- FEBRUARY 10, 2010
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AFPAK
Why We Shouldn't Listen to Gen. McChrystal
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MEIN KAMPF
Discrediting Hitler's Tome
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IRAN
Regime Change Isn't Coming
A Tale of Two Op-Eds
Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 1:38 PM
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Two recent op-eds tell you a lot about the corner the United States is painting itself into on Iran.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, neoconservative Eliot Cohen says we have only two options: an American or Israeli military strike "which would probably cause a substantial war," or living in a world with Iranian nuclear weapons, "which may also result in war, perhaps nuclear." Echoing the neocons' earlier campaign for the invasion of Iraq (a decision he enthusiastically endorsed), Cohen recommends that we "actively seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic." He does not call for a U.S. invasion (for which there are no forces available and scant public support), but instead calls for employing "every instrument of U.S. power, soft more than hard" to bring down the clerical regime. And he warns darkly that if Obama allows Iran to get a nuclear weapon, he will face a firestorm at home that "will makes the squawks of protest against his health care plans look like the merest showers on a sunny day." Hmmm....I wonder what he's talking about here?
If anyone doubted that the neoconservatives were still pushing for a U.S.-led effort to remake the Middle East-despite the disaster they've already created in Iraq-this piece (and a similar oped by Paul Wolfowitz in yesterday's Financial Times-should correct that assumption. Of course, Cohen trots out the usual bogeymen about Iran's "fanatical, ruthless, and unprincipled regime" (an obvious hint that these are irrational criminals who could not be deterred), and flatly declares that no "real negotiation or understanding" is possible with such people. He says that allowing Iran to have the bomb "may yield the first nuclear attack since 1945," even though he also believes the mullahs are "willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power." (Newsflash: if "staying in power" is the Iranian leadership's primary goal, starting a nuclear war and thus inviting overwhelming retaliation by the U.S. or Israel isn't something they're going to do.)
But what is most revealing about Cohen's piece-apart from the worst-case alarmism that pervades it-is his own awareness that the forceful line he favors won't work.
First, he recognizes that air strikes by Israel or the United States can delay but not stop the nuclear program and could easily unleash a wider, highly destructive war. Second, he understands the economic sanctions haven't worked in the past and are unlikely to convince Tehran to change course now. He cannot imagine trying a more accommodating route, so all that is left is "regime change." But we've tried that too, beginning in the Clinton administration and continuing up to the present day, and Cohen doesn't argue that this will work either.
Cohen's proposed approach thus offers us the worst of all possible worlds: we continue to confront Iran with various ineffective threats, thereby ensuring that relations remain bitterly contentious, making ourselves look ineffectual, and giving them more reason to want a deterrent capability. It is an approach that will only strengthen hardliners and undercut the moderates who still hope for change there, and convince a new generation of Iranians (70 percent of the population is under 30) that America is the "Great Satan" after all.
Given that Cohen recognizes that his own recommendations won't work, one can only conclude that his real aim is to make sure that there is no accommodation whatsoever between Washington and Iran. His warnings about the protests that Obama will face are intended less to solve the actual problem than to persuade the President to stick with the failed policies we have followed for the past two decades.
The alternative to Cohen's ineffectual pessimism is laid out clearly by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett in today's New York Times. They also recognize that military force, covert action and economic sanctions aren't going to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Given the dearth of attractive alternatives, they recognize that the only way to convince Iran not to weaponize is to engage in a broad and patient effort to transform the whole U.S.-Iranian relationship. Obama has made rhetorical gestures in that direction, but his administration has also continued covert action programs aimed at Iran, repeatedly threatened tougher sanctions, and never embraced the need for a broader "strategic understanding" with Iran.
The Leveretts remind us that Richard Nixon achieved his opening to China by taking concrete steps to reduce U.S. pressure on Beijing, even at a moment when China was helping North Vietnam kill U.S. soldiers. (And this was Mao's China, remember, which U.S. officials had long seen as fanatical, ruthless, irrational, etc.). Nixon did this because he understood that transforming the entire U.S.-China relationship was more important than worrying about Beijing's bad behavior; the key was move to a relationship where such bad behavior was no longer in China's interest.
