Turkish Troops Chase Kurd Guerrilla into Iraq

The Turkish Incursion

By PATRICK COCKBURN

Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish guerrillas early Wednesday. The incursion, though limited in scope, gives the crisis in Iraq a new twist.

"It is not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands," said an official in south-east Turkey where there has recently been an upsurge in activity by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Turkish Kurd guerrillas.

Nevertheless, the US will be worried that its entanglement in Iraq is about to become even more complicated if American troops and aircraft are asked to counter even a limited Turkish assault.

The US military said it could not confirm the reports but was "very concerned". Turkey has been threatening an attack into Iraqi Kurdistan in recent weeks and, last weekend, Robert Gates, the US Defense Secretary, warned Ankara against a foray into northern Iraq.

The PKK have several base areas in Iraqi Kurdistan, including the rugged Kandil mountains on the Iranian border, a natural fortress providing ideal terrain for guerrillas. Even if the Turks did send a large military force into northern Iraq, as it did last in 1997, it would be difficult to locate, still less destroy, the PKK.

The scale of PKK activity in Kurdish-populated areas of south-eastern Turkey is still limited but the Turkish army and moderate Islamic government have threatened retaliation. Both have a motive for demonstrating their patriotic credentials in the approach to parliamentary elections this summer.

In a sign of the limited communication between the Turkish government and military, the Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, denied that a cross-border operation had taken place. "There is no such thing, no entry to another country," Mr Gul said. "If such a thing happens we would announce it."

The Iraqi government was also eager to play down reports of an attack, despite statements by Turkish military officials. Iraq's Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said there had been "no major operations" by Turkey though there had been a build-up of Turkish troops.

Turkey also has an incentive to put pressure on the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan regional government because a referendum is to be held on the future of the oil province of Kirkuk before the end of this year.

Patrick Cockburn is the author of 'The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq', a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award for best non-fiction book of 2006.

al-Sadr: US behind all of Iraq's woes

Al-Manar TV reports that the head of Iraq's Sadr bloc, Sayyed Moqtada al-Sadr, has said the US is responsible for all of Iraq's woes, calling on Arab nations to help end Iraq's suffering.
In comments during an interview on Iraqi state television, Sadr said the US is behind the sectarian violence in Iraq, the schism between Iraqi ethnic groups and the country's economic hardships.
He called for a "cultural resistance'' against Western influences and what he called the West's attack on Islam.
"We are now facing a brutal Western assault against Islam,'' he said.
"This agenda must be countered with a cultural resistance,'' he said, explaining that sectarian divisions in Iraq are part of that Western attack on Islam.
Sayyed al-Sadr acknowledged that both his movement and the Mahdi Army fighters have "shortcomings'' but added that these are exaggerated by the US which, he said, seeks to blemish their image.
"The occupier wants to tarnish the image of this army and this (Sadrist) trend,'' he said, adding "I disown till Judgment Day anyone from the army or the trend who attacks an innocent Iraqi''.
Al-Sadr's delivered a fiery anti-US sermon at the Friday prayers in the holy city of Kufa on May 25, demanding that US occupation troops leave Iraq.
Al-Sadr also warned Arab nations that Iraq's violence will spread to them unless they begin to "cooperate as much as they can to end the suffering of Iraqis''.
"Now Iraq is a battlefield to defend the Arabs and the Muslims. What we are seeing now from the blood-letting will happen in their countries later," Sadr said.
Sayyed al-Sadr, however, said he had no intention to travel to Arab nations to enlist their help.
Al-Sadr said Iraqis must settle their own affairs, rejecting any form of outside interference.

Sunni insurgent group agrees to cease-fire with al-Qaida

Iraq New Monitor reports that a Sunni insurgent group said Wednesday it has reached a cease-fire with al-Qaida in Iraq. The claim comes as the conflict between the Islamic Army in Iraq and al-Qaida in Iraq, which is also Sunni, has intensified in recent months. Last week, the two groups were believed to have clashed in the Baghdad neighborhood of Amariyah.
"This agreement is based on a cease-fire between the two parties that bans all armed acts and all other activities that could cause attrition," Ibrahim al-Shimmari, spokesman for the Islamic Army in Iraq, told Al-Jazeera television in a telephone interview. "The armistice started at dawn Wednesday."
Al-Jazeera showed a copy of the cease-fire, which stipulated "halting all escalation, including media" and "establishing a judicial committee on pending issues between the two parties." Al-Shimmari said the cease-fire "aims to safeguard Islamic blood and not give a chance to Iraq's enemies from America and Iran." "We hope that relations between the Islamic Army and al-Qaida return to the early days of jihad (holy struggle) when we were very close to those brothers," al-Shimmari added.
Divisions among Iraq's extremists became more apparent two months ago when Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who heads the al-Qaida front group Islamic State in Iraq, urged militants in an audiotape to stop fighting one another and unite against American forces. He told rival groups he wanted to end their disagreements and vowed to punish any of his fighters who kill other militants.
The Islamic State in Iraq announced a 10-member shadow government "Cabinet" in April as an alternative to the U.S.-backed, Shiite-led administration of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The conflict came to a head when al-Shimmari said he did not recognize al-Qaida's claim to a state. He told Al-Jazeera television in an April interview that there could be no state "under crusader occupation." In an interview with Al-Jazeera in April, al-Shimmari accused al-Qaida of killing 30 members of the Islamic Army.

Iraqi Lawmakers Pass Resolution That May Force End to Occupation

By Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on June 5, 2007,
http://www.alternet.org/story/53230/

While most observers are focused on the U.S. Congress as it continues to issue new rubber stamps to legitimize Bush's permanent designs on Iraq, nationalists in the Iraqi parliament -- now representing a majority of the body -- continue to make progress toward bringing an end to their country's occupation.

The parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the U.N. mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose cabinet is dominated by Iraqi separatists, may veto the measure.

The law requires the parliament's approval of any future extensions of the mandate, which have previously been made by Iraq's prime minister. It is an enormous development; lawmakers reached in Baghdad today said that they do in fact plan on blocking the extension of the coalition's mandate when it comes up for renewal six months from now.

Reached today by phone in Baghdad, Nassar al Rubaie, the head of the Al-Sadr bloc in Iraq's Council of Representatives, said, "This new binding resolution will prevent the government from renewing the U.N. mandate without the parliament's permission. They'll need to come back to us by the end of the year, and we will definitely refuse to extend the U.N. mandate without conditions." Rubaie added: "There will be no such a thing as a blank check for renewing the U.N. mandate anymore, any renewal will be attached to a timetable for a complete withdrawal."

Without the cover of the U.N. mandate, the continued presence of coalition troops in Iraq would become, in law as in fact, an armed occupation, at which point it would no longer be politically tenable to support it. While polls show that most Iraqis consider U.S. forces to be occupiers rather than liberators or peacekeepers -- 92 percent of respondents said as much in a 2004 survey by the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies -- the U.N. mandate confers an aura of legitimacy on the continuing presence of foreign troops on Iraq's streets, even four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The resolution was initiated when a majority of Iraqi lawmakers signed a nonbinding legislative petition two weeks ago that called on the Iraqi government to demand a withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country.

While the issue of the Multinational Force's (MNF) mandate has been virtually ignored by the American media, it has been a point of fierce contention in Baghdad. Last fall, just after the midterm elections in the United States, a coalition of Iraqi nationalists in the parliament tried to attach conditions to the mandate's extension.

Iraqi lawmaker Jabir Habib (a Shia closely aligned with the al-Sadrist Movement) said in an interview last fall that the Iraqi Assembly had been poised to vote on the issue. "We spent the last months discussing the conditions we wanted to add to the mandate," he said, "and the majority of the parliament decided on three major conditions. These conditions included pulling the coalition forces out of the cities and transferring responsibility for security to the Iraqi government, giving Iraqis the right to recruit, train, equip and command the Iraqi security forces, and requiring that the U.N. mandate expire and be reviewed every six months instead of every 12 months."

Lawmakers said that while they likely had enough support to require a timetable for withdrawal as a condition of the mandate's renewal last year, they were sidelined by al-Maliki when the prime minister sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council requesting an extension without consulting members of parliament. The move outraged lawmakers.

In a phone interview just after the extension, Hassan al-Shammari, a Shia parliamentarian representing the al-Fadila party, said: "We had a closed session two days ago, and we were supposed to vote on the mandate in 10 days. I can not believe the mandate was just approved without our knowledge or input." Saleh al-Mutlaq, a secular Sunni lawmaker, was also shocked when we spoke with him last fall. "This is totally unexpected," he said. "It is another example of the prime minister dismissing the views of the parliament and monopolizing all power."

