Too Little, Too Late?
To employ a topically apt football metaphor, you know how when your team is locked in a close, hard-fought game, and their down, say, a touchdown early in the fourth quarter, and even though you know they're still in the game the momentum just seems to be running against them, making a comeback seem increasingly unlikely?
Welcome to my pessimism vis-a-vie Iran and its drive for nuclear weapons.
Frankly, that drive has been going for at least a decade now. I remember vividly how Bill Clinton made a show of criticizing Russia back in 1995 for agreeing to build the mullahs a nuclear reactor and Boris Yeltsin retorting that that's exactly what Clinton did for North Korea mere months earlier. And we've learned since how, in the act of ostensibly trying to sabotage the Iranian nuke program by providing them with allegedly bogus information, the Clintonoids all but provided the mullahs with a blue print for producing weapons-grade nuclear fuel. Makes you wonder whether that was just another case of Clinton incompetence or whether he was deliberately aiding Tehran "under the table."
The Bush years haven't produced any such stupidity (or perfidy, take your pick), but they have given us an overflowing cup of indolence. Yes, liberating Afghanistan took precedence after 9/11 because it was al Qaeda's home base, and opening a second front in Iraq was easier for a number of reasons, most especially because the international legal framework for military action was already in place. But we could certainly have been lending moral and material support to a pro-Western/pro-democracy insurgency against the "Islamic republic" that would have at least kept them distracted from their ambitions for doomsday weapons and might have overthrown them altogether. Michael Ledeen has been the proverbial lonely voice in the wilderness pleading the Bushies for such (dare I say it) Reaganian action for years.
As time passed, and the Iranians got closer and closer to the nuclear threshold, it seemed increasingly clear to me that this window of opportunity to achieve regime change in Tehran was closing, and I (noted Middle East expert that I am...), boldly predicted that the second Bush term would kick off with a third front dubbed (with originality), Operation Iranian Freedom. Not because the Bush White House was eager for fresh military action - my suspicion all along has been that they intended Iraq to be as much bluff as "statement" - but because their inexplicable passivity in letting the EU-3 (Britain, France, Germany) fiddle, faddle, dither, and generally diplo-dick around while the mullahgarchy effortlessly four-cornered them, running out the proverbial clock, would eliminate all other options. And because the President himself has declared, point-blank, that Iran will not be allowed to obtain or develop nuclear weapons, period.
Now here we sit, with credible estimates putting Iran's first nuclear test some six weeks away, and what do my eyes behold in the news headlines?
Apparently, never.
The Bush Administration, missing the point just as badly, had a bit more luck, for all that it mattered:
The most terrifying line in that exerpt is, "The US and its allies will remain united in their dealings with Iran." Because it doesn't take clairvoyance to predict that our "allies" will never, EVER countenance military action. Ditto any economic santions resolution against Iran ever clearing the Security Council.
Oh, and did you know that, according to a report in the London Daily Telegraph, Iranian intelligence has penetrated the IAEA? Kinda makes Tehran's bluster over the Security Council referral look contrived, if you ask me. I mean, look at their threat - "to completely break loose from all diplomatic restraints on their nuclear program" - like they're observing restraints of any kind as it is. All this would mean is that they would be even more candid about it than they are already. Sheesh, look who their "president" is, for heaven's sake. Mr. Subtlety, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ain't.
The above is frustrating and harrowing, but not surprising. What is downright bewdldering is that some center-right voices who should know better seem to be retreating into self-delusion as well.
Ed Morrissey:
Perhaps opposition to a U.S. military strike on nuclear sights in Iran is precisely why Moscow and Beijing gave the green light for a Security Council referral - to buy the Iranians more time to complete their weapons manufacturing capability and start building up their arsenal. As to the efficacy of economic sanctions, I'm sorry Ed, but don't make me laugh. Iran is not an island nation like Japan or Britain during World War II. It would be a sieve to any conceivable sanctions regime - UN oversight would guarantee it, and if that wasn't enough, Russia and Red China (the latter of which has a bottomless thirst for Iranian oil and natural gas) would fill in any gaps. Cripes, didn't we learn ANYthing from the Oily Food scandal? When have economic sanctions EVER brought down a dictatorship? Would they just be cosmetic or would we really hit them where it would hurt (i.e. oil)? Wouldn't that hurt our own economy just as much? And might that not push them toward attacking us (and Israel), as FDR's oil embargo against Imperial Japan pushed them towards the strike on Pearl Harbor?
After going on at great length about the Iranian nuclear threat and the futility of the West's diplomatic efforts to stop it (including economic sanctions), NRO's Mansoor Ijaz proceeds to miss the point almost as badly as Cap'n Ed and his colleague Mr. Ledeen by pushing the insurgency option whose practical usefulness has largely, if not entirely, lapsed.
Why do I say this? Because the mullahs may have already joined "the nuclear club":
Eitan, now in his eighties, is a Mossad founder and legend who counts among his professional accomplishments the capture of Adolph Eichmann in 1961 and planning the IDF's successful destruction of Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. Suffice it to say, he knows what he's talking about.
3,000 kilometers (or 1,800 miles in recognizable increments) puts most of Europe within range of Iranian nukes. Add one more stage to other Iranian medium range missiles and they become intercontinental. Just so that's out there and established.
Eitan believes that the Bushies are all too well aware of the threat. If so, they're doing a very good job of concealing it - though it is possible that they're employing stealth deliberately, moving their forces into place for at least a sustained bombing campaign. And perhaps the most encouraging piece of news is that Fox News and Los Angeles Times polls show nearly three in five Americans support military action against Iran.
Perhaps it's simply a case of the sobriety and grim resolve that comes from seeing the proverbial handwriting on the wall. Either Iran has nuclear weapons or imminently will. The Bush Doctrine declares that we will not wait until mortal threats are imminent before eliminating them. This doctrine has already been tossed aside in the biggest challenge of the GWOT. The American people do not want to see their livelihoods, lives, and loved ones tossed into the atomic fire with it.
I return to that classic Autolite auto parts slogan yet again: "You can pay now, or pay me later."
If we wait any longer to take out the mullahs, there might not BE a later.
Welcome to my pessimism vis-a-vie Iran and its drive for nuclear weapons.
Frankly, that drive has been going for at least a decade now. I remember vividly how Bill Clinton made a show of criticizing Russia back in 1995 for agreeing to build the mullahs a nuclear reactor and Boris Yeltsin retorting that that's exactly what Clinton did for North Korea mere months earlier. And we've learned since how, in the act of ostensibly trying to sabotage the Iranian nuke program by providing them with allegedly bogus information, the Clintonoids all but provided the mullahs with a blue print for producing weapons-grade nuclear fuel. Makes you wonder whether that was just another case of Clinton incompetence or whether he was deliberately aiding Tehran "under the table."
The Bush years haven't produced any such stupidity (or perfidy, take your pick), but they have given us an overflowing cup of indolence. Yes, liberating Afghanistan took precedence after 9/11 because it was al Qaeda's home base, and opening a second front in Iraq was easier for a number of reasons, most especially because the international legal framework for military action was already in place. But we could certainly have been lending moral and material support to a pro-Western/pro-democracy insurgency against the "Islamic republic" that would have at least kept them distracted from their ambitions for doomsday weapons and might have overthrown them altogether. Michael Ledeen has been the proverbial lonely voice in the wilderness pleading the Bushies for such (dare I say it) Reaganian action for years.
As time passed, and the Iranians got closer and closer to the nuclear threshold, it seemed increasingly clear to me that this window of opportunity to achieve regime change in Tehran was closing, and I (noted Middle East expert that I am...), boldly predicted that the second Bush term would kick off with a third front dubbed (with originality), Operation Iranian Freedom. Not because the Bush White House was eager for fresh military action - my suspicion all along has been that they intended Iraq to be as much bluff as "statement" - but because their inexplicable passivity in letting the EU-3 (Britain, France, Germany) fiddle, faddle, dither, and generally diplo-dick around while the mullahgarchy effortlessly four-cornered them, running out the proverbial clock, would eliminate all other options. And because the President himself has declared, point-blank, that Iran will not be allowed to obtain or develop nuclear weapons, period.
Now here we sit, with credible estimates putting Iran's first nuclear test some six weeks away, and what do my eyes behold in the news headlines?
Bloomberg report[ed] that the EU-3 [resumed] nuclear talks with Iran [Tuesday], allowing Ahmadinejad & Co. to continue to dance away from even the possibility of UN Security Council action. The fact that there is no change whatsoever in Iran's position since the talks were declared "dead" will, inevitably, produce the same result after this round. And leaves the EU-3 tugging its collective forelock at the feet of the Iranian regime. When will they ever learn?
Apparently, never.
The Bush Administration, missing the point just as badly, had a bit more luck, for all that it mattered:
Key powers have agreed to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme at a UN nuclear watchdog board meeting on Thursday.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced the decision after a meeting of the five permanent council members and Germany in London.
Talks with Iran earlier in the day failed to produce a breakthrough.
President George W Bush earlier said the US and its allies would remain united in their dealings with Iran.
The permanent five - the UK, US, France, China and Russia - plus Germany, met in London on Monday night to co-ordinate their position ahead of an emergency board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Thursday.
The most terrifying line in that exerpt is, "The US and its allies will remain united in their dealings with Iran." Because it doesn't take clairvoyance to predict that our "allies" will never, EVER countenance military action. Ditto any economic santions resolution against Iran ever clearing the Security Council.
Oh, and did you know that, according to a report in the London Daily Telegraph, Iranian intelligence has penetrated the IAEA? Kinda makes Tehran's bluster over the Security Council referral look contrived, if you ask me. I mean, look at their threat - "to completely break loose from all diplomatic restraints on their nuclear program" - like they're observing restraints of any kind as it is. All this would mean is that they would be even more candid about it than they are already. Sheesh, look who their "president" is, for heaven's sake. Mr. Subtlety, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ain't.
The above is frustrating and harrowing, but not surprising. What is downright bewdldering is that some center-right voices who should know better seem to be retreating into self-delusion as well.
Ed Morrissey:
The mullahs apparently thought that Russia and China would never follow the EU and the US on a UNSC referral for political reasons. They underestimated the reluctance of any nation to allow Islamists access to nuclear weapons, a thought which has an apparently sobering effect on political calculations, even in Moscow and Beijing. Neither are likely to give any support to a military strike on nuclear sites in Iran, but at least it gets the ball rolling by imposing some penalties for Iranian intransigence.
Economic sanctions, if not undercut by other nations, may prove more effective than military action anyway. [emphases added]
Perhaps opposition to a U.S. military strike on nuclear sights in Iran is precisely why Moscow and Beijing gave the green light for a Security Council referral - to buy the Iranians more time to complete their weapons manufacturing capability and start building up their arsenal. As to the efficacy of economic sanctions, I'm sorry Ed, but don't make me laugh. Iran is not an island nation like Japan or Britain during World War II. It would be a sieve to any conceivable sanctions regime - UN oversight would guarantee it, and if that wasn't enough, Russia and Red China (the latter of which has a bottomless thirst for Iranian oil and natural gas) would fill in any gaps. Cripes, didn't we learn ANYthing from the Oily Food scandal? When have economic sanctions EVER brought down a dictatorship? Would they just be cosmetic or would we really hit them where it would hurt (i.e. oil)? Wouldn't that hurt our own economy just as much? And might that not push them toward attacking us (and Israel), as FDR's oil embargo against Imperial Japan pushed them towards the strike on Pearl Harbor?
After going on at great length about the Iranian nuclear threat and the futility of the West's diplomatic efforts to stop it (including economic sanctions), NRO's Mansoor Ijaz proceeds to miss the point almost as badly as Cap'n Ed and his colleague Mr. Ledeen by pushing the insurgency option whose practical usefulness has largely, if not entirely, lapsed.
Why do I say this? Because the mullahs may have already joined "the nuclear club":
Rafi Eitan suspects that Iran already has enough enriched uranium fissionable material to manufacture at least one or two atom bombs of the Hiroshima type. "Otherwise Iranian President Ahmadinejad would not have dared come out with his declaration that Israel should be wiped off the map," repeating it in various versions....
Eitan, now in his eighties, is a Mossad founder and legend who counts among his professional accomplishments the capture of Adolph Eichmann in 1961 and planning the IDF's successful destruction of Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. Suffice it to say, he knows what he's talking about.
Eitan says that this view was bolstered by conversations he held with various experts from abroad who came to the Herzliya Conference - that Iran already has a an atom bomb. What should concern not only Israel but Europe too, continues Eitan, is the fact that the Iranians have acquired cruise missiles with a 3,000-kilometer range. They tried to purchase nine missiles of this kind in Ukraine from the arsenal of the former Soviet Union, but Russia thwarted part of the deal and Iran received three or four such missiles.
3,000 kilometers (or 1,800 miles in recognizable increments) puts most of Europe within range of Iranian nukes. Add one more stage to other Iranian medium range missiles and they become intercontinental. Just so that's out there and established.
Eitan believes that the Bushies are all too well aware of the threat. If so, they're doing a very good job of concealing it - though it is possible that they're employing stealth deliberately, moving their forces into place for at least a sustained bombing campaign. And perhaps the most encouraging piece of news is that Fox News and Los Angeles Times polls show nearly three in five Americans support military action against Iran.
Perhaps it's simply a case of the sobriety and grim resolve that comes from seeing the proverbial handwriting on the wall. Either Iran has nuclear weapons or imminently will. The Bush Doctrine declares that we will not wait until mortal threats are imminent before eliminating them. This doctrine has already been tossed aside in the biggest challenge of the GWOT. The American people do not want to see their livelihoods, lives, and loved ones tossed into the atomic fire with it.
I return to that classic Autolite auto parts slogan yet again: "You can pay now, or pay me later."
If we wait any longer to take out the mullahs, there might not BE a later.
posted by JASmius at 9:09 PM
<<< Home