The Rag Blog

Reuters, today, concerning remarks from Iranian President Ahmadinejad:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday Iran should not show weakness over its nuclear program, a day after Tehran ignored a United Nations deadline to stop nuclear work which the West says could to used for making bombs.

“If we show weakness in front of the enemy the expectations will increase but if we stand against them, because of this resistance, they will retreat,” he said in a speech in northern Iran, Iran’s ISNA news agency said.

In the past, he said, compromise over the program, which Tehran says is intended solely for peaceful power supplies, had led to increased demands from the West.

Donald Rumsfeld in his farewell comments, December 2006:

“Today, it should be clear that not only is weakness provocative,” Mr. Rumsfeld said, standing at a lectern with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney at his side, “but the perception of weakness on our part can be provocative as well. . . .”

“A conclusion by our enemies that the United States lacks the will or the resolve to carry out missions that demand sacrifice and demand patience is every bit as dangerous as an imbalance of conventional military power,” Mr. Rumsfeld said in a buoyant but sometimes emotional speech.

Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard, July 24, 2006 (“It’s Our War”):

For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.

The right response is renewed strength–in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions–and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.

Dick Cheney, yesterday, interview with ABC News (transcript via-mail):

If you’re going to advocate a course of action that basically is withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, then you don’t get to just do the fun part of that, that says, we’ll we’re going to get out and appeal to your constituents on that basis.

You also have to be accountable for the results. What are the consequences of that? What happens if we withdraw from Iraq? And the point I made and I’ll make it again is that al Qaeda functions on the basis that they think they can break our will. That’s their fundamental underlying strategy, that if they can kill enough Americans or cause enough havoc, create enough chaos in Iraq, then we’ll quit and go home. And my statement was that if we adopt the Pelosi policy, that then we will validate the strategy of al Qaeda. I said it and I meant it.

One of the hallmarks of the Bush presidency — arguably the central one — is that we have adopted the mentality and mimicked the behavior of “our enemies,” including those whom we have long considered, rightfully so, to be savage and uncivilized. As a result, our foreign policy consists of little more than flamboyant demonstrations of our own “toughness” because that, so the thinking goes, is the only language which “our enemies” understand, and we must speak “their language” (hence, we stay in Iraq not because it makes geopolitical sense, but because we have to prove to Al Qaeda that they cannot “break our will”).

Thus, any measure designed to avert war — negotiations, diplomacy, compromise, an acceptance of the fact that we need not force every country to submit to our national Will — are scornfully dismissed as “weakness,” which, in turn, is “provocative.” Conversely, war-seeking policies are always desirable because they show how tough and strong we are.

President Ahmadinejad’s comments yesterday summed up the mentality which drives the Bush administration perfectly, precisely because he shares the same mentality: “If we show weakness in front of the enemy, the expectations will increase, but if we stand against them, because of this resistance, they will retreat.” This is, in essence, the Neoconservative Anthem. It mistakes mindless chest-beating belligerence, panic and hysteria for strength and resolve, even though such behavior is really the ultimate hallmark of deep-seated weakness and fear.

Vice President Cheney says the British are leaving southern Iraq because things are going so well. In the real world, Basra is a mess.

Tony Blair’s announcement that Britain would withdraw 1,600 troops from southern Iraq by May, and aim for further significant withdrawals by the end of 2007, drew praise from U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. “What I see,” said Cheney, “is an affirmation of the fact that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well.”

Please!

Do 40% of Democrats really want Hillary? Really? That’s the question I ask myself each time I see polls that say that Hillary Clinton is the choice of 40% of Dems polled. If that’s true I have just one thing to say to those folks:

What the hell’s wrong with you people!? Are you the Democratic party’s version of the GOP’s red state morons – the ones who put George W. Bush in the Oval Office – TWICE? By supporting Hillary you are vying for precisely that sort of infamy.

Listen… and listen well – Hillary zombies — pay attention damn it!

