Killing The UN

By Cernig

I wrote yesterday that McCain's proposed League of Democracies was a way of doing an end run around the UN by creating a new US-led body to provide a facade of international approval to new interventions and "preventative" wars.

Today, Krauthammer confirmed that this part of McCain's foreign policy plan is right out of the neocon playbook.

Well, I like the idea of the league of democracies, and only in part because I and others had proposed it about six years ago. What I like about it, it’s got a hidden agenda. It looks as if it’s all about listening and joining with allies, all the kind of stuff you’d hear a John Kerry say, except that the idea here, which McCain can’t say, but I can, is to essentially kill the U.N.

Think Progress has the video - and also notes that Krauthammer first proposed this League six years ago, so he would know its true purpose.

The UN comes in for a lot of criticism from Americans, but other than the lost 20-something percenters I think they'd mostly agree that it perhaps needs some reform but should still be kept around as the primary international forum. If voting for McCain was clearly labelled as a vote for disbanding the UN, a lot of people would balk. That's why McCain has to pretend that he'd just be adding another body to international diplomacy.

And if McCain dares to invoke Churchill, the greatest defender of a strong UN, anytime in the future I may just puke.

Update Kevin Sullivan, the most right-leaning "liberal" in the blogosphere, wouldn't attend the UN's funeral and James Joyner seems to think a different, democratic, alternative would be better for U.S. interests than the UN is, writing that "Attempting to get that business done through a smaller coalition of more like-minded states only makes sense, and it’s a far sight better than either going it alone or waiting on the UN to achieve consensus."

But here's the rub - what happens when the League of Democracies tries to impose its authority on a non-democracy and the latter says it doesn’t recognise the authority of a body it hasn’t been invited to send representatives to and has no voice at?

We bomb them?

Keane - "The security situation is worsening,"

By Cernig

"The security situation is worsening." Well, if retired General Jack Keane, one of the architects and chief propagandists for the Surge, says it's so, then it must be.

Meanwhile, Sadr has responded to Maliki's ultimatum to the Mahdi Army that it must lay down its arms within 72 hours by demnading Maliki go home to Baghdad and send in a parliamentary team to negotiate their way back to the ceasefire.

And the US keeps on supporting the least-popular option - and the one that Iran supports too. Divide and conquer, not support for democracy, is always the colonialist way.

Anyone remember who said this about Iraq back in January 2007?

This political culture is not ready for representative government

That's right - General Jack Keane.

'Nuff said.

The Source Of Bush's Delusion

By Cernig

Both the WaPo and McClatchy have noticed that Dubya erroneously claimed that Iran had said that it wants "to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people” (Dubya's words).

The claim came in an interview with Radio Farda in which Bush also acknowledged Iran's right to have a peaceful nuclear program, but said he wanted Iran to entirely outsource its enrichment to Russia. Iran has rejected this approach mainly because of Russia's track record in using energy supplies to hold customer nations hostage on political matters.

Bush cited his "belief that the Iranians should have a civilian nuclear-power program. It's in their right to have it." But he added: "The problem is that the [Iranian] government cannot be trusted to enrich uranium because, one, they've hidden programs in the past and they may be hiding one now -- who knows? And secondly, they've declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people -- some -- in the Middle East."

Iran has consistently said that its uranium-enrichment program is aimed only at producing energy, but the United States and some allies fear Iran is seeking the capability to develop nuclear weapons.

"There's a chance that the U.S. and Iran can reconcile their differences, but the government is going to have to make different choices," Bush said. "And one [such choice] is to verifiably suspend the enrichment of uranium, at which time there is a way forward."

The UN Security Council has passed three rounds of sanctions against Iran in an effort to pressure Tehran to halt its enrichment activities.

"What is acceptable to me is to work with a nation like Russia to provide the fuel so that the plant can go forward, which therefore shows that the Iranian government doesn't need to learn to enrich [uranium]," Bush said.

So where is Bush getting this delusion that Iran has said it wants a nuke? Look no further than the influential neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, which has constantly banged the drum for war with Iran. Over at National Review's "Corner" blog today, Michael Rubin - a resident scholar in foreign and defense policy studies at AEI - cites....Michael Rubin...as a source for such claims.

