by Wayne White
As 2014 draws to a close, there is no shortage of alternative suggestions about how to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS or IS). Most of them involve US escalation, driven by exaggerated notions of IS capabilities. Retaking IS’s extensive holdings will, however, take some time. All do acknowledge that regional coalition members are not pulling their weight.
Dismayed by the early December debate in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which many Senators sought to limit President Barack Obama’s military options, Senator Marco Rubio said Dec. 12 that it was “alarming” that IS “now reaches from North Africa…the Middle East, Pakistan, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.” Dismissing administration efforts as “half-measures,” Rubio also demanded that defeating IS include ousting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from power.
Retired Marine Corps Colonel Gary Anderson of George Washington University argued Dec. 22 that a mainly American “large scale punitive expedition” should swiftly crush the Islamic State. Georgetown University’s Anthony Cordesman pointed out, however, that US “airpower cannot resolve the religious, ethnic, political, and governance issues…at the core of Iraqi and Syrian…conflict.” Although Anderson believes a huge foreign ground offensive would clear the way for follow-on solutions, Cordesman, while critical of the inadequacies of the air campaign, warned against major escalation and said realistic endgames could be elusive.
Senator John McCain visited Iraq Dec. 26 and said the training of some 4,000 anti-IS Sunni Arab tribesmen allied to the Iraqi government should take no more than 6 weeks to 2 months and that retaking the IS-held northern Iraqi city of Mosul should be the first Iraqi goal in driving IS from Iraq. He praised Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi for “success in unifying the Iraqi factions.”
There also has been a burst of December peace and ceasefire proposals or feelers put forward by the UN, Russia, and some individual countries. Unfortunately, the motives behind Moscow’s initiative are highly suspect, and none would appeal to all combatants or be properly monitored.
Mission Creep à la Obama
Unfortunately, the Obama administration, whether spooked by hawkish critics or pressured by the US military brass, has steadily ramped up US military involvement. The Pentagon is seeking a contractor to deploy jet fuel and gasoline to the al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq (far behind IS lines) by mid-January. One thousand troops from the US 101st Airborne Division also are scheduled to deploy to Iraq in January to train, advise and assist Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
If US aircraft begin using al-Asad, aircraft and US personnel would become a prime IS objective. When the US based aircraft inside South Vietnam, the need to deploy sizeable American ground forces to protect them was quickly generated. Furthermore, nearly 200 US troops sent to al-Asad in November may have fought IS forces in that area earlier this month; if this proves true, it would be the first such encounter between supposedly non-combat US troops sent to Iraq and IS forces.
The State of the Islamic State
Despite the jitters many have concerning the sweep of Islamic State forces, the view from the IS capital of Raqqa is hardly rosy. Still stalled in front of embattled Kobani, IS could not stop a sweeping Iraqi Kurdish, Yazidi, and Iraqi Army drive across northern Iraq to take Sinjar Mountain (again rescuing Yazidi refugees) and wrest from IS much of the town of Sinjar by December 21. Back in mid-December, the Pentagon also confirmed that an air strike killed Haji Mutazz, a deputy to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as well as the IS military operations chief for Iraq, and the IS “governor” of Mosul. Meanwhile, daily coalition air strikes grind away at various targets within IS’s “caliphate” (now increasingly wracked by shortages).
Senator Rubio’s notion of IS extending from North Africa to Southeast Asia is an exaggeration. It merely refers to a scattering of mostly small groups here and there—already extremists—simply declaring allegiance to or praise for IS.
The situation of IS forces beyond Kobani in Syria is meanwhile somewhat muddled. In the northwest Aleppo area, largely Islamic extremist elements like IS and the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front (plus a few mainstream groups) formed a “Shamiyya Front” alliance Dec. 25 to resist recent advances by Syrian government forces. In the south, seventeen mainly non-extremist rebel groups united in early December. Making slow gains against regime forces near Damascus, this grouping has received some moderate Arab aid. Rumors of a grand alliance between IS and al-Nusra, which still fight here and there, were premature.
The desire of some US politicians (and Turkey) for the US-led coalition to also take on the Assad regime is very risky. The fall of or severe weakening of the regime in the near-term would create a vacuum in western Syria and IS and Nusra would be best positioned to fill it. Both groups already encroach on the holdings of moderate rebels there. To block extremist exploitation of regime implosion, a large force of effective combat troops would have to be committed. No coalition member seems ready to do so. Finally, crafting endgames for Syria—now a chaotic, shattered land flush with raging ethno-sectarian hatreds—is an incredibly daunting task.
Iraqi Government Challenges
Despite Senator McCain’s claims, Abadi has not “unified Iraqi factions.” McCain probably got the “canned” tour limited to government successes. On Dec. 18, Abadi did expand press freedom, dropping predecessor Nouri al-Maliki’s official lawsuits against journalists and publications. Yet little else, particularly relating to the military front, is going well.
