The Legacy

Ruth Turner, Blair's Director of Government relations, has been arrested.

She was questioned over honours allegations and suspicion of perverting the course of justice. She has issued a statement denying any wrongdoing.

Interesting.

Whatever happens with this, it amazes me that there are still so many Labour MPs and activists prepared to let Blair depart "with dignity". Faced with distrusted, disliked and laughably inept Tory opposition during his entire time in office, Blair has still, almost single-handedly, managed to totally destroyed Labour's reputation. That's quite a feat.

Those who continue to support him are only making it even more likely that the whole Party will go down with his sinking ship. There are signs that self-interest has finally started to motivate them in ways that mere principles never could but it may very well already be too late.

This week's post have all been rather serious in nature. How about a little light relief to lighten the mood?

Brownie: The truth that dare not speak its name is that on Iran, Bush and Blair have played a blinder.

Gene: But let's not forget... even if Ahmadinejad is forced out, the struggle for freedom in Iran will be far from over.

No, stop. My sides...

Brownie's "blinder" is that it is possible that the situation in Iran might revert back to something like the one which existed in 2002 when Bush described the country as part of the "axis of evil".

That is, Ahmadinejad might be replaced by a "moderate"" like the previous President. Khatami did try to reform Iranian society but was hampered by the relative lack of power of the President in Iran's political system. He also introduced the concept of a dialogue of civilisations. When he stepped down in 2005 (having served his maximum two terms), the hardline Ahmadinejad was elected to replace him.

Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, now appears to be worried by the failures of Ahmadinejad's economic policies and concerned that his belligerent rhetoric is making it more difficult for Iran to implement their nuclear programme (which he maintains is for peaceful purposes only). There are signs that he may have withdrawn his support for the President.

But, Gene reminds us, even if that happened and Ahmadinejad was removed, that shouldn't mean that Bush and Blair should tone down their own "struggle for freedom" rhetoric.

Blinder!

Man, those guys crack me up.

Guido Fawkes 2.0?

Now that's an escalation.

Core Beliefs

Remember Cully Stimpson, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs? He's the one who launched an attack on law firms representing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and encouraged the media to join in. It was a small object lesson in the Bush administration's cosy relationship with the right-wing media and the way they try to exploit that relationship. This time, fortunately, it backfired badly. The administration has had to deploy their plausible deniability defence.

Stimson has even apologised. Sort of.

There's an audio link to the original interview here (wma). He said:

Actually you know I think the news story that you're really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, 'Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,' and you know what, it's shocking.

He then listed a number of firms and went on:

I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.

It was an outrageous suggestion and has quite rightly been shouted down.

Note that there's no messing around with words like "alleged" or "suspected" for Stimson. The "very terrorists" he said. That this man has any involvement in the process of giving the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay a "fair trial" is a farce.

Now he says his comments didn't reflect his "core beliefs".

There's a good sign of the sincerity of this apology in the way he addressed the other allegation he made concerning payment. He now says:

During a radio interview last week, I brought up the topic of pro bono work and habeas corpus representation of detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Regrettably, my comments left the impression that I question the integrity of those engaged in the zealous defense of detainees in Guantanamo. I do not.

Nice use of the word "zealous" there in his apology.

But that's not the point. The point is to compare his apology with what he's actually apologising for. When asked who was paying the firms, he said:

It's not clear, is it? Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they're doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I'd be curious to have them explain that.

The implication couldn't be clearer, particularly in the context of his previous remarks. The only impression these comments left was the one that they were specifically intended to leave. Regrettably, my comments left the impression... It is probably not the most honest apology you've ever encountered.

He has not been sacked.

But then, that'd be no way to repay a deniable lackey who walked up to the plate, sucked it up and took one for the team. He'll probably be promoted.

Relax? Don't Do It

Many people now believe that the Bush administration desperately wants to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. In fact, almost everyone would agree that that's what they want to do.

Many people are also concerned by recent signs which suggest that the Bush administration has already started down the road towards making it happen. There are others, however, who argue that whatever Bush's intentions might be, this desperately unpopular lame duck President doesn't have the authority to make it happen. "Relax" they say, "Congress would not allow it".

Given everything we know about the Bush administration, the last thing we should do is relax.

