"We're doing this terrible thing all over again," wrote Leslie Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, the think tank that publishes Foreign Affairs, in the Daily Beast, in an appeal for Senate hearings on the implications of war with Iran. "As before, we're letting a bunch of ignorant, sloppy-thinking politicians and politicized foreign-policy experts draw 'red line' ultimatums. As before, we're letting them quick-march us off to war," warned Gelb, a repentant Iraq-war hawk, about the chorus of neo- conservatives and other hawks with whom he had previously been aligned.
On the pages of The New Republic, Kenneth Pollack, a former top CIA analyst at the Brookings Institution whose 2002 book, "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq", was cited frequently by liberal hawks before the war, argued not only against any further escalation, but also suggested that the sanctions track on which the Barack Obama administration and the European Union have increasingly relied was proving counterproductive.ng them diplomatically over time if they resulted in the kind of "humanitarian catastrophe" inflicted by the sanctions regime against Iraq from 1992 until the invasion.On the pages of The New Republic, Kenneth Pollack, a former top CIA analyst at the Brookings Institution whose 2002 book, "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq", was cited frequently by liberal hawks before the war, argued not only against any further escalation, but also suggested that the sanctions track on which the Barack Obama administration and the European Union have increasingly relied was proving counterproductive.
"The problem is that these sanctions (against the Central Bank of Iran) are potentially so damaging that they could backfire," he wrote, citing their possible negative impact on the West's own struggling economies and the difficulty of sustaining them diplomatically over time if they resulted in the kind of "humanitarian catastrophe" inflicted by the sanctions regime against Iraq from 1992 until the invasion.
Meanwhile, another influential liberal hawk, Princeton Prof. Anne- Marie Slaughter, argued in project-syndicate.org that the West and Iran were playing a "dangerous game" of "chicken" and that the West's current course "leaves Iran's government no alternative between publicly backing down, which it will not do, and escalating its provocations."
"The more publicly the West threatens Iran, the more easily Iranian leaders can portray America as the Great Satan to parts of the Iranian population that have recently been inclined to see the U.S. as their friend," wrote Slaughter, who stepped down as director of the policy planning office under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"It is time for cooler heads to prevail with a strategy that helps Iran step back," she added, suggesting that the aborted Turkish- Brazilian 2010 effort at mediation between the P5+1 and Iran be revived.
The more publicly the West threatens Iran, the more easily Iranian
The more publicly the West threatens Iran, the more easily Iranian leaders can portray America as the Great Satan to parts of the Iranian population that have recently been inclined to see the U.S. as their friend," wrote Slaughter, who stepped down as director of the policy planning office under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"It is time for cooler heads to prevail with a strategy that helps Iran step back," she added, suggesting that the aborted Turkish- Brazilian 2010 effort at mediation between the P5+1 and Iran the Iranian population that have recently been inclined to see the U.S. as their friend," wrote Slaughter, who stepped down as director of the policy planning office under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"It is time for cooler heads to prevail with a strategy that helps Iran step back," she added, suggesting that the aborted Turkish- Brazilian 2010 effort at mediation between the P5+1 and Iran be revived.
http://www.nationofchange.org/growing-elite-opposition-military-option-against-iran-1327768240
http://news.yahoo.com/sanctions-hit-eu-buyback-firms-iran-oil-chief-190727543.html;_ylc=X3oDMTBtZDdrbDdlBF9TAwRlbWFpbElkAzEzMjc3OTg5NDc-?bcmt=1327790866102-8d13be8a-02ee-4ede-8466-565a3328c72b_00002b000000000000000000000000-285d51c5-a0ed-4e9d-8846-6ce42a1e251f&bcmt_s=e#ugccmt-container-b
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