The Shift
There is nothing new about the efforts to drive a wedge between America’s evangelicals and Israel. Many in the anti-Israel camp have been working for years to do exactly that. Anti-Israel Palestinian Christians such as Sami Awad and Naim Ateek have traveled the country telling American Christians how their “brothers and sisters in Christ” are being oppressed by Israel’s Jews. Left-leaning evangelicals such as Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, and Serge Duss have echoed this narrative in their corner of the Christian world. Duss’s sons, Brian and Matt, have worked diligently to mainstream their father’s views within the fields of Christian philanthropy and Democratic Party policy-making, respectively.
Until the past couple of years, however, there was little reason to believe that these individuals were influencing Christians beyond their own narrow circles. Almost every significant evangelical leader who took a position on the issue came out squarely behind the Jewish state. A center-right evangelical world simply was not taking its political cues from these stalwarts of the left.
This situation is changing dramatically. With every passing month, more evidence is emerging that these anti-Israel Christians are succeeding in reaching beyond the evangelical left and are influencing the mainstream. In particular, they are penetrating the evangelical world at its soft underbelly: the millennial generation. These young believers (roughly ages 18 to 30) are rebelling against what they perceive as the excessive biblical literalism and political conservatism of their parents. As they strive with a renewed vigor to imitate Jesus’ stand with the oppressed and downtrodden, they want to decide for themselves which party is being oppressed in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
ISIS Closing In On US Troops In Baghdad
AMERICA’S “BOOTS ON THE GROUND” NOW IN ISIS’ BULLSEYE
By FITSNEWS || Militants fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are closing in on key positions in Baghdad currently occupied by American troops. … this despite two months of sustained airstrikes against ISIS forces launched by U.S. president Barack Obama.
And so begins the (next) 30-year war …
ISIS troops are now less than ten miles away from the perimeter of Baghdad International Airport – which is defended by as many as 300 U.S. combat troops.
For those of you with (really) short memories, America pulled out of Iraq in December 2011 after a failed nine-year occupation. That withdrawal led to the rise of a host of militant groups – which have since coalesced under the ISIS banner. In July, Obama sent several hundred U.S. troops back to Iraq in an effort to shore up key positions – and in August launched a new bombing campaign against ISIS.
The campaign isn’t working …
ISIS has continued its advance and is now on the verge of surrounding the embattled Iraqi capital. More importantly, ISIS forces are also close to occupying the Abu Ghraib suburb – which would enable them to launch artillery attacks on American positions.
Wait … artillery? Where would ISIS get artillery pieces?
Glad you asked. ISIS forces captured more than fifty U.S.-made M198 mm howitzers back in June – along with 1,500 armored U.S. Humvees and 4,000 PKC machine guns (each capable of firing 800 rounds per minute). Most of these were weapons bequeathed to the incompetent Iraqi Army upon the U.S. withdrawal three years ago.
In fact in a bizarrely ironic twist, these weapons have been among the top targets of the failed Obama airstrikes …
To recap: After destroying the Iraqi Army in 2003 (with American weapons), America rebuilt the Iraqi Army (with American weapons). Now those weapons have fallen into the hands of ISIS, requiring … wait for it … more American weapons to be employed.
And for what? To make Iraq “safe for democracy?”
Sheesh …
“America is using American military equipment to bomb other pieces of American military equipment halfway around the world,” Vox’s Max Fisher wrote at the onset of the U.S. bombings. “The American weapons the US gave the Iraqi army totally failed at making Iraq secure and have become tools of terror used by an offshoot of al-Qaeda to terrorize the Iraqis that the US supposedly liberated a decade ago. And so now the US has to use American weaponry to destroy the American weaponry it gave Iraqis to make Iraqis safer, in order to make Iraqis safer.”
But hey let’s follow the advice of U.S. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham and do it all again … America is only $18 trillion in the hole, right?
A few more weapons ought to do it, right?
Here’s the thing: As we noted in our original story on Obama sending troops back to Iraq, it’s extremely likely (now virtually imminent) they will come under attack.
Which is the point …
“Make no mistake … this is a provocation in search of an escalation, a move Obama hopes will spark a confrontation capable of rallying a war-weary America behind yet another failed, costly intervention,” we wrote at the time.
In fact the groundwork for more “boots on the ground” in Iraq has already been laid …
Read more at http://www.fitsnews.com/2014/10/11/isis ... ps-baghdad
Nuke the whole place and the problem goes away
The Fake Terror Threat Used To Justify Bombing Syria
By Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain
As the Obama Administration prepared to bomb Syria without congressional or U.N. authorization, it faced two problems. The first was the difficulty of sustaining public support for a new years-long war against ISIS, a group that clearly posed no imminent threat to the “homeland.” A second was the lack of legal justification for launching a new bombing campaign with no viable claim of self-defense or U.N. approval.
