Author: Ali Gharib

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for November 3rd, 2010:

The American: Writing on the blog of the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute’s journal, AEI fellow Ali Alfoneh details the latest machinations between Iran’s power players. The news hook is an article critical of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a monthly journal of the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). A direct attack on Ahmadinejad by the IRGC is a new development, notes Alfoneh. He reflects on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s efforts to “restore the balance between the political forces” since Ahmadinejad seemed to, with the Leader’s blessing, consolidate power after his disputed June 2009 election victory. Whether Khamenei’s efforts will work remains to be seen, but Alfoneh concludes: “Such a degree of disunity among political elites of the Islamic Republic is bad news for the regime and good news for those who desire to extract concessions from it.”

Forbes: Abigail R. Esman blogs that Ahmadinejad’s denial that packages aboard planes bound for the UK and the United States contained explosives should raise questions about Iran’s involvement in the attempted terrorist attack. Without additional information linking Iran to the plot, Esman asks, “Does this relate to President Ahmadinejad’s recent determination to investigate the events of 9/11 (which he has called “a complete fabrication”), and specifically to determine “why 3000 Jews did not show up for work” at the World Trade Center by 8:45 am on that day?” Esman repeats the allegations that al-Qaeda and Iran are closely cooperating. Finally, without providing any evidence linking Iran to the terror plot, she ends by asking, “Was Iran involved in the latest bombing attempts? And if so, what do we do about it?”

The Wall Street Journal: Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, considers the loading of fuel rods into the nuclear power plant at Bushehr “… emblematic of an illegal nuclear policy that could spell the end of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—perhaps the most important pillar of global security.” Kantor warns a nuclear weapons possessing Iran could be a “paradigm breaking order” in the Middle East, kick off a global nuclear arms race, and make the use of nuclear weapons commonplace in war. And if Iran provided a “dirty bomb” to terrorists, its use “…would turn inhabitants of the Western world into fearful hostages of terrorists, resulting in the moral and psychological collapse of our civilization.” Kantor calls for Western countries to implement expanded sanctions, repeating the talking point that Western countries are about to repeat the mistakes made in appeasing Hitler in 1938.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 26th, 2010:

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.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 22nd, 2010:

Jerusalem Post: Israeli President Shimon Peres endorsed linkage — the concept accepted by many in the Obama administration and military leadership that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will help the U.S. pursue its longterm strategic objectives in the Middle East —at a conference of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute on Thursday. According to the Jerusalem Post, “Peres said that, “for our existence, we need the friendship of the United States of America,” and “…the president said Israel could be of help to the US by enabling an ‘anti-Iran coalition in the Middle East, and the contribution will not be by declaration, but if we stop the secondary conflict between us and the Palestinians,’ in order to allow the US to focus on the Iranian threat.”

The Race For Iran: Peter Jenkins endorses Gareth Evans post which lays out why Iran’s leaders will not pursue nuclear weapons, but adds that while pressure and persuasion may help deter Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, it may also have the opposite effect. Jenkins suggests that Western powers start focusing on addressing broader regional concerns about a nuclear weapons possession and the impact on the regional balance of power. “Now that most of the evidence points to Iran having opted for self-denial, a new policy is needed, a policy that gives priority to allaying Israeli and Arab fears that a threshold capability will enhance Iran’s regional status and self-confidence,” he concludes.

Commentary: Evelyn Gordon writes on the Contentions blog that the incoming Congress must do everything it can to support the Iranian opposition. She says “Swiss cheese sanctions” won’t work. “That leaves two choices: a military strike, which everyone professes to oppose, or regime change — which probably wouldn’t end the nuclear program but would mitigate the threat it poses,” she writes. She says this entails “vocal and unequivocal moral support,” and “technological support.” She concludes: “What Congress must do is find out from movement organizers themselves what they need — and then give it to them.”

The Guardian: Foreign affairs columnist Simon Tisdall writes that “neither sanctions nor diplomacy can wholly obviate the dread possibility of military confrontation unless something fundamental changes soon at the heart of Iran’s fundamentalist regime.” Tisdall points to some of the effects of sanctions, but says their overall impact inside is difficult to know, noting comments from Iran’s finance minister that the country’s cash reserves are enough to withstand the pressure. He also mentions resistance to the program from China, Turkey and Iraq. He says that while Iran is due to come to the negotiating table next month, it will likely limit the talks. “[T]here is little or no evidence so far that Iran’s top leadership is willing, or can be forced, to fundamentally change its ways,” he writes. “And so the dread juggernaut of direct, physical confrontation rolls ever closer.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 19th, 2010:

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 Hezbollah 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.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 15th, 2010:

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.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for October 13th, 2010:

The Hill: Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies writes on The Hill’s Congress Blog that Iran owns 15 percent of a uranium mine in Namibia, the third largest uranium mine in the world. Iran has owned a stake since the early 1970s and, according to Schanzer, does so using a loophole that needs to be fixed. He warns that “as the Iranian nuclear endgame plays out, oversights like these could give Tehran a dangerous advantage.” The Iranian stake in the mine is owned by the Iran Foreign Investment Company (IFIC), which, according the U.S. Treasury restrictions, cant’ do business with U.S. companies. Schanzer says Congress should ban business with Rossing, which manages the mine, and the U.S. should confront the company as well as the Namibian government about Iran’s involvement.

Reuters: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon brought harsh words from White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs. In response to a question about Ahmadinejad’s plan to travel to Lebanon’s border with Israel, Gibbs told reporters, “[Ahmadinejad] continues his provocative ways…even as he leaves his country further in economic distress and turmoil as a result of his actions that have led to international sanctions that are having great impact.” The visit to Lebanon is the first official state visit by an Iranian president. Gibbs said that the visit “suggests that Hezbollah values its allegiance to Iran over its allegiance to Lebanon.”

Washington Times: Reza Kahlili, a former CIA spy in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who writes in hawkish publications under a pseudonym, takes to the Times opinion page to declare President Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon a “victory over Israel and the West in gaining control” over the tiny Mediterranean country. He says that U.S. withdrawal from Lebanon in the 1980s was “the beginning of the Islamic [Republic] regime’s dominance in the Middle East.” Even after Iranian ascent, he writes, “the West continues to provide legitimacy to terrorism and the terrorists’ criminal activity by maintaining its policy of appeasement and negotiation.” In June, Kahlili made a thinly-veiled call for war to unseat the Islamic regime in Iran.