel and Iran.

A more likely scenario is that the Iranians are doing this to:

1. Eliminate the risk for any US attack -- however small/large that risk may be -- for the remainder of the Bush Administration.

2. Initiate a process that ...would pave the way for a more robust diplomatic channel between the US and Iran that would be initiated now, but wouldn't bloom until the next [U.S.] President takes office. ...

Iran - Existantial Threat Or Cakewalk?

By Cernig

Various neo-whatevers pushing for brinkmanship with Iran have described that nation as an existential or imminent threat to American, Israeli and just in general Western national security, citing Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. (Nevermind that evidence to back those allegations is so woefully threadbare as to be nonexistant.) However, they've been so successful in trumping up how dangerous Iran's assymetric might and secret programs are that they're in danger of convincing everyone that attacking Iran - the thing to be accomplished by their lurid warmongering - is too high a risk to be contemplated without far more evidence and provocation than they can show.

Therefore, the neo-whatevers have embarked on a program to describe Iran as a pushover target, a cakewalk - and they are hoping no-one notices the legerdemain.

Gareth Porter, however, has.

The existence of a sharp imbalance of power in favour of Israel and the United States is the main premise of a recent analysis by Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) suggesting that a U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear facilities is feasible. Chuck Freilich, a senior fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Centre on Science and International Affairs, has also urged war against Iran on such a power imbalance.

All three have close ties to the Israeli government. WINEP has long promoted policies favoured by Israel, and its founding director, Martin Indyk, was previously research director of the leading pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Freilich is a former Israeli deputy national security adviser.

These analysts, all of whom are pushing for a U.S., rather than an Israeli attack, argue that Iran's power to retaliate for a U.S. attack on its nuclear facilities is quite limited. Equally significant, they also emphasise that Iran is a rational actor that would have to count the high costs of retaliation. That conclusion stands in sharp contrast to the official Israeli line that Iran cannot be deterred because of its alleged apocalyptic Islamic viewpoint on war with Israel.

Clawson summed up the argument for a U.S. attack from Iranian weakness in an interview with Haaretz last week. "My assessment," he said, "is that contrary to the impression that has been formed, Iran's options for responding are limited and weak."

Indeed, these warmongers are now having to concede, as part of the logic of their "cakewalk" proposal, that attacking would likely be entirely counter-productive if the aim is to not see a nuclear-armed Iran.

...Clawson and Eisenstadt conclude that a military strike against Iran by the United States could be successful, but they acknowledge that such a strike "might cause Iran's leadership to conclude that the country needed nuclear weapons to deter and defend against the United States..."

The authors contradict the official Israeli position that Iran is hell-bent on acquiring a nuclear weapon, observing that the Iranian nuclear programme has not actually been pursued with the urgency that has been publicly attributed to it by Israel and the United States. They write that Iran "has been engaged in less of a nuclear race than a nuclear saunter".

Contrary to the explicit anti-Israel objective attributed to the Iranian nuclear programme by the Israeli government, moreover, they assess the motive of the Iranians as being "the desire for prestige and influence" -- aspirations that could be fulfilled without having nuclear weapons, as other analysts have observed.

Which is why the force option should be taken off the table, rather than being prominently displayed and referenced at every turn.

As we evaluate whether to trust those who want to keep force on the table, let us try to remember that those pushing for an attack on Iran's entirely fictitious "imminent nuclear threat" will happily promulgate barefaced lies:

A Pentagon official expressed fears that Israel will attack Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz near Isfahan before the next president is sworn in. He identified two red lines. One was the delivery and installation from Russia of a new anti-aircraft weapons system in Iran, which will make an Israeli strike more difficult.

The other red line, he said, was the point at which Iran had enriched enough uranium to make a bomb, which he estimated would occur in 2009, but which Israel would want to forestall well before it was achieved.

This second "red line" is pure bullshit. There is no evidence that Iran is enriching uranium to weapons grade at all, much less that it is making enough highly-enriched uranium that it will be able to make a bomb in 2009.

You can't use low-enriched uranium to make a bomb. It has to be highly enriched. Iran--as far as anyone has proved--is only making the low-enriched kind, and from all accounts it isn't doing such a great job of that, either. If it made high-enriched uranium, that could be detected by the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who regularly inspect Iran's facilities. I.e., it just isn't there and the idea that Iran could have enough material to make a bomb by next year is ridiculous.

As well as supress contrary evidence and smear those who just tried to do their job well, instead of with an eye on what their political masters wanted to hear:

A former CIA operative who says he tried to warn the agency about faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs now contends that CIA officials also ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb.

