by Jim Lobe
A short item just to note that Bill Kristol, in a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopolous”, crystallized (shall we say) the internal split among neoconservatives over how to react to the military coup and subsequent repression against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
A short item just to note that Bill Kristol, in a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopolous”, crystallized (shall we say) the internal split among neoconservatives over how to react to the military coup and subsequent repression against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Breaking with his fellow-neoconservative princeling, Robert Kagan (with whom he co-founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and its successor, the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), Kristol came out against cutting military aid to Egypt. Here’s the relevant exchange:
Stephanopoulos: Bill Kristol: one country that has not said [this was a coup and aid should be cut] is Israel. Israel, ironically, actually wants to keep the aid flowing.
Kristol: Well, I think they prefer the military to rule to the Muslim Brotherhood ruling. And I think an awful lot of people in the region prefer that. You know, an awful lot of the Arab governments prefer it. And it’s not clear to me that we shouldn’t prefer it.
So I’m a little — I’m — most of my friends in the foreign policy world are for cutting off aid. I’m much more uncertain about it at this point. I mean, this is a trigger we can only pull once. You can only cut off the aid once. And what’s the point of — what would happen concretely? What better thing is going to happen in Egypt or in the region if, tomorrow morning, the president got on TV and said we’re cutting off the aid?
I’m very doubtful about that, and I think there’s a lot we can do with our relationship with the Egyptian military that will be harder to do once we cut off the aid.
Of course, in referring to his friends, Kristol no doubt had Kagan in mind. For his part, Kagan, who has been by far the most outspoken neoconservative calling for an aid cut-off — even to the extent of accusing Washington of being “complicit” in the massacres that have taken place over the last two weeks — had just signed off on a statement last Friday by the “Working Group on Egypt” (which he co-chairs with Michele Dunne of the Atlantic Council) calling on Obama to immediately suspend military aid to Egypt and stating that a failure to do so would be a “strategic error.” The same statement called for Washington to use its influence to block funding by international financial agencies until the interim government reverses course. In addition to a number of liberal internationalists, other neocons who signed the statement included Elliott Abrams, Ellen Bork, and Reuel Marc Gerecht.
It’s a remarkable moment when the two arguably most influential neocons of their generation disagree so clearly about something as fundamental to US Middle East policy, Israel and democracy promotion. They not only co-founded PNAC and the FPI; in 1996, they also co-authored “Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy” in Foreign Affairs, which among other things, advocated “benevolent global hegemony” as the role that Washington should play in the post-Cold War era. But they now appear to have a fundamental disagreement about how that benevolence should be exercised in a strategically significant nation which is also important to Israel’s security.
Of course, this disagreement highlights once again the fact that democracy promotion is not a core principle of neoconservatism. It also suggests that the movement itself is becoming increasingly incoherent from an ideological point of view. Granted, Kagan considers himself a strategic thinker on the order of a Kissinger or Brzezinski, while Kristol is much more caught up in day-to-day Republican politics and consistently appears to align his views on the Middle East with those of the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Likud-led Israeli Government. But what is especially interesting at this moment is the fact that Sens. John McCain and Lindsay Graham — both leaders of what could be called the neoconservative faction of the Republican Party — are moving into Kagan’s camp.
]]>]]>A high-level advisor to Iran’s supreme leader said his country is ready to allow “permanent human monitoring” of its nuclear program in exchange for Western cooperation but also warned Iran is prepared to defend itself against military strikes.
Mohammad Javad Larijani, who serves as Secretary-General of Iran’s Human Rights Council and key foreign policy advisor to Ayatollah Khamenei, said the West should sell Iran 20 percent enriched uranium and provide all the help that nuclear nations are supposed to provide to countries building civilian nuclear power plants. He also said the U.S. and the West should accept his country’s right to continue what Iran calls its peaceful nuclear program. In return for cooperation from the West, he said, Iran would offer “full transparency.”
Should negotiations fail and military strikes against nuclear sites in Iran begin, however, Larijani borrowed a phrase from President Obama’s own policy when he said “every possibility is on the table” when it comes to Iran’s response to such attacks. He did not discount the possibility of closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz or the firing of rockets into Israel.
Asked about an often-quoted statement by Iranian President Ahmadinejad about “wiping Israel from the face of the map”, Larijani said it was “definitely not” Iran’s intent to militarily obliterate Israel, adding that “neither the president meant that nor is it a policy of Iran.”
Larijani also said that financial sanctions, which the White House has said are having a significant impact on the Iranian economy, were a “failure” if they were designed to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
If you look at the first page of Langer Research’s analysis (the group organized and analyzed the survey for the news organizations), it’s clear the United States’ and NATO’s [...]]]>
If you look at the first page of Langer Research’s analysis (the group organized and analyzed the survey for the news organizations), it’s clear the United States’ and NATO’s stock is falling among Afghans, depending on the region and issue being polled.
But, digging deeper into the actual survey questions, there’s an interesting sub-text on how Afghans feel about Iranians. Despite the sectarian and ethnic divides, Iran actually does alright with Afghans. Maybe not quite as well as the United States, but considering the discrepancies in resources being poured into the country, not that far behind either.
Note that when you look at these numbers, the implication is not at that Iran is seen as some savior while the U.S. is hated. As I said, it’s the remarkable similarity of the two countries’ numbers that is worthy of comment (though the meaning is certainly up for debate).
Here are some more favorable/unfavorable numbers, as the poll has tracked over time. First Iran, followed by the numbers for the U.S.:
- Washington Post: Robert Kagan attended the White House briefing on Iran sanctions and writes that a large number of journalists in the room simply got the story wrong by concluding that the sanctions might result in a new diplomatic initiative with Tehran. Kagan reports that President Obama, “repeatedly acknowledged that the regime may be so ‘ideologically’ committed to getting a bomb that no amount of pain would make a difference,” and that the real message from White House officials was, “that the administration wanted everyone to know how tough it was being on Iran.”
- ABC News: Christiane Amanpour also attended the White House briefing on sanctions and reports that Obama, “believes the costs of the sanctions are going to be higher than Iran could have anticipated, but he is not sure yet whether that cost-benefit analysis will override ‘what may be an ideological or nationalistic commitment to nuclear weapons.’” Amanpour reports that Obama commented that diplomacy and engagement could bring, “a thaw in what has been 30 years of antagonism between our two countries,” and told reporters, “I consider Iran a country of enormous potential.”
- Washington Post: Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren continues the narrative that Iran is behind Hamas missile attacks, missiles launched from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula into Jordan and Israel, and the skirmish earlier this week between the IDF and the Lebanese Armed Forces, which Oren characterizes as “nominally independent,” implying that the presence of a Hezbollah television crew somehow connected them to the incident. The squeeze imposed by sanctions, suggests Oren, is being felt in Tehran and, “[m]any observers feel that, when confronted by the sanctions’ implacability, the Iranian regime will opt to negotiate or, according to an alternative scenario, trigger a Middle East war.”