NUKES
Q. Iran is building nuclear bombs. We need to teach them a lesson.
A. The November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate - "the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies" - declared with “high confidence” that Tehran stopped its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2003.
(Iran: Nuclear Intensions and Capabilities http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf p.6),
(U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/world/middleeast/03cnd-iran.html?hp)
Bear in mind that Iran is entitled to develope the capacity to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,
(David Cortright, research fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Nortre Dame, "Eight points about Iran's nuclear program," Christian Century, June 17, 2008, p. 26 (no link))
and threatening to bomb countries that haven't taken aggressive action against yours is in violation of the UN Charter. "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." (The Spectator, 27 November 2004 http://www.antiwar.com/spectator2/spec601.html)
"...over the last five years, senior Iranian officials at every level have repeatedly asserted that they do not intend to build nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has quoted the regime's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who asserted that such weapons were "un-Islamic." The country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa in 2004 describing the use of nuclear weapons as immoral. In a subsequent sermon, ... (Fareed Zakaria, "They May Not Want The Bomb", Newsweek, May 23, 2009 http://www.newsweek.com/id/199147)
"... Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the Fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons." (statement issued by the Islamic republic at the emergency meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 2005 August 9)
Q. And you believe them? Haven't you ever heard of taqiyya?
A. "We should take those statements seriously not least because, during the Iran/Iraq war, Iran refrained from retaliating with chemical weapons when Saddam Hussein used those weapons against Iranian troops, and against civilians. Many Iranian veterans are still suffering the after-effects of those weapons." ( Michael Axworthy, head of the Iran desk in British foreign service from 1998 to 2000, author and teacher on the subject of Iran since. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/06/iran-writer-say.html)
"... Now, of course, they could all be lying. But it seems odd for a regime that derives its legitimacy from its fidelity to Islam to declare constantly that these weapons are un-Islamic if it intends to develop them. It would be far shrewder to stop reminding people of Khomeini's statements and stop issuing new fatwas against nukes."("They May Not Want The Bomb" by Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, May 23, 2009 http://www.newsweek.com/id/199147)
Q. Well I heard that one of those mullahs issued one of those fatwas approving the use of nuclear weapons against enemies. (Hojatoleslam Mohsen Gharavian according to Rooz, an anti-regime internet newspaper 18/02/2006 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/1510900/Iranian-fatwa-approves-use-of-nuclear-weapons.html)
A. The mullah you're talking about, Mohsen Gharavian, went to the trouble of denying this rumour a couple of days later (in an interview with IRNA, Iran's official national news outlet).
"We do not seek nuclear weapons and the Islamic religion encourages coexistence along with peace and friendship." ("Islam forbids use of nuclear weapons: Theological scholar", 21-02-2006 http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=10676)
NECESSITY
Q. Why would Iran develope nuclear power if it doesn't want nuclear weapons? It has lots of oil and gas. It doesn't need nuclear power for electricity.
A.*Iran's power consumption is growing by around 7% annually, which means its capacity must nearly triple over the next 15 years to meet projected demand. (from "Iran" by Christopher de Bellaigue. Foreign Policy, May/June 2005.)
*Much of the natural gas flared off by Iran - which US officials say could be harnessed instead of nuclear power - is not recoverable for energy use.
*Oil exports are crucial to Iran (they make up most of the government's revenue),
*The majority of Iran's oil and gas reserves are in the south closer to seaports than the country's population centers in the north. It makes more sense to export the oil and gas in the south (oil from the terminals and gas through pipelines and gas value-add projects) rather than pump it to the north and translate it into electric power.
( http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GH24Ak02.html Asia Times, The fuel behind Iran's nuclear drive By David Isenberg, Aug 24, 2005 )
Interestingly, many of the US officials (e.g. Henry Kissinger) denouncing Iran's program didn't always believe nuclear power generation was unnecessary. When the Shah anounced a big nuclear power development program in 1974, the US didn't talk about how suspicious this was in light of Iran's huge gas and oil reserves. It made sure US constructors had a preferred position to sell reactors. Today Iran's population is much bigger and its air pollution a very serious problem. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3983-2005Mar26.html Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran PolicyBy Dafna LinzerWashington Post Staff WriterSunday, March 27, 2005; Page A15 )
Q. Even if Iran needs nuclear power for electricity it doesn't need the technology to enrich uranium. Enriching uranium is very expensive and if all it wanted was to generate power it could just buy the enriched uranium from Russia, right next door.
