Michael Ledeen, a neoconservative polemicist and long-time Iran hawk who joined the Foundation for Defense of Democracies after leaving the American Enterprise Institute in 2008, is being honest when he reminds us here that he has opposed direct US military intervention in Iran. For Ledeen, Iranian-regime change is more attainable if [...]]]>
Michael Ledeen, a neoconservative polemicist and long-time Iran hawk who joined the Foundation for Defense of Democracies after leaving the American Enterprise Institute in 2008, is being honest when he reminds us here that he has opposed direct US military intervention in Iran. For Ledeen, Iranian-regime change is more attainable if it’s executed from the ground up, and the US should do everything it can to facilitate that process. In 2010 he unapologetically argued that the US should covertly or openly support regime change-inclined Iranians during a debate at the Atlantic Council and reiterated that argument in “Takedown Tehran“ this year. (For some reason Ledeen seems to think that the Green Movement would invite the regime-change-oriented US support he advocates, even if key opposition figures have opposed the broad sanctions that he endorses. This may be due to his allegedly well-informed sources, some of whom have led him astray in the past.)
In any case, sanctions should be part of the US regime-change strategy, argues Ledeen, who promoted the US invasion of Iraq (although he later denied doing so), but sanctions alone will never be the means to his desired end:
But I don’t know anyone this side of the White House who believes that sanctions, by themselves, will produce what we should want above all: the fall of the Tehran regime that is the core of the war against us. To accomplish that, we need more than sanctions; we need a strategy for regime change.
Like fellow ideologues — such as Bret Stephens, a Wall Street Journal deputy editor and “Global View” columnist – Ledeen argues that the US must also execute a war strategy with Iran because like it or not, we’re already at war (for a closer look at this line of reasoning, see Farideh’s post):
But even if all these are guided from Washington and/or Jerusalem, it still does not add up to a war-winning strategy, which requires a clearly stated mission from our maximum leaders. We need a president who will say “Khamenei and Ahmadinejad must go.” He must say it publicly, and he must say it privately to our military, to our diplomats, and to the intelligence community.
Without that commitment, without that mission — and it’s hard to imagine it, isn’t it? — we’ll continue to spin our wheels, mostly playing defense, sometimes enacting new sanctions, sometimes wrecking the mullahs’ centrifuges, forever hoping that the mullahs will make a deal. Until the day when one of those Iranian schemes to kill even more Americans works out, and we actually catch them in the act. Then our leaders will say “we must go to war.”
But Ledeen’s Washington Times column this week suggests that he may be pivoting toward the military option:
I have long opposed military action against the Iranian regime. I believe we should instead support democratic revolution. However, our failure to work for regime change in Iran and our refusal to endorse Mr. Netanyahu’s call for a bright “red line” around the mullahs’ nuclear weapons program, makes war more likely, as similar dithering and ambiguity have so often in the past.
Interestingly, in August Ledeen stated that the Israeli strategy was to push the US to attack Iran:
…Israel does not want to do it. For as long as I can remember, the Israelis have been trying to get U.S. to do it, because they have long believed that Iran was so big that only a big country could successfully take on the mullahs in a direct confrontation. So Israel’s Iran policy has been to convince us to do whatever the Israelis think is best. And while they’re willing to do their part, they are very reluctant to take on the entire burden.
“Faster, Please!”, right?
]]>Weekly Reads/Watch:
- News: US PRESIDENT Barack Obama accelerated cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear [...]]]>Weekly Reads/Watch:
- - News: US PRESIDENT Barack Obama accelerated cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear program, the New York Times reports
- News: U.S. officials among the targets of Iran-linked assassination plots
- News: After Talks Falter, Iran Says It Won’t Halt Uranium Work
- News: Think tank publishes satellite pictures said to show Iran nuclear cleanup
- Opinion: Moving Away from War with Iran
- Opinion: Predictable Responses to the Baghdad Talks
- Opinion: Iran nuclear talks succeed just by continuing
- Opinion: The Iran-Negotiations Marathon
- Opinion: Terrorists? Us?
