Lieberman said (PDF):
Nobody wants to use military force against Iran, [...]]]>
Lieberman said (PDF):
Nobody wants to use military force against Iran, but there is a base, a broad bipartisan base of support if the Commander in Chief comes to a point where he thinks that’s necessary
Kristol picked up on the possibility of an Iran war resolution and led Lieberman down the path:
Kristol: And so Congress could –
Lieberman: Could express that in some way, but I think that’s not tomorrow, but it may be down the road depending on – I mean, when you think about it, by January it will have been six months since the sanctions began to be applied to Iran, and it’s fair to say that there’s been no voluntary limitation of their nuclear weapons program.
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) points out Lieberman was careful to say that such legislation would “support” the White House if it decides that a military option is worth pursuing. But the willingness of House Republicans to stand against the White House on foreign policy issues raises questions about how such a resolution would be used.
Incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he will serve as a “check” on Obama and that “the Republican majority understands the special relationship between the Israel and the United States.”
The JTA’s Ron Kampeas commented that he “[couldn’t] remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the president.”
Lieberman’s remarks at the FPI, the introduction of legislation endorsing Israeli strikes against Iran earlier this year and Cantor’s comments to Netanyahu, all indicate that Obama will face a tough time controlling the war-talk in Congress.
Perhaps the most important takeaway from Lieberman’s comment is that on Tuesday Secretary of Defense Robert Gates explicitly outlined the dangers of a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He said:
A military solution, as far as I’m concerned … it will bring together a divided nation. It will make them absolutely committed to obtaining nuclear weapons. And they will just go deeper and more covert.
Gates has warned that a military strike might strengthen the Iranian resolve to acquire a nuclear weapon. The U.S. Institute of Peace and the Stimson Center have said that “[e]ven veiled allusions to the ‘military option’ reinforce those Iranian hardliners who argue that Iran requires nuclear weapons to deter the US, and protect Tehran’s security and freedom of action.” But these warnings appear to be falling on deaf ears with hawks in Congress, like Lieberman, who are on record that they may endorse war with Iran.
]]>He writes:
But the real test of whether the president can make progress toward clinching a deal is whether he uses the next year to bring clarity to the regional challenge that poses the most serious consequences for Middle East security and the overall U.S. position in the region: Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
and
To his credit, the president seems to have abandoned the loopy thesis that Arab-Israeli peace is a prerequisite for resolving the Iranian nuclear problem.
While one might disagree with Satloff’s conclusions, he’s consistent in his thinking.
On October 3, 2001 Satloff employed a similar argument in a Los Angeles Times op-ed.
When Saddam Hussein gobbled up a neighboring state and posed a threat to international security unseen since World War II, Bush the elder received numerous messages from Arab and Muslim leaders demanding U.S. intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian arena as the price for support in the campaign against Iraq. He refused to be drawn in prematurely, confident that victory in Desert Storm would deflate the region’s radicals, embolden the moderates and create the conditions to invigorate the search for Arab-Israeli peace.
In November, 2001, in a response to Colin Powell’s November 19, 2001 Louisville speech on the peace process, Satloff said:
A new era in Arab-Israeli peacemaking has almost surely not been opened by this speech—that will likely have to await a change in the objective circumstances of the regional situation (i.e., a change in leadership, a stunning defeat for regional radicals like Iraq, etc.). While U.S. diplomacy can play some part in creating a more positive environment for the eventual return to active peacemaking, U.S. victory in the war on terror is a more critical element in achieving that goal.
And on April 27, 2003, Satloff, in a Baltimore Sun op-ed on the Mideast Roadmap, wrote:
Victory in Iraq provides a rare opportunity to have Arabs make important movement on both fronts. That, in turn, would limit the near-term damage of the roadmap, encourage Israelis and Palestinians to meet their own responsibilities for peacemaking and raise the chance for success of U.S. engagement in Arab-Israeli diplomacy down the road.
Satloff, much like Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol (see their April 15, 2002 Weekly Standard article, “Remember the Bush Doctrine“), have been harping at the reverse linkage argument since before the invasion of Iraq. In many ways their advice was followed and their theory tested.
While pundits like Satloff promised big changes if Saddam Hussein was removed from power, the 2006 Lebanon War, the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza and the winter 2008-2009 Gaza War all occurred after the U.S. had been victorious in Iraq. Their claim that toppling Saddam Hussein would bring Israel and its neighbors closer to peaceful coexistence appears to have been, at best, a tenuous link.
But that doesn’t deter the proponents of reverse linkage from trying their luck a second time. This time the target is Iran, and Satloff promises that although Obama is entering Arab-Israeli diplomacy with a “weak hand,” if he “…rebuilds a sense of U.S. strength by dealing resolutely with the approaching crisis point over Iran’s nuclear program, he can reverse this dynamic.”
It sounds all too familiar.
]]>