reflectivepundit

Iran’s Nuclear Ambition: Dealing with the Threat Against Israel and Others

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Iran is not alone in denying Israel’s right to exist and threatening to wipe the Jewish state off the map of the Middle East. But the determination of Tehran’s decision-makers to establish a nuclear program and most likely the capability of building nuclear weapons differentiates the Persian danger from the perennial threats against Israel issued by her Arab neighbors. It is this clear, albeit not yet present danger that needs to be addressed. On the one hand, there are those who invoke the specter of WW III, as President Bush recently did, and favor military strikes against Iran as leading neo-cons, Vice-President Cheney and most of the Republican presidential contenders do. An editorial in today’s New York Times put is this way, “Four years after his pointless invasion of Iraq, President Bush still confuses bullying with grand strategy. He refuses to do the hard work of diplomacy — or even acknowledge the disastrous costs of his actions. The Republican presidential candidates have apparently decided that the real commander in chief test is to see who can out-trash talk the White House on Iran.”
On the other hand, there are those who minimize or ignore the threat, among them most Democrats in the presidential race. As Sebastian Mallaby writes in today’s Washington Post, “All the Democratic presidential hopefuls know that a nuclear Iran is scary. They know that the Europeans have been patiently negotiating with Iran to secure a freeze of its program and that the Iranians have been stalling. But Clinton is the only Democratic candidate who unequivocally embraces the obvious next step: Push hard for the sanctions that might change Iran's calculations.”   
Although efforts by European governments have failed so far, diplomacy is the way to go now. But Washington’s new unilateral sanctions, or multilateral ones (if they could be achieved) do not assure at all that decision-makers in Tehran change their nuclear plans. The war-mongering rhetoric on both sides is not helpful either.

So, what other options are available if Iran continues with its program?

The Times suggests in its editorial today, “The world should not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, but there is no easy fix here, no daring surgical strike. Consider Natanz, the underground site where Iran is defying the Security Council by spinning a few thousand centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel. American bombers could take it out, but what about the even more sophisticated centrifuges the administration accuses Iran of hiding? Beyond the disastrous diplomatic and economic costs, a bombing campaign is unlikely to set back Iran’s efforts for more than a few years.”
In other words, surgical strikes are unlikely to do the job. Nor is it likely that such strikes would strengthen the democratic forces in Iran and lead to the demise of the current regime, as the neo-con crowd wants us to believe.
After the Iraq debacle, nobody can seriously think about an invasion of Iran.
So, if air strikes will not prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and an invasion is out of the picture, what can be done to deter a nuclear Iran?

The Bush Administration's Rich History of Fake News

By Brigitte L. Nacos
At the heights of the California wildfires last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) staged a news conference with Vice Admiral Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, presiding. But instead of facing real reporters’ real questions, FEMA staged a fake news conference during which FEMA bureaucrats masqueraded as reporters and threw softball questions at Mr. Johnson so that he could praise the agency that failed so terribly before, during, and after the Hurricane Katrina disaster. FEMA invited news organizations just 15 minutes before the fake news briefing began and thus made sure that no real reporter was present during the bogus event. Some cable networks, among them MSNBC and Fox News carried part of “news conference” as breaking news live from FEMA. The visuals were of Mr. Johnson only, while the fake reporters were heard and not seen--for obvious reasons. Neither newsroom personnel at the all news networks nor their audiences had reason to suspect that this was a sham event staged in order to resurrect the agency’s damaged reputation.

When the truth came out, the White House seemed not at all disturbed. Press secretary Dana Perino assured in her mild response that "it is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House. We certainly don't condone it. We didn't know about it beforehand. . . . They, I'm sure, will not do it again."

Not do it again? Perhaps not in the same agency and in the same form. But this is not the first instance in which the Bush administration has done more than put its spin on the news. Indeed, as the New York Times reported in early 2005, 
“Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.”

Abuse of Presidential Power: Will Giuliani top the Bush/Cheney Regime's Power Abuse?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
On my blog here, I have written repeatedly on the opportunistic and problematic positions that the former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani decided to take for the sake of hoping to bolster his chances to win the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. He certainly is a turn-coat on a whole range of issues—immigration, gun control, the perennial pro-choice/ pro-life controversy. At least some of his fellow-Republicans have caught on to this and attack him on these counts,. I have repeatedly posted on the extreme hawkish positions that “America’s mayor” takes against Iraq—in tune with his neo-conservative advisors who—we should not forget—got us into the Iraq mess in the first place. But thanks to an excellent report in the “Washington Monthly,” a publication I find to be a credit to the best in American journalism's tradition, the perhaps most important question about a possible Giuliani presidency concerns his style of governance—a democratic and transparent approach versus an authoritarian and secret model in the by know well known Cheney/George W. Bush mold. These are a few sentences of what Rachel Morris writes (and you should read her whole article at the Washington Monthly on-line site,

 

• Many Giuliani watchers already understand that Rudy is a hothead and a grandstander, even a bit of a dictator at times. These qualities have dominated the story of his mayoralty that most people know. As that drama was unfolding, however, so was a quieter story, driven by Giuliani's instinct   and capacity for manipulating the levers of government. His methods, like those of the current White House, included appointments of yes-men, aggressive tests of legal limits, strategic lawbreaking, resistance to oversight, and obsessive secrecy. As was also the case with the White  House, the events of 9/11 solidified the mindset underlying his worst tendencies. Embedded in his operating style is a belief that rules don't apply to him, and a ruthless gift for exploiting the intrinsic weaknesses in the system of checks and balances. That's why, of all the presidential      candidates, Giuliani is most likely to take the expansions of the executive branch made by the Bush administration and push them further still. The blueprint can be found in the often- overlooked corners of his mayoralty.