Hillary Clinton is Tom DeLay on estrogen.

And that’s neither a sexist remark or the slightest exaggeration. I’m not talking about her politics, I’m talking about her stone-cold, calculating, triangulating soul.

That woman is not worthy of your support. Hillary is just as mean as Tom DeLay, just as self-centered, and even a more shameless, principle-free conniver. And, as David Geffen told Maureen Dowd, she’s a liar.

Much of the intelligence on Iran’s nuclear facilities provided to UN inspectors by US spy agencies has turned out to be unfounded, diplomatic sources in Vienna said today.

The claims, reminiscent of the intelligence fiasco surrounding the Iraq war, coincided with a sharp increase in international tension as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran was defying a UN security council ultimatum to freeze its nuclear programme.

That report, delivered to the security council by the IAEA director general, Mohammed ElBaradei, sets the stage for a fierce international debate on the imposition of stricter sanctions on Iran and raises the possibility that the US could resort to military action against Iranian nuclear sites.

At the heart of the debate are accusations – spearheaded by the US – that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons.

However, most of the tip-offs about supposed secret weapons sites provided by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies have led to dead ends when investigated by IAEA inspectors, according to informed sources in Vienna.

“Most of it has turned out to be incorrect,” a diplomat at the IAEA with detailed knowledge of the agency’s investigations said.

“They gave us a paper with a list of sites. [The inspectors] did some follow-up, they went to some military sites, but there was no sign of [banned nuclear] activities.

Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author and foreign policy expert. On February 9, Michael Shank interviewed him on the latest developments in US policy toward Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Venezuela.

02/21/07 “FPIF” — – Michael Shank: With similar nuclear developments in North Korea and Iran, why has the United States pursued direct diplomacy with North Korea but refuses to do so with Iran?

Noam Chomsky: To say that the United States has pursued diplomacy with North Korea is a little bit misleading. It did under the [Bill] Clinton administration, though neither side completely lived up to their obligations. Clinton didn’t do what was promised, nor did North Korea, but they were making progress. So when [George W] Bush came into the presidency, North Korea had enough uranium or plutonium for maybe one or two bombs, but then very limited missile capacity. During the Bush years it’s exploded. The reason is, he immediately canceled the diplomacy and he’s pretty much blocked it ever since.

They made a very substantial agreement in September 2005 in which North Korea agreed to eliminate its nuclear programs and nuclear development completely. In return, the United States agreed to terminate the threats of attack and to begin moving toward the planning for the provision of a light-water reactor, which had been promised under the framework agreement. But the Bush administration instantly undermined it.

Right away, it canceled the international consortium that was managing the the light-water-reactor project, which was a way of saying we’re not going to agree to this agreement. A couple of days later they started attacking the financial transactions of various banks. It was timed in such a way to make it clear that the United States was not going to move toward its commitment to improve relations. And of course it never withdrew the threats. So that was the end of the September 2005 agreement.

That one is now coming back, just in the last few days. The way it’s portrayed in the US media is, as usual with the government’s party line, that North Korea is now perhaps a little more amenable to accept the September 2005 proposal. So there’s some optimism. If you go across the Atlantic, to The Financial Times, to review the same events they point out that an “embattled George W Bush administration”, it’s their phrase, needs some kind of victory, so maybe it’ll be willing to move toward diplomacy. It’s a little more accurate, I think, if you look at the background.

But there is some minimal sense of optimism about it. If you look back over the record – and North Korea is a horrible place, nobody is arguing about that – on this issue they’ve been pretty rational. It’s been a kind of tit-for-tat history. If the United States is accommodating, the North Koreans become accommodating. If the United States is hostile, they become hostile. That’s reviewed pretty well by Leon Sigal, who’s one of the leading specialists on this, in a recent issue of Current History. But that’s been the general picture, and we’re now at a place where there could be a settlement on North Korea.

