Topic: Foreign Policy and National Security

Retire Hitler, Please

By
Justin Logan

Secretary Rumsfeld’s nakedly political speech this week likely presaged the congressional campaigns of the coming weeks.  In a sop to the denizens of the right-wing blogosphere, the formulation “Islamic fascism” is used to describe “the enemy” in the current conflict(s).  This is a useful mnemonic, since it conjures the one historical analogy that Americans remember: Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1938 and the resulting world war.

It is also useful for supporters of a neoconservative foreign policy approach because it lumps a whole host of disparate adversaries (Sunni insurgents in Iraq; Shiite groups like Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army; Hezbollah; the Iranian theocracy; &c) into the “Islamic fascist” grouping, with the binary choices being appeasement or war.  And do you, dear voter, wish to appease the fascists?

Duke poli sci professor Bruce Jentleson helpfully points out the various hawks for whom Vietnam represented another 1938, but for right-wingers, there are a whole host of Hitlers out there waiting to start another bloody world war.

Secretary Rumsfeld has previously likened Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez to Hitler, as has Pat Robertson.  Rumsfeld has also likened Zarqawi, Ahmadinejad, and bin Laden to Hitler.  Ted Stevens and John Warner felt comfortable likening Saddam Hussein to Hitler before the current Iraq war.  Recall that for British foreign secretary Anthony Eden, it was Gamal Abdel Nasser who was the next Hitler.  Right-wing pundit Frank Gaffney had Colin Powell, of all people, in the role of Neville Chamberlain.  Even two-bit dictators like Slobodan Milosevic have gotten the Hitler treatment from American pundits.  And Charles Krauthammer may be the reigning king of Hitler analogies, apparently having compared Deng Xiaoping, Boris Yeltsin, Kim Jong-Il, and (this one’s a softball) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler.  And via my friend Spencer Ackerman, I see that Leon Wieseltier has catalogued many of the Hitlers staring down Israel in recent years.

I could go on like this for hours, but it’s not the best use of our donors’ money or my dwindling sanity.  Hitler, thank God, was an aberration.  The Wehrmacht Hitler commanded was eminently capable of overrunning and occupying Europe.  (He thankfully also had the stupidity and hubris to decide that Stalingrad was in play.)  But to elevate Hugo Chavez, or even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitlerian heights is to completely miss the mark.

Like in criminal investigations, we have to consider both intent and means.  Divining intent is difficult, but ascertaining means is relatively easy.  When we look at the prospect of an Iranian bomb, though, we have to rely on interpretations of intent, since the means to attack Israel would clearly be there, albeit with a sure-fire suicidal result.  But war hawks seem to think that we should assume a fundamental irrationality on the part of Iran—that is, that its government would willfully bring about its own destruction in the pursuit of religious or ideological goals.  And even Hitler did not meet that standard of insanity.  Hitler made judgments based on his assessment of what he could get away with—until the war had gone too far and he thought there was no turning back.

I’m not a huge fan of historical analogies generally, but I sometimes wish that a 1914 analogy existed in the minds of Americans to counter the 1938 analogy.  But alas, the 1938 analogy seems to get applied to everything.  And when all you face are Hitlers, there aren’t a whole lot of choices to be made.  More to the point, like the boy who cried “wolf!” we may find ourselves so desensitized to the Hitler analogy that, should one arise in the future, we are numb to the warning.

Ambrose Bierce once remarked that war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography, but one wishes that war could teach Americans history, too.

Topics: 
Foreign Policy and National Security

Bad Intelligence—But in Which Direction?

By
Justin Logan

Since the topic of the day seems to be right-wing anger at insufficiently panicky intelligence assessments on Iran, it might be worth looking at how bad U.S. intelligence on Iran is–and in which direction it’s been wrong.

Anthony Cordesman and Khalid al-Rodhan have helpfully assembled a catalog of intelligence community predictions about Iran’s nuclear weapons program in their excellent book, Iran’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Real and Potential Threat.  Here are just a few assessments:

“Late 1991: In congressional reports and CIA assessments, the United States estimates that there is a ‘high degree of certainty that the government of Iran has acquired all or virtually all of the components required for the construction of two to three nuclear weapons.’  A February 1992 report by the U.S. House of Representatives suggests that these two or three nuclear weapons will be operational between February and April 1992.”

“February 24, 1993: CIA director James Woolsey says that Iran is still 8 to 10 years away from being able to produce its own nuclear weapon, but with assistance from abroad it could become a nuclear power earlier.”

“January 1995: The director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, John Holum, testifies that Iran could have the bomb by 2003.”

“January 5, 1995: U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry says that Iran may be less than five years from building an atomic bomb, although ‘how soon…depends how they go about getting it.’”

“April 29, 1996: Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres says ‘he believes that in four years, they [Iran] may reach nuclear weapons.’”

“October 21, 1998: General Anthony Zinni, head of U.S. Central Command, says Iran could have the capacity to deliver nuclear weapons within five years.  ‘If I were a betting man,’ he said, ‘I would say they are on track within five years, they would have the capability.’”

