Emergency Committee for Israel: A news advertisement unleashed this week by the ultra-hawkish letterhead group the Emergency Committee for [...]]]>
Emergency Committee for Israel: A news advertisement unleashed this week by the ultra-hawkish letterhead group the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), which is headed by Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, speaks for itself. “Time to Act” seems like a parody from the Daily Show but the ECI actually wants Americans to see the world through the ultra-paranoid, fact-devoid lens that they’re manufacturing. Eli Clifton provides a backgrounder on what the ECI is really about:
ECI’s reflexive hawkishness stems from its hard-right neoconservative disposition. The organization was even born in the same Washington office as the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), a short-lived right-wing pressure group that pushed for an Iraq invasion. A major player in the Iraq war push, Kristol, for his part, already called for a war with Iran last October.
Robert Wright also discusses ECI’s fanaticism in the Atlantic.
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: Surprise, surprise. The ECI ad gets a plug from the militantly pro-Israel Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin who regularly agitates for a U.S. war on Iran. Congressional hawks pushing measures that will make those “meaningless talks” between the Iranians and Western countries even less likely to result in a negotiated settlement are also praised by Rubin:
Sitting mutely by on the sidelines while the centrifuges keep spinning in Iran is a dereliction of duty by Congress. Unlike President Obama, however, I think there are lawmakers willing to step up to the plate. History will judge them well.
For more on “Congressional obstructionism” on Iran see Trita Parsi’s recent Op-Ed in the New York Times.
Daniel Pipes, National Review Online: Arch hardliner Daniel Pipes–whose writings were cited 18 times in the “Manifesto” penned by Oslo killer Anders Brevik–criticizes Nicholas Kristof’s observations from his recent trip to Iran. Why? Because Kristof suggests that Iranians are unlikely to welcome a war with open arms:
After providing this information – which tallies with what other travelers to Iran have recounted – Kristof reaches an inexplicable and illogical conclusion: “My guess is that the demise of the system is a matter of time — unless there’s a war between Iran and the West, perhaps ignited by Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. That, I sense, would provoke a nationalist backlash and rescue the ayatollahs.”
Comment: Whence this “sense”? If the Iranian population blames the mullahs for its economic woes today, why not assume it will also blame war on them too?
Emanuele Ottolenghi, FDD/Commentary: According to former Dick Cheney national security adviser John Hannah, the ultra-hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies and particularly Hannah’s “colleague” and FDD executive director Mark Dubowitz was pivotal in framing the U.S.’s decision to sanction Iran’s central bank. Now that sounds all fine and dandy except for one contradiction that all this exposes. If the FDD’s goal with Iran is regime change as stated here by Dubowitz and Reuel Marc Gerecht and this week by FDD staffer Emanuele Ottolenghi (among other places), then why does the U.S. insist that sanctions are integral to reaching a nuclear deal with Iran? If the sanctions are designed by an organization that is striving for regime change, then what hope can there be in any success through diplomacy? Here’s Ottolenghi:
]]>Trouble is brewing then, and offering a facile compromise on nuclear matters to this regime at this juncture would be a terrible mistake. Sanctions are slowly working – but we should keep using them less to extract an impossible deal and more to undermine the regime in Tehran.
*This week’s must-reads/watch:
- Video: Jim Morin “Bomb Iran” animated cartoon - News:*This week’s must-reads/watch:
Emanuele Ottolenghi, The Age: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) Senior Fellow declares that Iran is more of a “threat” than Iraq was and that “[t]alk of war is neither irresponsible then, nor unfounded”. Ottolenghi makes curious claims to back up what appears to be his justification for an Israeli military strike and contradicts U.S. intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assessments in the process. He implies, for example, that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon even though both institutions have not presented any evidence to suggest that it has made the decision to do so (the prevalent suspicion is that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability). Ottolenghi also uses U.S. military and intelligence assessments concluding that Iran is a rational actor to argue that if that’s true, Iran wouldn’t excessively respond to an Israeli attack (therefore implying that Israel should attack even though experts acknowledge this could actually speed up any Iranian nuclear weapon drive?) Ottolenghi meanwhile ignores other ways that Iran could defend itself (something all rational actors would do) and the regional and economic ramifications of striking the oil-rich country:
The fact is, if Iran is rational enough that it can be dissuaded, Iran will be rational enough to understand that an excessive response to a military strike will carry devastating consequences for its regime.