The solution to both problems was found in the wholesale concoction of a brand new terror threat that was branded “The Khorasan Group.” After spending weeks depicting ISIS as an unprecedented threat — too radical even for Al Qaeda! — administration officials suddenly began spoon-feeding their favorite media organizations and national security journalists tales of a secret group that was even scarier and more threatening than ISIS, one that posed a direct and immediate threat to the American Homeland. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new terror group was created in media lore.
[...]
There are serious questions about whether the Khorasan Group even exists in any meaningful or identifiable manner. Aki Peritz, a CIA counterterrorism official until 2009, told Time: “I’d certainly never heard of this group while working at the agency,” while Obama’s former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford said: ”We used the term [Khorasan] inside the government, we don’t know where it came from….All I know is that they don’t call themselves that.” As The Intercept was finalizing this article, former terrorism federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review that the group was a scam: “You haven’t heard of the Khorosan Group because there isn’t one. It is a name the administration came up with, calculating that Khorosan … had sufficient connection to jihadist lore that no one would call the president on it.”
What happened here is all-too-familiar. The Obama administration needed propagandistic and legal rationale for bombing yet another predominantly Muslim country. While emotions over the ISIS beheading videos were high, they were not enough to sustain a lengthy new war.
So after spending weeks promoting ISIS as Worse Than Al Qaeda™, they unveiled a new, never-before-heard-of group that was Worse Than ISIS™. Overnight, as the first bombs on Syria fell, the endlessly helpful U.S. media mindlessly circulated the script they were given: this new group was composed of “hardened terrorists,” posed an “imminent” threat to the U.S. homeland, was in the “final stages” of plots to take down U.S. civilian aircraft, and could “launch more-coordinated and larger attacks on the West in the style of the 9/11 attacks from 2001.”"
As usual, anonymity was granted to U.S. officials to make these claims. As usual, there was almost no evidence for any of this. Nonetheless, American media outlets — eager, as always, to justify American wars — spewed all of this with very little skepticism. Worse, they did it by pretending that the U.S. government was trying not to talk about all of this — too secret! — but they, as intrepid, digging journalists, managed to unearth it from their courageous “sources.” Once the damage was done, the evidence quickly emerged about what a sham this all was. But, as always with these government/media propaganda campaigns, the truth emerges only when it’s impotent.
Rather disingenuous of Greenwald. We know where the name Khorasan group came from it is the province in Syria where the local Al Qaeda affiliate has a base. AS to beheadings that does not cover killing women and children Threating Baghdad and the Kurds with mass executions should they conquer.YMix wrote:The Fake Terror Threat Used To Justify Bombing Syria
By Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain
As the Obama Administration prepared to bomb Syria without congressional or U.N. authorization, it faced two problems. The first was the difficulty of sustaining public support for a new years-long war against ISIS, a group that clearly posed no imminent threat to the “homeland.” A second was the lack of legal justification for launching a new bombing campaign with no viable claim of self-defense or U.N. approval.
The solution to both problems was found in the wholesale concoction of a brand new terror threat that was branded “The Khorasan Group.” After spending weeks depicting ISIS as an unprecedented threat — too radical even for Al Qaeda! — administration officials suddenly began spoon-feeding their favorite media organizations and national security journalists tales of a secret group that was even scarier and more threatening than ISIS, one that posed a direct and immediate threat to the American Homeland. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new terror group was created in media lore.
[...]
There are serious questions about whether the Khorasan Group even exists in any meaningful or identifiable manner. Aki Peritz, a CIA counterterrorism official until 2009, told Time: “I’d certainly never heard of this group while working at the agency,” while Obama’s former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford said: ”We used the term [Khorasan] inside the government, we don’t know where it came from….All I know is that they don’t call themselves that.” As The Intercept was finalizing this article, former terrorism federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review that the group was a scam: “You haven’t heard of the Khorosan Group because there isn’t one. It is a name the administration came up with, calculating that Khorosan … had sufficient connection to jihadist lore that no one would call the president on it.”
What happened here is all-too-familiar. The Obama administration needed propagandistic and legal rationale for bombing yet another predominantly Muslim country. While emotions over the ISIS beheading videos were high, they were not enough to sustain a lengthy new war.
So after spending weeks promoting ISIS as Worse Than Al Qaeda™, they unveiled a new, never-before-heard-of group that was Worse Than ISIS™. Overnight, as the first bombs on Syria fell, the endlessly helpful U.S. media mindlessly circulated the script they were given: this new group was composed of “hardened terrorists,” posed an “imminent” threat to the U.S. homeland, was in the “final stages” of plots to take down U.S. civilian aircraft, and could “launch more-coordinated and larger attacks on the West in the style of the 9/11 attacks from 2001.”"
