U.N. Exec Decries Illegal Iraq Detainees

By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS
Associated Press Writer
Apr 21, 2006

Some 15,000 detainees are being held in Iraq by government ministries in violation of Iraqi law, and nearly as many are being held by U.S.-led multinational forces, a senior U.N. official said Friday.

Only the country's justice ministry is permitted to hold detainees for longer than 72 hours, but Gianni Magazzeni, head of the U.N. Human Rights Office in Baghdad, said most Iraqi-held detainees are under the control of other government officials, naming Iraq's interior and defense ministries in particular.

"Those are still in the thousands and would be not in a situation which is in line with Iraqi law," he said at the U.N.'s European headquarters in Geneva. Magazzeni, who took over the post in mid-February, was visiting Geneva and said he was on his way back to Baghdad. It was unclear where Magazzeni obtained his figures for detainees held by the Iraqi government.

He said the 14,222 detainees being held by multinational forces in Iraq at the end of February for "imperative reasons of security" also is "way too high."

"We're working very closely with them (the U.S.-led multinational forces) to try to see that number brought down in a very substantive way."

The United States said in February it was holding nearly 14,390 detainees at four major prisons including Abu Ghraib. The figure did not include people picked up and held at local jails for investigation.

Magazzeni said those detainees should be brought before an Iraqi judge and be found guilty or be released if they are innocent, Magazzeni said. He also said cases of torture and summary execution "are happening every day."

He said his office also was receiving reports of an increasing number of attacks by death squads and militias, which have at least the appearance of being police or official units.

Sectarian tensions have been running high in Iraq since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, which was followed by reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics.

Magazzeni also said the Iraqi Central Criminal Court, which handles serious crimes, has sentenced to death an Iraqi convicted of the 2003 truck bombing that killed 22 people in the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.

The U.S. military said in December that Iraq had issued an arrest warrant naming Mullah Halgurd al-Khabir as the "prime suspect" in the U.N. bombing. Magazzeni did not name the person he said was convicted, and it was unclear if he was talking about al-Khabir.

France's Ties With African Leaders Fading

By JAMEY KEATEN
Associated Press Writer
Apr 21, 2006

When hundreds of rebels in pickup trucks attacked his capital, Chad's President Idriss Deby did what comes naturally: He telephoned French President Jacques Chirac.

Now, with Chirac nearing the end of his tenure, France's tradition of close personal ties with leaders of its former African colonies appears on the way out — and other world powers could fill the void.

Like predecessors stretching back to Charles de Gaulle, Chirac has long had an African connection and has built many African contacts over his four decades in politics. As president since 1995, he has continued the practice of holding summits with African leaders every two years.

For France, the payoff has been both economic and diplomatic. From regimes France backs militarily, Paris receives support at the United Nations. African leaders in turn enjoy French military, economic and technical assistance.

But Chirac's sagging political fortunes, his health problems and advancing age — he turns 74 this year — make it highly unlikely that he will stand for another presidential term in 2007. With him gone, to whom will Deby and other African leaders turn?

"The departure of Chirac from the political scene will change the nature of relations between France and Africa," said Africa expert Albert Boungi, an international law professor at Reims University, east of Paris.

France's moribund economy and its fading reputation in Africa because of its support of unpopular leaders mean France's clout is increasingly embodied in Chirac, Bourgi said. Despite France's long history in Africa, none of the politicians seen as likely successors have his ties to Africa, and none are likely to be as interventionist on the continent.

The United States, and possibly China, could step in, mainly to tap oil. Chad exports 160,000 barrels a day through a U.S.-Malaysia consortium including Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Petronas.

"The Americans are starting to widen their influence gradually," said Bourgi. "They aren't against the French but they are benefiting a bit from the withdrawal of France from Africa."

Chad gained independence from France in 1960, but the French military has had four operations there since then. The current one, code-named "Epervier," or "Sparrowhawk," includes 1,200 troops, three Puma helicopters and six Mirage fighter jets.

France has thousands of troops in its former African colonial empire, with missions to help maintain stability, provide military training and logistical support, and protect French citizens. France has 4,000 troops in Ivory Coast, 2,900 in Djibouti, 1,000 in Gabon and 1,200 in Senegal, according to the French Defense Ministry.

Relations between Britain — Africa's other major former colonial power — and its one-time colonies also often are close, but they did not develop along the same lines, for cultural and political reasons. Africans under French rule could aspire to French citizenship and former French colonies pegged their currencies to the franc and now the euro, while Britain kept its African subjects at a distance.

France says stability is priority No. 1 in its former African colonies. Its frequent calls for greater democracy in Africa often ring hollow, given France's track record of dealing with despots and leaders-for-life in many countries over the years, seemingly more comfortable with familiar dictators than the unknowns democracy might bring.

In Chad, France supported Hissene Habre, then backed Deby after he led a coup against Habre in 1990. Deby received military training in France.

As rebels poured into Chad's capital, N'djamena, on April 13, Chadian government forces, supported by French intelligence, were waiting. The government said at least 350 people were killed. Deby has been quoted as saying France played a crucial role in providing intelligence about the assault, and the rebels have complained that France is propping up a dictator.

After several phone conversations, Deby followed Chirac's suggestion to appeal to the U.N. Security Council, where France is a permanent member, Chirac's office said.

France quickly condemned the attempt to seize power by force, and its diplomats in New York have said the council is preparing to urge Chad and Sudan to hold to a February pledge not to destabilize each other.

Mohamed Tetemadi Bangoura of the Political and Strategic Observatory on Africa in Paris says Deby is facing international isolation by not cooperating fully with the World Bank, and has been losing support among poor and increasingly discontent Chadians.

"Without France, Deby would be gone ... Corruption is a real problem," said Bangoura, author of a book on Chad.

"For France, the issue is about geopolitical positioning ... You cannot rule out the colonial mentality," he said.

Soldier Suicides Spike To Highest Level Since 1993

The Army says it has about 230 counselors in Iraq and Afghanistan
By Lolita C. Baldor
Associated Press
April 22, 2006

WASHINGTON - The number of U.S. Army soldiers who took their own lives increased last year to the highest total since 1993, despite a growing effort by the Army to detect and prevent suicides.

In 2005, a total of 83 soldiers committed suicide, compared with 67 in 2004, and 60 in 2003 — the year U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq.

Four other deaths in 2005 are being investigated as possible suicides but have not yet been confirmed.

The totals include active duty Army soldiers and deployed National Guard and Reserve troops.

"Although we are not alarmed by the slight increase, we do take suicide prevention very seriously," said Army spokesman Col. Joseph Curtin.

"We are working very aggressively to change the culture so that soldiers feel comfortable coming forward with their personal problems in a culture where historically admitting mental health issues was frowned upon," Curtin added.

Teams formed in 2003

When suicides among soldiers in Iraq spiked in the summer of 2003, the Army put together a mental health assessment team that met with troops.

Investigators found common threads in the circumstances of the soldiers who committed suicide — including personal financial problems, failed personal relationships and legal problems.

Since then, the Army has increased the number of mental health professionals and placed combat stress teams with units. According to the Army, there are more than 230 mental health practitioners working in Iraq and Afghanistan, compared with "about a handful" when the war began, Curtin said.

Soldiers also get cards and booklets that outline suicide warning signs and how to get help.

'Should be a wake-up call'

But at least one veterans group says it's not enough.

"These numbers should be a wake-up call on the mental health impact of this war," said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "One in three soldiers will come back with post traumatic stress disorder or comparable mental health issues, or depression and severe anxiety."

Rieckhoff, who was a platoon leader in Iraq, said soldiers there face increased stress because they are often deployed to the warfront several times, they are fighting urban combat and their enemy blends in with the population, making it more difficult to tell friend from foe.

"You don't get much time to rest and with the increased insurgency, your chances of getting killed or wounded are growing," he said.

Saudi Ambassador: U.S. Attack On Iran Would Be 'Catastrophic'

By David Greising, Chief business correspondent
Chicago Tribune
April 21, 2006

Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S. warned of "catastrophic" consequences should the American military strike Iran to prevent it from building nuclear weapons and called on the U.S. to build new refineries to help reduce oil prices during a wide-ranging interview in Chicago.

"The consequences of war in our region are going to be catastrophic," Prince Turki al-Faisal told the Tribune's editorial board. "Iran is not going to just sit back and accept being bombed. They're going to strike back."

The best solution to a nuclear threat in the Middle East, he said, is for all nations--including Iran and Israel--to agree to nuclear disarmament. "Our part of the world should be free from weapons of mass destruction, including nukes, and we feel there should be a ban on all weapons of mass destruction, including Israel and Iran," Turki said.

Turki expressed hope that Iran ultimately would accept an offer from Russia to allow Iranian scientists to conduct research in Russia aimed at developing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

In remarks after a luncheon speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the Economic Club of Chicago, Turki noted that Saudi Arabia has a particularly strong stake in the Iranian nuclear issue.

"Even a nuclear accident in a nuclear facility [in Iran] would have dire consequences for the kingdom," he said, noting that winds would carry radiation into Saudi Arabia.

Turki's remarks about Iran's nuclear ambitions came as oil prices have spiked to record highs, thanks in part to concerns over Iran's nuclear plans and the continuing fallout from the war in Iraq.

Turki warned that high oil prices can add to the threat of terrorism in the world by causing further economic hardship in poor countries. He urged the U.S. to invest heavily to increase refinery capacity to eliminate a bottleneck that affects prices as much as the rising cost of crude oil.

"Your country has to find some other way of doing things to increase your refining capacity," he said. "I think you should think of investing abroad."