Iran must know that a limited response to an Israeli strike, which focuses on Israeli targets alone, is less likely to draw the US into the fight. Iran knows, for example, that efforts to block the Strait of Hormuz would be met with devastating military response by US forces.
In short, if critics of war offer the case for a rational Iran as a reason not to attack, they surely must agree that Iran’s rational response will be discerning – it should retaliate against Israel, but not beyond.
Rudy Giuliani at MEK Paris Conference: The former Republican presidential nominee and New York mayor declares that the widely discredited U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, the Mujahideen-e-khalq (MEK), is the “only way to stop Iran”:
I have a feeling that the only thing that will stop [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] and the only thing that will stop [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is if they see strength, if they see power, if they see determination, if they see an America that is willing to support the people that want to overthrow the regime of Iran.
Clifford D. May, National Review: The President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) argued in February that sanctions are a “weapon” that can be used against Iran to bring about regime change. This month he explains why crippling sanctions are useful while recommending that prior to renewed nuclear talks Iran needs to be face with a believable threat of U.S. and Israeli force:
So what’s the point? For one, sanctions, and the continuing debate they provoke, serve to remind the “international community” of the threat Iran’s theocrats pose. Second, it’s always useful to weaken one’s enemies, and sanctions — in particular the new sanctions targeting Iran’s central bank and expelling Iran from the SWIFT international electronic banking system — have been enfeebling Iran’s oil-based economy. Finally, should more kinetic measures be used to stop Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, it will be vital for sanctions to be in place — and remain in place — during whatever diplomatic palaver may follow.
…
A new round of diplomacy is scheduled to begin next month in Geneva. For there to be any small chance of success, Iran’s rulers will need to feel pressured and vulnerable — they will need to take seriously the possibility that Americans and Israelis have rocks and are prepared to use them.
H. Con. Res. 115: Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now has a summary of a recently proposed resolution by Rep. Buerkle (R-NY) and 67 cosponsors that she playfully refers to as “HAPPY B-DAY ISRAEL/FEEL FREE TO ATTACK IRAN”:
]]>Most notably, the fourth “resolved” clause is an unambiguous Congressional green line – if not explicit encouragement – for an Israeli military attack on Iran, stating that Congress: “…expresses support for Israel’s right to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by Iran, defend Israeli sovereignty, and protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within a reasonable time…” [emphasis added].
*This week’s must-reads/watch:
- T. X. Hammes: On Bombing Iran, A False [...]]]>
*This week’s must-reads/watch:
Mitch McConnell: The Senate Minority Leader recommended this week that lawmakers draft a resolution “authorizing the use of force” against Iran. Said McConnell:
I made a recommendation last night for something that I think might convince the Iranians that we’re serious about it, and that would be to debate and vote on a resolution authorizing the use of force. That doesn’t guarantee that force would be used, but it certainly would be a credible step in the direction saying we view this as a very serious matter.
Casey, Graham and Lieberman, Wall Street Journal: While promoting their recently proposed resolution which Robert Wright says makes war with Iran more likely because it severely limits U.S. options, the senators argue for harsher punitive measures against the Islamic Republic:
First, it is imperative that the U.S. and its partners accelerate and expand economic pressure on Tehran. The only thing Iran’s leaders value more than their nuclear ambitions is the survival of their regime. Consequently, sanctions must threaten the very existence of that regime in order to have a chance of stopping its illicit nuclear activities.
They also advocate the threat of military force:
As importantly, however, we must put to rest any suspicion that in the end the United States will acquiesce to Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear-weapons capability and adopt a strategy of containment.
Analysts explain that one of the reasons why Iran is resistant to Western demands is because it believes the U.S. is seeking regime change through any and all means. Don’t policy recommendations like this directly feed into that paranoia?
Foreign Policy Initiative “Time to Attack Iran” Event: This week Matthew Kroenig, Jame M. Fly and Elbridge A. Colby debated attacking Iran this week at the militaristic Washington think tank. Kroenig and Fly advocated military strikes on Iran and Fly went even further by arguing that “limited strikes” weren’t enough and that the main goal of U.S. policy on Iran should be regime change. Kroenig’s “Time to Attack Iran” article resulted in serious push-back from respected analysts like Paul Pillar and Stephen Walt. Fly’s recommendations have received less attention despite their extremism.
Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: The Journal rarely has anything but vehement criticism for President Obama, but this week they praised his display of hawkishness at this year’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference. At the same time, the board also absurdly argued that Obama is protecting Iran over Israel, while challenging the administration to become more militaristic:
As for military strikes, senior Administration officials have repeatedly sounded as if their top priority is deterring Israel, rather than stopping Iran from getting a bomb.
…
If the President’s contention is that an Israeli strike would be less effective and have more unpredictable consequences than an American strike, he’s right—and few Israelis would disagree. Israelis don’t have the same military resources as the U.S.The question Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli leaders have to ponder is whether Mr. Obama now means what he says.
Mitt Romney, Washington Post: The Republican presidential frontrunner expresses his commitment to Israel while declaring how militaristic he would be with Iran as President:
As for Iran in particular, I will take every measure necessary to check the evil regime of the ayatollahs. Until Iran ceases its nuclear-bomb program, I will press for ever-tightening sanctions, acting with other countries if we can but alone if we must. I will speak out on behalf of the cause of democracy in Iran and support Iranian dissidents who are fighting for their freedom. I will make clear that America’s commitment to Israel’s security and survival is absolute. I will demonstrate our commitment to the world by making Jerusalem the destination of my first foreign trip.
Most important, I will buttress my diplomacy with a military option that will persuade the ayatollahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions. Only when they understand that at the end of that road lies not nuclear weapons but ruin will there be a real chance for a peaceful resolution.
Emanuele Ottolenghi, New York Times: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’s senior fellow recommends that the U.S. threaten Iran with war and implement more extreme punitive measures:
As tough as the current sanctions against Iran are, they will work only if Iran is brought to its knees once again. The pain inflicted must be far greater for the country to see backtracking as preferable. Iran is a rational actor; and it cannot be dissuaded at this point, barring extreme measures.
If Western nations wish to avoid a military confrontation in the Persian Gulf and prevent a nuclear Iran, they must adopt crippling sanctions that will bring Iran’s economy to the brink of collapse. That means a complete United Nations-imposed oil embargo enforced by a naval blockade, as well as total diplomatic isolation. And they must warn Iran that if it tries to jump the last wall, the West is willing and capable of inflicting devastating harm.
Howard Kohr at AIPAC 2012: During the first part of his speech the executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee says there’s “still time” before the U.S. needs to use “force” and then recommends threatening military action and subjecting Iran to “disruptive measures”:
Four tracks are critical. Tough, disciplined, principled diplomacy. Truly crippling sanctions. Disruptive measures and establishing a credible threat to use force.
Mike Huckabee, Washington Times: The former Republican presidential candidate turned Fox News television host explains his hawkish vision for U.S. policy on “evil” Iran and ally Israel (emphasis mine):
The Obama administration should strictly enforce sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank, accelerate the timetable of the European Union’s oil boycott of Iran and increase covert action within Iran to destabilize the regime and its nuclear program. The State Department should provide long-overdue assistance to Iranian dissidents with satellite phone and Internet technology to enable them to organize and communicate free from the regime’s authoritarian boot.
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes to the White House next week, Mr. Obama should issue an unequivocal statement that Israel is fully within its rights to protect itself against the existential threat of Iran, and if it does so, it will enjoy U.S. support. He should further state that the United States is actively considering military action.
Amos Yadlin, New York Times: The former Israeli military intelligence chief turned expert at the Washington Institute for Near Easy Policy recommends that the U.S. commit to going to war with Iran if its current policies fail to prevent Israel from attacking first:
Mr. Obama will therefore have to shift the Israeli defense establishment’s thinking from a focus on the “zone of immunity” to a “zone of trust.” What is needed is an ironclad American assurance that if Israel refrains from acting in its own window of opportunity — and all other options have failed to halt Tehran’s nuclear quest — Washington will act to prevent a nuclear Iran while it is still within its power to do so.
