The Deep Dishonesty of Iran Hawks

The policies that Iran hawks cheered on brought things to their current state, and now the supporters of these same failed policies want to try to shift the blame to anyone else.

Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh conjure up a fantasy:

It is becoming increasingly hard to believe that Russia, which appears ready to deliver advanced Sukhoi Su-35 fighters and more sophisticated air-defense systems to Iran, is averse to sharing nuclear expertise and technology with the clerical regime—assuming Tehran is lacking something in its nuclear engineering.

For far too long, the Western foreign-policy establishment has gained comfort from the notion that Russia and China didn’t want a nuclear Iran. But Vladimir Putin would have no objections to a nuclear crisis in the Middle East if it diverted attention from his war in Ukraine. Unlike the U.S., Russia has lived with nuclear-armed states on its periphery for decades. The only thing new about an Iranian bomb would be the convulsive shock it would deliver to U.S. interests in the Middle East and beyond. For 20 years, American administrations have insisted that Iran would never be allowed to go nuclear. When it does, what’s left of America’s writ in the Middle East will evaporate.

Fearmongering about Iran’s nuclear program is standard practice for Gerecht and Takeyh, but this time they really let their imaginations run wild as they make unfounded guesses that Russia and China actually want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. They have no proof for any of this, and the op-ed is little more than baseless speculation.