[WCUSP] IRAQ WILL HAVE TO WAIT by Scott Ritter

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

_http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070927_ritter_stop_iran_war/_ 
(http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070927_ritter_stop_iran_war/) 
Posted on Sep 27, 2007
 
IRAQ WILL HAVE TO WAIT 
By Scott Ritter 
The long-awaited “progress report” of Gen. David Petraeus  and Ambassador 
Ryan Crocker on the status of the occupation of Iraq has been  made, providing 
Americans, via the compliant media, with the spectacle of loyal  Bush yes men 
offering faith-based analysis in lieu of fact-based  assessment.  In the days 
and weeks that have since passed, two things have  become clear: Neither 
Congress nor the American people (including the antiwar  movement) have a plan or 
the gumption to confront President Bush in anything  more than cosmetic fashion 
over the war in Iraq, and while those charged with  oversight mill about 
looking to score cheap political points and/or save face,  the administration 
continues its march toward conflict with Iran unimpeded.  

Bush responded to the Petraeus report by indicating that he would be  
inclined to start reducing the level of U.S. forces in Iraq sometime soon  (maybe 
December, maybe the spring of 2008).  But the bottom line is that  the troop 
levels in Iraq keep expanding, as does the infrastructure of perpetual  
occupation.  The Democrats in Congress are focused on winning the White  House in 2008, 
not stopping a failed war, and as such they not only refuse to  decisively 
confront the president on Iraq, they are trying to out-posture him  over who 
would be the tougher opponent of an expansionist Iran.  
Here’s the danger: While the antiwar movement  focuses its limited resources 
on trying to leverage real congressional  opposition to the war in Iraq, which 
simply will not happen before the 2008  election, the Bush administration and 
its Democratic opponents will outflank the  antiwar movement on the issue of 
Iran, pushing forward an aggressive agenda in  the face of light or 
nonexistent opposition. 

Of the two problems  (the reality of Iraq, the potential of Iran), Iran is by 
far the more  important.  The war in Iraq isn’t going to expand tenfold 
overnight.   By simply doing nothing, the Democrats can rest assured that Bush’s 
bad policy  will simply keep failing.  War with Iran, on the other hand, can 
still be  prevented.  We are talking about the potential for conflict at this 
time,  not the reality of war.  But time is not on the side of peace.  
Three story lines unfolded earlier this month which  underscore just how 
easily manipulated the American people, via the media, are  when it comes to the 
issues of Iran and weapons of mass destruction.  In  the first, Rear Adm. Mark 
Fox, a spokesperson for the U.S. military in Iraq, let  it be known that _U.S. 
forces had captured _ 
(http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iKNRr35u7z0-4UutvaOe_bpWSuSA) a “known  operative” of the “Ramazan Corps,” the ostensible 
branch of the Quds Force of  the Iranian Revolutionary Guard command responsible 
for all Iranian operations  inside Iraq.  This “operative,” one Mahmudi 
Farhadi, was, according to Fox,  the “linchpin” behind the smuggling of “
sophisticated weapons” into Iraq by the _Quds Force_ 
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17201011/site/newsweek/) . 

We’ve heard this story  before.  In January of this year a similar raid by 
U.S. forces in Irbil  netted six Iranians, five of whom are still in U.S. 
custody.  Senior  American officials let it be known that these Iranians were 
likewise members of  the Quds Force, and included that organization’s operations 
director.  All  were tied to the (unspecified) transfer of arms and munitions 
into Iraq from  Iran.  The Iranian government claimed, and the Iraqi government 
confirmed,  that the detained Iranians were all attached to a trade mission in 
Irbil, where  they oversaw legitimate commerce between Iran and Iraq along the 
Kurdish  frontier. 

