Obama Admin. To The UK - No Need For A Referendum, Just Stay In The EU

When former PM Gordon Brown made the UK a vassal of the EU, he did so without holding a referendum for the citizens of the UK, even though one had been promised. The referendum was never held because the Brits likely would have rejected giving up their sovereignty to the anti-democratic, socialist bureaucratic edifice that is the EU. There are, today, runblings in the UK about leaving the EU before it totally destroys their nation.

The left on this side of the pond dreams of having the dictatorial powers of the EU. And indeed, acting through an extra-constitutional, unconstrained regulatory bureaucracy, we are quickly coming to resemble a nation under the EU yoke. Thus it is no surprise that the Obama administration has taken a public stand - that holding a referendum of UK voters on EU membership is problematic and the U.S. wants the UK to stay in the EU. It is outrageous. As reported by the BBC:

The Obama administration has publicly expressed concern about the impact of a UK referendum on its future relationship with the EU.

Philip Gordon, a senior official in the US State Department, said it was in America's interests to see a "strong British voice within the EU".

"Referendums have often turned countries inwards," he added.

. . . he added: "We have a growing relationship with the EU as an institution, which has an increasing voice in the world, and we want to see a strong British voice in that EU. That is in America's interests. We welcome an outward-looking EU with Britain in it."

Autonomous Mind has composed a fine response to Mr. Gordon and the Obama administration:

. . . The President of the United States is considered by many to be the leader of the free world, and the United States itself considered to be a beacon of democracy. So it is profoundly disappointing to see the United States administration endorsing and encouraging something that is fundamentally undemocratic. I would like to ask you the following questions.

- Would it be acceptable to you and your fellow United States citizens that over 70% of the laws and regulations they were forced to comply with across all 50 states were created by a supranational government comprising layers of complex political and judicial structures, mostly unelected and unaccountable, and made up of delegates from not only the US, but Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela and Peru?

- Would it be acceptable to you, your fellow United States citizens and members of the Senate and House of Representatives that they were routinely handed diktats from the various bodies that make up the supranational government and were bound by law to implement the directives or be fined or dragged into a supranational court operating an alien form of judicial code and process? Further, that Congress was denied the ability to draft, and the President sign into law, other legislation of national interest whenever the supranational decided it was not appropriate?

- Would it be acceptable to you, your fellow United States citizens and the Justices of the Supreme Court that decisions made by the bench, the highest court in your land, could be appealed to a supranational court overseas with the hearing presided over by foreign judges and if overruled the Supreme Court would have to accept that as a binding ruling?

If these scenarios do not sound very democratic or judicious to you and your fellow Americans it is because they are not. Intentionally and by design. But this is the reality of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union and its associated bodies and institutions. UK membership of the EU has entailed a substantial loss of power from our democratically elected Parliament as it has been quietly and steadily transferred to unelected and unaccountable bodies abroad – all done without the people of the UK being asked to give their consent for it to happen.

While it may be in the geopolitical interest of the Government of the United States for the United Kingdom to remain a member of the European Union, opinion polls show this anti-democratic situation is opposed by a majority of British citizens. Membership of the EU dilutes the voice of the United Kingdom. Seats on various world bodies held by the UK have been given up so the EU can supposedly represent the competing and disparate interests of 27 countries in a wholly unsatisfactory fudge that frequently fails to serve British interests. . . .

No one who believes in democracy – people power – would endorse and encourage a continuation of this anti-democratic situation for the United Kingdom. That is what this issue is about. So, Mr Gordon, please do not presume to meddle in our affairs and wish on us that which you would aggressively oppose for yourself.

Yours sincerely,

Autonomous Mind

Well said. Now, Brits, show us some of your anti-Americanism - give Obama the finger and vote your way out of the EU.

