Michael Ledeen, a neoconservative polemicist and long-time Iran hawk who joined the Foundation for Defense of Democracies after leaving the American Enterprise Institute in 2008, is being honest when he reminds us here that he has opposed direct US military intervention in Iran. For Ledeen, Iranian-regime change is more attainable if [...]]]>
Michael Ledeen, a neoconservative polemicist and long-time Iran hawk who joined the Foundation for Defense of Democracies after leaving the American Enterprise Institute in 2008, is being honest when he reminds us here that he has opposed direct US military intervention in Iran. For Ledeen, Iranian-regime change is more attainable if it’s executed from the ground up, and the US should do everything it can to facilitate that process. In 2010 he unapologetically argued that the US should covertly or openly support regime change-inclined Iranians during a debate at the Atlantic Council and reiterated that argument in “Takedown Tehran“ this year. (For some reason Ledeen seems to think that the Green Movement would invite the regime-change-oriented US support he advocates, even if key opposition figures have opposed the broad sanctions that he endorses. This may be due to his allegedly well-informed sources, some of whom have led him astray in the past.)
In any case, sanctions should be part of the US regime-change strategy, argues Ledeen, who promoted the US invasion of Iraq (although he later denied doing so), but sanctions alone will never be the means to his desired end:
But I don’t know anyone this side of the White House who believes that sanctions, by themselves, will produce what we should want above all: the fall of the Tehran regime that is the core of the war against us. To accomplish that, we need more than sanctions; we need a strategy for regime change.
Like fellow ideologues — such as Bret Stephens, a Wall Street Journal deputy editor and “Global View” columnist – Ledeen argues that the US must also execute a war strategy with Iran because like it or not, we’re already at war (for a closer look at this line of reasoning, see Farideh’s post):
But even if all these are guided from Washington and/or Jerusalem, it still does not add up to a war-winning strategy, which requires a clearly stated mission from our maximum leaders. We need a president who will say “Khamenei and Ahmadinejad must go.” He must say it publicly, and he must say it privately to our military, to our diplomats, and to the intelligence community.
Without that commitment, without that mission — and it’s hard to imagine it, isn’t it? — we’ll continue to spin our wheels, mostly playing defense, sometimes enacting new sanctions, sometimes wrecking the mullahs’ centrifuges, forever hoping that the mullahs will make a deal. Until the day when one of those Iranian schemes to kill even more Americans works out, and we actually catch them in the act. Then our leaders will say “we must go to war.”
But Ledeen’s Washington Times column this week suggests that he may be pivoting toward the military option:
I have long opposed military action against the Iranian regime. I believe we should instead support democratic revolution. However, our failure to work for regime change in Iran and our refusal to endorse Mr. Netanyahu’s call for a bright “red line” around the mullahs’ nuclear weapons program, makes war more likely, as similar dithering and ambiguity have so often in the past.
Interestingly, in August Ledeen stated that the Israeli strategy was to push the US to attack Iran:
…Israel does not want to do it. For as long as I can remember, the Israelis have been trying to get U.S. to do it, because they have long believed that Iran was so big that only a big country could successfully take on the mullahs in a direct confrontation. So Israel’s Iran policy has been to convince us to do whatever the Israelis think is best. And while they’re willing to do their part, they are very reluctant to take on the entire burden.
“Faster, Please!”, right?
]]>The neoconservative hawk and deputy editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens, has once again figured it all out. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979, and no US president since then, including Ronald Reagan and George [...]]]>
The neoconservative hawk and deputy editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens, has once again figured it all out. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979, and no US president since then, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, has done anything but appease that evil regime for reasons that befuddle us all.
Hence, it is now of paramount importance to halt the current president’s “outreach” to Iran because all previous attempts motivated by Washington’s “excess of decency” have allowed “33 years of Iranian outrages” to go “unavenged” and “undeterred”.
Stephens, a former editor of the Jerusalem Post, was an avid supporter of the US invasion of Iraq and a fierce critic of the planned 2011 troop withdrawal, arguing that the US should have maintained a “serious tripwire force in Iraq as a hedge against Iran and other bad forces in the region” instead.
Now, again, he is amplifying his call to arms with fear mongering and a line that fellow neoconservative pundit Michael Ledeen has been using for years – Iran and the US are already at war, so the US should start acting like it:
Maybe the president thinks decency obliges him to give diplomacy another chance. But it is from an excess of decency that 33 years of Iranian outrages have gone unavenged, and Iran now proceeds undeterred. Sensible policy on Iran begins not with the question of how to avoid a war—that war was foisted on U.S. in 1979—but how to win it. Anything less invites further terror and dishonors the memory of Iran’s many American victims.
Following this line of reasoning requires diverting the conversation from how best to effectively engage with Iran in order to stop its nuclear program, to how to wage a successful war against an intractable and wicked enemy. Stephens’ conclusion is based on a litany of Iranian offenses (some of which remain questionable, let alone unproven) from the hostage crisis to bombings and kidnappings in Lebanon in the 1980s, the Khobar Tower bombing in Saudi Arabia, “thousands of U.S. troops killed by IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan” and the curious case of Mansour Arbabsiar, the Iranian-American who recently pleaded guilty to attempting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US in collusion with Iranian counterparts. This, according to our militarist pundit, has been the Iranian record against the United States.
