Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Iran and ‘Smart Power’ – Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be (Part One of Two)

Peter Huessy

We have become very much prisoners of our own, often erroneous, vision of political history. As a result, we appear increasingly unwilling to take the action necessary to deal with what admittedly may be the most critical national security threat facing the United States and its allies: the development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles by Iran and its ongoing status as the world’s premier “terror master.” At the center of our reluctance to seriously deal with this gathering storm is the continued fallout from the war in Iraq. The current template according to the state-owned media, most of Hollywood and the entertainment industry, and much of our academic and political elite, is that Iraq was a "war of choice," unnecessary, unwise, and solely about either "oil," profits for "Halliburton," (and thus for former Vice President Richard Cheney), or a son's revenge, (GWB) for the attempted murder of his father, (GHWB) by Saddam Hussein.

To be sure, we were always assured by critics, the Iraqi dictator, was "yes, a bad guy." But weren’t there a "lot of bad guys" in the world and couldn’t we learn to live with Saddam as we did the others? And surely we couldn’t always be the “world’s policemen,” standing ready to clean up the world's dark corners.

And so it is the "wise people," usually defined as those who opposed President Bush's liberation of Iraq, tell us that the use of military force against Iran is also an example of what could be another "war of choice" and thus it is outside the bounds of what is now described as “smart power.” These chattering classes fill our prestigious universities and think tanks, their views reflected in the anonymous "European diplomats" whose words of caution we read so often in the state owned media, as they make excuses for the corporate entities and state owned industries seeking investment in Iran – they all remind us of how important it is to "have patience" with respect to Iran's nuclear weapons programs, that "diplomacy is the only realistic path forward,” and it is only the "evil neo-cons" who are the key barrier between Iran and normal relations and “engagement” with the rest of the world.

For example, ElBaradei, the former director-general of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Administration, complained that one "could not bomb your way across countries" to enforce proliferation norms. His predecessor, Hans Blix, asserted that global warming was a far more important issue than the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Iran or North Korea, so what was all the fuss? In dismissing the need for military action against Iran, he told this author during a Senate staff briefing that as far as he was concerned, the modernization of the nuclear deterrent in Great Britain, France or the United States was no different from the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea or Iran. “After all” he complained, “Why should Britain have nuclear weapons? Sweden doesn't!"[1]

A former senior Carter administration security official recently complained on radio that since “all the neo-cons” were always telling us that Iran was just "a year away" from a nuclear weapon, the actual truth was guaranteed to be ignored – that Iran would not have any such weapon "any earlier than 2015"[2]. Such talk, he asserted, only made it increasingly difficult to successfully reach out to the Mullahs in Tehran.

Ted Turner, the founder of CNN and a major supporter of a world without nuclear weapons, says since the United States has many thousands of nuclear weapons, "why can't Iran have a few hundred?" This view is quite similar to those of then IAEA Director General ElBaradei who complained: “How is it reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security?” As for confirming that Iran’s nuclear activities were a threat, the head of the IAEA made sure we all knew what side he was on: “You do not want to give additional argument to some of the 'new crazies' who want to say let us go and bomb Iran.” And of course we remember the conclusions of the Iraqi Survey Group which repeatedly assured us that Iran did not seek “instability” in the Gulf Region, in Iraq or Afghanistan and therefore was not a threat but a potential ally!

These same critics might assert that we have the options of threatening to implement further sanctions, even "crippling sanctions" if Iran doesn’t seek conciliation. But it is a wonder we have not found the courage to actually implement such “crippling” sanctions for over three decades while the Mullahs of Iran make terror war on us. Thus, how serious can such future threats be? If you really examine what sanctions we have implemented to date, they have been travel bans on senior Iranian leaders, or an effort to freeze whatever financial assets they may have left in U.S. banks. These are not serious.

It is true that U.S. companies, except their overseas subsidiaries, are prohibited from trading with Iran. But at the same time, European, Russia, Chinese and other firms do billions of dollars worth of trade and investment with Tehran. It thus might be a reasonable conclusion to come to that the Iranian leadership thinks rather unserious the effort of the Western world to deal with Iran's terrorist foreign policy and its programs of building ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons by the threat of further "sanctions."

When pressed to get serious with Iran, especially when contemplating actually getting rid of the regime in Tehran, apologists for dealing with Iran through the prism of today's status quo complain that no one really supports "regime change," that such an outcome is "highly unlikely," that military pressure would "backfire," and that patient diplomacy, negotiations and outreach are the correct path to choose.

You would think “regime change” is akin to the diplomatic plague. But was not regime change precisely our policy aim in supporting Solidarity in Poland and the liberation of the captive nations within the orbit of the Soviet empire? And was not the emergence of Solidarity and a free Poland arguably the linchpin in the fall of the Soviet Empire and the resultant massive "regime change" there?

Thus far from being an option “out of the mainstream” or to be cavalierly dismissed, the debate over regime change should be taken seriously. Iran reminds us of and reflects earlier and similar arguments during the Cold War between those who sought peaceful coexistence and detente between the Soviet Union and the United States, ("no regime change") and those who sought to eliminate what President Reagan called the "evil empire" (regime change in spades!). His formula, remembered Edwin Meese, one of his closest friends and associates, was in his own words quite simple: “We win, they lose!”[3]

As for means to pursue regime change, Richard Allen, the President's former National Security Adviser, tells an illustrative story. When informed of the Israeli raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, Reagan told him: "Well, boys will be boys." Despite the vapor attacks attaching themselves to the Washington-based diplomatic corps over the raid by Tel Aviv, we now know how crucial the attack was, as shortly after the liberation of Kuwait from the clutches of Saddam Hussein, we learned that the Iraqi tyrant was only some six months to a year away from having a nuclear weapon, a timetable that could have been significantly sooner had the Iraqi reactor not been destroyed years earlier. [4]

But are things changing for the better? Maybe. Five recent developments give cause for hope. First, the Senate has passed a relatively good Iran sanctions bill whose chief authors are Sens. Jon Kyle, the Senate Republican minority whip, Evan Bayh, Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman, the chair of the Homeland Security Committee and key member of the Armed Services Committee. Second, Richard Haas, the President of the Council of Foreign Relations, has decided that the U.S. should change its policy and promote regime change in Iran through U.S. support for democratic elements there. Third, the National Security Adviser to the President, retired Marine General Jim Jones, has noted that U.S. outreach toward Iran has built up considerable goodwill among other nations where it may now be possible to actually implement the very economic sanctions that has proved so far to be elusive. Fourth, according to the Washington Post, the administration is quietly working with our Persian Gulf allies to speed up arms sales and rapidly upgrade defenses, including missile defenses, for oil terminals and other key infrastructure – actions that fulfill Bush administration initiatives – in a bid to thwart future military threats or attacks by Iran. And fifth, Iran has apparently agreed to send some of its enriched uranium out of the country to be further enriched for medical purposes and then returned within “three or four months.”

It is ironic that the goodwill among our allies about which Gen. Jones spoke has developed over a year during which the U.S. (1) largely eschewed the use of military force against a country (Iran) that is using military force against us; (2) largely ignored the courageous Iranian democratically inclined resistance that has been beaten, imprisoned and murdered; and (3) put on the table an enriched uranium swap between Russia and Iran that effectively put on the back burner the central issue of a halt to Iran’s own uranium enrichment program, which numerous UN Security Council Resolutions called for, but which apparently will be accepted by Iran as we noted earlier.

The hope, apparently, is the restraint shown by the U.S. will better enable us to lead on stronger sanctions after we “prove” Iran does not mean to negotiate, despite U.S. concessions, if that is necessary. Thus, the U.S. Senate sanctions bill while not embraced by the administration might help by putting pressure on Iran’s leadership over the threat of further sanctions. But at a certain point, the U.S. and its allies must demonstrate we are serious.

Such sanctions, with real economic bite, are based on the proposition that companies and countries that want to do business with Iran should not be able to do business with the United States – or for that matter any of our allies and friends as well. The proposal to cut off refined petroleum exports to Iran, which account for 40 percent of that nation’s refined gasoline supply, is one such step rolled into the Senate passed bill referred to above. As part of a broader divestment program, such a policy could be welcome evidence that the U.S. was getting serious about the Iranian threat. But we are far from completed legislation and a Presidential signature.

In fact, up to this point, much of the available evidence is mostly of worrisome policies moving in the other direction: (1) Faced with the prospects of further UN sanctions, Venezuela reportedly has offered to Iran the use of its banking system to help Tehran avoid the possibility of sanctions shutting down the Mullah's access to world finance. (2) We also know that Credit Suisse, the Giant Swiss banking firm, was recently fined many hundreds of millions of dollars for deliberately hiding its financial dealing with Iran, another example of “business as usual.” (3) A North Korean cargo plane with 35 tons of armaments was recently intercepted by Thailand on route to Iran. (4) Italy, despite its Prime Minister's pledge not to help Iran economically, now exports over $2 billion annually to Iran, including bore tunneling technology capable of drilling through solid bedrock, which the Iranians are then using for the hiding of components of its nuclear weapons program. And (5) China announced it was formalizing a $40 billion, long-term investment in Iranian gas fields, despite the April 2009 118 count indictment by the city of New York of a Chinese firm which was doing business with Iran’s missile and nuclear weapons programs.

