Iran

The Independent has an interesting article on the background to the diplomatic feelers between the US and Iran. Even Condi, although never in the inner circle of the neo-Cons, seems to have shifted her position significantly and this is aiding the process of establishing diplomatic relations.

Now there could be serveral reasons behind this; perhaps she is a sinner that truly repenteth, perhaps she no longer feels the need for blind loyalty to a dead duck President, perhaps she wants to be Vice-President to the aging and barking McCain.

For a long while the Doves and Hawks in and around Washington have been banging on about Iran, about using war - playing double or quits on a grand scale, or diplomacy, jaw-jaw being better than war, war in Churchill's famous phrase.

Although those around Cheney do still want war it is becoming increasingly unlikely. A limited strike is also being planned, but it may well not be used. Indeed the odds of action have lenghened considerably, especially as the military objected.

For good reasons; Iraq will explode, it will be the greatest recruiting tool for exremists, we don't know what to bomb and, importantly, the Iranians will fight back.

It is a good sign that the US is thinking of starting a diplomatic presence in Iran. The history between the two countries has been full of mistrust on both sides, justifiably so but the steps to a stable future are in the beginning small and this may be the start of something.

There may also be some good news for Gordon Brown after recent events. It seems that the UK military budget can be cut drastically, simply by buying a copy of Photoshop. Or even better, Mr Brown there's the freeware Gimp.

After spending a year telling us that Iran was about to build a nuclear bomb and actively preparing for war and large military strikes, a new National Intelligence report comes out and says that Iran gave up it's nuclear weapons plans in 2003.

There is something that has been consistent in the Neo-Con views of the world; They're always wrong. They've been wrong since the start of the Cold War.

Happily their plan to play 'double or quits' with Iran does seem to be crumbling. One can only imagine Cheney's fury as he read this report.

Let's start with the good news. The surge is having an effect on the the small al Qaeda in Iraq (al QI). Relations between them and bin Laden have been tense for a long time. Zaquawi, the sadistic Jordanian, alienated many people by his cruelty, to the extent that frequent messages were sent to him by bin Laden and Zawahiri asking him to tone it down as he was losing support.

Faced with this, the tribal leaders started having second thoughts about tolerating the presence of these people. Something the US has skilfully exploited and has been quietly doing deals with the tribal leaders. Meanwhile, al QI are very much on the defensive. Their tactic of slaughtering the Shia to provoke a civil war is backfiring badly. Their calls for open revolt have, like every other call from al Q, fallen on deaf ears.

And now, another indignity; a very public telling off from the boss. The latest bin Laden tape doesn't focus on his grand visions or flights of fancy through world history but sticks to mundane matters, issues that a CEO normally never touches.

Mistakes were made, he admits referring to Zaquawi's 'kill the shia bastards' policy and makes a call for unity. This is a bit rich coming for someone who described the shia as one of the three enemies, but he also says that individuals should give way to group leadership and that people must be able to make concessions in order to find common ground. Also he stresses the need to bring tribal leaders into the fold.

Interesting. He was never close to the Jordanian and many were surprised when Zaquawi knelt before bin Laden's throne, something that he must be kicking himself for. But it is clear that they are in considerable disarray and their entire strategy has failed. The US is beginning to learn how to tackle terrorist groups and is making real progress in one key area, to separate the terrorist element from the local population, in this case a very heavily armed population.

This is good news but it has little to do with the insurgency. Most jihadists in Iraq are nationalist in their thinking and have political objectives such as removing corruption, changing political systems in their own countries. al Q is very different, seeking an almost messianic pan-national goal. This is also another division that is being understood and exploited.

Without al Qaeda, it may be possible, eventually, for the Sunni and Shia groups to work more closely and to work out common areas of understanding, policy and tactics. Pragmatism and nationalism may win the day. This may be partly what al Sadr is up to in his mysterious regrouping and there are signs that militia groups see the need to unite, but to unite without the apocalyptic sadists of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Will a man appear who can unite the Shia and Sunni? Well, Iraq is the homeland of Saladin and should a new Saladin arise with a message of pan-national unity that crosses religious divides, he would be a far greater challenge than any number of fragmented militias.

