Nicholas R. Burns, one of the State Department’s most prominent “realists,” spoke at length on Wednesday about Iran, and it was discouraging to say the least.

Appearing at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Burns laid out the U.S. case against the Islamic Republic, but in a manner that seemed calculated to make things worse, not better.

He didn’t quite call for “regime change” in Iran, which is a good thing considering how bad it turned out next door in Iraq. But he came close. And he made several points that were just outlandish.

In that category, the most flagrant was his charge that Iran is busy undermining the U.S. position in Iraq by supporting the insurgents. Now, Nicholas, you know as well as anyone that Iran is ecstatic that the United States toppled Saddam, and that Teheran is happily building ties to the Shiite religious parties in Iran. Not only is there no evidence that the mullahs are supporting the Iraqi resistance, but why on earth would they want to do so? Iraq – or at least the oil-rich Shiite half of it – is falling into their lap.

Second, Burns accused Iran of harboring Al Qaeda. Now, this, too, is unsupported by any evidence. In 2003, it was the Bush administration’s catechism that Iraq harbored Al Qaeda and that Iraq had some vague ties to 9/11, but that all turned out to be hogwash, as the CIA had already concluded. During the Q&A, I asked Burns to justify his charge that “Iran continues to host senior Al Qaeda leaders [and] Al Qaeda continues to use Iran as a safe haven.” With no apology, he flatly refused to answer the question, saying only that everyone knows that Iran has ties to terrorists. Now certainly Iran supports Hezbollah, but Al Qaeda? I don’t think so.

Finally, and scariest, I asked Burns: “Vice President Cheney recently said that Israel might take matters into its own hands and attack Iran’s nuclear facilities? Will you unequivocally state that the United States would look on such an action with strong disfavor?” He declined to do so, period. When I objected, saying: “You didn’t answer the question, he said: “I answered the question in the way I wanted to answer it.” Earlier, in his talk, he stressed that “all options are on the table” and added: “Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons is simply unthinkable.” According to the CIA, such an eventuality is also a decade away. But that doesn’t stop the Bushies from considering it urgent now.

Eric Edelman is still lying for the Vice President. Edelman, from 2001, served as Dick Cheney's chief adviser on matters related to national security and Iraq. Since then Edelman has succeeded Douglas Feith, the man who ran the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, as undersecretary of defense for policy. And he is still lying on Cheney's behalf. I caught up with him yesterday at the Council on Foreign Relations. More on that, in a second. First, some background.

Three years ago, the Bush-Cheney team told us over and over that it was necessary to attack Iraq because Iraq was a central front in the war on terrorism. Right after 9/11, we now know, Bush personally insisted that Iraq was the chief culprit in that attack, even though the CIA demonstrated decisively that Al Qaeda was responsible for it and that Al Qaeda had nothing to do with Iraq. Vice President Cheney was the lead Liar-in-Chief about alleged Iraq-Al Qaeda ties, insisting for example that Iraqi spies met with AQ operatives in Prague and repeatedly linking Baghdad to bin Laden. None of these ties existed. But we went to war anyway.

Now that the war is underway, and going badly, President Bush and his minions are still insisting, against all evidence, that Iraq is still at the heart of the war on terrorism. In his recent Annapolis speech, in the hefty Victory in Iraq document, and in other statements from administration officials, the Bush team is still misrepresenting the enemy. In fact, our real opponents in Iraq are not Al Qaeda, but the Iraqi resistance led by secular Baathists, former Iraqi military and intelligence officials, and a vast underground army of unhappy Sunnis, what U.S. intelligence calls POI's ("pissed off Iraqis"). But just as Bush lied about the terrorist threat from Iraq in 2003, he is doing it again: he is claiming that the real enemy in Iraq are Al Qeda-linked jihadists -- even though virtually all analysts of the war in Iraq say that the jihadists are only about 4 per cent of the fighters that U.S. forces face.

Which brings us to Edelman. Speaking at CFR yesterday, Edelman cited a long list of jihadist web site ravings, including one in which he quoted bin Laden claiming that the jihadists' goal in Iraq was to turn that country into the base for a new, worldwide Caliphate, a political-religious empire that Edelman warned would take over first the Middle East, then Europe, then the world. He ignored the reality that whatever outlandish claims bin Laden makes (and bin Laden is not in Iraq and has little leverage even over the small band of jihadists there), there is no chance that bin Laden's wild fantasies could come true. Certainly they do not represent an existential threat to world security, except in the sense that Al Qaeda can blow up things in London or Madrid. But Edelman presented the war in Iraq as the only way to prevent bin Laden from creating his worldwide Evil Calipjhate. (In the press corps, sitting in the back, there were audible titters at the stupidity of Edelman's claims.)

