"Improperly veiled" woman assaults Iranian cleric

One of the many problems for women living in Iran is gangs of so-called 'religious' thugs who harass them for infractions of the dress code.

One particular mullah got more than he bargained for when a woman he was publicly chastising responded with an attack that put him in hospital for three days. This story is from a few days ago, but it's an interesting one and I wanted to make sure people didn't miss it. The pictures of the result are pretty gruesome (H/t Boing Boing.) Read the rest of this post...

RBS the latest bank under investigation for business with Iran

Doing deals with Iran is nothing compared to the trillions they blew away during the peak of the banking crisis or even the Libor ripoff. That said, this is an industry that thumbs its nose at the law because it is the law. The banking industry can rest comfortably knowing that it's easy enough to write a few checks to pay a few fines and nobody will bother them tomorrow. The Guardian:

US authorities are investigating Royal Bank of Scotland for possible violations of sanctions with Iran, the Financial Times reports.

The Federal Reserve and department of justice are conducting the investigation, the paper said, citing several people close to the situation. The investigation comes after the British bank volunteered information to US and UK regulators 18 months ago, the Financial Times said.

Ed Canaday, a spokesman for RBS, declined comment.

But in its quarterly report filed on 8 August, RBS said it had "initiated discussions with UK and US authorities to discuss its historical compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including US economic sanctions regulations". The bank said it could not predict the outcome of those discussions.

Outside of maybe the "defense industry" no other industry can so often and so blatantly flout the law and get away with a light tap on the wrist. In the case of the much larger banking crisis, they didn't even have to pay back the bogus bonus money they had received for years. Read the rest of this post...

Deutsche Bank under investigation for business with Iran

Not to worry though because it's painfully clear after the crisis that the financial industry is the law, so little will come of this. Now that the US Department of Justice has taken a pass on prosecuting Wall Street for the 2008 banking crisis, it's hard to say what a bank has to do in order to be held fully accountable for their actions.

U.S. prosecutors are investigating Deutsche Bank and several other global banks over business linked to Iran, Sudan and other nations currently under international sanctions, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The U.S. Justice Department and the Manhattan District Attorney's office are investigating the banks for allegedly using U.S. branches to move billions of dollars in Iran-linked transactions, according to the report, citing unnamed law enforcement officials.

The investigation into Deutsche Bank is at an early stage and so far there is no suspicion the Germany-based institution moved money on behalf of Iranian clients through American operations after 2008, when a policy loophole allowing such maneuvering closed, the Times reported.

Deutsche Bank decided in 2007 it would "not engage in new business with counterparties in countries such as Iran, Syria, Sudan and North Korea and to exit existing business to the extent legally possible," a spokesman told Reuters on Saturday. He declined to comment further.

Equally unsettling is the NY Times report that our "allies" in Iraq (including those with deep ties to the government) are also finding lucrative business and banking partnerships with Iran. Read the rest of this post...

Is TPP ("NAFTA on steroids") Obama's Bain Capital?

More about the super-secret (and genuinely scary) Trans-Pacific Partnership ("TPP") trade agreement, courtesy of Public Citizen.

The TPP pact is a world-wide "corporate coup d'état"

A characterization of the super-secret TPP from Lori Wallach, writing in The Nation (my emphasis and paragraphing throughout):

The TPP has been cleverly misbranded as a trade agreement (yawn) by its corporate boosters. As a result, since George W. Bush initiated negotiations in 2008, it has cruised along under the radar.

The Obama administration initially paused the talks, ostensibly to develop a new approach compatible with candidate Obama’s pledges to replace the old NAFTA-based trade model. But by late 2009, talks restarted just where Bush had left off. [Note this; I have a separate point to make on this below.]

Since then, US negotiators have proposed new rights for Big Pharma and pushed into the text aspects of the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would limit Internet freedom, despite the derailing of SOPA in Congress earlier this year thanks to public activism.

In June a text of the TPP investment chapter was leaked, revealing that US negotiators are even pushing to expand NAFTA’s notorious corporate tribunals, which have been used to attack domestic public interest laws. [Our coverage of those sovereignty-killing trade courts here.]

Think of the TPP as a stealthy delivery mechanism for policies that could not survive public scrutiny. Indeed, only two of the twenty-six chapters of this corporate Trojan horse cover traditional trade matters.

The rest embody the most florid dreams of the 1 percent—grandiose new rights and privileges for corporations and permanent constraints on government regulation.

They include new investor safeguards to ease job offshoring and assert control over natural resources, and severely limit the regulation of financial services, land use, food safety, natural resources, energy, tobacco, healthcare and more.

"The most florid dreams of the 1 percent—grandiose new rights and privileges for corporations and permanent constraints on government regulation." Like them apples? Obama does. That's why he's negotiating for them.

Ms. Wallach makes the same point we did earlier, that TPP is a world-wide "corporate coup d'état":

The stakes are extremely high, because the TPP may well be the last “trade” agreement Washington negotiates. This is because if it’s completed, the TPP would remain open for any other country to join. ...

Countries would be obliged to conform all their domestic laws and regulations to the TPP’s rules—in effect, a corporate coup d’état[.]

This means, as we said earlier:

Because treaties like NAFTA are folded into national constitutions, international corporations have found a way to establish a new international system of dispute resolution that trumps national governments. ... "NAFTA" Bill Clinton has much to answer for.

Like them apples? Obama does.

Does TPP undercut Obama's "enemy of vulture capital" pose?

As you know (I hope) a presidential election is just an ad campaign — "these hub caps are shinier" or "this candidate is nicer to dogs." Like with all ad campaigns, the campaigners are primarily concerned with the manipulation of appearances.

