by Jim Lobe
The Iran Project has just published the first in a series of “Short Reports” on Iran, its negotiations with the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany), and U.S. policy, which it plans to put out over the next few months. This one, entitled “Assessing Claims [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
The Iran Project has just published the first in a series of “Short Reports” on Iran, its negotiations with the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany), and U.S. policy, which it plans to put out over the next few months. This one, entitled “Assessing Claims and Counter Claims over New Sanctions,” reviews the recent debate over the Kirk-Menendez bill. S. 1881, which I called the “Wag the Dog Act of 2013.” Among other conclusions, the report, which was drafted by Jim Walsh, an international security expert at MIT, finds that new sanctions at this time would likely undermine the prospects for a successful negotiation, particularly given the fact that all of the parties in the P5+1 are themselves clearly opposed to the legislation. It also found that new sanctions may yet prove useful, but not when negotiations are just getting underway, as they did today in Vienna. And it noted that some critics of the bill, presumably including some administration officials, probably overstated the intentions of many of the bill’s 59 co-sponsors as deliberately wanting to sabotage the negotiations (as opposed, presumably, to deliberately wanting to sabotage President Obama). In any event, you can find the new report here.
The Iran Project, which has involved an impressive number of foreign policy veterans led by Amb. William Luers (ret.) and Amb. Thomas Pickering (ret), who served as Washington’s chief envoy in virtually every hot spot — from Moscow to San Salvador and from Lagos and Tel Aviv to Turtle Bay (in the run-up to and during the first Gulf War) — has itself conducted Track II diplomacy with leading Iranians over the past decade or so, including and especially many of the same Iranians, such as Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who have filled key posts in Hassan Rouhani’s government. The group has also played a key role in shaping the elite debate here over Iran during the past few years. Although it has maintained a relatively low public profile, opponents of the engagement policy, of which AIPAC and the Israel lobby are the most important, know how effective the Project has been.
In addition to Luers, Pickering and Walsh, the new report is signed by Amb. Frank Wisner (ret.); Paul Pillar, the CIA veteran who served as the National Intelligence Officer for the Middle East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace president Jessica Tuchman Mathews; and Rockefeller Brothers Fund president Stephen Heintz. Upcoming reports will include an analysis of the Nov. 24, 2013, accord between Iran and the P5+1 (the Joint Plan of Action, or JPA); the issues that must be addressed in a comprehensive agreement; and the challenges of lifting sanctions if a comprehensive agreement is indeed reached.
]]>by Jasmin Ramsey
In a letter today, a bipartisan group of senior foreign policy luminaries urged senators not to pass new sanctions against Iran, warning that additional sanctions would jeopardize ongoing diplomatic efforts and potentially move the U.S. closer to war. The letter’s nine signers include Ryan Crocker, former [...]]]>
by Jasmin Ramsey
In a letter today, a bipartisan group of senior foreign policy luminaries urged senators not to pass new sanctions against Iran, warning that additional sanctions would jeopardize ongoing diplomatic efforts and potentially move the U.S. closer to war. The letter’s nine signers include Ryan Crocker, former Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, Daniel Kurtzer, former Ambassador to Israel and Thomas R. Pickering, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and former Ambassador to Israel, India Jordan, Russia and the United Nations. Last week another former official and prominent expert, Colin Kahl, who who served as the top Middle East policy official at the Defence Department for most of President Obama’s first term, provided an in-depth explanation for why new sanctions now will seriously endanger the diplomatic process with Iran.
The letter was delivered to the co-sponsors of the Nuclear Weapon Free Act of 2013 introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL). The bill would add more sanctions on Iran and purchasers of its oil as well as position the U.S. to support Israel militarily, economically and diplomatically if they choose to take military action against Iran. The full letter is reprinted below.
Chairman Robert Menendez
United States Senate
522 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
January 6, 2014
Dear Chairman Menendez,
We ask you and the other cosponsors of the Menendez/Kirk bill, S. 1881, to review carefully whether that legislation serves U.S. national interests and those of our friends and allies. We believe it does not for a number of important reasons.
The bill will threaten the prospects for success in the current negotiations and thus present us and our friends with a stark choice – military action or living with a nuclear Iran. A military strike would not eliminate Iran’s nuclear capacity and may result in the very thing the U.S. hopes to prevent: Iran deciding to seek nuclear weapons. Living with an Iranian nuclear weapon is exactly the outcome the U.S. seeks to avoid with international negotiations.
President Obama’s decision to test the intentions of the new government of Iran offers the best opportunity in decades to see whether there is a peaceful way to achieve all of our most important objectives. More importantly if Iran were to agree to substantial and verifiable limits on its nuclear program — which they say they are prepared to do – the world would be a safer place than if the international community were to try to achieve such objectives through war.