Today's resolution means that Maliki will not be able to make that claim this time around. Reached by phone today in Amman, Jordan, following the vote, al-Mutlaq said: "The parliament is more powerful now -- we can block the renewal of the U.N. mandate and demand to attach a timetable to it."

Iraq's government faces a crisis of legitimacy, in large part due to its refusal to demand the withdrawal of U.S. forces long favored by as many as four out of five Iraqis. According to a poll last year by the Project on International Policy Attitudes, 80 percent of Iraqis believe the U.S. plans to maintain permanent military bases in the country and three out of four believe that if their government were to demand a timetable for withdrawal, Washington would ignore it (according to the poll's authors, that finding was a major driver of the significant support among all groups of Iraqis for attacking coalition troops).

It is possible, even probable, that the Maliki regime will veto the resolution passed today. The White House's separatist allies in Baghdad have consistently found ways to bypass the assembly. Al Mutlaq said today that the nationalist bloc probably doesn't have the the two-thirds majority required to override a veto.

He warned, however, that the more the al-Maliki regime does to sideline the Iraqi parliament, the more Iraqis will be compelled to turn to violent resistance to the occupation. He said: "It will lead to many groups withdrawing from the political process and could only make things even worse."

The resolution passed today is only one part of the nationalists' effort to bring about a U.S. withdrawal. Nassar al Rubaie said of the measure's passage: "All of this is just our backup plan, but our other and more specific resolution setting a timetable will come soon." He promised that nationalists in parliament would force debate on a "clean" and binding resolution requiring occupation forces to withdrawal from the country in the immediate future. "We'll start the deliberations next week," he said. "We have enough signatures for that one already."

Raed Jarrar is Iraq consultant to the American Friends Service Committee. He blogs at Raed in the Middle. Joshua Holland is a senior writer at AlterNet.

To bomb or not to bomb - two views

The Case for Bombing Iran: I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.

BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Although many persist in denying it, I continue to believe that what Sept 11, 2001, did was to plunge us headlong into nothing less than another world war. I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe that what is generally known as the Cold War was actually World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great conflict than it does to World War II. Like the Cold War, as the military historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize, the one we are now in has ideological roots, pitting us against Islamofascism, yet another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of communism; it is global in scope; it is being fought with a variety of weapons, not all of them military; and it is likely to go on for decades.

What follows from this way of looking at the last five years is that the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they are regarded as self-contained wars in their own right. Instead we have to see them as fronts or theaters that have been opened up in the early stages of a protracted global struggle. The same thing is true of Iran. As the currently main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11, and as (according to the State Department's latest annual report on the subject) the main sponsor of the terrorism that is Islamofascism's weapon of choice, Iran too is a front in World War IV. Moreover, its effort to build a nuclear arsenal makes it the potentially most dangerous one of all.

The Iranians, of course, never cease denying that they intend to build a nuclear arsenal, and yet in the same breath they openly tell us what they intend to do with it. Their first priority, as repeatedly and unequivocally announced by their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is to "wipe Israel off the map"--a feat that could not be accomplished by conventional weapons alone.

But Ahmadinejad's ambitions are not confined to the destruction of Israel. He also wishes to dominate the greater Middle East, and thereby to control the oilfields of the region and the flow of oil out of it through the Persian Gulf. If he acquired a nuclear capability, he would not even have to use it in order to put all this within his reach. Intimidation and blackmail by themselves would do the trick.

Nor are Ahmadinejad's ambitions merely regional in scope. He has a larger dream of extending the power and influence of Islam throughout Europe, and this too he hopes to accomplish by playing on the fear that resistance to Iran would lead to a nuclear war. And then, finally, comes the largest dream of all: what Ahmadinejad does not shrink from describing as "a world without America." Demented though he may be, I doubt that Ahmadinejad is so crazy as to imagine that he could wipe America off the map even if he had nuclear weapons. But what he probably does envisage is a diminution of the American will to oppose him: that is, if not a world without America, he will settle, at least in the short run, for a world without much American influence.

Not surprisingly, the old American foreign-policy establishment and many others say that these dreams are nothing more than the fantasies of a madman. They also dismiss those who think otherwise as neoconservative alarmists trying to drag this country into another senseless war that is in the interest not of the United States but only of Israel. But the irony is that Ahmadinejad's dreams are more realistic than the dismissal of those dreams as merely insane delusions. To understand why, an analogy with World War III may help.

At certain points in that earlier war, some of us feared that the Soviets might seize control of the oil fields of the Middle East, and that the West, faced with a choice between surrendering to their dominance or trying to stop them at the risk of a nuclear exchange, would choose surrender. In that case, we thought, the result would be what in those days went by the name of Finlandization.

In Europe, where there were large Communist parties, Finlandization would take the form of bringing these parties to power so that they could establish "red Vichy" regimes like the one already in place in Finland--regimes whose subservience to the Soviet will in all things, domestic and foreign alike, would make military occupation unnecessary and would therefore preserve a minimal degree of national independence.

In the United States, where there was no Communist Party to speak of, we speculated that Finlandization would take a subtler form. In the realm of foreign affairs, politicians and pundits would arise to celebrate the arrival of a new era of peace and friendship in which the Cold War policy of containment would be scrapped, thus giving the Soviets complete freedom to expand without encountering any significant obstacles. And in the realm of domestic affairs, Finlandization would mean that the only candidates running for office with a prayer of being elected would be those who promised to work toward a sociopolitical system more in harmony with the Soviet model than the unjust capitalist plutocracy under which we had been living.

Of course, by the grace of God, the dissidents behind the Iron Curtain and Ronald Reagan, we won World War III and were therefore spared the depredations that Finlandization would have brought. Alas, we are far from knowing what the outcome of World War IV will be. But in the meantime, looking at Europe today, we already see the unfolding of a process analogous to Finlandization: it has been called, rightly, Islamization. Consider, for example, what happened when, only a few weeks ago, the Iranians captured 15 British sailors and marines and held them hostage. Did the Royal Navy, which once boasted that it ruled the waves, immediately retaliate against this blatant act of aggression, or even threaten to do so unless the captives were immediately released? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, using force was the last thing in the world the British contemplated doing, as they made sure to announce. Instead they relied on the "soft power" so beloved of "sophisticated" Europeans and their American fellow travelers.

But then, as if this show of impotence were not humiliating enough, the British were unable even to mobilize any of that soft power. The European Union, of which they are a member, turned down their request to threaten Iran with a freeze of imports. As for the U.N., under whose very auspices they were patrolling the international waters in which the sailors were kidnapped, it once again showed its true colors by refusing even to condemn the Iranians. The most the Security Council could bring itself to do was to express "grave concern." Meanwhile, a member of the British cabinet was going the Security Council one better. While registering no objection to propaganda pictures of the one female hostage, who had been forced to shed her uniform and dress for the cameras in Muslim clothing, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt pronounced it "deplorable" that she should have permitted herself to be photographed with a cigarette in her mouth. "This," said Hewitt, "sends completely the wrong message to our young people."

According to John Bolton, our former ambassador to the U.N., the Iranians were testing the British to see if there would be any price to pay for committing what would once have been considered an act of war. Having received his answer, Ahmadinejad could now reap the additional benefit of, as the British commentator Daniel Johnson puts it, "posing as a benefactor" by releasing the hostages, even while ordering more attacks in Iraq and even while continuing to arm terrorist organizations, whether Shiite (Hezbollah) or Sunni (Hamas). For fanatical Shiites though Ahmadinejad and his ilk assuredly are, they are obviously willing to set sectarian differences aside when it comes to forging jihadist alliances against the infidels.

If, then, under present circumstances Ahmadinejad could bring about the extraordinary degree of kowtowing that resulted from the kidnapping of the British sailors, what might he not accomplish with a nuclear arsenal behind him--nuclear bombs that could be fitted on missiles capable of reaching Europe? As to such a capability, Robert G. Joseph, the U.S. Special Envoy for Nuclear Non-Proliferation, tells us that Iran is "expanding what is already the largest offensive missile force in the region. Moreover, it is reported to be working closely with North Korea, the world's No. 1 missile proliferator, to develop even more capable ballistic missiles." This, Joseph goes on, is why "analysts agree that in the foreseeable future Iran will be armed with medium- and long-range ballistic missiles," and it is also why "we could wake up one morning to find that Iran is holding Berlin, Paris or London hostage to whatever its demands are then."