Only a relatively limited number of Sunni Arab tribes and former “Awakening” cadres continue to fight alongside the government. Worse still, the Iraqi Army has not even rebounded enough to replace Shi’a militias fighting on the front lines against IS in many areas where they devastate recaptured Sunni Arab towns. And Abadi has offered no sweeping initiative to guarantee Sunni Arab inclusion and rights. Meanwhile, IS has been busily weakening Sunni Arab tribal structure by playing on intra-tribal clan rivalries to make major tribal desertions to Baghdad more difficult.
Moreover, four thousand pro-government Sunni tribesmen is a paltry number stacked against many tens of thousands currently in IS’s pocket or under its sway. Opening an offensive against IS in Iraq by assaulting the vast Mosul area would also likely further grind up and demoralize recently trained Iraqi and other forces than empower them or result in victory. Finally, Baghdad is still preoccupied with simply trying to hold onto several key pieces of real estate behind IS lines, repeatedly under attack and poorly supplied.
Abadi appealed to his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu for greater support in battling IS. Davutoglu declared, “We are open to any idea,” but specifically noted only continuing to train Iraqi Kurds. Aside from intelligence cooperation and training, Ankara may well avoid most meaningful commitments to Baghdad, just as it has rebuffed other coalition members—including its NATO allies.
Long War Ahead
Short of a severe weakening of IS from the inside, the struggle against the group probably will be prolonged. The problem is not merely the limited Western forces willing to participate, but paltry support from the nearest coalition members.
Turkey, sharing a vast border with IS, is the worst offender. Nonetheless, the extreme reluctance of a nervous Jordan and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states to become heavily involved is also a major drawback. Unless these reluctant allies enter the fray more forcefully on the military and economic fronts, and Baghdad grasps the need for a genuinely diverse future for Iraq, the fight is likely to be a hard slog. And the more the US does militarily further reduces the incentive for regional players to do their part.
Photo: President Barack Obama, with Vice President Joe Biden, convenes a meeting regarding Iraq in the Situation Room of the White House, June 12, 2014. Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
The real Iranian nuclear threat has apparently already taken hold. New Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s so-called “charm offensive” has sent the war hawks scurrying as if the bomb had really gone off.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been relentless in his increasingly desperate efforts to cast Rouhani in [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
The real Iranian nuclear threat has apparently already taken hold. New Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s so-called “charm offensive” has sent the war hawks scurrying as if the bomb had really gone off.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been relentless in his increasingly desperate efforts to cast Rouhani in the same mould as his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As Marsha Cohen points out, however, his tones are ringing hollow. Ahmadinejad provided Netanyahu with the almost cartoonish foil he needed, but Rouhani strikes a much more reasonable pose.
In the US, the counter to the charm offensive is kicking into high gear. Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was thoroughly dismissive of Rouhani’s speech at the UN General Assembly, which most observers considered conciliatory and matching a similar tone by US President Barack Obama. Engel, by contrast, said: “Far from engaging in a ‘charm offensive,’ he repeated too many of the same old talking points blaming the United States and our allies for all of the world’s ills.”
Even before Rouhani’s speech, the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel launched a web site attacking Rouhani. The site, dubbed “The Real Rouhani,” pieces together some legitimate and some questionable news reports on the Iranian president, most of which are quotes and citations taken out of context to sound more sinister than they are. They sum it all up by calling Rouhani a Holocaust denier, something Netanyahu has also done.
It’s fair to be dissatisfied with Rouhani’s evasion of questions on the Holocaust, which becomes an issue for outsiders largely because Ahmadinejad made such a spectacle of it during his time, a very real and despicable spectacle which was naturally magnified by the Western press. Rouhani initially ducked the question by saying he was not a historian. While in New York, and probably realizing that this response was not having the desired effect, Rouhani told CNN “…in general I can tell you that any crime that happens in history against humanity, including the crime the Nazis created towards the Jews, is reprehensible and condemnable…Whatever criminality they committed against the Jews we condemn.”
That’s better, but it probably leaves the Holocaust denial bullet in Netanyahu and the neocons’ gun. Doubtless, Rouhani is trying not to raise more hackles among the Iranian conservatives that Ahmadinejad represents than he has to, but this is probably one he can and should go farther with. Still, even before Rouhani’s clarification, the Holocaust denier trope didn’t seem to be getting much play, certainly nothing like it did with Ahmadinejad. But right now, people are looking with hope to Rouhani; if that should change, his weak response to this question will certainly come back to haunt him.
Some have expressed disappointment with Rouhani’s UN speech, having hoped for a bolder step forward toward the U.S. This is reinforced by the White House claim that they proposed a brief meeting on the margins of the UN but were rebuffed by the Iranians, who said it was too complicated at this time.
