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Although representing 4.5 percent of the world’s population, the United States contributes an estimated 25 percent of its greenhouse gases. Faced with this fact and news reports of spring arriving earlier, winter arriving later, and the Arctic melting, the subject of climate change has gone from an abstract issue debated among scientists to something with apparently measurable effects in daily life.

This is where Gershon’s book comes in. The book guides participants through a month-long process of behavioral change. Each participant calculates his or her footprint – the average US household emits 55,000 pounds of carbon dioxide annually, the book says – and then browses a list of emissions-lowering actions. The goal is to reduce that amount bit by bit. Replacing an incandescent bulb with a fluorescent, for example, counts for a 100-pound annual reduction. Purchasing an energy-efficient furnace counts for 2,400 pounds. Just tuning up your existing furnace reduces your carbon emissions by 300 pounds while insulating your warm air ducts lowers them by 800 pounds.

But the key to the program’s success, say those who’ve participated, is in forming a support group. People have good intentions, says Gershon, but alone, they often lack the will to follow through. Like Weight Watchers or Alcoholics Anonymous, the formation of a group encourages follow-through by socially reinforcing the new, desired behavior.

"I think it’s essential," says Nathaniel Charny, a New York lawyer who participated in the recently completed testing phase of "Low Carbon Diet." "Everybody’s reinforcing the goals, and you’re having frank discussions about things."

And as Gershon sensed, the timing for a book offering day-to-day solutions to an overwhelming global problem couldn’t be better. Gore’s group, The Climate Project, which recently began training 1,000 volunteers to give Gore’s now-famous slide show, is handing out 600 copies of the book at the end of the session.

Meanwhile, a handful of environmental and religious groups are recommending the book to its members. The Regeneration Project, a San Francisco-based interfaith ministry, has linked to the book on its main page. So have Climate Solutions, a nonprofit group in Olympia, Wash., and the Vermont chapter of Interfaith Power and Light (IPL), a nationwide organization dedicated to "greening" congregations.

Tellingly, before the advent of Gershon’s book, several congregations around the country spontaneously embarked on carbon-reduction programs of their own. The Michigan IPL worked out a deal with suppliers to sell compact fluorescents to members at a lower price, and the Georgia IPL came up with a program called "preparing for a new light" whereby for each candle lit during holidays such as Hanukkah or Christmas Eve, participants change one incandescent bulb in their home for a compact fluorescent. And three congregants at St. Luke’s in Cedar Falls, Iowa, started a comprehensive, step-by-step program like Gershon’s called "cool congregations."

This growing interest in measurably reducing one’s footprint is a textbook case of how new ideas spread throughout society, say sociologists, and how new movements are born. In the abstract, if a problem is to be acted upon, it has to be recognized as a problem, says Christopher Henke, assistant professor of sociology at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y. Generally speaking, problems are not recognized by a group until the leaders of that group acknowledge them as such. In this sense, a problem matures and grows up, says Mr. Henke, citing examples such as the civil rights movement in the 1960s and more recent antismoking campaigns. "It becomes something that we take on as our own set of beliefs, our own moral issue," he says, "and then it becomes a reality."

In the case of global warming and faith networks, the past year has seen some important steps in this regard. In February, evangelical leaders around the country broke with the Bush administration and, in an open letter called the Evangelical Climate Initiative, said something had to be done. In August, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson said that, because of the summer heat wave, he was a "convert" to the idea of human-driven global warming.

Once important figures in social groups adopt an idea, others in the group are much more likely to to follow along. Then, movements spread and grow along pre-existing social networks, says Bogdan Vasi, an assistant professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. "People join a movement because their friends and relatives are involved," he says. "If you hear that your friend is buying wind energy, you’re more likely to buy wind energy as well."

Indeed, preceding and perhaps contributing to the apparent demand for "Low Carbon Diet" is a remarkable prior effort by The Regeneration Project and the IPL. During October, the organizations showed "An Inconvenient Truth" to 4,000 congregations nationwide, reaching an estimated 500,000 people. "Those were people who would not pay to see that movie," says the Rev. Sally Bingham, executive director of the Regeneration Project. "But they got to go see it for free." And the movie seems to have catalyzed the audience, she says. After seeing the movie, audience members around the country asked what, exactly, they could do about global warming.

"There’s kind of a critical mass now around global warming," says Wes Sanders, vice chair of the Vermont IPL, which has already begun forming teams around Gershon’s book. "It’s suddenly become sexy, so to speak."

