A Statesman’s Call for US-Iranian Dialog

Here is the text from an email I received today from Gen. Wesley Clark re: Is War with Iran Inevitable?

 

Dear Neal,

Read my diary at DailyKos and the ensuing dialogue it generated!

Yesterday, I posted a diary on DailyKos detailing my thoughts on the situation concerning Iran. You can read the entire post below, and I invite you to visit the diary at DailyKos so that you can also read the dialogue I had with members of the site’s community discussing this critical issue.

Is War with Iran Inevitable?

As the President fights for public support of his troop surge in Iraq, he is also ratcheting up the pressure on Iran. A second aircraft carrier battle group (with Newsweek reporting a third group likely to follow), Patriot missiles to protect our allies, arresting Iranian personnel in Iraq, releasing additional information about Iranian involvement, appointing a Navy Admiral to command forces in the region, even seeking diplomatic support from Sunni Arab friends in the region — Yes, the Iranians are interfering inside Iraq and seeking nuclear capabilities. Yet the President’s recent actions give the US little additional leverage to engage and dissuade Iran, and, more than likely, simply accelerate a dangerous slide into war. The United States can do better than this.

Since 9/11 the Iranians have tried on several occasions to open a dialogue with the United States. They, of course, had their own interests at heart, not ours. Yet, from dialogue some common interests might have emerged. The Bush Administration would have none of it, and branded Iran a member of the Axis of Evil.

During that period, with most of the world on our side, we had enormous diplomatic, economic and military leverage over Iran. Now, deeply committed militarily in Iraq, more isolated diplomatically, increasingly indebted to some of Iran’s crude oil customers, only modestly successful in gaining UN sanctions against Iran, the Administration has refused to change our approach, and has instead chosen to augment the least effective element of US power in the region – air and naval.

We are already totally dominant in air and naval power over Iran. Even with Iran’s new Russian antiaircraft equipment, no one should doubt that US forces could penetrate these defenses and strike with precision with minimal losses. Iran’s naval countermeasures in the Gulf can be largely preempted. The Iranians no doubt recognize this.

But the Iranians perceive American weaknesses on the ground, with an American Army too small to invade and occupy Iran, and too engaged inside Iraq even to threaten it. They see our soldiers through sniper sights, and from behind the triggers of improvised explosive devices, while they see themselves as a nation that gained considerable strength from a war with Iraq that cost a million casualties, took eight years, and involved withstanding missile strikes on cities and the use of chemical weapons. They no doubt believe that, whatever the current alignments of Sunni states, a US strike against Iran would bring outpourings of sympathy, public support, and waves of impassioned volunteers from throughout the Islamic world. They would see themselves as the heroic martyrs uniting Islam. The Iranians may believe this reaction would enforce on the United States a rapid, humiliating withdrawal from the Persian Gulf, leaving them military savaged but strategically victorious.

In this they might very likely be proven wrong. US power is far more sustainable in the region than Iran would like to believe, and the military humiliation Iran would suffer at the outset could well deter any outside assistance. The US does have a military option. But this is a struggle that will be costly for all involved, will further isolate the region, and whose ultimate outcome is likely to be decided by future incumbencies. Leaders on both sides should recognize that war is the most unpredictable of human endeavors, and that unanticipated consequences almost always follow.

I believe some in the Administration have seen this confrontation as inevitable – or have sought it – since late 2001. At that time a Pentagon general held up to me a Defense memorandum which he described as a five year road map to the conflict. But surely we have learned by now that, particularly in this region, force and the threats of force should be the last, last, last resort.

Military power aside, the US has enormous economic leverage over the Iranians through our influence on world financial institutions, international commerce and capital flows. While the latest actions against Iran’s banking system show the sharp stick of US power, the potential carrots are enormous, too. Islamic pride cannot be purchased, but neither can a proud nation ignore a more hopeful vision of its future.

The American troop surge is not likely to impact Iran’s on-the-ground influence in Iraq. Their presence serves the interests of some in Iraq; and they are deeply embedded and widely active. Only their perception of new interests and opportunities is likely to do this. They would need to see their situation through a different lens. It is asking a lot. But, cannot the world’s most powerful nation deign speak to the resentful and scheming regional power that is Iran? Can we not speak of the interests of others, work to establish a sustained dialogue, and seek to benefit the people of Iran and the region? Could not such a dialogue, properly conducted, begin a process that could, over time, help realign hardened attitudes and polarizing views within the region? And isn’t it easier to undertake such a dialogue now, before more die, and more martyrs are created to feed extremist passions? And, finally, if every effort should fail, before we take military action, don’t we at least want the moral, legal and political “high ground” of knowing we did everything possible to avert it?

