Foreign Policy In Focus

P5 +1, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, and Iran failed to secure a breakthrough at the third round of talks in Moscow last week. Meanwhile, Israel's trigger finger remains itchy. On May 17 Michael Stott of Reuters reported:

"I think they've gone into lockdown mode now," the senior Western diplomat said. "Whatever happens next, whatever they decide, we will not find out until it happens." …

"I think they have made a decision to attack," said one senior Israeli figure with close ties to the leadership. "It is going to happen. The window of opportunity is before the U.S. presidential election in November. This way they will bounce the Americans into supporting them."

Also, on June 22 at Christian Science Monitor, Scott Peterson reported the comments of Sergei Markov, a Kremlin adviser, who said:

… the talks need a "more clear advance and quicker developments" if they are to forestall a conflict [and] there is a "quite high" chance of an Israeli attack on Iran in July or August – just months before the US presidential election in November.

Why exactly does Israel see the American elections as, at best, a window of opportunity, or, at worst, a deadline for mounting an aerial attack on Iran?

Part of the reason, according to Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic in May, is that when Netanyahu solidified his coalition, he dodged his own election this September and, with all parties on board, is able to proceed.

A month earlier, at Slate, Fred Kaplan wrote:

In fact, if the Israelis really are intent on attacking the Iranian nuclear facilities, they’re likely to do so before this November’s American presidential elections. If they started an attack and needed U.S. firepower to help them complete the task, Barack Obama might open himself up to perilous political attacks—for being indecisive, weak, appeasing, anti-Israel, you name it—if he didn’t follow through. It could cost him the votes of crucial constituencies. If the Israelis tried to pressure the United States into joining an attack after the election, Obama would have … more flexibility [about whether or not to attack].

Many are tired of hearing the charge that Israel, or more to the point, its American supporters (read: campaign contributors) "drive" U.S. foreign policy. But, after three rounds of P5+1 talks with Iran, one can be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that the United States has lost sight of its own goals toward Iran because of the overriding imperative to arrive at an agreement that will keep Israel from attacking Iran.

One can't help but wonder what U.S. policy toward Iran would look like shorn of the need of preventing that from happening, as well as the perceived need of presenting a front toward Iran that's sufficiently bellicose for Israel's Americans supporters.

Cross-posted from There Will Be War.

The recently wrapped up Moscow talks between the P5+1 (the five U.N. Security Council members plus Germany) and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program, the second round after those held Baghdad in late May, have failed to bear fruit. To play the blame game and castigate just one side would be an exercise in schoolyard oversimplification.

In the end, it seems Iranian negotiators could not entertain a strict demand to “stop, shut and ship”—stop enriching, shut down the Fordow site and ship out their load of 19.75 percent uranium. Not a shock that they balked: this is basically telling a proud nation it has no right to an independent nuclear program, that it should dismantle years of hard, complicated work and toss hundreds of millions of rials into the Gulf. Meanwhile Iranian promises of a fatwa against nuclear weapons, of full cooperation with the IAEA, and of low-grade enrichment limits—should sanctions be relaxed—did little to assuage the U.S. and its cohorts. Rightly so: Why would the Western nations trust an antagonistic, power-hungry regime who will say or do anything to improve its chances at regional hegemony? Indeed, much has been written about how both sides have overplayed their hands, feeling they have the leverage to walk away from the negotiating table.

This breakdown means we must prepare for the return of an endless onslaught of articles baldly assuming an imminent military strike on Iran’s enrichment facilities, similar to those we saw on cover stories through January and February. We will see not only straight-up calls for a pre-emptive attack but articles like those in The New York Times that correctly caught flak for their subtle allusions to Iran’s nuclear arsenal, which doesn’t exist. Back then, the eager calls by war hawks in the U.S. and Israel to bomb Iran backfired, even as scare tactic, by prompting numerous Israeli military and Mossad vets to denounce the plan as nothing short of stupid.

Fast forward to June: Even before the negotiations officially ended, the calls for strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities were coming in loud as well as insidious.

Jumping the gun and surprising no one was The Weekly Standard’s Jamie Fly and Will Kristol. Though the bulk of their advice amounted to “Isn’t it time for the president to ask Congress for Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iran’s nuclear program,” the buildup to this gem was meant to manipulate the uninformed. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion but using a 1936 Winston Churchill speech to make the implicit/explicit connection of Iran to Nazi Germany is tired, cliched and wrong. Points awarded for not referencing the classic warmonger Chamberlain-Munich-1938 catch-all (which was probably considered) though I predict this will be regurgitated ad nauseam soon.

The merits of this Authorization to threaten Iran with ordnance are debatable but Kristol et al come at it from the specious, hackneyed litany of complaints of Iran’s “record of murder and mayhem,” including all its foiled assassinations and of course the plot to “kill the Saudi ambassador (and American bystanders)” in Washington. According to the U.N.’s take on the matter, “the resolution, which was introduced by Saudi Arabia, doesn’t directly accuse Iran of involvement but calls on the country ‘to comply with all of its obligations under international law’ and to cooperate in ‘seeking to bring to justice’ the people who allegedly plotted to kill the envoy.” Not to mention the two-way street comparison in this scenario: The cyber-attacks, sabotage and murders by U.S. and Israeli intelligence aimed at stalling Tehran’s nuclear progress actually worked. I won’t get into the slew of arguments (e.g. Iran has never attacked another country) against Fly and Kristol’s junior high analysis of super villain Iran.

