WB: The Flight Forward – Moon of Alabama

April 17, 2006

WB: The Flight Forward

Billmon:

Fear of WMD may indeed be at the root of a war with Iran, if that’s really where we’re heading. Or it may simply be reprise of Wolfowitz’s "bureaucratic reason." The past few years have taught us a lot about mixed motives. But it seems at least possible that what the neocons – and Bush – are really hoping to "preempt" is the collapse of their grand scheme in the Middle East. In other words, it may be the United States, not Iran, that is preparing to "lash out" – in a deliberate, calculated war of aggression.

The Flight Forward

Posted by b on April 17, 2006 at 06:34 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Is Judy Miller again writing for the NYT?
New Worry Rises After Iran Claims Nuclear Steps

Iran has consistently maintained that it abandoned work on this advanced technology, called the P-2 centrifuge, three years ago. Western analysts long suspected that Iran had a second, secret program — based on the black market offerings of the renegade Pakistani nuclear engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan — separate from the activity at its main nuclear facility at Natanz. But they had no proof.
Then on Thursday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Tehran was “presently conducting research” on the P-2 centrifuge, boasting that it would quadruple Iran’s enrichment powers. The centrifuges are tall, thin machines that spin very fast to enrich, or concentrate, uranium’s rare component, uranium 235, which can fuel nuclear reactors or atom bombs.
…
Speaking to reporters in Washington on Thursday, just hours after Mr. Ahmadinejad’s claim, senior intelligence officials said they had seen nothing yet that would lead them to revise their estimate that Iran is still five to 10 years away from making a weapon.
Kenneth C. Brill, the director of the National Counterproliferation Center, created to track programs like Iran’s and North Korea’s, cautioned against accepting at face value Tehran’s recent claims about producing enriched uranium and plans to produce 54,000 centrifuges.
“It will take many years,” he said, “to build that many.”

Does someone has the speech transcript and find the context of “presently conducting research”? I bet it is not what NYT asserts.
The exculping two paragraphs are of course buried at the end of the piece.
Funny thing is: The article’s direction is based on the claim that what Ahmedinejad said is true. But then the rest of the article is based on doubts about Ahmedinejad’s assertions that there is only a civil nuke program. Pure manipulation…

Posted by: b | Apr 17 2006 7:18 utc | 1

WaPo joins with a blurp about supposed attempts of Iran to buy some stuff in the US: Iran Has Raised Efforts to Obtain U.S. Arms Illegally, Officials Say

Over the past two years, arms dealers have exported or attempted to export to Iran experimental aircraft; machines used for measuring the strength of steel, which is critical in the development of nuclear weapons; assembly kits for F-14 Tomcat fighter jets; and a range of components used in missile systems and fighter-jet engines.

Measuring the strength of steel – and the only reason to do that are nukes?

Posted by: b | Apr 17 2006 7:32 utc | 2

Flight Forward is a very good description (better than the cornered rat analogy).
I think few people are in much doubt that the ‘United States’ would love a little war against Iran right now, but do these nutters still have the political clout to pull this off? Doesn’t look likely.

Posted by: DM | Apr 17 2006 8:33 utc | 3

(HNN Article)
A nuclear-armed China would be a “great menace in the future to humanity, the free world and freedom on earth,” Kennedy told a visiting French diplomat in January 1963. Kennedy’s words are eerily similar to Bush’s January statement that an Iran with nuclear weapons would be “a grave threat to the security of the world.”

Posted by: DM | Apr 17 2006 8:41 utc | 4

The biggest reason the administration would be well advised against this idea would’nt be the downside of going to war with low approval ratings, no allies, the likely crash and burn of americas reputation, severe economic repercussions, a renewed need for a draft, or the evaporation of the republican party, but, as we have seen lately, an all out rebellion amongst the military itself. My guess is that the successive rotations in Iraq have already taken a more significant toll than has been revealed. After two (going nowhwere) tours in Iraq, its hard to imagine being told Iran, easily several times as powerful as Iraq was, is the next gig. Even the prospects of a “limited” air war would bring huge complications to the mission in Iraq, not to mention taking on regieme change in a ground war. Not a chance in hell this is going to happen — unless its in concert with leaving Iraq, without any follow up. As punishment.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 17 2006 9:32 utc | 5

