Syria: More questions about the alleged nuclear Site (LA Times)

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SYRIA: More questions about alleged nuclear site

Professor William Beeman at the University of Minnesota passed along a note today from "a colleague with a U.S. security clearance" about the mysterious Syrian site targeted in a Sept. 6 Israeli airstrike.

The note raises more questions about the evidence shown last week by U.S. intelligence officials to lawmakers in the House and Senate.

The author of the note pinpoints irregularities about the photographs. Beeman's source alleges that the CIA "enhanced" some of the images. For example he cites this image:



The lower part of the building, the annex, and the windows pointing south appear much sharper than the rest of the photo, suggesting that they were digitally improved.

The author points to more questions about the photographs of the Syrian site.

1. Satellite photos of the alleged reactor building show no air defenses or anti-aircraft batteries such as the ones found around the Natanz nuclear site in central Iran.
2. The satellite images do not show any military checkpoints on roads near the building.
3. Where are the power lines? The photos show neither electricity lines or substations.
4. Here is a link to a photo of the North Korean facility that the Syrian site was based on. Look at all the buildings surrounding it. The Syrian site was just one building.

Now compare this photograph of the site:



Syria2_2

To this one:



Syria3_2


The site looks like a rectangle in the first shot, but more like a square in the second shot. Huh?

Thanks to Beeman, a professor of anthropology and Middle East studies as well as a member of the blogosphere, for allowing us to share his colleague's comments.

— Borzou Daragahi in Amman, Jordan

P.S. The Los Angeles Times issues a free daily newsletter with the latest headlines from the Middle East, the war in Iraq and the frictions between the West and Islam. You can subscribe by registering at the website here, logging in here and clicking on the World: Mideast newsletter box here.

03:25 PM PT, Apr 28 2008 in Israel , Nuclear Technology , Syria | Permalink | Comments (37) | TrackBack (0)
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Scott Ritter pointed out yesterday that there would be no violation of the NPT unless they had introduced nuclear material to the site, then they would be obligated to declare it as a nuclear reactor. If they blew it up with nuclear material, there would be a measureable amount of radiation. So far there is none. He also stressed that this looked more like a test reactor, and not one that could produce enough plutonium to make a bomb. In addition there was the absence of fences around the perimeter, or guards. So Syria committed no "violations". Also, since no nuclear material was present, there is nothing for the IAEA to do, since without nuclear material, it's out of their jurisdiction.

Israel, on the other hand, bombed a sovereign nation without a declaration of war, which is a war crime.

In short, looks like another "yellow cake" affair. They blew up a hunk of concrete, nothing more. They broke international law to do it. And now they're trying to whip up international sediment against the Syrians for it. The whole thing smells like old fish on a hot day.

One note about the timing of the "coming out" of the recent information. It occurred the day after the biggest Israeli spy scandal since Jonathan Pollard. Turns out the Israeli spy network was much larger than previously thought. Seems like every time there's a story that hurts the Israelis or the US administration, the next day we see a big "fear monger" story. Tell me I'm wrong.

Posted by: Zardoz | April 29, 2008 at 06:53 AM

The destoyed building in top photo has as aspect ratio of .74/1.00.

The destroyed building in bottom photo has an aspect ratio of .95/1.00.

The difference in angle for aerial photos is not going to account for that great a difference. They are not the same building.

Posted by: bobdevo | April 29, 2008 at 06:45 AM

Hahaha, this is a 3-d representation of the building. I'm surprised nobody at the Times saw the actual video presentation. (for the video and some more intelligent commentary, go to armscontrolwonk.com )

the discrepancy in the shadows is because the two pictures were taken from a slightly different angle. Jeez. There's enough to criticize in this story without this.

Posted by: Nate | April 29, 2008 at 06:44 AM

Sounds like the LA Times and it's far left minions are using their 9-11 conspiracy caps again barking up this tree here. Ugh...

Posted by: Effivin Cod | April 29, 2008 at 06:40 AM

LA Times,
Thanks for the Syria version of events. It's good to know America's enemies have a friend and voice in this country to spin for them plotting to kill thousands of people.

Are you guys aware of how dangerous it is what you are doing or are you leftists that willing to be useful idiots for our enemies?

Posted by: Effivin Cod | April 29, 2008 at 06:38 AM

As a Professional Retoucher, I would have to say that the professor is right on the money. The Photos have been retouched. To really tell, see if there is any way to seethe original released pictures. If there was retouching there will be tell-tale differences in the pixelation when viewing the photo's various channels.

Posted by: Ed | April 29, 2008 at 06:21 AM

Israel, who's sitting on 'X' amount of unlawfully obtained and maintained nukes and who is allied with the U.S. who sits on 'XXXX' nukes illegally attacks Seria who has '0' nukes. What's wrong with this picture is not the picture at all; it's the international laws that are being blatently ignored by the US and Israel in persuit of their Imperialist aims.

You can't be attacked by the knee-jerk authoritarians in this thread-- who believe that anyone but the U.S. and Israel who even THINKS about defending themselves with nukes-- should be "obliterated" if you just stick to the facts--rules of international law--and skip speculating about faked photos.

Posted by: Antiup | April 29, 2008 at 05:57 AM

Be sure to see Scott Ritter's take on the affair here:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/28/un_nuclear_watchdog_chief_blasts_us

Posted by: Eli Stephens | April 29, 2008 at 05:56 AM

I have been photoshopping since 1992 or 3 -- or since version 2. - Without a speck of reservation -- THOSE PHOTOS ARE PHOTOSHOPPED - digitally enhanced. America - you've been dupped -- AGAIN! It's time to take this Government DOWN -- IMPEACH IMPEACH the lying thieving bastards....!!

Posted by: Marc W | April 29, 2008 at 05:42 AM

So I hadn't seen the "VOAvideo" on YouTube before writing my earlier comment about the necessary cooling tower or other cooling facilities. It is the claim of US authorities that cooling water was pumped from the nearby Euphrates river to cool a graphite-moderated, gas-cooled, plutonium-production reactor. The coolant is a major point of the video, and the ancillary facilities (a pump house, buried storage pond, gas-to-coolant heat exchangers, etc.) are all indicated as well.

The problem is almost all of these data are suggested by computer-generated graphics. It is unclear what actual photographic evidence exists to support these various claims.

Surely, the IAEA must have some sort of independent analysis to support, or not support, the US interpretation. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Syria is a signatory nation and a declared "non-nuclear-weapon State" -- the IAEA has certain inspection rights under Article III and other provisions.

What does the IAEA have to say about these claims about a plutonium-production reactor? Surely. the IAEA would have conducted on-site inspections of the ruins by now. If Syria has been such a flagrant violator of its treaty obligations as a non-nuclear-weapons State, wouldn't the IAEA have something to say?

See http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/infcirc140.pdf

Posted by: Theophilus | April 29, 2008 at 05:27 AM

"Note the North Korean facility has a very large hyperbolic cooling tower nearby. I suppose if there were a substantial water supply, you might use some sort of drilled well to reject waste heat -- but this would require a lot of water and a lot of work. Is there any evidence for how they got rid of waste heat, if this were a reactor facility?"
Did any of you "CIA IS BAD!" conspiracy theorists see the videos on youtube? The first photo is from A COMPUTER GENERATED VIDEO!!!!!!!!!

1. Syria built a second building AROUND (and over) the reactor was built to change the outline in order to be covert (may they just wanted a more asthetically pleasing useless building in the middle of nowhere)
2. There were pipes from the Euphrates river bringing up cooling water to a underground holding tank and another returning heated water from the "reactor" back to the river. Probably just a useless building on the middle of nowhere... that needed a lot of water.

Good, Gosh! Another MSM hatchet job w/ no proof or clue. Methinks your heads are buried deeper than the remains of this reactor.

Posted by: Brad | April 29, 2008 at 04:10 AM

But it has to be real because Diane Feinstein said that she was briefed about this and well it just has to be true don't you know. Why would those experts say it was true if it wasn't. Yada, yada, yada. She needs to go!

FEINSTEIN: Well, Wolf, the Senate Intelligence Committee did have a classified briefing. And I can say this, based on the analysis of the people that were there, namely Admiral McConnell, General Hayden and national security adviser -- the national security adviser, the facility was not configured for civilian use. They had a number of I think documenting points to make the case that this was, in fact, a nuclear weapons facility.

Now, having said that, I was surprised that they hadn't given the information to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and I was also surprised by the timing of it, because there have been some reports that Israel and Syria were looking at a settlement, quite possibly, and this could very well disrupt that settlement. So I...

BLITZER: But you believe -- based on what you know, Senator Feinstein, you believe that this was a nuclear reactor that North Korea was constructing in Syria?

FEINSTEIN: Look, none of us on the committee are nuclear experts. We take the views of nuclear experts. According to those experts, the answer is yes, this was a nuclear facility. I would be very surprised if it turned out to be anything other than that.

Posted by: pmorlan | April 29, 2008 at 03:49 AM

Has anyone asked whether they pulled the appropriate building permits? No cooler tower, no power lines, etc. Obviously shoddy workmanship.

OK. So hopefully you had a quick laugh from this scary stuff.

Posted by: Luca Ponti | April 29, 2008 at 01:49 AM

I say, digitally plonk a few granite columns at the front and drop the bloody thing in Washington, DC. It'd fit right in with the neo-classical mythology of the damn place.

Posted by: Novista | April 29, 2008 at 12:38 AM

The obviously doctored photo looks like the building has been created in a 3D rendering package like Strata 3D.

Extremely poorly done. I could do a much better job in 30 minutes.

For some time now the government has obviously felt so powerful that it doesn't need to try too hard with its bogus evidence. Plausible deniability is the term, I believe.

Posted by: bern Dell | April 29, 2008 at 12:15 AM

The article is specific to the subject of whether these photographs (or representation in the case of the first image) are genuine. It's a valid, healthy question.

But that's a bit of a red herring in terms of what's happening right now. What we should be asking:

1) The Israeli strike took place on 6 September, 2007, at which time it was mentioned discreetly in various media. Why is the White House publicizing the attack in April 2008? What other current events may be related to or impacted by this news?

2) Why is the United States publicizing this information instead of Israel?

3) Does anybody benefit from the publicizing of this information? If so, who benefits and in what way?

If you pay attention, there is a great deal of tension between the US and Israel right now -- perhaps so much as to be unprecedented. This is an interesting article, even if it is highly inaccurate, but if you narrow the focus of your questioning to something so granular, you're going to miss the big picture. No bad pun intended. ;]

Posted by: Phillip | April 28, 2008 at 11:45 PM

Um, if that's a reactor, where's the cooling tower? There is clearly one at the N. korean site, and it would be pretty insade to not have a way of drawing heat from the reactor core.

