On Attacking Iran, Lally Weymouth Won’t Take No For an Answer

I don’t follow the politics of the Washington Post’s Graham family, but Lally Weymouth (daughter of Philip and Katherine, mother of Katharine Weymouth, the newspaper’s current publisher) specializes in touring the globe, performing exclusive interviews with consequential world leaders, publishing them in Newsweek, for which she is a senior editor, and the Post, and thus helping to define conventional wisdom in Washington. Almost as much as her brother Donald, so far as I understand, she has contributed to the steady rightward drift of the Post’s editorial line over the past two decades, a drift that, in my view, made the paper one of the most influential, if often overlooked, “enablers” of Bush’s first-term neo-conservative foreign-policy trajectory in Washington.

It now appears that Weymouth is trying to “enable” an attack on Iran. Consider her latest interview with Jordan’s King Abdullah published in the Sunday Post’s “Outlook” section. While the king repeatedly warns that the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process poses the greatest threat to stability and moderation in the region, Weymouth seems impervious to this analysis and instead keeps returning to Iran throughout the interview. To almost comical effect, she simply won’t take no for an answer. Consider the three Qs and As:

Q. Is [the] Annapolis [peace process] dead?

A. I’m actually very concerned since President Bush’s visit to the region, to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. I think the peace process has lost credibility in people’s minds in this area. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been in the region and is working very closely with the Israelis and the Palestinians to move the process forward. . . . We’re all very pessimistic at this stage.

Q. Do you view Iran as the number one threat in this region?

A. I think the lack of peace [between Israel and the Palestinians] is the major threat. I don’t see the ability of creating a two-state solution beyond 2008, 2009. [And] I think this is really the last chance. If this fails, I think this is going to be the major threat for the Middle East: Are we going to go for another 60 years of “fortress Israel,” or are we going to have a neighborhood where Israel is actually incorporated? That is our major challenge, and I am very concerned that the clock is ticking and that the door is closing on all of us.

Q. But aren’t you concerned that Iran is a threat both to your country and to other countries in the region?

A. Iran poses issues to certain countries, although I have noticed over the past month or so that the dynamics have changed quite dramatically, and for the first time I think maybe I can say that Iran is less of a threat. But if the peace process doesn’t move forward, then I think that extremism will continue to advance over the moderate stands that a lot of countries take. We’ve reached a crossroads, and I’m not too sure what direction we’re heading in.

But she’s clearly not satisfied with the king’s answers, and, after a few questions about intra-Palestinian politics, Iraq, Jordan’s own economic challenges, and the region’s interest in nuclear power, she returns to her bete noire, even as Abdullah insists on the primacy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Q: I remember a couple of years ago, you warned against the danger posed by Iran to moderate Arab regimes. Aren’t Iran and Syria the big winners today in this region?

A: If we look at what happened in Lebanon [last month when Hezbollah routed government-backed forces in street fighting to win major political concessions], I think the perception here is that that round was won by Iran and her proxies. We just have to be careful as to what happens in round two. Again, this is why I am so concerned about the peace process.

Then, after a few more questions about Hamas and Lebanon and whether Saudi Arabia might reduce the price of oil, she abruptly returns to and concludes with her idee fixe, like a moth to flame:

Q: So you’re not in favor of military action against Iran?

A: I am not in favor of military action against Iran. I think you’d be playing with Pandora’s box.

Q: So you’re willing to live with a nuclear Iran?

A: What do we mean by nuclear Iran? Some people are saying they have a nuclear weapons program, and some people are saying they don’t. The latest American intelligence estimate released a couple of months ago was that their nuclear program has diminished or stopped. Now the British-Israeli view of that is not as positive as the American one, so I’ve been told.

Q: The American view was that the military program was diminishing in 2003, but not that it had stopped. [Ed’s note: This, of course, is a very debatable assertion, since the U.S. intelligence community concluded last December that the military program had indeed stopped in 2003 and since re-iterated that view.]

A: I think that you need to engage with the Iranians. A military strike in Iran today will only solicit a reaction from Iran and Iranian proxies, and I don’t think that we can live with any more conflicts in this part of the world.

One of the most remarkable things about the interview is that Weymouth fails to ask Abdullah a single question about his views regarding the Turkish-mediated talks between Israel and Syria and whether he believes that Damascus can be persuaded to distance itself from Tehran if given sufficient concessions by Israel. After all, if she is persuaded that Iran poses the greatest threat to U.S. interests in the region, then Israel’s engagement with Syria — which could result in an unprecedented summit between Olmert and Assad in Paris next month — could be critical to reducing that threat. But she doesn’t even raise it.

Visit Lobelog.com for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.

Bush Slanders Freedom

In a Tuesday interview in Britain, Sky News editor Adam Boulton asked George W. Bush: “There are those who would say look, lets take Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, and rendition and all those things and to them that is the complete opposite of freedom.”

BUSH: “Of course, if you want to slander America.”

This is the same tripe Bush has been shoveling ever since the Abu Ghraib photos first surfaced in 2004. Anyone who accurately labels Bush’s policies slanders America.

