Iran War: Bits and Pieces

I am going to take a break for Thanksgiving Day from posting. But here are a few links on Iran:

New Allegations Against Iran by Revati Prasad and Joseph Cirincione, Carnegie Institute for International Peace (undated, accessed 11/23/04). This is commenting on allegations last week from the Iranian exile group called the National Council of Resistance (NCR), which is listed by the US government as a terrorist group.

The dissident group has provided accurate information in the past, blowing the whistle on the enrichment plant at Natanz and the heavy water reactor at Arak in 2002. Both sites were later acknowledged by Iran and declared to the IAEA. If these new allegations are proven to be true, they would be the first proof that Iran is engaged in actual nuclear weapon activities. Up to this point, Iran has breached its obligations to declare activities and facilities but all of these, Iranian officials say, are for peaceful civilian development of nuclear fuel, not weapons. The new IAEA report found no evidence of weapon-related activities. Proof of such a program would likely kill the EU deal and dramatically increase the likelihood that the IAEA Board of Governors would refer Iran to the UN Security Council.

But the group may have its own agenda and the charges cannot be proved or disproved without an IAEA inspection of the site, which the agency has now requested. Iraqi dissident claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs were equally detailed and specific, but none proved to be true. (my emphasis)

Indeed.

This article includes an important observation, if other information bears out its accuracy: If Iran goes nuclear ... by Howard LaFranchi Christian Science Monitor 11/23/04.

In any event, the Bush administration remains deeply skeptical of the prospects for the European plan to derail Iran's nuclear ambitions. One reason is that over recent years Iran's nuclear program has become tightly bound with national
pride, thus making it all the more difficult for a regime - particularly one whose popularity is already on the wane - to give it up.

"It doesn't matter what faction it is, from the radical religious conservatives to the left, there's a consensus that Iran has a right to pursue the nuclear fuel cycle, and that indeed it has a right to develop nuclear weapons if it chooses," says
[Daniel] Brumberg [an Iran and Middle East expert at Georgetown University]. "It's something that unites the country, so in a time of deepening divisions it's not something that anyone wants to renounce."

In other words, if Iran became a full-blown democracy tomorrow, it wouldn't necessarily make the nuclear issue any easier to solve.

Hawks push deep cuts in forces in Iraq by Bryan Bender Boston Globe 11/22/04.

Those arguing for immediate troop reductions include key Pentagon advisers, prominent neoconservatives, and some of the fiercest supporters of the Iraq invasion among Washington's policy elite.

The core of their arguments is that even as the US-led coalition goes on the offensive against the insurgency, the United States, by its very presence, is stimulating the resistance.

"Our large, direct presence has fueled the Iraqi insurgency as much as it has suppressed it," said Michael Vickers, a conservative-leaning Pentagon consultant and longtime senior CIA official who supported the war.

Retired Army Major General William Nash, the former NATO commander in Bosnia, said: "I resigned from the 'we don't have enough troops in Iraq' club four months ago. We have too many now."

Now, not everyone quoted in this article necessarily have common motivations in what they are saying. But I'm among those who thinks this looks suspiciously like an attempt to free up some troops short-run for an invasion of Iran - and to convince the American public that everything will be all right if we just invade and occupy one more country and fight just one more years-long counterinsurgency war. The fact that Ken "Iraq-would-be-a-cakewalk" Adelman is one of the people quoted in the article doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about the whole thing.

Matt Iglesias at TAPPED has this take:

The main task facing people who would like to see regime change in Teheran (or Damascus or wherever) at this point is that the problems in Iraq have created a lot of (perfectly warranted) skepticism about the feasibility and desirability of further ventures. Re-writing the history of the Iraq campaign so that the problem turns out to be that we went in with too many troops (rather than that, say, the war was sold with a non-factual rationale and the postwar planning conducted according to ideological rather than empirical criteria) lays the groundwork for the idea that the next war will be quick and easy, rather than "another Iraq."

Oh, no, this will be nothing like Iraq. This will be no problem. A real cakewalk. Why, those oppressed Iraqis are just waiting to show us with flowers. They are just pining every day to have the Americans bomb, shoot and torture them into democracy.

Iglesias links to Jim Henley, who cautions us to Don't Go Getting Excited. He writes:

This is less about understanding than desire. At least some of them want to invade Iran (and Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon, and ...). Militarily that means finding some ground forces to do it with. Politically it means selling the idea that we won't be walking into another Iraqlike occupation. Solution: promote the idea that our problems in Iraq come from too many troops. Declare that we won't make that mistake again. Once we've broken and bought Iran we'll have a tiny, unobtrusive occupation force whose convoys no Persian would ever notice long enough to think about bombing. It will be, dare they say it? a cakewalk. As a side bonus, Rumsfeld loyalists get to argue that the Old Man was right about this military reform stuff after all. Mil reform doesn't suffer the fatal flaw of being insufficient to the task of policing our gains. Policing our gains is the source of our post-conquest problems. Everybody wins!

Molly Ivins says that it's "not even three weeks into the new Bush regime, and already I'm jaw-dropped, you've-got-to-be-kidding mad." But, she advises:

Dan Green of New York City says of the election results, "You can't be depressed now, the worst is yet to come." Following that good advice, I intended to keep my indignation dry and save the outrage for when it is really needed, kind of like saving room for the pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving dinner. If we're going to get through the next four years, we have to pace ourselves, I concluded.

Tags: iran, iran war