January 31-2014
. . . target of attack
The Islamic Republic has gone into rhetorical overdrive, denouncing US Secretary of State John Kerry for saying the military option would remain on the table if Iran were to violate the interim nuclear agreement that went in effect last week.
The reaction even included a vote in a Majlis committee to add $2.5 billion to the military budget in response.
The US line about “options on the table” was created more than a decade ago by the Administration of President George W. Bush and has been uttered probably thousands of times by US officials since then. But in the last few days, Iranian officials have been lining up at the microphones to single out Kerry’s use of the term as uniquely offensive. Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani even said Iran would boost its defense budget because of Kerry’s “threat” to attack Iran. And, indeed, a few days later, the Tasnim news agency reported that a Majlis committee had voted unanimously to add the equivalent of $2.5 billion to the defense budget.
There have been a few words of caution. Deputy Majlis Speaker Mohammad-Reza Bahonar seemed to feel Larijani had gone overboard and said, “We should interpret [Kerry’s remarks] as serving domestic consumption.”
US officials have been saying for weeks that hot Iranian rhetoric is intended to assuage hardliners in Tehran—but the hot Iranian rhetoric sometimes serves to inflame the anger of members of Congress who object to the interim agreement with Iran and find the caustic language from Iran to be proof of untrustworthiness.
Kerry made his comment last Thursday in an interview with the Dubai-based Arab television station Al-Arabiyya. Since there was nothing new in what he said, it got little coverage in the media anywhere in the world—except in Iran.
One figure who downplayed the remark was Ali-Akbar Velayati, the principal foreign policy adviser to the Supreme Leader. But he downplayed the comment while assailing the United States. Velayati described Kerry’s comments as an “empty bluff.” He said, “Obviously the Americans have no such power [to attack Iran]. If they did, they would not have been expelled from Iraq and Afghanistan in such a totally weakened state.” He said the Americans had entered Iraq and Afghanistan with the intent of staying forever but the noble people of both counties had forced them out. US troops are still in Afghanistan, however.
This argument that the Americans are incapable of attacking Iran has been the official line for the past year. Before that, officials would talk about how the Islamic Republic would smash any invasion force. The military even showed video of what it said were hundreds of thousands of graves dug in which to burry dead American troops. It appeared that such talk was fomenting fear among the Iranian populace that there would be a war and that the regime was perhaps even seeking war. The official rhetoric then shifted from Iran smashing invaders to the Americans being too weak to attack.
But in recent days, in the wake of Kerry’s remarks, some in the military forgot the new script and resorted to threats to kill American invaders.
For example, Pasdar Brig. Gen. Masud Jazayeri at first said the US government knows it cannot attack Iran but then quickly added that if the Americans do attack, then all the interests the United States has in the region would be completely destroyed.
Pasdar Commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad-Ali Jafari totally forgot the script and boasted of Iran’s “offensive” capability, despite years of official rhetoric saying Iran only has a military for defensive purposes.
“You could never understand the extent of the offensive capability of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Jafari said. “Mr. Kerry must know that direct battle with the United States is the biggest dream of the pious and revolutionary peoples across the world. Your threats offer our revolutionary people the greatest opportunity.” This open lusting for combat was far outside he approved rhetoric.
But Jafari went on: “Islam’s leaders have long since prepared us for a great and decisive confrontation.”
Jafari said he hoped that “wise politicians” in the US would not allow “the ridiculous military option” to remain on the table. He urged Kerry to stop repeating “bankrupt strategies like the use of the military option” in order to avoid “accelerating the collapse of US civilization.”
At the Foreign Ministry, spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said Kerry’s remarks “are undiplomatic. A group that is opposed to the Geneva deal … seems to be having unconstructive influences on US authorities.” But Kerry didn’t criticize the deal; he said the military option was available if Iran violated the deal.
The “military option” is simply rhetoric in the United States. Robert Gates, who was defense secretary in the last two years of Bush’s time in office, says in his memoirs that Bush never gave any thought to an attack on Iran while Gates served with him. (See last week’s issue of the Iran Times, Page 10.)
In fact, as originally used in the Bush Administration, the phrase was “All options remain on the table,” which, if taken literally, would include abject surrender. Bush did not speak of the “military option.” That was added by the Obama Administration, which, Gates wrote, also showed no interest in the military option during its first 2 1/2 years when Gates also served as defense secretary.
From the Majlis, Deputy Alaeddin Borujerdi, chairman of the National Security Committee, said Kerry’s remarks “are one more piece of evidence that the Supreme Leader spoke accurately when he said the Americans cannot be trusted.” He didn’t explain what Kerry’s remarks had to do with either trust or distrust.