Bob Dreyfuss | The Nation
Sorry, Putin and Kucinich: Assad Did It
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich speaks at a union-sponsored event in 2011. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
It’s right to be skeptical of American claims about weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, given the duplicity of the George W. Bush administration in Iraq. It’s right to be concerned that the United States is planning to bomb Syria, if the current accord over destroying Syria’s chemical weapons stocks breaks down.
But here’s what’s not right: it’s not right to deny the overwhelming evidence that Syria used poison gas in the suburbs of Damascus on August 21. I’m talking to you, Vladimir Putin. And to you, Dennis Kucinich. And to all of those on the left who’ve speculated that the horrific incident on August 21 was the work of Syria’s rebels. It wasn’t. The Syrian government did it. Let’s put that one to rest.
Putin, scrambling to defend an ally and anxious over the possibility that President Obama would carry out what, by all accounts, would be a useless, strategically incompetent, and lethal and dangerous attack, is the leading serial denier of the obvious. In doing so, Putin and his government—including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations—have made themselves look foolish. The same goes for Dennis Kucinich, the liberal former Democratic member of Congress from Ohio who, unaccountably, has joined forces with Fox News and who conducted a sycophantic interview with Assad in Damascus.
Russia has stood firm against an attack on Syria, and Putin and Lavrov have been instrumental in pushing for a Geneva II peace conference in search of a political settlement of the civil war in Syria, which has left tens of thousands dead. But Putin’s absurd whitewashing of the Syrian government for its obvious use of poison gas should not be part of the picture.
Let’s recap: in an op-ed in The New York Times, Putin blithely cited invisible evidence that the rebels were responsible for the gas use, and he even managed to work into his ridiculous defense mention of a threat to Israel:
“No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack—this time against Israel—cannot be ignored.”
In a news conference in Russia, Putin went so far as to say that the rebels slyly used old Russian-made artillery shells to disguise its origin:
Speaking at a conference, Putin said “we have every reason to believe that it was a provocation, a sly and ingenious one.” He added, however, that its perpetrators have relied on “primitive” technology, using old Soviet-made ammunition no longer in the Syrian army’s inventory.
Taking his case even further, Putin suggested—no doubt with a smirk of irony—that the United States might have to consider fighting the rebels when it turns out that it was the opposition who used the gas:
“If it is determined that these rebels used weapons of mass destruction, what will the United States do with the rebels? What will the sponsors of the rebels do? Stop the supply of arms? Will they start fighting against the rebels?”
Many critics pointed out that Putin cited various dubious sources in trying to cast Assad as blameless, including discredited reports in Turkish newspapers and the comments of a Syrian nun loyal to the Assad government.
Kucinich, a valiant crusader against war now weirdly affiliated with Fox, managed to interview Assad in September. Writing on The Huffington Post, Kucinich created a Top Ten list of “Unproven Claims” about Syria’s use of poison gas, drawing on sources both mainstream and conspiratorial. And while his intention may be good—namely, to undermine President Obama’s case for war—nowhere does he cite the weighty evidence that has accumulated that points to the almost certain conclusion that it was, indeed, the Syrian army which used the gas.
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To believe that it was indeed the government of Syria—whether ordered by Assad himself, his brother, a senior military commander or someone else—it isn’t necessary to take on faith the White House intelligence summary that was released on August 30, although that memo makes a convincing case. There’s also the report from Doctors Without Borders, which said that more than 3,600 people were hospitalized in just three hospitals supported by international humanitarian groups, proving that the attack was so massive that it’s highly unlikely that the ragtag oppositionists could have struck with such deadly force. Or the conclusion of Richard Lloyd and Theodore Postol, who studied the rocket attacks and the payloads of those rockets to determine that the rockets held up to fifty liters of gas, a massive payload that suggests only government capabilities.
And, of course, there is the report from the United Nations itself, an annex of which provided important clues about where the rockets came from, as The New York Times noted:
One annex to the report also identified azimuths, or angular measurements, from where rockets had struck, back to their points of origin. When plotted and marked independently on maps by analysts from Human Rights Watch and by The New York Times, the United Nations data from two widely scattered impact sites pointed directly to a Syrian military complex.
None of thus justifies a US attack on Syria. Still, that’s no reason to concoct far-fetched theories with no basis in fact.
Katrina vanden Heuvel looks into Oliver Stone’s documentary series, The Untold History of the United States.
What Rouhani Said
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani speaks at his inauguration. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
President Hassan Rouhani’s just-completed visit to New York, which he capped with a phone conversation with President Obama—the first-ever discussion between leaders of the two countries since January 1979—was a triumphant one.
Without a single misstep, during several days in which Rouhani held meeting after meeting with world leaders, diplomats, foreign policy experts and Middle East specialists, and reporters, the new president of Iran showed himself to be ready for prime time. The Nation attended three of Rouhani’s gatherings, and watching him up close, it’s clear that he succeeded in what came to be called a “charm offensive”—one churlish commentator on CNN called it a “charm assault”—designed to persuade not just President Obama but the American people, too, that Iran is ready to deal.
