Iran

Via The Washington Post:

Sen. John McCain hasn't had good luck joking about Iran. But he tried it again Tuesday. Responding to a question about a survey that shows increased exports to Iran, mainly from cigarettes, McCain said, "Maybe that's a way of killing them."

He quickly caught himself, saying "I meant that as a joke" as his wife, Cindy, poked him in the back.

Here's the video:



Cymbal crash, snare drum. Enjoy the borscht, McCain will be here until November 6th.

Now, jokes are jokes, and one shouldn't get too worked up about them. Yet, this is the second time that McCain has mined Iran for his stand-up routine. Invariably, the punch-line involves killing Iranians (See: "Bomb, Bomb, Iran"). Perhaps humor is his way of dealing with a thorny problems--like Iran's heightened influence in the middle east, or its nuclear ambitions (a debatable point), or the missiles the country tested yesterday, or its demagogic leader--yet it is a tad worrying that McCain, a man who might yet be president, continues to crack jokes that envision civilian death.

It's one thing to declare that you're not interested in public diplomacy with Iran. And another to continue with the macabre knee-slappers.

The AP (via AOL) has released a report containing some surprising information about US trade with Iran during the Bush era. Among other things, the report states that, based on analysis of trade data, exports to Iran have increased tenfold during the Bush years, despite their membership in the "Axis of Evil." Just what are we exporting?

Other surprising shipments to Iran during the Bush administration: brassieres, bull semen, cosmetics, fur clothing, sculptures, perfume, musical instruments and possibly even weapons.

Or, as the rest of us call it, Amy Winehouse's grocery list.

The report notes that the top export to Iran is cigarettes, but doesn't mention a ranking for exports of blindfolds.

How is this possible? Isn't trade with Iran illegal? And where can I pick up an F-14 fighter jet at a reasonable price?

According to GOP Congressman and ersatz upstart presidential candidate Ron Paul, there is some very loose talk on Capitol Hill these days. From Press TV:

"I hear members of Congress saying 'if we could only nuke them'," said the congressman Thursday.

"If we do (attack) it is going to be a disaster," he told the Alex Jones Show.

The 72-year-old veteran politician added that the atmosphere in Congress indicates that a military strike on Iran has already been condoned.

Paul went on to express alarm at HR 362, which he calls the Virtual Iran War Resolution.

This comes on the heels of another article by Seymour Hersh warning that the US is marching to war with Iran.

For opponents of a fiery hell on Earth, we can only hope that Ron Paul is less right about this than he was about Iraq.

File this one under the category of "Things That Make You Go 'Hmmmmm.'"

The Washington Post has a story today about a former CIA operative who claims he tried to warn the agency about bad intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs and who now says CIA officials also ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb.

The onetime undercover agent who worked for the agency for 22 years has filed a motion in federal court asking the government to declassify legal documents describing what he says was a deliberate suppression of findings on Iran that were contrary to agency views at the time. He filed a lawsuit in 2004 alleging the CIA fired him for fighting senior bosses to file reports that went against conventional wisdom about WMD in the Middle East.

"On five occasions he was ordered to either falsify his reporting on WMD in the Near East, or not to file his reports at all," the former operative's attorney, Roy Krieger, told the Post.

The Post says the former operative, a Middle East native and fluent speaker of both Farsi and Arabic, recruited an informant who revealed secret evidence that Tehran had halted its research into designing and building a nuke. But attempts to file that information were "thwarted by CIA employees," according to court papers. Later he was told to "remove himself from any further handling" of the informant, the Post notes. The operative later was the subject of two internal investigations involving alleged sexual relations with an informant and financial improprieties. His lawyer said in court papers those probes were a "pretext to discredit."

"It would be wrong to suggest that agency managers direct their officers to falsify the intelligence they collect or to suppress it for political reasons," a CIA spokesman told the Post. "That's not our policy. That's not what we're about."

A New Yorker magazine article out today, citing current and former military, intelligence and congressional sources, says Congress late last year agreed to a request from President Bush to fund up to $400 million for a major escalation of covert operations against Iran to destabilize the country's religious leadership and gather intel about its suspected nuclear-weapons program.

The ops were described in a highly-classified Presidential Finding signed by Bush.

While clandestine operations against Iran aren't new, the New Yorker says the scale and scope of the operations, which involve the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded. The magazine says some Finding details are sketchy, and some congressional leaders are questioning what exactly they agreed to.

Covert intel operations Findings must be disclosed to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of the intelligence committees, so money can be shuffled around as needed. The part of this story that cries hypocrisy is that it says even though some lawmakers were troubled by parts of the Finding, the money was still approved. The article notes:

Some members of the Democratic leadership-Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections-were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party's presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.

"It's the Democrats [leaders] in Congress who basically looked the other way and said, 'take the money and run' - they did not stop this money," Hersh told CNN last night. Video is below, more after the jump.

On his last scheduled swing through Europe, President Bush has Iran and its nuclear weapons program high on his agenda. Following the president's first stop on his trip, the U.S.-European Union Summit in Slovenia, the two sides issued a joint declaration that the allies are, "ready to supplement sanctions with additional measures," if the Islamic Republic does not halt its uranium enrichment programs. Yesterday, in Germany, the president sought to shore up support for a new round of sanctions on Iran. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has reduced her country's trade with Iran, but is viewed as being lukewarm to additional sanctions.

