Israel tries to cut off Tehran from world markets

I've been arguing for a while now that Bush and Co. are preparing for an attack on Iran. It's not any one thing that they are doing as much as the cumulative effect of lots of things that leads me to believe that they will strike, despite Tony Snow issuing non-denial denials.

Now, Israel have launched a campaign to isolate Iran economically and it is said, "to soften up world opinion for the option of a military strike aimed at crippling or delaying Tehran's uranium enrichment programme".

Pressure will be applied to major US pension funds to stop investment in about 70 companies that trade directly with Iran, and to international banks that trade with its oil sector, cutting off the country's access to hard currency. The aim is to isolate Tehran from the world markets in a campaign similar to that against South Africa at the height of apartheid.

The campaign is being led by Benjamin Netanyahu who also wants Ahmadinejad prosecuted for calling the Holocaust a myth, and saying Israel should be wiped off the map.

The case will be launched under the 1948 UN convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, which outlaws "direct and public incitement to genocide".

I have read many translations of Ahmadinejad's remarks and not all of them agree with the reading that Netanyahu is making, but this hardly matters as the reason Netanyahu is proposing prosecuting Ahmadinejad is to encourage some kind of strike against Iran. He's simply using this supposed outrage to fuel fires against Tehran.

Before flying to London to spearhead the mission to sell the sanctions, the Likud party leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, said: "A campaign to divest commercial investment from Iran, beginning with the large pension funds in the west ... either stops Iran's nuclear programme or it will pave the way for tougher actions. So it's no-lose for us."

Of course, there is no mention here of Israel's nuclear weaponry or the fact that Israel, with American backing, has refused to sign the very Nuclear non-Proliferation treaty that she is demanding that Iran comply with.

But such hypocrisies do not bother Netanyahu or his American counterparts.

They will continue to insist that they operate on some mythical moral high ground, whilst Israel retains nuclear weapons that she will not admit to possessing and Bush plans a new range of bunker busting nuclear weapons in clear defiance of the same Treaty that we are demanding Ahmadinejad complies with.

The world would find us much more credible if we took our own commitments as seriously as we demand the Iranians do.

But this is simply another small step in the direction of either the US or Israel launching some kind of attack on Iran, with all the chaos that this is guaranteed to produce throughout the entire Middle East.

Nor will any missile attack even be guaranteed to prove effective at removing the threat of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Preemptive military attack is not a strategy for stopping the spread of nuclear weapons anymore; the changes in technology have made it obsolete.” That’s the current assessment from Larry Derfner, who often writes about Israeli politics for the Jerusalem Post. “Concealing a nuclear start-up is so much easier now than it was in 1981 and it’s only going to get easier yet. Throwing fighter jets, commandos and whatnot at Iran is more than risky; it’s almost certainly futile if not altogether impossible.

So lets be clear what Netanyahu is proposing. He's wanting to launch an attack on Iran that is "almost certainly futile" when it comes to destroying Iran's nuclear facilities. He's actually going to inflame the entire region and almost certainly NOT succeed in ridding Iran of it's nuclear capability.

And this is being proposed AFTER Cheney has refused an offer from Iran that promised the Americans all of the things that the US are now demanding.

It's not their love of violence that I find appalling. It's the fact that they will propose violent acts even when they are guaranteed not to work and when they have already been offered a peaceful solution.

Oh, and Ahmadinejad's the lunatic in case you had forgotten.

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tag: Ahmadinejad, Iran, Netanyahu, Israel, nuclear proliferation

Maliki uses Parliament to accuse rival of crimes.

Extraordinary scenes took place yesterday in the Iraqi parliament which must undermine any hope that George Bush's new Surge and Escalate policy can restore any kind of order in Baghdad. The rift between Sunni and Shia politicians seems poisonous with Maliki going as far as to accuse a Sunni politician - Mr. Janabi, who leads the Sunni-dominated Tawafiq Party - of criminal activity.

This produced a rebuke from the speaker of Parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni, who said:

“That is unacceptable, Mr. Prime Minister,” Mr. Mashhadani said over the tumult. “It is unacceptable, Mr. Prime Minister, to make such accusations against a lawmaker under the dome of Parliament.”

However, Maliki pressed on.

“What about the 150 people kidnapped near Al Bairaat?” he said, referring to an area by a lake south of Baghdad where Mr. Janabi has his base of support.

“I will show you,” Mr. Maliki said, waving his finger in the air. “I will turn over the documents we have,” implying that the legislator was guilty of crimes.

Maliki clearly is accusing Janabi of being in some way complicit in this action, which does beg the question of why, if Maliki has evidence of this, that he has not passed this evidence on to the police and had Janabi charged.

Mr. Janabi could not be reached for comment but another member of his party, Dhafer al-Ani, said Mr. Maliki was trying to “terrify” his opponents into silence. “If there are documents against him showing crimes, why were they not revealed until this session?” he said in an interview. “What kept him silent all this time?”

It's a valid point. The irony is that this exchange took place whilst they were discussing the new Baghdad security plan, which is supposed to reduce sectarian conflict in the city.

The session of Parliament was attended by nearly all members, a rarity in recent months, and was broadcast live on Iraqi national television.

The lawmakers had their shouting match while sitting beneath a banner with a phrase from the Koran that extols the importance of a civil debate in making good decisions.

Shatha al-Mousawi, a lawmaker from the Mr. Maliki’s leading Shiite bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, said some politicians were simply grandstanding for the cameras. But she said the fighting continued after Mr. Mashhadani abruptly called an end to the session and the cameras were turned off.

Mr. Mashhadani demanded that the prime minister apologize to Mr. Janabi. Members of Mr. Maliki’s party said Mr. Janabi was the one who should apologize, Ms. Mousawi said.

Mr. Mashhadani then threatened to quit.

“Someone said you do not need to quit, we will dismiss you,” she said.

Mr. Mashhadani called a Shiite politician a “psychopath,” as the bitter exchanges continued.

Eventually, though, the tensions eased and Parliament approved the security plan.

The Sunnis have accused Maliki of cracking down on Sunni death squads whilst allowing Shia death squads to operate unhindered. I have no idea if this is true or false, but the very fact that the politicians are now at each others throats suggests that the breakdown between the ethnic/religious groups is no longer confined to the streets but has now entered the Parliament itself.

It is into this madness that George Bush is sending 21,500 more young Americans.