Although it’s unclear whether the book is a beneficiary of, or a contributor to, a grass-roots movement, how ideas spread through groups is one of Gershon’s central preoccupations. He ascribes to a classic theory by sociologist Everett Rogers on how innovations diffuse throughout a community. New ideas begin with a small group of innovators and move on to early adopters. They then pass on to early majority followed by a late majority. Finally, the most hardheaded – the laggards – adopt the new idea. Contrary to the oft-leveled criticism in environmental circles that by preaching to the choir nothing gets accomplished, Gershon argues that one should direct efforts at the group that’s most receptive.

"Preach to the choir," says Gershon. "They’ll sing loud enough to get everyone to go into the church, or synagogue, or mosque."

1) The first time the US enabled Saddam Hussein came in 1959. In that year, a young Saddam, from the boondock town of Tikrit but living with an uncle in Baghdad, tried to assassinate Qasim. He failed and was wounded in the leg. Saddam had, like many in his generation, joined the Baath Party, which combined socialism, Arab nationalism, and the aspiration for a one-party state.

In 1959, Richard Sale of UPI reports,

‘ According to another former senior State Department official, Saddam, while only in his early 20s, became a part of a U.S. plot to get rid of Qasim. According to this source, Saddam was installed in an apartment in Baghdad on al-Rashid Street directly opposite Qasim’s office in Iraq’s Ministry of Defense, to observe Qasim’s movements.

Adel Darwish, Middle East expert and author of "Unholy Babylon," said the move was done "with full knowledge of the CIA," and that Saddam’s CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist working for CIA and Egyptian intelligence. U.S. officials separately confirmed Darwish’s account.’

CIA involvement in the 1959 assassination attempt is plausible. Historian David Wise says there is evidence in the US archives that the CIA’s "Health Alteration Committee" tried again to have Qasim assassinated in 1960 by "sending the Iraqi leader a poisoned monogrammed handkerchief."

2) After the failed coup attempt, Saddam fled to Cairo, where he attended law school in between bar brawls, and where it is alleged that he retained his CIA connections there, being put on a stipend by the agency via the Egyptian government. He frequently visited US operatives at the Indiana Cafe. Getting him back on his feet in Cairo was the second episode of US aid to Saddam.

3) In February of 1963 the military wing of the Baath Party, which had infiltrated the officer corps and military academy, made a coup against Qasim, whom they killed. There is evidence from Middle Eastern sources, including interviews conducted at the time by historian Hanna Batatu, that the CIA cooperated in this coup and gave the Baathists lists of Iraqi Communists (who were covert, having infiltrated the government or firms). Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer of the 1960s, alleged that the US played a significant role in this Baath coup and that it was mostly funded "with American money.". Morris’s allegation was confirmed to me by an eyewitness with intimate knowledge of the situation, who said that that the CIA station chief in Baghdad gave support to the Baathists in their coup. One other interviewee, who served as a CIA operative in Baghdad in 1964, denied to me the agency’s involvement. But he was at the time junior and he was not an eyewitness to the events of 1963, and may not have been told the straight scoop by his colleagues. Note that some high Baathists appear to have been unaware of the CIA involvement, as well. In the murky world of tradecraft, a lot of people, even on the same team, keep each other in the dark. UPI quotes another, or perhaps the same, official, saying that the coup came as a surprise to Langley. In my view, unlikely.

There really is not any controversy about the US having supplied the names of Communists to the Baath, which rooted them out and killed them. Saddam Hussein was brought back from Cairo as an interrogator and quickly rose to become head of Baath Intelligence. So that was his first partnership with the US.

The 1963 Baath government only lasted 8 months, and was overthrown by officers who had been around Qasim. The military wing of the Baath, which was heavily Shiite, was relentlessly pursued by the new government, and was virtually wiped out. The largely Sunni civilian party, however, survived underground.

4) In 1968, the civilian wing of the Baath Party came to power in a second coup. David Morgan of Reuters wrote, ‘ "In 1968, Morris says, the CIA encouraged a palace revolt among Baath party elements led by long-time Saddam mentor Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who would turn over the reins of power to his ambitious protégé in 1979. "It’s a regime that was unquestionably midwived by the United States, and the (CIA’s) involvement there was really primary," Morris says. ‘

As I noted in The Nation, in their book Unholy Babylon, "Darwish and Alexander report assertions of US backing for the 1968 coup, confirmed to me by other journalists who have talked to retired CIA and State Department officials." It was alleged to me by one journalist who had talked to former US government officials with knowledge of this issue that not only did the US support the 1968 Baath coup, but it specifically promoted the Tikritis among the coup-makers, helping them become dominant. These included President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr and his cousin Saddam Hussein, who quickly became a power behind the throne.