And what of the US record against Iran? Why, an “excess of decency” of course! For reasons that Stephens doesn’t have time to get into or simply cannot explain, the US leadership from Reagan to Obama has repeatedly chosen the soft line with Iran. Perhaps the inherently peaceful character of the US has led to its impressive military hardware being reserved for only special occasions, which, in the case of the Middle East, Stephens forgets to mention, has somehow been deployed since the first 1991 Gulf War with no hiatus in between.
With this in mind, there really is no reason to waste time over the nuclear issue. Stephens wants a war to “avenge” the Islamic Republic’s 33-year long record of crimes and does not shy away from declaring his unhappiness regarding the direction of the Iran conversation in the US. The idea that sanctions are working unsettles him because it suggests that there is still time for serious and public diplomatic engagement with Iran to resolve the nuclear issue once and for all. (And no, I am not talking about a Reaganesque mission to secretly dispatch a national security adviser with a cake and bible to Tehran.) Even attempting peaceful conflict resolution is difficult for Stephens to accept because it “dishonors the memory of Iran’s many American victims.” For Stephens and many of his neocon colleagues, the real issue goes beyond the nuclear impasse; what we should really be concerned about is Iran’s history of “dishonoring” America since its Revolution.
Interestingly, this argument echoes talking points made by Iranian neoconservatives (which we often refer to as hardliners). Just read any column by Hossein Shariatmadari, the intractable editor of Kayhan Daily, and you will understand what I mean.
What are the similarities? First there is the victim mentality. Nothing the US or Iran has done can outdo the “bad” things that are done to them. From Shariatmadari’s point of view, the Islamic Republic has always been on the receiving end of Western “savagery” (a term also recently used by Leader Ali Khamenei to describe US conduct vis-à-vis Iran) because of its values, principles, and its daring resistance against US “arrogance.” From Stephens’ point of view, nothing the US has done – like siding with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and at a minimum engaging in a collusion of silence over Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran’s military and civilians, or shooting down, even if accidentally, an Iranian civilian airliner and then promoting the naval commander responsible for it – is even worth mentioning. Iranian conduct always occurs in a vacuum and is only worth noting in terms of the harm that is imposed.
From the neoconservative point of view — in the U.S. and Iran — correct values, “decency,” and the desire to be a beacon of goodwill, is the only mark of their respective countries. And the violent and disdainful conduct of the other side is the only conduct that needs to be noted. I am sure that, in the minds of folks like Shariatmadari and Stephens, that is indeed the only conduct noted.
This is why Stephens refers to the “crippling” sanctions that Governor Romney and President Obama referenced in Monday night’s debate as more of a “campaign prop than policy tool.” The notion that “unprecedented” sanctions that target the financial core of another country — not to mention killing nuclear scientists and sabotaging nuclear facilities — could also be considered an act of war is incomprehensible for Stephens.
Beyond feigned or actual feelings of victimhood, there is also a similarity in their avoidance of responsibility for the outcome of their proposed solutions. Neoconservatives in both Iran and the United States have had their chances at influencing their respective countries’ foreign and security policies. George W. Bush’s “muscular foreign policy” promoted by the likes of Stephens brought the US the debacle that has been Iraq — which, if anything, has actually strengthened Iran — and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “aggressive foreign policy,” pushed by folks like Shariatmadari, has brought Iran crippling sanctions.
Do they take responsibility for any of their disasters? Absolutely not! Stephens’ push for another war in the Middle East is clear evidence that he does not see himself or his cohorts as responsible for the fiasco in Iraq. In fact, he has said so plainly. The war was not the “original sin,” he wrote in 2007. In fact, it was no sin at all. Things went wrong because of mistakes that occurred after the neoconservatives lost their influence in the Bush administration when Condoleezza Rice became Secretary of State (this being, by the way, the reason Stephens vehemently opposed Rice becoming Romney’s running mate).
A similar argument is now being parlayed by Iranian neoconservatives. Things always begin to go wrong when the Iranian government indicates a willingness to talk with the United States, they say. It exhibits weakness, and it is only through a show of strength and “will”– a favorite mantra of neoconservatives everywhere — that “bullies” like the US can be deterred.
Let me end by pointing out that despite the uncanny similarities of their worldviews, there is at least one critical difference between Iranian and US neoconservatives. This difference does not exist in their self-satisfied and belligerent poses; it relates to the location of their respective countries in the geopolitical and economic order.
It is the United States and its allies that are trying to strangle Iran economically, not the other way around. And of course it is the United States that will be engaging in yet another version of “shock and awe” if folks like Bret Stephens have their way, not the other way around.