“January 17, 2000: A new CIA assessment on Iran’s nuclear capabilities says that the CIA cannot rule out the possibility that Iran may possess nuclear weapons.  The assessment is based on the CIA’s admission that it cannot monitor Iran’s nuclear activities with any precision and hence cannot exclude the prospect that Iran may have nuclear weapons.”

It goes on for four pages like that, with some realistic predictions sprinkled in for good measure.  But I think we can all agree that we are severely underestimating Iran’s capability.  Just like we have been since 1991, when they were just a year away from a bomb.

Topics: 
Foreign Policy and National Security

Neoconservative Diplomacy: “Capitulate or Die!”

By
Justin Logan

It’s interesting to see Michael Rubin, the former CPA staffer alleged to be the author of a pro-regime change Pentagon memo on Iran, lamenting the decision to allow pragmatic former president of Iran Mohammed Khatami to come to Washington to speak.

In protest, Rubin points to Khatami’s odious remarks in 2000 about Israel and argues that “If Khatami really cared about a dialogue of civilizations, he would go to Jerusalem, not Washington.”

Actually, though, if Khatami–the closest thing to a moderate anywhere near the levers of power in Iran–wanted to completely destroy any chance of having any influence in Iran ever again, the first thing he would do is take Michael Rubin’s advice.

Neoconservative grumbling about diplomacy is nothing new, but this tone has become increasingly common.  Regarding Syria, Iran, anywhere, if diplomacy can’t provide a slam-dunk, total, and complete resolution of all the issues, then it’s held out as a worthless exercise in jaw-jawing.

To some extent the point is well-taken: Diplomacy can be difficult, and can fail, and it always produces temporary, imperfect solutions.  But that’s the point: all foreign policies produce temporary, imperfect solutions.  Crusading in search of silver bullets puts us in predicaments like those of Iraq.

In the course of pooh-poohing talks with the Syrians, for example, we’re regaled with tales of how past dialogues have failed to wean them away from their client Hezbollah, and how the Assad regime is still, well, nasty.  Since Iran hasn’t agreed to capitulate before even coming to the negotiating table, the supposed uselessness of diplomacy is demonstrated.

But the point isn’t to hold diplomacy out as the way to magically eliminate foreign policy problems.  There is no way to eliminate problems in foreign affairs entirely.  But diplomacy is a tool for managing crises, and for finding limited areas to cooperate or compromise.

By setting the standard for diplomacy so high as to demand a nice, neat, tied-up-with-a-ribbon solution in order to prove success, neoconservatives are framing the debate such that diplomacy is always a sure-fire “failure.”  That’s harmful, because it misconstrues the choices and unnecessarily limits our options.

For more on the failure of the “we don’t do diplomacy” policy, see John Judis’ TNR piece from yesterday.

Topics: 
Foreign Policy and National Security

Apocalypse Warning False Alarm; Diplomacy Continues Apace

By
Justin Logan

Since the apocalypse (which Bernard Lewis darkly warned in the Wall Street Journal might be scheduled for today) seems not to be forthcoming, it may be better to focus on more workaday concerns, such as Iran’s decidedly non-apocalyptic response to the Western proposal over its nuclear program. 

Although the full details aren’t out yet, Reuters is reporting what most expected: the Iranians say they’re willing to talk, but not willing to accept American demands that Iran stop enriching uranium as a precondition for talking. Top Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani is quoted as saying that “Iran is prepared to hold serious talks from August 23.” 

The first thing to wonder about is what the European response to this will be. It’s fairly clear that hardliners in the Bush administration are hell-bent on pressing for a UN Security Council vote to impose sanctions, but it’s not at all clear what the more sanguine Europeans will do. The Bush administration would be well-advised to make sure that Iran stays marginalized, and America does not act rashly in a way that turns the tables and marginalizes us. 

Also, notice that the Iranians brought up the one issue that the Bush administration has assiduously avoided discussing as a part of talks: “security cooperation.” This is international politics-speak for “we’re afraid you’re going to attack us.” Until President Bush makes clear that regime change would come off the table in return for Iran’s cooperation on the nuclear issue, the Iranians are going to be scared to death that Washington has the contingency plans out and is looking at military options. 

But the real lesson is how much was lost as a result of the administration’s foolish decision to try to impose a precondition for talks in the first place. A lot of conspiratorial talk around Washington has insisted that the precondition was put in as a “poison pill” to ensure that the diplomacy could go nowhere. I’m not convinced — I think there’s a simpler answer, and that is that the administration thinks, even after the Iraq debacle, that it has a lot of diplomatic and military weight to throw around, and that it could, to coin a phrase, “create its own reality” on the Iran problem. 

Were it not for the unseemly pettiness of the administration’s approach to this aspect of the problem, we could have spent the last two months talking to the Iranians (admittedly they could have still been enriching uranium), instead of waiting for a response from the Iranians (during which time they have been enriching uranium). If the administration had put a grand bargain on the table back at the beginning of summer, we’d be well on our way to getting an answer from Tehran. Instead, we’ve set in motion a largely pointless round of diplomacy that has little prospect of resolving the issue.

Topics: 
Foreign Policy and National Security

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