Saudi Arabia is investing in China, South Korea and India, he said. The Saudis also are searching their oil fields for new reserves and are investing $50 billion to increase production to 12.5 million barrels a day by 2009, up from 10.5 million barrels today.

Turki, the onetime Saudi security chief, became ambassador to the U.S. after the longtime Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, abruptly stepped down last July. Turki warned against political or military moves that might further destabilize the Middle East.

Turki said efforts by the U.S. and European governments to weaken the newly elected Hamas leadership of the Palestinian Authority may backfire. "Hamas uses this issue to say to the people, `We have been fairly elected by you, and in attacking us, they're attacking you,'" he said.

As for Iraq, the debate over whether civil war has erupted misses the point, Turki said.

"What is happening is the breakdown of law and order," he said. "It undermines the establishment of a central power that can deal with the needs of the Iraqi people."

Asked whether he sees any progress in Saudi efforts to persuade the U.S. government to release 132 Saudi citizens held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as part of the U.S. detainee program, Turki expressed measured optimism.

"There is a clear indication on both our governments' sides to remove this issue as an obstacle," he said. "None of these people have been convicted of anything, none of them have been accused of anything. It's an anomaly."

Turki is visiting Chicago for two days as part of a nationwide "listening and sharing tour" aimed at increasing American awareness of Saudi Arabia's domestic reforms, its efforts to fight terrorism and its desire to improve Saudi-U.S. relations.

Elderly Woman May Have Set Off Deadly Tal Afar Blast

By Monte Morin, Stars and Stripes
Mideast Stars and Stripes
April 21, 2006

TAL AFAR, Iraq — One U.S. soldier and two Iraqi army soldiers were injured and several Iraqi civilians killed Thursday when a bomb exploded beside an American vehicle, according to officials from the 1st Brigade of the 1st Armored Division.

The incident occurred around noon in the city’s northwest district — an area that is populated mostly by Sunni Turkomen and has seen a surge in attacks in recent weeks.

Commanders were still investigating the incident and sorting through events leading up to the explosion Thursday evening and had yet to release a final, confirmed account of the attack.

However, initial, unconfirmed reports held that an elderly woman had placed a box beside a U.S. vehicle and began walking away when the container exploded. It was unclear how many civilians were killed in the attack, but the bomber was reportedly among them.

Col. Sean MacFarland, commander of the Friedberg, Germany-based “Ready First” Brigade said it remained unclear whether the bomber intended to die in the blast. It was also unclear whether the bomber was actually an elderly woman or a man disguised to look like an elderly woman.

While suicide bombings are a common tactic used by insurgents in Iraq, they are less commonly committed by women. Suicide attacks committed by elderly women are almost unheard of.

In Tal Afar, 1st AD troops have relied heavily on foot patrols. In some areas of the city, soldiers trudge through narrow, winding alleyways and boulevards around the clock, conducting frequent, random searches of homes.

The city was the site of a pitched battle between the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and insurgents, who had virtually commandeered and terrorized the town.

Spymaster Tells Secret Of Size Of Spy Force

By Mark Mazzetti
New York Times
April 21, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 20 — John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, said Thursday that the United States' global spying apparatus now numbered nearly 100,000 people assigned to stealing secrets and analyzing information to help protect national security.

The total number of personnel who report to the 16 disparate intelligence agencies and departments has until now remained secret, an effort by the government to mask the size of its spying operations. Mr. Negroponte disclosed the figure at a lunchtime speech here, calling those who serve in the intelligence field "patriotic, talented and hard-working Americans."

The disclosure came just months after another American intelligence official divulged, apparently by accident, another closely guarded secret: that the budget for American intelligence agencies last year totaled $44 billion. That disclosure was made by Mary Margaret Graham, a top deputy to Mr. Negroponte who served previously as a senior official of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Negroponte's office was created a year ago to overhaul American intelligence operations after multiple intelligence failures, including the faulty reports about Saddam Hussein's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, which the intelligence chief referred to Thursday as the "W.M.D. fiasco."

Defending his office against critics, some of them senior lawmakers, Mr. Negroponte said the intelligence reforms had not been an "exercise in bureaucratic bloat" but an effort to create an intelligence culture that "closes the breach in our defenses" that were revealed by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Mr. Negroponte was asked after his speech whether the new intelligence structure had brought the government any closer to catching Osama bin Laden. He said that while he wished the United States had already found Mr. bin Laden, the government had made great progress in capturing or killing several other members of the high command of Al Qaeda.

"I think we've dealt them a number of body blows," he said, "but we haven't yet dealt a knockout blow to Mr. bin Laden himself."

IMF lists Israel as 'developed country'

By Moti Bassok
Haaretz
21/04/2006

The International Monetary Fund has included Israel in its list of 29 developed countries in its World Economic Outlook, published yesterday prior to its spring meeting in Washington DC this weekend. Until now, Israel was categorized with emerging economies.

IMF projections for Israel are positive and complimentary. Coming off growth rates of 4.4 percent for 2004, and 5.2 percent for 2005, the report projects economic growth of 4.2 percent for both 2006 and 2007. Israel's sustainable growth is estimated at 4.5-5 percent.

The fund estimates that 2005 growth was accelerated by domestic consumption and a recovery in the tourism sector. The high growth increased inflation risks and forced the central bank to raise lending rates in October and November. The IMF expects the substantial growth to continue despite political and security risks.

The IMF also expects the consumer price index to rise 2.4 percent this year and 2 percent in 2007 - the midpoint in the government inflation target of 1-3 percent.

Unemployment, which was 10.3 percent in 2004 and 9 percent in 2005, is expected to fall to 8.5 percent in 2006 and 8.2 percent in 2007, which would mark a fourteen-year low.

The IMF notes that Israel's new government will need to determine budget allocations for 2006 and 2007 that will allow it to meet the deficit target of 3 percent of gross domestic product, and to steadily reduce Israel's high national debt, which is more than 100 percent of GDP.

IMF boosted global growth projections by 0.6 percent to 4.9 percent for 2006, and by 0.3 percent for 2007, to 4.7 percent.

IMF projects th at including Israel, the entire Middle East, most of which benefits from rising oil prices, will see economic growth of 5.7 percent this year and 5.4 percent in 2007. The IMF estimates that oil prices will rise 14.8 percent this year; but for 2007, the fund only projects a 2.9 percent rise in oil prices.

Bush and Iran

A threat that can't be outsourced any longer.
Wall Street Journal
Friday, April 21, 2006

Bill Clinton often complained that history had denied him the sort of historic challenge--a Great Depression or war--that might have made his Presidency great. We suspect that, after five tumultuous years, President Bush has more than once wished that he could have been so lucky.

But that is not the fate of this President, who has had to confront the consequences of the holiday from history that was the 1990s: September 11, continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now his most severe test yet, the looming crisis over Iran's drive for nuclear weapons.

Iran's announcement this month that it has enriched uranium to reactor-grade levels marks a watershed, and there is no point putting a hopeful gloss on it. Iran now owns the entire nuclear fuel cycle, from mining uranium ore from its own deposits, to milling it, crushing it, converting it to hexafluoride gas and enriching it in homemade centrifuges.

Technically, uranium enrichment to reactor-grade constitutes the most difficult phase of the process; moving from there to bomb-grade is much easier. "You can have a lot of problems with the first [centrifuge cascade]," a knowledgeable U.S. government source recently told us. "But once you master it, then you just replicate it elsewhere."

Nor is that all. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims Iran is "conducting research" on an advanced centrifuge obtained from rogue Pakistan scientist A.Q. Khan, and which it has previously denied using. This means Iran has once again admitted lying to the International Atomic Energy Agency. It also indicates Iran has a more extensive covert nuclear program than previously recognized, and that it is much closer to its goal of developing an industrial-scale nuclear base than generally assumed.

Put simply, the idea that Iran is still a decade away from a bomb--as was suggested by last year's National Intelligence Estimate--now looks like wishful thinking. The Iranian bomb will thus be a crisis for this Administration, not the next, and Mr. Bush will have no choice but to offer the kind of leadership he has so far outsourced to the Europeans and the United Nations.

This does not yet mean giving up on diplomacy, although it does mean being realistic about its limits and clear about the alternatives. The threat of comprehensive sanctions that would put Tehran under a trade and oil embargo, bar Iranian officials from traveling abroad and forbid Iranian athletes from participating in international sporting events might persuade Iran's religious leaders that there is a prohibitive price to pay for going nuclear. But we doubt it.

Far from deterring the mullahs, sanctions are likelier to hasten their quest for a bomb, if only because nuclear-armed regimes are harder to isolate and contain than non-nuclear ones. Sanctions on Pakistan and India, imposed after their nuclear tests in 1998, barely lasted a few years.

In any case, the chances of the international community imposing sanctions--and sticking to them--are vanishingly small. Russia and China have made their opposition plain. China will not allow itself to be cut off from supplies of Iranian oil and natural gas. And Russia increasingly sees Tehran as a valuable customer: Iran's nuclear reactor at Bushehr is being built by Russia, which also supplies advanced anti-aircraft missiles to defend it.

As for the Europeans, three years of fruitless diplomacy have at least persuaded them of Tehran's bad faith. But neither Germany nor France (which has extensive trade links with Iran) appears prepared to go along with serious sanctions, while British Foreign Minister Jack Straw has made a career of trying to cultivate the mullahs.

Instead, the "international community" and U.S. foreign policy establishment are likely to press the Administration to pursue what's being called a "Grand Bargain": direct talks between Washington and Tehran leading to an end to the U.S. embargo and a resumption of diplomatic relations in exchange for an Iranian promise to abandon its nuclear program. The bargain idea has just got a boost from Richard Lugar, the Indiana Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Talking to the mullahs, he recently told ABC's George Stephanopoulos, "would be useful," adding that the Administration needed to "make more headway diplomatically."

