by Jasmin Ramsey

Two conversations are presently occurring in Washington about Iran. Hawks and hardliners are searching for new ways to force the Obama administration to tighten or impose further sanctions, and/or discussing when the US should strike the country. Meanwhile, doves and pragmatists have been pointing out the ineffectiveness of sanctions in [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Jasmin Ramsey

Two conversations are presently occurring in Washington about Iran. Hawks and hardliners are searching for new ways to force the Obama administration to tighten or impose further sanctions, and/or discussing when the US should strike the country. Meanwhile, doves and pragmatists have been pointing out the ineffectiveness of sanctions in changing Iran’s nuclear calculus (even though the majority of them initially pushed for these sanctions) as well as the many cons of military action. Although the hawks and hardliners tend to be Republican, the group is by no means partisan. And these conversations do converge and share points at times, for example, the hawks and hardliners also complain about the ineffectiveness of sanctions, but in the context of pushing for more pressure and punishment.

That said, both sides appear stuck — the hawks, while successful in getting US policy on Iran to become sanctions-centric, can’t get the administration or military leaders to buy their interventionist arguments, and the doves, having previously cheered sanctions as an alternative to military action, appear lost now that their chosen pressure tactic has proven ineffective.

Hawks and Doves Debate Iran Strike Option

On Wednesday, the McCain Institute hosted a live debate that showcased Washington positions on Iran, with the pro-military argument represented by neoconservative analyst Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute and Democrat Robert Wexler, a member of the US House of Representatives from 1997-2010, and two prominent US diplomats on the other side — Ambassadors Thomas R. Pickering, who David Sanger writes “is such a towering figure in the State Department that a major program to train young diplomats is named for him”, and James R. Dobbins, whose distinguished career includes service as envoy to Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti and Somalia.

Only the beginning of this recording (I can’t find any others) is hard to hear, and you won’t regret watching the entire lively discussion, particularly because of Amb. Pickering’s poignant responses to Pletka’s flimsy points — she inaccurately states IAEA findings on Iran’s nuclear program and claims that, even though she’s no military expert, a successful military operation against Iran wouldn’t necessarily include boots on the ground. In fact, experts assess that effective military action against Iran aimed at long-term positive results (cessation of its nuclear program and regime change) would be a long and arduous process, entailing more resources than Afghanistan and Iraq have taken combined, and almost certainly involving ground forces and occupation.

Consider some the characteristics of the pro-military side: Wexler repeatedly admits he made a mistake in supporting the war on Iraq, but says the decision to attack Iran should “presuppose” that event. Later on he says that considering what happened with Iraq, he “hopes” the same mistake about non-existent WMDs won’t happen again. Pletka, who endorsed fighting in Iraq until “victory” had been achieved (a garbled version of an AEI transcript can be found here), states in her opening remarks that the US needs to focus on ”what happens, when, if, negotiations fail” and leads from that premise, which she does not qualify with anything other than they’re taking too much time, with arguments about the threat Iran poses, even though she calls the Iranians “very rational actors”.

While Wexler’s support for a war launched on false premises seriously harms his side’s credibility, it was both his and Pletka’s inability to advance even one indisputable interventionist argument, coupled with their constant reminders that they don’t actually want military action, that left them looking uninformed and weak.

The diplomats, on the other hand, offered rhetorical questions and points that have come to characterize this debate more generally. Amb. Pickering: “Are we ready for another ground war in the Middle East?”, and, “we are not wonderful occupiers”. Then on the status of the diplomatic process: “we are closer to a solution in negotiations than we have been before”. Amb. Dobbins meanwhile listed some of the cons of a military operation — Hezbollah attacks against Israel and US allies, interruptions to the movement of oil through the vital Strait of Hormuz, a terror campaign orchestrated by the Iranians — and then surprised everyone by saying that these are “all things we can deal with”. A pause, then the real danger in Amb. Dobbins’ mind: that “Iran would respond cautiously”, play the aggrieved party, withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, kick out IAEA inspectors and accelerate its nuclear program at unknown sites. Then what, the audience was left to wonder. Neither Pletka nor Wexler offered an answer.

The Costs of War With Iran and the C-Word

While watching the McCain debate, I wondered if Pletka and Wexler would consider reading a recently published book by Geoffrey Kemp, an economist who served as a Gulf expert on Reagan’s National Security Council and John Allen Gay, entitled War With Iran: Political, Military, And Economic Consequences. This essay lays out the basis of the work, which mainly focuses on the high economic costs of war, so I won’t go into detail here, but yesterday during the book’s launch at the Center for National Interest (CNI), an interesting comment was made about the “C-Word”. Here’s what Kemp said during his opening remarks, to an audience that included everyone from prominent foreign policy experts and former government officials, to representatives from Chevron and AIPAC:

You certainly cannot, must not, underestimate the negative consequences if Iran does get the bomb…But I think on balance, unlike Senator McCain who said that the only thing worse than a war with Iran is an Iran with a nuclear weapon…the conclusion of this study is that war is worse than the options, and the options we have, are clearly based on something that we call deterrence and something that we are not allowed to call, but in fact, is something called containment. And to me this seems like the most difficult thing for the Obama administration, to walk back out of the box it’s gotten itself into over this issue of containment. But never fear. Successive American administrations have all walked back lines on Iran.