Click title for full article.

tag: Maliki, Janabi, Iraq Parliament, Baghdad security plan, surge and accelerate, Iraq war

What would Roosevelt make of Cheney?

As Cheney and others attack anyone who questions the President's wisdom over Iraq and impugn them as "giving aid to the enemy", the words of Theodore Roosevelt seem especially apt.

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.

Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

There. Those calling for blind support of the President are "morally treasonable to the American public".

Hat tip to Glenn Greenwald.

tag: Dick Cheney, Bush, Iraq war, , surge and accelerate

Cheney Slaps Down CNN's Blitzer For Asking About His Pregnant Lesbian Daughter: "Wolf, You're Out Of Line"...

Apologies for so much footage today, but no-one wants to miss this. Cheney blasts Blitzer as out of line for daring to ask a question about his pregnant lesbian daughter. Considering the amount of time these guys spend attacking the concept of gay marriage, it's staggering that Cheney thinks even to ask him about this subject is "out of line" as he puts it.

I've never seen him more churlish.



UPDATE:

Another thought just occured to me. I'm sure Cheney would argue that it is "out of line" to bring his family's private life into the interview, but - when he sought to discredit Joe Wilson - didn't he give permission for people to do that very same thing and out Wilson's wife? And wasn't that slightly more serious as she was an undercover CIA operative?

tag: Dick Cheney, Wolf Blitzer, pregnant lesbian daughter

Galloway tells of meeting with Siniora

Galloway is very funny relating his meeting with Siniora. I won't spoil it by telling you the punchline.



tag: George Galloway, Siniora, Lebanon

All stand for Chuck Hagel!

This guy is fast becoming my favourite Republican politician. Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd find myself writing.

He's impassioned, he's fair and he's not afraid to take on the other side and blow away the "traitoresque" arguments that they hurl in his direction. Standing ovation for Chuck Hagel.



Thanks as always to Crooks and Liars

tag: Chuck Hagel, James A Baker, Iraq, withdrawal, pull-out, James Baker, American values, surge and accelerate, Iraq war

Senators reject Bush plea for time on Iraq

The Senate foreign affairs committee are to push ahead with a resolution that states that Bush's proposed troop increase in Iraq is "not in the national interest", a rare repudiation of a President at a time of war, especially since Bush's plea when he made his State of the Union Address that Congress should "give it a chance to work".

The reaction of the Chamber illustrated how isolated Bush has become with Republicans giving him a standing ovation and Democrats, led by Pelosi, pointedly refusing to applaud.

The Senate foreign relations committee voted 12 to 9 in favour of adopting the anti-war resolution, which is scheduled to go before the whole Senate next week. At that time, at least nine Republican senators intend to back the resolution, though they will negotiate with Democrats over the next few days to change the language. The Democrats are likely to agree in an effort to win as many votes as possible.

Chuck Hagel, the only Republican to vote with the Democrats on the committee yesterday, said: "We better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder."

The Democratic committee chairman, Joe Biden, said the resolution was designed "to save the president from making a significant mistake".

Mr Bush still enjoys the support of two leading candidates for the Republican nomination, Senator John McCain and the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Senator Richard Lugar, the senior Republican on the foreign affairs committee, opposed the resolution. "This vote will force nothing on the president, but it will confirm to our friends and allies that we are divided and in disarray," he said. But he added: "I am not confident that President Bush's plan will succeed."

Of course, Bush will simply ignore the new resolution and plough on regardless, but the very fact that some Republicans will vote to censure the President in this way shows just how isolated Bush is becoming.

For the past three years Bush has been able to portray anyone who expressed concern against his policies as a "traitor" who wanted "Iraq to fail" and the Republican Party lined up totally behind that fractured logic. The fact that some Republicans are prepared to vote against Bush's policy and run the risk of similar accusations being thrown at them says a lot about how far from the mainstream Bush now stands on this issue, when even former supporters rush to distance themselves from his policies.

Meanwhile, in Britain, the government came under attack for it's Iraq policy in a rare Commons debate on the issue, with Sir Menzies Campbell - the leader of the Liberal Democrats - calling for British troops to begin withdrawing.

Sir Menzies said Britain had already handed three out of four districts under British control back to Iraqi forces and could put the city of Basra under Iraqi command by July. He told MPs: "No one can accuse the UK of cutting and running after four years in which we have tried to the best of our ability to fulfil the objectives of the United Nations resolutions.

"For four years, we have endured the stresses and strains of occupation, stresses and strains more directly borne by our armed forces... I don't think it is any longer reasonable or legitimate to ask our armed forces to bear this burden and that is why the process of withdrawal should begin on 1 May and end in October. It is time to go."

Both the Conservatives and Labour attacked Sir Menzies for suggesting what they see as an "arbitrary" date, however there were very few applauding the government's position, with even former Labour ministers attacking the position Blair has placed them in.

Frank Dobson, the former health secretary, said British forces should leave Iraq. He said: "I cannot believe that anyone in the House can expect anything but protracted chaos, misery, death and injury for the people of Iraq whenever the occupation forces withdraw.

"There will be no fairy tale ending to the occupation."

Peter Kilfolye, the former defence minister, attacked the Government for waging war on "a false prospectus". He said: "I fear that nobody ever will be held to account."

Another former Labour cabinet minister, Gavin Strang, added: "At last there is a consensus that the situation in Iraq is horrendous. Throughout last year, we were told the coalition was winning, it was just that we were winning more slowly than expected. Earlier this month, we had acknowledgement from President Bush that the situation in Iraq is unacceptable and that existing policies had failed."

Sir Malcom Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign and defence secretary, said: "The reality is that war was a terrible mistake. He should have reflected on the remark of Bismarck that pre-emptive wars are rather like committing suicide because of a fear of death."

Sir Gerald Kaufman, Labour MP for Manchester Gorton, said: "Leaders of the West hailed the democracy involved in the election of the Iraqi government. What has resulted from that election is a vengeful sectarian gang who are hounding their religious opponents."

I personally can no see easy way out of this war, nor can I see the day when US and British troops restore order to Iraq's streets. It seems to me to have simply gone too far for that. British and American troops are simply targets.

The ONLY solution that had any chance of success - and that was, admittedly, a small one - was the Iraq Study Group's proposal that Bush should negotiate with Iraq's neighbours, Syria and Iran.

Violent sectarian conflicts can only ever be solved by patient negotiation. Military solutions cannot ever work. The British situation in Ireland amply demonstrates that point. In Ireland, the Catholics were getting a shitty deal, hence the violence. The Protestants controlled the police and ensured their domination. It naturally followed that the Protestants were unwilling to share power with a group of people over which they had always exercised dominance.

