A White House letter Thursday to Congressional leaders suggesting chemical weapons use by the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad has reignited debate about direct U.S. military involvement in the war-torn country.

“Our intelligence community does assess with varying degrees of confidence that the [...]]]> by Jasmin Ramsey

via IPS News

A White House letter Thursday to Congressional leaders suggesting chemical weapons use by the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad has reignited debate about direct U.S. military involvement in the war-torn country.

“Our intelligence community does assess with varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin,” the letter said, a day after a letter by eight senators was sent to the president asking if chemical weapons had been used by the Assad regime since the conflict there began in 2011.

Republican Senator John McCain, one of the co-signers of the letter to the White House, said Thursday that president Obama’s “red line” on Syria has been “crossed”.

“Not only have our intelligence people concluded that, but as importantly the Israeli, the British and the French have as well,” McCain said on Fox News.

“The president clearly stated that it was a red line and that it couldn’t be crossed without the United States taking vigorous action,” he said.

But it’s not clear whether the president’s red line has been crossed.

The White House is also seeking confirmation of the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment before taking action.

“…Precisely because the president takes this issue so seriously, we have an obligation to fully investigate any and all evidence of chemical weapons use within Syria,” the White House letter said before calling for a U.N. investigation to “credibly evaluate the evidence and establish what took place”.

“There was wiggle room [in the letter] about who might have been actually doing it,” Robert E. Hunter, who served on the National Security Council staff throughout the Jimmy Carter administration, told IPS.

“That letter is a wonderful weasel-worded letter to try to make the president look good and preserve all options. And I don’t mean the option to go to war, I mean the option to not go to war,” said Hunter, who was U.S. ambassador to NATO from 1993-98.

“It’s not clear to me that the administration has figured out what’s in the best American interest after period X…because we’ve been ambivalent about that or because in the president’s statement it says Assad ought to go, then if that’s where you are, what are you prepared to do to see it come about, and if it does come about, then what are you prepared to do?” said Hunter.

“You can arm the rebels, you can have a no-fly zone, you can use air power…we now have a capacity to use air power at relatively low risk. But that still begs the question: then what happens? How do you protect the minority if Assad goes? How do you keep this from becoming a spill-over into what I call a slow-rolling civil war throughout this part of the Middle East,” he said.

“It does not appear that the proverbial Obama administration ‘red line’ has been crossed – yet – because there clearly are some differences about the level of certainty within the U.S. intelligence community over whether regime lethal chemical weapons (CW) use has taken place,” Wayne White, a former deputy director of the State Department’s Middle East/South Asia Intelligence Office (INR/NESA), told IPS.

“Also at issue is whether, if this has occurred, the incident was significant or relatively isolated and minor, as well as whether the level of danger that any such use would be repeated,” said White, now a scholar at the Middle East Institute.

There is meanwhile differing opinion among U.S. Mideast policy experts about whether Washngton should militarily intervene in Syria, something which the Obama administration has so far resisted.

“It doesn’t really matter which intelligence assessment – Israeli or American – is accurate, this is no longer an academic question. The U.S. and its allies, in or outside the U.N., must act swiftly to bring down the regime and prevent any further use of chemical weapons by the regime,” Emile Nakhleh, a an expert on Middle Eastern society and politics who served in the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993-2006, told IPS.

“It is time the Obama administration acts on its own to speed up Assad’s fall. If the president had followed his earlier statement that Assad should go, the Syrian people would have been spared the horrible destruction that the regime has inflicted on the country, the deaths of almost 100,000 people, and the flight of almost three million Syrians as refugees to neighbouring countries.

“More importantly, such action would have removed the possibility of the regime using weapons of mass destruction against the Syrian people,” Nakhleh, who formerly headed the CIA’s Political Islam Strategic Analysis Programme, told IPS.

The White House’s letter release Thursday coincided with a library dedication ceremony for President George W. Bush, which was attended by all living U.S. presidents including Obama.

Bush spoke highly of his two-term presidency, which included U.S.-waged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“…We liberated nations from dictatorship and freed people from AIDS. And when our freedom came under attack, we made the tough decisions required to keep the American people safe,” said Bush at the library dedication ceremony on the campus of SMU in Dallas, Texas.