More important, Rouhani convincingly stated that he has the authority to make a deal. Repeatedly, he and his aides, including the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, said that Rouhani’s overwhelming election in June—when he defeated a passel of ultraconservative and hardline candidates—means that he has a “mandate” to implement the agenda he campaigned on. That’s important, because Iran has real politics. Contrary to the assertions of many Iran-watchers in Israel and among hawks and neoconservatives in the United States, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the so-called supreme leader, is not a dictator. Instead, he rules by consensus, often reflecting competing and conflicting currents within Iran’s various power centers, from the military and the Revolutionary Guard to the clerics, themselves often split into several factions, the parliament and the various, complex institutions of the Iranian state. Rouhani’s strong victory in June, which surprised some, sent a message to Khamenei that Rouhani is not to be trifled with. Not only that, but Rouhani himself—who, after all, served for many years as one of two representatives of Khamenei on Iran’s national security council—has kept himself in the good graces of Khamenei while corraling an important domestic political coalition. That coalition includes Iran’s reformists, the Green Movement, important elements of the business community who often rally around former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, and a disparate group of Iranian realists, think-tank dwellers and current and former national security experts.
In a press conference that lasted more than a hour on Friday, during which Rouhani dealt with rapid-fire questions from US and international media without notes or aides whispering in his ear—and sometimes speaking a few words of English, a language in which he is fluent—Rouhani made it clear that he has the clout to strike a deal. “My government has the full, necessary authority when it comes to the nuclear negotiations,” he said, noting that he’s designated his foreign minister, the sophisticated Mohammad Javad Zarif, as the person who’ll handle the talks. Rouhani emphasized that he has “full backing of all three centers of Iran.” Challenged by a skeptical reporter, Rouhani said he can carry out the talks to completion because his electoral campaign raised all these issues, against candidates who were strongly opposed to his moderate views, and the others lost. “There was a drastic difference [in] those debates, among those candidates,” said Rouhani. It was the people [of Iran] who chose moderation, through the ballot box. It was the people who voted for our program.” As time goes on, according to Rouhani, the opposition to his view will diminish in Iran and the support for moderate views will increase.
The previous evening, speaking to several hundred establishment American foreign policy experts and Middle East analysts at a gathering at the Hilton Hotel, Rouhani put it this way: “I ran on the platform of moderation and won the election by a large margin.” He compared Iran’s stability, and its election, to the sectarianism, instability and terrorism that prevails in many countries in the region, adding that he will bring a “voice of moderation” to the region.
And he said: “My government is prepared to leave no stone unturned in the search for a solution with the P5+1.”
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The anti-Iran lobby in the United States, which nearly coincides with the Israel lobby, is apoplectic about Rouhani’s success in New York, as would be expected, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday will deliver what promises to be a scathing rebuttal of Rouhani’s ideas. But their arguments are falling flat, and their demands of Iran—that Tehran halt all enrichment of uranium, shut its facilities, close its light-water reactor and export its stockpiles of low- and medium-enriched uranium—are laughable nonstarters. That’s because the deal that will be discussed in October in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1 involves international approval of Iran’s continued right to enrich (to levels not exceeding 3.5 to 5 percent), along with stricter international supervision of Iran’s nuclear work. That’s the only deal possible, and it’s what been on the table, or near the table, since 2009 at least. Any idea that Iran will give up its right to a civilian nuclear program that includes enrichment is a fantasy.
As Rouhani said, “We will never forgo our…intrinsic right to a peaceful nuclear program, including uranium enrichment.” No amount of pressure, arm-twisting, threats and sanctions will cause Iran to abandon this right, he said.
Rouhani said that what he’s heard from world leaders in New York has led to believe that the conditions are ripe for a deal. “I have arrived at the conclusion that the atmosphere is different than in the past,” he said. “Even in America, it is much better than in the past.” He and Zarif have suggested that it might be possible to reach a final agreement in six months to a year.
Trudy Lieberman reports on the growing waiting lists for food aid in the United States.
Iraq Warns the US: ‘Don’t Arm the Syrian Rebels’
Devastation in the Salaheddine neighborhood of Aleppo. Photo by James Harkin.
The carnage is mounting in Iraq, with dozens or scores killed nearly every day. Meanwhile, Iraq is critical to both the Syrian civil war and to Iran, with whom Iraq has increasingly close ties. The war in Syria, in particular, has spilled 207,000 refugees into Iraq, and the Syrian rebels—especially the Sunni-led terrorist movement, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, an Al Qaeda affiliate, the Al Nusra Front, and other extremists—have essentially become one with Iraq’s bloody oppositionists.
So it’s no surprise that yesterday Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, warned that Iraq opposes arming the Syrian rebels.
Zebari’s warning comes as The New York Times reports that a big chunk of the so-called “moderate” Islamist rebels inside Syria formally broke ties with the phony, US-backed National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. That decision vastly complicates President Obama’s ability to lobby on behalf of the Syrian opposition. Recognizing the problem, a US official told the Times, using circular reasoning, that the United States has “extreme concerns about extremists.”
During an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Zebari endorsed the US-Russian effort to reach an accord on Syria’s chemical weapons, and he called for a “peaceful settlement” of the Syrian civil war. There is, he said, “no hope of military victory” for either side. But, in a message clearly aimed not only at the United States but at Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, Zebari said: “We oppose providing military assistance to any [Syrian] rebel groups.”
During the summer, President Obama—after long resisting pressure to do so—announced plans to give lethal aid to Syria’s fighters in the effort to topple President Bashar al-Assad. It isn’t clear yet how much weaponry has reached the rebels, who are increasingly led by Al Qaeda and other radicals, since the delivery is being handled as a covert operation by the CIA. But Zebari was making it clear that aid to the rebels directly destabilizes Iraq.
Iraq is deep in crisis. Terrorist attacks kill people daily, by the dozens, and Americans should remember with some horror that all of this carnage is the direct result of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent destruction of the Iraqi government, army and police. Here’s a brief rundown of terrorist actions there just in the past week or so, not at all comprehensive and just the tip of the iceberg:
September 13: “Attacks across Iraq, including a bombing at a Sunni mosque north of Baghdad, killed 33 people Friday in the latest eruption of violence to rock the country, officials said.”
