by Marsha B. Cohen
The New York Times’ op-ed page headlined “Hopes for Iran”, which offers half a dozen cautious to negative views on Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rouhani, unexpectedly links to a “Related Story” published last year: Should Israel Accept a Nuclear Ban? Linking the online discussion — intentionally or not [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
The New York Times’ op-ed page headlined “Hopes for Iran”, which offers half a dozen cautious to negative views on Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rouhani, unexpectedly links to a “Related Story” published last year: Should Israel Accept a Nuclear Ban? Linking the online discussion — intentionally or not — to a debate over Israel’s own nuclear program and policies may be more remarkable than any of the op-eds’ arguments.
One of the most overlooked and under-discussed aspects of the Iranian nuclear program, at least from an Iranian point of view, is the double standard that’s applied to it: while Israel has an estimated 100-200 nuclear weapons that it has concealed for decades, Iran is treated like the nuclear threat — and Iran doesn’t possess a single nuclear weapon. Adding insult to injury, Israel is usually the first, loudest and shrillest voice condemning Iran and demanding “crippling sanctions” while deflecting attention away from its own record.
“Iran has consistently used the West’s willingness to engage as a delaying tactic, a smoke screen behind which Iran’s nuclear program has continued undeterred and, in many cases, undetected,” complained former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold (also president of the hawkish Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) in a 2009 LA Times op-ed entitled “Iran’s Nuclear Aspirations Threaten the World“:
Back in 2005, Hassan Rowhani, the former chief nuclear negotiator of Iran during the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami, made a stunning confession in an internal briefing in Tehran, just as he was leaving his post. He explained that in the period during which he sat across from European negotiators discussing Iran’s uranium enrichment ambitions, Tehran quietly managed to complete the critical second stage of uranium fuel production: its uranium conversion plant in Isfahan. He boasted that the day Iran started its negotiations in 2003 “there was no such thing as the Isfahan project.” Now, he said, it was complete.
Yet half a century ago, Israel’s Deputy Minister of Defense, Shimon Peres — the political architect of Israel’s nuclear weapons program — looked President John F. Kennedy in the eye and solemnly intoned what would become Israel’s “catechism”, according to Avner Cohen: “I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first.” Fifty years and at least 100 nuclear weapons later, Peres is awarded the U.S. Medal of Freedom, with no mention of his misrepresentation of Israel’s nuclear progress.
According to declassified documents, Yitzhak Rabin, another future Israeli prime minister (who would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994) also invoked the nuclear catechism to nuclear negotiator Paul Warnke in 1968, arguing that no product could be considered a deployable nuclear weapons-system unless it had been tested (Israel, of course, had not tested a nuclear weapon). Warnke was unswayed by Rabin’s talmudic logic but came away convinced that pressuring Israel would be futile since it was already a nuclear weapons state.
In a BBC Radio June 14 debate between Gold and former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw about the prospects for improving relations with Iran after Rouhani’s election, Straw pointed out that Israel has a “very extensive nuclear weapons program, and along with India and Pakistan are the three countries in the world, plus North Korea more recently, which have refused any kind of international supervision…”:
JOHN HUMPHRYS (Host): Well let me put that to Dr Gold; you can’t argue with that, Dr Gold?
DORE GOLD: Well, we can have a whole debate on Israel in a separate program.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well, it’s entirely relevant isn’t it? The fact is you’re saying they want nuclear weapons; the fact is you have nuclear weapons.
DORE GOLD: Look, Israel has made statements in the past. Israeli ambassadors to the UN like myself have said that Israel won’t be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.
JACK STRAW: You’ve got nuclear weapons.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: You’ve got them.
JACK STRAW: You’ve got them. Everyone knows that.
DORE GOLD: We have a very clear stand, but we’re not the issue.
JACK STRAW: No, no, come on, you have nuclear weapons, let’s be clear about this.
National security expert Bruce Riedel is among those who have observed Washington’s “double standard when it comes to Israel’s bomb: the NPT applies to all but Israel. Indeed, every Israeli prime minister since David Ben-Gurion has deliberately taken an evasive posture on the issue because they do not want to admit what everyone knows.” Three years ago, Riedel suggested that the era of Israeli ambiguity about its nuclear program “may be coming to an end, raising fundamental questions about Israel’s strategic situation in the region.” Thus far that hasn’t happened. Instead, Israeli leaders and the pro-Israel lobby use every opportunity (including Peres’ Medal of Freedom acceptance speech) to deflect attention from Israel’s defiant prevarication about its own nuclear status and directing it toward Iran.
This past April, Anthony Cordesman authored a paper for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) arguing that Israel posed more of an existential threat to Iran than the other way around. “It seems likely that Israel can already deliver an ‘existential’ nuclear strike on Iran, and will have far more capability to damage Iran than Iran is likely to have against Israel for the next decade,” Cordesman wrote. (The paper has since been removed from the CSIS website, but references to it persist in numerous articles.)
