Category: Iran

Iraq: Significance of the Security Agreement

Milestone In Baghdad, (Washington Post)…Charles Krauthammer, Dec 5, 2008.

The barbarism in Mumbai and the economic crisis at home have largely overshadowed an otherwise singular event: the ratification of military and strategic cooperation agreements between Iraq and the United States.

They must not pass unnoted. They were certainly noted by Iran, which fought fiercely to undermine the agreements. Tehran understood how a formal U.S.-Iraqi alliance endorsed by a broad Iraqi consensus expressed in a freely elected parliament changes the strategic balance in the region.

For the United States, this represents the single most important geopolitical advance in the region since Henry Kissinger turned Egypt from a Soviet client into an American ally. If we don’t blow it with too hasty a withdrawal from Iraq, we will have turned a chronically destabilizing enemy state at the epicenter of the Arab Middle East into an ally.

Also largely overlooked at home was the sheer wonder of the procedure that produced Iraq’s consent: classic legislative maneuvering with no more than a tussle or two — tame by international standards (see YouTube: “Best Taiwanese Parliament Fights of All Time!”) — over the most fundamental issues of national identity and direction.

Iran, Economic Pressure, Nuclear Program

New Team, Little Time On Iran, (Wall Street Journal)…Gerald F. Seib, Dec 2, 2008.

The foreign-policy team President-elect Barack Obama announced Monday is said to be experienced enough to “hit the ground running.” Good thing when it comes to Iran, as time is running short for the new crew to figure out what to do about a nuclear program that seems to have been slowed very little by international efforts to make Tehran play nice.

In private, Israeli officials are ever more blunt in saying they see time running out before Iran’s nuclear potential becomes a nuclear reality that threatens the Jewish state, among others. Once the Obama administration is in place next year, and a new Israeli government takes shape after February elections there, the questions about whether Israel is contemplating military action against Iran will only grow.

With the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad already using price controls on food and energy to stabilize the domestic economy, falling oil prices figure to create lots of new pressures. By one estimate, the Iranian government needs $90-a-barrel oil for its government accounts to break even. The question, then, is when economic pressure might become so great that a nuclear program becomes counterproductive.

Team of Rivals" Trouble Spots: Israel, Iran

Obama’s ‘Team Of Rivals’ Share Big-Picture Views, USA Today, Pg. 10, Dec 2, 2008.

As for specific trouble spots:

*Come Jan. 20, Obama will own the Iraq war just as surely as Richard Nixon owned the Vietnam War in 1969. If progress turns into defeat, his presidency will surely be undermined. The entire team will recognize the political and international implications of this, but Obama has given Gates, who oversaw the successful strategy of surging more troops into Iraq, the new mission of bringing them home.

Obama campaigned on a pledge to remove U.S. troops within 16 months, but at his news conference Monday, he repeated a Bush line that he would listen to commanders on the ground, a wise step. The Bush administration has already signed an agreement for U.S. troops to be out of cities by June 30 and out of Iraq by the end of 2011, but the uneven progress in training Iraqis to take over will make the first deadline particularly difficult to attain, with huge implications.

*Afghanistan will continue on the present military path, with several thousand extra U.S. troops already scheduled to deploy there. The Bush administration attempted to win Afghan hearts and minds but was not very deft. Gates and Jones have advocated different kinds of outreach and more effective reconstruction.

*Candidate Obama pushed vigorous, high-level diplomacy to halt Iran’s nuclear program even as Clinton suggested that it would be naive. As his top diplomat, Clinton’s past dismissiveness could give any talks more credibility, while the more hawkish Clinton, Gates and Jones would keep the military option credible. None of this answers the hard question of what happens if diplomacy reaches a dead end.

Whether to attack Iran — or give Israel the green light to do so — would undoubtedly generate the sort of “vigorous debate” and “strong opinions” within the White House that Obama says he welcomes.

Iran: Carrots and Sticks

The Battle For Iran, (Boston Globe)…John Tirman, Nov 29, 2008.

THE BATTLE for Iran is on – for Iran policy, that is – and a ferocious contest is in store. The combatants are former policy makers, scholars, and think tanks. They are issuing position papers and holding press conferences. On the front line of the contest are those with carrots and those with sticks, the ages-old choice in foreign affairs. Fortunately, history and circumstances provide a clear preference.

… “sticks” team … The Bipartisan Policy Council and United Against Nuclear Iran both see the nuclear weapons threat from Iran as imminent, particularly threatening our ally, Israel.

The other side – the “carrots” team – is a mirror image of former officials and scholars. They also regard a nuclear-armed Iran as a deplorable outcome, but their approach is far more reliant on a new diplomacy. One of the most prominent of these initiatives, the Joint Experts’ Statement on Iran …

Extracts: Joint Experts’ Statement on Iran — Five Key Steps the United States Should Take to Implement an Effective Diplomatic Strategy with Iran:

1. Replace calls for regime change with a long-term strategy:

2. Support human rights through effective, international means:

3. Allow Iran a place at the table – alongside other key states – in shaping the future of Iraq, Afghanistan and the region:

4. Address the nuclear issue within the context of a broader U.S. – Iran opening:

5. Re-energize the Arab-Israeli peace process and act as an honest broker in that process: Israel’s security lies in making peace with its neighbors.