...The informant provided secret evidence that Tehran had halted its research into designing and building a nuclear weapon. Yet, when the operative sought to file reports on the findings, his attempts were "thwarted by CIA employees," according to court papers. Later he was told to "remove himself from any further handling" of the informant, the documents say.

In the months after the conflict, the operative became the target of two internal investigations, one of them alleging an improper sexual relationship with a female informant, and the other alleging financial improprieties. Krieger said his client cooperated with investigators in both cases and the allegations of wrongdoing were never substantiated. Krieger contends in court documents that the investigations were a "pretext to discredit." (H/T Spencer)

Yet very serious people, from both sides of the aisle, still keep to the spurious narrative of Iran as an existential threat and the dangerous notion that the U.S. government can be trusted to wield the big stick as long as the 'good guys' - defined as themselves - are in charge.

Update: Reuters reports that the State Dept. just repudiated that anonymous Defence Department official and his two red lines.

"I have no information that would substantiate that, and I think it's rather foolish of people who often have no clue what they're talking about to assert things and not even have the courtesy to do so on the basis of their name," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.

Of course, Casey didn't go so far as to point out that Mr Anonymous Official was lying through his teeth about Iran's bomb-making abilities.

The Bush Legacy, But What Next?

By Cernig

Matt Yglesias points to a great op-ed in the Boston Globe by professor of history and international relations, Andrew J. Bacevich. The latter describes Bush's true legacy:

Among other things, the Bush team has accomplished the following:

Defined the contemporary era as an "age of terror" with an open-ended "global war" as the necessary, indeed the only logical, response;

Promulgated and implemented a doctrine of preventive war, thereby creating a far more permissive rationale for employing armed force;

Affirmed - despite the catastrophe of Sept. 11, 2001 - that the primary role of the Department of Defense is not defense, but power projection;

Removed constraints on military spending so that once more, as Ronald Reagan used to declare, "defense is not a budget item";

Enhanced the prerogatives of the imperial presidency on all matters pertaining to national security, effectively eviscerating the system of checks and balances;

Preserved and even expanded the national security state, despite the manifest shortcomings of institutions such as the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff;

Preempted any inclination to question the wisdom of the post-Cold War foreign policy consensus, founded on expectations of a sole superpower exercising "global leadership";

Completed the shift of US strategic priorities away from Europe and toward the Greater Middle East, the defense of Israel having now supplanted the defense of Berlin as the cause to which presidents and would-be presidents ritually declare their fealty.

By almost any measure, this constitutes a record of substantial, if almost entirely malignant, achievement.

And goes on to point out that a vote for John McCain really is a vote for the continuation of this policy. "McCain's determination to stay the course in Iraq expresses his commitment not simply to the ongoing conflict there, but to the ideas that gave rise to that war in the first place."

Bacevich (and Yglesias, and Drum) would like Obama to stop talking merely about whether the Surge is working and start talking about whether this wider national security agenda, one which has been wrapped in a lot of empty talk about democratization, is really the course the U.S. should stay on. I wouldn't want them to hold their collective breath, as there are two reasons that isn't what Obama is going to do.

Firstly, Obama himself has already shown a Blair-like tendency to believe that a surveillance state and a foreign policy with overwhelming military might permanently on the table will be ok, just as long as a 'good guy' does it. Trust him.

Secondly - and Obama has surrounded himself with senior advisors who bear this out - the notion that the U.S. government is inherently the 'good guy' and can be trusted to wield the biggest stick is ingrained in the VSP establishment in the U.S. As Matt's first commenter ably puts it:

You're not going to see a major examination of these themes because Bacevich's core beliefs are antithetical to so many mainstream republican and democratic leaders, bloggers, and journalists. Anyone who writes a book about the "new american militarism" isn't going to get a serious hearing on security matters from people who are arguing not about whether to fight wars overseas but rather how the wars should be fought and where.

No, don't hold your breath for radical change on the core assumptions of the Bush legacy.

Another Kind Of Iraq Briefing

By Cernig

Spencer Ackerman has gotten hold of a security contractor's briefing for its clients going to Iraq. It shows a rather different picture to the all--is-rosy one pained by McCain/Bush. Spencer writes: "It's true that this level of violence is lower than that of the bloody spring and summer of 2006, but it's also true that the trajectory of violence is increasing, not decreasing."

With charts, even. Definitely worth a look.

On McCain's War Record

By Cernig

Yes, I think there are legitimate questions to be asked by historians about McCain's account of his war experiences. Witnesses to and participants in some of those events have undercut McCain's version. However, it was a long time ago and is only of historical interest, it shouldn't really be part of the current political debate any more than Kerry's swift-boating should have been. However, I'm with John Cole when he says that the Rightie-tighties howling in outrage today but gleefully participating in smearing Kerry then have nothing under their feet but swamp.