Now, it is true that more and more bin Laden-style terrorists are going to Iraq to join the jihad. But if they are going, and it is far from clear that they are going in large numbers, they are going because we are there. In other words, by staying in Iraq, we are helping Al Qaeda-minded jihadists expand their ranks.

Still, the reality in Iraq is that the opposition to the U.S. occupation is primarily secular and nationalist, not Islamist.

So when it came my turn to ask a question, I asked Edelman, first, if as Cheney's chief national security aide, he had participated in the administration's effort to arm-twist the CIA to skew intelligence about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. And I asked him if he thought that the Pentagon inspector-general's investigation of Feith and the OSP was justified. (Amazingly, even though I spoke politely, briefly, and without any inflammatory rhetoric, some in the posh CFR audience threw catcalls my way while I was speaking.) Edelman lied again, denying that he was involved in any pressure against the CIA, telling me to ask CIA officials if they felt pressured. (I have already asked, and many of them told me: Yes, they did.) And he refused to comment on the IG investigation of Feith, which parallels the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence so-called Phase II investigation of pre-war abuses of intelligence. "Iraq," he said, "is a central front in the War on Terror."

Wesley Clark gets Iraq half-right today, but the part he gets wrong is fatal. After an eye-opening trip to the region, during which Sunni Arab leaders in the Gulf and elsewhere told Clark about their fears of Shiite religious power in Iraq, Clark returned to write, in today’s New York Times, that

Iraq’s neighbors, then, see [Iraq] evolving into a Shiite-dominated, Iranian buffer state that will strengthen Tehran’s power in the Persian Gulf just as it seeks nuclear weapons and intensifies its rhetoric against Israel.

Clark calls for “intensified outreach to Iraqi insurgents” and wants to seek their help in ridding Iraq of Al Qaeda-style jihadists. Good, but why would insurgents help the United States against the jihadists without a promise to withdraw U.S. forces?. He wants Iraq to “enforce the ban on armed militias.” Good, but what universe is he living in to think that might happen, since the militias are the government? He wants a “broad initiative to reduce sectarian influence within government institutions.” Good, but, again, in what parallel universe?

Clark ought to stop preparing 2008 campaign speeches in 2005, and start listening to the generals who know a lot more about Iraq than he does.

Yesterday I spoke at length with Aiham al-Sammarae, the former Iraqi minister who has spent the past year trying to mediate between the resistance and the United States. What follows is a partial transcript of that talk, which touches on the aftermath of the Cairo peace conference that took place two weeks ago and the coming Iraqi elections.

Q. What happened at the recent Cairo conference sponsored by the Arab League? Was the resistance able to participate? Did you go?
A. No, I didn’t go. Actually, the Arab League invited me, but in the last couple days the government of Iraq said they don’t want anybody who is resistance, or ex-Baathist, or—well, they put too many or’s. So the Arab League sent the list to them, and the prime minister took off the names he didn’t like. He said, if they come, he won’t go. And one of them was my name. I told those guys in Cairo that it was a joke, since he has to sit down with people who don’t like him. But I didn’t go. And really, nobody from the Baathists or the resistance went. … So whatever they decided there has no meaning, because they didn’t sit with the resistance. But at least they recognized the right of the Iraqis to resist [in their statement].

It is important to follow it up. But since the conference they look like they are more enemies than before. And one Sunni leader said he was taking back his signature on the conference document, since the government is not doing anything.

Q. But I read that some resistance people went to Cairo, but not to the conference itself.
A. Yes, some resistance went to Cairo and they met with Arab League secretary-general. They met him the day before, and they left before the meeting started. So there wasn’t a meeting between the government and the resistance, or between the resistance and the United States.

Q. And Talabani’s statement that he would meet with the resistance.
A. Well, at least he recognized that some of the resistance are not terrorists. But it is election time, and he would like to do something to get more votes, since there are some Kurds who sympathize with the resistance. So he wants to get more votes.

Q. Is there any movement forward on talks between the resistance and talks with the government and the United States, since Ambassador Khalilzad?
A. There is something going on between the resistance and the United States. I don’t think there will be any serious talks with the government [of Iraq] until the election is over, because … everybody from the government is saying, There is no resistance—everybody is terrorist.

Q. What was the reaction from the religious Shiite parties about Khalilzad’s statement about talking to the resistance?
A. The Shiite parties, if they are religious and follow [Ayatollah Ali] Sistani or [cleric Muqtada] Sadr, they say, “This is a conspiracy, now they want to talk to the Sunnis.” If they are more educated, religious or secular, they say, We need to start talks, we need to save our country. So if America can do that, we appreciate it. Some Shia come to my office here, and they say they like the idea of America talking to the Sunnis.