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A Complete Whitewash: The Accountability Review Board Report On Benghazi

The Accountability Review Board, established by Hillary Clinton in the wake of the 9-11-12 attack on our consulate in Benghazi, has released its report, an unclassified version of which you can find here. It is a travesty. On the issues of who made the decisions to deny requests for greater security in Benghazi, why they made those decisions, and why our government sent no military assets in response to the attack that lasted over seven hours, the report is an utterly worthless whitewash. The Board excuses failure, ignores relevant fact, makes bald assertions disclaiming responsibility, and holds no one liable.

Here is the ARB's first finding:

The attacks were security related, involving arson, small arms and machine gun fire, and the use of RPGs, grenades, and mortars against U.S. personnel at two separate facilities – the SMC and the Annex – and en route between them. Responsibility for the tragic loss of life, injuries, and damage to U.S. facilities and property rests solely and completely with the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks. The Board concluded that there was no protest prior to the attacks, which were unanticipated in their scale and intensity.

Let's pull that apart. Yes, responsibility for the loss of life lies with the terrorists. But that statement, implying as it does that the people who made the decisions denying greater security in Benghazi bear no responsibility is simply beyond the pale. Those decisions were not merely reckless, they were, in the context, criminally reckless. This ARB attempt to remove all moral and ethical condemnation from those who denied the security requests is a set up for the ARB's later finding that no one is culpable for the policies and decisions that left four Americans dead, including a U.S. Ambassador.

As to the Board's conclusion that there was no protest prior to the attacks – well, it would be impossible to claim otherwise at this point. As to their conclusion that the “attacks . . . were unanticipated in their scale and intensity,” that is ridiculous. The report itself lays out a list of 20 significant attacks that occurred in or near Benghazi in the run up to September 11. The report neglects to note that a month prior to the attack, the security personnel in Benghazi sent a report addressed to Hillary Clinton laying out their concerns that such an attack as occurred on 9-11 might happen, and that it would over-run the U.S. compounds. How much more “anticipated” could this attack have been?

The Board gets a bit more specific on this issue in their fifth finding, but it is no more accurate in its factual underpinnings, nor more acceptable in its conclusion:

The Board found that certain senior State Department officials within two bureaus demonstrated a lack of proactive leadership and management ability in their responses to security concerns posed by Special Mission Benghazi, given the deteriorating threat environment and the lack of reliable host government protection. However, the Board did not find reasonable cause to determine that any individual U.S. government employee breached his or her duty.

At no point in this report is there a discussion of precisely why each request for security was denied, merely some vague references to failures in management and leadership and a suggestion of budgetary problems. There is no reference whatsoever to the policy decision to “normalize” the security posture in Benghazi, and of course no identification of who originated that policy. And the finding that, despite criminally reckless decisions not to have adequate security in Benghazi, no one is liable, can only be described as very convenient for the administration. There is no reason for the decision makers to tell their side of the story if they are being protected in their jobs. This is despicable.

Lastly, the Board issued the finding that “there simply was not enough time for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference.” That is made as a bald assertion, with no discussion of the assets available and their response times. No facts whatsoever are given in support of this assertion. And indeed, some of the facts given in the report suggest otherwise. The report makes clear that the people in Benghazi had ongoing communications with “Washington.” It also makes clear that AFRICOM was able to quickly get drones in the air over Benghazi. Indeed, the bald assertion of the ARB is in contravention to all of the known facts regarding the potential for deployment of our military in response to the Benghazi attack.

On the issues of who made the decisions to deny security and why, and on the issue of the failure of the U.S. to respond militarily to the attack, this report is less than worthless. It gives no answers, merely excuses. The Board's report does not, as many MSM and blogs are asserting today, rip the State Department - it covers for it.

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Saudi's Promote Violence & Hatred In Virginia?

It is difficult to imagine a more backwards, repressive and violent culture than that of Arabia - a land conquered by the House of Saud with incredible slaughter for the purpose of imposing their Dark Ages interpretation of the Koran - Wahhabism. As Bernard Lewis has described it, think of the most virulent cell of the KKK supported by all of the oil wealth of Texas. Thus if you are surprised by today's news that the Saudi's are teaching children their undiluted doctrine of racism, xenephobia, violence and Wahhabi triumphalism at a Saudi run school in Virginia, then you haven't been paying attention.