A. Russia has had a practice of using its energy supplies as a political weapon. It's cutoff of gas supply to Europe in January 2009 (http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/02/europe/02gazprom.php) is just the latest example. It cut off supplies to the Baltic states in 1990 and 1992 to retaliate first against their independence movements, and then against their demands that Russia remove its remaining military forces. It reduced gas supplies to Ukraine in 1993 and 1994, to Belarus, and indirectly Poland and Lithuania in 2004
(http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/16/opinion/edsmith.php "Defuse Russia's energy weapon, Pipeline politics", 17-January-2006 )
NEGOTIATION
Q. Negotiating with Iran is a waste of time.
A. As of summer 2008 Iran had a Proposed Package for Constructive Negotiations. It "does not mention a suspension of uranium enrichment, a key demand of the P5+1, but it suggests the possibility of intrusive inspections and multinational enrichment on Iranian soil," according to ArmsControlWonk.com. It also includes "an effort to encourage other states to control the export of nuclear material and equipment," which is a change from its former policy of decrying the existing export control regime as a suppliers’ cartel bent on holding back the economic development of developing countries. http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1890/iran-in-the-nuclear-suppliers-group
A couple of years ago, before Ahmadinejad was president, Iran went to the trouble of suspending most of its uranium enrichment for almost a year (from November 14, 2004 to September 2005) http://irannuclearwatch.blogspot.com/2006/08/iran-nuclear-timeline.html
Iran and the U.S. do have interests in common. The Islamic Republic "shares the American aversion to a divided Iraq, an Iraq dominated by Sunni extremists, or an Iraq under a new version of Saddam Hussein." (John W. Limbert, one of the last U.S. diplomats in Iran and one of the Americans take hostage in 1979 http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr199.pdf p.9)
"Although nearly unnoticed in Western media, Iran made an official offer to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in May involving a package of "comprehensive negotiations" on everything from the nuclear issue to general disarmament and help toward a Palestinian-Israeli settlement. If this were taken seriously and acted on, the West could stymie Iran's dangerous growing isolation. " (Mideast journalist John K. Cooley, "How to silence that Iran war drumbeat," June 18, 2008, http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0618/p09s01-coop.html
DETERENCE
Q. I heard Ahmadinejad has been talking about the need to "wipe" Israel "off the map". That makes it all the more important that a nut like that doesn't get nuclear arms.
A. "Iranian civilian and military leaders are well aware of Israel's arsenal of 200 nuclear warheads and its second-strike capability through its three nuclear-equipped Dolphin submarines. And contrary to the depiction of the Iranians as `mad mullahs`, most strategic thinkers in Israel recognize that the Iranian government is extremist and radical - but rational." (Treacherous Alliance : the secret dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States by Trita Pasri, Yale University Press, 2007, p.270)
Q. But is Ahmadinejad rational? He also talks about hastening the return of Twelfth Imam and other nutty stuff. How do we know he will heed temporal national interest for (what he thinks is) religious glory?
A. There are many examples of the Islamic Republic talking fanatically but acting pragmatically throughout its history. In the Iran-Iraq War "Iran agreed to a ceasefire in the war with Iraq once Iraqi missiles began falling on Tehran. The ayatollahs were willing to sacrifice soldiers - but not to pay a higher price." (Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg in "Think Again: Israel" in the May/June 2008 issue of Foreign Policy magazine paraphrased by Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0522chapmanmay22,0,6323972.column ).
The Islamic Republic has ignored Islamic solidarity in favor of national interest with its silence on the plight of Muslim Chechens in non-Muslim Russia, and Muslim Uyghurs in non-Muslim China, "simply because the Iranian state has important strategic ties with both China and Russia that need to be preserved in the state interest. Astonishingly, Iran has even supported Christian Armenia against Shi'ite Azerbaijan, and has been careful not to lend too much support to Islamist Tajiks in Tajikistan, where the language is basically a dialect of Persian." (Fuller, Graham E., The Future of Political Islam, Palgrave MacMillan, (2003), p.41 )
It’s not like we haven’t seen avowedly revolutionary states paying lip service to ideology while following national interest in the real world before. The old Soviet Union was ideologically committed to world proletarian revolution, and the leadership of sister Communist parties, but was well known to abandon “support to foreign communist parties when it served Soviet national interests to cooperate with the governments that were oppressing” their comrade communists abroad. (Fuller, Graham E., The Future of Political Islam, (2003), p.41)
MILITARY PROSPECTS
Q. America has far and away the strongest military in the world, let alone Iran. What are we spending all this money for if we can't put a stop to Iran's threat?
