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The Iraq War and Iranian Power

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 49; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00396330701733845

1468-2699

Ted Galen Carpenter, Malou Innocent,

Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Marvin Zonis, ‘Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’, in Bernard Reich (ed.), Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa: A Biographical Dictionary (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990), p. 357. 2. Even during this period, though, Washington hedged its bets. While America was helping Iraq it was also delivering to Iran, via Israeli intermediaries, TOW anti-tank missiles and several tonnes of weapons and equipment. For more on the Iran–Contra Affair, or ‘arms for hostages’ sales, see the James M. McCormick and Steven S. Smith forum ‘The Iran Arms Sale and the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980’, PS: Political Science and Politics, vol. 20, no. 1, Winter 1987, pp. 29–37; and Jonathan Marshall, ‘Israel, the Contras and the North Trial’, Middle East Report, no. 160, September–October 1989, pp. 34–8. For more on US support of Iraq, see Patrick E. Tyler, ‘Offices Say U.S. Aided Iraq in War Despite Use of Gas’, New York Times, 17 August 2002; Dilip Hiro, ‘Iraq and Poison Gas’, The Nation, 28 August 2002, and ‘When US Turned a Blind Eye to Poison Gas’, The Observer,1 September 2002. 3. Randy B. Bell, ‘Expansion of American Persian Gulf Policy by Three Presidents’, Marine Corps University Command and Staff College, 1990, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1990/BRB.htm; and Margaret G. Wachenfeld, ‘Reflagging Kuwaiti Tankers: A U.S. Response in the Persian Gulf’, Duke Law Journal, vol. 38, no. 1, February 1988, pp. 174–202. 4. See ‘Oral History: Colin Powell’, Frontline: The Gulf War, 9 January 1996 (updated July 2002), available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/decision.html. 5. Prominent neo-conservatives who have either served or advised the Bush administration include Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and R. James Woolsey. See ‘Letter to President William J. Clinton’, Project for the New American Century, 26 January 1998, http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm. 6. For a comprehensive examination of neo-conservatism versus realism, see John J. Mearsheimer, ‘Hans Morgenthau and the Iraq War: Realism versus Neo-Conservatism’, OpenDemocracy.net, 19 May 2005. 7. Joshua Muravchik introduces the principles underlying neo-conservatism: ‘The first is empathy with fellow human beings … Second, the more democratic the world, the friendlier America's environment will be … Third, the more democratic the world, the more peaceful it is likely to be.’ See Joshua Muravchik, Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America's Destiny(Washington DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1991) p. 8. Washington Postcolumnist Charles Krauthammer said ‘the United States is in a position to bring about a unique and potentially revolutionary development in the Arab world: a genuinely pluralistic, open and free society’. See Charles Krauthammer, ‘The Critics Are Wrong Again’, Townhall.com, 2 May 2003. 8. Robert Kagan, ‘Saddam's Impending Victory’, The Weekly Standard,2 February 1998, pp. 22–5. 9. William Kristol, ‘The Imminent War’, The Weekly Standard, 17 March 2003. 10. Michael Ledeen, ‘The Blind Leading the Blind’, National Review Online, 21 November 2002. 11. For example, one of us (Carpenter) said in January 2002 that dismembering Iraq ‘would also eliminate the only significant regional military counterweight to Iran.’ See Ted Galen Carpenter, ‘Overthrow Saddam? Be Careful What You Wish For’, Cato.org, 14 January 2002. 12. Phebe Marr, ‘Background: Threat and Response’, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Senate Hearings on Iraq War Scenarios, 1 August 2002, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec02/holman_8-01.html#. 13. Michael O'Hanlon, ‘The Price of Stability’, New York Times, 22 October 2002. 14. Christopher Layne, ‘The Post-Saddam Quagmire’, LA Weekly,20 March 2003. 15. For example, according to George Friedman of Stratfor Intelligence, ‘the perception in the Iraqi government is clearly that Bush is extremely weak and that … Iran … does not appear weak’. See George Friedman, ‘Geopolitical Diary: Iraq's Evolving Relationship with Iran’, Strategic Forecasting Inc., 30 December 2006. 16. Joshua Partlow, ‘Tehran's Influence Grows as Iraqis See Advantages’, Washington Post,26 January 2007. 17. Kenneth Katzman, ‘Iran's Influence in Iraq’, CRS Report to Congress, 3 April 2007, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/82981.pdf. 18. George Friedman, America's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies (New York: Doubleday, 2004), p. 7. 