October 2007

Plan B (for 'bombs') after Iran fantasy fails
Neo-conservatives driving the George W Bush administration firmly believed that a successful display of US military force in Iraq would destroy the foundations of the Iranian government. They clung to this illusion until late 2005, when it finally dawned on them that the Iraqi adventure was having the opposite effect. The pressure on Iran now to back down on its nuclear program stems from their realization that military force will have to be used against Iran to accomplish the original goal of regime change. - Gareth Porter (Oct 31, '07)

An attempt to douse the flames of war
It's 28 years since the US cut off diplomatic ties with Iran, and their relationship has never been worse, teetering on the brink of war. A group of high-level panelists in Washington tried to make some sense of what is going on. They believe the tensions underscore Washington's continued inability to understand Iran and are the result of the US's ill-fated policies over the years. (Oct 31, '07)

Winter weighs on Turkey's options
As a hard winter looms in northern Iraq, Turkish troops are massed at the border awaiting almost certain orders to crush Kurdish militants. But their military options are declining as quickly as the temperature. Political heat from Iraq, and some directly contradictory comments from the US, are complicating an already sticky situation. (Oct 31, '07)

Bagging trophies on Iraqi safari
The US military is using anthropologists as cultural advisors for its soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military is also employing big game hunters and inner city police officers to improve its snipers. Indeed, this "hunting" image has permeated the "war on terror" - imagine your enemy as an animal, a big-game trophy to bag. - Nick Turse (Oct 30, '07)

FILM REVIEW
Preaching to the converted
Showdown With Iran produced by Greg Barker This documentary faithfully recycles the official US line on Iran's nuclear program - that it wants weapons - without ever questioning it. It also perpetuates the artificial sense of crisis generated in Washington as a prelude for a confrontation with Iran, largely as a proxy war on behalf of Israel. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Oct 30, '07)

THE ROVING EYE
The Turks are coming
The United States military commander in northern Iraq has made it clear that he will do "absolutely nothing" about reining in Turkish Kurd rebels in the area. This leaves Turkey with no option but to take matters into its own hands. The major plot, though, is the future of Iraq, or more precisely, the partition of Iraq. - Pepe Escobar (Oct 29, '07)

SPENGLER
When you can't
deal with the devil
The West has no choice but to attack Iran, as the last chance of making a deal with the devil has passed. It would have been better to have attacked a year ago, as now it will be a case of war with Iran on the worst terms. All President George W Bush can hope to do is to make it considerably worse for others than for the United States. (Oct 29, '07)

No end to US's war budget woes
The cost of all United States Department of Defense funds appropriated thus far for its three "war on terror" operations - Iraq, Afghanistan and enhanced security - now equals about 90% of the 12-year war in Vietnam ($670 billion) and about double the cost of the Korean War ($295 billion), with little relief in sight. All this is accompanied by a frightening lack of auditing standards and accountability. Even the human cost of US causalities is in dispute. - David Isenberg (Oct 29, '07)

Pakistan in new Taliban peace process
Unprecedented US-backed tribal councils involving Afghan, Pakistani and, crucially, Taliban representatives are due to begin within weeks. The goal is to get the US talking about an exit strategy from Afghanistan. At the same time, former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto and President General Pervez Musharraf will respectively wield a big stick and dangle carrots in moves aimed at isolating those Taliban and al-Qaeda militants who don't want to give peace a chance. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 29, '07)

COMMENT
Ideology wins, the people lose
In the 1960s, the buzz was that the age of ideology was over. If it ever went away, it's back with a vengeance, at least in George W Bush's America, where ideology drives policies that lead to soldiers' lives being wasted in Iraq and homeowners facing ruin at home. It's easy to live in ideological fantasyland as long as foreigners are paying - but now, grim reality is about to come knocking. - Julian Delasantellis (Oct 29, '07)

THE ROVING EYE
'War on terror' is now war on Iran
In the face of new United States sanctions, the Iranian companies and individuals affiliated with the now "terrorist" Revolutionary Guards Corps will have plenty of opportunities for doing business with Russia, China or Arab monarchies, or they may resort to the black market. But given the pervasive business and national security influence of the Guards, by branding them as terrorists Washington has declared war on the Iranian power elite. - Pepe Escobar (Oct 26, '07)

Explosive charge blows up in US's face
One of the accusations that has become the main rationale for the aggressive United States stance toward Tehran is that Iran - and Iran alone - is supplying the armor-piercing "explosively formed penetrators" that are killing US troops in Iraq. Yet all along the US has clearly known that Iraqis received the technology and the training from Hezbollah, as well as that the devices were being made in Iraq. - Gareth Porter (Oct 26, '07)

