The War As We Saw It

The War As We Saw It
By Buddhika Jayamaha, Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck, Omar Mora, Edward Sandmeier, Yance T. Gray and Jeremy A. Murphy
The New York Times, Sunday 19 August 2007

Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the "battle space" remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers' expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a "time-sensitive target acquisition mission" on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse - namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.

The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.

Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington's insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made - de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government - places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict - as we do now - will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. "Lucky" Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.

In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, "We need security, not free food."

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are - an army of occupation - and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

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Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

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Iran's Islamic Revolution Had Western Blessing

Interview with Iranian journalist and author Roozbeh Mirebrahimi
Inter Press Service, 28/07/08

In his new book on the covert history of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, award-winning journalist Roozbeh Mirebrahimi says that Western powers, including the United States, accelerated events by recognizing and supporting religious revolutionary forces, forcing the shah to leave the country and averting a coup by Iran's army.


In 1953, the United States had deposed the popular government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and his cabinet via a CIA-backed coup d'état. Anti-communist civilians and army officers supported the coup.

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's second departure from Iran, almost a month before the victory of the revolution in February 1979, had dramatically raised concerns among the leaders of the revolution that Washington would try to stage another coup to bring back the shah, who had fled to the United States. However, diplomats who were at the center of events say that an accommodation was reached between Western countries and Iran's Islamic clergy.

In an interview with IPS correspondent Omid Memarian, Mirebrahimi said that the role of the West in facilitating the revolution has been largely ignored, particularly by the Iranian government itself. His Farsi-language book, Untold Aspects of the Iranian Revolution (Khazaran, 2008) is based on an extensive interview with Abbas Amir-Entezam, the spokesman and deputy prime minister in the interim cabinet of Mehdi Bazargan in 1979.

Amir-Entezam, now Iran's longest-serving political prisoner, was an ambassador to Scandinavian countries during the hostage crisis at the US Embassy. He was accused of spying for the US, arrested and sentenced to death in 1981. This was later reduced to life in prison without possibility of parole. Critics suggest the charges were retaliation against his early opposition to theocratic government in Iran.

(Q) There are rumors of a meeting between the French president's representative and Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris, prior to the revolution. What was the significance of this meeting?

(A) While Khomeini was in exile in Neauphle-le-Chateau near Paris and leading the revolution, he was asked by the current world powers to meet and to have a dialogue. He raised some demands, including the shah's removal from Iran and help in avoiding a coup d'état by the Iranian Army. On the other side of the table, the western powers had certain demands too. They were worried about the Soviet Union's empowerment and penetration and a disruption in Iran's oil supply to the west. Khomeini gave the necessary guarantees. These meetings and contacts were taking place in January of 1979, just a few days before the Islamic Revolution in February 1979.

(Q) What made these same western countries turn against Khomeini and others just months after 1979 Revolution?

(A) Western powers had been monitoring the political and social changes inside Iran for a long time. They had been trying to understand the internal changes in Iran through the forces they had in Iran or the people they would send to Iran, such as [former US attorney general] Ramsey Clark. They had realized that Iranian society was on the verge of a fundamental change. They chose to accommodate this change. After recognizing the opposition groups, they facilitated them with opportunities such as media coverage. Through this action, changes accelerated with an unexpected speed. In the next stage, in order to prevent the Soviet Union from taking advantage of these changes, amongst all existing opposition groups they chose the religious forces to stand against communism, which was anti-religion by nature.

(Q) But why after the revolution did they turn against them?

(A) I would say because of the revolutionary atmosphere inside Iran and actions of the empowered radicals, this relationship faced challenges.

(Q) Why did US officials trust Ayatollah Khomeini enough to negotiate with him?

(A) [William H.] Sullivan, the US ambassador to Iran, was keeping a very close watch over Iran's internal affairs and analyzing all the developments. All the army and military affairs, all the macro-level decisions and reactions by the Shah's regime, all the activities of the religious forces, activities of the communists, and all other revolutionary forces were monitored by him. According to documents and books published in the United States and other western countries, around September 1978, four months before the revolution, it was clear that the shah could no longer stay, and that they should be looking for a way to reach an agreement with the opposition. All the contacts and dialogues picked up pace during this time. The religious forces that were surrounding Khomeini at the time were people like Yazdi, Bazargan, Bani sadr, Ghotbzadeh or among the clergy, people like Beheshti and Motahhari... They were educated and relatively technocratic and the west felt that they could rely on them. After the revolution, this trust and relationship remained intact until the invasion of the US Embassy.

(Q) Why did the hostage-taking occur at a time when the new government under Ayatollah Khomeini had a normal relationship with the US?