- Opinion: Tehran’s Noise Is All Bluster
- Watch: Insider’s Account of Iran’s Nuclear Negotiations
- Podcast: Assessing the Baghdad Nuclear Talks
- Report: Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: The blogger who wants the U.S. to go to war with Iran on Israel’s behalf agitates for a U.S. war with Iran, again:
With a competent and responsible administration, we’d be very publicly drawing up a military option, putting ships in the region and consulting with Congress about our options. We might even discuss with Israel its “red lines” — and let that discussion become public. We would be justified in taking all steps needed to unleash a military option and/or to support Israel in the event of hostilities. But we don’t.
But while Rubin thumps her neoconservative chest in alleged support for Israel, the majority of Israeli defense chiefs oppose an attack on Iran. Hmmm…
Mark Dubowitz, US News: The director of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies who has reportedly been a main architect of the Obama administration’s Iran sanctions policy advocates military strikes on the Islamic Republic:
“The last thing the president wants is an attack before the election in November—especially an Israeli attack,” says Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Still, it might be possible to take out Iranian facilities where the obstinate regime is believed to be producing nuclear centrifuges, Dubowitz says.
“The centrifuge-production facilities are the key choke points for the broader program,” Dubowitz says. “If Israelis know where they are and do bomb them, a strike like that could set the program back 10 years. And I think the Israelis have a pretty good idea where they are. Those facilities would be central to any military plan.”
Danielle Pletka, Washington Post: The long time hawk and vice president of the American Enterprise Institute argues that the U.S. should intervene in Syria because it will serve as a “blow” to Iran:
Another political virtue is the impact intervention would have on Iran. Ousting Tehran’s last reliable satellite regime and replacing it with a Sunni, democratic government would reassure our friends in the region that Washington is determined to stand up to Iran when necessary. Even those who oppose involvement in the Syrian conflict allow that the loss of Assad would be a blow to the Islamic republic.
Michael Ledeen, Pajamas Media: The neoconservative pundit and Foundation for Defense of Democracies “freedom scholar” advocates U.S.-backed regime change in Iran:
]]>Sanctions will neither stop the Iranian nuclear program nor stop the Real War. Only a change in regime can accomplish that. To that end, sanctions could be a positive force if they were combined with support for the Iranian opposition. Just ask the Revolutionary Guards how serious the resistance is: the RG just deployed an additional eight thousand soldiers—some in uniform, others in plain clothes–in the streets of Tehran.But no Western leader cares to help the Iranian opposition, even verbally. When those leaders say “no option is off the table,” they mean some day there might be a military attack against Iran. But financial and tactical assistance to the Iranian people willing to actively fight for freedom is totally off any Western strategic table;
The Wall Street Journal: Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes that Afghanistan is costly and “a strategic distraction,” and that U.S. military resources could be better used by preparing for a conflict with North Korea and Iran. Haass says [...]]]>
The Wall Street Journal: Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes that Afghanistan is costly and “a strategic distraction,” and that U.S. military resources could be better used by preparing for a conflict with North Korea and Iran. Haass says an important factor is, “[T]he increased possibility of a conflict with a reckless North Korea and the continued possibility of a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program. U.S. military forces must be freed up to contend with these issues.” While “total withdrawal is not the answer,” he concludes that “The perception that we are tied down in Afghanistan makes it more difficult to threaten North Korea or Iran credibly—and makes it more difficult to muster the forces to deal with either if necessary.”
