Weekly Reads/Watch:

News: U.S. Iran Hawks in Congress in Some Disarray
News: Iran nuclear talks: negotiators cite progress ahead of Baghdad meeting
News: U.N. nuclear agency to push Iran on military site access
News: U.S. Ambassador to Israel Speaks of Military Option for Iran
News: Iran sanctions bill coming to Senate floor again
News: Clinton: We don’t want the Iranians to say “We’ll get back to you”
News: Iranian Dissident Group Seeks to Shed Terrorist Label
News: Top U.S. think tank warns against Israeli, American strike on Iran
News: Ex-Israeli spy chief Meir Dagan headlines motley group pressing for tougher sanctions against Iran
Opinion: For Iran ‘Breakthrough,’ Coalition Cannot Break Down
Opinion: Spinning Up For Baghdad
Opinion: Sticks now, carrots later
Report: Iran’s Threat to the Strait of Hormuz
Report: How to Defuse Iran’s Nuclear Threat
Watch: Inside Iran’s inner circle

UANI, Wall Street Journal: You can argue that sanctions aid diplomacy, certainly, that’s the broken record we’ve been hearing for years. But the reverse argument–that sanctions can lead to war or fail to prevent it while harming the sanctioned country’s population–is equally valid or more so when we consider the case of Iraq. Enter United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), a private sanctions-enforcement group that strives to market itself as bipartisan but includes several prominent Iran hawks and neoconservatives on its advisory board. It believes Iran is led by “radical rulers seeking nuclear weapons” and “threatening the world”, so surely they would agree that a seriously threatened Iran might fight for its life in aggressive ways when being strangled? Yet there’s no acknowledgement of that in a WSJ op-ed penned by a number of well-known hawks from UANI urging “liked-minded nations” to “immediately…deliver a potentially decisive economic blow to the regime” by “passing the most robust sanctions against Iran in history.” They are not convinced that this extremely confrontational approach will bring about positive results, but say it’s a final step that needs to be taken before war:

… it’s common sense that before undertaking military action against a country, we should first try to dissuade it from its current course by applying decisive economic pressure. Doing so will show the regime that the world is serious and committed, willing to do whatever it takes to stop Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Dan Shapiro/Shmuel Bar, New York Times: At a time when hopes are high for any kind of diplomatic progress with Iran and the West, Dan Shapiro, the U.S.’s ambassador to Israel, reminded the world that the military option is not only on the table, “necessary planning” has also been done “to ensure that it’s ready.” That wasn’t adequate for Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Institute for Policy and Strategy in Herzilya, also quoted in the NYT piece:

“Saying it is not enough,” Mr. Bar said. What would have more significant effect, he said, is to show actual preparations for a military option by, for example, increasing deployment in the Persian Gulf.

“What actually the U.S. administration is doing is blowing hot and cold,” said Mr. Bar, who previously worked as an intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Force and in the prime minister’s bureau. “Actions do speak louder than words. The actions say the U.S. has a very strong aversion to any kind of military action.”

Mr. Bar pointed to a recent post on the Web site of the Iranian supreme leader that he described as “an analysis of why the U.S. cannot and will not go to war.”

“That is their candid evaluation of the situation,” he said. “When the Iranians see this, they say the Americans are doing everything they can to prevent Israel from attacking.”

Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: Never one to be shy about her militant support for Israel, the Washington Post blogger paints a picture of the people who are pushing for hawkish measures against Iran in Washington (be sure to read Jim Lobe’s report for context) and reinforces her hawkish views at the same time. First is a quote from a regular source on her blog, Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who warns against the potential easing of crippling sanctions during negotiations:

As eager, however, as President Obama is for a deal that will get Iran off the front pages — and all but eliminate the possibility of an Israeli strike ahead of the November election — he cannot take the political risk of offering too much relief for too few concessions. Once sanctions start to unravel, the fear of U.S. penalties that held them together will become difficult to reestablish, and the multilateral sanctions regime — the centerpiece of the president’s Iran strategy — will be gone. This may also persuade the Israelis that the time for diplomacy has passed, and only military action can stop Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.

She then gratefully reminds us that Congress is pushing confrontational measures against Iran in spite of the “wimpy” U.S. President. (Thanks to Israel lobby organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee):

Precisely because Congress feels Iran is engaged in a rope-a-dope game and/or Obama will make a foolhardy deal that fails to halt the Iranian nuclear weapons program, efforts are underway to craft maximalist sanctions in advance of May 23. The House passed such a bill by a lopsided vote of 410-11.