The president is rushing to find a resolution to the Iranian nuclear standoff before his term expires in January. But the pace of negotiations with Iran and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana has been painstakingly slow. Solana is preparing to offer another incentives package to Iran in exchange for its abandonment of its nuclear activities. Incentives packages have not thus far convinced Iran to change its ways, and the Bush Administration is looking to get the Europeans to agree to "turn up the pressure," in the words of National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, in the likely event that the Iranians reject the offer.

Iran, North Korea, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remain sticky foreign policy problems for the Bush Administration as it heads into its final six months in office. Those countries and disputes represent international problem spots that have vexed many previous U.S. Administrations. However, the president and his national security team would very much like to leave the nation with some sense of direction on all three. But it is reliant on partners in Europe and elsewhere that have a much different view of the situations in each, and much longer time frames for getting a resolution. The Bush Administration may have to be satisfied to have given its best effort and hope that the next Administration chooses to pick up the ball and advance it further.

Following on comments made by CIA Director Michael Hayden on Thursday, Deputy National Security Director Donald Kerr told a Washington audience that the Bush Administration will not make much progress on its key national security goals by the end of its term. Hayden told the Washington Post that al-Qeada was near "strategic defeat" in Iraq and was facing serious push back across the Muslim world. Kerr, who along with National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell provide the president with his daily intelligence briefing, disputed that view, saying that a resurgent al-Qaeda will continue to be the most serious national security threat to the United States well into the next Administration. Kerr also said that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the development of nuclear weapons by Iran, and political progress in Iraq, all will not see significant movement toward a resolution in the remainder of the Bush Administration's term.

Let's imagine for tonight that you have just been sworn in -- you're the 44th president of the United States. [Y]our first post-inaugural briefing . . . will, for the foreseeable future, remain the threats and challenges emanating from the Middle East.

The Middle East threats and challenges . . . are nonpartisan in nature and will confront our nation regardless of who is in the Oval Office to receive this briefing."

That sentiment was lost on the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). Sen. Rockefeller addressed a letter to Hayden after his comments were published demanding an explanation for his rosy view of the battle against al-Qaeda, saying that he was "surprised and troubled" by Hayden's view. But perhaps the real question revealed by the dispute is how two top intelligence officials in the U.S. government can derive such diverging opinions from the same set of facts. Faced with such discord among top advisers, it is no wonder, then, why presidents have such a hard time making national security decisions.

Speaking to the Washington Post, CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said that the United States has made great strides in its battle against al-Qaeda in just the past year. Hayden said that the international terrorist group is facing "strategic defeat" across much of the Muslim world, most especially in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. And the situation is not simply a military one. Hayden said that al-Qaeda is facing "ideological push back" from many in the Islamic world who are rejecting the strict form of fundamentalist Islam preached by Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda hierarchy.

Hayden credited a stepped-up campaign against the al-Qaeda leadership for the turnaround. "The ability to kill and capture key members of al-Qaeda continues, and keeps them off balance -- even in their best safe haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border," he said. But he also cautioned that al-Qaeda remains dangerous and warned against the United States falling back into a pre-September 11th mindset.

"The fact that we have kept [Americans] safe for pushing seven years now has got them back into the state of mind where 'safe' is normal. Our view is: Safe is hard-won, every 24 hours."

Perhaps unsubtly stoking the fires in the U.S. presidential race, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has addressed a letter to U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon declaring the Islamic Republic's desire to open a new round of talks with the West on a broad range of issues from democracy building in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America to nuclear disarmament to illegal immigration. Iran is proposing the talks as a means of gaining international legitimacy as the Bush Administration and the European Union put the final touches on a new package of incentives aimed at getting Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program. Iran's proposal pointedly does not mention suspension of the controversial program.

Talks with Iran have been a major issue in the presidential race in the past week. The presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, has said that he favors talking with America's enemies and has pledged to meet unconditionally with the heads of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba. Republican nominee Sen. John McCain rejects that notion as a mark of Obama's, "inexperience and reckless judgment," on foreign policy matters. President Bush kicked off the controversy when he remarked to Israel's parliament last week that those who would engage in negotiations with terrorists groups like Hamas and their state sponsor Iran were offering, "the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history." Obama and prominent Democrats bristled at the description, which they interpreted as a direct shot at the Democratic candidate. Iran's offer of negotiations being made public at this time seems intended to keep the controversy alive in hopes of influencing the presidential race.

The White House sent an open letter to NBC News today calling for that organization to play in its entirety an unedited recording of a recent interview conducted by Richard Engel in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt at the close of the President Bush's five-day trip to the Middle East. Counselor to the President, and former head of the Republican National Committee, Ed Gillepsie said that the White House objects to what it called mis-characterizations of the president's remarks in the version of the interview aired on last night's NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and this morning on The Today Show. Mr. Gillespie charged that the interview was, "deceptively edited." The interview as it aired can be seen below. The disputed question and answer begins at 1:02.

Engel: "You said that negotiating with Iran is pointless, and then you went further. You said that it was appeasement. Were you referring to Senator Barack Obama?"

Bush: "You know, my policies haven't changed, but evidently the political calendar has. And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you've got to take those words seriously.

The White House says that NBC's editing of the president's full answer leaves the false impression that he was referring to Sen. Barack Obama when he spoke to Israel's parliament last week.