Over the fold is a news report of a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the Iraq escalation, which Condi Rice has now dubbed an “augmentation”. Not a single Senator expressed support, Condi faced harsh grilling from Republicans and a number of Republican Senators indicated they no longer supported the President on Iraq.
Elsewhere: Tim Dunlop on Senate stand-up, at Troppo, D W Griffiths calls for “less soldiering, more policing”, and Ken Lovell at Surfdom parses the Gettysburg Address for Bush’s benefit.
In other news: Shmuel Rosner wonders if war has just been declared on Iran:
Donald Rumsfeld’s tenure as secretary of defense is quickly fading from memory, but yesterday, as his successor shuttled from briefing to hearing, one of Rumsfeld’s famous aphorisms came to mind: If you can’t solve a problem, enlarge it.
Coming from Gates, it sounded technical rather than slick. “We are beginning to move aggressively to try and identify and root out the networks that are involved in helping to bring Iranian-supplied [bombs] into Iraq,” Gates said. If you can’t solve Iraq, enlarge it. While you were sleeping, the war with Iran might have begun.
Re: Shmuel – Doubt it.
Rummy was blathering about the Iranians running shaped-charge IEDs to the insurgency three years ago. This and the consulate raid are nothing new. The Yanks and to a lesser exent the Poms have been doing this sort of petty crap to the Iranians for years – remember that boatload of Royal Marines that got busted and arrested by the Pasdaran for being on the wrong side of the Shatt Al-Arab a few years ago – what were they up to, I wonder? Sheesh, they even shot down an Iranian passenger jet over the Gulf ‘by accident’ just shy of twenty years ago.
I would like to see more discussion on ways to improve the situation in Iraq.
Sacha: paint more schools. The source of civil conflict is an interruption to the urban beatification programs started by Saddam after his defeat in the first Gulf War.
It is probable that the US troops will put up with quite a lot, provided they can see that they will be able to achieve a significant result.
But no matter how much backing is given to allied troops by their government & the people at home (via programs such as “adopt-a-sniper”) if the Iraqi people will not fight for their country & their future, neither will the US & allied troops have the inclination to do it for them.
SATP, I am shocked at this sudden air of cynical defeatism. What are the punters around the bar saying (other than complaining about rents)?
augmentation |ˌôgmenˈtÄ? sh É™n| noun the action or process of making or becoming greater in size or amount :
weasel words) plural noun words or statements that are intentionally ambiguous or misleading.
Leinad, re:
I agree, but in the context of Chimpco’s latest speech, it’s possible we are looking at pretexts, Gulf of Tonkin resolutions, Cambodian style “expansions”–whatever. I think Bush heralded a new policy of “hot pursuit” only in this case on the flimsiest grounds, but for once I think he actually has a “strategy” and that’s provocation with a capital P. Of course that strategy is not to solve any problems but is the last desperate throw of the dice to rescue the desperate moron’s so called “legacy” if he can get the Iranians to retaliate and then play the “injured innocent” fraud on the American people.
OTOH a false flag attack by Israel on an American ship cannot entirely be ruled out. The Israeli’s have form on attacking a US ship, and their levels of paranoia about Iran have risen to cacophonic levels lately.
Second carrier group near the Gulf of Hormuz? Intimidation perhaps, but when the Likudnik lobby and the Murdoch slime equate uranium enrichment at 4% with almost instant bomb making capacity and generally scream “attack”: I begin to wonder.
To balance this, the Democrat line appears to be no congressional authorisation for Iran, but given how much the US constitution has been trashed by Chimpco, I don’t think that would worry him.
On balance, I think it’s raising the stakes on provocation, where a single relatively minor incident could well precede an air attack “just inside” the Iranian border and when (and if) Iran retaliates, it’ll be the excuse for taking out Iranian nuclear infrastructure. In the fog of all this the Dems may (again) believe the fabricated evidence.
(Wars start often for the most ridiculous reasons, I particularly liked in “Blackadder”, Baldrick’s explaination for the beginning of WW1 “Somebody shot an Ostrich in Serajevo.”)