An example of the less straightforward “imminent war” insinuation came Thursday from Reuters in Jerusalem: “Israel Says Clock Ticking After Iran Talks Fail.” Can you feel the doomsday chill yet? How about:

Israel has responded to the failure of the latest nuclear talks between world powers and Iran with a familiar refrain: sanctions must be ramped up while the clock ticks down toward possible military action.

This provocative lede, upon further reading, is misleading, as the third paragraph relays: “Defense Minister Ehud Barak stuck closely to his stated line, without offering any new sense of urgency, when asked by the Washington Post how much more time Israel can allow for diplomacy to work.” (Emphasis added)

Note the journos' habit of asking questions designed to get juiced-up headlines about when we can expect the war to start. No one has brought up military action except the reporter/writer/editor of the story. Read till the end and the piece balances out somewhat but, unfortunately, Reuters is picked up by tons of blurb driven news sites like Yahoo! where the audience isn’t expected to read on. Headlines and ledes are all we have time for these days.

The Washington Post stoked its own fears with the headline “Faltering Iran talks stoke fears of new conflict.” Even with a day of talks left, the questionable lede was concocted to spook us:

The near-collapse of nuclear talks with Iran has ushered in what experts on Wednesday described as a dangerous new phase in the decade-long standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program.

What experts end up describing are potential actions resulting from the sanctions due to hit Iran on July 1, taking us down the slippery hypothetical path of what Iran could do if these sanctions have a particularly nasty effect: “Worsening economic hardship could drive Iran’s leaders to adopt more aggressive and confrontational policies.” Not quite as scary as the dangerous new phase we’ve already entered into.

The third sentence in the piece also particularly troublesome: “At the same time, prominent Israeli and U.S. politicians are renewing calls for preparations for a military strike to halt Iran’s nuclear progress.”

While a specific example is provided of a U.S. Republican senator calling for the Pentagon to prepare bunker-busting bombs, not one Israeli politician is mentioned, even off the record and anonymous. And of course, reserved for the very last line in the piece, apparently offered as a token to balance the story, is a Democratic Congressman calling on his right-of-the-aisle brothers to take a deep breath and calm down.

Nitpicky you say? Try this lede from the June 21 Wall Street Journal:

Tel Aviv – Israel is unlikely to launch a strike on Iran as long as sanctions on Tehran intensify and diplomatic efforts continue, despite the failure of international talk… Israeli officials and security experts say.

Given all the pre-emptive strike hullabaloo we’ve heard for the last two years, isn’t this the real story? That Israel is not shouting about how their window to attack is closing. Instead of America and Israel gearing up for a jet-fighter strike, the Journal piece talks about the breakdown in talks as the impetus that has “fueled talk of military options.” Illustrating how a story can be written to show the realistic thinking of those in power, it goes on to quote officials on the record and describe high-level discussions on how the U.S. could better use the threat of attack as a bargaining chip. Note: In no way could this be taken to mean an attack is imminent or unavoidable.

Alas, the Wall Street headline still reads: “Strike on Iran Stays on Hold, FOR NOW.” (Emphasis added)

And this is only the beginning.

Michael Quiñones' latest project, a fizzy look at foreign policy predictions, launches in July 2012 at There Will Be War.  

At the New York Times, Thomas Erdbrink reported on the latest cyberattack on Iran via a virus known Flame. "Iran's Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Centre," he writes, "fears that it's potentially more harmful than the 2010 Stuxnet virus. … In contrast … the newly identified virus is designed not to do damage but to secretly collect information from a wide variety of sources."

At Asia Times Online, Pierre Klochendler elaborates:

"Flame can easily be described as one of the most complex threats ever discovered. Big and incredibly sophisticated, it redefines the notion of cyber-war and cyber-espionage," Alexander Gostev posted on the Securelist blog of Kaspersky Labs, the company that uncovered the worm. Gostev is head of the firm's Global Research and Analysis Team.

Meanwhile, reports Erdbrink, an Iranian cyber defense official said, "'Its encryption has a special pattern which you only see coming from Israel,' … While Israel never comments officially on such matters, its involvement was hinted at by a top official there."

It's curious that Iran hasn't obviously retaliated to the cyberattacks, killings of nuclear scientists, and sabotage of imported nuclear components, much of which seems to have been perpetrated by Israel. Klochendler reports on one possible reason.

"Iran's brush with Duqu and disastrous encounter with Stuxnet prove that the Islamic Republic is, indeed, lacking in the field of cyber-security," [Assaf Turner, chief executive officer of the Israeli-based Maya Security company] asserted on the Israeli news site YNet. 

But, at NPR, Tom Gjelten reports.

