Washington, DC –
“This
was an act of war,” said Rep. Peter King (R-NY),
Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee at a hearing on how the U.S. should respond
to the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.
Panelists recommended a dramatic
escalation of U.S. actions against Iran.
“You don't want to run away
from that war, you want to run towards it," said
Reul Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Gerecht, a former CIA agent who has been an
long-time supporter of war with Iran, advised that the U.S. tell the world, “we
are more willing to have another front on the war on terror.”
“Let’s
not wring our hands,” said
General Jack Keane (Ret.). “If
the international community doesn’t
want to step up to it, we go without ‘em.”
Keane, a chief architect of the Bush
Administration's Iraq "surge" in 2007, told the Congressional panel, “We’ve
got to put our hand around their throat right now.”
He called for the U.S. to begin
killing or capturing members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
and Quds Force, including its leader Qasem Sulemani.
“Why don’t
we kill them?” he asked.
Keane also urged for cyber attacks. “We
have a significant offensive cyber capability in this country that no one else
in the world has, some are close,”
Keane said. “We
can do limited cyber attacks. That would
take a Presidential finding, but why aren’t
we doing that?”
Gerecht agreed. “I
don’t
think that you’re going to really intimidate
these people, get their attention, unless you shoot somebody.”
The panelists implied that their recommendations, however, would not escalate into war
with Iran.
“I am not suggesting a military
action,” Keane said, “I’m
suggesting covert action that has a degree of deniability to it.”
However, Keane explained that
military plans were already in place, which he said is standard. “We
plan for all out war with them, we deal with very limited action, with
violations in the Strait of Hormuz, and we deal with limited action against
their nuclear capabilities.”
Also
testifying was Dr. Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near
East
Peace, who called for U.S. military pressure on Iran through Iraq. He
said that, in lieu of military action, the U.S. should escalate its
sanctions regime and target Iran's central bank. “For
all those pressing for a non-kinetic measure that would truly affect
Iran’s
bottom line, this is it,” said Levitt.
The final witness, Dr. Lawrence Korb,
a senior fellow at Center For American Progress—linked
closely to the Obama Administration—also
endorsed sanctions against Iran’s central
bank.
Korb said sanctions against Iran were
having an impact and signaled that punishing Iran’s
central bank—which could have draconian
humanitarian effects for ordinary Iranians and could impact the global economy
by roiling energy markets—should go
forward.
But Korb also said the U.S. must be
prepared to negotiate with Iran, saying this posture had strengthened sanctions.
“Time
is on our side,” he stated, warning against
war with Iran. “If
we overreact with military forces, this will unite them.”
He noted that the predictions about
Iran’s
nuclear progress had been consistently exaggerated. “You
can go back and I can show you statements from people going back to 2004 saying
‘in
6 months, they’re gonna have a nuclear weapon’
and then ‘6 months' and '6 months,'”
he said. “What
this shows is that the international community acting together has made it
difficult for them.”
Korb highlighted the recommendations
of Admiral Mike Mullen, who as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called for
the U.S. to establish a direct diplomatic channel—or
“hotline”—with
Iran to prevent war and protect U.S. troops in the field.
But Levitt dismissed Mullen’s
recommendations. “It
is too early to tell what the consequences of Iran's assassination plot may be,
but there should be no doubt the plot lays bare the myth that sufficient
carrots -- from offers of dialogue to requests for an emergency hotline to
reduce naval tensions in the Gulf -- can induce the regime in Tehran to abandon
its support for terrorism, part with its nuclear weapons program, or respect
human rights.”
