Earlier today the FinanceBanking Committee debated amendments to the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2009, a piece of legislation that is built around the Bayh-Kyl-Lieberman Iran sanctions bill that has garnered some 76 cosponsors in the Senate.

Dodd's bill, which is supported by the committee's ranking member Senator Richard Shelby, is the counterpart to the Iran sanctions legislation Rep. Howard Berman marked up in the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday, though the Senate bill adds language allowing state pension funds to divest from Iran and attempts to halt the flow of goods into Iran from Middle East ports (last year the New York Times detailed the ease with which dual use goods may flow into Iran from ports like Dubai). However, the focus of both bills would be to target Iran's dependence on the importation of refined petroleum products (Iran now produces 40 percent less refined petroleum than it did when the Shah fell while the population of the country has doubled over the same time period).

Senator Bob Corker introduced an amendment yesterday calling for these sanctions to be imposed in coordination with Russia and China. The amendment was adopted, and in an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD this afternoon, Corker warned that if unilateral U.S. sanctions were imposed, the difference in Iran's imports would "easily be made up by Russia and China." The Obama administration can "exercise some testosterone doing it ourselves," but in Iran, Corker says, "the effect that we can have on refined petroleum is very small." Of course, targeting gasoline imports was a key plank of Obama's Iran policy during the campaign, and the measure itself seems to have broad bipartisan support in both houses of Congress. During the campaign Obama talked a lot about multilateral sanctions, but in the event he's been unable to secure the support of either Russia or China and looks to have little hope of doing so. Multilateral sanctions would be better than unilateral sanctions, but unilateral sanctions look likely to be the only option.

However, it wasn't the amendment that Corker introduced yesterday that had Iran-watchers talking. It was an amendment he had planned to introduce today but pulled at the last minute. This second amendment would have changed the 'shalls' in the bill to 'mays' -- i.e., the bill would no longer command President Obama to impose petroleum sanctions in 120 days barring some major diplomatic breakthrough (the president shall...), but would instead allow the president to impose those sanctions (the president may...).

Corker offered several rationales for this attempt to change the language. First off, he said, "when we pass this the president has to do it in 120 days...I question the timing." In other words, Corker worries that the language would limit the president's flexibility. However, it's not at all clear that's true -- the bill, like many other pieces of Iran legislation, contains a national security waiver that can be invoked at the president's discretion (it also has several other waivers, including a waiver that would allow the president to waive sanctions on individual companies based in allied countries where the government is cooperating with the United States on the Iran threat).

Corker also said that he "made the point that by using the word 'shall,' they were sending a message of no confidence in the president." Corker said that observation was met by silence from the Democrats in the room, but sources familiar with the history of this legislation note the language was crafted before Obama's election, and add that the use of the word 'shall' is standard legislative language.

The real problem with Corker's amendment, and the reason that there was so little support for it among members of the committee, was that Dodd's bill actually gives the president no new authority to impose sanctions on Iran -- it is merely a statement of broad bipartisan support and resolve for the president should he choose to exercise his existing authority under the International Emergency Powers Act. If we are to convince the Iranians of the seriousness of our purpose, Congress needs to show it is ready to wield the stick.

What's odd about all this is that Corker makes all the right hawkish noises on Iran's nuclear program. This bill is "our last best sanctions before military [action]," Corker said, insisting that he "absolutely" favored a military strike if the diplomatic course failed. "A nuclear weaponized Iran is probably the greatest threat we face," Corker said. Given all that, it is odd that Corker would try to introduce an amendment that makes the U.S. Senate appear less than committed to tough sanctions.

The Iran sanctions legislation ultimately passed out of committee today by a unanimous (23-0) vote.

From an administration that made its bones arguing that our defense resources are stretched dangerously thin:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Iran Wednesday that the United States would extend a "defense umbrella" over its allies in the Persian Gulf if the Islamic Republic obtains a nuclear weapons capability.

Appearing on a Thai TV program, Clinton said the U.S. would also take steps to "upgrade the defense" of America's Gulf allies in such an event, a reference to stepped-up military aid to those countries.

I wonder what "upgraded defenses" the secretary is talking about. Missile defense technology, which the administration has lambasted as "unproven" and scheduled for heavy budget cuts, or our actual nuclear umbrella -- also due for drastic reduction? Most unnerving is that the Obama administration seems prepared for the inevitability of a nuclear Iran, and is already taking steps to mitigate the expected mass destabilization that would result from a successful Iranian atomic test. No wonder the Israelis are worried.

Back in 2007, US intelligence officials -- fearing an overestimation of WMD capabilities similar to Iraq circa 2002 -- severely lowballed their analysis of Iran's nuclear weapons program. Their product, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, put the Bush administration on the defensive and claimed that the Iranians had stopped work on the development of a nuclear warhead. Two years later, vindication comes from a most unlikely source: German intelligence.

President Obama has committed to trying diplomacy to stop the Iranian bomb. Time, though, is on the mullahs' side, not least because so much of it was wasted after the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate made the improbable case that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. This assessment not only contradicted previous U.S. intelligence consensus but -- as recent court documents show -- also the conclusions of a key U.S. ally with excellent sources in Iran -- Germany.

The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, has amassed evidence of a sophisticated Iranian nuclear weapons program that continued beyond 2003. This usually classified information comes courtesy of Germany's highest state-security court. In a 30-page legal opinion on March 26 and a May 27 press release in a case about possible illegal trading with Iran, a special national security panel of the Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe cites from a May 2008 BND report, saying the agency "showed comprehensively" that "development work on nuclear weapons can be observed in Iran even after 2003."

Iran still clings to the lie that their program exists for peaceful purposes. But even a disinterested observer can draw the obvious connections between their aggressive development of atomic weaponry and the near identical behavior of neophyte nuclear power, North Korea. Both booted UN weapon inspectors a few years prior to their program reaching full maturation, both initially claimed that they wanted nuclear power, not nuclear bombs. Both are laboring intensively to develop a delivery system capable of reaching targets as far away as the continental United States and both have easily circumvented UN sanctions designed to halt bomb construction.

Just like the 2007 NIE, the North Korean nuclear program during the 1990s had its share of intelligence community naysayers. President Obama, with his strategy of diplomatic engagement, is traveling down the same road as President Clinton without differentiating between the intentions of the two nations. The Norks wanted a bomb to extort regional power players into sustaining their dying regime, a successful strategy during the Clinton and Bush years. The Iranians, however, have guarded their weapon program with furious secrecy and don't need UN sanctions scrubbed to survive. That's evidence enough that they have no intention of trading away their program at President Obama's bargaining table.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said today that the US government is very concerned about the five Quds Force operatives released from US custody and transferred to Iraq.

According to the AP, Kelly "told reporters that the U.S. released the five to the Iraqi government because it was obliged to do so under a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that took effect several months ago."

If it's true that the US was indeed "obliged" to release terrorists responsible for funding, equipping and training those killing American soldiers, we should not call it a "security agreement." And if it's not true, and they could have been held longer, then this decision is bewildering.

Republicans on both the House and Senate intelligence committees have asked the administration for more information.

The Obama administration has decided to release five Iranian Quds Force operatives held in Iraq for 18 months on suspicions that they facilitated terrorist attacks in Iraq.

Stunning.

Less than 24 hours after Barack Obama's strongest statement on Iran, three new stories underscore his administration's fundamentally weak approach to the terrorist regime and offer hints as to why he has been so eager to engage the mullahs. First, a Washington Times article by former USA Today reporter Barbara Slavin reveals that the Obama administration sent a letter directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in early May. According to the report, the letter laid out the administration's desire for "cooperation and bilateral relations."

In a related piece of news, NBC's "First Read" contacted the White House seeking comment on the report. "We have indicated a willingness to talk for a long time and have sought to communicate with the Iranians in a variety of ways. We have made it clear that any real dialogue -- multilateral or bilateral -- needed to be authoritative. Not gonna get into the specifics of our different ways of communicating, but there is an outstanding direct request from the Perm 5 plus 1 that was made on April 8th. The Iranians have yet to respond to that."

That means that the White House, having had its multilateral request ignored, decided to have President Obama open a direct line of communication seeking negotiations on Iran's nuclear program and "cooperation in regional and bilateral relations." In his sermon at Friday prayers last week, Khamenei
accused Obama of fomenting unrest in Iran -- something Obama went out of his way to avoid -- and then used the letter to accuse Obama of double-talk. "On the one hand, they [the Obama administration] write a letter to us to express their respect for the Islamic Republic and for re-establishment of ties, and on the other hand they make these remarks," he said, according to the Times.

So what did Obama write? There are many reasons not to believe Khamenei's characterization of the letter. Did Obama actually "express his respect for the Islamic Republic?" If so, how did he do this? And, better question, why?

As we've noted before, former CIA Director Michael Hayden said this during a Q&A session after a speech he gave last May at Kansas State University. "It is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to the highest levels of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq."

Did Obama seek to convey his respect for a government that has chosen, as a matter of policy, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq?

Now comes a blockbuster story from National Review's Andy McCarthy. He writes:

Even as the mullahs are terrorizing the Iranian people, the Obama administration is negotiating with an Iranian-backed terrorist organization and abandoning the American proscription against exchanging terrorist prisoners for hostages kidnapped by terrorists. Worse still, Obama has already released a terrorist responsible for the brutal murders of five American soldiers in exchange for the remains of two deceased British hostages.

Here's what happened:

About two weeks ago, the Obama administration released Laith Qazali after extensive negotiations with the Asaib al-Haq terror network. That network has long been in negotiations with the fledgling Iraqi government, dangling the possibility of laying down its arms, renouncing violence, and integrating into Iraqi society, provided that its top members — particularly Qais and Laith Qazali, as well as Ali Mussa Daqduq — be released. Realizing, however, that these terrorists were responsible for kidnapping and killing American soldiers in gross violation of the laws of war, the Bush administration had declined to release them.

The Obama administration has not only released Laith Qazali, it has been in negotiations to release his brother, Qais Qazali, as well. The negotiations and release were carried out in flagrant disregard of the longstanding policy against exchanging prisoners for the release of hostages. Undermining that policy endangers all American troops and civilian personnel — as well as the troops and civilian personnel of our allies — by encouraging terrorists to kidnap them to use as bargaining chips.

Surely the most transparent administration in history will release the letter sent to Khamenei, no? And surely they will explain the release of terrorists responsible for killing American soldiers, right?

If they don't, their silence will go a long way toward explaining Obama's week-long reluctance to offer anything that could have been interpreted as a criticism of the current regime.

Barack Obama's statement today on Iran was good. His answers to questions that followed were not.

Most interesting was his exchange with Chuck Todd of NBC News. Todd asked why Obama has refused to discuss consequences for the behavior of the Iranian regime, given Obama's stated concern about human rights abuses.

Obama's answer was blunt and unsatisfying, saying that he won't talk about consequences because "“we don’t know how this is going to play out."

That misses the point. The reason to talk about consequences is, at least in part, because it offers an opportunity to influence how this is going to play out. It may be the case that there are few potential consequences from the international community that could affect regime behavior. But if that's the case -- and given the regime's support for terror, its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, its theft of the election, and its violent suppression of the protests -- doesn't that make it more urgent for the international community to at least try to affect behavior and at least raise the possibility that there will come a time when the world refuses to recognize the current regime?

The protesters themselves seem to understand this and -- in interviews and in statements on their signs, etc. -- they have implored the United States to withhold recognition of the corrupt regime still attempting to hold onto power.

Obama said that it was more important for the Iranian regime to demonstrate its legitimacy to the Iranian people than to the international community and the United States. The regime cannot do this, of course, because the election was fraudulent, something Obama still refuses to acknowledge, preferring simply to observe that many Iranians think the election was illegitimate. Passive, again. So much for his promise to "remake the world once again," and to "help answer the call for a new dawn in the Middle East.”

"When will Mr. Ahmadinejad be considered not legitimate in the eyes of his people?" asked Asar Nafisi, a viisiting Professor at Johns Hopkins and author of "Reading Lolita in Tehran," in an interview on CNN after the press conference.

Good question.

The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days. I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost.

I have made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not at all interfering in Iran’s affairs. But we must also bear witness to the courage and dignity of the Iranian people, and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society. And we deplore violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place.

The Iranian people are trying to have a debate about their future. Some in the Iranian government are trying to avoid that debate by accusing the United States and others outside of Iran of instigating protests over the elections. These accusations are patently false and absurd. They are an obvious attempt to distract people from what is truly taking place within Iran’s borders. This tired strategy of using old tensions to scapegoat other countries won’t work anymore in Iran. This is not about the United States and the West; this is about the people of Iran, and the future that they – and only they – will choose.

The Iranian people can speak for themselves. That is precisely what has happened these last few days. In 2009, no iron fist is strong enough to shut off the world from bearing witness to the peaceful pursuit of justice. Despite the Iranian government’s efforts to expel journalists and isolate itself, powerful images and poignant words have made their way to us through cell phones and computers, and so we have watched what the Iranian people are doing.

This is what we have witnessed. We have seen the timeless dignity of tens of thousands Iranians marching in silence. We have seen people of all ages risk everything to insist that their votes are counted and their voices heard. Above all, we have seen courageous women stand up to brutality and threats, and we have experienced the searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets. While this loss is raw and painful, we also know this: those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people have a universal right to assembly and free speech. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect those rights, and heed the will of its own people. It must govern through consent, not coercion. That is what Iran’s own people are calling for, and the Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government.

There are some things to quibble with, but this is much, much better.

The White House released a paper statement from President Obama this afternoon, for the first time calling directly on the Iranian regime to "stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people."

Statement from the President on Iran

The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

Martin Luther King once said - “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.

Good for him.

In an interview with the Washington Post's Foreign Policy blog, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, described as Mir Hussein Mousavi's "external spokesman," had some sharp words for President Barack Obama's recent comments about the demonstrations in Tehran. But Makhmalbaf also said some things that could make it even more difficult for Obama to maintain his passive, pro-stability approach to the ongoing struggle for power in Iran.

FP: There has been growing criticism here in Washington that U.S. President Barack Obama hasn't said or done enough to support those demonstrating in the streets of Iran. Do you think Obama is being too careful? Or even that he is helping Ahmadinejad by being cautious?

MM: Obama has said that there is no difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. Does he like it himself [when someone is] saying that there is no difference between Obama and [George W.] Bush? Ahmadinejad is the Bush of Iran. And Mousavi is the Obama of Iran.

One assumes that if Obama's full-throated support for the protesters would do great damage to their cause, as many Obama defenders have suggested, Mousavi's spokesman might have taken the opportunity to say so. He didn't.

And later, in what could also be understood as rebuke of Obama -- who has gone to great lengths to avoid saying anything casting doubt on the legitimacy of the Ahmadinejad government and who, in his comments on CNBC earlier this week repeatedly referred to the thuggish regime as "the Iranian government" -- Makhmalbaf asked the international community not to recognize the government of Ahmadinejad as a legitimate government.

FP: Does Mousavi have a message that he'd like to deliver to the international community?

MM: [He asks] that the governments [of the world] pay attention to the people in the streets and do not recognize the government of Ahmadinejad as the representative of Iran -- [that they] do not recognize the government of Ahmadinejad as a legitimate government.

And later, in the same answer, Makhmalbaf offered a view that contradicts claims from some Obama supporters that the outcome of these elections is just an Iranian matter.

Earlier today, for example, John Kerry wrote: "We can’t escape the reality that for reformers in Tehran to have any hope for success, Iran’s election must be about Iran — not America. And if the street protests of the last days have taught us anything, it is that this is an Iranian moment, not an American one."

That, of course, is a straw man. No one has made such an argument. Many of those who want Obama to take a stronger public position against the fraudulent elections and in favor of the protesters want him to do so not to make this an American moment, but so that the American president might simply recognize the importance -- to Iran and to the world -- of this Iranian moment. (And some of us have even called it the Iranian Moment.)

In any case, the spokesman for Mousavi, the man at the center of those streets protests of these last days, says it it not just about Iran, but the world.

Iran is a very important country in the region, and the changes in Iran could have an influence everywhere. So as a result, it's not only an internal matter -- it's an international problem. If Iran could be a democratic Islamic country, that would be a pattern, a role model, for other Islamic countries. And even if Iran has a terrorist image [today], it would be a model for other countries [in the future].

Perhaps the most interesting comments from Makhmalbaf came when he was asked what he told Europeans on a recent trip to the European Parliament. "I asked the European Parliament to listen to the voice of the people of Iran who are in the streets. They don't want Ahmadinejad. They don't want nuclear bombs. They don't want atomic bombs. They want peace in the world and democracy in Iran."

This may or may not be true. (See here for some polling on the issue.) And Mousavi was prime minister when Iran's secret nuclear program began and he said during the campaign that he would not suspend uranium enrichment.

Still, he signaled a willingness to negotiate about Iran's nuclear program. Before the election there were many reasons to be pessimistic about the likely success of any nuclear negotiations with Iran (and good reasons to avoid engaging in them with Ahmadinejad).

But now, from an American perspective, there is now a big difference in what the two sides in Iran are saying about nuclear weapons. It may just be rhetoric. But, in my view, virtually any outcome is better than more President Ahmadinejad. And on the unlikely chance that it's not just rhetoric -- can President Obama afford to stay neutral?

John Kerry, who lost the 2004 presidential election and despite having been and early and outspoken supporter of Barack Obama was passed over for any of the plum jobs in the new Democratic administration, has taken to the op-ed pages of the New York Times to write about Iran.

Not surprisingly, he approves of President Obama's decision to position the United States a passive observer of the ongoing tumult in Iran. Kerry laments the "clamor from neoconservatives urging President Obama to denounce the voting as a sham and insert ourselves directly in Iran’s unrest." Kerry chides John McCain, whom he sought as a runningmate in 2004, for urging the president to place himself squarely on the side of the protesters. Those who offer such advice, Kerry suggests with something of a verbal pat on the head, are merely responding "emotionally." As if to underscore the condescension, Kerry's piece runs under the headline: "With Iran, Think Before You Speak."

Was Kerry thinking on Monday? At a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Kerry, perhaps responding emotionally, did precisely what the dreaded neoconservatives have been clamoring for from President Obama: He directly questioned the results of the sham election.

"I share the concern of many in Iran and around the world that the results of Iran's presidential election appear not to reflect the will of the Iranian people," he said in his prepared remarks.

And later, in a question-and-answer session with former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, Kerry went further, calling the results "hard to defend," pointing out with skepticism that the regime claims to have carried "Mousavi's hometown," and flatly saying of Ahmadinejad's winning margin, "I don't buy it."

MR. BROKAW: Let me pick up, if I can, on your opening remarks about Iran and see if we can work our way through that, if you will, at the outset. Do we have any evidence within what passes for our intelligence community of massive fraud in the election or is it still a case of we just don't know what's going on there?

SEN. KERRY: The evidence that we have, obviously, are the homeland data that people had, the firsthand anecdotal accounts of people who were there observing, the intensity of the last weeks of the campaign, and I think the reaction of the people themselves. I think it's not insignificant that the Supreme Ayatollah has now backed off of his initial quote, you know, "clean slate ratification" and has now said there will be some kind of investigation, and I find that very, very significant. I think we're just going to have to let this play out.

MR. BROKAW: Cautionary tale from me, having been there and having watched the last election, is that when we get reporters into Iran, they're mostly confined to Tehran, to the urban areas, and you talk about a blue state/red state differentiation. The rural areas of Iran which elected Ahmadinejad last time, we can't get to. We don't know what goes on out there and there is a massive population out there as well.

Is it possible that most of what we're seeing, which is coming from the streets of Tehran and the more cosmopolitan population, the university students, the more progressive, Western-looking Persians, are getting most of the attention and in the rural areas they're going and voting for the regime that—

SEN. KERRY: Well, it's my understanding, Tom, that about 30 percent of Iran's population is quote "rural" that would be more affected. Seventy percent is effectively urban in one form or another, so I don't buy that notion. I also don't buy it in the sense that allegedly --

MR. BROKAW: Sixty-five percent -- (inaudible) --

SEN. KERRY: Well, not only the margin, but allegedly they carried Mousavi's key areas including his home town. A little hard to defend, so I think there's real cause for concern here that, you know, what we're able to do about it is limited.

If Kerry would have offered some words of support -- not just admiration -- for the protesters he would have sounded a lot like the "neoconservatives" calling for the president to "denounced the voting as a sham."

It's almost as if he was for denouncing the Iranian election before he was against it.

In an interview with CNBC yesterday, President Obama once again went out of his way to downplay the protests on the streets of Iran.

"Well, I think first of all, it's important to understand that although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, that the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised."

If Obama had made this statement before the election, it would have been accurate. And perhaps it's still true. But there is always the possibility that Mousavi becomes the leader the protesters rallying on the streets -- many of them in his name -- want him to be. (And it's worth pointing out that Joe Klein, who has praised Obama's handling of the current crisis, acknowledges the difference between the two on nuclear weapons, though he says, accurately, that the mullahs are the ones that matter.)

But the bigger question is why, with millions of Iranians protesting Ahmadinejad's repressive rule, Obama would say anything that would be seen as diminishing those efforts? Does he actually prefer Ahmadinejad?

Many Iranians are on the streets for two reasons: 1) they believe the election was fraudulent, or, 2) they support Mousavi.

Obama has said that he admires the protesters, but never that he supports them. And he has carefully avoided directly casting doubt on the election results (only acknowledging that others believe this). He has pretended that the "investigation" into the outcome will be a serious undertaking. And now he needlessly undercuts Mousavi?

His policy is regime preservation. And it's a disgrace.

UPDATE: See Jennifer Rubin, smart as usual, here.

Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett have a new opinion piece up at Politico. "Ahmadinejad won. Get over it."

The piece largely recycles arguments from Flynt Leverett's post-election interview with Spiegel online and their troubling New York Times op-ed from three weeks ago that was rather generous to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (See here for a discussion of those arguments.)

In their new piece, the Leveretts do not address many of the serious, substantive, detailed charges of voter fraud that have been leveled at the Iranian regime. And while they attempt to explain why, in their view, Ahmadinejad's victory was plausible, (he "artfully quoted Azeri and Turkish poetry," among other reasons) they do not bother to answer some simple questions about the results. For instance, is it likely that Mohsen Rezai, an opposition candidate, earned one tenth of Ahmadinejad's total in Rezai's own hometown?

And there is another oddity. The Leveretts point to a pre-election poll conducted by a nonprofit called "Terror Free Tomorrow" to buttress their argument. They write: "The one poll conducted before Friday’s election by a Western organization that was transparent about its methodology – a telephone poll carried out by the Washington-based Terror-Free Tomorrow (TFT) during May 11-20 – found Ahmadinejad running 20 points ahead of Mousavi."

What they fail to mention is that the poll was co-sponsored by the organization that employs Flynt Leverett, the New America Foundation. As this CBS News story reports: "The poll was conducted for Terror Free Tomorrow, a bipartisan group that tries to undermine support for terrorism, and for the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute. Both are based in Washington." (An op-ed by staffers at both TFT and the New America Foundation appears in today's Washington Post. In language that echoes the Leveretts, they argue that "Allegations of fraud and electoral manipulation will serve to further isolate Iran and are likely to increase its belligerence and intransigence against the outside world.")

Why wouldn't Leverett, who is identified as the director of the New America Foundation's Iran project, simply mention that his organization sponsored the poll?

Further, the poll itself is problematic for several reasons -- most especially because 52 percent of Iranians surveyed did not express a preference. So, as Jon Cohen of the Washington Post notes:

the poll that appears in today's op-ed shows a 2 to 1 lead in the thinnest sense: 34 percent of those polled said they'd vote for Ahmadinejad, 14 percent for Mousavi. That leaves 52 percent unaccounted for. In all, 27 percent expressed no opinion in the election, and another 15 percent refused to answer the question at all. Six Eight percent said they'd vote for none of the listed candidates; the rest for minor candidates.

What's more, he says that while the survey's methodology "passes muster" it was "conducted from May 11 to 20, well before the spike in support for Mousavi his supporters claim."

(H/T Andrew Sullivan)

Interesting reporting again from Robert A. Worth at the New York Times.

The main Iranian opposition on Monday postponed a major rally to challenge the disputed presidential election, as the country’s supreme leader called for calm after days of street protests.

In an unusual broadcast repeated every 15 minutes on state radio, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, was quoted as telling the main opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, to pursue his objections to the election result calmly and legally.

The broadcast said that at a meeting on Sunday night, Mr. Khamenei told Mr. Moussavi, “Naturally, in this election, complaints should be followed through legal channels” adding that Mr. Khamenei told Mr. Moussavi to “follow the issue calmly.”

The radio also said Mr. Khamenei had instructed the powerful Guardian Council to examine opposition complaints of widespread electoral irregularities. Earlier, Mr. Khamenei said the vote, which gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an overwhelming victory, had been fair.

It was not clear whether Mr. Moussavi had been influenced by the call for calm or by fears of renewed official violence against his supporters if the protest went ahead.

Barack Obama once believed that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable. He no longer says this. Obama's rhetoric on Iran today is noticeably softer than it was during the presidential campaign. That's striking, since he ran first to the left of Hillary Clinton, then to the left of John McCain and always in opposition to George W. Bush.

Jennifer Rubin has a terrific post that traces the softening.

Ben Smith links to an interview with Flynt Leverett, former National Security Council staff member and an Obama supporter. Says Leverett: "The fact is: Ahmadinejad won."

It's worth remembering the rather extraordinary opinion piece that Leverett, together with his wife, Hillary Mann Leverett, co-authored three weeks ago. The Leveretts argued that Obama's Iran policy had likely already "failed" because, well, Obama had been far too tough on the Iranian regime.

They praised Obama for his language in a New Year's message to "the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran," in which Obama sought "to assuage Iranian skepticism about America’s willingness to end efforts to topple the regime and pursue comprehensive diplomacy."

Since then, they argued, things have gone sour. The Obama administration, with prominent Iran hawks like Hillary Clinton and Dennis Ross in important roles, has been far too confrontational. Most egregiously, Obama "has done nothing to cancel or repudiate an ostensibly covert but well-publicized program, begun in President George W. Bush’s second term, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to destabilize the Islamic Republic."

Right. Wouldn't want to destabilize the world's foremost state sponsor of terror -- a regime threatening the extinction of a key ally, racing ahead on nuclear weapons, and directly responsible for the death of Americans in Iraq.

Elsewhere, the Leveretts argued that the imprisonment of journalist Roxana Saberi was simply Iran's reaction to concerns about regime change. In describing the U.S. posture toward Iran, they called wrote of "the perceived threat from Iran." They also argued that Ayatollah Khameni's complaints about America in Iraq were driven by "legitimate concern about American intentions." (It's worth pausing here to recall what former CIA Director Mike Hayden said a year ago: "It is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to the highest levels of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq.")

That's important context for Leverett's argument now -- in the face of widespread and convincing claims that the election was fraudulent -- that Ahmadinejad really won.

Even now, in his interview with Der Spiegel, Leverett is -- what's the word for it -- forgiving of Ahmadinejad's rhetoric and actions. Leverett says Ahmadinejad "is even prepared for a dialogue with Washington under the right circumstances, as he stated earlier."

