Thank god Lindsay Graham is in charge of making unilateral policy decisions!

[East Coast Hustle]

Neocons aren't even pretending to respect the machinery of policy-making anymore.

Speaking at a security conference in Canada yesterday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took it upon himself to make U.S.-Iran policy, declaring that "Containment is off the table":

    The South Carolina Republican saw the United States going to war with the Islamic republic "not to just neutralize their nuclear program, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard, in other words neuter that regime."

In a recent article, Ken Pollack of the Brookings Institution wrote that an attack of the sort that Sen. Graham is calling for "will likely mean the end of the international effort to contain the Iranian nuclear program altogether":

    Tehran will probably withdraw from the NPT, arguing (rightly) that the vast majority of the information that the United States relied on to mount the air strikes came from the IAEA inspectors—and since the NPT was a vehicle for American aggression against Iran, there is no reason for Tehran to remain a party to it. As for the international community, they will doubtless blame Washington for having driven the Iranians out of the treaty. Gone too will be the international consensus to compel Iran to end its nuclear activities through sanctions. America would have violated a critical provision of the resolutions, not to mention the UN Charter, and will have to expect that China will lead a stampede of countries away from that effort and back into the arms of the Islamic Republic.

    A repeat attempt by the United States (or anyone else) to destroy Iran's facilities by force will then be impossible. Once the IAEA inspectors are gone, so too will be our best and most comprehensive sources of information on the Iranian program. Washington won't have the option of bombing Iran again if the regime begins to rebuild its nuclear capabilities after the first round of strikes. And serious international pressure on Tehran will come to an end.

Pollack determined that, "Under current conditions, attacking Iran is more likely to guarantee an Iranian nuclear arsenal than to preclude it."

Iranian democracy activists have been very vocal against a U.S. attack on Iran. In a recent interview with Think Progress, Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi stated unequivocally that the military option would be disastrous:

    "The military option will not benefit the U.S. interest or the Iranian interest," said Ebadi. "It is the worst option. You should not think about it." Ebadi said, "The Iranian people — including myself — will resist any military action."

    An attack on Iran "would give the government an excuse to kill all of its political opponents, as was done during the Iran-Iraq war." For this reason, Ebadi suggested that the Iranian government probably "wouldn't mind the U.S. throwing a missile at them."

Ebadi also criticized the Bush administration's "axis of evil" approach in the Middle East, saying that Iran and Ahmadinejad, had become more popular in the region because of U.S. policies, particularly the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

In a May interview, Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji described the destructive impact of Bush's "axis of evil" rhetoric on pro-democracy Iranian moderates. "The belligerent rhetoric of Bush didn't help us [the Iranian democracy movement], it harmed us," Ganji said. He insisted that "jingoistic, militaristic language used by any foreign power would actually be detrimental to this natural evolution of Iranian society."

It's amazing that, having been proved catastrophically wrong about Iraq, neocons like Graham are now calling for yet another war in the Middle East, defiantly ignorant of the actual consequences. Is it too much to hope that America has learned to stop listening to them?

[E.O.T.]

YEAH

          the neo-cons, with their weird embracing of that strange term, and the swagger which goes with it. (pictured holding giant belt-buckle and grinning)

AND THEN

          there's the m*f*ng media, which loves to illuminate the illusions of these same concepts.

MEANWHILE

          O-BOMB-A is working on the biggest arms deal in all the world's history with saudi arabia "creating jobs for america" and just recently proposed sales of buttloads of military serving aircraft (plus) to India "creating jobs for america" - curiously - both flanking iran (no need to hi-lite israel since they already receive hell tons of u.s. military aid and are armed with nukes) -

GAWD- WHAT

           did roger say? something about stringing them all up and starting over? srsly

[Cain]

If Ken Pollack thinks your idea is stupid, chances are it's pretty fucking stupid.  Not exactly the brightest bulb in the foreign policy think tank room, is Ken.

It should also be noted that, while only implied in the text, many observers believe that American actions in Iraq 2003-4 directly contributed to the success of Ahmendinjad's faction in Iranian politics, as, when people feel they may be under attack or soon to be, they (for some reason) want a macho acting idiot with a certain level of religious fundamentalism to save them (or so the last decade seems to prove).  Continued hostile rhetoric from the United States and Israel has allowed Ahmendinjad to make massive inroads into the Iranian political structure - most recently placing several key appointments in the Iranian foreign ministry who are ideologically predisposed to take a harder line on the nuclear program and against the US than the Supreme Ayatollah is comfortable with.

