Last month, I highlighted a new
Washington report headlined by
This week, the Center for a New
American Security, a think tank closely affiliated with the Obama
administration, made it clear which way the Washington winds are blowing. Its
new study, "The Challenges of Containing a Nuclear-Armed Iran," was primarily authored by former Obama administration Deputy
Assistant Defense Secretary for the Middle East Professor Colin H. Kahl. He
outlines "a comprehensive framework to manage and mitigate the consequences of a
nuclear-armed Iran." In other words, stopping the Iranian nuclear effort is
already a passé discussion.
Last month, an Atlantic Council task force
(which Chuck Hagel co-chaired until he was appointed defense secretary),
similarly released a report that called for Washington to "lessen the chances
for war through reinvigorated diplomacy that offers Iran a realistic and
face-saving way out of the nuclear standoff." That's diplomatic-speak for a
containment strategy.
The Carnegie Endowment for
International has thrown its hat into the containment camp too, warning that
"economic pressure or military force cannot 'end' Iran's nuclear program. … The
only sustainable solution for assuring that Iran's nuclear program remains
purely peaceful is a mutually agreeable diplomatic solution."
To top it all off, the Defense
Department-allied Rand Corporation concluded this week that a nuclear-armed Iran
would not pose a fundamental threat to the United States and its regional
allies. In "Iran After the Bomb: How Would a Nuclear-Armed Tehran Behave? Rand's experts assert that the acquisition by Tehran of nuclear
weapons would above all be intended to deter an attack by hostile powers,
presumably including Israel and the United States, rather than for aggressive
purposes. "An Iran with nukes will still be a declining power," they say. "Iran
does not have territorial ambitions and does not seek to invade, conquer, or
occupy other nations."
How reassuring.
Similarly, Paul Pillar, a veteran CIA
analyst who served as national intelligence officer for the Middle East and
South Asia from 2000 to 2005, has published a lengthy essay in The Washington Monthly
entitled "We Can Live With a Nuclear Iran: Fears of a Bomb in Tehran's Hands Are
Overhyped, and a War to Prevent It Would Be a Disaster."
Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst
at the Brookings Institution (which is very close to the Obama administration),
is about to publish a new book, "Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb, and American
Strategy," in which he too argues for a containment strategy of Iran's incipient
nuclear weapon.
And finally, the leading realist
theorist of the past century, Professor Kenneth N. Waltz of Columbia
University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies (who died last week),
actually argued in his last published article that Iran should get the bomb! It
would create "a more durable balance of military power in the Middle East," he
wrote in the establishment
journal Foreign Affairs.
It's important to understand that
Pickering, Pillar, Pollack, Kahl and Waltz faithfully represent the views of
large segments of the academic, diplomatic and defense establishments in
Washington and New York, who don't see Iran as an oversized threat to America.
They view Iran as a rational actor, and are seeking a "Nixonian moment," in
which Washington would seek strategic accommodation with Tehran, as it did with
Beijing.
One of the only front-ranking
Washington policy wonks who has argued that Tehran's nuclear program should be
bombed is Professor Steven David of Johns Hopkins University (who is on the
academic advisory board of the Israeli Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic
Studies). In a powerful essay in this month's issue of
The American Interest, he argues that "any noncasual examination of the mullahs'
writings and sermonizing about Israel and Jews reveals unalloyed anti-Semitism
of a very familiar, proto-genocidal type. … Even with all its horrendous
implications, a military solution is preferable to a nuclear-armed Iran whose
leaders are likely one day to find themselves with nothing to lose, and
everything to destroy." Another is former Pentagon adviser Matthew Kroenig, who
has written that a U.S. strike on
Iran "is the least bad option."
For the moment, and at least on
record, the administration is sticking by its "dual track approach of rigorous
sanctions and serious negotiations." Hagel (who was once a member of the Iran
Project and Atlantic Council task forces) reassured The Washington Institute two
weeks ago that "President Obama has made clear that our policy is to prevent
Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and he has taken no option off the table
to ensure that outcome."
But the softer signals and acquiescent music
coming from Washington are increasingly hard to miss. The grand climb-down from
confronting Iran is on its way.
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