That's interesting: Obama, who has reiterated his willingness to negotiate without preconditions is being too hawkish on Iran, and Ahmadinejad, who has said he will only participate in such a dialogue under the circumstances he chooses, is the reasonable one?

The New York Times's Robert Worth, whose work from Iran over the last several days has been terrific, has another article today detailing the extent of the resistance inspired by the election results and providing a reminder of past manipulation.

The streets of Iran’s capital erupted in the most intense protests in a decade on Saturday, with riot police officers using batons and tear gas against opposition demonstrators who claimed that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had stolen the presidential election.

Dozens of reformist politicians were said to have been arrested at their homes overnight, according to news reports on Sunday and a witness who worked with the politicians. There were also reports of politicians and clerics being placed under house arrest.

Reuters quoted a judiciary spokesman on Sunday as saying that the reformists had not been arrested but had been summoned, “warned not to increase tension” and released.

Meanwhile, some foreign journalists were apparently being told to leave the country.

Witnesses reported that at least one person had been shot dead on Saturday in clashes with the police in Vanak Square in Tehran. Smoke from burning vehicles and tires hung over the city late Saturday.

Reports from other cities included descriptions of similar scenes. Videos (posted below and elsewhere) depict police trying desperately to quell the growing unrest, in some cases resorting to severe beatings.

Worth reminds his readers that voter manipulation is nothing new.

In 2005, when Mr. Karroubi was also a candidate for president, he accused the government of rigging the vote in Mr. Ahmadinejad’s favor. In that election, the government announced when polls closed that there would probably be a runoff between two of three candidates, a reform candidate and a former police chief.

But by 7 a.m. the next day, a spokesman for the Guardian Council, a clerical oversight panel that is not supposed to be involved in vote counting, announced that Mr. Ahmadinejad was in first place. Mr. Karroubi’s charges were never investigated.

The turmoil on Saturday followed an extraordinary night in which the Iranian state news agency announced that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won by a vast margin just two hours after the polls closed. The timing alone provoked deep suspicion here, because the authorities have never before announced election results until the following morning. Mr. Moussavi also announced Friday night that he believed he had won by a wide margin.

Mr. Moussavi also complained about irregularities and unfairness in the election, saying there had been a lack of ballots in many areas and that some of his campaign offices had been attacked and his Web sites shut down.

The official results prompted further skepticism, in part because Mr. Ahmadinejad was said to have won by large margins even in his opponents’ hometowns. Mr. Rezai’s hometown, for example, gave him less than a tenth of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s total there, the Interior Ministry said.

“The administration will deal with the situation we have, not what we wish it to be.”

That's what a senior Obama administration official told Mark Landler of The New York Times.

Of course there is a third, less passive, option. The president could seek to affect that situation. He is the most powerful man alive, after all, and a man whose transformative words, his supporters tell us, can change the world. His Cairo speech, we were told, was just the beginning.

In his passage on democracy, Obama started by saying that no form of government should imposed. He then positioned himself an unapologetic advocate of democratic governance. He spoke of: "Power through consent, not coercion;" a "commitment" to "governments that reflect the will of the people;" a pledge to "welcome all elected, peaceful governments – provided they govern with respect for all their people;" and an "unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose."

And yet in the face of what appears to be a plainly fraudulent election in Iran, the most his administration can muster is a flaccid statement from the press secretary praising the enthusiasm of those whose votes are being discarded and promising to monitor reports of "irregularities." (Hillary Clinton also offered a meaningless comment.)

The relative silence is disappointing enough. Worse, though, are the comments from administration officials in Landler's article pledging to engage Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's illegitimate government. Even if that's true, why talk about it at a moment when there is a chance -- fleeting though it might be -- to further delegitimize and destabilize that dangerous regime? If you are a student in Tehran or a reformer in Isfahan thinking about risking your life to join other protesters on the streets, why would you do it?

Administration officials talk about their belief in "smart power." But what good is "smart power" if you don't exercise it?

Barack Obama should give another speech. Soon, maybe tomorrow. He should address this one to the people of Iran, whose eagerness for a political voice – a real political voice – is obvious in the photographs and reports from the streets of Tehran in the last 24 hours.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s supposedly decisive victory over Mir Hussein Moussavi is almost certainly fraudulent. Most reports over the final week of the campaign suggested that either Moussavi would win outright, by earning more than 50 percent of the votes cast, or that he and Ahmadinejad would go head-to-head in a second election next week. Instead, Iran’s Interior Ministry claims that Ahmadinejad won some 63 percent of the vote to Moussavi’s 34 percent. Unlikely.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs put out a rather limp statement early Saturday afternoon: “Like the rest of the world, we were impressed by the vigorous debate and enthusiasm that this election generated, particularly among young Iranians. We continue to monitor the entire situation closely, including reports of irregularities.”

Shouldn’t the United States government be doing more than monitoring irregularities?

Let’s take the claims of President Obama and his supporters at face value. Let’s assume they are correct that his speech in Cairo, together with the mere fact of his presidency, has given the United States momentum in the region. Let’s assume that Obama meant what he said when he called for a “new beginning” for the region and relations with the United States.

Isn’t now the time to consolidate and build on those gains by using that popularity to destabilize Ahmadinejad and the hardliners in Iran? He does not need to call openly for an uprising, but he should be taking the accounts of reporters and our intelligence operatives in Iran and broadcasting them to the world. He should be amplifying the voices of the Iranians who have, once again, been deprived of any say in how they will be governed, and using them to pressure the Iranian regime at a time when it is plainly very fragile.

The scenes are dramatic. According to the New York Times:

After a mostly quiet morning in Tehran, Moussavi supporters began filtering onto the streets. By early afternoon, thousands had come together, many of them wearing the trademark green of his campaign, chanting angrily that they would fight on as Mr. Moussavi had urged them to do on Friday night when he claimed that he had won and that there had been voting “irregularities.”

Moussavi is not a moderate. He is a proponent of terror, an advocate of Iran’s nuclear program and an anti-Semite who has called for the destruction of Israel. There are many reasons to be skeptical that he would bring serious change to Iran’s foreign policy, if any. But since he was declared the loser in yesterday’s contest, he has boldly challenged the results and, by extension, the mullahs. More from the Times:

“I am the absolute winner of the election by a very large margin,” Mr. Moussavi said during a news conference with reporters just after 11 p.m. Friday, adding: “It is our duty to defend people’s votes. There is no turning back.”

A statement posted on Mr. Moussavi’s Web site on Saturday morning urged his supporters to resist a "governance of lie and dictatorship," according to The Associated Press.

And:

"I’m warning that I won’t surrender to this manipulation," he said, adding that the election outcome “is nothing but shaking the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran sacred system and governance of lie and dictatorship."

He warned "people won’t respect those who take power through fraud" and said the decision to declare Mr. Ahmadinejad the winner was a "treason to the votes of the people."

This is stunning defiance in a police state. (And perhaps the most interesting sentence in the Times article was the one that reported Moussavi's whereabouts were unknown.) Moussavi's supporters and others are following his lead, protesting in the streets despite the very obvious and serious risks of doing so.

Obama could tap into the enthusiasm and frustration of the protesters with a few well-chosen words about democracy, the rule of law, the will of the people, consent of the governed and legitimacy. He could choose a compelling story or two from inside Iran to make his points most dramatically, perhaps an anecdote about sacrifices some Iranians made to vote or an example of post-election intimidation.

When Barack Obama was elected, his supporters promised that his foreign policy would seek to effect important change in the world without using force, that he would deploy soft power – or, as Hillary Clinton put it during her confirmation, “smart power.”

Now is the time.

Time magazine reports that Israel's January attack on an Iranian arms shipment through the Sudanese desert consisted of a strike package of "dozens of aircraft." The successful raid, which was a fusion of UAVs for recce work, F-15i fighters for air superiority, F-16's for ground attack, and tanker aircraft to extend fighter range, was thrown together with less than a week's planning. The Israeli Air Force, legendary for their boldness, even went so far as to fly their KC-130H tankers on a refueling track above the Red Sea, wedged between Egyptian and Saudi airspace -- no small feat, considering the Egyptians fly very similar variants of the Israeli F-16 and the Saudis fly AWACs guided F-15s.

Interestingly enough, the distance in nautical mileage between Israel and Khartoum is roughly the same as Israel and Tehran, demonstrating that the IAF has a combat-tested lethality at ranges of 2,000nm or more. Now that doesn't quite solve the question of a safe ingress/egress route into and out of Iranian airspace, nor does it address the issue of the sophisticated Iranian integrated air defense network. But it does prove that the Israelis have the legs (and the chutzpa) to transverse thousands of miles over hostile territory to break stuff that makes them nervous. This attack was for a weapons convoy porting small arms and short-range rockets. One can only speculate what type of strike package the IAF is dreaming up for a full blown nuclear weapons program.

In a speech on Saturday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded directly to Barack Obama's video mash note from late last week. According to the Associated Press: "Khamenei, wearing a black turban and dark robes, said America was hated around the world for its arrogance, as the crowd chanted 'Death to America.'"

Hmmm, so much for Obama's commitment to a showing of "mutual respect" between his administration and the terror-sponsoring mullahs.

Khamenei: "Have you released Iranian assets? Have you lifted oppressive sanctions? Have you given up mudslinging and making accusations against the great Iranian nation and its officials? Have you given up your unconditional support for the Zionist regime? Even the language remains unchanged."

The story reports that Khamenei "enumerated a long list of Iranian grievances against the United States over the past 30 years and said the U.S. was still interfering in Iranian affairs."

Khamenei complains that Obama used his speech to accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear technology and supporting terrorism. But Obama's speech was notable precisely because it did not include any such direct accusation.

Obama strongest rhetoric noted only that Iran must understand that the path to its "rightful place in the community of nations...cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions."

As Bill Kristol points out:

So there's no reiteration of the demand--heretofore the position not just of the United States but of its European allies--that Iran stop its program for developing nuclear weapons in return for such constructive ties. After all, to demand a stop to the program is implicitly to threaten that there might be consequences if the program isn't stopped--and Obama doesn't believe in threats. He believes that we should speak nicely to our enemies, and carry no stick.

TNR's Michael Crowley has a different view, calling Obama's speech "shrewd."

In a post from yesterday morning, before Khamenei's speech, he wrote: "If and when the time comes when he finds himself seeking harsh new sanctions--and conceivably even support for military action--against Iran to halt its nuclear program, America will have far more leverage if Obama can say that he made good-faith efforts at dialogue and was rebuffed."

That may be true, but it's leverage the US will almost certainly never use. For all of Obama's talk about a nuclear Iran being unacceptable, he has shown little enthusiasm for doing much of anything (other than renewing already existing sanctions) to prevent it. It is virtually inconceivable that he would feel the need to rally support for a preemptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Crowley concludes: "Thus, every gesture like today's gives the U.S. more credibility around the world, and puts the Iranians on the defensive if they don't reciprocate. Which may be why Tehran is responding in such a muddled and uncertain fashion."

Khamenei's speech takes Tehran's response from "muddled and uncertain" to defiant and hostile. It suggests that Khamenei, far from being put on the defensive, sees the U.S. in a position of weakness. And why shouldn't he after Obama's ingratiatory message.

A former high-ranking German military official says that Iran was behind the joint North Korean-Syrian nuclear facility inside Syria that was destroyed in September 2007. According to the AP story:

An Iranian defector told the West that Iran was financing North Korean moves to transform Syria into a nuclear weapons power, leading to the Israeli airstrike that destroyed a secret reactor, a report said Thursday.

The report, written by Hans Ruehle, former chief of the planning staff of the German Defense Ministry, details an Iranian connection and fills in gaps about Israel's Sept. 6, 2007, raid that knocked out Syria's nearly completed Al Kabir reactor.

Ali Reza Asghari, a retired general in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards and a former deputy defense minister, "changed sides" in February 2007 and provided considerable information to the West on Iran's own nuclear program, Ruehle said in his article in the Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung.

"The biggest surprise, however, was his assertion that Iran was financing a secret nuclear project of Syria and North Korea," he said. "No one in the American intelligence scene had heard anything of it. And the Israelis who were immediately informed also were completely unaware."

Although no one would confirm this directly when the existence of the site was reported several months after the Israeli strike, several people I spoke to suggested Iranian involvement.

Looks like a clenched fist to me.

Barack Obama recorded a videotaped message in celebration of Nowruz. Obama spoke directly to the leaders of Iran.

So in this season of new beginnings I would like to speak clearly to Iran's leaders. We have serious differences that have grown over time. My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.

You, too, have a choice. The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right -- but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.

Haven't Iran's leaders made that choice? They are supporting Hamas, Hezbollah, and yes, al Qaeda.

According to the State Department's list of state sponsors of terror:

Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism. Its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) were directly involved in the planning and support of terrorist acts and continued to exhort a variety of groups, especially Palestinian groups with leadership cadres in Syria and Lebanese Hizballah, to use terrorism in pursuit of their goals. In addition, the IRGC was increasingly involved in supplying lethal assistance to Iraqi militant groups, which destabilizes Iraq.

And, as former CIA Director Mike Hayden put it before he left: "It is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to the highest levels of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq."

It's become uncool to remind people of these inconvenient facts. But they are facts. And ignoring them is dangerous.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke at the US Capitol today. His message on Iran was, well, incomplete: "And our shared message to Iran is simple - we are ready for you to rejoin the world community. But first, you must cease your threats and suspend your nuclear programme. And we will work tirelessly with all those in the international community who are ready to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation."

Iran does not have to cease its support for terrorist groups, apparently, so long as stops with the threats and the nukes. So supporting Hamas, Hezbollah and yes, al Qaeda, is "not a barrier to rejoining the world community."

Hillary Clinton, in comments today in Brussels, at least mentioned terrorism, even if her language was weak. But she breezed right by that troubling detail to announce, once again, that the Obama administration wants to engage Iran.

"It is clear that Iran intends to interfere with the internal affairs of all of these people and try to continue their efforts to fund terrorism whether it is Hezbollah or other proxies. We have said consistently that we are ready to engage but we want to make sure it is constructive and that goes for Afghanistan and it goes for all the rest of the region."

Iran is, in fact, funding terrorism -- not just "making efforts to fund terrorism." Secretary Clinton would know this if she consulted the State Department's list of state sponsors of terror.

Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism. Its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) were directly involved in the planning and support of terrorist acts and continued to exhort a variety of groups, especially Palestinian groups with leadership cadres in Syria and Lebanese Hizballah, to use terrorism in pursuit of their goals. In addition, the IRGC was increasingly involved in supplying lethal assistance to Iraqi militant groups, which destabilizes Iraq.

And, as former CIA Director Mike Hayden put it before he left: "It is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to the highest levels of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq."

Engagement is not an end in itself. And ignoring this reality in order to sit across the table from the Iranians may be a lot of things, but it is surely not "constructive."

Last year's assassination of Imad Mugniyah, Hezbollah's military commander who was wanted for his role in scores of high-profile attacks, was facilitated by the capture of a senior Hezbollah officer in Iraq, an Israeli newspaper reported.

The report claimed that important details used to plan the assassination were gathered from Ali Moussa Daqduq, a Hezbollah operative who was arrested in Iraq in January 2007, where he was allgedly training members of the Shiite Mahdi Army. He was handed to US intelligence agents, who extracted a wealth of information about Mugniyah from their prisoner, including his telephone numbers, his physical description, his behavioral traits and the names of his acquaintances.

The US then passed this information to the Israeli intelligence service, which began planning an operation to kill the Hezbollah military mastermind. The newspaper says a single mistake by Mugniyah led to his death. Israel received intelligence that he would be attending a reception hosted by Iran's new ambassador to Damascus to commemorate the 29th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Mugniyah had apparently eschewed his usual security detail for the event, traveling without his bodyguards or chauffeur, and had arrived at the reception alone. He had no idea that a Mossad hit squad was lying in wait for him. According to the newspaper, Israel had dispatched a team of agents tasked with killing Mugniyah to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq before the reception. The team slipped across the border into Syria in three vehicles and began monitoring their target the day before he died.

Mugniyah's assassination is arguably one of the biggest successes in the war. He was behind the single largest attack against Americans after the Sept. 11 strikes. Mugniyah engineered the suicide attacks in Beirut that killed 241 US Marines and and 58 French paratroopers in 1982. He also was behind the establishment of the Mahdi Army.

While the Iraq war is often derided as a victory for Iran as its influence in Iraq has increased, one thing that is never discussed is the new knowledge that has been obtained on Iran's operations, including that of its Qods Force and Hezbollah. The best way to gain knowledge of your enemy and its covert operations is to engage them in battle. The Mugniyah assassination is but one of multiple intelligence breakthroughs that has come from this war; others will not be evident for years to come.

The U.S. Treasury Department dropped a bombshell today when it sanctioned four al Qaeda operatives known to be operating in Iran. Osama bin Laden's son Sa'ad along with Mustafa Hamid, Muhammad Rab'a al Sayid al Bahtiti, and Ali Saleh Husain have been designated as terrorists under Executive Order 13224. All four men serve on al Qaeda's Shura Majlis, or executive council. Mustafa Hamid's dealings with Iran, which the Treasury provides great detail, are especially interesting.

A senior U.S. military intelligence official who tracks al Qaeda told me that Hamid is both "al Qaeda’s emir of Iran" and "al Qaeda’s ambassador to Iran." Here is how the Treasury described Hamid:

While living in Iran, Hamid was harbored by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which served as Hamid's point of contact for communications between al Qaeda and Iran...

In the mid-1990s, Mustafa Hamid reportedly negotiated a secret relationship between Osama Bin Laden and Iran, allowing many al Qaeda members safe transit through Iran to Afghanistan.

In the late 1990s, Mustafa Hamid passed communications between Osama bin Laden and the Government of Iran. When tensions were high between Iran and Afghanistan, Mustafa Hamid traveled multiple times from Kandahar to Tehran as an intermediary for the Taliban.

In late 2001, Mustafa Hamid was in Tehran delivering messages from the Taliban to the Government of Iran. Hamid also negotiated on behalf of al Qaeda in an attempt to relocate al Qaeda families to Iran. As part of this effort, senior al Qaeda member Abu Hafs the Mauritanian traveled with Hamid and two IRGC members to Tehran for meetings. Beginning in late 2001, the family of a senior al Qaeda military commander lived with Mustafa Hamid's family in Iran. Separately, in 2002 Mustafa Hamid facilitated contacts between the IRGC and another senior al Qaeda military commander. In mid-2003, Mustafa Hamid was arrested in Iran along with other al Qaeda members and associates.

The "arrests" were made after the 2003 bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia were directly traced back to al Qaeda's network in Iran (Sa'ad was involved the planning of this attack.) But the arrests were merely window dressing, as noted here at THE WEEKLY STANDARD back in 2005. Incidentally, in June 2008, the Treasury confirmed this when it sanctioned three al Qaeda financiers who operated from Iran and moved freely throughout the Middle East and South Asia well after 2003.

Not only has the Treasury linked Iran to al Qaeda, but it has linked the group to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Back in October 2007, the Treasury sanctioned the Qods Force, the special operations branch of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for providing "material support to the Taliban, Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC)." Hamas and Islamic Jihad are also Sunni terror groups.

We're constantly told that Shia Iran and Sunni al Qaeda would and could never cooperate due to the ideological differences between the two sects. But the Treasury, whose information is valuable in understanding al Qaeda's global network, shows this is patently false.

Brian Williams, anchorman and part-time earnest diplomat, needs to get back to reading the news. His blockbuster journalistic coup--scoring an interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--is a farce.

Maybe it was the heady trip to the Middle East and Europe with the man who will bring peace to our world. Maybe it’s just the giddiness of scoring an interview with an evil dictator. But geez, buddy, watch the tape. It looked like a Borat interview--with Williams playing the sucker.

“It was clear to all of us watching and listening,” Williams raved, that Ahmadinejad “brought with him a new approach.” What’s the “new approach”? Oh yeah, “mutual respect”. Uh, Brian, the Iranians have said roughly one hundred thousand times that if America drops all sanctions and embraces the Tehran regime including its support for terrorism, killing American soldiers, and its nuclear weapons program, then we could be friends.

Williams did press for an answer on the new “freeze for freeze” offer from the United States and European nations--a freeze on enrichment in exchange for a sanctions freeze. Ahmadinejad wasn’t game to answer that, instead touting his own “nonepaper” (no spell check in Iran) that even the New York Times ridiculed as an “open-ended, cost-free, high-level negotiating process” with no value. Getting no answer to his question, Williams seemed disinclined to pursue the issue, instead seeking opinions on whether Iran really is pursuing nuclear weapons (phew, they’re not) and why Ahmadinejad keeps wearing that tan jacket (seriously).

“And finally,” Williams chortled, “loosely paraphrased, one of the comments he gave us today on the bomb front he said `nuclear weapons are so 20th century.'” He forgot to add that terrorism is “so eighties”.

Iranian representatives said today that their country is done cooperating with UN investigators looking into its nuclear program. If past is prologue, the State Department is scrambling to determine what more the U.S. can give to the Islamic Republic.

Cannot be true, right? According to this article the U.S. will announce plans in the next month to establish a U.S.-interest section in Tehran. (H/T NRO.)

The sourcing on the story is thin, but it feels like a trial balloon. The story does note that William Burns, announced yesterday as the man Condoleezza Rice is sending to meet directly with Iran on nuclear matters, "said in testimony to Congress last week the United States was looking to opening up an interest section in Tehran but had not made a decision yet."

Those comments came in an exchange with Congresswoman Diane Watson from California. She said: "I understand that Secretary Rice said about the possible opening of a U.S. interests section in Iran and I'd like you to comment on that."

Burns responded that the U.S. was looking to "increase" its interactions with the Iranian people: "The idea of the intersection, as Secretary Rice suggested, is an interesting one. And it's one that's worth looking at carefully. I can't go beyond that in terms of, you know, talking about our internal deliberations."

Moments later, Burns acknowledged that "Iran remains the main supporter of international terrorism and continues to provide tangible support to Hezbollah, to Hamas, to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to any other extremist groups who threaten anybody's hopes for a better future in the Middle East."

So despite the fact that Iran has refused to suspend its uranium enrichment program, has been actively supplying EFPs killing American soldiers in Iraq and remains the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism, the Bush administration is considering an interest section in Tehran?

An important shift in the Bush administration's position on Iran in this AP story. The State Department's third-ranking official will meet directly with Iranian nuclear negotiators. The move reverses Condoleezza Rice's pledge not to negotiate directly with Iran until it suspends its uranium enrichment program, makes a mockery of George W. Bush's pledge to treat terrorist-sponsoring states the same way we treat terrorists, and, in what is becoming a disturbing pattern in the second term, rewards bad behavior from rogue states.

How will the Bush administration spin all of these collapses? Who knows? But one comment from a "US official" might give us a hint.

"This is a one-time event and he will be there to listen, not negotiate," the official told the AP.

A lot of bloggers are using the fact Iran photoshopped evidence of missile tests to draw an analogy to the administration's claims with respect to Iraq's stockpiling of WMD. The better analogy is to the Soviet Union, which featured papier maché missiles in Red Square parades to compel the United States to invest in unnecessary weapons. Iran's propaganda concerns what missiles it has, not whether it is trying to acquire nuclear technology. To say Iran isn't trying to acquire WMD simply because it doesn't yet have a missile of a particular range exhibits faulty reasoning. It also overlooks the fact that firing a missile at Europe or the United States is not the only way Iran could deploy a nuclear weapon. There is also the possibility Iran could give fissile material to terrorists -- the same ones it is already supporting in Iraq and Lebanon.

Even Europe thinks Obama is weak on Iran:

European officials are increasingly concerned that Sen. Barack Obama's campaign pledge to begin direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program without preconditions could potentially rupture U.S. relations with key European allies early in a potential Obama administration.

The U.N. Security Council has passed four resolutions demanding that Iran stop enriching uranium, each time highlighting the offer of financial and diplomatic incentives from a European-led coalition if Tehran suspends enrichment, a route to producing fuel for nuclear weapons. But Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has said he would make such suspension a topic for discussion with Iran, rather than a precondition for any negotiations to take place.

European officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they are wary of giving up a demand that has been so enshrined in U.N. resolutions, particularly without any corresponding concessions by Iran. ... "Dropping a unanimous Security Council condition would simply be interpreted by Iran and America's allies as unconditional surrender, and America's friends would view this as confirmation of America's basic unreliability," said François Heisbourg, a Paris-based military analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "A hell of a way to start a presidential term."

The most surprising thing about Iran's First Lady is that it appears Mahmoud Ahmadinejad found a woman who's actually shorter than he is. The tiny tyrant is no doubt a great source of inspiration to all the tireless workers at Willy Wonka's factory and up at the North Pole.

So Iran recently rejected the latest package of benefits proposed by European diplomats if it would stop enriching uranium for the duration of talks. Russia and China appear to be backing off even this precondition, but the United States, Britain and France are standing firm. That means Obama's position can now be described as to the left of France and perhaps slightly to the right of China.

Seymour Hersh's latest opus focuses on the threat posed by Iran. He cites no reason to doubt that Iran's nuclear enrichment program is strictly for civilian use, and he fails to ask what conceivable reason a country with Iran's oil reserves could have for nuclear power other than to build a weapon. If the Iranian government were peaceful-minded, for example, wouldn't it instead invest in increasing its refining capacity? And perhaps stop saying it wanted to destroy the United States and Israel?

In Hersh's head, the notion that Iran is openly hostile to the U.S., killing our soldiers in Iraq, is something of a mass delusion on the part of the Bush administration. Consider the following paragraph:

[T]he Administration also revived charges that the Iranian leadership has been involved in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq: both directly, by dispatching commando units into Iraq, and indirectly, by supplying materials used for roadside bombs and other lethal goods. (There have been questions about the accuracy of the claims; the Times, among others, has reported that “significant uncertainties remain about the extent of that involvement.”)

The Times article, however, makes plain several points Hersh implies are in dispute. First, the piece confirms, "Iran's Quds Force had developed a formal and sophisticated training program that included five courses on tactics, leadership, training, commando operations and weapons and explosives." Second, it cites interviews with "two dozen military, intelligence and administration officials" in reporting that Iran's "shipments of arms had continued in recent months despite an official Iranian pledge to stop the weapons flow." So what are "significant uncertainties" to which Hersh refers? Well, the article does say the shipments of arms had "not necessarily increased." In other words, uncertainty exists not over whether weapons are being shipped, but whether the rate of the shipments have accelerated.

Setting aside whether this constitutes a "significant" uncertainty, there is also reason to question Hersh's use of the word "uncertain." After all, there seems to be general agreement in the Times account that Iran is involved in shipping weapons to terrorists and training them to go fight U.S. forces, consistently so and despite its promise to desist.

Umm, no. In a post yesterday, I declined to weigh in on Joe Klein's regrettable smear about the supposed "divided loyalties" of Jewish neoconservatives in order to challenge his claim that Iran is not a threat to the U.S. I wrote, in passing, "Klein is usually more sensible than most of the liberal pundit crowd."

This is not one of those times. Sheesh.

For Obama, it's still a question of debate whether Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. His web site observes only that "Iran has sought nuclear weapons." Obama isn't even willing to go out a limb and say there is no peaceful reason the country with the second or third largest oil reserve in the world would want nuclear power.