Of course, I'm convinced that at this stage the smarter Neocons are keeping the Iran crisis warm so that when they get back in power, they can manufacture an international crisis to justify overthrowing the regime, thus causing certain parts of the stock market to spike and dragging the US out of recession.  In theory.  In practice of course, an attack on Iran would be an attempt to remove a piece from the chessboard of the great game, while allowing the Neocons to indulge in their mastubatory fantasies about being liberators of the people and the next Churchill etc etc in their usually tedious fashion.  

And, the way things are going in US politics, Lindsay Graham will probably demand the US attack Iran or else he will personally stand athwart healthcare reform, yelling "no funding!".  And Obama will make a pretty speech about the politics of unity, then cave into him.  This just speeds up the process.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

"Under current conditions, attacking Iran is more likely to guarantee an Iranian nuclear arsenal than to preclude it."

Of course, if it happens exactly the way Pollack says, the neocons will say it happened because we didn't bomb them hard enough.

[Jenne]

If Ken Pollack thinks your idea is stupid, chances are it's pretty fucking stupid.  Not exactly the brightest bulb in the foreign policy think tank room, is Ken.

It should also be noted that, while only implied in the text, many observers believe that American actions in Iraq 2003-4 directly contributed to the success of Ahmendinjad's faction in Iranian politics, as, when people feel they may be under attack or soon to be, they (for some reason) want a macho acting idiot with a certain level of religious fundamentalism to save them (or so the last decade seems to prove).  Continued hostile rhetoric from the United States and Israel has allowed Ahmendinjad to make massive inroads into the Iranian political structure - most recently placing several key appointments in the Iranian foreign ministry who are ideologically predisposed to take a harder line on the nuclear program and against the US than the Supreme Ayatollah is comfortable with.

Of course, I'm convinced that at this stage the smarter Neocons are keeping the Iran crisis warm so that when they get back in power, they can manufacture an international crisis to justify overthrowing the regime, thus causing certain parts of the stock market to spike and dragging the US out of recession.  In theory.  In practice of course, an attack on Iran would be an attempt to remove a piece from the chessboard of the great game, while allowing the Neocons to indulge in their mastubatory fantasies about being liberators of the people and the next Churchill etc etc in their usually tedious fashion. 

And, the way things are going in US politics, Lindsay Graham will probably demand the US attack Iran or else he will personally stand athwart healthcare reform, yelling "no funding!".  And Obama will make a pretty speech about the politics of unity, then cave into him.  This just speeds up the process.

I like your theory, will bounce it off teh ball and chain when I get a chance.

...but to take it a point further--do you see this manufactured "religious war" as a shiny object with which to distract the great unwashed?  Further inciting them to back war, war and moar war?  Or another vehicle because they are just built that way?  (I'm thinkin you are seeing them as less-than-really religiously-engaged...)

[Cain]

Unless given cause to believe otherwise, I tend to believe that elites may buy into religion, only insofar as it doesn't interfere with their politics (of course there is something of a sampling bias there, since if it massively interfered with their politics, they wouldn't last too long as a politician). 

What is war good for?  It tends to centralize power in those calling for war and those directing the war.  In Iran's case, we know that elements of the Revolutionary Guard are more sympathetic to the Presidency than to the Supreme Ayatollah, in addition to the more revolutionary and populist nature of the Presidency and it's political supporters.  In the US, there is a long trend towards power being concentrated in the Presidency, the NSA and the military (and strictly speaking, the NSA is part of the military, working as it does under the DoD).

It puts lots of money in lots of important peoples coffers.  Contracting etc  plus if you "win" and install a new government, you can apply pressure to make sure other friends get contracts on oil extraction, reconstruction, security etc

But, Iran also has land access to Central Asia, where it has been trying to spread it's militant version of Islam for quite some time now (though without much in the way of noted sucess).  It shares a huge land border with Turkmenistan, which has one of the largest deposts of natural gas in the world, which it extracts via its state-owned oil and gas companies, and is unfortunately (from a certain point of view) quite neutral in world affairs, despite the various eccentricities of its past and current leaders.  Meaning it sells its natural resources at the going market rate, to anyone who can afford it.  Remove a player, put additional pressure on another player.  Politics is a zero-sum game, America's gain will be Russia and China's loss.

[Cain]

Oh look, Bibi has also been mouthing off about Iran since the Republicans won the House last week:

WASHINGTON - Less than a week after Republicans made major gains in the United States mid-term elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on President Barack Obama to "create a credible threat of military action" against Iran.

Initial official reaction was negative, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates insisting that Obama's preferred strategy of enhanced multilateral sanctions and negotiations, which may resume after a year's hiatus later this month, was working better than expected.

"I disagree that only a credible military threat can get Iran to take the actions that it needs, to end its nuclear weapons program," Gates said when asked about Netanyahu's remarks during a visit in Australia.

