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Sun. Sep 24, 2006

Pieces of October

Over the past week or two, there’s a series of events, some related, some seemingly not related, that my puny brain is having a hard time processing and reconciling. The pieces don’t fit. Or perhaps they do and my brain simply refuses to acknowledge the resulting shape. These “pieces” all seem to involve Pakistan or Iran, and the characters contained therein. Fit or not, I’m just going to lay them out, spin them around, and possibly end up sounding really foolish.

Let’s start with Osama. Not the most recent “news.” First, let’s go back to the beginning. Because, frankly, President Bush’s public words about him, both in the past and more recently, have seemed quite conflicted and contradictory to me.

On September 17, 2001, the President said, “I want justice. And there’s an old poster out West … I recall, that said, ‘Wanted, Dead or Alive.’”

But by March 13, 2002, the President said of Osama, “And he’s just — he’s a person who’s now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed,” and later in the same press conference, “I truly am not that concerned about him.”

Four and a half years later, on September 12, 2006, the President said, “This thing about … let’s put 100,000 of our special forces stomping through Pakistan in order to find bin Laden is just simply not the strategy that will work.”

At a press conference on September 15, 2006 President Bush reiterated “Pakistan is a sovereign nation. In order for us to send thousands of troops into a sovereign nation, we’ve got to be invited by the government of Pakistan.”

So, he’s against it.

Five days later, he’s for it:

BLITZER: If you had good, actionable intelligence in Pakistan where [Osama bin Laden, Ayman al- Zawahiri, Mullah Muhammad Omar] were, would you give the order to kill them or capture them?

BUSH: Absolutely.

BLITZER: And go into Pakistan?

BUSH: Absolutely.

BLITZER: Even though the Pakistanis say that’s their sovereign territory.

BUSH: Absolutely. We would take the action necessary to bring them to justice.

CNN Transcript

Then Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, responds that he opposes any U.S. action in his territory, “We wouldn’t like to allow that at all. We will do it ourselves.” Hmmm, you’d think two “buddies” of five years would have worked out something this basic by now. But I guess it’s understandable, since President Bush’s position seems to vary by week recently. And it sounds like their relationship may have had a pretty strained start.

Musharraf, in an interview with CBS news magazine show “60 Minutes” that will air on Sunday, said the threat came from Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and was given to Musharraf’s intelligence director.

“The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, ‘Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,”’ Musharraf said. “I think it was a very rude remark.”

“U.S. threatened to bomb Pakistan after 9/11: Musharraf”

So, just a week or so after Pakistan announced their deal with the Taliban in Waziristan, Musharraf makes a trip to the White House on Friday, and there’s a press conference. Surely we’ll now get some answers.

PRESIDENT BUSH: First, let me — she’s asking about the Armitage thing. The first I heard of this was when I read it in the newspaper today. You know, I was — I guess I was taken aback by the harshness of the words.

Thank you Mr. “With Us or Against Us.” Pervez, can you throw us a bone?

PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF: I would like to—I am launching my book on the 25th, and I am honor-bound to Simon and Schuster not to comment on the book before that day. (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT BUSH: In other words, buy the book, is what he’s saying. (Laughter.)

My … jaw … just … drops. Is this a White House press conference, or a guest shot complete with a book plug on Late Night With Dubya? And the military dictator of a nuclear power can’t comment on a threat to be bombed back into the stone age … because he’s got a book deal?

Is this the hidden path to world peace? Can Simon and Schuster win the Nobel Prize by also extending book deals to Osama and Bush? Hell, I’d buy about any story at this point.

Except maybe this one: “The article cited a confidential French foreign intelligence document dated September 21 in which a source said the Saudis had received confirmation that bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan on August 23.”

Wait. What happened a couple of weeks after that? Pakistan’s deal creating “The Islamic Emirate of Northern Waziristan” was announced. Could that deal have been made in the full knowledge that Osama had just died, changing the dynamics of the situation entirely for Pakistan?

I don’t know. How many times have we heard that Osama is dead? I just don’t know. But Tom Maguire notes, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. Osama being considered to be dead works well for Bush, Musharaff, and Osama.”

Well, rumor has it Karl Rove has very recently been telling some Republican buddies to watch for an “October Surprise” that will help them at the polls in November. Could this be it? If so, I’m not sure how it will be a “bump” at the polls for Republicans if the world finds out a water borne disease that can be cured with ampicillin knocked off Osama before we could. Unless they are going to claim the “War on Terror” is over.

Sure it is. After all, “The War on Aviation” that began at Pearl Harbor ended when we killed Isoroku Yamamoto, the man “who conceived, designed and promoted the Pearl harbor attack,” by shooting down his airplane on April 18, 1943 ... didn’t it?

My guess is the odds are better than even that we’ll get a new audiotape from Osama in the next week or two, sending a shout out to Infidel Chavez for his Devil Speech, or making some other recent news reference that makes it clear he’s Not Quite Dead Yet.

Instead, how’s this for an October Surprise, one more under control of the administration than any news out of the tribal areas of Pakistan?

According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of the Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group, bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received orders to depart the United States in a little over a week. Other official sources in the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the Pentagon confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive off the coast of Iran on or around October 21.

The Eisenhower had been in port at the Naval Station Norfolk for several years for refurbishing and refueling of its nuclear reactor; it had not been scheduled to depart for a new duty station until at least a month later, and possibly not till next spring. Family members, before the orders, had moved into the area and had until then expected to be with their sailor-spouses and parents in Virginia for some time yet.

The Nation: War Signals?

Elsewhere it’s been reported that another group of ships including a couple of minesweepers has also been told to be prepared to deploy Oct. 1. Gary Hart (among others he cites) seems pretty certain it’s going to be an attack. Armed Liberal asks, “So, Gary — what the hell? Do you think Karl Rove is that stupid?” I can’t speak for Gary, but, no, I don’t think Rove is that dumb. But I believe he could be that desperate, depending on what his crystal ball and insider knowledge foretells for 2007-2009 if the Democrats take the House.

It’s possible. Likely? I don’t know. As far as my feeble brain can figure, this could mean any of three things.

One, nothing at all. Simple deployment shifts, not dots to be connected.

Two … the more Rovian option. It’s possible some in the administration might think a couple of aircraft carrier strike groups “demonstrating” in or near the Persian Gulf, along with some more tough Iran talk, might make for a good stance to rally folks around the flag in the two weeks leading up to the mid-term elections. Not a serious plan to actually attack, just a demonstration of force, one with the added bonus of a potential Iranian misstep that could kickstart the Big Show. Yes, I’ve become cynical enough to think they might do that.

Even more cynical is Option Three. President Bush has made clear that he believes he was put in this place at this time for a reason. I believe he thinks he has to accomplish “certain things” before he leaves office in January, 2009. I believe one of those things is the “nuclear disarmament” of Iran.

Now, what if those around him were finally forced to admit to him, Mr. President, come January you are likely going to be facing at least one half of Congress under Democratic control, and your last two years will be a Lame Duck Hell of investigations and subpoenas where your agenda going unfulfilled will be the best case scenario.

Such a man might think the timetable on his list has been moved up two years. One might place forces off Iran for a demonstration, in hopes of forestalling the loss of Republican control in Congress, and if it works, you know you can go back to the Original Plan, whatever that might be.

But if the election goes South for Republicans as many are predicting, you have a two month post-election window. And the forces in place.

Throw in the unpredictable nature of Ramadan, and there’s an unsettling collection of pieces that don’t quite fit, but sort of do.

Or … it could all be nothing but my cynical mind. In seven weeks, it may turn out that none of this, from Osama’s rumored demise, to deployments off Iran, will actually turn out to be true.

But since I’ve already run off the rails in this direction, I’ll make a few “long odds” predictions, just in case.

Osama isn’t dead. We’ve been here before. And before. And before.

If we end up with a couple of carrier groups “demonstrating” off Iran during the two weeks before the elections, in an attempt to influence those elections, it’s a ploy that won’t work. In fact, it may backfire, either domestically, or via some ugly incident that would not have happened if those forces weren’t placed there.

If we end up attacking Iran, the Iranian people will not be moved to rise up against the current regime. They will rally against the attackers. Did no one learn anything from Lebanon?

If we end up attacking Iran, and the administration expects they can make a “limited” strike on a few dozen nuclear-related sites, and that it will then all stop there, they will be proven sorely mistaken. Iran will react with a full scale non-stop war. In southern Iraq. In the Persian Gulf. In Lebanon, and in other countries with large Shi’ite populations under their influence (like Bahrain, where we have bases). Any and every where they can. They will not react in a limited or proportional manner. We will be starting a Long War.

If we use tactical nukes to attack any of the Iranian nuclear sites, supposedly still an option on the table, the alienation of America from the rest of the world will be complete, and will take a generation to undo. We might as well start building a wall, north and south.

And one final prediction: if the march of time proves me totally wrong on all these random musings, since seven weeks will have passed, and comments close on articles here after six weeks, no one will be able to remind me how foolish I sounded!