The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) eagerly awaited report on Iran’s nuclear program delivered few surprises and, while offering details of a number of dual-use technologies under development in Iran, did not assert that Iran had resumed a full-scale nuclear weapons program. Eager to capitalize on the media coverage of the IAEA report, congressional hawks are pushing to impose “crippling” sanctions on the Iranian central bank, a step that would have devastating economic and political effects in Iran and, potentially, send oil prices skyrocketing.

The White House indicates that such measures are “not really currently on the table” but some of the more right-wing voices in Washington are eager to impose such drastic sanctions.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), who has threatened to “take food out of the mouths” of Iranians, issued a statement on Monday, announcing he will lead a bipartisan campaign of 92 senators to enact sanctions against Bank Markazi, Iran’s central bank.

Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) issued a statement saying:

Time is short and options are limited. Last week, I proposed moving forward and sanctioning the very core of Iran’s financing of its nuclear program: the Central Bank of Iran. I urge President Obama to make the Central Bank of Iran’s proliferation activity the target of coordinated multilateral sanctions.

And GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that, as president, he would impose “crippling economic sanctions” on Iran’s central bank.

But a closer look at what central bank sanctions might entail raises serious questions.

Central bank sanctions may disrupt oil markets and damage U.S. and global economic recoveries; weaken multilateral sanctions efforts if U.S. allies are unwilling to sign on; and extract a shocking humanitarian toll on ordinary Iranian civilians.

In fact, central bank sanctions may run counter to U.S. interests and actually strengthen the Iranian regime. Mehdi Karroubi, an influential reformist politician in Iran, warns that “sanctions have given an excuse to the government to suppress the opposition by blaming them for the unstable situation in the country,” and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria writes, “[Sanctions'] basic effect has been to weaken civil society and strengthen the state — the opposite of what we should be trying to do in that country.”

Proponents of central bank sanctions say that it is the only way to prevent a nuclear armed Iran and a military confrontation. But the reality is that central bank sanctions have a bad track record of failing to achieve their aims and, according to University of Chicago Professor Robert Pape, “economic sanctions are often a prelude to using military force.”

After the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog released its periodic report yesterday, replete with rich details about possible military dimension of Iran’s nuclear program, conservative hawks — ranging from journalists to think-tankers and even a presidential candidate — stepped up their support for a military strike on the Islamic Republic. While many in Congress are pushing for draconian sanctions on Iran, those not on Capital Hill are pushing a step farther.

Here’s a quick round-up of statements supporting a U.S. or Israeli attack from GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, former Bush administration U.N. ambassador John Bolton, Wall Street Journal opinion and editorial writer Bret Stephens, and Council on Foreign Relations scholar Max Boot.

STEPHENS: [T]he policy debate… needs to abandon the conceit that there is a third way between allowing Iran’s nuclear drive to proceed effectively unhindered or to use military force to stop it…. A (bad) argument can be made that a nuclear Iran could be contained.

BOOT: Really stopping the Iranian program would require much tougher steps on the part of the U.S.–steps such as a naval blockade to cripple the Iranian economy and/or air strikes to cripple Iran’s military capacity.

GINGRICH: Well, if the Israelis decide as matter of national survival that they have to eliminate the Iranian nuclear capacity, I would strongly support them automatically… I think to ask them to take that risk is unconscionable.

BOLTON: The only alternative now is the potential for a pre-emptive military strike against their military program, either by the United States or Israel. Diplomacy has failed. Sanctions have failed.

Watch clips of Gingrich and Bolton:

It’s worth keeping in mind the right wing has been calling for an attack on Iran absent any evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program and well before the IAEA’s report.

“Iran’s nuclear program has produced much demagoguery and dangerous speculation,” the Atlantic Council’s Barbara Slavin noted yesterday in a Politico op-ed. “Dozens of other countries, however, have conducted nuclear research without becoming nuclear weapons states,” she said, adding, “It’s not too late to dissuade Iran from building and testing a nuclear weapon.”

Herman Cain’s top foreign policy adviser J.D. Gordon’s track record of espousing a progressive view on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his consulting work for the scandal plagued Atlantic Bridge offers a confusing view of a man advising one of the least foreign policy-fluent candidates. But an examination of Gordon’s columns from the past year show a track record of inaccurately predicting outcomes in the Arab Spring and criticizing efforts to protect civilians in Bahrain, Yemen, and Egypt.