Posted by: Squeegee | April 28, 2008 at 11:41 PM

My question is -- if this is a nuclear-reactor facility, where's the cooling tower?

All nuclear reactors, even very small research ones, require a fairly large cooling towers. I live two blocks from MIT's research reactor in Cambridge, which operates with less than a few kW; nonetheless, it has an adjacent slat-type cooling tower about the size of a small house. If this were a plutonium-production reactor, it would work with hundreds to thousands of times the thermal output, and it would require either a comparably larger cooling tower, or would need a large cooling pond or an adjacent river into which to reject its waste heat. But I see no obvious evidence of such a tower or alternative cooling apparatus.

Note the North Korean facility has a very large hyperbolic cooling tower nearby. I suppose if there were a substantial water supply, you might use some sort of drilled well to reject waste heat -- but this would require a lot of water and a lot of work. Is there any evidence for how they got rid of waste heat, if this were a reactor facility?

Posted by: Theophilus | April 28, 2008 at 11:38 PM

The first picture is obviously CGI...because it is from a CGI video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ah6RmcewUM

Posted by: random bystander | April 28, 2008 at 10:52 PM

I'm a professional graphic designer and work with Photoshop every day in my work. I concur with Illustrator's comments about the first image. It has been heavily and inexpertly modified using digital means, and as such should not be regarded as a useful piece of information unless further explanations were forthcoming regarding the manipulation of the image.

Regarding the two images of the bombed structure, I also agree with others here in that there is no obvious graphic manipulation. There are none of the telltale digital artifacts that usually accompany modification, and the apparent differences in the site are due to the different times of day and viewing angle.

Posted by: bluestatedon | April 28, 2008 at 10:17 PM

I am a professional illustrator, using Photoshop everyday. The top photo is obviously Photoshopped. The giveaways are the shadows- the 'hook" in the shadow of the front gable is rounded- this is a classic trace left by an inexpert use of the eraser tool set to a soft feather. Additionally, the shadow is the wrong shape, and is too simple. Further, the shadow on the shaded side of the structure is all the same value and hue. This is incorrect and is characteristic of invented structures with bad painting.

This image is heavily modified, and may be entirely fake. At the very least, someone tried to change it, and botched the job.

Posted by: illustrator | April 28, 2008 at 09:40 PM

I have some serious issues with the weight of this " colleague with a U.S. security clearance".

First, yes - the top photo was enhanced, but it's a still from a 3D enhanced video (linked just above it). It wasn't enhanced to fool anyone, it was enhanced with advanced methods - not some Photoshop hack job.

Also, the bottom two photos are the same building - taken at different times of the day from slightly different angles.

As well, the photo comparison to the N. Korean facility would be easier to see if you flipped one of the images, they are currently oriented opposite of each other - as is the top image in comparison to the bottom two images.

I'm a former AF imagery analyst and I'm actually more convinced now that this was a real facility than I was before seeing the evidence.

The facilities are very similar, considering they were built 35 years apart - the subtle differences can be accounted for by looking at the building post destruction.

Posted by: Shawn | April 28, 2008 at 09:31 PM

The photo at the top looks a lot like the kind of image you'd find in a common videogame. It looks like 3d geometry textured with low res images and rendered in a 3d game application.

Thats why you see the sharp details on the front of the building and the unrealistic reflections of the windows.

Posted by: jeff | April 28, 2008 at 09:31 PM

Rebuttal reasons

1) put SAM sites around and you might as well flag the area for containing something of value

2) ditto

3) Graphite core reactors only require only a little power to operate..obviously something was powering up the pumping station down at the river. There is a building just to the north west that could be a generator building and a diesel plant could be built nearby in short order to supply enough power for full operation

4) one photo is directly overhead the other from a side angle ...distortion will occur from that alone.

Posted by: SlimGuy | April 28, 2008 at 08:58 PM

It's obviously a 3D representation of the building. The CIA is displaying some of its more sophisticated satellite based radar mapping or equivalent tech. This is how modern militaries map out the battlefield. This is not photoshop.

Posted by: Jesse | April 28, 2008 at 08:48 PM

The site looks like a rectangle in the first shot, but more like a square in the second shot. Huh?

The pictures were taken from different satellites at a different time of day which accounts for some of the oddities. But the resolution we see is not even worth attempting to identify. It could be anything. Both satellites have the ability to read a phone number on a desk in those buildings, if they are even the same building. One looks like a mock-up.

This is not evidence of anything. It's more blarney. Bush will use the same kind of 'evidence' to bomb Iran, and it will be a huge mistake. Like Iraq, except with even more unimaginable consequences.

Posted by: tc399 | April 28, 2008 at 08:39 PM

It seems that we are being lied to again--lied into another probable war. Who is running our country, demons from hell?

Posted by: Aride | April 28, 2008 at 08:33 PM

Given the Bush Administration's pattern of near-absolute deceit, all evidence they produce on any subject should be considered suspect.

Posted by: DanR | April 28, 2008 at 08:18 PM

Make no mistake - the Bush crazies are going to attack Iran. They are looking everywhere for pretext.

Unfortunately the world is not buying it. The only way they will get their justification will be a false flag attack against an American warship in the Gulf or "terrorist" attack in the U.S. Homeland. I expect this within 60 days as they have to go into Iran before August.

Just Google Earth Iran - it's all friken mountains - a horrible place for an infantry offense and an air attack is just going to poke a stick in the bee's nest.

It will be the final death knell for the American economy as if these crooks and war criminals haven't done their best to destroy us in the last 8 years.

Posted by: Bill S | April 28, 2008 at 08:09 PM

Hey, those final two photos are taken from two different angles.

The first is nearly straight above birds-eye-view and the second, "square" shape is taken from a lower angle that faces the front wall of the building. You can see the walls in it and not in the "rectangle" straight above view.

When you tilt your angle like that, shapes shorten vertically.

Come to think of it, the first photo looks like a google-earth 3D building overlay - sharp corners and shapes with very low resolution photographic textures on.

I won't claim any knowledge of nuclear plants but just answering the questions posed in this post.

Posted by: Observant Person | April 28, 2008 at 07:28 PM

I have analyzed sat images professionally for 4 years

I can't explain the first shot. Maybe there is a quality to windows that cause their light band signature to be sharper?

The second comparison shots that the author though were different shapes is really typical in sat images from different times and angles. I am sure that is nothing more than phones fooling the eye.

Just look at the underground entrance on the top photo, due to the difference in shadow and angle you almost can't see it in the second

Posted by: guest | April 28, 2008 at 07:27 PM

The last two photos likely look different because they were taken at different angles. The first one is obviously right overhead, while the second one is at an angle. Besides, that wouldn't gain anyone anything. As far as the first one, it looks to me like it was 3D rendered using the image as textures... which is weird, but could account for the sharpness of the lower roof. Disclaimer: This is the opinion of a novice.

Posted by: Nick B | April 28, 2008 at 07:18 PM

I too was puzzled about the lack of utility power.
I scoured Google Earth, and there are no power
lines for miles. And I would guess that most of
the processes inside a nuke facility would require
an awful large supply. I have to imagine the need
for cooling water, etc. and these would require
hundreds of amps of AC. And to anyone that thinks that it's
an issue of visibility vs. resolution limits of GE,
I've found many cases of just residential power that's easily
visible, let alone 3 phase megawatt towers needed for
a facility like this.

ld

Posted by: D Dulmage | April 28, 2008 at 06:50 PM

Sounds like LA Times is engaged in another hatchet job like
P .Diddy knocked off Tupac.

Those of us who are in intelligence clearly understand what the problem with the picture is.

Posted by: Navin | April 28, 2008 at 06:40 PM

The first image is a composite and is taken from the fly-through at the beginning of the presentation. It's make with similar technology that google earth and google sketchup use so no, it's not an "actual" photograph.

As for the questions, here are answers:

1. Air Defenses clue in intelligence agencies that something is important. The entire point of this facility was that it was covert. For an extended explanation, see this: http://geimint.blogspot.com/2008/04/syria-and-north-korea-nuclear-partners.html

2. See answer to #1

3. Powerlines are not needed unless the reactor intends to produce electricity. And anyway, at one corner of the building there is a single powerline coming in to provide power to the facility.

4. Yongbyon (the DPRK facility) has so many buildings because there is so much going on there. There are two reactors (one uncompleted), a fuel fabrication plant and rreprocessing plant, among other things.

Finally, the square vs rectangle is the result of the angle the to two images were taken. In the first, the shot it almost directly overhead - in the second, it's at an oblique angle. Unlike the movies, not all satellite imagery is straight down.

Posted by: Andy | April 28, 2008 at 06:35 PM

The question of after touching on the Photos is an important one, but before we jump to any conclusion maybe we should think about the fact that the NRO and CIA are known to digitally downgrade Sat imagery to protect the classified specs of the collection assets

Posted by: Sam | April 28, 2008 at 06:13 PM

As someone who has worked with satellite imagery before, I can safely say the top image was touched up to bring faint elements into focus. The difference between the bottom two photos is created by (A) the angle of the photo (B) damage to the building, whether by attack or collapse of a section post-attack. Imagery is never "straight-up" and requires a trained eye; this has been true ever since the first photographic reconnaissance flights by balloon in the US Civil War. There are WWII recon photos that still stump trainees in service schools throughout DOD. I'll never forget a photo at which I stared for what seemed an hour, increasingly sure that I was seeing ICBM silos. But not: they were tethered cows in a field, and they had eaten circles of grass around their pinions.

Posted by: Matt Osborne | April 28, 2008 at 06:10 PM

U.S. plays Good Cop/Bad Cop with Iran

U.S. Plays Good Cop/Bad Cop with Iran

William O. Beeman
University of Minnesota

Once again we see a predictable pattern in the dance between the United States and Iran. We get news through Ambassador Thomas Pickering on NPR last Saturday Morning (April 19, 2008) that informal talks have been going on for five years between Iranian officials and retired U.S. officials, with Pickering speculating on the possibility that the U.S. might talk to Iran directly, and disagreeing with the idea that talking to Iran might constitute "rewarding" them. Then today we see in the Washington Post that Admiral Michael Mullen, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are rattling the sabers threating military action against Iran for vague and nebulous Iranian deeds ( "U.S. Weighing Readiness for Military Action Against Iran" April 25 ). Voilá! The United States once again issues a baseless threat. Reporter Ann Scott Tyson quotes Mullen as saying clearly that there is "no smoking gun which could prove that the highest [Iranian] leadership is involved" with the nebulous support for unidentified "special groups" that might possibly be targeting U.S. forces.

