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.
]]>The Guardian is reporting that a ”reformulated” proposal including “limited sanctions relief” will be launched by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (p5+1) after the US presidential election.
Earlier this week Al-Monitor reported along the same lines and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made
The Guardian is reporting that a ”reformulated” proposal including “limited sanctions relief” will be launched by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (p5+1) after the US presidential election.
Earlier this week Al-Monitor reported along the same lines and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made similar general comments. But according to Reza Marashi, a former Iran-desk State Department staffer, we’ll have to wait and see if the comments result in substantial changes on the part of the negotiating powers.
“The rhetoric we’re hearing from these unnamed U.S. and EU officials is positive, and it should be both praised and reinforced,” Marashi told Lobe Log. “But as we’ve learned over the past four years, actions speak louder than words for officials in Washington, Brussels and Tehran.”
Marashi noted that Western officials had already recognized the need for offering Iran a deal that it could sell at home “but domestic political realities forced the U.S. to move the goalposts.” If there is to be any real progress, it will happen after the US presidential election on November 6th. According to Marashi, “until then both sides recognize the need for better PR. We’re already seeing this on Iran’s end with Foreign Minister Salehi.”
“Both sides are spending political capital to shape the narrative in case talks fail, rather than spending the necessary political capital to ensure talks succeed,” he said.
Ever since negotiations resumed and began heading downhill this year, analysts have been saying that a successful deal requires sanctions relief to also be on the table. In July, former top CIA analyst Paul Pillar explained why the “Nothing-But-Pressure Fallacy” is doomed to fail if an acceptable deal for both sides is the objective:
…And the story of stasis in the nuclear talks is also pretty simple. The Iranians have made it clear they are willing to make the key concession about no longer enriching uranium at the level that has raised fears about a “break-out” capability in return for sanctions relief. But the P5+1 have failed to identify what would bring such relief, instead offering only the tidbit of airplane parts and the vaguest of suggestions that they might consider some sort of relief in the future. The Iranians are thus left to believe that heavy pressure, including sanctions, will continue no matter what they do at the negotiating table, and that means no incentive to make more concessions.
But success from the declared US perspective (that is, verifiable moves from Iran showing that it will not build a nuclear weapon) also depends on what kind of, as well as how much sanctions relief is offered (consider George Perkovich’s comment at the end of Chris McGreal’s report); Iranian acceptance of the notion that the US will not seek regime change once Iran makes serious concessions; what Iran is willing and able to do to prove good and true intentions; and who is running the show in Iran and the US when the new deal is offered.
Regarding the last two points: sources say that this SPIEGEL interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi where he implies that Iran could halt 20% enrichment (a major p5+1 requirement) in exchange for a guaranteed fuel supply echoes previous statements that Iranian officials have been making for quite some time. Iran-watchers have also been speculating that the country’s hardline leaders will not allow Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to achieve any diplomatic successes while he is in office and any deal is therefore only possible following his exit in June 2013.
Meanwhile, Jim reports for IPS News that earlier this week Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham said he is working on a new Congressional resolution which he hopes to pass in any lame-duck session after the Nov. 6 elections that would promise Israel U.S. support, including military assistance, if it attacks Iran. And after the new Congress convenes in January, Sen. Graham suggested he would push yet another resolution that would give the president – whether the incumbent, Obama, or his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney – broad authority to take military action if sanctions don’t curb Iran’s nuclear programme.
Not to mention the fact that while Iran’s economy and people continue to struggle under the weight of sanctions, the US and EU are piling more on, making the Iranian hope of an end to sanctions and the domestic suffocation at home, seem like a far away dream.
]]>As Iran faces economic unrest, discussion is intensifying over the impact sanctions are having on Iran’s economy.
But experts doubt that the current situation portends the end of the Iranian regime or Iranian capitulation to Israeli and Western-led demands that it change its nuclear stance.
“You have now a market [...]]]>
As Iran faces economic unrest, discussion is intensifying over the impact sanctions are having on Iran’s economy.
But experts doubt that the current situation portends the end of the Iranian regime or Iranian capitulation to Israeli and Western-led demands that it change its nuclear stance.
“You have now a market that is under a lot of tension” which has “created a big economic crisis for the government”, said Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, a professor of economics at Virginia Tech, during a meeting here Wednesday at the Wilson Center.
