{"id":3896,"date":"2007-09-22T07:52:49","date_gmt":"2007-09-22T14:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2007\/09\/22\/is-steve-clemons-right-will-bush-bomb-iran\/"},"modified":"2007-09-22T07:52:49","modified_gmt":"2007-09-22T14:52:49","slug":"is-steve-clemons-right-will-bush-bomb-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2007\/09\/22\/is-steve-clemons-right-will-bush-bomb-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Steve Clemons Right? — Will Bush Bomb Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Visit Lobelog.com<\/a> for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.<\/i><\/p>\n

Steve Clemons\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 article<\/a> this week in Salon, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why Bush won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t attack Iran,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d offers, I think, a helpful corrective to what has been the growing conviction that has gripped anti-war critics and others that the administration is consciously moving toward war with Iran, possibly imminently. I think Steve\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s analysis, which should be read carefully and in full, is very sound, although I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not quite as persuaded as he appears to be that Bush fully understands or absorbs some of the potential costs of a military attack.<\/p>\n

I would add to his analysis some of my own recent observations and concerns.<\/p>\n

First, I was very struck by a Brookings briefing paper<\/a> by Peter Rodman released in June, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Countering Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Revolutionary Challenge,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in which he took the hawks\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 standard position on Iran \u00e2\u20ac\u201c viewing it as an ideological, revolutionary regime that should be changed and whose acquisition of nuclear weapons is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not acceptable\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but concluded that a future administration will have to deal with it.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Organizing a counter-strategy will be one of the most important tasks on the next Administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s agenda. It will be able to build on the policies of its predecessors. Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear challenge may prove to be the forcing event; if Iran continues its defiance, then the international community will need to find ways to increase pressures. The time may soon come for us to play offense, not only defense, pressing harder against the regime\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s internal vulnerabilities.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Rodman, of course, was Rumsfeld\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, and, while not a hard-line neo-conservative by any means (indeed, he began his career as a prot\u00c3\u00a9g\u00c3\u00a9 of Henry Kissinger), his ties to the neo-cons, \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and other hawks within the administration, including the vice president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office \u00e2\u20ac\u201c have been close. (He was one of the charter signatories of the Project for the New American Century of its letter urging the ouster of Saddam Hussein back in 1998.)<\/p>\n

It appears then that, at least as of last May-June \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that is, just about the time that David Wurmser was shopping his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153end run\u00e2\u20ac\u009d scenario for forcing Bush into an attack on Iran (and voicing his boss\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 conclusion that Bush opposed war), as described by Steve \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Rodman had also concluded that an attack was unlikely before the end of Bush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s term.<\/p>\n

2) Like Steve, I also believe that Gates, the Joint Chiefs (particularly the incoming chairman), and the CentCom commander, Adm. William Fallon, are quite strongly opposed to getting into a war with Iran, that, unlike some of their predecessors, they will not be shy about voicing that opposition to Bush himself, and that, ultimately, they will be more influential with respect to any such decision than Rice or other \u00e2\u20ac\u0153engagers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Much of that assessment is based not only on Gates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 past support for engaging Iran and his participation in the Iraq Study Group, as well as published reports and his efforts to tone down provocative charges against Iran by military officers in Iraq, but also on anecdotes about some of the key people from their friends and acquaintances one picks up here and there in Washington. Of course, Gates still suffers in the White House from being perceived as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Daddy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s boy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Bush and certainly by Cheney, but, if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s backed up by men with lots of ribbons on their chests, he becomes much harder to dismiss. At this point, I think the Pentagon brass poses the biggest challenge to those in the administration who want to attack Iran, and I think David Ignatius\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 disclosure in an important column, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cooling the Clash with Iran<\/a>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d last weekend that U.S. military commanders in the Gulf are pushing for an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153incidents at sea\u00e2\u20ac\u009d agreement with Iran speaks volumes.<\/p>\n

Even Gen. Petraeus, of whose integrity Adm. Fallon apparently does not think too highly, as my colleague, Gareth Porter, recently discovered<\/a>, has had some interesting things to say about what Iran is doing or not doing in Iraq. While much media attention was focused on his charges that Tehran is conducting a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153proxy war\u00e2\u20ac\u009d there against the U.S., he also volunteered during his testimony the surprising observation that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Quds Force itself \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we believe, by (and) large, those individuals have been pulled out of the country, as have the Lebanese Hezbollah trainers that were being used to augment that activity.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Those remarks, if an accurate assessment, may, of course, reflect more the possibility that Iran itself is becoming more cautious in Iraq in hopes of easing tensions, but the fact that they he volunteered them \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in answer to a question by Rep. Duncan Hunter, no less \u00e2\u20ac\u201c struck me as significant and deserving of more attention and exploration. (I note that a suspected Quds officer was reportedly arrested<\/a> by U.S. military forces today in Kurdistan, although two of his companions were immediately released and there is some question as to whether it was another case of mistaken identity.)<\/p>\n

3) None of the above is meant to convey confidence that Bush will still not decide to go to war before the end of his term, particularly given the possibility, as Steve points out, of an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153accidental war\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or even an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153end run\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a la Wurmser (who, I heard earlier this month, is still working in Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office). I agree very much with Pat Lang\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s analysis of Steve\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s article<\/a> in which acknowledges that Steve\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153discussion of the ongoing argument within policy circles \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6is reasonably accurate,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but that \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc\u00e2\u20ac\u2122it is also irrelevant (because) (o)nly the decider will decide. He will decide with the help and advice of his pal, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcjust plain Dick,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and after the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcItalian letter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 crowd have done their worst.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

4) Indeed, while Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice \u00e2\u20ac\u201c much amplified by John Bolton in recent days <\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c seems to have been resolutely ignored by Bush over North Korea where the State Department remains very much in control, the vice president clearly considers the Middle East a higher priority for whatever influence he still wields. Moreover, his neo-conservative backers, who have been pre-occupied for the past three months with ensuring that the Surge not be compromised by Congress, have yet to launch the kind of orchestrated campaign that led up to the Iraq war. With the Surge seemingly assured as a result of this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s defeat of the Webb amendment and the White House\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s success in keeping Republicans in line, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153war party\u00e2\u20ac\u009d may feel that they can now focus to a much greater extent on building the case for attacking Iran. Obviously, some seeds have already been planted<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c although not yet systematically cultivated \u00e2\u20ac\u201c over the last two months: notably, Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alleged role in EFG and other attacks against U.S. forces in Iran and NATO in Afghanistan (I just received today an update from the somewhat lethargic Committee on the Present Danger entitled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Other Proxy War Against the West: Tehran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Troublemaking in Afghanistan\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), not to mention its ongoing nuclear program. With the Surge debate out of the way, I expect that those seeds to be vigorously watered and fertilized. Note, for example, the conclusion of the lead editorial in this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Weekly Standard <\/i>about the Surge debate, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Men At Work, Children At Play<\/a>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Fred Kagan and Bill Kristol: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We cannot allow Iraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s neighbors a free hand at strengthening the forces of terror even as we work to subdue them. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Given the drawdown, and given the emphasis General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker put on the damage done by these outside actors, especially Iran, in fanning the violence in Iraq, we expect that the Bush administration will now turn its attention more directly to this critical problem.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

5) Finally, like the balance of power between hawks and realists here, much depends on the balance between similar forces in Tehran. Debate among Iran specialists continues to rage over the meaning of the recent shake-ups in the Revolutionary Guard and the election of former President Hashemi-Rafsanjani to the chairmanship of the Assembly of Experts and how they affect that balance. Partially in that connection, last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s article<\/a> by Farideh Farhi of the University of Hawaii on Juan Cole\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new Informed Comment Global Affairs is definitely worth a read. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Visit Lobelog.com for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe. Steve Clemons\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 article this week in Salon, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why Bush won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t attack Iran,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d offers, I think, a helpful corrective to what has been the growing conviction that has gripped anti-war critics and others that the administration is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3896"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}