Rowan Scarborough and Bill Gertz have a regular feature in the Washington Times called “Inside the Ring,” which deals with intelligence, national security, and military matters. Today they have a little item called “Iranian EFPs” that got my heart pounding:
…Iranian paramilitary troops and intelligence agents have been supplying Iraqi Shi’ite insurgents with “explosive-formed projectiles”…EFPs. The shaped charges are designed to penetrate hardened targets by focusing the power of their explosives. They were built for anti-tank missiles and nuclear weapons detonation (my emphasis).
Sen. Ron Wyden…said U.S. military personnel believe “Iran is supplying devices that are now killing our courageous troops.” He asked Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte…(who) responded that the explanation of the Iranian shaped charges is “generally true.”
CIA Director Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden also said: “that’s very consistent, senator, with our analysis. We believe that to be true. The EFPs are coming from Iran. They are being used against our forces…and incident for incident cause significantly more casualties than any other improvised explosive devices do, and they are provided to Shi’ite militia. That’s all correct.”
Apparently Senator Wyden didn’t ask the questions I would have asked, namely “how long have you known this? What actions have been recommended to protect our troops against these fiendish weapons and the Iranian paramilitaries and intelligence agents?”
They are not around to answer, so I’ll do it: we have known about this for years, but the Intelligence Community (sic) denied having irrefutable evidence. And the Intelligence Community has exercised a veto on our war-fighting strategy, by slyly arguing that it would be wrong for the administration to go after the Syrians and Iranians until and unless we have proof positive that the terrorists are trained in Syria and Iran (or by Syrians and Iranians) and that the explosive devices are manufactured in Iran and delivered by Iranians.
Since they, and only they, decided when the proof was positive, they prevented us from effectively defending Iraq, or effectively defending our troops. For this, I trust they will be subjected to very high temperatures for a considerable stretch of eternity.
It gets worse: we have not done much of anything offensively, save for going after terrorists we caught en flagrante, placing IEDs or EFPs, or at the other end of detonation wires. We have done some defensive things, like enhancing our surveillance, trying to get better information, making our movements less predictable, getting better armor on our vehicles (although the EFPs can destroy most anything we’ve got). And when, by accident, we captured some Iranian officers or agents, we sent them back across the border.
Senator Wyden does not seem to have been interested in the “why” for this criminal dereliction of duty; he just wanted to establish the facts. That’s really not good enough, but it would be unfair to single him out, and indeed he should be praised for getting our intelligence (sic) czars on the record, which is more than his colleagues have managed lo these many years. But the “why” screams for an answer, which comes in two stages.
Stage One: From the beginning, the war was fettered by a fundamental failure of strategic vision, accompanied by an intellectual conceit. The failure of vision was the insistence that we would fight in Iraq alone, win there, and then move on. This was never possible, even with twice the number of troops, even with rules of engagement that permitted maximum mayhem whenever an American with a gun felt it necessary. It was never possible because it was always a regional war. Just ask our enemies in Baghdad and Tehran. They took it for granted that we would remove Saddam and occupy Iraq, and they planned for the next move. Even before Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced, they were busy organizing the terror war against us, and the numerous possible civil wars among Iraqis (and, in that connection, someone should point out to General Hayden that those terrible explosive devices are also delivered to Sunnis; just look at Anbar Province, which is almost entirely Sunni, and is full of IEDs and EFPs).
It did not require “intelligence services” to know this would happen; Bashir Assad and various mullahs and ayatollahs announced it well in advance, as I and others reported well before any American soldier set foot in Iraq. It did require good intelligence to know the details, but time and time again the “intelligence services” refused to accept information, even from proven sources, that would have permitted us to identify the networks through which the Syrians and Iranians were organizing the misnamed insurgency.