The naysayers are wrong. A meeting with Obama, however brief, would certainly have pleased Western peace supporters, but in Iran, where crippling sanctions are hammering people every day and where, despite Obama’s conciliatory words, people are understandably skeptical of U.S. intentions, such a meeting would have been premature. It could easily be used by conservatives to demonstrate weakness on Rouhani’s part, portraying it as a warm gesture to a government that is strangling Iranians with no promise, or even indication that an easing of the sanctions regime is on the horizon.
Even in the West, it is probably better that no chance encounter took place. Although the U.S. tactic of refusing to talk is a dead end that produces no tangible benefits for anyone (as Stephen Walt aptly points out), since we have pursued it, raising hopes for a quick breakthrough is probably unwise. Expectations need to be managed.
The U.S.-Iranian impasse is much deeper than the nuclear issue and the mutual antipathy between Israel and the Islamic Republic. Many more issues are involved, and they mount on top of a long history of problems between the U.S. and Iran, of which the 1953 CIA-backed coup and the 1979-80 hostage crisis are only the best known.
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies offers a good rundown of the various issues and complications facing the two countries in any attempt to thaw relations. The major flaw, though, in Cordesman’s piece is that he frames the current issue within the notion of a relentless Iranian march toward a nuclear weapon. This doesn’t mesh with the facts, as intelligence estimates for the past six years, including those of the U.S. and Israel, agree that Iran has halted its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, while retaining the ability to start the process again. An Iranian weapons program only seems to have existed in the early years of the century, when U.S. ambitions for regime change were at their height.
Beyond that point, Cordesman gives a good description of the complexities inherent in trying to turn back years of U.S.-Iranian enmity. But he does an even better job of laying out the case for why the status quo serves neither country well and why a warming of relations can bring great benefits to both countries and the entire Middle East.
One major issue that divides the two countries is, indeed, Israel. If Iran and the U.S. wanted to try to patch things up, even if the nuclear issue was resolved to mutual satisfaction (something that is complicated but far from impossible in and of itself), the Israel-Palestine question moves to center stage. What becomes of Iranian support for the Palestinian cause, for Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the more meager support it offers to Hamas?
More than likely, this is why Obama, in his speech, put the two issues so closely together. While he didn’t specifically link the two, their proximity in the text was suggestive, and explained a bit of why he and Secretary of State John Kerry have put so much effort into rekindling talks between the two peoples. Obama understands, and he’s subtly communicating to Israel, that he needs to see a Palestinian state created, one which Iran can support, if there is to be sufficient warming of U.S.-Iran relations to enable a reasonable chance of resolving the nuclear issue.
This is precisely why Netanyahu is so alarmed by the prospect of a negotiated deal, as opposed to an Iranian surrender, on the nuclear issue. The prospect of a viable deal on Iran’s nuclear program will allow and encourage domestic and international pressure on Israel to make a deal, and, even if it is a deal remarkably favorable to Israel, Netanyahu does not want to engage in that political fight with his own party and the rest of his right-wing coalition. Much better to see Iran be forced, whether by sanctions or firepower, to give in to international demands. Moreover, those demands will be very different in the context of negotiations.
Obama, in his speech, recognized Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power. That affirmation, though self-evident, indicates a willingness to allow enrichment on Iranian soil, something Netanyahu adamantly opposes, but which, with sufficient transparency, will satisfy every other country in the world if the United States gives the program its blessing. In the context of an Iranian surrender, it is much more likely that enrichment programs could be transferred to a third country, like Russia.
So, Netanyahu has gone on an anti-Rouhani crusade. With the most extreme of neocon groups joining him, it is likely — if Netanyahu persists and if Rouhani does not sufficiently influence Western hearts and minds fast enough (which he likely can’t do without agitating his own right flank) — that other right-wing groups, followed by more centrist hawks, will soon add their voices to the anti-Rouhani chorus.
Pro-dialogue forces will have a tough task. The process simply can’t move too fast or it will careen off the tracks. But a slow process gives more opportunity for the hawks. Persistence in support of a rational approach will not be easy, but standing fast to support dialogue and the gradual easing of sanctions in exchange for gradually increasing transparency in Iran is the best and wisest option.
]]>by Marsha B. Cohen
The New York Times’ op-ed page headlined “Hopes for Iran”, which offers half a dozen cautious to negative views on Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rouhani, unexpectedly links to a “Related Story” published last year: Should Israel Accept a Nuclear Ban? Linking the online discussion — intentionally or not [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
The New York Times’ op-ed page headlined “Hopes for Iran”, which offers half a dozen cautious to negative views on Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rouhani, unexpectedly links to a “Related Story” published last year: Should Israel Accept a Nuclear Ban? Linking the online discussion — intentionally or not — to a debate over Israel’s own nuclear program and policies may be more remarkable than any of the op-eds’ arguments.
One of the most overlooked and under-discussed aspects of the Iranian nuclear program, at least from an Iranian point of view, is the double standard that’s applied to it: while Israel has an estimated 100-200 nuclear weapons that it has concealed for decades, Iran is treated like the nuclear threat — and Iran doesn’t possess a single nuclear weapon. Adding insult to injury, Israel is usually the first, loudest and shrillest voice condemning Iran and demanding “crippling sanctions” while deflecting attention away from its own record.
