Tag: Iran

Larison thinks I've been misled.

Lynch connects them:

This use of the WikiLeaks documents brings back some old memories, of a long time ago (March 2006) in a galaxy far far away when the Pentagon posted a massive set of captured Iraqi documents on the internet without context. Analysts dived into them, mostly searching for a smoking gun on Iraqi WMD or ties to al-Qaeda. The right-wing blogs and magazines ran with a series of breathless announcements that something had been found proving one case or another. Each finding would dissolve when put into context or subjected to scrutiny, and at the end it only further confirmed the consensus (outside of the fever swamps, at least) that there had been no significant ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda. But the cumulative effect of each "revelation", even if subsequently discredited, probably fueled the conviction that such ties had existed and did help maintain support for the Iraq war among the faithful. The parallel isn't exact — in this case, there actually is something real there, and these documents were released against the government's will — but it does raise some flags about how such documents can be used and misused in the public debate.

That experience is something to remember when an "Iranian ties to al-Qaeda" claim, loosely backed by reference to these documents, enters into the argument to attack Iran which I expect to heat up in the coming few months.

The re-set is working. Not so long ago, we were informed by the war chorus that Russia would never agree to tighter sanctions on Iran. Wrong. Now the isolation of Tehran is intensifying, with Russia in the lead.

Expect a media neocon blast – Gerecht is already on the war path – for this fall. But Steve Clemons dismisses those who think America will take military action:

While there are individuals in the Obama administration who are flirting with the possibility of military action against Iran, they are fewer in number than existed in the Bush administration. They are surrounded by a greater number of realists who are working hard to find a way to reinvent America's global leverage and power — and who realize that a war with Iran ends that possibility and possibly spells an end to America presuming to be the globally predominant power it has been.

But what if Israel acts unilaterally?

Marc Lynch notes a series of articles suggesting the US is considering taking military action against Iran. The case against force:

While I've been critical of parts of the administration's approach to Iran, overall Tehran has become considerably weaker in the Middle East under Obama's watch.   Much of the air has gone out of Iran's claim to head a broad "resistance" camp, with Obama's Cairo outreach temporarily shifting the regional debate and then with Turkey emerging as a much more attractive leader of that trend.  The botched Iranian election badly harmed Tehran's image among those Arabs who prioritize democratic reforms, and has produced a flood of highly critical scrutiny of Iran across the Arab media.  

Arab leaders continue to be suspicious and hostile towards Iran.   The steady U.S. moves to draw down in Iraq have reduced the salience of that long-bleeding wound.  Hezbollah has been ground down by the contentious quicksand of Lebanese politics, and while still strong has lost some of the broad appeal it captured after the 2006 war.   Public opinion surveys and  Arab media commentary alike now reveal little sympathy for the Iranian regime, compared to previous years.  And while the sanctions are unlikely to change Iran's behavior (even if there is intriguing evidence that highly targeted sanctions are fueling intra-regime infighting), they do signal significant Iranian failures to game the UN process or to generate international support.    In short, while Iran may continue to doggedly pursue its nuclear program (as far as we know), this has not translated into steadily increasing popular appeal or regional power. Quite the contrary.  

by Patrick Appel

Joe Klein reports that it is actively being considered:

One other factor has brought the military option to a low boil: Iran's Sunni neighbors really want the U.S. to do it…It is also possible that this low-key saber-rattling is simply a message the U.S. is trying to send the Iranians: it's time to deal. There have been rumblings from Tehran about resuming negotiations, although the regime has very little credibility right now. The assumption — shared even by some of Iran's former friends, like the Russians — is that any Iranian offer to talk is really an offer to stall. A specific, plausible Iranian concession may be needed to get the process back on track. But it is also possible that the saber-rattling is not a bluff, that the U.S. really won't tolerate a nuclear Iran and is prepared to do something awful to stop it.

I'm reading a review copy of Hooman Majd's forthcoming book on the Iranian elections and on Iranian-American relations. Regardless what you happen to to think of Majd's political analysis (I happen to mostly agree with it), he has the most detailed and gripping reporting of the Iranian elections to date. I'll likely have more to say on the book when its release date nears, but for now I'll note that Majd convincingly argues that saber-rattling will not bring Iranians around. There was a brief moment at the beginning of the Iraq war when Iran thought the US might actually invade, and threats of military action might have won concessions at that point, but now that we are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan those threats are mostly toothless and the Iranians know it.

Iran is a proud country with an ancient history; trying to bend it to America's will through force alone is unlikely to succeed. It sees itself as an equal, as a superpower – or at least a regional superpower – in the making. However far-fetched that may seem to Americans, treating the nation like a donkey, to be controlled with carrots and sticks, is insulting to many Iranians and politically strengthens anti-American forces inside the Iranian government.

Negotiations have suffered from tone-deafness on both sides. I encourage the White House to get a copy of Majd's book. And for Dish readers to pre-order it.

by David Frum

Important piece in the New Republic by outstanding national security reporter Eli Lake. A glimpse behind the pay wall – but you'll really want to pay to read the whole thing:

[D]o sabotage efforts work? In late 2008 and early 2009, the IAEA began to see a drop in the amount of low-enriched uranium (LEU) being produced at Natanz, the facility that lies at the center of Iran’s known nuclear weapons program. In the fall of 2008, its centrifuges were producing 90 kilograms a month of LEU. By the end of the year, however, the same centrifuges were producing 70 kilograms of LEU. To be sure, that number was back up to 85 kilograms per month at the close of 2009, and it has been climbing since, to around 120 kilograms a month; but those increases came after the installation of more centrifuges—all of which suggests that at least some of the machines were less efficient than they should be.

Ivan Oelrich, a nuclear scientist and the vice president of the strategic security program at the Federation of American Scientists, estimated in a study this year that the centrifuges are operating at 20 percent efficiency. “We know the average efficiency of the centrifuges is dismal. We don’t know whether it is because of the quality of the individual centrifuges or how they are linked together,” he explains. “We can’t rule out sabotage as one factor leading to these inefficiencies.” Greg Jones, a nuclear analyst at the rand Corporation, says the Iranians “are operating just under four thousand machines, but they have installed about eight thousand five hundred. Those nonoperating machines have been installed for many months. Why they are not operating is not clear.”

people I spoke to, there seemed to be a broad consensus that sabotage was, at the very least, slowing Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon. A senior administration official told me that there was evidence the Iranians are experiencing delays due to “a combination of reasons—some inherent to the nature of the infeasibility of the design and the machines themselves, and some because of actions by the United States and its allies.” Explains David Kay, “History says that these things have done more to slow programs than any sanctions regime has or is likely to do.”

Update: You can read the whole thing here.

The Sunni Arab states and Joe Lieberman help keep the drumbeat going.

Kevin Sullivan compares American-Japanese relations at mid-century to the contemporary American-Iranian relationship:

Even history's most suicidal of states can – and have – changed. Iran is already one of them. So if Iraqis can trust a once suicidal Iran, why can't Americans and Israelis?

Joe Klein reads Reuel Marc Gerecht's latest op-ed:

I do believe that Gerecht overstates the capacity of the Green Movement to succeed in toppling the current, odious regime. To win, the reformers will have to find an alliance with the quietist members of the religious community; the bazaaris, whose businesses are being hurt by Iran's increasing commercial isolation (not just the sanctions, but the unilateral decision by an increasing number of international corporations not to do business with this regime); and some of the more moderate "principleist" conservatives, who will be favored candidates in the next election.