Peter Brookes, National Review: The Heritage Foundation senior fellow recommends that “any Iranian hostility” should be met with U.S. military might:
Iran understands strength, especially the military kind – and it only benefits from the bickering that we’ve seen again and again in recent years between Israel and the United States on a number of matters.
The president should also lean forward on the military option, beyond the tired old phrase that “it’s still on the table.” While Obama must be careful not to make threats he isn’t willing to keep, he should define red lines that are not to be crossed.
Iran will surely blame us for any Israeli strike, whether we’re involved from the get-go or not. As such, the president should ready U.S. forces for a possible Persian punch directed at us in the aftermath of an Israeli attack on Iran.
Assuming Israel doesn’t give us advanced warning, any Iranian hostility toward us or our interests should feel the searing heat of U.S. air and naval assets, not only targeting Iran’s nuclear program, but its conventional and paramilitary forces, too.
William Kristol, Weekly Standard: The publication’s founder and editor was one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the Iraq War. Here he implies that Israel’s “American friends” should pressure President Obama into adopting Israel’s hawkish Iran policy and at minimum ensure that Obama supports Israel’s actions against Iran:
]]>It would of course be better if President Obama were not wedded to a timeline that fails to recognize the imperatives of Israel’s security. The task of American friends of Israel is first to try to persuade President Obama to act sooner than he now appears willing to do, to persuade him that the United States should stand arm in arm and side by side with Israel. But if President Obama continues to insist that it is Israel who takes the lead, the task of American friends of Israel will be to ensure that President Obama at least lives up to his promise Sunday that “when the chips are down, I have Israel’s back.”
Mainstream Media and Pundits:
Washington Post: Neoconservative media spokesman Charles Krauthammer (who [...]]]>
Mainstream Media and Pundits:
Washington Post: Neoconservative media spokesman Charles Krauthammer (who argued that the U.S. had no option but to use “military force” against Iran during the middle of the Iraq War) likens the Obama Administration’s Iran policy to “appeasement”:
Obama imagined that his silver tongue and exquisite sensitivity to Islam would persuade the mullahs to give up their weapons program. Amazingly, they resisted his charms, choosing instead to become a nuclear power. The negotiations did nothing but confer legitimacy on the regime at its point of maximum vulnerability (and savagery), as well as give it time for further uranium enrichment and bomb development.
Matt Duss of the Center for American Progress explains why Krauthammer’s argument is absurd:
One can disagree with the Obama administration’s two track approach of engagement and pressure. But to describe that approach — which includes the adoption of some of the most stringent multilateral sanctions ever, successfully supporting the appointment of a special UN human rights monitor for Iran, and unprecedented defense cooperation with regional allies — as “appeasement” is to declare oneself desperately in need of a dictionary.
Even Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak disagrees with Krauthammer!
CNN: Pro-Israel Senate hawk Mark Kirk is called a “leader” by David Frum, the Iraq war-pusher who coined the infamous “axis of evil” phrase for George W. Bush. Frum applauds the Kirk-Menendez amendment to the defense authorization bill which includes sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank. The bill was approved by a 100-0 Senate vote after months of lobbying. Frum is a talented writer who knows how to sway public perception. By ending this piece with the argument that strangling sanctions are preferable to war or “nuclear terror”, he is making it seem like there are no other available options. In other words, the second to worst-case scenario is actually the best scenario. Here’s how he does it:
The utmost irony here is that detractors in the administration and in the foreign policy establishment criticize Menendez-Kirk as a form of confrontation with Iran. In reality, Menendez-Kirk is the last and best chance for regional peace: the last best hope to avoid the horrible choice of either using force to stop Iran — or acquiescing as Iran gains the power to wage nuclear terror against its neighbors and the world.
Notable analysts and former officials beg to differ, most recently evidenced by this.
Foreign Affairs: According to Matthew Kroenig, an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, going to war with Iran is the “Is the Least Bad Option”. Harvard’s Stephen Walt thoroughly debunks Kroenig’s appallingly bad analysis here.
