The Australians, though, to quote one military source, "were having none of it". The BBC has been told the Australians re-boarded the vessel they had just searched, aimed their machine guns at the approaching Iranians and warned them to back off, using what was said to be "highly colourful language".The defence minister clearly wants to be done with the political embarrassment of all this but something is rotten here and needs to be fixed. Why does the Naby keep making thsi same mistake? I agree more and more with Norman Podhoretz on this.
Update: I missed somehow this interview in the Times with General Petraeus which is really worth reading. Here's the interesting part as far as this discussion goes:
Who was behind the kidnapping of five Britons in Baghdad last month and what is being done to free them?The evidence that Iran is backing with arms, training and funds attacks against US and British is frankly overwhelming.
"We think that it is the same network that killed our soldiers in Kerbala in an operation back in January. We killed the head of that network less than a week before the operation that detained those British civilians. It was already planned and carried out by his followers. It is a secret cell of Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) not all of which are under control of Moqtadr al-Sadr. That is the assessment at this point."
“They are not rank and file Jaish al-Mahdi. They are trained in Iran, equipped with Iranian (weapons), and advised by Iran. The Iranian involvement here we have found to be much, much more significant that we thought before. They have since about the summer of 2004 played a very, very important role in training in Iran, funding, arming."
"This is lethal stuff, like EFPs (explosively-formed penetrators), mortars, and rockets that are used against Basra Palace (the main British base in Basra). There is also a degree of direction, not in a strategic way but in tactical operations. We captured a wealth of documentation which showed how they account for what they have done, we assume so they can get paid for it, and get additional funding."
11 comments:
James Taranto, who publishes a deliciously right-wing blog on OpinionJournal (a website of the Wall Street Journal) quotes the identical language and comments:
'Sounds as though the Aussies have developed a very effective #!%@ counternarrative!'
He's riffing off a statement by a Harvard professor calling for the west to develop a 'counternarrative' to replace military force vis a vis Islamic extremism--see http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110010247
Blue skies! -- Dan Ford
Interesting interview w/ Norm. The downside of bombing of Iran? "The world would hate us." Already does, mostly. So not much of a downside really. But the problem, and speaking as somebody who on every odd day is prepared to go with bombing Iran, it is not entirely clear what bombing will bring besides, say, five more years. Which is what Norm basically says also. And then you gotta wonder if it is really worth it. Ask me tomorrow: I'll probably say yes.
It seems to me there are two main problems coming from Iran:
1) Generalised naughtiness (Iraq, Hizballah, etc)
2) Nuclear chest thumping
Now, it seems to me that on the second count even the most pessimistic estimates concede that we're talking about a timescale of years before it all kicks off in a major way and I'm not convinced of the case that any bombing needs to take place right now because of the nuke issue. Which leaves the question of whether the nuke issue combined with the fact that the Iranians are a generalised pain in the arse mandates bombing strikes. Do we think that bombing is going to have a general deterrent impact not limited to the nuclear issue? Is whatever's good for what ails us with regard to nukes good for what ails us with regard to general terrorism/insurgency related high-jinks? I'm not sure.
Or is there an alternative closing window of opportunity for nuke-related bombing strikes that I'm not giving enough consideration to? I'd be open to the argument that if we don't bomb now we'll never summon up the necessaries for it again, except that it seems to me that this may well be a spectacularly bad time to do it in terms of the general situation.
Anthony's interesting observations raise the age old question about "windows of opporunity": do states really jump thru them? In this case, arguably we have a window that is gradually closing - once Iran acquires a deliverable nuke, then it's rather too late. With the whole Iraq thing, it's like we planted a mature thorn bush direcly outside the closing window and now find ourselves back inside, pondering whether or not to take that leap out.
Please don't complain about stretched metaphors - blame it on general exhaustion from almost 10 hours of decorating...
Well one of the reasons I supported the Iraq thing was not so much that I thought Iraq was going to go nuclear tomorrow or anything like that, but that I thought that if the job was going to be done, that was pretty much the only time politically it was ever going to get done. So in terms of windows of opportunity, I think it can be argued that there are two types in play:
1) WMD-related. If they get nukes it's too late to do anything about it.
2) A political window of opportunity in terms of will to act, configuration of world politics, forces available etc.
Now, whereas I felt that the rickety Coalition pre-Iraq was as good as it was going to get and it was very much a case of go now or not at all, I'm not convinced that a better "political window" couldn't be manufactured - apart from anything else I think the political foundations for a strike are overall negative rather than rickety positive. The question is whether the window of opportunity with regard to nuclear procurement is going to close before the pieces on the board can be jiggled about some more. I'd argue that there is relatively little evidence that it will, though I'm open to being convinced otherwise.
The question of Iran messing about in other, non-nuclear areas is far more immediate. However, I'm not sure that what is a suitable approach for one problem is necessarily best for the other, if you see what I mean.
Incidentally, while NormPod may or may not be correct on Iran (I think the argument has to be taken on its merits), the recent piece by Johann Hari in TNR documenting the recent National Review cruise is just plain scary and frankly if Hari is reporting accurately and without fear or favour then I have to say that the man seems plain delusional. I have to say that while I disagree with William F. Buckley on a lot of things - a hell of a lot of things - if it's a choice between him and some of his cruisemates, I know who I'd sooner have to share a porthole with.
You posit a big 'if' there Anthony: 'if Hari is reporting accurately and without fear or favour.' I doubt it. I wonder what sort of report Norm would make if he spent a week on a ship with Hari and his mates. The article seems to me to be the same thing you see in critiques of blogs based on cherry-picking from their comments.
Just read the second page of the Hari piece. On second thought Podhoretz does sound rather to be suffering from an overindulgence in the suspension of disbelief about Iraq. I still doubt the veracity of Hari's report, however. Over at Harry's Place I just found this link to a cruise sponsored by the left-leaning Nation: http://www.nationcruise.com/ I think Mark Steyn should go along and report on it.
Well I have to say that there has been more than one instance in the past where I have ended up emailing him on the basis that I've felt that his characterisation of somebody's stance on something was inaccurate. That said, I think the key issue with this piece might well be with regard to his rather picturesque general comments and willingness to attribute motive to various people, as opposed to his reporting of what was actually said by the key participants.
But yes, I don't think I'd want to be locked up on a cruise with a bunch of people affiliated with The Nation either...
I heard that NormPod thinks that no WMD were found in Iraq b/c they were trucked over the border into Syria before the Coalition rolled in.
You guys come across this? If so, when is NormPod due to take the shuttle home to earth?
I came across it.
The theory was being bounced around a few months into the post-war period. I believe the theory is that the Russians conspired in it by allowing them to use diplomatic vehicles and whatnot.
Now, I suppose the idea has a veneer of plausibility, given what happened with the Iraqi Air Force in Gulf War 1.
However, my question would be - if it's a serious theory - why is it that nobody in the Bush administration has embraced it, nor has David Kay etc etc etc?
It might be one thing if the line taken by Pod was "Well, yes, but, hmm, we don't really know do we? They have their tricky ways and maybe it's possible that things were hunted around..." But for him to announce that it's established fact that it was all there but was shunted sideways to Syria is just ridiculous. I don't know if he's taking that line to cover up failure or whether he actually believes it - not sure which is more worrying, really.
That's if Johann Hari is reporting accurately, of course.
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