“…Every president I worked for, at some point in his presidency, would get so pissed off at the Israelis that he couldn’t speak. It didn’t matter whether it was Jimmy Carter or Gerry Ford or Ronald Reagan or George Bush. Something would happen and they would just absolutely go screw themselves right into the ceiling they were so angry and they’d sort of rant and rave around the Oval Office. I think it was their frustration about knowing that there was so little they could do about it because of domestic politics and everything else that was so frustrating to them.” — former SecDef Robert Gates in 2000 (PDF! 105 pgs)

Ironically, Gates had uttered those words prior to his tenure as SecDef under Shrub and Oily Bomber…!

In a recent Asia Times article, written by a former British member of the IAEA, Peter Jenkins, presents a compelling argument…

Will Iran be US’s Melos?

One of the most depressing aspects of all the talk about Israel or the United States destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities (and much else besides, no doubt) is the near absence of any reference to international law. Even so distinguished an expert as Anthony Cordesman seems to take it for granted that there will be no legal impediment to the US attacking Iran if a credible threat of an attack fails to intimidate Iran into making the concessions required to pacify Israel.

In my country, Britain, on February 20, 2012, members of the House of Commons spent five hours debating whether the use of force against Iran would be “productive” without dwelling more than cursorily on the legal aspects of the question.

How is one to account for this blind spot? Are ignorance and oversight to blame, or has respect for international law gone out of fashion?

It’s hard to believe that anyone who has policy-making responsibilities that involve other states, or who takes a professional interest in such policy-making, can be unaware of what the bed-rock of the post-1945 international system has to say about war-making…

…So much of the contemporary foreign policy debate seems to take place in a moral vacuum, with little or no reference to justice and the rule of law in international affairs. I am almost embarrassed to be using such words.

Yet it seems to me rational to suggest that the post-1945 international system is the best yet devised, that it has brought great benefits to the West, that its preservation requires commitment from the leading power of the age, and that the leading power has to marry justice to strength to retain the loyalty of other participants. If I’m right, treating Iran unlawfully is a bad option.

Let’s look at the Melos analogy, which many Historians credit as the first tangible example of Realpolitik in action. Wikipedia provides a great little synopsis of the Melian Dialogue…

The dialogue is between unnamed Athenian envoys sent by generals Cleomedes son of Lycomedes and Tisias son of Tisimachus to negotiate with unnamed Melians

Athenian: “For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretenses—either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us—and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Spartans, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” (Strassler 352/5.89).

Melians: “You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the difficulty of contending against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal. But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians, who are bound, if only for very shame, to come to the aid of their kindred. Our confidence, therefore, after all is not so utterly irrational.”

Athenian: “Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist forever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do” (Strassler 354/5.105.2).

Now, ain’t it funny how fast Athens was knocked off it’s almighty pedestal by Sparta, a mere 12 years after Melos…? Ain’t Karma a B*tch…?

In some interesting diplomatic maneuvers, Iran, has further isolated the US/Israeli machinations…

Iran complains to UN about Israel’s threats

Iran’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN has written to the UN Secretary General to condemn the threats against Iran made by Israeli officials, stressing that such statements are “a threat to humanity.”

And then delivered the coup de grâce to the specious claims of Israel and the AIPAC funded US ‘think tanks’…

NAM participants can visit Iran’s nuclear facilities

Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that Iran will allow officials from the Non-Aligned Movement to visit nuclear facilities during a summit in Tehran which opens on Sunday and runs until Friday, MNA reported.

The move is intended to show that Iran’s nuclear activities are peaceful.

Iran will also schedule trips to industrial and scientific sites, the ministry said.

The visits will be arranged according to the interests of “our guests,” the ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters…

Fancy that eh…?

Btw, as Jason Ditz noted today…

White House: Diplomacy ‘Still Viable’ With Iran

The Obama Administration is always quick to issue a condemnation of Iran after any new IAEA report is made public. Today they broke a record, however, by issuing that condemnation before the report has even been released.

The reaction comments are seen as an attempt to preempt Israeli attempts to spin the upcoming report as an excuse for war, because while they include the usual condemnations they also insist there is “time and space” for diplomacy to continue.

