Are Iraqis Worth It? Hanson Nails Issue

We daily scour the blogosphere and news columns for stories or opinions that strike a chord within us, that indicate the author is a kindred spirit, that demonstrate that someone else out there “gets it” when it comes to the important issues of our time. Today while reading National Review Online I read an article by an author I read with regularity and had such an experience. Even before this week, with the passage in the House and Senate of the Iraq White Flag Surrender Turn Tail and Flee Beginning October 1st Bill dominating the headlines, I wrote about the real reason why some Americans are not willing to sacrifice long and hard for the fledgling democracy in Iraq, and today prominent author and NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson took up this issue in a brilliantly written and bluntly articulated article titled, “Iraq, and the Truth We Dare Not Speak.”

Hanson shared my view that much of the war weariness among Americans is due to a feeling of superiority, that somehow democracy and freedom are exclusive American virtues and rights, and at the least sign of difficulty, we assume other peoples are not prepared of capable of governing themselves as we do. Hanson wrote:

But, again, most Americans now don’t think it is worth it — and not just because of the cost we pay, but because of what we get in return. Turn on the television and the reporting is all hate: a Middle Eastern Muslim is blowing up someone in Israel, shooting a rocket from Gaza, chanting death to America in Beirut, stoning an adulterer in Tehran, losing a hand for thievery in Saudi Arabia, threatening to take back Spain, gassing someone in Iraq, or promising to wipe out Israel. An unhinged, secular Khadafi rants; a decrepit Saudi royal lectures; a wild-eyed Lebanese cleric threatens — whatever the country, whatever the political ideology, the American television viewer draws the same conclusion: we are always blamed for their own self-inflicted misery….

But the real catalysts are the endemic violence and hypocrisy that appear nightly on millions of television screens. When the liberal Left says of the war, “It isn’t worth it,” that message resonates, as the American public rightly suspects that it really means “They aren’t worth it.” Voters may not like particularly a Harry Reid, but in frustration at the violence, they sense now that, just like them, he also doesn’t like a vague somebody over there.So here we are in our eleventh hour. A controversial and costly war continues, in part so as to give Arab Muslims the sort of freedom the West takes for granted; but at precisely the time that the public increasingly is tired of Middle Eastern madness. In short, America believes that the entire region is not worth the bones of a single Marine.

In my previous posts about Indonesia’s successes as a Muslim democracy and the Democrats unwillingness to be patient with Iraq’s governmental development, I, like Hanson, questioned why so many Americans, the Democratic left in particular, were so eager for a rush to withdraw without victory in Iraq. Their behavior demonstrated what I described previously as a “carrot and stick” approach, with Pelosi and Reid holding the stick of abandonment over free Iraqis who are working and dying to cement democracy for future generations of Iraqis and other aspiring but oppressed populations in the Middle East. I concluded:

There are only two possible explanations for the behavior of Speaker Pelosi and the anti-war Democrats: first, they despise President Bush so much that they cannot afford to allow the Iraq War to be won, as a victory there would cement President Bush’s legacy as the man who brought democracy to the Middle East and ensure a Republican sweep in the 2008 elections; or second, Democrats are prejudiced in their belief that democracy should not be shared or supported in Muslim nations because Muslims are too backward in their thinking to truly want democracy.

In World War II, Americans had little trouble relating with and having empathy for the European populations our soldiers died to free from the Nazis. However, fighting to preserve democracy or at least halt the spread of Communism in Korea and Vietnam, Americans demonstrated far less cultural understanding or will to share the blessings of freedom with Asian peoples. Is this same phenomenon occurring now in Iraq? Is our minimal knowledge of Middle Eastern cultures, languages, and religious groups causing us to consider those peoples less worthy of our money, time, and blood than Europeans were in two world wars? Perhaps the most salient question is, if we give Iraqis a taste of freedom and democracy and abandon them before they can sustain their freedom, will any other peoples rise up to overthrow tyranny knowing that the bastion of freedom, the United States, cannot be trusted to defend democracy?

Victor Davis Hanson’s article was a gem that Capital Cloak heartily recommends to all readers.

Tenet: Interrogations MVP of Terror War

Washington insiders are known for making startling revelations in the media immediately prior to the date on which their memoirs hit bookstore shelves. Former CIA director George Tenet is no exception. His book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, available for sale Monday, has already been a hot topic of discussion in the media, as portions of it have been leaked along with previews of Tenet’s appearance on CBS’ “60 Minutes” program to be aired Sunday. Speculation has run rampant that Tenet would anger the White House with his assessments of the War on Terror, but the NY Sun reported today that Tenet adamantly defended the Bush administration’s use of “aggressive interrogations” in a bold and straightforward manner uncommon among DC’s elite.