(A) Ayatollah Khomeini was opposed to radical actions such as invading the US Embassy. For example, this was not the first time the US Embassy was occupied. Right around those early days of the revolution, during the first 10 days, the US Embassy was occupied for the first time by the leftist forces such as Khalgh and other parallel forces, but this received a very strong reaction from Ayatollah Khomeini who sent Ebrahim Yazdi to the embassy to get the revolutionary occupiers out of there. During the second incident, Khomeini was caught off-guard after the incident had already taken place. Pressure by the radicals at that time caused Khomeini to react by standing behind it. That incident caused Prime Minister Bazargan to resign. Prior to this incident, the relationship of the new government with the west was still quite normal. We should not forget that exactly one day after the revolution, the United States officially recognized the new government.

(Q) So what kind of an impact did all this have on the Islamic Revolution?

(A) This book has several features. First, it reexamines the Islamic Republic's portrayal of the history of the revolution, which is a red line in today's Iran. Secondly, Amir Entezam himself has always been a red line for the regime, which has tried so hard to erase his name from all official records. Thirdly, a person from the new generation, born in the year of the revolution, has done all of this research. And I'm very happy that after five years of all kinds of bans and obstacles, this book is getting published.

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Obama the irony man

By Walter Russell Mead
Los Angeles Times, 27/07/08

(Walter Russell Mead, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of "God and Gold: Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World.")

His overseas tour highlights the paradoxes that benefit his campaign.

Reinhold Niebuhr's observation that U.S. history is often ironic has rarely seemed as relevant as it does today.

First, there is the spectacle of the war in Iraq. At the beginning, most observers thought the war would be short and sweet, and many Democrats supported it, despite their qualms, because they believed it was political suicide to oppose it. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was one Democrat who supported the authorization to use force against Saddam Hussein, a vote widely hailed at the time as showing her as tough and realistic. Ironically, her stance on the war gave Barack Obama the opportunity he needed to deny Clinton the Democratic presidential nomination.

The fighting dragged on, the Bush administration floundered without a strategy, and the conflict became deeply unpopular. Expert opinion swung around to the view that the war was hopelessly lost. But at just that moment, with the debate turning to how we could best live with defeat and disaster, Gen. David Petraeus' surge strategy helped turn the war around. It's not over by any means, and the security gains are reversible, but the 18-month troop surge has put the U.S. on the road to a win in Iraq.

But the irony is we have a presidential contest between Obama, whose entire primary candidacy was driven by his unshakable position as the toughest and most pessimistic critic of the war, and John McCain, an unrepentant supporter of the war who called for the surge at a time when the rest of the establishment was running for cover.

Yet during Obama's visit to Iraq last week, it was the presumptive Democratic nominee who was enjoying a love fest with embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, who told the world-including U.S. voters-that Obama's timetable was on the right track and that the quicker U.S. forces got out of Iraq, the better.

The net result, ironically, is that the antiwar candidate who predicted failure is benefiting most from the war's success. Thanks to the surge he opposed, the policy Obama championed-a relatively swift and steady withdrawal of U.S. combat forces over 16 months, conditions permitting-no longer looks dangerous, irresponsible or an invitation to defeat.

Military progress in Iraq is transforming the international situation in other ways and creating more ironies. The Bush administration was unwilling to negotiate with Iran when the U.S. seemed permanently stuck in an Iraq that would only grow worse. But as the situation there improves, the U.S. has a stronger hand-and with its coalition of Western allies still holding together, the administration has gingerly initiated nuclear talks with Tehran.

For Obama, this is a godsend. Once savaged for his calls to negotiate with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nuke-seeking, Holocaust-denying, threat-spewing government, he can now point to the Bush administration's example.

But, ironically, Obama is using his new maneuvering room to toughen his stand rather than soften it. In Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan, he wants to send in more troops, take a harder line with Islamabad and crush the elusive Taliban beneath his heel. He says the administration hasn't fought hard enough and has been too willing, out of a misguided deference for allied opinion, to let countries such as Pakistan push us around. Meanwhile, those soft and dithering Europeans need to do more. More troops. More ambitious goals. Deeper commitment. Oh-and by the way-our goal must be to build democracy in the Mideast, starting with Afghanistan.

In Israel, Obama went to great pains to tell anxious Israelis that his commitment to Israel's security is "unshakable" and that Tel Aviv would have no stronger or more reliable ally than an Obama administration. Like President Bush, Obama has promised Israel that he would never ask it to make concessions that endanger its security.

Obama also appears to have cleared up the ambiguity in his stance on Iran. The world community, he told the Israelis, "must prevent" the mullahs from getting a nuclear bomb. Presumably, that means if negotiations fail to stop Iran from enriching uranium, and sanctions don't do the trick either, the world community will have to explore other options.