THE ROVING EYE
Attack Iran and you attack Russia
On the international front, Iran and Russia appear to have agreed on a plan to nullify the George W Bush administration's relentless drive towards launching a preemptive strike against Iran. On the home front, though, differences between President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei widen. There can only be one winner. - Pepe Escobar (Oct 25, '07)

Oil: The sovereignty showdown in Iraq
The political half of the Bush administration's gamble in Iraq has already been lost, but it has proven adamantly unwilling to accept the loss of the economic half, the oil half, without a desperate fight. The showdown now is between muscle-flexing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose fragmenting country wants to reclaim sovereignty over its oil resources, and American military and diplomatic might. - Jack Miles (Oct 25, '07)

US soldiers shy from battle
They call them "search and avoid" missions in Iraq, where morale among US troops is falling and some soldiers are doing their best to avoid contact with the enemy. Instead of patrolling for insurgents, some servicemen say they've stayed alive by parking their vehicles in safe areas and radioing in routine reports of no contact. - Dahr Jamail (Oct 25, '07)

Turks have might, but it will be a fight
On paper, the few thousand Kurdish militants based in northern Iraq are no match for Turkey, possessor of NATO's second biggest military force. But the insurgents have spread their arms dumps, intelligence, communications and main fighting units in dozens of well-hidden sites, and they could receive assistance from the Iraqi Kurds. - Richard M Bennett (Oct 25, '07)

Pakistan's nut that won't crack
Many of Pakistan's problems can be sourced to the semi-independent badlands of North-West Frontier Province and the neighboring Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the home bases of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Islamabad can't afford to countenance the sensitive region, yet it can't afford to do anything about it. - Mark LeVine (Oct 25, '07)

Iran looms over Turkey crisis diplomacy Feverish diplomacy is under way among major players in the Middle East, including the US, Turkey, Israel and Britain. Even as a large-scale Turkish invasion of northern Iraq grows daily more imminent, Turkish Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan is away from his country for talks in London. Looming over this extraordinary diplomatic activity is a shadow bigger than Turkey's Kurdish crisis: that of Iran. Erdogan may have jetted to London wondering if the world war that George W Bush recently warned about had already begun. - M K Bhadrakumar (Oct 24, '07) Bush teeters on Turkish-Kurd tightrope President George W Bush has devoted considerable energy to delaying a potentially explosive referendum on whether oil-rich Kirkuk should be absorbed into Iraqi Kurdistan. Yet if Bush is to get the Kurdish authorities to clamp down on militants engaged in cross-border activities in Turkey, this referendum is the price he might have to pay. - Jim Lobe (Oct 24, '07) No end in sight for the Kurdish fight Drawing revenue from Kurdish businessmen and narcotics trafficking, and sourcing weapons from around the world, Kurdistan Workers' Party militants have sustained terrorist operations against Turkey for nearly three decades. When they talk of a ceasefire, therefore, Ankara has reason to be skeptical. - Sami Moubayed (Oct 24, '07)

INTERVIEW
The voice of the Bali blast speaks
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir
"The only way that [George W] Bush can survive is ... to convert to Islam," says 69-year-old firebrand Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, who served more than two years in prison in connection with the 2002 Bali bombing that killed hundreds of people. Ba'asyir, who is widely recognized as the spiritual head of the militant Jemaah Islamiyah organization, tells Philip Smucker the Bali blast was a bad idea because it only succeeded in giving America additional fuel in its war against Islam. (Oct 24, '07)

US forced into 'Plan B' for Pakistan 
The United States-brokered plan for a political union between Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf and former premier Benazir Bhutto appears to be in tatters following last week's massive bomb attack in Karachi. Washington now doubts that Bhutto can deliver. Out of the debris, though, a replacement figure looms: religious leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 23, '07)

A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
Intellectual fallacies of the 'war on terror'
Chalmers Johnson reviews The Matador's Cape: America's Reckless Response to Terror by Stephen Holmes, and finds it a "powerful and philosophically erudite survey of what we think we understand about the 9/11 attacks". Holmes has cleared away the underbrush and prepared the way for the public to address this more or less taboo subject. (Oct 23, '07)

Tehran flaunts new weapons
In recent weeks, Iran has opened a new air base and unveiled new domestically produced military hardware, including medium-range ballistic missiles and a one-ton smart bomb. (Oct 23, '07)

Sanctions on Iran a prelude to conflict?
At the heart of the strategy of the United States and its allies to pressure Iran over its nuclear program is the application of a third, stronger round of sanctions. Yet sanctions significantly increase the likelihood of militarized conflict rather than preventing it. - Prerna Mankad (Oct 23, '07)