Tenet, addressing the issue of interrogations and alleged torture so ferociously opposed by Democrats, reportedly stated:

"I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots," Mr. Tenet said in a "60 Minutes" interview set to air Sunday before the release of his new book. "I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us," he said.

Consider that last sentence again carefully. In the estimation of a man who served as DCI under Presidents Clinton and Bush, aggressive interrogations, presumably including the technique known as “water boarding” (previously described by Capital Cloak here) have been the most effective tool in protecting America from terrorism. Interrogation of enemy combatants, so loudly denounced by war critics is more valuable than the FBI’s counterterrorism section and Joint Terrorism Task Forces found in every major American city. Aggressive interrogations yield more actionable intelligence than the NSA’s electronic and communications monitoring capabilities so feared by privacy scaremongers. Interrogations are worth more than CIA covert operations and intelligence analysts’ reports.

It is a remarkable statement from a man whose reputation and marketability are so closely intertwined with public perception of the CIA. The capture of these enemy combatants, and often the initial interrogations, are military rather than CIA operations, and thus Tenet is crediting Defense Intelligence (with additional assistance from CIA) for extracting more actionable intelligence than all other agencies and programs combined. When one considers the enormous flood of documents, captured transmissions, and reports from citizen informants currently swamping American intelligence agencies, one begins to realize how critical it is to obtain information directly from captured terrorists with firsthand operational knowledge of terror plots, terror leaders, names, aliases, locations, dates, times, and travel methods.

Theoretically, all of these pieces of a terror plot puzzle might eventually be put together by American intelligence. The NSA may capture a phone call in which vague references to an attack in America or Britain are made. Defense Intelligence may find laptop computers, surveillance videos, and maps on which targets are circled. The FBI may receive a warning from an anonymous citizen that Islamic men were talking about a bomb in New York. The pieces of the puzzle may be many and seemingly unrelated. That is complicated by the continued failure of intelligence agencies to share newly obtained information real time with each other, thus the chances of someone at one of these agencies putting the pieces together and discovering the big picture are slim indeed.

That entire puzzle process is typically avoided when enemy combatants are interrogated, and yes, interrogated aggressively. There is no need for a lucky analyst to discover a plot when the terrorists themselves, under moderate duress, reveal their plans and how to find the plotters. FISA warrants, privacy rights of Americans, the Patriot Act, FBI’s Carnivore, all the anti-terror tools liberals fear and despise are much less productive than direct capture and interrogation. That logic is at the heart of President Bush’s strategy to fight terrorists in the Middle East to prevent fighting them in America. He recognized long ago that taking the gloves off when interrogating captured al Qaeda operatives was the only sure way to infiltrate their organization and hit them before they hit America again. Of course, surveillance and other tools are still necessary for detection of so-called homegrown terrorists and should not be abandoned. Still, the arguments for aggressive interrogation, whether from President Bush, George Tenet, or former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, have always been compelling and convincing.

Liberal (and some conservative) critics of the Bush administration’s handling of the War on Terror and national security must face three difficult questions: You are opposed to the Patriot Act; you are opposed to the NSA domestic surveillance program; you are opposed to FBI’s carnivore and other Internet mining tactics; you are opposed to the war against al Qaeda and other terrorists in Iraq; you are opposed to holding enemy combatants for interrogation; you are opposed to any form of aggressive interrogation, including water boarding; you are in favor of illegal immigration; you are opposed to citizen ownership of guns; are there any anti-terror policies you support? How do you propose we obtain intelligence before terrorists strike America again? Would you prefer to be incinerated by a bomb or see a terrorist frightened into revealing the location of that bomb because he “thought” he was drowning?

While it may seem improbable to most Americans, lulled as they are into believing they are safe, men like George Tenet and President Bush confront such doomsday scenarios daily. Note the strain and sense of urgency Tenet felt in his daily work:

"We don't torture people," the former director told CBS. "The context is it's post-September 11. I've got reports of nuclear weapons in New York City, apartment buildings that are going to be blown up, planes that are going to fly into airports all over again, plot lines that I don't know. … I'm struggling to find out where the next disaster is going to occur."

