Rss Feed
Tweeter button
Facebook button
Technorati button
Reddit button
Delicious button
Digg button
Flickr button
Stumbleupon button
Newsvine button

Posts tagged with Iran

0 comments

9:00 PM

April 18, 2010

Paging Sen. McCain: Adm. Mullen says “kiss my grits”

This morning, 2nd place presidential candidate & Senator John McCain decided to run with a juicy story published by the NYTimes and declare:

“I didn’t need a secret memo to know we didn’t have a coherent policy,” McCain told Fox News’s Chris Wallace. “That’s pretty obvious.” (4/18/10)

As is the standard in our mainstream media, he was issued a severe tongue-lashing by talking heads and analysts alike. Wait, strike that.

By tongue-lashing I mean he was offered a willing audience and well-connected microphone.

“We have to be willing to pull the trigger on significant sanctions,” Senator McCain said. “And then we have to make plans for whatever contingencies follow if those sanctions are not effective.”

Those are some pretty strong words coming from a Senator, though he seems to be more reserved than usual on this subject. Need I bring up again the infamous “Bomb, bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran”?

Nevertheless, military brass refused to play to McCain’s coy presumption of the military’s and the administration’s ineptitude (even if the media wasn’t going lift a finger to do so).

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates both offered their professional opinions regarding Senator McCain’s contentions following the NYTimes article. In short, they reaffirmed the pressing reality that when people like John McCain speak about “contingencies” regarding Iran, they can only mean one thing, and that such actions would do more harm than good. As well, both men took the opportunity to dispel the erroneous notions that the US doesn’t have oodles and oodles of contingency plans for every possible situation and that such a lack of planning was the direct result of the Obama administration taking the helm.

“What the mainstream of that article talked about… is that we have no policy and that the implication is that we’re not working on it. I assure you, this is as complex a problem as there is in our country. And we have expended extraordinary amounts of time and effort to figure that out — to get that right,” Mullen said. “This has a focus. The focus of the President of the United States. I am his principal military adviser, and it has from the moment I have spent any time with him — even before he has sworn in,” Mullen said… Keep Reading »

2 comments

1:58 PM

February 17, 2010

Mount Vernon Statement = Empty Rhetoric

Well, the self-righteousness has surely hit the fan. Self-proclaimed “Constitutional conservatism” is the hero of the Mount Vernon Statement; however obliquely details, specifics, policies, evidence, history and data enter into this equation.

For one thing, is this supposed to be news? Are we in the public supposed to respect or revere these folks who are indeed, not saying anything new or of substance, while they simultaneously make unsubstantiated claims about our country? While the statement reads as a high school report on conservative talking points through American history, it sure fails to offer itself in the context of our world today and the problems we face. The only effort made to contextualize this statement is provided as follows : “In light of the challenges facing the country and the need for clarity in the age of Obama…” These are somehow new problems for these folks? As opposed to the new challenges that these conservatives did not deem politically beneficial to enunciate during the last decade (aka the lost decade)?

It reduces complex policy debates to a false framework of being against the Constitution or for it, while implicitly targeting and labeling the last year under the Obama administration as not being “consistent with the American ideal,” and a “…movement away from…our founding principles,”.

Blanketed, unsupported claims such as this are necessary to further these “Constitutional conservatives” worldview. The empty rhetorical piece de resistance :

“A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives through the natural fusion provided by American principles. It reminds economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America’s safety and leadership role in the world.”

Economic conservatives would probably like to be reminded that despite all the espoused morality of the Bush administration, our economy ran full speed into a brick wall. They would also probably like to be reminded that these “new challenges” we face in the “age of Obama” are a direct result of our economy crashing under Bush and the massive job losses suffered alongside said crash.

Social conservatives would probably like to be reminded that the greatest threat to moral self-government has come in the form of the exploitation of executive power by Bush/Cheney after 9.11 (think state secrets, executive privilege, and signing statements) and the subsequent relegation of habeas corpus (a Constitutionally guaranteed right) to a privilege that can be revoked at the whim of the executive. National security conservatives would likely benefit as well from the reminder that Obama is ending the war in Iraq and successfully turning the war in Afghanistan back toward our favor, most notably with the recent capture of top Taliban commanders. These same national security conservatives, which I hope is not just a term being used in lieu of the political impotence of neo-conservatives, would also benefit from the reminder that Iran is actually negotiating its nuclear enrichment program under 6 party talks that would result in them complying with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and allowing the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) full access to all their nuclear facilities. Oh and about that whole “energetic but responsible government is the key to America’s safety and leadership role in the world” assertion : remind me what recent conservative was it that brought about the collective scorn of copious populations abroad because of its reckless, irresponsible, unilateral foreign policy regime? It starts with G and rhymes with shmorge shmush.

So are we to take this statement, if we accept it as news, as a repudiation of Bush’s legacy as none of the above-mentioned values? Or should we just take it as another empty rhetorical indulgence, carried out by conservative ideologues seeking to re-write history?

Somehow the latter option seems more in line with conservatism today.

0 comments

5:22 PM

February 10, 2010

A Better Direction

After the apparent reversal made by Pres. Ahmadinejad this week, we learn a valuable lesson on the importance of communication in any relationship.

