Iran is not Iraq

September 28, 3:59 PMLA Foreign Policy ExaminerLuke Johnson

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With the revelation of Iran’s secret nuclear enrichment plant on Friday, it was only natural that many—including this writer—recalled the run up to the War in Iraq.

Both before the Iraq War and now, an American administration presented intelligence showing secret site that could produce nuclear materials.

Glenn Greenwald wrote a lengthy post where he compared the two events and concluded they were identical:

Yet here we have, yet again, inflammatory (and, in many eyes, war-justifying) accusations made against an American Enemy…the reason such accusations deserve so much scrutiny is obvious:  there is a substantial faction in our political culture which craves a military attack on Iran -- the same faction, more or less, that caused us to attack Iraq -- and will seize on anything to justify that.

He’s not wrong about Iran hawks. Senator Jon Kyl called for “regime change in Tehran.” Former UN Ambassador John Bolton endorsed attacking Iran again on Fox News.

But Greenwald overestimates the hawks’ influence in making policy on Iran. President Obama is the commander-in-chief and there is no indication that his administration wants to go to war. He said on Friday—recalling the run up to the Iraq War—that “is very important in these kind of high-stakes situations to make sure the intelligence is right.” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke skeptically about an attack on CNN on Friday, “the reality is that there is no military option that does anything more than buy time — the estimates are three years or so.” Their opinion matters, not that of Republican Senators or op-ed writers.

It’s also hard to imagine an attack on Iran given that the American military is already overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan and Gen. McChrystal wants to increase troops in Afghanistan. (The Administration appears to be pushing back on that request.)

That aside, the timing of the announcement indicates that it was made for maximum diplomatic leverage. Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy wrote that the P5+1 and Iran are meeting in Geneva on October 1, and the disclosure has to have changed Iranian calculations based on Russia’s statement that Iran comply with the IAEA and the apparent strength of Western intelligence.

While the intelligence could be wrong, Iran’s claim that it had voluntarily made the plant available for inspections does not seem to hold water. For starters, Iran similarly agreed to inspections of its enrichment plant in Natanz in 2002 after Western intelligence discovered it. Moreover, the additional protocol for safeguards that Iran had agreed to—and later repudiated against IAEA rules—compels Iran to reveal a plant during the preliminary design stage. This plant was not operational, but it was well under construction.

In light of the Iraq War, it’s completely reasonable to be skeptical of intelligence and cautious for any flimsy justifications for war. However, the administration appears to have no interest in war and the intelligence appears to be much better—Western intelligence had been monitoring the site for months—than that leading up to the Iraq War.