Prisoner of Her Desires (Reuel Marc Gerecht on Iran's jailing of Haleh Esfandiari, American citizen)

IN the United States and in Europe, there is a widespread belief that the Bush administration has failed to engage Iran diplomatically. Among the advisers to the Iraq Study Group, of which I was one, most believed that the Bush administration, not the mullahs’ regime, was the most culpable party in foreclosing dialogue between Washington and Tehran after 9/11.

Iran’s American-educated longtime ambassador to the United Nations, Javad Zarif, has tirelessly suggested that the administration missed opportunities for improving relations and is tone-deaf to his country’s peaceful intentions.

Yet it ought to be clear that just the opposite is the case. The clerical regime today is no more interested in reaching a peaceful modus vivendi with the United States than it was in the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright all but begged President Mohammad Khatami of Iran to just talk to them.

Case in point: Haleh Esfandiari, an American citizen and the director of the Middle Eastern program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, has been jailed in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since May 8. For years, she has been an articulate and determined advocate of better relations between her homeland, Iran, and her adopted country.

Just as the former Representative Lee Hamilton, the head of the Wilson Center and the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, has advocated a “diplomatic offensive” toward Tehran, Mrs. Esfandiari has assiduously practiced micro-diplomatic soft power, using the Wilson Center as a bully pulpit for reconciliation. Suspicious, cynical, hawkish and religiously oriented analyses of the Islamic Republic — my school of thought — have not been commonly heard at the Wilson Center under Mrs. Esfandiari and Mr. Hamilton.

In Iran, too, Mr. Hamilton and his Iraq Study Group co-chairman, James Baker, are seen as...

The best way to ‘engage’ Iran at this point in history is when B-1 and B-2 bombers ‘engage’ their pre-selected targets on the ground.

The idea that there is going to be some sort of diplomatic breakthrough, that Tehran and Washington will suddenly break out in a chorus of ‘Kumbaya’, is almost as absurd as the notion that through covert action, we’re going to achieve regime change in Iran.

The only regime change that’s going to work on the Iranian Islamofascists is the kind of regime change we brought about in Japan in 1945.

Zarif seems to believe that all diplomacy has to be the work of governments. If Iran were serious about improving relations, we would be seeing a cultural reachout to the Iranian population in the US, which happens to be the wealthiest single immigrant group, including such people as the telecom billionaire who funded the X Prize. What we see instead is that Iran, like Cuba, sees its expatriates as traitors and has no interest in maintaining contact with them.

The only regime change that’s going to work on the Iranian Islamofascists is the kind of regime change we brought about in Japan in 1945.
That may not be so. Almost half the population is not Persian, most of the population is reported as liking America and they have to import a large amount of diesel and gasoline because of limited refineries.

Whether the population is Persian, non-Persian, or Martian, it doesn't matter if they like us or not. The facts are, the mullahs and the little runt in charge Ahmadinejad, have made it Iranian policy that Israel should be wiped out, that a world 'without America' is their national aspiration, and they continue to defy the international community with their pursuit of nuclear weapons. They are not playing around and we need to recognize that fact.

It matters not one whit if Iranian consumers have to import diesel and gasoline due to their own limitations in refining their own resources, the Islamofascists running the show are hardly worried about the inconvenience to consumers if they have to pay higher prices for fuel. IOW, Tehran's direction is 'guns over butter', and the summer months are the best months for generating a U.S. thunderstorm of munitions, nuclear-tipped bunker-busting bombs, and all around general havoc in the skies over Iran, and on the ground.

To return to that idea about "most of the population is reported as liking America", that's all very nice and I'm sure that there were many Germans and Japanese who 'liked' us as well prior to the U.S. unleashing all Hell upon them in World War II. Our goal is not to win any global or regional popularity contests, our goal is to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear capability and the sooner we get with it, the better off the world (and the Iranian people) will be.

Whether the population is Persian, non-Persian, or Martian, it doesn't matter if they like us or not. The facts are, the mullahs and the little runt in charge Ahmadinejad, have made it Iranian policy that Israel should be wiped out, that a world 'without America' is their national aspiration, and they continue to defy the international community with their pursuit of nuclear weapons. They are not playing around and we need to recognize that fact.

Ahmadinejad is just a titular head of state. Iran is a theocratic republic ruled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and a council of mullahs, who control the prisons, courts and security forces.

Can you give me an example of a bombing campaign that by itself achieved regime change without the headaches of occupation? With the dems controlling Congress, how will this happen?

It matters not one whit if Iranian consumers have to import diesel and gasoline due to their own limitations in refining their own resources, the Islamofascists running the show are hardly worried about the inconvenience to consumers if they have to pay higher prices for fuel. IOW, Tehran's direction is 'guns over butter', and the summer months are the best months for generating a U.S. thunderstorm of munitions, nuclear-tipped bunker-busting bombs, and all around general havoc in the skies over Iran, and on the ground.

To return to that idea about "most of the population is reported as liking America", that's all very nice and I'm sure that there were many Germans and Japanese who 'liked' us as well prior to the U.S. unleashing all Hell upon them in World War II. Our goal is not to win any global or regional popularity contests, our goal is to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear capability and the sooner we get with it, the better off the world (and the Iranian people) will be.

Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese Navy with tragic results, and Germany declared war on us shortly thereafter. We tried "shock and awe" in Iraq. What makes you think we have the national will for trying the same in Iran with our use of nuclear weapons no less? We still have inconclusive occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the transport of oil through the Straits of Hormuz must be maintained.

Congress Warns Bush Not to Attack Iran

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