As in 2008, Barack Obama has reverted from the "here's how I roll" reality to his "think of me this way" self-presentation. (See here for a Tale of Two Baracks.)

So President Obama is back in the closet, and Candidate Obama is back on the stump, saying nice things about himself.

This year's version of "Candidate Obama" is selling himself as the Bane of Bain, the enemy of offshoring predator capitalism.

You're not the first to have noticed that Obama, Bane of Bain is the enemy of Obama, Friend of the Corporate Coup. Will voters notice? They will if this keep up. From a Public Citizen press release:

Growing congressional, state legislator and activist protests of closed-door negotiations on the Obama administration’s first trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), threatened to undermine the Obama campaign’s attack on Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital U.S. job offshoring activities.

The latest round of TPP talks wrapped up today in San Diego following a week of protests outside the venue, growing concern about TPP in Congress, a letter warning of opposition from state legislators representing all 50 states and delivery of two different petitions with nearly 100,000 signatories each.

A text of the TPP’s investment chapter that leaked last month shows that it includes an expanded version of the rules in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that incentivize investment and job offshoring by eliminating the risks of relocating to lower-wage countries and guaranteeing preferential treatment for relocated firms.

“U.S. negotiators have tried to keep TPP negotiations totally below the radar, but even so opposition to the current “NAFTA-on-steroids-with-Asia” approach is escalating, which is good news for the public but a serious complication for the Obama campaign’s attack on Romney as a U.S. job offshorer,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

Ms. Wallach is the author of the Nation article quoted above, and well-versed in this subject.

Will Obama's high-pressure support for TPP undercut the Obama campaign's primary selling point? Stay tuned.

A post-2012 note to Progressives: We need a plan

NeoLiberal Robert Rubin–acolyte Barack Obama is pushing TPP as hard — and as secretly — as he can. What does that make Barack Obama?

In my view, it might make Barack Obama the second most dangerous enemy of progressive and anti-corporate causes in the country. The first most dangerous is anyone bankrolled by Movement Conservative billionaires, because those guys don't even have to pretend.

This doesn't mean I'm telling you how to vote in November. In my opinion, that election is over, and I have no interest in inciting Left-on-Left violence over a done deal. People can do what they like till November; I'm good with all of it.

But I am saying that Movement Progressives better get ready, starting now if possible. Because of all possible outcomes post-November, one of them is a full-on assault on progressive values by a completely unfettered 2nd-term friend-of-the-corporate-coup.

It's up to you to decide what an unfettered Obama will do. I don't have a crystal ball. But whatever it is he really really wants, I guarantee that's what he'll shoot for.

• Does he want TPP? Seems to.
• A nice new sludge-filled Keystone Pipeline? Almost guaranteed.
• Expanded drone-kill rights? Jonas Bros, watch out.
• A Grand Bargain on steroids? Just watch in December (search for the phrase "still on the table").
• Anything else? My guess: yes. He's going to owe a lot of favors in return for his $1 billion dollar ad campaign.

We could spend a long time on that list. I haven't even touched Israel and the war with Iran.

My point? Hope is not a plan. If Progressives want to be a player in the Battle of the Next Four Years, we need to do better than hope for the best. We need a plan for a worst-case Obama second term. It's called hugging the monster.

I'm serious. It's a good thing to act. It's better to act with a plan. Mes centimes (French for "word").

Our previous TPP coverage

For reference, a short list of our previous coverage:

■ Why are the Trans Pacific free trade negotiations secret? — May 11, 2012

■ Obama trade document leaked, reveals new corporate powers and broken promises — June 14, 2012

Thanks for your attention to this subject. In my opinion, this pales next to the global warming catastrophe, but not by much, since it will structurally change the government of the world. And this catastrophe will happen first, unless we put ourselves in the way of it.

Mes centimes,

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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The consequences of cyber-warfare in Iran: US and StuxNet, Part 2

In yesterday's post I described the key facts that we now know about the Stuxnet cyber attack. We now know that Stuxnet was developed by the US and Israeli governments to attack the Iranian uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. What we do not yet know is what the consequences were and will be.

Available evidence strongly suggests that the Stuxnet attack delayed the Iranian nuclear program by many weeks if not months. The Iranian government has confirmed that the plant was affected by a cyber attack and the IAEA has reported a sudden increase in the rate at which replacement of certain centrifuge parts. But it is also clear that the attack did not permanently incapacitate the plant.

Even if the reports of damage are true, these do not mean that there actually is an Iran nuclear bomb making program as alleged or that it was damaged. The Natanz plant is a civilian plant monitored by the IAEA whose purported purpose is to enrich uranium for use in Iran's nuclear power program. According to the reports produced by the monitors, the enriched uranium produced at Natanz to date is only suitable for power generation and not for bomb making.

If Iran is in fact diverting material from Natanz to a weapons program they must have at least one other enrichment facility that is not publicly known, or be planning to withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaties and use their civilian facilities to produce weapons grade uranium.

If the purpose of the attack was to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb it has to be considered a predictable failure. It is hard to see how causing premature failure of a few centrifuges would stop anyone. Short of an actual invasion there is nothing the US can to to prevent Iran getting the bomb if they make it a national priority. Iran has far more wealth, expertise and technology available to it in 2012 than the US had when it built the first bomb in 1945.

The best that can be said for Stuxnet is that it has caused much less damage than a 'kinetic' attack. 'kinetic' being the euphemism that the military people engaged in this field have decided on for the old fashioned approach of bombs and bullets. They also refer to the field as 'cyber-engagement' rather than cyber-warfare and there is a good reason for that which I will get to in the next part. The response from Iran has been minimal and as far as we know, Stuxnet has not killed anyone.

