Culture and International Affairs

NPR--U.N. Atomic Agency to Visit Iran for New Probe

2012-01-27T13:57:00.000-08:00

National Public Radio once again tonight in a story about Iran's nuclear program trotted out Leonard Spector to provide evidence that Iran is creating a nuclear weapon.

I debated him on line late last year. I repeat the link to that debate in which I counter his questionable evidence.

More at The Real News

There is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. The IAEA knows this, and is unwilling to reveal the source of their "evidence" leading to "suspicions" about Iran's activities. Until they do, Iran has little ability to answer the charges.

Bill Beeman

W. O. Beeman--Commentary on Bill Keller: "Bomb-bomb-bomb, Bomb-bomb Iran" January 23, 2012 (NY Times)

2012-01-23T09:07:00.000-08:00

Here is my commentary on Bill Keller's New York Times column "Bomb-bomb-Bomb, Bomb-Bomb-Iran?" (New York Times, Monday, January 23). My comment is a "pick" of the NY Times editorial board. Keller's article is below my commentary:

How many times do we have to remind ourselves that no one--no one has any proof that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Not the IAEA not our own National Intelligence Estimate, not the Israeli military. Moreover the U.S and its allies have been saying that Iran is one or two years away from making a bomb every year since 1990. Iran has none of the facilities needed to turn its current low enriched uranium into anything weaponizable, nor does it have a delivery system. Even if it had such facilities it would need to test its imaginary weapon, depleting its stockpile of low enriched uranium.

Let's consider that 19 other nations--all signatories like Iran to the NPT--are enriching uranium exactly as Iran is doing. Some, like Japan, have already declared that they intend to make nuclear weapons in the future if they need to. So why aren't we going after these nations with threats, sanctions and plans for carpet bombing? The answer is clear: we are targeting Iran, and using this non-existent issue as an excuse. The reason: a nuclear threat is a plausible excuse for regime change--what the hawks and neocons are really after!

Americans need to wake up and understand that they are being flim-flammed in a huge way. We will wake up in the middle of a massive conflagration and realize that the ideologues did it again--got us into a gigantic foreign conflict that will tie us and the world up for decades over a non-existent threat. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/opinion/keller-bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb-bo mb-iran.html?_r=1

Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, Bomb-Bomb-Iran?

By BILL KELLER
Published: January 22, 2012

O.K., Mr. President, here’s the plan. Sometime in the next few months you order the Department of Defense to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity. Yes, I know it’s an election year, and some people will say this is a cynical rally-round-the-flag move on your part, but a nuclear Iran is a problem that just won’t wait.

Our pre-emptive strike, designated Operation Yes We Can, will entail bombing the yellowcake-conversion plant at Isfahan, the uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordo, the heavy-water reactor at Arak, and various centrifuge-manufacturing sites near Natanz and Tehran. True, the Natanz facility is buried under 30 feet of reinforced concrete and surrounded by air defenses, but our new bunker-buster, the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, will turn the place into bouncing rubble. Fordo is more problematic, built into the side of a mountain, but with enough sorties we can rattle those centrifuges. Excuse me? Does that take care of everything? Um, that we know of.

Civilian casualties? Not a big deal, sir, given the uncanny accuracy of our precision-guided missiles. Iran will probably try to score sympathy points by trotting out dead bodies and wailing widows, but the majority of the victims will be the military personnel, engineers, scientists and technicians working at the facilities. Fair game, in other words.

Critics will say that these surgical strikes could easily spark a full-blown regional war. They will tell you that the Revolutionary Guard — not the most predictable bunch — will lash out against U.S. and allied targets, either directly or through terrorist proxies. And the regime might actually close off the vital oil route through the Strait of Hormuz. Not to worry, Mr. President. We can do much to mitigate these threats. For one thing, we can reassure the Iranian regime that we just want to eliminate their nukes, not overthrow the government — and of course they will take our word for it, if we can figure out how to convey the message to a country with which we have no formal contacts. Maybe post it on Facebook?

To be sure, we could just let the Israelis do the bombing. Their trigger fingers are getting itchier by the day. But they probably can’t do the job thoroughly without us, and we’d get sucked into the aftermath anyway. We might as well do it right and get the credit. Really, sir, what could possibly go wrong?

The scenario above is extracted from an article by Matthew Kroenig in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. (The particulars are Kroenig’s; the mordant attitude is mine.) Kroenig, an academic who spent a year as a fellow at the Obama administration’s Defense Department, apparently aspires to the Strangelovian superhawk role occupied in previous decades by the likes of John Bolton and Richard Perle. His former colleagues at Defense were pretty appalled by his article, which combines the alarmist worst case of the Iranian nuclear threat with the rosiest best case of America’s ability to make things better. (Does this remind you of another pre-emptive war in a country beginning with I?)

This scenario represents one pole in a debate that is the most abused foreign policy issue in this presidential campaign year. The opposite pole, also awful to contemplate, is the prospect of living with a nuclear Iran. In that case, the fear of most American experts is not that Iran would decide to incinerate Israel. (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does a good impression of an evil madman, but Iran is not suicidal.) The more realistic dangers, plenty scary, are that a conventional conflict in that conflict-prone neighborhood would spiral into Armageddon, or that Iran would extend its protective nuclear umbrella over menacing proxies like Hezbollah, or that Arab neighbors would feel obliged to join the nuclear arms race.

For now, American policy lives between these poles of attack and acquiescence, in the realm of uncertain calculation and imperfect options. If you want to measure your next president against a hellish dilemma, here’s your chance.

In the Republican field we have one candidate (Rick Santorum) who is about as close as you can get to the bomb-sooner-rather-than-later extreme, another (Ron Paul) who is at the let-Iran-be-Iran extreme, and Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are in between. Of particular interest is Romney, who has performed the same rhetorical trick with Iran that he did with health care. That is, he condemns Obama for doing pretty much what Romney would do.

Although much about Iran’s theocracy is murky, a few assumptions are widely accepted by specialists in and out of government.

First, for all its denials, the Iranian regime is determined to acquire nuclear weapons, or at least the capacity to make them quickly in the event of an outside threat. Having a nuclear option is seen as a matter of Persian pride and national survival in the face of enemies (namely us) who the Iranians believe are bent on toppling the Islamic state. The nuclear program is popular in Iran, even with many of the opposition figures admired in the West. The actual state of the program is not entirely clear, but the best open-source estimates are that if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered full-speed-ahead — which there is no sign he has done — they could have an actual weapon in a year or so.

American policy has been consistent through the Bush and Obama administrations: (1) a declaration that a nuclear Iran is “unacceptable”; (2) a combination of sticks (sanctions) and carrots (supplies of nuclear fuel suitable for domestic industrial needs in exchange for forgoing weapons); (3) unfettered international inspections; (4) a refusal to take military options off the table; (5) a concerted effort to restrain Israel from attacking Iran unilaterally — beyond the Israelis’ presumed campaign to slow Iran’s progress by sabotage and assassination; and (6) a wish that Iran’s hard-liners could be replaced by a more benign regime, tempered by a realization that there is very little we can do to make that happen. This is also the gist of Romney’s Iran playbook, for all his bluster about Obama the appeaser.

In practice, Obama’s policy promises to be tougher than Bush’s. Because Obama started out with an offer of direct talks — which the Iranians foolishly spurned — world opinion has shifted in our direction. We may now have sufficient global support to enact the one measure that would be genuinely crippling — a boycott of Iranian oil. The administration and the Europeans, with help from Saudi Arabia, are working hard to persuade such major Iranian oil customers as Japan and South Korea to switch suppliers. The Iranians take this threat to their economic livelihood seriously enough that people who follow the subject no longer minimize the chance of a naval confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz. It’s not impossible that we will get war with Iran even without bombing its nuclear facilities.

That’s not the only problem with the current — let’s call it the Obamney — approach to Iran.

The point of tough sanctions, of course, is to force Iranians to the bargaining table, where we can do a deal that removes the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran. (You can find some thoughts on what such a deal might entail on my blog.) But the mistrust is so deep, and the election-year pressure to act with manly resolve is so intense, that it’s hard to imagine the administration would feel free to accept an overture from Tehran. Anything short of a humiliating, unilateral Iranian climb-down would be portrayed by the armchair warriors as an Obama surrender. Likewise, if Israel does decide to strike out on its own, Bibi Netanyahu knows that candidate Obama will feel immense pressure to go along.

That short-term paradox comes wrapped up in a long-term paradox: an attack on Iran is almost certain to unify the Iranian people around the mullahs and provoke the supreme leader to redouble Iran’s nuclear pursuits, only deeper underground this time, and without international inspectors around. Over at the Pentagon, you sometimes hear it put this way: Bombing Iran is the best way to guarantee exactly what we are trying to prevent.

Hooman Majd--Top 5 U.S. misconceptions on Iran (Politico)

2012-01-19T11:17:00.000-08:00

Top 5 U.S. misconceptions on Iran

By: Hooman Majd
January 17, 2012 10:09 PM EST | POLITICO

Commentary by William O. Beeman: Hooman Majd has consistently been a realistic voice on Iran. His article below should be required reading for all persons purporting to claim expertise on Iran or giving advice. I concur with each of his assertions. Ask yourself if you are hearing this information on NPR, PBS, the New York Times or other "reliable" outlets. (Hint: you are not!).

Top five, 10 or 100 lists are standard at the end of the year. Though the Iranian year doesn’t end for roughly two months, given the escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran, with threats and counter threats over the Strait of Hormuz — to say nothing of most GOP presidential candidates’ views on what to do about Iran — it might be useful to compile one on the growing Iran crisis, early 2012 here and late 1390 there:

1) More severe sanctions will eventually cause the regime to blink.

Um, no. Thirty-plus years of sanctions have had no effect on Tehran. None. The regime can’t blink — even if it wanted to. Not after it has spent energy, money and every tool it has convincing its people that the nuclear program is a matter of national pride, that the West wants to prevent Iranians from enjoying the fruits of technological advancement and that their suffering under the sanctions is for the country’s greater good.

The regime’s credibility has already suffered because of the opposition protests in 2009 and 2010. So what would it have left if it caved to foreign demands that even the opposition describes as unreasonable?

2) Increasing sanctions will cause the Iranian people to hate the regime
even more, leading to an uprising against the ayatollahs.

No. The Iranian people may blame their government for economic mismanagement, as well as human-rights abuses — but most won’t blame it for U.S. actions. Similarly, Iranians may blame President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for exacerbating domestic problems or creating problems with the West because of his rhetoric. But they don’t blame him for, say, sanctions that prevent Tehran from buying parts for its aging airplanes, which fall out of the sky with alarming frequency.

Think about it: When a nation is attacked, or under severe external pressure, it usually blames the external enemies, not its own leaders. If you factor in the assassinations of scientists on the streets of Tehran and mysterious factory explosions, sanctions and threats may make life miserable for Iranians but are unlikely to cause them to overthrow their rulers.

3) A spark is all that’s required to ignite protests and a revolution. We
will “stand” with the Iranian people.

Perhaps. And no, we won’t. But the spark cannot be a foreign one.

Iranians have never, in their more than 2,500-year history, taken the side of a foreign invader. Not even the Arabs, who invaded Persia and forced Islam on its people — which they later altered. Guess who hates the Persians more than anyone else? That’s right, the Arabs.

No, if there is change in Iran, it won’t be brought about by foreigners — or wealthy and well-connected Iranians in exile.

Most Iranians don’t believe that Washington “cares” about them or “stands with them.” After Washington’s long friendship with the shah, they’re not naive.

If America cared, Iranians reason, it wouldn’t be so cozy with dictatorships. It “stood” with Hosni Mubarak — until it decided it should “stand” with the Egyptians in Tahrir Square. It “stands” with Saudi Arabia — while Riyadh oppresses its people and sends troops to put down a popular uprising in Bahrain. Iranian TV fetishized the demonstrations and brutal suppression on that island, home of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, much as the Western media fetishized Iran’s Green Movement.

4) Iran is incapable of reaching an agreement with the West over its
nuclear program or its support of terrorism, for it would threaten the
regime’s existence. And Iran is too politically divided to make this
deal.

Many of the West’s Iran analysts and experts, both Iranian and American, assert this. Some purport to know what Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s motivation is. Curious, given that in Iran, few people make that claim — even Iranians I know who actually speak with him.

Iran has repeatedly said that it would negotiate in good faith — as long as it was respected and its rights acknowledged. Tehran’s negotiating style may be radically different from the West’s, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want talks.

Iranians are far slower and more methodical. They maneuver to stall, divide their opponents and extract the maximum concessions from rivals. But Khamenei has repeatedly said that he is not opposed to relations with the U.S. — they just can’t be solely on Washington’s terms. If they were, that would indeed threaten the regime’s credibility — and survival.

Iran’s internal opposition is also not opposed to a détente with the U.S. This could empower civil society — since it would remove the government’s major excuse for crushing dissent. But Iranians, including any viable opposition, won’t be dictated to by foreigners.

As to the deep divisions among conservatives, including the Ahmadinejad-Khamenei split — it’s still the supreme leader who makes the call on relations with the West and the nuclear program. All Iranian politicians, some of whom hate each other, fall in line.

5) All options are the table.

Let’s stop kidding. No, they’re not. War is neither a joke nor an option. It’s astonishing that politicians and presidential candidates talk about it cavalierly. If the U.S., unilaterally or with allies, attacks Iran, it will be reviled by almost all Iranians — and many others. It doesn’t matter if the attack is “surgical” — designed to minimize collateral damage. Any attack will most likely be viewed by Iranians as an attack on their sovereignty.

They will surely respond — and the response will likely be ugly. Tehran could put nuclear weapons development on a faster track while whatever opposition exists could be extinguished. Any idea of reform will disappear.

There really is only one option in dealing with Iran: negotiations and a deal that allows Iran to maintain its dignity while it de-incentivizes the building of weapons of mass destruction.

But it is difficult to negotiate with Iranians in good faith while increasing sanctions, seeking to block their source of income, assassinating scientists (though the U.S. denies any involvement, Iranians in the regime and the general public remain unconvinced) and announcing that war is an option.

As one high-ranking Iranian official said to me, “We are allergic to threats.”

Hooman Majd is the author of “The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran” and “The Ayatollahs’ Democracy: An Iranian Challenge.” He just returned from a yearlong stay in Tehran and is writing a new book about Iran.

William O. Beeman Commentary on "The Case for Regime Change in Iran" Foreign Affairs January 17, 2012

2012-01-19T10:21:00.000-08:00

The Case for Regime Change in Iran

Commentary on The Case for Regime Change in Iran by William O. Beeman

The Case for Regime Change in Iran
Jamie M. Fly and Gary Schmitt
Foreign Affairs
January 17, 2012

I was struck dumb with incredulity at Jamie Fly and Gary Schmitt's pronouncement favoring regime change in Iran in Foreign Affairs. First, what do these two gentlemen know about Iran? Apparently nothing. The Iranian public is already primed and on a hair trigger expecting that the United States is going to pull another coup like in the 1952 C.I.A. led overthrow of Prime Minister Mosaddeq, building on despised neo-colonialist moves from Russia and Great Britain going back to the 19th Century. That perception of American hegemony is what precipitated the hostage crisis of 1979-80.

Anyone who came to power now with the help of the US would immediately be cultural poison to the Iranians. They might endure for a little while, but they would eventually be toppled themselves. This is why the Iranian opposition tells U.S. sympathizers: "Keep your hands off!" They know that the taint of U.S. involvement will doom anything they might do to eventual failure.

This doesn't even address the absurdity of trying to effect "regime change" in the first place in Iran. This Cold War fantasy is unrealistic on a practical level. The Iranians were well aware of the dangers of having a narrow power structure at the top at the time of the Revolution of 1978-79. Therefore they ensconced the most intricate set of interlocking leadership positions one could ever imagine in their constitution. Clearly the authors of this piece have not done minimal homework to ascertain this basic fact.

There is not one Iranian supreme leader in Iran, there are about 150 power brokers at multiple stages of government. Knocking off a few of them will never topple the government.

This article would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous. The right wing will be touting it tomorrow as "proof" of the value of a military strategy against Iran. When the hawks are out screaming for attacks on Iran on the campaign trail as a cheap sop to naive voters, this is very dire indeed. That a respected journal would print such unmitigated nonsense is a sign of the depths of ignorance to which we have fallen in our assessment of Iran.

FALSE FLAG--How Mossad posed as CIA to recruit terrorists to attack Iran

2012-01-15T22:39:00.000-08:00

False Flag

A series of CIA memos describes how Israeli Mossad agents posed as American spies to recruit members of the terrorist organization Jundallah to fight their covert war against Iran.

BY MARK PERRY | JANUARY 13, 2012

Commentary by William O. Beeman: People wonder why Iran keeps accusing people of being "spies." The reason is that there are real spies in Iran from Israel and likely from the United States. At least four Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated, and Mossad and the CIA are suspected of being behind these murders. This story demonstrates how Mossad recruited Baluchi resistance groups to act against the Iranian government by pretending to be US Agents.This was even too much for the George W. Bush administration.

Buried deep in the archives of America's intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush's administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives -- what is commonly referred to as a "false flag" operation.
The memos, as described by the sources, one of whom has read them and another who is intimately familiar with the case, investigated and debunked reports from 2007 and 2008 accusing the CIA, at the direction of the White House, of covertly supporting Jundallah -- a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization. Jundallah, according to the U.S. government and published reports, is responsible for assassinating Iranian government officials and killing Iranian women and children.
But while the memos show that the United States had barred even the most incidental contact with Jundallah, according to both intelligence officers, the same was not true for Israel's Mossad. The memos also detail CIA field reports saying that Israel's recruiting activities occurred under the nose of U.S. intelligence officers, most notably in London, the capital of one of Israel's ostensible allies, where Mossad officers posing as CIA operatives met with Jundallah officials.
The officials did not know whether the Israeli program to recruit and use Jundallah is ongoing. Nevertheless, they were stunned by the brazenness of the Mossad's efforts.
"It's amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with," the intelligence officer said. "Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn't give a damn what we thought."
Interviews with six currently serving or recently retired intelligence officers over the last 18 months have helped to fill in the blanks of the Israeli false-flag operation. In addition to the two currently serving U.S. intelligence officers, the existence of the Israeli false-flag operation was confirmed to me by four retired intelligence officers who have served in the CIA or have monitored Israeli intelligence operations from senior positions inside the U.S. government.
The CIA and the White House were both asked for comment on this story. By the time this story went to press, they had not responded. The Israeli intelligence services -- the Mossad -- were also contacted, in writing and by telephone, but failed to respond. As a policy, Israel does not confirm or deny its involvement in intelligence operations.
There is no denying that there is a covert, bloody, and ongoing campaign aimed at stopping Iran's nuclear program, though no evidence has emerged connecting recent acts of sabotage and killings inside Iran to Jundallah. Many reports have cited Israel as the architect of this covert campaign, which claimed its latest victim on Jan. 11 when a motorcyclist in Tehran slipped a magnetic explosive device under the car of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a young Iranian nuclear scientist. The explosion killed Roshan, making him the fourth scientist assassinated in the past two years. The United States adamantly denies it is behind these killings.
According to one retired CIA officer, information about the false-flag operation was reported up the U.S. intelligence chain of command. It reached CIA Director of Operations Stephen Kappes, his deputy Michael Sulick, and the head of the Counterintelligence Center. All three of these officials are now retired. The Counterintelligence Center, according to its website, is tasked with investigating "threats posed by foreign intelligence services."
The report then made its way to the White House, according to the currently serving U.S. intelligence officer. The officer said that Bush "went absolutely ballistic" when briefed on its contents.
"The report sparked White House concerns that Israel's program was putting Americans at risk," the intelligence officer told me. "There's no question that the U.S. has cooperated with Israel in intelligence-gathering operations against the Iranians, but this was different. No matter what anyone thinks, we're not in the business of assassinating Iranian officials or killing Iranian civilians."
Israel's relationship with Jundallah continued to roil the Bush administration until the day it left office, this same intelligence officer noted. Israel's activities jeopardized the administration's fragile relationship with Pakistan, which was coming under intense pressure from Iran to crack down on Jundallah. It also undermined U.S. claims that it would never fight terror with terror, and invited attacks in kind on U.S. personnel.
"It's easy to understand why Bush was so angry," a former intelligence officer said. "After all, it's hard to engage with a foreign government if they're convinced you're killing their people. Once you start doing that, they feel they can do the same."
A senior administration official vowed to "take the gloves off" with Israel, according to a U.S. intelligence officer. But the United States did nothing -- a result that the officer attributed to "political and bureaucratic inertia."
"In the end," the officer noted, "it was just easier to do nothing than to, you know, rock the boat." Even so, at least for a short time, this same officer noted, the Mossad operation sparked a divisive debate among Bush's national security team, pitting those who wondered "just whose side these guys [in Israel] are on" against those who argued that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
The debate over Jundallah was resolved only after Bush left office when, within his first weeks as president, Barack Obama drastically scaled back joint U.S.-Israel intelligence programs targeting Iran, according to multiple serving and retired officers.
The decision was controversial inside the CIA, where officials were forced to shut down "some key intelligence-gathering operations," a recently retired CIA officer confirmed. This action was followed in November 2010 by the State Department's addition of Jundallah to its list of foreign terrorist organizations -- a decision that one former CIA officer called "an absolute no-brainer."
Since Obama's initial order, U.S. intelligence services have received clearance to cooperate with Israel on a number of classified intelligence-gathering operations focused on Iran's nuclear program, according to a currently serving officer. These operations are highly technical in nature and do not involve covert actions targeting Iran's infrastructure or political or military leadership.
"We don't do bang and boom," a recently retired intelligence officer said. "And we don't do political assassinations."
Israel regularly proposes conducting covert operations targeting Iranians, but is just as regularly shut down, according to retired and current intelligence officers. "They come into the room and spread out their plans, and we just shake our heads," one highly placed intelligence source said, "and we say to them -- 'Don't even go there. The answer is no.'"
Unlike the Mujahedin-e Khalq, the controversial exiled Iranian terrorist group that seeks the overthrow of the Tehran regime and is supported by former leading U.S. policymakers, Jundallah is relatively unknown -- but just as violent. In May 2009, a Jundallah suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque in Zahedan, the capital of Iran's southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province bordering Pakistan, during a Shiite religious festival. The bombing killed 25 Iranians and wounded scores of others.
The attack enraged Tehran, which traced the perpetrators to a cell operating in Pakistan. The Iranian government notified the Pakistanis of the Jundallah threat and urged them to break up the movement's bases along the Iranian-Pakistani border. The Pakistanis reacted sluggishly in the border areas, feeding Tehran's suspicions that Jundallah was protected by Pakistan's intelligence services.
The 2009 attack was just one in a long line of terrorist attacks attributed to the organization. In August 2007, Jundallah kidnapped 21 Iranian truck drivers. In December 2008, it captured and executed 16 Iranian border guards -- the gruesome killings were filmed, in a stark echo of the decapitation of American businessman Nick Berg in Iraq at the hands of al Qaeda's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In July 2010, Jundallah conducted a twin suicide bombing in Zahedan outside a mosque, killing dozens of people, including members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The State Department aggressively denies that the U.S. government had or has any ties to Jundallah. "We have repeatedly stated, and reiterate again that the United States has not provided support to Jundallah," a spokesman wrote in an email to the Wall Street Journal, following Jundallah's designation as a terrorist organization. "The United States does not sponsor any form of terrorism. We will continue to work with the international community to curtail support for terrorist organizations and prevent violence against innocent civilians. We have also encouraged other governments to take comparable actions against Jundallah."
A spate of stories in 2007 and 2008, including a report by ABC News and a New Yorker article, suggested that the United States was offering covert support to Jundallah. The issue has now returned to the spotlight with the string of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and has outraged serving and retired intelligence officers who fear that Israeli operations are endangering American lives.
"This certainly isn't the first time this has happened, though it's the worst case I've heard of," former Centcom chief and retired Gen. Joe Hoar said of the Israeli operation upon being informed of it. "But while false-flag operations are hardly new, they're extremely dangerous. You're basically using your friendship with an ally for your own purposes. Israel is playing with fire. It gets us involved in their covert war, whether we want to be involved or not."
The Israeli operation left a number of recently retired CIA officers sputtering in frustration. "It's going to be pretty hard for the U.S. to distance itself from an Israeli attack on Iran with this kind of thing going on," one of them told me.
Jundallah head Abdolmalek Rigi was captured by Iran in February 2010. Although initial reports claimed that he was captured by the Iranians after taking a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan, a retired intelligence officer with knowledge of the incident told me that Rigi was detained by Pakistani intelligence officers in Pakistan. The officer said that Rigi was turned over to the Iranians after the Pakistani government informed the United States that it planned to do so. The United States, this officer said, did not raise objections to the Pakistani decision.
Iran, meanwhile, has consistently claimed that Rigi was snatched from under the eyes of the CIA, which it alleges supported him. "It doesn't matter," the former intelligence officer said of Iran's charges. "It doesn't matter what they say. They know the truth."
Rigi was interrogated, tried, and convicted by the Iranians and hanged on June 20, 2010. Prior to his execution, Rigi claimed in an interview with Iranian media -- which has to be assumed was under duress -- that he had doubts about U.S. sponsorship of Jundallah. He recounted an alleged meeting with "NATO officials" in Morocco in 2007 that raised his suspicions. "When we thought about it we came to the conclusion that they are either Americans acting under NATO cover or Israelis," he said.
While many of the details of Israel's involvement with Jundallah are now known, many others still remain a mystery -- and are likely to remain so. The CIA memos of the incident have been "blue bordered," meaning that they were circulated to senior levels of the broader U.S. intelligence community as well as senior State Department officials.
What has become crystal clear, however, is the level of anger among senior intelligence officials about Israel's actions. "This was stupid and dangerous," the intelligence official who first told me about the operation said. "Israel is supposed to be working with us, not against us. If they want to shed blood, it would help a lot if it was their blood and not ours. You know, they're supposed to be a strategic asset. Well, guess what? There are a lot of people now, important people, who just don't think that's true."

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David Silverman/Getty Images

Mark Perry is an author and historian. His latest book is Talking to Terrorists.

