Love of the Land: The limits of American engagement with Iran

The limits of American engagement with Iran

Elie Fawaz
NOW Lebanon
12 February '10

There is nothing solid to the eloquent words US President Barack Obama uses to address the many crises his country is experiencing, especially in the Middle East. By now it has become obvious for enemies and allies of the United States alike that this American administration has no foreign policy at all, and this is a luxury that the United States cannot afford, especially when it comes to the Middle East – the home of 70% of the oil reserves in the world – unless it has decided to cease being the world super power and is instead gunning for the Miss Congeniality title.

Obviously the myriad envoys coming to the region with the mantra of engagement without coercion has sent the wrong message and has so far led the region to the edge of a destructive war. This became clear during the American presidential campaign, when America’s enemies and allies understood that an Obama victory would mean the undoing of everything George W. Bush did for the past eight years, regardless of the consequences.

The enemies of the United States had to be a little patient, the allies weary. Undoing Bush’s policies in the Middle East meant giving the region up to the next strongest power. It happened in the 1980s, when Iran and its allies decided to push America out of the region successfully, but with the small difference that at the time America’s allies were by far stronger, and Iran wasn’t going nuclear.

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Love of the Land: The limits of American engagement with Iran

Love of the Land: De la Démagogie en Amérique

De la Démagogie en Amérique

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
18 January '10

In Tocqueville's days, traveling to America was such a big deal that you had you write a book about it –especially if you were an aristocrat with political ambitions in post-revolutionary France. Hence the masterly and classic De la Démocratie en Amérique.

Today, even writing a blog upon returning from the new world would seem preposterous; yet I venture to claim that my recent journey there makes a worthwhile story.

I happened to be in Washington DC right after the "deadline" set by the Obama Administration on Iran had been missed. With a few exceptions, most people on Capitol Hill barely took notice that America's credibility and deterrence were being tested. Congress' attention was primarily focused on healthcare reform as well as on some explosive underwear made in Nigeria.

Iran continues to produce stocks of enriched uranium. It was offered a deal by which Russia and France would have taken much of its stock of low-enriched uranium and turned it into special higher-enriched fuel for a Teheran-based research reactor. The deadline for taking that offer was the end of 2009, and Iran rejected it.

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Love of the Land: De la Démagogie en Amérique

Love of the Land: America's War Strategy

America's War Strategy

Mark Siverberg
Hudson New York
08 January '10

During World War II, it would have been unthinkable for the Allies to have stopped at the German border and begun stabilizing France after its liberation in 1944 before destroying the Third Reich and de-Nazifying Germany. Similarly, the stabilization of the Middle East can only be accomplished after the mullahs are brought down and Iran has been de-Islamified.

If the American people have grown weary of war, it is because the average American is tired of waging futile wars predicated on a failed strategy. If we are being asked to sacrifice blood and treasure, we have the right to demand victory, and a military strategy based on containment can never defeat an enemy determined to wage a war of conquest.

According to Israeli intelligence sources, US president Barack Obama has given Iran another year’s grace beyond December 31, 2009 as an inducement to cease its quest for a nuclear weapon. The inducements he is offering (delaying the production of the super bunker-buster bomb and delaying the implementation of the just passed House economic sanctions bill) would effectively free Iran from the threat of severe economic sanctions and the bombardment of its subterranean nuclear facilities. If true, it will all be over by then: Tehran will have attained “the bomb” plus the means of delivery, and a nuclear shield under which to export its Islamic revolution.

This dangerous pandering to a regime ideologically committed to establishing a global Islamic caliphate is symptomatic of a greater problem that has dogged American war strategy for decades. The Obama administration fails to realize (as the Western powers failed to realize in 1938 when confronted by Nazi aggression) that the road to stabilizing the Palestinian territories, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, and virtually the entire Middle East runs through Tehran. The United States has not yet learned that a nation cannot stop an aggressive enemy bent on conquest unless and until that enemy has been removed and its infrastructures eradicated.

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Foreign Policy Analyst, Ariel Center for Policy Research

Love of the Land: America's War Strategy

Love of the Land: Michael Scheuer: terrorists should focus on Israel, not the U.S.

Michael Scheuer: terrorists should focus on Israel, not the U.S.

Adam Holland
05 January '10

In an interview televised on C-SPAN on January 4, former CIA bin Laden Unit Chief Michael Scheuer advocated that the United States should "dissuade" terrorists from focusing their anger on the U.S. by "persuad(ing) them to focus their anger on what they themselves perceive as their enemy: the governments that ... oppress them and Israel". His comment is viewable at 10:30 of the below-linked video:

C-SPAN Video Player - Michael Scheuer, Former CIA Bin Laden Unit Chief (1996-99)

Following this modest proposal to throw Israel to the wolves, Scheuer received the following grossly anti-Semitic question from a caller called John from Franklin, NY who identified himself as a political independent (viewable at 15:00 of the above-linked video). Question and answer are presented below in their entirety. Scheuer's response is instructive:

(This specific clip can also be seen by clicking here at Elder of Zion)

John from Franklin: I for one am sick and tired of all these Jews coming on C-SPAN and other stations and pushing us to go to war against our Muslim friends. They're willing to spend the last drop of American blood and treasure to get their way in the world. They have way too much power in this country. People like Wolfowitz and Feith an the other neo-cons -- they jewed us into Iraq -- and now we're going to spend the next 60 years rehabilitating our soldiers -- I'm sick and tired of it.

C-SPAN host: Any comment on that?

Scheuer: Yeah. I think that American foreign policy is ultimately up to the American people. One of the big things we have not been able to discuss for the past 30 years is the Israelis. Whether we want to be involved in fighting Israel's wars in the future is something that Americans should be able to talk about. They may vote yes. They may want to see their kids killed in Iraq or somewhere else to defend Israel. But the question is: we need to talk about it. Ultimately Israel is a country that is of no particular worth the United States.

C-SPAN host: You mean strategically?

Scheuer: Strategically. They have no resources we need. Their manpower is minimal. Their association with us is a negative for the United States. Now that's a fact. What you want to do about that fact is entirely different. But for anyone to stand up in the United States and day that support for Israel doesn't hurt us in the Muslim world is to just defy reality.

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Love of the Land: Michael Scheuer: terrorists should focus on Israel, not the U.S.