Let's start at the beginning. Pat Buchanan, for all that there's a very clear agenda behind this article, is essentially right about the Democrats. Back in 2002/03, the Democrats cheered Bush into launching a disastrous war of choice in much the same way that the Tories cheered Blair. Neither opposition party, neither legislature in fact, has a record to boast of when it comes to opposing Bush and Blair's rush to quagmire in Iraq. Neither is now in the lead in demanding that Bush and Blair be held to account for their actions.

The comforting thought now is that although Congress did not oppose Bush over Iraq, the political climate today is very different to the one which existed in 2002/03. Indeed, it is precisely because of Iraq that Bush's words and actions are now subject to far greater scrutiny and scepticism. The strategies which the administration employed to justify that war will not work again this time. For those reasons, it is argued, Bush won't be having his military action against Iran, whether he wants it or not.

That the political climate has changed in Congress and in the U.S. as a whole is beyond dispute. After Bush's speech. Ron Paul, a Republican member of Congress, said he was concerned that "a contrived Gulf of Tonkin-type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran". He also noted that "speculation in Washington focuses on when, not if, either Israel or the U.S. will bomb Iran".

Walter Jones, a another Republican Congressman, has introduced a Joint Resolution demanding that Bush seek Congressional approval before ordering any use of military force against Iran. From the Buchanan article:

The day after Bush's threat to Iran, Jones introduced a Joint Resolution, "Concerning the Use of Military Force by the United States Against Iran." Under HJR 14, "Absent a national emergency created by attack by Iran, or a demonstrably imminent attack by Iran, upon the United States, its territories, possessions or its armed forces, the president shall consult with Congress, and receive specific authorization pursuant to law from Congress, prior to initiating any use of force on Iran."

That this resolution is the work of one of the men who brought Freedom Fries to Congress is as potent a sign of the changed political climate as you'll ever find. How could Bush possibly get what he wants in the face of such opposition even from within his own party?

Well, Bush almost certainly believes that he has the authority to order military action against Iran without the express approval of Congress. This again from the Pat Buchanan article:

On ABC last Sunday, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, while denying Bush intends to attack Iran, nonetheless did not deny Bush had the authority to escalate the war -- right into Iran.

George Stephanopoulos: "So you don't believe you have the authority to go into Iran?"

Stephen Hadley: "I didn't say that. That is another issue. Any time you have questions about crossing international borders, there are legal questions."

Any doubt how Attorney General Gonzales would come down on those "legal questions"? Any doubt how the Supreme Court would rule?

No, I don't think there is.

Bush has made a mockery of the accepted limits of Presidential power under the Constitution almost from the very start of his Presidency.

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation's sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ''signing statements" -- official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law.

[...]

On at least four occasions while Bush has been president, Congress has passed laws forbidding US troops from engaging in combat in Colombia, where the US military is advising the government in its struggle against narcotics-funded Marxist rebels.

After signing each bill, Bush declared in his signing statement that he did not have to obey any of the Colombia restrictions because he is commander in chief.

Even if Congress approves the resolution put forward by Freedom Fries Jones, even if the Bush administration utters not one word of opposition to it, there's no reason to believe that Bush wouldn't simply issue a signing statement to the effect that it was unconstitutional and that he could therefore ignore its provisions.

There is, rather, every reason to believe that he considers previous Congressional support for the "war" on terror to be all the authorisation he needs to conduct whatever military action he deems necessary anywhere in the world.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said he was not aware of any consultations with Congress before the assault.

This was the first overt U.S. military action in Somalia since 1994. and the first Congress knew of it was when they heard it on the news. When Bush claims to be "decider in chief", he's not messing around.

In truth, it would be very difficult for Congress to stop the Bush administration from getting what it wants on Iran. To be absolutely certain, Bush and Cheney would need to be removed from office before the crisis/excuse/manufactured incident occurs (take your pick). The question is, does Congress have the bottle to take out Bush and Cheney in a pre-emptive strike? Could they possibly do it without conclusive evidence of the administrations intentions, evidence the administration is extremely unlikely to provide? Now there's an irony.

There may be a handful of members of Congress with the courage to attempt this but no more than that. The vast majority of them, career politicians first and foremost, will not. Instead, they'll simply position themselves so that they can't personally be blamed for Bush's actions. Freedom Fries Jones, who undoubtedly knows the President's attitude towards Congressional restrictions on his role as commander in chief, has got his positioning in nice and early. "I tried to stop him, it wasn't my fault..."