September 14: “A suicide bomber killed at least 21 people at the funeral of a member of Iraq’s Shabak ethnic minority near the northern city of Mosul on Saturday, security and medical sources said.”
September 17: “A wave of car bombs rocked commercial streets in Baghdad on Tuesday, part of a series of attacks across the country that left 31 victims and 4 attackers dead.”
September 20: “Two bombs hidden inside air-conditioners exploded Friday in a Sunni mosque packed with worshipers north of Baghdad, killing at least 18 people.”
September 21: “A suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car near a funeral tent packed with mourners and another bomber on foot blew himself up nearby in a Shiite part of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 72 people and wounding more than 120, officials said. Other attacks on Saturday claimed at least 24 lives.”
September 22: “A suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt in a funeral tent filled with Sunni mourners in Baghdad on Sunday evening, killing 16 people and wounding 35 others, police officials said. It was the latest episode of near-daily violence in Iraq.”
September 23: “A double bombing at a Sunni funeral in Baghdad killed 14 people on Monday, officials said. It was the third day in a row in which funerals were attacked in the Iraqi capital.”
September 25: “Militants attacked a government building in northern Iraq and carried out other attacks that killed at least 25 people on Wednesday, officials said. Attackers detonated three car bombs on the local council building in Hawija before fighting security forces for an hour, said the commander of the army’s 12th Division, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Khalaf.”
According to The New York Times, in a piece by Tim Arango that ought to be read in full, sectarian violence is spreading across the country, including a small town, Muqdadiya, just northeast of Baghdad in battered Diyala Province. Added the Times report:
Iraqi leaders worry that the violence here may be a sign of what awaits the rest of the country if the government cannot quell the growing mayhem that many trace to the civil war in Syria, which has inflamed sectarian divisions, with Sunnis supporting the rebels and Shiites backing the Assad government. Attacks have become more frequent this year, with major bombings becoming almost a daily occurrence. The violence countrywide has increased to a level not seen in five years, according to the United Nations, reinforcing fears that the type of sectarian warfare that gripped the country in 2006 and 2007 will reignite.
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Is it any wonder that Iraq fears what’s happening in Syria?
Zebari told the CFR that there are at least 10,000 foreign fighters in Syria, including the members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Al Nusra. Iraq’s own terrorists, he said, see “strategic depth in Syria,” using territory there are a safe haven. And he worries about a “heightened danger of sectarian conflict” throughout the region.
Trudy Lieberman exposes the impact budget cuts are having on America’s senior citizens.
Obama Gives Wide-Ranging Endorsement of US Interventionism in UN Speech
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President Obama broke no new ground in his United Nations speech today, a speech devoted almost entirely to problems in and around the Middle East: Syria, Iran, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Arab Spring and Egypt, terrorism, and US intervention policy. Repeatedly, however, Obama seemed intent on justifying US military inteventionism in world conflicts.
That he broke no new ground is not an encouraging development. He asked a lot of rhetorical questions:
The crisis in Syria and the destabilization of the region goes to the heart of broader challenges that the international community must now confront. How should we respond to conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa? Conflicts between countries, but also conflicts within them. How do we address the choice of standing callously by while children are subjected to nerve gas, but we’re embroiling ourselves in someone else’s civil war?
What’s the role of force in resolving disputes that threaten the stability of the region and undermine all basic standards of civilized conduct? And what’s the role of the United Nations and international law in meeting cries for justice?
But his answers, framed against his attempts at justifying his own recent decision to bomb Syria, were less than satisfactory. Seeming to defer repeatedly to the liberal-interventionist views of his new UN ambassador, Samantha Power, Obama appeared to be looking for reasons to justify US interventionism abroad, especially the very controversial Responsibility to Protect doctrine and the idea that every mass slaughter or set of civilian deaths borders on the sort of Rwanda-style genocide that might justify American military action.
It’s true—and we can applaud this fact—that Obama spoke out in favor of diplomacy on issues such as Syria, Iran and Palestine. That, of course, is what the United Nations is for.
Still, he issued stark endorsements of interventionism, in passages such as this one:
But [national] sovereignty cannot be a shield for tyrants to commit one murder. Or an excuse for the international community to turn a blind eye. While we need to be modest in our belief that we can remedy every evil, while we need to be mindful that the world is full of unintended consequences, should we really accept the notion that the world is powerless in the face of a Rwanda, or Srebrenica?
If that’s the world that people want to live in, they should say so, and reckon with the cold logic of mass graves.
Or this one, justifying U.S. and NATO bombing of Libya in 2011:
But does anyone truly believe that the situation in Libya would be better, if Gadhafi had been allowed to kill, imprison or brutalize his people into submission?
Or, especially, this one:
There will be times when the breakdown of societies is so great, the violence against civilians so substantial, that the international community will be called upon to act. This will require new thinking and some very tough choices. While the United Nations was designed to prevent wars between states, increasingly we face the challenge of preventing slaughter within states.
And these challenges will grow more pronounced as we are confronted with states that are fragile or failing, places where horrendous violence can put innocent men, women and children at risk with no hope of protection from their national institutions. I’ve made it clear that even when America’s core interests are not directly threatened, we stand ready to do our part to prevent mass atrocities and protect basic human rights.
And, in case you’d forgotten the tangle of issues in the Middle East centers on the oil industry, there was this rather honest statement from President Obama:
The United States of America is prepared to use all elements of our power, including military force, to secure our core interests in the region. We will confront external aggression against our allies and partners, as we did in the Gulf War.