The school at issue in Northern Virginia is unique in the U.S. It is a school run by the Saudi government. It uses the same Saudi text books as are used in schools in Saudi Arabia and in the madrassas they fund around the world with their vast oil wealth.

What should also not be surprising is the news that our State Dept. is covering-up for the Saudis. It is not surprising, but heads should roll for it.
________________________________________________________

This from a press release yesterday by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom ("Commission"):

Last fall, the [Commission] asked the U.S. Department of State to secure the release of all Arabic-language textbooks used at a Saudi government school in Northern Virginia, the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA). The Commission took this action in order to ensure that the books be publicly examined to determine whether the texts used at the ISA promote violence, discrimination, or intolerance based on religion or belief. . . .

The Commission requested Saudi government textbooks repeatedly during and following its trip to Saudi Arabia in May-June 2007. Shortly after the Commission raised the issue publicly, the Saudi government turned over textbooks used at the ISA to the State Department, but as of this writing, the Department has not made them available either to the public or to the Commission, nor has it released any statement about the content of the books that it received. . . .

. . . [The] Commission managed to acquire and review 17 ISA textbooks in use during this school year from other, independent sources, including a congressional office. While the texts represent just a small fraction of the books used in this Saudi government school, the Commission’s review confirmed that these texts do, in fact, include some extremely troubling passages that do not conform to international human rights norms. The Commission calls once again for the full public release of all the Arabic-language textbooks used at the ISA.

In July 2006, the Saudi government confirmed to the U.S. government that, among other policies to improve religious freedom and tolerance, it would, within one to two years, “revise and update textbooks to remove remaining references that disparage Muslims or non-Muslims or that promote hatred toward other religions or religious groups.” The Commission is releasing this statement as the two-year timeframe is coming to an end, and with particular concern over the content of textbooks used at the ISA, in order to highlight reforms that should be made before the 2008-09 school year begins at the ISA.

Examples of Problematic Passages in Current ISA Textbooks

The most problematic texts involve passages that are not directly from the Koran but rather contain the Saudi government’s particular interpretation of Koranic and other Islamic texts [emphasis added]. Some passages clearly exhort the readers to commit acts of violence, as can be seen in the following two examples:

In a twelfth-grade Tafsir (Koranic interpretation) textbook, the authors state that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an apostate (a convert from Islam), an adulterer, or someone who has murdered a believer intentionally: “He (praised is He) prohibits killing the soul that God has forbidden (to kill) unless for just cause…” Just cause is then defined in the text as “unbelief after belief, adultery, and killing an inviolable believer intentionally.” (Tafsir, Arabic/Sharia, 123)

A twelfth-grade Tawhid (monotheism) textbook states that “[m]ajor polytheism makes blood and wealth permissible,” which in Islamic legal terms means that a Muslim can take the life and property of someone believed to be guilty of this alleged transgression with impunity. (Tawhid, Arabic/Sharia, 15) Under the Saudi interpretation of Islam, “major polytheists” include Shi’a and Sufi Muslims, who visit the shrines of their saints to ask for intercession with God on their behalf, as well as Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists.

The overt exhortations to violence found in these passages make other statements that promote intolerance troubling even though they do not explicitly call for violent action. These other statements vilify adherents of the Ahmadi, Baha’i, and Jewish religions, as well as of Shi’a Islam. . .