But Salehi-Isfahani added that there is a “lot of misunderstanding about the currency system in Iran”, noting that people are confusing it with huge devaluations that occurred in East Asian countries and Zimbabwe.
“Iran is nothing like that,” he said.
While expressing varying views about the severity of Iran’s economic problems, the Wilson Center’s panelists agreed that it’s still able to manage its ailing economy and the resulting unrest.
“Iran has a lot of experience with sanctions. In fact, what they did immediately is open up the books from the 1980s about how to deal with a currency crisis,” he said.
Demonstrators clashed with police outside Tehran’s central bazaar on Wednesday during protests about the Iranian currency’s declining value. The rial has lost an estimated 80 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar in the last year.
Ali Vaez, a senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, told IPS that “the regime is likely to nip it in the bud to prevent (the protests) from snowballing.”
“Although it’s not clear if there will be more protests, one thing is certain: Iran will experience a much more securitised environment in the run-up to the 2013 presidential elections,” he said.
Iranians are also struggling with rising inflation and unemployment amid escalating U.S.-led sanctions linked to the Islamic Republic’s controversial nuclear programme.
Iran maintains that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful but Western countries led by the U.S. claim that Iran is working towards achieving nuclear weapon-making capability.
Israel has been pushing the Barack Obama administration to move its previously stated “red line” on Iran, a nuclear weapon, to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability, something which Israel claims would seriously endanger its existence and the stability of the surrounding region.
“I’ve been speaking about the need to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons for over 15 years…I speak about it now because the hour is getting late, very late,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his speech at the 67th annual U.N. General Assembly meeting last week.
Already under six rounds of sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council, Iran saw Western sanctions tighten markedly this year with an EU ban on Iranian crude oil purchases going into effect in July.
U.S. sanctions are also increasingly targeting banks that deal with Iran’s central bank, thereby seriously impeding Iran’s ability to conduct international transactions and trade.
Sanctions have not yielded tangible progress toward a diplomatic solution over Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions, but the protests Wednesday and protests in July in the northeastern city of Nishapur over the rising price of chicken – a main food staple for the Iranian working class – indicate that segments of Iranian society will express their dissatisfaction when faced with serious pressure.
“The chicken prices got the government’s attention,” said Salehi-Isfahani, adding that the “government made a wise move in trying to stabilise the chicken market and not worry about the dollar.”
“The aim of sanctions is to raise pressure against the regime in order to solve the nuclear crisis in a peaceful manner,” Alireza Nader, a senior international policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, told IPS.
“But as we’ve seen, sanctions are also leading to major unrest in Iran and weakening the regime at home and abroad,” he said.
Bijan Khajehpour, an Iranian businessman and specialist on the Iranian economy, explained during the Wilson Center event that a number of factors have been harming Iran’s economy.
“It’s not just the sanctions…Iran’s economic developments have been undermined by sanctions, subsidy reforms, mismanagement and corruption,” he said.
“The degree of instability has reminded many citizens of the days of the Iraq-Iran war” and “public anger is reflecting itself in sporadic unrest, strikes, blogosphere protests and critical comments by artists,” he said.
But Khajehpour disagrees with reports suggesting that the Iranian economy is collapsing. “The current deterioration of the Iranian economy is less a period of economic collapse and more a period of economics adjustment,” he said.
“The citizens are suffering, but the macro economy could potentially benefit,” said Khajehpour, noting that sanctions which have impeded Iran’s ability to purchase the equipment it needs to develop key industries have forced it to produce them itself.
Khajepour added that, “The future story of Iran is in (its gas industry),” which is projected to grow over the next five years despite sanctions.
“The additional gas capacity will generate the potential of investments in gas-based industries with export potential,” said Khajehpour.
Suzanne Maloney, another panelist and Iran analyst at the Brookings Institute, said it’s “incredible and tragic” that “Iran’s economic horizons are more limited today than the last 50 years.
“There are huge constraints on Iran’s growth and development and that presents tremendous political vulnerabilities,” she said.
“Sanctions are working, but we’re not getting anywhere on the nuclear programme and that cannot be lost on anyone,” she said.
