July 20, 2004

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: WILLIAM KRISTOL

SUBJECT: CFR Report on Iran

One has to hand it to the Council on Foreign Relations. Just as Iran has spent the last several months reconfirming why it was a charter member of the "axis of evil," a CFR taskforce, led by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and former DCI Robert Gates, has concluded that the time is now ripe for a policy of "engagement" with Iran. This, in spite of the fact that:

• Iran continues to tell the International Atomic Energy Agency - along with the British, Germans and French - to stuff it when it comes to Tehran's nuclear weapons program.
• Iranian officials, caught red-handed in New York photographing likely terrorist-targets, were expelled from the United States.
• Iranian intelligence agents were caught in Iraq building car bombs and are now assisting Iraqi radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's efforts to rebuild his militia.
• Iran's hard-line clerics and revolutionary guards have eliminated virtually all remaining reformist elements from the government over the past year.
• Iran apparently has had and continues to have a working relationship with bin Laden's al Qaeda. Indeed, if the 9-11 commission report is accurate, Tehran might well have been involved in both the 1996 Khobar Towers attack and in 9-11. Furthermore, Iran today harbors senior al-Qaeda leaders.
• And, today, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports that the head of Israeli military intelligence research has warned the Knesset defense committee that Iran might well give non-conventional weapons, such as chemical weapons, to Hizballah, the Iranian-backed terrorist organization.

We do need a coherent, serious policy toward Iran; one of containment, pressure, accountability and, ultimately, regime change. If the CFR report helps force a real debate on Iran policy and encourages the Bush Administration not simply to kick the can down the road until after election day, it will have (inadvertently) performed a service.