Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

AP, Iran Says God Protects Nuclear Program - washingtonpost.com, Feb. 17, 2008

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Sunday that God would punish Iranians if they do not support the country’s disputed nuclear program, state radio reported.

“The Iranian people openly announce that they will defend their rights… God will reprimand them if they do not do so,” state radio quoted Khamenei as saying.

The 68-year-old ayatollah, who has final say on all state matters, said Washington’s claim that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon is false. The Iranian government has long insisted its nuclear activities are only for peaceful generation of fuel.

Argentina: Iran behind bombs at Israeli embassy, Jewish center - Haaretz, December 8, 2007

Iran was behind the bombings over a decade ago in Argentina against the Israeli embassy and Jewish community center, according to the country’s chief prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, who served as a special prosecutor investigating the attacks.

“I have no doubt that the most senior Iranian leadership, with the help of Hezbollah, is responsible for the attacks in Buenos Aires against AMIA [the community center in 1994] and the Israeli Embassy [in 1992],” Nisman said Tuesday night at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism of the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.

While investigating the two attacks, Nisman found the necessary legal evidence pointing directly to former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani and his chief of intelligence, Ali Falahian, for their role in the decision to target the community center.

Norman Podhoretz, Dark Suspicions about the NIE, Commentary » Blog Archive, December 3, 2007

I must confess to suspecting that the intelligence community, having been excoriated for supporting the then universal belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, is now bending over backward to counter what has up to now been a similarly universal view (including as is evident from the 2005 NIE, within the intelligence community itself) that Iran is hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons. I also suspect that, having been excoriated as well for minimizing the time it would take Saddam to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal, the intelligence community is now bending over backward to maximize the time it will take Iran to reach the same goal.But I entertain an even darker suspicion. It is that the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again. This time the purpose is to head off the possibility that the President may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations.

Ignatius, The Spy Who Wants Israel to Talk, WP, Nov. 11, 2007

JERUSALEM — Efraim Halevy, the former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, titled his memoirs “Man in the Shadows.” But now that he’s out in the sunlight, the 72-year-old retired spy chief has some surprisingly contrarian things to say about Iran and Syria. The gist of his message is that rather than constantly ratcheting up the rhetoric of confrontation, the United States and Israel should be looking for ways to establish a creative dialogue with these adversaries.

Halevy is a legendary figure in Israel because of his nearly 40 years of service as an intelligence officer, culminating in his years as Mossad’s director from 1998 to 2003. He managed Israel’s secret relationship with Jordan for more than a decade, and he became so close to King Hussein that the two personally negotiated the 1994 agreement paving the way for a peace treaty. So when Halevy talks about the utility of secret diplomacy, he knows whereof he speaks.

Of course, Halevy looks like the fictional master spy George Smiley — thinning hair, wise but weary eyes, the rumpled manner of someone who might have been a professor in another life. And Halevy has the gift of anonymity: You would look right past him in a crowded room, never imagining that he was the man who had conducted daring secret missions. After he appeared here with former CIA director George Tenet at a conference sponsored by the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center, Halevy agreed to sit down for an interview.

Halevy suggests that Israel should stop its jeremiads that Iran poses an existential threat to the Jewish state. The rhetoric is wrong, he contends, and it gets in the way of finding a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear problem.

“I believe that Israel is indestructible,” he insists. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may boast that he wants to wipe Israel off the map, but Iran’s ability to consummate this threat is “minimal,” he says.

Iran seeks 3 million Shiite pilgrims into Iraq a year, Reuters, November 22, 2007

BAGHDAD Reuters - Iran is pressing Iraq to increase six-fold the number of Shiite pilgrims from Iran allowed to visit Iraqs holy sites, a move that could deepen ties between historical foes, the government said on Thursday.

Mohammed Abbas al-Aribi, Iraqs acting tourism and antiquities minister, discussed religious pilgrims at a meeting with Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, a government statement said.

About 500,000 Shiite pilgrims from Iran visit Iraq every year, the statement said, many of whom go to the Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas shrines in Kerbala, two of the holiest sites for Shiite Muslims, and the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf.

“We want to bring that to three million,” Kazemi-Qomi said, according to the statement. He said Iran hoped to sign an agreement increasing the number of Iranian pilgrims permitted into Iraq every day from 1,500 to 2,500.

Leon Hadar, Look Who’s Downplaying Iran’s Nuclear Threat, AW, 11/22/2007

Indeed, according to a report published in Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a few months ago in a series of closed discussions with other top Israeli officials that in her opinion Iranian nuclear weapons “do not pose an existential threat to Israel” (Ha’aretz, “Livni behind Closed Doors,” October 25, 2007). In their report, which received very little attention in the United States, Gidi Weitz and Na’ama Lanski noted that “Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb,” claiming that he was “attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears.” Mmm … sound familiar?

Ha’aretz also reported in October that former Mossad Chief Efraim Halevy told an audience that even if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, it would not pose an “existential” threat to Israel. During a lecture last month in Jerusalem, Halevy – who, like Livni, is regarded as a “hawk” on Israeli security – said that “the State of Israel cannot be destroyed” if Iran went nuclear. He also called on the government to follow Washington’s lead and offer Iran a diplomatic option as part of a strategy to foil Tehran’s nuclear plan.

Chavez warning opens Opec summit, BBC, November 17, 2007

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has warned oil prices could double if the US attacks Iran.

Opening the summit of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), he said said the price of crude could reach $150 or even $200 a barrel.

Oil has been hitting record peaks of well over $90 a barrel as markets believe Opec will not boost production.

The Opec summit in Saudi Arabia is only the organisation’s third in 47 years.

Mr Chavez kicked off the summit with a blistering attack on the US.

“If the United States was mad enough to attack Iran or aggress Venezuela again the price of a barrel of oil could reach $150 or even $200,” he said.

‘And then what?’, FT, November 12, 2007

“There is no doubt that an element in the government wants to strike Iran,” says retired General Joseph Hoar, a former head of Centcom, making an apparent allusion to Mr Cheney. “But the good news is that the secretary of defence and senior military are against it.”

Anthony Zinni, another former Centcom chief, says even a limited American attack could push Tehran to retaliate in a number of ways, such as firing missiles at Israel, Saudi oilfields and US bases in Iraq, mining the Straits of Hormuz and activating sleeper terrorist cells around the world. “It is not a matter of a one-strike option,” he says, voicing his worries that Iranian retaliation could pull America into a protracted conflict on the ground. “It is the classic question of ‘And then what?’”

Gen Zinni issued similar warnings before the war in Iraq and was paid little heed. But this time things are different. In particular, a number of the military’s most experienced officers echo his misgivings.

“We’re in a conflict in two countries out there right now,” Admiral Mike Mullen, the new chairman of the joint chiefs, told the New York Times last month. “We have to be incredibly thoughtful about the potential of in fact getting into a conflict with a third country in that part of the world.”

Gen Hoar casts doubt on the effectiveness of any attack, arguing that the US military may not have the “proper” weapons to destroy deeply buried sites and that Washington lacks good intelligence on Iran’s nuclear sites, including the existence of any clandestine facilities.

Ignatius - The Spy Who Wants Israel to Talk - washingtonpost.com

JERUSALEM — Efraim Halevy, the former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, titled his memoirs “Man in the Shadows.” But now that he’s out in the sunlight, the 72-year-old retired spy chief has some surprisingly contrarian things to say about Iran and Syria. The gist of his message is that rather than constantly ratcheting up the rhetoric of confrontation, the United States and Israel should be looking for ways to establish a creative dialogue with these adversaries.

Halevy is a legendary figure in Israel because of his nearly 40 years of service as an intelligence officer, culminating in his years as Mossad’s director from 1998 to 2003. He managed Israel’s secret relationship with Jordan for more than a decade, and he became so close to King Hussein that the two personally negotiated the 1994 agreement paving the way for a peace treaty. So when Halevy talks about the utility of secret diplomacy, he knows whereof he speaks.

Krugman, Fearing Fear Itself, New York Times, November 2, 2007

Mr. Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a founding neoconservative, tells us that Iran is the “main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11.” The Islamofascists, he tells us, are well on their way toward creating a world “shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes.” Indeed, “Already, some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia.”

Do I have to point out that none of this makes a bit of sense?

For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.