A similar situation exists in Iraq. The Shia have suddenly gained power over the Sunnis, a group of people who have long dominated them. The Sunnis have taken to armed unrest in order to attempt to reverse this situation.

Only patient negotiation and a sharing of power by both sides will have any chance of reducing the violence.

Bush introduced democracy into a country who ethnic makeup he barely understood, and did so in a way which guaranteed the violence that has ensued. When he used to speak of Baathist remnants he was simply revealing how little he understood of the Pandora's box that he had opened.

That he proposes closing the box by installing more troops is a further indication of how little he understands the situation in which he now finds himself.

I understand his wish not to leave Iraq in chaos. It would be criminal were the US and Britain to waltz away leaving Iraq in the middle of a civil war.

However, the way to avoid that outcome is not to send more troops. It is to start negotiation with the very groups that he has been fighting against. John Major and Tony Blair did not negotiate with the IRA because they forgot the terrible things that they had done, they negotiated because - after years of mindless conflict - they realised that negotiation was the only way to stop the madness.

The Sunnis have been disenfranchised, just as the Shias were for years treated like shit. There can be no military solution to that conundrum, nor does it do anyone any good to arm and support one side in the dispute.

It's a situation that calls for old fashioned diplomacy.

It's not a matter of "cut and run" as Bush likes to portray it, for no-one is suggesting that running would be a noble exercise. However, even Bush has admitted that his present policy is not working. His new proposal is simply more of the same.

If Bush wants to leave Iraq in a stable state - and I genuinely believe that he does - then he has to realise that he is approaching this problem from the wrong angle.

Blair, with all his experience in Northern Ireland, should be proposing negotiation. It says a lot about the "special relationship" that Blair has not even dared to bring the subject up.

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tag: Iraq, terrorists, terrorism, Iraq war study group, Pelosi, patience, negotiations, James Baker, Tony Blair, Iraq War, Stay the course, surge and accelerate

Cabinet rejects exemption on gay adoptions

It now looks certain that Tony Blair is going to have to back down over the gay adoption issue with members of his Cabinet outraged that he planned to cave in to the Catholic Church and allow them exemption from new anti-discrimination legislation.

The new legislation says that it is illegal to discriminate against a person on the grounds of their sexual orientation. The Catholic Church have argued that, because of their religious beliefs, they would not be able to comply with this legislation as it relates to Catholic adoption agencies and that they would have to close the agencies rather than comply. This was taken by many to be a clear threat from the Catholic church that children would suffer if they were not granted the exemption they were demanding.

Ruth Kelly, the Minister for Equality and a practicing Catholic and member of Opus Dei, was the person that Blair chose to guarantee that gay people received equal rights under law. It was always an extraordinary choice guaranteed to leave Miss Kelly compromised at every turn.

However, it now transpires that the person pushing for the Catholic church to receive special treatment was Mr Blair rather than Miss Kelly. Mr Blair, who is widely expected to convert to Catholicism when he leaves office, has been pleading with the Cabinet to allow the Catholic church this exemption.

The Cabinet have been steadfast in their refusal. A refusal that was best summed up by Harriet Harman:

"You can either be against discrimination or you can allow for it. You can't be a little bit against discrimination."

Miss Harman sums up the argument beautifully. This bill is not a bill for adoption, it is a bill to prevent discrimination and it matters not a jot whether or not that discrimination is being carried out because of a religious belief. Discrimination is wrong.

The new compromise designed to break the impasse is unlikely to please Church leaders.

Cabinet sources said the new proposals would require Catholic adoption agencies to consider gay couples - or close down - after a reasonable delay that would allow them to ensure that the children in their care are properly dealt with.

The transitional period could be up to three years, but ministers concede that some agencies may prefer to close rather than consider gay couples. The compromise is far from the complete exemption demanded by Catholic and Anglican leaders, who wrote to members of the cabinet. Their concerns were raised by Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, who is a staunch Catholic.

Though Downing Street insists the prime minister was not calling for an exemption but merely trying to broker a solution, cabinet colleagues strongly criticised his sympathy for the church's view. Mr Blair's critics will also seize upon the compromise as a sign of his political weakness in the last months of his premiership.

Yesterday Mr Blair held a meeting with a delegation of Labour MPs, including Angela Eagle, Chris Bryant and David Borrows, and a number of Catholic MPs, all of whom argued for no exemption.

Ms Eagle said: "Transition is certainly possible so long as it is sensible and doesn't have to go on forever. We are not being the dogmatic ones in this argument. We are not demanding that gay couples absolutely in all circumstances have to be approved. We are saying they should not be ruled out as a priority."

Blair has always been a very strange man to lead the Labour Party, and when it comes to issues like this he reveals just how little understanding he has about the basic tenets of the movement that he heads.

The very notion that he could "broker a solution" on an issue of principle says that he does not fully understand the principles involved.

Were Blair to remove the word "gay" from any argument he forms in his head when considering these compromise solutions and replace it with the word "black" he would quickly realise how offensive he is being.

Remember, this bill is not about adoption, it is about discrimination.

Discrimination is wrong. Period. And even if one discriminates because of one's religious beliefs, it is nevertheless discrimination.

Click title for full article.

tag: Ruth Kelly, gay rights, equalities minister, Opus Dei, equal rights, Blair, Catholic Church, adoption,

An Alternative State of the Union Address

James Adomian is back with his fantastic Bush impression and another pre-emptive satirical strike on this year's State of the Union address. And the Democratic response at the end is hilarious!



Written by James Adomian
Directed by David Guy Levy

George W. Bush -- James Adomian
Dick Cheney -- David Hoffman
Nancy Pelosi -- Patty Wortham
Hillary Clinton -- Susan Deming
Barack Obama -- Wyatt Cenac

tag: Bush, State of the Union Address

Carter defends 'Apartheid' book, says attacks on character hurt

Jimmy Carter has gone to Brandeis University to defend his new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."

Brandeis, in the Boston suburb of Waltham, is a secular university founded by American Jewish leaders, and about half of its 5,300 students are Jewish. The school is named after Louis Brandeis, the first Jew on the Supreme Court and a robust defender of the right to free speech.

I have to say that I really admire the courage that Carter has shown by daring to bring up the similarity between Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and the South African Apartheid regime. The similarity is widely recognised everywhere except in the United States and Carter is performing a valuable public service by daring to make Americans question their support for what is being done, if not in their name, then at the very least financed by their government's funding of Israel.