On examination, too, one of Rubin's key sources in his self-referenced article for the AIE turns out to be an Iranian Hezboullah hardliner arguing against then-President Rafsanjani, telling him what he should be doing but isn't. Another is by the Daily Telegraph's neocon serial fabulist Phil Sherwell and although Rubin says the cleric involved later "backtracked", what actually happened is that the cleric said he'd been outrageously misquoted and denied ever making the statement Sherwell claimed.

Self-reference and the misuse of sources can be bad blogging - but coming from a highly influential warmonger like Rubin who's scholarship has been questioned in the past - for not revealing his involvement in Bush administration propaganda efforts in Iraq - they are positively dangerous. With such organisations as the AIE and the Heritage Foundation feeding him their highly-spun version of events and issues, Bush is living in a reality of their making. Thus comes the source of his delusion.

Problems with analogies

Analytical analogies can be very useful things as they convey a great deal of information in an understandable and memorable manner. The 'pushing on a string' analogy of ineffective central bank monetary policy when the problem is not a liquidity problem but a solvency problem, is one of those very useful analogies. Behind it lies a mass of very important technical work and analytical assumptions as to how the economy behaves. However these assumptions correlate fairly well to a reality picture described by pushing on string.


However analogies and comparisons need to be grounded in reality to be useful. And to be valuable, they need to be grounded in multiple facets of reality. Michael Goldfarb at the neo-con house organ of the Weekly Standard (intentionally) makes this mistake to argue for the McCain plan to stay in Iraq for 100 years on the basis of the boogey man charge that AQI is all powerful and will take over in ten seconds after the US pulls out X number of combat brigades.

The Israeli experience of the last few years offers a real lesson here. They pulled out of Lebanon--unilaterally and not out of military necessity--and Hezbollah claimed victory. More than that, Hezbollah became the vanguard of global jihad. Likewise in Gaza. The Israelis withdrew--unilaterally and not out of military necessity--and Hamas claimed victory. More than that, they overthrew Fatah and radicalized the Palestinian population (really, they are more radical).

If we pull out of Iraq, al Qaeda will claim victory

For an analogy to work, it has to mesh on relevant points. It does not.


He is analogizing the experiences of two nationalistic groups who are in the terms of Al-Qaeda grand strategy focuesed on fighting the 'near' enemy of Isreal above all else while also investing in significant social services by building parrellel or tapping into existing social support networks to a group that everyone who has been paying attention for years contends is composed of 'useful idiots, with emphasis on idiots' from the POV of their primary support base, is comparatively small (5% to 10% of the 2003 to 2007 active shooters) and are primarily motivated by the war itself. AQI is a 'near enemy' unit in the terminology and stragetic perspective of Bin Laden et al.


Conflating nationalist/tribalist groups whose area of operations and scope of activities are measured in miles and not continents with a group whose strategy dictates 'deep strikes' and intercontintal reach is one hell of a stretch, and if he was an honest analyst, he would know it. But we are looking at propaganda to support a policy regime that has failed in its goals.

PKK Makes $700 Million Yearly From Drugs, Smuggling

By Cernig

The Turkish government has said that the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terror group has a yearly income of 400-500 million euros (up to $750 million) obtained from drug dealing, human trafficking, smuggling and donations.

Speaking on the second day of an international conference on terrorism organized by the Turkish military at the Centre of Excellence -- Defense against Terrorism (COE-DAT) in Ankara on March 10 and 11, Saygun said: “It is obvious that the PKK is a terrorist organization and, with its mafia-like structure, it is also an organized criminal organization. This fact has been proven by several international reports. The terrorists’ organization obtains its income mainly from drug dealing, in addition to arms smuggling, money laundering, racketeering and other illegal means.”
He said the PKK obtains 200-250 million euros from drug dealing, 100-150 million from its various smuggling activities and 15-20 million from donations.

Saygun indicated that the PKK provides arms not only to its members but also to the terrorists of other organizations. He said this shows how the PKK has become an international criminal organization and that it underlines the need to fight the PKK’s crimes internationally. “The mentality that supports the terrorist organization should not forget that this organization controls 80 percent of the drug dealing in Europe and poisons the European public.”

At the conference Saygun said reports from the UN and other esteemed international organizations indicate that the PKK kidnaps children -- including girls -- in Europe to give them training in arms and ideology.

