The Redirection

[arasha...@yahoo.com]

The New Yorker
March 5, 2007

The Redirection

Is the Administration's new policy benefitting our enemies in the war
on terrorism?

By Seymour M. Hersh

A Strategic Shift

In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the
Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert
operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The
"redirection", as some inside the White House have called the new
strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open
confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into
a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shia, the Bush
Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities
in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with
Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations
that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shia organization that is
backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations
aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has
been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant
vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to al-Qaeda
[al-CIA-duh].

One contradictory aspect of the new strategy is that, in Iraq, most of
the insurgent violence directed at the American military has come from
Sunni forces, and not from Shias. But, from the Administration's
perspective, the most profound-and unintended-strategic consequence of
the Iraq war is the empowerment of Iran. Its President, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, has made defiant pronouncements about the destruction of
Israel and his country's right to pursue its nuclear program, and last
week its supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on
state television that "realities in the region show that the arrogant
front, headed by the U.S. and its allies, will be the principal loser
in the region".

After the Iranian Revolution of 1979 brought a religious government to
power, the United States broke with Iran and cultivated closer
relations with the leaders of Sunni Arab states such as Jordan, Egypt,
and Saudi Arabia. That calculation became more complex after the
September 11th attacks, especially with regard to the Saudis. Al Qaeda
is Sunni, and many of its operatives came from extremist religious
circles inside Saudi Arabia. Before the invasion of Iraq, in 2003,
Administration officials, influenced by neoconservative ideologues,
assumed that a Shia government there could provide a pro-American
balance to Sunni extremists, since Iraq's Shia majority had been
oppressed under Saddam. They ignored warnings from the intelligence
community about the ties between Iraqi Shia leaders and Iran, where
some had lived in exile for years. Now, to the distress of the White
House, Iran has forged a close relationship with the Shia-dominated
government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The new American policy, in its broad outlines, has been discussed
publicly. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that there is "a
new strategic alignment in the Middle East", separating "reformers"
and "extremists"; she pointed to the Sunni states as centers of
moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were "on the
other side of that divide". (Syria's Sunni majority is dominated by
the Alawi sect). Iran and Syria, she said, "have made their choice and
their choice is to destabilize".

Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however.
The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by
leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding
other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations
process, current and former officials close to the Administration
said.

A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee told me that he
had heard about the new strategy, but felt that he and his colleagues
had not been adequately briefed. "We haven't got any of this", he
said. "We ask for anything going on, and they say there's nothing. And
when we ask specific questions they say, 'We're going to get back to
you'. It's so frustrating".

The key players behind the redirection are Vice-President Dick Cheney,
the deputy national-security adviser [Jew] Elliott Abrams (http://
rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/969), the departing Ambassador to Iraq
(and nominee for United Nations Ambassador), [Sunni Pashtun] Zalmay
Khalilzad (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1249), and sheikh
Bandar bin Sultan (http://www.nndb.com/people/680/000044548/), the
Saudi national-security adviser. While Rice has been deeply involved
in shaping the public policy, former and current officials said that
the clandestine side has been guided by Cheney. (Cheney's office and
the White House declined to comment for this story; the Pentagon did
not respond to specific queries but said, "The United States is not
planning to go to war with Iran").

The policy shift has brought Saudi Arabia and Israel into a new
strategic embrace, largely because both countries see Iran as an
existential threat. They have been involved in direct talks, and the
Saudis, who believe that greater stability in Israel and Palestine
will give Iran less leverage in the region, have become more involved
in Arab-Israeli negotiations.

The new strategy "is a major shift in American policy-it's a sea
change", a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said.
The Sunni states "were petrified of a Shia resurgence, and there was
growing resentment with our gambling on the moderate Shias in Iraq",
he said. "We cannot reverse the Shia gain in Iraq, but we can contain
it".

"It seems there has been a debate inside the government over what's
the biggest danger-Iran or Sunni radicals", Vali Nasr (http://
www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/people/nasr.asp), a professor in the Department
of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and
a senior fellow at the Satanic Council on Foreign Relations, CFR
(http://www.cfr.org/bios/11622/vali_r_nasr.html), who has written
widely on Shias, Iran, and Iraq (http://groups.google.com/group/
soc.culture.iranian/msg/9d97fc1bc445da13), told me. "The Saudis and
some in the U.S. Administration have been arguing that the biggest
threat is Iran and the Sunni radicals are the lesser enemies. This is
a victory for the Saudi line".

[Jew] Martin Indyk (http://www.brookings.edu/scholars/mindyk.htm), a
senior State Department official in the Clinton Administration who
also served as Ambassador to Israel, said that "the Middle East is
heading into a serious Sunni-Shia Cold War". Indyk, who is the
director of the Haim Saban Center (http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=692) for
Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution , added that, in his
opinion, it was not clear whether the White House was fully aware of
the strategic implications of its new policy. "The White House is not
just doubling the bet in Iraq", he said. "It's doubling the bet across
the region. This could get very complicated. Everything is upside
down".