Iran Policy: Now What?

An F for Bush’s  Iran Policy, By David Ignatius, Sunday, November 30, 2008; Page B07

Absent some last-minute fireworks, President Bush will leave office with a kind of double failure on Iran: Administration hard-liners haven’t checked Tehran’s drive to acquire nuclear-weapons technology, and moderates haven’t engaged Iran in negotiation and dialogue.

It’s easy to criticize the Bush record on Iran. But anyone who thinks it will be easy for Obama to make a breakthrough hasn’t been paying attention. Iran moves closer every day to becoming a nuclear-weapons power. It views America as an aggressive adversary that wants regime change, no matter what Washington says. Dialogue is worth a try, but Obama and his advisers should start thinking about what they will do if negotiations fail.

Iran: Strategic Doctrine

Deter Iran,  (Washington Times)…Louis Rene Beres, Thomas McInerney and Paul E. Vallely

…In the final analysis, President-elect Barack Obama must quickly fashion a broad, coherent and updated strategic doctrine from which effective and credible policy options can be suitably drawn and implemented. Among other refinements, it will be necessary to fully modernize our nuclear arsenal, and to reinvigorate all of our nuclear capabilities.

…  If, for any reason, Iran is permitted to “go nuclear,” our re-fashioned doctrine will have to identify viable options for coexistence with that country. In turn, these options will require enemy perceptions of persuasive American power and of an American willingness to actually use this power.

How should we deter a nuclear Iran, both from launching direct missile attacks, and from dispersing nuclear assets among terrorist proxies? Should our new president do more to aid and empower the Iranian opposition? And for “Deterrence Against Nuclear Terrorism,” how should he compensate for the absence of “fingerprints,” and for the limits of satellites and radars? This is significant because Ahmadinejad says that soon there will be a world without the United States and Israel. Coupled with his regular pronouncements to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, this sends nuclear alarm signals that cannot be ignored.

A nuclear threat to American cities could come from cars, trucks and ships. Ballistic missile defense would be of no use against such ground-based attacks. Could we truly convince Tehran and its surrogates that any proxy act of nuclear terrorism would elicit a massive nuclear retaliation against Iran itself? We must, but meaningful policies can emerge only from a carefully re-conceptualized U.S. strategic doctrine.

Louis Rene Beres is an author and political professor at Purdue University. Gen. Thomas Mcinerney is retired vice chief of staff of the Air Force and co-author with retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely of “The Endgame: Winning the War on Terror.”

Iran: Nuclear Bomb Materials

Iran Said To Have Nuclear Fuel For One Weapon, (New York Times)…William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, Nov 20, 2008.

Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.

“They clearly have enough material for a bomb,” said Richard L. Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. “They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that’s another matter.”

Iran: Latin American Interests

Iran’s Latin America Push, (Los Angeles Times)…John Kiriakou, Nov 8, 2008.

Iran, the ultimate mischief maker with global reach, astounding patience, a shameless marriage to mayhem and terrorism, and interests that fall squarely in opposition to those of the United States, is making major diplomatic inroads under Washington’s nose.

The United States still has an opportunity to stop the Iranians in their tracks in Latin America. But it’s a big job. The growing Iranian influence — inconceivable a decade ago — is the result of the decision by the United States to stop paying attention to the region. And it will only be reversed if the U.S. changes its policy.

Policy: Iran., nK, Mideast

Obama To Face Big Policy Decisions On Iran, N. Korea And Mideast, (Washington Post)…Glenn Kessler, Nov 8, 2008.

 

…Diplomatic issues rarely begin or end cleanly with a change of administrations, but Bush will be leaving his successor an extensive list of foreign policy processes. The new administration will have to quickly evaluate them and decide whether to continue along Bush’s path, make minor modifications or forge ahead in a different direction.

“Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable,” Obama said yesterday. “And we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening.”

Obama has not indicated that he will offer any fresh thinking on how to deal with Hamas; at one point during the campaign, he accepted the resignation of an outside adviser who met with Hamas officials as part of his job for an international mediation group. But, during a visit to Israel in July, Obama said he would not wait “until a few years into my term or my second term” to seek a peace deal. This suggests that he may appoint a high-level Middle East peace envoy, freeing his secretary of state to concentrate on other issues.

On North Korea, Obama will inherit a process that is probably in worse shape than what Clinton left for Bush. In a dramatic change in approach during his second term, Bush avidly pursued a deal to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. But the effort nearly collapsed this fall before Bush agreed to remove North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Obama supported the decision to delist North Korea. During the campaign, he criticized Bush for taking so long to engage with North Korea, suggesting he would be eager to find ways to keep the disarmament process alive. Li Gun, a senior North Korean official, told reporters in New York on Thursday that “we are ready to deal” with the incoming Obama administration.