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...and I am Sid Harth | Now, Bush blames India for rising food prices
3 May 2008, 1036 hrs IST ,PTI
WASHINGTON: Prosperity in countries like India is "good" but it triggers increased demand for "better nutrition" which in turn leads to higher food prices, US President George W Bush said. ( Watch ) The comments come close on the heels of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's controversial statement that "apparent improvement" in the diets of people in India and China and consequent food export caps is among the causes of the current global food crisis. At an interactive session on economy in Missouri, Bush argued that there are many factors for the present crisis, only one of which was investment on biofuels like ethanol. "Worldwide there is increasing demand. There turns out to be prosperity in developing world, which is good. It's going to be good for you because you'll be selling products in the countries, you know, big countries perhaps, and it's hard to sell products into countries that aren't prosperous. In other words, the more prosperous the world is, the more opportunity there is," the US President said. "It also, however, increases demand. So, for example, just as an interesting thought for you, there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That's bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population. "And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up," he said. Bush also listed change in weather patterns and increase in basic costs like that of energy as factors contributing to higher food prices. "No question that ethanol has had a part of it. But I simply do not subscribe to the notion that it is the main cost driver for your food going up," Bush said. Several international experts have in recent days held biofuels, until recently cast as a miracle alternative to polluting fossil fuels, for being responsible for usurping arable land and distorting world food prices. "Actually, the reason why food prices are high now is because, one, energy costs are high, and if you're a farmer, you're going to pass on your cost of energy in the products you sell, otherwise you'd go broke. "And when you're paying more for your diesel, paying more for your fertiliser because it's got a lot of, you know, natural gas in it, in other words, when your basic costs are going up, so does the cost of food," Bush said. He said there are two aspects of rising food prices -- its effect on US citizens and the fact that there is a food scarcity in the world. "We don't have a scarcity issue in America...We got a price issue. Our shelves aren't going empty, it's just costing more money," Bush said. "There is scarcity in the world, and I happen to believe when we find people who can't find food we ought to help them find it," he said adding, "America is by far the most generous nation when it comes to helping the hungry." "We're an unbelievably compassionate nation," he said. "I think we ought to change our food policy in Africa and other developing countries...buying food directly from farmers as opposed to giving people food. I think we ought to be saying, 'Why don't we help you be able to deal with scarcity by encouraging your farmers to grow and be efficient growers? Otherwise, we're going to be in this cycle forever."
| February 24
Quote
Security pros gloomy on terror outlook - International Terrorism - MSNBC.com
If you value this news service, please make a contribution to keep it going.
Detail on how to contribute are provided below.
IN THIS MESSAGE
* Vermont State Legislature Calls for Iraq Withdrawal
* Iraq's Death Toll Is Far Worse Than Our Leaders Admit
* National Security Experts Grim on Terror War
* House Democrats' New Strategy: Force Slow End to War
* Claims about Iranian arms carry familiar lack of proof
* Iran in Iraq?
______________________________________________
Vermont State Legislature Calls for Iraq Withdrawal
As the House debate continues, Vermont has become the first state to pass a resolution calling for a troop withdrawal from Iraq. On Tuesday, lawmakers in the Vermont State Legislature’s House and Senate approved measures calling for the immediate and orderly withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Vermont has lost more soldiers per capita than any other state in the nation.
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070214/NEWS01/702140350/1002/NEWS01
Vermont lawmakers send a message: Get out of Iraq
MONTPELIER Â Vermont's Legislature became the first in the country Tuesday to pass a resolution calling for an immediate and orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Although the Senate passed the measure without change and with little debate, members of the House spent much of the day on the issue and made a few modifications.
The key issue was whether or not the resolution would discourage and demoralize American soldiers, and whether it would carry any weight with the federal administration that oversees the war.
The Senate passed the resolution by a 24-5 vote with one absence. The House passed an amended version of the measure by a 95-52 vote in a debate that drew veterans to the Statehouse halls and saw impassioned comments on both sides.
Gov. James Douglas does not sign or veto nonbinding resolutions.
Matt Howard, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of two tours in Iraq, said passing the resolution would not send a message to soldiers that the Legislature does not support them.
"They are doing their duty, but that in no way means they want to be there or that they are not counting every second before they can go home," he said.