This double standard, and refusal to recognize Iranian security concerns, is not news to Iranians. Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament), assured the Financial Times last September that talks between the U.S. and Iran “can be successful and help create more security in the region. But if they try to dissuade Iran from its rights to have peaceful nuclear technology, then they will not go anywhere — before or after the US elections.” Larijani, who was Iran’s nuclear negotiator between 2005-2007, proposed that declarations by U.S. political leaders that Iran has a right to “peaceful nuclear technology” be committed to in writing.
“Many times the US president or secretary of state have said they recognise Iran’s right to nuclear energy,” Larjani said. “So, if [they] accept this, write it down and then we use it as a basis to push forward the talks…What they say during the talks is different from what they say outside the talks. This is a problem.” Larijani also denied that Iranian leaders were discussing withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) even though the benefits of Iran remaining a signatory — in the face of mounting international pressure campaigned for by Israel while Israel itself faced little to no criticism — seemed unclear. “The Israelis did not join the NPT and they do not recognize the IAEA,” he said. “They are doing what they want — producing nuclear bombs, and no one questions it.”
This past weekend, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour bluntly suggested that up until now, the U.S. has offered Iran few incentives to comply with the international community’s demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program: “Let’s just call a spade a spade. I’ve spoken to Iranian officials, former negotiators, actually people who worked for Dr. Rouhani earlier, and they said that so far the American incentives to Iran in these nuclear negotiations amounts to demanding diamonds for peanuts.”
Ben Caspit, writing in al-Monitor last week week, notes that as soon as the Russians hinted Iran would be willing to suspend uranium enrichment and keep it at the 20% level, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blew off the suggestion as merely cosmetic. The Israeli demand will continue to be uncompromising, Caspit says, insistent that “…nothing short of complete cessation of uranium enrichment, removal of all enriched uranium out of Iran; termination of nuclear facility activities and welcoming the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would provide sufficient guarantee of Iran’s willingness to abandon the nuclear program. Needless to say this will never happen.”
As Jim Lobe pointed out the other day, Rouhani outlined an 8-point blueprint for resolving the nuclear standoff between the U.S. and Iran in a letter to TIME in 2006. Rouhani stated:
]]>In my personal judgment, a negotiated solution can be found in the context of the following steps, if and when creatively intertwined and negotiated in good faith by concerned officials…Iran is prepared to work with the IAEA and all states concerned about promoting confidence in its fuel cycle program. But Iran cannot be expected to give in to United States’ bullying and non-proliferation double standards.
Two must-read analyses of the Iran portion from last night’s final presidential debate are brought to us by TIME’s Tony Karon and the Arms Control Association’s Greg Thielmann. (This TPM headline also sums up the entire debate quite nicely: “Romney’s Final Debate Message: I’ll Be A Better Obama”.)
Two must-read analyses of the Iran portion from last night’s final presidential debate are brought to us by TIME’s Tony Karon and the Arms Control Association’s Greg Thielmann. (This TPM headline also sums up the entire debate quite nicely: “Romney’s Final Debate Message: I’ll Be A Better Obama”.)
Karon writes that regardless of who wins the 2012 presidential election, the United States will consider direct talks with Iran:
“It is essential for us to understand what our mission is in Iran,” Romney said in Monday’s foreign policy debate, “and that is to dissuade Iran from having a nuclear weapon through peaceful and diplomatic means.” His leverage of choice: “crippling sanctions” with the threat of military action as a last resort should Iran cross a red line toward developing “nuclear-weapons capability.” That’s broadly the same policy the Obama Administration has followed. Asked to differentiate himself, in the debate, Romney didn’t even raise the ambiguous question of where to draw the red line. (Obama sets his red line for action at Iran moving to acquire a nuclear weapon; Romney uses the phrase nuclear-weapons capability – although it’s not exactly clear whether this means the capability to build nuclear weapons, which Iran perhaps already has in latent form, or the capability to rapidly assemble and deploy nuclear warheads atop missiles.) Instead Romney simply insisted he’d have imposed tighter sanctions sooner.
But inflexibility from both sides may prevent a peaceful resolution to the Iran-US impasse:
While he may be open to a genuine compromise, Khamenei can’t be seen to surrender on “nuclear rights” for which Iran has fought and suffered growing isolation over the past decade, notes University of Hawaii Iran scholar Farideh Farhi. “With the draconian economic measures imposed on Iran in the past year, the [domestic] political terrain makes quite impossible the acceptance of a deal that does not bring about some immediate, palpable, even if small, relaxation of the sanctions regime,” says Farhi. Imagining sanctions as an alternative to military action may be misleading, she argues, because Khamenei believes their purpose is regime change, and mounting economic pain could prompt the regime to become more reckless in its effort to break out of the noose.
(Interestingly, Romney previously dodged questions about meeting directly with Iran, but Benjamin Armbruster reports that Paul Ryan was on network morning shows today saying that Romney would engage in bilateral talks without preconditions [from the Iranians?]).