No, I don't think making a big song and dance about it is something that will particularly help the Democratic campaign, for reasons that Steven Taylor explains today.

No, I don't think John McCain's military experience particularly qualifies him to be Commander In Chief. "He was a junior officer a very long time ago. So?" That's all that really needs said.

Other Newshoggers contributors' mileages may vary.

Iraqis Want Court Inquest Into Shooting Deaths

By Cernig

Iraqi leader Nour al-Maliki has decided to appoint an Iraqi court to conduct what amounts to coroner's inquests into two recent incidents involving US troops, according to the L.A. Times. The first is the killing of one of prime minister Maliki's 18-year old cousins in the family's hometown over the weekend while he was guarding Maliki's sister, the second was the killing of a bank manager and two female employees on their way to Baghdad airport on Wednesday. US occupation forces say troops shot in self-defence, a claim that the Iraqis find dubious in both cases.

Maliki reached the decision after U.S. troops searching for a suspect in Karbala province on Friday fatally shot an 18-year-old guard who was a distant relative of the prime minister.

As often happens, there were differing accounts. The slain man's brother said the soldiers took the victim into a house and shot him. The U.S. Army released a statement saying he came out of a building "brandishing an AK-47 held against his shoulder as if to fire."

Ill feelings were further exacerbated when Karbala Gov. Aqeel Khazali accused the Americans of conducting the raid without obtaining his approval. Karbala is one of nine provinces where the U.S. has transferred responsibility for security to local authorities.

Despite all that, Abadi said Maliki was more disturbed by the killing Wednesday of a bank manager and two female employees on their way to work at Baghdad's international airport.

The U.S. military described the three as criminals and said soldiers in a convoy fired on them only after being fired upon.

Abadi said he found that unbelievable. "That doesn't fit with these people," he said.

Haider Abadi is a member of Maliki's Dawa Party and was speaking for the prime minister when he said there would be inquests. Such hearings would create a precedent going forward into the post- UN mandate phase of the occupation which is currently being negotiated between the Bush administration and Maliki's government.

Abadi acknowledged that the judge would have no authority to convict or sentence Americans, but he said a forum is needed to provide Iraqis a sense of justice.

"It's not acceptable, Iraqis getting killed without even knowing if it is the result of a tragic incident or this is negligence on the part of the U.S. military," he said.

Abadi said he had been told the U.S. military was willing to cooperate but said he was skeptical that it would produce investigative documents or allow soldiers to testify. The military did not respond Sunday to a Times query asking whether it would participate.

The Iraqi lawmaker described the proceeding as something like an American coroner's inquest. It would allow all the evidence to be weighed in public by a judge who would decide whether there was criminal negligence.

He said he hoped the hearing would provide a way out of the impasse over immunity, which has tied up negotiations over extending the U.S. military's authorization to stay in Iraq after its United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year.

Iraqi officials have been demanding legal jurisdiction to prosecute U.S. troops and contractors for their crimes. U.S. negotiators are willing to cede jurisdiction over contractors but not military personnel.

"The Iraqi side wants to have a procedure where at least the Iraqi judiciary is respected and facts are presented so that we can arrive at a conclusion," Abadi said. "At the moment we never arrive at facts. There is an Iraqi story and an American story. We just forget about it."

Abadi and Maliki shouldn't hold their breathes for US co-operation, if the experience of British coroner inquests is anything to go by. Time and again, US authorities have stalled, witheld evidence and refused to allow witnesses to testify in such inquests into deliberate shootings, accidents and "friendly fire" deaths of British soldiers and civilians, especially where the evidence was incriminatory.

Condi's World

By Cernig

Over at the Council on Foreign Relations website, they're giving space to Condi Rice to explain her own fantasy world, one she calls "American realism". It's a world where, without any apparent sense of the irony involved, she can write stuff like this:

As in the past, our policy has been sustained not just by our strength but also by our values. The United States has long tried to marry power and principle -- realism and idealism. At times, there have been short-term tensions between them. But we have always known where our long-term interests lie. Thus, the United States has not been neutral about the importance of human rights or the superiority of democracy as a form of government, both in principle and in practice. This uniquely American realism has guided us over the past eight years, and it must guide us over the years to come.

Despite torture approved at the highest level, illegal renditions, aggressive invasions, invasive surveaillance, persistent corruption and widespread malfeasance. That's only the most outragious of many delusions Condi holds dear.

