Now, Paul is not a foaming-at-the-mouth neocon. But neither do his views on the Middle East seem likely fulfill the hopes that the Leveretts have for the Tea Party — namely, providing “the most outspoken congressional opponents of potential moves by the Obama Administration toward military confrontation with Iran.”
For a more fleshed out account of the direction of the Tea Party’s foreign policy, check out Scott McConnell’s piece at Right Web. McConnell, a founding editor of the American Conservative, described the different approaches of neoconseravtives and Tea Partiers who tend toward fiscally-conservative restraint and writes:
Thus far, the neoconservatives appear to be parrying the challenge effectively. The question is, can the neocons, as they have with other political factions in the past, successfully co-opt this new political force in such a way as to make it amenable to their goals?
McConnell notes that Palin was discovered by neoconservative don Bill Kristol. Those Tea Partiers who have actually been successful (winning or garnering great followings and attention) have been courted by — and often seemed to please — Israel lobby forces and some neoconservative influences.
Take Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio, who will represent Florida in the Senate as of early January. The day after winning his seat, Rubio announced a visit to Israel. During the campaign, Rubio, much to the excitement of neoconservatives, said that the U.S. should attack Iran to prevent it from getting nuclear weapons. Likewise, Utah’s Senator-elect Mike Lee, another Tea Partier, met with Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu and ran on a platform that “military action [against Iran] would be justified.” Both Senators-elect said the U.S. should allow Israel to strike Iran.
The picture with Rand Paul is significantly more complicated than what the Leveretts present. Comments Paul made during the campaign in May sparked a minor blog squabble between various elements of the “old right” — the American Conservative‘s Daniel Larison and Antiwar.com‘s Justin Raimondo. (Both could claim the “old right” mantle before the Tea Party was even a glimmer in the eye of Rick Santelli or the Koch brothers.)
Just a week after the mid-term elections that elevated Rubio, Lee and Paul to the Senate, McConnell gave an updated breakdown of Paul’s views in his Right Web piece:
On the other hand, Rand Paul, the son of the isolationist icon and early Tea Party favorite Ron Paul, has studiously avoided discussion of foreign policy issues in his campaign. In October, a GQ article reported that after Paul’s primary win he met with prominent neoconservatives Bill Kristol, Tom Donnelly of AEI, and Dan Senor (cofounder of the Foreign Policy Initiative) in Washington to talk foreign policy. While he once criticized the Republicans’ “military adventurism,” opposed the war in Iraq, and “scoffed at the threat of Iranian nukes,” he may have begun changing his positions. Senor categorized Paul as “in absorption mode” and not “cemented in his views.” Paul later met with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, where he reportedly “told them what they wanted to hear” and distanced himself from his father, who has been critical of the extent of U.S. support for Israel.
McConnell concludes by noting that the Tea Party has a strong “religious” right element as well as a “libertarian” one.
The “religious” element is likely aligned with Christian Zionists such as John Hagee and his Christians United for Israel (CUFI), whose views on the Middle East profess a Greater Israel Zionism even more fervent and violent than one finds in most public neoconservative quarters (the two groups are already strong allies). As with the neocons, Christian Zionists tend to take a moralistic worldview that finds any and all enemies of Israel (particularly Muslims) to be “evil” — unredeemable to the point of requiring extermination by force (otherwise known as Armageddon, or the final battle between good and evil, a central piece of Christian Zionist eschatology.)
Furthermore, the “libertarian” elements of the Tea Party might indeed include those who, confronted by the wider consequences of an attack on Iran, would recoil at the idea of a broad and unpredictable Middle East war. But neoconservatives — in attempting to build a diverse coalition for their aggressive policies — will constantly downplay these negative wider consequences of an assault. (As they did during much of the panel on the “kinetic option” at the big Foundation for Defense of Democracies Iran confab earlier this month.)
And as for fiscally minded small-government ideologues from either branch of the Tea Party, they will come to learn that the cost of a bombing run will only be the price of a warehouse full of ordinance, smart bombs, drones with Hellfire missiles, and the fuel to get it all into Iranian territory. That just ain’t that much dough.
