Category: Iran

Our Government Needs to Stop Hiring Psychopaths

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The Biden Administration has announced that it will be appointing Richard Nephew as assistant envoy to Iran.

He’s kind of a classic foreign policy sadist, particularly as he is a former Obama Administration sanctions expert, but he’s written a book where he brags about hurting ordinary citizens through the sanctions that he devised.

Colloquially, it’s called saying the quiet part out loud. Legally, it’s called a crime against humanity:

The Joseph Biden administration has named Richard Nephew as its deputy Iran envoy. As the former principal deputy coordinator of sanctions policy for Barack Obama’s State Department, Nephew took personal credit for depriving Iranians of food, sabotaging their automobile industry, and driving up unemployment rates.

Nephew has described the destruction of Iran’s economy as “a tremendous success,” and lamented during a visit to Russia that food was still plentiful in the country’s capital despite mounting US sanctions.

Nephew’s appointment to a senior diplomatic post suggests that rather than immediately returning to the JCPOA nuclear deal, the Biden administration will finesse sanctions illegally imposed by Trump to pressure Iran into an onerous, reworked agreement that Tehran is unlikely to join.

Doubling down on bad policy and ignoring agreements that have been signed because ……… American Exceptionalism.  Great policy there.

You see, he wrote a book:

………

Entitled “The Art of Sanctions: A View From The Field,” the book’s cover image features two Caucasian hands drawing a rope for a noose, presumably to strangle some insufficiently pliant Global South government. Its contents read like a list of criminal confessions, detailing in chillingly clinical terms how the sanctions Nephew conceived from inside an air-conditioned office in Washington immiserated average Iranians.

With his candor, Nephew has shattered the official US rhetoric about “targeted sanctions” that exclusively punish “bad actors” and their business cronies while leaving civilian populations unharmed.

………

Nephew also patted himself on the back for tripling the price of chicken “during important Iranian holiday periods,” thereby “contribut[ing] to more popular frustration in one bank shot than years of financial restrictions.”

Next, he boasted of more sanctions targeting civilians to prevent Iranians from obtaining the assistance they needed to repair their cars. “Iran’s manufacturing jobs and export revenue were the targets of this sanction,” Nephew wrote.

………

In response to online criticism, Nephew has claimed that “the main target” of the sanctions regime he designed was “the oligarchs.” But his book on “The Art of Sanctions” tells another story.

Nephew fondly recalls how he structured sanctions to sabotage Iranian economic reforms that would have improved the purchasing power of average people. The Obama administration destroyed the economic prospects of Iran’s working-class majority while ensuring that “only the wealthy or those in positions of power could take advantage of Iran’s continued connectedness,” he wrote. As “stories began to emerge from Iran of intensified income inequality and inflation,” Nephew pronounced another success.

Rather unsurprisingly, the government of Venezuela has submitted Nephew’s books and articles as evidence of war crimes to the ICC

Yesterday, we officially submitted before the International Criminal Court the book “The Art of Sanctions” and the article “Evaluating the Trump Administration’s Approach to Sanctions: Venezuela”, both by @RichardMNephew, advisor to Obama and Biden for the imposition of sanctions pic.twitter.com/lW9d3V4bRW

— Jorge Arreaza M (@jaarreaza) May 18, 2021

Richard Nephew’s books and articles are also evidence that he is too stupid, and too criminal, to hold a security clearance, much less hold a senior position in the any Presidential administration.

Stating the Obvious

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Over at Foreign Policy, they make what should be a common sense observation, that the as a result of the hardball tactics of the US, including proving itself that it will not abide by international agreements that it joins has an obvious effect, that, “Iran Is Starting to Want the Bomb.”

That is what has happened with the DPRK, and now it appears to be happening with Iran:

On Feb. 8, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, in an interview with Iranian state television, made a veiled threat about his country’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon. “The supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] has explicitly said in his fatwa that nuclear weapons are against sharia law and the Islamic Republic sees them as religiously forbidden and does not pursue them,” Alavi said. “But a cornered cat may behave differently from when the cat is free. And if they [Western powers] push Iran in that direction, then it’s no longer Iran’s fault.”

