Iran News Roundup 11/14
GOP candidates talk Iran at Saturday’s CBS/National Journal debate The first question posed to the candidates was on their willingness to launch military strikes against Iran. Romney, Gingrich called Obama’s Iran policy a failure and expressed support for using military strikes and covert actions against Iran. Santorum called for the U.S. to work with Israel […]
Iran News Roundup 11/10
Romney attacks Obama on Iran: If you want peace, prepare for war Ahead of this weekend’s GOP foreign policy debate, Mitt Romney took to the Wall Street Journal to lay out his case against Obama on Iran. Romney criticizes Obama for saying he would pursue engagement with Iran in the previous election cycle, for not […]
Iran News Roundup 11/8
Israeli war talk continues amidst ex-Mossad chiefs’ objections and world leaders’ concern Israel plans on issuing a statement calling for tougher sanctions on Iran in response to expected IAEA report. Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak said “lethal” sanctions required and until then “we continue to recommend to our friends in the world and to ourselves, not to […]
Rhetoric, Reactionaries, and Repercussions
What do the political spheres in the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran have in common? They both possess groups with a penchant for dramatic acts and belligerent rhetoric that serve no purpose other than to provoke the other side and raise the specter of war. Take the recent provocative boasts by Iranian […]
Diplomacy with Iran and Political Theatre
Though Iran is poised to be a major foreign policy issue (or political football) in the 2012 elections, Obama’s speech at the U.N. only mentioned Iran in passing. And Ahmadinejad’s predictably controversial speech at the U.N. today will hardly provide for political openings to engage for U.S.-Iran engagement. Yet the immediacy of the need to dialogue […]
“All Options” on Iran Must Include Diplomacy
For the first time since the May 2010 “Tehran Declaration,” Iran has offered a proposal that could break the deadlock over its nuclear program. While there are many unanswered questions about the contours of the proposal and about Iran’s motivations for offering it, there is only one way to answer those questions: renewed diplomacy. According […]
1.4 million reasons why the military option is not really an option
With the ad nauseum invocations by American political figures that an Iran military option (or even “military solution”) is “on the table”, there has been an alarming lack of substantive discussion on what such an option would actually entail. Recently though, two pieces have provided some needed perspective on the consequences of going to war with […]
Perry’s military “solution” and the GOP candidates on Iran
Republican primary front-runner Gov. Rick Perry, was recently quoted as saying that, while he rejects military adventurism, he was “never going to take off the table our ability to have a military solution to a country like Iran.” At first glance, this might appear to be more of the same tough talk that we have […]
House Republicans endorse Israeli military action on Iran
Rep. Louie Gohmert has reintroduced his resolution expressing support for Israeli military action on Iran. The measure has 44 cosponsors—all of whom are Republicans. 25 of the cosponsors are in the House Tea Party Caucus, including potential presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann. The resolution has been introduced just in time for Bibi Netanyahu’s address to Congress this […]