Gary Sick | October 25

The Daily Beast - Last week, an Iranian-American colleague of mine, Kian Tajbaksh, was sentenced in Tehran to 15 years in prison. The indictment included the charges that (1) he was in contact with me; (2) that he was part of the Gulf/2000 network that I manage; and (3) that I am an agent of the CIA.

Normally, I simply ignore silly accusations such as this. They are nothing new. On one hand, it has been intimated that I must be under the influence of Iranian intelligence (by prominent neoconservatives who believe that my views on Iran’s political development and especially its nuclear program are not sufficiently alarmist). I have also been accused (by such worthies as Hossein Shariatmadari, the ultra-radical editor of Iran’s Kayhan newspaper, who is also a representative of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei) of being a CIA agent. I regard these insinuations as badges of honor, since they merely confirm that I do not subscribe to the ideological extremes of either of these groups. I have always felt that my reputation could speak for itself and required no public defense.

In November 2005, reports surfaced that that Germany would sell Israel 2 AIP-equipped SSK Dolphin Class submarines. In 2006, the deal was finalized at a total of $1.27 billion, with the German government picking up 1/3 of the cost. The new boats were built at the Howaldtswerke-Deutche Werft AG (HDW) shipyard, in the Baltic Sea coastal city of Kiel.

Now, reports indicate that both submarines have been delivered early…

The Dolphin Class, and Its Improvements

The Dolphins are quiet diesel-electric attack submarines that evolved from Germany’s famous and ubiquitous U209 Class. They can fire torpedoes and missiles from their 533mm torpedo tubes, perform underwater surveillance, and even launch combat swimmers via a wet and dry compartment.

Germany had already donated two Dolphin submarines to the Israeli navy after the Gulf War in the early 1990s. The first-of-class INS (Israeli Naval Ship) Dolphin was commissioned in 1999, while INS Leviathan was commissioned in 2000. The Israelis later bought a 3rd submarine for $350 million total, using a 50/50 shared cost arrangement with the German government. INS Tekuma (“revival, renewal”) also entered service in 2000.

Denis D. Gray | Bangkok | June 15

AP - Charming a fuming Elizabeth Taylor, personally snipping a British duke's hair or catering to the refined palates of Cambodia's murderous Khmer Rouge leaders.

It was all in a day's work for Kurt Wachtveitl, as he looks back on 41 years running one of the world's fabled hotels, not with nostalgic tears but plenty of juicy tales and trenchant thoughts about how Bangkok's Oriental Hotel got to be so good.

A legend himself among the international hotel fraternity, the 72-year-old Wachtveitl retires this month, having amassed awards for the five-star hotel along the Chao Phraya River as well as an endless roster of famous and rich, albeit not always agreeable, guests.

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CNAS' third annual conference, "Striking a Balance: A New American Security," will be streamed live starting at 8:30 AM EST.

8:30-8:45 AM - INTRODUCTION AND OPENING REMARKS

The Honorable Dr. Richard Danzig
Chairman of the Board, Center for a New American Security

Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns
Professor, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Board of Directors, CNAS

8:45-9:45 AM - KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Dr. John A. Nagl (INTRODUCTION)
President, Center for a New American Security

General David H. Petraeus, USA
Commander, U.S. Central Command

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON A NEW BEGINNING

Cairo University
Cairo, Egypt

1:10 P.M. (Local)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. And together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I'm grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. And I'm also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalaamu alaykum. (Applause.)

Dexter Filkins | May 20

The New Republic

The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008
By Thomas E. Ricks
(Penguin Press, 394 pp., $27.95)

I.

From centrality to banality: perhaps no other event in modern American history has gone from being contentious to being forgotten as quickly as the war in Iraq. Remember the war? It consumed a trillion American dollars, devoured a hundred thousand Iraqi lives, squandered a country's reputation, and destroyed an American presidency. Given the retreat of the American press--the first American withdrawal from Iraq, you might say--one could almost be excused, in the spring of 2009, for forgetting that 140,000 American troops are still fighting and dying there.

That an undertaking as momentous and as costly as America's war in Iraq could vanish so quickly from the forefront of the national consciousness does not speak well of the United States in the early twenty-first century: not for its seriousness and not for its sense of responsibility. The American people, we are told, appear to be exhausted by the war in Iraq. But exhausted by what, exactly? Certainly not from fighting it. The fighting is done by kids from the towns between the coasts, not by any of the big shots who really matter. And they are not exhausted by paying for it, either: another generation will do that. No, when Americans say that they are tired of the war in Iraq, what they really mean is that they are tired of watching it on television, or of reading about it on the Internet. As entertainment, as Topic A, the agony has become a bore. "A car bomb exploded today in a crowded Baghdad marketplace, killing 53 and wounding 112." Click.

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Carlos Lozada | May 17

WaPo - His hero? Lincoln. His challenges? FDR-like. His speeches? Downright Reaganesque, we're told. But when it comes to foreign policy, who knew Obama would emulate George Bush? No, not the son, but the kinder and gentler one: George H.W. Bush.

So argued Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, in a talk Thursday at the New America Foundation. As he discussed his memoir, "War of Necessity, War of Choice," Haass was asked why the "realist" approach he shared with Bush's national security adviser Brent Scowcroft had lost out to lofty visions of America's ability to transform the world. His answer suggests sober expectations for Obama -- and that the era of idealism in U.S. foreign policy is over.

"This is a pretty good time for us realists," Haass said. "Indeed, the foreign policy of the Obama administration resembles nothing so much as the foreign policy of Bush 41."

[Comment: Dick? Please: help less. I agree and I'm largely happy about it too, but less help. ~ JPD]

Janine di Giovanni | April 24

NYT - David Kilcullen is a former officer in the Australian Army, a strategist and a scholar. He is also an expert on counterinsurgency, or how to combat a rebellion, and one of the few brave souls who had the ear of people in the Bush White House and advised against the invasion of Iraq.

“It’s going to take a lot more than you seem to be willing to commit,” he told the Americans. No one listened. After the invasion, Kilcullen watched the growing mayhem with outrage and dismay. This time people listened.

The French writer on military affairs David Galula, who was known for his theories on counterinsurgency, particularly during France’s Algerian war, must have influenced Kilcullen while he was doing his Ph.D. in political anthropology. Galula’s thesis is that one aim of war is to support the local population rather than control the territory. Part of Kilcullen’s academic research involved living and working alongside villagers in West Java, trying to absorb the culture of Dar’ul Islam, a guerrilla movement hatched in the late 1940s (and later identified by some as an Indonesian clone and ally of Al Qaeda).

What Kilcullen wanted to do was to observe the movement the way the locals did — not from the “official version I could find in books.” So he lived in vil­lages and conversed with his curious neighbors about blue jeans and the Internet, until they trusted him enough to share ­information.

Kamin Mohammadi

It is Friday and Abadan's graveyard is busy. The second day of the weekend, this is when many Iranians head to the cemetery to pay their respects to their dead. Families come en masse, bearing flasks of rosewater and boxes of sweetmeats to hand around to other mourners. The graves are raised stone platforms topped by a gravestone or often, a picture of the deceased set in a glass case. Beyond, the recent rain has turned the marshland into fields of mud, palm trees swaying in the breeze.

I am here with my cousin Esmael and his wife and we are bearing trays of homemade halva, honey biscuits, rosewater and fruit. In the martyr's section of the cemetery there are special prayers taking place, the flags placed above each grave flapping in the wind that wafts round the scent of the rosewater used to wash down the graves. We are here for the rituals marking 40 days after my cousin Ebby's funeral, hence the special collection of funereal sweets we are carrying.

We walk past the martyr's section to another part of the cemetery because, although Ebby was a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, he died not martyred on the battlefield, but 16 years later in an abandoned slum in Abadan, a homeless heroin addict with AIDS and Hepatitis.

Michael Knights | March 16

WINEP - In December 2008, shortly before assuming office, President Barack Obama called for "tough but direct diplomacy with Iran." As the new administration moves forward, it must realize that U.S.-Iranian negotiations will take place while Iran is killing Americans in Iraq and increasing its support for armed Iraqi factions. Like its predecessor, the Obama administration must prepare for the challenge of negotiating under fire.