The United States continues to hold the Iranians prisoner,  undoubtedly 
subjecting them to “special treatment” in order to elicit some sort  of 
confession, if our handling of other Iranian diplomats previously captured in  Iraq is 
any guide.  Their release any time soon is unlikely, given the  impact a de 
facto admission that the Bush administration got it wrong would have  on the 
overall case against Iran it is trying to build.  The fate of  Farhadi is likewise 
up in the air.  None other than Kurdish President _Jalal  Talabani_ 
(http://www.puk.org/web/htm/about/talab.html) , a staunch pro-American, condemned the  
detention of Farhadi by U.S. military forces, noting that the Iranian was a  
well-known businessman who was in Iraq as part of an official trade  
delegation.  The Iranians have threatened to close down cross-border trade  in Talabani’
s sector of Iraqi Kurdistan, shutting down a key income stream for  the 
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Iraqi Kurdish faction Talabani  heads.  Such is 
the reality of modern Iraq.   
But this reality is nowhere to be found in the White  House.  The president 
himself has led the charge, as recently as this past  August, when _in a speech 
_ (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294932,00.html) to the American Legion’
s national  convention in Reno, Nev., Bush threw down the gauntlet against 
Iran, declaring,  “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront 
Tehran’s  murderous activities ... the Iranian regime must halt these actions.
” His  remarks were built on _assertions he first set forth _ 
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/02/20070214-2.html) in  February 2007 when he 
highlighted his assessment of Iranian involvement inside  Iraq.  At that time 
the president declared, “I can say with certainty that  the Quds Force, a part 
of the Iranian government, has provided these  sophisticated IEDs [improvised 
explosive devices] that have harmed our troops.”  Bush avoided direct 
implication of the Iranian regime, stating, “ ... I do not  know whether or not the 
Quds Force was ordered from the top echelons of the  government. But my point 
is, what’s worse—them ordering it and it happening, or  them not ordering it 
and it happening?” I might suggest that the American  president putting the 
weight of the United States behind unsubstantiated  speculation in order to build 
a case for war might, in fact, be worse, but since  he got away with it 
regarding Iraqi WMD, why stop now?  
In March 2007 the U.S. military paraded yet another  general-cum-spokesperson 
before the assembled media, where it was announced that  the United States 
had captured _Qais Khazali_ 
(http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1615020,00.html) , the head of the  mysteriously named “Khazali network,” together 
with one Ali Musa Daqduq, an  alleged Lebanese _Hizbollah _ 
(http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/hizballah.htm) mastermind who helped  plan 
and facilitate the actions of the Khazali network, including, it seems, an  
attack on U.S. forces in Karbala in January 2007 which left five American  
soldiers dead.  This attack, in which insurgents dressed in U.S. military  uniforms, 
drove vehicles similar to those used by the U.S. military and sported  U.S. 
identification documents and weapons, has been linked to Iran by many in  the 
U.S., citing nothing more than the level of sophistication involved as  proof. 

The golden nugget in this story was Ali Musa Daqduq.   According to the U.S. 
military, he was a 24-year member of the Lebanese  Hizbollah Party possessing 
extensive contacts with the Iranian Quds Force.   The U.S. military referred 
to Daqduq as a proxy or surrogate of the Quds Force  in Iraq.  An alleged “
special forces commander” and bodyguard to none other  than _Hassan  Nasrallah_ 
(http://www.cfr.org/publication/11132/) , the head of Hizbollah in Lebanon, 
Daqduq  was alleged to have been ordered to Iraq in 2005 for the purpose of 
coordinating  training and operations on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard 
command.  Daqduq supposedly helped the Iranians by training, together with the 
Quds  Force and the Lebanese Hizbollah operatives, teams of 20 to 60 Iraqi 
insurgents  at secret bases just outside Tehran.    

With this  plethora of specificity, however, comes only one item sourced 
directly from Ali  Musa Daqduq himself—that the Iraqi insurgents responsible for 
the January attack  on American forces in Karbala could not have conducted such 
a complex operation  without the support and direction of the Iranian Quds 
Force.  Daqduq wasn’t  quoted as saying the Iranian Quds Force was in fact 
involved, but simply that,  in his opinion, such an operation could not have been 
conducted without the  knowledge of the Quds Force.  This, of course, brings us 
back full circle  to the immediate period after the attack in Karbala, when 
U.S. military sources  speculated that such an attack had to have been planned 
by Iran given its  complexity.  Nothing else is directly attributed to Daqduq, 
leaving open  the question of sourcing and authenticity of the information 
being cited by the  U.S. military.  

>From speculation to speculation, the case  against the Quds Force by the Bush 
administration continues to lack anything in  the way of substance.  And yet 
the mythological Daqduq has become a  launching platform for even graver 
speculation, fed by the media themselves,  that the highest levels of leadership in 
Iran were aware of the activities of  Daqduq and the Quds Force, and are thus 
somehow complicit in the violence.   Not one shred of evidence was produced 
to sustain such serious accusations, and  yet national media outlets such as 
_The New York Times _ 
(http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE7DD153EF930A35754C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1) and _The Washington Post _ 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/02/AR2007070200174
_pf.html) both ran  stories repeating these accusations.  Politicians are 
formulating policy  based upon such baseless accusations, and the American public 
continues to be  manipulated into a predisposition for war with Iran largely 
because of such  speculation.  No one seems to pay attention to the fact that 
the U.S.  military itself has subsequently contradicted its own briefings, 
noting in July  2007 that no persons had been captured by the United States that 
can provide a  direct link between insurgents in Iraq and Iran.  Again, in 
August of 2007,  the U.S. military stated that it had yet to catch anyone 
smuggling weapons into  Iraq from Iran.  

And what of Daqduq himself?  It seems  that his Iraqi sponsor, Qais Khazali, 
had fallen out of favor with _Muqtada al-Sadr _ 
(http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/06/shiite.leaders/) over the strategic  direction being taken, and 
sometime in 2006 split away from Sadr’s Mehdi Army,  taking some 3,000 fighters 
with him.  In the lawless wild-West environment  which dominates Iraq in the 
post-Saddam era, the formation of splinter militias  of this sort is an 
everyday occurrence.  Radical adventurers have  historically been drawn to places of 
conflict, which would explain the presence  of Daqduq.  And it would not 
surprise me to find that Qais Khazali had  secured funding from extremist elements 
inside Iran which operate outside the  mandate of government, including some 
from within the Iranian Revolutionary  Guard itself.  But the notion of Iran 
and Hizbollah aligning themselves  directly with a splinter element like the “
Khazali network” is highly unlikely,  to say the least.  

But fiction often mirrors reality, and in  the case of Iran’s Quds Force, the 
model drawn upon by the U.S. military seems  to be none other than America’s 
own support of anti-Iranian forces, namely the  Mujahedin el-Khalk (MEK) 
operating out of U.S.-controlled bases inside Iraq, and  Jundallah, a Baluchi 
separatist group operating out of Pakistan that the CIA  openly acknowledges 
supporting.  Unlike the lack of evidence brought to  bear by the U.S. to sustain its 
claims of Iranian involvement inside Iraq, the  Iranian government has 
captured scores of MEK and Jundallah operatives, along  with supporting documents, 
which substantiate that which the U.S. openly admits:  The United States is 
waging a proxy war against Iran, inside Iran.  This  mirror imaging of its own 
terror campaign against Iran to manufacture the  perception of a similar effort 
being waged by Iran inside Iraq against the U.S.  has been very effective at 
negating any Iranian effort to draw attention to the  escalation of war-like 
activities inside its borders.  After all, who would  believe the Iranians?  
They are only trying to divert attention away from  their own actions inside 
Iraq, or so the story goes.  
The second story line demonstrates, apparently, that Iranian  perfidy knows 
no bounds.  Just this month, the Iranian government tried to  organize a visit 
to Ground Zero in Manhattan by its president, Mahmoud  Ahmadinejad, who wanted 
to present a wreath of condolence over the tragedy that  occurred there on 
Sept. 11, 2001.  The Iranian president’s proposed actions  were consistent with 
the overall approach the Islamic Republic of Iran has taken  concerning the 
9/11 attack on America.  Iran was one of the first Muslim  nations to openly 
condemn the attack, expressing its condolences to those who  lost their lives and 
calling for a worldwide mobilization against  terrorism.  But why let facts 
get in the way of fiction.  Israel’s  ambassador to the United Nations, Dan 
Gillerman, set the standard for  intellectual discourse on the matter when he 
told the Conference of Presidents  of Major Jewish Organization that a visit by 
President Ahmadinejad to Ground  Zero would be “similar to a visit by a 
resurrected Hitler to Auschwitz."  _Sen. John McCain _ 
(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297526,00.html) continued in this vein,  stating that allowing 
Ahmadinejad to visit the site “would be an affront not  only to America but to the 
families of our loved ones who perished there in an  unprecedented act of terror.”
 Both remarks clearly attempted to link the Iranian  president, and by 
extension Iran, to events that they had nothing whatsoever to  do with, and which 
they openly condemned. 