I don’t think for Iraq, that there’s much doubt the main target is Moqtada for the “urge of the surge”–the stakes are higher now: with the loss of domestic support, Moqtada hobbling Maliki’s government, Chimpco could be going for broke, one way or another, for his deluded Churchillian legacy.
Meantime the Brit defence wallahs seem to believe more trouble in brewing:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/02/wiran02.xml
(That link was a year old, it seems under Gordon Brown, they’ll wash their hands of the Chimp.)
Christine: What are the punters saying about what? The morale of US soldiers?
The average punter is far too parochial for that.
“While you were sleeping, the war with Iran might have begun”
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/5752920.asp?gid=74
A certain silence which had reigned over the US Incirlik Air Force base in the Turkish city of Adana for the past 3 years came to a close today.
After an absence of 3 years, a squadron of 24 US F-16 fighter jets landed at Incirlik yesterday, reinforced also by an early warning system AWACS airplane, as well as tanker airplanes meant for mid-air fuel replenishing. The F-16s which landed at Incirlik yesterday began flight training runs in Adana this morning, although authorities did not comment on whether the jets will be staying at Adana for a long duration or only temporarily.
It’th Chrithtine for the moment Thteve. I theem to have developed a lithp.
Implying what? That these planes will be used in an attack on Iran?
They won’t.
This link to Google Maps shows the location of Adana. To get to Iran, US planes would have to either fly over Syria and Iraq (which they would not get permission to do) or go a long way away from the direct route.
Nor would Turkey give permission for such an attack to be launched from a base in its territory.
A strike on Iran (which I think is not going to happen, even if Iran declares itself a nuclear-weapon power) would come from a carrier in the Gulf to Iran’s south.
Peter Kemp, you should try reading Geoffrey Blainey’s ‘The Causes of Wars’ to get some understanding of why wars start.
To SATP
The minute the COW invaded Iraq, there was no ‘Iraq’.
Easily predicted.
Murmurings from the right suggest that they are looking at a way to blame the ‘Iraqi People’ for not resolving the catastrophe created by the COW in Iraq.
No! It was the dumb-arse COW invasion that lead to the catastrophe and a possible region wide conflagration
There is now no ‘Iraqi people’ and no ‘Iraqi government’, other than an assembly of politicians which are puppets of various sects/ethnic groups waiting for the COW to leave.
There is now no ‘Iraqi people’ to “fight for their country & their future”, much as ‘Iraq’ was a reasonable idea, pre-invasion. Iraq was ‘broke’, but it hadn’t crashed and burned.
Who to blame for the failure of the COW now?
Next furphy please!
On a strategic note, what will Sistani say and do?
On top of which F-16s have a combat radius of two fifths of bugger all: 340 miles fully loaded. Why would anyone send in piloted aircraft when they’ve got all those Tomahawks?
‘Attack on Iran’ is all sabre-rattling.
Mug Punter: Your point is…what?
Christine Keeler: The sabre rattling is likely aimed at the Iranian leadership do you think? Brinkmanship to give them cause to think about the status quo & the alternatives?
Or it indicates a complete lack of any idea about how to deal with the disaster that is Iraq. There is a horrible sense of the lashing out of a wounded beast about US responses since 9/11, and though the Iraq invasion was undoubtedly about other strategic objectives than simply the War on Terror (WOT), the sectarian violence between Sunni & Shia seems to have taken both the military and political commanders by surprise.
The account of an Iraqi woman living in Aust for the last three years, who went back to visit family about three months after the invasion is interesting. Things though difficult, were semi-functioning. By the time she left three months later, she & many other Iraqis were astonished to see rise of sectarianism, blaming the COW failure to secure borders and the subsequent influx of huge numbers of trained ideologues, who, in the face of the absense of civil governance, were able to recruit and engage. She understands the problem to be the COW failure to rebuild a process of civil society – be it power gengeration, policing, border control.
The US attack on the Iranian office last week may yet be another failure of US strategic thinking – instead of fixing the structural problems, attack the consequences of those. Yet again Iran will pose as the outraged innocent party (highly unlikely), the US will be seen as murderous anti-Islamic imperialists, and as the aggressive dialogue heats up, it has the horrible inevitability of sliding toward an expansion of military engagement, covert or otherwise.
