Iran: September 2008 Archives

Do you care much about Adolph Ahmadinejad's annual harangue to the UN and touring of his country's future conquered estates?  I don't either.  His stuff ("He’s forever threading the needle between … psychopathic Islamist designs on Israel and the sort of squishy brotherhood nonsense that buys him legitimacy with the international community on which he depends") is pretty much rehashed from year to year, and not all that original in the first place.

Two ancillary items do merit mention, though.

1) Why would ANY American "journalist" of any stripe want to conduct a prime time interview with the Geico Caveman?  Do either CNN (natch - I guess Keith Olbermann must still be indisposed) or Lucky Larry really value 'dolph's take on our presidential campaign?  Don't they already know that the mullahgarchy is openly slavering at the prospect of President Hussein?  Or do they just wish to give him an opportunity to propagandize the American viewing public at our own expense, like the dhimmis they are?

2) Evidently somebody at Team Messiah was concerned about it, what with the foreign policy presidential debate only days away:

“I strongly condemn President Ahmadinejad’s outrageous remarks at the United Nations, and am disappointed that he had a platform to air his hateful and anti-Semitic views. The threat from Iran’s nuclear program is grave. Now is the time for Americans to unite on behalf of the strong sanctions that are needed to increase pressure on the Iranian regime.

“Once again, I call upon Senator McCain to join me in supporting a bipartisan bill to increase pressure on the Iranian regime by allowing states and private companies to divest from companies doing business in Iran. The security of our ally Israel is too important to play partisan politics, and it is deeply disappointing that Senator McCain and a few of his allies in Congress feel otherwise,” said Senator Barack Obama.

What was that Sinaed O'Connor once said?  "Fight the real enemy!"  An appellation that most certainly does NOT apply to "President" Ahmadinejad in the mind of The One....

UPDATE: Want more proof?  His bundlers love 'dolph almost as much as they do him.

....a nuclear Iran (via Newsmax Insider):

President Bush will not launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities before leaving the White House, a former key national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney told the Jerusalem Post.

"No, Bush won't go," said David Wurmser, who served as Cheney's senior adviser on national security affairs from 2003 to 2007, specializing in the Middle East, terrorism, proliferation, and strategy.

Wurmser's comments came in Brussels during a conference on nuclear nonproliferation sponsored by the European Jewish Congress.

"Two things have to be in place for there to be an attack," Wurmser told the Post. "That time has run out, and that diplomacy has run out. The feeling to a large extent now is that diplomacy is working, that there is a trend in the regime toward moderation, that pressure is building on the regime."

According to Wurmser, the Bush Administration’s thinking has gone from advocating regime change to favoring Iranian "behavior modification."

The hope now is not to replace the rule of the ayatollahs, but rather that a leader might emerge in Iran who would substantially change the regime's polices from within, according to Wurmser.

He said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, “the British, and others" believe that to a large extent, recent American successes in Iraq came about because "Iran has acquiesced" and is not as involved in Iraq as it was previously.

{*Sigh*}  How the Conquerer has shriveled.  I never would have believed that the same man who said on 9/11 itself, "Somebody's gonna pay!," the same man who promulgated the first Bush Doctrine that essentially declared, "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists, and if the latter, your asses are ours," the same man who refined it into pre-emptive self-defense with the words, "We will not wait while storms gather; we will not allow the world's most dangerous regimes to get their hands on the world's most destructive weapons," is now the, yes, wimp who has shrunk to the level of cowardice and idiocy that stakes the lives of millions of Americans on the corrupt, complacent fantasizing that is the stock in trade of Foggy Bottom.

Then, as if to preemptively pour salt into the coming radiation burns, Wurmser added this: 

He also asserted that Iran's military might, and its capacity to respond to any attack, was overblown.

Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, agreed with Wurmser that Iran's threat of a response to military action was exaggerated.

"Iranians are masters of bluff," he said during the conference, adding: "An Iranian response would not be as terrible as the reality which would ensue from an Iranian nuclear capability.”

Is that so?  Convenient that the Bushies reach that dismissive conclusion after deciding against the military action that remains the only means of preventing Iranian-administrated nuclear Armageddon.

It sure as hell, in other words, looks like the bluff worked.  So successfully that on Iran policy, there'll be more of a transition if McCain wins in November instead of Obama.

