Iran So Far Away (From Democracy)

Sitting here in Iowa, even without knowing what is the unvarnished truth concerning the outcome of the Iranian presidential election, it is still hard not to speak about the obvious horrors going on within the borders of Iran. There are some points of clarity that can be seen even half a world away:

- Brave people of conviction are marching by the thousands in Tehran, other Iranian cities, and in solidarity in other world cities to protest the outcome of an election that Iranians find faulty and are communicating to the rest of the listening world to the best of their ability.
- The "supreme" leadership, those clerics who choose the candidates, are in serious trouble if they have indeed rigged the election.
- While the elected President is not the supreme leader of the country, he is the mouthpiece that the world press looks toward in reporting the news. If one of the candidates is thrown under the bus, and it really doesn't matter whom it is, what matters is how it looks through the eyes of the media.
- Other countries, the US included, can not step in and declare a winner, but should let the Iranian people know diplomatically that we support their choice.
- More Iranians are likely to die today and that, in the long run, will perversely lead to a more democratic Iran tomorrow.

History teaches us that tyranny does not hold in the final appraisal. The Supreme Leader and his Guardian Council can not hope to survive, even if they command the armed forces, if the people it rules does not believe that they are infallable. By the mere suspicion of wrongdoing, the clerics are weakened.

Sadly, because of each sacrifice of life offered by the protestors, Iran draws closer to either full martial law or a collapse of a system that has failed its people. The question is not really one of which will prevail, but when a functional government will rule.

To those in Iran who are struggling, know that in the land of the "Western Devil", there is a person who enjoins you in your protest and wishes you As-Salāmu `Alaykum (السلام عليكم).

Setting Up the Chessboard

As the November election nears and I hear candidates on both sides talking more about the need to put more troops into Afghanistan, I am concerned about ratcheting up of the war machine. It seems that our government intends to strategically use a situation that most agree has been given the short shrift (that is stabilizing the government in Afghanistan against a counterinsurgency by the deposed Taliban regime and capturing Osama bin Laden) to pump up the pressure on Iran, which it conveniently neighbors.

If you add the Iraqi border on one side and the Afghani border on the other, you can easily understand why the Iranian government might feel increasingly threatened. If ever there was a time to apply diplomacy, this would be it.

"100 Year War" to Shift to Iran?

According to CNN, the Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government. This from journalist Seymour Hersh.

Though White House, CIA and State Department officials are declining comment on Hersh's New Yorker report, history tells us it wise to listen to Hersh.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.

"They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said.

This positioning by the Bush administration upgrades US government terrorism to the "code red" levels. Hopefully the Iranians have stockpiled plenty of duct tape and plastic sheeting.

More from Hersh.

Iran: What the Candidates Say

From True Majority

Below you will find quotes from all of the presidential candidates who at some point before the release of the NIE report advocated the 'all options' position.

The primaries kick off in Iowa on January 3rd. And by February 6th, we'll have a pretty good idea who the nominees are going to be from both parties. Anyone who is concerned about a potential war with Iran should know where the candidates stand before that time.


What They Are Saying Now...


Hillary Rodham Clinton

Quote: "Well, I'm relieved that the intelligence community has reached this conclusion, but I vehemently disagree with the president that nothing's changed and therefore nothing in American policy has to change."

"I have for two years advocated diplomatic engagement with Iran, and I think that's what the president should do. He should seize this opportunity and engage in serious diplomacy, using both carrots and sticks. I think we do know that pressure on Iran does have an effect. I think that is an important lesson. But we're not going to reach the kind of resolution that we should seek unless we put that into the context of a diplomatic process. "

- Democratic Debate Transcript, NPR, December 4, 2007


Chris Dodd

Quote: "The NIE on Iran contains some very important findings by the intelligence community. Taken together these findings make a strong case for pursuing robust diplomacy to resolve our differences with Iran and for an end to the reckless talk by the Administration and reckless votes by some members of Congress."

http://chrisdodd.com/blog/dodd-nie, December 3, 2007

John Edwards

Quote: "It means that the people like me who spoke up very strongly against Bush and Cheney on their saber rattling about Iran and against this the important resolution that the senate voted on the Iranian revolutionary guard - it means that we were right,"

Edwards: NIE justifies opposition to Bush on Iran, CNN.com, December 6,2007.


