03/06/08 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show

Now we're going to bring on our regular guest, Dr. Gareth Porter.
He's an independent historian and journalist.
You can find his writings for IPS news at antiwar.com slash Porter.
And he can also be found at the Huffington post, uh, at times in the American prospect and other places.
Uh, welcome back to the show.
Dr.
Porter.
Thanks, Scott.
Glad to be on again.
Good to have you.
And, um, we have a lot of, uh, important stuff to talk about here.
You as always focus like a laser beam on the American government's excuses for, uh, drumming up support for sanctions and, or even violence against Iran in the name of their nuclear program.
And one of the major kind of, uh, building blocks of the American war parties case against Iran has been evidence that came from what they call the smoking laptop, the stolen laptop that somehow came into American possession, which indicated that, uh, Iran had plans for an actual nuclear weapons program, not just a electricity civilian use nuclear program.
And, uh, you have a new article.
Iran nuke laptop data came from terror group.
It's available at antiwar.com slash Porter.
Uh, what terror group is that?
And should we take that to mean that the information contained therein is not credible?
Well, I think we need to question it very closely.
That's for sure.
Uh, I think the, the likelihood that, uh, that this material, uh, is, has been tampered with, uh, is very high.
Um, the organization of course, is the Mujahideen Iqalq or the, uh, people's Mujahideen of Iran.
Um, and this is the primary, uh, armed resistance organization against the Tehran regime.
Uh, it was of course, um, uh, a, a tool of the Saddam Hussein regime against Iran, as well as Saddam's domestic opponents, including the Kurds, uh, in the 1970s, 1980s, um, and it has been listed as a terrorist group by the state department, as well as other, uh, states, um, apparently the, um, uh, European Union has, has delisted it, or is currently not listing it as I understand it.
There's been some politics going on with a heavy lobbying by the MEK and the national council of resistance in Iran, which is its political arm.
Okay.
Now this is a pretty strange group.
Am I wrong that this sort of is a, a Heaven's Gate cult, kind of a leader cult of weirdos?
It is.
It's, it has very cult-like aspects, uh, which have to do with, uh, you know, the, the couple which is, uh, leading it.
Uh, but also, you know, com, uh, a combination of Islamic or Islamicist, uh, uh, viewpoints with, uh, Marxism of some variety.
Well, those are a perfect fit, right?
Pardon?
Uh, godless, atheistic communism and Islam.
Those things go right together.
Yeah.
One would think that there is some, uh, some interesting chemistry going on.
Yeah.
Led by Bowen T.
Uh, we're all going to go to heaven and chase the comet.
Yeah.
I, you know, I, I don't claim to, to understand the ideology of this, of this outfit, but I mean, the, the important thing is that they have been extremely opportunist, uh, obviously aligning themselves with whoever, uh, will give them the, the goods to give them the cash and the protection.
Uh, well, and these guys are bombers, right?
They are bombers.
They have carried out, uh, bombings, uh, against civilians over and over again, including Americans up to the time of the, uh, revolution in Iran, they were, uh, against the United States.
They were, uh, uh, carrying out terrorist attacks against the United States.
Then they turned against the Tehran regime.
And ultimately, I think we're now beginning to see that they allied themselves, not just with the United States, ultimately there, there apparently was, uh, this is not in my story, but there was a flirtation early in the Clinton administration between the Clinton white house and the MEK, which ultimately did not, which it came to not, but in the early 1990s, you say in the mid 19, in the early to mid 1990s, this was in 93.
Yes.
Oh, very interesting.
Because in your article, you say that they didn't, uh, ally themselves with the Israelis until the late 1990s.
Well, that, that was the first sign of it that I had tracked, uh, in my article.
But, uh, since then, um, you know, I have some more information, which indicates that, uh, the alignment with the Israelis goes back much, uh, much earlier.
Uh, so, I mean, there has been a relationship with the Israelis, uh, for quite a while now, you know, I don't know exactly when it began, but certainly by the early nineties and perhaps earlier than that as well.
So, you know, the key, the key thing here is that, you know, my story is the first to report that German officials have identified publicly the, um, the MEK as the source of the laptop documents that happened in 2004, but now it has been confirmed by a German source to me directly saying, uh, quote, I assure, I can assure you that the, uh, documents came from the, the resistance organ, the Iranian resistance organization.