But successive polls show little support now by U.S. citizens for involvement in another Mideast war.

In December 2013, a Pew Research poll showed that 65 percent of respondents opposed the U.S. and its allies even sending arms and military supplies to anti-government groups in Syria.

“The Obama administration, already heavily committed in Afghanistan, addressing significant military-related budget cuts, and well aware of the need to avoid an Iraq-like scenario, will move with much greater caution in dealing with Syria than did the Bush administration (which eagerly sought an all-out war with Iraq) back in 2003,” White told IPS.

“Particularly with Islamic extremists (in fact, many directly affiliated with Al-Qaeda) important players in the complex situation on the ground in Syria, this administration will likely remain well aware of the Colin Powell dictum: ‘You break it; you own it’,” said White.

“Syria already is, in effect, broken, but the U.S. so far has played only a marginal role in determining the flow of events there. Indeed, so far, this remains very much a Syrian conflict, despite the involvement of various outside governments (including Iran),” he said.

Photo: U.S. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel briefs the press in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, April 25, 2013. Credit: DOD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo

By James A. Russell

As the Senate prepares for what will be contentious confirmation hearings for Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of Defense, it is important to debunk some of the popularized narratives that are being offered by neoconservative commentators as they attempt to seize control of important issues [...]]]> via Lobe Log

By James A. Russell

As the Senate prepares for what will be contentious confirmation hearings for Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of Defense, it is important to debunk some of the popularized narratives that are being offered by neoconservative commentators as they attempt to seize control of important issues that will likely come up during the confirmation process.

Hagel was one of the few who had the guts to question the Iraq invasion when it was politically unpopular to do so, was right about the disastrous consequences of the invasion for US power and prestige, and rightly raised questions about the increase in troop levels committed as part of the so-called “surge” in 2007. As noted by Wayne White in this blog, there are many misconceptions and myths perpetrated about the surge and its relationship to America’s experience in the war.

Neoconservative commentators have successfully shaped a popular narrative suggesting that the surge helped spur the famous Anbar Awakening that turned the tide in Iraq and somehow helped “win” the war. There are grains of truth in these assertions, but these half-truths have been used to support wholly unfounded and full-blown myths that are still spouted in print by columnists like Charles Krauthammer, Elliott Abrams and others.

My book on ground operations in Iraq from 2005-07 in Anbar and Mosul deals extensively with local politics in Anbar during the period and provides an entirely different picture of the awakening and its circumstances that had little to do with the surge. Like all complex phenomena, the awakening occurred in a particular context and with a history that has been largely omitted from popular narratives about the war.

The first of the so-called tribal “flips” started in 2005 in Al Qaim due in part to a dispute involving the Albu Mahal tribe and its interest in controlling border and smuggling operations. The Albu Mahals subsequently became the “desert protector” force in 2005; Marines issued them uniforms and installed them in local police stations to start directing traffic and performing other constabulary duties. In a pattern that would be repeated elsewhere around the province, the Marines turned a blind eye to the Albu Mahal’s smuggling operations in exchange for this support — so long as the smuggling did not support insurgent activities. The Marines initially tried to set up local militias in 2004 in the city of Hit in Anbar — efforts that failed miserably as the units disintegrated when insurgents attacked them.

The Awakening spread from western Anbar in 2005 and culminated in Ramadi in the summer/fall of 2006 — before the surge had even begun. By the time the surge happened in the spring of 2007, there were already over 1,000 former Sunni tribal and nationalist insurgents manning police checkpoints in and around Ramadi.

The tribal flip had to do with many factors – national-level political developments and the rising power of the Shi’ites and the realization by Sunni tribal leaders that only the US could protect them from the ascendant Shi’ites. They grasped the obvious in late 2006: their continued alliance with the jihadists would lead to their destruction. They had also become disaffected with the non-Iraqi jihadists and their brutal methods of intimidation. They also resented the way these jihadists had seized control over the smuggling routes in Anbar that had supported Sunni tribes for decades.

