Author Archives: Denise Simon

Hillary Server-Gate Operative Pleas 5th?

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From this blog in an earlier post, I mentioned Brain Pagliano and he is in the news again today. Wait for it…..he is fending off a subpoena and will likely plea the Constitutional protection of the 5th Amendment. Will Hillary take down the White House?

Staffer who worked on Clinton’s private e-mail server faces subpoena

Washington Post: A former State Department staffer who worked on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail server this week tried to fend off a subpoena to testify before Congress, saying he would assert his constitutional right not to answer questions to avoid incriminating himself.

The move by Bryan Pagliano, who had worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before setting up the server in her New York home in 2009, came in a Monday letter from his lawyer to the House panel investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The letter cited the ongoing FBI inquiry into the security of Clinton’s e-mail system, and it quoted a Supreme Court ruling in which justices described the Fifth Amendment as protecting “innocent men . . . who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.’ ”

The FBI is investigating whether Clinton’s system — in which she exclusively used private e-mail for her work as secretary of state — may have jeopardized sensitive national security information.

Thousands of e-mails that have been released by the State Department as part of a public records lawsuit show Clinton herself writing at least six e-mails containing information that has since been deemed classified. Large portions of those e-mails were redacted before their release, on the argument that their publication could harm national security.

“While we understand that Mr. Pagliano’s response to this subpoena may be controversial in the current political environment, we hope that the members of the Select Committee will respect our client’s right to invoke the protections of the Constitution,” his attorney, Mark MacDougall, wrote.

Two other Senate committees also have contacted Pagliano in the past week, according to a copy of the letter, which was obtained by The Washington Post. The requests came from the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, according to people familiar with the requests.

The Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed Wednesday that it sought to ask Pagliano about his work for Clinton.

“In response to questions . . . Mr. Pagliano’s legal counsel told the committee yesterday that he would plead the Fifth to any and all questions if he were compelled to testify,” a spokesperson for committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chairman of the House Benghazi committee, had subpoenaed the computer staffer Aug. 11 and ordered that he appear for questioning before the committee Sept. 10. Gowdy also demanded that Pagliano provide documents related to the servers or systems controlled or owned by Clinton from 2009 to 2013.

Pagliano, who worked in the State Department’s information-technology department from May 2009 until February 2013, left the agency when Clinton departed as secretary. He now works for a technology contractor that provides some services to the State Department.

The committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), complained yesterday that Gowdy unilaterally issued the subpoena. He said the subpoena of a low-level aide is one of several signs that Gowdy is using the committee for the political purpose of trying to smear a Democratic presidential candidate.

“Although multiple legal experts agree there is no evidence of criminal activity, it is certainly understandable that this witness’s attorneys advised him to assert his Fifth Amendment rights, especially given the onslaught of wild and unsubstantiated accusations by Republican presidential candidates, members of Congress and others based on false leaks about the investigation,” Cummings said. “Their insatiable desire to derail Secretary Clinton’s presidential campaign at all costs has real consequences for any serious congressional effort.”

MacDougall declined to comment late Wednesday evening.

Will Hillary Clinton’s Emails Burn the White House?

DailyBeast: Counterintelligence specialists suspect that the former Secretary of State wasn’t the only member of the Obama administration emailing secrets around.
Hillary Clinton’s email problems are already causing headaches for her presidential campaign. But within American counterintelligence circles, there’s a mounting sense that the former Secretary of State may not be the only Obama administration official in trouble. This is a scandal that has the potential to spread to the White House, as well.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation can be expected to be tight-lipped, especially because this highly sensitive case is being handled by counterintelligence experts from Bureau headquarters a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, not by the FBI’s Washington Field Office. That will ensure this investigation gets the needed “big picture” view, since even senior FBI agents at any given field office may only have a partial look at complex counterintelligence cases.

And this most certainly is a counterintelligence matter. There’s a widely held belief among American counterspies that foreign intelligence agencies had to be reading the emails on Hillary’s private server, particularly since it was wholly unencrypted for months. “I’d fire my staff if they weren’t getting all this,” explained one veteran Department of Defense counterintelligence official, adding: “I’d hate to be the guy in Moscow or Beijing right now who had to explain why they didn’t have all of Hillary’s email.” Given the widespread hacking that has plagued the State Department, the Pentagon, and even the White House during Obama’s presidency, senior counterintelligence officials are assuming the worst about what the Russians and Chinese know.

EmailGate has barely touched the White House directly, although it’s clear that some senior administration officials beyond the State Department were aware of Hillary’s unorthodox email and server habits, given how widely some of the emails from Clinton and her staff were forwarded around the Beltway. Obama’s inner circle may not be off-limits to the FBI for long, however, particularly since the slipshod security practices of certain senior White House officials have been a topic of discussions in the Intelligence Community for years.

