A former top Obama adviser on the Middle East says the president is serious when he says all options remain open. Just look at his track record.
Dennis Ross, just retired as President Barack Obama’s top adviser on the Middle East, warned yesterday that Obama means what he says when he declares that the White House isn’t ruling out military action against Tehran. Though other, senior U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have repeatedly stressed that war against Iran could have unpredictable and dangerous results, Ross said Obama is serious about using force to prevent Iran from acquiring a military nuclear capability.
“He hasn’t been reluctant to use force when he says that all options remain on the table,” said Ross, in an appearance at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). “It means that it’s an option he is prepared to exercise.” Later, in a private discussion, Ross told The Diplomat that even though Panetta, Mullen and others in the administration seem to oppose a strike against Iran, “The president doesn’t take his own words lightly. Has he made a decision yet? No.”
Ross, before going into the administration in 2009, spent many years at the Washington Institute, a hawkish, pro-Israel think tank, and he has returned there as its counselor and resident expert on the region. While at the White House, he had a reputation as a hardliner on Iran policy, and there has been speculation in Washington that he left the White House because of differences with other U.S. officials, including Pentagon leaders who have expressed reluctance to attack Iran even if that appears to be the only way to halt Iran’s nuclear research program. But in his WINEP appearance Tuesday, Ross disputed that, saying instead that he quit after three years in order to keep a promise he’d made to his family.
Though Iran has denied that it seeks to militarize its nuclear program, and despite there being no concrete evidence that Iranian leaders have decided to seek nuclear weapons, Ross said in his view there’s no ambiguity. “The Iranians, by their behavior, have made it pretty clear that they want to have a nuclear weapons program,” he said. He emphasized that the goal of U.S. policy is to prevent Iran from building a bomb, not containing it once it has developed a military nuclear capability. “It’s not about containment, it’s about prevention,” he said.
Because neither sanctions nor diplomacy have dissuaded Iran from its nuclear program, many analysts in Washington have begun to talk about containing a nuclear Iran, much as the United States pursued a containment, balance-of-power policy toward the Soviet Union in the Cold War. And it’s been reported that officials at the White House, the State Department and the Defense Department are quietly discussing precisely that idea if Iran eventually decides to go nuclear.
But Ross laid out an apocalyptic scenario for nuclear Armageddon in the Middle East if Iran gets the bomb. Were Iran to acquire even a limited nuclear capability, it would dramatically destabilize the Middle East, he said, and that’s why a containment policy is the wrong approach. “The fact is that Israel looks at Iran as an existential threat, and it is,” he said. If both Israel and Iran have nuclear bombs, it would put the region on a hair trigger, and he asked, “Can Israel wait?” if a nuclear-armed Iran seemed to raise its level of readiness for war. “The possibility of nuclear war in the Middle East goes up dramatically.”
Ross stressed that there’s still room for the administration’s combination of sanctions and negotiation to work. “We still have time and space available to us to ratchet up the pressure,” he told WINEP. But some analysts have argued that sanctions, pressure tactics and what appears to be a campaign of covert action against Iran could provoke Iran into aggressive, rash behavior that could by itself lead to conflict. In the field of covert action, recent events include the assassination of several Iranian scientists, a computer worm that damaged Iran’s centrifuge facility, an explosion that killed the top Iranian commander in charge of its missile program, and the recent crash of a U.S. surveillance drone in eastern Iran. Ross refused to comment on whether or not the United States has a covert action program underway, but when asked about it he replied cryptically, “The full range of options needs to be pursued. All options need to be explored.”
One argument against war with Iran, and against harsh economic sanctions that would include curtailing or cutting off Iran’s oil exports, is that the loss of Iran’s oil on the world market would send prices skyrocketing. But Ross suggested that quiet talks with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait – all of which have expressed alarm about Iranian ambitions in the Gulf – might lead Arab oil producers to ratchet up their output to offset Iranian exports. And, he said, Libya’s oil output is already coming back onto the market, further easing pressure on prices. Thus, he said, it might be possible to “phase in an Iran oil shutoff without a spike in prices.”
Photo Credit: Nrbelex
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Esther
FYI wetris: But the back of Sunni insurgency in Iraq has to be broken before Saudis find it expedient to work with Iran and Syria. Can you explain that a bit?
Ateng
Some inetresting comments about the Israel lobby, by a Liberal Democrat peer in the UK, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, are online today at PressTV: Europe cannot think straight about Israel because of the Holocaust, and America is in the grip of the well-organized Jewish lobby.
venkat
it may be wise n better for america to end war in afghanistan.may not wise to have a war against iran.let all military troops takes rest for few years.it may not be good for america to have a war against any country in the next few years.military should recover.politicall he may win again if the amereica goes war with iran.but it is not good to the America.
Chris
The current obama admin. is actually strikingly similar with 2002 bush admim. Like obama, 2002 bush’s admin. civilian side first got rid of any doves then push Iraq war while military side actually oppose the idea.
Justification of the war was also nuclear weapon program and possibility of destabilization on the region.
Only difference would be obama push the war even with economic debacles while bush at least had OK economy. Of course, unlike bush, obama actually has the Israel card to use.
I am not denying either the Iran’s intention to develop nuke weapon or military strike is the only option to prevent Iranian nuke program.
But I am also not denying the simple fact that the U.S. just cannot afford any major military operation either against Nuclear North Korea or pursuing Iran.
To maximize the U.S. interest, I would recommend to pursue realistic options instead of doing whatever Israel demands.
C Moore
Israeli Professor, Dr. Israel Shahak, wrote in his book OPEN SECRETS (1997):”Israel clearly prepares itself to seek overtly a hegemony over the entire Middle East which it has always sought covertly, without hesitating to use for the purpose all means available, INCLUDING NUCLEAR ONES…by insisting on its nuclear monopoly, Israel aims at reducing all other Middle Eastern states to the status of its vassals.”
In their book, CRITICAL MASS (1994), Burrows and Windrem wrote:”Israel wired itself for nuclear war. It was a system that Israel’s enemies could not counter or match. Indeed, they could barely comprehend its complexity..Israel has achieved what strategic analysts call ‘escalation superiority’, the ability to control the pace of a conflict by being able to guarantee that its attackers will be OBLITERATED”(emphasis mine.) Hillary Clinton used that same word, “obliterate” with regards to Iran if it attacked Israel. It is ludicrous to say Iran is an “existential threat” to Israel. Israel has a stockpile of hundreds of nuclear WMDs as well as neutron bombs–AND the backing of the U.S. and Britain with THOUSANDS of nuclear WMDs, many of which are on ships off Iran. Also, all 17 of the U.S. spy agencies have concurred that Iran has no nuclear bomb. Further, Iran’s leaders have said nuclear weapons are un-Islamic; they have pressed for world-wide disarmament of all nuclear weapons-something all peace loving people in the world want. One further point–Jerusalem is the third most holy city for Moslems. Iran would NEVER “obliterate” the place where the Prophet Mohammed rose to heaven and their Prophet, Jesus, lived and preached. (Yes, they revere Jesus and all the Hebrew Prophets!)
BB
1. Last Spring, Rose Gottemoeller, an assistant secretary of state and Washington’s chief nuclear arms negotiator, asked Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel refused.
2. The United Nations passed a resolution calling on Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to submit to inspections. Israel refused.
3. The IAEA asked Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to submit to inspections. Israel refused.
4. Iran’s formal notification to the IAEA of the planned construction of the backup fuel-rod facility underscores that Iran is playing by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which Iran has signed.