Q. And the election?
A. The religious Shiite coalition will never make it again. The time is over for them. They had their chance, and they blew it. In the last seven months they did everything bad, took over all the ministries, put their people in, and everything went to hell. There are no jobs, there is no security. People are asking, What the hell are those guys doing?

And then the Sunnis will win a lot more votes. The [Shiites] will get something like 60 or 70 seats in the next assembly, out of 275. The party of [Iyad] Allawi will get something around 40, the Kurds will get around 50. The Sunni coalition, the religious parties will get 35, and the Sunni seculars will get 40-45.

Q. What is the name of your party?
A. I am running in Baghdad, for the Iraq Independence party, and we are running in another six provinces.

Q. Are there any talks between the resistance and the United States, or the Iraqi government, underway?
A. Even since Cairo, to the best of my knowledge nobody is talking with the Baathists, and nobody is talking with the resistance. There are some talks in the field, but there are no central talks run by the ambassador or by people on behalf of the secretary of state. They are talking with some Sunni groups, and the ambassador meets some Sunni groups to deliver messages, But he’s not negotiating.

Q. Is there any committee emerging to represent the resistance?
A. Until now, there are scared to be public, because they are afraid that the government will come right away to clean them up if they announce their names. But, for instance, the Association of Muslim Scholars, although they function separately, well, I think they meet regularly with the resistance, and they have relations, and they have liaisons. … And in fact the resistance is getting stronger, not weaker. But I keep advising them to start talking politics, and to be involved now.

I believe the right solution is, that they sit down all together and negotiate. Otherwise, we are going to civil war. If those guys, the religious Shiites come back, we are going to civil war. Nobody can take them anymore.

Q. What are the prospects for Chalabi?
A. He is buying votes like crazy. He is spending more than anyone else, and I wonder from where he gets his money. But even with all this money, all this buying, still I don’t see he will emerge with any more than 10 seats, if he is lucky, lucky, lucky. And in Iraq now, everyone is doing everything to cheat, to buy votes. Everyone is cheating in the elections. And the United States knows it.

Q. So what are the prospects for the second Cairo-sponsored conference in February?
A. It clearly depends on the election. If the election goes well, there will be a conference. If the [Shiites] come back, there will be no conference.

Just for the record, here's Harold Pinter on Iraq:

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading as a last resort all other justifications having failed to justify themselves as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.

In case you missed it, the Dec. 7 Wall Street Journal carried a piece by Jay Solomon laying out the preliminary goals for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's inquiry into pre-war Iraq intelligence.

"The current study covers five areas," wrote Solomon:

One looks at the role of Iraqi exiles, such as politician Ahmad Chalabi, in developing intelligence and whether they purposely skewed information to promote a war. Another area of the probe involves a look at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, which provided its own assessment on Iraq's links to Al Qaeda, to determine whether its members operated outside of legal channels in gathering intelligence on Iraq ... But perhaps the most politically charged area will be the one looking at prewar warnings of postwar turmoil.

Time's Michael Ware has penned the single best article on the state of things in Iraq that I can remember, whose focus is the emerging or potential dialogue between the United States and the Baath party-led resistance forces.

It's most useful for its interview with Ambassador Zal Khalilzad. Here are some quotes from Zal:

"We want to deal with their legitimate concerns. We will intensify the engagement, interaction, and discussion with them. ... The fault line between Al Qaeda and the nationalists seems to have increased. ... Insurgency and terror are two different things. ... There is a reaching out to non-criminal Baathists. ... The time has come to reintegrate them into the political process."

It sounds like Zal is starting to get it. Most important is the distinction between "insurgency" and "terror."

So this is important stuff. See my interview, below, with Aiham al-Sammarae, who is mediating (or trying to) between the Baath-military resistance and the United States. He points out that so far there are no high-level talks underway, merely low-level contacts. But clearly Khalilzad has opened to the door to more high-level contacts. (No wonder SCIRI's Abdel Aziz Hakim is ballistic.) I urge you to read the whole piece in Time.

Now I am beginning to wonder. Are I. Lewis 'Scooter" Libby and Ibn Al-Shaikh al-Libi related? Are they brothers? I don't want to speculate about whether al-Libi's father had several wives, and whether one of them was Scooter's mother. But the coincidences seem all too real. In America, we have I. "Lying" Libby making up stuff about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda and peddling those lies to stampede Congress and the public into supporting the Bush administration's war. And over in the Middle East, our forces conveniently capture a man named "Libi," who is then shipped from Afghanistan to Egypt, tortured, and then comes up with the very same lies that "Libby" was pushing. It was "Libi's" lies, produced under torture, that gave "Libby" the ability to claim that Iraq was training Al Qaeda in chemical and biological weapons. That charge, of course, was a cornerstone of the terrorism-WMD nexus that gave nervous liberal hawks a reason to support Bush's illegal war. (Now I wonder if the infamous "Louie the Lip" is part of this family, too.) Congressional investigators, take note.