Anonymous administration officials even took a page out of war opponents’ books, noting that Iran’s production of 20 percent uranium, far below weapons-grade, could not be changed to weapons-grade up without the IAEA’s notice since they continue to be a presence at the facility…

From the Grey Lady…

…The Obama administration insisted Friday that “there is time and space” for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis, despite new evidence, to be released next week by international nuclear inspectors, that Iran is bolstering its ability to produce a type of uranium that can be converted relatively quickly to bomb fuel.

In a statement that was notable chiefly for the fact that it was issued before the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report is scheduled to be made public, a White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said Iran “is continuing to violate its international obligations” despite the imposition of sanctions that severely restrict the country’s oil revenue.

Exactly what violations are the Iranians violating under their NPT obligations, Mr. Vietor…?

Who is threatening whom, besides the illegal sanctions, assassinations, and cyber warfare…?

US sends aircraft carrier back to Gulf to face Iran – Panetta tells sailors they are needed in Mideast. I really do feel sorry for those swabbies that had their expected ‘shore leave’ cut mighty short…!

Now to be sure that the IAEA has been fully co-opted, at least since El Baradei’s resignation…

Nuke agency forms special Iran team

Diplomats tell The Associated Press that the U.N. nuclear agency is forming a special Iran team, drawing together sleuths in weapons technology, intelligence analysis, radiation and other fields of expertise.

They say the goal is to add muscle to a probe of suspicions that Tehran worked secretly on atomic arms.

Creating a unit focused on only one country is an unusual move for the International Atomic Energy Agency, reflecting the priority it attaches to Iran amid fears it is moving closer to the ability to make nuclear weapons.

Iran denies it is interested in possessing nuclear weapons and says it has never worked on developing them.

The four diplomats demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge the confidential IAEA plans.

Wtf, over…?

One more worth-while read… Iran and the Brunt of Nuclear Crucifixion…

God help us all…!

CBS’s Holly Williams filed this report today…

…In a new video, men crouching against a wall are about to be killed by an angry mob. Syrian opposition groups said the men who died were members of a family with links to the Assad regime.

The killers were rebels fighting in an increasingly chaotic conflict.

Human rights groups — as well as the rebels’ own leadership — condemned the deaths as summary executions.

However, in a sprawling refugee camp on the Syria-Turkey border, Syrian refugees defended the killings. Many of the men there are rebel fighters.

“If we had a state, we could have taken those men to court,” said Mohammad Hajhasan through a translator. “But we’re in the middle of a revolution, and they were war criminals.” {…}

“We want a democracy in Syria,” Mohammad said. “But only if it’s within an Islamic state.”

Others disagree. Jamil Saeb, who led protests in Syria in the early days, said he wants a Western-style democracy, and claimed the uprising is being hijacked by Islamic extremists.

“The West isn’t doing enough, and other countries like Saudi Arabia are pushing their Islamic agenda by giving the rebels financial support,” Saeb said.

The Syrian opposition is divided, and there are fears that if and when the Assad regime falls there’ll be continued violence between rival factions…

I really do have to hand it to Faux Spew to actually post the most honest headline I’ve seen today…

With diplomacy dead, US banks on Syrian rebel win

…With Syrian diplomacy all but dead, the Obama administration is shifting its focus on the civil war away from political transition and toward helping the rebels defeat the Syrian regime on the battlefield…

…It’s a scenario analysts see as unlikely, even as the opposition gains ground in Aleppo, Damascus and elsewhere, and as the cadre of high-level defections from Assad’s government grows. Prime Minister Riad Hijab and two other ministers became the latest to abandon Assad on Monday, rebels said.

The defections are “the latest indication that Assad has lost control of Syria and that the momentum is with the opposition forces and the Syrian people,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

“The regime is crumbling,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said. {…}

…Ventrell said the goal of much of the recent diplomacy was to help the opposition come up with a post-Assad plan that would be as cohesive as possible…

…The approach is one that American officials liken to a “soft landing.” The goal would be to avoid the power vacuum of post-Saddam Hussein’s Iraq by salvaging as many elements of the state as possible, and avoiding new insurgencies from emerging.

“We want to get there in a way that’s a softer landing,” a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter. “We don’t want to see the institutions just melt away.”

Btw, folks, lets remember the long standing fact that Oily Bomber, nor even Shrillary, at Foggy Bottom nor any other foreign locales, have not once sat in the same room, much less, talk to anybody even remotely related to the Assad regime…! Just like the failed single roll of the dice that Oily Bomber had gambled on with the Iranians…!

What seems to be the problem with even talking to our supposed Adversaries…? I do seem to recall a ‘hotline’ that we’d set up between the Kremlin and the White House, and was manned 24/7…! What ever happened to even that semblance of old-fashioned Diplomacy…?

Here’s some other analysis from the disaffected ‘populations’ I’d seen today…

Obama brings Erdogan in to bat..

Here’s an excellent synopsis of the ever enigmatic Kurdish Question…!

And, it should be noted that Pepe Escobar, once again, cuts to the quick…

Syria’s Pipelineistan war

This is a war of deals, not bullets

Deep beneath “Damascus volcano” and “the battle of Aleppo,” the tectonic plates of the global energy chessboard keep on rumbling. Beyond the tragedy and grief of civil war, Syria is also a Pipelineistan power play.

More than a year ago, a $10 billion Pipelineistan deal was clinched between Iran, Iraq and Syria for a natural gas pipeline to be built by 2016 from Iran’s giant South Pars field, traversing Iraq and Syria, with a possible extension to Lebanon. Key export target market: Europe.

During the past 12 months, with Syria plunged into civil war, there was no pipeline talk. Up until now. The European Union’s supreme paranoia is to become a hostage of Russia’s Gazprom. The Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline would be essential to diversify Europe’s energy supplies away from Russia.

It gets more complicated. Turkey happens to be Gazprom’s second-largest customer. The whole Turkish energy security architecture depends on gas from Russia — and Iran. Turkey dreams of becoming the new China, configuring Anatolia as the ultimate Pipelineistan strategic crossroads for the export of Russian, Caspian-Central Asian, Iraqi and Iranian oil and gas to Europe.

Try to bypass Ankara in this game, and you’re in trouble. Until virtually yesterday, Ankara was advising Damascus to reform — and fast. Turkey did not want chaos in Syria. Now Turkey is feeding chaos in Syria…

Seriously, Wtf, over…? *gah*

Several key points that the Russian UN Envoy raised in that interview needs to highlighted: 1) The fact that every time the ‘opposition’(FSA/SNC/et al.) have been asked to come to the ‘table’ with the Syrian regime, they’ve refused to!, and, 2) Any intervention leads to more bloodshed!

Now, take a gander at our UN Ambassador’s press conference shortly after the veto…

(Full Text) As she’d tweeted later…

The #UNSC underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers & sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism to justice.

How ironic, no…? As Angry Arab quipped today…

Those poor rebels in Syria

“The idea that a poorly organized, lightly armed opposition force could somehow get so close to the seat of power…” Yes, incredible. I mean, the notion that a force financed by the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, France, and UK and armed by UAE, Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, and is assisted by the intelligence services of the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, UAE, France, UK, and Turkey would pull this off is just amazing. Who would have thought.

Here’s a great article… Covering Syria: The information war

And, finally, Pepe Escobar penned another must-read… Suicide bombers of the world, unite…

…What seems to be certain is that Assad’s inner circle won’t fold. On the contrary; it will respond with all guns – and tanks – blazing. It has already threatened to “confront all forms of terrorism and chop any hand that harms national security”.

The FSA and FSA-related gangs all rely on the same tactic; they get entrenched in residential neighborhoods, even in Damascus, and wait for the regime to attack. The regime’s tactic is monolithic; they tend to level any area, even ultra-urban, wherever the gangs are holed up. The result is inevitable; enormous “collateral damage” and massive internal displacement. This may start happening now in Damascus itself – assuming the FSA can keep their sleeper cells active, which they can’t.

And then there’s the newfound Western love story with suicide bombers.

Donald Rumsfeld’s former Chief of Staff at the Pentagon, Keith Urbahn, tweeted, “for once we should call a suicide bomber – the one that took out a major fraction of Assad’s cabinet – a martyr.”

It doesn’t matter that he got it wrong – it was not a suicide bomber but an IED. But there we have it – straight from a neo-con horse’s mouth (and plenty other conservative and liberal mouths as well).

If you use suicide bombers or IEDs to kill government officials of a “rogue state”, you can get away with it; you’re “one of our bastards”.

But don’t even try to do it against the Green Zone in Baghdad, or the Afghan government in Kabul, or against any of our “trusted” allies such as the House of Saud and King Playstation in Jordan; then you’re just an evil “terrorist”.

*gah*

Interestingly, China took much affront to Madame Shrillary’s slander in Paris, apparently, just before her ‘surprise’ visit to Kabul…

Clinton ‘slander’ of China will not work, Beijing says

Chinese spokesman rejects America’s claim that the nation and Moscow have hindered resolution of crisis…

China yesterday rebuffed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s accusation that Beijing and Moscow have hindered the resolution of the crisis in Syria, saying any attempt to “slander” China was doomed to fail…

Now, why is it that the UN head, Ban Ki Moon, is still pushing the ‘Annan Plan’, when Kofi, himself, is declaring it a ‘failure’…?

Looking inside Syria, the BBC…

‘Death or exchange’ fate of seized Syrian soldiers

…Amidst all the doubt and speculation that surrounds the violence in Syria, these “confessions” are part of opposition groups’ efforts at proving to the outside world that the government is behind the bloodshed.

But when the camera has stopped rolling, and the point is made, the captured are no longer of use. So what becomes of these men?

UK-based Syrian journalist Malik al-Abdeh told the BBC: “What do you think they do with them? They kill them. What else can they do?” {…}

Activists claim rebel groups only kill the detainee if he “has been heavily involved in killing civilians.”

But since the FSA holds the government responsible for massacres like those in Houla and Qubair, along with frequent brutal attacks around the country that may have left nearly 16,000 people dead, how many of the detained could have committed crimes that, in the eyes of the rebels, do not merit death?

Estimates of soldiers killed in the conflict range from 1,500 to nearly 5,000, but it is unclear whether these numbers include those facing rebel firing squads.

This local brand of rebel justice points to a new trend in insurgent operations, with an opposition instituting its own makeshift tribunals as it prepares for what could be a long, drawn-out war…

From Reuters…

Friend flees Assad as U.S. pressures Russia

…One of President Bashar al-Assad’s personal friends has defected and was headed for exile in France on Friday, as the Syrian crisis took on a Cold War tone when Washington threatened to make Russia and China “pay” for backing the government in Damascus. {…}

…As Clinton declared in Paris: “Let me say to the soldiers and officials still supporting the Assad regime – the Syrian people will remember the choices you make in the coming days.

“It is time to abandon the dictator, embrace your countrymen and women, and get on the right side of history.”

SECTARIAN STRAINS

As rare faces from Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority within a ruling clique dominated by Assad’s fellow Alawites, Tlas and his father Mustapha, who friends said left for Paris some months ago claiming medical problems, long furnished an answer to Syrians who complained of sectarian domination by Alawites. Their flight may show Assad is losing wider support among wealthier Sunnis.

It also suggests the Tlas clan, whatever moral scruples friends say were their prime motive for abandoning their friend and patron, has seen the writing on the wall for Assad’s rule…

…Abdel Baset Seda, the president of the opposition Syrian National Council, told a news conference in Paris that he was in contact with “several” high-ranking officials still inside the country and also hoped to speak with Tlas in the coming days.

“This shows that the very heart of the regime is starting to crumble. This is reminiscent of what happened in Libya toward the end, when there were defections every day,” he said, recalling the fall of Muammar Gaddafi last August…

Woo-hoo, Just think how much of a ‘smashing’ success Libya is… Ballots burn as most of Benghazi votes…!

Col. W. Pat Lang served up some interesting commentary on Tlas’s defection, today…

Tlas defection sets the stage…

…The father, Mustafa Tlas, was Minister of Defense for a very long time. If memory serves, he lived next door to the US Embassy in Damascus and was a good neighbor. He was a connaissaeur of fine Kurdish antique carpets. I visited his carpets once. He also liked good Scotch (his, not mine).

Contrary to ignorant expectation many of the Baathi elite in Syria are Sunni Muslims. This fellow has been a favored creature of the regime. He differed with the rest of the inner circle around Bashar in that he thought that an unwillingness to compromise with the secular left would lead to an onslaught of Jihadi Islamists. Maliki over in Iraq says his situation is now better because AQ in Iraq have left to fight in Syria for a Sunni Islamist state there. In that endeavor the AQ types have the active encouragement of the BHO Administration.

No matter. If the Government of Syria is swept away, there will be a need for a Sunni leader… pl

Btw, as most of the Western lame stream media is trumpeting…

Another shell hit the nearby village of Al Hisheh, they said, killing an 8-year-old boy and wounding his father and four children. (Reuters, quoting residents, reported that three other Lebanese civilians were killed in the shelling.)

The security officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of police rules.

It should be noted that some good old gumshoe reporting soon proved it false…

…In Lebanon, a teenager died when a rocket hit her house in the border region of Wadi Khaled, a Lebanese security official told AFP, adding that five others were wounded by rockets and exchanges of gunfire.
“A few hours later, an eight-year-old Bedouin girl, who recently fled with her parents from Syria, was killed,” said a hospital source in Akkar province. “A military expert who visited the site said it was either a mine planted in the area or an explosive they were handling,” the security source said, after initially reporting that a shell had hit their tent.
A local official said clashes had broken out at dawn between the Syrian army and gunmen on the Lebanese side of the border…

The whole point of this entire sordid affair is to destabilize all the Secular/Shi’ite regimes, and replace them with a Sunni, Salafist/Wahabbist, and/or, any combination thereof…! Any coalition that would impose a strict Conservative view of Shari’a law…! Akin to what is happening in most of the Red States, right now…! Just like with the Texas School Board and even in the neighboring state, with Jindal’s school ‘vouchers’ crusade…!

Anyways, moving along to Iran, the ever-intrepid, Pepe Escobar, says it’s well past time for the real adults to step up to the plate…

Iran Won’t Crack

…Let’s start sledgehammer style. Iran won’t crack. Iran won’t crack. Iran won’t crack.

No sledgehammer, though, is likely to perforate the limitless fog of delusion hovering over a US elite that a relentless propaganda campaign tries to sell as “the international community”.

See, for instance, this bland op-ed, where we discover that “the international community is now on watch for cracks in Iran’s defiant stance: Will increased sanctions compel Tehran to make real concessions and allow for a diplomatic solution to the standoff?”

Here’s your short answer: no. {…}

…The Obama administration has to make a real decision; it’s either the “roll over and die” school of diplomacy, or real negotiations. Treating Iran like a pariah will only lead to a blunder equaling the Bush administration’s – whose Shock and Awe ended up with a Baghdad closely aligned with Tehran (while the US didn’t even become “the new OPEC”, as savant warmonger Paul Wolfowitz would have it).

But this will pale compared to Iran, Russia and China trading energy in other currencies (as they are already doing); the beginning of the end of the petrodollar as the pillar of global energy politics, and thus of American hegemony. Time for the Iran cracking gang to go back to school.

Here’s a great primer that should be mandatory for all CIA, DoD, Foggy Bottom, and/or, other related personnel…!

Are there any ‘Big Boyz’(or Girlz!) left, capable of stepping up…?

*gah*

Yesterday, former President and Nobel Peace Laureate, Jimmy Carter, had delivered the keynote address to the 12th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Chicago…

Former President Carter tells Nobel gathering to oppose unnecessary wars, preemptive strikes

…“For the last 60 years, our country has been almost constantly at war. Now we are contemplating going to war again, perhaps in Iran,” said Carter, one of 21 Nobel Peace Prize laureates and organizations participating in a three-day international conference in Chicago. “I’m not against all wars… but any war should begin only as a last resort and after every possible means of resolution has been exhausted.”

Carter, who won the prize in 2002, said that as a laureate, it is not legitimate to only criticize what others are doing , he must also take a frank look at his own country, not with condemnation but constructively… {snip}

Carter also said the U.S. needs to take a closer look at its policy of economic sanctions, including those against countries such as North Korea.

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Bashar Assad is truly caught in a ‘no-win’ situation…! As Col. Lang wrote recently…

Assad’s options

…Throughout the Bush ’43 era and into the BHO period the neocons pushed the idea that Westernised “liberals”: and ethno-religious minorities should be brought to power in the region believing that as minorities they were willing to make nice with Israel. An unending search for “good” Islamists took place over the last five years. Discreet contacts were made to encourage them against the “old bulls” like Mubarak. The Arab spring was a direct product of this neocon and academic fathead meddling in the Arab and Islamic worlds.

The Syrian Sunni Islamist revolt is a direct result of that effort. What you have in Syria is a civil war between the forces of semi-westernization on the government’s side and the forces of Sunni Islamism backed by Saudi Arabia on the other. In this struggle. the lefty media (and Fox) have never seen or heard Rebel BS that they did not really love.

Which course of action do you think he will choose?

To further punctuate the point on finding ‘friendly’ forces, the Times of Israel reports…

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