. . . The statements include the following:

“Today, Qadyanis [Ahmadis] are one of the greatest strongholds for spreading aberration, deviation, and heresy in the name of religion, even from within Islamic countries. Thus, the Qadyani [Ahmadi] movement has become a force of destruction and internal corruption today in the Islamic world…” (“Aspects of Muslim Political and Cultural History,” Eleventh Grade, Administrative/Social Track, Sharia/Arabic Track, 99)


“It [Baha’ism] is one of the destructive esoteric sects in the modern age... It has become clear that Babism [the precursor to Baha’ism], Baha’ism, and Qadyanism [Ahmadism] represent wayward forces inside the Islamic world that seek to strike it from within and weaken it. They are colonial pillars in our Islamic countries and among the true obstacles to a renaissance.” (“Aspects of Muslim Political and Cultural History,” Eleventh Grade, 99-100)


“The cause of the discord: The Jews conspired against Islam and its people. A sly, wicked person who sinfully and deceitfully professed Islam infiltrated (the Muslims). He was ‘Abd Allah b. Saba’ (from the Jews of Yemen). [___]* began spewing his malice and venom against the third of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs, ‘Uthman (may God be pleased with him), and falsely accused him.” (Tawhid, Administrative/Social Sciences Track, 67)

(*The word or words here were obscured by correction fluid.

Sunni Muslims are told to “shun those who are extreme regarding the People of the House (Muhammad’s family) and who claim infallibility for them.” (Tawhid, Arabic/Sharia 82; Tawhid, Administrative/Social Sciences Track, 65) This would include all Shi’a Muslims, for whom the doctrine of infallibility is a cardinal principle.
Other problematic passages employ ambiguous language, and the textbook authors do nothing to clarify the meaning.

A ninth-grade Hadith textbook states: “It is not permissible to violate the blood, property, or honor of the unbeliever who makes a compact with the Muslims. The blood of the mu’ahid is not permissible unless for a legitimate reason…the mu’ahid is an unbeliever who contracts a treaty with a Muslim providing for the safety of his life, property, and family.” (Hadith, Ninth Grade, 142-3)

The passages about the mu’ahid are most troubling for what they leave out. They address the protected status of an unbeliever in a Muslim country, but are silent on whether unbelievers living in non-Muslim countries are afforded the same protections of “blood, property, or honor.” Such an omission, taken together with the outright incitement to violence and vilifying language noted above, could be interpreted as tacitly condoning violence against non-Muslims living in non-Muslim countries.

The Commission would urge the textbook authors to put more context into some sections of the textbooks to avoid any perception that they could be encouraging violence. For example, one passage that requires clarification is the following explication of the Koranic phrase, “Respond to God and His Messenger when He calls you to that which will give you life.” (Q 8:24)

Although this Koranic passage does not in itself invoke the term jihad, the Saudi textbook authors write:

“In these verses is a call for jihad, which is the pinnacle of Islam. In (jihad) is life for the body; thus it is one of the most important causes of outward life. Only through force and victory over the enemies is there security and repose. Within martyrdom in the path of God (exalted and glorified is He) is a type of noble life-force that is not diminished by fear or poverty.” (Tafsir, Arabic/Sharia, 68)

While there are various meanings of the term jihad, including an internal struggle of the soul, none are given in this brief discussion, which also includes an emphasis on the importance of power or force over one’s enemies and discusses “martyrdom” with approval. Such an ambiguous interpretation can be perceived as giving the verse a militant connotation, potentially justifying acts of violence, which should not be left without elucidation in a textbook that is aimed at children who are still learning the main tenets of religion.

More broadly, the analysis of the ills of the Muslim world that is offered in the ISA textbooks—that it was strong when united under a single caliph, a single language (Arabic), and a single creed (Sunnism), and that it has grown weak because of foreign influence and internal religious and ethnic divisions—is identical to some of the exclusionary ideological arguments used by extremists to justify acts of terror.

In the Commission’s view, these troubling passages should be modified, clarified, or removed altogether from the next edition of the textbooks in order to bring the books at this Saudi government school into conformity with international human rights standards.

Long-term Commission Concern over Content of Saudi Government Textbooks

The Commission has long called for Saudi Arabia to be designated a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, for its egregious and systematic violations of religious freedom. In particular, the Commission has expressed concern about the promotion of religious intolerance and religion-based violence in official Saudi government textbooks used both within Saudi Arabia and at Saudi schools abroad, such as the ISA. The Commission has been urging the U.S. government to press the Saudi government to promote religious tolerance in the Saudi curriculum since 2001, and in 2003 it issued an in-depth report about religious freedom conditions in Saudi Arabia, including intolerance and incitement to violence found in Saudi textbooks and the country’s official educational curriculum. It was not until September 2004 that the State Department first publicly expressed concern over the Saudi government’s “export of religious extremism and intolerance to other countries” at a press conference announcing Saudi Arabia’s CPC designation.

