On the same day that Gen. David Petraeus delivered to Congress his much
anticipated progress report on the U.S. military's "surge strategy" in
Iraq, neoconservative ideologues associated with the American
Enterprise Institute (AEI) took aim at another one of the reputed foes
of "freedom"—the Islamic Republic of Iran.
During a panel discussion Monday aimed at promoting his new book, The Iranian
Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction, Michael
Ledeen, a resident scholar at AEI, criticized the "evil" nature
of Iran's clerical regime, its support for international terrorism, and the
need to back Iranian dissidents and activists in a soft-revolution to dislodge
the mullahs from power.
Along with the broad—and at times mocking—generalizations about Iran's attempts
to foment "Islamic totalitarianism" throughout the world, Ledeen,
accompanied by James
Woolsey, the former Central Intelligence Agency director, and Clifford
May, president of the hawkish Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies, appeared dead-set against any diplomatic
engagement with Iran.
"The [Iranian] leadership constantly tells its people 'the Iranian people
must prepare to rule the world,'" said Ledeen.
"Everybody has convinced themselves that they can make a deal with Iran.
We have been negotiating for 27 years, as if there have been no negotiations.
... There is no escape," he said. "The only question is how best
to defeat them."
Citing a memorable scene in the James Bond film Goldfinger, in which
the eponymous villain straps the fictional British secret agent to a gurney
and aims a laser toward his genitals, Ledeen quoted German-born actor Gert
Frobe's famous line: "I expect you to die."
"And that's Iran. They want us to die. They want to destroy us," said
Ledeen. He went on to describe the Islamist sentiment in Iran as a "political
death wish, a political necrophilia."
With strong links to Vice President Dick
Cheney's office and the White House, the Washington-based AEI has, since
the September 11, 2001 attacks, enjoyed unparalleled influence in shaping
U.S. interventionist policy in the Middle East. The think tank helped lead
the drive to war in Iraq, and more recently has assumed a prominent role
in rallying for regime change in Iran.
While no longer under the illusion of the type of large-scale "democratic" intervention
that precipitated the current Iraq War, neoconservatives still appear to be
pumping up a confrontational attitude between the United States and Iran, painting
the regime as an existential enemy with whom one cannot negotiate, a fanatical
yet militarily weak reactionary government that desires the destruction of
the world.
Speaking wistfully about the Cold War, Woolsey compared the Islamist political
resurgence in the Middle East with the then-Communist government in Moscow,
describing the latter as the "ideal enemy."
"I have a certain bizarre nostalgia for the Soviet Union," said
Woolsey. "It is our misfortune that today we have to live with Sunni and
Shi'ite totalitarianism."
However, the panel's unanimous and confrontational sentiment did not translate
into a coherent foreign policy toward the Iranian regime, and ultimately led
to what the panelists described as two equally disturbing options: Iran with
a bomb or bomb Iran.
"If our survival is at stake and they [Iranians] are readying themselves
to attack us, we will bomb them," said Woolsey.
Iran's uranium enrichment program is operating well below capacity and is
far from producing nuclear fuel in significant amounts, according to a confidential
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report obtained by Reuters.
For Ledeen, it seems the problem is not a nuclear-armed Iran as much as it
is an Islamist government in Tehran, and his ultimate goal is the removal of
the clerical establishment from power.
The panelists did not advocate military action, instead choosing to promote
an aggressive but non-violent soft revolution that would ostensibly be led
by Iran's "moderate" political actors: intellectuals, students, women,
former "reformists," and members of Iran's once burgeoning civil
society.
Yet they omit the idea that, for all the resentment harbored against the regime,
frustrated dissidents may not want U.S. help to change the political landscape
in Iran. At worst, aggressive U.S. support—most notably $75 million for "pro-democracy" activities—has
engendered the belief among regime insiders that Washington intends to foment
a revolution.
In a 2006 visit to the United States, Iranian dissident journalist Akbar Ganji
declined an invitation to meet with White House officials, citing his belief
that Washington's current policies were hurting, not helping promote democracy
in Iran. Ganji, who was imprisoned in 2000 after writing a series of articles
accusing Intelligence Ministry agents of killing dissidents, said he was tortured
repeatedly during six years in prison.
"Any intervention by any foreign power would bring charges of conspiracy
against us," he told the Associated Press.
And they already have. Most recently, the regime put Haleh Esfandiari, a U.S.-Iranian
and Middle East expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, and Kian
Tajbakhsh, an urban planner who has worked with Soros Foundation and the Iranian
government, in jail for inciting a revolution.
Esfandiari was released from Evin prison earlier this month, but Tajbakhsh
continues to be held without charge.
It appears Iran will remain a target for AEI ideologues and their associates
in the months to come. The question remains as to whether this aggressive pseudo-policy
will yield productive results, or if it will end, as many in the international
community fear, in military confrontation.
The panelists at Monday's discussion left little room for compromise, and
their generalizations about Iran as an irrational actor support a very clear
and consistent neoconservative message: there can be no negotiation with Iran.
In the final analysis, military confrontation with Iran becomes a forgone
conclusion.
Khody Akhavi is a contributor to the Inter Press Service.