I guess most of us knew that Blair wouldn't be satisfied with his job of Middle East peace [sic] envoy for very long. It doesn't give him the power he is used to wielding and it means that he has to face a few realities about the plight of the Palestinians and facing up to realities was never Blair's strongest point. So it shouldn't be surprising that Blair would use his current job as a launch pad for a more ambitious role. Worse still, Gordon Brown is supporting him all the way.

It's hard to imagine a worse candidate for the job. Nevertheless, Blair has been trying to raise his profile by ingratiating himself even further with his neo con masters. He's just given a speech at a charity dinner in New York in which he sounded more like mad Melanie Phillips than ever as he tried to compare Iran with Nazi Germany in the 1930s (video here).

Funny, I've been wondering the same thing myself only I see the threat coming not from Iran but from the deeply insane psychopaths in Washington and their sycophantic followers who have already destabilised the entire region. Of course Blair couldn't resist referring to September 11 2001 in a pathetic attempt to associate the Iranian regime with that atrocity.

So Blair is as hawkish as ever and seemingly determined to plunge us into yet another war. By becoming president of the European council he presumably thinks he can help bring about another disaster.

A good set of comments on yesterday's Sy Hersh thread lead me to write a comment of my own, which rather grew, so it's a post.

I'm still not convinced that Brown's going to back an attack on Iran:

 * Brown the Atlanticist - he's much more of an Atlanticist than Blair ever was - Blair's meeting of minds with Bush had nothing to do with admiration for the American Way Of Life, since Bush has shown complete disregard for that, merely using the US for its power and wealth to meet his own ends (which are varied, but seem to boil down to both cheap oil , enriching cronies and imperial ambition at home and abroad).  I'm using 'Bush' here as neat shorthand for the whole AEI/AIPAC/Cheney nexus that seems to be at the bottom of what's been fucking things up, no one can argue that Bush came up with them himself, after all.  Brown strikes me as more of a classic conservative Republican - the morality is the ice-cold what's-good-enough-for-my-father-is-good-enough-for-me Presbyterian, not the hot-blooded blood-and-thunder Baptist.  Conservative v. Year Zero radical, in fact.  People like Brown grew up admiring an America that's ceased to exist post-Reagan, that legitimised the chase after wealth and power by means of religion.  Post-1980 the chase become all that mattered.

 * the Daily Mail.  Most read anti-war newspaper, publicised Craig Murray's pure-bred filleting of the Iranian hostage claims (which would themselves make using it as a casus belli trickier), editor great mates with Brown.  Brown's election strategy is definitely to appeal to Daily Mail Reading Woman, rather than Sun Reading Man, who isn't going to be tempted by Cameron and doesn't live in middle England marginals anyway.  If the Mail approves of Our Boys marching on Tehran I'll eat a copy.  No, make that two copies.  Of the Sunday edition.  The Sun and Times have started being openly hostile, which suggest that Murdoch doesn't feel Gordon is 'on board' to his satisfaction.

 * Economic rewards - as the NYT reports, the part of the US business community (who are indeed friends with Gordon) who backed the war for cheap oil, a quick win and new markets are now backing away.  Tom Friedman is their spokesman, and he's run out of his famous Friedman Units ('it'll get better in six months').  The Iraq War supporters shrink ever closer to the rabid triumph-of-the-will dead-enders.  So Gordon can't rationalise support as good for the economy - the Iraq experience suggests the complete opposite

  * Political rewards - 'hey, I've stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the worst-ever US President, a man deeply unpopular with all our other allies, a year before he leaves office with his bloody legacy plain to see and his movement decimated'.  What's in it for Gordon?