Okay.
Now, before we get too far into the laptop, I wanted to ask you about the current state of the MEK, uh, and of the NCRI.
Now, I guess my understanding is that the MEK, last I heard anyway, are protected at a former Iraqi army base.
That's now an American army base that they sort of have the run of the place in Southern Iraq somewhere.
Is that right?
So that's correct.
In a camp Ashraf, uh, South of Baghdad.
Um, and, and they have had a protected status ever since 2003, since they declared a ceasefire against the United States or with United States.
And, uh, then of course there was some by-play within the, uh, Bush administration between the state department, which was, uh, against, uh, having anything to do with the MEK and, you know, basically wanting to reach an agreement with Iran, uh, in which, uh, the United States would trade, uh, key leaders of the MEK and agreement to return them, uh, to Iran, uh, in return for Iran's, uh, turning over full information on their, uh, Al Qaeda captives in who were, who were taken captive in Iran.
Yeah.
And, and then the Pentagon said, absolutely no, we were not going to make a deal on that.
They, uh, were at least reportedly, uh, interested in using the MEK for a covert operations against Iran.
Uh, if, if nothing else, then at least to gain, uh, intelligence on the Iranian, uh, military, uh, excuse me, the nuclear program.
Well, and there were some bombings in Iran, I guess, at least a couple of years back that were attributed to the MEK by at least some sources, right?
Well, that's right.
I mean, there have been reports that in fact, the MEK has been used by the United States, uh, it's really, it's been impossible to confirm, uh, those reports so that that's still in the stage of that we don't really know what's going on, but, uh, you know, there's certainly suspicions that, that something has happened, uh, to, to, uh, engage the United States on behalf of the MEK.
Okay.
And now their political front, the, uh, the, uh, Sinn Fein to their IRA or what have you, I guess is they have what office on K street in DC?
Well, they have had an office, uh, but, but they have been, uh, declared illegal.
I don't know if they're able to maintain that office now.
I, I'm not really sure that that's the case.
Oh, okay.
Uh, I mean, you know, because they're a terrorist organization, they're not allowed to operate in the United States.
Oh, see, I thought that because of the split between the state department and the DOD over what to do with them, that they were still allowed that the NCRI was still operating in DC, I guess not.
Well, I mean, I, you know, I have not followed this closely, but my understanding was that, uh, the legal part of it has been, uh, still, uh, resolved in favor of the state department view that they are a terrorist organization.
Okay.
Uh, so they're not allowed to operate, but of course there are, um, individuals who are known, uh, to be, uh, you know, pro MEK or representing MEK who are still around here.
Okay.
And now when it comes to this laptop, this is really important stuff here.
And, uh, I don't think it's, you know, really too complicated of cloak and dagger stuff to get across in a, in a radio interview, basically that they claim that information in this laptop came from an engineer from the Iranian nuclear program and that, uh, it implicated them in, uh, a design for, uh, a facility to create, uh, enrich, uh, yellowcake uranium to uranium tetrafluoride.
And also, uh, that it had on it designs for a re-entry vehicle for a warhead, uh, that would be big enough to put a nuclear bomb inside it.
And this has been used as evidence, uh, supposedly that, uh, the Iranians indeed have a nuclear weapons program that may need a preemption.
Right.
I mean, and of course, I mean, the, the most spectacular part of it is indeed the weaponization, the, the alleged, uh, you know, evidence of weaponization, uh, that is to say the re-entry vehicle.
Uh, the, the use of the term warhead of course is, uh, is, is very tricky.
I mean, you know, uh, David Albright, uh, a specialist on, uh, nuclear, uh, nuclear issues pointed out when the New York times first reported on the laptop documents that, uh, the times continued to use the word warhead, uh, design when in fact it, it is not a warhead per se.
It is a re-entry vehicle, which has, uh, you know, if the design suggests that, uh, it, it must have room for a nuclear warhead, uh, in it.
Um, and, and that of course is exactly the question, which, uh, you know, this raises is whether, uh, this is in fact a, a unauthentic documents or whether it was, uh, put, put in there to simply to show, well, in fact, even if it wasn't authentic, didn't Albright in that same criticism say that according to this design, if we assume it's authentic, this is too small to fit a nuclear bomb in anyway.
Well, yes.
