Oh, President Bush, you rascal. You do so like to repeat yourself. Now that Iran is, unsurprisingly, number one -- with a bullet! -- on the "Countries We Don't Like" list, the question in the White House is, what to do about it?
Why, bomb the snot out of them, of course. I don't think I need to go into why this is a horrible, no-good, very bad idea, but apparently, "Bush views Tehran as a serious menace that must be dealt with before his presidency ends, aides said, and the White House, in its new National Security Strategy, last month labeled Iran the most serious challenge to the United States posed by any country." (Page 20)
Sy Hersh also weighs in with a terrifying article full of extra details. Highlights: nukes are desired option, there's a widespread belief in the Administration that Ahmadinejad is bonkers and that Hezbollah will not sit idly by should Iran be attacked. Hezbollah spokesman Hossein Nabulsi told me late last year that the group is a religious party and it belongs to Supreme Leader Khameini in Tehran. "'Interests' does not begin to describe the depths of the links between us," he said.
Now, the U.S. makes all sorts of plans. I'm sure there plans to nuke Canada or France mouldering away somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon. That doesn't mean they'll ever be dusted off and implemented. So the real question is not "Are we making plans to nuke Iran?" but "How likely is it that we will implement plans to nuke Iran?" A friend of mine who follows this stuff closely told me that he doesn't think Bush has the political capital or time to pull off an attack. As he says, the worst-case/most-likely scenario is that this is a real Bush plan that will never see the light of day after Cheney has little fantasies in the VP bathroom over it. Neo-con porn, in other words. The best-case/least-likely scenario is that this is a feint to convince the Israelis we mean business so they will keep their planes on the ground. Or, alternately, Hersh could be dead-wrong about the whole thing. Maybe he's just doing that thing he does of dangling sexy rumors with enough meat on them to make them interesting and then seeing what bubbles up to the surface after he's turned up the heat. It's a good reportorial strategy to shake things up.
Or it might all be disinformation from the U.S. to get the Iranians to the table. Of course, there's no reason the buzz can't be all of these things and, frankly, that's pretty likely.
At any rate, things are about to get a lot more interesting in the region. I well remember the July 2002 1A story in the NYT outlining the Bush plans to invade Iraq. (4th ID from Turkey! Oops.) As many others have noted, the whole Iranian scenario of WMD, regime change, etc., is stunningly similar to the run-up to the Iraq war.
So if Bush can repeat himself, why not me? I'm in Beirut now for a while, as TIME Magazine and I have decided to start seeing other people. But we're still friends, and my parting with TIME was most amicable. I've not worked with a better organization and I'm happy to still be associated with them, if only on a part-time basis. But I'm now more aggressively freelance. While the URL of this site will probably remain back-to-iraq.com, the focus of the reporting is going to broaden to include all of southwest Asia: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and beyond. So I'm going to open my donations jar back up and start accepting donations again to fund a reporting trip to Iran. (See the button in the sidebar?)
So, if anyone wants to suggest a re-branding campaign, I'm all ears. But for now, I'm going to concentrate on new reporting in Lebanon, and work on getting my ass to Tehran in the coming months. If anyone has advice on visas, fixers, people to contact, groups to connect with, please send them along to chris (at) back (hyphen) to (hyphen) iraq (dot) com. Thank you.
Wow-Synchronicity. I read the Hersh article yesterday and as I was reading I was wondering what your take would be and voila! Personally I’m pleased that you’ll be broadening your scope. As fascinating and important as the situation in Iraq is; there’s a certain redundancy to the stories available there now. The central characters are known, the plotlines are established, the possible scenarios are outlined- now it’s not so much “what will happen next?” as “when will this inevitable thing happen?”. I’ll also welcome news from the region through your eyes. It’s difficult to get clear impressions when one is sitting here in nice peaceful, multicultural Canada (despite the mention in Hersh’s article of pentagon plans to invade Quebec)watching through one’s monitor.
Keep up the great reporting and thanks for what you’ve given us so far.
