Iran a Year Later
A little less than a year ago, in these very pages, I made some bold predictions about democratization in Iran. I revisit this topic to find out where things went wrong. I believe America has had ample opportunity to deal with Iran and has spent the better part of the last year squandering that opportunity. This has been a bipartisan failure of foresight and only quick, decisive and bipartisan action can remedy our mistakes before Iran becomes a nuclear power.
In Bush’s Iranian Dilemma I laid out a set of circumstances that made Iran ripe for democratic reform. These circumstances are every bit as real today as they were when I wrote that article. Signs of dissatisfaction between the Iranian people and the current regime are apparent to even the casual outside observer. The ranks of prisoners at Iran’s notorious Evin’s prison continue to swell as the Iranian government responds to dissent in the only way that it knows how. When the Iranian government found out that bus drivers in Tehran planed to strike they responded by arresting over 500 bus drivers, union members and their wives and children. Protests are currently being planned against this abuse, despite the obvious risk that such protests entail. Anonymous Iranian blogs are becoming more and more common and they are almost unanimous in their rejection of President Ahmadinejad and Iran’s reinvigorated belligerence.
If that is the case, why have we made so little progress in either undermining the mullahs or even stopping their rapid progress toward creating nuclear weapons? The answer is, shamefully, that we haven’t even tried. A measly 3 million dollars was devoted to supporting democratic reforms in Iran last year. This year we intend to spend 10 million dollars on that project. Neither of those numbers show any kind of serious commitment dealing with the grave threats that Iran poses to either its own people or the rest of the world. Senator Sam Brownback has advocated increasing this amount to 100 million dollars. Such an increase would allow us to put much more internal pressure on the Mullahs. Internal cracks are clearly starting to form in the Iranian dictatorship but it is going to take more than a minimal commitment to exploit those cracks.
Perhaps the greatest threat to the Iranian regime was our military action in Iraq, but that advantage has been squandered as well. Right this moment, February second 2006, our military should be able to scare the Mullah’s into (at the very least) retreating from their nuclear ambitions. We should be able to threaten the Mullah’s with an invasion and they should be more than willing to make any concession that we ask for. We made examples out of Afghanistan and Iraq and proved to the Arab world that no country can stand athwart American might. Libya couldn’t ran to hand over their nuclear program fast enough. Countries across the middle east from Egypt to Kuwait hurried to show us that they were making progress toward liberalization and democratization. So what went wrong? Why aren’t the Mullahs following suit? The fault for this failure lies squarely in the hands of men like John Murtha and Howard Dean. Murtha and Dean went out of there way to tell the world lies about how “the US Army is broken” or about “how we cannot win this war”. That sent the completely wrong message to the Iranians. It sent them a message that they have no reason to fear military action from the United States and that any threat we make to them is nothing more than bluster. Not to mention people like Cindy Sheehan and her followers who convinced the Mullahs that even if we had the strength to carry out a war to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons, the American people would have the stomach to support such a war. In order to use military force as a deterrent your enemy needs to believe that you have both the strength to destroy them and the willingness to use that strength. The liberals in America have went out of their way to convince the Mullahs and President Ahmadinejad that we have neither. Liberals have spent a good portion of the last year reminding us that dissent is not unpatriotic. I want to take this opportunity to remind them that while it may not be unpatriotic is can certainly be unwise. While it might not be unpatriotic it can certainly undermine our national security goals and force us into situations that everyone would have rather avoided.
A major part of my original article was a suggestion that we engage in covert action against the Iranian government. I am in no position to talk about whether or not this has occurred but the Weekly Standard has reported that “According to CIA officers in the Near East Division, the agency had more Iranian assets 20 years ago than it does today… According to one CIA case officer in the Near East Division, there's not even a presidential covert-action finding ‘that would allow us to sh--in the country.’” If this true than it is a situation that must be remedied immediately. In the President’s State of the Union Address he stated that he is very concerned with the plight of the Iranian people. He has also made it very clear that we will not tolerate a nuclear armed Islamic Republic of Iran. If the President is serious about these things I cannot imagine why he would not allow the CIA to carry out operations inside of Iran.
One year ago I predicted a bright future for the Iranian people and a diminished threat to the rest of the world. Things have gotten significantly more complicated and I am less optimistic than I was in that article. The Iranians appear to be headed toward the nuclear club at full speed and they cannot be allowed. It is unfortunate that we cannot muzzle the likes of Howard Dean and John Murtha, as that would be an aid in dealing with Iran. I continue to support the democracy building measures that I advocated in the past. But because of our failures and new circumstances those measures must be a part of a larger plan. Senator Brownback is right in asserting that we need to spend more money in support of democratic movements, but even this will not be enough. The President needs to start allowing covert action in Iran. I understand that there have been some serious problems in the CIA but I am not ready to believe that these problems are so severe that they would make it a liability rather than an asset. If that is the case than we are facing much more serious problems than I can address in this article. We need to move quickly to impose comprehensive and painful sanctions in time to make the Iranian people understand that their leaders are trading their prosperity for the ability to make war on the world. The are currently no sanctions on Iran regarding nuclear material. The Russians and Iranians continue to trade in materials that the Iranians will use to build a nuclear bomb. If we do not take these steps very soon or if these steps fail there is a very real possibility that we will need to pursue military actions. There may very soon come a time when we are faced with a war with Iran on the one hand and a nuclear armed Ahamdinejad on the other. Our dealings with Iran, to this point, do not fill me with a great deal of confidence that we will make the right choice. Hopefully we will do something to change that in the next few weeks.
In Bush’s Iranian Dilemma I laid out a set of circumstances that made Iran ripe for democratic reform. These circumstances are every bit as real today as they were when I wrote that article. Signs of dissatisfaction between the Iranian people and the current regime are apparent to even the casual outside observer. The ranks of prisoners at Iran’s notorious Evin’s prison continue to swell as the Iranian government responds to dissent in the only way that it knows how. When the Iranian government found out that bus drivers in Tehran planed to strike they responded by arresting over 500 bus drivers, union members and their wives and children. Protests are currently being planned against this abuse, despite the obvious risk that such protests entail. Anonymous Iranian blogs are becoming more and more common and they are almost unanimous in their rejection of President Ahmadinejad and Iran’s reinvigorated belligerence.
If that is the case, why have we made so little progress in either undermining the mullahs or even stopping their rapid progress toward creating nuclear weapons? The answer is, shamefully, that we haven’t even tried. A measly 3 million dollars was devoted to supporting democratic reforms in Iran last year. This year we intend to spend 10 million dollars on that project. Neither of those numbers show any kind of serious commitment dealing with the grave threats that Iran poses to either its own people or the rest of the world. Senator Sam Brownback has advocated increasing this amount to 100 million dollars. Such an increase would allow us to put much more internal pressure on the Mullahs. Internal cracks are clearly starting to form in the Iranian dictatorship but it is going to take more than a minimal commitment to exploit those cracks.
Perhaps the greatest threat to the Iranian regime was our military action in Iraq, but that advantage has been squandered as well. Right this moment, February second 2006, our military should be able to scare the Mullah’s into (at the very least) retreating from their nuclear ambitions. We should be able to threaten the Mullah’s with an invasion and they should be more than willing to make any concession that we ask for. We made examples out of Afghanistan and Iraq and proved to the Arab world that no country can stand athwart American might. Libya couldn’t ran to hand over their nuclear program fast enough. Countries across the middle east from Egypt to Kuwait hurried to show us that they were making progress toward liberalization and democratization. So what went wrong? Why aren’t the Mullahs following suit? The fault for this failure lies squarely in the hands of men like John Murtha and Howard Dean. Murtha and Dean went out of there way to tell the world lies about how “the US Army is broken” or about “how we cannot win this war”. That sent the completely wrong message to the Iranians. It sent them a message that they have no reason to fear military action from the United States and that any threat we make to them is nothing more than bluster. Not to mention people like Cindy Sheehan and her followers who convinced the Mullahs that even if we had the strength to carry out a war to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons, the American people would have the stomach to support such a war. In order to use military force as a deterrent your enemy needs to believe that you have both the strength to destroy them and the willingness to use that strength. The liberals in America have went out of their way to convince the Mullahs and President Ahmadinejad that we have neither. Liberals have spent a good portion of the last year reminding us that dissent is not unpatriotic. I want to take this opportunity to remind them that while it may not be unpatriotic is can certainly be unwise. While it might not be unpatriotic it can certainly undermine our national security goals and force us into situations that everyone would have rather avoided.
A major part of my original article was a suggestion that we engage in covert action against the Iranian government. I am in no position to talk about whether or not this has occurred but the Weekly Standard has reported that “According to CIA officers in the Near East Division, the agency had more Iranian assets 20 years ago than it does today… According to one CIA case officer in the Near East Division, there's not even a presidential covert-action finding ‘that would allow us to sh--in the country.’” If this true than it is a situation that must be remedied immediately. In the President’s State of the Union Address he stated that he is very concerned with the plight of the Iranian people. He has also made it very clear that we will not tolerate a nuclear armed Islamic Republic of Iran. If the President is serious about these things I cannot imagine why he would not allow the CIA to carry out operations inside of Iran.
One year ago I predicted a bright future for the Iranian people and a diminished threat to the rest of the world. Things have gotten significantly more complicated and I am less optimistic than I was in that article. The Iranians appear to be headed toward the nuclear club at full speed and they cannot be allowed. It is unfortunate that we cannot muzzle the likes of Howard Dean and John Murtha, as that would be an aid in dealing with Iran. I continue to support the democracy building measures that I advocated in the past. But because of our failures and new circumstances those measures must be a part of a larger plan. Senator Brownback is right in asserting that we need to spend more money in support of democratic movements, but even this will not be enough. The President needs to start allowing covert action in Iran. I understand that there have been some serious problems in the CIA but I am not ready to believe that these problems are so severe that they would make it a liability rather than an asset. If that is the case than we are facing much more serious problems than I can address in this article. We need to move quickly to impose comprehensive and painful sanctions in time to make the Iranian people understand that their leaders are trading their prosperity for the ability to make war on the world. The are currently no sanctions on Iran regarding nuclear material. The Russians and Iranians continue to trade in materials that the Iranians will use to build a nuclear bomb. If we do not take these steps very soon or if these steps fail there is a very real possibility that we will need to pursue military actions. There may very soon come a time when we are faced with a war with Iran on the one hand and a nuclear armed Ahamdinejad on the other. Our dealings with Iran, to this point, do not fill me with a great deal of confidence that we will make the right choice. Hopefully we will do something to change that in the next few weeks.
posted by the-rubber-stamp at 12:11 PM
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