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On today’s MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Israeli Deputy Knesset Speaker Danny Danon disapproved of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s comments
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On today’s MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Israeli Deputy Knesset Speaker Danny Danon disapproved of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s comments regarding deadlines on Iran’s nuclear program. After claiming that “we know that Iran is building a nuclear bomb” and blaming President Obama for “deciding not to decide”, Danon said that the threat Israel perceives from Iran will come to “your [the US’s] shores” one day. He added that war against Iran should be a “joint effort”:
Danon: I want to make sure that our region is stable. In order to do that, we have to tell Iran, we will not allow you to become nuclear. And if it takes a military action, we are willing. And I say “we” – it’s not only Israelis, not only Jews against Arabs because of the values, because of democracy. And look at what’s happening right now in Egypt and in Libya. Those people are against the U.S. embassies because of the values that we represent.
Geist: Just to be clear, this is very important: you, as Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, believe all other options have been exhausted and it’s time for military action in Iran?
Danon: Absolutely but it should be a joint effort of the Western societies and not only Israel should take the burden to deal with this threat.
Morning Joe later featured TIME’s Joe Klein on the same show. Responding to Danon’s remarks, Klein argued that the Netanyahu government is trying to push the US into a war with Iran that would not serve US or Israeli interests:
As for Israel, and the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and the Prime Minister, I don’t think I’ve ever, in the forty years I’ve been doing this – and I’m trying to search my mind through history – have heard of another example of an American ally trying to push us into war as blatantly, and trying to influence an American election as blatantly as Bibi Netanyahu and the Likud party in Israel is doing right now. I think it’s absolutely outrageous and disgusting. It’s not a way that friends treat each other. And it is cynical and it is brazen.
Klein contested Danon’s dismissal of the effectiveness of sanctions and argued that if Iran did make the decision to obtain a nuclear weapon, it would use it as a deterrent and not operationally “unless provoked.” He and his hosts also discussed the likelihood – without seeming to consider otherwise – that Netanyahu wants Mitt Romney to win the election because the Republican nominee would defer to the Likud government on most Middle East affairs.
Last month, from the polar opposite end of the ideological spectrum, neoconservative historian Michael Leeden wrote that Israel’s policy has been aimed at trying to get the US to initiate military strikes against Iran for decades:
]]>…Israel does not want to do it. For as long as I can remember, the Israelis have been trying to get U.S. to do it, because they have long believed that Iran was so big that only a big country could successfully take on the mullahs in a direct confrontation. So Israel’s Iran policy has been to convince us to do whatever the Israelis think is best. And while they’re willing to do their part, they are very reluctant to take on the entire burden.
Just read what Israeli leaders are saying and you’ll see that, I think.
Michael Ledeen, a neoconservative historian and long-time Iran hawk who joined the hardline Foundation for Defense of Democracies after leaving the American Enterprise Institute in 2008, summarizes Israel’s strategy with the United States and Iran:
…Israel does not want to do it. For as long as I [...]]]>
Michael Ledeen, a neoconservative historian and long-time Iran hawk who joined the hardline Foundation for Defense of Democracies after leaving the American Enterprise Institute in 2008, summarizes Israel’s strategy with the United States and Iran:
]]>…Israel does not want to do it. For as long as I can remember, the Israelis have been trying to get U.S. to do it, because they have long believed that Iran was so big that only a big country could successfully take on the mullahs in a direct confrontation. So Israel’s Iran policy has been to convince us to do whatever the Israelis think is best. And while they’re willing to do their part, they are very reluctant to take on the entire burden.
Just read what Israeli leaders are saying and you’ll see that, I think.
But if you’re the prime minister, and your head of military intelligence comes to you and says “time’s up,” and you’ve failed to convince the Americans, then you’ve got to act.
Is that the situation today? I don’t know, and I don’t know if anyone around here — including Petraeus and Panetta — knows. The one thing I do know is that in order to answer the “will they or won’t they?” question, you’ve got to know what the Israelis think they know about the Iranians.
Which you don’t. Nor I. So shut up and stop sucking your thumb.
Michael Ledeen, Foreign Affairs: The neoconservative pundit has been arguing for years that the US should foment regime change [...]]]>
Michael Ledeen, Foreign Affairs: The neoconservative pundit has been arguing for years that the US should foment regime change in Iran byway of direct or indirect US support to Iranian dissident groups. This month he reiterates that argument while evaluating the Green Movement as a potential carrier for his proposal. The following are some of Ledeen’s key points (notice how he begins by stating that sanctions have been ineffective and will likely remain so and ends by arguing that the US’s “sanction regime” should continue anyway):
- Yet history suggests, and even many sanctions advocates agree, that sanctions will not compel Iran’s leaders to scrap their nuclear program.
- And, although war might bring down the regime, it is neither necessary nor desirable. Supporting a domestic revolution is a wiser strategy.
- Given the potential for a successful democratic revolution in Iran — and the potential for a democratic government to end Iran’s war against us — the question is how the United States and its allies can best support the Green Movement.
- …the time has come for the United States and other Western nations to actively support Iran’s democratic dissidents.
