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?
]]>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.
John Bolton, Washington Times: The former UN Ambassador and outspoken proponent of
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.
John Bolton, Washington Times: The former UN Ambassador and outspoken proponent of military action against Iran rebukes President Obama for creating ”the most antagonistic relationship ever between Israel and the White House” by not preemptively striking Iran for Israel due to his “ideological inclination”:
There is, however, a serious problem. Israel’s assessment and its ultimate decision are complicated precisely because of the superiority of American military strength. If Jerusalem defers to Washington and does not strike early enough, Iran’s program could well pass the point where Israel has the necessary capabilities to break Iran’s control over the nuclear fuel cycle. Or, even worse, Iran could fabricate nuclear weapons before being detected by either U.S. or Israeli intelligence, risking that a strike by either country could bring a nuclear response from Iran.
There are three principal reasons not to credit Mr. Obama’s assurances. First, the president’s every ideological inclination is not to use U.S. military force pre-emptively. By contrast, two months before Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt defended American attacks against Nazi submarines in the North Atlantic, saying, “When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him.” Plainly, Mr. Obama is no Franklin Roosevelt.
Elliott Abrams, Weekly Standard: The former Deputy National Security Adviser to George W. Bush considers Israeli general Amos Yaldin’s call for the US to commit to striking Iran in 2013 if the Iranian “problem” is not solved reasonable but unrealistic, so he proposes a Congressional authorization for the use of force against Iran instead:
More persuasive than the Ross or Yadlin proposals would be an effort by the president to seek a formal authorization for the use of force from Congress. This is the way for him to show seriousness of purpose, and for Congress to support it—and send an unmistakable message to the ayatollahs. This path was suggested here in THE WEEKLY STANDARD early July, by Jamie Fly and Bill Kristol, and this is the moment to move forward with it. Like the joint resolutions for the Gulf Wars in 1991 and in2002 and the joint resolution passed after 9/11 regarding terrorism, a new resolution would not declare war; it would say “The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate” to achieve the goal. In this case, that goal would not be to counter “the continuing threat posed by Iraq” or “against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001…in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States.” It would be to prevent Iran—the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, in violation of countless U.N. Security Council and IAEA board of governors resolutions, and under international sanctions—from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: The “Tiger Mom of the neocon movement” alleges that President Obama’s “Iran dilemma” boils down to being blamed for Israeli losses if he does not strike Iran on Israel’s behalf or being unprepared in the event of being “forced” into another mideast war:
An Israeli strike would be a blatant signal of distrust in Obama by the Jewish state. If the action is less than successful, or if large casualties in Israel result, fingers will point at Obama for having failed to deploy superior U.S. force. And if he believes an Israeli strike will set off a Middle East war, the president, who is in the business of diminishing U.S. military presence, could well be forced into a conflagration.
Rubin also describes going to war with Iran as a form of carpe diem:
Obama, as he has done so frequently, can wait and hope the Israelis don’t act. That might “work,” insofar as Israeli leaders might want to stretch out the timeline just a little bit longer. But passivity has its price, both geopolitically and electorally. It will be interesting to see whether Obama or Romney seizes the moment. It would certainly be an act of political leadership if one does.
Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post: Like Rubin, the neoconservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer references Elliot Abrams’ call for congressional authorization for the potential use of force against Iran (without naming Abrams) in an article that criticizes the President’s approach to Iran. In this instance, Krauthammer argues that Anthony Cordesman’s suggested approach to Iran, which includes hardening the US’s stance and upping the threat of force, needs to be seriously considered before the military option is exercised. Also like Rubin, Krauthammer agitates for action under the pretext of the time-is-running out claim:
]]>Would Iran believe a Cordesman-like ultimatum? Given the record of the Obama administration, maybe not. Some (though not Cordesman) have therefore suggested the further step of requesting congressional authorization for the use of force if Iran does not negotiate denuclearization.