You and your co-sponsors contend that since sanctions brought Iran to the table to negotiate seriously, then more sanctions or legislated threats of more sanctions would make Iran’s leaders even more determined to give us what we seek. To the contrary, Iranian leaders are more likely to see such Congressional action as a violation of the spirit and perhaps the letter of the Joint Plan of Action of November 24, 2013, and to harden rather than soften their negotiating position. Already, Iranian legislators have threatened to pass a bill requiring enrichment at higher levels — beyond 20% — in response to S. 1881. This kind of tit-for-tat spiral threatens to undermine any possibility of curtailing Iran’s nuclear program.
Once the new Iranian president declared his government’s readiness to negotiate immediately and seriously a comprehensive agreement to give the international community virtually everything it seeks in return for gradual sanctions relief, the Iranians had every right to assume that the US and the other nations involved in the negotiations would proceed in good faith. Based on our experience born of years of dealings with Iran, we do not believe the Iranians will continue to negotiate under new or increased threats.
The outcome of these negotiations is by no means certain. Should the U.S. Congress decide it must unilaterally seek to add even more burdens now on this complicated and critical process, it is unlikely that the goals of our negotiations can be achieved. Moreover our other negotiating partners (UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China) would be displeased and would conclude that the US is no longer proceeding in good faith in accord with the Joint Plan of Action. This bill could lead to an unraveling of the sanctions regime that the U.S. and its partners have so patiently built.
The United States and its allies in the region would better off if relieved of the concern that Iran might acquire a nuclear weapon. Israel would no longer have to be concerned that Iran could present an existential threat and would be in a stronger position to defend itself. This is particularly true in view of the capacity for self-defense inherent in Israel’s overwhelming military power, both conventional forces and its well-known strategic capabilities.
We urge you to take a second look at this legislation, accept that you have achieved your objective of putting down a marker for Iran, but not press this bill to a vote. You do not sacrifice any of your options by doing so. Negotiators now need a chance to continue to their work. We ask that you stand up firmly for the interests of the United States, as you always have, and allow the negotiations to proceed.
Sincerely,
Ryan Crocker, former Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan
Stephen Heintz, President, Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Daniel Kurtzer, former Ambassador to Israel
William H. Luers, former Ambassador to Venezuela and Czechoslovakia
Jessica Tuchman Mathews, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Thomas R. Pickering, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and former Ambassador to Israel, India Jordan, Russia and the United Nations
Paul Pillar, former National Intelligence Officer
Jim Walsh, Research Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Frank G. Wisner, former Under Secretary of State for International Security Affairs and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
via LobeLog
*Editors’s Note: This letter was made available by the New York-based Iran Project and has been sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Majority Whip Dick Durbin
711 Hart Senate Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Majority Whip Durbin,
We support President Obama’s decision to seek a first [...]]]>
via LobeLog
*Editors’s Note: This letter was made available by the New York-based Iran Project and has been sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Majority Whip Dick Durbin
711 Hart Senate Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Majority Whip Durbin,
We support President Obama’s decision to seek a first phase understanding with Iran to limit Iran’s nuclear program now. The agreement under discussion would slow crucial elements of the Iran program, make it more transparent and allow time to reach a more comprehensive agreement in the coming year. The apparent commitment of the new government of Iran to reverse course on its nuclear activities needs to be tested to insure it cannot rapidly build a nuclear weapon. Such an agreement would advance the national security of the United States, Israel, and other partners in the region.
For nearly two decades American Presidents with the strong support of the US Congress have worked on a two track policy of building ever more forceful sanctions against and pressure on Iran. combined with a willingness to turn to diplomacy when opportune. It now seems possible that this dual track approach could achieve our goals of preventing a nuclear armed Iran.
The United States has had the unprecedented cooperation of its allies and virtually the entire international community in this two track strategy. Should the United States fail to take this historic opportunity, we risk failing to achieve our non-proliferation goal and losing the support of allies and friends while increasing the probability of war.
Additional sanctions now against Iran with the view to extracting even more concessions in the negotiations will risk undermining or even shutting down the negotiations, More sanctions now as these unprecedented negotiations are just getting underway would reconfirm Iranians in their belief that the US is not prepared to make any agreement with the current government of Iran. We call on all Americans and the US Congress to stand firmly with the President in the difficult but historic negotiations with Iran.