Michael Singh, the managing director of the Washington Institute, echoed the consensus among a number of well-known neoconservative analysts Wednesday by writing that more aggressive pressure and punitive measures are needed to change Iran’s nuclear calculus.
“Rather than hoping that giving current sanctions “time to work” will force Iran back to the negotiating table, the United States and our allies should add further pressure to the regime and the elites who comprise it, including through additional targeted economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation, bolstering the credibility of our military threat to the regime, and support for the Iranian opposition,” he wrote in an op-ed for Foreign Policy.
According to Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, more pressure alone will not bring about favourable results. “I don’t find it likely that the regime will capitulate due to the sanctions as long as sanctions relief is not part of the mix,” he said.
“The possibility that sanctions will lead to general regime change exists, but the question is what type of regime change would the devastation of the Iranian economy generate?” Parsi asked.
]]>Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.
Michael Singh (WINEP), Washington Post: The managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (aka [...]]]>
Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.
Michael Singh (WINEP), Washington Post: The managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (aka the Washington Institute or WINEP), a think tank that was created by the American Public Israel Affairs Committee (AIPAC), calls for imposing more pressure on Iran while bolstering the military option:
Like any good pugilist, Washington should follow the heavy blow of oil sanctions with further unrelenting pressure.
…
Finally, Washington should bolster the credibility of its military threat. Recent steps to strengthen its force posture in the Persian Gulf are a good start. They should be accompanied by more serious statements about U.S. willingness to employ force and an end to statements exaggerating the downsides of military action.
Former top CIA middle east analyst Paul Pillar responds in the National Interest:
If the oil sanctions aren’t enough, what other pressure does Singh say should be used? One is “bolder” efforts, whatever that means, to oust the Assad regime in Syria, and regardless of whatever implications that may have for escalation of that conflict. Another is an ill-defined reference to “cultivating Iranians outside the narrow circle around” the supreme leader or “providing support to dissidents” in Iran. No mention is made of how to get around the inherently counterproductive aspect of outside efforts to manipulate internal Iranian politics, or how one more indication that regime change is the ultimate Western objective is supposed to make the current regime more interested in making concessions. Finally, Singh calls for more military saber rattling—as if the threat of a military attack is supposed to make the Iranians less, rather than more, interested in a nuclear deterrent to protect themselves from such attacks. That makes as much sense as pushing yet again on the “pull” door.
We probably should not take the purveyors of such advice at their word. Surely at least some of them, including probably Singh, are smart enough to understand the basics of Sanctions 101. Their objective evidently is not success at the negotiating table but instead the indefinite perpetuation of the Iranian nuclear issue for other reasons or the checking off of a box on a pre-war checklist.
Lee Smith (FDD), Tablet Magazine: Hawks on Iran regular Lee Smith of the neoconservative-dominated Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) quotes retired Army Gen. John Keane (see biographical note below) before undermining repeated warnings from high-level defense and administration officials that a military strike would only set back Iran’s alleged nuclear aspirations by a few years:
In contrast, the Obama Administration has pulled out of Iraq and will soon pull out of Afghanistan. Yet the White House continues to repeat the trope that the program can, at best, be delayed a few years. Just as politics informed the Bush White House’s insistence on the delay-not-destroy mantra, politics of a different sort are informing this White House: This administration is conducting a public diplomacy campaign with the purpose of undermining the capability of a U.S. attack because the administration has no intention of striking.
Note: Keane has close ties with U.S. neoconservatives and was one of the main architects of George W. Bush’s surge in Iraq. In 2006, Gen. George Casey and the chief of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid recommended reducing troop levels in Iraq, but Keane and his neoconservative allies started looking for someone that would support escalation instead–ultimately General David Petraeus. As documented by Bob Woodward in the War Within, Keane ignored the chain of command while heavily promoting Petraeus. He also helped persuade Bush to reject the Iraq Study Group’s findings and recommendations by aggressively pushing an alternative strategy he wrote with Frederick Kagan at the American Enterprise Institute called “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq.” That report led to the military buildup that followed.
Lee also uses Keane’s words to repeat his call for a ramped up military option:
…long before the United States decides to attack Iran, we need to communicate our seriousness to the regime. “There is only one guy you need to convince here to voluntarily give up the nuclear program and that is the Supreme Leader Khameini,” Jack Keane argues. “He must know we are dead serious about a military strike, as a last resort, and this is not just about the nuclear facilities—their military will be decapitated. This is the U.S. military. Believe me, we will destroy you.”
