McCain once again implies Iran is backing AQI!
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One More Time
20 Mar 2008 04:07 pm
Comments (43)
Kinda makes you wonder what was up with the Lieberman 'correction.'
Yeah, I used to respect McCain, but I can't see any way to avoid one of two conclusions:
Either a) he's *really* getting too old for this job, or
b) He's so focused on Iran that his desire to blame Iran is preventing him from understanding really basic facts on the ground.
Or I guess (c), both of the above.
We need to stop this guy. Someone please tell me the name of a reliable 527-type group that's doing a good job of filling the gap while Clinton and Obama finish up the race. I want to know where to send some money.
It would be the height of stupidity to engage in a war with Iran with the military overburdened as it is. You don't open another front when you're having trouble with the first two fronts. Besides, China is our banker and they would have something to say about US interference with their oil supplier.
I just heard the guy sitting in for David Brooks on NPR say that McCain was right. I think we're going to start hearing a lot more of this. Drumbeats indeed. Do the republicans think that the only way to continue to stay in power is by starting a war with Iran? Drumbeats indeed.
Come on, that's not what he said. Let's be intellectually honest here - he's talking about two different insurgent groups and various different outside helpers. You can infer that he meant AQI is getting help from Iran, but the sentence itself does not imply it.
McCain's quote:
Al Qaeda and Shia extremists -- with support from external powers such as Iran -- are on the run but not defeated.
Isn't there a legitimate interpretation to this? Put less ambiguously, he might have said "Shia extremists, aided by Iran, and AQI are on the run but not defeated". His quote doesn't seem as blatantly incorrect as his previous statements on the matter, though you'd think, having already been corrected for previous misstatements, he would choose clearer phrasing.
And once more Matthew acts like it's not true that Iran is providing support to al Qaeda. Even though it is true.
HW -- I was about to post the same thing. (And I'm not a McCain supporter..)
The security gains over the past year have been dramatic and undeniable. Al Qaeda and Shia extremists -- with support from external powers such as Iran -- are on the run but not defeated."
Well, it could just be deeply dishonest. Shia extremists are receiving support from Iran, and AQI does receive support from external powers, so you could read the statement in a way that left it technically true but functionally misleading in the way that tends to lead to a million deaths.
The quote seems designed to be as bogus as Bush and Cheney's constant linkage by propinquity of Saddam and 9/11.
"Straight talk," my Aunt Minnie.
Proof positive that McCain is taking a page out of GWB's playbook. I lie told often enough becomes the truth.
Oh, wait--that was the Nazi playbook. Silly me.
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!
Al, are you (and McCain) really saying that Iran is helping an organization dedicated to the overthrow of the Iraqi government that Iran supports? If so, aren't the Iranians too dumb to be a threat?
So either you admit McCain is lying about Iran and AQI, or you admit that he's lying about Iran being a threat. Choose wisely.
I'm with Ted. I liked McCain, but I thought he had a much firmer grip on this stuff than he appears to lately. He seems to be lumping all Middle Eastern trouble into one pot, yet the solution to one group isn't necessarily the solution to others. Not to mention Al Qaeda has cells in the Far East, as well.
I think people are missing the point a bit on the whole McCain-Iran-Al Queda issue. I suspect that McCain has at least a rudimentary understanding of the Sinnu-Shia divide in the middle east. It's just that he doesn't care. It is the same as when George Bush said "you can't differentiate between Saddam and Al-Queda" or something like that. In McCain's mind they are all conflated into one giant Islamofascioextremoterroist threat. Trying to differentiate between Iran and Al Queda is a waste of time and just get's in the way of what we really should be doing: blowing more of them up.
I think people are missing the point a bit on the whole McCain-Iran-Al Queda issue. I suspect that McCain has at least a rudimentary understanding of the Sunni-Shia divide in the middle east. It's just that he doesn't care. It is the same as when George Bush said "you can't differentiate between Saddam and Al-Queda" or something like that. In McCain's mind they are all conflated into one giant Islamofascioextremoterroist threat. Trying to differentiate between Iran and Al Queda is a waste of time and just get's in the way of what we really should be doing: blowing more of them up.
In response to hw and others: yes, it's true that the sentence was ambiguous. And since he was just corrected on this issue the other day, I don't doubt that he now "knows" AQI is Sunni and Iran is Shia. So I'll take back my suggestion that the guy is totally out of it.
But the ambiguous formulation of the sentence doesn't seem accidental to me, either. As Deborah and DP suggest, it seems designed to lump all trouble-makers who have roughly the same complexion into the same big pot of trouble. Arabs, Persians, whatever. Recent history has shown that the American people can easily be encouraged to do that sort of thing -- with disastrous consequences. I don't like to see him making a habit of it.