5) The second Baath regime in Iraq disappointed the Nixon and Ford administrations by reaching out to the tiny remnants of the Communist Party and by developing good relations with the Soviet Union. In response, Nixon supported the Shah’s Iran in its attempts to use the Iraqi Kurds to stir up trouble for the Baath Party, of which Saddam Hussein was a behind the scenes leader. As supporting the Kurdish struggle became increasingly expensive, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlevi of Iran decided to abandon the Kurds. He made a deal with the Iraqis at Algiers in 1975, and Saddam immediately ordered an invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan. The US acquiesced in this betrayal of the Kurds, and made no effort to help them monetarily. Kissinger maintained that the whole operation had been the shah’s, and the shah suddenly terminated it, leaving the US with no alternative but to acquiesce. But that is not entirely plausible. The operation was supported by the CIA, and the US didn’t have to act only through an Iranian surrogate. Kissinger no doubt feared he couldn’t get Congress to fund help to the Kurds during the beginnings of the Vietnam syndrome. In any case, the 1975 US about-face helped Saddam consolidate control over northern Iraq.

6) When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, he again caught the notice of US officials. The US was engaged in an attempt to contain Khomeinism and the new Islamic Republic. Especially after the US faced attacks from radicalized Shiites in Lebanon linked to Iran, and from the Iraqi Da`wa Party, which engaged in terrorism against the US and French embassies in Kuwait, the Reagan administration determined to deal with Saddam from late 1983, giving him important diplomatic encouragement. Historians are deeply indebted to Joyce Battle’s Briefing Book at the National Security Archives, GWU, which presents key documents she sprung through FOIA requests, and which she analyzed for the first time.

I wrote on another occasion, ‘ Reagan sent Rumsfeld to Baghdad in December 1983. The National Security Archive has posted a brief video of his meeting with Hussein and the latter’s vice president and foreign minister, Tariq Aziz. Rumsfeld was to stress his close relationship with the U.S. president. The State Department summary of Rumsfeld’s meeting with Tariq Aziz stated that “the two agreed the U.S. and Iraq shared many common interests: peace in the Gulf, keeping Syria and Iran off balance and less influential, and promoting Egypt’s reintegration into the Arab world.” Aziz asked Rumsfeld to intervene with Washington’s friends to get them to stop selling arms to Iran. Increasing Iraq’s oil exports and a possible pipeline through Saudi Arabia occupied a portion of their conversation.

. . . The State Department, however, issued a press statement on March 5, 1984, condemning Iraqi use of chemical weapons. This statement appears to have been Washington’s way of doing penance for its new alliance.
Unaware of the depths of Reagan administration hypocrisy on the issue, Hussein took the March 5 State Department condemnation extremely seriously, and appears to have suspected that the United States was planning to stab him in the back. Secretary of State George Shultz notes in a briefing for Rumsfeld in spring of 1984 that the Iraqis were extremely confused by concrete U.S. policies . . . "As with our CW statement, their temptation is to give up rational analysis and retreat to the line that US policies are basically anti-Arab and hostage to the desires of Israel.”
Rumsfeld had to be sent back to Baghdad for a second meeting, to smooth ruffled Baath feathers. The above-mentioned State Department briefing notes for this discussion remarked that the atmosphere in Baghdad (for Rumsfeld) had worsened . . . the March 5 scolding of Iraq for its use of poison gas had “sharply set back” relations between the two countries.
The relationship was repaired, but on Hussein’s terms. He continued to use chemical weapons and, indeed, vastly expanded their use as Washington winked at Western pharmaceutical firms providing him materiel. The only conclusion one can draw from available evidence is that Rumsfeld was more or less dispatched to mollify Hussein and assure him that his use of chemical weapons was no bar to developing the relationship with the U.S., whatever the State Department spokesman was sent out to say. ‘

7) The US gave
practical help to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War:

‘ As former National Security Council staffer Howard Teicher affirmed, “Pursuant to the secret NSDD [National Security Directive], the United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing US military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required.” The requisite weaponry included cluster bombs. . . ‘

Richard Sale of UPI also reported that military cooperation intensified:

‘ During the war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance aircraft to aid the effectiveness of Iraq’s armed forces, according to a former DIA official, part of a U.S. interagency intelligence group. . .
According to Darwish, the CIA and DIA provided military assistance to Saddam’s ferocious February 1988 assault on Iranian positions in the al-Fao peninsula by blinding Iranian radars for three days. ‘

8) The Reagan administration worked behind the scenes to foil Iran’s motion of censure against Iraq for using chemical weapons. I wrote at Truthdig :

‘ The new American alliance might have been a public relations debacle if Iran succeeded in its 1984 attempt to have Iraq directly condemned at the United Nations for use of chemical weapons. As far as possible, Shultz wanted to weasel out of joining such a U.N. condemnation of Iraq. He wrote in a cable that the U.S. delegation to the U.N. “should work to develop general Western position in support of a motion to take ‘no decision’ on Iranian draft resolution on use of chemical weapons by Iraq. If such a motion gets reasonable and broad support and sponsorship, USDEL should vote in favor. Failing Western support for ‘no decision,’ USDEL should abstain.” Shultz in the first instance wanted to protect Hussein from condemnation by a motion of “no decision,” and hoped to get U.S. allies aboard. If that ploy failed and Iraq were to be castigated, he ordered that the U.S. just abstain from the vote. Despite its treaty obligations in this regard, the U.S. was not even to so much as vote for a U.N. resolution on the subject!

Shultz also wanted to throw up smokescreens to take the edge off the Iranian motion, arguing that the U.N. Human Rights Commission was “an inappropriate forum” for consideration of chemical weapons, and stressing that loss of life owing to Iraq’s use of chemicals was “only a part” of the carnage that ensued from a deplorable war. A more lukewarm approach to chemical weapons use by a rogue regime (which referred to the weapons as an “insecticide” for enemy “insects") could not be imagined. In the end, the U.N. resolution condemned the use of chemical weapons but did not name Iraq directly as a perpetrator. ‘

9) The Reagan administration not only gave significant aid to Saddam, it attempted to recruit other friends for him.

‘ Teicher adds that the CIA had knowledge of, and U.S. officials encouraged, the provisioning of Iraq with high-powered weaponry by U.S. allies. He adds: “For example, in 1984, the Israelis concluded that Iran was more dangerous than Iraq to Israel’s existence due to the growing Iranian influence and presence in Lebanon. The Israelis approached the United States in a meeting in Jerusalem that I attended with Donald Rumsfeld. Israeli Foreign Minister Ytizhak Shamir asked Rumsfeld if the United States would deliver a secret offer of Israeli assistance to Iraq. The United States agreed. I traveled with Rumsfeld to Baghdad and was present at the meeting in which Rumsfeld told Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz about Israel’s offer of assistance. Aziz refused even to accept the Israelis’ letter to Hussein.” It might have been hoped that a country that arose in part in response to Nazi uses of poison gas would have been more sensitive about attempting to ally with a regime then actively deploying such a weapon, even against its own people (some gassing of Kurds had already begun). ‘

10) After the Gulf War of 1991, when Shiites and Kurds rose up against Saddam Hussein, the Bush senior administration sat back and allowed the Baathists to fly helicopter gunships and to massively repress the uprising. President GHW Bush had called on Iraqis to rise up against their dictator, but when they did so he left them in the lurch. This inaction, deriving from a fear that a Shiite-dominated Iraq would ally with Tehran, allowed Saddam to remain in power until 2003.

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Readers of this column may also enjoy Eric Blumrich’s Flash slideshow.

With so much of the world convulsed by crisis, little attention has been paid to this unfolding disaster in the Horn. The UN Security Council, however, did take up the issue, and in another craven act which will further cement its reputation as an anti-Muslim body, bowed to American and British pressure to authorize a regional peacekeeping force to enter Somalia to protect the transitional government, which is fighting the Islamic Courts.

The new UN resolution states that the world body acted to "restore peace and stability." But as all major international news organizations have reported, this year Somalia finally experienced its first respite from 16 years of utter lawlessness and terror at the hands of the marauding warlords who drove out UN peacekeepers in 1993, when 18 American soldiers were killed.

Since 1993, there had been no Security Council interest in sending peacekeepers to Somalia, but as peace and order took hold, a multilateral force was suddenly deemed necessary ­ because it was the Islamic Courts Union that had brought about this stability. Astonishingly, the Islamists had succeeded in defeating the warlords primarily through rallying people to their side by creating law and order through the application of Shariah law, which Somalis universally practice.

The transitional government, on the other hand, is dominated by the warlords and terrorists who drove out American forces in 1993. Organized in Kenya by U.S. regional allies, it is so completely devoid of internal support that it has turned to Somalia’s arch- enemy, Ethiopia, for assistance.

