US Al Qaeda Reality Hits Dems on NSA Bill

Is there anyone in the American intelligence community who does not think there are al Qaeda and other terrorist cells organizing and operating in the United States? Since 9/11, hasn't this been the single greatest suspicion among Americans? The fear of such cells lurking in America's shadows was sufficient to prompt a Time magazine cover dedicated to it in August 2004. In my career, especially since 9/11, my employer has wisely worked under the assumption that there are active terror cells in America, and we have worked closely with other government agencies to develop counterterrorism programs and security planning reflecting that belief. Perhaps because of this long held position in my workplace, it amazes me that news headlines like “Al Qaeda Cell May Be Loose in U.S.” are met with shock, fear, or even surprise by readers. That headline, from today’s New York Sun, frankly tells Americans nothing that should cause surprise, particularly to anyone who even remotely follows trends and developments in the War on Terror.

I do not mean to single out the New York Sun or the author of the above-mentioned article, Eli Lake, for criticism. The Sun and Lake in particular, have been referred to and frequently praised by Capital Cloak for fine coverage of the War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Lake in this article was merely reporting what one of his reliable Washington sources told him about new evidence that al Qaeda had been in contact electronically with sympathizers or potential operatives inside the United States. Lake reported, in part, as follows:

E-mail addresses for American individuals were found on the same password-protected e-mail chains used by the United Kingdom plotters to communicate with Qaeda handlers in Europe, a counterterrorism official told The New York Sun yesterday. The American and German intelligence community now believe the secure e-mail chains used in the United Kingdom plot have provided a window into an operational Qaeda network in several countries.

"Because of the London and Glasgow plot, we now know communications have been made from Al Qaeda to operatives in the United States," the counterterrorism official said on condition of anonymity. "This plot helps to connect a lot of stuff. We have seen money moving a lot through hawala networks and other illicit finance as well." But this source was careful to say that at this point no specific information, such as names, targets or a timeline, was known about any particular plot on American soil. The e-mail addresses that are linked to Americans were pseudonyms.

Lake’s report is important not for the fact that it appears to confirm the presence of al Qaeda cells in America, something that virtually everyone in the intelligence community has assumed for years. What makes Lake’s information important is its timing. Over the weekend, as the most significant final pre-recess action taken by Congress, the House and Senate approved a bill strengthening and expanding government authorization to monitor international telephone and electronic communications without a warrant between Americans and foreign suspects.

These are the same Democrat-controlled House and Senate bodies that have relentlessly and obviously disingenuously accused the White House of abusing the NSA’s warrantless domestic surveillance program. There have been hearings, misrepresentations of the Bush administration’s motives, and cries of violations of civil liberties from the left since the program was leaked to and eagerly exposed by the New York Times. Now it appears that the intelligence gleaned from the thwarted London and Glasgow plots in July was sufficient to convince the virulent leaders of the anti-Bush Congress, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, that all those warnings about potential terrorist cells in America were not merely presidential bluster.

Neither House nor Senate Democrats were personally pleased to pass this expanded surveillance powers legislation, and they continue to grumble about it in the media. After all, it was Pelosi who stated in January 2006 that, “I would not want any president — Democrat or Republican — to have the expanded power the administration is claiming in this case.” Yet now, when faced with the reality of actual email evidence of al Qaeda cells receiving communications from the bomb plotters in London, even the liberal left wing in Congress realized the surveillance was distasteful to them but ultimately necessary for survival.

As a safety net for the Democrats, the powers authorized in the bill were extended only for a six month period, in which we can expect rancorous debate over domestic surveillance, further accusations that the president is abusing civil liberties, and likely revisions of certain aspects of the bill. That six month period also indicates, however, that Congress felt the threat to the homeland was sufficiently grave in the next six months to merit special preventive measures. That fact, in and of itself, is telling.

The following is an excerpt from the New York Times’ description of the new legislation approved Saturday night by Congress and signed into law yesterday by President Bush:

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.

They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.

“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.

Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the surveillance inside the United States.

Today, most international telephone conversations to and from the United States are conducted over fiber-optic cables, and the most efficient way for the government to eavesdrop on them is to latch on to giant telecommunications switches located in the United States.

By changing the legal definition of what is considered “electronic surveillance,” the new law allows the government to eavesdrop on those conversations without warrants — latching on to those giant switches — as long as the target of the government’s surveillance is “reasonably believed” to be overseas.

This change was necessary because much of the infrastructure of the world’s largest telecommunications companies is housed in the United States, particularly the switch and server backbone that powers the Internet globally. The vast majority of the world’s email, even point to point between foreign countries, passes through servers located in America. In all respects, the bill was a necessary and prudent expansion of government surveillance powers to monitor international communications, and regardless of their motives or their half-hearted passage of the measures, Congressional Democrats should be applauded for doing the right thing to protect Americans by coming to terms with President Bush on this issue, even if it is only a temporary fix.

While no one in the intelligence community was surprised at the report of email communications between European al Qaeda and American operatives, it provided a wake up call to Congress that the War on Terror and the threat of attacks in the United States, are not merely “bumper sticker” slogans of the Bush administration. There were active al Qaeda cells in America more than one year prior to 9/11, and it is logical to conclude that there were others at that time and now who merely await activation and instructions from leadership. The activation and instructions will likely come in some form of long distance communication; email, telephone, instant messenger, or similar. Thanks to the president’s vigilant insistence on the power to monitor such communication and Congress’s reluctant cooperation, our chances of intercepting key messages have increased, and that makes America safer than it was just last week prior to this legislation.

It should be remembered that these expanded surveillance powers will not necessarily prevent any plans that have already reached the execution phase with a predetermined date or time, but they will prove crucial to detecting developing plots and in identifying suspected cell members.

It was not surprising to read of communications between al Qaeda and its operatives in America. The real surprise was that Congressional Democrats took so long to realize the importance of the government surveillance program in protecting America from attack. When the president’s critics do the right thing, even grudgingly, for national security, we all benefit.

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Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in America, FISA, NSA, Wiretap, Electronic Surveillance, Terrorist Cells, Bush Administration, Email monitoring

Reid, Pelosi Lack Al-Maliki's Faith, Spine

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are, in a politically correct euphemism, “diplomatically challenged.” This condition has manifested itself through various symptoms over the past six months, including Pelosi’s unconstitutional and borderline treasonous “diplomatic” visit to Syria, Harry Reid’s declaration to the world and the enemy that “the war is lost” in Iraq, and their newest premature and impatient judgment that the surge strategy currently underway in Iraq is a failure, giving even more encouragement to the enemy attempting to destroy Iraq’s democratically elected government. Despite the pleading of Iraq’s parliamentary leaders and Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki for the U.S. to remain steadfast in its defense of the Iraqi democracy, the pleas have fallen on Reid’s and Pelosi’s deaf ears, blind eyes, and cold hearts, resulting in an international cold shoulder that is the antithesis of responsible diplomacy.