Interestingly, no one challenged him on this during the Q&A. And Kemp is not the only expert to utter the C-Word in Washington — he’s joined by Paul Pillar and more reluctant distinguished voices including Zbigniew Brzezinksi.

Diplomacy as the Best Effective Option

Of course, if more effort was concentrated on the diplomacy front, as opposed to mostly on sanctions and the military option, Iran could be persuaded against building a nuclear weapon. Consider, for example, US intelligence chief James Clapper’s statement on Thursday that Iran has not yet made the decision to develop a nuclear weapon but that if it chose to do so, it might be able to produce one in a matter of “months, not years.” Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “[Iran] has not yet made that decision, and that decision would be made singularly by the supreme leader.”

It follows from this that while the US would be hard pressed in permanently preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon (apart from adopting the costly and morally repulsive “mowing the lawn” option), it could certainly compel the Iranians to make the decision to rush for a bomb by finally making the military option credible — as Israel has pushed for — or following through on that threat.

So where to go from here? Enter the Iran Project, which has published a series of reports all signed and endorsed by high-level US foreign policy experts, and which just released it’s first report with policy advise: “Strategic Options for Iran: Balancing Pressure with Diplomacy”. There’s lots to be taken away from it, and Jim Lobe, as well as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have covered it, but it ultimately boils down to the notion that the US needs to rethink its policy with Iran and creatively use the leverage it has gotten from sanctions to bring about an agreement. Such an agreement will likely have to be preceded by bilateral talks and include some form of low-level uranium enrichment on Iranian soil and sanctions relief if Iran provides its own signifiant concessions. The report also argues for the US to engage with Iran on areas of mutual interest, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

During the Wilson Center report launch event, Amb. Pickering summed up the status of negotiations with Iran as follows: “Admittedly we should not expect miraculous moves to a rapid agreement, but we’re engaged enough now to have gone beyond the beginning of the beginning. We’re not at the end of the beginning yet, but we’re getting there.” Later, Jim Walsh, a member of the task force and nuclear expert at MIT pointed out that 20-percent Iranian uranium enrichment, which everyone is fixated on now, only became an issue after Iran stopped receiving fuel for its Tehran Research Reactor and began producing it itself. In other words, the longer the US takes to give Iran a deal it can stomach and sell at home, the more the Iranians can ask for as their nuclear program progresses. “The earlier we can get a deal, the better the deal is likely to be,” he said.

by James A. Russell

As the country makes a half-hearted attempt to sort through the wreckage of its experience in Iraq 10 years later, the country would do well to remind itself of a few central and searing uncomfortable truths.

While it is true that we got led down [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by James A. Russell

As the country makes a half-hearted attempt to sort through the wreckage of its experience in Iraq 10 years later, the country would do well to remind itself of a few central and searing uncomfortable truths.

While it is true that we got led down the path to war by officials that consciously lied about intelligence to justify it, concealed their real motivations and willfully ignored voices that questioned predictions of a quick and easy victory — the undeniable truth is that this country allowed itself to be led like lambs to the slaughter.

And it was a slaughter. The river of human blood — Iraqi and American, to say nothing of lasting injuries on the battlefield that have wrecked lives around the world — flows wide and deep as documented by the Army’s Office of the Surgeon General.

So who is really responsible for the catastrophe and what should we do about it? Thus far, this country has avoided looking too hard into the mirror and instead blames the small caste of ideologically motivated neoconservative advisers clustered in the Pentagon and White House who had their own reasons for wanting to get rid of Saddam Hussein and could have cared less about the potential costs.

There has been no truth commission, no calling to account for these officials, who all returned to their law offices, lobbying jobs, became scions at the Council on Foreign Relations or were rewarded the chance to pollute the minds of students at Harvard and elsewhere.

These advisers took a free pass while our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines picked their way through the wreckage of their comrades’ body parts and dead Iraqis that littered the landscapes of Ramadi, Fallujah, Mosul and a host of other places that most Americans had never heard of.

However, it wasn’t just the Bush administration that took a free pass. An uncomfortable truth is that Americans, like those advisers, have also chosen to avoid taking a long, hard look in the mirror.