Stalemate in Obaman's Iran Policy--Interview with Reza Marashi and William O. Beeman

2012-01-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

program:

Voices of the Middle East

program date:

Fri, 01/13/2012

A live interview with Professor William Beeman, University of Minnesota, and Reza Marashi, Policy Director with National Iranian American Council on issues related to sanctions and threats of war with Iran. Panel also reviewed President Obama's change of policy on Iran from negotiations to pressure and hostile track.

Reza Marashi joined NIAC in 2010 as the organization’s first Research Director. He came to NIAC after four years in the Office of Iranian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Prior to his tenure at the State Department, he was an analyst at the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) covering China-Middle East issues, and a Tehran-based private strategic consultant on Iranian political and economic risk. Marashi is frequently consulted by Western governments on Iran-related matters. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, The National Interest and Al Jazeera, among other publications. He has been a guest contributor to the BBC, NPR, Financial Times, Reuters, and ABC News, among other broadcast outlets. Follow Reza on Twitter: @rezamarashi

Professor Beeman is an internationally known expert on the Middle East and the Islamic World, particularly Iran, the Gulf Region and Central Asia. He has also conducted research in Japan, India, Nepal, China and Europe. From 1996-1999 he sang professionally in Europe as an operatic bass. He continues his musical career. His scholarly interests and research include sociolinguistics and the semantics of interaction; cross-cultural comparison of theatrical and performance genres; opera; paralinguistic and nonlinguistic semiotics; action anthropology; philosophic anthropology; peasant and nomadic societies. Follow Dr. Beeman on Twitter: @wbeeman

www.voicesofthemiddleeast.com

Artist: Goudarz Eghtedari, Reza Marashi, William Beeman
Title: Stalemate in Obama's Iran Policy
Date: 01/13
Genre: Public Affairs
Year: 2012
Producer: Goudarz Eghtedari, Voices of the Middle East
Length: 53:35 minutes (73.59 MB)
Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 192Kbps (CBR)

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Butt--Spinning Iran's Centrifuges (Asia Times)

2011-11-08T11:56:00.000-08:00

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MH16Ak03.html
atimes.com

COMMENT
Spinning Iran's centrifuges
By Yousaf Butt

Commentary by William O. Beeman: Nuclear scientist Yousaf Butt points out that Iran's nuclear enrichment is not only lawful, but not dangerous to Israel, the United States or to the world. His commentary is scrupulously documented.

Consider yourself warned - "[I]n the next few years Iran will be in position to detonate a nuclear device," so writes Ray Takeyh, confidently, in a recent Washington Post OpEd [1]. Why? Because the Iranian government willingly informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it would begin installing additional centrifuges with higher capacity to enrich uranium. [2]

Just like fertilizer can be used to increase crop yields - or make bombs - uranium is a dual use material.

Uranium enrichment has been conflated with nuclear weaponization so often that it has morphed into a virtual bogeyman bomb itself - an absolutely impermissible activity for the likes of Iran to pursue. This was not always the case. In irony
that only history can muster, Iran's nuclear program was kicked off in the 1950s with the full encouragement and support of the United States, under the auspices of president Dwight D Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program. [3]

In 1970, the US proposed installing 23 nuclear power plants in Iran by the year 2000. A 1976 directive by then-president Gerald Ford offered Iran a US-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel, another key ingredient for making nuclear bombs. [4] This "nuclear fuel-cycle" infrastructure is precisely the type of technology the US is now keen to keep out of Iran.

While it would be nice if Iran stopped enriching uranium, does the international community have any right to insist on that? Unfortunately, none of treaties and legal agreements that Iran is party to have changed since the time of the shah: what was legal then is legal now. [5]

Iran is a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and, as such, is entitled to enrich uranium under IAEA safeguards, which it does. Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US all enrich uranium without any fuss.

In Brazil's case, there actually ought to be some fuss: their leaders have publicly expressed great interest in nuclear weapons [6] and have - unlike Iran - restricted IAEA inspectors from full access to their main uranium enrichment facility. [6]

Uranium enrichment is useful for generating the fuel for nuclear power plants, and for making radioisotopes for medical and agricultural uses - and, yes, for nuclear weapons as well. Asking how many years Iran is from making a bomb only makes sense if we know - or suspect that - Iran has a nuclear weapons development program.

But earlier this year, the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper released a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Iranian nuclear program that could settle this question. [7]

This document represents the consensus view of 16 US intelligence agencies. Although the content of the new NIE is classified, Clapper confirmed in senate questioning that he has a "high level of confidence" that Iran "has not made a decision as of this point to restart its nuclear weapons program". [8]

This jibes with the Intelligence community's 2007 NIE, the unclassified version of which publicly stated that Iran wrapped up its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Recent State Department cables provided by WikiLeaks back this up - for instance State Department officials confirmed that some rehashed IAEA reports of suspicious Iranian activities in 2004 were "consistent with the 2003 weaponization halt assessment, since some activities were wrapping up in 2004". [9]

To be clear, what the NIE and the State Department cables refer to as Iran's "nuclear weapons program" (or "weaponization") pre-2003 was some possible - but disputed - evidence of research by Iranian scientists having to do building and potentially delivering a bomb, not a full-blown actual bomb factory.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient who spent more than a decade as the director of the IAEA, recently told investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that he had not "seen a shred of evidence that Iran has been weaponizing, in terms of building nuclear-weapons facilities and using enriched materials ... I don't believe Iran is a clear and present danger. All I see is the hype about the threat posed by Iran." [10]

Indeed, every year, the IAEA has confirmed that Iran has complied with its nuclear materials' accountancy. There has never been any diversion of nuclear material into any alleged weapons program. Ever.

So, unless Iran starts a real nuclear weapons program it will never make the bomb - no matter how much enrichment takes place.

The only "evidence" of Iran's nuclear weapons program is its refusal to grant the IAEA completely unfettered access to whatever facilities the IAEA would like to inspect. But since the Iranian government has not ratified the "Additional Protocol" agreement it has no obligation to open every door to the IAEA.

Pretty much everything the US and its allies have done with regards to Iran's nuclear program has been counter-productive: the sanctions have improved Iran's domestic scientific capabilities. [11]

The assassination of Iranian scientists has led to one of the victims-to-be - Professor Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani - to be named head of the Iran's Atomic Energy Organization and therefore, automatically, one of the vice-presidents of the country. [12] And cyber-warfare, like the STUXNET virus suspected to be the work of US and Israel, [13] has not made a significant dent in Iran's enrichment capabilities: to the contrary, the Iranians have reportedly begun deploying second- and third-generation centrifuges which may boost their enrichment capability three-fold. [14]

So what to do?

Call off the cyber-warfare. Call off the assassinations. Call off the sanctions.

Not only are United Nations sanctions counterproductive, they are not even legal. The UN charter clearly outlines the conditions needed to kick off such sanctions - only after a determination of "the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" is found, something that has never been done.

Far from marching towards making a nuclear bomb, Iran has repeatedly offered to place additional restrictions on its nuclear program well in excess of its legal obligations, including opening the program entirely to joint US participation and limiting the number of centrifuges they operate. More recently they agreed to a Turkish-Brazilian brokered deal to export their enriched uranium for fabrication into reactor fuel abroad. In each case, the US deliberately undermined or ignored these offers.

The underhanded way in which the US and its allies are misusing the IAEA to issue trumped up reports about Iran's alleged - and it should be stressed many years' past - "intransigence" over possible military activities threatens the very legitimacy of that agency.

The 118 nations that make up the non-aligned movement (NAM) - ie the real "international community" - have raised howls (or, at least, what passes for "howls" in diplomatic circles) about how politicized the agency has become lately [15].

In a statement read during an IAEA board of governors meeting, representatives of the NAM nations noted "with concern, the possible implications of the continued departure from standard verification language in the summary of the report of the director general [Yukio Amano]". [16]

As it turns out, Amano himself comes with some baggage attached. Leaked cables cast him as "solidly in the US court" on Iran. [17]. To save the legitimacy of the IAEA, Amano should give serious thought to gracefully resigning his post.

Surely, Iran should be stopped - but only when it does things that are illegal. A lot of dust has been kicked up recently because Iran has expressed interest in enriching uranium to 19.75% as fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor so that it can produce medical isotopes. (Normally, reactors used for generating nuclear power use uranium of 3.5% enrichment.) But anything less than 20% is considered low-enriched uranium (LEU) by the IAEA - not highly enriched uranium (HEU) as some have reported.

And in fact there is nothing in the law stopping Iran from enriching uranium to any level it pleases, so long as it does so under IAEA safeguards.

The most objective reading of Iran's intentions is that it may be stockpiling enough LEU to give itself a "break-out" option to weaponize in the future - unfortunately for the US and its allies, there is nothing illegal about that. The fault lies with NPT that allows such behavior - not with Iran. The US may as well insist that Iran also not produce fertilizer since that, too, can be used in bombs.

Iran could certainly take its stock of LEU and enrich it to a grade required for making bombs, but its LEU is under the surveillance of the IAEA - and has been for decades.

Diverting this material for military purposes would be discovered by the IAEA. So either Iran could cheat and get caught, or it could kick out the IAEA inspectors. [18] These, then, should be the real "red-lines" for taking any tougher actions on Iran.

Notes
1. The march toward a nuclear Iran Washington Post, August 4.
2. See here - subscription required.
3. See America's on-again/off-again love affair with Iran's nuclear program. Race for Iran, June 8, 2011.
4. Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran PolicyWashington Post, March 27, 2005.
5. See America's on-again/off-again love affair with Iran's nuclear program. Race for Iran, June 8, 2011.
5. Jose Alencar, Brazil VP, Says Country Should Build Nuclear Arms Huffington Post. September 25, 2009.
6. Brazil's Nuclear Ambitions, Past and Present NTI, September 2006.
7. See here.
8. See here.
9. See here
10. How real is the nuclear threat? By Seymour M Hersh.
11. The march toward a nuclear Iran Washington Post, August 4, 2011.
12. Mossad behind string of assassinations in Iran Froeign Policy, August 2, 2011.
13. Israeli Test on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay New York Times, January 15, 2011.
14. Iran Claims Progress Speeding Nuclear Program Wall Street Journal, August 4, 2011.
15. The IAEA and Syria: A New Paradigm for Noncompliance?Carnegie Endowment, June 17, 2011.
16. Non-Aligned Movement backs Iran Asia Times Online, September 17, 2010.
17. WikiLeaks cable portrays IAEA chief as 'in US court' on Iran nuclear program Christian Science Monitor, December 2, 2010.
18. How to Deal with Iran The New York review of Books, February 12, 2009.

Yousaf Butt is a nuclear physicist and is currently serving as a scientific consultant to the Federation of American Scientists on global security issues. Previously, he was a fellow on the Committee on International Security and Arms Control at the US National Academy of Sciences, and on the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

(Copyright 2011 Yousaf Butt.)

Commentary on Americ's Deadly Dynamics with Iran by David Sanger (NY Times, Niovember 6, 2011)

2011-11-06T10:09:00.000-08:00

Commentary on David E. Sanger: America's Deadly Dynamics with Iran.

By William O. Beeman

Once again we have a typical David Sanger piece--really an editorial on the front page of the Sunday Review--perhaps the single most prominent placing for an opinion piece in the United States. There is not a single attributed quote in the entire piece, and the purpose of the article is not analysis, but rather to declare that Iran is making nuclear weapons.

Notably the New York Times, has gotten an avalanche of complaints about him in the past--so much so that questions about his integrity as a journalist have become news stories in their own right in the past.

Mr. Sanger hedges his bets and abuses President Obama by saying that the Obama administration won't admit that Iran might be making a bomb because "To admit that Iran may ultimately get a weapon is to admit failure." Never mind that there is no proof of a nuclear weapons program, and that the Obama administration might like to give out strictly accurate information based on intelligence reports and actual facts. The National Intelligence Estimates have steadfastly declared that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, as has every report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since 2003.

Mr. Sanger also discounts the fact that the IAEA will once again next week declare that Iran has not diverted any nuclear material for military purposes. He makes blatant claims that are easily refuted by facts, but are rife with innuendo: The Iranians are digging their plants deeper underground, and enriching uranium at purities that will make it easier to race for a bomb." This is red meat for the neoconservatives and the Israeli right-wing.

Is it any surprise that Mr. Sanger would come out with a piece like this just now when rumors of an Israeli attack on Iran are swirling around like tornadoes? Americans are deeply skeptical of the idea of the United States engaging in, or supporting another Middle East adventure, especially one that has so little substantive support.

Also, we have HR 1905 up for consideration--a bill that would prohibit any government official from talking to any Iranian official without 15 days notice to Congress. I am sure Mr. Sanger sees his piece as supportive of this bill, but actually, if there is danger of violent action in the Middle East, we should be seeking more routes of contact between the United States and Iran, not fewer.

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota

On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 5:34 AM, Gary G Sick <ggs2@columbia.edu> wrote:

nytimes.com

America’s Deadly Dynamics With Iran

by DAVID E. SANGER • NOV. 5, 2011

COMMUTING to work in Tehran is never easy, but it is particularly nerve-racking these days for the scientists of Shahid Beheshti University. It was a little less than a year ago when one of them, Majid Shahriari, and his wife were stuck in traffic at 7:40 a.m. and a motorcycle pulled up alongside the car. There was a faint “click” as a magnet attached to the driver’s side door. The huge explosion came a few seconds later, killing him and injuring his wife.

On the other side of town, 20 minutes later, a nearly identical attack played out against Mr. Shahriari’s colleague Fereydoon Abbasi, a nuclear scientist and longtime member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Perhaps because of his military training, Mr. Abbasi recognized what was happening, and pulled himself and his wife out the door just before his car turned into a fireball. Iran has charged that Israel was behind the attacks — and many outsiders believe the “sticky bombs” are the hallmarks of a Mossad hit.

Perhaps to make a point, Mr. Abbasi, now recovered from his injuries, has been made the director of Iran’s atomic energy program. He travels the world offering assurances that Iran’s interest in nuclear weapons is peaceful.

Even for the Iranian scientists who get to work safely, life isn’t a lot easier. A confidential study circulating through America’s national laboratories estimates that the Stuxnet computer worm — the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed against another country’s infrastructure — slowed Iran’s nuclear progress by one to two years. Now it has run its course. But there is no reason to believe the attacks are over.

Iran may be the most challenging test of the Obama administration’s focus on new, cheap technologies that could avoid expensive boots on the ground; drones are the most obvious, cyberweapons the least discussed. It does not quite add up to a new Obama Doctrine, but the methods are defining a new era of nearly constant confrontation and containment. Drones are part of a tactic to keep America’s adversaries off balance and preoccupied with defending themselves. And in the past two and a half years, they have been used more aggressively than ever. There are now five or six secret American drone bases around the world. Some recently discovered new computer worms suggest that a new, improved Stuxnet 2.0 may be in the works for Iran.

“There were a lot of mistakes made the first time,” said an American official, avoiding any acknowledgment that the United States played a role in the cyber attack on Iran. “This was a first-generation product. Think of Edison’s initial light bulbs, or the Apple II.”

Not surprisingly, the Iranians are refusing to sit back and take it — which is one reason many believe the long shadow war with Iran is about to ramp up dramatically. At the White House and the C.I.A., officials say the recently disclosed Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States — by blowing up a tony Georgetown restaurant frequented by senators, lobbyists and journalists — was just the tip of the iceberg. American intelligence officials now believe that the death of a Saudi diplomat in Pakistan earlier this year was an assassination. And they see evidence of other plots by the Quds Force, the most elite Iranian military unit, from Yemen to Latin America.

“The Saudi plot was clumsy, and we got lucky,” another American official who has reviewed the intelligence carefully said recently. “But we are seeing increasingly sophisticated Iranian activity like it, all around the world.” Much of this resembles the worst days of the cold war, when Americans and Soviets were plotting against each other — and killing each other — in a now hazy attempt to preserve an upper hand. But Iran is no superpower. And there are reasons to wonder whether, in the end, this shadow war is simply going to delay the inevitable: an Iranian bomb or, more likely, an Iranian capability to assemble a fairly crude weapon in a matter of weeks or months.

For understandable reasons, this is a question no one in the Obama administration will answer publicly. To admit that Iran may ultimately get a weapon is to admit failure; both George W. Bush and Barack Obama vowed they would never let Iran achieve nuclear arms capability, much less a bomb. Israelis have long argued that if Iran got too close, that could justify attacking Iran’s nuclear sites. Reports in Israel last week suggested that such a pre-emptive attack is once again being debated.

The worries focus on renewed hints from top Israeli officials that they will act unilaterally — even over American objections — if they judge that Iran is getting too close to a bomb. (It is worth noting that they have made similar noises every year since 2005, save for a brief hiatus when Stuxnet — which appears to have been a joint project of American and Israeli intelligence — was doing its work.)

To many members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — and, by the accounts of his former colleagues, to the Israeli leader himself — the Iran problem is 1939 all over again, an “existential threat.”

“WHEN Bibi talks about an existential threat,” one senior Israeli official said of Mr. Netanyahu recently, “he means the kind of threat the United States believed it faced when you believed the Nazis could get the bomb.”

Israelis worry that as Iran feels more isolated by sanctions and more threatened by the Arab Spring, which has not exactly broken Tehran’s way, it may view racing for a bomb as the only way to restore itself to its position as the most influential power in the Middle East. The fate of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi may strengthen that impulse.

“One should ask: would Europe have intervened in Libya if Qaddafi had possessed nuclear weapons?” the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, said on army radio last week, referring to the Libyan leader’s decision to give up his program in 2003. “Would the U.S. have toppled Saddam Hussein if he had nuclear weapons?”

To many in the Obama administration, though, the Iranian threat seems more akin to 1949, when the Soviets tested their first nuclear device. That brought many confrontations that veered toward catastrophe, most notably the Cuban Missile Crisis. But ultimately the Soviets were contained. Inside the Pentagon and the National Security Council, there is a lot of work — all of it unacknowledged — about what a parallel containment strategy for Iran might look like.

The early elements of it are obvious: the antimissile batteries that the United States has spent billions of dollars installing on the territory of Arab allies, and a new Pentagon plan to put more ships and antimissile batteries into the Persian Gulf, in cooperation with six Arab states led by Saudi Arabia. It was the Saudi king who famously advised American diplomats in the cables revealed by WikiLeaks last year that the only Iran strategy that would work was one that “cut off the head of the snake.”

The big hitch in these containment strategies is that they are completely useless if Iran ever slips a bomb, or even some of its newly minted uranium fuel, to a proxy — Hezbollah, Hamas or some other terrorist group — raising the problem of ascertaining a bomb’s return address. When the Obama administration ran some tabletop exercises soon after coming to office, it was shocked to discover that the science of nuclear forensics was nowhere near as good in practice as it was on television dramas. So if a bomb went off in some American city, or in Riyadh or Tel Aviv, it could be weeks or months before it was ever identified as Iranian. Even then, confidence in the conclusion, officials say, might be too low for the president to order retaliation.

The wisdom of a containment strategy has also taken a hit since the revelation of the plot to kill the Saudi ambassador. Emerging from a classified briefing on the plot, a member of Congress said what struck him was that “this thing could have gotten Iran into a war, and yet we don’t know who ordered it.” There is increasing talk that it could have been a rogue element within the Quds Force. If so, what does that say about whether the Iranian leadership has as good a hand on the throttle of Iran’s nuclear research program as Washington has long assumed?

That issue may well come to a head this week after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog that has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with Iran’s nuclear establishment for a decade now, issues what may be one of its toughest reports ever.

IF the leaks are an accurate predictor of the final product, the report will describe in detail the evidence the I.A.E.A. has amassed suggesting that Iran has conducted tests on nuclear trigger devices, wrestled with designs that can miniaturize a nuclear device into the small confines of a warhead, and conducted abstruse experiments to spark a nuclear reaction. Most likely, the agency will stop short of accusing Iran of running a bomb program; instead, it will use the evidence to demand answers that it has long been refused about what it delicately calls “possible military dimensions” of the nuclear program.

Much of the work on those “possible military dimensions” is done, the I.A.E.A. believes, by scientists who have day jobs at Iran’s major universities, including one just across the street from what is believed to be the nuclear project’s administrative center. Among the scientists was Mr. Abbasi, the survivor of last November’s bomb attack, who was named in 2007 to the United Nations’ list of Iranian scientists subject to travel bans and economic sanctions because they were believed to be central to the bomb-development effort.

Mr. Abbasi, according to people familiar with the I.A.E.A.’s investigation, worked on calculations on increasing the yield of nuclear explosions, among other problems in manufacturing a weapon. He was a key scientist in the Iranian covert nuclear weapons program headed by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an academic and strong supporter of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. For the past decade, Mr. Fakhrizadeh has run programs — with names like “Project 110” and “Project 5,” they seem right out of a James Bond movie — that the West believes are a shell game hiding weapons work. Suspicions have been heightened by Iran’s refusal to allow him or his colleagues to be interviewed by the United Nations’ nuclear inspection teams. And since last year’s attacks — and another this past summer — Mr. Fakhrizadeh has gone completely underground.

No one expects the United Nations’ revelations of the evidence to prompt more action against Iran. Most governments have had access to this evidence for a while. The Iranians will say it is all fabrication, and because the agency will not reveal its sources, that charge could stick. The Chinese and the Russians have already protested to the I.A.E.A. head, Yukiya Amano, that revealing the evidence will harden Iran’s position. They oppose any new sanctions.

While the Obama administration may act unilaterally to shut down transactions with Iran’s central bank, officials concede that the only economic step that could give the mullahs pause would be a ban on Iranian oil exports. With oil already hovering around $93 a barrel, no one in the administration is willing to risk a step that could send prices soaring and, in the worst case, cause a confrontation at sea over a blockade.

For all the talk about how “all options are on the table,” Washington says a military strike isn’t worth the risk of war; the Israelis say there may be no other choice. But they have said “this is the last chance” every year since 2005.

All of which raises the question: how much more delay can be bought with a covert campaign of assassination, cyberattacks and sabotage?

Some more, but probably not much. It has taken the Iranians 20 years so far to get their nuclear act together — far longer than it took the United States and the Soviets in the ’40s, the Chinese and the Israelis in the ’60s, the Indians in the ’70s, and the Pakistanis and the North Koreans in more recent times. The problem is partly that they were scammed by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani who sold them his country’s discards.

The assassination and the sabotage have taken a psychological toll, making scientists wonder if every trip to work may be their last, every line of code the beginning of a new round of destruction. Stuxnet was devilishly ingenious: it infected millions of computers, but did damage only when the code was transferred to special controllers that run centrifuges, which spin at supersonic speed when enriching uranium. When operators looked at their screens, everything looked normal. But downstairs in the plant, the centrifuges suddenly spun out of control and exploded, like small bombs. It took months for the Iranians to figure out what had happened.

But now the element of surprise is gone. The Iranians are digging their plants deeper underground, and enriching uranium at purities that will make it easier to race for a bomb. When Barack Obama was sworn into office, they had enough fuel on hand to produce a single weapon; today, by the I.A.E.A.’s own inventory, they have enough for at least four. And as the Quds Force has shown, sabotage and assassination is a two-way game, which may ratchet up one confrontation just as Americans have been exhausted by two others.Once again we have a typical David Sanger piece--really an editorial on the front page of the Sunday Review--perhaps the single most prominent placing for an opinion piece in the United States. There is not a single attributed quote in the entire piece, and the purpose of the article is not analysis, but rather to declare that Iran is making nuclear weapons.

Notably the New York Times, which gives Mr. Sanger free reign to write these distorted analyses, will not allow on-line commentary for this one. They have apparently gotten an avalanche of complaints about him in the past--so much so that questions about his integrity as a journalist have become news stories in their own right in the past.

Mr. Sanger hedges his bets and abuses President Obama by saying that the Obama administration won't admit that Iran might be making a bomb because "To admit that Iran may ultimately get a weapon is to admit failure." Never mind that there is no proof of a nuclear weapons program, and that the Obama administration might like to give out strictly accurate information based on intelligence reports and actual facts.

He discounts the fact that the IAEA will once again next week declare that Iran has not diverted any nuclear material for military purposes. He makes blatant claims that are easily refuted by facts, but are rife with innuendo: The Iranians are digging their plants deeper underground, and enriching uranium at purities that will make it easier to race for a bomb." This is red meat for the neoconservatives and the Israeli right-wing.

Is it any surprise that Mr. Sanger would come out with a piece like this just now when rumors of an Israeli attack on Iran are swirling around like tornadoes? Americans are deeply skeptical of the idea of the United States engaging in, or supporting another Middle East adventure, especially one that has so little substantive support.

Also, we have HR 1905 up for consideration--a bill that would prohibit any government official from talking to any Iranian official without 15 days notice to Congress. I am sure Mr. Sanger sees his piece as supportive of this bill, but actually, if there is danger of violent action in the Middle East, we should be seeking more routes of contact between the United States and Iran, not fewer.

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota

On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 5:34 AM, Gary G Sick <ggs2@columbia.edu> wrote:

nytimes.com

America’s Deadly Dynamics With Iran

by DAVID E. SANGER • NOV. 5, 2011

COMMUTING to work in Tehran is never easy, but it is particularly nerve-racking these days for the scientists of Shahid Beheshti University. It was a little less than a year ago when one of them, Majid Shahriari, and his wife were stuck in traffic at 7:40 a.m. and a motorcycle pulled up alongside the car. There was a faint “click” as a magnet attached to the driver’s side door. The huge explosion came a few seconds later, killing him and injuring his wife.

On the other side of town, 20 minutes later, a nearly identical attack played out against Mr. Shahriari’s colleague Fereydoon Abbasi, a nuclear scientist and longtime member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Perhaps because of his military training, Mr. Abbasi recognized what was happening, and pulled himself and his wife out the door just before his car turned into a fireball. Iran has charged that Israel was behind the attacks — and many outsiders believe the “sticky bombs” are the hallmarks of a Mossad hit.

Perhaps to make a point, Mr. Abbasi, now recovered from his injuries, has been made the director of Iran’s atomic energy program. He travels the world offering assurances that Iran’s interest in nuclear weapons is peaceful.

