Jeffrey Goldberg : The Atlantic

How Likely is an Israeli Strike on Iran This Spring?

2012-02-10T11:59:39-05:00

Less likely than some people think, according to Amir Oren:

You don't need to visit Sheldon Adelson's casinos in order to bet that the Israel Defense Forces will not be sent on a large military operation against Iran - "not at this time," as politicians would quickly add. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Winston Churchill from Jerusalem, has not started to prepare either his country men or his colleagues for the blood, toil, tears and sweat. His belligerent talk has thus far frightened Israelis more than the Iranian regime.

Nearly all countries oppose Iran having a nuclear bomb, but not a single one - especially the one that would need to approve an Israeli operation - believes an IDF operation this spring is a necessary evil. It isn't that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have despaired of launching one. In order to launch a campaign, they need approval from more than half the 14 ministers belonging to the ministerial committee on security affairs. If the Yisrael Beiteinu ministers were to leave the government should Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman be indicted, there would be 12 ministers left on the body. Then, Netanyahu and Barak will need to pull five more ministers onto their side in order to block those considered opponents of an attack.

I think it's perfectly plausible that Netanyahu could order a strike soon, though I'm less sure of that than either Leon Panetta or Ronen Bergman. In part this is because I tend to think it is something close to impossible for any Israeli prime minister to launch an attack that could have adverse consequences on the United States without first getting the approval of the U.S. Netanyahu, who is a keen student of the U.S.-Israel relationship -- and who knows, as all Israeli prime ministers in recent memory have known, that the U.S. is Israel's indispensable ally and patron -- simply couldn't afford a rupture with Washington, unless he was absolutely confident that his only choice was between a break with Washington or a second Holocaust (a fear I wrote about in this Atlantic story). I write about the myth that Israel is a purely independent player in this drama here, by the way.

Bashar al-Assad's IT Department Studied Under Mel Brooks

2012-02-10T11:31:35-05:00

As Goldblog discussed Wednesday, the Anonymous hackers collective had some easy fun unlocking Bashar al-Assad's e-mails and sharing them with the world. His password, as much of the world now knows, was, "1-2-3-4-5." Obviously, Bashar's IT Department is partial to Mel Brooks:.

Are Pro-Israel American Jews Warming to Obama?

2012-02-09T13:13:42-05:00

Ben Smith (still writing in Politico, as if he's not busy enough with his new job), takes notice of a softening in opinion among hawkish Jews about President Obama:

"Most of the pro-Israel community is now convinced that when President Obama says he will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability, he means it," said Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.). He cited a litany of muscular actions, including SEAL raids on Osama bin Laden and Somali kidnappers, drone strikes around the world, and a shift of American military assets toward Iran, which he said have "for the moment given pause to those who wondered about the president's mettle in using force against America's and Israel's enemies."
The shift has had consequences through Democratic politics. Rothman, redistricted into a tough primary with Rep. Bill Pascrell, is seeking to draw a contrast based on Rothman's hawkishly pro-Israel record.
That's no longer a position that would put him in conflict with the popular Democratic president.
"Constituents and relatives who were otherwise regularly calling to inquire whether the president really felt the need to protect Israel in his guts are not now calling me so much with those kinds of questions," he said.
Indeed, the targeted actions against Iran - and in particular the assassinations of civilian scientists, for which the U.S. has not taken credit - have made it difficult to make the case that Obama is being insufficiently ruthless in his approach. (Difficult, but not impossible: Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton recently described assassinations as "half-measures.")

By the way, a Boltonesque "full-measure" re: Iran would be shooting an Iranian nuclear scientist, burying him, then digging him up and shooting him again.

Syria On Track to Kill More People Than Died in Both Intifadas

2012-02-09T09:30:27-05:00

It's estimated that roughly 6,000 people have been killed in the Syrian uprising since it began last March, and the Assad regime is upping the tempo of murder (thanks in part to cover provided by Russia). Hard numbers are difficult to come by these days, because Syria is too dangerous a place for human rights monitors to function safely. The United Nations estimate of 5,400 deaths as of January does not take into account the recent slaughters in the city of Homs.

I was curious to see how long it would take for Bashar al-Assad to kill more people than died in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since December, 1987, when the first Intifada erupted, so I went to the website of B'Tselem, Israel's top human rights group, and did some addition. A total of 2,294 Palestinians and Israelis were killed in the first Uprising. This number includes Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces, Israeli soldiers and civilians killed by Palestinians, and Palestinians killed by other Palestinians. The second Intifada, which began in December of 2000, took many more lives. The total number of Palestinians and Israelis killed since 2000 is 10,760, according to my math. So, a total of 13,054 Palestinians and Israelis have been killed since 1987. Assad has killed roughly 6,000 people over the past 11 or so months. So, to be conservative about this, let's say that it will take him another 10 months to reach the 13,000 mark. (Although I do expect the pace of state murder to increase, barring some sort of intervention.)

