Eric Williams's List: NatSec, War, Military

• Across the Iranian capital, people could be seen smiling and discussing the news. “The coming six months will be like a honeymoon between Iran and America,” said Ahmad Teymouresi, a maintenance worker in a building complex. “If all goes well, they will marry; if it goes wrong, there will be a divorce.”

  • Not if the Teabaggers in the GOP have anything to say about it.
• “The agreement is a very big deal,” said Amir Mohebbian, a political analyst who has advised many of Iran’s leaders. But he worried that the Obama administration would run into trouble with Congress over the deal.

  • Count on it.

• The near collision, which occurred on Dec. 5 but did not become public until Friday, was one more example of the growing rivalry between China, a rising maritime power, and the United States, the dominant naval power in the Pacific region since World War II.
• “This illustrates the anxieties between the United States and China, and it is very troubling,” said Lyle J. Goldstein, an associate professor at the China Maritime Studies Institute at the United States Naval War College in Rhode Island. “International politics on both sides call for ratcheting up of tensions, and I don’t see either side finding compromises. Neither side knows the other’s red lines.”
• The Chinese ship accompanying the aircraft carrier began shouldering the American cruiser, and then crossed its bow, he said. After the American ship took the evasive maneuver, there was “bridge-to-bridge” contact, in English, between the two ships, the official said. “It was tense but professional,” he said.
• Officials from the American and Chinese navies meet every year to discuss maritime rules and episodes at sea, but so far, the gatherings have been fairly desultory, Mr. Goldstein said. “The maritime consultative agreement has been a disappointment to the American side,” he said.

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• As it turns out, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act essentially empowers Israel to decide whether the United States will go to war against Tehran.
• If the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran's nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.
• Graham would have plenty of company from the hardest of hard liners in his party. In August 2012, Romney national security adviser and pardoned Iran-Contra architect Elliott Abrams called for a war authorization in the pages of the Weekly Standard. And just two weeks ago, Norman Podhoretz used his Wall Street Journal op-ed to urge the Obama administration to "strike Iran now" to avoid "the nuclear war sure to come."
• Even if the Israelis alone launched a strike against Iran's atomic sites, Tehran will almost certainly hit back against U.S. targets in the Straits of Hormuz, in the region, possibly in Europe and even potentially in the American homeland. Israel would face certain retaliation from Hezbollah rockets launched from Lebanon and Hamas missiles raining down from Gaza.
• "A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials." And that September, a bipartisan group of U.S. foreign policy leaders including Brent Scowcroft, retired Admiral William Fallon, former Republican Senator (now Obama Pentagon chief) Chuck Hagel, retired General Anthony Zinni and former Ambassador Thomas Pickering concluded that American attacks with the objective of "ensuring that Iran never acquires a nuclear bomb" would "need to conduct a significantly expanded air and sea war over a prolonged period of time, likely several years."
• (Accomplishing regime change, the authors noted, would mean an occupation of Iran requiring a "commitment of resources and personnel greater than what the U.S. has expended over the past 10 years in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.")
• A dynamic of escalation, action, and counteraction could produce serious unintended consequences that would significantly increase all of these costs and lead, potentially, to all-out regional war.
• (Ultimately, President Clinton opted against the invasion of Iran, in part because of the difficulty in proving the U.S. intelligence case against Tehran to the international community. In the end, the U.S. launched a large-scale covert action campaign against Iranian intelligence assets worldwide. Apparently, the message was received with zero distortion; Iran has not targeted United States interests since.)
• By the standard, an American war with Iran would be almost a foregone conclusion. And if Chuck Schumer, Bob Menendez, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and over 30 other Senators get their way, Israel may well have a green light to start it.

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