Wall Street Journal: Emanuele Ottolenghi of the uber-hawkish Foundation for the Defense of Democracies argues that the U.S. should wage war on Iran because Iranians are more likely to welcome foreign invasion than they they are to oppose it. Ottolenghi makes unsubstantiated assumptions such as the claim that Iran’s non-Persians would ally with their invaders over their nation. He doesn’t discuss how an attack should be carried out, or what kind of resources would be needed to maintain any supposed successes. He also ignores the financial costs for the U.S.’s economy and most importantly, the human costs for Iran, the U.S. and its allies:
American policy makers should factor in the possibility that a U.S. attack will actually accelerate regime change, not hinder it. And given that it would come on the heels of the destruction of Iran’s nuclear military program—an undeniable strategic gain—the Obama administration and its allies should have a second look.
Past and Present U.S. Officials:
Washington Times: Retired Navy Adm. James “Ace” Lyons advocates three positions on Iran. First, the U.S. should make “regime change in Iran the official policy of the United States Government.” Second, the U.S. should wage war on Iran. Third, the U.S. should delist the anti-Iranian cult, the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) from its foreign terrorist organizations list.
This week Lyons advocated the first two positions while endorsing strangling sanctions against Iran. He also said the U.S. should support the Syrian opposition–not because massive human rights abuses are being committed against them–but because the overthrow of the Syrian government would eliminate a key Iranian ally.
]]>The first argument states that Israel is a central character in Arab nationalism and that irrational hatred of Israel and Jews has a prominent place in any [...]]]>
The first argument states that Israel is a central character in Arab nationalism and that irrational hatred of Israel and Jews has a prominent place in any Arab government.
On January 31 2010, Andrew Mccarthy offered an example of this talking point in his National Review blog post, “Fear the Muslim Brotherhood,” writing:
The Brotherhood did not suddenly become violent (or “more violent”) during World War II. It was violent from its origins two decades earlier. This fact — along with Egyptian Islamic society’s deep antipathy toward the West and its attraction to the Nazis’ virulent anti-Semitism — is what gradually beat European powers, especially Britain, into withdrawal.
But with the Middle East in a state of upheaval after Hosni Mubarak’s resignation and what appears to be the approaching end of Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year reign, a more popular talking point has taken over the opinion pages: Hawks seek to deny the destabilizing role that the U.S. has played in supporting authoritarian Arab leaders who have kept peace with Israel.
Two promoters of this theory recently popped up in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
Today’s issue of the WSJ offered up an excerpt, in the paper’s “Notable & Quotable” section, of journalist Brendan O’Neill’s writing. O’Neill had written in The Australian, on February 16:
[O]ne of the most striking things about the uprising in Egypt was the lack of pro-Palestine placards. As Egypt-watcher Amr Hamzawy put it, in Tahrir Square and elsewhere there were no signs saying “death to Israel, America and global imperialism” or “together to free Palestine.” Instead, this revolt was about Egyptian people’s own freedom and living conditions.
O’Neill observes that at “the pro-Egypt demonstration in London on Saturday, there was a sea of Palestine placards. ‘Free Palestine,’ they said, and ‘End the Israeli occupation.’” The WSJ’s excerpt ends:
This reveals something important about the Palestine issue. . . . [It] has become less important for Arabs and of the utmost symbolic importance for Western radicals at exactly the same time.
While O’Neill’s point may have been more broad, the WSJ editorial board’s decision to narrowly quote him and promote the few sentences he wrote about the “lack of pro-Palestine placards” is telling.
Of course, this analysis overlooks the U.S.’s support for Mubarak as well as the Egyptian government’s maintenance of the Israeli-Egypt peace agreement and assistance in enforcing the siege on Gaza. (See Alex Kane’s excellent dismantling of the “Israel has nothing to do with this” argument.)
Yesterday, the Journal’s European edition published an op-ed on the non-existent role Israel played in the unrest shaking the Middle East.
The Foundation for Defense for Defense of Democracies’ Emanuele Ottolenghi wrote:
Arab freedom has taken precedence over Israel and Palestine—or so says the much-maligned Arab Street, as it topples one tyrant and challenges the next. The conventional wisdom that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the mother of all problems in the region has now been exposed as nothing but a myth. Will Western leaders finally learn?
Ottolenghi uses this argument to belittle the Obama administration for its public endorsements of linkage—the idea, accepted by the upper echelons of the U.S. military, that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will help promote U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East.
While it is convenient for Ottolenghi to take up this argument as the Middle East is falling into turmoil, he hasn’t been immune from reverting to the argument that a deep-rooted anti-Semitism is prevalent in the Middle East.
In March, 2010, Ottolenghi wrote on Commentary’s Contentions blog:
A bi-national state is actually more promising than a nation-state […] because it would keep their nationalist dream alive — a dream whereby, as Professor Fouad Ajami once so artfully put it, “there still lurks in the Palestinian and Arab imagination a view, depicted by the Moroccan historian Abdallah Laroui, that “on a certain day, everything would be obliterated and instantaneously reconstructed and the new inhabitants would leave, as if by magic, the land they had despoiled.” Arafat knew the power of this redemptive idea. He must have reasoned that it is safer to ride that idea, and that there will always be another day and another offer.”
And in February 2009, he wrote in Haaretz:
[H]istory shows us that Palestinian demands are rooted in a grievance culture of victimhood, not in facts.
Western-allied Middle Eastern countries are under increasing pressure to yield to protesters’ demands for more representative governments and improvements in human rights. It’s convenient for pro-Israel hawks to hide behind the argument that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had nothing to do with this quickly unraveling situation. But, as Ottolenghi’s contradicting op-eds illustrate, any expression of Palestinian solidarity from a newly democratic Arab government will most likely be met with accusations that an irrational hatred of Israel is central to the Arab psyche.
]]>If a business thought to be IRGC-related is publicly identified, government agencies can better investigate its identity and operations. This may then lead to a designation by one or more Western governments. Even if a business is not designated as IRGC-affiliated, however, the mere act of identification is useful.
His proposal sounds decidedly biased against Iranian companies and Western companies which do business in Iran. But as Ottolenghi makes abundantly clear, this is of little concern:
If some governments prove reluctant to designate a firm even after its exposure, designation by one government alone could raise the reputational and monetary risk faced by Western companies for associating with IRGC shells.
Ottolenghi outlines how, ideally, his guilty-until-proven-innocent system would work [my emphasis]:
But identifying Iranian entities linked to the IRGC is not easy. Take the Ghomroud water conveyance system, a network of tunnels built earlier in the last decade in the Isfahan mountains to improve nearby water supply. Two European companies — Germany’s Wirth and Italy’s Seli — supplied tunnel-drilling machinery and ventilation equipment. On the surface, the project appeared legitimate. But according to documents that were, until recently, available on Wirth’s Web site, the Iranian building contractor for the project was Gharargahe Sazandegi Ghaem, a subsidiary of Khatam al-Anbiya, the IRGC’s largest company. This means that the Iranians could have later used the technology provided by European companies to construct nuclear and ballistic missile facilities, which are often located underground. Given that prospect, Western governments and companies should err on the side of caution in doing business with IRGC-related firms, avoiding contact entirely rather than unwittingly aiding Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Other than the tenuous link that nuclear facilities “are often located underground,” this example provides no indication this company participated in any activities that could be construed as “aiding Iran’s nuclear ambitions.” While Ottolenghi doesn’t mind playing fast and loose with blacklisting companies, it’s worth asking how Germany and Italy will respond to U.S. pronouncements that their companies are “unwittingly” assisting the Iranian nuclear program. And, in the process of “error[ing] on the side of caution,” deny improvements to the Iranian water supply for ordinary Iranians.
The point of this campaign, as outlined in the article, is that “Western countries should redouble their efforts and ensure that Iran’s procurement networks and IRGC companies, at home and abroad, are named, shamed, and banished from the polite company of the corporate world.” FDD, which appears to have an in-house project of designating various German, Swiss, Italian, Chinese and Russian companies as IRGC business partners, is quick to call for ever tighter sanctions regimes.
What Ottolenghi and other FDD fellows don’t explain is how falsely accusing companies of being “IRGC shells”–as is nearly certain to happen with the low-burden of proof described in the frequent op-eds by FDD fellows–will help the U.S. maintain its alliances in the UN sanctions regime. Perhaps more importantly, analysts like Ottolenghi don’t address how their proposed sanctions regime will help everyday Iranians see the United States as anything other than an existential enemy that indiscriminately sanctions Iranian companies doing business with Western firms and pressures foreign governments to sever trading relationships with Iran.
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