Sincerely,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Former National Security Advisor
Brent Scowcroft, Former National Security Advisor
]]>via IPS News
For Washington, obsessed with matters Iranian, it may be hard to accept a simple fact: Iran’s Jun. 14 presidential election is an Iranian event. If we attempt to make it about us, we will find ourselves on the same road that has previously led to [...]]]>
For Washington, obsessed with matters Iranian, it may be hard to accept a simple fact: Iran’s Jun. 14 presidential election is an Iranian event. If we attempt to make it about us, we will find ourselves on the same road that has previously led to multiple failures: Iran-contra; “goodwill begets goodwill”; and a non-existent two-track policy.
In other words, we will continue the futility of the last three decades when we thought we could pick winners and losers in Iran’s elections or become involved in the country’s internal politics. If we do the same now, we will again get tied up in knots of our own bad assumptions and uninformed decisions.
So what, if anything, should the United States do and say about Iran’s election?
First, we should shut up about everything but the basics and stick to the universal principles of good government.
We should not help the Islamic Republic make the election about us.
The ideologues in Tehran would love to paint a vote for this or that candidate as a slap in the face to “world arrogance” (the U.S.), or to portray a candidate who advocates rationality as an U.S. agent.
Second, if we must say something about the election, we should say as little as possible and choose our words cautiously.
To begin with the obvious, the election will give Washington an opportunity simply because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will no longer be in office.
As long as he was, his outrageous statements on the Holocaust, Israel and other matters made him too toxic for U.S. officials to deal with on any issue and at any level. In Washington, officials dismissed anything – reasonable or not – with Ahmadinejad’s fingerprints on it.
Of course late-night comics and those who would turn the Islamic Republic into a superhuman threat to civilisation will miss him.
His love of the absurd and his divisiveness made him a liability even for his own countrymen, who criticised him for talking without thinking and for his needless provocative rhetoric that could drag Iran to destruction.
The reality is that the Iranian president has almost always been a minor figure in Iranian politics. True power lies elsewhere, and the sooner the president accepted his unimportance, the smoother his tenure would be.
Even Ali Khamenei, the current Supreme Leader, reportedly complained about his powerlessness when he was Iran’s president from 1981 to 1989.
Real change will come not when one Iranian figurehead replaces another. It will likely come with the end of Iran’s senior clerical elite and the network of financial, judicial and security institutions it controls.
It’s worth noting that the group of about 25 oligarchs who have held the key positions in the Islamic Republic since 1979 is now much smaller, and that one of its key figures – former president Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani – has taken the unlikely role of outsider.
But those members of the men’s club who do remain – including figures such as Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, Mohammad Yazdi, Ahmad Jannati, and Ali Khamenei himself – continue to wield considerable power.
Thus far they have shown little inclination to change either the foreign or domestic policies that have kept them in their palaces for the past 34 years.
The U.S. would certainly like to see free and fair elections in Iran. But until that blessed day arrives, we will have to deal with a less ideal world.
If the Jun. 14 Iranian election is ultimately “good enough” (that is, if it is better than Iran’s 2009 election and no worse than the 2000 U.S. presidential election), President Obama should send a note of congratulation to the winner.
In that note he should chose his platitudes carefully and avoid gratuitous insults like “odious regime”, “change your behaviour” or “stop support for terrorists”.
Judicious language about “mutual respect” and “mutual interest”, which the president used in the first years of his administration, puts the ideologues of the Islamic Republic in a most uncomfortable place.
Although they know well (with more than 30 years of practice) how to respond to American insults, thoughtful U.S. language discredits their rhetoric and neutralises their anti-U.S. slogans.
After all, how can the Islamic Republic make a believable enemy of someone who seeks discussions based on “mutual respect”, something the Iranians have always said they want as a condition of engagement?
I am always optimistic that the U.S, and Iran can somehow end their unique 34-year estrangement – an estrangement that has done no one any good and threatens to descend into an armed conflict that neither side says it wants.
A recent “Iran Project” study, endorsed by three dozen former U.S. officials and scholars, says of the U.S.-Iran relationship: “The [American] goal would be to build a practical relationship that could over time help the United States achieve its principal objectives without resort to force.”
Such a relationship would be a major break with the past three decades of hostility and exchanges of empty slogans, threats, insults and occasionally worse.
That break, however, is unlikely to happen as a result of this June’s Iranian presidential election.
There was no break in the U.S.-Iran estrangement even after Mohammad Khatami’s election in 1997, although both sides lowered the volume of their rhetoric for a time and spoke about “dialogues” and “roadmaps”.
At that time the two countries began exchanging artists, scientists, and sports teams, but somehow those worthy programmes did not result in any change at the political level. Wrestlers and filmmakers came and went, but the silent treatment and hostility remained among officials.