As usual, anonymity was granted to U.S. officials to make these claims. As usual, there was almost no evidence for any of this. Nonetheless, American media outlets — eager, as always, to justify American wars — spewed all of this with very little skepticism. Worse, they did it by pretending that the U.S. government was trying not to talk about all of this — too secret! — but they, as intrepid, digging journalists, managed to unearth it from their courageous “sources.” Once the damage was done, the evidence quickly emerged about what a sham this all was. But, as always with these government/media propaganda campaigns, the truth emerges only when it’s impotent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KhorasanDoc wrote:Rather disingenuous of Greenwald. We know where the name Khorasan group came from it is the province in Syria where the local Al Qaeda affiliate has a base.
Ha ha. Leftists and their tortured logic and need to create alternate realities and fictions.Nonc Hilaire wrote:Interesting analysis of Obama policy.
http://orientalreview.org/2014/06/22/th ... dilemma-i/
A global shift in US strategy is currently underway, with America transitioning from the ‘world policeman’ to the Lead From Behind mastermind. This fundamental shift essentially entails the US moving from a majority forward-operating military to a defensive stay-behind force. Part of this transformation is the reduction of the conventional military and its replacement with special forces and intelligence recruits. Private military companies (PMCs) are also occupying a higher role in the US’ grand strategy. Of course, it is not to say that the US no longer has the capability or will to forward advance – not at all – but that the evolving US strategy prefers more indirect and nefarious approaches towards projecting power besides massive invasions and bombing runs. In this manner, it is following the advice of Sun Tzu who wrote that “supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” The outcome is a mixture of Color Revolutions, unconventional warfare, and mercenary interventions that avoids the direct use of US combat troops while relying heavily on regional allies’ proxy involvement. This results in the promotion of American policy via oblique methods and the retention of relative plausible deniability. Importantly, the absence of conventional forces is thought to reduce the risk of a direct confrontation between the US and Russia, China, and Iran, the primary targets of these proxy wars . . .
YMix wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KhorasanDoc wrote:Rather disingenuous of Greenwald. We know where the name Khorasan group came from it is the province in Syria where the local Al Qaeda affiliate has a base.
I doubt there's such a region in Syria.
Yeah that seems to be right. I suppose that means that they are a creation of IranHeracleum Persicum wrote:YMix wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KhorasanDoc wrote:Rather disingenuous of Greenwald. We know where the name Khorasan group came from it is the province in Syria where the local Al Qaeda affiliate has a base.
I doubt there's such a region in Syria.
Khorasan is a province of Iran
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Veisi said he did not believe Isis posed any territorial threat to Iran, but rather challenged Tehran’s concept of a “Shia crescent” stretching across the Middle East. “The most important issue for Iran,” he said, “is not to have any communications or geographical gap in its so-called Shia crescent, which spans from Iran to Iraq to Syria and to Lebanon”.
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Radio Free Europe
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on October 13 that Washington and "the wicked government of Britain" created both IS and Al-Qaeda "to create divisions and to fight against the Islamic Republic," but the militant groups have turned against them.
In his first speech since undergoing prostate surgery last month, Khamenei said efforts by Washington and its allies against IS militants are not genuine.
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It’s hard not to cringe watching the United States careen around the Middle East these days, dispensing bombs, money and political fealty in various doses depending on the crisis of the day to a series of supposed allies that take turns slapping us around while demanding our protection.
These unseemly and contradictory scenes are emblematic of the crumbled bookends of America’s foreign policy in the Middle East that lies scattered around the regional landscape. It’s the rubble of a broken foreign policy paradigm conceived in an earlier era that has ceased its usefulness in the 21st century.
America’s Cold-War era regional foreign policy, which has seen us construct a series of partnerships in Cairo, Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Islamabad, is no longer relevant to US and regional interests. Moreover, it’s difficult to conceive of a more unattractive group of states to align ourselves with—all of whom engage in behaviors that do not serve American interests and that are inconsistent with our values. It’s time to recast the Sunni-state plus Israel alliance that characterizes American foreign policy in the Middle East.
The busted bookends of our policy are slapping us in the face on a nearly daily basis. On the one hand, we had Bibi Netanyahu on one of his usual forays to the White House, openly dissing President Obama and even suggesting at one point that criticisms of Israel’s ongoing and continuous annexation of Palestinian territory were “un-American.” Thanks for the lecture, Bibi.
Never mind that the United States has implemented what amounts to an expensive social and military corporate welfare program to prop up a state, Israel, which by World Bank standards is among the wealthiest countries in the world. Who’s fooling who, exactly?