As with Finlandization, Islamization extends to the domestic realm, too. In one recent illustration of this process, as reported in the British press, "schools in England are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils . . . whose beliefs include Holocaust denial." But this is an equal-opportunity capitulation, since the schools are also eliminating lessons about the Crusades because "such lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques."

But why single out England? If anything, much more, and worse, has been going on in other European countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands. All of these countries have large and growing Muslim populations demanding that their religious values and sensibilities be accommodated at the expense of the traditional values of the West, and even in some instances of the law. Yet rather than insisting that, like all immigrant groups before them, they assimilate to Western norms, almost all European politicians have been cravenly giving in to the Muslims' outrageous demands.

As in the realm of foreign affairs, if this much can be accomplished under present circumstances, what might not be done if the process were being backed by Iranian nuclear blackmail? Already some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia. Whatever chance there may still be of heading off this eventuality would surely be lessened by the menacing shadow of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons, and only too ready to put them into the hands of the terrorist groups to whom it is even now supplying rockets and other explosive devices.

And the United States? As would have been the case with Finlandization, we would experience a milder form of Islamization here at home. But not in the area of foreign policy. Like the Europeans, confronted by Islamofascists armed by Iran with nuclear weapons, we would become more and more hesitant to risk resisting the emergence of a world shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes. For even if Ahmadinejad did not yet have missiles with a long enough range to hit the United States, he would certainly be able to unleash a wave of nuclear terror against us. If he did, he would in all likelihood act through proxies, for whom he would with characteristic brazenness disclaim any responsibility even if the weapons used by the terrorists were to bear telltale markings identifying them as of Iranian origin. At the same time, the opponents of retaliation and other antiwar forces would rush to point out that there was good reason to accept this disclaimer and, markings or no markings (could they not have been forged?), no really solid evidence to refute it.

In any event, in these same centers of opinion, such a scenario is regarded as utter nonsense. In their view, none of the things it envisages would follow even if Ahmadinejad should get the bomb, because the fear of retaliation would deter him from attacking us just as it deterred the Soviets in World War III. For our part, moreover, the knowledge that we were safe from attack would preclude any danger of our falling into anything like Islamization.

But listen to what Bernard Lewis, the greatest authority of our time on the Islamic world, has to say in this context on the subject of deterrence:

MAD, mutual assured destruction, [was effective] right through the cold war. Both sides had nuclear weapons. Neither side used them, because both sides knew the other would retaliate in kind. This will not work with a religious fanatic [like Ahmadinejad]. For him, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. We know already that [Iran's leaders] do not give a damn about killing their own people in great numbers. We have seen it again and again. In the final scenario, and this applies all the more strongly if they kill large numbers of their own people, they are doing them a favor. They are giving them a quick free pass to heaven and all its delights.

Nor are they inhibited by a love of country:

We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.

These were the words of the Ayatollah Khomeini, who ruled Iran from 1979 to 1989, and there is no reason to suppose that his disciple Ahmadinejad feels any differently.

Still less would deterrence work where Israel was concerned. For as the Ayatollah Rafsanjani (who is supposedly a "pragmatic conservative") has declared:

If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession . . . application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.

In other words, Israel would be destroyed in a nuclear exchange, but Iran would survive.

In spite of all this, we keep hearing that all would be well if only we agreed--in the currently fashionable lingo--to "engage" with Iran, and that even if the worst came to the worst we could--to revert to the same lingo--"live" with a nuclear Iran. It is when such things are being said that, alongside the resemblance between now and World War III, a parallel also becomes evident between now and the eve of World War II.

By 1938, Germany under Adolf Hitler had for some years been rearming in defiance of its obligations under the Versailles treaty and other international agreements. Yet even though Hitler in :"Mein Kampf" had explicitly spelled out the goals he was now preparing to pursue, scarcely anyone took him seriously. To the imminent victims of the war he was soon to start, Hitler's book and his inflammatory speeches were nothing more than braggadocio or, to use the more colorful word Hannah Arendt once applied to Adolf Eichmann, rodomontade: the kind of red meat any politician might throw to his constituents at home. Hitler might sound at times like a madman, but in reality he was a shrewd operator with whom one could--in the notorious term coined by the London Times--"do business." The business that was done under this assumption was the Munich Agreement of 1938, which the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared had brought "peace in our time."

It was thanks to Munich that "appeasement" became one of the dirtiest words in the whole of our political vocabulary. Yet appeasement had always been an important and entirely respectable tool of diplomacy, signifying the avoidance of war through the alleviation of the other side's grievances. If Hitler had been what his eventual victims imagined he was--that is, a conventional statesman pursuing limited aims and using the threat of war only as a way of strengthening his bargaining position--it would indeed have been possible to appease him and thereby to head off the outbreak of another war.

But Hitler was not a conventional statesman and, although for tactical reasons he would sometimes pretend otherwise, he did not have limited aims. He was a revolutionary seeking to overturn the going international system and to replace it with a new order dominated by Germany, which also meant the political culture of Nazism. As such, he offered only two choices: resistance or submission. Finding this reality unbearable, the world persuaded itself that there was a way out, a third alternative, in negotiations. But given Hitler's objectives, and his barely concealed lust for war, negotiating with him could not conceivably have led to peace. It could have had only one outcome, which was to buy him more time to start a war under more favorable conditions. As most historians now agree, if he had been taken at his own word about his true intentions, he could have been stopped earlier and defeated at an infinitely lower cost.

Which brings us back to Ahmadinejad. Like Hitler, he is a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism. Like Hitler, too, he is entirely open about his intentions, although--again like Hitler--he sometimes pretends that he wants nothing more than his country's just due. In the case of Hitler in 1938, this pretense took the form of claiming that no further demands would be made if sovereignty over the Sudetenland were transferred from Czechoslovakia to Germany. In the case of Ahmadinejad, the pretense takes the form of claiming that Iran is building nuclear facilities only for peaceful purposes and not for the production of bombs.

But here we come upon an interesting difference between then and now. Whereas in the late 1930s almost everyone believed, or talked himself into believing, that Hitler was telling the truth when he said he had no further demands to make after Munich, no one believes that Ahmadinejad is telling the truth when he says that Iran has no wish to develop a nuclear arsenal. In addition, virtually everyone agrees that it would be best if he were stopped, only not, God forbid, with military force--not now, and not ever.

But if military force is ruled out, what is supposed to do the job?

Well, to begin with, there is that good old standby, diplomacy. And so, for 3 1/2 years, even predating the accession of Ahmadinejad to the presidency, the diplomatic gavotte has been danced with Iran, in negotiations whose carrot-and-stick details no one can remember--not even, I suspect, the parties involved. But since, to say it again, Ahmadinejad is a revolutionary with unlimited aims and not a statesman with whom we can "do business," all this negotiating has had the same result as Munich had with Hitler. That is, it has bought the Iranians more time in which they have moved closer and closer to developing nuclear weapons.

Then there are sanctions. As it happens, sanctions have very rarely worked in the past. Worse yet, they have usually ended up hurting the hapless people of the targeted country while leaving the leadership unscathed. Nevertheless, much hope has been invested in them as a way of bringing Ahmadinejad to heel. Yet thanks to the resistance of Russia and China, both of which have reasons of their own to go easy on Iran, it has proved enormously difficult for the Security Council to impose sanctions that could even conceivably be effective. At first, the only measures to which Russia and China would agree were much too limited even to bite. Then, as Iran continued to defy Security Council resolutions and to block inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency that it was bound by treaty to permit, not even the Russians and the Chinese were able to hold out against stronger sanctions. Once more, however, these have had little or no effect on the progress Iran is making toward the development of a nuclear arsenal. On the contrary: they, too, have bought the Iranians additional time in which to move ahead.

Since hope springs eternal, some now believe that the answer lies in more punishing sanctions. This time, however, their purpose would be not to force Iran into compliance, but to provoke an internal uprising against Ahmadinejad and the regime as a whole. Those who advocate this course tell us that the "mullocracy" is very unpopular, especially with young people, who make up a majority of Iran's population. They tell us that these young people would like nothing better than to get rid of the oppressive and repressive and corrupt regime under which they now live and to replace it with a democratic system. And they tell us, finally, that if Iran were so transformed, we would have nothing to fear from it even if it were to acquire nuclear weapons.