The former United States president, in his first direct address to Jewish Americans on his book, said the title referred to human rights in the Palestinian territories, not in Israel.

He said the word "apartheid" was intended to provoke debate on the rights of Palestinians, who he said were being treated unfairly by Israel.

He said he never asserted that Jewish money was controlling the U.S. media, as some critics have charged, but only that the pro-Israel lobby was strong.

"I've been hurt and so has my family by some of the reaction," Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, told about 1,700 students at the university.

"I've been through political campaigns for state senator, governor and president, and I've been stigmatized and condemned by my political opponents. But this is the first time that I have ever been called a liar. And a bigot and an anti-Semite and a coward, and a plagiarist. This is hurtful," he said.

"I can take it," he added, joking that he could handle the attacks because as a former U.S. president he still had Secret Service protection.

The pro-Israel lobby are almost fanatical, as Carter is discovering, and they literally will hear no criticism of Israel of any kind without resorting to the charge that the person complaining must be anti-Semitic. It is one of their most effective tools at preventing any rational discussion of Israel's shortcomings.

I am sure at 82 there are easier ways for a former President to spend his time, so Carter is to be applauded for daring to raise this important subject and to suffer this level of abuse in order to facilitate a discussion that Israel's supporters are anxious not to have.

It is also heartening to read that a majority of the students seemed to support Carter's argument.

About 60 protesters, detractors and supporters, gathered outside, some holding Israeli or Palestinian signs and flags.

"We support what Jimmy Carter is saying," said Alan Meyers, 56, a Jewish doctor from Boston. "We feel that there is not enough attention being paid to dissenting Jewish voices in the United States."

But a few hours before the appearance, only about two dozen demonstrators showed up, and most were carrying signs with a pro-Palestinian view. Among them: "Closing our eyes to injustice is not a Jewish value" and "Support Jimmy Carter. End the occupation now.

As is so often the case, television and the media gives scant notice to Jewish voices who are critical of Israel. I certainly know that the views of my British Jewish friends are rarely represented when it comes to this subject, as was especially noticeable during the recent Israel-Lebanon war.

Hopefully Carter's book will enable a proper discussion to be held, although I am sure the Dershowitz's of this world will do all in their power to demonise and attack the man.

As I say, at 82 it's a brave man who would put himself through this level of disapprobation simply because he knows what he is doing is right. Carter is to be applauded.

Click title for full article.

tag: Israel, Palestine, Jimmy Carter, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

Robert Fisk: Opposition demonstrations turn Beirut into a violent sectarian battleground

So the worst nightmare years may have begun again. There were thousands of them - Christians fighting Christians north of Beirut, Sunni and Shia Muslims in the capital, a rain of stones, shrieks of hatred and occasionally even gunfire - that turned Lebanon into a sectarian battleground yesterday.

At the corner of a street off Corniche al-Mazraa, I watched what historians may one day claim was the first day of Lebanon's new civil war, huge mobs of young men, supporters and opponents of Fouad Siniora's government screaming abuse and throwing tens of thousands of rocks at each other as a wounded Lebanese soldier sat next to me and wept.

For the army of this tragic country is now the thin red line ­ some actually were wearing red berets ­ that stands between a future for Lebanon and the folly of civil conflict.

After 31 years in this country, I never truly believed I would see again what I witnessed on the streets of Beirut yesterday, thousands of Shia and Sunni Muslims, the first supporting the Hizbollah, the second the government once led by the murdered ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri, hurling stones and hunks of metal at each other. They crashed down around us, smashing the road signs, the advertisement hoardings, the windows of the bank against which seven Lebanese soldiers and I were cowering. Again and again, the soldiers ran into the roadway to try ­ with a desperation all of them understood, and they were brave men ­ to drag the youths from each other. Some of the Shia men, Amal members, loyal (heaven spare us) to the Speaker of Parliament, wore hoods and black face masks, most wielding big wooden clubs.

Their predecessors ­ perhaps their fathers ­ were dressed like this 31 years ago when they fought in these same streets, executioners-to-be, all confident in the integrity of their cause. Perhaps they were even wearing the same hoods. Some of the troops fired into the air; they shouted at the stone throwers. "For God's love, stop," one young soldier screamed. "Please, please."

But the crowds would not listen. They shrieked "animals" at each other and obscenities and on one side of the street they produced pictures of the Hizbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and of Michel Aoun, the Christian ex-general who wants to be president and is Nasrallah's ally, and on the other side of the street, the Sunnis produced a portrait of Saddam Hussein. Thus did the cancer of Iraq spread to Lebanon yesterday. It was a day of shame.

Across Lebanon came reports of dying men ­ two according to one, six according to another, and at least 60 wounded ­ and the country's leaders were last night writing their narrative of Lebanon's modern history with predictable speed. Nasrallah, hero of last summer's war with Israel ­ or so he likes to think ­ demanding the resignation of the government while Siniora and his colleagues, trapped in the old Turkish "serail" downtown, called this an attempted coup d'état by the forces of Syria and Iran.

It is not that simple. The Shias are the downtrodden, the poor, the dispossessed, those who have always been ignored by the dons and patriarchs of the Lebanese government ­ for in one sense this is also a social revolution ­ and on the other were the Sunni population so beloved of Hariri and the Druze and the Christians still loyal to the Lebanese forces who were Israel's allies in 1982 and who massacred the Palestinians in the camps of Sabra and Chatila, as well as a majority of Lebanese innocents who voted Siniora's government into power.

Thus north of Beirut, Aoun's Christian forces tried to block the roads and were set on by Samir Geagea's thugs. In Tripoli, supporters of Hariri's son Saad were fighting Alawite supporters of Syria. In Hazmiyeh, it was Shias versus Christians and in Corniche al-Mazraa, it was Shias against Sunnis. No, as Nasrallah would be the first to say, this is not necessarily a civil war ­ and it has to be said that the Hizbollah's tens of thousands of fighters were by far the most disciplined men on the streets of Beirut ­ but it was he who called a general strike yesterday on the eve of the Paris economic conference that is supposed to save Lebanon's economy and who blocked all the main roads of Lebanon with burning tyres and concrete blocks and pipes and rubble from last summer's war.

