In Sunday’s New York Times, a remarkable and thoroughly wrongheaded op-ed by Flynn Everett and Hillary Mann Leverett takes up three-quarters of a page, and reveals not only the authors’ myopia, but the dangerous advice they and other “realists” have for the Obama administration.
The issue is Iran, and what to do about their dangerous march towards attainment of a nuclear bomb. The authors begin with a judgment call: Obama’s policy towards Iran has already failed. The regime has not stopped its move towards enrichment of uranium; the antagonism between the US and Iran has not diminished; indeed, it has arguably become worse. What should Obama do about this?
To the Leveretts, the ball is totally in America’s court. Iran is not the power that has to stop working day and night to attain the bomb; it is the United States that must show its willingness to “assuage Iranian skepticism about America’s willingness to end efforts to topple the regime and pursue comprehensive diplomacy.”
The Leveretts recommend that the Obama administration end any covert programs now in effect to destabilize what they persistently call “the Islamic Republic.” All of Iran’s hostility to the United States is not due to the extremist ideology of the mullahs, but rather to a “fundamentally defensive reaction to the American government campaign to bring about regime change.”
While many conservative commentators worry that the Obama administration is already showing it is willing to live with a nuclear Iran and is on the road to appeasement, the Leveretts believe that the Obama administration is carrying out George W. Bush’s policies to the letter. Obama’s rhetoric, such as his March greeting to Iran is simply rhetoric, they argue, but the policies he is following are simply Bush continued.
They point to Hillary Clinton’s skepticism that diplomacy will work, and most important of all, they are concerned that the President appointed Dennis Ross, a well known supporter of Israel and a hardliner on Iran, to be his point man on diplomacy with the Iranian regime. Ross supports “engagement with pressure,” and the Leveretts want the first carried out, and all pressure to be dropped. They claim that last summer Ross admitted to them that he was advocating a diplomatic course only so that in the future, the next President will have to order a military strike against Iran, and diplomacy needs to be undertaken first for the President “to claim any military action was legitimate.”
Its sounds nefarious, but Ross spoke to them during the campaign- not now in his official capacity- and what he was saying was simply expressing a well founded skepticism about the intention of the mullahs. Evidently the Leveretts think Ross is angling for a US offer that Iran cannot accept, which will lead to “international support for coercive action.”
So the Leveretts first suggest that we do not do what they seem to think only Israel favors: a deadline by which Iran has to show it is stopping nuclear enrichment. Drop the deadline, they say, as well as all other “American conditions for limiting its nuclear activities.” What they never address is the destabilizing effect an Iranian bomb will have on the entire Middle East, and the dangerous situation it would create throughout the entire world. In their eyes, giving the Iranians what they want now is the sole and only road to peace.
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6 Comments
1. David Thomson:“…it is the United States that must show its willingness to “assuage Iranian skepticism about America’s willingness to end efforts to topple the regime and pursue comprehensive diplomacy.”
In his heart of hearts, this is also the way Barack Obama perceives the situation. The president is a non-violent Leftist. He most assuredly blames America—and the existence of Israel for the tensions of the Middle East. Obama will therefore likely respond by pressuring the Israelis to make further concessions to the Palestinian extremists.
May 25, 2009 - 1:06 pm 2. ronnor:A lot of Iranians are about to disappear in a fireball. If they don’t have a bomb they’ll buy one from the North Koreans with oil and do what they have been saying they’ll do for the last decade. For a regime that used to have children clear minefields by walking across them and exploding them with their bodies, why would you think different. Benjamin Netanyahu is going to help punch their tickets for the Paradise Express. After the debacle of the Walter Duranty who lied about the genocide in the Ukraine and won a Pulitzer while at the Times, how can you take anyone there serious.
May 25, 2009 - 3:37 pm 3. David Thomson:Barack Obama was elected president due to white guilt. These voters conveniently overlooked the hard facts. There was nothing hidden about Obama’s embarrassing resume. Voters knew that he had accomplished next to nothing previous to taking the oath of office. We will now pay the price for these naive but well meaning sentiments. Obama is not ready for prime time—and yet his term does not end for a little over three and half years. We are royally screwed.
I well remember the initial debate between the politically correct John McCain and Barack Obama. It was originally supposed to revolve around the issue of defense. Unfortunately, the first question to Senator McCain involved the economy—and he totally messed up. I strongly believe that McCain cleaned Obama’s clock on the defense matters. But the majority of the voters could have cared less. Their minds were focussed almost entirely on the economy. And McCain was dead meat after he lost them on the first question. The rest is history.
May 25, 2009 - 4:30 pm 4. RAP:Iran’s neighbors are Pakistan to the east, Russia to the north and Iraq to the west. If you lived in that neighborhood you would want a bomb too. Who would come to their defense if someone attacked them. No one. The Irianians are simply being realistic. Its a dangerous world. You have to be able to defend yourself. If I lived in a country no mattter how small I would want the government to be nuked up to defend the country.
May 25, 2009 - 11:21 pm 5. Peter B:Wasn’t “How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb” the subtitle of the Peter Sellers classic Dr. Strangelove?
May 26, 2009 - 7:58 am 6. Professor Guvinoff:Once you are committed to eternal youth, you are also condemned to rationalize appeasement, to perpetuity! Blessed are the Zombies, for they will fall in slavery without even noticing it!
May 26, 2009 - 11:17 am