Even for the Iranian scientists who get to work safely, life isn’t a lot easier. A confidential study circulating through America’s national laboratories estimates that the Stuxnet computer worm — the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed against another country’s infrastructure — slowed Iran’s nuclear progress by one to two years. Now it has run its course. But there is no reason to believe the attacks are over.

Iran may be the most challenging test of the Obama administration’s focus on new, cheap technologies that could avoid expensive boots on the ground; drones are the most obvious, cyberweapons the least discussed. It does not quite add up to a new Obama Doctrine, but the methods are defining a new era of nearly constant confrontation and containment. Drones are part of a tactic to keep America’s adversaries off balance and preoccupied with defending themselves. And in the past two and a half years, they have been used more aggressively than ever. There are now five or six secret American drone bases around the world. Some recently discovered new computer worms suggest that a new, improved Stuxnet 2.0 may be in the works for Iran.

“There were a lot of mistakes made the first time,” said an American official, avoiding any acknowledgment that the United States played a role in the cyber attack on Iran. “This was a first-generation product. Think of Edison’s initial light bulbs, or the Apple II.”

Not surprisingly, the Iranians are refusing to sit back and take it — which is one reason many believe the long shadow war with Iran is about to ramp up dramatically. At the White House and the C.I.A., officials say the recently disclosed Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States — by blowing up a tony Georgetown restaurant frequented by senators, lobbyists and journalists — was just the tip of the iceberg. American intelligence officials now believe that the death of a Saudi diplomat in Pakistan earlier this year was an assassination. And they see evidence of other plots by the Quds Force, the most elite Iranian military unit, from Yemen to Latin America.

“The Saudi plot was clumsy, and we got lucky,” another American official who has reviewed the intelligence carefully said recently. “But we are seeing increasingly sophisticated Iranian activity like it, all around the world.” Much of this resembles the worst days of the cold war, when Americans and Soviets were plotting against each other — and killing each other — in a now hazy attempt to preserve an upper hand. But Iran is no superpower. And there are reasons to wonder whether, in the end, this shadow war is simply going to delay the inevitable: an Iranian bomb or, more likely, an Iranian capability to assemble a fairly crude weapon in a matter of weeks or months.

For understandable reasons, this is a question no one in the Obama administration will answer publicly. To admit that Iran may ultimately get a weapon is to admit failure; both George W. Bush and Barack Obama vowed they would never let Iran achieve nuclear arms capability, much less a bomb. Israelis have long argued that if Iran got too close, that could justify attacking Iran’s nuclear sites. Reports in Israel last week suggested that such a pre-emptive attack is once again being debated.

The worries focus on renewed hints from top Israeli officials that they will act unilaterally — even over American objections — if they judge that Iran is getting too close to a bomb. (It is worth noting that they have made similar noises every year since 2005, save for a brief hiatus when Stuxnet — which appears to have been a joint project of American and Israeli intelligence — was doing its work.)

To many members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — and, by the accounts of his former colleagues, to the Israeli leader himself — the Iran problem is 1939 all over again, an “existential threat.”

“WHEN Bibi talks about an existential threat,” one senior Israeli official said of Mr. Netanyahu recently, “he means the kind of threat the United States believed it faced when you believed the Nazis could get the bomb.”

Israelis worry that as Iran feels more isolated by sanctions and more threatened by the Arab Spring, which has not exactly broken Tehran’s way, it may view racing for a bomb as the only way to restore itself to its position as the most influential power in the Middle East. The fate of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi may strengthen that impulse.

“One should ask: would Europe have intervened in Libya if Qaddafi had possessed nuclear weapons?” the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, said on army radio last week, referring to the Libyan leader’s decision to give up his program in 2003. “Would the U.S. have toppled Saddam Hussein if he had nuclear weapons?”

To many in the Obama administration, though, the Iranian threat seems more akin to 1949, when the Soviets tested their first nuclear device. That brought many confrontations that veered toward catastrophe, most notably the Cuban Missile Crisis. But ultimately the Soviets were contained. Inside the Pentagon and the National Security Council, there is a lot of work — all of it unacknowledged — about what a parallel containment strategy for Iran might look like.

The early elements of it are obvious: the antimissile batteries that the United States has spent billions of dollars installing on the territory of Arab allies, and a new Pentagon plan to put more ships and antimissile batteries into the Persian Gulf, in cooperation with six Arab states led by Saudi Arabia. It was the Saudi king who famously advised American diplomats in the cables revealed by WikiLeaks last year that the only Iran strategy that would work was one that “cut off the head of the snake.”

The big hitch in these containment strategies is that they are completely useless if Iran ever slips a bomb, or even some of its newly minted uranium fuel, to a proxy — Hezbollah, Hamas or some other terrorist group — raising the problem of ascertaining a bomb’s return address. When the Obama administration ran some tabletop exercises soon after coming to office, it was shocked to discover that the science of nuclear forensics was nowhere near as good in practice as it was on television dramas. So if a bomb went off in some American city, or in Riyadh or Tel Aviv, it could be weeks or months before it was ever identified as Iranian. Even then, confidence in the conclusion, officials say, might be too low for the president to order retaliation.

The wisdom of a containment strategy has also taken a hit since the revelation of the plot to kill the Saudi ambassador. Emerging from a classified briefing on the plot, a member of Congress said what struck him was that “this thing could have gotten Iran into a war, and yet we don’t know who ordered it.” There is increasing talk that it could have been a rogue element within the Quds Force. If so, what does that say about whether the Iranian leadership has as good a hand on the throttle of Iran’s nuclear research program as Washington has long assumed?

That issue may well come to a head this week after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog that has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with Iran’s nuclear establishment for a decade now, issues what may be one of its toughest reports ever.

IF the leaks are an accurate predictor of the final product, the report will describe in detail the evidence the I.A.E.A. has amassed suggesting that Iran has conducted tests on nuclear trigger devices, wrestled with designs that can miniaturize a nuclear device into the small confines of a warhead, and conducted abstruse experiments to spark a nuclear reaction. Most likely, the agency will stop short of accusing Iran of running a bomb program; instead, it will use the evidence to demand answers that it has long been refused about what it delicately calls “possible military dimensions” of the nuclear program.

Much of the work on those “possible military dimensions” is done, the I.A.E.A. believes, by scientists who have day jobs at Iran’s major universities, including one just across the street from what is believed to be the nuclear project’s administrative center. Among the scientists was Mr. Abbasi, the survivor of last November’s bomb attack, who was named in 2007 to the United Nations’ list of Iranian scientists subject to travel bans and economic sanctions because they were believed to be central to the bomb-development effort.

Mr. Abbasi, according to people familiar with the I.A.E.A.’s investigation, worked on calculations on increasing the yield of nuclear explosions, among other problems in manufacturing a weapon. He was a key scientist in the Iranian covert nuclear weapons program headed by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an academic and strong supporter of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. For the past decade, Mr. Fakhrizadeh has run programs — with names like “Project 110” and “Project 5,” they seem right out of a James Bond movie — that the West believes are a shell game hiding weapons work. Suspicions have been heightened by Iran’s refusal to allow him or his colleagues to be interviewed by the United Nations’ nuclear inspection teams. And since last year’s attacks — and another this past summer — Mr. Fakhrizadeh has gone completely underground.

No one expects the United Nations’ revelations of the evidence to prompt more action against Iran. Most governments have had access to this evidence for a while. The Iranians will say it is all fabrication, and because the agency will not reveal its sources, that charge could stick. The Chinese and the Russians have already protested to the I.A.E.A. head, Yukiya Amano, that revealing the evidence will harden Iran’s position. They oppose any new sanctions.

While the Obama administration may act unilaterally to shut down transactions with Iran’s central bank, officials concede that the only economic step that could give the mullahs pause would be a ban on Iranian oil exports. With oil already hovering around $93 a barrel, no one in the administration is willing to risk a step that could send prices soaring and, in the worst case, cause a confrontation at sea over a blockade.

For all the talk about how “all options are on the table,” Washington says a military strike isn’t worth the risk of war; the Israelis say there may be no other choice. But they have said “this is the last chance” every year since 2005.

All of which raises the question: how much more delay can be bought with a covert campaign of assassination, cyberattacks and sabotage?

Some more, but probably not much. It has taken the Iranians 20 years so far to get their nuclear act together — far longer than it took the United States and the Soviets in the ’40s, the Chinese and the Israelis in the ’60s, the Indians in the ’70s, and the Pakistanis and the North Koreans in more recent times. The problem is partly that they were scammed by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani who sold them his country’s discards.

The assassination and the sabotage have taken a psychological toll, making scientists wonder if every trip to work may be their last, every line of code the beginning of a new round of destruction. Stuxnet was devilishly ingenious: it infected millions of computers, but did damage only when the code was transferred to special controllers that run centrifuges, which spin at supersonic speed when enriching uranium. When operators looked at their screens, everything looked normal. But downstairs in the plant, the centrifuges suddenly spun out of control and exploded, like small bombs. It took months for the Iranians to figure out what had happened.

But now the element of surprise is gone. The Iranians are digging their plants deeper underground, and enriching uranium at purities that will make it easier to race for a bomb. When Barack Obama was sworn into office, they had enough fuel on hand to produce a single weapon; today, by the I.A.E.A.’s own inventory, they have enough for at least four. And as the Quds Force has shown, sabotage and assassination is a two-way game, which may ratchet up one confrontation just as Americans have been exhausted by two others.

Once again we have a typical David Sanger piece--really an editorial on the front page of the Sunday Review--perhaps the single most prominent placing for an opinion piece in the United States. There is not a single attributed quote in the entire piece, and the purpose of the article is not analysis, but rather to declare that Iran is making nuclear weapons.

Notably the New York Times, which gives Mr. Sanger free reign to write these distorted analyses, will not allow on-line commentary for this one. They have apparently gotten an avalanche of complaints about him in the past--so much so that questions about his integrity as a journalist have become news stories in their own right in the past.

Mr. Sanger hedges his bets and abuses President Obama by saying that the Obama administration won't admit that Iran might be making a bomb because "To admit that Iran may ultimately get a weapon is to admit failure." Never mind that there is no proof of a nuclear weapons program, and that the Obama administration might like to give out strictly accurate information based on intelligence reports and actual facts.

He discounts the fact that the IAEA will once again next week declare that Iran has not diverted any nuclear material for military purposes. He makes blatant claims that are easily refuted by facts, but are rife with innuendo: The Iranians are digging their plants deeper underground, and enriching uranium at purities that will make it easier to race for a bomb." This is red meat for the neoconservatives and the Israeli right-wing.

Is it any surprise that Mr. Sanger would come out with a piece like this just now when rumors of an Israeli attack on Iran are swirling around like tornadoes? Americans are deeply skeptical of the idea of the United States engaging in, or supporting another Middle East adventure, especially one that has so little substantive support.

Also, we have HR 1905 up for consideration--a bill that would prohibit any government official from talking to any Iranian official without 15 days notice to Congress. I am sure Mr. Sanger sees his piece as supportive of this bill, but actually, if there is danger of violent action in the Middle East, we should be seeking more routes of contact between the United States and Iran, not fewer.

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota

On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 5:34 AM, Gary G Sick <ggs2@columbia.edu> wrote:

nytimes.com

America’s Deadly Dynamics With Iran

by DAVID E. SANGER • NOV. 5, 2011

COMMUTING to work in Tehran is never easy, but it is particularly nerve-racking these days for the scientists of Shahid Beheshti University. It was a little less than a year ago when one of them, Majid Shahriari, and his wife were stuck in traffic at 7:40 a.m. and a motorcycle pulled up alongside the car. There was a faint “click” as a magnet attached to the driver’s side door. The huge explosion came a few seconds later, killing him and injuring his wife.

On the other side of town, 20 minutes later, a nearly identical attack played out against Mr. Shahriari’s colleague Fereydoon Abbasi, a nuclear scientist and longtime member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Perhaps because of his military training, Mr. Abbasi recognized what was happening, and pulled himself and his wife out the door just before his car turned into a fireball. Iran has charged that Israel was behind the attacks — and many outsiders believe the “sticky bombs” are the hallmarks of a Mossad hit.

Perhaps to make a point, Mr. Abbasi, now recovered from his injuries, has been made the director of Iran’s atomic energy program. He travels the world offering assurances that Iran’s interest in nuclear weapons is peaceful.

Even for the Iranian scientists who get to work safely, life isn’t a lot easier. A confidential study circulating through America’s national laboratories estimates that the Stuxnet computer worm — the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed against another country’s infrastructure — slowed Iran’s nuclear progress by one to two years. Now it has run its course. But there is no reason to believe the attacks are over.

Iran may be the most challenging test of the Obama administration’s focus on new, cheap technologies that could avoid expensive boots on the ground; drones are the most obvious, cyberweapons the least discussed. It does not quite add up to a new Obama Doctrine, but the methods are defining a new era of nearly constant confrontation and containment. Drones are part of a tactic to keep America’s adversaries off balance and preoccupied with defending themselves. And in the past two and a half years, they have been used more aggressively than ever. There are now five or six secret American drone bases around the world. Some recently discovered new computer worms suggest that a new, improved Stuxnet 2.0 may be in the works for Iran.

“There were a lot of mistakes made the first time,” said an American official, avoiding any acknowledgment that the United States played a role in the cyber attack on Iran. “This was a first-generation product. Think of Edison’s initial light bulbs, or the Apple II.”

Not surprisingly, the Iranians are refusing to sit back and take it — which is one reason many believe the long shadow war with Iran is about to ramp up dramatically. At the White House and the C.I.A., officials say the recently disclosed Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States — by blowing up a tony Georgetown restaurant frequented by senators, lobbyists and journalists — was just the tip of the iceberg. American intelligence officials now believe that the death of a Saudi diplomat in Pakistan earlier this year was an assassination. And they see evidence of other plots by the Quds Force, the most elite Iranian military unit, from Yemen to Latin America.

“The Saudi plot was clumsy, and we got lucky,” another American official who has reviewed the intelligence carefully said recently. “But we are seeing increasingly sophisticated Iranian activity like it, all around the world.” Much of this resembles the worst days of the cold war, when Americans and Soviets were plotting against each other — and killing each other — in a now hazy attempt to preserve an upper hand. But Iran is no superpower. And there are reasons to wonder whether, in the end, this shadow war is simply going to delay the inevitable: an Iranian bomb or, more likely, an Iranian capability to assemble a fairly crude weapon in a matter of weeks or months.

For understandable reasons, this is a question no one in the Obama administration will answer publicly. To admit that Iran may ultimately get a weapon is to admit failure; both George W. Bush and Barack Obama vowed they would never let Iran achieve nuclear arms capability, much less a bomb. Israelis have long argued that if Iran got too close, that could justify attacking Iran’s nuclear sites. Reports in Israel last week suggested that such a pre-emptive attack is once again being debated.

The worries focus on renewed hints from top Israeli officials that they will act unilaterally — even over American objections — if they judge that Iran is getting too close to a bomb. (It is worth noting that they have made similar noises every year since 2005, save for a brief hiatus when Stuxnet — which appears to have been a joint project of American and Israeli intelligence — was doing its work.)

To many members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — and, by the accounts of his former colleagues, to the Israeli leader himself — the Iran problem is 1939 all over again, an “existential threat.”

“WHEN Bibi talks about an existential threat,” one senior Israeli official said of Mr. Netanyahu recently, “he means the kind of threat the United States believed it faced when you believed the Nazis could get the bomb.”

Israelis worry that as Iran feels more isolated by sanctions and more threatened by the Arab Spring, which has not exactly broken Tehran’s way, it may view racing for a bomb as the only way to restore itself to its position as the most influential power in the Middle East. The fate of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi may strengthen that impulse.

“One should ask: would Europe have intervened in Libya if Qaddafi had possessed nuclear weapons?” the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, said on army radio last week, referring to the Libyan leader’s decision to give up his program in 2003. “Would the U.S. have toppled Saddam Hussein if he had nuclear weapons?”

To many in the Obama administration, though, the Iranian threat seems more akin to 1949, when the Soviets tested their first nuclear device. That brought many confrontations that veered toward catastrophe, most notably the Cuban Missile Crisis. But ultimately the Soviets were contained. Inside the Pentagon and the National Security Council, there is a lot of work — all of it unacknowledged — about what a parallel containment strategy for Iran might look like.

The early elements of it are obvious: the antimissile batteries that the United States has spent billions of dollars installing on the territory of Arab allies, and a new Pentagon plan to put more ships and antimissile batteries into the Persian Gulf, in cooperation with six Arab states led by Saudi Arabia. It was the Saudi king who famously advised American diplomats in the cables revealed by WikiLeaks last year that the only Iran strategy that would work was one that “cut off the head of the snake.”

The big hitch in these containment strategies is that they are completely useless if Iran ever slips a bomb, or even some of its newly minted uranium fuel, to a proxy — Hezbollah, Hamas or some other terrorist group — raising the problem of ascertaining a bomb’s return address. When the Obama administration ran some tabletop exercises soon after coming to office, it was shocked to discover that the science of nuclear forensics was nowhere near as good in practice as it was on television dramas. So if a bomb went off in some American city, or in Riyadh or Tel Aviv, it could be weeks or months before it was ever identified as Iranian. Even then, confidence in the conclusion, officials say, might be too low for the president to order retaliation.

The wisdom of a containment strategy has also taken a hit since the revelation of the plot to kill the Saudi ambassador. Emerging from a classified briefing on the plot, a member of Congress said what struck him was that “this thing could have gotten Iran into a war, and yet we don’t know who ordered it.” There is increasing talk that it could have been a rogue element within the Quds Force. If so, what does that say about whether the Iranian leadership has as good a hand on the throttle of Iran’s nuclear research program as Washington has long assumed?

That issue may well come to a head this week after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog that has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with Iran’s nuclear establishment for a decade now, issues what may be one of its toughest reports ever.

IF the leaks are an accurate predictor of the final product, the report will describe in detail the evidence the I.A.E.A. has amassed suggesting that Iran has conducted tests on nuclear trigger devices, wrestled with designs that can miniaturize a nuclear device into the small confines of a warhead, and conducted abstruse experiments to spark a nuclear reaction. Most likely, the agency will stop short of accusing Iran of running a bomb program; instead, it will use the evidence to demand answers that it has long been refused about what it delicately calls “possible military dimensions” of the nuclear program.

Much of the work on those “possible military dimensions” is done, the I.A.E.A. believes, by scientists who have day jobs at Iran’s major universities, including one just across the street from what is believed to be the nuclear project’s administrative center. Among the scientists was Mr. Abbasi, the survivor of last November’s bomb attack, who was named in 2007 to the United Nations’ list of Iranian scientists subject to travel bans and economic sanctions because they were believed to be central to the bomb-development effort.

Mr. Abbasi, according to people familiar with the I.A.E.A.’s investigation, worked on calculations on increasing the yield of nuclear explosions, among other problems in manufacturing a weapon. He was a key scientist in the Iranian covert nuclear weapons program headed by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an academic and strong supporter of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. For the past decade, Mr. Fakhrizadeh has run programs — with names like “Project 110” and “Project 5,” they seem right out of a James Bond movie — that the West believes are a shell game hiding weapons work. Suspicions have been heightened by Iran’s refusal to allow him or his colleagues to be interviewed by the United Nations’ nuclear inspection teams. And since last year’s attacks — and another this past summer — Mr. Fakhrizadeh has gone completely underground.

No one expects the United Nations’ revelations of the evidence to prompt more action against Iran. Most governments have had access to this evidence for a while. The Iranians will say it is all fabrication, and because the agency will not reveal its sources, that charge could stick. The Chinese and the Russians have already protested to the I.A.E.A. head, Yukiya Amano, that revealing the evidence will harden Iran’s position. They oppose any new sanctions.

While the Obama administration may act unilaterally to shut down transactions with Iran’s central bank, officials concede that the only economic step that could give the mullahs pause would be a ban on Iranian oil exports. With oil already hovering around $93 a barrel, no one in the administration is willing to risk a step that could send prices soaring and, in the worst case, cause a confrontation at sea over a blockade.

For all the talk about how “all options are on the table,” Washington says a military strike isn’t worth the risk of war; the Israelis say there may be no other choice. But they have said “this is the last chance” every year since 2005.

All of which raises the question: how much more delay can be bought with a covert campaign of assassination, cyberattacks and sabotage?

Some more, but probably not much. It has taken the Iranians 20 years so far to get their nuclear act together — far longer than it took the United States and the Soviets in the ’40s, the Chinese and the Israelis in the ’60s, the Indians in the ’70s, and the Pakistanis and the North Koreans in more recent times. The problem is partly that they were scammed by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani who sold them his country’s discards.

The assassination and the sabotage have taken a psychological toll, making scientists wonder if every trip to work may be their last, every line of code the beginning of a new round of destruction. Stuxnet was devilishly ingenious: it infected millions of computers, but did damage only when the code was transferred to special controllers that run centrifuges, which spin at supersonic speed when enriching uranium. When operators looked at their screens, everything looked normal. But downstairs in the plant, the centrifuges suddenly spun out of control and exploded, like small bombs. It took months for the Iranians to figure out what had happened.

But now the element of surprise is gone. The Iranians are digging their plants deeper underground, and enriching uranium at purities that will make it easier to race for a bomb. When Barack Obama was sworn into office, they had enough fuel on hand to produce a single weapon; today, by the I.A.E.A.’s own inventory, they have enough for at least four. And as the Quds Force has shown, sabotage and assassination is a two-way game, which may ratchet up one confrontation just as Americans have been exhausted by two others.

Gareth Porter: Debunking the Iran "Terror Plot"

2011-11-04T12:46:00.000-07:00

Debunking the Iran "Terror Plot"

by Gareth Porter | published November 3, 2011

Commentary by William O. Beeman: The case against Iranian-American used car salesman Arbabsiar was suspicious from the beginning, as was the condemnation of the Government of Iran for his alleged plot to assassinate Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S., Adel al-Jubeir. No Iranian expert bought this government-promulgated scenario. The entire plot seems to have been an FBI sting operation, capitalized on by those who are continually trying to gin up an excuse for the US or Israel to attack Iran. The entire ridiculous story would be dismissed except for the apoplectic attacks launched against Iran on a regular basis by the U.S. right wing, and by the political leaders of Israel. Military leaders in both the U.S. and Israel have denounced ideas of an attack on Iran as not warranted, and dangerous for the world.Gareth Porter is a masterful analyst who only produces his reports after scrupulous research.
_________________

At a press conference on October 11, the Obama administration unveiled a spectacular charge against the government of Iran: The Qods Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, right in Washington, DC, in a place where large numbers of innocent bystanders could have been killed. High-level officials of the Qods Force were said to be involved, the only question being how far up in the Iranian government the complicity went.
The US tale of the Iranian plot was greeted with unusual skepticism on the part of Iran specialists and independent policy analysts, and even elements of the mainstream media. The critics observed that the alleged assassination scheme was not in Iran’s interest, and that it bore scant resemblance to past operations attributed to the foreign special operations branch of Iranian intelligence. The Qods Force, it was widely believed, would not send a person like Iranian-American used car dealer Manssor Arbabsiar, known to friends in Corpus Christi, Texas as forgetful and disorganized, to hire the hit squad for such a sensitive covert action.
But administration officials claimed they had hard evidence to back up the charge. They cited a 21-page deposition by a supervising FBI agent in the “amended criminal complaint” filed against Arbabsiar and an accomplice who remains at large, Gholam Shakuri. [1] It was all there, the officials insisted: several meetings between Arbabsiar and a man he thought was a member of a leading Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas, with a reputation for cold-blooded killing; incriminating statements, all secretly recorded, by Arbabsiar and Shakuri, his alleged handler in Tehran; and finally, Arbabsiar’s confession after his arrest, which clearly implicates Qods Force agents in a plan to murder a foreign diplomat on US soil.
A close analysis of the FBI deposition reveals, however, that independent evidence for the charge that Arbabsiar was sent by the Qods Force on a mission to arrange for the assassination of Jubeir is lacking. The FBI account is full of holes and contradictions, moreover. The document gives good reason to doubt that Arbabsiar and his confederates in Iran had the intention of assassinating Jubeir, and to believe instead that the FBI hatched the plot as part of a sting operation.

The Case of the Missing Quotes

The FBI account suggests that, from the inaugural meetings between Arbabsiar and his supposed Los Zetas contact, a Drug Enforcement Agency informant, Arbabsiar was advocating a terrorist strike against the Saudi embassy. The government narrative states that, in the very first meeting on May 24, Arbabsiar asked the informant about his “knowledge, if any, with respect to explosives” and said he was interested in “among other things, attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia.” It also notes that in the meetings prior to July 14, the DEA informant “had reported that he and Arbabsiar had discussed the possibility of attacks on a number of other targets,” including “foreign government facilities associated with Saudi Arabia and with another country,” located “within and outside the United States.”
But the allegations that the Iranian-American used car salesman wanted to “attack” the Saudi embassy and other targets rest entirely upon the testimony of the DEA informant with whom he was meeting. The informant is a drug dealer who had been indicted for a narcotics violation in a US state but had the charges dropped “in exchange for cooperation in various drug investigations,” according to the FBI account. The informant is not an independent source of information, but someone paid to help pursue FBI objectives.
The most suspicious aspect of the administration’s case, in fact, is the complete absence of any direct quote from Arbabsiar suggesting interest in, much less advocacy of, assassinating the Saudi ambassador or carrying out other attacks in a series of meetings with the DEA informant between June 23 and July 14. The deposition does not even indicate how many times the two actually met during those three weeks, suggesting that the number was substantial, and that the lack of primary evidence from those meetings is a sensitive issue. And although the FBI account specifies that the July 14 and 17 meetings were recorded “at the direction of law enforcement agents,” it is carefully ambiguous about whether or not the earlier meetings were recorded.
The lack of quotations is a crucial problem for the official case for a simple reason: If Arbabsiar had said anything even hinting in the May 24 meeting or in a subsequent meeting at the desire to mount a terrorist attack, it would have triggered the immediate involvement of the FBI’s National Security Branch and its counter-terrorism division. The FBI would then have instructed the DEA informant to record all of the meetings with Arbabsiar, as is standard practice in such cases, according to a former FBI official interviewed for this article. And that would mean that those meetings were indeed recorded.
The fact that the FBI account does not include a single quotation from Arbabsiar in the June 23-July 14 meetings means either that Arbabsiar did not say anything that raised such alarms at the FBI or that he was saying something sufficiently different from what is now claimed that the administration chooses not to quote from it. In either case, the lack of such quotes further suggests that it was not Arbabsiar, but the DEA informant, acting as part of an FBI sting operation, who pushed the idea of assassinating Jubeir. The most likely explanation is that Arbabsiar was suggesting surveillance of targets that could be hit if Iran were to be attacked by Israel with Saudi connivance.