Maybe there is a new term emerging for liberals who supported the war in Iraq: Libbys.

More and more evidence is mounting that Iran’s ayatollahs have their hands deep into the Shiite-led government of Iraq. Astonishingly though, the Bush administration – and its allied phalanx of neoconservatives – have turned a blind eye to Iran’s influence in Iraq. That’s because the Iraqi Shiites, who run the regime in Baghdad, are supposed to be the “good guys,” i.e., the ones we are defending in Iraq. As I’ve written before, the United States has 160,000 troops in Iraq serving as the Praetorian guard for that Shiite regime. We’re killing hundreds of Sunnis all over western Iraq on their behalf.

Before we get to the latest reports of more torture prisons run by the Shiites, along with death squads, consider the following items from the news.

Knight Ridder, perhaps the single best news organization covering the war in Iraq and its political fallout, carried an important exchange in which the head of the Badr Brigade, the paramilitary force backed by Iran, flatly admits that his 20,000-strong secret army – which is the arm of the ruling Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) – is funded by Iran:

Badr's leader, Hadi al-Amari, has denied maintaining ties to Iran, but in a fit of anger during a recent interview with Knight Ridder he admitted as much while striking out against U.S.-backed secular Shiite politician Ayad Allawi.

"Allawi receives money from America, from the CIA, but nobody talks about that. All they talk about is our funding from Iran," he said, raising his voice. "We are funded by some (Persian) Gulf countries and the Islamic Republic of Iran. We don't hide it."

And the report, by Tom Lasseter, includes this bombshell from General Casey:

"They're putting millions of dollars into the south to influence the elections ... it's funded primarily through their charity organizations and also Badr and some of these political parties," said Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. general in Iraq. "A lot of their guys (Badr) are going into the police and military."

In another breakthrough report, today’s Washington Times carries an interview with a leading former Iraqi general who says that the network of torture prisons run by SCIRI, Badr, and the Iraqi interior ministry is overseen by an Iranian intelligence officer, Tahseer Nasr Lawandi, nicknamed “The Engineer.” Here’s the report, but read the whole thing:

An Iraqi general formerly in charge of special Interior Ministry forces said yesterday that a senior Iranian intelligence officer was in charge of a network of detention centers where suspected insurgents were routinely tortured and sometimes killed.

Gen. al-Samarrai said the Iranian intelligence officer, Tahseer Nasr Lawandi, works directly under the Kurdish deputy minister, Gen. Hussein Kamel, and is known throughout the ministry as "The Engineer."

"The Engineer was behind the torturing and killing in the ministry and was also in charge of Jadriya prison," said Gen. al-Samarrai, who left the ministry after a dispute with superiors and is now living in Jordan.

The Iranian officer not only masterminded interrogations, tortures and executions at the prisons, but also would take part in torture sessions, often using an electric drill, Gen. al-Samarrai said.

Some of the tortured prisoners were found in morgues with drill holes in their legs and eyes, according to another security source, who declined to be identified.

The general said Mr. Lawandi had worked with the minister and deputy minister to form a special security service to run the detention and interrogation operation and a separate group called the Wolf Brigade to capture suspects and bring them to the secret locations -- usually under cover of darkness.

This is critically important stuff, because it utterly destroys the Bush administration’s contention that the United States is building “democracy” in Iraq.

Today’s New York Times has a story about the torture prisons, noting that a senior Iraqi interior ministry official denies that any abuse occurred, and it then quotes U.S. military officials contradicting him.

So the question is: when will hear the Bush administration's top officials start calling the Shiite fundamentalist regime in Baghdad "Islamofascists"? So far, they's applied that term only to the Iraqi resistance, tarring the Sunni-led insurgency by painting them as led by Al Qaeda-style terrorists, when in fact that they are mostly Iraqi nationalists, Baathists, and ex-military men. Their main grievance is that the United States is handing Iraq over to Iran. I'd say they're right.

UPDATE
Here is another little item, from Abdel Aziz Hakim, the former Badr commander who leads SCIRI, and who kindlyt offers "200,000" Badr troops to protect polling places on Thursday (from AP):

Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, told about 1,000 tribal leaders who gathered in Baghdad's Jadriyah neighborhood that the military wing of his group - the Badr Brigade - was ready to help with election security.

"I declare that the Badr Organization is ready to mobilize 200,000 of its men in all parts of Iraq so that they can play a role in defending Iraqi and Iraqis," said the black-turbaned cleric, who is heading the strong Shiite United Iraqi Alliance slate.