The strategy they outline might not work with Iran, but it would hardly leave the United States worse off than the strategy Cohen recommends, which by his own admission is likely to fail. The problem, of course, is that it is the neoconservative forces that Cohen represents are now working overtime to prevent the United States from pursuing the one course of action that might-repeat, might-actually convince Iran it is better off with an enrichment capacity but not an actual bomb.
Alex Wong/Getty Images for Meet the Press
EXPLORE:OBAMA AND THE ISRAEL LOBBY, MIDDLE EAST, BUSH'S LEGACY, DIPLOMACY, IRAN, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION 
Nixon had one hugely underrated asset in dealing with Mao's China, which was the regime's reputation in international diplomacy for pragmatism, reliability, and discreetness. I wonder what the Iranian regimes reputation is among diplomats.
I'm not old enough to remember Nixon to China
so I can't evaluate that claim. But I'm certain that Iran's reputation with diplomats is better than with those who call Iran's government a regime (as in, change of).
Here's Mohamed ElBaradei to Newsweek in May:
Tell me a little more about the Iranians' bargaining style.
The Iranians have always been extremely well briefed on the details. They know what they want. They are excellent on the strategic goals, excellent on waiting for the right price. I don't want to make them sound like superhumans; you do see a lot of infighting among them. And part of it is about who is going to get credit for finally breaking out of this 30 years of fighting and confrontation with the United States. Everybody is positioning himself to be the national hero who would finally put Iran back onto the world map as part of the mainstream. They are not like the stereotyped fanatics bent on destroying everybody around them. They are not.
They fight, but over who will sign the deal. Read more at IAEA and Iran.
On the Credibility of Eliot Cohen
Eliot Cohen quote: "We know that he [Saddam Hussein] supports terror. There's very solid evidence that the Iraqis were behind an attempt to assassinate President Bush's father. And we -- by the way, we do know that there is a connection with the 9/11 terrorists. We do know that Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the 9/11 terrorists, met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague."
On Eliot Cohen's Agenda and Style of Argument
From Wikipedia: "In March 2006, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government Academic Dean Stephen M. Walt along with Professor John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, both political scientists, published an academic paper titled The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. The paper criticizes the Israel lobby for influencing U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East away from U.S. interests and towards Israel's interests. Eliot Cohen, who is Jewish, wrote in a prominent op-ed piece in The Washington Post that the academic working paper bears all the traditional hallmarks of anti-Semitism: "obsessive and irrationally hostile beliefs about Jews", accusations toward Jews of "disloyalty, subversion or treachery, of having occult powers and of participating in secret combinations that manipulate institutions and governments", as well as selection of "everything unfair, ugly or wrong about Jews as individuals or a group" and equally systematical suppression of "any exculpatory information"."
Oooh, scary man with mustache and bow tie has hidden agenda and secretly represents Jewish interests...
See Drezner's blog for a takedown of the supposedly wonderful Leverett op-ed.
It's all right there: hidden agendas, secret Jewish interests. Does anyone really doubt there's a strong component of anti-semitism to Walt and many of his commenter-fans who like him throw around the word neoconservative as if they were burning witches?
On the intellectual bankruptcy of neoconservatism
How scary is a movement, neoconservatism, which played the leading role in engineering the worst foreign policy disaster in American history, which is unable to engage in rational dialogue or analysis, which has many of the characteristics of a religious fundamentalist cult, and which regularly responds to informed and reasonable criticism with the antisemitism smear? Very scary. And they are not done -- zealots like Eliot Cohen are still pursuing their vision of World War IV. Interesting to see that you are in his camp and are also fond of the smear as a substitute for serious discussion.
the worst foreign policy disaster in American history
The worst foreign policy disaster in American history was Jimmy Carter's twin decisions to destabilize Afghanistan and withdrawing support for the Shah, thereby further destabilizing the entire region.
If not for Carter, the US would not be in Afghanistan, and Iran would be a strategic anchor for regional stability. Saddam Hussein would have never attacked Iran or Kuwait and there would have been no Gulf war 1 or 2
1. The Shah was unsalvageable by any effort -- he was politically unviable.
2. Supporting the Mujahideen made sense in the context of bringing down the Soviet Union -- and the policy achieved its objective.
3. Neoconservatives hate Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski because they bitterly oppose the Mideast peace process Carter and Brzezinski promoted. Neocons are Greater Israelists.
