Big Sticks and Small Carrots

As you’ll probably know, the latest US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear programme came to an astonishing conclusion. The antagonistic relationship between Tehran and Washington could escalate the situation at any time (as could “events” on the Iran/Iraq border) but this new report dramatically lessens the likelihood of a major military confrontation between the two countries before the end of the Bush presidency. It’s a really rather refreshing bit of good news.

Bush, of course, continues to insist that “all options are on the table”. John Bolton, who may well be the commander-in-chief of all armchair generals everywhere, has taken to the airwaves to cast doubt on the conclusions of the NIE. He even went as far as to suggest (in the form of a question, of course) that the report was the result of politically motivated attack on the Bush administration:

I think there is a risk here, and I raise this as a question, whether people in the intelligence community who had their own agenda on Iran for some time now have politicized this intelligence and politicized these judgements in a way contrary to where the administration was going.

Because in Bolton’s world, if you don’t agree with him, you’re clearly a mendacious leftist and a terrorist loving traitor. I give it another 24 hours before he starts publicly agitating for a war against the US intelligence community.

In reality, the volte-face in the conclusion of the National Intelligence Estimate (pdf) appears to be based on an objective analysis of the available facts. It suggests that US intelligence agencies are attempting to rectify the failures which led to the invasion of Iraq.

The report was not the written based on the assumption that the Iranian regime does intend to acquire nuclear weapons. It was, rather, an attempt to “assess Iran’s capability and intent (or lack thereof) to acquire nuclear weapons”.

More importantly perhaps, the conclusions of the report appear to be untainted by political pressures. Clearly, the NIE discredits claims made by many of Bush’s supporters and damages the “Iran is going to kill us all” narrative being pushed from the Whitehouse. The Bush administration will not have welcomed these conclusions but they’ve been published all the same. It is possible that lessons really have been learned from the Iraq debacle.

(Can we same the same in the UK, I wonder?)

The most interesting conclusion of the NIE is this:

Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs. This, in turn, suggests that some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might—if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible—prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program.

A cost-benefit approach? But that’d imply that the Iranian regime were behaving, gasp, perfectly rationally. Surely some mistake…

20 VIP trailers and an Olympic-size swimming pool? That’s just the sort of thing the Iraqi police training programme needs at the moment. And at the bargain price of only $4m? Money well spent, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Unfortunately, due to a slight hiccup in Dyncorp’s accounting practices, we’re unable to establish exactly what they did with the rest of their US government issued $1.2bn contract for training the Iraqi police. Perhaps they spent a few million dollars on such essential items as gold plated armoured Rolls Royces so that their trainers could get about the place efficiently. As I’m sure you’re aware, the efficiency of the private sector is a very important factor which allows them to deliver outstanding value for money .

If only they hadn’t been let down by their accountants, we’d be much better able to fully appreciate and applaud the innumerable ways in which they’ve selflessly used the money awarded to them to improve the lot of long suffering Iraqis.

We can speculate, however. Given what we know about Dyncorp’s involvement in other troubled areas of the world, it is certainly possible some of that money ultimately found its way into the hands of sex traffickers and pimps. This would, of course, provide a welcome injection of cash into the Iraqi economy. And they’ll have “Blackwater immunity” so they wouldn’t have to be bogged down in the red tape of the Iraqi legal system.  Unfortunately, they may also have to pay some compensation to disloyal employees they’d been forced to fire for immorally complaining about the involvement of some of their staff in forced protsitution of under age girls. These desperate attention seekers are never going to be team players. Best pay them off and get rid of them so that the good work can continue unhindered.

All things considered, it’s no wonder that Iraqis are so very grateful for all that’s being done for them.

When the Prince of Darkness starts talking about “serious consequences” for Iran, it provokes a troubling sense of deja vu. When Little Tony Blair joins in with a textbook evocation of the Nazis, that feeling is only reinforced.

