Mullen Warns Against Attack on Iran;
Iraq arrests Governor of Maysan
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen appeared to warn Israel on Wednesday against an attack on Iran. He said at news conference, "Opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful on us . . . This is a very unstable part of the world, and I don't need it to be more unstable."
Mullen is afraid of all hell breaking loose in Iraq and Afghanistan in the aftermath of an attack on Iran, and of all the Pentagon's efforts in both places coming unraveled.
Mullen was a nominee of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who is known to concur with Mullen on this matter. They are boxing up Dick Cheney, who, his former adviser David Wurmser said, was angling for an Israeli attack on Iran if an American one could not be arranged for.
It is not clear what would be attacked, anyway. Civilian enrichment labs permitted by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty?
Apparently under Cheney's CIA it was it was not allowed for an analyst to say that Iran and Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction or that Iran had given up any weapons research in early 2003.
Baghdad is facing gasoline shortages after a pipeline coming up from the south was sabotaged. One of the things that puzzled me about PM Nuri al-Maliki's assault on the Sadrists during the past three months is why he thought they would not take revenge on him by perforating some pipelines.
Al-Zaman reports in Arabic on the security operation in Maysan Province against the Mahdi Army. It says that the Iraqi military attacked the house of Maysan Governor Adil al-Mahudar and arrested 30 of his private bodyguards. The governor was not at home.
Later on, they Said they became fortunate on arresting the governor
Police imprisoned the head of the local council for the province, Abd al-Jabbar Wahid al-Ukayli. He and other arrested officials were accused by the police of being Special Groups linked to Iran. This accusation is unlikely to be true, since the Sadrist dislike Iran and are Iraqi nationalists.
The Iraq War has soured so many military families on the Republican Party that the Dems may split their vote this year instead of only getting 25% of it. I wonder, though, whether the almost solidly Republican officer corps will also defect in any numbers.
posted by Juan Cole @ 7/03/2008 01:08:00 AM
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7 Comments:
On the last graph about political alignments of military members, I think that you mean that only 25% of them voted Democrats in the past. You say 75%.
Seems to me the US may use Israel to set things in motion, causing Iran to react and giving the US a nice casus belli.
From what I know, Irsael doesn't have the air power to reach their objectives.
What would Iran do besides disrupt the Straight of Hormuz. He must know he would be playing into the Neo-Cons hands, but what else would he do?? Nothing???
What a crazy game they are playing.
$200 barrels of oil
"It is not clear what would be attacked, anyway. Civilian enrichment labs permitted by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty?"
Please, Juan, try to stay up on this. The Bush Doctrine holds that once a country is determined by The Decider to be a threat to US interests, either objectively or subjectively, based on good intelligence or bad, then any attack is justified. So the answer to your question is: of course, a civilian enrichment labs permitted by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would be a perfectly acceptable target-- as would a grocery store or a used car lot. Focus on the threat, not the target.
It was a pleasant surprise to hear Admiral Mullen make his admonition, that will hopefully deter the Dark side of Darth Cheney. The Dumb Decider must now tell Israel TO STOP ANY PLANS FOR ATTACKING Iran. Then again, the GOP requires an extended war so that its war hero gets elected.
Respected Norwegian academic Reidar Visser is out with a new article about the Sadrists of Maysan province and also the provincial elections. Visser has stated several times that not all Sadrists are nationalist, and he repeats that concerning the Sadrists of Maysan province: "This is not to suggest that the Sadrists of Maysan are in any way faultless, or that they are generically Iraqi nationalist and therefore incapable of even thinking of cooperation with Iran."
However Visser believes that ISCI remains Iran's primary ally in Iraq: "Even if the Iranians may have been successful in their policy of dividing and ruling the Sadrists by luring individual Sadrist operatives away from the mainline movement, this does not mean that the movement as a whole has converted to a pro-Iranian policy, or that Iran necessarily has abandoned its traditional policy of using ISCI as its primary tool." He also writes that "Sadrist leaders keep complaining about Iranian attempts to divide and rule them by implicating them in attacks on the Americans."
Also he comments on the influence of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani among the Sadrists: "In a remarkable development, during the past few days Sadrist websites have been filled up with reports on the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s views on the need of reaching agreement on the forthcoming provincial elections, along with guarantees with respect to his neutrality and his disapproval of the use of his likeness in election propaganda." However Visser says "ISCI went out of its way during parliamentary deliberations. and even cited widespread illiteracy in Iraqi society. in support of their demand that the use of religious symbols be permitted." Link "The Sadrists, the Bush Administration's Narrative on Iraq, and the Maysan Operations": http://www.historiae.org/maysan.asp
I am dumbfounded by the rampant cynicism, best exemplified by jd's remarks. Let us get serious: there are real people who are to die for absolutely nothing, except for the distorted world views of a small band of people. Rather than making light-hearted remarks on events of such gravity that are to destroy so many lives and hopes, let us say things that befit the occasion. Let us read the American Constitution and realise from what height to what moral abyss a freedom-loving nation must not have descended that for almost eight long years no day has gone by without millions of people elsewhere in the world fearing destruction of their very existence at the hands of the young men and women of this cradle of freedom and democracy. Please view the following photographs:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/horizon/sets/72157602051710843/
and realise that we may be on the verge of obliterating these very young souls. Is there a trace of humanity left in us? Israel, a constitutionally Jewish State, is about to destroy lives, in utter disregard of the Mosaic Law "Thou shalt not kill." What has become of us?! I do not know which Bible, if any, President Bush and his associates read, but for the sake of Humanity they may deign to read the following by vicar of Putney, Dr Giles Fraser:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/dec/24/religion.christmas
BF.
It looks increasingly likely that Bush will allow/encourage the Israelis to bomb Iran before the election if McCain is definitely behind. The rationale will be that they can't trust Obama to be strong enough. The motivation will largely be to win the election. So far, Obama has taken no effective steps to prepare to oppose any such action. McCain will take a simple 'patriotic' position and if Obama waffles or says 'me too', we'll be stuck with McCain for 4 yrs, despite $6/gal. gas.
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