When asked to explain the apparent immorality – to say nothing of stupidity – of helping Iran hide its nuclear weapons, the head of one involved Italian firm explained: "Well, there is no oil in Switzerland." This may also explain the deal in 2008 by the Swiss President who traveled to Iran to ink a multi-billion natural gas deal.

Instead of helping Iran financially, the U.S. and its allies should implement in a smart way, strong economic sanctions, including the Senate bill on refined petroleum products. This could serve the same purpose as the economic warfare undertaken by the United States against the former Soviet Union during the 1980s. These efforts were directed by a former Vice President of Chase Manhattan Bank from his perch in the National Security Council in the White House. From there Roger Robinson, now President of Conflict Security’s, implemented at the request of President Reagan a series of far-ranging economic measures that seriously undermined the economy of the former Soviet Union. As outlined in a 2001 issue of the National Intelligentser, there is no reason a similar strategy – urged on us in an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal by Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute – undertaken against Iran could not bring down the regime in Tehran. This could be coupled with a campaign to aid the Iranian democratic underground not unlike the effort we made with Solidarity in Poland.

But, in considering the necessary response to the security threats posed by Iran, it is first important to clear up some common misperceptions that get in the way of sound thinking. Although our space here is limited, we have to first deal with whether or not the liberation of Iraq was truly an unnecessary "war of choice" and thus an accurate mirror that reflects whether we should pursue similar regime change in Iran.

As retired JCS Chairman Gen. Richard Myers has correctly explained in his book Eyes on the Horizon, taking down the regime in Baghdad was primarily a war of counter proliferation – of stopping Saddam and his gang from ever again building or trying to build and use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. But beyond the issue of WMDs, Saddam was also a “terror master.”

While Saddam's terrorist connections are often automatically dismissed with the off-hand remark that his regime was "secular" so that he would be uninterested in working with or cooperating with groups such as al Qaeda, Hezbollah or Hamas, which are assumed to be religious, such analyses, much heralded as “nuanced,” have been wide of the mark.

Although it is often conceded that Saddam gave millions to the PLO, it is assumed, apparently, that such assistance to terrorism's modern day founding organization is without import. The training of thousands of terrorists from a dozen or more countries in the region south of Baghdad known as Salmon Pak is also usually ignored. So too the recent revelation by the Czech government that yes indeed Saddam had ordered an attack in Prague on Radio Free Europe in the spring of 2003, an attack that was aborted by the decision by President Bush to liberate Iraq. Only after the fall of Saddam's regime did the Czech government discover that the Iraqi embassy basement was stuffed with weapons with which to carry out the planned attack!

And we should not forget the documents found in Iraq that connected Saddam with aiding elements of al Qaeda against U.S. forces in Somalia in 1994. Or the strong evidence that Ramzi Yousef and some of his key colleagues – responsible for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, carried out on the anniversary of Saddam's surrender in the first Gulf War, were most probably Iraqi agents. As former DCI George Tenet has testified under oath, the only connection between the two WTC attacks was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the uncle of the 1993 mastermind Ramzi Yousef and the planner of the 2001 attack. Why does this not put Saddam at the center of both World Trade Center attacks?

Unfortunately, too many have assumed the 1993 attack was "al Qaeda", the all-purpose bogeyman trotted out whenever we are unsure of the who, what, why and where of terrorism. In fact, al Qaeda was unconnected to the first World Trade Center attack, though it is very often asserted to the contrary. This confusion is largely due to our failure to carefully review the evidence, especially of the trials of the 1993 WTC bombers. There it was clear there was no connection to al Qaeda. And that Sheikh Abdel-Rahman, the Blind Sheik was convicted on “seditious conspiracy” to commit violet attacks against the United States, rather than any overt act of terrorism.

Our confusion is also the result of the complete change in the way we looked at terrorism following the 1993 WTC attack. Terrorism, long viewed as an important adjunct of state policy, suddenly became a matter of individually motivated “jihadis,” loose networks, unconnected to governments, intelligence services or other “state entities.” Terrorism was shifted to the “criminal justice” arena, where our job was to get the bad guys but usually only after a terrorist act had taken place.

Starting in 1993, we apparently forgot about the connections between states and terrorism – which was after all the subject of annual State Department reports on state sponsorship of terrorism, which every year prominently featured Iraq. As a result, we failed to appreciate the extent to which state organs, such as intelligence services, infiltrate and use terror groups for their own purposes, providing states a clever and useful means to avoid direct attribution of terrorist attacks.