Thielmann, a former senior State Department intelligence analyst, meanwhile clarifies the candidates’ positions on Iran:
Obama concluded last night that: “There is a deal to be had, and that is that [the Iranians] abide by the rules that have already been established. They convince the international community they are not pursuing a nuclear [weapons] program. There are inspections that are very intrusive. But over time, what they can do is regain credibility. In the meantime, though, we’re not going to let up the pressure until we have clear evidence that that takes place.” At the same time, he warned that “the clock is ticking” and that he would not allow negotiations “to go on forever.”
For his part, Governor Romney appeared to tack away during the debate from his previous posture on Iran. Earlier, he had followed the lead of Israel’s prime minister, appearing more skeptical that any acceptable compromise could be reached with the current regime in Tehran and more willing to imply that unilateral military action would be taken sooner rather than later. Last night, Romney’s martial alarm was barely audible. Yet his avowed interest in diplomacy was belied by his call for treating Iran’s diplomats “as the pariahs they are.” It is difficult to negotiate constructively with those you are simultaneously labeling “pariahs.”
Both candidates appeared united in making one point about Iran policy options. Whatever the consequences of exercising the military option, they each signaled willingness ultimately to launch a preventive attack against Iran. This in spite of a near consensus among experts that, short of invasion and occupation, such an attack would not prevent but would bring about a nuclear-armed Iran.
]]>
By Wayne White
An excellent October 18 article, “The Myth of ‘Surgical Strikes’ on Iran“, by David Isenberg highlighted many of the conclusions of a sobering study by industrialist Khosrow Semnani on the potentially steep human cost of even a relatively selective attack against Iran’s diverse nuclear infrastructure. Semnani maintains that if the most important facilities [...]]]>By Wayne White
An excellent October 18 article, “The Myth of ‘Surgical Strikes’ on Iran“, by David Isenberg highlighted many of the conclusions of a sobering study by industrialist Khosrow Semnani on the potentially steep human cost of even a relatively selective attack against Iran’s diverse nuclear infrastructure. Semnani maintains that if the most important facilities are hit during work shifts, on site casualties could be as high as 10,000. Additionally, since a few of the most important Iranian nuclear installations are located near population centers, toxic nuclear materials unleashed by the attacks could possibly inflict an even higher number of casualties on civilians. Yet, Semnani focused most of his attention on the the casualties stemming from attacks focused on just one critical slice of the nuclear sector, with less detailed references to other targets (which he notes could involve a grand total of “400″) that might be struck in an especially robust air campaign against Iran. Indeed, if the US in particular decided to carry out such attacks, some detail on the potential — in fact likely — impact far beyond Iran’s most high-profile nuclear facilities and their immediate surroundings needs to be added to this picture to gain a full appreciation of the extent of potential Iranian casualties.Yet, as opposed to the relatively limited scope of any Israeli attack dictated by the extreme range involved and the smaller aerial strike package that could be deployed (in terms of extending casualties beyond those outlined in the article and Semnani’s study, both nuclear and civilian), many expect that any US attack on Iran’s nuclear capabilities would be far more comprehensive. Specifically, the US would be able to muster a much larger force of aircraft (and cruise missiles) with which to operate, and at far closer range. In order to clear paths to the targets cited, I am among those observers who anticipate in such a scenario waves of parallel US strikes against Iranian military communications, land-based anti-ship missile sites, any Iranian naval forces that could pose a potential threat to US warships operating offshore (as well as the Strait of Hormuz more generally), Iranian air force aircraft and bases, as well as Iranian anti-aircraft defenses. Finally, there might also be an attempt to take out as much of Iran’s ballistic missile testing, manufacturing, storage, and basing assets as possible. After all, Iran’s ambitious missile program relates directly to Iran’s ability to retaliate and might be associated with any eventual Iranian intent to weaponize and deliver nuclear weapons.
In other words, not only could a US assault (much as outlined in 2006 by the US military in its briefings of the Bush Administration, including potentially several thousand missions by combat aircraft) extend far beyond anything any reasonable individual could possibly regard as ”surgical,” the overall attack probably would more closely resemble a flat-out war. And, naturally, in the context of such a considerably more dire scenario, those attempting to estimate potential casualties (nuclear industry workers, civilians, as well as Iranian military personnel) would be advised to hike them up quite a bit higher.
- Wayne White is a Policy Expert with Washington’s Middle East Policy Council. He was formerly the Deputy Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia (INR/NESA) and senior regional analyst. Find his author archive here.
“President Obama and the bipartisan, bicameral congressional leadership, have deepened America’s support for Israel in difficult times”: In what multiple outlets have deemed a “rare” statement, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) issued a press release on Sunday praising the Obama Administration – as well as both Congressional Republicans [...]]]>
“President Obama and the bipartisan, bicameral congressional leadership, have deepened America’s support for Israel in difficult times”: In what multiple outlets have deemed a “rare” statement, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) issued a press release on Sunday praising the Obama Administration – as well as both Congressional Republicans and Democrats — for their collective handling of Iran’s nuclear program and for their overall commitment to Israel’s security.
