{"id":263,"date":"2007-03-21T09:01:27","date_gmt":"2007-03-21T14:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=263"},"modified":"2007-03-21T09:01:27","modified_gmt":"2007-03-21T14:01:27","slug":"cheney-and-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=263","title":{"rendered":"Cheney and Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\" \/> <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=windows-1252\" \/><title>What is the relationship between<\/title>What is the relationship between Cheney and Iran?<\/p>\n<p>In a March 20, 2007 <em>New York Times<\/em> column, Nicholas Kristof describes  the VP as &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/select.nytimes.com\/2007\/03\/20\/opinion\/20kristof.html?n=Top\/Opinion\/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed\/Op-Ed\/Columnists\">Iran&#8217;s  Operative in the White House<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Is Dick Cheney an Iranian mole?<\/p>\n<p>Consider that the Bush administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first major military intervention  \twas to overthrow Afghanistan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Taliban regime, Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bitter foe to the  \teast. Then the administration toppled Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even worse enemy to the west,  \tthe Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>You really think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a coincidence? That of all 193 nations in the  \tworld, we just happen to topple the two neighboring regimes that Iran  \tdespises?<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, consider how our invasion of Iraq went down. The U.S. dismantled  \tIraq\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s army, broke the Baath Party and helped install a pro-Iranian  \tgovernment in Baghdad. If Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ayatollahs had written the script, they  \tcouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have done better \u00e2\u20ac\u201d so maybe they did write the script &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>We fought Iraq, and Iran won. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just another coincidence?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Kristof, it seems, is joking.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>O.K., O.K. Of course, all this is absurd. Mr. Cheney isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an Iranian  \tmole&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Cheney harmed American interests not out of malice but out of <strong> \tineptitude<\/strong>. I concede that they honestly wanted the best for America,  \tbut we still ended up getting the worst.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I have no problem stipulating a lot of ineptitude in the Bush administration,  starting at the top.\u00c2\u00a0 But I have also warned&#8211;in my essay, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zmag.org\/content\/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10185\">Beyond  Incompetence: Washington&#8217;s War in Iraq<\/a>&#8220;&#8211;that the simplistic charge of  ineptitude can lead one to <em>underestimate<\/em> opponents.\u00c2\u00a0 This is almost  certainly the case when thinking about Cheney and geopolitical strategy.<\/p>\n<p>So, without suggesting that there is any transparency about Cheney&#8217;s current  thinking about Iran, it might be worth recalling that Cheney was not always an  Iran hawk, especially when it came to thinking about Russia and the Caspian Sea.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dick Cheney, chief executive officer of Dallas-based Halliburton Co. and  \tformer U.S. defense secretary, argued Wednesday the U.S. policy toward Iran  \thampers another American effort, to encourage Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and the  \tother countries in the Caspian region to act <strong>independently of Moscow<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>Policies against Iran interfere with our policy of independence for the  \tCaspian nations<\/strong>,&#8221; Cheney said. (&#8220;U.S. moves to foil Iran pipeline;  \tKazakhs seek loans for alternate routes,&#8221; <em>The Houston Chronicle<\/em>,  \tNovember 20, 1997, p.2)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A lot has changed since then.\u00c2\u00a0 Among other things, Cheney&#8217;s potential  overtures to Iran in 2000 were <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=157\">blocked by the Israel  lobby<\/a> in the US Congress.<\/p>\n<p>But Cheney has certainly not lost his focus the urgency of &#8220;our policy of  independence for the Caspian nations.&#8221;\u00c2\u00a0 Some of that has meant working  mightily to construct energy pipelines that bypass Russia and Iran.\u00c2\u00a0 But  some of it has also meant preparing the way&#8211;one way or another&#8211;for a new dawn  in US-Iranian relations, all at the expense of Russian influence in the Caspian.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, according to Cheney&#8217;s own calendar, the time is coming near:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I think we&#8217;d be better off if we in fact backed off those [Iran]  \tsanctions . . . didn&#8217;t try to impose secondary boycotts on [Australian]  \tcompanies like BHP trying to do business over there,&#8221; he told the Business  \tSunday program.<\/p>\n<p>For several years BHP has been discussing a 2400km <strong>natural gas pipeline  \tfrom Turkmenistan<\/strong> through Iran to Turkey but has been reluctant to  \tcommit to the project for fear of US reprisals&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think the [hawkish] Iranian policy the US is following is also  \tinappropriate, frankly,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we ought to begin to work to <strong>rebuild those relationships with  \tIran . . . it may take 10 years<\/strong> but it&#8217;s important that we do that.&#8221;\u00c2\u00a0  \t(&#8220;BHP pipeline should not face US sanctions, says Cheney,&#8221; The Australian,  \tApril 20, 1998, p.35.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It may take ten years.\u00c2\u00a0 Hmmm.\u00c2\u00a0 That gives him until April 20, 2008.\u00c2\u00a0  Mark your calendars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the relationship betweenWhat is the relationship between Cheney and Iran? In a March 20, 2007 New York Times column, Nicholas Kristof describes the VP as &#8220;Iran&#8217;s Operative in the White House.&#8221; Is Dick Cheney an Iranian mole? Consider that the Bush administration\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first major military intervention was to overthrow Afghanistan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Taliban regime, Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,6,11,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}