So what should the U.S. do or say about the Iranian election?
Keep focused on our own goal, which, as the above-noted study says, is to achieve principal American objectives without resorting to the use of force.
Doing so requires saying as little as possible and ensuring that official statements emphasise the principle that Iranians, like the rest of us, deserve a government that does not steal elections and allows its citizens to express themselves without fear of the club and the goon squad. Everyone will get the point.
– John Limbert is Class of 1955 Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy. During a 34-year diplomatic career, he served in Tehran (where he was a hostage at the U.S. Embassy in 1979-81) and, in 2009-2010, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern (Iranian) Affairs.
]]>by Jasmin Ramsey
Two conversations are presently occurring in Washington about Iran. Hawks and hardliners are searching for new ways to force the Obama administration to tighten or impose further sanctions, and/or discussing when the US should strike the country. Meanwhile, doves and pragmatists have been pointing out the ineffectiveness of sanctions in [...]]]>
by Jasmin Ramsey
Two conversations are presently occurring in Washington about Iran. Hawks and hardliners are searching for new ways to force the Obama administration to tighten or impose further sanctions, and/or discussing when the US should strike the country. Meanwhile, doves and pragmatists have been pointing out the ineffectiveness of sanctions in changing Iran’s nuclear calculus (even though the majority of them initially pushed for these sanctions) as well as the many cons of military action. Although the hawks and hardliners tend to be Republican, the group is by no means partisan. And these conversations do converge and share points at times, for example, the hawks and hardliners also complain about the ineffectiveness of sanctions, but in the context of pushing for more pressure and punishment.
That said, both sides appear stuck — the hawks, while successful in getting US policy on Iran to become sanctions-centric, can’t get the administration or military leaders to buy their interventionist arguments, and the doves, having previously cheered sanctions as an alternative to military action, appear lost now that their chosen pressure tactic has proven ineffective.
Hawks and Doves Debate Iran Strike Option
On Wednesday, the McCain Institute hosted a live debate that showcased Washington positions on Iran, with the pro-military argument represented by neoconservative analyst Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute and Democrat Robert Wexler, a member of the US House of Representatives from 1997-2010, and two prominent US diplomats on the other side — Ambassadors Thomas R. Pickering, who David Sanger writes “is such a towering figure in the State Department that a major program to train young diplomats is named for him”, and James R. Dobbins, whose distinguished career includes service as envoy to Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti and Somalia.
Only the beginning of this recording (I can’t find any others) is hard to hear, and you won’t regret watching the entire lively discussion, particularly because of Amb. Pickering’s poignant responses to Pletka’s flimsy points — she inaccurately states IAEA findings on Iran’s nuclear program and claims that, even though she’s no military expert, a successful military operation against Iran wouldn’t necessarily include boots on the ground. In fact, experts assess that effective military action against Iran aimed at long-term positive results (cessation of its nuclear program and regime change) would be a long and arduous process, entailing more resources than Afghanistan and Iraq have taken combined, and almost certainly involving ground forces and occupation.
Consider some the characteristics of the pro-military side: Wexler repeatedly admits he made a mistake in supporting the war on Iraq, but says the decision to attack Iran should “presuppose” that event. Later on he says that considering what happened with Iraq, he “hopes” the same mistake about non-existent WMDs won’t happen again. Pletka, who endorsed fighting in Iraq until “victory” had been achieved (a garbled version of an AEI transcript can be found here), states in her opening remarks that the US needs to focus on ”what happens, when, if, negotiations fail” and leads from that premise, which she does not qualify with anything other than they’re taking too much time, with arguments about the threat Iran poses, even though she calls the Iranians “very rational actors”.
While Wexler’s support for a war launched on false premises seriously harms his side’s credibility, it was both his and Pletka’s inability to advance even one indisputable interventionist argument, coupled with their constant reminders that they don’t actually want military action, that left them looking uninformed and weak.
The diplomats, on the other hand, offered rhetorical questions and points that have come to characterize this debate more generally. Amb. Pickering: “Are we ready for another ground war in the Middle East?”, and, “we are not wonderful occupiers”. Then on the status of the diplomatic process: “we are closer to a solution in negotiations than we have been before”. Amb. Dobbins meanwhile listed some of the cons of a military operation — Hezbollah attacks against Israel and US allies, interruptions to the movement of oil through the vital Strait of Hormuz, a terror campaign orchestrated by the Iranians — and then surprised everyone by saying that these are “all things we can deal with”. A pause, then the real danger in Amb. Dobbins’ mind: that “Iran would respond cautiously”, play the aggrieved party, withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, kick out IAEA inspectors and accelerate its nuclear program at unknown sites. Then what, the audience was left to wonder. Neither Pletka nor Wexler offered an answer.