Obama's pilgrimage abroad points to a larger truth: In the midst of a bitter political year, a loose bipartisan consensus on the Mideast may be emerging. And, irony of ironies, the consensus, seemingly embraced by Obama, seems closer to Bush's views than to those of the antiwar activists who propelled the Illinois senator to the nomination.

Here's what that consensus says:

On the war on terrorism: The terror threat is real, and we can't prevail by just fighting defense. Ultimately, we have to take this war home to the people who made it, and that means the caves of Afghanistan-and any place in Pakistan that the Pakistanis cannot secure on their own. The military budget will grow; the U.S. presence in Central Asia will increase, at least for now. This is similar to what a Bush White House would do in a third term.

On Iraq: Bush screwed up the war in many ways. But we cannot afford to let hostile forces control this strategic country, nor can we allow Iraq to sink into genocidal strife. We will not leave Iraq like we left Vietnam. Here too Obama's current stance is, in practical terms, very close to Bush's.

On Israel/Palestine: Continuity is the theme once again. Although the U.S. must bring new energy and determination to resolve this dispute, we can't and won't throw Israel under the bus. Israel's confidence in U.S. foreign policy remains a vital asset; to lose it would diminish the chances for peace.

On Iran: Intensive multilateral diplomacy, including direct U.S.-Iranian talks when appropriate, is our preferred strategy to keep Tehran from building a bomb. We are willing, even eager, to live in peace with a non-nuclear Iran. The next president will have to pursue negotiations while considering all the options-a policy that represents, at most, a small evolutionary change from the current Bush position.

Not everyone will like this consensus. But, overall, the U.S. seems to be edging toward it. If the policies flowing from this consensus work (always a big "if" in the Middle East), Iraq could be the first in a string of U.S. successes in the region. That, surely, would be the biggest irony of all: a stable U.S. presence in the Middle East based on a meeting of the minds between Obama and Bush.

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The Benefits of Peaceful Dialogue With Iran

By François Géré
Le Figaro, 23/07/08

July 20, 2008, in Geneva, the American diplomatic corps agreed to meet with Iran's for the first time. It was about time, too, since the Iranian nuclear crisis will enter its sixth year in a few days. It was in August 2002 that the revelation of the clandestine enrichment activities at Natanz set off a confrontation between Iran and the international community. Six years is too long. Yet, we still need to know how to get out of the deadlock.

By war? President Bush and his vice president send mixed signals about that. "All options are on the table," they repeat, while in London on June 16, the American president acknowledged Iran's right to a civilian nuclear industry. In Israel, the potential successors to Mr. Olmert, Shaul Mofaz and Ehud Barack believe it electorally profitable to outdo one another over Iran. Nonetheless, not a day goes by without Western and Eastern - including Israeli - media experts and editorialists presenting the military option as inadequate, ineffective, immediately disastrous, as much for the Middle East as for the whole world. Therefore, let's eliminate that collision course. And on the contrary, let's consider the benefits each of the parties could derive from a lasting agreement.

Iran has everything to gain. The package Javier Solana presented June 14 gave assurances of the advantages that would accrue to Iran in the event of an agreement, advantages in the nuclear domain as well as in that of economic cooperation.

Accepting this honorable offer, respectful of its sovereignty and its rights, would allow Tehran to leave diplomatic isolation, get rid of its image as a state suspected of complicity with terrorist organizations and recover a reputation as a trustworthy partner.

Access to global financial and trade mechanisms would then open. That is all the more essential in that Iran is suffering from economic backwardness that three years of calamitous management have worsened. The results are known and publicly denounced by the new Parliament: galloping inflation, squandered oil income. The mushrooming of global agricultural commodities' prices aggravates the situation. Iran barely profits from mushrooming oil prices because it has to pay higher prices for gasoline it is unable to produce.

For its part, Washington also has a great deal to gain. Such an agreement would allow the US to find the paths to a gradual retreat from Iraq, while maintaining some bases and improving the situation in Afghanistan. It would also be a good opportunity to reestablish regional equilibrium, given the difficulties with certain Sunni states rich in both oil and in radical Islamism! Finally, the United States would rapidly recover lost economic positions.

Israel would be done with the nightmare of a nuclear aggression and, over the long term, enjoy the opportunity to rediscover a natural partner in Iran, instead of an artificial ideological enemy. A pacified Iran could favor solutions in Lebanon - even in Palestine - which would no longer be subject to the logic of a zero sum game.

A durable stabilization of the balance of power in the region could be established, one that would limit the arms race which has already begun. The specter of the military nuclearization of the Persian Gulf would be warded off. The European Union, China and Russia would gain credibility from having asserted themselves as effective mediators in a high-risk diplomatic context.

