Nitpick: The shah was in power before Mossadegh and remained shah during Mossadegh’s government. What we did was overthrow a constitutional monarchy to restore the previous absolute monarchy. See here.
In general and at once? Start out with negotiations to smooth over some of the immediate hostility and recognize what John rightly described as our natural alignment of interests with Iran. Completely disavow the “Axis of Evil” rhetoric: it was never anything more than a PR flourish which hurt us a lot more than it helped us foreign-policy-wise. Restore the balance between carrots and sticks in the incentives for actions like containment of Iran’s neighbors Iraq and Afghanistan, backing off from the aggressive stance towards Israel, and transparency about nuclear activities. Stimulate the generally pro-US attitudes in the population instead of playing into the mullahs’ hands with aggressive solidarity-inducing menaces.
In detail and long-term? I don’t know; it’s definitely a very complex foreign-policy situation. I would certainly keep it a priority to talk with lots of people who know a lot more about Iran than I do.
However, there is not a binary choice here between “knowing exactly what foreign-policy steps I would take regarding Iran if I suddenly found myself POTUS” on the one hand, and “supporting the aggressive destabilization of Iran’s regime and economy” on the other.
I think if the last few years have taught us anything, they’ve taught us the peril of taking extremely bold aggressive measures to counter a potential security threat without thinking through the possible outcomes.
[QUOTE=Evil One]
Prevent them from from becoming a nuclear power and a threat to our economy by whatever means we have at our disposal.
And who have only two real economic resources propping up their economy.
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Their oil which is more expensive for them to extract than other nations, and which is running out.
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Their location. The pipelines into an through Iran are strategically significant to many more countries than just Iran.
Iran doesn’t want to disrupt the world economy, they want to be a player at the Big Kid’s table. In all of their history (since 1979) they have not attacked their neighbor without provocation a single time. They were being very helpful immediately after 9/11 when we wanted to go after the Taliban before Little Lord Fontleroy decided to call them the “Axis of Evil”. So immediately after that they voted their reformer president Khatami out and Ahmadinejad in. Iran wants to be modern, probably moreso than most other nations in the middle-east. They know their Mullahs all live in mansions they seized from the upper-class when they deposed the Shah, they don’t buy into the nonsense preached against Western Decadence. However, when we give them the stick rather than the carrot it makes them suspicious of us and rightfully so.
If we deprioritized Iran, Ahmadinejad would have less than six months left in office.
They have neither the means, nor the political will to f*** with the United States if we don’t constantly aggravate them.
Ahh thank you.
I would rather see Iran get nukes than for us to “destabilize” the regime there. Nukes, we know how to deal with-- a “destabilized” regime, we don’t. And I’m more worried about nukes in Pakistan than I am in Iran. Iran is years away from getting nukes, and as they closer, we’ll see a lot more pressure from China and Russia being put on them. This is a non-crisis.
Because they bith are actions taken under the umbrella of national security.
The present regime in Iran isn’t particularly popular with Iranians as I understand things. However, our interference results in them supporting the government against outsiders sticking their nose in.
Our record in regime change hasn’t been all that great. We supported Castro agains Batista in Cuba, Saddam Hussein against Iran.
One thing I’m pretty confident of is that GW hasn’t considered the endgame that would result from being successful in overthrowing the Iranian president.
:rolleyes: Arer you kidding? Since it’s you I guess you’re not. First, the Normandy example was just that, an example, to make a point: that the policy has to be absolute and not put in the hands of any particular journalist. Second, the question you quoted doesn’t mention—or necessitate you consider—either Iran or Nazi Germany. Try reading it again and offering an answer this time instead of attempting snark.
And I’ll add, God forbid that a journalist did receive some leaked information and decided to NOT publish it because it would be harmful to his country’s plans as decided by its elected leaders. No doubt a few heads around here would explode.
And that is an excellent position. It skirts the question of the OP, but an excellent position none the less. Well done.
The D-Day invasion was planned for almost a year. No one was told what they were working on. They went as far as to build fake ships in Norway (if I remember correctly) so the Nazis would think the buil-up was there and that an attack would be coming from further north. The entire operation was secret. That is the common denominator. To the best of my knowledge, it wasn’t leaked. And if it was, whoever found out about it was sufficiently interested in not hurting the U.S. war effort as to keep their yap shut.
