It's Just Like Iraq, Only Different
By Helene Cooper
New York Times
June 4, 2006
WASHINGTON--DOES this sound familiar? The Bush administration, after months of hinting that it is considering military options to rid a certain oil-producing Middle Eastern country whose name begins with "I" of its alleged weapons program, says that it's willing to try diplomacy.
Publicly, American officials say the offer shows the United States is keen to work with other countries diplomatically to resolve the crisis. But it soon starts to look as if the public diplomacy is just a way for American officials to say they have exhausted all options and tried to play nice. In reality, American officials had already begun planning for war.
That was the chain of events playing out on Sept. 12, 2002, when President Bush, in a speech to the United Nations, committed himself to seeking an international consensus on confronting Saddam Hussein. "My nation will work with the U.N. Security Council to meet our common challenge," Mr. Bush said, calming fears that the United States would bypass the United Nations. As it turned out, that's exactly what Washington did six months later when it went to war in Iraq without the United Nations behind it.
For a lot of critics of President Bush's handling of Saddam Hussein, the announcement Wednesday that the United States is willing to join Europeans in talks with Iran over its nuclear program, provided Tehran suspends its uranium activities, was like a recurring dream:
Was the administration again using public diplomacy for political cover while preparing to use military force?
This time, all signs say no.
The world of June 2006 is fundamentally different from that of September 2002, just one year after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Back then, the United States was fresh from toppling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, in a war viewed sympathetically at home and in many other countries.
And while a connection between the Sept. 11 attacks and Saddam Hussein was never proved, there was widespread belief that the Bush administration was correct in its determination that Mr. Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. After a wave of anthrax attacks in the United States, the idea of ridding Iraq of chemical and biological weapons seemed a noble one. And President Bush's domestic approval rating was at 69 percent.
Fast forward to today. Thanks to the botched intelligence on Iraq's weapons program, it would be harder to rally a coalition of the willing, let alone the United Nations, for military strikes against Iran.
American troops are stretched, and polls show that most Americans think the war in Iraq is going badly.
Iran has vastly different options and resources than Iraq did. If attacked, it could retaliate in Iraq, for instance, given its close ties to Shiites who now hold power there.
But even if the military option isn't palatable to the United States and its allies now, neither is the idea of living with an Iran with nuclear weapons. If Iran gets closer to acquiring — or acquires — a bomb, policy makers could one day be tempted to think that a military clash is worth risking.
But that point hasn't been reached yet.
"The U.S. doesn't have the stomach for military invasion, and the world community is not going to stand by this time," said Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University.
James B. Steinberg, who was deputy national security adviser under President Clinton, said that this time Bush administration officials "recognize they don't have a lot of unilateral options."
Mr. Steinberg and Mr. Milani praised the administration move toward Iran, saying it puts the United States in a good position no matter how Iran responds.
Iran says its uranium enrichment activity is peaceful, and it is technically correct in saying that such activity is allowed under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. Last week, Iranian officials reiterated that their nuclear program is a sovereignty issue.
The initiative agreed to late Thursday by the United States and five major powers offers incentives if Iran suspends its pursuit of nuclear activities. But even if Iran declines the administration's offer, the United States, by making it, has broken the Security Council impasse and pushed the United Nations closer to coercive measures.
Such an outcome might not surprise the Americans, since there is at least one similarity to the events leading up to the Iraq war: American officials start out pessimistic about what can come from talks with a deceptive and mendacious adversary.
But even if this initiative proves to be a feint that only shows up the Iranians' bad faith, instead of resolving the crisis, the consequences would presumably be very different than they were with Iraq: sanctions by a united group of allies this time, rather than a war that splits American alliances.
Diplomats and analysts say that if Iran rejects the package, the United States would be in a better position to argue for sanctions. Indeed, the American move is as much directed toward the rest of the world as Iran, reflecting another lesson from the Iraq war, when the United States was accused of ignoring advice from allies and foes alike.
On Wednesday, for example, before they announced their new willingness to negotiate with Iran, senior administration officials telephoned a handful of academics and opinion makers, including Democrats, to talk through the new Iran strategy with them.
