In terms of leaping to Islamophobic conclusions, this must rank right up there with the smug certainty with which The Investigative Project’s Steven Emerson claimed on CBS News the afternoon of the 1995 Oklahoma [...]]]>
In terms of leaping to Islamophobic conclusions, this must rank right up there with the smug certainty with which The Investigative Project’s Steven Emerson claimed on CBS News the afternoon of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that the act showed “a Middle Eastern trait” because it “was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible” — a memorable moment for me, if only because we at the IPS Washington bureau, as subsequently noted by the Washington Post and The Guardian of London, were the first news organization to publish that the bombing’s source likely would be found closer to the Midwest than the Middle East. (Sorry I don’t have a link; it’s too old.) In this case, it appears that Norway has found its Timothy McVeigh. Mondoweiss did an excellent profile on the alleged bomber/mass killer.
Of course, the Journal’s editorial writers were hardly alone as a quick scan at the blogs of the usual suspects — Commentary’s ‘Contentions’ (John Podhoretz), The Weekly Standard (Tom Joscelyn), the American Enterprise Institute’s blog, etc. — shows.
But special attention should be paid to Jennifer Rubin, whose “Right Turn” blog on the Post’s website has, in its relatively short and controversial life, become kind of one-stop shopping site for all the hard-line neo-conservative memes and rages of the day. Yesterday’s blog on the Norwegian outrage was no exception, and she hasn’t yet bothered to amend it in light of new details about the alleged perpetrator, as the Journal felt compelled to do. The Atlantic’s James Fallows and Steve Clemons have already taken her on, and I’m sure many more will follow.
Perhaps the most objectionable part of Rubin’s comments was actually voiced by American Enterprise Institute’s resident intelligence expert, Gary Schmitt, who, unlike most his AEI foreign-policy colleagues, tends to keep a low media profile. Nonetheless, she quotes him as telling her:
- “There has been a lot of talk over the past few months on how we’ve got al-Qaeda on the run and, compared with what it once was, it’s become a rump organization. But as the attack in Oslo reminds us, there are plenty of al-Qaeda allies still operating. No doubt cutting the head off a snake is important; the problem is, we’re dealing with global nest of snakes.”
Now we don’t know whether Rubin had taken this quote out of context or whether the certainty with which he expressed the view that Al Qaeda was behind the Oslo killings in this excerpt had been preceded by the caveat “if” or “assuming” that Al Qaeda was responsible or similar cautions against leaping to conclusions. If so, then this statement wouldn’t be nearly as objectionable.
Nonetheless, it’s significant that Rubin turned to Schmitt, the former executive director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), as an expert on this question. Here are some relevant excerpts about Schmitt’s experience and expertise in intelligence from his Right Web profile, particularly with respect to the Iraq War and long-time association with Abram Shulsky of the notorious Office of Special Plans (with my emphasis):
- Like many of the proponents of the Iraq War, Schmitt has had to struggle with both faulty rationales he and other neoconservatives peddled before the war began and the spiraling problems confronted by the U.S. military in the wake of the invasion. In an article for the Weekly Standard several weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Schmitt wrote: “We know [Iraq] has stockpiled mass quantities of anthrax and has worked hard to make it as potent a weapon of terror as possible. We know that Saddam’s Iraq continues to pursue development of weapons of mass destruction-nuclear, chemical, and biological-believing that these are the ultimate keys to overcoming America’s military dominance in the region. In short, Iraq is both equipped with dangerous weapons and out to get the United States” (October 29, 2001).
In a subsequent article published in the Los Angeles Times after the invasion, Schmitt wrote: “Why can’t the coalition teams find stocks of weapons today? Probably because Hussein destroyed them either before the UN inspectors returned to Iraq last December or just before the war began. The credibility of both President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair will remain in question until coalition investigators have not only gotten to the bottom of the missing weapons but also, and more important, the weapons programs themselves. Here, patience is required. Intelligence products are not gospel, and they should not be treated as such. Failure to find [WMDs] would complicate a president’s ability to rally support for taking action in similar situations in the future” (June 28, 2003).
