THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 219, November 19, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
ARE PRESIDENT BUSH'S RECENT STATEMENTS
ON IRAN DANGEROUSLY PROVACATIVE?
By Dr. Michael Rubin
THE U.S.A., INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, & THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR THREAT: PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH ON THE
NEED TO DENY IRAN THE KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY TO MAKE A NUCLEAR BOMB -- MISPLACED CRITICISM OF THE
PRESIDENT'S REMARKS BY LIBERALS, PARTISAN DEMOCRATS, & ULTRA-INTERNATIONALISTS -- UNDERSCORING THE
SERIOUSNESS & RESOLVE OF THE U.S.A. & DAMPENING THE OVERCONFIDENCE OF IRAN'S ISLAMIST POLITICAL
REGIME: THE UTILITY & ADVANTAGE OF BUSH'S RHETORIC
FULL STORY:
On Oct. 17, 2007, President Bush raised the specter of war with Iran. "If you're interested in avoiding World War III," he
said, it's necessary to deny the Islamic Republic "the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." Condemnation
of his comments was swift. U.S. Senator Robert Byrd (Democrat - West Virginia) accused the President of using
"rhetorical ghosts and goblins to scare the American people, with claims of an imminent nuclear threat in Iran."
Navel-gazing is a Capitol Hill pastime, but such criticism is misplaced. Since the disclosure of Iran's covert enrichment
program, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors — not the Central Intelligence Agency or Iranian exiles —
report a litany of lies being told by Iranian political regime. IAEA inspectors discovered traces of uranium metal used to
build bombs, not fuel reactors. IAEA inspectors also found that Iran had experimented with chemical separation of
polonium, a material used to initiate nuclear detonation. Iran still has not revealed what rogue Pakistani scientist A.Q.
Khan sold on his trip to Tehran.
Diplomacy should always be the strategy of first resort, but its track record with Tehran does not encourage. While
fashionable for Liberals, partisan Democrats, and ultra-internationalists to blame Iran's nuclear desire upon the U.S.
presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tehran's nuclear program predates such U.S.
interventions by 15 years. In the name of engagement, the European Union nearly tripled trade with Iran between 2000
and 2005. But, rather than invest that windfall in schools and hospitals, the Iranian government — then under reformist
control — poured money into its military and centrifuge programs. Tehran has yet to provide the West a single,
confidence-building, reassuring measure.
Iranian diplomats say their program is peaceful, but officials close to Supreme Leader ‘Ali Khamenei suggest otherwise.
On February 14, 2005, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Kharrazi, Secretary-General of Iranian Hezbollah, said, "We are able
to produce atomic bombs and we will do that." Three months later, Gholam Reza Hasani, Khamenei's representative to
the West Azerbaijan province said, "An atomic bomb…must be produced." And, on September 3, 2007, Khamenei
himself said, "Iran will outwit the West on the nuclear issue."
Iran's centrifuge cascade, Syria's surprise nuclear plant, and North Korea's role in its construction suggest time is limited.
To avert escalation, the White House must demonstrate diplomacy to be Tehran's best option. Bush's rhetoric dampens
Iran's overconfidence and underscores U.S. seriousness, both in Tehran and at the United Nations. Bashing Bush may
make good politics, but it is irresponsible and may hasten the result which Bush's domestic critics most fear.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Michael Rubin, a Ph.D. in History (Yale University) and a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, Islamic culture and Islamist
ideology, is Editor of the Middle East Quarterly and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research. Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, 2001) and is co-author, with Dr. Patrick Clawson, of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005). Dr. Rubin served as political advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad (2003-2004); staff
advisor on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense (2002-2004); visiting lecturer in the Departments of
History and International Relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2001-2002); visiting lecturer at the Universities of
Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan (2000-2001); Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (1999-2000); and visiting lecturer in the Department of History at Yale University (1999-2000). He has been a fellow at
the Council on Foreign Relations, the Leonard Davis Institute at Hebrew University, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and
International Affairs.
The foregoing article by Dr. Rubin was originally published in the Congressional Quarterly, November 16, 2997, and
can be found on the Internet website
maintained by the Middle East Forum, a think tank which seeks to define and
promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam, working for
Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote constitutional
democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly asserting U.S.
interests vis-ŕ-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
November 16, 2007
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