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Rep. Peter King of New York, who is hosting the bogus series of hearings this week on radicalization of American Muslims, has an awkward past - he was a passionate supporter of the IRA.

Long before he became an outspoken voice in Congress about the threat from terrorism, he was a fervent supporter of a terrorist group, the Irish Republican Army.

“We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry,” Mr. King told a pro-I.R.A. rally on Long Island, where he was serving as Nassau County comptroller, in 1982. Three years later he declared, “If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.”...

A judge in Belfast threw him out of an I.R.A. murder trial, calling him an “obvious collaborator,” said Ed Moloney, an Irish journalist and author of “A Secret History of the I.R.A.” In 1984, Mr. King complained that the Secret Service had investigated him as a “security risk,” Mr. Moloney said.

In later years, by all accounts, Mr. King became an important go-between in talks that led to peace in Northern Ireland, drawing on his personal contacts with leaders of I.R.A.’s political wing, Sinn Fein, and winning plaudits from both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, the former president and the British prime minister.

But as Mr. King, 66, prepares to preside Thursday as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee at the first of a series of hearings on Muslim radicalization, his pro-I.R.A. past gives his many critics an obvious opening. The congressman’s assertions that 85 percent of leaders of American mosques hold extremist views and that Muslims do not cooperate with law enforcement have alarmed Muslim groups, some counterterrorism experts and even a few former allies in Irish-American causes.

Mr. King, son of a New York City police officer and grand-nephew of an I.R.A. member, offers no apologies for his past, which he has celebrated in novels that feature a Irish-American congressman with I.R.A. ties who bears a striking resemblance to the author.

Of comparisons between the terrorism of the I.R.A. and that of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, Mr. King said: “I understand why people who are misinformed might see a parallel. The fact is, the I.R.A. never attacked the United States. And my loyalty is to the United States.”

But the IRA did attack one of our closest allies, Britain. And in fact, his loyalty was not to the United States, but to the terrorist IRA.

He said he does not regret his past pro-I.R.A. statements. The Irish group, he said, was “a legitimate force” battling British repression — analogous to the African National Congress in South Africa or the Zionist Irgun paramilitary in British-ruled Palestine. “It was a dirty war on both sides,” he said of I.R.A. resistance to British rule....

The I.R.A. was responsible for 1,826 of 3,528 deaths during the Northern Irish conflict between 1969 and 2001, including those of several hundred civilians, said the historian Malcolm Sutton

I grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and went to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Boston a number of times when I was a teenager, in the 1970s. One year I saw a contingent from Noraid - Northern Irish Aid, which raised money for arms for the IRA. I didn't go back to the parade again.

As we kick off our look back at 2009, here's a list by Joshua Keating, associate editor at Foreign Policy, of the 10 Worst Predictions for 2009. The predictions are paraphrased below, the comments are my own:

1. Obama to sign energy bill by end of the year- Rahm Emanuel on 19 April (White House chief of staff)
Not even close. Health care, health care, health care.

2. Bernnake to step down after first term, Summers replaces him at Fed- Business Week on 2 January (magazine)
Tough confirmation hearings, but Bernanke enjoys the confidence of the president and is soon to be entering his second term. Far from basking in the glory of a depression averted, Bernanke has been charged with unwinding his extraordinary response to the crisis.

3. Swine Flu to kill hundreds of thousands in the US- Report to the President on US Preparations for the 2009-H1N1 Influenza on 7 August (President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology)
Um, no. But this was enough to scare me into getting vaccinated.

4. No end in sight to US economic freefall- George Soros on 20 February (billionaire investor and activist)
To be fair, Soros hedged his comments, but the pace of recovery in both the financial markets and real economy has undoubtedly been surprising. The US stimulus package may not have done enough, but it seems to have done just enough to avert catastrophe. That tricky unemployment rate remains...

5. No Afghan surge for Obama, Gen. McChrystal to resign- Charles Krauthammer on 27 September (right-wing columnist/commentator)
Obama succumbed to the COIN camp against, I suspect, his instincts. McChrystal saw the back of Obama's hand following his public intervention into the Afghan surge debate, but in the end got 3/4 of the troops he was looking for.

6. Gordon Brown will 'certainly' step down within three days- Martin Kettle on 5 June (associate editor at The Guardian)
The train wreck that was the Brown premiership reached its inglorious nader over this week in June when the Labour backbench revolt burst into the open with public calls to resign. Somewhat remarkably, Brown fights on (thanks in no small part to Lord Mandy) and has even narrowed the Tory lead in the run-up to likely elections in March.

