A former top Obama adviser on the Middle East says the president is serious when he says all options remain open. Just look at his track record.
Dennis Ross, just retired as President Barack Obama’s top adviser on the Middle East, warned yesterday that Obama means what he says when he declares that the White House isn’t ruling out military action against Tehran. Though other, senior U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have repeatedly stressed that war against Iran could have unpredictable and dangerous results, Ross said Obama is serious about using force to prevent Iran from acquiring a military nuclear capability.
“He hasn’t been reluctant to use force when he says that all options remain on the table,” said Ross, in an appearance at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). “It means that it’s an option he is prepared to exercise.” Later, in a private discussion, Ross told The Diplomat that even though Panetta, Mullen and others in the administration seem to oppose a strike against Iran, “The president doesn’t take his own words lightly. Has he made a decision yet? No.”
Ross, before going into the administration in 2009, spent many years at the Washington Institute, a hawkish, pro-Israel think tank, and he has returned there as its counselor and resident expert on the region. While at the White House, he had a reputation as a hardliner on Iran policy, and there has been speculation in Washington that he left the White House because of differences with other U.S. officials, including Pentagon leaders who have expressed reluctance to attack Iran even if that appears to be the only way to halt Iran’s nuclear research program. But in his WINEP appearance Tuesday, Ross disputed that, saying instead that he quit after three years in order to keep a promise he’d made to his family.
Though Iran has denied that it seeks to militarize its nuclear program, and despite there being no concrete evidence that Iranian leaders have decided to seek nuclear weapons, Ross said in his view there’s no ambiguity. “The Iranians, by their behavior, have made it pretty clear that they want to have a nuclear weapons program,” he said. He emphasized that the goal of U.S. policy is to prevent Iran from building a bomb, not containing it once it has developed a military nuclear capability. “It’s not about containment, it’s about prevention,” he said.
Because neither sanctions nor diplomacy have dissuaded Iran from its nuclear program, many analysts in Washington have begun to talk about containing a nuclear Iran, much as the United States pursued a containment, balance-of-power policy toward the Soviet Union in the Cold War. And it’s been reported that officials at the White House, the State Department and the Defense Department are quietly discussing precisely that idea if Iran eventually decides to go nuclear.
But Ross laid out an apocalyptic scenario for nuclear Armageddon in the Middle East if Iran gets the bomb. Were Iran to acquire even a limited nuclear capability, it would dramatically destabilize the Middle East, he said, and that’s why a containment policy is the wrong approach. “The fact is that Israel looks at Iran as an existential threat, and it is,” he said. If both Israel and Iran have nuclear bombs, it would put the region on a hair trigger, and he asked, “Can Israel wait?” if a nuclear-armed Iran seemed to raise its level of readiness for war. “The possibility of nuclear war in the Middle East goes up dramatically.”
Ross stressed that there’s still room for the administration’s combination of sanctions and negotiation to work. “We still have time and space available to us to ratchet up the pressure,” he told WINEP. But some analysts have argued that sanctions, pressure tactics and what appears to be a campaign of covert action against Iran could provoke Iran into aggressive, rash behavior that could by itself lead to conflict. In the field of covert action, recent events include the assassination of several Iranian scientists, a computer worm that damaged Iran’s centrifuge facility, an explosion that killed the top Iranian commander in charge of its missile program, and the recent crash of a U.S. surveillance drone in eastern Iran. Ross refused to comment on whether or not the United States has a covert action program underway, but when asked about it he replied cryptically, “The full range of options needs to be pursued. All options need to be explored.”
One argument against war with Iran, and against harsh economic sanctions that would include curtailing or cutting off Iran’s oil exports, is that the loss of Iran’s oil on the world market would send prices skyrocketing. But Ross suggested that quiet talks with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait – all of which have expressed alarm about Iranian ambitions in the Gulf – might lead Arab oil producers to ratchet up their output to offset Iranian exports. And, he said, Libya’s oil output is already coming back onto the market, further easing pressure on prices. Thus, he said, it might be possible to “phase in an Iran oil shutoff without a spike in prices.”
