Ken Pollack Wants Us To Take Him Seriously On Iran Now

by Steve

Ken Pollack, he of the “Why We Need to Invade Iraq Now” Club just two years ago, is out advising us once again of why we need to deal with Iran now. Notwithstanding that Pollack wasn’t exactly clairvoyant in his get-rich book on Iraq last time, note that Pollack is now ready to release his next get-rich book on Iran.

Pollack is telling us that America needs to get tough with Iran while we have time:

Looking at the Iraq example, the bottom line for Iran is that we have to act now, while we still have some options left that might persuade the mullahs in Tehran to slow or halt their nuclear program. But we must get our allies on board immediately, and get firm commitments from them should Iran go back on its word in the future. The last thing we want to do three or five or ten years from now is to be bickering at the Security Council while Iran joins the nuclear club.

Yet Pollack’s newest case for acting now with another Middle Eastern country in the middle of the Islamic world never mentions in 15 paragraphs several realities that he himself contributed to with the Iraq misadventure. First, the European countries, all of whom are trading partners with Iran, have moved out and done their own negotiating with Iran without waiting for direction or approval from America. Second, Pollack never touches on the simple fact that after the huge credibility gap that the Bush Administration created through its Iraq deceptions, there is no reason for the UN or Europe to believe any claims made by this Administration on Iran. And he never touches on what real lesson Iran or any other country has learned from the Iraq invasion: you better arm yourself with nukes if you want to keep George W. Bush from illegally invading your country.

Also, note Pollack’s claim that the threat of referring Iran’s noncompliance with the nonproliferation treaty to the UN Security Council for sanctions is no deterrent for Iran:

The same pattern is even more likely to hold true for Iran, where the Europeans, Japanese, Russians and Chinese all do a great deal of business. This is why the threat of "referring" Iranian violations of the nonproliferation treaty to the Security Council is not much of a threat - it is unlikely that the Security Council will summon the courage to impose meaningful penalties on Tehran.

Yet the Europeans just went through negotiations with Iran that made some progress, with the Iranians knowing that if they didn’t agree on a deal with the Europeans that in fact the matter would be sent to the Security Council for possible sanctions. Of course, this is nothing more than a political dance that Iran is doing to string along the Europeans and keep the UN out of it, thereby isolating the Bush Administration from taking any more forceful action on the matter. But America isn’t in the driver’s seat right now on Iran, as Europe and the UN no longer trust our leadership or our claims anymore, no matter what fairy tales Ken Pollack wants to read to himself at night.