4. The Iraq War, which mainly benefited Iran, is on track to cost Americans several trillion dollars -- indeed, the worst foreign policy disaster in American history.
seanmcbride Don't let facts get in your way
1) The situation of the Shah was no different than the recent threats to the current regime. Had the Shah not felt restrained there is no evidence that he would not have survived.
2) The support for the Mujahideen came AFTER the the covert US provocations that prompted the Soviet invasion. And in any and all events in what world is it acceptable to start a war in a country that has led to no less than a million dead "...made sense in the context of bringing down the Soviet Union"
3) Many people hate/hated Carter.
Carter a sitting president was defeated in a very lopsided election. He was despised by most leading Democrats of the time, Ted Kennedy, Tip O'Neil, Henry Jackson, Daniel Moynihan and too many others to name here. It was a reaction to Carter that created the Reagan Democrats from which the Democratic party is only now starting to recover from.
Many people who desperately want peace in the Middle East equally despise Carter because he and certainly Brzezinski are no friend either to peace or the region.
4) AGAIN! None of this would have happened had Carter shown better Judgement.
There would have been no Iran Iraq war!
There would have been no Gulf Wars!
There would have been no Al Quaida (as we know it today)! not least of all because Iran would not have been meddling in Egyptian affairs and sent then known as Egypt Islamic Jihad failed revolutionaries looking for places to hide in Pakistan and Afghanistan and on and on and on
I don't think we're taking into account the shift in balance of power in the region after WWII. It certainly can't be Carter's policies that are solely to blame for the wars of the 90's and today. All of these events were set in motion 60 years ago when we entered the Cold War. Yes, Carter did make some blunders, but we must remember history before we pass the blame to an individual administration.
Hypothetical question - for BurningChrome
If not for Carter, who would draw your wrath for the worst foreign policy disaster in American history? And what crazy hypothetical outcome would you claim would have happened instead?
Sean, your detractors seem like teenagers in a food fight at Columbine High School. Their parents have never taught them the indispensable virtue of self-respecting SHAME in the commonwealth of school, the community, the state, the nation. In the end, the neocons do not believe in Justice&Truth, but in Force&Fraud.
Dr. Walt,
Perhaps I've misread you, but you seem to buy in to the notion that the Israel lobby mobilized demonstrations against health care reform. The link you provided does not provide any actual evidence for the claim though. Can you shed some light on that?
Thanks,
a loyal reader
The Lobby Armey and Health Care Protesters
Dear loyal reader et al: Dr. Walt did not say anywhere that the Israeli Lobby was behind the health care protests. It was intimated by a commentor.
A bit of googeling turned up some interesting stuff on that topic.
Two groups have been primarily responsible for those protests, Dick Armey's Freedom Works and Tim Phillips Americans for Prosperity.
Armey was the House Majority Leader from 1995 to 2003. During that time he was a well-known Israel supporter and his activities are well covered by Dr. Walt in The Israel Lobby. For example he is on record as stating that his "number one priority" in terms of foreign policy is to support Israel. He is also a well-known Christian Zionist.
He does not seem to have missed a chance to attend the most marginal pro-Israel to-do's, as this rather amusing story relates:
http://www.realnews247.com/christians_attack_antizionists.htm
And who would doubt that Israel and its Lobby would use any means to distract Obama from being attentive to the Middle East? And who would doubt that Armey has forsworn his Christian Zionist allegiace? So, what's the answer to your question?
Perhaps you would care to research Tim Phillips?
I doubt it - but then I'm a commenter-fan.
Conversely, I do know there is a strong component of accusing Walt of anti-semitism from his detractors. In fact, like your post, that is usually all there is to their complaints. Why don't you instead show me how anyone on this blog "throws around the word neocon as if they were burning witches"?
Oh, and Eliot Cohen is as far from scary as Little Bo Peep. But I will read Drezner.
Rise of the Neocons by Bret Stephens
Don't forget Stephens' op-end in the WSJ today or yesterday explaining the fundamentals behind a resurgence in the neocons.
Two recent op-eds tell you a lot about the corner the United States is painting itself into on Iran.
