What We Wanted to Tell You About Iran

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=9971&view=next&sid=5270bdb49c815759ec5e59f304036054

NYT
Op-Ed Contributors
Redacted Version of Original Op-Ed

By FLYNT LEVERETT and HILLARY MANN
Published: December 22, 2006

The argument that Iran helped America in Afghanistan because it was in Tehran’s interest to get rid of the Taliban is misplaced. Iran could have let America remove the Taliban without getting its own hands dirty, as it remained neutral during the 1991 gulf war. Tehran cooperated with United States efforts in Afghanistan primarily because it wanted a better relationship with Washington.

But Tehran was profoundly disappointed with the United States response. After the 9/11 attacks, xxx xxx xx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xx set the stage for a November 2001 meeting between Secretary of State Colin Powell and the foreign ministers of Afghanistan’s six neighbors and Russia. xxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxxxx xx xxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxx Iran went along, working with the United States to eliminate the Taliban and establish a post-Taliban political order in Afghanistan.

In December 2001, xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx x Tehran to keep Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the brutal pro-Al Qaeda warlord, from returning to Afghanistan to lead jihadist resistance there. xxxxx xxxxxxx so long as the Bush administration did not criticize it for harboring terrorists. But, in his January 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush did just that in labeling Iran part of the “axis of evil.” Unsurprisingly, Mr. Hekmatyar managed to leave Iran in short order after the speech. xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxx the Islamic Republic could not be seen to be harboring terrorists.

xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxx xx xxxxx xxx xx xxxxxxx This demonstrated to Afghan warlords that they could not play America and Iran off one another and prompted Tehran to deport hundreds of suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives who had fled Afghanistan.

Those who argue that Iran did not cause Iraq’s problems and therefore can be of only limited help in dealing with Iraq’s current instability must also acknowledge that Iran did not “cause” Afghanistan’s deterioration into a terrorist-harboring failed state. But, when America and Iran worked together, Afghanistan was much more stable than it is today, Al Qaeda was on the run, the Islamic Republic’s Hezbollah protégé was comparatively restrained, and Tehran was not spinning centrifuges. Still, the Bush administration conveyed no interest in building on these positive trends.

xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx x xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx xx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx x xx x x xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxx xxxxx xxxxx xx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xx xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxx xx

From an Iranian perspective, this record shows that Washington will take what it can get from talking to Iran on specific issues but is not prepared for real rapprochement. Yet American proponents of limited engagement anticipate that Tehran will play this fruitless game once more — even after numerous statements by senior administration figures targeting the Islamic Republic for prospective “regime change” and by President Bush himself that attacking Iran’s nuclear and national security infrastructure is “on the table.”

[seemslikeadream]

1. Flynt Leverett Blasts WhiteHouse National Security Council Censorship of Former WhiteHouse Official

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/flynt-leverett-blasts-whi_b_36523.html

John Bolton when he served as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security was famous for pounding intelligence officials hard until they coughed up intel reports and "frames" that fit the political objectives he had in mind.

The practice of politicizing intelligence in the Bush White House seems to be continuing with "friends lists" and "enemies lists" determining who should be rewarded or punished in the "secrets-clearing process" in cases where former goverment officials publish materials on U.S. foreign policy debates.

In an unprecedented case, the White House National Security Council staff has insinuated itself into a "secrets-clearing" process normally overseen by the CIA Publications Review Board which screens the written work of former government officials to make sure that state secrets don't find their way into the op-ed pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, or in other of the nation's leading papers, journals, and books.

Flynt Leverett, a former government official who worked at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of State, and on the National Security Council staff of the George W. Bush administration, is now a senior fellow and Director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative at the New America Foundation.

He has written numerous books, manuscripts, working papers, and many dozens upon dozens of some of the most important public policy op-ed commentary on American engagement in the Middle East and has always dutifully submitted his materials to the CIA's review process. Never -- not even once -- has been a word or item changed in anything submitted.


My understanding is that the White House staffers who have injected themselves into this process are working for Elliott Abrams and Megan O'Sullivan, both politically appointed deputies to President Bush's National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley.

Their conduct in this matter is despicable and un-American in the profoundest sense of that term


Flynt Leverett Calls Ken Pollack 'Flat-Out Wrong'

Kenneth M. Pollack, Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy and Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings Institution at Washington Foreign Press Center Briefing on The Case for Invading Iraq."
http://www.brookings.edu/scholars/kpollack.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/opinion/08pollack.html?ex=1323234000&en=e85a63d102419a90&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Don’t Count on Iran to Pick Up the Pieces


http://mondoweiss.observer.com/2006/12/flynt-leverett-calls-ken-pollack-flatout-wrong.html

A few minutes ago in a speech before the New America Foundation, Flynt Leverett, a former CIA and NSC official, attacked Kenneth Pollack, the "thinker" at Saban/Brookings who served up the Iraq war on a silver platter for liberals. Leverett said Pollack had made a "deeply-flawed and flat-out wrong case regarding WMD," which led him to assert in his book The Threatening Storm that invading Iraq was "the conservative option."

The speech was remarkable because Leverett once worked alongside Pollack at Brookings. Sort of like Anatol Lieven, who had to parachute out of Carnegie when they didn't want to hear what he had to say about Israel. "People at the thinktanks have courage somewhere between a seaslug and sheep-guts," Lieven told me earlier this year. What a pleasure to watch the war-party delaminate.

But how amazing is it that Pollack maintains credibility? "Now he's doing it on Iran," Leverett notes, pointing to a Dec. 8 Op-Ed in the Times. And at a CFR event not long ago, Pollack was all-but-praising neocon Reuel Marc Gerecht's burn-down-the-house option for Iran.




http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/12/18/18338378.php
Here is an excerpt of Leverett's statement on the affair.



' Until last week, the Publication Review Board had never sought to remove or change a single word in any of my drafts, including in all of my publications about the Bush administration's handling of Iran policy. However, last week, the White House inserted itself into the prepublication review process for an op-ed on the administration's bungling of the Iran portfolio that I had prepared for the New York Times, blocking publication of the piece on the grounds that it would reveal classified information.

This claim is false and, I have come to believe, fabricated by White House officials to silence an established critic of the administration's foreign policy incompetence at a moment when the White House is working hard to fend off political pressure to take a different approach to Iran and the Middle East more generally.

The op-ed is based on the longer paper I just published with The Century Foundation -- which was cleared by the CIA without modifying a single word of the draft. Officials with the CIA's Publication Review Board have told me that, in their judgment, the draft op-ed does not contain classified material, but that they must bow to the preferences of the White House.

The White House is demanding, before it will consider clearing the op-ed for publication, that I excise entire paragraphs dealing with matters that I have written about (and received clearance from the CIA to do so) in several other pieces, that have been publicly acknowledged by Secretary Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and that have been extensively covered in the media.

These matters include Iran's dialogue and cooperation with the United States concerning Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and Iran's offer to negotiate a comprehensive "grand bargain" with the United States in the spring of 2003.

There is no basis for claiming that these issues are classified and not already in the public domain.

For the White House to make this claim, with regard to my op-ed and at this particular moment, is nothing more than a crass effort to politicize a prepublication review process -- a process that is supposed to be about the protection of classified information, and nothing else -- to limit the dissemination of views critical of administration policy.

Within the last two week, the CIA found the wherewithal to approve an op-ed -- published in the New York Times on December 8, 2006 -- by Kenneth Pollack, another former CIA employee. This op-ed includes the statement that “Iran provided us with extensive assistance on intelligence, logistics, diplomacy, and Afghan internal politics."

Similar statements by me have been deleted from my draft op-ed by the White House. But Kenneth Pollack is someone who presented unfounded assessments of the Iraqi WMD threat -- the same assessments expounded by the Bush White House -- to make a high-profile public case for going to war in Iraq.

Mr. Pollack also supports the administration's reluctance to engage with Iran, in contrast to my consistent and sharp criticism of that position. It would seem that, if one is expounding views congenial to the White House, it does not intervene in prepublication censorship, but, if one is a critic, White House officials will use fraudulent charges of revealing classified information to keep critical views from being heard.

My understanding is that the White House staffers who have injected themselves into this process are working for Elliott Abrams and Megan O'Sullivan, both politically appointed deputies to President Bush's National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley.

Their conduct in this matter is despicable and un-American in the profoundest sense of that term. '

[leveymg]

2. We'll be looking back at 2006 in Iraq as "the good old days"

Iran also cooperated with us in eliminating al-Zarqawi and much of the al-Qaeda in Iraq network. Then, Bushco turned on them, again. It's a repeating pattern:

"Those who argue that Iran did not cause Iraq’s problems and therefore can be of only limited help in dealing with Iraq’s current instability must also acknowledge that Iran did not “cause” Afghanistan’s deterioration into a terrorist-harboring failed state. But, when America and Iran worked together, Afghanistan was much more stable than it is today, Al Qaeda was on the run, the Islamic Republic’s Hezbollah protégé was comparatively restrained, and Tehran was not spinning centrifuges. Still, the Bush administration conveyed no interest in building on these positive trends."

[MikeNY]

3. New definitiion of the line item veto...

This was an op-ed by a former CIA operative that was censored by the White House.

This is the democracy they have in store for Iraq, apparently?

[doublethink]

4. And here's the PDF .... 35 page report Flynt Leverett originally wrote .....

from which he drew from to write the censored article seemslikeadream posted above. :) Peace.

"Dealing With Tehran: Assessing Diplomatic Options Toward Iran" .... link here UNCENSORED .....http://tcf.org/publications/internationalaffairs/leverett_diplomatic.pdf

note: thank's for posting this again seemslikeadream!

[leftchick]

5. and all of the RW M$M repeats the WH talking points

I just heard Frank Sesno on CNN, you would think these fuckheads would learn to actually investigate by now instead of repeating bush LIES. He said Iran in running guns and weapons into Iraq for the militia groups blah blah blah! :puke: