If an international agreement is violated and no one makes a sound, did it really happen?

by Samuel Cutler

A few weeks ago, the State Department imposed sanctions on Greek businessman Dimitris Cambis and his company, Impire Shipping Ltd., pursuant to the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 (ISA), for his [...]]]> via Lobe Log

If an international agreement is violated and no one makes a sound, did it really happen?

by Samuel Cutler

A few weeks ago, the State Department imposed sanctions on Greek businessman Dimitris Cambis and his company, Impire Shipping Ltd., pursuant to the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 (ISA), for his role in operating what Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen described as an “intricate Iranian scheme that was designed to evade international oil sanctions.” While OFAC’s designation has been covered at length, less noticed is the fact that the sanctions on Cambis and his companies seem to violate a Clinton-era pact between the US and EU, in which the US pledged to waive sanctions against EU persons under the ISA, known at the time as the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act.

According to OFAC and an earlier story by Reuters, Cambis used a web of front companies to purchase eight aging oil tankers, worth little more than their weight in scrap metal, in order to facilitate the sale of Iranian crude to China. An example provided by Reuters illustrates how the scheme worked: In early December, the Leycothea, one of Cambis’ ships, anchored alongside the Iranian tanker Marigold off the coast of the UAE Emirate of Sharjah, just across the Persian Gulf, from the Iranian shipping hub of Bandar Abbas. Once anchored, a ship-to-ship transfer took place, concealing the origin of the crude and allowing it to be traded on the global market as non-Iranian oil. About a month later the Leycothea made a port call to China’s Zhanjiang oil terminal. Each of these tankers is capable of carrying approximately $200 million worth of oil per shipment.

In the recent past, the EU has reacted strongly to attempts by the US to impose secondary sanctions on its citizens and companies. Following the passage of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996, commonly known as the Helms-Burton Act, the EU filed a World Trade Organization (WTO) challenge alleging that secondary sanctions violated US commitments under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). While the WTO challenge refers only to the Helms-Burton Act, the EU concurrently voiced serious concerns about the ISA. The EU also passed European Council Regulation 2271/96, which contains legal countermeasures against the extraterritorial application of US sanctions and forbids EU persons “actively or by deliberate omission” from complying with the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, the Helms-Burton Act, and the ISA. In order to settle the dispute, the Clinton administration entered into an agreement with the EU known as the “Understanding with Respect to Disciplines for the Strengthening of Investment Protection.” In exchange for the withdrawal of the WTO challenge, the United States, among other measures, committed to waiving future ISA sanctions against EU persons.

The SDN designation of Cambis and Impire Shipping represent the first sanctions against an EU person under the ISA. Despite the apparent violation of the Investment Understanding, a response by the EU has been nonexistent so far. This reflects a broader acceptance by the EU of US secondary sanctions, at least when it comes to Iran, over the past two years. Since the passage of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA) in 2010, US and EU Iran sanctions policies have largely come into alignment. The fact that Cambis is a minor player engaged in activities that are sanctionable under both US and EU law likely dampens any enthusiasm for challenging an infringement on EU or Greek sovereignty. In this case, the action might even be tacitly supported by the EU because it allows for the US to do the “dirty work” of imposing sanctions against an EU citizen without granting them the right to present a legal challenge in an EU court, which has recently caused EU policymakers major headaches. What is clear is that at least when it comes to Iran, there are few nations interested in challenging US secondary measures, regardless of past agreements.

– Samuel Cutler is a policy adviser at Ferrari & Associates, P.C., a Washington, DC boutique law firm specializing in US economic sanctions matters.

Photo Credit: U.S. Navy/ Richard J. Brunson

Amidst UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s attempts to achieve a temporary Syrian ceasefire, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week announced a boost in American non-lethal assistance to the Syrian rebels.  Meanwhile, Russian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Nikolai Makarov declared that Moscow has “reliable information that Syrian militants have foreign…anti-aircraft [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Amidst UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s attempts to achieve a temporary Syrian ceasefire, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week announced a boost in American non-lethal assistance to the Syrian rebels.  Meanwhile, Russian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Nikolai Makarov declared that Moscow has “reliable information that Syrian militants have foreign…anti-aircraft missile systems, including those made in the USA.” Recent footage from Syria shows resistance fighters with shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile launchers. But those seen were Russian-style SA-7’s possessed by the Syrian army and many other Middle East militaries, rather than advanced US models like the FIM-92 Stinger.

The question of whether to provide arms to the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is fighting a desperate battle against the Assad regime, remains a difficult and conflicted decision for the US and most other NATO countries. For some, sending arms to the FSA to bring an earlier end to the regime and the continuing bloodshed and destruction is a “no-brainer”. Others maintain that giving the rebels more (and perhaps better) arms would only contribute further to the overall mayhem that might not end for quite a long time regardless.

For those wishing to respond to rebel pleas for arms, Islamist extremists — scattered among the scores of militias and local contingents comprising the FSA — are a central concern. As the civil war has dragged on, there has been rising evidence of these extremists fighting alongside rebel fighters, especially in the north where foreign correspondents have far more access. Many are Syrians, but a number of them have been coming in from neighboring countries to fight as scattered contingents within the FSA (or perhaps merely to find yet another venue for “jihad” against an unpopular secular regime).