Here is a report from December 2005, about the non-existent Iraqi people voting for a new government and brandishing their non-existent purple fingers.
And here is Naomi Klein joyously pointing out that the non-existent Iraqi government that was elected in early 2005 defeated ‘the US-installed government of Iyad Allawi’.
Since Mug Punter is so sure that there is no Iraqi government but ‘an assembly of politicians which are puppets of various sects/ethnic groups waiting for the COW to leave’, perhaps we could have a list of the various sects and ethnic groups, and confirmation from MP that, to his knowledge, there is no-one in those groups committed to a democratic Iraq?
First thing: you can’t drop bunker-buster bombs from a Tomahawk cruise missile. This fact makes a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities much more difficult – you have to fly a bomber over them rather than attacking with stand-off weapons.
Second thing: Deploying short-range fighters to Turkey may not be about deterring or attacking Iran. It may be about deterring Israel from attacking Iran. Have another look at that Google map.
Good point Robert. This is the umpteenth ‘Is the US about to attack Iran’ discussion we’ve had in the last year or so, spurred on by another tiny, pissant incident in the long stream of incidents and provocations that has been UN-Iranian relations.
Peter
Fixed tags:
Peter
I take your point about Iran paranoia, it’s certainly rampant in this paragraph. The Gulf of Tonkin incidents weren’t part of Johnson’s plan, though he took advantage of them; and the Gulf of Hormuz is the worst place to stage a ‘false flag’ attack – it’s jam-packed with oil tankers, the Iranians watch it like hawks. Why the hell would you get the Israelis to attack, and how do you get F-16Is to look like SU-25s and F-14s?
Context from Condi about Iran and Bush’s speech:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/world/middleeast/13strategy.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
The Guardian also reports on the Bush administration’s surge against Iran:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1989912,00.html
Leinad re:
Not necessary if a near identical Chinese Silkworm (to an Iranian copied Silkworm) could be “smuggled” to an appropriate launching point, with some “fingerprints” on it. (Assuming of course that in various dealings with the Chinese or otherwise, Israel acquired one–a long time ago they managed to “steal” an Exocet and put it under an F16 for testing its sensor capability so I read somewhere)
Or some mines–again with “fingerprints.”
Improbable, agreed, but consider Mossad which has a bit of a record of dirty tricks and doing stuff on their own account. Lord alone knows what Bibi Netanayu would do if he gained office.
All in all the temperature over the sanctions has risen, and like WW1, it only takes one spark. In this case even an Al Queda operative farting in the general direction of the US Navy could possibly give Chimpco the excuse he so desperately craves.
What is this? Some sort of pre-emptive conspiracy theory?
I doubt he’s going to attack Iran. I think it’s sabre rattling for Maliki/Sadr’s benefit and also to up the pressure on Iran’s nuclear thing.
With your imagination, Peter, you could be Australia’s answer to Tom Clancy!
Leinad, your response to the “false flag” scenario was spot on. So why did you indulge in conspiracy theorising earlier with the quotation marks around “by accident” when you were discussing the shooting down of Iran Air 655 in 1988?
The incident has been exhaustively detailed and analysed. The captain of the USS Vincennes was arguably criminally reckless and negligent, and should have been put on trial for manslaughter. There was also the issue of the ship being illegally inside Iranian waters. However, any suggestion that it was ordered by Washington as a deliberate attack is on par with the belief that the Apollo landings were faked.
“A contrived Gulf of Tonkin-type incident may well occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran.�
Ron Paul addressing the US House of Representatives
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/46637
Is it a full moon? The conspiracy theorists are firing up.
Get back on the meds.
Paulus re:
Actually, I forget which novel, but Clancy had one story where in a “war” with Japan, a crazed JAL pilot crashed his fuel laden Boeing 747 into a particular building on Capital Hill.
How’s that for imagination and irony?
Razor re:
I believe you need to ask that question of a certain deluded person in the White House.
Oh look, could we get a bit of perspective on this?