We have heard this story ad nauseum. What should now be clear is that every time there is the slightest hint of improving U.S.-Iranian relations, or anything that would resemble successful diplomacy, some U.S. official or other--lately military--trots out unspecified and unproven accusations against Iran and threatens military action against Tehran. Surely the Iranians have become inured to this good cop/bad cop game. It is ridiculous to believe that this kind of tactic would have any effect on Iranian actions or policy any longer. However, it might well still have some currency with isolated pockets of Americans in an overheated election year where Iran is everyone's favorite bogey man.

Direct Talks with Iran--Ambassador Thomas Pickering Comments

We now hear a new tack from the Bush administration. Ambassador Thomas Pickering, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday today (Saturday, April 19), to comment on an announcement that plans were afoot for the United States to engage in direct face-to-face talks with Iran.

Ambassador Pickering stated that there were folks in Washington who felt that talking to Iranian officials would be "rewarding" them for bad behavior. His unusually sensible statement was that merely talking directly to a nation is not a reward, it is normal diplomacy. This is certainly going to anger Michael Ledeen, who in an attack on Barack Obama on April 10 asserted that "Talking [with Iran] has failed for 30 years," offering this quote from James Bond:

“Do you expect me talk, Goldfinger?” he asks.
“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”

[Ledeen's commentary]: That’s Iran. The mullahs want us to die.

Ambassador Pickering's commentary is certainly interesting. It was slipped into the program and does not appear on the Weekend Edition Saturday web site. It may be the latest volley in the ongoing battle between pragmatists and neoconservatives on how to deal with Iran.

William O. Beeman
University of Minnesota

Iran's Dubious Role in Iraq--David Ignatius and Ray Takeyh on PBS News Hour April 16

Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:20:25 -0400
From: William O. Beeman

David Ignatius of the Washington Post and Ray Takeyh of the Council on
Foreign Relations appeared on the PBS News Hour this evening Wednesday,
April 16) to discuss the allegations that Iran was playing a role in
fomenting violence in Iraq.

Ignatius has been a conduit in recent weeks for U.S. Government thinking
on the Iranian role, and was careful to couch his statements about Iran's
role in terms of U.S. Government pronouncements rather than his own
independent assessment. Ray Takeyh offered some theories as to what Iran
might be doing in Iraq.

What emerged very clearly from this discussion is

1. Everyone believes that Iran is arming some small groups of Shi'ites and
harassing the U.S. military and other groups. I emphasize "believes"
because there is no smoking gun, but a great deal of innuendo and
circumstantial evidence.

2. For lack of any better way to identify the Iranian action, the U.S.
government has started to refer to "special groups" supported by Iran as a
means of creating the impression that there is a Unified Iranian Effort
dedicated to violence in Iraq. Here again, there is no proof that such
organized groups exist, or if they do, what ties they might have to Iran.
When pressed, the government posits that these groups have "some kind of
connection" to Muqtada al-Sadr. Moreover they believe that these groups
are being trained by the Qods force of the Revolutionary Guard. All of
this is utterly theoretical.

3. No one can articulate any plausible motive for the Iranian action
beyond the projections of U.S. fantasies: wanting to create confusion,
oppose the U.S. presence and somehow solidify a Shi'ite majority. It is
unclear how Iran could achieve these goals through the use of such limited
"special groups." A new theory was put forward, namely that Iran may be
trying to repeat the situation in Southern Lebanon that gave rise to
Hezbollah. This is creative thinking, but the situation in Iraq is
completely different, with two well-organized Shi'a factions already vying
for power. Hezbollah essentially arose to fill a vacuum in Lebanon.

4. Both guests were quite clear that the United States is unable to do
anything about the perceived frustrating state of affairs. Some people
like Michael Ledeen hint that the only solution is to attack Iran--a kind
of "Iran delenda est" sort of policy, but even if Iran is doing what it is
accused of, the "Iranian backed actions" as characterized by the
administration can only be seen as are low-level and scattered. It is very
unclear whether attacking Iran in any way would bring a halt to the things
that annoy General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker.

What seems evident is that things are not going well in Iraq. There is
internecine conflict in the Shi'a community that threatens the Maliki
government, upon which the U.S. Government is relying. It seems that the
United States does not want to admit its own failures, and so has decided
to blame the disarray on Iran. The White House makes this accusation even
though there is no clear articulation of what Iran could possibly want or
could possibly achieve if it were engaged in the kind of systematic
actions attributed by General Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker, and Senator
Joe Lieberman, who, in the Senate hearings spoon-fed White House talking
points to Petraeus and Crocker.

Best,

Bill Beeman
University of Minnesota

Iraq's Lethal Fieldwork--William O. Beeman--Le Monde Diplomatique

Le Monde Diplomatique
March 4, 2008

Iraq’s lethal fieldwork

Whoever’s winning, it isn’t the Iraqis
No one doubts that the US military needs help understanding Islamic cultures. But many anthropologists object to their colleagues working with the military, especially in combat situations

By William O Beeman

The Human Terrain Systems (HTS) programme, in operation for several years, was significantly expanded by the United States military last September (1). It has recruited anthropologists to be embedded with US troops at brigade and division level in Iraq and Afghanistan. Administered by BAE (a contracting agency created by British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems), the programme takes anthropologists, some of whom are not experts in the relevant cultures, and charges them with advising commanders to prevent them from misreading local actions and – potentially violent – situations. The idea is to reduce casualties.

The New York Times reported on 5 October 2007 on an anthropologists’ contingent involved in a major operation meant to reduce attacks against US and Afghan troops. The anthropologists identified many widows in the target area and surmised that their young male relatives would be under pressure to support them and would be likely to join the attackers out of economic necessity. A job-training programme for the widows led to a reduction in attacks.

But the programme has caused alarm, as it recalls two programmes from the Vietnam era in which anthropologists were involved. The first was the short-lived Project Camelot in 1965, organised by US army intelligence, in which anthropologists were recruited to assess the cultural causes of war and violence. It was a benign-sounding enterprise. But it used Chile as a test case just as the CIA was interfering in Chile’s internal affairs, having engineered the election of Eduardo Frei as president in 1964 to prevent the election of socialist leader Salvador Allende. The project was soon abandoned.

The second was an organisation known as CORDS (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support), formed to coordinate the US civil and military pacification programmes in Vietnam. It operated directly under General William Westmoreland, but was headed by a civilian, Ambassador Robert Komer, who was his deputy. It was used to map human terrain and identify individuals and groups that the military believed were sympathisers of the Vietcong; they were then targeted for assassination. Anthropological research was used.

The anthropological profession has a code of ethics which, like the Hippocratic oath, mandates no harm to people who are studied, and requires their informed consent in participation in research. This is impossible under combat conditions, where there is no opportunity for embedded anthropologists to identify themselves with ordinary people. And the work looks enough like intelligence work to cause people to view anthropologists as spies (even under ordinary conditions) inhibiting their scientific mission. The HTS operation came under immediate scrutiny by the profession.

Last September a group of scholars formed the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, inspired by physicists who had opposed the Reagan-era Star Wars programme, and drafted a pledge of non-participation in counter-insurgency (2). One of the organisers, David Price of St Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington, said on 13 December 2007: “All of us are not necessarily opposed to some work with the military, but anything involving counterinsurgency… or anything that violates ethical standards of research, we’re opposed to, and we’re simply asking our colleagues to stand up and be counted with us…”

The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association issued a statement in October 2007 which, while not explicitly prohibiting anthropologists from activities that might be covered under the project, warned its members that its activities are likely to violate the code of ethics.

At the association’s annual meeting in Washington, DC, last November, the controversy took centre stage. In one session, the anthropologists involved with the military tried to convince their colleagues that they were helping to transform military attitudes and increase their cultural sensitivity. Sceptics felt that those cooperating with the military may have been naïve in their understanding of the way their research was being used. The debate culminated in a resolution that would, if ratified by the entire membership, prohibit any activity involving secret research for intelligence agencies.

One of the principal proponents of cooperation is Montgomery McFate, a Yale PhD anthropologist and senior fellow at the US Institute for Peace. In a seminar on 10 May 2007, McFate presented a plan that was influential in establishing the HTS project. She pointed out that the US military spends almost nothing on social science research that would be crucial to the success of operations, and recommended an approach to closing the cultural knowledge gap.

She advocated the establishment of a large research programme leading to a socio-cultural knowledge database, recruitment of young cultural analysts into government service and establishment of a clearing house for cultural knowledge. None of these would be a problem. The problem arises when the expertise is made a weapon for use in combat.

No Ties with U.S. for Now: Iran [Op-ed News]

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_chris_ge_080106_no_ties_with_u_s__fo.htm


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
January 6, 2008

No ties with U.S. for now: Iran

By Chris Gelken


Progress in Iraq security talks is key to future relationship, say analysts


TEHRAN, Iran: As U.S. President George W. Bush declared a primary goal of his upcoming tour of the Middle East was to drum up support for further isolating Iran, the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyid Ali Khamenei said that restoring diplomatic ties with Washington at this time would be “detrimental to Iran’s interests.”

Speaking to a gathering in the central Iranian city of Yazd on Thursday, Ayatollah Khamenei said, “Severing diplomatic ties with the United States was one of Iran’s original principle policies, but Tehran has never said that it would pursue this policy forever.”

While the comments appear to open the door to a possible rapprochement between the two bitter enemies, political analysts agree that key to any future thaw would be progress in the Iraq security talks, one of the few occasions where the two sides actually sit down face-to-face.

“I think it all depends on what comes out of the negotiations between Iran and the United States concerning Iraq,” Ebrahim Yazdi, former Iranian Foreign Minister and Secretary General of the Freedom Movement of Iran told PressTV’s Middle East Today forum. “It’s a good start. If they could come up with some common interest, some common agreement, and if the American government shows some realistic approach and changes their policy, changes their attitude, then yes it [diplomatic ties] is possible.”

However, analysts are not optimistic there will be any serious breakthrough in the foreseeable future, and certainly not during the Bush presidency.

Dr. Robert Naiman, Senior Policy Analyst at the Oregon-based Just Foreign Policy Institute pointed out that the initiative for the security talks came from Baghdad, and not from Washington or Tehran.

“Keep in mind this was a dialogue that was requested by Baghdad,” he told Middle East Today, “The Iraqi government asked the United States and Iran to cooperate on helping bring about security and stability in Iraq.”

Naiman said that the Iraqi government obviously has good relations with the United States and Iran, and used this leverage to bring the two sides together.

“First of all,” he said, “Baghdad asked the U.S. and Iran to settle their differences elsewhere, do not settle them here, do not use Iraq as a proxy for fighting whatever you want to fight about.”

Out of their common respect for Iraq, Naiman said, Washington and Tehran were coaxed to the negotiating table to discuss security issues.

“The fact is, the United States and Iran have many common interests in Iraq, so it would be very strange if they had spurned this request from the head of a friendly government to cooperate. “

And in the foreseeable future, Naiman said, “I see that as the most positive way forward in terms of U.S. and Iranian relations.”

Analysts agree, however, there needs to be a fundamental change in the way Washington formulates its overall foreign policy before any substantive progress can be made in relations with Iran.

“I am afraid the problem is that the United States has this general problem with every nation, it is not just Iran,” Professor William Beeman of Minnesota University told PressTV, “Look at the situation in Pakistan for example. The United States doesn’t have a clue about the political situation there, or in many other countries for that matter.”

Even as Bush prepares for his first presidential trip to Israel and other Middle East countries this week, Beeman said the foreign policy strategy for the final year of the Bush administration remains unclear, but at least a military strike against Iran now appears to be off the table.

“The Bush administration right now, I believe, has already decided that a military option against Iran will not accomplish anything. In fact, those of us who analyze the Middle East have been saying for a long time that we can’t understand what in the world a military attack on Iran would ever accomplish,” he said.

But Beeman said despite the fact that the National Intelligence Estimate report verified Iran has no operative military nuclear program; the Bush administration is clinging to this idea that somehow Iran constitutes a danger in the region.

Painting a grim picture of Iran is a cornerstone of Washington’s Middle East policy, according to Dr. Hamid Golsharifi, a London-based political analyst.

“The strategy of the United States, and especially this administration, is to give a negative or black picture of what is going on in Iran, even when it comes to democracy,” he said.

“Now here we have the U.S. State Department spokesman saying Bush will use his Middle East visit to confront Iranian influence in the region. This means the United States does not want to see Iran participate in a balanced way. “

In contrast to many other analysts, Golsharifi says he believes it was a mistake for Iran to get involved in the security talks, saying Washington could manipulate the development and cite Iran’s participation as clear evidence of their influence in Iraq.

“I think this was a foreign policy mistake by Iran to engage themselves with the foreign policy of the United States because Washington will draw a negative picture that Iran has influence on Iraq, and has the ability to create stability or instability,” he said.

Former Foreign Minister Yazdi, meanwhile, expressed concern that Iran’s current crop of diplomats may not be up to the task of dealing with the United States.

“You see in any meaningful negotiation, in order for both sides to be satisfied, the diplomats must understand the present international situation so they could bargain properly in order to resolve the problem. I am afraid that the Iranian diplomats currently employed by the Foreign Ministry are not qualified for that negotiation,” he said.

However, Yazdi went on, “The point is that we cannot remain at odds with the American government forever. At this time and stage of the electronic revolution, in the global village we cannot discard or ignore our relationship with the United States, in the same way that the U.S. government cannot neglect efforts to improve its relationship with Iran. “

America is pursuing its own priorities, Yazdi said, and you cannot really blame them for that. But he was equally unimpressed with American diplomats and U.S. foreign policy goals, describing them as confused and badly researched.

“As far as I can see they are unable to understand what is going on inside Iran,” he said. “If you are not aware of ideological or Islamic movements in Iran, or have knowledge of the political groups in Iran, how can you pursue a proper and realistic policy?”

Election year in the United States is bringing some hope for a possible policy change.

“When you consider the results of the Bush foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, I believe that no matter whether a Republican or Democrat comes into office they have to implement some changes in these policies,” Yazdi said, “Of course as far as the choices are concerned, I think that the Democrats might be in a better position to improve or implement these changes. “





Authors Website: http://chrisgelken.blogspot.com

Authors Bio: British journalist currently based in Tehran, Iran.

Back

Anthropologists on the Front Lines (TIME Magazine)

TIME Magazine
Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007
Anthropologists on the Front LinesBy Ken Stier

Academic conferences tend to be fairly sedate affairs, at least to the uninitiated, and the American Anthropological Association's (AAA) annual meetings are usually no exception. But this year's, held recently in Washington, D.C., was a downright raucous gathering, certainly the liveliest and most intemperate since the divisive days of the Vietnam War, when some anthropologists were attacked for willingly or unwittingly abetting violent counter-insurgencies. There was some serious name-calling ("torture-deniers," even "war criminals") as well as threats to name names, censure or expel certain colleagues.

The reason for the furor was a small but growing number of colleagues who are collaborating with the U.S. government's war on terror. Two years ago, the CIA quietly started recruiting social scientists, advertising in academic journals and offering princely salaries of up to $400,000. But in the past few months the Pentagon has taken its work with the ivory tower to a new level. In September, Washington turned a pilot project called Human Terrain Teams into a full-fledged, $40 million program to embed four- or five-person groups of scholars — including anthropologists, sociologists and social psychologists — with all 26 U.S. combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although too early to fairly assess how these new field teams are faring, some preliminary reports are encouraging. From Afghanistan, the 4th brigade (82nd Airborne Division) reported a 60-70% drop in attacks — and a dramatic spike in capture of Taliban and allied Pakistanis and Arabs — after anthropological advisers recommended redirecting outreach from village elders to focus on the local mullahs. One mullah was reportedly so moved after being invited to bless a restored mosque on the nearby U.S. base that he quickly agreed to record an anti-Taliban radio ad. "That sounds too good to be true, and I am sure there are other sides, but the principle is certainly logical, which is whoever is in charge is the one you want to deal with," says James Peacock, an Indonesia expert at the University of North Carolina, who chaired an ad-hoc AAA commission to study the profession's involvement in national security matters. (He notes it is the same lesson Holland learned — in Indonesia, in 1870 — from a Dutch anthropologist, Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, who helped end a 30-year war with independent-minded Aceh province virtually overnight.)

In the wake of the colossal mishandling of the Iraq occupation, this new partnership manifests the military's renewed appreciation of the importance of culture. "The more unconventional the adversary, and the further from Western cultural norms, the more we need to understand the society and underlying cultural dynamics," argues Montgomery McFate, a Navy anthropologist, and early advocate of what she says is best described as anthropologizing the military, not militarizing anthropology.

Yet many in the profession contend that any collaboration of this nature compromises their field's integrity. Anthropology deployed under such circumstances will become "just another weapon...not a tool for building bridges between peoples," argues Roberto Gonzalez, an associate professor of anthropology at San Jose State University and leading member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists.

Because of its tainted history as the "handmaiden of colonialism," modern anthropologists have always been on guard to avoid anything that smacks of exploitation or oppression of their subjects. Core professional ethics standards require voluntary, informed consent from subjects, and that anthropologists (like doctors) do no harm. But the AAA is not actually a certifying body, which means that despite fervent petitioning, it has no real power to ban members from working with the national security agencies — leaving it to individuals to decide where to draw ethical lines.

Even anthropologists who are already working with the military acknowledge that this is a major challenge. "You are trying to be loyal to two communities — your subjects, and to the brigade you are attached to. It puts you an impossible situation," says one of the dozens of civilian anthropologists working within the military, who requested anonymity because of his opposition.

Given such ethical dilemmas, it's no wonder that Washington is also trying to develop its own in-house expertise in the social sciences. As it now does to help recruit experts in foreign languages, the government has begun programs to attract anthropologists and other academics before they develop any of their profession's qualms. Typically, students are connected with an intelligence agency early on in their academic career, attending special summer camps and soaking up the agency's own unique culture. David Price, who teaches the history of anthropology at St. Martin's University in Lacey, Washington, notes that such cultivation can end up defeating the purpose. "The intelligence agencies are [seeking social scientists] because they want to get smarter, to think outside the box, but it is very clear to me this will just reinforce what the box is," he says. "They are trying to capture their minds before they enter the class, so that they will already be thinking in agency-like way — so these programs will have the opposite effect."

In any event, it will tbe years before the government can be self-sufficient in these increasingly important fields of study. "Across all the services, if you could wave a magic wand and make all the changes that needed to happen in professional military education overnight, in 20 years they would have caught up in terms of cycles of how long it takes to build general officers," explains Kerry Fosher, an anthropologist currently teaching Marines. "Until that happens, intelligence and pre-deployment training have to spin at triple time in order to make up for the fact that the schools are not yet spitting out people who can be more intelligent consumers of cultural information."

Nor is there any guarantee that more social-science expertise in the U.S. military will mean more enlightened policy. "We had a lot to tell them [the Administration, about post-invasion governance] before they actually invaded but they were clearly so completely besotted by the idea that this was going to be a quick strike," says William O. Beeman, an Iran expert and chairman of the AAA's Middle East chapter. "They just blew us off, they absolutely would not talk to us, [and] it is no satisfaction to be able to say, 'we told you so, and we were right.'"

*
* Find this article at:
* http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1693592,00.html

Copyright � 2007 Time Inc. All rights reserved.

William O. Beeman--Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program Never Existed (New America Media)

Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program Never Existed

New America Media, News Analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Dec 05, 2007

Editor’s note: The recently released National Intelligence Estimate says Iran had “suspended its nuclear weapon program.” But Iran’s purported nuclear weapons program never existed, writes NAM contributing editor William O. Beeman. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota and author of “The ‘Great Satan’ vs. the ‘Mad Mullahs’: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other.”

Iran has never had a proven nuclear weapons program. Ever. This inconvenient fact stands as an indictment of the Bush administration’s stance on Iran.

The recently released 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran “suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003” caught the Bush administration flat-footed. In his panic, Bush grasped desperately at the idea that the weapons program may have once existed. However, the report does not offer a scintilla of evidence that the weapons program was ever an established fact.

Designating 2003 as the date that Iran “stopped” its program is telling: this is the year the Bush administration first decided to create a case for attacking Iran based on the purported danger of its nuclear program.

In February 2003, the U.S. government-designated terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq, better known as the MEK (or MKO) “revealed” the existence of Iran’s nuclear facilities to Washington. The MEK, which had been purged from Iran during the period following the 1979 revolution, took up residence in Iraq under the protection of Saddam Hussein. The MEK, sometimes identified as an “Islamic Marxist” organization, is dedicated to the overthrow of the current Iranian government. It has been assiduous in courting American lawmakers to recruit U.S. support for its cause. Legislators such as Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and Florida Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen have championed this cause, and neoconservatives Patrick Clawson and Daniel Pipes lobbied for its removal from the U.S. list of terrorist organizations in order to use the MEK in the Bush White House drive for regime change in Iran.

Subsequently, the Bush administration claimed that Iran had “concealed” its weapons program for decades, and began a campaign to shut down all nuclear development.

In fact, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) grants all nations the “inalienable right” to peaceful nuclear development. Further, it does not require any nation to report its facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) until fissile material, such as uranium, is actually introduced into the facility.

