Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

We are beginning to see the first signs of reason returning to the American political discourse in the post-9/11 era. Leading the fight for reason over fear is Zbigniew Brzezinski. Today in the Washington Post, Mr. Brzezinski delivered a message that deserves the attention of all thinking Americans.

In an op-ed entitled "Terrorized by ‘War on Terror’: How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America", Mr. Brzezinski writes:

The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration’s elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America’s psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.

The damage these three words have done — a classic self-inflicted wound — is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare — political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.

But the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Support for President Bush in the 2004 elections was also mobilized in part by the notion that "a nation at war" does not change its commander in chief in midstream. The sense of a pervasive but otherwise imprecise danger was thus channeled in a politically expedient direction by the mobilizing appeal of being "at war."

To justify the "war on terror," the administration has lately crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to earlier U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while ignoring the fact that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were first-rate military powers, a status al-Qaeda neither has nor can achieve), the administration could be preparing the case for war with Iran. Such war would then plunge America into a protracted conflict spanning Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and perhaps also Pakistan.

He goes on to argue that the cottage industry that has grown around the "war on terror" benefits economically from sustaining this culture of fear and paranoia. In doing so, the political and economic beneficiaries undermine US national security. It is a powerful argument that benefits from also being true.

Mr. Brzezinski drives home what many of us have been trying to articulate for a long time now. He does it with the clarity that comes from his many years of national security experience.

He concludes his tour de force with the following call to action:

The events of 9/11 could have resulted in a truly global solidarity against extremism and terrorism. A global alliance of moderates, including Muslim ones, engaged in a deliberate campaign both to extirpate the specific terrorist networks and to terminate the political conflicts that spawn terrorism would have been more productive than a demagogically proclaimed and largely solitary U.S. "war on terror" against "Islamo-fascism." Only a confidently determined and reasonable America can promote genuine international security which then leaves no political space for terrorism.

Where is the U.S. leader ready to say, "Enough of this hysteria, stop this paranoia"? Even in the face of future terrorist attacks, the likelihood of which cannot be denied, let us show some sense. Let us be true to our traditions.

Where indeed is such a U.S. leader? I do not yet recognize one amongst the Democratic presidential frontrunners. Let this clarion call bring forth some sanity in our leadership. Let it bring forth some courage. The American people demand and deserve both.

How do you define a war crime? Is the "War on Terror" a legitimate excuse to indiscriminately slaughter innocent civilians? Can everything be written off as "collateral damage"?

Here is Tony Snow exuding bravado after the AC-130 gunship attack on Somalia earlier in the week:

I think that, again, without talking about military issues, it is pretty clear that this administration continues to go after al Qaeda. We are interested in going after those who have perpetrated acts of violence against Americans, including bombings of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and we will continue to conduct whatever operations we can to go after that. We’ve made it clear that this is a global war on terror, and this is a reiteration of the fact that people who think that they’re going to try to establish safe haven for al Qaeda anyplace need to realize that we’re going to fight them.

Kick ass, Tony.

Here is the reality on the ground:

The herdsmen had gathered with their animals around large fires at night to ward off mosquitoes. But lit up by the flames, they became latest victims of America’s war on terror.

It was their tragedy to be misidentified in a secret operation by special forces attempting to kill three top al-Qa’ida leaders in south-ern Somalia.

Oxfam yesterday confirmed at least 70 nomads in the Afmadow district near the border with Kenya had been killed. The nomads were bombed at night and during the day while searching for water sources. Meanwhile, the US ambassador to Kenya has acknowledged that the onslaught on Islamist fighters failed to kill any of the three prime targets wanted for their alleged role in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

These innocents were killed in the name of the United States of America.

I think it is time now for an accounting of how many "terrorists" the Bush Administration has killed in its "War on Terror". I want to know what the ratio is between combatants and innocents killed. I want to know whether anyone in the White House even cares what the ratio is.

How many in this country care that 70 poor herdsmen in Somalia have been slaughtered? Is it this indifference that Mr. Bush counts on? How do you define a terrorist?

Does anyone still wonder why they hate us?