Tenet has been criticized by many within and outside the intelligence community for his perceived failure to put the puzzle together to prevent 9/11. However, such criticism sheds light on the critics and their motives. Prior to 9/11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, America relied solely on our intelligence agencies for understanding and penetration of terrorist groups. The War on Terror, however, through “aggressive interrogation,” has given America access to and understanding of the terrorists themselves. If American intelligence agencies could have received information in that manner prior to 9/11, Tenet and others would have had a much better chance to prevent the attack. Senators and Congressmen know this, but to keep the media spotlight on themselves they condemn these methods and list interrogation tactics among the list of reasons why the president is a “war criminal” or deserves impeachment.

Thankfully, Tenet recognized the overwhelming value and success of the interrogations at Guantanamo and other locations, and rose to defend the Bush Administration’s use of these tools to protect Americans from further terror attacks. Whether or not Tenet criticizes the administration for other perceived shortcomings remains to be seen, but he should be recognized for courageously and publicly warning against abandoning the tools and techniques that have proven most effective in thwarting terrorists: using their own knowledge against them.

Killing of Terror Chief in Iraq Must Shock Hagel

Yesterday I wrote about Senator Chuck Hagel’s (R-NE) “expert” opinion published in the Washington Post that al-Qaeda and terrorists are not the core problem in Iraq. On Monday, the “not a core problem” al Qaeda groups killed nine 82nd Airborne soldiers in a massive attack, but that was not likely sufficient to change Hagel’s mind about his assessment of the situation in Iraq. Today, U.S. command announced that in its recently expanded operations in Baghdad’s suburbs, Muhammad Abdullah Abbas al-Issawi was killed during an extended encounter with coalition forces. This will come as a great shock to Senator Hagel, since al-Issawi was al Qaeda’s chief tactician in the Anbar Province and was reportedly the mastermind behind al Qaeda’s recruiting of twelve year-old Iraqi boys to serve as suicide car bombers in Baghdad.

If al Qaeda and terrorists are not the core problem in Iraq, perhaps Hagel can explain al-Issawi’s stature and “accomplishments” there. It seems that no sooner had Hagel returned from his latest trip to Iraq and ran to the Post to dismiss al Qaeda’s presence and role in Iraq, al Qaeda demonstrated that it is in fact responsible for much of the so-called insurgency. Hagel insisted that Iraq is mired in a civil war, but how can that be true when the vast majority of VBIEDs, IEDs, and suicide bombings are planned, funded, and executed at the behest of al Qaeda and other non-Iraqi terrorist groups? Would Iraqi boys line up to serve as suicide bombers without the influence of terrorist groups?

The purpose of the Petraeus surge strategy is to provide Baghdad with sufficient security for the parliament to carry out its functions and build a united Iraq. Hagel sees bombings and casualties and in a knee-jerk reaction assumes that Iraqis, without the insidious influence of outside elements, are at war with each other and thus the cause is hopeless. That view, while politically opportunistic, is not corroborated by reports from the Armed Forces. Hagel should read a few military blogs before sharing his “expertise” with the media.

Hagel wants to wash his hands of this war by inaccurately portraying it as a civil war, thus placing blame on Iraqis for the socio-political disaster that will occur if America withdraws from Iraq before the Iraqi government is capable of sustaining and defending itself from overt and covert interference from its neighbors. Like Macbeth, however, Hagel will find that the blood never quite washes clean from guilty hands. America made a commitment to the Iraqis, but Pelosi, Reid, Hagel, and others want to place restrictions on our patience and declare our commitment not to be open ended. Under political pressure, even President Bush has been forced to promise that troops will not be in Iraq indefinitely. As Americans, our commitment to freedom and democracy must be open ended and unquestioned by our allies and enemies alike. If Hagel wonders why Americans never seriously considered him as presidential timbre, he need look no further than his willingness to turn his back on a newly freed nation under siege by terrorists.

Beauty Confronts Beasts to Save Children

Radio talk show host Jerry Doyle occasionally plays a humorous montage of audio clips in which various officials pull on America’s heart strings by claiming we must support their pet political projects to show we “care about the children.” The rallying cry of “do it for the children” is perhaps the most overused and insincere tactic used by politicians, celebrities, and special interest groups to produce guilt that will move people to vote for measures that have little, if anything, to do with children. Beauty pageant contestants are notorious for their shallow monologues reminding viewers that “the children are our future” as the contestants pledge to make “helping the children” a lifelong ambition if chosen as Miss America, Miss USA, etc. Finally we have a Miss America who gets down and dirty (almost literally) to protect children.