Public opinion may not have any effect on the Bush administration but it does have an effect on most members of Congress. If there's any way to stop Bush, it's to make members of Congress understand that simply adopting the posture of opposition is not enough.

Here's Ron Paul's fatalistic assessment again: "Speculation in Washington focuses on when, not if, either Israel or the U.S. will bomb Iran". That's not good enough. Now is not the time to relax.

Your Country Needs You!

Vote Brian Haw.

Seriously. Imagine the message that'd send to the politicians in their cosy Westminster bubble.

It'll only take half a minute to vote. Why not encourage other like minded people to do the same? Go on. I'll owe you one.

Those not familiar with Brian should start here.

Blair is in trouble if even John "dodgy dossier" Scarlett won't back him up. Stinky.

Tim has a post up about Guido Fawkes (aka Paul Staines). Interesting.

Can't help but notice that Guido has comment moderation on again. If that was simply about deleting "boring" posts, why go to the bother of having to personally approve every single one of the numerous comments his site receives? (It wouldn't be too much trouble for the comments he submits himself, of course.) And pretty much real time too if my not at all scientific checks in the early hours of this morning and then just now are any indication. Surely an occasional scan through to delete these "boring" posts would be all that's required. Unless Guido has some sort of overwhelming phobia about "boring" posts, he's behaving rather strangely. It's almost as if he's got something to hide.

And as Tim points out today, Guido's response is far from open. Did he answer any of the points Tim raised or did he indulge in the sort of smearing which is so popular among the politicians he claims to despise? He didn't even link to Tim's post to make one of his "witty" remarks about it. Clearly Guido Fawkes (aka Paul Staines) really doesn't want you to read the post.

Guido can do what he likes of course but his responses to Tim's post have been informative in their own way.

Remember when Blair approved the sale of a hugely expensive BAE Systems military air traffic control system to Tanzania despite the fact that Tanzania had almost no military aircraft? The SFO has discovered that BAE paid a middleman a $12 million "commission" to grease the wheels of that transaction. I wonder how Lord Falconer will quash that investigation?

And what's this? Remember Lakshmi Mittal, the steel magnate Blair helped out with various deals after he donated £125,000 to the Labour Party? You know, the man Blair claimed he helped because he was the owner of a British company despite the fact that the company in question was actually registered in the Dutch Antilles? Well, he now intends to donate £2 million to the Labour Party. Well I never.

Do you think Polly still as a few of her nosepegs handy? The stench is getting to be almost unbearable.

Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars points out that even some Republican have openly expressed concern that Bush may be planning to create a Gulf of Tonkin type incident in order to justify military action against Iran.

So it's not just us leftie moonbats who're worried.

The linked article on Bush's proposed replacement for John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence is also worth reading.

Scottish Blog Roundup 14.

Get it while it's hot.

Repeat until Believable

Edward Pearce on Blair:

"The point about Blair is that he combines maximum assurance with maximum delusion." The comment, made privately by the leader of a Labour council, is the exact and perfect judgment. No other analyst need apply.

Indeed but here's a little bit more analysis anyway. This particular topic has been covered here before but if the PM is going to continue to say it, it seems only fair to continue to point out that he's talking utter garbage.

In his "warfighter" speech, he argued that this country must continue to be willing to participate in the illegitimate use of violence as a means to combat the illegitimate use of violence of others. He didn't phrase it that way of course but that's essentially what he said. He also blamed the media, the public and the military for that fact that the policy wasn't working.

He said:

They now know that if a suicide bomber kills 100 completely innocent people in Baghdad, in defiance of the wishes of the majority of Iraqis who voted for a non-sectarian government, then the image presented to a Western public is as likely to be, more likely to be, one of a failed Western policy, not another outrage against democracy.

The majority of Iraqis voted for a non-sectarian government?

If you are a dedicated sophist, you could just about argue that there's a tiny sliver of truth in that but sophistry and the power of Blair's delusions and pronouncements have no impact on the real world. Blair's refusal to accept that may be one of his most alarming traits.

The reality is that the vast majority of Iraqis voted along sectarian lines. Even Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, could not avoid concluding that "it looks as if people have preferred to vote for their ethnic or sectarian identities". It's not in any way controversial.