Never mind the fact that Reid and Pelosi have judged the surge a failure 3 months in advance of the scheduled progress report to be delivered by General Petraeus in September. Never mind the fact that Petraeus’ current summaries reveal significant reductions in violence and increased rebuilding in the Anbar province. Reid and Pelosi remind me of a line from the George Banks character in Disney’s Mary Poppins. While in a particularly irritable mood, Banks sits down at the piano in his home, plays one note, and promptly judges that the piano is out of tune. He then chastens his incredibly patient wife for allowing the piano to have become out of tune. He states to her, “When I sit down to an instrument, I expect it be in tune.” Mrs. Banks points out, “But dear, you don’t play.” George Banks, in classic Reid/Pelosi mentality, shouts in response, “Madam that is entirely beside the point. Kindly do not cloud the issue with facts!”

What are the facts on progress in Iraq and the effectiveness of the surge strategy? General Petraeus stated that the results thus far have been mixed, with “breathtaking” achievements in some provinces, but increased violence in others. Reid and Pelosi do want their issues clouded with facts, and so they choose to ignore Petraeus’s explanation that the surge strategy itself draws more terrorists and insurgents into confrontation, and this naturally produces statistical increases in casualties on both sides in the short term. They also choose to ignore Petraeus’s reports that the Iraqi Army has increased its enrollment by 20,000 men so far this year and it continues to grow steadily. It now stands at approximately 120,000-150,000 and is becoming better trained, better equipped, and more capable with each passing month. More importantly, residents in some provinces, Sunni and Shia, have risen to take up arms against al Qaeda, recognizing the terrorist group as their common enemy. The result has been a complete retreat of al Qaeda from those provinces. These are the facts of the surge strategy thus far, but Reid and Pelosi want no silver linings found in their clouds. From a letter to the White House written jointly by Reid and Pelosi:

"As many had foreseen, the escalation has failed to produce the intended results," the two leaders wrote.

"The increase in US forces has had little impact in curbing the violence or fostering political reconciliation.

"It has not enhanced America’s national security. The unsettling reality is that instances of violence against Iraqis remain high and attacks on US forces have increased.

The defeatist attitudes displayed by our Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House are in starkly embarrassing contrast with the optimism and faith in democracy displayed by Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. I have recently been reading Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches, particularly those speeches he delivered personally or via radio to the citizens and government of the United States from 1940 until the attack on Pearl Harbor. In every speech he patiently and graciously attempted to convince the American people that their interests were tied to Britain’s and to join directly in the battle to preserve freedom in Europe rather than remain entrenched in isolationism. The tone of those speeches, in trying to convince America to join a war that would surely engulf it eventually, was eerily reminiscent of Prime Minister Al-Maliki’s current pleas for America to stand firmly by its new democratic ally in a war for freedom already in progress.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal contained a column penned by Prime Minister Al-Maliki entitled, “Our Common Struggle,” in which the Iraqi leader offered an eloquent appeal for America’s steadfastness and patience, lacing his arguments with historical precedent and providing an internal audit of the current conditions in Iraq. It should be required reading for all members of Congress, all members of the media, and all Americans who insist that Iraq is a “quagmire,” “failure,” or that “the war is lost.”

Here are some of the highlights from the Prime Minister’s OpinionJournal piece, but I recommend reading it in its entirety:

Under the Baath [Saddam] tyranny, Iraqis were to endure a brutal regime the likes of which they had never known before. Countless people were put to death on the smallest measure of suspicion. Wars were waged by that regime and our national treasure was squandered without the consent of a population that was herded into costly and brutal military campaigns. Today when I hear the continuous American debate about the struggle raging in Iraq, I can only recall with great sorrow the silence which attended the former dictator's wars.

It is perhaps true that only people who are denied the gift of liberty can truly appreciate its full meaning and bounty....

….War being what it is, the images of Iraq that come America's way are of car bombs and daily explosions. Missing from the coverage are the great, subtle changes our country is undergoing, the birth of new national ideas and values which will in the end impose themselves despite the death and destruction that the terrorists have been hell-bent on inflicting on us. Those who endured the brutality of the former regime, those who saw the outside world avert its gaze from their troubles, know the magnitude of the change that has come to Iraq. A fundamental struggle is being fought on Iraqi soil between those who believe that Iraqis, after a long nightmare, can retrieve their dignity and freedom, and others who think that oppression is the order of things and that Iraqis are doomed to a political culture of terror, prisons and mass graves. Some of our neighbors have made this struggle more lethal still, they have placed their bets on the forces of terror in pursuit of their own interests.

When I became prime minister a year and a half ago, my appointment emerged out of a political process unique in our neighborhood: Some 12 million voters took part in our parliamentary elections. They gave voice to their belief in freedom and open politics and their trust imposed heavy burdens on all of us in political life. Our enemies grew determined to drown that political process in indiscriminate violence, to divert attention from the spectacle of old men and women casting their vote, for the first time, to choose those who would govern in their name. You may take this right for granted in America, but for us this was a tantalizing dream during the decades of dictatorship and repression.

….Iraq is well on its way to passing a new oil law that would divide the national treasure among our provinces and cities, based on their share of the population. This was intended to reassure those provinces without oil that they will not be left behind and consigned to poverty. The goal is to repair our oil sector, open the door for new investments and raise the standard of living of Iraqi families. Our national budget this year is the largest in Iraq's history, its bulk dedicated to our most neglected provinces and to improving the service sector in the country as a whole. Our path has been made difficult by the saboteurs and the terrorists who target our infrastructure and our people, but we have persevered, even though our progress has been obscured by the scenes of death and destruction.

Daily we still fight the battle for our security. We lose policemen and soldiers to the violence, as do the multinational forces fighting along our side. We are training and equipping a modern force, a truly national and neutral force, aided by our allies. This is against the stream of history here, where the armed forces have traditionally been drawn into political conflicts and struggles. What gives us sustenance and hope is an increase in the numbers of those who volunteer for our armed forces, which we see as proof of the devotion of our people to the stability and success of our national government.

We have entered into a war, I want it known, against militias that had preyed upon the weakness of the national government….We believe that the best way to defeat these militias is to build and enhance the capabilities of our government as a defender of the rights of our citizens. A stable government cannot coexist with these militias.

Our conflict, it should be emphasized time and again, has been fueled by regional powers that have reached into our affairs....

…We have come to believe, as Americans who founded your country once believed, that freedom is a precious inheritance. It is never cheap but the price is worth paying if we are to rescue our country.

“The war is lost,” “failure,” “little impact,” “has not enhanced.” Reid and Pelosi could use optimism and spine transplants. Iraq’s Prime Minister would be a highly appropriate donor.