For the most part, the terror war in Iraq is not an insurgency at all; it is an unconventional war waged against us by the terror masters in Iran and Syria and Saudi Arabia. We refused to see it, we deliberately and systematically blinded ourselves to it, and this “we” encompasses them all, president and vice president, national security advisers, secretaries of defense and state and their top aides (can anyone forget the incredible claim from Powell’s Deputy, Richard Armitage–the man who outed Valerie Plame to Robert Novack and then clammed up about it, thereby sending Judy Miller to prison and Scooter Libby to trial–that “Iran is a democracy,” and his public announcement that the Iranians would soon turn over top al Qaeda terrorists to our criminal justice system?), and the Intelligence (sic) Community.
Stage Two: Once blinded, we then dumbed ourselves down in two ways. First (this is the intellectual conceit) by convincing ourselves that the defenestration of Saddam would provoke the fall of other regimes in the region, more or less automatically. We wouldn’t have to do anything, except maybe deliver a few inspiring speeches. Second, confident that time would work in our favor, we embraced the European charade of negotiating with the mullahs over Iran’s nuclear project, when everyone knew it was a hoax and the only result would be to give the Islamic Republic more time to go nuclear. Yes, I know all about “political necessity,” and the “need for allies,” no question. But Machiavelli, as so often, has it absolutely right: “if you are victorious, everyone will judge your methods to have been appropriate.” And if you lose, you’re a bum, no matter how diligently you flattered foreign leaders, no matter how often you went to the United Nations, no matter how bipartisan you seemed to the opposition in Washington. It’s all about winning and losing, and there is no sign–I say this gnashing my teeth and heart pounding–there is no sign that our leaders understand that. It is hard to convince me otherwise, after all the brave speeches, all the tough talk, and the brief spasms of action–such as the arrests of Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers in Baghdad and Irbil–only to have the president’s words deconstructed and gainsayed by his own people.
Go back and reread Negroponte and Hayden. They swear that the Iranians are killing our troops. They could say similar things about the Syrians. What excuse does this president have for his refusal to go after the regimes in Tehran and Syria? How can he permit his top cabinet officers to reassure craven appeasers like Joe Biden and Richard Lugar that we will certainly not enter Iranian or Syrian territory to destroy the IED/EFP assembly lines, or to blow up their terrorist training camps? He continues to give our enemies a free shot at us in Iraq, risking nothing of their own territory. And he tolerates voices in his administration who want to run away from even this little token response; they want to send even these Iranian killers back home, when they should be sent to Guantanamo.
There are several ways to describe this state of affairs, none of them flattering. I’ll settle for “immoral.”
This president–and you can add in the secretary of state, the national security adviser, and the former secretary of defense–bravely and correctly said that our greatest weapon against the terror masters is freedom, and that the best way to defeat them is to spread freedom. Bravo! But then they betrayed freedom throughout the region, briefly speaking out to Egyptians and Libyans, only to abandon those countries’ most eloquent freedom fighters. They betrayed the Iranian people by refusing to support revolution and shrinking from even saying we want regime change in Tehran, let alone doing anything to advance it. Ditto for Syria. And free Lebanon is under literal siege from Iran and its creature Hizbollah, with no sign of anything remotely approaching an appropriately vigorous defense from Washington.
Is it not shameful to see Secretary Rice knocking herself out to defend the terrorist state in would-be Palestine, and doing virtually nothing to defend the fledgling democracy in Lebanon?
A fine mess you’ve got us into, I think Laurel once said to Hardy. And the hell of it is that we could win this thing simply by sticking to our own announced principles, and support democratic revolution. I sometimes think that compassionate conservatives are the last true Marxists, because they seem to have a touching faith in vast, impersonal forces that will change the world. The truth is that men and women create change, if they will only fight for it. Which, alas, it seems we are not.
Where does all this lead? If the Democrats have their announced way, we will be humiliated in Iraq and leave in disgrace, thereby enhancing the global charisma of the jihad, enormously strengthening the terror masters, and ensuring the success of the Iranian nuclear project. How could any self-respecting fanatic not then believe that the moment of reconquista was at hand? We would then face terror on an epic scale, here and everywhere.
Alternatively, it leads to military war against Iran and Syria. This president may have decided he will not leave scenario #1 to his successor, nor to his biographers. If so, he will go after the nuclear project, and perhaps against Iran’s armies and navy as well. It would be the proof of an utterly failed strategy, and earn him, and us, the condemnation of most of the world.