Whatever the pace of Iran’s nuclear efforts, in the give and take of the Administrations rhetoric and accusations and Iran’s under-the-table actions in Iraq, we are approaching the last moments to head off looming conflict. Surely, it is past time to ask our elected officials in the White House and Congress to exercise leadership: recognize the real strategic challenge we face, and start to work now to avoid an escalation and widening of conflict in the Mideast.

Thank you for reading my thoughts on Iran. Again, I invite you to read the important discussion that followed in the comments section of my DailyKos diary.

This is a critical issue for our nation, and it is essential we continue to speak out.

Sincerely,

Wes Clark

General Wesley Clark could not be more astute in my opinion,
as he represents the thoughts of both a scholar and a statesman.
The world need well heed his words lest we find ourselves in a Third World War over nothing but failure to talk.

Cut and Run and the Ministry of Truth and Net Neutrality

This afteroon, 24 October 2006, London time, the
BBC reports that ” US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has said stabilising the country is possible in a realistic time-frame, despite ongoing sectarian violence” and that General Casey claims that “Iraqi security forces are 75% ready.”

However the BBC notes the following events as Khalizad and Casey spoke:

BBC World affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says the thrust of the briefing was one of reassurance, perhaps to US voters as they prepare for next month’s mid-term elections.

As the two US officials spoke in Baghdad, violence continued across the country. Among the incidents:

* US soldiers shot dead four Iraqi firefighters they had mistaken for insurgents in the western city of Falluja

* A car bomb in Baghdad wounded 13 people

* Two policemen died in Amara, in an attack blamed on Shia militiamen

The same report continued: “At least 87 US troops have died this month – the highest monthly toll since November 2004.“

Meanwhile, back in Washington or Florida or wherever the Commander in Chief happens to be campaigning at present, the White House issued a lie, then a correction and then a clarification on “stay the course.” The phrase, when contrasted with the Democratic alternative of “cut and run” was of course, made popular by Bush himself along with cut and run. Now he denied saying it. Then when caught on tape, he denied denying it or something of the sort, and says that the problems facing his Iraqi War and his near-abandonment of Afghanistan construe a change in strategic, rather than tactical thinking…whatever that means.

What it appears to mean is that (1)Lindsay Graham, (2)the forthcoming Baker Report, (3) the fact that Warner and the a growing majority of both chambers do not care for “stay the course”, and (4) the all-too apparent likelihood of the Republican majority being lost in at least the House, if not the entire Congress, and (5)the enslaught of Republican pedophilia and corruption cases have combined to make Mr. Bush wake out of his stupor. Of course, lacking a Ministry of Truth, and having only Snow and FoxNews to clarify, we await an “official” statement from the throne or “signing statement” as to what constitutes a change from “stay the course.”

Meanwhile, the unitary executive, whatever that is, grinds on. I imagine it to largely be something cooked out of a recipe book by either Stalin or Hitler, myself, or else a concept brought to light by a self-appointed “President for Life” or “Supreme Leader.” In his latest ploy, Mr. Bush seems to think that after signing the budget bill, he is able to single handedly appropriate monies as he sees fit within the DOD. Why stop there? Why not declare the right to tax or void tax at will or else to solely declare the constitutionality of laws, Mr. Bush?

Meanwhile, back in DC, a series of unfortunate corporate hacks posing as Congress refused to allow continued deregulation of the internet. Evidently, the Republican House and its DemocraticEnablers (aka the Corpopublicrats) have dashed down any hope of maintaining status quo in 2006. The ACLU and the Christian Coalition have actually joined forces with Google and other parties to attempt to preserve what we presently have.

But what has that to do with the war in Iraq? Everything. If the corporate media in the USA continues to report by rote all the soundbites as fact coming from the Pentagon and White House and money determines whose blogs get read, then where is the voice of the people and the independent media? Second rate, just as would be any voice of inquery and accurate analysis. We would be turned into minions of a corporate Ministry of Truth where only those who paid get to play, we could read the news from The Guardian, The Independent and Observor and listen to Amy Goodman and the BBC on Pacifica and the shortwave, but where would we see it in print with a huge variety of nuance in individual analyses if the internet became a play to pay toy for the corporations? In a sad place is where.

A sad place indeed, almost as sad as Iraq or the Pentagon or a military family’s notice of the death of their son, grandson, nephew, husband or friend.

$100,000 USD per hour towards Iraq; Civil War in Iraq and Congress.

Besides the Republican sex scandal in Washington which has DC and the talking heads abuzz, several recent developments are definitely worthy of comment. We refer not to the latest Enabling Act of the BushCo, Inc. administration re: habeus corpus and unitary executive legislative/executive power, two other events are especially pressing. While many might not immediately assume that the two are directly connected, they are in more than a mere cursory manner. These two are the cost of the Iraqi debacle, known as the “War on Terror” and the US Congress playing politics and local funding politics at that over an international issue, the full and equitable funding of the FY 2007 Ryan White Care Act.