In mid-2007, the Commission visited Saudi Arabia to assess the government’s progress in implementing textbook reform and other policies. However, based on that visit and subsequent research into Saudi government textbooks, including those used at the ISA, the Commission concluded that despite some improvements, these commitments, regrettably, remain largely unfulfilled.

In every official meeting during the visit to Saudi Arabia, the Commission delegation asked Saudi interlocutors for copies of textbooks. The Saudi government’s refusal to make them available during that visit or after the Commission’s return, despite repeated requests, left the Commission with continued concerns about their content and serious questions about whether they were in fact being reformed. The Commission also sought to obtain the textbooks used at the ISA. Until the Commission drew attention to the problem at a press conference in October 2007, the ISA publicly stated on its Web site that it adhered to the official Saudi government curriculum. The Commission called for the ISA to be closed under the terms of the Foreign Missions Act until the official Saudi textbooks used at the school were made available for comprehensive public examination. Soon after the Commission released its October 2007 report, the ISA dropped the language on its Web site stating that its Arabic-language and Islamic studies curriculum “is based on the Curriculum of the Saudi Ministry of Education.” In the months following the Commission’s report, the Saudi government has also posted copies of the official 2007-2008 Saudi textbooks on the Internet.

Members of Congress, some of whom had also sought in vain to obtain official Saudi textbooks for review, have joined the Commission in expressing concern. In November 2007, Reps. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Steve Israel (D-NY), and Anthony Weiner (D-NY) introduced a resolution, H.Con.Res. 262, calling on the State Department to heed the Commission’s requests regarding the ISA and to create a mechanism to monitor implementation of the 2006 Saudi commitments to improving educational materials. Twelve U.S. Senators, led by Sens. John Kyl (R-AZ) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), wrote a bipartisan letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice the same month, echoing the Commission’s call for closing the ISA until the official Saudi textbooks used at the school were made available for comprehensive public examination in the United States. . . .

Recommendations for the U.S. Department of State

The Commission reiterates its recommendations that the State Department should:

make available all textbooks that it has received from the Saudi government, so that their content and compliance with international human rights standards can be assessed; and


promptly create a formal mechanism to monitor and encourage implementation of the Saudi government’s 2006 policies as part of every meeting of the U.S.-Saudi Arabia Strategic Dialogue, and ensure that U.S. representatives to each relevant Working Group of the Strategic Dialogue, after each session, or at least every six months, report the group’s findings to Congress.

The Commission reaffirms that governments have a clear obligation to teach tolerance, not hatred. No government should be teaching children that it is justified to kill anyone on the basis of his or her religion or belief. The Commission is seriously concerned that the Saudi government is not abiding by the policies it confirmed in 2006 to promote greater religious freedom and tolerance, including by revising its school textbooks. The texts used at the ISA are only one example.

Read the entire article.

I assume the State Dept. does not wish to create an "international incident" by allowing the truth about this Virginia school to be made public. This is precisely of the nature of the actions that I posted on in "What You Don't Know About Salafism Could Kill You." Our State Dept. - and our executive, for that matter - are deliberately keeping us in the dark on far more than just this school curriculum in order to protect Saudi Arabia, one would suspect over keeping good relations and the oil flowing. This is horrendous.

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Iran's Special Groups In Iraq Now The Major Concern

In terms of who we are fighting in Iraq, the war against al Qaeda is going very successfully, the war against Sunni insurgents is over for the moment, but the Shia groups operating with Iranian support are now center stage as the most significant threat to U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The question of course is when is our federal government going to make Iran pay a price for their acts of war?