Admitting responsibility for Stuxnet certainly does Obama no harm as far as domestic politics are concerned. The Stuxnet news gives the lie to Romney's debate claim: "Look, one thing you can know and that is if we reelect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if we elect Mitt Romney, if you elect me as the next president, they will not have a nuclear weapon."

The difference between the Republican party approach to national security and the Obama administration policy is clear: Bush started two wars and failed to win either. Obama has ended the Iraq war and eliminated Bin Laden and Iran still does not have a nuclear weapon.

Equally clear is that what Obama is really offering is a competently executed version of the policy Bush attempted incompetently. Being better than the alternative does not mean a policy is good. While some of the comments on my first post claimed Stuxnet was 'terrorism' what the attack really amounts to is some petty vandalism and comes with some very significant costs.

Some of those costs are short term: Iran now has a pretty good excuse to leave the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the US admission that it was behind Stuxnet is going to give Russia and China a lot of leverage in their attempt to change Internet standards to make it easier for governments to control. I will deal with both of those issues in future posts. First however I want to focus on the longer term problem: Stuxnet has opened up a Pandora's box.

I will deal with that issue in part 3. Read the rest of this post...

US confirms Stuxnet cyber-attack on Iran

Cyber photo via Shutterstock

The US Department of Defense has admitted responsibility for the Stuxnet cyber attack that is believed to have crippled the Iranian uranium enrichment plant at Natanz in 2010.

The admission comes in a book by David Sanger released today. The author interviewed many sources with direct knowledge of the program in what was clearly an authorized disclosure.

When the attack was first discovered in 2010, all that was known was that it was extremely sophisticated. Whoever wrote it had employed four 'zero day' attacks. A zero day attack being one that was previously unknown and provides 'zero days' to protect systems against it. As further details were uncovered, researchers quickly concluded that Stuxnet had been written by a well funded government lab.

What set Stuxnet apart however was the target which was clearly an industrial control system of some sort. Previous attacks on control systems had occurred when a hacker had found a way to connect over the network. These were like planting a bomb on a plane or a bus: the attack required only a certain amount of technical skill and access to the target area. Stuxnet was like a cruise missile: The payload was delivered by an automated delivery system. Whoever had developed Stuxnet was confident that they knew enough about the target to write a program that would break it without any other intervention.

At first the only clue as to the target of Stuxnet was the obvious cost of writing something so complex. Analysis of the code showed that each of the exploits and the payload had all been written at different times. This was not the act of a lone obsessive, it was a team effort that had taken many months work.  There was no evidence, but Iran's nuclear program appeared to be the only target that could justify this level of attention.

Only the US, China and Russia had the means and opportunity to perform the attack. If the target was Iran, China had no motive and Russia would only have a motive if the attack would provide an opportunity to sell Iran spare parts for their civilian power plant. This made the US the most likely culprit.

Then researchers at the Institute for Science and International Security showed that the control parameters being manipulated by Stuxnet precisely match parameters reported to the IAEA for the Natanz centrifuges and that they appeared designed to cause damage:

Based on Symantec’s deciphering of infection sequence A, which is the attack involving a preponderance of Finnish frequency converters, Stuxnet can destroy centrifuges.In sequence A, there are two specific attacks that are separated by about a month. The first, called sequence one, would raise the speed of the centrifuge as high as a frequency of 1,410 Hz during a 15 minute attack, before the malware returns the control system to normal operation. After waiting about 27 days, Stuxnet would launch attack sequence two. The first part of this attack would lower the frequency toward 2 Hz and last 50 minutes. The second part would raise the frequency back to the nominal frequency of 1,064 Hz. After another 27 days, the first attack sequence would start again; followed by sequence two 27 days after that.

Since the target was not a facility Russia had either built or was likely to provide spare parts for, the US emerged as the most likely culprit but there was also the possibility that the attack was a false flag operation designed to implicate the US.

Now we have final confirmation that the country with the biggest glass house decided to be the first to throw stones. In the next post I will discuss some of the consequences that flow from that decision. Read the rest of this post...

DOD study: Dire consequences for US if Israel strikes Iran

This story is from yesterday, but important. NYT:

A classified war game held this month to assess the American military’s capabilities to respond to an Israeli attack on Iran forecast that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials.

The officials said the war game was not designed as a rehearsal for American military action — and they emphasized that the exercise’s results were not the only possible outcome of a real-world conflict. But the game has raised fears among top American planners that it may be impossible to preclude American involvement in any escalating confrontation with Iran, the officials said. In the debate among policymakers over the consequences of any possible Israeli attack, that reaction may give stronger voice to those within the White House, Pentagon and intelligence community who have warned that a strike could prove perilous for the United States.

The results of the war game were particularly troubling to Gen. James N. Mattis, who commands all American forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, according to officials who either participated in the Central Command exercise or who where briefed on the results and spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature. When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the officials, General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first-strike would likely have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there.

Read the rest of this post...

What are Iran's intentions?

In previous posts, we looked at the recent press-driven run-up to war with Iran; and looked at Israel's likely strategy (here and especially here).

Now let's look at Iran's side. Based on my reading and observation, I think Noam Chomsky gets it exactly right in this recent piece, "What are Iran's intentions?"

As usual with Chomsky, there's more in the article than just the answer to the headline. I therefore suggest you read it through (it's not long, and very accessible).

This is the Iran part.