New York Post: An editorial in NY’s Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid picks up on the threats of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps general that Iran will retaliate for the assassinations of its nuclear scientists. “It may sound like an empty threat, or an unhinged response,” write the Post editors. “But the threat is dead serious — proof of how hellbent Iran is to split the atom.” They add: “For Iran, nukes are its foreign policy — along with the terror it exports to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.” They add the threat of nuclear war looms large if Iran gets the bomb: “An atomic Iran could launch traditional military and terrorist attacks and tie the world’s hands by threatening nuclear war when any nation moves to fight back. By then it won’t have to rattle its sabers — it can aim its nukes instead.”
Pajamas Media: Foundation for Defense of Democracies scholar Michael Ledeen writes that last week’s terror attack in Southeastern Iran wasn’t a terror attack at all, but was “against the symbols and enforcers of the Shi’ite regime: Revolutionary Guards, Basij, and Quds Force fighters.” Ledeen cites internal political wrangling and suggests that the regime is in a “death spiral.” He concludes by making a case for regime change as a means of “reverse linkage” in the most sweeping manner seen yet: “If only there were a Western leader with the prescience and courage to support the Greens, we would find many terrible problems a lot easier to manage: Iraq and Afghanistan would go better, the tyrant Chavez and his ‘Bolivarian’ Axis of Latin Evildoers would be weakened, and the misnamed ‘peace process’ might even have a chance.”
]]>- The Weekly Standard: Stephen F. Hayes and Foundation for Defense of Democracies fellow Thomas Joscelyn write, in an article called “The Iran Connection”, that Undersecretary of State William Burns, in his Dec. 1 appearance before the House Foreign Affairs committee, “chose not to mention that the leaders of Iran have been fighting a stealth war against the United States, its soldiers, and its citizens.” Hayes and Joscelyn point back to the WikiLeaks cables alleging that Iran hosted Osama bin Laden’s son Ibrahim, and repeat the allegations that Iran has hosted senior al Qaeda terrorists “for years,” provided assistance to the Taliban and armed “violent extremists” in Iraq. They conclude, “Nearly a decade after the 9/11 attacks, not only do we have abundant evidence that Iran, the world’s foremost state sponsor of terror, supports al Qaeda. We also have evidence that Iran actively assists terrorists and insurgents targeting our soldiers and diplomats in two war zones.”
- Pajamas Media: Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) “Freedom Scholar” Michael Ledeen attempts to draw parallels between the current state of domestic politics in Tehran, particularly in light of the firing of Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki, and Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. Ledeen concludes, “Don’t try to decipher the ‘meaning’ of any one of the melodramatic events in Iran today or tomorrow; just remember that the leaders of the regime are fighting for survival, knowing that the Iranian people hate them, and suspecting each other of betrayal.”
Incredibly, he’s become even more strident in his calls since he was purged by Danielle Pletka from the American Enterprise Institute along with a handful of other hard liners (who then reacted badly). Imagine having your scholarship questioned by the likes of Pletka!
And so how refreshing it is to have a funny take down of a recent Ledeen post (it was covered in our Daily Talking Points) from the Poor Man Institute, a blog that I was heretofore unfamiliar with, but intend to check back on quite often. Even the title of the post was pitch perfect: “Funnier, Please!” — a send up of Ledeen’s Pajamas blog.
I’m going to quote a section of the piece at length, but I first want to highlight this important link — a blog post by Eric Martin – discovered therein: a catalogue of Michael Ledeen’s unfailingly belligerent comments about Iran. In short, these are actual calls for war, conta Ledeen’s common statements that “of course, he’s not calling for war on Iran.”‘ Don’t be fooled.
From the Poor Man post:
]]>In a recent offering, Ledeen again hams it up for the crowd by feigning ignorance as to how Secretary Gates could possibly claim that the Iranian people might rally around the flag in the face of a series of massive US or Israeli airstrikes targeting all manner of Iranian military and nuclear facilities (many of which are embedded in civilian areas and would, thus, lead to many dead civilians – although even their scientists and soldiers are Iranians and might be missed).
Imagine that. How crazy. And does Gates have any actual evidence for this conspiracy theory (history be damned)?