While Obama continues to call for "economic pressure," what kind of pressure can possibly be exerted in light of Iran's recent move to transfer all of its funds to non-European bank accounts where they won't be frozen? Sanctions were the right decision five years ago, but the time for them to work has long since passed. The same is true of diplomacy. For several years, the Bush administration has taken part in a multilateral effort to engage Iran with Britain, France, Germany, and several other countries including Libya. Only one condition has ever been proposed: Iran had to suspend its enrichment program for the duration of negotiations. Now Obama would eliminate even this condition, putting him to the left of Libya and sparking reservations among girly-boy European diplomats.

Mohamed El Baradei, head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, said yesterday Iran is six months away from having a nuclear weapon. The choice increasingly looks like one between military action and resigning ourselves to nuclear blackmail. What do you think the candidate who isn't willing to say Iran has an active nuclear weapons program is going to do?

"Why the rush now to bomb Iran, a country that poses some threat to Israel but none--for the moment--to the United States...unless we go ahead, attack it, and the mullahs unleash Hezbollah terrorists against us?"

So writes Joe Klein over at Time's blog. (We'll leave unaddressed his intellectual flailing on Jews, Commentary magazine, the Iraqi government, 100 years, etc.)

Iran is not a threat to the United States, he assures us. I wonder if Klein thought Iran was a threat on July 24, 1996. The next day Iran sponsored the attack at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. The Clinton Justice Department later concluded: "the Iranian government inspired, supported, and supervised members of the Saudi Hizballah. In particular, … [Hezbollah] defendants reported their surveillance activities to Iranian officials and were supported and directed in those activities by Iranian officials."

As Andy McCarthy has pointed out, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 declared that his nation was leading a "war" against the "World of Arrogance."

He said: "We are in the process of an historical war between the World of Arrogance and the Islamic world, and this war has been going on for hundreds of years."

He continued: "In this very grave war, many people are trying to scatter grains of desperation and hopelessness regarding the struggle between the Islamic world and the front of the infidels, and in their hearts they want to empty the Islamic world. ... They [ask]: “Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?” But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved."

McCarthy also reminds us that Yahya Safavi, head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, has spoken openly of his strategy for fighting the "enemy" -- American forces -- in Iraq. And that Ayatollah Khomeni recently embraced Iran's "Death to America" slogan. And that Hassan Abbassi, a Revolutionary Guard intelligence adviser said this in 2004.

"We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization...[W]e must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles. There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites, and we know how we are going to attack them."

Since the early 1990s, the Iranian regime (and it's terrorist arm) has had an alliance with al Qaeda that has included training in bombmaking, logistical assistance, and safe haven for al Qaeda leaders. And, as the 9/11 Commission noted: "[T]here is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers. There also is circumstantial evidence that senior Hezbollah operatives were closely tracking the travel of some of these future muscle hijackers into Iran in November 2000."

(For much more evidence of the threat Iran presents, see Tom Joscelyn's excellent study for the Claremont Institute.)

Despite two decades of Iranian aggression, Klein worries about a "rush" to war with Iran. I certainly haven't seen much evidence of this. And nobody I know is "gleeful" about the prospect of using force on Iran. A war there shouldn't be anything but a last resort. But Klein is usually more sensible than most of the liberal pundit crowd, in part because his opinions are often informed by his own reporting. It would be interesting to know whether his military sources -- who have been targeted for the past five years by Iranian-supplied EFPs -- believe that such an application of force would be best understood as the U.S. starting a war or just starting to fight in the one we're already in.

"Appeasement that ends in war is a familiar theme of history." A sobering editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

U.S. intelligence may question whether Iran has an active nuclear weapons program, but Iranian funded terrorist organization Hamas appears to concede the point. In an interview with the BBC, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal had this to say:

Another key question for Mr Meshaal—does he think Iran should be allowed to have nuclear weapons?

"If Israel possesses nuclear weapons, then every country in the world has the right to possess nuclear weapons," he said.

Perhaps Meshaal (or Tehran) would claim he was only talking as an abstract matter. Again, however, everyone seems to recognize what's going on—except the U.S. intelligence agencies that wrote and approved the NIE report of late last year.

There has been lots of buzz this weekend about what the New York Times calls "an unusually blunt and detailed" report on Iran from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Among the findings: Iran's military has produced powerful centrifuges -- the kind that can be used to enrich uranium and speed up development of nuclear weapons.

If the report is a welcome flash of toughness from the IAEA, this assessment, from a "senior official close to the agency," shows that it's still wise to temper our expectations about what comes next.

"There are certain parts of their nuclear program where the military seems to have played a role..We want to understand why."

From Newsmax:

Iranians Would Welcome Airstrikes, Sources Say

The "sources" are said to be opposition figures. Of course, it is also an article of faith on the left that Iranians would welcome airstrikes, though there the consensus seems to be that it is the regime that would be doing the welcoming. It's a headline that could just as easily have appeared at the Huffington Post--and no doubt some of the authors there might legitimately claim to be in touch with regime officials. For these folks, logic dictates that an attack would create a rally round the flag effect and allow the regime to (further?) consolidate its control.

But if the opposition would welcome airstrikes, and the regime would welcome airstrikes...

Obama advisor Susan Rice serves up the nuance to Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: "How does Senator Obama defend that decision to meet without preconditions with a leader like Ahmadinejad?"

RICE: "Well, first of all, he said he'd meet with the appropriate Iranian leaders. He hasn't named who that leader will be. It may, in fact be that by the middle of next of year, Ahmadinejad is long gone."

BLITZER: "Let’s be precise because when they criticize Barack Obama, not only John McCain but others, for suggesting that he would meet without preconditions with Ahmadinejad, who only last week on Israel's 60th anniversary called Israel a ‘stinking corpse.’ The question that they ask is what is Barack Obama going to talk with him about?"

RICE: "Well, first of all as I said, it would be the appropriate Iranian leadership at the appropriate time – not necessarily Ahmadinejad."

Translation: Ahmadinejad may not be the leader of Iran when Obama is president, in which case Obama isn't going to travel all the way to Tehran just to make a social call on a Holocaust denier. But, if there is some more reasonable tyrant with whom Obama can meet, then the "tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions" is on for sure.

Essentially, it depends on what your definition of the word "leader" is, because if you read his original pledge carefully, nowhere did Obama promise to meet with the current leader of Iran. Rather, as Rice now explains for us, Obama hasn't yet "named who that leader will be."

And for the record, Ahmadinejad's current term runs through August 2009. He is expected to seek "reelection," unless Obama appoints someone more acceptable in his stead.

This morning Dean posted the video of Obama's comments in Oregon yesterday:

I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us....You know, Iran, they spend one-one hundredth of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn't stand a chance.And we should use that position of strength that we have to be bold enough to go ahead and listen. That doesn't mean we agree with them on everything. We might not compromise on any issues, but at least we should find out other areas of potential common interest, and we can reduce some of the tensions that has caused us so many problems around the world.

Today in Montana, Obama changed his tune:

Iran is a grave threat. It has an illicit nuclear program. It supports terrorism across the region and militias in Iraq. It threatens Israel's existence. It denies the Holocaust...

Senator Obama just doesn't seem to get it. Again today, while acknowledging the grave threat that Iran poses, he went on about how the regime in Tehran does not pose the same kind of conventional threat that the Soviet Union did. Obviously that's true, but it does little to help voters understand his calls for direct diplomacy, without precondition, with the Iranian leadership. If Iran is different than the Soviet Union, perhaps that explains why it has been treated differently than the Soviet Union.

It is also bizarre that Obama has fixated on conventional military power as an indicator of the threat posed by Tehran. Al Qaeda does not pose a serious conventional threat to the United States, and yet al Qaeda killed far more American civilians on 9/11 than the Soviet Union ever did. Perhaps Obama could qualify every discussion of al Qaeda by saying how the group does not pose a serious threat to the United States the way the Soviet Union. After all, al Qaeda probably spends only one-one thousandth or less of what the Pentagon spends.

McCain responded to Obama comments directly at a speech in Chicago earlier today (after the jump):

On May 15, a convoy transporting two Iranian diplomats was ambushed as it traveled to "a revered Shiite shrine" in the western Baghdad district of Kadimiyah. The two Iranian diplomats and "an Iranian and an Iraqi administrative employee" were wounded in the ambush, the AP reported. Iran's foreign minister accused the United States of staging the attack, but the U.S. military has denied any involvement. The U.S. military also stated four Iranians were wounded in the attack, not three.

The ambush, curiously enough, happened on the same day that Multinational Forces Iraq said it believes the fighting with the Iranian-backed Special Groups has shifted to western Baghdad to deflect attention from Sadr City.

The attack on the Iranians raises questions: were these legitimate diplomats traveling to a Shia Shrine in Kadimiyah, where an uptick of attacks by the Mahdi Army is occurring? Or were these Qods Forces agents using diplomatic cover to mask their movements? Were the Iranians in western Baghdad to help direct attacks by the Mahdi Army and Special Groups against U.S. and Iraqi forces?

The U.S. military has called Iran on using its diplomatic corps as a front for the activity for the Qods Force. In October 2007, General David Petraeus openly accused Iran's Ambassador to Iraq of being a Qods Force officer.

Iran has repeatedly used diplomatic covers for its intelligence agents sent into Iraq. Iran maintains that Mahmud Farhadi, a senior Qods Force officer captured in Sulimaniyah on September 20, was a deputy governor on a diplomatic trade mission to the Kurdish Regional Government. The U.S. military has positively identified Farhadi as the commander of the Zafr Command, one of three units subordinate to the Ramazan Corps, the Qods Force operational command for Iraq.

In January 2007, U.S. forces captured five Qods Force officers in Irbil. The Iranian government still maintains the men were consular officials. The "Irbil Five" are still in U.S. custody.

Today's Iran's intelligence chief accused the U.S. and the Britain of sponsoring the bombing of a mosque in Shiraz in April. "The blast ... was caused by a bombing by a terrorist group with links to Western countries, especially Britain and America,” said Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, Iran’s Intelligence Minister.

The bombing, which killed 14 Iranians and wounded more than 100, occurred as a cleric was "delivering his weekly speech against extremist Wahabi beliefs and the outlawed Bahai faith," according to the pro-government Fars News Agency. Last month, however, Iran denied the explosion was the result of a bombing. The deputy interior minister said at the time that the explosion was "the result of an incident." Officials said that ammunition that was recently on display in the mosque spontaneously exploded.

So what caused the Iranians to change their story? The accusations came just as a British court ruled that Britain’s designation of the People’s Mujahadeen Organization, or MEK, as a terrorist group was inappropriate, and the MEK should be removed from the list. The MEK has provided the U.S. and Britain with valuable and accurate intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program as well as Iran’s terror activities inside Iraq. The U.S. State Department still lists MEK as a terrorist organization, but members of the U.S. Congress and other government officials also seek to have MEK removed from the terrorist watch list.

The confrontation between Coalition forces and the Mahdi Army and the Iranian-trained Special Groups in Baghdad, Basra and the wider south is having some nasty consequences for the Iranian regime. The Iraqi government sent a delegation to Iran to present evidence of Iranian collusion with the Mahdi Army and other Shia terror groups attacking Iraqi civilians and U.S. and Iraqi security forces. This has shone an unwelcome light on the Iranian government’s complicity in the killing of their purported Shia brethren in Iraq. And as Bill Ardolino has reported from Baghdad, the Iraqi Shia have begun to recognize that Iran is behind for much of the violence against the Iraqi people.

But in perhaps the most surprising development, Iranian political leaders have been forced to admit that their country is responsible for the bloodshed. Former Iranian president Mohamad Khatami surprisingly criticized his country’s leadership yesterday for exporting terror to neighboring countries:

"What did Imam (Khomeini) want and what did he mean by 'exporting the revolution'? Taking up arms and causing explosions in other countries and establishing groups to carry out sabotage in other countries? Imam was strongly opposed to these behaviors," Khatami told students in northern Iran on Friday. "This is the biggest treason to Islam and the revolution."

This sparked a backlash from the Iranian regime:

"It is obvious that Mr Khatami must answer for his anti-patriotic comments and explain why he has taken such a stance," said Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei… "US media used Khatami's comments as a pretext for bringing up the US claims against Iran," it said.

Khatami’s statements also sparked a debate about the legitimacy of suicide bombings:

"Mr Khatami has not differentiated between the criminal acts of the Taliban and the martyr operations of Lebanon's Hezbollah or Muslim fighters in Palestine," Mehdi Kouchakzadeh [a member of parliament] was quoted as saying. "Mr Khatami has to make it clear whether using fervent martyrdom-seeking young men to combat occupiers is an ugly and violent act or a fully human and admirable one?" demanded the MP.

So we now have an influential Iranian cleric and politician [who is by no means the moderate he is portrayed to be] openly stating his country is behind terror attacks and the Iranian establishment having to defend itself in the domestic and foreign media.

It is springtime, so the "U.S. is going to attack Iran" rumors are in full bloom. With the USS Abraham Lincoln arriving in the Persian Gulf to replace the USS Harry Truman, there were three of the powerful warships in the waters off Iran for one day. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the U.S. would keep two carriers in the gulf as a "message" to Iran.

The deployment of carriers in the gulf and the U.S. military's ire over the Iranian backing of Shia terror groups inside Iraq has fueled a new round of rumors. The Australian, based on anonymous sources, said the U.S. is preparing to conduct a "'surgical strike' against an insurgent training camp inside Iran if Republican Guards [sic] continue with attempts to destabilise Iraq." [Note to Michael Smith, the Republican Guards were Saddam Hussein’s' praetorian guard, while the Revolutionary Guards are the Iran's elite corps.]

As noted in July 2007 here, the movement of carriers into the Persian Gulf is merely a "message." Iran should actually start to worry when there are no aircraft carriers in the Gulf, as the U.S. would seek to minimize exposure of its $9 billion capital ships during any conflict with Iran.

The fact is that if the United States wanted to strike at Iranian terror camps in Khuzestan, it could do so without parking carriers in the gulf. The U.S. Navy has a wide array of submarines and cruisers equipped to launch Tomahawk missiles, while U.S. Air Force bombers can strike Iran from bases inside the US.

Seymour Hersh has made a living of late off of peddling Iran attack scenarios, but none have come to pass. This latest round of springtime attack likely have no more basis in truth.

Jane's reports:

F-14 Tomcat interceptor aircraft antenna, military specification night-vision goggles and body armour were among the "sensitive and stolen defence related items" that the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) found for sale on internet trading sites such as Ebay and Craigslist.

Compounding the problem? The only nation on earth that still flies the F-14 Tomcat is... the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Tehran can only fly approximately 20 of the 79 airframes delivered in the late 70s, as the remaining 59 are subjected to a complex cannibalization process that keeps the single squadron of operational jets in the air. So the numbers used to dictate that Iran needed 3 inert fighters to keep 1 flying. Now, it seems, all they need is an Ebay account.

Last summer Reuben F. Johnson reported in this magazine on the Navy's poor history of securing spare parts for the F-14.

As the dusts settles in Basra, more information about Iran’s involvement in the conflict comes to light. The Times reported yesterday that military and intelligence officials believe Iran’s covert military command assigned to direct operations in Iraq “were operating at a tactical command level with the Shi'ite militias fighting Iraqi security forces” during the recent fighting in Basra, and "some were directing operations on the ground.” This should come as no surprise to anyone following Iranian activities inside Iraq. Iran is fighting a thinly veiled, undeclared war against both the Iraqi people and the United States.

To streamline operations in Iraq, Iran’s Qods Force established a unified command, called the Ramazan Corps, and split Iraq into three roughly geographical regions. Last fall I obtained a detailed description of the Ramazan Corps’ command and control network, storage and distribution facilities, training camps, and supply lines into Iraq.

The Ramazan Corps is a military command with senior Qods Force generals in charge. They direct the flow of weapons, cash, rockets, mortars, and explosively formed projectiles into the hands of the Special Groups working in Iraq. The Ramazan Corps also brings Iraqi fighters into Iran to train them, and runs training camps inside Iraq as well. This news is doubly interesting as it was the commander of Qods Force that pressured Muqtada al Sadr to call his forces off the streets of Iraq.

Interesting discussion from Tom Ricks at the Washington Post:

As the experts poke the ashes, I think the emerging consensus is that Moqtada al-Sadr won more than he lost, because he and the government agreed to a cease-fire. That makes him 3 for 3 in taking on state powers (the U.S. in the previous two rounds, and now the Baghdad government). If nothing else, this guy is a survivor.

What puzzles me most is the role Iran played, especially in ending the fighting. There are lots of rumors that it brokered the ceasefire, but I have seen nothing definitive. If it did, that indicates that the Tehran government felt it had something to lose through the fighting.

Well, yeah. Iran's plan is to keep the United States--and to some extent, Israel--occupied on the military, diplomatic, and political fronts while they build a small arsenal of nuclear weapons. Their strategy, from a military perspective, has been very effective so far. Through effective use of proxies in Basra and southern Lebanon, Tehran exploits the West's greatest weakness--their low tolerance for chaos and unending conflict. All this while they strictly avoid direct contact with US/NATO/Israeli forces.

Al-Qaeda Iraq has been decimated by the surge, so if the Iranians lose Sadr and his militias, their ability to sow the seeds of discord in Iraq is sharply reduced. It's important to remember that Iran doesn't expect to win battlefield victories in Iraq, but rather to exploit the chaos there as a means to their nuclear end.

If they knock out the fledgling Iraqi government and kill a few Coalition troops in the process? All the better.

Michael Rubin has a good write-up at the Corner. I covered this yesterday here, but what I didn't know until reading Rubin:

To support dismissing President Bush’s stated concerns, they cite Joseph Cirincione. Fair enough, but wouldn't basic integrity mandate that they mention that Cirincione is not a disinterested analyst, but rather is advising Barack Obama?

That would seem like useful information for the Post to include. Instead, Cirincione is identified merely as an "expert on Iran and nuclear proliferation." His expert opinion: Bush's comments were "as uninformed as [Sen. John] McCain's statement that Iran is training al-Qaeda." That sounds objective...

Bush spoke directly to the Iranian people yesterday in an address broadcast over Radio Farda:

"[The Iranian government has] declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people -- some in the Middle East. And that's unacceptable to the United States, and it's unacceptable to the world..."

For some reason the Washington Post's Robin Wright took exception to this statement:

But most striking was Bush's accusation that Iran has openly declared its nuclear weapons intentions, even though a National Intelligence Estimate concluded in December that Iran had stopped its weapons program in 2003, a major reversal in the long-standing U.S. assessment.

Robin Wright seems to have taken a break from this story for the last few months, since anybody who's been following it knows that it's not the president who has recast the NIE, but the intelligence community. In an interview with WTOP on February 26 of this year, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell explained:

As you know, there’s been confusion about what Iranian intentions are with regard to nuclear weapons. You know from our National Intelligence Estimate we released, we highlighted the fact that a specific portion of the program had been cancelled, and that was the technical design of the warhead.

What I’d just highlight for you is there are three parts to a nuclear-weapons program. First, you have to have fissile material. Second, you have a nuclear-weapons warhead design; and third, a means of delivery of that warhead, given that you had such a warhead. And what we highlighted that was cancelled was the specifics on the warhead design. They are still pursuing fissile material – which that is the most difficult challenge in a nuclear program. And they’re still doing the ballistic missile design and testing, which is probably the second-most difficult part.

It is an open question as to whether Iran has since restarted work on the warhead design. Regardless, given their progress in producing the fissile material, Iran could produce a workable nuclear device in "6 months to 12 months," according to testimony by McConnell to the House Intelligence Committee on February 7.

Also, in order to contradict the president's statement, Wright quotes Joseph Cirincione, a highly partisan "expert." Cirincione says "Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason. It's just not true." So Wright's attack boils down to little more than the fact that the Iranians themselves haven't fessed up (despite talk of wiping Israel off the map and the "accidental" discovery of blueprints for a nuclear warhead during an IAEA inspection of an Iranian facility). Of course Cirincione takes a rather laissez faire view of proliferation. Last fall, when the Israelis took out what was widely reported to be a North Korean nuclear facility inside Syria, Cirincione told Foreign Policy magazine that "if North Korea gave them [the Syrians] anything short of nuclear weapons it is of little consequence." Perhaps he thinks that, likewise, until the Iranians actually assemble the device, it is of little consequence.

Other experts take a different view. One such is Gary Samore, a top arms control official in the Clinton administration and a director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, who told the Los Angeles Times in December that "The halting of the weaponization program in 2003 is less important from a proliferation standpoint than resumption of the enrichment program in 2006." You wouldn't know it from Wright's piece, but this view represents something of a consensus within the intel community as demonstrated by McConnell's statements over the past few months. Bush was simply stating the obvious, even if Robin Wright, Joseph Cirincione, and Mahmoud Ammadinejad don't agree with the assessment.

Iran isn't working with al Qaeda in Iraq? Tell that to some of al Qaeda's opposition. The NEFA Foundation has provided a transcript of an interview with a commander from "Hamas in Iraq," an insurgency group that was formerly a faction of the 1920 Revolution Brigades:

Q: "Is there any evidence of cooperation between the Al-Qaida network and Iran that you are aware of, since you are in a province bordering Iran?"

A: "We have irrefutable evidence of Iran supplying Al-Qaida with weaponry. This was exposed because of the weapons they used in the Diyala province several days ago - specifically on December 25, 2007. Our mujahideen from the Uthman bin Affan Brigade dismantled a car bomb in the Al-Onaq neighborhood in the region of al-Hadid [west of Baquba]. Hidden inside the car were three large rockets, three antitank mines, a quantity of TNT, 53 handgrenades, and a quantity of chlorine hidden inside the gas tank. [These items] were confiscated, and upon examining weapons, we discovered that they were Iranian-made. We also obtained confessions from some of those we have captured from [Al-Qaida] that they had transformed their wounded to border hospitals."

It is never safe to take these characters at their word. But he certainly does not have a pro-American bias. He refers to America as the "enemy" and says that his group will "never, ever cooperate" with American-led forces.

In addition, nothing he says about Iran's support for al Qaeda is all that surprising. As we have mentioned previously, the U.S. military and the new Iraqi intelligence service both confirm that Iran is hunting al Qaeda's enemies, not al Qaeda itself, inside Iraq. Iran is on al Qaeda's side in Iraq--not ours and not the Iraqi citizens. Some in the media seem to have trouble accepting this reality. As Steve Schippert explains, that includes the Boston Globe.

So Think Progress went batty when McCain, earlier this week, said that Iran was "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back." Today, they continue to pound away on this issue by quoting a statement made by Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno last summer:

We don’t see any evidence, significant evidence, that shows that [Iranian-controlled] groups that are funding and providing arms to Shi’a extremists are directly related to al Qaeda. Now, we all know that al Qaeda uses Iran and they do in some cases traffic some of their individuals through Iran to Iraq, but it’s a very small number of people and it’s mostly through the Kurdish regions up north, where you have the old Ansar al-Sunna connections. But beyond that, there is no specific connection between the Shi’a extremists — excuse me — the [Iranian] Quds Force operations and supporting the Shi’a extremists and that of al Qaeda, and supporting al Qaeda.

Am I missing something, or isn't that exactly what McCain said? And since no one is disputing that Iran has control over its borders, we are now talking about degrees of support, which is to say, Iran is supporting al Qaeda, we just don't know to what extent.

Eli Lake, whose been covering this issue for years, reports for the New York Sun:

Mr. McCain's national security adviser, Randy Scheunemann, told The New York Sun, "There is ample documentation that Iran has provided many different forms of support to Sunni extremists, including Al Qaeda as well as Shi'ia extremists in Iraq. It would require a willing suspension of disbelief to deny Iran supports Al Qaeda in Iraq."

Responding to Mr. Scheunemann's remarks, a senior foreign policy adviser to Senator Obama, Susan Rice, yesterday told the Sun, "It's very bizarre." She noted that Mr. McCain had "made the same statement three times in as many days. Surely he must know, as Senator Lieberman reminded him, that Iran is not engaged with Al Qaeda in Iraq. I don't know if he is confused, or is he cynically trying to conflate Al Qaeda and Iran as Cheney and Bush did Al Qaeda and Iraq in 2002 and 2003?"

Ms. Rice stipulated in the interview that she was not saying Iran and Al Qaeda have never worked together, but that "there is no body of evidence to suggest Iran is aiding Al Qaeda in Iraq."

Rice echoes what Brian Katulis of the left-wing Center for American Progress said yesterday, calling the intelligence on this a "gray area." Likewise, Rice won't say that Iran and al Qaeda don't work together, so it's hard to see what all the fuss is about. And whatever relationship exists, Iran isn't going to advertise it. In this gray area, the Obama camp leans one way (assuming our enemies don't collaborate) and the McCain camp leans another (assuming they do). Fact of the matter is that what little evidence exists suggests they do work together--and of course when they don't work together there will be no evidence. If Obama makes it to the White House, he can raise the issue with Ahmadinejad during their summit at Camp David--I'm sure he'll get a straight answer (maybe there really is no al Qaeda, or homosexuality, in Iran).

With the ongoing imbroglio over Senator McCain’s comments linking Iran and al Qaeda, it is worth reviewing what Saddam’s own files have to say about Iran’s support for al Qaeda. Not only do Saddam’s Intelligence files confirm that his regime had a significant relationship with al Qaeda, but they also provide more evidence of Iran’s hand in al Qaeda’s terror. Some may say this is impossible: How could two states that hated each other as much as Saddam’s Iraq and the mullah’s Iran support the same terrorist group(s)? However, such thinking is very narrow-minded.

The IPP study proposes that we think of our terrorist enemies as cartels. In this sense, each of these parties competes in some important ways, but they are also capable of collaborating when it suits their interests. The IPP’s paradigm for understanding terrorism is very similar to the one Michael Ledeen proposed in his book, The War Against the Terror Masters. Ledeen has proposed that our terrorist enemies are best compared to rival mafia families, who can bitterly fight one another only to band together when facing a common foe, like law enforcement agencies. James Woolsey, the former head of the CIA, has proposed a similar way of understanding modern Islamic terrorism as well. For Woolsey, terrorist organizations and their sponsors are capable of forming "joint ventures" to fulfill their common interests--e.g. attacking Americans.

Numerous examples of such collaboration can be found throughout the history of Middle Eastern and Islamic terrorism. For example, Yasser Arafat and his PLO allied with both Iraq and Iran at various points throughout Arafat’s terrorist career. Hamas, a terrorist group which is the ideological cousin of al Qaeda and likewise an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has drawn support from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and previously Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Today, the Sunni Hamas is strongly allied with Iran. And the man who served as Osama bin Laden’s protector and mentor from 1991 through mid-1996, Hassan al-Turabi, was quite open about his relationships with both Saddam Hussein (who he called a "close" ally) and the Iranian Mullahs. Turabi turned his Sudan into a melting pot of terrorism, bringing together disparate groups under a common anti-Western, anti-American banner. (See here and here for my two part series on Turabi.) This does not mean that Saddam’s Iraq and Iran necessarily had to cooperate with each other (although they did when it came to illicit deals under the oil-for-food program), just that each was capable of supporting terrorist groups that shared their immediate interests.

McCain puts out a statement on the fifth anniversary of the war:

"Today in Iraq, America and our allies stand on the precipice of winning a major victory against radical Islamic extremism. The security gains over the past year have been dramatic and undeniable. Al Qaeda and Shia extremists -- with support from external powers such as Iran -- are on the run but not defeated."