Chomsky first notes the work of Israeli strategist Zeev Maoz, who says “the balance sheet of Israel’s nuclear policy is decidedly negative” and who calls for a WMD-free zone (WMDFZ) in the Middle East (which was also called for by a 1974 U.N. General Assembly resolution, by the way). That WMD-free zone would include Israel, Iran, India and Pakistan.

Then he takes a look at Iran's historical strategic posture (my emphasis and some reparagraphing):

There is little credible discussion of just what constitutes the Iranian threat, though we do have an authoritative answer, provided by U.S. military and intelligence. Their presentations to Congress make it clear that Iran doesn’t pose a military threat.

Iran has very limited capacity to deploy force, and its strategic doctrine is defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to take effect. If Iran is developing nuclear weapons (which is still undetermined), that would be part of its deterrent strategy.

The understanding of serious Israeli and U.S. analysts is expressed clearly by 30-year CIA veteran Bruce Riedel, who said in January, “If I was an Iranian national security planner, I would want nuclear weapons” as a deterrent.

Chomsky adds that Iran's support for "neighboring countries attacked and occupied by the U.S. and Britain" and "resistance to the U.S.-backed Israeli aggression" in Lebanon and Palestine are said to "intolerable threats to 'global order.'"

But the best way to defuse that any threat to "global order" in the region, bar none, is the aforementioned WMD-free zone, including Israel.

Will the U.S. support that solution? Chomsky:

Global opinion agrees with Maoz. Support is overwhelming for a WMDFZ in the Middle East; this zone would include Iran, Israel and preferably the other two nuclear powers ... India and Pakistan, who, along with Israel, developed their programs with U.S. aid.

Support for this policy at the NPT Review Conference in May 2010 was so strong that Washington was forced to agree formally, but with conditions:

■ The zone could not take effect until a comprehensive peace settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors was in place;

■ Israel’s nuclear weapons programs must be exempted from international inspection;

■ and no country (meaning the U.S.) must be obliged to provide information about “Israeli nuclear facilities and activities, including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers to Israel.”

A death knell for any serious attempt.

My take-aways:

(1) Iran's posture is generally defensive. Again, this isn't me or Chomsky talking. It's from U.S. military and intelligence officials in presentations to Congress.

(2) If they do develop WMDs to counter Israel, it would be within that defensive paradigm.

(3) Therefore, the best way to kill off that threat would obviously be to support the WMD-free zone in the Middle East that includes all important (and currently nuclear parties).

What could be simpler? No nukes for anyone. And what could be more difficult?

Further reading: Steve Clemons has an interesting piece in The Atlantic on the Obama-Netanyahu negotiation here.

GP

(To follow on Twitter: @Gaius_Publius) Read the rest of this post...

Andrew Sullivan on Iran: Obama's most dangerous political opponent is now Netanyahu

I'm watching the run-up to war with Iran very closely, since I think we might get one. I also want to know who's behind it.

■ Some background: We started here, by noticing a quiet bombardment in the "press." If you go back to that post, note that Obama's Pentagon chief Panetta is in the parade.

These two posts (here and here) looked at the role of Israel as the potential hand up the press puppet's ... behavior. From the latter post:

Based on my eleven-dimensional reading of this recent Iran article, another major one, this time by Dennis Ross in the New York Times, I believe it's now a two-handed game between Netanyahu and Obama, with Iran being the downer bull they're jointly punishing.

Netanyahu's position — "If you keep kicking Iran, I don't have to pull out this gun and make him really mad." Ross says it this way:

Israel worries that it could lose its military option, and it may be reluctant to wait for diplomacy to bear fruit. That said, Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have consistently called for “crippling sanctions,” reflecting a belief that Iran’s behavior could be changed with sufficient pressure. The fact that crippling sanctions have finally been applied means that Israel is more likely to give these sanctions and the related diplomatic offensive a chance to work. And it should.

"Crippling sanctions" means just that; think I was joking with my "punishing the downer bull" metaphor?

Shorter Ross: "Bibi to Barack, don't make me do something stupid; it's all on you if I do."

■ All to prepare you for this blockbuster news and analysis from Andrew Sullivan, no raving lunatic.

He takes my idea of a two-handed game between Netanyahu and Obama, and gives it an eleven-dimensional twist, this time by spotting a controlling Israeli hand. Sullivan says Netanyahu is using the American Right — AIPAC (like Dennis Ross, quoted above) and the pro-Zion Left Behind crowd — to secure his own base and topple Obama from power.

I know; sounds ... novelish. Still, this stuff happens. Let's let Sullivan make his case (my emphases and some reparagraphing):

This is disturbing news [source FoxNews, 2/27/12]:

Israeli officials say they won't warn the U.S. if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, according to one U.S. intelligence official familiar with the discussions. The pronouncement, delivered in a series of private, top-level conversations, sets a tense tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and Capitol Hill.

What it amounts to is a formal declaration that, if the US attempts at any point to differ seriously with Israel's far right, the alliance is over.

That's after the most serious sanctions ever imposed on Iran, a covert war, and greater isolation for the Tehran regime both at home and abroad than at any point since 1979. ... Israel would, without warning, put US troops and Western civilians at direct risk of terrorist assaults, would likely tip Pakistan into even more outright hostility to any cooperation with the West, and rally the Iranian opposition to its foul regime. [And lots of etc.]

Note that the first quote comes from Fox (not unreliable in reporting Netanyahu, and a go-to spokes-source for Bibi).

If true, this is "essential[ly] blackmail" as Sullivan says. After which the right-wing Israeli government would use their agents (my word) in "Congress, the entire GOP, its media outlets (like Fox, and the Washington Post), and a key part of the Democratic fundraising machinery" to side with them — against Obama.