The principal problem President Obama has is that he fed the noecon flames by repeatedly saying, despite multiple findings to the contrary, that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. (Even Eliot Cohen, in his op-ed, doesn't say that!) So the cries of "appeasement" are coming at a president who hyped the threat by claiming something that doesn't exist, and now he won't do enough about it. He painted himself into that corner.
Sometimes I think that politicians can never be believed.
The American people weren't just failed by a President - they were failed by much of Washington. By a media that too often reported spin instead of facts. . .I will always tell the American people the truth.
--Oct 2, 2008, Barack Obama
Pressure on Obama to Confront Iran
Two of the most influential members of the Obama administration -- Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross -- are founders of UANI (United Against Nuclear Iran). I can't begin to imagine the pressure Obama is coming under from neoliberals (neoconservatives) in his own administration and in the Democratic Party to ratchet up conflict with Iran.
Regarding the Party neolibs, I've seen no evidence that the PPI/DLC (Will Marshall & Co.) are advocating anything more than sanctions (which they admit don't work) against Iran.
Holbrooke has no responsibility for Iran, Ross is a "special advisor."
So I don't think much pressure is on Oabama from those quarters. AIPAC and its congressional allies are a different story, but even AIPAC doesn't advocate more than sanctions (at least publicly).
Neocons (Neolibs) in the Obama Administration
Certainly sanctions represent a major ratcheting up of tension, and the pressure for sanctions is coming overwhelmingly from the Israel lobby (which includes neoconservatives in the Republican Party and neoliberals in the Democratic Party). Key quote from the Leveretts' article: "Because President Obama assembled a national security team that, for the most part, did not share his early vision for American-Iranian rapprochement, his administration never built a strong public case for engagement. The prospect of engagement is still treated largely as a channel for “rewarding” positive Iranian actions and “punishing” problematic behavior — precisely what Mr. Obama, as a presidential candidate, criticized so eloquently about President George W. Bush’s approach." This is a neoliberal administration, one radically at odds with the progressive base that propelled Obama into the White House. (Besides Holbrooke and Ross, Emanuel, Axelrod, Clinton and Summers also qualify as neoliberals.)
that propelled Obama into the White House" were snookered by his "talk to Iran" rhetoric, meant for progressives, which was balance by his "Iran has nuclear weapons" talk which was red meat for the neocons/neolibs. Obama, in other words, had something for everyone, which may be a good way for an inexperienced man to run a campaign perhaps, but no way to govern. Now he's stuck in neutral on Iran, as in other areas, and being called the ditherer-in-chief.
"Talk to Iran" meant hit them with unlawful demands, as I'm afraid we'll see this week. There was supposed to be an end to American Exceptionalism but I think we'll see a lot of "talking down" to Iran, a father-child exhibition intended to bolster Obama's alpha-male image.
Simple. Cohen is calling for a repeat of 1953 in Iran.
What an ass.
What did the Founding Fathers say about meddling in other nations?
Mr. Cohen, USA does not own the world. Stop being an ass in public.
Prof Walt,
please look up UN Security council resolution 487 which calls on upon Israel to place its nuclear facility under the International Atomic Energy Agency's surveillance.
How do you like that? When do we sanction Israel?
Here, I will save you the trouble:
United Nations Security Council Resolution 487
JUNE 19, 1981
The Security Council,
Having considered the agenda contained in document S/Agenda/2280,
Having noted the contents of the telegram dated 8 June 1981 from the Foreign Minister of Iraq (S/14509),
Having heard the statements made to the Council on the subject at its 2280th through 2288th meetings,
Taking note of the statement made by the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the Agency's Board of Governors on the subject on 9 June 1981 and his statement to the Council at its 2288th meeting on 19 June 1981,
Further taking note of the resolution adopted by the Board of Governors of the IAEA on 12 June 1981 on the "military attack on the Iraq nuclear research centre and its implications for the Agency" (S/14532),
Fully aware of the fact that Iraq has been a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons since it came into force in 1970, that in accordance with that Treaty Iraq has accepted IAEA safeguards on all its nuclear activities, and that the Agency has testified that these safeguards have been satisfactorily applied to date,
Noting furthermore that Israel has not adhered to the non-proliferation Treaty,
Deeply concerned about the danger to international peace and security created by the premeditated Israeli air attack on Iraqi nuclear installations on 7 June 1981, which could at any time explode the situation in the area, with grave consequences for the vital interests of all States,
Considering that, under the terms of Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter of the United Nations: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations",
1. Strongly condemns the military attack by Israel in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct;
2. Calls upon Israel to refrain in the future from any such acts or threats thereof;
3. Further considers that the said attack constitutes a serious threat to the entire IAEA safeguards regime which is the foundation of the non-proliferation Treaty;
4. Fully recognises the inalienable sovereign right of Iraq, and all other States, especially the developing countries, to establish programmes of technological and nuclear development to develop their economy and industry for peaceful purposes in accordance with their present and future needs and consistent with the internationally accepted objectives of preventing nuclear-weapons proliferation;
5. Calls upon Israel urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards;
6. Considers that Iraq is entitled to appropriate redress for the destruction it has suffered, responsibility for which has been acknowledged by Israel;
7. Requests the Secretary-General to keep the Security Council regularly informed of the implementation of this resolution.