The left can't stand this. In fact, they insist on calling it a "gaffe." It's clearly not, given that it's the third time he's said it in as many days. But I participated in a fantastic conference call with the lefty Center of American Progress this afternoon that focused on nothing but the statement. Jon Stoltz, founder of VoteVets.org, Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at CAP, and Ilan Goldberg of the National Security Network were the main players on the call.

Goldberg said McCain "fundamentally misunderstands the problem of what's actually going on in Iraq." He says each insurgent group has "its own interests" and "they're all fighting each other." Katulis then said that McCain "lacks a basic mastery of the facts," and that "he doesn't understand the challenges that America faces." (Hit them where they're strongest!)

Then the questions. First Laura Meckler of the Wall Street Journal asks if there are "groups within Iran" that have supported al Qaeda. Jon Stoltz replies that Iran "almost went to war with the Taliban." He says "I fought these people." She repeats, is there "any Iranian influence with al Qaeda?" Stoltz responds, "Not from what I saw on the ground in Iraq." Meckler again, "well you won't necessarily see from the ground in Iraq..." Stoltz cuts her off, "we're the ones who do the fighting." Meckler says "I understand that but you can't see every influence from a neighboring country, I mean are you really saying because you didn't personally see it, it doesn't exist?" Stoltz says "not from the people we fought."

Meckler again asks if it is inaccurate to say that there is any element within Iran that is supporting al Qaeda. Golldberg: "I don't have the intelligence to say that one way or the other." Stoltz jumps in, "I never saw that on the ground." Katulis then says "the facts on this are in a gray area...but it seems highly improbable that there is broad Iranian support for al Qaeda figures." Later he added that "one might be able to find in our intelligence agencies snippets of some information of some Iranian groups actually supporting some parts of AQI in particular for whatever reason..." Case closed, right?

I was struck by their insistence that Iran wouldn't collaborate with Sunni extremists, and that they had offered as evidence the fact that Iran had, at one point, almost gone to war with the Taliban. So I asked, how do they reconcile this with the deep Iranian support for Hamas, and support in the form of weapons and training for the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Katulis said "I disagree with the premise of your question, because again it trends towards lumping together threats in a banner of Islamofascism that conservatives tend to do and frankly that type of analytical assessment is what's got us into this mess in Iraq." So I rephrase in the form of "do you deny" that Iran is supporting the Taliban or elements of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. "Well, if you're going to ask that question in that sort of way, you can't deny that anything might be possible in those regards, and certainly on the Afghanistan front there has been strong evidence that Iran, feeling pressure and threatened from the U.S. encircling them, has supported some elements in the last few years of the Taliban. But the way that you ask the question is intended to get some sort of answer that fills whatever storyline you're trying to promote."

Yes, the storyline where Iran, often at odds with Sunni extremists, still assists them when there is a convergence of interests. And if Iran is willing to support the Taliban, whom they almost went to war with, because they feel pressure from the United States, why wouldn't they do the same for AQI? Of course, there is plenty of evidence that they have--but that doesn't fit the storyline at the Center for American Progress.

Eli Lake reports for the New York Sun:

The news that American forces had captured Iranians in Iraq was widely reported last month, but less well known is that the Iranians were carrying documents that offered Americans insight into Iranian activities in Iraq.

An American intelligence official said the new material, which has been authenticated within the intelligence community, confirms "that Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups." The source was careful to stress that the Iranian plans do not extend to cooperation with Baathist groups fighting the government in Baghdad, and said the documents rather show how the Quds Force — the arm of Iran's revolutionary guard that supports Shiite Hezbollah, Sunni Hamas, and Shiite death squads — is working with individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna.

But yesterday the New Republic's film critic, Chris Orr, assured us that "Al Qaeda is, after all, a Sunni group, and Iran, a Shiite nation," so we needn't worry about collaboration between the two. Maybe the military just got the translation wrong.

A majority of people in 31 different countries not only oppose military action against Iran, they oppose economic sanctions as well. In fact, 14 percent of people do not even believe diplomatic efforts should be employed to discourage Iran’s nuclear program. The United States is one of only two countries where a majority of people support economic sanctions or military strikes. The other is South Korea. That means Israel, Australia, and a number of our closest allies all shirk at exerting even modest pressure to ensure Iran does not manufacture nuclear weapons. Predictably, the poll suggests the NIE report is to blame for these poor figures.

Why is Iran going after al Qaeda’s enemies in Iraq? A few days ago, Iraqi spymaster Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani accused Iran of trying to sabotage al Qaeda’s opposition. "We have information confirming that Iranian secret services have sent agents to sabotage the Sahwa [i.e. the "Awakening"] experience in Iraq," Shahwani said shortly before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Iraq. Shahwani "stressed the need for the Iraqi people to be vigilant in facing these activities."

The U.S. Military has apparently confirmed and added supporting details to Shahwani’s accusation. According to Adnkronos International (AKI), U.S. military spokesman Adm. Gregory Smith explained: "the American military recently obtained confessions from detainees who are members of the Al-Quds Brigade and other Shia group who have been arrested in various parts of Iraq, who said that they were assigned to carry out armed operations to kill the leaders and the members of the Awakening Councils, in order to destroy this experiment."

So, here we have yet another instance in which Iran’s interests coincide with al Qaeda’s. Upon reading these latest accusations I cannot help but think of all those who believe that Iran and America have common interests in Iraq. For example, in "Iran: Time for a New Approach," America’s foreign policy elite, including Zbigniew Brzezinski and the now current Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, argued:

Although they may differ profoundly on specifics, both the United States and Iran want postconflict governments in Iraq and Afghanistan that respect the rights of their diverse citizenries and live in peace with their neighbors. The hostility that characterizes U.S.-Iranian relations undermines these shared interests and squanders the potential benefits of even limited cooperation. As tenuous new governments in Baghdad and Kabul embark on precarious post-conflict futures, the United States and the region cannot afford to spurn any prospective contributions to the region’s stability.

What "shared interests" do the United States and Iran have in post-Saddam Iraq? Beats me. As for the "specifics," we are against al Qaeda and Iran is not. That is indeed a profound difference.

At some point we are going to have to recognize that Iran and al Qaeda are allies, no?

Matthew Levitt and Michael Jacobson of the Washington Institute recently visited Bahrain, where the government has recently convicted five men on terrorism charges including "receiving explosives and weapons training, engaging in terrorism overseas, and terrorism financing targeting 'friendly countries.'" They received relatively light sentences for their crimes, just six months in jail. One of the defense lawyers explained, "the six-month jail sentence is nothing, and we consider this to be an acquittal."

But this isn't the real story. As Levitt and Jacobson report:

Lost in the coverage, however, was the important role Iran played, either explicitly or implicitly. According to Bahraini investigators, several of the cell members traveled from Bahrain to Afghanistan via Iran. First, they flew to Tehran and met up with several al-Qaeda-affiliated individuals at the airport. Al-Qaeda facilitators then passed the cell members along from "person to person" until their arrival in Afghan training camps. . . .

Bahraini authorities do not know whether the Iranian government actively facilitated the cell members' travel to Afghanistan. But given the regime's track record, Iran's possible involvement with the cell is worth exploring further.

Indeed, this story is worth investigating further--as are the possible ties between Iran and Hezbollah on the one hand, and al Qaeda’s 9/11 hijackers on the other. As I wrote in my latest piece, the 9/11 Commission found that Iran and Hezbollah may have facilitated travel for a majority of the 9/11 hijackers in a manner very similar to this Bahraini al Qaeda cell. The Commission called for further investigation into the matter, but we are still waiting. If any such investigation is ever begun, the story of this Bahraini cell should also be looked into. The pattern of behavior is very similar.

This weekend, Senator Lieberman spoke at the Wehrkunde Security Conference in Munich--otherwise known as Davos for hawks--and delivered a tough speech on Iran, criticizing the confusion caused by the NIE and challenging the world to adopt a set of bold new sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Some key quotes.

On the sanctions and the threat of war with Iran:

Some nations are unfortunately using the sanctions regime as an opportunity to expand business ties to Iran and reap profits, at the expense of the rest of the world. For example, it is outrageous when Germany makes the principled decision to curtail its exports to Iran, only to watch as the People’s Republic of China moves in and exploits that decision for its own commercial advantage.

This is more than just self-serving behavior. It ensures that the sanctions regime is less likely to persuade Iran to suspend its illicit nuclear activities--and that, in turn, increases the likelihood of military confrontation.

The power to prevent war with Iran lies disproportionately with those who have the greatest economic leverage over Iran. They have a responsibility to use it, and soon.

On the NIE:

There are many people who make a habit of denigrating our intelligence services. I do not enjoy that sport; these men and women work very hard, many at great risk to themselves, to ensure the safety of America and its allies.

But neither do I make the mistake of believing in the infallibility or absolute impartiality of people in intelligence. Intelligence should be about informing decision makers; it should not be about empowering analysts and researchers to become decision makers.

Lieberman also issued a none-too-subtle criticism of Mohamed El Baradei, the Director-General of the IAEA, who was also on the panel with him. El Baradei has attempted to reduce the problem with Iran to a set of questions about its past nuclear work, which--once resolved through an IAEA “work plan”--will mean that Iran can once again be treated as a member of the international community in good standing, with the right--as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)--to enrich uranium. As Lieberman points out, however, the problem the international community has with Iran--and the reason that the UN Security Council has ordered it to suspend its uranium enrichment activities--is much, much deeper.

Of course, as a matter of international law, all signatories to the NPT bear the same burdens and obligations. But as a matter of common sense, the track record of a regime matters enormously in evaluating its nuclear intentions and its nuclear activities. Put more bluntly, a track record of deception and denying information to the IAEA and the UN is not one the world can afford to ignore. Until Iran restores international confidence that its program is peaceful, the international community is justified in demanding that Iran suspend its activities. Restoring confidence will take more than answering questions. It will require a sustained pattern of conduct that reassures other countries that Iran is not secretly embarked on a nuclear weapons program. That is why I think Chancellor Merkel got it exactly right when she said last year, “The world does not have to prove to Iran that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. Iran must convince the world that it does not want the bomb.”

Iran is back at making fantastic claims about its domestically built weapons. The latest announcement, via the Iranian regime-run Tehran Times, touts the beginning of the manufacture process of a newly developed "stealth" fighter--locally made, of course:

Air Force Commander Brigadier General Ahmad Miqani said here on Monday that Iran has launched the project to manufacture stealth aircrafts. “We have finished the design of stealth aircraft which cannot to be detected even by advanced radar systems, and the primary stages of its manufacture have started,” Miqani told reporters in a news conference.

The "stealth" program cannot be verified, but the regime has a long history of making outrageous claims about the capabilities of the domestic defense industry. The Islamic Republic's Air Force touted the Lightning, or Azarakhsh, as a fighter comparable to the U.S. F-18 in August 2006. In reality the plane is a refurbish/reengineered version of the 40-year-old U.S. F-5 export fighter.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps touted a home-made "supersonic torpedo" with a top speed of 233 miles per hour in April 2006. "Even if enemy warship sensors identify the missile, no warship can escape from this missile because of its high speed," said General Ali Fadavi, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guard. The reality is this was a remanufacture of the Soviet-era VA-111 Shkval torpedo.

During the same timeframe, Iran claimed it developed stealthy ballistic missiles capable of deploying multiple warheads. This "advanced" missile appears to be the Soviet SS-26 theater ballistic missile.

In perhaps the most humorous example of Iranian-made "stealth" technology, in April 2006 the military touted its stealthy "super-modern flying boat" (which looks anything but). "Due to its advanced design, no radar at sea or in the air can detect it. It can lift out of the water," Iranian state television reported. The flying boat, called the Great Prophet, was "all Iranian-made and can launch missiles with precise targeting while moving." This boat is so "super-stealthy" it hasn't been seen deployed in the Persian Gulf since the announcement.

For more, check out this classic: "Iran's Super Missile Will Defeat Great Satan, Steal Your Girlfriend."

We've had a lot of discussion here about the recent incident in the Gulf. The informed conclusions have been uniform on at least one point: the U.S. Navy showed impressive restraint in the brief standoff. But as more information has come out, it now seems less clear that the explicit threat against the American warships--"I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes"--came from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrol boats:

Unnamed Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that the threatening voice heard in the audio clip, which was released on Monday night with a disclaimer that it was recorded separately from the video images and merged with them later, is not directly traceable to the Iranian military.

Apparently this kind of chatter on the radio is not uncommon in that part of the world. The Times quotes a retired sailor as saying "my first thought was that the “explode” comment might not have even come from one of the Iranian craft, but some loser monitoring the events at a shore facility."

A couple of points. First, the sailors we see on the tape would have been foolish to assume that the threat was not made by the Iranian ships that were then menacing their task force. Further, if the voice did not come from the IRGC ships, that does little to mitigate the conduct of those ships as seen on the tape. But the voice did come from somewhere. Even the man the Times quotes assumes that it came from a "shore facility"--presumably an Iranian shore facility. Either way, somebody verbally threatened to attack our ships just as the IRGC was physically threatening to do so. As a Navy spokesman told ABC News:

"It could have come from the shore, from another ship passing by. However, it happened in the middle of all the very unusual activity, so as we assess the information and situation, we still put it in the total aggregate of what happened Sunday morning. I guess we're not saying that it absolutely came from the boats, but we're not saying it absolutely didn't."

The confusion has now caused some to question the entire story as reported by the Navy. The Navy claimed that "white boxes" were being dropped into the water--though those boxes cannot be seen on the tape. Admiral Glenn Greenwald, the left-wing blogosphere's resident expert on all things military, is screeching conspiracy:

The bit about the "white boxes" being dropped into the water seems almost equally dubious [as the audio]. Neither the video of the incident released by the U.S. military, nor the video version released by the Iranian government, includes any such event, nor are there any references to it at all on the audio.

The Navy reported what its people saw and heard. If what they heard turns out to have been some bizarre transmission from shore, that doesn't change what we see on the tape: Iranian ships harassing and threatening American vessels in international waters. There's no reason to doubt our sailors' statements that the Iranians were dropping unidentified objects into the water--unless your default assumptions are that the American military is habitually mendacious, and that the Iranian regime is unerringly truthful.

I reviewed the tape--if we had had video this good at the Gulf of Tonkin, the world might be different today. I tend to agree with Michael's earlier post that our naval force responded correctly to the incident by capturing it all on tape and maintaining a defensive posture.

However, that tactic was not without risk. The type of boats used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are quite similar to the "cigarette boats" favored by drug smugglers off Florida and the Gulf Coast. Essentially big engines and massive fuel tanks wedded to the smallest possible hull, they are capable of speeds in excess of 40 knots, but are wildly unstable in anything other than calm seas, and therefore make lousy weapons platforms--if your weapon of choice is something like a gun, rocket, or shoulder-fired missile. On the other hand, you can fill one of those boats up with about a quarter ton of high explosives (more if you ditch some of the fuel), in which case you have a very nice manned torpedo (the Japanese were gearing up for that at the end of World War II). Because of their speed and maneuverability, it doesn't take too long for those boats to close inside the engagement zone of a major warship (e.g., the Ticonderoga class cruiser in the video), so if you let them get too close, there is a good possibility they could ram you, if that is their intent.

If you look at the video, you can see them crossing and recrossing the wakes of our ships, then pulling up alongside at a distance of a hundred meters or so, then breaking away and repeating the process. To me, it looked as if they were practicing for just such a suicide attack--checking out the angles, the times and the distances involved, looking over the ships to determine the arcs of fire for the close-in weapon systems.

Now, since the Cole incident, the U.S. Navy has invested a lot in close-in defense against small surface craft. They added pintle-mounted machine-guns along the rails, added electro-optical sensors to provide better target acquisition capability, and most of all, they modified the Mk.15 Phalanx Close-in Weapon System (CIWS) to engage surface as well as missile targets. So there is a good chance that, given adequate warning, our ships could destroy those boats before they could strike home. On the other hand, how long does it take a boat going 40 knots to close 100 meters? About two seconds. So, if the boats approach from the right angle, they may get inside our defenses before we have a chance to shoot. Or, assuming that we do hit the boat, it is moving so quickly and is so close that it could "go ballistic" even if severely damaged; i.e., it would continue on to hit the ship anyway.

If these provocations continue in the future, the U.S. will have to take some action, simply because treating them as "business as usual" creates an atmosphere of complacency. The first 99 times the Iranians do this, nothing happens--then on the 100th incident, they press the attack. This is a very old ruse of war--set up a routine to lull the enemy into a false sense of security, then strike. Worked for the Israelis in 1967, for the Egyptians in 1973--for that matter, it worked for Joshua more than 3500 years ago. The way to avoid the problem and minimize the danger is to swat the fly away--to show the enemy that you won't be diddled with impunity. You don't actually have to shoot at anyone, not when you're driving a 9100-ton cruiser and they have 30 ton speedboats--all you have to do is pass a little too closely while cranking 30 knots, and let your bow wave and wake do the rest. If you're feeling charitable, you can lower a boat and pick up survivors.

They come so frequently, it's hard to get worked up, but there's a dead giveaway this time. The teaser for the piece reads, "At the risk of sounding like an apologist for the Islamic Republic..." The author is Hooman Majd, who accuses the Pentagon of manufacturing the incident with Iran in the Gulf this week.

The Pentagon's version of the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday morning, involving U.S. Navy warships and Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrol boats is, at the very least highly suspicious. On Tuesday, the Navy released video footage and an audiotape to back its claims that the Iranian boats acted in a threatening and provocative manner, but neither the video nor the audio are particularly convincing as proof that Iran had hostile intentions. The video, which shows what is claimed are Iranian boats speeding around U.S. ships, doesn't show any of the boats hurtling directly towards any of the navy ships, nor does it show what the Pentagon claimed the Iranians then did, namely dropped "white boxes" in the water.

It goes on like that--analysis of the accents, Iranian naval tactics, etc. And what are Mr. Majd's qualifications for such an analysis?

Hooman Majd has had a long career as an executive in the music and film businesses. He was Executive VP of Island Records, where he worked with a diverse group of artists including U2, The Cranberries, Tricky and Melissa Etheridge; and Head of Film and Music at Palm Pictures, where he executive-produced James Toback’s “Black and White” and Khyentse Norbu’s “The Cup” (Cannes 1999).

Watch the tape for yourself--no one but an apologist for the Iranian regime could possibly claim that the boats shown were not acting in a threatening and reckless manner. And Majd has absolutely no evidence on which to base his accusation that the Pentagon manufactured or concocted any of this.

It'd be one thing if Arianna got some expert in Naval tactics to write a piece saying that, from the video available, it isn't clear that the Iranian were acting in the aggressive manner the Pentagon alleged--though I doubt she could find a reputable expert to say any such thing. But to have some record producer accuse the military of a conspiracy based on...what exactly? The Huffington Post would have been better off just posting the Iranian regime's propaganda. It draws the same conclusion, yet much more elegantly.

Update: More here, and at HotAir. Also, a real expert, our own Stuart Koehl, breaks it down here.

No.

And I'm surprised that Ralph Peters--who is a razor sharp strategist--argued otherwise. If the U.S. Navy is to be in the statement-making business, as Peters suggests, better we choose a battle on our own terms rather than Iran's. While I normally enjoy Peters' writing, I found the following to be a bit...off:

Oh, from Washington's perspective we did the right thing by "exercising restraint." But Washington's perspective doesn't amount to a gum wrapper in a gutter. What matters is what the Iranians think.

They now believe that the Bush administration, our military and the entire United States are afraid of them.

Doubtful. Iran likes to bluster, but at the end of the day, the Supreme Leader and friends all understand who wields the big stick. But they're also well aware that we're addicted to foreign oil, and are thus reluctant to provoke OPEC's number two petroleum supplier, lest an attack further destabilize an already wobbly market. Ultimately, I think the evidence supports Goldfarb's contention that exercising restraint allows for a more flexible response--one than can be better tailored to freak the Mullahs out--rather than Peters' one-dimensional, screw the rules of engagement approach.

That's what Ralph Peters says:

We should've sunk every one of them.

Not because we're warmongers. But because the Iranians had made threats, verbal and physical, that amounted to acts of war. When will we learn that resolute action taken early saves vast amounts of blood and treasure later?

Oh, from Washington's perspective we did the right thing by "exercising restraint." But Washington's perspective doesn't amount to a gum wrapper in a gutter. What matters is what the Iranians think.

They now believe that the Bush administration, our military and the entire United States are afraid of them.

I suspect those American crews would have opened fire if they'd felt themselves in imminent danger. And further, I suspect it was the Iranians who were scared witless by the encounter. As Noonan pointed out yesterday, we've been around this block before with the Iranians--the result was devastating for Iran. But the Iranians have been engaging in acts of war against this country for a long time. If we are to respond in kind, wouldn't it be better to do so at a time and place of our choosing? Short of that, one trusts the Navy will take whatever steps it deems necessary to protect its forces. Their restraint in this case is almost certainly an example of their unbelievable professionalism. And there's no reason why we can't retaliate in some other form. We, too, can wage psychological warfare, and far more effectively than they can.

Of course the Iranians are calling it a simple "miscommunication," which is BS. Unless you think that I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes doesn't translate clearly from Persian to English.

Nothing is official yet, but it sounds like an obvious jab at our naval perimeter. That's why the Iranians warned us first, they wanted to see how we'd react. No accident that the bad guys were arrayed in the telltale Iranian swarming formation either, with five high-speed small craft involved in the "miscommunication."

It's worth pointing out that we've had dust ups with the Iranian Navy in the past. And, the U.S. Navy being the U.S. Navy, we've had responses, too.

Back in July, when Iran first launched Press TV, a state-subsidized, 24 hour, English-language news network, Louis Wittig wrote a piece for THE DAILY STANDARD analyzing some of the station's early reporting. His conclusion: "Press TV broadcasts a guy in a collarless shirt telling the story the Iranian government wants us to hear."

But Press TV also has a website, and like most internet propaganda from that part of the world, the people that put it together are often pretty lazy about where they pull their images from--which, on occasion, leads to a phenomenon commonly referred to in blogosphere geekspeak as "pwning." We've covered this here before, but I always find the result amusing. So here's the latest from a site called The People's Cube. It's a screen capture of a Press TV story about how Iranian Jews have denounced foreign press reports that they were helping some of their own get out of the Islamic Republic in order to emigrate to Israel. Whoever is getting their news from these clowns must have been a bit startled by the accompanying photo...

HT: Jawa Report

Iraqi soldier with captured UAV. (AFP)

News that a “spy plane” was discovered by Iraqi troops in the southern city of Basrah, where Iran is attempting to exert its influence with the various Shia militias, is certain to stir up a controversy. Earlier today, the Iraqi newspaper Voices of Iraq reported "a spy plane, heavy weapons and documentaries" were found in the southern city of Basrah. AFP ran a photo captioned "An Iraqi policeman holds a small drone during a press conference in Basra," in the Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat.

So the question is whose "spy plane" is this? Is it an Iranian miniature Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (not a "drone" or a "spy plane") of the type used in Lebanon and flown into Israel? Perhaps this is an old, leftover UAV from the Saddam Area?

Looking at the photo provided by AFP, the answer looks to be much simpler. The UAV held by the Iraqi photo appears to be a direct match of the US made RQ-11B, or Raven B, a hand-launched, remote-controlled UAV with a range of six miles. In both images, the top wing of the Raven is detached.

Shia insurgents likely found a lost Raven, put it in their stockpiles, and forgot about it until the Iraqi troops uncovered the cache. The real question is how did this Raven not make it across the border into Iran for inspection?

Iran Kicks off War Games in 7,000-Mile Persian Gulf Area:

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran began four-days of war games in the Persian Gulf Monday, designed to ensure it can protect the nation's territorial waters, islands and coastlines, as well as neighboring countries, from foreign threats.

According to Press TV, the war games will be held in three stages in an area that encompasses northern parts of Iran's coastal province of Bushehr and the southern region of Aslouyeh. During the games the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will use a variety of weaponry.

The goal is to make sure the IRGC's state of the art equipment is working well so it can guarantee security in the Persian Gulf region for itself and neighboring states against future threats from foreign powers.

The war games will cover 7,000 square miles and employ hundreds of launching vessels, torpedoes, marines and divers.

Iran has a token force of a few frigates, subs, patrol craft, and missile boats, but those would quickly disappear in the event of a shooting war with the US-British-Australian fighting ships that patrol the gulf. The only value in Iranian symmetrical assets seems to be for PR purposes, which is evident in the silly, canned state-run news story quoted above.

However in asymmetrical warfare, the Iranian navy shows its fangs. Their primary mission is area denial, keeping enemies off of their islands and coastlines by using an aggressive swarming tactic. Iran has hundreds of small craft at its disposal, designed to overwhelm larger destroyers, frigates, and even carriers. A navy buddy of mine compared it to biplanes attacking King Kong. Because we're vulnerable to this, the occasional show of force in the contained waters of the Persian Gulf is an indicator that the threat of war with Iran is low, not high. It's when we sortie our carriers into the open blue of the Indian Ocean that's the real precursor to potential combat ops.

Sadr returns to Iraq, delivers sermon in Kufa. [AP Photo] Click to view.

Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Sadrist political current and commander of the Mahdi Army, has decided to eschew politics in favor of hitting the books in a bid to rise up the ranks of the Shia religious establishment. Sadr's move comes as the violence in Iraq has reduced dramatically and U.S. and Iraqi security forces have been targeting the "rogue" elements of his fracture militia.

Currently, Sadr holds a low ranking clerical position in the Shia religious establishment. This prevents followers from turning to him for religious advice, and forces them to turn to more senior ayatollahs for guidance. Sadr himself seeks to become an ayatollah, but is adopting the Iranian strain of theocratic Shia Islam known as wilayet al-faqeeh. "The concept was adopted Iran's Khomeini, but carries little support among Iraq's Shiite religious hierarchy," the Associated Press noted late last week.

Sadr often portrays himself as an Iraqi Shia nationalist and attacks Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, Iraqi's most influential Shia cleric, for his heritage. But Sistani rejects Iran’s theocratic version of Shia Islam. "Sistani supports an Islamic state that is compatible with elections, freedom of religion, and other civil liberties," the Council of Foreign Relations stated in a profile. Earlier this year, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which is run by Sadr rival Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, dropped the “Revolution” from its title and stated it would turn to Sistani for guidance in a clear effort to distance itself from Iran.

Sadr's decision to embrace the Iranian wilayet al-faqeeh along with his decision to withdraw from the political scene comes as the surge is having a significant impact on reducing the violence and sidelining al Qaeda and the Iranian-backed militias. While many reports indicate Sadr is attempting to reestablish control of his militia, Sadr appears to have decided it would benefit him to withdrawal from the political scene and deepen his relationship with the Iranians.

Many commentators wish to distance Sadr from the Iranians, but his acceptance of the Khomeinist style of theocratic Islam tells more about his relationship with Iran than any statement put out by Sadr's press flacks.

Qods Force logo, click to view.

While U.S. and Iraqi forces focus on combatting al Qaeda as it shifts to the Northern provinces, Coalition Special Forces teams continue to target the Iranian-backed Special Groups terror cells operating in the central and southern provinces. Since December 4, Special Forces teams have conducted three raids against the Iranian-supported Shia terrorists in and around Baghdad. Each of the targeted individuals in the raids received "received special weapons training."