Hillary Clinton was far from the only senior Obama appointee to play fast and loose with classified materials, according to Intelligence Community insiders. While most counterspies agree that Hillary’s practices—especially using her own server and having her staffers place classified information into unclassified emails, in violation of Federal law—were especially egregious, any broad-brush investigation into security matters are likely to turn up other suspects, they maintain.

“The whole administration is filled with people who can’t shoot straight when it comes to classified,” an Intelligence Community official explained to me this week. Three U.S. officials suggested that Susan Rice, the National Security Adviser, might be at particular risk if a classified information probe goes wide. But it should be noted that Rice has made all sorts of enemies on the security establishment for her prickly demeanor, use of coarse language, and  strategic missteps.

However, Clinton should take no comfort from the fact that others may be in trouble with the FBI too. Just how many of her “unclassified” emails were actually classified is a matter of dispute that will take months for the FBI to resolve with assistance from the State Department and Intelligence Community. The current figure bandied about, that something like 300 of the emails scanned to date by investigators contained information that should have been marked as classified, is somewhat notional at this point, not least because the Intelligence Community has yet to weigh in on most of them.

Spy agencies typically take a harder line on classification than the State Department does, including a tendency to retroactively mark as classified mundane things—for instance press reports that comment on security matters can be deemed secret—that other, less secrecy-prone agencies might not. That said, there’s little doubt that our intelligence agencies fear that the compromise engendered by Hillary’s email slipshod practices was significant.

Although it will be months before intelligence agencies have reviewed all Clinton emails, counterintelligence officials expect that the true number of classified emails on Hillary’s servers is at least many hundreds and perhaps thousands, based on the samplings seen to date.

Excuses that most of the classified emails examined to date are considered Confidential, which is the lowest level, cut no ice with many insiders. Although the compromise of information at that level is less damaging than the loss of Secret—or worse Top Secret—information, it is still a crime that’s taken seriously by counterintelligence professionals. Most of the classified that Hillary and her staff seem to have compromised dealt with diplomatic discussions, which is a grave indiscretion as far as diplomats worldwide are concerned.

“Of course they knew what they were doing, it’s a clear as day from the emails,” opined one senior official who is close to the investigation. “I’m a Democrat and this makes me sick. They were fully aware of what they were up to, and the Bureau knows it.” That Hillary and her staff at Foggy Bottom were wittingly involved in a scheme to place classified information into ostensibly unclassified emails to reside on Clinton’s personal, private server is the belief of every investigator and counterintelligence official I’ve spoken with recently, and all were at pains to maintain that this misconduct was felonious.

It’s clear that many people inside the State Department had to be aware, at least to some degree, of what Clinton and her inner staff were engaged in. How far that knowledge went is a key question that the FBI is examining. The name Patrick Kennedy pops up frequently. A controversial character, Kennedy is the State Department’s undersecretary for management (hence his Foggy Bottom nickname “M”). A longtime Clinton protégé, Kennedy is believed by many to be the key to this case, since his sign-off likely would have been needed for some of Clinton’s unorthodox arrangements.

 

Obama’s Approach to Foreign Policy is Demonstration by Ukraine Conflict

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Why Waiting for Russia to Collapse Is a Terrible Ukraine Policy

by: Nikolas K. Gvosdev

Two months ago, a number of senior U.S. national-security officials insisted that the Russian Federation has reemerged as the premier existential threat to American interests. Today, as energy prices continue to tumble and China’s economy falters, a new narrative has emerged: the pending collapse of Russia itself, or at least the prospects that the government of Vladimir Putin is entering into its last days. The continuous oscillation in views—Russia as a powerful threat, Russia as an imploding basket case—does not permit a cool, rational assessment of Russia’s actual strengths and weaknesses.

Let’s first start with the economic indicators. Russia’s economy is contracting, its currency is losing value vis-à-vis the dollar and the euro, and its industrial output is showing signs of decline. Because of the conflict in Ukraine, Western sanctions remain in place against Russia. The second round of collapsing energy prices further decreases the revenues available to the Kremlin—although the devaluation of the currency has helped to partially compensate for this since energy exports are priced in and generally paid for in dollars and euros. And Putin’s lifeline against Western sanctions—more than $100 billion in deals, credits and loans with China—has been compromised by China’s own economic woes. Inflation is eating away at the savings and purchasing power of Russian citizens. Between devaluation, Western sanctions and Russian countersanctions, imports have become either more expensive or have disappeared altogether, while domestic substitutes have not generated sufficient replacements.

These basic facts are not in dispute by most people ranging from Kremlin ministers to vociferous Putin opponents. What these developments may portend, however, is open to interpretation.

