Magnifico's Overnight News Digest: McCain Advised by Savimbi's Lobbyist tells us of Charles Blacks efforts on behalf of a man who led what can readily be described, because of the tactics it used, as a terrorist organization, even if Savimbi was considered by some conservatives a new George Washington because he opposed a regime they hated.
But it is far worse than that. The Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, which John McCain (and Hillary Clinton) supported, states
that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, as established under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and initiated under Executive Order 13224
which means that anyone working on behalf of the Revolutionary Guards Corps should be considered to be representing a terrorist organization.
That would include Charles Black, McCain's top political adviser.
Yesterday evening Mark Kleiman, a friend from our days at Haverford, professor of public policy, and a well-known liberal blogger, posted a piece entitled John McCain and Teheran's Tools from which we learn:
Since it was very much in Iran's interest for the U.S. to invade Iraq, it would have been natural for Iranian agents to have done what they could to promote that invasion. (Four years ago, Ted Galen Carpenter of CATO called for an investigation on that issue.) And indeed we now know that was the case: Ahmed Chalabi, who did more than any other Iraqi to stir up the U.S. against Saddam Hussein, turns out to be working for Teheran (specifically for the head of the Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force, formally proclaimed by the Senate as a terrorist organization).
Of course, Chalabi couldn't move American policy without hiring American lobbyists to move American politicians: lobbyists such as Randy Scheunemann and Charlie Black, and politicians such as John McCain. I have no reason to believe that Scheunemann and Black knew they were doing Teheran's bidding, though it should have been obvious that the course of action they helped promote would have as one of its side-effects a big enhancement of Iran's regional power.
We have known for quite some time that Chalabi was working on behalf of the Iranians. That should not surprise. After all, there is ample evidence that all of the Shi'a leaders and groups in Iraq have some connection with their co-religionists in Iran, with the person showing the greatest independence being Ayatollah Sistani, without whose presence the country would have totally disintegrated years ago.
But somehow this seems something well over the top. Black was working for a man who represented a group this administration, McCain, and one of his strongest backers (Lieberman) consider terrorists, responsible for the deaths of Americans.
Under the Military Commissions Act, should not Chalabi and anyone associated with him be subject to the penalties we were so willing to apply to others not favored by some in this administration? Or do the sanctions they are willing to apply to those who oppose them not apply to them, because IOKIYAR, that is, a Republican other than Brent Scowcroft or Chuck Hagel or anyone else willing to call this administration on its bullshit and idiocy? Because by the logic some (especially Cheney and Ashcroft) in this administration have espoused, one could make the case that enabling Chalabi is equivalent to treason.
Please note - I agree with Jim Webb that the categorization made by Kyl-Lieberman seemingly mandates the military option against Iran, that
"It could be read as tantamount to a declaration of war. What do we do with terrorist organizations? If they are involved against us, we attack them."
If John McCain is so experienced on military matters as he claims, how can he have as his chief political adviser someone who actively represented a proxy for a country we now consider to be our most serious enemy in the region, whose actions were paid for by a group McCain himself wanted designated as a terrorist organization.
I read Kleiman's piece last night, but I had already used my daily diary. After reading today's Washington Post and the Overnight News Digest I thought it important to put Black's activities in as broad a context as possible.
It seems increasingly likely that this administration, with the full support of John McCain, will launch attacks on Iran. Our justification will supposedly be the actions Iran is talking that are resulting in the deaths of Americans in Iraq. Those Americans are in Iraq because of a war of aggression sold in large part to the administration by Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, a group who willing provided "intelligence" about Saddam Hussein that we now know to have been invented, whether it was Curveball or the "scientist" touted by Judith Miller who "knew" all about Saddam's WMD programs. We ignored those in the CIA who issued a "burn" notice on Chalabi because of his unreliability. The administration flew Chalabi over to Iraq, with some in the Bush inner circle who wanted to install him as our proxy leader.
If Iran had one great opponent in the region, it was an Iraq that was well-armed. One reason Hussein did not fully disclose his dismantling of WMD programs was to bluff Iran, a nation that would have overthrown him in the long war he initiated by invasion had the US not provided him with intelligence (and conceivably more) to forestall that possibility. Iran wanted Saddam removed. Thanks in part to Ahmed Chalabi, a paid Iranian agent, they got that goal, at the cost now of over 4,000 American lives and the total destruction of Iraqi civil society.
So will John McCain acknowledge that his chief political advisor, Charles Black, whether or not Black knew the source of the funds, was ultimately paid in part by a group designated by Senate amendment to be a terrorist organization? Or is Mr. Straight Talk Express not to be held to the same level of scrutiny given a Democrat (Obama) from the words of a man (Jeremiah Wright) who has no role in his campaign.
Will the media call McCain - and itself - on this level of hypocrisy?
I'm not holding my breath.