New York Times
June 4, 2006
WASHINGTON--DOES this sound familiar? The Bush administration, after months of hinting that it is considering military options to rid a certain oil-producing Middle Eastern country whose name begins with "I" of its alleged weapons program, says that it's willing to try diplomacy.
Publicly, American officials say the offer shows the United States is keen to work with other countries diplomatically to resolve the crisis. But it soon starts to look as if the public diplomacy is just a way for American officials to say they have exhausted all options and tried to play nice. In reality, American officials had already begun planning for war.
That was the chain of events playing out on Sept. 12, 2002, when President Bush, in a speech to the United Nations, committed himself to seeking an international consensus on confronting Saddam Hussein. "My nation will work with the U.N. Security Council to meet our common challenge," Mr. Bush said, calming fears that the United States would bypass the United Nations. As it turned out, that's exactly what Washington did six months later when it went to war in Iraq without the United Nations behind it.
For a lot of critics of President Bush's handling of Saddam Hussein, the announcement Wednesday that the United States is willing to join Europeans in talks with Iran over its nuclear program, provided Tehran suspends its uranium activities, was like a recurring dream:
Was the administration again using public diplomacy for political cover while preparing to use military force?
This time, all signs say no.
The world of June 2006 is fundamentally different from that of September 2002, just one year after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Back then, the United States was fresh from toppling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, in a war viewed sympathetically at home and in many other countries.
And while a connection between the Sept. 11 attacks and Saddam Hussein was never proved, there was widespread belief that the Bush administration was correct in its determination that Mr. Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. After a wave of anthrax attacks in the United States, the idea of ridding Iraq of chemical and biological weapons seemed a noble one. And President Bush's domestic approval rating was at 69 percent.
Fast forward to today. Thanks to the botched intelligence on Iraq's weapons program, it would be harder to rally a coalition of the willing, let alone the United Nations, for military strikes against Iran.
American troops are stretched, and polls show that most Americans think the war in Iraq is going badly.
Iran has vastly different options and resources than Iraq did. If attacked, it could retaliate in Iraq, for instance, given its close ties to Shiites who now hold power there.
But even if the military option isn't palatable to the United States and its allies now, neither is the idea of living with an Iran with nuclear weapons. If Iran gets closer to acquiring — or acquires — a bomb, policy makers could one day be tempted to think that a military clash is worth risking.
But that point hasn't been reached yet.
"The U.S. doesn't have the stomach for military invasion, and the world community is not going to stand by this time," said Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University.
James B. Steinberg, who was deputy national security adviser under President Clinton, said that this time Bush administration officials "recognize they don't have a lot of unilateral options."
Mr. Steinberg and Mr. Milani praised the administration move toward Iran, saying it puts the United States in a good position no matter how Iran responds.
Iran says its uranium enrichment activity is peaceful, and it is technically correct in saying that such activity is allowed under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. Last week, Iranian officials reiterated that their nuclear program is a sovereignty issue.
The initiative agreed to late Thursday by the United States and five major powers offers incentives if Iran suspends its pursuit of nuclear activities. But even if Iran declines the administration's offer, the United States, by making it, has broken the Security Council impasse and pushed the United Nations closer to coercive measures.
Such an outcome might not surprise the Americans, since there is at least one similarity to the events leading up to the Iraq war: American officials start out pessimistic about what can come from talks with a deceptive and mendacious adversary.
But even if this initiative proves to be a feint that only shows up the Iranians' bad faith, instead of resolving the crisis, the consequences would presumably be very different than they were with Iraq: sanctions by a united group of allies this time, rather than a war that splits American alliances.
Diplomats and analysts say that if Iran rejects the package, the United States would be in a better position to argue for sanctions. Indeed, the American move is as much directed toward the rest of the world as Iran, reflecting another lesson from the Iraq war, when the United States was accused of ignoring advice from allies and foes alike.
On Wednesday, for example, before they announced their new willingness to negotiate with Iran, senior administration officials telephoned a handful of academics and opinion makers, including Democrats, to talk through the new Iran strategy with them.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 9:53 AM
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