by Derek Davison
As talks over a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program continue in Vienna (the next round will be April 7-9) it seems that even those neoconservatives who supported sanctions and negotiation as peaceful paths to a settlement want little from these talks beyond a justification for war. [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
As talks over a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program continue in Vienna (the next round will be April 7-9) it seems that even those neoconservatives who supported sanctions and negotiation as peaceful paths to a settlement want little from these talks beyond a justification for war. While they are careful to couch their arguments in terms of extracting the best negotiated settlement from Iran, their standards for an acceptable comprehensive settlement are generally unreasonable at best and impossible to meet at worst.
The latter was on display a week ago when I attended the McCain Institute’s “Iran Nuclear Deal: Breakthrough or Failure?” debate. Neocon panelists Bret Stephens and Reuel Marc Gerecht repeatedly argued that nuclear monitoring and verification procedures cannot ensure that the United States will be warned if Iran violates its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. For Stephens, especially, this was not a question about the amount of resources dedicated to monitoring Iran’s nuclear program or the level of access monitors permitted in Iranian facilities; he simply argued that monitoring cannot work. There is little gray area here: if your goal is an Iran without nuclear weapons, and no amount of monitoring can ensure that they are not developing one, what is left apart from the military option? Yet, while Stephens is certainly open to the idea of war, he continues to argue that harsher sanctions can result in an Iran with no breakout capacity, which seems to leave the door open to an Iran with some kind of nuclear program. Of course, he also conveniently avoids defining what that program might look like, what those tougher sanctions ought to be, or when and how any sanctions might ever be lifted.
An example of unreasonable conditions comes from Michael Singh, managing director of the neoconservative Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council for the Bush administration. He argues in a recent piece that the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) should insist that Iran retain zero enrichment capacity in a comprehensive deal, despite Iranian insistence that they will never give up enrichment. Like Stephens, Singh argues that tougher sanctions can achieve this outcome, but offers no suggestions as to what those sanctions should be and, more crucially, whether the international community could be expected to go along with them. This is an important concern, particularly at a time when tensions within the P5+1 are high over the situation in Crimea. Until now, the international unanimity that supported sanctions has been held together in part because the United States has been open to negotiations and to easing sanctions in return for Iranian concessions. If the US suddenly shifts to a more rigid position, is there any reason to believe that the P5+1 will maintain unity on Iran?
In order to make the case that Iran doesn’t “need” an enrichment program, Singh engages in questionable argumentation. He writes, for example, that Iran has no need for its own uranium enrichment capacity, because its native supply of natural uranium is so small that it will need to import enriched uranium whether it has an enrichment capability or not. But Singh must surely know that, even though Iran’s supply of domestic uranium is not enough to make their nuclear program self-sufficient, a domestic enrichment program allows Iran to import natural uranium ore, the trade of which is not subject to the same regulatory safeguards that are applied to enriched uranium. Singh also argues for a deal with Iran along the lines of the nuclear cooperation agreement reached with the UAE in 2009, in which the UAE agreed not to enrich uranium itself. But he can’t seriously argue that the UAE’s historical and geopolitical circumstances are in any way analogous to Iran’s, or that Iran’s reluctance to rely solely on foreign sources of enriched uranium doesn’t have some justification. It’s not even clear that Singh himself believes that zero enrichment is possible; in a piece written earlier this year, he argues that a zero enrichment goal should be used simply as a negotiating position. As in any other negotiation, then, the P5+1 would eventually move away from zero enrichment and toward a final compromise. Yet now, Singh seems to be repudiating the idea of any enrichment compromise, instead calling for a “zero enrichment or bust” approach to a comprehensive deal.
The question that folks like Stephens and Singh as well as their more bellicose colleagues like Bill Kristol and Max Boot need to answer is: what’s the endgame? Should the international community continue moving the goalposts, levying harsher and harsher sanctions on and making further demands in perpetuity? What purpose will that serve? Is there any realistic concession that Iran could offer that would, in their minds, be worth easing sanctions? Iran’s nuclear program has already cost it over $100 billion just in revenue lost to sanctions. If Iran is not prepared to surrender its entire program now, and it clearly is not, why should we expect that more or “tougher” sanctions would bring the Iranian government around? What happens if those tougher sanctions do have the effect of fracturing the international coalition?
If Iran will not surrender its nuclear ambitions, and Iranian officials insist they will not, then is war inevitable? What do Stephens and his allies imagine that war will achieve? Is it regime change? If so, what if a war actually strengthens the Iranian government’s support among its people? After all, polling says that 96% of Iranians say that maintaining a nuclear program is worth the price being paid in sanctions, and two-thirds of them support the development of a nuclear weapon. This does not appear to be a public that will turn on its leaders over their nuclear efforts. Or is their goal an Iran whose nuclear program is destroyed and cannot be reconstituted? If so, what can military strikes do to eliminate the scientific and technical knowledge that Iran already possesses and that is more important than physical infrastructure in developing nuclear weapons? What happens after the strikes, when Iran begins to rebuild its nuclear program, but without any monitoring and with a mind toward producing a weapon, a goal that even US intelligence services say it has not directly pursued as yet?
Instead of pretending to support sanctions and talks, let’s have an open discussion about the war these commentators appear in favor of, and what they think it will achieve.
