Not long ago, we were told by our intelligence services that Iran was not really building a bomb and that such rumors were the stuff of neo-con conspiracists and more cooked and partisan data. Iran, we rubes were additionally lectured, did not work with al-Qaeda, given that Sunnis and Shiites hated infidels more than each other. And the idea that it would conduct covert operations inside the U.S. was surely more Bush-Cheney scarifying. A new outreach/reset instead would lead to “face-to-face” negotiations, now that swaggering George Bush had left and laureate Barack Obama had reminded the Iranians of his Nobel Prize and non-traditional post-racial heritage. Popular unrest in the streets of Teheran in 2009 was either non-authentic and going nowhere, or at least not properly our right to encourage — given Obama’s careful reach-out to the theocracy, and his deep knowledge of the long and contorted history of U.S. interventions into Iranian internal affairs. Rather than worry about a supposed Iranian bomb, we might try instead to envision the Middle East from the Iranian perspective, hemmed in as it was by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and aware that other potentially hostile states like Israel and Pakistan were nuclear. In any case, a sophisticated reach-out deal with Putin’s Russia would result in behind-the scenes help to stop Iranian nuclear ambitions. Barring that, there was no real reason to believe that a nuclear Iran was not subject to traditional laws of deterrence. And even if the crisis deepened, a new commitment to U.N. multilateralism would engage the U.N. Security Council in the sort of collective action so sorely lacking during the derelict Bush administration.
I think all that has gone the way of the new embassy in Damascus, the breakthrough with the Palestinians, the Putin reset, and our South American initiatives with Chávez, etc. and so we are left with a rather different U.S. policy: Iran is now a danger; we want the Gulf states to pump more oil and find alternative routes of delivery, building the sort of pipelines that we won’t in the U.S., where new federal oil leases are more likely cancelled than granted.
Where are we now? After computer viruses, assassinations, and sanctions, I think we are reduced to the Secretary of Defense not only unwisely publicly predicting an Israeli strike, but even more unwisely offering likely dates of such a mission. Substitute Cheney or Rumsfeld for Panetta, and there would be global outrage at these remarks. All this suggests that the Obama policy is more or less to be summed up by, let Israel do it on Monday, and then on Tuesday we will express “grave concern” and “deep regret” over such a “unilateral” escalation in tensions, as we breathe a sigh of relief and blame the troublesome Israelis once more for stirring up war in the region.
What a day ... bullies, schemers, and disdain for integrity. I am despondent over the state of the union.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseps - I forgot to add 'betrayal of our ally'.
What a day.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy do we have to coddle Israel? They have a nuclear arsenal. Hell, we probably paid for it. If deterrence was good enough for us during the Cold War, it should be good enough for Israel now.
I want American foreign policy to come out of Washington, not Tel Aviv. More war in the Middle East is not good for us. Period.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRe: ...let Israel do it on Monday, and then on Tuesday we will express “grave concern” and “deep regret” over such a “unilateral” escalation in tensions, as we breathe a sigh of relief and blame the troublesome Israelis once more for stirring up war in the region.
Sounds like we've become Europe. But that's Obama's agenda for our nation isn't it?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOnce the Republican nomination circus is over, we need a candidate who can put an appropriate frame around these activities and explain it in one syllable words to the electorate.
I don't know that Romney has the fire to do so, but Gingrich certainly does -- however Gingrich is not my choice as candidate. If Romney and Gingrich could arrive at some modus operandi, perhaps they could together speak the truth in full.
Like LKS above, I despair. I cannot imagine what a hash Hillary would make of all this as President: her sense of her own grandeur is frightening, because of its implications for the rest of us.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat is going on is posturing by Obama for the election. It is sickening.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNow that Iran has successfully launched a satellite into orbit, perhaps the Obama administration will at least be willing to expand the number of countries to whom Iran represents an existential threat.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt was constantly remarked after WWII that Hitler had telegraphed every move he would make in Mein Kampf, but the world refused to believe what he had clearly vowed to do. What will be the excuse when Iran finally achieves the means to declare its clearly stated ends? Since we seem determined to repeat history, we might want to start coming up with a new excuse very, very soon.
If they scapegoat Israel, there won't be much left given their enemies in Europe, the UN and the region. They've been almost "resolved" out of existence now. It's mindlessly audacious to think you can scapegoat Israel as committing an act of war and still support them in these circumstances that include resurgent Islamism in all their neighbors. It would be just like this administration to be that "audacious" and then walk away. Ooops.
Maybe they only want to engineer Israeli regime change by first necessitating an Israeli act of self defense and then using that as an excuse to extract the administration's desired change. And from there, peace in the mideast. And Islam is, literally, peace.
Either way, no friend of Israel.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaybe I'm too cynical. Leon Panetta seems like a very nice man even if he has been ill-fitted for the posts he's been given in the Obama administration. Honestly, I wonder if he hasn't been set up to be a sacrificial lamb for the administration over the past week.
First it is that terrible segment on 20/20 with Scott Pelley where they strung together all the times they caught on camera of Panetta's easy laughter. One of the man's most endearing traits strung together like that made him look like the village idiot.
Then a few days later he comes out with a loose lips statement to David Ignatius about the time frame of an Israeli strike on Iran.
I'm not much of a believer in coincidence. The explanation that Panetta was sent out to drop this bombshell in a cowardly covert way that the U.S. could disavow any part in the Israeli strike to Iran - well, that sounds exactly like what I expect from this administration. 'Don't retaliate against the U.S., Iran, we didn't have anything to do with Israel's strike - we didn't approve it and even warned that it was coming." What cowardice!
This administration does not seem to be capable of making a wise or honorable move.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePerhaps Valerie Jarrett is punishing Panetta for going forward with the Bin Laden strike.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAn Iranian nuclear weapon will be detonated by one of its terrorist proxies over an American city sometime within the next few years. The Bush and Obama administrations have squandered opportunity after opportunity to prevent this.
Note they don't need ballistic missiles to do this---a fishing trawler off the coast stuffed with jihadis and a couple of Quds Force martyrs to set off the warhead onboard will do just fine for their purpose.
What would our response be to such a scenario when Iran will disavow all knowledge?
Mutually-assured destruction has deterrent value only when we are willing to strike back and know whom to strike. Iran has been at war with us since 1979 and we have never yet shown a willingness to hit them back. The accidental shootdown of their airliner was the closest we have ever come---the mullahs were convinced it was a sign we were serious at last and backed off quickly.
The War on Terror is a sham. We have no intention of destroying the nexis of Islamic terrorism and never have. It was apparently all for show----a very pricey show indeed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseworse .... the Obama administration doesn't want to deal with a strike and the aftermath so it is leaking its possibility to perhaps deter Israel from striking. Feinstein's leaked comment was a little suspicious. If they are leaking secret information from the Israelis, then that is worse than unwise, but rather treachery.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMr. Hanson, you wrote: "Iran, we rubes were additionally lectured, did not work with al-Qaeda, given that Sunnis and [those other guys who cannot be named because of the filter] hated infidels more than each other."
Didn't you mean to say the opposite?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI saw that too, and I think that you are correct. From my reading over the last 10+ years, they will get together to fight a common enemy.
Me against my brother.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMe and my brother against my cousin.
Me, my brother and my cousin against the infidel.
Looked like that to me, also.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI suspect that Panetta made this statement to try to delay or derail an Israeli attack. There seems little doubt that our defense forces can intelligently estimate how Israel could do take out the Iranian threat. From that, determining when is probably not too difficult.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGiven the administrations dislike of Israel, it is not much of a stretch to assume an intent to prevent an Israeli strike.
When it comes to Iran, Israel plays the US like a fine violin. Tel Aviv says "jump", Washington says "how high?"
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe capital of Israel is Jerusalem. Even if you don't agree with that position, it is a fact that Israel's government is based there.
But you knew that, didn't you. Generally, Israel is referred to as "Tel Aviv" only by anti-Semites like you.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe belief that our concerns over Iran or even over Iraq are about Israel is not a reality-based assessment.
Our concerns have to do with the flow of oil and the necessity of keeping it flowing so the industrialized world economy doesn't come to a crashing halt. Whenever a nation threatens the stability of that region, it affects our national interests. A nuclear Iran has the ability to threaten all the other OPEC states in the region, and only serves to destabilize the region by instigating an arms race.
Once Iran has nukes, are Saudi Arabia or Jordan far behind? Or Iraq for that matter?
Israel could never have existed and we would still consider a nuclear Iran a threat to our national interests.
Perhaps the knee-jerk reaction is yours, not the US's.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"...we were told by our intelligence services that Iran was not really building a bomb and that such rumors were the stuff of neo-con conspiracists and more cooked and partisan data."
A strawman even Obama wouldn't stoop to. None of our intelligence services has said anything remotely like that.
Panetta's statement is a threat directed toward Iran. He is telling them to dismantle their nuclear program by spring or he will unleash Israel on them. Everyone (the Obama admin and Israel anyway) is on the same page here.
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