7. Breakthrough agreement, Zelaya returning to office, democracy lives in Honduras!- Hillary Clinton on 30 October (US secretary of state)
Zelaya has spent quite a bit of time the Brazilian embassy, presiding over nothing but his cowboy hat, and Honduran democracy is shaky at best.

8. Israel will likely strike Iran between US election and Obama's inauguration...Israel will likely strike Iran before end of 2009- John Bolton on 22 June 2008 and 28 July 2009 (former US ambassador to UN and epic moron)
John Bolton calls on Israel to bomb Iran as often as the sun rises. It still hasn't happened. You get the impression that Bolton believes if you wish for something hard enough it will just happen. I really loathe this guy on so many levels.

9. G7 finance ministers have unleashed inflationary hell, world markets to collapse under chaos- Jim Rogers on 10 October 2008 (billionaire investor)
I would argue that entering 2010 deflation remains a bigger risk than inflation in the major economies.

10. China will take over Panama and choke the US via the canal- Rep. Dana Rohrabacher on 7 December 1999 (US representative)
Ten years later and the cargo flows.

The US has reportedly decided to scrap its controversial missile-defense plans in Europe. This is a really big deal.

Despite the incredibly unfortunate timing of making the announcement on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland (you always wonder why officials don't know these things, and cant wait ONE EXTRA DAY to make such a sensitive announcement; after all, isnt this what public relations/communications officials are paid to do, know these kind of things?).

Anyway, the implications of this decision are immense, positive and negative, but I for one applaud the US president. This is a really bold move that hits the 'reset' button with full force. But, more urgently, it is all about Iran, and I cannot imagine this decision was reached without some concrete assurances from Moscow that they will squeeze Iran in return.

These are the kind of major shifts in foreign policy we have been waiting for from the Obama administration. The ball is now is Moscow's court, and the Obama administration may come to find that the destiny of its foreign policy is now controlled less by itself, and more by the Kremlin.

This morning's readables, to be enjoyed with coffee (or your stimulant of choice):

• Fred Bergsten urges Obama to be bold on trade in an op-ed for the FT.
• What went wrong with economics? With reponses being posted here, here annnnd here.
• Not-so-well-endowed: Harvard is facing financial troubles. Is Larry Summers partly to blame?
• Rumours that two of the most awful places on the planet are teaming up.
• Dan Drezner discusses Iran, rap music and international relations theory

Dan Drezner has an interesting post comparing the troubling events in Iran to those in Honduras. I would only add that the OAS also has a much greater chance of reversing the regime change because of the support for the (exiled) Mr. Zelaya among many of the OAS members, specifically Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador.

For a more nefarious connection between South America and Iran, Douglas Farah provides his take on things.

These are two must-reads on the turmoil in Iran:

1) Paul Wells, who points out that Khameini has put the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic on the line.

Choices force more choices, and events force events. This business did not start out as a people’s revolt. Everyone knows Mir Hossein Mousavi had no plan to to question the regime. He had every intention of serving it faithfully, perhaps a tad less belligerently than Ahmadinejad, but essentially without making any real waves. Everyone can hear that this resistance is one that chants allahu akbar every night; if the regime’s actions had remained even minimally compatible with their faith they would never have questioned the regime. Not like this. Not in massive crowds in every large city, crowds that do not stay away for long even when the regime’s last loyal thugs beat them and tear-gas them and shoot them dead where they stand, dozens so far and more to come.

2) Roger Cohen's latest NYT piece out of Tehran, which looks at the internal divisions in Iran. He concludes:

Whatever happens now, all is changed utterly in Iran. Opacity, a force of the Islamic Republic, has yielded to a riveting transparency in which one side confronts another. The online youth of Iran will not be reconciled to a regime that touts global “ethics” and “justice” while trampling on them at home....I bow my head to the youth of Iran, the youth that is open-eyed, bold and far stronger and more numerous than the near-beardless vigilantes.

