[NYTr] Jim Lobe: Cheney Raises the Rhetoric Against Iran

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

IPS - Oct 21, 2007
http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=39747

Cheney Raises the Rhetoric Against Iran

by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (IPS) - In the harshest speech against Iran given by
a top George W. Bush administration official to date, Vice President
Dick Cheney Sunday warned the Islamic Republic of "serious
consequences" if it did not freeze its nuclear programme and accused it
of "direct involvement in the killings of Americans". "Given the nature
of Iran's rulers, the declarations of the Iranian president, and the
trouble the regime is causing throughout the region -- including the
direct involvement in the killing of Americans -- our country and the
entire international community cannot stand by as a terror-supporting
state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions," Cheney warned in a major
policy address to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP).

"The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present
course, the international community is prepared to impose serious
consequences," he added. "The Untied States joins other nations in
sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear
weapon."

In his nearly 30-minute speech, an uncompromising defence of the Bush
administration's record in the Middle East, Cheney also claimed that,
with Washington's "surge" strategy working well against al Qaeda in
Iraq, the "greatest strategic threat that Iraq's Shiites face today in
consolidating their rightful role in Iraq's new democracy is the
subversive activities of the Iranian regime."

And he accused "Syria and its agents" of using "bribery and
intimidation ...to prevent the democratic majority in Lebanon from
electing a truly independent president."

"Lebanon has the right to conduct the upcoming elections free of any
foreign interference," he declared, adding, "the United States will
work with Free Lebanon's other friends and allies to preserve Lebanon's
hard-won independence, and to defeat the forces of extremism and terror
that threaten not only that region, but U.S. countries (sic) across the
wider region."

Cheney's speech comes at a moment of rising tensions between the U.S.
and Iran. Just last week, Cheney's boss, George W. Bush, warned during
a brief press appearance that Tehran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon
-- or even the expertise needed to make one -- could lead to a new
world war.

"I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III,
it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing (Iran) from
having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," he told
reporters, although the White House later insisted that the president
was merely making a "rhetorical point" and still believed that the
nuclear issue could be resolved diplomatically.

Two days later, Iran's lead nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, had
resigned and would be replaced by a less prominent diplomat Saeed
Jalili. Although the government later announced that both Larijani and
Jalili will attend talks Tuesday in Rome with European Union (EU)
foreign-affairs chief, Javier Solana, the move was widely interpreted
here as a major victory for the hard-line anti-western faction behind
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against more pragmatic elements in the
regime.

While Jalili lacks experience, noted Farideh Farhi, an Iran expert at
the University of Hawaii, "(w)hat Jalili does have is a very close
relationship with Ahmadinejad. As such, the move, if it is confirmed,
reflects yet another enhancement of Ahmadinejad's fortunes in Iranian
politics."

Like Ahmadinejad, Cheney has long been seen as the leader of hard-line
forces within the administration, and the mere fact that his speech --
which must have been cleared at the highest levels -- was as
belligerent as it was, especially in accusing Iran of "direct
involvement in the killings of Americans", suggests that the hawks are
trying to take the offensive.

Neither Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice nor Pentagon chief Robert
Gates has made such an unequivocal accusation; indeed, Gates has tried
to downplay such charges when they have been voiced by military
commanders in Iraq.

The forum chosen by Cheney to deliver his speech was in many ways as
significant as its timing and context. WINEP, a generally hawkish think
tank, was founded some 20 years ago by the research director of the
highly influential lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), and is funded by many of the same donors.

AIPAC, in turn, has led a high-powered effort to persuade Congress to
impose tough new sanctions against Iran and foreign companies that do
business with it, and, more recently, to have Tehran's Revolutionary
Guard declared a "terrorist" organisation.

As Cheney himself noted Sunday, his own national security adviser, John
Hannah, once served as WINEP's deputy director. While WINEP does not
take specific positions on pending legislation or policies, it is
generally regarded as at least sympathetic to AIPAC's efforts and often
provides the research AIPAC uses in its lobbying activities.

Cheney's speech was remarkable on several counts, beginning with the
fact that it came less than a week after Gates gave a much more
restrained presentation on U.S. Middle East policy and the threat posed
by Iran to a yet more-hawkish pro-Israel group, the Jewish Institute
for National Security Affairs (JINSA).

While Gates called Tehran's government "an ambitious and fanatical
theocracy," he also stressed the importance of diplomatic pressure and,
in marked contrast to Cheney, dwelt much more heavily on the threats
posed by al Qaeda and other Sunni "jihadist" movements.

Indeed, the rhetorical differences -- including Gates' effort to
distinguish between Sunni jihadism and Iran and Cheney's attempts to
blur the two -- could not be more pronounced.

Cheney's speech was also notable for its aggressive and unapologetic
defence of the Bush administration's conduct of its war on terrorism;
its insistence that the surge has turned the tide of the war in Iraq;
and its repetition of neo-conservative notions about the importance of
reacting with "swift and dire" punishment against challenges to U.S.
power in the region and the possibility that Tehran is deeply
threatened by the emergence of "a strong, independent, Arab Shia
community" in Iraq.

He charged that Iran is a "growing obstacle to peace in the Middle
East," and he recited a long litany of grievances against it. "This
same regime that approved of hostage-taking in 1979, that attacked
Saudi and Kuwaiti shipping in the 1980s, that incited suicide bombings
and jihadism in the 1990s and beyond, is now the world's most active
state sponsor of terror," he declared, quoting the U.S. commander in
Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus for the proposition that it is fighting a
"proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq."

"Fearful of a strong, independent, Arab Shia community emerging in
Iraq, one that seeks guidance not in Qom, Iran, but from traditional
sources of Shia authority in Najaf and Karbala, the Iranian regime also
aims to keep Iraq in a state of weakness that prevents Baghdad from
presenting a threat to Tehran," he added, blaming the Quds Force, an
elite branch of the Revolutionary Guard, for providing "weapons, money
and training to terrorists and Islamic militant groups abroad,
including Hamas; Palestinian Islamic Jihad; militants in the Balkans,
the Taliban and other anti-Afghanistan militants; and Hezbollah
terrorists trying to destabilize Lebanon's democratic government."

He also strongly implied that Washington continues to seek "regime
change" in Tehran, noting that "the irresponsible conduct of the ruling
elite in Tehran is a tragedy for all Iranians" and insisting that "the
spirit of freedom is stirring Iran...America looks forward to the day
when Iranians reclaim their destiny; the day that our two countries, as
free and democratic nations, can be the closest of friends."

Iran, indeed, dominated the last 10 minutes of the speech. By contrast,
Lebanon received only two paragraphs while the administration's efforts
to renew U.S.-Palestinian peace talks drew only the briefest of
mentions.

Bush, he said, has "announced a meeting to be held in Annapolis later
this year to review the progress towards building Palestinian
institutions, to seek innovative ways to support further reform, to
provide diplomatic support to the parties, so that we can move forward
on the path to a Palestinian state."

(END/2007)