The following remarks, made by Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, provide some insight into the rational behind the announcement by Ahmadinejad :

“Mr President [Ahmadinejad] made the comment in a subtle way. If you paid attention to his comments, he said: Start the 20-per cent enrichment, but the doors for cooperation are still open and we are still ready for fuel swap. In other words, we – although we will start the 20-per cent enrichment tomorrow – will stop the enrichment as soon as they (West) come to their senses and provide our fuel.”

Clearly, Iran has begun to show their inclination toward directing the negotiations a bit, by applying pressure to the West. I don’t think that this news discredits any efforts made by the international community to peacefully resolve the tensions inherent in Iran’s development of nuclear technology, but it highlights the importance of goal-oriented foreign policy in this case. The US has thrown its support behind the deal brokered by the 5 + 1 talks of this past year, whose goal was to outsource most of Iran’s nuclear enrichment to France while still ensuring that Iran can pursue peaceful uses of nuclear technology to the degree they desire. The main pull towards this deal was the desire of Iran to produce these 20% enriched medical isotopes that are contentious in the West (the argument goes that the gap between 20% enriched and the higher levels needed for weapons is not as large as the gap between the 3-4% enriched and weapons grade). This latest announcement, and the translation of the above statement reinforce Iran’s commitment to using nuclear technology for purposes they see as being benign; the reaction to this statement by the West has been subdued, but a renewed call for sanctions following the statement leads me to hope that patience and reason will prevail.

Its about common interests right? The West ultimately just doesn’t want more nuclear weapons in an area that is already prone to high regional tensions. Why that principle does not apply to Pakistan and India, I do not know, but that is the principle we’ve chosen to defend in terms of Iran’s nuclear program. The opening that still exists to incorporate Iran into an international system that regulates and safeguards the use of nuclear fuel has not been more widely opened in the past. They’ve declared their terms – all they want is assurance that the West will hold up their end of the deal – and now we have an opportunity to remove the drive towards higher enrichment from Iran’s political vocabulary. What sanctions are going to do to make Iran more open to this deal, I do not know. As Juan Cole reads it:

“In a face to face meeting at the beginning of October in Geneva, the West had suggested that Iran send most of its stock of low enriched uranium to another country for enrichment to the nearly 20% that is needed to run its medical reactor. Iran’s hard liners balked at the agreement, however, presumably because they view even a stock of low enriched uranium as a sort of deterrent to a Western attempt at regime change or a military strike on Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment facilities near Isfahan…”

“Salehi is saying that Ahmadinejad’s announcement was meant primarily to force acceptance of this alternative. At the same time, on Saturday Ahmadinejad seemed to say that he would accept the deal offered by the US in October. US officials were understandably skeptical about this alleged softening of Tehran’s position, and Salehi on Monday seemed to suggest that Iran was making a push for the hard liners’ compromise.”

0 comments

3:17 PM

Luddites for the war

Foreign Policy’s David Kenner brings us a list of the media’s most prominent Luddites : those in favor of bombing the nuclear technology out of Iran. Kenner describes these characters as a “belligerent minority”, supported by Dick Cheney, whose agitations seem unlikely to influence any opinion in the Obama administration, as “administration officials have strongly suggested they prefer to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions through diplomacy and sanctions,”.

At the top of that list is Daniel Pipes , whose recent “…Bomb Iran” article has been making the rounds. I derided his flimsy justification for a complete about-face of US policy regarding nuclear states (politics and ‘public opinion’) here. Next is John Bolton (fmr. US ambassador to the UN), whose favored policies toward Iran also include regime change. Following next comes Norman Podhoretz, whose argument towards urgent military action rests upon an analogy he makes comparing Iran and nuclear power to Hitler. The list finishes with Joshua Muravchik, Thomas McInerney and Max Boot – expect more of the same reasoning (and more mentions of Israel) within these arguments towards war.

I’m glad that elections can bring about change. These are all cats that whisper into the ears of Bush/Cheney (and definitely curry the good graces of McCain – remember, “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”?), and I don’t know who in their right mind would argue that another war is what America needs, nay favors, right now. But the important thing is that no one is power is arguing to those ends – thanks to the nearly 67 million Americans who thought otherwise.

1 comments

5:19 PM

February 8, 2010

The Wrong Direction

Over the weekend, Iran stated their intent to enrich uranium to 20% and to build 10 new enrichment plants (reacting to the West’s unresponsiveness to Iran’s nuclear offer). This move also signaled Iran’s intent to allow the IAEA to fully monitor the sites where uranium would be enriched to 20%, which Iran argues it needs to continue to produce in order to provide radioactive isotopes for cancer treatment. This all sounds reasonable when viewed outside of its context, but that context is becoming increasingly looming.