Torture and a Future Attorney General Clueless on Waterboarding?

Brigitte L. Nacos
After enjoying a love fest during the first day of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judicial Committee, Attorney General-nominee Michael Mukasey was a changed man the second day, when he responded quite differently to the same or similar questions. While denying that he had been coached after his first appearance, he was suddenly far more in tune with the White House and his predecessor Alberto Gonzales in speaking out in favor of inherent presidential powers and claiming to be clueless about one of the most horrible torture techniques, water boarding. Even after Senator Whitehouse explained water boarding in some detail, Mukasey continued to claim ignorance in order not to categorize water boarding as torture and thus declare it illegal.
Since the news media reported repeatedly on the torture of captured terrorists and alleged terrorists on the heels of the Abu Ghraib revelations, most informed Americans have an idea about torture methods. The following is an excerpt from an ABC News report on water boarding along with other torturous treatments of detainees:

Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.  "The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.The techniques are controversial among experienced intelligence agency and military interrogators. Many feel that a confession obtained this way is an unreliable tool. Two experienced officers have told ABC that there is little to be gained by these techniques that could not be more effectively gained by a methodical, careful, psychologically based interrogation. According to a classified report prepared by the CIA Inspector General John Helgerwon and issued in 2004, the techniques "appeared to constitute cruel and degrading treatment under the (Geneva) convention," the New York Times reported on Nov. 9, 2005.

Democrats should cooperate with the president and his supporters when they put forth the right policies and nominees, but they must stop to be threatened or co-opted by the president and his supporters when the latter are wrong—as they are in so many areas, including the Iraq War, the FISA provisions, and now a nominee to head up the department of justice who claims to be less familiar with legal issues surrounding torture techniques than the informed public.

Turkey, the PKK, Iraq, and President Bush’s War on Terrorism

By Brigitte L. Nacos
"The Turkish parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly authorized cross-border military attacks in northern Iraq against Kurdish separatist rebels, as world leaders pleaded for restraint. As the votes were tallied in Turkey's modernistic legislative chamber here, President Bush told reporters at a White House news conference that 'we are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their interest to send troops into Iraq.' "
Washington Post, Oct. 18, 2007 

After 9/11, when President George W. Bush launched the “war on terrorism,” he pledged to fight and eradicate terrorism everywhere. But he obviously meant to go after terrorists and terrorism that affect the United States directly or indirectly. Otherwise, he could not tell the Turkish government to refrain from aggressively fighting an organization that has committed violence against Turks in Turkey and elsewhere for a long time. While the end of brutal oppression of the Kurds in Northern Iraq by Saddam Hussein’s regime is one of the good consequences of the Iraq War, the fact that the PKK has been able to operate freely in the jurisdiction of the Kurdish regional government and launch attacks from there on Turkey, is a very bad result. As the New York Times reports today, “More than two dozen Turks, some of them civilians, have been killed in cross-border rebel [emphasis added] attacks in the past several weeks…” (Note, that the term used in the above quote is “rebel” not “terrorist” with respect to PKK attacks in contrast to the common use of the terms “terrorist” and “terrorism” in the context of such strikes on U.S. and Iraqi targets inside Iraq). In view of the strengthened PKK and its violence, it seems disingenuous for this president to urge the Ankara government to exercise restraint although he and his administration have aggressively fought the war on terrorism abroad and on foreign soil without listening to appeals for moderation and more time for diplomacy to work things out.

Innocent Victims of Wars and Terrorism

In all violent conflicts, there are innocent victims on all sides. When we follow the news media accounts about violence abroad, we only get glimpses of the reality that innocents experience and suffer.    
The friend of a former student sent me the following note to inform me of a recently published book by Dr. Bethe Schoenfeld, The Routine of War: How One Northern Israeli Community Coped During the Second Lebanon War.
The author, Bethe Schoenfeld, lives in the Kibbutz Gesher Haziv community as do the people she interviewed for this book. During the Second Lebanon War, which lasted 34 days, dozens of katyusha rockets rained down on the kibbutz.
The author’s daily diary and her interviews with the stalwarts who stayed in the community during those fearful days give us a rare report of one of these resolute Israelis. The author’s first person account goes beyond the war, into the days after the cease fire when the residents of Kibbutz Gesher Haziv began rebuilding their homes and their lives.
The Routine of War is available at: www.Amazon.com and www.devorapublishing.com

 

Lecturing President Putin on Democracy: How about President Bush?

