[Peace-discuss] Chicago Tribune prepares to invade Iran

[David Green]

Relearning lessons in the war on terror

By Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow and historian
at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University:
Tribune Media Services
Published August 25, 2006

>From the recent Israel-Hezbollah war in southern
Lebanon to the jihadists in Iraq's Sunni Triangle to
the repeated efforts by Islamists across the globe to
trump Sept. 11, 2001, what old lessons about terrorism
are we in the West finding ourselves having to
relearn?

First, death is the mantra of terrorists. In urban
landscapes, they hide among apartment buildings, use
human shields and welcome all fatalities--friendly or
hostile, combatant or civilian. Death of any kind,
they think, makes the West recoil but allows them to
pose as oppressed victims.

Their nihilistic hatred intimidates, rather than
repels, third parties--whether "moderate" Arabs,
Europeans who back off from peacekeeping in Lebanon,
or the Western public at large. Our enemies call Jews
"pigs" and "apes" and employ racist caricatures of
America's African-American secretary of state.
Meanwhile, we worry about incurring charges of
"Islamophobia," when we should be stressing our
liberal values and unabashedly contrasting Western
civilization with the 7th Century barbarism of the
jihadists.

Second, windfall petrol-dollar profits (now around
$500 billion annually) financially fuel radical Islam.
Iranian cash allowed Hezbollah to acquire the
sophisticated weaponry needed to achieve parity in
ambushes with the Israel Defense Forces. Unless the
U.S. can find a way to force oil prices back down
below $40 a barrel, Islamists may eventually be better
equipped with weapons they buy than we are with
munitions we make.

Third, as Israel's experience in Lebanon demonstrated,
air power alone can never defeat terrorists. Precision
bombing is a tempting option for Westerners since it
ensures few if any of our own casualties. But
jihadists, through the use of human shields and biased
photographers, are able to portray guided weapons as
being as indiscriminate as carpet-bombing.

Fourth, the use of old shoot-and-scoot
missiles--Katyushas, Qassams and worse to come--is
altering the strategic calculus, as they now number in
the many thousands. The fear of Hezbollah's near
limitless mobile launchers enabled terrorists to put
whole Israeli cities in bomb shelters and almost shut
down the country's economy.

Fifth, intelligence remains lousy. The lapses are not
just an American problem but stymie the Israeli Mossad
as well. The latter had little idea of the anti-tank
weapons and impenetrable bunkers of Hezbollah a few
miles from the border.

Under the jihadists' code of vigilante justice, local
informants suspected of supplying tips to Westerners
are almost instantly and publicly executed. We, on the
other hand, flay ourselves over targeted wiretaps.

Sixth, there is little evidence of either the efficacy
or morality of the vaunted "multilateral" diplomacy.
The French have steadily downsized their proposed
contribution to the UN peacekeeping force in southern
Lebanon. Cash-hungry Russia sold its best weapons to
terrorists. And oil-hungry China supplies Iran with
missiles.

And seventh, the reputation of the international media
in the Middle East for both accuracy and fairness has
been lost. In the recent war in Lebanon, news agencies
were accused by bloggers of publishing staged photos,
and one agency, Reuters, was embarrassed when it found
out-- thanks again to the work of bloggers--that one
of its freelancers had doctored war-zone photos.

Journalists rarely interviewed or filmed Hezbollah
soldiers. In the Middle East, reporters are scared
stiff of Islamic fundamentalists, but not the Israeli
or American military.

Despite the enormous advantages of Western militaries,
there is no guarantee we can keep ahead of
terrorists--especially since they are becoming more
adept while we seem tired and unsure about whom, why
and how we should fight.

So far, the U.S. has been able to dodge the latest
terrorist bullets. So far, Afghanistan and Iraq are
clinging to their newfound democracies. So far, Israel
has been able to survive Hamas and Hezbollah, and
these groups' state sponsors in Iran and Syria.

But unless we in the West adapt more quickly than do
canny Islamic terrorists in this constantly evolving
war, cease our internecine fighting and stop
forgetting what we've learned about our enemies--there
will be disasters to come far worse than Sept. 11.

____________________________

Squeezing Iran (editorial)

Published August 27, 2006

Years of bargaining with Iran has yielded the exact
opposite of what was sought: Iran now seems more
determined than ever to join the nuclear club. The UN
Security Council's deadline for Iran to freeze its
uranium enrichment program passes on Thursday. Tehran
has refused to comply. The U.S. and others have
signaled they will push for sanctions right after the
deadline.

Question: Can tough economic sanctions persuade Tehran
to surrender its nuclear dreams?

Yes, strong sanctions might work. Applied to the right
pressure points, economic leverage can squeeze a
government where it hurts--in the economy. That pain
can translate into political pressure, forcing leaders
to change course.

But it is never easy.

History suggests that more often than not, such
sanctions fail. They fail because politics, profits
and corruption often trump the greater good. They fail
because there are always profiteers waiting to smuggle
goods into an embargoed country. And they fail because
there are always countries willing to reap profits by
doing business under the table.

The central questions now: How much economic pain are
Iranians prepared to absorb for the sake of becoming a
nuclear power? How much pain is the rest of the world
willing to inflict--and suffer--to stop them?

Put another way, which is scarier: $4-a-gallon gas or
a nuclear Iran?

The Security Council is likely to start with
relatively mild actions, limiting travel visas for
officials, for instance, or banning equipment that
could be used in Iran's nuclear industry.

The U.S. has been working with European banks to curb
financial activities in Iran, even in the absence of a
Security Council resolution. In May, the Washington
Post reported that a Treasury Department task force
had developed a plan to "restrict the Tehran
government's access to foreign currency and global
markets, shut its overseas accounts and freeze assets
held in Europe and Asia." A spooked Iranian government
has reportedly been transferring funds out of some
European banks, fearing a freeze.

Such sanctions often take years to work. Iran may be
able to build a bomb by the end of the decade, if not
sooner.

The fastest and most effective way to squeeze Iran is
to target its oil and gas industries. Iran is the
world's fourth leading oil producer, after Saudi
Arabia, Russia and the U.S. It accounts for about 5
percent of the world market. It is believed to have
earned about $49 billion selling oil and natural gas
from March 2005 to March 2006--more than double its
take of four years ago, the Wall Street Journal
reported. Crimp that pipeline and Iran will notice
immediately. Of course, so will everyone else. Some
estimate that would send oil prices soaring to $100 or
more a barrel.

The other sensitive Iranian target: gasoline. Iran has
vast oil reserves but it lacks sufficient refinery
capacity and must import more than a third of its
gasoline, mainly from Europe and India. (It also
subsidizes gasoline so that Iranians pay about 40
cents a gallon.) A gas embargo could cripple much of
the country's industry, if it were stringently
enforced.

But there's also a strong chance that such drastic
actions would boomerang. Instead of undercutting the
mullahs, harsh economic punishment could anger
Iranians and help the regime rally the country. Many
Iranians support the country's nuclear ambitions out
of national pride.

Iran is flush with oil cash and swaggering on the
world stage. But it is not invulnerable. Its economy,
even with all that oil money, is shaky because it is
under the stifling control of the central government.
Inflation and unemployment are running in the double
digits.

Anything less than the Security Council's complete
resolve to stop Iran's nuclear program through tough
sanctions is destined to fail. Russia and China, with
billions of dollars in trade and investment with Iran,
are likely to be reluctant to join the U.S. and its
allies in placing a great deal of economic and
diplomatic pressure on Tehran. They must be convinced
to join the rest of the world on this.

The price of failure will be extraordinarily high.
Failure will leave just two options, neither in the
least appealing: living with a nuclear Iran or
mounting a military strike to stop it. 

