• The Wall Street Journal: Johns Hopkins Professor and Hoover Institution fellow Fouad Ajami opines, “The Bush diplomacy had declared an open ideological assault against the Iranian theocracy. Mr. Obama would offer that regime an olive branch and a promise of engagement.” Ajami declares this swing toward diplomacy a message to “the despots in the region that the American campaign on behalf of liberty that Mr. Bush had launched in 2003 has been called off.” The op-ed describes Obama’s slowness to speak publicly about the 2009 Iranian election as a “break of faith with democracy” and “deference of the pre-eminent liberal power to men who had unleashed the vigilantes on their own people.” Ajami praises Clinton’s speech last week in Qatar, in which she criticized Arab leaders: “For a fleeting moment in Qatar, George W. Bush seemed to make a furtive return to the diplomatic arena.” He concludes, “He was there, reincarnated in the person of Hillary Clinton, bearing that quintessential American message that our country cannot be indifferent to the internal arrangements of foreign lands.”

• The Wall Street Journal: Joshua Muravchik reviews Abbas Milani’s book “The Shah” and highlights “The shah’s tolerance of religious minorities—notably Bahai and Jews—and his advancement of women’s rights brought him to daggers with Iran’s clergy, led by Khomeini… The paradox of the fall of the Shah,’ Mr. Milani says, ‘lies in the strange reality that nearly all advocates of modernity formed an alliance against the Shah and chose as their leader the biggest foe of modernity,’” quotes Muravchik.  He concludes, “The Iranians have already paid dearly for this folly. What price the rest of the world will pay remains an open question.”

• Commentary: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Benjamin Weinthal, writing on Commentary’s Contentions blog, responds to the Der Spiegel magazine cover story about Israeli involvement in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Weinthal mentions that “…the magazine, like most German media, has a peculiar obsession with Jews and Israel,” and goes on to accuse the magazine of helping to propagate “anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sentiment.” “Take as an example the headline of the article in the current issue documenting a chronology of the planned hit on Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his posh Dubai hotel,” writes Weinthal. “It screams out ‘An eye for an eye, a murder for a murder.’” He concludes, “The cheap wordplay on a section from the Hebrew Bible further reinforces widespread European prejudices against Jews.”

• Foreign Policy: Harvard International Relations Professor Stephen Walt blogs the revelations that Hamid Karzai receives money from Iran should come as no surprise. Far from being a “dastardly Iranian plot to control Afghanistan,” Walt points out “given that the two states share a lengthy border, Iran has a considerable interest in Afghanistan’s future course. In fact, it would be surprising if they weren’t trying to buy a little influence in Kabul.” While some pundits have expressed concern about growing Iranian influence in Afghanistan, Walt responds that they should be glad that Iran is sending money to Karzai instead of using it to buy weapons for Hezbollah.

• Wall Street Journal: John Hopkins professor Fouad Ajami opines that Karzai, in accepting money from Iran, is “taking the coin of our enemies and scoffing at our purposes.” Ajami attributes the willingness of Karzai to take the money and the Iranian decision to offer it as: “This is the East, and basksheesh is the way of the world.” As for the Iranians, they “…are of the neighborhood, they know the ways of the bazaar.” Ajami, who is quick to defend the Iraq war, says that while Iraq had the possibility of transforming Iraq into a democracy in the midst of “a despotic Arab world” whereas Afghanistan is a “broken country” and a “land of banditry” whose president has no interest in partnering with the United States.

• Haaretz: Zvi Bar’el  writes that Saudi Arabia sees the recent U.S.-Saudi arms deal as an attempt to deter Israel, not Iran. He argues that the two countries are busily negotiating over key issues regarding their spheres of influence in Iraq and Lebanon. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia share an interest in stopping the special international tribunal investigating Rafik Hariri’s assassination. Stopping the investigation, says Bar’el, would prevent the collapse of the Lebanese government, a scenario which neither country wants. In Iraq, Iran may needs Saudi Arabia’s assistance to convince Ayad Allawi, who has received Saudi support, to join a coalition with Nouri al-Maliki, who has received the support of Muqtada al-Sadr. He concludes, “Meanwhile, it seems the Americans are aiming too high. The real game is in the hands of local forces that are sketching the strategic map, which will be presented to Washington as a fait accompli.”

• Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Jamie Kirchick writes that the latest WikiLeaks release of Iraq war documents show, beyond a doubt, that Iran “clearly sees itself as engaged in a war against the United States and those attempting to forge and independent and democratic Iraq.” Kirchick opines that the WikiLeaks release provides evidence of an Iranian “training camp for terrorists” who attack U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He concludes that the WikiLeaks release has served to, “… reveal the true nature of Al-Qaeda and the Iranian regime, and to open a window into what the region will look like should their efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq prove successful.”

I e-mailed the TB‘s founder, Kelly Niknejad, and expressed my doubts. She was gracious enough to ask me to contribute a short piece on my concerns.

You can read the whole thing at TB, but here’s an excerpt:

Though some on the right and left here in the United States have made this accusation [Iran pulls strings], there is little concrete evidence to support it. And there are accordingly many skeptics out there, among them on the right Fouad Ajami and Max Boot, and, on the left, Michael Hanna, whose Atlantic piece on the subject I covered for LobeLog.

Several other theories — and that’s what this talk of a “secret deal” describes: theories (using unnamed and even unidentified sources) — put forth reasons for Sadr’s move. One is that Sadr, after being outside the government for so long, is interested in being able to leverage his significant street power (and parliamentary seats) to gain access to state coffers. This means folding some of his militia into security forces and other things like access to powerful cabinet positions and the like.

In fact, none of the explanations of Iranian pressure have, as of yet, given a rationale for Sadr abandoning his pronounced Iraqi nationalist streak and acquiescing to Iranian demands. One reason for cutting the deal, however, could indicate that this instinct rages on: the alternate coalition often proposed by the press — the Allawi block — is not truly viable and would likely be unable to form a stable coalition to govern. Perhaps Sadr saw his opportunity to play kingmaker as a way to end the impasse that has been dogging Iraq, which would allow the government to truly get on with state business.

[...] It’s all very convoluted, and concrete facts are few and far between.

As I say, I offer nothing but theories and conjecture in this argument, and would note that those who have sealed the deal on Iranian occupation of Iraq do much the same thing. I’m only making a case for a balanced presentation of information that does not portray conjecture and hole-filled reporting as fact.

Thanks to Niknejad and the staff of TB for letting me express my dissent.

Calling Karzai a “bandit” who “has no interest in assuming the burden of governing Afghanistan,” Ajami stated that the bleakly pessimistic November 2009 memo by U.S. ambassador Karl Eikenberry arguing against a troop surge was “completely on the mark”. He went on to argue that “the Afghanistan campaign can’t be won,” that “there’s nothing to be gained in Afghanistan,” and that the notion of Afghanistan as the “central front” in the war on terror is a myth.

“Look, I was a hawk on the Iraq war, and I didn’t question the Iraq war,” Ajami said. “I haven’t really written much on Afghanistan by way of criticism…but I have dark thoughts about Afghanistan and whether Afghanistan is worth American blood and American treasure.”

His interviewer, former Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson, was clearly expecting something more upbeat and seemed taken aback by Ajami’s criticisms of the war. “Well, I didn’t expect you to be quite so grim about it,” Robinson muttered in response, before asking whether Ajami felt that the recent commitment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan was worth it. Ajami didn’t answer the question directly, but clearly indicated a negative answer, concluding of the war that “it just doesn’t end well.”

Ajami’s blunt attack on the war is particularly interesting given his close connections to the neoconservatives who were the strongest advocates of the recent troop surge. Indeed, if one were to rank the Arabists with the greatest influence on neoconservative thinking about the Middle East, Ajami would likely be second only to Bernard Lewis. Does this influence mean that his criticisms will receive a respectful hearing on the right? Or will he receive the same treatment as previous right-wing critics of the war like George Will, whose September 2009 call for the U.S. to “get out of Afghanistan” brought forth a series of vicious attacks from the neocons alleging cowardice and appeasement? (Peter Wehner’s jab that Will’s column “could have been written in Japanese aboard the USS Missouri” was par for the course.) Perhaps the most likely outcome is that Ajami’s inconvenient criticisms will simply be ignored altogether.