………

All these responses misunderstand the real significance of Alavi’s “cornered cat” threat. The whole debate over Khamenei’s fatwa banning nuclear weapons has always been much ado about nothing; it never really mattered in the first place for either side. (The very fact that world powers engaged in marathon talks with Tehran from 2013 to 2015 to verifiably curb its nuclear program in exchange for economic relief confirms as much.) Far more important is what the comment reflects about an ongoing shift in Iran’s thinking about the bomb. Wide swaths of Iranian society, among the public and policymakers alike, seem to increasingly see the weapon not just as an ultimate deterrent but as a panacea for Iran’s chronic security problems and challenges to its sovereignty by foreign powers.

“Foreign powers” means the United States, whose record on following diplomatic agreements with Islamic Republic of Iran is almost as bad as its record on following treaties with American Indian nations in the 1800s. (The US has been blithely ignoring treaty obligations for decades involving pretty much every other nation on earth as well)

If your goal is to keep nuclear weapons out of Iranian hands, then the US needs to re-enter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Russia Pulls Out of Iranian Air Base

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The airstrike from Iran was was intended to serve a diplomatic purpose, not a military one:

The Russian military said on Monday its aircraft operating from an Iranian air base to conduct strikes in Syria had completed their tasks, but left open the possibility of using the Hamadan base again if circumstances warranted.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Russia had stopped using the base for strikes in Syria, bringing an abrupt halt to an unprecedented deployment that was criticized both by the White House and by some Iranian lawmakers.

“Russian military aircraft that took part in the operation of conducting air strikes from Iran’s Hamadan air base on terrorist targets in Syria have successfully completed all tasks,” a Russian Defence Ministry spokesman, Major-General Igor Konashenkov, said in a statement.

“Further use of the Hamadan air base in the Islamic Republic of Iran by the Russian Aerospace Forces will be carried out on the basis of mutual agreements to fight terrorism and depending on the prevailing circumstances in Syria,” Konashenkov said.

While the use of the recent use of the Hamedan air base in Iran  might be more convenient than flying from Russian bases, there is very little military utility for a one off deployment like this.

This was a demonstration by Iran and Russia of a changes in the Middle East order, and it certainly has folks at the Pentagon and Foggy Bottom sitting up and noticing.

Well, Our Adventure in Syria is Working So Well

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In addition to flying missions from the Khmeimim Air Base in Latakia, Russia is now flying missions from against Isis from Syria as well:

Russian warplanes on Tuesday flew out from an Iranian air base to conduct strikes against jihadist groups in war-torn Syria, the defense ministry in Moscow said.

The raids are the first Russia has reported carrying out from a base in Iran since the Kremlin launched its Syrian bombing campaign in support of long-time ally Bashar Assad last September.

“On August 16 Tu-22M3 long-range bombers and Su-34 frontline bombers, flying with a full bomb load from the Hamedan air base (Islamic Republic of Iran), conducted a group air strike against targets of the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist groups in the provinces of Aleppo, Deir Ezzor and Idlib,” the ministry said in a statement.

The strikes resulted in the destruction of “five large warehouses with weapons, ammunition and fuel” and jihadist training camps near Aleppo, Deir Ezzor, the village of Saraqeb in the Idlib region and Al-Bab, an IS-held town in Aleppo province, the statement said.

First, this means that Iran and Russia military ties have become significantly tighter.

What this also means is that Iraq allowed their aircraft to transit their airspace, which also says something about the direction of that nation’s foreign policy.

Yeah, that whole Syrian adventure of ours is bearing such wonderful fruit.

Not Enough Bullets

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It appears that Republican members of Congress made a request to the government of Iran that they not release detained Americans until after the election:

Iran released four US citizens being held in Iran on January 16, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. In return the US said it was offering clemency to seven Iranians being held for sanctions violations and dropped charges against 14 more.

In his first interview with French media, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, who is secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, told FRANCE 24 that US Republicans – wary of allowing President Barack Obama to win a public relations victory ahead of the US presidential election in November – asked for the swap to be put on hold.

“We were carrying out negotiations with the Obama administration, when representatives of the Republican Party got in touch with us,” Shamkhani said. “As a favour, they asked us to do what we could to hinder the talks and to push them back until after the next US presidential elections – in other words, after President Obama’s departure.”

………

“It seems that the Republicans relegated humanity to second place after political expediency, which I found very surprising. But we succeeded, and the prisoners were released during Obama’s mandate.”

See also here, here, and here.

Shades of Ronald Reagan’s and GHW Bush’s deal with the Iranian in 1980, the so-called “October Surprise”, where they promised to release military hardware if the Iranians held the embassy hostages until after the elections.

I misspoke in the title though, traitors should be hung, not shot.