And there is real reason for concern among governments sympathetic to the opposition about arms falling into the wrong hands. It is, after all, difficult to determine who would be the ultimate recipient of munitions assistance once it passes into Syria. In a fluid environment with scores of FSA factions, militant groups might also construct deceptive liaisons to convey false assurances of moderation once they catch wind of selective distribution. Finally, in cities like Aleppo, a number of armed factions appear to be fighting alongside each other and might feel compelled to share munitions for mutual support and protection against regime attacks. The injection of surface-to-air missiles into this conflict is especially risky because they could end up in the hands of terrorist groups and be used against commercial airliners.

That said, anger is increasing among anti-regime elements within Syria over the failure of the West to provide armed assistance. Had arms been supplied to Syrian rebels considerably sooner, the number of Syrians embittered over the lack of tangible support from the outside, the vast extent of destruction wrought mainly by the regime’s aircraft and heavy weapons, and the number of militants arriving from neighboring countries might have been more limited before the fall of the Assad regime (which this writer assumes is highly likely). The palpable rise in anger toward major Western powers for withholding arms could alone render more Syrians toward anti-Western Islamist appeals.

This, in a nutshell, is the US and Western dilemma. Standing by without providing vital arms while the bloodshed continues will probably mean less sympathy and increasing militancy among the rebels over time. After all, more of them (and members of their families) are being killed and maimed because they lack proper arms and sufficient ammunition.

On the other hand, if the rebels gain access to considerable more arms (meaning militants too in many cases), anti-Western anger would likely abate. But the conflict has already gone on long enough to produce a problematic post-Assad scenario featuring more robust militias competing for power, along with perhaps even more ugly sectarian score-settling against Alawite and Christian minorities that have been supporting the regime. In fact, the great amount of infrastructure, commercial establishments and all manner of housing already destroyed by regime firepower will likely be the source of a potentially profound economic crisis that would generate a heavy measure of frustration, anger and recrimination over some years even after the fall of the regime.

Consequently, in terms of the available options at this late stage in the struggle, those governments agonizing over the pros and cons of providing arms might well perceive the choice as a sort of “Catch-22.” In the context of the argument on the positive side of the policy ledger that providing arms could bring a swifter defeat of the regime, there is one more possible plus. So far, major Syrian Army units have not chosen to defect en masse, probably because (in addition to the obvious regime-loyalty notion) many realize facing off against the regime would be considerably more dangerous than combating relatively lightly armed rebel contingents. Should, however, rebel forces become considerably more militarily formidable, that shift might trigger such defections and a change on the ground that could be more significant than what the rebels have achieved so far. That said, even if plenty of additional arms were provided, the FSA is unlikely to receive tanks, other armored vehicles and heavy artillery that could match regime capabilities because most rebel fighters are not army defectors and would not be able to operate these more complex weapon-systems nearly as effectively as the Syrian military. So, not only has the US evidently provided little or no arms to the Syrian opposition, Washington may well remain (like many other potential Western suppliers) quite conflicted with respect to doing so.

Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.

William Kristol & Jamie Fly, Weekly Standard: Neoconservative pundit William Kristol who cofounded such jewels as the [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.

William Kristol & Jamie Fly, Weekly Standard: Neoconservative pundit William Kristol who cofounded such jewels as the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) and who serves on the board of the hyperbolic Israel advocacy group, the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) tries to pressure the President into bringing the U.S. closer to war with Iran with ideologue in arms, Jamie Fly: (Jim Lobe has the story.)

President Obama says a nuclear Iran is unacceptable. The real and credible threat of force is probably the last hope of persuading the Iranian regime to back down. So: Isn’t it time for the president to ask Congress for an Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iran’s nuclear program?

Instead of running away from it, administration officials could be putting the military option front and center and ensuring it is seen as viable. And if the administration flinches, Congress could consider passing such an authorization anyway.

And here is Mitt Romney’s response to the article from CBS’s “Face the Nation“:

…I can assure you if I’m President, the Iranians will have no question but that I would be willing to take military action, if necessary, to prevent them from becoming a nuclear threat to the world. I don’t believe at this stage, therefore, if I’m President, that we need to have war powers approval or a special authorization for military force. The President has that capacity now.

Former Senator Charles Robb (D-Va): Testifying at this week’s Armed Services Committee hearing titled “Addressing the Iranian Nuclear Challenge: Understanding the Military Options” was former Senator Charles Robb who now co-chairs the Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) Task Force on Iran. Robb mainly reiterated recommendations from a BPC report released in February. According to BPC staffers, “only the credible threat of force, combined with sanctions” affords “any realistic hope of an acceptable diplomatic resolution.” Unsuprisingly, “force” is the key to successful diplomacy:

There are three primary components of a credible military threat: an effective information and messaging strategy, economic preparations and credible military readiness activities. Undertaking these steps would boost the credibility of the military option, thereby strengthening the chance for sanctions and diplomacy to succeed in bringing about a peaceful resolution to the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.