My driver, Abed, and I tried to reach the airport but vast swaths of black smoke poured from the burning rubber on all the approach roads. I walked three miles to the terminal, only to find the Hizbollah protecting both the airport and the Lebanese troops who were guarding it. When we turned round, Abed tried to drive over the burning tyres but trapped one beneath our car, the flames curling up the sides of the bodywork, desperately reversing to clear our wheels as Hizbollah men screamed abuse.

Siniora condemned it all last night, demanding an emergency session of parliament. He still plans to go to the Paris summit. But how will he get to the airport? "We will not be scared," Nasrallah said yesterday. " We will not retreat ... We will not be dragged on to the streets [of civil war]." But he should have been on Corniche al-Mazraa. All across Beirut, the Hizbollah, most dressed in black trousers and shirts (for this is the holy month of Ashura, is it not?) had closed the roads, and the army stood and watched. It is a largely Shia army, for it is the Shias who are the largest community in Lebanon, but in the streets they were forced to fight. As I sat with the soldiers amid the crashing stones ­ many of the projectiles hurled into the street from the roofs of eight-storey apartment blocks ­ I watched them wilt under the pressure. One knelt down and vomited; others were almost overcome by their own tear gas, fired uselessly at the vast crowds. For these were not Belfast-sized riots or Gaza-sized demonstrations.

The mobs were there in their thousands, chorusing their hatred for those who lived across the other side of the boulevard. There were few officers. But after an hour, a Lebanese colonel ran down the street, a smartly dressed man, not even wearing a flak jacket, who walked straight into the highway between these two great waves of angry people, the stones banging off his helmet and body and legs. And the soldiers around me stood up and ran into the road to join him between these two enormous forces.

I don't like journalists who fall in love with armies. I don't like armies. But yesterday it seemed that this one man was a lonely symbol of what stood between Lebanon and chaos. I don't know his religion. His soldiers were Sunnis and Shias and Christians ­ I had checked, of course ­ all dressed in the same uniform. Could they hold together, could they remain under his command when their brothers and cousins, some of them, must have been among the crowds? They did. Some even grinned as they hurled themselves at the hooded men and youths too young to have known the last civil war, pleading and shouting for the violence to end. They won. This time. But what about today?

Click title for source.

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Strike turns to riots as Lebanon is 'shut down' in struggle for power

tag: Lebanon, Hizbullah, Siniora,

'There is no war on terror'

The British Director of Public Prosecutions, , Sir Ken Macdonald, has made an astonishing speech in which he says there is no such thing as the War on Terror and highlights the danger that - in fighting this illusory enemy - we might throw away our very way of life and our democratic safeguards.

As someone who lived in London during the IRA's campaign against the British I have to say that I am in agreement with him here. Terrorists are simply criminals, and Bush and Blair have gravely exaggerated their status by claiming that we are involved in "a war" with them.

Indeed, the greatest threat we face is not from terrorism - which will, in actuality, kill very, very few of us - rather it is from our reaction to that threat.

Sir Ken warned of the pernicious risk that a "fear-driven and inappropriate" response to the threat could lead Britain to abandon respect for fair trials and the due process of law.

I believe this to be true. In the words of Benjamin Franklin featured in the footer of this blog, "Those who would sacrifice a little liberty for a perceived increase in security, deserve neither - and will eventually lose both."

That is essentially the dilemma we currently face. Politicians of all political persuasions are currently telling us that the danger we face is so acute that the world has actually changed and that we must sacrifice certain liberties in order to be safe. You either buy that hokum or you don't. I don't.

I understand every time I get on the London underground that I am taking a risk. This risk is understood by every single passenger. However, I do not believe the risk is any greater than it was when the IRA targeted us and I do not believe that our response should be any different.

The IRA were, rightly, treated as political criminals. The mistake of Blair and Bush has been to elevate al-Qaida beyond their criminal status and talk of them as an army and their criminal enterprise as a war. Bush has further compounded that initial mistake with his setting up of Gulags across the world, but most notably in Guantanamo Bay.

Bush seeks to defend our values by dismantling them. That is a suicidal policy. As he claims that al-Qaida want to destroy our way of life (a claim that I find ludicrous) it is bizarre that he would seek to do their work for them by removing the basic tenets of justice that define our way of life.

One of the things that most defines our way of life is our sense of justice. The right of all of us to be tried on front of a group of our peers. I notice yesterday that Gonzales attempted to argue that all Americans do not have the right to Habeas Corpus. This is the essential difference that defines both camps in this argument, and the terms left and right no longer apply as any indication of where any person will stand on this issue.

Some people believe that we can only defend our freedom by basically giving large portions of it away. I wholeheartedly disagree. We can only defend our freedom by exercising it. And that means treating terrorists as the criminals they are. Putting them in courts of law and presenting evidence against them and allowing groups of their peers to convict them.

The alternative is the nightmare of Guantanamo Bay, where the people who lied to us about Iraq's WMD are allowed to hold people indefinitely simply because they say these people are dangerous. More than half of Guantanamo's suspects have since been released with no charges ever having been brought against them, which must make one suspect about the level of proof which was used to hold them for such a long time in what is, effectively, a legal black hole.

Sir Ken made this point eloquently:

He acknowledged that the country faced a different and more dangerous threat than in the days of IRA terrorism and that it had "all the disturbing elements of a death cult psychology".

But he said: "It is critical that we understand that this new form of terrorism carries another more subtle, perhaps equally pernicious, risk. Because it might encourage a fear-driven and inappropriate response. By that I mean it can tempt us to abandon our values. I think it important to understand that this is one of its primary purposes."

Sir Ken pointed to the rhetoric around the "war on terror" - which has been adopted by Tony Blair and ministers after being coined by George Bush - to illustrate the risks.

He said: "London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'.

"The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement."

Sir Ken, head of the Crown Prosecution Service, told members of the Criminal Bar Association it should be an article of faith that crimes of terrorism are dealt with by criminal justice and that a "culture of legislative restraint in the area of terrorist crime is central to the existence of an efficient and human rights compatible process".

He said: "We wouldn't get far in promoting a civilising culture of respect for rights amongst and between citizens if we set about undermining fair trials in the simple pursuit of greater numbers of inevitably less safe convictions. On the contrary, it is obvious that the process of winning convictions ought to be in keeping with a consensual rule of law and not detached from it. Otherwise we sacrifice fundamental values critical to the maintenance of the rule of law - upon which everything else depends."

He then took a swipe at the Blair government's decision to opt out of the European convention on human rights to pass the detention law - which is possible under the convention only if the "life of the nation" is threatened.

"Everyone here will come to their own conclusion about whether, in the striking Strasbourg phrase, the very 'life of the nation' is presently endangered," he said. "And everyone here will equally understand the risk to our constitution if we decide that it is, when it is not."

The criminal justice response to terrorism must be "proportionate and grounded in due process and the rule of law," he said. "We must protect ourselves from these atrocious crimes without abandoning our traditions of freedom."

Thank God somebody has said it. Bush and Blair have used the War on Terror to govern by fear. To say that we must give them what they want because if we could see the evidence (that they cannot show to us) we would realise the gravity of the situation. They successfully used this line to propagate the Iraq war, and we later discovered that they were practicing deliberate falsehoods.

There is no reason to believe them again.

Please watch The Power of Nightmares, the BBC documentary on the subject by clicking here.

Click title for full article.

tag: Bush, Blair, Guantanamo Bay, Gonzales, wiretapping, neo-cons, waterboarding, interrogation techniques, Habeus Corpus, bin Laden, Taliban, Geneva Conventions, terrorists, terrorism, war on terror

Gonzales: "The Constitution does not say that every citizen has the right to habeas corpus."

This defies belief. The final proof that Bush and his gang are dangerous lunatics.

GONZALES: "The Constitution does not say that every citizen has the right to habeas corpus.”

What does one say to people this deranged? Why hasn't this man been fired? He's blatantly incompetent.



tag: Gonzales, war on terror, US State Department, Guantanamo Bay, Habeus Corpus

With no actual evidence of Iranian involvement, Bush ploughs ahead with war plans

As I recently wrote there is every indication, both from his troop movements and from the aggressive rhetoric that he has been spouting, that Bush intends to make some sort of strike against Iran.

Indeed, Richard Perle yesterday promised as much when he spoke about the matter in Israel and Netenyahu chipped in with the accusation that anyone who objects is almost a Holocaust denier.

Add to this heady mix the kidnapping of Iranian diplomats by American soldiers and it's clear to all that Bush is spoiling for a fight.

However, there is no proof whatsoever that Iran are involved in any activity against US forces in Iraq, despite Condi's recent claims:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters on her current Middle Eastern trip, "I think there is plenty of evidence that there is Iranian involvement with these networks that are making high-explosive IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and that are endangering our troops, and that's going to be dealt with."

However, Rice failed to provide any evidence of official Iranian involvement.

Condi's failure to provide evidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq is standard procedure for this White House and is exactly the same way they manufactured the invasion of Iraq, where the President substituted strong rhetoric for actual evidence.

Recently there has been a notable and worrying escalation in Bush's rhetoric towards Iran that has left even seasoned news anchors worried.

Indeed, at a not-for-quotation pre-speech briefing on Jan. 10, George W. Bush and his top national security aides unnerved network anchors and other senior news executives with suggestions that a major confrontation with Iran is looming.

Commenting about the briefing on MSNBC after Bush’s nationwide address, NBC’s Washington bureau chief Tim Russert said “there’s a strong sense in the upper echelons of the White House that Iran is going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue – in the country and the world – in a very acute way.

Russert and NBC anchor Brian Williams depicted this White House emphasis on Iran as the biggest surprise from the briefing as Bush stepped into the meeting to speak passionately about why he is determined to prevail in the Middle East.

“The President’s inference was this: that an entire region would blow up from the inside, the core being Iraq, from the inside out,” Williams said, paraphrasing Bush.

While avoiding any overt criticism of Bush’s comments about an imaginary Iraqi-Iranian arms race, Russert suggested that the news executives found the remarks perplexing.

“That’s the way he sees the world,” Russert explained. “His rationale, he believes, for going into Iraq still was one that was sound.”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews then interjected, “And it could be the rationale for going into Iran at some point.”

What's striking about all of this is that Bush has yet to offer any rational evidence; indeed, he has yet to offer any evidence of any kind to support his theory that violence in Iraq is fuelled by the Iranians. One of the most startlingly obvious flaws in the Bush argument is why the Shia nation of Iran would be supplying weapons to a Sunni insurgency in order that they may kill Iraqi Shia's. It simply fails to stand up to even a moment's scrutiny.

Even Bush's old friend Blair has long given up attempting to put this square peg into this circular hole:

The Blair government soon dropped that propaganda line. The Independent reported on January 5, 2006, that [British] government officials acknowledged privately that there was no "reliable intelligence" connecting the Iranian government to the more powerful IEDs in the south.

But Bush is continuing to bang this drum and will possibly do so again this evening when he makes his State of the Union address.

However, evidence on the ground in Iraq is not supporting Bush's claims:

During a recent sweep through a stronghold of Sunni insurgents here, a single Iranian machine gun turned up among dozens of arms caches U.S. troops uncovered. British officials have similarly accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs, but say they have not found Iranian-made weapons in areas they patrol.

People have wrote in the comments section that the idea of an American attack on Iran is insanity and I would have to concede that I agree. However, what is undeniable is that Bush is spoiling for a fight and that the Israelis are insisting that if the US don't attack Iraq then they will.

We should also never forget that the neo-cons have long harboured dreams of attacking Iraq, Iran and Syria. Who could forget William Kristol's plea that having attacked Iraq, the US should now join Israel in fighting Syria and Iran?

For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.

The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran.

Kristol, in a rare moment of honesty, let the cat out of the bag. Those who argued that the neo-cons were actually using the US army to fight Israel's wars were routinely labelled anti-Semites, the dreadful charge that the neo-cons have most often used to prevent any discussion of their motives. However, with Israel facing defeat at the hands of Hizbullah, Kristol decided to widen the argument and make Israel's wars indistinguishable from the US' wars. It was a bold move. However, having made such a move, no-one can now pretend that Kristol didn't say what he clearly said.

He sees Israel's enemies as the enemies of the US. Indeed, the neo-cons have never seen any essential difference between US interests and Israeli interests. To them they are both one and the same.

Nor have the neo-cons ever made any secret of who they wanted to tackle after Saddam had fallen: Iran and Syria.

In February, Undersecretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq, the United States would "deal with" Iran, Syria, and North Korea.

So, Bush's increased rhetoric against Iran is not actually based on any evidence. Nor, as we have witnessed from his foray into Iraq, would attacking Iran do anything to fight global terrorism. In fact:

The war in Iraq has become the primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers are increasing faster than the United States and its allies are eliminating the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

If attacking Iraq increased terrorist recruitment - and that is the conclusion of the US's own intelligence analysts - then it is safe to say that an attack on Iran would have the same effect.