The Administration's new policy for containing Iran seems to
complicate its strategy for winning the war in Iraq. Patrick Clawson
(http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/3360), an expert on Iran and
the deputy director for research at the Jewish-Washington Institute
for Near East Policy (WINEP), argued, however, that closer ties
between the United States and moderate or even radical Sunnis could
put "ear" into the government of Prime Minister Maliki and "make him
worry that the Sunnis could actually win" the civil war there. Clawson
said that this might give Maliki an incentive to coöperate with the
United States in suppressing radical Shia militias, such as Moqtada
Sadr's Mahdi Army.

Even so, for the moment, the U.S. remains dependent on the cooperation
of Iraqi Shia leaders. The Mahdi Army may be openly hostile to
American interests, but other Shia militias are counted as U.S.
allies. Both Moqtada Sadr and the White House back Maliki. A
memorandum (http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.iranian/msg/
fc3bc5c2c319906c) written late last year by Stephen Hadley (http://
tinyurl.com/ysz4nu), the national-security adviser, suggested that the
Administration try to separate Maliki from his more radical Shia
allies by building his base among moderate Sunnis and Kurds, but so
far the trends have been in the opposite direction. As the Iraqi Army
continues to founder in its confrontations with insurgents, the power
of the Shia militias has steadily increased.

Flynt Leverett (http://www.newamerica.net/people/flynt_leverett), a
former CIA and Bush Administration National Security Council (NSC)
official, told me that "there is nothing coincidental or ironic" about
the new strategy with regard to Iraq. "The Administration is trying to
make a case that Iran is more dangerous and more provocative than the
Sunni insurgents to American interests in Iraq, when-if you look at
the actual casualty numbers-the punishment inflicted on America by the
Sunnis is greater by an order of magnitude", Leverett said. "This is
all part of the campaign of provocative steps to increase the pressure
on Iran. The idea is that at some point the Iranians will respond and
then the Administration will have an open door to strike at them".

President George W. Bush, in a speech on January 10th (http://
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-7.html), partially
spelled out this approach. "These two regimes"-Iran and Syria-"are
allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in
and out of Iraq", Bush said. "Iran is providing material support for
attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces.
We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will
seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and
training to our enemies in Iraq".

In the following weeks, there was a wave of allegations from the
Administration about Iranian involvement in the Iraq war. On February
11th, reporters were shown sophisticated explosive devices, captured
in Iraq, that the Administration claimed had come from Iran. The
Administration's message was, in essence, that the bleak situation in
Iraq was the result not of its own failures of planning and execution
but of Iran's interference.

The U.S. military also has arrested and interrogated hundreds of
Iranians in Iraq. "The word went out last August for the military to
snatch as many Iranians in Iraq as they can", a former senior
intelligence official said. "They had 500 locked up at one time. We're
working these guys and getting information from them. The White House
goal is to build a case that the Iranians have been fomenting the
insurgency and they've been doing it all along-that Iran is, in fact,
supporting the killing of Americans". The Pentagon consultant
confirmed that hundreds of Iranians have been captured by American
forces in recent months. But he told me that that total includes many
Iranian humanitarian and aid workers who "get scooped up and released
in a short time", after they have been interrogated.

"We are not planning for a war with Iran", Robert Gates (http://
www.nndb.com/people/129/000055961/), the new Defense Secretary,
announced on February 2nd, and yet the atmosphere of confrontation has
deepened.

According to current and former American intelligence and military
officials, secret operations in Lebanon have been accompanied by
clandestine operations targeting Iran. American military and special-
operations teams have escalated their activities in Iran to gather
intelligence and, according to a Pentagon consultant on terrorism and
the former senior intelligence official, have also crossed the border
in pursuit of Iranian operatives from Iraq.

At Rice's Senate appearance in January (http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/
hearings/2007/hrg070111a.html), Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, of
Delaware, pointedly asked her whether the U.S. planned to cross the
Iranian or the Syrian border in the course of a pursuit. "Obviously,
the President isn't going to rule anything out to protect our troops,
but the plan is to take down these networks in Iraq", Rice said,
adding, "I do think that everyone will understand that-the American
people and I assume the Congress expect the President to do what is
necessary to protect our forces".

The ambiguity of Rice's reply prompted a response from Nebraska
Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican, who has been critical of the
Administration:
Some of us remember 1970, Madam Secretary. And that was Cambodia. And
when our government lied to the American people and said, "We didn't
cross the border going into Cambodia", in fact we did.

I happen to know something about that, as do some on this committee.
So, Madam Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that
the President is talking about here, it's very, very dangerous.

The Administration's concern about Iran's role in Iraq is coupled with
its long-standing alarm over Iran's nuclear program. On Fox News on
January 14th (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243632,00.html),
Cheney warned of the possibility, in a few years, "of a nuclear-armed
Iran, astride the world's supply of oil, able to affect adversely the
global economy, prepared to use terrorist organizations and/or their
nuclear weapons to threaten their neighbors and others around the
world". He also said, "If you go and talk with the Persian Gulf states
or if you talk with the Saudis or if you talk with the Israelis or the
Jordanians, the entire region is worried. . . . The threat Iran
represents is growing".

The Administration is now examining a wave of new intelligence on
Iran's weapons programs. Current and former American officials told me
that the intelligence, which came from Israeli agents operating in
Iran, includes a claim that Iran has developed a three-stage solid-
fuelled intercontinental missile capable of delivering several small
warheads-each with limited accuracy-inside Europe. The validity of
this human intelligence is still being debated.

A similar argument about an imminent threat posed by weapons of mass
destruction (WMD)-and questions about the intelligence used to make
that case-formed the prelude to the invasion of Iraq. Many in Congress
have greeted the claims about Iran with wariness; in the Senate on
February 14th, Hillary Clinton said, "We have all learned lessons from
the conflict in Iraq, and we have to apply those lessons to any
allegations that are being raised about Iran. Because, Mr. President,
what we are hearing has too familiar a ring and we must be on guard
that we never again make decisions on the basis of intelligence that
turns out to be faulty".

Still, the Pentagon is continuing intensive planning for a possible
bombing attack on Iran, a process that began last year, at the
direction of the President. In recent months, the former intelligence
official told me, a special planning group has been established in the
offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged with creating a
contingency bombing plan for Iran that can be implemented, upon orders
from the President, within twenty-four hours.

In the past month, I was told by an Air Force adviser on targeting and
the Pentagon consultant on terrorism, the Iran planning group has been
handed a new assignment: to identify targets in Iran that may be
involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq. Previously, the
focus had been on the destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities and
possible regime change.

Two carrier strike groups-the Eisenhower and the Stennis-are now in
the Arabian Sea. One plan is for them to be relieved early in the
spring, but there is worry within the military that they may be
ordered to stay in the area after the new carriers arrive, according
to several sources. (Among other concerns, war games have shown that
the carriers could be vulnerable to swarming tactics involving large
numbers of small boats, a technique that the Iranians have practiced
in the past; carriers have limited maneuverability in the narrow
Strait of Hormuz, off Iran's southern coast). The former senior
intelligence official said that the current contingency plans allow
for an attack order this spring. He added, however, that senior
officers on the Joint Chiefs were counting on the White House's not
being "foolish enough to do this in the face of Iraq, and the problems
it would give the Republicans in 2008".

Sheikh Bandar's Game

The Administration's effort to diminish Iranian authority in the
Middle East has relied heavily on Saudi Arabia and on Sheikh Bandar,
the Saudi national-security adviser. Sheikh Bandar served as the
Ambassador to the United States for twenty-two years, until 2005, and
has maintained a friendship with President Bush and Vice-President
Cheney. In his new post, he continues to meet privately with them.
Senior White House officials have made several visits to Saudi Arabia
recently, some of them not disclosed.

Last November, Cheney flew to Saudi Arabia for a surprise meeting with
Sheikh Abdullah (http://www.nndb.com/people/948/000093669/) and Sheikh
Bandar. The New York Times reported (http://tinyurl.com/2kjxo7) that
the Sheikh Abdullah warned Cheney that Saudi Arabia would back its
fellow-Sunnis in Iraq if the United States were to withdraw (http://
tinyurl.com/yhydk4). A European intelligence official told me that the
meeting also focussed on more general Saudi fears about "the rise of
the Shias". In response, "The Saudis are starting to use their leverage
-money".

In a royal family rife with competition, Sheikh Bandar has, over the
years, built a power base that relies largely on his close
relationship with the U.S., which is crucial to the Saudis. Bandar was
succeeded as Ambassador by Sheikh Turki al-Faisal (http://
www.answers.com/topic/turki-bin-faisal-al-saud); Turki resigned after
eighteen months and was replaced by Adel A. al-Jubeir (http://
www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001834.php), a bureaucrat who has
worked with Bandar. A former Saudi diplomat told me that during
Turki's tenure he became aware of private meetings involving Bandar
and senior White House officials, including Cheney and Abrams. "I
assume Turki was not happy with that", the Saudi said. But, he added,
"I don't think that Bandar is going off on his own". Although Turki
dislikes Bandar, the Saudi said, he shared his goal of challenging the
spread of Shia power in the Middle East.

The split between Shias and Sunnis goes back to a bitter divide, in
the seventh century, over who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad.
Sunnis dominated the medieval caliphate and the Ottoman Empire, and
Shias, traditionally, have been regarded more as outsiders. Worldwide,
90% of Muslims are Sunni, but Shias are a majority in Iran, Iraq, and
Bahrain, and are the largest Muslim group in Lebanon. Their
concentration in a volatile, oil-rich region has led to concern in the
West and among Sunnis about the emergence of a "Shia crescent"-
especially given Iran's increased geopolitical weight.

"The Saudis still see the world through the days of the Ottoman
Empire, when Sunni Muslims ruled the roost and the Shias were the
lowest class", Frederic Hof, a retired military officer who is an
expert on the Middle East, told me. If Bandar was seen as bringing
about a shift in U.S. policy in favor of the Sunnis, he added, it
would greatly enhance his standing within the royal family.

The Saudis are driven by their fear that Iran could tilt the balance
of power not only in the region but within their own country. Saudi
Arabia has a significant Shia minority (http://www.answers.com/topic/
shi-a-population) in its Eastern Province (http://www.answers.com/
topic/eastern-province-saudi-arabia), a region of major oil fields;
sectarian tensions are high in the province.

The Saudis believes that Iranian operatives, working with local Shias,
have been behind many terrorist attacks inside the sheikhdom,
according to Vali Nasr. "Today, the only army capable of containing
Iran"-the Iraqi Army-"has been destroyed by the United States. You're
now dealing with an Iran that could be nuclear-capable and has a
standing army of 450,000 soldiers". (Saudi Arabia has 75,000 troops in
its standing army.)