What exactly is the BPC? Jim Lobe has the scoop:

We’ve been covering BPC’s work on Iran pretty intensively both on IPS and Lobelog since the fall of 2008 when it issued its first Iran report whose primary author, as I understand it, was Michael Rubin (and Dennis Ross was on the task force that produced it).

The staff director for their Iran reports is Michael Makovsky whose RightWeb profile was updated just two months ago.

Makovsky, brother of David at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), not only served at one time in the IDF, but also was a West Bank settler, according to reports. When I asked him directly about a month ago whether those reports were accurate, he abruptly terminated an otherwise relatively cordial conversation about his service in the Feith’s Office of Special Plans in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. If those reports are indeed true, and, to my knowledge, he’s never denied them, one has to ask how someone who presumably supports Israeli settlements in occupied territory could become Foreign Policy Director of something called the “Bipartisan Policy Center”.

When they unveiled their last report in February you can read my synopsis here, Robb and Sen. Coates presided. I wrote about their first report in 2008.

Interestingly, several of the key players on the Iran task force at BPC were invited to a Foundation for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) retreat in the Bahamas back in May 2007, entitled “Confronting the Iranian Threat: The Way Forward”. In addition to Makovsky, Rademaker was invited, as were Michael Rubin and Air Force Lt. Gen. Chuck Wald (ret.), who has been a major contributor to the Iran task force and co-written op-eds about its work with Robb and Coates. Precisely who turned up there, I don’t know, but Wald told me at the time that he wasn’t able to attend. I wrote about the invitation on Lobelog at the time. You can find it here. It was kind of a who’s who among the neo-con hawks: Bret Stephens, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Michael Ledeen, etc. etc.

Congress, Foreign Policy: Josh Rogin reports on a bipartisan letter spearheaded by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) that was sent out last Friday by 44 senators calling on the President to cease diplomatic efforts if the Iranians don’t submit to 3 U.S. demands, as well as continue the relentless sanctions regime and ramp up the military option:

“On the other hand, if the sessions in Moscow produce no substantive agreement, we urge you to reevaluate the utility of further talks at this time and instead focus on significantly increasing the pressure on the Iranian government through sanctions and making clear that a credible military option exists,” they wrote.  ”As you have rightly noted, ‘the window for diplomacy is closing.’  Iran’s leaders must realize that you mean precisely that.”

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald responds:

This implication is clear: a military attack by the U.S. on Iran is at least justified, if not compelled, if a satisfactory agreement is not quickly reached regarding Iran’s nuclear program. At the same time, the letter itself virtually ensures no such agreement is possible because the conditions it imposes as the “absolute minimum” are ones everyone knows Iran will never agree to (closing the Fordow facility and giving up its right to enrich uranium above 5 percent). It also declares that it is not only Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon that is “unacceptable” — diplomatic code for “we’ll go to war to stop it” — but its mere “capability” to build one.

As does the Washington Post’s hawk-in-chief Jennifer Rubin who applauds the increasingly militaristic trend in Congress and the fact that it’s “unlikely the Iranians will agree to any of those conditions” in the letter while yet again agitating for the U.S. to wage war on Iran (emphasis mine):

But those crippling sanctions have come very late as Iran compiles a sufficient stockpile of enriched uranium to make multiple bombs. We are drawing close to the point when Obama will face the choice he has tried to avoid: Act militarily, support the Israelis’ military action or accept the “unacceptable,” a nuclear-armed revolutionary state sponsor of terror? And as we arrive at that point it becomes clear that the only reason for Israel (with fewer military capabilities than the United States) to act militarily rather than the United States would be that the president, even on the most critical national security threat of our time, won’t lead.

Yet despite all the huffing and puffing that Rubin does on a weekly basis about the “threat” the U.S. faces from Iran, just this February Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified that “Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict.” Add to that the top U.S. intelligence official James Clapper’s reiteration that Iran has not made a decision to build a nuclear bomb and that diplomacy and sanctions–as opposed to the militaristic measures that Rubin advocates–remain the most effective means of dissuading the Iranians from going nuclear.

Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: What sanctions good for according to Rubin (forget that diplomacy mumbo jumbo):

We should, of course, move forward on sanctions insofar as they may undermine the current regime and push segments of the population in the country to align themselves with the Green Movement.

And here is her lament for what has so far been U.S. refusal to militarily strike Iran:

Given Obama’s refusal to act forcefully against Iran’s weaker, non-nuclear armed ally Syria, I strongly suspect it will be up to Israel. That would be a pitiful result of a lackadaisical American approach to our primary security threat and the ignominious end to “leading from behind.” Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, but at this point that certainly seems like the most likely outcome.

Washington Post: The Post’s hawkish editorial board calls for U.S. rejection of Iran’s right to peacefully enrich uranium (putting them in line with the Israeli position) and increasing pressure on Iran:

The Obama administration must nevertheless be prepared to take an Iranian “no” for an answer. It should resist any effort by Russia or other members of the international coalition to weaken the steps that Iran must take, or to grant Tehran major sanctions relief for partial concessions. It should continue to reject recognition of an Iranian “right” to enrich uranium.