from way out here the cheney admin looks to me a lot like Enron before the collapse. I am certain that no one in that company wanted to lose all those billions and prestige. Yet they did, and in a spectacular manner.
There were undoubtedly very bright people working at Enron and they had many early successes. Then it started to go south, you try to fix it, the patch doesn’t work, you try something else, it doesn’t work either, you don’t want to tell anyone what is wrong because you know that in a little while it will all be good again and you sure don’t need the attention.
then it all crashes down around you.
it is easy enough to get caught up in this, we all have done something similar but probably not this big.
You gotta remember there are men and women studying war with Iran and Iraq and as men and women they are quite capable of failure.
the biggest worry I have is how they deal with failure, do they take everybody down with them or do they do the right thing and fall on their sword?
sadly, this admin has yet to do the right thing…..

Posted by: dan of steele | Apr 17 2006 13:25 utc | 6

Interesting how completely Billmon has separated the previous joined at the intramembranous skull bone twinning of the neocons and the boy king.
And more interesting/scarier still how he surmises that this actually accelerates the fast forward.
It’s kind of like slow forward (as my kid calls itP while you have the bad movie on play vs. true fast forward while you have it off (ie. when we don’t know wtf is going on).
.

Posted by: RossK | Apr 17 2006 15:28 utc | 7

God, I hope you are right, you people who think it isn’t going to happen. I am not so sure because imho Iran has always, always been the target, and Iraq and the 14 permanent bases were the preparation.
Listening to Duke Ellington right now, the Far East Suite he did in the mid-1960s after a tour of Turkey, Iran, India, Sri Lanka and Japan.
Isfahan is the standout track, w/ Johnny Hodges centre-stage.
Some small comfort against the proto-nuclear panic.

Posted by: Dismal Science | Apr 17 2006 15:47 utc | 8

Billmon undoubtedly remembers W’s penchant for the very same “doubling down” aka ‘flight forward’ behavior in his spectacularly unsuccessful career as a oilman in the 1970s and 1980s. It was only the bestowal of (heavily discounted) percentage of the Texas Rangers in the early 90’s that gave him the patina of a ‘successful businessman’ to run for governor of Texas.

Posted by: ff | Apr 17 2006 16:04 utc | 9

Strange Days.
To keep oil flowing out of the Gulf the US’s natural allies are the Sunni Arabs. Yet as b pointed out, the US Army is planning to blow up Sunni portions of Bagdad right in front of the reporters on top of the Green Zone Hotels with troops supplied by the Shiite militias.
If the USA unilaterally levels Sunni Bagdad and then bombs Shiite Iran, the USA will have managed to unify all of Islam for a Holy War against the real Great Satan, the reborn Alfred E Neuman, George W. Bush.

Posted by: Jim S | Apr 17 2006 16:50 utc | 10

Most of us assume that we are dealing with rational people.
All of the neocons’ actions reveal that they are definitely not part of the ‘reality based community’.
In other times and lands, leaders who claimed that they take personal marching orders from God and declared that reality was what they make of it would be candidates for a rubber room.

Posted by: hopping madbunny | Apr 17 2006 17:07 utc | 11

“Doubling Down” is suicidal behavior, plain and simple. Hitler took ‘his’ Nation down with his own “road to perdition”. It ends of course, with a self inflicted bullet to the temple.

Posted by: pb | Apr 17 2006 17:23 utc | 12

Iraq is powerful in Iran. They have been meddling there. Meddling is probably too mild a term. The US needs the ‘new’ Iraq Gvmt to sit, and it needs that pronto, to finalise the oil deals, finalise the bases, keep control. They need that puppet Gvmt so bad their fingernails are bleeding.
Iran has been pussyfooring around, preventing those plans from coming to fruition. Putting endless spokes into the works. The US knows that at the slightest provocation Iran will send troops across the border. To do what? Nothing but create trouble, more chaos, it is no matter, the Iraq Gvmt will then not sit and sign, things will be even more confused than before, no Iraqi troops will keep order…
So the US saber rattles. And Iran reacts. All this stuff about WMD or Nukulear attacks is for the birds.
The US is playing its last cards – using the threat of its military might to persuade Iran not to interfere in Iraq and let the US have a free hand there. It could not hold Iraq, or maybe didn’t really wish to; now, when others see opportunity there, if only the chance to stop the US doing what it intended to do, it is left with an ace in the hole that it cannot play. And Iran knows that. They know it.
Even the Israelis must be shit scared. Such tactical mistakes are completely unacceptable. Things are getting out of hand.

Posted by: Noisette | Apr 17 2006 19:38 utc | 13

Isfahan is a stunningly beautiful city that is as important for Islamic civilization, in the numbers and quality of its public monuments, as Florence or Venice is to the West. Destroying it would be the greatest cultural atrocity committed since the destruction of the Summer Palaces in Peking or the firebombing of Dresden, though it seems to combine the worst qualities of both. The Chinese are still furious about the that and the destruction of the palaces wasn’t accompanied by the murder of a million or so innocent people. If you think we’re hated now, you don’t know what hate is. This is the sort of atrocity that is never forgotten or forgiven and would brand us in the eyes of the world as the new Nazis for generations to come. We’d end up paying for this the way the Germans have ended up paying for Hitler, hopefully without the occupation and national dismemberment but a good spot of war crimes trials for various Bush administration members and their Congressional and Judicial enablers wouldn’t be amiss. {For all you Republican Bidness types I would also like to point out that people don’t like to do business with monsters. American businesses would be paying for this for, literally, centuries to come.} When you throw in the almost certainty that, at some point in the not too distant future, somebody in the Muslim world will find a way to retaliate in America, One can’t quite help but think that nuking Isfahan is a truly, terrible, idea.
I wouldn’t put it past them for a second. George Bush et al has a genius for disaster that is breathtaking.
Just one other thing, if we nuke Isfahan, lethal radiation will fall on both Pakistan and India. The jet stream runs from West to East and its bound to happen. Is it more dangerous for us to kill the citizens of a country that is a nuclear armed, unstable Islamic dictatorship or the citizens of an extremely angry {when the fallout lands} nuclear armed democracy? For extra credit see if you can figure out which countries citizens will be not buying American longer.

Posted by: rpe | Apr 17 2006 19:44 utc | 14

According to Daniel Ellsberg, the Nixon administration got the madman idea indirectly from Hitler:

Finally we were taken to a small patio for lunch with Kissinger…As we all said hello, Kissinger… said, in his most ingratiating manner, “You know, I have learned more from Dan Ellsberg than from any other person… about bargaining.”
… Bargaining? For a moment I didn’t have any idea what he was referring to. Then I remembered the talks I had given to his seminar at Harvard in 1959, from my Lowell lecture series, “The Art of Coercion.” That had been 11 years earlier. I said, “You have a very good memory.”
Guttural drawl: “They were very good lectures.”
Nice. Except when I thought about it later, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The lectures I had given in class had had to do with Hitler’s blackmail of Austria and Czechoslovakia in the late 30’s that had allowed him to take over those countries just by threatening their destruction. One of the talks was titled “The Theory and Process of Blackmail,” and the other was “The Political Uses of Madness.” Hitler had deliberately cultivated among his adversaries the impression of his own irrational unpredictability … It worked for him, up to a point, because he was crazy, madly aggressive, and reckless. It wasn’t a tactic I was recommending for the United States. For someone to imitate Hitler in this respect was to cultivate madness and court disaster.

Ellsberg’s “Secrets” (emphasis in original)

Posted by: Vin Carreo | Apr 17 2006 21:25 utc | 15

noisette, your sentiment concurs w/ Grand Theft Babylon/A>

According to Chris Cook, the former International Petroleum Exchange director and founder of the Iranian Oil Bourse, the recent saber-rattling toward Iran has nothing to do with its nuclear ambitions and everything to do with its interference in the formation of an Iraqi government. He believes that by foiling the new Iraqi government, “Iran and its Arab neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council might pool some of the proceeds of recent energy sales and use them by investing as ‘capital partners’ in Iraqi crude-oil production.” In other words, Iran could muscle out Anglo-American PSAs – an untenable prospect for the Bush administration.

Posted by: annie | Apr 17 2006 22:28 utc | 16

Yeah, noisette, good take.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 17 2006 22:40 utc | 17

I think the administration are hoping to maneuver the American people into a situation where they perceive a threat to their very survival. In that atmosphere you “go to war with the leaders you’ve got” and any action internal or external can be justified both during and after the fact by the extreme circumstances.
Did Hitler have this much trouble rallying the populace behind the invasions of Austria and Czechoslovakia? Did he have to resort to false flag terrorism?