“Martin Indyk: ‘I’m afraid that 2013 is going to be a year in which we`re going to have a military confrontation with Iran’”: On CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday morning talk show, former Ambassador to Israel and “architect” of the dual containment policy against Iran and Iraq during the 1990s Martin Indyk told host Bob Schieffer that no president would issue a public ultimatum, such as a “red line”, not even Romney:
The idea of putting out a public red line, in effect, issuing an ultimatum, is something that no president would do. You notice Governor Romney is not putting out a red line. Senator McCain didn`t, either, and neither is Bibi Netanyahu, for that matter, in terms of Israel`s own actions, because it locks you in.
And I think what`s clear is that the United States has a vital interest in preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. There is still time, perhaps six months, even, by Prime Minister Netanyahu`s own time table, to try to see if a negotiated solution can be worked out. I`m pessimistic about that.
If that doesn`t work out, and we need to make every effort, exhaust every chance that it does work, then I`m afraid that 2013 is going to be a year in which we`re going to have a military confrontation with Iran.
Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, also suggested military action was possible in the near future and that the declaration of “red lines” would be unhelpeful, concurring that “instead of red lines, let me suggest deadlines,” arguing that “what we ought to do is go to the Iranians with a diplomatic offer and make clear what it is they have to stop doing, all the enrichment material they have to get rid of, the international inspections they have to accept, in return sanctions would be reduced, and they would be out from under the risk of attack.”
“McCain: U.S. “is weakened” under Obama”: Also on Meet the Press this Sunday was Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who decried the Obama Administration’s Syria policy and complained that the US is ceding ground to radical Islamists:
McCain: In Syria, 20,000 people have been massacred. These people cry out for our help. They`ve been massacred, raped, tortured, beaten. And the president of the United States will not even speak up for them, much less provide them with the arms and equipment for a fair fight when Russian arms are flowing in, Iranian help and Hezbollah on the ground.
Schieffer: So, what is it that we`re doing wrong here?
McCain: Well, it`s disengagement. Prior to 9/11, we had a policy of containment. Then after 9/11, it was confrontation with the terrorists and al Qaeda. Now it`s disengagement.
Every time– you just saw the spokesperson– we`re leaving Iraq. We`re leaving Afghanistan. We`re leaving the area. The people in the area are having to adjust and they believe the United States is weak, and they are taking appropriate action.
McCain also criticized the President for having a public dispute over “red lines” with Netanyahu and said that the US should tell then Israelis “we will not let them cross and we will act with you militarily.”
“Don’t Expect a Romney Intifadeh, the Palestinians Are Used to Disappointment”: Tony Karon of TIME responds to leaked remarks Mitt Romney made at a fundraiser in Florida in which he asserted that the Palestinians do not want a peace deal with Israel and suggested that his administration would “kick the ball down the field” with little hope for future progress on the peace process. Karon argues that while it is rare to hear such words from politicians in Israel, the West Bank or the US, in practice, kicking the ball down the field has been the “default policy” for the Obama Administration and its predecessors:
…. The prospect of achieving a two-state peace via a bilateral consensus at the negotiating table remains remote for the foreseeable future. Admitting as much, however, has been deemed unwise for the U.S., for Israel and for a Palestinian leadership that has invested the entirety of its political being in the Oslo accords. After all, admitting that there’s no prospect of ending the occupation through a “peace process” that survives only as a misleading label for the status quo would force all sides into an uncomfortable choice of accepting things as they are or finding new ways of changing it.
Netanyahu is being pressed by his own base in the direction of formalizing the de facto creeping annexation of the West Bank, while Abbas has become a kind of twilight figure, facing a rebellion on the ground that could sweep away the Palestinian Authority. He is once again threatening to walk away from Oslo and annul the agreement, to dissolve the Authority or to press forward with his bid for statehood at the U.N., but neither the U.S. nor Israel, nor many of the Palestinians on whose behalf he threatens these actions, appear to take such threats very seriously. Abbas may be waiting — in vain — for Washington to change course, but not many Palestinians believe that’s likely to happen.
Romney’s comments, and the extent to which they jibe with Obama’s default policies even as the catechisms of the peace process are duly recited, are simply a reminder that the game is up. No matter who wins the White House in November, the Palestinians aren’t going to get any change out of Washington.
“Talk to Iran’s Leaders, but Look Beyond Them”: The New York Times runs an op-ed by CFR Fellow Ray Takeyh urging the US to cut “an interim deal” over Iran’s nuclear program so that it can move past the matter and focus on exerting more support to the political opposition there to compel the leadership to pursue a different course:
]]>Once an interim deal is in place, the United States must take the lead in devising a coercive strategy to change the parameters of Iran’s domestic politics. A strategy of concerted pressure would seek to exploit all of Iran’s liabilities. The existing efforts to stress Iran’s economy would be complemented by an attempt to make common cause with the struggling opposition.
