{"id":1684,"date":"2006-11-13T18:19:09","date_gmt":"2006-11-13T22:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=1684"},"modified":"2006-11-13T18:19:09","modified_gmt":"2006-11-13T22:19:09","slug":"the-show-must-go-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=1684","title":{"rendered":"The show must go on"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cheney-Gates Cabal
\nby Ray McGovern 11\/10\/2006<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I was amused to read this morning in David Ignatius’ column<\/a> in the Washington Post<\/em> that Gates “was the brightest Soviet analyst in the [CIA] shop, so Casey soon appointed him deputy director overseeing his fellow analysts.” He wasn’t; and Casey had something other than expertise in mind. Talk to anyone who was there at the time ? except the sycophants Gates co-opted to do his bidding ? and they will explain that Gates’ meteoric career had most to do with his uncanny ability to see a Russian under every rock turned over by Casey. Those of Gates’ subordinates willing to see two Russians became branch chiefs; three won you a division. I exaggerate only a little.<\/p>\n

To Casey, the Communists could never change and Gorbachev was simply cleverer than his predecessors. With his earlier training in our branch, and with his doctorate in Soviet affairs, Gates clearly knew better. Yet he carried Casey’s water and stifled all dissent. One result was that the CIA as an institution missed the implosion of the Soviet Union ? no small oversight. Another result was a complete loss of confidence in CIA analysis on the part of then-Secretary of State George Shultz and others who smelled the cooking. In July 1987, in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair, he told Congress, “I had come to have grave doubts about the objectivity and reliability of some of the intelligence I was getting.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

William Arkin<\/a> attempts to neutralise such criticism:<\/p>\n

Gates is also not an ideologue. Though his resume says that he was an “analyst” at the CIA and he has written extensively about the former Soviet Union, the truth is that Gates is more manager and maneuverer than thinker. Though some ex-CIA colleagues will argue in the coming days and weeks that Gates as CIA manager politicized or even manipulated Soviet analysis, there’s no particular reason to believe that he is driven by any ideology, which is to say that he is not a neoconservative, whatever that means today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Michael Rubin writes<\/a> that the realist ideology of Gates & Co. has caused a plethora of missteps and resultant atrocities that culminated in 9\/11 and progressives\/liberals who support diplomatic engagement with Iran and Syria, which he predicts will be recommended by the Iraq Study Group, are inconsistent critics who betray liberal principles. He attempts this manoeuvre by forwarding spectacularly ignorant or intentionally deceptive scenarios such as it was realist coddling of Saddam that caused the Oslo peace process to collapse because Saddam supported Palestinian suicide bombers. Israel’s brazen settlement expansion, the economic strangulation of the Occupied Territories, U.S. complicity in Israel’s repeated violations of Oslo and CIA intervention in the internal affairs of Palestinians do not factor into Rubin’s analysis.<\/p>\n

Senior U.S. official: We don’t expect Israel to strike Iran
\nBy Aluf Benn, Ha’aretz<\/em>, 9 November 2006<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The two leaders will not discuss the renewal of Syrian-Israeli talks.<\/p>\n

“If Syria wants to convince us that she is interested in peace, she knows what she must do,” the senior U.S. official said. “We have had so many expectations from Syria that did not manifest themselves that we are tired of the Syrians. The Israeli government does not appear interested in talking with Syria,” he added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Joshua Landis<\/a> received permission from Clayton Swisher to upload pages from his book, The Truth About Camp David<\/em>, that are most relevant to the Syrian part of the process<\/a>. Landis believes that the EU will have formally split with the U.S. over Syria<\/a> if the Euro-Med Association Agreement with Syria<\/a> is adopted, which Landis thinks is likely. I don’t think the United States or Israel would allow such a deal to come to fruition without a fight. <\/p>\n

Bush Calls for Global Isolation of Iran
\nBy Barry Schweid, Associated Press<\/em>, 13 November 2006<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n

President Bush, responding to concerns Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert brought to the White House, called on Monday for worldwide isolation of Iran until it “gives up its nuclear ambitions.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s interesting that in his review of the news that Ismail Haniyeh has agreed to step down if that would lift the crippling sanctions currently imposed upon the Palestinians by the international community, Eben Kaplan writes the following<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When Olmert met President Bush on Monday, much of their conversation focused on Iran. Shifting political winds in the United States make direct talks with Iran?something advocated by Defense Secretary nominee Robert M. Gates in a 2004 CFR Task Force Report<\/a>?increasingly likely.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The report contains language that seems <\/a> to already be on the table:<\/p>\n

Together with its European allies and Russia, implement a more focused strategy to deal with Iran?s nuclear program. ?Iran should be pressed to fulfill its October 2003 commitment to maintain a complete and verified suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities,? while the United States and other members of the international community pursue a framework for a more durable solution to the nuclear issue. ?Tehran must clearly understand that unless it demonstrates real, uninterrupted cooperation with the IAEA process, it will face the prospect of multilateral sanctions by the United Nations Security Council.?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The U.S. veto of a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s attack on Beit Hanoun is hardly a surprise<\/a>. More perplexing for a government that claims to be seeking international consensus on sanctioning Iran is the U.S. enabling Israel’s repeated violations of Lebanon’s air space. The head of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, General Alain Pellegrini, called for the “mock raids<\/a>” to end. The U.S. proposed replacing illegal overflights with American surveillance technology. Reportedly, a leading figure in what remains of the imploding Lebanese government is denying knowledge of the proposal<\/a>, likely due the following<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Both sides in Lebanon say they command majority popular support. A key demand of the opposition is reforming the electoral law — long seen as unfair — then having early elections. A poll by the Beirut Centre for Research and Information released on Monday found that the opposition (Hizbullah, Christian leader Michel Aoun and allied smaller parties) would win early elections, whichever proposed electoral law they were conducted under.<\/p>\n

Under the qada law of small electoral districts to reflect the sectarian mosaic, the opposition would win 69 of the 128 parliamentary seats, the anti-Syrians 59. Under the two proposed modes of proportional representation, the opposition would win 79 to 53 to the anti-Syrians, or 71 to 57. There were 1,300 respondents, split across regions and sects, in the poll conducted in late October.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Worldwide isolation? How would Israel and the U.S. ever pull that off? Seems more likely the two countries are just buying time<\/a>. If realists and liberals<\/a> aren’t aiding in that effort they have a strange way of proving otherwise.<\/p>\n

Leave it to China to keep things interesting. <\/p>\n

China helps solve nuclear puzzle<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Dina Ezzat, in Beijing, reports on the Egyptian president’s visit to the Chinese capital and reactions to a reinvigorated Sino-African partnership<\/p>\n

To mark the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of diplomatic relations between China and Africa, Beijing hosted the Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). President Hosni Mubarak’s decision to participate in the summit — a mission the foreign minister would normally undertake — as well as the bilateral talks he held with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, on the fringe, raised expectations that Egypt was seeking Chinese cooperation over issues of common interest, including Egypt’s plans to revive its peaceful nuclear programme suspended since 1986.<\/p>\n

Those expectations were confirmed yesterday when the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that China and Egypt had agreed to cooperate on the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The agreement, Xinhua said, was announced in a joint communiqu? following talks on Tuesday between Mubarak and Hu Jintao.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cheney-Gates Cabal by Ray McGovern 11\/10\/2006 I was amused to read this morning in David Ignatius’ column in the Washington Post that Gates “was the brightest Soviet analyst in the [CIA] shop, so Casey soon appointed him deputy director … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-ra","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}