September 15, 2007Republican Guards, or Revolutionary?A quick query: did others notice this slip of the tongue by Petraeus during his 9/10 interview w/ Hume? HUME: What's the Quds force, for those who may not know? As I said, it was just a slip of the tongue, but it was somewhat amusing to see Petreaus describe the Quds force as an "element" of the Republican, rather than Revolutionary, Guards (Hume, predictably, missed that part of the slip-up). Of course, the Quds Force is a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and the Republican Guard was one of Saddam's more loyal military branches. It was all on par with the cheery conflating of varied bad guys that passes as policy in this Administration. And note too Petraeus felt compelled to mention that Crocker's intermediary in Baghdad, the Iranian Ambassador there, is a member of the Quds Force. This was meant to signal in a very public forum that Crocker's dialogue with his counterpart amounted to speaking with a prominent terrorist (seemingly anyone our Beltway notables don't like these days, from Sy Hersh to Walid Mouallem, say), should the designation of the Revolutionary Guards (or merely the Quds Force, if the 'moderates' in DC win the debate!) as a "specially designated terrorist" occur. Indeed, I couldn't help thinking Petraeus was falling somewhat into the Cheney camp on Iran policy. Witness: PETRAEUS: So Iran's role in Iraq is very destructive. It is something that Iraqis certainly would hope would be much more of a normal role among countries, but one about which they have become very concerned in recent months as they, along with us, have learned the extent of Iranian involvement. It fell on Crocker to then state: CROCKER: Well, I have had a couple of meetings now with my Iranian counterpart, in which we've laid out very clearly what our concerns are, and said that what they need to do is align practice on the ground with their stated policy of support for a stable, democratic Iraq. Crocker just speaks of his "Iranian counterpart", not following the more inflammatory thrust of Petreaus's description of him as a leading Quds player. And he stresses that a total melt-down in Iraq is not in Iran's interest, as have other sane observers very often. Again, this post was just meant as a quick aside to point out Petreaus' somewhat sloppy mix-up here. Still, I found it worrisome to see Petreaus almost taking a Cheney-esque line on Iran. Hopefully Foggy Bottom and Admiral Fallon (and hopefully Gates and some of the Joint Chiefs) will continue to keep more catastrophic adventurism at bay, though of course, The Decider looms large in all this, via Cheney's noxious interventions, as we're all painfully aware. Posted by Gregory at September 15, 2007 07:53 PMComments
Greg... I think you're looking for daylight between the obvious neo-con fantasies of Petraeus, and Crockers position. Its not there. I mean, how out to lunch do you have to be to describe Iran's "defeat of the United States" as a "narrow tactical desire"? Only a neo-con would describe Iran's actual goal (withdrawal of US forces from Iraq) with "defeat of the US".... because no diplomat who wasn't a wingnut neocon would use the kind of language (desire to defeat the US) Crocker used. Given that Iran has a legitimate interest in what happens in Iraq, a real diplomat would have phrased Iran's goals in a way that recognizes those legitimate interests. Posted by: p_lukasiak at September 15, 2007 09:50 PM | Permalink to this comment |
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