Under those conditions, the UN would strengthen its status as the unique legitimate international institution. While nonproliferation regimes would see themselves upheld, the IAEA would consolidate its role, which it could strengthen to the extent the Arab-Persian zone develops civilian nuclear energy.

For everyone, the end of the crisis would calm the convulsions of the global economy. Everyone could satisfy their energy needs at prices equitably stabilized. Then, it would be possible to begin the long and indispensable process of rebalancing fossil and nuclear energies. Consequently, there is an enormous amount to be gained and hardly anything to lose. However, this calculation is far from being accepted, so numerous are the forces of negation. For the influence of ideologues must be bridled and the action of warmongers countered. This assumes an end can be put to provocative statements and bellicose displays. This also demands respect for every Iranian's gut need to finally feel as though they are taken into account. Once lost, trust takes a long time to be reestablished. It's out of the question to accept agreements of convenience, or to trust without verifying. We must take Mr. Velayati at his word when he announces a new Iranian position; take Mr. Larijani seriously when he proposes an international consortium to enrich uranium in Iran.

Realism demands that we admit that the acquisition of the nuclear know-how desired by the Shah has occurred. The installations can certainly be destroyed, but it will not be possible to eliminate tens of thousands of human competencies. That knowledge will have to be inserted into a partnership subject to rigorous verification procedures. As the historic opportunity to exit from a global crisis emerges, who would dare bear responsibility for having deliberately lost it?

François Géré is president of the French Institute for Strategic Analysis (Ifas) and author of "L'Iran et le nucléaire" ["Iran and the Nuclear Issue"].

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Putting the Squeeze on Iran

By Michael Jacobson
Guardian, 22/07/08

US-Iranian relations are once again headline news after dropping off the radar for several months in the wake of the US National Intelligence Estimate in December 2007. In recent days, media and public attention has focused on the growing US diplomatic overtures to Tehran, as well as the reports about a possible military attack on Iran that continue to circulate.


With all of the focus on the diplomatic and military fronts, there has been little attention paid lately to the middle ground between the two: the US financial campaign against Iran. Financial pressure may be the most important tool the US has in its arsenal to persuade Iran to abandon all of its nuclear ambitions. While the US approach has been successful in raising the financial costs for Tehran of its nuclear ambitions, the regime shows no signs yet of changing course. To succeed in this effort, the pressure will have to be ramped up significantly, making the choice for Iran far more stark than it is today.

One problem with the current US effort to squeeze Iran is that it has largely been limited to one industry-the financial sector. On this front, the US Treasury has taken the lead and has been quite successful. Over the past two years, the Treasury has made the case to global financial institutions that doing business with Iran is risky business, explaining how Iran is abusing the international financial system by using front companies and deceptive financial practices designed to mask their activities.

Major international financial institutions have been responsive to the Treasury pitch. When confronted with this information, global financial institutions-particularly those based in Europe-have taken action, either terminating or reducing their business with Iran. More surprisingly, in recent months, it appears that banks in the United Arab Emirates and China are also beginning to exercise greater caution in their business dealings with Iran.

While these foreign banks are not legally bound to comply with the broad US sanctions against Iran, many have heeded the Treasury warnings for several reasons. First, banks are focused on maintaining stellar reputations, and avoiding the type of specific risk outlined by the Treasury makes sense from a business perspective. Second, since the US is the world's leading financial centre, these banks are not willing to risk losing access to the US market for the sake of maintaining business ties to designated terrorists or WMD proliferators. Financial institutions are particularly eager to avoid being the "next ABN Amro"-the Dutch bank fined $80m by the US in 2005 for having an inadequate programme in place to ensure compliance with the US sanctions against Iran and Libya. The Financial Times noted that the fine sent "seismic waves through the international banking system," and the "reverberations are still being felt today."

These US-led efforts have certainly had an impact on Iran, even in spite of booming oil prices (though Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's economic mismanagement has also contributed to domestic problems). Inflation has risen to 25%, and Iranian businesses are carrying cash to pay for transactions, due to difficulty opening foreign currency accounts with non-Iranian banks. Iranian importers are now having to pay in advance for commodities and are no longer able to receive revolving lines of credit, and their costs are up 20-30%. The Iranian banking community has been hit particularly hard by the sanctions and US pressure. Bank Sepah is on the brink of collapse and other Iranian banks are struggling as well. Bank Saderat has seen its corresponding banking relationships-which are essential for a bank to operate effectively internationally-fall from 29 in August 2006 to eight by early 2008.