Technorati:
Nouri Al-Maliki Harry Reid Nancy Pelosi Iraq War Troop Surge Diplomacy Iraqi Democracy Quagmire David Petraeus Rebuilding Iraq

Reid & Pelosi Ignore Allies on Timetable

The irony of the day award belongs to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Congressional Democrats who refuse to meet with President Bush to discuss the Iraq War funding bill. The irony lies in the fact that the Democrats have thus far refused to present President Bush with a “clean bill” that does not set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. Troops from Iraq, while at the same time the heads of state in Iraq and Jordan are urging the U.S. not to abandon Iraq prematurely or set timetables for withdrawal. Apparently the Democrats' "alternative foreign policy" mandates that traveling to and counseling with Syria and Iran (terror sponsors extraordinaire) is good, but listening to Jordan (an ally) and Iraq (democratically elected Prime Minister and ally) is bad.

President Bush is often vilified by the left for his “unilateral” decision to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein, and for ignoring French and German leaders who opposed military action in Iraq. This “cowboy diplomacy,” the left claims, hurt America’s image among Europeans and, to use a Kerry-ism, made America “an international pariah.” In an effort to address this criticism of his political personality, President Bush has frequently engaged Iraqi leaders and solicited their opinions as well as those of regional heads of state (except for Syria and Iran, who are waging war on the U.S. within Iraq). In these open discussions with world leaders, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a much better view of what is occurring in his country than Democratic Congressmen, has advised President Bush since last October not to set timetables for withdrawal.

The King of Jordan, Abdullah II, echoed this sentiment, warning America that early withdrawal from Iraq and setting timetables “without preparing the necessary conditions that would ensure a strong central government able to run the affairs of the state and an Iraqi force able to ensure security and stability, may only worsen the problem and contribute to increasing violence and conflict among Iraqis.”

Prime Minister al-Maliki, clearly frustrated by the timetable issue, stated that a timetable was not necessary because his government “is working as fast as we can.” The impatience for Iraqi progress displayed by the Democratic Congress has been shameful. In reality, the Democrats are attempting to set a timetable for a sovereign foreign democracy that we have committed to preserving until its government can fully defend itself to achieve self-reliance.

The timetable issue is a prime example of President Bush being “darned if he does and darned if he doesn’t” when it comes to counseling with world leaders. When he counseled too little with Europe before Operation Iraqi Freedom, he was roundly criticized as a “cowboy.” When he counsels now with Middle Eastern leaders who oppose a timetable, Harry Reid and Congressional Democrats refuse to meet with him unless he accepts their imposed timetable regardless of the fact that Iraqi and Jordanian leaders advise against it.

As Americans, our commitment to defending democracies should be open-ended. It has been with Israel, another Middle Eastern democracy, so why are the Democrats so eager to shorten or completely end our commitment to Iraq? Is it because it is a Muslim democracy and Democrats do not believe Muslims capable of living within a democratic society? If it is not the soft bigotry of low expectations, what fuels the maniacal timetable frenzy? We committed to defending European democracies imperiled by Nazi fascists in WWII, but for some reason Democrats refuse to commit to defending a Muslim democracy from Islamic Fascists sworn to quench the flame of freedom in the Middle East.

Imagine if after Hurricane Katrina a foreign nation provided thousands of men and heavy machinery to rebuild the city along with New Orleans residents, but after a few years the foreign nation’s leaders decided that since the local residents were not rebuilding fast enough, the reconstruction was no longer worthwhile and imposed a timetable on the storm ravaged citizens of New Orleans or help would be withdrawn because of the high violent crime rate. What was once a compassionate and generous offer of mutual assistance would have become the stick in a carrot and stick approach to diplomacy. Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi have been holding that proverbial stick over free Iraqis for selfish personal political motives.

The mixed messages sent by Democrats on this issue would confuse any president. Should he listen to the counsel of world leaders or not? The President is right to reject any attempt to include a timetable for withdrawal in the war funding bill. Perhaps if Speaker “For Assad’s House” Pelosi visits the Middle East again, she should take Senator Reid along and together they could look Prime Minister al-Maliki in the eye and tell him they just do not believe Iraqis will ever be capable of sustaining a democracy and are thus not worth defending. Then they could jet to Amman and explain to King Abdullah II that they know better than he does and he is wrong about timetables and their influence on a war being waged across his border.

The left claims that President Bush is arrogant, but the Democrats’ efforts to micromanage the war, impatiently criticize Iraq’s courageous and fledgling government, and conduct their own foreign policy have set a new standard of arrogance.

INP/AFP Joint Op Nets Terrorists in Indonesia: World's Largest Muslim Nation Proves Moderate Islamic Democracy Successful

A significant event in the War on Terror occurred in Java, Indonesia last week, and was publicly reported for the first time today. As reported in The Australian, late last week a joint operation between Indonesian and Australian police resulted in the arrests of 7 members of the terrorist group Jammah Islamiah (JL) in Java. An eighth member of the group was shot and killed during the police raid. According to Australian Federal Police (AFP) officials, the terrorists were in the advanced stages of preparing a bombing campaign estimated to be twice the size of the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people, mostly tourists. The AFP’s interest in the JL terrorists stemmed from the fact that 88 Australians died in the Bali bombings.

According to Indonesian National Police (INP) and AFP officials quoted in The Australian, the raid netted the following seizures: 20 completed bombs; 1,606 pounds of explosive materials; 99 pounds of TNT; nearly 200 detonators; 1,000+ rounds of ammunition; and a cache of weapons.

The INP and AFP have successfully disrupted this future attack which was in the advanced planning stages and that in and of itself is a significant achievement worthy of accolade. However, this counterterrorism operation, for all its intrinsic results, symbolizes an incredibly important truth that radical Islamic terrorists worldwide, and America’s current anti-Iraq War Democratic Party, do not want to hear: Muslim populations can and have embraced democracy and joined with other democracies to root terrorism out of their midst. Opponents of the Iraq War, who claim that attempting to establish democracy in an Islamic Middle Eastern nation is foolish and doomed to failure, argue that position out of historical ignorance. Although not a Middle Eastern nation, Indonesia is a success story that should be closely examined before making a determination that Muslim societies do not want democracy or freedom.

Indonesia, with a population of 245 million (2006 statistics), is the world’s largest Muslim nation. Freed from Japanese control after WWII, Indonesia experienced nearly 50 years of authoritarian Islamic rule until 2005. In that year, in an effort to establish democracy, Indonesia reached an internal peace agreement with armed separatists who preferred the controlling dominance of radical Islam to freedom and modernization (parallel with Iraqi insurgents?), which led to democratic elections in December 2006. Indonesia is now governed by an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch, and is committed to combating radical Islamic terrorism, which continues to pose a threat to the democratically elected government.

Democrats in Congress incessantly complain that the Iraqi police are not doing enough to root out terrorists and that the Iraqi military has not achieved sustained viability as quickly as we had hoped, but such expectations are unrealistic and should not be shaped by short-sighted short term measures of success. It took Indonesia nearly 50 years of internal government evolution, but the people eventually demanded and established democratic elections and three branches of government to share power. The suppression of radical Islamic separatists was also required to achieve democracy. It should not be forgotten that our forces in Iraq are working to do just that, in conjunction with the Iraqi military and police forces.