And yet Blair continues to make these absurd claims, lies in fact, and the majority of MPs and activists in the Labour Party continue to let him. And the Tories, the party who did/didn't support the war (delete as appropriate), are not exactly doing a sterling job of holding him to account either. When our PM can repeatedly lie about the situation in Iraq without facing any consequence whatsoever, is it any wonder confidence in politicians is at an all time low?

Still, I suppose that's all our fault too. If only we were the credulous, unquestioning fools Blair would like us to be, our democracy would be in the best of health.

They Hate Our Freedoms

Clive Stafford Smith on a new approach to the U.S. government's defence of Guantánamo Bay internment camp.

The ink was barely dry on all the criticisms issued on the five-year anniversary of Guantánamo Bay before the US department of defence began its desperate riposte. On the day of the anniversary, January 11 2007, Cully Stimson, a "deputy assistant secretary of defence for detainee affairs" went on Federal News Radio to launch an assault on the law firms who represent the prisoners. (You can listen to his interview here.)

The deputy secretary, a lawyer with the department of defence (DoD), knows "the news story that you're really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks" about Guantánamo Bay. A freedom of information request has, he says, elicited the names of the lawyers representing the prisoners.

"And you know what?" he asks rhetorically. "It's shocking." He goes on to list a Who's Who of the American legal profession, which he obviously had prepared to read out on the radio programme. I could name many others.

He suggests that this information should be passed along to the CEOs of American businesses who currently employ these firms, because the lawyers "are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001." He thinks that those CEOs should "make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms." This scandalous story, he says, "is going to have major play" in the media.

Read more. If anything, it gets worse.

(I've changed the link to the interview to a more useful one that that used in the original article. The link I used is from this page on Federal Radio News)

An Army of Frothers

Right, I will change the record shortly but one more post on Iran for now.

Via a comment by redpesto, my attention is drawn to one Andrew McCarthy writing for the National Review's The Corner. From what I've read elsewhere, the Iranian government building raided in Irbil may not have been an officially designated consulate but the Iranians presence was certainly fully authorised by the Kurdish authorities. McCarthy, however, accepts that it was a consulate.

He writes:

[T]he raid on the Iranian consulate in Iraq's Kurdish region has to be welcome news. We would certainly regard that as an act of war if the tables were turned.

Hurray for acts of war!

To fully understand where McCarthy is coming from, I'll first go back to quoting something I wrote before Bush made his speech. It concerns the anonymously leaked claims that the Iranians are aiding both sides of the sectarian conflict in Iraq in order to provoke instability.

If he [Bush] goes on record with these claims, I'll be extremely surprised and I'd still want the captured documents made available to independent experts for translation and corroboration before giving any weight to them. It is, however, far more likely that he will insinuate that the claims are true without actually saying so directly. Frothing warmongers will then complain that he didn't go far enough, that he should have made the case explicit, that he should have published the captured intelligence, without considering possibility that he didn't do any of these things for the very good reasons that the intelligence doesn't actually exist.

Hopefully, we're now all up to the speed with the fact that Bush made no explicit reference to these claims and have understood the implications of that omission.

But what did McCarthy make of Bush's speech? He was underwhelmed. While welcoming Bush's words, he did not think Bush went far enough.

Under the Bush Doctrine as articulated in September 2001, it [material support for America's enemies] is supposed to be met with a vigorous American response because we deem rogue regimes to be just like the terrorists they abet. Patently, in the case of Iran and Syria, we have not done that. In turning away from the Bush Doctrine in this most essential of its potential applications, we have turned away from the blueprint for winning the war — not the Battle of Baghdad but the War on Terror.

In the raging sectarian warfare, Iran promotes jihadists of both Sunni and Shiite stripe. Plainly, it sees its interest in a destabilized Iraq.

Actions, the old saw tells us, speak louder than words. Given our actions, and what they imply about our sentiments, it’s going to take a lot more than last night’s rhetoric to make an impression on Iran and Syria.

Froth, froth, bomb, bomb, kill kill.

If I could be bothered to wade through all the bile, I'm quite sure I could find many more examples of this sort of war drumming in other neo-con publications today. It's not that McCarthy is involved in some deep dark conspiracy (at least, I very much doubt he is), just that his own prejudices make it easy for the Bush administration to manipulate him.

Sometimes, for all that I try, it is simply impossible to avoid saying I told you so. But it's not that difficult to predict this sort of thing when exactly the same tactic was used before the invasion of Iraq.