H/t JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

Why Hillary Clinton’s Stint as Secretary of State Is Not a Positive

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Her tenure at State was categorized by mindlessly bellicose rhetoric, and not a whole bunch of major accomplishments.

One of the best examples of this, though it started a few months after Clinton left Foggy Bottom, was the negotiations to open up with Cuba, where the Obama administration had to keep the State Department in the Dark to prevent it from sabotaging negotiations.

It wasn’t Clinton’s direct doings, but it was her people that the Obama administration had to deceive.

The most compelling case on a personal level is how Clinton’s mindlessly bellicose statements  kept US citizens prisoners, detained, and abused in Iran:

I rarely think about being a prisoner in Iran anymore. I’ve been free for more than four years. It’s been a long time since the sounds of hard soles on a cement floor would remind me of my interrogator or I would suddenly need to bolt from a restaurant because I couldn’t take the throngs of people after so much time in a prison cell.

Last Saturday, I was dripping coffee on myself during an early morning drive when I heard that four Americans were being released from Iran as part of a prisoner swap. Suddenly, my eyes welled up. I could feel the knot of excitement and confusion that had turned in my gut when my plane from Tehran hit the tarmac in Muscat, Oman, in September 2011. I pictured the way my and my friend Josh’s families looked small in the distance, their little hands waving, as we taxied toward them. I remembered the force that pulled me—running!—down the stairs of the airplane and how, at the bottom, I laughed and cried at the same time. Everyone else did too.

I was elated for these men and their families.

Later, the joy was tempered by an old, familiar frustration. While scouring the internet for updates on the four Americans, I read that shortly after their release, Hillary Clinton called for new sanctions on Iran for testing two ballistic missiles last year. I was shocked. The prisoners had not yet been let out of the country. Why would she provoke Iran when their freedom was still on the line?

The Omani envoy trying to negotiate our release was repeatedly frustrated by Clinton. “Why can’t your Hillary just keep quiet?” he blurted to me.

I remembered sitting in my cell in 2009—I think I was trying to memorize a family tree from Greek mythology or something equally random—when I heard then-Secretary of State Clinton’s voice from a television in a neighboring cell. I ran to the door and pressed my ear into its little window. She was commanding Iran to release us immediately. My heart sank. I imagined my interrogator bringing me into his padded room, blindfolded, and ranting about how Iran would not be bossed around by America, “The Great Satan.” I came to fear the sound of Clinton’s voice. Whenever I heard her publicly slam Iran about something, I would mentally prepare for at least another couple of months in prison.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Many of our family members grew frustrated with their meetings with her and White House officials. My wife, Sarah, who was released a year before Josh and I were, shared this frustration. Once, during a meeting with us in the prison, Swiss Ambassador Livia Leu, who represented American interests in Iran, broke from her usual reassuring demeanor and said, “They will never respond to your government demanding they release you. They need to talk to the Iranians.”

The title of this article, “When I was a prisoner in Iran, I came to fear the sound of Hillary Clinton’s voice,” pretty much says it all.

Clinton’s mindless dick swinging in foreign policy (Yes, I intend the juxtaposition) is not an indication of foreign policy knowledge, it is an indication of her determined and unwavering foreign policy ignorance.

She gives Dick Cheney a run for his money in the incompetence in the foreign policy arena.

Tehran Deployes MARV Reentry Vehicls

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Click to enlarge and view as slide show


Pershing and EMAD Comparison
    Pershing II MARVEMAD


    MARV flight profile Indian Agni 2        

Iran has a new ballistic missile, the EMAD, and it appears that it will deploy a maneuverable reentry vehicle (MARV), which could potentially result in much higher accuracy and the possible ability to evade defenses:

Iran has successfully test fired a new, domestically produced, medium range ballistic missile, named Emad (pillar, in Farsi). “This is Iran’s first medium range missile that can be guided and controlled until hitting the target,” Iran’s Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan was quoted as saying. According to analyst estimates the new missile could be ready for service next year.

 The Islamic Republic of Iran already has surface-to-surface missiles with ranges of up to 2,000 kilometers that can hit Israel and US military bases in the region. The new missile seems to be a derivative of these liquid-propelled Ghadr and Shahab missiles. This Medium-Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) is also powered by liquid-fuel and; according to unconfirmed sources, it has a range of up to 1,700 km., (1,060 miles) carrying a payload of 750 kg (1,650 pounds). Its accuracy is estimated at 500 meters (1,650 ft), compared of 2,000 meters (1.2 miles) accuracy achieved by the current Shahab 3 missile.

