{"id":278,"date":"2007-04-23T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2007-04-23T14:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=278"},"modified":"2007-04-25T12:53:59","modified_gmt":"2007-04-25T17:53:59","slug":"iran-contra-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=278","title":{"rendered":"Iran-Contra, Redux?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Washington wants to sell weapons<\/title>Washington wants to sell weapons to the Saudis.\u00c2\u00a0 Watch Right Zionists squirm.<\/p>\n<p>We’ve been here before.<\/p>\n<p>In the immediate aftermath of the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Right Arabists like Reagan administration Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger responded by bolstering US relations with Saudi Arabia and Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 The goal was both to reassure the Saudis that the US would not retreat from the Gulf and to help the Saudis and Iraq defend the Gulf against Iranian influence.<\/p>\n<p>Today, as the US is bogged down in Iraq, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (and, according to Gates, the State Department) wants to send the same message, allegedly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/hasen\/spages\/850746.html\">offering to sell <span class=\"t13\">Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs<\/span> to the Saudis<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the story centers on Washington’s efforts to construct and maintain a broad <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zmag.org\/content\/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10601\"> coalition against Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But Gates appears also to feel the need to “reassure” the Saudis of US support, more generally, if only to keep Riyadh out of the hands of Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>Gates <a href=\"http:\/\/www.defenselink.mil\/transcripts\/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=3940\"> explained<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Q Mr. Secretary, could we go back for a moment to your visit here in \tIsrael? (I thought ?) you (were discussing ?) your concerns about future \tU.S. arms exports to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations. And were you able \tto reach any kind of understanding on — (inaudible) — any Israeli fears \tthat there may be?<\/p>\n<p>SEC. GATES: We did talk about that. And I talked about the — first of all, \tI made it clear that it’s a State Department program, not a Defense \tDepartment program. But that I thought that, look, we need to look at the \tcircumstances in terms of the overall strategic environment and in terms of \tthe concerns of other neighbors (more over ?) Iran, perhaps, than Israel, \tand that they needed to take into consideration the overall strategic \tenvironment and how that has changed. So I made it pretty clear that there \tare alternatives for their neighbors in terms of sophisticated weapons, and \tthat needed to be taken (into consideration ?) as well.<\/p>\n<p>Q Could you just expand on that a little bit? You say there are \talternatives?<\/p>\n<p>SEC. GATES: Well, I’m confident the Russians would be very happy to sell \tweapons in the region.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Gates may simply be playing the Russian card to snow the Israelis, but <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=207\">Gates may be something of a Russia hawk<\/a> and Putin’s historic <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/world\/middleeast\/articles\/2007\/02\/12\/putin_saudi_king_meet_in_landmark_visit?mode=PF\"> February visit to Saudi Arabia<\/a> might have raised alarm bells at the Pentagon (as it certainly did for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/Research\/RussiaandEurasia\/wm1382.cfm\">Ariel Cohen<\/a> over at the Heritage Foundation).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Iran-Contra, Redux?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Back in the early 1980s, the Reagan Administration’s tilt toward Saudi Arabia created <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zmag.org\/content\/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10185\">a serious dilemma for Right Zionists<\/a> (aka, Neocons) feared stronger ties between the US and Saudi Arabia at least as much as they feared the revolutionary regime in Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Today, leading Right Zionists like Michael Ledeen present themselves as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/filter.,pubID.25749\/pub_detail.asp\"> supremely hawkish on Iran<\/a>, ruling out any diplomatic settlement with Iran, etc.<\/p>\n<p>And Ledeen, in particular, likes to talk about how the Iranians declared war on the United States in 1979 and have been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/filter.,pubID.25750\/pub_detail.asp\"> waging that war ever since<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Ayatollah Khomeini branded the U.S. “The Great Satan” in 1979, and \tIranians and Iranian proxies have been killing Americans and American \tfriends and allies ever since…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Be that as it may, Ledeen and Co. have not always favored confrontation with Iran.\u00c2\u00a0 The reason is quite simple: Right Zionists consider the Arab Gulf to be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jcpa.org\/hkingdom.htm\">a permanent enemy of Israel<\/a> while they consider “<a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=67\">eternal Iran<\/a>” an essential ally.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Ledeen and the Right Zionists were the architects of the plan to reach out to Iran during the Reagan administration (the so-called Iran-Contra affair) and Ledeen’s <em>diplomatic drum beat<\/em> continued until <em>after<\/em> the Gulf War.