This is precisely what Mr. Clinton tried with North Korea in the 1990s, when Pyongyang was offered economic and technical assistance in exchange for promising to give up its nuclear ambitions. As we now know, the North pocketed that American commitment, went ahead covertly with its weapons programs, and is now demanding further U.S. concessions.

In the same way, nothing Iran has done in recent years offers any indication it would honor such a bargain. It has consistently lied to the IAEA, trashed its agreements with Europe, openly flouted a U.N. Security Council resolution, provided explosives to insurgents in Iraq, developed ballistic missiles of increasing range, selected a president with apocalyptic religious impulses, and engaged in vitriolic anti-American and anti-Semitic rhetoric.

This is not the behavior of an ordinary state--a "status quo power," in diplomatic jargon--that aims to "normalize" its position in the world through diplomacy. Rather, they are the acts of a revolutionary regime seeking to spread its ideology and power by force and intimidation.

Most of all, the U.S. should think very carefully about making deals with a despotic regime that enjoys the support of only 20% of its own people, at least if our aim is to see the regime toppled peacefully from within. In his 2006 State of the Union address, Mr. Bush addressed the Iranian people directly, saying "we respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom." A "grand bargain" of the kind suggested by Mr. Lugar would betray that promise and assist the mullahs in retaining power.

The task now for the President is to begin speaking publicly about why a nuclear Iran is, as he calls it, "unacceptable." Far from preparing for war with Iran, the Administration has barely begun to confront the tough choices at hand. The reasons for this reluctance are easy to appreciate: The future of democratic Iraq is far from assured; Mr. Bush's approval ratings are in the tank and his political capital is depleted; and the military options against Iran have their own limitations and risks. But Mr. Bush remains President for 33 more months, with a Constitutional responsibility to ensure our safety. And there is no more clear and present danger than Iran's nuclear programs.

Our point today is not to advocate any specific course of action. But the Administration can't postpone any longer a candid discussion about the nature and urgency of the Iranian threat. That discussion must include the Congress; this would be helpful not least as a way of smoking out exactly what Senator Lugar and his fellow-grand bargainers are really proposing as an alternative to sanctions or force. If they think an Iranian nuke is acceptable, they should say so.

Above all, the President must begin to educate the American public about what is at stake in Iran and what the U.S. might be prepared to do about it. Until he does so, he will be hostage to a series of increasingly distressing Tehran "announcements," the pace and timing of which will be dictated by the clerics and zealots who wish us ill.

Mideast 'axis' forms against West

By Nicholas Blanford
The Christian Science Monitor
Thu Apr 20, 2006

Rising tension between the West and Iran is coinciding with the emergence of a loose anti-Western alliance - Israel now dubs it an "axis of terror" - spanning the Middle East, presenting a new challenge to the US's regional ambitions.

Centered on Iran, this alignment has hardened in recent months, analysts say, with Tehran shoring up old alliances and strengthening ties with countries (Syria and Iraq) and with groups (Hizbullah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad) that share its hostility toward Israel and the US.

"The alliance that is emerging in this part of the world is a creation of Iran," says Sami Moubayed, a Syrian political analyst. "It wants to bolster its position by allying itself with countries or groups that can temporarily enhance its regional role and influence."

On Tuesday, Israel's UN envoy Dan Gillerman dubbed this alliance the "new axis of terror" following a suicide bombing claimed by the Iranian-funded Islamic Jihad in Tel Aviv the previous day that killed nine Israelis.

"A dark cloud is looming above our region, and it is metastasizing as a result of the statements and actions by leaders of Iran, Syria, and the newly elected government of the Palestinian Authority," Mr. Gillerman said.

The alliance, which is ad hoc and tactical rather than a formalized strategic pact, includes Syria and groups such as Lebanon's Hizbullah, the Iran-backed militant Shiite organization, radical Palestinian organizations such as Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command as well as some Iraqi allies.

So far the strategy appears to be working in their favor. Hizbullah has become one of the most influential players in Lebanon and looks set to retain its military wing for the foreseeable future.

Iran has rarely appeared more resolute, boasting of its success in uranium enrichment and expressing near daily defiance toward the US. Damascus is gaining confidence with a slackening of international pressure lately amid concerns that a collapse of Syria's Baathist regime could trigger Iraq-style instability.

"The Syrians are very supportive of Iran and very supportive of Hamas and Hizbullah," says Mr. Moubayed. "Almost everybody in Syria is praising [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad's alliance with Iran as a very smart move. Many are saying that the alliance with [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad was not political suicide after all."

Iran is the driving force behind the alliance, its strategic position in the region enhanced by the US-led effort to oust Tehran's Taliban enemy in Afghanistan to the east and its Baathist foe in Iraq to the west.

Over the weekend, Iran hosted a three-day conference in support of the Palestinians, pledging $50 million to the newly elected Hamas government and reaffirming its ties to other rejectionist Palestinian groups.

"This is an anti-America alliance," says Joshua Landis, professor of history at the University of Oklahoma and author of Syriacomment.com, who spent 2005 living in Damascus. "My guess is that the US will end up in a weaker position than it started. The war on terror has alienated the Muslim countries who now believe that America is the big bad ogre and specter of imperialism."

A year ago, Syria's strategic position looked grim, having been forced to disengage from neighboring Lebanon, ending 15 years of domination. Hizbullah also was feeling the squeeze amid the departure of its Syrian protector and a growing clamor for its disarmament from the party's Lebanese opponents.

But the election in August of the confrontational Mr. Ahmadinejad as president of Iran reinvigorated the long-standing relationship between Tehran and Damascus. Syria is the geostrategic linchpin connecting Tehran to its Lebanese protégé, Hizbullah, and was also regarded by Iran as the weak link in the chain, one that required buttressing.

A newly emboldened Syria began to display greater defiance against international pressure. In November, Mr. Assad asserted in a speech that "the region [faces] two choices: either resistance and steadfastness or chaos. There is no third choice.

"If they believe that they [the West] can blackmail Syria, we tell them they got the wrong address," he said.

A series of Middle East elections also bolstered the emerging alliance. In late December, Shiite factions close to Tehran dominated the Iraqi elections. The following month, Hamas triumphed in the Palestinian elections, granting Iran greater leverage in the Israeli-Palestinian arena.

In mid-January, Assad hosted a summit in Damascus with Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president's first state visit. Also attending were the leaders of Hizbullah and several anti-Israel Palestinian groups in what analysts regarded as an affirmation of the anti-Western axis.

"The meeting between Ahmadinejad and Assad," commented Sateh Noureddine of Lebanon's As Safir newspaper at the time, "did not come as a sign of defeat, but rather as a joint warning to the world. A warning that the alliance between the two neighbors is on its way to becoming stronger."

The alliance includes the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr, who in visits to Tehran and Damascus in January and February vowed to come to the defense "by all possible means" of Iran and Syria if attacked by the US.

There is a commercial dimension, too. In February, Iran and Syria inked sweeping economic and trade agreements including one establishing gas, oil, railroad, and electrical links between Syria and Iran via Iraq. Both countries are looking to the emerging economic powerhouses of Asia to build new trade ties as an alternative to Europe and the West.

"Syria has been signing oil and gas contracts with India, China, and Russia," says Mr. Landis, the Syria expert. "Syria and Iran are thinking they can build Iraq into their northern tier, building gas and oil pipelines across the region."

Fix the Intelligence Mess

By David Ignatius
The Washington Post
Friday, April 21, 2006; A23

For the U.S. intelligence community, the warning lights are blinking red. A reorganization that was supposed to bring greater coordination has instead produced a layering of responsibilities and bureaucratic confusion. A demoralized CIA that needed professional management is chafing under a Republican former congressman who has proved to be the most political and ineffective director in the agency's history.

Look at the organizational chart of the new Office of the Director of National Intelligence and you wonder if America has become a Third World country with a rival intelligence agency for each patch of turf. At last count, there were 16 different spy units under the DNI's umbrella -- a number that puts even Syria to shame. In theory, this flotilla of spy agencies is being supervised by a deputy responsible for "customer outcomes," whatever that means, and three other deputy directors. The organization chart gives each of the four a peppy two-word mission statement: "Want It," "Know It," "Get It" and "Build It."

I'd like to suggest a new mission for John Negroponte, the man who sits atop this intelligence ziggurat: "Fix It." One year on, the intelligence reorganization isn't working. It has overanalyzed the little problems without solving the big ones. It hasn't succeeded in coordinating the various agencies, and it has allowed the biggest problem of all -- the disarray at the CIA -- to get even worse. I'm told that several foreign intelligence services have recently observed a decline in CIA performance, which should scare us all.

"The reorganization reshuffled rather than augmented the nation's federal intelligence personnel," Richard A. Posner, a federal appeals court judge who knows the intelligence world well, argued in a speech in March to a gathering of CIA lawyers. He said of the DNI structure: "It has become a new bureaucracy layered on top of the intelligence community, a new agency on top of the fifteen or more previously existing agencies." According to The Post's Walter Pincus, Negroponte's budget is nearing $1 billion -- about five times what was previously spent for intelligence-community management. His staff is now 1,539 people, about twice what was expected.

The intelligence mess is serious enough that it has triggered a quiet investigation by the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a secretive blue-ribbon panel that advises the White House. The group's new chairman is Stephen Friedman, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs and former White House economic adviser. Other luminaries on the 16-member panel are former senator Charles Robb, former representative Lee Hamilton and retired Adm. David E. Jeremiah.