- Meanwhile, the West should continue nuclear negotiations and stick to the sanctions regime, which shows the Iranian people resistance to their oppressive leaders.
- Iran’s democratic revolutionaries themselves must decide what kind of Western help they most need, and how to use it. But they will be greatly encouraged to see the United States and its allies behind them. There are many good reasons to believe that this strategy can succeed. Not least, the Iranian people have already demonstrated their willingness to confront the regime; the regime’s behavior shows its fear of the people. The missing link is a Western decision to embrace and support democratic revolution in Iran — the country that, after all, initiated the challenge to the region’s tyrants three summers ago.
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal: For months the Journal’s editorial board published hawkish articles about Iran on a weekly basis. We highlighted some of them here, here and here. Then they stopped, perhaps due to the heating up of the presidential campaign and the crisis in Syria. But in July the board returned to reminding readers about its hawkish position on Iran, first by arguing that current sanctions are not strong enough and filled with “loopholes” while advocating for more “pain”, and then by claiming that Congress should propose the “toughest” sanctions bill possible to the President, considering how he may be a “pretender on sanctioning the mullahs”. (The “Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act” was passed this week and is expected to be signed into law by Obama shortly. As noted by the Jewish Telegraph Association, “for the first time in actionable legislation, the measure defines the capability of building a nuclear weapon as posing a threat to the United States”, which of course brings the US closer to the Israeli “red line” on Iran):
The Administration will resist these stiffer penalties, as it has consistently resisted previous Congressional attempts to impose the harshest possible sanctions. But that’s all the more reason for the conferees to present the President with the toughest bill possible, and see where he really stands.
If Mr. Obama is a pretender on sanctioning the mullahs, then you can be sure he isn’t inclined to stop their nuclear program by other means. The Israelis will draw their own conclusions, if they haven’t already.
Foundation for Defense of Democracies: The neoconservative-dominated Washington think tank that has been working hard to shape the Obama administration’s Iran sanctions policy (through executive director Mark Dubowitz) congratulates Congress for passing the “compromise bill” mentioned above because it brings the US closer to implementing Dubowitz’s recipe for ”economic warfare” against the Iranian regime:
“But Iranian nuclear physics is beating Western economic pressure and diplomacy, as the centrifuges keep spinning, and the Iranian regime continues its campaign of murder abroad and at home. While this bill is an important step towards economic warfare against the Iranian regime, much more needs to be done. Iran’s leaders need to be persuaded that the U.S. is committed to using every instrument of state power to counter the Iranian threat.”
Dan Senor, New York Times: The former Iraq war hawk turned Mitt Romney foreign policy adviser (see two recent profiles here and here) drew media attention last week for alleging that Romney respected Israel’s right to pre-emptively strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to the NYT’s politics blog:
“If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respect that decision,” Mr. Senor said.
Previewing Mr. Romney’s remarks, Mr. Senor explained: “It is not enough just to stop Iran from developing a nuclear program. The capability, even if that capability is short of weaponization, is a pathway to weaponization, and the capability gives Iran the power it needs to wreak havoc in the region and around the world.”
As the Times notes, the Romney campaign tried to walk back those comments somewhat, but Robert Wright at the Atlantic didn’t buy the damage control effort.
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*This week’s must-read is “Envisioning a Deal With [...]]]>
*This week’s must-read is “Envisioning a Deal With Iran” by William H. Luers and Thomas R. Pickering, two Cold War diplomatic veterans writing in the New York Times.
Mainstream Media and Pundits:
Clifford D. May in the National Review: Former journalist and spokesman for the Republican National Committee Clifford May is now president of the hawkish Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. This week he applauded the imposition of more crippling sanctions on Iran, which he calls a “weapon” for bringing about regime change. Despite praising the recent waves of strangling measures against the isolated Islamic Republic, May also implied that the U.S. should keep the military option wide open:
But sanctions are no panacea. They should be just one weapon in an arsenal of policies aimed at weakening Iran’s fanatical rulers immediately and dislodging them eventually.
…
Finally, there must be no ambiguity about the fact that, if all else fails, sharper arrows remain in our quiver; no ambiguity about our determination to prevent this regime — which, the evidence clearly shows, works hand in glove with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups — from acquiring nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.
There are conflicts, and then there are conflicts. Iran’s rulers need to understand that if they continue to escalate this conflict, sooner or later they will come to the end of the road. And there they will find not just a hive of bumblebees but the jaws of a very angry junkyard dog.
Michael Ledeen in Pajamas Media: Veteran hawk and pundit Michael Ledeen (who was far more prominent during the runup to the Iraq war) continues to push for U.S. sponsored regime change in Iran. This week he downplayed concern about a military conflict by saying that the U.S. and Iran are already at war. He went on to argue that more sanctions against Iran are welcomed but won’t bring about his goal of regime change:
But I don’t know anyone this side of the White House who believes that sanctions, by themselves, will produce what we should want above all: the fall of the Tehran regime that is the core of the war against us. To accomplish that, we need more than sanctions; we need a strategy for regime change.
