Should Mitt Romney make it to the White House, his Middle
East policy and plan for Iran may be as hawkish as that of Bush Junior,
thanks to Eliot Cohen.
In 2005, a group of graduate students at Johns Hopkins University's
School of Advanced and International Studies (SAIS) participated in the
school's annual diplomatic simulation. The high-pressure scenario
required the students to negotiate a resolution to a standoff with a
nuclear-armed Republic of Pakistan. Mara Karlin, a student known for her
hawkish politics on Israel and the Middle East, played President of the
United States.
Though most of the participants were confident they could head off a
military conflict with diplomatic measures, Karlin jumped the gun.
According to a former SAIS student, not only did Karlin order a nuclear
strike on Pakistan, she also took the opportunity to nuke Iran. Her
classmates were shocked. It was the first time in 45 years that a
simulation concluded with the deployment of a nuclear weapon.
That year, Karlin received a plum job in the Bush administration's Department of Defense where, according to her bio
she was "intimately involved in formulating U.S. policy on Syria,
Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel-Palestinian affairs." Lebanon was a special
area of focus for Karlin. She claims to have helped structure the
Lebanese Armed Forces and coordinated relations between the US and
Lebanese militaries.
According to the former SAIS student, Karlin was a favorite of Eliot
Cohen, an ultra-hawkish professor of strategic studies at SAIS, which is
regarded in American foreign policy circles as a training ground for
the neoconservative movement. Through Cohen's connections among the
neocons occupying key civilian posts in Bush's Defense Department, the
former student claims Cohen was able to arrange an attractive sinecure
for Karlin. Besides Karlin, the ex-SAIS student told me Cohen has
promoted the career ambitions of many former pupils, including Kelly
Magsamen, who worked under Cohen in the Bush administration and now
oversees the Iran portfolio in the Obama administration's State
Department.
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