“Iran has consistently used the West’s willingness to engage as a delaying tactic, a smoke screen behind which Iran’s nuclear program has continued undeterred and, in many cases, undetected,” complained former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold (also president of the hawkish Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) in a 2009 LA Times op-ed entitled “Iran’s Nuclear Aspirations Threaten the World“:
Back in 2005, Hassan Rowhani, the former chief nuclear negotiator of Iran during the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami, made a stunning confession in an internal briefing in Tehran, just as he was leaving his post. He explained that in the period during which he sat across from European negotiators discussing Iran’s uranium enrichment ambitions, Tehran quietly managed to complete the critical second stage of uranium fuel production: its uranium conversion plant in Isfahan. He boasted that the day Iran started its negotiations in 2003 “there was no such thing as the Isfahan project.” Now, he said, it was complete.
Yet half a century ago, Israel’s Deputy Minister of Defense, Shimon Peres — the political architect of Israel’s nuclear weapons program — looked President John F. Kennedy in the eye and solemnly intoned what would become Israel’s “catechism”, according to Avner Cohen: “I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first.” Fifty years and at least 100 nuclear weapons later, Peres is awarded the U.S. Medal of Freedom, with no mention of his misrepresentation of Israel’s nuclear progress.
According to declassified documents, Yitzhak Rabin, another future Israeli prime minister (who would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994) also invoked the nuclear catechism to nuclear negotiator Paul Warnke in 1968, arguing that no product could be considered a deployable nuclear weapons-system unless it had been tested (Israel, of course, had not tested a nuclear weapon). Warnke was unswayed by Rabin’s talmudic logic but came away convinced that pressuring Israel would be futile since it was already a nuclear weapons state.
In a BBC Radio June 14 debate between Gold and former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw about the prospects for improving relations with Iran after Rouhani’s election, Straw pointed out that Israel has a “very extensive nuclear weapons program, and along with India and Pakistan are the three countries in the world, plus North Korea more recently, which have refused any kind of international supervision…”:
JOHN HUMPHRYS (Host): Well let me put that to Dr Gold; you can’t argue with that, Dr Gold?
DORE GOLD: Well, we can have a whole debate on Israel in a separate program.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well, it’s entirely relevant isn’t it? The fact is you’re saying they want nuclear weapons; the fact is you have nuclear weapons.
DORE GOLD: Look, Israel has made statements in the past. Israeli ambassadors to the UN like myself have said that Israel won’t be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.
JACK STRAW: You’ve got nuclear weapons.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: You’ve got them.
JACK STRAW: You’ve got them. Everyone knows that.
DORE GOLD: We have a very clear stand, but we’re not the issue.
JACK STRAW: No, no, come on, you have nuclear weapons, let’s be clear about this.
National security expert Bruce Riedel is among those who have observed Washington’s “double standard when it comes to Israel’s bomb: the NPT applies to all but Israel. Indeed, every Israeli prime minister since David Ben-Gurion has deliberately taken an evasive posture on the issue because they do not want to admit what everyone knows.” Three years ago, Riedel suggested that the era of Israeli ambiguity about its nuclear program “may be coming to an end, raising fundamental questions about Israel’s strategic situation in the region.” Thus far that hasn’t happened. Instead, Israeli leaders and the pro-Israel lobby use every opportunity (including Peres’ Medal of Freedom acceptance speech) to deflect attention from Israel’s defiant prevarication about its own nuclear status and directing it toward Iran.
This past April, Anthony Cordesman authored a paper for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) arguing that Israel posed more of an existential threat to Iran than the other way around. “It seems likely that Israel can already deliver an ‘existential’ nuclear strike on Iran, and will have far more capability to damage Iran than Iran is likely to have against Israel for the next decade,” Cordesman wrote. (The paper has since been removed from the CSIS website, but references to it persist in numerous articles.)
This double standard, and refusal to recognize Iranian security concerns, is not news to Iranians. Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament), assured the Financial Times last September that talks between the U.S. and Iran “can be successful and help create more security in the region. But if they try to dissuade Iran from its rights to have peaceful nuclear technology, then they will not go anywhere — before or after the US elections.” Larijani, who was Iran’s nuclear negotiator between 2005-2007, proposed that declarations by U.S. political leaders that Iran has a right to “peaceful nuclear technology” be committed to in writing.
“Many times the US president or secretary of state have said they recognise Iran’s right to nuclear energy,” Larjani said. “So, if [they] accept this, write it down and then we use it as a basis to push forward the talks…What they say during the talks is different from what they say outside the talks. This is a problem.” Larijani also denied that Iranian leaders were discussing withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) even though the benefits of Iran remaining a signatory — in the face of mounting international pressure campaigned for by Israel while Israel itself faced little to no criticism — seemed unclear. “The Israelis did not join the NPT and they do not recognize the IAEA,” he said. “They are doing what they want — producing nuclear bombs, and no one questions it.”