Because of its location and more isolated archipelago geography, Indonesia did not suffer from significant infiltration by or interference from neighboring nations as its democracy took shape and blossomed. Iraq, of course, is surrounded by other Islamic nations, mainly radical Islamic nations like Iran and Syria that share borders with Iraq but do not share the desire for freedom and democracy for their people. Sheer proximity to and access from interfering radical Islamic nations ensures that Iraq’s road to stability and the survival of its democracy will be more difficult than Indonesia’s, but the bigoted notion that Muslim populations do not want democracy is an anti-war myth. An even larger myth is that negotiating with Iran and Syria will bring peace to Iraq. Yet that is precisely what Speaker Pelosi did this week during her visit to the Middle East, which was actually an end-run around the constitutional authority of the President to conduct foreign policy. Watching Speaker Pelosi walking through marketplaces in Damascus wearing a traditional head covering required of females by the fundamentalist brand of Islamic Sharia, I could not help but chuckle at the irony that the Speaker would rather submit to second-class treatment for women and negotiate with terrorist governments than support democratization and modernization of formerly fundamentalist Iraq. The highest ranking woman in the history of American politics covered her head in respect for radical Islam while disrespecting our Constitution by conducting "alternative Democratic foreign policy" with a government designated by our State Department to be a state sponsor of terrorism.

The raid and arrests of JL terrorists last week in Java demonstrated that the largest Muslim nation on earth is working actively to eliminate terrorists residing, planning, and operating within its borders. They also demonstrated that the world’s largest Muslim nation works willingly and well with non-Muslim nations, in this case Australia, to avert disastrous attacks outside of its borders. In other words, the world’s largest Muslim nation is doing what America’s anti-war Democrats and even some Republicans (Chuck Hagel) have declared an impossibility: Successfully meshing Islamic tradition and belief with a modern democracy and economy as a responsible member of the global community of free nations. Refusing to believe that Iraq can achieve similar successes, with vast natural resources and a strategic geographical position, smacks of the “soft bigotry of low expectations” President Bush has warned America not to accept.

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, in the epilogue to his enlightening book My FBI: Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror, wrote a terrific summary of why radical Islamic terrorists hate America and why American-Iraqi victory in Iraq is critical to the future not just of Iraq but all other nations in which radical Islam quashes liberty and the advance of human freedom. I quote Freeh here at length, and encourage readers to compare his analysis with the incessant sound bites from Democrats about “redeployment,” “changing course in Iraq,” “bringing the troops home quickly,” and “our troops should not be caught in the middle of a ‘civil war’”:

We need to remember, too, that an idea can be more powerful than an entire arsenal of missiles and bombs. The terrorist brief against the United States includes our superpower status and our determination to continue guaranteeing the presence of a Jewish state in Israel, but that the terrorists really hate is America’s diversity and its traditions of individual liberty. They are violently opposed to free ideas, to freedom of religion, to free markets and freedom for women. Worse, and what makes their acts increasingly desperate, they know that they are on the wrong side of history. From Athens to the Covenant of Abraham, from the Magna Carta to the Warsaw Uprising, men and women have shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that they want to be free; and increasingly, they are acting on that desire.

Today, the authoritarians who hold power in Damascus and Tehran are more threatened by the nascent democracy taking root next door in Iraq than they are by any army, however powerful. With its restive, youthful, Web-based population, Iran is virtually certain in my mind to overthrow its fundamentalist mullahs within a decade. Millions of Iranians will soon be free, and great Iranian-American patriots like my good friend Nasser Kazeminy will have served the cause of peaceful democratic transition. Likewise, the fascists running Damascus have to be more preoccupied with their own exit strategies than they are with clinging to the levers of power.

In their place, I’m convinced, self-government will rise-flawed at first, as new systems are always flawed, but powerful all the same. Indonesia is living proof that a largely Muslim nation can establish a working democracy. (Any suggestion to the contrary is pure prejudice.) That and Turkey will be the model of the future for the Islamic worlds, not Iran and Syria. And a democracy takes root and grows, conflict will die down and terrorism abates because that is an odd feature about true self-government. Nations that practice it, ones that aren’t in the grip of authoritarians, of dictators, of theocratic zealots rarely, if ever, wage war on or seek to destabilize one another. Millions of newly freed people will demand free markets, enterprise, and opportunity, and then rule of law, once established in the Middle East, will work the same revolution there that it did in the 1960s in the American South, when tiny group of federal judges had the courage to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment to our Constitution.

Indonesia is currently experiencing much of what Freeh described, and its willingness to raid terrorist hideouts and assist other democracies is further proof that the vision President Bush has for Iraq is not a noble but misguided policy, as Democrats have portrayed it. His vision has already been proven successful in a much larger nation than Iraq, yet because it has not happened quickly enough for the impatient sound bite media Democrats, they are now conducting separate negotiations with official state sponsors of terrorism (Syria) and are loudly calling for the abandonment Iraq’s fledgling democracy while it faces constant destructive interference from Iran and Syria. 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.

Either explanation is reprehensible, but there are no others. If their claim that the war has been mismanaged is sincere, then they should be proposing more effective methods and strategies for winning, not ending, the war for Iraqi freedom. Their arguments and attempts to usurp President Bush’s war powers clearly indicate that Iraqi freedom is not the Democrats’ goal. Better to win the war and keep Iraqis free than spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours posturing over pre-war intelligence and whether Saddam had WMD. There will be ample time for such debates and hearings after the war has been won and a stable, self-sustaining Iraqi democracy is controlling its own destiny.

As the INP-AFP joint investigation of JL terrorists in Java, demonstrated, responsible democratic Muslim nations can play a key role in identifying terrorists who need safe haven in which to hide and plan future attacks. When these safe havens determine for themselves, as Indonesia did, that they do not accept radial Islamic terrorists in their midst, finding and eliminating fugitive and unprotected terrorists will become a more manageable proposition. Australians owe the INP a debt of gratitude for capturing the terrorists before they could kill more Australian tourists. The world’s democracies should thank Indonesia for providing an encouraging example of Muslim democratic success when small minded people had declared such success impossible or not worth supporting.

Pelosi Alternative Foreign Policy Powers, Monster Bunnies, Cloaking Devices, and Other Fictions

The world we live in today has never been more bizarre or more dangerous. Each new day brings evidence of this as reported through global media sources. How adept are you at identifying fact from fiction among news headlines?