9/11 linkage strategies  have worked in the past, regardless of factual 
merit.  One only need recall  Saddam Hussein and Iraq to understand how easily the 
American public, courtesy  of war-minded politicians and their co-conspirators 
in the mainstream media, can  be so easily led down the path of holding one 
party accountable for the actions  of another.  Saddam had nothing to do with 
the events of 9/11, and we now  occupy Iraq.  Similarly, Iran had nothing to do 
with 9/11, and yet due in  part to the distortion of fact taking place 
concerning allegations of Iranian  “terror” activity inside Iraq, the link is 
clear, at least in the minds of many  Americans.  President Bush calls Iran a “
state sponsor of terror."   The military claims Iran is carrying out terror 
attacks against U.S. forces in  Iraq.  The Iranian president wanted to visit Ground 
Zero and was widely  condemned by those who plot regime change in Iran.  The 
Americans,  bombarded with these false connections, then conclude Iran was part 
of the 9/11  plot.  The logic is so simple, so flawed and yet so dangerously 
accessible  to the minds of an American people fundamentally ignorant of the 
true situation  in Iran and the Middle East today. 

Which leads us to the third,  and final, story line of the month: Don’t 
believe the International Atomic  Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran does have a nuclear 
weapons program!  For weeks  now, the cornerstone for the justification of 
American military intervention in  Iran has been crumbling away, the layers and 
layers of fear-based fiction  crafted by the Bush administration meticulously 
peeled away by _Dr.  Mohamed ElBaradei _ 
(http://www.iaea.org/About/DGC/dgbio.html) and his team of inspectors from  the IAEA.  After treading water for years 
in a sea of political intrigue,  ElBaradei and his experts have finally 
assembled enough data to enable them to  close the books on the Iranian nuclear 
program, noting that all substantive  questions have been answered and that 
contrary to the speculative assessments  put forward by the Bush administration it 
appears that Iran’s nuclear program  is, in fact, dedicated to permitted 
energy-related activities. 