Nobody is going to ‘bomb’ Iran. There will be no war with Iran. It’s ridiculous.
Yes the US executive that might be putting out the message that the insurgency is the responsibility of outside forces (Iran, Syria, Al Qaida: Take your pick), and no doubt they’ve all got their fingers in the pie.
But by and large it seems to be largely homegrown by a bunch of batshit crazies with access to weapons (the same ones in Iraqi Army basis left unsecured for six months after the invasion).
I mean, wasn’t this all supposed to end after Zaqawi (murderous thug who couldn’t find his way around an AK47) was killed?
Christine K re:
I think it was supposed to be over when Bremer said to the Baarthist members, (irrespective of underlying imperatives for their membership)
You’re all sacked. F*** off and take your weapons with you.
Oh yes. We’re all Baathists and engineers and teachers and clerks and bureaucrats who know how to run the place. Oh there I am suddenly out of a job and can’t provide for the family. WTF.
The hilarious thing about this somewhat pathetic demand is that such a list is readily available.
(Bonus points: the straw-man of “there is no-one in those groups committed to a democratic Iraq,” which is of course not what Mug Punter said.)
David Jackmanson Says:
Christine Keeler Says:
A sensible person might have concluded that these aircraft were in fact intended to attack Syria. No points there for either of you.
Merkel Says:
This is a pretty dumb thing to say. You don’t even seem to know the difference between a missile and a bomb. Hint: missiles don’t drop bombs.
But just in case you’re trying to assert that cruise missiles don’t have a “bunker busting” capability, you’re still wrong:
Paulus: I don’t know if the Iran Air 655 shooting was ordered by Washington, but I doubt the USS Vicennes shot it down by accident. If it was one Captain having a case of the Captain Queegs, I’d believe it, but it certainly fits into pattern of reciprocal provocations that characterise US-Iranian ‘relations’.
Besides, everyone needs a little conspiracy theory or two
especially if you spend a lot of time arguing against the big ones.
Condy is unbeknown to herself an ironist par excellence.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070114/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iran
A bit like the situation for Fisky in Baghdad who nearly fell on the floor laughing at a press conference in late 2003 when the insurgency was gathering steam, and Paul Wolfowitz said:
The usual classic is generic, that Iran is “meddling” in Iraqi affairs.
(What is it about neo-cons and warmongers–Maybe I’ll ask on Richard Dawkins site if there any benefit in natural selection for those missing an irony gene)
Bill Posters said, in response to my request for a list of the various ethnic groups in Iraq:
Then either Mug Punter or you should have little trouble finding a link to it.
Bill Posters says:
While what Mug Punter said was:
That looks to me like an assertion that none of those ’sects/ethnic groups’ are committed to democracy. What does it look like to you? What do you think MP intended to imply that the sects and ethnic groups were waiting to do after the Coalition forces leave Iraq?
SJ said, in relation to the US aircraft at Adana
But my response was to RobWindt, who quoted Mark’s assertion that:
“While you were sleeping, the war with Iran might have begun�
and then talked about the planes at Adana (which are fighters, not bombers), and nothing else.
SJ, what makes you think an attack on Syria is likely?
SJ also snidely attacked Robert Merkel for a minor error in wording:
Robert Merkel said:
to which SJ replied:
Perhaps what Robert Merkel should have said is that “Tomahawk cruise missiles have no bunker-busting capability”, but that does not in any way demonstrate that he does not know the difference between a missile and a bomb.
SJ: I know very well what a cruise missile is. I was going to write a post on a new one the Americans are working on, but that can wait. My wording was clumsy, but I think my point was clear – conventional bunker-busters can’t be delivered by existing cruise missiles – be they American, Israeli, or anybody else’s for that matter. The GBU-28 weighs roughly 2,500 kilograms. A Tomahawk, warhead, fuel, propulsion system and all, weighs about 1440 kg.
As for using nuclear weapons for the job, sure, it might work (a 150 kt ground burst would result in a crater roughly 40 metres deep and 100 metres wide), but you’ll spray a great deal of radioactive falllout across Iran. If you think that is a politically feasible (we’ll ignore the question of morally defensible for the moment) option absent a nuclear attack by Iran you’re completely off your rocker.