A. US military options are limited.
INVASION
According to the conservative British journal The Spectator, "with or without a nuclear bomb, a full-scale Iraq-style invasion [of Iran] is clearly impossible. Iran is twice the size, more mountainous, far better armed and with a government, however unpopular, that enjoys far greater legitimacy among its own people than Saddam’s ever did." (Andrew Gilligan, the diplomatic and defence editor of (conservative) The Spectator, 27 November 2004) http://www.antiwar.com/spectator2/spec601b.html)
BOMBING
Finding the nuclear sites. "[I]f one weapons facility can be kept secret, so can others. Bombing could never hope to guarantee that all the nuclear sites had been destroyed, and the entire programme had been stopped. And it would risk killing off all possible hope of reform, and turning Iran into a genuine outlaw state." (Andrew Gilligan in The Spectator http://www.antiwar.com/spectator2/spec601b.html )
"Military action could not destroy an Iranian nuclear weapon program. The program could easily be dispersed to widely separated, secret locations, that could not be seen from the air, and repositioned deep underground, so deep that even nuclear weapons might not destroy them even if their locations could be hit.
"Even if damage were done, once the applied knowledge of how to enrich uranium has been acquired, it is impossible to prevent the activity going ahead, if the will to do so is there. Military action against Iran is more likely to persuade ordinary Iranians of the need for a nuclear deterrent than anything else."
(Michael Axworthy, head of the Iran desk in British foreign service from 1998 to 2000, author and teacher on the subject of Iran since. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/06/iran-writer-say.html)
NAVY
The U.S. Navy itself is wary enough of the war talk that its Persian Gulf Commander publicly stated "war with Iran would be `pretty disastrous,` with `echoes and aftershocks` reverberating throughout the region," according to an ABC News interviewer. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/International/story?id=4949459&page=1
Why? "To show what an asymmetrical tactic might mean on the narrow water of the Persian Gulf, IRGC [Republican Guard] speedboats routinely circle and harass American ships. The IRGC claims that it can rapidly launch large numbers of such boats from hundreds of small piers built along this Persian Gulf coast. As a gauge of what this approach might accomplish, in a Pentagon simulation exercise in 2002, the U.S. Navy lost `16 major warships - an aircraft carrier, cruisers and amphibious vessels - when they were sunk to the bottom of the Persian Gulf in an attack that included swarming tactics by enemy speedboats.` ("The Implications of Military Confrontation with Iran" by Vali Nasr, April 2008, http://www.cnas.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1833/Nasr%20_%20Military%20Confrontation%20_%20Iran.pdf) (Thomas Shanker, `Iran Encounter Grimly Echoes `02 War Game` The New York Times (12 January 2008), A1)
The headquarters of the Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. To show how well it can penetrate American security in Bahrain IRGC agents spray-painted an American cruiser (some Iranian sources claim marking the IRGC logo) while at dock in Bahrain". (Seymour Hersh, `Shifting Targets: The Administration's Plan for Iran` The New Yorker (8 October 2007), and `Taeed Hakk Shodan Arm-e Sepah Pasdaran Bar Badaneh Nav-e Emrikaie` (Confirmation of Inscription of IRGC Logo on American Naval Vessel) Rajanews (4 April 2008), at http://www.rajanews.com/News/?5962)
How could the IRGC do this? Bahrain's rulers are pro-Western Sunni, but "three quarters of Bahrain's poor and restless population are Shi’as, who by all accounts are rapidly radicalizing in response to lack of economic and political opportunities. The most popular icons" for them are the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah of Hezbollah and Moqtada al-Sadr of Iraq. (The Implications of Military Confrontation with Iran by Vali Nasr, April 2008, http://www.cnas.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1833/Nasr%20_%20Military%20Confrontation%20_%20Iran.pdf)
RETALIATION
