Jaw Jaw
No shortage of it with Iran over the past 30 years, as detailed by Ledeen at the Wall Street Journal. Talk talk talk. Carter, Reagan, Clinton, even George W. Bush … who modern myth holds didn’t … talk talk talk. Talk and sanctions. And as Ledeen notes, channeling SecDef Gates, it’s never worked. He suggests something that might work. He left out the part about what has worked, though:
Thirty years of negotiations and sanctions have failed to end the Iranian nuclear program and its war against the West. Why should anyone think they will work now? A change in Iran requires a change in government. Common sense and moral vision suggest we should support the courageous opposition movement, whose leaders have promised to end support for terrorism and provide total transparency regarding the nuclear program.
For some reason the Obama admin has shown little interest in that. Sat back, ready to talk with the government of Iran once the smoke cleared and the bodies were hauled away from the demonstrations. (Then got up and feigned indignation when the truth about Iran’s lying was blown … again. Which is to say when it became clear that Iran knew that we knew that Iran was full of it. Not so much because Iran knew, in all likelihood, but because everyone else was about to find out. And nothing says “fool,” rube” or “mark” like doing business with a con man when you and everyone else knows he’s conning you.)
Talk, sanctions, dead Americans, dead Iraqis, dead Lebanese and dead Iranians, periodic hostage-takings, etc. Obama came along like he invented the idea of talking to Iran, when all he did was recycle the Carter-era idea of rolling over to Iran.
There have in fact been two major breakthroughs in our relations with Iran that Ledeen in the scope of his op-ed overlooks. One was when Ronald Reagan was sworn in. Twenty minutes later, the 53 hostages who had been held for 444 days, a humiliation of the United States that reverberates to this day, were in the air. The other was the ouster of Saddam in 2003. The National Intelligence Estimate has suggested that got the mullahs’ attention. While Libyan despot Moammar Gadhafi entirely rolled over, the Iran regime halted its nuclear program. Briefly. Clearly the mullahs are keenly attuned to existential threats. But the widespread rejection of the liberation of Iraq and the embrace of the “Bush lied” line by vast swathes of the world, to include the opposition party in the United States, convinced Iran it only needed to bide its time. And start meddling heavily in Iraq. Turns out Iran was right. With America, you can always count on some sap getting elected sooner or later.
Schippert at Threatswatch has embedded the three-part BBC documentary Ledeen cites, “Iran and the West.”
*Cleary the Iranian regime is keenly attuned to existential threats. What was lacking in both cases was follow-through. The Reagan and Bush administrations resorted to backroom dealing and talks
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:38 am on Wednesday, September 30, 2009
4 Responses to “Jaw Jaw”
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September 30th, 2009 at 10:29 am
[...] be one of consequence. The solution rests upon direct action. Jules Crittenden understands this and presents two examples in which Iran saw the light. In both cases talking had very little to do with it. There have in [...]
September 30th, 2009 at 10:58 am
One of the first things I learned reading Bernard Lewis was that in the Middle East, they respect resolve. He told Charlie Rose that we shouldn’t be showing so much deference to the Saudis or dithering while we negotiated. That’s a sign of weakness. You’d think someone else would have heard him besides me.
By being a paper tiger, the U.S. has assured continued terrorist attacks and continued bomb building by Iran. We should be bombing their nuclear facilities and communication centers day and night until they’re rubble. That’s what it will come to in the end.
September 30th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
That’s what it will come to in the end.
And the sooner the better !
September 30th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Jaw jaw spins out the duration and intensity until the only option remaining is extreme violence.
Had we, or anyone with gumption, demonstrated we were serious years ago, it probably would have required much less severity. It’s like having an infection treated early, as opposed to waiting until your entire arm has gangrene.
Jaw jaw is my elderly aunt crying while being extorted out of small “loans” by one of those creeps who preys on the elderly. She was afraid. When she told me what was happening, I confronted the creep and told him what would happen if he ever stepped foot on her lot again (next door to mine). His rationale didn’t interest me in the slightest. The people likely to create real problems are seldom impressed with jaw-jaw, in my experience.
Assuming creepy nations are different than creepy people doesn’t make much sense, to me anyway.