He complained that even though Turkey has been sensitive to make a distinction among groups and not to label everybody terrorists, some Europeans do not show the same understanding. “Some in Europe wrongly identify everybody of Kurdish origin with the PKK,” he said.

Speaking about the harm caused by terrorist organizations in general, Saygun said: “Terrorist organizations claim they represent ethnic groups or great belief groups. So they carry out their activities in the name of the ideologies of Islam, people’s independence, minority rights, Jihad, democratic rights and freedoms, thereby seeking legitimacy for their activities. We should not fall into this trap.”

Not just terrorists responsible for over 60,000 deaths but a massive criminal organistation which has done untold damage to lives throughout the Middle east and Europe. Yet the Bush administration has consistently soft-stepped and fence sat when it comes to the PKK, willing to trade their presence and activities for a quiet Kurdish North in Iraq these last five years.

One offshoot of this group - the PJK - is one that rightwing American extremists like Ken Timmerman cozy up to simply because it is seen as fighting the current Iranian regime. Timmerman isn't just the reporter who wrote a puff piece on the PJK, he's also executive director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, which he founded with neocon Bush administration insider Peter Rodeman.

But both Bush administration and neocons alike should be careful about their allies. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" may well be the way the Right like to run foreign policy but it's just as true that "if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas."

McCain More Hawkish Than Bush

By Cernig

Bloomberg's Hans Nichols looks at both McCain's own words and the opinions of his own neoconservative advisors and finds that John McCain is even more belligerent than Dubya. Especially when it comes to nations like Russia and China that could actually put up some fight against a U.S. military which would still be overstretched by the perpetual occupation of Iraq.

On China, he has said he will make it clear to the government that the U.S. is unhappy at the weakness of the currency and the ``repression of democracy.'' He also vows to oppose any effort by China to force reunification with Taiwan.

``He thinks we need to make sure that the hard edge of the balance is kept up,'' said Gary Schmitt, a McCain adviser and senior fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute.

On North Korea, he questions the agreement by the administration to provide nuclear fuel in exchange for the country suspending its nuclear-enrichment program.

``The jury is still out on North Korea, and Senator McCain has been a little more skeptical about the route they've gone,'' said Schmitt.

McCain has also differentiated his Russia policy from that of the White House, insisting that when he looks at the eyes of departing President Vladimir Putin, he see the ``K.G.B,'' not the man Bush once said was ``deeply committed to his country.''

After the Russian elections earlier this month, McCain said they were ``clearly rigged.'' Bush told President-elect Dmitry Medvedev he wanted a ``close working relationship.''

And what a wonderfully hawkish set of advisors too. The American Enterprise Institute is the neocon mothership and Gary Schmitt "helped found and direct the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a key neoconservative letterhead group formed in 1997 that played a leading role advocating war in Iraq and an expansive war on terror in the wake of 9/11." Others who commented for the article include the CEO of the neocon Hudson Institute that backed Bolton as UN ambassador as well as neoconservative and gun-lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, who is a long-time friend of McCain's and his senior foreign policy advisor. Back in August 2006, when asked about McCain retaining less hawkish advisors such as Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft, Scheunemann had this to offer:

The foreign policy chief for Mr. McCain's presidential bid in 2000, Randy Scheunemann, said that while the senator consults widely, his policy stands track more with the neoconservatives than with the so-called realists.

"I don't think, given where John has been for the last four or five years on the Iraq war and foreign policy issues, anyone would mistake Scowcroft for a close adviser," Mr. Scheunemann said. He said if Mr. Scowcroft was a close adviser, Mr. McCain "was not taking the advice. Speaking out against the Saudis and the Chinese is not something you would associate with Scowcroft, but it is something you would associate with Kristol or Kagan."

John McCain is looking to enact a more bellicose neoconservative agenda than even Bush and Cheney should he become president, especially in his confrontational approach to nations with real nukes and real militaries at a time when the U.S. military is already stretched to breaking point. Should he sit in the Oval Office, the chances of that infamous red phone ringing at 3 am would rise considerably.

Admiral Fallon Out (Updated)

By Cernig

You'll recall that recently Tom Barnett wrote a piece for Esquire saying that Admiral William Fallon was soon to be replaced as the head of U.S. Central Command because he opposed the neoconservative narrative for war with Iran.

Today, Admiral Fallon resigned.