It has been a very busy week for news, even if it hasn't been busy on the blog. A quick review:

- Protests in Iran: This is what can happen when you insult a large portion of your population with blatant electoral fraud. You might not have thought a couple of weeks ago that Iran was about to provide a lesson in Civil Society 101 for the rest of the world, but this week's protests have been impressive. You need more than a little courage to take to the streets in largely non-violent protests facing riot police, tear gas and gunfire.
(UPDATE: The BBC has some shocking raw footage of just how ugly this thing is getting)

- The white paper on US financial regulatory reform was released this week. I have no intention of actually reading the thing, but Felix Salmon does point to an interesting tidbit: the policy wonks have inserted legislation forcing opt-out, rather than opt-in, retirement plans for corporate employees. This is a nod to the lessons of behavioural economics, which have shown that people will resort to the default, even on important decisions like saving for their retirement. If successful, this legislation will make retirement plans the default option, and Americans are therefore more likely to save. Score one point for the nanny state!

- The BRIC Summit. Brazil, Russia, India and China had their inaugural summit this week, and most reviews suggest it mainly produced rhetoric and little of substance (just for fun, let's compare this to the G8 in early July, shall we?). Some of the rhetoric on the US dollar did seem to have an impact, however. President Hu's 4-point plan was pretty high-level, but certainly hit on the main issues.
It remains to be seen if this summit is a one-off deal or if it will evolve into something with teeth. The first G-somethings were born out of shared economic interest in the 1970s; it's less clear to me that the BRICs have enough similarities (aside from export-led growth) to produce anything more than statements and photo-ops. But I'm holding off judgment for now.

According to the Interior Minister, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been reelected by a landslide 62% to 34% over rival Mir Hossein Mousavi, confirmed by the Supreme Leader this morning.

This result is really hard to believe.

According to Cliff Kupchan of the Eurasia Group, Ahmadinejad's rural political base totals somewhere in the range of 10-15 million people. And while Mousavi's Obama-like appeal to the apathetic youth vote has been widely heralded in the international press (with the expectation of a higher voter turnout), less has been said of Ahmadinejad's inspiring campaign. The very heated, very visible nature of this election boosted participation across the political spectrum, including amongst the incumbent's supporters. So the fact that his share expanded in yesterday's polls is unsurprising.

But with a reported turnout over 85% of eligible voters, around 50 million, Ahmadinejad simply cannot secure 60% of the vote without a massive political shift or widespread fraud. The numbers just don't add up. Iran's large, sophisticated middle class was polling overwhelmingly in favor of Mousavi, and when you add a presumably higher youth turnout, getting to 60% seems like an improbable feat in a referendum on the incumbent's rule.

Alshin Molavi of the New America Foundation makes an interesting point. He says that the Supreme Leader's hand is, naturally, all over the results, but not because he necessarily disapproved of Mousavi. Reformists are elected quite often in Iran, and no one takes office without the Supreme Leader's implicit approval. Rather, he thinks Khamenei looked over Mousavi's shoulder and feared what he saw: young educated men, an internationally-minded middle-class, women, business. It was less the candidate, more the door into Iranian politics he seemed to be opening that threatened Khamenei, a door that this morning looks to have been slammed shut.

It is widely being reported that Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the far-right Israel Our Home party, will become the next foreign minister of Israel after signing an agreement to join Likud's governing coalition.

Meanwhile in Iran, former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami announced he was withdrawing from June's presidential election.

-As first reported by The Cable last week, the US has been engaged in high level, "Track Two" discussions with Iran for the better part of a year, intensifying in recent months and including a number of individuals close to the Obama administration. The Iranian side has been led by Ali Asghar Soltanieh, ambassador and permanent representative to the IAEA. The talks have been conducted in European cities under the auspices of the Pugwash group. As The Cable notes, back channel talks have always occurred between the two nations (irrespective of public posturing), but these talks are significant in their attendance, timing, and frequency. While the nuclear issue is obviously the most pressing, talks have also focused on "how to move beyond the 1953 coup and 1979 revolution." This strikes me as a recognition by both sides that a window exists for a fundamental transformation of the relationship.

-Political violence is on the rise in South Africa. A string of high profile assassinations in Kwa-Zulu Natal reflect rising tensions in the province between ANC and IFP supporters. Meanwhile, Cope (the party formed out of the ANC split last year) leader Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota issued his strongest criticism yet of the ANC and Zuma, claiming the party will push through immunity for the presidential favorite after the coming general election.

-Davos utterly failed its agenda: "shaping the post-crisis world". Chris Giles, Peter Thal Larsen, and Gillian Tett of the FT found the attendees united in their lack of confidence and inspiration.