Juan Cole's recommended reading for Thursday

Three recommendations at Juan Cole’s Informed Comment.

Engelhardt’s post is a must-read, and Rubin’s is fascinating for those of us who have been involved in election integrity in this country. I’m also baffled by Pelosi’s position on impeachment.

1. The Justice Department is going to investigate the destruction of videotapes of the interrogation of prisoners in US custody that showed torture. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi keeps asking what Bush has done that is impeachable. Shredding the constitution should count, and if that doesn't then this should.

2. Tom Engelhardt on how Bush took us to the dark side, i.e. how he tempted us into torture.

3. Barnett Rubin on vote rigging in Pakistan. A fascinating dialogue is emerging on some of these issues between him and his colleagues that is a testimony to the interactive character of writing on the Web.

(photo of Cole from his blog)

Recommended reading while I'm away

I’m off to help with infant grandchildren for a couple of days.

Worthwhile reading:
1. Paul Krugman, The New York Times op-ed columnist: "Pundits Say Hil or Obama, But Edwards Is The Best Bet to Beat GOP."
2. Barnett Rubin, Afghan expert, "Afghanistan: Who's to Blame?"
3. Daily afternoon reading Monday through Friday, Dan Froomkin’s blog at the Washington Post, White House Watch.

Pakistan Watch: Three posts worth reading

1. This excerpt from Dan Froomkin’s Washington Post White House Watch, ”Another Bush Backfire”:

What Cheney Wrought
Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid writes in a Washington Post op-ed: "The spread of anti-Western feelings and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism have been fostered by a U.S. policy that has sought to prop up Musharraf rather than forcing him to seek political consensus and empower a representative civilian government that would have public support for attacking the extremists."

And who's most responsible for that policy? Here's what Rashid wrote in The Post in June: "Current and past U.S. officials tell me that Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney's office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. This all fits; in recent months, I'm told, Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney's aides, rather than taken to the State Department.

"No one in Foggy Bottom seems willing to question Cheney's decisions."

2. Scott Horton at No Comment: "Bush's Musharraf Envy."

3. Barnett Rubin at Informed Comment Global Affairs: "Islamabad: Parting Thoughts on Policy."

A nose for the news - The Iran war roll-out: one cartoon and four articles

The October 23rd Tom Toles cartoon says it all, but the following articles fill in the details.

1. On October 23rd Amy Goodman interviews Middle East Analyst & Historian Juan Cole on U.S. War Plans Against Iran.

2. On October 22nd, Washington Post blogger Dan Froomkin posts "Cheney Beats the Drums of War."

3. On October 22nd, Scott Horton posts "The Roll-Out Presses On."

4. On October 22nd, Barnett Rubin at the group blog, Informed Comment Global Affairs posts "The War Rollout Keeps Rolling Along."

(Photo from my friend, Pat Denino, who blogs at Wandering Wonderings)

Afghanistan and Pakistan as a single front and more dangerous than Iraq: Is anyone listening?

Today at Informed Comment Global Affairs, Barnett Rubin, a highly regarded expert on Afghanistan and Director of Studies and Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation, posted Karachi Bombing: Afghanistan and Pakistan Are a Single Front:

“The bombing of Benazir Bhutto's motorcade in Karachi signals a new level of integration of the political arena of Afghanistan and Pakistan. If, as now seems likely, the attack is traced back to the 'Pakistani' Taliban of South Waziristan and al-Qaida, it will constitute a strike at the center of the Pakistani political process by groups based on the frontier who are part of both the transnational Afghan-Pakistani Taliban movement and the transnational global al-Qaida movement.”

Rubin quotes Lord Paddy Ashdown, former United Nations high representative and European Union special representative for Bosnia and Herzegovin, who warned in a recent Reuters interview that failure by the NATO-led force in Aghanistan would have far wider repercussions than any losses in Iraq:

"I think we are losing in Afghanistan now, we have lost I think and success is now unlikely.

"I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq. It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shiite, Sunni regional war on a grand scale.

"Some people refer to the First and Second World Wars as European civil wars and I think a similar regional civil war could be initiated by this (failure) to match this magnitude."

Rubin concludes, “Those who tried to kill Benazir Bhutto clearly perceive that a democratic Pakistan is the greatest threat their movement has faced in the region….Paddy Ashdown correctly warns that this situation is more dangerous than Iraq. Is anyone listening?"

(map of Pakistan: Desi Chat)

"The most important story of the day" - an attack on Iran?

I've been posting about the possibility of an attack on Iran since January, and I confess that I’m now having trouble keeping up all the news on this issue. As predicted on August 29 by Barnett Rubin, The Post Labor Day Product Rollout : War with Iran has indeed started.

Last week Barnett Rubin was interviewed by Joshua Micah Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com about Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. Rubin, a widely acknowledged expert on Afghanistan, stated that the U.S. can’t have stability there if it attacks Iran and explains why. The 8 minute video is well worth watching:
Then there’s Steve Clemons of The Washington Note, whose Salon.com September 19th article, Why Bush Won't Attack Iran, has been widely commented on in the blogosphere. Today Clemons, along with Pat Buchanan, an analyst, and Rachel Maddow of Air America, were interviewed by MSNBC’s Don Abrams: Clemons was more optimistic than either Buchanan or Maddow. Abrams concludes that the issue of whether or not there's going to be an attack on Iran is "The most important story of the day." You can watch the video here.

The article that is currently the most quoted is Seymour Hersh’s Shifting Targets: The Administration's Plan for Iran, coming out in the October 8th issue of the New Yorker. Hersh was interviewed today by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Listen, watch, or read the interview here.