Howard, a member of a group of Iraq veterans against the war, was in Iraq for the initial push to Baghdad. He drove a supply truck with a tank battalion.
"That is what we do in Iraq, we go out until we get shot at and we hope we can shoot back," Howard said. "That is our grand plan."
In a sign of how divisive the question of the resolution has become, veterans who serve in the House came down on different sides of the debate.
"No one hates war more than a warrior. No father wishes their child would come home more than I," said Rep. Joseph Krawczyk, R-Bennington, a Vietnam veteran who was in the military for decades. "I know that she and all the soldiers who serve with her and those who served with me over 27 years would want me to be loyal to my oath and vote no on this resolution." Krawczyk's daughter is now in the military.
But another House member who fought in Vietnam felt differently.
Rep. John Zenie, D-Colchester, spoke about returning from Southeast Asia after his tour of duty and his feelings about war protests.
"I wish more people had protested sooner so we might have come home even one day earlier," Zenie said.The decision to support or oppose the resolution was a difficult one for some members, including Rep. Patricia O'Donnell, R-Vernon, whose son is in the military and could return to Iraq this year.
"My family has felt the effects of this war and I hate it," she said. But, "this discussion is taking place in the wrong building."
Several lawmakers said they were disappointed the U.S. Congress spent Tuesday debating a resolution opposing the proposed "troop surge" rather than considering a more effective measure to affect the country's policy in Iraq.
In the end, O'Donnell voted for the resolution, after it was amended by the removal of a section stating "the presence of American troops in Iraq has not, and will not, contribute to the stability of that nation, the region or the security of Americans at home or abroad," among other changes.
"I firmly believe we have got to leave Iraq," Adrienne Kinne, of Sharon, a former member of the U.S. Army who served in the United States during the current Iraq War. "The future of Iraq can only be determined by Iraqis."
A co-sponsor of the resolution, Rep. Steve Howard, D-Rutland, said it is time for Vermont and other states to demand accountability and an end to the war in Iraq.
"It is not serving the people of Rutland or the people of Vermont," he said.
==============================================================
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17059.htm
Iraq's Death Toll Is Far Worse Than Our Leaders Admit
The US and Britain have triggered an episode more deadly than the
Rwandan genocide
By Les Roberts
On both sides of the Atlantic, a process of spinning science is
preventing a serious discussion about the state of affairs in Iraq.
02/14/07 "The Independent" -- -- The government in Iraq claimed last
month that since the 2003 invasion between 40,000 and 50,000 violent
deaths have occurred. Few have pointed out the absurdity of this
statement.
There are three ways we know it is a gross underestimate. First, if
it were true, including suicides, South Africa, Colombia, Estonia,
Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia have experienced higher
violent death rates than Iraq over the past four years. If true, many
North and South American cities and Sub-Saharan Africa have had a
similar murder rate to that claimed in Iraq. For those of us who have
been in Iraq, the suggestion that New Orleans is more violent seems
simply ridiculous.
Secondly, there have to be at least 120,000 and probably 140,000
deaths per year from natural causes in a country with the population
of Iraq. The numerous stories we hear about overflowing morgues, the
need for new cemeteries and new body collection brigades are not
consistent with a 10 per cent rise in death rate above the baseline.
And finally, there was a study, peer-reviewed and published in The
Lancet, Europe's most prestigious medical journal, which put the
death toll at 650,000 as of last July. The study, which I co-
authored, was done by the standard cluster approach used by the UN to
estimate mortality in dozens of countries each year. While the
findings are imprecise, the lower range of possibilities suggested
that the Iraq government was at least downplaying the number of dead
by a factor of 10.
There are several reasons why the governments involved in this
conflict have been able to confuse the issue of Iraqi deaths. Our
Lancet report involved sampling and statistical analysis, which is
rather dry reading. Media reports always miss most deaths in times of
war, so the estimate by the media-based monitoring system,
Iraqbodycount.org (IBC) roughly corresponds with the Iraq
government's figures. Repeated evaluations of deaths identified from
sources independent of the press and the Ministry of Health show the
IBC listing to be less than 10 per cent complete, but because it
matches the reports of the governments involved, it is easily
referenced.
Several other estimates have placed the death toll far higher than
the Iraqi government estimates, but those have received less press
attention. When in 2005, a UN survey reported that 90 per cent of
violent attacks in Scotland were not recorded by the police, no one,
not even the police, disputed this finding. Representative surveys
are the next best thing to a census for counting deaths, and nowhere
but Iraq have partial tallies from morgues and hospitals been given
such credence when representative survey results are available.
The Pentagon will not release information about deaths induced or
amounts of weaponry used in Iraq. On 9 January of this year, the
embedded Fox News reporter Brit Hume went along for an air attack,
and we learned that at least 25 targets were bombed that day with
almost no reports of the damage appearing in the press.
Saddam Hussein's surveillance network, which only captured one third
of all deaths before the invasion, has certainly deteriorated even
further. During last July, there were numerous televised clashes in
Anbar, yet the system recorded exactly zero violent deaths from the
province. The last Minister of Health to honestly assess the
surveillance network, Dr Ala'din Alwan, admitted that it was not
reporting from most of the country by August 2004. He was sacked
months later after, among other things, reports appeared based on the
limited government data suggesting that most violent deaths were
associated with coalition forces.
The consequences of downplaying the number of deaths in Iraq are
profound for both the UK and the US. How can the Americans have a
surge of troops to secure the population and promise success when the
coalition cannot measure the level of security to within a factor of
10? How can the US and Britain pretend they understand the level of
resentment in Iraq if they are not sure if, on average, one in 80
families have lost a household member, or one in seven, as our study
suggests?
If these two countries have triggered an episode more deadly than the
Rwandan genocide, and have actively worked to mask this fact, how
will they credibly be able to criticise Sudan or Zimbabwe or the next
government that kills thousands of its own people?
For longer than the US has been a nation, Britain has pushed us at
our worst of moments to do the right thing. That time has come again
with regard to Iraq. It is wrong to be the junior partner in an
endeavour rigged to deny the next death induced, and to have
spokespeople effectively respond to that death with disinterest and
denial.
Our nations' leaders are collectively expressing belligerence at a
time when the populace knows they should be expressing contrition. If
that cannot be corrected, Britain should end its role in this
deteriorating misadventure. It is unlikely that any historians will
record the occupation of Iraq in a favourable light. Britain followed
the Americans into this débâcle. Wouldn't it be better to let history
record that Britain led them out?
-----------
The writer is an Associate Professor at Columbia University's Mailman
School of Public Health
=====================================================
Published on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 by the Inter Press Service
National Security Experts Grim on Terror War
by Jim Lobe
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0214-04.htm
A new survey of more than 100 U.S. foreign policy experts -- both Republicans and Democrats, as well as retired military and intelligence professionals -- has found deep pessimism over the "global war on terror" and even deeper pessimism over the war in Iraq.
According to the survey, the second in the last six months carried out by Foreign Policy magazine and the Centre for American Progress, two out of three foreign policy experts oppose President George W. Bush's plans to increase troop levels in Iraq, while nearly nine out of 10 say the war there is undermining U.S. national security.
Overall, three out of four respondents disagreed with assertion that Washington "is winning the war on terror", while 81 percent said the world is becoming "more dangerous" to the United States and its people.
The survey also found wide, although narrowing differences compared to six months ago, between expert opinion and the views of the general public on a range of issues related to Iraq and the war on terrorism. Experts were significantly more pessimistic that the public at large and voiced considerably less confidence in the Bush administration's performance.
The survey, called "The Terrorism Index" and published in the upcoming issue of Foreign Policy, is based on interviews with former senior government officials who have served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, as well as independent analysts, experts and journalists who have covered national security issues.
Eighty percent of respondents have served in the U.S. government, and more than half in the executive branch, including in the White House or in top cabinet posts. Twenty-six percent served in the military and 18 percent in the intelligence community.
As to their political leanings, 30 percent of respondents identified themselves as "conservative"; 42 percent said they were "moderate"; and 44 percent "liberal". But the survey organisers weighted the results so that the views of self-described "conservatives" were given equal representation with those of the "liberals".
When broken down ideologically, 43 percent of the conservatives polled said they believed the U.S. is winning the war on terror, compared to 50 percent of conservatives who disagreed. Only five percent of both moderates and liberals said they thought Washington was winning.
By contrast, 46 percent of the general public told interviewers in a Pew Center for the People & the Press survey conducted last November that Washington is winning the war on terrorism, although that number has shrunk to around 33 percent in the most recent polling.
Asked whether they believed Bush had a plan to protect the country from terrorism, seven out of 10 of the expert respondents -- including nearly 40 percent of the self-described conservatives -- said no. By contrast, 51 percent of the public said last November that Bush does indeed have a plan.
Experts were particularly pessimistic on Iraq and U.S. policy there. Eighty-eight percent of the experts said the war is having a negative impact on U.S. national security.
Asked to rate the administration's job in Iraq on a 10-point scale, 92 percent of respondents -- including 82 percent of conservatives -- described it as below five. Fifty-nine percent of the entire group gave the administration the lowest possible rating (1-2), including a plurality of 48 percent of conservatives.
Significantly, among 81 percent of experts who said the world is becoming "more dangerous" to the U.S., a large plurality identified the Iraq war as "one principal reason" why. Only six months ago, the reason most cited by the experts who believed the world was becoming more dangerous was anger and hostility among Muslims.
Only one-third of the expert pool agreed with the administration's notion that Iraq has become the "central front on the war on terrorism," while two-thirds said they disagreed.
That may help explain why two-thirds of the experts said they disagreed with Bush's plan to increase troop levels in Iraq, but 69 percent said they favoured adding troops in Afghanistan. In the last six months, according to the survey, expert confidence about the situation in Afghanistan has fallen sharply, according to the survey.
Indeed, asked to rate the relative strength of the Taliban in Afghanistan today compared to one year ago, a total of 83 percent of experts rated it either "somewhat" (57 percent) or "much stronger" (26 percent).
The experts also rated Lebanon's Hezbollah and Palestine's Hamas as "much" and "somewhat" stronger, respectively, than a year ago. A large majority (72) percent said they believed that Islamist extremism was also growing in Western Europe.
The experts also voiced strong concern about Pakistan. Asked to choose the country most likely to become the next stronghold of al Qaeda, Pakistan (30 percent) was rated second, just behind Somalia (34 percent, but that was before Ethiopia's recent military campaign there), and 91 percent of the experts said the U.S. must increase pressure on Pakistan to crackdown against Taliban and al Qaeda militants in tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Asked to identify the world's most dangerous government, 40 percent of the experts named Iran, while 35 percent cited North Korea, and nine percent -- including 14 percent of self-described conservatives -- identified the United States itself.
At the same time, a plurality of 26 percent rated "a denuclearised Korean Peninsula" as the "most important policy objective" for Washington to achieve in the next five years. Seventeen percent identified a stable Iraq as the most important objective, and 12 percent named stopping Iran's nuclear programme.
North Korea's status at the top of the list may be explained by the experts' assessment that Pyongyang was significantly more likely to transfer nuclear technology to terrorists than any other country, including the two most-often-cited countries, Pakistan and Iran.
The experts voiced little confidence in Bush's ability to address the challenge posed by Tehran, with 73 percent voiding disapproval of his performance to date. That, too, was a significantly higher percentage than the general public's view. Last November, a plurality of 40 percent of respondents told Pew they approved of Bush's handling of Iran.
Asked to rate the impact of 14 specific policies or actions by the administration, the experts cited the war in Iraq as the most negative by far, followed by the detention and treatment of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo and elsewhere, and U.S. positions during the recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
On the more positive side, experts said the administration had made real progress in stanching the flow of money to terrorist organisations around the world and the least progress in public diplomacy.
============================================================
Published on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 by Politico.com
House Democrats' New Strategy: Force Slow End to War
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0214-10.htm
by John Bresnahan
Top House Democrats, working in concert with anti-war groups, have decided against using congressional power to force a quick end to U.S. involvement in Iraq, and instead will pursue a slow-bleed strategy designed to gradually limit the administration's options.
Led by Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., and supported by several well-funded anti-war groups, the coalition's goal is to limit or sharply reduce the number of U.S. troops available for the Iraq conflict, rather than to openly cut off funding for the war itself.
The legislative strategy will be supplemented by a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign designed to pressure vulnerable GOP incumbents into breaking with President Bush and forcing the administration to admit that the war is politically unsustainable.
As described by participants, the goal is crafted to circumvent the biggest political vulnerability of the anti-war movement -- the accusation that it is willing to abandon troops in the field. That fear is why many Democrats have remained timid in challenging Bush, even as public support for the president and his Iraq policies have plunged.
Murtha and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have decided that they must take the lead in pressuring not only Republicans but also cautious Senate Democrats to take steps more aggressive than nonbinding resolutions in challenging the Bush administration.
The House strategy is being crafted quietly, even as the chamber is immersed this week in an emotional, albeit mostly symbolic, debate over a resolution expressing opposition to Bush's plan to "surge" 21,500 more troops into Iraq.
Murtha, the powerful chairman of the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, will seek to attach a provision to an upcoming $93 billion supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan. It would restrict the deployment of troops to Iraq unless they meet certain levels adequate manpower, equipment and training to succeed in combat. That's a standard Murtha believes few of the units Bush intends to use for the surge would be able to meet.
In addition, Murtha, acting with the backing of the House Democratic leadership, will seek to limit the time and number of deployments by soldiers, Marines and National Guard units to Iraq, making it tougher for Pentagon officials to find the troops to replace units that are scheduled to rotate out of the country. Additional funding restrictions are also being considered by Murtha, such as prohibiting the creation of U.S. military bases inside Iraq, dismantling the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and closing the American detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"There's a D-Day coming in here, and it's going to start with the supplemental and finish with the '08 [defense] budget," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, who chairs the Air and Land Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.
Pelosi and other top Democrats are not yet prepared for an open battle with the White House over ending funding for the war, and they are wary of Republican claims that Democratic leaders would endanger the welfare of U.S. troops. The new approach of first reducing the number of troops available for the conflict, while maintaining funding levels for units already in the field, gives political cover to conservative House Democrats who are nervous about appearing "anti-military" while also mollifying the anti-war left, which has long been agitating for Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to be more aggressive.
"What we have staked out is a campaign to stop the war without cutting off funding" for the troops, said Tom Mazzie of Americans Against Escalation of the War in Iraq. "We call it the 'readiness strategy.'"
Murtha's proposal, which has been kept under tight wraps, is likely to pass the House next month or in early April as part of the supplemental spending bill, Democratic insiders said, if the language remains tightly focused and does not threaten funding levels for combat forces already in the field. The battle will then shift to the Senate. Anti-war groups like Mazzie's are prepared to spend at least $6.5 million on a TV ad campaign and at least $2 million more on a grass-roots lobbying effort. Vulnerable GOP incumbents like Sens. Norm Coleman of Minnestoa, Susan Collins of Maine, Gordon Smith of Oregon and John Sununu of New Hampshire will be targeted by the anti-war organizations, according to Mazzie and former Rep. Tom Andrews, D-Maine, head of the Win Without War Coalition.
Mazzie also said anti-war groups would field primary and general election challengers to Democratic lawmakers who do not support proposals to end the war, a direct challenge to conservative incumbents who are attempting to straddle the political line between their pro- and anti-war constituents.
If the Senate does not approve these new funding restrictions, or if Senate Republicans filibuster the supplemental bill, Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership would then be able to ratchet up the political pressure on the White House to accede to their demands by "slow-walking" the supplemental bill. Additionally, House Democrats could try to insert the Murtha provisions into the fiscal 2008 defense authorization and spending bills, which are scheduled to come to the floor later in the year.
"We will set benchmarks for readiness," said a top Democratic leadership aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. If enacted, these provisions would have the effect of limiting the number of troops available for the Bush surge plan, while blunting the GOP charge that Democrats are cutting funding for the troops. "We are not cutting funding for any [unit] in Iraq," said the aide, who admitted the Democratic maneuver would not prevent the president from sending some additional forces to Baghdad. "We want to limit the number who can go ... We're trying to build a case that the president needs to change course."
Mazzie, though, suggested that Democrats ought to directly rebut the Republican charge that Democrats are threatening the safety of American forces in the field by pushing restrictions on war funding. "Cutting off funding as described by the media and White House is a caricature," Mazzie said. "It has never happened in U.S. history, and it won't happen now."
Andrews, who met with Murtha on Tuesday to discuss legislative strategy, acknowledged "there is a relationship" with the House Democratic leadership and the anti-war groups, but added, "It is important for our members that we not be seen as an arm of the Democratic Caucus or the Democratic Party. We're not hand in glove."
Andrews's group has launched a new Web site, MoveCongress.org, and he has already posted an interview with Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., one of the founders of the "Out of Iraq Caucus" in the House. An interview with Murtha on his legislative strategy will be posted on the site Thursday.
"I don't know how you vote against Murtha," said Andrews. "It's kind of an ingenious thing."
© Copyright 2007 politico.com
============================================================
Claims about Iranian arms carry familiar lack of proof
Wed Feb 14, 6:56 AM ET
In the heated run-up to the Iraq war, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell put on a forceful display to the United Nations: PowerPoint slides, photos and other evidence that he said proved beyond any doubt that Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
His presentation was compelling and almost entirely wrong.
Ever since it became clear that the U.S. invasion was based on false conclusions, the credibility of Bush administration intelligence claims has been suspect, at best. The bar for fresh accusations, as for the proverbial boy who cried wolf, is much higher.
So it's fair to wonder exactly what unnamed Pentagon officials were thinking on Sunday when they called a secretive briefing for reporters in Baghdad's Green Zone to show off an array of weapons supposedly made in Iran to assert that Iran's government is supplying weapons to Iraqi Shiite extremist groups.
The evidence they laid out, like Powell's presentation, was impressive at first glance: mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and armor-piercing explosive devices called explosively formed penetrators, bearing serial numbers that the officials claimed link them to the Iranian regime. Such weapons, the officials said, have killed more than 170 Americans in Iraq in the past three years.
But because the officials, who insisted on anonymity, could offer no direct evidence of Iranian regime involvement, their claims were met, properly, with widespread skepticism.
On Monday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted as much. All that could be proved from the seized evidence and arrests of some Iranians in Iraq, he acknowledged, was that "things made in Iran are being used in Iraq to kill coalition soldiers." Pace's assessment was in line with a decision by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley earlier this month to cancel a planned briefing on Iran because the evidence was not yet solid enough.
There is little doubt that Iran is a threat in Iraq, and its nuclear program is a grave danger to the region. It is logical that Iran might be supplying weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq - as logical as it was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But that does not make it true, nor does it make a retaliatory attack on Iran wise. What's needed now is clarity about the precise nature of the threat and how it might be addressed.
Here's what former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld liked to call the "known knowns": The number of American troops the officials say were killed by the Iranian-made weapons comprise about 5% of the more than 3,000 killed since the beginning of the war. Even one is too many, but by far the biggest threat in Iraq to American soldiers remains Sunni and al-Qaeda insurgents.
The administration's own National Intelligence Estimate last month judged that the involvement of Iran and other neighbors "is not likely to be a major driver of violence" in Iraq. Though the Iranian regime may well be supplying sophisticated weapons, they also could come from other sources such as the black market or Iranian middlemen.
And here's the more sobering regional context. The United States has every right to defend its forces in Iraq but has little standing to protest Iranian "meddling" in a sovereign, neighboring nation.
Iran is a legitimate competitor for influence in Iraq. Though they were enemies during Saddam Hussein's rule, the two nations have longstanding ethnic, religious and political ties. Iraq's leading religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is a native of Iran. Tehran also enjoys close ties to the Iraqi Shiite leadership, many of whom were exiled to Iran during the Saddam era. Iran has already become one of Iraq's largest trading partners.
If there's any hope for cooperation instead of conflict, it is that the United States and Iran have mutual interest in a stable Iraq. Both want to avert a regional war; both have reason to thwart Sunni radicalism, including al-Qaeda's.
Instead, clumsy U.S. efforts to overreach its evidence and proclaim dangerous Iranian involvement in Iraq have stoked fears that the administration wants to shift blame for the disastrous U.S. mistakes in Iraq, or even provoke a war with Iran. That's unlikely, but it's a reflection of how far the Bush administration's credibility has fallen that so many people believe it.
The late astronomer Carl Sagan used to say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Sagan was referring to UFOs, but the same logic applies to the allegations against Iran.
If Tehran is supplying Iraqi Shiite militias with devices that are being used to kill Americans, that is serious and needs to be stopped. The way to do it is with solid proof presented by named officials who have a rational plan for acting on that information.
The Defense Department declined to provide an opposing view to this editorial.
Copyright © 2007 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
===================================================================
New at FPIF
“A think tank without walls”
http://www.fpif.org/
Introducing the latest policy analysis from Foreign Policy In Focus
Iran in Iraq?
By Stephen Zunes
Faced with growing public opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq, the Bush
administration has been desperately trying to divert attention to Iran.
Washington has gone so far as to make a series of dubious and unfounded
charges that blame the Iranian government for the difficulties facing
American forces fighting the Iraqi insurgency.
Despite the absence of any credible reports of Iranian involvement in
attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, President George W. Bush last month
formally authorized U.S. forces to “kill or capture” suspected Iranian
agents in Iraq. Heavily armed American forces have already seized
several Iranian diplomats over strong protests of both the Iranian and
Iraqi governments.
It makes little sense why the Bush administration has depicted Iran as
the principal foreign threat to U.S. forces in Iraq. The National
Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, compiled by America’s sixteen
intelligence agencies and issued on February 11, downplayed Iran’s role
in Iraq’s ongoing violence and instability. Indeed, the Bush
administration’s sudden focus on Iran’s role in Iraq may simply be an
effort to provoke an Iranian reaction that could then become an excuse
for war.
Stephen Zunes ( www.stephenzunes.org) is Middle East editor for Foreign
Policy In Focus and serves as a professor of Politics at the University
of San Francisco. He is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East
Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003.)
See new FPIF article online at:
http://fpif.org/fpiftxt/3996
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February 14 Please take a survey.
February 02 a Pregnant Pause
Mumbai never gets ruffled over Municipal elections. That is a fact as the players have learned the art of taking it easy. Easy does it is a mantra in Balasaheb's camp. More as Matushri bungalow, right in the middle of the Artists' colony. The colony made possible due to the influence peddling done by our A. A. Adarkar, the ten dean of Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art, a satellite of the very famous school of Art founded by the art loving British,, way back when, I suppose more than one solid hundred years ago.
Mr. Adarkar, may his soul rest in peace, got a real boost in his doldrum of a career, as a cut and paste-up artist in the Times of India when he returned from London, England, doing nothing, accomplshing nothing, achieving even more, larger nothing and was doing a menial, lowly job in the art department of the Times of India.
There were more famous artists working in that august department when Adarkar kid got recommendation from the then Reserve Bank, Mr. B. N. Adarkar.
Adarkar kid was not any kind of artist. I never saw him picking any instrument that can be considered as a tool to be used in drawing or painting. The kid was a smooth talker and very pleasing in demeanor in pleasing his superiors, like one Mr. Gorakshakar, caroonist and assistant art derector.
Mr. Gorakshkar's advise to the kid was to get out ad do it fast. If not headed, the advise, I mean, the kid would become a butt of the joke in the department. The reason being, the Times of India had big reputation as the only newspaper which could support a fullfledged art department. The kid Adarkar got the message and quit to pursue his dearest profession. Not a profession of any kind, rally.
Making friends and influencing people kind of profession. The book on that subject was written in English and therefore and wherefore, not being proficient in that department, reading English, Adarkar kid, merely practced Wannamaker's methods.
How to become famous without really trying, would be kid Adarkar's book, if such a book script existed before Adarkar died of natural causes, the Bombay publishers wuld be minting money. Alas, that was not to be.
When kid Adarkar's mom complained to B.N. about this sad stage in the life of the kid Adarkar, the big brother took charge, made several important phone calls and "presto," got a teacher's job for the kid. What was the kid going to teach when he did not know the difference between a brush and a pencil? Nothing.
Mr. Gondhalekar was the dean of the undivided Sir J.J. School of Art and noticed that the kid was really a worthless addition to the eminent faculty. Gondhalekar could not order the kid nor he could be pursuaded to at least learn the basics and be useful around the building.
Gondhalekar's frustrations were obvious. Gondhalekar also had to keep the reputaion of the school. Months passed by and this condition remained.
When a post of a senior teacher opened up because of the retirement of the old, the kid had a temerity of asking, nay, demanding the post. Gondhalekar was adamant in denying it. An argument broke out, name calling was reportedly involved.
Enter B.N. Adarkar. After several entreaties to the dean who refused to be pressurised further, Reserve Bank governor or not, a suggestion came forward. a fledgling department, right within the school was not doing so good. It was called, simply, art for advertising and printing trade. This department was moved to the then government college, Sydenham College building as the college was moving to their larger Churchgate location.
The kid lost no time in picking his bags and baggages and shifted his headquarters and sleepy head to head the newly constituted ir J.J. Institure of Applied Art.
The rest is the history.
More later...
Sid Harth
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