But the problem is that some people want to prevent bills that bring the U.S. closer to war with Iran from being passed:

The Senate is a different matter. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) who says he is in favor of sanctions could have put the House bill on the floor and given it an up or down vote. Instead he opted for a watered down version of the bill. He entertained language from isolationist Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would specifically state the bill was not an authorization for use of force. He then proceeded to shut Republicans out of the process.

A senior GOP congressional aide with close knowledge of Iran sanctions legislation told me, “Neither Leader Reid nor Chairman [Sen. Tim] Johnson’s staff ever agreed to a single meeting with Sen. [Mark] Kirk’s office to address the senator’s proposed amendment. E-mails and phone calls went unreturned for weeks. The first time Democrats ever discussed the Iran bill with Republicans was last night when Reid’s office dropped off the manager’s amendment he negotiated with himself.” The Democrats characterized the Republicans as refusing to move forward; Republicans explain they are not about to pass toothless sanctions bill that would be buried in the conference committee.

Elliott Abrams, Council on Foreign Relations: The well-known neoconservative and former key mideast advisor to George W. Bush worries that France’s new President may waiver from the confrontational path on Iran set by by former President Nicolas Sarkozy:

It is difficult to exaggerate how significant a softening of France’s hard line would be. France has been tougher than Russia and China of course, but has also stiffened the position of the “EU 3″ by being tougher than Germany and the UK. More important, it has at many junctures been tougher than the United States, sharply asking the difficult questions, highlighting logical deficiencies in arguments, and slicing through wishful thinking. If France is now to abandon this stance and simply agree with the UK, Germany, and the United States, the negotiations with Iran are more likely than ever to produce an unsatisfactory result that will be labelled adequate by its proponents.

Lindsey Graham, Fox News: Among the U.S.’s top Republican Hawks, the South Carolina senator flouted the “time is running out” card to Fox News viewers and publicly contradicted U.S. intelligence assessments showing that Iran has NOT made a decision to build a nuclear weapon. He also declared that President Obama must be more confrontational with Iran:

“So President Obama, if you are listening out there, please convince the Iranians that all options really are on the table,” Graham said.
…
“The only way they will stop marching toward a nuclear weapon is if they believe the regime’ life is at stake and their livelihood being at risk, and that means a strike by the United States,” the senator added.

He said it’s time to tell the Iranians, “No negotiations. . . . You are not going to get to enrich uranium any more, period.”

• The Wall Street Journal: The Journal’s editorial board writes that the Obama administration needs a “new freedom agenda,” and should take notes from George W. Bush’s second inaugural address. They accuse Obama of “[O]ffer[ing] no support for Iranian demonstrators after [the June 2009] fraudulent elections” and calls on him to “meet publicly with dissidents from places like Libya, Syria and Iran, as Mr. Bush did in Prague in 2007, to lend a Presidential seal of approval to their struggle.” (See Jim Lobe’s blog post on the 2007 Prague conference.) The administration could be more supportive of the Green movement by authorizing the CIA to “provide Iranian workers with a strike fund—hard cash smuggled into the country to allow Iran’s workers to sustain a strike—thereby replicating the conditions that brought down the Shah.” The editorial endorses the administration publicly backing the Green movement’s leaders and suggests, “The Administration could also assemble prominent exiled leaders of the Green movement to sign a declaration of principles against the regime.”

• Commentary: American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin opines on Iranian claims over Bahrain and warns that Iranian authorities have “repeatedly spoken of Bahrain in the same manner in which Saddam Hussein once spoke about Kuwait,” and, “When Iranian officials talk about their desire to transform the Persian Gulf into a Persian lake, they envision sending Bahrain’s Sunni ruling elite packing and returning Iranian dominance to Bahrain in order to rid the region of American influence.” Rubin says that Iran will never gain the upper-hand in Bahrain because “Whenever the Iranians have supported Shiite insurrection and riots, Saudi troops have quietly crossed the causeway to help Bahrain authorities put down the uprising.” He concludes that the U.S. should back constitutional reforms in Bahrain but preserve the monarchy.

