*This week’s must-reads/watch:
- T. X. Hammes: On Bombing Iran, A False [...]]]>
*This week’s must-reads/watch:
Mitch McConnell: The Senate Minority Leader recommended this week that lawmakers draft a resolution “authorizing the use of force” against Iran. Said McConnell:
I made a recommendation last night for something that I think might convince the Iranians that we’re serious about it, and that would be to debate and vote on a resolution authorizing the use of force. That doesn’t guarantee that force would be used, but it certainly would be a credible step in the direction saying we view this as a very serious matter.
Casey, Graham and Lieberman, Wall Street Journal: While promoting their recently proposed resolution which Robert Wright says makes war with Iran more likely because it severely limits U.S. options, the senators argue for harsher punitive measures against the Islamic Republic:
First, it is imperative that the U.S. and its partners accelerate and expand economic pressure on Tehran. The only thing Iran’s leaders value more than their nuclear ambitions is the survival of their regime. Consequently, sanctions must threaten the very existence of that regime in order to have a chance of stopping its illicit nuclear activities.
They also advocate the threat of military force:
As importantly, however, we must put to rest any suspicion that in the end the United States will acquiesce to Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear-weapons capability and adopt a strategy of containment.
Analysts explain that one of the reasons why Iran is resistant to Western demands is because it believes the U.S. is seeking regime change through any and all means. Don’t policy recommendations like this directly feed into that paranoia?
Foreign Policy Initiative “Time to Attack Iran” Event: This week Matthew Kroenig, Jame M. Fly and Elbridge A. Colby debated attacking Iran this week at the militaristic Washington think tank. Kroenig and Fly advocated military strikes on Iran and Fly went even further by arguing that “limited strikes” weren’t enough and that the main goal of U.S. policy on Iran should be regime change. Kroenig’s “Time to Attack Iran” article resulted in serious push-back from respected analysts like Paul Pillar and Stephen Walt. Fly’s recommendations have received less attention despite their extremism.
Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: The Journal rarely has anything but vehement criticism for President Obama, but this week they praised his display of hawkishness at this year’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference. At the same time, the board also absurdly argued that Obama is protecting Iran over Israel, while challenging the administration to become more militaristic:
As for military strikes, senior Administration officials have repeatedly sounded as if their top priority is deterring Israel, rather than stopping Iran from getting a bomb.
…
If the President’s contention is that an Israeli strike would be less effective and have more unpredictable consequences than an American strike, he’s right—and few Israelis would disagree. Israelis don’t have the same military resources as the U.S.The question Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli leaders have to ponder is whether Mr. Obama now means what he says.
Mitt Romney, Washington Post: The Republican presidential frontrunner expresses his commitment to Israel while declaring how militaristic he would be with Iran as President:
As for Iran in particular, I will take every measure necessary to check the evil regime of the ayatollahs. Until Iran ceases its nuclear-bomb program, I will press for ever-tightening sanctions, acting with other countries if we can but alone if we must. I will speak out on behalf of the cause of democracy in Iran and support Iranian dissidents who are fighting for their freedom. I will make clear that America’s commitment to Israel’s security and survival is absolute. I will demonstrate our commitment to the world by making Jerusalem the destination of my first foreign trip.
Most important, I will buttress my diplomacy with a military option that will persuade the ayatollahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions. Only when they understand that at the end of that road lies not nuclear weapons but ruin will there be a real chance for a peaceful resolution.
Emanuele Ottolenghi, New York Times: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’s senior fellow recommends that the U.S. threaten Iran with war and implement more extreme punitive measures:
As tough as the current sanctions against Iran are, they will work only if Iran is brought to its knees once again. The pain inflicted must be far greater for the country to see backtracking as preferable. Iran is a rational actor; and it cannot be dissuaded at this point, barring extreme measures.
If Western nations wish to avoid a military confrontation in the Persian Gulf and prevent a nuclear Iran, they must adopt crippling sanctions that will bring Iran’s economy to the brink of collapse. That means a complete United Nations-imposed oil embargo enforced by a naval blockade, as well as total diplomatic isolation. And they must warn Iran that if it tries to jump the last wall, the West is willing and capable of inflicting devastating harm.
Howard Kohr at AIPAC 2012: During the first part of his speech the executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee says there’s “still time” before the U.S. needs to use “force” and then recommends threatening military action and subjecting Iran to “disruptive measures”:
Four tracks are critical. Tough, disciplined, principled diplomacy. Truly crippling sanctions. Disruptive measures and establishing a credible threat to use force.
Mike Huckabee, Washington Times: The former Republican presidential candidate turned Fox News television host explains his hawkish vision for U.S. policy on “evil” Iran and ally Israel (emphasis mine):
The Obama administration should strictly enforce sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank, accelerate the timetable of the European Union’s oil boycott of Iran and increase covert action within Iran to destabilize the regime and its nuclear program. The State Department should provide long-overdue assistance to Iranian dissidents with satellite phone and Internet technology to enable them to organize and communicate free from the regime’s authoritarian boot.