In a written statement, he said the article’s “disrespect for the president” and “resulting embarrassment” have become a distraction. “Although I don’t believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility, the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America’s interests there,” he said.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters at the Pentagon that he accepted Fallon’s resignation “with reluctance and regret.” But he added, “I think it’s the right decision.” “We have tried between us to put this misperception behind us over a period of months, and, frankly, just have not been successful in doing so,” he said.

So Tom Barnett was correct that Fallon would go - but the official reason is the exact opposite of the one Tom pointed to. Spencer Ackerman says that Fallon isn't even hanging around until he can be replaced - something he thinks is "highly suspicious" and sounds like a resignation over a matter of principle whatever the official spin might be.

Is it just me or does this smack strongly of official spin, enabling Fallon to be ousted without the embarassment of having to sack him for disagreeing with a Commander in Chief who "always listens" to his senior officers?

Now poor Tom Barnett will be seen as carrying a large can for his Esquire op-ed, which is highly unfair. And bombing Iran will be easier.

Update Our illustrious researcher, Kat, notes a report that Gates was refusing to take Fallon's calls. In a comment to this post, she writes:

Tonight, NBC Nightly News reported that Gates has been refusing to take Fallon's calls. Since the podcast of tonight's show isn't available yet, I can't quote the report precisely. But I'm not the only one who heard this. The blog 2008run.com just posted this:

"A voice on the tee vee says that Defense Secretary Gates gave Admiral Fallon the message - that he should resign - by refusing to take his phone calls. Refusing to take his phone calls? And if that didn’t work what was he going to do, Hold his breath?" I mean, seriously, is this the Sec of Defense and the Head of CentCom or characters in Mean Girls?"

Not taking Fallon's calls? That doesn't sound much like "reluctance and regret" to me.

Restating the Obvious

A secular dictator who is in the bullseye of a major power whose internal political dynamics encourage foreign adventures and the same secular dictator sitting atop large oil reserves and a restive mixed sect population will ally itself with a group of sectarian fanactics whose strategic analysis and objectives is to strike the major power in order to topple secular dictators and authoritarian monarachies who sit atop large oil reserves. That is basically the strategic dynamic that would have to underline any active collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al-Queda. Somewhat absurd but it was one of the main points of argument to invade Iraq as President Bush and other senior administration officials who knew or should have known better.

This claim due to the previous discussed incentive structure was farcical to anyone paying attention in 2002/2003, and believable only to the idiots at the American Enterprise Institute led by Laurie Mylroie. It is still a siren song on the dead-ender right that Al Queada has a long and established history in Iraq and will take over the place as soon as either the US stops showing resolve (@ $12 billion a month, and several hundred US casualties,) elects Democrats, or withdraws heavy combat formations.

The Pentagon disagrees on this assessment on several fronts. Al-Queada and other foreign fighters had never been a large component of the Sunni-Arab insurgencies, never more than 5% to 10% of the total fighters and they were often seen as useful idiots at best, and usually idiots (which is one of the prompts for the Awakening... the idiots overstayed their welcome and tried to collect smuggling taxes), and the only Al-Queada linked group in Iraq pre-invasion was Ansar al Islam which operated in the Kurdish zone that existed under American air cover.

Today, the DOD reports that after looking at over half a million documents, several thousand hours of interviews and interogations, that a secular dictatorship sitting atop of a bunch of oil was not actively collaborating with a bunch of religious nuts who want to topple secular dictatorships....

An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were confiscated after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network....

An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were confiscated after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network.

No shit

Iraq, In Books - Feith And Chalibi

By Cernig

Just a quick heads-up on two new books to add to the vast body of "he's to blame" literature about the Iraq war, which by now has come to be split into two distinct sub-genres. The first is by Douglas Feith and is of the "he's to blame, not me" sub-genre now perfected by ex-officials of the Bush administration. Emptywheel deconstructs the internal politics of the 900-page belated CYA. He ends with what should be the book-jacket blurb:

900 pages of Dougie Feith insisting that if only Ahmad Chalabi had been given control of Iraq, all of Dougie's dreams of flourishing democracy would have succeeded.

Which brings us neatly to Aram Roston’s “The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi.” Muckraked digs into this example of the "he's to blame, exposed" sub-genre and finds, among other gems, that Chalibi supported McCain over Bush back in 2000 as the man most likely to deliver Chalibi's dreams of Iraqi rule.

