George W. Bush

[Rasputin]

The White House press corps last week found itself embroiled in controversy -- a controversy over its efforts to avoid controversy at an event whose guests include President Bush.

Stung by criticism that comedian Stephen Colbert went too far last year in his remarks at the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner, the group announced last week that it had lined up a different kind of entertainer for its next dinner on April 21: impersonator Rich Little.

The choice elicited two general reactions: Who? And why?

While the name is probably unfamiliar to people under 40, Little was a popular Las Vegas performer and guest star on TV variety shows of the 1960s and 1970s. He's best known for impressions of celebrities (Johnny Carson, Jimmy Stewart, Jack Benny) and presidents (Nixon and Reagan) who are no longer with us.

But "edgy" Little isn't. Even in his heyday, he didn't do biting topical satire or searing political humor. As a performer, he's more "Ed Sullivan" than "Daily Show."

Which is why, according to Little, he was hired in the first place. "One of the reasons they picked me is because I'm not controversial," he said yesterday from his home in Las Vegas. "They did get some flak about the guy they had last year. I don't think they wanted someone political or controversial again."

Yet after Colbert made waves -- he compared the Bush administration to the Hindenburg disaster, among other things -- some wondered whether choosing Little indicated that the rough, tough White House press corps was going soft, ensuring that its honored guests from the White House would suffer not even the slightest slight.

That's more or less how MSNBC host Keith Olbermann read it; he nominated the entire correspondents' association as his "Worst Person in the World" on his program last week.

Little, 68, disavows comments attributed to him in the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week that seemed to suggest he had been told by the press group to go easy on the president and that he "wouldn't even mention the word 'Iraq' " at the dinner. "No one ever put restrictions on what I can do or say," Little said. "I wouldn't mention Iraq because there's nothing funny about it."

Nevertheless, Little's published comments put the WHCA on the defensive. The group's president, C-SPAN's Steve Scully, issued a statement saying: "The White House Correspondents' Association never dictates or censors the content of a press dinner entertainer's act . . . My advice to [Little's agency] when we booked [him] in December was to follow the time-honored Washington motto [of] the Gridiron Dinner: 'Singe, but never burn.' "

On the other hand, Scully said in an interview, the group does want to avoid "an Imus moment," a reference to radio talk-show host Don Imus's monologue at the 1996 Radio and Television Correspondents' Association Dinner, in which Imus rankled some of the assembled with off-color cracks about President Clinton's extramarital behavior.

"I loved Colbert and thought he was outstanding," Scully said, "but some people don't get his brand of humor. Do you want to invite someone to a party and make them into a political pi?ata? That's not the purpose of the dinner. It's for [journalists] and their sources and contacts to have an enjoyable evening. That's what we're trying to do."

Scully said his group sought David Letterman, Jay Leno, Billy Crystal and Martin Short as performers for this year's dinner, but none was interested. Scully turned to Little after seeing him perform on Letterman's TV show in November. He accepted the gig, which Scully said pays "in the low five figures."

But even a nice paycheck doesn't make playing black-tie Washington worthwhile, says Lewis Black, comedian and "Daily Show" regular. "What they want at those events are [politically correct] jokes, and P.C. jokes just aren't funny," said Black, who grew up in Silver Spring. "You spend the rest of the year making fun of these people, and when you come to Washington, you have to turn your act into a series of innocuous knock-knock jokes. It's just painful."

When he performed at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner in 2005, Black said, he edited all of his usual material, even avoiding saying "nipple" in reference to the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" incident. He also thought it was inappropriate to use the word "laid" in the punch line of a joke about his high school prom, which had been held in the same Hilton Washington ballroom as the dinner.

As for Little's being hired this year by the White House Correspondents' Association, Black said: "It's like going from Jackson Pollock to paint-by-numbers. God love Rich Little, but he's not in this decade. He's in no position to pose any threat to anyone. He makes Bob Hope look like Lenny Bruce. It's sad that we've reached this point" with comedy as political expression.

Another reason to scrap the dinner altogether, suggests Rem Rieder, editor of the American Journalism Review. After the Colbert controversy last year, and an earlier one in which Bush joked about not finding weapons of mass destruction, Rieder wrote that such press-politico events reflect the "smugness" and arrogance of the news media, suggesting that they are "part of a wealthy elite, completely out of touch with ordinary Americans."

The hiring of "a controversy-free" Little underscores the point, he says: "Do we really need a neon sign to proclaim the coziness of the White House press corps and the White House's occupant? It's really hard for me to understand making a decision like this, particularly so close to the WMD debacle. The dinner must go."

[Rasputin]

Bush To Face Skeptical Congress

President Bush plans to reach out to the opposition in his State of the Union address tonight with new and recycled proposals on health care, energy, immigration and education, but the uproar over his decision to send more U.S. troops to Iraq has eclipsed potential consensus on domestic policy.

As he addresses a Congress controlled entirely by Democrats for the first time since he took office, Bush faces deep skepticism inside the chamber, even within the House Republican leadership, which yesterday made proposals intended "to hold the Bush administration . . . accountable" for the progress of his latest Iraq plan.

The doubt on Capitol Hill reflects the continuing erosion of Bush's public support across the country. His approval rating is at the lowest level of his presidency, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, and only twice in the past six decades has a president delivered his annual speech to the nation in a weaker condition in the polls -- Harry S. Truman in the midst of the Korean War in 1952 and Richard M. Nixon in the throes of Watergate in 1974.