We will ensure the free flow of energy from the region to the world. Although America is steadily reducing our own dependence on imported oil, the world still depends on the region’s energy supply and a severe disruption could destabilize the entire global economy.
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So, there you have it. We’ll work with other countries to resolve conflicts if we can. But, “we will ensure the free flow of energy from the region” and we are “prepared to use all elements of our power, including military force, to secure our core interests.” Bingo.
Bob Dreyfuss looks into Israel’s attempt at blocking US-Iran negotiations.
Can Israel Wreck US-Iran Talks?
President Barack Obama in Jerusalem. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
With refreshing bluntness, The New York Times informed us over the weekend that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to wreck the US-Iranian diplomatic opening. It wrote, in its lead paragraph:
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, moved quickly to block even tentative steps by Iran and the United States to ease tensions and move toward negotiations to end the nuclear crisis, signaling what is likely to be a sustained campaign by Israel to head off any deal.
That says it all. Israel, various hawks and neoconservatives, and outlets such as The Wall Street Journal are alarmed at the possibility that the United States and Iran might actually make a deal. As President Hassan Rouhani of Iran arrives in New York for a critical week at the United Nations, Tehran has sent plenty of signals that it’s ready to talk.
In response, unfortunately—perhaps because of pressure from those hawks—the White House has hardly responded with positive signals of its own. Although President Obama and the State Department have indicated that they are ready to “test” Iran’s good faith, Washington has not suggested that it is prepared to make significant concessions of its own. Still, there is even a possibility that either President Obama or Secretary of State Kerry will meet with their counterparts during the UN session that begins this week.
Even the prospect of an Obama-Rouhani encounter alarms The Wall Street Journal, which in an editorial today says that such a meeting “would give the dictatorship new international prestige at zero cost.” Echoing Netanyahu’s maximum, no-compromise position, the Journal adds that Obama must demand what would amount to complete capitulation by Iran:
At a bare minimum any deal would have to halt Iran’s enrichment of uranium, remove the already enriched uranium from the country, close all nuclear sites and provide for robust monitoring anytime and anywhere.
That, of course, isn’t going to happen. Any possible deal with Iran will have to include full recognition of Iran’s right to enrich uranium, on its own soil, under international safeguards, and Iran’s right to maintain a stockpile of enriched uranium for nuclear-fuel purposes. No Iranian president could survive politically if they accepted anything less, and Rouhani—who served as Iran’s nuclear negotiator in nearly a decade ago under President Khatami’s reformist government—has already insisted on Iran’s fundamental nuclear rights under the Nonproliferation Treaty that Iran has signed.
At the UN, Netanyahu—who last year held up cartoon-like drawings intended to illustrate Iran’s rush to build a bomb—is said to be preparing a speech in which he’ll say that Iran is preparing a “trap” for the United States. A wide range of Israeli politicians and analysts quoted in The Guardian amply demonstrate that Israel intends to approach any possibility of US-Iran talks like a wrecking ball. And The Guardian quotes Netanyahu’s office:
“The true test is not Rouhani’s words, but rather the deeds of the Iranian regime, which continues to aggressively advance its nuclear program while Rouhani is giving interviews.”
A memo from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main arm of the Israel lobby in the United States, lays out harsh conditions for Iran, including a demand—not likely to be considered—that Iran “suspend all enrichment and heavy water activity.” If not, says AIPAC, “sanctions must be increased” and the United States must “[strengthen] the credibility of military action against Iran’s nuclear program,” adding: “The United States must support Israel’s right to act against Iran if it feels compelled—in its own legitimate self-defense—to act.”
David Ignatius, writing in The Washington Post, makes the important point that not only Israel but Saudi Arabia and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf are fearful of an American-Iranian accord. He writes:
A comprehensive framework appeals to prominent U.S. strategists. But it deeply worries regional players in Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who fear their interests would be sacrificed in the grand design of the U.S.-Iranian condominium…. Will Saudi Arabia and the Gulf nations stop fulminating about the Iranian menace long enough to consider the shape of a deal?
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Iran, for its part, has set the stage for a positive outcome. Rouhani has taken the nuclear file out of the hands of hardliners and given it to Iran’s new foreign minister, Javad Zarif, widely known as a reasonable, moderate interlocutor. He’s shaken up the nuclear bureaucracy in Tehran. He’s warned Iran’s military, including the powerful Revolutionary Guard, to stay out of politics. And he’s gotten support from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, who has endorsed “heroic flexibility” in the upcoming round of talks between Iran and the so-called P5+1. Among other signals, Rouhani has freed many political prisoners and sent greetings to the world’s Jews during the recent Jewish holidays. In an important op-ed in The Washington Post, Rouhani offered Iran’s help in resolving crises in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, and he added:
As I depart for New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, I urge my counterparts to seize the opportunity presented by Iran’s recent election. I urge them to make the most of the mandate for prudent engagement that my people have given me and to respond genuinely to my government’s efforts to engage in constructive dialogue. Most of all, I urge them to look beyond the pines and be brave enough to tell me what they see—if not for their national interests, then for the sake of their legacies, and our children and future generations.
And speaking at a military parade yesterday in Tehran, before leaving for New York, Rouhani said that if the United States and its allies “accept the rights of Iranians, our nation will stand for peace, friendship and cooperation, and together we can solve regional and even global problems.”
Barbara Crosette explores the upcoming UN Security Council vote on a Syria resolution.