If this war continues, it will affect the whole region, do serious harm to U.S. interests and threaten Kenya, the only island of stability in this corner of Africa.

Ethiopia is at even greater risk, as a dictatorship with little popular support and beset also by two large internal revolts, by the Ogadenis and Oromos. It is also mired in a conflict with Eritrea, which has denied it secure access to seaports.

The best antidote to terrorism in Somalia is stability, which the Islamic Courts have provided. The Islamists have strong public support, which has grown in the face of U.S. and Ethiopian interventions. As in other Muslim-Western conflicts, the world needs to engage with the Islamists to secure peace.

The deal with Iran will test the effectiveness of the recently reauthorized Iran Libya Sanctions Act, which was originally championed by a senator from New York, Alfonse D’Amato. The deal also poses a direct challenge to America’s financial war against Iran. For the past year, the Treasury Department has discreetly pressured Japanese and European banks to divest from Iran and end their relations with Iranian companies and banks, warning that such deals could risk the banks’ own access to American financial markets.

Because the Iran-China deal was announced on December 22, only a day before the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program, it also signaled China’s willingness to soften any economic blow to the new sanctions would inflict on Iran. Others say that the China-Iran deal is driven on the Chinese side not by geopolitical considerations but strictly by economics, as China struggles to find affordable energy to support its booming economic growth.

Yesterday, a State Department official who requested anonymity said Foggy Bottom was trying to determine whether the deal with CNOOC is to purchase liquefied gas or whether it would actually entail CNOOC’s investment in new facilities in Iran to liquefy the natural gas for export.

"Obviously, if this would involve some investment in gas liquefication facilities ­ we don’t know that it does ­ then that would be a violation of the Iran Libya Sanctions Act. A strict purchase raises political concerns, but not legal concerns," the official said. When asked about those political concerns, the official said, "It would mean the Iranians would have another $16 billion for international terrorism and to pursue weapons programs."

Lawmakers were similarly blunt in warning of the consequences of the deal. Mr. Lantos said, "When the Congress convenes next week, the International Relations Committee will closely examine the reported $16 Billion Memorandum of Understanding China’s state-owned oil company signed with Iran to develop Iranian gas fields." He added that his committee would specifically examine whether the deal would trigger penalties envisioned under the new Iran sanctions law. "China needs to be warned of the serious penalties it may incur if it pursues implementation of this agreement," he said.

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said she would examine whether the deal would trigger penalties. "If this investment is confirmed, I will seek to ensure that this Chinese entity is penalized to the fullest extent. Chinese entities have a nefarious history of providing critical assistance to rogue regimes for their missile and unconventional weapons programs, and China also provides an economic lifeline to these threats to global peace and security," she said. "As such, we must carefully review any activity that would indirectly benefit or reward Chinese rogue clients like Iran and Syria."

Despite the tough talk, there is no precedent for enforcing the ten-year-old secondary sanctions that are on the books for foreign investments in Iran’s energy sector. When Russia’s Gazprom, France’s Total and Malaysia’s Petronas companies signed a $2 billion deal to develop Iran’s South Pars gas field in 1997, the Clinton administration waived any sanctions required by law.

The deputy director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs, Patrick Clawson, said yesterday that it was unclear whether the Chinese government had approved the deal CNOOC announced last week, noting that Chinese companies in the past have pursued investments without checking with Beijing. But he added that if the deal was approved by the Chinese foreign ministry, it would hurt American efforts to present effective disincentives to Iran for its nuclear program.

"If in fact Chinese companies are prepared to make major investments in Iran, it is going to be more difficult for America to achieve its goals to pressure Iran on weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems,"Mr. Clawson said.

The president of the Center for Security Policy, Frank Gaffney, said he was not holding out hope that any government sanctions would be applied to CNOOC. "The president keeps waiving the sanctions on foreign firms," he said. "We have come up with as an alternative approach. Americans investing in companies like CNOOC ought to divest from those companies if they are doing business with our enemies. This is not only inconsistent with the investor’s moral values, but inconsistent with the national interest and a fiduciary risk."

One investor in CNOOC is the New York City retirement fund, which owns more than $8 million worth of CNOOC stock. Yesterday, a spokeswoman for New York City comptroller William Thompson said the comptroller’s office is looking into those holdings.

The New York State Common Retirement Fund directly owned $5.2 million worth of CNOOC Ltd. as of March 31, according to the fund’s annual report.