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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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 Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 7:55 am Post subject: It'll be Iraq all over again. |
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The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know
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Two former high-ranking policy experts from the Bush Administration say the U.S. has been gearing up for a war with Iran for years, despite claiming otherwise. It'll be Iraq all over again.
In the years after 9/11, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann worked at the highest levels of the Bush administration as Middle East policy experts for the National Security Council. Mann conducted secret negotiations with Iran. Leverett traveled with Colin Powell and advised Condoleezza Rice. They each played crucial roles in formulating policy for the region leading up to the war in Iraq. But when they left the White House, they left with a growing sense of alarm -- not only was the Bush administration headed straight for war with Iran, it had been set on this course for years. That was what people didn't realize. It was just like Iraq, when the White House was so eager for war it couldn't wait for the UN inspectors to leave. The steps have been many and steady and all in the same direction. And now things are getting much worse. We are getting closer and closer to the tripline, they say.
"The hard-liners are upping the pressure on the State Department," says Leverett. "They're basically saying, 'You've been trying to engage Iran for more than a year now and what do you have to show for it? They keep building more centrifuges, they're sending this IED stuff over into Iraq that's killing American soldiers, the human-rights internal political situation has gotten more repressive -- what the hell do you have to show for this engagement strategy?' "
But the engagement strategy was never serious and was designed to fail, they say. Over the last year, Rice has begun saying she would talk to "anybody, anywhere, anytime," but not to the Iranians unless they stopped enriching uranium first. That's not a serious approach to diplomacy, Mann says. Diplomacy is about talking to your enemies. That's how wars are averted. You work up to the big things...
The most ominous new development is the Bush administration's push to name the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization.
"The U.S. has designated any number of states over the years as state sponsors of terrorism," says Leverett. "But here for the first time the U.S. is saying that part of a government is itself a terrorist organization."
...I think there is a serious risk he would decide to order an attack on the Iranian nuclear installations and probably a wider target zone."
This would result in a dramatic increase in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, attacks by proxy forces like Hezbollah, and an unknown reaction from the wobbly states of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where millions admire Iran's resistance to the Great Satan. "As disastrous as Iraq has been," says Mann, "an attack on Iran could engulf America in a war with the entire Muslim world."
Mann and Leverett believe that none of this had to be.
...When Condoleezza Rice discussed the Middle East with President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, Leverett was the man standing behind her taking notes and whispering in her ear.
...When Mann and Leverett went public with the inside story behind the impending disaster with Iran, the White House dismissed them. Then it imposed prior restraint on them, an extraordinary episode of government censorship. Finally, it threatened them.
Now they are afraid of the White House, and watching what they say. But still, they feel they have to speak out.
Like so many things these days, this story began on the morning of September 11, 2001...
...it was a senior Iranian diplomat. To protect him from reprisals from the Iranian government
...One day, up on the second floor where the windows overlooked the East River, the diplomat told her that Iran was ready to cooperate unconditionally, a phrase that had seismic diplomatic implications. Unconditional talks are what the U.S. had been demanding as a precondition to any official diplomatic contact between the U.S. and Iran. And it would be the first chance since the Islamic revolution for any kind of rapprochement. "It was revolutionary," Mann says. "It could have changed the world."
...they hammered out plans for Iranian help in the war against the Taliban. The Iranians agreed to provide assistance if any American was shot down near their territory, agreed to let the U.S. send food in through their border, and even agreed to restrain some "really bad Afghanis," like a rabidly anti-American warlord named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, quietly putting him under house arrest in Tehran. These were significant concessions.
...As a CIA analyst, Leverett had come to the view that Middle Eastern terrorism was more tactical than religious. Syria wanted the Golan Heights back... Accepting this idea meant that nations like Syria weren't locked in a fanatic mind-set, that they could evolve to use new methods, so Leverett told Powell to seize the moment and draw up a "road map" to peace for the problem countries of the Middle East...
Powell took the idea to the White House.
...Hadley hated the idea. So did the representatives from Rumsfeld and Cheney....
Hadley wrote up a brief memo that came to be known as Hadley's Rules:
If a state like Syria or Iran offers specific assistance, we will take it without offering anything in return. We will accept it without strings or promises. We won't try to build on it.
Leverett thought that was simply nutty. To strike postures of moral purity, they were throwing away a chance for real progress. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 7:56 am Post subject: |
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...She's not allowed to talk about confidential documents or intelligence matters, but the topic of her negotiations with the Iranians is especially touchy.
"As far as they're concerned, the whole idea that there were talks is something I shouldn't even be talking about," she says.
All ranks and ranking are out. "They don't want there to be anything about the level of the talks or who was involved."
"They won't even let us say something like 'senior' or 'important,' 'high-ranking,' or 'high-level,' " Leverett says.
But the important thing is that the Iranians agreed to talk unconditionally, Mann says. "They specifically told me time and again that they were doing this because they understood the impact of this attack on the U.S., and they thought that if they helped us unconditionally, that would be the way to change the dynamic for the first time in twenty-five years."
...It was time for his 2002 State of the Union address.
...That was the speech in which Bush linked Iran to Iraq and North Korea with a memorable phrase:
"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world."
The Iranians had been engaging in high-level diplomacy with the American government for more than a year, so the phrase was shocking and profound.
...The secret negotiations with Iran continued, every month for another year.
Leverett plunged right into a dramatic new peace proposal floated by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia...
But the White House wasn't interested. Sharon already rejected it, Rice told Leverett.
At the Arab League meeting, Abdullah got every Arab state to sign his proposal in a unanimous vote.
The White House still wasn't interested.
...Powell seemed to think he had authorization from the White House to explore what everyone was calling "political horizons," the safely vague shorthand for a peaceful future,
...Then the phone rang. It was Stephen Hadley on the phone from the White House. "Tell Powell he is not authorized to talk about a political horizon," he said. "Those are formal instructions."
"This is a bad idea," Leverett remembers saying. "It's bad policy and it's also humiliating for Powell, who has been talking to heads of state about this very issue for the last ten days."
"It doesn't matter," Hadley said. "There's too much resistance from Rumsfeld and the VP. Those are the instructions."
...Powell was furious, Leverett remembers. "What is it they're afraid of?" he demanded. "Who the hell are they afraid of?"
...In Cheney's and Rumsfeld's offices, opposition came from men like John Hannah, Doug Feith, and Scooter Libby. In Rice's office, there was Elliott Abrams. Again they said that negotiation was just a reward for bad behavior. First the Palestinians had to reject terrorism and practice democracy.
...Then came the moment that would lead to an extraordinary battle with the Bush administration.
...The fax was from the Swiss ambassador to Iran... he'd met with Sa-deq Kharrazi, a well-connected Iranian who was the nephew of the foreign minister and son-in-law to the supreme leader. Amazingly, Kharrazi had presented the ambassador with a detailed proposal for peace in the Middle East, approved at the highest levels in Tehran.
A two-page summary was attached. Scanning it, Mann was startled by one dramatic concession after another -- "decisive action" against all terrorists in Iran, an end of support for Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, a promise to cease its nuclear program, and also an agreement to recognize Israel.
This was huge. Mann sat down and drafted a quick memo to her boss, Richard Haass. It was important to send a swift and positive response.
Then she heard that the White House had already made up its mind -- it was going to ignore the offer.
..."We talked to the Iranians quietly up until 2003. The president chose not to continue that channel."
That is putting it mildly. In May of 2003, when the U.S. was still in the triumphant "mission accomplished" phase of the Iraq war, word started filtering out of the White House about an aggressive new Iran policy that would include efforts to destabilize the Iranian government and even to promote a popular uprising.
...Then he started talking about the peace offer. By then it was 2006 and the war wasn't going well and suddenly people started to respond: You mean Iran isn't evil? They helped fight the Taliban? They wanted to make peace? He summed it all up in a long paper for a Washington think...
the NSC called to complain. "You shouldn't have cleared this without letting the White House take a look at it," the official said.
Leverett told them he wasn't going to let White House operatives judge his criticisms of White House operatives and distilled his argument into an op-ed piece for The New York Times.
...On Thursday, Leverett and Mann decided to publish the piece with large sections of type blacked out, 168 words in all. Since the piece had been rendered pretty much incomprehensible, they included a list of public sources. "To make sense of our op-ed article, readers will have to look up the citations themselves."
...Leverett takes over, telling what happened over the following months:
Bush sent a second carrier group to the Persian Gulf.
U.S. troops started to arrest Iranians living in Baghdad, accusing them of working with insurgents.
Bush accused Iran of "providing material support" for attacks on U.S. forces, a formulation that suggested a legal justification for a preemptive attack.
..."IEDs are a casus belli for this administration. There will be an attack on Iran."
Mann... "The reason I have to be so careful now is that I'm legally on notice and they will prosecute things that I say or do," she says, picking up a plastic truck.
"Because of that one article?"
"Yeah."
...
"We're tired," Mann says. "Nobody listens." |
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blaseblasphemener
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Location: There's a voice, keeps on calling me, down the road, that's where I'll always be
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| Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 9:43 am Post subject: |
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gee whiz, what an act of extraordinary luck to have the gift of 9/11 fall at their feet, to make all their dreams come true.
amazing how no act of terrorism has been committed on U.S. soil in the six years after 9/11.
amazing how a day after 9/11, bush was not interested in finding out who did it; rather, he only wanted some link to Iraq.
amazing how they had the patriot act ready and waiting.
Who would have thought losing America could happen so easily.
Ahh, the power of money, and the staggering ignorance of so many. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:50 am Post subject: |
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| It won't happen again because the players who should have objected prior to the Iraq war have learned their lessons. By players, I refer to Congress, the military, and the media. I have little confidence in the morons that are Congress, but more in the latter two. |
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blaseblasphemener
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Location: There's a voice, keeps on calling me, down the road, that's where I'll always be
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| Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:49 pm Post subject: |
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Kucinich questions Bush's stability, weighs new impeachment effort
Plain Dealer
At a presidential campaign appearance last Sunday in California, Cleveland Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich said he's considering introducing a new impeachment resolution against President Bush in light of statements the president has made that Kucinich interprets as a prelude to war with Iran.
"This is not a funny thing I am about to say, and I want you to just be with me on it," Kucinich told an audience in Sierra Madre. "It's not funny at all. There's questions about his stability. Because, if he begins to talk openly about World War Three, I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to talk about that. Because we're talking about a nuclear war."
Kucinich's comments were recorded on this video, posted on YouTube. His impeachment remarks are in its final half.
Kucinich introduced a measure to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney in April. That effort has 21 cosponsors, but has not gone anywhere because House Democratic leaders insist impeachment is "off the table." Kucinich suggested impeaching Cheney first to avoid a Cheney presidency if Bush leaves office.
"I actually am going to be talking to the Speaker about this," Kucinich told the California audience. "I tried to reach her and missed connections. I don't think that Congress can any longer say that impeachment is off the table."
Kucinich has also discussed forcing a House floor vote on the Cheney impeachment measure through the use of a privileged resolution.
"I am seriously thinking about calling a privileged resolution on the impeachment of the vice president and forcing a vote on the floor of the House," Kucinich told radio host Ed Schultz last month. "People have to to stand up and say whether they believe in our Constitution anymore, or whether we are going along with an administration that defies the principles that founded this country." |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 2:51 pm Post subject: |
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| BB, Keane has too much invested in his opinions of gloom & doom to accept your logic, be it true or false. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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