Obsidian Wings

Secrets, Iran and a Healthy Skepticism

by Robert Mackey

First, a quick introduction and greeting. My name is Robert R. Mackey (not to be confused with the Lede author) and I'm an historian and retired US Army officer.  My specialty, oddly enough, is a strange mix of American Civil War history, history of intelligence, and counter-terrorism.  In the past, I've worked at the National Counterterrorism Center as a strategist, blogged for Huffington Post, and was one of the war planners for the opening phases of Iraqi Freedom in 2002-2003.  I'm currently an independent historian and archivist working in Washington, DC.

Thanks to Eric Martin for the opportunity to join OW as a contributor, and for guilting me into writing for him. It was either that or back down into the galley with the rest of the slaves.

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Today, The Times (UK) posted a story about a "Secret Document [that] Exposes Iran's Nuclear Trigger" that detailed what is supposedly "a final key component" of a nuclear weapon. The article is located at "Secret Document Exposes Iran's Nuclear Trigger."

Ok, I'm not a nuclear physicist.  I've never taken a class in physics.  I'm not a Farsi linguist or have lived in Tehran for 30 years.  What I do know is how the global intelligence community works, at least from an insiders view.  It basically has one rule.

Secrets Stay Secret IF YOU WANT THEM TO.

In 1916-1917, Britain was on the verge of losing the Great War.  The French were rocked by mutinies, the bloodbath of the Somme and Ypres had drained Great Britain of men, materials and morale.  Literally the only real hope the Allies had was American entry into the war.  Yet even the sinking of the SS Lusitania in 1915 and the deaths of American citizens, along with the glowing propaganda of American volunteers with the Allies, did little to move the American people toward war.  No, that came when the British released a decoded intercept between the German Ambassador to Mexico and his government outlining a proposed Mexican-German alliance if the US joined the war.  However, the telegram was not released to the American government--it was released to the American press on March 1, 1917.  On April 6, Congress voted for war.

The British had a secret. And they released it to cause the most impact on their main target--the American people.

I am not saying that the same situation exists with this release of information.  In fact, the Iranians may be happily building nuclear weapons as I type, in order to wipe out "Zionism" and bring on the 12th Imam.  I don't know.  But what I do know is that a secret was released, and released at a time when negotiations are being conducted to find a peaceful solution.

Who would release such a secret, which could only be gathered from an agent in Iran? Why risk the life of the agent? Why?

Nations have agreements, as do their intelligence agencies.  The US shares information with the UK, the UK with France, France with Italy and so on.  And many of these countries share information with Israel, Turkey and other nations in the region.

Was this a Mossad plant? Perhaps. Perhaps it was a plant by Syria or Turkey or Egypt, for their own purposes. Or perhaps it was released disinformation by the Iranians to deter an attack on themselves (shades of Saddam's failed miscalculation in telling the world he had CBNR weapons...). No one knows. In the dark world of intelligence, information is a commodity, to be bought, sold and traded.

A healthy skepticism is what is needed.  Raw intelligence is rarely 100% accurate, and when a nation has a lot to gain by leaking secrets, even more care should be taken. 

The Zimmerman Telegram was a piece of factual information. Just because something is factual does not mean that it is the whole story, or that the truth, like lies, can be used to shape opinions and lead nations to war.

Global Warming: Even More Bad Consequences Than You Thought

by hilzoy

This is not good news at all. "Ninety percent of Pakistan's agricultural irrigation depends on rivers that originate in Kashmir." There is a treaty in place dividing Kashmir's waters between Pakistan and India, and it "has survived three wars and nearly 50 years." But guess what:

"The treaty's success depends on the maintenance of a status quo that will be disrupted as the world warms. Traditionally, Kashmir's waters have been naturally regulated by the glaciers in the Himalayas. Precipitation freezes during the coldest months and then melts during the agricultural season. But if global warming continues at its current rate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates, the glaciers could be mostly gone from the mountains by 2035. Water that once flowed for the planting will flush away in winter floods. 

Research by the global NGO ActionAid has found that the effects are already starting to be felt within Kashmir. In the valley, snow rarely falls and almost never sticks. The summertime levels of streams, rivers, springs, and ponds have dropped. In February 2007, melting snow combined with unseasonably heavy rainfall to undermine the mountain slopes; landslides buried the national highway -- the region's only land connection with the rest of India -- for 12 days. (...)

Water is already undermining Pakistan's stability. In recent years, recurring shortages have led to grain shortfalls. In 2008, flour became so scarce it turned into an election issue; the government deployed thousands of troops to guard its wheat stores. As the glaciers melt and the rivers dry, this issue will only become more critical. Pakistan -- unstable, facing dramatic drops in water supplies, caged in by India's vastly superior conventional forces -- will be forced to make one of three choices. It can let its people starve. It can cooperate with India in building dams and reservoirs, handing over control of its waters to the country it regards as the enemy. Or it can ramp up support for the insurgency, gambling that violence can bleed India's resolve without degenerating into full-fledged war. "The idea of ceding territory to India is anathema," says Sumit Ganguly, a professor of political science at Indiana University. "Suffering, particularly for the elite, is unacceptable. So what's the other option? Escalate."

"It's very bad news," he adds, referring to the melting glaciers. "It's extremely grim."

Bear in mind that Pakistan is fairly poor, and its population is increasing fairly rapidly. It badly needs serious economic development, but the combination of corruption, official lack of interest, and the burden of its army make that difficult. Moreover, while it seems obvious to an outside observer like me that Pakistan ought to find some way of making peace with India, and while a lot of Pakistanis seem to agree, the conflict with India is part of the raison d'etre of the army, which will not easily give up one of its main justifications for getting lots of money from the government, and holding a lot of political and economic power. That makes a sane resolution to this problem a lot less likely than it would be otherwise.

As I said: bad news -- and one more reason to try to get serious about dealing with global warming.

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Special Pakistan bonus: a video about their amazing decorated trucks and buses. Watch it. The trucks and buses really are that marvelous, and almost all, in Karachi at least, are decorated like this. (h/t)

More Puzzlement

by hilzoy

Daniel Larison says a(nother) wise thing (h/t):

"Americanists believe that any statement from the President that fails to build up and anoint Mousavi as the preferred candidate is discouraging to Mousavi and his supporters, because they apparently cannot grasp that being our preferred candidate is to be tainted with suspicion of disloyalty to the nation. It is strange how nationalists often have the least awareness of the importance of the nationalism of another people. Many of the same silly people who couldn’t say enough about Hamas' so-called "endorsement" of Obama as somehow indicative of his Israel policy views, as well as those who could not shut up about his warm reception in Europe, do not see how an American endorsement of a candidate in another country's election might be viewed with similiar and perhaps even greater distaste by the people in that country."

Indeed. And a lot of those same people thought that Iraqis would adore us because we had overthrown Saddam Hussein, apparently without thinking: however much they hated him, it's deeply humiliating to have someone else overthrow your dictator and occupy our country. And so, in all likelihood, however happy Iraqis might be at first, we should expect that not to last: inevitably, soldiers in an alien country make mistakes and kill or detain the wrong people, call in airstrikes on people who are doing nothing wrong, etc.; and when that happens, our welcome, however warm initially, will very quickly turn to resentment.

National pride is a powerful thing, and a completely comprehensible one. Why the very people who will brook no criticism of their own country, even when it's fully justified, should fail to understand this is a mystery.

Puzzled By Honduras

by hilzoy

From the New York Times:

"The Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted by the army on Sunday after pressing ahead with plans for a referendum that opponents said could lay the groundwork for his eventual re-election, in the first military coup in Central America since the end of the cold war.

Soldiers entered the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and disarmed the presidential guard early Sunday, military officials said. Mr. Zelaya’s private secretary, Eduardo Enrique Reina, confirmed the arrest. (...)

Political tensions have increased as Mr. Zelaya pressed ahead with plans for a nonbinding referendum that opponents said would open the way for him to rewrite the constitution to run for re-election despite a one-term limit. In the weeks leading up to the referendum, supporters and opponents of the president held competing demonstrations.

Last week, the Supreme Court and Congress both declared the referendum unconstitutional. But on Thursday, the president led a group of protesters to an air force installation and seized the ballots, which the prosecutor’s office and the electoral tribunal had ordered confiscated.

After the armed forces commander, Romeo Vazquez, said that the military would not participate in the referendum, Mr. Zelaya fired him. But the Supreme Court declared the firing illegal."

I am puzzled by this. I found the Times' description of the referendum unilluminating ("a referendum that opponents said could lay the groundwork for his eventual re-election" -- what does that mean?) So I went off in search of the actual question, which seems to be this:

"¿Está usted de acuerdo que en las elecciones generales de noviembre de 2009 se instale una cuarta urna para decidir sobre la convocatoria a una Asamblea Nacional Constituyente que apruebe una nueva Constitución política?"

Unless my rusty Spanish misleads me, this means: "Do you agree that there should be a fourth urn (I'm guessing this means: ballot box) in the Nov. 2009 general elections to decide whether to convene the National Constituent Assembly to approve a new Constitution?" 

Apparently, the Supreme Court ruled that this referendum is unconstitutional, either because the President does not have the right to call referenda, or because "the constitution says some of its clauses cannot be changed." (Though why the latter would mean that the referendum is illegal, and not just that the proposed Assembly could not legally change those parts of the Constitution, is a mystery.)

As a result, the Army, which normally distributes ballots, declined to do so, the President sacked the head of the Army, his Attorney General argued to the Supreme Court that the firing was illegal (on the rather puzzling grounds that "it regarded the president's decision to hold the referendum as "illegal," and therefore his order to the military commanders as well"), and the Supreme Court agreed. 

Meanwhile, the Congress banned referenda within 180 days of a general election, thereby making this referendum illegal. The President took the ballots so that the referendum could be held, and today the military removed him from power and flew him to Costa Rica.

The President's supporters seem to think that he plans to use a National Constituent Assembly to create some sort of Chavez-like system in Honduras. His supporters seem to think that the coup just reflects an entrenched oligarchy's unwillingness to contemplate anything that might reduce their power.  (Some Honduran takes are here.)

For my part, I am puzzled. (Seriously: I know nothing about Honduras.) If holding an Assembly to revise the Constitution is such a bad idea, why not just vote no on the referendum? If the people would, in fact, like to have such an Assembly, why not have one? What, in short, is so scary about a referendum that simply asks whether people would like to have an Assembly that might revise the Constitution in as yet unspecified ways? And even if there's some reason for thinking that it is scary, is this (seemingly) mild, non-binding referendum anywhere near threatening enough to hold a coup over?

Can anyone shed light on this?

Update: I checked Randy Paul's blog as I was writing this, but he waited until I had just hit post to put up a lovely, link-filled post about this. Check it out. 

I should also have mentioned this, from the WSJ: "The Obama administration and members of the Organization of American States had worked for weeks to try to avert any moves to overthrow President Zelaya, said senior U.S. officials." Apparently, the Honduran military just stopped taking their calls.

Here's Obama's statement:

"I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya. As the Organization of American States did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference."

The EU:

"The EU strongly condemns the arrest of the constitutional president of the Republic of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, by the armed forces. This is [an] unacceptable violation of constitutional order in Honduras. The EU calls for the urgent release of President Zelaya and a swift return to constitutional normality."

Other reactions here, here, and here.

The Idea Of An Islamic Republic

by hilzoy

Andrew Sullivan posted an email from a reader that I think is interesting but wrong. Its author disagrees with the idea that Mousavi and his followers are essentially trying to restore the Islamic Republic. He writes: "Mousavi, insofar as he is a vessel of Iranian contempt for and rage at Khamenei, is the undoing of the 1979 revolution, not its restoration." Partly this is because the author thinks that the Islamic Republic is identical with "the institutions created after 1979". I wouldn't describe any change to those institutions as the abandonment of the Islamic Republic, but I suppose that if one did, one might argue that that might be Mousavi's goal, though he would not describe it that way. 

However, the author also says this:

"In this contest, there is a claim on both sides for the spirit of the 1979 revolution. But there is also a recognition, I think for Mousavi, that the Islamicness of the Islamic Republic has led Iran to this depraved state of affairs."

I am not privy to Mousavi's innermost thoughts, but it would surprise me if this were true of him or of most of his followers. If you believe in Islam, the problem cannot be that the Islamic Republic is too Islamic. It has to be something else -- for instance, that the Islamic Republic is insufficiently Islamic, not in the sense of not having enough mullahs in positions of power, but in the sense of not being set up in the way that a proper understanding of Islam would suggest.

What is true, I think, is that the current events in Islam will force a reexamination of the theological underpinnings of the Islamic Republic. 

"What The Hell Do I Know!"

by hilzoy

NIAC has published an interesting account of yesterday's demonstrations. It's really worth reading. One bit that stood out:

"There is a woman who is being beaten. She's horrified and hysterical but not as much as the anti-riot police officer facing her. She shrieks, 'Where can I go? You tell me go down the street and you beat me. Then you come up from the other side and beat me again. Where can I go?' In sheer desperation, the officer hits his helmet several times hard with his baton. 'Damn me! Damn me! What the hell do I know!'

