10/1/10

Over the last few weeks, American neoconservatives and war hawks have ramped up their rhetoric in support of a military strike against Iran.  Specifically, Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) have promoted this view.  Yet despite this fear-mongering rhetoric, the facts against a military strike remain as powerful as ever, as does the apprehension of those who would actually have to live with the consequences of such a war, from Israeli President Shimon Peres to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen.  As a cynical political move, stoking the flames of fear is an effort to stir up an anxious base.  We have seen this argument before, specifically when when two dozen Tea Party-affiliated lawmakers this past summer offered a resolution expressing their support for Israel "to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force."  These failed arguments are identical to the ones used to rally support for the war in Iraq.  And just as during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, these war advocates are rallying their political base at the expense of both our country's security and that of our Middle Eastern allies.    

Lieberman's calls for a military strike contradict the advice of military and national security leaders while ignoring the disastrous outcomes and scant benefits of such action.  On Wednesday, Sen. Lieberman gave a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations that called for keeping military strikes on the table, saying "It is time for us to take steps that make clear that if diplomatic and economic strategies continue to fail to change Iran's nuclear policies, a military strike is not just a remote possibility in the abstract, but a real and credible alternative policy that we and our allies are ready to exercise." Those calls play into a long-term effort by neoconservatives to push the U.S. towards a military strike -- this despite a consensus among America's top military and national security leaders against using military force against Iran:

Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: "I worry, on the other hand, about striking Iran. I've been very public about that because of the unintended consequences of that..." [Admiral Michael Mullen, 4/18/10]

General David Petraeus, former CENTCOM commander:  Warning that the military option risks unleashing a popular backlash that would play into the hands of the regime.  "There is certainly a history, in other countries, of fairly autocratic regimes almost creating incidents that inflame nationalist sentiment," said Petraeus. "So that could be among the many different, second, third, or even fourth order effects (of a strike),"  [David Petraeus, 2/3/10]

General Anthony Zinni, former CENTCOM commander: "The problem with the strike is thinking through the consequences of Iranian reaction...You can see all these reactions that are problematic in so many ways. Economic impact, national security impact -- it will drag us into a conflict.  I think anybody that believes that it would be a clean strike and it would be over and there would be no reaction is foolish." [Anthony Zinni, 8/04/09]

Ambassador Nicholas Burns, former Bush administration Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs: "Air strikes would undoubtedly lead Iran to hit back asymmetrically against us in Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider region, especially through its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas. This reminds us of Churchill's maxim that, once a war starts, it is impossible to know how it will end." [Nicholas Burns, 5/06/09]

Colin Kahl, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East: In an interview with Think Progress, Kahl warned that even though any military strike could delay Iran's nuclear program, it could also ‘incentivize the Iranians to go all the way to weaponize.' [Colin Kahl, via Think Progress, 10/1/09]

[Sen. Joe Lieberman, 9/29/10]

Gingrich spreads lies in drumbeat for war.  Last night, speaking in Denver, the former House Speaker Newt Gingrich joined in the bellicose rhetoric of the right with regards to Iran.  The Denver Post reports, "As suicidal jihadists, Gingrich said, Iranian leaders believe their dead martyrs go to heaven and Israelis ‘go to hell,' so they win. ‘It's impossible to deter them. What are you going to threaten?' Gingrich asked."  Gingrich who, in recent months, has been playing the fear card for political purposes - first with the Islam-bashing around Park 51 - now joins the political fear mongering around calls for a military strike against Iran.

Nonetheless, this myth has been debunked time and again.  As Andy Grotto, formerly of the Center for American Progress, recently published in the Brown Journal of World Affairs, "Given the novelty of the martyr state argument, its major implications for policy, and how unequivocally its proponents present it, one would expect to encounter an avalanche of credible evidence. Yet that is not the case. References are scarce in this line of writings, and certain references are cited with striking regularity."  "Grotto determines that the ‘martyr state' view essentially rests upon a few neoconservative op-eds and a laughably shoddy report by a right-wing Israeli think tank, whose claims have been repeated again and again such that they now represent an article of faith for the ‘Bomb Iran'; set," says Matt Duss of the Wonk Room.

Gingrich's political motivation for such fear mongering is clear.  As Heather Hurlburt and Ryan Keenan of NSN recently wrote, "In order to win the Republican nomination, Newt needs to get past religious conservatives' reservations about his personal life. He must reel in Tea Partiers to whom his credentials make him part of the Establishment; gain the blessing of that same establishment; and court neoconservatives without scaring off independents."  [Newt Gingrich, via Denver Post, 10/1/10. Andrew Grotto, 2009, Matt Duss, Wonk Room, 3/23/10. Heather Hurlburt and Ryan Keenan, 8/23/10]

Neoconservatives are recycling Iraq war arguments and making the case for yet another preemptive war.  Writing in the Wonk Room, Matt Duss points out "the people who brought us the Iraq debacle - and, by under-resourcing Afghanistan for years as a result of Iraq, the Afghanistan crisis too - are trying to get America into yet another war in the Middle East, this time in Iran."  In his CFR speech earlier this week on U.S. involvement in the Middle East, Sen. Lieberman issued arguments eerily similar to those he made to justify a preemptive war in Iraq.  Yet as Duss notes, "In a 3,000 word speech entitled ‘The Future of American Power in the Middle East,' the word ‘Iraq' - a country where we have lost over 4,000 troops, taken over 30,000 casualties, and spent nearly $800 billion - appears twice."

Sen. Lieberman has now joined the ranks of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has said that the United States must be prepared to use military force to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.  As McClatchy noted at the time, Graham, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, "became the first senator to support direct U.S. military intervention in Iran."  Bush administration officials and neoconservative commentators such as Elliot Abrams and Reuel Marc Gerecht have also advocated for military action against Iran by either the U.S. or Israel.  These are the same people that called for war in Iraq under the false pretenses that Saddam Hussein was concealing weapons of mass destruction, leading us into a quagmire that has harmed our country's long-term security, emboldened our adversaries and, ironically, empowered Iran.  America has seen this movie before - the same neoconservatives who got our country into Iraq are now using the same talking points and arguments to attempt to justify yet another preemptive war in the Middle East. [Wonk Room, 9/30/10. Lindsey Graham, via McClatchy, 9/20/10]

What We're Reading

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa had to be rescued by the army after a police revolt over a new law cutting benefits for public servants amounted to an attempted coup.

A message purportedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden urged Muslims to tackle famine, flood relief and clean water -- stark problems plaguing parts of the Islamic world.

Suspected militants in southern Pakistan set ablaze more than two dozen tankers carrying fuel for foreign troops in Afghanistan, a day after Pakistan closed a major border crossing.

Under threat of U.S. sanctions, four European oil firms pledged to stop investing in Iran in what amounts to a "significant setback" to Tehran, a U.S. official said Thursday.

The Obama administration is offering Israel security guarantees but is also weighing a fallback plan that could involve reaching out to the Palestinians, officials said.

North and South Korea agreed to hold another round of reunions of families split by the countries' war in the 1950s, officials say.

Powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agreed to support the bid by Iraq's prime minister to retain power.

Two car bombs blew up as Nigeria celebrated its 50th independence anniversary, killing at least seven people in an unprecedented attack on the capital by suspected militants.

The United Nations is releasing its final report today detailing human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Eight Germans and two Britons were killed in the same airstrike that killed an Islamic Jihad Group commander who trained Europeans to carry out attacks in England, France and Germany.

Argentina granted asylum to a former leftist guerrilla charged in his native Chile with assassinating a senator and kidnapping a businessman.

Commentary of the Day

Julia Sweig says a radical new phase in Cuban history is unfolding in plain sight. But unlike the rest of the world, Washington appears not to notice.

David Ignatius writes that there's a core of mutual self-interest that normally guides the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan, but the alliance is badly strained.

Paul Krugman argues that a bill passed by the House this week that would allow U.S. policy makers to impose tariffs on Chinese goods as punishment for Chinese currency manipulation is a shot across the bow to prove to the Chinese that the U.S. will stand up in the face of unfair currency policy.