Once upon a time, under the influence of Bernard Lewis and others I respect, I too subscribed to this school of thought. But after three years and more of waiting for the insurrection they assured us back then was on the verge of erupting, I have lost confidence in their prediction. Some of them blame the Bush administration for not doing enough to encourage an uprising, which is why they have now transferred their hopes to sanctions that would inflict so much damage on the Iranian economy that the entire populace would rise up against the rulers. Yet whether or not this might happen under such circumstances, there is simply no chance of getting Russia and China, or the Europeans for that matter, to agree to the kind of sanctions that are the necessary precondition.

At the outset I stipulated that the weapons with which we are fighting World War IV are not all military--that they also include economic, diplomatic, and other nonmilitary instruments of power. In exerting pressure for reform on countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, these nonmilitary instruments are the right ones to use. But it should be clear by now to any observer not in denial that Iran is not such a country. As we know from Iran's defiance of the Security Council and the IAEA even while the United States has been warning Ahmadinejad that "all options" remain on the table, ultimatums and threats of force can no more stop him than negotiations and sanctions have managed to do. Like them, all they accomplish is to buy him more time.

In short, the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force--any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938.

Since a ground invasion of Iran must be ruled out for many different reasons, the job would have to be done, if it is to be done at all, by a campaign of air strikes. Furthermore, because Iran's nuclear facilities are dispersed, and because some of them are underground, many sorties and bunker-busting munitions would be required. And because such a campaign is beyond the capabilities of Israel, and the will, let alone the courage, of any of our other allies, it could be carried out only by the United States. Even then, we would probably be unable to get at all the underground facilities, which means that, if Iran were still intent on going nuclear, it would not have to start over again from scratch. But a bombing campaign would without question set back its nuclear program for years to come, and might even lead to the overthrow of the mullahs.

The opponents of bombing--not just the usual suspects but many both here and in Israel who have no illusions about the nature and intentions and potential capabilities of the Iranian regime--disagree that it might end in the overthrow of the mullocracy. On the contrary, they are certain that all Iranians, even the democratic dissidents, would be impelled to rally around the flag. And this is only one of the worst-case scenarios they envisage. To wit: Iran would retaliate by increasing the trouble it is already making for us in Iraq. It would attack Israel with missiles armed with nonnuclear warheads but possibly containing biological or chemical weapons. There would be a vast increase in the price of oil, with catastrophic consequences for every economy in the world, very much including our own. The worldwide outcry against the inevitable civilian casualties would make the anti-Americanism of today look like a lovefest.

I readily admit that it would be foolish to discount any or all of these scenarios. Each of them is, alas, only too plausible. Nevertheless, there is a good response to them, and it is the one given by John McCain. The only thing worse than bombing Iran, McCain has declared, is allowing Iran to get the bomb.

And yet those of us who agree with McCain are left with the question of whether there is still time. If we believe the Iranians, the answer is no. In early April, at Iran's Nuclear Day festivities, Ahmadinejad announced that the point of no return in the nuclearization process had been reached. If this is true, it means that Iran is only a small step away from producing nuclear weapons. But even supposing that Ahmadinejad is bluffing, in order to convince the world that it is already too late to stop him, how long will it take before he actually turns out to have a winning hand?

If we believe the CIA, perhaps as much as 10 years. But CIA estimates have so often been wrong that they are hardly more credible than the boasts of Ahmadinejad. Other estimates by other experts fall within the range of a few months to six years. Which is to say that no one really knows. And because no one really knows, the only prudent--indeed, the only responsible--course is to assume that Ahmadinejad may not be bluffing, or may only be exaggerating a bit, and to strike at him as soon as it is logistically possible.

In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush made a promise:

We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.

In that speech, the president was referring to Iraq, but he has made it clear on a number of subsequent occasions that the same principle applies to Iran. Indeed, he has gone so far as to say that if we permit Iran to build a nuclear arsenal, people 50 years from now will look back and wonder how we of this generation could have allowed such a thing to happen, and they will rightly judge us as harshly as we today judge the British and the French for what they did and what they failed to do at Munich in 1938. I find it hard to understand why George W. Bush would have put himself so squarely in the dock of history on this issue if he were resigned to leaving office with Iran in possession of nuclear weapons, or with the ability to build them. Accordingly, my guess is that he intends, within the next 21 months, to order air strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities from the three U.S. aircraft carriers already sitting nearby.

But if that is what he has in mind, why is he spending all this time doing the diplomatic dance and wasting so much energy on getting the Russians and the Chinese to sign on to sanctions? The reason, I suspect, is that--to borrow a phrase from Robert Kagan--he has been "giving futility its chance." Not that this is necessarily a cynical ploy. For it may well be that he has entertained the remote possibility of a diplomatic solution under which Iran would follow the example of Libya in voluntarily giving up its nuclear program. Besides, once having played out the diplomatic string, and thereby having demonstrated that to him force is truly a last resort, Mr. Bush would be in a stronger political position to endorse John McCain's formula that the only thing worse than bombing Iran would be allowing Iran to build a nuclear bomb--and not just to endorse that assessment, but to act on it.

If this is what Mr. Bush intends to do, it goes, or should go, without saying that his overriding purpose is to ensure the security of this country in accordance with the vow he took upon becoming president, and in line with his pledge not to stand by while one of the world's most dangerous regimes threatens us with one of the world's most dangerous weapons.

But there is, it has been reported, another consideration that is driving Mr. Bush. According to a recent news story in the New York Times, for example, Bush has taken to heart what "officials from 21 governments in and around the Middle East warned at a meeting of Arab leaders in March"--namely, "that Iran's drive for atomic technology could result in the beginning of 'a grave and destructive nuclear arms race in the region.' " Which is to say that he fears that local resistance to Iran's bid for hegemony in the greater Middle East through the acquisition of nuclear weapons could have even more dangerous consequences than a passive capitulation to that bid by the Arab countries. For resistance would spell the doom of all efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and it would vastly increase the chances of their use.

I have no doubt that this ominous prospect figures prominently in the president's calculations. But it seems evident to me that the survival of Israel, a country to which George W. Bush has been friendlier than any president before him, is also of major concern to him--a concern fully coincident with his worries over a Middle Eastern arms race.

Much of the world has greeted Ahmadinejad's promise to wipe Israel off the map with something close to insouciance. In fact, it could almost be said of the Europeans that they have been more upset by Ahmadinejad's denial that a Holocaust took place 60 years ago than by his determination to set off one of his own as soon as he acquires the means to do so. In some of European countries, Holocaust denial is a crime, and the European Union only recently endorsed that position. Yet for all their retrospective remorse over the wholesale slaughter of Jews back then, the Europeans seem no readier to lift a finger to prevent a second Holocaust than they were the first time around.

Not so George W. Bush, a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this president, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.

Mr. Podhoretz is editor-at-large of Commentary. His new book, "World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism," will be released by Doubleday on Sept. 11. This essay, in somewhat different form, was delivered as an address at a conference, "Is It 1938 Again?," held by the Center for Jewish Studies at Queens College, City University of New York, in April.

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Poddy's Crazy Prayer - Bomb Iran: For Israel and America!

By GARY LEUPP

Norman Podhoretz, editor-at-large of Commentary magazine and (with Irving Kristol) one of the grandfathers of the neoconservative movement, recently published an op-ed column in the Wall Street Journal that literally constitutes a prayer for President Bush to attack Iraq. Unsubtly titled "The Case for Bombing Iran: I hope and pray that President Bush will do it," it is a work of eloquently simplistic and hysterical propaganda, truly a model of the genre. I recommend it as a seminal document of the Bush era, prior to what may well be its crowning disaster. It's lengthy but worth reading closely as a concentrated statement of the argument we will probably hear in ever shriller pitch in the coming months.

Iran, Podhoretz declares, betraying no trace of self-doubt, wants to acquire nuclear weapons in order to destroy Israel. Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has "repeatedly and unequivocally" announced Iran's intention to "wipe Israel off the map." Not only that, Podhoretz avers (perhaps to deflect any suggestion that he's narrowly concerned with Israel): Ahmadinejad cherishes "a larger dream of extending the power and influence of Islam throughout Europe, and this too he hopes to accomplish by playing on the fear that resistance to Iran would lead to a nuclear war." "Islamization," analogous to Finlandization, is already well-advanced in Europe. This will only get worse, Podhoretz charges (citing fellow neocon John Bolton) with "Iranian nuclear blackmail." Moreover, Ahmadinejad wants a "world without America." Thus the Iranian president and regime and nuclear program must be eliminated through the deployment of U.S. power.