I'm told the intelligence board has summoned a series of top current and former officials in recent weeks to get a handle on the problems at the CIA and DNI. "They are trying to get a sense of what is really going on and how bad it is," says one intelligence insider. Because many of the board members have run big companies, they are said to be applying management metrics to the crazy quilt of the reorganization.

The Bush administration, unfortunately, is a big part of what's wrong. From the start, officials close to Vice President Cheney viewed a moribund, risk-averse CIA as an obstacle to their goals. Certainly the CIA made mistakes, especially in its assessment of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, but that's not why it was punished. It became a political whipping boy for the right wing largely because it tried to tell the truth on two key issues: alleged Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Niger and alleged Iraqi operational links with al-Qaeda. On both, CIA analysts repeatedly warned the administration that the evidence didn't support its conclusions, yet the vice president's office kept coming back and telling them to take another look. The CIA issued a secret paper in January 2003 saying that there was no Iraqi authority, control or direction over al-Qaeda. Yet the political pressure continued.

Negroponte defended his performance in a speech yesterday at the National Press Club, and one can only wish him well. He has a huge job: The CIA has lost a generation of senior managers, burned off by Porter Goss and his political aides in a senseless vendetta. Dissatisfaction is growing in the middle ranks. Operations officers are looking over their shoulders; analysts are looking at the proliferating bureaucracies and wondering where to try to make their careers; and terrorism specialists are torn between the CIA's Counterterrorist Center and the DNI's National Counterterrorism Center. We don't have enough good spies to afford this confusion.

You would have thought it was impossible to make our intelligence problems even worse, but the Bush administration has accomplished that. This is a dangerous situation for the country, and it needs to be fixed, now.

The Power Player Who Faces Charges for Talking

Case of Lobbyist Fired by Pro-Israel Group Puts Spotlight on a Murky Type of Advocacy
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; A01

For more than two decades, Steven J. Rosen sleuthed the tight-lipped government back channels of the United States and Israel for tidbits he could quietly pass to his powerful employer, the pro-Israel lobby called AIPAC. As a result, he would joke over restaurant tables that he was glad the United States did not have an Official Secrets Act that would render his vocation a crime.

But his quip turned out to be prescient. The FBI placed him and a junior colleague under surveillance -- listening to their phone calls and watching their meetings, including those with a Pentagon official who was cooperating with authorities. Last year, Rosen and Keith Weissman were fired by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and then indicted on charges of receiving and transmitting national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act.

The case has roiled official Washington. It has spotlighted a murky type of advocacy that Rosen helped create -- an amalgam of intelligence gathering and lobbying on behalf of a narrow interest. Lobbyists who routinely pass along sensitive information wonder how much leeway they will have to do their jobs if Rosen is convicted. The case has also angered some journalists who worry that it could further cool their already strained relationships with national security sources in the aftermath of the CIA leak probe.

"This is a very novel prosecution with many unsettling aspects," said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor. "The chilling effect could become glacial for anybody who is engaged in basic lobbying research or simply doing research or writing stories on national security issues."

Rosen, 63, is a highly intelligent, compact man with a tough-guy manner and unrivaled contacts here and in the Middle East. Associates describe him as abrasive, kinetic and mysterious -- he has been married and divorced six times -- and say he is both respected and despised in the close-knit world he dominated for years. Rosen declined to be interviewed for this article.

Rosen's case has attracted extra attention partly because of his many personal connections; he once bragged that he had 6,000 names in his Rolodex. When he worked at the Rand Corp. think tank in the early 1980s, one of the research fellows in his department was Condoleezza Rice.

His indictment has marred the reputation of AIPAC, which employed him for 23 years. The hard-charging Rosen was instrumental in building AIPAC into one of Washington's most effective pressure groups. The 100,000-member organization plays a major role in securing more than $2 billion a year in U.S. aid for Israel and in fostering other pro-Israel policies.

At AIPAC, Rosen helped pioneer executive-branch lobbying, a style of advocacy that was not widespread when he began it in the mid-1980s, but is now a routine complement to the more traditional lobbying of Congress. Before Rosen, AIPAC had believed that the way to alter American foreign policy was to get senators to sign a letter. His insight was that he could also affect the process by dealing with the staff-level bureaucrats in the executive branch who originated the policies.

A New York City-born foreign policy scholar, Rosen rose to prominence by dint of this interest in influencing government from the inside. He told friends he joined AIPAC after working as a professor and a think-tank analyst because he grew tired of studying the system and wanted to change it.

As AIPAC's director of foreign policy issues, he headed a 10-person department that provided the $47 million-a-year, 200-employee organization with analyses about the Middle East. To stay on the cutting edge, he aggressively swapped information and gossip with academics, journalists and employees of the Israeli government and of the State Department, the Pentagon and the White House.

Rosen did not lobby the governments' highest-ranking officials. He concentrated instead on the workaday policy-development aides and left to other AIPAC officials dealings with the likes of the secretary of state. "He was very good at what he did," said Dennis Ross, the Middle East point man for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. "He was a smart guy. He knew the issues extremely well. He was knowledgeable about Israel and what Israel's concerns would be."

Over the years, Rosen had a hand in writing several policies favored by Israel, including a strategic cooperation agreement between Israel and the United States and a sanctions regimen against Israel's enemy Iran.

As a result of such successes, Rosen became synonymous with AIPAC; his energetic promotion of American-Israeli relations contributed to the group's rapid growth. "He was very important" to AIPAC, said Malcolm Hoenlein, chief executive of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "He was a respected voice."

Gerald Charnoff, a member of AIPAC's executive committee, added: "I thought he was one of the brightest guys in a staff position in any organization I've been involved in. I do think his loss was a blow."

At the same time, Rosen could be ornery, hard to work with and secretive, almost spy-like. "He's a mercurial character, very intense, very smart, in many ways brilliant, but somewhat misanthropic," said Martin S. Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel. "His personality is so intense that he can be off-putting to people, especially among the gray suits of a bureaucracy."

Rosen could also be ruthless with his colleagues. He was among those behind the ouster of Douglas M. Bloomfield as AIPAC's chief congressional lobbyist in 1988 and helped remove other employees. "He was spooky, strange and not driven by love for Israel," said M.J. Rosenberg, a former AIPAC employee who tangled with Rosen. "I saw him as a power player, interested solely in power."

Rosen has also been "a little roguish," said Abbe D. Lowell, Rosen's attorney. An expansive and sometimes bawdy raconteur, Rosen's frequent marriages were a source of wonderment among people who knew him. He is currently living with his first wife in the Silver Spring house he extensively renovated with his own hands. He has three children, ages 23, 20 and 7.

His personal quirks aside, former associates remain perplexed and concerned about why Rosen is being prosecuted. "He and other members of AIPAC dealt with the administration just the way other lobbyists do. He was doing what he's always done," Ross said. Indyk agreed: "His job was to trade in information. That was his great skill. He's essentially on trial for doing his job well."

Defense lawyers make similar points and have enlisted a surprising ally: Viet D. Dinh, former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy and an author of the Bush administration's USA Patriot Act. Dinh helped write a memorandum that called for the dismissal of the Espionage Act charges against the lobbyists. The memo said that in the 90 years since the act was drafted, "there have been no reported prosecutions of persons outside government for repeating information that they obtained verbally."

The memo also said that in receiving leaked classified information and relaying it to others, the lobbyists were doing what journalists, think-tank scholars and congressional staff members "do perhaps hundreds of times every day."

AIPAC and prosecutors dispute those assertions. "Rosen and Weissman were dismissed because they engaged in conduct that was not part of their jobs, and because this conduct did not comport with the standards that AIPAC expects and requires of its employees," AIPAC spokesman Patrick Dorton said.

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty said last year when he announced the charges against them that the lobbyists had simply gone too far. "Washington is a town in which the flow of information is virtually nonstop," but the law "separates classified information from everything else." The charges, he added, "are about crossing that line."

Rosen's case is undergoing preliminary motions and could go to trial as early as next month.

The FBI monitored Rosen and Weissman during a series of meetings between them and Lawrence A. Franklin, an Iran specialist at the Pentagon who in January was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for passing government secrets. Both lobbyists deny they did anything wrong.

The FBI raided AIPAC's Washington offices twice in 2004, obtaining computer files and serving grand jury subpoenas on four senior executives. It also listened in on several encounters between Franklin and the lobbyists -- at restaurants and a Pentagon City shopping mall -- dating to 2003, as well as on a phone call from Rosen to Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler.

For at least a short while, the Rosen controversy boosted AIPAC's coffers as donors rallied to its side. But in an open letter to AIPAC directors, former executive director Neal M. Sher added, "a very serious toll already has been taken on AIPAC's ability . . . to be the aggressive advocate we have a right to expect it to be."

As Rosen liked to say, "A lobby is like a night flower: It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun."

Sen. Lieberman: US for settlements

David Horovitz
THE JERUSALEM POST
Apr. 20, 2006

Former prime minister Ariel Sharon helped shape a new consensus in American attitudes toward the settlement enterprise, to the point where there is now "solid, bipartisan support" for Israel's retention of the major settlement blocs, according to Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

In an interview to be published in Friday's Jerusalem Post, Lieberman goes so far as to indicate that the US might be sympathetic to Israeli annexation of such areas, were Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to implement his "convergence" plan and withdraw unilaterally to the route of the West Bank security barrier.

"I think the prevailing opinion here, particularly now with Hamas having won the elections on the Palestinian side, [is] that the Israeli government will be justified in taking unilateral action to secure defensible borders," Lieberman said.

By contrast, the senator went on, any Israeli attempt to win American support for the permanent retention of the Jordan Valley would be "a harder sell," although there would not be such opposition to the presence there of security personnel.