In the fall of 2006, US commanders in Ramadi stood by as the 1920s Brigade and other Sunni nationalist insurgents dragged the jihadists out of the mosques on Fridays and blew their brains out. Importantly, the improved tactical proficiency of US units — a proficiency driven by desperation and willingness to learn and adapt — played a role in supporting the awakening process. US brigade and battalion commanders deserve great credit for forming personal relationships with tribal leaders like Abdul Sittar Abdu Risha that helped immeasurably as the awakening process gathered momentum in the fall of 2006.

Contrary to popular myths now being offered up on the airwaves, the White House and Gen. David Petraeus were not involved in decisions by brigade and battalion commanders to start forming these local alliances. My research on this period of the war shows that these commanders took these steps out of desperation and because they couldn’t think of anything else to do to reduce insurgent violence.

Many myths surround the Awakening and the surge – myths popularized by the neocons and the mainstream media, as well as by fawning narratives in books by Paula Broadwell and others about how brilliant senior leaders engineered this change in the landscape of Iraq. Like all narratives, however, their stories contain only grains of truth.

The increase in US troop numbers were important in tamping down violence in Iraq, and the bloody and brutal campaign undertaken by the Joint Special Operations Command in 2007 in Baghdad eviscerated the insurgent networks in and around the capital. But, the surge was not responsible for the Awakening and it did not “win” the war, as asserted by the neoconservatives.

The net result of the surge was to help create circumstances to cover the US retreat so the neoconservatives and others could assert we had in fact achieved something worthwhile in Iraq. The problem with this is that there are still those out there that believe the information operations (IO) campaign that was itself part of the surge. We ended up believing our own invented press releases — a process now repeating itself in Afghanistan.

This IO campaign regrettably succeeded, and there is today no national-level debate over the disastrous US experience in Iraq. That absence means that columnists like Krauthammer and other neocons can make unsupported and unchallenged assertions about the “surge” and its circumstances.

Importantly, it means that the same neoconservative figures who helped sell the Iraq war in the first place can also, with straight faces, go after figures like Chuck Hagel, who, whatever his faults, turned out to be right about Iraq. If Hagel was right about Iraq, maybe it says something about other judgments he might have to make as our next secretary of defense.

Maybe this country would be better off with senior leaders willing to take politically unpopular positions on important questions and have the strength of their convictions to carry those arguments into the senior reaches of government.

– James Russell serves as an associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey, Ca. The views in this article are his alone.

Photo: President George W. Bush makes a statement to reporters about the war in Iraq after his meeting with senior national defense leaders at the Pentagon May 10, 2007. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen, U.S. Air Force.

As former top State Department intelligence specialist Wayne White points out for Lobe Log, in the absence of a tenable ceasefire agreement, the quagmire that is the Syrian civil war will likely intensify, thereby only worsening post-Assad scenarios.

“The bottom line is that a sort of Catch-22 situation is [...]]]> via Lobe Log

As former top State Department intelligence specialist Wayne White points out for Lobe Log, in the absence of a tenable ceasefire agreement, the quagmire that is the Syrian civil war will likely intensify, thereby only worsening post-Assad scenarios.

“The bottom line is that a sort of Catch-22 situation is continuing on the diplomatic front,” wrote White last week. “[T]he side that believes it has the upper hand and will eventually prevail militarily (currently the opposition) is unlikely to accept a truce because a ceasefire would interfere with its ability to sustain intense military pressure on the other side.”

Anyone hoping for even a temporary cessation to the deadly violence would have been shattered by Bashar al-Assad’s rare speech in Damascus on Sunday, where he thanked his base for showing “the whole world that Syria is impervious to collapse and the Syrian people impervious to humiliation.” The defiant president refused to step down while claiming he was ready to talk with the opposition. But as White noted, Assad did so while urging his supporters to continue fighting against the “bunch of criminals” who oppose him.

This political gridlock makes creative diplomacy appear all the more important in bringing an end to the ongoing carnage that’s ravaging the country. Asked if the Iranians should be included in diplomatic efforts, former top CIA analyst Paul Pillar told Lobe Log that ”Any multilateral diplomatic initiative has a better chance of success if all the parties with leverage to exert are included.”