Rudy Giuliani

Quote:MR. RUSSERT: "Doesn't this remove the option of a pre-emptive military strike against Iran?"

MR. GIULIANI: "No, I, I don't think it does. I think, I think you always leave open the military option...And of course we don't, we don't want to use the military option. It would be dangerous; it would be risky. But I think it would be more dangerous and more risky if Iran did become a nuclear power."

-Meet the Press, December 9, 2007.

Mike Huckabee

Quote: "And the ultimate thing is, I may not be the expert that some people are on foreign policy, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night." ("Imus In The Morning," 12/4/07)


John McCain

Quote: "But there is some lessening of the urgency of the issue concerning nuclear weapons," he said.

"I think we've always been open to dialogue with the Iranians, but that dialogue doesn't haven't to be in the most visible and public fashion because we obviously don't want to enhance the prestige of someone like the president of Iran," he said.

McCain: Report highlights need for intelligence, Fosters Daily Democrat, December 5, 2007

Barack Obama

Quote: "It's absolutely clear that this administration -- and President Bush -- continues to not let facts get in the way of his ideology ... They should have stopped the saber rattling."

The GOP's Iran option is off the table, Salon.com, December 11, 2007

Mitt Romney

Quote: "They, of course, are continuing making the ingredients which would be used in a nuclear weapon," Romney told Politics Nation today. "If they had stopped both I would feel a great deal more confident about their intentions. But their continuing to produce enriched uranium is of great concern to the world."

"Were I president, I would not simply read a report and say, 'Oh!' I would instead insist on having people with the most objective and first-hand information presenting their perspectives. And if no one disagreed I'd look for someone who disagreed, even if I had to find them from outside the agency,"

Romney: Iran Still A Threat, RealClearPolitics, December 4, 2007

Fred Thompson

Quote: "I hope that they are accurate with this assessment, but right now, I don't have the confidence in our own intelligence capabilities to make that assessment," the former Tennessee senator said after speaking to dozens of supporters at a gun shop in this early voting state. "One thing that crosses my mind is that this is information that the Iranians have put out, that they want us to kind of relax a little bit."

"Nowadays they can have a peaceful nuclear program and it's very, very easy once they get to that level to turn a screw or two and make it into a weapons program. It's a thin line," Thompson said.

Fred Thompson skeptical of new intelligence report on Iran, Associated Press, December 5, 2007

Preview of Coming Attraction: What Edwards Will Say About Iran

John Edwards will make a foreign policy speech about Iran today at 10 am at the Iowa Memorial Union's Richey Ballroom. I wonder if he'll have anything to say about Pakistan?

The Gazette has this story

There's no doubt in John Edwards' mind that Iran is "extremely dangerous," but he rejects President Bush "preventive war doctrine" and in a speech at the University of Iowa this morning, Nov. 5 will call for re-engaging with Iran to, ultimately, achieve full diplomatic relations.

And unlike his rival for the 2008 presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, he will strongly oppose a resolution she voted for declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, The resolution she backed "will ratchet up tensions and provide Bush and Cheney with the excuse they need to attack Iran," Edwards will say in what his campaign is calling a major foreign policy address at 10 a.m. in the Richie Ballroom of the Iowa Memorial Union.

"Just as George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the neo-cons used 9/11 to get into Iraq five years ago, they're trying to use Iraq today to get into Iran," according to Edwards. "And we have to stop them. This is a critical moment."