First, that’s the right way to do it. No serious military action should be taken without congressional approval (contra Libya). Second, Iran might actually respond to a threat backed by a strong bipartisan majority of the American people — thus avoiding both war and the other nightmare scenario, a nuclear Iran.
If we simply continue to drift through kabuki negotiations, however, one thing is certain. Either America, Europe, the Gulf Arabs and the Israelis will forever be condemned to live under the threat of nuclear blackmail (even nuclear war) from a regime the State Department identifies as the world’s greatest exporter of terror. Or an imperiled Israel, with its more limited capabilities, will strike Iran — with correspondingly greater probability of failure and of triggering a regional war.
All options are bad. Doing nothing is worse. “The status quo may not prevent some form of war,” concludes Cordesman, “and may even be making it more likely.”
Michael Eisenstadt & Michael Knights, WINEP: Contradicting ongoing warnings from former and current
Michael Eisenstadt & Michael Knights, WINEP: Contradicting ongoing warnings from former and current high-level U.S. national security officials, experts and several Israeli counterparts about the potentially catastrophic effects of an Israeli strike on Iran, two analysts from the hawkish pro-Israel Washington Institute (aka WINEP) paint a relatively rosy picture about an Iranian response to Israeli-waged “preemptive” war. Eisenstadt and Knights’ report title begins with “Beyond Worst-Case Analysis” and they certainly delve into best-case scenarios like Matthew Kroenig infamously did in December. But even Kroenig argued against an Israeli strike because he believes the U.S. is much better equipped for the job. In any case, highly qualified critiques of Kroenig’s argument (here, here, here and here) also apply in many ways to this WINEP production.
Interestingly, it is in the last paragraph of the paper that the authors mention one of the most important and alarming effects of any strike on Iran’s nuclear program–that it could (or rather most likely would) result in immediate Iranian withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the halting of all International Atomic Energy Association monitoring mechanisms, as well as propel Iran to quickly build a nuclear weapon. As former Pentagon Mideast advisor to the Obama administration Colin Kahl and other experts have stated, you can’t bomb knowledge and the Iranians already have nuclear weapon know-how. For this reason Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association adds that the key to stopping an Iranian nuclear weapon requires the power of persuasion rather than brute force. Eisenstadt and Knights also ignore the fact that U.S. support for a preemptive strike would violate both U.S. and international law according to Yale Professor Bruce Ackerman. Then there’s that pesky issue of costs to human life. Never mind all that though. Write Eisenstadt and Knights:
In short, although an Israeli preventive strike would be a high-risk endeavor carrying a potential for escalation in the Levant or the Gulf, it would not be the apocalyptic event some foresee. And the United States could take several steps to mitigate these risks without appearing complicit in Israel’s decision to attack. The very act of taking precautionary measures to lessen the impact of a strike, moreover, would enhance the credibility of Israeli military threats and bolster the P5+1’s ongoing nuclear diplomacy. Less clear, however, is whether a strike would prompt Tehran to expel inspectors, withdraw from the NPT, and pursue a crash program—overt or clandestine. And whether enhanced international efforts to disrupt Iran’s procurement of special materials and technologies would succeed in preventing the rebuilding of its nuclear infrastructure remains an unknown.
Clifford D. May, National Review: The president of the hawkish and neoconservative-dominated Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) makes clear his obsession with Iran, which he calls “the single most important strategic threat facing the U.S. — hands down” (eat your heart out China!) in an article overwhelmingly implying that the U.S. should arm and aid Syria’s opposition forces mainly because doing so would weaken Iran:
Those facing Assad’s guns are not asking us to put boots on the ground. What they do want are the means to defend themselves, secure communications technology, and a limited number of other assets that will give them a fighting chance — though no guarantees. Providing such assistance will give us a fighting chance to influence the opposition now and the post-Assad environment later — though no guarantees.