Ledeen also accused President Obama of being inadequately militaristic about Iran:
But even if all these are guided from Washington and/or Jerusalem, it still does not add up to a war-winning strategy, which requires a clearly stated mission from our maximum leaders. We need a president who will say “Khamenei and Ahmadinejad must go.” He must say it publicly, and he must say it privately to our military, to our diplomats, and to the intelligence community.
Without that commitment, without that mission — and it’s hard to imagine it, isn’t it? — we’ll continue to spin our wheels, mostly playing defense, sometimes enacting new sanctions, sometimes wrecking the mullahs’ centrifuges, forever hoping that the mullahs will make a deal. Until the day when one of those Iranian schemes to kill even more Americans works out, and we actually catch them in the act. Then our leaders will say “we must go to war.”
Think Tanks:
Bipartisan Policy Center: A report from a Washington think tank advises President Obama to make threats of a U.S. or Israeli attack against Iran more credible and launch an “effective surgical strike against Iran’s nuclear program” if punitive measures and aggressive posturing is not successful. The “Bipartisan Policy Center” houses several George W. Bush administration officials who supported the Iraq War and the report’s task force is dominated by Iran hawks, including the report’s staff director, Michael Makovsky.
Past and Present U.S. Officials and Politicians:
James Woolsey in the Jerusalem Post: During an interview at the Herzliya Conference in Israel, former CIA director James Woolsey (now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies) argues for U.S. airstrikes on Iran. From the Jerusalem Post:
]]>“At some point someone is going to have to decide to use force to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. I’d argue that those who say we can deal adequately with Iran through deterrence are quite naive.”
…
Woolsey suggested sending approximately five carrier battle groups – each comprising an aircraft carrier and its escort vessels – to the Indian Ocean, accompanied by bomber support, if possible.
Weekly Reads/Watch:
- News: US PRESIDENT Barack Obama accelerated cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear [...]]]>Weekly Reads/Watch:
- - News: US PRESIDENT Barack Obama accelerated cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear program, the New York Times reports
- News: U.S. officials among the targets of Iran-linked assassination plots
- News: After Talks Falter, Iran Says It Won’t Halt Uranium Work
- News: Think tank publishes satellite pictures said to show Iran nuclear cleanup
- Opinion: Moving Away from War with Iran
- Opinion: Predictable Responses to the Baghdad Talks
- Opinion: Iran nuclear talks succeed just by continuing
- Opinion: The Iran-Negotiations Marathon
- Opinion: Terrorists? Us?
- Opinion: Tehran’s Noise Is All Bluster
- Watch: Insider’s Account of Iran’s Nuclear Negotiations
- Podcast: Assessing the Baghdad Nuclear Talks
- Report: Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: The blogger who wants the U.S. to go to war with Iran on Israel’s behalf agitates for a U.S. war with Iran, again:
With a competent and responsible administration, we’d be very publicly drawing up a military option, putting ships in the region and consulting with Congress about our options. We might even discuss with Israel its “red lines” — and let that discussion become public. We would be justified in taking all steps needed to unleash a military option and/or to support Israel in the event of hostilities. But we don’t.
But while Rubin thumps her neoconservative chest in alleged support for Israel, the majority of Israeli defense chiefs oppose an attack on Iran. Hmmm…
Mark Dubowitz, US News: The director of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies who has reportedly been a main architect of the Obama administration’s Iran sanctions policy advocates military strikes on the Islamic Republic:
“The last thing the president wants is an attack before the election in November—especially an Israeli attack,” says Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Still, it might be possible to take out Iranian facilities where the obstinate regime is believed to be producing nuclear centrifuges, Dubowitz says.
“The centrifuge-production facilities are the key choke points for the broader program,” Dubowitz says. “If Israelis know where they are and do bomb them, a strike like that could set the program back 10 years. And I think the Israelis have a pretty good idea where they are. Those facilities would be central to any military plan.”
Danielle Pletka, Washington Post: The long time hawk and vice president of the American Enterprise Institute argues that the U.S. should intervene in Syria because it will serve as a “blow” to Iran:
Another political virtue is the impact intervention would have on Iran. Ousting Tehran’s last reliable satellite regime and replacing it with a Sunni, democratic government would reassure our friends in the region that Washington is determined to stand up to Iran when necessary. Even those who oppose involvement in the Syrian conflict allow that the loss of Assad would be a blow to the Islamic republic.
Michael Ledeen, Pajamas Media: The neoconservative pundit and Foundation for Defense of Democracies “freedom scholar” advocates U.S.-backed regime change in Iran:
]]>Sanctions will neither stop the Iranian nuclear program nor stop the Real War. Only a change in regime can accomplish that. To that end, sanctions could be a positive force if they were combined with support for the Iranian opposition. Just ask the Revolutionary Guards how serious the resistance is: the RG just deployed an additional eight thousand soldiers—some in uniform, others in plain clothes–in the streets of Tehran.But no Western leader cares to help the Iranian opposition, even verbally. When those leaders say “no option is off the table,” they mean some day there might be a military attack against Iran. But financial and tactical assistance to the Iranian people willing to actively fight for freedom is totally off any Western strategic table;
*This week’s must-reads/watch:
Peter Crail & Daryl Kimball: February 2012 IAEA Report on Iran: An Initial ReviewU.S. does not [...]]]>
*This week’s must-reads/watch:
- Peter Crail & Daryl Kimball: February 2012 IAEA Report on Iran: An Initial ReviewU.S. does not believe Iran is trying to build nuclear bomb
Schieffer Series: Iran: U.S. Policy Options
Inside Story Americas – Is Israel fueling fear not facts over Iran?