This announced has spurred renewed calls for sanctions in the West, this time the idea being prominently pushed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates. This move is likely to be supported by the US Congress, who as recently as December 09 passed a new gasoline embargo on Iran. As is to be expected, there is still a vocal minority in the US who advocate an all-out war with Iran, including most recently (and visibly) Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Daniel Pipes’ NRO article titled “How to save the Obama presidency: Bomb Iran”. Of the utmost importance to note when considering these urgent statements that advocate more forceful responses (re: Bomb Iran) is that these folks have placed politics as the deciding factor in whether to bomb Iran or not. Here is Pipes’ argument (I’m not paraphrasing, it is literally this shallow):

Keep Reading »

0 comments

12:17 PM

Populism at its most Egomaniacal

The once closed-to-the-press Tea Party Convention was ultimately elevated to prime time, with America’s most-watched news network, FOX, providing live coverage of the speech by headliner Sarah Palin. That is right, the same Sarah Palin: former Governor of Alaska, former vice-presidential candidate and abuser of democratically-bestowed powers. While Palin has come to brand herself has the maverick, rogue, embodiment of all that is “real” about America, the fact remains that she has repeatedly made decisions while in power (and now while out of power) that would maximize her own personal gain. She latched onto the opportunity to be a heart-beat away from the presidency, without the slightest inkling of reserve based upon her own capabilities or limitations (i.e., not having a clue about a plethora of major issues). Shortly after her national political debut and subsequent national electoral defeat, she decided her time was better spent not doing the job she was elected to, but furthering her own political agenda (that she has conveniently projected onto “real America”). As she declared in her resignation speech: “My choice is to take a stand and effect change – not hit our heads against the wall and watch valuable state time and money, millions of your dollars, go down the drain in this new environment. Rather, we know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time, on another scale, and actually make a difference for our priorities – and so we will, for Alaskans and for Americans.” Now however, we’ve seen that this “positive change outside government” translates in the real world into employment as a talking head by FOXnews. Well, I guess I jumped the gun – it first translated to a multi-million dollar book deal (that she was not allowed to accept as a sitting Governor), and national press tour (including 2 stops on Oprah!).

But for the sake of continuing Palin’s narrative, let’s put all these events aside and just say that she was trying to correct the record that she thinks has been skewed by a liberal media conspiracy by ghost-writing a book, and affixing herself as a media notable. So this next move was perfect, being the headliner at the National Tea Party Convention! That maverick, rogue group of tea-baggers, yelling so passionately for the policies that Palin so emphatically advocates – that is, the policy of anti-Obamaism. Among the memes she adopted, we find:

On Scott Brown:

“You know, considering the recent conservative election sweep, it’s time that they stop blaming everyone else. When you’re 0-for-3, you’d better stop lecturing and start listening.”

On America’s problems:

“That’s where you got to look because that’s what got you into this mess — the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda. It’s going to leave us less secure, more in debt, and more under the thumb of big government.”

Keep Reading »

0 comments

8:44 AM

February 3, 2010

Iraqi reversals

The much publicized banning of 500+ candidates from the March elections in Iraq now has a new chapter – an appeals court in the Justice and Accountability Committee temporarily lifted the ban.

So to recap : VP Joe Biden recently went to Iraq to try and work something out with the Iraqi government to lift the ban placed on these candidates, stressing how the elections must be free and fair, and had limited success – only about 50 banned candidates were unbanned as a result of his engagement. But now, the issue has been seemingly rectified not through external influence and domination, but through the oversight mechanisms in the government of Iraq itself.

I’m sure that this decision being made by Iraq itself (not imposed upon Iraq) will do much to allay the concerns of electoral unfairness towards Sunni Arabs in Iraq. Interestingly though, Juan Cole attempts to express a theory on the Iraqi government’ s view of regional politics and power (specifically in regard to Iran) in the context of the banned candidates.

0 comments

7:48 AM

More Important?

Silly me, I thought the fact that Iran’s president informally (but publicly) accepted the terms of a nuclear deal negotiated by the US, UK, Russia, China, France and Germany was significant.

Apparently, a mouse, two turtles and a worm are worthy of more sensational headlines?

I’m a little confused here, haven’t we been sending actual people to live and research in space for decades now? Aren’t we even to the point in our relationship with space that the government is transitioning space ferrying from NASA to the private sector?

Yet somehow, the American media reports direct quotes from Ahmadinejad stating his conviction that “The scientific arena is where we could defeat the (West’s) domination”. Meanwhile an important concession made by the president of Iran in nuclear talks is remaining under the radar – and I was really looking forward to hearing the wide-eyed rantings of Liz Cheney today. Rats. I mean a mouse, two turtles and a worm?

0 comments

10:39 PM

February 2, 2010

This will make some news

Iran president Ahmadinejad accepts nuclear deal terms

Think Liz Cheney will be ‘analyzing’ this for FOX tomorrow? Maybe Krauthammer?

Update (Wed 8:09am): The Beeb changes its headline from what is linked above to “US wary as Iran President agrees nuclear deal terms”.  What they must mean by the rewrite is that the US media is wary to report on this story, because little else changed (except if you include the epic mouse, worm and two turtles mission)

Update (Wed 1:23pm): Juan Cole writes of this concession, buried within a longer piece on the banned Iraqi candidates, “It remains to be seen [if] Washington’s surprise win over Iran Wednesday is a prelude to a major geopolitical shift in Baghdad on the eve of the US withdrawal.”