A Dangerous View of Iran

Hillary Mann Leverett is absolutely repugnant. Iran's holocaust denial rhetoric and its threats to wipe Israel off the map are the result of Iran's fears about Israeli aggression according to her. This is the kind of dangerous and sick moral inversion which permeates Foggy Bottom. It's frightening that this is the worldview of those who are entrusted with safeguarding America. It doesn't occur to Hillary Mann Leverett that Iran's threats and holocaust denial has anything to do with Jew-hatred being an integral part of islamic doctrine. Apparently she also hasn't been apprised of the shiite belief in the hidden imam which can only return after the world is destroyed and that perhaps this madman in Tehran has the desire to facilitate this outcome. She also apparently never heard the "moderate" hashami rafsanjani state a few years back that one nuclear bomb would destroy Israel while a retaliatory strike would only damage the muslim world. I would say that statement is pretty much a call for launching a first strike against Israel. She's afraid of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities but not on Iran itself having nuclear weapons. She believes we ought to take a softer approach towards Iran (as if we have ever been tough with them anyway) and a more hardline approach towards Israel. She's more focused on dismantling Israel's nuclear weapons than preventing Iran from acquiring nukes. There is no danger from an Israel which is nuclear armed since Israel is a responsible, free and democratic nation while Iran is an islamist, genocidal dictatorship. Not to mention that Israel, being the tiny nation that it is and surrounded by much larger enemies, it's nuclear weapons arsenal is what keeps the balance of power. Furthermore as far as Israel ignoring the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Israel is not a signatory to it. She also claims to be concerned about the threat to American interests should Israel strike Iran's nuclear facilities. I'd like to know how it would be in America's interest for Iran to get nukes? Doesn't she consider they can be used against us, most likely supplied to terrorists who would sneak in and detonate them? Or perhaps and EMP attack. The article claims she isn't anti-Israel but I fail to see how her views can be seen as anything but anti-Israel. I hate to say it but some of Israel's worst enemies are liberal Jews.

The U.S. Jew whose Iran views rile Israel intelligence officials

By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent

Tags: Israel New, Iran Nuclear




WASHINGTON, D.C. - Hillary Mann Leverett and her partner and husband, Flynt Leverett, make the Iran desk staffers in the Israeli intelligence community see red. For the past two years the Leveretts, both of whom are former U.S. National Security Council and State Department officials, have preached relentlessly against using sanctions and threats against Iran.

In late September, a harsh op-ed they wrote condemning the Obama administration appeared in The New York Times. In it they argued that the lofty talk of "openness" and the promise of "dialogue" with the Iranians are just empty rhetoric. On their Internet site, in lectures, in interviews and in their journal articles, they present assessments and proposals for action that are different from, and sometimes nearly the opposite of, those that politicians and experts in the West and in Israel present the public. They are critical of the U.S. support of Israel's nuclear ambiguity and are horrified by the possibility of Israel attacking Iran's nuclear installations.

Mann Leverett, today the CEO of the Stratega political-risk consulting firm, was a panelist in a discussion on Iran at the J Street conference in Washington two weeks ago. Before a full house of a mostly Jewish audience, she analyzed the Iranian strategy without bias or emotion: For years now, more sanctions, more boycotts and more threats have not budged Iran from its nuclear program, and they will not budge it in the future. The time has come to try to talk the Iranians in a different language, a language of respect and cooperation.


According to her, since the invasion of Iraq, Iran's regional influence has increased to the point that, without it, no progress can be made on such critical issues as the Palestinians, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and energy.

In a conversation with Haaretz, Mann Leverett, 41, said that up until seven or eight years ago, relations with Iran were "in the category of 'nice to have' for U.S. foreign policy. Today, rapprochement with Iran is in the 'must-have' category: The United States cannot achieve any of its high-profile objectives in the Middle East without a more productive relationship with the Islamic Republic, as it is constituted rather than as some wish it to be."

Mann Leverett's critics find it hard to dismiss her by labeling her as an "Israel hater." She grew up in a Jewish household, attended Brandeis University, worked as an intern at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which was born in the offices of AIPAC. She served in the U.S. Embassy in Cairo under Dan Kurtzer (and also in the embassies in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar). When she returned to the United States she joined a team headed by the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at the time, Richard Holbrooke, which participated in talks with Iran over Afghanistan.

Her acquaintance with the Iranians deepened after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when she worked at the National Security Council in the unit that advises the president on Iran, Afghanistan and the Gulf states. She speaks of impressive cooperation with the Iranians, leading to the capture and expulsion of 200 Al-Qaida members from their country. According to Mann Leverett, a directive from Tehran ordering the Iranian militias in Afghanistan to join a local force established by the United States spared the Americans the kind of trouble and losses being inflicted by the militias Iran is now funding and training in Iraq.

"I was deeply impressed," she said, "by the quality of my Iranian interlocutors and the sophisticated manner in which they thought about their country's national interests."

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This woman is dangerously naive.