Yesterday I blogged about Iran’s influence in Iraq, and the long reach of Iran’s secret intelligence service, including the apparent organizing of the torture prisons run by the Interior Ministry. It’s getting worse.

The Times reports that Iran is shipping trucks full of counterfeit ballots into Iraq. The paper found a source at the Interior Ministry who revealed that the truck seized by police contained “thousands of forged ballots, and it went on

The Iranian truck driver told the police under interrogation that at least three other trucks filled with ballots had crossed from Iran at different spots along the border.

Whatever else happens in tomorrow’s election, it’s important to remember that elections in Iraq are taking place under wartime conditions. Gangs, armed militias, mafia-like political parties, warlords, village chieftains, and tribal kingpins rule the vote. For every voter who takes his responsibility as an independent voter seriously, there are many more who vote the way they are told. And the big boss is Ayatollah Sistani, who is shepherding his credulous flock into supporting the Shiite religious party bloc.

Incidentally, the Times report is notable for the following flat statement, unsourced:

Agents of the Iranian government are believed to be supporting the two main Shiite political parties here – the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa Party – with money and other assistance.

The transcript from President Bush’s speech yesterday at the Woodrow Wilson Center indicates, here and there, that the president got “applause.” If so, it can only have been for sheer effrontery. Take this:

When a unanimous Security Council gave [Saddam] one final chance to disclose and disarm, or face serious consequences, he refused to comply with that final opportunity. At any point along the way, Saddam Hussein could have avoided war by complying with the just demands of the international community. The United States did not choose war -- the choice was Saddam Hussein's.

Now, how exactly could Saddam have avoided war? By ridding himself of weapons that he didn’t have? Iraq delivered a massive volume, tens of thousands of pages of documents, detailing everything about its nonexistent WMD program to the UN in December, 2002. He allowed UN inspectors access to every nook and cranny of the country. I think we know which party chose war.

Or this:

It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As President, I'm responsible for the decision to go into Iraq -- and I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities. And we're doing just that.

Well, that’s easy. To find out what went wrong, Mr. Bush, ask your vice president, who pressured the CIA to find what couldn’t be found, namely, Iraq’s WMD. Again and again, Cheney insisted that the CIA go back and sift the same data. Or ask Rummy, whose Feith-based intelligence shop cherry-picked tidbits to support the obsessive desire to go to war.

Or this nonsense:

[The terrorists’] stated objective is to drive the United States and coalition forces out of the Middle East so they can gain control of Iraq and use that country as a base from which to launch attacks against America, overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East, and establish a totalitarian Islamic empire that stretches from Spain to Indonesia.

That may be their stated objective. But the Symbionese Liberation Army that kidnapped Patty Hearst believed it could create a new Symbionese state on the ruins of America, too. Does Bush actually think he can scare America with the specter of some imaginary Evil Caliphate? Oh, right. He does.

Call me paranoid, or obsessive, but I never count Ahmed Chalabi out. His recent (some might call it triumphal) visit to Washington seemed to patch up relations with the more skeptical among the Bush administration’s leading lights, and it certainly won him the renewed plaudits of the neocon chattering classes. Which brings us to Chalabi’s future.

The Wall Street Journal, the Chalabi-loving pulpit extraordinaire, manages in today’s editorial to pimp once again for the bulbous charlatan. In an editorial on the election in Iraq called “Mission (Partly) Accomplished,” it says that the religious Shiites and Iyad Allawi, the secular former Baathist, may offset each other. “This could open the way for Ahmed Chalabi—who ran his own candidate list and has demonstrated competence as energy minister—to form a government.”

Note in passing that Slate, the on line mag, has decided to carry a column by Tamara Chalabi, Ahmed’s daughter. Exactly why has to be left to the geniuses over there, but it has already drawn fire from Salon, its rival.

An interesting comment on Chalabi’s prospects comes from the Financial Times, in a piece by Guy Dinmore, Holly Yeager, and others:

Although the Bush administration insists it is strictly neutral, officials concede that there is a general hope that one of the main secular politicians, such as Iyad Allawi, the former provisional prime minister, or his rival Ahmad Chalabi, will negotiate their way into the prime minister's office. Analysts say Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Baghdad, will play an active role in helping the disparate Iraqi parties form a broad-based coalition after the polls.

Now, the thing is, since 2002 the Bush administration has been divided between the neocons at the Pentagon and the Office of the VP, who back Chalabi, and the more realist elements at the CIA and State Department, who back Allawi. (In the past, the Cold War between those elements and their respective cats-paws in Iraq turned hot, in Iraq at least.) So the question raised by the FT analysis, which is “spot on,” as the British say, is who, precisely, will Kingmaker Zal Khalilzad support?