Cowboy Diplomacy Rides Again

As far as I can tell, the British media doesn't really seem to have grasped the importance of the Iranian angle to Bush's escalation speech. I've been banging on about it here but it doesn't seem to have been given the coverage it deserves in the British media.

It's almost enough to make a person wonder whether he's barking up the wrong tree.

But then again.

Only this president, only in this time, only with this dangerous, even messianic certitude, could answer a country demanding an exit strategy from Iraq, by offering an entrance strategy for Iran.

Only this president could look out over a vista of 3,008 dead and 22,834 wounded in Iraq, and finally say, “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me” — only to follow that by proposing to repeat the identical mistake ... in Iran.

Only this president could extol the “thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group,” and then take its most far-sighted recommendation — “engage Syria and Iran” — and transform it into “threaten Syria and Iran” — when al-Qaida would like nothing better than for us to threaten Syria, and when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would like nothing better than to be threatened by us.

This is diplomacy by skimming; it is internationalism by drawing pictures of Superman in the margins of the text books; it is a presidency of Cliff Notes. And to Iran and Syria — and, yes, also to the insurgents in Iraq — we must look like a country run by the equivalent of the drunken pest who gets battered to the floor of the saloon by one punch, then staggers to his feet, and shouts at the other guy’s friends, “Ok, which one of you is next?”

Full transript here (via).

And there's more (via a comment by rick). And more. And more. And a bit more. I could go on but you probably get the picture.

And there are some British voices who have noticed too. Our old friend Con Coughlin is all for this escalation against Iran. Well, who would have thought it?

In a previous post, I suggested that Blair might understand that British involvement in attacks on Iran would be a step too far for him. I may have been over-optimistic. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that Blair is today making a speech on the need for continued support for American policy and stressing the need for British armed forces to "be war fighters" and for us to "pay the cost of that fight, whatever it may be".

Or perhaps it isn't.

By the way, Olbermann, for all that he's often bang on the money on Bush's many failings, made a rather grotesque claim in his special comment. A vista of 3,008 dead and 22,834 wounded in Iraq? I think you'll find the vista is far more littered with corpses than that, Keith. Or do only Americans count?

At this point, it's worth repeating something retired U.S. Colonel Sam Gardiner said last year (via the now sadly defunct Whiskey Bar).

When I discuss the possibility of an American military strike on Iran with my European friends, they invariably point out that an armed confrontation does not make sense -- that it would be unlikely to yield any of the results that American policymakers do want, and that it would be highly likely to yield results that they do not. I tell them they cannot understand U.S. policy if they insist on passing options through that filter. The "making sense" filter was not applied over the past four years for Iraq, and it is unlikely to be applied in evaluating whether to attack Iran.
- The End of the "Summer of Diplomacy" (pdf)

John Reid = hugely unpopular.

Listen to that sweet, sweet music.

Nudge Nudge

Tim is back. Yay!

As the Iraqi end of Bush's speech is well covered there, I'll continue to concentrate on the Iranian angle. Let's look at the references to Iran in yesterday's speech. I'll ruin the tension straight away and tell you that he didn't explicitly reference the "captured intelligence" reported by the New York Sun.

Right, here's the first mention of Iran.

Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq's elections posed for their cause, and they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam -- the Golden Mosque of Samarra -- in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq's Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.

It is undisputed that the Iranians support the SCIRI and therefore the Badr Organisation so the explicit, but actually very limited claim made here is probably true. No reference here to Iranian support for Sunni extremists though or of an Iranian policy of intentionally fuelling sectarian conflict. Instead, Iran is mentioned in the context of the attack on the Golden Mosque and a strategy of provoking sectarian violence. Note that the NYS article suggests that the Iranians are "clandestinely cooperating, with Sunni Jihadists who attacked the Golden Mosque". Bush didn't explicitly make the same suggestion. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.

I've run out of time. More on this in an update to this post this evening.

Update

We interrupt the analysis of Bush's speech to point out that U.S. escalation against the Iranians is ongoing.

For some reason, I'm reminded of the way Bush wanted to provoke Saddam into retaliatory action by painting U2 spy planes in UN colours and then flying them over Iraq. The thinking was that if Saddam did react, this could then be used as a justification for the military action Bush had already decided to take. That plan was never actually carried out, of course.

More later.

Update 2

Right, here are the rest of Bush's references to Iran in yesterday's speech.