Indeed 'what's in it for Gordon' should be the question we all ask when we see claims that Gordon is backing Bush/is backing a new multipolar foreign policy/is backing whatever.  In the case of Blair and Iraq the Bliar got to suck up to George Bush at the height of his power, have the huge ego boost of ordering men into battle and satisfied his own warped sense of liberal values by persuading himself he was doing good.  None of those quite seem to fit the bill if Gordon goes for war - there's not enough Army to order into battle, Bush looks and smells like a dead duck and he doesn't have any pretend liberal values anyway, only genuine conservative ones.

Question for all of us - who would Brown like to deal with in the White House from January 2009?  Tricky one.  I say Hillary Clinton - she'll bring Bill, who the Labour Party always got on with, but she isn't going to embarrass Gordon by being more left-wing that him.

Other bloggage (British reaction to Hersh has been fairly sparse, perhaps like me it's taken a while to read all six pages):

Lenin's Tomb
Blood & Treasure (who understands very well what Mr. Brown is and isn't)
Booman Tribute on Hillary and Iran
D-Notice pointing out that even Blair didn't manage to get creationist ideology into science curriculums
Crooks and Liars on the US Iran War propaganda campaign - would it work here?
Sic Semper Tyrannis on Hillary and Iran
Think Progress with a couple of links to UK papers, including the Guardian on John 'Bombs Away' Bolton at the Tory Party conference, which is a good guide for you as to where the maddest neo-con around goes for support when in the UK these days.  He got interviewed on Sky, too.
The Green Ribbon making the point about the timing of the UK election and Gordon's support for war or otherwise

Department of Blowing Shit Up, Summer 2007:

Hang on, early summer?  Blair went end of June, we're fairly confident he would have been 'on board', the sacking of Jack Straw as Foreign Sec. is generally taken to be a slap down to suggestions that attacking Iran was off the agenda.  I sincerely hope that any risk of the British being 'on board' with another engineered, illegal Middle East war died with the late Premiership.  Did it?

Of course, if Blair promised Bush British support *again* without bothering to consult Parliament, can the Labour Government please stop pretending we've learnt from Iraq and prosecute the bastard?  How *is* that Middle East peace mission going, Tony?  Anyone trust you yet?

A war with Iran; Will he or won't he? This question has been occupying analysts minds for some time and we'll soon find out the answer. There are two strands of opinion; Cheney says that a major strike on Iran, including nuclear weapons, has to happen before Bush leaves the White House. The State department are more cautious, fearing the inevitable consequences and hoping for diplomacy to triumph.

Will bush play double or quits with the Middle East? The signs are confusing, certainly plans have been drawn up and material is being put in the theatre in preparation, but so far, nobody knows and it is believed that no decision has been made. Part of the preparation is in persuading people that they've got it right this time and Iran is a real threat, hence the breathless warnings about Iran's meddling in Iraq.

Although the US is prepared to go it alone, there are other factors that may provide signals of US intentions. The positions of China and, to a lesser extent, Russia could affect the decision, but we have out own clue to watch. The US is asking Brown to move British forces to the Iranian border. Will he do it? Has he got the stomach to turn down the US? Will he do a Blair or a Wilson?

Gordon Brown has been enjoying high popularity in the polls since he became Prime Minister, and that's not particularly surprising as the Nation is still breathing an elongated sigh of relief at the departure of Blair. Despite his policies not being vastly different to Blair's, there was enough difference in style to convince many people that things were looking up. The lack of obvious sycophancy when he met Bush earlier this summer, and his competent handling of the recent floods and the foot and mouth crisis earned him a ten point lead over the Tories (helped, of course, by the Tories' own ineptitude).

Now though, there is a potential stumbling block in front of Gordon and, unsurprisingly, it's an Iraq-shaped stumbling block. When he met Bush at Camp David, Gordon said that:

British military commanders knew exactly what to do and their advice to Brown was unequivocal:

Indeed, it seemed for a while that things were moving in the right direction with news that the British forces are abandoning the indefensible position they were holding at one of Saddam's palaces and making a bee-line for the airport where they will for the most part be confined to barracks, much to the annoyance of some Americans (that last link is satire via). But hunkering down at the airport isn't the full withdrawal recommended by military officers and, well, just about everyone else. Now Brown has come out and said that there will be no timetable for withdrawal.

