“Josephine had practically every desirable personal characteristic, except wisdom and mercy.” Gee, that sounds like she actually isn’t a nice person at all! Gary Brecher (previously) reviews Banquo’s Ghosts, a political-minded spy thriller from National Review editor Richard Lowry and novelist Keith Korman. Lowry describes it as an "episode of “24″ written by Proust. " [more inside]
posted by The Whelk on Jul 1, 2009 - 52 comments

The aircraft carrier, a majestic and grand symbol of American naval might... susceptible to swarming small-boat assault and weak against ballistic missiles, nevermind an anti-ship ballistic missile. Is it time to reevaluate the role of the aircraft carrier in a modern naval strategy?
posted by Keter on May 27, 2009 - 58 comments

In 2009, a remarkably gifted politician, confronting a remarkably difficult set of challenges, will have to learn to say "No we can't", Guantánamo will prove a moral minefield, economic recovery will be invisible to the naked eye, governments must prepare for the day they stop financial guarantees, we will judge our commitment to sustainability, scientists should research the causes of religion, we will all be potential online paparazzi, English will have more words than any other language (but it's meaningless), Afghanistan will see a surge of Western (read: American) troops, Iran will continue its nuclear quest while diplomacy lies in shambles, the sea floor is the new frontier, we should rethink aging, (non-)voters will continue to thwart the European project -- but cheap travel will continue to buoy it -- though it has some unfinished business to attend to, and a Nordic defence bond will blossom.

The Economist: The World in 2009. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 27, 2008 - 31 comments

Welcome to the October Surprise. The Dutch intelligence service, the AIVD, has called off an operation aimed at infiltrating and sabotaging Iran's weapons industry due to an assessment that a US attack on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program is imminent, according to a report in the country's De Telegraaf (dutch) newspaper on Friday.
posted by plexi on Sep 1, 2008 - 66 comments

Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President's office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran. [more inside]
posted by ryoshu on Aug 1, 2008 - 109 comments

American-Dutch photographer Peter van Agtmael and English photographer Olivia Arthur are the two newest nominees recently welcomed into Magnum Photos. Agtmael's images of Afghanistan and Iraq are very powerful - he discusses his work in Conscientious. Arthur's recent work has focused on women's experiences in what she calls the Middle Distance. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Jul 8, 2008 - 8 comments

Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
posted by homunculus on Jun 29, 2008 - 147 comments

The Man Between War and Peace. "As head of U. S. Central Command, Admiral William 'Fox' Fallon is in charge of American military strategy for the most troubled parts of the world. Now, as the White House has been escalating the war of words with Iran, and seeming ever more determined to strike militarily before the end of this presidency, the admiral has urged restraint and diplomacy. Who will prevail, the president or the admiral?" [Via Think Progress.]
posted by homunculus on Mar 5, 2008 - 50 comments

Sarko l'Americain addresses US Congress. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has told the US Congress it can count on France's support against terrorism in Afghanistan and Iran's nuclear plan. [Full Text here PDF]. Here also, is a recent take on Franco-American relations [more inside]
posted by psmealey on Nov 7, 2007 - 32 comments

The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know [print version] profiles former NSC Middle East policy experts Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann and how the Bush administration turned down a March 2003 peace offer from Iran. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha on Oct 25, 2007 - 88 comments

Wilson et al v. McConnell et al. This site has all the legal documents surrounding Valerie Plame's legal case against the CIA over her new book. CIA censors blacked out 10 percent of the copy, as can seen in this excerpt from the book, and Plame is not allowed to speak freely in her interviews. [Via No Quarter.] [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Oct 22, 2007 - 87 comments

Iraq was just the beginning. According to retired General Wesley Clark, a top-secret memo detailed a plan for “taking out” seven countries in five years, ending with Iran. [more inside]
posted by FeldBum on Oct 14, 2007 - 129 comments

In the U.S., motorists do not pay their way. The US government spends more on highways and other auto-related expenses than it receives from auto-related taxes, unlike almost every country in Europe. In a recent report [pdf], Mark Delucchi calculates automobile-related costs and revenues in three different ways and concludes the subsidy is around 20-70 cents per gallon or $24-105 billion in 2002. But what are automobile-related costs, you ask? [more inside]
posted by salvia on Oct 2, 2007 - 99 comments

This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants... Now the emphasis is on 'surgical' strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism... The former intelligence official added...'Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, 'You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.' But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.'