Condi's World is one where Columbia, Lebanon and Liberia are touted as functioning, stable democracies with whom the US must maintain stragetic alliances. It is one where diplomatic negotiation can settle Kenya's differences but the UN's Ban Ki-moon and John Holmes - who did so much of the hard work in that settlement - not be mentioned at all; where Karzai's Afghan government delivers "good governance" rather than, as Karzai himself admits, being forced to paddle in a pool of corruption to get anything at all done; where the US has given up supporting authoritarian regimes (Saudi Arabia, Egypt) in the Middle East. It is one where "restoration of democracy in Pakistan creates an opportunity for us to build the lasting and broad-based partnership that we have never achieved with this nation" rather than one where the democratically elected government is making peace deals with the Taliban, allowing its own troops to shell NATO and Afghan positions across the border in support of Taliban attacks and in danger of toppling into anarchy itself. Amazingly, Rice falsely remembers that it was "avowedly U.S. policy from the outset to try to support the Iraqis in building a democratic Iraq" - something I'm sure neither Chalabi nor Sistani recall. These and many other delusions are pressed into service in an attempt to prove how well she and the Bush administration have done over the last eight years - Condi's world is one where the only imminent danger to America is Iran and where, although a few - undefined - mistakes must be admitted, the Bush legacy is one of overwhelming foreign policy success.

And perhaps the most remarkable thing about Condi's essay is that so few will care. A seven page essay by the incumbent Secretary on the foreign policy legacy of two Bush terms should be news, but it simply isn't. Unlike Rummie, Cheney and Gates, the former National Security Advisor and then Sec. State has largely failed to leave her mark. Even State's successes and failures seem mostly to have been made by her underlings.

Sy Hersh On Covert Action Against Iran, Again

By Cernig

Sy Hersh has a new piece out in the New Yorker alleging that the Bush administration has ramped up covert action inside Iran - funding and directing proxy groups of Iranian dissidents, including a group with ties to Al Qaeda, to carry out attacks "designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership."

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.

“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.” The Finding provided for a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said.

Although some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding, and “there was a significant amount of high-level discussion” about it, according to the source familiar with it, the funding for the escalation was approved. In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.

None of the Democratic leaders in Congress would comment on the finding, according to Hersh. The White House, which has repeatedly denied preparing for military action against Iran, and the CIA also declined comment.

There's a lot more - seven pages in total. Read, as they say, the whole thing. Hersh has been vocal about this alleged covert war and other clandestine Bush administration plans to provoke conflict with Iran for some time now, over a year. That there hasn't been a full-on shooting match despite his claims has led many to question his reports. Kevin Drum, for instance, wrote recently:

In the past, conservatives have complained that we liberals are obsessed with the idea that George Bush is going to launch a military strike on Iran. And I admit that after reading the tenth or twentieth article about this with no attack forthcoming, I began to think that maybe they had a point. Maybe we should all lay off the Seymour Hersh pieces for a while and calm down.

So is Hersh crying wolf or is he one of the few warning voices in the wilderness? Seems to me I'd rather be wrong and there wasn't a war than wrong and there was. If the former, I look foolish - if the latter, I look foolish and people die. I don't think my pride or credibility is worth any portion, however small, of the responsibility for the loss of multiple lives. If some of our prominent foreign policy commenters had felt the same before the Iraq invasion, it would have been far harder for Bush to accomplish. And so, here's my post noting Hersh's article and saying I continue to be worried about the true intentions of an administration that has a proven record of saying they don't want war while preparing to launch one. Read Hersh's piece and make your own mind up about what he writes.

Update Interesting denial from Crocker, via Think Progress:

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, reacting to Hersh's story on CNN's Late Edition, said: "I can tell you flatly that U.S. forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran."

Which, although it makes me feel better about the prospect of some Janaja-style foul up starting a general shooting match, leaves the possibility of US-backed proxies carrying out destabilization ops undenied. Wouldn't that rather rob US protestations over alleged Iranian meddling-by-proxy in Iraq of their moral legitimacy, or is it only OK if we do it?

Kings Of Speed

By Cernig

Well, now we know where at least some of the profit from $140-a-barrel oil is getting spent. From the Financial Times:

Seizures of amphetamines have risen sharply in Saudi Arabia, suggesting a surge in consumption of the illegal stimulant in the kingdom, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported yesterday.

Saudi Arabia accounted for 28 per cent of all global amphetamine seizures in 2006, the latest year for which data are available, according to the UNODC's annual report.

The quantities impounded in the kingdom started to rise sharply in 2004 and reached 12.3 tonnes in 2006. "This is equivalent to the sum of all UK seizures - the biggest amphetamine market in Europe - from 2000 to 2006," the report said.

A further two tonnes of amphetamines destined for Saudi Arabia were seized in neighbouring Oman.

Either the Saudis are having to work very hard, and using speed to keep up, or the high price of oil means its time to Paaarty!