However, the Bush administration decided as soon as it was re-elected that this is what it was going to do. Bear in mind that neo-con thinking and the mindset of the Likud Party in Israel are almost one and the same. That's the significance of Perle and Netanyahu's remarks the other day. The Israelis want regime change in Syria and Iran and, if there's any way they can pull it off, the Bush regime plan on delivering.

Nor are they going to go through the tedious motions of putting together some kind of case that we can all take apart:

Seymour Hersh:

In my interviews, I was repeatedly told that the next strategic target was Iran. “Everyone is saying, ‘You can’t be serious about targeting Iran. Look at Iraq,’ ” the former intelligence official told me. “But they say, ‘We’ve got some lessons learned—not militarily, but how we did it politically. We’re not going to rely on agency pissants.’ No loose ends, and that’s why the C.I.A. is out of there.

Hersh then quotes Rumsfeld shortly after Bush was re-elected:

Rumsfeld met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the election and told them, in essence, that the naysayers had been heard and the American people did not accept their message.

“This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign. We’ve declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah—we’ve got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism.”

As Kristol has now admitted, the neo-cons see no difference between Israel's enemies and the enemies of the US. It is for this reason that the US will now seek confrontation with Iran.

Indeed, they will do all in their power to manufacture a reason to attack the Iranians. Nor do they care what the American public think about this:

American public opinion has turned strongly against the war in Iraq. After a strong anti-war vote in the November mid-term elections, politicians from both major parties are under pressure to oppose an aggressive foreign policy.

Yet, the world still stands on the brink. The United States and Israel may be about to start a wider war in the Middle East by attacking Iran, sparking more of the violence that CIA Director Michael Hayden called "almost satanic."

The CIA Director thinks the present level of violence is "almost satanic" and yet Bush and his cohorts are seriously thinking we need more violence, not less.

The UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in November 2004, that an American strike against Iran was "inconceivable".

Pointing to talks with Tehran, Mr Straw said: "I don't see any circumstances in which military action would be justified against Iran, full stop."

Straw was soon fired after Rumsfeld made complaints to the British government.

Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, had taken exception to Mr Straw’s statement that it would be “nuts” to bomb Iran. The United States, it was said, had put pressure on Tony Blair to change his Foreign Secretary. Mr Straw had been fired at the request of the Bush Administration, particularly at the Pentagon.

In retrospect, we should have read the writing on the wall back then. It may be "inconceivable", it may be "nuts", but that is exactly what the neo-cons plan to do.

tag: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Israel, neo-cons, Perle, surge and accelerate, Iran

Poll: Bush Approval Rating At New Low

As I have reported below, worldwide opinion about the United States is at an almost all time low thanks to the policies of Bush and his neo-con cronies. However, as Bush prepares to deliver his first State of the Union address to a Democratic controlled Congress, polls show that his popularity amongst Americans has also fallen to an all time low.

Mr. Bush’s overall approval rating has fallen to just 28 percent, a new low, while more than twice as many (64 percent) disapprove of the way he's handling his job.

Two-thirds of Americans remain opposed to the president's plan for sending more than 20,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq — roughly the same number as after Mr. Bush announced the plan. And 72 percent believe he should seek congressional approval for the troop increase.

There is hope for all of us when ordinary Americans share our revulsion.

And the scale of his unpopularity is best understood by comparing it to that of other second term Presidents.

His job approval is also far below those of other modern two-term presidents at this point in their second terms.

In January 1999, for example, just after his impeachment by the House of Representatives, President Bill Clinton's job approval rating was 65 percent. In January 1987, President Ronald Reagan's was 52 percent. In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson received a 47 percent approval rating, even as debate about the Vietnam War raged.

So Bush is almost uniquely reviled. Strangely, that actually gives me faith in Americans again.

I mean, seriously, 28%! There are military juntas that enjoy more popular support than that.

Click title for poll.

tag: Bush, Iraq, American values, Bush supporters, polls, all time low

Views on U.S. Drop Sharply In Worldwide Opinion Poll

Bush's neo-con policies have produced a sharp decline in how the world views the United States with "hypocrisy" being the charge most often laid at the US door.

Nearly three-quarters of those polled in 25 countries disapprove of U.S. policies toward Iraq, and more than two-thirds said the U.S. military presence in the Middle East does more harm than good. Nearly half of those polled in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East said the United States is now playing a mainly negative role in the world.

More than 26,000 people were questioned for the survey.

This is an astonishing decline when one considers the almost universal support the US enjoyed post 9-11, when the general feeling worldwide was, "We Are All Americans Now".

Indeed, support for Bush continued even whilst he waged war in Afghanistan. So it's not the concept of war per se that is producing such revolt across the world. Nor is the revulsion at US policies limited merely to Iraq, although that obviously plays a major role.

In the 18 countries previously polled by the BBC, people who said the United States was having a generally positive influence in the world dropped to 29 percent, from 36 percent last year and 40 percent the year before.

"I thought it had bottomed out a year ago, but it's gotten worse, and we really are at historic lows," said Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes. Kull attributed much of the problem to a growing perception of "hypocrisy" on the part of the United States in such areas as cooperation with the United Nations and other international bodies, especially involving the use of military force.

"The thing that comes up repeatedly is not just anger about Iraq," Kull said, adding that the BBC poll is consistent with numerous other surveys around the world that have measured attitudes toward the United States. "The common theme is hypocrisy. The reaction tends to be: 'You were a champion of a certain set of rules. Now you are breaking your own rules, so you are being hypocritical.' "

This hypocrisy manifests itself in the way the US claims to champion democracy and then punishes the Palestinians for daring to elect Hamas. It is evident in the way that Bush demands others obey UN resolutions when he himself - by invading Iraq - has treated the UN Charter with contempt. And of course, it is glaringly obvious in the way the US sides with Israel in the Middle East dispute, despite the fact that Israel has more than 65 UN resolutions against her, and can only ignore these resolutions because the US refuses to allow the rest of the world to take any action that would force Israel to comply.

However, any nation that claims to promote democracy and then indulges in horrors such as Guantanamo Bay is always going to be viewed as a hypocrite.