"... increasingly military analysts are warning of severe consequences if the US begins a shooting war with Iran ... Iran has shown that it can bite back in unconventional ways." According to military analyst Magnus Ranstorp `If you attack Iran you are unleashing a firestorm of reaction internally that will only strengthen revolutionary forces, and externally in the region. It's a nightmare scenario for any contingency planner, and I think you really enter the twilight zone if you strike Iran.` With some 30,000 on the payroll by one count, Iranian intelligence `is a superpower in intelligence terms in the region; they have global reach because of their reconnaissance ability and quite sophisticated ways of inflicting pain. They have been expanding their influence.… Who would have predicted that Argentina would be the area that Hezbollah and the Iranians collectively would respond?` " "Israel is within range of Iran's Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, and Hezbollah claims its rockets – enhanced and resupplied by Iran since the 2006 war to an estimated 30,000 – can now hit anywhere in the Jewish state, including its nuclear plant at Dimona." ("How Iran would retaliate if it comes to war", June 20, 2008, http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0620/p07s04-wome.html?page=1)
"Iran can also make life hell for U.S. forces in Iraq and NATO forces in Afghanistan. With U.S. consumer confidence already at a 16-year low, oil would quickly skyrocket to $400 or $500 a barrel." (Commentary: "U.S.-Israel moment of truth?," by Arnaud de Borchgrave, in the conservative Washington Times, June 30, 2008 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jun/30/us-israel-moment-of-truth/)
EXPERT OPINION
All this is likely has something to do with why chief of U.S. Central Command William "Fox" Fallon, told Al Jazeera news last fall: "This constant drumbeat of conflict ... is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions." ( "The Man Between War and Peace", http://www.esquire.com/features/fox-fallon )( "US commander quits 'over Iran' " http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/03/2008525122836675853.html)
"International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei says any attack on Iran will turn the entire region into a `ball of fire` and he would resign. .... Three former CentCom four-stars - Anthony Zinni, John Abizaid and William J. Fallon - are on record against bombing Iran's nuclear facilities." (Commentary: "U.S.-Israel moment of truth?," by Arnaud de Borchgrave, in the conservative Washington Times, June 30, 2008 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jun/30/us-israel-moment-of-truth/)
Retired General John Abizaid, head of US Central Command until 2007, at a Marine Corps University conference last week : He doubted whether "the Israelis have the capability to make a lasting impression on the Iranian nuclear programme with their military capabilities," and said an attack on Iran would be "bad for the region, bad for the United States [and would] ultimately move the region into an even more unstable situation." (Remarks at a Marine Corps University conference, week of Sept. 14, "Iran Nukes: Out of Reach" by Dan Ephron, in mainstream NEWSWEEK, September 20, 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/id/160089)
IRAQ
Q. Iran's helping kill American troops in Iraq.
A. Try attacking Iran and see how many are killed. "It is in Iraq where Iran has been most important. Tehran’s conduct there has not been perfect. But it has ordered its various Iraqi proxies not to obstruct the reconstruction process. And Iran, with its substantial influence in Iraqi Shi’a-land, can make the US occupation untenable if it chooses. It can massively boost the killing power of Iraq’s Shi’a insurgents. It has not done so. This, as much as any other reason, is why, whatever the rhetoric, the United States will have to be cautious about taking on the Iranians.
"In discussions with journalists and British officials over the last six months, Iran has discreetly made it clear that if it should be attacked, it has the power to turn the current mess in Iraq into a Lebanon-in-the-1980s-style calamity, and send a lot more men of the British and American armies back home in boxes." (Andrew Gilligan, in the (conservative) journal The Spectator http://www.antiwar.com/spectator2/spec601b.html)
Another establishmentarian expert, Vali Nasr (who was a professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School from 2003-2007), describes Iran's policy in Iraq as one of "restraint" and "controlled chaos;" harassing U.S. forces to prevent a "permanent U.S. presence in Iraq" but "supporting the central government in Iraq" and "restraining Shi’a militias in the south." There is plenty more Iran could do to "escalate violence in Iraq."
("The Implications of Military Confrontation with Iran" by Vali Nasr, April 2008, http://www.cnas.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1833/Nasr%20_%20Military%20Confrontation%20_%20Iran.pdf)
And here is Axworthy: "the picture of support from Iran for insurgent action against coalition troops in Iraq has been greatly exaggerated on the strength of very little evidence; and that the much greater destabilizing effect of action by foreign fighters and suicide bombers on the Sunni side, especially from Saudi Arabia but also from other countries in the region, has been scandalously neglected."
(Michael Axworthy, head of the Iran desk in British foreign service from 1998 to 2000, author and teacher on the subject of Iran since. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/06/iran-writer-say.html)
For an example of the lame evidence against Iran, see "Where Are Those Iranian Weapons in Iraq?" (www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42448 Analysis by Gareth Porter, an historian and national security policy analyst. )
TERRORISM
Q. The mullahcracy in Iran is like Saddam's old regime. They've made terrorist attacks against the U.S. too!
A. Iran has "never invaded another country or launched WMD against their own people. Despite ample capabilities, they have not been implicated in an act of terrorism against the West since 1996." (Andrew Gilligan, in (conservative) journal The Spectator http://www.antiwar.com/spectator2/spec601b.html )
Q. They're part of the Axis of Evil.
A. How did they get to be part of the Axis of Evil? "According to Ken Pollack, the highly respected Washington Middle East analyst, Iran’s current status as a fully-fledged US hate-object is partly the result of an accident. Since the embassy hostage-taking in 1979, relations have not been warm. But there have been several attempts at rapprochement since. And, by Pollack’s account, Iran only ended up in President Bush’s famous ‘Axis of Evil’ speech as little more than ‘padding’. Bush’s speechwriters ‘had come up with this great line, and they needed a third country to make up an Axis’, he quotes one administration official as telling him." (Andrew Gilligan, in The Spectator http://www.antiwar.com/spectator2/spec601b.html)
IMPLACABLE ENEMY
Q. The Islamic Republic has always been our enemy.
A. The people haven't. "In an episode that deserves to be better known, Tehran even gave substantial support to the Afghanistan phase of President Bush’s war on terror. There was genuine sympathy, and spontaneous candlelit vigils, in the days after 11 September — perhaps the only such demonstrations in the entire Muslim Middle East. US transport aircraft were allowed to refuel at airfields inside Iran during the war against the Taleban, and Tehran weighed in with its Northern Alliance allies to persuade them that the US was serious about overthrowing Mullah Omar’s regime." (Andrew Gilligan, in The Spectator, http://www.antiwar.com/spectator2/spec601b.html)
AL-QAEDA PRISONERS
Q. They hold Al-Qaeda leaders and haven't turned them over to us.
A. "Much is made in neocon circles of the presence of some senior al-Qa’eda leaders in eastern Iran, where they fled after the Afghan war. But the Iranians have offered to hand over these men to the United States or to a US ally, if Washington agrees to give Tehran members of a pro-Saddam, anti-Iranian militia, the MEK (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Mujahedin_of_Iran), whom it holds in Iraq. So far, this offer has been refused, amid suspicions that the United States may want the MEK for its own purposes if it ever gets round to organising some sort of regime change." (Andrew Gilligan, in The Spectator http://www.antiwar.com/spectator2/spec601b.html )
REGIME CHANGE
Q. A carefully planned attack on bad guys, such as the Republican Guard, would weaken them and strengthen pro-democracy Iranians. It would pave the way for a pro-American, moderate, democratic Iran.
A. "Iranians are deeply nationalistic and will react to war accordingly." The last time Iran was attacke, the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, it "favored radical elements" in the regime. It "galvanized broad support for the government, and instigated rallying around the flag that forged national identity anew ... The ideological tide turned only when the Iran-Iraq War ended. If history is any indication, another war will again push Iran toward increased radicalism."
In a war with America, "secularist, reformist, radicals, clerics, and laymen will stand shoulder to shoulder. Political dissent, civil society activism, and debates over reform and democracy will give way to nationalist fervor and defiant anti-Americanism. Iran's uniquely pro-American public mood will be the first casualty of war. Those in Iran who favor a programmatic foreign policy, engagement, and accommodation will quickly lose ground to hawkish voices that have long argued that engagement is futile."
("The Implications of Military Confrontation with Iran" by Vali Nasr, April 2008, http://www.cnas.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1833/Nasr%20_%20Military%20Confrontation%20_%20Iran.pdf)
Iranians certainly don't support the Bush administrations policy against nuclear enrichment in Iran. "Two-thirds of people in Iran approve of the country’s official policy regarding the use of nuclear technology, according to a poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org. 66% of respondents want to have a full fuel cycle nuclear energy program." http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/iranians_support_nuclear_power_not_weapons/)
HUMAN RIGHTS
Q. Regime change would end the terrible violation of human rights in Iran.
A. According to Shirin Ebadi, (the 2003 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and founder of the Center for Defense of Human Rights in Tehran, Iran) and Hadi Ghaemi (a researcher for Human Rights Watch) "Independent organizations are essential for fostering the culture of human rights in Iran. But the threat of foreign military intervention will provide a powerful excuse for authoritarian elements to uproot these groups and put an end to their growth. Human rights violators will use this opportunity to silence their critics by labeling them as the enemy's fifth column." ("The Human Rights Case Against Attacking Iran" By SHIRIN EBADI and HADI GHAEMI, New York Times, February 8, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/opinion/08Ebadi.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
(see also 'If you want to help Iran, don't attack', David Batty, Friday June 13 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/13/shirinebadi.iran )
SUNNI SUPPORT FOR ATTACK
Q. Although they may be afraid to say so publicly, many moderate, pro-Western Sunni Arab regimes in the Middle East would be overjoyed with an attack that weakened Iran. The Islamic Republic is extremist and a force for instability in the region. Sunnis want them out.
A. "My current tour in Egypt contradicts that. The Egyptians I've talked to so far – including retired diplomats, experienced political analysts, and journalists – have expressed unanimous opposition to any US attack against Iran. ... One very high-level Saudi executive told me he thought a US attack on Iran would be `disastrous for the whole region` and implored Washington to find a way to resolve its differences with Tehran through diplomacy. Even in US-friendly Kuwait, the government-sponsored Al-Rai newspaper has begun to publish stridently anti-US editorials. " (Helena Cobban ("a veteran writer, researcher, and program organizer on global affairs") , "Sunni Arab view of US-Iran tensions", Christian Science Monitor, February 8, 2007, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0208/p08s02-coop.html)
"We have lived beneath Israel's nuclear weapons for many years, so even if Iran gets nuclear weapons it wouldn't be anything new. Anyway, they are not that close to it," (a former Egyptian ambassador replying to Bushy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0208/p08s02-coop.html)
"When the United States began thinking about war with Iran, Arab governments seemed to have given their blessings so long as their approval would not be made public. Over the course of the past two years that support has largely evaporated. Iran's neighbors are no longer convinced that war will be quick and decisive or that it will have the desired effect." ("The Implications of Military Confrontation with Iran" by Vali Nasr, April 2008, http://www.cnas.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1833/Nasr%20_%20Military%20Confrontation%20_%20Iran.pdf)
LEAST BAD OPTION
Q. Whatever the disadvantages, attacking Iran and taking out the Iranian power structure would be better than letting them continue uranium enrichment. As John McCains says, "there's only one thing worse than the United States exercising the military option; that is a nuclear-armed Iran."
A. "As problematic as the Iranian regime and its behavior are for the Untied States, Iran is still, ironically, the only stable country in its neighborhood. An unstable Iran - and worse, a failed state in Iran - will create a sinkhole of instability in a wide arc streching from Tukenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq ... Nuclear material, armed gangs, and militias will come out of the belly of a fallen Iranian miltary force. Iran's collapse will only worsen the very problems that the United States is seekeing to address ni the Middle East." ("The Implications of Military Confrontation with Iran" by Vali Nasr, April 2008,http://www.cnas.org/attachments/contentmanagers/1833/Nasr%20_%20Military%20Confrontation%20_%20Iran.pdf )
"It's time to reverse any momentum that could unleash a potentially calamitous Middle East conflict, killing thousands, sending oil prices to $200 a barrel and beyond, and accentuating global recession. " (Mideast journalist John K. Cooley on attacking Iran "How to silence that Iran war drumbeat", June 18, 2008, http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0618/p09s01-coop.html)
According to an Israeli and an Iranian author,
"Even the most successful bombing raid would leave Iran with some nuclear capability. At best, proponents of this option admit, bombing would set back the program five years." What would happen during that five years? A "probable scenario: Tehran would use the attack to invoke Article 10 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and withdraw from the treaty altogether. ... Iran would cease all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, expel all UN inspectors, and by that, deprive the international community of much-needed transparency and insight. ... Consequently, a successful bombing campaign by either the US or Israel would simply guarantee a nuclear armed and vengeful Iran five years down the road. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, said recently that if Iran left the NPT, it could build a nuclear weapon within a year."
NEGOTIATION ALTERNATIVE
Q. Well what do YOU suggest ... peacenik
A. Some diplomats and arms control people - William Luers, Thomas R. Pickering, Jim Walsh - propose "that Iran's efforts to produce enriched uranium and other related nuclear activities be conducted on a multilateral basis, that is to say jointly managed and operated on Iranian soil by a consortium including Iran and other governments. This proposal provides a realistic, workable solution to the US–Iranian nuclear standoff. Turning Iran's sensitive nuclear activities into a multinational program will reduce the risk of proliferation and create the basis for a broader discussion not only of our disagreements but of our common interests as well. ... A number of Iranian officials—including President Ahmadinejad himself—have already publicly endorsed a multilateral solution."
The plan would include:
*prohibition on producing either highly enriched uranium or reprocessed plutonium.
*No work on nuclear fuel, including research and development, could be conducted in Iran outside the multilateral arrangement.
*no institution, personnel, or facility associated with the Iranian military would be allowed to participate in the production of nuclear fuel or other nuclear activities.
*Iran would fully implement the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires member nations to make their nuclear facilities subject to snap inspections, environmental sampling, and more comprehensive reporting requirements.
*Iran would commit itself to a program only of light water reactors (LWRs), which require uranium fuel enriched only to low levels.
(William Luers is the president of the United Nations Association–USA and was formerly US Ambassador to Czechoslovakia and Venezuela. (March 2008)
Thomas Pickering is Co-Chair of the United Nations Association–USA, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and former US Ambassador to Russia, Israel, India, Jordan, El Salvador, Nigeria, and the UN. (March 2008)
Jim Walsh, is a Research Associate at MIT, was previously Executive Director of the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. (March 2008)
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21112)
They're not the only ones who think it's a good idea. David Cortright, a research fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Nortre Dame:
"Senior Iranian official have said that Tehran is prepared to negotiate and might allow an international consortium to enirch uranium in Iran. The U.S. should enter into high-level discussions with Iran, without preconditions. Washington should offer incentives to Tehran, such as the lifting of non-military sanctions, to encourage greater Iranian cooperation in denuclearization and regional stabilitzation efforts."
("Eight points about Iran's nuclear program" Christian Century, June 17, 2008, p. 26
David Cortright, research fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Nortre Dame. )
Another proposal would let Iran develope a bomb. According to Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor at large of the conservative Washington Times and of United Press International:
"Three former CentCom four-stars - Anthony Zinni, John Abizaid and William J. Fallon - are on record against bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. Instead, they favor high-level negotiations with Iran's mullah regime. They believe the aim should be a geopolitical deal whereby Iran allows Iraq to consolidate its pro-Western democracy, reins in Hezbollah and Hamas, the United States restores full diplomatic relations, lifts all economic sanctions - and learns to live with an Iranian bomb. As a sign of peaceful intent, the administration offered to open a consular section in Tehran to facilitate visas for Iranians wishing to visit the United States." (Commentary: "U.S.-Israel moment of truth?," by Arnaud de Borchgrave, Washington Times, June 30, 2008 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jun/30/us-israel-moment-of-truth/)
Other ideas: "To ease tensions, both US presidential candidates should specifically renounce plans for permanent US bases and presence in Iraq. As US historian William Pfaff recently wrote in his column, insisting on a permanent presence in Iraq would "turn Iraq into an American satellite state." This would force Tehran and other neighbors to regard Iraq as a threat and provide incentive to speed nuclear weapons activity. "
"By reopening a US diplomatic mission in Tehran, dropping sanctions except those involving military technology, and improving the old offers of Western and Russian IAEA-supervised peaceful nuclear technology, the US could help avert intensified tensions or an actual war."
(Mideast journalist John K. Cooley, "How to silence that Iran war drumbeat" June 18, 2008, http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0618/p09s01-coop.html)
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