Vali Nasr went on, "The Saudis have considerable financial means, and
have deep relations with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis"-Sunni
extremists who view Shias as apostates. "The last time Iran was a
threat, the Saudis were able to mobilize the worst kinds of Islamic
radicals. Once you get them out of the box, you can't put them back".

The Saudis have been, by turns, both a sponsor and a target of Sunni
extremists, who object to the corruption and decadence among the
family's myriad princes. The princes are gambling that they will not
be overthrown as long as they continue to support religious schools
and charities linked to the extremists. The Administration's new
strategy is heavily dependent on this bargain.

Vali Nasr compared the current situation to the period in which Al
Qaeda first emerged. In the 1980's and the early 1990's, the Saudi
government offered to subsidize the covert American CIA proxy war
against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Hundreds of young Saudis were
sent into the border areas of Pakistan, where they set up religious
schools, training bases, and recruiting facilities. Then, as now, many
of the operatives who were paid with Saudi money were Salafis. Among
them, of course, were Osama bin Laden and his associates, who founded
Al Qaeda, in 1988.

This time, the U.S. government consultant told me, Bandar and other
Saudis have assured the White House that "they will keep a very close
eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was 'We've
created this movement, and we can control it'. It's not that we don't
want the Salafis to throw bombs; it's who they throw them at-
Hezbollah, Moqtada Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to
work with Hezbollah and Iran".

The Saudi said that, in his country's view, it was taking a political
risk by joining the U.S. in challenging Iran: Bandar is already seen
in the Arab world as being too close to the Bush Administration. "We
have two nightmares", the former diplomat told me. "For Iran to
acquire the bomb and for the United States to attack Iran. I'd rather
the Israelis bomb the Iranians, so we can blame them. If America does
it, we will be blamed".

In the past year, the Saudis, the Israelis, and the Bush
Administration have developed a series of informal understandings
about their new strategic direction. At least four main elements were
involved, the U.S. government consultant told me:

First, Israel would be assured that its security was paramount and
that Washington and Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states shared its
concern about Iran.

Second, the Saudis would urge Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian party
that has received support from Iran, to curtail its anti-Israeli
aggression and to begin serious talks about sharing leadership with
Fatah, the more secular Palestinian group. (In February, the Saudis
brokered a deal at Mecca between the two factions. However, Israel and
the U.S. have expressed dissatisfaction with the terms).

The third component was that the Bush Administration would work
directly with Sunni nations to counteract Shia ascendance in the
region.

Fourth, the Saudi government, with Washington's approval, would
provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President
Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such
pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and
open to negotiations. Syria is a major conduit of arms to Hezbollah.
The Saudi government is also at odds with the Syrians over the
assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, in
Beirut in 2005, for which it believes the Assad government was
responsible. Hariri, a billionaire Sunni, was closely associated with
the Saudi regime and with sheikh Bandar. (A UN inquiry strongly
suggested that the Syrians were involved, but offered "no direct
evidence"; there are plans for another investigation, by an
international tribunal).

Patrick Clawson, of the Jewish-Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (WINEP), depicted the Saudis' cooperation with the White House
as a significant breakthrough. "The Saudis understand that if they
want the Administration to make a more generous political offer to the
Palestinians they have to persuade the Arab states to make a more
generous offer to the Israelis", Clawson told me. The new diplomatic
approach, he added, "shows a real degree of effort and sophistication
as well as a deftness of touch not always associated with this
Administration. Who's running the greater risk-we or the Saudis? At a
time when America's standing in the Middle East is extremely low, the
Saudis are actually embracing us. We should count our blessings".

The Pentagon consultant had a different view. He said that the
Administration had turned to Bandar as a "fallback". because it had
realized that the failing war in Iraq could leave the Middle East "up
for grabs".

Jihadis In Lebanon

The focus of the US-Saudi relationship, after Iran, is Lebanon, where
the Saudis have been deeply involved in efforts by the Administration
to support the Lebanese government. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is
struggling to stay in power against a persistent opposition led by
Hezbollah, the Shia organization, and its leader, Sheikh Hassan
Nasrallah. Hezbollah has an extensive infrastructure, an estimated two
to three thousand active fighters, and thousands of additional
members.

Hezbollah has been on the State Department's terrorist list since
1997. The organization has been implicated in the 1983 bombing of a
Marine barracks in Beirut that killed two hundred and forty-one
military men. It has also been accused of complicity in the kidnapping
of Americans, including the CIA station chief in Lebanon, who died in
captivity, and a Marine colonel serving on a UN peacekeeping mission,
who was killed. (Nasrallah has denied that the group was involved in
these incidents).

Nasrallah is seen by many as a staunch terrorist, who has said that he
regards Israel as a state that has no right to exist. Many in the Arab
world, however, especially Shias, view him as a resistance leader who
withstood Israel in last summer's thirty-three-day war, and Siniora as
a weak politician who relies on America's support but was unable to
persuade President Bush to call for an end to the Israeli bombing of
Lebanon. (Photographs (http://tinyurl.com/34wxcl) of Siniora kissing
Condoleezza Rice on the cheek when she visited during the war were
prominently displayed during street protests in Beirut).

