Some of These Days

Campus Report ^ | July 8, 2009 | Mytheos Holt

[bs9021]

Some of These Days

by: Mytheos Holt, July 08, 2009

In order to devote further analysis to the threat level posed by a nuclear Iran, the Heritage Foundation recently convened a panel of speakers to discuss a recent jointly authored paper, entitled “Iran’s Nuclear Threat: The Day After.” The talk was moderated by James Jay Carafano, Assistant Director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies.

In his brief introduction, Carafano described the central purpose of the paper and the question it aimed to answer. “This project actually started with a very simple premise and a single question,” Carafano said. “What happens if we all get it exactly wrong…what do we do the day after?” In addressing this question, the overall tenor of the panel’s discussion was pessimistic, though there were spots of optimism.

Ken Katzman of the Congressional Research Service, the sole member of the panel who had not also been a co-author of the paper, took a relatively neutral stance, suggesting that much of the current coverage of Iran was inaccurate. “What has struck me in a lot of the press reporting of the recent events in Iran, particularly in Tehran, is the idea that particular rifts in the regime are new,” Katzman said before detailing a list of Iranian government officials who had been assassinated or otherwise removed from office. “We often forget that serious rifts have occurred through the history of the Islamic Republic.”

Because of these “serious rifts,” Katzman argued, Iran was more concerned about maintaining internal stability. “They fear that if it completely gets out of control…some outside group will emerge and take power,” Katzman said, citing the Red Guard and figures with connections to the former Shah as potential rivals to the ruling regime....

[G8 Diplomat]

A Beautiful Mind...