That’s what happens when you don’t do what you should have done for years on end.
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17 Comments
Dana:It may indeed lead to military war against Iran and Syria. These two countries should be bombed severly. What does “condemnation” matter? What is the alternative at this point? The sooner we take these monsters on the better. DB
Jan 19, 2007 - 7:58 pm patvann:Thank you for putting such thoughts so eloquently.
Jan 19, 2007 - 8:51 pm a Duoist:This is a result of our “leaders” putting politics above doing what’s needed….”Leaders” on both sides of the isle.
I weep for this country we used to call a “Beacon on a hill”. For it is now a faraway roadhouse with a dim, red, bulb.
In every major U.S. military direct engagement since 1945, regardless of whether the administration was Democrat or Republican, the U.S. has withdrawn; we no longer fight to win, and Mr. Bush is very much in that long line of minimalist warriors. Notable exceptions are U.S. “police actions” in Grenada (!) and capturing Noriega in Panama(!!). It’s a wonder anyone in the U.S. still volunteers for military service; many thanks to the brave men and women who do.
That said, when did the U.S. switch roles with the Soviet Union and become the prime exporter of ‘democratic’ revolution? Isn’t the entire driving impetus of the theofascist ideologies of Khomeini in Iran, Qutb in Egypt, and Maududi in Pakistan to export a revolutionary political Islam? If we adopt the methodology of our enemy as well as adopt their epistemology (Trostsky’s “permanent revolution”), then how are we any different? Iran already has a history of C.I.A. coups; are we to attempt by force what we were unable to accomplish by subterfuge of Iran’s domestic politics? We set up the Shah and then inherited the Ayatollah; how is U.S. force now to prevail in Iran on behalf of a ‘democratic revolution,’ when we are so well hated in Iran?
The Islamic Revolution in Iran is now into its second generation. Neither Hitler in Germany nor Mussolini in Italy made it as far as Iran has with their respective brands of fascism. If we are to defeat theofascism in Iran–and I heartily agree, it MUST be defeated–then something much stronger and smarter than force is required.
The only weapon stronger than a gun is an idea. Let’s learn a lesson from Mr. Reagan; arm to the teeth, and win with ideas.
‘Be free.’
Jan 19, 2007 - 9:08 pm Winston:When will America wake up?
Jan 20, 2007 - 12:43 am Matthew Dickinson:We should leave the Middle Eastern countries alone and let them solve their own problems. It is not our business to solve their problems for them. They will not like to be nannied by a foreign power. America is not meant to rule over other countries. We are a nation of independence.
Jan 20, 2007 - 3:28 am Ali:Sorry Mike
You know! I am not that good in English language things and in foreign policy things and world order things as other fellas, who normally comment your essay. but as there is a very very small problem here for me I think I have the right to comment. Can you kindly note that it would be very unpleasant and harmful for me here in IRAN if you bomb ME? I know those stupid Mullahs are real pain in the A and they must be overthrown but is this system realy different from many of the US allies such as Egypt, Saudies.Jordan or Pakistan? I think you did include your country in hell. and you told everybody that you can win it over with a small war. to be honest your country just spoiled all the reformist activities here in Iran which was the hope for the rest of the ME. If you didn’t attack Iraq I was living in a better democracy. you have 2 briliant choices now
Jan 20, 2007 - 9:13 am hossein:1 - Be an ally with Mullahs and let them live
2 - Make a very big and severe war with them
you knopw I realy can not imply which of these two would be more harmful for me. both will be very much helpful with Mullahs and will be very harmful for my people and my country. I am sure it won’t be very delightful for US people, Iranians are the worst to fight with, I am sure that you know enough history to know this. Just some military companies will get happy about it.
Thank you Mike, Your country ruined my History!
couldnt agree more with a duoist
Jan 20, 2007 - 9:19 am RJ:Would I be wrong to think that in the beginning after 9/11 the White House engaged in some major contemplations wherein one of the final pre-attack Iraq debates offered a point of view suggesting exactly what has in fact now occurred? If this be true, would there be a few people privvy to this hunch of mine who would come forward and present such information that could also be verified beyond any reasonable doubt? Yea, I am pissed to be where we are: I only want to know why we are here and not where we should be…enjoying our victory in Iraq while watching its citizens improve their nascent democracy. I want access to that debate: I want to know who those “players” were and their positions. Idiots should be tagged when allowed to roam freely so when spotted or heard from we could better understand how ignorant their thoughts really are!
Jan 20, 2007 - 12:07 pm Rob:Of course, over the last six years I have heard incredibly stupid and infantile criticisms of this President but Ledeen is absolutley correct. It is not about Iraq anymore, it is all about Iran.
ML:
Thanks for your kind words. In fact, it always should have been about Iran, which was the logical first target and didn’t require an army to accomplish regime change.
Jan 20, 2007 - 1:45 pm venividivici:Ali,
It might end up that the best we can do for you is set up some kind of underground railroad out of Iran for opponents of the regime and/or arm them in case the government falls and insurgents need to be fought, as in Iraq.
While it might suck for you, it’s in the West’s interests, and, therefore, my interest. Nothing personal.
Bush needs to just go for it at this point. From a war-making perspective, we are nowhere near maxed out in the West.
Jan 20, 2007 - 5:14 pm gs:I sometimes think that compassionate conservatives are the last true Marxists, because they seem to have a touching faith in vast, impersonal forces that will change the world.
That’s quite a sentence, ML.
IMO inadequate leadership at the very top is a primary reason for the dangerous condition of the war. I’ve been reluctant to conclude this because a wartime commander-in-chief deserves the benefit of the doubt. Although today my conscience is clear about articulating my lack of confidence in him, that does not give me license to actively undermine his legitimate efforts. I hope those efforts prove me wrong, but what I hope and what I expect are two distinct things.
Indeed things are a real mess: not least because future proposals to prosecute the war vigorously will be dismissed on the grounds that that has supposedly been tried.
Jan 20, 2007 - 5:32 pm David P:The impure nuclear intentions of Iran are no mystery to any nation in the world, especially its immediate neighbors. Do you think Jordan is seeking nuclear access because Israel might possibly attack Jordan one day? What would the King do, drop an A-Bomb a few kilometers from his kingdom. How about Egypt for that matter, do you think Egypt would risk a nuclear fallout in the Sinai, maybe, but that’s not why their preparing themselves. A nuclear Iran is an existential threat to humanity, and their leaders have made it quite clear how irresponsible they plan to be with the technology. I’m sorry if the Iranian people can’t get it together to topple their repressive regime, but that’s their problem because they have to live there. I have to live here, and if my living here becomes endangered by their regime’s reckless behavior, then we should do what ever it takes to ensure their capabilities to destroy our nations are decimated. I don’t want to go to war with the Iranian people, but if they read an attack on their nuclear facilities to be a rallying cry to get behind a few Mullahs leading them to their own demise then that will be their mistake.
Jan 20, 2007 - 5:32 pm Winston:Iranian love America
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0119/p09s02-coop.html
This is an article written by probably a delusional leftist but says good stuff about how Iranian people LOVE america
Jan 20, 2007 - 11:51 pm Nick:Dana, his point is internal regime change is not only less violent (and therefore more preferable), but more doable than warring against the Islamic Republic and the Syrians. Nobody worth listening to has a soft-spot for this loonacracies, but are we seriously going to invade and topple Assad and Khamanei? No, we’re not.
So wouldn’t regime change be preferable than simply taking out Iran’s nuclear sites? I agree that Iran’s ganglia should be dealt with militarily (Hezbollah, Muqatda al Sadr, etc.)…
But inside Iran, it’s revolution we should support. Ditto that with Syria. This was is as political and intellectual as it is military.
Jan 21, 2007 - 12:21 am Charles Frith:….Erm. Am I right in assuming that this is shocking news for Americans? Let me get this straight. Iranian extremists, would like to kill the troops of the Great Satan? And they are better at doing it when you’ve invaded a neighboring hostile country that does not want you but you want it’s oil?…. Gulp.