The following are headlines that may or may not have appeared in the news today. All are actual headlines, except for one. Try to identify which of the headlines is fictional without clicking any links:

#1 Woman Dropped on Head Alleges 'Negligent Dancing'

#2 Theoretical Cloaking Device is Created

#3 French Train Smashes World Speed Record

#4 Bin Laden Hunters Abandon Psychics

#5 Exclusive: Iran Nuclear Bomb Could Be Possible by 2009

#6 No More Monster Bunnies for North Korea

#7 Grieving Couple Commits Suicide After Dog Dies

#8 Democrats Playing with Fire

#9 No Chatter, Chatter! New Rule Silences Baseball Tradition

#10 41-Year-Old Virgin Spends $40,000 To Find A Mate

Now that you have read the headlines and made your guess as to which one is fake, it is time to reveal the answer. Monty Python’s Holy Grail fans would never question the reality of monster bunnies, thus they will believe #6 must be true. Franco-phobes will never believe France capable of anything more technologically advanced than brie, and will select #3 as the fake. Trekkies have always insisted that cloaking devices would one day be fact rather than science fiction, thus they likely disobeyed the instructions above, clicked on the link, and are scouring the Internet for all references to cloaking devices. Hopefully they will return here to finish this post! Intelligence analysts, who have insisted since 2005 that Iran could not develop a nuclear bomb earlier than 2015, undoubtedly will look at this list of headlines and choose #5 as the obvious fake. How is one to choose from among such preposterous headlines?

The answer is that all of the headlines above appeared in today’s news. Some of them are quite interesting and amusing, but two stand out as very significant, and they are interrelated: #5 and #8.

In January I wrote that American intelligence analysts consistently underestimate the capability for rapid technological advancement by other nations, specifically China, North Korea, and Iran. When that post was written, China had just successfully tested an anti-satellite missile several years sooner than our intelligence analysts had previously estimated. Citing that example, I warned that the 10 year estimate for Iran to develop nuclear weapons should be reevaluated and that Iran’s determination not be discounted. ABC’s “The Blotter” reported today that some intelligence sources are now concerned and even “caught off guard” by information indicating that Iran may be capable of generating enough uranium to produce a nuclear weapon by 2009, not 2015.

Change is inevitable in intelligence, and with a regime as closed off from western influence as the Mullahs it is no simple matter to estimate its capabilities. Yet in three months, some analysts have shaved 6 years off of their earlier predictions, which is a significant change. According to “The Blotter”:

Iran has more than tripled its ability to produce enriched uranium in the last three months, adding some 1,000 centrifuges which are used to separate radioactive particles from the raw material.

The development means Iran could have enough material for a nuclear bomb by 2009, sources familiar with the dramatic upgrade tell ABC News. . . .

The addition of 1,000 new centrifuges, which are not yet operational, means Iran is expanding its enrichment program at a pace much faster than U.S. intelligence experts had predicted.

"If they continue at this pace, and they get the centrifuges to work and actually enrich uranium on a distinct basis," said David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security, "then you're looking at them having, potentially having enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 2009."

Previous predictions by U.S. intelligence had cited 2015 as the earliest date Iran could develop a weapon.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has publicly predicted his country would have 3,000 centrifuges installed by this May, but few in the West gave his claim much credence, until now.

"I think we have all been caught off guard. Ahmadinejad said they would have these 3,000 installed by the end of May, and it appears they may actually do it," Albright said.

Now, as Iran continues to hold 15 British sailors hostage, continues to fund, train, and supply terrorists infiltrating Iraq, and is sprinting toward enriching enough uranium for nuclear weapons, unity among our elected officials and a shared resolve to meet and defeat this enemy are needed more than ever. Which brings us to the other truly serious headline from our list, “Democrats Playing With Fire.” In that article, the always enlightening Thomas Sowell examined the potential damage that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her entourage are inflicting on American foreign policy by traveling throughout the Middle East this week independently meeting with leaders such as Syrian President Assad despite vocal objections from the White House.

As Sowell pointed out, Speaker Pelosi is not the Secretary of State or the President, the two positions through which America’s official foreign policies are declared to the world in a one voice policy (for another example of a government one voice policy, click here). The President is America’s mouthpiece to the world. He represents America when he meets with foreign leaders, or he designates someone to represent America in his stead, traditionally the Vice President or Secretary of State.

Speakers of the House or Senate Majority Leaders represent their constituents and are Congress’ mouthpieces to America. They are not officially authorized to represent America to foreign leaders. Yet Speaker Pelosi is attempting to usurp presidential constitutional authority and makes no secret of that motive behind her Middle East tour. As Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), who is accompanying the Speaker stated, as reported in the Speaker’s hometown newspaper:

We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy. I view my job as beginning with restoring overseas credibility and respect for the United States.

That same newspaper astutely reported precisely what Speaker Pelosi hopes to accomplish with her self-appointed diplomatic mission:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's arrival in Syria tonight is widely viewed in Washington as a bold end run around President Bush, raising her profile as a kind of Democratic prime minister to Bush's Republican presidency.

Sowell responded to this usurpation very concisely:

Democrats can have any foreign policy they want -- if and when they are elected to the White House.

Until Nancy Pelosi came along, it was understood by all that we had only one president at a time and -- like him or not -- he alone had the Constitutional authority to speak for this country to foreign nations, especially in wartime.

All that Pelosi's trip can accomplish is to advertise American disunity to a terrorist-sponsoring nation in the Middle East while we are in a war there. That in turn can only embolden the Syrians to exploit the lack of unified resolve in Washington by stepping up their efforts to destabilize Iraq and the Middle East in general.

It is clear that while intelligence analysts have underestimated Iran, Democrats have overestimated the mandate they believe they were given through their slim electoral victory in Congress last November. Instead of acting as a “shadow government” and performing foreign policy and military strategy end-runs around our elected President, Congressional Democrats should remember that Syria is on the State Department list of terrorism sponsors and the official American foreign policy toward Assad has been and should continue to be isolation rather than legitimization.

If Speaker Pelosi wants so desperately to formulate and represent American foreign policy, then she should throw her hat into the ring for 2008 and earn the job through election rather than trampling the constitution. In America, the executive branch conducts foreign policy. There is no legal basis for “an alternative Democratic foreign policy.” America has one voice when it speaks to foreign nations, and that voice, until the next inauguration day, belongs to George W. Bush.

Which is more ridiculous, monster bunnies, cloaking devices, or Pelosi foreign policy? At least the other headlines provided humor rather than anxiety. Perhaps analysts’ estimates underestimate how long it will take to develop the cloaking device, and in the near future the Speaker could wear one to all meetings between the President and foreign heads of state, keeping her unseen and unheard. Having demonstrated a fondness for shadow governments, she should embrace the cloak wholeheartedly.

Ann Coulter's CPAC Remark: Room in Politics for "Loving the Sinner, but not the Sin?"

Is it possible in today’s instant-media politics to “love the sinner but not the sin?” At what point does a person’s worth become synonymous with his/her actions or words, especially if those actions or words become a political liability for anyone considered a friend or supporter? In today’s politics it seems that members of both political parties routinely rush to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater whenever someone speaks frankly but perhaps with little tact. Influential organizations, with media complicity, demand that politicians not only distance themselves from “inflammatory” or “intolerant” statements made by others, but they are further urged to personally condemn or malign the person who made the comments. In effect, political correctness today demands nothing less than a complete shunning of anyone whose friendship or support could be viewed as political baggage. Ambition trumps friendship, and popularity eschews loyalty.