Next, we were treated to Vice President Joe Biden bowing down to Gulf State familial sheiks and apologizing to them for openly stating the obvious—that these repressive and autocratic monarchies have to varying degrees supported Sunni extremist groups battling the Iranian-backed Assad regime in the Syrian Civil War.
It’s hard to imagine that these erstwhile allies didn’t think they had American backing in Syria given our own 35-year undeclared war against Iran in which we have sold these states some of the most advanced defense equipment in the world—presumably to protect them from the Iranians.
Vice President Biden has had a long history of sticking his foot in his mouth. As someone that sat through many Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings over the years, it was clear to everyone that he was/is not one of the deepest thinkers to come from the world’s greatest deliberative body.
Whatever his failings, however, Biden is the second in command of the world’s greatest democracy and the leader of the free world. It was unsettling to see him cap-in-hand before the very sheiks that we have been protecting for the last 35 years.
Never mind that the US has now taken it upon itself to start blasting away at the group that calls itself the Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh) in one of the most mysterious and ill-conceived imperial policing operations in recent US history—in part to protect the autocratic Middle Eastern monarchies that refuse to take any responsibility for their actions.
Last, but not least, we have Secretary of State John Kerry again ricocheting around the region, recently at a donor’s conference pledging $212 million to help “rebuild” Gaza, while simultaneously stating that the current status quo between America’s two client-state antagonists (Israel and the Palestinian Authority) is not sustainable.
There is something surreal about the idea of the United States offering to spend more taxpayer money to rebuild buildings that were destroyed by American-provided bombs and planes in the first place—bombs that will no doubt be freely replenished the next time Hamas and Israel decide to start blasting away at one another.
The reality is that all parties regard the status quo as completely sustainable, in part because they are supported by American money and, in Israel’s case, unlimited political support. America’s political leaders show no interest in placing any meaningful leverage on the parties. Absent any political will to pressure the parties—particularly Israel—it is manifestly unclear why any further money or effort should be expended in trying to solve this long-running dispute. Besides, we could use that $212 million at home to rebuild the dilapidated Lincoln tunnel or one of our many deteriorated highway bridges.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the neoconservatives that got us into the Iraq war are desperately trying to undo a possible nuclear deal with Iran—presumably so we and/or the Israelis can start another war to preserve Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. Never mind that such a deal creates the opportunity for the United States and Iran to begin cooperation on a host of regional issues in which we share important interests. Détente with Iran would be good for American strategic interests—stakes that far outweigh anything involved in the Arab-Israeli dispute or in our bombing raids in Iraq and Syria.
How did we get to this point? How is it that the United States is shoved around and made fun of like the poor village durian by a collection of alleged allies that just keep on cashing our checks while making fun of us as soon as our back is turned?
In the end, of course, the joke is really on us. The fact is that the United States will continue to be embarrassed by supposed friends until it decides that it doesn’t want to be pushed around in front of the international community. That requires acknowledging that the two Cold War-era “twin pillar” alliances with the Sunni autocracies and Israel need to be recast. The contradictions in each of these partnerships have now become so incongruous that not even we can square the circle.
The idea of the United States now offering up money to clean up the mess created by the American-made bombs dropped by its Israeli client state aptly describes the depths to which the US has plunged. Gulf Sheiks embarrassing the US vice president provides just another layer of icing on a cake that has been in the oven for far too long. Israel lobbyists fanning out on Capitol Hill to torpedo a nuclear deal with Iran while Israel cashes our checks bespeaks an out of control ally that has lost all sense of decorum and proportion.
The contradictions of American regional policy that have seen us dispense billions of dollars in arms and money to ungrateful and ungracious allies in Cairo, Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Islamabad while simultaneously protecting them can no longer be reconciled. It’s time for a paradigm change.
Instead, the United States should leave these countries to their own devices and their own quarrels. Most importantly, they should solve their own problems. Perhaps we might have better fortunes in the long run in building a more integrated and peaceful regional order with other states. Anything would be an improvement over what we have now.
Oh, and another thing—let’s stop turning the other cheek the next time one of our supposed allies starts swinging.
(Reuters) - Iraqi pilots who have joined Islamic State in Syria are training members of the group to fly in three captured fighter jets . .
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The nuclear negotiations between six world powers and Iran, which are now nearing their November deadline, remain deadlocked over U.S. demands that Iran dismantle the bulk of its capacity to enrich uranium. The demand is based on the suspicion that Iran has worked secretly to develop nuclear weapons in the past and can't be trusted not to do so again.
Iran argues that it has rejected nuclear weapons as incompatible with Islam and cites a fatwa of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as proof. American and European officials remain skeptical, however, that the issue is really governed by Shiite Islamic principles. They have relied instead on murky intelligence that has never been confirmed about an alleged covert Iranian nuclear weapons program.