For the first time, majorities of Americans say Bush cannot be trusted in a crisis, has not made the country safer and should withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq to avoid further casualties rather than leave them until civil order is restored. And, in a sign of intensifying opposition, a majority -- 51 percent -- for the first time expressed strong disapproval of Bush's performance, compared with 17 percent who strongly approved.

"The world changed significantly on Election Day, and the only people who were surprised were them," GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio said of Bush and his aides. Now, he added, "they've backed themselves into a tough corner, and the problem is his continued insistence for the troop increase, which flies in the face of what 70 percent of Americans want, makes him look . . . like [he's saying], 'I'll listen to you, but I'll do what I want anyway.' "

The poll indicates that Bush has made no headway in selling his decision to bolster troop levels in Iraq by 21,500, with 65 percent now opposing it, compared with 61 percent the night of his Jan. 10 nationally televised address. Three in five Americans trust congressional Democrats more than Bush to deal with Iraq, and the same proportion want Congress to try to block his troop-increase plan.

Bush's overall approval rating of 33 percent matches the lowest it has been in Post-ABC polls since he became president, and 71 percent say the country is seriously off track, the highest such expression of national pessimism in more than a decade. By contrast, newly installed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is enjoying a honeymoon, with 54 percent approving her handling of the job.

While Bush will devote about half of tonight's 40-minute-plus speech to Iraq, the broader battle with Islamic radicals and other foreign policy matters, advisers said they understand that only sustained and visible progress on the ground in Iraq might change American minds about the war. The best Bush can hope for tonight, they said, is to prevent a wholesale defection by Republicans and buy enough time for his plan to work.

"He knows there's great skepticism," said a senior White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the speech before its delivery. "But in spite of that, he believes there's much to be done if we can work together."

Aides said Bush will not directly engage in a debate over congressional efforts to block the troop increase. But in private briefings for administration allies yesterday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove said Bush will challenge Congress to put up its own plan if it does not like his "new way forward," according to people who were briefed.

Past presidents who found themselves facing an opposition Congress tried to tack to the middle after suffering midterm retreats. "This president, based on his speech last week, is taking the opposite approach," said Michael Waldman, a speechwriter for President Bill Clinton who heads New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. "The 2006 election was as close to a referendum on a president and issue as you get in our constitutional system. So for the president to move to escalate, it's very dramatic."

While recognizing differences over Iraq, Bush does aim to make progress with Democrats on domestic policy. The four main issues he will emphasize -- health care, immigration, energy and education -- are closer to Democratic priorities than issues in some past State of the Union addresses. And Bush tried to send a signal on the eve of the speech by accepting an invitation to address the House Democratic retreat in Williamsburg on Feb. 3.

"They're going to focus on issues and themes where they think they can get bipartisan cooperation," said Cesar Conda, former domestic policy adviser to Vice President Cheney. "It's a big difference from before, when he had a Republican Congress and the big issues would have been making the tax cuts permanent and reforming the tax code. It's a change in tone and focus. He's got to deal with the reality of a Democratic Congress."

Some of Bush's domestic discussion will sound familiar. He plans to repeat his call to overhaul immigration laws and allow illegal immigrants to become guest workers, an idea that may find more favor among Democrats than it did with Republicans last year. He plans to call for the extension of his No Child Left Behind education program, with modifications to make it more flexible, but will not ask Congress to expand it to high school as he did in the past.

The White House has previewed two new health-care proposals that will be in the speech. The first would make employer-provided health-care benefits taxable income after a deduction of $15,000 for families and $7,500 for singles. Officials said the plan would increase taxes for 30 million families whose benefits are worth more than the deduction but would provide a tax break to the vast majority of families with employer coverage as well as to 17 million people who purchase insurance on their own. The program would begin in 2009 and cost the government during its first years of operation but pay for itself by 2018, they said.

Bush also wants to redirect spending from Medicare, Medicaid and other federal programs toward new grants to help states ensure that everyone has access to affordable basic health insurance, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said yesterday. Leavitt did not specify a cost but said the new program would spur efforts already underway in states such as Massachusetts and California to provide coverage to people without health insurance.

[donsaeid]

نااميدي اكثريت مردم آمريكا از سياست بوش


اكثريت مردم آمريكا از سياست*ها و مواضع جرج بوش رئيس جمهور اين كشور نااميد هستند و آنها را عامل آسيب رساندن به جامعه آمريكا مي دانند.



به نقل از آژانس پرنسا لاتينا، بر اساس نظرسنجي نشريه الكترونيكي اي او ال نيوز 66درصد آمريكايي ها معتقدند رويه فعلي دولت بوش آمريكا را به سوي بدترين مسير سياسي سوق داده است.

بر اساس اين نظرسنجي بيشتر مردم آمريكا همچنين نسبت به بازگرداندن اين كشور به مسير درست توسط بوش و رهبران دموكرات جديد كنگره نااميد هستند.

نظرسنجي اي او ال نيوز به علاوه حاكي از آن است كه 56درصد آمريكايي*ها جرج بوش رئيس جمهور اين كشور را مردي يك*دنده و بيش از حد لج*باز مي دانند.

اين نظر سنجي همچنين نشان مي دهد كه بيش از نيمي از آمريكايي*ها كاخ سفيد را فاقد مسئوليت پذيري و هماهنگي لازم براي حل كارآمد معضلات سياست خارجي تلقي مي كنند.

جرج بوش كه با مخالفت*هاي فزاينده به خاطر استراتژي جديد خود در عراق نيز روبروست امروز سخنراني سالانه خود را برگزار خواهد كرد.

[Rasputin]

رئيس جمهورى آمريكا در سخنرانى سالانه خود در كنگره آمريكا گفت: شيعيان مورد حمايت ايران در حال قدرت گرفتن در عراق هستند.

