The events now unfolding in the Middle East, which have been set in motion by Hezbullah’s takeover last week of much of Beirut, do not bode well for American or Israeli interests, warns one of France’s leading historians and journalists, Alexandre Adler.
Writing for France’s Le Figaro newspaper, Adler writes that Iranian President Ahmadinidjad, hemmed in by opponents at home and abroad, has turned to one of the last cards he holds in his hand: the Lebanese Hezbullah:
“Let us first turn to Iran, which is in a fever and where the most decisive threats originate. Iran’s President and his trusted accomplices - and a pro-Iranian faction of al-Qaeda - hope to recreate unity among all people of Muslim faith for a renewed jihad against America and Israel. Voices have been heard, notably among the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, who hope for such an outcome and support Iran’s nuclear program, which many Islamists - not only in Cairo - regard as a liberating force that should be immediately employed against Israel, whatever the risks.”
“Israel cannot tolerate a military victory for Hezbullah over its [pro-West] Lebanese opponents - any more than it can allow Ahmadinejad to pursue nuclear blackmail, especially in this very strange context: There is the probability that a Democratic candidate - indeed an Obama election victory - could bring to the White House a supporter of negotiations at all costs. … Clearly, this is a distressing 60th anniversary for Israel.”
This is a seminal article about what the United States now confronts, and it should be read by anyone interested in understanding this very important and hard-to-penetrate topic. Read the rest of this entry »
How frustrating is it for Iraqis, caught militarily and diplomatically between America and Iran?
For Iraq’s Azzaman newspaper, Fateh Abdusalam laments, “For the past few months, U.S. officials and candidates for the presidency have done all they can to avoid linking progress in the Iraq War to the possibility of talks with Iran. Instead, Republican candidate John McCain, a foreign policy hardliner and a warmonger since the Vietnam War when he spent four years in captivity, tried to give a ‘a new lease on life’ to the issue of the Iranian danger by discussing the threat Iran poses over the next five years - roughly the next President’s term of office.”
“Whenever it detects the slightest softening from Washington, Tehran goes one step further and discloses the completion of yet another “nuclear” milestone, reassured that the danger has passed and that it holds more winning cards than America does.”
“Iraq today finds itself stuck in a purgatory of no-war and no-peace between Iran and United States. Until it extricates itself from this state of affairs, Iraq will fail to establish its new status as a free nation..”
It’s semi-annual Iraq progress report time for David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker. But, alas, there has been no progress beyond a return to 2005 death-toll levels, which merely has given Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki an opportunity to try to exterminate his chief political rivals, so the general and the ambassador desperately need a carrot or a bogeyman to appease the few restive senators and representatives among the fawning congressfolk to whom they will report.
You may recall that the duo dangled a carrot when they last checked in back in September.
While they both equivocated about whether the Al-Maliki government was making progress (of course it wasn’t), Petraeus was able to say that the number of troops in country might return to the 130,000 pre-Surge level by this summer.
Well, events on the ground, notably Al-Maliki’s recalcitrance, and statements from President Bush have effectively swept that wee glimmer of hope off the table, so Petraeus and Crocker need a bogeyman.
T.E. Lawrence and John McCain are bona fide war heroes, but when it comes to Iraq, that’s where any similarity between the two men ends.
Lawrence (top photo), one of the most astute observers of Iraq and the Middle East of any generation, knew impending disaster when he saw it and warned three years after the British occupation of Iraq commenced in 1917 (bottom photo) that it:
“Is a trap which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. The [British people] have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told . . . It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster.”
McCain, devoid of Lawrence’s nuanced insight and lacking his first-hand experience, offered a warning of another kind in a major policy speech last week:
“It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our national character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing, and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible, and premature withdrawal.”
The British occupation of Iraq, which when adjusted for population then and now involved about 10 times the number of troops the U.S. deployed for the Surge, ended with a whimper after four decades.
