Old Tricks

As noted earlier in Diane's post, only 199 days left in the occupied White House for alienating our country from the rest of the world. That's much too long, for anyone who wants to see our U.S. interests served by our government as it was constituted to do.

In our insane conduct of policy toward Iran, in particular, the worst administration ever has demonstrated it cannot act rationally when the war criminals in high office get the bit in their teeth and smell an end coming to their freedom to conduct counterproductive militarism. Once again, the uglies in our government are supporting enemies of the very interests we claim we are promoting.

The cretin in chief's speech yesterday claiming that we are offering freedom to Iraqis amounts to just so many lies.

The balancing act has become more difficult for Iraq since George Bush successfully requested $400m (£200m) from Congress last year to fund covert operations aimed at destabilising the Iranian leadership. Some of these operations are likely to be launched from Iraqi territory with the help of Iranian militants opposed to Tehran. The most effective of these opponent groups is the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which enraged the Iraqi government by staging a conference last month at Camp Ashraf, north-east of Baghdad. It demanded the closure of the Iranian embassy and the expulsion of all Iranian agents in Iraq. "It was a huge meeting" said Dr Othman. "All the tribes and political leaders who are against Iran, but are also against the Iraqi government, were there." He said the anti-Iranian meeting could not have taken place without US permission.

The Americans disarmed the 3,700 MEK militants, who had long been allied to Saddam Hussein, at Camp Ashraf in 2003, but they remain well-organised and well-financed. The extent of their support within Iran remains unknown, but they are extremely effective as an intelligence and propaganda organisation.

Though the MEK is on the State Department's list of terrorist groups, the Pentagon and other US institutions have been periodically friendly to it. The US task force charged by Mr Bush with destabilising the Iranian government is likely to co-operate with it.

In reaction to the conference, the Iraqi government, the US and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have started secret talks on the future of the MEK with the Iraqi government pressing for their expulsion from Iraq. Dr Othman, who speaks to the MEK frequently by phone, said: "I pressed them to get out of Iraq voluntarily because they are a card in the hands of the Americans."

An embarrassing aspect of the American pin-prick war against Iran is that many of its instruments were previously on the payroll of Saddam Hussein. The MEK even played a role in 1991 in helping to crush the uprising against the Baathist regime at the end of the Gulf war. The dissidents from Arab districts in southern Iran around Ahwaz were funded by Saddam Hussein's intelligence organisations, which orchestrated the seizure of the Iranian embassy in London in 1980 which was supposedly carried out by Arab nationalists from Iran.

The record for supporting our own enemies has been pushed a little farther, again. The use of quasi military forces begs those temporary allies to arm and enrich themselves at our expense, all the while being ready and willing to turn against us when it suits their interests. An attack on Iran, or on Iran's allies like, say, the Mahdi militia, is reason enough to spur such a turnaround.

Actually working for the American people will mean giving up militarist ambitions, and giving other nations some reason to be friends with us again. The factions we are serving now have no long-term reason to cultivate an association with the munitions addict that dominates the face we show to the world in the present state of our executive branch.

The U.S. has sacrificed a lot, its reputation is in tatters and it will take a lot of restaffing in high offices to regain all we've thrown away in the wars we have waged so poorly and so needlessly.