This past weekend, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour bluntly suggested that up until now, the U.S. has offered Iran few incentives to comply with the international community’s demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program: “Let’s just call a spade a spade. I’ve spoken to Iranian officials, former negotiators, actually people who worked for Dr. Rouhani earlier, and they said that so far the American incentives to Iran in these nuclear negotiations amounts to demanding diamonds for peanuts.”
Ben Caspit, writing in al-Monitor last week week, notes that as soon as the Russians hinted Iran would be willing to suspend uranium enrichment and keep it at the 20% level, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blew off the suggestion as merely cosmetic. The Israeli demand will continue to be uncompromising, Caspit says, insistent that “…nothing short of complete cessation of uranium enrichment, removal of all enriched uranium out of Iran; termination of nuclear facility activities and welcoming the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would provide sufficient guarantee of Iran’s willingness to abandon the nuclear program. Needless to say this will never happen.”
As Jim Lobe pointed out the other day, Rouhani outlined an 8-point blueprint for resolving the nuclear standoff between the U.S. and Iran in a letter to TIME in 2006. Rouhani stated:
]]>In my personal judgment, a negotiated solution can be found in the context of the following steps, if and when creatively intertwined and negotiated in good faith by concerned officials…Iran is prepared to work with the IAEA and all states concerned about promoting confidence in its fuel cycle program. But Iran cannot be expected to give in to United States’ bullying and non-proliferation double standards.
Anthony Cordesman, a highly respected military and security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), writes in a co-authored CSIS report that while the US should be prepared for the worst — an Iranian sprint towards a nuclear weapon — successful negotiations still offer the longest-lasting [...]]]>
Anthony Cordesman, a highly respected military and security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), writes in a co-authored CSIS report that while the US should be prepared for the worst — an Iranian sprint towards a nuclear weapon — successful negotiations still offer the longest-lasting positive results. Importantly, Cordesman says negotiations can still be successful:
Sanctions and diplomacy are the best of a bad (or at least highly uncertain) set of options, but it is far from clear that they will stop Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapons capability. Despite the lack of diplomatic progress, and the appearance that the Iranians are stalling for time, negotiations can still be successful. Negotiations can bring about long-term change in the US Iranian relationship where military strikes or more sanctions cannot.
The military option, which requires the most resources and carries the most risk, should be the last option:
]]>Preventive attacks might end the chance of successful negotiations for the life of the Islamic
Republic, and usher in a period of containment analogous to the Cold War. Application of this
level of military force might also convince the Iranian regime that nuclear weapons are required
in order to prevent future attacks and will redouble their efforts to produce a weapon. A single
series of military strikes might also only delay Iran for several years, lead it use them as an
excuse to withdraw from the NNPT and IAEA inspection, and use even more resources to surge
towards the deployment of nuclear-armed forces. Such action should only be taken if it becomes
clear that Iran’s regime has reached such ideological extremes where it cannot be deterred or that
there is evidence Iran will produce and quickly use a nuclear weapon.
News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 10
“Nuclear Mullahs”: The former executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, summarizes the debate over Iran’s nuclear program and concludes that no war with Iran is far better than a preemptive war and hopes for a [...]]]>
News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 10
“Nuclear Mullahs”: The former executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, summarizes the debate over Iran’s nuclear program and concludes that no war with Iran is far better than a preemptive war and hopes for a change in US policy toward Iran following the 2012 presidential election:
At the end of this theoretical exercise, we have two awful choices with unpredictable consequences. After immersing myself in the expert thinking on both sides, I think that, forced to choose, I would swallow hard and take the risks of a nuclear Iran over the gamble of a pre-emptive war. My view may be colored by a bit of post-Iraq syndrome.
What statesmen do when faced with bad options is create new ones. The third choice in this case is to negotiate a deal that lets Iran enrich uranium for civilian use (as it is entitled to do under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty), that applies rigorous safeguards (because Iran cheats), that gradually relaxes sanctions and brings this wayward country into the community of more-or-less civilized nations.
That, of course, won’t happen before November. Any U.S. concession now would be decried by Republicans as an abandonment of Israel and a reward to a government that recently beat a democracy movement bloody. We can only hope that after the election we get some braver, more creative diplomacy, either from a liberated Obama or (hope springs eternal) a President Romney who has a Nixon-to-China moment.