This is because the Brits didn’t belong there in the first place and never were able to understand the Arab mindset and historic sectarian enmities. The Americans also don’t belong in Iraq, and McCain, acting for all the world like an imperialist poobah, has famously remarked that it would be fine with him if America troops stayed in Iraq for 100 years.
This despite the reality that presence would be a fraction of the troops that Britain deployed and the opposition today is far better organized – and armed — and it is long past time for the Iraqis to pick up the pieces from a disastrous American occupation and cobble together some sort of confederation.
McCain may have trouble telling Shiites from Sunnis, but he does know one thing that Lawrence didn’t and it is an important but largely unspoken element of why the presumptive Republican nominee has made staying in Iraq indefinitely the centerpiece of his presidential campaign: Oil.
Although the Iranian President was welcomed with great fanfare by Iraqi leaders a few days ago, Iranian intelligence officials are singing another tune. According to this news account from Iraq’s Azzaman newspaper, Iraq’s Intelligence chief Muhamad Abdullah Al-Shahwani has criticized the Iranian intelligence services for seeking to, ‘abort the experiment with the Awakening Councils,’ a collection of mostly Sunni groups that U.S. forces are backing to fight al-Qeada. Hinting at the root of the problem, Al-Shahwani said, ‘a number of senior Iraqi officials refuse to recognize the Awakening Councils and the positive role they have played in bringing new hope.’
By Karim Abd Zair in Baghdad and Nadal Al-Laithy in London
Translated By James Jacobson and Nicolas Dagher
February 28, 2008
Iraq - Azzaman - Original Article (Arabic)
The head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, Muhamad Abdullah Al-Shahwani , yesterday criticized the Iranian intelligence services for seeking to, “abort the experiment with the Awakening Councils,” which are battling elements of al-Qaeda in Iraq. For his part, an advisor to the Awakening Councils, Tamir Al-Tamimi, told Azzaman,” the Awakening Councils have been targeted by the Iranians, either directly or indirectly, through terrorist organizations that cooperate with Iran, such as al-Qaeda. Read the rest of this entry »
How much Arab angst does President Bush confront on his farewell tour of the Middle East? Judging from this op-ed article from Al-Seyassah, the leading newspaper of Kuwait which is the President’s next stop - the moment he leaves the friendly embrace of Israel, things are likely to be touch and go at best.
“What has the United States achieved in Iraq except handing it and its people on a golden platter to the savage wolves of Tehran and its Revolutionary Guard, which today is the biggest player not only in Iraq but throughout the Middle East? George Bush’s farewell visit is the beginning of the last chapter of the greatest American failure in history.”
By Dawood Al-Basri
Translated By James Jacobson and Nicolas Dagher
January 6, 2007
Kuwait - Al-Seyassah - Original Article (Arabic)
In the autumn of his stormy presidency, American George W. Bush will now offer more of his well-known Texan diplomacy on a farewell visit to the Arab region. The reason that his announced itinerary includes most Middle East nations without any mention of Iraq is clear: The cause of his rushed, secretive visit, hidden from the eyes, voices and ears of journalists and whistle-blowers, is that they would ask him whether it’s reasonable for this “agent of change” to visit without touring his project to build the American dream in Iraq, the foundations of which have collapsed. They would ask how he could come without looking at the Iraq disaster, which was caused by the ulterior motives of American policy in the hands of Bush. Read the rest of this entry »
Is Iran now confronting some blowback of its own, due to its intervention in Iraq since the U.S. invasion? According to this op-ed article from Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper, ‘Any Iraqi Shiite who doesn’t frankly and publicly reject Iran’s interference is an Iranian agent, a traitor and a coward.’
“My Shiite brother, today it is your duty before Allah the Exalted One, before your own conscience and in the face of history … to publicly and frankly declare your rejection of Iran’s criminal interference in Iraq. … It is this that has destroyed our nation and has resulted in the murder of our sons.”