به گزارش فارس به نقل از خبرگزارى ها، رئيس جمهورى آمريكا در سخنرانى سالانه خود در كنگره، نقش سياست*هايش را در خشونت*هاى عراق ناديده گرفت و گفت:"اگر نيروهاى آمريكايى بدون آن كه عراق امن شود، اين كشور را ترك كنند، تندروهاى شيعه و سنى تحت حمايت ايران و القاعده، عراق را به صحنه نبرد شديد، تبديل خواهند كرد."
بوش كه در انتخابات نوامبر گذشته كنگره آمريكا شكست خورد و استراتژى جديدش درباره عراق به ويژه در خصوص اعزام نظاميان بيشتر آمريكايى به عراق، به چالش شديد كشيده شده است، نسبت به آنچه كه مغلوب شدن عراق به دست تندروها ناميد، هشدار داد.
بوش مدعى شد:" تندروهاى شيعه كه از ايران حمايت مي*شوند، در حال قدرت گرفتن هستند و آنها نيز مانند همتايان سنى خود، مى خواهند خاورميانه اى ايجاد كنند كه رژيم هاى سركوبگر، حاكمان آن باشند."
بوش همچنين رژيم هاى قديمى را از جمله حاميان سنى هاى تند رو در عراق ناميد.
بوش گفت:"تندروهاى سنى و شيعه، چهره*هايى متفاوت اما يكسان هستند، آنها تهديدى تماميت خواهند. شعارشان هرچه كه باشد، افراد بى گناه را به قتل مى رسانند، و مقاصد شرارت آميز يكسان دارند."
رئيس جمهورى آمريكا افزود:"به تازگى مشخص شده است كه ما با خطرى روبه فزون از جانب شيعيان تندرو مواجهيم كه (مانند سنى ها) با آمريكا خصومت دارند و مصمم هستند بر خاورميانه مسلط شوند."
وى با اشاره به آنچه حمايت ايران از جنبش حزب*الله ناميد، گفت:"حزب الله براى آمريكايى ها، القاعده دوم است."
بوش در تلاش براى تشريح اوضاع عراق بدون حضور نيروهاى فرامليتي، گفت:" خشونتى فراگير سراسر كشور و به موقع كل منطقه را دربر گرفته و آن را دستخوش مناقشات شديد خواهد كرد. اين براى آمريكا، سناريويى كابوس وار است.اين جنگى ايدئولوژيك است كه از 11 سپتامبر آغاز شده است."
اين در حالى است كه نظرسنجي*هايى كه نتايج آن ديروز منتشر شد نشان مى دهد، 75 درصد مردم آمريكا با سياست هاى بوش در عراق مخالفند. بوش در راهبرد جديد خود درباره عراق، بدون درنظر گرفتن افكار عمومى و محافل كارشناسى آمريكا، اعزام 21 هزار و 500 نيروى اضافى را به عراق خواستار شده است.
بوش گفت:" اين جنگى نيست كه عراق درگير آن شده باشد، بلكه ما، به آن وارد شده ايم. هر كدام از ما مى خواهيم در اين جنگ پيروز شده و آن را به پايان بريم."
بوش در توجيه ادامه سياست هاى جنگ افروزانه خود در عراق افزود:"من اين راه را انتخاب كردم زيرا، بهترين فرصت براى پيروزى است. بسيارى از ما درك مى كنيم كه آمريكا نبايد در عراق شكست بخورد، چون عواقب شكست، بسيار غمبار و دهشتناك خواهد بود."
بوش، دمكرات ها و جمهورى خواهان آمريكا را به همكارى فراخواند تا راهبرد جديد وى در عراق، فرصت كار داشته باشد.
خبرگزارى فرانسه با بيان آن كه بوش در اين نطق به برخى مسايل داخلى آمريكا نيز اشاره كرد، افزود اما هدف اصلى رئيس جمهورى آمريكا، متقاعد كردن كنگره براى تصويب طرح اعزام 21 هزار و 500 نيروى اضافى به عراق بود.
رئيس جمهورى آمريكا در نطق 50 دقيقه اى خود همچنين درباره چين، روسيه، ميانمار ، كره شمالي، بحران افغانستان و مسايل داخلى آمريكا صحبت كرد.

[Rasputin]

عليه ايران
فرازهای تهديد کننده
سخنرانی سالانه بوش




جرج بوش رييس جمهوری آمريکا، در گزارش سالانه خود به مجلس سنا و مجلس نمايندگان گفت : ما با خطر فزاينده ای از سوی افراطی های شيعه که در خصومت با آمريکا قرار دارند، رو به رو هستيم. اين ها در تلاش چيره شدن بر خاورميانه هستند. بسياری از آنها از سوی رژيم ايران هدايت می شوند. تروريست ها يی نظير حزب الله از سوی اين کشور حمايت مالی و نظامی می شوند و حزب الله، پس از القاعده، در مسابقه کشتن آمريکايی ها، مقام دوم را دارند.

رييس جمهوری آمريکا در بخش ديگری از سخنان خود تاكيد كرد: اقدام تروريست های حزب الله که از سوی ايران و سوريه حمايت می شوند، اختلاف ها و تنش ها را در منطقه افزايش داده و اکنون نيز آنها در تلاش تضعيف حکومت منتخب و مشروع لبنان هستند.

بوش همچين گفت منظور از تحريم ايران توسط شورای امنيت سازمان ملل متحد جلوگيری از توليد سلاح هسته ای توسط ايران بود.