Remember this when the first American city goes up in irradiated flames: the blood of those countless thousands of Americans who perish will, at least in part, be traceable back to that ranch in Crawford, Texas.  As will the historical receipt for that little short of criminal dereliction of presidential duty.

Having been driven out of Iraq despite Barack Obama's heroic efforts on their behalf, al Qaeda's western wing (as opposed to the eastern wing in Pakistan) has found a new home - which they, er, christened with a bang:

Yemen, the site of a car-bomb attack yesterday on the American Embassy, is quietly emerging as a base for Al Qaeda veterans of the Iraq war, who are seeking refuge there and are close to establishing the kind of safe haven the group enjoys on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

American intelligence officials believe that Osama bin Laden’s organization is regrouping in the governorates of Ma’rib, al-Jawf, and Hadhramaut along Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia, and that Al Qaeda in Yemen is now being led by a former military aide to Mr. bin Laden, Nasir al-Wahishi.

“The foreign-fighter flow in Iraq has slowed down to a trickle,” a retired four-star general and adviser to Multi-National Force-Iraq, General Jack Keane, told the New York Sun. “They can’t get to their operational cells to be a bomber or a fighter, so some of them are going to other safe havens. A lot of this has to do with where they came from. But two of the places certainly are Pakistan and Yemen.”

That assessment was supported by two American intelligence officials whom the Sun contacted for comment on the bombing of the American Embassy yesterday in Sana’a. The attack killed sixteen Yemeni nationals but no Americans, the Associated Press reported, and the attackers included at least one suicide bomber, as well as gunmen wearing Yemeni military uniforms and armed with rocket-propelled grenades. One of the tasks of the FBI, which will investigate the attack, will be to determine whether members of Yemen’s armed forces participated in the attack.

Interesting, huh?  Not so much the embassy attack, which wasn't the first one even this year, but some of the attackers wearing Yemeni military uniforms.  Could the jihadis have pilfered them?  Sure, particularly given the all around indifference to and marked lack of enthusiasm for aiding us in the War Against Islamic Fundamentalism.  But if those "gunmen" were Yemeni military, that means either that they went rogue, or their government is now in passive cahoots with AQ, not unlike the even more hair-raising state of affairs in Pakistan.

As Ensign Ed observed, by the terms of the original Bush Doctrine, this would bring the Yemeni regime into our crosshairs for punitive action free of the complications of Islamic nuclear arsenals and keeping them out of the wrong hands.  This would also be important in order to prevent a revival of the attempted Islamist takeover of Somalia that the Ethiopians crushed two years ago.  The imperative of the (original) Bush Doctrine was to pre-empt mass-casuality Islamist terrorism by denying the enemy state sanctuaries where they can headquarter, gather resources, train, and mount offensives against Western targets.  We've beaten them in Iraq (despite Barack Obama's heroic efforts), we could beat them in Afghanistan did they not have a state-allowed sanctuary in northwest Pakistan.  Gifting them much less isolated Yemen is a complacency we cannot afford.

Similarly, anybody who has consulted my thoughts on Iran and its quest for nuclear weapons knows that I have staunchly maintained since at least the end of "major combat operations" in Iraq over five years ago that Iran needs to be liberated by American military power even more urgently than Iraq did in order to avert the doomsday scenario of an irrational, theocratic, viciously anti-Semitic and anti-American Islamist regime launching a nuclear holocaust under the banner of a "holy" religious quest.  Throw in the revanchist neo-Cold War hostilities with Vladimir Putin's Russia and the ever-arming, ever-scheming Red Chinese and the picture of the world that the next president is going to inherit is one of a world that will spin into bloody chaos in the absence of firm American leadership backed by unchallengable American power.

John Sith McCain, whatever his myriad other perfidious faults, would provide such leadership on the world stage.  This, on the other hand, exemplifies the leadership vacuum in store if the voters throw caution, prudence, and sanity to the four winds and opt to "make history" instead:

“We are pleased to inform you that the keynote speakers at the “Stop Iran. Now!” Rally are confirmed to be Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Governor Sarah Palin and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel,” read an e-mail from a leader of a Jewish group planning the event.

But the curtain came down on the comedy sketch-turned-reality before the duo ever hit the stage: Clinton officials soon said they had not been told Palin would be on hand — and that her presence, which made the event a political one, would mean the absence of the New York senator.