"We are prepared to do what is necessary, but at this point, we continue to believe that the political, economic approach that we are taking is, in fact, having an impact in Iran."

According to diplomatic sources quoted in the Israeli and US press, Netanyahu's appeal came during a meeting with Vice President Joseph Biden in New Orleans on Sunday. It suggests that his right-wing government and its allies here, including hawkish Republicans who will take control of the House of Representatives in January, are preparing to escalate pressure on Obama to adopt a more confrontational stance with Tehran.

Indeed, even as Netanyahu was telling Biden, according to the anonymous sources, that "only a real military threat against Iran can prevent the need to activate a real military force", Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, a leading national-security spokesman for his party, told an international conference in Halifax, Canada, that Obama would help his own re-election chances in 2012 if he made "abundantly clear that all options [to Iran] are on the table" - a phrase that is associated with taking military action.

And if Tehran actually developed a nuclear weapon, he said, Obama should act "not to just neutralize their nuclear program, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the [Islamic Revolutionary] Guards [Corps]. In other words, neuter that regime. Destroy their ability to fight back."

The rhetorical escalation by both Netanyahu and his supporters here comes amid diplomatic jockeying between Iran and the so-called "Iran Six" - the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany - over the site and agenda of a meeting that both sides have said they hope will take place later this month.

The "Iran Six", which is represented by the European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, have proposed a mid-month meeting in Vienna. But Tehran on Monday called for Turkey to host the talks.

Along with Brazil, Turkey had secured Iran's agreement last spring to a proposal, originally put forward as a confidence-building measure by the "Iran Six" a year ago, to ship a substantial amount of its growing stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) outside the country for enrichment to the 20% level needed to fuel a nuclear plant in Tehran that produces medical isotopes.

The Turkey-Brazil deal, however, was summarily rejected by the Obama administration and its European allies on the grounds that Tehran had added significantly to its stockpile in the previous six months.

In recent weeks, however, they have hinted they may go along with a similar transfer scheme if Iran agrees to send a larger proportion of its total stockpile out of the country, stops enriching uranium to the higher level and agrees to address the future of its nuclear program.

In another conciliatory gesture, the Obama administration last week named Jundallah, a radical Sunni group that has repeatedly attacked government security forces in Balochistan in recent years, a terrorist organization.

While Netanyahu and his supporters here are dismissing as insufficient Obama's strategy of sanctions and talks, two centrist think-tanks on Monday urged the administration to place more emphasis on engaging the Islamic Republic.

Previewing a more-comprehensive report to be released on November 16, Barry Blechman and Daniel Brumberg of the non-partisan Stimson Center urged Obama to offer Tehran a "set of robust economic, political and strategic incentives that give Iran's leaders reason to cooperate" as part of a "recalibration" of US strategy that would reduce its reliance on "coercive measures".

Writing in USA Today, the two non-proliferation specialists argued that Washington should explicitly recognize Iran's right to enrich uranium under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - something that it has yet to do - and provide other inducements, including proposing bilateral or multilateral talks on security issues, notably Afghanistan and the drug trade, and normalizing diplomatic exchanges, and offering help in modernizing Iran's energy industry.

In addition, a new paper released on Monday by the bipartisan Iran Task Force convened by the Atlantic Council on the evolution of internal Iranian politics, particularly since last year's disputed elections, called for Washington to pursue "strategic patience" with Tehran "and avoid overreactions that could set back Iran's political development".

"Short-term prospects for US-Iranian reconciliation and for a resolution of the Iranian nuclear file are poor in large part because of Iran's internal political crisis," according to the author, veteran Iran observer Barbara Slavin. "In the longer term, however, history, demography, and education favor liberalization and international integration. The focus of US policy should be to buy time for this evolution to take place."

Whether these recommendations will be taken up in preparation for the prospective talks remains to be seen, but it seems increasingly clear that Netanyahu and his supporters here feel emboldened by last week's election to press Obama in the opposite direction.

Netanyahu's government had been relatively quiet on Iran since last June when Obama succeeded in persuading the UN Security Council to impose a new round of sanctions against Iran for alleged nuclear transgressions. It even expressed satisfaction with subsequent efforts to rally the European Union, Japan, and South Korea among others behind much tougher sanctions against companies doing business with Tehran.

But, with sympathetic Republicans taking over the House of Representatives, the Israeli government appears confident it can press for more.

According to "diplomatic sources" quoted by the Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu warned Biden that Iran "is attempting to mislead the West, and there are worrying signs that the international community is captivated by this mirage".

"The only time that Iran stopped its nuclear program was in 2003, and that was when they believed that there was a real chance of an American military strike against them," he reportedly told Biden.