Next…
No, that’s not my assertion, David, but that of the Slate writer.
Yes, Mark is correct. Apologies for the error of fact.
Like you grasping at straws (or straw men).
So you’re not prepared to say what you think MP actually meant, while saying I have got it wrong.
Interesting.
Why don’t you ask him?
The real problem is that the situation in Iraq is stuffed; all this other stuff you’re on about is window-dressing.
White House spokesman Tony Snow has said “This notion that somehow what the president was announcing was a precursor to planned military action – a planned war against Iran, that’s just not the case.”
Given his track recorded that means that a war is very likely.
Robert Merkel Says:
For some reason, you seem to think that I’m argiung in favor of this, rather than merely pointing out the fact that, contrary to what you said, it is possible.
Bush and Cheney are off their rockers. It’s not possible to credibly argue that they wouldn’t do something merely because you consider it “politically infeasible”. Besides, they’ve been planning this for ages:
You get the idea.
It’s also pointless to argue that it wouldn’t achieve a useful result:
De-spamming required, please.
Thanks.
David Jackmanson Says:
What makes you think you’re qualified to comment on current affairs, when you’re apparently unaware of them?
I think Wolfowitz had a rational aim in cooking up Iraq attack: ditch the Saudis/hitch the Iraqis. And Bush liked the idea because he thought it would help to sell his tax-cuts.
But Iraq is a foreign policy disaster that has turned into a domestic politics meltdown. So the mystery remains of why Bush refuses to back-down.
I think Bush is deranged. I mean actually mentally unfit for Presidency.
He is in denial about his addiction to military prevalence. This is a clinical condition similar to the alcoholism and fundamentalism that afflicts him.
He has no idea what to do so is just trying to run out the clock to leave the Saigon 75 moment to the Democrats. Then he can blame it on their stab in the back.
Iraq is a write-off. The country is in an advanced state of institutional entropy and cannot be repaired.
We should get out right now. And hope that irate Fallujans dont come after us for all the harm that war-supporters have done.
Mea-culpa.
Actually there’s been an increasing amount of commentary on both sides of the Atlantic about Bush’s alchoholic personality structure. I think there was an article in the New Statesmen recently and I’ve seen it discussed in a number of places on the web from the States.
Anyway let me note my complete agreement with Mr Strocchi
Except I’d pluralise the mea culpa – all of us in Australia should be striking our breasts and seeking absolution because our country’s involved.
Couple of links here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/mccarthy1019.html
It may not be an entire coincidence that there are rumours around Washington that Bush has started drinking again.
Strange days. And not least because I find myself in general accord with Jack Strocchi above. Not so much over the “the alcoholism and fundamentalism” thing, although that’s not the worse explaination I’ve heard of the Bush administration’s rentlessly boneheaded stupidity.
“I think Wolfowitz had a rational aim in cooking up Iraq attack: ditch the Saudis/hitch the Iraqis. And Bush liked the idea because he thought it would help to sell his tax-cuts.”
Oh yes – aside from the sell the tax cuts angle which doesn’t really compute for me – it does now really seem more and more like Wolfie and the rest of the gang sold Dubya on a major geo-politic shift in the ME but one which was based on their air-conditioned version of realpolitik and not the dirty reality on the bloody ground.
If yer gonna play The Great Game well, you need players that really know the smell and groove of the bazaars, mountain passes, river deltas and warlord courts of Central Asia and the ME. But the Yanks haven’t had a decent seeded player in the Great Game since Kermit Roosevelt and Miles Copeland and this lack shows really badly now.
Not the same as saying “an armed attack on Syria is being planned and will be carried out”.
What makes you think that an attack on Syria that would require fighters and AWACS aircraft is being planned, as opposed to any sort of operation to reduce Syria’s influence in Iraq that would not be classed as an ‘attack’?
So, if you believe an attack on Iran is likely, when do you think it will happen? I don’t think one is going to happen, and if the New Yorker wants to fall for Bush’s sabre-rattling, that is their problem.
