The American Enterprise Institute has a new report [PDF] outlining the challenges of containing and deterring a nuclear Iran. But while the report claims to be looking down the road to the imminent scenario of a nuclear weapons-possessing Iran, the neoconservative authors push an agenda of increased military spending justified by what they questionably claim will be a new and unparalleled containment challenge.

For starters, the presumption that “sound American strategy thus requires assuming that Iran will have a weaponized nuclear capability when the next president takes office in January 2013″ manages to completely ignore most intelligence estimates about Iran’s nuclear program. AEI’s report offers no evidence of this claim. To construct a nuclear weapon by 2013 would require Iran to have already begun producing highly enriched uranium (HEU). Neither the IAEA nor any other reputable intelligence estimates have made this assertion. Moreover, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in February that the U.S. government believes that it would take Iran a “few years” to acquire enough HEU for one nuclear weapon, “if it chooses to do so.”

Furthermore, the authors elide or downplay the existing efforts to slow Iran’s nuclear program. Five years after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad anounnced plans to deploy a new generation of indigenous centrifuges, Iran hasn’t brought a full cascade of the devices online. Various other technical problems, including the Stuxnet computer virus, have plagued the Iranian program. None of this could have happened without the multilateral sanctions regime engineered by the White House. But harsher measures — such as those targeting the central bank — could threaten the international coalition against Iran.

The rest of the report relies on repeated calls for increased defense spending — a topic near and dear to the defense hawks at AEI — and repeating the claim that Iran will be particularly difficult to contain because Iranian leadership is irrational or suicidal. Despite the factual weakness of the “martyr state” myth, the report argues:

It is likely that the Iranians value nuclear weapons not only for their deterrent purposes but also, if delivered by a suicide terrorist, for the intoxicating promise of devastating effect and potential deniability. [...]

Questions about the rationality or apocalyptic visions of the current clerical leadership or Ahmadinejad must be considered as a reimagining of the past.

There is little evidence that Iran’s leadership is suicidal or irrational but this myth is an important argument in the toolkit for hyping fears about a nuclear Iran. It should come as no surprise that two of the report’s authors — Danielle Pletka and Thomas Donnelly — were signatories on Project for The New American Century (PNAC) letters devoted to pushing for regime change in Iraq by force. The brain trust behind the invasion of Iraq is now warning of an “existential worry” (whatever that means) to the U.S. and its allies in the region. And much like in the buildup to war with Iraq, overstating the threat and misrepresenting facts on the ground is the first step in mobilizing support for incautious militaristic foreign policies.

At a time of continuing economic crisis in the U.S. and around the world, President Obama’s administration has amassed a record of successes in national security. Irrespective of controversies over some of the policies, Obama has pursued perceived threats in a broadened, borderless drone war; engaged in a NATO war to protect civilians in Libya; and is on the verge of ending one ground war and planning to wind down another even longer one. But this is just not good enough for some conservatives, who insist on portraying Obama as a stereotypical lily-livered liberal afraid to indefinitely continue large-scale U.S. military commitments abroad. The chosen line of attack relies on the now-commonplace trope that Obama doesn’t listen to his generals when formulating his security strategies.

The latest salvo in this assault comes from neoconservative legacy Fred Kagan, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Kagan concludes a Weekly Standard piece — “The President & the Generals” — by writing:

Under no circumstances should the president of the United States ever take an important military decision simply because a uniformed officer has recommended it. But, when the president does overrule his commanders, he had better have an extremely good reason not only to reject their advice but to prefer his own wisdom. And if he finds himself doing it repeatedly, he would do well to consider what the source of the problem really is.

Given most of the Republican presidential field’s shaky understanding of civilian control of the military, Kagan’s “under no circumstances” caveat is welcome. Nonetheless, Kagan’s implication here is obvious: the real “source of the problem” is Obama himself. Kagan, then, would do well consider for himself that there’s been another overarching problem affecting government decisions over the past three years: a financial crisis of epic proportions that has, is, and will likely continue to bear on decisions made by a commander-in-chief, though, crucially, not on commanders on the ground. And while military commanders are charged with making tactical recommendations and informing on military strategy, the president decides the country’s overall national security strategy, a concept Kagan seems to have overlooked.

Retired Gen. David Petraeus, who, in 2010, won AEI’s prestigious Kristol Award, hinted at such disparity between the purviews of a president and his generals when he explained the chain-of-command at a confirmation hearing to his current post atop the Central Intelligence Agency. Petraeus, at the time the top U.S. military officer for Afghanistan, said:

[A]t every level of the chain of command above me there are additional considerations, and each person above me, all the way up to and including the president has a broader purview and broader considerations that are brought to bear. The president alone [is] in the position of evaluating all those different considerations, including certainly those of the commander on the ground but also many others as well in reaching his decision.

Petraeus lamented that he wasn’t getting everything he wanted from a military standpoint, but acknowledged that he was “talking about small differences” and that the situation was “understandable in the sense that there are broader considerations beyond just those of a military commander.” He went on to say that no military commander gets everything they want:

The fact is that there has never been a military commander in history who has had all the forces he would like to have. Or all the time. Or all the money. Or all the authorities. Or, nowadays, all the bandwidth.

So, if Obama “finds himself [making different decisions than his generals] repeatedly,” that isn’t quite the extraordinary situation Kagan posits.

The hawks on the American Enterprise Institute’s foreign policy team are usually quick to hype the threat of a nuclear Iran and warn anyone who will listen that a nuclear armed Iran would spell doomsday for Israel and regional stability in the Middle East. But Danielle Pletka, the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI now says that the problem with a nuclear weapons possessing Iran is that the world might accept it as a responsible, nuclear weapons possessing state.

Pletka, speaking in an AEI promotional video, veers off-course from her usual talking point that a nuclear Iran would be uncontainable and hellbent on the destruction of Israel, saying:

The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it. It’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second they have one and they don’t do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, ‘See! We told you Iran is a reponsible power. We told you Iran wasn’t getting nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately. We told you Iran wasn’t seeking regional influence or regional hegemony through its acquisition of nuclear weapons. And they will eventually define Iran with nuclear weapons as not a problem.

Watch it:

“Hold on. The ‘biggest problem’ with Iran getting a nuclear weapon is not that Iranians will use it but that they won’t use it and that they might behave like a ‘responsible power’?” Media Matters’ MJ Rosenberg asks, adding, “But what about the hysteria about a second Holocaust?”

Pletka’s new position — that the “biggest problem” is Iran possessing a nuclear weapon and not using it — is probably not going to be the talking point du jour at AEI’s December 6, event “The Costs of Containing Iran: More Than the U.S. Is Bargaining For.” But it will be interesting to see if Pletka uses the venue to clarify her position and reaffirm her hard-line stance against a nuclear Iran.

Former House Speaker and GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich announced his national security team last night, ahead of tonight’s CNN national security debate. Foreign Policy points out that the group, which “seems a little long in the tooth,” is a mixed bag. But some advisers have staked out right-wing militaristic positions on Iraq and now Iran. Here’s a rundown of a few key figures:

DAVID WURMSER

A fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (or AEI, where Gingrich is a former senior fellow), Wurmser served on the staffs of two top Bush administration hawks, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton and Vice President Dick Cheney (where Stephen Yates, another Gingrich adviser, also served). In 2007, a U.N. official called Wurmser one of the “new crazies” who wanted to attack Iran. In 1996, Wurmser co-authored a paper from a right-wing pro-Israel group advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. The group wrote:

Israel can shape its strategic environment… by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.

ILAN BERMAN

Berman, the vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council (which also gave the Gingrich campaign Herman Pirchner and Yates) and editor of the Jewish Institute For National Security Affairs journal, has advocated U.S.-led regime change in Iran and wrote that military action against Iran should be a “last resort.” But he’s also attempted to minimize negative effects of an attack and, in 2005 at a Middle East Forum briefing, said Iran is a “prime candidate” for Iraq-style pre-emption:

I supported the war in Iraq… The minimum nexus the President [Bush] was talking about was the confluence of a regime that sponsors terrorism and the presence of weapons of mass destruction. The fact that we haven’t found WMD… undercuts the case for pre-emption in later circumstances, unfortunately. Which is too bad because I think Iran is a prime candidate for this sort of discussion.

JAMES WOOLSEY

Woolsey served as honorary co-chair of Islamophobe Frank Gaffney‘s Center For Security Policy and is a current leadership board and executive team member at the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Woolsey advocated for the Iraq war, supports illegal Israeli West Bank settlement construction, and now pushes a confrontational stance on Iran. In 1998, Woolsey signed onto a Project For a New American Century letter urging the military removal of Saddam Hussein:

The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.