The Iranian theocracy, according to a senior State Department official speaking less then two months ago, "has decided 'at the most senior levels' to rein in the violent Shiite militias it supports in Iraq." That surreal statement was apparently not forwarded to Iran's Supreme Guide. At this point in Iraq, the Iranian backed Shia "special groups" are "the most worrisome, according to the commander and senior staff of the U.S. Army division patrolling Baghdad." This from the Washington Post.

The U.S. government believes that the special groups are heavily supported by Iran. The groups have been especially effective in using explosively formed projectiles, or EFPs, sophisticated bombs designed to destroy armored vehicles. "It's high-end technology," said Rainey, the division's operations chief. "It's not four dudes making them in a basement."

Attacks using those bombs were a near-daily occurrence in mid-2007 as the groups reacted to the U.S. military counteroffensive known as "the surge." From April through October, detonations of the powerful weapons happened nearly every day, on average, with a peak of 36 in July.

The U.S. military's ability to find the bombs has not notably improved. In January 2007, before the surge began, 31 such bombs were planted. U.S. troops found 14 before they were detonated; the other 17 went off. Last month's numbers were similar: The same number were planted, and U.S. troops detected 16, with 15 exploding.

The continuing success of those attacks is forcing U.S. troops to attempt to look two ways at once. Al-Qaeda in Iraq's car bomb attacks against civilians "are the biggest threat to our mission," which is to protect the population, Rainey said. But, he added, "the biggest threat to our soldiers is the EFPs." . . .

Read the entire article. How long will we go on with what amounts to no response against acts of aggression by a foreign enemy. Indeed, Iran's deadly meddling in Iraq is pervasive:

"The Iranians, in fact, have taken over all of south Iraq," said a senior tribal leader from the south who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his life. "Their influence is everywhere."

Seriously bad things need to be happening inside Iran to mad Mullahs, the IRGC commanders, and Iranian infrastructure. Pacifism does nothing to stop the mad Mullahs. We do not need to talk to, nor should we be talking to an enemy responsible for killing our soldiers and fomenting violence, nor to one competing to turn southern Iraq into an Iraqi Hezbollah beholden to Iran. We need to be sending covert or overt messages that are impossible to ignore.

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The State Department's Unilateral Foreign Policy

Until a few weeks ago, I was under the misapprehension that our State Dept. existed to further the foreign policy of the Executive Branch. The first major clue as to how wrong I was came with the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Through the disingenuous use of labels and some incredible sleight of hand in their very selective choice of inferences – see here - three State Department personnel who oversaw the writing of that NIE managed to turn what should have been an objective intelligence assessment into a policy document undercutting the President by positing:

1) Iran’s current nuclear enrichment is part of a "civilian" program - despite the fact that Iran has no possible use for the fuel its enriching;

2) Iran’s theocracy is rational by western standards; and

3) The use of force or threat of the same is not necessary to effect Iran’s decision making process. Talks with Iran, if accompanied by other diplomatic measures, is the appropriate way to proceed.

It was a successful coup that portrayed Iran as far less of a threat than that country actually is. And now we have our State Department acting similarly to portray the Iranian theocracy’s actions as peaceful and cooperative as regards Iraq. This is in contradiction of the facts on the ground. The only possible explanation is that this is an attempt to set the stage for unilateral talks with Iran.

What Iran has been doing for some time now is to duplicate in Iraq the same basic game plan that Iran has followed in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere. Iran develops a group of proxies - trains them, arms them, funds them - and then turns them loose to cause as much murder and mayhem as possible in the host country. Based on the models in Lebanon and Gaza, it can be assessed that the ultimate goal of Iran is to have their proxies become a political and military force in the host country beholden to Iran. Iran’s actions have been incredibly destabilizing – and deadly - in Iraq and throughout the greater Middle East. There is a phrase that appropriately describes Iran's actions in Iraq, though it does not appear to be in the State Dept. lexicon. That phrase is "acts of war."

