Cheney, on Carrier, Sends Warning to Iran

The New York Times

Vice President Dick Cheney used the deck of an American aircraft carrier just 150 miles off Iran’s coast as the backdrop yesterday to warn 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.”

Mr. Cheney said little new in his speech, delivered from the cavernous hangar bay of the John C. Stennis, one of the two carriers in the Persian Gulf. Each line had, in some form, been said before at various points in the four-year nuclear standoff with Iran, and during the increasingly tense arguments over whether Tehran is aiding insurgents in Iraq.

But Mr. Cheney stitched all of those warnings together, and the symbolism of sending the administration’s most famous hawk to deliver them so close to Iran’s coast was unmistakable. It also came just a week after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had talked briefly and inconclusively with Iran’s foreign minister, a step toward re-engagement with Iran that some in the administration have opposed.

Mr. 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 stop enriching uranium, a decision in which Mr. Cheney, participants said, was not a major player.

Senior officials said Mr. Cheney’s speech was not circulated broadly in the government before it was delivered. A senior American diplomat added, “He still kind of runs by his own rules.”

The speech was reminiscent of Mr. Cheney’s speeches about Iraq in August 2002, which argued against sending weapons inspectors back into Iraq and laid bare the split within the administration over how to deal with Saddam Hussein. But the circumstances with Iran are quite different. American officials say that so many troops are tied up in Iraq, and Iran has so much power to cause disruption there and in the oil markets, that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be an enormous risk.

“This is about saber-rattling, and power projection,” one senior State Department official said yesterday. “And who better to do it?”

When President Bush ordered the two carriers into the Persian Gulf last year, senior officials said it was part of an effort to gain some negotiating leverage. About the same time, American military personnel began capturing some Iranians in Iraq, and some are still being held there. American officials have also been pressing European banks and companies to avoid doing business with Iran, hoping to disrupt its efforts to recycle its oil profits.

Oil seemed to be on Mr. Cheney’s mind yesterday when he told 3,500 to 4,000 members of the Stennis’s crew that Iran would not be permitted to choke off oil shipments.

“With two carrier strike groups in the gulf, we’re sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike,” he said, according to an official transcript of his remarks. “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 Iran experts have questioned whether the threats delivered by administration officials help or hurt diplomacy with Iran.

“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.

“There are some in Tehran who will look at Cheney on that carrier and say that everything Rice is offering is not real,” he said.

He added, “This is a case where we are trying to get through negotiations what, so far, we couldn’t get through coercion.”

Without question, symbols of coercion were part of the backdrop: Mr. Cheney spoke in front of five F/A-18 warplanes. While he never said so, it is clear to the Iranians that several of their major nuclear sites, including the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, are within reach of the Navy’s weapons.

But mindful of the lasting imagery of President Bush on another carrier, there were no signs proclaiming success, much less “Mission Accomplished.” Instead, Mr. Cheney repeated his arguments about the danger of early withdrawal from Iraq, suggesting that it would empower Iran.

“This world can be messy and dangerous, but it’s a world made better by American power and American values,” he told the cheering crew. He then reached back to some language Mr. Bush had previously used to describe the goals of Al Qaeda — the word caliphate, which the president has avoided in recent times.

“Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants believe they can wear us down, break our will, force us out and make Iraq a safe haven for terror,” Mr. Cheney said. “They see Iraq as the center of a new caliphate, from which they can stir extremism and violence throughout the region, and eventually carry out devastating attacks against the United States and others.”