Recent examples of this phenomenon illustrate the political danger presidential candidates face when someone they know and have publicly associated with does or says something controversial. Their perceived risk of being associated with a controversial figure or policy position almost immediately results in the candidates’ lemming-like dash to jump into the abyss of political correctness to preserve their popularity and appeal.

Unfortunately Ann Coulter placed several 2008 Republican presidential candidates in an awkward position with her controversial remarks at the 34th annual CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) on Friday. The candidates’ political views and personalities were overshadowed by the media focus on one sentence uttered by Coulter and the efforts of top Republican 2008 presidential contenders Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Senator John McCain to distance themselves from her remark. If you missed it, during her speech to CPAC Coulter made the following comment:

I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.

Clearly, Ann Coulter has a low opinion of Senator John Edwards, but the number of Republicans (and many Democrats as well) who hold similarly low opinions of Senator Edwards is legion. Coulter expressed her sentiment in a forceful manner, leaving no doubt about her disdain for Senator Edwards as a politician and as a person. One could reasonably question her judgment in using a term that has been ascribed only one possible meaning in today’s politically correct climate. It can also be reasonably assumed that she intentionally used the term on such an austere occasion to gain publicity, as the analysis by Right Wing News convincingly argues in the post titled, “Ann Coulter's Juvenile Comment at CPAC.”

Coulter, in manner ironically similar to John Kerry after his derogatory comments toward the intelligence of U.S. Military personnel, explained that her remark was an attempt at humor, or in Kerry’s words, “a botched joke.” When asked about criticism of her comment, Coulter stated, “C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.”

Traditional liberal media outlets, including the Washington Post, who defended Senator Kerry by immediately labeling his insult to U.S. troops in Iraq as nothing more than a botched joke, did not offer similar protective coverage to Ann Coulter in this incident. There were no headlines in the Post softening Coulter’s image with blind acceptance of her Kerry-esque “it was a joke” explanation. On the contrary, she was universally condemned by the liberal media, and also by the leading Republican 2008 presidential candidates.

The following are the reactions of each candidate to Coulter’s remark as reported by the New York Times and Fox News, respectively:

Rudy Giuliani- “The comments were completely inappropriate and there should be no place for such name-calling in political debate.”

Mitt Romney- (via a spokesperson) “It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect.”

Senator McCain- “Wildly inappropriate.”

The larger question raised by the Coulter flap is: what is the appropriate long-term response when someone who supports you does or says something controversial? Should Mitt Romney follow the advice of the liberal critics who demand that he refuse Coulter’s campaign support? The difficulty with this situation is that Coulter, though acerbic in delivery, happens to wield the most sarcastic pen in political punditry, and often provides valuable insight and political analysis couched in phrases no candidate or current office holder would dare to utter. Her remark about Edwards was inappropriate, particularly in a forum of candidates carrying the banner of the Republican Party. Yet as ill-advised as her attempt at humor was, it does not necessarily invalidate all of her past and future political analyses.

By nature politics is a controversial business. One cannot take a position without being excoriated by those holding opposing ideas, even if those opponents are in one’s own party. Should all Republican candidates shun Coulter for one sentence in one speech? The Clintons were wise to remain loyal to James Carville and others within their party who spoke bluntly and controversially in much the same fashion as Coulter. Much of the Clintons’ electoral success can be directly attributed to Carville’s strategies, demonstrating that even “flame throwers” have value beyond their publicity stunts.

Politics as a profession leaves little room for repentance, rehabilitation, or forgiveness, and the media appears determined to punish any candidate who gives any appearance of friendship with Coulter. Attempts by the media to link the candidates personally to Coulter began almost immediately, as the New York Times placed the following sentence directly beneath Coulter’s sarcastic explanation of her intended joke: “At the conference, she said she was likely to support Mr. Romney.”

Apparently the liberal media took notice that Romney won the CPAC straw poll and may be emerging as the preferred candidate among conservative Republicans. Liberal bloggers adopted the strategy of creating the impression that since Coulter officially endorsed Romney, he should be smeared with the stain of her allegedly anti-gay comment. The most egregious misrepresentation of Romney’s Coulter connection can be found on the highly popular liberal blog The Daily Kos in the post titled “Coulter and the Candidates.” Daily Kos contributor MissLaura portrayed the incident as follows:

One of the conservatives whose support Romney drew, of course, was Ann Coulter. The two spent some quality time together before she went onstage to call John Edwards a "faggot."

Can we therefore expect him to refuse to be further associated with someone like Ann Coulter, whose entire career as a prominent conservative is based on the notion that people who disagree with her should be treated with contempt, disrespect, and vituperation?

I'll be looking for him to refuse her support of his candidacy just any minute now.

Thus, according to “tolerant” liberals and Republicans infected with political correctness, if one makes a controversial comment, regardless of intent, that person should be jettisoned permanently. The comments submitted to this Daily Kos post were likewise illustrative of the true nature of liberal tolerance. Readers were outraged by the above photo of Romney backstage PRIOR to Coulter’s speech. Romney was vilified by one reader for “flashing his most cordial smile” at Coulter, as if civility and personal kindness should never be directed toward those with whom one disagrees.

To the right you will see a photo of Nancy Pelosi “flashing her most cordial smile” at President Bush despite having said this of him in 2004: “Bush is an incompetent leader. In fact, he's not a leader. He's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon.” Hillary Clinton, in another flashed a very cordial smile to Vice President Cheney prior to taking her oath of office in the U.S. Senate, all while the very friendly Bill Clinton had his hand on the Vice President’s shoulder. These types of photos indicate nothing about the beliefs and policy views of the persons in the photos, they merely demonstrate that snubbing people and burning bridges win few friends and minimal influence in politics. I suppose the tolerant liberal approach to standing next to someone backstage in a green room must consist of glares, the silent treatment, or refusals to stand next to someone with differing views. Romney was obviously being gracious with a well known media figure, and there is nothing substantive to indicate any more or less than this, especially from one photograph.

For liberals, tolerance appears to be a precious commodity only extended to those who agree with them. The comparison between the media treatment of John Kerry and Ann Coulter does not excuse or defend Coulter’s remark, which was truly juvenile, but it does expand on what Hugh Hewitt wrote about this incident. Hugh rightly pointed out that both the Democratic and Republican parties have individuals who embarrass them and Republicans should use caution in using past liberal behavior to justify present conservative missteps like Coulter’s. Hugh stops there, but the difference is that Republicans tend to shun or officially censure those within their ranks who embarrass the party through their behavior or words, as Coulter did at CPAC. Democrats, as in the case of John Kerry’s repeated insults to troops recently and in 1971, or Speaker Pelosi’s personal attacks of the President’s intellect and competence, seem to reward controversial behavior with high office and unwavering support. Hugh Hewitt makes an excellent point by reminding Republicans that they should seek to rise above the standard set by the other party and expect more dignity from its members.