The Costs of War With Iran and the C-Word
While watching the McCain debate, I wondered if Pletka and Wexler would consider reading a recently published book by Geoffrey Kemp, an economist who served as a Gulf expert on Reagan’s National Security Council and John Allen Gay, entitled War With Iran: Political, Military, And Economic Consequences. This essay lays out the basis of the work, which mainly focuses on the high economic costs of war, so I won’t go into detail here, but yesterday during the book’s launch at the Center for National Interest (CNI), an interesting comment was made about the “C-Word”. Here’s what Kemp said during his opening remarks, to an audience that included everyone from prominent foreign policy experts and former government officials, to representatives from Chevron and AIPAC:
You certainly cannot, must not, underestimate the negative consequences if Iran does get the bomb…But I think on balance, unlike Senator McCain who said that the only thing worse than a war with Iran is an Iran with a nuclear weapon…the conclusion of this study is that war is worse than the options, and the options we have, are clearly based on something that we call deterrence and something that we are not allowed to call, but in fact, is something called containment. And to me this seems like the most difficult thing for the Obama administration, to walk back out of the box it’s gotten itself into over this issue of containment. But never fear. Successive American administrations have all walked back lines on Iran.
Interestingly, no one challenged him on this during the Q&A. And Kemp is not the only expert to utter the C-Word in Washington — he’s joined by Paul Pillar and more reluctant distinguished voices including Zbigniew Brzezinksi.
Diplomacy as the Best Effective Option
Of course, if more effort was concentrated on the diplomacy front, as opposed to mostly on sanctions and the military option, Iran could be persuaded against building a nuclear weapon. Consider, for example, US intelligence chief James Clapper’s statement on Thursday that Iran has not yet made the decision to develop a nuclear weapon but that if it chose to do so, it might be able to produce one in a matter of “months, not years.” Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “[Iran] has not yet made that decision, and that decision would be made singularly by the supreme leader.”
It follows from this that while the US would be hard pressed in permanently preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon (apart from adopting the costly and morally repulsive “mowing the lawn” option), it could certainly compel the Iranians to make the decision to rush for a bomb by finally making the military option credible — as Israel has pushed for — or following through on that threat.
So where to go from here? Enter the Iran Project, which has published a series of reports all signed and endorsed by high-level US foreign policy experts, and which just released it’s first report with policy advise: “Strategic Options for Iran: Balancing Pressure with Diplomacy”. There’s lots to be taken away from it, and Jim Lobe, as well as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have covered it, but it ultimately boils down to the notion that the US needs to rethink its policy with Iran and creatively use the leverage it has gotten from sanctions to bring about an agreement. Such an agreement will likely have to be preceded by bilateral talks and include some form of low-level uranium enrichment on Iranian soil and sanctions relief if Iran provides its own signifiant concessions. The report also argues for the US to engage with Iran on areas of mutual interest, including Iraq and Afghanistan.
During the Wilson Center report launch event, Amb. Pickering summed up the status of negotiations with Iran as follows: “Admittedly we should not expect miraculous moves to a rapid agreement, but we’re engaged enough now to have gone beyond the beginning of the beginning. We’re not at the end of the beginning yet, but we’re getting there.” Later, Jim Walsh, a member of the task force and nuclear expert at MIT pointed out that 20-percent Iranian uranium enrichment, which everyone is fixated on now, only became an issue after Iran stopped receiving fuel for its Tehran Research Reactor and began producing it itself. In other words, the longer the US takes to give Iran a deal it can stomach and sell at home, the more the Iranians can ask for as their nuclear program progresses. “The earlier we can get a deal, the better the deal is likely to be,” he said.
]]>by Wayne White
The latest round of frustrating nuclear talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its next session with the P5+1 (the US, Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany) set for February 26 have generated more arguments that Western demands are excessive and Western concessions insufficient [...]]]>
by Wayne White
The latest round of frustrating nuclear talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its next session with the P5+1 (the US, Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany) set for February 26 have generated more arguments that Western demands are excessive and Western concessions insufficient to merit a serious response from Tehran. Likewise, there are renewed assertions that Iran should be entitled to continue its nuclear enrichment program much as it wishes, why Tehran is therefore justified in standing its ground, how continuing assurances on the part of the Iranian regime that it has no interest in nuclear weapons should be taken at face value, and that continued Israeli and US threats of potential military action against Iran are mostly bluff.