Given that this saw deployment with the US in the late 1970s, and is currently being deployed by India, this is not, as this article implies, some sort of exotic super technology.

Instead, it is a rather mature technology, and as such, is doubtless accounted for in the software of most ABM systems.

One thing that I did notice, at least compared to the Pershing II and Agni II is that the control surfaces are much smaller, which would imply that it would produce smaller deviations from a ballistic flight path.

I think that this implies that its primary function is to increase accuracy of the missile, and not to evade interceptors like THAAD and Arrow, as terminal guidance would necessarily involve less control authority.

Given the range, 1700 km, the top speed would be in the 3.5 km/s range, which means that temperature of the nose cone might be low enough to allow for a terminal radar to improve accuracy, much as the Pershing II did.  (Wiki lists the Pershing II CEP of 30m)

If the CEP could be kept to under 100m, this would greatly increase its utility when carrying a conventional warhead.

34

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34 Democrats have now said that they will oppose any Republican attempt to override the nuclear deal with Iran, which means that they cannot override a promised veto:

Just before the Senate left town for its August break, a dozen or so undecided Democrats met in the Capitol with senior diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia who delivered a blunt, joint message: Their nuclear agreement with Iran was the best they could expect. The five world powers had no intention of returning to the negotiating table.

“They basically said unanimously this is as good a deal as you could get and we are moving ahead with it,” recalled Senator Chris Coons, the Delaware Democrat who lent crucial support to the deal this week despite some reservations. “They were clear and strong that we will not join you in re-imposing sanctions.”

For many if not most Democrats, it was that message that ultimately solidified their decisions, leading to President Obama on Wednesday securing enough votes to put the agreement in place over fierce and united Republican opposition. One after another, lawmakers pointed to the warnings from foreign leaders that their own sanctions against Iran would be lifted regardless of what the United States did.

It is the proverbial, “Big f%$#ing deal.”

The reality is that this is as good a deal as can be expected, and if it gets reversed, our allies will not return to the sanctions regime, so it is basically a done deal, but I still expect a Terri Schiavo type political clusterf%$# for the organization formally known as “The Party of Lincoln.”

An Interesting Perspective on No-Notice Inspections and Iran

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Over at The Intercept, they notice the oft ignored (at least on this side of the pond) fact that the United States used the Iraqi inspection regime in as a way to insert spies into the country:

Americans and Israelis who hate the new nuclear agreement with Iran are already focusing on one part in particular: It doesn’t authorize snap, no-notice inspections of all locations. Israel’s hard-right Education Minister Naftali Bennett claims the accord is a “farce” because “in order to go and make an inspection, you have to notify the Iranians 24 days in advance.”

 This is not exactly right, but close enough. (Iran’s declared nuclear sites will be under continuous monitoring. If the International Atomic Energy Agency wants to inspect a non-declared site and Iran refuses, Iran has 14 days to convince the IAEA it’s doing nothing wrong without providing access. If it can’t, the commission governing the agreement has seven days to vote on whether to force Iran to provide access, and if it does Iran has three more days to comply. The exact procedure is established in paragraphs 74-78 of the agreement text.)

 For people unfamiliar with the history of arms control generally and in the Middle East in particular, this might seem like a bad deal. If Iran doesn’t have anything to hide, why wouldn’t it allow the IAEA to go anywhere at anytime?

 The answer is twofold:

 First, all countries have things they legitimately want to hide, such as conventional military secrets and the security procedures of their leaders.

 Second, during the 1990s the U.S. demonstrated with Iraq that it would routinely abuse the weapons inspections process in order to uncover such legitimate secrets — and use them to target the Iraqi military and try to overthrow the Iraqi government.

 ………

 By the mid-1990s, Iraq claimed that the U.S. was using UNSCOM as cover for espionage aimed at things that had nothing to do with WMD, such as Saddam Hussein’s location. While the U.S. strenuously denied this for years, it turned out to be true. Moreover, former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter contends that the U.S. attempted to manipulate UNSCOM so that it could be used as a tool in an attempted coup against Saddam Hussein organized by the U.S. in 1996.