But the key to understanding Iran's policy toward nuclear weapons lies in a historical episode during its eight-year war with Iraq. The story, told in full for the first time here, explains why Iran never retaliated against Iraq's chemical weapons attacks on Iranian troops and civilians, which killed 20,000 Iranians and severely injured 100,000 more. And it strongly suggests that the Iranian leadership's aversion to developing chemical and nuclear weapons is deep-rooted and sincere.
A few Iranian sources have previously pointed to a fatwa by the Islamic Republic's first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, prohibiting chemical weapons as the explanation for why Iran did not deploy these weapons during the war with Iraq. But no details have ever been made public on when and how Khomeini issued such a fatwa, so it has been ignored for decades.
Now, however, the wartime chief of the Iranian ministry responsible for military procurement has provided an eyewitness account of Khomeini's ban not only on chemical weapons, but on nuclear weapons as well. In an interview with me in Tehran in late September, Mohsen Rafighdoost, who served as minister of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) throughout the eight-year war, revealed that he had proposed to Khomeini that Iran begin working on both nuclear and chemical weapons -- but was told in two separate meetings that weapons of mass destruction are forbidden by Islam. I sought the interview with Rafighdoost after learning of an interview he had with Mehr News Agency in January in which he alluded to the wartime meetings with Khomeini and the supreme leader's forbidding chemical and nuclear weapons.
Rafighdoost was jailed under the Shah for dissident political activity and became a point of contact for anti-Shah activists when he got out of prison in 1978. When Khomeini returned to Tehran from Paris after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Rafighdoost became his bodyguard and head of his security detail. He was also a founding member of the IRGC and was personally involved in every major military decision taken by the corps during the Iran-Iraq War, including the initiation of Iran's ballistic missile program and creation of Hezbollah.
Despite his IRGC background, however, Rafighdoost has embraced the pragmatism of President Hassan Rouhani's government. In October 2013, he recalled in an interview that Khomeini had dissuaded him from setting up the IRGC's headquarters at the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
"Why do you want to go there?" Rafighdoost recalled Khomeini as saying. "Are our disputes with the U.S. supposed to last a thousand years? Do not go there."
Rafighdoost received me in his modest office at the Noor Foundation, of which he has been chairman since 1999. Looking younger than his 74 years, he still has the stocky build of a bodyguard and bright, alert eyes.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq began using chemical weapons against Iranian troops after Iran repelled the initial Iraqi attack and began a counterattack inside Iraq. The Iraqis considered chemical weapons to be the only way to counter Iran's superiority in manpower. Iranian doctors first documented symptoms of mustard gas from Iraqi chemical attacks against Iranian troops in mid-1983. However, Rafighdoost said, a dramatic increase in Iraqi gas attacks occurred during an Iranian offensive in southern Iraq in February and March 1984. The attacks involved both mustard gas and the nerve gas tabun, which prompted him to take a major new initiative in his war planning.
Rafighdoost told me he asked some foreign governments for assistance, including weapons, to counter the chemical-war threat, but all of them rejected his requests. This prompted him to decide that his ministry would have to produce everything Iran needed for the war. "I personally gathered all the researchers who had any knowledge of defense issues," he recalled. He organized groups of specialists to work on each category of military need -- one of which was called "chemical, biological, and nuclear."
Rafighdoost prepared a report on all the specialized groups he had formed and went to discuss it with Khomeini, hoping to get his approval for work on chemical and nuclear weapons. The supreme leader met him accompanied only by his son, Ahmad, who served as chief of staff, according to Rafighdoost. "When Khomeini read the report, he reacted to the chemical-biological-nuclear team by asking, ‘What is this?'" Rafighdoost recalled.
Khomeini ruled out development of chemical and biological weapons as inconsistent with Islam.
"Imam told me that, instead of producing chemical or biological weapons, we should produce defensive protection for our troops, like gas masks and atropine," Rafighdoost said.
"Imam told me that, instead of producing chemical or biological weapons, we should produce defensive protection for our troops, like gas masks and atropine," Rafighdoost said.
Rafighdoost also told Khomeini that the group had "a plan to produce nuclear weapons." That could only have been a distant goal in 1984, given the rudimentary state of Iran's nuclear program. At that point, Iranian nuclear specialists had no knowledge of how to enrich uranium and had no technology with which to do it. But in any case, Khomeini closed the door to such a program. "We don't want to produce nuclear weapons," Rafighdoost recalls the supreme leader telling him.
Khomeini instructed him instead to "send these scientists to the Atomic Energy Organization," referring to Iran's civilian nuclear-power agency. That edict from Khomeini ended the idea of seeking nuclear weapons, according to Rafighdoost.