Throwing Bush Under The Bus

By Cernig

Today in the Weekly Standard, Jeffrey Bell from the Ethics and Public Policy Center (an outfit set up to promote "the Judeo-Christian moral tradition" over secular humanism in public policy) puts forward the Republican game plan for throwing Dubya under the bus while still managing to claim that Bush's policies could be effective if someone with the backbone to see them through (like McCain!) is elected. Scott Johnson of Powerline has already endorsed it and no doubt other extreme Right apparatchiks will follow.

It begins (emphasis mine):

The failure of the Bush presidency is the dominant fact of American politics today. It has driven every facet of Democratic political strategy since early 2006, when Democrats settled on the campaign themes that brought them their takeover of the House and Senate in November 2006. Nothing--not even the success of the American troop surge in Iraq--has altered or will alter the centrality of George W. Bush and his failed presidency to Democratic planning in the remainder of 2008.

Until very recently, it was in the Republicans' interest to find ways of sidestepping or finessing this central political fact. Congressional Republicans sensed that open acknowledgment of the failure of the Bush presidency could cause a collapse in floor discipline, perhaps leading to a series of veto overrides and even forced surrender in Iraq. Candidates for the Republican presidential nomination had to deal with the fact that in our polarized politics, Republican primary voters are still predominantly pro-Bush. From the beginning of this cycle, GOP campaign strategists were aware that presidential candidates openly contemptuous of the Bush administration would go nowhere in the primaries (Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo) or prove to be nonstarters (Chuck Hagel).

John McCain's clinching of the Republican nomination changes many if not most of these GOP calculations. If Republicans are to accomplish the unusual feat of winning a third consecutive presidential election in the context of an unpopular administration of their own party, they will have to develop a narrative that takes into account the failed presidency in their midst while at the same time making a plausible case for a new Republican presidency and continued Republican strength in -Congress. This in turn requires an understanding of Bush's failure that is not self-discrediting for Republicans.

If you think that's going to take mental twisting amounting to deliberately induced schizophrenia, you're right. The GOP, like a crude oil supertanker, has a wide turning circle and getting everything travelling in a new direction is always a messy business.

But, in short, Bell wants Republicans to believe - both at the same time - that while Bush has been a wonderful President and Commander in Chief he has also been a failure for: not hating Teh Gay enough; not giving enough away to the richest 5% and corporations; making of Iraq both a quagmire and a surging success and for allowing Patrick Fitzgerald to use his investigation of the Plame outing to pursue "only people who were hawkish on Iraq and never people who were dovish on Iraq" thus "criminalizing or semi-criminalizing effective defenders of the Iraq invasion" and driving them from the administration.Nary a mention of the possibility that it's the hard-Right's policies and operators who are flawed, rather than Bush's enabling of them.

Go read the whole thing for the entire muddled split-personality effect of seeing the folks in jackboots try to lockstep in two opposite directions at once. Delicious.

Vote McCain for a Third Bush Term!

By Cernig

Dubya hi-jacked the Straight Talk Express today as he endorsed McCain for the White House.

In a press conference after a private lunch, a reporter asked the duo how McCain would “make the case that you’re going to provide the change that the voters seem to want.”

Bush quickly cut in, declaring that McCain is “not going to change”:

BUSH: And the good news about our candidate there will be a new president, a man of character and courage, but he’s not going to change when it comes to taking on the enemy. He understands this is a dangerous world.

Following up on the press conference, Rich Lowry of the National Review said on Fox News that Bush is framing McCain as embracing his old platforms, “someone determined absolutely to take on our enemy and someone with a big heart who cares for those who hurt.” Lowry said McCain was shaping up to be Bush’s “successor”.

So there you have it. The would-be moderate, "maverick" McCain has now been entirely co-opted by the wingnut base of the GOP, who insist that there be no change. Just another ventroloquist's dummy in an expensive suit.

So Much For That NIE Fearmongering

By Cernig

The UN Security Council voted 14-0 to extend and increase sanctions on Iran over it's nuclear program, based largely on emerging tidbits from the Laptop Of Doom provided to U.S. intelligence by the MeK terror group.