Shifting Targets by Seymour Hersh
See also 'The President Has Accepted Ethnic Cleansing'
posted by y2karl on Oct 1, 2007 - 148 comments

Lieberman-Kyl’s Iran amendment passes. By a vote of 76-22, the Senate passed the Lieberman-Kyl amendment, which threatens to “combat, contain and [stop]” Iran via “military instruments.” Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) called the amendment “Cheney’s fondest pipe dream” and said it could “read as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action.”
posted by psmealey on Sep 27, 2007 - 111 comments

"Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMD in the Middle East" (PDF). A new study by two British scholars claims that the United States has the capacity for and may be prepared to launch a massive assault on Iran. This comes just in time for the post Labor Day product rollout. [Via Informed Comment.]
posted by homunculus on Sep 2, 2007 - 81 comments

Angered by the previous 'Assault on Iran', the Union of Islamic Student Societies of Iran hit back yesterday by the official debut of Special Operation: Rescue the Nuke Scientist. [YouTube]
posted by lenny70 on Jul 18, 2007 - 13 comments

The "same people who attacked us on 9/11"? It may be the very latest talking point from the Administration, but it's actually true--altho it's not Al Qaeda in Iraq, but Saudis. Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia ... A historical note: 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis.
posted by amberglow on Jul 16, 2007 - 84 comments

Senator Lieberman advocates military strike on Iran Newsfilter: Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) on CBS's Face the Nation yesterday morning laid out a case for the US taking military action against Iran. Glenn Greenwald says that while neocon true believers are becoming harder to find in the GOP ranks, Holy Joe embodies one in its purest form. The Salem-News simply calls his demands cowardly, and others wonder if he has a point.
posted by psmealey on Jun 11, 2007 - 106 comments

Bomb Iceland instead of Iran is the modest proposal of Princeton Professor of Political Economy Uwe Reinhardt in today's Daily Princetonian. Some enterprising Aussies are way ahead of him on that one. Heck, it wouldn't even be the first time the U.S. and Britain occupied Iceland. [via RÚV, the Icelandic state broadcaster]
posted by Kattullus on Apr 9, 2007 - 26 comments

Gulf's New Ground Zero. A busy Iranian port will be a crucial nerve centre if the long-threatened US attack comes.
posted by Burhanistan on Apr 8, 2007 - 12 comments

Behind Enemy Lines Liberal use of this narcotic produced with high voltage found to reduce the affects of PTSD, in coalition and British forces in particular.
posted by MapGuy on Apr 7, 2007 - 29 comments

22 basic suggested readings on the Middle East from history professor and informed commenter on Middle Eastern affairs Juan Cole.
posted by LobsterMitten on Mar 7, 2007 - 37 comments

The Redirection. "Is the Administration’s new policy aiding our enemies in the war on terrorism?" New article by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker.
posted by homunculus on Feb 25, 2007 - 40 comments

Bombing Iran - motive, opportunity, means (and thuggish accomplice).
posted by RichLyon on Feb 24, 2007 - 56 comments

..."Shifting to StratCom indicates that they are talking about a really punishing air-force and naval air attack [on Iran]," says Lang. ..."If they write a plan like that and the president issues an execute order, the forces will execute it. He's got the power to do that as commander-in-chief. We set that up during the Cold War. It may, after the fact, be considered illegal, or an impeachable offense, but if he orders them to do it, they will do it." ...by the end of February the United States will have enough forces in place to mount an assault on Iran. That, in the words of former national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, would be "an act of political folly" so severe that "the era of American preponderance could come to a premature end."

From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq
Stepped up US preparations for war against Iran
The United States and Iran: the logic of war
How the press can prevent another Iraq
What to Ask Before the Next War
posted by y2karl on Feb 8, 2007 - 105 comments

Israel leaks plans for nuclear strike on Iran. The details were leaked (on purpose it appears) from Israeli military personal in order to test the waters, prepare the world, and/or put pressure on others to act first. One source: "As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished." Glad I don't live in the Middle East.
posted by bhouston on Jan 6, 2007 - 102 comments

The End of The "Summer of Diplomacy": Assessing U.S. Military Options on Iran (PDF). "In a new report for The Century Foundation, Retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner warns that powerful voices in the Bush administration are making the case for air strikes aimed not only at setting back Iran’s nuclear program, but also at toppling the country’s government. He says that these officials are undeterred by the concerns of military leaders about whether such attacks would be effective." [Via The Agonist and FDL.]
posted by homunculus on Sep 20, 2006 - 63 comments

In the days after Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel, on July 12th, to kidnap two soldiers, triggering an Israeli air attack on Lebanon and a full-scale war, the Bush Administration seemed strangely passive... The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

Test Case
posted by y2karl on Aug 13, 2006 - 78 comments

Inside the Pentagon, senior commanders have increasingly challenged the President’s plans, according to active-duty and retired officers and officials. The generals and admirals have told the Administration that the bombing campaign will probably not succeed in destroying Iran’s nuclear program. They have also warned that an attack could lead to serious economic, political, and military consequences for the United States. A crucial issue in the military’s dissent, the officers said, is the fact that American and European intelligence agencies have not found specific evidence of clandestine activities or hidden facilities; the war planners are not sure what to hit. “The target array in Iran is huge, but it’s amorphous,” a high-ranking general told me. “The question we face is, When does innocent infrastructure evolve into something nefarious?” The high-ranking general added that the military’s experience in Iraq, where intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed, has affected its approach to Iran. “We built this big monster with Iraq, and there was nothing there. This is son of Iraq,” he said.

The Last Stand
See also Iran: war by October?
See also The countdown to war
See also Iran: Consequences Of A War
posted by y2karl on Jul 2, 2006 - 62 comments

Please, do mention the war. Really, it's hard not to. After all, in a sense football is war, as the General famously joked. Sometimes it's peace. Same goes for that other football, by the way.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Jun 3, 2006 - 11 comments

The Iran Plans by Seymour Hersh.
posted by xowie on Apr 8, 2006 - 210 comments

Niger Venezuela is planning to sell uranium to Iraq Iran.
posted by EarBucket on Mar 14, 2006 - 51 comments

Battle plans for Iran... resonates with the sad ring of real possibility.
posted by Muirwylde on Feb 17, 2006 - 63 comments

It's on. Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.
posted by The Jesse Helms on Feb 12, 2006 - 102 comments

Civil war. Surely this is an adjectival misnomer of the first rank. Of all of the various types of war, civil war -- that is, a violent conflict waged between opposing sides within a society -- has generally been the least mannerly and the most savage... By just about every meaningful standard that can be applied -- the reference points of history, the research criteria of political science, the contemporaneous reporting of on-the-ground observers, the grim roll of civilian and combatant casualties -- Iraq is now well into the bloody sequence of civil war. Dispense with the tentative locution "on the verge of." An active, if not full-boil, civil war is already a reality.

Shattering Iraq
See also Iraq: see no evil, hear no evil
Iran gaining influence, power in Iraq through militia
Bush's Strategy, Iraq's New Army Challenged by Ethnic Militias
Outside View: Iraq's Grim Lessons   More Inside
posted by y2karl on Dec 14, 2005 - 93 comments

Animated video broadcast on Iran's IRIB state television, apparently aimed at children, seemingly promotes the virtues of becoming a suicide bomber. Coralized wmv link, transcript.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 6, 2005 - 57 comments

In case of emergency, nuke Iran. From the folks who brought you Operation Iraqi Freedom and the "last throes" of the insurgency, the latest strategy for enhancing homeland security and US global standing is to launch a nuclear first-strike against Iran in the event of another 9/11-style attack -- whether Iran has ties to the attackers or not. As Juan Cole points out, turning a Shiite Muslim nation into the next Hiroshima could have disagreeable consequences. (First reported by the American Conservative, not your typical liberal rag, and via DailyKos.)
posted by digaman on Jul 29, 2005 - 78 comments