I mean, what, what, uh, it showed was that there were repeated attempts.
I mean, the, the, the documents that are, that are, uh, reportedly in the laptop, of course the public has not seen them, but the reports indicate that, uh, there were repeated attempts, uh, to come up with a solution to the problem.
Um, but none of them appeared to be workable.
Uh, now, you know, this, this does not, uh, tell us whether it's authentic or not.
It does not, uh, it does not, uh, indicate, uh, for sure whether this is on the level because, uh, certainly all that one needs to do is, is to have a document that suggests that they were working on it.
And, you know, I, a very clever intelligence agency, shall we say, we won't name any at this moment, at least in the interview, but a very clever intelligence agency that wanted to plan a document, uh, that could be used to accuse the Iranians would in fact, uh, do it in this way, wouldn't they?
I mean, they would, uh, you know, not, not too blatant about it, uh, but would leave, uh, leave it so that, well, gee, it looks like, uh, they failed.
And so, you know, this must be more authentic.
Right.
Yeah.
But, uh, but at least it shows that they're working on it and that's bad enough.
Well, speaking of clever intelligence agencies, Scott Ritter in his book, Target Iran says outright that the NCRI, if not the entire Mujahedin al-Qaida is for intents and purposes, a front for Israeli intelligence.
Well, I, you know, this is, this has been, uh, something that's been suspected for a while.
Um, and I think that there, you know, I tried to indicate some of the pieces of evidence along the trail, uh, in my piece, although, you know, it does not have enough space to really cover it sufficiently.
Um, but, but we do know that there has been a relationship between the MEK and Israel for quite a while.
And, you know, the, the indications, all the indications are that the 2002 MEK, a spectacular announcement about Natanz, the Natanz, uh, nuclear facility in Iran was not something that they discovered themselves.
It was really given to them by the Israelis.
Right.
And, you know, the big deal about Natanz, um, you, you point out in your article how, you know, wow, they got that one thing, right.
And isn't that important and that should give them credibility for other things they say, supposedly, uh, you know, we're to be led to believe, but Natanz was nothing but an empty underground warehouse at the time.
I remember seeing the pictures in the BBC where they took the international inspectors and the media on a tour of Natanz and it was basically a giant underground Walmart, but it was empty.
In fact, of course, this was a gigantic red herring in terms of an intelligence find, because, uh, clearly Iran never intended that to be secret, uh, in, in the longer run, I mean, they intended to announce it.
Uh, there's no way they could keep it secret.
It's out there in the open.
Uh, it would certainly be known about.
And, and, uh, uh, there's very little question that, uh, ultimately they would, they would have had to declare it.
And they, they hadn't been, and see, that's the real point.
They would have had to in the future from that point at the time that they were outed quote unquote for Natanz, there was nothing in their safeguards agreement with the IAEA or nothing required under their signature to the non-proliferation treaty that they were in violation of absolutely.
And of course, I know you've made that point probably 93 times already on your program, but well, I like making that point.
It's very important because they're accused always of breaking the international law when in fact they're really not right.
And, and the day that the New York times points that out, of course, will be the day that we can all celebrate the liberation of the media from it.
Yeah.
Gordon Prather calls broad and Sanger, the neo crazy media sicko fans, which is apparently what they are.
That Mr.
Uh, uh, no followup question and his partner.
That's right.
Well, but they are, they are not particularly distinguished on that basis.
I mean, they represent a much broader category of, of, uh, reporters.
I'm afraid.
Yeah.
Well, so, um, can you tell us your German source who has confirmed this for you?
Uh, what ministry, uh, this, uh, sources in or what sort of rank we're talking about here?
The problem I have with that is that, uh, that, that this source is, is someone who is not easily categorized in terms of, of ministry or something like that.
So it's difficult for me to be more precise, uh, about the source, but it, but it is somebody who is very, uh, very knowledgeable about German, uh, policy toward Iran, uh, following very closely.
And, and they're very much in close touch with the leadership of the foreign ministry, as well as the government itself.
Uh, the, the, uh, uh, the, uh, uh, Angela Merkel, uh, government, uh, itself.
And in your interpress service article, which is at antiwar.com slash Porter, you bring up quite a few external indications that, uh, make, uh, your sources, uh, point of view sound more credible.
Right.