The United States and its allies also should have a strategy for quickly and significantly increasing the pressure on the Khamenei regime if the negotiations break down. Israel may press for military action; if that option is to be resisted, there must be a credible and robust alternative.

Mark Kirk (R-Ill.): Following the Moscow talks Senate hawk Mark Kirk calls for a “final” (what happens after?) round of more sanctions on Iran:

After three rounds of meetings, Iran remains in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions ordering it to halt all its uranium enrichment activities.  The House and Senate should immediately negotiate a final Iran sanctions bill that can be sent to the President’s desk in July. This legislation should include new and tougher sanctions proposals put forward by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including sanctions targeting Iran’s energy and financial sectors, shipping and insurance.

Jed Babbin, American Spectator: The Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush who stated in 2006 that he was “willing to kill as many people as it requires to take out Hezbollah” declares that “[d]iplomacy won’t work” with Iran so for now covert operations, particularly in the cyber realm, should be vigorously deployed through all available means including the U.S.’s vast arsenal:

Expanding our cyberwar operations against Iran is one of the best options. Offensive cyberwar is far cheaper, and easier, than the defensive. We can, and should, disrupt Iranian government and military functions as often as we can. Iran is reportedly developing a new computer language to make such attacks more difficult. Our cyber warriors should be tasked to infiltrate that project and plant malicious software — “malware” in cyber jargon — to gather information from and at our command disrupt or destroy the computer networks the new system runs on.

A future president — let’s hope one will take office next year — should consider the “bad luck” option. Covert operations need not be conducted only by special operations forces, CIA agents, or computer warriors. We have a significant variety of stealthy weapons and weapon platforms. That president would have the option of making an equally large variety of Presidential Determinations authorizing the use of those weapons against Iran’s nuclear facilities and its intelligence and military centers.

By Nick Turse

via Tom Dispatch

It looked like a scene out of a Hollywood movie.  In the inky darkness, men in full combat gear, armed with automatic weapons and wearing night-vision goggles, grabbed hold of a thick, woven cable [...]]]> Special Ops, Drones, Spy Games, Civilian Soldiers, Proxy Fighters, and Cyber Warfare

By Nick Turse

via Tom Dispatch

It looked like a scene out of a Hollywood movie.  In the inky darkness, men in full combat gear, armed with automatic weapons and wearing night-vision goggles, grabbed hold of a thick, woven cable hanging from a MH-47 Chinook helicopter.  Then, in a flash, each “fast-roped” down onto a ship below.  Afterward, “Mike,” a Navy SEAL who would not give his last name, bragged to an Army public affairs sergeant that, when they were on their game, the SEALs could put 15 men on a ship this way in 30 seconds or less.

Once on the aft deck, the special ops troops broke into squads and methodically searched the ship as it bobbed in Jinhae Harbor, South Korea.  Below deck and on the bridge, the commandos located several men and trained their weapons on them, but nobody fired a shot.  It was, after all, a training exercise.

All of those ship-searchers were SEALs, but not all of them were American.  Some were from Naval Special Warfare Group 1 out of Coronado, California; others hailed from South Korea’s Naval Special Brigade.  The drill was part of Foal Eagle 2012, a multinational, joint-service exercise.  It was also a model for — and one small part of — a much publicized U.S. military “pivot” from the Greater Middle East to Asia, a move that includes sending an initial contingent of 250 Marines to Darwin, Australia, basing littoral combat ships in Singapore, strengthening military ties with Vietnam and India, staging war games in the Philippines (as well as a drone strike there), and shifting the majority of the Navy’s ships to the Pacific by the end of the decade.

That modest training exercise also reflected another kind of pivot.  The face of American-style war-fighting is once again changing.  Forget full-scale invasions and large-footprint occupations on the Eurasian mainland; instead, think: special operations forces working on their own but also training or fighting beside allied militaries (if not outright proxy armies) in hot spots around the world.  And along with those special ops advisors, trainers, and commandos expect ever more funds and efforts to flow into the militarization of spying and intelligence, the use of drone aircraft, the launching of cyber-attacks, and joint Pentagon operations with increasingly militarized “civilian” government agencies.

Much of this has been noted in the media, but how it all fits together into what could be called the new global face of empire has escaped attention.  And yet this represents nothing short of a new Obama doctrine, a six-point program for twenty-first-century war, American-style, that the administration is now carefully developing and honing.  Its global scope is already breathtaking, if little recognized, and like Donald Rumsfeld’s military lite and David Petraeus’s counterinsurgency operations, it is evidently going to have its day in the sun — and like them, it will undoubtedly disappoint in ways that will surprise its creators.

The Blur-ness

For many years, the U.S. military has been talking up and promoting the concept of “jointness.”  An Army helicopter landing Navy SEALs on a Korean ship catches some of this ethos at the tactical level.  But the future, it seems, has something else in store.  Think of it as “blur-ness,” a kind of organizational version of war-fighting in which a dominant Pentagon fuses its forces with other government agencies — especially the CIA, the State Department, and the Drug Enforcement Administration — in complex, overlapping missions around the globe.