Yet, although I sympathize with some of these arguments, it seems clear that key players like the IAEA, the P5+1 and most significantly of all, Israel and the US, remain unimpressed and probably will not change their position that Iran ultimately may be seeking a nuclear weapons capability and therefore must be convinced (or somehow compelled) to downgrade its nuclear enrichment program.
And, personally, I do not find it as easy as some others to brush aside years of UN resolutions, Iranian concealment and suspicions concerning Iran’s nuclear program cited by the IAEA and a number of governments as utterly without foundation (especially after seeing examples of Tehran’s duplicity on other issues I observed while inside the US Intelligence Community). Iran’s simultaneous pursuit of an aggressive ballistic missile program also is troubling in this overall context. Finally, amidst obviously deceptive Iranian assurances concerning the fairness of national elections, highly suspect denials of its thousands of human rights abuses, and so on, I am leery about dismissing all doubts about the ultimate aims of Tehran’s nuclear program based merely on various official regime claims of disinterest in — or opposition to — the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Admittedly, the various parties pressing the Iranian regime for a robust inspection regime and a downgrade of its enrichment program could be the victims of a certain amount of “groupthink.” After all, as many argue, the UK, the US and others possessing supposedly impressive intelligence capabilities were wrong about Iraq’s nuclear, WMD and missile programs back in 2003. That devastating and (to a considerable extent on the US side) politically-driven blunder was especially galling because monitoring agencies had been given unprecedented access to relevant Iraqi facilities after Iraq’s defeat in 1991, oversaw the destruction of much of the capabilities in question and had a vast database from which more accurate conclusions could have been drawn.
The Iranian case, however, is not a valid parallel. The international community has never had anything approaching such sweeping access on the ground to what Iran has been working on (especially in recent years), so doubts about what it has been doing are less surprising. While this does not mean all officially stated concerns about Iran are on target, likewise it may be a tad cavalier to dismiss most all doubts about Tehran’s nuclear intentions.
And, naturally, it is troubling that some writers on opposite sides of this debate appear to have assumed, effectively, roles similar to those of prosecutors or defense attorneys. On one side are those who seem determined to ignore all inconsistencies that could undermine allegations of suspicious or questionable Iranian nuclear activity. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, there are those who appear to have little doubt that most everything Iran says in its defense is valid, and all accusations and concerns to date are without any merit. As each phase of this impasse plays out, often I find myself caught in the middle — unconvinced by some allegations, but concerned about a few others, and with suspicions that Tehran has neither revealed all its nuclear activities nor, possibly, accurately described its ultimate intentions.
Word of a new “serious and substantial” P5+1 offer in upcoming talks with Iran is not all that heartening since all my hopes of breakthroughs at various other junctures have been dashed. Thus, I remain dubious about some of the actions of all three sides in this controversy: Tehran, the US along with Israel especially, and some of those observers instinctively critical of the P5+1, the US and Israel.
So far, Tehran seems fairly confident it can simply continue scoffing at suspicions and pushing back hard against proposals aimed at limiting or rendering more transparent its nuclear program (even at times exaggerating its own progress) — all without much risk of military consequences. Indeed, on the eve of the upcoming talks, according to the IAEA, Tehran has begun installing more advanced systems at its main uranium enrichment facility and advancing its work on another key plant.
Meanwhile, Israel and the US appear convinced the “military option” against Iran would not produce the destabilizing (and quite possibly prolonged) crisis in the Middle East region with uncertain consequences I fear so greatly. But there are those who maintain that neither the US nor Israel would act on their threats because of the supposed weakness of their case concerning Iran’s activities, a relatively soft domestic consensus for military action, practical concerns related to such action, or all three.
Yet, a recent Iran Project report, “Weighing Benefits and Costs of Military Action Against Iran”, supported by a group of typically more reasoned and cautious Washington insiders, although not taking a position on the military option, adopted as part of its “Shared Understandings” that a “nuclear-armed Iran would pose dangerous challenges to US interests and security.” That position is a step toward reinforcing, at least implicitly, the premise that without a diplomatic settlement, military action should at least be worth considering.
So unless US and Israeli threats (backed by certain underlying assumptions) are, in fact, little more than bluster, continued diplomatic stalemate could lead to major conflict in the region at some point. And if the US were to engage in military action against Iran, or is drawn into the fray by an Israeli attack, the scope of what Washington reportedly has had in mind would mean war. Highly misleading is the notion circulated by too many Washington politicians that military action against Iran merely would be “surgical” in nature.
