Trump’s Anti-Iranian Foreign Policy Not Enough for Neocons and Other Israelophiles
Stephen J. Sniegoski • November 27, 2017 Israel has considered Iran to be Israel’s major enemy since the end of the Gulf War of 1991. But why, it might be asked, did the neocons promote war with Iraq, rather than Iran, in 2003? The neocons
were in accord with Israeli thinking but planned to begin with Saddam’s Iraq, the elimination of which, they believed, would pave the way for regime change elsewhere in the Middle East. This especially included Iran, which bordered Iraq. Despite all-out efforts by the neocons to have the U.S. attack Iran after occupying Iraq, this failed to materialize, and later President Obama moved in the opposite direction, overriding strong opposition from Israel and its American supporters, and made a deal with Iran that precluded its development of a nuclear weapon, which had been the professed main concern of Israel.
Now
with the Islamic State’s significant loss of territory, which the U.S.
helped to bring about, Israel and its American supporters are expressing
deep concern that the void left by its defeat is being filled by Iran,
which supposedly threatens to attain regional hegemony. President Trump,
who takes a very negative view of the nuclear deal and describes Iran
as a terrorist state, is promoting a tougher line toward Iran. However,
Israel and its American myrmidons see Trump’s hard-line position as
insufficient, contending that much more must be done to effectively
counter the Iranian threat.
Nonetheless,
the Trump administration has designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. This puts it on the same
level as al Qaeda and the Islamic State.[1]
And Trump followed up this action by calling for stiffer sanctions
against Iran. All this implies that the American goal is not only to
prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability but also to
prevent it from developing a productive economy, which might enable it
to establish a stronger conventional military force and be more
effective in arming its allies.
As
Joshua Landis, a professor and director of the Center for Middle East
Studies at the University of Oklahoma, contends: “The renewed US
offensive against Iran is not so much about its nuclear capability or
even its missile program; it is about Iran rollback and hobbling its
economy.
“Ever
since President Obama signed the Iran agreement, howls of disapproval
were heard from both Israel and a number of Gulf States, which were not
dismayed so much at the sunset clause on Iran’s nuclear refinement as
they were at Iran’s escape from economic sanctions. The real danger, in
their eyes, is Iran’s economic break out and potential success. The more
money Iran has, the more it can consolidate the success of its Shiite
allies in the region: Hezbollah, the Syrian government and the Iraqi
government.
“President
Trump’s latest announcement follows increased U.S. sanctions on both
Hezbollah and Syria, as well as increased aid to Syria’s Kurds in their
effort to expand territorially. It is the latest in a policy of rollback
that has been developing for some time. It is a policy that both Saudi
Arabia and Israel have been pushing on Trump. . . . It represents the
opposite of Obama’s effort at balancing Sunnis and Shiites along with
Saudi Arabia and Iran, not to mention his effort to distance the U.S.,
ever so slightly, from Israel.”[2]
However, for many supporters of Israel, to differ “slightly” from Israel’s position toward Iran is to differ too much.
John
Hannah, who served as Vice President Cheney’s national security
advisor, and who is now a senior fellow at the neocon Foundation for
Defense of Democracies– which is heavily funded by pro-Israeli
billionaires Sheldon Adelson and Paul Singer–contends that “[t]here’s
not much doubt about what the Iranians are up to. As the U.S.-backed
coalition drives the Islamic State from its remaining strongholds,
forces led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and backed
by Russian air power — the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
Hezbollah, and Shiite militias — are racing to fill the void, securing
strategic terrain along the Iraq-Syria border and a land bridge
stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean. From there, the IRGC (Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps) will seek over time to establish a series of
ground, air, and naval bases across the Middle East’s northern tier,
dramatically escalating its ability to threaten key U.S. allies in the
Persian Gulf, Jordan, and especially Israel.”[3] Note the special concern for Israel.
