Elliott Abrams

In an effort to derail Hagel’s nomination, the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol and the neocons have been trying to convince the public that Hagel is an “anti-Semite.” CFR Senior Fellow Elliott Abrams, a former Bush administration official who was convicted of charges related to the Iran-Contra scandal, claimed last week that Hagel “seems to have some kind of problem with Jews.” But Haass, Abrams’ boss, rebuked those charges and the tactics Abrams and his neocon allies are using:

HAASS: The only thing that should be relevant George I would say are his ability to run the Pentagon and his views on policy … Where I think people are going over the line is with an hominem attacks, questioning for example whether he is an anti-Semite. I’ve known Chuck Hagel for more than 20 years for what it’s worth, I think that’s proposterous. I also don’t think that has a place in the public space. We often ask, why aren’t public debates better, why aren’t sometimes the best people going into public life, but this is one of the reasons. … I really don’t think there is a legitimate place in American political life for ad hominem attacks. These are loaded words that are being cast about and I think they’re simply beyond the pale.

Watch the clip:

A Council spokesperson last week backed away from Abrams’ baseless attacks on Hagel, saying they don’t represent the views of the Council on Foreign Relations. But Haass has now formally criticized Abrams’ attacks.

Critics of Abrams for his anti-Hagel comments are now calling on him to apologize. “I hope that Abrams rethinks his position and apologizes to Hagel and welcomes a genuine debate, Council on Foreign Relations-style, about their policy differences,” Atlantic editor-at-large and New America Foundation Senior Fellow Steve Clemons said this week.

As tensions mount between the West and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program, hopes that a diplomatic resolution to the crisis — a necessary step to tamp hostility — got a bump this week when U.N. inspectors visited Iran. The talks drew praise from both the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which said it was a “good trip,” and the Iranians. Both sides said plans were laid for another trip in the near future.

The talks — still far from a breakthrough — coincided with a spate of articles from U.S. experts urging caution about a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. So far, many Washington pundits who supported the Iraq war ten years ago have come out against an attack on Iran. As a useful guide by the National Security Network’s Heather Hurlbert shows, a trio of elite opinion-makers buttressed that view with pieces on Monday.

On the website the Daily Beast, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Leslie Gelb writes:

As Western leaders back Iran into a corner and as they are locking themselves into a war policy they haven’t seriously contemplated and don’t really want, now is the time to offer a deal. …With so much pressure now being applied on Iran, it might work.

With good reason (since it’s happened before), Gelb thinks that the Iranians may not take a deal, but “if we don’t at least try the negotiating track, a war of untold uncertainties and dangers can come upon us.”

Gelb’s article found common cause with a piece in CFR’s journal, Foreign Affairs, outlining one of the possible consequences of bombing Iran. RAND Corporation political scientist Seth Jones writes that the U.S. ought to make more noise about Iran’s links to Al Qaeda, several of whose operatives live (mostly under house arrest) on Iranian soil these days. But that noise, in Jones’s reading, should be directed at minimizing the Al Qaeda threat, since Iran is a theater unlike Pakistan, for example, where the U.S. has more reach. He concludes:

Finally, the United States should think twice about actions that would push Iran and al Qaeda closer together — especially a preemptive attack on the country’s nuclear program. Thus far, Iran and al Qaeda have mutually limited their relationship. It would be a travesty to push the two closer together at the very moment that central al Qaeda in Pakistan has been severely weakened.

Lastly, the New Yorker has a lead-off column this week by Steve Coll. “An attack now by either Israel or the United States would shatter diplomacy’s achievements,” writes Coll, adding that though Iran’s nuclear work has been troubling, no public evidence supports the charge that Iran is hellbent on acquiring weapons. “The burden of proof rests, in any event, with those who would urge war,” Coll writes. He goes on to mention President Obama’s 2009 speech against nuclear proliferation in Prague, noting:

Obama warned against “fatalism” about the nuclear danger, and he prescribed a strategy to defeat it: “Patience and persistence.” That strategy shouldn’t be taken off the table.

So unlike the run-up to the Iraq war, many well-regarded pundits are going public with their opposition to an attack on Iran, at least as things stand now. But, as Gelb mentions, without some kind of diplomatic deal to resolve the nuclear crisis with Iran, the U.S. may still be continuing down a path toward confrontation with the Islamic Republic.

Max Boot, as drawn by David Levine

In a blog post yesterday on Commentary magazine’s website, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) scholar Max Boot goes beyond simply ignoring ideas with which he disagrees, and informs readers that no such credible ideas even exist. Boot’s article, headlined “A Powerful Case for Force Against Iran,” picks up on an article from Foreign Affairs magazine, CFR’s bi-monthly journal.

Boot’s fellow CFR scholar Matthew Kroenig, in an article entitled “Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike is the Least Bad Option,” wrote that “a military strike intended to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, if managed carefully, could spare the region and the world a very real threat.” Calling the piece a “powerful and sober article in favor of bombing Iran,” Boot writes that Kroenig “knocks down pretty much all of the objections [to bombing] that have been made.” Boot’s approbation should come as no surprise, since he himself has called for war against Iran. But the most shocking part of Boot’s post was his concluding line:

I have yet to see (have I missed it?) an equally detailed and convincing exposition of the anti-bombing side.

There are plenty of examples of good articles laying out the case against war with Iran. Some demonstrate that, while Boot prefers bombing, the multi-lateral U.N. nuclear sanctions shepherded by the Obama administration have actually slowed Iran’s progress. Some give realistic assessments of just what the (limited) benefits of a strike would be. Others give sobering assessments of potential fallout from such a strike. Just yesterday, Dr. Adam B. Lowther, a faculty member at the Air Force’s Air University, wrote a long article against bombing.

But what was most stunning about Boot’s conclusion was that the Foreign Affairs piece in question faced such harsh criticism from a well-known international relations scholar that Kroenig felt the need to respond. Harvard scholar Steven Walt wrote on his blog at Foreign Policy magazine’s website that Kroenig’s piece was “remarkably poor piece of advocacy,” and from there picked it apart for maximizing benefits of a strike and minimizing negative consequences. The devastating critique apparently compelled Kroenig to respond on Foreign Policy, followed by a less-than-satisfied rejoinder from Walt. (Others have weighed in on the spat, too.)

How did Boot miss this exchange over the very article he’s hyping in a top-tier magazine covering his very subject area? Boot’s claim raises the possibility that he willfully ignores counter arguments. But his parenthetical interjection — “have I missed it?” — suggests either he’s incapable of using Google or his reading list simply doesn’t cast a net wide enough to catch articles that don’t fit his ideological predispositions.

Max Boot

[A]t this late date, even such tough actions might not stop Iran from going nuclear.

The only credible option for significantly delaying the Iranian nuclear program would be a bombing campaign.

While Boot completely skips an examination of the consequences associated with bombing Iran — including damaging any possibility of deterrence should Iran acquire nuclear weapons and giving pretext for brutal crackdowns on the Green Movement — he’s apparently willing to accept those consequences in exchange for just “delaying” the Iranian nuclear program.

Boot’s column is equally troubling in that it dramatically misrepresents the facts on the ground.

Boot suggests that Iran and al Qaeda are in league, even while admitting that the 9/11 report cleared Iran of any role in the 9/11 attacks. He also claims that while Iran was arming insurgents in Iraq, it “was covertly developing nuclear weapons.” The Nov. 8, report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) draws no such conclusion, leading a senior Obama administration official to observe:

The IAEA does not assert that Iran has resumed a full scale nuclear weapons program nor does it have a program [sic] about how advanced the programs really are.

Neoconservative talking points pushing for war hinge on the well worn argument that backing down from the use of force — as Neville Chamberlain’s attempts to negotiate with Adolf Hitler allegedly proved — will always result in failure. Boot writes:

In retrospect, weakness in the face of aggression is almost impossible to understand — or forgive. Why did the West do so little while the Nazis gathered strength in the 1930s?

In February 2003, Boot used a similar argument, urging President George W. Bush not to be swayed by antiwar protests opposing the imminent war in Iraq. He wrote:

When the demands of protesters have been met, more bloodshed has resulted; when strong leaders have resisted the lure of appeasement, peace has usually broken out.

Boot’s track record would suggest he’s far more interested in war than peace. Aside from his misstatement about intelligence estimates on Iran’s nuclear program, hyping of an Iran-Al Qaeda link and recycling of pre-Iraq War “appeasement” arguments, Boot is right about one thing: Attacking Iran would only delay its nuclear program. And for CFR’s Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies, it seems that’s a good enough reason to live with the consequences that will result.

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.”