The US pressure on financial institutions has also scared off many foreign investors. In December 2006, then oil minister Kazen Vaziri Hamaneh confirmed that the industry was having difficulty financing its development projects, since "overseas banks and financiers have decreased their cooperation." As a result, Iran's oil production is falling and likely to decrease further without significant foreign investment. This could be a potentially devastating trend for Iran, as some experts believe that without major foreign investment in Iran's aging oil fields, the country's oil exports could eventually disappear. Iran's deputy oil minister expressed the government's concern, stating that "there will not be any oil for export" within 10 years if the situation did not change.

Unfortunately, the US has not applied the same type of pressure to other sectors. For the US to succeed in changing the decision-making calculus in Tehran, it must greatly broaden the financial squeeze. While banks are now being far more cautious in scrutinising their Iran-related transactions, the same is not necessarily true for other businesses. As a result, Iran has been able to find ways to circumvent the current sanctions, and, most troublingly, continues to have access to sensitive technology and embargoed US and European products. One of the primary ways that Iran has been able to do this is through re-exports-having products sent to destinations with loose export control restrictions and then shipped from there to Iran.

The United Arab Emirates remains the main re-export capital for Iran because of its free-wheeling business environment and the countries' long-standing economic ties. Thousands of Iranian businesses are located there and are engaged in this type of trade. To give a sense of the scale of this business, the Dubai Deputy Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimated that in 2006 re-exports constituted 60% of the trade between the two countries.

The deputy president of the Iranian business council in Dubai bluntly assessed the sanctions' limitations, saying that they have "virtually had no effect, to be honest. If someone wants to move something-get it to Iran-it is easy to be done."

To crack down on this type of trade and further tighten the economic noose against Iran will require the US government to target a number of key industries involved in facilitating international trade, including shippers, distributors, freight forwarders and importers-exporters. The US should press these businesses to scale back or at least more closely monitor possible Iran-related transactions. While these industries are certainly very different than banking, the US should nonetheless use the Treasury model as a guide for how to proceed. As a first step, the US needs to conduct a comprehensive analysis of how Iran is abusing these trade-related industries and the extent to which they are using deceptive practices to circumvent the sanctions. As Stuart Levey, under secretary of treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, noted: "Iran's nuclear and missile firms hide behind an array of agents that transact business on their behalf."

Particularly important are cases where Iran managed to disguise the fact that the material was intended for its nuclear or ballistic missile programmes, or that entities such as Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards were involved.

The US should then conduct outreach to the major players engaged in facilitating trade with Iran and give industry-specific briefings, outlining Iran's reckless behaviour. It will be far more difficult for the companies to do business as usual and to plead ignorance after being on the receiving end of such a briefing. The US should also make clear, as they have with the banking sector, that companies which fail to heed these warnings could be the subject of tough enforcement actions.

Focusing these briefings on Iran's specific illicit conduct is important for another reason. In the past, the US has had little success in persuading others to adopt broad sanctions against Iran, as many countries viewed these punitive measures as politically driven. The difference this time around, according to Treasury undersecretary Levey, is that the US has tried to make clear that that the issue is not political, but rather about "conduct that's contrary to international law or international standards and norms."

Finding ways to end Iran's nuclear drive is clearly a top priority for the US and for many of its allies. While success is far from guaranteed, an approach that incorporates aggressive economic pressure remains the most likely path to success. For this approach to work, however, the pressure must be considerably stepped up. Putting additional industries on notice that doing business as usual with Iran is no longer possible would be a good step forward.

Michael Jacobson is a senior fellow in The Washington Institute's Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. His areas of focus include sanctions and financial measures to combat national security threats, as well as other issues related to counterterrorism, national security law, and intelligence reform.

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Israel Planning a September/October Surprise?

By Ray McGovern
17/07/08

(Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. A former Army intelligence officer and CIA analyst, he is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS))

You say you expected more rhetoric than reality from Senators Obama and McCain yesterday in their speeches on Iraq and Afghanistan? Well, that’s certainly what you got.

What I find nonetheless amazing is how they, and the pundits, have taken such little notice of the dramatic change in the political landscape occasioned by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bombshell on July 7"his insistence on a "timetable" for withdrawal of US troops before any accord is reached on their staying past the turn of the year.

Responding to a question at his press conference yesterday, President George W. Bush showed that he was vaguely aware that the timetable is, as Robert Dreyfuss says (in truthout.org, July 7), a "big deal." Bush even alluded haltingly to the possibility of extending the UN mandate still further.

But it is far from clear that Maliki, who is under great domestic pressure, would be able to sell that to the various factions upon which he depends for support, much less to those which he must keep at bay. As Dreyfuss points out, Maliki and his Shiite allies are also under considerable pressure from Iran, which remains the chief ally of the ruling alliance of Shiites. Most important, Maliki is by no means in control of what happens next.