Current Miss America Lauren Nelson (second from right) volunteered to participate in a joint “honey pot” operation organized by the Suffolk County Police Department and Fox’s “America’s Most Wanted” television program, in which she posed in Internet chat rooms as a 14 year old girl, including posting pictures of herself as a teenager. Nelson was astonished how quickly she was propositioned by online child predators who wanted to meet her (and more). It is one thing to sit behind a desk and act as bait, but it takes remarkable courage to volunteer for the next level of the operation, actually meeting these sick pedophiles when they come at the appointed time to a site chosen and secured by law enforcement.

Nelson demonstrated sincere dedication to her favorite issue, Internet safety for children, standing on the porch of the police-monitored home and inviting predators to enter. Once inside, Nelson slipped out a back door and the pedophiles were confronted by John Walsh of “America’s Most Wanted” and police officers who affected the arrests. According to the AP report, this sting operation netted four Internet predators, but as Nelson discovered:

"As many as we caught on that day, there are a lot more out there," she said. "It's nice to know that they were chatting with police officers and me rather than a 14- or 15-year-old girl."

There will undoubtedly be critics who will claim her participation was a publicity stunt captured on film to boost the image of Miss America pageants and contestants, but such criticisms would be off the mark. Film crews or not, neither Nelson nor the Suffolk County PD knew what the predators would do at the scene, nor could they know whether these criminals would be carrying weapons. Even with police officers monitoring her every word and watching from another room via hidden cameras, a frightened or suspicious predator could have drawn a weapon and harmed or killed Nelson before the officers could have reacted to prevent it. She literally placed herself in physical danger as bait to protect actual children from ever being in her place. That is courage, and it should be lauded and emulated.

For the full story, click here “Miss America Helps Cops in Sex Sting”.

82nd Airborne Casualties Prove Hagel Wrong

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), a war critic and collaborator with Democrats on every effort to undermine President Bush’s executive war powers, returned this weekend from his fifth trip to Iraq. What wisdom has Senator Hagel gleaned from these trips? The following is from his opinion column in Sunday’s Washington Post:

We must start by understanding what's really happening in Iraq. According to the National Intelligence Estimate released in February, the conflict has become a "self-sustaining inter-sectarian struggle between Shia and Sunnis" and also includes "extensive Shia-on-Shia violence." This means that Iraq is being consumed by sectarian warfare, much of it driven by Shiite or Sunni militias -- not al-Qaeda terrorists. Yes, there are admirers of Osama bin Laden in the country, including a full-blown al-Qaeda branch. But terrorists are not the core problem; Sunni-Shiite violence is.... American occupation cannot stop a civil war in Iraq. Our military, superb as it is, can only do so much.

Senator Hagel’s assessment that Iraq is a “civil war” not driven by al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups is identical to the Democratic talking points endlessly spouted by Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, despite assurances from several generals on the ground in Iraq who insist that Iraq is not in a state of civil war. For a Senator with access to intelligence estimates to argue that terrorists are not the core problem in Iraq is utterly disingenuous. Al-Qaeda itself would soon demonstrate the fallacy of Senator Hagel’s opinion.

Today’s headline AP article “Al Qaeda-Linked Sunnis Claim Bombing” opened with this sentence:

An al Qaeda-linked group posted a Web statement today claiming responsibility for a suicide truck bombing that killed nine U.S. paratroopers and wounded 20 in the worst attack on American ground forces in Iraq in more than a year.

The fallen U.S. soldiers, all members of the Army 82nd Airborne Division, would certainly take issue with Hagel’s ill-informed dismissal of al Qaeda as a minor annoyance in Iraq, if they had not been killed by al Qaeda. This bombing illustrated a couple of important truths: first, Congressional “fact finding” trips never produce any facts, as they are carefully scripted and Congressmen take them to increase their own political stature rather than seeking any real understanding of core issues; second, like Iran’s constant destabilizing war on America via Iraq, al Qaeda is part of a massive effort by outside forces to foment turmoil and the spectre of Iraqi civil war. This is an organized propaganda campaign that Congressmen, with shallow understanding of the intelligence they are supposed to review, swallow hook, line, and sinker.