As much as this country wants to avoid it, the fact is that the war and the way it was launched says more about this country than those who sold the war with their public relations blitz.

If there is an abiding truth for this country and its citizenry, it’s that this kind of mistake should never happen again. Alas, we were also confronted with this truth after the Vietnam War — some lessons need to be learned over and over.

Looking in the rearview mirror is important because it can prepare us for how to proceed. The main lesson of the Iraq war should compel this country to sit up, pay attention and stop believing that the rest of the world is like a reality TV show or video game. We must exercise our obligations as citizens in the world’s greatest democracy when our politicians tell us it’s time for another war.

If the country were paying attention, it would know that many of the same ideologues that brought on the Iraq war are cheerleading and chanting for another one — this time with Iran.

Like the last time, many of these commentators are – albeit more subtly this time around — trying to sell us another public relations package to justify a war. As was the case with the unstated neoconservative justifications for the Iraq war, a main reason these people want us to attack Iran is to protect Israel.

Luckily for us, this time we have some actual adults in charge at the White House and a president that, whatever his faults, won’t be as easily convinced to start another catastrophe. That wouldn’t have been the case if Mitt Romney had won the election, with the inmates once again in control of the asylum. The politics of this potential new war, however, are complicated and difficult for our president — however reluctant a warrior he may be.

Consider, for example, that some senators want us to outsource the decision to start the war to the trigger-happy Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been restrained so far not by his main benefactor and ally, the United States, but by reasonable and sensible Israelis who are refreshingly unafraid to express their reservations in print and on the airwaves.

The image in the rearview mirror should be telling us to start seeing like those retired Israeli security and intelligence members who have told Bibi to cool it. One glance back should help us understand that instead of letting the neoconservative cheerleaders and members of the Congress who are beholden to the Israel lobby chart a path to another war, we should exercise our obligations as citizens and probe them with questions and protest.

Another go-to-war drama is quietly playing itself out again in this country, whether we notice it or not. Ten years from now, will we once again be averting our gaze from the mirror and blaming the war on a select few while avoiding our own responsibility?

How we choose to understand the images in today’s rearview mirror, and whether we decide on another war tomorrow, will say more about our country than the neoconservatives and hawks with their pompoms and war chants.

by Jim Lobe

Apart from a few misjudgements, I think my explanation of the motivations and non-motivations of the invasion of Iraq on its eve stands up pretty well. But you should be the judge. Following is a piece I did on January 30, 2003 for IPS News.

by Jasmin Ramsey

Mohammad Javad Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seems like a reasonable fellow with respect to Iran’s nuclear stance in this March 12th interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

On the West’s issue with Iranian enrichment of uranium to 20%, Mr. Larijani says we simply need [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Jasmin Ramsey

Mohammad Javad Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seems like a reasonable fellow with respect to Iran’s nuclear stance in this March 12th interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

On the West’s issue with Iranian enrichment of uranium to 20%, Mr. Larijani says we simply need to go back to the era when Iran was able to buy the fuel it needs for its Tehran Research Reactor (TRR). “The minute they sell it to us, the amount we need for the Tehran reactor, there is definitely no need to produce it,” he said.

On the issue of Iran’s slow but steady advancement of is nuclear program, Mr. Larijani argues that Iran’s enrichment of uranium is an “honest to God right” that’s also covered by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and “we are a moving nation, we are going to capture higher levels of scientific achievement” regardless of Western demands. Then the reasonable part kicks in full-swing: however, if concerns about Iran’s nuclear program are related to the issue of nuclear armament, Iran understands and shares that concern, claims Mr. Larijani, adding that Iran is “willing to accept all mechanisms under the NPT” to safeguard against such development.

And with respect to the possibility of bilateral talks between Iran and the US (which already occurred back in October 2009), Mr. Larijani is less direct. He doesn’t confirm or reject the possibility, but does offer a “recommendation” that a “new model” be designed for relations between Iran and the United States which acknowledges that Iran does not want to be more than “what we are” and ends US hostility toward Iran.

Excluding Mr. Larijani’s comments about the political battle between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s ruling elite, which Mr. Larijani describes as part of Iran’s “democratic structure”, all this raises the question of why Iran isn’t perceived as reasonable during negotiations or can’t be as reasonable as Mr. Larijani seems to be here with Amanpour on CNN, and why progress on the diplomatic front remains slow at best or simply nil. Deep mutual mistrust, acknowledged by the most knowledgeable US-Iran analysts, is perhaps the main reason for the lack of substantial results, as are those pesky details that need to be agreed upon by both sides before a deal can be reached.

Then there’s that lingering issue of whether progress can even be hoped for before Iran’s 2013 Presidential election, and for that I turn to the experts. I’ll have an interview that touches on that issue and the nuclear negotiations as a whole with Farideh Farhi up next week.