Chalabi’s main attraction for Iraqis, slim though it is, is that he can act as a conduit for American support and American money, given the slavishness of his fealty to the Bush administration. Here’s a quote from today’s Toronto Star reflecting that appeal by an Iraqi “clothing merchant”:

Wathik Ali, 38, a clothing merchant, told the Toronto Star he voted for Ahmad Chalabi, the former exile whose Iraqi National Congress provided some of the faulty intelligence data upon which the White House based its decision to invade.

"Chalabi did a favour for us by helping liberate Iraq from dictatorship and he has big economic relations that reflect the possibility of big investments," said Ali. "Besides, the Americans don't like the Islamists ... And the Americans are the force on the ground, so it's better to elect this guy."

Chalabi spent the election campaign blasting Allawi for corruption, mismanagement and other failings. That might bring to mind images of pots calling kettles black, but in this case it’s more extreme than that, since Chalabi virtually defines corruption in politics for Iraq the way Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff do here.

Anyway, we won’t know the result of the election yesterday until sometime around New Year’s Eve, since it will take the Shiite-Kurdish coalition that runs Iraq a long time to count and re-count and re-jigger and re-analyze the votes, run the result by Khalilzad, ask Iran’s ayatollahs what they think, re-count again, etc. Those who believe that Iraq’s vote yesterday was anything remotely like a fair election probably belong in Disneyland. What I liked best were the reports that the entire Basra police department was running around with loudspeakers, utterly illegally, shouting at voters to vote for the Ayatollah Sistani-backed, Iranian-influenced Shiite religious list. Can’t wait to hear the results.

Let’s parse W’s speech last night. I watched it, against my better judgment, and he looked as ignorant and goofy as usual, hands planted flat on the desk, eyes wide, straining with every muscle to avoid smirking. And as usual, from the cadence of his remarks, it was easy to tell that he didn’t have the slightest real knowledge of what he was talking about. So as always, criticizing a Bush speech really means criticizing his speechwriters and his sorry ability to convey their meaning. Let’s do it anyway.

First, W. once again exercised his typical fallacy of composition, first noting that the enemy in Iraq is a combination of Saddamists (i.e., the Baath party) and so-called “foreign terrorists” (i.e., Zarqawists):

Since the removal of Saddam, this war, like other wars in our history, has been difficult. The mission of American troops in urban raids and desert patrols, fighting Saddam loyalists and foreign terrorists, has brought danger and suffering and loss. This loss has caused sorrow for our whole nation -- and it has led some to ask if we are creating more problems than we're solving.

That is an important question, and the answer depends on your view of the war on terror. If you think the terrorists would become peaceful if only America would stop provoking them, then it might make sense to leave them alone.

So, here Bush argues a central point, that the enemy will not “become peaceful” if we “leave them alone.” That may be true of the Al Qaeda types, but in fact the Iraqi nationalists and Baathists only want us out of Iraq—after which they most likely will become peaceful—or at least what passes for peaceful in a post-war, shattered state filled with militias.

Then W. gets to his central scare tactic, that we are fighting a menace in Iraq that wants global domination and will attack us even at home:

This is not the threat I see. I see a global terrorist movement that exploits Islam in the service of radical political aims -- a vision in which books are burned, and women are oppressed, and all dissent is crushed. Terrorist operatives conduct their campaign of murder with a set of declared and specific goals -- to de-moralize free nations, to drive us out of the Middle East, to spread an empire of fear across that region, and to wage a perpetual war against America and our friends. These terrorists view the world as a giant battlefield -- and they seek to attack us wherever they can. …

The terrorists do not merely object to American actions in Iraq and elsewhere, they object to our deepest values and our way of life. And if we were not fighting them in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Southeast Asia, and in other places, the terrorists would not be peaceful citizens, they would be on the offense, and headed our way.

Where to begin? First, the only radical Islamists burning books and oppressing women in Iraq are the Shiite fundamentalist parties, backed by Iran, whose power is being supported by the U.S. armed forces. Second, the supposed enemy in Iraq is not a “global terrorist movement” but an indigenous, nationalist resistance that wants nothing more than the departure of U.S. troops. The spectre of “an empire of fear across the region” is a wildly exaggerated threat that exists only in Bush’s fevered imagination. In fact, if we began to withdraw from Iraq, one of our best allies in exterminating the remnants of Al Qaeda would be the Iraqi Baathists. And their operations to clean up Al Qaeda in Iraq would not be pretty.

I also want to speak to those of you who did not support my decision to send troops to Iraq: I have heard your disagreement, and I know how deeply it is felt. Yet now there are only two options before our country -- victory or defeat. And the need for victory is larger than any president or political party, because the security of our people is in the balance. I don't expect you to support everything I do, but tonight I have a request: Do not give in to despair, and do not give up on this fight for freedom.

The only two options are “victory or defeat”? Hopefully, that is not true, because victory in Iraq is inconceivable, unless we plan to stay and fight for decades. There is, in fact, a wide spectrum of other options, from immediate withdrawal to phased withdrawal to a negotiated ceasefire with the resistance to the internationalization of the conflict through the UN, the Arab League, and other interested parties. By victory, it is clear that Bush means a victory that preserves, somehow, the remaining shred of U.S. credibility worldwide. In his speech, Bush raised the image of the world laughing at the United States. If we left Iraq, he said:

We would abandon our Iraqi friends and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word. We would undermine the morale of our troops by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed. We would cause the tyrants in the Middle East to laugh at our failed resolve, and tighten their repressive grip.

But no one, except Bush administration die-hards, believe that America has any word left to keep. By invading Iraq illegally and then bungling the occupation, Bush has utterly destroyed American credibility overseas. Our allies fear us, the nations of the Middle East are horrified at what Iraq has become. And if any Middle East tyrants are laughing, it’s the ones in Iran, who day by day are taking over Iraq.

The following is a slightly edited transcript of an interview with Salah al-Mukhtar, an Iraqi Baath Party official who has belonged to the party for 47 years. At the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Mukhtar was Iraq’s ambassador to Vietnam. Previously, he served as ambassador to India, at Iraq’s mission to the United Nations in New York, and as an official in Iraqi information ministry. Although he stressed that he is not an official spokesman for the party or for the resistance in Iraq, it is clear from his comments that he remains close to those leading the fight in Iraq. Before 2003, Mukhtar was close to Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi foreign minister, who is currently in U.S. custody.

In the interview, Mukhtar calls for talks between the United States and the Baath Party, and he strongly denounced Al Qaeda in Iraq for its attacks on civilians, going so far as to accuse Zarqawi of operating under U.S. and Iranian intelligence control.

At present, Mukhtar lives in Yemen.

Can you tell me a little about where you were when the war started? Were you in Hanoi? What happened then? I know you are living in Yemen now.
When the war of aggression has started I was in Hanoi, working as an ambassador of Iraq. I did my best to defend the legitimacy of my government and to expose the colonial nature of American invasion of my homeland. But after the occupation was completed, I decided to look for someplace to continue my struggle for the freedom and liberation of my country. I left Vietnam for Yemen, where I have lived since.

Are you a spokesman for the resistance in Iraq?
No, I am not the spokesman for the resistance in Iraq, nor the spokesman of Baath Party ... Simply I am Baathist, for 47 years. I am also a writer who wrote many books, and papers, besides thousands of articles about Baath Party ideology and strategy, inside and outside Iraq. For that reason I have become a distinguished Baathist intellectual, and in this capacity I have started to write in every available arena to defend both my homeland freedom and my party history after the American invasion.

Can you tell me some details about how the resistance is organized? Is there a national or regional command? Are the leaders both inside Iraq and outside? Are communications difficult?
The Iraqi armed resistance was prepared, systematically, in the year 2001, after the Iraqi leadership reached the conclusion that the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq. In that year the final preparations were completed, such as establishing a secret leadership for the part and an elite force from Baath party, the Iraqi army, especially the elite of the Republican Guard, the most experienced intelligence officers, some scientists from the military industrialization establishment, [and] millions of Iraqis who were trained in urban guerilla warfare. Arms and ammunition were hidden in secret stores, enough for fighting at least ten years without any need for any outside support. As for the regional or national command: yes, there is a central command for the major resistance organizations, and all members of that command are inside Iraq. The majority of the members are new leaders appeared after the invasion, that's why none of them have been captured as prisoners of war. No command member is working outside Iraq. The communication difficulties inside Iraq have been overcome through a new kind of secret communications system, very complicated and highly sophisticated, and because of that fact the secrecy of the armed resistance has not been penetrated by the CIA.

Are there any prominent leaders from the party before 2003 who are active? The problem for Americans to understand the resistance is that is seems faceless.
Yes, there are some members of the last elected leadership of the party before the invasion, among them Mr. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, currently serving as the field commander of the armed resistance. By the way, it is my great pleasure to inform you that [according to] doctors who treated Mr. al-Douri in Baghdad and in Vienna, he has no serious ailment, such as leukemia or cancer. He is healthy and energetic. As for the so-called faceless command of the resistance, it is well known that before the invasion a decision was taken to keep the national leadership of the resistance very secret, to guarantee the continuation of the armed revolution. … So being faceless is essential part of the planned and calculated strategy of the resistance. But … your government is fully aware about the fact that the major body of resistance is Baathist, and the controlling system of the resistance is in the hand of Baath party leadership. This is enough to allow you to draw the correct conclusion about the nature of the resistance.
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You said in an interview that I read that the Baath party would talk to the United States and the British. Can you say a little more about that? What demands do you have? Would the party provide a guarantee not to attack U.S. troops if they began to leave?
In any war or major crisis negotiation is the natural eventuality if the two parties of the conflict are willing to put an end to it by peaceful means.

