Understanding the relationship between the U.S. and Iran: I'm casting a wide net

Last February, after I had been blogging for a couple of weeks, I posted "Writing and bouillabaisse soup," describing the similarities between writing and making this famous fish soup. I wrote, "First, you take a big fishnet and, standing on a rock jutting out into the sea, cast it as wide as you can. After you gather the net and pull it up on the rock, you begin a careful examination of everything caught in it.”

I’m throwing my net wide to try to gather as much information as possible about why the relationship between the U.S. and Iran is so difficult and even scary. The recent National Intelligence Estimate that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program four years ago has not dispelled Bush's fear that Iran remains a threat and cannot be trusted with even the scientific knowledge to enrich uranium for peaceful civilian use.

This fear has trickled down to many ordinary Americans, and some of this fear is expressed as hatred for Iran. I was saddened yesterday to read TomDispatch.com's "Nick Turse, The Holiday Gifts from Hell (on Earth)": “You might also think about the ‘Give Peace a Chance - Bomb Iran' fitted t-shirt from SnafuGear. Or slip over to ConservativeBuys.com to pick up that ’Tic Tac Toe Anti-Iran’ T, featuring the snazzy game-board motif, with Afghanistan and Iraq already Xed out and all those bombs heading Iran-wards. Or what about the ‘Tehran Forecast’ t-shirt that reads: ‘15,000 degrees, high radioactive winds.’

“Had enough of shirts? Feelin' a tad sad because the latest National Intelligence Estimate wrecked that plan to take out Iran? How about a trucker hat emblazoned with a picture of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's face on toilet paper and the phrase ‘Shiite Head’ in faux Arabic script?

“And, for goodness sake, don't forget the Xmas cards you'll need to accompany your gifts. Perfect for the T's and the hat are DareWare's ‘Funny Anti-Iran Anti-Muslim Greeting Cards’ with a lovely image of a mushroom cloud and the classic all-seasonal line:‘Nuke Iran for Peace.’ "

So far my net has caught the excellent The Great War for Civilisation - The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk. His first-hand description of US support for Iraq in its war of aggression on Iran in the 1980’s is mind-boggling. This 1000+ page book has helped me understand the animosity the US has felt for Iran since the revolution unseated the Shah Mohamed Pahlavi in 1979, an event described in Chapter Four, “The Carpet-Weavers.”

Another catch is Trita Parsi’s Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealngs of Israel, Iran, and the U.S. I now have a better understanding how Israel’s and Iran’s relations have shifted from covert cooperation (even when Ayatollah Seyyet Ruhollah Khomeini was in power) to Israel's conviction today that Iran is an existential threat.

Since last January, I’ve read a lot of articles and blogs on Iran and wrote 41 posts, which I've listed below. By following my “recipe” in "Writing and bouillabaisse soup," I hope to write knowledgeably about this important subject in future posts.

Posts:
January 25
February 1
February 8
February 13
February 26
March 26
March 28
April 4
April 7 - guest blogger Jim Stoops
May 23
May 24
May 25
May 26
May 27
June 2
July 3
July 5
August 24
August 25
August 30
August 31
September 3
September 3
September 5
September 6
September 6
September 14
September 17
September 20
September 21
September 22
September 25
September 28
October 2
October 3
October 9
October 11 (about Trita Parsi’s Treacherous Alliance)
Oct. 18 (Iran hasn’t launched a war in 222 years)
October 24 (a great photo, even if you don’t read the post)
October 25 (I highly recommend you check this one)
December 5

(Persian miniature: Iran Chamber Society, also worth checking to learn more about Iranian culture)

Keep your eye on Petraeus - Part Four

This morning, the photo accompanying The New York Times article about General Petraeus’s appearance in Washington, D.C. for the upcoming Congressional hearing about progress in Iraq was rather amazing. The caption: “ANOTHER WAR, 40 YEARS AGO: Gen. William C. Westmoreland briefed Congress in 1967 on what he described as gains in Vietnam. President Bush hopes a general will bolster his case for Iraq.”

The Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975. Will we be in Iraq for another 8 years? MoveOn has cleverly captured President Bush’s comments about “progress” in Iraq over the past several years:


So now we have General Petraeus as President Bush’s political spear-carrier as he appears before Congress on September 11th to talk about progress in Iraq.

I posted about General Petraeus on January 26, as he headed to Iraq shortly after being confirmed by the Senate as the new U.S. Commander in Iraq. I referred to the counterinsurgency manual that Petraeus authored in which he had stated that 120,000 troops would be needed to secure Baghdad, but he reasoned that the roughly 32,000 American troops that would be deployed in the capital under the plan would be enough.

