News and views on U.S.-Iran relations for December 14, 2010:
- The Weekly Standard: Stephen F. Hayes and Foundation for Defense of Democracies fellow Thomas Joscelyn write, in an article called “The Iran Connection”, that Undersecretary of State William Burns, in his Dec. 1 appearance before the House Foreign Affairs committee, “chose not to mention that the leaders of Iran have been fighting a stealth war against the United States, its soldiers, and its citizens.” Hayes and Joscelyn point back to the WikiLeaks cables alleging that Iran hosted Osama bin Laden’s son Ibrahim, and repeat the allegations that Iran has hosted senior al Qaeda terrorists “for years,” provided assistance to the Taliban and armed “violent extremists” in Iraq. They conclude, “Nearly a decade after the 9/11 attacks, not only do we have abundant evidence that Iran, the world’s foremost state sponsor of terror, supports al Qaeda. We also have evidence that Iran actively assists terrorists and insurgents targeting our soldiers and diplomats in two war zones.”
- Pajamas Media: Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) “Freedom Scholar” Michael Ledeen attempts to draw parallels between the current state of domestic politics in Tehran, particularly in light of the firing of Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki, and Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. Ledeen concludes, “Don’t try to decipher the ‘meaning’ of any one of the melodramatic events in Iran today or tomorrow; just remember that the leaders of the regime are fighting for survival, knowing that the Iranian people hate them, and suspecting each other of betrayal.”
More nonsense from Ledeen.
On the other point (Hayes-Joscelyn), the situation they describe is not entirely accurate. However, it’s quite true that Iran has indeed given help to people in Iraq who have killed Americans. Given the state of relations between America and Iran, however, what should we expect? The two countries could and should be cooperating to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan. We put a Shia government in power in Iraq; given that, shouldn’t we seek accomodation with the next door Shia power?