Iranian-Backed Operations, 2003-2007

In addition to significant economic investment and relationship building among Iraq's political parties, Iran develops influence in Iraq by providing Iraqi militants with training, shelter, money, and equipment. Analysis of declassified interrogation and other intelligence material published by the West Point Counterterrorism Center, the Institute for Studying War, and the Long War Journal, has publicly revealed what military intelligence professionals have been piecing together for longer than five years: that Iran has been developing a covert action program in Iraq for decades, one that is open-ended, resilient, and well-funded, and that utilizes a broad range of Iraqi proxies.

For those of you who don't know, MEI is the Middle East Institute, headquartered in D.C. To my mind, it's about the most "non-denominational" of the various organizations of its type.

Anyway, they've got a quite useful podcast series which serves as a vehicle for various of their events, etc. Well worth a listen. In particular, this recent event [February 11] is a hoot. The link given is to the event page, podcasts can be accessed from that page.

Reflections on the Iranian Revolution

Charlie Naas, Henry Precht, Alex Vatanka & Trita Parsi

link

Dave Kilcullen | February 5

Small Wars Journal - Senator Joseph Lieberman made a timely and well-argued call, during his recent speech at the Brookings Institution, for a comprehensive political-military campaign in the Afghanistan-Pakistan (AFPAK) region. Seven years into a long war, we need to be honest with ourselves about the harsh strategic choices we face. And we need to recognize that before we can expect long-term strategic progress, we first have to deal with an immediate, acute crisis that could derail the entire effort this year. Let me first discuss long-term strategic choices, then turn to the immediate crisis, and conclude with some remarks on Pakistan.

Long-Term Strategic Options

We need to do four things – what we might call “essential strategic tasks” – to succeed in Afghanistan. We need to prevent the re-emergence of an Al Qaeda sanctuary that could lead to another 9/11. We need to protect Afghanistan from a range of security threats including the Taliban insurgency, terrorism, narcotics, misrule and corruption. We need to build sustainable and accountable state institutions (at the central, provincial and local level) and a resilient civil society. Then we can begin a phased hand-off to Afghan institutions that can survive without permanent international assistance. We might summarize this approach as “Prevent, Protect, Build, Hand-Off”. Let’s call it “Option A”.

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ZAKARIA: We've heard of all the problems in Afghanistan, and there are many. The questions are, what is the military situation on the ground, and is there a military solution?

Joining me now are two men who certainly know the answers.

Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and he is back from Afghanistan recently.

David Kilcullen is a counterinsurgency expert who has been an important adviser to General David Petraeus. He is currently a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

Hussein Agha, Robert Malley | January 15

The New York Review of Books - Foreign affairs had no more than a small part in Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and the Middle East peace process only a fraction of that. Yet the sorry prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians make a break with past US policy on this matter imperative, regardless of the new administration's priorities.

The need for a move away from the lethal mix of arrogance and ignorance characteristic of George W. Bush's presidency is hard to dispute. That is not all that needs breaking away from. Some observers have welcomed the past year's surge of older-style US diplomacy, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's multiple visits to the region, efforts to build Palestinian institutions and security forces, and negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians over a final status agreement. Yet spin aside, these efforts hardly can be deemed successful. Realities on the ground—from settlement construction to deepening divisions within Palestinian and Israeli societies to growing disillusionment with a two-state solution—render the possibility of a peace accord increasingly remote.

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Welcome to NORAD Tracks Santa

A glimpse from last year….NORAD tracking Santa around the world!

All the preparations for this year are in place! Return on Christmas Eve to track St. Nick on his magical flight around the world!

Until then, come back each day to receive updates from the North Pole and to discover new surprises in the Kids' Countdown.

[Comment: Url after the break. Here's to one of the more important, but near as I can tell, relatively little-known trades. ~ JPD]

Alan McLeod | November 23

Gen X at 40 - [Alan here. I received a post updating my undergrad pal Trevor's progress from Debbie and him this evening and figured I would post it as a whole new entry rather than adding to the string of the now 439 comments, best wishes, photos and fond memories from family and friends in response to the post I wrote when I heard the terrible news. So here you go...]

An update on Trevor’s progress is long overdue with much to write about.