As president, Edwards will get rid of the dangerous "preventive war" doctrine and instead rely on proven national security strategies including overwhelming deterrent strength and retaining every option to address imminent attacks.

He believes a multilateral strategy of tough new sanctions and incentives will defuse Iran and force President Ahmadinejad, the Ayatollah Khameini, and the mullahs to realize their nuclear ambitions and that support of terrorism will only put the Iranian nation on a fast track to isolation, according to a background paper put out by Edwards' staff Sunday night.

Edwards will offer a five-point plan to:

End the "preventive war" doctrine that holds that America should shoot first and only ask questions later. Edwards will use force only as a last resort.

Use bolder and more targeted economic sanctions to show Iran it cannot buck the will of the international community without destroying its ability to be modern, advanced nation it so desperately wants to become.

Use incentives to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program and support of terrorism.

Re-engage with Iran by expanding low-level talks between government official on both sides in a neutral country.

Re-engage with other major nations on the challenge of Iran. Edwards would include Russia and China on the problem of Iran's nuclear weapons program. He would also convene a conference with Great Britain, France and Germany, along with Russian and China and Iran to find a way out of the stalemate created by the Bush policy toward Iran.

"This is a critical moment," according to Edwards. "As a nation, we stand today at a fork in the road with Iran. We have a real choice about the direction we'll take. One path will replay the last seven years. It leads toward a dark future of belligerence, aggression, and war. We need a new direction — one that will defuse the Iran threat, rather than aggravate it, and that will make America safer, not make the world more dangerous,"

Power to the People

From Truthdig

Determined to show just how adolescent they can be, U.S. representatives in Baghdad have expressed dissatisfaction and suspicion over a pair of power plants that Iranian and Chinese companies plan to build in Iraq. One American military official described the contracts this way: “As you know, it’s not always as it appears.”

This, from an occupying power that has funneled billions into the coffers of corporate cronies while managing to provide only a few hours of electricity a day more than four years after invading.

New York Times:

The Iraqi electricity minister, Karim Wahid, said that the Iranian project would be built in Sadr City, a Shiite enclave in Baghdad that is controlled by followers of the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr. He added that Iran had also agreed to provide cheap electricity from its own grid to southern Iraq, and to build a large power plant essentially free of charge in an area between the two southern Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.

The expansion of ties between Iraq and Iran comes as the United States and Iran clash on nuclear issues and about what American officials have repeatedly said is Iranian support for armed groups in Iraq. American officials have charged that Iranians, through the international military wing known as the Quds Force, are particularly active in support of elite elements of the Mahdi Army, a militia largely controlled by Mr. Sadr.

An American military official in Baghdad said that while he had no specific knowledge of the power plant contracts, any expansion of Iranian interests was a concern for the military here.

and this may be a reason why the Iraqis are doing this deal. From Alternet.

Saber Rattling: Iran in US Bombsights?

According to AFP the Bush administration has got plans on the table to "surgically" attack Iran:

The US administration has shifted strategy and is drawing up plans for possible air strikes against Iran's Revolutionary Guard instead of the country's nuclear sites, the New Yorker magazine reported on Sunday.

President George W. Bush has requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff revise plans for a possible attack on Iran, with the focus on "surgical" raids against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps which Washington accuses of targeting US forces in Iraq, the magazine wrote.

Previous contingency plans called for a more elaborate bombing campaign against suspected nuclear sites in Iran as well as other infrastructure, the magazine reported, citing unnamed former officials and government consultants.

The change in focus comes as Bush and his top aides have begun to describe the war in Iraq in public statements as increasingly a "strategic battle between the United States and Iran," said the article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.

During a video conference over the summer, Bush allegedly told Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, that he was considering striking Iranian targets across the border and that the British "were on board," according to the article.

Haleh Esfandiari, Iranis Arrested by US a Prisoner Exchange?

Is it coincidental that 8 Iranis held by our military in Iraq and US scholar Haleh Esfandiari were released yesterday? Iran and the US continue to rattle sabers in Cold War fashion.