United States neo-conservatives and other hawks have been making much the same argument for some time. In a speech to the influential Council on Foreign Relations in late September, Independent Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman, who is close to Graham and former Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain, called for Obama to "take steps that make clear that if diplomatic and economic strategies continue to fail to change Iran's nuclear policies, a military strike is not just a remote possibility in the abstract, but a real and credible alternative policy that we and our allies are ready to exercise".

His remarks were praised by William Kristol, the editor of the neo-conservative Weekly Standard and a top adviser to Republican foreign-policy hawks, and the Wall Street Journal's editorial page.

Such war talk was denounced as "dangerous" Monday by the Atlantic Council's chairman, former Senator Chuck Hagel, who also co-chairs Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board, as well as the Council's Iran task force. "If you're going to threaten war on any kind of consistent basis, then you'd better be prepared to follow through on that [threat]," he said.

"The United States of America is currently in two of the longest wars we've ever been in, at a very significant cost to this country ... I'm not sure the people of the United States want a third war," he said.

[Jenne]

So the religious side of the equation, vis a vis Iran, seems to serve as a glue or rather an "in" to another nation-state's wealth and support.  Whereas with America, it's a detractor (these are my words now, my opinion) from the "real" factors that galvanize war (making important, rich people even richer and more powerful) and attractor (gains the hawks their respect and suppor through the religious fanatics that currently seem de rigueur in a lot of American townships--media-driven or not).

[Jenne]

The thing about Iran, and I'm not sure how long this will carry the US further away from war, but attacking Iran is nothing like attacking Afghanistan OR Iraq.  Iran is a very westernized, organized society.  It's not a spitoon of a place, and it's got some muscle, AND some friends in "low places" it can call on to help it out.  Where neo-cons still get off thinking this would be a drop in the bucket (wtf?  they want us constantly at war with everyone, all the time?  because that's where we're headed if we engage Iran, and they know it, and that's what kept Bush et al OUT of there for a while) or if they don't actually think it, SELLING it...I don't know.

America IS tired of war.  Sure, they can often be sold about "security," etc., but if even the Rand Pauls of the US are willing to downsize and gtfo, then that should be a sign that the "next 9/11" might NOT yield the warmongering results in the populace that the first one did.  Especially since the red states tend to have the largest measure of war casualties.

[Cain]

Well, it may be better to think of it in terms of thin constructivist terms about how Iran sees itself.  Iran has, since the revolution, framed itself as the true leader of the Islamic world (as opposed to Saudi Arabia), the real keepers of the faith in a world of apostates and unbelievers and the only nation in the region to successfully defeat and humiliate the United States and it's local puppets (ie; the Shah and Saddam Hussein).  It therefore uses its self-proclaimed position as leader of Shiite Islam to support Shiite groups and backed regimes, and attempts to spread it's ideology through Central Asia - an area with a lot of (nominal) Muslims who were previously unaligned in the Iran-Saudi conflict, but unable to take part because of the USSR's control of the region (it later turned out most of those "Muslims" are atheists or highly secular in outlook - pwning both Iran and Saudi Arabia's attempts to buy friends in the region).

However, Iran often betrays that image in secret.  Iran worked with Israel throughout the 80s to undermine Iraq, even as their proxies warred in Lebanon.  Iran has cut deals with the US before, in secret, over terrorism, WMD and Afghanistan.  These actions were almost certainly undertaken by allies of the Supreme Ayatollah.  Iran uses religion to project power internationally, to justify it's political structure, but it is capable of acting otherwise when in its interest.  In the past, at least.

In thin constructivist terms, the US sees itself as the City on the Hill or in terms similar to those of Manifest Destiny, a kind of crusading liberal democracy.  There is a certain civil-religious component to this outlook, but again, it is betrayed by US foreign politics, which are decidedly more Kissingeresque than Jesus or Locke inspired.  The Religious Right in particular have been busy making ties to other Christian nations (The Family etc) but the US doesn't explicitly promote itself as a Christian nation on the international stage, even if many of the Teabagger types wish it would.  The US will support Christian regimes where it helps towards their goals, but will support totalitarian Islamic or enforced atheistic regimes (China) where national interest requires it.  Equally, in the more secular component of US self-image, regimes hostile to liberal democracy (China, again, South Vietnam etc)  Realpolitik rules the day.

Sometimes a nation will act in accordance with their self-image, if not acting in that way harms the overall belief in that self-image.  But such incidents are very rare.  So, most of the time, they default towards looking out for their interests.

[Jenne]

Oh yes, I was talking internally, rather than worldview-wise (ETA: for the US, at any rate).  And I believe the promotion of a nation's self-image will sometimes override or even directly oppose that which they have internally.  When it suits their endgoal.