• The New York Times: Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, asks, “will Egypt be a partner in peace?” and warns, “We have seen what democracy without tolerance and openness can yield — in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.” Oren reminds readers of the Iranian threat, writing, “President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran hailed the Egyptian revolution as a step toward creating a Middle East ‘without America and the Zionist regime,’ and celebrated by dispatching warships to the Suez Canal. Meanwhile, Iran continues to spin out enriched uranium — ‘producing it steadily, constantly,’ according to Yukiya Amano, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency — to achieve nuclear military capacities.”

• National Post: Former George W. Bush administration speech writer David Frum opines, “The obvious thing to worry about in Bahrain is that the current unrest could invite meddling by fellow Shiites across the Gulf in Iran. (And in fact Iran has meddled in Bahrain since the days of the shah.)” He observes, “Always and ever: Iran is the big play in the Middle East. A democratic Iran may not be an entirely congenial presence,” and advocates for democratic reforms in both Iran and Bahrain. “But a more democratic Iran would be a less dangerous place for everyone, including its own people, than today’s theocratic, terrorism-supporting Iran. Every regional decision has to be measured against the test: Is this moving us closer to — or further from — a positive change in the Iranian political system?”

• The Washington Post: On her “Right Turn” blog, Jennifer Rubin asks “Will Obama now reverse course on Iran?” “We should re-evaluate the ongoing, useless talks with the Iranian regime on its nuclear weapons program, which have the effect of legitimizing the regime and depressing the opposition,” says Rubin. “Instead, in international bodies and with allies we should pursue a full court press to isolate the Iranian regime and highlight its dismal human rights record.” The neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative’s Jamie Fly tells Rubin “If the administration is serious about regime change, it is going to have to give up its hopes of a negotiated solution to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”

• Commentary: Abe Greenwald writes about the reports on protests in Tehran and the house arrest of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. “Given the regional political temperature, the Iranian regime’s historical inclination to absolute security, and the new suspicion that Washington is content to be a witness to atrocity, there could be a perfect paranoid storm brewing in the minds of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Amadinejad.”

• The Wall Street Journal: Melik Kaylan opines on Iranian official’s decision to “outlaw Valentines Day” and observes, “The state, for its part, continues to respond with a Whack-a-Mole approach to any social ripple not dreamt of in its philosophy.” He goes on, “[W]ith mosque and state firmly conjoined, there’s no stray detail of daily life so arcane that the scriptures can’t be mobilized to rein it in.”

• The Wall Street Journal: The Journal’s editorial board writes, “The hard men of Tehran are now seeking to tap into Egypt’s revolutionary fervor, hailing Hosni Mubarak’s downfall as “a great victory,” but acknowledge that the Iranian government is concerned about the upsurge of pro-Democracy movements in the region. “Clearly the mullahs are nervous about contagion,” they conclude.

• The Wall Street Journal: Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Max Boot writes, “[I]t does scant justice to the complexity of the situation to claim that Mr. Mubarak was a superb ally, or to imagine that we can manage an easy transition to a post-Mubarak regime.” Boot uses a series of quotes catalogued by the controversial Middle East Media Research Institute showing “rabid anti-Semitism and anti-Westernism that polluted Egypt’s state-controlled news media.” Boot doesn’t find Mohammed ElBaredei to be an attractive alternative to Mubarak because “[h]e called the Gaza Strip ‘the world’s largest prison’ and declared that it was imperative to ‘open the borders, end the blockade.’ Boot adds, “Mr. ElBaradei also spoke glowingly of Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has assailed Israel in harsh terms and voted against United Nations sanctions on Iran.”

• The Wall Street Journal: Ronen Bergman, an intelligence analyst for Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli daily, draws lessons from the fall of the Shah in Iran that apply to the current situation in Egypt, and recommends that the U.S. stand by Mubarak or risk repeating the mistakes that led to “the establishment of an Islamic regime in Tehran that has been no friend to the U.S.” Bergman concludes, “Past experience  suggests that if Mr. Mubarak’s regime is toppled, not only will American interests suffer, but the cause of freedom in Egypt could be set back dramatically. And the U.S. will have contributed to a Middle East that is less stable and more dangerous than it is today.”

• AOL News: The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin opines that the Obama administration must be careful to avoid an “Iran-like tragedy in Egypt” but Mubarak might not be the lynchpin to maintaining U.S. interests in Egypt. “The true value of Egypt was its peace treaty with Israel, an event that predated Mubarak’s rise,” writes Rubin.  “Many analysts see the shadow of Iran’s Islamic revolution in the Egyptian chaos. One parallel is certain: Should Mubarak flee, it will be the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end,” he warns. Rubin concludes, “If the White House is to avoid an Iran-like tragedy, it must stay one step ahead of the Brotherhood, refuse to be a populist foil and guarantee the September elections, and bestow legitimacy only upon those groups that eschew violence and abide by the Egyptian constitution.”

• The Washington Post: The Post’s editorial board says that “last weekend’s meetings in Istanbul between Iranian representatives and a six-nation coalition can only be seen as a serious setback” for the Obama administration’s sanctions policy. The op-ed asserts, “Iran made no effort to negotiate,” but the lack of progress might make it easier for the administration to find support for more sanctions. Instead of following this approach, the editorial board suggests that the administration shift its focus from “seeking to bargain with the regime” to emphasizing support for the Green movement. Supporting the Green movement “could also send an important message to Iranians: that the international coalition seeks not to punish them but to weaken the government they despise,” they conclude.

• The Wall Street Journal: The Journal’s editorial board responds to the terrorist attack at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, suggesting that perhaps the latest attack in Russia will make the threat of terrorism be taken more seriously. “Mr. Putin tends to view the West as his rival and prefers a softer line toward the world’s main sponsor of terrorism, Iran,” says The Journal. “But the Domodedovo attacks are a reminder of the global nature of this threat, and of Russia’s own stake in defeating terror at home and abroad.”

• National Review Online: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies‘ Benjamin Weinthal writes on National Review’s The Corner blog that negotiations with Iran have become a “repetitive motion disorder” and “compulsive rituals.” Weinthal urges the P5+1 not to schedule another negotiating session since the West’s willingness to negotiate has “has permitted the tyrants in Tehran to secure much-needed time to develop its nuclear technology and missile program.”  “The only cure at this stage is not more negotiations, but sanctions, more sanctions, and even more sanctions,” he argues. But, “[r]epetitive-motion negotiations — without vastly intensified sanctions pressure — are only solidifying the regime’s iron-clad rule.”

• The Wall Street Journal: Johns Hopkins Professor and Hoover Institution fellow Fouad Ajami opines, “The Bush diplomacy had declared an open ideological assault against the Iranian theocracy. Mr. Obama would offer that regime an olive branch and a promise of engagement.” Ajami declares this swing toward diplomacy a message to “the despots in the region that the American campaign on behalf of liberty that Mr. Bush had launched in 2003 has been called off.” The op-ed describes Obama’s slowness to speak publicly about the 2009 Iranian election as a “break of faith with democracy” and “deference of the pre-eminent liberal power to men who had unleashed the vigilantes on their own people.” Ajami praises Clinton’s speech last week in Qatar, in which she criticized Arab leaders: “For a fleeting moment in Qatar, George W. Bush seemed to make a furtive return to the diplomatic arena.” He concludes, “He was there, reincarnated in the person of Hillary Clinton, bearing that quintessential American message that our country cannot be indifferent to the internal arrangements of foreign lands.”

• The Wall Street Journal: Joshua Muravchik reviews Abbas Milani’s book “The Shah” and highlights “The shah’s tolerance of religious minorities—notably Bahai and Jews—and his advancement of women’s rights brought him to daggers with Iran’s clergy, led by Khomeini… The paradox of the fall of the Shah,’ Mr. Milani says, ‘lies in the strange reality that nearly all advocates of modernity formed an alliance against the Shah and chose as their leader the biggest foe of modernity,’” quotes Muravchik.  He concludes, “The Iranians have already paid dearly for this folly. What price the rest of the world will pay remains an open question.”

• Commentary: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Benjamin Weinthal, writing on Commentary’s Contentions blog, responds to the Der Spiegel magazine cover story about Israeli involvement in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Weinthal mentions that “…the magazine, like most German media, has a peculiar obsession with Jews and Israel,” and goes on to accuse the magazine of helping to propagate “anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sentiment.” “Take as an example the headline of the article in the current issue documenting a chronology of the planned hit on Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his posh Dubai hotel,” writes Weinthal. “It screams out ‘An eye for an eye, a murder for a murder.’” He concludes, “The cheap wordplay on a section from the Hebrew Bible further reinforces widespread European prejudices against Jews.”