It is unfathomable that Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, could have come away from five trips to Iraq with the opinion that neighboring nations and terrorist networks are not the core problem in Iraq. Hagel fails to grasp the concept that Iran and al Qaeda, like China in Vietnam, are directly impacting the course of the war and America’s resolve to endure setbacks and casualties. Removing the weaponry, funding, and manpower injected into Iraq like a virus by Iran, Syria, and al Qaeda would afford Iraqis an opportunity to resolve cultural issues between Sunni and Shia in an environment without car bombs, IEDs, and snipers. It is the terrorists and outside interlopers that desperately want to prevent Iraqis from living together under an elected government. Stem the flow of destabilizing elements into Iraq, and the Iraqis will justify our faith in their commitment to freedom.

Intel "Experts" vs. Magic 8 Balls

Get out your Ouija boards, Tarot cards, Magic 8-Balls, and tea leaves, because with these you could predict with as much accuracy as any “expert” how long it will take for Iran to produce a functional nuclear weapon. The dynamics of the debate over Iran’s capabilities change from week to week. The divergent opinions of nuclear “experts” and intelligence agencies signal a frightening admission that when it comes to estimating when Iran will master the uranium enrichment and warhead production processes, the only certain thing is uncertainty.

In January I warned that America’s intelligence analysts were underestimating Iran’s determination and aggressive overtures to accomplice nations such as Russia, and North Korea. At that time, the consensus among intelligence analysts was that Iran could not construct a nuclear weapon earlier than 2015. On April 3rd I alerted readers that Iran’s unprecedented speed in building 3,000 centrifuges forced intelligence experts to revise earlier estimates and point to 2009 rather than 2015 as the year by which Iran would weaponize uranium. On April 10th I wrote about the revised revisions of WMD specialists alarmed by reports and video footage from within the Natanz nuclear facility south of Tehran. At that time “experts” warned that Iran, if all factors fell into place and centrifuge construction continued at a torrid pace, might produce sufficient enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon by the end of this year. Following this pattern, it would seem logical to predict that the next revised estimate might warn of Iran weaponizing uranium before Alex Rodriguez hits his 20th home run of this young season (he has hit 14 in 18 games in April thus far).

So much for patterns or analysts’ credibility! An esteemed British theoretical physics professor and Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, now agree that Iran is actually three or four years away from producing deployable weapons grade uranium. After interviewing Professor Norman Dombey, the UK Telegraph reported:

But the smallest particle of dust - even a fingerprint - can disrupt enrichment. Iran will have to spin all the centrifuges inside a vacuum without any interruption for a period of about one year.

If any machine breaks down - or if dust enters the system or if the power supply is lost - the process must halt and start again.

Prof Dombey estimates that Iran will need about two years simply to master the process of running centrifuges. Then, making allowances for interruptions caused by breakdowns, it could take another two years to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb.

The Telegraph article also asserted that even if Iran eventually masters the enrichment process, it will still be faced with the task of building a warhead and fitting it to a missile delivery system. I do not separate this task from the more complex enrichment problem. Iran’s role as provider of 20% of the world’s crude oil places it in a strong position to purchase warhead delivery missile technology from a number of willing nations already doing business in Iran. Iran need not “figure out” how to build the missiles. It can simply buy them and clear that hurdle while the centrifuges are spinning straw into gold, as it were.

Intelligence analysts have now changed their estimates to read quite differently than just two years ago. Then, the consensus was that Iran would not be capable of producing sufficient uranium for 10 years. Now, analysts no longer speculate about capability to produce. That has become, apparently, an accepted fact. Estimates now focus only on whether Iran will encounter technological glitches that will hamper production. The UN and the U.S. missed the opportunity to address Iran’s nuclear ambitions decisively before they moved from construction to production. Now our intelligence “experts” are counting on Iran’s centrifuges to break down or work less efficiently than planned to buy time for negotiations and sanctions. What these “experts” will not predict is how soon Iran will have sufficient enriched uranium if all the centrifuges operate perfectly, because they apparently refuse to believe in that possibility. According to Gary Samore, Vice President of the Council on Foreign Relations, "The belief in Western intelligence circles is that a large portion of these machines are likely to break if Iran attempts to operate them at high speeds necessary for enrichment."

Counting on machinery to malfunction is not a strategy that will keep nuclear arms out of the mullahs’ hands. Analysts are uncertain how well the centrifuges were constructed. They are uncertain whether the machinery will withstand the rigors of high enrichment. They are uncertain how many centrifuges have been or are currently being constructed in facilities other than Natanz. They are uncertain what technological and material assistance has been provided by nations with valuable investments in Iran, such as China and Russia. They are uncertain how many years (or is it months?) it will take for Iran to enrich weaponized uranium.