The Republican reaction to Coulter should be sincere and hopefully will send a message that John Edwards’ political views provide sufficient fodder for reasoned, analytical refutation without resorting to personal attacks. While Republican candidates should make it clear that epithets are discouraged, they should likewise not close the door completely on Coulter’s other, more civilized contributions to political discourse. If every public figure, whether in politics, entertainment, sports, or the media, were to be permanently shunned for one lapse of judgment or poor choice of words, few in these fields today would survive the scrutiny. Forgiveness is perhaps the rarest of all human gifts, but is the one commodity that should be meted out, no pun intended, liberally.

Speaker Pelosi's Slight of Presidential Protocol Worse than "ic" Error by President: Wants to Strip President of War Powers

Comments made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi illustrated all too clearly that Democratic animosity toward President Bush trumps Democratic commitment to fighting terrorism and keeping the world safe from nuclear arms proliferation. Speaking to a gathering of Democratic members of the House of Representatives in Williamsburg, VA on Saturday, Pelosi menacingly stated to her colleagues, “if it appears likely that Bush wants to take the country to war against Iran, the House would take up a bill to deny him the authority to do so.”

From a national security perspective, this sentiment, coming as it did from someone third in the line of presidential succession, is significant. Note that Pelosi did not qualify her remarks with any caveats such as whether Congress should authorize war against Iran if Iran attacked another nation, such as Israel, or if an Iranian-produced nuclear device were detonated in an American or allied city, or even if Iran continues to refuse to halt its nuclear weapons program. Pelosi likewise did not make an exception for a scenario in which Iran, seeing Congress’s spineless debates over meaningless “resolutions” on the Iraq War, decided the time was right to invade Iraq and seize its considerable natural resources and slaughter Sunni’s without restraint or mercy.

Based on Pelosi’s statement, none of these provocations, any of which would pose clear and present dangers to global security, would be sufficient for this Democratic Congress to approve military action against Iran and support the Commander in Chief, entirely because he is George W. Bush. For Speaker Pelosi and her colleagues the fundamental threat to America is not Iran, or North Korea, or even Islamic terrorists. Rather than working to deny terrorists of their funding, weaponry, and safe shelter from sponsoring states, the current Congress is more interested in working to deny the President the authority to wage war with Iran regardless of Iran’s actions. Note her choice of words, “deny him the authority” (emphasis added). Congress is not interested in proposing a bill to deny ALL presidents the authority to wage war against Iran, only THIS president.

If a Democrat, Hillary Clinton perhaps, is elected president in 2008, and Iran successfully tests a nuclear weapon and then acts militarily against Israel or the U.S., would the Democratic president respond with war on Iran? Or would Speaker Pelosi’s Congress “deny him [or her] the authority to do so”? Democrats cannot have it both ways. Either Iran is a threat or it is not, and to rule out military action against Iran even before it becomes a necessity is irresponsible and demonstrates a poor grasp of national security policies.

Analyzing Pelosi’s comments further reveals much about the Speaker’s emotions and personal disdain for the President. Courtesy protocol within the U.S. Government, and indeed American culture as a whole, once required the proper name and/or title for the person elected to serve as President, regardless of party. Even in the rancorous Congressional debates immediately prior to the Civil War, Congressmen and Senators referred to the President as “Mr. President” or “President (fill in the blank).” Speaker Pelosi rarely uses the appropriate titles for a sitting president, instead choosing to express her anti-Bush sentiment by generally refusing to acknowledge he is the President, constantly leaving out the title altogether.

The Democratic Party recently threw quite a tantrum in the media when President Bush referred to it as the “Democrat” rather than the “Democratic” Party. The President explained that he simply forgot to include the “ic” suffix and apologized, but that hardly pacified the Democrats, who displayed a remarkable sensitivity to the expected protocol of appropriate titles. For Democrats to constantly refer to the President as simply “Bush” or “Mr. Bush” demonstrates an intentional and personal disrespect for the President, who has the historical expectation of being called “Mr. President,” “Sir,” or “President Bush.” News articles and broadcasts, conservative and liberal, have embraced the stripping of titles in the interest of brevity.

Respect for the office of President has declined in the U.S. and the world to the point that few are impressed anymore by the title “President of the United States,” when not long ago it was the most imposing and respected position in the world to friend and foe alike. The loss of respect for the office is not a product of President Bush’s perceived shortcomings, but rather arose prominently during the Vietnam War and unfortunately continues to this day.

Having witnessed the unseemly behaviors of a former president and the social circles he kept, I understand how loss of respect for the man serving as president occurs. Not all presidents are role models in their private lives. However, even when observing such behavior, to me he was still “Mr. President” or “Sir” and he represented the U.S. to the world. Our presidents must project to the world the image of collective support of the American people, particularly in times of war or crisis. There was nearly unanimous support for war against Saddam Hussein in 2003 based on the available intelligence, yet when the war became more difficult than expected blaming the President became a political opportunity for his personal opponents in both parties.

Despite the patently false accusation, anti-war activists eagerly spread the concept “Bush lied people died.” Where are the chants, “Clinton lied people died”? After all, while in office former President Clinton declared Saddam Hussein a grave threat to the world and pointed out that while others may possess WMD, Hussein had actually used them on Iranians and Kurds (read Clinton’s announcement of strikes in Iraq in 1998 and his justification for them here). Senator Clinton echoed similar assessments of Hussein when she voted to support the war in Iraq.

Democrats do not accuse the Clintons of lying, defending them instead as victims of faulty intelligence. They reserve the liar label for President Bush, who used the same intelligence to justify the removal of Saddam. Al Gore screamed, “He [Bush] betrayed out country. He played on our fears,” despite Gore’s support of the decision to strike Iraq in 1998 for the same reasons Bush cited for war. The effort to portray President Bush as a deceiver and warmonger has influenced international opinion and discredited the office of president itself, a weakening that Democrats will wish they had not encouraged if/when they hold that office and need to wield power to protect the nation.

When 2005 brought the Hurricane Katrina disaster, it was the President’s fault that neither the mayor of New Orleans or the Governor of Louisiana took any action to use local resources to relocate and care for their citizens who chose not to listen to FEMA and NWS warnings to evacuate. Democrats instead encouraged storm victims, particularly African-Americans who lost everything to Katrina, to blame the President and accuse him of not wanting to help black people. Was the African-American mayor accused of this when he failed to utilize hundreds of available local school buses to evacuate the city? No, it was still the President’s fault.

We are failing as a nation to project a strong image to the world during a period of war and crisis (terrorism) and our enemies, terror groups as well as nation states, are well aware of our divisions and personal animosities. Until the American electorate chooses otherwise, President Bush is the President of the United States and should be treated as such by Congress, particularly in public appearances and in front of the controversy-hungry media. The Speaker of the House and her party should not be cementing plans to deny the President of any authority that one day may prove essential to national security simply because they personally dislike the man and covet the office.