Br Brigitte L. Nacos
As reported in the New York Times, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice “indirectly chided Mr. Putin for overseeing a steady erosion of the independent media, the courts and the legislative branch” during her visit in Moscow he other day. She criticized the accumulation of power in the Russian presidency explaining that “in any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development.” According to the Associated Press, she said furthermore, “I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma," said Rice, referring to the Russian parliament.” According to the AP, Rice “encouraged the activists [she met with] to build institutions of democracy. These would help combat arbitrary state power amid increasing pressure from the Kremlin…”

Dr. Rice was certainly right in warning of too much power in the hands of the chief-executive as detrimental to a healthy democracy. But although the developments in Russia justify critical remarks along Dr. Rice’s lines, the problem is that the track record of the Bush administration is not exactly exemplary in this respect. Indeed, since the events of 9/11 President Bush, Vice President Cheney and others in the administration have tried relentlessly and succeeded greatly in amassing power in the hands of the executive and thereby violated the power sharing and checks-and-balances system that the U.S. Constitution prescribes. Thus, Dr. Rice would be well advised to lecture Mr. Bush and, more important, the architect of expanded executive power, Mr. Cheney, on the dangers of presidential abuse of power as well.

Bully-in-Chief Rudy Giuliani: The Risk of Whacking Hillary Clinton

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Assessing the latest debate of the look-alike lineup of Republican presidential hopefuls David Broder concludes in his column in the Washington Post that “Giuliani seized every opportunity to whack Hillary Clinton…” Even more constant in Giuliani’s public appearances than his phony phone-ins by his third wife are Rudy’s relentless attacks on the only female candidate in the large field of presidential contenders. Not surprisingly, Mitt Romney and John McCain on the Republican side and John Edwards and Barack Obama among Democrats attack Senator Clinton’s positions regularly as well—she is, after all, the front runner in the Democrats’ race and should be questioned and scrutinized. But Rudy has taken on the role of bully-in-chief in his efforts to score brownie points with conservative Clinton haters so that they might overlook what they see as his considerable personal and policy flaws.

Perhaps Giuliani will become the Republican presidential nominee by whacking Hillary and convincing his party’s primary voters that he is the only one who is tough and mean enough to beat Senator Clinton in next fall’s election. But in the long run, this tactic may entail more risks than benefits and come to haunt the candidate. Giuliani’s premier selling point is his tough guy image--tough on criminals, tough on terrorists, and tough on national defense and homeland security. By declaring the other night that Iran is more dangerous than Iraq was, he left no doubt about his preference for dealing with Iran: the Cheney way. On this count, too, he lashed out at Hillary Clinton as not tough enough although she is criticized by fellow Democrats in the presidential race for being too hawkish on Iraq and Iran, etc.

 

Torture: The Shame of a Nation Once Devoted to Human Rights

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Today, both the New York Times and the Washington Post, editorialize strongly against President Bush’s and his administration’s secret torture policy as an alleged valuable tool in the so-called “war on terrorism.” The fact that detainees have been tortured physically, mentally, and spiritually in American-run prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere is nothing new—certainly not since some of the shocking visuals of torture in Abu Ghraib were publicized. But the claim that these “abuses” were the misguided deeds of a few, low-level rogues in uniform and against highest level administration directives is as far removed from the truth as the President’s insistence that the United States government does not torture. As the Washington Post editorial page puts it, “PRESIDENT BUSH said Friday, as he has many times before, that "this government does not torture people." But presidential declarations can't change the facts. The record shows that Mr. Bush and a compliant Justice Department have repeatedly authorized the CIA to use interrogation methods that the rest of the world -- and every U.S. administration before this one -- have regarded as torture: techniques such as simulated drowning, induced hypothermia, sleep deprivation and prolonged standing.”

At a recent conference, I listened to the presenter of a paper who explained the American media’s post-9/11 reluctance to use the “t” word with the difficulty of defining what torture is. I couldn’t disagree more. In the face of the shoking Abu Ghraib images, there was not then and there is not now any doubt that this was torture—not just “mistreatment” or, as so often described in the news, “alleged abuse.”  But in the post-9/11 misconception of patriotism most of the news organizations did not dare to use the “t”-word unless it was used by either administration officials denying that they condoned torture or by human rights groups condemning this practice.

Iran: the new Target in the War on Terrorism?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
It seems that John Edwards was right, when he criticized the U.S. Senate for last week’s resolution that urged the Bush administration to add Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to its list of foreign terrorist organizations. “I have no intention of giving George Bush the authority to take the first step on a road to war with Iran,” Edwards said—no doubt directing his criticism in the direction of Senator Clinton who had voted in favor of the resolution. Now, Seymour Hersh reports in The New Yorker that “there has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack planning” and that during this heightened activity “senior officials told reporters that the Administration intended to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization.” In other words, the White House did not need to be urged by the Senate to take this step. But even without Karl Rove in the White House, the political operators know the value of congressional backing in advance of a possible or likely military conflict. Hersh’s article explains the administration’s sudden interest in slapping the terrorist label on the Revolutionary Guards who are an important part of the designated state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. As I wrote in my previous post, in this case the terrorist label has not practical meaning at all.

According to Hersh, “The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on 'surgical' strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq (emphasis added). What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism."