Regime change in Iran
An Op-Ed piece in Monday's Wall Street Journal uses the A-word to describe President Bush's shifting stance on Iran. In the piece, titled "Now Bush is Appeasing Iran," the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Rubin argues that the White House is propping up a failed administration (in Tehran, not Washington), by sending Undersecretary of State William Burns to talks with Iran's nuclear negotiator about incentives for Tehran.
While Rubin focuses on how the Bush administration in effect is rewarding Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bad behavior – "Diplomacy is not wrong, but President Bush's reversal is diplomatic malpractice on a Carter-esque level that is breathing new life into a failing regime," Rubin writes – the piece also sheds light on how the regime in Tehran is struggling: It's late on payment of salaries to government workers, it's unable to step up oil production and it has been forced to impose rolling blackouts to deal with an energy crisis. Meanwhile, the Iranian people are growing increasingly restive.
If anything, the Bush administration should be contributing to the weakening of Ahmadinejad's regime, not buttressing it against collapse, Rubin writes:
As Ahmadinejad begins his re-election campaign, he can say he has successfully brought Washington to its knees through blunt defiance, murder of U.S. troops in Iraq, and Holocaust denial. Should he win re-election in 2009, he will have Mr. Bush's whiplash diplomacy to thank for his greatest – and, given the state of his economy, perhaps only – victory.
Last week, John Bolton argued on the same page that it's too late for sanctions to work. The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, now also at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote:
We have almost certainly lost the race between giving "strong incentives" for Iran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and its scientific and technological efforts to do just that. Swift, sweeping, effectively enforced sanctions might have made a difference five years ago. No longer. Existing sanctions have doubtless caused some pain, but Iran's real economic woes stem from nearly 30 years of mismanagement by the Islamic Revolution.More sanctions today (even assuming, heroically, support from Russia and China) will simply be too little, too late. While regime change in Tehran would be the preferable solution, there is almost no possibility of dislodging the mullahs in time. Had we done more in the past five years to support the discontented – the young, the non-Persian minorities and the economically disaffected – things might be different. Regime change, however, cannot be turned on and off like a light switch, although the difficulty of effecting it is no excuse not to do more now.
The real question at this late stage, says Bolton, is: "What will the U.S. do if Israel decides to initiate military action?"
Instead of debating how much longer to continue five years of failed diplomacy, we should be intensively considering what cooperation the U.S. will extend to Israel before, during and after a strike on Iran. We will be blamed for the strike anyway, and certainly feel whatever negative consequences result, so there is compelling logic to make it as successful as possible. At a minimum, we should place no obstacles in Israel's path, and facilitate its efforts where we can.
Meanwhile, the polling organization Rasmussen Reports released a new survey showing that 42 percent of Americans say that if Israel launches an attack against Iran, the United States should help Israel, while 46 percent say the United States should do nothing.
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Lets the Jews take care of this Regime change in Iran. And send some nice looking Jew girls so they can give the Iranian guys a nice blow job…
Any American (including Jewish American) who believes we can stand idlly by while Israel attacks Iran is not paying attention.
Iran’s response will be against both Israel and the US. We armed Iran’s adversary Iraq before and during the Iran-Iraq war. We even sank half Iran’s navy to the benefit of Saddam Hussein during that war. Now we’ve been arming Israel to to the tune of billions of dollars for dozens of year.
Iran has no chance of winning, but it will most certainly mount asymmetric attacks. The reasonable voices in the Joint Chiefs of Staff (now probably all gone) have warned about this for some time.
The phrase “regime change in Iran” is nonsense. Iran just underwent a revolution only twenty five years ago. What do people want? Another revolution? Or change like we have in Iraq or Afghanistan? Just as idiotic as Ahmadinejad, the neocons and Zionists (who got us into this mess) need to give up their useless and ineffective vocabulary.
As far as Israel starting a new war, we will certainly be dragged into this war by our so generous and so rational Israeli friends. If that happens, I suspect many Jewish American may begin to regret their passive uncritical support for Israel.
In response to Basil’s note: There is a difference. Israel has never threatened the existance of another country or implied they have no right to exist. Assuming Israel has nuclear weapons; have they used them? Have they threatened to use them? Surely they could have. Iran has stated many times that they wish to destroy Israel---a second Holocaust. Israel has every right to prevent that from happening by whatever means necessary. Every country has the right and obligation to defend itself.
As signatory to the NPT treaty, Iran has a RIGHT to enrich uranium. Israel is not a signatory, I don’t see the IAEA inspecting their site at Dimona.
It is the hight of hypocracy for the US and its 10000 warheads and Israel and its 400 warheads to lecture Iran on nuclear temperence. Truly ridiculous, truly corrupt. A 200 year old state that has incinerated a quarter million Japanese civilians and an expansionist 60 year old state that is holding an entire people under occupation threatens a 5000 year old nation to forego its right to a 70 year old technology; not on the basis of evidence, but on the basis of prejudice, something the US and Israel both know so much about.
LOL ... You guys live in fantasy world! Iran just had a regime change supported by the vast majority of the Iranian people just 30 years ago! Let’s face the facts, which regime can stand in front of the majority of the 70 million Iranian population? It is not 1953 anymore!
Dear Sir
I truly think this article is so directionless and full of same old. same old is boring.
Enough of the chat already Dr Ahmadinejad has made his position clear, it’s end of autum and time to count the chickens as a very old ancient persian expression says.
The days of bullying are over.
Iran has a yearly parade where they march missiles down the street with “death to Israel” and “death to America” written on them. Iran’s leaders call for Israel to be wiped off the map. Iran smuggles weapons into Iraq and Afghanistan in order to make sure a maximum number of people get killed there and that a maximum of chaos will be caused. It is only natural to assume that a nuclear armed Iran would feel confident enough to step up its under-the-table support of terrorism and its trampling on the liberties of its own citizens --assuming other countries would be to scared to interfere.
Yeah, same things that he said… and also there is no real proof that iran is working toward a nuclear weapon.
I have a question for everyone: Which is harder to do in this world: to become a human being or to learn how to make A-bombs?
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Basil
07/21/08 12:18 PM
Iran has a natural right to harness nuclear technology, even for military purposes. Indeed, if Israel had the right to possess and stockpile hundreds of nuclear warheads, that are being trained at Muslim cities such as Cairo, Istanbul, Tehran and Damascus and probably Mecca and Medina as well, why on earth would Muslim states such as Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia not have such a right? After all, are Jewish nuclear bombs kosher? Are they altruistic? Are they innocuous?