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=79\">a previous post<\/a>, I have recalled some of Ledeen’s earlier, more “diplomatic” positions:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Some \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Right Zionist history\u00e2\u20ac\u009d may help make the point: way back on July \t19, 1988, Michael Ledeen\u00e2\u20ac\u201cfamous for his involvement in the Iran-Contra \taffair\u00e2\u20ac\u201cpublished an Op-Ed in the <em>New York Times<\/em> entitled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \tTalk With Iran Now\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t find an on-line copy. Link anyone?). Here \tare some excerpts of his position at that time:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The <strong>United States<\/strong>, which <strong>should have been \t\texploring improved relations with Iran before\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 should now seize the \t\topportunity to do so<\/strong>. To wait might suggest to even pro-Western \t\tIranians that a refusal to seek better relations is based on an \t\tanti-Iran animus rather than objections to specific Iranian actions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Those Iranians who have been calling for better relations with the \t\tWest have clearly been gathering strength\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Among the advocates of such \t\timproved relations are two leading candidates to succeed Ayatollah \t\tRuhollah Khomeini: <strong>Ayatollah Hojatolislam Rafsanjani<\/strong> \t\tand the <strong>Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Yet there has been no sense of urgency among our top policymakers to \t\tdesign and conduct a policy toward Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u201cin part because our top \t\tofficials, traumatized by the Iran-contra scandal and the hearings and \t\tinvestigatiosn that followed, were determined to to be caught dealing \t\twith the Iranians\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Yet past mistakes should not prevent the Administration from pursuing \t\tthe clear chance for <strong>a potential breakthrough in one of the more \t\tstrategically sensitive areas of the world<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Same theme, again, in a February 1, 1991 <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> \tOp-Ed, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Iran\u00e2\u20ac\u201cBack in the Game,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as the US waged war against Iraq.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Iran is once again a player in the Great Game<\/strong>, even \t\tto the point of being able to contemplate territorial acquisitions of \t\tits own once Iraq has been defeated\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n<p>Iran will be seated at the table when the new Middle Eastern order is \t\tdesigned at war\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s end, and<strong> it will not be easy for the U.S. to \t\tknow how to deal with it<\/strong>. For <strong>there is no country in \t\tthe world that American diplomats have<\/strong> shunned so totally, \t\tindeed <strong>avoided so compulsively, as Iran<\/strong>. We have done \t\tso primarily for political reasons; ever since the Iran-Contra affair, \t\t<strong>no American leader has wished to be caught talking to an \t\tIranian, even though many recognized the many sound geopolitical reasons \t\tfor dealing with Iran<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It <strong>would have been wiser to have dealt with the Iranians \t\tearlier<\/strong>, but <strong>we now have little choice in the matter<\/strong>. \t\tOur contacts will surely increase, and President Rafsanjani and company \t\twill likely sit at the postwar negotiating table, thereby producing the \t\t<strong>great historical irony that Saddam Hussein, the conqueror of \t\tPersia, will have forced us to resume sensible relations with a \t\treemerging Iran<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The immediate political question today is whether the <a href=\"http:\/\/select.nytimes.com\/search\/restricted\/article?res=F40F10FA3D5B0C768CDDAD0894DF404482\"> Israeli government will mobilize Congressional opposition<\/a> to the recent proposal to sell arms to the Saudis.\u00c2\u00a0 This may depend, in part, on the balance of forces between Right Zionists in the US and the ruling Kadima party in Israel.<\/p>\n<p>But equally important in the long term may be whether and under what circumstances Ledeen, or some of his Right Zionist allies, might break ranks with the proposed Saudi-Israeli, anti-Iranian coalition and discover “sound geopolitical reasons for dealing with Iran” and move to thwart their “real” enemy, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/pubID.13383\/pub_detail.asp\">King Abdullah’s Saudi Arabia<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If such an abrupt reversal is in the cards, it may be helpful to understand <em><strong>why Ledeen reversed himself after 1991.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>What made Ledeen move from diplomacy to regime change?\u00c2\u00a0 What would it take for him to move back?<\/p>\n<p>This is not a rhetorical question.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know and it seems important.<\/p>\n<p>Ledeen could tell us, but he may be too busy covering the tracks of his previous preference for “diplomacy” and pretending to have been fighting the Iranians “ever since” the revolution of 1979.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington wants to sell weaponsWashington wants to sell weapons to the Saudis.\u00c2\u00a0 Watch Right Zionists squirm. We’ve been here before. In the immediate aftermath of the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Right Arabists like Reagan administration Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger responded by bolstering US relations with Saudi Arabia and Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 The goal was both to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,11,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278"}],"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=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}