On March 20, I posted Keep your eyes on Petraeus - Part Two linking to my favorite Middle Eastern expert, Juan Cole who posted this comment on March 19 at Informed Comment: “General Petraeus, in the meantime, is signalling that his own patience is not infinite, and that if he can't see a genuine improvement in the security situation by June [bolding mine], he would have an obligation to his own troops to say so. It is so refreshing to hear that kind of language from the Pentagon after all those years of Donald Rumsfeld's despicable disregard for the welfare of the troops he was supposed to be leading….”

Part Three on Petraeus was posted on April 16, in which I linked to Robert Fisk’s April 11 article in the UK Independent, Divide and Rule - American's Plan for Baghdad, in which Fisk describes the latest security plan concocted by General Petraeus to seal off vast areas of Baghdad.

Update: According to todays' New York Times article, Troop Buildup,Yielding Slight Gains, Fails to Meet U.S. Goals, “The hulking blast walls that the Americans have set up around many neighborhoods have only intensified the city’s [Baghdad] sense of balkanization.”

When I listen to General Petraeus on September 11, what do I need to remember? On July 19, Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com posted How much credence should Gen. Petraeus' reports be given - The source being depicted as the Objective Oracle on Iraq has a long history of extreme optimism about the progress we were making in the war. If you don’t read anything else before September 11, read this. Greenwald has exhaustively listed the countless times in the past that General Petraeus has sunnily reported on progress in Iraq.

(photo: The New York Times, Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Keep Your Eye on Petraeus - Part Three

Last January, as Lt. General David Petraeus headed for Iraq to command the U.S. troops, I posted Keep Your Eye on Petraeus. Despite the apparent inconsistency between what Petraeus set out to do in Iraq and what he recommended be done when fighting terrorists in the “counterinsurgency” field manual, FM3-24, which had just been released, I wanted him to succeed so our troops could come home and the Iraqis could get on with their lives.

On March 20, I posted Part Two, in which I quoted Juan Cole of Informed Comment, who gave Petraeus credit for having the courage to say that if he couldn’t see a genuine improvement in the security situation by June, he would have an obligation to his own troops to say so.

Now, almost a month later, Robert Fisk* wrote a stunning article on April 11 in the UK Independent, Divide and Rule - American's Plan for Baghdad.

The opening sentence: “Revealed: a new counter-insurgency strategy to carve up the city into sealed areas. The tactic failed in Vietnam. So what chance does it have in Iraq?"

The article goes on to describe how vast areas of the city will be sealed off, “enclosing whole neighbourhoods with barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards to enter.”

According to Fisk, “The latest security plan…was concocted by General David Petraeus, the current US commander in Baghdad....A former US officer in Vietnam who has a deep knowledge of General Petraeus's plans is skeptical of the possible results.”

Fisk also mentions counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24: “While not specifically advocating the 'gated communities' campaign, one of its principles is the unification of civilian and military activities, citing …the 'provincial reconstruction teams' in Afghanistan - a project widely condemned for linking military co-operation and humanitarian aid.”

Equally alarming: “But the campaign has far wider military ambitions than the pacification of Baghdad. It now appears that the US military intends to place as many as five mechanised brigades - comprising about 40,000 men - south and east of Baghdad, at least three of them positioned between the capital and the Iranian border. This would present Iran with a powerful - and potentially aggressive - American military force close to its border in the event of a US or Israeli military strike against its nuclear facilities later this year.”

I feel sorry for General Petraeus because he works for the Commander in Chief, George W. Bush. According to General John Sheehan of the Marine Corps, who wrote an op-ed in this morning’s Washington Post, Why I Declined to Serve (as “White House implementation manager” over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), “What I found in discussions with current and former members of this administration is that there is no agreed-upon strategic view of the Iraq problem or the region. In my view, there are essentially three strategies in play simultaneously.

The first I call ‘the Woody Hayes basic ground attack,’ which is basically gaining one yard -- or one city block -- at a time. Given unconstrained time and resources, one could control the outcome in Iraq and provide the necessary security to move on to the next stage of development.”

It’s obvious that General Sheehan doesn’t think much of this strategy. However, it sounds to me that General Petraeus may well be stuck with it, at least in Baghdad. And it sounds like Petraeus is implementing Bush's plans for a potential attack on Iran.

*I admire Fisk very much, having read two of his books, The Great War for Civilisation – The Conquest of the Middle East and Pity the Nation. He reports “from the ground” in the Middle East. I’m amazed he’s still alive.

(photo – voanews.com)