The Washington Post‘s Greg Miller has begun a three-part series on the future of the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism drone strike program, which will include a “next-generation targeting list” (aka “kill list”) in the form of a “dipposition matrix”.

Though the White House, CIA, JSOC and ODNI declined comment requests, the article cites [...]]]> via Lobe Log

The Washington Post‘s Greg Miller has begun a three-part series on the future of the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism drone strike program, which will include a “next-generation targeting list” (aka “kill list”) in the form of a “dipposition matrix”.

Though the White House, CIA, JSOC and ODNI declined comment requests, the article cites “dozens of current and former national security officials, intelligence analysts and others.”

Miller’s report somewhat contradicts the Obama Administration’s frequent assertions that al Qaeda is exhausted and on the run. The officials interviewed essentially offer a redux of the “War on Terror” methodology minus the renditions and speechifying. And, even while touting the success of the program, the Administration remains committed to “embedding” it in national security planning.

According to Miller, the program is meant to outlive the Obama Administration: “White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan is seeking to codify the administration’s approach to generating capture/kill lists, part of a broader effort to guide future administrations through the counterterrorism processes that Obama has embraced.”

The expansion of the US’s drone fleet and African operations were also noted, as was the US’s overall growing reliance on unarmed drone surveillance, now over Libya, and according to the Post, Iran. Meanwhile, The Diplomat notes the US is looking to create a more autonomous drone force that is less dependent on operator-control to carry out missions.

Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations reflects on President Obama’s institutionalization of “extrajudicial killings” in comparison to his predecessor’s more careful approach:

Having spoken with dozens of officials across both administrations, I am convinced that those serving under President Bush were actually much more conscious and thoughtful about the long-term implications of targeted killings than those serving under Obama. In part, this is because more Bush administration officials were affected by the U.S. Senate Select Committee investigation, led by Senator Frank Church, that implicated the United States in assassination plots against foreign leaders—including at least eight separate plans to kill Cuban president Fidel Castro—and President Ford’s Executive Order 11905: “No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.”

As Republican House members grilled State Department officials over the last month’s lethal attacks on U.S. facilities and personnel in Benghazi, Gen. Michael Hayden, George W. Bush’s former CIA director (2006 to 2009) and now a Romney campaign advisor, suggested in a column published on the CNN website that realism [...]]]> via Lobe Log

As Republican House members grilled State Department officials over the last month’s lethal attacks on U.S. facilities and personnel in Benghazi, Gen. Michael Hayden, George W. Bush’s former CIA director (2006 to 2009) and now a Romney campaign advisor, suggested in a column published on the CNN website that realism should govern U.S. actions in the Middle East, as opposed to “wishful thinking:”

In any event, given the administration’s existing narrative about its success against al Qaeda and the inherent attractiveness of the spontaneous attack plotline (a spontaneous attack would be neither predictable nor preventable and therefore less likely to invite blame for a lack of sufficient security), there were likely strong instincts in the White House to accept and publicize the original director of national intelligence assessment regardless of confidence levels or competing analysis.

Strong instincts, but not necessarily good instincts.

…. Even more importantly, if wishful thinking can sometimes create political problems, it could take a far more important toll on the development and implementation of actual policy. The decision to intervene in Libya, though wrapped in a U.N. Security Council resolution to protect innocent life, was also a decision to overthrow the Libyan government, and U.S./NATO airstrikes continued until that goal was achieved.

With that “victory,” Libya was predictably thrown into chaos: no central government, no institutions of civil society, fractious armed militias, a budding jihadist movement in the east, lingering regionalism and tribalism elsewhere. Predictable consequences were not confined to Libya. Awash with weapons and fleeing mercenaries, northern Mali was broken off from the center and became a haven for a strengthening al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

…. Although we were less immediately responsible for the overthrow of regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, we will be no less affected by the outcome in those states. The same will hold true for Syria when the day of reckoning comes for Bashar al-Assad’s regime. What level of effort is the United States prepared to exert?

We shouldn’t fool ourselves. Our influence will often be far from decisive. But neither will it be trivial.

And surely, in a time of global challenges and fiscal pressures, we will have to pick our investments and “interventions” carefully.