There are differences between Iran and Iraq however. We should not lose sight of the fact that the Iranians actually could develop geopolitically significant weapons of mass destruction in a matter of years if they so desire. The IAEA does have real concerns regarding the purposes of Iran’s nuclear programme and Larijani’s resignation and his replacement with an Ahmadniejad ally suggests that Iran’s Supreme Leader is inclined to favour the President’s hardline approach. The Iranians insist that their programme is for exclusively peaceful purposes and it may well be but questions undoubtedly remain.

In truth, it is perfectly possible that the Iranians want nuclear weapons or, more likely perhaps, the capacity to build nuclear weapons if the regime is threatened. Given what has happened to Iraq and given also the constant belligerent “axis of evil” rhetoric, it would hardly be surprising if the Iranian regime was seeking to acquire a means of defending itself. Indeed, it can be argued that this would be the most rational strategy it could adopt. There are not many government’s in the world who would not attempt to defend themselves and their countries from a perceived threat.

The Iranian nuclear programme pre-dates the invasion of Iraq of course but it isn’t a huge leap to suggest that it is that unprovoked attack on their neighbour along with an essentially explicit suggestion that they’d be next which has made them so unwilling to compromise on this issue.

If (and it is still if) they are attempting to acquire the means to build nuclear weapons, what could be done to stop them? The answer is not a lot, especially if you’re the government’s of the US and UK.

For a start, moral authority on this issue isn’t helped by the fact that these countries have no genuine intention of abiding by the disarmament pillar of the NPT. Indeed, the UK, by adopting the precautionary principle in renewing its Trident capability, has implicitly admitted that it has no intention of abiding by the disarmament pillar at any point in the foreseeable future. The UK government will still insist that the rest of the treaty is fully implemented by other countries but the bits they consider to be detrimental to the UK’s national interest will simply be ignored. Not the loftiest of positions then.

In practical terms, the options are extremely limited. A land invasion of Iran is a non-starter. Even if the chicken hawks could create the political climate which would allow it, there simply aren’t enough troops to do the job. The Iranian regime knows this and it may well be a further reason for their refusal to compromise. They’re holding the best hand and they know it.

With an invasion ruled out, the favoured strategy of the armchair generals appears to be some form of limited strategic bombing campaign targeting Iranian nuclear facilities. There are so many problems with this approach that it’s hard to know where to start. First of all, Iraq should have been a graphic and bloody illustration of the inexplicably overlooked fact that “the other side” also has a significant say in the scope, scale, tactics and outcome of any military action. The armchair generals still don’t seem to understand this most basic rule of warfare.

A “limited” campaign will be far from limited when the Iranians respond in the ways the US military is least able to deal with. Coalition forces in Iraq would be a prime target. The notion of a “limited” military effort is a dangerous fantasy, as facile as the infamous belief in “sweets and flowers”.

And what would be the result of this “limited” bombing campaign? It may be a setback for the Iranian nuclear programme if certainly facilities are destroyed but it certainly wouldn’t provide any guarantees or offer any sort of long term solution. It would, however, create a tremendous backlash of Iranian nationalism as well as renewed support for the regime. If the Iranian government is trying to acquire the ability to build nuclear weapons, they’re not going to stop because of this. In fact, it’d only increase their determination.

Attacks like these would also create a further wave of anti-Western sentiment among (some) Muslims and give further credibility to bin Laden’s “the West hates Islam” propaganda. The long term damage will almost certainly far outweigh any potential benefits. Unfortunately, this option still looks the one most likely to be implemented by the Bush administration.

If they manage to resist the bombing, that leave sanctions or covert attempts to foster regime change. Neither looks like having a high chance of success in the current climate. If the Iranians really want to develop a nuclear weapons capability, it’s hard to see what will stop them achieving it.

There are a lot of “ifs” in all of this. After Iraq, those who continue to strip away caveats and express a certainty they can’t possibly substantiate are probably lost causes. It is certainly possible, however, that one of the most significant consequences of the Iraq war could also be an irony of truly gargantuan proportions. A war built on the lie that there was an urgent need to disarm Saddam of non-existent WMDs along with the idiotic fantasy that it would stabilise the region could result in a nuclear capable Iran in an increasingly unstable Middle East.

