• The Financial Times: Daniel Dombey reports that the White House has warned Turkey that it could lose access to U.S. weapons, including drone aircraft that Ankara wants to acquire for use in their fight with the Kurdish separatist PKK party after the United States pulls out of Iraq next year. Dombey quotes a senior administration official as saying, “The president has said to [Prime Minister] Erdogan that some of the actions that Turkey has taken have caused questions to be raised on the Hill [Congress]…about whether we can have confidence in Turkey as an ally. That means that some of the requests Turkey has made of us, for example in providing some of the weaponry that it would like to fight the PKK, will be harder for us to move through Congress.”  The White House was, reportedly, disappointed with Turkey’s opposition to UN sanctions against Iran.

• The Weekly Standard Blog: Michael Anton suggests that the “endgame” for Iran’s alleged nuclear program might be coming as soon as next week if, as planned, Russia will fuel and start Iran’s nuclear reactor at Bushehr by August 21^st. Anton concludes that, “[a]ny nation prepared to incur all that risk from striking Iran’s HEU sites may as well take out Bushehr as well.” Once the Bushehr facility is fully operational an attack might result in a release of poisonous radioactive materials, “Which means that if the story is true, and if the Israelis judge Bushehr to be a dangerous installation, they will have to move quickly — as in, within the next week.” Anton suggests that the Russians might be fueling Bushehr in order to bring about an Israeli or U.S. attack on Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons facilities. “Certainly Moscow has reasons not to welcome a nuclear armed Iran.  Goading someone else into doing the dirty work has significant advantages.”

• The Cable: Josh Rogin writes that the Obama administration may become more vocal in its criticisms of Iranian human rights violations. Rogin suggests that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement criticizing the sentencing of seven Baha’i leaders was the start of a new trend of speaking more openly about Iranian human rights abuses.

• The Christian Science Monitor: Dan Murphy offers three reasons that Israel will bomb Iran. First, Israelis fear that a nuclear Iran may tip the balance of power in the region and spark an arms race among countries which deny Israel’s right to exist. Second, Israeli leaders may think that Iranian leaders are fundamentally irrational and will use a nuclear weapon even if such a decision will result in the destruction of Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, “You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs.”  Third, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust-denying rhetoric makes Israeli leadership concerned that he might act irrationally, creating an existential threat for Israel. (Murphy also offers his three reasons that Israel won’t bomb Iran in a separate article.)

• The Washington Post: George F. Will argues that criticism of Israel’s Gaza War has left Israeli leadership and Benjamin Netanyahu believing that an international consensus is emerging that, “Israel is not allowed to exercise self-defense.”  Will writes, “Any Israeli self-defense anywhere is automatically judged “disproportionate.” Israel knows this as it watches Iran.”  U.S. willingness to pursue engagement with Iran and, according to Will, exhibiting “fatalism” towards Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, will ultimately push Netanyahu to unilaterally attack Iran.

• The New York Daily News: AEI’s Michael Rubin echoes George F. Will’s concerns that the Obama administration is exhibiting signs that it might tolerate a nuclear weapons possessing Iran. Rubin argues that the acquisition of nuclear weapons will position Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as kingmakers and, in a worst case scenario, “…with regime survival a moot point, true believers might use their last moments to launch the bomb to fulfill objectives of destroying Israel or wounding America.” Rubin concludes, “Denying Iran nuclear capability requires tough choices. The Obama administration appears willing to embrace containment and deterrence in order to avoid them. Avoiding decisions is not leadership, however, and may prove deadly.”

• Foreign Policy: Michael Eisenstadt and David Crist, both fellows at the AIPAC-formed and often hawkish Washington Institute for Near East Policy, write that President Obama must “convince Tehran that his outstretched hand can be formed into a fist.” Eisenstadt and Crist argue that some “key” Iranian leaders are likely to instigate a confrontation with the United States, “unless Washington, acting with both caution and firmness, moves to avert such an eventuality.” They call for a warning that the United States will “not necessarily respond in a symmetrical or proportionate manner to Iranian provocations,” citing the example of the failed containment effort against Iraq in the 1990s.

• The Washington Post: While not specifically addressing an Israeli strike against Iran, Columnist George Will fortifies the talking point of a weak Obama and a determined Netanyahu, with the Israeli prime minister’s “focus firmly on Iran.” Will, writing from Jerusalem, draws a caricatured contrast between the two: “Netanyahu, the former commando and fierce nationalist, and Barack Obama, the former professor and post-nationalist.” He ends with an anecdotal boast about Netanyahu’s unwillingness to bend to Washington: “Netanyahu, whom no one ever called cuddly, once said to a U.S. diplomat 10 words that should warn U.S. policymakers who hope to make Netanyahu malleable: ‘You live in Chevy Chase. Don’t play with our future.’”

• The Atlantic: Robert D. Kaplan makes the case that containment might be the best strategy to deal with a nuclear Iran.  Basing his argument on Henry Kissinger’s writings on limited nuclear war, Kaplan concludes that the costs of stopping Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program is dangerously high while the real risks posed by a nuclear-weapons-possessing Iran is lower than many would acknowledge. The numerous shared interests between Shiites and the United States, and the demographic and likely positive ideological and philosophical shifts underway in Iran lead Kaplan to conclude that, “Given this prognosis, and the high cost and poor chances for success of any military effort to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, I believe that containment of a nuclear Iran is the most sensible policy for the United States.”

• Reuters: Russia’s LUKOIL oil company together with China’s state-run energy company Zhuhai Zhenrong are resuming gasoline sales with Iran. Chinese companies have provided half of Iran’s gasoline imports in recent months.

Calling Karzai a “bandit” who “has no interest in assuming the burden of governing Afghanistan,” Ajami stated that the bleakly pessimistic November 2009 memo by U.S. ambassador Karl Eikenberry arguing against a troop surge was “completely on the mark”. He went on to argue that “the Afghanistan campaign can’t be won,” that “there’s nothing to be gained in Afghanistan,” and that the notion of Afghanistan as the “central front” in the war on terror is a myth.

“Look, I was a hawk on the Iraq war, and I didn’t question the Iraq war,” Ajami said. “I haven’t really written much on Afghanistan by way of criticism…but I have dark thoughts about Afghanistan and whether Afghanistan is worth American blood and American treasure.”

His interviewer, former Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson, was clearly expecting something more upbeat and seemed taken aback by Ajami’s criticisms of the war. “Well, I didn’t expect you to be quite so grim about it,” Robinson muttered in response, before asking whether Ajami felt that the recent commitment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan was worth it. Ajami didn’t answer the question directly, but clearly indicated a negative answer, concluding of the war that “it just doesn’t end well.”

Ajami’s blunt attack on the war is particularly interesting given his close connections to the neoconservatives who were the strongest advocates of the recent troop surge. Indeed, if one were to rank the Arabists with the greatest influence on neoconservative thinking about the Middle East, Ajami would likely be second only to Bernard Lewis. Does this influence mean that his criticisms will receive a respectful hearing on the right? Or will he receive the same treatment as previous right-wing critics of the war like George Will, whose September 2009 call for the U.S. to “get out of Afghanistan” brought forth a series of vicious attacks from the neocons alleging cowardice and appeasement? (Peter Wehner’s jab that Will’s column “could have been written in Japanese aboard the USS Missouri” was par for the course.) Perhaps the most likely outcome is that Ajami’s inconvenient criticisms will simply be ignored altogether.