The largest raid occurred on December 6 in the Al Hayy region southeast of Baghdad. Coalition forces captured the targeted Special Groups leader along with five associates. Two others were killed and two wounded in a firefight. "The targeted individual reportedly received special weapons training in order to train Special Group criminal element members for insurgent operations," Multinational Forces Iraq noted in its press release. "His skills consist of improvised explosive device operation, sniper fire, rocket propelled grenades, operational security, mortars and insurgency combat tactics. He is also believed to be an associate of several other senior-level criminal element leaders who were involved in attacks on Coalition forces."

Coalition Forces conducted a second raid on December 6 in the city of Al Kut in Wasit province. "The operations targeted an individual who reportedly received specialized weapons and tactical training, including sniper rifle and rocket-propelled grenade employment, the construction of improvised explosive devices, and operational security," Multinational Forces Iraq stated. "He was also suspected of being involved in training Special Group criminal element members on weapons and operational tactics," as well as involved with other senior leaders.

It is unclear if the targeted Special Groups leader was captured, or if he was a Qods Force operative. "Identification is pending further exploitation, but we are reviewing information recovered on the scene as well as assessing the level of involvement of the detainees," Multinational Forces Iraq's Press Desk responded to an inquiry from the Long War Journal.

A third weapons trainer was targeted in the Khan Bani Said region north of Baghdad on December 4. "The targeted individual was reportedly a significant explosively formed penetrator facilitator and trainer within Special Group criminal elements," a Multinational Forces Iraq press release stated. Two Special Groups fighters were captured but it is still unclear if the leader was among them.

The capture of these Iranian-backed operatives erodes claims that Iran is dialing back the attacks and operations inside Iraq. In late November, Special Groups operatives bombed a pet market in Baghdad, and attempted to make the attack look like an al Qaeda strike.

Several senior US military officers engaged in regions where the Special Groups are active believe the Iranian ratlines are still open. These ratlines are managed by Qods Forces' Ramazan Corps, the special command assigned to manage operations in Iraq.

Today's New York Times editorial, titled "Good and Bad News About Iran":

There is a lot of good news in the latest intelligence assessment about Iran. Tehran, we are now told, halted its secret nuclear weapons program in 2003, which means that President Bush has absolutely no excuse for going to war against Iran.

Then the bad news:

First, the report says “with high confidence” that Iran did have a secret nuclear weapons program and that it stopped only after it got caught and was threatened with international punishment. Even now, Tehran’s scientists are working to master the skills to make nuclear fuel — the hardest part of building a weapon.

Anyone who wants to give the Iranians the full benefit of the doubt should read the last four years of reports from United Nations’ nuclear inspectors about Iran’s 18-year history of hiding and dissembling. Or last month’s report, which criticized Tehran for providing “diminishing” information and access to its current program. In one of those ironies that would be delicious if it didn’t involve nuclear weapons, an official close to the inspection agency told The Times yesterday that the new American assessment might be too generous to Iran.

James Taranto:

In other words, the bad news, per the Times, is that a lunatic theocracy may soon become a lunatic theocracy armed with nuclear weapons. The good news is that that there's nothing President Bush can do to stop it.

The issue of Iranian complicity in the Iraqi insurgency has been the focus of much discussion since U.S. and Iraqi forces began heavily targeting the Iranian networks in late 2006. While news reports have touted Iran's role in reducing the violence, U.S. military officers believe Iran still serves as a source of weapons and fighters in Iraq.

Using a series of official military documents and maps obtained exclusively by the Long War Journal, I've put together a report on Iran's actions inside Iraq, including details on the Ramazan Corps, the sophisticated command structure for Iran's Qods Force to coordinate military, intelligence, terrorist, diplomatic, religious, ideological, propaganda, and economic operations. Also, I've provided a Flash presentation detailing the Ramazan Corps' ratlines into Iraq.

Click here to view and read more.

Israel enters the NIE fray:

Israeli officials, who've been warning that Iran would soon pose a nuclear threat to the world, reacted angrily Tuesday to a new U.S. intelligence finding that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons development program in 2003 and to date hasn't resumed trying to produce nuclear weapons.

So here we have two intelligence communities, Israel and the United States, with two completely different estimates. Israel doesn't enjoy the electronic collection capabilities that the United States does, but the Mossad is widely to believed to field one of the most effective HUMINT networks in the world.

So who to believe?

There's no shortage of intel wonks who believe that running agents--HUMINT--is more reliable than signature, imagery, and signals intelligence. That's Israel's specialty. Given the Mossad's past successes, and their obsession with Iran's atomic program, one would assume that Israel has penetrated the Iranian government with a certain level of effectiveness. At the very least, they're worth a listen.

Update: More from Max Boot at Contentions.

Just to add to Tom Joscelyn's excellent post on the National Intelligence Estimate, Cliff May offers this note from a former CIA insider:

[While this NIE] does confirm Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons in 2002 and 2003, its conclusions that as to why it may have stopped the program and why this halt may have continued are debatable [sic] and speculation. These KJs [Key Judgments] have too much political spin. This assessment was strongly influenced by two hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials who oversaw it, both former State officials who fought tooth and nail against Bush WMD policies, especially Iran.

I've heard similar rumblings from similar people, though less specific.

While I do agree that the NIE was somewhat less grounded than previous estimates, I don't agree with what is becoming a popular conservative talking point: Iran dropped their program in 2003 because OIF showed the world that America meant business. I think that it's far more likely that the Iranians--if they really did drop their program--had a North Korea (rather than Libya) style epiphany, realizing that the technological hurdle in constructing a bomb, shrinking it, and mating it to an effective delivery system was just too complicated of an endeavor. Had Iran truly been scared into submission by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I doubt we would have heard four years of blustering about "Iran's right to nuclear research and development" and boasting about "thousands of operational centrifuges."

But that doesn't mean that liberals are being any more rational. It's amusing to watch the transformation of the most ignorant left wing bloggers into defense experts every time an ideologically satisfying Pentagon/CIA press release appears, but any discussion about how the NIE is a blow to the Bush administration's plan to attack Iran is just silly. For one, the NIE's confirmation of Iran's nuclear intentions prior to 2003 completely justified the White House's relatively measured "all options are the table" rhetoric, and second, the White House has never deviated--nor threatened to deviate--from its commitment to a diplomatic resolution. And to clarify, no... acknowledging that military options exist is not a deviation from diplomacy. Executing a military option is a deviation from diplomacy.

In a NIE just two years ago, the U.S. Intelligence Community (“IC”) concluded: “[We] assess with high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure, but we do not assess that Iran is immovable.” However, the latest NIE on Iran’s nuclear program says, “…we do not know whether (Iran) currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.” This is just one of many differences between the 2005 estimate, which concluded that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program, and this latest estimate, which claims that the “military” nuclear weapons program was shut down sometime in 2003. (Keep in mind that the “civilian” program, which everyone concedes is still up and running, could quite easily be repurposed for military use. And the NIE is drawing a line between the two without explaining how it made that judgment. See Question #3 here.)

What changed?

Judging from press accounts, anonymous intelligence officials are offering a number of answers.
For example, McClatchy newspapers ran this description (emphasis added):

Senior U.S. intelligence officials said the judgment that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in mid-2003 emerged four to six months ago as a result of fresh intelligence, some of it from open sources and some from a "very rigorous scrub" of 20 years of information, some of which informed the 2005 NIE.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the analysts who drafted the report also had applied lessons learned from an erroneous 2002 NIE on Iraq.

Taken at face value, we have here a number of explanations. What is the “fresh intelligence” gathered by the IC? I am a strong advocate of open source analysis, but what “fresh intelligence” was gathered through open sources (e.g. press articles, television appearances, etc.)? Can you determine through open sources that Iran shut down its nuclear program in 2003? If so, how?

What did the “very rigorous scrub” of two decades of information entail? Keep in mind that the U.S. and the international community were in the dark for much of this period concerning Iran’s nuclear program. And why did this scrub produce different results now since it also “informed the 2005 NIE”? Is this a concession that the tradecraft used in the 2005 estimate was sloppy? Or, have the analysts let the current climate, with partisan debates over how to handle Iran dominating the headlines, dictate the way they viewed this intelligence?

This last question is particular apt, since the McClatchy account tells us that the “analysts who drafted the report also had applied lessons learned from an erroneous 2002 NIE on Iraq?” Did the lessons have to do with tradecraft? Or, do they mean they just wanted to make sure that the intelligence coming out of the IC was not used to justify any military action, as it did in the case of Iraq?

The Washington Post, based on anonymous sources, gives us a sense of what intelligence was used in the revised estimate (emphasis added):

Senior officials said the latest conclusions grew out of a stream of information, beginning with a set of Iranian drawings obtained in 2004 and ending with the intercepted calls between Iranian military commanders, that steadily chipped away at the earlier assessment.

In one intercept, a senior Iranian military official was specifically overheard complaining that the nuclear program had been shuttered years earlier, according to a source familiar with the intelligence. The intercept was one of more than 1,000 pieces of information cited in footnotes to the 150-page classified version of the document, an official said.

Several of those involved in preparing the new assessment said that when intelligence officials began briefing senior members of the Bush administration on the intercepts, beginning in July, the policymakers expressed skepticism. Several of the president's top advisers suggested the intercepts were part of a clever Iranian deception campaign, the officials said.

What drawings were obtained? Were there any intercepts that cut against the thesis that the program was shuttered in 2003? Were any of the “more than 1,000 pieces of information” cited in the report contradictory? If so, how were these contradictions explained away?

As the Post notes, senior administration officials expressed their skepticism concerning these intercepts, noting that it could be part of an elaborate deception campaign. The IC then did a review to determine if this was plausible and evidently concluded that the intercepts were valid. I have no reason to think their judgment is wrong, but then again, who knows?

Key questions regarding the intercepts: Are the conversations intercepted between parties that would know the full scope of the program? Are intercepts alone enough to validate the cessation of the “military” program in 2003, or is human intelligence also needed? Did any human intelligence go into this assessment? Are there any intercepts pertaining to the current state of the “military” nuclear program? Do any of the intercepts relate to the “civilian” nuclear program and its dual uses?

It will be interesting to follow the details of what made up this NIE in the press over the next few days.

Additional note: Over at NRO’s The Corner, Seth Leibsohn offers his own rundown of the different explanations for the flip-flop appearing in the press.

The story dominating the news cycle right now is the public release of "Key Judgments" from an NIE on Iran’s nuclear program. In particular, the first sentence of the NIE is drawing the press’s intention: "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program…" But, as they say, the devil is in the details. Given the poor performance of the U.S. Intelligence Community ("IC") in drafting previous NIE’s, we should review the IC’s work with a skeptical eye--no matter what conclusions are drawn. Interestingly, the IC now concedes that it is certain Iran had a nuclear weapons program. But that isn't getting the headlines. And after having read the little that has been made public from this NIE, we are left with substantive questions.

First, what intelligence is this assessment based upon?

Any student, or even casual observer, of the U.S. intelligence community knows that it has done a remarkably poor job of recruiting spies inside unfriendly regimes. For example, we had no meaningful spies inside Saddam’s regime. That was at least part of the reason the U.S. intelligence community misjudged Saddam’s WMD programs so badly. (Whatever came of Saddam’s WMD, U.S. intelligence clearly did not know what was going on since the few sources it had were on the periphery of Saddam’s regime.)

Reading the latest NIE does not provide, of course, any clues as to how the IC came to these conclusions. If the IC does have good sources inside the Iranian regime and its putative nuclear program, then quite naturally it would want to protect them. And we wouldn’t expect to see any information about sources in a declassified "Key Judgments" such as this.

However, there are good reasons to suspect that the IC does not have good intelligence inside Iran. For example, both of the leading members (one Republican, one Democrat) of the House Intelligence Committee explained back in 2006 that we did not really know then what was going on inside Iran. And the Robb-Silberman Commission, which investigated what the IC knew about WMD programs around the world, found in 2005: "Across the board, the Intelligence Community knows disturbingly little about the nuclear programs of many of the world's most dangerous actors. In some cases, it knows less now than it did five or ten years ago." Understandably, the Commission refrained from discussing the specifics of the intelligence community’s infiltration, or lack thereof, of both the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. But it is a safe bet that the statement cited above applied in both cases.

Thus, we should not be confident, at all, that the IC has the type of intelligence that would allow it to make a definitive assessment one way or another. This is true no matter what conclusions the IC publishes. Who or what are the sources cited by IC? How do we know they are telling the truth? If they are members of the Iranian regime, have their so-called bona fides been established? Are they in a position to know what they claim to know? Do they have any motives to lie, or distort the truth? We should be mindful of all of these questions and more.

Second, what has changed since 2005?

As this latest NIE notes, its conclusions are at odds with what the IC believed in 2005. The last page of the declassified Key Judgments notes significant differences between what the IC believed in 2005 and what it is saying now. In 2005, the IC noted: "[We] assess with high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure, but we do not assess that Iran is immovable." Now the IC says, "…we do not know whether (Iran) currently intends to develop nuclear weapons." So, in 2005 the IC was sure that Iran was determined to build a nuclear weapon and now it is not sure at all. This is a profound change in opinion and, at a minimum, does not inspire confidence that the IC can get this story right. After all, if the IC’s judgments can change so drastically in two years time, why should we believe any of its pronouncements one way or the other?

What is the basis for this flip-flop? What has been learned in the meantime to warrant such an about-face?

Third, how did the IC draw its line between a "civilian" nuclear program and a military one?

In the very first footnote the authors of the NIE explain: "For the purposes of this Estimate, by ‘nuclear weapons program’ we mean Iran’s nuclear weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work; we do not mean Iran’s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment."

From the BBC:

The Iranian government has announced a campaign against rap music which it considers obscene. The Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance said illegal studios would be closed and rap singers "confronted".

An official condemned rappers for using very vulgar words, but it was not clear if the whole genre was being banned.

Is there such a thing as Hip-Hop solidarity? Maybe the Factor can have Cam'ron back on to discuss the crackdown now that the elusive rapper has resurfaced.

Reuters reports U.S. Navy steps up fuel deliveries to Gulf forces:

The U.S. military has stepped up chartering of tankers and requests for extra fuel in the U.S. Central Command area, which includes the Gulf, shipping and oil industry sources say.

A Gulf oil industry source said the charters suggested there would be high naval activity, possibly including a demonstration to Iran that the U.S. Navy will protect the Strait of Hormuz oil shipping route during tensions over Tehran's nuclear programme.

The U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command (MSC) has tendered for four tankers in November to move at least one million barrels of jet and ship fuel between Gulf ports, from Asia to the Gulf and to the Diego Garcia base, tenders seen by Reuters show.

It usually tenders for one or two tankers a month to supply Gulf operations, which include missions in Iraq.

The MSC, asked for comment, confirmed the tenders and said there was nothing abnormal about current requirements in the Gulf, where it has a large military presence and which is home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet.

Fuel demands, particularly in a war zone, are always in motion. So I'd ignore the Reuters subtext here--that this is some sort of indication that an attack is imminent. If I were a betting man, I'd say that the Navy is replenishing after the major exercise held earlier this month or--if you're absolutely convinced that there's treachery afoot--preparing to respond to the coming flurry of Iranian naval activity.

HT: The Tank

There has been a lot of talk recently about a "a quiet process of apparent concessions and small gestures of approval between the United States and Iran in Iraq" as it was described today by Iran expert Gary Sick at FP Passport. Go read the whole post to see evidence of this courtship, most of which will be well familiar to our readers. Still, there's very little evidence that any thawing in relations between Iran and the United States has produced improvements on the ground in Iraq--just a lot of empty promises. Last time we spoke with General Bergner, back in October, he explained that despite Iranian commitments to reduce the flow of weapons and fighters,

We haven't seen that yet, and that's something that we hope they actually do follow through on. And there is -- there becomes some sort of statistically significant discernible improvement.

In the meantime, we do continue to conduct the operations that are targeting the networks and the facilitators -- and most recently, Mahmoud Farhadi, a Qods Force officer detained in northern Iraq a couple weeks ago -- because that's our mandate. That's our responsibility, to take the necessary actions to improve stability and security here -- so more to follow -- more to be seen on that front.

Now comes a report from Stars and Stripes that there is still no "discernible improvement" vis-à-vis Iranian men and materiel flowing into Iraq:

A U.S. commander in Baghdad said he has seen no signs that Iranian-backed Shiite extremists are curtailing their attacks against coalition forces....

“While the violence is down, I remain very concerned in our sector about these special groups,” Farris said. “They’re very lethal. They’re organized. They’re sophisticated, and I have not seen that their operations have declined or diminished in any way shape or form here in the last several months.”...

Iran has reportedly promised the Iraqi government that it will stem the flow of weapons into Iraq, but Farris said Monday that he still sees evidence of Iranian activities in his sector.

“In the last six weeks, we have captured two Iranian operatives, we’ve captured two Iraqis: One was significant because he admitted to receiving training in Iran in building and employing these explosive formed projectiles, and another was — admitted working as an agent for somebody or some group in Iran,” Farris said.

Unfortunately, it seems that a halt to Iranian attacks on U.S. forces is not among the "apparent concessions and small gestures" being made between the two countries.

Chris Hedges of the Nation seems to fancy himself a reincarnation of Henry David Thoreau. Only Thoreau was protesting a war that actually existed. From his latest, "Hands Off Iran":

I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran. I realize this is a desperate and perhaps futile gesture. But an attack on Iran--which appears increasingly likely before the coming presidential election--will unleash a regional conflict of catastrophic proportions. This war, and especially Iranian retaliatory strikes on American targets, will be used to silence domestic dissent and abolish what is left of our civil liberties. It will solidify the slow-motion coup d'état that has been under way since the 9/11 attacks. It could mean the death of the Republic.

That one paragraph gives us much to chew on. Each sentence boasts its own exquisite paranoia. But I couldn't help but to focus on Hedges' casual suggestion that military action against Iran would cost us "what is left of our civil liberties."

If I had the resources, I'd sponsor an essay contest challenging "What Civil Liberties Have You Lost Since 9/11?" For all of the Left's assurances that a vote for a Republican is a vote for the death of democracy, I can't think of a single right or freedom that I have lost since President Bush took office. And to be honest? I can't see someone turning "I can't call my al Qaeda cousin in Pakistan without the NSA listening in" into a convincing argument that the Republic is ready to draw its last breath.

Still, I'd love to be enlightened.

P.S.: The Corner notes of Hedges, "Not only was he a New York Times reporter for 15 years, he was its Middle East bureau chief in the 1990's. Yikes."

Over at Contentions, Norman Podhoretz has responded to Andrew Sullivan's charge of intellectual dishonesty--the matter of contention being the accuracy of a quote from Ayatollah Khomeini, via Amir Taheri, which NPod has frequently repeated to demonstrate the threat from Iran. The quote in question:

We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.

Sullivan says it's bogus, but NPod, with Taheri's assistance, seems to make a pretty strong case--pointing to an official compilation of Khomeini's speeches where the original quote can be found. Regardless, as Taheri points out, the Iranian revolution subordinates nationalism to Islam in a manner that precisely echoes the sentiment of the quote above. Sullivan, in addition to being wrong, seems to miss this point entirely.

Update: Sullivan responds here.

So, the good folks over at FP Passport are unhappy with my recent post on the gullibility of the IAEA and its defenders. I should preface this by saying that I'm a huge fan of the FP Passport, it's a must-read every day, but I'm compelled to defend myself here. It seems that Blake Hounsnell is upset with me for a couple of reasons. First, I attributed the views of his author, Eric Hundman, to the blog as a whole. Hounshell writes, "'Passport' is an inanimate object that doesn't have views. Individual contributors to the blog have views, and they often differ." This strikes me as a ludicrous point to make--if somebody writes something on the WWS, critics can fairly respond that 'the WWS says.' And people invariably attribute the views of WEEKLY STANDARD authors to the magazine itself--this is the nature of our business.

Second, Hounshell says that I'm guilty of "selective quotation." Yes, I am. As is anyone who uses quotations rather than publishing another person's writing or remarks in full. Quotation, by its very nature, is selective. And that is why our ancestors invented ellipses, and why Al Gore invented the internet--both of which I put to good use by showing that there was text that had been left out, and by linking to the original post so folks could read it for themselves.

And finally, Hounshell's only reasonable point of contention to my mind: that I was wrong to say that the IAEA is "all trust, and no verify." If FP Passport Hounshell wants to take that position, he certainly can try and make the case. But the fact of the matter is, Iran has never ratified the additional protocol to the NPT that would allow the IAEA to conduct snap inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities (neither has the United States, but I'm pretty comfortable with double standards here). The effect of this is that the IAEA must provide advance notice of all inspections, which pretty much defeats the point of inspections--except in the case that the Iranians leave blueprints for nuclear warheads laying about, which they did two years ago.

Also, the IAEA is only allowed to inspect declared nuclear sites. I do not believe that the Iranians have declared all their nuclear facilities, and I think it would be foolish to assume otherwise. So I think I'm on pretty solid ground saying that the IAEA cannot verify compliance with any type of agreement barring the Iranians coming clean and allowing snap inspections--and that just isn't going to happen.

Now can I please have my passport back?

The AP headline: "IAEA: Iran Generally Truthful on Nukes." I feel better already.

A report from the U.N nuclear watchdog agency on Thursday found Iran to be generally truthful about key aspects of its nuclear history, but it warned that its knowledge of Tehran's present atomic work was shrinking.

And this comes on the heels of an AP report earlier this week that,

Iran has met a key demand of the U.N. nuclear agency, handing over long-sought blueprints showing how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads, diplomats said Tuesday.

Iran's decision to release the documents, which were seen by U.N. inspectors two years ago, was seen as a concession designed to head off the threat of new U.N. sanctions.

For whatever reason, some folks are just desperate to believe the Iranians. Take the FP Passport blog for example, which found "plausible" the Iranian explanation for how the country had accidentally ended up with blueprints for a nuclear weapon:

On the surface, this claim is plausible. The A.Q. Khan network (and presumably, any other extant illicit networks supplying nuclear material) dealt in all types of dangerous materials and information, and the nature of a black market lends itself to disorganization and mistakes like the one Iran claims occurred....

Fortunately, though, these documents apparently did not contain blueprints for an entire nuclear weapons core. Machining enriched uranium (or plutonium) metal into a perfect sphere is merely one of many engineering challenges posed by an implosion nuclear weapon--an explosives array must be carefully designed to compress the metal effectively, for instance, and as we've seen with Iran, the enrichment process itself is very difficult to perfect without help. Hopefully the IAEA report will show Iran has benign intentions or, at least, that it has not progressed further towards building a nuclear weapon. But we'll have to wait and see.

Now the IAEA's report is out, and they find the Iranians to be "generally truthful." The Iranians had "accidentally" received blueprints for a nuclear warhead (as part of an illegal transfer of nuclear know-how), which were "accidentally" discovered by the IAEA, and we are still supposed to believe that (a) they aren't working towards a nuclear weapon, (b) they don't have other blueprints with which they weren't quite so careless, and (c) the IAEA's standard for compliance has always been "generally truthful." This wishful thinking can only lead to one conclusion--a nuclear Iran. And, while the use of force to prevent such an outcome is certain to be painful for all parties involved, diplomacy just isn't going to work, because the IAEA is all trust, and no verify.

Yesterday I joined several other conservative bloggers in a session with former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton at the Heritage Foundation. (Check out Tech Republican, Soren Dayton, and Quin Hillyer for more coverage of the event, as well as the American Spectator for video of his appearance there.) Bolton was extremely impressive--he spoke with ease and precision about a range of foreign policy and national security issues--including Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Israel, China, the United Nations and internal State Department politics. Bolton's appearance is intended to help promote his new book, Surrender is Not an Option.

In a ranging interview, I'm not sure how best to summarize what Bolton had to say. For simplicity's sake, I'll simply give bullet points on each topic.

• Iran: On Iran, the United States has for more than 4 years followed a failed policy of negotiation, following the lead of our European allies. Those negotiations have gotten Iran 4 years closer to having nuclear weapons, instead of 4 years closer to regime change in Tehran--which ought to have been our policy. Iran's regime is extremely fragile, and is having a hard time satisfying an overwhelmingly young and ethnically diverse population. With our responsible policy choices limited to regime change and targeted use of force against Iran's military program, the former would be preferable. Yet the United States has not pursued this effort, and will not use covert means to force a change in Iranian leadership.

When I asked Bolton specifically what he expected the administration to do with regard to Iran in the waning days of the administration, he expressed disappointment that President Bush is now hearing 'nothing but don't attack; don't upset the apple cart.' Soon he said, President Bush will be told not to strike Iran because of the way it will influence the presidential campaign, and after the election, he will be told to leave the challenge for the next president. Bolton said he is 'not optimistic.'

• North Korea: The problem of North Korea won't be eliminated until the North Korea regime is eliminated, the Korean peninsula is reunited, and the last anomaly resulting from World War II is corrected. China does not want North Korea to have nuclear weapons, because it encourages the nuclearization of Japan and South Korea, which is against China's interests. Beijing refuses to put too much pressure on Kim Jong Il, however, because it believes that the collapse of the regime would lead to reunification under the leadership of South Korea, with the potential for U.S. troops to be stationed along the Yalu River.

Bolton also attached great significance to the recent Israeli strike in Syria, against a facility associated with North Korea's nuclear program. He expressed a strong desire for the declassification of all the information about the strike that can be declassified. Bolton said that many questions remain and that at the very least, all Members of Congress should be briefed on it. Is Syria cooperating with North Korea on nuclear technology? They could not do so on their own, and would not do so without Iran's assistance. Is Syria then serving as a conduit for nuclear cooperation between North Korea and Iran? Bolton believes these questions must be addressed.

At the end of October, Mohammed ElBaradei, chairman of the IAEA, told CNN:

I have not received any information that there is a concrete, active nuclear weapon program going on right now. … We have information that there have been maybe some studies about possible weaponization. But we are looking into these alleged studies with Iran right now.

Today the AP reports quite a different story:

Iran has met a key demand of the U.N. nuclear agency, handing over long-sought blueprints showing how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads, diplomats said Tuesday.

Iran's decision to release the documents, which were seen by U.N. inspectors two years ago, was seen as a concession designed to head off the threat of new U.N. sanctions.

So the Iranian's actually have blueprints for building a nuclear weapon--blueprints that the IAEA had been unable to get them to turnover until now (they don't have photocopiers in Tehran?)--but ElBaradei would only describe this as "maybe" some studies about "possible" weaponization? So what's the real story here?

Basically, the IAEA back in 2005--in the course of investigating Iran’s nuclear activities--stumbles upon blueprints that show how to build a nuclear warhead. The Iranian response to this little discovery is to claim that the blueprints must have been “accidentally” given to them by the Pakistani nuclear smugglers, when they were secretly buying enrichment technology from them several years ago (but strictly for peaceful purposes!). Oh, and, by the way, the IAEA wasn't allowed to take the blueprints back to Vienna.

But this is the man the left would describe as having "poured water over Vice President Cheney’s confident declaration last week that 'Iran is pursuing technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons.'" So they have the reactor, the centrifuges, the blueprints, and soon the nuclear material, but according to the IAEA and Think Progress, they aren't "pursuing technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons." Right.