Israel

Here’s where it gets sticky. No one who knows about third rails in US politics would expect the candidates or the fawning corporate media (FCM) to address how those now running Israel are likely to be looking at the implications of a large US troop withdrawal from Iraq next year.

I am remembering how I was pilloried on June 16, 2005, immediately after Congressman John Conyers’ rump-Judiciary Committee hearing in the bowels of the Capitol, for a candid answer to a question from one of his colleagues; i. e., if the invasion of Iraq was not about WMD, and not about non-existent ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda, then why did we attack?

In answer, I used the acronym OIL. O for oil; I for Israel; and L for Logistics, meaning the military bases deemed by neoconservatives as necessary to protect both. Neither the House members present nor the media people seemed to have any problem with oil and military bases as factors-in itself an interesting commentary.

However, the suggestion that one main motive was an attempt to make that part of the Middle East safer for Israel (yes, folks, the neocons really thought that attacking Iraq would do that)"well, that was anathema.

As it is anathema today to suggest that this is still one of the main reasons, besides oil, that Elliott Abrams, other neocons"not to mention Vice President Dick Cheney and his team"insist we must stay, Maliki and his associates be damned. (See the cartoon in the Washington Times today showing Maliki and words telling him "We are NOT leaving.")

Here in Washington we can sit back and quibble over the implications of such remarks by Maliki and other Iraqi leaders. The Israelis have to take such statements seriously. No agreement on US forces staying into 2009 without a timetable for withdrawal? For Tel Aviv, this is getting very serious.

My guess is the Israeli leaders are apoplectic. The fiasco in Iraq clearly has made the region much more dangerous for Israel. There are actually real "terrorists" and "extremists" now in Iraq, and the prospect of US troops leaving has got to be a cause of acute concern in Tel Aviv.

Keeping the US Entangled: Iran

This dramatic change"or even just the specter of it"greatly increases Israel’s incentive to ensure the kind of US involvement in the area that would have to endure for several years. The Israelis need to create "facts on the ground""something to guarantee that Washington will stand by what U.S. candidates, including Sen. Obama, call "our ally." (Never mind that there is no mutual US-Israel defense treaty.) Israel is all too painfully aware that it has only six more months of Bush and Cheney.

The legislation drafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) being so zealously promoted in Congress calls for the equivalent of a blockade of Iran. That would be one way to entangle; there are many others.

The point is that the growing danger that the Israelis perceive will probably prompt them to find a way to get the US involved in hostilities with Iran. Cheney and Bush have pretty much given them that license, with the president regularly pledging to defend "our ally" if Israel is attacked.

All Israel has to do is to arrange to be attacked. Not a problem.

There are endless possibilities among which Israel can choose to catalyze such a confrontation"with or without a wink and a nod from Cheney and Abrams. The so-called "amber light" said to have been given to the Israelis is, I believe, already seen as quite sufficient; they are not likely to feel a need to wait until it turns green.

So far, the resistance of U.S. senior military has been the only real obstacle to the madness of hostilities with Iran. (And one need only read Scott Ritter’s article on Truthdig this week to get a sense for why they would be chary.)

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, has been described as warning the Israelis that a "Third Front" in the Middle East would be a disaster. I think, rather, he was trying to warn anyone who might listen in Washington, including until now tone-deaf lawmakers.

Even if the pundits are correct in suggesting that Mullen is joined by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in trying to resist the neocons and Cheney, Mullen’s tone at his press conference two weeks ago suggested he is fighting a rear guard action-against the "crazies" in the White House, as well as those in Tel Aviv. And when is the last time the crazies lost a political battle with such implications for Israel?

Mullen had just returned from Tel Aviv. He appreciates better than most the fecklessness of endless speculation over whether Israel or the U.S. might strike Iran first. Even if the Israeli leaders have no explicit assurances from the White House, they almost certainly calculate that, once a casus belli is established, their friends in Washington"and the troops they command"are likely to be committed to the fray big time.

Seatbelts Please

Viewed from Tel Aviv it appears an increasingly threatening situation, with more urgent need to "embed" (so to speak) the United States even more deeply in the region"in a confrontation involving both countries with Iran.

A perfect storm is brewing:

– Petraeus ex Machina, with a record of doing Vice President Dick Cheney’s bidding, takes command of CENTCOM in September;

– Sen. McCain’s numbers are likely to be in the toilet at that point (because of the economy as much as anything else);

– McCain will be seen by the White House as the only candidate with something to gain by a wider war (just as by another "terrorist incident");

– The Bush/Cheney months will be down to three;

– And Maliki will not be able to cave in to Washington on the timeline requirement he has publicly set.