In order to perpetrate this thinly veiled ruse, Ledeen pretends that every regime opponent either has a family member locked in prison, or has multiple deceased family members courtesy of the regime (considering that he pegs the opposition in the tens of millions, one wonders at the size of the Iranian prison population - and size of the mass graves).
In reality, of course, the opposition is probably smaller, and there is a large spectrum of viewpoints represented in that opposition, with many opponents of the current ruling clique not urging on revolution as much as supporting their own candidates within the system (or for more human rights protections regardless).
But nevermind reality, we’re discussing a Ledeen column.
- The Wall Street Journal: Soner Cagaptay, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), writes that Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), due to its identity as the defender of “Islamic Civilization,” may have already signaled a rift with NATO over Iran. In an op-ed entitled “NATO’s Turkey Problem,” Cagaptay says the AKP is expected to drags its feet in implementing the NATO missile defense shield because “it is directed against potential threats from two fellow Muslim countries—Syria and Iran.” Cagaptay adds, “Given that Turkey is the only NATO member bordering Iran and Syria, viewed by the U.S. as ballistic missile threats to NATO, this is a troubling strategic shift.”
- Pajamas Media: Foundation for Defense of Democracies fellow Michael Ledeen rails against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s recent comments that an attack on Iran would devastate the nascent opposition movement there. He calls Gates a “blind man” and that there is no evidence for Gates’ assertion, never mentioning that top-level current and former Pentagon brass and diplomats — as well as, notably, Iranian dissident figures — believe otherwise. “I try to imagine one of the tens of millions of Iranian opponents of the regime,” Ledeen fantasizes, rather than asking experts and actual Iranian dissidents. “And then one day somebody blows up a bunch of nuclear labs, some secret military installations, and [Revolutionary Guard] headquarters in the major cities. Does that guy now rally round the supreme leader? I don’t think so.”
- Think Progress: At the Center for American Progress’s Think Progress blog, analyst Matt Duss reports on a conference at D.C.’s National Press Club dedicated to boosting the case for war on Iran. At the conference, Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) cited unspecified “intelligence” to allege that “we know that they [Iran] already have a nuclear capability.” Duss notes that the CIA disagrees with this assessment. Bachmann also called for overt U.S. support for the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an Islamist-Marxist organization (commonly accused of having a cultish outlook) that fought against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, and since 1997 has been designated a “foreign terror organization” by the State Department. “We have shackled this freedom-seeking group which has the ability to help Iranians rise up against that tyrannical regime,” Bachmann said.
- The Washington Post: David Broder suggests since Obama can not control the “tidal force” of the marketplace, one other option for getting the United States out of its economic slump is by setting the stage for war with Iran. “With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran’s ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs,” writes Broder. “And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve.” Despite winning support from neoconservatives like Cliff May, Broder’s logic has been ripped to shreds by the commentariat, who say the idea emanates from an economic “loon tune land,” “a unique blend of moral depravity and intellectual laziness,” a “ridiculous idea” put forward by a “moral degenerate,” “ill-informed and morally bankrupt,” “intellectually lazy to the point of near-dishonesty, as well as mind-bogglingly belligerent,” “the most insane op-ed I’ve ever come across,” and “stupid enough when Elliot Abrams wrote it in August.“
- Pajamas Media: Arch neocon Michael Ledeen parses comments made to an AIPAC crowd by Obama foreign policy official Dennis Ross. After lavishing Ross with praise as “one of the best practitioners of the diplomatic arts,” Ledeen goes on to criticize the Obama administration’s policy because of what he sees as a mix of falsehoods and understatements in Ross’s talk. “The central issue is NOT Iranian diplomatic recalcitrance; it’s the murder of American soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan,” writes Ledeen. “And that is the issue that nobody — not national security officials, not members of Congress, not pundits — wants to talk about. They avoid it with a remarkable single-mindedness, because to acknowledge it means having to respond forcefully, and no president for more than 30 years has been willing to do that.”
- The Weekly Standard: The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin writes Iran may be the “most sanctioned planet on earth,” with unilateral sanctions more effective than the UN’s multilateral ones, which require international consensus. Sanctions are slowly having an effect. Rubin argues the upcoming talks between the P5+1 are a move in the wrong direction. “Certainly, a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ideal, but under the wrong circumstances engagement could hasten conflict,” he writes. “Against the backdrop of the Islamic Republic’s faltering economy, the worst move for the Obama administration to make is to offer incentives that mitigate pressure on Tehran.” Rubin concludes the Obama administration should impose more sanctions — rather than more diplomatic initiatives — to “delegitimize the Iranian regime in the eyes of the Iranian people.”
- The Weekly Standard: the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Reuel Marc Gerecht asserts that the latest dump of WikiLeaks documents show that “the Iranians have been wicked in Mesopotamia.” From this, argues Gerecht, the “Democratic foreign policy establishment” should start taking the words of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei seriously when he describes the United States as “Satan incarnate” or “the enemy of Islam.” Gerecht summarizes the Obama administration’s policy towards Iran as: “Obama presumably extended his hand to Khamenei not because the president is slow to anger when aggrieved Third Worlders kill Americans, but because he saw Iranian activity in Iraq, deplorable as it was, as somehow extricable from Iranian foreign policy toward the United States.” For Gerecht, the problem is “Ali Khamenei and his inner circle really like to kill Americans.” Gerecht concludes if reports that Iran is supplying anti-aircraft missiles to the Taliban are true, then the United States is only digging its own grave “if we don’t respond militarily to their provocation.”
- Politico: Laura Rozen reports on Dennis Ross‘, a top Obama adviser on Iran and the peace process, presentation to an AIPAC conference earlier this week. Ross addressed the administration’s efforts to pressure Iran, prioritize sanctions and conduct the “creative and persistent” diplomacy needed to “change the behavior of a government insistent on threatening its neighbors, supporting terrorism, and pursuing a nuclear program in violation of its international obligations.” He warned: “[S]hould Iran continue its defiance, despite its growing isolation and the damage to its economy, its leaders should listen carefully to President Obama who has said many times, ‘we are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.’”
- Weekly Standard: Gabriel Schoenfeld points to a study from the Israeli Begin-Sadat Center that examines various polls conducted over the past few years, and concludes that U.S. public opinion is moving toward confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program. With the U.S. elections coming up, Schoenfeld notes the data shows “a gap between the wisdom of the American people and the wisdom of our elites.” Pointing out that Iran has not been much of a campaign issue, he alludes to the non-interventionism of some Tea Party candidates: “[I]t is unclear what the new crowd of candidates that will likely be elected next week thinks we should do about Iran or much else across the oceans. But at the very least their views probably will not be any worse than those of the goofballs they replace.”
- Pajamas Media: Martin Kramer, a fellow at WINEP and the Adelson-funded Shalem Center in Israel, states in a long Q&A on Iran that the Persian Gulf is “as crucial to American security as Lake Michigan.” He says that “the world has to ask itself if it can tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran deliberately creating uncertainty, instability, and doubt surrounding the great reservoir of the world’s energy.” Kramer argues for reverse linkage, including the premise that Israel maintains a military occupation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank to deter Iranian attacks.
- Commentary: Max Boot blogs that, in light of Hamid Karzai’s acknowledgment that he receives $2 million a year from Iran, “the Iranians have attempted similar dollar diplomacy in Iraq, Lebanon, and lots of other countries. No surprise that they should try the same thing with another neighbor.” Boot says Iran’s policy is to give money to both the Afghan government and, allegedly, the Taliban, and its tendency to make contributions in cash is cynical and “seedy.” But the strategy is “not that far removed from conventional foreign aid programs run by the U.S., Britain and other powers.” Karzai’s decision to take Iranian money doesn’t make him a “dupe of Iran,” and he gets far more money from the U.S., says Boot. Instead, Boot takes the lesson that the revelations should be a warning that if the U.S. leaves, “Afghanistan will once again be the scene of a massive civil war, with neighboring states, and in particular Pakistan and Iran, doing their utmost to exert their influence to the detriment of our long-term interests.”
- Pajamas Media: Michael Ledeen writes that the Wikileaks release shows that Iran is engaging in the “murder of Americans.” Ledeen says the documents show proof that he’s “been pretty much on-target all along” and that his critics owe him an apology. “But the really big apologies are due from our political leaders, who… have failed to respond, either politically (as I have proposed) or militarily,” he writes. He names many officials from the Clinton, Bush and Obama White Houses and says they are “all accomplices to the great evil that is the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and calls for overt support of Iranian opposition movements.
- The Washington Post: Thomas J. Raleigh, a strategic planner at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad since August 2008, opines that while Iraq is building a stable and prosperous economy, “Iran will be feeling increasingly isolated.” Iranian visitors to Iraq will see the benefits of free trade and democracy and will come back to Iran wanting a similar standard of living. “As the Iraqi standard of living rises, Iranian leaders will eventually find themselves confronting an economic ‘comparative crisis’ much like that East German leaders confronted in the 1980s as their people looked enviously ‘over the wall’,” writes Raleigh.
- The Washington Post: Deputy Editorial Page Editor Jackson Diehl writes that supporting free access to the internet should be better funded by the State Department and describes the success of such firewall breaching firms as UltraReach, a company which allows internet users to circumvent national firewalls. Diehl writes that the companies’ founders say that with $30 million in funding they could “effectively destroy the Internet controls of Iran and most other dictatorships.” Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner has said that defeating internet censorship would be a “game changer” in countries like Iran. Diehl writes that the holdup in funding such projects is rooted in a fear of offending the Chinese government. “State is polishing its policy and preparing yet more training programs, Iranians and people from dozens of other countries are trying to get free access to the Internet,” concludes Diehl.
- Commentary: J.E. Dyer writes on the Contentions blog that Sunni Arabs are convinced Iran is taking over Iraq. He notes that Iraqi Sunnis in the Awakening movement are moving back into the insurgent camp because of this view, bolstered by fear of ending U.S. combat operations in Iraq. “In the absence of clear, assertive U.S. policy, we will find ourselves increasingly boxed in by the plans of opponents who want to make our policy for us. In many cases, the opponents will be terrorists,” he concludes.
- National Review: Joel Rosenberg offers his theory behind Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon. Ahmadinejad’s aim, he writes, is “to rally the terrorist forces of Hezbollah for an apocalyptic war with the Jewish state that will set the stage for the coming of the Shia Islamic messiah known as the ‘Mahdi’ or the ‘Twelfth Imam.’” He says Iran and Hexbollah want to annihilate Israel and the United States. Rosenberg warns congressional Democrats and the president “don’t get it,” and that “Democrats have neither the wisdom nor the will to protect the American people or allies like Israel from the threat of Radical Islam,” and this may cost votes at the polls. He backs his views with findings from a poll commissioned by the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel and a historical overview.
- Pajamas Media: Former AEI fellow and current Foundation for Defense of Democracies scholar Michael Ledeen writes about internal opposition to the Islamic Republic. “The regime would surely fall in short order if its opponents received a modicum of real support from the West, but no such support seems to be forthcoming from the feckless men and women who mistakenly fancy themselves to be real leaders,” he opines. His launching point to discuss discontent is the string of recent bombings against Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities. He quotes an unnamed source that the most recently attacked facility is used to train terrorists: “According to a reliable Iranian source, the foreigners were being trained in the use of roadside bombs, the so-called IEDs that account for most American and other NATO casualties in Afghanistan.”