Technorati Search Tags: Al Gore Presidential Protocol Presidential Authority Islamic Terrorists Nancy Pelosi Bush Administration Civil War Iranian nuclear program National Security Hillary Clinton Bill Clinton Iraq War Global War On Terror

America's Quiet Cold War with Iran

President Bush has long declared that winning the war in Iraq is critical to keeping America and its allies safe from terrorism and Islamic extremists. The President’s critics have long rebutted this statement by arguing that there was no connection between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorists, or any other terrorists for that matter. Those who find themselves in the latter camp call for “redeploying” our troops from Iraq as Speaker Nancy Pelosi constantly demands. Regardless of the motivations cited or intelligence used to make the decision to invade Iraq, now that we are committed there is an important reason for staying in Iraq until the nation is sufficiently stable and capable of self defense: Containment of a much graver threat to the world, Iran.

Containment of Iran’s aggressions and drying up its terrorist funding are two features of what is clearly a multi-faceted non-military war being waged by the U.S. against Iran. Critics of the President miss the mark when they focus solely on whether we have succeeded in ridding Iraq of terrorists. No nation is ever completely free of existing or potential terrorists. That is not the point of the war in Iraq. As the President frequently states, we are fighting terrorists in Iraq so we will not be forced to fight at home. That may sound like a mere campaign style platitude, but it is not. The number of actual terrorists in Iraq is undoubtedly smaller than the number would be if we were militarily engaged in Iran, or even Pakistan. That is precisely the point. By conducting this war in and eventually securing a stable non-terrorist Iraq, we are quietly squeezing Iran’s oil-dependent economy through investment pressure while simultaneously denying Ahmadinejad of something he covets and will need desperately in the future: Iraq’s oil fields.

The Bush Administration should be given credit for recognizing long ago that forcible regime change, while clearly feasible in Iraq, was not a viable option for halting Iran’s rapid march toward nuclear weapons and its penchant for financing terrorist training and operations worldwide. Rather than bragging about America’s might and capability to remove Ahmadinejad, President Bush has followed the Reagan Cold War approach by working to force an enemy to use all of its natural resources to sustain its own needs and the likely result of this tactic may be that Ahmadinejad’s Iran will spend itself into regime change. How is this quiet war being waged? The major fronts are economic pressure and securing Iraq and its resources for the Iraqis, not for Ahmadinejad, and are detailed below:

1. Discourage foreign investment in Iran - In a nation-state version of the Terror-Free Investing strategy championed by Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman as detailed in a previous post, the Bush administration has relied on strong personal trust and good relations between the President and his fellow heads of state in key nations, such as Japan, to wield significant financial power in Iran and withdraw from contracts for Iranian oil. L.A. Times writer Kim Murphy, in an article titled "Health of Iran's Oil Fields in Question, Analysts Say," published in today’s NY Sun, cites oil industry analysts who agree that America’s quiet efforts to dry up foreign investments in Iranian oil and natural gas development projects are creating a significant burden on the Iranian economy. This is evidenced by Iran’s increasing embrace of Russian and Chinese investments in Iranian oil field development, although the Bush Administration is pressing both nations to reduce or abandon such investments until Ahmadinejad complies with UN sanctions related to the Iranian nuclear program.

These analysts further observe that the cancellation of foreign contracts for oil and gas development is forcing Tehran to divert increasing amounts of the oil it produces for use in its own oil consuming infrastructures. Thus, Iran, through America’s quiet war to keep money out Ahmadinejad’s hands, is keeping him from funding terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States. Of equal if not greater importance, the decreasing flow of oil revenue into Tehran’s coffers also hampers Iran’s suicidal quest for nuclear weapons. As Iran’s oil consumption eventually overtakes its production, Iranians themselves, as the former Soviet states did, will demand fundamental changes in leadership and economic priorities.

2. Remain in Iraq - By remaining in Iraq until the Iraqi government expresses confidence that it is prepared for our withdrawal. The similarities between Iraq’s establishment of democracy and that of America itself are striking. In the founding of both democracies, geographic and religious groups united in the overthrow of tyrannical government, then squabbled for years over representation in the new government. It took America more than a decade to agree on a constitution. Iraq has one already and is working to hold the diverse elements of the government together, and like our own Civil War, there will be failures and setbacks. The difference for America was that after defeating the British, America was capable of defending itself from foreign aggressors until the governmental creation phase was completed. Iraq has not reached that stage or military independence and may not for several years. America started Iraq on this path which Iraqis have now embraced, and America must not withdraw at this point and leave Iraq’s fate in the eager hands of its neighbors.

Remaining in Iraq until the Iraqis no longer need us will prevent Ahmadinejad from taking aggressive actions to acquire the prized Iraqi oil fields. As America’s financial pressure on Iran continues through diverted investments and Iran’s own rising domestic consumption of oil creates more strain, Ahmadinejad will need additional sources of revenue to fund the projects most pressing to him, i.e. the Iranian nuclear program and funding of global Jihad. Should we leave Iraq ill-equipped to defend itself or unstable in its government foundations, Ahmadinejad would seize the Iraqi oil fields and exponentially increase revenues for his nuclear and terrorist ambitions. In that sense, the mantra that the war in Iraq is a war for oil is true, but only as one aspect of a complex multi-front war to contain a much more dangerous and powerful enemy, Iran.

Instead of militarily engaging and attempting to disarm a heavily armed Iran on its turf as it grows stronger, we are engaging small pockets of terrorists in Iraq, building an Iraqi government capable of sustaining itself against Iran, and preserving the Iraqi oil fields as the key revenue producer for the fledgling Iraqi democracy. The cost of 3,000 American casualties seems too steep to the war-weary Democrats, like Pelosi, but the cost in American casualties had this war been militarily waged in Iran would have been much greater.

The withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the abandonment of American goals there would render impotent any American-led financial pressures on nations who continue to enter oil contracts with Iran. In Murphy’s article, the following paragraph should receive close scrutiny from those who oppose the war in Iraq and want to see it ended:

If Iran were suddenly to stop exporting its 2.4 million barrels of oil a day, such as in the event of a military strike, world oil prices probably would skyrocket. But a gradual decline probably could be offset by other OPEC members, analysts say, particularly as Iraq increases its oil production [emphasis added] and Saudi Arabia carries out plans for significant increases in its production capacity.

By establishing a stable Iraq exporting oil more efficiently and profitably than under Sadaam, we lessen the world’s dependence on, and thus also its investments in, Iran’s nuclear weapon-seeking Mullahs. Battling Tehran on these fronts, rather than in its streets, is a strategy clearly calculated to achieve containment and eventual disarmament at minimal loss of life and should be applauded for its similarities to Reagan’s Cold War economic tactics that strained the Soviet economy until it reached critical mass. Iran’s once robust economy, though strained now, will not crumble overnight, and America should not expect immediate gratification from this strategy any more than it did with similar efforts to curb the Soviet Union. Yet the approach is tactically sound, minimally costly in casualties, and has proven in the past to be most effective.

Technorati Tags: Ahmadinejad Sarah Steelman Reagan Iranian Oil Iraqi oil fields Cold War Nancy Pelosi Bush Administration Civil War Iranian nuclear program investing in Iran Iraq War War On Terror