Not so fast.  In recent days, Israeli military aircraft, in  coordination 
with special operations forces on the ground, _launched a preemptive raid _ 
(http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070927/cleisure/cleisure3.html) on a  
suspected “nuclear” target in northeast Syria.  According to Israeli and  U.S. 
intelligence sources, this site was jointly developed by Syria and North  Korea 
for the purposes of transferring North Korea’s proscribed nuclear weapons  
program to Syrian control.  Worse, we are told by none other than former  U.S. 
Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton that this Syrian-North Korean  
project was being done at the behest of none other than Iran.  The Syrian  site, 
an established agriculture research center, was linked to a shipment from  
North Korea invoiced as cement.  Israel apparently believed  different.  Israel 
has been monitoring any activity taking place inside  Syria which could be 
linked to nuclear activity.  Syria had, in the past,  conducted exploratory 
investigation into whether phosphate deposits in Syria  were viable for the 
manufacture of uranium for use in a nuclear energy  program.  Whether this activity, 
which has been suspended since the 1980s,  was being resurrected, and whether 
the target bombed by Israel had anything to  do with such a resurrection, is 
unknown at this time.  What is obvious to  anyone with any understanding of 
nuclear activities is that Syria was not  pursuing a nuclear weapons program and 
North Korea was not supplying Syria with  the components of such a program, 
either for Syrian use or as a proxy for  Iran.  

But this sort of fact-based reasoning is irrelevant,  especially in the 
secretive circles of power that make the life-or-death  decisions regarding war.  
The Syrian raid by Israel seems to represent a  sort of “proof of capability” 
drill, instilling a sense of confidence in an  Israeli military badly shaken 
from its debacle in Lebanon during the summer of  2006.  The planning for the 
Syrian raid was a closely held secret, limited  to a small cabal of 
right-leaning politicians in Israel and, surprisingly, the  United States.  The American 
end of the deal centered on the office of the  vice president, Dick Cheney, 
who gave final approval to attack the Syrian target  only after being rebuffed 
in his effort to get the Israelis to bomb the Natanz  nuclear facility in Iran. 
 Cheney, it seems, is desperate for any action  that might trigger an 
expanded conflict with Iran.  Even though the Syrian  adventure did not succeed in 
producing such a trigger, it did wipe off the front  pages of American 
newspapers uncomfortable story lines from the IAEA, contending  as they did that Iran 
had no nuclear weapons program.  Now, thanks to the  Israeli action against 
Syria, which had no nuclear weapons program, the American  public is in the 
process of being fooled into speculating that one does in fact  exist not only in 
Syria but in Iran.  
Continued war in Iraq is a tragedy.  Having the  conflict spread to Iran 
would be a disaster.  No one can claim to possess a  crystal ball showing the 
future.  There are many who, when confronted with  the potential for conflict with 
Iran, choose to brush these warnings aside,  noting that such a conflict 
would be madness, and that the United States  currently lacks the resources to 
fight a war with Iran.  Such wishful  thinking borders on irresponsible 
foolishness.  If the headlines from this  month tell us anything, it is that war with 
Iran is very much a  possibility.  The Bush administration has been actively 
planning war with  Iran since the fall of 2004.  Since that time, several 
windows of  opportunity have presented themselves (most recently in spring 2007), 
but the  Bush administration found itself unable to pull the trigger for one 
reason or  another (the Navy’s rejection of the presence of a third carrier 
battle group in  the Persian Gulf scuttled the spring 2007 plans).  

The  administration always heeded the justifications for aborting an attack,  
primarily because there was time still left on the clock, so to speak.  But  
time is running out.  Israel has drawn a red line across the calendar,  
indicating that if Iran has not pulled back from its nuclear ambitions by the  end 
of 2007, military action in early spring 2008 will be inevitable.  The  attack 
on Syria by Israel sent a clear message that attacks are feasible.   The 
continued emphasis by the Bush administration on Iran as a terror state,  combined 
with the fact that the administration seems inclined to blame its  continuing 
problems in Iraq on Iran, and not failed policy, means that there is  no 
shortage of fuel to stoke the fire of public opinion regarding war with  Iran.  Add 
in the “reality” of weapons of mass destruction, and war becomes  
inevitable, regardless of the veracity of the “reality” being presented.  