Sadly, there are still some Americans who swallow this crap. Unfortunately, Bush has gotten away with bastardizing American freedom for six years now.

It’s great that a British journalist had the guts to ask Bush the kind of question that American White House correspondents almost never touch. [h/t Think Progress]

Anti-Terrorist Raids

Any given day in Iraq includes a distressingly long list of casualties, but what about the stories behind those incidents? Here’s one from today which I thought warranted some expounding on:

Under the headline Terrorist hideout destroyed, a military press release touts the raid of a suspected “terrorist hideout”, the killing of a “terrorist” and the capture of 15 men.

How do we know it’s a terrorist hideout? Surveillance determined that the building contained “stockpiled food”, 12 bedrolls, and perhaps most damning of all, “men’s clothing”. How do we know the slain man was a terrorist? Well he was “near the target building” and made an unspecified sudden movement before being killed. Oh, and those 15 men who were captured? Well 3 of them were actually “wanted” for some crime or another. That would imply the other 12 were “unwanted”, wouldn’t it?

Here’s something conspicuously absent: weapons. Nowhere in the report is it alleged that this vitally important terrorist hideout, the destruction of which would, according to the story, “further degrade al-Qaeda’s terror network”, contained any IEDs, or explosive components, or the dreaded Iranian EFPs. Not one of these hardened al-Qaeda members was reported to be armed, and the story contains not one mention of a weapons cache, or even a single round of ammunition being present in the house: just food, and clothing.

And that “threatening” man somewhere near the building, the one so ably gunned down by Coalition forces? There is nothing in the story to suggest that he had a gun, or a suicide belt, or even a really pointy-looking stick. Just a guy, standing somewhere in Mosul, who made a sudden movement after being accosted by an unknown number of foreign troops. Now and forever though, he is a “killed terrorist”.

Says MNF Spokesman Major Hall “Our pursuit of these terrorists will continue to disrupt their ability to hinder the security, stability, and growth that Iraqi citizens are entitled to” Yet one must wonder how 15 unarmed guys in a building containing food and clothing posed such a dire threat to the citizenry of Iraq.

Rule of law vs. rule of flaw

“[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his ruling,” President Andrew Jackson famously blustered after the US Supreme Court overruled him on the issue of US treaty obligations with the Cherokee. “Now let him enforce it.”

We’ve come a long way, baby — these days, presidential revolts against the Court are advertised as “disagreements” and carried out with procedural foot-dragging and visits to the Hill in search of legislative workarounds. The Court’s third rebuke of the Bush administration on the rights of prisoners at DoD’s Guantanamo gulag is the premier case in point.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey claims that the Court’s ruling — which upholds the right of Gitmo detainees to appeal their detentions in the US courts — won’t affect ongoing illegal “trials” before “military commissions.” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), apparently forgetting the prohibition on ex post facto laws, proposed a constitutional amendment to legalize the Gitmo operation. Even more baffling as amnesia goes is the reaction of GOP presidential standard-bearer (and ex-“unlawful combatant” per Hanoi) John McCain, who expressed “concern” that the Court might prevent the US from treating its prisoners as poorly as his captors treated him.

Three “knock it off” orders from the Supreme Court; three “drag it out” operations from the War Party … and no end in sight for more than 200 victims left trudging along on the Treadmill of Tears.

The Feminization of the Military

Because it is getting harder to meet recruiting goals, the Marines are looking for a few good women–literally. The Marine Corps is marketing itself to women in magazines like Shape and Self and Fitness. The latest ad campaign shows a female marine in front of some men, captioned with: “There are no female marines. Only marines.”

The U.S. Military Academy now has gender-neutral lyrics in West Point’s Alma Mater and The Corps. For example, the line “The men of the Corps long dead” has been replaced with “The ranks of the Corps long dead.” Said Superintendent Lt. Gen. Franklin “Buster” Hagenbeck, singing “Guide us, thy sons, aright” at the funerals of two dead female soldiers was “unacceptable.” Preserving the words for the sake of tradition “disrespects the West Point women who serve,” said the Superintendent.

These are disturbing trends. As more women join the military, more women will die for a lie while in the military. It is bad enough that young men continue to join the military, but it is tragic that families are raising their girls to be soldiers. Yes, these young women are joining of their own free will, but it is tragic nonetheless.

Voinovich: ‘Get the hell out’

Republicans are already beginning to defect from the McCainiac party line on Iraq. Here’s George Voinovich, speaking before the Chamber of Commerce, in Howland, Ohio:

“We need to get the hell out of Iraq. Do you hear me?”

Voinovich decried the impending bankruptcy of the US, wondering aloud at the legacy we’re leaving our young people, sounding more like Ron Paul than the GOP’s putative nominee.

For McCain, the top issue is the war — and even though the gist of every story emphasizes that Voinovich still supports McCain, Republicans who agree with the Ohio Senator are more likely to casts their ballots for Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman who just clinched the Libertarian Party presidential nomination.