I ask myself, 'how much longer can these officers tolerate stress? How many among them would be willing to give their lives for somebody like Ahmadinejhad?'"

That is, I think, the real question.

Comic relief: I meant to post this a few days ago, but forgot. Now Andrew Sullivan has reminded me by posting it himself. It is, apparently, an Iranian propaganda film from last year, featuring claymation John McCain and George Soros sitting in the White House, plotting the overthrow of Iran. And who knew that Toby Ziegler from the West Wing worked for Iranian intelligence?

In A Moment Of Neglect I Might Fly

by hilzoy

The woman who wrote the letter I posted last night made it through the demonstrations, and has posted another letter, about the woman who was shot in the video:

"I'm here to let you know I'm alive but my sister was killed...

I'm here to tell you my sister died while in her father's hands

I'm here to tell you my sister had big dreams...

I'm here to tell you my sister who died was a decent person... and like me yearned for a day when her hair would be swept by the wind... and like me read "Forough" [Forough Farrokhzad]... and longed to live free and equal... and she longed to hold her head up and announce, "I'm Iranian"... and she longed to one day fall in love to a man with a shaggy hair... and she longed for a daughter to braid her hair and sing lullaby by her crib...

my sister died from not having life... my sister died as injustice has no end... my sister died since she loved life too much... and my sister died since she lovingly cared for people...

my loving sister, I wish you had closed your eyes when your time had come... the very end of your last glance burns my soul....

sister have a short sleep. your last dream be sweet."

I didn't know who Forough was. My loss:

"The Captive [ Asir ]

I want you, yet I know that never
can I embrace you to my heart's content.
you are that clear and bright sky.
I, in this corner of the cage, am a captive bird.

from behind the cold and dark bars
directing toward you my rueful look of astonishment,
I am thinking that a hand might come
and I might suddenly spread my wings in your direction.

I am thinking that in a moment of neglect
I might fly from this silent prison,
laugh in the eyes of the man who is my jailer
and beside you begin life anew.

I am thinking these things, yet I know
that I can not, dare not leave this prison.
even if the jailer would wish it,
no breath or breeze remains for my flight.

from behind the bars, every bright morning
the look of a child smile in my face;
when I begin a song of joy,
his lips come toward me with a kiss.

O sky, if I want one day
to fly from this silent prison,
what shall I say to the weeping child's eyes:
forget about me, for I am captive bird?

I am that candle which illumines a ruins
with the burning of her heart.
If I want to choose silent darkness,
I will bring a nest to ruin."

There's more here. -- I just wanted something else to think about in the midst of death.

Iran: Saturday

by hilzoy

Barack Obama:

"The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights. 

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion. 

Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness."

Some of what the world will see as it watches can be seen here, at 2:37, under the accurate description: "Graphic video of a woman shot." 

This is horrific.

6:45 am In Tehran

by hilzoy

Via Nico Pitney, Carnegie Endowment Iran analyst Karim Sadjadpour:

"The weight of the world now rests on the shoulders of Mir Hossein Mousavi. I expect that Khamenei's people have privately sent signals to him that they're ready for a bloodbath, they're prepared to use overwhelming force to crush this, and is he willing to lead the people in the streets to slaughter?
Mousavi is not Khomeini, and Khamenei is not the Shah. Meaning, Khomeini would not hesitate to lead his followers to "martyrdom", and the Shah did not have the stomach for mass bloodshed. This time the religious zealots are the ones holding power.

The anger and the rage and sense of injustice people feel will not subside anytime soon, but if Mousavi concedes defeat he will demoralize millions of people. At the moment the demonstrations really have no other leadership. It's become a symbiotic relationship, Mousavi feeds off people's support, and the popular support allows Mousavi the political capital to remain defiant. So Mousavi truly has some agonizing decisions to make.

Rafsanjani's role also remains critical. Can he co-opt disaffected revolutionary elites to undermine Khamenei? As Khamenei said, they've known each other for 52 years, when they were young apostles of Ayatollah Khomeini. I expect that Khamenei's people have told Rafsanjani that if he continues to agitate against Khamenei behind the scenes, he and his family will be either imprisoned or killed, and that the people of Iran are unlikely to weep for the corrupt Rafsanjani family.