19. Patrick Cockburn, ‘What the Bush Administration Has Wrought in Iraq’, TomDispatch.com, 9 May 2007. 20. According to Ambassador Chas Freeman, ‘Saudi Arabia and for that matter Jordan, are not prepared to acquiesce in what they would see as an Iranian domination of Iraq or in the decimation of their kin.’ Quoted in Stephen Collinson, ‘Specter of Iraqi Proxy War Spooks Washington’, Agence France Presse, 14 December 2006. 21. According to IAEA Director General reports, Iran has not established full and sustained suspension of all uranium enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, as set out in UNSC 1696 or the Additional Protocol. See ‘Security Council Imposes Sanctions on Iran for Failure to Halt Uranium Enrichment, Unanimously Adopting Resolution 1737 (2006): Measures Will Be Lifted if Iran Suspends Suspect Activities; Report Due from Atomic Energy Agency on Compliance within 60 Days’, Security Council, 5612th Meeting (AM), 23 December 2006, http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8928.doc.htm. 22. Mark Fitzpatrick, ‘Lessons Learned from Iran's Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons’, Nonproliferation Review, vol. 13, no. 3, November 2006, p. 531. 23. See George Perkovich, Five Scenarios for the Iranian Crisis (Paris: Institut français des relations internationales, Security Studies Department, Winter 2006), p. 16. 24. ‘Lawmakers Told of Plan to Expand Nuke Program’, Washington Times, 3 June 2003, p. A14. As Kenneth Waltz puts it, ‘if … the United States says three countries form an axis of evil … and he proceeds to invade one of them – Iraq – what were Iran and North Korea to think?… In effect, there is no way to deter the United States other than by having nuclear weapons.’ See Scott Sagan, Kenneth Waltz and Richard K. Betts, ‘A Nuclear Iran: Promoting Stability or Courting Disaster?’, Journal of International Affairs, vol. 60, no. 2, Spring–Summer 2007, p. 137. 25. US Department of State, ‘Country Reports on Terrorism’, 28 April 2006, http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2005/64337.htm. 26. Iran is the largest country in the Persian Gulf, with a population of 68,492,000 in 2005. The second-largest country is Iraq, with a population of 26,560,000 and the third largest is Saudi Arabia at 23,121,000. See Arthur S. Banks et al. (eds), Political Handbook of the World: 2007 (Washington DC: CQ Press, 2007), pp. 559, 571 and 1058. 27. See ‘Question and Answers from Lt. Gen. John Abizaid's U.S. Senate Confirmation Hearing’, Globalsecurity.org, 25 June 2003, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/2003_hr/abizaid1.pdf, p. 14. 28. Testimony of John D. Negroponte to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, ‘Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence’, 2 February 2006, p. 11, http://ciponline.org/nationalsecurity/news/articles/020206negroponte.pdf; see also ‘Question and Answers from Lt. Gen. John Abizaid's U.S. Senate Confirmation Hearing’, Globalsecrity.org; and Amir Oren, ‘Iran's Successful Missile Test Puts Israel within Range’, Ha'aretz, 7 April 2003. 29. Richard Sokolsky and Ian Lesser, ‘Threats to Western Energy Supplies: Scenarios and Implications’, in Richard Sokolsky et al., Persian Gulf Security: Improving Allied Military Contributions (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001),p. 11. 30. These calculations are based on scarcity and increased transportation costs due to alternate export routes. See David Wyss, ‘The Future of Oil: Four Scenarios’, Business Week Online, 8 August 2006. 31. One of many examples is the British and American naval blockade of Germany and Austria-Hungary during the First World War. For more examples see John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), pp. 83–137. 32. For a fully developed analysis of ‘dispersed swarming’ see Fariborz Haghshenass, ‘Iran's Doctrine of Asymmetric Naval Warfare’, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 21 December 2006. Aircraft-carrier battle groups are notoriously vulnerable in theatre when compared to other surface combatants and amphibious ships. See Dave Moniz, ‘Biggest U.S. Ships Called Vulnerable’, USA Today, 6 June 2001; Robert Marquand, ‘Chinese Build a High-Tech Army within an Army’, Christian Science Monitor,17 November 2005. 33. See Karim Sadjadpour, ‘Iran's Political/Nuclear Ambitions and U.S. Policy Options’, Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 18 May 2006, http://www.senate.gov/∼foreign/testimony/2006/SadjadpourTestimony060517.pdf. 34. The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, ‘2007 Index of Economic Freedom: Iran’, 2007, http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?id=Iran. 35. In a BBC World Service poll conducted across 27 nations, Iran was deemed by the majority of respondents to have a ‘mainly negative’ influence on the world. BBC World Service Poll, ‘Israel and Iran Share Most Negative Ratings in Global Poll’, WorldPublicOpinion.org, 23 January 2007. 