If the Leveretts so choose, they can take heart that there might indeed be some Tea Partiers who, as they put it, “are stalwart in their criticism of the Iraq war and their determination that the United States not launch another ‘war of choice’ in the Middle East that will end up doing even greater damage to America’s interests and international standing.” But I’m not going to hold out hope on this score.
Tea Partiers who make it into the halls of power will likely have their principles watered down by that power. The opinions of Tea Party activists in the field won’t concern neoconservatives, who are known for focusing their efforts on elites — what journalist Sidney Blumenthal called the “Counter Establishment” in his 1986 book. Irving Kristol once said that with a magazine that has “a circulation of a few hundred, you could change the world.” (Some recent populist outreach on YouTube and other mediums notwithstanding.)
The Tea Party — or even a significant portion of it — seems to me to be an unlikely part of any coalition in Washington that will work to stop the United States from starting a war with Iran.
]]>These are the same allegations that Dennis Ross, Obama’s top National Security Council official for [...]]]>
These are the same allegations that Dennis Ross, Obama’s top National Security Council official for Iran policy, pushed back against in his talk yesterday at a U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) event.
In the Leveretts’ piece, they cite a Huffington Post article by Reza Marashi, who just joined the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) as research director after four years in the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs:
It should now be clear that U.S. policy has never been a true engagement policy. By definition, engagement entails a long-term approach that abandons “sticks” and reassures both sides that their respective fears are unfounded. We realized early on that the administration was unlikely to adopt this approach. [...]
Moreover, as the leaked cables show, the highest levels of the Obama administration never believed that diplomacy could succeed. While this does not cheapen Obama’s Nowruz message and other groundbreaking facets of his initial outreach, it does raise three important questions: How can U.S. policymakers give maximum effort to make diplomacy succeed if they admittedly never believed their efforts could work? …And what are the chances that Iran will take diplomacy seriously now that it knows the U.S. never really did? The Obama administration presented a solid vision, but never truly pursued it.
This is pretty damning stuff from a guy who just left the Obama State Department. He was on the inside. And the Leveretts are feeling vindicated:
This, of course, provides additional powerful and public confirmation—from inside the Obama Administration—for our argument, in a New York Times Op Ed published in May 2009, that the Obama Administration’s disingenuous approach to dealing with Iran had already betrayed the early promise of President Obama’s initial rhetoric about engagement.
They mention that Ross was quite displeased with what they then had to say, and he let them know. The Leveretts note that Ross had Ray Takeyh, then his assistant at the State Department, push back against the notion that Obama’s “extended hand” to Iran was a checklist item for building international backing for more pressure on Iran, and possibly eventually military strikes. Takeyh called the idea “wrong and fraudulent.”
The Leveretts want to know what Takeyh thinks now:
]]>In light of the Wikileaks cables and Mr. Marashi’s public confirmation that the Obama Administration was, in fact, pursuing engagement to pave the way for more coercive options, including expanded sanctions, we ask Ray Takeyh: who was perpetrating a fraud with regard to the underlying intent of the Administration’s Iran policy?
The catch? For years the United States has been accused [...]]]>
The catch? For years the United States has been accused of lending support to Jundullah as a way of fomenting instability in Iran’s ethnic Baluchi southeast.
From State’s press release:
On November 3, 2010 the Secretary of State announced the designation of Jundallah, a violent extremist organization that operates primarily in the province of Sistan va Balochistan of Iran, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) [...]
Since its inception in 2003, Jundallah has engaged in numerous attacks resulting in the death and maiming of scores of Iranian civilians and government officials, primarily in Iran’s Sistan va Balochistan province. Jundallah uses a variety of terrorist tactics, including suicide bombings, ambushes, kidnappings and targeted assassinations.
Iran responded late last month to an invitation to the November P5+1 talks on its nuclear program. Whether the latest move by the U.S. is a concession or a confidence building measure, it’s worth noting the State Department recently seems to be taking aim at Iranian national pride, such as referring to the “Persian Gulf” as the “Arabian Gulf” (see here and here).
Nonetheless, the statement on Jundullah was welcomed in Tehran, even as it bashed U.S. covert support for anti-regime groups there. According to the Iran’s semi-official news service, ISNA:
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast called the US designation of Rigi group as terrorist a “right measure.”
“Fighting terrorism is a general responsibility of all nations and the Islamic Republic of Iran regards the US measure in blacklisting Rigi terrorist group as a right measure,” he added.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will evaluate change in the US policy on supporting terrorist groups of Jundullah (Soldiers of God), PJAK and Tondar in practice.”
Politico foreign policy blogger Laura Rozen suggests that the designation of Jundallah as a terror group could be “signal” to Iran ahead of negotiations. She quoted an unnamed Washington Iran expert who said the move is clearly aimed at engaging Iran:
The designation of Jundullah shows “one bureaucratic fight in favor of engagement was won,” one Washington Iran expert said on condition of anonymity. “But whether it’s sufficient or not and how it is followed up remains to be seen.”
U.S. geo-strategists Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett, writing on their blog, called the move a “notable turn-around” and “long overdue.” They lay out some little known history that early-on the Obama administration had considered designating Jundullah, but didn’t do so in the wake of Iran’s disputed June 2009 election. The Leveretts point out:
Since then, the perception that the United States continues to have ties to Jundallah and other groups considered terrorists by most Iranians has had a deeply corrosive effect on Iranian assessments of the Obama Administration’s seriousness about strategic engagement with Iran and its ultimate intentions towards the Islamic Republic.
As the Leveretts report, Obama inherited the wide-ranging covert program against Iran from George W. Bush, whose administration had greatly increased funding for regime change activities and subversion on Iran’s nuclear program.
In July 2008 New Yorker, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote about the expansion of Bush’s program (with my emphasis):
One of the most active and violent anti-regime groups in Iran today is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, which describes itself as a resistance force fighting for the rights of Sunnis in Iran. “This is a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists,” [Council on Foreign Relations scholar Vali] Nasr told me. “They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture.” [...] According to [former CIA agent Bob] Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefitting from U.S. support.
A blog post on the Wall Street Journal website sums up much of the (thin) evidence for U.S. support of Jundullah, and quotes an earlier unequivocal denial to the blog from the State Department that such support had ever occurred:
]]>“We have repeatedly stated, and reiterate again that the United States has not provided support to Jundallah,” a [State] spokesman emailed. “The United States does not sponsor any form of terrorism. We will continue to work with the international community to curtail support for terrorist organizations and prevent violence against innocent civilians. We have also encouraged other governments to take comparable actions against Jundallah.”
Jenkins paints a picture very much in contrast to the accusation that Iran has “dug in its heels,” as David Sanger and William Broad put it in the lede of their New York Times story on the report. The Leveretts, in their introduction to Jenkins’s piece, cite the Times piece, and the juxtaposition is informative. (I recommend reading Jenkins’s account then Sanger and Broad’s.) The latter seems to intimate that Iran’s deficiencies, as far as the IAEA is concerned, are a new development.
On the other hand, Jenkins provides context — combining the history of tensions between the agency and Iran with a measured assessment of Iran’s aims — to demonstrate the report “sheds no new light” on just about anything. Instead, it appears to restate what has been the status quo since 2006, when the IAEA reported Iran’s pre-2003 dabbling in weapons related enrichment activity to the Security Council. This enraged the Iranians, causing them to not apply or bring into force additional protocols.
This is key: the additional protocols are the very reporting measures that allow the IAEA to fully account for all of Iran’s stockpiles of nuclear material and activities. Jenkins explains:
Given that international pressure for Iran to apply the additional protocol has been intense, it is not surprising that since 2006 IAEA reports have stressed that the agency is not in a position to confirm that all nuclear material is in peaceful use (or that there is no undeclared nuclear material in Iran). This statement is designed to add to the pressure. Beyond that the statement is no more than a necessary consequence of Iran’s refusal to apply the additional protocol. The same words could be used by the IAEA Director General if he were producing a report on another state that has declined to bring an additional protocol into force, e.g. Israel, Egypt or Brazil. The phrase cannot, and should not, be taken to imply that the IAEA has (or has not) specific grounds to suspect the presence of undeclared material, or the existence of undeclared activities.
Jenkins also provides analysis of likely Iranian motives and aims. He gives the frank assessment — in the case of Iran’s “ultra-legalistic view of its safeguards obligations” (applying the letter of its nuclear agreements but not the spirit) and its refusal to apply the additional protocols — that Iran may well be hurting its own interests.
The “ultra-legalistic approach encourages the inference that Iran has something to hide,” observes Jenkins, noting it is likely a result of Iran’s view of the perceived injustice of the IAEA’s 2006 report to the Security Council. Likewise, Iran’s decision to not apply the additional protocol leaves room for suspicion, since the “IAEA is only able to confirm the absence of undeclared nuclear material or activities in a state if that state has brought into force an additional protocol.”
Like the Iranians, Jenkins point to one of the fundamental hypocrisies of of the West’s nuclear stand-off with Iran — that it’s a double standard. It’s his concluding paragraph. I’ll end it with it, too, and add that his essay is worth reading in full.
]]>The report makes clear that Iran is continuing to defy the will of the Security Council. That puts Iran on the wrong side of the law, since UN chapter VII resolutions are legally binding on UN member states. Iranian representatives would no doubt argue that legal obligations freely entered into (e.g. NPT obligations) are different in nature from legal obligations imposed on a state against its will, especially obligations imposed by an instance that Iranians may well think of as a “kangeroo court”. Iran could also point out that it is not the only UN member state to have defied the will of the Security Council. Some others (e.g. Israel) appear to have been able to do so with impunity.
The editorial board attributed South Korea’s cooperation on sanctions to its “growing up as a democracy,” and Japan’s acquiescence on the issue as a much needed about-face from [...]]]>
The editorial board attributed South Korea’s cooperation on sanctions to its “growing up as a democracy,” and Japan’s acquiescence on the issue as a much needed about-face from its “needless tiff with the White House over a troop relocation agreement in Okinawa.”
While glossing over the complexities of both Seoul and Tokyo’s relationships with Washington — which, I think it’s fair to say, amount to a lot more than South Korea “growing up” and Japan’s mea culpa for a “needless tiff” — the seeming tightening of the sanctions regime on Tehran should be put in context.
Reports do seem to confirm that sanctions have had a measurable and noticeable effect on Iran’s trading relationships, but sanctions have also resulted in Iran expanding trading relationships in Latin America and Africa, and looking towards expanding trade with much bigger economies, such as China.
According to All Headline News:
Chinese Transport Minister Liu Zhijun is expected to visit Iran Sunday to sign a $2 billion contract to build a 360-mile-long railway linking key Iranian destinations that could later join to existing Iraq and Syrian railway networks and extending to the Mediterranean Sea.
Experts on U.S.-Iran relations Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett responded to the little-reported news item on China’s expanding trade relationship with Iran on their blog, The Race for Iran, writing:
None of the initiatives discussed in the news report cited above violate UN sanctions against Iran. In fact, we cannot see how these efforts would even violate U.S. or other unilaterally-defined national sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Nevertheless, there have been other indications in recent weeks that China is not going to let a U.S.-led push to maximize Iran’s international economic isolation get in the way of Sino-Iranian economic ties. India has taken a similar position, see here, and may, like China, be acting to strengthen its economic and strategic ties to Iran.
Indeed, a look at Iran’s trading partners clearly shows the importance of China’s huge economy to Tehran.
According to the CIA World Fact Book, Iran’s Export economy breaks down as follows:
China 16.58%, Japan 11.9%, India 10.54%, South Korea 7.54%, Turkey 4.36% (2009)
And its import economy is also worth examining.
UAE 15.14%, China 13.48%, Germany 9.66%, South Korea 7.16%, Italy 5.27%, Russia 4.81%, India 4.12% (2009)
No doubt Japan and South Korea’s implementation of sanctions will change those statistics, but China and India’s growing regional and global clout would indicate that Tehran’s trading relationships with these regional powerhouses will become an increasingly important component of the Islamic Republic’s foreign trade. As sanctions tighten on Iran’s economy, no one should be surprised to see Tehran turn to alternative, non-western aligned economies to fill the gaps.
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