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Showing posts with label Diplomacy vs. Warfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diplomacy vs. Warfare. Show all posts
Can dissent within the US government have an impact? UpFront talks to a recent State Department resignee, Hala Rharrit.
This week, Israel took hold of the Rafah border crossing in southern Gaza, a move that has stoked fears of further death and devastation in the territory. US President Joe Biden had previously warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that an invasion of Rafah was a “red line”. The Israeli move has come as the death toll in Israel’s war on Gaza continues to mount in a war that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration faces growing internal dissent against its policies in the Middle East, most recently marked by the resignation of US Department of State Arabic language spokesperson, Hala Rharrit. Rharrit is the first career diplomat to resign publicly, protesting the government’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza.
So what effect is dissent having on US foreign policy? And is the Biden administration at a tipping point in its support of Israel’s war on Gaza?
This week on UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill speaks to Hala Rharrit about dissent within the Biden administration and the government’s foreign policy.
BREAKING NEWS
Iran said it had concluded its attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and did
“not seek escalation.” President Trump plans to make a statement on
Wednesday. Tuesday, January 7, 2020 10:36 PM EST The
statement from Iran’s foreign minister followed two missile attacks on
bases in Iraq housing American forces in response to the killing of Maj.
Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps. Read the latest https://www.nytimes.com/…/…/world/middleeast/trump-iran.html
LIVE UPDATES
PHOTO: A vigil for General Suleimani in Tehran on Tuesday evening. Credit: Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Iran ‘Concludes’ Attacks, Foreign Minister Says: Live Updates
Iran does not seek “seek escalation or war,” the minister, Mohammad
Javad Zarif, said in a tweet hours after Iran launched missile strikes
against Americans in Iraq.
Right Now
‘So far, so good!,’
President Trump said in a tweet as an assessment of American casualties
at bases targeted by Iran was ongoing.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases
located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties & damages taking place
now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped
military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement
tomorrow morning. 302K 6:45 PM - Jan 7, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 148K people are talking about this
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s tweet followed two missile
attacks on bases in Iraq housing American forces in response to the
killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a leader of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps. “Iran took & concluded
proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter
targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens
& senior officials were launched,” Mr. Zarif said. “We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression,” he added.
Javad Zarif✔ @JZarif
Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under
Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack
against our citizens & senior officials were launched.
We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression. 19.3K 6:32 PM - Jan 7, 2020
Tensions between the United States and Iran came to a head in recent
weeks when an American military contractor was killed, Iranian-backed
militias stormed the United States Embassy compound in Baghdad on New
Year’s Eve and General Suleimani was killed in an American drone strike
last Friday.
Iran swore vengeance for the general’s death leading
to concerns of full-scale war in the region. On Tuesday, Iran fired
more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq where
American troops are stationed.
“All is well!,” President Trump
said in a tweet on Tuesday. “Assessment of casualties & damages
taking place now. So far, so good!”
Two bases are attacked in Iraq.
ImageThe Asad air base in Anbar Province, in western Iraq, last month.
It was the site of a missile attack by Iran, the Pentagon said. The
Asad air base in Anbar Province, in western Iraq, last month. It was the
site of a missile attack by Iran, the Pentagon said.Credit...Nasser
Nasser/Associated Press
Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic
missiles at two military bases in Iraq where American troops are
stationed, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
“It is clear that these
missiles were launched from Iran and targeted at least two Iraqi
military bases hosting U.S. military and coalition personnel at Al-Asad
and Erbil,” Jonathan Hoffman, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in a
statement.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
In a briefing in Washington, an official said that the Pentagon “had no confirmation” that any Americans had been killed.
Iranian officials said the attacks were the start of a promised
retaliation for the killing of a top Revolutionary Guards commander.
“The fierce revenge by the Revolutionary Guards has begun,” Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement on a Telegram
channel.
Iranian news media reported the attacks hours after the
remains of the commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, were returned to
his hometown in Iran for burial.
Hossein Soleimani, the editor in
chief of Mashregh, the main Revolutionary Guards news website, said
that more than 30 ballistic missiles had been fired at the base at Asad,
in Anbar Province, in western Iraq.
A base in Erbil, in northern Iraq, was also attacked.
An Iranian Revolutionary Guards statement on state television said: “If
America responds to these attacks there will be bigger attacks on the
way. This is not a threat, it’s a warning.”
Some Iranian
officials tweeted images of Iranian flags in a pointed rejoinder to
President Trump, who tweeted an American flag after General Suleimani
was killed.
Saeed Jalili @DrSaeedJalili
View image on Twitter 23K 3:53 PM - Jan 7, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy
14.3K people are talking about this
In a statement, the White House said, “The president has been briefed
and is monitoring the situation closely and consulting with his national
security team.” Throughout the day, reports from American
intelligence agencies of an imminent attack from Iran had intensified,
and senior officials said they were bracing for some kind of attack
against American bases in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East.
As tensions mounted, Mr. Trump’s top national security advisers met
Tuesday afternoon in the White House Situation Room, where they were
joined by the president after his meeting with the Greek prime minister. Maps: How the Confrontation Between the U.S. and Iran Escalated Here’s how the situation developed over the last two weeks.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was meeting with senior Democrats Tuesday
evening in her Capitol office suite, discussing Mr. Trump’s impeachment,
when she was handed a note about the Iranian attack. “We’ve got to pray,” she said, according to Representative Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, who was at the meeting. Ms. Pelosi said she was “closely monitoring the situation.”
“We must ensure the safety of our service members, including ending
needless provocations from the administration and demanding that Iran
cease its violence,” she said in a tweet. “America & world cannot
afford war.” Drew Hammill, Ms. Pelosi’s spokesman, said she
returned a call shortly thereafter from Vice President Mike Pence, who
briefed her on the strikes. Mr. Pence also briefed Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader.
In December 2018, Mr. Trump visited American military forces at Al
Asad. It was his first trip to troops stationed in a combat zone.
The base at Asad is an Iraqi base that has long been a hub for American
military operations in western Iraq. Danish troops have also been
stationed there in recent years. In 2017, as the American-led
coalition built up the base for its campaign against the Islamic State,
roughly 500 American military and civilian personnel were located there.
Some troops departed after the defeat of the Islamic State’s so-called
caliphate in 2019, but the base maintains a robust presence of coalition
troops. The American base in Erbil has been a Special Operations
hub, home to hundreds of troops, logistics personnel, and intelligence
specialists. Transport aircraft, gunships, and reconnaissance planes
have used the airport as an anchor point for operations in both northern
Iraq and deep into Syria. Oil prices soar on news of attacks. The Tokyo Stock Exchange on Wednesday.Credit...Behrouz Mehri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Oil prices jumped and markets slumped in Asia early on Wednesday, as
investors tried to parse reports of missile attacks on military bases in
Iraq where American troops are stationed. Prices for Brent
crude, the international oil benchmark, jumped above $70 a barrel in
futures markets, a nearly 4 percent rise from Tuesday. West Texas
Intermediate, the American oil price benchmark, jumped more than 3
percent to about $65 a barrel. Stock markets also dropped
sharply. Shares in Japan opened 2.4 percent lower, while markets in Hong
Kong and South Korea fell more than 1 percent on their opening.
Investors were also predicting a tough day on Wall Street. Futures
contracts representing bets on the American stock market indicated a
drop of more than 1 percent in New York’s morning. ‘He was clearly on the battlefield.’ PHOTO: A vigil for General Suleimani in Tehran on Tuesday evening.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said Tuesday that General Suleimani had
been planning attacks to occur within days, laying out the
administration’s legal justification for killing the Iranian commander
in a drone strike. Americans officials have been pressed over
their claims that they targeted General Suleimani to forestall imminent
attacks against U.S. interests. At a Pentagon news conference
Tuesday, Mr. Esper was asked whether attacks had been expected in days
or weeks. “I think it’s more fair to say days,” the defense secretary
said.
He declined to offer more details, nor to describe the intelligence underpinning that assessment. Mr. Esper said General Suleimani, who was killed Friday in Iraq, “was in Baghdad to coordinate additional attacks.”
“He’s been conducting terrorist activities against us and our coalition
partners for over 20 years,” Mr. Esper said. “He has the blood of
hundreds of Americans, soldiers, on his hands and wounded thousands
more. And then we could talk about all of the mayhem he’s caused against
the Syrian people, the people of Lebanon. Even his own people in Iran.” He added: “To somehow suggest that he wasn’t a legitimate target, I think, is fanciful. He was clearly on the battlefield.”
Mr. Esper also said that despite an unsigned draft letter from the
American military command in Baghdad on troop withdrawal and a unanimous
vote by the Iraqi Parliament, the United States does not plan to pull
its troops out of Iraq right now. The Pentagon has made
preparations in anticipation of Iranian retaliation, Mr. Esper said, and
American troops in the Middle East are on a heightened state of alert.
