\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If the mullahs don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to negotiate, fine: making the offer is something that must be checked off before the next president could unleash the Air Force and the Navy. To make the threat of force against clerical Iran again credible, there needs to be a consensus among far more Democrats and Republicans that a nuclear-armed Iran is intolerable. If the White House tried more energetically to find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear threat, if it demonstrated that it had reached out to Iranian \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pragmatists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153moderates,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that again no one responded, then the military option would likely become convincing to more Americans.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6If the Bush administration were to use this sort of diplomatic jujitsu on the ruling clerics, it could convulse their world. No, this is absolutely no guarantee that Tehran will stop, or even suspend, uranium enrichment. But a new approach would certainly put the United States on offense and Iran on defense. We would, at least, have the unquestioned moral and political high ground. And from there, it would be a lot easier for the next administration, if it must, to stop militarily the mullahs\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 quest for the bomb.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth noting that Gerecht, like other neo-cons<\/a> including several of his AEI colleagues, appears to have given up hope of an attack before the end of Bush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s term and now believes that it will up to his successor to decide what to do about Tehran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nuclear program. His argument echoes that of the generally more pragmatic Robert Kagan who came out in favor of negotiations after the NIE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s release in early December in a Washington Post <\/em>column entitled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Time to Talk to Iran<\/a>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Two differences: Kagan was less certain than Gerecht that Tehran wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take up a negotiations offer. He also did not stress the importance of offering high-level talks, although that the fact that he suggested putting all outstanding issues between the U.S. and Iran on the table implied it. The basic line was much the same. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Kagan nearly three months ago:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Beginning talks today does not limit American options in the future. If the Iranians stonewall or refuse to talk \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a distinct possibility \u00e2\u20ac\u201d they will establish a record of intransigence that can be used against them now and in the critical years to come. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible the American offer itself could open fissures in Iran. In any case, it is hard to see what other policy options are available. This is the hand that has been dealt. The Bush administration needs to be smart and creative enough to play it well.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It will be very interesting to see if Gerecht\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and Kagan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s advice, as cynical as it may be, is being considered by the hawks within the administration, and particularly in Cheney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office. <\/p>\n
<\/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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AEI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Reuel Marc Gerecht now believes that Washington should offer to engage in unconditional, high-level talks and even normalize diplomatic relations with Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6apparently in order to rally support for war. In a New York Times op-ed misleadingly entitled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Attack Iran, With Words,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gerecht, who is certain there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no way that the mullahs will agree to […]<\/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-4198","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\/4198","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=4198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4198"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}