The Neo-Cons Are Wrong on Iran, Just Like They Were on Iraq

Opinion by Gilbert Mercier, News Junkie Post

Neo-Con Paul Wolfowitz wrote an opinion piece published in The Washington Post last Friday. It was titled “No comment is not an option.” In it, he expressed some highly critical views of the cautious approach taken by President Obama in his dealing with the Iranian crisis.

First of all, why should Americans care about the opinion of a man that has been so consistently wrong on all his policy recommendations? He has an impeccable track record of failures, from his tenure at the Pentagon with Rumsfeld, to his less than stellar performance at the World Bank.

Taking side forcefully in the Iranian crisis unfolding would be as productive and truthful as telling Americans that “The troops will be greeted with roses” in the build up to the Iraq war or that “Oil will pay for it” when talking about the war financial cost.

What Paul Wolfowitz doesn’t understand is that any declared support to the reformists and Mousavi from Obama would tilt the balance in favor of  the Ayatollahs and Ahmadinedjad. Wolfowitz should know about America’s dubious policies with Iran since 1953, when America and the British helped a coup against an elected government to put the Shah in power. Iranians, both reformists and hard liners, do not trust Americans for good reasons. Beside the 1950’s coup, Wolfowitz old boss and mentor Ronald Rumsfeld was Reagan’s point man in America’s alliance with Saddam Hussein. More than one Million Iranians died in the Iraq/Iran war conflict, and they are unlikely to forget it anytime soon.

Obama’s “Less is more” diplomatic approach towards the situation unfolding is obviously the right one. As far as “No Comment,” it should be the  option of choice for Wolfowitz due to his complete lack of analytical abilities.

I am suspecting that Wolfowitz desire to write the opinion piece originated from plans he had, with his neo-cons friends and the Bush Administration at large. We could have a regime change in Iran, but it won’t be according to the neo-cons’ playbook.

The providential man acting as a catalyst for change in Iran is Mousavi. The former Prime Minster was an unlikely candidate to lead such a movement. However, Mousavi’s role is of critical importance. By rejecting the result of the stolen election, and urging his supporters to protest he has made the quantum leap of defiance towards the authority of the Supreme Leader. The reformist movement has transcended Mousavi himself, and transformed him into the most powerful symbol of the opposition. Any concession on Mousavi’s part would compromise the commitment of the protesters.

It seems almost impossible for the Islamic Republic to survive the current crisis with its theocratic ideology and leadership intact. If the protests persist, the challenges to the regime will intensify and eventually reach a breaking point.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s authority has been challenged by the people, and this process is unlikely to regress to the previous Status Quo. The reformists are not challenging the power of the clerics yet, but if Iranians remain mobilized in large numbers the days of the theocracy could be numbered.

No matter how it unfolds, the Islamic Republic, as it has existed for the past  thirty years, is over.

This is Paul Wolfowitz’s opinion piece in The Washington Post.