“I think we should expect that they will retaliate in some way, shape
or form,” Mr. Esper told a news conference at the Pentagon. “We’re
prepared for any contingency and then we’ll respond appropriately to
whatever they do.” President Trump walked back his threat to strike Iranian cultural targets. PHOTO: The ruins of the ancient city of Persepolis in southern Iran in 2014.Credit...John Moore/Getty Images
President Trump on Tuesday told reporters he would avoid targeting
cultural sites in military attacks, walking back a threat he made
against Iran days earlier. Following a bipartisan and
international uproar, Mr. Trump conceded that striking such sites would
amount to a war crime. “If that’s what the law is, I like to obey the
law,” he said in the Oval Office as he hosted the visiting prime
minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. His remarks to reporters
came a day after Mark T. Esper, the secretary of defense, said striking
Iranian cultural sites with no military value would be a war crime.
That appeared to put him at odds with his boss. “We will follow
the laws of armed conflict,” the defense secretary said at a news
briefing at the Pentagon on Monday when asked if cultural sites would be
targeted. On Saturday, Mr. Trump declared that the United States
had identified 52 potential targets in Iran, some “important to Iran
& the Iranian culture.” None of them qualified as cultural sites, according to an administration official who asked not to be identified.
But the president’s threats and his initial refusal to back down in the
face of criticism generated condemnation at home and abroad while
deeply discomfiting American military leaders. Some NATO troops are leaving Iraq.
PHOTO: A training session in Baghdad for Iraqi police offers led by
NATO forces in 2018.Credit...Ahmed Jalil/Epa-Efe, via Shutterstock
NATO is removing some of the trainers who have been working with Iraqi
soldiers battling the Islamic State, in the wake of the American killing
of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani. On Monday, the NATO secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, announced that training had been temporarily suspended.
Describing security of NATO personnel, the organization said in a
statement that it would be taking precautions — including “the temporary
repositioning of some personnel to different locations both inside and
outside Iraq.’’ NATO “maintains a presence in Iraq’’ and remains
committed “to fighting international terrorism,” an official said, but
refused to provide “operational details’’ about troop movements. NATO has had roughly 500 soldiers doing the training.
Some NATO countries, like Canada, Germany and Croatia, have announced
that they are moving troops out of Iraq altogether, at least
temporarily, because of security concerns. Canada is temporarily
moving to Kuwait some of its 500 military personnel based in Iraq, the
country’s top military official, Gen. Jonathan Vance, said in a letter
posted on Twitter on Tuesday. Thirty of the 120 German soldiers
in Iraq will be sent to Jordan and Kuwait, while others will remain
positioned in the less volatile Kurdistan region, the German defense and
foreign ministries said in a joint letter to the German parliament, the
Bundestag. “When the training is able to resume, the military personnel can be reinstated,” the letter said.
Croatia has also moved its small contingent of soldiers — 14 — from
Iraq, with seven bound for Kuwait and the rest headed home, the Croatian
Defense Ministry said. Slovakia has also removed its seven soldiers.
Some NATO troops began leaving Baghdad’s Green Zone in helicopters
Monday night. The NATO training mission began in 2018 at Iraq’s request. Oil prices have risen only modestly since the U.S. attack.
The killing of General Suleimani initially jolted oil markets, but the
surge in prices has eased. On Tuesday afternoon, the Brent crude oil
benchmark was down about 1.5 percent, to about $67.87 a barrel.
Analysts attribute the modesty of the increase to market skepticism that
Iran will seek to hobble oil trading by, for example, closing the
Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel that many oil tankers have to pass
through when they leave the Persian Gulf. Oil flows have not been
disrupted, so far, and the markets are “pricing in just a low
probability of something happening,” said Bjornar Tonhaugen, head of oil
market research at Rystad Energy, a research firm. Deadly stampede at funeral in Suleimani’s hometown.
Iranian state-run news outlets reported a deadly stampede during the
funeral procession for General Suleimani in his hometown, Kerman, in
southeastern Iran, on Tuesday. Millions were reported to have
flooded the town’s streets to witness the procession for the general,
who was killed in an American drone strike in Baghdad last week. His
death has fanned smoldering tensions between the United States and Iran,
and fueled fears of a broader conflict.
The crowding and
subsequent stampede in Kerman led to General Suleimani’s burial being
postponed, state news media reported. He was buried around midnight, as
Iran prepared to launch missile attacks against American forces in
retaliation for his death, said Hossein Soleimani, the editor in chief
of the main Revolutionary Guards news website. Photographs of the
procession showed an elaborately decorated truck carrying General
Suleimani’s coffin through streets packed densely with mourners, many
wearing black and carrying pictures of the dead commander.
“Unfortunately, as a result of a stampede, some of our compatriots have
been injured and some have been killed during the funeral processions,”
Pirhossein Koulivand, head of the Iranian emergency medical services,
told the news agency IRIB.
Fifty-six people died and 213 were injured, the broadcaster IRIB reported on its website.
Images and videos posted on social media showed the aftermath of the
crush, with emergency workers and bystanders attempting to resuscitate
people lying on the ground. The lifeless bodies of other victims,
jackets covering their faces, could be seen nearby. The general’s
body had been flown to Kerman after a funeral in Tehran on Monday that
had brought even bigger crowds into the streets of the Iranian capital.
Iran issued new threats before the funeral procession.
PHOTO: Mourners with pictures of General Suleimani on a bridge in
Kerman, Iran, on Tuesday.Credit...Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse —
Getty Images
In a fiery speech made in General Suleimani’s
hometown on Tuesday, the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps vowed to “set ablaze” places where Americans and their allies
live.
“We will take revenge — a revenge that will be tough,
strong, decisive and finishing and will make them regret,” the corps’s
leader, Hossein Salami, said on Tuesday in a front of a crowd of
mourners. “We will set ablaze the place they like, and they know where
it is.” “Today, the seeds of hatred for the U.S. have been sown
in the hearts of Muslims,” he added, according to Fars, an Iranian news
agency associated with the Revolutionary Guards.
The pledge to
seek vengeance echoed the rhetoric of many of the country’s leaders
since General Suleimani’s killing on Friday. “Death to Israel,” the
crowd chanted back, according to news reports. Israel, a close ally of
the United States, has long been an enemy of Iran.
Thousands of
mourners, dressed in black and carrying photos of General Suleimani,
crowded the central square of Kerman, where the general’s body was taken
for burial after a funeral procession on Monday in Tehran, the capital.
Before arriving in Kerman, the general’s remains were taken to the holy
city of Qom, where thousands of residents came out, hoping for a chance
to touch the coffin of a man the state has declared a martyr.
On
Monday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wept and offered prayers over General
Suleimani’s coffin at the enormous state funeral. The ayatollah, Iran’s
supreme leader, had a close relationship with the general, who was
widely considered to be the country’s second-most powerful man.
PHOTO: Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, praying
in Tehran on Monday during a funeral for Maj. Gen. Qassim
Suleimani.Credit...Office of Iranian Supreme Leader
General Suleimani’s successor swore revenge during Monday’s ceremony.
“God the almighty has promised to get his revenge, and God is the main
avenger,” said Esmail Ghaani, the Iranian general who will succeed
General Suleimani as head of the Quds Force, the foreign expeditionary
arm of the Revolutionary Guards. “Certainly, actions will be taken,” he
added. As the world focused on Iran, Putin took a bow in Syria.
With the American role in the Middle East in flux, President Vladimir
V. Putin of Russia flew to Damascus, Syria, on Tuesday for a victory lap
of sorts.
Highlighting Russia’s newfound influence in the
region, Mr. Putin met with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the
strongman whose rule was largely rescued by Russian military
intervention in Syria’s civil war.
Mr. Putin told Mr. al-Assad
that “one can now confidently state that huge strides have been made in
restoring Syrian statehood and the territorial integrity of the
country,” a Kremlin statement said.
The Kremlin made no mention
of Iran in its description of Mr. Putin’s visit, which had not been
announced ahead of time. But Tehran was a crucial partner of Moscow in
propping up Mr. al-Assad against Syrian rebels, including those backed
by the United States.
Russia has called the killing of Maj. Gen.
Qassim Suleimani of Iran illegal and expressed condolences to Tehran. On
Wednesday, Mr. Putin is scheduled to meet with President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan of Turkey in Istanbul, with Syria and Libya on the agenda,
according to the Kremlin. France’s president urged calm in a call with his Iranian counterpart.
President Emmanuel Macron of France spoke with the president of Iran,
Hassan Rouhani, by phone on Tuesday afternoon to plead for calm and
de-escalation.
PHOTO: President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, center right, and Mohammad
Javad Zarif, center, Iran’s foreign minister, at the United Nations
General Assembly in September.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York
Times Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, said on
Tuesday that he had been rejected for a visa to attend a Security
Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York,
confirming reports from American news outlets that he would be barred.
Mr. Zarif, in an interview with the Iranian news outlet Press TV, said
that his office had requested a visa weeks ago to participate in the
meeting on Thursday, rejecting claims by American officials that they
had not had time to process the application. “The Americans are
trying to create the impression that our request to attend the meeting
was put forth following the assassination of General Suleimani,” Mr.
Zarif said, according to the news outlet, adding, “The question everyone
needs to be asking this lawbreaking administration is: What are they so
scared of?” Mr. Zarif later posted on Twitter about the situation, taking aim at Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Trump.
Javad Zarif✔ @JZarif Denying me a visa in violation of 1947 UNHQ Agreement pales in comparison to:
-Pompeo's threat to starve Iranians (crime against humanity) -Trump's bluster about cultural heritage (war crime) -#EconomicTerrorism -Cowardly assassination But what are they really afraid of? Truth? 17.2K 5:02 AM - Jan 7, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 7,488 people are talking about this
During a Tuesday morning news conference, Mr. Pompeo was asked about
the visa but said he would not comment specifically on visa matters. He
added that the United States would “comply with our obligations” under
United Nations rules. Robert C. O’Brien, the American national security adviser, was asked on “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday morning about the visa.
“I don’t think Secretary Pompeo thought that this was the right time
for Mr. Zarif to come to the United States, and whenever he comes to New
York, he spreads propaganda,” Mr. O’Brien said. In August, the United States announced sanctions on Mr. Zarif, a seasoned diplomat who helped negotiate the 2015 nuclear deal. Embassies warned Americans abroad of potential attacks.
Fake caskets covered with American and Israeli flags at the funeral
procession for Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani in Tehran on Monday. Fake
caskets covered with American and Israeli flags at the funeral
procession for Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani in Tehran on
Monday.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times Across the
Middle East and the world, United States embassies warned Americans of
potential attacks from Iran, as Iranian generals vowed to avenge the
senior commander killed in an American drone strike. In
Jerusalem, the embassy told Americans on Monday to watch out for
“mortars and rocket fire.” A day earlier, the United States Mission in
Saudi Arabia had warned citizens to be prepared for “missile and drone
attacks.” The security alerts follow the targeted killing on
Friday of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the leading figure in Iran’s
foreign-facing intelligence and military operations. At General
Suleimani’s funeral in Tehran on Monday, military commanders promised
vengeance. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told advisers
that any retaliation against the United States should be direct,
proportional and carried out openly by Iran. That is a startling
departure for the Iranian leadership, which has typically cloaked its
attacks behind the actions of proxies it has cultivated around the
region. But in the fury generated by the killing of General Suleimani, a
close ally and personal friend of the supreme leader, the ayatollah was
apparently willing to cast aside those traditional cautions. Warnings to United State citizens were sent by American diplomats not only in the Middle East but also in Asia.
The American Embassy in Beijing, citing “heightened tension in the
Middle East,” advised American citizens on Tuesday to keep a low
profile, be aware of their surroundings, stay alert in tourist
locations, review personal security plans and ensure that their travel
documents were updated and accessible. American citizens in South Korea
said they had received similar warnings.
American diplomats in the Middle East began sending advisories earlier in the week.
American embassies across the region have been on heightened alert
since Dec. 31, when militants, backed by the Iranian government, stormed
the embassy in Baghdad. President Trump said the assault was organized
by General Suleimani. Last week, embassies in Baghdad and in
Beirut, Lebanon, issued security alerts. Some airlines have halted
flights to the Iraqi capital, including EgyptAir, which on Tuesday
announced that its flights in and out of the city would stop from
Wednesday through Friday. Iran’s Parliament labeled the Pentagon’s leadership ‘terrorists.’
PHOTO: Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps during a military
parade in Tehran in 2018.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Iranian Parliament on Tuesday passed a bill declaring the American
military’s top leadership to be “terrorists,” subject to Iranian
sanctions, according to news reports in state media.
The bill
aimed at the Pentagon’s top brass mirrored a Trump administration policy
implemented in April that imposed economic and travel sanctions on the
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as well as organizations, companies
and individuals with ties to it. That policy represented the first time an arm of a sovereign government had been designated a terrorist organization.
The Defense Department said the killing of General Suleimani was
justified in part because of the corps’s terrorist designation. General
Suleimani led the Quds Force, a unit of the Revolutionary Guards that
conducted intelligence-gathering and attacks outside Iran’s borders. The Defense Department mistakenly released a letter authorizing troop withdrawal from Iraq.
PHOTO: American soldiers conducting a mortar exercise at a coalition
outpost in western Iraq in 2018.Credit...Susannah George/Associated
Press An official letter from the Defense Department informing
Iraq that American troops were “repositioning forces” for “movement out
of Iraq” produced headlines around the world saying that an American
withdrawal had begun. But the letter, drafted by the United
States military command in Baghdad, was sent out by mistake. The furor
it caused prompted Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, to call an urgent news
conference to deny the reports. “It was an honest mistake,”
General Milley told reporters at the Pentagon. “That letter is a draft,
it was a mistake, it was unsigned, it should not have been released.”
Reporting was contributed by Megan Specia, Russell Goldman, Farnaz
Fassihi, David D. Kirkpatrick, Melissa Eddy, Edward Wong, Lara Jakes,
Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman, Alissa J. Rubin, Ben Hubbard, Mark
Landler, Helene Cooper, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Eric Schmitt, Adam Nossiter
and Anton Troianovski. The Killing of General Suleimani The U.S. Seemed to Be Leaving Iraq. But It Was All an ‘Honest Mistake.’ Jan. 6, 2020 Pentagon Rules Out Striking Iranian Cultural Sites, Contradicting Trump Jan. 6, 2020
PHOTO: A vigil for General Suleimani in Tehran on Tuesday evening.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Unstable and impeached, the president pushes the U.S. toward war with Iran.
by Michelle Goldberg January 6, 2020 New York Times
There are no more adults in the room. After three harrowing years, we’ve reached the point many of us feared
from the moment Donald Trump was elected. His decision to kill Maj. Gen.
Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s second most important official, made at
Mar-a-Lago with little discernible deliberation, has brought the United
States to the brink of a devastating new conflict in the Middle East. We don’t yet know how Iran will retaliate, or whether all-out war will
be averted. But already, NATO has suspended its mission training Iraqi
forces to fight ISIS. Iraq’s Parliament has voted to expel American
troops — a longtime Iranian objective. (On Monday, U.S. forces sent a
letter saying they were withdrawing from Iraq in response, only to then
claim that it was a draft released in error.) On Sunday, Iran said it
will no longer be bound by the remaining restrictions on its nuclear
program in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the deal that Trump
abandoned in 2018. Trump has been threatening to commit war crimes by
destroying Iran’s cultural sites and tried to use Twitter to notify
Congress of his intention to respond to any Iranian reprisals with
military escalation. The administration has said that the killing
of Suleimani was justified by an imminent threat to American lives, but
there is no reason to believe this. One skeptical American official
told The New York Times that the new intelligence indicated nothing but
“a normal Monday in the Middle East,” and Democrats briefed on it were
unconvinced by the administration’s case. The Washington Post reported
that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — who last year agreed with a
Christian Broadcasting Network interviewer that God might have sent
Trump to save Israel from the “Iranian menace” — has been pushing for a
hit on Suleimani for months. Rather than self-defense, the
Suleimani killing seems like the dreadful result of several intersecting
dynamics. There’s the influence of rapture-mad Iran hawks like Pompeo
and Vice President Mike Pence. Defense officials who might have stood up
to Trump have all left the administration. According to Peter Bergen’s
book “Trump and His Generals,” James Mattis, Trump’s former secretary of
defense, instructed his subordinates not to provide the president with
options for a military showdown with Iran. But with Mattis gone,
military officials, The Times reported, presented Trump with the
possibility of killing Suleimani as the “most extreme” option on a menu
of choices, and were “flabbergasted” when he picked it. Trump
likely had mixed motives. He was reportedly upset over TV images of
militia supporters storming the American Embassy in Iraq. According to
The Post, he also was frustrated by “negative coverage” of his decision
last year to order and then call off strikes on Iran. Beyond
that, Trump, now impeached and facing trial in the Senate, has laid out
his rationale over years of tweets. The president is a master of
projection, and his accusations against others are a decent guide to how
he himself will behave. He told us, over and over again, that he
believed Barack Obama would start a war with Iran to “save face” and
because his “poll numbers are in a tailspin” and he needed to “get
re-elected.” To Trump, a wag-the-dog war with Iran evidently seemed like
a natural move for a president in trouble. It’s hard to see how
this ends without disaster. Defenders of Trump’s move have suggested
that he might have re-established deterrence against Iran, frightening
its leadership into restraint. But Vali Nasr, a Middle East scholar at
Johns Hopkins University and former senior adviser to Obama’s State
Department, tells me that Iran likely believes that it has to
re-establish deterrence against the United States. “If they don’t
do anything, or if they don’t do enough, then Trump will get
comfortable with this kind of behavior, and that worries them,” said
Nasr. To Iranians, after all, America is the aggressor, scrapping a
nuclear agreement that they were abiding by and imposing a punishing
“maximum pressure” sanctions campaign. Just like militarists in the
United States, they’re likely to assume that weakness invites attacks.
“I don’t think they want to provoke war, but they do want to send a
signal that they’re prepared for it,” said Nasr. Even if Iran
were to somehow decide not to strike back at the United States, it’s
still ramping up its nuclear program, and Trump has obliterated the
possibility of a return to negotiations. “His maximum pressure policy
has failed,” Nasr said of Trump. “He has only produced a more dangerous
Iran.” Meanwhile, ISIS benefits from the breach between Iraq and
America. “ISIS suicide and vehicle bombings have nearly stopped
entirely,” said Brett McGurk, who until 2018 was special presidential
envoy to the coalition fighting ISIS. “Only a few years ago, there were
50 per month, killing scores of Iraqis. That’s because of what we have
done and continue to do. These networks will regenerate rapidly if we
are forced to leave, and they will again turn their attention on the
West.” Unlike with North Korea, it’s difficult to imagine any
photo op or exchange of love letters defusing the crisis the president
has created. Most of this country has never accepted Trump, but over the
past three years, many have gotten used to him, lulled into uneasy
complacency by an establishment that has too often failed to treat him
as a walking national emergency. Now the nightmare phase of the Trump
presidency is here. The biggest surprise is that it took so long.
RELATED:
More from Opinion on Trump’s decision to kill Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani:
Opinion | Karen J. Greenberg: Killing Qassim Suleimani Was Illegal. And Predictable. Jan. 6, 2020
Opinion | Philip Gordon And Ariane Tabatabai: The Choice That’s Coming: An Iran With the Bomb, or Bombing Iran Jan. 6, 2020
Opinion | Susan E. Rice: The Dire Consequences of Trump’s Suleimani Decision Jan. 4, 2020
Opinion | The Editorial Board: Congress, Stop President Trump’s Rush to War With Iran Jan. 4, 2020
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Michelle Goldberg has been an Opinion columnist since 2017. She is the
author of several books about politics, religion and women’s rights, and
was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2018
for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues.@michelleinbklyn
A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 7, 2020, Section A,
Page 23 of the New York edition with the headline: The Trump Nightmare
Is Here. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper
AOC Says Killing of Suleimani Was an Act of Aggression by the United States by Amy Goodman January 6, 2020 Democracy Now!
Over the weekend, Democracy Now! spoke with New York Congressmember
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and asked her response to the assassination of
Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. “We need to be tactical about how we
can actively resist further escalation on already an unprecedented level
of escalation and aggression by the president, and therefore by the
United States,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “He did this on behalf of our entire
country. And that’s what makes the potential illegality of his action
so flagrant, because he did not consult Congress and this was not done
with the support of the United States.”
TRANSCRIPT:
AMY
GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. Over the weekend, I
caught up with New York Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She had
come to the showing of a film that’s just been shortlisted for the
Oscar, Knock Down the House, which chronicled her race, her unlikely
victory in Queens and the Bronx to become a congressmember from New
York. I asked her for her response to the assassination of the Iranian
commander, Qassem Soleimani.
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO–CORTEZ:
Well, we’ve been really looking at how we’re going to respond, because
it’s not enough to just say no war in Iran. We need to be tactical about
how we can actively resist further escalation on already an
unprecedented level of escalation and aggression by the president, and
therefore by the United States. He did this on behalf of our entire
country. And that’s what makes the potential illegality of his action so
flagrant, because he did not consult Congress and this was not done
with the support of the United States. But in his seat as the president,
this has now been an act of aggression committed by the United States.
And so, one is that we have to hold him accountable, which, you
know, to me, I believe we need to enact the War Powers Resolution,
demand that he come before Congress, and without getting permission, we
must draw back support. But also I believe that Representative Ro
Khanna, he introduced an amendment to the defense authorization last
year that could have prevented all of this. He introduced an amendment
that prevented any funding for offensive action in Iran. And it was
overwhelmingly passed, bipartisan. It passed the House with Republican
and Democratic support, and then it was stripped by Democratic and
Republican leadership. And so, had his amendment passed, it would have —
it could have prevented all of this. But nevertheless, it can prevent
further horrific actions from occurring and undemocratic actions from
occurring. And I think we need to reintroduce his amendment as a
stand-alone bill and see if we can pass it again.
