Author: Daniel Larison

NBC News reports on the bankrupt “Plan B” options being considered by the Biden administration if nuclear talks in Vienna aren’t successful:

As Iran and world powers prepare to resume negotiations next week on reviving a nuclear deal, the U.S. and its allies are already debating a list of “Plan B” options if the negotiations collapse, Western diplomats, former US officials and experts say.

With chances for a breakthrough at the talks in Vienna looking remote and Iran at odds with U.N. nuclear inspectors, US and European officials face a grim set of choices – from ramped-up sanctions to potential military action – as Iran’s nuclear program advances into dangerous territory.

These options are grim because they are also futile and destructive. We need to understand that piling on more sanctions or attacking Iran’s facilities will accomplish nothing except to kill more Iranians and convince their government that it needs a deterrent. The “Plan B” options being discussed are not serious options, because they stand no chance of preventing proliferation in Iran. Even if military action weren’t illegal aggression, it would still be folly. At best, these options would accelerate current trends in the expansion of Iran’s nuclear program, and at worst they would lead to regional war and proliferation. The only things that have won concessions from Iran are sanctions relief and compromise. Trying to increase pressure beyond “maximum pressure” means going in the wrong direction from where we need to go. This is a phenomenally stupid backup “plan,” and anyone advocating for any of these “grim choices” should be ignored.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

Richard Haass dismisses negotiations in Vienna to salvage the nuclear deal, and then makes this assertion:

And even if they do [succeed], any agreement will not resolve Iran’s push for regional primacy – or for nuclear weapons.

If Iran were seeking “regional primacy,” it lacks the power projection and resources to achieve it. Then again, there is scant evidence that Iran is interested in “regional primacy.” Their security strategy is not that ambitious. Iranian “regional primacy” or hegemony is a scenario that Iran hawks throw around to frighten people into supporting their bankrupt policies. Haass is simply engaging in threat inflation as a way to belittle current diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear issue.

There is also no evidence that Iran is “pushing” for nuclear weapons. Iran may want to have that option available in the future, but everything we have seen for the last 18 years points to a government that wants a developed nuclear program that stops short of building nuclear weapons. That may not be the optimal outcome, but it is the best one that is realistically available to us. If the administration wants to resolve the nuclear issue so that Iran doesn’t feel compelled to build a deterrent of its own, it would do well to ignore what Haass is proposing in this article. There is an achievable compromise to be had, but Haass and the Iran hawks aren’t interested in taking it.

Some of Haass’ article is little more than the typical whining that the JCPOA does not restrict things that it was never intended to restrict and never could have restricted. He trots out the old chestnuts of “regional activities” and ballistic missiles, which the Iranian government isn’t going to discuss in any case, and then faults a revival of the JCPOA for not addressing things that are far beyond the capacity of any nonproliferation agreement. These are silly and irrelevant objections to continued diplomacy with Iran, but Iran hawks hope that if they throw enough mud against the wall that something will stick.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

Sarah Chayes has written what may be one of the most dastardly op-eds I have ever read. She warns against providing aid to Afghanistan too quickly because that would reduce Western “leverage” over the Taliban:

Western countries should not move too fast. Just because we’ve failed to use our leverage in the past doesn’t mean we shouldn’t start now.

One way of thinking about the fraught matter of placing conditions on humanitarian assistance is to consider any offer to provide it as the equivalent of a treaty with a hostile foreign power. The nuclear deals with the USSR and Iran included not only conditions, but intrusive verification procedures. That’s the model that should be applied here.

Putting conditions on humanitarian assistance is always the wrong thing to do. In the case of Afghanistan, holding back resources that millions of Afghans need to survive the winter is monstrous and indefensible. It is not the fault of tens of millions of innocent Afghans that the Taliban won, and they should not be punished for the fact that the U.S. and its client did not prevail. Afghanistan faces a man-made famine if Afghanistan’s reserves are not unfrozen and aid does not resume, and this op-ed is the sort of twisted argument that lays the groundwork for causing such a famine.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

Some of the lingering costs of the January 2020 Soleimani assassination include the injuries to U.S. personnel that suffered traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) in the retaliatory Iranian missile attack:

He used to help run armed drone operations as part of the unit, but the now 31-year-old struggles with vision and hearing problems and suffers from constant headaches and memory loss. He says he can no longer do his job.

“The person I was prior to a traumatic brain injury, he’s gone,” Kvasager said. “There’s parts that remain. The pieces are all still there, just – yeah, he’s not coming back.”

A CBS News investigation found Kvasager is one of dozens of soldiers injured in the attack who have not been recognized with the Purple Heart and who have been denied the medical benefits that come with it, despite appearing to qualify. 

Traumatic brain injuries have been among the most common injuries suffered by US military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, but much of the time they are not diagnosed properly and even when they are identified they are often not taken as seriously as other injuries. The effects of these injuries on the servicemembers that suffer from them can be severe, and as we can see from this report they can be debilitating and life-changing. They do not receive the recognition or attention that they should, and the veterans that suffer from these injuries are often not receiving appropriate care. Adding insult to injury, CENTCOM failed to report and track these injuries properly, and this is a problem that goes beyond those servicemembers injured in the missile attack at Al Asad.

We know that the Trump administration minimized the injuries suffered in the missile attack, and the president went so far as to dismiss them as nothing more than headaches. Minimizing the severity of the injuries became the standard response:

The soldiers CBS spoke with said after the attack, there was pressure to downplay the growing injuries to avoid a further escalation with Iran and avoid undercutting former President Trump.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

Joe Lieberman reminds us that he absolutely does not want any agreement with Iran:

Akbar Shahid Ahmed reports on the Biden administration’s unwillingness to hold the Saudi government accountable for its crimes, including the crimes of the crown prince:

For now, Biden’s team has signaled that it sees the prince as a partner who is going nowhere – and whom Washington does not want to anger because he could threaten the president’s foreign policy agenda.

The Biden administration wants to make it seem as if it is making a difficult trade-off in order to achieve some other important goals, but the reality is that they are just caving to the Saudis and letting Mohammed bin Salman off the hook because it is easier than honoring Biden’s campaign promises. Supporters of the status quo with Riyadh exaggerate how important the relationship is to discourage any pressure from Washington, but it is hard to think of any significant item on Biden’s foreign policy agenda where the Saudi government is a potentially useful partner rather than an impediment or adversary. Then again, as Kate Kizer observed today, it is hard to identify what Biden’s foreign policy agenda is supposed to be now.

On Yemen, where the need to pressure the Saudis is greatest, Biden has been the most timid. Far from cutting off their weapons supplies, his administration has approved two fairly large contracts for helicopter maintenance and missiles. Asma Rassem recently called on the administration to use all leverage at its disposal to press the Saudis to end the blockade of Yemen.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

Joe Lieberman reminds us that he absolutely does not want any agreement with Iran:

Achieving an agreement with Iran that could get 67 votes in the Senate wouldn’t be easy, but it is worth the effort. It would restore the longtime bipartisan consensus in Washington about Iran that was broken during consideration of the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015.

Iran hawks are not serious when they propose making a treaty with Iran in lieu of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). For one thing, they would oppose such a treaty under all circumstances, so they are setting up any negotiated agreement for failure. For another, previous presidents have withdrawn from treaties on the slightest pretexts, so nothing would be gained. Making an agreement into a treaty guarantees nothing about its durability. The “longtime bipartisan consensus” on Iran before the nuclear deal was reached had achieved nothing except to goad Iran into expanding its nuclear program. This failed approach is what Lieberman wants to bring back.

The Iranian government wants guarantees that the U.S. can’t provide because a large bloc of our politicians and policymakers are dead-set against reaching any lasting agreement with Iran on any issue. The nature of the agreement is irrelevant. They would fight against it tooth and nail whether it was presented as a treaty or as something else. Iran hawks resent the very idea of reaching a compromise that serves the interests of both states, because they assume that Iran should never receive any benefits in exchange for its concessions. This is not speculation. One need only look at how they respond to any hint of sanctions relief to understand that they believe that Iran should get nothing in return for its cooperation. The truth is that Iran hawks want Iran to be coerced into capitulation, and anything short of that will be considered unacceptable “appeasement.”

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.