The Los Angeles Times article by Mark Mazzetti and Joel Havemann, entitled “Iraq War Costing $100,000 per Minute,” via the Seattle Times on 3 February 2006 reports the following:

WASHINGTON — The White House said Thursday that it plans to ask Congress for an additional $70 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, driving the cost of military operations in the two countries to $120 billion this year, the highest ever.

Most of the new money would pay for the war in Iraq, which has cost an estimated $250 billion since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

The additional spending, along with other war funding the Bush administration will seek separately in its regular budget next week, would push the price tag for combat and nation-building since Sept. 11, 2001, to nearly a half-trillion dollars, approaching the inflation-adjusted cost of the 13-year Vietnam War.

At the same time, the intercine civil war in Iraq is claiming as many as 150 victims of torture and murder in a 48 hour period, even during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. News reports of as much of $9 Billion missing from the US Iraq reconstruction project are scandalizing the Iraqis, the US general public and the entire world.

At the same time that all this money is seeming to be the equivalent of keeping out rats by stuffing the holes with paper money, a catfight erupted on the floor of the US Senate and between HIV/AIDS advocacy groups over the funding of the Ryan White Care Act. Hillary R. Clinton (supposed D, NY) took to the Senate floor to basicly say three things: (1) Leave Metro NYC funding alone, since (2)it is the fault of people moving to NYC for HIV treatment from other states that we have the highest case load in the country and (3) that maybe someday soon the other more rural states will get what they need, but NY can’t lose a dime. She does reiterate the fact that a shift in priority needs to occur in the country regarding HIV/AIDS care and that Medicare should be offered as soon as a person presents HIV positive, but that Congress doesn’t seem too interested…

However, as she pointed out, NY doesn’t want to lose any money, claiming that the higher cost of living and more per capita cases in New York means that more monies are required. But what she neglects to mention is that there is a wealth of HIV/AIDS social service organizations that are well funded and organized offering a wide range of services that a smaller city, such as Huntsville, Alabama or Columbia, South Carolina lack.

Sen. Clinton held up the bill for a while, but caved in once the compromise was reached. Had she been more for HIV funding and less for New York, she would have held her breath until she turned blue, ready to filibuster until she fainted from exhaustion.

One blog,
“From the Left,” notes via Jeffery Birnbaum’s WP article on 23 August 2006 that:

Clinton (D-N.Y.) said she opposes the measure because it would lower funding for her home state. But some AIDS groups also see broader political motives at work. Other states that would lose out include California, Florida and Illinois — all places Clinton would need to win if she seeks the presidency. Her critics also note that many of the states that would receive higher funding under the new formula are rural and Southern, which tend to vote Republican.

Birnbaum’s article concludes that she was the only nay in the entire Senate… Quite a few comments came in to this blog, some most virulent towards Mrs. Clinton and the entire AIDS charity network. These include:

Sign the God damned bill Hillary, before no state, including your own, can get a dime of Federal money to treat the epidemic. Tweak it later, add appropriations to other bills, but get the God damned Federal money now before Bush spends every last cent in the US Treasury on Iraq!

and

What is the Gay Men’s Health Crisis thinking by supporting her? These silly queens must be swept away by the Cult of Hillary, just as they are by the Cult of Barbra, Liza, Cher and Mariah.

Time to wake up, gay America! Hillary Clinton is NOT our friend. Never has been and she never will be. Hillary takes care of Hillary.

In the interest of fairness, one must admit that there are defensive comments as well in rebuttal. However, the fact that it appears to be less than Lily White, does give us cause for alarm… Mrs. Clinton has the appearance of counting potential electoral ballots prior to nomination and of making an international crisis one of county lines.

Let us face fact, this Congress, collectively, doesn’t give a proverbial rat’s ass about HIV. If they did, they would fully fund Ryan White, and give up some of the $9 Billion they shat away in Baghdad to contractors that are not rebuilding Iraq and maybe a few hours of the Iraqi Adventure.

HIV funding should be national and not a hodgepodge of self-replicating mini-ministries. The funding should follow the cases and education and outreach should be universal — the same adverts should be in New York and Newark as are in Baton Rouge and Birmingham or Binghampton. The social service organizations and medical clinics should be funded by two criteria: that of case load and that of overhead, not by luck of geography.

The face of HIV is changing, and it is becoming darker and female. It is time for the United States to decide where we want our month of Adventure to go: to Bush’s gulags and fresh cannon fodder on the streets and in the markets of Iraq or to FULL FUNDING for not only Ryan White but active education and social and medical services whether in Brooklyn or Birmingham or Boise.

Noone should play politics with peoples’ lives. It is not only unseemly, but immoral, and just plain old-fashioned bullshit, whether dressed in a senator’s suit or a Talibangelist’s stole.