 Iraq acted at the time just as the U.S. would if the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had been infiltrated with “inspectors” who wanted to assassinate Bill Clinton and then showed up at the White House. For instance, when Clinton bombed Iraq in Operation Desert Fox in 1998, one of the justifications he gave was that Iraq had “shut off [UNSCOM] access to the headquarters of its ruling party.” The CIA later discovered that Saddam had in fact been at the party headquarters when UNSCOM arrived, and had stopped UNSCOM from entering “to prevent the inspectors from knowing his whereabouts, not because he had something to hide.”

 Moreover, the U.S. made extensive use of UNSCOM to target Iraq for bombing campaigns. According to Ritter, toward the beginning of the UNSCOM process CIA agents who were part of the inspection team used GPS to record the precise location of sites used for Iraqi military manufacturing — sites that soon afterwards were struck by U.S. cruise missiles. And as the Washington Post reported and the U.S. Air Force later confirmed, the U.S. used UNSCOM’s data to choose targets for Operation Desert Fox, including many that had nothing to do with Iraq’s purported WMD programs. ………

 So while Iran’s recalcitrance may make the U.S. and Israel unhappy, it’s largely the fruit of our own poisoned tree. They will never accept the conditions we imposed on Iraq, and any neutral observer would agree they’d be fools to do so.

Shades of the alleged “vaccination” program that allegedly identified bin Laden’s hiding place, which has discredited vaccination programs throughout the Islamic world, leading to widespread assassinations of public health workers, particularly in Pakistan.

Cue the Wingnut Head Explosion

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We have a nuclear proliferation deal with Iran, let the right wing to freak out begin.

Binyaman Netanyahu, who is arguably the least honest man in Israeli politics,* is condemning this as well, but seeing as how Netanyahu is continuing to ignore the Mossad’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, I’ll put this down to Bibi playing domestic politics.

World powers have reached a deal with Iran on limiting Iranian nuclear activity in return for the lifting of international economic sanctions.

US President Barack Obama said that with the deal, “every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off” for Iran.

And President Hassan Rouhani said the “historic” deal opened a “new chapter” in Iran’s relations with the world.

Negotiations between Iran and six world powers – the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany – began in 2006.

The so-called P5+1 want Iran to scale back its sensitive nuclear activities to ensure that it cannot build a nuclear weapon.

Iran, which wants crippling international sanctions lifted, has always insisted that its nuclear work is peaceful.

There has been stiff resistance to a deal from conservatives both in Iran and the US. The US Congress has 60 days in which to consider the deal, though Mr Obama said he would veto any attempt to block it.

The Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives, John Boehner, said the deal would only only “embolden” Tehran.

“Instead of stopping the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, this deal is likely to fuel a nuclear arms race around the world,” he added.

Israel’s government has also warned against an agreement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a “stunning historic mistake” that would provide Iran with “hundreds of billions of dollars with which it can fuel its terror machine and its expansion and aggression throughout the Middle East and across the globe”.

He said he did not regard Israel as being bound by this agreement. “We will always defend ourselves,” he added.

The alternative to this deal would have Iran to actually go full bore for a nuclear weapon.

This is far better than that.

*Boy, the concept of , “the least honest man in Israeli politics,” is a truly an awesomely mind f%$#ing concept.

The Middle East is F%$#ed Up and Sh%$

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It appears that ISIS is threatening to make war on Hamas in Gaza.

While it is clear that this is a bad thing for the ordinary folks, the complexity of the situation leaves me profoundly puzzled:

One bomb hit a Hamas security checkpoint in northern Gaza. A few days later, another exploded in a trash can. Another blew up next to a Gaza City high-rise, and a small one targeted a chicken store owned by a Hamas intelligence official, Saber Siyam.

The four attacks in May — among at least a dozen this year, documented by a local human rights group — were aimed not at infidels, collaborators or criminals but at the ruling Islamist group, Hamas. The suspected perpetrators were Hamas’s emerging rivals: extremist Islamist groups that see Hamas as insufficiently pious, and that vow loyalty to the Islamic State.

While the extremists are unlikely to challenge Hamas’s firm grip on the Gaza Strip in the foreseeable future, they complicate matters by occasionally shooting rockets into Israel that could touch off a wider conflagration, if the rockets kill or maim Israeli citizens.

They could also seek to join forces with the far more dangerous, deadly branch of the Islamic State in neighboring Egypt’s Sinai Desert, possibly derailing the slowly improving relations between Hamas and Egyptian authorities that have recently led to the Egypt-Gaza border crossing’s being opened for brief moments for the first time in years.