بوش با اشاره به طرح اعزام بيش از 20 هزار سرباز ديگر به عراق گفت: اين طرح، حاصل مشورت با فرماندهای نظامی بوده که همه جوانب و همه رويکردها را در نظر گرفته اند.

[Rasputin]

One of the notable features of President George W Bush's State of the Union speech was its hostile attitude towards Iran.

References to Iran ran like a drum beat through the speech, adding a wider element to his appeal for support for what he called his "new strategy" in Iraq.

He accused the "regime" in Iran of arming "terrorists like Hezbollah" and of directing "Shia extremists" in Iraq.

He raised the prospect of a larger conflict in the Middle East in which Iran would be central.

"If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides," he said.

The world will not allow the regime in Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons

President Bush
Speech in full [102KB]
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"We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al-Qaeda and supporters of the old regime.

"A contagion of violence could spill out across the country - and in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict."

And he did not leave out the nuclear issue: "The world will not allow the regime in Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons."

He referred only to the "regime" in Iran, not the government.

Trend

Such rhetoric is used partly to lay the blame for the chaos in Iraq on others but it is not just rhetoric. The State of the Union speech is a carefully considered declaration.

The new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Senator John Rockefeller, a Democrat, has spoken out against the verbal attacks on Iran and compared them to what happened before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"To be quite honest, I'm a little concerned that it's Iraq again," Senator Rockefeller told the New York Times.

The anti-Iran trend in the administration was already evident when Mr Bush announced the increase in troops in Iraq on 10 January. In that speech he rejected the recommendations of the advisory Iraq Study Group that the United States should engage diplomatically with Iran (and Syria).

The president has said very clearly that the issues we have with Iran should be solved diplomatically

Stephen Hadley
National Security Adviser
Instead he accused Iran and Syria of "allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq".

US failure in Iraq, he claimed, would have a consequence: "Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons."

And he added: "We will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region."

That phrase "will work with others" is primarily a reference to the UN Security Council which has imposed sanctions on Iran, aimed at preventing it from getting technology useful for its nuclear enrichment and missile programmes.

However, if the sanctions effort (supplemented by offers of co-operation on nuclear power) do not work, the likelihood is that the US will seek support for further isolating Iran. And the question remains as to whether the US would itself in due course attack or would support an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

The line from the White House, as expressed recently by the National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, is that the US is seeking a diplomatic solution.

Asked on ABC television if the US was preparing an attack on Iran, he replied: "No, the president has said very clearly that the issues we have with Iran should be solved diplomatically."

This may be true but such a formulation does not rule out a future decision to move from a diplomatic approach to a military one, if diplomacy is held to have failed.

Israeli fears

The mood in the administration coincides with some strong talk in Israel about the dangers from Iran.


Iran's president has dismissed the Security Council resolution
The Israeli Likud party leader Binyamin Netanyahu has called the Iranian government "genocidal" and has said: "No-one will come to defend the Jews if they do not defend themselves."

An example of the fears in Israel was a remarkable recent article in the Jerusalem Post by the Israeli historian Benny Morris, who raised the spectre of "the second Holocaust".

"One bright morning, in five or 10 years, perhaps during a regional crisis, perhaps out of the blue, a day or a year or five years after Iran's acquisition of the Bomb, the mullahs in Qom will convene in secret session, under a portrait of the steely-eyed Ayatollah Khomeini, and give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by then in his second or third term, the go-ahead," he wrote.

"With a country the size and shape of Israel (an elongated 20,000 sq km), probably four or five hits will suffice: No more Israel."

Iranian position

Iran itself continues its dual policy of developing enrichment and denying any intention of using that expertise to build a bomb.

There are signs that some in Iran are worried about the combative approach of President Ahmadinejad.

A critical cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, said: "One has to deal with the enemy with wisdom. We should not provoke the enemy, otherwise the country will be faced with problems."

Not that President Ahmadinejad is impressed. He dismisses the Security Council resolution as "born dead".

He states that Iran's efforts to enrich uranium are an expression of its right to develop nuclear power under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of which it is a member.

Under the treaty, non-nuclear weapons states area allowed to acquire nuclear technology for civil purposes but commit themselves not to build a bomb.

[Rasputin]

Three years ago my then 5-year old son learned a valuable lesson about life which he still vividly remembers to this day. On a hot summer afternoon, he along with a couple of other boys came upon a hornet's nest hidden inside the hedges lining the perimeter of our residential neighborhood. Not long after poking and hitting it with wooden sticks, the boys were attacked by a swarm of angry hornets that chased and stung them in multiple places. After tending to his injuries and calming him down with some antihistamines, we spent the rest of that evening talking about respect for other species.

One could argue that the positive outcome of that awful incident was that the boys gained some valuable lesson and are much wiser for it. But after listening to Mr. Bush's 'State of the Union' address last night, I'm not sure the same can be said about our commander-in-chief.

In a speech reminiscent of the one delivered in January 2003 when he portrayed Iraq as the most imminent threat to the security of the United States, Mr. Bush named Iran no less than 5 times as the new "determined enemy":

"In recent times, it has become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and determined to dominate the Middle East. Many are known to take direction from the regime in Iran" ... "so it remains the policy of this government to use every lawful and proper tool of intelligence, diplomacy, law enforcement, and military action to find these enemies, and to protect the American people."

But this time around facing a different Congress skeptical of his intentions and opposing his strategy of escalation, he delivered a warning of dire consequences brought on by Iran and Al Qaeda, painting the two with the same brush much in the same manner done with Iraq in 2003:

"If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides. We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country -- and in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict."

