QUESTION: Are you specifically talking about military to military contact, or a broader set of engagement between the two countries?
MULLEN: I’m talking about any channel that’s open. We’ve not had a direct link of communication with Iran since 1979. And I think that has planted many seeds for miscalculation. When you miscalculate, you can escalate and misunderstand. This isn’t about agreeing or disagreeing. [...]
My own experience is, it sort of depends on the country what the most effective channels are. Some of them are diplomatic. Some of them are political. Some of them are mil-to-mil. Some of them are economic. But we have not had a clear channel to Iran since 1979.
[...] Any channel would be terrific and I don’t have a preferred one based on what the hopes would be.
This is not the first time that Mullen has spoken in favor of this. As I noted in a July 2008 post, when Mullen had just returned from Israel to make clear to official there that the Bush administration (apparently with the exception of Dick Cheney) opposed an Israeli strike against Iran or even too much talk about it, he spoke to the issue at some length:
“…We haven’t had much of a dialogue with the Iranians for a long time, and I think if I were just to take the high stakes that …I just talked about a minute ago, part of the results of that engagement or lack of engagement, I think, is there. But as has been pointed out more than once, it takes two people to want to have a dialogue, not just the desire on one part.”
[Asked whether he's saying there's a need for dialogue between the United States government and the Iranian government, he says] “…I think it’s a broad dialogue. I think it would cover the full spectrum of international — and it could very well certainly cover the dialogue between us as well.”
What is remarkable is that we are now more than three years later, including more than two-and-a-half years into the administration which, despite Obama’s campaign vows, has, as Paul Pillar wrote just last week, never seriously engaged with Tehran. Instead, the talk is all about more and tougher sanctions, which, of course, takes us in the opposite direction and moves us closer to armed conflict.
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Chairman Concerned Over Lack of U.S.-Iran Contact – Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service
During a stop at the University of Miami yesterday, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said that the lack of contact between the United States and Iran is troubling.“Even in the [...]]]>
Chairman Concerned Over Lack of U.S.-Iran Contact – Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service
“Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, U.S. officials could still talk with the Soviets,” the admiral said. In the early 1960s, U.S. and Soviet leaders had the Hot Line that went straight from the White House to the Kremlin. The United States and Soviet Union had the two largest armories of nuclear weapons. Both nations had nuclear-armed forces on alert at all times.
A must-listen: Columbia SIPA Professor’s Gary Sick’s keynote speech at the London School of Economics on Iran and the Arab world
The Road Not Taken Toward Iran – Paul Pillar, The National Interest
U.S. in a Bind Over Palestine’s Bid for U.N. Recognition – Barbara Slavin, IPS News
Conflict in Israel?: A problematic speaking deal at The New York Times – Max Blumenthal, Columbia Journalism Review
In 2009, Bronner, who has run the bureau since March 2008, joined the speakers bureau of one of Israel’s top public relations firms, Lone Star Communications. Lone Star arranges speaking dates for Bronner and takes 10 to 15 percent of his fee. At the same time, Lone Star pitches Bronner stories.
Turkey, Egypt and Israel – Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Hawks Fret Over U.S. Withdrawal – Jim Lobe, IPS News
“In fact, with such small troop numbers, U.S. commanders would be forced to all but close shop,” concluded Boot, whose views have in the past reflected those of former Central Command chief and current Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, Gen. David Petraeus.
Sanctions and Iran’s Growing Economic Woes – NIAC Podcast
The Prescience Of Mearsheimer – Andrew Sullivan, The Dish (h/t Mondoweiss)
Jeffrey Goldberg’s report on a meeting of National Security Council Principals Committee (NSC/PC), in which Secretary of Defense Robert Gates expressed frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intransigence on the peace process and the fact that “the U.S. has received nothing in return” for [...]]]>
Jeffrey Goldberg’s report on a meeting of National Security Council Principals Committee (NSC/PC), in which Secretary of Defense Robert Gates expressed frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intransigence on the peace process and the fact that “the U.S. has received nothing in return” for its security guarantees, might raise more questions than it answers.
What Goldberg didn’t mention is the historical and conceptual context for Gates’ remarks. Indeed, Gates is not the first senior American official to express concern that the protraction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and the perception of U.S. favoritism toward Israel on this issue — was offering few, if any, dividends for U.S. security or its own regional interests.
Back in March, 2010, Gen. David Petraeus made waves when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had immediate implications for the U.S.’s ability to pursue its interests in the Middle East. He named some of these problems:
Israel hawks quickly denounced Petraeus’ comments and have continued to attack a straw man argument that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict wouldn’t solve all challenges facing the U.S. in the Middle East.
But Petraeus wasn’t the only senior U.S. official to endorse the concept of “linkage” between resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the longer-term strategic interests of the U.S. in the Middle East. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, CENTCOM commander Gen. James Mattis, and Adm. Michael Mullen — via a WikiLeaks cable — have voiced endorsements of this concept.
While Jeffrey Goldberg — who has a history of rejecting linkage — carefully reports on Gates’ anger with Netanyahu for delivering “nothing in return” for security guarantees, access to weapons, and intelligence sharing, he is careful to sidestep the obvious next question. Why does Gates feel strongly about Netanyahu refusing to “grapple with Israel’s growing isolation and with the demographic challenges it faces if it keeps control of the West Bank”?
Goldberg doesn’t engage that topic. It might be because Gates shares the emerging consensus of the U.S.’s top military and political leadership that Israel’s continued settlement expansion and intransigence at the negotiating table is doing real damage to the Obama administration’s attempts to pursue a wide range of military and political interests in the Middle East.
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