(H/t Kat)

US Raid Kills Maliki's Relative (Updated)

By Cernig

McClatchy reports that a US special forces raid - which was launched without consultation with local Iraqi commanders despite the province where it occured, Kerbala, supposedly having been handed to Iraqi control - has killed a relative of Iraqi prime minister Nour al-Maliki. Opponents of any long-term agreement for US occupation forces presence in Iraq have had their hand unexpectedly strengthened by the incident, with several Green Zone politicians, including some from Maliki's own party, saying it proves that US forces shouldn't have the free hand the Bush administration wants them to.

The raid occurred at dawn Friday in the town of Janaja near Maliki's birthplace in the southern, mostly Shiite Muslim province of Karbala. Ali Abdulhussein Razak al Maliki, who was killed in the raid, was related to the prime minister and had close ties to his personal security detail, according to authorities in Karbala.

The incident puts an added strain on U.S.-Iraqi negotiations to draft a Status of Forces Agreement, a long-term security pact that will govern the conduct of U.S. forces in Iraq. Members of the Iraqi government and security forces said the raid only deepened their reluctance to sign any agreement that did not leave Iraqis with the biggest say on when and how combat operations are conducted.

The U.S. military handed Iraqi forces control of Karbala security in October 2007. By the end of 2007 the U.S. military had transferred nine of the country's 18 provinces to Iraqi control.

"We are afraid now of signing the long-term pact between Iraq and America because of such unjustified violations by the troops. Handing over security in provinces doesn't mean anything to the American troops," said Mohamed Hussein al Musawi, a senior Najaf-based member of the prime minister's Dawa Party. "We condemn these barbaric actions not only when they target a relative of Maliki's, but when any Iraqi is targeted in the same way."

Outrage over the mysterious operation has spread to the highest levels of the Iraqi government, which is demanding an explanation for how such a raid occurred in a province ostensibly under full Iraqi command.

"This is a Special Forces operation, an antiterrorism unit that operates almost independently so there's been no coordination with the local forces on the ground," said a high-ranking member of the Iraqi government who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the extreme sensitivity of the issue. "That's why it's so important to have a Status of Forces Agreement to regulate this relationship. As long as it's vague and open, these incidents will continue to happen."

The local military commander in the town of Janaja, where the incident occured, has said the US troops were acting on faulty intelligence when they raided the town - which is mostly populated by members of the Maliki tribe. US forces in Iraq have yet to comment on the incident.

That this raid could happen in an area which was supposedly handed to Iraqi command but without Iraqi approval makes a mockery of the notion that the occupation forces respect Iraqi sovereignty. It's a massive hearts and minds failure that couldn't have come at a worse time for the Bush administration. Now, there will be a whole new Iraqi debate - involving those of the elite who have until now looked to US forces for protection as well as those previously opposed to the occupation - on just how trustworthy occupation forces will be even if an agreement is signed.

Worse - maybe the fact that the townspeople were members of the PM's own tribe should've given someone in the US chain of command a hint that they should discuss this raid with the Iraqi government first - but they seem to have missed that hint. Now, it seems likely that Maliki and others will want to hold those who killed his relative to account - and, of course, the US answer is going to be that US troops aren't accountable to the Iraqi government or anyone else accept their own chain of command. That's going to keep this incident in the Iraqi public's minds - and those of the Green Zone elite - for a while.

Update: The Irish Times identifies the dead man.

Ali Abdel Hussein Razak al-Maliki, who was not only the first cousin of the premier but who also belonged to his personal protection unit, died when the soldiers entered his room and shot him while other members of the family were being held in another room.

Kerbala governor Aqeel al-Khazaly expressed shock at the news.

"The aerial landing and subsequent operations led to the death of an innocent civilian and the arrest of another," he said.

The detained man was identified as Hussein Nima, a visitor to the town. Mr al-Khazaly said Iraqi officials had not been informed of the operation and called it a breach of the transfer arrangement. He called for an investigation and demanded that soldiers involved should "face Iraqi courts".

$250 A Barrel Oil By Next Year?

By Cernig

Gazprom's head honcho expects oil to skyrocket in the coming year, rising another $60 -100 dollars a barrel. The price of oil has already more than doubled in the last 12 months. But the Gazprom boss also says OPEC has very liitle to do with price rises.

Alexey Miller, chief executive of Gazprom, said that the global economy is facing "a great surge in oil and gas prices" that will "end with prices at a radically new level."

His comments to the Financial Times came as oil surged to a new high of $141.98, leaving prices more than double where they were 12 months ago and casting a shadow over the prospects for the global economy this year and next.

Mr Miller also dismissed hopes that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries can do much to bring prices down. "Not a single decision has been passed of late that would really influence the global oil market," he said.

Gordon Brown and President George W Bush have both lobbied OPEC, and in particular its biggest producer Saudi Arabia, to ramp up production.

Saudi's decision to increase production has done little to bring oil lower as fears for global supply and the weaker dollar help to drive prices higher.

Mr Miller expects increasing competition for the world's gas and other energy resources to drive oil to $250 a barrel next year.

All of which makes McCain's hodgepodge of corporate giveaways and wishful thinking a lot of "too little too late" - not that Obama's in any better state.

Our tireless researcher, Kat, who sent me that article, also commented on it in her email - and I'm now turning the rest of this post over to her.

$250 a barrel oil by next year?!  Screw the so-called free-market shinola that got us into this mess, and continues to make it worse by the day. If we really don't want to starve during this unfolding economic firestorm, we'd best find a way to force Congress to:

1) immediately start a domestic Marshall Plan to manufacture millions of plug-in hybrids (heavily-subsidized so they'll be cheap-enough for us to actually buy);

2) suck up to Iceland pronto, for their help in getting all that potential geothermal electricity on line pdq; and

3) deliver a resounding whop upside the head to whoever just froze all those solar projects on federal land.

If we can get it through our Congresslizards' thick heads that this is a major economic crisis, and light a bonfire under them to do these 3 things, it might just create enough jobs so that we can not only continue to eat, but also continue paying our mortgages and utility bills.

For starters, we need to convince our Congressmen of a few stark economic and stragegic realities:

1) all the world's deep-sea oil-drilling equipment is already in use, and won't be available for several years, so they can forget that option,

2) by the time they get even one new nuclear power plant built, both the country as a whole and 99% of the populace will already be decimated economically, and

3) the US can't afford to continue spending $15b a month for the Iraq occupation, can't afford for our military to continue consuming 8% of the world's yearly oil supply as fuel in the process, nor can we afford to wait for years as our military vainly tries to impose enough stability in Iraq for Big Oil to develop Iraq's vast oil reserves, especially since, by the time that happens, we won't be able to afford the $250+ per barrel they'll still be asking for it.

Indeed. If oil rises to that kind of price and stays there, as the gazprom boss suggests, then "recession" will be too polite a term for it. Every single Western economy is behind the curve on this one, but America is further behind than most. It also has most capacity to catch up, should the political class get off its collective duff.

Major Pleads Guilty To $9 Million In Bribes

By Cernig

I missed this yesterday, somehow, but the WaPo reported that Major John Cockerham pled guilty to receiving more than $9 million in bribes in exchange for awarding illegal contracts to supply US and Iraqi troops in Iraq. He faces up to 40 years in prison. His wife and sister also pled guilty to involvement. Cockerham and his wife did deals with prosecutors to help with ongoing enquiries, however.

We mentioned Cockerham first back in September last year. Back then, we noted that Cockerham, Lt. Col. Levonda Joey Selph (who also pled guilty on corruption charges recently) and Iraqi officials doing backdoor deals with the Mafia, all practised their corruption while it was General David "170,000 missing guns" Petraeus' job to conduct oversight of Iraqi procurement activities.

General Petraeus has been confirmed as the new head honcho at CentCom.

Seven Republicans Block AIDS Bill

By Cernig

Bush's AIDS program has been described by many, including even his critics, as his greatest diplomatic and foreign policy success and has alleviated the suffering of millions. But now seven Republicans are calling a halt on an expansion of the program, "the best ambassador the U.S. has ever had", because they're scared about straight talk and direct action on the ways in which gay sex and drug use affect the spread of the disease.

...the seven socially conservative senators, led by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., refuse to support the legislation unless spending focuses more heavily on treatment than on prevention.

In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the seven senators — Coburn, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Jeff Sessions of Alabama and David Vitter of Louisiana — criticized the bills' increased spending over the next five years from $15 billion to $50 billion, the expansion of AIDS funding to countries such as China and India and the inclusion of funding for agricultural-assistance and poverty-alleviation programs.

"The bills' support would allow morally questionable activities, including advocating with host governments to change gender norms and policies and promoting activities that could include needle distribution to drug users," the senators wrote.

The White House, McConnell and Majority Leader Reid are all supporting the legislation as are a wide range of humanitarian groups.

Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu recently pressed McConnell to convince the Republican senators who've balked to pass the legislation.

"With the quick passage of this legislation, the United States could send a strong signal of its continuing global health leadership that will leverage support from other G-8 nations," Tutu wrote in a letter to McConnell. "That is why I am so deeply troubled by the impasse in the U.S. Senate regarding this legislation. I see signs that global determination to keep the promises made on AIDS, TB and malaria is waning, and I know that passage of this legislation, prior to the G-8, is crucial to regaining momentum."

..."The AIDS program has been the best ambassador the U.S. has ever had. It's exactly why the president was welcomed when he went to Africa earlier this year. It has strengthened U.S. diplomacy," said David Bryden, the communications director for the Global AIDS Alliance, an international advocacy group.

If these Republicans have their way, thousands will die so they can indulge their own sense of moral rectitude - and, by the by, America's image abroad will again be tarnished when it used to shine. Nice move, senators.

Faux Outrage

By Cernig

Do you know how easy it is to find out what David Addington looks like? This easy.

Which makes the outrage coming from the likes of Red State, Hot Air and Powerline at William Delahunt's admittedly dumb words just as much Faux News at it always is.

Addington set out to be a complete jackass showing the "grace of gollum" in his contempt for Congress. Some Congresscritters seemed more interested in showing their contempt for Addington in return - or in grandstanding rather than asking searching questions about non-hypothetical events. All in all not a great day for America, but let's not lose sight of the simple fact that, sans Addington, Yoo and their bosses, America wouldn't have an officially sanctioned policy of torture and the commission of other war crimes. There's a clear villain in the Addington/Delahunt tale and it isn't the congressman from Massachusetts.

McCain - Anti-Troop, Anti-Veteran (Updated)

By Cernig

John McCain was the only Senator other than convalescing Ted Kennedy to not vote on the GI Bill. By his cowardly absence on a matter of principle (he had backed an alternate version of the bill that was defeated), he associated himself with the six radically anti-veteran Republicans who voted no. Apparently, as Brandon Friedman points out, McCain's "admiration, respect and deep gratitude" for veterans doesn't go as far as thanking them by providing for their education after they leave the battlefield.

For shame.

Update: Over at DKos, they have video of McCain taking credit for the bill he opposed, then  missed the vote on. What incredible gall.

I'm happy to tell you that we probably agreed to an increase in educational benefits for our veterans that not only gives them  increase in their educational benefits, but if they stay in for a certain period of time than they can transfer those educational benefits to their spouses and or children. That's a very important aspect I think of incentivizing people of staying in the military.

I suppose there's a possibility the Senile Express forgot he opposed the bill and then forgot that he forgot to turn up to vote...

The Lexington Pork-ject

By Cernig

Yesterday, John McCain released his Lexington Project - which his campaign describes as a long-term plan to end America's reliance on foreign oil imports by 2025, seventeen years from now. He has named it after the town where the notion of America's independence first began and has invoked both the Space race and the victory over the Nazis in describing how his project will "break the power of OPEC over the United States" - "And never again will we leave our vital interests at the mercy of any foreign power."

Leaving aside the observation that Bush's Iraq war of choice and occupation, which Mccain advocates continuing indefinitely, have already overtaken WW2 with no end in sight - - does the Lexington Project, as detailled on McCain's website, stack up as a policy proposal?

Well, the first thing to notice about the Project is how short on detail it is. The whole thing, as my colleague BJ pointed out to me privately, reads like a bad Executive Summary of a policy, with the policy itself nowhere in sight. A bunch of bullet points and a short description of each is all we have at the moment, in a webpage comparable to a long-ish blog post. Not for McCain the inconveniences of long PDFs for his supporters and the media to wade through - and not for McCain the actual dollar figures of how much it will all cost either.

For instance, there's a $5,000 tax credit for every clean emission car bought to encourage automakers to innovate. That's about 20% of the average cost of a new car, per car. McCain doesn't mention how much that would cost the US taxpayer - but somewhere in excess of 12 million new light vehicles are sold annually in the US so this credit alone will have, eventually, a several billion annual pricetag. But McCain also only wants to enforce current CAFE standards by making fines for not following the standards more punitive. He says not a thing about higher CAFE standards nor phasing in more stringent emission standards, but surely a combination of those two could accomplish his "clean car" aim without a multi-billion dollar pricetag.

Then there's his promise to give another $2 billion annually to the coal-powered generation industry to fund R&D in clean coal technologies. The Bush administration just cancelled a power plant which was to be the pilot for such technology, at a projected cost of around $1.5 billion total. Currently, there are no plans for any other clean burning power stations to be built before 2012 at the earliest. The cancelled power plant, FutureGen, was also the only US hydogen production plant on the drawing boards. So much for homegrown hydrogen power.