Iran did indeed have a brief reporting lapse. It revealed the start of its nuclear enrichment experiments at the time they began, rather than announcing this to the IAEA 180 days before experimentation as was required. This was in 2003, and it was the only serious breech of protocol.

The National Intelligence Estimate now identifies 2003 as the date when the weapons program stopped — literally at the point when the Bush administration first became aware of it.

2003 was two years before the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was more than a year before the United States began to lobby for U.N. economic sanctions against Iran. Claiming that “international pressure” had caused Iran to modify its behavior, the Bush administration tried desperately to justify its exaggerated characterizations of the danger Iran posed to the world. The only event that the Bush administration can now claim as constituting “international pressure” is the May 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

If the international community understands that Iran never had a weapons program, President George W. Bush’s statement that Iran could start the program up “again” is clearly absurd.

It is now clear that the Bush administration’s campaign to convince the world of the danger of Iran’s purported immanent nuclear weapons was a sham. The campaign was one in a series of public pretexts to effect regime change in the Islamic Republic. No amount of equivocation, or bluster about Iran’s “continuing” danger can mask the fact that American credibility on this issue has been irrevocably damaged.

The only positive outcome of this debacle may be that the Bush administration may finally accept that differences with Iran can only be solved by actually talking to the leaders of the Islamic Republic. Restoration of diplomatic relations, even at a low level, will begin the process of reducing the hostile atmosphere that has been created, and will start the long, slow process toward the restoration of productive and peaceful relations.

Secrecy and Anthropology (Inside Higher Ed)

Inside Higher Ed

Secrecy and Anthropology

Anthropologists Oppose Attacking Iran, Serving Secret Intellignece

With debate over the role of anthropologists in aiding the military machine a theme threading through their annual meeting, scholars voted Friday to demand that the American Anthropological Association reinstate strict language from its 1971 code of ethics prohibiting secret research. Members at the meeting – who, for the second time in about 30 years and the second year in a row constituted a quorum in excess of the required 250 — also voted overwhelmingly to oppose “any covert or overt U.S. military action against Iran.”

The language anthropologists want reinstated on secrecy – which, the resolution’s sponsor affirmed would apply to anthropologists doing work for corporations too – stipulates that “no reports should be provided to sponsors that are not also available to the general public and, where practicable, to the population studied.” Like every item of business discussed Friday other than the resolution on Iran, the resolution on secrecy was not filed for consideration 30 days in advance, as is required under association rules, and so will be submitted to the association’s executive board on an advisory basis only.

But Friday’s vote only strengthens a recommendation contained in a new report from the AAA Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the U.S. Security and Intelligence Communities, which suggests that the membership or ethics committee “should consider” reinstating those same sections (1.g, 2.a, 3.a, and 6) of the 1971 code. The report centers on whether the association’s ethical standards bar ties to the military or intelligence agencies. The commission’s short answer: Not necessarily, although more scrutiny is needed. Stressing the diversity of roles anthropologists can play in military and intelligence apparatuses, the panel determined that while certain interactions would violate the ethical code, members also “see circumstances in which engagement can be preferable to detachment or opposition.” On issues of secrecy, for instance, the commission offered one particularly complex dilemma as illustration: “Some situations might be counterintuitive for most of us: consider a situation in which a research project is kept secret from the scholarly community, but not from the local population or community under study – as when an anthropologist employed by a government agency helps a special operation to get medical supplies to a remote town in northern Afghanistan.”

Debate on the resolution to reinstate the 1971 secrecy language Friday was short and terse. Terence Turner, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago and a retired professor from Cornell University, offered the resolution, which was immediately seconded. Deborah Nichols, of Dartmouth College, expressed concern that reinstating the language would have the effect of rendering archaeologists in violation of the AAA ethics code for keeping the location of archaeological sites secret (to reduce looting) – which Turner then refuted, saying that the language does not restrict AAA members from protecting the identities of their subjects, informants or fieldwork locations.

Another member suggested that “the language of 1971, as excellent as it is, may need to be revisited” in a post 9-11 world (“We don’t know the scope of this new landscape,” she said). Hugh Gusterson, of George Mason University, spoke in support. Others clarified what the measure would and would not do. J. Anthony Paredes, professor emeritus at Florida State University, said that he had opposed considering the resolution because he didn’t remember the language of the 1971 code (because it was only brought up Friday, no paper copies of the resolution being voted upon were available). Paredes later asked for clarification from the resolution’s sponsor about whether it would apply to anthropologists working on proprietary reports in the corporate world (which Turner responded to by saying yes).

An AAA member called for a vote, seeking to cut debate short not long after it began. After a voice-vote on whether to end debate that garnered more yays than nays – but still generated significant noise from opponents – AAA President Alan Goodman, a professor at Hampshire College, declared the two-thirds majority needed to proceed to a vote. But a group cried “No” from the back of the room, at which point Goodman called for a headcount before finding there was in fact a two-thirds majority and the vote could proceed.

After the vote, Gerald Sider, of the City University of New York, expressed his dismay with the use of AAA as a platform for anthropologists who work for the military, and said he’d like to see the association publicly register its condemnation of the practice. But Paredes, who fills the practicing/professional seat on the AAA executive board, stood up to explain why he had opposed the board’s recent statement against the Human Terrain System, a project in which anthropologists work as contractors for the U.S. military in war zones for the purpose of collecting cultural and social data for military use. If the project is having any part in reducing harm, he said, he wants no part morally in condemning it.

Also on Friday, members approved a resolution submitted by Roberto J. González, of San Jose State University, and William O. Beeman, of the University of Minnesota, to oppose the use of military action in Iran, condemn any public relations campaigns designed to convince the U.S. public to support any military action, and urge the president and Congress to work toward a peaceful and diplomatic solution. The resolution was the only one submitted 30 days in advance, and therefore, per the organization’s bylaws, it will be put to the entire AAA membership for a vote.

Anthropologists also lamented the failure of recent business meeting deliberations to effect change at the highest levels of the AAA. John Kelly, a professor at the University of Chicago, sponsored a motion asking that the executive board take the recommendations that come out of the business meeting seriously and, if they don’t apply them, offer very good reasons why not. “Because of the urgency of the relationship of anthropology to the military, we want [the secrecy resolution] taken as written,” Kelly said after the meeting of his reasons for sponsoring the motion. “We’re concerned that the board respond in good will and faith to the advice they’re given.”

Finally, board members approved items – again on an advisory basis to the board – that would establish a task force to study the rise of food prices worldwide and urge the U.S. Census Bureau to alter its questions and classifications relative to individuals who speak languages other than English. In a resolution sponsored by Laura Graham of the University of Iowa, anthropologists urged the bureau “to include a question about proficiency in languages other than English, and to stop classifying those who speak English less than ‘very well’— and all members of their households — as ‘linguistically isolated’ because the term is inaccurate and discriminatory.”

— Elizabeth Redden

U.S. Wants to Have it Both Ways on Iranian Nonintervention Pact--Algiers Accords Make Intervention in Iran Illegal (Baltimore Sun)

Baltimore Sun

U.S. wants to have it both ways on Iranian nonintervention pact

By Reese Erlich
November 28, 2007

President Bush and leading Democratic presidential candidates have said a
military attack on Iran is a viable option. According to the president,
Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology puts the Middle East "under the
shadow of a nuclear holocaust."

Yet the 1981 Algiers Accords, backed by Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald
Reagan and Bill Clinton, prohibit such an attack.

The Bush administration has defended the validity of the Algiers Accords
in court, and the courts agreed, so there can be no doubt of the
documents' legality.

Issued Jan. 19, 1981, and brokered at the end of the Carter
administration, the accords declared, "It is now and will be the policy of
the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or
militarily, in Iran's internal affairs."

The accords mostly dealt with potential legal disputes arising out of the
1979 hostage crisis. They prohibited individual lawsuits against Iran and
established a procedure for the resolution of future disputes between the
two countries.

A group of former hostages challenged that agreement in 2000 and sued Iran
for subjecting them to 444 days of captivity. Iran never responded to the
lawsuit, and the former hostages won a default judgment. They wanted $33
billion in damages. But the State Department invoked the Algiers Accords,
arguing that individuals suing sovereign governments would interfere with
U.S. foreign policy. A federal appeals court agreed in 2004 and upheld the
Algiers Accords.

The hypocrisy is obvious. The administration supported the dispute
resolution portions of the accord while ignoring the nonintervention
provisions. Barry Rosen, a former press officer at the U.S. Embassy in
Iran who was part of the 2000 lawsuit, put it bluntly: "This
administration has not been shy about breaking international agreements,"
he told The Washington Post last year. "The administration appears to be
in contradiction of itself. "

The situation has only gotten worse. Two years ago, the Bush
administration initiated a covert program of military attacks against Iran
by disaffected ethnic minority groups, as Seymour M. Hersh documented in
The New Yorker.

Last year, I interviewed leaders of PJAK, a branch of the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK), which is on the State Department's list of terrorist
organizations. As I reported in Mother Jones this year, PJAK receives
money and arms from the United States in a program designed to destabilize
northern Iran. The PJAK guerrillas claimed they killed more than 100
Iranian Revolutionary Guards last year. Iran retaliated by shelling
Kurdish villages in northern Iraq.

Turkey says it captured PKK guerrillas possessing U.S. arms. In recent
weeks, because of PKK attacks, Turkey has sent helicopters to attack the
PKK in northern Iraq. U.S. policy is destabilizing the entire region.

According to the ABC Evening News, similar covert actions are under way in
Baluchistan, a province near the Pakistan border. ABC reported that the
U.S. is funding Jondollah, the insurgent group behind the February 2007
bombing in Baluchistan that killed 11 Revolutionary Guards and wounded
several civilians. Jondollah is headed by a former Taliban member turned
freedom fighter against Iran.

These proxy troops are similar to the Afghanistan mujahedeen that the U.S.
armed and funded to fight the Soviets in the 1980s. Some of those
fighters, including Osama bin Laden, later attacked the U.S. Will history
repeat itself?

By engaging in this covert war and selectively ignoring the Algiers
Accords, the U.S. undermines efforts to make Iran follow United Nations
resolutions and international law. To support the Algiers Accords and
reject them at the same time is consistent with the general illogic of the
Bush administration. But to allow this backdoor war to continue is to
court disaster.

Reese Erlich is the author of "The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S.
Policy and the Middle East Crisis." His e-mail is rerlich@pacbell.net.

William O. Beeman--Iran Benefits from Mideast Peace Talks--New America Media

Iran Benefits from Mideast Peace Talks

New America Media, News Analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Nov 27, 2007

Editor's Note: The Bush administration hopes the Arab-Israeli peace process will weaken Arab support for Iran but the talks stand to give Iran an advantage and move the nation closer to America and its Arab allies.Iran was not invited to the Middle East summit in Annapolis, but the Iranians are there nonetheless, and they will benefit whatever the outcome.

After nearly seven years of inaction on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Bush administration has finally decided to act by convening a conference on the matter. Among the 50 countries invited, delegates from virtually every Middle Eastern nation were invited to a conference in Annapolis, Md. on Nov. 27, including a delegation from Syria. Given Iran’s absence, it is ironic that the event might not have taken place at all had it not been for Iranian challenges to American power in the Middle East.

The United States has been trying desperately to gain traction in the international community for some kind of action against Iran. Although it is not clear what an anti-Iranian action is designed to accomplish, the driving need of the Bush administration to do something to cripple the current Iranian regime is an idée fixe in the Bush foreign policy shop.

The Jerusalem Post on Nov. 26 confirmed this in its reporting on the conference: “The idea that brokering an Arab-Israeli peace would be a setback for Iran is a valid one. Iran wants to destroy Israel, so anything that safeguards Israel's freedom and security is a defeat for Tehran.”

However, the Bush administration’s greater hope is that moving the Arab-Israeli peace process will weaken Arab support for Iran. One mantra continually repeated by Washington officials is that Iran’s Arab neighbors are “worried” by its growing strength and nuclear program. Yet Bush officials such as Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns have been massively unsuccessful in raising alarms in the Arab world about Iran. The decision to move seriously on Arab-Israeli peace as a second route toward undermining Iran may have resulted from the realization that trying to scare the Arab world with the prospect of Iranian nuclear weapons has not worked.

Iran's immediate Arab neighbors never condemn it to the same degree that Americans and Europeans do. Arab leaders have expressed mild discomfort with Iran's nuclear program, but they never present it in terms of being directly threatened: there is either quizzical musing about where Iran might use possible weapons, or expressions about potential regional destabilization.

Arab states refrain from attacking Iran directly on any issue. When the United States tried to blame the 1996 attack on the Saudi Arabian Al-Khobar Towers on Iran, the Saudis refused to cooperate. Moreover, popular Arab sentiment seems to be directly supportive of Iran's nuclear program. One non-scientific poll conducted by London Based Al-Qods on Jan. 26, 2006 showed that 85 percent of Arab readers supported the Iranian nuclear energy program. The same results were reported in a separate poll on Aug. 6, 2005 by the Arab television news service Al-Jazeera.

All states in the region continue to have full diplomatic relations with Iran. The principal discomfort with the Islamic Republic has been expressed by King Abdullah of Jordan, who is somewhat removed from Iran. The big exception, of course, was Saddam Hussein, who waged war on Iran.

Arab nations say the greater concern in the region is the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Indeed, Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s negative pronouncements on Israeli political actions have been highly popular with the Arab public—something that has received significant notice on the part of Arab leaders. The message to the United States is that if Washington wants the Arab world to go along with sanctions on Iran, or some kind of violent action against Iran, they had better do something about the Israelis and Palestinians. Thus we see a reluctantly summoned parade of nations coming to Annapolis to demonstrate the Bush administration’s seriousness about solving the issue.

Iran might feel neglected at being left out of the party, but in reality, if everything that one could hope works out satisfactorily in Annapolis, it all would work to Iran’s advantage.

Although Iran has been painted by neoconservatives as wanting to destroy Israel, nothing could be further from the truth. Iran is opposed to the extreme repressive politics of the Israeli right-wing, but if the Palestinians were given their own state, and Israel withdrew from the West Bank, Iranian opposition to Israeli politics would end. Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has privately expressed the opinion that should the Israeli-Palestinian issue be resolved, he could imagine Iran renewing diplomatic relations with Israel.

Settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian issue could also lead to improvement in U.S.-Iranian relations. The United States has been so intent on portraying Hamas as a creature of Iranian surrogate aggression against Israel and the United States, they have forgotten that Mahmoud Abbas is still held in some esteem in Iran. When Yassir Arafat had passed from the scene, Iranians were speculating about Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' potential leadership among the Palestinians, but also about his possible role as mediator between Iran and the United States. If he is strengthened in his role in the Israel-Palestine conflict he could indeed play this role.

Syria would also have to come on board in a comprehensive settlement, adding another link to Iran. In this scenario, the Siniora government in Lebanon, which the Syrians oppose, would have to be sacrificed. However some settlement of the Golan Heights problem with Syria would be worth tossing out a faction that represents a minority of the Lebanese population.

If all these things transpire, there will be no real reason for Arab opposition to Iran. Iran would be on the path to rapprochement with both the United States and with Israel, and thus on the same side as American’s Arab allies. Hezbollah would be on the rise as rulers of Lebanon, but would no longer be a threat to Israel.

But aside from these rosy prospects, it is wise to remember that there never was any real threat from Iran toward any Arab nation anyway.

Of course, these positive developments are unlikely to transpire in Annapolis, and if they don’t, Iran will be no worse off than it is now. Arab states will still not be any more likely to oppose Iran then they were before. Hezbollah’s power would continue to grow in Lebanon, and the Palestinian issue would continue to fester and discredit American’s bona fides in the Middle East.

William O. Beeman is Professor and Chair of the Anthropology Department at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and is President of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association. He has conducted research in the Middle East for more than 30 years. His latest book is The “Great Satan” vs. the “Mad Mullahs”: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other, which will be issued in Paperback by the University of Chicago Press next month.

William O. Beeman--Sanctions Against Iran Will Cure Nothing (Providence Journal, November 16, 2007)

The Providence JournalNovember 16, 2007

William O. Beeman: Sanctions against Iran will cure nothing
12:30 PM EST on Friday, November 16, 2007 WILLIAM O. BEEMAN MINNEAPOLIS

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION declared new economic sanctions against Iran on Oct. 25. These new sanctions, announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, like those already in place, will accomplish nothing except to increase international tensions.

The new sanctions are an extension of a longstanding failed policy first begun under the Reagan administration, and extended under the Clinton administration. The United States is acting utterly alone; it is not supported by any other nation.

American dealings with Iran have failed in large part because the United States has never articulated any goals in its dealings with Iran that make any sense either to Iranians or to Americans. They mostly consist of calls for Iran to cease actions that Iran asserts are not being carried out in the first place. The principal accusations against Iran include: developing nuclear weaponry, supporting terrorist groups and providing arms to Iraqi insurgents. The United States then tries to prove that Iran is indeed carrying out the things it is accused of.

The Iranians counter with further proof that the accusations are baseless, and so it goes, ad infinitum. There has never been any proof that Iran’s domestic nuclear-energy program is directed at developing nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), charged with inspecting nuclear facilities under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory, has repeatedly asserted that no evidence of Iranian nuclear-weapons development exists. Iran’s leaders also maintain that they are not developing nuclear weapons; Iran’s spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, has declared that nuclear-weapons development is illegal in the Islamic Republic.

The Bush administration obscures these inconvenient facts with statements like those made recently by President Bush, who said on Oct 17, “if you’re interested in avoiding World War III . . . you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,”

implying that the weapons are actually under development.

Iran’s support for terrorist groups is also far less than it seems. Iran provided humanitarian support for the Hamas-led government of the Palestinian Authority after Israel and the United States established an international embargo of funds for that government. Although Iran was instrumental in the founding of Lebanese Hezbollah, Tehran no longer has any effective influence or control of this group, which has evolved into an active political party with a large number of parliamentary representatives and government officials in Lebanon today.

Neo-conservative Michael Ledeen, of the American Enterprise Institute, in a new book maintains that Iran supports al-Qaida, and that Iran was instrumental in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the United States, but this assertion and similar claims that Iran supports the Taliban make no logical sense. Both conservative Sunni al-Qaida and the Taliban reject Shiism, the state religion of Iran, as a heresy, and sanction the killing of Shiites.

Finally, there is no proof that Iran is supporting attacks against Americans in Iraq. As analysts Seymour Hersh, Gareth Porter and others have pointed out, the Bush administration, having failed to establish that Iran is actually developing nuclear weapons, turned in desperation to the claim that Iran is supplying explosive devices to militias in Iraq through the offices of the Revolutionary Guard and its specialized Quds force. Gen. David Petraeus, who directs American military forces in Iraq, himself has admitted that no Iranian Quds force member has ever been captured in Iraq, and evidence of Iranian-supplied weapons in Iraq is nebulous.

The U.S. sanctions will also fail because Iran still has many friends. Europeans still have extensive trade with Iran. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently warned the United States not to think of attacking Iran. On Oct. 16 the nations bordering the Caspian Sea, including Iran, issued a declaration, in which the countries agreed that none would let their territories be used as a base for military strikes against any of the others. India has renewed talks with Iran to establish a pipeline between the two nations. Iran has a positive balance of trade with China (as well as India). China’s leadership has repeatedly declared that Iran’s nuclear energy program is not an international threat. Japan continues to be an important Iranian trade and diplomatic partner.

Thus the new sanctions are being greeted with skepticism by the international community of nations. They are so insubstantial that it seems they are actually designed to fail. Increasingly, it seems that the United States itself does not believe in them, but has only imposed the sanctions as a prelude to military action. As in the build-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the world awaits the announcement from the White House that, “having tried everything,” nothing was left except to bomb Iran.

William O. Beeman, an occasional contributor, is an anthropology professor and chairman of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He was a professor of anthropology and the director of Middle East Studies at Brown University.

Pakistan Is the New Iran: U.S. Makes Old Mistakes - NAM

Pakistan Is the New Iran: U.S. Makes Old Mistakes - NAM

Pakistan Is the New Iran: U.S. Makes Old Mistakes

New America Media, Analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Nov 15, 2007

Editor's Note: In Pakistan the United States has again backed the wrong authoritarian regime, a clear parallel to its support for the Shah of Iran in 1979, writes William O. Beeman, professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota.


In Pakistan the United States has once again placed its reliance on an authoritarian “plumber” to carry out its foreign policy goals with disastrous effects – a time-honored foreign policy blunder that seems unavoidable for U.S. presidents.

This time the plumber is President Pervez Musharraf, who is also General Musharraf, Pakistan’s military chief.

Musharraf was hardly a candidate for this in 1991. He and the Pakistani military intelligence establishment were instrumental in supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, who in turn supported al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

There was also the matter of the proliferation of nuclear technology through Pakistani nuclear expert A.Q. Khan – something that President Musharraf must surely have known about, even if he was not directly complicit. Pakistan has nuclear weapons even though it is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Musharraf’s turnaround in Washington’s estimation was rapid. Once the United States was on the hunt for the Al Qaeda leader, Musharraf quickly sensed the direction of the political winds and became the Bush administration’s new best friend, vowing to find bin Laden. Washington overlooked the A.Q. Khan incident, and conveniently maintains that Pakistani nukes are okay because Musharraf is our buddy.