Zakaria: Hysteria Over Iran | Newsweek Voices - Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek.com, posted October 20, 2007, October 29, 2007 issue

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is “like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism.” For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland’s and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan » Blog Archive » Give Fareed Zakaria a Medal!, October 31, 2007

Fareed Zakaria deserves a medal for breaking with the mainstream media pack to slap down, with the requisite rudeness, the hysteria over Iran being manufactured by the neocons, opportunist Israeli politicians and the Bush Administration. Perhaps stung by having participated in a secret Bush Administration policy discussion to help shape the Iraq war policy before the invasion, Zakaria is acting with honor now to prevent another disaster. This while much of the rest of the media is futzing around asking the wrong questions on Iran and getting the answers that only the wrong questions can produce. Exhibit A: The Washington Post editorial suggesting that the only “alternative” to harsh new sanctions that most of the international community opposes is war, and then scolding “those who say they oppose military action — including a couple of the second-tier Democratic presidential candidates — to portray the sanctions initiative as a buildup to war by Mr. Bush. We’ve seen no evidence that the president has decided on war, and it’s clear that many senior administration officials understand the package as the best way to avoid military action. It is not they but those who oppose tougher sanctions who make war with Iran more likely.”

If and when a war with Iran, with all its terrible consequences that leaves many thousands dead and the U.S. in an even weaker position than it is now, those looking for explanations will do well to remember how their media failed them — with some honorable exceptions. Of course, the hysteria is being fed by the fact that it’s an election season here, and a bunch of mediocre candidates is trying to outdo one another by talking tough on Iran, which, as CNN tells us, has become the new Iraq as far as the presidential campaign is concerned.

Livni behind closed doors: Iranian nuclear arms pose little threat to Israel - Haaretz, October 25, 2007

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a few months ago in a series of closed discussions that in her opinion that Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel, Haaretz magazine reveals in an article on Livni to be published tomorrow.

Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears. Last week, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy said similar things about Iran.

Martin van Creveld, The World Can Live With a Nuclear Iran - Forward.com, September 24, 2007

Iran may indeed have some Shihab III missiles with the range to hit Israel, but their number is limited and their reliability uncertain. Should the missiles carry conventional warheads, then militarily speaking the effect will probably be close to zero. Should they carry unconventional ones, then Iran — to quote former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, speaking not long before the first Gulf war — will open itself to “awesome and terrible retaliation.”

Iran’s other options are either to stir up trouble in the Gulf or to launch terrorist attacks in the West. Trouble in the Gulf will cause the price of oil to skyrocket, but it will not save Iran from being heavily bombed.

Terrorist attacks are certainly possible. However, their strategic impact will be close to zero. After all, the September 11 attacks — the largest such attack of all time — did not diminish the capability of the American armed forces by one iota.

In case Bush does decide to attack Iran, it is questionable whether Iran’s large, well-dispersed and well-camouflaged nuclear program can really be knocked out. This is all the more doubtful because, in contrast to the Israeli attacks on Iraq back in 1981 and on Syria three weeks ago, the element of surprise will be lacking. And even if it can be done, whether doing so will serve a useful purpose is also questionable.

Since 1945 hardly one year has gone by in which some voices — mainly American ones concerned about preserving Washington’s monopoly over nuclear weapons to the greatest extent possible — did not decry the terrible consequences that would follow if additional countries went nuclear. So far, not one of those warnings has come true. To the contrary: in every place where nuclear weapons were introduced, large-scale wars between their owners have disappeared.

General John Abizaid, the former commander of United States Central Command, is only the latest in a long list of experts to argue that the world can live with a nuclear Iran. Their views deserve to be carefully considered, lest Ahmadinejad’s fear-driven posturing cause anybody to do something stupid.

Ganji: “Difficult Days” for Iranian Democracy Activists - The Middle East Blog - TIME, September 24, 2007

Ganji, a journalist who spent six years in prison for criticizing state repression, starts out with a strong rebuke of U.S. foreign policy toward Iran spanning the last 50 years. Writing “we categorically reject a military attack on Iran,” Ganji blasts Bush’s democracy funding and talk of attacking Iran for actually undercutting the credibility and work of Iranian democracy activists. He complains that Iran’s dispute with the West has deflected the U.N.’s attention from Iran’s internal repression and asks the world to condemn the regime’s human rights violations.