Consequently, still more focus needs to be placed on examining why US characterizations of potential attacks against Iran as “surgical” or “limited” are so off-base. Decisive military action against most all of Iran’s vast nuclear infrastructure and a broad swathe of Iranian military defenses would not be “limited.” Nonetheless, that assurance is likely to be a key portion of any attempt on the part of political Washington to sell such a conflict to the American people. Finally, more work also should be done on why a nuclear-armed Iran probably would not be the self-destructive, bomb-throwing caricature advocates of military action have made it out to be in order to justify what they call “pre-emptive” or “preventative” attacks.
Continuing attempts to convince broader American audiences that Iran can be taken at its word that it is not seeking nuclear weapons simply will not work given the extent of longstanding, widespread American mistrust and hostility toward post-1979 Iranian governments. And some of Tehran’s assurances might turn out to be false in any case. So, changing various exaggerated impressions in the public mind associated with the likely behavior of a nuclear-armed Iran and distortions related to the supposed ease of acting militarily to crush Iran’s nuclear program prior to its full development are of the highest priority.
Photo: The P5+1′s chief negotiator Catherine Ashton meets the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili, on on April 14, 2012 in Istanbul, Turkey. Credit: European External Action Service – EEAS
]]>Last week Paul Pillar wrote that our sanctions-happy Congress is hindering progress with Iran. This week three high-level former US officials are asking Congress to not lose sight of the end-goal — peacefully reaching a mutually acceptable settlement over Iran’s nuclear program — by strangling Iran to [...]]]>
Last week Paul Pillar wrote that our sanctions-happy Congress is hindering progress with Iran. This week three high-level former US officials are asking Congress to not lose sight of the end-goal — peacefully reaching a mutually acceptable settlement over Iran’s nuclear program — by strangling Iran to near-death with punitive measures while offering no relief. According to Lee Hamilton, Thomas Pickering and Anthony Zinni (all endorsers of a major recent report signed by 38 foreign policy luminaries on the costs and benefits of Iran sanctions):
]]>This spiderweb of sanctions and objectives, wrapped up in legislative hurdles, could restrict President Barack Obama’s options should he decide to offer incentives for Iran to cooperate at the negotiating table. If a bilateral meeting were arranged, American negotiators would need to select what to offer Iran in exchange for securing U.S. goals, the most important of which must be a serious reduction of, and greater transparency around, Iran’s nuclear program. Included in that offer would surely be some sanctions relief.
Our leaders must weigh the easy and appealing course of ever-greater sanctions as a way to force a ready-to-deal Iran to the table against testing the possibility that the existing sanctions have already done that work. The president should work with Congress to achieve the right mix of pressure and engagement to get Iran to negotiate on increasingly urgent and threatening differences. There should be talks between the president and senior senators to make sure there is a plan to strengthen or roll back sanctions as needed to get what we want from Iran in negotiations.
Iran is unlikely to agree to curb its nuclear programme unless the U.S. and its Western allies are prepared to ease tough economic sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic over the past decade, according to a major new report signed by more than three dozen former top U.S. foreign-policy [...]]]>
Iran is unlikely to agree to curb its nuclear programme unless the U.S. and its Western allies are prepared to ease tough economic sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic over the past decade, according to a major new report signed by more than three dozen former top U.S. foreign-policy makers, military officers, and independent experts.
While recent sanctions “may well help bring Iran to the negotiating table, it is not clear that these sanctions alone will result in agreements or changes in Iranian policies, much less changes in Iran’s leadership,” the report, “Weighing Benefits and Costs of International Sanctions Against Iran”, concludes.
“If Iran were to signal its willingness to modify its nuclear program and to cooperate in verifying those modifications, Iranian negotiations would expect the United States and its allies, in turn, to offer a plan for easing some of the sanctions,” according to the 86-page report.
But, “(a)bsent a calibrated, positive response from the West, Iran’s leaders would have little incentive to move forward with negotiations,” it stressed, noting that the administration of President Barack Obama should have a plan at the ready that would make clear how and in what sequence Washington might ease sanctions in exchange for Iranian cooperation.
The new report, which is signed by 38 foreign policy luminaries, including three Republican former cabinet secretaries, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, and half a dozen retired Army and Marine Corps generals with substantial Middle East experience, comes at a particularly sensitive moment.
On the one hand, Congress, prodded by the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is moving to enact as part of the 2013 defence bill tough new sanctions against foreign companies and individuals still doing business in several key Iranian economic sectors.
The final bill, which may seek to reduce Obama’s ability to “waive” such sanctions, could also include policy language adopted by the House urging the administration to build up its military presence in the region to make the threat of an attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities more credible.
On the other hand, the administration, which opposes the pending sanctions package and any limitation on the president’s waiver authority, has been meeting with its partners in the P5+1 group -the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany – to forge a common negotiating position in preparation for a new round of talks with Iran that will probably take place next month.