But the friendship is fragile.

It is virtually axiomatic that bin Laden would have been captured long ago – except that General Musharraf knew that once bin Laden was gone, his days as leader of Pakistan would be numbered. The United States would lose interest in the South Asian nation, or would scuttle him as an inconvenience. American officials might deny such a scenario, but the U.S. track record is extremely clear: once an American "plumber" ceases to be of use, he or she is toast.

The clearest parallel to General Musharraf is the Shah of Iran, who was deposed in the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79. The United States saw the Shah as a bastion against Soviet penetration into the Persian Gulf and armed him to the hilt. The Carter administration never talked to the Shah's Iranian opposition and had no clue about the power of the religious forces surrounding Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, until it was too late. By making the Shah the United States’ sole plumber in the region, when he fell, the United States could only watch helplessly as it lost everything.

The same may well hold true in Pakistan. The Bush administration propped up Musharraf with massive financial aid and arms supplies. They never tried to take opposition to his rule seriously, or develop any backup strategy for preventing Pakistan’s disintegration should Musharraf fall.

And fall he may. He has the backing of segments of the Pakistani military, but lacks broad support among the people. His heavy-handed tactics in quashing public dissent have all but killed Pakistan’s progress in establishing an independent judiciary and an effective civil society. Having tasted a bit of freedom, the opposition to Musharraf has become emboldened, and is not likely to tolerate his authoritarian rule or singular stubbornness in hanging onto absolute power.

If he does fall, Pakistan risks disintegration. As a nation cobbled together from disparate former Indian states at the end of World War II, Pakistan is not well integrated ethnically. Its sole integrating principle is Islam, and a post-Musharraf nation will likely embrace Islamic government as a unifying force. Whole parts of the country are barely under central control. Al Qaeda and the Taliban operate with impunity near the Western border, running international terrorist training camps. And those nuclear weapons are still present, ready to be used to threaten anyone who opposes those who control them. Pakistan’s neighbor is Hindu-dominated India, and every nation that is looking toward the burgeoning Indian economy needs to be very afraid.

All the Beltway blather and talk of support for President Musharraf fail to conceal that he is both weak and vulnerable, and that the United States has no backup plan whatsoever if he is deposed. This event would extend the grand scope of American failure in the region from the Mediterranean to the borders of China. Increasingly, no place in the world may be left safe from the violence emerging through the gaping holes in U.S. foreign policy.

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He is president of the Middle East section of the American Anthropological Association, and has conducted research in the Middle East and South Asia for more than 30 years.

New Sanctions Against Iran Will Accomplish Nothing - NAM

New Sanctions Against Iran Will Accomplish Nothing - NAM



New Sanctions against Iran Will Accomplish Nothing

New America Media, Commentary, William O. Beeman, Posted: Oct 25, 2007

Editor's Note: The United States has once again implemented economic sanctions on Iran, accusing it of developing nuclear weapons. Like the earlier sanctions, these will not accomplish anything either, writes NAM contributor William O. Beeman.

The Bush administration declared new economic sanctions against Iran Oct. 25. The sanctions, announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, like those already in place, will accomplish nothing except to increase international tensions.

The new sanctions are an extension of a long-standing failed policy first begun under the Reagan administration, and extended under the Clinton administration. The United States is acting totally alone; it is not supported by any other nation.

American dealings with Iran have failed in large part because the United States has never articulated what it wants to accomplish. They mostly consist of calls for Iran to cease doing things that Iran says it is not doing in the first place.

The principal accusations against Iran include: developing nuclear weaponry, supporting terrorist groups, and providing arms to Iraqi insurgents. The United States then tries to prove that Iran is indeed carrying out the things it is accused of. The Iranians counter with further proof that the accusations are baseless, and the exchange repeats.

There has never been any proof that Iran’s domestic nuclear energy program is directed at developing nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), charged with inspecting nuclear facilities under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory, has repeatedly asserted that no evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons development exists. Iran’s leaders also maintain that they are not developing nuclear weapons. The country’s spiritual leader, Ali Khamene’I, has declared that nuclear weapons development is illegal in the Islamic Republic.

The Bush administration obscures these inconvenient facts with statements like those made recently by President Bush, who said Oct. 17, "If you're interested in avoiding World War III . . . you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," implying that the weapons are currently being developed.

Iran’s level of support for terrorist groups is also far lower than it seems. Iran provided humanitarian support for the Hamas-led government of the Palestinian Authority after Israel and the United States established an international embargo of funds for that government. Although Iran was instrumental in the founding of Lebanese Hezbullah, Tehran no longer has any effective influence or control over this group, which has evolved into an active political party with a large number of parliamentary representatives and government officials in Lebanon today. In his new book, neoconservative Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute maintains that Iran supports Al-Qaeda, and that Iran was instrumental in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States - but this assertion and similar claims that Iran supports the Taliban make no logical sense. Both conservative Sunni Al-Qaeda and the Taliban reject Shi’ism, the state religion of Iran, as a heresy, and sanction the killing of Shi’ites.

Finally, there is no proof that Iran is supporting attacks against Americans in Iraq. As analysts Seymour Hersh, Gareth Porter and others have pointed out, the Bush administration, having failed to establish that Iran is actually developing nuclear weapons, has turned in desperation to the claim that Iran is supplying explosive devices to militias in Iraq through the offices of the Revolutionary Guard and its specialized Quds force. General David Petraeus himself has admitted that no Iranian Quds force member has ever been captured in Iraq, and evidence of Iranian-supplied weapons in Iraq is nebulous.

The U.S. sanctions will fail because Iran still has many friends. Europeans still have extensive trade with Iran. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently warned the United States not to think of attacking Iran. On Oct. 16, the nations bordering the Caspian Sea, including Iran, issued a declaration in which the countries agreed that none would allow their territories to be used as a base for military strikes against any of the others. India has renewed talks with Iran to establish a pipeline between the two nations. Iran has a positive balance of trade with China, as well as India. China’s leadership has repeatedly declared that Iran’s nuclear energy program is not an international threat. Japan continues to be an important Iranian trade and diplomatic partner.

It's little wonder that the new sanctions are being greeted with skepticism by the international community of nations. The sanctions are so insubstantial that it seems they are actually designed to fail. Increasingly, it seems that the United States itself does not believe in them, but has only imposed the sanctions as a prelude to military action. As in the build-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the world awaits the announcement from the White House that, "having tried everything," nothing was left except bombing Iran.

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He is president of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association, and has conducted research in Iran for more than 30 years. The second edition of his book, "The 'Great Satan' vs. the 'Mad Mullahs': How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other," will be published by the University of Chicago Press.

©2007 William O. Beeman and New America Media. This article may be freely reproduced and distributed for any non-commercial purpose. For commercial use, please contact the author or New America Media ( Peter Micek pmicek@newamericamedia.org | 415-503-4170)

David Wurmser--neocon hawk

David Wurmser has been at the elbow of the Bush administration at every step as a primary advisor. His extreme hawkish views on Iran and Syria have come close to being standard policy. If the U.S. launches an attack on Iran, Wurmser can be held as one of those responsible. See the article below and know what incredible obstacles sane people have to deal with in this current administration.

Best,

Bill Beeman


US 'must break Iran and Syria regimes'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/05/wiran105.xml


By Toby Harnden in Washington


Last Updated: 2:09am BST 05/10/2007












America should seize every opportunity to force regime change in Syria and Iran, a former senior adviser to the White House has urged.

Profile: US hawk David Wurmser
Toby Harnden: David Wurmser - a neocon unbowed


US 'must break Iran and Syria regimes'
By Toby Harnden in Washington
Last Updated: 2:09am BST 05/10/2007



America should seize every opportunity to force regime change in Syria and Iran, a former senior adviser to the White House has urged.

Profile: US hawk David Wurmser
Toby Harnden: David Wurmser - a neocon unbowed


David Wurmser: 'If we start shooting, we
must be prepared to fire the last shot'


"We need to do everything possible to destabilise the Syrian regime and exploit every single moment they strategically overstep," said David Wurmser, who recently resigned after four years as Vice President Dick Cheney's Middle East adviser.

"That would include the willingness to escalate as far as we need to go to topple the regime if necessary." He said that an end to Baathist rule in Damascus could trigger a domino effect that would then bring down the Teheran regime.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the first since he left government, he argued that the United States had to be prepared to attack both Syria and Iran to prevent the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East that could result in a much wider war.

Mr Wurmser, 46, a leading neo-conservative who has played a pivotal role in the Bush administration since the September 11th attacks, said that diplomacy would fail to stop Iran becoming a nuclear power. Overthrowing Teheran's theocratic regime should therefore be a top US priority.

advertisementIran was using Syria as its proxy against Israel and among Sunni Arabs and both regimes had to be overthrown, he insisted.

"It has to be, because who they are is now defined around provoking a wider clash of civilisations with the West. It is precisely to avoid this that we need to win now."

Both countries were part of a "proliferation consortium", possibly in league with North Korea, that is helping Teheran to acquire a nuclear bomb, he said.

If Iran was seen to be powerless to prevent regime change in Syria, Mr Wurmser claimed, Teheran's prestige would be undermined just as the Soviet Union's was when it failed to come to the aid of Syrian forces during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Regime change was possible because Syria was "weak and rattled" while Iran had adopted a "go-for-broke strategy" of stirring up regional tensions to overcome the reality that "the foundations of the regime in Teheran are fragile".

A situation such as last year's attack on Israel by Hezbollah, which was backed by Iran and Syria, could provide an opportunity for US intervention.

Although Mr Wurmser's recommendations have not yet become US policy, his hard-line stances on regime change in Iran and Syria are understood to have formed the basis of policy documents approved by Mr Cheney, an uncompromising hawk who is deeply sceptical about the effectiveness of diplomatic pressure on Teheran.

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State and an advocate of multilateral diplomacy, currently holds sway within the Bush administration but Iran's intransigence on the nuclear issue and its role in the Iraq insurgency could well shift the balance back towards Mr Cheney.

Limited strikes against Iranian nuclear targets would be useless, Mr Wurmser said. "Only if what we do is placed in the framework of a fundamental assault on the survival of the regime will it have a pick-up among ordinary Iranians.

"If we start shooting, we must be prepared to fire the last shot. Don't shoot a bear if you're not going to kill it."

Mr Wurmser emphatically denied recent allegations he told a small group that Mr Cheney intended to press Israel to launch strikes against Iran in order to provoke a retaliation that the US would then respond to.

It was "fantastical" to suggest that he or Mr Cheney would "try to cause a war that the president expressly doesn't want", he said. "Everything that was done was to execute the policies of the president and not to subvert them."

Mr Wurmser, an outspoken proponent of removing Saddam Hussein in the years before the 2003 invasion, was highly critical of British forces in southern Iraq. "Being in Basra, the British had a major role to play and they didn't really play it very well.

"Under British presence, the Iranians extended their power considerably. British troops are still there but Iraqis see them as dead men walking.... everybody's looking towards who is the real power that fills the vacuum and that then translates into an Iranian-American confrontation in that area."

British withdrawal, he said, could be a plus for the US. "It frees our hand to deal aggressively with their [Iran's] structures. Once we have responsibility for that area, we'll have to do what we need to do and that could well mean troops on the ground."

Although he conceded many mistakes had been made by the US in Iraq, Mr Wurmser said there were now reasons for optimism. "While Iraq became more violent, it also became in some ways the international bug-zapper of terrorists.

"It was the light that attracted all the terrorists of the world. And that became the battleground, and this is a decisive battle. I think the battle is turning in our favour now, and this is a defeat that it will take the al-Qaeda world a long time to recover from."

In the meantime, the US still had the power to deal with Iran militarily. "If we decided from no preparation to doing something in Iran, while it would cause a lot of heartburn among many people in the Pentagon, we could do it.

"I would never underestimate the raw capability of the United States in any off-the-shelf situation. If that's what we decided to do, things can be done."

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David Wurmser: 'If we start shooting, we
must be prepared to fire the last shot'


"We need to do everything possible to destabilise the Syrian regime and exploit every single moment they strategically overstep," said David Wurmser, who recently resigned after four years as Vice President Dick Cheney's Middle East adviser.


"That would include the willingness to escalate as far as we need to go to topple the regime if necessary." He said that an end to Baathist rule in Damascus could trigger a domino effect that would then bring down the Teheran regime.


In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the first since he left government, he argued that the United States had to be prepared to attack both Syria and Iran to prevent the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East that could result in a much wider war.


Mr Wurmser, 46, a leading neo-conservative who has played a pivotal role in the Bush administration since the September 11th attacks, said that diplomacy would fail to stop Iran becoming a nuclear power. Overthrowing Teheran's theocratic regime should therefore be a top US priority.



advertisement


Iran was using Syria as its proxy against Israel and among Sunni Arabs and both regimes had to be overthrown, he insisted.

"It has to be, because who they are is now defined around provoking a wider clash of civilisations with the West. It is precisely to avoid this that we need to win now."

Both countries were part of a "proliferation consortium", possibly in league with North Korea, that is helping Teheran to acquire a nuclear bomb, he said.

If Iran was seen to be powerless to prevent regime change in Syria, Mr Wurmser claimed, Teheran's prestige would be undermined just as the Soviet Union's was when it failed to come to the aid of Syrian forces during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.


Regime change was possible because Syria was "weak and rattled" while Iran had adopted a "go-for-broke strategy" of stirring up regional tensions to overcome the reality that "the foundations of the regime in Teheran are fragile".


A situation such as last year's attack on Israel by Hezbollah, which was backed by Iran and Syria, could provide an opportunity for US intervention.

Although Mr Wurmser's recommendations have not yet become US policy, his hard-line stances on regime change in Iran and Syria are understood to have formed the basis of policy documents approved by Mr Cheney, an uncompromising hawk who is deeply sceptical about the effectiveness of diplomatic pressure on Teheran.


Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State and an advocate of multilateral diplomacy, currently holds sway within the Bush administration but Iran's intransigence on the nuclear issue and its role in the Iraq insurgency could well shift the balance back towards Mr Cheney.


Limited strikes against Iranian nuclear targets would be useless, Mr Wurmser said. "Only if what we do is placed in the framework of a fundamental assault on the survival of the regime will it have a pick-up among ordinary Iranians.


"If we start shooting, we must be prepared to fire the last shot. Don't shoot a bear if you're not going to kill it."

Mr Wurmser emphatically denied recent allegations he told a small group that Mr Cheney intended to press Israel to launch strikes against Iran in order to provoke a retaliation that the US would then respond to.


It was "fantastical" to suggest that he or Mr Cheney would "try to cause a war that the president expressly doesn't want", he said. "Everything that was done was to execute the policies of the president and not to subvert them."


Mr Wurmser, an outspoken proponent of removing Saddam Hussein in the years before the 2003 invasion, was highly critical of British forces in southern Iraq. "Being in Basra, the British had a major role to play and they didn't really play it very well.


"Under British presence, the Iranians extended their power considerably. British troops are still there but Iraqis see them as dead men walking.... everybody's looking towards who is the real power that fills the vacuum and that then translates into an Iranian-American confrontation in that area."


British withdrawal, he said, could be a plus for the US. "It frees our hand to deal aggressively with their [Iran's] structures. Once we have responsibility for that area, we'll have to do what we need to do and that could well mean troops on the ground."


Although he conceded many mistakes had been made by the US in Iraq, Mr Wurmser said there were now reasons for optimism. "While Iraq became more violent, it also became in some ways the international bug-zapper of terrorists.


"It was the light that attracted all the terrorists of the world. And that became the battleground, and this is a decisive battle. I think the battle is turning in our favour now, and this is a defeat that it will take the al-Qaeda world a long time to recover from."


In the meantime, the US still had the power to deal with Iran militarily. "If we decided from no preparation to doing something in Iran, while it would cause a lot of heartburn among many people in the Pentagon, we could do it.


"I would never underestimate the raw capability of the United States in any off-the-shelf situation. If that's what we decided to do, things can be done."

William O. Beeman No Gays in Iran… But Many Same-Sex Couples (New America Media)

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=3a90d68c4ee619b83cd450f0661f0343



No Gays in Iran… But Many Same-Sex Couples
New America Media, Commentary


William O. Beeman, Posted: Sep 26, 2007

Editor’s Note: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comment that homosexuality does not exist in Iran like it does in the West is true in a sense, writes anthropologist William Beeman. In fact, same-sex relations in Iran do look very different from what is called gay behavior in the West.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was derided for his statement in a Sept. 24 speech at Columbia University that homosexuality doesn't exist in Iran. Though many Americans may find it incredible, differences in the construction of sexual behavior do exist across cultures.

As an anthropologist, I can state with confidence that sexuality varies tremendously between cultures. The notion that one is either "gay" or "straight" does not accord with what we observe in human sexual behavior, which is far more flexible. This categorization is an artifact of American culture, which glories in binary categories for classifying people. Folks that identify as "bisexual" (yet another ambiguous category) in the United States often get grief from both the gay and straight community for "deluding" themselves about their sexuality.

Of course it is impossible to discern precisely what President Ahmadinejad meant in his remarks. But what is true is the construction of same-sex behavior and, indeed, same-sex affection in Iran is extremely different than in Europe and America. There has been a recent phenomenon of Western-style "gay culture" emerging in Iran – replete with gay bars, clubs and house parties – but this is very new, largely limited to the upper classes, and likely not known to President Ahmadinejad, whose social milieu is the middle and lower-middle class. This recent Western-style gay phenomenon is distinct from ordinary same-sex behavior as practiced traditionally in Iran. Indeed, there was not even a word for homosexuality in Persian before the 20th century. It had to be invented. The term used by President Ahmadinejad was “hamjensbaz,” a neologism that literally means, “playing with the same sex.”

In Iran, same-sex sexual behavior is classified rigidly into active and passive roles. The Arabic terms “fa’el” and “maf’oul” (active and passive – actually grammatical terms used to describe active and passive verbs) were the common designation for these roles. The passive partner is still called by the Arabic term “obneh,” or, more crudely, “kuni.” (Kun means anus.) The active vs. passive same-sex preference is well known in the Western world, but it is constructed quite differently in Iran and other Arab and Mediterranean cultures.

Active partners in Iran do not consider themselves to be “homosexual.” Indeed, it is a kind of macho boast in some circles that one has been an active partner with another male. Passive partners are denigrated and carry a life-long stigma if their sexual role is known, even after a single incident. They have been deflowered, as it were, in the same way that women might lose their virginity, and they are considered to be "xarob" or "destroyed."

In actual fact, many men are "versatile" in their sexual activity but if they are known to have relations with other men, they will always claim in public to be the active partner. Same-sex relations between females are undoubtedly practiced, but this is the deepest secret in Iran, and rarely talked about at all.

Emotional relations are very different. Men and women both may become exceptionally attached to people of the same sex, to the point that Westerners would swear that they must have a sexual relationship. It is not necessarily so. Kissing, holding hands, weeping, jealousy, physical contact and all the signs of partnership can exist without any sexual activity or, indeed, with an undercurrent of absolute horror that it might take place, because of the active-passive split in sexual classification and men's fear of being pegged as a passive partner. A man who truly loves another man doesn't want to degrade him by making him a passive sex partner.

More typically, male teenagers who become exceptionally attached may marry sisters in order to become kin to each other, thereby creating a lifelong bond. There is even a quasi-marriage ceremony based on the idea of “muta,” or temporary marriage, through which two men or two women can become fictive “siblings.” This takes care of many things, allowing intimate relations, and intimacy between family relations, but also imposing an even stronger taboo against sexual relations, which would be considered incest.

Iranians who come to Europe and the United States may "discover" that they are "gay" once they are liberated from the rigid cultural system that binds them into these polarized active-passive roles.

To be sure, sodomy is punishable by death in Iran, but such executions have been historically extremely rare compared with the routine incidence of same-sex sexual behavior in Iran. Much was made in the United States of two boys who were executed in the city of Mashhad a few years ago for "being homosexual," as the Western press put it. However, they were executed because they had essentially committed what we would call statutory rape on an under-aged boy. The boy's father was beside himself with rage and grief, and pressed charges. In many such cases, the shame of the family and the victim himself is so great that no one ever finds out.

In the end, both the United States and Iran classify sexuality in a way that fails to accord with the range of actual human proclivities. However, there is no doubt that the two systems are very different.

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He has been conducting research in Iran for more than 30 years, and is a fluent speaker of Persian. He is author of Language, Status and Power in Iran and The "Great Satan" vs. the "Mad Mullahs": How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other, the second edition of which will be published later this year by the University of Chicago Press.


©2007 William O. Beeman and New America Media. This article may be freely distributed for any non-commercial purpose. For commercial use, please contact the author or New America Media

Face of homosexuality is veiled but real in Iran--St. Petersburg Times

Worldandnation: Face of homosexuality is veiled but real in Iran