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U.S. Launches New Talks to Secure Iraq

Wednesday February 28, 2007 12:16 AM

AP Photo WHCD107, BAG126

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Changing course, the United States is joining the Iraqi government in a diplomatic initiative inviting Iran and Syria to a ``neighbors meeting'' on stabilizing Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday.

The move reflects a change of approach by the Bush administration, which previously had resisted calls by members of Congress and by a bipartisan Iraq review group to include Iran and Syria in such talks.

``We hope that all governments will seize this opportunity to improve their relations with Iraq and to work for peace and stability in the region,'' Rice told the Senate Appropriations Committee in a hearing on the administration's request for additional war funding.

Rice said the diplomatic initiative is aimed at building more support, both within the Middle East and beyond, for peace and prosperity in Iraq. She added that U.S. and Iraqi officials agree that success in Iraq - after four years of war - ``requires the positive support of Iraq's neighbors.''

At the same time, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., chairman of the committee, lambasted the administration's past approach in Iraq.

``Congress cannot continue to fund failing policies and failing strategies,'' Byrd said. ``Under the president's plan, there is no end, I say, no end in sight.''

The Rice announcement came even as the United States is engaged in its latest confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program, which U.S. officials say is aimed at developing nuclear weapons but Tehran says is for new sources of energy.

A U.N. Security Council deadline for Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment has just expired, and in response the U.S. wants the council to expand the limited sanctions the world body has imposed on Iran.

As for the neighbors meeting, Rice stressed that it was the Iraqi government inviting Iran and Syria to participate, with the United States in support.

At the White House, press secretary Tony Snow told reporters the administration is ``happy that the government of Iraq is taking this step and engaging its neighbors. And we also hope and expect that Iran and Syria will play constructive roles in those talks.''

But Snow cautioned people to be patient, noting that ``this is one where the agenda is being set up by the government of Iraq. And the conditions, especially for bilateral conversations with the Iranians, are pretty clear.''

The administration in recent weeks had increased its public criticism of Iran's role in Iraq, charging it with supplying deadly weapons, including advanced technologies for the most lethal form of roadside bombs. The administration also has accused Syria of harboring anti-Iraqi government forces and allowing weapons to cross its border.

Meanwhile, Democrats' plans to limit President Bush's war authority and force a change of course in Iraq are faltering amid party divisions over how quickly and aggressively they should act.

A group of senior Senate Democrats is pushing to repeal the 2002 measure authorizing the war and pass a new resolution restricting the mission and ordering troop withdrawals to begin by this summer. In the House, a respected veteran wants to use Congress' spending power to essentially force Bush to scale back U.S. involvement in Iraq.

Both plans appear to lack the support they would need to prevail, however, as Democratic leaders struggle to form party consensus on how to move forward.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he wants to put off votes on the new, narrower war authorization so the Senate can turn to a measure enacting the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 commission.

``Iraq is going to be there - it's just a question of when we get back to it,'' Reid said, predicting it would be ``days, not weeks'' before the Senate returned to the issue.

The Iraqi government announced in Baghdad that it is preparing the meeting for mid-March, and that invitees include members of the Arab League and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - the U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia.

Syria will be represented at the conference by Ahmed Arnous, an aide to the foreign minister, an Iraqi Foreign Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the plans had not yet been formally announced. Other Arab countries and Iran have not confirmed their attendance or the level of delegates they would send.

Rice said the mid-March meeting will be held at the sub-ministerial level. That is to be followed, perhaps as early as the first half of April, by a full ministerial-level meeting with the same invited countries, plus members of the G-8 group of leading industrial powers.

``I would note that the Iraqi government has invited Syria and Iran to attend both of these regional meetings,'' Rice said. She also noted that the Iraq Study Group, headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, had recommended inviting Iran and Syria to such a neighbors meeting. At the time of that recommendation in December, President Bush rejected that diplomatic approach.

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`this is one where the agenda is being set up by the government of Iraq. And the conditions, especially for bilateral conversations with the Iranians, are pretty clear.''

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Five Generals threaten to quit if Iran attacked

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US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attackMichael Smith and Sarah Baxter, Washington
SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for the generals"

“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.

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[ 27 February 2007: Message edited by: minkepants ]

Examination of the US Iraq war of 1990 to 2003 show that it went through multiple phases, including an intitial invasion, a cease fire, accompanied by a debilitating blockade (sanctions) and then a final coup de gras in 2003 for the standing Iraqi government.

So much to say apparent reproachements of this kind could last a number of years, in which no active fighting takes place, but the long term purpose of extinguishing an independent Iranian government will trancend partisan politics and even under Democratic regieme the US will seek means to weaken and preassure its adversary until the government of Iran sucumbs and allows unfettered access to its vital resources, and ceases to be a regional power blocking US interests, generally. Then, even 8 or 10 years hence, having destroyed the economy of Iran under the guise of opposing Islamic tyrrany, nuclear proliferation, and in the name of womens rights, no doubt, some American government (Democrat or Republican) will act to achieve by force the policy, if the preceeding measures have not succeeded.

Cancelled? Nay, postponed perhaps. Weeks? Months? Years? Who knows?

Its a mistake to concieve of the war as seperate from the policy it seeks to achieve, and in this does it even make sense to seperate the act of war (the firing of guns, missiles, and the like) from the billigerent policy itself, so as to be able to say the war has not already begun?

As Marshal Shaposhnikov, father of the Soviet Stavka opined, just prior to WW2: "Mobilization is war."

[ 27 February 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]

I think this marks a big climbdown in status for the PFANAC faction in the US. Their vision of realpolitik was that America had been too wimpy to use it's power to it's fullest. In their view Afghanistan and Iraq were just supposed to be stepping stones to invading Iran. The UN is useless, negotiation is useless, etc., etc.

Maybe none of these fight were ever supposed to be won, as some believe, but rather were supposed to be sites of perpetual war from the get-go. Or maybe they really did think that Iraq would be a breeze, and that they wouldn't even have to construct a local puppet elite to make it viable.

Either way somebody else within the MI Complex has pulled Bush's leash............

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Encouraged by what it sees as the success of financial sanctions imposed on North Korea, the Bush administration is embarking on an aggressive policy of raising the cost to Iran of its alleged nuclear and terrorist activities by targeting non-US private sector ties to Tehran.

Officials say the policy has support from “hawks” in the administration who see actions against financing as a key component in the “war on terror”.

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