Just a few days after the president alluded to “World War III” with Iran, the vice president fleshed out the White House’s thinking on Iran in a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“The Iranian regime’s efforts to destabilize the Middle East and to gain hegemonic power is a matter of record. And now, of course, we have the inescapable reality of Iran’s nuclear program; a program they claim is strictly for energy purposes, but which they have worked hard to conceal; a program carried out in complete defiance of the international community and resolutions of the U.N. Security Council. Iran is pursuing technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons. The world knows this. The Security Council has twice imposed sanctions on Iran and called on the regime to cease enriching uranium. Yet the regime continues to do so, and continues to practice delay and deception in an obvious attempt to buy time.”
If all of this sounded a lot like 2002, there’s a very good reason — the rhetoric is almost, and in some instances exactly, the same as when the Bush gang was making the case for a war with Iraq. WMD, U.N. resolutions, a dangerous regime trying to “buy time” … it’s as if White House speechwriters decided to save themselves some time and just dig up the five-year-old speeches, changing “Q” to “N.”
Indeed, Cheney blustered yesterday, “The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences.”
It’s a phrase the VP is quite fond of. Consider this speech from 2003: “Last November, the U.N. Security Council passed a unanimous resolution finding Iraq in material breach of its obligations, and vowing serious consequences in the event Saddam Hussein did not fully and immediately comply. When Saddam Hussein failed even then to comply, our coalition acted to deliver those serious consequences.”
The significance was not lost on observers.
That language is not radically different from what Mr. Cheney has used in the past. But people at the conference said that, placed in the context of Mr. Bush’s remarks, it represented a significant step toward increasing pressure on Iran. The speech seemed to lay the groundwork for the threat of military action — either because the administration actually intends to use force or because it wants to use the threat of force to prod Europe into action.
“This week we heard a significant ratcheting up of the rhetoric,” said Dennis Ross, who served as a Middle East envoy for President Clinton and the first President Bush and is now a scholar at the Washington Institute. Repeating Mr. Cheney’s remark about serious consequences, he said those were “strong words” with “serious implications.”
Mr. Bush has repeatedly said the administration would not “tolerate” a nuclear-armed Iran. But during a news conference on Wednesday, the president went further, saying of Iran: “If you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
That distinction — having the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon, as opposed to actually having a weapon — is one the administration has not made in the past. David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who moderated a panel discussion before and after Mr. Cheney’s speech, said the vice president also seemed to draw a new red line when, instead of saying it is “not acceptable” for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, he said the world “will not allow” it.
“The first is a condition,” Mr. Makovsky said. “The second is a commitment.”
It’s like deja vu all over again.