From the BBC

A leading Iranian-American academic who was jailed for three months in Iran on spying charges has left the country.

Haleh Esfandiari's husband, Shaul Bakhash, told the Fars news agency that she had flown to Austria, and would later return to the US.

Ms Esfandiari works for a research institute in Washington.

Three other Iranian-Americans are being detained in Iran - academics Ali Shakeri and Kian Tajbaksh, and journalist Parnaz Azima.

The detentions came amid ongoing tension between the US and Iran.

Analysts say the Iranian authorities are highly suspicious of attempts by the Bush administration to promote democratic change in Iran.

Ms Esfandiari, 67, heads the Middle East programme at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Also from the BBC

The US military has admitted to what it called a "regrettable incident" after it arrested a group of eight Iranians in Baghdad.

The Iranians were held at a checkpoint and detained overnight. They were freed after the Iraqi government intervened.

Iran says the men were in the city at the invitation of Iraq's government, and that the US action was unjustified.

An aide to the top US commander in Iraq later said the US accepted that the Iranians were on official business.

Dr Saadi Othman, adviser to Gen David Petraeus, told BBC News that the incident had "nothing to do" with US President George W Bush's speech on Tuesday, in which he strongly criticised Iran for its alleged interference in Iraq.

Iran Supplying the Taliban?

Not that Bush and Co. need more reasons to expand the war in the Middle East, but the Iranians are making the case easier to sell, if the story below is true.

According to the AP
NATO has intercepted Iranian weapons shipments to Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents, providing evidence Iran is violating international law to aid a group it once considered a bitter enemy, a senior U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.

"There's irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this," Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said on CNN. "It's certainly coming from the government of Iran. It's coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian government."
Speaking separately to The Associated Press, Burns said NATO must act to stop the shipments. The Iran-Afghanistan frontier is "a very long border. But the Iranians need to know that we are there and that we're going to oppose this."

"It's a very serious question," he said, adding that Iran is in "outright violation" of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The State Department later appeared to step back from Burns' assertion the Iranian government was directly involved in the transfers but stressed Washington has proof that weapons from Iran were being sent to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

"We absolutely are certain that there are Iranian-origin weapons flowing into Afghanistan to the Taliban," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

Parts is Parts

The House drew attention Monday to the danger posed by shortcomings in U.S. military surplus sales, voting a second time to ban the Pentagon from selling leftover F-14 fighter jet parts sought by Iran.

The House first approved the proposal last month as an add-on to military funding legislation. It backed it again Monday on a voice vote, this time as a freestanding bill (HR1441).

The measure, nicknamed the "Stop Arming Iran Act," would be politically difficult for President Bush to veto. He has called Iran part of an "axis of evil" and accuses it of funding terrorism and trying to develop nuclear weapons.

The White House had no immediate comment on whether Bush supports the proposed ban, which is expected to win Senate approval. The new House vote came as Iran abruptly called off talks on its nuclear program with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The Iran Problem.

So you are the President of the USAE (United States of the American Empire). You have bogged 160-180,000 troops in Iraq and you really aren't getting much accomplished other than having more of your troops killed unnecessarily. What do you do?

Well, thankfully, across the border, in a place called Iran, there is a belligerent leader who recognizes that you have a public relations problem and he's betting the farm that you won't attack his country--no matter what he does. So he taunts you with "I'm working on peaceful nukes--not the bad kind"--and you really don't trust him (after all this is the country that you have had a love/hate relationship with from the time of the Shah). Does the scenario sound familiar--think back to Kuwait in 1990.

Enter Joe Lieberman, former Democrat now Independent, who loves your foreign policy. Jumpin' Joseph Lieberman said Sunday the United States should consider a military strike against Iran because of Tehran's involvement in Iraq. "I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman said. "And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

Got that, the possible "weapons of mass destruction" card is not playable, so it is back to the e reliable "support the troops" card. Thank you Joe Lieberman for the trial balloon.