By Khadir Taahar
Translated By James Jacobson
December 25, 2007
Iraq - Kitabat - Original Article (Arabic)
My noble and heroic Iraqi Shiite brothers, who have endured adversity, tragedy detention camps and communal graves …
I, a fellow Iraqi Shiite, address you as someone who shares your worries and grief, and like you, dreams of a free and dignified life within our beloved Iraq … I address you in the hope of preserving our rights and interests, we, Iraq’s Shiite sons, before they are stolen by the agents and proxies of Iran.
With all regret, I find myself compelled to use this sectarian and un-Iraqi language. Perhaps one can be forgiven, since the reasons are so compelling and the catastrophe so great. After the destruction our nation has suffered and the division of its people into sects and nationalities, it has become nearly impossible to restore Iraq’s shattered national unity. With the devastation that has undermined the very notion of citizenship, all that was left was to defend our narrow, sectarian interests. One must be realistic, even if we reject this reality!
My Shiite brother, today it is your duty before Allah the Exalted one, before your own conscience and in the face of history … to publicly and frankly declare your rejection of Iran’s criminal interference in Iraq. It is this that has destroyed our nation and has resulted in the murder of our sons, for it is Iran - with the help Syria’s Baath regime - which supports the remnants of the Baath Party and al-Qaeda; it is Iran which supports the Shiite militias and factions; and it is Iran that has caused the mass murder and destruction that has befallen Iraq.
My Shiite brother, prove your patriotism and your honor by rejecting Iran’s underhanded, filthy interference in Iraq by taking part in mass demonstrations across the country, and publicly declare your opposition to Iran’s despicable conspiracies against our nation.
Boycott all Iranian goods and hinder their import into Iraq; boycott all Iranian institutions and tear the offensive images of Iran’s clerics from the walls of Iraq’s cities.
Does the most recent U.S. intelligence report on Iran’s nuclear program demonstrate once again the politicization of American espionage? According to this op-ed article from Le Figaro by the director and research director of the French Research Center on Intelligence, ‘The new NIE is a fake. Iran continues to pursue its nuclear weapons program, but the Americans have decided to backtrack to save face. Confronted with catastrophic consequences for the balance of power in the Middle East, Washington abandoned the military option. This [NIE] is deliberate American disinformation.’
By Éric Denécé and Alain Rodier, director and research director, respectively, of the Research Center on intelligence Matters (a Paris-based research institute).
Translated By James Jacobson
December 20, 2007
France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)
On December 3, the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI), a body attached to the White House that centralizes information provided by all American intelligence agencies, issued a report (a National Intelligence Estimate or NIE ) which guessed that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program in the autumn of 2003. This document, drafted in mid-2007, says that for the immediate future, Iran in not a nuclear threat, and that the Iranian regime is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than the U.S. had thought back in 2005. But the report stressed that Teheran continues to enrich uranium for civilian purposes, and it estimates that if the Iranian military effort were launched again, the country could produce nuclear warheads between 2010 and 2015.
This is a radical about-face. Released in 2005, the previous NIE on the Iranian nuclear program emphasized Teheran’s determination to acquire nuclear weapons. It was on the basis of this report that President Bush called for more sanctions and was contemplating the use of force against Teheran.
The NIE is a summary of what the various U.S. intelligence agencies forecast on topics of major interest. It is drafted at the request of the political authorities or members of Congress and is not the result of a jointly-executed analysis. The report is prepared by DNI analysts. The text is then circulated to the agencies concerned to collect their input. This is a process that necessarily takes several months. Sometimes the services that supply intelligence on the subject don’t even recognize their contributions to the final report.
The intelligence at the heart of this NIE comes mainly from intercepted telephone conversations between Iranian military officials, in which they complain about the decision to halt weapons development. These wiretappings were allegedly collected by the Government Communications Headquarters , the British eavesdropping service.
In the world of intelligence, it is customary to attribute to the interception services, information obtained from human sources that one wants to protect. Along these lines, it is legitimate for one to consider the case of Ali Reza Asghari, the Revolutionary Guard general who defected at the beginning of the year .