The BBC survey found that a majority of those polled hold negative views on U.S. policies on a wide range of issues. Sixty-seven percent disapproved of U.S. handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Sixty-five percent disliked the U.S. stance on last summer's military conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, 60 percent opposed U.S. policies on Iran's nuclear program, 56 percent opposed Washington's position on global climate change and 54 percent disapproved of U.S. policies toward North Korea.

"If this keeps up, it's going to be very difficult for the United States to exercise its moral suasion in the world," Miller said.

The survey of 26,381 people was conducted in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. The polling took place from November to January.

It's interesting that the poll doesn't even touch upon the subject of torture, which is where I think Bush and the Republicans have done most to harm their nation's reputation. The sight of a Republican Congress bending over backwards to circumvent Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions is not one that will be easily forgotten or forgiven.

What Bush has thrown away is the idea that the US is a force for good within the world. The neo-cons didn't care whether the US was admired as long as it was feared. However, by invading Iraq they appear to have shown the world the limitations of US power and, in doing so, decreased the world's fear of US military might.

That's a startling disaster any way you look at it. Under Bush's Presidency the US has become more hated and less feared. That is now simply a fact.

It's not one that Bush and his supporters should be proud of. Indeed, that factor will figure large when future generations measure the success or failure of his Presidency. And that factor is the main reason why I honestly think he will be remembered as the worst ever US President.

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tag: Republican, Bush, Cheney, Guantanamo, Iraq, Worst Congress ever, Abu Ghraib, interrogation techniques, neo-cons, United Nations, American values, principles, surge and accelerate, most right wing administration ever, wiretapping, Gonzales, escalation

Biden - Name One Single Time Cheney's Been Correct

It's a very valid question. Can you name ONE SINGLE thing Cheney has EVER said about Iraq that has proven to be correct?



tag: Iraq, Dick, Cheney, sectarian violence, surge and accelerate, James Baker, neo-cons, Republicans, Iraq war study group

Prominent lobbyist Perle: U.S. will attack Iran if it obtains nukes

Richard Perle, the man regarded by many as one of the architects of the Iraq war, has promised that the US will attack Iran if the Iranians continue with their nuclear programme.

President George Bush will order an attack on Iran if it becomes clear to him that Iran is set to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities while he is still in office, Richard Perle told the Herzliya Conference on Sunday. Perle is close to the Bush administration, particularly to Vice President Richard Cheney.

The leading neoconservative and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute addressed the session on Iran's nuclear program. He said that the present policy of attempting to impose sanctions on Iran will not cause it to abandon its nuclear aspirations, and unless stopped the country will become a nuclear power.

Perle, who had promised that "future generations will write songs about us" if the US attacked Iraq, has now backed away from the invasion saying that if he new then what he knows now, he would not have supported the war.

In an article called "Neo Culpa", Richard Perle declared that had he known how it would turn out, he would have been against it: "I think now I probably would have said: 'No, let's consider other strategies'."

However, being flat wrong about Iraq has not stopped Perle from promising that the US will intervene if Iran do not desist from enriching uranium. And it's a safe bet that Perle is only publicly saying what Cheney is saying in private.

As I reported before, Cheney has already turned down an offer from Iran that appeared to give the Americans all that they asked for:

Tehran proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion.

Offers, including making its nuclear programme more transparent, were conditional on the US ending hostility.

When one couples these developments with Netanyahu's recent comments...

"I call on the world that did not stop the Holocaust to stop investing in Iran to prevent genocide," he said, recommending garnering international support to bring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to trial for genocide.

... then it is safe to say that the Bush/Cheney administration have not lost their appetite for regime change.

Indeed, Netanyahu is openly taking of preparing the Israeli public for confrontation with Iran:

The hawkish Likud leader added: "Either it will stop the nuclear programme without the need for a military operation, or it could prepare for it. When we are talking about rallying public opinion on genocide, who will lead the charge if not us? No one will come defend the Jews if they do not defend themselves. This is the lesson of history."

Talking to journalists, Mr Netanyahu said he doubted that the "genocidal regime" of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was "deterrable". This view was shared by Shmuel Bar, an Islamic specialist at the Herzliya centre, who said that the US and Iran were engaged in "very dangerous brinkmanship". He said that seen from Tehran, "the conspiracy theory goes that the US, with the UK and Israel, will take action to topple the Islamic regime, and that this has nothing to do with the nuclear issue."

Both Perle and Netanyahu are dangerous extremists and, in most cases, they could be safely ignored. However, Bush and Cheney are every bit as extreme as Perle and Netanyahu. The build up of troops in Iraq and the moving of an additional carrier strike group to the region all suggest that Bush is moving towards confrontation with Iran.

Indeed, intelligence services are reporting that such a plan exists and will be implemented in early 2007.

The first two or three months of 2007 represent a dangerous opening for an escalation of war in the Middle East, as George W. Bush will be tempted to "double-down" his gamble in Iraq by joining with Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair to strike at Syria and Iran, intelligence sources say.

President Bush's goal would be to transcend the bloody quagmire bogging down U.S. forces in Iraq by achieving "regime change" in Syria and by destroying nuclear facilities in Iran, two blows intended to weaken Islamic militants in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

It's madness. But this is what they are planning to do. Netanyahu and Perle are telling us the truth.

Bush will engulf the entire Middle East in flames. In doing so he will be finally carrying out the neo-con plan to ensure Israeli dominance of the region. It will not matter to them that chaos follows.

As I've previously noted, they have already formed an Office of Special Plans exactly as they did prior to the Iraq invasion.

We must never forget that we are dealing with ideologues here.

Like any group of permanent Washington revolutionaries fueled by visions of a righteous cause, the neocons long ago decided that criticism from the establishment isn't a reason for self-doubt but the surest sign that they're on the right track. But their confidence also comes from the curious fact that much of what could go awry with their plan will also serve to advance it. A full-scale confrontation between the United States and political Islam, they believe, is inevitable, so why not have it now, on our terms, rather than later, on theirs? Actually, there are plenty of good reasons not to purposely provoke a series of crises in the Middle East. But that's what the hawks are setting in motion, partly on the theory that the worse things get, the more their approach becomes the only plausible solution.

They have decided that they must have war with radical Islam, and so that is what Bush is going to launch. To call it an insane plan is to flatter it, as it's not really a plan at all. It's a recipe for chaos.

Bush has already made clear that he will not be deterred by Congress. There is only one course open now to stop this deluded man and his followers.

Impeach him.

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tag: Iraq, Richard Perle, William Kristol, Ahmadinejad, Office of Special Plans, Bush, Cheney, Iran