The alternative is to stay on the sidelines, leaving the opposition to the tender mercies of Assad and his patrons in Tehran who are supplying weapons, advisers, and more. They grasp that the Battle of Syria is hugely consequential. They know that the fall of Assad would be a major blow to them. By the same token, it will be a major blow to the West if, despite Washington’s pronouncements and posturing, Khamenei, with assistance from the Kremlin, rescues and restores his most valued Arab bridgehead. And should Khamenei move from that victory to the production of nuclear weapons, we’re in for a very rough 21st century.
Henry Kissinger meanwhile argues that U.S. intervention in Syria could harm U.S. interests.
President Barak Obama (New York Times report): David Sanger writes that while Obama was allegedly fervently pursuing diplomacy with Iran, he was secretly accelerating a cyberwar that began with the George W. Bush administration:
Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet.
According to Russian cyber security expert Eugene Kaspersky, with these actions the U.S. is getting closer to opening Pandora’s box. Reports Vita Bekker in the Financial Times:
Eugene Kaspersky, whose Moscow-based firm discovered the Flame virus that has attacked computers in Middle East countries, including Iran, said on the sidelines of the Tel Aviv conference that only an international effort could prevent a potentially disastrous cyberattack.
“It’s not cyberwar, it’s cyberterrorism and I am afraid it’s just the beginning of the game . . . I am afraid that it will be the end of the world as we know it,” Mr Kaspersky, whose company is one of the world’s biggest makers of antivirus software, was quoted by Reuters as saying: “I am scared, believe me.”
Misha Glenny concurs.
John Bolton, Washington Times: The former Bush administration official with close ties to neoconservatives has no qualms about agitating for war on Iran. Bolton has a history of hawkishness and “insanity” about the country and how it should be dealt with. In January he told Fox News that sanctions and covert attacks won’t prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, but attacking “its nuclear weapons program directly” will. This week he breathed a sigh of relief over the fact that no agreement was reached between Iran and the West during recent talks:
Fortunately, however, the recently concluded Baghdad talks between Iran and the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members and Germany (P-5+1) produced no substantive agreement.
Find Ali’s in-depth report here.
]]>The two main problems with Ayalon’s analysis is that he seems not to have actually read the WikiLeaks cables—which offer ample evidence confirming the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the minds of Arab leaders—or bothered to understand how promoters of linkage define the concept.
(Matt Duss has an excellent post up on the Wonk Room that covers many of the same problems with Ayalon’s rather selective (when not downright misleading) interpretation of WikiLeaks and linkage.)
Linkage, as defined by Gen. David Petraeus last March, is [my emphasis]:
The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.
Rather conveniently, Ayalon’s definition of linkage misinterprets the concept and fails to address the concerns raised by Petraeus and members of the Obama administration who have endorsed the idea. Matt Duss accurately describes Ayalon’s description as “an obvious strawman.”
While right-wing blogs, political pundits, and columnists quickly embraced the talking point that WikiLeaks showed an Arab world that is deathly afraid of Iran’s nuclear program — but didn’t have much to say about the Arab-Israeli conflict — an actual reading of the cables suggests a very different message.
Here are a set of excerpts from WikiLeaks that show Arab leaders endorsing the concept of linkage (the Petraeus definition, not the Ayalon one) in the most blunt way possible.
The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, in a December 9, 2009 meeting with the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman:
Emphasized the strategic importance of creating a Palestinian State (i.e., resolving the Israeli- Palestinian conflict) as the way to create genuine Middle Eastern unity on the question of Iran’s nuclear program and regional ambitions.
A cable from the U.S. embassy in Amman, written shortly after the end of the Gaza War in January 2009, reads:
Speaking to PolOffs [political officers] in early February 2009, immediately after the Gaza War, Director of the Jordanian Prime Minister’s Political Office Khaled Al-Qadi noted that the Gaza crisis had allowed Iranian interference in inter-Arab relations to reach unprecedented levels.
An April 2, 2009 cable from Amman repeated the Jordanian position:
Jordanian leaders have argued that the only way to pull the rug out from under Hizballah – and by extension their Iranian patrons – would be for Israel to hand over the disputed Sheba’a Farms to Lebanon.