“We will stay like a thorn in the throat of Hamas, and a thorn in the throat of Israel,” said Abu al-Ayna al-Ansari, the spokesman for the groups supporting the Islamic State, using a nom de guerre for security reasons.

Gaza has always had pockets of Islamists considered extreme even by the deeply conservative version of Islam practiced in much of the coastal enclave. Those extremists — known regionally as salafi-jihadis — have sparred with Hamas in the past, most notably in 2009 when a militant preacher declared an Islamic state from his mosque. More than 20 people were killed in the ensuing confrontation.

As near as I can figure, the net result of these developments is that Hamas and Iran are likely to join forces with Israel to fight ISIS.

This is so screwed up.

The Middle East Is F%$#ed up and Sh%$

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A year after the war that devastated the Gaza Strip, Israel is apparently helping Qatar — which does not have official diplomatic relations with Israel — partner with the Islamist movement and longstanding enemy Hamas to rebuild the the territory.

“Life is full of contradictions and strange things,” Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of research for Israel’s military intelligence, told NPR when commenting on Israel’s recent move to allow Qatar to channel its reconstruction aid through Hamas, which is a US-designated terrorist group.

Israel has always tried to isolate Hamas and has accused Qatar of financing the Islamist movement. Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, rejects all agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and calls for Israel’s violent destruction in its founding charter.

………

But there are other reasons why Israel is suddenly more open to cooperation with Qatar. Israel’s deputy minister for regional cooperation, Ayub Carra, mentioned that Qatar, along with other Gulf countries, shares Israel’s concerns about Iran, NPR reported. Kuperwasser also mentioned that Israel has long wanted improved relations with the region’s Sunni Muslim countries because of the threat the country faces from Shi’ite Iran and its various militant proxies.

“So we have a chance, now, to make the relationship better,” said Carra.

My head hurts.

Bad Day at the Office

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This is one of the finest examples of a correction ever:

Correction: This post initially attributed the song “Barbara Ann” to The Beatles. It is, in fact, a Beach Boys song. The author of this post would blame his relative youth, but as a fan of the oldies, this would be dishonest. He would instead like to extend his sincerest apology for this egregious error and promise that it will not be repeated.

Clarification: As Ed Morrissey notes, the song was originally written and sung by The Regents and later covered by the Beach Boys. So the author of this post is clearly having one of those days.

He was writing how bombing Iran is incredibly unpopular, even among Republicans.

In the process, he writes about how McCain sang “Bomb Iran” to the tune of “Barbara Ann”, and completely screws up the provenance of the song.

Normally, I reserve the, “Bad Day at the Office,” hed for vehicular crashes, but I think that Aaron Blake’s correction rated this title as well.

H/t Jim Romenesko.

I Think that Jon Stewart just Accused Dick Cheney of Being an Iranian Agent

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Stewart actually makes a remarkably cogent argument for the case that Dick Cheney has been giving more aid and comfort to the Mullahs in Iran than any other American official:

He goes through Cheney’s history, including his disastrous tenure as the CEO of Halliburton (Dresser Industries acquisition and asbestos), and shows how almost every action and statement that Cheney has made in any official capacity with regard to Iran has provided aid and comfort to that theocracy.

Man, this is f%$#ing brutal.

In the Annals of Foreign Policy Cock-Ups, This Ranks Up With Invading Iraq

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It looks like the Obama administration is considering formally placing Saudi Arabia under the US nuclear umbrella:

Obama administration officials are promising a major strengthening of U.S. defense commitments to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies, possibly including a nuclear commitment to their security, in an intensifying effort to win their support for the proposed nuclear deal with Iran.

 Officials say they hope to reassure nervous gulf Arab states by providing more military aid and training to their defense forces, and by making more explicit commitments to help them repel external attacks.

 The administration is studying whether to make any nuclear assurances, though officials emphasize no decision has been made.

 ………

 The administration’s goal, officials said Tuesday, is to convince the Arab monarchies that U.S. security guarantees will make them safer than if they buy sensitive technology or a nuclear weapon from Pakistan, a Sunni Muslim ally, as the Saudis have privately threatened to do.

Here’s a thought: make it clear to the Pakistanis that if they sell nuclear technology, and to the House of Saud that if they attempt to buy nuclear technology, that they will never see another American spare part for anything.

The Saudis, specifically Prince Bandar bin Sultan, created ISIS, and we want to offer them nuclear guarantee to their regime?