The chemical-warfare issue took a new turn in late June 1987, when Iraqi aircraft bombed four residential areas of Sardasht, an ethnically Kurdish city in Iran, with what was believed to be mustard gas. It was the first time Iran's civilian population had been targeted by Iraqi forces with chemical weapons, and the population was completely unprotected. Of 12,000 inhabitants, 8,000 were exposed, and hundreds died.
As popular fears of chemical attacks on more Iranian cities grew quickly, Rafighdoost undertook a major initiative to prepare Iran's retaliation. He worked with the Defense Ministry to create the capability to produce mustard gas weapons.
Rafighdoost was obviously hoping that the new circumstances of Iraqi chemical weapons attacks on Iranian civilians would cause Khomeini to have a different view of the issue. He made it clear to me that Khomeini didn't know about the production of the two chemicals for mustard gas weapons until it had taken place. "In the meeting, I told Imam we have high capability to produce chemical weapons," he recalled. Rafighdoost then asked Khomeini for his view on "this capability to retaliate."
Iran's permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) disclosed the details of Rafighdoost's chemical weapons program in a document provided to the U.S. delegation to the OPCW on May 17, 2004. It was later made public by WikiLeaks, which published a U.S. diplomatic cable reporting on its contents. The document shows that the two ministries had procured the chemical precursors for mustard gas and in September 1987 began to manufacture the chemicals necessary to produce a weapon -- sulfur mustard and nitrogen mustard. But the document also indicated that the two ministries did not "weaponize" the chemicals by putting them into artillery shells, aerial bombs, or rockets.
The supreme leader was unmoved by the new danger presented by the Iraqi gas attacks on civilians. "It doesn't matter whether it is on the battlefield or in cities; we are against this," he told Rafighdoost. "It is haram [forbidden] to produce such weapons. You are only allowed to produce protection."
Invoking the Islamic Republic's claim to spiritual and moral superiority over the secular Iraqi regime, Rafighdoost recalls Khomeini asking rhetorically, "If we produce chemical weapons, what is the difference between me and Saddam?"
Khomeini's verdict spelled the end of the IRGC's chemical weapons initiative. "Even after Sardasht, there was no way we could retaliate," Rafighdoost recalled. The 2004 Iranian document confirms that production of two chemicals ceased, the buildings in which they were stored were sealed in 1988, and the production equipment was dismantled in 1992.
Khomeini also repeated his edict forbidding work on nuclear weapons, telling him, "Don't talk about nuclear weapons at all."
Rafighdoost understood Khomeini's prohibition on the use or production of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons as a fatwa -- a judgment on Islamic jurisprudence by a qualified Islamic scholar. It was never written down or formalized, but that didn't matter, because it was issued by the "guardian jurist" of the Islamic state -- and was therefore legally binding on the entire government. "When Imam said it was haram [forbidden], he didn't have to say it was fatwa," Rafighdoost explained.
Rafighdoost did not recall the date of that second meeting with Khomeini, but other evidence strongly suggests that it was in December 1987. Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi said in a late December 1987 speech that Iran "is capable of manufacturing chemical weapons" and added that a "special section" had been set up for "offensive chemical weapons."
But Mousavi refrained from saying that Iran actually had chemical weapons, and he hinted that Iran was constrained by religious considerations.
Mousavi refrained from saying that Iran actually had chemical weapons, and he hinted that Iran was constrained by religious considerations. "We will produce them only when Islam allows us and when we are compelled to do so," he said.
A few days after Mousavi's speech, a report in the London daily the Independent referred to a Khomeini fatwa against chemical weapons. Former Iranian nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian, now a research scholar at Princeton University, confirmed for this article that Khomeini's fatwa against chemical and nuclear weapons, which accounted for the prime minister's extraordinary statement, was indeed conveyed in the meeting with Rafighdoost.
In February 1988, Saddam stepped up his missile attacks on urban targets in Iran. He also threatened to arm his missiles with chemical weapons, which terrified hundreds of thousands of Iranians. Between a third and a half of the population of Tehran evacuated the city that spring in a panic.
Khomeini's fatwa not only forced the powerful IRGC commander to forgo the desired response to Iraqi chemical weapons attacks, but the fatwa made it all but impossible for Iran to continue the war. Although Khomeini had other reasons for what he called "the bitter decision" to accept a cease-fire with Iraq in July 1988, the use of these devastating tools factored into his decision. In a letter explaining his decision, Khomeini said he was consenting to the cease-fire "in light of the enemy's use of chemical weapons and our lack of equipment to neutralize them."
Khomeini's Islamic ruling against all weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, was continued by Ali Khamenei, who had served as president under Khomeini and succeeded him as supreme leader in 1989. Iran began publicizing Khamenei's fatwa against nuclear weapons in 2004, but commentators and news media in the United States and Europe have regarded it as a propaganda ploy not to be taken seriously.
The analysis of Khamenei's fatwa has been flawed not only due to a lack of understanding of the role of the "guardian jurist" in the Iranian political-legal system, but also due to ignorance of the history of Khamenei's fatwa. A crucial but hitherto unknown fact is that Khamenei had actually issued the anti-nuclear fatwa without any fanfare in the mid-1990s in response to a request from an official for his religious opinion on nuclear weapons. Mousavian recalls seeing the letter in the office of the Supreme National Security Council, where he was head of the Foreign Relations Committee from 1997 to 2005. The Khamenei letter was never released to the public, apparently reflecting the fact that the government of then President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had been arguing against nuclear weapons for years on strategic grounds, so publicizing the fatwa appeared unnecessary at that point.
Since 2012, the official stance of U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has been to welcome the existence of Khamenei's anti-nuclear fatwa. Obama even referred to it in his U.N. General Assembly speech in September 2013. But it seems clear that Obama's advisors still do not understand the fatwa's full significance: Secretary of State John Kerry told journalists in July, "The fatwa issued by a cleric is an extremely powerful statement about intent," but then added, "It is our need to codify it."
That statement, like most of the commentary on Khamenei's fatwa against nuclear weapons, has confused fatwas issued by any qualified Muslim scholar with fatwas by the supreme leader on matters of state policy. The former are only relevant to those who follow the scholar's views; the latter, however, are binding on the state as a whole in Iran's Shiite Islam-based political system, holding a legal status above mere legislation.
The full story of Khomeini's wartime fatwa against chemical weapons shows that when the "guardian jurist" of Iran's Islamic system issues a religious judgment against weapons of mass destruction as forbidden by Islam, it overrides all other political-military considerations. Khomeini's fatwa against chemical weapons prevented the manufacture and use of such weapons -- even though it put Iranian forces at a major disadvantage in the war against Iraq and even though the IRGC was strongly in favor of using such weapons. It is difficult to imagine a tougher test of the power of the leader's Islamic jurisprudence over an issue.
Given the fundamental misunderstanding of the way in which the Islamic Republic has made policy on weapons of mass destruction, the episode of Khomeini's fatwa has obvious implications for the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Negotiators who are unaware of the real history of Iran's anti-nuclear fatwas will be prone to potentially costly miscalculations.
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US foreign policy is a total disaster and a constant threat to world peace. Will we ever be rid of American military interference? Must we subject ourselves to Russian and Chinese protection to stop American imperialism? As an European I would much rather spend the money necessary to build up our defense capabilities and get rid of NATO, but I doubt our rulers see it that way.
I agree with you on this one Endo. I look forward to the US taking more of an isolationist role in world affairs. If only someone else would step up to fill the vacuum when we leave.Endovelico wrote:
US foreign policy is a total disaster and a constant threat to world peace. Will we ever be rid of American military interference? Must we subject ourselves to Russian and Chinese protection to stop American imperialism? As an European I would much rather spend the money necessary to build up our defense capabilities and get rid of NATO, but I doubt our rulers see it that way.
I don't agree with this article. After the part you've quoted, it is claimed that the strategy is designed to create "black holes" on the borders of Eurasian powers (i.e., Russia, Iran, China) that suck them in, drain their resources, and ultimately destabilize and weaken them. But this is not at all what's happening. Rather, the US is being slowly but surely sucked into the biggest black hole: Syria. Iran's role is marginal and there is no longer any chance of confronting them on their nuclear bomb program (if it indeed even exists and is the threat to US interests it is typically portrayed to be). China? China isn't being sucked into anything. It is increasingly unchallenged in the South China Sea. The only consequence of its belligerence so far has been to frighten Japan into adopting a more aggressive defense posture. But Japan is no long-term threat to China. And what about Russia? Russia has more or less achieved its immediate objectives re: Ukraine but is taking a real beating for it economically and politically. However, this isn't so much the consequence of being sucked into a destabilized region as it is of their own overreach and a backlash from the West and its allies. In other words, no black hole needs to be nucleated to entrap Russia -- they're plenty stupid enough to squander their vast human potential.Nonc Hilaire wrote:Interesting analysis of Obama policy.
http://orientalreview.org/2014/06/22/th ... dilemma-i/
A global shift in US strategy is currently underway, with America transitioning from the ‘world policeman’ to the Lead From Behind mastermind. This fundamental shift essentially entails the US moving from a majority forward-operating military to a defensive stay-behind force. Part of this transformation is the reduction of the conventional military and its replacement with special forces and intelligence recruits. Private military companies (PMCs) are also occupying a higher role in the US’ grand strategy. Of course, it is not to say that the US no longer has the capability or will to forward advance – not at all – but that the evolving US strategy prefers more indirect and nefarious approaches towards projecting power besides massive invasions and bombing runs. In this manner, it is following the advice of Sun Tzu who wrote that “supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” The outcome is a mixture of Color Revolutions, unconventional warfare, and mercenary interventions that avoids the direct use of US combat troops while relying heavily on regional allies’ proxy involvement. This results in the promotion of American policy via oblique methods and the retention of relative plausible deniability. Importantly, the absence of conventional forces is thought to reduce the risk of a direct confrontation between the US and Russia, China, and Iran, the primary targets of these proxy wars . . .