Whatever happens, and I know I shouldn't be saying this as an analyst, but my eyes well when I think of the tremendous bravery and fortitude of the Iranian people. They deserve a much better regime than the one they have."

From NIAC, a translation of a blog post:

"I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I'm listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It's worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I'm two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children…"

I think it's about 6:45am in Tehran. I wish the demonstrators godspeed; may they get the government they deserve, without the sacrifices it seems likely they will have to make.

Coming To You Live From An Alternate Reality ...

by hilzoy

Today the Washington Post, fresh from canning one of its best writers, lets Charles Krauthammer send us a dispatch from the alternate reality in which he lives. In that reality, apparently, Iranian demonstrators "await just a word that America is on their side." Joe Klein, just back from the real Tehran, asks:

"They do? Which ones? Name one. And if that word came, what then? Would it be the same as the "word" Dwight Eisenhower sent, and later regretted, supporting the Hungarian protesters in 1956 when he had no intention of supporting them militarily? Or the "word" that George H.W. Bush sent the Iraqi Shi'ites after the first Gulf War, who then rebelled against Saddam Hussein and were slaughtered?"

Krauthammer then lets us know what's at stake in the reality he inhabits:

"This revolution will end either as a Tiananmen (a hot Tiananmen with massive and bloody repression or a cold Tiananmen with a finer mix of brutality and co-optation) or as a true revolution that brings down the Islamic Republic.

The latter is improbable but, for the first time in 30 years, not impossible. Imagine the repercussions. It would mark a decisive blow to Islamist radicalism, of which Iran today is not just standard-bearer and model, but financier and arms supplier. It would do to Islamism what the collapse of the Soviet Union did to communism -- leave it forever spent and discredited.

In the region, it would launch a second Arab spring. The first in 2005 -- the expulsion of Syria from Lebanon, the first elections in Iraq and early liberalization in the Gulf states and Egypt -- was aborted by a fierce counterattack from the forces of repression and reaction, led and funded by Iran.

Now, with Hezbollah having lost elections in Lebanon and with Iraq establishing the institutions of a young democracy, the fall of the Islamist dictatorship in Iran would have an electric and contagious effect. The exception -- Iraq and Lebanon -- becomes the rule. Democracy becomes the wave. Syria becomes isolated; Hezbollah and Hamas, patronless. The entire trajectory of the region is reversed."

Is there any evidence -- any at all -- that this is true? Not from where I sit. As best I can tell, there is no particular reason to think that Mousavi will bring any kind of major foreign policy shift:

"Mr. Moussavi began his political career as a hard-liner and a favorite of the revolution’s architect, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Although he has long had an adversarial relationship with Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his insider status makes him loath to mount a real challenge to the core institutions of the Islamic republic. He was an early supporter of Iran’s nuclear program, and as prime minister in the 1980s he approved Iran’s purchase of centrifuges on the nuclear black market, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency."

Back in the day, he supported taking hostages in the US embassy and funding for Hezbollah. I suspect that he will not have Ahmedinejad's knack for making crazy and offensive statements, and with any luck he won't deny the Holocaust, but I do not expect much in the way of major foreign policy changes if he prevails -- all the more so since he will, I assume, have to try to reconcile his country, and might bend over backwards not to provide ammunition to his enemies. 

The best way I can see to make sense of Krauthammer's ravings is to suppose that America and freedom have merged in his mind, so that when a people demonstrates for freedom, we can infer that they are pro-American. But this is not just false; it's crazy.  

I hope Mousavi and his supporters prevail. But that's not because I think that he will make everything peachy in Iran; it's because I think that the Iranian people deserve to have a voice in their government. I do not think that a Mousavi government would stop funding Hezbollah or suspend its nuclear program. I do think that if he and his supporters prevail, Iranian society will become more open, and its government less authoritarian. This will probably make a real difference in its foreign policy in the long run, though I think it would be foolish to try to predict what difference it will make. 

You'd think that after getting Iraq so badly wrong, Krauthammer might decide to devote himself to writing op-eds on patent law or food safety or -- well, anything other than how some development in the Middle East would lead to democracy busting out all over. You might think that if he did go on writing about foreign policy, he might at least try to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. And you might think that if the Washington Post has to go around firing people, Charles "I Believe Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast -- Just Wait Til You See How Many I Can Manage By The Time I Finish My Column!" Krauthammer might be first in line. But you'd be wrong.