- 30 September 2011
- 1 Comments
- Diplomacy, Election 2012, Events in Iran, US-Iran War
What do the political spheres in the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran have in common? They both possess groups with a penchant for dramatic acts and belligerent rhetoric that serve no purpose other than to provoke the other side and raise the specter of war.
Take the recent provocative boasts by Iranian officials that they plan to send warships off the United State’s eastern seaboard. This came on the same day that it announced it had begun mass-producing new cruise missiles for its navy. While Iran’s ability to follow through with such threats is highly questionable, the fact that these threats ratchet up tensions and raise the risk of conflict is not.
But for all of the bluster coming out of Iran, the U.S. has plenty of its own policymakers who are just as guilty of saber-rattling and equally culpable for the rise in tensions.
For we can all but guarantee that references to Iran’s latest empty threats to make their way into plenty of talking points on both sides of the aisle this election season as candidates and pundits serve up red meat to brandish their “tough on Iran” credentials. And as sanctions legislation is pushed through Congress, Iran’s bluster and bluffs will only be given validation by Republican and Democratic hawks eager to grease the skids for enacting harder-line U.S. policies.
And one only need look at the revelation of the Obama Administration’s decision to sell bunker busting bombs to Israel–bombs that could be used to strike Iranian underground nuclear facilities–as a signal that the U.S. is providing Israel with the means to carry out the military option, which the U.S. has so consistently reminded Iran remains on the table. The deal happened to make headlines at the same time as perceptions that the President’s support among Jewish voters was declining reached a fever pitch domestically.