The slippery slope to strikes on Iran

By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

Last week's partial leak of Defense Secretary Robert Gates's January memo on Iran, and the later statements from Gates and Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy, reveal two crucial points.

First, the Obama administration is deeply divided about its Iran policy, beyond the current effort to get new sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council. Second — and more important — there is a serious risk that President Barack Obama may eventually be maneuvered into ordering military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets.

Gates's memo — which its leaker described to The New York Times as a “wake-up call” about the administration's lack of a long-term strategy for dealing with Tehran's nuclear program — is consistent with the defense secretary's long-standing views on Iran.

Gates publicly questions whether attacking Iranian nuclear targets will accomplish anything of strategic significance. He recognizes that potential downsides — including retaliation against U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq — could be severely damaging to Washington's regional position.

Gates also seems to believe that the United States can “contain” an Iran that has mastered uranium enrichment but stops short of actually building a nuclear weapon. Even if Iran detonates a device, in Gates's view it should still be eminently containable.

In sum, Gates believes the United States does not need to go to war over Iran's nuclear program. He is strongly supported by the senior uniformed military leadership, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen.

But senior officers privately express concern that this Pentagon view is not getting the traction it should in the administration's policymaking process.

The administration is indeed continuing efforts to boost the defensive capabilities of its Arab Gulf allies. But some officers say the State Department is not moving ahead with the diplomatic moves required for a containment strategy — like negotiating the terms of U.S. nuclear guarantees for these states.

Gates's remarks after the leak suggest that he wrote the memo to leapfrog the interagency process and “tee up” for presidential decision a number of specific items needed for serious pursuit of a containment strategy.

Essentially, the Pentagon's frustration stems from the White House's unwillingness to embrace containment as its Iran strategy.

We do not know who leaked the Gates memo. But the “senior officials” who did so were clearly seeking to use their selective description to catalyze more robust planning for potential military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets — the very option that Gates has consistently opposed.

This explains Gates's public claim that his memo had been “mischaracterized” by the leaker. It also explains Fluornoy's later statement that an attack against Iran is “off the table in the near term.” (Though, after White House intervention, Gates's spokesman walked back Flournoy's comment.)

The reality is that a cadre of senior National Security Council officials — including Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and Dennis Ross, senior director for the central region (including Iran) — is resisting the adoption of containment as the administration's Iran strategy.

For some, containment is problematic because it would be interpreted in Israel and pro-Israeli circles here as giving up on preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold state. Republicans could use this to label Obama as weak on national security.

Others in this camp may actually believe that Washington should be preparing for military action against Iran.

As Ross told us before he returned to government service in the Obama administration, President George W. Bush's successor would probably need to order military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets.

Pursuing diplomatic initiatives early in Obama's tenure, Ross said, would be necessary to justify potential military action to domestic and international constituencies.

That is precisely what the administration has done — first, by pursuing halfhearted diplomatic initiatives toward Tehran, then, when Iran did not embrace them, blaming Iran for the impasse.

Adopting containment as the administration's posture toward Iran might undermine some White House officials' efforts to prepare the political ground for an eventual presidential decision approving military strikes.

We have also heard former Bush administration officials close to Vice President Dick Cheney take note of the recent rise in U.S. public support for military action against Iran, as measured by some opinion polls.

Against that backdrop, these Republicans say, Obama — “a Chicago pol”— could ultimately see his way clear to ordering military strikes.

Obama's overly hedged approach to diplomacy with Tehran has succeeded only in giving engagement a bad name.

Now, he has surrendered the high ground of U.S.-Iranian rapprochement that he courageously staked out during the 2008 presidential campaign, leaving militarized containment as his administration's “moderate” (even “dovish”) alternative to more coercive options.

Gates is correct that a U.S.-Iranian military confrontation would be severely damaging to Washington's strategic position. But containment is an inherently unstable and dangerous posture — perhaps likely to end up sparking a U.S.-Iranian war.

Meanwhile, failing to pursue serious, strategically grounded engagement with Tehran could continue to leave the administration's Middle East policies in free-fall — accelerating the erosion of U.S. influence in this critical region. 

Flynt Leverett directs the New America Foundation's Iran Initiative and teaches international affairs at Penn State. Hillary Mann Leverett is CEO of STRATEGA, a political risk consultancy. Both worked on Middle East issues at the National Security Council and now publish www.TheRaceForIran.com.

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