United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI): The neoconservative-aligned Iran sanctions-enforcement organization ramps up its pressure campaign against the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), the financial messaging system used to arrange international money transfers, aimed at further crippling Iran’s economy:
Said UANI CEO, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace:
Now is the time for a full banking blockade against the Iranian regime, and SWIFT needs to play its part. SWIFT made the right decision in February to deny access to Iran’s Central Bank and some other institutions, but it has thus far failed to cut off all Iranian banks and entities. SWIFT should immediately sever its ties with all Iranian banks, particularly the ten that have been sanctioned by the U.S. government but still maintain SWIFT access.
Every day that SWIFT permits these illegitimate banks to have continued access to its network is a day the Iranian regime will continue to circumvent international sanctions. As the world weans itself off of Iranian crude, there is not a need to maintain conduits for energy related payments, but a need for an international banking embargo against Iran.
Clifford D. May (FDD), Scripps Howard: The president of the FDD repeats colleague Mark Dubowitz’s recommendation of blacklisting the entire Iranian energy sector as a “zone of primary proliferation concern” and reiterates his own call for U.S.-assisted/backed regime change:
[President Obama] should announce his support for legislation introduced by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Rep. Robert Dold (R-Ill.) and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) that would blacklist the entire Iranian energy sector as a “zone of primary proliferation concern.”
…
Such a speech should be followed by other measures in support of Iranians willing to take the risks necessary to replace a regime that has failed domestically, a regime that has been at war with the U.S. since it seized our embassy in 1979; a regime that four years later instructed Hezbollah to suicide-bomb the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut; a regime that has facilitated the killings of hundreds of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan; a regime that plotted to blow up a restaurant in Washington, D.C., just last year.
Alan Dershowitz, Times of Israel: The pro-Israel Harvard Law Professor who “met for 45 minutes one-on-one with US President Barack Obama to discuss Iran” criticizes the J-Street lobbying group for “undercutting American policy toward Iran” by not pushing the military option on Iran:
]]>Dershowitz said that by “explicitly undercutting Obama on Iran,” it actually “makes it more likely that Israel will have to go alone. As George Washington said a long time ago, the best way to preserve peace is to be ready for war, and that’s been the Obama policy.” For J Street to undercut it and misrepresent prominent Israelis’ positions on it, he said, “takes it out of the pro-Israel camp. I don’t think it’s debatable that J Street is pro-Israel. It is not.”
*This week’s must-reads/watch:
- News: U.S. War Game Sees Perils of Israeli Strike Against [...]]]>*This week’s must-reads/watch:
- - News: U.S. War Game Sees Perils of Israeli Strike Against Iran
- - News: P5+1 political directors to meet in Europe this week on Iran
- - News: Hawks Steering Debate on How to Take On Iran
- - News: Nuclear watchdog chief accused of pro-western bias over Iran
- - News: Rafsanjani’s Reappointment Provokes Speculation in Iran
- News: U.S. Exempts Japan and 10 Other Countries From Sanctions Over Iran Oil - - News: Special Report: Intel shows Iran nuclear threat not imminent
- – Opinion: Israel’s Gift to Iran
- - Opinion: Heeding the Experts on Iran
- Opinion: The False Iran Debate
- Opinion: The Only Option on Iran
- Opinion: Pivoting from the Military ‘Option’ Back to Diplomacy - - Research Publication: CFR: Iran Talks: What Should Be on the Table?
- - Research Publication: Iran’s Internal Politics: The Supreme Leader Grows Ever Lonelier at the Top
Mark Dubowitz, New York Times: After providing a long explanation for why Republicans should stop criticizing President Obama for high gas prices that have resulted from the U.S.’s Iran sanctions policy (which Dubowitz’s FDD career seems based on), the executive director of the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies says working together now can result in more unity among Republicans and Democrats when “pursuing” war:
Republican candidates have boxed Obama in. Their dual line of attack might be smart politics, but it’s not smart policy. Either gas prices go down or Obama imposes suffocating sanctions on Iranian oil exports. They can’t have it both ways.