David Makovsky: Friendship Under Fire
Paul Pillar: A Dangerous Declaration
The Economist Takes a Stand Against Bombing Iran
Dalia Dassa Kaye: Israel’s risky option on Iran
Justin Logan: Would Haass and Levi Accept Their Own Proposed Deal?
Jim Lobe: Despite War Drums, Experts Insist Iran Nuclear Deal Possible
Jasmin Ramsey: Ex-IAEA Chief Urges Talks to Defuse Threat of Attack on Iran
Wall Street Journal: Another week, another venomous editorial from the Journal, all of which are likely penned by former Jerusalem Post editor, Bret Stephens (now the WSJ’s editorial pages deputy editor). This time Stephens accuses the Obama administration of favoring Iran over Israel and berates Gen. Martin Dempsey for displaying “weakness” when he reiterated U.S. assessments that Iran is “rational”, that an Israeli strike would be “destabilizing” and that Iran has not made a decision to make a nuclear weapon. Stephens concludes that an Israeli attack on Iran is accordingly more likely because U.S. officials are not engaging in warmongering:
Is the Obama Administration more concerned that Iran may get a nuclear weapon, or that Israel may use military force to prevent Iran from doing so? The answer is the latter, judging from comments on Sunday by Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey.
…
If the U.S. really wanted its diplomacy to work in lieu of force, it would say and do whatever it can to increase Iran’s fear of an attack. It would say publicly that Israel must be able to protect itself and that it has the means to do so. America’s top military officer in particular should say that if Iran escalates in response to an Israeli attack, the U.S. would have no choice but to intervene on behalf of its ally. The point of coercive diplomacy is to make an adversary understand that the costs of its bad behavior will be very, very high.
…
Like most of Mr. Obama’s Iran policy, General Dempsey’s comments will have the effect of making war more likely, not less. They will increase Israel’s anxiety about U.S. support, especially if Mr. Obama is re-elected and he has a freer political hand. This may drive Israel’s leadership to strike sooner. Weakness invites war, and General Dempsey has helped the Administration send a message of weakness to Israel and Iran.
Michael Gerson, Washington Post: Around this time last year the former George W. Bush speechwriter criticized President Obama for failing to embrace the “overthrow” of the Iranian government. Now Gerson’s “Iran options” for Obama rule out containment and endorse a range of hawkish measures including assisting an Israeli war on Iran: (emphasis mine):
So the national security adviser, the defense secretary and intelligence officials need to provide their boss something better than this dismal, binary choice. They will need to identify a range of in-between options. A virtuous somebody has already been conducting cyberattacks on the Iranian nuclear program and targeting key scientists. Are there other ways — ranging from covert action to stealth bombers — to disable or destroy a few key facilities, including Iran’s two uranium enrichment sites?
An unattributable action would be best — giving groups and governments in the Middle East the excuse to respond in the minimal way. But deniability may not be possible in an operation on this scale. It is a military judgment no outsider can confidently make.
A limited strike, it is true, would only buy time. The message, however, would be clear enough: If you keep at it, we’ll do it again. In the meantime, an oppressive and increasingly desperate regime may lose its grip on power.
Close cooperation with Israel in designing a targeted strike against enrichment facilities would have an added benefit. If the Israelis are convinced that America — after a last diplomatic push — is serious about preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, Israel would be less likely to take quick action of its own. American resolve is the best guarantee of Israeli patience.
Obama wants to be known for winding down long wars. But he has shown no hesitance when it comes to shorter, Israel-style operations. He is a special ops hawk, a drone militarist.
Iran should take this fact seriously as it calculates its next move.
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: The conservative blogger argues that a senate resolution described by analysts as severely limiting the President’s options on Iran and bringing the U.S. closer to war isn’t as strong as it could be. Like neoconservative Michael Ledeen who openly endorses U.S.-backed regime overthrow in Iran, Rubin says regime change should be part of the U.S.’s Iran policy and informs us how the senate resolution can shackle the president more effectively (emphasis mine):
Now therefore be it:
Resolved, that
1. The official U.S. policy toward Iran should be regime change and the full support of the Iranian people for human rights, the rule of law and democracy;
2:The U.S. in conjunction with its allies prepare military options and plans to be used in the event Iran does not cease to pursue its nuclear weapons capability; and
3. Any discussions that the U.S. and its allies conduct with the Iranian regime shall be conditioned on a) inclusion of opposition leaders; b) full access by the IAEA and verifiable cessation of Iran’s missile program and c) agreement to discuss the Iranian regime’s abrogation of human rights.
