You would think they would learn but they are at it again.
"Earlier this month, the Foreign Policy Initiative, a think tank founded by William Kristol and other well-known hawks, gathered signatures for an open letter to congressional leaders. The letter did not explicitly endorse the sanctions bill currently awaiting a vote in the Senate, but it said, Congress has a chance to play an important role in making clear the consequences of Iranian violations of the interim nuclear deal and in clarifying expectations with respect to future nuclear talks with Tehran, which is exactly what the new sanctions bill does. On one particular point, the letter was emphatic: Sanctions can help diplomacy succeed. Congressional action, it read, can thus substantially improve the prospect that Irans growing nuclear threat will be verifiably and irreversibly halted without the use of force. (The italics are mine).
The letters signatories comprise a whos who of Iran hawks. Reviewing all their past statements was too cumbersome, so I asked two talented college studentsRachel Cohen and Zachary Parkerto investigate a few of the signers. Is it really a canard that some of the people now claiming sanctions can help avert war actually want war? What follows are only a few of the clearest answers to that question:
Joshua Muravchik, formerly of the American Enterprise Institute: We must bomb Iran.
Matthew Kroenig, Georgetown University: Time to Attack Iran.
Max Boot, Council on Foreign Relations: The only credible option for significantly delaying the Iranian nuclear program would be a bombing campaign.
Eliot Cohen, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: The choices are now what they ever were: an American or an Israeli strike, which would probably cause a substantial war, or living in a world with Iranian nuclear weapons, which may also result in war, perhaps nuclear, over a longer period of time. Understandably, the U.S. government has hoped for a middle course of sanctions, negotiations and bargaining that would remove the problem without the ugly consequences. This is self-delusion.
Cliff May, Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Irans rulers are not open to engagement no matter what mix of carrots and sticks are offered. (After I quoted May on the radio last week, he emailed to explain that he considers diplomacy and engagement to be different things).
Abe Greenwald, Commentary: The mullahs in Tehran are not open to compromise, and cannot be made any more pliable by the impositions of a stricter sanctions regime. Any attempts at diplomacy or institution of sanctions are, from here on out, aimed at building an evidentiary case that every non-military option will have been exhausted. Once that case can be made, Obama will either give the order to bomb Iran or let the Khomeinist regime in Tehran assert complete regional hegemony. There will not be, nor has there ever been, a third option.
And, finally, Kristol himself: Its long since been time for the United States to speak to this regime in the language it understandsforce So we can stop talking. Instead, we can follow the rat lines in Iraq and Afghanistan back to their sources, and destroy them. We can strike at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and weaken them. And we can hit the regimes nuclear weapons program, and set it back.
The Hawks' Hypocrisy on the Iran Sanctions Bill - Peter Beinart - The Atlantic
"Earlier this month, the Foreign Policy Initiative, a think tank founded by William Kristol and other well-known hawks, gathered signatures for an open letter to congressional leaders. The letter did not explicitly endorse the sanctions bill currently awaiting a vote in the Senate, but it said, Congress has a chance to play an important role in making clear the consequences of Iranian violations of the interim nuclear deal and in clarifying expectations with respect to future nuclear talks with Tehran, which is exactly what the new sanctions bill does. On one particular point, the letter was emphatic: Sanctions can help diplomacy succeed. Congressional action, it read, can thus substantially improve the prospect that Irans growing nuclear threat will be verifiably and irreversibly halted without the use of force. (The italics are mine).
The letters signatories comprise a whos who of Iran hawks. Reviewing all their past statements was too cumbersome, so I asked two talented college studentsRachel Cohen and Zachary Parkerto investigate a few of the signers. Is it really a canard that some of the people now claiming sanctions can help avert war actually want war? What follows are only a few of the clearest answers to that question:
Joshua Muravchik, formerly of the American Enterprise Institute: We must bomb Iran.
Matthew Kroenig, Georgetown University: Time to Attack Iran.
Max Boot, Council on Foreign Relations: The only credible option for significantly delaying the Iranian nuclear program would be a bombing campaign.
Eliot Cohen, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: The choices are now what they ever were: an American or an Israeli strike, which would probably cause a substantial war, or living in a world with Iranian nuclear weapons, which may also result in war, perhaps nuclear, over a longer period of time. Understandably, the U.S. government has hoped for a middle course of sanctions, negotiations and bargaining that would remove the problem without the ugly consequences. This is self-delusion.
Cliff May, Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Irans rulers are not open to engagement no matter what mix of carrots and sticks are offered. (After I quoted May on the radio last week, he emailed to explain that he considers diplomacy and engagement to be different things).
Abe Greenwald, Commentary: The mullahs in Tehran are not open to compromise, and cannot be made any more pliable by the impositions of a stricter sanctions regime. Any attempts at diplomacy or institution of sanctions are, from here on out, aimed at building an evidentiary case that every non-military option will have been exhausted. Once that case can be made, Obama will either give the order to bomb Iran or let the Khomeinist regime in Tehran assert complete regional hegemony. There will not be, nor has there ever been, a third option.
And, finally, Kristol himself: Its long since been time for the United States to speak to this regime in the language it understandsforce So we can stop talking. Instead, we can follow the rat lines in Iraq and Afghanistan back to their sources, and destroy them. We can strike at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and weaken them. And we can hit the regimes nuclear weapons program, and set it back.
The Hawks' Hypocrisy on the Iran Sanctions Bill - Peter Beinart - The Atlantic