It went on:
With Hizballah lacking the ‘resistance to occupation’ rationale for continued confrontation with Israel, it would lose its raison d’etre and probably domestic support.
And a February 22, 2010, cable describes UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nayan as he warns a Congressional delegation against a military attack on Iran, led by Nita Lowey:
The cable remarks that bin Zayed:
Concluded the meeting with a soliloquy on the importance of a successful peace process between Israel and its neighbors as perhaps the best way of reducing Iran’s regional influence.
During a February 14, 2010, meeting with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, Qatar Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-thani suggested one reason that Israel might be hyping the threat of a nuclear Iran.
The cable summarizes bin Khalifa as saying:
[The Israelis] are using Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons as a diversion from settling matters with the Palestinians.
Ayalon twisting the definition of linkage and misstating the messages contained in the WikiLeaks cables is indicative of the increasing desperation that the Israeli right-wing must be experiencing as authoritarian Middle Eastern governments, that have helped Israel maintain the status quo, are under increasing pressure to make democratic reforms. There’s no guarantee that the governments in Middle Eastern capitals will be as cooperative in helping Israel maintain its occupation of the West Bank or its siege on Gaza in the future. The time for Israeli hardliners to face their nation’s political realities and make difficult but necessary concessions may be drawing closer. Danny Ayalon is choosing to ignore the shifting political winds.
]]>- The Weekly Standard: Jaime Daremblum, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, blogs on the “underreported news” that the U.S. government is investigating “whether Venezuela recently defied American sanctions by sending gasoline to the Islamic Republic.” “‘Hugo Chávez and PDVSA are actively helping Iran bypass both U.S. and international sanctions in its pursuit of nuclear weapons,’ said Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL). Over the past several years, Chávez has effectively turned his country into an Iranian satellite,” writes Daremblum. He ominously concludes that the Obama administration needs to “promulgate a coherent, robust strategy for addressing the Chávez threat and repelling Iranian influence in the region (which continues to grow).”
- The Washington Times: Israel’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Danny Ayalon, writes in the Washington Times that the last few weeks have thoroughly dis-proven the importance of “linkage”—the concept accepted by both the Obama administration and the U.S. military’s top brass that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would help further U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East. “The WikiLeaks revelations proved that among Arab decision makers and policy-shapers, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was fairly low on the list of urgent priorities in the region,” writes Ayalon. He argues that instability in the region is due to food insecurity, rising desertification, and vanishing water resources.
- The Washington Post: Former Israeli ambassador Sallai Meridor opines on “What Israel fears in Egypt.” He observes, “Within every revolution are some who hope to use democratic processes to establish oppressive regimes. This was, to a large extent, what triumphed in Iran in 1979 and what happened in Gaza only five years ago.” He notes, “The implications for the region could be massive,” and asks, “If Israel’s western neighbor turns hostile, where would that leave our eastern neighbor, Jordan? Would it remain at peace with us? What would be the impact on other pro-American regimes? How many weeks, or days, would the new alignment of interests between Israel and most Arab regimes last against an aggressive and nuclear-armed Iran?” Meridor goes on to suggest that American pressure on Israel to allow Palestinians democratic rights led to a “’democratic’ take over of the Palestinian Authority by Hamas terrorists.”
- The Jerusalem Post: Panelists at the Israeli Herzliya Conference discussed what strategies could be employed to pressure Iran to give up its nuclear program. Mehdi Khalaji, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, called for the West to help provide technology and media outlets for Iranians to “connect with each other.” “The Iranian public needs to know they are being cared for beyond the nuclear arena,” he said. Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, called for tighter sanctions and said Israel must not do any business with Iran: “[Israel] needs to be more Catholic than the pope,” he said.
In the last week some al Qaeda affiliated websites have released messages praising the demonstrations against Mr. Mubarak.
Right, and so have the leaders of the Islamic Republic and the Green Movement. And a whole lot of other people. Oh, and Edler von Mildenstein supported Zionism. What’s your point, Eli? Out and say it.
]]>It’s right there in the opinion section of the Washington Times, where even Frank Gaffney is zoomed in on the Muslim Brotherhood and has the decency not to mention Iran. (Gaffney’s piece is [...]]]>
It’s right there in the opinion section of the Washington Times, where even Frank Gaffney is zoomed in on the Muslim Brotherhood and has the decency not to mention Iran. (Gaffney’s piece is called “The Muslim Brotherhood is the Enemy“, and I didn’t read it, but searched it for ‘Iran’, ‘Tehran’, and ‘mullah’, and: nada.)
But not Pipes. The show must go on. (Just as Clarion Fund‘s “Iranium” premieres tomorrow.) Here’s Pipes’s lede:
As Egypt’s much-anticipated moment of crisis arrived and popular rebellions shook governments across the Middle East, Iran stands as never before at the center of the region. Its Islamist rulers are within sight of dominating the region. But revolutions are hard to pull off and I predict that Islamists will not achieve a Middle East-wide breakthrough and Tehran will not emerge as the key powerbroker.
Check out that deft change of subject in the first sentence!
Oh, and did you know that U.S. President Barack Obama is supporting the nasty Islamists in Egypt, the very Brotherhood that Gaffney is warning us about?
Sure, you say, democracy advocates from across the political spectrum are asking for Obama to do more to usher Egyptian dictator Honsi Mubarak out of power. But Pipes has a different story. He concludes:
Barack Obama initially reverted to the failed old policy of making nice with tyrants; now he is myopically siding with the Islamists against Mr. Mubarak.
The link for that Islamist allegation, from the version of the piece on Pipes’s hompage, goes to Obama’s catch-up speech on Thursday night after he spoke to Mubarak. Only Pipes saw the Islamist connection; he went to Harvard, you know, and runs a think tank.
But do tell, Pipes, what should Obama do?
He should emulate Bush but do a better job, understanding that democratization is a decades-long process that requires the inculcation of counter-intuitive ideas about elections, freedom of speech, and the rule of law.
If there’s any question about whether some neoconservatives are democratic opportunists for the purpose of scoring political points, that about settles it.
And the “inculcation of counter-intuitive ideas about elections, freedom of speech and the rule of law”? It seems to me that Egyptians, at this moment, are perfectly attuned to these notions. How racist.
And wasn’t the idea that all people have these aspirations at the very heart of Bush’s 2005 State of the Union? Jennifer Rubin, the neoconservative Washington Post blogger, cited that very passage in support of her hallucination “that it was the left that said that democracy was alien to the Middle East. Bush was right; they were wrong.” (Pipes may actually be on Rubin’s left.)
Elliott Abrams, too, hauled out a similar Bush passage — that everyone is ‘ready’ for democracy — when he presented his own bogus narrative that the Iraq War was being vindicated by current events. (Doesn’t Pipes read his comrades?)
Nonetheless, on Egypt: Eli Lake has a good piece on the New Republic about Bush’s failure to push for genuine reform in Egypt. We don’t really know exactly what’s going on in the White House right now, though we’re getting some hints (Mubarak will be out).
After reading Lake’s piece, what’s stands out as ironic is that Obama’s caution, at the moment, seems an awful lot like he’s already ‘emulating’ Bush. To do something about it, and call for or arrange Mubarak’s ouster, would indeed be doing a “better job” than Bush, as Pipes put it.
But Pipes can’t be bothered with details or history. It’s all about Iran.
Oh, and the guy in the Obama administration responsible for designing U.S. policy toward Iran (and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process) sits on the board of editors at Daniel Pipes’s pseudo-academic journal. How comforting is that?