Obama's Opportunity on Iran
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addreses parliament after his swearing-in. (AP/Ebrahim Noroozi)
President Obama has a chance, now that Russia has rescued him from the impending debacle in Syria, to pull off a deal with Iran’s new, reasonable leadership.
Indeed, things are looking so positive for US-Iran relations that it’s hard to imagine how even the amateurs in the White House could screw this one up. Next week, Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani—a moderate cleric whose surprise win in the June elections stunned observers—and his equally moderate, diplomacy-minded foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, will be in New York to attend the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. Rouhani and Zarif will be meeting with the leaders of Russia, China, Great Britain, France and Germany, it appears, though not—yet—with either Obama or Secretary of State John Kerry. (We’ll see, though the White House is throwing cold water on the idea.) But Obama and Rouhani have exchanged letters, contents unknown, and conditions seem ripe for useful, behind-the-scenes talks between the two countries aimed at settling the nuclear dispute, at the very least.
According to Der Spiegel, Rouhani—who has shaken up Iran’s nuclear team and put the foreign ministry, not Iran’s national security council, in charge of the negotiations—may be planning a surprise series of concessions aimed at kick-starting the talks. The German magazine reports:
But the long-smoldering nuclear dispute with Tehran may be about to take a sensational turn. SPIEGEL has learned from intelligence sources that Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, is reportedly prepared to decommission the Fordo enrichment plant and allow international inspectors to monitor the removal of the centrifuges. In return, he could demand that the United States and Europe rescind their sanctions against the Islamic Republic, lift the ban on Iranian oil exports and allow the country’s central bank to do international business again.
Spiegel reports that Zarif will meet with the European Union’s chief negotiator, Catherine Ashton, to outline Rouhani’s proposal. There are, of course, plenty of skeptics about the likelihood of a deal, and in any case reaching a real accord will take many meetings and many months. Still, things are looking up.
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In Al Monitor, Laura Rozen reports that the US nuclear negotiation team for Iran has been shaken up, too, which could be important if there is to be a new start.
Despite what Spiegel reports, it is certain that Rouhani and Zarif won’t make unilateral concessions, and that the removal of economic sanctions against Iran will be their key demand in any talks. Gary Sick, a veteran Iran watcher at Columbia University who served as President Carter’s chief adviser on Iran, told the Council on Foreign Relations:
Rouhani and Zarif are going to send a message that will be very different [from former President Ahmadinejad]. I suspect that there will be little or no mention of Israel whatsoever in Rouhani’s speech. He will instead be talking about the kind of role that Iran can play, a much more constructive role in international politics. Zarif is extremely well known in New York, Rouhani not, but a lot of people have had a chance to meet him and talk to him—these are not people who are going to simply say, “Okay, we’ll roll over and play dead, and you Americans or the West can get whatever you like from Iran.” That’s truly not the case at all, and anybody who thinks that these guys are patsies and they’re going to simply come and give away the store as far as Iran is concerned is really wrong.
To make progress, says Sick:
In this particular case, what is needed between the United States and Iran is a private meeting, without all the glare of publicity, something called the “heads of agreement”—that is, here’s where we want to go, this is where, at the end of the day, we want to end up, this is what we’re looking for.
In the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Tom Pickering and Jessica Mathews urge Obama to grasp the opportunity for an accord with Iran’s new leaders:
The election of a new, more moderate president in Iran and the departure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have set the stage for possible progress on nuclear negotiations. And precisely because the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran poses tremendous security risks for the United States and our allies, the United States must test this opportunity.
And they add:
There are specific steps that the United States will have to take in order to reach an agreement with Iran: First, accept Iran’s nuclear program under transparent and verifiable limits with proper safeguards. Second, be prepared to relax sanctions as Iran takes action.
Of course, the crisis in Syria hangs over everything. Syria is Iran’s chief ally in the region, and it is the fulcrum for a Sunni-Shiite proxy war pitting Iran against Saudi Arabia and its allies. Were the United States to strike Syria, as Obama and Kerry insist is possible despite the ongoing diplomacy, it could undermine Rouhani, strengthen Iran’s hawks and force Iran and its Revolutionary Guard to throw everything into support for President Assad’s government. On the other hand, Iran—as the victim of chemical weapons during its 1980s war with Iraq—is not likely to support Assad’s continued possession of poison gases, and so Obama might find a critical ally in Iran in search of an accord on Syria.
Max Blumenthal reports from the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan.
Obama, Kerry Insist a Syria Attack Is Still Possible
A Syrian rebel throws a handmade weapon in Aleppo, June 11, 2013. (Reuters/Muzaffar Salman)
In the aftermath of President Obama’s clumsy deal with Russia over Syria’s chemical weapons, it seems likely that the Obama administration will draw precisely the wrong conclusion from the last couple of weeks. That’s because they’ve convinced themselves that the reason Russia and Syria agreed to the deal is that the United States was blackmailing them by the threat of force.
Which gets everything exactly backward.
By the time the Russians surfaced their plan to work with the United States and the UN to take control of Syria’s chemical stockpiles and destroy them, the possibility that the United States would attack Syria was approximately zero. At that point, you’ll recall, the British parliament had voted down an attack, American public opinion had turned sharply against war, President Obama had collected almost no international support for war with Syria, and it was increasingly clear that Congress was going to reject the president’s demand for an authorization to use military force. In addition, White House officials were signaling that without congressional authorization, it would be extremely difficult—read: politically impossible—to strike Syria.
I’m pretty sure that the folks in Moscow and Damascus could figure that out.
