February 18, 2002: Neocon Advocates Tough Stance on Iran

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a resident fellow at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, calls on the Bush administration to adopt an aggressive policy awards Iran. He says the US must make it clear that it “favors real popular government in Iran.” There are “only two meaningful options,” he writes, “confront clerical Iran and its proxies militarily or ring it with an oil embargo.” Gerecht clearly opposes any sort of dialog with Iran’s government. “If Washington wants to dissuade and punish the clerical regime, it will have to use force, the only currency the clerics truly respect…. Starting at the periphery of the Iranian world—Lebanon and possibly Afghanistan—probably makes the most tactical and strategic sense. Lebanon, in particular, offers the United States the option of hitting three targets—Hezbollah, the clerics, and the Assad regime—at once. However, if al-Qaeda’s liaison with Iran is active, then Washington should probably take the gloves off and hit the clerical regime with enormous force.” As a start, the US should tell Iran to halt its flights to Damascus, which “supply Hezbollah in Lebanon” with arms. Some of the arms are then routed to “Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank,” he says. They should also be warned that “any aircraft suspected of carrying military materiel will be forcibly diverted to Israel, shot down, or destroyed on the tarmac.” [Weekly Standard, 2/18/2002]