Chilling Interview On ‘Fresh Air’ Today

[Strelnikov_]

I wish all the people who think that the current administration is competently managing our foreign affairs would listen to the following interview, particularly the part I have transcribed below. My greatest fear from our Iraq misadventure is that it is revealing the inherent weaknesses in our military. That is, a lack of manpower and untenable ‘operating’ costs.

History has shown that the most threatening big stick is the one that is never used. For example, look at WW II. Most historians acknowledge that Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union was a direct result Stalin’s disastrous war with Finland. Also, would Russia have entered WW I if the Austro-Hungarian forces had not shown their ineptitude by being outmatched by the much smaller Serbian army?

We are in for some hard times, even if Kerry is elected.


From: Fresh Air w/ Terry Gross (NPR) 9/15/04

Guest: Christopher Dickey, the Paris bureau chief and Middle East regional editor for Newsweek magazine.
http://freshair.npr.org /

. . .

The occupation of Iraq was supposed to intimidate Iran, but in fact as we predicted in Newsweek in 2002 it had the opposite effect. The mullahs in Iran said great, welcome to out neighborhood, we can really get at you now. They have all the tools at their disposal. They have the ability to penetrate Iraqi society, to act covertly, through what’s called false flag agents. They can take a frontal approach in confrontation, they can pretend to help us and then undermine us. And they do, all those things. And what can we do in response, the fact is nothing. Apart from possibly bombing or endorsing some Israeli bombing of some nuclear sites in Iran, there is virtually nothing that we can do.

(TG: Sanctions?) First of all, Europe’s not going to go along with sanctions because they don’t think it’s effective. But the real problem is that sanctions do have to be backed up with some kind of threat of force. And the great irony is that the Bush administration was much more powerful threatening force when it hadn’t used it. Now, Iran and everybody else knows we are not going to be able to invade Iran and occupy Iran, the US public won’t be behind it, but we don’t have the military resources to do it unless we reinstate the draft. And that’s not going to happen (I hope). (TG: Do you think the Bush administration feels the same way, that we can’t invade Iran?) Absolutely, they feel that way, that’s why they deal with Iran so gingerly. Every so often there’s a sort of mid-level statement about Iran, and a little bit of sword rattling, but they’re very cautious, just as they’re very cautious with North Korea.

. . .

They’re trying to use diplomatic means, they’re trying to use covert means, against Iran, I hope that is effective, it’s not a bad plan, to try to approach it that way. But our essential weakness stems from the fact that we are in Iraq, and we have a 140,000 American men and women that are vulnerable to the plots of Iran every day and every night.

. . .

[amber dog democrat]

1. He also said we are in the same position now in Iraq as Israel was

in Lebanon, when it went in and occupied. There were some serious miscalculations as to what we expected to happen. And now we are stuck occupying an islamic nation in the middle of othere Arab countries. This works against us both in that our occupation is opposed by an increasingly stronger and smarter insurgency that targets the occupying forces....and we have created a recruiting ground for Al Queada.
Our situation is far, far more dangerous now than it was 2 years ago.

If we were going to gain controll of the situation we could, but we would have to come in with much more military force and kill thousands more people.

I wish I had recorded this one.