"The strongest support is for the major settlement blocs. Sharon helped to reshape or form a consensus in the US about this, as well as here [in Israel]," Lieberman said. "Sharon saw a forming consensus about this - a desire to change the status quo, to achieve defensible borders, to take tough steps to do it - but he then deepened and broadened the consensus."

Saudis Mull Electric Fence On Iraqi Border

The oil-rich kingdom is worried Iraq's sectarian violence may spill over, worsening Sunni-Shiite tensions.
By Rasheed Abou-Alsamh, Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
Christian Science Monitor
April 20, 2006

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA – Apparently concerned that fighting in Iraq could spill over into this oil-rich kingdom, Saudi Arabia is considering a major fortification of its 500-mile border with Iraq.

"The government is thinking of building an electrified fence along the whole border with Iraq in case things go really badly in Iraq, and it starts falling apart," says a security adviser to the Saudi government, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the government has not made any official announcement of such plans.It has, however, admitted that it is looking at strengthening its border defenses.

"We are currently conducting a study on technical defense systems which we can use to beef up security measures along the border," Mansour al-Turki, an Interior Ministry spokesman, told the daily Al-Riyadh.

The border with Iraq lies mostly in barren desert. A 20-foot-tall sand berm that runs its entire length provides the first line of defense. Parallel to that is a second berm and a tall fence topped with barbed wire, with a six-mile-wide no-man's land separating the two barriers.

But despite the barriers and extensive electronic surveillance by Saudi border guards using motion detectors and night-vision cameras, some US critics have claimed that suicide bombers have been sneaking across the Saudi border into Iraq to join the insurgency.

One high-level European diplomat in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, defended the Saudi effort at securing its border in Iraq. "I don't think border security is really a problem," says the diplomat, who requested anonymity because of the issue's sensitive nature. "We're impressed with what the Saudis are doing. The problem is with the Americans in Iraq. The American-controlled side of the Iraqi border is less secure because they don't have enough troops deployed there."

According to a recent report compiled by Saudi defense analyst Nawaf Obaid, using government data, the kingdom has already spent $1.8 billion securing its border with Iraq since 2004. "But this amount has been mostly for the deployment of additional troops on the border and not for actual physical defenses," says Mr. Obaid in a telephone interview.

In his report, "Meeting the Challenge of a Fragmented Iraq: A Saudi Perspective," which was published this month by Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies, Obaid calls for the creation of a permanent border security committee to tackle cross-border issues between the kingdom and Iraq.

"One of the most critical tasks facing such a committee [is to strengthen] security on the Iraqi side of the border. It is in the interests of both Saudi Arabia and Iraq to confront challenges such as smuggling and terrorist infiltration that an insecure border presents," writes Obaid.

One of the kingdom's major concerns is that Iraq's sectarian violence may spill over and agitate tensions between Saudi Arabia's Sunni Muslims, a majority of the population, and its minority Shiite community. Adherents of two sects that split centuries ago, Sunnis and Shiites have a rocky history of coexistence in many countries.

In Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah has tried to ease tensions between the country's Sunnis and its Shiites, who are concentrated in its oil-rich eastern province. But Shiites are still often discriminated against in education and the job market and are regularly criticized by Salafist preachers - hard-line Sunnis - who claim that Shiites are not real Muslims.

"The Saudis are afraid of what may come out of Iraq in the future, because of the threat of Al Qaeda infiltrators and Shia [Shiite] fighters coming across the border," says Faris Bin Hizam, a Saudi journalist and specialist on Al Qaeda, in a phone interview from Dubai, U.A.E.

"The new wave of Shias coming out of Iran and Iraq are more dangerous than the Shias in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution that brought Khomeini to power. Then, there was Saddam Hussein to oppose them. Now, he isn't in power anymore," explains Mr. Bin Hizam. "I see a very difficult future for the whole region as it's not only Saudi Arabia that fears a Shia uprising, but other Gulf countries, Jordan, and Egypt as well."

But it is not only on the Iraqi border that Saudi Arabia feels threatened. Its 900-mileborder with Yemen has long been a transit point for smugglers of weapons and drugs, and terrorists sneaking into the country. Running through mountains in the west into Saudi Arabia's barren Empty Quarter in the east, the border with Yemen has been difficult to patrol and impossible to seal off completely. Smugglers have even reportedly trained goods-laden mules to avoid Saudi border guards.

In an attempt to control the border, Saudi Arabia began building a fence but was forced to freeze the project in 2004 after strong protests from the Yemeni government.

"The Saudi government has a habit of overspending on security, and the Yemeni fence project will cost upwards of over $10 billion once it is finished," says Ali al-Ahmad, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, a Saudi opposition think tank in Washington. In an e-mail exchange, Mr. Ahmad contends that the security fence along the Yemeni border has failed to stop weapons, drugs, terrorists, and illegal workers from "flooding" into the kingdom.

Ahmad believes that the Yemeni border poses a greater risk than the Iraqi border, in part because Yemen is a key weapons source for Al Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia. The sparsely populated border with Iraq is also easier to protect, he says, lending itself to electronic and visual surveillance methods, which are cheaper than a new fence.

Bin Hizam agrees with Ahmad, saying the length of the Iraqi border makes building an electrified fence along the entire length of it economically unviable. But Western security and construction firms are reportedly standing ready.

"A consortium of British, French, and American firms are interested in bidding for a contract to improve border security," the European diplomat confirmed.

New U.S. Strategy Anticipates China As A Threat

By Bill Gertz, The Washington Times
Washington Times
April 20, 2006

The Bush administration has adopted a bold new strategy for countering the emergence of a threatening China with policies that were drawn up several years ago and started being implemented in the past several months.

The "hedge" strategy is a response to the September 11, 2001, attacks and the crisis over the April 1, 2001, midair collision between an EP-3 surveillance aircraft and a Chinese interceptor jet, according to U.S. national security officials involved with the policy.

The 23-member EP-3 crew was forced to make an emergency landing at a Chinese military base on Hainan Island and were imprisoned there for 11 days.

Months after the incident, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld met with President Bush in Crawford, Texas, along with then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to map out plans for a new strategy to deal with China, the officials said.

The meeting concluded with an agreement that U.S. efforts to develop better military-to-military relations with China were not effective in influencing China's powerful communist-dominated military. The Chinese military remains a "party army," whose first loyalty is to keeping the Communist Party in power. All agreed a new U.S. posture was needed to dissuade China from becoming a more threatening power.

The hedge strategy was developed as part of a broader shift in policy toward Asia. It is based on Mr. Rumsfeld's belief that future threats are hard to predict, and therefore the United States must prepare for unexpected dangers.

"We learned after 9/11 that we're totally unable to predict things," said a senior defense official involved in the new strategy.

"It was a sobering experience, 9/11 was, because we have a whole bunch of war plans and con plans in the can that worked for the U.S. government in the past," said one Rumsfeld aide involved in China policy. "But we've learned that you can't plan for everything so you have to have a very adaptive posture and you have to have very adaptive [weapons] platforms and an adaptive strategy."

Other contributors to the new strategy include Andrew Marshall, head of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, and Michael Pillsbury, a key China adviser.

The first steps in the new strategy were approved in the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review, even though China was not mentioned specifically in that defense strategy paper. The latest review, however, makes explicit references to China emerging as a future threat.

Before the new hedge strategy was adopted, China policy was a major topic of debate within government. Pro-business officials, primarily within the commerce and state departments, sought to play down the threatening aspects of China's development. National security officials at the Pentagon mainly argued that unless pressure is applied and the United States takes steps to counter the Chinese, the threat will grow.

The debate was largely ended on Mr. Rumsfeld's terms, officials said, including the use of tight secrecy and strategic misdirection to avoid provoking Beijing into an arms race.

The Rumsfeld Detractors

What do the generals' service records say?
By Stephen E. Herbits
Washington Times
April 20, 2006

Where is the rest of the story on the recent attacks on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by a few in the retired military? The news media will better meet its obligations to the public when it seeks more depth of experience and information about these generals-turned-Rumsfeld critics.

Having had the privilege of participating in Defense Department transitions now for four presidents, with my own experience in military affairs going back to 1967, I can offer such information.

The first observation to be made is that now that these generals have stepped out of their uniforms to make a personal and conscious entry into the political arena by calling for the resignation of a Cabinet official, they are opening their own records and their own performance -- perhaps even their own motivations -- to public scrutiny. This is not only fair game for the media, but absolutely essential for a public seeking to understand the full debate.

My experience points to several relevant issues -- some of which I personally know apply to some of those making the attacks.

First, while Mr. Rumsfeld has worked within the long tradition of civilian control of the military to modernize and strengthen the promotion and assignment system for senior uniformed officers, there are some who have actively tried to obstruct his efforts and could be acting as an extension of that opposition. For instance, within weeks of Mr. Rumsfeld's arrival in 2001, eight nominations -- two from each service -- were sent to the new secretary for one of the nine top senior military officers in command positions.

Upon examination, however, a simple fact leapt off the pages. The secretary had really been given one selection and seven non-comparable alternates, who, if not less qualified, were clearly less preferable than the one. When it happened a second time, the secretary instituted a new process. This new process has been in place for nearly five years and has required significantly more scrutiny, vetting and long-term planning.

Over that time, many generals who might have been promoted under the old system did not make it in the new one. The most telling indicator here is that of the top 40 senior military positions today, the Army now holds the fewest joint positions in its history. For too many years, the Army had simply not produced the needed talent for such critical positions. The effects of such cronyism had taken its toll. Mr. Rumsfeld's changes corrected that problem; they also provoked the resentment of some top Army brass.