Uh, you know, and I want to just point out a key, a key point here, uh, with regard to the authenticity of these documents was made by Scott Ritter, who I interviewed for this piece.
And he points out that the CIA has in its possession, uh, as, as I think any, you know, uh, intelligence agency would the tools, the forensic tools to be able to test whether those documents are authentic or not, uh, it's, it's relatively easy to go in and figure out when a particular version of a document were written.
And, uh, so it would be, uh, theoretically, not just theoretically, but practically very easy for the CIA to set, to establish whether these are authentic documents.
And the fact that, uh, more than once, uh, intelligence people told reporters specifically Daphna Linzer of the Washington post that they could not, uh, say whether these were, you know, they could not swear that they were authentic is prima facie evidence that either they knew that they were probably not authentic and they refused to do those tests, or in fact they did the test and they found out the fact that they were fraudulent.
All right.
Now, speaking of the intersection of your reporting and that of the Washington post, um, there's a new article by Thomas Barnett, uh, very interesting that he's the one who wrote this, but it's coming out all about Admiral Fallon, who's the commander of CENTCOM, the, uh, military jurisdiction that includes the Middle East.
And, uh, basically it's an article that describes Admiral Fallon in much the way you have in a few articles over the past year.
And, uh, according to the Washington post today, uh, Admiral Fallon's not too happy about that.
Although I noticed that in the post article, uh, there wasn't any specific criticism that, uh, he had in terms of something being wrong, other than saying, gee, I can't imagine I would have said it so loudly or something along those lines.
Right?
Of course, the interesting thing about, uh, for, for me personally, the most interesting thing is in the post article that, uh, my source for the original article, Pat Lang has decided to come out and, and declare that, that, that he had the conversation with, uh, with Fallon, uh, at the time of his confirmation in February.
And you were the one who broke that story last year, weren't you?
That was my story, yes.
And, and I guess, uh, so when Pat Lang went ahead and told the Washington post they could use his name, that means you have permission now to confirm that.
Yeah.
He is, he's confirmed that in fact, Fallon said to him that there would be no war with Iran on his watch.
And, and when, uh, Pat Lang asked, uh, Fallon, well, how, how are you, can be, how, how can you be sure about that?
Uh, he said, well, you know, I have, uh, I have certain options, which by which, uh, Lang clearly understood that he meant, uh, if you were given an order to carry out an attack on Iran, he would quit in protest.
Now, uh, he does tell the Washington post, I can't imagine making a statement like that.
Uh, it says he then recalled simply telling Lang that attacking Iran wasn't the first course of action under consideration.
So I guess he's backpedaling, but not too far, too fast.
He's backpedaling.
And, and, you know, obviously there are certain things that someone in his position absolutely cannot own up to.
I mean, you know, that, that this is an obligatory denial.
Well, and this is a very important subject and this is something that you and I have discussed quite a few times here, but, um, it, to me, it, it just comes right to the heart of the matter, the danger of imperialism, that we could possibly have this kind of conflict between the highest level generals and the white house over whether to have a war or not.
It, of course, it's completely backwards from the fear of the founders that the military establishment, uh, would, uh, you know, come up with its own reasons for existence to, to no end.
But here, uh, we're relying on the military to try to thwart the will of crazy Dick Cheney and his cabal of ex commies.
Well, yeah.
I mean, this simply underlines once again, the, the signal of reality that, uh, the, the military generally, uh, is, is aghast at the thought that the United States would attack Iran simply because it won't work.
I mean, the idea that we could prevent Iran from retaliating, which, you know, certain people in the air force may have fantasized about because that's their, you know, that's sort of their job description, uh, to, to have the fantasy that the United States could, uh, could either, uh, could, could scare the Iranians to the point where they wouldn't dare to retaliate, uh, or actually succeed in, in, uh, knocking off so much of their, uh, military power that they couldn't do anything.
Uh, but despite that, I mean, the, the, the military is, is virtually united in saying that this is a crazy idea, that this is not good for the military.
It would cost the military too much.
The, the U S particularly the, the Navy is too vulnerable in the Persian Gulf and could lose, you know, some of its most valuable assets.
Yeah.
Well, I guess it's a good thing that none of the accusations against them are credible, so we don't have to worry about having a war, right?
Well, that's what we, we all hope, but, uh, uh, we need more than hope obviously.