In 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld began his “revolution in military affairs,” steering the Pentagon toward a military-lite model of high-tech, agile forces.  The concept came to a grim end in Iraq’s embattled cities.  A decade later, the last vestiges of its many failures continue to play out in a stalemated war in Afghanistan against a rag-tag minority insurgency that can’t be beaten.  In the years since, two secretaries of defense and a new president have presided over another transformation — this one geared toward avoiding ruinous, large-scale land wars which the U.S. has consistently proven unable to win.

Under President Obama, the U.S. has expanded or launched numerous military campaigns — most of them utilizing a mix of the six elements of twenty-first-century American war.  Take the American war in Pakistan — a poster-child for what might now be called the Obama formula, if not doctrine.  Beginning as ahighly-circumscribed drone assassination campaign backed by limited cross-border commando raids under the Bush administration, U.S. operations in Pakistan have expanded into something close to a full-scale robotic air war, complemented by cross-border helicopter attacks, CIA-funded “kill teams” of Afghan proxy forces, as well as boots-on-the-ground missions by elite special operations forces, including the SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The CIA has conducted clandestine intelligence and surveillance missions in Pakistan, too, though its role may, in the future, be less important, thanks to Pentagon mission creep.  In April, in fact, Secretary of Defense Leon Panettaannounced the creation of a new CIA-like espionage agency within the Pentagon called the Defense Clandestine Service. According to theWashington Post, its aim is to expand “the military’s espionage efforts beyond war zones.”

Over the last decade, the very notion of war zones has become remarkably muddled, mirroring the blurring of the missions and activities of the CIA and Pentagon.  Analyzing the new agency and the “broader convergence trend” between Department of Defense and CIA missions, the Post noted that the “blurring is also evident in the organizations’ upper ranks. Panetta previously served as CIA director, and that post is currently held by retired four-star Army Gen. David H. Petraeus.”

Not to be outdone, last year the State Department, once the seat of diplomacy, continued on its long march to militarization (and marginalization) when it agreed to pool some of its resources with the Pentagon to create the Global Security Contingency Fund.  That program will allow the Defense Department even greater say in how aid from Washington will flow to proxy forces in places like Yemen and the Horn of Africa.

One thing is certain: American war-making (along with its spies and its diplomats) is heading ever deeper into “the shadows.”  Expect yet more clandestine operations in ever more places with, of course, ever more potential for blowback in the years ahead.

Shedding Light on “the Dark Continent”

One locale likely to see an influx of Pentagon spies in the coming years is Africa.  Under President Obama, operations on the continent have accelerated far beyond the more limited interventions of the Bush years.  Last year’s war in Libya; a regional drone campaign with missions run out of airports and bases in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of Seychelles; a flotilla of 30 ships in that ocean supporting regional operations; a multi-pronged military and CIA campaign against militants in Somalia, including intelligence operations, training for Somali agents, secret prisons, helicopter attacks, and U.S. commando raids; a massive influx of cash for counterterrorism operations across East Africa; a possible old-fashioned air war, carried out on the sly in the region using manned aircraft; tens of millions of dollars in arms for allied mercenaries and African troops; and a special ops expeditionary force(bolstered by State Department experts) dispatched to help capture or kill Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and his senior commanders, operating in Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic (where U.S. Special Forces now have a newbase) only begins to scratch the surface of Washington’s fast-expanding plans and activities in the region.

Even less well known are other U.S. military efforts designed to train African forces for operations now considered integral to American interests on the continent.  These include, for example, a mission by elite Force Recon Marines from the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force 12 (SPMAGTF-12) to train soldiers from the Uganda People’s Defense Force, which supplies the majority of troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia.

Earlier this year, Marines from SPMAGTF-12 also trained soldiers from the Burundi National Defense Force, the second-largest contingent in Somalia; sent trainers into Djibouti (where the U.S. already maintains a major Horn of Africa base at Camp Lemonier); and traveled to Liberia where they focused on teaching riot-control techniques to Liberia’s military as part of an otherwise State Department spearheaded effort to rebuild that force.

The U.S. is also conducting counterterrorism training and equipping militaries in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Niger, and Tunisia.  In addition, U.S. Africa Command (Africom) has 14 major joint-training exercises planned for 2012, including operations in Morocco, Cameroon, Gabon, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Senegal, and what may become the Pakistan of Africa, Nigeria.

Even this, however, doesn’t encompass the full breadth of U.S. training and advising missions in Africa.  To take an example not on Africom’s list, this spring the U.S. brought together 11 nations, including Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Liberia, Mauritania, and Sierra Leone to take part in a maritime training exercise code-named Saharan Express 2012.

Back in the Backyard

Since its founding, the United States has often meddled close to home, treating the Caribbean as its private lake and intervening at will throughout Latin America.  During the Bush years, with some notable exceptions, Washington’s interest in America’s “backyard” took a backseat to wars farther from home.  Recently, however, the Obama administration has been ramping up operations south of the border using its new formula.  This has meant Pentagon drone missions deep inside Mexico to aid that country’s battle against the drug cartels, while CIA agents and civilian operatives from the Department of Defense weredispatched to Mexican military bases to take part in the country’s drug war.