But as Eric Martin points out, no matter how one may feel about that UN decision, it's worth noting that the last NIE on Iran, the one that deflated the warhype to the point where an attack seemed out of the question and therefore according to the neocons was going to make it impossible to get the UNSC to back further sanctions...well...seems to have had the opposite effect.

Score one for the rapier instead of the sabre. And the neocons were wrong again.

Perles Of Omitted Wisdom

By Cernig

Richard N. Perle, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Reagan's SDI honcho (and incidentally, the guy who brought in Ahmed Chalibi to meet the Bush administration) has an op-ed for the Washington Post today. He argues that talk of a new arms race with Russia is nonsense and the U.S. can safely ignore Russian rhetoric - putting him very much at odds with Bob Gates, who has consistently proven himself the only adult in the room when it comes to this administration and national security and who has clearly said the U.S. must beware of poking the bear too much.

But I wanted to specifically address the following gem of misdirection in Perle's piece:

As for Lavrov's "hundreds of thousands" of missile interceptors, dividing by a thousand would be a reassuring start. U.S. plans call for a modest number of interceptors, dozens at first, a hundred or so later, maybe 200 or 300 after that. The program is limited because the threat is measured in tens of missiles, not hundreds and certainly not thousands. With North Korea and Iran building ballistic missiles with significant and increasing range, a modest defense is a prudent first step toward countering a known threat.

How is it possible for Perle to write this and yet omit the relevant news that various neocon think tanks orbiting around the AEI mothership are actively campaigning for a resurrection of the "Brilliant Pebbles" interceptors in space program?

It changes the entire debate from one of a difference in degree to a difference in kind - and a change that really is likely to trigger a new arms race since it undermines not just Russia's deterrent but also important arms-control treaties. To leave out this tidbit is lying by misdirection, yet Perle will get away with it because the mainstream's stenographers simply don't pay attention.

The Spin Cycle Of Doom (Updated With A New Rinse)

By Cernig

I said yesterday we'd be hearing more about the dreaded Laptop Of Doom and its alleged evidence of Iran's nuke plans, as provided by the MeK terror group to US intelligence. And lo and behold, today the WaPo has a report on exactly that, saying details contained on the laptop prove Iran hasn't been entirely honest about it's weapon activities. It's one of those "when did you stop beating your wife?" situations. But the WaPo report isn't being entirely honest either, it seems.

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, the Arms Control Wonk, writes:

today, Warrick and Lynch have a story based on notes from Heinonen’s briefing — a good bit of reporting — suggesting that the IAEA had collected “corroborating evidence” from the intelligence agencies of several countries (echo chamber warning) and presenting some new information.

Unfortuantely, the example of “new” information that Warrick and Lynch provide, pertains to documents “described studies on modifying Iran’s Shahab missile to allow it to accommodate a large warhead, which would detonate 600 meters above its target.”

This is not new. Those details were first reported in March 2005 by Carla Anne Robbins and later recycled by Robbins in July 2005 and then David Sanger and Bill Broad in the New York Times.

Indeed, that information, as Robbins reported in 2005, was briefed to the IAEA by Bob Joseph.

So, two questions: What was in the 2008 briefing that wasn’t in the 2005 briefing? And, what else is in those notes?

I'm not sure where Dr. Lewis gets the impression that presenting old news as new and scarier news is "a good bit of reporting". Absent answers to Dr Lewis' two questions - and even more importantly, prehaps, knowing the identity of their source who supposedly took these notes at an IAEA briefing - it looks very much to me like yet another case of press stenographers catapulting the propaganda by a process of rinse and repeat.

Update I see the NYT's Sanger and Broad have their version of the story out too. Like the WaPo version, it concentrates on the warhead details that, as Dr. Lewis points out, were last recycled by Sanger and Broad in 2005.

At this point, the really big question is "who is this un-named diplomat who has so kindly let both WaPo and NYT use his notes -- and what's his agenda?"

Update 2 Siddharth, in comments at Dr. Lewis' blog, puts his finger on the real story:

And wonderful timing too, for all those “notes” being made available to NYT, WaPo and Reuters, just in time for Monday’s big UNSC sanctions vote. In my book – and I speak as a journalist – being handed over notes/documents etc (esp. by a party with a patent interest in the contents being reported) is not “good reporting”. What makes it even worse is that Schulte hands over shady documents to IAEA, gets old Oli to brief everyone, takes notes of said briefing, and hands over said notes to gullible hacks. Much more effective than directly plugging a line to the media.

