Quote of the Day

Speaking on the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development mistrial, as declared by a federal judge in Dallas:

"It seems clear that the majority of the jury agreed with many observers of the trial who believe the charges were built on fear, not facts," said Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "This is a stunning defeat for prosecutors and a victory for America's legal system."

A "Strategy" for Iraq?

Thus, writes David Gardner of Financial Times ("America's Illusory Strategy in Iraq," August 9 2007):

But US commanders seem to have no trouble detecting the hand of Tehran everywhere. This largely evidence-free blaming of serial setbacks on Iranian forces is a bad case of denial. First, the insurgency is overwhelmingly Iraqi and Sunni, built around a new generation of jihadis created by the US invasion. Second, to the extent foreign fighters are involved these have come mostly from US-allied and Sunni Saudi Arabia, not Shia Iran. Third, the lethal roadside bombs with shaped charges that US officials have coated with a spurious veneer of sophistication to prove Iranian provenance are mostly made by Iraqi army-trained engineers – from high explosive looted from those unsecured arms dumps.

Shia Iran has backed a lot of horses in Iraq. If it wished to bring what remains of the country down around US ears it could. It has not done so. The plain fact is that Tehran’s main clients in Iraq are the same as Washington’s: Mr Maliki’s Da’wa and the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq led by Abdelaziz al-Hakim. Iran has bet less on the unpredictable Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army, which has, in any case, largely stood aside during the present troop surge.

So, in sum. Having upturned the Sunni order in Iraq and the Arab world, and hugely enlarged the Shia Islamist power emanating from Iran, the US finds itself dependent on Tehran-aligned forces in Baghdad, yet unable to dismantle the Sunni jihadistan it has created in central and western Iraq. Ignoring its Iraqi allies it is arming Sunni insurgents to fight al-Qaeda. And, by selling them arms rather than settling Palestine it is trying to put together an Arab Sunni alliance (Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) with Israel against Iran. All clear? How can anyone keep a straight face and call this a strategy?

Iran TV Reviews Brzezinski Book "Second Chance"

Broadcast 5 April on Iranian state satellite TV

Kucinich on YouTube

Carter's Book: Apartheid

"A Second Chance"

Zbigniew Brzezinski

The Fear Machine

Thus, writes the national security advisor to President Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski:

Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue.

...The terror entrepreneurs, usually described as experts on terrorism, are necessarily engaged in competition to justify their existence. Hence their task is to convince the public that it faces new threats. That puts a premium on the presentation of credible scenarios of ever-more-horrifying acts of violence, sometimes even with blueprints for their implementation.

...That America has become insecure and more paranoid is hardly debatable. A recent study reported that in 2003, Congress identified 160 sites as potentially important national targets for would-be terrorists. With lobbyists weighing in, by the end of that year the list had grown to 1,849; by the end of 2004, to 28,360; by 2005, to 77,769. The national database of possible targets now has some 300,000 items in it, including the Sears Tower in Chicago and an Illinois Apple and Pork Festival.

...The entertainment industry has also jumped into the act. Hence the TV serials and films in which the evil characters have recognizable Arab features, sometimes highlighted by religious gestures, that exploit public anxiety and stimulate Islamophobia. Arab facial stereotypes, particularly in newspaper cartoons, have at times been rendered in a manner sadly reminiscent of the Nazi anti-Semitic campaigns. Lately, even some college student organizations have become involved in such propagation, apparently oblivious to the menacing connection between the stimulation of racial and religious hatreds and the unleashing of the unprecedented crimes of the Holocaust.

...A case in point is the reported harassment of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its attempts to emulate, not very successfully, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Some House Republicans recently described CAIR members as "terrorist apologists" who should not be allowed to use a Capitol meeting room for a panel discussion.

There is more. Read the full text in the online edition of The Washington Post.