And then there is this bit of insanity:

“We’re going to be there for our [Persian Gulf] friends,” Obama told columnist Thomas Friedman. “I want to see how we can formalize that a little bit more than we currently have, and also help build their capacity so that they feel more confident about their ability to protect themselves from external aggression.”

He’s attempting to create coherence in foreign policy by talking to Thomas “The Mustache of Imbicility” Friedman?

To quote the Matt Taibbi in the Thomas Friedman Pr0n Title Contest, “This ain’t yogurt.”

This has failure written all over it.

The Stupid, It Burns Us!!!!

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Too True

Tehran Tom took his case directly to the Iranian government
— Jared Polis (@jaredpolis) March 10, 2015

Thank you Congressman Polis. You have described Tom Cotton perfectly.


Geography 101: Tehran is the capital of Iran

The Iranian response

In an interview with Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation,. “Tehran” Tom Cotton said that the Iranian regime cannot be trusted because, they already control Tehran: (Vid at link)

SCHIEFFER: What do you want to happen here? What is your alternative here? Let’s say that the deal falls through. Then what?

 COTTON: Well, as Prime Minister Netanyahu said, the alternative to a bad deal is a better deal.

 The Iranians frequently bluff to walk away from the table. If they bluff this week, call their bluff. But Congress stands ready to impose much more severe sanctions. Moreover, we have to stand up to Iran’s attempts to drive for regional dominance. They already control Tehran. Increasingly, they control Damascus and Beirut and Baghdad, and now Sanaa as well.
They do all that without a nuclear weapon. Imagine what they would do with a nuclear weapon.

Seriously?!?!?!?

The distinguished gentleman from Arkansas is suggested that theIranians have seized control of Tehran?

Next, he will say that the British have seized control of London, or that Mexico controls Mexico City, or that Arkansas has cornered the market on blithering idiots.

OK, that last one is true: In electing Tom Cotton to the Senate, the voters of Arkansas have clearly cornered the market on blithering idiots, as evidenced by their election of “Tehran” Tom Cotton to the Senate.

Anonymous Source Says that Netanyahu Speech is Just to F%$# with Obama

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You know an evil plan is starting to go pear shaped when the rats start leaving the sinking ship insiders start talking to the press.

Case in point, an Israeli source is telling the press that Boehner and Netanyahu actively conspired just f%$# with Obama and the Iran nuclear negotiations:

Retribution is some form of punishment inflicted on someone as vengeance for a wrong, whether the wrong is perceived or real. For the past four years, Speaker of the House John A. Boehner (R-OH) has likely perceived that President Barack Obama has inflicted all manner of wrongs on him due to the ease the President is able to thwart Republican efforts to rule America according to their masters the Koch brothers. Obviously Boehner is frustrated that he has been outplayed and out-maneuvered at every turn by the President, and lacking the wherewithal to take on the President himself, he marshaled support and conspired with a foreigner, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to “defy and humiliate President Obama.”

Many political observers, the White House, and Democrats were rightly incensed when Boehner invited the foreigner to address a joint session of Congress without going through normal State Department protocols, and their supposition that Boehner deliberately went around the normal diplomatic channels as an act of defiance against the Executive Branch seemed more than credible. Now it is official; Boehner’s illegal invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress represents a coordinated attack on President Barack Obama by the radical Republican right-wing and all its bad actors. This official reiteration of what many Democrats suspected all along is according to the Israeli consul general.

As reported [Paid subscription] in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Yaron Sideman said that Speaker of the House John Boehner, congressional Republicans, the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Zionist Organization of America, and radical Christian leaders’ only purpose “in inviting and supporting Netanyahu’s speech is to defy and humiliate President Barack Obama by addressing the Iranian issue.” In most people’s minds, Boehner and Netanyahu’s conspiracy was more than just to defy and humiliate the President on Iran; it was an attempt to subvert America’s negotiations with Iran over its nuclear ambitions to start another Middle East war at the behest of Israel. In fact, according to Boehner, his illegal conspiracy was specifically to allow Netanyahu “send a clear message to the White House” that in matters regarding America’s Middle East policy, Republicans are committed to Israel.

This has turned into a disaster for both Boehner and Netanyahu.

It’s probably worse for Bibi, because it’s just a few weeks until parliamentary elections.

The two big issues for any party leader in Israel are security and managing their relationship with the United States, and Netanyahu has completely botched the latter.

I disagree with the author as to Boehner’s motivations: I don’t think that this was driven by a desire for vengeance by he speaker.  I think that was driven by the precarious nature of his speakership.