Iranian Peace Activist Arrested

Iran has officially confirmed that it is detaining a fourth Iranian American on suspicion of spying.

Ali Shakeri, an American Iranian peace activist and academic disappeared while on a visit to Iran last month but officials initially denied his arrest.

These arrests of dual nationals have sent shock waves through the huge Iranian diaspora.

They have also prompted many academics to think twice about attending conferences in Iran.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini confirmed that the government is holding Ali Shakeri and investigating him for charges of spying.

He is the third American academic of Iranian origin to be jailed in Iran in the last month.

Congress--Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

Here are six important reasons to oppose the supplemental spending bill (also known as the "Iraq Accountability Act") the House will be voting on:

1) It funds both the continued occupation of Iraq and Bush's escalation of the war.
2) It allows Bush to decide when U.S. troop withdrawal should begin -- possibly not until Sept. 1, 2008 -- a full 18 months from now.
3) It is silent on the question of attacking Iran. (Language requiring Congressional authorization for military action against Iran was removed from the bill.)
4) It allows an unspecified number of troops (10,000? 30,000? 50,000?) to remain in Iraq indefinitely.
5) It would bring spending on the Iraq war to more than $500 BILLION!
6) Most importantly, it guarantees that more of our brave troops will likely be injured and killed.

Call the Congressional Switchboard toll-free: 888-851-1879 (ask the operator to connect you to your Representative's office).

Impeachment, the War, and doing the right thing

Across the blogosphere there is a flurry of discussion about impeaching the President, ending the war in Iraq, and whether the political stomach to do such things exists.

Theories about where things are:

1) The Democrats don't have the stomach to do it because it sets the Republicans up for success in 2008.
2) The Republicans want to be vindicated for the war--If we had only stayed the course...
3) Politics doesn't move in real time. Wheels are in motion to address the concerns of the public, but patience is a virtue.
4) It's about power: whose got it and who wants it.
5) The President (has no clothes) but warns we have nothing to play for advantage, but fear itself.
6) Both parties say "If we are going to get anything done in a bipartisan way, we have to avoid distractions."
7) Both parties are chickensh**t and are jockeying for position.

My crystal ball view: We are likely to see mass prosecutions after 2008, but as long as there is a war, nobody's going to impeach anybody. The Democrats are building up political capital for 2008. The Republicans are retrenching and looking for their issues. The President is looking for a legacy and can't get it without Congressional support. Prediction: The war will end in Iraq before 2008, the middle east will be in more turmoil, the Dems will take the White House in '08. Domestic issues will take the front seat.

Posturing While Baghdad is Burning

This week while more troops were sent to Iraq Democrats and moderate Republicans in the Senate postured with creating a non-binding resolution decrying Bush's commitment of 21,500 more soldiers to Iraq. Meanwhile bills in the Woolsey Bill in the House to withdraw troops in 6 months and the Kennedy Bill in the Senate to require congressional approval before further escalation--that have teeth to them-- are waiting for the light of day. On top of this Bush is pushing forth a defense spending bill that will pay for the war for another year!

It is time to demand Congress to do the right thing. The eyes of Congress are on 2008 and not today. The first party who blinks loses the Presidency is the thinking of political strategists. What is missing in the picture is that our army is a voluntary one. If the public perceives that the government is making a political football out of the lives of their sons and daughters, we will have a very serious domestic problem to address.

Ending this war is the right thing to do because, in so doing, it chills the growing unrest in the region by removing the us, the 900 pound gorilla, that has put Iran onto the battlefield. Without diplomatic solutions, it is likely that the whole of the Middle East could become embroiled in a full scale war, which would be to no one's benefit.

Iraq is in turmoil, there is no doubt. But without our troops there and with diplomacy and, perhaps, the Arab states providing peacekeeping troops, it is more likely that a reasonable solution can be found.