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: Rubin criticizes the Obama administration for not expressing explicit support for Israeli threats against Iran (while publicizing an anti-Obama advertisement) and argues that if Israel does attack Iran, it’s Obama’s fault:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet withPresident Obama in March. He will probably take the time to remind Obama that the president has staked his own credibility and that of the United States on preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The only way to ensure that that pledge is fulfilled, and for the United States to remain relevant in the region, is to make clear that the United States is prepared — with the cooperation of states in the Mideast (surely the Saudis must be as nervous as Netanyahu about Obama’s fecklessness) — to take military action if needed to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
In short, if the Unites States downgrades military assistance to Israel and seeks to diplomatically undermine the Jewish state, Iran will conclude (if it hasn’t already) that we can’t bring ourselves to use force. That, in turn, will make continued progress on Iran’s nuclear program, as well as Israel’s military action, all the more likely.
Steve Forbes, Forbes: The magazine mogul declares the inevitably of war with Iran and hopes for the best:
Make no mistake, the coming conflict will have a major global impact.
…
Wars always take unexpected turns and have unexpected consequences. May events unfold in such a way that will lead to the downfall of Iran’s fanatical Islamic regime.
Tucker Carlson, Fox News: Eli Clifton reports on comments made by the Fox News pundit and Daily Caller editor about Iran this week:
CARLSON: I think we are the only country with the moral authority [...] sufficient to do that. [The U.S. is] the only country that doesn’t seek hegemony in the world. I do think, I’m sure I’m the lone voice in saying this, that Iran deserves to be annihilated. I think they’re lunatics. I think they’re evil.
Find Clifton’s report on Carlson’s attempt at damage control here.
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*This week’s must-read is “Envisioning a Deal With [...]]]>
*This week’s must-read is “Envisioning a Deal With Iran” by William H. Luers and Thomas R. Pickering, two Cold War diplomatic veterans writing in the New York Times.
Mainstream Media and Pundits:
Clifford D. May in the National Review: Former journalist and spokesman for the Republican National Committee, Clifford May is now president of the hawkish Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. This week he applauded the imposition of more crippling sanctions on Iran, which he calls a “weapon” for bringing about regime change. Despite praising the recent waves of strangling measures against the isolated Islamic Republic, May also implied that the U.S. should keep the military option wide open:
But sanctions are no panacea. They should be just one weapon in an arsenal of policies aimed at weakening Iran’s fanatical rulers immediately and dislodging them eventually.
…
Finally, there must be no ambiguity about the fact that, if all else fails, sharper arrows remain in our quiver; no ambiguity about our determination to prevent this regime — which, the evidence clearly shows, works hand in glove with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups — from acquiring nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.
There are conflicts, and then there are conflicts. Iran’s rulers need to understand that if they continue to escalate this conflict, sooner or later they will come to the end of the road. And there they will find not just a hive of bumblebees but the jaws of a very angry junkyard dog.
Michael Ledeen in Pajamas Media: Veteran hawk and pundit Michael Ledeen (who was far more prominent during the runup to the Iraq war) continues to push for U.S. sponsored regime change in Iran. This week he downplayed concern about a military conflict by saying that the U.S. and Iran are already at war. He went on to argue that more sanctions against Iran are welcomed but won’t bring about his goal of regime change:
But I don’t know anyone this side of the White House who believes that sanctions, by themselves, will produce what we should want above all: the fall of the Tehran regime that is the core of the war against us. To accomplish that, we need more than sanctions; we need a strategy for regime change.
Ledeen also accused President Obama of being inadequately militaristic about Iran:
But even if all these are guided from Washington and/or Jerusalem, it still does not add up to a war-winning strategy, which requires a clearly stated mission from our maximum leaders. We need a president who will say “Khamenei and Ahmadinejad must go.” He must say it publicly, and he must say it privately to our military, to our diplomats, and to the intelligence community.
Without that commitment, without that mission — and it’s hard to imagine it, isn’t it? — we’ll continue to spin our wheels, mostly playing defense, sometimes enacting new sanctions, sometimes wrecking the mullahs’ centrifuges, forever hoping that the mullahs will make a deal. Until the day when one of those Iranian schemes to kill even more Americans works out, and we actually catch them in the act. Then our leaders will say “we must go to war.”
Think Tanks:
Bipartisan Policy Center: A report from a Washington think tank advises President Obama to make threats of a U.S. or Israeli attack against Iran more credible and launch an “effective surgical strike against Iran’s nuclear program” if punitive measures and aggressive posturing is not successful. The “Bipartisan Policy Center” houses several George W. Bush administration officials who supported the Iraq War and the report’s task force is dominated by Iran hawks, including the report’s staff director, Michael Makovsky.
