Liberal College Kid

Christopher Hill was in North Korea today to discuss the nations nuclear program with North Korean officials. This was the first time in almost five years that a senior American official has visited the sequestered country. Here’s my question: how has the U.S. dropped the ball so blatantly on the North Korean front and gotten away with it? By most, if not all, accounts North Korea is light-years ahead of Iran, both in terms of a nuclear weapon and delivery systems. Despite this the Bush administration has left the North alone (or so it appears) despite numerous missile tests, which have provoked the ire of Japan.

Bush has a legitimate fear that a nuclear Iran would be willing to give a bomb to terrorist organizations that could use it against American allies or interests. North Korea on the other hand… well… that’s tough… North Korea might just be crazy enough to cut out the middleman and use nukes against the U.S., its allies and interests on its own. Kim Jong-Il isn’t the most stable and rational individual the last time I checked and leaving him to command an army with a legitimate nuclear first strike capabilities doesn’t seem to be the brightest move by the brain trust Bush has put in place. At least Iran tries to convince the world that they want a nuclear facility for peaceful, energy related, purposes. North Korea, on the other hand, already has such facilities and is openly trying to develop a weapon.

So, why then, is Bush so much more concerned with Iran than North Korea? Glad you asked, here are a three factors I think influence the White House’s approach to North Korea.

1. We don’t get oil from anyone near North Korea: Bush’s buddies back in Texas don’t see him at BBQ’s and subtly let it slip that “man, my bottom line sure would be looking a lot better if only I could drill of the coast of South Korea without worrying about an attack from the North”. I bet he also isn’t getting frantic text messages from a secret location which read “Shot another man the face today. Pension fund at Halliburton gets boosted up $10k a month if we rebuild NK. I love you- Dick”

2. Kim Jong-Il has always been crazy: As opposed to the relatively new crazy person in charge of Iran, Kim Jong-Il is one of the most phobic and paranoid people on the face of the earth… and he’s been like that for a long time. Bush probably figures that if he gets a nuke he won’t go all Dr. Strangelove on us. I, on the other hand, am not so confident in a crazy man’s ability to regulate the level of his insanity.

3. Israel: Israel would freak out if Iran got a nuke and would unleash the gates of hell against a leader who wants to obliterate Israel. I think Bush might be, in all seriousness (he talks to God remember), trying to prevent the apocalypse by getting this situation under control early… where is Pat Robertson when you need him?

What do you think? Do you think that Bush has treated North Korea differently than Iran for any specific reason or has he just had his blinders on to anything west of Afghanistan and east of Egypt? Or do you think Bush has gotten the Korean situation right and I’m the one who is way off base? Let me know!

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This could get bad. Really bad. As Hamas continues to consolidate it’s newly achieved control of the Gaza Strip and Fatah scrambles to come up with a response in the West Bank the rest of the world is going to get a live lesson in how a new nation is born. With the disintegration of the coalition government in Palestine a new state has formed inside Israel’s borders. Make not doubt about it, these two rivals aren’t going to kiss and make up any time soon and that fact could lead to some very tough decisions for world leaders in the weeks and months to come.

Here is how I see things playing out: Fatah will try to reconcile with Hamas but Hamas will have no part of it and will refuse to bow to a party they view as being in league with the U.S. and Israel. A de facto Palestinian state will come into existence in the Gaza Strip which will run itself independently of the already acknowledged state in the West Bank. Iran will pour money, training and weapons into Gaza and Hamas will, eventually, launch large scale attacks against Israel a la last summer’s Lebanon-Israeli war. This is where the difficult decisions are going to have to be made by Israel; does it simply try to contain Hamas or does it enter Gaza and try to take out the “terrorist” organization?