But that will require a realistic rather than a wishful appreciation of events.

Over the past year the administration has repeatedly emphasized that “the tide of war is receding” and that “it’s time to do some nation-building here at home.” Many have read this as advertising an American retrenchment from commitments abroad.

Jimmy Carter’s former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, who now serves on a the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, writes that the US should work with regional allies to unite Syrian opposition movements that are in line with Western priorities and arm them:

So, what should be done? In my view, [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Jimmy Carter’s former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, who now serves on a the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, writes that the US should work with regional allies to unite Syrian opposition movements that are in line with Western priorities and arm them:

So, what should be done? In my view, the US could work with Turkey, Saudi Arabia (taking care not to support Islamic extremists), and its NATO allies, especially France and Britain, to create a prospective successor government for Syria, and to arm its military element. Such a government would have to be representative and coherent. And Western powers would need to be sure that their weapons would not fall into potentially unfriendly hands.

The fact that Iran is arming the Assad regime calls for countervailing action. Some have suggested a more active military role for the US, beginning with a no-fly zone. It may come to that. But the French and British, who urged that course in Libya, have made no such proposal for Syria. One reason is that Syria has a substantial air-defense system, which would have to be suppressed by a bombing campaign – causing significant civilian casualties and risking the loss of aircraft and crews.

Before starting down that road, the US should be convinced that military action would not require US ground forces in Syria. It should also be confident (which is impossible now) about the nature of a successor government.

As far as the public record goes, the Obama Administration has so far not moved to provide direct military assistance to the rebels, though according to reports it is involved in sharing intelligence with Turkey and Saudi Arabia and has been providing nonlethal assistance, such as communications equipment.

The administration’s most significant action this week towards Syria was the dispatch of US forces to Jordan so “[w]e have a group of our forces there working to help build a headquarters there and to insure that we make the relationship between the United States and Jordan a strong one so that we can deal with all the possible consequences of what’s happening in Syria,” the AP reports.

In a wide-ranging interview, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell discussed Mitt Romney’s foreign policy speech with neoconservative Romney-adviser Dan Senor, challenging him over his intimation that the Obama administration lacked the will to increase sanctions on Iran two years ago:

SENOR: They talk about all these tough sanctions that they [...]]]> via Lobe Log

In a wide-ranging interview, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell discussed Mitt Romney’s foreign policy speech with neoconservative Romney-adviser Dan Senor, challenging him over his intimation that the Obama administration lacked the will to increase sanctions on Iran two years ago:

SENOR: They talk about all these tough sanctions that they put in place. The question is, why did they wait until 2011 and 2012 to put those sanctions in place in Iran? When Congress was pushing for tough sanctions on Iran in 2009 and 2010 –

MITCHELL: Dan, on that — on that, you know very well that –

SENOR: — the administration was fighting them every step of the way.

MITCHELL: Sir, you know very well –

SENOR: I’m sorry?

MITCHELL: That those were the unilateral — you know those were the unilateral sanctions on the central bank and the reason given by the [T]reasury officials, right or wrong; was that to do that level of sanctions would create an energy crisis at that time because there wasn`t enough other oil –

SENOR: So why — no, Andrea, come on.

MITCHELL: Let me finish the question.

SENOR: Andrea.

MITCHELL: Because I was reporting this in real time.

SENOR: OK. Fair enough.

MITCHELL: What about the multilateral sanctions that this administration achieved with the help of finally getting Russia and China on board from the United Nations which the Bush administration was never able to achieve because there was no understanding or no agreement from the U.N. that diplomacy was being given some time to work.

SENOR: It’s great that we got multilateral sanctions through the U.N. Security Council. Unfortunately the price we paid for getting those sanctions, for getting China and Russia to buy into those sanctions was that the central bank sanctions would not be included. Everyone agrees across the political divide in the United States who follow this issue closely that the central bank sanctions are the ones that have had the real bite.

The administration resisted efforts in Congress repeatedly to get those sanctions in place. Now you can cite, as they often do, the economic implications. It’s not clear to me why there were economic implications in 2009-2010 but there weren’t in 2011-2012, but they also said that it would undermine their diplomatic strategy. Their diplomatic strategy was reaching out to the ayatollahs in Iran with an outstretched hand, unconditional — unconditionally trying to get unconditional talks.