Past and Present U.S. Officials and Politicians:
James Woolsey in the Jerusalem Post: During an interview at the Herzliya Conference in Israel, former CIA director James Woolsey (now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies) argues for U.S. airstrikes on Iran. From the Jerusalem Post:
]]>“At some point someone is going to have to decide to use force to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. I’d argue that those who say we can deal adequately with Iran through deterrence are quite naive.”
…
Woolsey suggested sending approximately five carrier battle groups – each comprising an aircraft carrier and its escort vessels – to the Indian Ocean, accompanied by bomber support, if possible.
Commentary: While most of the U.S. celebrated the release of the remaining two U.S. hikers imprisoned in Iran after they illegally entered the country, American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin was perturbed. After quoting a book by Matthew [...]]]>
Commentary: While most of the U.S. celebrated the release of the remaining two U.S. hikers imprisoned in Iran after they illegally entered the country, American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin was perturbed. After quoting a book by Matthew Levitt about Hamas in 2006, Rubin suggests the 1 million that secured Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal’s freedom will be used to fund terrorism. While offering no evidence about how the Iranian judiciary will make use of the bail money, Rubin claims the hikers’ release will lead to the death of innocents:
- It may be good to have our hostages home, but to celebrate their release is unfortunate without acknowledging the death sentences those who paid the bail just signed on innocent civilians elsewhere.
Rubin also suggests it’s unlikely that the hikers entered Iran accidentally as they claimed they did.
Pajama’s Media: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies Michael Ledeen vehemently criticizes the Obama administration for refusing to address “reality” as he sees it.
Ledeen calls Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan a “totally unsuitable partner” after quoting Barry Rubin’s gross mischaracterization of the Israeli attack against the Turkish Gaza-bound aid flotilla which resulted in the death of 9 passengers (1 of whom was a U.S. citizen) and Erdogan’s attempts to build diplomatic channels with regional Mideast players. He criticizes Obama’s refusal to force the Syrian president from power and uses NATO’s intervention in Libya as justification for something that he has been arguing for years: U.S. covert or open support for Iranian groups which want regime change. (As a side note, Ledeen and some other neoconservatives have argued against supporting the Mujahideen-e-khalq (MEK) which speaks volumes about the nature of that organization and those who support it.)
Despite U.S. refusal to speak directly to the Islamic Republic and rounds of sanctions which have strangled its economy, Ledeen claims the U.S. treats its most “dangerous enemies” (i.e. Iran) as “potential allies who have temporarily gone astray.” Ledeen continues to lament the fact that the U.S. has not called for “regime change” in Iran.
True to his neoconservative ideology which favors military force over diplomacy with enemies, Ledeen claims the U.S. shouldn’t resist war with Iran because it’s “already under way, and it’s no accident.” He argues against the proposed direct line to Iran to prevent accidental military conflict because it “offers them a golden opportunity to deceive us.”
Considering Ledeen’s constant alarmist claims about the Iranian government, nothing seems to scare him more than direct communication between the U.S. and Iran. That’s why it’s so important for those who don’t favor war.
Arms Control Association: At an Arm Control Association (ACA) press conference Mark Fitzpatrick, Admiral Joe Sestak and Greg Thielmann argued that there is still time for diplomacy with Iran because an Iranian nuclear power arsenal is “neither imminent nor inevitable.”
Mark Fitzpatrick, Director of the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London says sanctions against Iran have an aim which is not being executed properly:
- The whole point of sanctions is to persuade Iran to come back to the negotiating table. But how would we know when they’re ready to come back to the negotiating table if we’re not talking with them, if we’re not having some kind of a private, very quiet discussions?
Fitzpatrick adds:
- I think engagement will be absolutely crucial to any peaceful solution. Sanctions alone are not going to dissuade Iran because of the sense of national will. You don’t want to bow to pressure but if you are engaged in something where there’s a positive outcome, it’s more possible.
ACA senior fellow Greg Thielmann argued for direct negotiation with Iran without preconditions because any other approach is “counterproductive:”
- We’re under an environment here where the formidable diplomatic resources of the United States are basically banned from having any contact with Iranian diplomats except on very limited special occasions. This is cutting us off from a source of information about diplomatic opportunities about what is going on in Iran.
The panelists continued discussion at the highest levels of the U.S. military emphasizing that military conflict with Iran is the least favorable outcome because of the massive blowback it would result in. According to former three star admiral Sestak:
- …a military strike whether it’s by land or air against Iran would make the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion look like a cakewalk with regard to the impact on the United States’ national security.
Christian Science Monitor: Ralph Langner who discovered the Stuxnet virus which made headlines after it affected several Iranian organizations says the creators have opened a Pandora’s box of cyber warfare:
- It raises, for one, the question of how to apply cyberwar as a political decision. Is the US really willing to take down the power grid of another nation when that might mainly affect civilians? Could or should military contractors, instead of soldiers, wage cyberwar? What happens when cyberweapons dealers start selling sophisticated cyberweapons to terrorists? There is also the manner in which Stuxnet was used – which could be considered a textbook example of a “just war” approach. It didn’t kill anyone. That’s a good thing. But I am afraid this is only a short term view. In the long run it has opened Pandora’s box.