Go on, someone in the press - ask Schulte if he was indeed the Masked Diplomat.

The Laptop Of Doom

By Cernig

For the first time, Iran has openly said it believes the infamous "smoking laptop" to be full of MeK terror group propaganda. Gareth Porter does sterling work tracking the laptop's provenance - which is to say US intel just about got it from a guy in a bar.

those documents have long been regarded with great suspicion by U.S. and foreign analysts. German officials have identified the source of the laptop documents in November 2004 as the Mujahideen e Khalq (MEK), which along with its political arm, the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), is listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organisation.

There are some indications, moreover, that the MEK obtained the documents not from an Iranian source but from Israel's Mossad.

In its latest report on Iran, circulated Feb. 22, the IAEA, under strong pressure from the Bush administration, included descriptions of plans for a facility to produce "green salt", technical specifications for high explosives testing and the schematic layout of a missile reentry vehicle that appears capable of holding a nuclear weapon. Iran has been asked to provide full explanations for these alleged activities.

Tehran has denounced the documents on which the charges are based as fabrications provided by the MEK, and has demanded copies of the documents to analyse, but the United States had refused to do so.

The Iranian assertion is supported by statements by German officials. A few days after then Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the laptop documents, Karsten Voight, the coordinator for German-American relations in the German Foreign Ministry, was reported by the Wall Street Journal Nov. 22, 2004 as saying that the information had been provided by "an Iranian dissident group".

A German official familiar with the issue confirmed to this writer that the NCRI had been the source of the laptop documents. "I can assure you that the documents came from the Iranian resistance organisation," the source said.

The Germans have been deeply involved in intelligence collection and analysis regarding the Iranian nuclear programme. According to a story by Washington Post reporter Dafna Linzer soon after the laptop documents were first mentioned publicly by Powell in late 2004, U.S. officials said they had been stolen from an Iranian whom German intelligence had been trying to recruit, and had been given to intelligence officials of an unnamed country in Turkey.

The German account of the origins of the laptop documents contradicts the insistence by unnamed U.S. intelligence officials who insisted to journalists William J. Broad and David Sanger in November 2005 that the laptop documents did not come from any Iranian resistance groups.

Despite the fact that it was listed as a terrorist organisation, the MEK was a favourite of neoconservatives in the Pentagon, who were proposing in 2003-2004 to use it as part of a policy to destabilise Iran.

You're going to be hearing a lot more about this laptop's alleged revelations, as it's the single biggest remaining item of "evidence" in the neocon war-hyper's arsenal. But it looks very like any real information contained on it relates to iran's now-defunct pre-2003 weapons program and that data has been spiced up by the inclusion of propaganda planted by one of the links in the provenance chain.

Marching In Lockstep

By Cernig

When the IAEA issued its latest report on Iran's nuclear program on Friday, there wasn't much noise about it from the right side of the blogosphere. They were too busy worrying about Obama's patriotism and McCain's "Cheney".

But now that the neocon mothership - the American Enterprise Institute - have spoken via the WSJ, they're all falling over themselves to get in lockstep and call it a "whitewash".

The truth, however, is that the IAEA's new report is a carefully parsed compromise between what the IAEA knows, what it's being told but cannot itself verify and political pressure from these very same neocons. It included an urgent call to Iran to agree implementation of a new Additional Protocol and gave the UNSC good cause to proceed with new sanction should it wish to. It repeated the good news that Iran's current centrifuges and their low-enriched product cannot be diverted to produce highly-enriched uranium useable for a weapon without IAEA knowledge.

It also connected the infamous "smoking taptop" to the Iranian nuclear program which ended in 2003 according to the last American NIE.

What the neocons are unhappy about is that it didn't contain a call for war. If any report on Iran's nuclear program doesn't contain that, it's a whitewash that makes the producing agency "irrelevant" according to them.

Could they be more transparent?

Next IAEA Report On Iran Due

By Cernig

According to IAEA officials, the next report on Iran is due out this weekend, either tomorrow or Monday. It's expected to say, yet again, that Iran has been cagy but co-operating and that the IAEA still haven't found a smoking gun or even a waterpistol.