Posted by: PeeDee | Apr 17 2006 23:09 utc | 18

In the end, according to those who were there, Hitler didn’t give a shit about the pure Aryan race.
He was always about death, he just pretended for a while that he wasn’t, imo.
When the Soviets took Berlin, Hitler wouldn’t surrender. He let people die because he said they didn’t deserve to live…they had not lived up to his idea of who and what the German people were…they were human, after all.

Posted by: fauxreal | Apr 18 2006 0:10 utc | 19

A story. fauxreal and I once had a short discussion about public memory. She said her first was the Kennedy assassination and I responded with something flip about dinosaurs. In keeping with MoA memories and this discussion of Hitler something came back to me and along with the Kennedy assassination which burned itself into so many memories was something that would be my first public memory and raises the hair on my neck. My father is a retired spook. And a brilliant photographer. He would sometimes call me down to his darkroom to see what he was working on. One night, expecting to see something new emerge from the pan of chemicals he instead handed me two small water color paintings. Typical pedestrian European street scenes, well done but…ordinary – except – they were painted by Adolph Hitler. Someone he worked with owned them and was about to sell them and wanted to keep a photographic record. I held them in my hands and thought, oh God.

Posted by: beq | Apr 18 2006 1:16 utc | 20

B- it’s ‘cuz of bits like Noisette & annie just brought in that you gotta admit make MoA worth it all. That’s paydirt. Personally, I think the article is so impt. it should get its own thread, for archiving purposes alone.
but being an econ. illiterate, could those of you more knowledgeable barflies, translate a bit of it for me? Please…
I think I have 2 ?s.
1) Is it clear that all would be ok. if oil cos. settled for less lucrative arrangements, such as 1 or 2 she listed? Is this an issue of greed, or is it only via 3 that western oil cos. have actual irrevocable control over the oil?’
2)He believes that by foiling the new Iraqi government, “Iran and its Arab neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council might pool some of the proceeds of recent energy sales and use them by investing as ‘capital partners’ in Iraqi crude-oil production.” In other words, Iran could muscle out Anglo-American PSAs – an untenable prospect for the Bush administration.
Is it an issue of how Iraq can actually raise capital for exploration, so the Arabs are stepping up here? I don’t exactly understand the part in quotes. Is this a fight to the death over who has total control & neither side will settle for less? Why the bloody hell don’t they compromise? Sorry for being so dense…but destroying a country for bullshit like this is beyond me…

Posted by: jj | Apr 18 2006 3:20 utc | 21

Sorry for being so dense…but destroying a country for bullshit like this is beyond me…
It’s beyond us all jj:
Crude Designs, 7. Conclusion

We have seen in the preceding chapters that, under the influence of the US and the UK, powerful politicians and technocrats in the Iraqi Oil Ministry are pushing to hand all of Iraq’s undeveloped fields to multinational oil companies, to be developed under production sharing agreements. They aim to do this in the early part of 2006.
The results for Iraq would be devastating:
Iraq would lose an enormous amount of revenue (making it conversely highly profitable for the foreign companies);
The terms of the contracts would be agreed while the Iraqi state is very weak and still under occupation, but be fixed for 25-40 years;
PSAs would deny Iraq the ability to regulate or plan its oil industry, leaving foreign companies’ operations immune from future legislation;
PSAs would shift decisions on any disputes out of Iraq into international arbitration courts, where the Iraqi constitution, body of law and national interest are simply not relevant.
Yet, Iraq has other options for obtaining investment in its oil sector, including:
Direct financing from government budgets;
Government/state oil company borrowing; or
Less damaging contracts with multinational oil companies, such as buybacks or risk service agreements.
These decisions should be made with the full participation of the Iraqi people, not in secret by unaccountable elites. Care should be taken not to take major irreversible steps that would later be regretted.
Getting these decisions right is vital for the future of Iraq.

