“Fighting Words”: Why Mitt Romney Will Regret His Tough Talk On Iran
Every presidential election season, it seems, is marked by flights of rhetorical fancy on foreign policy. There was John F. Kennedy’s mythical “missile gap“; Jeane Kirkpatrick’s “Blame America Firsters“ charge against Democrats; Bill Clinton’s evocative (and quickly backtracked from) “butchers of Beijing” line; and then my personal favorite — George H.W. Bush saying his dog Millie “knows more about foreign affairs than these two bozos” (the two bozos in question being Bill Clinton and Al Gore).
This year, however, with the notable exception of anti-interventionist Ron Paul, Republicans are pulling out all the stops on the one foreign policy/national security issue that seems to unite them like no other: Iran and its nuclear program. Consider for a moment the spate of off-the-wall statements each of the GOP aspirants has made about Iran this campaign season.
According to Mitt Romney, “The greatest threat the world faces is a nuclear Iran.” There is, he claims, “no price that is worth an Iranian nuclear weapon,” and he has pledged that if he is president, Iran will “not have a nuclear weapon.”
Fighting words indeed. But they seem downright sober when compared to Rick Santorum — who has not only advocated air strikes to eliminate Tehran’s nuclear aspirations, but has also said Iran is “ruled by the equivalent of al Qaeda on top of this country”; “the principle virtue of the Islamic Republic of Iran is not freedom, opportunity — it’s martyrdom”; and that oldie-but-goodie: “they hate us because of who we are and what we believe in.”
Yet, when it comes to sky-is-falling rhetoric, Santorum takes a back seat to Newt Gingrich, who in a GOP debate this fall hinted the United States might not “survive” an Iranian nuke and in 2006 actually compared the Iranian leadership to Nazis. “This is 1935 and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as close to Adolf Hitler as we’ve seen,” Gingrich told Human Events magazine. He said at the time that the top priority of the United States should be “overthrowing the government of Iran” with force, if necessary. It’s an argument he has doubled down on this year with calls for killing Iranian scientists and “breaking up their systems” — actions that would be veritable acts of war. He has said bombing Iran is a “fantasy” and the only real way to prevent an Iranian nuke is to depose the regime via conventional war, if necessary.
The latter view was even endorsed by Jon Huntsman, who, when asked if he would consider boots on the ground to stop Iran from getting a bomb, said he wouldn’t be able to “live with the implications of not doing it.” According to Huntsman, all “options [are] on the table.”
It should be noted that such proclamations are, well, a bit divorced from reality. Iran is at best a second-rate power, with an outdated and not terribly advanced conventional military force that is barely able to project power outside its borders. This week, Iranian fisherman even needed the U.S. Navy to rescue them from the clutches of Somali pirates. As Fareed Zakaria noted earlier this month, sanctions have pushed Iran’s economy “into a nose-dive.” Its currency has plunged in value, housing prices are up by 20 percent, the cost of food staples has jumped 40 percent, and the country’s “political system is fractured and fragmenting.” And if 2009’s Green Movement is any indication, there is widespread — if underground — political dissent in the country.
Regionally, Iran has rarely if ever been more isolated. Its one ally, Syria, has its hands full dealing with a domestic uprising, the Gulf states have joined together under a U.S. security umbrella, the Saudis are buying billions in new weaponry from Washington, and the European Union is inching ever closer to a ban on Iranian oil imports — a move that could have a devastating impact on the already battered Iranian economy. Compounding all that is the fact that Iranian scientists are continuing to get killed in the streets of Tehran, and the country’s missile-development program may have just blown itself up.
So why, then, are Republican candidates treating Iran like it’s the modern embodiment of Nazi Germany, al Qaeda, and the Soviet Union, all wrapped up in a mischievous and explosive ball?
The long answer is Americans don’t like Iran, they are afraid of nuclear weapons and images of mushroom clouds, and Muslims with weapons of mass destruction are scary. Frankly, GOP primary voters care about threats to Israel — and sanctions and diplomacy are less impressive than the promise that American airplanes will soon be dropping bombs on reinforced bunkers.