The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.

This time, mention of Iran is embedded in a series of key words and phrases. Radical Islamic extremism, chaos, Iran, nuclear weapons, our enemies, safe haven, attacks on the American people. The ultimate key phrase, "September the 11th, 2001", is also there. No explicit link is made (apart from the nuclear one) but the implication that Iran is somehow connected to all of these phrases is obviously intentional.

In fact, of course, victory in Iraq, the stabilisation of the Shiite dominated government, would be a victory for the Iranians. Failure of the sort Bush imagines, a Sunni extremist, al Qaeda style group taking control of Iraq, would be very bad news for the Iranians too.

Last section now and this is the really troubling one.

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We're also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence-sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.

This is the escalation as it relates to Iran. Rather than talking to the Iranians as recommended by the Iraq Study Group, Bush goes all out and claims that the Iranians are providing "material support for attacks on American troops". Instead of dialogue, there will be increased military pressure on the Iranians.

As far the claim that Iran and Syria are "allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq" goes, this is pure misdirection. The U.S. are on the other side of those borders. If it was so easy to stop insurgents moving across them, why don't they do it? It's because it would be enormously difficult. Iraq's borders with these countries are long and extremely difficult to police. You could probably stop a conventional military force from crossing because a conventional military force is large and pretty obvious. Terrorists and insurgents, on the other hand, are not easily spotted. That's sort of the point.. You might as well claim that the U.S. government allowed the 9/11 terrorists to move into their territory before the attacks. It's quite true but it says nothing about whether they supported the terrorists activities. (Note to conspiracy theorists: not interested, take it elsewhere.)

It may be true that the Iranians are providing "material support for attacks on Americans troops". Juan Cole offers a considerably more plausible explanation.

Although Bush keeps implying that Iran is supplying weapons and aid to US enemies in Iraq, the circumstantial evidence is that it was helping the two main US allies in Iraq with their paramilitary capabilities-- Kurdistan and SCIRI. But it is likely that the money and weapons do bleed over into insurgent groups and have a destabilizing effect.

It certainly wouldn't surprise me if they are supplying material aid to Shiite and Kurdish groups in order to bolster their ability to fight Sunni insurgents, particularly the Baathists (all three groups hated Saddam's regime with a vengeance). And, as the Professor says, in the chaotic world of today's Iraq it is highly likely that some of this material aid could be diverted from its intended purpose. Material aid delivered by the British and Americans has certainly found its way into the wrong hands.

That's a far cry from an Iranian strategy of deliberately targeting U.S. troops or indeed fuelling the sectarian violence by supporting each side against the other (the second of which, as I said, Bush did not in any way claim). It is certainly true that Iran is actively involved in Iraq but all the evidence suggests that Iranian involvement is at the active request of Shiite and Kurdish members of Iraq's "unified and democratic" government.

If they are provoking instability, it is only to the extent that they are aiding the Shiites, and to a lesser extent the Kurds, in their efforts to defeat Sunni insurgents. This is exactly what the U.S. government says it has been doing in Iraq these last three years. I wonder if that counts as fuelling instability and sectarian violence too?

For those who think the difference is that the Iranians are funding Shiite death squads, think again. Check the date of that article. How does that correspond with the rise of Shiite death squads in Iraq?

Just to re-emphasise one more time, at no point did Bush claim that the Iranians were playing Sunni against Shiite in Iraq. But he did make some pretty serious threats.

We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq... I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will... deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies.. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.

These are not small measures. One U.S. carrier group is an extremely powerful force; having two in the region is significant. As a means to combat Iraq's sectarian strife, two U.S. carriers groups would be overkill in all senses of the word. And what are the Patriot air defence systems for? You certainly don't fight terrorists or insurgents with an air defence system designed to shoot down ballistic missiles. These are systems designed to be used against a conventional military force. What did Bush say they are being sent for? "To reassure our friends and allies". To reassure them against what exactly?

It is possible that all of this is just sabre rattling designed to pressure the Iranians into halting its nuclear enrichment programme but Bush is not known for making empty threats. He is, rather, known for his propensity to favour violence as a means to achieve his stated goals. If that's what he intends to do, I doubt the Democrats or anyone else will be able to stop him.

If he does escalate the conflict and start attacking Iranian facilities in any significant way, it'll make what's happened so far look like that elusive "cakewalk" we were promised. Because if the Iranians really start to cause trouble for U.S. forces in the region, it'll be a whole lot worse than anything that has gone before.

