The Race for Iran

As we noted on this blog yesterday, the New York Times published an op-ed yesterday by Alan J. Kuperman calling for war against Iran.

Marc Lynch, blogging at Foreign Policy, has an excellent and important response. He notes that

The New York Times [publishing a piece advocating for war] is a serious step towards mainstreaming the idea, akin to how Ken Pollack and Tom Friedman’s support for the invasion of Iraq persuaded a lot of centrists and liberals. It’s as if we as a country have learned nothing from the Iraq war debate.

Lynch then breaks down the inanity of Kuperman’s piece one step at a time.

Does he rule out the alternative policy by default? Yes he does! “peaceful carrots and sticks cannot work.”

Does he reduce the policy options to two extreme positions, one of which is guaranteed to be rejected? Yes he does! “the United States faces a stark choice: military air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities or acquiescence to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.”

Does he warn that Saddam, um, Ahmedenejad will give WMD to terrorists? Yes, yes he does. “if Iran acquired a nuclear arsenal, the risks would simply be too great that it could become a neighborhood bully or provide terrorists with the ultimate weapon, an atomic bomb.” (the “neighborhood bully” is a nice touch.) Will, pray tell, the smoking gun be in the shape of a mushroom cloud?

Does he exaggerate the prospects for success? Yes, he does. Well, first he says “As for knocking out its nuclear plants, admittedly, aerial bombing might not work.” But he quickly moves on from that, since that will not do. Oddly, his main example of success comes from Iraq, where he claims that the first Gulf war led to the uncovering of the Iraqi nuclear program — not the Osirak raid — which is accurate, but rather completely contradicts his argument.

Does he minimize the risks of military action? Yes, he does. “Yes, Iran could retaliate by aiding America’s opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it does that anyway.” Try telling that to U.S. military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to leaders in the Gulf, who are slightly less cavalier with the lives of their people.

Does he suggest that if all else fails regime change would be easy and cheap? Yes, dear lord, he does. “If nothing else, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that the United States military can oust regimes in weeks if it wants to.” Truly, this was the lesson to be drawn from Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m still marveling over how easily we overthrew Saddam and the Taliban and got out of Iraq and Afghanistan more or less costlessly. That was special. On the other hand, as Matt Duss helpfully points out, “if we don’t have an Iran war, how are we supposed to have an awesome Iran surge?”

Does he accuse those who oppose military action of appeasement? Yes, yes, of course he does. “in the face of failed diplomacy, eschewing force is tantamount to appeasement.”

Lynch’s response is important and we will continue to watch for and push back on op-eds like Kuperman’s.

– Ben Katcher

(This post also appears at The Washington Note.)

Jay Solomon reports that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry is considering what would be the highest-level American visit to Tehran in thirty years.

The White House has endorsed such a trip.

This is a good idea – and an opportunity to stem the slide toward sanctions and ongoing antagonism that the Obama administration’s “engagement” policy appears headed.

But, of course, the key is not merely whether Senator Kerry goes to Iran but what message he delivers.

The message should be that the United States is ready to enter into comprehensive negotiations with the Islamic Republic that go beyond the nuclear issue and address all of the major bilateral issues along the lines of the ‘Grand Bargain‘ laid out by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett last year.

– Ben Katcher

The New York Times published an op-ed today that calls for war against Iran.

Alan J. Kuperman, director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at the University of Texas at Austin, argues that the unraveling of the uranium enrichment agreement proves that the United States must conduct air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear weapon.

Kuperman’s analysis is problematic for several reasons. Here are two.

First, Kuperman cites the failure of the P5+1 uranium enrichment proposal as evidence “that Iran, for domestic political reasons, cannot make even temporary concessions on its bomb program, regardless of incentives or sanctions.” Kuperman rejects out of hand the possibility that the Iranians simply did not view the P5+1 offer as promoting the Islamic Republic’s national interest.

Second, Kuperman says that the United States could limit the Iranian response to a bombing campaign because, “If nothing else, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that the United States military can oust regimes in weeks if it wants to.” It is difficult to know where to begin here. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have shown much more than the American military’s capacity for ‘regime change’ – they have shown the limits of American military military power and the supreme difficulty of filling the vacuum that ‘regime change’ creates. Does anyone seriously think that another war and occupation in the Middle East is in the United States’ strategic interests or politically feasible for the Obama administration?

The entire article can be read here.

– Ben Katcher

Yoram Evron, a lecturer in the Asian Studies Department at the University of Haifa, has a new piece called “Iran, China, and the Israeli Stick.”

The article touches on several of the themes laid out by Flynt Leverett, Hillary Mann Leverett, and John Garver in their monograph published earlier this year, Moving (Slightly) Closer to Iran: China’s Shifting Calculus For Managing Its Persian Gulf Dilemma.

The piece identifies four key Chinese interests with regard to Iran: China’s drive to establish itself as an alternative to American power; Iran’s importance to China’s energy security; China’s desire to have positive relations with all major actors in the Middle East; and finally, China’s desire to weaken the United States’ military dominance in the region.

My only quibble with the article is that it overstates the credibility of the U.S.-Saudi offer to “make up for” Iran’s oil supplies to China in the event of sanctions that affect Iran’s export capacity. This kind of arrangement is highly risky to China and it would have been shocking if they had agreed to it.

– Ben Katcher

In keeping with the thrust of yesterday’s post, which asked whether America’s traditional Arab allies might “strike their own deal with Iran”, we are publishing two posts, back-to-back, which present different perspectives on the implications of the Islamic Republic’s “rise” for America’s regional allies and the most appropriate U.S. policy response. The first of these posts, by Dr. Christian Koch, Director of International Studies at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, provides an excellent overview of important currents in the views of GCC elites regarding Iran. The second, appended below, is by Hillary Mann Leverett. Both Christian and Hillary appeared at the 18^th annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, held in Washington, DC on October 15-16, 2009. The texts of their posts are based on the remarks they offered at this conference.

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