…. Under such intensified pressures, Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, could acquiesce and negotiate with the opposition. There are members of the Iranian elite who appreciate the devastating cost of Iran’s intransigence and want a different approach to the international community. The problem is that these people have been pushed to the margins. If Khamenei senses that his grip on power is slipping, he might broaden his government to include opposition figures who would inject a measure of pragmatism and moderation into the system.
The history of proliferation suggests that regimes under stress do negotiate arms control treaties: Both the Soviet Union and North Korea signed many such agreements. …. Once there is a new outlook — as there was in the Soviet Union when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power — then it is possible to craft durable arms limitation agreements.
via IPS News
President Barack Obama’s explicit warning that he will not accept a unilateral Israeli attack against Iran may force Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step back from his ostensible threat of war.
Netanyahu had hoped that the Obama administration could be put under domestic [...]]]>
via IPS News
President Barack Obama’s explicit warning that he will not accept a unilateral Israeli attack against Iran may force Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step back from his ostensible threat of war.
Netanyahu had hoped that the Obama administration could be put under domestic political pressure during the election campaign to shift its policy on Iran to the much more confrontational stance that Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak have been demanding.
But that political pressure has not materialised, and Obama has gone further than ever before in warning Netanyahu not to expect U.S. backing in any war with Iran. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told reporters in Britain Aug. 30 that an Israeli strike would be ineffective, and then said, “I don’t want to be complicit if they (the Israelis) choose to do it.”
It was the first time that a senior U.S. official had made such an explicit public statement indicating the administration’s unwillingness to be a party to a war provoked by a unilateral Israeli attack.
Dempsey had conveyed such a warning during meetings with Israeli leaders last January, as IPS reported Feb. 1, but a series of moves by the administration over the next several months, including the adoption of Israeli demands during two rounds of negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue in May and June, appeared to represent a retreat from that private warning.
Dempsey’s warning was followed by an as-yet unconfirmed report by Time magazine that the Pentagon has decided to sharply cut back on its participation in the largest-ever joint military exercise with Israel designed to test the two countries’ missile-defence systems in late October.
Originally scheduled for last spring, the exercise was delayed in January following an earlier round of Israeli sabre-rattling and the apparent Israeli assassination of an Iranian scientist, which had further increased tensions between Netanyahu and President Obama.
Former Israeli national security adviser Giora Eiland suggested in an interview with Reuters Tuesday that the Dempsey statement had changed the political and policy calculus in Jerusalem. “Israeli leaders cannot do anything in the face of a very explicit ‘no’ from the U.S. president,” Eiland said. “So they are exploring what space is left to operate.”
Eiland explained that Netanyahu had previously maintained that the U.S. “might not like (an Israeli attack) but they will accept it the day after. However, such a public, bold statement meant the situation had to be reassessed.”
Netanyahu and Barak have never explicitly threatened to attack Iran but have instead used news leaks and other means to create the impression that they are seriously considering a unilateral air strike.
The Netanyahu campaign, aimed at leveraging a shift in U.S. policy toward confrontation with Iran, appeared to climax during the first two weeks of August amid a torrent of stories in the Israeli press suggesting that Netanyahu and Barak were getting closer to a decision on war.
An unnamed senior official – almost certainly Barak – indicated in an interview that the Israeli leader would reconsider the unilateral military option if Obama were to adopt the Israeli red line – in effect an ultimatum to Iran to end all enrichment or face war.
As Eiland suggests, however, Netanyahu may no longer feel that he is in a position to make such a demand when he meets Obama later this month. Not only has Obama drawn a clear line against unilateral Israeli action, but the Republican Party and its presidential candidate Mitt Romney have failed to signal that Obama’s rejection of Netanyahu’s belligerence on Iran will be a central issue in the presidential campaign.
Although the party platform said the threshold for military action should be Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapons “capability” rather than the construction of an actual weapon, Romney did not embrace the threat to go to war unless Iran agrees to shut down its nuclear programme, as Netanyahu would have hoped.
That omission appeared to reflect the growing influence in his campaign of the “realist” faction of the Republican Party which opposed the radical post-9/11 trajectory of George W. Bush’s first presidential term in office and re-asserted itself in the second term.
The party’s marquee speaker on foreign policy was not a neoconservative but former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, whom the neo-conservatives viewed with disdain, not least because of her effort to begin diplomatic engagement with Iran.
Rice mentioned Iran only in connection with its crackdown against dissidents during her prime-time speech.
Until recently, prominent neo-conservatives, such as Dan Senor, Elliott Abrams, and Eric Edelman, as well as aggressive pro-Israel nationalists such as former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, had appeared dominant among Romney’s foreign policy advisers.
The fact that the billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, a strong supporter of Netanyahu and the Israeli far right, has pledged up to 100 million dollars to support the Republican campaign seemed to assure them of the upper hand on Israel and Iran.
But neo-conservatives may have lost influence to the realists as a result of Romney’s ill-fated trip in July to Britain, Israel and Poland – all neo-conservative favourites – as well as recent polling showing ever-growing war-weariness, if not isolationism, among both Republicans and the all-important independents in the electorate.
On the convention’s eve, Lee Smith, a neo-conservative scribe based at the Standard, published an article in Tablet Magazine entitled “Why Romney Won’t Strike Iran”.
One of Romney’s senior advisers, former CIA chief Gen. Michael Hayden, has even partially echoed Dempsey, telling the Israeli newspaper Haaretz Thursday that an Israeli raid against Iran’s nuclear facilities would likely be counter-productive.
Both Hayden’s and Dempsey’s remarks about the futility or counter-productivity of an Israeli attack on Iran echoed those of a broad range of Israel’s national-security elite, including President Shimon Peres and the former chiefs of Israel’s intelligence agencies and armed forces, who, provoked by Netanyahu’s and Barak’s war talk, have come out more strongly than ever against the idea.
In addition to publicly casting doubt on whether an attack would be effective, many of the national-security critics have warned that a unilateral strike could seriously damage relations with the U.S.
That argument, which resonates strongly in Israeli politics, was given much greater weight by Dempsey’s warning last week.
Further eroding Israeli tolerance of Netanyahu’s talk of war was a blog post on the Atlantic Magazine’s website by Jeffrey Goldberg, an influential advocate of Israeli interests who has helped propagate the notion that Israel would indeed act unilaterally in the past. As the Netanyahu campaign reached its climax last month, Goldberg offered “7 Reasons Why Israel Should Not Attack Iran’s Nuclear facilities”.
Goldberg worried that an Israeli “strike could be a disaster for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” especially if Iran retaliated against U.S. targets. “Americans are tired of the Middle East, and I’m not sure how they would feel if they believed that Israeli action brought harm to Americans,” he wrote.
]]>Freeman, who has extensive [...]]]>
Freeman, who has extensive diplomatic experience in the Gulf region, including an appointment as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, was nonplused by the contentious rhetoric of Emirati Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed. In one of the cables released by WikiLeaks, Zayed called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “Hitler.” In the words of the U.S. note-taker, Zayed warned against appeasement with Iran.
Freeman’s reaction:
To my experience, if you say Ahamdinejad is “Hitler,” that means you think the person you’re talking with will like you to say that. So it’s ingratiating language.
Many neocons have made hay over the war cries of some regional Arab leaders, claiming these fears give more credence to Israeli warnings about Iran, now that they have been joined by their usually-diametrically-opposed neighbors. Freeman offered a different take, making a sharp observation about the import of Arab influence in Washington:
Does the fact that even an important Arab country, like Saudi Arabia or Egypt, urges decisive action have a great deal of influence in Washington’s thinking? Probably not. There’s nothing else that they feel strongly about that weighs heavily on Washington’s views.
But that doesn’t mean the WikiLeaks release will be not have impact on the United States and it’s diplomatic agenda:
It will be a long time before anyone in the region will speak candidly to an American official. If you cannot speak in confidence with someone, you will not speak to them.
The released cables could serve Iran’s agenda in a some roundabout way:
Ahmadinejad will, as he did, dismiss these leaks. But Iran will take this as exposure of the hypocrisy of their neighbors’ leader. But there may also be a reaction form ordinary citizens/subjects in various places.
I don’t think this does any damage to Iran. In fact, it probably increases the prestige of Iran because it inflates the menace that Iran poses.
And bolster the agenda of those who seek war with Iran:
It’ll certainly be a boost for the Israeli effort to corral the U.S. into some sort of action against Iran.
On that note, it’s worth mentioning Freeman’s skepticism about what the cables actually reveal. Tony Karon at Time addressed this in his excellent piece called “Deception Par for the Course in Mideast Diplomacy,” Karon points to a WikiLeaked cable, where an American diplomat also expressed skepticism about Israeli rhetoric as well as the Israeli timeframe for the Iranian nuclear program:
COMMENT: It is unclear if the Israelis firmly believe this or are using worst-case estimates to raise greater urgency from the United States
Freeman concurs that duplicity runs rampant among Mideast diplomats, “worse than any place” he’s been:
]]>The Middle East is a place that gave diplomacy a bad name in the beginning. There’s the Arab proverb “kiss the hand you cannot bite.” You’ve gotta take everything with a grain of salt in the Middle East, including the Israelis. Especially the Israelis.