Um, and, and I think, you know, the, the most interesting thing to me about this article, of course, is that even in, uh, late November, uh, according to the article, and I, I think there's reason to, to, uh, believe, uh, this part of it.
Uh, Callen was telling Barnett that he was again in trouble with the White House suggesting that there'd been more than one occasion in which he was in trouble.
Uh, and this time it was because he had issued a statement and I'm still trying to track this down.
Maybe you can help me do this.
Uh, he had issued a statement or given an interview in, uh, Cairo at a, at a military conference, their regional conference in which he said that, uh, the United States ruled out the option of attacking Iran.
Well, you know, when I read that, uh, it sounded familiar, but I couldn't pin it down, but I'll try to Google it myself and see if, uh, see if we can find that.
Yeah.
But, but I'm sure, you know, this was obviously another occasion in which, uh, the White House was extremely unhappy with Fallon.
Um, now the question is, is he really in serious trouble with the White House?
Is there a possibility he could lose his job?
That is what Barnett is speculating about.
I tend to think, uh, probably not.
Uh, you know, I think my sense of it is that, uh, it is very difficult to fire a, uh, a sitting, uh, a central, uh, a CENTCOM commander, uh, uh, as, as Fallon is today, uh, he has, he has so much prestige.
And so much, uh, uh, power that firing him would be more trouble than it is worth politically.
In other words, it would create more difficulty for the White House than it would be worth, uh, would be worth it for them.
Well, um, that's good news.
I guess if, if he's what's standing between Dick Cheney and a war, then I guess, I hope he stays put, you know, let's, let's not be starry eyed about Fallon.
I mean, this is a guy who is protecting the, uh, the military's interest generally, but the, but the Navy's interest in particular.
And, um, you know, that calls for, uh, a degree of enmity, uh, with Iran.
Uh, he, he talks about, uh, you know, arranging some sort of ultimate settlement with Iran.
But when he talks about that, I think we have to understand that he's really referring to one in which Iran, uh, makes all the concessions, uh, in which the United States would, would do very little to, to make any concession to Iran.
So, um, you know, that, that is within a framework, a rather rigid, a military frame framework of understanding the problem of US relations with Iran.
So, uh, you know, he's, he's not on the side of, of really a, a policy that is really required of the policy that's required with regard to Iran.
I don't think he has that degree of consciousness.
Well, now they say that he split with Petraeus about the surge and the escalation in Iraq.
Does he want out of Iraq?
I think he, I think he wants out of Iraq effectively.
In other words, I think he wants to draw down troops to the point where, uh, you know, the idea of maintaining any significant military presence there really is no longer on the, is no longer on the board.
I mean, he really believes that we have to, uh, move our, our military assets out of Iraq in order to gain more freedom of action elsewhere in the, in the region, particularly in Afghanistan.
I mean, he's from the very beginning, he said, really it's Afghanistan that threatens our interest, not Iraq.
Wow.
So, wow, that's two very significant splits with the white house.
He must have a lot of prestige to keep him in place then.
Well, I think it's, I think it's the prestige of the position.
Yeah.
More than the individual.
And, you know, I mean, there's no doubt that the, the white house is not, is not at all happy with him.
Uh, the, the fact that, uh, neither the white house nor the Pentagon would comment on the article saying, oh, we know we have no problem with Fallon or, you know, we have complete confidence in Fallon.
None of that.
Uh, it's, it's all silence in the face of the publication of this story.
Uh, and I think that that means that, uh, you know, if they could get at him, they would.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton talking with Dr.
Gareth Porter.
And, uh, he writes for IPS news among other places.
You can find all his IPS articles at anti-war.com slash Porter.
And you have another one here about the Sunni insurgency, the change in American policy toward what has been for years, the terrorists, dead ender, both this insurgents, uh, Al Qaeda, bad guys.
The article is called Sunni insurgents exploit.
U S sponsored militias.
And so I guess the question is, uh, in this Petraeus policy of, uh, paying the Sunni insurgency, uh, to basically become local police forces in a sense and fight against Al Qaeda, uh, who's zoom and who?
Well, exactly.