But again,
none of this happens, we don’t fix any of this, domestically or in terms
of — or internationally, without the votes and without the political
will. And that’s why I think that inspiring people to enter this
process, you know, we’ve got to get — we’ve got to get the votes, inside
and outside, you know, out in the streets and in Congress. And the way
that we do that is by inspiring people and demystifying this process for
everyday people to be able to engage. And I think whether it’s this
vehicle or Instagram or, you know, engaging on social media ourselves,
that’s one of the ways that we can truly powerfully transform our
democracy.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s New York Congressmember Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez speaking on Saturday after a screening of the
Oscar-shortlisted documentary Knock Down the House.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM HOST:
Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a
national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on more
than 1,100 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine
named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s “Meet
the Press.”
"I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against."
W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963)
"There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent. "
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
"Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society."
"A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization. A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization."
Nina Simone (1933-2003)
"There's no other purpose, so far as I'm concerned, for us except to reflect the times, the situations around us and the things we're able to say through our art, the things that millions of people can't say. I think that's the function of an artist and, of course, those of us who are lucky leave a legacy so that when we're dead, we also live on. That's people like Billie Holiday and I hope that I will be that lucky, but meanwhile, the function, so far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times, whatever that might be."
Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973)
"Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone's head. They are fighting to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children ....Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories..." .
Angela Davis (b. 1944)
"The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what's that? The freedom to starve?”
Duke Ellington (1899-1974)
“Jazz is the freest musical expression we have yet seen. To me, then, jazz means simply freedom of musical speech! And it is precisely because of this freedom that so many varied forms of jazz exist. The important thing to remember, however, is that not one of these forms represents jazz by itself. Jazz simply means the freedom to have many forms.”
Amiri Baraka (1934-2014)
"Thought is more important than art. To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even to understand what art is."
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” --August 3, 1857
Cecil Taylor (1929-2018)
“Musical categories don’t mean anything unless we talk about the actual specific acts that people go through to make music, how one speaks, dances, dresses, moves, thinks, makes love...all these things. We begin with a sound and then say, what is the function of that sound, what is determining the procedures of that sound? Then we can talk about how it motivates or regenerates itself, and that’s where we have tradition.”
Ella Baker (1903-1986)
"Strong people don't need strong leaders"
Paul Robeson (1898-1976)
"The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative."
John Coltrane (1926-1967)
"I want to be a force for real good. In other words, I know there are bad forces. I know that there are forces out here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good."
Miles Davis (1926-1991)
"Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around."
C.L.R. James (1901-1989)
"All development takes place by means of self-movement, not organization by external forces. It is within the organism itself (i.e. within the society) that there must be realized new motives, new possibilities."
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)
"Now, political education means opening minds, awakening them, and allowing the birth of their intelligence as [Aime] Cesaire said, it is 'to invent souls.' To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them."
Edward Said (1935-2003)
“I take criticism so seriously as to believe that, even in the midst of a battle in which one is unmistakably on one side against another, there should be criticism, because there must be critical consciousness if there are to be issues, problems, values, even lives to be fought for."
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)
“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. There must be pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will.”
Susan Sontag (1933-2004)
"Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager."
Kofi Natambu, editor of The Panopticon Review, is a writer, poet, cultural critic, and political journalist whose poetry, essays, criticism, reviews, and journalism have appeared in many literary magazines, journals, newspapers, and anthologies. He is the author of a biography MALCOLM X: His Life & Work (Alpha Books) and two books of poetry: THE MELODY NEVER STOPS (Past Tents Press) and INTERVALS (Post Aesthetic Press). He was the founder and editor of SOLID GROUND: A NEW WORLD JOURNAL, a national quarterly magazine of the arts, culture, and politics and the editor of a literary anthology NOSTALGIA FOR THE PRESENT (Post Aesthetic Press). Natambu has read his work throughout the country and given many lectures and workshops at academic and arts institutions. He has taught American literature, literary theory and criticism, cultural history and criticism, film studies, political science, creative writing, philosophy, critical theory, and music history and criticism (Jazz, Blues, R&B, Hip Hop) at many universities and colleges. He was also a curator in the Education Department of Detroit’s Museum of African American History. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Natambu currently lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Chuleenan.