I don’t follow you. On the one hand you say what was going to be done would have an effect on national security, but then that the public has a right to know. Do you not think that sometimes it is in the best interest of the nation’s security that things would be done without our knowledge—in secret? In your opinion is there anything that a government can and shold rightly keep secret?
Not on your part. Try rereading.
No, sorry. One is an action taken under the umbrella of ideological whim; the other was an action taken under the umbrella of WWII.
Do you sincerely believe that the leak of a plan to destabilize Iran is truly comparable to the leak of troop movements and battle plans in a time of war? Would you extend your stance to any government secret?
I agree with you that they shyould be AT LEAST as upset with the leakers themselves. While I thiink both are morally and criminally wrong, the leakers deserve clearer condemnation.
Oh give me a break. Right or wrong, your attempting to characterize it as “idealogical whim” is ridiculous. Do you really think this was done at whim? That it was deliberated on? A lot? Let’s try not to degrade the debate with such gross mischaracterizations.
Of course. I have to. We all have to. Because if we know about to evaluate it, then it’s not a secret, is it? And who is to say that preventing a war with Iran might not be as beneficial to the U.S., and the world, than suceeding at Normandy?
Come now. Everyone knew that there would be an invasion and that it would come on the French coast. Ships had been carrying supplies and troops to the British Isles for over two years. The planners all knew that they were working on plans for an invasion of Europe. The didn’t know when but then no one did. That, in fact is why in the planning all times are referred to D - x days and H - x hours.
The details of the operation were secret but the fact of an invasion was not. The Russians had been after us to invade and we had promised that we would as soon as we could get the necessary supplies and troops assembled.
The Iranian president doubtless assumes that we are covertly doing all we can to get him overthrown and has people on continuous watch. If he hasn’t done that already he is a damned fool.
Oh yeah. Norway was occupied by the Germans in 1940.
Oh, come now. After observing the Bush administration in action for over six years now, you still believe they deliberate about anything?
Also, I see no reason to believe that such actions are not more likely to start a war with Iran, rather than prevent one.
For instance, what happens when Iran arrests and jails one or more of our agents?
“Potentially”? That seems like kind of a weasel-word in this context: you could in theory argue that anything “potentially” has negative consequences for anything else.
We do have to consider potential outcomes when making choices about policy, strategy, etc. But I don’t want potential negative consequences used as a boogeyman to stifle the freedom of the press. I am definitely not comfortable with decreeing that the media should be barred from reporting any leaked classified information, as long as it could be described as having a “potentially” negative impact. And that’s what you seem to be advocating.
We need to maintain a balance in our society between preserving necessary government secrecy about crucial confidential information and preserving the public’s right to know what the government is doing. I think it makes the most sense in general to entrust the former responsibility to government officials, and the latter responsibility to journalists.
And in general, we should not expect those two groups of people to do each other’s jobs.
So I stand by my original opinion expressed in post#46: Usually, government officials should not leak classified information to the media. But if they do, then usually, the media should report it.
(And by the way, I consider that this precept applies irrespective of who’s doing the leaking. For example, I disapprove of Cheney/Rove’s having leaked Valerie Plame’s CIA-agent status to the media, but I don’t disapprove of the media’s having reported that information when it was leaked to them.)
Theres two different decisions here. The most crucial is the decision on the part of the leaker, whistleblower or traitor. In all the cases I can recall, there is a distinct moral and political edge to the act. We might assume (safely, in my estimation) that this was leaked by someone who opposed such action against Iran, much like Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.
In my estimation, if one is convinced that a covert effort is underway that would be bad for the country, he has a patriot’s duty to commit the crime. But however much a crime it is, it is not treason except in the most legalistic view, the intention is to protect and serve one’s nation. That FBI guy who sold out American agents to the Russians for cold cash, there is a traitor. Daniel Ellsberg was not a traitor, I strongly suspect that the leaker of this story is not either.
To be sure, a crime was committed, and whoever did this should be willing to face the consequences, if only to ensure that any further such decisions are taken with sombre care.
D’oh! The second decision is on the part of the publisher/editor, who can reasonably assume that the information being offered is going to be revealed anyway, which to my mind means a whole different sort of responsibility or culpability, much diluted. There may be some drawback to immunizing the press from such culpability, but it is far outweighed by the benefits afforded by a free press that speaks truth to power and occasionally bites it in the ass.