The antiwar movement in America must make a strategic decision,  and soon: 
Contain the war in Iraq, and stop a war from breaking out in  Iran.  The war in 
Iraq can be contained simply by letting war be war.   There is no genuine good 
news coming out of Iraq.  There won’t be as long  as the United States is 
there.  As callous as it sounds, let the war  establish the news cycle, and let 
the reality of war serve to contain it.   The surge has failed.  Congress may 
not act decisively to bring the troops  home, but it is highly unlikely that 
Congress will idly approve any massive  expansion of an unpopular war that 
continues to fail so publicly. 

Iran, however, is a different matter.  Congress has already provided  legal 
authority for the president to wage war in Iran through its existing war  
powers authority (one resolution passed in 2001, the other in 2002).   Likewise, 
Congress has allowed the Bush administration to forward deploy the  
infrastructure of war deep into the Middle East and neighboring regions, all in  the name 
of the “global war on terror."  The startup costs for a military  strike 
against Iran would therefore be greatly diminished.  Sustaining such  a conflict is 
a different matter, but given current congressional reticence to  stand up to 
a war-time president, it is highly unlikely any meaningful action  would be 
taken to stop an Iranian war once the bombs start falling.  And we  should 
never forget that Iran has a vote in how this would end; once it is  attacked, 
Iran will respond in ways that are unpredictable, and as such set in  motion a 
string of cause-effect military actions with the United States and  others that 
spins any future conflict out of control. 

The highest  priority for the antiwar movement in America today must be the 
prevention of a  war with Iran.  The strategic objectives should include 
getting Congress to  repeal the war-powers authorities currently on the books, 
thereby forcing the  president to seek new congressional approval for any new war.  
Likewise, a  concerted effort must be undertaken to counter the 
disinformation being spread  by the Bush administration and others about the nature of the 
Iranian  threat.  Every action undertaken by the antiwar movement must be 
connected  to one or both of these strategic objectives.  This is not the time for 
 one-off sophomoric newspaper advertisements, but rather for sustained action 
 focused on generating congressional hearings and public debate across the 
entire  spectrum of American society.  From the colleges and universities to the 
 churches and on to the public square of small-town America, public 
information  talks, presentations and panels must be held.  Communities should flood  
local media outlets with requests for coverage and appeal to regional media to  
run stories.  Mainstream media will follow.  Demonstrations, if useful  at 
all, must be focused events linked to an overall campaign designed to  
facilitate a strategic objective.  

We all should remember  the fall of 2002.  Many felt that there was no chance 
for a war with Iraq,  especially once U.N. inspectors made their return.  In 
March 2003, everyone  who thought so was proved wrong.  The fall of 2007 is no 
different.   There is a sense of complacency when one speaks of the potential 
for a war with  Iran.  But time is not on the side of those who oppose 
conflict.  If  nothing is done to change the political situation inside America 
regarding Iran,  there is an all too real possibility for a war to break out in 
the spring of  2008.  
Sadly, there really is no alternative for the antiwar  movement: Put 
opposition to the war in Iraq on the back burner and make  preventing a war with Iran 
the No. 1 priority, at least until the national  election cycle kicks in 
during the summer of 2008.  If a war with Iran  hasn’t happened by then, it 
probably won’t.  And the national debate on  Iraq won’t be engaged until that time, 
anyway.  A war with Iran would make  the current conflict in Iraq pale by 
comparison, and would detrimentally impact  the whole of America, not just certain 
demographics.  As such, it is  critical that we all put aside our ideological 
and political differences and  focus on the one issue which, if left 
unheeded, will have devastating  consequences for the immediate future of us all: 
Prevent a future war with  Iran. 

A former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served  under Gen. H. Norman 
Schwarzkopf during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Scott Ritter  worked as a chief 
inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq  from 1991 until 
1998, helping lead the effort to disarm Iraqi weapons of mass  destruction.  He 
is the author of several books, including “Iraq  Confidential” (2005, Nation 
Books), “Target Iran” (2006, Nation Books) and  “Waging Peace” (2007, Nation 
Books).  “Target Iran,” with a new afterword  by the author, has just been 
released in paperback by Nation Books. 




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