Pillar is well aware of the fact that this may be easier said than done. UN and Arab League mediator Lahkdar Brahimi remains in between a rock and a hard place — expected to please everyone while not being able to please anyone. The brutal force that the government deployed to crush what were initially peaceful protests seems to have pushed both sides beyond the point of no return. Presently, the opposition’s recent disgust with Brahimi’s choice of Russia as the venue for his recent truce initiative has been overshadowed by the regime’s accusations of Brahimi’s “bias toward sides known for conspiring against Syria and the Syrian people.”

It was in this atmosphere of hopelessness that news surfaced Wednesday of over 2,130 Syrian prisoners being released by the regime in exchange for 48 Iranians abducted during what they claimed to be a religious pilgrimage in August. (The opposition had said that the Iranians were members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, which Tehran adamantly denied.) The massive exchange again raises the question of whether Iran has a role to play in bringing an end to the Syrian crisis.

This question may be more difficult to answer now than it was when the fighting first broke out over a year ago. On the one hand, the prisoner swap supports the argument that Iran holds considerable influence over Assad’s government and could help shift events toward a “peace process”. Throughout last year, Iran tried to inject itself into diplomatic processes taking place over Syria by, for example, supporting a failed United Nations-Arab League peace plan and making is own proposal in December.

“On Syria, Iran is pursuing a dual track policy of support for the Syrian Government as it faces internal instability, while pressing Damascus to take measures to reduce tensions, open the grounds for negotiations with the opposition and find a path towards national unity and conciliation,” said Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, the former spokesperson for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team (2003 to 2005) and now a visiting scholar at Princeton University.

“Iran can play a major constructive role on the Syrian crisis,” he said.

That Iran reportedly included Syria in its five-point proposal presented during nuclear talks in Moscow last June could be an indication that it would be willing to bargain away its support for the regime — if it was provided with enough incentive. (Recall how the government of Mohammad Khatami reportedly offered to end Iran’s material support to Palestinian groups opposing Israel in a March 2003 proposal for “broad dialogue” with the US that was rejected by the Bush administration.)

On the other hand, this prisoner swap, which amounts to about 44 Syrians for every 1 Iranian, displays the extent to which Iran is tied to Assad’s repression. If the war in Syria is really about the major powers that are backing each side (Russia, Iran and China for the regime, and Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Western countries for the opposition), and since the fall of Assad would indeed be a “major blow” to the Iranians, can Tehran really be expected to help its foes?

For now, talks with Iran over its nuclear program are expected to resume shortly, even if they’re already off to a bad start. But as the fighting in Syria produces ongoing suffering while the Israeli-led campaign against Iran’s nuclear program continues to involve the potential of a costly military conflict, considering all options on the Syrian diplomatic table be more important now than ever.

“If the Iranians are excluded from a joint effort to do something helpful, they are only more likely to do something unhelpful, said Pillar, who advocates a more flexible US negotiating posture with Iran.

“Engagement with Iran over Syria also can reap secondary benefits in other areas, such as the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, by expanding channels of communication and bargaining space,” he said.

Photo: Feb. 23, 2012. A Free Syrian Army member prepares to fight with a tank whose crew defected from government forces in al-Qsair. Freedom House photo/Creative Commons/Flickr.  

If current diplomacy fails, pent up rage on both sides, a cycle of tit-for tat-retaliation, Hamas’ hopes for greater Arab assistance, and a yearning to emerge from this latest round of heavy fighting on better footing than either side did from the last face-off in 2008-2009 could sustain Israeli-Hamas violence for quite a while. Without [...]]]> via Lobe Log

If current diplomacy fails, pent up rage on both sides, a cycle of tit-for tat-retaliation, Hamas’ hopes for greater Arab assistance, and a yearning to emerge from this latest round of heavy fighting on better footing than either side did from the last face-off in 2008-2009 could sustain Israeli-Hamas violence for quite a while. Without a change for the better very soon, Israel almost certainly will initiate a ground assault into portions of Gaza in order to inflict damage severe enough to compel Hamas to accept a ceasefire.

Israel’s Operation Cast Lead during Dec. 2008 – Jan. 2009 forced Hamas to stand down, greatly reducing Hamas’ rocket launches against Israel for the better part of 3 years after large portions of Gaza were severely damaged and 1,400 Palestinian were killed in the course of an extremely lopsided battering (13 Israelis were killed). Even in street fighting that so often favors the weaker side, many Hamas fighters seemed less than thoroughly braced for that sort of bruising conflict. This time, however, in addition to the use of longer range rockets, Hamas fighters reportedly have undergone better training for a face-off with Israeli ground forces in Gaza on their own turf. They also apparently have secured supplies of improved surface-to-air missiles for use against low-flying helicopters and aircraft as well as better anti-tank missiles. Also, Hamas’ hopes for more meaningful regional support have risen considerably, particularly with a new Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Egypt right next door.

As for the Israelis, the jarring arrival of Hamas rockets in the Tel Aviv area and just south of Jerusalem warn of burgeoning Hamas capabilities that make securing little more than another prolonged lull less appealing than it was back in 2009. The Israeli leadership hopes to force a more enduring ceasefire upon Hamas. This ambitious agenda might lead the Israelis to take an even harsher action than in the last round of fighting. In fact, Sunday’s wave of Hamas rocket attacks against Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Beersheba, and Ashkelon is just the sort of development that could drive the Netanyahu government to set in motion Israeli ground attacks.

Although Hamas believes its chances of receiving more robust outside Arab support have improved, the tactical balance of raw military power between Israel and Hamas once again most likely will dominate the bulk of this confrontation, as has been the case in the past. Despite its longer-range rockets and some improvements in the likely performance of its armed militants against Israeli ground forces, Israel’s military superiority across the board remains staggering.

Overhead Israeli drones pass real time intelligence to the Israeli military on Hamas activity and movements, and Israeli combat aircraft swoop down to pounce quickly using various types of bombs on most all launching areas of Hamas rockets. Meanwhile, Israeli heavy artillery and armored units have been massing to add far more firepower if needed against desired targets or to facilitate Israeli ground incursions. Moreover, the vast majority of Hamas’ crudely guided rockets do relatively little damage, while practically every Israeli bomb, artillery shell, or tank round inflicts heavy structural — and typically also human — losses on the densely populated Gaza Strip. Finally, Israel is completely free to resupply its forces in the south with more munitions, weaponry of all types, and fresh reinforcements of trained combat personnel. By contrast, Hamas can receive — at most — only relatively small dribs and drabs of military resupply since Gaza is surrounded on three sides by heavily reinforced Israel army and naval forces, and Hamas-controlled border crossings and tunnels along Gaza’s smaller Egyptian frontier will remain under intensified Israeli observation and aerial interdiction.

The Israeli leadership may delay ground incursions to allow last-minute diplomacy to play out before engaging in more costly military operations. This way, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) would be better prepared once ground action is ordered. And although the IDF would take heavier losses than it is experiencing now by pushing into Gaza, the plight of Hamas fighters and civilians in the path of Israeli forces would be far worse. Fighting on one’s own ground provides some limited tactical advantage, but against such a skilled, far more heavily armed opponent with complete air supremacy, it also means the resultant property destruction and collateral casualties occur within your own community. During Operation Cast Lead almost four years ago, approximately 100 Palestinians died in Gaza for every Israeli struck down by Hamas. A similarly lopsided balance of casualties could occur once again.

All talk of “proportional response” regarding Israeli intentions aside, with the huge arsenal at Israel’s disposal and Gaza’s congestion, a vastly disproportionate casualty count favoring Israel is inevitable. And it remains very much in Israel’s unspoken interest to inflict disproportionate casualties for punitive purposes. In all past Israeli military endeavors meant to suppress rocket fire into Israel (whether from Gaza or Lebanon) severe casualties were inflicted on the perpetrators as well as nearby infrastructure and populations viewed as supporting those Israel sought to silence. And should an Israeli ground incursion commence, such casualties among Gazans would spike precipitously as intense firepower would be directed onto areas just ahead of advancing Israeli forces to suppress the ability of Hamas to do the same to advancing Israeli infantry and armored vehicles.

- Wayne White is a Scholar with Washington’s Middle East Institute. He was formerly the Deputy Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia (INR/NESA) and senior regional analyst.

Amidst reports that Great Britain has denied the US military use of important British bases for an assault against Iran, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little told reporters on Friday that whenever the DOD considers military action “we do it within the legal confines…of this country.” The US [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Amidst reports that Great Britain has denied the US military use of important British bases for an assault against Iran, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little told reporters on Friday that whenever the DOD considers military action “we do it within the legal confines…of this country.” The US has been contemplating military action against Iran’s nuclear program since at least 2006, but the legality of a unilateral attack has evidently not been a major consideration in Washington. It should be, as should the likely tactical complications of British (and potentially broader) non-cooperation.

In dramatic contrast to apparent US assumptions of legality concerning preventative military action against Iran is the statement the Guardian obtained from a UK government source that “’The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran.’” In fact, reportedly based on legal advice from the UK’s attorney general, the UK has denied the US use of important British bases on Ascension Island, Cyprus, and Diego Garcia. The UK position should be of legal interest in Washington because Great Britain would not be the attacking nation, merely a government assisting the attacker. If UK legal instincts are so extraordinarily cautious about even passively aiding an attacker, one wonders how the US, in the role of the attacker, could muster such confidence about being on legal solid ground.

Most of all US resort to force over the past 20-odd years has been in response to direct attacks on the United States or US interests (post-9/11 anti-terrorist military action aimed against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, cruise missile attacks against al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan in response to the East Africa embassy bombings and the attack against the USS Cole, etc.). Even with the iffy — and later debunked — Bush Administration case for war against Iraq, the US maintained that by sustaining a supposed arsenal of WMD, Iraq was in violation of international law tied to red lines laid down in UNSC resolutions linked to Chapter VII enforcement (use of force) concerning very specific requirements levied on Iraq in the immediate wake of the 1991 Gulf War.

So, even in an alleged worst case scenario in which, for sake of argument, Iran was believed to be in the midst of developing nuclear weapons that it planned to meld to an enhanced ballistic missile capability, that in and of itself would not constitute a direct attack on the US (out of range) or US interests (American bases or embassies in the Middle East/South Asia region). Indeed, the presumed threat posed by any such Iranian capabilities primarily would be against US regional allies such as Israel, most notably, and potentially others such as the GCC states, Turkey and so on. It has, however, not been historic US policy to launch preventative attacks against assumed — not active — threats against its allies.

On another, tactical level, the reported UK refusal of basing cooperation could be quite significant with respect to any US attack against Iran (even more so if other key US NATO allies were to follow suit). The potential loss of transit, staging, refueling and basing rights through the UK, Cyprus and particularly the basing of US heavy bombers at Diego Garcia, could complicate considerably the US ability to amass desired support for an attack on Iran (or sustain the preferred pace of military operations) in the robust manner outlined in the leaked 2006 US military operations plan reportedly briefed to President Bush.

Thus, the tactical problems associated with this apparent UK decision might give pause to US policymakers mulling over any massive knockout blow against Iran’s greatly dispersed nuclear infrastructure, as well as the many and varied Iranian military assets available to defend it.

- Wayne White is a Scholar with Washington’s Middle East Institute. He was formerly the Deputy Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia (INR/NESA) and senior regional analyst.

By Wayne White

By Wayne White

It is probably inaccurate to take the State Department to task in isolation as having made the decision to delist the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (MEK) from the US foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list. State is the cabinet department that must officially announce (or take formal action related to the [...]]]> via Lobe Log

By Wayne White

It is probably inaccurate to take the State Department to task in isolation as having made the decision to delist the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (MEK) from the US foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list. State is the cabinet department that must officially announce (or take formal action related to the US court challenge), but that does not mean the State Department did in fact make this decision on its own. In fact, with a history of being a sort of weak sister in foreign policy decisions with some consistency since the Kennedy Administration (and at least two administrations prior to that in the 20th Century), most foreign policy decisions of any importance have been made by the White House, with other key players like the National Security Council, in some instances the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, as well as influential members of Congress often carrying more weight than — or at least as much as — State when all is said and done.

Under Hillary Clinton, the State Department surely has become a more important player than it was, say, when Colin Powell was so consistently bypassed or ignored under the first George W. Bush Administration. Still, the Administration (comprising a foreign policy team on which State frequently is but one voice) makes the final call on most important decisions, regardless of what bureaucratic mouthpiece must pronounce the result. So, it is often the White House where the proverbial buck stops. Indeed, burnt into my memory are plenty of times when I was in State/INR and the Department was being hammered by the media and various informed observers for making an unfortunate decision, when all around me — often all the way up to the Secretary’s suite on the 7th Floor — officials at State were seething over how their opinion to the contrary had been ignored by this or that Administration.

Second, this decision comes in the context of an especially hotly contested US presidential election campaign (often called by insiders — and for good reason in many instances — the foreign policy “silly season” because of statements and decisions that might have gone differently had campaign pressures been absent). Making decisions that appear in any way favorable to the Iranian regime are a hard sell in a political Washington flush with various powerful constituencies favorable to Israel or hostile to a regime perceived widely as aligned against the US and various US interests. But entering the last & most critical 6-7 weeks of the presidential election campaign (and the ongoing & controversial Iran/Nuclear standoff), there doubtless were some within the Administration worried about the potential adverse political blowback of sustaining the MEK listing. This blowback could include accusations from the Romney camp that the US was being “soft on Iran”, that the White House was allegedly “weak” in standing up to “terrorist threats” overall (in this case, the regime in Iran), and that it was blocking efforts by an anti-regime Iranian group.

I opposed this decision because of what I know about the MEK.  Nonetheless, I also can imagine how campaign-focused Administration officials might have imagined something like this being raised by Gov. Mitt Romney in next week’s presidential debate, knowing that in a time-compressed debate the President would have been hard put to argue the merits of the case once he had been accused of holding back what could be characterized by his opponents as a group opposed to Iran’s clerical regime — one that had supposedly gathered “valuable” intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program. Most American voters haven’t a clue as to what the MEK is, let alone its many unsavory and violent activities (as well as its bizarre internal dynamics), and all they would pick up on are loaded phrases like “anti-regime Iranian group,” “soft on Iran” and so on.

Mind you, I am not making excuses for the Obama Administration concerning this decision, but let us also not neglect the pressures from other quarters — many of them hostile to the Administration politically — that might well have figured into a decision that almost certainly was to some degree “political” and not determined solely on the merits of the case.

- Wayne White is a Policy Expert with Washington’s Middle East Policy Council. He was formerly the Deputy Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia (INR/NESA) and senior regional analyst. Access Mr. White’s Lobe Log article archive here. 

By Wayne White

The revival of the threat by a senior Iranian official, Ali Larijani, to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) tends to reinforce the view that the Iranian leadership simply cannot grasp the psychology of the debate within Israel, Western states — and some regional actors [...]]]> via Lobe Log

By Wayne White

The revival of the threat by a senior Iranian official, Ali Larijani, to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) tends to reinforce the view that the Iranian leadership simply cannot grasp the psychology of the debate within Israel, Western states — and some regional actors — over whether the Iran/Nuclear impasse should warrant military action at some point.

Those most frightened by Iranian threats to quit the NPT in countries like the US, Israel, other concerned Western capitals (as well as a few of those in the region inclined to support some degree of potential military action) are the more responsible officials and observers trying to head off such a dangerous military venture. Like many others following this important issue, I personally regard the recent threat as a rather empty one: the Iranian leadership at least has shown by not following through on previous threats along these lines that it appreciates how provocative and risky parting ways with the NPT would be in strategic terms. Indeed, if Tehran did in fact follow through on these threats, actually severing itself from the NPT would increase suspicions dramatically over Iran’s nuclear intentions and undermine the belief that Iran would behave as a “rational” actor if it ever were in possession of a nuclear weapon.

By contrast, of course, many of those taking a tougher stand on the Iran/Nuclear issue outside Iran probably would LOVE to see Tehran take such a dramatically negative step because it would likely shift quite a few people (especially in terms of gaining popular support) toward the view that a resort to arms is the way to go.

If Tehran better understood the dynamics of the debate outside Iran and truly wants to strengthen the hand of those arguing against military action, Iranian decisionmakers could be far more creative — and less counterproductive — in what they say and do with regard to this increasingly divisive and dangerous issue.