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes to the White House next week, Mr. Obama should issue an unequivocal statement that Israel is fully within its rights to protect itself against the existential threat of Iran, and if it does so, it will enjoy U.S. support. He should further state that the United States is actively considering military action.
Amos Yadlin, New York Times: The former Israeli military intelligence chief turned expert at the Washington Institute for Near Easy Policy recommends that the U.S. commit to going to war with Iran if its current policies fail to prevent Israel from attacking first:
Mr. Obama will therefore have to shift the Israeli defense establishment’s thinking from a focus on the “zone of immunity” to a “zone of trust.” What is needed is an ironclad American assurance that if Israel refrains from acting in its own window of opportunity — and all other options have failed to halt Tehran’s nuclear quest — Washington will act to prevent a nuclear Iran while it is still within its power to do so.
Peter Brookes, National Review: The Heritage Foundation senior fellow recommends that “any Iranian hostility” should be met with U.S. military might:
Iran understands strength, especially the military kind – and it only benefits from the bickering that we’ve seen again and again in recent years between Israel and the United States on a number of matters.
The president should also lean forward on the military option, beyond the tired old phrase that “it’s still on the table.” While Obama must be careful not to make threats he isn’t willing to keep, he should define red lines that are not to be crossed.
Iran will surely blame us for any Israeli strike, whether we’re involved from the get-go or not. As such, the president should ready U.S. forces for a possible Persian punch directed at us in the aftermath of an Israeli attack on Iran.
Assuming Israel doesn’t give us advanced warning, any Iranian hostility toward us or our interests should feel the searing heat of U.S. air and naval assets, not only targeting Iran’s nuclear program, but its conventional and paramilitary forces, too.
William Kristol, Weekly Standard: The publication’s founder and editor was one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the Iraq War. Here he implies that Israel’s “American friends” should pressure President Obama into adopting Israel’s hawkish Iran policy and at minimum ensure that Obama supports Israel’s actions against Iran:
]]>It would of course be better if President Obama were not wedded to a timeline that fails to recognize the imperatives of Israel’s security. The task of American friends of Israel is first to try to persuade President Obama to act sooner than he now appears willing to do, to persuade him that the United States should stand arm in arm and side by side with Israel. But if President Obama continues to insist that it is Israel who takes the lead, the task of American friends of Israel will be to ensure that President Obama at least lives up to his promise Sunday that “when the chips are down, I have Israel’s back.”
The fact that the letter lays out positions — among them, zero uranium enrichment on Iranian territory under the current regime, ever — that would be dead on arrival in Tehran tells me that the not-so-subtle implication of Wright’s title is correct: AIPAC’s leadership wants war with Iran and opposes any negotiated outcome that falls short of Tehran’s complete abandonment of its nuclear and missile programmes. This observation probably comes as no great surprise to readers of this blog. But I think the letter is useful insofar as it exposes precisely what AIPAC, which is understandably sensitive about being tagged as a warmonger, really wants. How strongly that message is communicated in AIPAC’s upcoming annual convention will be particularly interesting.
There’s an important point that I’ve been wanting to write about for some time and still hope to at some greater length: while the Iraq invasion was an adventure championed by neo-conservatives, as well as aggressive nationalists and the Christian Right, the conventional Israel lobby, led by AIPAC, did not play a leading role in the drive to that war (although Netanyahu, who is very close to neo-conservatives, was quite enthusiastic and even testified before Congress in its favor). What I think happened was that then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who had long asserted that Iran was far more dangerous to Israel that Iraq, was quite skeptical of the idea. But, after becoming convinced that Bush was bound and determined to invade, he got on the bandwagon and told AIPAC to do the same in order to preserve his close ties with and influence on Bush. But AIPAC and other major lobby actors never fought for the war with the nearly same conviction and enthusiasm as the neo-cons.
With respect to Iran, I think we see a different dynamic, one in which the main impetus for war is coming from the political leadership of Israel and the lobby here, with the neo-cons acting for now as the most visible point of the spear. And because the lobby enjoys much more influence with Democrats than the neo-cons ever have, it’s a significantly more formidable force, as recent votes in Congress make clear.
While neo-conservatives and the lobby overlap and often share common goals, they do not always agree. Neo-cons typically think they know better than the Israeli government (and the U.S. government, of course) what is in its interests, while organizations like AIPAC tend to defer more (however reluctantly, given the increasingly right-wing sympathies of its leadership) to Jerusalem’s judgment. You can see this in the contrasting attitudes of the two groups to the situation in Syria: the neo-cons are united, as they have been for years, in wanting to see Assad deposed by any means necessary. (Remember that the 1996 “Clean Break” was aimed ultimately at Syria, not Iraq. AIPAC, while it clearly prefers such an outcome, seems much less committed to it, no doubt reflecting the ambivalence on the issue that exists in Jerusalem.
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