“The Saudi Arabia” and the $100,000

The July 14 meeting between Arbabsiar and the DEA informant is the first from which the criminal complaint offers actual quotations from the secretly recorded conversation. The FBI’s retelling supplies selected bits of conversation -- mostly from the informant -- aimed at portraying the meeting as revolving around the assassination plot. But when carefully studied, the account reveals a different story.
The quotations attributed to the DEA informant suggest that he was under orders to get a response from Arbabsiar that could be interpreted as assent to an assassination plot. For example, the informant tells Arbabsiar, “You just want the, the main guy.” There is no quoted response from the car dealer. Instead, the FBI narrative simply asserts that Arbabsiar “confirmed that he just wanted the ‘ambassador.’” At the end of the meeting, the informant declares, “We’re gonna start doing the guy.” But again, no response from Arbabsiar is quoted.
Two statements by the informant appear on their face to relate to a broader set of Saudi targets than Adel al-Jubeir. The informant tells Arbabsiar that he would need “at least four guys” and would “take the one point five for the Saudi Arabia.” The FBI agent who signed the deposition explains, “I understand this to mean that he would need to use four men to assassinate the Ambassador and that the cost to Arbabsiar of the assassination would be $1.5 million.” But, apart from the agent’s surmise, there is no hint that either cited phrase referred to a proposal to assassinate the ambassador. Given that there had already been discussion of multiple Saudi targets, as well as those of an unnamed third country (probably Israel), it seems more reasonable to interpret the words “the Saudi Arabia” to refer to a set of missions relating to Saudi Arabia in order to distinguish them from the other target list.
Then the informant repeats the same wording, telling Arbabsiar he would “go ahead and work on the Saudi Arabia, get all the information that we can.” This language does not show that Arbabsiar proposed the killing of Jubeir, much less approved it. And the FBI narrative states that the Iranian-American “agreed that the assassination of the Ambassador should be handled first.” Again, that curious wording does not assert that Arbabsiar said an assassination should be carried out first, but suggests he was agreeing that the subject should be discussed first.
The absence of any quote from Arbabsiar about an assassination plot, combined with the multiple ambiguities surrounding the statements attributed to the DEA informant, suggest that the main subject of the July 14 meeting was something broader than an assassination plot, and that it was the government’s own agent who had brought up the subject of assassinating the ambassador in the meeting, rather than Arbabsiar.
The government reconstruction of the July 14 meeting also introduces the keystone of the Obama administration’s public case: $100,000 that was to be transferred to a bank account that the DEA informant said he would make known to Arbabsiar. The FBI deposition asserts repeatedly that whenever Arbabsiar or the DEA informant mention the $100,000, they are talking about a “down payment” on the assassination. But the document contains no statement from either of them linking that $100,000 to any assassination plan. In fact, it provides details suggesting that the $100,000 could not have been linked to such a plan.
The FBI deposition states that the informant and Arbabsiar “discussed how Arbabsiar would pay [the informant],” but offers no statement from either individual even mentioning a “payment,” or any reason for transferring the money to a bank account. Furthermore, it does not actually claim that Arbabsiar made any commitment to any action against Jubeir at either the July 14 or 17 meetings. And when the informant is quoted in the July 17 meeting as saying, “I don’t know exactly what your cousin wants me to do,” it appears to be an acknowledgement that he had gotten no indication prior to July 17 that Arbabsiar’s Tehran interlocutors wanted the Saudi ambassador dead. The deposition does not even claim that Arbabsiar’s supposed handlers had approved a plan to kill Jubeir until after the Iranian-American returned to his native country on July 20.
Nevertheless, Arbabsiar is quoted telling the informant on July 14 that the full $100,000 had already been collected in cash at the home of “a certain individual.” Preparations for the transfer of the $100,000 had thus commenced well before the assassination plot allegedly got the green light.
The amount of $100,000 does not even appear credible as a “down payment” on a job that the FBI account says was to have cost a total of $1.5 million. It would represent a mere 6 percent of the full price. Bearing in mind that the DEA informant was supposed to be representing the demand of a ruthlessly profit-motivated Los Zetas drug cartel for a high-stakes political assassination well outside its purview, 6 percent of the total would represent far too little for a “down payment.”
The $100,000 wire transfer must have been related to an understanding that had been reached on something other than the assassination plan. Yet it has been cited by the administration and reported by news media as proof of the plot -- and key evidence of Iran’s complicity therein. [2]

The Qods Force Connection

The FBI account of the July 17 meeting shows the DEA informant leading Arbabsiar into a statement of support for an assassination. The informant, obviously following an FBI script, says, “I don’t know what exactly your cousin wants me to do.” But the deposition notes “further conversation” following that invitation for a clear position on a proposal coming from the informant, indicating that what Arbabsiar was saying did not support the administration’s allegation that assassination plot was coming from Tehran.
After the FBI evidently sought again to get the straightforward answer it was seeking, however, Arbabsiar is quoted as saying: “He wants you to kill this guy.” The informant then presents a fanciful plan to bomb an imaginary restaurant in Washington where Arbabsiar was told the Saudi ambassador liked to dine twice a week and where many “like, American people” would be present. “You want me to do it outside or in the restaurant?” asks the informant, to which question the Iranian-American replies, “Doesn’t matter how you do it.” At another point in the conversation, Arbabsiar goes further, saying, “They want that guy done. If the hundred go with him, fuck ‘em.”
These statements appear at first blush to be conclusive evidence that Arbabsiar and his Iranian overseers were contracting for the assassination of Jubeir, regardless of lives lost. But there are two crucial questions that the FBI account leaves unanswered: Was Arbabsiar speaking on behalf of the Qods Force or some element of it? And if he was, was he talking about a plan that was to go into effect as soon as possible or was it understood that they were talking about a contingency plan that would only be carried out under specific circumstances?
The deposition includes several instances of Arbabsiar’s bragging about a cousin who is a general, out of uniform and involved in covert external operations, including in Iraq -- clearly implying that he belongs to the Qods Force. Arbabsiar is said to have claimed that the cousin and another Iranian official gave him funds for his contacts with the drug cartel. “I got the money coming,” he says. Subsequently, in one of the most extensive quotations from the recorded conversations, Arbabsiar says, “This is politics, so these people they pay this government…he’s got the, got the government behind him…he’s not paying from his pocket.” The FBI narrative identifies the person referred to here as Arbabsiar’s cousin, a Qods Force officer later named as Abdul Reza Shahlai, but again, there is not a single direct quotation backing the claim. And the reference to “these people” who “pay this government” suggests that “he” is connected to a group with illicit financial ties to government officials.
This excerpt could be particularly significant in light of press reports quoting a US law enforcement official saying that Arbabsiar had offered “tons of opium” to the drug cartel and that he and the informant had discussed what the New York Times called a “side deal” on the Iranian-held narcotics. [3] If these reports are accurate, it seems possible that Arbabsiar approached Los Zetas on behalf of Iranians who control a portion of the opium being smuggled through Iran from Afghanistan, while seeking to impress the drug cartel operative with his claim to have close ties to the Qods Force through Shahlai. But if the DEA informant then pressed him to authenticate his Qods Force connection, he may have begun discussing covert operations against Iran’s enemies in North America.
The only alleged evidence that Arbabsiar was speaking for Shahlai and the Qods Force is Arbabsiar’s own confession, summarized in the criminal complaint. But, at minimum, that testimony was provided after he had been arrested and had a strong interest in telling the FBI what it wanted to hear.
The deposition makes much of a series of three phone conversations on October 4, 5 and 7 between Arbabsiar and someone who Arbabsiar tells his FBI handlers is Gholam Shakuri, presenting them as confirmation of the involvement of Qods Force officers in the assassination scheme. But the FBI apparently had no way of ascertaining whether the person to whom Arababsiar was talking was actually Shakuri. After the October 4 call, for example, the FBI account merely records that Arbabsiar “indicated that the person he was speaking with was Shakuri.”
On their face, moreover, these conversations prove nothing. In the first of the three calls, the person at the other end of the line, whom Arbabsiar identifies to his FBI contact as Shakuri but whose identity is not otherwise established, asks, “What news…what did you do about the building?” The FBI agent again suggests, “based on my training, experience and participation in this investigation,” that these queries were a “reference to the plot to murder the Ambassador and a question about its status.”
But Arbabsiar is said to have claimed in his confession that he was instructed by Shakuri to use the code word “Chevrolet” to refer to the plot to kill the ambassador. In a second recorded conversation, Arbabsiar immediately says, “I wanted to tell you the Chevrolet is ready, it’s ready, uh, to be done. I should continue, right?” After further exchange, the man purported to be “Shakuri” says, “So buy it, buy it.” Despite the obvious invocation of a code word, it remains unclear what Arbabsiar was to “buy.” “Chevrolet” could actually have been a reference to either a drug-related deal or a generic plan having to do with Saudi and other targets.
In a third recorded conversation on October 7, both Arbabsiar and “Shakuri” refer to a demand by a purported cartel figure for another $50,000 on top of the original $100,000 transferred by wire earlier. But there is no other evidence of such a demand. It appears to be a mere device of the FBI to get “Shakuri” on record as talking about the $100,000. And here it should be recalled that the account in the deposition shows that the transfer of the $100,000 had been agreed on before any indication of agreement on a plan to kill the ambassador.
The invocation of a fictional demand for $50,000, along with the dramatic difference between the first conversation and the second and third conversations, suggests yet another possibility: The second and third conversations were set up in advance by Arbabsiar to provide a transcript to bolster the administration’s case.

Terrorist Plot or Deterrence Strategy?

Even if Qods Forces officials indeed directed Arbabsiar to contact the Los Zetas cartel, it cannot be assumed that they intended to carry out one or more terrorist attacks in the United States. The killing of a foreign ambassador in Washington (not to speak of additional attacks on Saudi and Israeli buildings), if linked to Iran, would invite swift and massive US military retaliation. If, on the other hand, the Qods Force men instructed Arbabsiar to conduct surveillance of those targets and prepare contingency plans for hitting them if Iran were attacked, the whole story begins to make more sense.
Iran lacks the conventional means to deter attack by a powerful adversary. In its decades-long standoffs with the United States and Israel, amidst recurrent talk of “preemptive” strikes by those powers, Iran has relied on threats of proxy retaliation against US and allied state targets in the Middle East. [4] The Iranian military support for Lebanon’s Hizballah, in particular, is widely recognized as prompted primarily by Iran’s need to deter US and Israeli attack. [5]
In one case in 1994-1995, Saudi Arabian Shi‘i militants carried out surveillance of potential US military and diplomatic targets in Saudi Arabia, in a way that was quickly noticed by US and Saudi intelligence. [6] Although the consensus among US intelligence analysts was that Iran was preparing for a terrorist attack, Ronald Neumann, then the State Department’s intelligence officer for Iran and Iraq, noted that Iran had done the same thing whenever US-Iranian tensions had risen. He suggested that Iran could be using the surveillance for deterrence, to let Washington know that its interests in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere would be in danger if Iran were attacked. [7]
Unfortunately for Iran’s deterrent strategy, however, Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda was also carrying out surveillance of US bases in Saudi Arabia, and in November 1995 and again in June 1996, that group bombed two facilities housing US servicemen. The bombing of Khobar Towers in June 1996, which killed 19 US soldiers and one Saudi Arabian, was blamed by the Clinton administration’s FBI and CIA leadership on Iranian-sponsored Shi‘a from Saudi Arabia, with prodding from Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, despite the fact that bin Laden claimed responsibility not once but twice, in interviews with the London-based newspaper, al-Quds al-‘Arabi. [8]
Hani al-Sayigh, one of the Saudi Arabian Shi‘a accused by the Saudi and US governments of conspiring to attack the Khobar Towers, admitted to Assistant Attorney General Eric Dubelier, who interviewed him at a Canadian detention facility in May 1997, that he had participated in the surveillance of US military targets in Saudi Arabia on behalf of Iranian intelligence. But, according to the FBI report on the interview, al-Sayigh insisted that Iran had never intended to attack any of those sites unless it was first attacked by the United States. And when Dubelier asked a question later in the interview that was based on the premise that the surveillance effort was preparation for a terrorist attack, al-Sayigh corrected him. [9]
With threats of an Israeli or US bombing attack on Iran, with Saudi complicity, mounting since the mid-2000s, a similar campaign of surveillance of Saudi and Israeli targets in North America would fit the framework of what the Pentagon has called Iran’s “asymmetric warfare doctrine.” If Arbabsiar spoke of such a campaign in his initial meeting with the DEA informant, he certainly would have piqued the interest of FBI counter-terrorism personnel. And this scenario would also explain why the series of meetings in late June and the first half of July did not produce a single statement by Arbabsiar that the administration could quote to advance its case that the Iranian-American was interested in assassinating Adel al-Jubeir or carrying out other acts of terrorism.
A plan to conduct surveillance and be ready to act on contingency plans would also explain why someone as lacking in relevant experience and skills as Arbabsiar might have been acceptable to the Qods Force. Not only would the mission not have required absolute secrecy; it would have been based on the assumption that the surveillance would become known to US intelligence relatively quickly, as did the monitoring of US targets in Saudi Arabia in 1994-1995.
The Qods Force officials were certainly well aware that the Drug Enforcement Agency had penetrated various Mexican drug cartels, in some cases even at the very top level. US court proceedings involving Mexican drug traffickers who were highly placed in the Sinaloa drug cartel between 2009 and early 2011 reveal that the US made deals with leaders of the cartel to report what they knew about rival cartel operations in return for a hands-off approach to their drug trafficking. [10] Further underlining the degree to which the cartels were honeycombed with people on the US payroll, the DEA informant in this case was not merely posing as a drug trafficker but is reportedly an actual associate of Los Zetas with access to its upper echelons, who has been given immunity from prosecution to cooperate with the DEA. [11]

When Did Arbabsiar Become Part of the Sting?

The Obama administration’s account of the alleged Iranian plot has Arbabsiar suddenly changing from terrorist conspirator to active collaborator with the FBI upon his September 29 arrest at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. He is said to have provided a confession immediately upon being apprehended, after waiving his right to a lawyer, and then to have waived that right repeatedly again while being interviewed by the FBI. Then Arbabsiar cooperated in making the series of secretly recorded phone calls to someone he identified as Shakuri.
For someone facing such serious charges to provide the details with which to make the case against him, while renouncing benefit of counsel, is odd, to say the least. The official story raises questions not only about what agreement was reached between Arbabsiar and the FBI to ensure his cooperation but about when that agreement was reached.
One clue that Arbabsiar was brought into the sting operation well before his arrest is the DEA informant’s demand in a September 20 phone conversation with Arbabsiar in Tehran that he either come up with half the $1.5 million total fee or come to Mexico to be the guarantee that the full amount would be paid.
Yet the FBI account of that conversation shows Arbabsiar telling the informant, without even consulting with his contacts in Tehran, “I’m gonna go over there [in] two [or] three days.” Later in the same evening, he calls back to ask how long he would need to remain in Mexico. Even if Arbabsiar were as feckless as some reports have suggested, he would certainly not have agreed so readily to put his fate in the hands of the murderous Los Zetas cartel -- unless he knew that he was not really in danger, because the US government would intercept him and bring him to the United States. Making the episode even stranger, Arbabsiar’s confession claims that when he told Shakuri about the purported Los Zetas demand, Shakuri refused to provide any more money to the cartel, advised him against going to Mexico and warned him that if he did so, he would be on his own.
Further supporting the conclusion that Arbabsiar had become part of the sting operation before his arrest is the fact there was no reason for the FBI to pose the demand -- through the DEA informant -- for more money or Arbabsiar’s presence in Mexico except to provide an excuse to get him out of Iran, so he could provide a full confession implicating the Qods Force and be the centerpiece of the case against Iran.
The larger aim of the FBI sting operation, which ABC News has reported was dubbed Operation Red Coalition, was clearly to link the alleged assassination plot to Qods Force officers. The logical moment for the FBI to have recruited the Iranian-American would have been right after the FBI recorded him talking about wiring money to the bank account and casually approving the idea of bombing a restaurant and before his planned departure from Mexico for Iran. The only way to ensure that Arbabsiar would come back, of course, would be to offer him a substantial amount of money to serve as an informant for the FBI during his stay in Iran, which he would receive only upon returning. If Arbabsiar had already been enlisted, of course, it would also mean the keystone of the case -- the wiring of $100,000 to a secret FBI bank account -- was a part of the FBI sting.

FBI Trickery in Terrorism Cases

FBI deceit in constructing a case for an Iranian terror plot should come as no surprise, given its record of domestic terrorism prosecutions based on sting operations involving entrapment and skullduggery. Central to these stings has been the creation of fictional terrorist plots by the FBI itself. In 2006 the “Gonzales Guidelines” for the use of FBI informants removed previous prohibitions on actions to “initiate a plan or strategy to commit a federal, state or local offense.” [12]
Perhaps the most notorious of all these domestic terrorism sting operations is the case in which Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain, leaders of their Albany, New York mosque, were sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for allegedly laundering profits from the sale of a shoulder-launched missile for a Pakistani militant group that was planning to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat in New York City.
In fact, there was no such terrorist plot, and the alleged crime was the result of an elaborate FBI scam directed against two innocent men. [13] It began when an FBI informant pretending to be a Pakistani businessman insinuated himself into Hossain’s life and extended him a $50,000 loan for his pizza parlor. Only months after the informant had begun loaning the money did he show Hossain a shoulder-launched missile, and suggest that he was also selling arms to his “Muslim brothers.” It was a devious form of entrapment; the prosecutors later argued that Hossain should have known the loan could have come from money made in the sale of weapons to terrorists and was therefore guilty of money laundering.
The FBI approach to entrapping Hossain’s friend Aref was even more underhanded. Aref was never even made aware of the missile or the phony story of the illegal arms sale. But on one occasion, when he was present to witness the transfer of loan money, what was later said to have been the missile’s trigger system was left on a table in the room. Prosecutors then argued the theory that Aref had seen the trigger, which looks much like a staple gun, and thus had become part of a conspiracy to “assist in money laundering.”
Many other domestic terrorism cases have involved deceptive tactics and economic inducements deployed by the FBI to involve American Muslims in fictional terrorist plots. The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University’s Law School found more than 20 terrorism cases that involved some combination of “paid informants, selection of investigation based on perceived religious identity, [and] a plot that was created by the government.” [14] This history makes it clear that the Justice Department and FBI are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to fabricate terrorism cases against targeted individuals, and that misrepresenting these individuals’ intentions and actual behavior has long been standard practice. The trickery and deceit in past “counter-terrorism” sting operations provides further reason to question the veracity of the Obama administration’s allegations in the bizarre case of Manssor Arbabsiar.

Endnotes

[1] The full text of the “amended criminal complaint” is online at: http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=a334ea94-9f4f-4364-8...
[2] See New York Times, October 12, 2011 and Reuters, October 12, 2011.
[3] See New York Times, October 12, 2011 and Bloomberg, October 12, 2011.
[4] For an official US recognition of Iran’s “assymetric warfare doctrine” as a tool of deterrence of “any would-be invader,” see Department of Defense, Unclassified Report on Military Power of Iran, April 2010, p. 1.
[5] See, for example, Michael Young, “Another Israel-Hezbollah War?” Middle East Security at Harvard, National Security Study Program, February 28, 2008: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/02/another_israel_hezbollah_war/
[6] See Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1997 and Steve Coll, Ghost Wars (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 276.
[7] Gareth Porter, “US Officials Leaked a False Story Blaming Iran,” Inter Press Service, June 24, 2009.
[8] Gareth Porter, “FBI Ignored Compelling Evidence of Bin Laden Role,” Inter Press Service, June 25, 2009.
[9] Gareth Porter, “US May Have Concealed Deterrent Aim of Iranian Plan,” Inter Press Service, October 21, 2011.
[10] New York Times, October 24, 2011.
[11] So said ProPublica reporter Sebastian Rotella in his podcast of October 18, 2011, online at: http://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/podcast-sebastian-rotella-on-the-...
[12] Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the “Homegrown Threat” in the United States (New York, 2011), p. 14.
[13] This account of the case is drawn from Petra Bartosiewicz, “To Catch a Terrorist,” Harper’s (August 2011).
[14] Targeted and Entrapped, pp. 50-52, fn 17.

Once again--Rumors of an Israeli Attack on Iran

2011-10-31T14:02:00.000-07:00

Once again we are receiving numerous reports of an imminent Israeli attacks on Iran. These stem from Israel in both the Hebrew and English Press, echoed by organizations in the U.S. such as the Washington Times. The latest features the pronouncements of Amos Gilad, Defense Ministry Director of Policy and Political-Military Affairs Amos Gilad

Quoting from an article in Ynetnews.com <http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4140625,00.html>:

"[Gilad claims that] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are extremely concerned by the Iranian threat. . . .'You need to know what issues to prioritize. In my opinion – it's the Iranian front,' he told students at the Ashkelon College. His statements were made in response to a Yedioth Ahronoth article claiming that Netanyahu and Barak were seemingly pushing for action against Iran. "

What is interesting about this article is that it also quotes Israeli military figures, who oppose action against Iran.

"According to a Nahum Barnea article in Yedioth Ahronoth, published on Friday, the heads of the armed forces – Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo, Military Intelligence Chief Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi and Shin Bet Chief Yoram Cohen share the opinion of their predecessors and are opposed to taking action against Iran at this time. Former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan had previously stated that a strike against Iran was 'a foolish idea' and warned against the disastrous consequences that would follow such action – an all out regional war."

It would thus seem that there is a split between the politicians and the military on the advisability of an attack on Iran.

This makes the rise in rumors about such an attack highly suspicious. Either they are specious, or if true, the seem to show a political rather than a military or security necessity. The Washington Times quotes Amir Oren, military analyst for Ha'aretz:

"Mr. Oren offered another insight that he says may point Mr. Netanyahu toward military action against Iran. Although the prime minister failed to make any enduring mark on history during his previous term or so far during his present term, Mr. Netanyahu may see Iran as an opportunity to achieve his Churchillian moment,' Mr. Oren wrote. 'The day is not far off, Netanyahu believes, when Churchill will emerge from him.' <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/28/israeli-prisoner-swap-may-be-prelude-attack-iran/>

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota

William O. Beeman interview on Iranian "Plot" to assassinate Saudi ambassador

2011-10-17T17:50:00.000-07:00

William O. Beeman interview with Ahmed Tharwat in Minneapolis on Iranian "plot" to assassinate Saudi ambassador.

U.S. Officials Peddle False Intel to Support Terror Plot Claims Analysis by Gareth Porter*

2011-10-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105486

U.S. Officials Peddle False Intel to Support Terror Plot Claims
Analysis by Gareth Porter*

Commentary by William O. Beeman: Virtually no Iranian specialist fully believes the Obama administration's account of Iranian-American Mansour Arbabsiar's story of an assassination plot on the Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Both the FBI and the CIA (with new Iran detractor Petraeus at the helm) have issued questionable or false information about this case, especially their claims that Mr. Arbabsiar was being controlled or directed by Iran's Central authorities. President Obama, in my opinion, is making a huge error in embracing this questionable information.

WASHINGTON, Oct 17, 2011 (IPS) - Officials of the Barack Obama
administration have aggressively leaked information supposedly based
on classified intelligence in recent days to bolster its allegation
that two higher- ranking officials from Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC) were involved in a plot to assassinate Saudi Ambassador
Adel al-Jubeir in Washington, D.C.

The media stories generated by the leaks helped divert press attention
from the fact that there is no verifiable evidence of any official
Iranian involvement in the alleged assassination plan, contrary to the
broad claim being made by the administration.

But the information about the two Iranian officials leaked to NBC
News, the Washington Post and Reuters was unambiguously false and
misleading, as confirmed by official documents in one case and a
former senior intelligence and counterterrorism official in the other.

The main target of the official leaks was Abdul Reza Shahlai, who was
identified publicly by the Obama administration as a "deputy commander
in the Quds Force" of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Shahlai
had long been regarded by U.S. officials as a key figure in the Quds
Force's relationship to Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Iraq.

The primary objective of the FBI sting operation involving Iranian-
American Manssor Arbabsiar and a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
informant that was started last June now appears to have been to use
Arbabsiar to implicate Shahlai in a terror plot.

U.S. officials had learned from the DEA informant that Arbabsiar
claimed that Shahlai was his cousin.

In September 2008, the Treasury Department designated Shahlai as an
individual "providing financial, material and technical support for
acts of violence that threaten the peace and stability of Iraq" and
thus subject to specific financial sanctions. The announcement said
Shahlai had provided "material support" to the Mahdi Army in 2006 and
that he had "planned the Jan. 20, 2007 attack" by Mahdi Army "Special
Groups" on U.S. troops at the Provincial Coordination Center in
Karbala, Iraq.

Arbabsiar's confession claims that Shahlai approached him in early
spring 2011 and asked him to find "someone in the narcotics business"
to kidnap the Saudi ambassador to the United States, according to the
FBI account. Arbabsiar implicates Shahlai in providing him with
thousands of dollars for his expenses.

But Arbabsiar's charge against Shahlai was self-interested. Arbabsiar
had become the cornerstone of the administration's case against
Shahlai in order to obtain leniency on charges against him.

There is no indication in the FBI account of the investigation that
there is any independent evidence to support Arbabsiar's claim of
Shahlai's involvement in a plan to kill the ambassador.

The Obama administration planted stories suggesting that Shahlai had a
terrorist past, and that it was therefore credible that he could be
part of an assassination plot.

Laying the foundation for press stories on the theme, the Treasury
Department announced Tuesday that it was sanctioning Shahlai, along
with Arbabsiar and three other Quds Force officials, including the
head of the organisation, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, for being
"connected to" the assassination plot.