]]>House Foreign Affairs chief Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) was wondering about the “nefarious ends” of some “elements” there, and Jeffrey Goldberg, who, with shifting views, expressed apprehension about the Muslim Brotherhood (giving space to FDD’s Reuel Marc Gerecht, who [...]]]>
House Foreign Affairs chief Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) was wondering about the “nefarious ends” of some “elements” there, and Jeffrey Goldberg, who, with shifting views, expressed apprehension about the Muslim Brotherhood (giving space to FDD’s Reuel Marc Gerecht, who seems open to Islamism, apparently, and Eli Lake, who doesn’t think Egypt’s peace deal with Israel will collapse).
Goldberg, to his credit, is asking big questions. And one of the biggest right now is about Islamism, and it’s role in the future of the Middle East. It’s playing out most acutely today in Tunisia and Egypt, but has been simmering all over the region, from Gaza to Qom.
Opinion makers in the U.S. seem to be divided along the lines that define what M.J. Rosenberg has called the “status quo lobby” (SQL), those whose actions — or key inactions — have thwarted a robust role for the U.S. in Middle East peacemaking. Goldberg and Ros-Lehtinen fit the paradigm: Both unflinching SQLers, they wear their hesitance for the long-awaited Arab democratic uprising on their sleeves.
The tepid support for Egyptians is about fear of Islamists, and no totalitarian strain, but one that has transitioned to seeking democratic legitimacy and inclusion. Yet events unfold in Egypt that drown out that narrative of what Phil Weiss, in an eloquent, must-read essay, called the “false choice of secular dictator-or-crazy Islamists.”
A bearded, angry young Arab shouted into a camera that “whether you’re Muslim, whether you’re a Christian, whether you’re an atheist, you will demand your goddamn rights.” Police held their fire, and protesters their stones, to break for prayers. On Twitter, Marc Lynch, a professor at George Washington University, wrote that a key day of demonstrations went forward even without the internet because people already knew where to meet up: “[O]n Friday everybody knew mosques would be focal points, didn’t need to coordinate.”
But the “false choice” clings to life among adherents of the SQL, where it is considered infallible wisdom.
The New York Times gave us a pretty even handed account a few weeks back about Tunisia’s relatively moderate Islamist party, then hauled out WINEP‘s Martin Kramer to unthinkingly denounce Islamism. (The Times also carried a pro-inclusion analyst.) Kramer, you see, hasn’t honestly answered or asked this question for decades.
Even Ben Birnbaum, a young reporter with the right-wing Washington Times, where he works with Lake, was asking himself some serious questions, too, on Twitter:
Do my mixed feelings about democracy in #Egypt make me a bad person? #Jan25
You get the feeling that Steve Coll had just the SQL in mind when he wrote, in the New Yorker, that the Tunisian Islamist party — the one that’s cool with “tourists sipping French wine in their bikinis” – is “raising anxieties in some quarters.”
In other quarters, however, questions are being asked. Take Coll himself:
[T]he corrosive effects of political and economic exclusion in the region cannot be sustained—among them the legions of pent-up, angry young men, Islamist and otherwise.
Yes, he calls for Obama to “thwart” Islamists in Tunisia. But the New Yorker‘s Comment is a column that important people read, and they’re reading about important questions.
]]>- The Washington Times: American Enterprise Institute fellow and former UN ambassador John Bolton denounces the EU and White House’s commitment to P5+1 negotiations with Iran, writing, “There is not, and has not been from the outset of these tortuous negotiations, even the slightest chance Iran will renounce its 20-year goal of deliverable nuclear weapons.” Bolton goes on to argue, “…the Tehran regime has systematically used the talks to buy time to overcome the many scientific and technological obstacles to achieving its objective.”
- The Washington Post: Jennifer Rubin, writing on her Right Turn blog, opines on the retirement of Stuart Levey from his position as Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Rubin uses this event as an opportunity to review the state of Iran sanctions, writing, “One sanctions expert reminds me that sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran have still not been issued, and no foreign, non-Iranian bank has been sanctioned for its involvement with Iran.” Rubin concludes, “…[n]ow we see that sanctions critics were right all along. Even the best sanctions efforts innovatively implemented have failed to meet our objectives. We need to change the regime, not the rulers’ hearts and minds.”