It was late February 2003, a few weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and President George W. Bush's administration still lacked a real strategy for the would-be regional hegemon next door. As the Iran desk officer in the office of the secretary of defense, I felt desperate. We were about to invade Iraq without a definitive policy toward its most bitter foe. I feared a repeat of Vietnam and saw in Iran a new Ho Chi Minh Trail -- the enemy lifeline that snaked through Laos and Cambodia and helped dash U.S. hopes for Southeast Asia. I knew that the Islamic Republic would endeavor to replicate this disaster in the Middle East from the moment U.S. troops stormed Baghdad -- just as it had bloodied our noses in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere for decades.
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In fact, I knew from my sources that Tehran had already prepared an entire network of operatives, proxies, and weapons ready to challenge the United States as soon as it toppled Saddam Hussein. I also knew it would be foolish to assume -- as many in the Bush administration did -- that Iraq's many pro-Iranian political and religious leaders could be trusted to cooperate with the United States' stated goal of building "a peaceful "� democratic, and united Iraq." I had spoken with many of these people myself and was on friendly terms with the representatives of several prominent Shiite religious leaders. I was not an ideologue, and I spoke Farsi. I was steeped in Islamic culture and history. I suspected that many of these individuals were essentially Iranian agents -- including the opportunistic "man for all factions" Ahmad Chalabi, a suspicion eventually confirmed when I was later told he had encouraged the pro-Iranian Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to "dig in" against the U.S. Marines in Najaf.
I was not, however, very brave. I did not confront either my boss in the Office of Special Plans, Douglas Feith, or his boss, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, about my overriding fears that Iran could spoil our plans in Iraq -- and wreak havoc in the region. In the fevered atmosphere of the time, I didn't think they would take my concerns seriously, and I was convinced Feith was too ideologically committed to overthrowing Hussein and too enamored of Chalabi in particular to hear any doubts. So, in a foolish, spur-of-the-moment decision, I asked Steven Rosen, foreign-policy director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, to approach the National Security Council's Elliott Abrams with my concerns. This action ultimately led to my indictment, in 2005, for espionage after Rosen relayed my comments to an Israeli diplomat. But my intention was never to leak secrets to a foreign government. I wanted to halt the rush to war in Iraq -- at least long enough to adopt a realistic policy toward an Iran bent on doing us ill.
Today, still serving my 10-month sentence, I take little solace in the knowledge that my concerns were justified. As early as 2004, the editor of Kayhan newspaper, the mouthpiece of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, boasted that "the American invaders are our hostage in Iraq."
Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images
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Larry Franklin was Iran desk officer in the office of the U.S. secretary of defense from 2001 to 2004.
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GRANT
2:26 AM ET
October 19, 2009
To put it bluntly, I'm amazed
To put it bluntly, I'm amazed that you had the nerve to actually post this. To start we have absolutely no evidence at the moment that any of what you propose would have worked, and given the Bush administrations efforts at regime change in other nations at best this would have sent efforts by the United States to deal with Iran to an even more ludicrous low if such a thing were possible. Furthermore, your mention of recognizing a government in exile would have not only been unrealistic but also would have given Iranian support for their regime the flavor of seeing their nation in immediate peril. Like it or not the Iranian people showed no signs then or now of accepting a government anywhere else but in Iran even if we could find someone with credibility. The Solidarity movement in Poland only had its incredible success because the Soviet Union was caught in the midst of its largest crisis since its founding. Over ten thousand soldiers were dead from Afghanistan with far more injured, its economy was in shambles from decades of mismanagement and corruption, Gorbachev had recently informed the leaders of the Soviet nations that Russia would not intervene in a (failed) effort to force them to reform, and Roman Catholicism had proven itself to be the real authority in Poland and not Communism, and most importantly of all Communism was in essence something of a Russian export to Poland and not an millenia old part of Poland's culture. To put it another way, we had none of those things in Iran six or eight years ago and we have none of them today. Even with the recent crackdown and its probable effect of setting millions of Iranians against the current regime we have nothing to guarantee that they will even hold a protest against it, much less rebel. Then there is the matter of nuclear weapons. Iran clearly felt threatened enough by the presence of United States soldiers on both sides (Afghanistan and Iraq) that it began a program for nuclear power. It is important to note that despite that, Iran has to date not produced a single nuclear weapon nor does it have the missiles necessary to actually reach the United States. I think it should be obvious that an actual plan by the United States to overthrow the Iranian government would have led them to acquire those missiles and to produce the necessary uranium to make them nuclear. Also I am unable to trust anyone who thinks in terms of "evil empires". I find it interesting that in your improbable plan you make no mention of the Baluchi insurgents. Inadequate planning for the different groups in Iraq helped cause many problems, and it would be impossible to ignore a group that was capable only a day ago of assassinating multiple Revolutionary Guard officers in Iran. Lastly, though I should think it obvious by now, I am very relieved that your plan was never implemented (to my knowledge). Efforts to build liberal democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan met with incredible difficulty and a third might very well have destroyed all our efforts.
PITT
7:27 AM ET
October 19, 2009
Grant
You sound like an agent for Iran.
Iran is only buiding nuclear weapons because US troops are in Iraq and Afganistan? Not their goal of destroying Isreal?
I don't agree with everything in this article but I am not misguided like you.
GRANT
8:06 AM ET
October 19, 2009
Interesting then that Iran
Interesting then that Iran didn't start moving towards nuclear and power a few decades ago then, isn't it?
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