I can't see how to disagree with that analysis — again, if the initial Fox report is true.

Then Sullivan gets multi-dimensional:

I don't think you can understand the Republican strategy for this election without factoring in a key GOP player, Benjamin Netanyahu. He already has core members of the US Congress siding openly with him against the US president and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. ... Netanyahu's war would ... encourage American evangelical voters to turn out against Obama, the "anti-Christ", while other Greater Israel fanatics, like Sheldon Adelson, keep bankrolling as many Greater Israel GOP nominees as they can.

A global war which polarizes America and the world is exactly what Netanyahu wants. And it is exactly what the GOP needs to cut through Obama's foreign policy advantage in this election.

Be sure to read Sullivan's conclusion.

There's much I disagree with Andrew Sullivan about, but this analysis has me thinking. Would Movement Conservatives be part of this plan? As my old Uncle Straight Talk says: "Son, they'll do anything to win; anything. But you knew that, right?"

GP Read the rest of this post...

Retired general: U.S. can’t stop Iran from making nukes, bombing them won't be enough

I've been covering the possible run-up to a war with Iran — see here and here for the background on this.

Now we find that retired Gen. James Cartwright, former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs, is saying that even if we (or Israel) attack Iran, we still can't stop them from getting nukes. It's just impossible (my emphasis and some reparagraphing below):

A former high-ranking military official says the U.S. does not have the ability to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. “If they [Iranians] have the intent, all the weapons in the world are not going to change that,” retired Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said late Thursday.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., Gen. Cartwright also said that Israel will not be able to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if the Jewish state attacks the Islamic republic’s atomic sites.

“They can slow it down. They can delay it, some estimate two to five years. But that does not take away the intellectual capital,” he said.

At the end of the article, Adm. Fallon, former commander of U.S. Central Command is quoted as saying, “No one that I’m aware of thinks there’s a real positive outcome of a military strike.” (Central Command, or CENTCOM, is the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia; the war zone.)

Note that Cartwright is speaking on the record; this is not "friends are reporting" thing he's saying privately. He's laying down a marker.

Factor that into your Iran thoughts, on two levels. On the Iran level, that nation is saying it wants only peaceful uses of nuclear power. Whether that's true or not, even if we strike at Iran, we can't produce a positive military outcome (according to these generals). Whatever trouble we bring on ourselves (the U.S. and Israel), we still won't get a pony for it.

On the second level, this is now retired generals weighing into the U.S. discussion. It would be interesting to see if active duty generals are wheeled out by the Pentagon to counteract this evaluation.

If the Pentagon generals, or civilian Pentagon chief Panetta, says Cartwright and Fallon are wrong, put your ears on high alert and start listening carefully. Something will definitely be in the works at Smarter Than You headquarters.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Taibbi on Iran: "Another March to War?"

I've written, with a great deal of trepidation, about an apparent run-up to war with Iran, and the steady beat of scary articles — first here, then here. There's an even later article in the New York Times (discussed below) with the same drum-beat sounds in it.

Is a "new product" being rolled out? Is the battlefield of public opinion being "prepared"?

(If you don't know, the phrase "preparing the battlefield" is mil-speak (heh) for carpet-bombing the enemy prior to sending in ground troops. That enemy, in this case, is U.S. public opinion.)

Now comes Taibbi fils (yes, there's a Taibbi père, also a journalist). Writing in his Rolling Stone blog, Matt has this to say (my emphasis and some reparagraphing throughout):

You can just feel it: many of the same newspapers and TV stations we saw leading the charge in the Bush years have gone back to the attic and are dusting off their war pom-poms.

CNN’s house blockhead, the Goldman-trained ex-finance professional Erin Burnett, came out with a doozie of a broadcast yesterday, a Rumsfeldian jeremiad against the Iranian threat would have fit beautifully in the Saddam’s-sending-drones-at-New-York halcyon days of late 2002.

Note: Erin's only a blockhead if she believes her own spill; if she doesn't, she's a media-based operative. Big difference.

Taibbi then quotes Glenn Greenwald on Erin Burnett's pronouncements:

It’s the sort of thing you would produce if you set out to create a mean-spirited parody of mindless, war-hungry, fear-mongering media stars, but you wouldn’t dare go this far because you’d want the parody to have a feel of realism to it, and this would be way too extreme to be believable.

She really hauled it all out: WMDs! Terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S. controlled by Tehran! Iran’s long-range nuclear missiles reaching our homeland!!!! She almost made the anti-Muslim war-mongering fanatic she brought on to interview, Rep. Peter King, appear sober and reasonable by comparison.

As Count Floyd would say, "Oooh, scary."

What's the proscribed Iranian threat?

When you get to the imagined Iranian threat, it comes down to two carefully fogged-up concepts.

■ Nuclear weapons (capability), as opposed to, well, actual weapons. Taibbi:

In other words, “If Iran were to decide to be capable of making nuclear weapons, it would be capable of making nuclear weapons.” Unless I'm missing something, that’s a statement that would be true of almost any industrialized country, wouldn't it?

The fog in this case is the word "capability." The U.S. position has gone from opposing "nukes" for Iran, to opposing "nuke capability."

Listen for it, or you'll miss it — the word "nukes" lays down the fog for the rubes to get lost in.

■ Iranian (counter-)strike, as opposed to striking first. Taibbi again:

The news “hook” in most all of these stories is that intelligence reports reveal Iran is “willing” to attack us or go to war – but then there’s usually an asterisk next to the headline, and when you follow the asterisk, it reads something like, “In the event that we attack Iran first.”

He quotes this NBC report as an example (Taibbi's emphasis): “Within just the past few days, Iranian leaders have threatened that if attacked, they would launch those missiles at U.S. targets.”