There are a group of Army officers who adamantly oppose change, modernization, rationalization, transformation or whatever one wants to call the move to create a military for the future rather than a battery of tank divisions for the past. Many of these former officers stick together on retirement. They obtain the highest-level briefings from the active Army and offer their opinions, if not more, on everything from weapons to promotions. The Army can gain greatly from their experience, of course. But this clique is effectively a powerful, hidden informal force outside the Defense Department structure and outside the national political system.

There is at least one of the attackers who was passed over for promotion because of personal behavior which did not clear a routine morals examination. Not a problem; that is why top officers are vetted at each promotion and eachassignment.But shouldn't the public be permitted to know this information about those attacking the civilians in charge so that they may better judge the reasons behind the reasons?

Finally, there is the style issue. Anyone who has worked closely with this secretary will tell you that he is tough. What do they mean? He acts like a prosecutor. It is often said that you had better not present policy options to this secretary if you are not thoroughly prepared. I was held to the same standard -- and it is the right one.

There is no way the secretary can be an expert on every single issue that comes before him. But he can ask questions and he can drive down into the facts and analyses as few others can. It is through that process that he gains confidence in those making the recommendations so he can put his stamp on them. Or the opposite. Some interpret the tough sessions as personally affronting. Others, such as I, believe it is in the best service of this country.

It will also be a service to this country when the media digs a bit below these attacks to examine the generals who wish to play a political role in our civilian society. The public can then understand who is making the attacks and why. Arguably, such an understanding is helpful in any public debate. It is inarguably essential in this one.

Stephen E. Herbits has served five presidents as a military affairs adviser since 1967, including the Defense Department transition in 2001 and post-September 11 reforms.

The Generals' Bold Words

By Georgie Anne Geyer
San Diego Union-Tribune
April 19, 2006

About the riveting case of “the generals,” one could say that, after all, retired generals are citizens and have every right to speak out against the war and Donald Rumsfeld. On the other hand, one can genuinely question not only whether this breaks the military's historical code of silence about policy, but also the effect such acts might have on our troops fighting in Iraq.

One could also say that things are so bad in Iraq, and that so many gargantuan mistakes have been glossed over by the Pentagon civilian leadership over three long years, that the only responsible thing a moral officer can do is to speak truth to power.

But then, didn't American generals in Vietnam allow themselves to be muted by the same laws of obedience to the civilian authorities? Don't we have to stretch our perspective and place the questions of this case into the “why-didn't-we-learn-from-Vietnam?” category of inquiry?

We can talk until doomsday about Rumsfeld's errant personal obnoxiousness, or the ideological madness of his immediate subordinates, or the “Saturday Night Live” planning to take over an ancient, eternally brutalized and maddened country such as Iraq. But when you come down to it, the real point is that Rumsfeld and Co. made horrendous decisions. Out of their hubristic arrogance has come nothing but mounting disaster for the United States.

That is why Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, Maj. Gen. John Batiste, Maj. Gen. John Riggs and Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr. have courageously faced the facts of the war they commanded, and why Rumsfeld must go.

The outstanding quote of this whole episode, almost Shakespearean in its sense, comes from Gen. Newbold: “My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions – or bury the results.”

And that is why – most important of all – Rumsfeld and his never-serving cronies were able to get us into a war that scholar Zbigniew Brzezinski says has led to the “delegitimization” of America across the world. At this point, this inner Pentagon struggle is magnified to a level where the outcome looms so seriously that whatever light the generals can bring to the struggle can only be applauded.

In short, this case is not only about Pentagon leadership; it is about whether the U.S. military will survive or whether Iraq will mark the last great age of the United States of America.

But let's back up a bit to gain some context on military refusal and recusal, and to explore some of the ideas hovering about behind the generals' acts and accusations.

Military scholar Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic Studies pointed out to me, for instance, that there was a “Title 10” in some of the military authorization bills before Congress at the end of the Cold War. It instructed that members of the Joint Chiefs must provide independent advice to the president and to Congress, to ensure they act as independent advisers and are not under the thumb of the secretary of defense. This law was modeled loosely after Prussian army regulations, military author William Lind told me, where every officer had to put in writing his agreement to policy – or he would be held co-responsible for the outcome.

One would have thought that, after the costly disaster of Vietnam, the military might have headed even more in this direction, but it didn't. Despite all the conferences at war colleges in the late '70s over “Who Lost Vietnam?”, nothing really changed. David Halberstam, the premier writer on the Vietnam War, told me even then: “We saw the message: 'Keep it buttoned up. Your job is to prevent any dissent.' Corps commanders in the Joe Stillwell tradition (the famous American general in Burma whose frankness was legendary) were told they would be 'out.'”

Instead, Cordesman went on: “We've gone almost exactly the same road as Vietnam: from the neo-liberals (who gave us Vietnam) to the neocons of today. From the hated civilians under Robert McNamara to the hated civilians under Rumsfeld.”

And so, when the world is spinning upside down and Walter Reed Hospital is filled with the brave boys and girls from West Virginia and South Carolina and North Dakota, with their bodies blown to bits, and nobody in the White House seems the least bit sorry about it, the administration continues errantly with the same policies. One has to embrace these generals who stepped forward to speak out.

Everything else now becomes tangential to stopping the syndrome: Vietnam, Cambodia, Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, today Iraq, tomorrow perhaps Iran. We must figure out why this magnificent society continues to throw up civilians such as Douglas Feith and how we allow them to get us into these seemingly endless “theoretical wars” or “wars of choice,” where our interests are not in the slightest endangered.

These generals have at least started to put down military stones of integrity in the road that McNamara and Rumsfeld have led us. They have begun the real questioning of America wasting itself in “invented wars,” in which our survival was not remotely at stake.

In this, they deserve our fervent thanks, plus prayers that some lessons finally will be learned.

A Peaceful Call to Arms

By PAUL KANE
Cambridge, Mass.
Op-Ed Contributor
The New York Times
April 20, 2006

THE American public needs to be prepared for what is shaping up to be a clash of colossal proportions between the West and Iran.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt masterfully prepared Americans before the United States entered World War II by initiating a peacetime draft under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940.

Now, President Bush and Congress should reinstitute selective service under a lottery without any deferments.

This single action will send a strong message to three constituencies in the crisis over Iran's nuclear intentions — Iran, outside powers like China and Russia and Americans at home — and perhaps lead to a peaceful resolution.

Iran's leaders and public will see that the United States is serious about ensuring that they never possess a nuclear weapon. The Chinese and Russian governments will see that their diplomatic influence should be exercised sooner rather than later and stop hanging back. But most important, America's elites and ordinary citizens alike will know that they may be called upon for wartime service and sacrifice.

President Bush has the perfect credentials overseas to execute this move, and little political capital at home to lose at this stage. Polls confirm that a wide majority of people in many countries view him and the United States as the major threat to global peace. Why let them down on this count? Go with the flow.

President Ronald Reagan was the past master of using this strategy during the cold war. Reagan capitalized on his image as the madman at the helm to keep the Russians off balance, using the signs of war to dissuade our foes and avert actual war. President Bush should take a page from Reagan's playbook.

Iran's leaders are highly sensitive to Iranian public attitudes about the nuclear program. That, at least, is the impression one gets from a speech given behind closed doors to Iran's Supreme Cultural Revolution Council by Hassan Rowhani, the former chief nuclear negotiator with the Europeans. In the text of his remarks published last year by an Iranian policy journal, Mr. Rowhani said the nuclear issue had already created too many headlines, and that "whatever we do, we must have the support of the public."

Engaging Iranian public opinion at a deeper level can only enhance the prospects for a peaceful settlement. By signaling to Iranians that the cost of a clandestine nuclear program will be expensive — in blood, treasure, time and standing — reinstitution of selective national service in the United States will alter the calculus of the crisis with Iran.

As it now stands, we have an American administration that is determined to deny the Iranians nuclear weapons but needs time to effect regime change in Tehran. Iran's hard-line leadership, meanwhile, needs time to solve the technological challenge of enriching enough uranium to make an atomic bomb.

Unfortunately, with time in short supply for both sides, the clash of national wills is escalating, and a military conflict seems more likely.

President Bush should therefore consult with Congress about reinstituting selective national service by lottery for all young males and females. After 9/11, President Bush missed an opportunity to ask America's citizenry to make sacrifices in the form of military service, homeland defense and conservation that many would have accepted. Instead, he asked people to continue shopping to prop up the flagging economy.

We should not fumble the opportunity now to begin selective service again, while the Iranians and others are watching. It may be our last best chance to avoid war with Iran.

Paul Kane, a Marine who served in Iraq and a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, is writing a book about national service and sacrifice.

A Lobby, Not a Conspiracy

By TONY JUDT
Op-Ed Contributor
The New York Times
April 19, 2006

IN its March 23rd issue the London Review of Books, a respected British journal, published an essay titled "The Israel Lobby." The authors are two distinguished American academics (Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago) who posted a longer (83-page) version of their text on the Web site of Harvard's Kennedy School.

As they must have anticipated, the essay has run into a firestorm of vituperation and refutation. Critics have charged that their scholarship is shoddy and that their claims are, in the words of the columnist Christopher Hitchens, "slightly but unmistakably smelly." The smell in question, of course, is that of anti-Semitism.

This somewhat hysterical response is regrettable. In spite of its provocative title, the essay draws on a wide variety of standard sources and is mostly uncontentious. But it makes two distinct and important claims. The first is that uncritical support for Israel across the decades has not served America's best interests. This is an assertion that can be debated on its merits. The authors' second claim is more controversial: American foreign policy choices, they write, have for years been distorted by one domestic pressure group, the "Israel Lobby."