Schmitt is the author of a number of works, including with Shulsky Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence (2002), in which the authors argue that “truth is not the goal” of intelligence operations, but “victory” (p. 176). He also co-authored with Shulsky The Future of U.S. Intelligence, a report published by the hardline National Strategy Information Center that seemed to foreshadow the work of the Office of Special Plans. The report concluded that intelligence should not be centralized in the CIA, and that the intelligence community should adopt new methodology aimed at “obtaining information others try to keep secret and penetrating below the ‘surface’ impression created by publicly available information to determine whether an adversary is deceiving us or denying us key information.” It recommended creating “competing analytic centers” with “different points of view” that could “provide policymakers better protection against new ‘Pearl Harbors,’ i.e., against being surprised.
Even if Israel does possess a second-strike capability, and [...]]]>
Even if Israel does possess a second-strike capability, and even if the U.S. could be counted on to punish a nuclear attack on the Jewish state, the existential condition of the Jews would still have reverted to that experienced in pre-state Europe.
Fallows was struck by the fact that when you put aside the talk about Israel specific security, the statement is really a reflection of the universal predicament brought about by the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
He concludes that:
(a) that this is not a new, hypothetical, and Israeli-specific problem but a decades-old and very real problem already confronting most of humanity — notwithstanding all the special vulnerabilities of Israel’s situation. There is literally nothing that can assure any of us that we will not be killed tomorrow, by the millions, in an accidental or irrational nuclear exchange. As long as the weapons exist, the possibility remains. Deterrence and “confidence-building” have been the only ways to manage it. And (b) that a benefit of discussing the “existential” threat to Israel’s “sense of security” might be new attention to the comparable but broader threat to humanity as a whole.
It’s worth noting Fallows’s point that “deterrence and ‘confidence-building’”–which amount to a policy of containment– have historically been effective tools to manage nuclear rivalries. The threat to Israel from a nuclear armed Iran would not be an experience unique to Israel. Using Fallows’s line of reasoning, it’s worth asking if Israel’s response should be any different than any other country with nuclear weapons who has learned to peacefully coexist, thus far, with a nuclear armed rival.
]]>Washington Post: Columnist David Ignatius takes a broad view of the Obama administration’s diplomatic trouble spots and prescribes “patience plus” because time is actually on the side of U.S. counterparts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, and Iran. Ignatius admires the current “diplomatic ambiguity,” but [...]]]>
Washington Post: Columnist David Ignatius takes a broad view of the Obama administration’s diplomatic trouble spots and prescribes “patience plus” because time is actually on the side of U.S. counterparts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, and Iran. Ignatius admires the current “diplomatic ambiguity,” but thinks Obama needs to “promptly seize opportunities for negotiation when they arise,” noting that this will hopefully be accomplished in September or October when Iran and the P5 + 1 sit down for talks on the nuclear issue and probably Afghanistan.
Washington Post (AP): Iran’s ambassador to the UN is angered that top Pentagon brass acknowledged a U.S. contingency plan to bomb Iran, denouncing the rhetoric as an unprovoked “threat.” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made similar statements, adding that, should the United States attack, “the field of the Iranian nation’s confrontation will not be only our region.” Khamanei also warned that belligerent talk would end negotiations.
Weekly Standard Blog: Gabriel Schoenfeld tries to sort the recent chatter about the Iranian nuclear clock writing, “Time may be on our side in dealing with Iran—but then again it may not.” Not quite endorsing the nuclear time line in Jeffrey Goldberg’s latest piece (the Israel contention that next July is the doomsday), Schoenfeld then takes on the Atlantic‘s James Fallows, who thinks the United States has some time. “For an analyst as thoughtful as James Fallows to assert categorically that we will not be taken by surprise is itself a surprise. One might even call it an intelligence failure,” writes Schoenfeld.
Pajames Media: Hudson Institute Fellow Anne Bayefsky writes that the “Ground Zero Mosque” has “an Iranian connection.” Bayefsky cites a photograph of Cordoba Initiative chairman, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, and Iranian Mohammad Javad Larijani at a 2008 event sponsored by the Initiative in Kuala Lumpur. Larijani defended Iran at the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year. Bayefsky warns that, “The Iranian connection to the launch of Cordoba House may go beyond a relationship between Rauf and Larijani. The Cordoba Initiative lists one of its three major partners as the UN’s Alliance of Civilizations. The Alliance has its roots in the Iranian-driven “Dialogue Among Civilizations,” the brainchild of former Iranian President Hojjatoleslam Seyyed Mohammad Khatami.”
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