Over at Contentions, Max Boot scolds Admiral Fallon for sending "mixed messages" to Iran:

Whatever you think about the desirability of a preemptive strike, one thing is clear: it would be the height of foolishness for the United States to take that option off the table. Only if the mullahs think they face a serious military threat are they likely to slow down their quest for the bomb.

Thus it was puzzling to see Admiral William Fallon, head of U.S. Central Command, telling the Financial Times that, as the headline had it, “U.S. strike on Iran ‘not being prepared.’” The content of the article was a bit more complex: while Fallon was quoted as saying that a strike is not “in the offing,” he continued, “That said, we have to make sure there is no mistake on the part of the Iranians about our resolve in tending to business in the region.”

The Iranians can be forgiven for having grave doubts about U.S. resolve, however, when the senior U.S. military figure in the region is going out of his way to assure them that their threatening actions will not result in American military action.

This is the big question--does ratcheting up the rhetoric increase the likelihood of a favorable diplomatic compromise, or does it merely increase the likelihood of a military confrontation? I'm inclined to agree with Boot, the more credible the threat of violence, the more likely Iran is to seek a face-saving compromise. Still, the American system of government, unlike that in Iran, is transparent--our enemies know full well that it is the civilian leadership, i.e. Bush and Cheney, which will decide whether or not to launch a strike. And they also know full well that Fallon is being less than honest. Anyone who believes that the Pentagon isn't constantly refining plans for an immediate strike on Iran, North Korea, and a host of other countries--Pakistan included--is terribly naive. And as irrational as the Iranians may be, there's no reason to think that they're naive.

Radio Farda–-the Farsi language service at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty–-is increasingly proving a critical source for information about what’s happening inside Iran. Radio Farda’s job is “surrogate broadcasting”-–telling the stories that the Iranian press would report, if only they were free to do so.

Here’s one such story they are covering today–-a fascinating must-read:

Solouki says the Iranian Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance granted her a research license. She says the authorities were told in advance of the locations where she wanted to film, and that they were aware that the subject dealt with the cemeteries of Iranian minorities.

The authorities therefore had prior knowledge of her planned activities -- they were not taken by surprise. "The bureau in charge of minorities affairs at the Culture Ministry coordinated all this," Solouki said. "[By that] I mean coordination between the ministry's press office and its minorities bureau."

But while filming, Solouki says she stumbled on an area at the Khavaran Cemetery on Tehran's outskirts that caught her attention. She described it as "totally different" from the other parts she had filmed. Asked whether she was referring to a mass grave of people summarily executed in 1988, she said, "Yes."

How many people were buried there has never been established. However, estimates by Iranians and outsiders generally point to more than 2,800 killed, with their bodies buried in different areas around the country, not just the Khavaran Cemetery. Most were opposition leftists and mujahedin members taken from jail and summarily executed. Solouki says the authorities may believe that she intended to make a film critical of the mass executions, which took place in the summer and fall of 1988.

Ms. Solouki--an Iranian/French citizen--goes on trial for stumbling across the mass grave on November 17. A Google News search shows no mention of this travesty of justice in the American press, nor was President Ahmadinejad asked about her at his visit to Columbia.

Why is the American media turning a blind eye to this human rights violation, and what will happen to Ms Solouki if the rest of the world ignores her plight?

Read more on this at Gateway Pundit.

As part of the new counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, General David Petraeus directed Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces to target Iranian-backed extremists with the same intensity as they were showing in their campaign against al Qaeda in Iraq. In the process, Multinational Forces Iraq has learned much about the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps - Qods Force's activities in Iraq, and has killed or captured hundreds of its Iraqi Shia operatives since the surge began. Now that the attack levels have dropped dramatically, the U.S. is planning on releasing some of the Iranian captured in those sweeps. The Iranian government, naturally, is pleased by this development. Reuters reports:

U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said the Iranians to be released included two who were among five detained by U.S. forces in northern Iraq in January on suspicion of providing support to Shi'ite militias. The others were detained over the past several years.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari hailed the announcement, saying it was a confidence-building measure that would encourage more productive talks between Iran, Iraq and the United States on improving security in Iraq.

It appears the U.S. is responding to the significant drop in attacks over the past few months, and is attempting to make overtures to Iran. "Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, who is in charge of day-to-day military operations in Iraq, said the number of explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, that were found or detonated dropped from a peak of 99 in July to 53 in October," the AP reported earlier this month.

But the military is not sure why the attacks have slowed. "They might have slowed the rate of sending EFPs in," Odierno said, referring to the Iranians. "I just can't tell you right now. I think in a couple of months I'll be able to give you a better idea of that." Another possibility is that the surge has significantly degraded the capabilities of the Qods Force and the Special Groups.

The U.S. has captured several high ranking Qods Force leaders over the past year, including Mahmud Farhadi, one of the three regional commanders of the Ramazan Corps, which is Qods Force's organizational command for operations in Iraq. U.S. forces also captured Ali Mussa Daqduq, a senior Hezbollah leader who was charged with building the Iranian-backed Special Groups along the same lines as Hezbollah. The U.S. military has given no indication of its plans for Farhadi and Daqduq.

Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama recently articulated his strategy towards Iran. In an interview with the New York Times, Senator Obama said he would “engage in aggressive personal diplomacy” with the Islamic Republic, and he excused Iranian aggression towards U.S. forces inside Iraq.

Mr. Obama said that Iran had been "acting irresponsibly" by supporting Shiite militant groups in Iraq. He also emphasized that Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program and its support for "terrorist activities" were serious concerns.

But he asserted that Iran's support for militant groups in Iraq reflected its anxiety over the Bush administration's policies in the region, including talk of a possible American military strike on Iranian nuclear installations. . . .

Mr. Obama said, for example, that the part of the residual force assigned to counterterrorism might be based outside Iraq. He also emphasized that the residual force would not have the mission of deterring Iranian involvement in Iraq. He said he would commit to training Iraqi security forces only if the Iraqi government engaged in political reconciliation and did not employ the Iraqi Army and police for sectarian purposes. In any event, he said, American trainers would not be attached with Iraqi units that go in harm's way.

This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Iranian regime and its actions towards the West and the United States in particular. After overthrowing the Shah in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini directed the Islamic Revolution not only at the Iranian people, but exported its radical ideology and terror campaign throughout the world.

Iran, through the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps-Qods Force, built Hezbollah to attack Israel in Lebanon. Iran was behind the murder of U.S. Marines and French soldiers in the suicide car bombings in Beirut in 1983 and the attack on the Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994. Iran has been implicated in the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia. Iran has aided al Qaeda prior to the September 11 attacks, and the 9-11 Commission said Iranian involvement deserved a closer look. Senior al Qaeda leaders such as Said bin Laden and Saif al Adel, along with upwards of 100 al Qaeda leaders and operatives, are currently being sheltered by the IRGC.

Iran initiated its terror network inside Iraq as soon as the U.S. invasion began, and aided al Qaeda, Ansar al Islam, and Ansar al Sunnah in establishing networks inside the country. Qods Force has established the Ramazan Corps to direct the Iranian terror networks inside Iraq. Qods Force smuggles munitions, such as the deadly explosively formed projectiles of the same type used by Hezbollah against Israeli troops, into Iraq. Up to 300 U.S. soldiers have been killed in EFP attacks alone.

Excusing Iranian aggression against U.S. servicemen in Iraq based on a perceived grievance and an imaginary fear of the Bush administration provides Iran a clear propaganda victory. Declaring that U.S. troops would not interdict Iranian terrorists and relegating them to non-combat missions endangers them further precisely because it makes them targets. Iran will target Iraqi patrols with U.S. advisors to force U.S. forces off the battlefield. This policy would also roll back the real progress made in Iraq since the surge began. Attacking the Iranian networks and interdicting their supply lines has been a key part of the improvement of the security situation.

On July 6 of this year, I pointed to a survey showing that 60 percent of Americans opposed a war with Iran. I also noted at the time that given "the substance of the left/libertarian opposition to a more confrontational approach in dealing with Iran," I wouldn't be "too surprised when that 60 percent opposing a war with Iran starts to dwindle--it has dropped five points in just the last six months."

Well, today we have new poll from Zogby showing that a majority of Americans now favor military action against Iran:

A majority of likely voters – 52% – would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and 53% believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election, a new Zogby America telephone poll shows.

Remember when Barnett Rubin "reported" in August that:

They [the source's institution] have "instructions" (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this--they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is "plenty."

The unsourced rumor was picked up by George Packer at the New Yorker, among others. Now if anyone from Cheney's office was giving "instructions" on how to roll out a war with Iran, I didn't get the memo, so I'm going to stick with my previous explanation for the increased support--the left has done a terrible job of laying out their case against a strike, or maybe it just isn't possible to lay out a persuasive case against a strike. In any case, if 35-40 percent support was considered "plenty" by the veep, what do you think he'll make of an outright majority? And what does George Packer make of it?

Over at his new blog "connecting the dots," Gabriel Schoenfeld--who is always a "must read" when it comes to intelligence matters--is discussing Kenneth Timmerman’s new book, Shadow Warriors. I have not yet read Timmerman’s book, but Schoenfeld is discussing one of Timmerman’s claims that I have looked into--that is, I’ve tried to look into it as much as I can. According to Schoenfeld, Timmerman writes that "to this day, the CIA has no spies in Iran" and he attributes this claim to "numerous agency insiders and other sources."

Schoenfeld points out that if the CIA did have spies inside Iran, Langley would have an incentive to tell journalists like Timmerman that they didn’t. It is a fair point. The Agency certainly does have a strong incentive to protect its most important sources. Despite his "distrust" of Timmerman’s account, Schoenfeld says his "best guess, knowing a bit about CIA difficulties in recruiting human sources, is that his claim about the agency’s non-coverage of Iran is accurate."

I am also inclined to believe Timmerman is right. Here’s why.

In 2006, Chris Wallace of Fox News interviewed Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who was then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Hoekstra was asked what we know about Iran’s nuclear program:

WALLACE: Congressman, how close is Iran to actually developing a nuclear weapon, or don't we really know?

HOEKSTRA: I'd say we really don't know. We're getting lots of mixed messages. Obviously, we're getting lots of different messages from their leadership, the stuff that they are saying in public.

It all points out the fact we need to do much better in rebuilding our intelligence community, reshaping it, transforming it, making sure that we give public policy--that we give policymakers the information that they need so that we can make better decisions.

We've got a long way to go in rebuilding our intelligence community. We're focused on this in a bipartisan basis, and we're going to keep trying to build the intelligence community that we outlined in the reform bill that we passed a couple of years ago.

WALLACE: But, Chairman Hoekstra, I mean, almost everyone agrees this is the major foreign policy issue or challenge facing this country today, and you're saying we really don't know what's going on in Tehran?

HOEKSTRA: Hey, sometimes it's better to be honest and to say there's a whole lot we don't know about Iran that I wish we did know, and we as public policymakers need to know that as we're moving forward and as decisions are being made on Iran, we don't have all of the information that we would like to have.
And that's nothing more than being honest, being honest with the American people of saying in some of this stuff, we wish we had the information, but right now we don't.

During the same session, Wallace also interviewed Jane Harman, Hoekstra’s Democratic counterpart on the House Intelligence Committee. Harman concurred with Hoekstra: "We don't know. Our intelligence is thin. I don't think we have enough sources. I don't think our analysis is sharp enough."

Is it possible that the CIA hid its sources inside Iran from the senior ranking Republican and Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, so much so that they went on television warning that we didn’t have any real significant intel inside Iran? Maybe, but that certainly isn’t likely. You could argue that Hoekstra and Harman did not say that the CIA had no spies at all inside Iran, which is Timmerman’s claim. That’s true, but their statements leave us in the same place--the U.S. intelligence community is blind when it comes to Iran.

PBS aired a new FRONTLINE documentary this past Tuesday titled "Showdown With Iran." The documentary was produced with the intent of highlighting the source of tensions between the U.S. and Iran since 9/11, but it fell well short of providing an accurate portrait for a variety of reasons.

At one point, for example, the documentary implies that relations between the two nations were improving until President Bush included Iran in the "Axis of Evil" during his January 2002 State of the Union speech. This verbal assault supposedly emboldened Iran’s hardliners and further marginalized the reformists, thereby damaging a real opportunity for meaningful change in the relationship between the two nations. This tripe is frequently repeated, but it is a hollow critique.

In reality, Iran’s reformists have no control over Iran’s terrorist proxies or national security apparatus and, therefore, are and have been incapable of curtailing the hardliners for decades. The ayatollah and his attending mullahs are the real power in Iran, and until this changes the reformists are feckless. So, whether Iran was in or out of the "Axis of Evil" made no difference at the end of the day because the reformists had no real power to speak of in any event. Moreover, the PBS documentary skirts the issue of the hardliners’ unsavory activities at the time and throughout history, which the reformists have never been able to remedy. (More on this later.)

The documentary also implies that the United States spurned a legitimate Iranian offer to settle all debts, so to speak, by striking a "grand bargain." This offer supposedly came in May 2003 via a Swiss Diplomat named Tim Guldimann. The offer is oft-cited by the left as evidence that the Bush administration recklessly flopped a legitimate opportunity to engage in meaningful dialog with Iran. But again, this is nonsense. As Michael Rubin explained in THE WEEKLY STANDARD previously, the Guldimann memo was the work of a wishful thinking, freelancing, Western diplomat, and not a serious attempt by the Iranians to strike a deal.

To its credit, PBS did include some doubts about the Guldimann offer. But the overall impression I got watching the documentary was that PBS thinks there was a legitimate opportunity for setting aside our differences in May 2003. Offering a dissenting view was Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state during President Bush’s first term. A transcript of PBS’s interview with Armitage, snippets of which were included in the documentary, is available online. Armitage was asked about the Guldimann offer and he confirmed Rubin’s take:

PBS: After the invasion [of Iraq], there's been a lot of discussion about the so-called "grand bargain" fax that came through from the Swiss ambassador. Tell us your recollection of that.

Armitage: Our discussions with Iranians were handled by the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, for which we were very grateful, but it had been our view that the Swiss ambassador in Tehran was so intent -- and I mean this positively -- but he was so intent on bettering relations between "the Great Satan," the United States, and Iran that we came to have some questions about where the Iranian message ended and the Swiss message may begin.

I remember talking with people from our Near East division about a fax that came in from the Swiss ambassador, and I think our general feeling was that he had perhaps added a little bit to it because it wasn't in consonance with the state of our relations. And we had had some discussions, ... particularly through intelligence channels with high-ranking Iranian intelligence people, and nothing that we were seeing in this fax was in consonance with what we were hearing face to face. So we didn't give it much weight.

PBS: What were you hearing face to face?

We were getting no cooperation on questions of terrorism, particularly ... turning people over. We had in Europe some very high-level discussions in intelligence channels and were getting a lack of cooperation. ...

Others disagree with Armitage, but he has the better of them on the facts. He rightly points out that the U.S. was already in face-to-face talks with the Iranians, they did not make an offer anything like the Guldimann memo in these talks, and the Guldimann memo was out of step with the rest of Iran’s behavior.

Interestingly, the hardliners themselves say that the offer was not genuine. Hossein Shariatmadari, a mouthpiece for the Ayatollah and editor-in-chief of Kayhan, the regime’s state-run newspaper, was also asked about the Guldimann memo:

MoveOn.org has sent a message to its members announcing the start of a coordinated campaign to prevent the U.S. from a military strike against Iran. From their E-mail:

To be honest, I don't even like to think about the possibility of war with Iran. But here's the unfortunate truth—plans for an aerial attack have been drawn up. There's nothing stopping Bush from launching that attack any day. And right now the progressive movement's main strategy for preventing it is simply to hope that it doesn't happen.

To paraphrase my ninth-grade sex-ed teacher, "Hope is not a method." We need to do something. There are increasing indications that war with Iran may be imminent. And experts agree it would be a catastrophe.

So today we're proposing a major campaign to expose the danger of a new war with Iran (see below for details). It'll cost about $200,000, and if we can raise the money, we'll start today. Can you chip in $25?...

Observers across the political spectrum, from Senator John McCain to former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, say the threat is closer than it appears. And it's never a good idea to underestimate this president's capacity for recklessness.

We can't run the risk that they're crazy enough to do it. That's why it's so important that we make sure policymakers understand the cost of war, and we pressure Congress not to roll over on Iran. If we can raise the money today, here's what we'll do:

• A number of top retired generals and military experts are willing to say publicly that attacking Iran would be a strategic disaster. We'll put them on tour to speak to political leaders, editorial boards and big audiences.

• We'll run ads challenging the Bush administration and key presidential candidates—and remind people that the last time we heard many of these phony arguments was in the lead-up to war with Iraq.

• We'll commission polling to show wavering politicians that if they stand up against war with Iran, the public will stand with them.

• We'll run a major grassroots campaign urging Congress to confront the administration on Iran.

None of us know how likely a strike against Iran really is. But I'm going to do more than just hope it doesn't happen. The signs and signals have become too glaring. We have to act.

It's ironic that MoveOn's theme on Iran seems to be 'hope is not a strategy.' There's not a mention in their missive about how to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. It appears that the only coordinated campaign they are interested in is a campaign against the White House. As far as Iran goes, hope is their strategy.

MoveOn knows that the American people oppose military action against Iran; they even know what the polling will show before they take the polls. But if the American people truly oppose preserving a credible threat of military action, why are all the major presidential candidates of both parties staking out a contrary position?

Obviously, this isn't really about Iran; it's just another political campaign. Their strategy is to use the nation's number one security threat as a political football, and to try to score points against Republicans before the 2008 elections. But as with Iraq, the likely outcome is to elevate an issue that divides Democrats, and separate them from their political base. You can bet that if MoveOn raises the money they're seeking, in a few months there will be stories about angry liberal Democrats targeting Blue Dogs and other moderates who refuse to take an oath to oppose military action against Iran. There will be new fodder for primaries against the Democratic representatives and senators whose victories helped end the Republican majorities.

Has MoveOn really thought this through?

At this point, it's obvious the Iranians will happily work arm in arm with both Sunni and Shia extremists. They offer support to the Special Groups and al Qaeda in Iraq and then to the east, they supply the Taliban and al Qaeda with much the same materials:

The top NATO commander in Afghanistan alleged Thursday that the Iranian military was involved in a shipment of sophisticated explosive devices intercepted by his troops in western Afghanistan last month.

U.S. Army Gen. Dan McNeill, the commander of NATO's 40,000-strong International Security Assistance Force, said the convoy intercepted on Sept. 5 contained "a number of advanced technology improvised explosive devices."

"This weapons convoy clearly, geographically, originated in Iran," McNeill told reporters in Kabul.

"It is difficult for me to conceive that this convoy could have originated in Iran and come to Afghanistan, without at least the knowledge of the Iranian military," he said, without providing details of the evidence underlying the accusation.

But there is some good news, we're killing a lot of bad guys:

Afghanistan is going through its most violent year since the ouster of the Taliban regime in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. More than 5,200 people — mostly militants — have died this year as a result of fighting, according to an Associated Press count based on official figures.

Keep in mind the AP was happy to repeat Hezbollah's claims last year that Israeli attacks has killed "mostly civilians." If they are saying that 5,200 people were killed, "mostly militants," one starts to wonder just how many of those were militants--maybe 95 percent? I can't find a good number of civilians killed, but iCasualties has the Coalition toll at 192 for this year (92 of those Americans), about a quarter of whom died from non-hostile fire.

Over at the Atlantic blog, Marc Ambinder is discussing the Kyl-Lieberman amendment that urges the administration to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, and the kerfuffle raised by Senator Obama in the Manchester Union Leader over it yesterday. Senator Obama--desperate for a wedge issue with Democratic primary voters, it seems--has lately been trying to exploit Hillary Clinton’s support for the amendment (which, oddly enough, becomes “Lieberman-Kyl” rather than “Kyl-Lieberman” in his op-ed; hmmmm...).

Specifically, Obama is arguing that the amendment is tantamount to an authorization for the use of military force--an interpretation that Ambinder rightly disputes:

based on a plain reading of the texts of both resolutions, the answer is no. The resolution doesn't give the administration the authority to pick its nose. Obama himself believes that the Revolutionary Guards should be designated a terrorist organization. And he has acknowledged that the presence of troops in the Middle East should at least in part be structured so as to consider our national security interests vis-a-vis Iran.

Unfortunately, Ambinder also argues, bizarrely, that “to some proponents of Lieberman-Kyl who want to strike at Iran, the answer is yes”-- the amendment can be interpreted as an authorization for the use of military force.

We here at Worldwide Standard confess to a certain hawkish sensibility when it comes to Iran and its murder of our troops in Iraq, but to our knowledge, no serious supporter of the Lieberman-Kyl amendment has argued that the text authorizes the administration to strike at Iran.

And in case there was any confusion on this point, here is Senator Kyl on 9/24 on the floor of the Senate:

"First of all, can this be read in any way as an authorization of military action against Iran? I will assure my colleagues that is absolutely not our intention--in fact, quite the opposite. This is intended to obviate the necessity for such military conduct. Nobody wants to have to engage in military action against Iran directly, but what we would like to do is get them to stop killing our troops. One way to do that is to put economic pressure on the organization that is doing the killing, and that is what this amendment would ask the administration to do.”

Here is Lieberman on 9/25: “There's no intention here to authorize the use of force against Iran. That the focus of this amendment is entirely on imposing economic sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

Can Marc tell us exactly who these “proponents of Lieberman-Kyl” are, who believe that the amendment’s own drafters misunderstand its interpretation? Or was he just making this bit up?

Washington Post journalist Robin Wright ran a prominent story today about how “two dozen Iranian American and human rights groups” have written a letter calling for Congress to cut democracy funding for Iran.

She goes on to describe the signatories as an assortment of “liberal and conservative pro-democracy groups.”

Wright’s characterization is, at best, spectacularly misleading. In fact, the lion’s share of signatories consist of an assortment of anti-war left wing zealots (Peace Action, Vietnam Veterans Against War, and my personal favorite, “World Can’t Wait, Drive Out the Bush Regime”) and the just plain weird (Justice Through Music, Center for Persian Classical Music).

Wright also didn’t bother to interview anyone who might hold a contrary opinion to these kooky groups, but rather repeats their assertions as facts.

The article also misleadingly suggests that Human Rights Watch is a signatory to the letter. It is not.

And the article states that the Senate added $75 million to the Iran democracy program earlier this year “at the administration’s request.” It did not. Rather, the Senate unanimously passed a bipartisan amendment on its own accord that raised funding to this level.

Of course, for those of us who have been following Wright’s work, we are accustomed to her hallmarks: deceptive mischaracterizations, opinions masquerading as facts, and plain factual errors--all in service of her left-wing ideological agenda.

Jimmy Carter was interviewed yesterday by Wolf Blitzer on CNN where he lambasted the Bush administration for making up its own definition of torture and the Republican candidates for "competing with each other to appeal to the ultra-right-wing, war-mongering element in our country." And Carter recently told the BBC that the vice president has been "a disaster for our country." Nothing too surprising here, and not particularly newsworthy either. But overlooked, as best I can tell, was Carter's interview the other night with Larry King, which prompted this exchange about Iran and North Korea:

KING: And you believe diplomacy [in Iran] can work?

CARTER: Yes, I do. As a matter of fact, when the shah was overthrown, I had continued as you know full diplomatic relations with Iran. Everybody knows that because I had 75 or so diplomats in Tehran. I had about the same number of Washington when we had communications going on.

I think when we disagree with somebody with a serious confrontation, like we are now building up with Iran, the best thing to do is try to ease the tension by just explaining our position directly to them, let them explain theirs to us and working out a reasonable compromise. That should be done. And that's been the policy of our country almost since the founding of our nation.

KING: Is that your number one worry spot in the world?

CARTER: Well, North Korea still bothers me. Because after we had negotiated with North Korea in 1994, a reasonable end to their nuclear capability and after President Bill Clinton adopted what we had negotiated and put that into effect, it was thrown away when the new administration came in. And after that, North Korea began to purify plutonium and now they have enough for six or seven nuclear weapons.

I think that potentially is much worse to disrupt the region of the world which might involve us than Iran, which now has no capability at all, everybody agrees, for nuclear weapons in the near future.

Again, I'm hardly surprised that Carter would make the ridiculous claim that the Bush administration is to blame for the collapse of the agreed framework, but does the former president not remember what happened to those "75 or so" diplomats he left in Tehran?

General Petraeus said today that while al Qaeda continues to pose the most immediate threat to security in Iraq, Coalition strikes against the group have eroded its capacity to spur sectarian violence. The upshot: Iran increasingly looks to be the most serious long-term threat to peace and stability in Iraq.

"Al Qaeda remains the wolf closest to the sled, if you will," he said. "The enemy that is always bent on reigniting sectarian violence, causing the most horrific casualties, damaging the infrastructure in the most difficult way. So you cannot lose focus on al Qaeda..."

"Militias could potentially be the long-term problem for Iraq, if you assume that we can continue to make progress against al Qaeda..."

And again, Petraeus described the evidence of Iranian support for those militias:

But, Petraeus added, there was "no question" that Iranian arms were ending up in the hands of the Iraqi militias and there was "no debate" that six Iranians detained by the U.S. military in northern Iraq are Iranian Quds force members -- the Iranian unit the United States accuses of training and arming insurgents.

"There's no question, absolutely no question that Iran is providing advanced RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades], RPG 29s," Petraeus said.

"It has provided some shoulder-fired, Stinger-like air-defense missiles. It has provided the explosively formed projectiles and it has provided 244 mm rockets, in addition to mortars, mortar rounds and other small-arms ammunition."

Petraeus also said the Iranians "are implicated in the assassination of some governors in the southern provinces."

He said one indication the Quds force controls Iranian policy is that Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazzem Qomi, is a member of the group.

There are still a few people out there who deny Iranian involvement in the murder of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, or minimize Iranian actions there as mere "interference," but as Hillary might say, such statements require the willing suspension of disbelief. Go read the whole whole story from CNN.

From Jim Landers of the Dallas Morning News we learn that the Kurds are worried about Iran’s ongoing relationship wiith Ansar al-Islam, an al Qaeda affiliate in Iraq. Note, in particular, what the mayor of one Iraqi city had to say about Iran’s support for Ansar al-Islam:

"From time to time Iran uses them [Ansar al-Islam fighters] as a pressure card to make trouble for us," said Salam Omer Ibrahim, mayor of the Iraqi border city of Said Sadiq. "They're saying, 'If you help our opposition, we have ways to respond.' "

Landers also provides this interesting account of how Iran may release Ansar al-Islam terrorists on its Kurdish enemies in response to a raid by the U.S. in late September:

On Sept. 23, U.S. soldiers made a pre-dawn raid at a luxury hotel in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah to arrest an Iranian government official named Mahmoudi Farhadi. A U.S. military spokesman said Mr. Farhadi was suspected of supplying armor-piercing bombs and other arms to Iraqi insurgents. The spokesman also accused Iran of smuggling rockets, surface-to-air missiles and other weapons into Iraq.

Iran responded to Mr. Farhadi's arrest by closing its border with Kurdish Iraq, cutting off food, fuel and other consumer goods for much of the eastern half of the region. They also used bulldozers to block smuggling lanes. Kurdish officials say they expect Ansar al-Islam will soon cross the border again to stage another attack.