Podhoretz has faith that this will happen, predicting that Bush will "within the next 21 months. . . order air strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities from the three U.S. aircraft carriers already sitting nearby. . ." Since Podhoretz has the ear of very powerful people, this prophesy should set off alarm bells. (Notice how the day after Podhoretz's piece appeared, International Atomic Energy Agency director IAEA chief and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei referred to "new crazies who say 'let's go and bomb Iran,'" adding that he did not want to see another war like the one in Iraq.) But the attack supplicant confesses some uncertainty on the point, expressing concern that "the respectable tool of diplomacy" (which he equates with craven appeasement) might win out over the bombing option he urges. Sanctions alone, he emphasizes, will not bring down the Iranian regime, and in any case, "there is simply no chance of getting Russia and China, or the Europeans for that matter, to agree to the kind of sanctions that are the necessary precondition" for regime change

He suggests hopefully however (quoting yet another fellow neocon, Robert Kagan) that in his less bellicose approaches to Iran Bush is merely "giving futility its chance." (Several recent reports suggest that Cheney is contemptuous of the limited diplomatic process favored by Condi Rice and strongly backs a plan now in effect to disseminate propaganda and disinformation about Iran, and sabotage some of its currency and international financial transactions, preparatory to the bombing plan the neocons have long favored and which remains on track.)

In the background of Podhoretz's discussion is an elegantly misleading periodization of recent history, borrowed from Eliot Cohen, a Johns Hopkins professor of Strategic Studies, who has been called "the most influential neoconservative in academe." (Ominously, Cohen was recently appointed by Condoleezza Rice as the new Counselor of the State Department.) Over the last century there have been four world wars. In World War II the U.S. fought against fascism. In World War III (the term some neocons use for the Cold War) the U.S. fought against communism. We are now in World War IV, fighting against "Islamofascism." (Podhoretz does not define the "ism" at issue during World War I, which might affect the model. I'd say it was imperialism on both sides, neither of them worth supporting, and that imperialism's been at the root of all these wars. )

Islamofascism, Podheretz proclaims, is "yet another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of communism." Podhoretz does not identify the historical norm that became diseased and generated these pathologies, but presumably it is the bourgeois democracy that some see as the "end of History" to which all humankind, cured of these diseases, will ultimately gravitate.

The term "Islamofascism" has been around for a few decades, and no doubt has some degree of analytical utility in some contexts. But the neocons, and occasionally President Bush, have used it to refer to Muslim targets as varied as the Syrian and Iraqi secular Baathist states, the Iranian Shiite mullocracy, al-Qaeda cells, Palestinian militias---few of which offer a good match for any mainstream academic definition of fascism. The term is merely applied as an epithet, to conflate disparate phenomena, and to validate the "war on terrorism" as something analogous to World War II.

This historical model seems to me a parody of the worst sort of crudely stage-ist "Marxist" historiography. It abandons attention to historical detail and suspends any requirement of logical analysis in favor of a triumphantalist vision of the world as it will and must be: in this case, a world led by America, arm-in-arm with an Israel finally freed of its foes through a "final conflict." Organically linked evil "isms" follow one after another, and drawing upon historical experience, "we" gloriously defeat them. Podhoretz (born in 1930) wants to link the war on "Islamofascism" to the Good War of his childhood (in its anti-fascist moral purity) and to the Cold War (in its expected multigenerational duration).

But one must really torture the facts to fit them into this paradigm and requisite system of historical analogies. The neocon project requires "regime change" throughout Southwest Asia, hence the vilification of leaders of Muslim nations as contemporary avatars of the twentieth century figure most universally regarded as both frightening and evil. While Podhoretz's son John worked as a speechwriter for the first President Bush, the latter depicted Saddam Hussein as "a new Hitler." It was a preposterous analogy. Adolf Hitler had ruled one of the world's most powerful nations, which had been a world leader in science and industry from the 1880s and won and lost a colonial empire from Tanganyika to Samoa. Saddam ruled a Third World country dependent on foreign capital. Bushes I and II elevated this puny historical footnote to unwarranted epic status.

There was no comparison, but the first Bush administration insisted on conflating the two, deploying the emotions of the past (or at least the confused historical memories of the masses) to build the case for the first war on Iraq. This is a hallmark of the neocons, who boast that they are "more interested in history than economics or sociology"! What actually most interests them about the historical record is the possibility of raiding it to procure these false analogies that serve their objectives in the present. "Deception is the norm in political life," Abram Shulsky (former Office of Special Plans operative, now heading the "Iran Directorate" at the Pentagon) wrote in 1999 in an essay entitled, "Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence," "and the hope, to say nothing of the expectation, of establishing a politics that can dispense with it is the exception."

Today's biggest deceptive analogy is between Hitler and Ahmadinejad, and between the Munich Pact (signed between British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Hitler in 1938 following the German annexation of the Sudetenland) and the possibility of western acceptance of Iran's nuclear power program. Ahmadinejad, declares Podhoretz, "like Hitler"

". . .is a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism. Like Hitler, too, he is entirely open about his intentions, although--again like Hitler--he sometimes pretends that he wants nothing more than his country's just due. In the case of Hitler in 1938, this pretense took the form of claiming that no further demands would be made if sovereignty over the Sudetenland were transferred from Czechoslovakia to Germany. In the case of Ahmadinejad, the pretense takes the form of claiming that Iran is building nuclear facilities only for peaceful purposes and not for the production of bombs."

One needs to repeat over and over again in the face of the latter assertion that the International Atomic Energy Agency has found no evidence for an Iranian nuclear weapons program. The September 2005 vote of the IAEA representatives labeling Iran in "non-compliance" with the Nonproliferation Treaty itself found no evidence of a military program but rather accused Iran of having concealed some nuclear activities. Of the 35 nations then serving on the IAEA board, 13 voted against the September report or abstained from voting The latter included highly significant countries like China, Russia, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Venezuela, Brazil, Pakistan, Vietnam. The resolution promoted by the bullying neocon U.S. UN Ambassador John Bolton passed because the NATO nations voted as a bloc.

Since that vote, the U.S.---Vice President Cheney and the neocons in particular---have relentlessly sought UN validation for an attack on Iran. They have now obtained UNSC resolutions demanding that Iran stop enriching uranium---something that the Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which Iran (unlike nuclear Israel) is a signatory, guarantees as a right to all signatory states. Iran's refusal to suspend enrichment operations gives the attack advocates their rationale for answering Podhoretz's prayer by the end of Bush's term in office.

To demonstrate that Ahmadinejad has "repeatedly and unequivocally" announced Iran's intention to "wipe Israel off the map," and is "entirely open about his intentions," Podhoretz can do no better than to recite the old tired canard about a speech the newly-elected Iranian president gave on October 25th, 2005 in a conference hall in Tehran. He quoted the Ayatollah Khomeini (who died in 1989): "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time. . .[Just as] the Soviet Union disappeared, the Zionist regime will also vanish and humanity will be liberated." http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0612134902101231.htm There was never any mention of a "map." The statement was mistranslated and although it has been correctly translated many times, by Juan Cole and others, people who want to believe that it called for the destruction of Israel continue to misconstrue it. Recall how this story was preceded by false reports in June and July 2005 about Ahmadinejad being among the students who seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979. It was followed in May 2006 by the story planted in Canada's National Post about a plan by the Iranian Parliament to badge all Iranian Jews---an obvious effort to depict the Iranian regime as a collection of latter-day Nazis. It was entirely false---but this is the sort of deception that Shulsky might regard as normative in political life.

What of the argument that even if Iran had the bomb, and wanted to wipe out the Jewish state, it would be constrained from doing so by "mutually assured destruction"? Podhoretz scornfully rejects this, citing at length a statement by Bernard Lewis, whom he calls "the greatest authority of our time on the Islamic world," and whom others consider "perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq."

The late great Edward Said described Lewis's writings on Muslim history as "ppropaganda against his subject material," adding that his work is "aggressively ideological" and constitutes a "project to debunk, to whittle down, and to discredit the Arabs and Islam. . ." especially before "conservative segments of the Jewish reading public, and anyone else who cares to listen. . ."

MAD, writes Lewis as cited by Podheretz

". . . will not work with a religious fanatic [like Ahmadinejad]. For him, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. We know already that [Iran's leaders] do not give a damn about killing their own people in great numbers. We have seen it again and again. In the final scenario, and this applies all the more strongly if they kill large numbers of their own people, they are doing them a favor. They are giving them a quick free pass to heaven and all its delights."

I expect that choice little quote will circulate widely in the coming months, along with the broader argument that Muslims are indifferent to human life, including their own. (Recall Gen. Westmoreland's comment at the height of Vietnam War savagery: "Orientals don't place the same value on human life as we do," and former Attorney General Ashcroft's remark, "Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you, [while Islam is] a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him.")

What is the evidence for this judgment on the Iranian mentality? The following statement by former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani: "If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in [its] possession . . . application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world." "In other words," Podhoretz comments, "Israel would be destroyed in a nuclear exchange, but Iran would survive." (Podhoretz by the way mentions nothing of the nuclear arsenal with which Muslim Pakistan is already duly equipped.)

It seems to me however that Rafsanjani's matter-of-fact observation is of the sort any of us could make, perhaps in the context of arguing that Israel would not likely use its nukes against a Muslim target if it feared its own destruction. (Of course, someone might in response want to talk about the "Masada complex," impute it to Jewish or Israeli leaders generally and argue that such people "do not give a damn about killing their own people in great numbers." But in our society such talk would meet with immediate, appropriate condemnation. In expressing their assessment of the Iranian leaders, Lewis and Podhoretz don't seem to fear or expect censure.)

It's no secret that the Iranian regime considers the Jewish state illegitimate, created by settlers at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian people. Ahmadinejad apparently believes that it will not exist forever. (Benjamin Netanyahu for his part has warned out the "demographic threat" to the Jewish state posed by the high Arab birthrate. Many people think it likely that some sort of secular multi-cultural state will emerge within Israel's borders sometime in the future; it's called "the single-state solution.") Ahmadinejad in the same speech noted how the Soviet Union, the Shah's regime, and Saddam Hussein's regime had all vanished and predicted that Israel would too. He did not remotely suggest that Iran planned to attack Israel to make that happen.

Iran does of course support anti-Israeli Lebanese and Palestinian militias produced by occupation, and so Podhoretz can depict it as both terrorist and a threat to Israel. But he might have mentioned that in April or May 2003 Iran sent a diplomatic message to Washington indicating its willingness to accept the March 2002 "Arab League Beirut declaration," which it also referred to as the "Saudi initiative, two-states approach" in exchange for improved relations with the United States. (Cheney and the neocons treated that overture with contempt! As Cheney has said, "We don't negotiate with evil. We defeat it.")

Podhoretz makes it clear that not just Israel but the entire world should fear nefarious Iran. Not skipping a beat, he declares, "Ahmadinejad's ambitions are not confined to the destruction of Israel. He also wishes to dominate the greater Middle East Nor are Ahmadinejad's ambitions merely regional in scope. He has a larger dream of extending the power and influence of Islam throughout Europe, and this too he hopes to accomplish by playing on the fear that resistance to Iran would lead to a nuclear war." (This is a repetition of the alarmist charge that some Muslims seek to reconstitute a Caliphate, extending from Spain to Indonesia, and in these times enjoy the remotest possibility for doing so.)

Actually Ahmadinejad's foreign "ambitions" are not well-known. He talks about a global Islamic revolution, rather like Bush talks grandly about bringing "democracy" to the world. In any case, within the Iranian political system, he's not the key player in determining a foreign policy that strikes me as in fact rather pragmatic and cautious. He's the elected president of a country that has not attacked another in modern times. Does he wish for greater influence of Islam throughout Europe? That's safe to say; he's a devout Muslim after all. Don't American Christian fundamentalists, whom the secularist neocons carefully cultivate, want to evangelize Europe (and Israel for that matter)? Wouldn't Bush like to extend the power and influence of his brand of fundamentalism everywhere?

The power of Islam (mostly Sunni Islam) is extending in Europe, to be sure, for reasons that have little to do with Iran but lots to do with the legacy of European colonialism, especially in North Africa and South Asia, and the high birthrate among European Muslims. It has to do with resurgent religiosity among Muslims in the Balkans, and perhaps financial support for mosques from Saudi Arabia, the center of global Sunni Islam (and no great friend of Shiite Iran). Surely it has to do with the intrinsic attraction some people (unfortunately) feel towards a severely monotheistic patriarchal faith based on what believers regard as the Word of God, imposing numerous rules on the faithful and promising Paradise or Hell in the afterlife. In any case, the spread of Islam in general scares some people, and plainly Podhoretz would like to exploit their fears.

Ahmadinejad wants "a world without America," writes Podhoretz. That was the theme of a conference in Iran in 2004, where the deputy chief of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Baqer Zol Qadr, explained, "When we talk about the 'World Without America,' we mean a world governed by peace and justice.... Unfortunately, today America is the symbol of these deficiencies and distortions." No Iranian official to my knowledge has suggested that Iran wants to blow America off the map. This is more fear-mongering on Podhoretz's part, a subtler version of the alarmist "mushroom cloud over New York" imagery that preceded the criminal attack on Iraq.

Podhoretz in accordance with his fascism-communism---Islamofascism framework compares those who do not share his alarm and bellicosity not only with the appeasers of Hitler's Germany but with the Cold War-era U.S. "foreign policy establishment" which was soft on the Soviet Union. He states that during the Cold War, "some of us feared that the Soviets might seize control of the oil fields of the Middle East, and that the West, faced with a choice between surrendering to their dominance or trying to stop them at the risk of a nuclear exchange, would choose surrender. In that case, we thought, the result would be what in those days went by the name of Finlandization."

This is perhaps the most bizarre portion of the op-ed, and makes it clear why the neocons parted company with the rational "establishment." Of course in a warfare situation the Soviets might have made a grab for the Middle Eastern oil fields then controlled by the west, and the west would probably have put up a fight. But who do these fields belong to anyway, and why should one have assumed that the petroleum-rich and generally cautious Soviet Union was just waiting for its opportunity to provoke (real) world war by an effort to seize them?

"Finlandization" refers to the subservience of a small country to a powerful neighboring one. One could talk about the Finlandization of Latin American countries vis-à-vis the U.S., but the Finlandization of the U.S. superpower due to actions by the USSR? It was very possible, thinks Podhoretz. "In Europe, where there were large Communist parties, Finlandization would take the form of bringing these parties to power so that they could establish 'red Vichy' regimes like the one already in place in Finland--regimes whose subservience to the Soviet will in all things, domestic and foreign alike, would make military occupation unnecessary and would therefore preserve a minimal degree of national independence." (Actually I don't think that fairly describes Finland between 1945 and 1991.)

Podhoretz continues: as for "the United States, where there was no Communist Party to speak of, we [neoconservatives] speculated that Finlandization would take a subtler form," that politicians frightened by the Soviets "would arise to celebrate the arrival of a new era of peace and friendship in which the Cold War policy of containment would be scrapped, [and]. . . the only candidates running for office with a prayer of being elected would be those who promised to work toward a sociopolitical system more in harmony with the Soviet model than the unjust capitalist plutocracy under which we had been living." But thank God, writes Podhoretz, this nightmare scenario never materialized: "Of course, by the grace of God, the dissidents behind the Iron Curtain and Ronald Reagan, we won World War III and were therefore spared the depredations that Finlandization would have brought."

This "speculation" segues interestingly into an attack on contemporary British virility (perhaps an implicit message to Bush to really act like a man). The United Kingdom, Podhoretz claims (citing fellow neocon and former U.S. UN ambassador John Bolton), shows signs of Finlandization in its handling of the arrest last month of 15 British sailors and marines in disputed waters. Blair's failure to attack Iran was a humiliating "show of impotence," Podhoretz claims. The Iranians "held [British sailors] hostage" (something London itself did not claim), and now Ahmadinejad can "reap the additional benefit of, as the British commentator Daniel Johnson puts it, 'posing as a benefactor' by releasing the hostages, even while ordering more attacks in Iraq and even while continuing to arm terrorist organizations, whether Shiite (Hezbollah) or Sunni (Hamas)." Podhoretz states that Iran is "obviously" doing this although many commentators have noted the lack of hard evidence for such support.

Then out of the blue, Podhoretz refers to the cancellation of some classes on the Holocaust in Britain given the supposed opposition to them by Muslims in the UK ". . . whose beliefs include Holocaust denial." The only internet support for this assertion I can find is a Daily Mail report that a study of the Department for Education and Skills released in April "found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class." This for Podhoretz constitutes evidence of "Islamization" that will only worsen if Iran is not bombed. The logical connection is absolutely unclear.