Some would prefer, when explaining American actions overseas, to point a finger at the domestic "energy lobby." Others might blame the influence of Wilsonian idealism, or imperial practices left over from the cold war. But that a powerful Israel lobby exists could hardly be denied by anyone who knows how Washington works. Its core is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, its penumbra a variety of national Jewish organizations.

Does the Israel Lobby affect our foreign policy choices? Of course — that is one of its goals. And it has been rather successful: Israel is the largest recipient of American foreign aid and American responses to Israeli behavior have been overwhelmingly uncritical or supportive.

But does pressure to support Israel distort American decisions? That's a matter of judgment. Prominent Israeli leaders and their American supporters pressed very hard for the invasion of Iraq; but the United States would probably be in Iraq today even if there had been no Israel lobby. Is Israel, in Mearsheimer/Walt's words, "a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states?" I think it is; but that too is an issue for legitimate debate.

The essay and the issues it raises for American foreign policy have been prominently dissected and discussed overseas. In America, however, it's been another story: virtual silence in the mainstream media. Why? There are several plausible explanations. One is that a relatively obscure academic paper is of little concern to general-interest readers. Another is that claims about disproportionate Jewish public influence are hardly original — and debate over them inevitably attracts interest from the political extremes. And then there is the view that Washington is anyway awash in "lobbies" of this sort, pressuring policymakers and distorting their choices.

Each of these considerations might reasonably account for the mainstream press's initial indifference to the Mearsheimer-Walt essay. But they don't convincingly explain the continued silence even after the article aroused stormy debate in the academy, within the Jewish community, among the opinion magazines and Web sites, and in the rest of the world. I think there is another element in play: fear. Fear of being thought to legitimize talk of a "Jewish conspiracy"; fear of being thought anti-Israel; and thus, in the end, fear of licensing the expression of anti-Semitism.

The end result — a failure to consider a major issue in public policy — is a great pity. So what, you may ask, if Europeans debate this subject with such enthusiasm? Isn't Europe a hotbed of anti-Zionists (read anti-Semites) who will always relish the chance to attack Israel and her American friend? But it was David Aaronovitch, a Times of London columnist who, in the course of criticizing Mearsheimer and Walt, nonetheless conceded that "I sympathize with their desire for redress, since there has been a cock-eyed failure in the U.S. to understand the plight of the Palestinians."

And it was the German writer Christoph Bertram, a longstanding friend of America in a country where every public figure takes extraordinary care to tread carefully in such matters, who wrote in Die Zeit that "it is rare to find scholars with the desire and the courage to break taboos."

How are we to explain the fact that it is in Israel itself that the uncomfortable issues raised by Professors Mearsheimer and Walt have been most thoroughly aired? It was an Israeli columnist in the liberal daily Haaretz who described the American foreign policy advisers Richard Perle and Douglas Feith as "walking a fine line between their loyalty to American governments ...and Israeli interests." It was Israel's impeccably conservative Jerusalem Post that described Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, as "devoutly pro-Israel." Are we to accuse Israelis, too, of "anti-Zionism"?

The damage that is done by America's fear of anti-Semitism when discussing Israel is threefold. It is bad for Jews: anti-Semitism is real enough (I know something about it, growing up Jewish in 1950's Britain), but for just that reason it should not be confused with political criticisms of Israel or its American supporters. It is bad for Israel: by guaranteeing it unconditional support, Americans encourage Israel to act heedless of consequences. The Israeli journalist Tom Segev described the Mearsheimer-Walt essay as "arrogant" but also acknowledged ruefully: "They are right. Had the United States saved Israel from itself, life today would be better ...the Israel Lobby in the United States harms Israel's true interests."

BUT above all, self-censorship is bad for the United States itself. Americans are denying themselves participation in a fast-moving international conversation. Daniel Levy (a former Israeli peace negotiator) wrote in Haaretz that the Mearsheimer-Walt essay should be a wake-up call, a reminder of the damage the Israel lobby is doing to both nations. But I would go further. I think this essay, by two "realist" political scientists with no interest whatsoever in the Palestinians, is a straw in the wind.

Looking back, we shall see the Iraq war and its catastrophic consequences as not the beginning of a new democratic age in the Middle East but rather as the end of an era that began in the wake of the 1967 war, a period during which American alignment with Israel was shaped by two imperatives: cold-war strategic calculations and a new-found domestic sensitivity to the memory of the Holocaust and the debt owed to its victims and survivors.

For the terms of strategic debate are shifting. East Asia grows daily in importance. Meanwhile our clumsy failure to re-cast the Middle East — and its enduring implications for our standing there — has come into sharp focus. American influence in that part of the world now rests almost exclusively on our power to make war: which means in the end that it is no influence at all. Above all, perhaps, the Holocaust is passing beyond living memory. In the eyes of a watching world, the fact that an Israeli soldier's great-grandmother died in Treblinka will not excuse his own misbehavior.

Thus it will not be self-evident to future generations of Americans why the imperial might and international reputation of the United States are so closely aligned with one small, controversial Mediterranean client state. It is already not at all self-evident to Europeans, Latin Americans, Africans or Asians. Why, they ask, has America chosen to lose touch with the rest of the international community on this issue? Americans may not like the implications of this question. But it is pressing. It bears directly on our international standing and influence; and it has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. We cannot ignore it.

Tony Judt is the director of the Remarque Institute at New York University and the author of "Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945."

A Case For Accountability

By John Batiste
Washington Post
April 19, 2006

We have the best military in the world, hands down. We must complete what we started in Iraq, and there is no doubt in my mind that we have the military capacity to do that, provided the political will is there. Our success in Iraq is due to the incredible performance of our servicemen and women. I believe that I have an obligation and a duty to speak out.

I had the opportunity to observe high-level policy formulation in the Pentagon and experience firsthand its impact on the ground. I have concluded that we need new leadership in the Defense Department because of a pattern of poor strategic decisions and a leadership style that is contemptuous, dismissive, arrogant and abusive. This dismissive attitude has frayed long-standing alliances with our allies inside and outside NATO, alliances that are fundamental to our security and to building strong coalitions. It is time to hold our leaders accountable. A leader is responsible for everything an organization does or fails to do. It is time to address the axis of arrogance and the reinforcing of strategic failures in decision-making.

We went to war with the wrong war plan. Senior civilian leadership chose to radically alter the results of 12 years of deliberate and continuous war planning, which was improved and approved, year after year, by previous secretaries of defense, all supported by their associated chairmen and Joint Chiefs of Staffs. Previous planning identified the need for up to three times the troop strength we committed to remove the regime in Iraq and set the conditions for peace there. Building the peace is a tough business; for a host of reasons, it requires boots on the ground.

Our current leadership decided to discount professional military advice and ignore more than a decade of competent military planning. It failed to consider military lessons learned, while displaying ignorance of the tribal, ethnic and religious complexities that have always defined Iraq. We took down a regime but failed to provide the resources to build the peace. The shortage of troops never allowed commanders on the ground to deal properly with the insurgency and the unexpected. What could have been a deliberate victory is now a long, protracted challenge.

The national embarrassment of Abu Ghraib can be traced right back to strategic policy decisions. We provided young and often untrained and poorly led soldiers with ambiguous rules for prisoner treatment and interrogation. We challenged commanders with insufficient troop levels, which put them in the position of managing shortages rather than leading, planning and anticipating mission requirements. The tragedy of Abu Ghraib should have been no surprise to any of us.

We disbanded the Iraqi military. This created unbelievable chaos, which we were in no position to control, and gave the insurgency a huge source of manpower, weapons and military experience. Previous thinking associated with war planning depended on the Iraqi military to help build the peace. Retaining functioning institutions is critical in the rebuilding process. We failed to do this.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claims to be the man who started the Army's transformation. This is not true. Army transformation started years before this administration came into office. The secretary's definition of transformation was to reduce the Army to between five and seven divisions to fund programs in missile defense, space defense and high-tech weapons. The war on terrorism disrupted his work, and the Army remains under-resourced at a time when it is shouldering most of the war effort. Boots on the ground and high-tech weapons are important, and one cannot come at the expense of the other.

Civilian control of the military is fundamental, but we deserve competent leaders who do not lead by intimidation, who understand that respect is a two-way street, and who do not dismiss sound military advice. At the same time, we need senior military leaders who are grounded in the fundamental principles of war and who are not afraid to do the right thing. Our democracy depends on it. There are some who advocate that we gag this debate, but let me assure you that it is not in our national interest to do so. We must win this war, and we cannot allow senior leaders to continue to make decisions when their track record is so dismal.

For all these reasons, we need to hold leaders accountable. There is no question that we will succeed in Iraq. To move forward, we need a leader with the character and skills necessary to lead. To date, this war has been a strategic failure. On the ground, operationally and tactically, we are winning the war on the backs of our great soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and their families. Americans deserve accountability in our leaders. We need a fresh start.

The writer, a retired Army major general, commanded the First U.S. Infantry Division in Iraq. He is now president of Klein Steel Service Inc. in Rochester, N.Y.

War Game Will Focus On Situation With Iran

Military takes look at options as tensions rise
By Matt Kelley, USA Today
USA Today
April 19, 2006

WASHINGTON — Amid rising tensions between the United States and Iran over the future of Iran's nuclear program, the Pentagon is planning a war game in July so officials can explore options for a crisis involving Iran.

The July 18 exercise at National Defense University's National Strategic Gaming Center will include members of Congress and top officials from military and civilian agencies. It was scheduled in August, before the latest escalation in the conflict, university spokesman Dave Thomas said.