And how useful it must be for the real culprits to see us universally blame "al Qaeda" for such attacks, an organization which is everywhere and nowhere simultaneously, made up of everyone but no one. This has now reached the point to where the Iraqi government has complained bitterly to the Syrians that Damascus is allowing its territory to be used by suicide bombers who enter Iraq and conduct terror operations against police stations, mosques, schools and other entities. These attacks are universally described as originating with “al Qaeda.” Absence from such reporting is notice of the sanctuary, training, arming and financing being provided these terrorists by Syria, “a secular regime,” or the top-level involvement of former Iraqi Ba’athists formerly allied with Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi government has repeated asked the U.S. government for help. One State Department’s response has been:

“We understand that there has been sort of mutual recall of the ambassadors. We consider that an internal matter. We believe that, as a general principle, that diplomatic dialogue is the best means to address the concerns of both parties. We are working with the Iraqis to determine who perpetrated these horrible acts of violence....We hope this doesn't hinder dialogue between the two countries.”

In short, Syria is making war against its neighbor, Iraq. The attacks are blamed on “al Qaeda.” Syria avoids blame, deflects attention from its role as a “terror master,” even while in Washington and European capitals there continues discussion of how Damascus and the ruling Assad family will be brought into the “peace process” and “coaxed away” from Iran.

Thus, given that a strong argument can be made and sustained that the liberation of Iraq was not a "war of choice" but a very difficult but necessary choice compelled by our uncertainty over Saddam's future intentions with respect to both terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, perhaps we can now look at Iran more clearly.

Here it would be useful to spend some time "connecting the dots." Uzi Rubin, the retired Israel General and father of the Arrow ballistic missile defense now deployed in Israel has explained the tendency of critics of missile defense and of those who dismiss Iranian threats as victims of "fortune cookie analysis." It is often assumed that Iranian missiles can reach only Israel – as if blowing 5 million Israelis away in a nuclear attack is well, just something we have to put up with in a world where things are not black and white, but "nuanced." It is further assumed that Iranian rockets generally cannot reach European capitals, at least those of any importance, to say nothing of American cities. And should it be revealed that Iranian rockets can in fact reach Bonn, or London, or New York, we are assured that since such missiles have a "return address” – the fortune cookie analysis of which I warned earlier – there is no need for alarm because "deterrence works” – another fortune cookie analysis!

Keith Payne, the gifted President of the National Institute of Public Policy and member of the Kissinger-Perry Commission, explained in his book, Deterrence in the Balance, that deterrence as we witnessed between the U.S. and the Cold War was unique in history and not necessarily the best guide to the future. He explained that when the Japanese imperial staff contemplated war with the United States they were warned that the United States would fight back and destroy Japan. To which the reply came,"If we do not attack Pearl Harbor we will be destroyed in any case."

If one refers to the words of the Iranian leaders, especially the president, it is apparent that many of Iran's leaders wish for a confrontation with the United States that would lead a major conflict. This catastrophe is viewed by Khomeinists as presaging the return of the Mahdi, the 12th Imam, who will come back at the end of times and usher all good Muslims to heaven while the infidel Jews and Christians and apostate Muslims all perish. Jed Babbin's book, In Their Own Words, details this apocalyptic view of the world that should give serious pause to those who believe Iran's senior leadership can simply be deterred.

It is not that deterrence is not valuable. It is. But as Clark Murdock of CSIS has warned, the extent to which we believe deterrence might not work may be inversely related to the extent to which it is weakened in the eyes of our adversaries. But we need to add to and compliment deterrence. An insurance policy beyond simply hoping that deterrence works is called for. Iran is killing American soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan. They are using their proxies Hamas and Hezbollah to kill fellow Muslims, Israelis, and the people of Lebanon. They have used Somalia pirates to attack Saudi interests. They have attempted to attack the interests of Morocco and a number of Gulf States. They obviously are not deterred now.

Part Two to follow: Is the nature of the threat such that regime change is our only choice?

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis, a defense consulting company in Potomac, Maryland.

***

[1] His comment was made during a briefing of Senate defense and foreign policy staff that I was invited to attend. Blix was a former mediocre Swedish bureaucrat. Osama bin Laden also recently identified global warming as one of the most serious threats facing humankind. He claimed it was the fault of the United States. It is certainly reassuring to know that the former head of the UN Agency charged with the verification of the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty holds the same security views as the head of Al Qaeda!

[2] The official said this during an appearance in January 2009 on the Joe Scarborough radio show, (570 AM) in Washington, D.C. How this official knew when Iran would or would not have a nuclear weapon was not revealed.

[3] The former Attorney General said this at an awards ceremony sponsored by the Victims of Communism Memorial.

[4] France’s President Mitterrand reportedly had agents of his government place transponders in the Iraqi reactor to help Israeli pilots target the facility.

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