Damning leak for Blair / Bush! A leaked transcript of a senior British government meeting indicates that the Bush administration viewed war with Iraq as "inevitable" as of July 2002, even though the rationale for war was "thin" and that "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran." It further states that the desire to bring about regime change was "not a legal base for military action", and that the only legitimate reason to declare war was with UNSCOM approval. Most disturbingly, it indicates that there were "strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change."
posted by insomnia_lj on May 1, 2005 - 139 comments

Whereas, in the past, national power was thought to reside in the possession of a mighty arsenal and the maintenance of extended alliance systems, it is now associated with economic dynamism and the cultivation of technological innovation. To exercise leadership in the current epoch, states are expected to possess a vigorous domestic economy and to outperform other states in the development and export of high-tech goods. While a potent military establishment is still considered essential to national security, it must be balanced by a strong and vibrant economy. 'National security depends on successful engagement in the global economy,' the Institute for National Security Studies observed in a recent Pentagon study.

Regarding Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency by Michael T. Klare, here is an excerpt from the book and here is his most recent article--Oil and the Coming War With Iran. Well, at least he has been consistent--consider The Geopolitics of War, Wars Without End, Oiling the Wheels of War, and Imperial Reach from his articles for The Nation alone. Here is an excerpt from his previous Resource Wars and here is Scraping the bottom of the barrel and Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the World's Oil. Well, as to his position on current events, I don't think we need to draw a picture here.
posted by y2karl on Apr 13, 2005 - 52 comments

Jeffords' Theory: "U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords, the Vermont Independent, may face a clear field right now in a 2006 re-election bid, but his March 22 performance on Vermont Public Radio's Switchboard program raised a few eyebrows. I think it was all done to get oil, Jeffords said of invading Iraq. And the loss of life that we had, and the cost of it, was to me just a re-election move, and they're going to try to live off it. Probably start another war, wouldn't be surprised, next year. Probably in Iran, said Jeffords, echoing Seymour Hersch's words from January.
posted by jenleigh on Apr 11, 2005 - 84 comments

Iran gets bombed June 2005. "George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its purported goal is the destruction of Iran’s alleged program to develop nuclear weapons"
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket on Feb 25, 2005 - 130 comments

Pre-emptive protest: Iranians for peace "No war can contribute to the establishment of liberty and democracy in our country. 'Iranians for Peace' welcomes the opinions of Iranian people around the globe who are in opposition to war."
posted by hoder on Feb 2, 2005 - 17 comments

Draftfreedom --a new group applying their marketing and communication expertise to help prevent the draft. Take a look--maybe this new approach can get thru?
posted by amberglow on Jan 24, 2005 - 40 comments

The Salvador Option --sending Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, in imitation of our actions in El Salvador. It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. More here, including this: In Iraq, in fact, as in many other places where the United States has tried to train ethical armies to fight dirty wars, the Iraqi troops are tacitly expected to do what American troops won’t. A fundamental purpose of the upcoming elections on January 30 is to create democratic legitimacy for whatever extreme measures the newly organized military decides to take.
posted by amberglow on Jan 14, 2005 - 18 comments

Fallujah in pictures. Graphic images of destruction and loss.
posted by four panels on Nov 15, 2004 - 64 comments

Iran: Blogger/Journalists arrested over banned Reformist websites (stop.censoring.us)
posted by hoder on Sep 8, 2004 - 15 comments

Was Bush duped into war by Iran? "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing...information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source.
posted by CunningLinguist on May 22, 2004 - 56 comments

Regime Change Bonanza. Donald Rumsfeld is pushing for Iran to be the next to fall.
posted by The Jesse Helms on May 30, 2003 - 44 comments

A War Crime or an Act of War?

But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story. ..

This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target.

And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas. (NYT)
posted by y2karl on Jan 31, 2003 - 34 comments