When the Bush Administration began its attack on purported al Qaeda operatives in Somalia, I cautioned that the source of their intelligence was weak. After much speculation and reports that one of the persons responsible for the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania had been killed, we now find out that the Bush Administration missed. What a shocker!

The Washington Post reports tonight that the United States has boots on the ground in Somalia and those boots found no al Qaeda had been killed:

A small team of American military entered southern Somalia to try to determine exactly who was killed in a U.S. airstrike Monday that targeted suspected al-Qaeda figures thought to be hiding in swampy mangrove forests along the Indian Ocean, U.S. sources said Thursday.

So far, "no one can confirm a high-value target" among the dead, said one U.S. source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But items recovered at the strike site — a piece of bloody clothing and a document — indicated that Aden Ayrow, head of the military arm of the Islamic Courts movement and the de facto defense minister of the deposed Islamic government, had been at the scene.

There are two very important pieces of information in the above two paragraphs. First, no al Qaeda was killed. Second, and more importantly, the US is now involved in a civil war in Somalia. We have taken the side of warlords against the Islamic Courts Union. More bluntly, we have taken the side of chaos over stability.

There is now no doubt that the United States has been actively involved in the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. The two countries are sharing information with each other and the warlords:

The U.S. military has worked closely with Ethiopian ground and air forces operating in Somalia and has shared intelligence and target lists. But American decision-makers have been cautious about sending U.S. personnel into Somalian territory. In the aftermath of the AC-130 attack, it was seen as a necessary risk in the effort to positively identify the casualties.

While the US claims that the attacks were "surgical" and "10 people suspected of terrorist links" had been killed, reports from the area suggest widespread destruction and loss of life. The weapon of choice, the AC-130 gunship, suggests that the attack was not surgical:

A day after widespread publicity over claims that a "surgical" attack had killed Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, allegedly involved with the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, it emerged that neither he, nor two other suspects, Abu Taiha al-Sudani and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, were among the dead.

US officials insisted the 10 people who were killed in the raid in southern Somalia were Islamist allies of al-Qa’ida. But a local MP, Abdelgadir Haji, claimed there had been far larger scale civilian casualties inflicted by the Americans and their Ethiopian allies.

Mr Haji said: "The number of the dead we have confirmed until now is 150 dead. But, every day, new reports are coming in and that number is expected to rise.

"America strikes from the air. Ethiopian tanks are coming in over land and the Kenyan border is closed. The people have no escape. Hundreds of cattle were killed and no aid is being allowed over the border. It is a hellish situation."

Even official pronouncements from the Somali "government" suggest a large loss of life:

Government officials reported many died in the attack carried out on Monday by the gunship, an armed variant of the C-130 Hercules transport plane, designed for close air support.

"Many people were killed and I think the terrorists were eliminated," Information Minister Ali Jama told AFP.

"Absolutely, a lot of people were killed," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said. "So many dead people were lying in the area, we do not know who is who, but the raid was a success."

Since the initial attack, there have been reports of other aerial attacks in southern Somalia. The US government has denied that they carried out the attacks. However, regardless of whether it was the Ethiopians or the Americans, the local population will now see the two countries joined at the hip. Any atrocities carried out by the Ethiopians or the Bush Administration’s warlord allies will now be connected to the Americans as well. This is the price of our "close coordination":

U.S. officials repeatedly emphasized close coordination with the Ethiopian military, saying that continuing air attacks by the Ethiopians in the south were motivated by intelligence reports that one of the three embassy suspects, Abu Talha al-Sudani, a Sudanese, was in the area.

The U.S. military action in the southernmost tip of Somalia has been widely criticized by European diplomats, the U.N. secretary general and the chairman of the 53-member African Union, who are concerned that it will work against efforts to stabilize a country that has been without a central government since 1991.

In the chaotic capital, Mogadishu, the weak transitional government, backed by the United States and Ethiopia, is struggling to assert control in a city still full of Islamic Courts fighters, as well as militias of clans and sub-clans who feel marginalized by the new government and resentful of the presence of Ethiopian soldiers in the city.