Using the same dubious tactics, invoking the memory of 911 attacks as justification to push the United States deeper into what is already being described as an abyss by the UN, Mr. Bush warned his skeptics:

"For America, this is a nightmare scenario. For the enemy, this is the objective. Chaos is their greatest ally in this struggle. And out of chaos in Iraq would emerge an emboldened enemy with new safe havens, new recruits, new resources, and an even greater determination to harm America. To allow this to happen would be to ignore the lessons of September the 11th and invite tragedy. "

The fact is that the nightmare scenario Mr. Bush is describing has already occurred thanks to the deceptive and misguided act of invading a sovereign country which did not pose a threat to United States. Unfortunately this time around, he appears to be poking his stick in a hornet's nest far larger than Iraq.

That, Mr. Bush, is ignoring the lessons of a tragedy.

[Rasputin]

Jan. 27, 2007 - President George W. Bush concluded his annual State of the Union address this week with the words “the State of our Union is strong … our cause in the world is right … and tonight that cause goes on.” Maybe so, but the state of the Bush administration is at its worst yet, according to the latest NEWSWEEK Poll. The president’s approval ratings are at their lowest point in the poll’s history—30 percent—and more than half the country (58 percent) say they wish the Bush presidency were simply over, a sentiment that is almost unanimous among Democrats (86 percent), and is shared by a clear majority (59 percent) of independents and even one in five (21 percent) Republicans. Half (49 percent) of all registered voters would rather see a Democrat elected president in 2008, compared to just 28 percent who’d prefer the GOP to remain in the White House.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16840614/site/newsweek/

[Rasputin]

Bush 'spoiling for a fight' with Iran

US officials in Baghdad and Washington are expected to unveil a secret intelligence "dossier" this week detailing evidence of Iran's alleged complicity in attacks on American troops in Iraq. The move, uncomfortably echoing Downing Street's dossier debacle in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, is one more sign that the Bush administration is building a case for war.
Nicholas Burns, the senior US diplomat in charge of Iran policy, says Washington "is not looking for a fight" with Tehran. The official line is that Washington has made a conscious decision to "push back" against Iran on a range of fronts where the two countries' interests clash. Primarily that means Tehran's perceived meddling in Iraq, where its influence with the Shia-led government and Shia majority population appears to be increasing as Washington's weakens.

State department spokesman Sean McCormack claimed this week the administration has a body of evidence implicating Iran in sectarian attacks against Iraq's Sunni minority. "There is a high degree of confidence in the information that we already have and we are constantly accumulating more," he told the New York Times.
CIA and Pentagon officials are also touting intelligence that "Iranians are smuggling into Iraq sophisticated explosive devices, mortars, and detailed plans to wipe out Sunni Arab neighbourhoods," the paper said. Officials would make a "comprehensive case" this week. But President George Bush has already acted on information received. He confirmed yesterday that he has ordered US forces in effect to kill or capture Iranian "agents" targeting Americans in Iraq - as happened earlier this month when five Iranian officials were detained in Irbil.

Hassan Kazemi Qumi, Iran's ambassador to Iraq, ridiculed "sectarian maps" and evidence the US military said it had obtained during a raid on a Shia compound in Baghdad. He repeated Tehran's contention that Iranians were in Iraq to help with "security problems". Barham Saleh, Iraq's deputy prime minister, complains that the US and Iran are turning his country into a "zone of conflict and competition" and suggests they take their fight elsewhere.

But as was also the case in the days before Saddam Hussein fell, powerful external forces, ranging from exiled Iranian opposition groups to leading Israeli politicians, appear intent on stoking the fire - and winding up the White House.

"The al-Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards is stepping up terrorism and encouraging sectarian violence in Iraq," Alireza Jafarzadeh, a US-based Iranian dissident who has been linked to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK) resistance group, told the Washington Times this month. Mr Jafarzadeh is credited with revealing the existence of Iran's secret nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak in 2002.

"There is a sharp surge in Iran's sponsorship of terrorism and sectarian violence in the past few months," Mr Jafarzadeh told a conference organised by the Iran Policy Committee, a Washington lobby group pressing the state department to remove the MeK from its terrorist list.

Israel is also pushing the intelligence case while upping the ante, claiming to have knowledge that Tehran is within a year or two of acquiring basic nuclear weapons-making capability. In a BBC interview last week former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu compared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime to Hitler's Nazis. Speaking in Davos the deputy prime minister, Shimon Peres, demanded immediate regime change or failing that, military intervention.

The US "push back" against Iran comprises many other elements beyond Iraq. Unconfirmed reports suggest Vice-President Dick Cheney has cut a deal with Saudi Arabia to keep oil production up even as prices fall, to undercut Iran's main source of foreign currency. Washington is pursuing expanding, non-UN global financial sanctions against Tehran; encouraging and arming a "new alignment" of Sunni Arab Gulf states; and highlighting Iran's role in "supporting terrorism" in Palestine, where it helps bankroll the Hamas government, and Lebanon, where it backs Hizbullah. The US is also deploying powerful naval forces in the Gulf that are of little help in Iraq but could more easily be used to mount air strikes on Iran.

Almost any one of these developments might produce a casus belli. And when taken together, despite official protestations, they seem to point in only one direction. The Bush administration, an American commentator suggested, is "once again spoiling for a fight".

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

You wouldn't think that the masterminds who dreamed up the Iraq war could possibly match that grand plan, but they have. The ignorant ideologues who brought us Iraq have learned nothing. They are still reading from the same delusional neoconservative script. So, with Iraq a bloody nightmare, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process dead, Lebanon and Gaza on the brink of civil war, the entire Middle East dangerously unstable, and America's standing in the Arab/Muslim world at an all-time low, the Bush administration geniuses have come up with another grand plan: demonize Iran, push it to the brink of war, strong-arm U.S. allies into confronting it, and whip up sectarian hatred in the region.