The Bush Administration has publicly pledged the Siniora government $1
billion in aid since last summer. A donors' conference in Paris, in
January, which the U.S. helped organize, yielded pledges of almost $8
billion more, including a promise of more than $1 billion from the
Saudis. The American pledge includes more than $200,000,000 in
military aid, and $40,000,000 for internal security.

The United States has also given clandestine support to the Siniora
government, according to the former senior intelligence official and
the U.S. government consultant. "We are in a program to enhance the
Sunni capability to resist Shia influence, and we're spreading the
money around as much as we can", the former senior intelligence
official said. The problem was that such money "always gets in more
pockets than you think it will", he said. "In this process, we're
financing a lot of bad guys with some serious potential unintended
consequences. We don't have the ability to determine and get pay
vouchers signed by the people we like and avoid the people we don't
like. It's a very high-risk venture".

American, European, and Arab officials I spoke to told me that the
Siniora government and its allies had allowed some aid to end up in
the hands of emerging Sunni radical groups in northern Lebanon, the
Bekaa Valley, and around Palestinian refugee camps in the south. These
groups, though small, are seen as a buffer to Hezbollah; at the same
time, their ideological ties are with Al Qaeda.

During a conversation with me, the former Saudi diplomat accused
Nasrallah of attempting "to hijack the state", but he also objected to
the Lebanese and Saudi sponsorship of Sunni jihadists in Lebanon.
"Salafis are sick and hateful, and I'm very much against the idea of
flirting with them", he said. "They hate the Shias, but they hate
Americans more. If you try to outsmart them, they will outsmart us. It
will be ugly".

Alastair Crooke (http://conflictsforum.org/who-we-are/alastair-
crooke/), who spent nearly thirty years in MI6, the British
intelligence service, and now works for Conflicts Forum, a think-tank
in Beirut, told me, "The Lebanese government is opening space for
these people to come in. It could be very dangerous".

Alastair Crooke said that one Sunni extremist group, "Fatah al-Islam",
had splintered from its pro-Syrian parent group, "Fatah al-
Intifada" (http://www.answers.com/topic/fatah-al-intifada), in the
Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, in northern Lebanon (http://www.nakba-
archive.org/history.htm). Its membership at the time was less than two
hundred. "I was told that within twenty-four hours they were being
offered weapons and money by people presenting themselves as
representatives of the Lebanese government's interests-presumably to
take on Hezbollah", Crooke said.

The largest of the groups, "Asbat al-Ansar" (http://www.answers.com/
topic/asbat-al-ansar), is situated in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian
refugee camp (http://www.nakba-archive.org/history.htm). "Asbat al-
Ansar" has received arms and supplies from Lebanese internal-security
forces and militias associated with the Siniora government.

In 2005, according to a report by the US-based International Crisis
Group, Saad Hariri (http://tinyurl.com/36lksq), the Sunni majority
leader of the Lebanese parliament and the son of the slain former
Prime Minister-Saad inherited more than $4 billion after his father's
assassination-paid $48,000 in bail for four members of an Islamic
militant group from Dinniyeh. The men had been arrested while trying
to establish an Islamic mini-state in northern Lebanon. The Crisis
Group noted that many of the militants "had trained in al-Qaeda camps
in Afghanistan".

According to the Crisis Group report (http://tinyurl.com/37wofn), Saad
Hariri later used his parliamentary majority to obtain amnesty for
twenty-two of the Dinniyeh Islamists, as well as for seven militants
suspected of plotting to bomb the Italian and Ukrainian embassies in
Beirut, the previous year. (He also arranged a pardon for Samir Geagea
(http://www.answers.com/topic/samir-geagea), a fascist Maronite
Christian terrorist leader, who had been convicted of four political
murders, including the assassination, in 1987, of Prime Minister
Rashid Karami). Hariri described his actions to reporters as
'humanitarian'.

In an interview in Beirut, a senior official in the Siniora government
acknowledged that there were Sunni jihadists operating inside Lebanon.
"We have a liberal attitude that allows Al Qaeda types to have a
presence here", he said. He related this to concerns that Iran or
Syria might decide to turn Lebanon into a "theatre of conflict".

The official said that his government was in a no-win situation.
Without a political settlement with Hezbollah, he said, Lebanon could
"slide into a conflict", in which Hezbollah fought openly with Sunni
forces, with potentially horrific consequences. But if Hezbollah
agreed to a settlement yet still maintained a separate army, allied
with Iran and Syria, "Lebanon could become a target. In both cases, we
become a target".

The Bush Administration has portrayed its support of the Siniora
government as an example of the President's belief in democracy, and
his desire to prevent other powers from interfering in Lebanon. When
Hezbollah led street demonstrations in Beirut in December, John
Bolton, who was then the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, called them "part
of the Iran-Syria-inspired coup".

[Jew] Leslie H. Gelb (http://www.cfr.org/bios/3325/
leslie_h_gelb.html), a past president of the Satanic Council on
Foreign Relations (CFR), said that the Administration's policy was
less pro democracy than "pro American national security. The fact is
that it would be terribly dangerous if Hezbollah ran Lebanon". The
fall of the Siniora government would be seen, Gelb said, "as a signal
in the Middle East of the decline of the United States and the
ascendancy of the terrorism threat. And so any change in the
distribution of political power in Lebanon has to be opposed by the
United States-and we're justified in helping any non-Shia parties
resist that change. We should say this publicly, instead of talking
about democracy".

[Jew] Martin Indyk, of the Haim Saban Center, said, however, that the
United States "does not have enough pull to stop the moderates in
Lebanon from dealing with the extremists". He added, "The President
sees the region as divided between moderates and extremists, but our
regional friends see it as divided between Sunnis and Shias. The
Sunnis that we view as extremists are regarded by our Sunni allies
simply as Sunnis".

In January, after an outburst of street violence in Beirut involving
supporters of both the Siniora government and Hezbollah, sheikh Bandar
flew to Tehran to discuss the political impasse in Lebanon and to meet
with Ali Larijani, the Iranians' negotiator on nuclear issues.
According to a Middle Eastern ambassador, Bandar's mission-which the
ambassador said was endorsed by the White House-also aimed "to create
problems between the Iranians and Syria". There had been tensions
between the two countries about Syrian talks with Israel, and the
Saudis' goal was to encourage a breach. However, the ambassador said,
"It did not work. Syria and Iran are not going to betray each other.
Bandar's approach is very unlikely to succeed".

Walid Jumblatt (http://www.answers.com/topic/walid-jumblatt), who is
the leader of the Druze minority in Lebanon and a strong Siniora
supporter, has attacked Nasrallah as an agent of Syria, and has
repeatedly told foreign journalists that Hezbollah is under the direct
control of the religious leadership in Iran. In a conversation with me
last December, he depicted Bashir Assad, the Syrian President, as a
"serial killer". Nasrallah, he said, was "morally guilty" of the
assassination of Rafik Hariri and the murder, last November, of Pierre
Gemayel (a fascist Maronite Christian terrorist leader), a member of
the Siniora Cabinet, because of his support for the Syrians.

Walid Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Dick
Cheney in Washington last fall to discuss, among other issues, the
possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues advised Cheney
that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of
the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would be "the ones to talk to", Jumblatt
said.

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (http://www.answers.com/Muslim-
Brotherhood), a branch of a radical Sunni movement founded in Egypt in
1928 [with the help of British], engaged in more than a decade of
violent opposition to the regime of Hafez Assad, Bashir's father. In
1982, the Brotherhood took control of the city of Hama; Assad
bombarded the city for a week, killing between six thousand and twenty
thousand people. Membership in the Brotherhood is punishable by death
in Syria. The Brotherhood is also an avowed enemy of the U.S. and of
Israel. Nevertheless, Jumblatt said, "We told Cheney that the basic
link between Iran and Lebanon is Syria-and to weaken Iran you need to
open the door to effective Syrian opposition".

There is evidence that the Administration's redirection strategy has
already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation
Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are
a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam (http://www.answers.com/topic/
abdul-halim-khaddam), a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in
2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking CIA officer told me,
"The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The
Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is
American involvement". He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris,
was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White
House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front's members met with
officials from the National Security Council, according to press
reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had
provided members of the Front with travel documents.

Walid Jumblatt said he understood that the issue was a sensitive one
for the White House. "I told Cheney that some people in the Arab
world, mainly the Egyptians"-whose moderate Sunni leadership has been
fighting the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood for decades-"won't like it if
the United States helps the Brotherhood. But if you don't take on
Syria we will be face to face in Lebanon with Hezbollah in a long
fight, and one we might not win".

The Sheikh

On a warm, clear night early last December, in a bombed-out suburb a
few miles south of downtown Beirut, I got a preview of how the
Administration's new strategy might play out in Lebanon. Sheikh Hassan
Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, who has been in hiding, had agreed to
an interview. Security arrangements for the meeting were secretive and
elaborate. I was driven, in the back seat of a darkened car, to a
damaged underground garage somewhere in Beirut, searched with a
handheld scanner, placed in a second car to be driven to yet another
bomb-scarred underground garage, and transferred again.

Last summer, it was reported that Israel was trying to kill Nasrallah,
but the extraordinary precautions were not due only to that threat.
Nasrallah's aides told me that they believe he is a prime target of
fellow-Arabs, primarily Jordanian intelligence operatives, as well as
Sunni jihadists who they believe are affiliated with Al Qaeda. (The
government consultant and a retired four-star general said that
Jordanian intelligence, with support from the U.S. and Israel, had
been trying to infiltrate Shia groups, to work against Hezbollah.
Jordan's half-British sheikh Abdullah II (http://www.answers.com/topic/
abdullah-ii-of-jordan) has warned that a Shia government in Iraq that
was close to Iran would lead to the emergence of a Shia crescent).
This is something of an ironic turn: Nasrallah's battle with Israel
last summer turned him-a Shia-into the most popular and influential
figure among Sunnis and Shias throughout the region. In recent months,
however, he has increasingly been seen by many Sunnis not as a symbol
of Arab unity but as a participant in a sectarian war.

Nasrallah, dressed, as usual, in religious garb, was waiting for me in
an unremarkable apartment. One of his advisers said that he was not
likely to remain there overnight; he has been on the move since his
decision, last July, to order the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers
in a cross-border raid set off the thirty-three-day war. Nasrallah has
since said publicly-and repeated to me-that he misjudged the Israeli
response. "We just wanted to capture prisoners for exchange purposes",
he told me. "We never wanted to drag the region into war".

Nasrallah accused the Bush Administration of working with Israel to
deliberately instigate "fitna", an Arabic word that is used to mean
"insurrection and fragmentation within Islam". "In my opinion, there
is a huge campaign through the media throughout the world to put each
side up against the other", he said. "I believe that all this is being
run by American and Israeli intelligence". (He did not provide any
specific evidence for this.) He said that the U.S. war in Iraq had
increased sectarian tensions, but argued that Hezbollah had tried to
prevent them from spreading into Lebanon. (Sunni-Shia confrontations
increased, along with violence, in the weeks after we talked).

Nasrallah said he believed that President Bush's goal was "the drawing
of a new map for the region. They want the partition of Iraq. Iraq is
not on the edge of a civil war-there is a civil war. There is ethnic
and sectarian cleansing. The daily killing and displacement which is
taking place in Iraq aims at achieving three Iraqi parts, which will
be sectarian and ethnically pure as a prelude to the partition of
Iraq. Within one or two years at the most, there will be total Sunni
areas, total Shia areas, and total Kurdish areas. Even in Baghdad,
there is a fear that it might be divided into two areas, one Sunni and
one Shia".

He went on, "I can say that President Bush is lying when he says he
does not want Iraq to be partitioned. All the facts occurring now on
the ground make you swear he is dragging Iraq to partition. And a day
will come when he will say, 'I cannot do anything, since the Iraqis
want the partition of their country and I honor the wishes of the
people of Iraq' ".

Nasrallah said he believed that America also wanted to bring about the
partition of Lebanon and of Syria. In Syria, he said, the result would
be to push the country "into chaos and internal battles like in Iraq".
In Lebanon, "There will be a Sunni state, an Alawi state, a Christian
state, and a Druze state". But, he said, "I do not know if there will
be a Shia state". Nasrallah told me that he suspected that one aim of
the Israeli bombing of Lebanon last summer was "the destruction of
Shia areas and the displacement of Shias from Lebanon. The idea was to
have the Shias of Lebanon and Syria flee to southern Iraq", which is
dominated by Shias. "I am not sure, but I smell this", he told me.

Partition would leave Israel surrounded by "small tranquil states", he
said. "I can assure you that the Saudi kingdom will also be divided,
and the issue will reach to North African states. There will be small
ethnic and confessional states", he said. "In other words, Israel will
be the most important and the strongest state in a region that has
been partitioned into ethnic and confessional states that are in
agreement with each other. This is the new Middle East".

In fact, the Bush Administration has adamantly resisted talk of
partitioning Iraq, and its public stances suggest that the White House
sees a future Lebanon that is intact, with a weak, disarmed Hezbollah
playing, at most, a minor political role. There is also no evidence to
support Nasrallah's belief that the Israelis were seeking to drive the
Shias into southern Iraq. Nevertheless, Nasrallah's vision of a larger
sectarian conflict in which the United States is implicated suggests a
possible consequence of the White House's new strategy.

In the interview, Nasrallah made mollifying gestures and promises that
would likely be met with skepticism by his opponents. "If the United
States says that discussions with the likes of us can be useful and
influential in determining American policy in the region, we have no
objection to talks or meetings", he said. "But, if their aim through
this meeting is to impose their policy on us, it will be a waste of
time". He said that the Hezbollah militia, unless attacked, would
operate only within the borders of Lebanon, and pledged to disarm it
when the Lebanese Army was able to stand up. Nasrallah said that he
had no interest in initiating another war with Israel. However, he
added that he was anticipating, and preparing for, another Israeli
attack, later this year.

Nasrallah further insisted that the street demonstrations in Beirut
would continue until the Siniora government fell or met his
coalition's political demands. "Practically speaking, this government
cannot rule", he told me. "It might issue orders, but the majority of
the Lebanese people will not abide and will not recognize the
legitimacy of this government. Siniora remains in office because of
international support, but this does not mean that Siniora can rule
Lebanon".

President Bush's repeated praise of the Siniora government, Nasrallah
said, "is the best service to the Lebanese opposition he can give,
because it weakens their position vis-a-vis the Lebanese people and
the Arab and Islamic populations. They are betting on us getting
tired. We did not get tired during the war, so how could we get tired
in a demonstration?"

There is sharp division inside and outside the Bush Administration
about how best to deal with Nasrallah, and whether he could, in fact,
be a partner in a political settlement. The outgoing director of
National Intelligence, John Negroponte (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/
profile/1306), in a farewell briefing to the Senate Intelligence
Committee, in January, said that Hezbollah "lies at the center of
Iran's terrorist strategy. . . . It could decide to conduct attacks
against U.S. interests in the event it feels its survival or that of
Iran is threatened. . . . Lebanese Hezbollah sees itself as Tehran's
partner".
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_hr/011107negroponte.pdf [PDF -
200KB]

In 2002, Richard Armitage (http://www.answers.com/Richard-Armitage),
then the Deputy Secretary of State, called Hezbollah "the A-team" of
terrorists. In a recent interview, however, Armitage acknowledged that
the issue has become somewhat more complicated. Nasrallah, Armitage
told me, has emerged as "a political force of some note, with a
political role to play inside Lebanon if he chooses to do so". In
terms of public relations and political gamesmanship, Armitage said,
Nasrallah "is the smartest man in the Middle East". But, he added,
Nasrallah "has got to make it clear that he wants to play an
appropriate role as the loyal opposition. For me, there's still a
blood debt to pay"-a reference to the murdered colonel and the Marine
barracks bombing.

Robert Baer (http://www.answers.com/Robert-Baer), a former longtime
CIA agent in Lebanon, has been a severe critic of Hezbollah and has
warned of its links to Iranian-sponsored terrorism. But now, he told
me, "we've got Sunni Arabs preparing for cataclysmic conflict, and we
will need somebody to protect the Christians in Lebanon. It used to be
the French and the United States who would do it, and now it's going
to be Nasrallah and the Shias.

"The most important story in the Middle East is the growth of
Nasrallah from a street guy to a leader-from a terrorist to a
statesman", Baer added. "The dog that didn't bark this summer"-during
the war with Israel-"is Shia terrorism". Baer was referring to fears
that Nasrallah, in addition to firing rockets into Israel and
kidnapping its soldiers, might set in motion a wave of terror attacks
on Israeli and American targets around the world. "He could have
pulled the trigger, but he did not", Baer said.

Most members of the intelligence and diplomatic communities
acknowledge Hezbollah's ongoing ties to Iran. But there is
disagreement about the extent to which Nasrallah would put aside
Hezbollah's interests in favor of Iran's. A former CIA officer who
also served in Lebanon called Nasrallah "a Lebanese phenomenon",
adding, "Yes, he's aided by Iran and Syria, but Hezbollah's gone
beyond that". He told me that there was a period in the late eighties
and early nineties when the CIA station in Beirut was able to
clandestinely monitor Nasrallah's conversations. He described
Nasrallah as "a gang leader who was able to make deals with the other
gangs. He had contacts with everybody".

Telling Congress

The Bush Administration's reliance on clandestine operations that have
not been reported to Congress and its dealings with intermediaries
with questionable agendas have recalled, for some in Washington, an
earlier chapter in history. Two decades ago, the Reagan Administration
attempted to fund the Nicaraguan contras illegally, with the help of
secret arms sales to Iran. Saudi money was involved in what became
known as the Iran-Contra scandal, and a few of the players back then-
notably sheikh Bandar and [Jew] Elliott Abrams-are involved in today's
dealings.

Iran-Contra (http://www.answers.com/Iran-Contra) was the subject of an
informal "lessons learned" discussion two years ago among veterans of
the scandal. Elliott Abrams led the discussion. One conclusion was
that even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been
possible to execute it without telling Congress. As to what the
experience taught them, in terms of future covert operations, the
participants found: "One, you can't trust our friends. Two, the CIA
has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can't trust the uniformed
military, and four, it's got to be run out of the Vice-President's
office"-a reference to Cheney's role, the former senior intelligence
official said.

I was subsequently told by the two government consultants and the
former senior intelligence official that the echoes of Iran-Contra
were a factor in Negroponte's decision to resign from the National
Intelligence directorship and accept a sub-Cabinet position of Deputy
Secretary of State. (Negroponte declined to comment).

The former senior intelligence official also told me that Negroponte
did not want a repeat of his experience in the Reagan Administration,
when he served as Ambassador to Honduras. "Negroponte said, 'No way.
I'm not going down that road again, with the NSC running operations
off the books, with no finding' ", (In the case of covert CIA
operations, the President must issue a written finding and inform
Congress). Negroponte stayed on as Deputy Secretary of State, he
added, because "he believes he can influence the government in a
positive way".

The government consultant said that Negroponte shared the White
House's policy goals but "wanted to do it by the book". The Pentagon
consultant also told me that "there was a sense at the senior-ranks
level that he wasn't fully on board with the more adventurous
clandestine initiatives". It was also true, he said, that Negroponte
"had problems with this Rube Goldberg policy contraption for fixing
the Middle East".

The Pentagon consultant added that one difficulty, in terms of
oversight, was accounting for covert funds. "There are many, many pots
of black money, scattered in many places and used all over the world
on a variety of missions", he said. The budgetary chaos in Iraq, where
billions of dollars are unaccounted for, has made it a vehicle for
such transactions, according to the former senior intelligence
official and the retired four-star general.

"This goes back to Iran-Contra", a former National Security Council
(NSC) aide told me. "And much of what they're doing is to keep the
agency out of it". He said that Congress was not being briefed on the
full extent of the US-Saudi operations. And, he said, "The CIA is
asking, 'What's going on?' They're concerned, because they think it's
amateur hour".

The issue of oversight is beginning to get more attention from
Congress. Last November, the Congressional Research Service issued a
report for Congress on what it depicted as the Administration's
blurring of the line between CIA activities and strictly military
ones, which do not have the same reporting requirements. And the
Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by Senator Jay Rockefeller, has
scheduled a hearing for March 8th on Defense Department intelligence
activities.

Senator Ron Wyden, of Oregon, a Democrat who is a member of the
Intelligence Committee, told me, "The Bush Administration has
frequently failed to meet its legal obligation to keep the
Intelligence Committee fully and currently informed. Time and again,
the answer has been 'Trust us' ". Wyden said, "It is hard for me to
trust the Administration".

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/070305fa_fact_hersh

[arasha...@yahoo.com]

The Redirection

By Seymour M. Hersh

A Strategic Shift

Sheikh Bandar's Game

Jihadis In Lebanon

Bandar'sapproach is very unlikely to succeed".