Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.

Jacob Helibrunn, National Interest: The senior editor argues that President Obama could “bomb Iran in late October” to [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.

Jacob Helibrunn, National Interest: The senior editor argues that President Obama could “bomb Iran in late October” to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon and prove that he is not a “foreign policy wimp”. (Urging Obama to wage war for political expediency isn’t exactly a new idea among neoconservatives — take Daniel Pipes’ recommendation in 2010.) Writes Helibrunn:

President Obama could bomb Iran in late October to try and ensure that it does not develop nuclear weapons. A devastating strike would create an upsurge of patriotism in America and fully neutralize Mitt Romney’s contention that Obama is a foreign-policy wimp. It could allow Obama to sweep to victory in November.

He adds that “the neocons may be closer to helping bring about an assault on Iran than even they realize”:

They’ve already captured Romney. But they may also be on the verge of capturing Obama. Their sustained campaign of pressure, in other words, may be more effective than anyone has acknowledged. For the fact is that Obama already has amply demonstrated his ruthlessness when it comes to confronting America’s adversaries. If he were able to carry out regime change in Tehran, he might even start referring to himself as the new Decider.

Bill Kristol, Fox News: Speaking on an “All-Star” Fox News panel that includes fellow neoconservative ideologue Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol laments what he interpets as a U.S. abdication of its role in “helping to shape events” in the Middle East, as evidenced by the Obama administration’s unwillingness to intervene directly in Syria:

I just want to call attention to what Charles said. I think he was absolutely accurate, he said what the secretary of state of the United States said really doesn’t matter. This is Iran and Russia on the one hand, and Turkey and Saudi Arabia on the other. That is terrible. If we are abdicating our role of helping to shape events in this absolutely crucial part of the world, what does that say? Are we just going to let other countries ya know, play their games and stand back as if it doesn’t affect U.S. national security? What happens in Syria, which borders Israel, which is next to Iraq, where Iran is a major player?

Michael Gerson, Washington Post: Like John Hannah does here, Michael Gerson makes a claim that I can’t find any backing for — that the U.S. has changed its “red line” on Iran from preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapon capability (Israel’s “red line”) to preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon. (As far as I know, preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon has been the U.S.’s consistent stance on Iran.) In any case, Gerson makes that claim within a post that criticizes the Obama administration for “paralysis” and “inaction” with respect to its foreign policy:

In Iran, a strategy of tightened sanctions and nuclear talks remains fruitless. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta recently repainted America’s red line: “We will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently reaffirmed his objective: “Anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime.” The United States seems to be headed toward some kind of confrontation with Iran, without Obama making any apparent effort to prepare Americans. Unless it is all a disastrous, discrediting bluff.

The Weekly Standard: Stephen Schwartz writes on “Iran’s Conspiracy Industry” and observes that “conspiracy theories have long flourished in the lands of Islam.” Schwartz offers a rundown of recent anti-Semitic television programming in Iran, warning, “all of this might seem like nothing more than typical, [...]]]> News and views on U.S.-Iran relations for February 11:

The Weekly Standard: Stephen Schwartz writes on “Iran’s Conspiracy Industry” and observes that “conspiracy theories have long flourished in the lands of Islam.” Schwartz offers a rundown of recent anti-Semitic television programming in Iran, warning, “all of this might seem like nothing more than typical, daily insanity in Iran.”

The Washington Post: Charles Krauthammer writes, “Of course, yesterday it was just George W. Bush, Tony Blair and a band of neocons with unusual hypnotic powers who dared challenge the received wisdom of Arab exceptionalism – the notion that Arabs, as opposed to East Asians, Latin Americans, Europeans and Africans, were uniquely allergic to democracy.” Krauthammer goes on to identify the new totalitarianism as “Islamism” and argues, “as in Soviet days, the threat is both internal and external. Iran, a mini-version of the old Soviet Union, has its own allies and satellites – Syria, Lebanon and Gaza – and its own Comintern, with agents operating throughout the region to extend Islamist influence and undermine pro-Western secular states.” He concludes, “We are, unwillingly again, parties to a long twilight struggle, this time with Islamism – most notably Iran, its proxies and its potential allies, Sunni and Shiite.”

The Washington Post: Michael Gerson asks, “Do Egypt’s protests mean American decline?” He warns, “The emergence of a Sunni version of Iran in Egypt would be a major blow,” and “There’s a reason shahs are sometimes followed by mullahs – because religious extremism is the opiate of a humiliated people.”

National Review Online: The Foundation For Defense of Democracies’s Benjamin Weinthal blogs, “The failure of the West to energetically confront Iran’s bellicose policies might very well be revealed in the post-Mubarak era.” He argues, “Iran’s understanding of a new Egyptian political system mirrors the fiercely anti-democratic goals of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.” Weinthal segues the jubilation over Hosni Mubarak’s resignation into a call for tighter sanctions on Iran, writing, “If the West, particularly the Obama administration, is serious about the business of democracy-promotion in Egypt and in the Muslim world, then an accelerated round of hard-hitting sanctions ought to be implemented against Iran’s energy sector… Crude-oil sanctions targeting Iran serve the twin goals of advancing democracy in Egypt and perhaps contributing to the demise of the Iranian regime.” He concludes, “In short, democratic change in Egypt is arguably contingent on blocking the spread of revolutionary Iranian Islam in the Middle East.”