“U.S. Attack on Iran Would Take Hundreds of Planes, Ships, and Missiles”: Noah Shachtman breaks down Anthony Cordesman’s assessment of what the United States would have to commit militarily if it were to launch “preventive strikes” against Iran’s nuclear sites. Cordesman seriously doubts Israel’s capacity to execute an effective attack and doesn’t necessarily favor the US doing it for the Israelis as Matthew Kroenig did late last year. In short, the costs would likely be monumental while the benefits would be short-lived:
* “Israel does not have the capability to carry out preventive strikes that could do more than delay Iran’s efforts for a year or two.” Despite the increasingly sharp rhetoric coming out of Jerusalem, the idea of Israel launching a unilateral attack is almost as bad as allowing Tehran to continue its nuclear work unchallenged. It would invite wave after wave of Iranian counterattacks — by missile, terrorist, and boat — jeopardizing countries throughout the region. It would wreak havoc with the world’s oil supply. And that’s if Israel even manages to pull the mission off — something Cordesman very much doubts.
* The U.S. might be able to delay the nuclear program for up to 10 years. But to do so, it’ll be an enormous undertaking. The initial air strike alone will “require a large force allocation [including] the main bomber force, the suppression of enemy air defense system[s], escort aircraft for the protection of the bombers, electronic warfare for detection and jamming purposes, fighter sweep and combat air patrol to counter any air retaliation by Iran.”
Here’s a visual representation of what a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would like.
“How to Tackle Iran”: The RAND corporation’s Dalia Dassa Kaye writes that Israel’s Iran policy and the US’s response to Israeli sabre-rattling can have damaging effects including a war that few want or need. Meanwhile there are other options and existing assurances that should be considered:
Rather than public posturing aimed at encouraging the United States to make such firm declaratory policies – creating a sense of mistrust and tension in U.S.-Israeli relations that can only benefit Iran – Israeli officials should work with their American counterparts to quietly seek common strategic understandings on what type of Iranian endgame is acceptable and what conditions would need to be in place for force to be contemplated.
At the same time, the United States can continue the wide array of “assurance” policies already underway to ease Israeli concerns over Iran and bolster its military capabilities. With all the apparent doubts among Israel’s political elite that they can’t count on the United States, it is easy to overlook the unprecedented levels of military assistance and cooperation between the two countries.
U.S. military aid to Israel has reached record levels, providing Israel with the most advanced American weapon systems. President Obama and other senior administration officials have also made a number of public statements suggesting that U.S. policy is not to contain Iran but to prevent a nuclear weapons program. In the backdrop of such statements is a steady U.S. military buildup in the Gulf region, including the bolstering of naval vessels and fighter aircraft that could reach targets throughout Iran.
“‘America the brittle?‘”: Stephen Walt reminds us that the US is secure and that the only way to get Americans to support militarist foreign policy is by scaring them into believing otherwise:
…The United States is very secure by almost any standard, and most countries in the world would be delighted to be as safe as we are. For this reason, most Americans don’t worry very much about foreign policy, and the only way you can motivate them to support the sort of activist foreign policy that we’ve become accustomed to since 1945 is to constantly exaggerate external threats. Americans have to be convinced that their personal safety and well-being are going to be directly affected by what happens in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, or some other far-flung region, or they won’t be willing to pay the costs of mucking about in these various places. Threat-mongering also depends on constantly overstating our adversaries’ capabilities and denigrating our own. So senior officials tell sympathetic journalists that our foes are “resilient” and clever and resourceful, etc., while bemoaning our alleged lack of fortitude. The good news is that it’s not true; if anything, Americans have been too willing to “pay any price and bear any burden” for quite some time.
“Tenacious Sanctions”: Paul Pillar writes that a US trade sanction from 1974 targeting the Soviet Union that’s still in effect even though it’s economically damaging demonstrates how this diplomatic tool can easily morph into a double-edged sword:
This baggage demonstrates how it is far harder to remove a sanction—either a special-purpose injunction such as Jackson-Vanik or placement on a list such as the one for state sponsors of terrorism—than to impose it in the first place. Imposition is usually a gesture of disapproval rather than a well-conceived tactic to elicit a change in behavior. Moreover, lifting of a sanction, regardless of changes in conditions that may justify lifting, gets perceived as making nice to the regime in question, and that can be a domestic political liability. As a result, sanctions that have already demonstrated their ineffectiveness get perpetuated; any disagreeable behavior by the targeted regime, even if it has little or nothing to do with the reason the sanction was imposed, is portrayed as a reason to keep the sanction in place.
“Remaking Bagram”: A day after the New York Times reported on US efforts to transfer its detention operations to the Afghan government in accordance with a March 9 Memorandum of Understanding, the Open Society Foundations (OSF) released a report finding that the agreement and US-retained management and authority over parts of the Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP) at the Bagram airbase have resulted in an “Afghan internment regime” and “differences in understanding” about who controls the handling of suspects and detainees. (Find my related report here.)
]]>Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.
John Bolton, Washington Times: The former UN Ambassador and outspoken proponent of
Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.
John Bolton, Washington Times: The former UN Ambassador and outspoken proponent of military action against Iran rebukes President Obama for creating ”the most antagonistic relationship ever between Israel and the White House” by not preemptively striking Iran for Israel due to his “ideological inclination”:
There is, however, a serious problem. Israel’s assessment and its ultimate decision are complicated precisely because of the superiority of American military strength. If Jerusalem defers to Washington and does not strike early enough, Iran’s program could well pass the point where Israel has the necessary capabilities to break Iran’s control over the nuclear fuel cycle. Or, even worse, Iran could fabricate nuclear weapons before being detected by either U.S. or Israeli intelligence, risking that a strike by either country could bring a nuclear response from Iran.
There are three principal reasons not to credit Mr. Obama’s assurances. First, the president’s every ideological inclination is not to use U.S. military force pre-emptively. By contrast, two months before Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt defended American attacks against Nazi submarines in the North Atlantic, saying, “When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him.” Plainly, Mr. Obama is no Franklin Roosevelt.
Elliott Abrams, Weekly Standard: The former Deputy National Security Adviser to George W. Bush considers Israeli general Amos Yaldin’s call for the US to commit to striking Iran in 2013 if the Iranian “problem” is not solved reasonable but unrealistic, so he proposes a Congressional authorization for the use of force against Iran instead:
More persuasive than the Ross or Yadlin proposals would be an effort by the president to seek a formal authorization for the use of force from Congress. This is the way for him to show seriousness of purpose, and for Congress to support it—and send an unmistakable message to the ayatollahs. This path was suggested here in THE WEEKLY STANDARD early July, by Jamie Fly and Bill Kristol, and this is the moment to move forward with it. Like the joint resolutions for the Gulf Wars in 1991 and in2002 and the joint resolution passed after 9/11 regarding terrorism, a new resolution would not declare war; it would say “The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate” to achieve the goal. In this case, that goal would not be to counter “the continuing threat posed by Iraq” or “against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001…in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States.” It would be to prevent Iran—the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, in violation of countless U.N. Security Council and IAEA board of governors resolutions, and under international sanctions—from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: The “Tiger Mom of the neocon movement” alleges that President Obama’s “Iran dilemma” boils down to being blamed for Israeli losses if he does not strike Iran on Israel’s behalf or being unprepared in the event of being “forced” into another mideast war:
An Israeli strike would be a blatant signal of distrust in Obama by the Jewish state. If the action is less than successful, or if large casualties in Israel result, fingers will point at Obama for having failed to deploy superior U.S. force. And if he believes an Israeli strike will set off a Middle East war, the president, who is in the business of diminishing U.S. military presence, could well be forced into a conflagration.
Rubin also describes going to war with Iran as a form of carpe diem:
Obama, as he has done so frequently, can wait and hope the Israelis don’t act. That might “work,” insofar as Israeli leaders might want to stretch out the timeline just a little bit longer. But passivity has its price, both geopolitically and electorally. It will be interesting to see whether Obama or Romney seizes the moment. It would certainly be an act of political leadership if one does.
Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post: Like Rubin, the neoconservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer references Elliot Abrams’ call for congressional authorization for the potential use of force against Iran (without naming Abrams) in an article that criticizes the President’s approach to Iran. In this instance, Krauthammer argues that Anthony Cordesman’s suggested approach to Iran, which includes hardening the US’s stance and upping the threat of force, needs to be seriously considered before the military option is exercised. Also like Rubin, Krauthammer agitates for action under the pretext of the time-is-running out claim:
]]>Would Iran believe a Cordesman-like ultimatum? Given the record of the Obama administration, maybe not. Some (though not Cordesman) have therefore suggested the further step of requesting congressional authorization for the use of force if Iran does not negotiate denuclearization.
First, that’s the right way to do it. No serious military action should be taken without congressional approval (contra Libya). Second, Iran might actually respond to a threat backed by a strong bipartisan majority of the American people — thus avoiding both war and the other nightmare scenario, a nuclear Iran.
If we simply continue to drift through kabuki negotiations, however, one thing is certain. Either America, Europe, the Gulf Arabs and the Israelis will forever be condemned to live under the threat of nuclear blackmail (even nuclear war) from a regime the State Department identifies as the world’s greatest exporter of terror. Or an imperiled Israel, with its more limited capabilities, will strike Iran — with correspondingly greater probability of failure and of triggering a regional war.
All options are bad. Doing nothing is worse. “The status quo may not prevent some form of war,” concludes Cordesman, “and may even be making it more likely.”
One of the most depressing aspects of all the talk about Israel or the United States destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities (and much else besides, no doubt) is the near absence of any reference to international law. Even so distinguished an expert as Anthony Cordesman seems to take it for granted [...]]]>
One of the most depressing aspects of all the talk about Israel or the United States destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities (and much else besides, no doubt) is the near absence of any reference to international law. Even so distinguished an expert as Anthony Cordesman seems to take it for granted that there will be no legal impediment to the US attacking Iran if a credible threat of an attack fails to intimidate Iran into making the concessions required to pacify Israel.
In my country, Britain, on 20 February 2012, members of the House of Commons spent five hours debating whether the use of force against Iran would be “productive” without dwelling more than cursorily on the legal aspects of the question.
How is one to account for this blind spot? Are ignorance and oversight to blame, or has respect for international law gone out of fashion?
It’s hard to believe that anyone who has policy-making responsibilities that involve other States, or who takes a professional interest in such policy-making, can be unaware of what the bed-rock of the post-1945 international system has to say about war-making. The United Nations Charter was drafted to be understood by a much wider readership than international law-focused lawyers. Paragraphs 3 and 4 of Article 2 of the Charter could hardly be clearer:
3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any other state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
Read in conjunction with Article 1, which spells out the Purposes of the UN, and Articles 39 to 50, which detail how the Security Council should react to “Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace and Acts of Aggression”, these paragraphs suggest that the use of force by one state against another state is only lawful if the Security Council authorises it.
An exception to this rule can be found in Article 51 of the Charter: the right of self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member. But this is irrelevant to the Iranian nuclear dispute at the present juncture, for reasons set out most recently by Dan Joyner.
These points are so easily understood, and so clearly central to any proposal to attack Iran for its nuclear activities, that ignorance and oversight can hardly explain their widespread absence from the public debate, or the conspicuous failure of Western politicians to inject a reminder of the legal dimension into that debate.
My sense is that one must look elsewhere for an explanation: foreign policy communities in the US, Israel and the United Kingdom have lost sight of the importance of upholding international law to preserve the post-1945 international system, which underpins Western security and prosperity. They have reverted to the belief in Realpolitik of an earlier age: State military power is a legitimate instrument for resolving disputes.
I am reminded of one of the most striking episodes in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War: the Athenian extinction of Melos – the men massacred, the women and children sold into slavery – because the people of Melos refused to submit to Athenian demands. (At one point the Athenian delegates say: “You know as well as we do that justice is only at issue between equals in power; the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”.)
Thucydides saw this cruel, disproportionate act as the moment at which fifth century BC Athens succumbed to hubris. Drawing on an idea familiar to the Classical tragedians, Thucydides implies that it was this act that triggered the misfortunes that reduced Athens to a has-been within twelve years.
Well, I must not press the analogy, which is only potential at this stage. The point I really want to make is that the West has much to gain by harnessing its military power to respect for the UN Charter and other universal legal instruments – and quite a lot to lose by showing disregard for international law.
I have heard it said (but cannot verify) that at some point President Bill Clinton observed that the US had twenty years to create a global order in which Americans could feel secure when the US no longer had a quasi-monopoly of military strength. If this is true, it suggests that President Clinton understood how much even the greatest of powers has to gain from fostering the rule of law at the international level, and from resisting the impulse to use force for selfish, non-collective ends. No power has stayed on top forever.
Nearly 300 years ago, Montesquieu, a thinker much admired by the founders of the Union, wrote: “Political strength resides in renouncing self-interest, hard though that is”. Good leaders have long known that selfishness corrodes the loyalty and obedience of the led, as do injustice and putting the interests of a few ahead of the interest of the whole.
I am conscious how quaint these words will seem to some readers. So much of the contemporary foreign policy debate seems to take place in a moral vacuum, with little or no reference to justice and the rule of law in international affairs. I am almost embarrassed to be using such words.
Yet it seems to me rational to suggest that the post-1945 international system is the best yet devised, that it has brought great benefits to the West, that its preservation requires commitment from the leading power of the age, and that the leading power has to marry justice to strength to retain the loyalty of other participants. If I’m right, treating Iran unlawfully is a bad option.
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Anthony Cordesman, a highly respected military and security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), released his 4th working draft with Alexander Wilner on Iran’s military forces on June 25. The paper is part of a volume on US and Iranian competition in the Gulf (the second part focuses on the nuclear dimensions). The authors begin by stating that the prospects for a military clash between the US and Iran have grown increasingly likely:
In the wake of recent failed negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, it seems increasingly unlikely that a political solution will be reached regarding Tehran’s increasing uranium enrichment. As a result, some form of military clash between the US and Iran, while by no means certain, is becoming increasingly likely. Such a clash can take many different forms, and each presents different levels of risk.
Ret. Col. Pat Lang, a former top Pentagon Middle East and South intelligence analyst, explains why he disagrees with the premise of the paper on his blog, Sic Temper Tyrannis:
]]>The essential competitiion in the Middle East is between Israel and Iran, not Iran and the US. If there is such a rivalry, it is largely created by a willingness on the part of the US to assume Israel’s strategic liabilities as its own.
Iran contributes to that willingness by making threatening noises and playing stupid diplomatc games but it is hard to conceal the fact that absent an Iranian attack on US assets or people or a serious threat to the US homeland the issue of hegemony in the Middle East, is a regional issue.
Unless the US is, in fact, the policeman of the world, why should we concern ourselves with Iranian “assymetric capabilities?”