So to reiterate: someone please give me the web address of a good 527-type group that's getting some TV ads up now.
Sorry for the double post.
Al: The story seems to be based on McCain's people saying so, several times. Gosh darn it, we're just sure of it. And a report that Iran helps Kurdish groups, who may make some claims to use Al Qaeda in their name. (It's worth pausing here to remember that Al Qaeda in Iraq is not exactly controlled by Al Qaeda in a cave in Pakistan/Afghanistan. It's become a cool name to adopt; it's not clear bin Laden can tell them to do or not do diddly.)
Mr. McCain's national security adviser, Randy Scheunemann, told The New York Sun, "There is ample documentation that Iran has provided many different forms of support to Sunni extremists, including Al Qaeda as well as Shi'ia extremists in Iraq. It would require a willing suspension of disbelief to deny Iran supports Al Qaeda in Iraq."
Responding to Mr. Scheunemann's remarks, a senior foreign policy adviser to Senator Obama, Susan Rice, yesterday told the Sun, "It's very bizarre." She noted that Mr. McCain had "made the same statement three times in as many days. Surely he must know, as Senator Lieberman reminded him, that Iran is not engaged with Al Qaeda in Iraq. I don't know if he is confused, or is he cynically trying to conflate Al Qaeda and Iran as Cheney and Bush did Al Qaeda and Iraq in 2002 and 2003?"
Al, are you (and McCain) really saying that Iran is helping an organization dedicated to the overthrow of the Iraqi government that Iran supports? If so, aren't the Iranians too dumb to be a threat?
Iran's primary interest is keeping Iraq weak and chaotic, it seems to me.
Al - first of all, the New York Sun is a rag of a tabloid. Citing it in support of the truth of any proposition is just a losing battle.
Second, if you or McCain think that the Shiite state of Iran would possibly support the Sunni extremist group of AQI, then neither you nor McCain understand the nature of their sectarian struggle.
And once more Matthew acts like it's not true that Iran is providing support to al Qaeda. Even though it is true.
If you believe this crap I have some weapons of mass destruction to sell you.
It would be the height of stupidity to engage in a war with Iran with the military overburdened as it is. You don't open another front when you're having trouble with the first two fronts.
The alternative is an even greater threat, perhaps a threat to the very existence of the Republic -- a Democrat in the White House.
We're staring into an abyss, people. and it's full of universal health care, gay marriage, and slightly higher marginal rates of income tax.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
After reading the headline, I assumed this post would be about the game tonight and the Celtics triumphant tour of the Texas Triangle.
Alas, the MY news blackout continues!
Iran's primary interest is keeping Iraq weak and chaotic, it seems to me.
It seems wrong. Iran has a much bigger interest in not letting Iraq be run by an unfriendly Sunni government, they way it was when Saddam was in power.
Again, you have no clue what's going on in Iraq, Iran, or anywhere else.
Hmm, what other country is it that supports the Sunni militia? Was it the same one from which eleven of the hijackers came on 9/11? The one that recently hosted the Preznit? I think the letters are S. A.
Why is it that Conservatives are so darn willing to support ardently countries that murder americans? In fact, Saudi Arabia is easily responsible, now, for over six thousand American deaths in the past seven years. Hmmm.
But forget all that. Its so democratic! The leader of our crusade against Iran!
It is going to be so nice when the whacky GOP is an overwhelming distance from power in the White House and Congress
1) Iraqi Sunnis refer to all Shia as Iranian.
2) Al Qaeda Iraq is a made up group, like Cosa Nostra or drug lords. It has no meaning beyond "bad guys in Iraq who we can't buy off and are not part of the government"
3) Cheney has to sneak into Iraq. The president of Iran does not.
4) Iran supports the Iraqi government as it exists today.
5) Every member of AQI could be raptured today and it would make no difference to the US at all.
But AQ is blowing up historic Shiite shrines, so why would Iran support that?
Iran, like Turkey, has its own problems with Kurdish separatists. Why would it help Iraq's Kurds? There'd be a big potential for blowback.
Looks like McCain is lying without saying something false. He's learned from Bush, or at least Bush's brain.
TPM absolutely nails it: Even if McCain is some war genius, he's too much of a dumbass on every other front to be president.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4ykntCXZcE
HW and anonymous are correct - the sentence is grammatically ambiguous, and could be read either as implying that both AQI and shia extremists, or only shia extremists, are receiving Iranian support. Considering all the flak McCain caught for the last gaffe, though, it seems hard to believe that this could happen again by accident. The statement to me almost seems like it's carefully parsed to imply the AQI/Iran connection while still allowing for deniability.
But why do that? Isn't the point made just as well referring only to Shia extremists? Or are they just trying to get that extra jolt of fear that only Al Qaeda can deliver?
His handlers had better have McCain tightly packed with cotton during the debates, because at this rate he's even money to soil himself if he's asked a tough question.
Everyone should read Juan Cole's latest post about the evidence for war with Iran. He makes a compelling case. I have a hard time not connecting the repeated mention of the AQI-Iran relationship to his desire to bomb, bomb, bomb...
Actually it's a William Polk guest op-ed on Juan Cole's website. The link is here:
http://www.juancole.com/2008/03/iran-danger-and-opportunity-polk-guest.html#comments
Al Zarqawi killed an estimated 6000 Shi'a, who's arguing that Tehran supports AQI?
If you are not going to call them AQ, then you raise the question of what they really are, which arguably in many cases is nationalist freedom fighters.
Another conveniently timed Republican warhawk "gaffe" which may one day prove significant:
Bush erroneously says Iran announced desire for nuclear weapons
By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers | 20 March 2008WASHINGTON — President Bush contended that Iran has "declared they want a nuclear weapon to destroy people" and that the Islamic Republic could be hiding a secret program.
Iran, however, has never publicly proclaimed a desire for nuclear weapons and has repeatedly insisted that the uranium enrichment program it's operating in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions is for civilian power plants, not warheads.
Bush made his assertion Wednesday in an interview marking the Iranian New Year with Radio Farda, a U.S. government-run radio service that broadcasts into Iran in the Farsi language. The White House released the transcript on Thursday.
The president reiterated his view that Iran has a right to civilian nuclear power. But, he said, the low-enriched uranium fuel for its reactors should be supplied by Russia, a proposal that Tehran has repeatedly rejected.
"The problem is the (Iranian) government cannot be trusted to enrich uranium because one, they've hidden programs in the past and they may be hiding one now. Who knows?" said Bush.
"Secondly, they've declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people, some in the Middle East. And that is unacceptable to the United States and it's unacceptable to the world."
Iran has repeatedly denied seeking nuclear warheads, and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a religious edict in 2005 forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of such weapons.
Asked about the president's comment, Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said Bush had "shorthanded" Iran's desire "to wipe Israel off the map," its refusal to heed U.N. Security Council demands to suspend its enrichment work and Iran's continued development of ballistic missiles.
Asked if Iran could exploit Bush's inaccurate comment for political purposes, Johndroe replied: "I'm not concerned about that. If they want to spin it a certain way, they can do it any way they want. They have still called for Israel to be wiped off the map and are in violation of three U.N. Security Council resolutions."...
HAPPY IRANIAN NEW YEAR!!!
Excerpt. Follow link for full text.
Matt,
I just wanted to let you know that just last year the U.S. military accused Iran of arming SUNNI militants in Iraq (though not al Qaeda).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6546555.stm
Obama apparently had no idea this was going on. So while McCain may have misspoke, Obama is actually the one confused on this issue.
McCain's senior adviser Mark Salter pointed this out in a recent interview, but it isn't making headlines like Obama's speech. So I thought I would just let you know.
Obvious what McCain's tactic is. He's said it too often for it to be a slip of the tongue, so the media are starting to wonder if he's stupid. But if he says it a few more times they'll figure he's cleverly exploiting the ignorance of the American public with crafty distortions! Much better!
McCain intends to attack Iran within the first six months of his Presidency. That should be painfully obvious to anyone with a minimum of five brain cells at this point.
The people who would benefit from a war on Iran are the same people benefiting from the war in Iraq - Cheney and his military-industrial cronies, the oil companies, and the people who invest in those companies. Nothing is going to change if McCain gets in. They don't care if there is an oil spike - the oil companies LOVE oil spikes! - or if China dumps the dollar - these people don't have their money in US dollars, you idiots! - they still get all the money the taxpayers dump into the government no matter how bad the economy is. These people win as long as war goes on. That is all that matters to them.
And the Zionist freaks in Israel will start the war if the US doesn't. However, they would prefer the US start it, and Cheney would prefer they start it - which is why it hasn't happened yet.
But if Bush and Cheney don't start it in the next nine months, McCain absolutely will. So will Clinton. Obama will take another year or two of stupid "diplomacy", but he'll start it, too, since he won't see any other way out when the Iranians tell him once again that they CANNOT stop enrichment.
War with Iran is a guaranteed certainty no matter who is elected. The only question is the timing and the wrangling over who starts it and how.
Comments closed April 03, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
OK, I'm convinced. These are the drumbeats for war.
Posted by Monster | March 20, 2008 4:10 PM