While neocon Max Boot, a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard
and a blogger for Commentary magazine, holds that it would be
counterproductive to end the nuclear deal with Iran, he warns that
“[t]he danger is that by dismantling the Islamic State — as U.S. allies
are currently on the verge of doing in both Syria and Iraq — they will
simply create more space for Iran to dominate. The Trump administration
is unwittingly abetting this Iranian power grab by ending CIA aid to
moderate Syrian rebels and by pulling U.S. troops out of an important
outpost in southern Syria near the border with Iraq, effectively ceding
that ground to Iranian-backed militias. Iran is now on the verge of
controlling a land route running all the way from Tehran to Beirut—the
new Persian Empire.”[4]
Fred
Kagan, of the neocon American Enterprise Institute, similarly writes:
“Iran’s military position beyond its borders is stronger than it has
ever been in modern times. Iranian conventional ground forces operate in
Syria, controlling many tens of thousands of proxy militias drawn from
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Lebanese Hezbollah. Tehran has
solidified its coalition with Moscow and is perfecting techniques for
integrating Russian airpower into Iranian-controlled ground operations.
“The
United States has largely ignored the expansion of Iranian military
forces and proxies in Syria while focusing on driving ISIS from Raqqa
and Mosul. With that goal accomplished, the administration must correct
the fatal contradiction in American policy toward Iran.”[5]
Where
Israel and its supporters once spoke about the dangerous Shiite
Crescent, which stretched from Iran to Syria, they now ominously refer
to an emerging land bridge from Tehran, via Baghdad and Damascus, to
Beirut. Key segments of this land route had been controlled by ISIS,
which inhibited long-distance travel. Thus, Iran had to rely largely on
much more difficult and expensive air transport to provide supplies to
Syria. Israel fears that by making use of the land bridge, Iran and its
proxies, Syria and Hezbollah, will be entrenched on its border and
heavily armed.[6]
The neocon Hudson Institute, whose senior vice president is neocon Lewis (Scooter) Libby[7],
devoted a conference on September 29, 2017 to the “land bridge” issue:
“Iran’s Land Bridge: Countering a Growing Influence in the Middle East.”
The online description of the conference read: “The threat of an
Iranian land bridge through Iraq and Syria—measured both in established
influence and a physical presence—has become a reality. Iran’s goal for
regional hegemony, a strategic plan more than three decades in the
making, has come to fruition. With such a route in place, Iran can
increase logistical and operational support to Lebanese Hezbollah and
other IRGC-directed proxies. Is it possible to disrupt this route, and
can it be done without provoking further conflict?”[8]
Among the panelists with neocon connections were Hillel Fradkin, a specialist in Islamic studies and a noted Straussian[9]
scholar based at the Hudson Institute; Ilan Berman, Senior Vice
President of the American Foreign Policy Council, who edits the Journal of International Security Affairs,
the flagship publication of the neoconservative Jewish Institute for
National Security Affairs (JINSA); and Michael Pregent, an adjunct
fellow at Hudson Institute, who was a former intelligence advisor to
General David Petraeus.
Looking
to take the offensive, Israel and its American supporters are
re-emphasizing a longtime Israeli strategy to combat the Jewish state’s
regional enemies by supporting the Kurds.[10]
In keeping with recent pro-Israeli policy in the Middle East, Israel
would remain in the background while the United States would take the
warlike measures. Kurdistan could provide a valuable base for Israel
from which to penetrate the Iranian border and stir up trouble by
working with dissident ethnic and political elements in the country.
Moreover, Kurdistan could provide Israel with a source of oil which it
cannot obtain from other Middle East oil-producing states.
The Kurds pushed a referendum in September which garnered overwhelming
support from the Kurdish population not only in areas officially under
Kurdish control, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), but also in
adjoining areas outside KRG boundaries, most importantly the Kirkuk
area, which is the center for oil production. This overwhelming
electoral victory emboldened the Kurds to declare independence. Israel
was the first and only country so far to recognize Kurdish independence,
and the American supporters of Israel wanted the U.S. to do likewise,
but the official position of the U.S. government continues to be the
maintenance of a unified Iraq.
Jonathan S. Tobin, senior online editor of the neocon Commentary magazine , wrote
an article titled: “Kurdish independence would be a win for America.”
While giving credit to Trump for recognizing that Iran is America’s
enemy and thus opposing the continuation of the allegedly pro-Iranian
nuclear deal, Tobin contended that “complicating matters is that Trump’s
desire for better relations with Moscow has led him to follow Obama’s
lead and acquiesce to giving Russia’s Iranian partners a free hand in
Syria. That has created a basic contradiction in his foreign policy that
he has failed to resolve.” Writing shortly before the Iraqi national
government’s threat of force caused the Kurdish army to evacuate Kirkuk,
Tobin argued that a “policy switch that encourages the Kurds could
throw a monkey wrench into Iran’s plans to use its clients in Iraq,
Syria, Lebanon, and the Hamas state in Gaza to create a sphere of
influence that endangers America’s Arab allies and threatens Israel with
a three-front war at any time of Iran’s choosing.” He maintained that
“there would be no need for a commitment of US forces or even for
Washington to guarantee Kurdish independence. The Kurds have proved they
can defend themselves. All America needs to do is to place no obstacles
in their path and follow through on administration promises to continue
aid to the Kurds.”
Tobin’s
view of Kurdish military prowess became highly questionable after the
Kurdish forces fled Kirkuk, though this does not necessarily mean that
they would not be capable of protecting the area officially under the
control of the KRG. He concluded his article: “The Kurds have been loyal
allies in our struggles against terror. Backing their independence is
the right thing to do. But it is also the smart play in America’s
ongoing struggle to keep the Iranians from making the Middle East their
playground. Rather than listen to those urging him to betray them, Trump
should embrace the chance the Kurds are offering him to hamstring
Tehran at little cost to the United States.”[11]
In an article in the neocon Weekly Standard,
“A Kurdish State is in America’s Interest—and the Region’s, Too,”
Dominic Green wrote: “Iraqi Kurdistan is democratic, egalitarian,
tolerant of religious minorities, a proven bulwark against ISIS, and an
obvious bulwark against the imperial ambitions of Iran. The rest of Iraq
is a disaster. The failed state-building that followed the U.S.-led
invasion of 2003 has bequeathed a corrupt Iranian satrapy and a leaking
ulcer of Sunni fanaticism.”[12] This assessment of Iraq reached the height of irony since the Weekly Standard has
been filled by writers who had contended that if Iraq were freed from
Saddam Hussein’s rule, it would be a democratic country and serve as an
exemplar for the rest of the Middle East.
After
the Kurdish troops were forced out of Kirkuk by Iranian-backed Iraqi
forces in October 2017, Israel’s supporters would focus on the role of
Iran in this development even though there were other significant
factors: the U.S. had provided the Iraqi national army with far better
weaponry than the Kurds and the Iraqi central government was obviously
not going to give up a major oil-producing area. Furthermore, Kurdish
political groups were divided over defending Kirkukwith the second most
important Kurdish political party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK), refusing to resist the takeover.
Presenting
the Israelophilic narrative, Jonathan Spyer, Director of the Rubin
Center, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, in Israel and a fellow at the
neocon Middle East Forum[13]
wrote that the failure of the U.S. to support the Kurds “does not, to
put it mildly, tally with the President’s condemnation in his speech
this past week of Iran’s ‘continuing aggression in the Middle East.’ It
remains to be seen if anything of real consequence in policy terms will
emerge from the President’s stated views. For the moment, at least, the
gap between word and deed seems glaring.”[14]
Clifford May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a columnist for the Washington Times,
in an October 24 article in that newspaper, “The Kurdish test,” opined:
“By orchestrating the taking of Kirkuk, Iran’s rulers are testing Mr.
Trump. They are betting that, despite the tough talk, he won’t have the
stomach to do what is necessary to frustrate their neo-imperialist
ambitions.
“In
the end, they think he will attempt to appease and accommodate them as
did President Obama. Mr. Trump reinforced that conviction when, in
response to the fighting in Kirkuk, he said his administration was ‘not
taking sides, but we don’t like the fact that they’re clashing.’
“It’s
essential that Mr. Trump make clear that further threats to the
security and integrity of the Kurdish region will not be countenanced,
that any advance on Erbil will be met with stiff sanctions and, if
necessary, force. The U.S. should insist that all military operations
cease immediately and that negotiations between Baghdad and Kurdish
leaders commence under American auspices.