Chris, you said; “So, if anyone wants to suggest a re-branding campaign, I’m all ears. But for now, I’m going to concentrate on new reporting in Lebanon, and work on getting my ass to Tehran in the coming months”
I think Lebanon is a real hot spot for Iranian proxy warriors that you hope to interview. Be careful, I suggest you read a post made by Michael Totten and his interview with a PR man of Hizballah.
I suggested his stuf to you in the past. Maybe you can drop him a line in the future.
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001116.html
The way to hurt the mullahs of Iran is to clean up and close those camps they support in Lebanon.
If you get to Iran, I hope you make your way to the internet cafe’s and ask the youth of Iran how they feel about A. Defending their homeland against an agressive US assult vs B. How they feel about defending their homeland against an agressive assult in the Bekka valley.
Those are the questions many would like to hear from anybody other than the MSM slant
(hope that link works for you )
btw, don’t go planning to blog with pre conceived notions of “The Great Satan”. Just relay what others talk about. Stay safe, watch out for those gangsta rappa’s
Forgot to add this; reduce your fingerprints, delete cookies early and often. LOL
Or better, stay in the internet cafe’s when you post/surf sites that may be of interest or raise a flag of suspicion. Get out and mingle safely.
I’ll look forward to your reporting no matter where you are. Your reporting from the the enigma that is Iran will be invaluable.
I know you’ll stay on the side of the angels, whomever they may be.
Thanks.
Elizabeth Doughty
I’m very interested in hearing more about Iran and other SW Asian countries, but if you’re going to ask locals about defending their homeland against US aggression or how they ‘feel’ about Israel - don’t bother. I could write the banal, reactionary machismo responses myself.
Instead, I’d like to know what people are thinking about life outside of the conflict zones - do they have any faith at all in the free market capitalism and democracy which is being foisted on them? Or are they happy living under what the West sees as despotic regimes? Or is there a middle ground which isn’t getting coverage?
I have many more questions as well, but one request over all: try to remain as objective as possible. I can get sarcastic comments about Bush and the American way anywhere but this is one of the only place where I feel like I’m getting facts over some corpo-politico agenda. Please resist the temptation to let opinion influence what you say or how you say it because it would be a shame for this to end up like all the other media.
Chris, broadening the scope of your blog sounds like a great idea. I have a lot of Iranian friends and the country really is a beautiful place with wonderful people but an unfortunate government.
I’ll happily contribute to your expanded reporting. :o)
It’s been always about the US and Iran since the Islamic Revolution on 1972 after Al-Shah, and then Saddam taking control of the rule in Iraq from Al-Baker, the 8 years consuming non-reasonable Iraq-Iran war on the 1980’s. And now when any simple person hear the declarations of Ahmedinejad, will just start wonder, is he crazy or what, it’s like that guy been paid to say those things, what kind of politics is that!!! Few months before the war on Iraq, we start to hear a directed radio station broadcasting only Western/Arabic songs and news, news that we were unable as Iraqis to hear in other media, even during the peak of the war this station carried on broadcasting songs, weirdly it was like kind of codes to the troops and others, (I guess I’ll die another day….Li Al-Nassiriyah (to Nassiriyah-while the troops moving to Nassiriyah)…etc.). These days we can catch the same radio station but in Farsi… I know it’s sounds dim and the usual so much into conspiracy, but I think there is a probability that something will happen, when, what, whatever, but anyway it won’t be a piece of cake with a country like Iran. Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon…it’s all connected, it is the same story, same dark ironical, confusing painting, more you concentrate on it, more you wonder what the artist was thinking. Good luck. ++++ Objectivity…not easy to be there. ++++ “tactical errors”, bless you.
Chris, I have followed you off and on since the beginning. I hope to stick with you through your Lebanon journey.
Really appreciate your work.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire?
http://www.viewfromiran.blogspot.com/
This is a blog I enjoy. American married to Iranian, currently on vacation is US.
Good luck, kiddo!
“I don’t think I need to go into why this is a horrible, no-good, very bad idea, but apparently,”
Actually you do. Why not just nuke a few million of the fuckers and let Allah sort ‘em out.
I’m a Democrat, by the way, in case that matters.
Chris, I just ‘rehired’ you with a donation! :-) Best wishes, stay safe, and, as always, listen to your mother “-) /Jim