You link to a piece that asserts without evidence that the Israel lobby has been behind the health care protests.
Do you really believe this to be true?
Health care reform and the settlements
M.J. Rosenberg made a remark related to this issue at Talking Points Memo on July 24:
If Health Reform Fails, Netanyahu Will Prevail On Settlements
The word from the Israeli right is that their best hope of prevailing over the President is by stalling. They are watching Obama's poll numbers, praying the health reform bill collapses and with it Obama's popularity. Then they will enlist the still reluctant Israel lobby to pressure Congressional Democrats to support Netanyahu. The strategy could work; some of these Congressional Democrats are eager to pander to the Jewish right as in the good old days!
The amazing thing is that everything depends on health reform failing!"
You might inquire from Rosenberg about his sources.
Health care and pressure groups
I answered "loyal reader" above on the same issue at 8:36 am. (Suspect loyal reader and blue are the same)
Tie my answer in with Rosenberg and the picture comes ever more into focus.
I'm actually more interested in what Prof. Walt thinks of the issue, since he's the one who approvingly posted the link to the charge. But thanks for finding the quote from whomever the Rosenberg chap is.
Given that Cohen recognizes that his own recommendations won't work, one can only conclude that his real aim is to make sure that there is no accommodation whatsoever between Washington and Iran. His warnings about the protests that Obama will face are intended less to solve the actual problem than to persuade the President to stick with the failed policies we have followed for the past two decades.
Like any good neo-con (and probably Israel-promoter), he's terrified of Iran. He knows that if the Iranians go successfully nuclear, then the Israelis basically are forced into a kind of corner - the Iranians can sponsor anti-Israeli efforts with relative impunity (particularly with the ailing sanctions).
To him, a partial reconciliation with the US while Iran got nuclear weapons would be the worst of all possible worlds - an Iran that's secure from Israeli threats combined with an Iran that has full access and connections to the world market.
Nixon did this because he understood that transforming the entire U.S.-China relationship was more important than worrying about Beijing's bad behavior; the key was move to a relationship where such bad behavior was no longer in China's interest.
The main problem I see with it is that the US and China had a common adversary in the Soviet Union, and in particular the Sino-Soviet split was highly exacerbated when Nixon made his contact. There's no real equivalent with Iran - we're not allying with Iran as part of a greater strategy against China, or something like that.
Also, the analogy made with Nixon and China would make sense only if Nixon had proposed accomodating Mao on every issue in dispute, which is essentially where the Leveretts are with respect to Ahmedinejad -- not with Iran as a whole, just with Ahmedinejad.
I'm afraid I don't share the view that the choices before us boil down to apocalypse or surrender. First, because while I do believe the Iranian government seeks a nuclear weapons capability I am not persuaded that an Iranian bomb is imminent. Second, because as belligerent as its odious President sounds his position at home is considerably weaker than, say, Barack Obama's. We have more room to maneuver with respect to Iran than either Eliot Cohen or the Leveretts choose to recognize.
ISIS is now saying: In an analysis based on media reporting and commercial satellite imagery from 2004, 2005 and 2009, it appears that the suspected uranium enrichment facility near Qom, first identified by ISIS on September 25th, was originally a tunnel facility associated with Iran’s military—one of many throughout the country—and not a construction site for a uranium enrichment plant.
From today's JPost:
Sandman warned of two main catalysts for a possible lack of support. The first was what he called the decreasing influence the Jewish community had over the US government.
"This trend will continue to get worse, due to assimilation and the fast rise of other minorities such as the Hispanics, which amount to 30 million [people] today in the US," he wrote.
The second was a possible change in government and subsequent policy that "could leave Israel without an ally."
Without an intention of holding any racist views, but nearly all "prominent" necons are Jewish advising a destructive foreign policy in
the Middle East which apparently serves the strategic interests of Israel rather than US especially when the region needs an urgent peace rather than another big conflict..
Neoconservatism, Jews and Antisemitism
1. A large majority of Jews are not neoconservatives and many of them are anti-neoconservatives. 78% of Jews voted for Obama.
2. All neoconservatives are pro-Jewish and pro-Israel militants on the Likud end of the political spectrum (and in some cases to the right of Likud).
3. Some neoconservatives are not Jewish and some of those neoconservatives are Christian Zionists, but non-Jews represent a minority among the leadership of the neoconservative movement.
4. Most leaders of the neoconservative movement are militant Jewish ethnic nationalists whose writings are overflowing with references to their Jewish identity, their ethnic and religious nationalism, and especially their long list of ethnic and religious enemies.
The misdeeds and crimes of neoconservatism are no excuse for antisemitism, and antisemitism should be strongly condemned always, but neoconservatives have contributed to an increase of antisemitism by falsely claiming to speak for Jews as a whole. Many people around the world understandably don't have the time to sort out the distinctions made in the four points above. "The Jews" are no more responsible for William Kristol or Eliot Cohen than "the Christians" are for John Hagee or Pat Robertson.
If you want to understand neoconservatism, browse back issues of Commentary from the 1970s to the present. The neoconservative agenda couldn't be more obvious -- it rather screams at one: endless war against nearly everyone; messianic xenophobia.
Given that Cohen recognizes that his own recommendations won't work, one can only conclude that his real aim is to make sure that there is no accommodation whatsoever between Washington and Iran.
Correct. Guys like Cohen aren't really worried about military threats from Iran. They are worried about potential realignments of existing Middle East power relations, and the very real threat that Americans will suddenly develop a clue and start to pursue their own self-interest. They aren't worried that rapprochement will fail, but that it will succeed.
The Jewish Lobby Favors an Iran War?
Are others noticing that the discussion about who is agitating for an Iran War is morphing within Jewish media circles themselves from neoconservatives, to the Israel lobby, to the Jewish lobby, to American Jews in general? Should American Jews be worried about these developments?
"Poll Shows Majority of U.S. Jews Back Iran Strike" (Forward)
A new survey shows that a majority of American Jews would support a U.S. military strike on Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons – a significant increase from a year ago.
Fifty-six percent of American Jews would support the “United States taking military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons,” according to the American Jewish Committee’s 2009 Annual Survey of Jewish Opinion. That’s an increase of 14 percentage points from the AJC survey taken in the fall of 2008. In addition, 66 percent of those surveyed said they would back an Israeli strike on Iran.
The survey of 800 self-identifying Jewish respondents, interviewed between Aug. 30 and Sept. 17, comes as a wide swath of Jewish organizations are rallying support in the Jewish community and elsewhere for increased economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran – in particular tough sanctions targeting Iran’s importation and production of refined petroleum. With a margin of error of plus or minus three percent, the poll would appear to undercut the claims of some who charge that Jewish organizations are out of step with the Jewish public in pushing for pressure on Iran.
Neoconservatism is a terminal disease in my humble opinion, so I refrain from commenting on that portion of the post.
But, to call the Leverett's op-ed "clear" and laudatory is to overlook a whole set of dangerous assumptions and abstractions contained in it. It is rather revealing that the authors don't bother explaining what the "Iranian political system" they so desperately want the Obama administration to understand is actually like. Not a peep about the insidious rise of the IRGC, for instance, or diminishing role of even the Supreme Leader in internal politics. Indeed, their knowledge of Iran's "political system" is as abstract and vacuous as those of neoconservatives'. To call the recent popular uprisings and their very significant consequences for key political factions and individuals "hardly a cataclysmic event" is indicative of the kind of willful ignorance that so pervades the policy think tank world on this issue today.
What has been truly remarkable about the aftermath of the Iranian elections is the continued pressure on all organs of government by the Iranian civil society that continues to this very minute. To ignore the popular sentiment (and along with it, the illegitimacy of the present government) is to sow the seeds of resentment and anti-American sentiments in the future. Now is not the time to strike a deal with an illegitimate neanderthal whose only claim to rationality is that he attends an annual dinner with the likes of the Leveretts.
The least worst policy on Iran
If the United States takes any steps to encourage the overthrow of the current Iranian government, we will activate memories of the 1953 coup. So that policy won't work. Sanctions won't work. A military attack won't work. So what policy is left, by process of elimination of bad policies? What is the least worse policy?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/de5ac1f6-ad58-11de-9caf-00144feabdc0.html
Security Council is wrong to single out Iran
Published: September 30 2009 03:00 | Last updated: September 30 2009 03:00
From Dr Yousaf Mahmood Butt.
Sir, In discussing the Iranian nuclear impasse, Gideon Rachman quotes Otto von Bismarck as saying: "The great questions of the day will be decided not by speeches, or by resolutions of majorities, but by blood and iron." ("Iran tests the world's collective will", September 28.) Let us hope not: other German leaders thought the same thing also, and things did not turn out so well for them.
Use of force against Iran would only shore up domestic support for President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad and would give new impetus to Iran for restarting its suspended nuclear weapons programme. Hyperbole aside, it should be remembered that the newly revealed Iranian facility is no proof of a nuclear weapons programme.
Back in 2005, when the west assessed that Iran did have an active nuclear weapons programme, the National Defense University in Washington DC examined its motivations. The NDU study concluded that Iran desired nuclear weapons mainly because it felt strategically isolated and that "possession of such weapons would give the regime legitimacy, respectability, and protection". In other words, Iran desired nuclear weapons for the dual purposes of pride and deterrence, just like every other nuclear-armed nation. The NDU study judged "and nearly all experts consulted agree, that Iran would not, as a matter of state policy, give up its control of such weapons to terrorist organisations and risk direct US or Israeli retribution"; and, finally, that the "United States has options short of war that it could employ to deter a nuclear-armed Iran and dissuade further proliferation" (see http://www.ndu.edu/inss/docUploaded/McNair70.pdf ). As it happens, the latest US National Intelligence Estimate, from 2007, indicates that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.
Let's remember that Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Russia, the UK and the US all enrich uranium legally just like Iran. (Further, Israel and North Korea are suspected of having similar enrichment programmes). The "international community" (aka the United Nations Security Council) needs to investigate all these programmes with equal vigour, and not pick and choose which countries to harass. To be taken seriously, international law must be blind.
Yousaf Mahmood Butt,
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
Cambridge, MA, US
These Guys will never stop. NEVER. No matter HOW wrong they are.
Iraq; Ties to terrorism! secret Nuclear Program! THREATENS ISRAEL!! JUST LIKE HITLERRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! (but WORSSSSSSE!!!!!) After we attack, THEY WILL FALL AT OUR FEET IN GRATITUDE!!! We will Install Achmed Chalabi (a really great, trust worthy guy we have known for a long time!) as the new leader, and Iraq will be like a little US in the middle east!!! LETS DO IIIiiiiIIIT!!!!
oh.... sorry, all wrong. sorry, really. just another decade or so and 3 or 4 more trillion dollars, and we'll be out of there, and it probably TOTALLY melt down either. really. I promise this time. really
Wait 10 minutes.
Iran; TIES TO TERRORISM! SECRET NUCLEAR PROGRAM! THREATENS ISRAEL!!! LIKE HITLERRRRRRRR!!!!!! (EVEN MORE THAN SADDAM WAS!!!!) Since Chalabi now lives in Iran, maybe he will agree to take over THERE after we attack and the people will fall to their knees in gratitude!!!!! LetSSSS DO IiiiiITTTTTT!!!!!
These guys have no shame. NONE. and they assume the entire nation is populated by dolts who will mindlessly attack anybody that they paste the threadbare Hitler mustache on.
Wow. A reasonable offer from Iran:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1254163553789&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
suck my b*lls!
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
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