]]>by Derek Davison
Prominent neoconservative writers Bret Stephens and Reuel Marc Gerecht called for a much tougher approach to talks with Iran over its nuclear program in a debate hosted here by the McCain Institute on March 11, one week before talks aimed at a final deal between Iran and world powers [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
Prominent neoconservative writers Bret Stephens and Reuel Marc Gerecht called for a much tougher approach to talks with Iran over its nuclear program in a debate hosted here by the McCain Institute on March 11, one week before talks aimed at a final deal between Iran and world powers resume in Vienna.
Stephens, the deputy editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, and Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, were up against the Brookings Institute’s arms control expert Robert Einhorn who served as a top non-proliferation adviser at the State Department in Obama’s first term and the Carnegie Endowment’s Karim Sajadpour, both of whom argued that now is the right time to give diplomacy a chance to succeed.
The neoconservative writers hammered the Joint Plan of Action (JPA), negotiated between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) in Geneva on November 24, 2014 as a surrender of sanctions for few, if any, Iranian concessions. Gerecht, who wrote in 2002 that an invasion of Iraq and the installation of a democratic government there would “probably” cause regime change in Iran, characterized the difference between those who support the JPA and those who oppose it as all related to a single question: “are you prepared to pre-emptively strike Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon?” Supporters of the JPA, he contended, are not, implying that they’re not tough enough to extract a favorable deal from the Iranians either. Stephens, a supporter of the Iraq War who still insists that the war was based on sound intelligence, took an even harder line against the negotiating process, contending that “the whole strategy of Iran since negotiations began in 2002 has been to delay and delay and delay” in order to continue developing its nuclear program without risking a military response.
On the other side, Einhorn commended the JPA, calling it “a very promising first step that halts movement in Iran’s nuclear program for the first time in twelve years” that also greatly improved access for international monitors, in exchange for relatively light sanctions relief. Sajadpour added that instead of criticizing the JPA for not being “the ideal deal,” opponents “have to look at the reasonable alternatives,” which are not favorable. A harder American line on issues like uranium enrichment, according to Sadjadpour, would also risk splintering the international consensus that has supported the sanctions regime thus far and might embolden Iranian hardliners to stop talking and fully pursue a nuclear weapons program.
The question of reasonable alternatives to the JPA — whether there were any and whether those would have been preferable to the deal that was reached — permeated the discussion. Both Einhorn and Sajadpour stressed the degree to which America must be seen as allowing room for diplomacy to work in order to build international support for tougher actions (whether economic or military) down the road, if needed. Stephens and Gerecht, on the other hand, supported stronger sanctions even at the risk of Russia and China abandoning the P5+1 altogether. When Einhorn pointed out that China is the largest importer of Iranian crude and would undoubtedly increase its imports if they were to pull out of the sanctions coalition, Gerecht countered with the argument that neither Russia nor China’s departure from the coalition would have much impact on the most painful banking sanctions. This assertion, an interesting one given that the Bank of Moscow just agreed to pay a $10 million fine to the Treasury Department for violating sanctions against the Iranian banking industry, was left unchallenged.
The moderate Einhorn did, however, support a general “toughening” of the US negotiating position, proposing that Congress could pass a “prior authorization to use force” resolution to empower President Barack Obama to strike Iran if it violates its obligations. No one mentioned what happened the last time Congress gave a president prior authorization to use military force over a Middle Eastern nation’s supposed weapons of mass destruction program.
Another hotly contested point had to do with the efficacy of international monitoring. Einhorn praised the JPA for its verification provisions and for laying the groundwork for even tougher monitoring in a permanent agreement. He pointed to successes in identifying the facilities at Natanz, Arak, and Fordow as evidence that monitoring and intelligence gathering has worked, while Stephens pointed to America’s failure to predict India’s 1998 nuclear tests as evidence that verification can easily fail. Gerecht argued that Iran will resist more stringent monitoring in a permanent agreement, and warned that the US intelligence community likely has no sources in high positions either in the Iranian government or its nuclear program, and therefore lacks the ability to check what international monitors find.
The debate over monitoring highlighted what seems to be a fundamental flaw in the neoconservative position: by their logic there seems to be no circumstance under which negotiations can be allowed to work. After all, according to their argument the Iranians cannot be trusted, verification does not work, and toughening sanctions is always better than easing sanctions. If there is no way to trust that verification can work, and no way to trust the Iranians themselves, then how can there be a diplomatic solution to this situation? Gerecht’s question about pre-emptive military action could easily be reframed for opponents of the JPA: “are you prepared to ease sanctions on Iran, ever, in exchange for any Iranian concessions?” Are sanctions, and the implicit threat of military action they contain a means to the end of preventing Iran from achieving a nuclear weapon (or rapid breakout capacity), or are they the end in themselves?
The two sides did find common ground in supporting a policy of regime change in Iran, but had drastically different ideas as to implementation. Sajadpour suggested that, if the West pursues policies that cultivate goodwill among Iranians, and especially the Iranian youth, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may have no choice but to acquiesce to internal pressure to improve relations. On the other hand Gerecht and Stephens argued that a military strike that drastically set back Iran’s nuclear program would severely damage the regime’s credibility at home, a questionable assumption that has been challenged by moderate Iranian leaders. Einhorn cautioned that there is no way to know how far back a strike could set Iran’s nuclear program, but that it would certainly end any chance of a negotiated nuclear settlement and put Iran inexorably on the path toward developing a nuclear weapon.
]]>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.
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