Just what the British soldiers can achieve from the relative safety of the airport that they couldn't achieve when they patrolled the rest of Basra isn't explained, but I imagine it has more to do with providing a fig leaf of political cover for Bush than actually improving the situation in the province. Perhaps Brown is still clinging to the hope that things might improve enough by themselves so that the inevitable withdrawal, when it happens, won't look like the predicted rout that the move to the airport is starting to look like with Muqtada al-Sadr already declaring a victory - in other words, it's about pride. Sadr has already said that he is prepared to co-operate with any possible UN force that replaces the departing British and American forces. I guess it wouldn't reflect very well on Britain and America if they left and the violence subsided.

While Brown is unlikely to to be blamed for the war as much as Blair is, he is the one in power now and he is the one presiding over a continuing disaster that is only going to get worse as Iran moves further up Bush's agenda. Labour's new-found popularity is already taking some knocks with Brown's refusal to hold a referendum over the EU constitution/treaty which might make the trade unions and the Tories unlikely bedfellows. And Brown is also in trouble over the under funding of the military while expecting it to fight two wars, both of which are going badly. The more bad news that comes from the region, the more Brown is going to be held responsible, and doing the old Blair trick of stifling the debate isn't going to help him.

From the Stop The War Coalition...

Hat Tip to Peacewisher in the comments.

Gordon Brown is finally getting to grips with Britain's foreign policy. As with his domestic policies, it's a mixed bag. There are some improvements over Tony Blair's approach (he could hardly do a worse job) but they don't go nearly far enough. On the positive side, Brown has done something that Blair refused to do - he has criticised American foreign policy albeit in the most gentle way possible and through a close ally rather than personally.

Downing Street, of course, denies that the statement was a criticism of US foreign policy, and while that message won't go down too well with the neocons there are signs that an increasing number of Republicans will be more receptive to it as more and more of them acknowledge the hopelessness of the situation in Iraq and try to distance themselves from the mess. Brown has also told the UN secretary General, Ban Ki-moon that he wants to work more closely with the UN in future.

While this is, of course, to be welcomed, we all know that Blair did try to get UN support for the Iraq war and then carried on regardless when he failed in that attempt. In the desperate effort to get a second resolution so that he could legitimise the invasion, the world was lied to; countries were bribed or bullied and ambassadors were spied on. Merely trying to secure a multilateral solution simply isn't good enough, what is needed is a commitment to abide by whatever decision is reached even if it goes against Britain and the USA. Just as worrying is the implication that Britain may seek further interventions. Foreign Secretary, David Miliband hasn't ruled out an attack on Iran, although with the current state of Britain's overstretched military and Brown's lack of a mandate I think participation in such an attack seems unlikely at present. The last thing anybody needs is a repeat of the Iraq crisis - with or without UN backing. Surely it would be far better to focus on ensuring that such a catastrophe isn't repeated instead of working on getting a consensus for a future disaster. This, for the moment at least, seems to be a step too far for Gordon.

Both Gordon and the more intelligent members of the Bush administration realise that Brown needs to distance himself from Bush and Douglas Alexander's speech will be viewed in that light. When Gordon goes to Washington to meet Bush he will play down any weakening of the 'special relationship'. In fact he already has even before the trip.

Marvellous! That doesn't exactly correspond with the "Let the work of change begin" speech he made when he became Prime Minister. As was predicted, Gordon's foreign policy changes look like being largely cosmetic. Once again Gordon has thrown a sop to anti-war left while placating the neocon faction. This ambiguity seems to be Gordon's trade mark. However, as his premiership progresses he's going to have to be a bit more straightforward than he has so far.

There's an interesting interview on Democracy Now with Seymour Hersh which adds some flesh to some of the points about the recent violence in Lebanon that Tom alluded to earlier. Seymour Hersh is claiming that America, along with the Lebanese government led by Fouad Siniora has indirectly backed the Islamist Militant group Fatah al-Islam. These are claims he first made in March in an article in the New Yorker called The Redirection. He also debunks the claims made that Fatah al-Islam is backed by Syria or tied to al-Qaeda. Here's a quick excerpt:

So, according to Sy Hersh the current episodes of violence are "unintended consequences". It's worth reading or watching the whole interview. For up-to-date and detailed information on what is happening, I recommend Tears For Lebanon.

Yet another terror scare story in the Times:

Let's take a look at it. It seems like hype, and deliberately leaked hype as well. for a start there's a key phrase 'one operative'. Hmm, that does sound a tad dubious. Who was this man? Under what circumstances did he make this claim? What else did he say? We're left in the dark.

Do the intelligence services really expect us to believe that al Qaeda are going to let off two atom bombs?

Or in Britain?

And Iran's support? Note the words I've put in bold

More clumsy spin designed, not to inform, but to spread fear, only this time it's Iran not Iraq in the frame.

Much has been made of Iran's alleged supplying of weapons and bombs to Shi'ite factions in Iraq. Far less has been made of Saudi Arabia's apparent role in supplying weapons and funding to Sunni insurgents. And yet, as Saudi Arabia threatened to do, and as has been stated by the Iraq Study Group as well as by journalist, Seymour Hersh, this appears to be the case.

So we seem to have a proxy war taking place that involves three of the biggest oil producers on the planet. It wouldn't take much for this proxy war to escalate into the feared regional conflict that has been widely talked about. Needless to say Saudi Arabia's involvement in the Iraq quagmire is embarrassing for Bush who would prefer to blame Syria for supplying the Sunnis. Admission of the Saudi involvement had to be wrung out out of Mike McConnell by Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Just like the Iranian government, the Saudi government is denying any involvement in supplying the insurgents. Yet strangely, there are no US aircraft carriers threatening the kingdom, no sabre rattling at the UN and no Saudi diplomats have been kidnapped by the Americans. The kingdom seems to be able to do anything it wants with impunity, whether its torturing British citizens or being involved in corruption with BAE or even having known links to al Qaeda.

Yes, quite.

Tony Blair might be saying that there are no plans for an attack on Iran but we all know by now how much of a pinch of salt we need when listening to him. That there is an American build-up of fire power in the Persian Gulf is beyond dispute now and it's being widely reported. Britain, however tepid its support for war is, seems to be playing a similar game to America. Outwardly it is demanding tough sanctions on Iran and Blair never misses an opportunity to ratchet up the hate. But then we get stories of British fears about an attack on Iran and the claims that there are no plans to attack and how important diplomacy is.

Compare this with US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates' recent statement:

So, seeing as our government cannot be believed, it's worth looking at what Britain is actually doing in the Persian Gulf and on its military bases. A few clarifications first. British involvement can take a variety of forms, from purely 'moral' support to full participation in a bombardment and/or invasion. The latter seems unlikely due to the poor shape of Britain's overstretched military. It should also be noted that just because Britain has military assets in the Persian Gulf doesn't necessarily mean it will use them. However it's a pretty good indicator. And allowing America to use British bases to attack Iran counts as participation in that attack. That said, it is interesting to note that there is increased activity on American bases in Britain. Air refueling tankers have been seen heading through these bases. And in the Persian Gulf, Britain has doubled its naval presence.

If we hear of British aircraft carriers and submarines in the Persian Gulf that will be yet another strong indicator of British involvement in an impending conflict. A while ago I suggested (somewhere) that a withdrawal of British troops from Iraq might be another indicator of an attack on Iran... hmmm! It really is about time the Government clarified its position on what it will do in the event of war breaking out. So it's a pity that our opportunity to question the Foreign Secretary on these issues has been postponed.