Author: Ali Gharib

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for August 31st, 2010:

The Wall Street Journal: News columnist Gerald Seib has a convoluted piece on Mid East and Central Asian policy where he says that almost all the U.S.’s regional policy is directed at Iran. Seib writes that Obama’s policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel-Palestine all aim to “clear the decks in order to concentrate more intensely on the paramount challenge posed by Iran and its Islamic extremist friends.” Raising the specter of “a hostile state potentially armed with weapons of mass destruction,” Seib nonetheless affirms the neocon bête noire of linkage between the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the rest of the region. He calls the Mid East talks in Washington this week “an attempt to reduce the danger of a traditional flashpoint, the plight of the stateless Palestinians.”

National Review Online: Robert Costa briefly sums up House Minority Leader John Boehner’s speech to an American Legion Convention in Milwaukee before reproducing the speech in full. Boehner, who would become Speaker should the GOP take the House in November, asserts that “international isolation” will not stop Iran from pursuing the bomb. “Iran is more than prepared to sacrifice the well-being of its people for the chance to fundamentally change the balance of power in the region,” he says. “It is the true source of instability in the region, and we must not naively assume a nuclear-armed Iran would be containable.” Without directly mentioning an Israeli attack on Iran, Boehner says that the U.S. should support Israel as an “island of freedom” and “stick by [its] friends.”

Financial Times (free subscription required): Reporting from Tehran, Monavar Khalaj highlights the still-turbulent domestic politics of Iran. While the current sparring in Iran’s majles — or parliament — is between President Ahmadinejad and fundamentalist hard-liners, the wrangling is in direct defiance of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and indicates how difficult it is for authorities to keep a lid on politics there. In fact, self-proclaimed Green Movement supporter and arch-neocon Michael Ledeen has a post at NRO pointing to calls for a new round of Green protests (though Ledeen strikes a patronizing tone by declaring the opposition’s poster “elegant”).

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy: WINEP fellow Simon Henderson warns that arrests of Shiite opposition activists in Bahrain could threaten to bring greater resentment from the island-kingdom’s Shiite majority. Henderson argues that the large number of potentially disenfranchised Shiites, Tehran’s historical claims to Bahrain (although Tehran renounced its claim to the kingdom during the Shah’s rule), and the importance of the island state to U.S. military staging in the region are all reasons for the U.S. to encourage the Bahraini government to avoid an outbreak of anti-government and anti-U.S. protests.

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for August 25th, 2010:

Washington Times: In an editorial, the hawkish daily chronicles what it calls, “Iran’s emergence as a regional hegemon,” based on its slowly advancing nuclear program and its unveiling of a new line of unmanned aircraft. The editorial cites the Israeli Foreign Ministry in saying that the developments are “totally unacceptable” and wonders if the term means as much to President Obama. Coyly attributing two recent mysterious events to Israeli subversion, the Times takes comfort that “perhaps ‘unacceptable’ means something after all.”

Foreign Policy: On FP’s “Shadow Government” blog, the Foreign Policy Initiative’s Jamie Fly admits that the new Iranian reactor at Bushehr “fails to meet the hype,” but nonetheless reveals a failure in U.S.-Iran policy. He says, “a serious exploration of new options, including the military option, is thus in order if the United States remains unwilling to accept a nuclear Iran.” Fly also disapprovingly notes Russia’s complicity in the reactor’s start-up, and raises questions about Iran’s nuclear time line. On the latter point, Fly wonders “how close Iran should be allowed to get to a nuclear capability before military action is taken.”

Commentary: On the “Contentions” blog, prolific über-hawk Jennifer Rubin riffs on a Bret Stephens Wall Street Journal column asserting that the United States didn’t act soon enough to remove Saddam Hussein in Iraq. She extends the logic of Stephens’ “Twenty Years War” with Iraq to the “the Thirty-One Years War that Iran has waged against the United States and the West,” urging Obama “to finally engage the enemy, thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and commit ourselves to regime change.” She concludes with a note that recalls the measures taken against Iraq by Bill Clinton, which laid the groundwork for Bush’s war there: “But perhaps, if Israel buys the world sufficient time (yes, we are down to whether the Jewish state will pick up the slack for the sleeping superpower), the next president will.”