36. Jim Krane, ‘Iran, U.S. court Gulf Arab allies’, Associated Press, 10 May 2007. 37. Sam Gardiner, The End of the ‘Summer of Diplomacy’: Assessing U.S. Military Options on Iran (Washington DC: The Century Foundation, 2006), http://www.tcf.org/publications/internationalaffairs/gardiner_summer_diplomacy.pdf, p. 3. 38. In February 2007, General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the strains of Iraq and Afghanistan may prevent the US military from fully responding to another international crisis. See ‘General Pace: U.S. Won't Be Ready for Attacks Elsewhere Because of Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan’, Foxnews.com, 27 February 2007. 39. Shirin Ebadi, ‘Forbidden Iran’, Frontline: World, January 2004, http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iran/thestory.html. 40. Nasser Karimi, ‘Iran to hit U.S. interests if attacked’, Associated Press, 8 February 2006. 41. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance: 2007 (Abingdon: Routledge for the IISS, 2007), p. 221; ‘Egypt Manpower Fit for Military Service’, Index Mundi, http://www.indexmundi.com/egypt/manpower_fit_for_military_service.html, and ‘Iran Manpower fit for military service’, http://www.indexmundi.com/iran/manpower_fit_for_military_service.html. 42. These weaknesses perfectlyencapsu-perfectly encapsulate the qualities of Robert Putnam's two-level game theory: seeRobertD.see Robert D. Putnam, ‘Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games’, International Organization, vol. 42, no. 3, Summer 1988, pp. 427–60. 43. Since the 1970s, charities administered by the Saudi royal family have funded networks of mosques and religious schools that teach Wahhabism, a puritanical Islamic sect founded by eighteenth-century cleric Muhammed ibn Abd-al-Wahhab. Wahhabism inculcates strict teachings in Muslim youths, with prescriptions on everything from prayer and dress to sneezing and yawning. For those who refuse Wahhabism, there is only ‘jihad’. See, for example, Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), pp. 85, 89. And Testimony of Alex Alexiev to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security, ‘Wahhabism: State-Sponsored Extremism Worldwide’, June 26, 2003, http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=827&wit_id=2355. 44. Gardiner, The End of the ‘Summer of Diplomacy’, p. 4. 45. ‘Memorandum: The Vietnamese Communists’ Will to Persist: An Analysis of the Vietnamese Communists' Strengths, Capabilities, and Will to Persist in their Present Strategy in Vietnam', declassified CIA documents, 26 August 1966, The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University, http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/star/images/041/04114192001b.pdf, pp. 2–3, 40–41 and 46–8. 46. Kenneth M. Pollack, ‘Don't Count on Iran to Pick Up the Pieces in Iraq’, New York Times,8 December 2006. 47. David Samuels, ‘Grand Illusions’, The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 299, no. 5, June 2007, p. 52. 48. Ayman El-Amir, ‘Beating Ploughshares into Swords’, Al-Ahram Weekly Online,1–7 March 2007, Issue No. 834; ‘Huge Gulf Spending at Arms Fair’, 18 February 2007, Al-Jazeera.net; Julian Worker, ‘Shia Fear in Iran Fuels Arms Race: IDEX 2007 in Abu Dhabi Means Military Hardware for Sunnis’, Suite101.com, 6 March 2007, http://middleeasternaffairs.suite101.com/article.cfm/shia_fear_fuels_sunni_spending. 49. ‘UAE Signs $917M in Deals at IDEX 2007’, DefenseNews.com, 26 February 2007; Al-Jazeera.net, ‘Huge Gulf Spending at Arms Fair’, Al-Jazeera.net; and Hassan M. Fattah, ‘Arab States, Wary of Iran, Add to Their Arsenals but Still Lean on the U.S.’, New York Times, 23 February 2007. 50. Krane, ‘Iran, U.S. court Gulf Arab allies’. 51. See for example Michael Ledeen, ‘The Real Foe is Middle Eastern Tyranny’, Financial Times, 24 September 2002. Additional informationNotes on contributorsTed Galen CarpenterTed Galen Carpenter is Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute in Washington DC, and is the author of seven books on international affairs. He is a member of the editorial boards of the National Interest, Mediterranean Quarterly and the Journal of Strategic Studies.Malou InnocentMalou Innocent is a Foreign Policy Analyst at the Cato Institute. She received her BA in Mass Communications and Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley, and her MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago.