What follows George W. Bush's failed mission from God to bleed Iraq until it embraces Foggy Bottom democracy and signs a hydrocarbon law drafted in Houston?
Alas, there is no happy ending to his part of the story, at least not for those who wear the desert combat boots and for those who have to pay for them. Not on this side of the visible horizon, anyway. Not under this Administration. The Surge, alone, isn’t going to do it - but, there's something else that might.
Some have said there is no Plan B to the U.S. endgame for Iraq. That isn’t really true. Plan B is now going into effect. You see, the hang up in establishing a post-Saddam Iraqi order isn’t really the Shi’a, it’s the Kurds, who have 20 percent of the population but sit on more than 60 percent of the country’s known oil reserves. The solution involves the Turkish Army and Air Force, and yet another American betrayal.
The key to controlling the Shi’a in the south, who have most of the rest of Iraq’s petroleum, is to threaten Iran. To them Washington is saying, "Don't worry about Dick Cheney, fear Hillary Clinton."
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Joining Saudi Arabia and Israel in a game of tag-team wrestling, Washington is engaged in a game to convince everyone that we'll actually go to war to prevent Iran from building an atomic bomb. But, our escalating tensions with Iran is really much more about the terms of U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Iran's refusal to play ball with the U.S. in southern Iraq is also seen as cause for war. Double-down. After years of overuse by Bush-Cheney, both threats have a hollow ring. So if you can't change the message, change the megaphone.
The message now is this:
the U.S. really, truly, this time, finally -- under better, united Presidential and Congressional leadership – will actually bomb Iran unless the Shi'a give up their stubborn nonsense. “Resistance is futile, prepare to be plugged into the grid”. It’s really as simple and complicated as that. The hard part is getting from threats to results without destroying what’s left of U.S. credibility and hegemony in the region.
Ah, that is the rub . . . but, it’s a game that Hillary Clinton and much of the Democratic leadership have signalled they're willing to play.
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The sad fact is that America does not control the end game. We can not exit Iraq except on the terms that it's neighbors will accept. The $2.4 trillion cost of the occupation has so weakened our standing in the region -- and the U.S. economy is deep in the red to Middle Eastern and Asian lenders -- that America can not impose its own prefered solution in the region, which is to keep Iraq a unified nation-state and a reliable check against the ambitions of its troublesome neighbors.
There are just too many intractable problems in the way of that goal, obstacles that were readily apparent before the 2003 invasion. Turkey won't accept an independent, oil-rich Kurdistan on its border. The Saudis fear the Sunni population will become what the Palestinians became for Jordan, a radicalized ungovernable mass. Persia knows that if it simply waits for the smoke to clear, it will be reunited with the Shi'a in what becomes Iran's new western province, and emerge as the regional superpower, an outcome that Israel (along with the Saudis) will do (almost) anything to preempt. It's that last caveat that makes the threat of war seem so implausible that Iran won't be baited into doing what the U.S. wants them to.
Hillary says, as President, she'll reconcile all the above parties and "convince Iraq's neighbors to refrain from getting involved in the civil war."
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=2354 Uh huh. What are the incentives to compromise? What are the costs if they refuse to come to terms of our liking? At the same time, Clinton is shaking sticks at Iran. "No option", even preemptive war to stop its nascent nuclear program "can be taken off the table".
"I believe we should work to resolve our differences with Iran through vigorous diplomacy based on a series of carrots and sticks," Clinton wrote. "I oppose any rush to war but also believe doing nothing is not acceptable -- diplomacy is the right path."
http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSN23272540We all know about the sticks. But, that leaves the question, what carrots? What possible incentive does Iran have, given the continuing threats to destroy its nuclear infrastructure, to reconcile and concede its interests in Iraq?
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The Joint Chiefs have long realized that trying to subdue and occupy a country of 30 million with less than 400,000 troops was not such a great notion. Even the GOP Presidential candidates don’t exactly shout out loud with glee at the prospect that the U.S. may have to garrison Iraq with ten divisions for another half-century in order to achieve the Administration’s stated and unstated goals.
Aside from Mr. Bush, there are only two major voices for “staying the course”. One is Saudi Arabia. When the House of Saud speaks, Bush’s West Wing knows which way and how high to jump.
Before he decamped from Washington earlier this year, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al-Faisal, expressed his disgust that "since America came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited." He threatened that if the U.S. withdraws before it is invited to do so, one of the first consequences will be a Saudi intervention on the side of the Sunnis. The implication was, if Washington doesn’t force Iran to back off from its support of the Shi’a majority, the Saudis will make sure the Sunni center has all the arms and money it needs to reestablish Sunni control in Baghdad.
The other is Israel. Saudi Arabia, the neocons, and Hillary. Keep the strangeness of that mix in mind as we move on the next part of this strange coalition.
Between these forces pushing for maintenance of US military presence in Iraq, the American political process is paralysed.
In March, at the national convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) pro-Israel lobby, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared:
http://dclk.themarker.com/html.ng/site=Haaretz_Eng&adsize=1x1&hposition=7&hlayer1=1"Those who are concerned for Israel's security, for the security of the Gulf States and for the stability of the entire Middle east should recognize the need for American success in Iraq and responsible exit," Olmert announced, via video link.
"Any outcome that will not help America's strength and would, in the eyes of the people in the region, undercut America's ability to deal effectively with the threat posed by the Iranian regime will be very negative," he added
The thing to keep in mind is that the mantel for the war in Iraq is being transferred to the Democrats, with Hillary as the presumed 44th President of the United States. In response, some of the Republican candidates hope to reach to the center, and almost sound downright reasonable by comparison. That just about turns the world upside down. If you didn’t see it, one of the most memorable moments of the Republican Presidential debates was this question to Mitt Romney during the 5th debate:
http://myclob.pbwiki.com/Is+Hillary+Clinton+willing+to+commit+troops+to+Iraq+longer+than+youGovernor Romney, you have suggested that U.S. troops in Iraq move to a support phase after the surge, which pretty much has to end in the spring, and a standby phase after that in Kuwait and Qatar. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems even Hillary Clinton is willing to commit troops to Iraq longer than that, sir.
Romney didn’t exactly disown that imputed position.
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The World Turned Upside DownNext we come to The New York Times resident conservative doyen, David Brooks and his embrace by the Democratic Leadership Conference (DLC). The DLC thinks so much of Brooks that they put his op-ed up at the top of the Press Page of their website.
http://dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=254449&kaid=85&subid=65 Go there, and you’ll find a top banner that proudly displays “Meet Our Leaders”: Harold Ford, Jr . . Senator Tom Carpenter ... Hillary Clinton.
Right below that on the DLC Press Center page, is a NYT Op-ed by Brooks. His message: Ignore the progressive netroots, and most of all, select a Presidential candidate that is willing to bomb Tehran, or at least one who will lip sink Ronald Reagan’s famous line: “We commence bombing in five minutes”. Brooks observes:
The fact is, many Democratic politicians privately detest the netroots' self-righteousness and bullying. They also know their party has a historic opportunity to pick up disaffected Republicans and moderates, so long as they don't blow it by drifting into cuckoo land. They also know that a Democratic president is going to face challenges from Iran and elsewhere that are going to require hard-line, hawkish responses.
Note that last message about “hard-line, hawkish responses”. To get from here to there, however, means that the Democratic Party leadership will have to steamroll over its anti-war base, a base that is about as likely to endorse a war with Iran as it is likely to campaign for Mitt Romney. They plan to safely ignore us while they play out their high-risk game of nuclear chicken with Iran and the Islamic world. They know it, and you should, too.
Progressives Support the Troops, the Bush Administration Won’tThat brings us to the progressive Democratic base, and their response to the beat of the Iran war drum. There may be a little toe-tapping out there in the blogs, but not many of us are going to get up and dance. On the other hand, none of the top-tier Dem candidates have shown much inclination to stand up and repeat Nancy Reagan’s admonition, “Just Say, No.“ You have to get the feeling that with one or two exceptions, the candidates really don't know the exact rules of the game and no one wants to move too far out on the limb without a copy of the game plan.
So, what are we in the progressive blogs supposed to do?
First, we have to get a grasp on who really has power and the inclination to resist a President who decides (s)he wants the U.S. to launch a war with Iran.
During the last three to four years, the most effective anti-war group in Washington has been the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a group of Intelligence Mandarins, many of whom started their careers completely in step with the Ford, Reagan and Bush 41 Administrations. These are the people who can rightly take much of the credit for the fall of the Soviet Union, the unification of Europe under the West, and the quick, decisive expulsion of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. The splitting off of the former southern Soviet Republics, and the capture of the immense oil and gas reserves of the Caspian Sea seemed to announce that the American Century was permanent state of the world. But, the End of Time era suddenly stopped nine months after Bush 43 was installed.
The Permanent Washington Establishment suddenly realized in the Fall of 2001, they had also been the stewards of a global Jihad movement allied with a nuclear-armed Pakistan, funded by insurgent Saudi and Gulf billionaires so wealthy and powerful that they are virtually untouchanble because they own a controlling interest in Western corporations, candidates and governments.
If you need an illustration of oil money in American politics, consider this. The biggest contributor to Hillary Rodham Clinton is the Saudi Royal family.
More precisely, the Saudis wield political influence in America primarily through the companies they purchase. Look at NewsCorp and Citicorp, both of which have gobbled their way to market dominance in media and financial services after Kingdom Holding Company and Prince Alwaleed took a controlling interest. The Saudis also have a major interest in Time Warner and Disney, which owns the ABC network. These companies are also among the largest contributors to HRC's campaign war chest. See,
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allcontrib.asp?CID=N00000019HILLARY CLINTON: CAREER PROFILE (SINCE 2000)
Top Contributors
1 Citigroup Inc $322,460
2 Goldman Sachs $279,640
3 Time Warner $222,290
4 JP Morgan Chase & Co $174,075
5 Metropolitan Life $167,600
6 Credit Suisse Group $163,150
7 Skadden, Arps et al $162,680
8 Corning Inc $156,250
9 Morgan Stanley $148,960
10 Cablevision Systems $141,650
11 Viacom Inc $139,435
12 International Profit Assoc $129,400
13 Ernst & Young $128,700
14 Kirkland & Ellis $119,850
15 Kushner Companies $119,000
16 New York Life Insurance $110,250
17 Walt Disney Co $105,965
18 Patton Boggs $101,638
19 Sullivan & Cromwell $94,350
20 News Corp $94,125
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Back in Washington, the realization that their Cold War and Gulf War victories had turned to ashes was a profound shock, as was the further revelation during 2003 that the WMD justification that had been offered for invading Iraq had been a naked lie, without even the fig leaf of plausible deniability.
The Pentagon brass and ranking officers and alumni at Langley aren’t Boy Scouts, and most of them went along with the games convened by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Stephen Hadley. There were some resignations, and a few -- such as Ambassador Wilson -- even came forward publicly to oppose the misuse of intelligence, and they were dealt with accordingly.
The rebellion within the ranks, as modest as it was, couldn’t be ignored. The more intelligent and realistic Generals and CIA Mandarins decided that the best course was to stabilize the situation, and if necessary, reign in the White House. The remainder of the neocon Plan –
The Clean Break http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm – that called for regime change in Iraq, then Lebanon, followed by Syria and finally, Iran, was put on the shelf, as were some of those most directly involved in the falsification of Iraq and Iran WMD intelligence.
That resulted in four related counter-intelligence investigations:
* the Iraq Survey Group (established the Iraq WMD fraud, May 2003);
* the CIA's post-Plame outing damage assessment (circulated September 2003);
* the FBI's OSP-AIPAC-Mossad probe of efforts to plant disinformation about Iran WMDs in Pentagon files (Franklin was charged July 2004 but had been cooperating for quite a while in a sting operation);
* and, finally, the Fitzgerald Grand Jury and trial of Scooter Libby, special assistant to both the President and Vice President, and Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff.
Each of these investigations revealed that elements of Israeli and Saudi intel allied with the American neocons had engaged in a massive, coordinated deception and espionage campaign to push the United States into a series of aggressive wars regardless of the costs and damage that this would have to American global interests.
Those investigations gave the newly-elected Democratic Congressional majority everything it needed to Impeach Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. But, then somehow, someone, something happened that convinced the Democratic leadership to take Impeachment "off the table." With America at war in Iraq, and with an even larger conflict looming, the Democratic Party is simply unwilling to unseat the Chief Executive.
Impeachment, like the withdrawal from Iraq called for by the Iraq Study Group, has been blocked by the concerted efforts of two extremely powerful pressure groups which do not always visibly work together. This coalition is a marriage of convenience, but when it works, it is almost unstoppable.
AIPAC and the Saudis are behind what seems to be an insane push to "fall forward" into Iran before November 2008 But, the truth is more nuanced. The Saudis will do everything in their power to keep the U.S. tied up in Iraq to force a better settlement of the division of Iraq than the one they would get now. The Saudis recall the lesson of what happened to the Hashemite regime when Jordan was stuck with hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees after the 1967 and 1973 wars. The Saudi Royal Family sees the Sunni Iraqis and an empowered Shi'a allied with Iran as probably the greatest long term threat to their continued rule.
The Saudis and Gulf Arabs, however, do not really want an actual war between the U.S. and Iran, as this would likely result in an uncontrollable escalation into regional war, one that really would redraw the map of the Middle East, almost certainly to the detriment of the 10,000 super-wealthy oil sheikhs and the glittering new capitals of world commerce they’ve built in the Arabian desert and along the western coast of the Persian Gulf. They know they are terribly vulnerable, and will continue to be until the U.S. is effectively reduced as a global economic and military power - that is how Dubya's $2.4 trillion Iraq folly have been most useful to them.
The Israelis are, as always, split and engaged in a civil war over how to play their remaining cards. The damage to relations with the U.S. military from the Mossad's operations under Sharon are so severe that it resulted in the political death of Likud. Sharon is also gone. However, there really is no alternative foreign policy establishment left in Israel today. Kadima is paralyzed and wandering around the tub aimlessly. Even the IDF has had the facade of invincibility stripped from its loins in Lebanon. The Israeli Labor Party does not have a really independent voice or presence within the IDF and intelligence, anymore. Isaeli politics is dominated by aging American and Russian oligarchs, most of whom are of the most extreme reactionary type. It is their money that controls the internal politics in the Knesset and AIPAC. There is an even more fanatical faction that's shifted its primary giving to the Republican Jewish Coalition, which founded Freedom's Watch, and it's massive media buys in support of The Surge and now, an attack Iran crusade. There seems to be something almost apocalyptic about their actions.
In the face of both AIPAC and the Saudis, Congress is paralyzed. That leaves the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community the only buffer in the way of a much broader war - Bush-Cheney can't be counted on to keep things together, and the Congress seems to be dazed and clueless.
If the progressive blogosphere wants to have an effective role in preventing a war with Iran, it needs to realize who is who, and what these various factions are up to. The central focus of all these factions, ranging from Dick Cheney to Hillary Clinton, is to reassemble a credible threat of war against Iran, and a consensus that once supported an aggressive containment and rollback of Iranian power in the region.
Realists understand that it was the policy fraud of the neocons and overreach in Iraq that broke the old consensus and created the opportunity for Iran to recover its western province and assert itself in Lebanon. Some even grasp that the present policy of escalating threats further erodes American credibility, because ultimately an aggressive war with Iran would destroy America as a constitutional republic and a legitimate part of the community of democratic states. War with Iran, whether under this President or the next, really is not an option.
Hillary Clinton needs to come forward, and explain for the good of the country and the Democratic Party, that the next war won’t be hers.
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