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In Bush Speech, Signs of Split on Iran Policy    [

    Drumbeat for Attack on Iran Grows Louder
    By Thomas B. Edsall
    The Huffington Post

    Monday 17 September 2007

    The drumbeat for a military assault on Iran is getting louder at some conservative think tanks, in the offices of hawks on the Bush and Cheney staffs, and among ground forces in Iraq dealing with weapons and explosives constructed in Iran.

    Administration calls for aggressive action to destroy Iran's nuclear program, and to cut off its funneling of arms and training to terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East, have featured increasingly tough rhetoric.

    In his September 13 televised speech, President Bush pointedly warned of the threat from Iran:

    "If we were to be driven out of Iraq, ... Iran would benefit from the chaos and would be encouraged in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons and dominate the region. Extremists could control a key part of the global energy supply."

    There is unanimous agreement on both sides of the ideological aisle that talk of a strike against Tehran and other sites in Iran has escalated sharply in recent weeks.

    Much of the public discussion of military action is designed to serve as a trial balloon to test reaction to such proposals among Congressional leaders and other key players. The subject has, however, also become a publicly discussed issue in the Republican primary contest.

    At the September 5 GOP debate in Durham, N.H., Rudy Giuliani declared:

    "America has to have a clear position. The position should be that Iran is not going to be allowed to go nuclear. Senator McCain put it very well a few months ago. He said it would be very, very dangerous to take military action against Iran, but it would be even more dangerous if Iran were a nuclear power. And I think a president has to make that very clear."

    Evidence of heightened discussion of the initiation of military action against Iran is available in many places:

• In a September 3 blog post, The Weekly Standard's William Kristol, wrote:
  
  "Why are terror training camps in Iran, camps that are directly training terrorists to attack U.S. troops, off limits? After all, if Khameini (to whom the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps reports) has already established the principle of cross-border attacks against accelerators of violence, who are we to disagree with the wisdom of the Supreme Leader?"
  
  
• On the same day, American Enterprise Institute fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht wrote in Newsweek that Iran is "a radical revolutionary force determined to sow chaos beyond its borders. Assuming that normal negotiations can bring it around is, therefore, a grave mistake. The mullahs don't want peace in Iraq-just the opposite. War may come, but not because negotiations break down. The likely trigger is an Iranian provocation.
  
  
• On September 12, FOX News reported in a story based largely on pro-war sources in the administration and allied think tanks that there is a "consensus" among administration officials that attempts to peacefully persuade Iran to abandon development of its nuclear facilities have "come up empty... Consequently, according to a well-placed Bush administration source, 'everyone in town' is now participating in a broad discussion about the costs and benefits of military action against Iran, with the likely time frame for any such course of action being over the next eight to 10 months, after the presidential primaries have probably been decided, but well before the November 2008 elections."
  
  
• The Heritage Foundation, in turn, maintains a web site titled "Iran: The Rising Threat" where the non-profit declares that it supports "a policy of aggressive diplomacy and the strongest possible economic sanctions, combined with the willingness to use force if necessary, to stave off Iran's becoming a nuclear power."
  
  
• During Senate Iraq hearings last week, Senator Joseph Lieberman asked Gen. David H. Petraeus if he had "all the authorities you need from a military point of view to deter, disrupt and respond to the Iranian attacks on our troops in Iran's efforts to destabilize Iraq?" Petraeus replied that he does have the authority he needs, while he claims that he does not have plans to go into Iran.

    Lieberman, who himself does not preclude action against Iran, contended that "we have evidence that Iran is taking Iraqi extremists to three training camps outside of Tehran, training them in the use of explosives, sophisticated weapons, sending them back into Iraq, where they are responsible for the murder of American soldiers."

    With the retirement of Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, Lieberman may well find that he has a new ally in the Democratic Senate caucus after the 2008 elections: Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey who is considered likely to seek regain the seat.

    Kerrey is no dove on Iran. In a May 22 op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, he wrote:

    "We must not allow terrorist sanctuaries to develop any place on earth. Whether these fighters are finding refuge in Syria, Iran, Pakistan or elsewhere, we cannot afford diplomatic or political excuses to prevent us from using military force to eliminate them."

    The Democratic presidential candidate who has most explicitly addressed the question of military action against Iran is Barack Obama. In a September 12 speech in Clinton, Iowa, he said:

    "Iran poses a grave challenge. It builds a nuclear program, supports terrorism, and threatens Israel with destruction. But we hear eerie echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq in the way that the President and Vice President talk about Iran.

    "They conflate Iran and al Qaeda, ignoring the violent schism that exists between Shiite and Sunni militants. They issue veiled threats. They suggest that the time for diplomacy and pressure is running out when we haven't even tried direct diplomacy. Well George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear - loud and clear - from the American people and the Congress: you don't have our support, and you don't have our authorization for another war."

 

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    In Bush Speech, Signs of Split on Iran Policy
    By Helene Cooper
    The New York Times

    Sunday 16 September 2007

    Washington - While scrutiny this week focused on the debate over troop strength, President Bush also used the occasion to turn up the pressure on Iran, using his speech on Thursday to stress the need to contain Iran as a major reason for the continued American presence in Iraq.

    The language in Mr. Bush's speech reflected an intense and continuing struggle between factions within his administration over how aggressively to confront Iran. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been arguing for a continuation of a diplomatic approach, while officials in Vice President Dick Cheney's office have advocated a much tougher view. They seek to isolate and contain Iran, and to include greater consideration of a military strike.

    Mr. Bush's language indicated that the debate, at least for now, might have tilted toward Mr. Cheney. By portraying the battle with Iran as one for supremacy in the Middle East, Mr. Bush turned up the language another, more bellicose, notch. "If we were to be driven out of Iraq, extremists of all strains would be emboldened," Mr. Bush said. "Iran would benefit from the chaos and would be encouraged in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons and dominate the region."

    The debate between the factions in the administration will play out soon in other ways, including the decision over whether to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, or a unit of it, a terrorist organization and subject to increased financial sanctions.

    The tensions between Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney have existed for a long time; they began during the administration's first term, when, as national security adviser, she had to mediate turf battles between a coalition of Mr. Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the secretary of defense, and Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state.

    Now, as secretary of state, Ms. Rice has increasingly come to reflect the more diplomatic view advocated by the State Department, which has pushed for a more restrained tone in America's dealings with the world in general, and Iran in particular.

    Mr. Cheney and hawks in his office, however, have become increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of progress in curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions.

    Allies of Mr. Cheney continue to say publicly that the United States should include a change in Iran's leadership as a viable policy option, and have argued, privately, that the United States should encourage Israel to consider a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

    The testimony this week of Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Iraq, that the diplomatic talks with Iran have done little to restrain what he called Iran's "malign" influence in Iraq, also fueled the disquiet in Mr. Cheney's office, one administration official said.

    That is intensifying the debate over the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

    While some White House officials and some members of the vice president's staff have been pushing to blacklist the entire Revolutionary Guard, administration officials said, officials at the State and Treasury Departments have been pushing a narrower approach that would list only the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force, or perhaps, only companies and organizations with financial ties to that group.

    The designation would make it easier for the United States to block financial accounts and other assets controlled by the group.

    The administration is still pressing ahead with other efforts to turn up the pressure on Iran. The State Department has asked top officials from the five other world powers seeking to rein in Tehran's nuclear ambitions to come to Washington on Friday for a meeting in which R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, will press for stronger United Nations sanctions against Iran.

    On Sept. 28, Ms. Rice will meet with her counterparts from Europe, Russia and China to discuss the Iran sanctions issue.

    Beyond its nuclear program, Iran has emerged as an increasing source of trouble for the Bush administration, American officials said, by inflaming the insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza, where it has provided military and financial support to the militant Islamic group Hamas.

    In its report to Congress on Friday, the administration accused Iran of providing Shiite militias with training, money and weapons, including rockets, mortars and explosively formed projectiles, which the administration said accounted for an increased percentage of American combat deaths. The report said that "coalition and Iraqi operations against these groups, combined with a growing rejection of Shia violence by top government of Iraq officials, has led to some progress in reducing violent attacks from Shia extremists."

    The American military in Iraq still has custody of several Iranian officials who were detained there on suspicion of involvement in providing aid to Shiite militias.

    Iran's government has denied the charges. Its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Friday that Mr. Bush's Middle East policies had failed and that Mr. Bush would one day be put on trial for the "tragedies" he had created in Iraq.

    But a belief has been growing in Iran, which administration officials have pointedly not tried to stem, that the Bush administration was considering military strikes against Iran. An Israeli airstrike in Syria last week kicked up speculation in the Iranian press that Israel, in alliance with the United States, was really trying to send a message to Iran that it could strike Iranian nuclear facilities if it chose to.

    "If I were the Iranians, what I'd be freaked out about is that the other Arab states didn't protest" the airstrike, said George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The Arab world nonreaction is a signal to Iran, that Arabs aren't happy with Iran's power and influence, so if the Israelis want to go and intimidate and violate the airspace of another Arab state that's an ally of Iran, the other Arab states aren't going to do anything."

    During the talks next week, the United States, France and Britain will try to get Russia, China and Germany to sign on to a stronger set of United Nations Security Council sanctions against members of Iran's government.

    The sanctions are aimed at getting Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium. The international efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions have been complicated by America's conflict with Iran in Iraq, which Russia and some European countries argue should take a back seat to the nuclear issue.

    Further complicating things has been a dispute over a pact reached last month between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency for Iran to answer questions about an array of suspicious past nuclear activities.

    Gregory L. Schulte, the American delegate to the agency, suggested that Tehran "has no intention of coming clean."