The only factor of which analysts are certain is that the mullahs will do and say anything to buy time for their ultimate goal: Annihilating Israel and wielding nuclear weapons over cowering Middle East and Europe populations. Perhaps our policies toward Iran should operate on that premise rather than on psychics, palm readers, or nuclear intelligence “experts”, all of whom seem to be equally reliable sources when making important strategic decisions.

Iran's Bribery Worse Than Bombs

Iran is at war with the United States, allied forces, and the Iraqi government. What other appropriate term could be applied when a nation funds, trains, equips, and transports terrorist insurgents into Iraq to wage war against U.S. and allied troops? How could it be considered anything short of war when a nation seizes 15 members of an allied naval crew well within Iraqi sovereign territorial waters and holds them hostage? Does a nation engage in an act of war against the entire world when it dismissively ignores UN WMD non-proliferation policies and sanctions by blindly pursuing production of nuclear weapons? Is it not war when one nation blatantly bribes elected officials of another nation with the expressed intention of destroying a democratically elected government before it can adequately defend itself?

When taken in the aggregate, all of these behaviors by the current Iranian regime constitute an undeclared, but all too real war against America, Iraq, and those who fight for the democratically elected Iraqi government. The last of the insidiously aggressive acts listed above was exposed today in an exclusive article by New York Sun reporter Eli Lake, submitted from Baghdad. War critics like to evoke emotion and false imagery by using terms such as “quagmire” and “civil war” to describe the war in Iraq and why we should abandon it. These politically opportunistic terms, however, were discredited by a courageous member of Iraq’s democratically elected parliament, Mithal al-Alusi.

Al-Alusi, a father of two sons killed by terrorists in Iraq in 2005, went on record with Lake to explain the intimate inner conflicts occurring in Iraq, and to identify a major contributor to the unrest in Iraq: Iran. American officials have long complained of Iranian interference in Iraq, most notably through pouring funds, arms, and terrorists into Iraq. Al-Alusi, however, specifically identified a high level Iranian diplomat engaged in a less explosive, but no less lethal, effort to undermine the Iraqi government.

According to al-Alusi, Iran’s Ambassador to Iraq, Hassam Kazemi Qomi, offered him large sums of cash through an intermediary and invited al-Alusi to visit Tehran and meet with President Ahmadinejad and the ruling mullahs. Al-Alusi told Lake that such offers have been made to most of the members of the Iraqi parliament, but he was the first elected official to speak publicly about Iran’s effort to destroy the fledgling democracy or so thoroughly corrupt it through bribery that it would function as an Iranian puppet. From the NY Sun exclusive:

The fact that Iran would be interested in buying Mr. al-Alusi and his single vote in parliament is in itself a sign of both this politician's growing appeal to Iraqis and the Iranian strategy to diversify their influence to include politicians outside the Shiite bloc of religious parties that wield a narrow majority in the parliament.

Mr. al-Alusi said yesterday that he believed the soft influence of Iranians through bribes and economic leverage is even more dangerous than the role the Islamic Republic plays in facilitating and supporting the terrorists here.

And in this respect Mr. al-Alusi is not alone. A senior Iraqi minister here last week, who asked to speak anonymously, said that it is well known that Iranians are paying off both Sunni and Shiite legislators. "Any Iraqi who takes this money should be ashamed, but many are taking it," the minister said.

War critics have repeatedly expressed “no confidence votes” against President Bush and the Iraqi government, and have stated their belief that the Iraqis are incapable of sustaining a democracy. If decisive actions are not taken against Iranian interference in Iraq, these critics will be proven right but not because Iraqis were incapable. The Iraqi democracy will dissolve due to Iran’s overt and, until now, covert warfare against it. It has become clear that victory in Iraq cannot be achieved without some form of decisive containment of Iran’s aggressive actions in Iraq.

Brave parliamentarians such as al-Alusi are a rarity, and many will take the money offered by Tehran. America must not allow this Middle Eastern democracy, purchased as it was with American, allied, and Iraqi blood, to devolve into an Iranian puppet purchased by high level diplomatic bribery. Congress incessantly complains about “special interest groups” wielding too much influence on government. Now it must take action to protect the Iraqi government from Iran, the world’s most prolific terrorist special interest group.