Condi: Failure Is Her Only Option
by Mark Adams
You have to go clear back to the Carter Administration to understand the roots of the imminent decline and fall of Condoleeza Rice's foreign policy carreer.
No, there's no skeleton in the dormroom closet from when the young Ph.D. candidate interned at the Department she now directs at Foggy Bottom. But while she was still a Democrat, the Shah of Iran fell and our relationship with Iran (and the rest of the Middle East) went straight to hell. It has never recovered, and that's just how the neo-cons like it.
Now, to add insult to injury, not only has she been taking the advice of her Deputy, Nick Burns (the only competent foreign policy professional in Washington, a deal maker), Condi wants to try diplomacy with Iran?!?
The warmongers will not let this stand. The last thing they want is a detente with Iran. They've been were salivating after the remnants of the Persian Empire back when Condi was still hanging out at the Denver Bronco's locker room.
Rice not only has to manage the Iranian response to her initiative but has to manage Vice President Cheney's team -- including John Bolton -- who will try to undermine her at every step.
The President had to sign off on this initiative, but what is not clear is whether he is going to give his complete support to Rice or whether he is going to sit on a perch while his closest advisors slash each other over this.
That's the word on the street. Actually, the word on the American Street was that up until a couple of weeks ago, she was citing Lebanon as the first thing on her list of "positive trends in democracy in the Middle East."
Opps.
President Bush still has a lot of folks in his bubble who keep listening to Richard "Dr. Death" Perle and Newt Gingrich's push to start World War III in earnest. If they have their way, Condoleeza Rice's days as Secretary of State are numbered. If she's effectively neutered over Lebanon and her initiative is seen as a flop, the chances are that much dimmer for her attempts to rationally deal with Iran. The gods of irony are alive and well when this crowd has the gall to complain about someone else's incompetence, so you just know there's more to it.
Her mission as peace broker in the latest round of the Arab-Israeli war-without-end is doomed to failure. She's being set-up by the likes of, Rummy, Deadeye Dick, UN Ambassador John Bolton, Arms Control Undersecretary Robert Joseph (who took Bolton's old job), and Cheney's National Security guy John Hannah -- a Scooter Libby case figure and former Bolton assistant.
No doubt Cheney's former consigliere and Chief of Staff David Addington has his hand in this somewhere too. Likewise Intel Chief Negroponte and his loyal lieutenant (and convicted felon) Elliot Abrams. The cabal of criminals and crazy kooks is alive and well in the seats of power -- hardly missing Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, or his bagman (another convicted felon) Larry Franklin.
They tied Condi's hands and sent her out for photo-ops between bombing runs in Beirut to make headline after headline announcing that she's done absolutely nothing to stop the carnage in Southern Lebanon. It almost makes us pine fondly of Kissinger for at least trying. One thing they won't let her do, something Kissinger did again and again, is go to Damascus. How exactly she is supposed to accomplish President Biscuit Breath's simple solution to get Syria to reign in Hezbollah without meeting with the Syrians is beyond me.
BTW, we actually have an ambassador from Syria sitting in Washington, as well as a UN ambassador admiring the view of Turtle Bay, just sitting by their phones. They make the Maytag repairman look like he just won a popularity contest.
Condi has never suffered fools like Neo-con Kool-Aide mixologist Doug Feith, whose investigation as the nexus of insane Iraq intelligence interpretation has been permanently sidelined by Senator Pat Roberts. He still has a lot of powerful friends who no doubt remember Condi saying at a "Principals' Meeting" on the Middle East, "Thanks Doug, but when we want the Israeli position we'll invite the ambassador." It looks like they're out to get her because the last thing they need is a catastrophic peace to break out before they're done fucking up the world.
The long, involved juicy story of the neo-con/Iran/Israel connection in this Rolling Stone article is well worth your time. While Condi is away, the rats get to play. This is just the concluding paragraphs:
You and I, and Condi, live in "the rest of the world."In a victory speech of sorts on Inauguration Day in January 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney warned bluntly that Iran was "right at the top" of the administration's list of "trouble spots"—and that Israel "might well decide to act first" by attacking Iran. The Israelis, Cheney added in an obvious swipe at moderates in the State Department, would "let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterward."
Over the past six months, the administration has adopted almost all of the hard-line stance advocated by the war cabal in the Pentagon. In May, Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, appeared before AIPAC's annual conference and warned that Iran "must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences." To back up the tough talk, the State Department is spending $66 million to promote political change inside Iran—funding the same kind of dissident groups that helped drive the U.S. to war in Iraq. "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared.
In addition, the State Department recently beefed up its Iran Desk from two people to ten, hired more Farsi speakers and set up eight intelligence units in foreign countries to focus on Iran. The administration's National Security Strategy—the official policy document that sets out U.S. strategic priorities—now calls Iran the "single country" that most threatens U.S. interests.
You'd think that would show the cabal that she was going along with the program. But not if she starts looking like a successful diplomat that can bring even the hope of peaceful settlement of our differences with Iran.
The shift in official policy has thrilled former members of the cabal. To them, the war in Lebanon represents the final step in their plan to turn Iran into the next Iraq. Ledeen, writing in the National Review on July 13th, could hardly restrain himself. "Faster, please," he urged the White House, arguing that the war should now be taken over by the U.S. military and expanded across the entire region. "The only way we are going to win this war is to bring down those regimes in Tehran and Damascus, and they are not going to fall as a result of fighting between their terrorist proxies in Gaza and Lebanon on the one hand, and Israel on the other. Only the United States can accomplish it," he concluded. "There is no other way."
Who do they want to take her place? Old Bush family retainer, James Baker III's name is being bandied about, but that seems delusional. The days that a large coalition can be cobbled together against Iran like he pulled together for the First Gulf War are long gone. This administration has gone beyond squandering it's good will. It's credibility is nonexistent. Moreover, Baker is truly competent and may be even more effective in reaching a deal with Iran while fending off the neo-cons. He knows where all their skeletons are buried.
Hat Tip to Emptywheel who always gets my thoughts rolling.
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