The McCain-Palin campaign has not yet said whether Palin herself will still be attending the event, but released a statement criticizing Clinton’s withdrawal. “Governor Palin believes that the danger of a nuclear Iran is greater than party or politics,” said spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt. “She hopes that all parties can rally together in opposition to this grave threat.”

Feel free to jump in at any time here if you think I'm in desperate need of advice, but wouldn't the presence of ANY politician make this event "political," by that broad a definition?  Indeed, wouldn't having a prominent member of BOTH parties present balance out the rostrum and drain the program of any partisan perceptions?  AP correctly argues that Her Majesty's fleeing Palinmania is what brought politics into this equation.  What possible harm could come from Mrs. Clinton and Barracuda speaking jointly or severally on behalf of a cause that no truly "patriotic" American can possibly oppose?

Answer: None, if your top priority is protecting our country and its allies from mortal threats; is avoiding the horrific spectre of American and/or European and/or Israeli civilian death tolls in the tens or hundreds of thousands or even millions; is doing everything possible to avoid one city after another going up in hellish mushroom-shaped pyres of atomic conflagration.

But if your top priority is to diminish the United States as a world power, is an incurable neurosis of post-modernist guilt and multicultural self-loathing, is the at-all-costs furtherance of suicidal pacifism, and most immediately is to keep your party's neoBolshevik crazoid base from mutinying in a geyser of utter, shrieking rage, then letting Hillary Clinton even be in the same zip code at Sarah Palin is an act of fratricide that you dare not contemplate.

I tend to think, though, that snubbing the cause of denying the mullahgarchy nuclear weapons was secondary; after all, the Dems know that the window of gumption for a Bush strike against Iran has long-since closed, and Darth Queeg isn't about to suggest re-opening it.  Hell, the Bushies won't even let the Israelis do it for them.  They've been cowed and browbeaten and all but physically bludgeoned into submission, and are doing what Dubya once vowed he would never do: punt the issue to the next administration.  Besides which, the Dems are convinced that False Messiah will "judge between the nations and settle disputes for many peoples. The [Iranians] will beat their [nuclear] swords into plowshares and their [atomic] spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."

No, the idea here wasn't to defect to Tehran, but to deny Governor Palin a public appearance on an equal footing with the Feminazi Popette.  A suspicion whose confirmation was not long in emerging:

"Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: In that day, when My people Israel are living in safety, will you not take notice of it? You will come from your place in the far north, you and many nations with you, all of them riding on horses, a great horde, a mighty army. You will advance against My people Israel like a cloud that covers the land. In days to come, O Gog, I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me when I show Myself holy through you before their eyes."

Here's an interesting little nuance of Russia's attack on Georgia last month (via Carl in Jerusalem):

In a secret agreement between Israel and Georgia, two military airfields in southern Georgia had been earmarked for the use of Israeli fighter-bombers in the event of pre-emptive attacks against Iranian nuclear installations. This would sharply reduce the distance Israeli fighter-bombers would have to fly to hit targets in Iran. And to reach Georgian airstrips, the Israeli air force would fly over Turkey.

The attack ordered by Saakashvili against South Ossetia the night of August 7 provided the Russians the pretext for Moscow to order Special Forces to raid these Israeli facilities where some Israeli drones were reported captured.

Now not only are those Georgian airfields no longer available for Israeli use against Iran, but thanks to the undiminished incompetence of Israeli Brigadier General Gal Hirsch - the commander of Israeli forces on the Lebanese border in July 2006 - but the Russians reportedly got hold of an Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle complete with sophisticated electronic reconnaissance equipment. Which means we can count on them reverse-engineering it and passing on that helpful information to their clients in Tehran and Damascus.

The loss of a northern axis of attack limits the potential effectiveness of an Israel pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facililties. Shorter distance is only one factor; as one of Carl's commenters points out, Iran's air defenses are concentrated to the west and south, not the north, and the mountainous Caucasian terrain makes it easier for low-flying aircraft to evade radar. It's not difficult to project that we envisioned using those Georgian airfields for airstrikes against those same targets as well. Now that option has been, if not eliminated, than far less likely. And the chances for a direct solution to the Iranian nuclear problem dwindled away to virtually nothing quite some time ago as it is.

This may be the stake through the heart of avoiding a nuclear war in the Middle East - or over our own territory.

Like the old man at the gas station told Sara Connor at the end of The Terminator, "There's a storm coming." Seven years after 9/11, are we any less fat, dumb, and oblivious now than we were then?