As negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program closed in a stalemate last Wednesday, the Persian regime began flexing its military might and threatening Israel, leading former U.S. officials and observers on Capitol Hill to warn that Iran does not deem the Obama administration’s threat of a military strike as credible.
"People who thought they were looking for a deal seem to be wrong," Elliott Abrams, a national security adviser in the administration of George W. Bush, told the Free Beacon. "What’s striking here is it appears the Iranians have taken a very hard line in negotiations."
Iran maintained during the talks that "enrichment is an inalienable and chartered right" and refused to forfeit the elements of its clandestine enrichment program that have caused the most concern, including an underground facility believed to be housing a weapons program, according to the Iranian proposal that was presented last month before the P5 + 1, a delegation of Western nations involved in the negotiations.
Iran’s aggressive stance—combined with recent military moves and threats against Israel—led some observers to blame the Obama administration for failing to present Iran with a serious military threat.
"They’re not afraid of us and it is because they do not take seriously the likelihood of an American attack," Abrams said. "It really is a strong tribute to the fact that we have left them unafraid of us."
Continued negotiations and the removal of sanctions won’t "move" Iran to a more desirable place, Abrams added.
Michael Eisenstadt, a retired Army reservist who served in the Pentagon and at U.S. Central Command in the early days of the Afghanistan war, noted that Iran has long laughed at American military threats.
"They’ve been saying for a long time they don’t take seriously these threats," said Eisenstadt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "The Iranians want to show they won’t be cowed" by Western sanctions and threats.
There are indications that America could be serious about the military option, however.
As negotiations with Iran sputtered over the past month, the U.S. moved military forces into the Persian Gulf region, according to the New York Times.
The boost in forces came in reaction to the fruitless nuke talks, as well as Iran’s threats against Israel and others, observers contend.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced over the weekend that it would conduct an elaborate "surface-to-surface missile exercise" aimed at "assessing the accuracy and effectiveness of warheads and systems," according to Israeli press reports.
Iranian military leaders also indicated that the country is on the cusp of deploying a missile that can penetrate Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, a joint U.S.-Israeli missile interception program.
"Ships getting closer means they can act more quickly, so America is saying to Iran, ‘Don’t even try,’" said one Democratic foreign policy adviser who would speak only on background. "That’s real. If you start closing shipping lanes, take a look at history. That’s what led to the wars between Israel and Egypt."
The U.S. military moves are not new, but are meant to "remind the Iranians that we have a very robust presence in the gulf," Eisenstadt said.
Nuclear talks "created a bubble," Eisenstadt said, allowing all sides to cool off. "Now, we’ve had three rounds" of failed talks, "and there’s potential for things to heat up a bit. The question is how far it goes."
America is sending a message that "it will keep integral channels of commerce flowing," the Democratic source said.
Iran’s adversarial behavior is a sign that international sanctions are taking a toll, other experts said.
"Most of this is Iranian bluster to try to conceal some really growing economic pains and domestic discontent," said one Iran policy expert on Capitol Hill. "The Iranian military is no match for the U.S. army."
Economic sanctions and a recently implemented European oil embargo "have taken the pain level from zero to 60 in the past six months, and over the Obama administration’s objection, sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran have performed better than even the authors could have foreseen," the source said. "The question is now, ‘Where do we go from here?’"
Asked if lawmakers may be getting serious about the need to sign off on a military strike against Iran, the Hill source was skeptical.
"There’s a lack of appetite on Capitol Hill in the midst of an economic recovery for war," the source said, explaining that the U.S. troop shifts are aimed at "reassuring the oil markets."
Most agreed that, for the next months, the West must hope that sanctions can prevent Iran from obtaining success on the nuclear weapons front.
"We don’t know what will happen," Eisenstadt said. "We don’t know if the diplomacy track is dead."
Abrams noted Iran shows no signs of relinquishing its nuclear program.
"They believe in what they’re doing," he said. "They’re not guided by the calculations we would be making in their place."