More fog, of course. You just have to listen hard for the "counter" in "counter-strike" (they whisper it).

But this is at the level of ideas and media analysis. Let's look at the only thing that matters — power.

Will we, the U.S. or Israel, pull the trigger on Iran?

Will the U.S. and/or its mannequin/master Israel actually first-strike Iran? Taibbi surprisingly fails to answer that question, given his headline. He gets in some nice reflections on the Tolstoy-inspired madness of the media, then closes.

So here's me. Based on my eleven-dimensional reading of this recent Iran article, another major one, this time by Dennis Ross in the New York Times, I believe it's now a two-handed game between Netanyahu and Obama, with Iran being the downer bull they're jointly punishing.

Netanyahu's position — "If you keep kicking Iran, I don't have to pull out this gun and make him really mad." Ross says it this way:

Israel worries that it could lose its military option, and it may be reluctant to wait for diplomacy to bear fruit. That said, Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have consistently called for “crippling sanctions,” reflecting a belief that Iran’s behavior could be changed with sufficient pressure. The fact that crippling sanctions have finally been applied means that Israel is more likely to give these sanctions and the related diplomatic offensive a chance to work. And it should.

"Crippling sanctions" means just that; think I was joking with my "punishing the downer bull" metaphor?

Shorter Ross: "Bibi to Barack, don't make me do something stupid; it's all on you if I do."

Want proof? Who is Dennis Ross? From the article's bio line:

He is now a counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

And who is the Washington Institute for Near East Policy? An AIPAC think tank:

Martin Indyk, an Australian-trained academic and former deputy director of research for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), helped found WINEP in 1985. ... Because of his affiliation with AIPAC, Indyk felt his research wasn't being taken seriously and so started WINEP to convey an image that was "friendly to Israel but doing credible research on the Middle East in a realistic and balanced way." ...

WINEP is focused on influencing the media and U.S. executive branch; this is unlike AIPAC, which attempts to influence the U.S. Congress.

Don't forget that word "image" — it's the second-most important word in the description, after "AIPAC". It's always about manipulation of images, isn't it.

QED? It seems so to me. Your move, Mr. President. Just remember, one false move and this one comes home.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Will Israel attack Iran?

Hard on the heels of this post, "Are we being set up for war with Iran?" I was pointed to this one by the writer Masaccio on a different side of the same subject, "Israel, Iran, and the Bomb".

He considers whether Israel will make the move this year (my emphasis and some reparagraphing throughout):

Horse race coverage isn’t limited to the Republican primary. Foreign policy coverage has its own, exemplified by the title of an article by Ronen Bergman in last Sunday’s New York Times magazine, Will Israel Attack Iran?[.]

Bergman says yes. Israel will attack Iran sometime this year, before Iran enters the “immunity zone”, the point at which Iranian knowledge, skill and material will be so great that an attack will not derail their progress towards construction of a bomb. Iran denies that it is building a nuclear weapon, but no one seems to believe that.

The Times article certainly meets our criteria for "preparing the battlefield" of American public opinion. But are its statements true?

As Masaccio notes, Bergman lists three conditions for an Israeli attack:

1. Does Israel have the ability to cause severe damage to Iran’s nuclear sites and bring about a major delay in the Iranian nuclear project? And can the military and the Israeli people withstand the inevitable counterattack?

2. Does Israel have overt or tacit support, particularly from America, for carrying out an attack?

3. Have all other possibilities for the containment of Iran’s nuclear threat been exhausted, bringing Israel to the point of last resort? If so, is this the last opportunity for an attack?

According to Masaccio, the Times writer thinks "all three conditions have been met."

He then runs down a number of other media sources who weigh in on the same question. It's a good review of the current "What will Israel do next?" parlor game. If you care about this question — and frankly, with the Super Bowl now completely behind us, why wouldn't you? — check it out.

As to my favorite question: Could they be that stupid? Masaccio lists the considerable downsides to an attack (it's a compelling list), then says:

It’s harder to see the benefits.

Indeed, say I. But again, I said that once about Iraq, and look where that got us.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Are we being set up for war with Iran?

A number of stories like those below are turning up all in one week, and it's caught my eye, among others. Is someone "preparing the battlefield" of American public opinion?

Foreign Affairs:

Al Qaeda in Iran
Why Tehran is Accommodating the Terrorist Group

The article answers the "why?" question in a way you don't expect, but the headline has a Bush-like scream — Al-Qaeda; Iran; Get it? (Unlike the two examples below, this is not a news item. If Seth Jones is carrying someone's water, his name may be worth remembering.)

Washington Post, same week:

Iran, perceiving threat from West, willing to attack on U.S. soil, U.S. intelligence report finds

An assessment by U.S. spy agencies concludes that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States, highlighting new risks as the Obama administration escalates pressure on Tehran to halt its alleged pursuit of an atomic bomb.

The source here is Congressional testimony by Obama DNI James Clapper, so the article is news. (The man to note is Clapper.) The article also mentions that "thwarted plot" to kill the Saudi ambassador, a story some have found wanting.

Wired.com, still same week:

Iran Now a ‘Top Threat’ to U.S. Networks, Spy Chief Claims

American officials have complained for years that U.S. networks were crawling with Russian and Chinese hackers. On Tuesday, the nation’s top intelligence official told Congress that there’s a new danger to America’s information security: Iran. Too bad he didn’t provide much evidence to back up the claim.

Et tu, Wired? Yes, there's a disclaimer. But if a picture is worth a thousand words, that disclaimer is 988 words short of this picture.