The Folly and Diplomacy

Javad Zarif, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, has written a column for International Herald Tribune (Thursday, February 9, 2007):

The folly of turning on Iran

Javad Zarif

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Before the United States invaded Iraq on false pretexts nearly four years ago, the overwhelming view of analysts and diplomats was that war would plunge the region and the world into greater turmoil and instability.

Echoing the views of my colleagues from the region and beyond, I told the Security Council on Feb. 18, 2003, that while the ramifications of the war could go beyond anyone's calculations, "one outcome is almost certain: Extremism stands to benefit enormously from an uncalculated adventure in Iraq."

This assessment came not from any sympathy for the former Iraqi dictator or his regime. Rather, it was based on a sober recognition of the realities of the region and the inescapable dynamics of occupation.

Now the U.S. administration is, unfortunately, reaping the expected bitter fruits of its ill-conceived adventurism, taking the region and the world with it to the brink of further hostility.

But rather than face these unpleasant facts, the U.S. administration is trying to sell an escalated version of the same failed policy. It does this by trying to make Iran its scapegoat and fabricating evidence of Iranian activities in Iraq.

The U.S. administration also appears to be trying to forge a regional coalition to counter Iranian influence. Even if it succeeds in doing so, such a coalition will prove practically futile, dangerous to the region as a whole and internally destabilizing for Iraq.

By promoting such a policy, the United States is fanning the flames of sectarianism just when they most need to be quelled.

Coalitions of convenience like the one the U.S. government now contemplates were a hallmark of American policy in the region in the 1980s and 1990s, and their effect then was to contribute to the creation of monsters like Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Short memories may be responsible for this ill-advised return to old habits.

But who can forget that Saddam Hussein used the very same scare tactic, invoking the "Iranian threat" to extort money, loyalty and military hardware from the region and the world, only to turn them later against his suppliers?

Who cannot remember that to contain the supposed "Shiite Crescent" after the 1979 Iranian revolution, the extremism of the fundamentalist Salafi movement was nourished by the West — only later to become Al Qaeda and the Taliban?

Such a short-sighted campaign of hatred will compound regional problems, and it will have global implications, from the subcontinent to Europe and the United States, long after the current crisis ends.

We need to remember that sectarian division and hatred in Iraq and the wider region was most recently instigated by none other than the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The shameful legacy of Zarqawi and his collaborators should have been buried with him. To that end, all of us in the region need to set aside short-sighted schemes and engage with the government of Iraq in a common effort to contain sectarian violence.

The Persian Gulf region is in dire need of a truly inclusive arrangement for security and cooperation. Only through such regional cooperation, with the necessary international support, can we contain the current crisis and prevent future ones.

I wrote in these pages almost four years ago that the removal of Saddam Hussein provided a unique opportunity to finally realize the long sought objective of regional confidence building and cooperation, as well as to reverse the dangerous trend of confrontation, exclusion and rivalry.

We have lost many valuable opportunities to effect this arrangement. The forthcoming meeting of Iraq's neighbors, to be held in Baghdad next month, will be a good place to begin this difficult but necessary journey toward regional security.

The American administration can contribute by recognizing that occupation and the threat or use of force are not merely impermissible under international law, but indeed imprudent in purely political calculations of national interest.

As authoritative studies have repeatedly shown, no initiators of war in recent history have achieved the intended results; in fact, in almost all cases, those resorting to force have ultimately undermined their own security and stature.

When 140,000 American troops could not bring stability to Iraq, and in fact achieved exactly the opposite, an additional 20,000 soldiers with a dangerous new mandate can only be expected to worsen tension and increase the possibility of unintended escalation. Only a reversal of the logic of force and occupation can dry up the hotbeds of insurgency.

Similarly, forging imaginary new threats, as the U.S. administration is now doing with Iran, may provide some temporary domestic cover for the failure of the administration's Iraq policy, but it can hardly resolve problems that, as widely suggested, require prudence, dialogue and a genuine search for solutions.

We all need to learn from past mistakes and not stubbornly insist on repeating them against all advice — including the advice George W. Bush gave as a presidential candidate in 2000: "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us; if we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us."