And just to provide you with another benchmark of violence, roughly 3,500 people were killed during the three decades of the Irish Troubles. So, Assad is quite the achiever. Of course, in 1982 his father murdered somewhere between 10,000-25,000 people in one city, Hama, over a couple of days, so the son is still a piker domestically.

When Journalists Write Like Flacks

2012-02-08T15:26:43-05:00

From a Marcus Brauchli memo to employees of the ever-shrinking Washington Post, which just announced a new round of buyouts:

Today, we are announcing that we will offer a voluntary buyout to some Newsroom employees. Our objective is a limited staff reduction that won't affect the quality, ambition or authority of our journalism.

Of course, right? Why would fewer employees in a labor-intensive business possibly mean a diminution in quality, ambition or authority? Washington Post journalists, like all other journalists, are trained to mock spin like this.

Some Suggestions for New Assad E-Mail Passwords

2012-02-08T12:25:48-05:00

Bashar al-Assad's office e-mail accounts were hacked by the Anonymous collective the other day, in part because... well, it's hard to believe:

While Anonymous is infamous for its hacking know-how, it doesn't take a genius computer programmer to guess one of the passwords commonly used by Assad's office accounts: 12345. The string of consecutive numbers is the second-weakest password according to a 2011 study.

As a public service to the Ba'ath regime in its dying days, I thought I would suggest a few alternative e-mail passwords he could use:

1. MyWifeIsSoHot
2. MyWifeIsSmokingHot
3. QueenRaniaIsSoHot
4. SergeiLavrovIsSoHot
5. Rosebud
6. ArabSpringGotoHellAsstards
7. KissMyAssSusanRice
8. IWasGoingtoExpelYouAnywayHamas
9. JewsSuck36
10. IWantDaddyNow

Update: Max Fisher has contributed numbers 11-13, in honor of that wonderful and incisive Vogue profile of the Assads:

11. WildlyDemocracticPrinciples
12. JoanJulietBuckIsSoHot
13. Vogue4Lyfe

Iranian Website Calls for Murder of All Jewish Israelis

2012-02-08T09:25:09-05:00

This just in from the Department of Non-Ambiguous Iranian Threats to Wipe Out The Jews: A regime-linked website, Alef, has produced an article calling on Iran to use its missile arsenal to kill all of Israel's Jews, and describes just how this could be done. The author, Alireza Forghani, is linked to office of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the article's release coincided with Khamenei's latest "Israel is a cancerous tumor" speech.

Here's a bit of Forghani wrote (you can read the entire translation on MEMRI's website):

"Israel is the only country in the world with a Jewish majority. According to the last census of [the] 'Israel Central Bureau of Statistics,' this country has a population of 7.5 million, including 5.8 million Jews. The other ethnicities in [its] population structure are Muslims, Christians, Druzes [sic], and Samarians. The largest ethnic minorities are [the] so-called Israeli Arabs."
"Residents of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and H[a]ifa can be targeted even by Shah[a]b 3 [missiles]. Population density in these three adjacent areas composes about 60% of [the total] Israeli population. Sejjil missiles can target power plants, sewage treatment facilities, energy resources, [and] transportation and [communication] infrastructures; and in the second stage, Shahab 3, Ghadr, and Ashura missiles can target urban settlements until [the] final annihilation of Israel['s] people.

But here is my favorite part of the MEMRI entry:

Alireza Forghani provides the following details about himself on his blog:

"forghani_alireza@yahoo.com"

"Married, a resident of Tehran, born August 31, 1983
"Telephone: 09124906386
"Favorite book: The Absolute Rule of the Jurisprudent
"Favorite sport: Jihad in fierce war"

I've emailed at Forghani at his Yahoo address, seeking an interview.

Saudi Arabia Promises To Go Nuclear if Iran Does

2012-02-07T16:28:54-05:00

More evidence that Saudi Arabia will not sit idly by if Iran goes nuclear, which means more evidence that the Middle East could be looking at a terrible nightmare, a nuclear arms race in the world's most volatile region, which means that the chance for escalation to accidental nuclear war (which I wrote about here) would eventually be quite high:

A senior Saudi Arabian diplomat and member of the ruling royal family has raised the spectre of nuclear conflict in the Middle East if Iran comes close to developing a nuclear weapon.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington, warned senior Nato military officials that the existence of such a device "would compel Saudi Arabia ... to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences".

He did not state explicitly what these policies would be, but a senior official in Riyadh who is close to the prince said yesterday his message was clear.

"We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't. It's as simple as that," the official said. "If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit."