The Bush White House must also be sitting quite uneasily right now as they play out their worst-case scenario in their heads- a nuclear Hamas. Is it that much of a stretch to think that the Bush administration could see this development as all the justification it needs to launch air strikes against Iranian nuclear plants fearing that, if they don’t act in time, Iran will be able to produce a nuke and easily ship it to Hamas now that the group has it’s own territory? Sure, by all accounts, the Iranians are years and years away from being able to produce a nuclear bomb but why would that stop Bush from attacking Iran as one of his final acts as Commander-in-Chief? Bush views himself as some modern day crusader against evil and has no problem viewing complicated and fragile situations as absolute or black and white, right vs. wrong, struggles. If he views the current situation in Gaza as just such a struggle then I have no doubt that he’s already planning out his end game, one which could result in bombs being dropped on Iran and the Middle East plunging even further into chaos.

Sure this situation appears outlandish and implausible, but George Bush is still President for 584 days… that’s why I’m worried.

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The New York Times reported today that there was a brief (three minutes to be exact) conversation today between American and Iranian officials at a conference on Iraq which is being held at Sharm el Sheik, Egypt. This come just a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with her Syrian counterpart for the first time in… well, let’s just say it’s been a while. The participants in today’s discussion were Ryan Cocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, David Satterfield, a senior advisor to Iraq and an unnamed Iranian deputy foreign minister. Neither side would disclose what was talked about in the “impromptu” conversation but I can only guess it went a little something like this:

Cocker: Man, this bathroom line is long!

Satterfield: Seriously, I knew that fourth cup of Sanka was a bad idea.

Cocker: Have you seen that video of Bush dancing yet?

Satterfield: Yeah, what a douche huh?

Cocker: Tell me about it.

Satterfield: Crap…

Cocker: What?

Satterfield: There’s an Iranian minister coming right at us.

Cocker: Maybe he’s just making a run to the chocolate fountain.

Satterfield: I don’t think so I saw him going Sanka for Sanka with me earlier, but that reminds me did you try those little éclair things they have over there to dip in the chocolate? SO GOOD!

Cocker: I know, right? They’re so yummy! Not like I need to eat them though I look like a whale.

Satterfield: Shut up! You do not you look amazing!

Cocker: Please, have you seen these love handles?

Satterfield: Whatever, you’re crazy… shhhh, shhh, he’s coming. Be cool. Be cool.

Deputy Iranian foreign minister (DIFM): gets into bathroom line behind Cocker and Satterfield Oh, uh, hello gentlemen, fancy meeting you here…

Satterfield: Oh, uh, hey man, how is…. uh… how’s it going?

DIFM: Oh, well… uh… you know… it’s going…

Cocker: So, uh, you guys… you guys doing alright over there in Iran and all?

DIFM: Oh yeah, we’re doing great…

Cocker: Cool, cool….

Awkward 35 second pause

DIFM: Man, these bathroom lines are just the worst aren’t they?

Satterfield: Totally.

Cocker: Totally… so, um, listen… since you’re here I gotta ask… is there any way you guys could um… well, you know, see the thing is…

Satterfield: …the thing is we’re kind of in a bind with this whole “Iraq” thing and we we’re hoping maybe you could throw us a bone or something.

DIFM: What is this, “throw you a bone”?

Cocker: You know, help us out a little. Maybe you could just back off your nuclear program a bit… an, uh, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble… say that the reason you’re doing it is because George Bush is an amazing man who instills fear in the hearts of radical Islamists everywhere and you bow to his strength and wisdom.

Satterfield: If it’s not too much trouble that is.

DIFM: No, not a chance, death to America.

Even more awkward 50 second pause

Cocker: So, do you watch Lost?

DIFM: I never miss an episode, best show on TV if you ask me, also, what’s the deal with Dancing With the Stars? Why isn’t Joey from Blossom on it anymore?

Cocker: You got me on that one, that man is God’s gift to dancing…

It’s good to see that our government is really dealing with pressing global issues isn’t it?

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John McCain today sang “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,” in response to the question of what America should be doing to respond to threats from Iran. Sure the crowd, in South Carolina mind you, laughed… But what is going on when a presidential candidate is singing about bombing a nation to the tune of the beach boys? For me, this is just one more reason of how ridiculous and out of touch McCain has become.