“Anything
less will be interpreted as acquiescence to the Islamic republic’s
drive to impose its brand of jihadism and Islamism on its neighbors and,
in due time, far beyond.”[15]
Resurfacing is the neoconservative idea of “regime change” that helped
to fuel the 2003 war on Iraq. Since that plan led to chaos, the example
being used is the Soviet Union not Iraq. In their Washington Post
article “How Trump can help cripple the Iranian regime,” Neocon Reuel
Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,
and Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations,
opined that “the Islamist regime resembles the Soviet Union of the
1970s—an exhausted entity incapable of reforming itself while drowning
in corruption and bent on costly imperialism.” The authors asserted that
“[i]f Washington were serious about doing to Iran what it helped to do
to the U.S.S.R, it would seek to weaken the theocracy by pressing it on
all fronts.” This would entail “crippling sanctions” that “punish the
regime for its human-rights abuses” and demanding “the release of all
those languishing in prison since the [2009] Green Revolt.” The United
States effort against Iran “will be costly and will entail the use of
more American troops in both Syria and Iraq,” though the authors do not
specify what the American troops would actually need to do. They do
state, however, that if the U.S. fails to take the steps outlined by
their essay, “sectarian violence” will continue and Iran will ultimately
gain nuclear capability.[16]
Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies,
wrote an article entitled, “Confront Iran the Reagan Way,” which was
quite similar to the strategy described by Gerecht and Takeyh. He called
for the United States to adopt a Reaganesque strategy of short-of-war
offensive measures against Iran, which, Dubowitz held, had caused the
Soviet Union’s demise.
A
fundamental assumption about the Soviet Union, which Dubowitz applied
to Iran, was that it was innately aggressive but also fragile. He
maintained that an offensive strategy would involve eliminating Iran’s
alleged “terrorist networks and influence operations” which meant
“working closely with allied Sunni governments against Iranian
subversion of their societies.” Central to the effort to destabilize
Iran was the need to weaken Iran’s economy by sanctions, which should
especially be directed at the IRGC. Dubowitz maintained that while
“[c]onventional wisdom assumes that Iran has a stable government with a
public united behind President Hassan Rouhani’s vision of incremental
reform. In reality, the gap between the ruled and their Islamist rulers
is expanding.”[17]
Warmonger supreme John Bolton also offered a potpourri of actions that
the United States should take to bring down Iran. He suggested “imposing
new sanctions”; supporting “Kurdish national aspirations, including
Kurds in Iran, Iraq, and Syria”; and providing “assistance to Balochis,
Khuzestan Arabs, Kurds, and others — also to internal resistance among
labor unions, students, and women’s groups.”[18]
As
this essay has made apparent, the supporters of Israel believe that the
Trump administration, even though better than Obama’s, has not done
what is necessary to prevent Iran from achieving regional dominance. It
is highly significant, however, that they do not provide actual
substantive evidence to show that Iran poses a threat to the United
States, the defense of which is the stated purpose of the American
military. More than this, there is no real evidence to show that Iran
threatens Israel’s survival.
Regarding
Syria, Iran did not expand its geopolitical reach but only was able to
retain it within its geopolitical orbit, the two countries being allies
for almost four decades. And it should be added that the Assad
government controls most but far from all of Syria, with other areas
being controlled by Turkey, Syrian Kurds, U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and remnants of the Jihadi groups, all
of which are hostile to Assad. It is far from certain that Assad will
regain control of these areas.
Assad’s
downfall would have been an egregious blow to the Islamic regime’s
security, Iranian leaders referring to Syria as Iran’s “35th
province.” Syria provides a crucial conduit for moving weapons,
including short-range missiles, from Iran to Hezbollah, which provides a
first line of defense against Israel. This is why Israel wanted Assad’s
regime removed, or at least stripped of the ability to transport arms
to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Assad’s
Syria also provides a crucial ally against the surrounding Sunni
states. If Sunni jihadists had gained control of Syria, Saudi Arabia and
its Sunni allies could then put pressure on Iraq and even Iran itself
since both countries have disgruntled ethnic, religious, and political
groups.
And
in regard to Iraq, the removal of Saddam Hussein and the creation of a
majority rule government guaranteed that Shiites would dominate it. The
Iraqi population was largely Arab whereas the Iranians were non-Arab,
but Saddam Hussein’s discrimination against the Iraqi Shiites and the
Sunni jihadists’ lethal hostility toward them caused the Iraqi Shiites
to identify far more with members of their religion than with their
ethnic group.
What
bothers Israel is not that Iran has the military might to overwhelm it,
but that Iran has the capability to defend itself to the extent that
Israel could not bully it without serious consequences. Moreover, Iran
is a major financial supporter of Hamas at the present time, this
support being completely restored recently after a rupture caused by
significant sections of Hamas backing Sunni jihadi groups against Assad.