According to General Petraeus in an interview on December 17, 2007:

. . . Q: Another factor that has seriously threatened the formation of a stable and secure Iraq is Iran. Lately Tehran seems to have decreased its interference in Iraq. Would you agree to that assessment?

P: There may be Iranian reduction in exporting violence to Iraq. I say "may" because it really is a may. There is not an apparent reduction in training because we have detained individuals in recent months and weeks who recently received training in Iran as late as late October or early November. . .

And from our Dept. of Defense assessment issued earlier this month:

. . . There has been no identified decrease in Iranian training and funding of illegal Shi’a militias in Iraq. Tehran’s support for Shi’a militant groups who attack Coalition and Iraq forces remains a significant impediment to progress towards stabilization. The Iranian Islamic Revolu-tionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) provides many of the explosives and ammunition used by these groups, to include Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM). Although Sadr’s late August 2007 freeze on JAM activity is still in effect, some elements continue to attack Coalition forces with Iranian weapons. The GoI and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq have made it clear to the Iranian Government that IRGC-QF’s lethal activities must cease.

But none of this is true according to the senior State Department official on Iraq, David Satterfield. He is claiming as fact the very dubious inference that Iran’s mullaocracy has somehow decided to put the hold on its deadly meddling in Iraq.

The Iranian government has decided "at the most senior levels" to rein in the violent Shiite militias it supports in Iraq, a move reflected in a sharp decrease in sophisticated roadside bomb attacks over the past several months, according to the State Department's top official on Iraq.

Tehran's decision does not necessarily mean the flow of those weapons from Iran has stopped, but the decline in their use and in overall attacks "has to be attributed to an Iranian policy decision," David M. Satterfield, Iraq coordinator and senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said in an interview.

. . . Satterfield agreed that Iran was not acting out of "altruism" but rather from "alarm at what was being done by the groups they were backing in terms of their own long-term interests."

At a news conference Friday, Rice sidestepped an opportunity to criticize Iran. The United States, she said, remains "open to better relations" with Iran, adding, "We don't have permanent enemies."

. . . But "we have seen such a consistent and sustained diminution in certain kinds of violence by certain kinds of folks that we can't explain it solely" by internal factors in Iraq, Satterfield said. "If you add those all together, your calculus doesn't come out unless you also add in that the Iranians at a command level must have said or done something, as well."

He declined to discuss specific evidence. "We are confident that decisions involving the strategy pursued by the IRGC are made at the most senior levels of the Iranian government," Satterfield said, referring to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The administration has used that formulation in the past to insist that IRGC training and supplies for militias in Iraq were ordered by Tehran's highest clerical leaders.

Read the article here. As to Sec. of State Rice's statement that we have "no permanent enemies," that's a great soundbite, but highly naive. The Iranian theocracy defines the core of its legitimacy by its enmity to the U.S., and the theocracy has been at war with the U.S. since its inception in 1979. While wanting better relations with Iran is laudable, ignoring the history of our relations with Iran's theocracy will do absolutely nothing to advance those relations.

As mentioned in this blog previously, that decline in Iranian sponsored mayhem and murder can be attributed to the effects of the surge, including the targeting of IRGC agents inside Iraq, the targeting of Iran's "special groups" proxies, and the interdiction of Iran's supply channels. See this report by Bill Roggio specifically addressing this issue. All of that is ignored by our State Department who prefer, solely on the basis of a dubious inference, to paint Iran’s mullaocracy as peaceful and cooperative.

This is suicidal insanity. Whether we should hold unilateral talks with Iran is open to legitimate debate. But we have no chance of dealing with Iran, whether in such talks or by any other means, if our State Department is falsely portraying Iran's actions and intentions. It is akin to justifying the handling of rattle snakes by simply asserting that they are really not dangerous. If one wants to survive an encounter with such a snake, the first thing that must happen is to approach it with the full acknowledgment of its nature.

We now have multiple people at the highest level's of the State Department who have acted to utterly minimize the very real threat posed by Iran. The only conceivable purpose for these acts is to set the stage for unilateral talks. Our State Department is advancing its own unilateral foreign policy agenda. The first step to dealing effectively with Iran is to reign in an out-of-control State Department.