In 2012, the Pentagon has also ramped up its anti-drug operations in Honduras. Working out of Forward Operating Base Mocoron and other remote camps there, the U.S. military is supporting Honduran operations by way of the methods it honed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  In addition, U.S. forces have taken part in joint operations with Honduran troops as part of a training mission dubbed Beyond the Horizon 2012; Green Berets have been assisting Honduran Special Operations forces in anti-smuggling operations; and a Drug Enforcement Administration Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team, originally created to disrupt the poppy trade in Afghanistan, has joined forces with Honduras’s Tactical Response Team, that country’s most elite counternarcotics unit.  A glimpse of these operations made the news recently when DEA agents, flying in an American helicopter, were involved in an aerial attack on civilians that killed two men and two pregnant women in the remote Mosquito Coast region.

Less visible have been U.S. efforts in Guyana, where Special Operation Forces have been training local troops in heliborne air assault techniques. “This is the first time we have had this type of exercise involving Special Operations Forces of the United States on such a grand scale,” Colonel Bruce Lovell of the Guyana Defense Force told a U.S. public affairs official earlier this year.  “It gives us a chance to validate ourselves and see where we are, what are our shortcomings.”

The U.S. military has been similarly active elsewhere in Latin America, concluding training exercises in Guatemala, sponsoring “partnership-building” missions in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Peru, and Panama, and reaching an agreement to carry out 19 “activities” with the Colombian army over the next year, including joint military exercises.

Still in the Middle of the Middle East

Despite the end of the Iraq and Libyan wars, a coming drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, and copious public announcements about its national securitypivot toward Asia, Washington is by no means withdrawing from the Greater Middle East.  In addition to continuing operations in Afghanistan, the U.S. has consistently been at work training allied troops, building up military bases, and brokering weapons sales and arms transfers to despots in the region from Bahrain to Yemen.

In fact, Yemen, like its neighbor, Somalia, across the Gulf of Aden, has become a laboratory for Obama’s wars.  There, the U.S. is carrying out its signature new brand of warfare with “black ops” troops like the SEALs and the Army’s Delta Force undoubtedly conducting kill/capture missions, while “white” forces like the Green Berets and Rangers are training indigenous troops, and robot planes hunt and kill members of al-Qaeda and its affiliates, possibly assisted by an even more secret contingent of manned aircraft.

The Middle East has also become the somewhat unlikely poster-region for another emerging facet of the Obama doctrine: cyberwar efforts.  In a category-blurring speaking engagement, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton surfaced at the recent Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Florida where she gave a speech talking up her department’s eagerness to join in the new American way of war.  “We need Special Operations Forces who are as comfortable drinking tea with tribal leaders as raiding a terrorist compound,” she told the crowd. “We also need diplomats and development experts who are up to the job of being your partners.”

Clinton then took the opportunity to tout her agency’s online efforts, aimed at websites used by al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen.  When al-Qaeda recruitment messages appeared on the latter, she said, “our team plastered the same sites with altered versions… that showed the toll al-Qaeda attacks have taken on the Yemeni people.”  She further noted that this information-warfare mission was carried out by experts at State’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications with assistance, not surprisingly, from the military and the U.S. Intelligence Community.

These modest on-line efforts join more potent methods of cyberwar being employed by the Pentagon and the CIA, including the recently revealed“Olympic Games,” a program of sophisticated attacks on computers in Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities engineered and unleashed by the National Security Agency (NSA) and Unit 8200, Israeli’s equivalent of the NSA.  As with other facets of the new way of war, these efforts were begun under the Bush administration but significantly accelerated under the current president, who became the first American commander-in-chief to order sustained cyberattacks designed to cripple another country’s infrastructure.

From Brushfires to Wildfires

Across the globe from Central and South America to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, the Obama administration is working out its formula for a new American way of war.  In its pursuit, the Pentagon and its increasingly militarized government partners are drawing on everything from classic precepts of colonial warfare to the latest technologies.

The United States is an imperial power chastened by more than 10 years of failed, heavy-footprint wars.  It is hobbled by a hollowing-out economy, and inundated with hundreds of thousands of recent veterans — a staggering 45% of the troops who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq — suffering from service-related disabilities who will require ever more expensive care.  No wonder the current combination of special ops, drones, spy games, civilian soldiers, cyberwarfare, and proxy fighters sounds like a safer, saner brand of war-fighting.  At first blush, it may even look like a panacea for America’s national security ills.  In reality, it may be anything but.

The new light-footprint Obama doctrine actually seems to be making war an ever more attractive and seemingly easy option — a point emphasized recently by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace.  “I worry about speed making it too easy to employ force,” said Pace when asked about recent efforts to make it simpler to deploy Special Operations Forces abroad.  “I worry about speed making it too easy to take the easy answer — let’s go whack them with special operations — as opposed to perhaps a more laborious answer for perhaps a better long-term solution.”

As a result, the new American way of war holds great potential for unforeseen entanglements and serial blowback.  Starting or fanning brushfire wars on several continents could lead to raging wildfires that spread unpredictably and prove difficult, if not impossible, to quench.