SEVERAL ASSUMPTIONS CAN BE FORMULATED
It is important to treat the content of this report with great caution. Indeed since the end of 2002, the politicization of American intelligence, which has been under constant pressure from the authorities, has prompted the presentation of the facts based on points of view that favor the political objectives of the White House or the Pentagon. A few examples: the creation of the Office of Special Plans in order to justify the war in Iraq; the masquerade February 2003 session at the United Nations, where despite the presence of director George Tenet beside Colin Powell, members of the CIA were shocked by the assertions of the Secretary of State WATCH ; the revelation of the real position [outing] of CIA officer Valérie Plame in order to undermine her husband, a diplomat whose report pointed out that Iraq didn’t acquire uranium from Nigeria, and so on. Examples of the manipulation of the facts by American authorities are legion. As a result, several assumptions can be made about the effect sought by releasing this latest NIE.
Rather than an attempt by U.S. intelligence to undermine President Bush’s plans to attack Iran, could it be that the NIE released last week, which said that Iran has mothballed its nuclear weapons program, be part of the President’s policy to assist Iranian moderates? According to this article by French historian Alexandre Adler, this report hints at a new U.S. strategy that marks a turning point in the war on terror.
“The assumption of a Soviet-style CIA coup against George Bush, with the goal of disarming the hawks from now until the end of the President’s mandate, is unacceptable.”
By Alexandre Adler
Translated By James Jacobson
November 9, 2007
France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)
The announcement U.S. intelligence that Iran is not - strictly speaking - on the point of manufacturing an atomic bomb , and that it lacks the technical capacity to obtain one until about 2010 or even 2015, is undoubtedly the most important turning point of war against terror that began around the year 2000. This decision by Iran is as clear as it is obscure, which is doubtless the reason that some in the press and a good portion of international political analysts remain reticent to grapple with its full significance. It is nevertheless completely clear that in agreeing to give this estimate a solemn and public airing, President Bush is now committed until the end of his mandate not to intervene militarily in Iran. This will be a shame for all the pen-pushers whose work predicted a new Iranian-American war, which will now wilt on bookshop shelves.
But there’s still more in the message that U.S. intelligence has sent to global opinion - as well as to the Iranian leadership: Between the lines one can also read the outlines of negotiations to come - and even a trace of a negotiation that may already have begun - which if true, would be considerably more sensational. If the reader would allow me a personal confession, I will gladly recount that a good year before the election of Ahmadinejad to the presidency of Iran, I suggested to high-level Iranian negotiators the “Japanese solution,” to which they expressed great interest. I was alluding to the fact that Japan already has on hand all the components for a nuclear weapon, but which it refuses to assemble, considering that it already has a strong deterrent with the parts disassembled.
So I was not surprised to read three weeks later in The Economist that “certain Iranian officials referred to a compromise called the Japanese solution” … and it is this concept that the pens of CIA analysts refer to, when they refer to a difference between the fabrication of a nuclear explosive - which Iran has not pursued since 2003 - and the manufacture of nuclear fuel, which Iran has pursued imperturbably since the end of a freeze on uranium enrichment at Natanz . No one can ignore the fact that if Iran can produce enriched uranium - but deliberately produce less than is needed to build a Bomb - the essential point is that it is continuing to master uranium production, and at any time it could push the button and effortlessly proceed to obtain The Bomb.
One of the many conspiracy theories swirling throughout the Arab world is that Washington and Tehran have been cooperating since the Shah was first installed all the way up to today. According to this op-ed article from Iraq’s Sotal Iraq, not only has Tehran aided Washington in Afghanistan and Iraq - but the entire 1979 hostage crisis and the aborted American rescue of the hostages was staged.
“Iran has been a strategic ally of American imperial power from the time of the Shah right up to today.”