In his State of the Union address, Bush singled out Iran as a hostile troublemaker in Iraq and promised to attack its "networks," which U.S. officials have claimed are supplying advanced weaponry to Shia militias who kill American soldiers. He then threatened to "kill or capture" any Iranian intelligence agents found in Iraq. American aircraft carriers have moved menacingly into the Gulf. U.S. troops seized six Iranian officials in northern Iraq, accusing them of spying. U.S. officials darkly conjectured that Iran was responsible for the abduction and killing of five U.S. soldiers in Karbala. At the same time, the Bush administration is twisting the arms of its "moderate" Sunni allies to take a hard line against Iran.

[Rasputin]

We should not bomb Iran to prevent Iran getting the bomb. The consequences would be disastrous. After Iraq, US or Israeli military action against this regionally powerful, oil-producing Shia muslim country would make the world a still more dangerous place. The cure would be worse than the disease. That's what a new report from a diverse coalition of British organisations says, and it is right. But this is not enough. Joining with wiser heads in Washington to prevent George Bush making a final gung-ho blunder is only a preliminary to the real business. Anyone who, after a bracing afternoon walk chanting "stop the war" and "stop Bush", goes home thinking they have made the world a safer place needs to think some more.

If we don't bomb Iran, Iran is quite likely to get the bomb. If Iran gets the bomb, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others in the Middle East will be tempted to follow. The last barriers to nuclear proliferation, already breached by North Korea, Pakistan, India and Israel, could rapidly break - in the most volatile region in the world. The risk of nuclear war will then be greater than it was in the 1980s, when CND, END and other west European peace movements marched against new US and Soviet missile deployments. The likely scale of the nuclear conflict is much smaller than a superpower nuclear apocalypse, but that in itself makes it more not less probable that an unhinged leader would take the risk.
On the available evidence, the Islamic Republic of Iran is trying to edge towards a technological position from which it could, should it choose, rapidly move towards 90% uranium enrichment and the production of nuclear weapons. The best analysis we have suggests that Ayatollah Khameini, the supreme leader of the revolutionary regime, has not made a decision to go for nuclear weapons, and it would take a number of years to get there even if he had. But Iran has been doing a number of things that are not explicable simply by a desire to have the civilian nuclear energy to which it is entitled under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

The real question is therefore how, without the use of force, you can stop Iran going down this path. This requires pressure as well as incentives. In 2003, when the Islamic Republic felt itself weak, with a low oil price squeezing its budget and (yes) the unsettling spectacle of a US occupation of Iraq next door, it was more ready to negotiate on the nuclear issue. Last year, when it felt itself strong, with a high oil price gorging its budget, President Ahmadinejad riding high on a populist wave, and Iran rather than the US increasingly calling the shots in the politics of Iraq, it turned down the best offer it had received since the last year of the Clinton administration.

All it needed to do was to suspend uranium enrichment and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, would have personally joined talks with Iran - something not seen from a senior US official since the Iranian revolution nearly 30 years ago. Last summer's "Vienna proposals" of the five permanent members of the UN security council plus Germany (the P5 plus 1), which I have before me as I write, offered to support the building of light-water reactors in Iran and to guarantee a supply of nuclear fuel enriched in Russia. The political and economic incentives were vaguer, but they included supporting Iran's full integration into the World Trade Organisation and a trade agreement with the EU, as well as possible deals on civil aviation, hi tech and telecommunications. And that was just the opening offer.

After some haggling worthy of its main bazaar, Tehran said no. Following a complex diplomatic dance with Russia and China, the UN security council passed a resolution just before Christmas which imposed rather minimal sanctions. Later this month, we hit the 60-day deadline for the UN to review whether Iran has complied with the resolution, which calls for the suspension of "all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities".

If it complies, the direct negotiation can begin. If it does not, the indirect negotiation continues. Either way, we need two plans. Plan A involves mustering every peaceful instrument at our disposal to steer the Iranian regime away from its current course. We have not yet done everything we can. Broadly speaking, the US needs to offer more carrots, the EU needs to brandish more sticks. As the Baker-Hamilton commission and many US foreign policy sages have urged, the US should open bilateral talks with Iran, without conditions. It should be prepared, longer term, to offer a "grand bargain", in which it restores the full panoply of normal diplomatic and economic relations, provided Iran desists from developing nuclear weapons and (more tricky to judge and verify) supporting terrorists. We should also establish an impartial, UN-supervised system of supplying nuclear fuel for civilian purposes.

But carrots are not enough. This also needs sticks. If the military sticks are to be taken off the table, what remains are economic ones - and those are in the hands of the Europeans. Because of history and its own bilateral sanctions, the US does very little business with Iran; Europe does lots. Even if we think that economic sanctions would, in the long run, be counter-productive, we in Europe must be prepared credibly to threaten them. Since we already live in a multipolar world, we would still have a big problem bringing an undemocratic China, hungry for Iranian oil, and a bolshy Russia, on to the same course, but the buck starts here.

Beyond this, we need to recognise that Iran has both a complex, far from monolithic political system and a young, critical society. Ahmadinejad is not Iran. With the oil price down to around $50 a barrel, western credits and foreign investment drying up, inflation rising and Saudi Arabia flexing its muscles as Sunni-Shia tensions mount across the region, his government is no longer riding so high.

In local elections last December, his candidate list, wonderfully named The Pleasant Scent of Service, was blown a raspberry. Before every step, we need first to ask this question: how will it affect the dynamics of the regime and the society? We need a skilful public diplomacy, media innovations like the BBC's new Farsi-language television service, people-to-people contacts, and a hundred other initiatives to inform and to open up Iranian society. Europe has not begun to unfold its full potential in this regard. The effects will only be apparent over a number of years, but it may be a number of years before Iran is within striking distance of making nuclear weapons.

And Plan B? If all this fails, and we're not going to bomb Iran, then Plan B can only be containment and deterrence. The price to Iran of testing, let alone actually using, a nuclear device should be set very high. We should start now taking all measures we can to prevent an Iranian bomb being swiftly followed by a Saudi or Egyptian one. But I wouldn't count on this working either.

So here's the score: if we bomb Iran, the world will be a more dangerous place. If Iran gets the bomb, the world will be a more dangerous place.

Conclusion: the world is likely to be a more dangerous place.

[Rasputin]

جورج بوش در واکنش به توفانی از گمانه زنی ها در مورد احتمال عمليات نظامی آمريکا عليه ايران که خود يک ماه قبل باعث شروع آن شد، سعی کرده است هرگونه نگرانی در اين زمينه را برطرف کند.
رئيس جمهور آمريکا روز دوشنبه در مصاحبه ای با شبکه تلويزيونی "سی اِسپَن" آمريکا هرگونه حرف و اظهار نظر در مورد برنامه ريزی دولت وی برای حمله نظامی به ايران را به عنوان "سر و صدای" توخالی رد کرد.

اظهارات و اقدامات مقام های دولت آمريکا طی يک ماه گذشته باعث انتقاد شديد دمکرات ها به دولت بوش در مورد رويکردش مقابل ايران شده است.

آقای بوش يک ماه قبل در روز 10 ژانويه در سخنرانی سالانه خود در کنگره آمريکا در مورد "دخالت" در عراق شديدا به ايران هشدار داده و تهديد کرده بود که ارتش اين کشور شبکه های پيشرفته سلاح رسانی به شبه نظاميان شيعه در عراق را که به ادعای وی با مساعدت ايران تشکيل شده اند تعقيب و نابود خواهند کرد.

در پی آن موضع گيری تند و همچنين افشای اين موضوع که وی به نيروهای مسلح اين کشور در عراق دستور داده است آن دسته از عوامل ايرانی در عراق را که به گفته دولت آمريکا در قتل سربازان آمريکا نقش دارند شناسايی و نابود کنند، به اين پندار دامن زد که دولت آمريکا درحال برنامه ريزی برای حمله به ايران است.

مقام های ارشد نظامی و اطلاعاتی دولت بوش نيز در اين مدت در جلساتی در کنگره به نمايندگان اين کشور گفته اند که شواهد روزافزونی در مورد نقش منفی ايران در عراق به خصوص کمک به شبه نظاميان شيعه دارند.

دولت بوش همزمان با تشديد حملات لفظی عليه ايران دو ناو هواپيمابر را در هفته های اخير به خليج فارس اعزام کرد.

وزارت دفاع آمريکا روز يکشنبه برای مستند کردن اتهامات خود عليه ايران "شواهد" آنچه را ادعا می کند نشانگر دخالت مستقيم "مقام های ارشد ايرانی" در ارسال بمب های پيشرفته برای شبه نظاميان شيعه است را عرضه کرد.

همه اين اقدامات باعث نگرانی اعضای حزب دمکرات در مورد احتمال بروز جنگ ديگری مانند عراق، اين بار با ايران، شده است.

نگرانی دمکرات ها

مقام های بلند پايه اين حزب از جمله سناتور جان راکفلر، رئيس جديد کميته اطلاعات امنيتی سنا، می گويند موضع گيری های دولت بوش برای آنها يادآور دوره منتهی به جنگ عراق است.

آنها در اين مدت بارها به دولت جورج بوش هشدار داده اند از بزرگ کردن شواهد مربوط به "دخالت ايران در عراق" خودداری کند و به علاوه گفته اند دولت برای هرگونه اقدام نظامی عليه ايران بايد از کنگره که در اختيار دمکرات هاست اجازه بگيرد.

آنها همچنين شواهدی را که پنتاگون روز يکشنبه در مورد نقش ايران در ارسال سلاح های پيشرفته به شبه نظاميان شيعه عراق عرضه کرد زير سوال بردند.

آقای بوش روز دوشنبه در مصاحبه با "سی اسپن" در واقع به اتهامات دمکرات ها پاسخ می گفت.

رئيس جمهور آمريکا گفت: "فکر می کنم واکنش من به اين سر و صداها در باره اينکه 'او می خواهد به جنگ برود' اول از همه اين است که من تاکتيک های آنها [دمکرات ها] را درک نمی کنم. به گمانم بايد بگويم که اين حرف ها انگيزه سياسی دارد."

آقای بوش افزود: "از سوی ديگر، اميدوارم که اعضای کنگره، به ويژه در حزب مخالف، خطر شديد دسترسی ايران به سلاح اتمی را درک کنند."

البته اين اولين بار نيست که کاخ سفيد - که به خاطر اشتباهات عمده در مورد مجهز بودن صدام حسين به سلاح های کشتار جمعی با کسر شديد اعتبار روبروست - برنامه ريزی برای حمله به ايران را انکار می کند. پيش از آقای بوش ساير مقام های دولت او از جمله وزير دفاع اين موضوع را انکار کرده اند.

از سوی ديگر کاخ سفيد تا حدودی رسانه ها را در بزرگ کردن گمانه زنی ها در مورد احتمال عمليات نظامی عليه ايران مقصر دانسته است.

'نقش مطبوعات'

برخی روزنامه های آمريکايی در هفته های اخير با چاپ گزارش هايی دولت بوش را برای ارائه شواهد آنچه دخالت ايران در عراق می داند تحت فشار قرار داده اند.

تونی اسنو، سخنگوی کاخ سفيد، روز دوشنبه گفت: "فکر نمی کنم لحن ما عوض شده باشد. با حفظ کامل احترام مطبوعات، بايد بگويم که فکر می کنم تلاش هايی در ميان آنها در جريان بوده تا اين مساله را بزرگ کنند و بپرسند: آيا دولت دنبال شکار ايران است؟."


آنتونی کوردزمن، کارشناس خاورميانه در مرکز مطالعات بين المللی و استراتژيک در واشنگتن به خبرگزاری رويتر گفت که مباحثات پيرامون ايران ظاهرا ناشی از تلاش دمکرات ها برای يافتن موضوعی برای حمله به کاخ سفيد و همچنين ناشی از تلاش نومحافظه کارانی است که خواهان شاهد تغيير رژيم تهران هستند.

وی گفت: "از محتوای بحث کاملا پيداست که آنها [اعضای دولت بوش] سعی دارند مانع جاری شدن پول و سلاح (به عراق) شوند، نه اينکه درحال آماده کردن خود برای جنگ با ايران باشند. نشانه ها بيش از هر چيز حاکی از بازدارندگی است."

آقای بوش در مصاحبه خود همچنين در مورد مناقشه مربوط به برنامه اتمی ايران گفت که او "سياست جامعی با هدف حل مسالمت آميز اين مساله دارد" و قول داد ايران را برای معلق کردن بخش های حساس برنامه اتمی اش که می تواند در جهت ساخت سلاح اتمی به کار گرفته شود "شديدا تحت فشار بگذارد."

مقام های ايران اتهامات آمريکا در مورد دخالت در امور عراق از جمله ارسال سلاح برای شبه نظاميان شيعه و همچنين تلاش برای دستيابی به سلاح اتمی را رد می کنند.

محمود احمدی نژاد، رييس جمهوری ايران روز يکشنبه در مصاحبه ای با تلويزيون "ای بی سی" اتهامات آمريکا مبنی بر کمک تسليحاتی به شورشيان شيعه در عراق را رد کرد و گفت که ايران خواهان صلح است و با هر نوع درگيری مخالف است.

آقای احمدی نژاد در اين مصاحبه بار ديگر خواهان خروج نيروهای آمريکايی از عراق شد و گفت راه استقرار صلح در عراق، خروج نيروهای خارجی از عراق است.

وی خاطرنشان کرد که ايران از هر نوع درگيری پرهيز می کند و از درگيری و خونريزی احتمالی ناراحت خواهد شد.

[Rasputin]

Bush tries to convince world no plans for Iran war

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President George W. Bush is trying to convince the world he has no intention of invading Iran, but is running into skeptics who see U.S. charges that Iran is shipping bombs into Iraq as a step toward conflict.

Having ordered two aircraft carriers to the Gulf and accused Iranians of providing Iraqi militants bombs that have killed 170 Americans, Bush and his top aides are struggling to tamp down talk that a new war is brewing.

Bush himself prompted the talk in a January 10 speech outlining his reworked Iraq strategy, by saying "Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces."

A debate has since raged over whether he has an attack on Iran in mind. "Next Stop Iran?" asked The Economist magazine's cover this week over a picture of a U.S. military aircraft in flight.

The White House sees tensions with Iran over its nuclear ambitions as a separate issue from Tehran's alleged bomb supplies in Iraq.

Bush wants the nuclear issue resolved diplomatically, but has authorized U.S. forces to capture or kill Iranians involved in attacks on Americans or Iraqis inside Iraq.

"We're not getting ready for war on Iran, but what we are doing is we're protecting our own people. And we're going to do it. And we've made it clear that that is going to be a priority," White House spokesman Tony Snow said on Monday.

REPEAT OF 2003?

Democrats say they fear a repeat of 2002 and 2003, when Bush made a case for war against Iraq based on weapons of mass destruction that were never found.

"That's how we got into the mess in Iraq. That's why some of us supported those resolutions because of doctored information. So I'm very skeptical based on recent past history about this administration leading us in that direction," Connecticut Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record), a presidential hopeful, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

When Bush hears arguments like that, he sees a political attack from Democrats who want their party to claim the White House in 2008.

"I guess my reaction to all the noise about 'he wants to go to war' -- first of all I don't understand the tactics. I guess I would say it's political," Bush told C-SPAN on Monday.

The White House says some of the war talk is being driven by a news media hungry for the next big story.

"I don't think there's a change of tone on our part. I think that there have been attempts, with all due respect, in the press, to try to whip this up -- 'Is the administration going after Iran?"' said Snow.

Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the Iran war debate appeared to be driven by Democrats looking for an issue and neoconservatives who would like to see regime change in Tehran.

"It's quite clear from the content that they are trying to stop the flow of money and arms (into Iraq), not trying to provide a war with Iran. If anything, the signals are more about deterrence than anything else," he said.

The Bush administration is trying to walk a fine line between threatening Iran over its alleged bomb supplies in Iraq, which Tehran denies, and underscoring its reliance on diplomacy over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

On the issue of Iranian bombs in Iraq, U.S. officials are adamant that the evidence is true. "The Iranians are up to their eyeballs in this activity," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

[Rasputin]