In Gulf, Cheney warns Iran of U.S. resolve
By David E. Sanger
Friday, May 11, 2007
BRUSSELS: Vice President Dick Cheney used the deck of an American aircraft carrier just 240 kilometers off Iran's coast as the backdrop Friday to warn the country that the United States was prepared to use its naval power to keep Tehran from disrupting oil routes or "gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region."
Little of what Cheney said in the cavernous hangar bay of the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, one of two carriers whose strike groups are now in the Gulf, was new. Each individual line had, in some form, been said before, at various points in the four-year-long nuclear standoff with Iran, and during the increasingly tense arguments over whether Iran is aiding the insurgents in Iraq.
But Cheney stitched all of those warnings together, and the symbolism of sending the administration's most famous hawk to deliver the speech so close to Iran's coast was unmistakable.
It also came just a week after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked briefly and inconclusively with Iran's foreign minister, a step toward re-engagement with Iran that some in the administration have opposed.
Cheney's sharp warnings appeared to be part of a two-track administration campaign to push back at Iran, while leaving the door open to negotiations. It was almost exactly a year ago that the United States offered to negotiate with Iran as long as it first agreed to halt enriching uranium, a decision in which Cheney, participants said, was not a major player.
Similarly, the speech Friday was not circulated broadly in the government before it was delivered, a senior American diplomat said.
"He kind of runs by his own rules," the official said.
When President George W. Bush ordered the two carriers into the Gulf late last year, senior administration officials said it was part of an effort to gain some negotiating leverage over the Iranians. At about the same time, American military personnel began capturing some Iranians in Iraq, and some of them are still held there.
American officials have also been pressing European banks and companies to avoid doing business with Tehran, in an effort to make it more difficult for the country to recycle its oil profits.
Oil seemed to be on Cheney's mind Friday, when he told an audience of 3,500 to 4,000 American service members on the Stennis that Iran would not be permitted to choke off oil shipments through the waters of the region.
"With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike," he said. "We'll keep the sea lanes open. We'll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats. We'll disrupt attacks on our own forces. We'll continue bringing relief to those who suffer, and delivering justice to the enemies of freedom. And we'll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region."
Some experts on Iran have questioned whether the threats that administration officials occasionally deliver to Iran aid or undercut the diplomacy with the country.
"The problem with the two-track policy is that the first track - coercion, sanctions, naval deployments - can undercut the results on the second track," said Ray Takeyh, an Iran scholar at the Council of Foreign Relations and the author of "Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic."
"There are some in Tehran who will look at Cheney on that carrier and say that everything Rice is offering is not real. What's real, to their mind, are the coercive policies Cheney is describing. This is a case where we are trying to get through negotiations what, so far, we couldn't get through coercion."
The symbols of coercion were part of the backdrop on the Stennis: Cheney spoke in front of five F-18 Super Hornet warplanes.
Cheney also repeated his arguments about the danger of early withdrawal from Iraq.
The United States remains at odds with Iran over its uranium-enrichment program, which Iran says is for peaceful nuclear energy, but which America and its Western allies say is intended instead to produce atomic weapons.
Administration officials have also said that weapons are being smuggled into Iraq from Iran and that insurgents may be getting training in bomb-making and bomb-placing techniques in Iran. The Iranian government denies sponsoring or encouraging terrorism.
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