On July 23rd, 2007, after over a year in Vancouver General Hospital, we joyfully left BC for the hope of rehabilitation at the Halvar Johnson Centre for Brain Injury in Ponoka, Alberta. We were advised by the doctors at VGH to put Trevor in a long-term care facility and “let him get on with his life”. I didn’t have to wonder too long what life would be like in a public long term care facility. I wasn’t about to let that happen. We flew out of BC via military flight early on a rainy “wet” coast morning. We were met at the airport by an honor guard from Trevor’s unit in Vancouver, the Seaforth Highlanders. Not surprisingly, this is Trevor’s first memory after the injury. He doesn’t remember any of his time at VGH, which is a blessing in spite of some of the wonderful people we came to know during our time there. I have many pictures and have filled him in on various events and people at that time. I also kept a daily journal for him to read which he has been going through of late. He is endeared by so many of the stories of the true spirit of friendship and generosity. Thank you to everyone who visited Trevor, sent cards, gifts and even prayers for him. He tells me he plans to respond to every one “in the fullness of time”.

The 1914-1918 Vigil
 
November 5

This started last night as an observance in advance of November 11. The names of those Canadian servicemen and women killed during the First World War are being projected publicly a few at a time in various fitting locales across Canada (e.g., National War Memorial, the Lege in Saskatchewan, etc.) and at Canada House in London over seven nights, to finish at sunrise on November 11th. Those unable to attend a local observance can view the memorial online, here.

China blocks new Iran sanctions talks: diplomats

Matthew Lee | Washington D.C. | October 16

AP — China is blocking high-level talks about imposing new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, apparently in retaliation for U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, according to U.S. officials and diplomats briefed on the matter.

The Bush administration has been trying for more than a week to arrange a conference call among senior officials from the six nations negotiating with Iran. But they have so far been stymied by China's refusal to commit, they said on Thursday.

The officials and diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing internal deliberations between the United States and its negotiating partners: the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Britain, China, France and Russia — along with Germany.

The call has been expected since Iran's top nuclear envoy wrote a letter to the six countries on Oct. 6 complaining about the attitude of the West in the talks.

The group discussion is the next step in a slow-moving pressure campaign designed to persuade Iran to give up objectionable parts of its nuclear program. Iran denies it is seeking a nuclear weapon.

Iran opposition to challenge Ahmadinejad in polls

Tehran | October 11

The Hindustan Times - Iranian opposition groups are preparing to mount a challenge to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in next June's presidential elections, local media reported Saturday.

Mehdi Karroubi, the 71-year-old head of the moderate Etemad Melli (National Trust) party, will most likely be the first to confirm his candidacy for the June 12, 2009 elections in a press conference Sunday.

Reformers are still hoping to persuade former president Mohammad Khatami to run for office, but the 65-year-old cleric has not yet decided.

An alternative for Khatami could reportedly be former vice-president Mohamad-Ali Najafi, 56, who is currently member of the Tehran City Council.

Another potential candidate from the opposition camp could be the former National Security Council Hassan Rowhani, 60, a moderate cleric who is also close to influential ex-president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.

...I note that this globalisation thing ticks onwards. Oddly, I am struck by the notion that perhaps commonality of quotidian aggravation may offer the greatest first step in bridging the gap to the "other" in a medium-driven world:

In Cairo, Seizing the Day, but Not the Internet

Mike Nizza | January 31 | Cairo

NYT - It all started with impatient individuals, in offices, houses and Internet cafes.

Waiting for Web sites to load, having no choice but to commit error messages to memory, like this one from Google’s E-mail service:

Then, as the day passed and thousands of text messages were exchanged, the big picture started to emerge: the Internet was down – not only in Cairo, or all of Egypt, but also in Dubai and Abu Dhabi too.

Suddenly, irritation was giving way to a deeper, more positive sentiment — that of being part of a collective mess, a shared experience. The digital fabric of half the Arab world was torn: it became a story, a conversation to be had around tea or dinner.

[more at link above]

The piece is a review of airpower during the July War. Seen it mentioned a good many places, hadn't realized that it was available as a free download from Maxwell, here.

Enjoy.

Why the Che myth is bad for the left

The Economist - THE bearded face—eyes staring defiantly to infinity, the long wavy hair beneath the beret stirred by the Caribbean breeze—has become one of the world's most familiar images. Alberto Korda's photograph of Ernesto “Che” Guevara may be waved aloft by anti-globalisation protesters but it has spawned a global brand. It has adorned cigarettes, ice cream and a bikini, and is tattooed on the bodies of footballers.