Zack Morris wrote:I don't agree with this article. After the part you've quoted, it is claimed that the strategy is designed to create "black holes" on the borders of Eurasian powers (i.e., Russia, Iran, China) that suck them in, drain their resources, and ultimately destabilize and weaken them. But this is not at all what's happening. Rather, the US is being slowly but surely sucked into the biggest black hole: Syria. Iran's role is marginal and there is no longer any chance of confronting them on their nuclear bomb program (if it indeed even exists and is the threat to US interests it is typically portrayed to be). China? China isn't being sucked into anything. It is increasingly unchallenged in the South China Sea. The only consequence of its belligerence so far has been to frighten Japan into adopting a more aggressive defense posture. But Japan is no long-term threat to China. And what about Russia? Russia has more or less achieved its immediate objectives re: Ukraine but is taking a real beating for it economically and politically. However, this isn't so much the consequence of being sucked into a destabilized region as it is of their own overreach and a backlash from the West and its allies. In other words, no black hole needs to be nucleated to entrap Russia -- they're plenty stupid enough to squander their vast human potential.Nonc Hilaire wrote:Interesting analysis of Obama policy.
http://orientalreview.org/2014/06/22/th ... dilemma-i/
A global shift in US strategy is currently underway, with America transitioning from the ‘world policeman’ to the Lead From Behind mastermind. This fundamental shift essentially entails the US moving from a majority forward-operating military to a defensive stay-behind force. Part of this transformation is the reduction of the conventional military and its replacement with special forces and intelligence recruits. Private military companies (PMCs) are also occupying a higher role in the US’ grand strategy. Of course, it is not to say that the US no longer has the capability or will to forward advance – not at all – but that the evolving US strategy prefers more indirect and nefarious approaches towards projecting power besides massive invasions and bombing runs. In this manner, it is following the advice of Sun Tzu who wrote that “supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” The outcome is a mixture of Color Revolutions, unconventional warfare, and mercenary interventions that avoids the direct use of US combat troops while relying heavily on regional allies’ proxy involvement. This results in the promotion of American policy via oblique methods and the retention of relative plausible deniability. Importantly, the absence of conventional forces is thought to reduce the risk of a direct confrontation between the US and Russia, China, and Iran, the primary targets of these proxy wars . . .
Sorry, I'm not convinced that current world disorder is the result of superbly-executed US cunning. Rather, I think the world has changed in profound ways in the past 50 years -- and powerful states are more constrained than ever before in how they can act -- and no one is quite sure how to manage it.
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Sorry, I'm not convinced that current world disorder is the result of superbly-executed US cunning. Rather, I think the world has changed in profound ways in the past 50 years -- and powerful states are more constrained than ever before in how they can act -- and no one is quite sure how to manage it.
What is the problem you are exactly trying to solve, SM? How is it that we have become Russia and China’s “bitch,” to use your words, when, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, we spent $600.4 billion on military expenditures in 2013, while Russia and China spent $190 billion combined? How would spending more on defense change any of that?Simple Minded wrote:I agree with you on this one Endo. I look forward to the US taking more of an isolationist role in world affairs. If only someone else would step up to fill the vacuum when we leave.Endovelico wrote:
US foreign policy is a total disaster and a constant threat to world peace. Will we ever be rid of American military interference? Must we subject ourselves to Russian and Chinese protection to stop American imperialism? As an European I would much rather spend the money necessary to build up our defense capabilities and get rid of NATO, but I doubt our rulers see it that way.
What your leaders think is unimportant compared to what the voters think. The candidate who runs on the campaign of "Lets raise taxes or reduce spending on domestic infrastructure and social programs to build up our military might so we don't have to be America's bitch anymore, and so we don't have to worry about being China's bitch or Russia's bitch in the future!" may not get many votes. If that dude gets swept into office on a populist tidal wave, I for one would be surprised. The leaders are followers, blame the people.
As the saying goes "No one likes to see US troops on their soil, but they like seeing their neighbor's troops on their soil even less." I doubt few in world history, and even fewer in European history have fond memories of the days when European nations had standing armies.
Promising to increase defense spending doesn't buy many votes. How to solve?