- The Washington Post: Senior Council on Foreign Relations fellow and former George W. Bush policy adviser Michael Gerson writes that after the midterm election, Obama may choose to focus his efforts on foreign policy. He warns that Obama will make little headway in bringing peace in the Middle East because “Palestinian leaders are divided – unable to deliver on the agreements they are too weak to make in the first place. Israelis feel relatively safe behind security walls, uninclined toward risky compromise and concerned mainly about Iran,” echoing the reverse linkage argument frequently employed by hawks in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Gerson concludes that threat of military force against Iran is unlikely because, “When a president threatens force, he also loses control. And Barack Obama seems to be a man who values control.” As for the Tea Party movement, Gerson says it represents a “Jacksonian ascendancy” on Capitol Hill and “will urge more forceful policies against Cuba, Iran and Venezuela – along with Russia and China.”
- Time: Tony Karon discusses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pressure onVice President Joe Biden to get tough with Iran. “The only way to ensure that Iran will not go nuclear is to create a credible threat of military action against it if it doesn’t cease its race for a nuclear weapon,” Netanyahu reportedly told Biden. Karon writes that the Obama administration would have neither a legal basis nor international support in initiating a war with Iran. But the real challenge for the Obama administration, says Karon, may lie in the charges voiced by Republicans that Obama is “soft on Tehran” whenever any attempt at engagement with Iran is pursued. “That will certainly suit the Israeli leadership, who not only want to see a more confrontational U.S. position on Iran, but who also came into office insisting that Iran’s nuclear program, rather than peace with the Palestinians, should be Washington’s priority in the Middle East.”
- The Wall Street Journal: Walid Phares of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies opines on the imminent judgement of the tribunal investigating the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minsiter Rafik Hariri. “Thanks largely to bountiful Iranian aid, Hezbollah is winning its war against international justice,” writes Phares. He expects many Hezbollah members will be charged, but not arrested. He views Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent trip to Lebanon as an indication that “Iran, and not only its minions, would act in the event of an adverse ruling.” Phares concludes by imploring the UN, which helped set up the tribunal, to adhere to the UN charter which permits the use of force to ensure such rulings are enforced.He concedes this is unlikely, since it requires consent of the Lebanese government.
- AFP: The newswire reports on the comments of the deputy commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, who said that “Iranian influence has diminished somewhat.” Via a video conference, Cone told reporters in Washington, “We see all sorts of Iranian influence — some of it positive, in fact.” He added that some of the negative influence is “very difficult to attribute that to the Iranian government” — a reference to the fact that the alleged Iranian weapons entering Iraq may come from non-state actors.
With the GOP set to be the the “Party of No” in Congress, compromise with Iran is almost out of the question. “And without compromise,” writes Karon, “a diplomatic solution remains unlikely.”
]]>There’s no indication that the President or other key decision makers have abandoned their skepticism of a military solution to the standoff, based on an awareness that the consequences of starting a war could be more dangerous than any threat currently posed by Iran. But the Times reports that a debate is underway within the Administration over whether Obama should be amplifying the threat of military action if Iran remains defiant. The Administration’s Iran point-man, Dennis Ross, has made clear in his own writings on the matter that he believes Iran will only back down if it believes it faces a credible threat of military action. But there’s currently no legal basis for military action — all relevant U.N. resolutions have been carefully crafted to avoid giving the U.S. the loopholes used by the Bush Administration to claim legal authority for attacking Iraq — because most of those nations supporting sanctions remain resolutely opposed to military action. So threatening force could potentially break up whatever diplomatic consensus currently exists, and that would suit Iran.
But even if Obama is inclined to resist any temptation to rally a more hawkish post-election legislature by ratcheting up confrontation with Iran, he’ll find it even more difficult, after the election, to compromise with a regime so widely reviled on Capitol Hill. And without compromise, a diplomatic solution remains unlikely. [...]
The fact that the Western powers lack consensus among themselves, much less with other key players such as Russia and China, on an acceptable compromise would only be a problem if there was any expectation of a breakthrough in the next round of talks. But neither side appears to be seeking one. For the U.S., the talks are an opportunity to send Iran a message that pressure will increase until Tehran is ready to yield; for Iran, the negotiations are an opportunity to make clear that it has no intention of backing down, confident it can ride out the sanctions and any other pressure the U.S. can plausibly muster.
The same stalemate persisted through the second term of George W. Bush’s Administration, and resulted in Iran crossing the threshold to become a nuclear-capable state by mastering enrichment. But Obama, under pressure from an even more hawkish and assertive Congress, is unlikely to have the luxury enjoyed by his predecessor of maintaining a passive hard line while Iran’s nuclear capacity grows.
- The National Interest: Ted Galen Carpenter writes that while the Obama administration has said it wants to use diplomacy to bring an end to Iran’s nuclear program, Washington’s negotiating strategy casts doubts on the administration’s sincerity. He remarks that the latest U.S. and European offer, as it currently stands, “includes conditions that are tougher than those contained in the version that the Ayatollah Ali Kamanei rejected last year.” He identifies two possible reasons: the P5+1 might have no interested in a negotiated settlement or that European American policymakers are confident the sanctions regime is “beginning to bite” so the Iranians are ready to capitulate. “If the former explanation is true, the conduct of Washington and its allies is both reprehensible and dangerous,” and “if the latter explanation is true, Western negotiators may be overestimating—perhaps wildly overestimating—the impact of the latest round of sanctions,” concludes Galen. He proposes that if Obama is sincere in pursuing a settlement, then concessions and compromise are required, and “not the State Department’s version of macho posturing.”
- The Jerusalem Post: Hilary Leila Krieger reports on the Obama administration’s attempts to revise the uranium enrichment deal with Tehran that collapsed last year as a “confidence-building step” to move forward talks it hopes to reconvene in November . The original proposal, negotiated in Vienna last October, involved Iran sending most of its enriched uranium to France and Russia for further enrichment. Mark Dubowitz, the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies‘ Iran expert, yet again endorses crippling sanctions and warns Iran will probably just use the negotiations as a stalling technique. This has been his consistent meme in numerous op-eds and interviews. “The sanctions are clearly inflicting serious damage on the Iranian economy and forcing the regime to implement measures to counter the impact of sanctions,” Dubowitz assessed. “Some of these countermeasures, like massive reductions in subsidies for gasoline and other commodities, could be economically disastrous and further fan the flames of political discontent.” “I think the Iranian regime genuinely believes [it] can withstand the economic and political pressure,” he concluded.
- Time: Vivienne Walt writes that while U.S. and European sanctions appear to be having an effect on Iran’s economy, Iran still has many economic allies and “even the U.S.’s close allies in Europe have stopped short of cutting their relations with Iran.” While Iran’s trade relationships with the West continues to be challenged by sanctions, Iran is expanding its alliances with Asian countries eager to access Iran’s oil and take on the contracts abandoned by departing Western companies. “Despite that flexibility in the sanctions, many European politicians believe that the U.S. has strong-armed them into following Washington’s demands on Iran,” and companies are under pressure to cut ties with Iran, even if not required to do so by their governments. “Because the U.S. has Iran on a blacklist, the rest of the world has to follow,” a Swiss investment manager told Walt. “What makes it a shady country anyway? Because the U.S. says so? The U.S. is trying to corner other countries.”
- Foreign Policy: David Rothkopf charges that Roger Cohen’s recent New York Times op-ed totally disregards the threat posed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Instead, Rothkopf endorses Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren’s New York Times op-ed demanding Palestinian recognition of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state. “As unproductive as the Israeli stance on settlements has been, the Palestinian stance on the nature of the Israeli state, and its ability to continue operations as conceived and sanctioned by the United Nations nearly six and a half decades into its modern existence is just as unconstructive and indefensible,” writes Rothkopf. He concludes with a variation of the debunked reverse-linkage argument, arguing that “[Ahmadinejad’s] grandstanding and inflaming crowds on Israel’s borders with the language of obliteration is not just rhetoric. It is part of a systematic and thus far effective effort to exacerbate dangers and, not secondarily, to prolong the misery of the Palestinian people whose right to a free, independent state created in their own image is, of course, every bit as great as that of the Israelis.”
- The Washington Times: Eli Lake writes that Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon adds pressure to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to withdraw his support of a UN investigation to determine who killed his father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. “I think it’s clear that Ahmadinejad’s visit is intended to show support for Hezbollah at a time when it’s facing the prospect of indictments in the murder of Hariri and is engaged in a campaign to undermine and derail the tribunal,” said Ash Jain, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Lake’s article went to print before it was known whether Ahmadinejad would travel to the Israeli border—he did not—but he writes that such a visit “would signal Iran’s proxies were on Israel’s border.”
- FrumForum: Brad Schaeffer, an energy derivatives broker writing for the blog of neoconservative pundit David Frum, lines up three scenarios (best, mid,and worst case) on what could happen to oil prices should Israel attack Iran’s nuclear installations. Best-case results in only a small, temporary spike in prices and the Iranian leadership uses the strike to turn the “military lemon into PR lemonade” by playing “victim” without retaliation. A mid-level escalation would result in small to medium spikes, for a more sustained period, and attacks against Western forces. Worst case would mean an all out war (and closing the Strait of Hormuz) and the doubling of oil prices from their current levels.
- Time: Tony Karon describes Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s trip to Lebanon as emblematic of a U.S. policy failure in the region. The visit makes clear three difficult realities the U.S. is facing: “First, Iran is not nearly as isolated as Washington would like; secondly, the Bush Administration efforts to vanquish Tehran and its allies have failed; and, finally, the balance of forces in the region today prompts even U.S.-allied Arab regimes to engage pragmatically with a greatly expanded Iranian regional role.” Ahmadinejad met with Lebanon’s Christian president and Saudi-backed Sunni prime minister, notes Karon, and “he also appears to be placing a heavy stress on Lebanese unity and the need to avoid division” — rather than focus solely on Iran’s Hezbollah beneficiaries.