In one narrative, the declining economy will galvanize widespread public opposition to the Putin government, as hundreds of thousands of Russians are set to fall below the poverty line. Declining commodity prices make it much more difficult for the Kremlin to be able to distribute financial support to a number of the economically strapped regions of Russia, depriving the government of one of its more effective tools for managing local unrest. The cratering economy will also negatively impact the fortunes and livelihoods of the Russian elite, particularly as sanctions cut into their ability to maintain access to Western sources of goods and services. The Kremlin will come under tremendous pressure to reverse its foreign-policy choices—starting with supporting separatists in Ukraine and aiding the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria—in order to shore up its economic base. Spending on military rejuvenation will have to end. Moreover, some have even begun to speculate about a combination of mass public protests and elite maneuverings coalescing in Putin’s very removal as president.

The seductiveness of such a narrative to Western governments is apparent. For the last year, American and European leaders have solemnly warned about the dangers posed by Putin to Euro-Atlantic security, yet the rhetoric has still not been completely matched by decisive action. There have been some rotations of forces and equipment to the eastern frontiers of the NATO alliance, but no permanent pivot back to Europe, and in fact, the United States continues to withdraw personnel. Many European governments have still not increased defense spending while some continue to cut such expenditures. Ukraine has received only a fraction of the aid it needs and almost none of the military assistance it has requested to push back the separatists. A narrative that a collapsing Russian economy, however, is going to deliver Moscow’s complete reversal on Ukraine and may even lead to regime change in the Kremlin itself—and in a matter of months—takes Western governments off the hook. The West need not “do” anything more, but simply wait for the Russian collapse, in a repeat of what happened to the Soviet Union thirty years ago.

It seems quite dangerous, however, to base policy towards Russia on assumptions of a forthcoming economic disaster. The Russian economy is slated to enter a period of extreme austerity, but even with the declines, there is nothing that resembles the catastrophe of the 1990s, with GDP being nearly halved. Declines are still predicted in the single digits—indicating future hardships, not outright collapse. It is also not clear that popular unhappiness will translate into sustained anti-government unrest. Here, the failure of the West to develop a rapid, comprehensive Ukrainian rescue package plays a critical role. Russians are well aware of the tremendous economic hardships Ukraine is facing in the post-Maidan period and that Ukraine has not been given any significant help to put it on a path to prosperity, which may temper enthusiasm for any sort of revolutionary activity. Russian media has also consistently covered the prolonged economic crisis in Greece and other EU member-states, sending a very strong signal that not only would there be no real reward for Russia if Putin were to be removed, but that Russia could face even worse economic conditions than the current austerity they must undergo. Given the conservative and risk-averse nature of Russian political culture, grumbling and protests about current conditions may not in fact translate into sustained action for political change.

Nor does it appear that Putin is prepared to let an economic crisis go to waste. Indeed, the silver lining is that he, like President Xi Jinping in China, can use economic failure as a way to push for members of the elite to hand in their resignations and enhance his own authority. As we have seen with the removal of a close Putin ally and partner, Vladimir Yakunin, from his position as head of Russian Railways, poor economic performance may indeed give Putin the ability to begin implementing a plan of systematic replacement of cadres to bring in younger talent. At the same time, Yakunin’s expected appointment to the Federation Council suggests the provision of “golden parachutes” where those who are prepared to cooperate in their removal are given guarantees of retaining some status (as well as immunity), which could help to mitigate possible opposition.

Yes, the economic crisis does affect Putin’s ambitious military spending plans—with further postponements now all but guaranteed. Yet this should not cause any premature rejoicing. Putin has sufficient wherewithal in place to continue his activities and to maintain what Michael Kofman has termed “the power to annoy.” And even if Russia moves into terminal decline, it will still be able to cause a good deal of damage, if it chooses, for the foreseeable future.

The “Russia problem” is not going to take care of itself. There are serious strategies put on the table for both engagement and confrontation with Moscow—but both require time, resources and commitment. The search for a low-cost, consequence-free approach to Russia—which has been on display ever since the Ukraine crisis flared last year—does not find its answer in gambling on a Russian economic collapse.

Truth of the Iran Lobby

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All Republicans in the Senate are ‘NO’ votes on the Iran deal and there is an estimated 12 Democrats so far that are staying with a NO vote, the rest of the Democrats have declared they will vote with the White House, when not one Senator has had any access to the side deals.

The White House has declared they don’t need any part of Congress to approve the deal, it is done. Further, the Iran deal is non-binding which is to say Iran does not need to comply with any part of the JPOA.

Meanwhile, you may be interested to know who the Iran Lobby is in Washington DC and the influence they have with legislators and the White House. Simply, money votes.

The text below is the perfect model for how all politics work in Washington DC. Chilling but true.

Meet the Iran Lobby

In the fight over sanctions and the nuclear deal, how did the supposedly all-powerful pro-Israel lobby lose to the slick operatives of the National Iranian American Council?

By Lee Smith
Trita Parsi, the Iranian-born émigré who moved to the United States in 2001 from Sweden, where his parents found refuge before the Islamic Revolution, should be the toast of Washington these days. As I argued in Tablet magazine several years ago, Parsi is an immigrant who in classic American fashion wanted to capitalize on the opportunity to reconcile his new home and his birthplace. And now he’s done it: The founder and president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), the tip of the spear of the Iran Lobby, has won a defining battle over the direction of American foreign policy. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action not only lifts sanctions on Iran, a goal Parsi has fought for since 1997, but also paves the way for a broader reconciliation between Washington and Tehran across the Middle East. In Washington, to have the policies you advocate implemented with the full backing of the president counts as a huge victory. Winning big like this means power as well as access to more money, which flows naturally to power and augments it—enhancing reputations and offering the ability to reward friends and punish enemies. And yet, Parsi (who declined comment for this story) has got to be frustrated that very few in the halls of American power—either in government or in the media—are celebrating the Iran lobby for its big win. It seems the only thing people can talk about is the big loser in this fight over Middle East policy—the pro-Israel lobby, led by AIPAC. It’s as if Parsi and NIAC had nothing to do with the Obama Administration’s decision to move closer to Iran while further distancing itself from Israel. “It’s a huge win for NIAC,” said one Iranian-American analyst who requested anonymity. “Every other part of Iranian-American advocacy—from the Mujahedin-e Khalq, to the washed-up old monarchists—is useless, and then in comes Trita and he’s slick, presentable, and knows how to build an impressive network.” So, why is the rise of the Iran Lobby both Washington’s biggest and also its least-heralded success story of the past six years? In part, Parsi and NIAC’s relative anonymity is the work of a White House that would rather pretend that there is no Iran Lobby, in accordance with the standard Beltway wisdom that a “lobby” is any group of people who advocate things that you are opposed to (lobbies that advocate things you are for are known as “supporters”). But the White House surely knows better, in part because so many friends and graduates of the Iran Lobby now staff key Iran-related government posts. The White House’s Iran desk officer, Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, for example, is a former NIAC employee. NIAC’s advisory board includes two former U.S. diplomats, Thomas Pickering, a former ambassador to Israel, and John Limbert, who was held hostage by the revolutionary regime in 1979. Past speakers at NIAC leadership conferences include Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser Colin Kahl, and the White House’s Middle East Director Rob Malley. Other past speakers from the political realm include: Robert Hunter, former U.S. ambassador to NATO; PJ Crowley, State Deptartment spokesperson under Hillary Clinton; Hans Blix, former director general of the IAEA. Other reputable names include figures like Aaron David Miller from the Wilson Center, Robert Pape from the University of Chicago, and Suzanne Maloney from the Brookings Institution. Indeed, the impressive roster of speakers at NIAC events is evidence of Parsi’s assiduous cultivation of friendly contacts, both here and in Iran. The biggest NIAC booster in academia is the author of The Israel Lobby himself, Harvard University’s Stephen Walt. The in-house portion of Parsi’s network also includes public intellectuals, like Iranian-American authors Hooman Majd and Reza Aslan, as well as figures from Iranian business concerns, like Atieh Bahar, who are reportedly close to the Iranian regime, especially former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. According to a deeply informed video series posted earlier this month by Iranian-American activist Hassan Dai, Parsi has partnered with Atieh Bahar since the very beginning of his career as an Iran lobbyist in order to promote a pro-trade agenda, which of course will inevitably help the regime. (In 2008, Parsi sued Dai, claiming he had “defamed them in a series of articles and blog posts claiming that they had secretly lobbied on behalf of the Iranian regime in the United States.” The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found in 2012 the work of NIAC, which wasn’t registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, “not inconsistent with the idea that he was first and foremost an advocate for the regime.”) “Parsi believed that what stood between U.S.-Iran trade and dialogue,” said Dai, “was AIPAC.”   NIAC not only modeled itself after AIPAC, Dai said, it waged a crusade against it. “Back in 2004 Parsi gave a talk to European ambassadors saying that Israel and AIPAC stood between better relations between the United States and Iran. That turned into his dissertation at Johns Hopkins and later his [2007] book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the US.” As it happens, Parsi was able to tap into a pool of support for his ideas. According to NIAC’s financial statement, the majority of the organization’s money comes from community support, while a portion comes from foundations, like the Ploughshares Fund, which has spent lots of money to influence U.S. policy toward Iran—“millions of dollars,” according to Michael Rubin writing for Commentary, “to pro-administration groups to support whatever Iran deal came out of Vienna.” Most important, of course, Parsi found common cause with a White House that believed the same things he did: The United States and Iran should be closer, and all that was preventing rapprochement was Israel and AIPAC. “NIAC didn’t really need to write their talking points anymore,” said Dai. “Because they were coming from the White House.” To push through the Iran deal, the White House, including the president himself, waged a brutal campaign against the prime minister of Israel and the pro-Israel community, even, some have argued, accusing JCPOA opponent Sen. Chuck Schumer of dual loyalty. Parsi, some of whose anti-Israel sentiments have previously been documented, followed suit. Most recently, he suggested that the Associated Press had printed an Israeli forgery of an IAEA agreement with Iran that allowed the Islamic Republic to self-inspect its Parchin military base. When AP reporters and others on Twitter challenged Parsi’s absurd allegation slandering a trusted Western news source, the Iran lobby chief backed down—but not before he’d put his obsession with Israel and Jewish power on full display. NIAC, whose direct expenditure of a little over a million dollars is a tiny fraction of AIPAC’s Iran deal campaign budget, won because it was aligned with the White House. And instead of boasting and posturing about his power and top-level access, as AIPAC is wont to do, Parsi understood his role. Like J Street, NIAC was cast to play second banana to the President’s star turn and stay close to the White House and make the case to journalists and other intellectuals who weren’t already sold on the idea of rapprochement with Iran—and on the idea that Israel is a big problem for the United States.  (White House Twitter account) The paradox is that Parsi deserves lots of credit for his victory, but he can’t cash his checks too publicly—because the American public doesn’t like Iran. Which in turn points up a major difference between the pro-Israel lobby and the pro-Iran lobby—both of which, I want to add, contrary to critics on both the left and the right, make entirely legitimate use of the American democratic system to advocate for their respective points of view. Where NIAC differs from AIPAC is in its relation to American public opinion. AIPAC has never been about selling access to the Israeli economy: In fact, AIPAC piggy-backed on the huge well-spring of affection that the American public has for Israel in order to establish itself as a power in Washington. If Americans want to invest in an IT firm in Herzliya, or a gift shop in Tzfat, donating money to AIPAC is unlikely to be of much help: They’re free to take their chances and fight through the red tape. Nor is it clear that pursuing exciting economic opportunities in Israel has ever been a particular motivating force for pro-Israel activism. The pro-Israel lobby never sold anything except the opportunity for Americans—Jews, evangelical Christians, and mainstream Democrats and Republicans alike—to feel even better about supporting something they already felt good about, for personal, ethnic, ideological, religious, sentimental, and other such reasons. The pro-Iran lobby on the other hand has no real base of popular support in America: Many Iranians in America are in fact deeply opposed to the regime in Tehran, and see NIAC as a regime tool. What NIAC has to offer instead, like the Saudi lobby before it, is access, which is a big reason why Parsi has been fighting sanctions for nearly two decades. For an Iran Lobby to have any heft, it needs to be able to deliver the goods to its supporters. With sanctions, the Iran Lobby has been largely crippled, because it has very little to offer: It was able to accumulate the power it has now only because the Administration clearly signaled its desire to do business with Iran, thereby offering NIAC supporters at least some mathematical expectation of a future payout. Now, if the JCPOA gets through Congress, that payout is likely to be tremendous, as the Iran Lobby will be able to help broker access to anything and everything in Iran—from industry, to schools, to opportunities for journalists and academics, etc.—which will in turn make NIAC and the Iran Lobby that much more powerful. One of the chief ironies of the ongoing debate over the Iran deal is that both defenders and detractors of a supposedly all-powerful “Israel Lobby” have been wasting their breath over an entity that has notably failed to affect U.S. policy on a single issue of major concern over the entire course of Obama’s 6-year Presidency—a record of unmitigated failure that would clearly condemn it to the black hole of Beltway irrelevance if not for the bizarre imaginative hold, and political utility, of the myth of a powerful conspiracy of Jews who secretly rule the planet. Or perhaps it’s not an irony at all. Some of the loudest detractors of the “Israel Lobby” are in fact paid staffers and partisans of the Iran Lobby—an entity that, unlike the Israel Lobby, has succeeded in radically altering U.S. foreign policy, with the help of the President and his advisors. Seen from a certain angle, the Iran Lobby has pulled off the neat trick of using the specter of the Israel Lobby to shift U.S. policy away from Israel and toward Iran—while actually succeeding at the same dark arts that it blames the Jews for employing. The Iran lobby used a combination of lobbying, donations, propaganda, and back-door personal connections to top policy-makers to radically alter American foreign policy, and align the United States with an oppressive authoritarian regime that is destabilizing the Middle East.

In Other News, al Qaeda an Ally of United States?

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When a president is rudderless as Barack Obama is, all ships, soldiers and strategy fall silent as the enemy fills the gaps with successful terror. Retired General Petraeus announced a option of perhaps peeling off al Nusra (al Qaeda) fighters and enlisting their resources as allies to take on the fight against Islamic State. This raised some real eyebrows. Is there reality in this plan or is it desperation?

Petraeus’s Plan to Defeat Islamic State Won’t Work

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Bloomberg: Former CIA Director David Petraeus today confirmed that he is urging Obama administration officials to try to peel off some fighters from the radical al-Nusrah group, to join the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS. But Petraeus’s explanation does not account for the fact that U.S. policy in Syria has been alienating the “reconcilable” Islamists for over four years.

“We should under no circumstances try to use or coopt Nusrah, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, as an organization against ISIL,” Petraeus told CNN. “But some individual fighters, and perhaps some elements, within Nusrah today have undoubtedly joined for opportunistic rather than ideological reasons: They saw Nusrah as a strong horse, and they haven’t seen a credible alternative, as the moderate opposition has yet to be adequately resourced.”

It sounds like the “Sunni Awakening” from his time in Iraq, but there’s little to no chance of repeating that in Syria today. Recent U.S. action, and inaction, shows why.

Just last week, the commander of Division 30, the Syrian “moderate” opposition group that hosts a few dozen U.S.-trained fighters, sent out a worrying notice: His troops had just been bombed by planes from Assad’s air force. The U.S. military did not respond.

“We have no information on whether Assad forces targeted Vetted Syrian Opposition Groups or the New Syrian Force specifically,” Lieutenant Commander Kyle Raines, U.S. Central Command spokesman, told me, using the official term for the 54 Syrian soldiers who were trained and armed by the U.S. and sent back into Syria to fight the Islamic State.

Only three weeks earlier, the U.S. military did respond with force to an attack on Division 30, this time coming from al-Nusrah, the Syria rebel group affiliated with al-Qaeda.  Nusrah had kidnapped some of the U.S.-trained fighters and killed others, and the U.S. military sent drones to exact retribution. But Division 30 itself was opposed to the U.S. attacks on al-Nusrah and pledged never to fight the group, only the Assad regime and the Islamic State.

In 2012, when he was C.I.A. director, Petraeus and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed significantly arming the Syrian opposition, a plan supported by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey. But the White House rejected the plan, and U.S.-supported opposition groups were routed.

Now Petraeus is proposing to separate the “reconcilables” from al-Nusrah to fight against the Islamic State. He compared the plan to the Sunni Awakening in Iraq in 2007 and 2008.

“In Iraq, during the Surge, Sunni tribes and insurgent groups that were previously aligned with AQI (al Qaeda in Iraq) switched sides because they concluded that there was a better alternative — namely, partnership with us and, ultimately, the government of Iraq — and because they saw that AQI was a losing bet,” Petraeus said. “The process of ‘reconciliation’ contributed significantly to the defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq in 2007-2008, a situation sustained for 2-3 more years.”

He acknowledges that the Sunni Awakening in Iraq broke down after most of the agreements with Iraqi Sunni tribes were broken by the Iraqi government. He also acknowledges that Syria and Iraq are not the same. But Petraeus concludes that the U.S. should work to defeat radical groups in Syria “by splintering their ranks by offering a credible alternative.”

The key problem with Petraeus’s idea is that the U.S. may no longer have any chance of being “credible” in Syria. Four years after the crisis began, U.S. support for groups fighting the Assad regime has slowed. Those moderate groups that haven’t been crushed or coopted by Islamic groups feel abandoned by Washington.

The $500 million program to train and equip fighters in Syria has been hampered by the fact that new recruits are compelled to pledge not to fight Assad. Obama administration officials are pursuing a de facto policy of regime preservation while paying lip service to the unfounded hope for a political process whereby Assad would negotiate his own departure.

Petraeus was not wrong in 2012 when he called for robust American support for moderate opposition forces in Syria. But in 2015, that plan has been overtaken by events. Unless the Obama administration completely reverses course — creating a Syria policy that is about more than quashing the Islamic State — the Petraeus plan can’t work.

All Syrian groups fighting the Islamic State derive their credibility from the Syrian people in the lands they control. Petraeus is right that Syrian tribes can be persuaded to break from al-Nusrah and join a U.S.-backed cause.

“U.S. regaining credibility wouldn’t take much; it would take stopping barrel bombs from falling on civilians,” said Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nongovernmental organization that works with rebel groups on the ground. “The reason that the U.S. does not have any credibility with armed groups on the ground is because it is seen as supporting Iran, Russia and the Assad regime.”

There are other reasons Petraeus’s plan has little chance. In Iraq, the U.S. had over 100,000 troops, tens of billions of dollars to spend, a relationship with the host government that could be leveraged, and the political will to commit U.S. attention to the matter. None of those things exist in Syria today.

The Obama administration appears content to contain the Islamic State in Syria, and after years of missed opportunities, Obama seems unlikely to confront Assad. Syrians remember when Obama last year said that the entire idea that a group of “former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth” could defeat the Assad regime and its supporters has “always been a fantasy.”