Gordon’s dismissal of democracy and human rights first emerged in a February 2011 column about the democracy movements in Yemen, Bahrain, and Egypt. He wrote:

Tanks rolling through the Pearl Square protest camps in Bahrain’s capital of Manama, and violent clashes between armed Yemeni government loyalists and thousands of protesters in Sanaa may make attractive targets for pro-democracy criticism, but we need to take a deep breath and think carefully before making the same type of miscues made in Egypt.

From the start of mass protests that erupted late last month in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the Obama administration waffled, sending weak yet mixed signals.

The administration did change its message in making increasingly explicit public statements calling on Hosni Mubarak to resign but the White House, since the beginning of the protests, urged Egyptian authorities to respect the rights of protesters. Ultimately this policy decision proved effective as Mubarak faced increasing pressure and the U.S. maintained close relations with Egypt’s transitional government.

In a March 2011 column for AOL News, Gordon argued the U.S. shouldn’t intervene militarily in Libya. He predicted:

U.S. intervention in Libya would inflame the anti-American sentiment already prevalent in the Middle East, North Africa and other regions.

Gordon was wrong again. There has been no evidence of an anti-American backlash and Libyan rebels welcomed American and NATO air support when a U.N. no fly-zone was imposed over Libya.

Gordon slammed the White House in a March column for committing U.S. forces without “a clear exit strategy.” Gordon’s Arab Spring predictions were proven wrong, once again, when NATO missions concluded at the end of October with no U.S. military casualties.

Gordon’s trend of preferring strongmen over the rights of pro-democracy demonstrators offers a simplified, if not naive, view of U.S. foreign policy interests. But this dumbed-down approach took an even stranger turn in another March column in which he used actor Charlie Sheen’s catchphrase, “Winning,” to illustrate that radical Islamists were the true winners in the Arab Spring. He wrote:

Actor Charlie Sheen’s “Winning” already stands out as one of 2011’s most memorable catchphrases. Perhaps it’s also a fitting term to analyze the Arab Spring of 2011. [...]

Let’s hope that President Barack Obama starts paying closer attention to who is Duh, Winning.

Charlie Sheen’s catchphrase is probably not a “fitting term” to analyze the Arab Spring but Gordon’s misreading of the recent unrest in the Arab world and his oversimplification of U.S. foreign policy does offer some intriguing insights into the Cain campaign’s muddled foreign policy positions.

President Obama’s decision to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by the end of the year is confusing Newt Gingrich. The former House speaker-turned-2012 GOP presidential contender said last month that Obama made the “right” decision, yet two days later suggested the president is ushering “defeat” in Iraq.

But Gingrich broke his own flip-flop record yesterday during the online portion of an interview with the Fox News “All Star” panel. First, Gingrich said “there’s no short term advantage to us being” in Iraq. And 13 seconds later, he said he does not agree with the president’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq, a position — given Gingrich’s prior statement — that even had conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer confused:

GINGRICH: If you watch in the next few weeks, the Shia are going to go after the Sunnis. I mean the second we are out of that country, the Shia, this is their first chance in hundreds of years –

KRAUTHAMMER: Are you glad that we’re out as a result of that?

GINGRICH: I think — yeah — I think there’s no short term advantage to us being there. And I really thought by the way, trying to leave 3,000 troops was an invitation for total disaster.

KRAUTHAMMER: So you approve of the agreement, or the place where the president has come to?

GINGRICH: No! No. I think we are — look if this president had been serious we’d be in a different place.

Watch it starting at 2:50:

Back in March, Gingrich attacked Obama for not having launched a no-fly zone in Libya, saying he would “exercise a no-fly zone this evening…the United States doesn’t need anybody’s permission.” Then less than 24 hours later, after the president signed off on American participation in NATO’s air campaign, Gingrich accused Obama of “opportunism,” adding, “I would not have intervened.”

Writing about recent Republican attacks on Obama’s foreign policy, Michael Cohen concluded over at Democracy Arsenal that the GOP critique “is basically ‘whatever he does we will argue the opposite.’” Newt Gingrich is the personification of that conclusion.