Translated By James Jacobson
By Talal Ma’aruf Najam*
November 12, 2007
Iraq - Sotal Iraq - Original Article (Arabic)
The world was surprised … but we weren’t … and it seems that with our previous analysis we have earned the confidence of many. Iran has been a strategic ally of American imperial power from the time of the Shah right up to today. When the Shah’s visage became unloved by his people, the White House - because of its treachery and unlimited ambition - became uneasy and lost patience with him.
To all the world, with the crisis at American Embassy in Tehran and the detention of its staff by Iranian students in the first days of the Islamic Revolution, Iran entered a period of conflict against American imperial power .
The occupation of the American Embassy dragged on for several months and the assumption of most of the world was that U.S. forces were impotent and that the Iranian revolution had begun to teach Washington a lesson in bravery. But what revealed this bravery was the theatrical crash of two American helicopters in the Iranian desert, which was arranged, far from the capital Teheran, where Iranian Revolutionary Guard held the U.S. hostages [Operation Eagle Claw ].
Washington claimed that the two helicopters were on their way liberate the American hostages. Iran hailed the capture of the two helicopters as a victory over American airpower and the estrangement between Teheran and Washington appeared to continue, even blatantly at times.
Then came the most recent scandal that revealed the false nature of the hostility between the two countries, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared the American intelligence report on Iran’s nuclear program “a great victory for Iran.”
In his speech broadcast by Iranian television, Ahmadinejad added that the American report “announces the victory to all the international forces of the Iranian nation regarding its nuclear program.”
The American intelligence report unveiled on December 3rd concluded that Iran suspended its nuclear arms program in 2003, although they still haven’t stopped carrying out uranium enrichment. The authors of the report said that they have a, “high degree of confidence” in their information.
Teheran didn’t hesitate to exploit the shift in the attitude of American intelligence, demanding compensation for the “fictional accusations” made against it over the years by the Bush Administration, emphasizing that the report provides good reason to take the issue of the Iranian nuclear file out of the hands of American officials and return it to its natural place: the International Atomic Energy Agency.
What concerns us is Iran’s request for negotiations and demand for compensation, which is nonetheless sensible after all the services Iran has rendered to the American Administration. Tehran supported American forces during their Afghanistan invasion and the findings and information used to launch the American invasion of Iraq were provided by the Iranian regime, mostly through its contacts in the south and middle of Iraq.
I actually heard most of this one while I was out running errands. As a Democrat who is dubious of the new NIE, I am not happy with our candidates’ insistence that the military option be “off the table” with Iran. I hope I don’t have to cast my first vote for a Republican presidential candidate in November of 2008.
Hamas on Thursday called on the UN to rescind the 1947 decision to partition Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs.
The group said in a statement, released on the 60th anniversary of the UN vote, that “Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem… there is no room in it for the Jews.”
Regarding the partition decision, Hamas said that “correcting mistakes is nothing to be ashamed of, but prolonging it is exploitation.”
October 26th, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
In a sense, this is the political day everyone knew would finally dawn: the powder-keg issue of the Iraq War is now being joined by another powder-keg issue.
The issue: what the United States should do, shouldn’t do and might do with the thorny issue of Iran — a nation intent on getting nukes and headed by a tolerance-challenged President:
When it comes to presidential politics, Iran appears to be the next Iraq.
It’s an issue precisely because some fear it could become the next Iraq. CNN continues:
While it hasn’t pushed aside the war in Iraq, the debate over sanctions against Iran and the possibility of military action against Tehran is gathering steam on the campaign trail.
Democratic candidates expressed concern Thursday about the Bush administration’s extensive sanctions against Iran, arguing that the measures were likely precursors to war.
The new sanctions target Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, its Quds force and a number of Iranian banks and people the U.S. accuses of backing nuclear proliferation and terror-related activities.
“It is important to have tough sanctions on Iran, particularly on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which supports terrorism,” Barack Obama said. “But these sanctions must not be linked to any attempt to keep our troops in Iraq, or to take military action against Iran.
The senator from Illinois added that “unfortunately, the Kyl-Lieberman amendment made the case for President Bush that we need to use our military presence in Iraq to counter Iran — a case that has nothing to do with sanctioning the Revolutionary Guard.”
The Kyl-Lieberman amendment passed 76-22 in the Senate last month. It calls, in part, for the Revolutionary Guard to be designated a terrorist organization. While Obama opposes the legislation, he was campaigning when the full Senate took up the bill and missed the vote.
The issue has become a major flashpoint between Obama and New York Senator Hillary Clinton:
While Hillary Clinton is celebrating her 60th birthday tonight, another milestone is taking place off stage: Her campaign is publicly turning its guns on Barack Obama.
The campaign sent out an e-mail tonight, using some of the strongest language it has used in public against Mr. Obama, who has been raising a ruckus over her vote to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
“Stagnant in the polls and struggling to revive his once-buoyant campaign, Senator Obama has abandoned the politics of hope and embarked on a journey in search of a campaign issue to use against Senator Clinton,†the e-mail said.
“Nevermind that he made the very argument he is now criticizing back in November 2006,†it adds. “Nevermind that he he co-sponsored a bill designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a global terrorist group back in April.â€
The escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran has brought the issue to the fore in the presidential campaign, with Republican candidates talking of military action if Iran gets close to building a nuclear weapon and Democrats cautioning against a march to another war.
As the Bush administration announced sanctions yesterday on a unit of the Iranian military, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, in perhaps the broadest warning yet among the Republican candidates, told voters in New Hampshire that he would advocate a military blockade or “bombardment of some kind†if Iran did not yield to diplomatic and economic pressure to give up its nuclear program.
Mr. Romney’s statement came as Democrats warned against military action but also skirmished among themselves, particularly over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s vote last month calling on the administration to declare Iran’s 125,000-member Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization.
Such a designation, backed by 75 senators including Mrs. Clinton, would have gone beyond the measures taken yesterday by the administration, which imposed more narrowly drawn sanctions on the guard corps and its elite Quds division.
None of the other Democratic presidential candidates supported the Senate resolution, and Mrs. Clinton’s two leading opponents, Senator Barack Obama and John Edwards, have said the vote provided cover for President Bush to move the country toward war, an interpretation Mrs. Clinton disputes.
Are the Iranians really meddling in Iraq as the Americans charge, or is Washington just looking for an excuse to attack Iran? According to this op-ed article from Iraq’s Sotal Iraq newspaper, the charges are part of a U.S.-Sunni plot to take control of Iraq back from the Shiites.
“Americans deal with Iraqi Shiites as though all of them were members or Iran’s ‘Quds Force’ … the U.S. agenda now requires Iraqis to enter into an open confrontation with Iran by making Shiites into scapegoats.”
By Asad Rashid
Translated By James Jacobson
October 8, 2007
Iraq - Sotal Iraq - Original Article (Arabic)
Americans deal with Iraqi Shiites as though all of them were members or the “Quds Force [a special unit of Iran Revolutionary Guards ],” an Iranian group that doesn’t exist in Iraq except in the imaginations of American military leaders and their failing commander, General David Petraeus, who has taken upon himself the task of destroying Iraq and transforming it into an arena for settling regional and international scores, a process by which every Iraqi sect and ethnicity is paying an enormous price.
This American view of Iraq, in which Shiites are all considered members of “Shiite militias” or elements recruited into the “Quds Force,” reflect the state of confusion and frustration of the Bush Administration and its forces in Iraq, especially since Iranian-American reports talk of how the conflict is essentially about a struggle for influence and natural resources – resources that abound in Iraq and Iran - and particularly in Iran - where oil and gas reserves constitute a threat to American interests and influence in the region. This is what always pushes the American side to brandish the danger of Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons, creating misgivings among countries in the region and its allies in the West.