Walter Russell Mead notes that Saudi Arabia's pronounced interest in keeping Iran from going nuclear suggests that maybe, just maybe, this isn't only about The Jooz.

Asma Assad Condemns the Slaughter of Arabs

2012-02-07T15:14:43-05:00

Walter Russell Mead notes that Asma Assad, the wife of Bashar al-Assad (and Vogue pin-up), gets very upset when Arabs get killed. But only one sort of Arab:

In January 2009, a prominent political icon took to CNN to express moral outrage over the actions of a Middle Eastern government attacking civilians. It was a moving performance, filled with pathos and righteous anger:
"The numbers continuously and consistently increase...it's not even day by day, it's hour by hour. 824 people dead. Two hours ago that number was 821...
This is the 21st century. Where in the world could this happen? Unfortunately, it is happening.
[...]
You send your children off to school knowing that they'll be safe, knowing that they're going to get a good education. Mothers in [x] don't do that. Children don't go to school because it's not safe, because -- it's just beyond belief, to be honest.
[...]
Mothers -- think about when you put your children to bed at night. This is something I think on a daily basis. You put your children to bed at night and you expect to see them in the morning. That's a luxury that people in [x] just do not have.

So what would it have been like for you having -- living under those circumstances? That is something that we just cannot survive and wait for it to stop.

She was, of course, talking about Palestinians. About the slaughter of her own people by her husband, ~~she is silent~~ she is supportive.

The Most Consequential News From the Middle East Today

2012-02-07T11:20:39-05:00

The most important news out of the Middle East is not the Hamas-PA Agreement 4.0 (or 5.0 or 6.0, who can remember?). For various reasons, it doesn't seem likely to work (you can read Robert Danin here on some of the difficulties). Nor is it the "very productive meeting" Russia's foreign minister held in Damascus with the blood-soakwd Assad regime. Nor is it even news that the World International Zionist Organization is apparently promoting pornographic Purim costumes (hey, I aggregate -- you decide). It is, instead, this announcement from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, that Saudi Arabia will not allow the price of oil to rise about $100 a barrel:

"We can use our leverage, our excess capacity to be sure to pump more [oil] if needed so it will not impact the consumer countries while they're getting out of their recessions slowly but surely," the prince said.

As for Iran, he said it is important for the U.S. and other nations to put sanctions on the "renegade country" to force its government to negotiate. Issuing an ultimatum of war would push Iran to the "desperate move" of blocking the vital oil shipment waterway.

Why is this so important? Because it clears the way for an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. I'm not suggesting coordination between Israel and Saudi Arabia on this, any more than I would ever suggest that Superpacs coordinate with presidential campaign staffs. I'm merely noting that one factor that inhibits Israel from striking at Iran is fear that an attack will cause Iran to retaliate against Persian Gulf shipping (among other things), which would cause oil prices to skyrocket, which would, of course, generate a fair amount of anger directed against Israel.

Ayatollah Khamenei: 'Now I'm Really Angry'

2012-02-06T16:02:37-05:00

This is semi-amusing, insofar as any news out of Tehran is semi-amusing: The Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has announced that now he's really pissed off at Israel, as opposed to before, when he was just kind of kidding around:

"From now onward, we will support and help any nations, any groups fighting against the Zionist regime across the world, and we are not afraid of declaring this," Khamenei said during a rare Friday prayer lecture at Tehran University.

How this is a policy shift is beyond me: He's been paying Hezbollah and Hamas to kill Israelis for years. Perhaps this is just his way of acknowledging that his dear Syrian friend, Bashar al-Assad, is too busy killing his own people to sponsor the killing of Israelis, so he has to look around for someone to take Assad's place in the rejectionist front. Maybe he could open a website to take on-line applications.

What Is at the Root of the Israel-Iran Confrontation?

2012-02-05T10:55:51-05:00

Since we seem to be moving (once again) toward some sort of confrontation with Iran, I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit one of the main reasons the world is sliding toward war. I'm opposed to an Israeli strike on Iran; I'm also opposed to an American strike on Iran. Military bombardments could lead to consequences we haven't yet fully thought through. And I believe there is still time for the U.S., working in concert with its allies, to bring about a change in Iranian behavior. I also believe that President Obama is serious when he says that all options are on the table. But I'm also opposed to the idea that we should give up and move toward a policy of containing Iran. I don't think containment would work, for reasons I outlined here.

One of the problems with the anti-attack crowd is that it downplays the threat Iran poses, particularly to Israel, but also to the U.S., to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and to Iran's non-Jewish neighbors as well.

But since the worldwide conversation has turned again toward the alleged imminence of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, I asked Adam Chandler, the Goldblog Deputy-Editor-for-Studying-Iranian Anti-Semitism-So-I-Don't-Have-To, to put together a bit of documentary proof about why the Israeli leadership might find Iran's leaders, and their intentions, to be so worrying.

