WASHINGTON - In the harshest speech
against Iran given by a top George W Bush
administration official to date, Vice President
Dick Cheney on Sunday warned the Islamic Republic
of "serious consequences" if it did not freeze its
nuclear program 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 United 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 defense 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
Shi'ites 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 US countries [sic] across the wider
region."
Cheney's speech comes at a moment
of rising tensions between the US 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 in
Washington as a major victory for the hardline
anti-Western faction behind President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad against more pragmatic elements in the
regime.
While Jalili lacks experience,
noted Farideh Farhi, an Iran expert at the
University of Hawaii, "What 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 hardline 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" organization.
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 US Middle East policy
and the threat posed by Iran to a yet more-hawkish
pro-Israel group, the Jewish Institute for
National Security Affairs.
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 jihadi
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
defense 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 US power in
the region and the possibility that Tehran is
deeply threatened by the emergence of "a strong,
independent, Arab Shi'ite 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 US commander in Iraq,
General 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 Shi'ite community
emerging in Iraq, one that seeks guidance not in
Qom, Iran, but from traditional sources of Shi'ite
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 Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Corps, 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 US-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".
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