What explains the extraordinary appeal of Guevara, an Argentine who 40 years ago this week was captured and shot in Bolivia (see article)? Partly the consistency with which he followed his own injunction that “the duty of the revolutionary is to make the revolution”. A frail asthmatic, he took up arms with Fidel Castro's guerrillas in Cuba's Sierra Maestra. After their victory, Guevara would fight again in the Congo as well as Bolivia. He fought dictators who were backed by the United States in the name of anti-communism when the cold war was at its hottest, and when Guevara's cry to create “two, three...many Vietnams” resonated on university campuses across the world. His renewed popularity in recent years owes much to a revival of anti-Americanism.

Fareed Zakaria and Norman Podhoretz | November 02

The Australian - PODHORETZ: At least until recently, most people agreed that it would be catastrophic to allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear capability. The only debate was over what might be the best means to prevent this from happening.

Well, for more than four years diplomacy has been tried, first by the Europeans and then with some US participation. All these negotiations have accomplished is to buy the Iranians more time to move forward inexorably towards a nuclear capability. There have also been two rounds of sanctions voted by the UN Security Council, neither of them very tough, because the Russians and the Chinese are opposed to really tough sanctions. We've now unilaterally imposed a new round of sanctions involving the banks and the financial system. But most experts think these are not going to bite sufficiently, let alone make the Iranians change their behaviour.

So that leaves us with only one terrible choice, which is to bomb those facilities and retard their program, or even cut it off altogether, or allow them to go nuclear. US senator John McCain is right to say: "The only thing worse than bombing Iran is to allow Iran to get the bomb."

[Comment: Remember that truly terrible piece from Giuliani in Foreign Policy? That'd be Norman, I wager. Kinda chilling to think that this particular numpty might actually end up with chips in the big game. ~ JPD]

Malcolm Nance | October 29

Small Wars Journal - I’d like to digress from my usual analysis of insurgent strategy and tactics to speak out on an issue of grave importance to Small Wars Journal readers. We, as a nation, are having a crisis of honor.

Last week the Attorney General nominee Judge Michael Mukasey refused to define waterboarding terror suspects as torture. On the same day MSNBC television pundit and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough quickly spoke out in its favor. On his morning television broadcast, he asserted, without any basis in fact, that the efficacy of the waterboard a viable tool to be sued on Al Qaeda suspects.

Scarborough said, "For those who don't know, waterboarding is what we did to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is the Al Qaeda number two guy that planned 9/11. And he talked …" He then speculated that “If you ask Americans whether they think it's okay for us to waterboard in a controlled environment … 90% of Americans will say 'yes.'” Sensing that what he was saying sounded extreme, he then claimed he did not support torture but that waterboarding was debatable as a technique: "You know, that's the debate. Is waterboarding torture? … I don't want the United States to engage in the type of torture that [Senator] John McCain had to endure."

Hizbollah and the Lebanese Crisis

International Crisis Group | Middle East Report # 69 | 10 October

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The Lebanese crisis has receded from the headlines but has not gone away. Today, all eyes are on the presidential election, the latest arena in the ongoing struggle between pro- and anti-government forces. Yet even if a compromise candidate is found, none of the country’s underlying problems will have been addressed, chief among them the status of Hizbollah’s weapons. If the election is to be more than a mere prelude to the next showdown, all parties and their external allies need to move away from maximalist demands and agree on a package deal that accepts for now Hizbollah’s armed status while constraining the ways in which its weapons can be used.

Looking back over the past ten months, Lebanese can feel somewhat relieved. The massive demonstrations in December 2006, followed by a general strike and clashes between pro- and anti-government forces with strong sectarian overtones, as well as a series of assassinations and car bombs, brought the nation perilously close to breakdown. State institutions are virtually paralysed; the government barely governs; the economic crisis is deepening; mediation efforts have failed; political murders continue; and militias, anticipating possible renewed conflict, are rearming. Still, fearful of the consequences of their own actions, leaders of virtually every shade took a welcome step back.

[Comment: Haven't had a chance to read this yet, but I'm sure it continues ICG's unparalleled record of acute observation on Lebanon and Hez. Enjoy. ~ JPD]