So, at that moment, just before the Russian offer was made, Obama was facing a catastrophic defeat in the arena of foreign policy. So serious was it that many commentators—left, right and center—predicted that Obama could not recover from a congressional rejection of the use of military force, and that Obama would be essentially a lame duck, at least in foreign affairs, for the next three years.
There was, of course, a moment when a US attack on Syria seemed almost certain. But that was in late August, when it appeared that the United States was gearing up for a unilateral attack, without UN approval and without backing from Congress. At that moment, it also appeared as if the British and the French would both join in enthusiastically, à la Libya, in flagrant disregard for international law. But that all fell apart, and it was left to the Russians to step in with a plan that not only bailed out Obama but helps Russia’s position in the Middle East and the world immensely. All of a sudden, Russia’s Middle East prestige has soared, its world standing has been bolstered, its credibility with its allies—especially Syria and Iran—is stronger, and this has set the stage for broader political deals that could stabilize Syria (and preserve the rule of President Bashar al-Assad), bring Iran into the Syria talks and create a framework for a broader agreement over Iran’s nuclear program and Tehran’s regional role.
Despite all that, the Obama administration insists—in every forum where its officials, the secretary of state and the president speak—that it is determined to hold the threat of force over the heads of everyone involved. If the talks break down—and they might, as least for a time, over any number of legitimate stumbling blocks—the United States will once again be prepared to bomb Syria, say the president and Secretary of State John Kerry. At the UN, where the US-Russian accord is to be codified in a UN Security Council resolution, the United States and France, at least, are intent on making sure that such a resolution include authorization for military action against Syria if its implementation stalls. (Russia, of course, will veto any resolution like that in a New York minute.)
Not only that, but the United States may not be able to launch an attack now, no matter what happens. Obama’s advisers have informed him that there is no chance that Congress will approve an attack if and when the US-Russia deal falters, and the public’s attention is elsewhere.
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So the Syrian rebels are unhappy and grumbling, because they know that Russia has succeeded in strengthening Assad through 2014, at least. Now it’s time to go to Geneva II for a political settlement of the civil war, one which no doubt will result in Assad staying on for a while, at least.
Take Action: Demand Your Reps Say 'No' to Military Intervention in Syria
Greg Mitchell breaks down The New York Times’s Nick Kristof’s case for bombing Syria.
Obama's War Plan Collapses, Russia Takes the Lead
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his state-of-the-nation address. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
If President Obama believes that the threat of military force against Syria—a threat that, given Congress’s “implacable” opposition to, could never have been carried out—scared Russia so much that Vladimir Putin agreed to help dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, then he is living in a fantasy world of his own creation.
In his speech last night—originally designed to rally the country for war, but in which he announced the virtual cancellation of his ill-conceived war plan—Obama said that the developing accord between the United States and Russia emerged “in part because of the credible threat of U.S. military action.” Not so.
Even though Obama and Putin discussed the idea of a deal over Syria’s arsenal in Russia last week, neither Obama nor Kerry deviated an inch from the path toward war until it became clear that Congress would not authorize an attack. At that point, it became obvious to all, including the astute Putin, that no American attack was likely to emerge. Obama had created a catastrophically bad situation for himself, all his own doing, and by this past weekend he’d been hoist with his own petard. In fact, had Congress voted down his war plan, Obama’s presidency would have essentially been destroyed, and he’d have served out his last three years as a limping, lame duck.
Although Obama theoretically could have bombed Syria without congressional authorization, practically speaking that would have been impossible—and both Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad know it. Lacking public support for war, stripped of significant international support, Obama was facing complete paralysis, despite his macho touting of “red lines.” So Putin and Assad have bailed him out. The question now is: Will Obama move forward with an actual peace plan for Syria that goes beyond the issue of chemical weapons?
Listening to his speech last night, in which he said not a word about an actual peace plan, you’d have to think the answer is no. If so, the president would be making the biggest mistake in policy toward Syria, on top of a staggering number of what look like the incompetent, rookie mistakes made by a president who, after all, knows very little about international affairs. (Like George W. Bush, Obama had barely traveled the world before becoming president.)
The best part of Obama’s speech was his listing the various objections that rational people have. Every single one of the questions that Obama raised, he failed to answer in a convincing manner: that bombing Syria could lead to a “slippery slope” toward a wider war, that American shouldn’t be the “world’s policeman,” that the planned strike wouldn’t topple Assad or halt the war, that a strike could spark retaliation against the United States and its allies, and that many of the anti-Assad rebels are extremists with ties to Al Qaeda. Antiwar activists could put Obama’s questions on a poster.
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The Russians, who’ve nicely cornered Obama now, made it clear at the United Nations that the plan won’t proceed at the UN Security Council as long as the United States insists on adding a provision endorsing a military attack if Assad doesn’t comply with the chemical weapons plan. As The Wall Street Journal reports:
Russia rejected France’s initial demand for muscular wording aimed at forcing Syria to hand over the weapons on a deadline and under the threat of force. Moscow canceled a meeting it had called at the Security Council and set the stage for a possible diplomatic standoff.
Putin himself made clear that the weapons plan won’t move forward unless the United States renounces the threat of force, meaning that Russia thinks it can succeed in the complete humiliation of the United States while continuing to support Assad, whose hand will be strengthened going forward. As Putin said:
“Certainly, this is all reasonable, it will function and will work out, only if the US and those who support it on this issue pledge to renounce the use of force, because it is difficult to make any country—Syria or any other country in the world—to unilaterally disarm if there is military action against it under consideration.”