Note that the Foreign Policy and Wired articles include disclaimers of a type, but the stories got scheduled and placed nonetheless, and with those headlines (all that most people read). The combined effect of those stories and headlines, and others like them with different hooks, is "Be very afraid of Scary Iran." Sound familiar?

Is a new product being rolled out? Fall product season starts after Labor Day. Spring season starts after New Years.

If we are being set up for war, let's ask a few questions, starting with: By whom? The candidate list is long:

  ▪ Some group of Democrats, including elements of the administration? (See Clapper's involvement above; also this from Leon Panetta, Obama's Pentagon chief.)

  ▪ Elements within the Pentagon, trying to move the needle? (Is there only one McChrystal in McChrystal-land?)

  ▪ Some group of Republicans (the Sheldon Adelsons of the world), working with or without a candidate's foggy support group? (For a prior example of this kind of interacton, involving John McCain, Randy Scheunemann, the 2008 campaign, and the nation of Georgia, try here and here.)

  ▪ The NeoCons, making a comeback? (AEI is on this too.)

  ▪ The Israelis — the government, their surrogates, or others? (Too obvious a perp to need a link.)

  ▪ Some combination of the above?

If this were a novel, watching these machinations would be fascinating. That's a large list of people with sharp elbows and a common purpose.

A second question: Will we fall for it? There are stories that, under Bush II, Admiral Fallon and others were responsible for stopping Cheney's Iranian war plans. Will Kill Iran, Part Deux succeed?

The consequences for getting this wrong are huge. As I wrote earlier, if we go for it, we may not win:

This really matters. It would change the world. If we get this one wrong, we'll be at war with someone who can bring the war back to us, to our Midwestern towns and suburban malls. The population of Iran is more than double that of Iraq (Iran is the 17th most populous nation on Earth). It has four times the GDP of Iraq. It's not peopled by tribesmen and sheepherders alone, but contains a great many urbanized professionals.

Iran is a society that, if pushed to war against the West, will go. The secret services in Iran include groups like the Revolutionary Guard and the paramilitary Basij. The last two groups alone are more than 200,000 strong. Ugly as they are in that spy-vs-spy way (are we more pretty?), they could easily bring the global war to our cities as a regular feature. Imagine Omaha or Moline getting the Tel Aviv treatment. There are lots of Molines. Is that a world you'd choose to live in?

Imagine the oil shocks after sabotage bombings in the Persian Gulf. Imagine oil priced in euros on an Iranian bourse. Imagine security checkpoints in every mall in America after the first couple of bombings. Imagine the eager, muscular overreaction of our national security protectors. Imagine the budget for war on steroids.

And please, let's not imagine that if the Israelis bomb Iran for us, we won't be blamed. If you were Iran, would you not strike at the source first, and the client after? We struck at Al Qaeda by taking down Kabul.

The Iranians might just decide to bypass the client and strike the puppet-master. Unless you think the puppet-master is Israel, that puts us — you, me and our shopping malls — in the cross-hairs.

If this is an op, who's placing all these stories? Is this pre-Iraq all over again?

If it is, let's hope Ms. Clinton is on the side of peace and the angels — along with some of our other generals — and that Mr. Predator Drone will get his post-Super Bowl militarism thrill in other ways.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Why does the right imagine war with Iran would be popular?

The war fever that was building in early January suddenly subsided without any apparent reason. We now know that Obama warned Netanyahu and Barak that the Israel would fight alone if they started a war with Iran without prior US agreement.

There is a section of the US polity that simply can't feel right unless the US is engaged in at least one war.   Like a gambler who must keep returning to the table after each loss, the next war will always be the one that wipes away the defeat in Vietnam.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Gadaffi was the number one enemy of the West. Gadaffi's funds, guns and explosives backed the Baader-Meinhoff gang, Action Directe, the IRA and PIRA. Obama has helped remove him from office without a single US soldier's boot touching the soil of Libya yet this is not enough for the militarists; From their point of view it is the wrong sort of success won in the wrong way. They don't want the Libyan people to be choosing their own government, agency is their prerogative. Helping the Libyan people oust a dictator does not advance the cause of US supremacy or erase the stain of Vietnam. Only war with Iran will suffice.

A war with Iran is all but certain if Romney or Gingrich becomes President. But that looks a remote prospect and so the idea is being floated that Israel should start a war with Iran just before the election forcing Obama to choose between abandoning Israel and defeat or joining Israel's war.

As political strategies go, it is the second stupidest proposal I have heard. The stupidest being the idea that a war with a country three times larger than Iraq would be anything less than a three times the fiasco.

The only scenario in which there would be pressure on Obama to join Israel a war they started against Iran is if Israel was losing. And in that case, Obama would be being asked to intervene to save Israel from the consequences of a blunder committed by her own politicians.

There is no doubt that Obama would be obliged intervene to save Israel but he would be under no obligation to save Netanyahu or Barak. Having had his authority challenged, Obama would at minimum have to require them to resign before coming to Israel's aid and that alone might be sufficient for Iran to suspend hostilities.

Far from being the electoral poison chalice that the Republican operatives imagine, Obama holds all the cards and he knows that joining Netanyahu's war for fear of the Israel lobby would mean near certain electoral defeat. Read the rest of this post...

Iran accuses US of involvement in murdered scientist

The charge is not a surprise, nor is the possibility of US involvement. Al Jazeera:

Iran says it has evidence the US was behind the killing of one of its nuclear scientists, according to Iranian state television. US officials last week denied any role in the killing of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, and condemned the bomb attack which claimed his life in Tehran on Wednesday. However, Iran's state TV reported that the Iranian foreign ministry had, in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, said : "We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA."

Read the rest of this post...

US Navy rescues 13 Iranians from pirates

This is likely to cause some red faces in Tehran [BBC]:

The US Navy has rescued 13 Iranian hostages being held by pirates in the Arabian Sea, the Pentagon says.

The 13 were rescued after a distress call was received from an Iranian fishing vessel which had been boarded by pirates over a month ago.

Fifteen suspected pirates were detained and are being held by the US Navy.

Seems the Iranian navy can't protect its shipping against pirates in their own backyard but the US navy can. Read the rest of this post...

Iran is dangerously backed into a corner

The situation inside Iran is becoming more unstable by the day. The daughter of former President Rafsanjani just received a 6 month jail sentence for political crimes. The Supreme Leader is proposing to abolish the post of President and moderates will not be allowed to stand in the coming parliamentary election.

A clause in the NDAA just passed imposes sanctions on any financial institution that deals with Iran's central bank. Iran has denounced this as a blockade and threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz in response, then withdrawn the threat and as of this morning is threatening to prevent a US super carrier sailing through the straits.

The confused diplomatic signals are not the result of changes in policy but the fact that Iran has two power centers that are in competition with each other. The Presidential faction would like to provoke an attack by the US as a small war would help them consolidate their position against the Supreme Leader. In the short term, the Supreme Leader has to stop the Presidential faction but can't do so in a way that would undermine the galvanizing effect that opposing the 'great satan' has for the regime.

Iran is reacting to the sanctions as an existential threat for internal political reasons, not because they are an existential threat. The actual impact of the sanctions is likely to be very minor. Russia, China and India need Iranian oil. It is very easy for sovereign nations to find ways to move money to pay for things. They can set up single purpose private banks, they can barter, they can pay in their own currencies.

Closing the straits would be a blockade and thus an act of war. If Iran fires first they are going to lose the resulting war. The US does not have the ability to occupy Iran but they can destroy pretty much the entire military infrastructure if the neighboring states are willing to support the attacks.

If the US or Israel fires fist, Iran wins. Or rather the regime does. Closing the straits in response to sanctions would be an unprovoked act of aggression. Closing the straits in response to a bombing raid would be a measured response. Further US escalation at that point would only make the situation worse, much worse.

By far the best approach for the US is to watch developments cautiously. The US has already achieved 'regime change' in Iran once. In 1953 the democratically elected government of Iran was replaced by a thug in a coup organized by the CIA. Khomeni knew all about that coup because he was one of the rabble rousers the CIA paid to start the riots that brought down Mosaddegh. That is why he sent the students to raid the US embassy in 1979, the regime was afraid Carter was planning to direct a counter-revolution. They could also destroy evidence of Khomeni's role. Read the rest of this post...

Iran threatens to shut off Strait of Hormuz if west imposes sanctions for nuclear program

Good way to get yourself blown up.  I'm just not convinced the world can live with a nuclear Iran.  Israel certainly can't.  And my confidence level is low that Iran wouldn't some day think it wise to proliferate its nukes to other countries, and to other terrorists. It seems as if we're biding our time, hoping to knock off enough of their scientists to postpone their first nuke in the hopes that there's a friendly revolution first. Read the rest of this post...

Spencer Ackerman: Where we really are in Iraq (plus drone talk)

This is a nice interview, a great where-we-are piece. You should come away pleased with the way you spent your minutes.

We (the U.S.) have supposedly left Iraq, and the chest-bumps are everywhere. But where are we really? What have we left behind? Ackerman is an expert on this stuff.

The piece starts with a discussion of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) now before Congress. This is the bill that includes the "Indefinite Detention on the Everywhere Battlefield" provision. (The interview took place prior to the Senate's successful vote to approve.)

If that sounds like martial law by the way, rolled out in stages, your ears aren't lying to you. Could the Republicans be worse than our own irrepressible Dems? (That 2012 Obama scare-arg gets harder and harder to make, doesn't it?)

At 5:45 Ackerman discusses Iraq and what we've left behind. (Hint: That would be us; we've left us behind, with 5000+ mercs as guards.) Ackerman: "The U.S. military comes home; the hired military goes in."

At 13:55 the talk shifts to drones, Pakistan, and the money we give them. The discussion of North Waziristan in Pakistan (described as "the epicenter of global terrorism" and "a complete black box") is fascinating, as is the ultimate Pakistani problem — how do they take their money and yet stop us from killing them?

Listen:



The interviewer is Sam Seder of the daily political podcast Majority.fm (an excellent national daily broadcast, by the way, and good news source).

GP Read the rest of this post...

EU further isolates Iran after attack on UK Embassy

In the wake of the government sponsored attack on the UK embassy, the new EU sanctions are not a surprise.

The attack on the UK embassy was very clearly organized by the Iranian government. The police stood by to allow the authorized assailants to storm the embassy, stood by while the place was ransacked and only intervened to prevent unauthorized rioters from joining in.

Britain has now closed the Iranian embassy in London in response. Many other countries are scaling back their embassies in Iran. Even Russia, whose relationship to Iran is more or less equivalent to the US relationship to Saudi Arabia seems to be concerned.

What nobody (except for the Israel First lobby and Max Boot) seems to be seriously considering is military action. This can hardly be attributed to 'weakness' on the part of David Cameron who led the push for NATO intervention in Libya. UK finances may be in a parlous state but like the US we have always found the money for a war when the government wants to.

It could hardly be more obvious that what the Iranian regime really wants is to have a small war in the hope that it will rally the country behind the discredited regime. Which is precisely why the UK government is not going to give them what they want. Read the rest of this post...