Why not save your indignation for another Gulf Of Tonkin incident.
Jan 21, 2007 - 8:02 am Azad Andish:Dear Dr Ledeen,
Thanks for your deep understanding of the realities of our and your country.
I flatly reject Ali’s views. We are already dying in this country. Just I draw Ali’s attention to the official comments in Iran that every Tehrani is now living 5 less years due to the air pollution ( we are number one in that in the world ). If there is a war there will be casualties in one shot but the result will be at least getting rid of a pre-historic brutal regime. If mullahs are not changed the rate of death will be increased every year and we will be still dying without having LIVED under mullahs regime. I prefer the first scenario.
But something has alaways bothered me:
I spoke to a waiter in a Tehran restaurant. He said to me that I could always understand easily that almost all the killings of US troops in Iraq, all the problems in Lebanon, and most of the terrorist actions in different parts of the world is DONE BY MULLAHS? How is that US with that powerful intelligence system can not understand it?
This is what you hear from us common people in Iran. The answer can only be two : Either the US is a tiger paper with no powerful inteligence OR it knows the truth but deliberately takes no actions to save ( let alone our people ) its own troops. Either conclusion is a tragedy in my view for the US.
Today, on the News at 1400hrs on TV Channel one they quoted Carter’s words in Larry King’s saying : ” I was told by my aids to attack Iran but I thought the nuber of death will be high”. The idiot helped the most brutal terroristic regime to live and kill Americans as well other nationalities by being so naive and terrified. This happened during Ronald Regan as well who sent Mc Farlane with gifts for mullahs. Clinton also tried to make the “Big Deal” with mullahs but was rejected by them ! ( refer to Amir Taheri’s article on the issue). Mr Bush has also been a gull Hamlet wasting time during the past years and helping mullahs of Iran by destroying their enemy ( Saddam ) and bestowing Iraq to Shiite fundamentalists. Bush made Sistane the figure he is in Iraq. Under Saddam he had no guts to say a word. Bush has been doing all these as a result of listening to coward and dumb advisors like Powell and Rice. John Negroponte recently said Iran was 10 years far from making a nuclear bomb. Isn’t this a big lie put forward only to justify US inaction against mullahs? Once Mark Twain said : ” France has always been governed by prostitutes.” To see how right Twain was look at the French President and his administration.( this can be true with most European,countries as well as China and Russia). But what is the differnce between the prostitution in France’s government and bewilderness and inaction of the US administration in Iran’s issue in action? Both makes the mullahs more powerful everyday.
My main problem with US has been their motto that the regime should be changed by Iran’s people>
It reminds me of a joke.
Titanic is broken. Passengers are bewildered in the deep water. A boat is passing. The guy on boat sees 3 passengers striving for life.
He has only two seats. He looks at them. Two are beautiful women and one is a man not much more beautiful than Ahmadinezhad. He thinks for a while. He shopuld do something.He loves to save the women but how can he justify why he left the poor man? He says to them I ask you each a question. A correct reply will come on my boat.
To first woman : ” 2 x 2 ” ?
- Four.
- Well done. Come here.
To second woman : ” 2+2 ” ?
_ Four
- Excellent. Come up.
To the man : ” What is the 365th rooth of 125689 x 365.36988 minus 458213 divided by 4521258 ? ”
The poor man says : ” You son of a bitch. It is better to say that your boat is full than to bother me with bullshits in such a miserable situation of mine.”
When the US attacked Afghanistan and Iraq they didn’t ask their people to make it themselves but when it comes to Iran they urge the best option is leaving it with Iranian people.
Mr Bush, isn’t it better to say that your boat is full ?
Jan 22, 2007 - 6:46 am MarcH:So what is your plan Charles Frith (Jan 21, 2007 08:02 AM)? Shall we hide in bed under the covers until Iran succeds in:
1. Dominating the Gulf oil fields; and/or,
2. Smuggles some of those nukes into the U.S.?
Perhaps you’d like to send a negotiating team led by Jimmy Carter and James Baker to Tehran?
Jan 23, 2007 - 9:01 am