FirmhandKY
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quote:
ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
I've mentioned before on this thread, Iran offered this administration all they wanted in 2003, Cheney rejected it and that was out of the mouth of an American aid working for Colin Powel.
Let me save you the trouble of looking it up.
Report: Washington rejected Iranian concessions in 2003
USA Today
Posted 1/18/2007 10:30 AM ET
Extracts:
LONDON (AP) — An Iranian offer to help the United States stabilize Iraq and end its military support for Hezbollah and Hamas was turned down by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003, a former top State Department official told the British Broadcasting Corp.
The U.S. State Department was open to the offer, which came in an unsigned letter sent shortly after the American invasion of Iraq, but Cheney nipped the deal in the bud, Lawrence Wilkerson, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, told BBC's Newsnight in a program broadcast Wednesday night.
...
In return for its cooperation, Tehran asked Washington to lift its sanctions on the country and to dismantle the Mujahedeen Khalq, an Iranian opposition group which has bases in Iraq. Iran also offered to increase the transparency of its nuclear program, according to Wilkerson. Wilkerson has been a frequent critic of the Bush administration in general and Cheney in particular, holding the vice president responsible for the mistreatment of detainees and the failure of Iraq's postwar planning.
Some points:
Wilkerson "has been a frequent critic of the Bush administration in general and Cheney in particular".
My first question, of course, is "who is this guy that is the sole source for this information?"
So I googled him. This article represents him pretty well, I think:
Colonel Finally Saw Whites of Their Eyes
Washington Post
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Extracts:
As Colin Powell's right-hand man at the State Department, Larry Wilkerson seethed quietly during President Bush's first term. Yesterday, Colonel Wilkerson made up for lost time.
He said the vice president and the secretary of defense created a "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" that hijacked U.S. foreign policy. He said of former defense undersecretary Douglas Feith: "Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man." Addressing scholars, journalists and others at the New America Foundation, Wilkerson accused Bush of "cowboyism" and said he had viewed Condoleezza Rice as "extremely weak." Of American diplomacy, he fretted, "I'm not sure the State Department even exists anymore."
And how about Karen Hughes's efforts to boost the country's image abroad? "It's hard to sell [manure]," Wilkerson said, quoting an Egyptian friend.
The man who was chief of staff at the State Department until early this year continued: "If you're unilaterally declaring Kyoto dead, if you're declaring the Geneva Conventions not operative, if you're doing a host of things that the world doesn't agree with you on and you're doing it blatantly and in their face, without grace, then you've got to pay the consequences."
I find that last sentence of his interesting: "... then you've got to pay the consequences." My gut feeling is that Wilkerson has decided that he was going to make sure that somebody "pays the consequences" and Cheney (part of a "cabal") seems to be in his sights.
The next thing that struck me was ... it's been a couple of years since Wilkerson left government service. What took him so long to come up with this stuff on Iran?
I'm not convinced that Wilkerson started out as a pure partisan. I don't know what's in the man's head. He could be a very honest and concerned individual who was in a position to see things he didn't like, and has the strength and moral character to speak out about them.
But his intemperate words show a well spring of emotion, and a desire to lash out. I could also very well see someone like that ending up "putting the best face" on information, giving it a spin that shows his chosen opponents (Cheney, in this case) in the worse possible light.
*shrugs*
But I don't know. Just makes me suspicious, when people admit they have an agenda, and then get all emotional instead of rational about it. Points to the possibility of self-deception in the "service of a higher cause.".
And, of course, if your emotional state mirrors his, then you'll find him completely credible and believeable. But if you look at him critically, you'll have questions.
But there is another problem with his story about Iran (several, actually). According to him, in effect Iran was willing to completely give the US absolutely everything we wanted:
1. Help stabilize Iraq
2. Make their nuclear program "transparent"
3. Stop their support of Hezbollah and Hamas (stop supporting terrorism)
For this, the US would have to:
1. Disband the Mujahedeen Khalq
2. End US sanctions.
Points:
A. Does it make any sense at all, on its face, that Iran would be willing to give up so much of its long term international strategies for such a small return?
B. The Mujahedeen Khalq were attacked and disbanded by the US anyway.
C. US sanctions have very little impact on Iran, since European, Russian, and the Chinese had no compunctions with Iranian trade at the time. "Iranian sanctions" mainly hurt US companies.
D. Iranian support of terrorism has been one of its main sources of international power over the last 25 years, especially in the Middle East, but it has stretched as far as terrorist attacks in South American, and other places. You expect anyone to seriously believe that they would be willing to give up all that power, all those connections ... simply for US help in squashing an armed force within Iraq that we were going to disband anyway?
E. They offer to "stabilize" Iraq? If you can take this at face value, then you are pretty uninformed about international politics in general, and Iranian politics and history specifically. Let's make it simple. There is an old phrase that applies here: "A fox in the henhouse."
If it were in Iranian national interest to "stablize" Iraq, they would be doing that now, regardless of any supposedly "failed" deal with the US. Instead, they are one of the factors that have made the situation worse, not better.
F. The Iranians won't make their nuclear program "more transparent" even now, despite the fact that they have gotten the Europeans against them ... why the heck would it be reasonable for them to voluntarily do so several years ago, when it wasn't that big of an issue with the rest of the world?
G. If, indeed, the Iranians made such an offer a couple of years ago, it would be absolutely great propaganda to use against the US efforts now, wouldn't it? Think of what even this "report" by Wilkerson is generating. How much more anti-American feeling, and the ability to garner world support it would be, if the Iranian government came out with such a report of "American intransigence"?
H. Did you notice this part? "the offer, which came in an unsigned letter"? What does that tell you?
***
No, I find the entire credibility of this report to be suspect, and I wouldn't place much credence in it at all, if I were you.
FirmKY
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