ROBERT “BUD” McFARLANE

McFarlane, a former Reagan administration National Security Adviser, serves on the leadership council of FDD. In 1988, McFarlane plead guilty to four counts of withholding information from Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, in which he played a major role, even secretly travelling to Iran in the early arms-for-hostages part of the affair. (McFarlane, who attempted suicide three hours before he was meant to testify before Congress in 1987, was pardoned in 1992.) McFarlane also served as an adviser to Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential run.

As part of a push for United Nations recognition, the Palestinians are exploring ways to join various U.N. agencies. But two laws passed by Congress in the early 1990s would kill U.S. funding for any U.N. agency that recognizes Palestine among its member ranks. The issue is coming to a head this week as the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) board will vote on admitting Palestine.

But with the Palestinians primed to work their way into other U.N. agencies, the issue could become a much larger one, potentially affecting organizations crucial to international development and, perhaps, even nuclear non-proliferation. Foreign Policy’s Colum Lynch addressed the topic in a piece today where he raised the potential defunding of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He quoted neoconservative American Enterprise Institute vice president for foreign and defense policy studies Danielle Pletka expressing support for the law prohibiting funding while acknowledging that holding back IAEA resources is a huge price to pay for attempting to block a relatively minor Palestinian gain:

[I]t would be very unfortunate if we were required by law to do to deny money to the International Atomic Energy Agency. [T]here are consequences to playing fast and loose, even in the international community. This is, at best, a supremely political quest by the Palestinians.

Opponents of the Palestinian U.N. bid seem to always dismiss it as a merely “political” exercise, all the while bemoaning the far reaching consequences of the power that the Palestinians stand to gain from recognition by the General Assembly or individual U.N. agencies — something that indicates they are more opposed to a Palestinian state than simply its out-of-turn recognition. That seems to be the case here, where Pletka is prepared to forsake one of the most effective U.N. agencies — one which works on the crucial global security issue of non-proliferation.

Indeed, when it comes to understand and halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions — something that Pletka’s ostensibly been working toward for a long time — the IAEA has proved an indispensable resource.

At a recent Atlantic Council panel, former top CIA analyst and Georgetown professor Paul Pillar noted just how important the IAEA was for gaining access to good information about Iran’s nuclear program:

[T]he single best source of information about programs of this sort – this was true of Iraq, it’s true of Iran – is an international inspections regime.

And in the case of Iraq, the flow of information was very good when we had it. It was suddenly a lot worse when we didn’t, whether it was because Iraq kicked out the inspectors, or as it happened closer to the war, when the U.S. kicked out the inspectors.

So my concluding observation would be, if we want to try to increase our collective confidence about what we can say about this particular program in Iran, the best way to do that would be to strive for a more inclusive and more extensive intentional inspections regime.

But perhaps less reliable information about Iran’s nuclear program would be a boon to Pletka because she has things on her mind other than collecting good intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program.

The charges against two people in an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. has given neoconservative think tanks — such as the America Enterprise Institute, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the Heritage Foundation — yet another reason to promote military action against Iran. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol even went so far as to gloat that “we have an engraved invitation” for war against Iran.

But not everyone is buying into the neoconservative push for yet another U.S. military operation in the Middle East. Rep. Presidential contender Ron Paul (R-TX) pushed back against the calls for war in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer yesterday:

BLITZER: But why do you think — because various Republicans and Democrats, Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee — you know him — he believes that the evidence is strong [against the Iranians].

PAUL: I think it’s mostly war propaganda. They’ve been itching to go to war against Iran for a long, long time. This is exactly what they did leading up to the war in Iraq, and the danger was not there.

I don’t think the Iranians are that stupid. And yet, the people here right now are getting pretty excited about it.

[...]

People are suggesting we go to war over this. That is such a careless attitude.

Watch it:

Indeed, the drive for war has come from some of the same voices who had pushed for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein since the 1990s. And, much as in Iraq, inconvenient intelligence reports are overlooked by these hawks.

Today, the Washington Post’s Joby Warrick revealed that while Iran continues to stockpile enriched uranium, the nuclear program is “riddled with problems” as a combination of old equipment and inferior replacement machinery have resulted in a steady decline in enriched uranium output.

Warrick also reports that U.S. intelligence officials believe Iran is seeking the technical capability to produce a nuclear weapon but that there is little indication that the clerical leadership has firmly committed to making a bomb.