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune 

__________________________________

U.S. can be team player, for a while
Multilateralism works, but it has its limits

Charles Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist based in
Washington: Washington Post Writers Group
Published August 28, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The cowboy has been retired.
Multilateralism is back. Diplomacy is king. That's the
conventional wisdom about President Bush's second
term: Under the influence of Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, the administration has finally
embraced "the allies."

This is considered a radical change of course. It is
not. Even the most ardent unilateralist prefers
multilateral support under one of two conditions: (1)
there is something the allies will actually help
accomplish, or (2) there is nothing to be done anyway,
so multilateralism gives you the cover of appearing to
do something.

The six-party negotiations on North Korea are an
example of the second. North Korea went nuclear a long
time ago. Our time to act was during the Bush 41 and
Clinton administrations. Nothing was done. And nothing
can be done now. Once a country has gone nuclear,
there is no return. The nukes themselves act as a
deterrent against military measures. And no diplomat,
however mellifluous, is going to talk a nuclear North
Korea into dismantling the one thing that gives it any
significance in the world.

Like most multilateral efforts, the six-party talks
give only the appearance of activity, thereby
providing cover to a hopelessly lost cause. Nothing
wrong with that kind of multilateralism.

Lebanon is an example of the other
category--multilateralism that might actually
accomplish something. The U.S. worked assiduously with
France to draft a Security Council resolution that
would create a powerful international force, and thus
a real buffer, in southern Lebanon. However, when the
Lebanese government and the Arab League objected,
France became their lawyer and renegotiated the draft
with the U.S. The State Department acquiesced to a far
weaker resolution on the reasonable grounds that since
France was going to lead and be the major participant
in the international force, we should not dictate the
terms under which the force would operate.

But we underestimated French perfidy. (Overestimating
it is mathematically impossible.) Once the resolution
was passed, France announced that instead of the
expected 5,000 troops, it would be sending 200. The
French defense minister explained that they were not
going to send out soldiers under a limited mandate and
weak rules of engagement--precisely the mandate and
rules of engagement that the French had just gotten us
to agree to.

This breathtaking duplicity--payback for the Louisiana
Purchase?--left the State Department red-faced. (It
recouped somewhat when, Thursday night, France agreed
to send an additional 1,600 troops.) But the setback
was minor compared to what we face with Iran.
Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is a major irritant, but
a nuclear Iran is a major strategic threat.

The problem is not quite as intractable as North Korea
because Iran has not crossed the nuclear threshold.
And American diplomacy has, up until now, been
defensible. Secretary Rice's June initiative,
postponing Security Council debate on sanctions, was
meant to keep the allies on board. It offered Iran a
major array of economic and diplomatic incentives
(including talks with the U.S.), with but a single
condition: Iran had to verifiably halt uranium
enrichment.

Iran's answer is in. It will not. Indeed, on the day
before it sent its reply to the UN, Iran barred
inspectors with the International Atomic Energy
Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, from the
uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz. Our exercise
in multilateralism has now reached criticality. We
never expected Iran to respond positively. The whole
point in going the extra mile was to demonstrate
American goodwill and thus get our partners to support
real sanctions at the Security Council.

But this will not work. The Russians and Chinese are
already sending signals that they will allow Iran to
endlessly drag out the process. Even if we do get
sanctions imposed on Iran, they undoubtedly will be
weak. And even if they are strong, the mullahs will
not give up the glory and dominion (especially over
the Arabs) that come with the bomb, in exchange for a
mess of pottage.

Realistically speaking, the point of this multilateral
exercise cannot be to stop Iran's nuclear program by
diplomacy. That has always been a fantasy. It will
take military means. There will be terrible
consequences from such an attack. These must be
weighed against the terrible consequences of allowing
an openly apocalyptic Iranian leadership from
acquiring weapons of genocide.

The point of the current elaborate exercise in
multilateral diplomacy is to slightly alter that
future calculation. By demonstrating extraordinary
forbearance and accommodation, perhaps we will have
purchased the acquiescence of our closest
allies--Britain, Germany and, yes, France--to a
military strike on that fateful day when diplomacy has
run its course.



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com