And then there's McCain's promise to establish a 10% tax credit for corportation's R&D costs. It doesn't mention that this credit will be exclusively to energy R&D, which raises the spectre of, for instance, pharmacy companies getting a tax cut simply for churning out "me-too" drugs. But let's suppose it is exclusive to the energy production and generation sectors. The oil industry alone spends around $2 billion annually on R&D right now and the energy sector as a whole sops up a good deal of the $90 billion plus of non-federal R&D money spent annually. It isn't out of order to expect McCain's tax break to cost the government a couple of billion every year, for research which the government could create a market neccessity for through a legislative enrironment in any case.

Federal handouts to the energy sector already cost the government over $5 billion a year. McCain's Project simply looks to increase that corporate welfare enormously, at least doubling it, while calling for a free market solution to energy independence. That's a con game of monumental proportions.

But he tries to conceal this unpleasant truth behind a vagueness so complete as to be entirely misleading. There are other examples of this - and I'll try later to write about the shell games he proposes to play on behalf of the nuclear industry, the oil/gas producers and on his Cap and Trade proposals too.

For the moment, however, I found the CBS web coverage of McCain's announcement unintentionally amusing in juxtaposition of page sponsor and headline.

The Right To Arm Bears

By Cernig

And just like that, pfft goes the Right's newly minted meme that the current Supreme Court has a liberal majority hellbent on left-wing legislating from the bench and on radically re-interpreting the Constitution. They have struck down Washington D.C.'s gun ban as unconstitutional:

The justices voted 5-4 against the ban, with Justice Antonin Scalia writing the opinion for the majority.

At issue in District of Columbia v. Heller was whether Washington's ban violated the right to "keep and bear arms" by preventing individuals -- as opposed to state militias -- from having guns in their homes.

"Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security and where gun violence is a serious problem," Scalia wrote. "That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

And also, just like that, Obama's campaign comes out with another Blairism.

the Obama campaign is disavowing what it calls an "inartful" statement to the Chicago Tribune last year in which an unnamed aide characterized Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as believing that the DC ban was constitutional.

"That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator's consistent position," Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News.

The statement which Burton describes as an inaccurate representation of the senator's views was made to the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 20, 2007.

In a story entitled, "Court to Hear Gun Case," the Chicago Tribune's James Oliphant and Michael J. Higgins wrote ". . . the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he '...believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.'"

As John Cole wrote yesterday:

No, I don’t have buyers remorse, yes, he still is better than Hillary or McCain, no, I am not disillusioned (I never thought he was a flaming liberal in the first place). I am, however, disgusted, and I will caution the Obama campaign that “better than McCain” is not much of a rallying cry. We all remember how “anything is better than Bush” turned out in 2004.

I've written much the same a few times now.

Indeed, Bush ran successfully twice on a no-U-turns basis of "you may not like him, but you know where he stands", something McCain is emulating with his wholly fictitious "Straight Talk Express" narrative. In today's political climate, flip-flops and smarmy attempts to spin now-abandoned positions of principle as "inartful" are are more harmful than just going against the national grain might be. I understand that Obama wants to move toward the center now that the primary is over and the general must be fought, but inartfully doing so won't help. He needs to redicover his spine.

Bush Misses Nuke Diplomacy Opportunity

By Cernig

Via Reuters, a new report by the Federation of American Scientists says that the US has removed the last of its nuclear weapons from British soil. That leaves just over 240 US nukes in Europe, at bases in Turkey, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands - down from a Cold War height of around 7,000.

But the Bush administration haven't made any public announcements about the reduction, something which the FAS report's author, nuclear weapons expert Hans Kristensen, says is a diplomatic missed opportunity:

Kristensen he said it was "a puzzle" that the withdrawal had not been announced at a time when the West is arguing with Russia over weapons cuts.

"By keeping the withdrawals secret, NATO and the United States have missed huge opportunities to engage Russia directly and positively about reductions to their non-strategic nuclear weapons, and to improve their own nuclear image in the world in general," he wrote.

Obsessive secrecy and a disregard bordering on hatred for diplomacy have been systemic failings for this administration. There are signs of the latter even in Bush's grudging acceptance of North Korea's likewise grudging co-operation with the international community. At a time when he could afford to be publicly magnanimous, he still feels he has to chuck red meat to his negotiation-hating base.

15 Spines Found

By Cernig

The 15 vertebrates of the Senate:

Biden (D-DE), Boxer (D-CA), Brown (D-OH), Cantwell (D-WA), Dodd (D-CT), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Harkin (D-IA), Kerry (D-MA), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Leahy (D-VT), Menendez (D-NJ), Sanders (I-VT), Schumer (D-NY), Wyden (D-OR).

The rest are either too scared of being called softies or too enamoured of the chance to wield the power of the new FISA bill themselves. Ian Welsh, writing at FDL, has the rest of what you need to know.

Anyone for Sanders in 2012?