Such outside aid helps to perpetuate the Palestinian resistance.
Without outside aid, both moral and financial, the Palestinians would be
more apt to give up hope and acquiesce to whatever solution the Israeli
government might offer.
The
basic view of Israel’s supporters is that the U.S. must keep Iran
militarily and economically weak, so that it cannot challenge, in any
way, Israeli regional dominance. But is maintaining Israel’s current
degree of regional dominance—dominance that Israel is not able or
willing to maintain by itself in the absence of American forceful
actions—beneficial to the United States? That is, do the benefits
derived from this policy outweigh its negative effects? Most likely it
is a burden to the United States, requiring it to be involved in
perpetual warfare in the Middle East, which alienates potential friends
and makes Israel’s enemies the enemies of the U.S. And this is a burden
that the U.S. can ill afford given its extensive global military
commitments and its ever- growing expenditures on social welfare matters
as its population ages.
Endnotes
[1] Hooman Majd, “Trump Is Inching Toward War With Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,” Foreign Policy, October 11, 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/11/trump-is-inching-toward-war-with-irans-revolutionary-guards/
[2] Joshua Landis, “Trump’s Iran Policy Is More about Rollback than Nukes,” Lobe Log, October 17, 2017, http://lobelog.com/trumps-iran-policy-is-more-about-rollback-than-nukes/
[3] John Hannah, “Does Trump Intend to Thwart Iran’s Ambitions in Syria?,” Foreign Policy, August 24, 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/24/does-trump-intend-to-thwart-irans-ambitions-in-syria/
[4] Max Boot, “Keep the Iran Deal, Attack the Regime,” Foreign Policy, October 2, 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/02/keep-the-iran-deal-attack-the-regime/
[5] Fred Kagan, “Trump faces a reckoning with Syria,” The Hill, October 22, 2017, http://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/356568-america-faces-a-reckoning-with-syria
[6] Bassen Mroue and Qassim Abdul-Zahrea, The Times of Israel, “Iran extends reach with fight for land link to Mediterranean,” The Times of Israel, August 23,2017, https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-extends-reach-with-fight-for-land-link-to-mediterranean/
[7] Libby was an important neocon who served as Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff.
[8] Hudson Institute, https://www.hudson.org/events/1462-iran-s-land-bridge-countering-a-growing-influence-in-the-middle-east92017
[9]
Many significant neoconservatives were followers of political
philosopher Leo Strauss, who was a strong supporter of Israel. These
included Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, and Robert Kagan.
[10]
Support for the Kurds was part of Israel’s periphery doctrine that
originated during David Ben-Gurion’s leadership. This strategy meant
that Israel would seek support from countries and groups that were
farther away than its enemies, but shared the same enemies.
[11] Jonathan S. Tobin, \“Kurdish independence would be a win for America,” New York Post, September 15, 2017, http://nypost.com/2017/09/15/kurdish-independence-would-be-a-win-for-america/
[12] Dominic Green, “A Kurdish State is in America’s Interest—and the Region’s, Too,” The Weekly Standard, September 25, 2017, http://www.weeklystandard.com/a-kurdish-state-is-in-americas-interestand-the-regions-too/article/2009812
[13] The president of the Middle East Forum is neocon Daniel Pipes.
[14] Jonathan Spyer, “The Fall of Kirkuk: Made in Iran,” The American Interest, https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/10/18/fall-kirkuk-made-iran/
[15] Clifford May, “The Kurdish Test,” Washington Times, October 24, 2017, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/24/kurdish-independence-may-depend-on-trumps-moves/
[16] Reuel Gerecht and Ray Takeyh, “How Trump can help cripple the Iranian regime,” Washington Post, April 7, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/04/07/how-trump-can-help-cripple-the-iranian-regime/?utm_term=.fcbbc2baaa46
[17] Mark Dubowitz, “Confront Iran the Reagan Way,” Wall Street Journal, July 4, 2017, http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/dubowitz-mark-confront-iran-the-reagan-way/
[18] John R. Bolton, “How to Get Out of the Iran Nuclear Deal,” National Review, August 28, 2017, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450890/iran-nuclear-deal-exit-strategy-john-bolton-memo-trump
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