So it must be time for those who would prefer the words "Iran" and "nuclear threat" to be conjoined in the public's mind to set out a new range of accusations. That way, they can point at the IAEA's report and say "but it doesn't answer these questions!"

Oh look, whaddaya know.

The MeK says Iran has a secret nuke plant in Tehran's suburbs. This, presumably, is different from all the other Iranian secret nuke plants the MeK have "revealed" since 2003 and passed to the U.S. - thence to the IAEA - but which turned out to be entirely non-existant when investigated.

And the Bush administration is pushing the laptop the MeK was given by some guy again.

So The U.S. Has An ASAT Weapon

By Cernig

So, the U.S. has an anti-satellite weapon. It's a modification of the well-tried SM3 naval missile rather than one of the fancier and far more expensive per unit specially-developed anti-missile interceptors the military are keeping up in Alaska and plan to install in Europe. It might work under all weather conditions - but the military erred on the side of caution.

The neocons are jubilant - Michael Goldfarb calling it the "greatest PR boost the program could have gotten short of actually striking down a North Korean missile inbound to Hollywood". That's a bit hyperbolic - but then again he also headlines his piece "Missile Defense Works" when hitting a satellite the size of a bus in a predictable orbit doesn't actually say a damn thing about ability to hit a dodging, far smaller re-entry vehicle which might have onboard jammers or decoys deployed.

The rest of us? Well, there isn't a single expert in the field who believes the "hydrazine threat" story. The consensus is that the Bush administration just rattled a sabre the U.S. already proved it had the capability for back in 1985 to no good outcome other than heightened international arms control tensions, at a time when the neocon lobby is calling for a walkback by the U.S. on various arms treaties to allow missile defense systems which will include the permanent stationing of weapons in space. The shootdown was a short-sighted act of marginal utility but incalculable diplomatic/foreign policy effects. Welcome to the new arms race with both China and Russia - and India, Japan, Israel...

Worse, if the neocons are successful in riding this PR victory into a Brilliant Pebbles deployment, the next time an SM3 is launched into orbit it may be targeted at a rogue satellite containing a half-dozen interceptor missiles of its own (or even a nuke-pumped X-Ray laser if one of the more nightamrish plans from Ronnie's old Star Wars comix makes a re-appearance). Wouldn't that make a nice firework video for the nightime news?

A Laugh A Microsecond

By Cernig

I'm not going to spoil it by telling you in advance. Just go read this post by KagroX at DKos about the morans at The Heritage Foundation. Then come back and tell me if you laughed so hard you sprayed coffee on the screen too.

What 9/11 Changed

By Cernig

9/11 took a generation of Playstation warriors and the previous generation's rightwing Black Helicopter Paranoia crowd and welded them into a constituency which drove America's policies and politics for seven long years.

Greenwald in great form.

Over the past couple decades, prior to the Bush Era, the people who needed the sort of psychological fulfillment that comes from prancing around as Hofstadterian faux-warriors waging Civilization Wars obtained their fulfillment from playing board and video games or, at worst, dressing up on the weekend in camouflage costumes and -- rather than playing golf or going fishing -- marched around in militia formations, primed to defend the nation from Janet Reno and her squadrons of hovering U.N. black helicopters. It was equally pathetic, but at least the damage was minimal.

But the 9/11 attacks and ensuing events catapulted their paranoia and powerlessness syndromes from clownish sideshow to dominant political faction. And their fevered, self-serving fantasies have empowered the Federal Government beyond anyone's wildest dreams, created a completely out-of-control domestic surveillance state, subordinated even the rule of law to the lawless dictates of Security State officials, and dismantled long-standing constitutional protections and political values so basic that they were previously beyond debate. In Civilization Wars, all is fair and justified -- torture, lawbreaking, domestic spying, limitless government power, because the imperative of their crusade outweighs all.

All of that is bad enough. But listening to the authors of these events martyr themselves by claiming that their crusades are "psychologically exhausting" is really too much to bear. The reason they pursue those crusades endlessly, and will continue to pursue them until stopped, is precisely because the only thing they find "psychologically exhausting" is the prospect of having to live without their Supreme War of Civilization, whereby they defend the greatest things ever, under siege from the most Evil villains ever, with them -- and only them -- courageous and tough enough to "do what needs to be done" to triumph.

Read the whole thing.