"[The Iranians] have all the resources and the capabilities necessary to be a major player in terms of cyberwarfare," says Jeffrey Carr, an expert on cyberconflict who has consulted for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Furthermore, writes Gjelten:

Sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.S. and its allies are so severe as to constitute a form of economic warfare. … Under the circumstances, could the Iranians be tempted to consider a cyberattack on the U.S.?

"There is a great deal of worry in terms of what they may be able to do if they're pushed to the brink," says cybersecurity researcher Dmitri Alperovitch. "If they believe the regime is threatened, if they believe they're about to be attacked, [they may consider] how can they employ cyberweapons, either to deter that attack or to retaliate in a way they can't do militarily."

How long can Iran be expected to sit back and take it? It's ironic that it's suffering the sanctions and attack at a time when it not only seems to have halted terrorist operations on foreign soil -- but has no nuclear-weapons program.

At the Daily Beast's Open Zion blog, Trita Parsi questioned the wisdom of Israel organizing MEK's (Mujahedin-e Khalq) murderous attacks on Iranian scientists.

First, any attempt by Israel to hold the higher moral ground and point fingers at the regime in Tehran will be lost if Israel itself is entangled with violent terrorist groups that kill indiscriminatingly. … Second, if Israel teams up with an organization described by the US State Department as “fundamentally undemocratic” and “not a viable alternative to the current government of Iran,” the argument that peace in the region would be achieved if only the other states in the region were as democratic as Israel will become even more unconvincing.

And finally, this will likely undermine Israel’s ability to rebuild ties with the Iranian people down the road. The MEK has the dubious honor of being the only entity more disliked by the Iranian people than the Iranian regime itself.

One of Israel's main beefs with Iran is that it's been a state sponsor of terrorism. But, by collaborating with MEK inside Iran, Israel becomes just another kettle calling a plot back. Why would Israel jeopardize its cherished state-sponsor-of-terrorism card? Perhaps because it thinks it can be of help in the process of removing the perception of MEK as a terrorist group. Parsi explains. 

All of this has fueled suspicions in DC that the current multi-million dollar lobbying campaign by the MEK to get off of the State Department’s terror list is bankrolled by Israeli sources.

Obviously, that does nothing to make MEK's actions or Israel's support of them go away. Unfortunately, if you can handle one last cliché, that horse has left the barn.

In the Hindu on May 8, we catch Hillary Clinton putting too fine a distinction on the Israel-Iran rivalry.

Drawing a distinction between Iran, which has violated provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and Israel, which hasn't signed it, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said here on Monday that the latter has “made numerous overtures to try to have a peaceful resolution” to the situation in the Middle-East.

Of course, logic dictates that an overriding distinction be drawn between a state with an unacknowledged nuclear-weapons program that never signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and one with not only no nukes, but no development program and that has signed the NPT, with no evidence of substantive violations. Secretary of State Clinton, however, attempts to suggest that Israel's other virtues more than compensate for an illegal nuclear arms program (not that we believe, according to international law, that any nuclear program is exactly legal). First, she claims that Israel "'has made numerous overtures to try to have a peaceful resolution' to the situation in the Middle-East."

It's unclear about what Ms. Clinton is speaking: Iran or the Palestinian people? Conflating the two is shoddy thinking, especially for a top official. In any event, are Israel's overtures more numerous -- or genuine -- than Iran's or Palestine's? We'll leave it to Middle-East experts to divvy them up. But that's not Ms. Clinton's only defense for favoring Israel over Iran on the issue of nuclear weapons.

Responding to a question on the U.S. pressing for sanctions on Iran on account of its nuclear programme, while taking no action against Israel, which is in violation of several United Nations resolutions, apart from not being a signatory to the NPT, Ms. Clinton quipped: “Well, I don't think we have convinced India to sign the NPT either.”

At the risk of being childish, we feel compelled to point out that two wrongs don't make a right. Then, along with siding with more than one country in the nuclear wrong, she adds to her list of countries that, like Iran, she believe are deserving of blame.

“It isn't the only country causing worry. We worry regarding nuclear weapons proliferating in some other countries,” Ms. Clinton said, adding that the biggest fear was that nuclear weapons may fall into the wrong hands.

Then Ms. Clinton pulls out the "state sponsor of terrorism" card.

At this moment in time, the “principal threat is a nuclear-armed Iran,” she said, alleging that the country was a “state sponsor of terrorism.” She cited the recent attack on Israeli diplomats in Delhi, and a plot to kill the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the U.S. — both allegedly planned by the Iranian government — as examples.

In the end, Ms. Clinton seems to be resorting to the unspoken rationality index that Washington uses to rate states. By that calculation, Iran not only scores low because it is a "state sponsor of terrorism," but because its motivations may be apocalyptic. But this is the height of disingenuousness on the part of Washington, which knows very well that Iran's policies are as realist, or more so, than other states.

Meanwhile, it's as if, by refraining from using its illegal nuclear weapons, Israel has demonstrated its rationality to Washington … thus providing yet another reason for a state that aspires to nuclear weapons to act on its aspiration.