He is the least competent House Speaker in recent memory, having demonstrated that he can neither count nor control his caucus, and the only way that he can hold onto his position is by appealing to the basest instincts of the House Republicans.

It ain’t a lust for vengeance, it’s, it’s incompetence, fear, and a complete lack of any deeply held beliefs.

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

This is Not a Bug, It is a Feature

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Check out the bit starting at 6:00

While the C model F-35 did make successful carrier landings and takeoffs, it required that they had to bypass the Autonomic Logistics Information Systems (ALIS) to operate the aircraft:

The U.S. military ran the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter through a series of tests aboard the USS Nimitz super carrier in San Diego in early November. It performed adequately, with one exception — it needed to send its diagnostic data to Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas, before taking off. If the most recent exercises are any indication, the F-35 may need to phone home every time it sets out on a mission.

 ………

 The possible bad news to emerge from the recent tests is this: The Nimitz didn’t have the plane’s Autonomic Logistics Information Systems, ALIS, on board and so the team had to implement a “workaround.” ALIS is the F-35’s notoriously buggy diagnostic system that can ground fully functional aircraft.

 History may one day call ALIS the most frustrating, expensive and counter-productive piece of software engineering that the military has ever created. It’s so bad it’s been on “60 Minutes.” In February 2014, CBS News Pentagon correspondent David Martin showed that ALIS was resistant to human override instructions even when it was forcefully grounding a plane because of a part mislabeled in a database. It was the worst sort of tyrant, both blind and powerful.

The stated goal is more than allowing for more detailed knowledge of what maintenance might be on the schedule, or what is broken.

It is intended to perform prognostics, which would allow parts to be replaced on the basis of actual condition, as opposed to a (necessarily) conservative life span, by looking at the various information on a system and determining when it is near failure, and replacing it then.

The problem is that you cannot fly the aircraft if ALIS says no, which is why they had to make an override, as opposed to ignoring it.

Of course, this would be inconvenient in battle, but I think that there is a method to this madness:  ALIS functions as an off switch, and as such, it allows our military to shut down the aircraft that belong to a former ally turned foe, like Iran.

Additionally, I could see this being used as a threat to forestall independent action, say, for example, preventing Israel from striking Iranian nuclear sites.

Basically, the F-35 is designed to create a Battlestar Galactica Cylon virus shutdown.  (See video)

This is Unbelievably F%$#ed Up

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Two nights ago, we bombed ISIS.

We didn’t just bomb ISIS though, we also bombed a separate group, the Khorasan Group, which might, or not be affiliated with abhat al-Nusra.

The kicker is that Khorasan Group and ISIS are enemies, which means that we are bombing two opposing sides of the Syrian civil war:

On Monday night, the United States struck targets in Syria for the first time as part of its expanded air campaign against ISIS—a campaign that had previously been limited to the Iraqi side of the terrorist group’s border-spanning domain. But the anti-ISIS mission Barack Obama outlined in an address on September 10—”We will degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL”—had expanded in another way, too, as the U.S. launched strikes on a separate group in Syria that many Americans hadn’t heard of until recently. The Khorasan Group, which the president introduced briefly on Tuesday morning as “seasoned al-Qaeda operatives in Syria,” appears to be part of a faction that is actively fighting ISIS, meaning America has now bombed two opposing sides of Syria’s many-sided civil war. Has the military operation announced by the president only weeks ago already outgrown its original mission?

The Khorasan Group made no appearance in Obama’s speech warning Americans that U.S. airstrikes in Syria were likely. And it’s unclear what the group’s exact relationship is to al-Qaeda’s better-known affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, or even whether it’s a distinct entity. Regardless, al-Qaeda’s international leadership has disowned ISIS, and at the local level, forces associated with al-Qaeda have fought the group for territory. ISIS, for its part, has been blamed for assassinating senior al-Qaeda figures in Syria.

On the night that “kinetic action” began, we bombed two sides in a conflict.  (To be fair, there are 3¼ sides in the Syrian civil war, ISIS on one side, Sunni Jihadis on the other side, the Damascus regime on yet another side, and then the “Free Syrian Army”, whom I count as ¼ of a side)

And need I mention, the Sunni Jihadis, one of the sides that we just bombed, will be trained by the American military in Saudi Arabia, but we’re going to be really careful not to train the really bad ones.

This is so transparently a complete cluster f%$# that it positively buggers the mind, and we are not even a week into this.