Author: Eli Clifton

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for January 5th, 2011:

The Wall Street Journal: David Feith adds his voice to the neoconservative criticism of HSBC’s recent advertisement that highlighted the high number of women in the Iranian film industry. Feith characterizes the bank as “Iran’s useful idiots” and says that the ad suggests that “a murderous theocracy is actually a progressive place.” The op-ed lists a number of human rights abuses against women in Iran and concludes that the ad is comparable to defending Nazi propaganda produced by females. “Imagine a 1939 ad pointing to Leni Riefenstahl—Hitler’s court filmmaker and a pioneering female artist—as evidence of the Third Reich’s unexpected “‘potential’,” he writes.

National Review Online: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies‘ Benjamin Weinthal blogs that Germany’s attempts at engagement with Iran, while Iran continues to detain two German journalists, “is yet another example of what a flop this cognitive-behavioral therapy for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and company has been.” Weinthal goes on to compare the arrest of three American hikers in 2009 to “replicating the 1979 model” of holding Americans hostage. Weinthal says that engagement with Iran has only produced more hostage crises and is a form of appeasement. “Germany’s flourishing trade relationship with Iran (German exports to Iran reached €3.4 billion this year) and a steady stream of German members of parliament travelling to Iran to meet Holocaust deniers, human-rights violators, and haters of women, reveal the bankruptcy of critical dialogue and change through trade,” he concludes.

The Wall Street Journal: Mark Dubowitz, Executive Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, opines in the WSJ Asia edition that the Reserve Bank of India’s crackdown on domestic buyers of Iranian oil marks a major improvement in international sanctions against Iran’s energy sector, but that “further measures, and time for them to work, will still be needed to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program.” Dubowitz argues that the U.S. could do more to ensure that oil supply will not tighten if sanctions are more strictly enforced. He writes, “Provided the United States and its allies can get more oil on the market—for example the Iran-loathing Saudis could increase production, or President Obama could lift the moratorium on offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico—then the world oil market would have considerably more elasticity.” He concludes, “The near-miraculous attack of the Stuxnet virus on Iran’s centrifuges and the untimely deaths of key Iranian nuclear scientists may have bought the administration that time, and further strengthened those who want to use economic sticks to beat back Iran’s nuclear aspirations.”

The Wall Street Journal: Emanuele Ottolenghi, a fellow the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, opines in the WSJ’s Europe edition that European countries could do more to expand sanctions against individuals associated with human rights abuses in Iran. In contrast to those who argue that the West’s approach to pressuring Iran must focus on either human rights or Tehran’s nuclear program, he writes, “If Western democracies were to target the Islamic Republic for its human-rights abuses, bolster the country’s internal opposition, and speak directly to the Iranian people over the heads of their oppressors, they would cause significant harm to Tehran.” Ottolenghi concludes with the suggestion that “every day, a member of the U.S. Congress or of the European Parliament spend just 30 seconds recounting the tale of one Iranian dissident, or one victim of Iran’s suppression, and plead for their freedom.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for December 30th, 2010:

Commentary: J.E. Dyer, writing on Commentary’s Contentions blog, says that Iran has sought to weaken the U.S. military’s capabilities in the region by exploring bilateral defense agreements with Oman and Qatar and by exploiting the domestic political tensions between Shias and Sunnis in Bahrain. All three countries host U.S. forces. These developments limit “Washington’s latitude to “calibrate” force,” sayd Dyer, and make our allies question whether siding with the U.S. could lead to retaltions from Iran. Dyer concludes, “We may validly perceive benefits in waiting to take action [against Iran], but doing so always carries costs. This is one of them.”

Commentary: Rick Richman, also blogging on Contentions, critiques the Obama administration’s Middle East policy. Among other observations, he asserts that “the attempted dialogue with Iran and Syria produced predictable failures.” “American allies will gravitate toward Iran (they already are), unless they soon hear a public commitment from the U.S. president to deal with the problem by whatever means necessary,” writes Richman. “Talks with Iran cannot succeed absent its belief such means will, if necessary, be used.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for December 28th, 2010:

The Weekly Standard: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies‘ Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz write that the Obama administration’s sanctions against Iran have “assiduously avoided punishing any major European, Russian, or Chinese transgressor of U.S.-mandated sanctions,” and that they must now “ratchet up significantly the pain in Tehran while encouraging our allies to continue to do more than they’d originally thought possible.” They advocate that the administration expose the role played by the Iranian Republican Guard Corps in the crude oil exporting supply chain and then sanction foreign companies which participate in this trade. “Current sanctions and the regime’s atrocious economic management have brought hard times. For the United States and its allies to be successful, the times need to be made a good deal harder still,” they conclude.

The Washington Post: Jennifer Rubin, writing on her Right Turn blog, picks up on the Weekly Standard’s report on NATO forces capturing a member of Iran’s Qods Force who was serving as a Taliban commander. “Iranian citizens may be pinched by sanctions, but the regime continues to support terrorism, attack U.S. troops and pursue its nuclear program,” writes Rubin. Her post, published on December 27th, noticeably overlooks a retraction of the claim, issued by NATO, on December 24th, which read, “The International Security Assistance Force has determined a cross-border weapons facilitator detained Dec. 18 is not a member of the Iranian Qods force, as was originally reported.” (emphasis added)

The Washington Examiner: American Enterprise Institute Fellow and former UN Ambassador John Bolton opines that Obama’s Iran policy has hinged on a “naive belief” that Iran will engage in negotiations about its nuclear program and has, “…continued to make progress toward obtaining deliverable nuclear weapons, and suffered only minimal economic sanctions as a result.” Bolton suggests that the administration is pursuing a path of containing a nuclear Iran but, “This is almost certainly wrong, since Iran’s leaders do not see human life the same way that Moscow’s atheists did.” He concludes, “Weakness inspires our adversaries, and dispirits our friends, invariably to our collective disadvantage. And in that sense, Barack Obama is truly one of the most provocative presidents in American history.”

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for December 27th, 2010:

The Weekly Standard: Stephen F. Hayes blogs on a report that a member of Iran’s Qods Force, serving as a Taliban commander, has been arrested in Afghanistan. Hayes writes that this capture disproves the commonly held belief that Iran and the Taliban are adversaries and provides further evidence that Iran has been providing “increasingly lethal support” to the Taliban. “And yet senior Obama administration officials have either downplayed the seriousness of Iran’s support or ignored it altogether, despite a never-ending series of reports from the U.S. military that such coordination is happening,” he concludes, adding that NATO forces in Afghanistan (as ISAF) have retracted their claim that the man was part of the Qods Force.

Commentary: Jonathan S. Tobin, writing on Commentary’s Contentions blog, offers his take on The New York Times’s exposé on the limited number of U.S. companies who have received exemptions from the trade sanctions against Iran. (See our coverage of the article here.) “While the purpose of the statute that allows for exemptions was to provide humanitarian aid, the Obama administration has let things like chewing gum, sports equipment and even hot sauce be sold to Iran,” writes Tobin. “In light of these revelations, it’s clear that sanctions will never work to halt the march of this terror sponsor toward nuclear capability,” he warns. “After reading this shocking story, there’s little doubt that Ahmadinejad and his tyrannical Islamist confederates are laughing at us.”

The Washington Post: Jennifer Rubin, writing on her Right Turn blog, interviews Israeli ambassador Michael Oren who warns that sanctions “…have not impacted Iran’s nuclear behavior. Now [the Obama administration is] talking about ‘ratcheting up’ the sanctions. That’s good but the ultimate test is whether Iran will cease enrichment on its soil.” Oren emphasized that for both the United States and Israel “all options remain on the table.” But when pushed for specifics ways of indicating to the Iranians that the threat of force was real, he responded “There are ways to communicate that [a military option is real] to the Iranians.”

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

Commentary: Jonathan Tobin writes on Commentary’s Contentions blog that the Obama administration has fallen for the Iranian’s ploy of practicing “Fabian diplomacy in which they play upon the West’s belief in negotiations with endless delays.” Tobin says that the administration’s position that the West could accept Iran enriching uranium for peaceful purposes “is an open invitation to Iran for more stalling and pretense,” and “is a signal that Obama and Clinton are willing to appease Ahmadinejad in order to gain his signature on an agreement that will pretend to stop an Iranian nuke but will, in fact, facilitate one.” Tobin, attacking Tony Karon’s recent piece in The National, concludes, “talk of a ‘diplomatic solution’ that ‘could be years in the making’ helps to stifle the calls for action against Iran from sensible Americans that rightly fear the consequences of the mullahs’ gaining possession of a nuclear weapon while giving Ahmadinejad and his confederates all the breathing space they need.”

USA Today: Sarah Palin opines that “it’s time to get tough with Iran” and repeats the hawkish, but misleading, talking points about the WikiLeaks cables showing that Arab leaders want the U.S. to attack Iranian nuclear facilities. “If Iran isn’t stopped from obtaining nuclear weapons, it could trigger a regional nuclear arms race in which these countries would seek their own nuclear weapons to protect themselves,” writes Palin. Stressing the threat to Israel posed by a nuclear Iran, Palin writes, “Iran already possesses missiles that can reach Israel. Once these missiles are armed with nuclear warheads, nothing could stop the mullahs from launching a second Holocaust.” She calls for dramatically tighter sanctions, advocates the threat of military force and states that “I agree with the former British prime minister Tony Blair, who said recently that the West must be willing to use force “if necessary” if that is the only alternative.”

The Washington Post: Jennifer Rubin blogs on the Post’s website that it’s time for the U.S. to give up on the Israeli Palestinian peace process and “do something more productive.” She advises the administration to “fire George Mitchell (whom neither side trusts), work on Palestinian institution-building, and go after the main sponsor of regional terrorism, Iran.” Rubin argues against “linkage,” again (making it explicit with a tweet), writing “the Obama administration was convinced that a peace deal would bring about progress on Iran. This was another false premise.” She repeats the “reverse linkage” argument that “regime change in Iran would help to stem the supply of weapons and support to Hamas and Hezbollah and re-establish the U.S.-Israel relationship as the essential component in a stable, peaceful Middle East.”

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

The Wall Street Journal: Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes that Afghanistan is costly and “a strategic distraction,” and that U.S. military resources could be better used by preparing for a conflict with North Korea and Iran. Haass says an important factor is, “[T]he increased possibility of a conflict with a reckless North Korea and the continued possibility of a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program. U.S. military forces must be freed up to contend with these issues.” While “total withdrawal is not the answer,” he concludes that “The perception that we are tied down in Afghanistan makes it more difficult to threaten North Korea or Iran credibly—and makes it more difficult to muster the forces to deal with either if necessary.”

New York Post: An editorial in NY’s Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid picks up on the threats of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps general that Iran will retaliate for the assassinations of its nuclear scientists. “It may sound like an empty threat, or an unhinged response,” write the Post editors. “But the threat is dead serious — proof of how hellbent Iran is to split the atom.” They add: “For Iran, nukes are its foreign policy — along with the terror it exports to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.” They add the threat of nuclear war looms large if Iran gets the bomb: “An atomic Iran could launch traditional military and terrorist attacks and tie the world’s hands by threatening nuclear war when any nation moves to fight back. By then it won’t have to rattle its sabers — it can aim its nukes instead.”

Pajamas Media: Foundation for Defense of Democracies scholar Michael Ledeen writes that last week’s terror attack in Southeastern Iran wasn’t a terror attack at all, but was “against the symbols and enforcers of the Shi’ite regime: Revolutionary Guards, Basij, and Quds Force fighters.” Ledeen cites internal political wrangling and suggests that the regime is in a “death spiral.” He concludes by making a case for regime change as a means of “reverse linkage” in the most sweeping manner seen yet: “If only there were a Western leader with the prescience and courage to support the Greens, we would find many terrible problems a lot easier to manage: Iraq and Afghanistan would go better, the tyrant Chavez and his ‘Bolivarian’ Axis of Latin Evildoers would be weakened, and the misnamed ‘peace process’ might even have a chance.”