The nature of the American commitment in Syria is not likely to change. Not even the hawkish leading Republican presidential candidates are supporting a dramatic increase of American resources or personnel to turn Syria around. The only Syrian “awakening” will be when Assad does fall — and the U.S. realizes it has no friends there to represent its interests.

Come the F*ck On: al Qaeda Is Not Our Ally!

DailyBeast: A new argument among jihad analysts has it that the makers of 9/11 are now a handy bulwark against ISIS. Um, no.

Enemies becoming friends is seemingly all the rage these days. First Cuba. Then Iran. Now, there are those arguing that al Qaeda must also be brought into the fold. That’s right: the same group which fly planes into our buildings, blows up our tube networks, embassies and longs for the return of the Caliphate.

The argument seems to be catching on. The journalist Ahmed Rashid has recently taken to the pages of the New York Review of Books (“Why we need al Qaeda”) and the front cover of The Spectator (“Al Qaeda to the rescue”) to question whether al Qaeda “might be the best option left in the Middle East for the US and its allies.” The argument goes that the U.S., regional Arab powers, and Turkey have a shared enemy in Bashar al-Assad, Iran and its proxies. Al Qaeda not only shares these enemies, it is at the frontline of this fight in Syria and Yemen.

Rashid also says that al Qaeda is going through “dramatic changes” and is now taking a “soft line” on certain issues. Charles Lister from Brookings has also explored potential al Qaeda moderation—with the headline used in his May article for the Huffington Post, “An Internal Struggle: Al Qaeda’s Syrian Affiliate is Grappling with its Identity,” making the group sound more like a 16 year-old goth from Portland than a murderous terrorist organization.

Other, less savory figures have spoken out on other ways in which al Qaeda may be useful. Moazzam Begg—the former Guantanamo Bay detainee—cites Rashid while arguing that “the most credible voices against IS have been Islamic clerics traditionally associated with al Qaeda”: Abu Qatada and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. These two jihadist theologians’ fatwas have been used to justify barbaric violence for decades. Yet Begg laments the UK government’s reluctance to reach out to such figures, arguing that it would help avert a repeat of the massacre of British tourists that just occurred in Tunisia.

This is largely unsurprising coming from Begg, who has long argued the Islamist cause. Yet as others view al Qaeda as a potentially constructive partner, it is worth exploring this thesis on its merits.

The examples of moderation cited by the likes of Rashid are anything but. A statement from Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, the head of al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, saying that he was under instructions not to use Syria “as a base to launch attacks on the West or Europe” is highlighted as a sign of progress. However, even this concession—as deeply generous as it is—is not because of a lack of desire to kill more Westerners; it is “so as not to muddy the current war” in Syria. A change in tactics should not be confused for a change in strategy.

The al-Nusra Front also remains proud of al Qaeda’s past successes when it comes to mass murder. A propaganda video they just released is heavy on video footage from 9/11—an attack described in the video as “the most effective solution”—and speeches by Osama bin Laden.

Russian Connection with Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and OPM?

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Pvt. Bradley Manning describes as noted by Gawker in part:

The story begins with Manning’s own disillusionment with U.S. foreign policy and its wars, sparked by his wide-ranging research as an analyst. “I began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year,” he said. He wanted to give the public access to some of the same information he had seen, so they might come to a similar conclusion. Manning said he leaked a massive database of incident reports from Iraq and Afghanistan because he believed they might “spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as it relates to Iraq and Afghanistan.” He hoped people who saw the dramatic video of a 2007 Apache helicopter strike in Iraq he leaked would be outraged by the “delightful bloodlust” of the pilots. The U.S. State Department cables he gave to Wikileaks detailed shady deals and backroom intimidation and were “a prime example of a need for a more open diplomacy.” 

But Manning’s ideas and actions did not develop in a vacuum. In walking us through the genesis of and rationale behind each leak, Manning’s statement emphasizes they were not hit-and-run jobs. Wikileaks plays a pivotal role in this story, and not just as a passive leaking “platform.” As Manning tells it, his relationship with Wikileaks was not unlike the relationship between a traditional journalist and their source. Manning said he was originally drawn to Wikileaks after their release in 2009 of half a million pager messages from 9/11. In January, 2010, Manning joined a chatroom linked on Wikileaks’ official site out of curiosity. He wanted to know how Wikileaks got the pager messages. “I am the type of person who likes to know how things work,” he said in his statement. “And, as an analyst, this means I always want to figure out the truth.”

Over the years I’ve periodically visited that same, now-defunct chatroom to try to figure out how Wikileaks works. Whenever I dropped by it seemed pretty dead, a few Wikileaks fanboys idling during the work day. But in early 2010 Manning found a lively collection of geeks discussing stimulating topics.

Later the official investigation and charges were brought against Bradley Manning. The charge sheet is here describing his full actions.

As noted in this blog yesterday, the Chinese and the Russians are in fact cultivating and applying the stolen data (hacked) and are working against the West.

Enter Julian Assange and the Russians.

Hat tip to John:

Wikileaks is a Front for Russian Intelligence

August 31, 2015

The part played by Wikileaks in the Edward Snowden saga is an important one. The pivotal role of Julian Assange and other leading members of Wikileaks in getting Snowden from Hawaii to Moscow, from NSA employment to FSB protection, in the late spring of 2013 is a matter of record.

For years there have been questions about just what Wikileaks actually is. I know because I’ve been among those asking. Over two years ago, little more than two weeks after Snowden landed in Moscow, I explained my concerns about Wikileaks based on my background in counterintelligence. Specifically, the role of the Russian anti-Semite weirdo Israel Shamir, a close friend of Assange, in the Wikileaks circle merited attention, and to anyone trained in the right clues, the Assange group gave the impression of having a relationship with Russian intelligence. As I summed up my position in July 2013, based on what we knew so far:

It’s especially important given the fact that Wikileaks is playing a leading role in the Snowden case, to the dismay of some of Ed’s admirers and even members of his family. Not to mention that Snowden, as of this writing, is still in Moscow. One need not be a counterintelligence guru to have serious questions about Shamir and Wikileaks here. It may be a much bigger part of the story than it appears to the naked eye.

Evidence that Wikileaks is not what it seems to be has mounted over the years. Assange’s RT show didn’t help matters, neither did the fact that, despite having claimed to possess secret Russian intelligence files, Wikileaks has never exposed anything sensitive, as they have done with the purloined files of many other countries. To say nothing of Assange & Co. taking unmistakably pro-Russian positions on a host of controversial issues. Questions logically followed.

Now answers are appearing. It’s long been known that Wikileaks, by their own admission, counseled Ed Snowden in June 2013 to leave Hong Kong and head to Moscow. Contrary to the countless lies propagated by Snowden Operation activists, Snowden’s arrival in Russia was his choice; it had nothing to do with  canceled passports in Washington, DC.

An important gap has been filled this week by Julian Assange, who admitted that Snowden going to Moscow was his idea. Ed wanted to head to Latin America, Julian asserted, especially Ecuador, whose London embassy Assange has been hiding out in for years on the lam from rape changes in Sweden. As Assange explained, “He preferred Latin America, but my advice was that he should take asylum in Russia despite the negative PR consequences, because my assessment is that he had a significant risk he could be kidnapped from Latin America on CIA orders. Kidnapped or possibly killed.”

Only in Russia would Ed be safe, Julian counseled, because there he would be protected by Vladimir Putin and his secret services, notably the FSB. One might think that seeking the shelter of the FSB — one of the world’s nastiest secret police forces that spies on millions without warrant and murders opponents freely — might be an odd choice for a “privacy organization.” But Wikileaks is no ordinary NGO.

Why Assange knew Russia would take in Snowden — it could be a big political hassle for Moscow — is a key question that any counterintelligence officer would want answered. Was Julian speaking on behalf of the FSB or did he just “know” Ed could obtain the sanctuary plus protection he sought?

Just as telling is the recent report on Assange’s activities in Ecuador’s London embassy, where it turns out Ecuadorian intelligence has been keeping tabs on him. Which is no surprise given the PR mess Assange has created for Ecuador with his on-going antics.

Especially interesting is the revelation that, while holed up in London, Assange “requested that he be able to chose his own Security Service inside the embassy, suggesting the use of Russian operatives.” It is, to say the least, surpassingly strange that a Western “privacy advocate” wants Russian secret police protection while hiding out in a Western country. The original Spanish is clear: Assange “habría sido la elección de su propio Servicio de Seguridad en el interior de la embajada, llegando a proponer la participación de operadores de nacionalidad rusa.”

Why Assange wants FSB bodyguards is a question every journalist who encounters Julian henceforth should ask. Until he explains that, Wikileaks should be treated as the front and cut-out for Russian intelligence that it has become, while those who get in bed with Wikileaks — many Western “privacy advocates” are in that group — should be asked their feelings about their own at least indirect ties with Putin’s spy services.

P.S. For those familiar with espionage history, there is a clear precedent for such an arrangement. In 1978 the magazine Covert Action Information Bulletin appeared to expose the secrets of US and Western intelligence. Its editor was Phil Agee, a former CIA officer who had gotten into bed with Cuban and Soviet intelligence; think of Agee as the Snowden of the pre-Internet era. CAIB was in fact founded on the direction of the KGB and for years served as a conduit for Kremlin lies and disinformation that seriously harmed Western intelligence. While CAIB presented itself as a radical truth-telling group, in actuality it was a KGB front, though few CAIB staffers beyond Agee knew who was really calling the shots. One suspects much the same is happening with WikiLeaks.