When the news was first announced last week that the two warships would pass through the canal, Israeli reaction [...]]]> The earth reportedly shook as two Iranian naval boats approached the Suez Canal on Monday morning. For the U.S., though, the building tension over the (delayed, for now) passage could result in diplomatic, not literal, earthquakes.

When the news was first announced last week that the two warships would pass through the canal, Israeli reaction appeared split. Now it seems Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has joined his foreign minister in ratcheting up the rhetoric, saying, “Israel takes a grave view of this Iranian step.”

Following closely on the U.S. veto of a UN Security Council resolution denouncing Israeli settlements, Israel’s blustering approach to the Iranian warships may provide yet another instance where the “special relationship” causes the U.S. to choose between its ally Israel, on one hand, and international law and maintaining regional influence on the other.

Egyptian approval of passage for the Iranian ships was first reported when Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the move amounted to a “provocation” by Iran. “The international community must understand that Israel cannot forever ignore these provocations,” he warned ominously.

Covering the comments, the Wall Street Journal pointed to fissures over Lieberman’s blustering and the quieter approach preferred Ehud Barak and the Israeli Defense Ministry.

At the time, Lieberman’s comments seemed to be made for U.S. consumption. Ethan Bronner’s New York Times piece had this nugget (my emphasis):

The first word came from Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in an address to a group of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. The speech, which hinted at a possible response, was closed to reporters…

The bellicose comments led National Interest writer Jacob Heilbrunn to comment: “Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman isn’t just a thug. He’s also a moron.” On Sunday, Netanyahu told his cabinet, “Israel takes a grave view of this Iranian step.”

A former State Department senior intelligence official called on Israel “to stand down and avoid any provocative actions.” Middle East Institute scholar Wayne White told LobeLog that Israeli “muscle-flexing” and a perception of “high-handedness” now could be harmful to U.S. (and even Israeli) interests on a wide range of issues. He mentioned the still-developing and fluid situation in Egypt, anti-regime protests in Iran itself, and uncertainty in Jordan, which is facing some unrest and, like Egypt, has a peace deal with Israel.

White’s list of examples gives a taste of just how many crises the U.S. is facing in the region. With protests in several U.S.-allied countries like Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Tunisia, and even Iraq, the U.S. wants to keep things relatively calm. As White points out, another crisis, with Israel and the U.S. pitted against Iran and Syria (whose waters the Iranian ships are reportedly bound for), could easily inject anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli sentiments into the anti-government movements that have been sweeping the region or permit besieged autocrats to divert popular attention and agitation.

The other elephant in the room is the notion of Suez passage itself. So far, the U.S. has taken a measured tone. State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley said on Friday: “If the ships move through the canal, we’ll evaluate what they actually do.” He said the potential issues were the ships’ cargo and destination. Crowley seemed eager to move onto a new topic, repeatedly interrupting the questioner(s).

The lack of U.S. focus on passage itself is perhaps a nod to both the Constantinople Convention (1988) governing Suez Passage and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1983, in force 1994), which allows “innocent passage” through even territorial waters. The Constantinople convention states:

The Suez Maritime Canal shall always be free and of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag.

Consequently, the High Contracting Parties agree not in any way to interfere with the free use of the Canal, in time of war as in time of peace.

One of those contracting parties is, of course, Egypt, which may not interfere or block anyone’s passage. The U.S. relies on this status quo as much, if not more, than any other country. Indeed, if the right of “innocent passage” is questioned in this case, think of all the possible ramifications for the U.S. Navy and its 11 aircraft carrier groups that span the globe, if not always to the acclaim of the natives. It’s not for nothing that the Navy has been the country’s biggest advocate for Senate ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention.

For now, it appears that the passage of the Iranian ships has been delayed, without any reason given. But if the Israelis keep pushing back against Iran, rumblings of the diplomatic sort could soon follow for the U.S. Once again, as when Israel backed ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak until his last days and relentlessly pressed the Obama administration to cast his UN Security Council veto on a resolution that was entirely consistent with U.S. policy since 1967, Washington’s “special relationship” with the Jewish State could become burdensome to broader U.S. strategic interests.