But the short answer is this is pretty much all the GOP has. Want to claim that Obama has been soft on terror? That whole killing Osama bin Laden thing makes that a bit tough. Same goes for all the al Qaeda lieutenants who have been killed in drone strikes. What about pulling out of Iraq? Good luck finding many Americans who disagree with that decision. How about Afghanistan and Obama’s call to begin pulling out troops in 2014? First, it’s hard to argue that Obama didn’t give war a chance in the Hindu Kush; second, Afghanistan is a less and less popular war every day. How about the claim that Obama has thrown Israel under the bus vis-à-vis the Palestinians? That’s not going to make all that much of a difference. It turns out the two groups of voters most concerned about Israel (American Jewsand evangelical Christians) likely already have a pretty clear sense whom they’ll be voting for in November.
On the matter of reducing the defense budget — a dicey proposition in an election year — by getting Republicans to agree to military spending cuts as part of the debt limit deal, Obama largely neutralized GOP attacks on the issue. And it’s not as if many Americans desperately wantto see military spending significantly increased in an age of political austerity.
In the end, since there is no good near-term solution for stopping Iran from getting a bomb –and since Iran continues to engage in provocative behavior like threatening for the umpteenth time to close the Straits of Hormuz — it is the one issue that Republicans can try to pin on the Democratic president, claiming he is weak on national security.
In the end, however, such accusations are unlikely to have much staying power. As Scott Clement points out, even Republicans prefer diplomacy over the use of military force. In fact, compare the Obama approach to Iran (diplomacy, a regional security architecture, likely covert action, and crippling economic sanctions) with the Republican approach (diplomacy, a regional security architecture, likely covert action, and crippling economic sanctions). There really isn’t much of a difference, except for the threatened use of force and all the doomsday talk. But it’s there that the GOP rhetoric could have severe consequences.
As Republicans rattle their sabers this winter, they risk locking themselves into a dangerous position on Iran, should one actually win in November. Just ask Obama how pledging to devote more resources to the fight in Afghanistan in 2008 played out for his presidency.
With Romney et al. declaring that Iran will not get a nuke while they are president and with pledges of support for unilateral action on the part of Israel — including the use of military force — to stop Tehran from getting a bomb, Republicans may find themselves stuck with a dangerous policy on Iran that smacks of brinksmanship. Moreover, all the tough talk on Iran will also limit Obama’s ability to open negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program if the opportunity presents itself. Considering the increasingly desperate economic and political situation there, this might not necessarily be so far-fetched.
In the midst of a feisty presidential campaign, the Republicans’ muscular rhetoric might seem a surefire way to create a political opening. But the ramifications of these existential threats have the potential to live on far past Election Day.
By: Michael Cohen, Foreign Policy, January 6, 2012
The Koch Brothers’ Big Bucks
In case anyone needed a reminder about the kind of forces Democrats will be up against next year, the Koch brothers are putting together their plan to help buy the 2012 elections.
The billionaire industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch plan to steer more than $200 million — potentially much more — to conservative groups ahead of Election Day, POLITICO has learned. That puts their libertarian-leaning network in the same league as the most active of the groups in the more establishment-oriented network conceived last year by veteran GOP operatives Rove and Ed Gillespie, which plans to raise $240 million.
That’s financing for an awful lot of attack ads, nearly all of which will be dishonest, and which a whole lot of voters will believe.
It’ll be interesting, though, to see whether Democrats are able to make the Koch money toxic. We learned last week that there’s ample evidence that Koch Industries made “improper payments” (read: bribes) to “secure contracts in six countries dating back to 2002.” One of those countries, it turns out, is Iran, which has purchased millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment from the Kochs’ company, despite a trade ban and the U.S. labeling Iran a state sponsor of terrorism. The Kochs’ business also stand accused of having “rigged prices with competitors, lied to regulators and repeatedly run afoul of environmental regulations, resulting in five criminal convictions since 1999 in the U.S. and Canada.”
This is the money that’s going to buy elections for Republicans?
Over the summer, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) declared, “Plain and simple, if you do business with Iran, you cannot do business with America.”
Follow-up question for Cantor, who’s accepted tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Koch Industries: those who do business with Iran cannot do business with America, but can they partner with the Republican Party to swing an election cycle?
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly-Political Animal, October 10, 2011
On Middle East, Obama Took Only Path Available To U.S.
There’s been a lot of criticism of President Obama for being too slow to support the Mideast’s popular uprisings, especially in Libya.
“Feeble,” “incoherent” and “not showing leadership” are some of the complaints I get from readers from both sides of the political spectrum. At moments, I’ve felt the same: The White House’s Mideast team is weak, his “peace process” diplomacy has failed, his support of pro-democracy rebels is conflicted.
Yet, after reflecting on a recent visit to Egypt and conversations with experts in the region, I’ve concluded that no U.S. administration could have acted more decisively to aid Arab rebels. Any president would have been constricted by the same factors Obama faced.
Let’s start with Libya, where Obama hesitated for weeks to intervene, but has now agreed to a U.N.-backed no-fly zone that aims to stop Col. Moammar Gadhafi from slaughtering his own people.
In deciding how to act, Obama was haunted by the legacy of the Iraq war. That ill-conceived conflict and failed occupation turned the entire Middle East, including democrats, against U.S. interventions. Egyptian rebel leaders made that point to me over and over. Imposing democracy from above, a la Iraq, is out.
So unilateral U.S. intervention in Libya was out of the question. Moreover, the Pentagon strongly opposed intervention in another Muslim country. U.S. generals feared it would take ground forces to get rid of Gadhafi.
Only after the Arab League endorsed a no-fly zone March 12 (and called for United Nations support) could the White House press for a vote by the U.N. Security Council. The vote meant – in theory, at least – that Arab countries could provide cover for action by France and Britain, with the United States in a supporting role. Even so, had Gadhafi not been on the verge of committing large-scale atrocities against civilians in full view of the world, Obama might not have concurred.
However, the Libya story is but a tragic sideshow. The fate of the region will turn on the results of democratic experiments in Egypt and events in Yemen, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.
The Obama-ites were slow to support Egyptian rebels, but that may have been a godsend. Much of Egypt’s newfound pride lies with the fact that its rebels made their revolution on their own.
Now is the moment when U.S. officials should back democratic Egyptians (and Tunisians) in their push for fair elections and an open constitutional process. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who just visited both countries, seems to get it. But in their eagerness to avoid interference in Egypt’s politics, U.S. officials may be taking an approach that’s too hands-off.
The president’s ambivalence has also stemmed, however, from the fact that we have sharply conflicting interests in the region.
In theory, we back political reform in the Middle East, in the hope that Arab states can build democratic institutions in the long run. If they succeed, terrorists may find less fertile ground in the region.
Yet in the short run, the United States still faces crucial security threats from Iran and from Islamist terrorists. Our autocratic Arab allies helped us fight these threats. Their demise is likely to create instability in coming months or years that will enable those threats to increase.
This conflict underlay the slow support for change in Egypt. Hosni Mubarak’s intelligence service was aggressive in pursuit of Islamist terrorists, and he was a key Sunni ally in containing Shiite Tehran. In the new Egypt (and Tunisia, and Libya, if Gadhafi falls), intelligence services will be curbed. This is a good thing, as the secret police repressed their own people. But it will also make it easier for terrorist networks to regroup in the region.
At least in Egypt, the White House can still rely on a close relationship with the army, which will remain a power center for the foreseeable future. In the Arabian Peninsula and the gulf, however, the democracy-vs.-security conflict makes it almost impossible to shape a coherent policy.
Gulf rulers like Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah want Obama to forget about democracy and focus on security. Such a choice seemed possible in the last decade: George W. Bush promoted Mideast democracy in his first term; then, when that backfired, he emphasized Mideast security in his second term. But that choice is not possible now.
The administration has tried, unsuccessfully, to encourage the president of Yemen to usher in peaceful democratic change. Neither ruler nor rebels seem able to make the necessary compromises, which means U.S. officials probably can’t save Ali Abdullah Saleh. Yet if he falls, this country, just below Saudi Arabia, may relapse into tribal warfare. This would make it easier for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to flourish.
In Bahrain, the revolt of a largely Shiite population against its Sunni rulers presents the greatest danger to U.S. interests. This island kingdom is connected by a causeway to Saudi Arabia, whose eastern oil region is dominated by its Shiite minority. The Saudis fear that if Bahrain’s rulers fall, Iran will have the perfect base from which to push Saudi Shiites to rebel.
Last week, over Obama’s objections, the Saudi monarch sent troops across the causeway to help crush Bahrain’s rebels. He won’t listen when U.S. officials urge him (and Bahrain’s ruler) to give more representation to their Shiites. Obama’s team says this will head off trouble; Abdullah believes it will create more.
The Saudis think Obama is too strong on democracy and weak on security. Obama’s critics slam him for being too weak on democracy – or on security. Few realize he is caught in a historical bind that requires him to be strong on both, even though the two contradict each other – at least in the short term. Bush couldn’t resolve that contradiction; Obama has no choice but to try.
By: Trudy Rubin, Columnist, The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 22, 2011
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