Koppel: The Iranians Are Coming! Again!

Ted Koppel knows a thing or two about Iran. His coverage of the Iranian hostage crisis for ABC gave birth to "Nightline" and brought down a U.S. president. Since leaving ABC's "Nightline" last November, Koppel is now a contributing columnist for "The New York Times" and the managing editor of the "Discovery Channel." He's written a piece for the Times today called "Iran Rising: Look What Democratic Reform Dragged In."

Here are a couple of extended excerpts from Koppel's column, direct from the man who counted down the hostage crisis for America, and tells us today that the Iranians are coming... again...

Koppel's premise is simple: that the U.S. is already at war with Iran, right now, but that the conflict is currently being waged through surrogates. I can't say that Koppel knocked himself out on his journalism on this one, though, his conclusion is primarily based on a meeting with a top Jordanian intelligence official he met with in Amman. Another anonymous source, by the way, who had nothing good to say for the Bush doctrine of spreading democracy.

He reserved his greatest contempt for the policy of encouraging democratic reform. “For the Islamic fundamentalists, democratic reform is like toilet paper,” he said. “You use it once and then you throw it away.”

Lest the point elude me, the official conducted a brief tour of recent democratic highlights in the region. Gaza and the West Bank, where Hamas, spurned by the State Department as a terrorist organization, was voted into power last spring and now represents the Palestinian government; Lebanon, where Hezbollah, similarly rejected by the United States, has become the most influential political entity in the country; and, of course, Iraq, where the Shiite majority has now, through elections, gained political power commensurate with its numbers...

Apparently, Koppel also went to Lebanon a few days after that meeting in Amman, Jordan where he met with Sheik Nabil Qaouk, the commander of Hezbollah forces in the southern part of the country.

Sheik Qaouk, who also holds the title of general, wears the robes and turban of a Shiite religious leader. Indeed, he studied religion for more than 10 years in the Iranian holy city of Qom. He received his military training in Iran and his wife and six children still live there.

Sheik Qaouk portrayed Hezbollah as being a purely defensive, Lebanese entity. But the more than 12,000 missiles and rockets that the sheik said were in Hezbollah’s arsenal were largely provided by Iran.

I asked about those newer, longer-range rockets mentioned by my Jordanian intelligence source. The sheik implicitly acknowledged their existence, but refused to talk about their capacities, with which the world has since become familiar. “Let our enemies worry,” he said.

When Sheik Qaouk talked about Israel and Hezbollah, his organization’s ambitions were not framed in purely defensive terms. There is only harmony between Hezbollah’s endgame and the more provocative statements made over the past year by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president. Both foresee the elimination of the Jewish state.

This, to me, remains the one fact that simply doesn't get covered in our media's fixation on the hits, runs and errors in Lebanon. How does one calibrate whether a response is "disproportionate," for example, when the the country striking back is surrounded by countries, religious leaders, government authorities, terrorists and average citizens all of whom wish for its complete destruction and death?

Are the Israelis over-reacting in Lebanon? Perhaps they simply perceive their enemies’ intentions with greater clarity than most. It is not the Lebanese who make the Israelis nervous, nor even Hezbollah. It is the puppet-masters in Tehran capitalizing on every opportunity that democratic reform presents. In the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, in Egypt, should President Hosni Mubarak be so incautious as to hold a free election, it is the Islamists who benefit the most.

But Washington’s greatest gift to the Iranians lies next door in Iraq. By removing Saddam Hussein, the United States endowed the majority Shiites with real power, while simultaneously tearing down the wall that had kept Iran in check.

According to the Jordanian intelligence officer, Iran is reminding America’s traditional allies in the region that the United States has a track record of leaving its friends in the lurch — in Vietnam in the 70’s, in Lebanon in the 80’s, in Somalia in the 90’s.

In his analysis, the implication that this decade may witness a precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq has begun to produce an inclination in the region toward appeasing Iran.

It is in Iraq, he told me, “where the United States and the coalition forces must confront the Iranians.’’ He added, “You must build up your forces in Iraq and you must announce your intention to stay.”

There you have it. The people in the Middle East who are afraid of Iran want us to stay in Iraq. I wonder what the Democratic position is on that one?

By the way, if you want to read the whole article on "The New York Times," you'll have to pay for TimesSelect to get at it.

• {Update: The International Herald Tribune has printed the entire thing. For free.}

What I particularly hate about this situation is that here, in July, our political leaders (on both sides!) are obsessed about the election in November. This means that Sunday's talk shows will be consumed by more finger-pointing and blame-gaming. The Democrats hate Bush so much they wouldn't lift a finger to help him even if it is in our nation's interests and the Republicans think the Democrats can't be trusted to understand geo-political realities anyway. So they'll fight each other first rather than realize that we have more in common with each other and coming together is what's needed. Especially if what Koppel's arguing really is a call to war.

What really, truly ought to happen is that Bush and the leaders of both parties ought to be meeting now, exploring what the real challenges facing are nation are, tossing around ideas for how best to respond and honest-to-God working together in the best interests of the citizens of the United States.

But, of course, they won't. Because that's not the way things work in Washington. And that completely sucks. At least that's my opinion, for what it's worth...

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