Finally, here are Scott Horton’s observations, posted yesterday, Beating the Drums for the Next War.

(photo: Seymour Hersh, whose article “Shifting Targets” is in the center of the current “storm” about the likelihood of an attack on Iran: Salon.com's archive of photos)

Rubin: How to Stop War with Iran

Last night I read Barnett Rubin’s Theses on Policy Toward Iran at Informed Comment Global Affairs and think it’s one of the best articles I’ve read about the likelihood of an attack on Iran and what we can do about it.

This morning Juan Cole provides a summary: “Barnett Rubin gives us a thoughtful call to arms on how to prevent war with Iran at the Global Affairs blog. After analyzing the way the Bushies would probably go to war if they can, Rubin writes:

' The immediate goal for Democratic presidential candidates and the Democrats (and sensible Republicans) in Congress should be to use the power of the legislative branch to prevent the administration from launching a war. I can think of two possible ways to do this: [bolding mine]

* Pass an Act of Congress stating that the 2001 AUMF does not authorize a preemptive strike against Iran (or a strike in response to an alleged provocation – recall Tonkin Gulf). In this case, Congress would claim that war with Iran requires new authorization.

* Cut off funding for any war with Iran not specifically authorized by Congress in accordance with the law after September 30, when spending starts out of next year’s budget. Presumably they won’t be able to start the war by then and rely on the “support the troops” argument. In coordination with this immediate response, responsible leaders in both parties should articulate an alternative policy toward Iran starting with the same principle as the Helsinki Accords of 1975 – no regime change. '

"Read the whole thing"

Then go to Congress.org to find contact information for your Congressional representatives and urge them to take action per Rubin’s suggestions.

(photo of Barnett Rubin – voanews.com)

Keeping up on what is happening in the Middle East: Two "must check" blogs

I’m off for two days to help care for my youngest grandchildren, Rody and Sophia, seven months old today.

In my efforts to stay on top of what is happening in Iraq and what the Bush Administration appears to be planning regarding Iran, these two blogs have become essential daily reading:

1. Juan Cole’s Informed Comment. For instance, today he links to Nermeen Mufti explains why Iraqis are pessimistic on both the security and political front.

2. Informed Comment Global Affairs, a group blog launched by Juan Cole a few months ago. Here’s an excerpt from the September 2nd post by contributor Barnett Rubin, Administration's Iran... which opens with, “The Sunday Times of London reports from Washington a story I have not seen in any U.S. media: that "the Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive air strikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days.’ The source of this report was Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center.

”Speaking at a meeting sponsored by the journal National Interest, edited by Irving Kristol, father of Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol Debate stated:

"US military planners were not preparing for ‘pinprick strikes’ against Iran’s nuclear facilities. ‘They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,’ he said.

“As in the run-up to the war in Iraq, President Bush is maintaining the fiction that he is ‘committed for now to the diplomatic route,’ but many signs indicate that the decision to attack has been taken as irrevocably as the decision to attack Iraq in the fall of 2002.”

(photo of grandson Rody at about 5 months and me)

Who will be responsible if the Bush Administration attacks Iran?

On Wednesday I posted What could stop the Bush administration from attacking Iran?, linking to Glenn Greenwald’s post, The president's escalating war rhetoric on Iran. Greenwald’s concludes that there is nothing to stop the administration from starting a war with Iran.

Yesterday, Juan Cole posted Cheney & Iran: Here We Go Again? According to Cole, it appears that Cheney “…plans to roll out a military confrontation with Iran in September.” Cole encourages his readers to check out Post Labor Day Product Rollout - War with Iran, posted at the new group blog, Informed Comment Global Affairs.

Barnett Rubin, author of Post Labor Day Product Rollout, compares Bush’s August 28, 2007 speech making the case for an attack on Iran to Cheney’s August 26, 2002 speech making the case for attacking Iraq: Rubin continues, “Today I received a message from a friend who has excellent connections in Washington and whose information has often been prescient. According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11. My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way:

"'They [the source's institution] have ‘instructions’ (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this--they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is ‘plenty.’'"

In his post, Cole provides several links to recent similar reporting.

So do I wait until after Labor Day to see if Rubin is right? No. I act now.

I still harbor a hope that the American people will wake up. They did in the 1970’s when they collectively declared “Enough is enough” and put pressure on a Democratically controlled Congress to impeach Nixon when it wasn’t on the table.

On January 11, 2006, former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, who was on the House Judiciary Committee when Nixon was President, wrote The Impeachment of George W. Bush. Comparing Bush’s actions the Nixon’s, she states, “In 1973 impeachment was 'not on the table’ for many months while President Nixon's cover-up unraveled, even though Democrats controlled the House and Senate. But when Nixon fired the special prosecutor to avoid making his White House tapes public, the American people were outraged and put impeachment on the table, demanding that Congress act. That can happen again.” [bolding mine]

I think “That can happen again” should happen now. The runup to an attack on Iran should create as much outrage as Nixon's firing of the special prosecutor.

House Resolution 333, sponsored by Representative Dennis Kucinich and co-sponsored by numerous Congressional representatives, calls for impeaching Vice President Dick Cheney.

I’ve called my Congressional representative, Mike Thompson, to find out his position on attacking Iran and impeaching Cheney. His aide told me that Thompson’s position on these issues is “complicated” and that he will get back to me. Thompson will be hearing from me again.

The bottom line for me is that if we citizens are not outraged by the possibility of an attack on Iran and are unwilling to press Congress to put impeachment of Cheney and/or Bush and Cheney on the table, we are responsible for an attack on Iran.

(Drawing: Xiandos.info)