In the midst of this conflict, American forces continue to provoke the Iranian side, involving Iraqi Shiites in a battle that has nothing to do with them. Analysts of Iraqi affairs see no reason for such an escalation while the U.S. military arms terrorist militias on the pretext of fighting al-Qaeda, except for the fact that the American agenda now requires Iraqis to enter into an open confrontation with Iran by making Iraq’s Shiites into scapegoats.
Now comes the latest barbaric American operation, which took place in the village of Al-Jizani on the outskirts of Baquba. Witnesses revealed the depth of the confusion, when dozens of Shiite civilians on a pilgrimage were killed in air strikes of excessive force on the pretext that members of the Quds Force and one of its leaders had taken refuge in this area.
Are Americans as well-informed as it would appear, given the country’s mind-boggling number of media outlets? According to this feature article from Germany’s Die Zeit, it takes a man like journalist Seymour Hersh to ‘to open their eyes about their own country.’
The people of New York are surrounded by media. Nonetheless, it took an hour of questions and answers with star journalist Seymour Hersh to open their eyes about their own country.
By Eva Schweitzer
Translated By Ulf Behncke
October 7, 2008
Germany - Die Zeit - Original Article (German)
New York is globally connected like no other city in the world. Here, there are 350 television channels including the BBC and Al-Jazeera, the Internet via cable, DSL or WiFi, newspapers from overseas, AP, Reuters, The New York Times and the news studios of CNN, Fox and NBC. Nevertheless, even New York seems at times strangely disconnected from the world. “Plato imagined prisoners in a cave, backs to its opening, who saw reality as shadows reflected off a wall,” writes journalist Mort Rosenblum . America, he says, is still very much like this to this very day.
Every now and then, though, a saber-toothed tiger breaks into the cave and delivers real news, as occurred on Saturday at a festival for The New Yorker magazine at the Directors Guild Theatre, where Sy Hersh spoke. Hersh reports for the magazine on what the Pentagon and CIA are up to, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Iran. Over 500 people came (and paid), to hear about it first hand. Amazing in a city where one trips over the media at ever step.
Utterly unpretentiously, Hersh sits on the stage casually dressed and jokes with his editor-in-chief David Remnick, all the while saying the most unbelievable things. Iran? Yes, an attack against Iran is imminent (Hersh reported this just recently in The New Yorker ), but against small targets like training camps and the Revolutionary Guard. “The U.S. has specialists at the borders who, with the assistance of Kurdish and Israeli experts, install “eavesdropping boxes” capable of listening into buildings in Teheran. “We know what’s going on in Iran” Hersh says. The nuclear bomb will take another five years. The bomb is a threat – first and foremost to Israel because it means the end of Zionism. “Once Iran has the bomb, the middle class will give up and say, ‘We’d rather go to Argentina or London, where we can live in peace.’”
The war on terror? “If it comes out, what really happens in Guantanamo Bay, we will all be very ashamed.” This is equally true of Abu Ghraib. “Iraqi girls who are imprisoned there, have begged their fathers to kill them because they were dishonored. I saw photos of GI’s grabbing at naked Iraqi women and girls while showering.” And there are twelve countries in which the CIA or their local henchmen can torture. “Afterwards, they burn the bodies, so that no trace can be found.”
The Washington Post reports that the ‘United States has decided to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a “specially designated global terrorist,†according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group’s business operations and finances.’
The reason? Iran’s constant and increased meddling in Iraq, Afghanistan and, well, the entire the Middle East for that matter. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is helping out terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah: with training, knowledge, and equipment. Seemingly, the US has had enough and has, therefore, decided to label the private militant group of the Mullahs terrorists.
The goal is to starve the Republican Guard: by labeling it a terrorist organization the US hopes to stop it from being financed. The question is, however, whether one can label a legitimate army a ‘terrorist organization.’ Please click here to read more at my own blog, and here to read Joe’s analysis.
![[Al-Ahram, Egypt]](http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/889/fathi2.png)
![The Telegraph, U.K.]](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00296/Peter_Brookes_296162a.jpg)