The Bush Administration has taken its "War on Terror" road show to Somalia. It is now fighting an undeclared war in the Horn of Africa. The original excuse of a "surgical" strike against al Qaeda has been proven to be false. Instead the Bush Administration is now actively engaged in war against the widely popular Islamic Courts Union. This is a recipe for further instability in the war-torn country of Somalia.

It is time to consider wider ramifications of the Bush Administration’s one-dimensional "us" versus "them" foreign policy. The United States, under the Bush Administration, is quickly becoming the major force for global instability. While war still rages in Afghanistan, the Bush war bandwagon took the show to Iraq. It has now expanded the war into Africa. There are indications now that Iran and Syria are next to be attacked. This policy of rapidly expanding instability is making Mr. Bush perhaps the world’s most dangerous man.

We are now at the mercy of Mr. Bush’s war without end. It is time for the United States Congress to exercise its constitutional responsibility and rescue this nation and the world from presidential war-making run amok.

Since September the 11th, 2001 President Bush has been telling us that they hate us for our freedoms. However, he has never really been able to define who "they" are. He has never been able to go beyond his talking points to understand who it is that attacked us. His failure to know the shape of the enemy has led us into a major foreign policy blunder in Iraq and away from the struggle before us. His foreign policy and his rhetoric have been hijacked by the neo-cons with damaging consequences. Five years after 9/11 we are still under threat from extremists. In fact, the threat has grown significantly during the last five years in large part due to Mr. Bush’s inaction and his charged rhetoric.

President Bush never misses an opportunity to paint any foe as part of the collective "them" in the War on Terror. Saddam Hussein was "them" so he had to be taken down. Now it is Hezbollah and Hamas, it is Iran and Syria. They must be taken down. Today in his radio address Mr. Bush once again saw red and painted with his broad brush:

"The terrorists attempt to bring down airplanes full of innocent men, women, and children," Mr Bush said.

"They kill civilians and American servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they deliberately hide behind civilians in Lebanon. They are seeking to spread their totalitarian ideology."

While Mr. Bush plays politics to justify his Iraq and Middle East policy the real threat is closer to home and getting stronger.

In the United Kingdom a small but media savvy political party named Hizb ut-Tahrir started to take root in the 1990s. Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation in Arabic) is an Islamist party dedicated to creating an Islamic Caliphate in the Arab and Muslim world. Though it was founded in the 1950s in Jerusalem it really started to mobilize globally in the age of the Internet. Since that time it has started to spread its tentacles across Europe and the Arab and Muslim world. Today Hizb ut-Tahrir has presence in Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Russia, Australia, United Kingdom, the Sudan, Denmark, Germany and other European countries. In some European and Arab countries the group is banned. However, they continue to operate freely in Britain and in many Muslim countries.

Hizb ut-Tahrir claims to be a peaceful nonviolent movement. According to the FAQ on their information website, they plan on achieving an Islamic Caliphate through peaceful means:

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a political party whose ideology is Islam. The party works throughout the Islamic world to resume the Islamic way of life by re-establishing the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate). The party adheres to the Islamic Shari’ah in all aspects of its work, and takes its methodology from that of the Prophet Muhammad that he used to establish the first Islamic State in Madinah. The Prophet Muhammad limited his struggle for the establishment of the Islamic State to the intellectual and political domains. Hence the party considers violence or armed struggle against the regime a violation of the Islamic Shari’ah.

However, this group has a history of spreading hateful propaganda all over Europe:

In March and April 2002, Hizb Ut Tahrir handed out leaflets in a square in Copenhagen, and at a mosque. The leaflet, which also appeared on the Danish groups internet site, makes threats against Jews, using a quote from the Koran urging Muslims to ‘kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have been turned you out.’ The leaflet also said, ‘The Jews are a people of slander…a treacherous people… they fabricate lies and twist words from their right context.’ And the leaflet describes suicide bombings in Israel as "legitimate" acts of "Martyrdom".