In a way, the most worrying thing is that many of those who were influential in the original decision to invade Iraq are still in positions of power. It’s hard to imagine a group of people who are less qualified to deal with the Iranian situation.

The news that Turkey’s parliament has authorised attacks into Kurdish Iraq in order to stem the flow of PKK activities directed against them comes as no great surprise.

Before the war, the Turkish government specifically warned that it could destabilise their northern border region and sought assurances from the US that this would not be allowed to happen. In particular, the Turks insisted that the US government should provide a guarantee that it would not allow the formation of an Independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq after the removal of Saddam. They feared that this would stir up their own sizeable Kurdish population and lead to threats to Turkey’s territorial integrity.

The requested assurance was given by the Bush administration despite the fact that the war was allegedly about empowering Iraqis to take control of their own destiny. There was no way in which the US government could be sure they could fulfil their promise if they really were serious about introducing democracy in Iraq. The guarantee was just one small contradiction in a much larger swamp .

The Turks were certainly not convinced. Ultimately, despite the massive pressure put on them and the offer of huge bribes financial incentives, they refused to allow the US military to use Turkey as a launch pad for the invasion. But the Turkish warnings, like so many others, were ignored as the Bush administration steamrollered its way to war.

Now, with an increasingly autonomous Kurdish region in the north of Iraq and growing cross border instability, the Turks are preparing to take matters into their own hands. The US adminstration’s calls for Turkey not to take unilateral military action is risible given their own penchant for violent unilateralism.

And so, the neo-conservatives fatally flawed plan use violence to turn the Middle East into a beacon of democratic peace and stability continues to unwind bloodily. No doubt there will be some who will again argue that this was an unforeseeable consequence of the invasion. These people will be poorly informed or in complete denial or lying.

Irving Kristol once said that “a neoconservative is a liberal who’s been mugged by reality”. What a git.

Is the US government enabling and protecting a terrorist organisation? If the boot were on the other foot and the Turkish government opposed US attempts to deal with a terrorist group which had killed US citizens, how do you think the Bush administration would view that?

The US certainly doesn’t show any real enthusiasm for tackling the PKK and affiliated groups. In fact, the Turkish government claims that they have captured US weapons from members of the PKK. These weapons are thought to have been given to the PKK by the infamous mercenaries at Blackwater who operate in Iraq under contracts issued by the Pentagon. I can only assume that General Patreaus be soon be showing slides to the world’s media which demonstrate the fact that these terrorists are using US arms. He will undoubtedly then argue that this is proof of US government support for a group which they themselves classify as a terrorist organisation. Or maybe not…

Of course, the PKK and the PEJAK are known to cause problems for the Iranian regime as well as the Turks and the Iranians have been responding heavy handedly in recent weeks. But only a hardened cynic would suggest that the PKK’s antagonism of the Iranian government has anything to do with the Bush administration’s apparent unwillingness to shut them down. I mean, the US government has absolutely no track record of turning a blind eye to, implicitly supporting or secretly funding and training violent, human rights abusing, non-democratic organisations. Right?

So General Patraeus has made his long awaited report to Congress.

As John Bolton rightly said on BBC radio today (there’s a phrase I never thought I’d type), the general appeared before Congress in a smart military uniform with four stars on his shoulders and lots of bright shiny medals on his chest. Apparently, this gives his words a credibility and authority with the American public which critics of the Iraq war can never hope to challenge.

Judging by these poll numbers (pdf), Bolton may have a point. Asked “who would you say you trust the most with successfully resolving the war in Iraq — the Bush Administration, Congress, or U.S. military commanders in Iraq?”, 68% opted for the men in uniform compared to 21% for Congress and only 5% for the Bush administration. Well, who hasn’t got a thing for uniforms?

The Bush administration have sought to exploit this sentiment for all its worth by continually claiming that they base their Iraq strategies on the recommendations of the men in uniform. Their critics, on the other hand, clearly hate the brave defenders of freedom and their lovely outfits and are desperate for them all to be shot in the head or at least fail miserably…

This isn’t the truth of course, Rumsfeld in particular refused to listen to anyone who disagreed with him, nice uniform or not, and seemed to make up strategies as he went along based on pies in the sky delivered by half-baked neo-conservative think tanks, but you can certainly see why they keep on hammering away with the line. The troops are providing cover for more than just their fellow soldiers (not an exclusively American phenomenon by any means).

The irony is that Patraeus does understand how difficult the situation is, unlike
“sweets and flowers” Wolfowitz, “last throes” Cheney or any of the previous body count military men who failed so miserably. Patraeus genuinely does seem to understand that traditional military methods will not work, that winning the support of the local population is crucial and he even understands some of what that entails. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if Patraeus had been listened too from the start, and I mean from at least a year before the invasion, there’s a chance that the last four and a half years could have been very different.

Now, I’m afraid, it’s too late. The surge is, by definition, a temporary measure and the insurgents and militias know that just as well as everyone else. In the period of lawlessness which has existed in Iraq since the invasion, they’ve had a taste of the power they could wield and although they may be lying relatively low at the moment, they have not gone away. Unless the US intends to keep 150,000+ troops in Iraq permanently, and that is clearly ridiculous, the debate on whether a timetable would encourage “the enemy” is entirely spurious. Even in the best case scenario, it will take years before the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi “unity” government, both heavily beset by sectarian tensions, will be capable of controlling Iraq. Timetable or not, most of the US soldiers will have to leave Iraq long before then. That’s just a fact, one which the Bush administration seems determined not to acknowledge.

As to the general’s assessment of the success of the surge, it is questionable to put in mildly. That’s not to question his integrity exactly. The fact is that he’s a general at war and if he was really telling the unadulterated truth, it’d be a first for any general in any war ever. His job is not to tell the whole truth but to present the situation in a way which best suits the military and political imperatives. His assessment is nothing like as outlandish as comical Ali’s claims of victory as US troops rolled into Baghdad but its certainly not the unvarnished truth. And, for all that Patraeus claimed not to be acting as a mouthpiece for the Whitehouse, that’s part of his job too. At the end of the day, his orders come from President Bush.

Still, he was wearing a very impressive uniform.

And then there’s the timing. General Patraeus reported to Congress on September 10th. On September 12th, the Whitehouse will release its report on the way forward and on the 13th, Bush will go on TV to address the American people. In between times, there’s the small matter of an anniversary to be commemorated. For those who accept that the invasion of Iraq was merely enabled by those horrible terrorist attacks rather than having any real connection to it, that’s a disgusting exploitation of a tragic event. But with “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” timing like this, it’s unsurprising that not everyone feels the same way. Earlier this month, US pollsters asked “do you think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks…?” 33% of Americans answered yes (from the polls linked above).

Given all of that, and the Democrats inability to come up with anything even faintly resembling an alternative plan, Bush will probably get what he wants yet again and may well manage to hold out until the end of his term. That way, he can blame his successor for the catastrophic failure of his Iraq policies. Because nothing is ever the fault of Bush and his acolytes.

In the meantime, the imaginary game of Iraqi political football will continue. It is rumoured that the score is 655,000 - 0* but that is strongly disputed by those who claim not to have been keeping score themselves.

* That’s Iraqi civilians deaths as a result of the US invasion compared to US civilian deaths as a result of Iraqi military activity against the United States.

This almost clever spam turned up in my inbox today.

Unity 08 - Your Voice in Politics

Unity08 has launched a unique online study that allows you to rank the presidential candidates and the issues facing the country.

To start the study, click here.

We’ve invited you to take and publish this study because we’ve seen that your site actively discusses politics and the state of the nation. It is crucial for us to include as many American citizens as we can so that we can truly start discussing the “crucial” issues facing the country and how to resolve them… before it is too late.

So near and yet so far.