In sum, Israel is likely to be preparing a September/October surprise designed to keep the US bogged down in Iraq and in the wider region by provoking hostilities with Iran. And don’t be surprised if it starts as early as August. Israel’s leaders may well plead for understanding on the part of those U.S. officials not tipped off in advance, claiming that they could not distinguish amber from green with their night-vision goggles on.

Would they hesitate? Please tell me who…just who is likely to turn on the siren, pull them over, and even think of giving them a summons-once the patrol car computer confirms their privileged licenses?

(A shorter version of this article appeared first on www.Consortiumnews.com)

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Further escalation of tensions in the Caucasus between Russia and Georgia

By Vladimir Volkov
World Socialist Web Site, 14/07/08

The first ten days of July have witnessed a new intensification of tensions between Russia and Georgia over the status of two breakaway regions of Georgia-Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

While unrecognized by the United Nations, both territories are protected by Moscow and the majority of their populations have Russian passports. For its part, Tbilisi is trying to bring them back under its control, counting on the military and political support of the US and NATO.

In South Ossetia, on the night of July 3-4, Georgian troops used mortars, grenade launchers and small arms to fire on the region’s capital, Tskhinvali. According to North Ossetian authorities, one person died and several were wounded.

Eduard Kokoity, the leader of South Ossetia, declared a general mobilization. He then halted it, however, referring to the need to guarantee peace.

Just before, on the morning of July 3, an attempt was made on the life of the head of the parallel pro-Georgian "provisional administration of South Ossetia," Dmitria Sanakoev. His automobile hit a mine not far from a post of peace-keeping forces, after which it was hit by machine-gun fire.

Sanakoev’s administration was created by the Georgian authorities in November 2006 during "alternative presidential elections" held on the same day as the "official" elections in the republic. The base of this parallel administration is the Georgian population living on the territory of South Ossetia.

At the end of June and in the beginning of July, a series of explosions occurred in several cities of Abkhazia, a region on the shores of the Black Sea bordering Russia. As a result, more than fifteen people were wounded and four were killed:

On June 29 in Gagra two explosions occurred minutes apart-six people were wounded;

On June 30, six more people were wounded in an explosion at a market in Sukhumi;

On the morning of July 6, four bombs went off near the village of Rukhi in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. In the evening of the same day, an explosion occurred in a café in the center of Gali-four people died and six were wounded.

The Abkhazian authorities charged the Georgian secret services with responsibility for these acts of violence. They stated that the organizers of the explosions wanted to demonstrate the incompetence of the Russian peacekeepers and their inability to provide security for the population.

The sharpening of the situation became a pretext for unprecedentedly harsh statements by the US State Department, which placed all the blame for the escalating tensions on Russia.

On Monday, July 7, the American State Department announced, "The United States reiterates its strong support for Georgia’s territorial integrity, and calls for an immediate halt to recent bombings on both sides of the cease-fire line in Abkhazia, Georgia." Calling upon the government of Georgia and the "de facto authorities of Abkhazia" to immediately begin direct negotiations, Washington for the first time openly advocated acting independently of the efforts and positions of Moscow.

Along those lines, the official US State Department representative, Sean McCormack, proposed the deployment of an international peacekeeping contingent in those regions of Abkhazia where the explosions had recently occurred. These police forces would be an alternative to the Collective Peacekeeping Forces, which are composed of Russian troops.

These declarations were seen by Moscow as unacceptable ultimatums.

On July 9, the government newspaper, Russian Gazette wrote that Moscow was being addressed "in a tone resembling a dialog, at a minimum, with a colonial regime," and that Washington was itself "on slippery ground."

The newspaper continued that as long as "the US State Department avoids a mutual dialog with Moscow and Sukhumi and talks with Russia and Abkhazia as if they were colonies, the hot summer of 2008 in the Caucasus will flow into a hot autumn, and then into winter."

Konstantin Zatulin, first deputy of the chairman of the Gosduma’s (the lower house of Russia’s legislature) committee on CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) affairs, suggested that the statement by the US State Department was due to a poor knowledge of geography. "Evidently, they have confused Georgia with the American state of Georgia," declared Zatulin on July 9 in the Russian Gazette. "If they are talking about one of their own states, then the Americans have an unconditional right to invite international police forces. But to invite police into the zone of Georgian-Abkhazian conflict may be undertaken only with the agreement of those two sides. We have the format of a peace-keeping operation which is agreed to by both sides."

Formally, the status of Abkhazia is still regulated by resolutions adopted by the CIS in August 1994. According to these resolutions, Russia is the main guarantor of stability in the breakaway republic and maintains its "peacekeeping" contingent there, deployed in 12-kilometer security zones on both sides of the border river, Inguri.

