Ever Heard of Blowback?

Sy Hersh is, as always, a must-read. But his latest entry is more depressing and alarming than anything he's written since his investigation into Abu Ghraib. He describes a "redirection" of US policy in the Middle East. Condoleeza Rice gave a highly sanitized account before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January:

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.”

In order to counteract the rise of Iran (a 100% predictable outcome of the collossally misguided Iraq war), the administration is now pursuing a policy of aiding Sunni militants in the region. Despite the enormous death toll these groups have inflicted on US troops in Iraq, the US actually sees them as a necessary ally in a covert war they're waging against Hezbollah and Iran. So US aid--partly from wealthy Saudi sources, party from the money we've given to the Siniora government--is going to Sunni militants in northern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and around Palestinian refugee camps in the south. Naturally, these Sunni militants are ideologically allied with Al Qaeda and hate the US at least as much as they hate their Shiite enemies.

This policy is motivated by the blinkered premise that the US can support "moderates" against "extremists" from all sides. An operating assumption in this scheme is that the Saudis are "moderate." Rather ridiculous on its face, but an article of faith among the Bushes and the Cheneys. And so, once again, the US and its Saudi "allies" are back together again, funneling aid to Sunni militants, in order to cause trouble for one of our regional enemies, just as was done against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Perhaps a non-military policy of aiding moderates against extremists in the Midle East might have been possible before the Iraq War. But in the widening sectarian polarization unleashed by that war, there are fewer and fewer "moderates" anywhere. As Martin Indyk of the Saban Center, notes, “The President sees the region as divided between moderates and extremists, but our regional friends see it as divided between Sunnis and Shia. The Sunnis that we view as extremists are regarded by our Sunni allies simply as Sunnis.”

And this crazy policy is being brought to you by the same folks who brought us Iran-Contra, especially Elliot Abrams and Prince Bandar. And they're following the Iran Contra playbook: go around Congress and use money from non-appropriated or black sources, in the service of wingnut visionary schemes. Indeed, Hersh reports that two years ago, Iran-Contra veterans held an informal meeting to discuss "lessons learned."

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 C.I.A. 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.

Those are the lessons of Iran-Contra?!? Experience clearly makes no impression whatsoever on the ideological fantasies of our president's men.