Though he didn’t address it last night, Obama must now focus on reviving the Geneva II peace conference. To do so, he’ll have to take the following steps: demand that the anti-Assad rebels attend the conference, which they’ve refused to do, and ignore and isolate the radicals who won’t go; put pressure on Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to stop arming the insurgents; work to bring Iran, Syria’s ally, to Geneva; and work with Russia to achieve at least a cease-fire to start.
Zoe Carpenter illustrates President Obama’s failure to sell the war on Syria.
Russia Trumps Obama War Plan
President Obama meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G8 Summit at Lough Erne in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, June 17, 2013.(Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
It’s tempting to enjoy the moment, that is, the humiliation of President Obama and the short-circuiting of his war push by a brilliant coup conducted by Vladimir Putin, that sly old dog and ju-jitsu expert, along with Russia’s ally, Syria. President Obama might as well not bother giving his Oval Office speech tonight, because the chances that Congress will approve Obama’s Authorization to Use Military Force are zero, and the possibility that the United States will go to war against Syria without congressional support are now less than zero.
But here’s the thing: the Russian proposal, now accepted by Syria, ought to be seized on by the White House enthusiastically, because it could open the door to, first, a political settlement of the war in Syria and then an accord with Iran.
Perhaps the signal failure of the Obama administration in the past five years has been its utter inability to achieve a decent working relationship with Moscow. Despite some successes, including limited success on arms talks and a cooling-down on NATO expansion and the placement of missiles in eastern Europe, Obama has allowed US-Russia relations to drift toward a Cold War–like hostility. That’s unfortunate, because a positive US-Russia approach toward issues such as the war in Syria, the confrontation over Iran, the struggle against Al Qaeda and Islamist extremism, and a whole range of disarmament and nuclear-weapons issues could succeed in making the world a better and safer place.
We’ll see if President Obama, stung now by Russia’s Syria plan, embraces a more intelligent strategy in regard to Moscow.
Meanwhile, the incompetence and bumbling of Obama and Secretary of State Kerry on Syria is staggering. Obama’s mistakes on Syria make a long list: first, calling for the fall of Assad in 2011, without any means to make it happen; second, drawing a “red line” on chemical weapons in 2012, thus boxing himself in when reports of Syrian gas use began piling up; third, promising to arm the Syrian rebels months ago, thus escalating the war and getting the rebels excited, with no real follow-up; fourth, oddly allowing Qatar and Saudi Arabia to take the lead in Syria policy, led by Prince Bandar and Saudi intelligence, while the United States took a back seat and the war was taken over by Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda types; fifth, opting for a military strike with no obvious strategic value; and sixth, tossing the whole mess into Congress’ lap.
Today, facing defeat in Congress—perhaps the first-ever rejection of the use of the American military by a president who sought the approval of those 535 experts on foreign policy on Capitol Hill—Obama finds himself bailed out by Putin.
Putin’s action wasn’t sudden, shocking or surprising. As I blogged last week, the Russians have been signaling for quite a while that they might be willing to join a United Nations–sponsored Syria effort centered on chemical weapons, but not if the United States insisted on a military strike. The idea of getting Russia’s constructive help on Syria didn’t seem to occur to the United States, and Kerry’s odd statement yesterday seemed more designed to undermine the Russian plan, not aid it. Said Kerry:
“Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week…without delay and allow the full and total accounting for that, but he isn’t about to do it and it can’t be done, obviously.”
Well, not so obviously, I guess.
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Even more oddly, Kerry said that a US attack on Syria would be “unbelievably small,” a comment that is not only dumb, but wrong. As I wrote yesterday, the planned American strike on Syria is designed to be massive and tilt the balance of the fighting in favor of the Al Qaeda–dominated rebels. Even Obama, asked about the size of the strike, had to contradict Kerry, in an interview with NBC:
“The U.S. does not do pinpricks. Our military is the greatest the world has ever known. And when we take even limited strikes, it has an impact on a country like Syria.”
Conservatives and Republicans have justly had a field day slamming Obama and, oddly for them, praising Putin. (For some reason, Media Matters compiled all these quotes in a manner calculated to ridicule the right-wingers, even though most of what they had to say is absolutely correct.) For example, Fox’s Martha McCallum:
I mean, you know, what we’re seeing, it would appear, and you tell me if I’m wrong, is that Vladimir Putin is coming to the diplomatic rescue here or appearing to try to do that at least, to a president who told us when he ran for office that all you needed to do was sit down with everybody to work things out.
And Tucker Carlson, also on Fox:
The administration’s policy in Syria is ad hoc. The president implied this was all in the works, that at the G20 he and President Putin worked this out. That’s ludicrous. They’re making this up as they go along and that’s obvious, I think. The second thing that is clear is that this strengthens Russia and humiliates the United States. Putin is riding to President Obama’s rescue. He is entirely dependent upon the goodwill of Vladimir Putin, who does not [have] our interests at heart.
Well, Russia may not have America’s interests at heart, but their proposal might just work, and it appears that France—and here let me say that I am suspicious of France’s motives—is rushing to test Russia’s commitment to a deal by introducing a resolution at the UN Security Council in support of Russia’s proposal. But even John McCain, who’s been itching to bomb Syria for years, has admitted that the United States “can’t say no” to the Russian plan.
Take Action: Demand Your Reps Vote No on Military Intervention in Syria
Katrina vanden Huevel urges diplomatic solution to the Syria crisis on ABC’s This Week.
Obama Plans 'Shock and Awe' in Syria
President Barack Obama talks with bipartisan congressional leaders in the Cabinet Room at the White House. (Reuters/Larry Downing)
President Obama’s plan to have Congress approve his ill-considered war on behalf of Al Qaeda in Syria will shock everyone, when it happens, with its sheer intensity. Those expecting a “limited” strike against a handful of Syrian military installations, including those involved in delivering chemical weapons, are in for a rude awakening. Instead, what the president will order will be a lot closer to President George W. Bush’s “shock and awe” bombardment of Baghdad before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
That isn’t to say that Obama is planning an invasion of Syria. He’s not. (Although if the state collapses, and Syria descends into chaos, the United States may very well end up with “boots on the ground” and body bags for American soldiers.)
In trying to market his war plans to Congress and the American public, Obama has repeatedly stated that he’s seeking authority for a limited war, and some officials have suggested—especially at the beginning of Obama’s war push—that “the strike,” as the belligerent Secretary of State John Kerry calls it, might involve only a couple of dozen cruise missiles. Don’t believe that for a second.
Even the drafts of resolutions being circulated in Congress suggest that Obama will get the “authority” to wage war against Syria for up to sixty days, with the possibility of an extension. That’s war, folks, not a “strike.”
No longer is the Obama administration arguing that it intends merely to punish President Bashar al-Assad for his alleged use of sarin gas. Instead, the talk in Washington more and more is about the need to “degrade” Syria’s core military apparatus. In Pentagon lingo, “degrade” means “destroy.” In other words, the object of Obama’s planned war on Syria is to tilt the balance of the conflict to the rebels, many of whom are radical Islamists, extremists of all kinds and Al Qaeda types.
As the Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend, even the initial list of fifty targets to be attacked—and fifty is a lot—has been expanded. And the United States is planning to use not only cruise missiles but other weapons, including bombers, based in both the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, at least. As the Los Angeles Times report, by veteran reported David S. Cloud, puts it:
The Pentagon is preparing for a longer bombardment of Syria than it originally had planned, with a heavy barrage of missile strikes followed soon after by more attacks on targets that the opening salvos missed or failed to destroy, officials said.…
Two U.S. officers said the White House asked for an expanded target list in recent days to include many more than the 50 or so targets on the initial list. As a result, Pentagon planners are weighing whether to use Air Force bombers, in addition to five warships now on patrol in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, to launch cruise missiles and air-to-surface missiles from hundreds of miles offshore, well out of range of Syrian air defenses.
Stephen Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser, has officially been enlisted by the White House as an advocate for the war push on Capitol Hill. As The New York Times reported, in a lengthy piece on the White House’s all-out lobbying effort to rally Congress for war—in which the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been given a prominent role—Obama has asked Hadley and other hawks to rally Republicans:
Tailoring the pitch, the White House and Republican Congressional leaders organized another briefing just for Republican staff members to hear from Stephen Hadley, a former national security adviser to Mr. Bush, and Eric S. Edelman, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Like the White House, Hadley argues that the real object of the war is to scare Iran by getting rid of its Syrian ally. (The title of Hadley’s op-ed in the Washington Post today is “To stop Iran, Obama must enforce red lines with Syria.”) And Hadley insists that the “strike” against Damascus be designed to topple Assad, not to punish him:
To protect these U.S. interests, U.S. military action in Syria must go beyond a few missile strikes designed to deter or degrade future chemical weapons use. It must be robust enough to erode the Syrian regime’s military advantage.… The goal is fracturing the Syrian regime so political and military elements of the regime can join with moderate and democratic elements of the opposition to establish an interim government that can begin to wind down the war, protect all Syrians (including Alawites and other minorities) and go after al-Qaeda.
Hadley, of course, has direct experience with “fracturing the…regime,” since that’s what his team did to Iraq in 2003, with catastrophic results. Hadley (and Kerry) warn that perhaps 100,000 Syrians have died—but they fail to mention that five times that many, at least, died in Iraq after the state, the army and all of Iraq’s institutions fell apart.
Last week, on September 5, The New York Times reported extensively on the administration’s war plan, noting (even then) that the list of targets was expanding, and adding:
So as the target list expands, the administration is creeping closer to carrying out military action that also could help tip the balance on the ground, even as the administration argues that that is not the primary intent.
And it added:
Among the options available are B-52 bombers, which can carry air-launched cruise missiles; B-1s that are based in Qatar and carry long-range, air-to-surface missiles; and B-2 stealth bombers, which are based in Missouri and carry satellite-guided bombs.
Part of this escalation is designed to win the support of super-hawks such as Senator John McCain, who has argued that it would useless to bomb Syria in a limited fashion, and that only a massive strike designed to topple Assad would be credible. That, of course, may push some fence-sitting liberals to oppose Obama’s war push in Congress, but it’s designed instead to win the backing of hawks and Republicans who’ve accused Obama of being too weak on Syria since 2011.
Thanks to McCain, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee-passed war resolution explicitly says that a strike ought to be aimed at getting rid of Assad, not punishing him. As The Wall Street Journal reported:
Unlike the House alternative, the version passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday also set a broader policy goal of tipping the civil war in Syria against the Assad regime—language sought by Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.).
At the American Enterprise Institute, which served as the unofficial headquarters for the neoconservative-led attack on Iraq a decade ago, the top US naval operations official boasted that the United States will deploy a “vast spectrum” of military capabilities against Syria:
Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday that the U.S. ships are prepared for what he called a “vast spectrum of operations,” including launching Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Syria and protecting themselves in the event of retaliation.
Those in Congress who have to vote on war ought to keep all this in mind. An authorization to use military force (AUMF) is almost guaranteed to explode in their faces, just as the 2001 vote after 9/11 and the 2003 vote to authorize war against Iraq did.
Read The Nation’s editorial in opposition to intervention in Syria.
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