While much remains to be explained about both Iranian nuclear intentions and the alleged assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador, neoconservatives and their allies are using the latest diplomatic crisis with Tehran as yet another justification for preemptive military action.

Herman Cain has stumbled into a number of foreign policy gaffes. But in a Meet The Press interview with David Gregory, Cain found himself revealing that his foreign policy vision is largely formed by neoconservatives while claiming that he was “not familiar” with the neoconservative movement. The exchange read:

DAVID GREGORY: What about foreign policy advisers? Who has shaped your view on the U.S. in the world and foreign policy?

HERMAN CAIN: I’ve looked at the writings of people like Ambassador John Bolton. I’ve looked at the writings of Dr. Henry Kissinger, “KT” McFarland, someone who I respect.

GREGORY: Would you describe yourself as a neoconservative then?

CAIN: I’m not sure what you mean by neoconservative. I’m a conservative, yes. Neoconservative, labels sometimes put you in a box. I’m very conservative.

GREGORY: But you’re familiar with the neoconservative movement?

CAIN: I’m not familiar with the neoconservative movement. I’m familiar with the conservative movement and let me define what I mean by the conservative movement. Less government. Less taxes. More individual responsibility.

Watch it:

While Cain may choose not to identify with neoconservativism, two out of the three individuals listed by Cain as shaping his foreign policy views are closely tied to the neoconservative movement.

One was John Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who briefly served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under the George W. Bush administration. Bolton promotes many neoconservative policy positions, and served on the board of directors for Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative pressure group which openly pushed for war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq since 1998.

Another foreign affairs inspiration was Kathleen Troia ‘KT’ McFarland, who worked in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations and now serves on the advisory board of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies. She writes a weekly column for Family Security Matters, a project launched by Islamophobe Frank Gaffney’s think tank.

Both Bolton and McFarland have embedded themselves within neoconservative institutions in D.C. In John Bolton’s case, this included advocating for an aggressively hawkish foreign policy at every turn. The lack of familiarity with neoconservatism could stem from Cain’s ignorance of foreign policy or perhaps it’s a savvy move to distance himself from the movement that spearheaded the campaign to start the unpopular Iraq war. But looking at those who inspire his worldview, Cain’s foreign policy seems to clearly lean into the neoconservative camp — whether or not he understands or admits it.

Details of the alleged plot by an Iranian-American to hire Mexican drug cartels to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington remain few and far between. But that hasn’t stopped analysts at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the Heritage Foundation from calling for a military response.

The Heritage Foundation’s James Jay Carafano weighed in with a blog post promoted at the top of the center’s website. Carafano lists actions “required” in response to the Justice Department’s allegations against Texas used car dealer Manssor Arbabsiar. The first action is:

Take strong measures to respond. The U.S. is fully within it rights to conduct a proportional military response against suitable, feasible, and acceptable targets in Iran. (In many ways, the situation is similar to military operations conducted against al-Qaeda in Pakistan.) The Iranian government knows full well that the Iran Qods Force is a terrorist group that has provided material support to the Taliban and other groups. The Tehran government has not restrained this organization and is responsible for its conduct.

Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at AEI, called for an end to diplomatic outreach to Tehran, colorfully writing in the New York Daily News:

The terror plot was no rogue action. Obama may hold an olive branch, but the White House must recognize the Iranian regime’s fist holds only blood.

The time for talk has ended.

And FDD executive director Mark Dubowitz taunted the White House for what he anticipates will be an indecisive reponse to a “brazen attack” — albeit ineptly planned and nowhere near a point of execution — in Washington. While coming up short of explicitly endorsing military action, he writes in the Huffington Post:

What will be a surprise to the Iranian regime is if the United States, in the face of a brazen attack on its capital, finally responds decisively.

Under Obama’s watch the U.S. has imposed tighter sanctions on Iran than those implemented during the George W. Bush administration. Perhaps more importantly, assuming the Attorney General’s indictment holds up, federal law enforcement agencies were highly effective at breaking up a terrorist plot well before it was operational or posed an immediate threat to the U.S. or diplomatic targets in Washington.

Now, with analysts and the media still scratching their heads over what to make of a convoluted plot alleged to have been hatched by an Iranian American in collusion with Mexican drug cartels, FDD, AEI and Heritage analysts — along with their friends in Congress — are quickly declaring the end of diplomatic strategies to curb Iran’s nuclear program and regional ambitions.