A further development of these 1994 resolutions was the collective agreement reached at a summit of the CIS in 1996, which introduced a ban on trade and other relations with the unrecognized republic. However, by 1999, Russia relaxed a number of the sanctions, and in the spring of this year virtually cancelled them entirely.

This sharp turn-around was a response to the West’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence, which was declared in February of this year, and also to plans to offer Georgia and Ukraine membership in NATO.

In the prelude to the declaration of Kosovo’s independence, Russia repeatedly stated that this would become a precedent for similar measures with regard to unrecognized regions on the territory of the former USSR, in particular, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Fearing direct geopolitical confrontation with the US, however, Moscow did not decide to formally recognize the independence of these two regions. Instead, in April, a decision was made to begin full-scale economic collaboration with them, which further stoked regional tensions.

The ratcheting up of these tensions began at the end of April and in the beginning of May. Now a more explosive turn in the confrontation is taking place.

On July 8, four Russian aircraft flew over the airspace of South Ossetia, violating de jure the Georgian border. Two days later, On July 10, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged the fact, and explained that Moscow’s actions had allowed "a cooling of hotheads in Tbilisi and had prevented the development of the situation along violent lines, the probability of which was more than real."

In response, on Friday, July 11, the Georgian parliament threatened that the next time Russian military planes violated Georgian air space, Russia would have to "pick up the pieces."

On the same day, the Georgian ambassador in Russia was recalled from Moscow for consultation.

Both Georgia and Russia are appealing to the UN, and have presented resolutions for confirmation by the UN Security Council. Tbilisi wants the international body to condemn Russia’s actions in the zones of conflict as "provoking" Georgia to armed action. Moscow insists that the Georgian side sign an agreement not to use force against the unrecognized republics.

Western Europe is trying to serve as an independent mediator in this conflict. According to a plan by Germany’s Minster of Foreign Affairs, Frank-Walter Steinmayer, the mediation process should pass through three stages. The first stage must be de-escalation-both sides are obligated to renounce force. In the second, Abkhazia must be rebuilt with financial aid from the EU, and Georgian refugees must return. Only in the third stage would discussions begin over the future status of Abkhazia.

This position is an indication that Western European governments are displeased with Washington’s aggressive actions on the territories of the former Soviet Union and that they want to preserve cordial relations with Russia, which is the main supplier of energy resources for Europe.

Aleksandr Rar is director of Programs for Russia and the CIS of the German Council for Foreign Policy. In explaining the attitude of Western European powers to events in the Caucasus, he told the Independent Gazette on July 9 that Washington’s actions are due to the fact that "Mr. Bush is leaving and he quickly needs to show a positive result of his activity, especially since Afghanistan and Iraq are becoming a catastrophe for American policy."

Another indication of the United States’ determination to support Georgia is last week’s visit to Tbilisi by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Within the framework of this visit, which was linked with the signing in the Czech Republic of an agreement to build elements of American anti-missile defense, Rice declared that "frankly, some of the things that the Russians did over the last couple of months added to tensions in the region."

The American Secretary of State also said that admitting Georgia to the Membership Action Plan (MAP) for NATO would help regulate the frozen conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, "therefore the USA will try to add Georgia to the MAP."

If this decision is made-which would be in December of this year-for the first time since the end of the "Cold War," the world will confront the danger of direct military confrontation between Russia, which as before maintains a powerful arsenal of nuclear weapons, and NATO.

The geopolitical interests of the American ruling elite are the main source of the growing tension in the Caucasus. The weakening of the American economy and the desire to secure control over the key routes for the supply of energy resources to the world market from the regions of the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus and Central Asia, drive American imperialism to military adventures and aggressive measures vis-à-vis dependent regimes.

The wars against Iraq and Afghanistan are only the clearest examples of this explosion of imperialist ambitions. Within this context, Georgia is seen by Washington as the most crucial outpost in the Caucasus; the United States is systematically arming and supplying Georgia’s army.

The Georgian army has about thirty thousand men at the moment, out of which two thousand were sent last fall into Iraq.

The geopolitical goals of the USA collide with the unwillingness of Moscow to make concessions in those regions which traditionally have been seen as Russian spheres of influence. The strengthening of the Russian state in recent years due to the high prices of oil and gas worldwide has made the ruling elite in Russia more confident in its power and less compliant.

Armed conflicts in the Caucasus erupted in the 1980s and 1990s in conjunction with the fall of the Soviet Union. Tens of thousands lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands became refugees. Nothing can more starkly demonstrate the fatal nature of the processes of the last 20 years than the fact that the destruction of the Soviet Union has brought to the peoples of the region not peace and a flourishing life, but the growth of social inequality and the danger of bloody wars with incalculable catastrophic consequences.

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