By their very nature, small military engagements tend to get larger, and wars tend to spread beyond borders.  By definition, military action tends to have unforeseen consequences.  Those who doubt this need only look back to 2001, when three low-tech attacks on a single day set in motion a decade-plus of war that has spread across the globe.  The response to that one day began with a war in Afghanistan, that spread to Pakistan, detoured to Iraq, popped up in Somalia and Yemen, and so on.  Today, veterans of those Ur-interventions find themselves trying to replicate their dubious successes in places like Mexico and Honduras, the Central Africa Republic and the Congo.

History demonstrates that the U.S. is not very good at winning wars, having gone without victory in any major conflict since 1945.  Smaller interventions have been a mixed bag with modest victories in places like Panama and Grenada and ignominious outcomes in Lebanon (in the 1980s) and Somalia (in the 1990s), to name a few.

The trouble is, it’s hard to tell what an intervention will grow up to be — until it’s too late.  While they followed different paths, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq all began relatively small, before growing large and ruinous.  Already, the outlook for the new Obama doctrine seems far from rosy, despite the good press it’s getting inside Washington’s Beltway.

What looks today like a formula for easy power projection that will further U.S. imperial interests on the cheap could soon prove to be an unmitigated disaster — one that likely won’t be apparent until it’s too late.

Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com.  An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, andregularly at TomDispatch. He is the author/editor of several books, including the just published Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050 (with Tom Engelhardt).  This piece is the latest article in his newseries on the changing face of American empire, which is being underwritten by Lannan Foundation.  You can follow him on Twitter @NickTurse, onTumblr, and on Facebook.

Copyright 2012 Nick Turse

European leaders are telling their publics that the latest EU sanctions are to persuade Iran to talk to the P5+1 about its nuclear program. In the House of Commons, on 24 January, Foreign Secretary William Hague said the sanctions represent “peaceful and legitimate pressure on the Iranian [...]]]> By Peter Jenkins

European leaders are telling their publics that the latest EU sanctions are to persuade Iran to talk to the P5+1 about its nuclear program. In the House of Commons, on 24 January, Foreign Secretary William Hague said the sanctions represent “peaceful and legitimate pressure on the Iranian government to return to negotiations”.

This begs a question: why does Iran need to be coerced into negotiating? Surely it is in Iran’s interest to take every opportunity to convince the P5+1 that it intends to abide by its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) commitment to place all nuclear material in its possession under International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) safeguards and to refrain from manufacturing or otherwise acquiring nuclear explosive devices—and that the 18 years during which Iran pursued a “policy of concealment” were an aberration that Iran’s leaders now regret.

The answer lies, I suspect, in the letter that EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton sent to Iran’s nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, on 21 October. The letter was made public by the EU on 20 January. It contains the following sentences:

We remain committed to the practical and specific suggestions which we have put forward in the past. These confidence-building steps should form first elements of a phased approach which would eventually lead to a full settlement between us, involving the full implementation by Iran of UNSC and IAEA Board of Governors’ resolutions.

Dr. Jalili and his advisers could be forgiven for interpreting these sentences to mean that there is no point in turning up for talks unless they are committed to satisfying UN and IAEA demands in full. It looks as though the real goal of sanctions is not to get Iran back to the negotiating table, but to get Iran to give way on the demands that it has spent the last six years declining to concede.

These demands have become increasingly baroque with the passage of time, but in essence they remain unchanged since 2006:

- suspension of all enrichment-related activity and of the construction of a heavy water moderated reactor (HWRR);

- application of the Additional Protocol;

- resolution of all outstanding IAEA safeguards inspection issues.

This brings us to another question: why are the P5+1 so determined to get Iran to implement all the demands that, using their political muscle, they have persuaded the Security Council to adopt? After all, they could have recognised that over time some of these demands have become less relevant to the global community’s non-proliferation needs, and that some might more readily be accepted by Iran in the context of an open-ended search for common ground through the give-and-take of a genuine negotiation.

Suspension of all enrichment-related activity stands out as the demand that now least serves a practical non-proliferation purpose. Suspension was first conceived, in 2003, as a way of halting Iran’s progress towards the mastery of enrichment technology, while the IAEA looked into the nature and purpose of the activities that Iran had undertaken when pursuing a “policy of concealment”. Now the P5+1 look like a hapless groom trying to shut the stable door long after the horse has bolted: Iran has developed three or more centrifuge models and appears to have overcome most, if not all, of the technical problems involved.

Of course suspension would put a halt to the accumulation of low-enriched uranium (LEU) by Iran. But Iran’s LEU stocks are not in themselves a proliferation threat. They are under IAEA safeguards. Any attempt by Iran to draw on them for use in a clandestine enrichment program would be brought immediately to the world’s attention. The calibration of future LEU production to reactor fuel needs is something that Iran might be ready to concede in the context of a genuine open-ended negotiation.

Suspension of HWRR construction is probably too far advanced now for Iran to be ready to write off its investment. But from a proliferation perspective this suspension is no more vital than the suspension of LEU production. Once completed, the HWRR will be placed under IAEA safeguards. Any diversion of spent fuel rods, containing plutonium, to a reprocessing plant would be quickly detected. Besides, there is no evidence to date that Iran intends to build a reprocessing plant; hence there is good reason to think that Iran might be ready to foreswear reprocessing as part of a balanced deal.

Continuing P5+1 insistence on reapplication of the Additional Protocol is entirely reasonable, but is another demand that Iran would almost certainly accept if it felt that the playing-field were level. It must be apparent to Iran’s leaders that the Majles vote to terminate application prior to ratification was a classic own goal.

Had the Protocol remained in force since 2006, the IAEA might well have concluded by now that there are no undeclared “nuclear activities or material” in Iran, greatly complicating the task of any who wish to exploit the nuclear controversy for ulterior purposes.  (The alleged nuclear-related studies, which now constitute the only major issue on Iran’s IAEA file, fall outside the scope of IAEA safeguards. The IAEA mandate for investigating them comes from the Security Council, not from Iran’s NPT safeguards agreement. Such studies are “nuclear-related activities”, not “nuclear activities”.)

These alleged studies are nonetheless the biggest obstacle to a peaceful settlement. They cannot be ignored but they are problematic because:

- The West asserts that the evidence for them is authentic but seemingly lacks the means to satisfy Iran that they are not forgeries.

- Initially the IAEA secretariat took a sceptical view of the authenticity of this evidence. In the last two years the secretariat seems to have become more confident that the material is authentic, but they have not spelled out why in sufficient detail for those who are free of all political influence to be able to form their own judgements.

- Iran may well be deterred from making an avowal and moving on—assuming there is something for them to avow—by the thought that the West might try to use an avowal to persuade non-Western members of the Security Council to further tighten UN sanctions, or authorise an attack on Iran (though I suspect that now Russia has achieved WTO admission it will be more robust in resisting Western pressure for anti-Iranian Council resolutions).

A solution to the alleged studies issue is not inconceivable, however. In the context of a genuine, open-ended negotiation one can imagine Western diplomats finding ways to reassure Iran that an avowal will not be misused—unless, as some fear, Western policy is driven not by non-proliferation goals, but by some ulterior purpose.

Other Obstacles to a Peaceful Settlement

The inflexibility apparent in Baroness Ashton’s letter, and the West’s apparent failure to take a fresh look at how Western non-proliferation goals might most realistically be achieved, are not my only reasons for feeling pessimistic about prospects for a peaceful settlement.

First, were there to be a genuine P5+1/Iran negotiation this year, what would the West have to offer Iran? The White House acted on Congressional demands in December and prevailed on EU doubters to adopt oil sanctions in January because, in an electoral year, it wants protection for the President from the charge of being weak on Iran. The White House will not easily surrender that protection by allowing the EU to repeal its oil sanctions in return for Iranian concessions, or offer meaningful US concessions.

Second, Western policy appears to be suffering from a sense of proportion failure.  The British Defence Secretary announced in Washington on 5 January that Iran is working “flat-out” to make nuclear weapons. The US intelligence community, however, (and now, if Haaretz can be believed, even the Israeli intelligence community), assesses that the decision to make such weapons has yet to be taken, and may not be taken provided the likely consequences of taking it remain dissuasive.

Then the Canadian Prime Minister said that Iran is a “very serious threat to international peace and security”, followed by President Sarkozy, Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Cameron accusing Iran of being on a path that “threatens the peace and security of us all”. Yet the Security Council has so far failed to determine that Iran’s nuclear activities represent a “threat to the peace”. This is in marked contrast to what the Council has said about North Korea’s nuclear excesses. All this raises questions about Western perceptions of Iran and somewhat undermines the validity of the “international obligations” that the Council has imposed on Iran, and that Iran is frequently called upon to respect. (A careful reading of chapter VII of the UN Charter suggests that a threat to the peace determination ought to precede the creation of obligations under article 41.)

If Western policy-makers really believe that Iran’s nuclear program is a threat to international peace and security, they cannot be expected to accept Iran’s NPT right to enrich (provided all Iranian nuclear material is under safeguards), and consequently hope of a peaceful settlement is vain. The fact that most of the world believes that Iran has yet to become a threat to peace is unlikely to change anything.

The final causes for pessimism (though my list is not intended to be exhaustive) are called Saudi Arabia and Israel. It ought to be well within the range of Western diplomacy to persuade Saudi Arabia that Iran’s nuclear activities still fall short of constituting a threat to Saudi security, and to remind Riyadh that, as a party to the NPT, it is committed to refrain from seeking nuclear weapons. But I have yet to come across evidence of the West taking such a line.

The Israeli case is complicated by ever-changing messages from Tel Aviv. One day Iran’s nuclear program constitutes an existential threat to Israel, the next it does not. One day Israeli pilots are warming up their engines in preparation for take-off to the East, the next senior Israelis are explaining why an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would lead to catastrophe for Israel and the West.

Yet Israel remains hugely dependent on US benevolence. For a non-American it is hard to understand why this does not entitle the US to tell the Israelis to make a vow of silence on Iran and leave the West to settle this controversy in a manner consistent with the provisions of the NPT, and with maintaining the integrity of this vital global regime.

Like most pessimists, I am yearning for my judgements to prove mistaken.