5. Iran allows IAEA inspections of all its facilities.
6. Contrary to face-saving claims, it appears that the US and Israel were both caught off guard by Iran’s announcement of a planned underground (to avoid being bombed) enrichment facility. The reasoning is simple. Had the US or Israel announced the existence of he new facility before Iran’s notified the IAEA, it would have put Iran on the defensive. As it is now, the US and Israel seem to be playing catch up, casting doubt on the veracity of Israel’s claims to “know” that Iran is a nuclear threat.
7. The IAEA and all 16 United States Intelligence Agencies are unanimous in agreement that Iran is not building and does not possess nuclear weapons.
8. In 1986, Mordachai Vanunu blew the whistle and provided photographs showing Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapons factory underneath the reactor at Dimona.
9. Israel made the same accusations against Iraq that it is making against Iran, leading up to Israel’s bombing of the power station at Osirik. Following the invasion of 2003, international experts examined the ruins of the power station at Osirik and found no evidence of a clandestine weapons factory in the rubble.
10. The United Nations has just released the Goldstone Report, a scathing report which accuses Israel of 37 specific war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza earlier this year. Israel has denounced the report as “Anti-Semitic (even though Judge Goldstone is himself Jewish), and the United States will block the report from being referred to the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague, thereby making the US Government an accessory after-the-fact.
11. Recently revealed documents prove not only that Israel has nuclear weapos, but actually tried to sell some to Apartheid South Africa. Who else Israel approached to sell nuclear weapons remains an unasked question.
12. In 1965, Israel stole over 200-600 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from the United States.
13. Declassified documents from the former South African regime prove not only that Israel has had nuclear weapons for decades, but has tried to sell them to other countries!
Claus-Erik Hamle
The Russian NATO-Ambassador went to Washington and asked: “If people from Mars had disarmed Iran completely, would you still deploy the missiles in Bulgaria, Romania and Poland ?” They answered: “Yes, that will me made as decided.” Der Spiegel, No 49. Trident chief missile engineer Bob Aldridge-www.plrc.org-wrote: “Whether they are on ships or land, they are still a necessary component for an unanswerable first strike.” This leads to Launch On Warning. I´ll move to Risaralda, Caldas highest up in the coffee mountains in Colombia. Years ago my surgeon in Tuluá, Colombia, told me his theory: Very, very, very long ago all-out war took place Moon-Mars and few survivors from both places settled here. Anyway, http://www.mcremo.com
Chris
There really is no military solution to this situation. Of course, Israel may feel (understandably) that it must try to delay Iran from nuclear weapons capability. However, it will only delay the inevitable; Iran is going to be a nuclear weapons power. As for the covert war and more robust sanctions regime? This is a road to a sudden escalation and war. The signs that Iran has reached the limits of its’ tolerence are everywhere. There is only one realistic solution-containment. Besides-nuclear weapons are tools. The problem is the hand that weilds them-the Iranian regime. We should support the Green Movement while reaffirming our military commitment to our allies in the region. Does containment have risks? Yes. Israel could indeed be leveraged or even attacked. But given the complexities of the situation-this is the only reasonable course of action… that also protects our interests. We c
Dr A. Benway
“all options” is a deceptive phrase – what it really means is there is only one “option”. Of course the only people deceived are the people who are not on the the receiving end of the business.
Michael E Piston
Since President Ahmadinejad has frequently dismissed the possibility of foreign attack, e.g., http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/09/25/ahmadinejad-dismisses-a-possible-israeli-threat.html, apparently what you mean is that sanctions are the option.
Pray for Peace
The US has no moral high ground here. As the nation that dropped the only atomic bombs on civilians (twice) without warning, without sufficient experimentation, without sufficient mission objective, the US has no business telling Iran what to do. Attacking Iran will have a bigger negative impact on the US than it will have on Iran. Interesting that the Obama administration has the power to send Americans to Guantanamo without charges, court appearance, or a lawyer. Remember Obama, you’re an American too. Things ended badly for Louis the XVI when the mobs turned the leader’s power on himself.