That’s much less significant for the United States than Iran. The Iranian issue I don’t think has much to do with nuclear weapons, frankly. Nobody is saying Iran should have nuclear weapons – nor should anybody else. But the point in the Middle East, as distinct from North Korea, is that this is center of the world’s energy resources. Originally the British and secondarily the French had dominated it, but after World War II, it’s been a US preserve.

That’s been an axiom of US foreign policy, that it must control Middle East energy resources. It is not a matter of access, as people often say. Once the oil is on the seas, it goes anywhere. In fact if the United States used no Middle East oil, it’d have the same policies. If we went on solar energy tomorrow, it’d keep the same policies. Just look at the internal record, or the logic of it: the issue has always been control. Control is the source of strategic power.

[Vice President] Dick Cheney declared in Kazakhstan or somewhere that control over a pipeline is a “tool of intimidation and blackmail”. When we have control over the pipelines it’s a tool of benevolence. If other countries have control over the sources of energy and the distribution of energy, then it is a tool of intimidation and blackmail, exactly as Cheney said. And that’s been understood as far back as [late US adviser, diplomat, political scientist and historian] George Kennan and the early postwar days when he pointed out that if the United States controls Middle East resources, it’ll have veto power over its industrial rivals. He was speaking particularly of Japan, but the point generalizes.

So Iran is a different situation. It’s part of the major energy system of the world.

Shank: So when the United States considers a potential invasion you think it’s under the premise of gaining control? That is what the United States will gain from attacking Iran?

Chomsky: There are several issues in the case of Iran. One is simply that it is independent and independence is not tolerated. Sometimes it’s called successful defiance in the internal record. Take Cuba. A very large majority of the US population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time, with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it too.

But the government won’t allow it. It’s attributed to the Florida vote, but I don’t think that’s much of an explanation. I think it has to do with a feature of world affairs that is insufficiently appreciated. International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money. You have to have obedience, otherwise the idea can spread that you don’t have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.

If you look back at the record, what was the main reason for the US attack on Vietnam? Independent development can be a virus that can infect others. That’s the way it’s been put, [former secretary of state Henry] Kissinger in this case, referring to [Salvador] Allende in Chile. And with Cuba it’s explicit in the internal record. Arthur Schlesinger, presenting the report of the Latin American Study Group to incoming president [John] Kennedy, wrote that the danger is the spread of the [Fidel] Castro idea of taking matters into your own hands, which has a lot of appeal to others in the same region that suffer from the same problems. Later internal documents charged Cuba with successful defiance of US policies going back 150 years – to the Monroe Doctrine – and that can’t be tolerated. So there’s kind of a state commitment to ensuring obedience.

Going back to Iran, it’s not only that it has substantial resources and that it’s part of the world’s major energy system, but it also defied the United States. The United States, as we know, overthrew the parliamentary government, installed a brutal tyrant, was helping him develop nuclear power. In fact the very same programs that are now considered a threat were being sponsored by the US government, by Cheney, [Paul] Wolfowitz, Kissinger and others in the 1970s, as long as the shah was in power. But then the Iranians overthrew him, and they kept US hostages for several hundred days. And the United States immediately turned to supporting Saddam Hussein and his war against Iran as a way of punishing Iran. The United States is going to continue to punish Iran because of its defiance. So that’s a separate factor.

And again, the will of the US population and even US business is considered mostly irrelevant. Seventy-five percent of the population here favors improving relations with Iran, instead of threats. But this is disregarded. We don’t have polls from the business world, but it’s pretty clear that the energy corporations would be quite happy to be given authorization to go back into Iran instead of leaving all that to their rivals. But the state won’t allow it. And it is setting up confrontations right now, very explicitly. Part of the reason is strategic, geopolitical, economic, but part of the reason is the mafia complex. They have to be punished for disobeying us.

Shank: Venezuela has been successfully defiant, with President Hugo Chavez making a swing towards socialism. Where are they on our list?

On December 20 1954, a woman known as Marion Keech gathered her followers in her garden in Lake City, Illinois, and waited for midnight, when flying saucers were supposed to land and save them from huge floods about to engulf the planet.

Keech had received news of the impending deluge from Sananda, a being from the planet Clarion, whose messages she passed on to a small group of believers. Unbeknown to her, the group had been infiltrated by a University of Minnesota researcher, the social psychologist Leon Festinger.

As dawn rose on December 21 with no flying saucer in sight, Keech had another revelation. Sananda told her that the group’s advanced state of enlightenment had saved the entire planet. They rejoiced and called a press conference. “A man with a conviction is a hard man to change,” wrote Festinger in his book on the cult, When Prophecy Fails. “Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts and figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.”

George Bush is a man of conviction and clearly a hard man to change. When reality confronts his plans he does not alter them but instead alters his understanding of reality. Like Keech and her crew, he stands with a tight band of followers, both deluded and determined, understanding each setback not as a sign to change course but as further proof that they must redouble their efforts to the original goal.

And so we watch the administration’s plans for a military attack against Iran unfold even as its official narrative for the run-up to the war in Iraq unravels and the wisdom of that war stands condemned by death and destruction. As though on split screens, we pass seamlessly from reports of how they lied to get us into the last war, to scenes of carnage as a result of the war, to shots of them lying us into the next one.

Hundreds of Iraqi journalists and activists held a sit-in today in front of the headquarters of the Iraqi Journalists’ Syndicate to protest the recent US raid against the union, UPI is reporting.

As reported on Iraqslogger, US forces stormed the syndicate’s headquarters in Baghdad on Monday evening. Troops ransacked offices, arrested 10 of the syndicate’s security guards and confiscated 10 computers and 15 small electricity generators destined for the families of killed journalists, according to a statement released by the International Federation of Journalists.

Ali `Uweid, deputy head of the press syndicate, said that the raid demonstrated “contempt for Iraqi Journalism and civil society organizations” and added that the syndicate would continue its protests until the guards were released and the property returned, reported Aswat al-Iraq, in Arabic.

The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi watchdog that advocates for press freedom in the country released a statement demanding that the government immediately investigate, saying that “the ways that journalists have been targeted with desecrations have escalated in the last few days, without any response, the most recent occurrence being the raid on the journalists’ syndicate on the part of US forces.”

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — Vice President Dick Cheney is finding it harder and harder to locate a welcome mat.

Cheney arrives today in Australia to meet with Prime Minister John Howard, a U.S. ally in the Iraq war who has resisted calls to withdraw his country’s 1,600 troops. The visit comes two days after the vice president’s meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, when he was greeted by shouts of “Yankee go home” from a loudspeaker outside the U.S. embassy and a controversy over Japan’s defense minister terming the war a “mistake.”

Even today, Cheney will have to tread carefully: A Feb. 16- 18 poll in the Australian, a national newspaper, showed that 68 percent oppose the war. “The vice president won’t be walking the streets of Australia, so he won’t have to be worried about being subjected to verbal abuse on this stop,” said Stephen Yates, who served as his national security adviser until 2005.

Cheney, 66, is also coping with growing criticism at home, where adversaries say he demonstrates a combativeness that may reflect frustration with his diminished role in an administration reeling from Iraq and trying to come to terms with a Democratic Congress.

“He’s not dominating administration policy and he’s taking some shots, even from fellow Republicans,” said Joel Goldstein, a vice presidential scholar at St. Louis University in Missouri. Cheney’s “operating style is not conducive to creating a reservoir of good feeling,” Goldstein said.

Pugnacity on Display

His pugnacity has been displayed in the divisive debate over Iraq. In recent weeks, he has feuded publicly with two prominent Republicans — Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel and Arizona’s John McCain, a leading contender for the party presidential nomination.

Last month, Cheney told Newsweek magazine that he’s having a hard time restraining himself from assailing Hagel over the Nebraskan’s opposition to a Bush-Cheney plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq.