The Iran Challenge - U.S. judgement questioned

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2003 08:01:17 -0500
From: Ted Kircher <tkircher () comcast net>
Subject: The Iran Challenge - U.S. judgement questioned
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>

Dave,

The highlighted sentences in the last paragraph summarize Cohen's main 
point.  In short, Bush blew his credibility
- and resources - in Iraq, hence allowing more dangerous nations to become 
even more dangerous.

PS:  This article may appear in some local newspapers entitled "U.S. 
judgement questioned".

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The Iran Challenge
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, December 2, 2003; Page A27
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27063-2003Dec1.html>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27063-2003Dec1.html

As far as we know, Iraq has not been a prime sponsor of terrorism under 
Saddam Hussein in the recent past; Iran was -- and is. As far as we know, 
Iraq did not have a functioning nuclear weapons program. Iran does. So who 
did we go to war against? Iraq. Maybe someone in the White House can't spell.
Whatever the explanation, the decision to make war on Iraq has cost the 
United States plenty when it comes to dealing with Iran. In the past month 
the Bush administration has been repeatedly rebuffed by our European allies 
-- Germany, France and even Britain -- over how to deal with Iran's 
not-so-secret nuclear weapons program. The United States wanted to use the 
stick; the Europeans prefer the carrot. Iran is now chomping away like Bugs 
Bunny.

Do not be confused. Unlike the run-up to the Iraq war, this is not a matter 
of the Europeans quibbling with Bush administration pronouncements that 
Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program. The signs of one are 
unmistakable. The Germans in particular are convinced that Iran is -- or 
was -- developing a nuclear weapons program, and they don't like it one bit.

But this time our allies are even more reluctant to follow the lead of the 
United States. The last time around, that led to war in Iraq over -- you 
will remember -- a weapons of mass destruction program that has yet to be 
found. Only Britain went along, and Tony Blair is paying the price for it 
in public approval. It now seems apparent that on the question of WMD alone 
-- never mind links to al Qaeda -- Washington didn't know what it was 
talking about.

So, over Washington's objections, the Europeans are taking a less 
confrontational approach with Iran. As a high German official explained it 
to me, the Europeans think they can convince Iran it has more to gain by 
aborting its weapons program than by sticking with it. "They could have 
full trade with the European Union," this official said -- not ostracism.

Good luck to the Europeans. If Iran persists in developing nuclear weapons, 
then its neighbors may follow -- Turkey, Syria, Egypt and possibly Saudi 
Arabia. Israel already has such weapons, plus detailed knowledge of Iranian 
nuclear installations. The Middle East, one of the world's most unstable 
regions, would be armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. In the hands of 
some of those regimes, that would be bad enough, but if the weapons fall 
into the laps of terrorist groups, the cradle of civilization may well be 
its grave. Do I have your attention?

The Iranian challenge is both a formidable and a frightening one. Iran is 
without a doubt a sponsor of terrorism. It supports Hamas, Islamic Jihad 
and Hezbollah, and has run guns to the Palestinians. The State Department 
has called the regime an "active state sponsor of terrorism" -- and here, 
too, the Europeans do not quibble. And just to add to the gloom, Iran is a 
justifiably paranoid state. In the 1980s it fought an eight-year war with 
Iraq in which Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons and rained missiles on 
Iranian cities. Iran is not about to allow that to happen again.

For the United States, the stakes are greater in Iran than they were in 
Iraq. Yet the administration has squandered its leadership role with 
reckless name-calling -- Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, makes up 
George W. Bush's "axis of evil" -- and by going to war in Iraq for dubious 
reasons. The upshot is that both the Europeans and the Vienna-based 
International Atomic Energy Agency are disinclined to follow Washington's 
lead. This is especially true of the IAEA's director general, Mohamed 
ElBaradei, who was bullied and vilified by the Bush administration for his 
perplexing refusal to agree that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. That 
time has so far proved him right has only confirmed this proud Egyptian's 
judgment -- and the Bush administration's lack of any. The Bush 
administration wanted to take the Iranian matter to the Security Council, 
which can impose sanctions. The Europeans and ElBaradei favored a softer 
approach. Of the 35 nations on the IAEA board, only three -- Canada, Japan 
and Australia -- went along with the United States. The Europeans got their 
way, and Iran indicates it will cooperate.

It could be that Washington made an example with Iraq -- and Iran got the 
message. But it seems more likely that Iran (and North Korea) learned that 
once you get designated "evil' " you'd better accelerate your nuclear 
weapons program. Whatever the case, it now seems clear that through clumsy 
diplomacy, unbridled arrogance and an insistence on taking out Saddam 
Hussein for reasons that have not been vindicated, the United States comes 
out of Iraq with its authority diminished. The world respects its might. 
Its judgment is another question altogether.

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