As regular readers may know, the idea that John Reid could be the next PM scares me silly. The ex-communist bully boy he has a reputation for competence which seems to be based solely on the fact that he can string sentences together in a semi-coherent fashion. This, admittedly, is something that not all members of the government are capable of but it's hardly a good indicator of wider competence in running a government deperatment, never mind the whole country.

So it is fortunate, in a way, that the Doctor's efforts at the Home Office are revealing the depths of his "competence" for all of us to see.

And here's a wee reminder of Reid's not so distant past.

Reid is not without serious blemish. A few months before his Ulster posting [2000/01], he was the first senior cabinet member ever to be severely censured by the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Elizabeth Filkin. It was a tangled affair, but in essence he was accused of using parliamentary allowances, taxpayer's cash, to pay the salaries of staff, again including his son, in his constituency office, knowing that they were really working for Labour's electoral campaign. In the course of the inquiry, it emerged that Reid had held "discussions" with other witnesses, which in plain unparliamentary language sounded a lot like threats. Conveniently for Reid, Filkin's censure was overturned by a Labour-dominated House of Commons committee. It was a political fix that undermined her office, and diminished the notion of independent parliamentary scrutiny of MPs' conduct.

Reid is the personification of everything that is wrong with New Labour.

Use of Weapons

So President Bush is to announce his long awaited new strategy for Iraq today (actually 2am, Thursday morning in British money).

If you aren't intending to stay up to watch his speech, here's an exclusive BSSC preview.



Bush's trusted cabal of foreign policy advisers are ideologically committed to the use of violence as the main means to achieve their objectives. They believe that the U.S. government's current difficulties are due to the fact that they have not used enough violence, that their problems would be solved if they could really take the gloves off and let rip. That's one of the reasons why they are so hostile to the "liberal" media; TV pictures of the actual consequences of the U.S. use of violence in far away places, beamed into the living rooms of the American public, act as a restraint on their ability to pursue their agenda.

The conviction that violence is the primary solution is held with religious fervour and no amount of real world evidence or rational argument will shake their faith in the power of violence. This week's attacks on "suspected terrorists" in Somalia are an expression of that belief.

Bush is essentially going to announce more of the same as the solution to Iraq's problems.

These same advisers, this same mindset, will also be the main influence on President Bush's decisions on policy towards Iran. In an earlier post, I highlighted this report from the NYS which claimed that the U.S. government had captured intelligence which showed that Iran has been playing Sunni against Shiite in Iraq in order to provoke civil war. The claims made in that article have spread like a rash.

Mel Phillips, unsurprisingly, has swallowed them whole, even going so far as to say that it is "blindingly obvious " that Iran is "the principle instigator" of the current war. As Mel doesn't allow comments on her own site, I decided to ask one of her supporters on the CiF thread (someone called Sluijser) why it was that this apparently hugely significant find had been announced by anonymous officials to the NYS. Why, I asked, had Bush himself not made any reference to these claims. No answer was forthcoming but this oddity did nothing to dent Sluijser's confidence in the essential truth of the claims made in the article.

There is one possibility (other than the obvious one that the claims are entirely spurious). It has been exactly one week since the NYS claimed that the U.S. government has this damning intelligence. I can't find the link now but I read one anonymous official tell the Washington Post (I think) that President Bush's comments on Iran in today's speech would be "informed by" the claims made in the NYS article. Is Bush saving this bombshell for today's speech?

If he goes on record with these claims, I'll be extremely surprised and I'd still want the captured documents made available to independent experts for translation and corroboration before giving any weight to them. It is, however, far more likely that he will insinuate that the claims are true without actually saying so directly. Frothing warmongers will then complain that he didn't go far enough, that he should have made the case explicit, that he should have published the captured intelligence, without considering possibility that he didn't do any of these things for the very good reasons that the intelligence doesn't actually exist.

In the campaign to build popular support for the invasion of Iraq, this method, using anonymous briefings and playing to the prejudices of friendly journalists and warbloggers, was how the direct link between Saddam and the September 11th attacks was created in the minds of the American people (some of them at least). When Bush says he never claimed that there was such a link - "This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda" - he's not lying. All he ever did was imply one; his army of useful idiots did the rest.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's all just a little bit of history repeating.