I mean, this, this is the, the question that I think, um, has not been seriously analyzed, uh, in, in the U S media, despite the fact that there, uh, there are a number of indications, uh, in recent months, uh, that, you know, articles that, that clearly, uh, point to the conclusion that the mainstream insurgent groups that have opposed Al Qaeda now for years, um, you know, have in fact, uh, entered into these, uh, awakening groups or, uh, what the U S now likes to call sons of Iraq.
Um, they skipped, did they drop concern?
Local citizens?
I think they have dropped concern.
Local citizens.
Oh, no way.
That one was my favorite.
I'm sorry.
Now they're the sons of Iraq.
Okay.
Got it.
Yeah.
It sounded like a group that's preparing for the Iowa caucuses.
Yes, exactly.
Uh, but anyway, uh, you know, the, the, uh, the U S clearly has allowed the major insurgent groups, the 1920 revolution brigades, and the, uh, the other major groups that have opposed Al Qaeda, but also have opposed us occupation to, uh, send in hundreds and hundreds, thousands of, of their, uh, fighters to enter these, uh, these militia organizations, which are financed by the United States, bringing their own arms because they don't need arms in the United States.
And the question is, uh, first of all, I'm, I'm assuming, although I can't prove this, that us officials knew all along this was happening, even though publicly they have continued to deny it.
That is to say the command itself has continued to deny that this is the case.
So that creates that, that poses the question what's really going on here.
On one hand, they're denying that these insurgents are basically repopulating these organizations with their own fighters.
And on the other hand, you know, we have some of the key people within the U S military essentially admitting freely, but yeah, they are taking advantage of this.
They are moving their folks into these, uh, into these organizations.
Well, of course they are.
They're the very same people.
They're the same people.
I mean, these are the guys who planted the IEDs that blew up our guys on patrol and now we're paying them.
Right.
And, and so my, the question that I'm posing in my article is this, is there, I mean, the United States is basically claiming that, that we are cleverly playing these people off against Al Qaeda and promoting by the same token, promoting low level of grassroots level conciliation, reconciliation between the Sunnis and the Shiites.
Now, you know, I mean, I think there's, there's reason to doubt, uh, that either, I mean, clearly they, they are effectively opposing Al Qaeda, but that was already the case.
The question is what else is it accomplishing?
If anything, and what I'm suggesting is that, uh, in fact, despite the, uh, the prob probable belief by the U S command that they're effectively practicing a kind of divide and rule policy here by, uh, reaching, uh, a de facto, if not formal deal with the, uh, uh, Iraqi, uh, Sunni insurgents, that in fact, what is really going on is that they have essentially, uh, reduced their war against the Sunnis to, uh, too close to nothing while basically allowing the Sunnis to consolidate their power, which then can be used in the future against both the occupation and against the Shiite government, uh, and to the extent that it's, uh, it becomes an issue of the Shiite militias as well.
You're surmising then that the military thinks that, okay, they're letting the Sunnis, uh, you know, rearm perhaps for further war against, uh, the Mahdi army of Muqtada al-Sadr, for example, but that our guys, we can handle it, we'll stay out of that and just let them fight divide and rule, but that they won't be effective against the occupation.
Well, you know, it's very hard to, to read exactly what the assumptions are here.
And, and so, you know, I think you are close to what I would say is, is the assumption that is to say, yeah, they, they are in fact making possible a kind of balance of power between the Sunnis and the Shiites.
And at the same time, of course, making the U S military, uh, you know, giving the U S military a long-term rationale for staying in Iraq, which is that we must sort of referee the conflict between the Sunnis and Shiites.
Yeah.
Forever.
Yeah.
Forever, basically.
I mean, without any, without any time limit.
So, I mean, you know, one thing that you can count on is that Petraeus and his staff think that they're being very clever and that they believe that they are somehow checkmating all the forces which oppose the occupation.
And my, I think what I was trying to suggest, if you read between the lines, although I didn't say it directly in the piece is that, uh, there's a great deal of sort of self-congratulation, uh, which is misplaced on the part of American military strategists, because in fact, they don't know enough.
They don't understand the thinking that goes on on the part of the Sunni insurgents.
The Sunni insurgents have always had a deeper understanding of the lay of the land politically and socially in Iraq than the American strategists.
And that hasn't changed.
It didn't change overnight when Petraeus came in.
Is this, um, I noticed that Petraeus' advisor is this guy, Steven Biddle from the Council on Foreign Relations.
And I remember, uh, in fact, Justin Armando wrote an article called Biddle's pivot.
This was back in 2005 saying, here we go for a ceasefire with the, with the Sunnis early on.
I'm sorry.
Uh, Biddle was calling for a ceasefire with the Sunnis early on.
Right.
Well, and he was calling for, uh, using the threat of the U S backing the insurgency as a check on the power of the Dawa party and the Supreme Islamic council who control the government, the green zone.
Right.
And if they don't do what we say, we'll go ahead and turn back to the Bapus.
How do you like that?
Yes.
That is a very strong, uh, strand of thinking, not just in the military, but, uh, within the Bush administration as well.
If you look at the latest issue of the American interest, there's a very interesting piece.
Uh, this is in the issue of on victory in Iraq, question mark, if, or if we won in Iraq, uh, question mark.
And, uh, there's a piece by, um, uh, the, uh, the advisor to, uh, Condoleezza rice, who was also the head of, uh, the nine 11 commission staff, um, and, uh, his main, one of his key points was precisely that, that the United States should be ready and willing to use its power, uh, to, uh, to reward or punish those political military forces within the country, depending on how they behave.
And so, I mean, there, there is, I think that is sort of fundamental to the whole, uh, uh, project of a long-term indefinite stay in Iraq, that the United States will maintain the power to reward and punish, and that that will be sufficient to keep people in place where we want them.
And I think that that represents a fundamental monumental miscalculation, uh, which goes with the territory of being imperialist.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it, it sure does seem like it.
I'm trying to strike a balance here between paying tribute to the cleverness, uh, the, the almost, uh, you know, uh, the, the evil cleverness, if you will, of the strategists on one hand, and recognizing that there are very strict limits on the real power that they, that they enjoy in Iraq.
Yeah.
Well, it's, they're too clever by half.
They're sitting here playing with fire.
And it's funny.
This reminds me actually of my interview with David Henderson, uh, from just a few weeks back.
He's an economist, of course.
And he says, this is the local information problem.
This is why central planning doesn't work.
You just can't know enough.
Here we are saying, okay, let's divide them and conquer them.
Let's, let's, uh, let the, uh, Shiites cleanse all the Sunni Arabs out of Baghdad and let's let the, the Sunnis, uh, ethnically cleanse all the Shia out of the Anbar province and split them all apart.
And yet here we have, uh, as you're talking about the Sunni insurgency, uh, simply biding their time and rearming and, and in fact, uh, committing, you know, continuing to, uh, plant IEDs for use against our soldiers and so forth.
We have, uh, Turkey again in Kurdistan, uh, this week, and we have just in the news, uh, since the last time we talked, I think it was just last week, uh, Gareth, that, um, the, uh, Abdul Aziz Hakim, the Al-Hakim, the head of the, uh, Supreme council for Islamic revolution in Iraq or whatever they call it now.
I forget the acronym these days, uh, again has come out and said he wants a very strong federalist system with autonomy for the South so that he can go run off and create Shia stand with the Iranians.
Right.
And, and, you know, I, I agree with, with, uh, that, that analysis.
And I would simply add one key point, which goes a little bit beyond that.
And, and that is that, you know, a lot of what is being claimed credit for now as, as a clever strategy, such as, you know, paying the Sunnis, uh, to, to be quiet, uh, you know, to sort of act like they're on our side, um, is simply the result of the, the reality that they didn't have much choice.
I mean, the fact is they don't have enough force in Iraq to effectively try to defeat the Sunnis or the Shiite militias of Mactado Fodder.
Right.
This is why we have the United Iraqi Alliance as the government in the first place didn't have the power to do anything about that either.
Well, of course not.
Right.
So, so, I mean, this is, this is simply another, uh, perhaps even more important angle, uh, on, uh, you know, the, the developments in us policy, uh, since the beginning of the search is, is that, you know, a lot of what they're doing.
I mean, the, the basic thrust of what they're doing is a recognition, uh, by.
The, uh, by Petraeus and his staff that they really don't have the power to do much of anything differently.
All right, everybody.
That's Dr.
Gareth Porter.
He's an independent historian and journalist writes for IPS news, the Huffington post, and you can find all his IPS archives at antiwar.com slash Porter.
Thanks again for coming on the show and sharing your insight with us, sir.
Pleasure as always, Scott.
Thanks.