But Michael Issikof of NBC News reported the same day that Shahlai
"had previously been accused of plotting a highly sophisticated attack
that killed five U.S. soldiers in Iraq, according to U.S. government
officials and documents made public Tuesday afternoon".

Isikoff, who is called "National Investigative Correspondent" at NBC
News, reported that the Treasury Department had designated Shahlai as
a "terrorist" in 2008, despite the fact that the Treasury announcement
of the designation had not used the term "terrorist".

On Saturday, the Washington Post published a report closely
paralleling the Issikof story but going even further in claiming
documentary proof of Shahlai's responsibility for the January 2007
attack in Karbala. Post reporter Peter Finn wrote that Shahlai "was
known as the guiding hand behind an elite militia of the cleric
Moqtada al Sadr", which had carried out an attack on U.S. troops in
Karbala in January 2007.

Finn cited the fact that the Treasury Department named Shahlai as the
"final approving and coordinating authority" for training Sadr's
militiamen in Iran. That fact would not in itself be evidence of
involvement in a specific attack on U.S. forces. On the contrary, it
would suggest that he was not involved in operational aspects of the
Mahdi Army in Iraq.

Finn then referred to a "22-page memo that detailed preparations for
the operation and tied it to the Quds Force…." But he didn't refer to
any evidence that Shahlai personally had anything to do with the
operation.

In fact, U.S. officials acknowledged in the months after the Karbala
attack that they had found no evidence of any Iranian involvement in
the operation.

Talking with reporters about the memo on Apr. 26, 2007, several weeks
after it had been captured, Gen. David Petraeus conceded that it did
not show that any Iranian official was linked to the planning of the
Karbala operation. When a journalist asked him whether there was
evidence of Iranian involvement in the Karbala operation, Petraeus
responded, "No. No. No… [W]e do not have a direct link to Iran
involvement in that particular case."

In a news briefing in Baghdad Jul. 2, 2007, Gen. Kevin Bergner
confirmed that the attack in Karbala had been authorised by the Iraqi
chief of the militia in question, Kais Khazali, not by any Iranian
official.

Col. Michael X. Garrett, who had been commander of the U.S. Fourth
Brigade combat team in Karbala, confirmed to this writer in December
2008 that the Karbala attack "was definitely an inside job".

Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, is on the list
of those Iranian officials "linked" to the alleged terror plot,
because he "oversees the IRGC-QF officers who were involved in this
plot" , as the Treasury Department announcement explained. But a
Reuters story on Friday reported a claim of U.S. intelligence that two
wire transfers totaling 100,000 dollars at the behest of Arbabsiar to
a bank account controlled by the FBI implicates Soleimani in the
assassination plot.

"While details are still classified," wrote Mark Hosenball and Caren
Bohan, "one official said the wire transfers apparently had some kind
of hallmark indicating they were personally approved" by Soleimani.

But the suggestion that forensic examination of the wire transfers
could somehow show who had approved them is misleading. The wire
transfers were from two separate non-Iranian banks in a foreign
country, according to the FBI's account. It would be impossible to
deduce who approved the transfer by looking at the documents.

"I have no idea what such a 'hallmark' could be," said Paul Pillar, a
former head of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center who was also
National Intelligence Officer for the Middle East until his retirement
in 2005.

Pillar told IPS that the "hallmark" notion "pops up frequently in
commentary after actual terrorist attacks,", but the concept is
usually invoked "along the lines of 'the method used in this attack
had the hallmark of group such and such'."

That "hallmark" idea "assumes exclusive ownership of a method of
attack which does not really exist," said Pillar. "I expect the same
could be said of methods of transferring money."

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist
specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition
of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the
Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.
--
Gareth Porter
5552 Lee Highway
Arlington, VA 22207
H: 703 532-0124
C: 703 600-9057

The CIA and the Iran Caper

2011-10-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

How Petraeus Fueled the Plot
The CIA and the Iran Caper
by RAY McGOVERN; was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year.
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, in his accustomed role as unofficial surrogate CIA spokesman, has thrown light on how the CIA under its new director, David Petraeus, helped craft the screenplay for this week’s White House spy feature: the Iranian-American-used-car-salesman-Mexican-drug-cartel plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.
In Thursday’s column, Ignatius notes that, initially, White House and Justice Department officials found the story “implausible.” It was. But the Petraeus team soon leapt to the rescue, reflecting the four-star-general-turned-intelligence-chief’s deep-seated animus toward Iran.
Before Ignatius’s article, I had seen no one allude to the fact that much about this crime-stopper tale had come from the CIA. In public, the FBI had taken the lead role, presumably because the key informant inside a Mexican drug cartel worked for U.S. law enforcement via the Drug Enforcement Administration.
However, according to Ignatius, “One big reason [top U.S. officials became convinced the plot was real] is that CIA and other intelligence agencies gathered information corroborating the informant’s juicy allegations and showing that the plot had support from the top leadership of the elite Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the covert action arm of the Iranian government.”
Ignatius adds that, “It was this intelligence collected in Iran” that swung the balance, but he offers no example of what that intelligence was. He only mentions a recorded telephone call on Oct. 4 between Iranian-American cars salesman Mansour Arbabsiar and his supposed contact in Iran, Gholam Shakuri, allegedly an official in Iran’s Quds spy agency.
The call is recounted in the FBI affidavit submitted in support of the criminal charges against Arbabsiar, who is now in U.S. custody, and Shakuri, who is not. But the snippets of that conversation are unclear, discussing what on the surface appears to be a “Chevrolet” car purchase, but which the FBI asserts is code for killing the Saudi ambassador.
Without explaining what other evidence the CIA might have, Ignatius tries to further strengthen the case by knocking down some of the obvious problems with the allegations, such as “why the Iranians would undertake such a risky operation, and with such embarrassingly poor tradecraft.”
“But why the use of Mexican drug cartels?” asks Ignatius rhetorically, before adding dutifully: “U.S. officials say that isn’t as implausible as it sounds.”
But it IS as implausible as it sounds, says every professional intelligence officer I have talked with since the “plot” was somberly announced on Tuesday.
The Old CIA Pros
There used to be real pros in the CIA’s operations directorate. One — Ray Close, a longtime CIA Arab specialist and former Chief of Station in Saudi Arabia — told me on Wednesday that we ought to ask ourselves a very simple question:
“If you were an Iranian undercover operative who was under instructions to hire a killer to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington, D.C., why in HELL would you consider it necessary to explain to a presumed Mexican [expletive deleted] that this murder was planned and would be paid for by a secret organization in Iran?
“Whoever concocted this tale wanted the ‘plot’ exposed … to precipitate a major crisis in relations between Iran and the United States. Which other government in the Middle East would like nothing better than to see those relations take a big step toward military confrontation?”
If you hesitate in answering, you have not been paying attention. Many have addressed this issue. My last stab at throwing light on the Israel/Iran/U.S. nexus appeared ten days ago in “Israel’s Window to Bomb Iran.”
Another point on the implausibility meter is: What are the odds that Iran’s Quds force would plan an unprecedented attack in the United States, that this crack intelligence agency would trust the operation to a used-car salesman with little or no training in spycraft, that he would turn to his one contact in a Mexican drug cartel who happens to be a DEA informant, and that upon capture the car salesman would immediately confess and implicate senior Iranian officials?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to suspect that Arbabsiar might be a double-agent, recruited by some third-party intelligence agency to arrange some shady business deal regarding black-market automobiles, get some ambiguous comments over the phone from an Iranian operative, and then hand the plot to the U.S. government on a silver platter – as a way to heighten tensions between Washington and Teheran?
That said, there are times when even professional spy agencies behave like amateurs. And there’s no doubt that the Iranians – like the Israelis, the Saudis and the Americans – can and do carry out assassinations and kidnappings in this brave new world of ours.
Remember, for instance, the case of Islamic cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who was abducted off the streets of Milan, Italy, on Feb. 17, 2003, and then flown from a U.S. air base to Egypt where he was imprisoned and tortured for a year.
In 2009, Italian prosecutors convicted 23 Americans, mostly CIA operatives, in absentia for the kidnapping after reconstructing the disappearance through their unencrypted cell phone records and their credit card bills at luxury hotels in Milan.
Then, there was the suspected Mossad assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh at a hotel in Dubai on Jan. 19, 2010, with the hit men seen on hotel video cameras strolling around in tennis outfits and creating an international furor over their use of forged Irish, British, German and French passports.
So one cannot completely rule out that there may conceivably be some substance to the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador.
And beyond the regional animosities between Saudi Arabia and Iran, there could be a motive – although it has been absent from American press accounts – i.e. retaliation for the assassinations of senior Iranian nuclear scientists and generals over the last couple of years within Iran itself.
But there has been close to zero real evidence coming from the main source of information — officials of the Justice Department, which like the rest of the U.S. government has long since forfeited much claim to credibility.
Petraeus’s ‘Intelligence’ on Iran
The public record also shows that former Gen. Petraeus has long been eager to please the neoconservatives in Washington and their friends in Israel by creating “intelligence” to portray Iran and other target countries in the worst light.
One strange but instructive example comes to mind, a studied, if disingenuous, effort to blame all the troubles in southern Iraq on the “malignant” influence of Iran.
On April 25, 2008, Joint Chiefs Chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters that Gen. Petraeus in Baghdad would give a briefing “in the next couple of weeks” providing detailed evidence of “just how far Iran is reaching into Iraq to foment instability.” Petraeus’s staff alerted U.S. media to a major news event in which captured Iranian arms in Karbala would be displayed and then destroyed.
Oops. Small problem. When American munitions experts went to Karbala to inspect the alleged cache of Iranian weapons, they found nothing that could be credibly linked to Iran.
At that point, adding insult to injury, the Iraqis announced that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had formed his own Cabinet committee to investigate the U.S. claims and attempt to “find tangible information and not information based on speculation.” Ouch!
The Teflon-clad Petraeus escaped embarrassment, as the David Ignatiuses of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) conveniently forgot all about the promised-then-canceled briefing. U.S. media suppression of this telling episode is just one example of how difficult it is to get unbiased, accurate information on touchy subjects like Iran into the FCM.
As for Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama, some adult adviser should tell them to quit giving hypocrisy a bad name with their righteous indignation over the thought that no civilized nation would conduct cross-border assassinations.
The Obama administration, like its predecessor, has been dispatching armed drones to distant corners of the globe to kill Islamic militants, including recently U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki for the alleged crime of encouraging violence against Americans.
Holder and Obama have refused to release the Justice Department’s legal justification for the targeted murder of al-Awlaki whose “due process” amounted to the President putting al-Awlaki’s name on a secret “kill-or-capture” list.
Holder and Obama have also refused to take meaningful action to hold officials of the Bush administration accountable for war crimes even though President George W. Bush has publicly acknowledged authorizing waterboarding and other brutal techniques long regarded as acts of torture.
Who can take at face value the sanctimonious words of an attorney general like Holder who has acquiesced in condoning egregious violations of the Bill of Rights, the U.S. criminal code, and international law — like the International Convention Against Torture?
Were shame not in such short supply in Official Washington these days, one would be amazed that Holder could keep a straight face, accusing these alleged Iranian perpetrators of “violating an international convention.”
America’s Founders would hold in contempt the Holders and the faux-legal types doing his bidding. The behavior of the past two administrations has been more reminiscent of George III and his sycophants than of James Madison, George Mason, John Jay and George Washington, who gave us the rich legacy of a Constitution, which created a system based on laws not men.
That Constitution and its Bill of Rights have become endangered species at the hands of the craven poachers at “Justice.” No less craven are the functionaries leading today’s CIA.
What to Watch For
If Petraeus finds it useful politically to conjure up more “evidence” of nefarious Iranian behavior in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, Lebanon or Syria, he will. And if he claims to see signs of ominous Iranian intentions regarding nuclear weapons, watch out.
Honest CIA analysts, like the ones who concluded that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon in late 2003 and had not resumed that work, are in short supply, and most have families to support and mortgages to pay.
Petraeus is quite capable of marginalizing them, or even forcing them to quit. I have watched this happen to a number of intelligence officials under a few of Petraeus’s predecessors.
More malleable careerists can be found in any organization, and promoted, so long as they are willing to tell more ominous — if disingenuous — stories that may make more sense to the average American than the latest tale of the Iraninan-American-used-car-salesman-Mexican-drug-cartel-plot.
This can get very dangerous in a hurry. Israel’s leaders would require but the flimsiest of nihil obstat to encourage them to provoke hostilities with Iran. Netanyahu and his colleagues would expect the Obamas, Holders, and Petraeuses of this world to be willing to “fix the intelligence and facts” (a la Iraq) to “justify” such an attack.
The Israeli leaders would risk sucking the United States into the kind of war with Iran that, short of a massive commitment of resources or a few tactical nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Israel could almost surely not win. It would be the kind of war that would make Iraq and Afghanistan look like minor skirmishes.
Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso). He can be reached at: rrmcgovern@gmail.com.
A version of this article first appeared on Consortiumnews.com.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/14/the-cia-and-the-iran-caper/#.TppWTwp-F0o.gmail

Porter--FBI Account of "Terror Plot" Suggests Sting Operation

2011-10-13T19:07:00.000-07:00

FBI Account of "Terror Plot" Suggests Sting Operation

Porter--FBI Account of "Terror Plot" Suggests Sting Operation
Analysis by Gareth Porter*

Commentary by William O. Beeman: The alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in Washington becomes increasingly tangled and shady. Gareth Porter examines the actual FBI documents leading to the arrest of Mr. Arbabsiar, the supposed perpetrator of the plot. Note: nothing happened! No explosives were purchased, no explosions or killings took place, and Mr. Arbabsiar has not even been indicted. This has everyone puzzled. The possibility that this was an FBI sting operation is a more than reasonable theory.

WASHINGTON, Oct 13, 2011 (IPS) - While the administration of Barack Obama vows to hold the Iranian government "accountable" for the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, the legal document describing evidence in the case provides multiple indications that it was mainly the result of an FBI "sting" operation.

Although the legal document, called an amended criminal complaint, implicates Iranian-American Manssor Arbabsiar and his cousin Ali Gholam Shakuri, an officer in the Iranian Quds Force, in a plan to assassinate Saudi Arabian Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir, it also suggests that the idea originated with and was strongly pushed by a undercover DEA informant, at the direction of the FBI.

On May 24, when Arbabsiar first met with the DEA informant he thought was part of a Mexican drug cartel, it was not to hire a hit squad to kill the ambassador. Rather, there is reason to believe that the main purpose was to arrange a deal to sell large amounts of opium from Afghanistan.

In the complaint, the closest to a semblance of evidence that Arbabsiar sought help during that first meeting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador is the allegation, attributed to the DEA informant, that Arbabsiar said he was "interested in, among other things, attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia".

Among the "other things" was almost certainly a deal on heroin controlled by officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Three Bloomberg reporters, citing a "federal law enforcement official", wrote that Arbabsiar told the DEA informant he represented Iranians who "controlled drug smuggling and could provide tons of opium".

Because of opium entering Iran from Afghanistan, Iranian authorities hold 85 percent of the world's opium seizures, according to Iran's Fars News Agency. Iranian security personnel, including those in the IRGC and its Quds Force, then have the opportunity to sell the opium to traffickers in the Middle East, Europe and now Mexico.

Mexican drug cartels have begun connecting with Middle Eastern drug traffickers, in many cases stationing operatives in Middle East locations to facilitate heroin production and sales, according to a report last January in Borderland Beat.

But the FBI account of the contacts between Arbabsiar and the DEA informant does not reference any discussions of drugs.

The criminal complaint refers to an unspecified number of meetings between Arbabsiar and the DEA informant in late June and the first two weeks of July.

What transpired in those meetings remains the central mystery surrounding the case.

The official account of the investigation cites the testimony of the informant (referred to in the document as "CS-1") in stating, "Over the course of a series of meetings, ARBABSIAR explained to CS-1 that his associates in Iran had discussed a number of violent missions for CS-1 and CIS-1's purported criminal associates to perform."

The account claims that the mission discussed included murdering the ambassador. But no specific statement proposing or agreeing to the act is attributed to Arbabsiar. "Prior to the July 14 meeting, CS- 1 had reported that he and Arbabsiar had discussed the possibility of attacks on a number of other targets," the account states.

The targets are described as involving "foreign government facilities associated with Saudi Arabia and with another country…located either in or outside the United States", without mentioning any discussion of the Saudi ambassador.

Both that language and the absence of any statement attributed to Arbabsiar imply that the Iranian- American said nothing about assassinating the Saudi ambassador except in response to suggestions by the informant, who was already part of an FBI undercover operation.

The DEA informant, as the FBI account acknowledges in a footnote, had previously been charged with a narcotics offence by a state in the U.S. and had been cooperating in narcotics investigations – apparently posing as a drug cartel operative – in return for dropping the charges. The document is notably silent on whether the conversation was recorded.

A former FBI official familiar with procedures in such cases, who spoke to IPS anonymously, said the FBI would normally have recorded all such conversations touching on the possibility of terrorism.

The absence of quotes from any of those meetings suggests that they do not support the case being made by the FBI and the Obama administration.

The account is quite explicit, on the other hand, that the Jul. 14 and Jul. 17 meetings were recorded at FBI direction. Statements quoted from those transcripts show the DEA informant trying to induce Arbabsiar to indicate agreement to assassinating the Saudi ambassador.

The informant is quoted as saying he would need "at least four guys" and would "take the one point five for the Saudi Arabia". He declared that he "go ahead and work on the Saudi Arabia, get all the information we can".

At one point the informant says, "You just want the, the main guy." And at the end of the meeting, he declares, "[W]e're gonna start doing the guy".

The fact that not a single quote from Arbabsiar shows that he agreed to assassinating the ambassador, much less proposed it, suggests that he was either non-committal or linking the issue to something else, such as the prospect of a major drug deal with the cartel.

Arbabsiar's quotes from a Sep. 2 phone conversation referring to the cartel as "having the number for the safe" and "once you open the door that's it" could refer to a drug transaction that had been discussed, while the FBI account suggest those quotes refer to the assassination and "other projects" with the Iranian group.

At the Jul. 17 meeting, the DEA informant presented a plan to blow up a restaurant to kill the ambassador, with the possible deaths of 100-150 people, eliciting a lack of concern on the part of Arbabsiar about such deaths.

During a visit to Iran in August, Arbabsiar wired two equal payments totalling $100,000 to a bank account in New York. But he was still under the impression that he was about to cash in on a deal with the cartel.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Arbabsiar had told an Iranian-American friend from Corpus Christie, Texas, "I'm going to make good money."

There is also circumstantial evidence that Arbabsiar may have even been brought into the sting operation to help further implicate his cousin Gholam Shakuri in the terrorist plot.

Arbabsiar met with his cousin Shakuri in late September and told him that the cartel was demanding that he, Arbabsiar, go to Mexico personally to guarantee payment. That demand from the DEA was an obvious device by the FBI to get Shakuri and his associates in Tehran to demonstrate their commitment to the assassination.

The FBI account indicates that Shakuri told Arbabsiar that he was responsible for himself if he went to Mexico. That statement would have been a warning sign for Arbabsiar, if he still believed he was dealing with one of the most murderous drug cartels in Mexico, that he would be risking his own life for a group that was no longer taking responsibility for him.

Yet Arbabsiar flew to Mexico as if unconcerned about that risk.

After his arrest on Sep. 29 Arbabsiar waived the right to a lawyer and proceeded to provide a complete confession. A few days later, he placed a phone call to Shakuri which was recorded "at the direction of federal enforcement agents", according to the FBI.

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.

(END)

William O. Beeman--U.S. Overreach in Tying Assassination Plot to Iran

2011-10-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

http://newamericamedia.org/2011/10/us-overreach-in-tying-assassination-plot-to-iran.php
William O. Beeman--U.S. Overreach in Tying Assassination Plot to Iran (New America Media)

U.S. Overreach in Tying Assassination Plot to Iran

New America Media, News Report, William Beeman, Posted: Oct 12, 2011

The alleged plot on the part of an Iranian-American businessman in Texas to assassinate the Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and blow up embassies in Washington and Argentina has created a paroxysm of vituperative condemnation of Iran.

Mansour Arbabsiar’s “plot” would be a minor story in the news — just another crazy plot to blow up buildings and eliminate people the would-be assassins have some grudge against, except for the desire of the U.S. government to tie this to the central authorities in Iran, which they have tried to do immediately and perhaps precipitously.

It is notable that figures such as Secretary of State Hilary Clinton were ready to condemn not the alleged perpetrators of the plot, but the government of Iran itself. "This really, in the minds of many diplomats and government officials, crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for," Clinton said. Attorney General Eric Holder declared, "The United States is committed to holding Iran responsible for its actions."

These condemnations started even before Arbabsiar, who is an American citizen, has been indicted. His lawyer has already announced that if that happens, he will plead not guilty.

The government claims that Arbabsiar and another individual, Gholam Shakuri, contacted people they supposed were assassins from a Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas, to carry out the plots. The connection to the “assassins” was exposed by a federal-paid drug informant. In fact, nothing actually happened beyond the alleged contacts. No explosives were purchased or placed, and no one was hurt. Moreover, from the information we have at present, the entire case rests on the statement of that one paid drug informant.

The mechanism to make the connection to the Iranian central government is the only one that the United States has ever been able to use to implicate Iranian central authorities in acts they consider anti-American — by tying the incident to the Qods force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Qods force is a shadowy division of the Guard operating with only loose governmental control. They have allegedly been responsible for many killings of anti-government plotters both inside and outside of Iran. Allegedly — because direct evidence for their actions against the United States has never been proven in any definitive way.

In this case, the Obama administration claims to have clear proof of a connection between Arabsiar and Qods Force members. The evidence has not been released, however the government has asserted that Shakuri, now at large, was a member of the Qods force himself.

Most Iranian experts find this story to be far-fetched — at least the part that claims that Iran’s highest leaders either planned or approved such a mission. Such an adventure makes little sense in terms of Iran’s foreign policy, and in terms of rational politics. Virtually all observers of Iran agree that the country’s leaders, whatever rhetoric they might use in public, are exceptionally pragmatic and sober in their political actions. Iran’s leaders are not fools. They know that a violent plot on U.S. soil would be seen as tantamount to war. Moreover, Iran has studiously avoided any direct threat to the United States for decades.

Given the illogic of the U.S. accusations, it is not surprising that Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations and its Foreign Ministry both issued strong condemnations of the allegations put forward by the Department of Justice and Secretary Clinton.

Context is very important in assessing this event. There is currently a bill before Congress calling for increased sanctions against Iran called the Iran Threat Reduction Act. It seems that the timing of these accusations was designed to ensure favorable passage of the bill.

There is great danger for U.S. officials in a situation like this. The accusations against Arbabsiar may prove entirely specious. As a U.S. Citizen, if he is indicted, he will have the right to a full trial, and can question the government on its sources of information. This is not going to be a military tribunal as held in Guantanamo. The potential for embarrassment of the government is very great.

Whatever the truth of this matter, there is no question that the accusations against the Iranian government are overkill. Certainly if Arbabsiar was involved in an assassination plot, and sufficient evidence to indict him can be found, he should be put on trial, but we should certainly be sober and measured before indicting the Iranian government itself for what appears to be a very silly, very idiosyncratic plot.

William O. Beeman--9/11 Raised Unrealized Hopes in US-Iran Relations

2011-09-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

9/11 Raised Unrealized Hopes in US-Iran Relations
New America Media,
Commentary, William O. Beeman,
Posted: Sep 11, 2011

As the United States remembers the events of September 11, 2001 on their tenth anniversary, it is important to remember that the tragedy was commemorated around the world, not just in America. And one of the nations that expressed the most profound and sincere grief over the loss of life was Iran.

Candlelight vigils were held throughout Iran and professions of sorrow and sympathy for the United States citizens who lost family and friends were ubiquitous. This was even more impressive when one notes that these were not government organized events, but were the spontaneous outpouring of Iranian citizens. On an official level, many Iranian religious leaders condemned the attacks, despite their differences with the United States administration. It was also noteworthy that no Iranian was involved in any way with the 9/11 attacks.

The 9/11 tragedy also resulted in a brief thaw in U.S.-Iran relations as Iran offered its air space and landing fields to the United States in its attacks on al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. It created increased positive feeling on the part of ordinary Iranian citizens for the United States and its people.

It is a secondary tragedy that this brief halcyon period in U.S.-Iran relations did not last.

President George W. Bush inexplicably made Iran one of the targets of vituperative rhetoric in his now infamous State of the Union address in January, 2002:
“States like [Iran, Iraq and North Korea], and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.”

In effect, President Bush was associating Iran with the September 11 attacks, either explicitly or implicitly.

The effect of these words in Iran was electric and immediate. Iranians who were sympathetic to the United States were chagrinned and puzzled by the “axis of evil” epithet, and stung by what they saw as unjustified accusations. They were especially confused by what they saw as a repudiation of the positive developments in the immediate post-9/11 period.

From this point on, the already poor relations between Iran and the United States deteriorated sharply.

Today, Iran’s relations with the United States could not be worse. The Bush administration went on from the 2002 verbal attack on Iran to, in 2003, accusing Iran of fomenting a nuclear weapons program, assisting al-Qaeda and the Taliban and attacking U.S. troops in post-Saddam Iraq.

None of these accusations have proved to be supported by credible evidence. Many Iranians and some Americans saw these attacks as the basis for creating an acceptable justification in advance to overthrow the Iranian government either directly or by proxy, or to attack Iran militarily.

Iran became the United States’ chief international bogeyman, replacing Libya in the 1980’s and Iraq in that regard.

What course would history have taken if President Bush had not made this fateful reference to Iran in his State of the Union "axis of evil" speech? No one can know for sure, but it is certain that the post-9/11 reservoir of good feeling on the part of Iran could have been the basis on which to build trust rather than enmity.

Were relations with Iran normalized following 9/11 rather than destroyed through the exercise of strategic ideology-based attacks, we might be seeing stability in the Middle East today—paradoxically an improvement in relations between the United States and the Middle East rather than the quagmires in which the United States is stuck today.

It is to be hoped that the commemoration of the events of 9/11 will not only mark the sober tragedy of those times, but also serve as an important look-back to re-evaluate America’s actions and attitudes toward the region—first and foremost with regard to our relations with Iran.