They’re behind schedule. They need to take down Ibrahim Jaafari, get someone willing to sign their PSA’s in place, and lock down Iraqi oil.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Apr 18 2006 3:56 utc | 22

playing angels-advocate for a minute & was wondering if theres anything under the sun dear leader GW could possibly do to salvage his legacy without tearing the planet down.
afterall it would be in our collective interest were this to be the case. As it looks, the potential downside far far outweighs any upside benefit for his regime.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Apr 18 2006 4:13 utc | 23

Thanks, JFL, that clarifies things a bit. Any info on what terms Iran is offering?
By the way, things are heating up in invasion/civil war plans in Venezuela. Greg Palast discusses it. (scroll down to 4/11) He said that according to internal Bush Admin. documents he saw Venezuela has 5x reserves that Saudi Arabia has. (but it’s heavy oil & more expensive to refine, hence prices have to be higher.) If that’s the case, you know damn well, they’re going to overthrow Chavez – and quickly before the Rot of Democracy, Real Democracy actually spreads around Latin America – and shows the America people, first & foremost what democracy truly could mean for them. It’d shake the hold of xUS elites over the country to its core.

Posted by: jj | Apr 18 2006 4:19 utc | 24

jj the way I see it, its always been about the money. For some months now PSA’s have apparently been negotiated on, with no results so far. These agreements supposedly are old school, weighing (very much) in favor of the contractor — and are not the type of agreements negotiated these days. Often these agreements cover long time frames, sometimes in the 30 year range. The Kurds have already finished 2 deals, one with a Texas corporation (forgot the other), although I’d question the legality, before the government has been formed. The current PM jaffari and Sadr are not keen on these deals, along with privitization in general, and pose a serious threat to the US — being asked to leave Iraq with no deals, no bases, and no investment power in place — the ultimate nightmare for the administration, having to leave emptyhanded.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 18 2006 4:19 utc | 25

Ah, Jony B Cool, it seems that you are too sensible. Not that it would cheer anyone to see GW walk away scot free, but what you suggest has some merit. Alas, that’s not the way movies end. Where’s the drama? Movies always have to end with a WACO style shootout.

Posted by: DM | Apr 18 2006 4:29 utc | 26

@anna missed, I’ve been watching for indications that they’re challenging the larger issue of the severe Piratization clauses – that allow for 100% foreign ownership w/100% repatriation of profits, and require farmers use only genetically mutilated purchased seeds…on and on..a Pirates Wet Dream – but haven’t seen it. Have you, or are you speculating?
As far as it being about money, it’s not clear to me, how much is about money in the exc. article we’re basically discussing & how much is about control, duration of contract, etc. Also, whether Iraq is screwed no matter what, it’s just a question of whether it’s by west. oil cos. or neighboring states, arab/persian?
But at least we know that this nuke yak is about oil…
Did I post this, on Iran’s new Asian Alliance? This link has link to Asia Times art.
China, Russia welome Iran into the fold
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which maintained it had no plans for expansion, is now changing course. Mongolia, Iran, India and Pakistan, which previously had observer status, will become full members. SCO’s decision to welcome Iran into its fold constitutes a political statement. Conceivably, SCO would now proceed to adopt a common position on the Iran nuclear issue at its summit meeting June 15.

Posted by: jj | Apr 18 2006 4:48 utc | 27

@jj
“Sorry for being so dense…but destroying a country for bullshit like this is beyond me…”
That’s why informed commentary like Billmon’s and rational debate like we have here is so very, very important. If anybody “gets it”, they are keeping to themselves.
I’ve stopped questioning authority; turns out they don’t know, either.

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 18 2006 5:15 utc | 28

jj,
As far as I know Bremmers CPA economic edicts (including the exclusive use of genetically modified seed) can be rescended upon the formation of the new government, as well as any PSA’s that have been negotiated without the governments blessing, and also the formal invitation of US troops on Iraqi soil. Statements by Jaafari and or Sadr (or their representatives) indicate that they will ask the US for a formal withdrawl date. They have also stated that they are against the privitization of the Iraqi economy (and presumably will rescend those edicts). This is (my speculation) why the administration has been trying to move heaven and hell to split the Jaafari/Sadr alliance, and therefore the UIA Shiite alliance if necessary, to prevent this from happening. The US may resort to some coup attempt upon failing to break the alliance, fomenting civil war to make this seem a necessity.
Ever since the Naomi Klein “ground zero” article back in 04, its been my own conviction (and speculation) that the economic impetus for the war in Iraq, and its subsequent fallout are not only the most under reported aspect of the conflict, but the primary motivation for it — and also largely responsible for how (badly) things have gone. I suppose its a minority position to take, since not many have written from this perspective, like say, Juan Cole — nontheless its where I’m inclined to look first.

Posted by: anna missed | Apr 18 2006 7:27 utc | 29

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