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N Mr. Obama won nobel price for Peace award . what irony huh ? Ron Paul for 2012 . Coz its now or never to restore America.
The Middle East will not erupt into nuclear war just because Iran has nuclear capability – that is ridiculous. It’ll be a little, miniature Cold War. Little will change in reality, except the option for the US or Israel to directly invade Iran will be off the table. That’s it.
Iran is hurt by its passion. It is not a good trait for handling nuclear bombs. Western countries are passionate people too, they killed and killed until tired of it. US dropped atomic bomb on Japanese civilians to test the weapon and scare Japanese war planners. After much bloodshed, they calmed down and much more civilized. This is more of psychology, not nature. It can change on a dime.
World should be ever more vigilant against these people. So Iran cannot have nuclear weapon. They will throw it to Israel to bring a nuclear winter to the world.
US, don’t pretend you are a law biding country, we all know you are the biggest rogue state in the world, just go ahead bomb Iran, bomb North Korea. I know N Korea already tested bombs, but they can’t deliver to anywhere.
there are many Israel lobies who want U.S to attack on Iran, it seems that U.S decision makers are very rational to not attack on Iran because they know the horrible consequenses. I think most Pro Isreal in Washingtone exagerate the danger of nucler Iran. Iranian are not pro war and this nation is very civlized. It is just a wrong claim that if iran get the nuclear bomb it may attack israel. If we look at iranian history there is very less agression by iran to other nation. why people in the west so exagerating the case of iran. U.S authority should take their lesson form Iraq invasion. they knew that Iraq didnt have WMD but insisted on and munipulated the CIA information and then exagerated the case and finlay invaded. thousands of innocents Irqi have been killed and lots of U.S soldiers lost thier live. who is responsilbe for such irrational decision? Bush should be trailed. he is responsible for lost of amirican soldiers live as well for iraqi people. if Obama administration attack irrationaly on iran it is clear there is nothing will be found but they will be resonsible for millions inocents people live in iran and in the middle east as well in all the world because the extremists will run for Jihad not in the midle east but also in EU and U.S. So, my advice to Obam is to go for negotition with iranian and dont put more sanction because this sanction mostly suffer the peolpe not high ranking official in Tehran. and please dont exagerate the case and go more visely. Jamal from International University of Japan
When I read this address I was astounded that this man is allowed to speak of Mr. Obama’s intentions. He sounds like the Bush gang that got us into the quagmire in Iraq. They were screaming about WMD and telling the public we were going to be attacked, all the while they KNEW Hussein had nothing. LATER, Bush giggled about the fact that those rabble rousers, whose children would not be the “cannon fodder” used in our attack on Iraq, were lying!!! Tut, tut, too bad. No wonder he would not let the press take pictures of the 99%’s children when they came back in body bags.
Now we have another group of people, rattling their swords. Listen to the Saudhi Sheik when he tells us that an attack on Iran is beyond catastrophic. We keep saying no one but America should have atomic weapons, because they are world ending scenarios. Have we forgotten the only country in the entire world who used atomic weapons on citizens of another country, has been THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. We are the dangerous ones. The rest of the world has to worry about US!! We have already built an arsenil that can kill the world 25 times over, approximately.
Please President Obama, so not listen to these people only interested in their own pocketbooks. They make money from WAR. They are the 1% we all should be afraid of. I am old so I am not afraid for myself. But why kill all the animals, all innocents who live in countries who have no idea about what will happen to them. Even the rich will have no place to hide, but they think their wealth can SAVE them. It won’t.
l don’t usually respond to these issues, but when I read the above speech, and heard the words of Sec. of State Clinton recently, I was horrified at the aspect of what they were drumming up. So I had to speak up, NOW.
A faithful citizen of the WORLD, born in America, but caring for all life everywhere.
Dolores Ducommun
Its funny he has to go out and say that, the “all options are on the table” phrase sounds much more ambiguous than it actually is. Just ask Gadaffi how soft and/or ambiguous Obama can be. Oh wait, you cant because he is dead.
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