The GOP's fever for war will destroy any hope of shrinking government Will Iran Nuke the Tea Party? (Charleston SC City Paper)

2011-08-31T10:21:00.000-07:00

August 31, 2011 NEWS+OPINION » JACK HUNTER

The GOP's fever for war will destroy any hope of shrinking government
Will Iran Nuke the Tea Party?

by Jack Hunter

Comments by William O. Beeman: I don't agree with Ron Paul on much of his campaign, but he is dead right about Iran. It is refreshing to find a writer who has the courage to speak the truth about the insane American obsession with Iran. However, the obsession is not so much real as it is opportunistic. Most American politicians know that attacking Iran is a political "gimmie." It costs absolutely nothing, since everyone attacks Iran--both Democrats and Republicans--and it means nothing. The only thing it does is to make the candidate look "tough" against an "enemy" that is no enemy at all. Iran is the ultimate straw man in American electoral politics. The American public should be calling every cheap shot on Iran for what it is: political chicanery.

Why is it that during the last decade, when Republicans controlled all three branches of government, the national debt still exploded? Why is it that the last time a real conservative sat in the White House — Ronald Reagan — government grew astronomically?

If you asked the average conservative during the Bush years why government continued to grow so rapidly, the typical answer would have been that we were fighting two wars. When conservatives are asked why Reagan did not fulfill his promise to scale back the federal government during his tenure, they typically give one of two answers: either that the Democrats did not follow through on their pledge to cut spending or that we were in the middle of the Cold War.

"Wars cost money," Franklin Roosevelt once said, and no doubt any nation would pay virtually any cost to protect itself against a real threat. Conservatives almost unanimously supported Reagan's defense build-up because they believed the Soviet Union was a serious threat to our safety. Most conservatives gave Bush a pass on his profligate spending because they believed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were priorities. However, when it comes to today, are there any actual threats on the horizon that warrant what we currently spend on our military adventures?

Iran is certainly no such threat. To say that Iran may get a nuclear weapon and become a potential threat to its neighbors is one thing; to say that it is a threat to the United States is another. Yet too many conservatives continue to confuse the two, or as the former head of the U.S. Central Command retired Army General John Abizaid explained in 2007: "I believe the United States, with our great military power, can contain Iran ... Let's face it: We lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, we've lived with a nuclear China, and we're living with nuclear powers as well."

Gen. Abizaid then put the notion of a potential nuclear Iran into even clearer context: "[The U.S.] can deliver clear messages to the Iranians that makes it clear to them that while they may develop one or two nuclear weapons, they'll never be able to compete with us in our true military might and power."

Abizaid makes an important and glaring point: No nation on earth can currently compete with America's military might. Iran is even near the bottom of the list. Foreign Policy's Stephen Walt explains: "One of the more remarkable features about the endless drumbeat of alarm about Iran is that it pays virtually no attention to Iran's actual capabilities and rests on all sorts of worst-case assumptions about Iranian behavior."

Walt then points out that the U.S. spends $692 billion on defense, while Iran spends only $9.6 billion, before noting that currently America has 2,702 nuclear weapons in deployment and 6,000 in reserve, while Iran has zero. "By any objective measure ... Iran isn't even on the same page with the United States in terms of latent power, deployed capabilities, or the willingness to use them," Walt says. "Iran has no powerful allies, scant power-projection capability, and little ideological appeal. Despite what some alarmists think, Iran is not the reincarnation of Nazi Germany and not about to unleash some new Holocaust against anyone."

Walt adds, "The more one thinks about it, the odder our obsession with Iran appears."

Odd indeed. There is a debate within the GOP right now between Tea Party members who recognize the need to cut government spending across the board and Republicans, like Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Tim Scott, who are willing to cut everything but the military. The problem is that second only to entitlements, you can't even begin to substantively balance the budget or reduce the national debt without addressing the black hole that is Pentagon spending.

There is no reason America can't have the strongest military on earth while still being fiscally responsible. Part of this balance necessarily means favoring foreign policy sobriety over constant hyperbole. It also means recognizing practical security realities.

The reality is that Iran is not a threat to the United States. Not even close. To the degree that conservatives actually believe that Iran is some great "threat" takes the Right straight back to the Bush era, when a zeal for spending cuts took a backseat to war fever. That some in the Tea Party are occasionally the loudest in desiring U.S. action against Iran makes the prospects for smaller government even dimmer.

Wanting to limit government and police the world simultaneously is a maddening yet enduring contradiction conservatives simply can no longer afford. Neither — quite literally — can this country.

Jack Hunter is the official campaign blogger for GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, and he co-wrote Rand Paul's The Tea Party Goes to Washington.

Tags: Iran, Tea Party, General John Abizaid

William O. Beeman--Hikers in Iran--Caught in Web of International Politics

2011-08-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

Hikers In Iran - Caught in Web of International Poltics

New America Media, Commentary, William O. Beeman, Posted: Aug 03, 2011

Editor’s Note: Two young American hikers have been held as “spies” longer than other foreign nationals there. Will Ramadhan help free them from the perfect web of politics?

American Journalist Shane Bauer and his traveling companion Josh Fattal have been incarcerated in Iran for two years—longer than any other international detainee in the Islamic Republic. There is some hope that they may be released soon.

The month of fasting and prayer—Ramadhan—is now upon us. It is also traditionally a time for forgiveness and clemency, providing a suitable occasion for the Iranian judiciary to let them return home.

Unprecedented Incarceration

The length of their detainment without trial is unprecedented for foreign nationals in Iran, and it has been a puzzle for many as to why they have been held so long.

Past detainees have been held for a few months, sometimes made to “confess” their crimes and released in a show of mercy after all propaganda value had been drained from their cases. Although no answer can be definitive in Bauer and Fattal’s situation, a good guess is that they have been the victims of both internal and international politics.

The two men along with their companion, Sarah Shourd, who was released last year on compassionate medical grounds, were charged with crossing the Iranian border from Iraq without proper documentation. Subsequently they were accused of spying for the United States. Americans have found these charges to lack credibility. However, to take the accusations at face value is to miss the point of their issuance.

Iranian officials know absolutely that there are American operatives in Iran, as well as operatives from Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. If they didn’t know it, they can only look to the public statements of President George W. Bush, who declared as much. Iranian nuclear scientists have been murdered in Iran; most recently Dariush Rezai, was shot to death on a Tehran street on July 23.
Moreover, Iranians know that the border in Kurdistan over which Bauer, Fattal and Shourd traveled--a popular tourists’ trek—has also been a route for infiltration of spies since the U.S. occupation of Iraq in 2003. They also know that Israel has been courting the Kurds for many years. Iranian Jews, residents in Israel with perfect language and cultural skills, are perfect spies.

“Spies” Like--Some

Thus, the message Iran is trying to send the United States and the world is not that Bauer, Fattal and Shourd are spies, but rather that Iran knows spies are in their country, that these spies are supported by the United States and Israel, and that the spies have entered the country via the route the three hikers took. A show trial is a way to point up these basic facts.

The Iranians were probably also hoping that the three Americans might serve as coins to use in its negotiation with the United States to release a number of Iranians, who had been arrested in Europe for violating trade sanctions--and who seem to be held in secret under U.S. authority.

Such a trial might have taken place in 2009, when the three friends were first detained. However, Iran exploded in political turmoil that year. The presidential election that July turned into a gigantic public protest against President Ahmadinejad and Spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i. In the face of this political upheaval, conducting a show trial of American citizens was not only inconvenient, it threatened to make the government look even worse in the eyes of the world.

Since the government was blaming the United States for the political uprising, to release the hikers would have been seen as capitulating to the forces that Ahmadinejad and Khamene’i claimed were trying to overthrow them.

Internal Iranian politics got worse over the following year. Open rivalry between Ahmadinejad and Khamene’i dominated Iranian politics. The judiciary, under the direction of Khamene’I, may have found it inconvenient to take a line that would seem to be soft on the United States.

Obama Adopts Bush Accusations

Furthermore, in recent months the United States has made things much worse.

The Obama administration has once again returned to three tired accusations that were promulgated by the George W. Bush administration as a way to build support for a possible attack against Iran. These include concerns over Iran’s nuclear program; accusations that Iran was aiding militias in Iraq, who were attacking American troops; and that Iran was aiding al-Qaeda.

All of these claims are very old—and are as insubstantial and specious as they were when first put forward in 2003. One may choose to believe them or not, but it is certain that their reiteration by the Obama administration has not made it any easier for the Iranian government to show clemency toward Bauer and Fattal.

For their sake and the sake of their families and friends one can only hope that the occasion of Ramadhan with its salutary sentiments and message of forgiveness will result in the release of these two young men, who appear not to have deserved their fate.

William O. Beeman is Professor and Chair of Anthropology and specialist in Middle East Studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul Minnesota, formerly of Brown University.

Beeman--Review of H.M.S. Pinafore at the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, July 24, 2011

2011-07-24T21:44:00.000-07:00

H.M.S. Pinafore at the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis. July 24, 2011. Here is a brief review.

I have no problem with adapting even very sacred stage works. We have Peter Brook's A Magic Flute at the Lincoln Center Festival and his former La Tragedie de Carmen as well as Jeune Lune's Figaro and Don Giovanni. There is also the Hot Mikado, the Jazz Mikado etc., but every one of these doesn't pretend to be the original. This production falls very far from the original, but doesn't bother to change the title or the authorship. It introduces new music (from Princess Ida and Iolanthe), cuts out much other music (the Overture for one), and adds new story lines.

Mostly, however, Andrew Cooke, with the apparent blessing of the producer and director, has given this the Chanhassen Dinner Theater makeover. He has rewritten almost every note of the show in a cross between Andrew Lloyd Weber and Kander and Ebb with Jimmi Hendrix thrown in from time to time. Of course Sullivan's meticulous orchestration is completely gone. Cooke changes time signatures, running pieces written originally in 3/4 in 4/4 fox-trot tempo. Sometimes it works. Buttercup's (Christina Baldwin) numbers in Latin rhythms are amusing. But he also redoes the harmonies, adds measures to the music and cuts out many others. It is not respectful of Sullivan--not that that really matters theatrically, but his changes-for-the-sake-of-change don't really add to the piece. I mean, does Cooke think he can do better word setting than Sullivan? If you know the original you know that he can not. One over-the-top change was to give the full Phantom treatment with ooh and ahh chorus in the background to Captain Corcoran's (a lithe Robert O. Berdahl) second act piece "Fair Moon." Admittedly this often falls flat at the lowest point in the arc of the show, but I expected Bea Arthur to swing down on her crescent-moon prop at the end. It threw the show off balance, as the plot needs to build from this point, not drop.

Ralph Rackstraw (Aleks Knezevich) is a great actor and dancer, but he is not a tenor. Dick Deadeye (Lee Mark Nelson in this performance subbing for Jason Simon) is not a bass. Their "money notes" are taken up or down an octave. Josephine's (Heather Lindell) second act aria, "A Simple Sailor" could be perfect in a pop styling if Cooke had left the harmonic rhythm in place. It sounded rushed and nowhere near a beautiful and affecting as the original, as if Cooke didn't think the audience could listen to five minutes of sustained solo music.

The original show is short--it is often done with a curtain-raiser. The added dance numbers (a tap routine for "He is an Englishman" and other extra music) lengthens it by a half hour. The production team obviously thought people would be bored by a straight production, so they gild the lily and pull out all the stops--stage machinery, mirror balls, balloons, birds, fish, tangos, tap numbers and drop-trou slapstick comedy.

All that said, the cast is outstanding, as is the snappy stage direction. The cast members work their tails off, and if one has no idea at all about the original show, it must certainly be entertaining, but I winced at every silly Broadway mid-number cliche key change and meaningless pop-styling. Innovate, yes, absolutely, but don't innovate just to do it, and for heaven's sake, be true to the musical values of the original.

Beeman--David E. Sanger and William J. Broad once again distort Iran's nuclear program

2011-07-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

Once again the intrepid team of David E. Sanger and William J. Broad have printed one of their "Saturday specials" ginning up specious, unsubstantiated information about Iran's nuclear program as they have for many years.

The latest article: "Survivor of Attack Accelerates Iran's Effort to Produce Nuclear Material" Saturday, July 23,
is characteristically full of anonymous quotes: "What concerns [unnamed] inspectors and European and American officials is Iran's announced effort to increase production of uranium enriched to nearly 20% purity." They then go on to hang their story on one substantive quote, that of William Hague, the British foreign minister, which they picked up from The Guardian. Hague is re-quoted as saying "When enough 20 percent enriched uranium is accumulated at the underground facility at Qum . . . it would take only two or three months of additional work to convert this into weapons-grade material."

Let's examine this:

A. Mr. Hague is not a nuclear physics expert by any stretch of imagination. His statement is therefore political, absent any real.
B. Centrifuges have not actually been introduced into the Qum (Fordow) facility. In fact it is only a suspicion that they will be.
C. What does "enough" mean in Mr. Hague's statement? I doubt even he knows, but certainly an imprecise term like "enough" is good enough for Sanger and Broad. Iran's announced plans are to generate a small amount for a research reactor, which would not be enough to make a weapon. Hague (and Sanger and Broad) imply that they will make much,.much more. This is pure paranoid speculation.
D. The "additional work:" Mr. Hague mentions is actually a huge, complicated process using facilities that Iranians have not even put on the drawing boards.

The story ostensibly centers on the work of Fereydoon Abbasi, who has now been put in charge of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization. Sanger and Broad try to imply that Mr. Abbasi is somehow very dangerous, or at least not as sophisticated as his predecessor--"not as skillful--or as comfortable" to quote another of their anonymous sources.

The stinger at the end of the piece is to report that Dr. Abbasi announced in June that Iran would triple production of this concentrated form of uranium. That sounds ominous until you realize that "triple" only depends on how much is being currently produced, which is miniscule.

This story continues the kinds of neo-conservative attacks we have seen against the NIE and the U.S. intelligence community, as well as the IAEA who have consistently, incessantly, insisted that Iran does not have a weapons program, and that no nuclear material has been diverted for military use. Sanger and Broad are dismissive: "Senior Obama administration officials . . . do not sound alarmed."

Nevertheless, the headline on Sanger and Broad's piece will be all that most people read: Iran, accelerate, produce, nuclear material. It is all that the "attack Iran" crowd needs as red meat for their relentless campaign to draw the United States into a debilitating conflict in the Middle East

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota

--

William O. Beeman--The Afghan Drawdown is Long, Long Overdue

2011-06-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

The Afghan Drawdown is Long, Long Overdue

New America Media, Commentary, William O. Beeman, Posted: Jun 22, 2011

President Obama is now doing something politically difficult — drawing down our troops from Afghanistan. However difficult it will be for the president to weather his Washington critics, it is the right decision politically and militarily.

The United States has been fighting in Afghanistan for nearly a decade. It is the longest military conflict in our history, and also the most futile and ineffective. Once Al-Qaeda had been ousted from power and had retreated to Pakistan, there was no longer a reason for an American presence there. When the United States finally killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the lack of need for a continued American military presence became definitive. Our continued presence is overkill; we have long since won our battles there. We know that our erstwhile enemy consists of only a few hundred weakened and leaderless adherents in the region.

The costs of maintaining the American military in Afghanistan are astronomical — a billion dollars a week by some estimates. There would be some justification for this expense if the military were actually accomplishing something of value for the United States or even for the Afghan people, but neither is the case.

Let us be clear. The United States is in a conflict of its own making. It set up this war more than 30 years ago in its support of “freedom fighters” working to oust the Soviet Union from Afghan soil. There was nothing wrong with that support at the time; however the United States lost interest in the Afghans and their external voluntary zealot-supporters from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Morocco the minute the Soviets had withdrawn. These external fighters, who could not return home since they frightened their own governments, were dumped into Pakistan with the United States’ blessing, only to fester in their extreme views, forming the core of Al-Qaeda.

The Taliban ex-Afghan fighters — equally reactionary to Al-Qaeda in their religious philosophy — were first supported by the United States, since they hoped that they would support building a pipeline for Caspian petroleum across Afghan territory. When they were seen to protect Al-Qaeda, they became the U.S. target.

The United States' answer to Taliban rule was to install a corrupt dictator, Hamid Karzai, as president of the nation. Karzai, who had long connections with Washington and U.S. financial interests, stole billions of U.S. dollars and never did anything to counter religious extremism in his country. He certainly never lifted a finger to aid in the containment of Al-Qaeda.

American troops twiddled their thumbs in Afghanistan, half-building useless, flimsy public works that now largely stand empty. They also wasted time trying to eradicate the only cash crop that gave Afghan farmers any income at all — opium poppies — and engaging in random skirmishes with Taliban guerrillas. There was never any concrete goal to the military presence beyond containment of Al-Qaeda. Variously the United States has claimed that it was trying to “stabilize” Afghanistan, to bring democratic government to the nation, to assure human rights, and a hundred other ancillary tasks that were utterly impractical and unsuccessful.

In truth, American military and political leaders never understood Afghan society at all. They called local leaders “warlords” and tried to destroy their power base, when in fact these individuals had formed the core of the traditional political system in the country and were forces for stability. They never appreciated the extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity of the nation, which made every region virtually a nation within a nation, requiring tailor-made strategies for each, rather than one-size-fits-all broad-brush measures. They failed to understand the system of economic and political patronage that insured some modicum of financial security for peasants. They also were totally puzzled by the religious landscape of the country — sometimes over-the-top in its religious stringency, at other times lax and even agnostic.

The one truly virtuous ideal upheld by Americans was the protection of women and women’s rights. But here too the United States could only pay lip service to this important social dynamic. It couldn’t prevent laws curtailing women’s rights from being passed, nor could it develop a strategy for persuading Afghan leaders to intervene in the most egregious local abuses.

One thing is clear though: The U.S. presence has been an astonishing windfall for U.S. contractors and external advisors who reaped billions of their own with little or no supervision at U.S. taxpayer expense. These war profiteers are first and foremost lobbying to keep the military in place.

What is also clear is that the Afghan people no longer want the United States in their country — just as they have never wanted any foreign presence on their soil. At best, the United States has relieved the Afghan military from its own defense responsibilities. It has enriched its generals and other military personnel, but in no way has it been effective in helping to build an Afghan military.

Critics will say that President Obama has simply given up. But our military leaders gave up long before the president. Virtually everyone in command in Afghanistan, and certainly the preponderance of the rank-and-file military, see absolutely no purpose in maintaining a U.S. presence there any longer. It is time for them to come home and give Afghanistan what it really wants — self determination and a nation free of foreign occupation for the first time in decades.

The traditional leadership systems of Afghanistan should be given time to work and establish political stability once more. This will not be quick or easy. Here, the United States or the United Nations could play a limited role in preventing external influence and curtailing the civil conflict, which will likely ensue. However, the Afghans want to make their own way. It is time to let them.

William O. Beeman--No Evidence of an Iranian Bomb, Yet the Attacks on Iran Continue - New America Media

2011-06-03T12:20:00.000-07:00

No Evidence of an Iranian Bomb, Yet the Attacks on Iran Continue - New America Media

New America Media, News Analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Jun 03, 2011

Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Seymour Hersh has once again created controversy by stating in a recent New Yorker article, “Iran and the Bomb,” that there is no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. Hersh is correct, but his statement still provokes debate.

Politico reporter Jennifer Epstein, in a May 31 article, attempts to refute of Hersh’s assertion. Among other charges, she cites criticism of Hersh for using "anonymous sources" in this and other articles. Irony of ironies, Epstein's entire story is based on an anonymous source attacking Hersh. She quotes "a senior administration official" saying: “[A]ll you need to read to be deeply concerned about Iran’s nuclear program is the substantial body of information already in the public domain, including the most recent IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] report."

Since the most recent IAEA Report itself gives no detail whatsoever about this alleged military information, one can only conclude that the information it is talking about was leaked. Indeed, the website ISIS (Institute for Science and International Security) provided what purports to be the evidence for IAEA concern.

The information also appears to have been leaked to the New York Times. Writers David E. Sanger and William J. Broad reported on a series of unrelated “concerns” in Iranian engineering research that when considered together could lead to “triggering” technology for a nuclear weapon. Broad followed up with details in the Science Times section of the newspaper on May 31. He acknowledged that there is no evidence that such a trigger is known to be in development, and several of the elements are consistent with non-military peaceful applications.

In short, the IAEA report and the information leaked to ISIS are totally inconclusive regarding any military use of nuclear technology. If Epstein’s "senior official" wants to claim that this is the smoking gun that proves Iran to be manufacturing nuclear weapons, he or she would be laughed out of the room.

In addition, the Government’s own National Intelligence Estimate of 2011, released in March specifically has dropped language stating that Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions are a future option. Tellingly, the report has been buried by the Obama administration

According to Epstein, the "senior official" goes on to say:

“There is a clear, ongoing pattern of deception, and Iran has repeatedly refused to respond to the IAEA’s questions about the military dimensions of [its] nuclear program, including those about the covert site at Qom,”

This shows once again that "they ain't got nuttin'." Iran's "refusal" to respond to the IAEA questions is limited to a mysterious laptop captured by U.S. Intelligence seven years ago containing "bomb plans" that no one has ever seen. The site at Qom is nothing but an empty hole in the ground with no fissile materials ever introduced--in short, a complete dead horse.

One can ask: Why does the administration continues to flog this non-starter of an issue in the face of its own intelligence on the issue?

Many who have questioned the Bush and Obama administration's tenacity in holding on to this nuclear non-issue have often been accused of "supporting the mullahs" or worse. This is absolutely not the issue. The issue is not support or non-support of the Iranian regime, it is concern over America's own ineffective foreign policy.

It is worth asking whether the United States is going to follow a reasoned and productive policy toward Iran or is going to keep obsessing about this non-existent nuclear issue to the exclusion of every other possible dimension of interacting with the Iranian State?

The United States really cannot afford to let this obstacle dominate our every move toward the most important political entity in the Middle East. The sad part is that the issue isn't even one of ignorance or misinformation. It is one of ideology. To accept the reality that Iran is not the most dangerous nation on the planet is obviously a political third-rail in the United States. It triggers an avalanche of other accusations, Anti-Israeli attitudes or worse, Antisemitism, being among the most common and also the most irrelevant.

Anyone in government or the press, such as Hersh, who questions the utterly unproven postulate that Iran has an active, effective nuclear weapons program risks political disaster. Therefore, otherwise responsible people are willing to embrace a foolish lie that was concocted to serve as a selling point to the American people for Iranian "regime change" during the Bush administration.

Today the specter of the Iranian nuclear bogeyman serves no purpose whatever except to obstruct progress in bringing stability to the region. People embrace the “Iranian bomb myth” not so much because they know it to be true based on hard facts, but rather in order to avoid political attack. Where are our principles? Where is our professionalism?

William O. Beeman Review of "Tehran Rising" by America Abroad Media (Truth Out)

2011-05-22T01:40:00.000-07:00

Debunking the Top Seven Myths on Iran's Middle East Policies

by: William O. Beeman,

New America Media

This evening, I listened to the radio program Tehran Rising [5] produced by America Abroad—a program distributed by Public Radio International—and I must say that I was deeply disturbed by the way the program was framed. The program centers on "spreading Iranian influence" in the Middle East.

Frankly, it is somewhat fatuous to try to hang a story about change and unrest in the Middle East on the Iranian bogeyman. Haven't we had enough of this?
Since nations such as Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq (all covered in the reporting for this piece) are hugely different in their internal and external dynamics, to make this a story about Iran really obscures any nuance whatsoever in the politics of the region, and implies that nothing would be happening if it weren't for Iranian machinations.

There are certainly a few people in Iran who would exult in this misperception, however, here are a few of the myths offered in the program which I would like to debunk.

Myth #1: A "cold war" between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

This is a completely fictional construction. Saudi Arabia has long been wary and disturbed by the Shi'a majority in Hasa, its eastern oil territory. This was true even under the Shah and long before. The fear of the uprising in Bahrain has little or nothing to do with confronting Iran--it is driven by fear that the Bahraini uprising will spread over the causeway to its own province.

Myth #2: Iran’s spurring on of the Bahrain uprising.

The implication in the program was that Iran is doing something to spur on the Bahrain uprising. The program’s own interviewee, Kristin Smith Diwan, denied this.
Moreover, I just participated in a seminar for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa. Two military intelligence agents --fluent in Arabic and Persian – and former students of Middle East experts Ray Motaheddeh and Juan Cole – flatly denied that there was any evidence that Iran had any agents on the ground in Bahrain, based on their own extensive investigations in February and March of this year.

Myth #3: The bulk of Lebanon’s Hezbollah funds come from Iran.

My position on Hezbollah and that of virtually every other observer of Hezbollah is that Iran has no effective control over Hezbollah's political actions today (as opposed to 30 years ago).

The program documented clearly the charitable actions carried out by Hezbollah that were supported by Iran. Iran never denied this. At the same time, the program clearly pointed out the correct statement that the bulk of Lebanon's redevelopment funds came from foreign remittances and from the Gulf States.

The program misleadingly implies that Hezbollah is not receiving funds from the same sources. In fact, the bulk of Hezbollah's funds come from those foreign sources, not from Iran.

Of course the Sunnis such as the one interviewed on the program are opposed to Iran, but look at the welcome President Ahmadinejad got from both Shi'as and Sunnis in his recent trip.

Myth #4: Iranian influence is negative or evil.

This implication that Iranian influence is somehow negative or evil as opposed to being just what nations do was prevalent in the program.

Turkey is trying to increase its influence in Central Asia, but no one complains about that. Iran is being squeezed economically and of course is trying to develop economic and political ties. It’s behaving as nations operate normally.

Myth #5: Iran is exploiting weak democracies.

Ash Jain, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and former State Department staff member, and all those at the WINEP are dedicated to propagandizing against Iran. The idea that Iran is "exploiting weak democracies" is rather silly. Iran can't exploit anyone unless they are able to promulgate messages and actions that are welcome to the populations of other nations.

