Stopping The March To Iran

Over the past couple days some big hitters have come out and warned the Administration not to continue to threaten war with Iran. Zbig Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft made the case in the Washington Post that war is unnecessary and the constant tough rhetoric is unhelpful.

"Don't talk about 'do we bomb them now or later?' " said Brent Scowcroft, adviser to presidents Gerald R. Ford and George H.W. Bush, during a discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the negotiations between the United States and Iran.

Scowcroft added that by mentioning that threat, "we legitimize the use of force . . . and may tempt the Israelis" to carry out such a mission. He said he thinks that negotiations must continue and that sanctions have had an effect on Tehran, noting that even with elevated oil prices, Iran, alone among oil producers, is having a difficult time economically.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, adviser to President Jimmy Carter, described the Bush administration's policy of maintaining the option of military action as "counterproductive."

"I don't want the public to believe a preemptive attack can be justified," he said. Repeating the possibility "convinces Iran it is being threatened . . . and maybe it ought to have a [nuclear] weapon."

He added that a U.S. attack on Iran would be a "disaster," suggesting it could result in the U.S. fighting "for at least two decades" on four fronts -- Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

We never have a conversation in this country about the consequences of both our talk and action. Clearly a country like Iran, which sees US troops on its borders in neighboring countries, which sees nuclear-capable nations treated with respect and incapable nations treated to bombing, understand the role nuclear weapons can play, especially given continued threats. And Scowcroft rightly explains that the Iranian economy is dependent on the world community right now and thusly more susceptible to a negotiated settlement.

Similarly, Gen. John Abizaid's comments were level-headed and reflected some actual thought beyond a knee jerk over how to respond to Iran.

Although he didn't say it outright, General Abizaid's implicit view seemed to be that the world would not be able to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and that we would have to learn to live with it. He questioned whether war with Iran to stop that eventuality would be a wise idea "at this particular time" not only because world oil flows would be shut down and turmoil would spread across the Middle East where Iran's Shia allies hold sway, but also because the US armed forces lacked strategic flexibility, bogged down as they are in Iraq and Afghanistan with "our ground forces tapped out."

What, then, when they get the bomb? "I don't believe Iran is a suicide state," he said. "Deterrence will work with Iran. It is a country of many different power centers that are competing. Despite what their crazy president says, I doubt seriously whether the Iranians are interested in starting a nuclear war." [...] We should be talking to Iran, according to Abizaid, just the way we talked to our other enemies in the past. "We need to make it very clear to the Iranians, the same way we made it clear to the Soviet Union and China, that their first use of nuclear weapons would result in the devastation of their nation."

The pat conservative response to this is that people like Abizaid don't understand the nature of the threat (despite being on the ground in the Middle East for years) and that Iran is not a rational actor, but this is not borne out by their actions to this point. Their current first-strike capability doesn't exist, and beyond words there has been no meaningful action. I don't know if I agree with Abizaid that Iran will eventually get the bomb, but certainly we have the deterrence capability to deal with that if it happens, and even more capability to stop the threat through international pressure before we come to that.

The neocons, I believe, are of a different opinion. But the good news is that a bipartisan movement against pre-emptive war is building. H.R. 362, which would have called for a blockade around Iran, is stalling out in Congress, thanks to some better-informed legislators (Wexler, Cohen, and Frank) taking their names off the bill. The House leadership needs to put this to bed once and for all. J Street has a petition on this.

Self-Defense Apparently Now Unaceptable

Today Iran announced its intention to defend itself if attacked. Can you really not say that unless you're the United States?

The deputy commander of Iran's air force said Wednesday that plans have been drawn up to bomb Israel if the Jewish state attacks Iran, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.

The announcement came amid rising tensions in the region, with the United States calling for a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear program and Israeli planes having recently overflown, and perhaps even attacked, Iranian ally Syria [...]

White House press secretary Dana Perino called Alavi's comment "unhelpful."

"It is not constructive and it almost seems provocative," she said. "Israel doesn't seek a war with its neighbors. And we all are seeking, under the U.N. Security Council resolutions, for Iran to comply with its obligations."

I wonder why Iran is so touchy? The US keeps blaming them for everything that goes wrong in Iraq, a prominent Senator last week openly asked a commanding general if it was time to infiltrate their territory, British troops have massed along the border... sheesh, you'd think we were deliberately trying to start a war or something! How could they get such a mistaken notion?

And then there's this Israeli airstrike on Syria. Now, the claim by the wingnut base is that Syria and North Korea were in a pact where the North Koreans were dumping the nuclear material in Damascus that they were supposed to remove as part of nonproliferation negotiations. The Israelis got wind of it and took the material out. Then there are corollaries that Turkey provided the intel and that Syria and Iran coordinated in a botched missile experiment that has left dozens dead.

This is mythology, as Joseph Cirincione notes, and it's designed to deliberately blur the differences between all of these states and make a throwback to the old "Axis of Evil" days.

This story is nonsense. The Washington Post story should have been headlined "White House Officials Try to Push North Korea-Syria Connection." This is a political story, not a threat story. The mainstream media seems to have learned nothing from the run-up to war in Iraq. It is a sad commentary on how selective leaks from administration officials who have repeatedly misled the press are still treated as if they were absolute truth.

Once again, this appears to be the work of a small group of officials leaking cherry-picked, unvetted "intelligence" to key reporters in order to promote a preexisting political agenda. If this sounds like the run-up to the war in Iraq, it should. This time it appears aimed at derailing the U.S.-North Korean agreement that administration hardliners think is appeasement. Some Israelis want to thwart any dialogue between the U.S. and Syria.

And now, from the same bullies and hawks that brought you those fictions comes this idea that Iran asserting the right to defend themselves and make contingency plans in the event of attack, as all nations on Earth do, is somehow belligerent and provocative. This is almost certainly coming from hard-right Likudnik groups like AIPAC, who will enlist all of their allies to ensure unanimity among both parties on anything regarding Israel, despite the fact that, as Rep. Moran says at the link, they don't represent mainstream Jewish-American opinion whatsoever. So the clueless media will parrot this line that "Iran wants to attack Israel!!!" when it's really "Iran Announces They Will Defend Themselves If Israel Attacks." If you want to see belligerence, I'd invite you to read Bernard Kouchner's comments.

The process in the UN against Iran should go forward, though the inspections process should be allowed to go forward without disturbance, and I do agree with General Abizaid that the world can live with a nuclear Iran through threat deterrance. But let's not drop our handkerchiefs because another country asserts the right to self-defense. After all, shouldn't we be far more concerned that wealthy Saudis are still bankrolling Al Qaeda and the ruling sheikhs aren't doing anything about it?