Considering the misleading claims made about non-existent Iraqi and Iranian nuclear weapons, and the ramifications of another costly and catastrophic war, there should be more analyses like Scott Peterson’s highlighting of lessons from the lead-up to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

A declassified January 2006 report published in [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Considering the misleading claims made about non-existent Iraqi and Iranian nuclear weapons, and the ramifications of another costly and catastrophic war, there should be more analyses like Scott Peterson’s highlighting of lessons from the lead-up to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

A declassified January 2006 report published in September by the indispensable National Security Archive shows that CIA analysts allowed their search for non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to overshadow Saddam Hussein’s reasons for bluffing about them. Peterson accordingly suggests that Iranian attempts to eradicate traces of what appears to be previous weapons work (halted in 2003, according to the 2007 NIE), could be a face-saving measure rather than evidence of malicious intent. Increasing “scrutiny and distrust” directed at Iraq also led to counterproductive activities from both sides:

But that Iranian refusal – while at the same time engaging in “substantial” landscaping of the site, which the IAEA says undermines its ability to inspect it for traces of past nuclear work – echoes many Iraqi weapons inspections in the 1990s. In those standoffs, Iraqi officials often behaved as if they had something to hide, when in fact they did not.

As the CIA’s 2006 assessment states, “Iraq’s intransigence and deceptive practices during the periods of UN inspections between 1991 and 2003 deepened suspicions … that Baghdad had ongoing WMD programs.”

The CIA further notes that Iraqi attempts “to find face-saving means to disclose previously hidden information” meant that Iraqi attempts later to “close the books” only “reinvigorated the hunt for concealed WMD, as analysts perceived that Iraq had both the intent and capability to continue WMD efforts.…”

This led Iraq to one conclusion, similar to the public declarations of Iranian leaders today: “When Iraq’s revelations were met by added UN scrutiny and distrust, frustrated Iraqi leaders deepened their belief that inspections were politically motivated and would not lead to the end of sanctions,” read the CIA report.

Some analysts have dared to suggest that Iranian attempts to remove traces of halted weapons work is ultimately a positive sign. Consider the assessment of MIT international security expert Jim Walsh, who focuses on Iran’s nuclear program, talking about Parchin last week at a conference in Washington last week:

So I think they had a weapons program; they shut it down.  I think part of what was happening was at Parchin, this gigantic military base that the IAEA visited, but because it’s so large, they went to this building and not that building and that sort of thing.  Then they get – IAEA gets some intel that says, well, we think the explosives work was being done in this building, and, you know, all this time, Iran’s being – Parchin’s being watched by satellites continuously, and there’s no activity there.  Nothing for five years, right?  And then – or – not five years, but some period of time – years.

So then, the IAEA says, well, we want to go to that building, and then suddenly, there’s a whole lot of activity.  You know, there’s cartons put up and shoveling and scalping of soil and all that sort of thing.  So I read this as – that was a facility involved in the bomb program, and they’re cleaning it up, and IAEA is not going to get on the ground until it’s cleaned up.  Now here’s the part where I’m practical and blunt – I don’t care.  Right?  This is part of a program from the past.  And I wish they didn’t have the program from the past, but I’m more worried about Iran’s nuclear status in the future than the past, and so, you know, if it’s dead, and all they’re doing is cleaning it up so there’s no evidence of what they did before, I – you know, it’s regretful and blah, blah, but I don’t care.  I would rather get a deal that prevents Iran from moving forward towards a nuclear weapon or moving forward so that we don’t have a military engagement that leads to a nuclear weapons decision by Iran.

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.

The Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus derives lessons for handling Iran’s nuclear program from a declassified CIA report on its misreading of Saddam Hussein and his nuclear program — the WMD elements of which were destroyed in 1995:

Has Iran’s original deceptions and subsequent intransigence led the United States [...]]]> via Lobe Log

The Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus derives lessons for handling Iran’s nuclear program from a declassified CIA report on its misreading of Saddam Hussein and his nuclear program — the WMD elements of which were destroyed in 1995:

Has Iran’s original deceptions and subsequent intransigence led the United States and others to disregard Tehran’s claim that it only wants to make fuel for its research reactors and power plants?

The CIA report cautions that U.S. analysts should have viewed Saddam’s late WMD disclosures through “an Iraqi prism.” They would have seen the that Iraqis wanted to protect “their reputation, their security, their overall technological capabilities and their status needed to be preserved,” according to the report.

The lesson for today is not to accept Iran’s current defiance of the U.N. Security Council as proof that Tehran wants a bomb. The CIA report notes that in Iraq’s case, “deceptions were perpetrated and detected, but the reasons for those deceptions were misread.”

Pincus also discusses the policy of regime change as it pertained to Iraq and does now to Iran: