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2007.05.22 Iraq/Iran Roundup
See previous: 2007.05.21 Iraq/Iran Roundup
Below the fold:
- House Majority Leader Confirms Democrats Gave Up
on Troop Withdrawal Timetable in Iraq Funding Bill
- Guardian: Iran Pulling The Insurgent Strings In Iraq
- The Left's Iraq Muddle
- News Unfit To Print
- Lieberman, Sticking With Democrats for Now, Warns Them on Iraq
- ABC exposes Bush’s secret order to CIA to destabilize Iranian regime
- Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran
- It's not covert anymore
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House Majority Leader Confirms Democrats Gave Up
on Troop Withdrawal Timetable in Iraq Funding Bill
WASHINGTON — House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer confirmed Tuesday a final Iraq spending bill will not include a deadline for troop withdrawals, but promised that Democrats would try to end the war using next year's spending bills.
"We can't pass something without the president's signature and the president can't pass something without our agreement," Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters. "So we can be at a standoff and go back and forth at each other, or we can come to an agreement."
The House planned to vote Thursday on the bill.
While the precise details remained in flux, officials said the legislation would likely threaten billions of dollars in reconstruction aid if the Iraqi government failed to make progress on political and security goals.
But Democrats planned to drop provisions from an earlier bill — vetoed by the president — that would have demanded troops start coming home this fall.
Democratic leaders first will have to sway a large number of Democrats who want to end the war immediately — or pick up enough Republican votes to make up for the losses. Earlier this month, 171 House members voted to order the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq within nine months. ...
See related:
Guardian: Iran Pulling The Insurgent Strings In Iraq
Ed Morrissey
Iran has decided to increase the pace and scope of attacks from insurgent groups they control and influence in Iraq over the summer. The mullahs aim to leverage the discontent of the Democrats in Congress to force an American withdrawal by the end of September: Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.
"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces," a senior US official in Baghdad warned. "They [Iran] are behind a lot of high-profile attacks meant to undermine US will and British will, such as the rocket attacks on Basra palace and the Green Zone [in Baghdad]. The attacks are directed by the Revolutionary Guard who are connected right to the top [of the Iranian government]." ...
So why are we hearing about this in the Guardian, rather than the Washington Post? After all, the sources here are American commanders on the ground in Iraq. The Guardian opposes the Iraq war, so they're not exactly philosophically inclined to promote the ties between Iran and the insurgencies in Iraq.
In a rational world, this would pressure the war's opponents to explain again how abandoning Iraq to the Iranians improves our security. The Iranians are up to their necks in the insurgencies, hoping to drive us out of the Middle East. The rush to accommodate them would render them ascendant over the region, especially if they complete their efforts to develop nuclear weapons. No other nation could counterbalance them.
Allahpundit has related comments here.
If you missed The Case for Bombing Iran when I linked to it yesterday now's a good time to go read it, too.
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Confederate Yankee: Also, The Sun Came Up Today
The Left's Iraq Muddle
Yes, it is central to the fight against Islamic radicalism.
By Bob Kerrey
At this year's graduation celebration at The New School in New York, Iranian lawyer, human-rights activist and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi delivered our commencement address. This brave woman, who has been imprisoned for her criticism of the Iranian government, had many good and wise things to say to our graduates, which earned their applause.
But one applause line troubled me. Ms. Ebadi said: "Democracy cannot be imposed with military force."
What troubled me about this statement--a commonly heard criticism of U.S. involvement in Iraq--is that those who say such things seem to forget the good U.S. arms have done in imposing democracy on countries like Japan and Germany, or Bosnia more recently. ...
Suppose we had not invaded Iraq and Hussein had been overthrown by Shiite and Kurdish insurgents. Suppose al Qaeda then undermined their new democracy and inflamed sectarian tensions to the same level of violence we are seeing today. Wouldn't you expect the same people who are urging a unilateral and immediate withdrawal to be urging military intervention to end this carnage? I would.
American liberals need to face these truths: The demand for self-government was and remains strong in Iraq despite all our mistakes and the violent efforts of al Qaeda, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias to disrupt it. Al Qaeda in particular has targeted for abduction and murder those who are essential to a functioning democracy: school teachers, aid workers, private contractors working to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, police officers and anyone who cooperates with the Iraqi government. Much of Iraq's middle class has fled the country in fear.
With these facts on the scales, what does your conscience tell you to do? ...
News Unfit To Print
Jules Crittenden
More than a week of intensive operations, up to 6,000 troops, often on foot, presenting themselves as targets everywhere, and only two Americans reported killed in the search area as of last night, out of two dozen Americans killed in Iraq in that time. That’s remarkable.
So much heat on al-Qaeda in the Triangle of Death they can’t get a jihadi video out. Hundreds questioned and/or arrested, several large weapons caches seized, a number of suspected insurgents killed in firefights. But mostly, it would appear, al-Qaeda gone to ground … after demanding that the searching stop.
So is anyone on the ground looking seriously at whether, absent as yet the safe return of the abducted soldiers, there is a payoff to this intensive search, something that might be applied elsewhere? ...
Lieberman, Sticking With Democrats for Now, Warns Them on Iraq
May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, says his disagreement with the Democrats over the Iraq war won't prevent him from working with his former party. For now.
``I hope the moment doesn't come that I feel so separated from the caucus'' that he decides to shift allegiance to the Republicans, he said in an interview. Asked what Democratic actions might cause such a break, he invoked Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous 1964 definition of pornography: ``I'll know it when I see it.''
The 65-year-old lawmaker is the margin of difference in the Democrats' 51-49 control of the Senate. A switch to the Republicans, which he won't rule out, would create a 50-50 tie that would allow Vice President Dick Cheney to cast a deciding vote for Republican control.
Lieberman has ``gone from being dispensable to essential for the Democrats,'' said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Lieberman said he already has seen much he doesn't like from the Democrats, particularly Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision to co-sponsor, and then allow a vote last week on, legislation cutting off war funding by March. ...
Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran
Brian Ross and Richard Esposito
The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.
The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.
"I can't confirm or deny whether such a program exists or whether the president signed it, but it would be consistent with an overall American approach trying to find ways to put pressure on the regime," said Bruce Riedel, a recently retired CIA senior official who dealt with Iran and other countries in the region.
A National Security Council spokesperson, Gordon Johndroe, said, "The White House does not comment on intelligence matters." A CIA spokesperson said, "As a matter of course, we do not comment on allegations of covert activity." ...
Read the whole thing. You can bet the Iranians have by now.
Kim Priestap comments: It's not covert anymore
Does Brian Ross at The Blotter have no idea what the word "covert" means, or was this a deliberate leak from the government to put pressure on Iran?
[...]
Commenters writing at The Blotter have responded and they are overwhelmingly furious at Brian Ross for blowing the cover on this. Here's one reaction: ...
Allahpundit has related thoughts here.
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