Go read the whole thing.

Ansar al-Islam ("AAI") is one of those terrorist groups that defies the narrow thinking that clouds our vision of our terrorist enemies. A number of different entities from al Qaeda, to Iran, to Saddam’s Iraq have had substantial connections with the group in one way or another. A naysayer may argue these ties don’t add up to much, but that would be short-sighted. In the piece cited above, Landers says that AAI’s ties to Saddam’s regime prior to the war were "unsubstantiated," but that is not really true.

George Tenet explained in At the Center of the Storm how the CIA collected evidence that showed al Qaeda agents were working with Ansar al-Islam not just in northern Iraq, but also from Saddam’s neo-Stalinist capital, Baghdad. Jonathan Schanzer provided this excellent write-up on the role that Abu Wael, an Iraqi Intelligence officer, played in supporting AAI. Wael is a relative of Saddam’s former right-hand man, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who also has been connected to AAI and al Qaeda in Iraq in a variety of ways. Al-Douri reportedly broke off ties with al Qaeda in Iraq just recently, but prior to his change of heart he had a long history of collaborating with al Qaeda and its affiliates. For more on al-Douri’s relationship with al Qaeda see here, here, and here. This is just some of the available evidence on the relationship between members of Saddam’s regime and al Qaeda’s affiliates in Iraq both before and after the March 2003 invasion.

To understand how this all works, I would recommend Dan Darling’s outstanding dossier on AAI from 2004. I still think that is among the best analyses, if not the best, of AAI to date.

And lest anyone think that the Sunnis of AAI can’t work with the Shiites of Iran, think again. There is ample evidence that Iran has been supporting our Sunni terrorist enemies all along.

Hat tip for the Dallas Morning News piece: Counterterrorism Blog

Captured mortars with Iranian markings. Click to view.

The September 20 capture of an Iranian Qods Force--Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps commander in the northern Kurdish province of Sulimaniyah created a stir inside both Iran and Iraq. The Iranians swiftly closed the northern border, claiming the man, Agha Farhadi, was an Iranian trade representative on a sanctioned business trip. Multinational Forces Iraq later identified the Iranian as Mahmud Farhadi. Today, Major General Kevin Bergner, the spokesman for Multinational Forces Iraq, disclosed that Farhadi was in fact the commander of one of the three Iranian commands inside Iraq.

"Farhadi was the officer-in-charge of the Zafr Command, one of three units subordinate to the Ramazan Corps of the Qods Force . . . This Corps is responsible for most of the Qods Force operations in Iraq. As the Zafr Commander, he was responsible for all Qods Force operations in north-central Iraq that included cross-border transfers of weapons, people and money."

Farhadi has been independently identified by outside intelligence sources, and has a long history of operations inside Iraq. "Multiple sources implicate Farhadi in providing weapons to Iraqi criminal elements and surrogates of Iran," said Bergner. "We also know that for more than a decade, he was involved in Iranian intelligence operations in Iraq."

Farhadi is one of the most senior officers in Iran's Qods Force to be captured in Iraq, Colonel David Bacon, the Chief of Strategy and Plans, Strategic Communications, at Multinational Forces Iraq, told me during an press conference on Wednesday morning. "But I'd have to check on the 'Irbil Five," Bacon noted, referring to the Iranian Qods Force officers captured in January 2007. Bacon did not identify the names of the two other sub-commands in the Zafr Command.

When asked about the difference between Qods Force operatives and members of the Special Groups or Hezbollah operatives, Bacon stated Multinational Forces Iraq is "careful to make distinctions on nationality," noting that men such as Hezbollah's Ali Mussa Daqduq or the Special Groups' Qais Qazali are not Iranian born. When pressed on the issue, Bacon stated operatives such as Daqduq "could be considered Qods Force."

Bacon also noted that Iranian weapons are still being smuggled into Iraq, despite Iran's denials. Iran is claiming any weapons arriving in Iraq with Iranian markings are "smuggled through black market channels." Bacon stated the weapons are newly manufactured, and evidence from captured Qods Force, Hezbollah, and Special Groups operatives backs up Iran's direct involvement in supporting Shia terror networks inside Iraq. "There is no doubt there's official involvement," Bacon said.

Gary Hart has just posted what looks to be an open letter to the government of Iran over at the Huffington Post:

Presuming that you are not actually ignorant enough to desire war with the United States, you might be well advised to read the history of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor in 1898 and the history of the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964.

Having done so, you will surely recognize that Americans are reluctant to go to war unless attacked. Until Pearl Harbor, we were even reluctant to get involved in World War II. For historians of American wars the question is whether we provoke provocations.

Given the unilateral U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, you are obviously thinking the rules have changed. Provocation is no longer required to take America to war. But even in this instance, we were led to believe that the mass murderer of American civilians, Osama bin Laden, was lurking, literally or figuratively, in the vicinity of Baghdad.

Given all this, you would probably be well advised to keep your forces, including clandestine forces, as far away from the Iraqi border as you can. You might even consider bringing in some neighbors to verify that you are not shipping arms next door. Tone down the rhetoric on Zionism. You've established your credentials with those in your world who thrive on that.

If it makes you feel powerful to hurl accusations at the American eagle, have at it. Sticks and stones, etc. But, for the next sixteen months or so, you should not only not take provocative actions, you should not seem to be doing so.

For the vast majority of Americans who seek no wider war, in the Middle East or elsewhere, don't tempt fate. Don't give a certain vice president we know the justification he is seeking to attack your country. That is unless you happen to like having bombs fall on your head.

That is awfully presumptuous. It seems entirely possible that the mullahs in Tehran are ignorant, irrational, or some combination of the two. And Hart conveniently lists the evidence pointing in that direction. But leaving aside Hart's creepy characterization of the vice president, this is a simple defense of the logic behind a hawkish, hardline policy: Unless you like bombs falling on your head, stop shipping arms to Iraq and stay on your side of the border. Of course, it's easy to play the Good Cop, as Hart does here--framing this as some friendly, "unsolicited advice"--when Dick Cheney's Bad Cop is a tour de force.

The House passed a motion today by a margin of 341-79 condemning MoveOn's attack on General Petraeus. In the key provision, the House

condemns in the strongest possible terms the personal attacks made by the advocacy group MoveOn.org impugning the integrity and professionalism of General David H. Petraeus;

And on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment (you can read the full text here, as there were some last minute changes) in the Senate, Hilary voted for it, and so did Harry Reid. Obama didn't vote at all, and the only other member who didn't vote was John McCain, though we can safely assume he supports the measure. The amendment is a pretty forceful response by the United States Senate to the visit of Ahmadinejad. And it is also further evidence of the deep divisions withing the Democratic party, specifically between the netroots and the party leaders. Add to that the overwhelming support in the House for a measure condemning MoveOn, and things are looking pretty good for Republicans on the Hill.

Here's the press release:

The U.S. Senate today adopted a measure authored by U.S. Senators Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) that calls on the U.S. State Department to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. The measure was adopted as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill by a vote of 76 to 22.

The measure comes on the heels of mounting evidence that thorough proxy organizations, Iran is waging a proxy war against the United States in Iraq, providing weapons, training, funding, and direction to radical Shi’a militias who are responsible in turn for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers. Also today, in response to concern that the measure was a possible declaration of war, the amendment was modified to clarify its intent.

“Our military leaders, diplomats, and intelligence reports say that there is clear evidence Iran is exerting negative influence in Iraq,” said Kyl. “I believe that the Senate’s adoption of this measure sends a message to Iran that the U.S. will not tolerate any interference to progress in Iraq. It is now incumbent upon the State Department to add the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to the list of terrorist organizations.”

“It is vital to the national security interests of the United States that the Iranian government not be allowed to prevail in its proxy war against us in Iraq,” said Lieberman. “This amendment makes it clear – both to our enemies and our friends – that the United States will not retreat in the face of Iranian terrorism.”

In Congressional testimony before the House and Senate earlier this month, General David Petraeus, the commander of Multi-National Forces-Iraq, stated that, “it is increasingly apparent to both collation and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of Iranian Republican Guard Corps Qods Force, seeks to turn the Shi’a militia extremists into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq.”

United States Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker stated in the same hearing: “Iran plays a harmful role in Iraq. While claiming to support Iraq in its transition, Iran has actively undermined it by providing lethal capabilities to the enemies of the Iraqi state."

There's been some predictable paranoia about this amendment from the left, but the fact that it passed by such a wide margin--much like the measure to condemn MoveOn--indicates that there is really nothing controversial about declaring the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization, or explicitly stating a commitment to contain and roll back Iran's influence inside Iraq.

Samantha Sault has an excellent round up of the reaction to Mahmoud Ahmadinehad's appearance at Columbia, and Lee Bollinger's introduction of him. But watching Bollinger's comments make me wonder how the Columbia president can be anything other than a strong proponent of forceful and aggressive action against the Iranian regime. Heck--he makes the case for war with Iran more forcefully than Norman Podhoretz:

Funding terrorism

According to reports by the Council on Foreign Relations, it’s well documented that Iran is a state sponsor of terror that funds such violent group as the Lebanese Hezbollah, which Iran helped organize in the 1980s, the Palestinian Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

While your predecessor government was instrumental in providing the US with intelligence and base support in its 2001 campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, your government is now undermining American troops in Iraq by funding, arming, and providing safe transit to insurgent leaders like Muqtada al-Sadr and his forces.

There are a number of reports that also link your government with Syria’s efforts to destabalize the fledgling Lebanese government through violence and political assassination.

My question is this: Why do you support well-documented terrorist organizations that continue to strike at peace and democracy in the Middle East, destroying lives and civil society in the region?

Waging a proxy war against U.S. forces in Iraq

In a briefing before the National Press Club earlier this month, General David Petraeus reported that arms supplies from Iran, including 240mm rockets and explosively formed projectiles, are contributing to “a sophistication of attacks that would by no means be possible without Iranian support.”

A number of Columbia graduates and current students are among the brave members of our military who are serving or have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They, like other Americans with sons, daughters, fathers, husbands and wives serving in combat, rightly see your government as the enemy.

Can you tell them and us why Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq by arming Shi’a militia targeting and killing U.S. troops?

Iran's nuclear program and international sanctions

...Why does your country continue to refuse to adhere to international standards for nuclear weapons verification in defiance of agreements that you have made with the UN nuclear agency? And why have you chosen to make the people of your country vulnerable to the effects of international economic sanctions and threaten to engulf the world with nuclear annihilation?...

In the interest of brevity, I refrained from lifting Bollinger's comments about human rights violations, persecution of women and homosexuals, promises to destroy Israel, and others. Some people would argue that those would be reasons to go to war against Iran, but the financing of terrorists, attacks on Americans, and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction are more clear cut.

The question is: does Lee Bollinger really believe all this? If he does, it's hard to imagine how he could head a university that doesn't even allow the ROTC to operate on campus. Indeed, this sounds like the rhetoric of a 'neocon warmonger.' Surely any institution headed by someone who holds these views would be a bastion for conservatives and militarists. How has Bollinger managed to hide his outrage for so long?

We'll know more about Bollinger's views in the days and months ahead. Perhaps he'll become a crusader for regime change in Iran, and allow his students and faculty to see this side of him more often. We can only hope. It would be a welcome change to have an ally in the war on terror heading up an Ivy League School.

The new Iranian-designed and produced fighter aircraft, the Sa'eqeh.

Beijing
In the midst of recriminations over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia, the Iranian head of state has sent signals this past week that rather than trying to find a diplomatic solution with Washington and its European allies he will continue to maintain a defiant and belligerent stance over Teheran's weapons programs.

The latest in a series of "messages" being sent to the West is the news reported this past week of Ahmadinejad presiding over a military parade that featured a cornucopia of weapon systems now in the hands of the Iranian armed forces. Among these was a new Iranian-designed and produced fighter aircraft, the Sa'eqeh (Lightning), which had just begun series-production in August according to Iran's official state news outlets.

Amadinejad told the crowd, which was assembled to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, that "those (countries) who assume that decaying methods such as psychological war, political propaganda and the so-called economic sanctions would work and prevent Iran's fast drive toward progress are mistaken."

His statements were in reference to the embargo on Teheran for all sales of arms, spare parts, or any other military technology--sanctions that have existed since the overthrow of the Shah's government by the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Since that time Iran's armed forces have struggled to keep an ever-aging arsenal of U.S. weaponry functioning, almost all of which was purchased under the Shah more than three decades ago.

Being cut off from any legal means of supporting this military hardware put Iran in a difficult spot when Iraq decided to wage war on the new Islamic Republic, and forced its defence industry to become as self-sufficient as possible. The Sa'eqeh is the culmination of almost 30 years of effort to achieve that self-sufficiency.

The Iranian president boasted that "those who prevented Iran, at the height of the war [with Iraq] from getting even barbed wire must see now that all the equipment on display today has been built by the mighty hands and brains of experts at Iran's armed forces."

However, do not rush to write your congressional representatives to suggest that Washington respond to this new threat by doubling the U.S. Air Force's buy of Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor fighter jets. A closer look at the aircraft shows that its primary significance is symbolic--the first military aircraft to ever be designed and produced in Iran--and that it is not a modern-age weapon system.

The Sa'eqeh is based almost entirely on the old Northrop F-5 fighter aircraft, the chief U.S. export fighter of the 1960s and 70s, 166 of which were sold to Iran before the revolution. After the embargo was initiated the Iranian armed forces were able to purchase spares through illegal channels and on the arms black market since the F-5 had been widely exported to numerous nations friendly to the United States and there were any number of parts depots around the world.

In one case Iran was able to purchase F-5s and a large stock of spare parts from Ethiopia. The African nation had initially purchased the aircraft from Vietnam. The communist government in Hanoi had captured these aircraft from the South Vietnamese air force when they took Saigon, but had no use for them since the new, re-united Vietnam's arsenal was almost all of Soviet make and design.

However, Ethiopia could not sustain the aircraft's operation and sold 18 of them--along with several spare parts sets--to Iran through a British front company, which camouflaged the sale by making it a transaction not to the Islamic Republic's MoD but instead to the National Iranian Oil Company.

We posted the text of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment here last week, and here's an excerpt of the speech Lieberman gave on the floor of the Senate today offering that amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill:

“{T}he war that Iran is fighting against American troops and our allies in Iraq is an undeclared war, but it is nonetheless a real war, in which real Americans and Iraqis are being murdered by Iranian agents.

It is a war that the Iranians want to wage in the shadows, so that they can escape responsibility for the blood on their hands. This amendment exposes their behavior and demands justice.

As we speak, the President of Iran is in the United States. There is no better time than this for us to send a crystal clear message to him—and the fanatics and tyrants who now run the great country of Iran—that their campaign of terror against our troops in Iraq must end, and that we stand united as Americans against it.”

Here's the statement from John McCain:

"I still find it astonishing and astounding that Columbia University would welcome the president of a country that has not only dedicated itself to a policy of extinction of the state of Israel, but as he is speaking, most of the lethal and explosive devices are being exported from Iran into Iraq, endangering and taking the lives of brave Americans who are serving. Meanwhile, Columbia University's belief in free speech does not extend to Reserve Officers' Training Corps units being allowed on their campus to attract outstanding young men and women to serve in the military."

Isn't this one of the biggest questions to come out of this? If Columbia can invite Ahmadinejad to the campus to say that homosexuality doesn't exist in Iran--essentially that homosexuality is a Western disease, a symptom of cultural decadence and moral decay--how can the university at the same time refuse to allow the United States military to operate an ROTC unit on campus?

I'm watching Ahmadinejad's lecture right now. It is a disgrace. Ahmadinejad just said they don't have homosexuals in Iran: "we do not have this phenomenon." And yet Bollinger keeps trying to turn it into a debate, as if one can debate the existence of homosexuals, the facts of the Holocaust, or any of the other absurd ideas Ahmadinejad has about the world...if this is a debate, Bollinger is losing badly.

I just saw these statements from the Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee:

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA): “This leader of state, which supports terrorists, is presently sending deadly roadside bombs across the Iraqi border to injure and kill American troops. Columbia University’s hosting of Ahmadinejad is a slap in the face of every one of the 165,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq. As he speaks, his agents will be moving roadside bombs onto the battlefield to be used against America’s military men and women.

“If Columbia University is going to grant President Ahmadinejad access to students and faculty, then our nation’s collegiate military recruitment and training program deserves the same amount of respect. This policy demonstrates complete disregard for our nation’s Armed Forces, especially when President Ahmadinejad continues shipping munitions into Iraq to target our brave troops.”

U.S. Rep. Terry Everett (R-AL): “Ahmadinejad’s Iran is actively attempting to destabilize Iraq and is behind the killing of American troops fighting terrorism in that country. I cannot understand, and frankly, my constituents cannot understand, why a foreign leader of a terrorist sponsoring state and an avowed enemy of the United States should be allowed a pulpit in America.”

U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD): “Iran is defying the international community to pursue its nuclear ambitions. Iran is on the State Department watch list for supporting terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah. Evidence has mounted of Iranian agents and Iranian materials flowing into Iraq targeting, wounding and killing American soldiers with IEDs. It is their right, but reveals an appalling lack of respect for Americans in harm’s way and ludicrous judgment for Columbia University’s leadership to reserve a prestigious lecture opportunity for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who everyone with minimal understanding knows is a powerless figurehead for the mullahs who actually rule Iran. That, alone, shreds Columbia’s defense that Ahmadinejad will be engaging in debate with faculty or students. Similarly, Ahmadinejad’s 60 Minutes and other interviews have given him plenty of access to American audiences for his claim that the Holocaust was a hoax and that Israel should be wiped off the map.”

Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA): "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of Israel, the defeat of American troops in Iraq and is a known terrorist supporter. If the University wishes to provide such a leader a forum to speak, they should then also provide the same forum to the ROTC."

U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC): “Columbia University has made a mistake by inviting the Iranian President to speak. At a time when our brave men and women in uniform are facing Iraqi insurgents armed with Iranian munitions and aided by Iranian military agents, it is deplorable that the university is providing a forum for this man. The Iranian President has his own state-controlled media machine to promote his dangerous and destructive policies.”

U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA): “As our soldiers fight to defend this country from the threat of terror, the administration at Columbia University has opened its doors to one of the largest supporters of terrorism in the world today. Every day, Ahmadinejad supplies deadly weapons to terrorist groups in the Middle East that are then used against American men and women in uniform. As long as Ahmadinejad uses his resources to threaten American lives, he should not be welcomed by any institution or organization in the United States.”

U.S. Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ): “Allowing the leader of the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to speak at one of our nation’s most prestigious universities grants him a measure of legitimacy that is both undeserved and fundamentally dangerous. It astounds me that a university could welcome a man responsible for the deaths of countless innocent civilians and American soldiers- while maintaining a ban on the ROTC- and claim that these actions are not an attempt to endorse or legitimize a specific ideology.

“In fact, the Dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs said in a recent interview that if Hitler would engage in debate and discussion with the students of Columbia University and its faculty, they ‘would certainly invite him.’ The idea that anything would be gained by engaging Hitler on the merit of his ‘Final Solution’ should awaken us all to the reality that seeking to engage Ahmadinejad in a similar way is absolute madness and will only further undermine the efforts of our warfighters in the cause of freedom.”

A couple of interesting statements over the weekend in response to Columbia University president Lee Bollinger's decision to host Ahmadinejad. The first is from David M. Schizer, dean of Columbia's Law School:

A controversy has developed about the invitation extended to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran by the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs. Although Columbia Law School was not involved in arranging this invitation, we have received many inquiries about it.

This event raises deep and complicated issues about how best to express our commitment to intellectual freedom, and to our free way of life. Although we believe in free and open debate at Columbia and should never suppress points of view, we are also committed to academic standards. A high-quality academic discussion depends on intellectual honesty but, unfortunately, Mr. Ahmadinejad has proven himself, time and again, to be uninterested in whether his words are true. Therefore, my personal opinion is that he should not be invited to speak. Mr. Ahmadinejad is a reprehensible and dangerous figure who presides over a repressive regime, is responsible for the death of American soldiers, denies the Holocaust, and calls for the destruction of Israel. It would be deeply regrettable if some misread this invitation as lending prestige or legitimacy to his views.

Our university is a pluralistic place, and I recognize that others within our community take a different view in good faith, and that they have the right to extend invitations that I personally would not extend. I know that we will learn from each other in discussing the difficult questions prompted by this invitation.

The other is from Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia's Business School:

The University's decision to invite Mr. Ahmadinejad to speak on campus and to engage in a dialogue with our students and faculty has polarized our community. Some would argue that a University should be a place of intellectual freedom and open debate, but others ­ including me ­ argue that Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is responsible for the death of American soldiers, denies the Holocaust, and calls for the destruction of Israel, has proven himself incapable of engaging in a true and honest academic discussion.

From the Corner (via Instapundit):

If men like Richard Bulliet and Lee Bollinger, and women like Lisa Marie Anderson cared about freedom of speech, they might want to enable those who don't have it, rather than celebrate the men who have taken it away.

A Columbia student asked how he could effectively protest his university's invitation to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak Monday. My first response was to suggest petitions, e-mails to President Bollinger and the university trustees, letters to the student paper, peaceful protest, and the like. All these are fine. But then I had a second thought. There might be one form of protest that would be effective both in showing appropriate disgust for the Iranian regime, and in shaming the Columbia administration: A total student boycott of Ahmadinejad's speech. Let the Iranian president (and the Columbia president) look out on, and speak to, a sea of empty seats on Monday.

The rationale for a student boycott is simple: The Iranian government is directly involved in killing and wounding American soldiers in Iraq. As a gesture of elementary solidarity with those serving our nation in the military--young men and women, many of them their exact contemporaries--Columbia students should refuse to dignify Ahmadinejad's talk by attending it. Needless to say, Columbia faculty and administrators shouldn't attend either. Some of them will. But this is a chance for the 9/11 generation to show a decency and a sense of honor that some of their elders lack. After all, this is not primarily about Ahmadinejad. Dealing with his regime is mostly a task for our government. This is about us. Columbia students have a chance to shame their elders, redeem the good name of their institution, and make many Americans proud. I urge them to take it.

Charles Krauthammer lays out Ahmadinejad's "radically aggressive campaign to assemble, deploy, flaunt and partially activate Iran's proxies in the Arab Middle East":

(1) Hamas launching rockets into Israeli towns and villages across the border from the Gaza Strip. Its intention is to invite an Israeli reaction, preferably a bloody and telegenic ground assault.

(2) Hezbollah heavily rearmed with Iranian rockets transshipped through Syria and preparing for the next round of fighting with Israel. The third Lebanon war, now inevitable, awaits only Tehran's order.

(3) Syria, Iran's only Arab client state, building up forces across the Golan Heights frontier with Israel. And on Wednesday, yet another anti-Syrian member of Lebanon's parliament was killed in a massive car bombing.

(4) The al-Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard training and equipping Shiite extremist militias in the use of the deadliest IEDs and rocketry against American and Iraqi troops. Iran is similarly helping the Taliban attack NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Glenn Greenwald responds:

Of the four crimes in the Bill of Particulars against Iran, only one has anything even ostensibly to do with the U.S., and that is composed of highly dubious claims (arming the Taliban) and ones which hardly demonstrate its Evil (they are interfering in a neighboring country of theirs which we invaded and are occupying with 160,000 soldiers).

First off, there's nothing "dubious" about the claim that Iran is arming the Taliban. We know that Greenwald & Co. think that Petraeus is a liar, but what about Admiral Fallon, who told the AP today:

Iran's Revolutionary Guard is also supplying roadside bomb parts for the type of sophisticated and deadly bombs found in Iraq known as "explosively formed penetrators" — accusations the U.S. has made repeatedly in Iraq as well.

"The Iranians are clearly supplying some amount of lethal aid," Fallon told The Associated Press. "There is no doubt .... that agents from Iran are involved in aiding the insurgency."

Greenwald also says that Iranian 'interference'--a very nice euphemism for killing American troops--is hardly evidence of that regime's "Evil." This is the guy who wrote 5,000 words yesterday on "the art of neoconservative innuendo." Call a spade a spade, Glenn. If you think that Iranian attacks on U.S. forces are justified--just come right out and say it.

Via Hot Air, McCain--half-jokingly--says we ought to restrain Ahmadinejad if necessary in order to prevent him from getting to Ground Zero. Allah also has some deep analysis of the options available to Bloomberg, the Port Authority, the NYPD, etc., as far as preventing this stunt.

In other news, Coalition forces announced the capture of "a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - Quds Force" in Sulaimaniya.

The Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which calls on the United States to combat, contain, and roll back Iranian violence inside Iraq, will be offered for debate in the Senate today. The amendment also expresses the "Sense of the Senate," that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should be designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The key provisions:

It is the sense of the Senate...

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies;

(5) that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization...

Senator McCain, who gave the commencement address at Columbia in 2006, just sent out this statement:

"A man who is directing the maiming and killing of Americans troops should not be given an invitation to speak at an American university. Rather than rolling out the red carpet for the leader of a terrorist-sponsoring regime, Columbia should be welcoming the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) back on campus to honor the men and women who put their lives on the line every day defending our freedom."

Just posted at THE DAILY STANDARD, the boss on Lee Bollinger's choice:

In fact, the introduction with "sharp challenges" by Bollinger makes the situation even more of a disgrace. Now there will be the appearance of real dialogue, of Ahmadinejad answering challenges, which further legitimizes the notion that Holocaust denial, say, is a subject of legitimate and reasonable debate. But if Bollinger had chosen to deny Ahmadinejad's request, or not to dignify Ahmadinejad's appearance by his presence--then Bollinger would have been denied the opportunity to lecture us, in Columbia's press release, to this effect: "It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices. To hold otherwise would make vigorous debate impossible. That such a forum could not take place on a university campus in Iran today sharpens the point of what we do here....This is America at its best."

Actually, this is a liberal university president at his stupidest....

Meanwhile: As Columbia welcomes Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia students who want to serve their country cannot enroll in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Columbia. Columbia students who want to enroll in ROTC must travel to other universities to fulfill their obligations. ROTC has been banned from the Columbia campus since 1969. In 2003, a majority of polled Columbia students supported reinstating ROTC on campus. But in 2005, when the Columbia faculty senate debated the issue, President Bollinger joined the opponents in defeating the effort to invite ROTC back on campus.

A perfect synecdoche for too much of American higher education: they are friendlier to Ahmadinejad than to the U.S. military.

Go read the whole thing.

Powerline picks up reports that Columbia University will play host to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on September 24 for what the university describes as "a question and answer session with university faculty and students." Well, not really. University president Lee Bollinger elaborates: "In order to have such a University-wide forum, we have insisted that a number of conditions be met, first and foremost that President Ahmadinejad agree to divide his time evenly between delivering remarks and responding to audience questions."

Bollinger then goes on to list Ahmadinejad's crimes against "innocent civilians and American troops...journalists and scholars, including one of Columbia's own alumni, Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh," and "his government's widely documented suppression of civil society and particularly of women's rights," before declaring that "vigorous debate," "America at its best," etc., etc.

Johnson's analysis:

Columbia and President Bollinger are a disgrace. They welcome to their campus a man who is a ringleader in the seizure of American hostages, a terrorist, the president of a terrorist regime, and the representative of a regime responsible at present for the deaths of American soldiers on the field of battle. Columbia's prattle about free speech may be a tale told by an idiot, but it signifies something. And President Bollinger is a fool who is not excused from the dishonor he brings to his institution and his fellow citizens by the fact that he doesn't know what he is doing.

Jeffrey Gedmin, a frequent contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD and the president of Radio Free Europe, has a must-read in today's Washington Post. Gedmin writes of the "bickering" in Washington over funding democracy promotion efforts inside Iran:

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the Iranian regime moved hard against exiles, killing Iranian citizens in numerous European countries. Iran's foreign minister, when he was ambassador to Turkey in the late 1980s, was expelled when it was discovered that he was involved in nabbing Iranian dissidents. Such activities, unfortunately, do not seem to have stopped; Iranian authorities have discouraged Parnaz Azima from returning to Farda.

In this context, it can be disheartening to witness the endless bickering in Washington over how to help Iranian civil society. It is strange to hear the outcry from some who rail against the U.S. government's earmark of $75 million to aid the effort. That seems a paltry sum considering the importance and magnitude of the task at hand. Does the regime use this modest support as a pretext to crack down on dissidents? Of course it does. That's what dictators do. All of us are still waiting for those flawless and risk-free alternatives.

Our Farda team is hardly a monolith. Our roughly three dozen colleagues include social democrats, monarchists, passionate pro-Americans and ardent critics of the U.S. president and his policies. Our youngest employee is 23, the oldest 73. One thing unites this diverse group: the conviction that Iran deserves a decent, accountable government and a political system far freer and more tolerant than the current one. For some that sounds like the dirty words "regime change." That's a pity. I thought we all liked "soft power," especially after Iraq. Many of us think this work still represents America at its best.

This goes to the heart of the intense debate we are having right now in Congress about whether or not we should be giving support to dissidents and democrats inside Iran. Senate Democrats stripped the president’s $75 million request earlier this year by two-thirds. Senator Lieberman fought successfully on the floor to restore those funds two weeks ago. Now the rumor is that Senate Dems are going to try to strip the money, again, as soon as the bill is safely behind closed doors, in House-Senate conference. The Gedmin op-ed makes a concise and powerful case about why this is so wrong-headed.

RIA Novosti reports:

The U.S. has a 14-ton super bomb more destructive than the vacuum bomb just tested by Russia, a U.S. general said Wednesday.

The statement was made by retired Lt. General McInerney, chairman of the Iran Policy Committee, and former Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

McInerney said the U.S. has "a new massive ordnance penetrator that's 30,000 pounds, that really penetrates ... Ahmadinejad has nothing in Iran that we can't penetrate."

He also said the new Russian bomb was not a "penetrator."

On Tuesday, the Fox News television channel said: "A recent decision by German officials to withhold support for any new sanctions against Iran has pushed a broad spectrum of officials in Washington to develop potential scenarios for a military attack on the Islamic regime.".

Commenting on the report, McInerney said: "Since Germany has backed out of helping economically, we do not have any other choice. ... They've forced us into the military option."

McInerney then gets a bit into the specifics of how the United States might go about an air campaign against Iran--something he elaborated on further in THE WEEKLY STANDARD in April 2006 in a piece that also made mention of a '14 ton super bomb':

This coalition air campaign would hit more than 1,500 aim points. Among the weapons would be the new 28,000-pound bunker busters, 5,000-pound bunker penetrators, 2,000-pound bunker busters, 1,000-pound general purpose bombs, and 500-pound GP bombs. A B-2 bomber, to give one example, can drop 80 of these 500-pound bombs independently targeted at 80 different aim points.

But the Danger Room isn't so sure we've got the Russians beat--at least no in the realm of thermobarics:

This is an area in which Russia has been leading for many years, and as I have previously mentioned, US efforts have been mainly a matter of playing catch up.

With a fuel-air explosive, it is critical that the cloud of fuel mixes as efficiently as possible with the air. Uneven mixing will not produce an effective blast. And the fuel has to burn completely, which requires very small, evenly-sized particles. The technical challenge is greater the bigger the device involved, and the Russians seem to have found ways of tackling this at the very largest scale.

Thomas Joscelyn has just published an essay titled "Iran's Proxy War Against America" (pdf). The paper relies on open-source information and arrives at a number of interesting conclusions, including this one:

In fact, contrary to widespread opinion, Iran has been a vital ally for bin Laden’s international terrorist organization. The evidence is overwhelming.

Joscelyn traces this operational relationship back to 1998, when al Qaeda attacked the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya:

While there remains some uncertainty concerning the attack on Khobar Towers, Iran’s and Hezbollah’s involvement in al-Qaeda’s most successful attack prior to 9/11 is clear. According to al-Qaeda’s own terrorists, Hezbollah trained the al-Qaeda operatives responsible for the August 7, 1998, U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. There is even evidence that Iran provided al-Qaeda with a large amount of explosives used in the attack. Today, Iran continues to harbor some of the terrorists responsible.

And on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Joscelyn points to evidence of Iran's complicity in al Qaeda's attacks on the World Trade Center:

The most disturbing evidence tying Iran to al-Qaeda are reports that suggest possible cooperation on the September 11 attacks. Longtime CIA field operative Bob Baer, who had tracked Mugniyah for more than a decade, immediately suspected that Iran’s master terrorist had played a role. Two years after Baer first published his suspicions, the 9/11 Commission uncovered evidence of Mugniyah’s and Iran’s complicity. Shortly before the Commission’s final report was to be published, the Commission’s staff unearthed a cache of documents demonstrating that Hezbollah and Iran had facilitated the hijackers’ travels. The Commission left the matter open for further investigation, but more than three years later no such inquiry has been launched.

Go read the whole thing.

The Senate has adopted the Lieberman amendment to restore funding for democracy promotion inside Iran:

The amendment restores the Bush administration’s original request in the Fiscal Year 2008 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Act for $75 million, which had been cut by two-thirds to $25 million by the Senate Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs earlier this year.

“At a time when the Iranian regime is doing everything in its power to roll back dissidents and democrats, Congress has sent a powerful signal that we stand with the Iranian people in their struggle for freedom,” said Senator Lieberman.

“There is an inextricable link between the domestic repression of the Iranian regime and its aggression abroad,” said Senator Lieberman. “Supporting Iranian dissidents is not only a moral imperative; it is a strategic necessity.”

“The radical and brutal Iranian regime has made a choice to target brave Iranians who fight for democracy and freedom. We must now stand with the people of Iran and fully fund this crucial program,” said Senator Brownback.

“The dangerous conduct of Iran’s own regime is the greatest threat the Iranian people face,” said Senator Kyl. “America has and will continue to support their right to live in a free and democratic society. Restoring funding for this important program is a vital part of promoting a secure, peaceful future for Iran.”

“This is money well spent and is the right strategy regarding our national security and future stability of the Middle East,” said Senator Graham. “The Iranian regime is a threat to all countries that pursue freedom and democracy.”

“This funding will support the courageous democratization efforts of dissidents throughout Iran,” Senator Collins said. “Such efforts cannot be ignored from within and should be encouraged from without.”

I don't suppose we could support these dissidents with EFPs...

What exactly are the Iranians doing to support the insurgency in Iraq? You can read Kim Kagan's Iran Dossier to find out. You can also read the daily press releases from MNF-I, like this one reprinted at THE DAILY STANDARD today:

"Coalition forces grab high-value IRGC-QF affiliate

BAGHDAD, Iraq - During a pre-dawn raid in Karbala Wednesday, Coalition forces captured a highly-sought individual suspected of being an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) affiliate.

Coalition forces also detained another individual for questioning.

The detained individual is suspected of coordinating with high-level IRGC-QF officers for the transportation of multiple Iraqis to Iran for terrorist training at IRGC-QF training camps. He is also a known logistics facilitator providing lethal aid to terrorists operating in central Baghdad. It is likely that the affiliate is closely linked to individuals at the highest levels of the IRGC-QF. Coalition forces are still assessing his possible connection to the Special Groups.

Intelligence derived from other security detainees led Coalition forces to the residence of the individual. Ground troops confiscated computer equipment, communication devices, miscellaneous documents and photographs. It is believed that the captured documents may lead to information on other IRGC-QF illicit activities intended to disrupt security operations in Iraq. There were no Iraqi or Coalition forces casualties during the precision raid.

'As Iran continues its proxy war against the people of Iraq, Coalition forces will continue to build on recent operations to disrupt the flow of illicit, lethal materials from Iran into Iraq,' said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, MNF-I spokeman. 'The capture of individuals affiliated with the IRGC-Quds Force is an integral part of dismantling terror networks that seek to kill innocent Iraqis and security forces.'"

Kristol responds:

It's great that the military is having success in capturing "affiliates" of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Iraq. But it's also clear from this statement that the training of the terrorists is being done in Iran: "..the transportation of multiple Iraqis to Iran for terrorist training at IRGC-QF training camps." A senior administration official last week discounted to me the importance of going after such targets in Iran--while not denying they exist and that we know where they are. The explanation wasn't convincing at the time. In light of this fresh evidence, and in light of the fact that the Iranians have been shelling targets in Kurdistan, in northern Iraq, that they claim are supporting violence in Iran, one has to ask: "Why are terror training camps in Iran, camps that are directly training terrorists to attack U.S. troops, off limits?" After all, if Khameini (to whom the IRGC reports) has already established the principle of cross-border attacks against accelerators of violence, who are we to disagree with the wisdom of the Supreme Leader?

Kim Kagan has produced her latest Iraq Report for THE DAILY STANDARD, this one detailing Iranian activity inside Iraq over the last 15 months. The report is the most comprehensive document on this subject I've come across, and it includes a series of maps and other images that help illustrate the mechanics of Iranian influence in Iraq.

I follow this stuff pretty closely, but I've never been quite clear on exactly what constitutes the "special groups" that MNF-I discusses so frequently, who finances them, what shape they take, etc. Kagan goes a long way toward clarifying this:

The Qods Force and Hezbollah trained Iraqis in groups of 20 to 60 so that they functioned as a unit--a “secret cell” or “special group.” The Iraqis returned to Iraq after their training, maintaining their group’s organization. Thus, each “special group” in Iraq consisted of 20 to 60 Iraqis who had trained together in Iran in how “to use EFPs, mortars, rockets, as well as intelligence, sniper and kidnapping operations.” These special groups could be combined into larger organizations. The director of the Amin Allah charity coordinated “more than 200 rogue JAM members” and “ordered them to conduct assassinations on local citizens and government officials who oppose the group’s illegal activities.”

How about the Sheibani network we've heard so much about?

By August 2005, Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani had developed an extensive “network of insurgents created by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps with the express purpose of committing violence against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq.” Sheibani’s group introduced into Iraq “‘shaped’ explosive charges,” based on a model used by Hezbollah against the Israelis, and its fighters trained in Lebanon as well as Sadr City and “‘another country,’” according to U.S. intelligence sources. An American military official in Baghdad explained that “the U.S. believes that Iran has brokered a partnership between Iraqi Shiite militants and Hizballah and facilitated the import of sophisticated weapons that are killing and wounding U.S. and British troops.” An American Special Operations Task Force report claimed “the Lebanese Hizballah leadership believes that the struggle in Iraq is the new battleground in the fight against the U.S.” Sheibani’s group was estimated to include 280 fighters organized into 17 bomb-making teams and death squads.

And on the effect of the surge on Iranian activities:

In 2006, Coalition forces were also spread too thin to cover the lines of communication south of Baghdad. For example, only 200 soldiers from the Polish Division in Multi-National Division Central-South were stationed in Kut through spring 2007, detached from the bulk of their unit. Thus, smugglers could bring Iranian weapons without expecting interdiction along open routes in 2006.

The surge of U.S. and Coalition forces, including the addition of another Division Headquarters, made it possible to begin interdicting weapons flowing along the major highways and the Tigris River. Multi-National Force-Iraq reinforced Kut with 2,000 soldiers from the Republic of Georgia, who arrived in July and August 2007 for operations that will commence in September. MND-C plans to use this brigade to search every truck coming along the highway through Kut.

There's so much information in this document, it's hard to rip just a few items from the text. Still, for anyone trying to understand the role of Iranian forces in Iraq, and the complex networks the supply and sustain, "The Iran Dossier" is a must-read. Click here or on the image above right for the pdf.

The New York Post's Ralph Peters scored an interview with Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of Multinational Force Iraq.

ASKED about Muqtada al-Sadr, Odierno responded: "He's a figurehead . . . erratic in his behavior . . . unpredictable. . . but he's the individual who reaches out to the Shia nobody else reaches out to. The problem is that he's lost control of some parts of his movement, the Special Groups and others - many of whom are funded by Iran.

"We need to separate those elements and kill or capture them - while working with those closer to the mainstream."...

So what about Iran? "It's a difficult problem . . . it's important to have regional and international awareness of what they're doing."

But the general feels that, before we take any cross-border military action, we need to think through the second- and third-order effects. He'd much prefer a diplomatic solution - if possible.

A diplomatic solution would be ideal. But as Odierno says, the question is whether such a solution is possible. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch recently explained the extent of Iranian influence on the violence in his area of operations, which stretches from the Saudi border to Iran:

He said about 50 Iranian and Iraqi operatives, trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and working for Iran, are active in his area, and are part of the same group that killed five U.S. soldiers in Karbala province in January.

Lynch said "a new wave of lethality" -- including 48 attacks using explosively formed projectiles and 66 attacks using precision rockets -- has killed 13 U.S. troops in his area since April. In one incident, he said, more than three dozen Iranian-made rockets were aimed at a U.S. base in the area, and when insurgents fired some of them and hit the base on July 11, one soldier was killed and 15 others were wounded.

Further, today we hear from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahamadinejad:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Tuesday that a power vacuum is imminent in Iraq and said that Iran was ready to help fill the gap.

"The political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly," Ahmadinejad said at a press conference in Tehran, referring to U.S. troops in Iraq. "Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation."

Allahpundit responds:

I think this is what David Ignatius meant on Sunday about Iran overplaying its hand. What a silly thing to say ahead of the Bush-Congress showdown. If you want America out so you can move in — and he does — why give U.S. hawks any leverage by announcing that fact publicly?

But a few months ago Reuel Marc Gerecht offered an explanation of Iranian behavior in THE WEEKLY STANDARD that may better explain Ahmadinejad's statement, and its timing:

An assumption of the Iraq Study Group was that the clerical regime wants stability next door in Iraq. Hence it might be willing to work with Americans. Yet Iran has benefited enormously from Iraqi instability. Traditional, moderate clerics like Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who have been willing to work with Americans, have been battered and bruised by the violence. The radical Moktada al-Sadr, a little-known and little-admired scion of a famous clerical family, skyrocketed to prominence because of the strife and thanks to critical Iranian aid to him. The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its more radical military wing, the Badr Organization, has also benefited enormously from the violence. SCIRI is a key Iraqi player that has received substantial assistance from Tehran. What is particularly regrettable about SCIRI is that the bloodletting has made life more difficult for moderates within the organization. And the violence has made it harder for SCIRI to pull away from Iranian patronage.

Does Iran want to stop this process? Iraq's Arab Sunni community--detested by the Iranians--has been routed from much of Baghdad, badly bloodied, and put to flight by the hundreds of thousands. This is a bad thing in the eyes of Tehran? Where does Iran have the most influence in Iraq? In Basra, where Shiite-versus-Shiite violence is at its worst. This is not a coincidence. Tehran has benefited massively from Iraqi Shiite division and internecine strife. What the United States should expect from Iran is that it will continue to ship its deadly explosives to Iraq and, through violence, feed the radicalization of the Shiite community. Success through Hezbollah in civil-war-torn Lebanon is the model to remember. Until now, it's been Iran's only successful foray abroad. "Stability" in Iraq means only one thing to Tehran: an American success.

Would the Iranians would benefit from a diplomatic solution, or more to the point, would they benefit from an American withdrawal? It seems Iran's best chance for avoiding a direct confrontation with the U.S. military is to keep the U.S. military tied down in Iraq--which means doing whatever they can to foment violence and prevent a U.S. withdrawal. From that perspective, if Iran overplays its hand, it will not have missed an opportunity to consolidate its regional position, as Ignatius posits. Instead, Iran will have missed an opportunity to avoid a direct military conflict with the United States. Given the success in dealing with the Sunni insurgency, American commanders are now turning their attention to Iran and its support of Shia militias and the "special groups." As Odierno explained his priorities to Peters:

"First, I worry about Shia extremism and Iranian interference, which is increasing."

The Missile Defense Agency has released a report entitled 'Proposed Missile Defense Assets in Europe.' The document is a handy guide that explains why we're pursuing the system and how it will enhance the security of the U.S. and its allies. It's full of nifty charts and graphs, which point mostly at the chief reason for missile defense in Europe--Iran.

The report also addresses at some length the concerns of Russia that the advanced radar integral to the system has another, covert purpose--monitoring activity in that nation. And the report also argues that this system can have no meaningful effect on Russia's nuclear arsenal.

It's not clear whether the Missile Defense Agency is being straightforward or snarky when it addresses the potential threat to civilians of falling debris: "Intercept debris is minor compared to an intact Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) warhead hitting a major population center." But this presentation comes at a good time. The House and Senate both appear prepared to significantly cut the president's request for deployment of missile defense in Europe. The administration will need to make a strong argument on Capitol Hill to sway leaders to restore funds slated for elimination. Alternately, given that the primary rationale for cutting the funds is to ease tension with Russia, it may be necessary for allies affected by the cut to make clear that these programs are important to them, as well.

A Russian defense analyst with close ties to the country’s state-run arms export agency has denounced recent reports of a large upcoming sale of Russian weaponry to Iran, describing them as part of a U.S.-U.K.-Israeli conspiracy to disrupt Russia’s attempts to sell arms to other Middle Eastern nations.

Since the Paris air show in June, sources in Moscow and New Delhi have stated that the Russian arms export monopoly, Rosoboronexport (ROE), was preparing to sell a number of sophisticated weapons to Iran. Russian sources had previously confirmed that there was a sale of both Mikoyan MiG-31 and MiG-29M/M2 fighter aircraft in the works. Those sources had not confirmed the end user for these weapon systems, although they were officially being sold to Syria.

An Indian Su-30, similar to those Russia is rumored to be selling to Iran,
at AeroIndia 2007. Photo by Reuben F. Johnson.

But, other sources stated that the expectation was that Iran was financing the sale and that the aircraft would be transferred to Iran. At the same time, there were other rumours about the sale of up to 250 Sukhoi Su-30MK fighter aircraft to Iran, but there were no comments or denunciations at all from Moscow on this sale. That is, until last week when the Israeli website debka.com ran a story on the Su-30MK sale.

This prompted Konstantin Makiyenko, the deputy director general of the Center for Strategy and Technology Analysis, to tell the official RIA-Novosti news service in Moscow that this story was "obvious disinformation."

However, several aspects of this denunciation (and the less than-categorical denials by Russian officialdom of these sales) are suspicious as best.

To begin with, Makiyenko’s think tank is often linked to the Russian government. He is also the one Russian defense analyst who is regularly quoted by Western aerospace and defense publications. At times he appears to be the only Russian expert who is permitted to go on record on this subject.

Makiyenko is also not exactly an impartial observer of Russia’s defense-industrial complex. "He is not only close to the senior management at ROE, but he is also a graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO)," said one Moscow colleague. "Need I say anything more?"

MGIMO is the chief higher education institution for those who end up serving in the Russian foreign ministry and intelligence services, and ROE is chock-full of former (and active) employees of the latter. In this world, the Russian version of the "old school tie" still governs the sharing of information and confidences between former classmates.

Also, at this summer's Paris air show, ROE general director Sergei Chemezov publicly stated that no such export contract existed. "Russia has no plans to supply fighters to Syria and Iran," he assured reporters at the agency’s official press briefing. "If talks start with these countries, it will be announced."

Just ten days later, on June 28, Moscow dispatched Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Jerusalem for the express purpose of clarifying the Russian position on arms sales to Syria.

"Whatever we do in the area of arms supplies is absolutely in line with our international obligations," Lavrov told the Israelis. "It's also absolutely in line with the national legislation of the Russian Federation," he said. "Whatever we supply to Syria is transparent and is not offensive. In any case, it is not destabilizing the balance [of power] in the region."

If the Russian government felt it necessary to send Lavrov to Israel to defend Russia's right to make arms sales to Syria, it's hard to believe the statement from ROE that there are no such sales in the offing.

A third curiosity is what Makiyenko said when he made his statement to the Russian state news agency--that no such sale to Iran could be contemplated because "firstly, totally fantastic figures were given. Iran is hardly in a position to find financial resources required for the purchase of 200 fighter jets. According to even modest estimates, one billion dollars will buy no more than 20 aircraft." (Makiyenko seems to be unaware of the current price of oil.)

The ability of Iranian agents to walk out the front door of U.S. Government boneyards and used equipment depots with spare parts for the F-14 in hand has created a spate of negative publicity for the DoD’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released today reveals that the Pentagon agency could justifiably be charged with suffering from a severe learning disability.

Spare parts for the F-14, on display at the 2006 Iran Air Show.
Photo by Reuben F. Johnson.

The GAO’s report states that in February 2007 over 1,400 parts unique to the U.S. Navy’s F-14 Tomcat were sold to Iran. These sales occurred despite a blanket ban on all F-14 spares sales that had been enacted by the DoD a month before to prevent just these sort of acquisitions by the Iranian armed forces.

After the January decision, the department’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) had been ordered to update its security procedures so that any “F-14 use only” spares would be deleted from the list of items posted for sale by the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service’s website. DRMS is charged with the re-sale of spare parts from retired or cannibalized weapon systems and is essentially the sales arm of DLA.

U.S. Congressional investigators working for the GAO discovered that these F-14 parts sold off in February slipped through the cracks because DRMS failed to update the agency’s computer-based specific automated control list. That list is the filtering mechanism for keeping those components off of the agency’s website and failed to flag the parts acquired by Iran as F-14 critical items.

In the 1970s, Iran became the only nation ever to receive the F-14 as an export client of the United States and has been struggling to keep them aloft for almost three decades. Since the 1979 embargo that the United States imposed on Teheran after the Islamic Revolution, all sales of spares for the Iranian F-14s have been banned.

In order to circumvent the ban Iranian procurement agents operating out of front companies and using a network of middleman have managed to keep getting their hands on the parts they need. Other spares have either been reverse-engineered or the original production drawings acquired by Teheran so that Iran’s aerospace industry could manufacture their own F-14 components. Cooperation between Iran’s defense establishment and the Chinese intelligence services has been particularly helpful on both accounts.

Although Iranian and Chinese agents acquired a full range of spare parts--including not just the F-14, but also the aircraft’s Hughes AIM-54 Phoenix missile and Boeing CH-47 helicopter--the GAO’s report is chiefly concerned with the sale of F-14 components.

Greg Kutz runs the GAO’s special investigations division. In the report he observes that “one country with operational F-14s, Iran, is known to be seeking these parts. If such parts were publicly available, it could jeopardize national security.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) was interviewed by the Associated Press upon the release of this report and stated that it proves that “the Pentagon has bumbled to the point where they can't make the distinction” between those items that can be used by Iran and other hostile nations and spare parts that are of no particular strategic value. He added, “the Pentagon’s system is still riddled with holes.”

The Lieberman amendment--confronting Iran on its proxy attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq--just passed the Senate unanimously, 97-0.

So let's look at the scorecard this week so far: The Webb amendment on trying to limit Iraq deployments went down to defeat. The Lieberman amendment confronting Iran passed unanimously. So much for the long-predicted collapse--at least so far. There will be some tough votes in the days ahead. Let's hope the Senate Republicans continue to hold the line.

Meanwhile, Senator Lieberman had this to say of the Senate's unanimous vote, confronting Iran:

"Today's unanimous vote sends a strong, clear message from the entire Senate to the Iranians that we know what they are doing in Iraq, and they must stop...This is a warning to the Iranians that whatever differences divide us politically here in Washington, we stand united against these outrageous attacks."

As first reported on the WWS yesterday:

Senators Lieberman, McCain, Kyl, Graham, and Coleman today introduced a bipartisan amendment to the Defense Authorization Act, confronting the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran over its proxy attacks on American soldiers in Iraq.

The amendment details the publicly available evidence put forward over the past year by General David Petraeus, commanding general of Multi-National Force Iraq, and others about Iran’s violent and destabilizing activities in Iraq.

The amendment states that “the murder of members of the United States Armed Forces by a foreign government or its agents is an intolerable act of hostility against the United States,” and demands the government of Iran “take immediate action” to end all forms of support it is providing to Iraqi militias and insurgents. The amendment also mandates a regular report on Iran’s anti-coalition activity in Iraq.

“For many months, our military commanders and diplomats have warned us that the Iranian government has been training, equipping, arming, and funding proxies in Iraq who are murdering our troops,” said Senator Lieberman. “This amendment is a common sense, common ground statement of the Senate to Tehran: we know what you are doing, and you must stop.”

“American officials attest that the government in Teheran seeks to bleed the United States and render unsuccessful our efforts to bring about a stable and self-governing in Iraq,” said Senator McCain. “This amendment will send a clear signal: Iran’s activities in Iraq are wrong, and they must end immediately.”

“The Iranians are attempting to thwart our policies in the Middle East by actively supporting terrorists who are killing our troops in Iraq,” said Senator Kyl. “It is time we acknowledge this hostility against us, and this amendment tells the Iranians we will not tolerate any actions which threaten our troops or allies.”

“The evidence is increasingly clear the Iranian government is working to destabilize the Iraqi government,” said Senator Graham. “It is long past time for Congress to speak out about this destructive behavior by Iran. We need one voice, and I expect it will be a unified bipartisan voice, speaking out and condemning these actions by the Iranian government.”

“The United States will not tolerate Iran’s hostile attempts to sabotage our efforts in the Middle East region,” said Senator Coleman. “On my last trip to Iraq, our Minnesota troops in Southern Iraq showed me Iranian-made explosives that were used against them on convoy missions. This crucial amendment makes it clear to the Iranian government, and any other government in the region that seeks to harm our soldiers, that providing any form of support to Iraqi insurgents will not be tolerated and must cease immediately.”

Good for them. Serious wonks can read the full text of the amendment here.

It's that time of the year. The U.S. is rotating its carriers based in the Persian Gulf, and the media automatically assumes this represents an "escalation of force" as the number of carriers in the region increases. Breathless reporting in the media sensationally mentions there are now three carriers inside the Gulf, and how this is a strong message to the Iranian government.

(July 6, 2007) The USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) transits
through the Atlantic Ocean. It will arrive in the Gulf by fall.

But the Iranian government has nothing to fear. The Iranians should start sweating when the U.S. Navy begins to pull all of its carriers back from the Persian Gulf, not when it sends more in. This, in fact, would be the signal that the U.S. is prepared to attack.

The geography dictates this. The carriers have far less room to maneuver while stationed in the Gulf, and are far more susceptible to the array of Iran's coastal missile batteries. While the U.S. is confident it can defeat Iran's anti-ship missiles, there is no such thing as certainty. Just ask the Israelis after they lost a warship in an attack by an Iranian-manned C-802 anti-ship cruise missile, which is an Iranian-made variant of the Chinese Silkworm, during the Israel-Hezbollah War last summer.

U.S. aircraft carriers are