In the clearest statement to date, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week said Washington was also willing to engage Tehran on a bilateral basis in order to gain an accord.
She and other officials have said in the past that Washington is willing to ease sanctions in return for Iran’s cooperation, but the administration has been vague about the timing, suggesting it would consider taking such steps only after Tehran took specific concrete steps.
These include shipping its stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium out of the country, closing its Fordow enrichment plant, and clearing up long-pending questions by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about Tehran’s possible past research into the military applications of nuclear energy.
“So far, neither the United States nor the UN Security Council has stipulated the precise criteria that Iran must meet to trigger the lifting of sanctions, or the sanctions that would be lifted in exchange for Iran’s actions,” noted the new report, which was also signed by more than a dozen retired top-ranked diplomats, including former U.N. ambassador Thomas Pickering. “There is no action-for-action plan that all parties understand.”
Given the prominence and bipartisanship of the signatories, who also included Michael Hayden, a retired four-star Air Force general who served in top intelligence positions under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and advised Mitt Romney in his unsuccessful election bid against Obama, the new report could well influence both the debate in Congress and within the administration.
The Iran Project’s first report – on the costs and benefits of a possible U.S. or Israeli military attack on Iran – received considerable attention here after its release in mid-September.
That report, which concluded that even a massive U.S. assault would set back Tehran’s nuclear programme by only four years at best, highlighted the growing concern in establishment foreign-policy circles about the beating of the war drums by the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its supporters here.
Like its predecessor, the latest report, does not advocate a particular policy.
But it notes that the benefits of U.S. sanctions against Iran “have often been taken as a given,” in part because they offer an alternative to military action. The costs of sanctions, on the other hand, have not been “routinely addressed in the public or policymaking debate”.
Moreover, it said, “sanctions alone are not a policy,” and their effectiveness “will depend not only on the sanctions themselves, but also on the negotiating strategy associated with them.”
Assessing the costs, as well as the benefits, of sanctions, it said, should “enhance the quality of debate about the sanctions regime and the role of sanctions in overall U.S. policy toward Iran.”
Among the benefits sanctions have provided, according to the report, have been a slowdown in the expansion of Iran’s nuclear programme; a relative weakening of its conventional military capabilities; growing concerns in the regime about public unhappiness with the economy which “appears to have been significantly weakened” as a result of these measures.
It also cited “some indications of a greater willingness on the part of the Iranian leadership to negotiate seriously” over its nuclear programme, although the report also expressed doubt “that the current severe sanctions regime will significantly affect the decision making of Iran’s leaders – any more than past sanctions did – barring some willingness on the part of sanctioning countries to combine continued pressure with positive signals and decisions on matters of great interest to Iran.”
On the costs side of the ledger, on the other hand, the report cited tensions between the U.S. and Russia, China, India, Turkey, and South Korea, among other countries, which have been pressed to comply with Washington’s increasingly comprehensive sanctions.
It also noted increased influence by hard-line factions, such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), over the cash-strapped economy; the political empowerment of those same factions which can depict the sanctions as U.S.-led aggression; and the sanctions’ potential negative humanitarian impact as U.S. and foreign companies and groups that sell or provide food and medicine to Iran find the licensing procedures too burdensome and the banks needed to provide credit for such transactions increasingly unwilling to do so.
Insofar as the sanctions lower the quality of life for the average Iranian, they may also contribute to long-term alienation between the two countries.
In addition, the sanctions are creating “new international patterns of trade” that are resulting in increased market share for Chinese and Indian goods in Iran at the expense of Western products, while the “rapid expansion of unofficial, black-market trade between Iran and Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Turkey is distorting and undermining the economies of those states and the region,” according to the report.
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The newly released Iran Project report which I’ve summarized below and which has received widespread coverage in multiple prominent mainstream media publications including the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal and Haaertz, can be read in full here.
The accompanying letter and list of endorsing bipartisan, high-level national security advisers — all of whom one of the reports’ presenters, Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering noted today “had their say” about the report before publication — can be found in the first pages.
The signatories include Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard L. Armitage, Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Chuck Hagel, Gen .Anthony C. Zinni, Leslie H. Gelb, Lee H. Hamilton, Ellen Laipson, Adm. William Fallon, Amb. Thomas R. Pickering, Amb. William Luers, and others. According to the National Security Network, ”Other analysts have recently sounded the same alarm” about the lacking public discussion regarding the benefits and costs of militarily attacking Iran and “While the Iran Project report explicitly does not make policy recommendations, CSIS’s Anthony Cordesman concludes in his recent study, “The best way out is successful negotiations.”
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