The invasion of Iraq by the United States of America has reached a dead point, after which it cannot move, and now your army in Iraq facing the most critical and dangerous situation ever it has faced in this war’s history. That army has used its maximum force, including its best technology, and the most severe techniques of mass killing, destroying cities such as Fallujah, torturing human beings, physically and psychologically. But the result was more people joining the armed resistance.

The debate inside your Congress, and the government of the United States, and among the think tanks, about whether you should withdraw immediately or gradually reflects the correct understanding of the dangerous situation in Iraq. It is imperative for the public of the United States to understand that the armed revolution in Iraq will never die, nor be weakened by any means. On the contrary, it is growing and spreading everywhere in Iraq.
You have in the United States a proverb suggesting that if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. … The only way out from the deadly situation in Iraq is to negotiate with the Baath party and resistance leadership, and not any other party. Because those who have the biggest political and military organizations in Iraq are the determining factor in the process of the conflict.

The demands of the resistance have been published many times in the last two years. Among them are the full and immediate withdrawal from Iraq, the compensation for Iraqis and Iraq, the rebuilding of both the state and the legitimate national army of Iraq. Within the context of accepting these demands the peaceful withdrawal of the U.S. army from Iraq will be guaranteed. But withdrawing from Iraq without negotiation with the real and decisive power in Iraq definitely will not give any guarantee; on the contrary, it could lead to more tragic causalities among American troops. The leadership of the resistance has declared in many statements that it is willing to negotiate a peaceful solution for the war in Iraq. So the ball is now in the court of the United States of America.

What is the party's attitude toward Zarqawi? What do you think of the attacks against Shiite mosques and so forth?
We suspect that the Zarqawi stories are created by the CIA, because there are many indications suggesting that Zarqawi was killed in the northern part of Iraq during the beginning of Iraq's invasion. The CIA, as well as the Iranian intelligence services, are working hard to ignite sectarian strife among the Iraqis, by attacking Shiite and Sunni mosques, or by killing Iraqis according to their sectarian affiliations. This is not the work of the resistance. The armed resistance has condemned many times any attack on civilians, and repeatedly said that attacks should be concentrated only on invasion armies and the Iraqi agents supporting the invasion. As for Al Qaeda, or the bin Laden organization, I would like to remind you that this organization did not exist in Iraq before the invasion of Iraq by the United States. This organization established itself in Iraq only after the invasion. That's why it is your policy that brought Al Qaeda to Iraq, not President Saddam Hussein.

What do you think of Ambassador Khalilzad's recent statements about talking to the resistance or to the "insurgency," as he calls it? I have heard there are quiet talks underway between some U.S. officials and some Baathists.
Again the government of the United States is repeating the same mistakes of Vietnam war, by trying to formulate an exit strategy from Iraq through negotiating with minor and ineffective persons or groups. What the American ambassador in Baghdad has said reflects a psychological tactic aimed at implanting some unrest among national forces fighting against the occupation. According to the declared information from the resistance forces, published in many sources, no resistance organization has contacted the United States representatives in Iraq. To be more precise, the American ambassador has said we are trying to contact the insurgency, but he didn't say we have succeeded in opening a door with it. Let us for the purpose of argument suppose that the government of the United States negotiates the plan for leaving Iraq with a minor resistance organization: what will happen? Actually nothing, but dragging American troops deeper and deeper in the hole of the invasion, because the major organizations have made a decision not to permit any solution that rewards the invasion, or one that jumps over the only legitimate representative of Iraqi people, which is the armed resistance. The American commanders in Iraq are fully aware that there will be no real solution for the crisis in Iraq without negotiating with the major political and military power in Iraq.

Are some of the candidates who ran for election this week cooperating with the Baath? Or did the party oppose all participation in the election?
No Baathist has been permitted by the party to participate in the so-called election in Iraq. The party has declared many times that no free election, no real election could be held under the occupation, according to the international law. The strategy of the resistance is based on defeating the invasion forces by armed resistance, not by political means, out of a deep strategic understanding to the real and hidden objectives of the United States.

Is there anyone inside or outside Iraq that I can talk to besides you who represents the party? In Jordan or Syria? In Europe? Elsewhere?
According to my knowledge the party has decided before the invasion to not appoint spokesmen representing it anywhere, simply because [such] behavior could subject the party to the penetration. Therefore the main concern is to liberate and capture the land of Iraq.