Here’s yet another post bashing the US, UK and Israeli governments. He never writes about China’s human rights abuses. Typical America hating leftist…

It’s an old chestnut but it does seem surprisingly common considering just how easy it is to refute. It’s all about degrees of separation; as a UK citizen, my first concern is to the UK government’s policies and actions. In a democracy, it is every citizens right, you might even say duty, to try to ensure that their government lives up to certain standards of behaviour. Scrutiny and criticism of your democratically elected government is not only acceptable, its an essential part of the democratic process.

From that key principle, it’s easy to see why the closest allies of your democratically elected government should also be subjected to greater scrutiny than distant governments over which your own has little or no influence. It’s a sort of responsibility chain; the closer to home, the more responsible you are and the more influence you can generally exert. In short, it’s about trying to keep your own house in order.

This above is so obvious that it feels a bit silly typing it but it does appear that it needs to be said. Anyway, for the reasons above, I feel the need to mention the latest report from the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[T]he committee, in its report entitled Global Security: The Middle East, said a quicker response from the government in July last year “could have led to reduced casualties amongst both Israeli and Lebanese civilians whilst still working towards a long-term solution to the crisis”.

It called some of Israel’s military actions in Lebanon during the war “indiscriminate and disproportionate”.

It particularly highlighted the attacks on United Nations observers and the dropping of more than 3.5 million cluster bombs (90% of the total) in the 72 hours after the UN Security Council passed the resolution which effectively ended the war.

So the committee has concluded that the British government, by refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire, helped enable the continuation of the conflict. At the time, Blair waffled as people died. And why did the government adopted the policy it did when it refused to call for an immediate ceasefire?

From the full report (article 100):

At the time of the conflict, many believed the United States was obstructing calls for an immediate ceasefire to give Israel a chance to defeat overwhelmingly Hezbollah’s militia. The BBC journalist Ed Stourton raised this theory with John Bolton, who had been the US Ambassador to the United Nations at the time of the war. Mr Stourton asked him if the US had been “deliberately obstructing diplomatic attempts” to bring an end to the war so that “Israel could have its head.” Mr Bolton asked “what’s wrong with that?” and added that he was “damn proud of what we did.”

We wrote to Dr Howells to ask him about Mr Bolton’s comments. In his reply, he asserted: The UK was certainly not involved in collusion with either the US or Israel to support the continuation of hostilities or to block a ceasefire. Whilst I cannot speak for the US position [on] this matter, I do not believe they acted differently.

The committee offers three possible reasons for this discrepancy.

1. Mr Bolton misled Stourton by suggesting that the US blocked diplomacy at the UN because it wanted to give Israel the opportunity to destroy Hezbollah.
2. The US did indeed block attempts to find a quick diplomatic solution to bring about a ceasefire, but that the UK was not made aware of this collusion with Israel.
3. The UK was in fact brought into, or at least aware of, the efforts to obstruct the diplomatic process.

The committee does not reach a conclusion as to which possibility might be the truth but it seems unlikely that Bolton would have lied. To what end? In fact, giving the Israelis the time and space and cluster bombs so that they could teach Lebanon a lesson fits exactly with the type of thinking which is so common in the Bush administration. It also ties in exactly with what Ehud Olmert said as hostilities began: “Lebanon is responsible and Lebanon will bear the consequences of its actions”.

Given the above quotation, it is perhaps unsurprising that a UN report found that there was “a significant pattern of excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force by the IDF against Lebanese civilians and civilian objects, failing to distinguish civilians from combatants and civilian objects from military targets… Further, the Commission is convinced that damage inflicted on some infrastructure was done for the sake of destruction.” It is hard to avoid concluding that the Israeli government decided to adopt a policy of collective punishment against the Lebanese people in an attempt to pressure them into doing something about Hezbollah.

What’s wrong with that? Well, morals aside, it’s specifically outlawed by Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The British government, silent during the conflict, has remained silent in its aftermath. It has not condemned the dropping of 3.5 million cluster bombs after the conflict was essentially over nor has it condemned the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure for no useful military purpose. That continuing silence can only be seen by Israel and indeed by the rest of the world as a tacit approval of the actions of the Israeli government and the IDF. It seems to me that there is something very wrong with that.