Huffington Post: Conservative pundit Tony Blankley lists differences between “1938ers” — those who believe it’s always 1938 and Hitler always lurks around the corner — and the Obama administration’s policies. “So the question today is not whether to appease Iran or not — but whether Iran is appeasable. And if not appeasable, whether its threat can be defeated with acceptable costs,” writes Blankley. He concludes that Obama’s strategy is based on “wishful thinking, at best,” and that, “the grim assessment of the 1938ers seems sadly more realistic.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for August 20th, 2010:

New York Times: Mark Manzetti and David Sanger report that the Obama administration has “persuaded” Israel that Iran is at least one year — if not more — away from having the potential to build a nuclear bomb. (This is consistent with the “at least 18 months” figure reported by Sanger and William Broad in January.) In the latest piece, an anonymous U.S. official said Iran was currently questioning how far to push its program: “The argument is over how far to push the program, how close to a weapon they can get without paying an even higher price.”

The Atlantic blog: In an interesting forum on Jeffrey Goldberg’s recent piece on Israel and Iran, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Patrick Clawson writes that, “Washington and Jerusalem see eye-to-eye in their assessment of where Iran stands and how quickly it is moving forward.” He concludes that while this is the case, differing threat perceptions and military doctrines — the “Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force” vs. Israel’s “mow the grass,” quick, incremental mentality — might cause Israeli and U.S. intentions to diverge again later this year.

The Jewish Week: The Jewish Week’s editorial board summarizes Jeffrey Goldberg’s article on Israel and Washington’s potential military response to Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. The authors endorse the sanctions track but share Goldberg’s doubt that Iran can be deterred from acquiring nuclear weapons. “…Goldberg told The Jewish Week on Tuesday that ‘Iran loves nukes and will do anything to have them.’” The editorial concludes that, “For now, we must do all we can in support of the administration’s efforts to convince Iran to end its nuclear program voluntarily. But Washington needs to address what happens when that fails.”

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

Washington Post: Columnist David Ignatius takes a broad view of the Obama administration’s diplomatic trouble spots and prescribes “patience plus” because time is actually on the side of U.S. counterparts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, and Iran. Ignatius admires the current “diplomatic ambiguity,” but thinks Obama needs to “promptly seize opportunities for negotiation when they arise,” noting that this will hopefully be accomplished in September or October when Iran and the P5 + 1 sit down for talks on the nuclear issue and probably Afghanistan.

Washington Post (AP): Iran’s ambassador to the UN is angered that top Pentagon brass acknowledged a U.S. contingency plan to bomb Iran, denouncing the rhetoric as an unprovoked “threat.” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made similar statements, adding that, should the United States attack, “the field of the Iranian nation’s confrontation will not be only our region.” Khamanei also warned that belligerent talk would end negotiations.

Weekly Standard Blog: Gabriel Schoenfeld tries to sort the recent chatter about the Iranian nuclear clock writing, “Time may be on our side in dealing with Iran—but then again it may not.” Not quite endorsing the nuclear time line in Jeffrey Goldberg’s latest piece (the Israel contention that next July is the doomsday), Schoenfeld then takes on the Atlantic’s James Fallows, who thinks the United States has some time. “For an analyst as thoughtful as James Fallows to assert categorically that we will not be taken by surprise is itself a surprise. One might even call it an intelligence failure,” writes Schoenfeld.

Pajames Media: Hudson Institute Fellow Anne Bayefsky writes that the “Ground Zero Mosque” has “an Iranian connection.” Bayefsky cites a photograph of Cordoba Initiative chairman, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, and Iranian Mohammad Javad Larijani at a 2008 event sponsored by the Initiative in Kuala Lumpur. Larijani defended Iran at the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year. Bayefsky warns that, “The Iranian connection to the launch of Cordoba House may go beyond a relationship between Rauf and Larijani. The Cordoba Initiative lists one of its three major partners as the UN’s Alliance of Civilizations. The Alliance has its roots in the Iranian-driven “Dialogue Among Civilizations,” the brainchild of former Iranian President Hojjatoleslam Seyyed Mohammad Khatami.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for August 18th, 2010:

Washington Times: In an editorial, the über-hawkish DC daily echoes John Bolton (referenced in our last entry here) and calls for a strike against Iran’s Bushehr reactor before fuel rods are inserted in the plant. Their revised timeline gives the United States or Israel just two days to act — though they state that it might not be so bad to wait because the radiation-fallout that Bolton seeks to avoid would be a way for a potential strike to “hinder Iranian attempts to get it back up and running.” The editors opine that “action is needed,” but admit that it’s unlikely.

NY Times.com: At the Opinionator blog, Robert Wright offers a nuanced reading of Jeffery Goldberg’s recent Atlantic story on the likelihood of an Israeli military strike on Iran in the coming year (50-50, Goldberg says). Wright says that while there is a “bit of channeling” Bibi Netanyahu, “the piece is no simple propaganda exercise.” Wright concludes that while the piece is, if anything, a poor piece of war propaganda, it is instructive because it answers questions about the weak Israeli public (and private) reasons for bombing, and also offers the United States a map for constructing a plan to avoid that scenario, especially given that the piece offers “no sound rationale for bombing Iran.”

Arms Control Wonk: Joshua Pollack, an occasional U.S. government consultant, laments that the arms control community — “nuke nerds” — are not playing a big enough role in discussions over what to do about Iran’s nuclear program, often only speaking amongst themselves in acronym-heavy jargon. So he offers, in plain English, a little parsing about the different views of Iran’s nuclear goals: What, for instance, does “going nuclear” even mean? “If Iran is going to achieve breakout capability at a hidden facility somewhere — call it Son of Qom — then bombing Natanz won’t address that problem,” write Pollack. “The name of the game today isn’t bombing, it’s intelligence.” (Hat Tip to Laicie Olson)

Washington Post: On the anniversary of the 1953 coup d’etat that unseated the democratically elected and secular Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh (and re-installed the dictatorial Shah), Council on Foreign Relations fellow Ray Takeyh examines the events and offers an unusual account that places the blame for the failure of democracy fifty-seven years ago squarely on the same societal forces responsible for last summer’s squashing of democratic expression: Iran’s clerics.

News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations:

The Washington Post: Glenn Kessler reports that the chief sanctions enforcer at the U.S. Treasury is tightening up loopholes by specifically designating people and companies who are known to front internationally for Iranian state financial interests. Twenty-one businesses and at least four individuals from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp’s Qods Force were named. Two of the named military men were singled out for support of Hezbollah (considered a terrorist organization by the U.S.) and two for “financial and material support” to the Taliban.

House of Representatives: Liberal Mid East hawk Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) and über-hawk Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) announced that they are forming a Working Group on Iran Sanctions Implementation. “We will continue to pressure and isolate Iran until it terminates its illicit nuclear weapons activities. A nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable,” the members of Congress said in a statement. The Working Group will “meet on a regular basis with Administration officials, foreign ambassadors, and outside experts to oversee and verify enforcement of Iran sanctions implementation,” as well as hold a hearing on the subject in the fall. Both Beramn and Ros-Lehtinen are favorites of the right-wing Israel lobby, for whom “crippling sanctions” have long been a top priority.

Reuters: U.S. State Department Special Adviser for Non-proliferation and Arms Control Robert Einhorn was in Tokyo, Japan, on Tuesday encouraging the Japanese government to ramp-up its sanctions effort. Japan, which buys Iranian oil, announced that it adopted a sanctions program similar to that of the UN, and said further measures might be on the way. Einhorn, noting that Japanese access to Iranian oil would not be in play, urged them to follow the model of the European Union, which recently enacted a tough unilateral sanctions package.