Sheesh! Don’t you fashionistas know the party’s over at Catallaxy tonight!
http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=2372
It’s just dawned on me that what Dave J et al are arguing for is a contemporary version of the muscular christianism that permenated the Brit Empire during the big Africa Scramble in the late 19th century. Which sorta worked for a while. But back then no one had access to cheap instantaneous global communications networks, the utter wild card in the pack when you attempt to impose the geo-political ideologies of even a few decades ago on the world now.
Muscular Christianity. That would explain why Mark wrote an article attacking us for believing that Islamists who win elections should take power.
There are a couple of potential items for discussion in my 1.06 am comment, in case making fun of people you disagree with gets boring.
But if mocking is all you are here for, you might like to know you are at least 14 months behind on your knowledge of abusive terms for the pro-war left.
I note here Dave J that you’ve made no attempt to actually rebut my last comment which contained no abuse or snark, just a value-free but possibly contentious observation. Unlike, well let’s say for example’s sake, your last comment.
On the other hand though, maybe you do think “Muscular Christianity” is an insult. The hundreds of thousands saved from the slave trade by sturdy chipper young English muscular christians in the RN and other branchs of the British Empire throughout the the 19th century may disagree.
If you spell out what you actually mean, I will respond in the same spirit.
I don’t understand how a belief by Christians that they should manifest their god in their lives, and make themselves a vessel for that god’s power by the pursuit of physical strength, has anything to do with the policies I am discussing.
“I don’t understand how a belief by Christians that they should manifest their god in their lives, and make themselves a vessel for that god’s power by the pursuit of physical strength, has anything to do with the policies I am discussing.”
Oh yes of course, such thinking bears no relation whatsever to observations about how only the US has the strength left to impose your definition of good upon a flawed world.
I am not a Christian but a hearty farty agnostic but I still am willing to tip my lid to my muscular christian (see, I don’t think it’s an insult) ancestors who helped stamp out the slave trade but were still worldly and decent enough to realise the means should serve the ends and not that the ends should justify the means – a subtle but vital point I fear that Dubya, Stalin and the last superpower mob haven’t quite grasped.
Well since you misunderstand our position (we think the USA is getting weaker, not stronger, and is running out the strength it needs to impose anything on anyone), I don’t see how your observation stands up.
Do you think the USA will attack Iran? If so, why and when?
I think they will not, because they do not have the strength and power to enforce their will there.
This from the Washington Post article quoted above by SJ.
There is much evidence that the US Justice Department has long been assiduous in a programmatic and multi-pronged assault on the checks and balances between the different branches of the US governmental system. The career of John Yoo and his contributions to the expansion of executive power form the most coherent database on these assaults on the legislative and judicial branches.
Some interesting questions arise:
If the US adventure in Iraq had proven to be a swift and stunning success, along the lines that excited Bush’s flight-deck proclamation of “mission accomplished”, would arguments for executive tyranny have held more weight or less weight in the minds of American voters?
Discussion: If things are going along smoothly, then there appears to be less reason to insist on changes and emergency measures than when difficulties and crises arise. Thus, if the ultimate purpose of the Bush administration is to expand executive power “for its own sake”, then difficulties and setbacks may be perceived to be helpful for the purpose.
However, once such a possibility is entertained, the question arises about how to categorise the various setbacks experienced by the Bush administration. Which setbacks are to be seen as the consequence of unforeseen circumstance, which arising from incompetence, and which in pursuit of the underlying larger conspiracy?
Thus, for example, it might be argued that Rumsfeld’s commitment of inadequate troops to Iraq was simply an arrogant mistake. On the other hand, it might be argued that Rumsfeld was part of the plot to create crises that justified executive tyranny. If there were such a conspiracy, then there is no one more likely to be on the “inside” than Rumsfeld.
Yet it is difficult to draw a line connecting the quite open manouevring of John Yoo and the Justice Department in favour of executive tyranny and any actions or series of actions of Executive Branch insiders like Donald Rumsfeld.
This is a roundabout way of saying that in the absence of any evidence of a pervasive conspiracy, Bush’s Iraq fiasco must continue to be categorised as an accidental, incompetent stuff-up.