It's the latest example of how otherwise routine operations are helping the United States prepare for a possible military confrontation with Iran. On Tuesday, President Bush refused to rule out military action — even a nuclear strike — to stop Iran's nuclear program.

“All options are on the table,” Bush said in the Rose Garden.

The exercise is one of five scheduled this year, including others envisioning an avian influenza pandemic and a crisis in Pakistan. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld started the exercises involving members of Congress in 2002 to help the legislative and executive branches discuss policy options.

Such exercises do not involve military members simulating combat. Instead, officials gather for a daylong conference and discuss how to react to various events presented in a fictional scenario.

Prodded by the United States, the United Nations Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all uranium-enrichment activities by April 28. Last week, Iran said it has mastered the technology to make fuel that could be used for power plants or bombs, but it insists its nuclear program is only meant to generate electricity. The United States and its allies say Iran is working to build nuclear weapons.

The July exercise may have real-world consequences since Iran could interpret it as evidence the United States plans to attack, said Khalid al-Rodhan, an Iran expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Anything the U.S. will do in the region will be seen as further provocation,” al-Rodhan said. “Given what's happening in Iraq, it's clear the Iranians are afraid of U.S. intentions.”

In the meantime, the Pentagon is also collecting and interpreting photos and other intelligence data about Iran's facilities, developing weapons to attack hardened targets and laying the policy groundwork for a possible strike, Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, said in recent congressional testimony.

For example, the Department of Defense has announced several initiatives to destroy deeply buried facilities such as those used by Iran's nuclear program.

They include:

*Replacing the nuclear warheads on some submarine-launched Trident missiles with conventional explosives. The Pentagon asked Congress for $503 million next year to begin that program.

*Putting hardened tips on existing missiles to help them penetrate further into earth or concrete.

*Setting off a huge explosion to gather data for efforts to improve bunker-busting bombs. In the test, the military's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) plans to set off 700 tons of explosives in the Nevada desert to gather data on how to hit buried targets.

The June 2 test is meant to help solve the problems posed by hardened weapons sites in nations like Iran and North Korea, DTRA head James Tegnalia says.

July's war game will be the first on Iran to involve members of Congress, but several other military exercises have focused on Iran. Last week, for example, the British military confirmed a London newspaper's report that it joined the United States in a July 2004 war game involving Iran at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. A report in The Guardian said U.S. and British officers played out a scenario involving a fictitious country called “Korona” with borders and military capabilities corresponding with Iran's.

Similarly, a 2003 Marine Corps planning document envisioned a conflict in 2015 with Korona, again a country corresponding to Iran.

A 2004 war game coordinated by the Army's Training and Doctrine Command featured an invasion of “Nair,” another Iran equivalent.

The Generals' Revolt

There are many reasons for Donald Rumsfeld to leave. Finger-pointing by retired officers shouldn't be one.
The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A18

PRESIDENT BUSH'S stubborn support for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has compounded U.S. troubles in Iraq, prevented a remedy for the criminal mistreatment of foreign detainees and worsened relations with a host of allies. Now it is deepening the domestic political hole in which the president is mired. Half a dozen senior retired generals have publicly criticized Mr. Rumsfeld, touching off another damaging and distracting controversy at a critical moment in the war. Thanks in part to his previous misjudgments, Mr. Bush has no easy way out.

Mr. Bush would have been wise to accept Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation when he offered it nearly two years ago. At that time it was clear that the defense secretary was directly responsible for the policy of abuse toward detainees that resulted in the shocking Abu Ghraib photographs, as well as far worse offenses against detainees. By then, too, Mr. Rumsfeld's contributions to growing trouble in Iraq were evident: his self-defeating insistence on minimizing the number of troops; his resistance to recognizing and responding to emerging threats, such as the postwar looting and the Sunni insurgency; his rejection of nation-building, which fatally slowed the creation of a new political order. Had Mr. Bush replaced Mr. Rumsfeld in 2004, the administration might have avoided the defense secretary's subsequent and similar mistakes, such as his slowness to acknowledge the emerging threat of Shiite militias and death squads last year.

The president's signal failure to hold his defense chief accountable no doubt has helped to produce the extraordinary -- and troubling -- eruption of public discontent from the retired generals. A couple of those who have spoken out, including retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of U.S. Central Command, opposed the war all along, but three others served in top positions in Iraq. Much of their analysis strikes us as solid -- but the rebellion is problematic nonetheless. It threatens the essential democratic principle of military subordination to civilian control -- the more so because a couple of the officers claim they are speaking for some still on active duty. Anyone who protested the pushback of uniformed military against President Bill Clinton's attempt to allow gays to serve ought to also object to generals who criticize the decisions of a president and his defense secretary in wartime. If they are successful in forcing Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation, they will set an ugly precedent. Will future defense secretaries have to worry about potential rebellions by their brass, and will they start to choose commanders according to calculations of political loyalty?

In our view Mr. Rumsfeld's failures should have led to his departure long ago. But he should not be driven out by a revolt of generals, retired or not.

General Bush's lose-lose Iranian war options

Andrew Sullivan
The Sunday Times (UK)
April 16, 2006

There is something unreal about the bellicose statements coming from some sources in the Bush administration towards Iran.

On their face, they make a kind of sense. In terms of pure military force, the United States probably could do a great deal of damage to Iran’s malevolent attempt to gain nuclear weapons. But so what? The same could have been said about Iraq in 2002.

Yes, the US military did have the capacity to destroy Saddam’s regime. And it did so in three weeks. The salient question was and is: what then? It appears that the Bush administration never seriously asked that question in advance of war in Iraq and, in a stunning fit of recklessness, never made serious plans for the post- invasion.

I don’t think even Donald Rumsfeld is nuts enough not to ask that question this time with respect to Iran. The military option is much more difficult, of course. Iran learnt from Saddam’s Iraq and has dispersed its nuclear research and development sites across the country. The US cannot invade and occupy two huge countries at the same time.

If US intelligence is as good in Iran as it was in Iraq, the chances of getting all of Iran’s nuclear capacity by aerial bombing must also be close to zero. So the gain would be fleeting. But the costs could be enormous. The most pro-western populace in the Middle East — the Iranian public — could overnight be turned into permanent foes of the West. A bombing campaign could force most Iranians into the arms of the genocidal religious nutcases now running the government.

For good measure, we’d probably be faced with oil at nearly $100 a barrel; and the complete disintegration of what’s left of Iraq, as the Iranian-allied Shi’ite militias turned on US forces. But there’s another factor that makes a military attack on Iran a dangerous option for the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld axis. That factor is America itself.

What we’ve seen in the past few months is a cratering of support for the president. The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll confirms the pattern: 60% disapprove of Bush’s performance and 38% approve. But when you look more closely at the numbers, you find something more remarkable. A full 47% of Americans “strongly” disapprove; only 20% “strongly” approve. Half the country, in other words, don’t just disapprove of Bush; they’re furious with him.

His party is even less popular. On Iraq, the Democrats are now narrowly favoured over the Republicans — an astonishing turnaround for a Republican party whose core strength has always been national security.

To give you an idea of the shift, in December 2002, on the issue of terrorism in general, the Republicans had a 61%-25% lead over the Democrats. The numbers are now dead even.

Overall, the Democrats now have a larger poll lead over the Republicans in congressional ratings than at any time since the early 1980s.

What does this have to do with Iran? Well, imagine a scenario in which the president believes he has to bomb — maybe even with low-level nuclear warheads — the nuclear facilities in Iran. Given what we know now, it would be a very tough sell in Congress.

Without United Nations backing and solid allied support, the president would have to ask Americans to trust him — on weapons of mass destruction intelligence and on his skill in war-making. After Iraq, that’s very difficult. Americans do not listen to him any more. And they have discovered that they cannot trust him to get warfare right, or even be candid with them about it.

The president could, of course, argue that he does not need Congress’s permission to launch such a war. Good luck. A huge bombing campaign against a large sovereign country over several weeks is hard to describe by any other term than war. And the constitution clearly gives that decision to Congress. This would not be a sudden, minor mission, constitutionally permissible in emergencies. This would be the gravest decision a president could make. It would have incalculable consequences. It could unleash a wave of terrorism across Iraq and the West. It would put WMDs in the centre of a global conflict. It would alter America’s relations with all its allies and enemies. If Bush decided he could act unilaterally without congressional backing, he could prompt a constitutional crisis.

The polls show potential public backing for military action against Iran. One January poll revealed 57% supported attacking Iran if it continued to get closer to nuclear capability; 33% opposed. I’d bet that once the potential risks and blowback are debated, the gap would narrow.

In the current climate, there’s a real danger that the very debate could intensify divisions within America, with those who strongly oppose Bush refusing to back this president in any other war. An escalating nuclear standoff with Iran could, in other words, unite Iranians behind the Islamists and foment deep rifts in the United States. It’s lose-lose for the West.

Bush might find some allies. Both Senator John McCain and Senator Hillary Clinton have been very hawkish towards Iran — and they are both the presidential frontrunners for their parties.

If the Democrats take back the house or Senate, they might, ironically, feel more responsible for national security and more open to military action. All this is possible and might make some kind of attack on Iran more palatable. No level-headed person, after all, wants the Iranian regime to get nukes.

The odds, however, are stacked against Bush. When you’ve lost your own country, it’s hard to launch a war against another one. Realistically, this president can try to stall Iran as much as possible until a successor emerges who might have more credibility.

The trouble with narrowly re-electing incompetents in wartime is that, when the 51% who voted for him get buyers’ remorse, and the 49% who voted against him are angrier than ever, it becomes all but impossible for a president to gain the national unity necessary to fight and win.

And so we wait for McCain. And pray.