In fact, Iran has made little or no headway in any predominately Sunni nation. Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment is quite right about the "self-limiting" nature of Iran's influence. Case in point: Tajikistan. Persian speaking, culturally Iranian, the Tajiks should be susceptible to Iranian influence. Instead, they are extremely wary of Iran because Iranians are Shi'a and Tajiks are Sunni.

Myth #6: Iran has “won” because Hamas has gained power.

Ash Jain of WINEP claims that Iran has "won" because Hamas has stabilized and become a force in the Middle East. For heaven's sake, one would think that the denizens of Hamas have no interest in their own affairs and future.

Does he think that Hamas lives only to fulfill some fantasy foreign policy influence on Iran's part?

Myth #7: All Shi’a leaders agree with Iran.

Let's be clear. No Shi'a religious leaders outside of Iran agree with Iran's form of government or want to emulate it. Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani of Iraq is flatly opposed to Iran's brand of clerical rule, and disagrees with the idea that the Iranian Revolution should be spread abroad. Not that there’s hope of that anyway.
Therefore, the flat answer to the question of Iranian influence is: Some in Iran would like to see Iran have greater influence in the region, but their "success" is largely a figment of the imagination of overwrought Westerners looking about for another "cold war" enemy, to echo the framework of this program.

Much of what is attributed to Iran in this radio program and elsewhere is actually the result of the natural dynamics of the individual communities of the region playing out their own local interests.

The fact that some in Iran may be cheerleading from the sidelines doesn't mean that Iran is in control. Nor does it mean that what Iran is doing is any different than any other nation in the world trying to create favorable relations for itself.

William O. Beeman is Professor and Chair of Anthropology and specialist in Middle East Studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul Minnesota, formerly of Brown University.

William O. Beeman Review of "Tehran Rising" by America Abroad Media

2011-05-18T22:03:00.000-07:00

I listened to the radio program Tehran Rising produced by America Abroad--a
program distributed by Public Radio International
<http://www.americaabroadmedia.org/programs/view/id/157>
this evening and I must say that I was deeply disturbed by the way the piece was framed.
The program centers on "spreading Iranian influence" in the Middle East.

Frankly it is somewhat fatuous to try to hang a story about
change and unrest in the Middle East on the Iranian bogeyman. Haven't we
had enough of this? Since nations such as Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq, all
covered in the reporting for this piece, are hugely different in their internal
and external dynamics, to make this a story about Iran really obscures any
nuance whatever in the politics of the region, and implies that nothing would
be happening if it weren't for Iranian machinations. There are certainly a few
people in Iran who would exult in this misperception--giving Iran far more.
Interested people should listen to the program or read the transcript themselves.
However, here are some of my objections:


1. The piece posits a "cold war" between Iran and  Saudi Arabia. This is a complete 
fictional construction. Saudi Arabia has long been wary and disturbed by 
the Shi'a majority in the Hasa, its eastern oil territory. This was true 
even under the Shah and long before. The fear of the uprising in Bahrain 
has little or nothing to do with confronting Iran--it is driven by fear 
that the Bahraini uprising will spread over the causeway to its own 
province.

2. The implication that Iran is doing something to spur on the Bahrain 
uprising. Your own interviewee, Kristin Smith Diwan, denied this. 
Moreover, I just participated in a seminar for the U.S. Central Command 
in Tampa. Two Military Intelligence agents--fluent in Arabic and 
Persian--former students of Ray Motaheddeh and Juan Cole--flatly denied 
that there was any evidence that Iran had any agents on the ground in 
Bahrain, based on their own extensive investigations in February and March.

3. Hezbullah--I think you know not only my position on Hezbullah but 
that of virtually every other observer of Hezbullah, and that is that 
iran has no effective control over Hezbullah's political actions today 
(as opposed to 30 years ago). You documented clearly the charitable 
actions carried out by Hezbullah that were  supported by Iran. Iran 
never denied this. At the same time, the program clearly pointed out the 
correct statement that the bulk of Lebanon's redevelopment funds came 
from foreign remittances and from the Gulf States. The program 
misleadingly implies that Hezbullah is not receiving funds from the same 
sources. In fact the bulk of Hezbullah's funds come from those sources, 
not from Iran. Of course the Sunni's such as the one interviewed on the 
program are opposed to Iran, but look at the welcome President 
Ahmadinejad got from BOTH Shi'as and Sunnis in his recent trip.

4. The implication that Iranian influence is negative or evil as opposed 
to being just what nations do. Turkey is trying to increase its 
influence in Central Asia, but no one complains about that. Iran is 
being squeezed economically and of course is trying to develop economic 
and political ties.

5. Ash Jain and all those at WINEP are dedicated to propagandizing 
against Iran. The idea that Iran is "exploiting weak democracies" is 
rather silly. Iran can't exploit anyone unless they are able to 
promulgate messages and actions that are welcome to the populations of 
other nations. In fact, Iran has made little or no headway in any 
predominately Sunni nation. Karim Sajjadpour is quite right about the 
"self-limiting" nature of Iran's influence. Case in point: Tajikistan. 
Persian speaking, culturally Iranian, the Tajiks should be susceptible 
to Iranian influence. They are extremely wary of Iran because Iranians 
are Shi'a and Tajiks are Sunni.

5. Ash Jain claims that Iran has "won" because Hamas has stabilized and 
become a force in the Middle East. For heaven's sake, one would think 
that the denizens of Hamas have no interest in their own affairs and 
future. Does he think that Hamas lives only to fulfill some fantasy 
foreign policy influence on Iran's part?

6. Let's be clear. No Shi'a religious leaders outside of Iran 
agree with Iran's form of government or want 
to emulate it. Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani is flatly opposed to Iran's 
brand of clerical rule, and disagrees with the idea that the Iranian 
Revolution should be spread abroad--a vain hope anyway.

7. Therefore the flat answer to the question of Iranian influence is: 
Some in Iran would like to see Iran have greater influence in the 
region, but their "success" is largely a figment of the imagination of 
overwrought Westerners looking about for another "cold war" enemy, to 
echo the framework of this program." Much of what is attributed to Iran 
here is the result of the natural dynamics of the individual communities 
of the region playing out their own local interests. The fact that some 
in Iran may be cheerleading from the sidelines doesn't mean that Iran is 
in control. Nor does it mean that what Iran is doing is any different 
than any other nation in the world trying to create favorable relations 
for itself.

Best,

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota

William O. Beeman--We Killed Osama bin Laden, Now Let’s Kill the Myth - New America Media

2011-05-05T10:21:00.000-07:00

We Killed Osama bin Laden, Now Let’s Kill the Myth - New America Media

New America Media,

Commentary, William O. Beeman, Posted: May 03, 2011

The United States is jubilant over the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. However, it will be some time before history catches up with the mythology that arose around him and the al-Qaeda organization in the past 10 years. Osama bin Laden at the end was far from the looming powerful figure he was made out to be. He had outlived his usefulness both as a bogeyman for the West, and as an Islamic responder to the neo-colonialist forces his organization purported to confront.

The principal myth surrounding bin Laden was that his brand of religion represented a mainstream streak of something identified variously as “jihadism” or, in more genteel rhetoric, “political Islam.” This was far from the truth. No doubt, bin Laden justified his actions with questionable theology and bogus fatwas, but his organization’s actions represented an extremist view of religiously justified political action that was embraced by only a fraction of the Islamic world.

Second, bin Laden was seen as promulgating the United States as al-Qaeda’s principal target—a mythology that was certainly reinforced by the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Actually, the target of bin Laden and the al-Qaeda forces for which he served as leader was the Saudi Arabian Royal Family. He turned to this mission after the Soviet Union was expelled from Afghanistan. Bin Laden viewed the Saudi Royal Family as having defiled the Arabian Peninsula—the Holy Land where the major religious shrines of Islam are located. Not only were the lives of the Saudi rulers seen as venal, they allowed the United States and other nations to establish military operations on Saudi soil. The United States became the target of al-Qaeda when they set up operations to protect and support the Saudi Royal Family.

Third, bin Laden was promoted by the Bush administration as the mastermind of a gigantic apocalyptic global organization under his control. They built the search for him into the Global War on Terror—for which they actually issued GWOT medals. This was a gigantic exaggeration that was largely accepted by the American public without question.

Fourth, exaggerating bin Laden’s powers also served disparate dissident groups in the Islamic world. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, bin Laden’s organization had enormous cachet among political resistance groups—many of whom predated the rise of bin Laden and al-Qaeda by decades. These smaller groups, with their own local grievances against repressive rulers, quickly “branded” themselves with the epithet “al-Qaeda.” It was a franchise operation that gave many small groups from the Philippines to Morocco instant attention and credibility. In fact, bin Laden never had direct control over these groups. They would occasionally come to him directly or indirectly for blessings of their actions, and he would routinely “approve.” This served everyone’s purpose—making bin Laden’s al-Qaeda seem more powerful than it was, and giving the local groups credibility. We now know that over 10 years, bin Laden’s organization had dwindled precipitously. In fact, its numbers were in the low hundreds in the Afghan-Pakistan theater in the end.
Fifth, bin Laden was presented by the United States—particularly the Bush administration—as impossibly clever, wily and able to evade U.S. military operations. This mythology was promulgated by Pakistan as well. In fact, bin Laden was an incredibly useful symbolic bogeyman. His mere existence justified the United States’ presence in Afghanistan, as well as billions of dollars spent supporting the Pakistan military regime without complaint from the American public. It is already apparent that the Pakistanis—and likely some Americans—knew very well where he was. He was not hiding out in a cave somewhere; he was 35 miles from Islamabad in a stable compound in a luxury neighborhood.
Finally, bin Laden has been portrayed with the power to reach beyond the grave. Virtually, the instant that his death was announced, global speculation about “sleeper cells” and attacks by “bin Laden’s followers” filled the airwaves. In fact, no one has ever identified these organizations. This is part of the continued mythology of a unified Islamic global movement organized to confront Western civilization. Such a movement never existed, though there are certainly individuals in both the West and the Islamic world who find it politically useful to promulgate such a fabrication.

As we have seen in the past few months, the dominant focus for political action in the Middle East and elsewhere is not religious-based. Movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and even Jordan are based in the principle of secular representative government free of Western political and economic control, channeled through repressive rulers. Even in Iran, dissidents seek to lessen the influence of religious doctrinaire control as their political system moves inexorably toward secular rule.

The mythic ideology of Islamic confrontation with the West, inherent in the bin Laden myth, should die with him. Americans, rather than celebrating a triumph over Islam, should instead be looking forward to a new era of cooperation with the progressive peoples throughout the region, who, with bin Laden’s death, have now begun to have the false accusation of Islamic extremism lifted from their shoulders.

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of anthropology, University of Minnesota, Minn. He has lived and worked in the Middle East for more than 30 years, and is past president of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association.

Interview with William O. Beeman--PressTV - 'Yemenis reject any Saudi interference'

2011-04-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

Interview with William O. Beeman

PressTV - 'Yemenis reject any Saudi interference'

Press TV has interviewed Professor William Beeman, the chairman of anthropology department of the University of Minnesota, who acknowledges that the people of Yemen are saying "No" to any interference from Saudi Arabia.

Press TV: Regarding the two-week deadline, which has been presented by the Yemeni opposition for President Saleh to leave his post - Do you think he will meet this deadline and step down?

William Beeman: I think that President Saleh has no intention of stepping down voluntarily. He's going to have to be forced out of office. What we find in Sana'a is that we have pro-Saleh demonstrations taking place, but anywhere outside of the centre of Sana'a you have anti-government demonstrations going on. We don't have good information about the northern parts of the country. But I think President Saleh thinks he is going to be able to remain in power.

Press TV: You say that Saleh has no intentions of quitting and he will have to be forced out - Are these protests we are seeing all over Yemen enough to accomplish that? Or are we talking about something bigger that is needed?

William Beeman: It's an interesting question because it's not clear who may be helping the opposition with resources etc. President Saleh has government resources at his beck and call including part of the military that is still supporting him.

As you know, General Ammar has defected to the opposition and we are waiting to get more information about General Ammar and who may have promised him some leadership position perhaps in a newly formed government or what ties he has with resources external to Yemen. The resources for the opposition are not well known right now.

Press TV: Concerning the Saudi-backed initiative that is supposed to take place next week - it has been rejected by the people of Yemen. We were talking to a journalist this week and he said that this proposal is not for the opposition or the people to accept or reject, it's been made directly to Saleh. Considering the influence Saudi Arabia has wielded in the past in Yemen - Do you think Saleh would accept a proposal by them?

William Beeman: The details of such a proposal would be interesting to know. One of the things the Saudi government wants to ensure is that there is stability in Yemen because the Saudis see Yemen and the people in Yemen as potential threats. If Saleh goes they will want assurance that there is going to be a stable pro-Saudi government that takes his place.

And the reason the opposition has expressed a rejection of a plan, whatever it may consist of, is that they don't want the Saudis controlling their government, or their destiny. And that goes for interference from the US as well.

There is a classic mistake that nations make when they are dealing with other nations in the midst of revolution, and we've seen it again and again, is that the people are not interested in outside interference.

Press TV: Can the revolution reach fruition without influence from foreign powers? We see in Egypt where there was a powerful and viable institution, the military, which has a lot of sway politically, but we're not seeing that in Yemen.

William Beeman: That's exactly right; we don't know what military forces they have. Additionally, there are many Yemenis that live outside of Yemen and the possibility of them supplying aid to the opposition is there. The question is - Are they able to transfer funds or supply arms? That's an interesting question, so I would look to the Yemeni community abroad. A number of millions of Yemenis are not in the country at present and they are opposed to the rule of President Saleh. This element needs to be considered by analysts as well as people inside Yemen.

Press TV: With the Saudi mediation efforts - Can we expect Saudi Arabia to be an honest broker considering what it is doing in Bahrain against pro-democracy protesters? And also, would Saudi Arabia take into account its own strategic interests first in ensuring stability over what the people of Yemen want?

William Beeman: Well, Saudi Arabia itself is not in any way a democracy; it doesn't have a constitution and the Saudi royal family rules by decree. So there is no democracy in Saudi Arabia and the idea that they are trying to foster a democratic state in Yemen is strange given that they don't believe in it for their own people.

It is a question of stability. We forget that the family of Osama Bin Laden comes from Yemen. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is based in Yemen - it's not a very big or very important group, but nevertheless it is enough to worry the Saudi royal family because the principal target for al-Qaeda is not the US or Europeans - It's the Saudi royal family. They would like to see the Saudi royal family completely eliminated from Saudi Arabia and the Saudi royal family knows this.

An unstable Yemen is therefore a potential source of real danger for the government of Saudi Arabia and that's why they want to broker a deal that will bring people to power in Yemen that they will have some control over. And they have had through the US control of President Saleh.

SC/GHN

Email response from a University of Wisconsin professor:

2011-03-29T20:22:00.000-07:00

Email response from a University of Wisconsin professor:

Date: Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 9:34 PM
Subject: Information concerning the confidentiality of your e-mail

As you may know, the Republican Party of Wisconsin has submitted an Open Records request for the e-mails of a faculty member after he presented scholarship critical of them. I do not know if that request will be granted. Because I have recently been at certain protests and have signed certain petitions (on my own time, not university time) that the Republican Party would also object to, I am informing all who e-mail me that I can not guarantee your confidentiality. My private e-mail is [redacted]. However, it is unclear whether I can guarantee confidentiality of my private e-mail if the content is deemed to be official university business, and I may not be able to discuss information protected by the federal educational privacy act. You can also call me at [redacted], but please note that voice messages are e-mailed to me. I apologize for the inconvenience and hope this situation resolves itself soon.

Netanyahu's Dangerous Posturing (Israel PM: Must be military option against Iran)

2011-03-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

Prime minister Netanyahu's over-the-top call for Iran to be "stopped" like Gadhafi's regime in Libya reflects either his venality in promulgating a doomsday scenario, his active desire to utterly mislead the public through the false equation of the Gadhafi regime with the Iranian government, or his naivete in terms of strategy. Any of my freshman students knows that the two governments are utterly different in their history, their composition and their philosophy. What does the Prime Minister think that this rather ridiculous call to action is going to accomplish? It certainly is not going to persuade the Russians! And every military leader knows that a preemptive attack on Iran invites utter disaster for the region and the world. Additionally, unless one accepts the false assertion that Hamas and Hezbollah operate under the direct orders of Tehran, Iran hasn't actively threatened anyone. Nor is there any indication whatever that Iran "dreams of world supremacy" as Netanyahu asserts. This is just another foolish attempt to ratchet Iran up to the status of über-Bogeyman. Isn't it reasonable to expect that world leaders not indulge themselves in this kind of childish, irresponsible rhetoric?

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota

usatoday.com

Israeli PM: Iran should be 'stopped' like Gadhafi

MARCH 24, 2011

MOSCOW (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Iran's government should be "stopped" like Gadhafi's regime in Libya.

Netanyahu said that Iran's nuclear and other ambitions pose an immediate threat to global security.

"This is a very belligerent Islamist regime that dreams of world supremacy, and it has to be stopped," he told the Vesti television channel. "If we have to tame Gadhafi, we have to stop the Tehran's regime in the same way."

Netanyahu arrived in Moscow Thursday, a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev welcomed his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas. Observers believe their visits are aimed at overcoming the obstacles in the Palestinian-Israeli talks.

Russia is part of the so-called Quartet of Mideast peace brokers that also includes the United States, the European Union and the United Nations. The Quartet's principles include recognition of Israel, a renunciation of violence, and adherence to previous Palestinian agreements.

Justin Elliott--A history of Libya and blowback--Interview with William O. Beeman

2011-03-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

MONDAY, MAR 21, 2011 13:32 ET

WAR ROOM

A history of Libya and blowback

BY JUSTIN ELLIOTT

AP/Langevin

Moammar Gadhafi and wreckage from Pan Am flight 103

A fact that hasn't gotten much attention since the Obama administration started its bombing campaign in Libya is that we've been here before. President Ronald Reagan launched a bombing raid on Libya in 1986, known as Operation El Dorado Canyon.

That was a very different era -- one in which Moammar Gadhafi was an active sponsor of terrorism and had been demonized in the U.S. for years. There are, however, interesting parallels to today. The Obama administration, for example, has warned in recent days that Gadhafi may try to hit back at the U.S. or Europe by sponsoring acts of terrorism. In the 1980s, Gadhafi did just that. Reagan's strike on Libya was one of the key events in the run-up to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The Lockerbie bombing killed 270 people. Among the many Americans killed was Matthew Gannon, a Beirut-based CIA officer. Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was ultimately convicted of masterminding the attack.

To learn more about the history of Operation El Dorado Canyon and Lockerbie, I spoke with William Beeman, a Middle East expert and anthropology professor at University of Minnesota. The text that follows has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you summarize the political context in the 1980s that led up to the American bombing in Libya in 1986?

Well, Col. Gadhafi was a very iconoclastic figure from the time he took power in 1969. He had been involved in supporting any number of terrorist organizations including the Irish Republican Army. In particular, he was very upset about the fact that anti-Gadhafi forces -- Libyan expatriates -- had been operating in Europe. In retaliation, he funded the IRA and he claimed that this was payback for the Europeans that were allegedly fostering opposition to his own government. Gadhafi also claimed to be sponsoring the Red Army Faction [in Germany] and was generally considered to be a terrible gadfly to Europeans and to the United States. He was quite equal opportunity; he also supported Idi Amin in Uganda, and he declared himself the king of kings of all of Africa. So the United States under Reagan declared Libya to be the chief state supporter of terrorism in the 1980s.

What prompted the American bombing in 1986?

The main thing that touched off the incident was the bombing of the La Belle nightclub in West Berlin in April 1986. There were a small number of people killed and a large number injured. The United States had an absolute smoking gun. The Libyan agents involved in the attack were operating out of East Germany. During the dregs of the Cold War, there was kind of a perfect storm -- East Germany and the communists were involved with the Libyans and they were bombing a nightclub in West Berlin. So the story was, "Evil Gadhafi and evil communists plot to bomb Westerners." Later on it turned out to be true that the Stasi had been involved, but we didn't know about this for a long time, until after the reunification of Germany. A week after the bombing, Reagan ordered the strike on Libya.

What happened in that strike?

In mid-April, U.S. jets attacked a number of sites in Libya including the presidential palace. The U.S. had planned a strike of this kind long before it actually took place, but it came as a big surprise for everybody. The Europeans actually resisted it. The U.S. was cooperating with Great Britain but France and Spain and Italy denied the U.S. overflight rights. So the U.S. started from Great Britain and flew down the coast and then through Gibraltar, which is British territory. They had to refuel in the air to make the flight. They dumped tens of tons of munitions on the airfield in Tripoli.

A dozen or so officers were killed in the raid but Gadhafi and his family escaped. The story is -- and we don't know this is true for sure -- that he was warned in advance by either the the prime minister of Malta or Prime Minister Craxi of Italy. After the raid, Gadhafi announced that he had won a military victory over the United States because they hadn't killed him. There were also a couple of Americans whose plane was shot down.

Didn't Gadhafi claim that his "adopted daughter" was killed in that attack?

That's right. She was called Hannah. But no one had ever heard of her. And every time the story was told about her, her age seemed to change -- from 12 months to 6 years, and various numbers in between. The fact that no one knew who she was and they couldn't get the facts straight about her existence really tells me that it may have been a fabricated story. There may have been somebody from the household killed and it may have been expeditious for Gadhafi to say, "This is my adopted daughter." It might have been a metaphorical relationship more than anything else.

So how did you get from the '86 attack to Lockerbie? Are the two events connected?

From the standpoint of the Libyans, the Lockerbie incident was retaliatory for the fact that the British had allowed the U.S. to fly this mission from Great Britain. A bomb was placed on the plane and it blew up in midair. There were 270 people killed. It was en route from Heathrow to the United States, so that was significant because the airstrikes in 1986 had been, in Gadhafi's view, a joint U.S.-British operation. But the Libyans denied for a long, long time that they had anything to do with the Lockerbie incident. A Libyan, Megrahi, was eventually convicted in Scottish court and was in jail for a long time. Now, just last month, the Libyan justice minister, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, claimed that Gadhafi had personally ordered the Lockerbie attack. But Mustafa Abdel-Jalil is now one of the leaders of the opposition, so maybe that claim is not so surprising.

The Obama administration has said it is now on alert for some kind of Gadhafi-sponsored terrorist attempt. Do you see that as plausible?

Well, it's possible. But it's interesting that most of the Libyan delegations outside of Libya have now denounced the Gadhafi government. Clearly any groups that are loyal to Gadhafi outside of Libya cannot operate under the cover of the Communist state anymore. The United States more or less absolved Gadhafi during the Bush administration. We restored diplomatic relations in 2004. And just before the presidential election in 2008, the U.S. had a comprehensive Libyan claim settlement. The Libyans agreed to compensate the Lockerbie victims and the victims of the Germany bombing in 1986. And the U.S. more or less said, "We're going to wipe the slate clean."

Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More:Justin Elliott

The "coalition" has no clothes - Libya - Salon.com

2011-03-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

The "coalition" has no clothes - Libya - Salon.com
Sunday, Mar 20, 2011 12:10 ET

Note from William O. Beeman: The idea that the attack on Libya was the result of a coalition, and not a United States unitary action is utterly absurd on the face of it. This article from Salon by Justin Elliott points this up very clearly, with explicit documentation. If Colonel Qaddafi prevails, he will be able to say, as he did in 1986 when a Ronald Reagan-ordered attack on him failed, "Qaddafi has beaten the United States."

The "coalition" has no clothes

By Justin Elliott

AP/Remy de la Mauviniere

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is welcomed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy for a crisis summit on Libya, at the Elysee palace in Paris, Saturday, March, 19, 2011.

An emphatic part of the White House messaging about the bombing in Libya is that the operation is truly international in character.

But it's quickly becoming clear that the bombing campaign -- at least so far -- is almost entirely an American operation, albeit one that has been packaged to give it an international look. It's a dissonance that brings back memories of George W. Bush's much-mocked "coalition of the willing."

The rhetoric from the administration has consistently referred to the U.S. playing a "support" role in a large coalition. As Hillary Clinton said yesterday in France, referring to the Security Council resolution that authorizes protection of civilians in Libya: "So let me be very clear about the position of the United States: We will support an international coalition as it takes all necessary measures to enforce the terms of Resolution 1973."

President Obama, in what was obviously a carefully choreographed move, did not himself announce the beginning of the bombing. Indeed, when the news was announced by French President Nicholas Sarkozy, Obama was on an uncanceled trip to Brazil.

Obama's brief statement from Brasilia referred to a "broad coalition" that "brings together many of our European and Arab partners." He said he had authorized "military action in Libya in support of an international effort." Obama used the words "international" and "coalition" a total of ten times in a statement that lasted just three minutes.

The grandstanding was left to Sarkozy, who had ordered French planes to make the first flights over Libya -- before U.S. aircraft got involved. "Along with our Arab, European and North American partners, France has decided to play its part before history," he said.

But strikes by over 100 American cruise missiles quickly followed the French action, and early Sunday morning a slew of American planes -- including B2s, F-15s, F-16s, Navy EA-18G electronic warfare planes and Marine attack jets, according to the AP -- bombed Libya. It's not clear whether any Arab nations -- some of which supported the Security council resolution -- have contributed military support at this point.

None of this to say that the international political support for the Libya intervention is not significant. But NBC Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski today knocked down the talk that what is going on militarily is a "huge coalition effort." Here's what he said in a remarkable segment this morning:

"Despite the White House attempts to make this look like it's a huge coalition effort -- obviously it required coalition political support -- but for now the U.S. military is not only in the lead but conducting almost all military operations, with only minor participation from the French, as you mentioned, even British fighters over night. There's a U.S. commander. And even this morning I talked to senior military officials, when I asked them how soon will the U.S. turn over the command to the coalition -- and the indication is the U.S. military is in no hurry to do that."

Watch:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, this morning delivered a very different message than Miklaszewski's reporting suggests. Mullen insisted in a Sunday show interview that while the U.S. is "leading it now, we're looking to hand off that leadership in the next few days." It will be interesting to see if that happens.

Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More: Justin Elliott

Libya's Opposition Leadership Comes into Focus | STRATFOR

2011-03-20T17:27:00.000-07:00

Libya's Opposition Leadership Comes into Focus | STRATFOR
March 20, 2011

Note from William O. Beeman: STRATFOR is a semi-reliable source prone to leaps of conjecture and frequent inaccuracy. However, this is the most detailed account I have seen of the organization of the opposition forces in Libya. Given the dearth of information about the opposition and the uncertainty of the outcome in Libya, the account here is worth paying attention to. I caution readers not to accept this account uncritically.

Libya has descended to a situation tantamount to civil war, with forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in the west pitted against rebels from the east. One of the biggest problems faced by Western governments has been identifying exactly who the rebels are. Many of them, including former Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil and former Interior Minister Gen. Abdel Fattah Younis, defected early on from the Gadhafi regime and represent part of the leadership of the National Transitional Council, which lobbied Western governments for support soon after its formation. Challenges posed by geography and lack of military capabilities remain, however, meaning that even with the aid of foreign airstrikes against Gadhafi’s forces, the rebel council will struggle to achieve its stated goal of militarily toppling Gadhafi and unifying the country under its leadership.
Editor’s note:This analysis was originally published March 8 but has been significantly updated with current, accurate information.

Analysis

Identifying the Opposition

One of the biggest problems Western governments have faced throughout the Libyan crisis has been identifying who exactly the “eastern rebels” are. Until the uprising began in February, there was thought to be no legitimate opposition to speak of in the country, and thus no contacts between the United States, the United Kingdom, France or others. Many of those who now speak for the rebel movement are headquartered in Benghazi. There have been several defections, however, from the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to the eastern rebel leadership, and it is men like these with whom the West is now trying to engage as the possible next generation of leadership in Libya, should its unstated goal of regime change come to fruition.
The structure through which the Libyan opposition is represented is the National Transitional Council. The first man to announce its creation was former Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who defected from the government Feb. 21 and declared the establishment of a “transitional government” Feb. 26. At the time, Abdel-Jalil claimed that it would give way to national elections within three months, though this was clearly never a realistic goal.
One day after Abdel-Jalil’s announcement, a Benghazi-based lawyer named Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga held a news conference to refute his claims. Ghoga pronounced himself to be the spokesman of the new council and denied that it resembled a transitional government, adding that even if it did, Abdel-Jalil would not be in charge. Ghoga derided the former justice minister as being more influential in the eastern Libyan city of Al Bayda than in Benghazi, which is the heart of the rebel movement.
The personality clash between Abdel-Jalil and Ghoga continued on for most of the next week, as each man portended to be running a council that spoke for the eastern rebel movement in its entirety. It was significant only insofar as it provided just a glimpse of the sort of internal rivalries that exist in eastern Libya, known historically as Cyrenaica. Though Cyrenaica has a distinct identity from the western Libyan region historically referred to as Tripolitania, that does not mean that it is completely unified. This will be a problem moving ahead for the coalition carrying out the bombing campaign of Libya, as tribal and personal rivalries in the east will compound with a simple lack of familiarity with who the rebels really are.
The National Transitional Council officially came into being March 6, and — for the moment, at least — has settled the personal and regional rivalry between Abdel-Jalil and Ghoga, with the former named the council’s head and the latter its spokesman. Despite the drama that preceded the formal establishment of the council, all members of the opposition have always been unified on a series of goals: They want to mount an armed offensive against the government-controlled areas in the west; they want to overthrow Gadhafi; they seek to unify the country with Tripoli as its capital; and they do not want foreign boots on Libyan soil. The unity of the rebels, in short, is based upon a common desire to oust the longtime Libyan leader.
The transitional council asserts that it derives its legitimacy from the series of city councils that have been running the affairs of the east since the February uprising that turned all of eastern Libya into rebel-held territory. This council is, in essence, a conglomeration of localized units of makeshift self-governance. And while it may be centered in the east, the rebel council has also gone out of its way to assert that all Libyans who are opposed to Gadhafi’s rule are a part of the movement. This is not a secessionist struggle. A military stalemate with Gadhafi that would lead to the establishment of two Libyas would not represent an outright success for the rebels, even though it would be preferential to outright defeat. Though it has only released the names of nine of its reported 31 members for security reasons, the National Transitional Council has claimed that it has members in several cities that lie beyond the rebel-held territory in the east (including Misurata, Zentan, Zawiya, Zouara, Nalut, Jabal Gharbi, Ghat and Kufra), it has promised membership to all Libyans who want to join, and it asserted that the council is the sole representative of the whole of Libya.
The council’s foremost priorities for the past several weeks have been garnering foreign support for airstrikes on Gadhafi’s forces and the establishment of a no-fly zone. Absent that, the rebels have long argued, none of their other military objectives stood a chance of being realized.
It was the lobbying for Western support in the establishment of a no-fly zone that led the transitional council’s “executive team,” also known as the crisis committee, to go on a tour of European capitals in mid-March designed to shore up support from various governments and international institutions. Mahmoud Jebril, an ally of Abdel-Jalil, and de facto Foreign Minister Ali al-Essawi, the former Libyan ambassador to India who quit in February when the uprising began, comprise the executive team. The result of this trip was the first recognition of the transitional council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people, which was provided by France on March 10. France, as we were to see in the following days, was to become the most vociferous advocate of the international community coming to the aid of the rebel council through the use of airstrikes.

Challenges

Before the decision was made to implement a no-fly zone, the Libyan opposition forces collapsed in the face of Gadhafi’s onslaught, and they have shown little sign of coalescing into a meaningful military force. While the loyalist eastward thrust was against a disorganized rebel force, Gadhafi’s forces have demonstrated that they retain considerable strength and loyalty to the regime. That means that even with coalition airstrikes taking out armor and artillery, there will still be forces loyal to Gadhafi inside any urban center the rebels might encounter in a westward advance, meaning that the rebels would be forced to fight a dedicated force dug into built up areas while operating on extended lines, a difficult tactical and operational challenge for even a coherent and proficient military force. So even though the coalition airstrikes have since shifted the military balance, the fundamental challenges for the rebels to organize and orchestrate a coherent military offensive remain unchanged.
It is important to note that little of the territory that fell into rebel control in the early days of the insurrection was actually occupied through conquest. Many military and security forces in the east either deserted or defected to the opposition, which brought not only men and arms, but also the territory those troops ostensibly controlled. Most fighting that occurred once the situation transitioned into what is effectively a civil war, particularly in the main population centers along the coastal stretch between Benghazi and Sirte, consisted of relatively small, lightly armed formations conducting raids, rather than either side decisively defeating a major formation and pacifying a town.
Just as the executive team represents the National Transitional Council’s foreign affairs unit, the council also has a military division. This was originally headed by Omar El-Hariri, but the overall command of the Libyan rebels has since reportedly been passed to former Interior Minister Gen. Abdel Fattah Younis. Younis’ name arose early on as the man with whom the British government was engaging as it tried to get a grip on the situation unfolding in rebel-held territory. He was not included in the original transitional council membership, however, despite several indications that he did in fact retain widespread support among eastern rebels. This, like the clash between Abdel-Jalil and Ghoga, was another indication of the rivalries that exist in eastern Libya, which paint a picture of disunity among the rebels.
Younis, however, now appears to have been officially incorporated into the command structure and is presiding over a National Transitional Council “army” that, like the council itself, is the sum of its parts. Every population center in eastern Libya has since the uprising began created respective militias, all of which are now, theoretically, to report to Benghazi. Indeed, the most notable of these local militias, created Feb. 28, has been known at times as the Benghazi Military Council, which is linked to the Benghazi city council, the members of which form much of the political core of the new national council. There are other known militias in eastern Libya, however, operating training camps in places like Ajdabiya, Al Bayda and Tobruk, and undoubtedly several other locations as well.
Younis has perhaps the most challenging job of all in eastern Libya: organizing a coherent fighting force that can mount an invasion of the west — something that will be difficult even after an extensive foreign bombing campaign. More defections by the military and security forces in the west, like the earlier defections in Zawiya and Misurata, would perhaps benefit the transitional council even more than the bombing campaign under way. There is no sign of imminent defections from the west, however, which will only reinforce the military and geographic challenges with which the rebel council is faced.
Libyan society is by definition tribal and therefore prone to fractiousness. The Gadhafi era has done nothing to counter this historical legacy, as the Jamahiriya political system promoted local governance more than a truly national system of administration. Ironically, it was this legacy of Gadhafi’s regime that helped the individual eastern cities to rapidly establish local committees that took over administration of their respective areas, but it will create difficulties should they try to truly come together. Rhetoric is far different from tangible displays of unity.
Geography will also continue to be a challenge for the National Transitional Council. The Libyan opposition still does not have the basic military proficiencies or know-how to project and sustain an armored assault on Tripoli; if it tried, it would run a serious risk of being neutralized on arrival by prepared defenses. Even Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte — almost certainly a necessary intermediate position to control on any drive to Tripoli — looks to be a logistical stretch for the opposition. An inflow of weapons may help but would not be the complete solution. Just as the primary factor in eastern Libya’s breaking free of the government’s control lies in a series of military defections, the occurrence of the same scenario in significant numbers in the west is what would give the National Transitional Council its best chance of overthrowing Gadhafi.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com

William O. Beeman--Access Minnesota Interview on Middle East Politics--Part II

2011-03-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

William O. Beeman--Access Minnesota Interview on Middle East Politics

2011-03-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

Good Question: Are Americans Unfairly Anti-Muslim? « CBS Minnesota--Interview with William O. Beeman

2011-03-10T23:28:00.000-08:00

Good Question: Are Americans Unfairly Anti-Muslim? « CBS Minnesota

I am featured in this interview. I am absolutely incensed at the hearings being conducted by Representative Peter King, which incite rank prejudice against a billion Muslims.

William O. Beeman

JOURNEY (scene 1)--world premiere dance drama by Mohammad B. Ghaffari

2011-03-10T23:14:00.000-08:00

Journey | Minnesota performance list | MinnesotaPlaylist.com

2011-03-09T20:24:00.000-08:00

Journey | Minnesota performance list | MinnesotaPlaylist.com

Journey

Presented by University of Minnesota/Elemental Ensemble
A lyric drama with original music based on the medieval Islamic text: Hayy bin Yazqan by the Muslim philosopher and author, Ibn Tufayl, a work that inspired Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. The Journey is one of discovery as the parentless boy Hayy (called Cyrus), raised in the wild, evolves in his understanding of natural principles and spiritual life. Cyrus is portrayed by a lyric male dancer/actor, and his spiritual exploration of nature is narrated by a storyteller.

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Genres

* Classical dance
* Contemporary drama
* Kid friendly
* Modern dance
* Music theater

Schedule and venue

Children's Theater Company, Cargill Stage
2400 3rd Ave. S., Minneapolis

* Thursday, February 24, 2011 8:00pm
* Friday, February 25, 2011 8:00pm
* Saturday, February 26, 2011 8:00pm
* Thursday, March 3, 2011 7:30pm
* Friday, March 4, 2011 7:30pm
* Saturday, March 5, 2011 7:30pm
* Sunday, March 6, 2011 2:00pm
* Thursday, March 10, 2011 7:30pm
* Friday, March 11, 2011 7:30pm
* Saturday, March 12, 2011 7:30pm
* Sunday, March 13, 2011 2:00pm

Tickets
Discounts available

* Senior (65+)
* Student (with valid identification)
* Minnesota Fringe button discount
* Minnesota Public Radio membership

$10-20 at CTC March 3-13
Call (800) 838-3006

Tickets online: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/159102

Reservations/buy tickets
Eddie Oroyan stars in JOURNEY
Cast + crew
Role Artist
Cyrus Eddie Bruno Oroyan Edit
Storyteller Anika Reitman Edit
Roe, Pirooz Patrick Jeffrey Edit
Boy Josiah Laubenstein Edit
Officer Josiah Laubenstein Edit
Officer Levi Morris Edit
Director and Author Mohammad Bagher Ghaffari Edit
Stage Manager Stacy Schultz Edit
Costumer Sonya Berlovitz Edit
Technical Director Ian Knodel Edit
Production Assistant Shanté Zenith Edit
Producer William O. Beeman Edit
Artistic Consultant Lynn Lukkas Edit
Composer, Music Director Yukio Tsuji Edit
Cellist Cory Goldman Edit
Percussionist Tetsuya Takeno

Wisconsin and Ohio Protestors: We Want Freedom of Choice, Not Money - New America Media

2011-02-27T00:29:00.000-08:00

Wisconsin and Ohio Protestors: We Want Freedom of Choice, Not Money - New America Media

New America Media, Commentary, William O. Beeman, Posted: Feb 24, 2011

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan said it right the first time on Feb. 17: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison these days.” He was viewing the 70,000 protestors demonstrating against Gov. Scott Walker’s dogged attempts to deny public unions the right to collective bargaining. Many thought Ryan’s remark unfortunate, since it seemed to compare Gov. Walker to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, effectively deposed by the street demonstrators of Egypt.

But Governor Walker certainly hit a nerve with the American public that is no less jolting than that which called Mubarak’s autocratic rule into question. Walker may not have killed people, but his dictates are, in an American context, no less autocratic or unthinkable than the excesses of Mubarak.
The Wisconsin demonstrators, and those following their lead in Ohio protests against a bill that would similarly deprive public employees bargaining rights, showed that they were unwilling to give up an essential element of American culture -- the ability to shape their own destiny through negotiated choice.

Freedom of choice is one of the most sacred of American cultural values. It lies at the core of our commercial, civic and social lives. Any imposed limitation on choice is eventually doomed, as has been shown time and time again throughout American history.

Anti-miscegenation laws eventually fell to the ground, as gay marriage laws are slowly overcoming the forces that would outlaw them. Civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination have been established throughout the land. They have the support of the vast majority of Americans because they protect the freedom to choose whom to marry, where to live and whom to work for.

Collective bargaining is at core mutual freedom of choice. One person can rarely negotiate with a huge industry; hence the group nature of the bargaining. In labor negotiations, both sides present what they are willing to live with in hopes of reaching mutual compromise. In this situation, no party gets entirely what they want, but both sides get some of what they want, and they come to a conclusion when they choose to settle for something that is perhaps not ideal but comes close to being satisfactory. When both sides agree, there can be no blame since the choice to accept or not was always there.

Gov. Walker’s mistake was in trying to eliminate the ability of workers to exercise this fundamental choice. In essence, he is saying that union workers will never get even close to what they want in terms of working conditions or compensation, but his administration, as employer, will always get all of what they want. When one is employed under circumstances where no negotiation of work conditions or compensation is allowed—no choice, effectively—that work is tantamount to slavery. It allows only one choice — to quit. This draconian choice might be acceptable, perhaps, in flush economic times, but it is not an option in times like the present.

The pretext put forward by Gov. Walker for his action was budgetary. However, as numerous analysts have pointed out, Wisconsin’s budgetary woes will not be solved by removing public service union bargaining rights. To make this point clearer, the unions agreed to the financial requests put forward by the Walker administration, alongside its call for the elimination of bargaining rights. But the governor was unrelenting; the money apparently didn’t matter. It was the strength of the unions he was trying to eliminate.

Of course, Gov. Walker is not alone. Republican administrations in a half dozen states are hoping to use the current financial crisis to break the public service unions. When employees lose the right to bargain, what good is the union? Why continue to belong and pay dues?

From the standpoint of the Republican Party, the disappearance of unions removes a financial obstacle to its political ambitions. Unions not only negotiate on behalf of their members; they also work to elect politicians that are sympathetic to workers’ rights. These are most often Democrats. Therefore, to get rid of political challenges, officials like Gov. Walker are happy to destroy the right to negotiated choice in the service of partisan political advantage.

In other nations, the exercise of choice might not enjoy the sacred quality it has in the United States. It is now clear that this fundamental right is something that thousands are willing to make sacrifices to protect. Gov. Walker and Republican legislators are learning this the hard way.

William O. Beeman is a professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota.

MinnPost - Timely U of M conference can help Minnesota explore backdrop to Mideast unrest

2011-02-24T08:12:00.000-08:00

MinnPost - Timely U of M conference can help Minnesota explore backdrop to Mideast unrest

Timely U of M conference can help Minnesota explore backdrop to Mideast unrest

By Sharon Schmickle | Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011

The protests that are rattling Arab governments from Tunisia to Egypt, Bahrain to Libya have many mothers, many explanations. To understand them fully, you can’t stop with the modern-day problems of corrupt dictatorships and frustrated, under-employed youth.

A good share of the rage erupting now is rooted in a profound loss of Arab dignity and pride. All educated Arab children know that their region once led the world in science, medicine, literature and so many other academic and artistic achievements.

Now, they are seen by the West – appropriately or not – as lagging in research intensity and investments in science. And many of their achievements in literature and the arts are not internationally respected.

Prof. William Beeman

“We are just now seeing that the seeds for this uprising were sown way back when,” said Prof. William Beeman, chair of the University of Minnesota’s Anthropology Department. “And it is not surprising that you now see it popping up everywhere.”

‘Shared Cultural Spaces’
Beeman and other U of M scholars have organized a timely conference that can help Minnesota explore this backdrop to the Middle East’s unrest.

“Shared Cultural Spaces,” is presented by the university's religious studies program with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The public is welcome for several sessions beginning today on the West Bank of the Minneapolis campus, where experts in relevant fields will take a fresh look at humanities and sciences in Islamic civilization and reveal the connections between the old and the new as well as between the Islamic and western worlds.

Photo by Damon LynchEddie Bruno Oroyan in "Journey."

At the same time, the university is presenting the world premiere of "Journey," a stage adaptation of one of the spiritual and scientific masterpieces of the medieval Islamic world: Ibn Tufayl's "Hayy ibn Yaqzan." Performances begin tonight at the Rarig Center and continue through select dates in March at the Children's Theater Company.

Pillars of the intellectual world
While the conference material is fascinating and relevant to these times, much of it would be old hat to Muslim students. Even many Minnesota youngsters – for example, those who attend the Al-Amal School in Fridley – are well schooled in the story of what happened after the Roman Empire collapsed in the Fifth Century and Europe plunged into the Dark Ages.

Art, scholarly learning and scientific inquiry began to flourish in modern-day Iraq, Egypt and Iran. So respected was universal learning that Muslim caliphs paid for the preservation of Greek texts. And they supported scholars who translated the work that otherwise would have been lost to Europe.

Further, these scholars forged ahead with achievements that stood as pillars of the intellectual world for more than 1,000 years.

Indeed, many scholars and artists of the time still are considered to be giants in their fields: Muhammad Ibn Mūsā Al-Khawārizmī is credited with founding algebra. Ibn Sina's medical texts have been honored for centuries as the most authoritative works in human healing. Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, the great 13th Century Persian mystic poet, remains popular today inside and outside literature classrooms.

The list goes on and on.

What happened?
Somehow, though, that prominence faded over the centuries. How and why the Arab and Muslim countries declined as intellectual leaders — including if that actually happened or whether it is a mistaken perception in the West — are subjects for intense debate.

Certainly, we can point to prominent exceptions. Take Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988.

When it comes to science, some critics say that corrupt Arab leaders lined their own pockets and paid off vast patronage systems rather than investing their countries' resources in research and technology. Many of us know brilliant but frustrated Muslim scientists who left their homelands to pursue careers in the West.

Beeman is among scholars who argue that there are many more Maguib Mahfouzes in Muslim countries. They just haven't been recognized by the West.

Sudden eclipse
Beeman also said, though, that the Industrial Revolution did eclipse advances in the Middle East.

In less than a century, European nations surpassed their Muslim neighbors with superior technologies in military equipment, manufacturing systems, transportation, etc. The Europeans also organized themselves in nation-state systems that were utterly foreign to the orientation of the Muslim world, where it had been possible to travel from northern Africa to China without encountering the obstacles of customs, tariffs and strict national borders.

"It was very sudden," Beeman said.

And it set the stage for what happened as the colonial era ended in the Middle East.

Strapped for money to modernize their own states, Middle Eastern leaders forged partnerships with Europeans. Eventually the European nations and later the Americans were propping up dictators who couldn't have stood on their own.

"This was what set up the protests for today," Beeman said. "You have potentates, in league with external economic and political powers, who ruled in dictatorial fashion over their populations."

What the protesters have made abundantly clear is that these propped-up dictators have outlived their time. The protestors are demanding a chance to stand on their own and reclaim the dignity and cultural respect that is their heritage.

Information on U of M conference
The U of M conference is to highlight that heritage, exploring Islamic culture in its history and also its modern-day facets on topics including architecture, the arts and aesthetics, science and theater.

Most of the lectures and other events are free and open to the public. A schedule and more information is available here. The presentations of "Journey" are free at the Rarig Center, but there is a charge of $10 to $20 after it moves to the Children's Theater in March. For both venues, you'll need to make reservations.

Conference, play highlight Islam’s Western legacy | mndaily.com - Serving the University of Minnesota Community Since 1900

2011-02-23T12:36:00.000-08:00

Conference, play highlight Islam’s Western legacy | mndaily.com - Serving the University of Minnesota Community Since 1900

THEATER | Iranian playwright premieres innovative take on ancient text | Twin Cities Daily Planet

2011-02-23T11:54:00.000-08:00

THEATER | Iranian playwright premieres innovative take on ancient text | Twin Cities Daily Planet

Professor Discusses Iran Clashes--Interview with William O. Beeman

2011-02-17T18:55:00.000-08:00

Professor Discusses Iran Opposition, Clashes: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com

Professor Discusses Iran Opposition, Clashes

Iranian government, opposition clash at funeral

Updated: Thursday, 17 Feb 2011, 9:18 AM CST

Published : Thursday, 17 Feb 2011, 9:18 AM CST

On Wednesday in Iran, opposition activists and government supports clashed at a funeral for a student who was killed during protests on Monday.

The images coming out of the country are reminiscent of the change Egyptians brought to their country last week. In light of the conflict, FOX 9 News invited professor William Beeman, chair of the University of Minnesota’s Anthropology Department discuss his experiences in the country this past summer.

Watch the video for more information

Culture and International Affairs

NPR--U.N. Atomic Agency to Visit Iran for New Probe

W. O. Beeman--Commentary on Bill Keller: "Bomb-bomb-bomb, Bomb-bomb Iran" January 23, 2012 (NY Times)

Hooman Majd--Top 5 U.S. misconceptions on Iran (Politico)

William O. Beeman Commentary on "The Case for Regime Change in Iran" Foreign Affairs January 17, 2012

FALSE FLAG--How Mossad posed as CIA to recruit terrorists to attack Iran

False Flag

A series of CIA memos describes how Israeli Mossad agents posed as American spies to recruit members of the terrorist organization Jundallah to fight their covert war against Iran.

BY MARK PERRY | JANUARY 13, 2012

Stalemate in Obaman's Iran Policy--Interview with Reza Marashi and William O. Beeman

KBOO Events ~ Click to See

Like to Read?

A book list? For you? Yes, from Multnomah County Library

Butt--Spinning Iran's Centrifuges (Asia Times)

Commentary on Americ's Deadly Dynamics with Iran by David Sanger (NY Times, Niovember 6, 2011)

Gareth Porter: Debunking the Iran "Terror Plot"

Debunking the Iran "Terror Plot"

The Case of the Missing Quotes

“The Saudi Arabia” and the $100,000

The Qods Force Connection

Terrorist Plot or Deterrence Strategy?

When Did Arbabsiar Become Part of the Sting?

FBI Trickery in Terrorism Cases

Endnotes

Once again--Rumors of an Israeli Attack on Iran

William O. Beeman interview on Iranian "Plot" to assassinate Saudi ambassador

U.S. Officials Peddle False Intel to Support Terror Plot Claims Analysis by Gareth Porter*

The CIA and the Iran Caper

Porter--FBI Account of "Terror Plot" Suggests Sting Operation

William O. Beeman--U.S. Overreach in Tying Assassination Plot to Iran

U.S. Overreach in Tying Assassination Plot to Iran

William O. Beeman--9/11 Raised Unrealized Hopes in US-Iran Relations

The GOP's fever for war will destroy any hope of shrinking government Will Iran Nuke the Tea Party? (Charleston SC City Paper)

William O. Beeman--Hikers in Iran--Caught in Web of International Politics

Beeman--Review of H.M.S. Pinafore at the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, July 24, 2011

Beeman--David E. Sanger and William J. Broad once again distort Iran's nuclear program

William O. Beeman--The Afghan Drawdown is Long, Long Overdue

William O. Beeman--No Evidence of an Iranian Bomb, Yet the Attacks on Iran Continue - New America Media

William O. Beeman Review of "Tehran Rising" by America Abroad Media (Truth Out)

Debunking the Top Seven Myths on Iran's Middle East Policies

William O. Beeman Review of "Tehran Rising" by America Abroad Media

William O. Beeman--We Killed Osama bin Laden, Now Let’s Kill the Myth - New America Media

Interview with William O. Beeman--PressTV - 'Yemenis reject any Saudi interference'

Email response from a University of Wisconsin professor:

Netanyahu's Dangerous Posturing (Israel PM: Must be military option against Iran)

Justin Elliott--A history of Libya and blowback--Interview with William O. Beeman

A history of Libya and blowback

The "coalition" has no clothes - Libya - Salon.com

The "coalition" has no clothes

Related Stories

Libya: Endgame unclear after successful first days

Libya's Opposition Leadership Comes into Focus | STRATFOR

Identifying the Opposition

Challenges

William O. Beeman--Access Minnesota Interview on Middle East Politics--Part II

William O. Beeman--Access Minnesota Interview on Middle East Politics

Good Question: Are Americans Unfairly Anti-Muslim? « CBS Minnesota--Interview with William O. Beeman

JOURNEY (scene 1)--world premiere dance drama by Mohammad B. Ghaffari

Journey | Minnesota performance list | MinnesotaPlaylist.com

Wisconsin and Ohio Protestors: We Want Freedom of Choice, Not Money - New America Media

MinnPost - Timely U of M conference can help Minnesota explore backdrop to Mideast unrest

Timely U of M conference can help Minnesota explore backdrop to Mideast unrest

By Sharon Schmickle | Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011

Conference, play highlight Islam’s Western legacy | mndaily.com - Serving the University of Minnesota Community Since 1900

THEATER | Iranian playwright premieres innovative take on ancient text | Twin Cities Daily Planet

Professor Discusses Iran Clashes--Interview with William O. Beeman