Chandler reminded me that one sure way to tell that an opponent of military action is not grappling seriously with the evidence that Iran really, truly, actually prefers to see the Jewish state physically eliminated is if said opponent makes mention of the old line, "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never actually said he wanted to destroy Israel."

A notable example came last year when Reza Aslan attempted to explain the statement as a Farsi translation gaffe. In response, we here at the Goldblog assembled a list of twenty completely unambiguous statements by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that show his true feelings. Often these lines come from translations made by official Iranian news sources, which actually emphasize the destruction. Here are a few to refresh your minds:

July, 2006: "Nations in the region will be more furious every day. It won't take long before the wrath of the people turns into a terrible explosion that will wipe the Zionist entity off the map...The basic problem in the Islamic world is the existence of the Zionist regime, and the Islamic world and the region must mobilize to remove this problem. It is a usurper that our enemies made and imposed on the Muslim world, a regime that prevented the progress of the region's nations, a regime that all Muslims must join hands in isolating worldwide."

October, 2006: "This regime (Israel) will be gone, definitely..."You (the Western powers) should know that any government that stands by the Zionist regime from now on will not see any result but the hatred of the people...The wrath of the region's people is boiling... You should not complain that we did not give a warning. We are saying this explicitly now..."

January, 2008: "I advise you to abandon the filthy Zionist entity which has reached the end of the line... It has lost its reason to be and will sooner or later fall. The ones who still support the criminal Zionists should know that the occupiers' days are numbered."

February, 2008: "World powers have created a black and dirty microbe named the Zionist regime and have unleashed it like a savage animal on the nations of the region."

Boiling wraths! Filthy Zionist entities! Black and dirty microbes! Ahmadinejad is not just an average spewer of anti-Israel invective, he is the Robert Browning of hate. It is not clear why some people won't give him his due.

There is another argument floating across the Internets, that Ahmadinejad's words don't matter, that he is not the one in charge of the nuclear program, and that his anti-Semitism is far more extreme than that of other regime leaders. Well, here is the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, speaking a couple of days ago: "The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor that should be removed and will be removed, God willing."

Of course, a few of you may be thinking, "Well, words are words. It's not like Iran is parading Shahab-3 missiles down the streets of Tehran with banners and posters talking about the destruction of Israel, right?"

The banner on this missile says: "Israel must be uprooted and erased from history."

This banner even included a translation:

Accordingly, we here at the Goldblog will continue to issue updates on Iranian rhetoric-revisionism.

Ex-Komen Official Mollie Williams Has No Plans to Return to Group

2012-02-03T18:17:28-05:00

The ex-Komen foundation official Mollie Williams, who oversaw the group's grant program until she resigned to protest Komen's decision to blackball Planned Parenthood (as first reported in this space), just e-mailed me a statement in which she -- very graciously, as you will see -- praises her ex-employer for reversing its stance on Planned Parenthood funding:

I am pleased that Susan G. Komen for the Cure apologized for its actions and seemingly reversed course. Planned Parenthood and Komen have complementary missions. They can accomplish much more together than divided. It was an honor to lead Komen's community health programs, and I wish them the best of luck as they move beyond this crisis.

I e-mailed Williams back, asking her if she would consider returning to Komen now that it has fixed the problem that caused her to resign. She wrote in response: "While their mission remains very important to me, I have no plans to return to Komen. It was an honor to lead Komen's community health efforts over the past six years, but I am ready for a new challenge. I will be forever grateful to Komen for giving me the opportunity to make a meaningful difference in the lives of women." She also said she's been contacted about possible job opportunities by several organizations (though she is still without work); that several hundred people have gotten in touch with her to offer her encouragement; and that it's even been suggested to her that she run for Congress.

Does Samsung Know Something About a Coming Attack on Iran?

2012-02-03T16:15:29-05:00

Here is an Israeli Samsung commercial that, quite incredibly, depicts a Mossad operation in Iran. For the finale, it even shows an explosion at what we can only assume to be an Iranian nuclear site.

You need not be fluent in the language of Ben Yehuda to understand what's happening:

According to Haaretz, Iran is now considering a ban on Samsung products. Obviously, if it waits a little while, Samsung -- or anyone else for that matter -- won't be allowed to export to Iran.

State Department: Dennis Ross Does Not Have a Bat Phone

2012-02-03T12:45:00-05:00

A strange story appeared in Haaretz the other day asserting that Dennis Ross, the former Middle East negotiator, and recently departed Iran expert on President Obama's National Security Council, was provided a secure telephone line to the White House from his new perch at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Like many stories in the Israeli press, this one was hard to understand: If the President, or his national security adviser, wanted to talk to Dennis Ross about sensitive information (as they would, and should), why wouldn't they just invite him over? The Washington Institute's offices are about five blocks from the White House. It's always safer to talk in the White House than from an insecure office building, even if you are talking into a supersecret shoe phone.

In any case, the breathless story caught the attention of the usual suspects, who saw something of a conspiracy in the placement of such a secure line in the office of Dennis Ross, who is someone disliked by some in the Anti-Israel Lobby.

The only problem: The Obama Administration says it's not true. Tommy Vietor, the spokesman for the National Security Council told me, "Dennis Ross doesn't have a classified phone." And Victoria Nuland, the spokeswoman for the State Department, where Ross still serves as unpaid adviser, told me in an e-mail, "He has not been issued any kind of bat phone, red phone, funny phone, etc."

Now, of course, they could be playing me (though their motivation would be obscure), so the next time I'm at the Washington Institute is I'm going to go into Ross's office and pick up all his telephones and say, "Connect me to the President," and if Obama comes on to any of the lines I'll know that the Administration isn't telling the truth.

Susan G. Komen Reverses Course, Will Allow Planned Parenthood Funding

2012-02-03T11:41:37-05:00

Facing a revolt among donors and supporters, Susan G. Komen for the Cure has just announced it has reversed its decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood.

One day, public relations scholars -- if such a species exists -- will make this week's events at the Susan G. Komen for the Cure a case study in what not to do in a controversy.

Here is the Komen statement:

We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives.

The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.

It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics - anyone's politics.

Starting this afternoon, we will have calls with our network and key supporters to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work. We ask for the public's understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve.

We extend our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support we have received from so many in the past few days and we sincerely hope that these changes will be welcomed by those who have expressed their concern.

More Coverage of Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood:

Religion in America, or, Are These People Completely Nuts?

2012-02-03T11:30:35-05:00

This is ghastly on so many levels I can't begin to tell you. For one thing, it's "Birkenau," not "Berkendal." But forget that: It's a desecration. (You can read more about Eddie Long here). I actually thought I would be amused by this, but I'm not. Okay, I was a little amused, but mostly I'm appalled:

An Inside Look at Susan G. Komen for the Cure's Spin Machine

2012-02-03T10:53:30-05:00

Below you will find the internal documents circulated by Susan G. Komen for the Cure officials that instruct employees how to obfuscate the issues when confronted with questions about why Komen cut-off funding to Planned Parenthood:

Top Susan G. Komen Official Resigned Over Planned Parenthood Cave-In

2012-02-02T09:28:45-05:00

Sources with direct knowledge of the Komen decision-making process said recent policies were adopted specifically to cut funding to Planned Parenthood.

Update: Mollie Williams, the Komen official who resigned to protest the organization's decision to defund Planned Parenthood, sent me a statement, which is reprinted in full at the end of this post.

An entirely avoidable, and deeply regrettable, controversy has been raging this week over the decision by the (formerly highly esteemed) Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, the world's leading breast-cancer-research advocacy group, to cut its support for Planned Parenthood, which used Komen dollars (about $600,000 annually) to pay for breast-screening exams for poor people. (The Atlantic's Nicholas Jackson has an excellent summary of the controversy so far.)

MORE ON THIS STORY

Komen, the marketing juggernaut that brought the world the ubiquitous pink-ribbon campaign, says it cut off Planned Parenthood because of a newly adopted foundation rule prohibiting it from funding any group that is under formal investigation by a government body. (Planned Parenthood is being investigated by Representative Cliff Stearns, an anti-abortion Florida Republican, who says he is trying to learn if the group spent public money to provide abortions.)

But three sources with direct knowledge of the Komen decision-making process told me that the rule was adopted in order to create an excuse to cut off Planned Parenthood. (Komen gives out grants to roughly 2,000 organizations, and the new "no investigations" rule applies to only one so far.) The decision to create a rule that would cut funding to Planned Parenthood, according to these sources, was driven by the organization's new senior vice president for public policy, Karen Handel, a former gubernatorial candidate from Georgia who is staunchly anti-abortion and who has said that since she is "pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood." (The Komen grants to Planned Parenthood did not pay for abortion or contraception services, only cancer detection, according to all parties involved.) I've tried to reach Handel for comment, and will update this post if I speak with her.

The decision, made in December, caused an uproar inside Komen. Three sources told me that the organization's top public-health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board's decision to cut off Planned Parenthood. Williams, who served as the managing director of community-health programs, was responsible for directing the distribution of $93 million in annual grants. Williams declined to comment when I reached her yesterday on whether she had resigned her position in protest, and she declined to speak about any other aspects of the controversy.

Three sources told me the organization's top public-health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board's decision to cut off Planned Parenthood.

But John Hammarley, who until recently served as Komen's senior communications adviser and who was charged with managing the public-relations aspects of Komen's Planned Parenthood grant, said that Williams believed she could not honorably serve in her position once Komen had caved to pressure from the anti-abortion right. "Mollie is one of the most highly respected and ethical people inside the organization, and she felt she couldn't continue under these conditions," Hammarley said. "The Komen board of directors are very politically savvy folks, and I think over time they thought if they gave in to the very aggressive propaganda machine of the anti-abortion groups, that the issue would go away. It seemed very shortsighted to me."

Hammarley explained that the Planned Parenthood issue had vexed Komen for some time. "About a year ago, a small group of people got together inside the organization to talk about what the options were, what would be the ramifications of staying the course, or of telling our affiliates they can't fund Planned Parenthood, or something in between." He went on, "As we looked at the ramifications of ceasing all funding, we felt it would be worse from a practical standpoint, from a public-relations standpoint, and from a mission standpoint. The mission standpoint is, 'How could we abandon our commitment to the screening work done by Planned Parenthood?'" But the Komen board made the decision despite the recommendation of the organization's professional staff to keep funding Planned Parenthood.

Hammarley was laid off by Komen last year as part of a reorganization of the group's media division, but he says he has no bitter feelings toward the group: "This organization has saved lives and raised consciousness all over the world. It's an extraordinarily successful story, and I couldn't find a single bad word to say about its work. But it has had some growing pains in its politics, and we see that with the Planned Parenthood story."

He called the controversy over Planned Parenthood funding "a burr in the saddle of Komen, but it withstood the issue for years and years." Hammarley said the issue became newly urgent after Handel was brought on last year. "The internal debate on a senior level rose in the past eight months or so, coinciding with her hiring."

Another source directly involved with Komen's management activities told me that when the organization's leaders learned of the Stearns investigation, they saw an opportunity. "The cart came before the horse in this case," said the source, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity. "The rule was created to give the board of directors the excuse to stop the funding of Planned Parenthood. It was completely arbitrary. If they hadn't come up with this particular rule, they would have come up with something else in order to separate themselves from Planned Parenthood."

Komen officials have denied that the decision has had anything to do with external pressure. In an internal Komen memorandum I obtained titled "Updated Granting Criteria/Reactive Statement and Talking Points," distributed in December, Komen officials deny to their employees that politics had anything to do with the decision. The memo, written as a Q&A, reads in part:

Q(uestion) 7: Is Komen giving into pressure from the Catholic Church/anti-abortion groups/the political right in making this change?

A(nswer) 7: Komen's decision to fund ANY grant is based on our mission priorities, a thorough community assessment, and strict eligibility and performance standards. Our granting criteria reflect our dedication to our mission and our consistent effort to invest our donors' dollars responsibly in support of our efforts to end breast cancer.

Q8: Planned Parenthood provides health services in many of the nation's poorest communities. How does your new policy align with your mission of serving women who lack resources to pay for important breast health services?

A8: Susan G. Komen is deeply committed to providing breast health services to women throughout the U.S. It is our belief that where a woman lives should not determine whether she lives. Komen provided funds for 700,000 breast screenings last year alone, and provided financial and social support to another 100,000 women, as part of our $93 million investment in education, public health outreach and service to vulnerable women last year alone. That work will continue. We believe these new standards will further enhance the integrity of our granting process and strengthen our overall community health program.

Another memo, this one from Elizabeth Thompson, the president of Komen, outlines to employees the new grant-making criteria:

In order to align the terms of the grant contract with our grant eligibility criteria and to ensure that our granting meets the highest standards, several important updates will become effective January 1, 2012. Specifically:

Currently, a Komen grant may be terminated if, among other things, the grantee loses or changes its tax exempt status, is barred from receiving federal or state funds, or if we learn of any financial and/or administrative improprieties. Going forward, these same standards will now also be used in determining eligibility for Komen grants.

Further, should Komen become aware that an applicant or its affiliates are under formal investigation for financial or administrative improprieties by local, state or federal authorities, the applicant will be ineligible to receive a grant. An organization may regain its eligibility once the investigation is concluded if the organization and its related affiliates are cleared of any wrongdoing.

This last condition, of course, is troubling on its face. Any legislator or prosecutor opposed to any aspect of a breast-cancer-care organization's work could affect its Komen funding merely by announcing the opening of an investigation. (Please read this Atlantic piece by Linda Hirshman for more on the dangerous politics of this decision.) The whole episode is troubling, and quite sad, because it will inevitably affect Komen's ability to do its work, which is of paramount importance to the cause of women's health.

Update: Mollie Williams, the Komen official who resigned to protest the organization's decision to defund Planned Parenthood, just sent me this statement, which I am reprinting in full:

Thank you for contacting me. As a public health professional, I must honor the confidentiality of my former employer, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and for this reason, I 'm not responding to questions about Komen's decision to no longer fund Planned Parenthood.
However, anyone who knows me personally would tell you that I am an advocate for women's health. I have dedicated my career to fighting for the rights of the marginalized and underserved. And I believe it would be a mistake for any organization to bow to political pressure and compromise its mission.
I have deep admiration for Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the millions of women who benefit from Komen's work. It was an honor to oversee and expand their public health efforts during my six years there. At the same time, I respect the work of Planned Parenthood, including their lifesaving efforts to detect cancer in its earliest stages.
The divide between these two very important organizations saddens me. I am hopeful their passionate and courageous leaders, Nancy Brinker and Cecile Richards, can swiftly resolve this conflict in a manner that benefits the women they both serve.

Image: Associated Press.

Pakistan, Up to Its Usual Tricks in Afghanistan

2012-02-01T17:22:03-05:00

Shocking news from Kabul:

Pakistan's foreign minister on Wednesday brushed aside claims made by Afghan insurgents in a secret NATO report that Pakistan has been directing the Taliban's battle to regain power in Afghanistan.

"We have no hidden agenda in Afghanistan," Hina Rabbani Khar said in Kabul, where she expressed support for the Afghan government's nascent peace negotiations with the Taliban. "These claims have been made many, many times. Pakistan stands behind any initiative that the Afghan government takes for peace."

The foreign minister's statement is, in one sense, true: Pakistan doesn't do very much to hid its agenda in Afghanistan, which is ultimately to restore its ally, the Taliban, to power. For a brief history of Pakistani lying, please read this.

Daniel Pearl, Ten Years Gone

2012-02-01T13:26:45-05:00

Today marks ten years since Daniel Pearl, the intrepid and humane Wall Street Journal reporter, was murdered in Pakistan by anti-American, anti-Semitic terrorists. He is not, thank God, forgotten. May his memory continue to be a blessing.

Daniel Pearl Foundation

Nasrallah Not So Popular in Syria, Which is a Great Thing

2012-02-01T13:21:43-05:00

News today from Syria, which is all-but-embroiled in a civil war now, took a turn for the chesty when the secretary general of the Free Syria Army put Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on notice for backing the regime Assad. From Ynet:

The secretary general of the Free Syria Army's military council warned that Syrian rebels will settle the score with Nasrallah and his group at court once the Syrian leader is deposed.

The Free Syria Army has made some gains this week as the fighting intensifies in various parts of the country, including the neighborhoods outside of Damascus. In related chutzpadik boldness, five Iranian hostages who were accused of trying to violently put down dissent in the city of Homs were reportedly moved to Lebanon. Or in other words, the Free Syria Army is putting everybody on notice.

Robert Kaplan on John Mearsheimer (With a Fallows Guest Appearance)

2012-02-01T10:45:08-05:00

James Fallows has an interesting post about Robert Kaplan's sympathetic Atlantic profile of John Mearsheimer, the University of Chicago academic whose interests include advancing "realist" foreign policy theories; making lists of bad Jews; and endorsing books by neo-Nazis.

Much of the profile concerns Mearsheimer's belief that the U.S. is heading toward confrontation with China. Kaplan endorses the view; Fallows calls it nonsense (politely, of course):

"(Kaplan) also explains why Mearsheimer believes a strategic/military confrontation between the US and China truly is inevitable -- and why he, Kaplan, mainly shares this view. I mainly disagree with both of them, and the basis of our disagreement touches on another important theme of the article.

In an article of my own in next month's issue, and in my forthcoming book, I argue that China has too many things going on, and going wrong, within its own borders to have the time, energy, skill, or ambition for much of an "expansionist" world effort. From the outside, it looks like an unstoppable juggernaut. From inside, especially from the perspective of those trying to run it, it looks like a rambling wreck that narrowly avoids one disaster after another. The thrust of Mearsheimer's argument is that such internal complications simply don't matter: the sheer increase in China's power will bring disruption with it. I am saying: if you knew more about China, you would be less worried, especially about military confrontations. He is saying: "knowing" about China is a distraction. What matters are the implacable forces.

You can read the whole of Fallows' post here. I don't know enough about China to weigh in on one side or another, but I do trust Fallows on these matters.

On the matter of the main cause of Mearsheimer's international celebrity, the book he co-wrote with Harvard's Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby," I think Jim's approach is overly benign. Here is what he has to say about Kaplan's treatment of this tendentious, Jew-baiting book:

Kaplan engages the merits of the Mearsheimer-Walt argument more deeply, and in a fairer and calmer frame of mind, than most other treatments of the book. He doesn't agree with all of it, but he comes down thus:

[Mearsheimer and Walt argue that] the reason the Israelis are not more cooperative is that in the final analysis, they don't have to be--which, in turn, is because of the pro-Israel lobby.... I see nothing wrong or illegitimate about this core argument. And no amount of nitpicking by their critics of The Israel Lobby's 100 pages of endnotes can detract from it. I say this as someone who is a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces and who supported the Iraq War (a position I have come to deeply regret).

To write that Kaplan engages the "merits" of the Mearsheimer-Walt argument is to suggest that it has merit. Kaplan whitewashes the content of the book, and its message; Mearsheimer and Walt advance the Mel Gibson theory of foreign affairs, which is to say, the Jews cause all wars. They blame Jews for bringing anti-Semitism on themselves; they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of lobbying; they hold Israel to an absurd double-standard, and so on. I'm not going to rehearse the litany of their sins at length; for more in-depth (and devastating) critiques of their thesis (not of their "footnotes," as Kaplan would have it), please go here, or here, or here, or here, or here or here, or here , or here, or here, or here, or here or here. Or why not visit them all?

I would like to highlight just one of Kaplan's statements re: Mearsheimer, from this passage from his article:

Mearsheimer certainly triggered a bloodbath with a 2006 article that became a 2007 book written with the Harvard professor Stephen M. Walt and dedicated to Huntington, The Israel Lobby and U.S.Foreign Policy, which alleges that groups supportive of Israel have pivotally undermined American foreign-policy interests, especially in the run-up to the Iraq War. Some critics, like the Johns Hopkins University professor Eliot Cohen, accused Mearsheimer and Walt outright of anti-Semitism, noting that their opinions had won the endorsement of the white supremacist David Duke. Many others accused them of providing potent ammunition for anti-Semites. A former Chicago colleague of Mearsheimer's labeled the book "piss-poor, monocausal social science."

Last fall, Mearsheimer reenergized his critics by favorably blurbing a book on Jewish identity that many commentators denounced as grotesquely anti-Semitic. The blurb became a blot on Mearsheimer's judgment, given the book's author's revolting commentary elsewhere, and was considered evidence of an unhealthy obsession with Israel and Jewishness on Mearsheimer's part.

The real tragedy of such controversies, as lamentable as they are, is that they threaten to obscure the urgent and enduring message of Mearsheimer's life's work, which topples conventional foreign-policy shibboleths and provides an unblinking guide to the course the United States should follow in the coming decades.

I will put aside Kaplan's inability to reach his own conclusions about Mearsheimer's intentions and prejudices (is Kaplan among the "many others" who think Mearsheimer and Walt provided "potent ammunition for anti-Semites"? Does he himself think Mearsheimer's endorsement of a neo-Nazi's anti-Jewish screed is evidence of an "unhealthy obsession with Israel and Jewishness on Mearsheimer's part"? His readers would like to know.).

My issue is with Kaplan's statement that "the real tragedy of such controversies" is that they divert attention from Mearsheimer's work. No. No, no, no. The real tragedy is that the University of Chicago provides a national platform for a man who scapegoats and demonizes Jews.

Looking Forward to Reading Husain Haqqani's Next Book

2012-01-31T21:29:32-05:00

Husain Haqqani, the former ambassador of Pakistan to the U.S. -- the man removed from office because of a dubious memo suggesting that Haqqani, horror of horrors, may have pushed for more democracy in his homeland -- has been let out of Pakistan by the country's Supreme Court, which appears no longer interested in the sorry episode known as "Memogate." Haqqani, readers of Goldblog will recall, is a respected academic who wrote, before taking on the thankless job of ambassador, the best book on the Pakistani military and its relationship to political Islam, "Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military." Our hope here is that Haqqani, now freed from the drudgery of diplomatic work, will turn his attention to writing the definitive book on the tortured relationship between the U.S. and his country.

Saudis Doing Their Part to Clear the Field for Iran Attack

2012-01-31T14:05:42-05:00

From Reuters:

Saudi Arabia's oil production appears to be "ramping up" and can fill some of the demand shortfalls caused by sanctions on Iranian exports, CIA Director David Petraeus said on Tuesday.

Sanctions on Iran oil imports appear to be biting much more in recent weeks, he said at a Senate intelligence committee hearing.

China has reduced its imports of Iranian oil and "it remains to be seen whether that continues. It appears that Saudi Arabian production is ramping up and can fill some of the demand that might have been met by Iranian exports now that there are the sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran," Petraeus said.

My guess is that it probably wasn't the best idea -- whoever it was in Tehran who allegedly cooked it up -- to launch a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. Because the Saudi response is the most effective response they have: Pump more oil, depress prices, which hurts Iran more than anyone else, and create a cushion for the world's oil consumers should conflict break out in the Persian Gulf, a conflict which would most likely send oil prices through the roof. But less through the roof if the Saudis are pumping like crazy.