Iran and the use of force

Washington Post:

Fourteen months after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered to talk to Iran, the failure of carrot-and-stick diplomacy to block Tehran's nuclear and regional ambitions is producing a new drumbeat for bolder action, including the possible use of force.

The emerging debate -- evident in an array of new reports, conferences and commentaries -- is still in the early stages, but some of the language urging the Bush administration to be more aggressive during its final 17 months is reminiscent of arguments from think tanks and commentators that shaped the case for invading Iraq.

"A lot of people were willing to give diplomacy a chance, but at some point there have to be results," said Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, an advocate of the Iraq war. "It's been a year since Rice agreed to talk to the Iranians if they accepted U.N. terms, and it's only bought them more time for their nuclear program."

Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates are committed to economic sanctions and pressure through the United Nations. But proponents of tougher policy reflect the views of a small part of the Bush administration open to military options if Iran does not suspend a uranium-enrichment program that can be subverted for a nuclear bomb.

The drumbeats are also louder because of Iraq. Since May, the first formal talks between U.S. and Iranian envoys in 28 years have not deterred Iranian support for Iraqi Shiite militias targeting U.S. troops and the Green Zone. Explosives that U.S. officials say come from Iran accounted for one-third of U.S. combat deaths last month in Iraq, according to U.S. officials.

"Discussions about attacking Iran began with the nuclear issue, but it has now become a silver bullet to also deal with Iran's activities with Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, and even to provoke a process of regime change," said Augustus Richard Norton, a retired Army colonel now at Boston University.

A possible timetable has emerged as well. "The consensus I'm hearing is to give the [U.N.] Security Council process more time but not unlimited time, and, at some point in the spring of 2008, there has to be a good hard look at whether that process should continue and whether other options should then be considered," said Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert for the Congressional Research Service.

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Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute recently wrote that assuming that Iran wants stability in Iraq is "as naive as it is dangerous. . . . U.S. and Iranian interests in Iraq are diametrically opposed, and will continue to be until one side wins and the other loses." He depicted diplomacy with Iran as "a mirage, a tactical tool to divert U.S. policy attention away from the Revolutionary Guards and intelligence officials charged with implementing the Iranian leadership's objectives."

"For the U.S. government to succeed in Iraq," Rubin argued, "it must engage not with the illusion of Iranian policy, but refine its strategies to neutralize and counter the Iranian strategies."

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There is more from other think tanks some suggesting even more aggressive policies. I think clearly Rubin is right about negotiations with Iran. Negotiations for the current regime are just a means to buy time in their war against the US which they have been waging since 1979. In the meantime they send arms to our enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We should start by arming the Kurds in Iran and divert the Kurds who are mucking around in turkey to use their efforts in Iran. We should destroy Iran's weapons manufacturing facilities. Starting with the ones used for the EFPs used to kill our troops in Iraq. We should also target Iran's terrorist training facilities.

Iran is at war with us and ignoring that fact will not make it go away. It certainly did not work when al Qaeda declared war against us.