He called a Baghdad market safe and the next week it was bombed. He said it would be a short war with Iraq… I guess we was right, it ended over 1,460 days ago. He has called Jerry Falwell intolerant, then gave the commencement speech at the scariest university ever: Liberty.

(-side note, something like 150 people in the Bush administration graduated from Falwell’s law school: a tier four! And Monica Goodling, you know the one that quit and said she’d plead the fifth if called to testify, who graduated from Falwell’s law school, hired a lawyer from a real law school to defend her.-)

It all boils down to this: an old man who is desperate to be in the White House. Once touted as a rebel and someone who went his own way, McCain is the last man defending the “stay the course” mentality. His strategy this election season seems to be ‘agree with everything the Decider says.’ McCain wants to identify with the administration that said today that they were pleased with Alberto Gonzalez’s testimony… You know, because admitting to firing people without asking why you were firing them is really something to be pleased about?!

I am far from a Republican… In fact I can’t even imagine how it would feel, (words like cold, and angry come to mind) but I do know that McCain is existing in his own reality right now where anything he’s said or done in the past has no meaning or purpose any longer. He has redefined the notion of political flip-flopping on issues, and doesn’t seem to care one way or the other.

This said I fully endorse McCain as the Republican nomination… There’s no way we won’t be able to beat him!

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The United States has nuclear weapons.  Well, Bush says we have “nu-cue-lar” weapons, but regardless we have a bunch of bombs that could blow the world up several times over.  The United States is still the only country to ever use atomic weapons on an enemy.  Of course, we’re not the only country with nuclear technology any more.  Many other countries, from Israel to Pakistan to the Ukraine have nuclear weapons.  The latest controversy in the matter is what to do about Iran.

To summarize a great deal, the issue boils down to this: Iran wants to use nuclear energy to modernize their country.  They maintain that they are not interested in nuclear weapons.  However, if they were to come into position of a nuclear weapon they’ve made it clear they think it’d be a good idea to nuke Israel.  It’s not hard to see why this freaks a lot of people out.

Interestingly enough, though, it’s not just the West that’s worried about Iran.  According to a Times article today, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey are all looking into nuclear technology to keep up with Iran.  What does this mean?

To put it simply, the Middle East is quickly approaching the tipping point that will result in a war between Shi’a (Shiite is not PC, tell a friend) and Sunni Islam.  We are already witnessing this struggle in Iraq and the stage is set for it to spill over into a wider regional conflict.  Of course, it is the incompetent Decider’s fault that this whole mess got started. Saudi Arabia has made it clear that they will not stand for a Shi’a government in Iraq and will take military action to prevent another Iran from emerging on the scene.  For now, we simply have to wait it out to see how the race for nuclear technology pans out in the Middle East.

But this brings up another, more philosophical issue.  What right does the United States have to disallow other countries to develop nuclear technology?  We have nuclear power plants, bombs, war heads, nuclear powered submarines… The list goes on.  How do we have the right to determine which countries are allowed to have the bomb?  The United States is losing its influence in the world, as well as its credibility.  This government has tortured, held prisoners with out charges, and spied on its own citizens.  We started an illegal war in a country that has never attacked us.

My greatest fear is that the next country to use a nuclear weapon will be the same that started the whole thing…  God bless America.

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Iran!  That’s right Iran was somehow able to walk away from the recent hostage taking fracas looking better than before it started.  No doubt the British sailors and marines will give us the gritty details of their detention, in fact they’ve already begun to do just that, and international opinion will swing back away from Iran but, for now at least, they’ve inexplicably managed to look like the good guys in all of this.  Iran said they unilaterally released the hostages as a gift to the British people and by doing so made the British look like inept school boys trying to argue their way out of a bad grade.  The  interesting thing about this is that Iran decided to play the Cheney card refusing to admit that they were ever in the wrong and continuing to insist that the Brits were in Iranian water despite a plethora of evidence to the contrary, and it worked.  When the hostages were first taken there was no doubt that they were in Iraqi waters but by the end of their captivity the tone of the conversation on the matter, at least the conversations I was hearing, had shifted to “well they were probably in Iraqi waters, but you can’t be 100% sure”.  Sounds kind of like the WMD argument doesn’t it?  Then as Brittan kept launching one meaningless rhetorical salvo after another and Iran looked like it was going to dig in its heels and see just how far they could push our good friends across the pond, it all stopped.  President Ahmadinejad, after a rambling two hour speech railing against British imperialism said that the Iranians had, on their own, decided to release the captives as a sign of good will.  Abracadabra, presto-change-o!  Iran doesn’t look so bad anymore.  They were able to appease their hardliners by not appearing to cave to Western pressure and they were able to make the rest of the world happy by releasing the hostages unharmed and with some snazzy new outfits to boot.          

      Now there’s no doubt that the intense international pressure that Iran was under had much to do with their decision to release the British hostages as they were all but alone on this one.  The Iranian leadership knew that they needed to get as much momentum coming out of this situation as possible and calculated that the longer they were able to push their position before all the behind the scenes negotiations became public condemnation the better they would look when they did eventually decide to release the sailors.  By not relenting in their claims that they were in the right to detain the Brits and deciding to let them go on their own accord before the chorus of world leaders telling them to do so became too loud the world media has been forced to portray Iran as best as they can possibly portray a nation which takes hostages, holds them for two weeks and then releases them.  This is particularly important in America where the average citizen is less than fully informed and the headlines of “Iran Releases Captured Sailors” strikes John Q. Public completely differently than someone who has been following the situation.  It makes it look like the Iranians are the good guys who are working for a peaceful solution to a conflict that they may, or may not, have initiated.  Obviously the average citizen’s understanding of the situation in Iran isn’t going to swing anything in their favor when it comes to getting a nuclear program off the ground with international consent but it does work to change the public perception of Iran in nations around the globe. And public perception can go a long way.         

      The British must be commended for their action (or inaction) in this situation as well.  Had these been U.S. troops there would have been F-14 bombing Tehran before the sailors were out of the water and we would currently be listening to W. explain to us why he needed 75,000 troops to fight a “war to bring our troops home” and initiate regime change along the way and maybe put in a few oil drilling platforms as well because, as long as we’re already over there we might as well.  The British, however, were able to let cooler heads prevail and let the Iranians garner some good press while getting their troops back unscathed, which is all they wanted in the first place.  They were also smart enough to realize that if they had tried to go in and forcibly get their troops back or had launched strikes in retaliation they would have been entering some extremely treacherous waters.  Britain does come out of this stand off looking a bit weaker than they did before.  They were slow to come out with strong language rebuking the seizures at first and never flexed their military muscle giving the Iranian’s and “or else” to consider.  A little hurt pride though is much better than another protracted conflict in a region burdened with more than its fair share of violence already.  What do you think?  Does Iran really look better after this situation or am I crazy?  Did the British do the right thing in allowing Iran to dictate the solution to the conflict?  Did the White House impress you with it rather restrained response to the captures?  What do you think will this do to the nuclear energy/weapon discussions going on between the West and Iran?

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If only I understood the mind of the Conservative. I want to, honestly, I just can’t wrap my head around it.

The Democrats have recently come out and said that they will work to “[close] Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; reinstate legal rights for terrorism suspects; and rein in what Democrats see as unwarranted encroachments on privacy and civil liberties allowed by the USA Patriot Act.” (courtesy of the Washington Post)

It seems the Democrats are finally going to speak out against torturing terrorist suspects. It’s about time! Keifer Sutherland actually was called in to speak to young military men about his show “24.” It seems that the show was making soldiers feel like it was OK to torture people. Of course, it’s not just TV that thinks it’s OK… Obviously the military does too.

Not granting terrorist suspects basic human rights is in direct contrast to the Geneva Convention.  Now we have no grounds as a nation to scold other countries that torture.  I mean, what happens if Iran tortures the British soldiers they’ve captured.  How are we any different?

It’s time for this nation to wake up and demand that this administration respect human rights, regardless of how we feel about the suspects.  Thou shalt not judge, Love thy neighbor… Practice what you preach George.

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          Le Monde, today, ran an article with an interview they did with Flynt Leverett, a former senior Middle East policy advisor for the National Security Council (for a Wikipedia bio on him click here).  While my French isn’t prefect it’s not horrible either and with a little Babelfish help on some of the more obscure language I was able to get through it and gleam some interesting information about the current Iranian nuclear crisis.  Leverett believes that the best chance for a resolution to the crisis came in 2003 when Switzerland floated a letter (or letters) from Tehran which amounted to nothing less than a broad based peace offer and was (according to another site)   “presented as having support from all major players in Iran’s power structure, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei”.  However the Bush administration, in all its wisdom, refused to open a dialogue with Iran which could have had a real shot at working. 

        Leverett claims that the real reason behind the lack of a willingness to communicate with Iran is Dick Cheney.  While Bush views Iran as nothing more than an illegitimate fundamentalist regime, Cheney views Iran simply as evil.  When Colin Powell was pushing for dialogue back in 2003 it was Cheney who stepped in to stop any sort of momentum Powell had built up.  According to Leverett, Cheney told Powell that if he stopped pursuing talks with Iran then he would be given more room to move in negotiations with North Korea.  As it turns out after 2003 diplomatic talks with North Korea progressed by leaps and bounds in comparison to their stagnant nature before this deal was made.  This brings up the obvious question of: why on earth does Dick Cheney have the authority to make secret deals in regards to the United States’ foreign policy position? Isn’t that something that maybe, oh I don’t know, the President should be doing?          

      The article goes on to say that the window of opportunity to strike a deal is much smaller now than it was in 2003.  Leverett does not believe that a deal could be reached with Iran unless concessions were made that allowed for a preliminary enrichment program (and that’s, if I remember correctly, exactly what the White House is fighting to stop) and assurances that the U.S. will not try to invade
Iran or topple its government by other means.  This, along with the British sailor hostage situation, proves that the U.S. has effectively castrated itself of any diplomatic options with regards to Iran.  The eeriest assertion made in the article is that Bush’s State of the Union address, as well as later claims, that Iran is supplying insurgents in Iraq with weapons was done in order to lay down the groundwork that would allow a direct attack on Iran.  This could be done in away which would circumvent both Congress and the United Nations because Bush could argue that since there is an authorized war in Iraq and Iran is helping combatants in said war he, therefore, already has the authority to respond (think shades of the Cambodian incursions during Vietnam).  Fantastic.  Leverett also states that Condoleezza Rice, who doesn’t share the same hard line stance on Iran, is searching for a diplomatic solution which won’t leave Bush faced with a “grave decision” to make.  Let’s just hope it’s not too late.

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            Andre 3000 and Big Boi might need to get back in the studio and make a remix version of their 2000 rap/dance/club epic “Bombs Over Baghdad”. In a move which was no doubt aimed to force the U.K./U.S. alliance’s hand Tehran has refused to release the 15 British sailors they captured six days ago. The British government today backed up the threat it made yesterday to make public the GPS data it has pertaining to the position of British ships which were, according to Iranian officials operating in Iranian not Iraqi territorial waters. According to Ministry of Defense officials the sailors were 1.7 nautical miles inside of Iraqi territory when they were surrounded by six Iranian vessels and taken prisoner. Iran, today, said that it will release the one female prisoner but will continue to detain 14 other males it is currently holding. Brittan has become more aggressive with the publication of its satellite data  perhaps in response to the drubbing it took in the British media for appearing to be too complacent in the matter. Tony Blaire today  stated that the capture was “illegal” and Vice-Admiral of the British Navy Charles Styles referred to the British troops being “ambushed”. These statements come on the heels of yesterday’s assertions that the conflict would enter a “different phase” if Brittan’s men and woman were not immediately released.