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More Criticism of the NIE on Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program

John Bolton, writing in the Washington Post, is highly critical of the recent NIE on grounds that echo what others have already identified as glaring inadequacies, including the problem of politicization and the "wilfull blindness" exhibited by the NIE's authors concerning Iran's decision to halt its nuclear weapon's program contemporaneous with the U.S. and U.K. invasion of Iraq. Bolton adds some key details that raise further concerns with the NIE and, equally, how our intelligence community is functioning today:

. . . Too much of the intelligence community is engaging in policy formulation rather than "intelligence" analysis, and too many in Congress and the media are happy about it. President Bush may not be able to repair his Iran policy (which was not rigorous enough to begin with) in his last year, but he would leave a lasting legacy by returning the intelligence world to its proper function.

Consider these flaws in the NIE's "key judgments," . . .

First, the headline finding -- that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 -- is written in a way that guarantees the totality of the conclusions will be misread. In fact, there is little substantive difference between the conclusions of the 2005 NIE on Iran's nuclear capabilities and the 2007 NIE. Moreover, the distinction between "military" and "civilian" programs is highly artificial, since the enrichment of uranium, which all agree Iran is continuing, is critical to civilian and military uses. Indeed, it has always been Iran's "civilian" program that posed the main risk of a nuclear "breakout."

The real differences between the NIEs are not in the hard data but in the psychological assessment of the mullahs' motives and objectives. The current NIE freely admits to having only moderate confidence that the suspension continues and says that there are significant gaps in our intelligence and that our analysts dissent from their initial judgment on suspension. This alone should give us considerable pause.

Second, the NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported. It implies that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic persuasion and pressure, yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, not exactly a diplomatic pas de deux. As undersecretary of state for arms control in 2003, I know we were nowhere near exerting any significant diplomatic pressure on Iran. Nowhere does the NIE explain its logic on this critical point. Moreover, the risks and returns of pursuing a diplomatic strategy are policy calculations, not intelligence judgments. The very public rollout in the NIE of a diplomatic strategy exposes the biases at work behind the Potemkin village of "intelligence."

Third, the risks of disinformation by Iran are real. . . . The sudden appearance of new sources should be taken with more than a little skepticism. In a background briefing, intelligence officials said they had concluded it was "possible" but not "likely" that the new information they were relying on was deception. These are hardly hard scientific conclusions. One contrary opinion came from -- of all places -- an unnamed International Atomic Energy Agency official, quoted in the New York Times, saying that "we are more skeptical. We don't buy the American analysis 100 percent. We are not that generous with Iran." When the IAEA is tougher than our analysts, you can bet the farm that someone is pursuing a policy agenda.

Fourth, the NIE suffers from a common problem in government: the overvaluation of the most recent piece of data. . . .

Fifth, many involved in drafting and approving the NIE were not intelligence professionals but refugees from the State Department, brought into the new central bureaucracy of the director of national intelligence. These officials had relatively benign views of Iran's nuclear intentions five and six years ago; now they are writing those views as if they were received wisdom from on high. In fact, these are precisely the policy biases they had before, recycled as "intelligence judgments."
That such a flawed product could emerge after a drawn-out bureaucratic struggle is extremely troubling. While the president and others argue that we need to maintain pressure on Iran, this "intelligence" torpedo has all but sunk those efforts, inadequate as they were. Ironically, the NIE opens the way for Iran to achieve its military nuclear ambitions in an essentially unmolested fashion, to the detriment of us all.

Read the entire article here. Unfortunately, the Democrats' BDS must be included in the mix of how this flawed NIE was able to emerge. In the wake of 9-11, Democrats have made it a cornerstone of their parnoia that Bush was responsible for the twisting of intelligence. Rather than question the NIE before its release in the instant case, Bush appears to have tried to forestall criticism in this instance by not questioning any part of the NIE and simply released it. And thus we are left with a deeply flawed product with extreme ramifications.

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