Turkey aproaches it 'finest hour'
Almost as if they want confrontation, Kurdish rebels operating from inside Iraq killed 17 Turkish troops on Sunday. It could be the last straw for Ankara to send its troops into northern Iraq, something it has wanted to do for a long time. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has the nation behind him in wanting action. Issues such as relations with the United States, oil-rich Kirkuk and Iraq itself can be dealt with later. - Sami Moubayed (Oct 22, '07)

Cheney raises anti-Iran rhetoric
In an inflammatory speech before a sympathetic audience, Vice President Dick Cheney has blasted Iran as a "serious obstacle to peace in the Middle East" and accused it of "direct involvement in the killings of Americans". The bellicose tone is in contrast to more moderate administration voices, including US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and comes in the wake of the resignation of Iran's lead nuclear negotiator. - Jim Lobe (Oct 22, '07)

Bhutto bombs kick off war against US plan
The first shot has already been fired in the battle that Islamists have vowed to wage against the Washington-inspired and brokered attempt at regime change in Pakistan. It came in the form of twin bomb blasts aimed at Benazir Bhutto, the lynchpin in US machinations, within hours of her arrival in Karachi after years in exile. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 19, '07)

Benazir's second homecoming
Beyond this point, Washington cannot continue to act as Benazir Bhutto's mentor. From now on, she must perform mostly on her own. M K Bhadrakumar analyzes the task ahead of her if she is to inhabit the house that the US has built for her. (Oct 19, '07)

Who's bluffing on the Turkish-Iraqi border? Turkey has had enough of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) harassment and is preparing to invade Iraq to attempt to stamp it out, despite the protests of Washington, which has labeled the PKK a terrorist group but uses it as an ally in its "war on terror" in Iraq. Turkey doesn't seem to be bluffing or backing down, which puts the US and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in an even tighter spot. - Sami Moubayed (Oct 19, '07)

Pakistan plans all-out battle against militants
An all-out battle for control of Pakistan's restive North and South Waziristan is set to commence between the Pakistani military and the Taliban and al-Qaeda adherents who have made these tribal areas their own. If the operation succeeds, intelligence sources say, the back of the Afghan resistance will be broken and the Iraqi resistance will suffer a severe setback. The militants have little option but to stand and fight, and the battle will be the bloodiest yet seen in the tribal areas. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 18, '07)

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Bush's faith run over by history
A recently published transcript of a discussion held in February 2003 - nearly a month before the Iraq war began - between US President George W Bush and Jose Maria Aznar, then prime minister of Spain, throws into sharp focus the attitudes and character of a president who was "at peace with himself". His "gift" then of confusing uplifting rhetoric and faith with reality remains undimmed today - he remains at peace with himself, we are told. - Mark Danner, courtesy of the New York Review of Books (Oct 18, '07)

Turkey into Iraq? Easier said than done
Turkey is taking final steps toward a military foray into Iraqi. Such a move, favored by the public and the military, would be fraught with danger, with the Turkish military likely to confront well-organized Iraqi Kurdish forces, and possibly even US troops. (Oct 17, '07)

'Triborder sea' is SE Asian danger zone
When it comes to post-September 11 Asia-Pacific maritime security, the Strait of Malacca gets the lion's share of attention. Lesser known, but teeming with transnational criminals, including terrorists, is the woefully porous "triborder sea" area between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Maritime security cooperation between the three is limited, and only Malaysia has anything resembling an effective naval force. Unless outside funds can bring them all up to speed, the scenario for disaster can only get worse. - Ian Storey (Oct 17, '07)

THE ROVING EYE
It's the resistance, stupid
Coalitions Washington didn't count on are growing in Iraq with formerly unlikely alliances between Sunnis and Shi'ites being made, and all are opposed to US super-bases, a federalized Iraq and oil thirsty occupiers in general. - Pepe Escobar (Oct 16, '07)

SPENGLER
Turkey fears Kurds,
not Armenians
"We did not exterminate the Armenians," Ankara says in effect, "and, by the way, we're going to not exterminate the Kurds, too." Turkey's threat to invade northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels is linked to its outrage over a US Congressional resolution recognizing that Turkey committed genocide against its Armenian population in 1915. Why the Turks should take out their rancour at the US on the Kurds might seem anomalous until we consider that the issue of Armenian genocide has become a proxy for Turkey's future disposition towards the Kurds. (Oct 15, '07) 

DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Masters of war plan for next 100 years
With antiseptic calm, Pentagon power brokers, active and retired US military personnel, defense contractors, academics, coalition partners and their ilk are planning the future of US urban warfare with technologies that can bring crowds screaming bloodlessly to their knees or silently spy in the most personal spaces. It is the realm of science fiction, yet some of it is already in Iraq and the rest the war lords are itching to deploy against countless as-yet unknown lives in slums from Lagos to Karachi and beyond. - Nick Turse (Oct 15, '07)

Law is clear: Blackwater is not above it
While many have concluded in the aftermath of the Blackwater killings of Iraqi civilians that private security contractors are not legally accountable, this is simply not the case. A careful reading of the relevant laws shows that whatever has prevented prosecution is not a lack of laws, but a lack of will to enforce them. - David Isenberg (Oct 15, '07)

THE ROVING EYE
General Petraeus in his labyrinth
The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, continues to build an ever growing heart of darkness in Baghdad and, eventually he hopes, in Tehran. The latest addition to his arsenal in the plan to attack the "terrorist" Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps inside Iran is a former small terrorist group once sheltered by Saddam Hussein and now by the US, and the Kurdish PKK and PJAK groups now stirring trouble in Iran, as well as Turkey, from Iraqi Kurdistan. - Pepe Escobar (Oct 12, '07)

Turkey set to attack Kurds in Iraq
The Turkish government's decision to allow its military into northern Iraq to avenge recent ambushes by rebel Kurds is paving the way for a new hot spot and increased tensions between the US and Turkey, as well as between Baghdad and Ankara. And a vote by the US House of Representatives committee on foreign relations that officially terms the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as "genocide" is only inflaming the mix. - Ximena Ortiz (Oct 11, '07)

From Washington to war in Waziristan
Few have so far connected the dots of a dramatic series of events in Pakistan over the past few days. What started with Washington hastily ordering the shotgun wedding of President-elect General Pervez Musharraf and former premier Benazir Bhutto has led to the savage fighting now raging in the North Waziristan tribal area as the Pakistani military confronts the Taliban. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 10, '07)

'Rendition' victim is denied justice in US
Effectively upholding the rationale that a trial would endanger national security, the United States' highest court has turned down an appeal by a German citizen who, apparently in a case of mistaken identity, was allegedly kidnapped, held captive and tortured by the CIA as part of its "extraordinary rendition" program against terrorism. The rejection of Khaled el-Masri's case is a scar on America's reputation as one nation, under law, with liberty and justice for all. - Jim Lobe (Oct 10, '07)

At last, some good news from Iraq
Iraq's two rival Shi'ite clerics, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr, who with their powerful militias have long fought for control of the Shi'ite community, have decided to lay down their arms and unite their efforts to bring stability and security to the country. It's the first genuinely good news from Iraq for a long time. - Sami Moubayed (Oct 9, '07)

Taliban poised for a big push
The Taliban's much-touted spring offensive went off like a damp squib, mainly because the Pakistani military squeezed militant bases and supply lines in the tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan. In recent weeks the militants have hit back hard, winning themselves valuable breathing space. Now 20,000 freshly trained recruits are ready to be sent into Afghanistan. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 4, '07)

The myth of the all-powerful Ahmadinejad
Despite what his detractors insist, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is no tinhorn dictator. He is an elected president with little power and not particularly popular within his own country, where he commands no military power. But there are many who make more of him as a near-satanic force, particularly the US Congress, which has recently given a virtual carte blanche for the White House to attack Iran at will. - Philip Giraldi (Oct 4, '07)

Iran's terror label bites deep
The move to formally label the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as terrorist is another victory for anti-Iran hawks, who know the important side-effects of this initiative in inching the US closer to war against Iran. Unfortunately, despite a persuasive case against the move, the hawks are right. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Oct 3, '07)

Pakistan's plan comes together
With President General Pervez Musharraf naming his successor as head of the army, the United States-backed stage is set for Musharraf to be re-elected as president on Saturday and for Pakistan to move towards a civilian-based consensus government. The army will not be left out, though. A select team of "war on terror" veterans will work closely with the US in its military and trade objectives in the region. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 3, '07)

Islamabad's grip on tribal areas is slipping
Taliban forces and their sympathizers are becoming entrenched in the seven tribal agencies in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. A lethal combination of President General Pervez Musharraf's declining public support, a significant rise in suicide attacks targeting the army, and the reluctance of soldiers in the area to engage tribal gangs militarily, further exacerbates the problem. (Oct 3, '07)

THE ROVING EYE
A divided Iraq just doesn't add up
Although the United States Senate's vote to split Iraq into a loose, three-region sectarian federation is non-binding, it reflects sentiment both in the US and in sections of Iraq about what might be in store. Yet it would be an unmitigated disaster, at best leading to partition, at worst to ethnic cleansing. - Pepe Escobar (Oct 3, '07)

FILM REVIEW
A failed kingdom
The Kingdom directed by Peter Berg
Using explosive real events as its base, this fictional film strains to stir emotions, despite all the action. It plays fast and loose with facts and is disturbingly rife with anti-Arab bias. In short, it is a cliched, slick, manipulative effort that fails. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Oct 1, '07)

September 2007