            This most recent incident involving British troops is much more significant than the action taken by Iran against six soldiers from the U.K. in 2004 because in that instance it is still relatively unclear if the soldiers had actually strayed into Iranian territory and, therefore, were justifiably detained. If the satellite data is to be believed (and it is most likely accurate especially since it has been verified by an Indian ship operating in the area at the same time) this action constitutes an attack on Britain (and by extension, Iraq and the United States) by Iran. The fact that an incursion into Iraqi territory and the seizing of British troops by Iran coupled by their obstinate refusal to admit any wrongdoing or release any troops proves that this action was calculated as a way to undermine Western power in the region. The U.N. just approved a package of military and economic sanctions against Iran in the ongoing nuclear energy showdown and the United States is currently engaging in one of the regions the largest military exercises in recent history with the two carrier groups it has stationed just outside of Iranian waters. Tehran has taken the British troops in order to illicit a response from the West which will help Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs determine how much further they can push their luck with regards to nuclear activity as well as their involvement in Iraq. Brittan is in the unenviable position of acting as a proxy for the United States and it is because of this that the 15 British troops currently sit in an Iranian detention center. Ahmadinejad knows that Bush is looking for any excuse to over extend his forces even more and start a 30 day bombing and cruise missile campaign (at the least) in Iran. If these had been 15 American troops Bush would have blamed the Dems for emboldening Iran by their lack of support in Iraq and would have immediately called in air strikes as a reprisal. However since the troops have the Union Jack on their arm instead of the Stars and Stripes Iran has gotten away unscathed.           

      So far the British, and international, response has been rather muted which will only embolden a regime that wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Iran is constantly engaging in a game of chicken with the West and is consistently coming out the victor. While I don’t in any way think we should touch Iran with a 10-foot pole militarily, I do think something needs to get done now before the West is backed into a corner. Why the Bush administration refuses to speak with Iran (or North Korea for that matter) is beyond my comprehension. Why they believe that having a dialogue with a “rogue nation” is such a debilitating exercise escapes me. Evidently in his years at Yale W. never heard the old “keep your friends close and you enemies closer” adage. Iran wants a little international inclusion; would it be so bad to give them that? The main problem that the White House appears to have with granting Iran a little leeway on the nuclear issue is that they are afraid a nuke will somehow end up in the hands of terrorists. Iran, hopefully at least, would never be asinine enough to launch a nuke at Israel and isn’t capable of hitting U.S. soil (if they did either of these things they would be obliterated before they had a chance to realize what they had done) they may, however, be crazy enough to slip a weapon to a terrorist organization which could set it off in Iraq or, with more planning, even on U.S. soil. The problem is the fact that Bush warns of how dangerous a nuclear Iran would be yet has absolutely no idea how close Iran is to becoming nuclear. Sure he has the best intelligence he can get (look at how well that worked out in Iraq) but the information he gets from the CIA is nowhere near as good as the information he would get if the U.S. had people inside of Iran. By opening up diplomatic relations with Iran the U.S. would force them to become more transparent it would also give Iran a reason to stop being so hostile towards the West. If the U.S. allowed, heaven forbid, American companies to invest in Iran then a dependence on the revenue gained from those investments would grow and Tehran would be have to become more cordial to American wishes.       

      Unfortunately Bush looks like this is the last thing he would ever want to do and, in his defense (gasp), I doubt Ahmadinejad would adore the idea of American investment in Iran either. I do think, though, that he (Ahmadinejad) would be open to American diplomatic overtures which he would interpret as a huge victory for Iran. As it stands though Bush and Blaire seem intent on forcing the petulant child that Iran has become further and further into isolation and Iran continues to respond by upping the steaks in this turbulent region. While Washington has, thus far, refrained from involving itself in this matter past the obligatory condemnations and demands that the troops be released you can bet that Cheney is sitting in an undisclosed location somewhere wearing his top hat and monocle while drafting plans for the new Persian Halliburton headquarters he’ll open incase the U.S. is “forced” to go into Iran. Let’s hope Bush is smart enough to stay out of this mess and that none of us have to pull up to a car at a red light and hear this thumping out of the base:

Don’t pull the thang out, unless you plan to bang
Bombs over Tehran!
Yeah! Ha ha yeah!
Don’t even bang unless you plan to hit something
Bombs over Tehran!
Yeah! Uhh-huh 

Although, to be honest, it’s got a pretty good hook.

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