They were silent when there was a genuine protest movement in Iran that would have given political pressure on the regime. All these moments where those economic pressure or political pressure in 2009 and 2010 the administration did nothing because they believed there was this direct deal that they could get done with the — with the regime. It failed. It did not happen.

So it is important that today we have some sanctions in place that are having an impact. We’re simply saying imagine if those sanctions and the kind of political pressure that could be waged had been put in place earlier on, and to say that things are going fine just because the Iranian economy is in bad shape is just a sad statement of the state of affairs.

The goal is not to weaken the Iranian economy. The goal is to stop Iran’s nuclear program. Weakening its economy and weakening the regime politically are means.

MITCHELL: Dan –

SENOR: They are not results. There`s only one measurement that matters. And whether or not Iran is closer to the nuclear weapons program and today they are.

Presently, Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), whose policies are closely associated with the neoconservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is in fact now seeking a “broader ban [Congressional] for Iran central bank deals and “to blacklist entire energy sector of Iran,” Reuters reports.

The National Review Online has run an advance copy of the foreign policy speech GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney will give today in Virginia. In it, the former governor is expected to lay out his “red lines” for Iran that will be closer to Congress and the Israeli government’s position [...]]]> via Lobe Log

The National Review Online has run an advance copy of the foreign policy speech GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney will give today in Virginia. In it, the former governor is expected to lay out his “red lines” for Iran that will be closer to Congress and the Israeli government’s position than the Obama Administration’s. Romney has expressed differing red lines on Iran in the past. Romney is also expected to express support for US arming of Syrian rebels:

It is time to change course in the Middle East. . . .

I will put the leaders of Iran on notice that the United States and our friends and allies will prevent them from acquiring nuclear-weapons capability. I will not hesitate to impose new sanctions on Iran, and will tighten the sanctions we currently have. I will restore the permanent presence of aircraft-carrier task forces in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf region—and work with Israel to increase our military assistance and coordination. For the sake of peace, we must make clear to Iran through actions—not just words—that their nuclear pursuit will not be tolerated.

…. In Syria, I will work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets. Iran is sending arms to Assad because they know his downfall would be a strategic defeat for them. We should be working no less vigorously with our international partners to support the many Syrians who would deliver that defeat to Iran—rather than sitting on the sidelines. It is essential that we develop influence with those forces in Syria that will one day lead a country that sits at the heart of the Middle East.

There are two ways [...]]]> The Washington Post has put up an interview with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on US foreign policy and the 2012 elections. Kissinger states that the US “cannot” go ahead and “make a public announcement than can be used by Israel or any country as its justification for going to war”:

There are two ways to look at red lines. One is, “should we make a public announcement than can be used by Israel or any country as its justification for going to war?” That we cannot do.

No. We cannot subcontract the right to go to war. That is an American decision.

Kissinger also merged Washington’s previously stated red line, an Iranian nuclear weapon, with Israel’s red line, nuclear capability, when arguing that the White House needs to decide what preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon boils down to:

Now, we do need to define for ourselves when we say that nuclear weapons are unacceptable — nuclear weapons capability is unacceptable — we need to know for ourselves what we mean by that. What is the definition?

I would say private red line, publicly decided in terms of tactical necessity.

Kissinger concluded by endorsing Mitt Romney’s “responsible foreign policy.”

On Iran, Mitt Romney told ABC that his “redlines” are essentially the same as Obama’s. But he subsequently changed his position on the subject when pressed by pro-Israel advocates in a private campaign forum, the Cable reports. It’s now unclear which position he and his foreign policy advisors agree on.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Sunday, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney outlined how the US can implement “A New Course for the Middle East”. The article was lacking in terms of substantive policy planning. Its most detailed commentary is reserved for US-Israel relations, but even then it does little [...]]]> via Lobe Log

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Sunday, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney outlined how the US can implement “A New Course for the Middle East”. The article was lacking in terms of substantive policy planning. Its most detailed commentary is reserved for US-Israel relations, but even then it does little more than advance the campaign’s talking points:

The same incomprehension afflicts the president’s policy toward Israel. The president began his term with the explicit policy of creating “daylight” between our two countries. He recently downgraded Israel from being our “closest ally” in the Middle East to being only “one of our closest allies.” It’s a diplomatic message that will be received clearly by Israel and its adversaries alike. He dismissed Israel’s concerns about Iran as mere “noise” that he prefers to “block out.” And at a time when Israel needs America to stand with it, he declined to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Aaron David Miller, who has been critical of the “daylight” between Obama and Netanyahu, wrote in Foreign Policy that the op-ed offers nothing to show what Romney would do differently from Obama if elected with Iran or other issues in the region:

Even by the standards of political silly season and in the heat of battle weeks before an election — when exaggeration, obfuscation, and willful distortion become the orders of the day — this article sets a new bar for its vacuity, aimlessness and lack of coherence. There’s nothing “new” in it, and it provides no “course for the Middle East.” If anything, it takes us back to the kind of muscular nonsense and sloganeering that has wreaked havoc on our credibility in recent years.

Ahead of tonight’s first 2012 presidential debate, new questions are being raised about the Obama Administration’s policies on counterterrorism abroad — one of the Administration’s main foreign policy record talking points — in light of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi Libya that killed four Americans.

Darrell Issa (R-CA) [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Ahead of tonight’s first 2012 presidential debate, new questions are being raised about the Obama Administration’s policies on counterterrorism abroad — one of the Administration’s main foreign policy record talking points — in light of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi Libya that killed four Americans.

Darrell Issa (R-CA) has called for Secretary of State Clinton to testify at a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on how the State Department weighed two bomb attacks on the consulate in the preceding months in light of increased security concerns over US assets in Libya. Republicans are also questioning whether the Administration maintained for several days that the attacks were the result of anti-American riots over a film in order to deflect blame for not seeing a pre-planned attack coming. But according to The Daily Beast/Newsweek, the CIA informed top officials in a briefing three days after the attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens — when UN Ambassador Susan Rice was asserting that the attacks were the result of the riots — that “the events were spontaneous.”

That briefing, the report notes, has since been called into question. The Associated Press reports that “[w]ithin hours of last month’s attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, President Barack Obama’s administration received about a dozen intelligence reports suggesting militants connected to al Qaeda were involved,” yet the official messaging remained contradictory. According to the LA Times, the US reportedly began tracking suspected militants in Libya by drone and wire-intercepts in the aftermath of the attack, suggesting that there were concerns in advance over their intentions towards the consulate.

The Associated Press also reports that questions over the attacks — which became a flashpoint in this presidential campaign raised by Republicans are likely to become a venue for criticizing the Administration’s Mideast policies. Politico reports that within the Romney campaign, there is division among his advisors over whether or not to shift some focus from the economy over onto the Benghazi attacks, with campaign manager Stuart Stevens against making such a shift, likely due to the strong backlash against Romney’s earlier comments that were made without knowledge of the four Americans killed in Libya.

But given the internal rifts within the campaign over Stevens’s leadership style, it’s not certain that foreign policy pundits have lost the battle, as they continue to assail Obama on Libya alongside Congressional Republicans demanding an investigation into what intelligence warnings the State Department may have had ahead of September 11, 2012 but failed to act on. The Christian Science Monitor

 suggested that Republicans will be “Jimmy Carterizing Obama” in spite of such internal debate, as those close to the campaign — such as former UN Ambassador and Romney advisor John Bolton — have pulled no punches in their TV appearances.

Of all the prominent Republican critics, only Senator John McCain (R-AZ) — while still demanding the Administration clarify its contradictory remarks about the attacks — has offered a qualified defense of the US’s overall record of intervention Libya, criticizing his interviewers on Fox News last month for suggesting that Libyans generally supported the attackers. In fact, tens of thousands of Benghazi residents demonstrated against Islamist militias soon after the attacks and the government launched a crackdown on suspects and loose weapons in the city.

McCain has also charged the Administration is retreating from the region, but the US intelligence and military presence is set to increase in Libya in the coming weeks now that the intelligence community has fingered several pre-existing Islamist organizations in “chatter” over the attacks.

The personal and controversial nature of much of the criticism over what has been one of the Administration’s most concrete achievements in the Middle East since 2008 seems to be wearing patience thin in the White House.

The Administration’s growing anger over the criticism being aired against it was best exemplified in an expletive-filled exchange between one of Secretary of State Clinton’s top aides and journalist Max Hastings this week. Hastings defended CNN’s controversial use of the late ambassador’s recovered diary in its Libyan reporting last month. The Administration is upset with CNN’s handling of the diary partly because the network tried to keep its use of his diary quiet. But the diary is also embarrassing from a policy standpoint because in it, CNN says the late ambassador was concerned the consulate was being targeted by terrorists.

Unnamed officials now concede that the US had (general) concerns about targeting in the months prior to the attack, such that special forces teams were dispatched to Libya and other Muslim countries to set up rapid-response counterterrorism centers. According to the AP report that quoted these officials, the center in Libya was too new to have offered sufficient advance warning.

There may be further Beltway discussion of Obama’s Middle East record based on a report in the Wall Street Journal detailing how Egypt’s new Muslim Brotherhood President has been cutting deals with Islamist groups to release batches of their members imprisoned by Hosni Mubarak. The majority of these men — who were tortured by Mubarak’s security services for years — are thought to be political prisoners now too old and bruised to pose any security threats. But several of those freed, the Journal reports, are still active as militant organizers. One of those released was Muhammad Jamal Abu Ahmad, an Egyptian national who is believed to be the main point-man for an al Qaeda core leadership seeking to (re)assert it’s presence in the Maghreb.

Ahmad is reportedly seeking to step up operations in Libya under his own aegis against Libyan and American targets.

*This week’s must read is “Obama’s Counterproductive New Iran Sanctions: How Washington is Sliding [...]]]> In response to a worrying trend in U.S. politics Lobe Log has launched Iran Hawk Watch. Each Friday we will post on notable militaristic commentary about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.

*This week’s must read is “Obama’s Counterproductive New Iran Sanctions: How Washington is Sliding Toward Regime Change”. Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution writes:

The Obama administration’s new sanctions signal the demise of the paradigm that had guided U.S. Iran policymaking since the 1979 revolution: the combination of pressure and persuasion. Moreover, the decision to outlaw contact with Iran’s central bank puts the United States’ tactics and its long-standing objective — a negotiated end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions — fundamentally at odds. Indeed, the United States cannot hope to bargain with a country whose economy it is trying to disrupt and destroy. As severe sanctions devastate Iran’s economy, Tehran will surely be encouraged to double down on its quest for the ultimate deterrent. So, the White House’s embrace of open-ended pressure means that it has backed itself into a policy of regime change, something Washington has little ability to influence.

Also check out “Forgetting Iraq, Republicans Thirst For War Against Iran”, by John Tirman.

Mainstream Media and Pundits:

Washington Post: Using the “military option” against Iran and Mitt Romney get a plug from the WaPo’s hawk-in-chief, Jennifer Rubin. Perhaps more zealously than any other prominent media figure, Rubin has been agitating for war with Iran. Even before the most crippling Iran sanctions that have ever been implemented are in full swing, she is recommending that congress prepare for war while the administration educates the public about why it’s necessary. The more Obama gives to the Iran hawks, the more they demand:

The administration and the president specifically also need to begin a period of public education to explain why it is imperative that Iran not get nuclear weapons and why it is both advantageous (because of our military resources) and essential (because of our position as leader of the free world and guarantor of the West’s security) to do the job, if it becomes necessary, rather than let Israel do the heavy lifting. The duty to educate and prepare the American people is critical and in and of itself will enhance the credibility of a military option.

Wall Street Journal: Even while acknowledging that Iran’s threats to close the Strait of Hormuz are desperate “bluster”, the hawkish WSJ editorial board urges the U.S. to act in ways which would likely be interpreted as provocation by the Iranians:

Meantime, the best response to Iran’s threats would be to send an American aircraft carrier back through the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible, with flags waving and guns at the ready.

Past and Present U.S. Officials:

Victoria Nuland: Yesterday, during the daily press briefing, State Department spokesperson Nuland (the wife of neoconservative Iraq war hawk Robert Kagan) said getting multilateral support for the U.S.’s latest sanctions against Iran “will be an important next step in the global effort to tighten the noose on their regime.” From the beginning the Obama administration has rejected adopting regime change as its official Iran policy, opting for sanctions and some limited diplomacy instead, so was this comment a Freudian slip from Nuland or does it signal something bigger? Nuland’s curious comments bring Maloney’s argument to mind.

Mark Kirk: The AIPAC-favorite senator who coauthored the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act imposing sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank wants the President to implement them no matter what. Obama said he would treat the provisions as “non-binding” if they interfered with his “constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations”, but Kirk said that wasn’t as important as crippling Iran’s economy. The push to sanction Iran’s Central Bank has been ongoing since 2008, but it reached its climax in the summer with heavy lobbying from AIPAC and hawkish members of congress. In October Kirk told a radio show that he had no problem with “taking food out of the mouths” of ordinary Iranians to take down their government, which sounds a lot like collective punishment. Kirk’s pressure on Obama is backed by the likes of prominent neoconservative analyst, Michael Rubin, and Commentary’s editor, Jonathan Tobin, both of whom opined about Obama’s non-binding comment this week.

Mitt Romney: According to former AIPAC-staffer M. J. Rosenberg, Romney’s hawkish stance on Iran (echoed this week at his Iowa Caucus speech) is the result of his many neoconservative advisers:

Fifteen of the 22 worked on foreign policy for the George W. Bush administration and six were members of the original neoconservative group, Project for the New American Century, that famously called on President Clinton in 1998 to begin “implementing a strategy for removing Saddam’s regime from power.” Its rationale: Saddam was producing weapons of mass destruction.

A detailed examination of another Romney-adviser, Walid Phares, can be found here.

Rick Santorum: The Republican presidential hopeful said this week that if he was elected, he would go to war with Iran over its disputed nuclear program:

And finally, I would be working openly with the state of Israel and I would be saying to the Iranians, you either open up those facilities, you begin to dismantle them and make them available to inspectors or we will degrade those facilities through air strikes – and make it very public that we are doing that.

The release this week of a U.N. report with detailed findings pointing toward potential Iranian nuclear weapons work saw a chorus of right-wing calls for war with Iran. Yesterday, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney came out with a Wall Street Journal op-ed threatening [...]]]> Reposted by arrangement with Think Progress

The release this week of a U.N. report with detailed findings pointing toward potential Iranian nuclear weapons work saw a chorus of right-wing calls for war with Iran. Yesterday, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney came out with a Wall Street Journal op-ed threatening war with the Islamic Republic, delivering the message to the Iranians that “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

In the wake of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report on Iran — which, despite the hype, may not be quite the “game-changer” hawks had hoped for — one prominent Romney adviser went further than the candidate, calling for a military strike against Iran. Eric Edelman, a former staffer to Vice President Dick Cheney and board member of a neoconservative pressure group, warned in the journal Foreign Policy that, if Iran goes nuclear, there would be a series of terrible consequence. After raising the “possibility of an Israeli-Iranian nuclear conflict” — ie, nuclear war — in an article headlined “Why Obama Should Take Out Iran’s Nuclear Program: The Case For Striking Before It’s Too Late,” Edelman and his co-authors wrote:

The closer Iran gets to acquiring nuclear weapons, the fewer options will be available to stop its progress. At the same time, Iran’s incentives to back down will only decrease as it approaches the nuclear threshold. Given these trends, the United States faces the difficult decision of using military force soon to prevent Iran from going nuclear, or living with a nuclear Iran and the regional fallout.

Edelman’s hawkishness on Iran is not new: In a January article in the same journal, he wrote with the same co-authors: “The military option should not be dismissed because of the appealing but flawed notion that containment is a relatively easy or low-risk solution to a very difficult problem.”

As ThinkProgress has noted, hawks abound on the Romney campaign foreign policy team — among them, those who pushed for the Iraq war and a slew who’ve pressed the case for attacking Iran. One even advocates for a controversial Iranian exile group that the State Department considers a terrorist organization. (HT: Marc Lynch)