The conclusion? In this long World War against the Islamofascists, who are abetted by Finlandizing proponents of "Islamization," President Bush (whom John Podhoretz calls "the first great leader of the twenty-first century") must bomb Iran---to protect Israel, America and the world. Given Chinese and Russian complacency, and European wimpiness, Bush alone can save the world from Iran, and soon.

"It now remains to be seen whether this president, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will."

I can only hope with all my heart that this kind of thinking receives the refutation, rejection and marginalization it deserves---from all kinds of Americans.

I personally see no World War here--Three or Four or otherwise---but a Wild Wager. The world's most reckless gambler sits at the table, playing Texas Hold 'Em. At his elbow are his recent winnings: Afghanistan and Iraq. But he can't take them home yet and may very well yet lose them. In his sights lie Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan. Since 9-11 he's cherished the desire to reshuffle the cards. His greed is boundless. Behind him sit supporters eager to share his winnings, biting their nails nervously, praying he'll win the whole pot and maybe inclined if he doesn't to tip over the table. Crazy people.

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.

He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu

Neocon "crazies" endorse tactical nuclear strikes against Iran

Here is an excerpt from the latest Republican Presidential debate:

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BLITZER: If it came down to a preemptive U.S. strike against Iran's nuclear facility if necessary, would you authorize as president the use of tactical nuclear weapons?

HUNTER: I would authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons if there was no other way to preempt those particular centrifuges.

When the Osirak reactor was hit in '86, when the six F-18s came over the horizon and knocked that out, they didn't need anything but conventional weapons.

Probably it's going to take a little more than that. I don't think it's going to take tactical nukes.

BLITZER: What do you think, Mayor? Do you think, if you were president of the United States and it came down to Iran having a nuclear bomb, which you say is unacceptable, you would authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons?

GIULIANI: Part of the premise of talking to Iran has to be that they have to know very clearly that it is unacceptable to the United States that they have nuclear power. I think it could be done with conventional weapons, but you can't rule out anything and you shouldn't take any option off the table.

And during the debate the other night, the Democrats seemed to be back in the 1990s. They don't seem to have gotten beyond the Cold War. Iran is a threat, a nuclear threat, not just because they can deliver a nuclear warhead with missiles. They're a nuclear threat because they are the biggest state sponsor of terrorism and they can hand nuclear materials to terrorists.

And we just saw it just last week in New York, an attempt by Islamist terrorists to attack JFK airport; three weeks ago, an attempt to attack Fort Dix.

These are real problems. This war is not a bumper sticker. This war is a real war.

BLITZER: Thank you, Mayor.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Let me bring Governor Gilmore in.

What do you say about the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons if that's what it takes to go deep underground and destroy those Iraqi facilities?

GILMORE: One of the central problems of the Middle East is the desire for Iran to dominate that portion of the world, because of what they are doing. And that is why I believe that they are seeking this kind of nuclear capacity. That is one of the reasons why we are, in fact, in Iraq.

And that's why our soldiers, when they fight and die there, are in fact serving the interests of the United States. Nobody ought to have any doubt about that.

With respect to Iran, the policy I would follow would be dual.

Number one, we need to work with our European allies in order to put in appropriate sanctions. We need to communicate directly with the Iranians that we are going to offer them an opportunity to work with us.

But we are also going to say that having a nuclear weapon is unacceptable; they need to understand it. And all options are on the table by the United States in that instance.

BLITZER: All right. Thank you, Governor.

Governor Romney, I want to get you on the record. Do you agree with the mayor, the governor, others here, that the use of tactical nuclear weapons, potentially, would be possible if that were the only way to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb?

ROMNEY: You don't take options off the table, but what you do is stand back and say, "What's going on here?" You see what's happening in Sudan and Afghanistan, in Iraq and Iran. All over the world, we're seeing the same thing happening, and that is people are testing the United States of America. And we have to make sure they understand that we're not arrogant; we have resolve. And we have the strength to protect our interests and to protect people who love liberty.

For that to happen, we're going to have to not just attack each one of these problems one by one, but say, how do we help move the world of Islam so that the moderate Muslims can reject the extreme?

And for that to happen, we're going to have to have a strong military and an effort to combine with our allies in such a way, we combine for an effort to help move Islam toward modernity.

That's what we're going to have to do, instead of looking at each theater one by one and saying, "We'll bomb here, we'll attack here, we'll go to Sudan."

I watched the Democrats...

BLITZER: Thank you.

ROMNEY: ... they don't think there's a war on terror.

BLITZER: Thank you.

ROMNEY: There's a war going on, and we need a broad response to make sure that these people have a different vision.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Thank you, Governor.

(...)

BLITZER: Thank you, Mayor.

(APPLAUSE)

Congressman Paul, what is the most pressing moral issue in the United States right now?

PAUL: I think it is the acceptance just recently that we now promote preemptive war. I do not believe that's part of the American tradition.

We, in the past, have always declared war in defense of our liberties or go to aid somebody. But now we have accepted the principle of preemptive war. We have rejected the just war theory of Christianity.

And now, tonight, we hear that we're not even willing to remove from the table a preemptive nuclear strike against a country that has done no harm to us directly and is no threat to our national security.

I mean, we have to come to our senses about this issue of war and preemption and go back to traditions and our Constitution and defend our liberties and defend our rights, but not to think that we can change the world by force of arms and to start wars.

(APPLAUSE)

-------

So at least four Republicans are weighing in on the side of the "crazies": Hunter, Gilmore, Giuliani, and Romney. The only one clearly opposed to such madness is Ron Paul.

My guess is that among Democrats at least Hillary and Obama would be willing to use nukes.

Here is how the American public opinion reacted to this: CNN viewers had Ron Paul winning the debate in all categories except for "the snappiest dress" (remember: this is corporate media asking the questions) which went to Mitt Romney.

By the way, the worst performance on the debate was, again according the the public, Guiliani's. The "official" talking heads of the US Nomenklatura hired by CNN came to diametrically opposed conclusions and declared that the best performance was, I am not kidding, Giuliani, Romney and McCain. See the full poll results here.

In spite of this, Hillary and Giuliani (the worst warmongering Fascists in each camp) are still leading in their respective factions (of the single War Party, that is).

So it looks like the USA will not only get a Fascist President in 2008, but that this Fascist President will be willing to use nuclear weapons.

Scary.

CIA running black propaganda operation against Iran, Syria and Lebanon, officials say

RAW STORY EXCLUSIVE REPORT:

by Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Monday June 4, 2007

Some intelligence sources more wary of covert Pentagon operations

The Central Intelligence Agency has received approval at least twice in the last several years to conduct an “information war” against several countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Lebanon and Syria, according to current and former intelligence officials.

In addition, the Bush Administration has been running operations out of the Defense Department that are not subject to Congressional oversight, intelligence sources say. These programs appear murkier, and have included support for an alleged terrorist group in Iran.

A recent ABC News report revealed that President George W. Bush had signed a presidential finding giving the CIA the authority to conduct “non-lethal” covert operations against Iran. Former and current intelligence sources tell RAW STORY, however, that there have been “at least two” presidential findings over the past few years which have empowered the agency to run an “open-secret” information war against Iranian interests, mainly leveraging resources and assets “within the United States and France.”

Although the resources – people, groups, organizations – were not identified, sources say that they are not terrorist organizations or groups using violent tactics to achieve their goals. “It's a propaganda operation,” said a former intelligence case officer who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the information. “It is not new or aggressive,” the source added, explaining that the operation has been going on for some time and has Congressional funding and oversight.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano would not comment about the allegations made in the ABC report or discuss the existence of the presidential findings identified to RAW STORY.

“The CIA does not, as a matter of course, publicly discuss allegations of covert action, whether the assertions are wrong, right, or somewhere in-between,” Gimigliano said. “That's one reason why the term ‘covert action’ still exists.”

“But it's important to remember that, through the Congress, there is vigorous oversight of secret intelligence activities,” he added.

According to current and former intelligence officials, the various presidential findings are not limited to Iran. Several countries within the Middle East – including Syria and Lebanon – as well as groups such as Hezbollah, are being targeted through what sources call “black propaganda” efforts.

Iran is being targeted by the CIA's activities with a “pro-democracy” message, sources say, and the agency is supporting overt “pro-democracy” groups.

The program’s particulars are highly classified. Intelligence sources stress, however, that the groups being used are rather mainstream and the operations are almost entirely restricted to information warfare.

Sources would not identify what mechanism was being employed to distribute the propaganda, if it included news media, individuals or organizations, or whether that information was seeping back into domestic news reports.

One former intelligence case officer did explain that the CIA's program is operating largely outside of the Middle East and is aimed at identifying potential allies, as well as using already existing well known groups through whom information can be delivered. The type of “information” and the “groups” and “organizations” involved were not identified.

ABC News may have reported the presidential finding as “new” because of the recently passed massive intelligence budget. Under the bill, roughly $50 million was appropriated for the “Democracy Fund” and the “Broadcasting Board of Governors,” both earmarked for Iran operations.

Sources close to the Select Senate Committee on Intelligence would not discuss any aspect of the CIA program or comment on anything relating to the presidential findings.

“This is an area I simply cannot get into,” said one source.

Pentagon operation supporting terrorist group kept from Congress

RAW STORY has also learned that the Pentagon is continuing to conduct more aggressive “black” operations, approved by the National Security Council and the Office of the Vice President.

Current and former intelligence officials would not identify new specific covert programs running out of the Pentagon, though sources stressed these are far riskier and more truly covert operational activities against Iran than the activities of the CIA.

These operations started almost immediately after the Iraq war and have continued for several years. Because they can be considered part of a military operation, they are not subjects to the same requirements for Congressional authorization as the activities of the CIA.

The majority of these efforts to destabilize Iran through a covert war of aggression have been carried out by the Department of Defense, largely steered by the Office of the Vice President and by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

A series of RAW STORY reports has identified some of the “off book” or black operations running out of the Pentagon over the last several years. In 2003, the Defense Department began working with terrorist and dissident groups in an effort to destabilize Iran, bypassing traditional intelligence channels. One of the assets the Pentagon used was a terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which was being “run” in two southern regional areas of Iran, including a Shia region where a series of attacks in 2006 left many dead and hundreds injured.

These activities have often been guided by the same individuals whose actions during Iran-Contra were the reason for a 1991 law on covert activities which for the first time clearly defined covert activities and how their oversight should be handled.

During Iran-Contra, the Reagan White House – via the National Security Council – sold weapons to Iran, an avowed enemy of the United States, and used the money to fund various terrorist and dissident groups, collectively called the Contras, to fight a proxy war against the government of Nicaragua.

Sources say that MEK has been used for intelligence collection, an activity which has traditionally fallen under the CIA. The administration also appears to be looking the other way as groups such as MEK commit acts of violence.

Intelligence sources interviewed for this article all expressed concern over the lack of attention to the Pentagon’s covert activities. Some believe illegal activities like those of the Iran-Contra days are now being hidden under the loophole of “traditional military activities” to avoid Congressional oversight.

Steven Aftergood, director for the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, says this loophole exists in Congressional oversight with regards to military covert activities.

“CIA covert actions have to be authorized by a written presidential finding, which must be provided to Congress,” Aftergood said. “By contrast, DOD operations, including clandestine or covert operations, are not subject to this procedure.

“As a result,” he added, “there may be a temptation to opt for a purely military action to take advantage of the loophole in congressional notification requirements.”

Covert economic warfare may not be limited to CIA

Another former intelligence official said that the CIA has been cleared to target Iran's economic interests, but that the approval is limited to non-aggressive activities. The CIA “has been empowered to put economic pressure on Iran,” the former intelligence officer stated, but would not elaborate on what the meaning of “pressure” is.

Yet some suggest that the economic element of the covert program is either far more aggressive or is being attributed to the CIA when in fact another agency may be running it.

Foreign intelligence sources say that economic pressure is aimed at Iran's oil-rich economy, with US efforts serving to “persuade” financial institutions, oil companies, and international investment interests to pull out of Iran and even drop already existing energy projects.

These sources cite the example of an unnamed company that is being denied financing for energy projects inside Iran by international banks, indicating that many more such examples exist.

Other possible forms of pressure would include less subtle activities, such as intercepting supply convoys and confiscating equipment. Foreign sources are not sure if this covert activity is in fact part of the CIA program.

The Department of Defense did not respond to comment on this story.

Muriel Kane contributed to the research for this article.

Larisa Alexandrovna is the Managing Editor of Investigative News for Raw Story and regularly covers intelligence and national security. She can be reached at larisa@rawstory.com.

Turkey denies Web site claim of N.Iraq invasion

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's Foreign Ministry and military General Staff on Wednesday denied a Web site report that 50,000 Turkish troops had crossed into northern Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels hiding there.

"This report is not true," a Foreign Ministry source told Reuters.

A General Staff official described the report as "disinformation".

The report, carried on the DEBKAfile Web site, sparked jitters among foreign investors who fear Turkish military action in northern Iraq could harm Turkey's booming economy and relations with the United States.

Another Middle East war erupts Wednesday as 50,000 Turkish troops invade N. Iraq to strike rebel Kurdish PKK bases

June 6, 2007, 3:41 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile

The official Turkish news agency Cihan reports the force, backed by armored vehicles and combat aircraft, is targeting rebel strongholds in 11 provinces in southeastern Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan Wednesday, June 6.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that this is only the first wave of Turkish invaders, with more to come. A Turkish force of 90,000 troops has been massed at the sourthern town of Sirank opposite the meeting point of the Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian borders, drawing a warning to Ankara from US defense secretary Robert Gates to stay out of Iraq.

June 2, DEBKAfile reported that the US had removed troops from northern Iraq and passed responsibility for the region’s security to the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga.

Two days ago, Kurdish PKK rebels killed at least 8 soldiers, wounding 6, in a suicide attack on an E. Turkish checkpoint at Tunceli.

After the attack, Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gulf defended his country’s right to drive into neighboring Iraq to destroy rebel bases.

Up to 3,500 separatists are believed based in northern Iraq poised for hit-and-run terrorist attacks in Turkey. The Turkish news agency reports three F-16 Falcon fighter bombers have carried out bombing raids on positions of the PKK Kurdistan Workers Party in northern Iraq. Artillery deployed at the border with Iraq has fired at pinpointed targets.”

DEBKAfile’s Iraq sources reported last week that Iraqi Kurdistan’s president, Massoud Barzani, had sent a personal emissary, Safin Dizai, to Ankara with an urgent warning. Turkish tanks would not be allowed to cross into northern Iraq, he said. The Kurdish peshmerga would repel them. “The people of Kurdistan,“ said the messenger, “would not stand by as spectators if Turkish tanks and panzers entered Kirkuk.”

Kuwait opposes any military strike against Iran

US ally Kuwait said on Sunday it opposes any military strike against its Gulf neighbour Iran, and called for a negotiated settlement of the standoff over Tehran's nuclear programme.

"We are against any military strike against Iran," National Security Agency chief Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah told reporters. "We hope the issue will be resolved through dialogue."

He said Iran had the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, but added: "We however oppose any use of nuclear technology for inhuman purposes in the Middle East region."

Kuwait last month formed an emergency team to prepare contingency plans for any possible outbreak of Iran-US hostilities over Tehran's nuclear drive, which Washington suspects is a cover for efforts to build the atomic bomb.

Sheikh Ahmad said the preparations were "simply precautionary measures."

The United States on Saturday called on the international community for stronger sanctions against Iran for refusing to suspend nuclear enrichment.

Washington has said it would prefer to address its concerns about Tehran's nuclear programme diplomatically but refuses to rule out the option of military action.

It has beefed up its military presence in the Gulf and has a second aircraft carrier stationed in the strategic waterway for the first time since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Kuwait served as the launch-pad for that invasion and remains the main staging point for US-led troops in Iraq. Around 15,000 US troops are stationed at several bases in the emirate.

Iran consistently denies it is trying to build nuclear weapons and says it merely wants to generate energy.

(source: Agence France-Presse quoted here)

IAEA warns of Neocon agression plans

Did the IAEA really say that the Neocons are planning to attack Iran? Almost. The word "Neocon" was not used but was replaced by a well-known euphemism. Actually, here is what happened:

IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei recently said to the BBC "I have no brief other than to make sure we don't go into another war or that we go crazy into killing each other. You do not want to give additional argument to new crazies who say 'let's go and bomb Iran". As I have pointed out elsewhere on my blog, the expression "crazies" is a codeword for Neocons (itself a politically correct euphemism for Zionists).

Will the voice of the Nobel Prize winning ElBaradei stop the crazies/Neocons/Zionists in control of the Imperial White House from starting yet another agression? I doubt it very much as their power does not depend on public opinion, but on the Imperial Congress and the Imperial propaganda machine of the US corporate media.

And with another Neocon now President of France no Chirac-like opposition can be hoped for at the UNSC (all other members are for sale).

I still say it will happen, and rather soon.