Top Ten Republican Myths About Obama and Iran By Juan Cole, was blocked by googlegroups.com

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Top Ten Republican Myths About Obama and Iran
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
22 October 12
1. It is alleged that Obama’s willingness to negotiate with the Tehran
regime encouraged the Ayatollahs to be even more obstreperous. In
fact,
the regime was split by the offer to talk, and Wikileaks State
Department
cables show that _President Ahmadinejad was much more enthusiastic
about
seeking a diplomatic solution_
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/04/wikileaks-ahmadinejad-
blo_n_804204.html) than were the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Corps, a commander of which gave Ahmadinejad a slap.
2. It is alleged that Iran is ‘four years closer to having a nuclear
weapon.’ There is _no solid evidence that Iran even has a nuclear
weapons
program_
(http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/top-myths-about-irans-nuclear-
enrichment-program.html) , as opposed to a civilian nuclear enrichment
program to
produce fuel for electricity-generating plants (the US has 100 of
these
and generates the fuel for them). If it doesn’t have a nuclear weapons
program, it can’t be closer to having a bomb. The question is being
begged here,
which is a logical fallacy and bad policy.
3. The same logic, of Iran steadily getting closer to a bomb because
of administration inaction, could be applied to the terms of George W.
Bush.
How did Bush ignoring Iran and occasionally rattling sabers at it for
8
years affect Iran’s nuclear enrichment program?
4. It is assumed that Mitt Romney could do “more” with regard to
sanctions on Iran. But the current financial blockade on Iranian oil
sales are
the most extensive form of sanctions imposed on a country since FDR
cut the
Japanese off from petroleum and equipment in 1940. FDR’s aggressive
sanctions on Japan led to the Pearl Harbor attacks. What more would
Romney do and
how would he avoid such steps spiraling into all-out war? Romney is
simply
talking more aggressively, without actually proposing any concrete
policies.
5. One of the lines of attack by Republicans on President Obama’s
foreign policy is that he was insufficiently supportive in public _of
the 2009
Green Movement in Iran_
(http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/green-movement) . But the Obama
administration did reach out behind the scenes to Green
Movement to encourage it. Obama also referred to it positively in
speeches.
But an aggressive announced support of the sort the Republicans say
they
wanted would have simply raised questions in the minds even of Green
supporters as to whether the movement was a CIA-backed ‘color
revolution.’ Such
charges were made by the Khamenei faction, but were mostly dismissed
by
Iranians as a result of Obama’s low-key approach.
6. In the heated rhetoric of a presidential campaign, it is alleged by
Dan Senor and others that ‘this was the last chance we had to get rid
of
that regime.’ The Green Movement was a reform within the Islamic
Republic,
not an attempt to overthrow it. The Green Movement leaders said they
supported Ayatollah Khamenei. There was no prospect of getting rid of
the regime.
7. Even had the Green Movement succeeded, there is no reason to think
it would have mothballed the nuclear enrichment program, which is
popular
with the Iranian public.
8. Iran is continually accused of being the biggest supporter of
terrorism in the Middle East, and its support for Hizbullah in Lebanon
is
instanced. Obama is accused of putting up with all this. But if
terrorism is
defined, as it is in the US civil code, as the deployment of violence
against
civilians by a non-state actor for political purposes, that simply is
not
true. Hizbullah primarily deployed violence against Israeli troops
occupying
Lebanese territory, which is warfare, not terrorism. There wasn’t any
Hizbullah before Israel invaded and occupied Lebanon in 1982-2000.
Moreover, the
Lebanese government has formally recognized Hizbullah as a sort of
national guard for the southern borders of Lebanon. And, it has seats
in
parliament and on the cabinet. It isn’t exactly a non-state actor. As
for Iranian
support of Hamas in Gaza, that alliance seems to have collapsed as
Hamas has
turned against Syria and turned toward the Muslim Brotherhood
government in
Egypt.
9. Paul Ryan and others have said that the Obama administration
resisted the financial blockade on Iranian petroleum mandated in the
National
Defense Authorization Act, which went into effect July 1. That
allegation may
well be true. But this blockade has clearly raised tensions to a fever
pitch in the Gulf, and the Obama administration may have seen them as
risking
military escalation. Might that not be a more prudent stance?
Nevertheless,
Obama signed the bill and has implemented it, so it is hard to see
what the
cavil is.
10. The NDAA financial blockade on sale of Iranian petroleum won’t
alter the regime’s commitment to nuclear enrichment either. Sanctions
cannot
bring down the regime, which can use smuggled petroleum to cushion its
high
officials, just as Saddam’s Iraq did under sanctions. Iran is going
for a ‘
Japan option’ or ‘nuclear latency,’ where it has the capability to
make a
warhead quickly if it looks as though the country were about to be
invaded.
Its government won’t give that up without, as one US general put it,
being
invaded and occupied. Is Romney willing to go that far? If not, how is
he
really different than Obama?