A War Even Hawks Don't Want?

April 04, 2007

Stephanie Condon files this report....

Aside from Iraq (which is a pretty big aside), Iran is the most pressing foreign policy issue the United States currently faces. So Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, recently said at conference hosted by RAND. "My own view is that military conflict is not desirable, and it is absolutely unavoid--." Unavoidable? The audience at the conference--which was entitled "Coping with Iran: Confrontation, Containment or Engagement?"--collectively drew in an anxious breath before Burns corrected himself and said, "avoidable."

What was intriguing was that the foreign policy wonks at the conference were mostly in agreement: preemptive action against Iran in response to its growing nuclear program is a horrible idea. Even the American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka--a hawkette who insists the world's lone superpower will "win" in Iraq and that regime change is the answer in Iran--stayed one step away from advocating the use of preemptive military force in dealing with Iran. "If you're looking to end [Iran's] nuclear program, than most people agree military action is not going to provide an answer," Pletka said. "It may slow it down, but it would have a whole series of consequences." Remember Pletka's AEI was the HQ for neocons who advocated the invasion of Iraq.

With hard-nosed hawks reluctant to urge military action in Iran, one might assume the Bush administration is not heading toward confrontation with Iran. But that's what's happening, according to David Ochmanek, RAND's senior defense analyst. At this conference, Ochmanek displayed a neatly laid-out chart--in case words alone didn't convey his point--and explained that the United States' current policies are leading to a worst-case scenario: a hostile relationship with a nuclear-armed country (though Iran is not expected to be able to build nuclear weapons for a number of years should it want to). Bush administration policies, he said, has not made the difficult road to diplomacy any smoother. They have exacerbated the tensions--as the US military presence in the region grows. "The lack of distrust is pervasive," said Javad Zarif, Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations (who spoke to the conference via phone because his travels within the United States are limited). "We as Iranians should not expect the United States to start trusting Iran" and visa versa.

Zarif, though he represents a repressive regime, had a point. With so much distrust and so much military hardware in each other's vicinity, the stage is sure set for an event (purposeful or not) to trigger a military confrontation between the United States and Iran. What if Iran had seized US naval personnel at sea (instead of British)? And remember Iran Air Flight 655. On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down the civilian aircraft and all 290 passengers and crew members died. The US government claimed the Vincennes had mistakenly identified the Iranian airliner as an attacking military jet. Tehran claimed this had been an intentional attack on a civilian target. But no war happened. The United States never apologized, but eight years later it agreed to pay $6.1 million in compensation for the victims.

Imagine if this sort of event happened today? Ochmanek's message is that a war is likely--unless Washington and Tehran preemptively find a way to cool down relations before anything like this occurs. If they don't, it's possible the hawks may get a war they don't want.

Posted by David Corn at 04:59 PM