Since John Bolton was ousted from his position as US ambassador to the UN, he appears have taken up permanent residence in the Newsnight studios. Last night, complaining that the IAEA under Elbaradei has refused to say exactly what the neo-cons want him to say on Iran, Bolton came out with this:

“All that Elbaradei has said, and he is an apologist for Iran, in effect, is that he doesn’t have evidence of the programme. I think the intelligence is there for all to see.”

Has a familiar ring to it, wouldn’t you say? Hands up all those who remember being called an apologist for Saddam back in the day.

Bolton was, of course, one of the cheerleaders for the war against Iraq. And he was in the lead in the Bush administration’s attempt to block Elbaradei’s reappointment as head of the IAEA in 2005. Being good at the job and displaying integrity in the face of enormous pressure is not acceptable when it exposes the extent to which political dogma overrides the facts in the Bush Whitehouse. Fortunately, Bolton lost. For the record, 34 of the 35 members of the IAEA board member countries supported Elbaradei’s reappointment. Only one was opposed.

In the now traditional ironic style, the war on Iraq which Bolton was so enthusiastic about has actually strengthened the position of the Iranian regime to unprecedented levels. Bolton should have himself shot for aiding the enemy.

And Iran, unlike Iraq, could theoretically acquire the ability to build nuclear weapons in the not too distant future. Whether they are attempting to, as Elbaradei rightly points out, remains open to doubt. Not for Bolton and chums, of course, but for rational people not blinded by ideology.

There are plenty of commentators who argue that after the monumental disaster of Iraq, the US would not possibly take military action against Iran. I disagree. It is important to realise that Bolton, and indeed the Bush regime generally, are absolutely unable to learn from their own mistakes because they are almost entirely impervious to the facts.

And if that doesn’t scare you, you’re a lot braver than me.

The world is stunned today after new evidence emerged which proves that the U.S. Government is supplying arms to evil Iraqi insurgents. Up to 190,000 U.S. supplied weapons may have made their way into the hands of our sworn enemies in the War on Terror. The word from Washington is that President Bush has decided to declare war on his administration in the autumn of this year…

I’d could expand that out but the reality is quite ridiculous enough. It’s a recurring theme of U.S. and U.K. foreign policy in the 21st Century.

Something like 30% of the weapons supplied to Iraq over the last three years are missing. The U.S. government really has flooded the streets of the highly unstable sectarian battleground which is today’s Iraq with large numbers of AK47’s and pistols. The distribution method the Pentagon decided to adopt was apparently modelled on that of Widow Twankey giving out sweets at the Christmas panto. Guns anyone? Who wants guns?

Here’s the intro to the report (PDF):

As of July 2007, DOD and MNF-I had not specified which DOD accountability procedures, if any, apply to the train-and-equip program for Iraq. Congress funded the train-and-equip program for Iraq outside traditional security assistance programs, providing DOD a large degree of flexibility in managing the program, according to DOD officials. These officials stated that since the funding did not go through traditional security assistance programs, the DOD accountability requirements normally applicable to these programs did not apply.

Read that first sentence again. Note the “July 2007″ and particularly the “if any”.

Here are the “Recommendations for Executive Action” from the report:

To help ensure that U.S. funded equipment reaches the Iraqi security forces as intended, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense take the following two actions:

1. Determine which DOD accountability procedures apply or should apply to the program.
2. After defining the required accountability procedures, ensure that sufficient staff, functioning distribution networks, standard operating procedures, and proper technology are available to meet the new requirements.

Four years on and countless dead and they’ve still not decided on an accountability procedure for the hundreds of thousands of weapons they’re shipping to Iraq. Four years on, they still need others to tell them the tragically bloody obvious.

Generally speaking, anyone whose staggering incompetence results to massive loss of life can expect to find themselves in a spot of bother. Promotion probably isn’t on the cards for the policeman who leaves his loaded Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun in a kebab shop for some drunken fool to find and take on a killing spree down the high street. Saying “yes, it was my gun but it was the evil drunk man who pulled the trigger, not me” probably won’t be enough to save his career.

In politics, apparently, things are rather different.