The appeal of Hizb ut-Tahrir lies in its carefully planned and calibrated message. In the West, they try to stay just on the margins of the law. They highlight all the issues most Muslims care about: the Palestinian problem, the war in Iraq, the war in Lebanon, U.S. support for Israel, etc. On cursory observation they appear like any other leftist anti war political party with a pro-Muslim message. However, on closer examination a profile of a hate group emerges. To stay within the law in the U.K. the group has cleaned up some of its official statements. However, a look at their past publications sheds some light on their plans. According to Hizb ut-Tahrir’s since sanitized manifesto (cached page from 2004):

As for the political struggle, it is manifested in the struggle against the disbelieving imperialists, to deliver the Ummah from their domination and to liberate her from their influence by uprooting their intellectual, cultural, political, economic and military roots from all of the Muslim countries.

The political struggle also appears in challenging the rulers, revealing their treasons and conspiracies against the Ummah, and by taking them to task and changing them if they denied the rights of the Ummah, or refrained from performing their duties towards her, or ignored any matter of her affairs, or violated the laws of Islam.

…

Based on this, the Party defined its method of work into three stages:

• The First Stage: The stage of culturing to produce people who believe in the idea and the method of the Party, so that they form the Party group.
• The Second Stage: The stage of interaction with the Ummah, to let the Ummah embrace and carry Islam, so that the Ummah takes it up as its issue, and thus works to establish it in the affairs of life.
• The Third Stage: The stage of establishing government, implementing Islam generally and comprehensively, and carrying it as a message to the world.

The above goals should be familiar to most readers. These are the goals advocated by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda: the removal of western influence from Muslim countries and then the overthrow of the governments of the Muslim countries in favor of a Caliphate.

While bin Laden hides in caves Hizb ut-Tahrir takes its message freely to the young people of the Muslim world. It targets colleges and universities in the Muslim world looking for recruits to its idea of jihad and of an enduring Caliphate. For example, in Bangladesh, which is a largely secular Muslim majority country, Hizb ut-Tahrir is starting to make inroads with university students and intellectuals.

The group’s presence as a political party in Bangladesh is small but nonetheless vocal. It markets itself as a discussion group to university students and openly holds weekly meetings at the country’s leading universities. It feeds on political unrest in the country and presents itself as a utopian alternative to all the country’s ills. It capitalizes on Muslim grievances and focuses hate and anger toward the West and the country’s own government. The Iraq War offers easy ammunition:

The illegal occupying forces of America and Britain have again unleashed a devastating series of attacks upon the Muslims of Iraq. Intensifying their attack upon innocent civilians they have systematically targeted mosques, bazaars, hospitals, marches and demonstrations. They use missiles, tanks, helicopters and planes to carry out these attacks. They have turned the cities of Karbalaa, Al-Najaf and Al-Kufah, its south and north, and "Al-Falujah" into battlefields destroying whatever stands in front of them. They hound the Muslims in their houses and mosques. Thousands have been mercilessly killed by the kafir [infidel] occupying forces.

…

However the greatest tragedy today is the role of the rulers of the Muslim countries. While the Muslims of Iraq have demonstrated their bravery due to their iman [faith] in Allah fighting with their bare bodies, our rulers have demonstrated the extent of their cowardice and treachery. These 50 or so rulers stand by while our lands are destroyed and our brothers and sisters are slaughtered. These rulers like obedient servants of America watch the slaughter preventing the sincere and strong Muslim armies to aid the Muslims of Iraq. Rather our armies are used by these traitor rulers to guard their thrones and palaces. These rulers are appointed over the Muslim Ummah to safeguard only the interests of the colonialists and enemies of the Muslims. [Translations by me.]

The tactic is always the same: blame the West and then find a way of tying the country’s government to the West. In many cases, the grievances are legitimate. That is exactly where Hizb ut-Tahrir’s appeal lies. It first voices a legitimate grievance and then pivots the rhetoric into hate.

Hizb ut-Tahrir are masters at capturing the media spotlight and magnifying the smallest hint of a controversy. During the Danish cartoon controversy, it was Hizb ut-Tahrir in Bangladesh and elsewhere that engineered the protest marches for the benefit of Western cameras:

Look closely at the banners in the above photographs. This group never misses an opportunity to market its goals.

In a largely secular country like Bangladesh, Hizb ut-Tahrir will not garner much support and will likely remain in the fringes. However, it need not have a huge following to mobilize hate. Its target audience, university students who are looking to channel their frustration, are the engine that fuel the armies of hate. It is not groups like Hamas or Hezbollah that produced the September 11th terrorists. It was not Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that produced the London bombers of 7/11 or those that are detained in the current terror plot. In all cases it was educated middle class Muslims in their 20s that were the killers. These young men were schooled in an ideology that began with groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir. While the group claims non-violence, its rhetoric green lights violence with a wink and a nod.

No amount of bombing in Iraq and in Lebanon will make us safer while we ignore hate groups such as these. Instead of tackling these groups, the Bush Administration is busily driving new recruits into their fold. While we bomb "them", we let these groups fester in so-called "friendly" countries. The tired "you are either with us or against us" rhetoric of Mr. Bush does not begin to address the terrorist factories in clear view of the world. So, when we say that Mr. Bush’s foreign policy has made us less safe by ignoring the real threat in favor of his neo-con escapade in Iraq, we should point to groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir as clear evidence.

This is not a war we can win with F-16s and Tomahawk missiles. It is not a war for the soul of Islam. It is a war against a small group of extremists with a powerful propaganda machine. Our goal should be to outmaneuver them and isolate them. To do that we need a leader who understands the world beyond the confines of his talking points.

[As a footnote, if you want to get a small taste of how easily Hizb ut-Tahrir is able to appeal to the young people in countries like Bangladesh, read the comments attached to this post about Hizb ut-Tahrir from a Bangladeshi blogger based in London.]

Update: The Guardian is now reporting that 10 of the 19 suspects arrested last week in London may have been targeted by Hibz ut-Tahrir and its off-shoot al-Mujaharoun.

 [Cross posted at Taylor Marsh]

What is the goal of the United States in the War on Terror? What is the plan to win the war? What is the strategy? And how do we measure success? Are we trying to win hearts and minds while defeating the terrorists militarily?

An article in the New York Times today argues that the U.S. effort of funding the Somali warlords has been counterproductive and has failed. There is a remarkable quote attributed to a senior Bush Administration official in the article that brings into focus the Bush foreign policy agenda:

"You’ve got to find and nullify enemy leadership," one senior Bush administration official said. "We are going to support any viable political actor that we think will help us with counterterrorism." [Emphasis added by me.]

Isn’t that exactly what is wrong with the Bush foreign policy?

Foreign policy that is driven by a single-minded focus on killing the enemy regardless of the consequences seems to be the hallmark of this Administration’s machinations in the War on Terror thus far. This policy is susceptible to sabotage by unscrupulous foreign forces. In order to fight "terrorists" we lay in bed with some very unsavory characters who likely pose a more significant threat to U.S. interests. Warlords and two-bit Third World power brokers transform themselves into "anti-terrorist" forces and manipulate the United States to serve their own local agendas. The military and economic might of the United States is usurped by our "friends" to settle local scores. In short, the United States is getting played.

In the War on Terror the Bush Administration has paid lip service to diplomacy, to alliance building, to containment, and other proven tools to combat a hostile foe in the international arena. Instead the Bush Administration has focused primarily on military force either directly or by supporting proxies - the old rules apparently do not apply in the post 9/11 world. This focus on military means has so far proven to be a complete failure. The Bush Administration has allied itself with Afghan warlords, with Central Asian dictators, with Shia Islamists in Iraq, and Somali warlords because all of them promised to get the "terrorists". Instead what they have gotten is more instability and chaos.

There does not appear to be any broader policy goal in Somalia or the War on Terror other than killing the enemy. Apparently the lure of funding warlords was so strong that the Bush Administration has forsaken a broader policy for a narrower "capture dead or alive" philosophy:

Among those who have criticized the C.I.A. operation as short-sighted have been senior Foreign Service officers at the United States Embassy in Nairobi. Earlier this year, Leslie Rowe, the embassy’s second-ranking official, signed off on a cable back to State Department headquarters that detailed grave concerns throughout the region about American efforts in Somalia, according to several people with knowledge of the report.

 Around that time, the State Department’s political officer for Somalia, Michael Zorick, who had been based in Nairobi, was reassigned to Chad after he sent a cable to Washington criticizing Washington’s policy of paying Somali warlords.

One American government official who traveled to Nairobi this year said officials from various government agencies working in Somalia had expressed concern that American activities in the country were not being carried out in the context of a broader policy.

"They were fully aware that they were doing so without any strategic framework," the official said. "And they realized that there might be negative implications to what they are doing."

It is then not so surprising that this policy has contributed to failure in Somalia:

Some Africa experts contend that the United States has lost its focus on how to deal with the larger threat of terrorism in East Africa by putting a premium on its effort to capture or kill a small number of high-level suspects.

Indeed, some of the experts point to the American effort to finance the warlords as one of the factors that led to the resurgence of Islamic militias in the country. They argue that American support for secular warlords, who joined together under the banner of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism, may have helped to unnerve the Islamic militias and prompted them to launch pre-emptive strikes. The Islamic militias have been routing the warlords, and on Monday they claimed to have taken control of most of the Somali capital.

"This has blown up in our face, frankly," said John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit research organization with extensive field experience in Somalia.

After the U.S. funded warlords were routed, the Bush Administration is now ready to talk to the Islamists in Somalia:

Senior American officials indicated this week that the United States might now be willing to hold discussions with the Islamic militias, known as the Islamic Courts Union. President Bush said Tuesday that the first priority for the United States was to keep Somalia from becoming a safe haven for terrorists.

The Administration has it backwards. First you try diplomacy and then you use the military option, not the other way around.

The Somalia experience is a benchmark for the more general war on terror. The ill concieved Bush Administration strategy of "fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here" is not working.  From Kabul to Mogadishu, from Tehran to Baghdad, we are in a more dangerous world now then we were on September 12th, 2001. Its time for some grown ups at the wheel.

Ambassador Richard Holbrooke writes today in The Washington Post that the six retired generals who have publicly called for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld are likely speaking for their colleagues who are still in the military:

First, it is clear that the retired generals — six so far, with more likely to come — surely are speaking for many of their former colleagues, friends and subordinates who are still inside. In the tight world of senior active and retired generals, there is constant private dialogue. Recent retirees stay in close touch with old friends, who were often their subordinates; they help each other, they know what is going on and a conventional wisdom is formed.

I agree with Ambassador Holbrooke that what we are seeing is indeed the tip of the spear. The United States Military is quietly but surely signaling to their civilian masters that they need to change course.

Many commentators have tried to determine why the generals are speaking out and why they are speaking out now. Most, like Ambassador Holbrooke, have suggested that the frustration over the Iraq fiasco has now reached a boiling point within the military. This is certainly the case. But, I think there may be more to the generals’ timing and motivation than has been discussed so far. I think by focusing on Iraq we are all fighting the last war in trying to discern the generals’ motivations. I think a significant reason why the generals are speaking out has to do with our impending attack on Iran.

Seymour Hersh wrote in his article that the top leaders of the U.S. military are against a nuclear strike on Iran and may have to resign to prevent the Administration from moving forward with an attack. In one extraordinary paragraph, Hersh wrote:

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”

I believe we are seeing the beginning salvo in the military’s push to avert a nuclear strike on Iran. The top leaders in the military may have decided that the civilians in the Administration are ignoring their advice in the march to Tehran and have now decided to take their case public. The military understands the grave consequence of an attack on Iran but have failed to convince the ideologues in the Administration to see reality. Having learned the lessons of Iraq that the checks and balances in the U.S. Government have failed to prevent a determined President from acting out his apocalyptic fantasy, the military have taken their case directly to the public in the hopes of averting a nuclear catastrophe.

This is not a revolt. This is the United States Military upholding the Constitution to which they have sworn an oath.