Iraq/Iran: Hugh Hewitt interviews Gen. Wm. Odom

[Chicken Little]

The thing that perhaps most impressed me with this interview is that Odom he understands that there is a discernible difference between the rhetoric and the actual policy objectives in these places.  He doesn't fall for the "big scare"...from anyone:

quote: HH: Are the statements of President Ahmadinejad alarming to you?

WO: No.

HH: Why not?

WO: Because I've done a study on Iranian foreign policy back from the fall of the Shah's time up to about 1995. And not withstanding all the rhetoric, and which I believe some of, that we would find the Iranians pursuing a very radical foreign policy in Central Asia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They were not. They were pursuing...they did not try to steal nuclear weapons up there. They did not spend money into the hands of Islamic radicals. The money that came in for Islamic radicals was brought by Pakistani bagmen from Saudi Arabia. The Iranians pursued a very conservative policy. They've had two radical policies. One was toward Hezbollah and Israel, and the other's been toward us.  

And he's not wetting his pants over Al Qaeda, either.  In fact, he points out that our presence in Iraq is probably the only fight they have for a while.  

quote: HH: Now they are deterred by our presence there, are they not?

WO: No. They're absolutely ecstatic over it. They're killing us. They couldn't get to us otherwise.

HH: Do you believe that safe havens for al Qaeda will empower them to strike the United States again as they did on 9/11?

WO: Look, they're getting one back in Afghanistan. They've got one right now in Pakistan. They've got them in other countries. If you get out of Iraq, there's one thing, two or three things you can be sure of. They cannot operate effectively in Kurdistan right now. The Shiites will catch them and decapitate everyone they can get their hands on. Most Sunnis don't like them. They deal with him largely because they provided them suicide bombers, et cetera, to take on the Shiites. With us getting out of the scene, and if the Shiites were to win that civil war, the al Qaeda will be gone.

HH: And why do you believe we haven't been attacked since 9/11, General?

WO: I don't think...we've been attacked in Iraq. They've been killing us left and right over there. It's over 3,000.

HH: Why have we not been attacked in the United States since 9/11?

WO: You don't know and I don't know. Mr. John Miller's done a very good study saying they don't have the capabilities. There's a very lot of intelligence evidence that suggests they don't have the capabilities to do it.

HH: And did we...

WO: All these so-called cells that the last administration, or this administration seems to have discovered here turned out to be mythical.

[Conan71]

He's welcome to his opinions and suggestions.  I'm just saying this is a style of warfare we've never encountered on a large or protracted scale before.  There's no real united war front we are battling on.

"Oye Como Va"- Santana

[Chicken Little]

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

quote:Well that weaker enemy did something Russia could have effectively never done. It attacked us on our own soil and killed thousands of Americans.

In fact, I agree the USSR was mightier, but was nowhere near as nuts as this enemy is.

Terrorists are a completely different enemy, with different tactics and protocols than we used in dealing with an established power, with a uniformed army like the USSR.  

The USSR wanted power and equal footing with the US.  Terrorists want annihilation of the US, and they could care less about power and diplomacy...

But, you guys think its okay to ignore counsel from people who have seen it all before.

Again, I don't discount him, but he's just one opinion.  

My main issue was that you cherry picked this interview with this one specific person because it fits with what you believe, not because he's some swammi.  Just my POV.

First, the Ruskies sure as heck could have turned us all into charcoal.  And if we had feared Kruschev (a nut) and all those other shoe pounders (also nuts) as much as some of y'all fear this 3rd rate dufus in the Member's Only jacket, then we'd probably be dead (or Red) today.

And second, I don't think we're fighting terrorism at all in Iraq.  If anything, our presence there is feeding it.  And its draining our ability to deal with it around the world.  As long as we are in Iraq, our chances of making a dent in terrorism will diminish.

And third, yeah, I love hearing Hugh "Cowardly Lion" Hewitt get eviscerated on his own radio show.  Even better that he's too dumb to notice.  

It'd be a heck of a lot more satisfying if it were muh-boy Murtha making this much sense.  But, Murtha's heart is too big for this.  

No, it takes a dark-hearted, calculating old Reaganite with icewater in his veins to get to the bottom of this sewer.  And Odom nails it:

1.  Iran will get a bomb, and there's nothing we can do about it.  We do not have the ability to stop them.  We lost that ability when we entered Iraq.

2.  They probably won't use it first, and if they do, they'll be 70,000,000 dead Persians within an hour.  Ahmadinejad and 69,999,999 other Iranians know this, too.

3.  There's a slaughter going on in Iraq.  It will happen whether we go or stay.  We already broke that country.  All. Effed. up.  There's no logical reason stay in the middle of that violence.

4.  We have other priorities. We are going to need our military, probably sooner rather than later.  We need to get them home so they can recover.  We screwed up a country, but that's not an excuse to let the whole world fall apart.

Sure, it's a bleak as h*ll assessment.  It's fatalistic.  It's cold-blooded.  I don't like to think like this: weakened and mean.  I'm not happy about it.  Nobody is.  But we're out of choices, man.  Worst President ever.

[tim huntzinger]

I was surprised he did not understand that a doomsday cult that seeks cataclysmic destruction as a means of ushering in global illumination is running Iran.

He is a good example of positive promotion if he made it to NSA head under Reagan (PBUH).

[Chicken Little]

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

I was surprised he did not understand that a doomsday cult that seeks cataclysmic destruction as a means of ushering in global illumination is running Iran.

He is a good example of positive promotion if he made it to NSA head under Reagan (PBUH).

What is to understand?  That a few Iranians know how to talk crazy?  You're responding to the rhetoric...that's exactly what he's talking about.  You are living your life based on what they say.  There's a fair chance they are simply talking crazy sh*t just to get a rise out of the US.  Try producing some real-world evidence of this death cult.  Ain't none.  

But even if they were seriously crazy, and maybe they are, there's not much we can do about it now.  We blew it when we invaded Iraq.

[tim huntzinger]

I mentioned Mahmud and the Hojjatieh Society to an expatriat Iranian businessman, thinking he would be a strong advocate of some kind of action.  He gave me a stare for a moment, then flatly "You should keep your eye on [Venezuela's] Chavez."

Odom's ignorance of Mahmud's idealogy and off-the-cuff dismissal of Iran's apacolyptic vision is telling.  He also confuses tactical defeats with strategic accomplishments, makes up phoney distinctions between levels of democracy, and blah blah blah.

Here is Mahmud's blog, some articles on the Iranian death cult from globalsecurity.org, and a forum of Iranians agitating for regime change.

[rwarn17588]

Maybe the Iranian businessman was politely trying to tell you that shouldn't listen to old wives' tales.

The Iranian president probably won't be around much longer anyway. Like another president I can name, he's grown very unpopular with his countrymen. But for this one, the reason is the poor jobs market in Iran.

[Chicken Little]

There may be at least five other guys who are more concerned about our ability, and less concerned about some Hojjatieh crazy-talk shop.

quote: 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.

[Chicken Little]

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

I mentioned Mahmud and the Hojjatieh Society to an expatriat Iranian businessman, thinking he would be a strong advocate of some kind of action.  He gave me a stare for a moment, then flatly "You should keep your eye on [Venezuela's] Chavez."

Odom's ignorance of Mahmud's idealogy and off-the-cuff dismissal of Iran's apacolyptic vision is telling.  He also confuses tactical defeats with strategic accomplishments, makes up phoney distinctions between levels of democracy, and blah blah blah.

Here is Mahmud's blog, some articles on the Iranian death cult from globalsecurity.org, and a forum of Iranians agitating for regime change.

I'm not really getting you here.  An Iranian expatriat says not to worry about some nutty sect, and when Odom says the same thing, he's ignorant?

[tim huntzinger]

Given Mahmud's and Hugo's boy-crush on each other, I am not sure why he replied that way. No idea what he was getting at.  Maybe he was calling my hand and raising the stakes.

What I find of particular interest in the globalsecurity series of articles is that the Society is first mentioned as a flukey, upstart sect that the Iranian establishment was trying to suppress.  In those pre-Mahmud reports nothing indicated they were ready to sweep into power.

For what it is worth, I do not believe that action against Iran is inevitable.  I do not subscribe to the notion that Gog and Magog 'need' to attack Israel to fulfill prophecy.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by Chicken Little

I'm not really getting you here.  
[/quote]

Join the club, CL. He doesn't ever seem to make much sense.

[Chicken Little]

I read one of the global security articles and it says that the the Hojjatieh Society is banned in Iran and that several of its members were arrested by the Iranian Gov't last July.  Further, that the organization likely has few remaining members.  And finally, when interviewed by an Iranian newspaper, Ahmadinejad denied that his preacher is a member of the sect:

quote: There have been accusations that Ahmadinejad's religious mentor, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, is a member of the Hojjatieh Society, a claim that he rejected, according to "Hemayat" newspaper on April 30.  

So, an Iranian newspaper gets to ask their President if his preacher is a nut.  That is significant, not just because he denied a relationship, but because the press were allowed to ask in the first place.  If the allegedly "conservative" Hemayat newspaper is allowed to grill the President on this issue, then I think it shows that there is a strong effort by the gov't of that country to manage and balance public perception.  

This underscores what Odom was saying, that Iran's policies with respect to the Middle East are conservative, and the only radicalized portions of their policy agenda relate to the US and Israel.

In other words, they act crazy when it comes to Israel (e.g. the holocaust denial, katuysha rockets).  But on the other hand, they go out of their way to make sure that anybody who is paying attention inside the country and region knows that they are not entirely what they pretend to be for the cameras.

It's possible, perhaps likely, that this is just brinkmanship, not actual insanity.

[tim huntzinger]

But look who is complaining within Iran, the Left and the Right.  Former Presidents of Iran, leaders of the Islamist clerics, are the ones who oppose the sect.  The sect was outlawed in 1984 and two decades later the President is a member.  Reportedly.

Here is the former Vice President, also prone to fairy tales, speaking in the highly suspect Financial Times 'on November 9. Abtahi speculated that Ahmadinejad has "more important goals than politics," warning that the new head of state "speaks with the confidence of someone who has received God's word."

'Ahmadinejad's references to the Twelfth Imam in a September speech at the United Nations brought his affinity for millennialist views to the world's attention. Ahmadinejad's later observation that he was surrounded by an aura during the speech, and that the spellbound audience in the General Assembly sat unblinking, also drew attention to his unorthodox views.'

CL, I think you are correct and he wants to creat an aura of inevitability of conflict.  We attack him and his pariah state becomes a cause celebre.

I wonder if a blockade, no-fly zone, and stronger economic sanctions would work better.  Critics of the Iraq invasion and occupation seem to use those tools as examples of something that works so I see no reason to oppose to those measures now.

[Chicken Little]

I think Ahmadinejad's just pretending to be a maniac, probably.  The way to get through this is not to take every crazy millenium ramble too seriously, he's probably just play acting.  

Instead, you work the diplomatic and political front with Iran, Iran's neighbors, China, Europe, etc.  Iran's economy is pretty fragile.  If we keep our cool and work hard for international pressure, I'll bet they snap back into place.

I suspect that this is why so many Americans are unhappy with the new carrier task forces and Cheney's incessant, bellicose, statements.  It doesn't help build that international cooperation.  It makes us look just as crazy.

[rwarn17588]

It's like Odom said: you don't jump up and react every time some world leader says something outrageous.

There's a lot to be said about staying unflappable when it comes to foreign relations.