…
We are fast approaching a point when sanctions will no longer be able to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program. As tempting as it may be, Republican candidates should set aside the opportunity to score quick political points and support the president in taking a bold step on sanctions that could destroy Iran’s oil wealth. And if Ayatollah Khamenei still refuses to compromise, Republicans and Democrats may find themselves more united in moving beyond sanctions and pursuing a military option.
Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal: Not a week goes by without Lobe Log being forced to feature some alarmist, hawkish article about Iran in the WSJ. So here is Bret Stephens, the former Jerusalem Post editor believed to be one of the main writers of the Journal’s unsigned editorial board pieces, declaring that U.S. intelligence about Iran should be ignored and people should just go with their (his?) gut feelings instead. Writes Stephens (brace yourself now):
It should come as no surprise that an intelligence community meant to provide decision makers with disinterested analysis has, in practice, policy goals and ideological axes of its own. But that doesn’t mean it is any less dangerous. The real lesson of the Iraq WMD debacle wasn’t that the intelligence was “overhyped,” since the CIA is equally notorious for erring in the opposite direction. It was that intelligence products were treated as authoritative guides to decision making. Spooks, like English children, should be seen, not heard. The problem is that the spooks (like the children) want it the other way around.
How, then, should people think about the Iran state of play? By avoiding the misdirections of “intelligence.” For real intelligence, merely consider that a regime that can take a rock in its right hand to stone a woman to death should not have a nuclear bomb within reach of its left. Even a spook can grasp that.
Michael Singh, Washington Institute: Founded in 1985 by the former research director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Martin Indyk, the Washington Institute or WINEP is an influential think tank that makes confrontational policy recommendations about Iran. In a 20-page publication titled “To Keep the Peace with Iran, Threaten to Strike”, WINEP’s managing director accordingly argues that the “threat of force” against Iran should be emphasized and regarded as a “complement” to Obama’s Iran strategy:
The strenuous American efforts to ease the tensions and reassure Iran, whileunderstandable, were counterproductive. If Iran’s intention in issuing its threatswas to gauge the U.S. appetite for conflict, it can only have been comforted by theresponse. It revealed a superpower not girding itself, even reluctantly, for a militaryconflict, but scrambling to avoid one, seemingly bent on convincing itself andothers that a war would be futile. This episode likely only underscored what Iranmay see as the United States’ diminishing appetite or capacity for conflict, aperception fueled by the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, its impending withdrawal fromAfghanistan, large planned cuts to the U.S. defense budget as well as the size of U.S.forces, and the backseat approach the United States took (and celebrated) in Libya.Ironically, downplaying the threat of force may increase the odds that theUnited States will be left with little choice buteither to employ force or accept an Iraniannuclear weapons capability. While Washingtonand its allies clearly and appropriately see militaryaction as a last resort, this should not imply thatestablishing the credibility of the threat of forcebe left to a later, final phase of their approach toIran. Indeed, the threat of force is not analternative to sanctions or negotiations, but acomplement to them in forming a coherent Iran strategy.
Richard Cohen, Washington Post: In February the Post’s weekly columnist argued for “regime change” in Iran and for the U.S. to establish at minimum the perception that U.S. and Israel policy are aligned. This month he downplays the cons of an Israeli strike while emphasizing the pros:
]]>Sanctions may cause Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program, if indeed that’s where it is now heading. But critics of Israel’s approach have to understand that Iran’s program looks different from Tel Aviv than it does from Washington. In the long run, an Israeli attack on Iran will accomplish nothing. In the short run, it could accomplish quite a lot.
But now comes Singh, who in his effort to debunk Dempsey’s idea that Iran is a “rational actor,” call on us to “assess how the regime perceives its interests” and concludes:
All indications are that the regime values its own survival above all. This likely fuels its drive to obtain a nuclear weapon, which it may see as a guarantee against external foes.
Of course, this is what most Iran and nuclear experts have been arguing for quite a long time: that Iran’s alleged (but still unconfirmed) interest in acquiring a nuclear weapons capability would be motivated, primarily at least, by defensive considerations, and not because it wants the bomb to attack Israel or any other country.
Moreover, as yet another friend of mine pointed out to the first, this also undermines Netanyahu’s, the Bipartisan Policy Committee’s and AIPAC’s main argument that we need to make our threats to use military force ever more credible in order to scare Iran into abandoning their presumed quest (and all enrichment activities, too). But if Iran’s motive for pursuing a nuclear weapon is defensive, how then does threatening it convince its leadership that they don’t need increased defensive capabilities. Indeed, the greater the threat, the more the regime becomes convinced it needs the bomb in order to deter an attack.
This argument, of course, is not new. Most U.S. intelligence officials and, more recently, the military brass have been arguing that an actual attack by the U.S. or Israel on Iran’s nuclear facilities would serve only to make Iran more determined to build a bomb, just as Israel’s attack on the Osiraq reactor in Iraq resulted in an acceleration of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program, as was discovered by astonished UN inspectors after the first Gulf War. And, as pointed out repeatedly by both former CentCom chief, Adm. William “Fox” Fallon and the recently retired Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. James Cartwright, in their appearance Thursday at the Center for Security and International Studies, the Iranians have clearly mastered the fuel cycle and can always reconstruct it.
Remember, also, that none other than Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak suggested that he, too believed Iran was a rational actor, in that if he were Iranian, he would “probably” want a nuclear weapon, too. And, as he told Charlie Rose last November, such a weapon wouldn’t even necessarily be targeted on Israel.
They’re looking around and seeing that India is nuclear, that the Chinese are nuclear, that Pakistan is nuclear, even small South Korea is – not to mention the Russians,” he said. “Saddam tried it, Bashar al-Assad tried, Qaddafi tried it, Israeli allegedly has it.
Of course, despite his implicit acknowledgment that Iran would be interested in acquiring a nuclear weapon for defensive purposes, he still insisted in the same interview that it must be stopped in order to prevent a regional arms race. But it was still quite an admission for a senior member of a cabinet whose prime minister has repeatedly insisted that Iran’s aims and those of Adolf Hitler are similar, if not the same.
]]>*Perhaps we spend too much time on hawkish commentary about Iran in the media and [...]]]>
*Perhaps we spend too much time on hawkish commentary about Iran in the media and not enough on information that can be used to end the U.S.-Iran political impasse without the use of force. With that in mind, here’s a longer round-up of this week’s must-reads:
- Ken Dilanian: U.S. intelligence chief sees limited benefit in an attack on Iran
Fareed Zakaria: How history lessons could deter Iranian aggression
Scott Peterson: What would happen if Iran had the bomb? (+video)
Seyed Hossein Mousavian: How the Standoff Looks From Iran
Paul Pillar: Talks and Triumphalism
Matt Duss: The neocons’ big Iran lie
Mainstream Media and Pundits:
Wall Street Journal: Rarely does a week go by without the Journal’s editorial board publishing rabid, unsigned articles against Iran (rumored to be authored by former Jerusalem Post editor, Bret Stephens) while dismissing diplomacy and predicting military conflict. From “Iran Versus Everyone: The Islamic Republic’s belligerence threatens more than Israel”:
The larger story is that Iran is coming close to openly making war on the country it wants to wipe off the map. That’s an escalation from the more veiled (and often more deadly) warfare the Islamic Republic has waged against Israeli and Jewish targets for decades. It’s also an indication that the mullahs, far from seeking to de-escalate tensions with the West, are scrapping for a fight. They might get one.
It is in nobody’s interest, least of all America’s, to see a regional war erupt in the Middle East. It is even less in America’s interests to back our allies in Jerusalem into a corner where they feel they have no choice other than to fight, as they did in 1967. An Iran that seeks to murder diplomats across the globe is a threat to global security. The U.S. has an even larger interest than Israel in stopping it.
Alan Dershowitz in the WSJ: The pro-Israel Harvard Law Professor discusses how the U.S. can go to war with Iran:
U.S. retaliation could take the form of military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Though such action might be pre-emptive in its intention, it would be reactive as a matter of international law, since it would be in response to an armed attack by Iran. It wouldn’t require Security Council approval, since Article 51 of the U.N. Charter explicitly preserves the right of member nations to respond to any armed attack.
This is not to argue against such an attack if Iran decides not to go after soft American targets. It may become necessary for our military to target Iranian nuclear facilities if economic sanctions and diplomatic efforts do not succeed and if the Iranian government decides to cross red lines by militarizing its nuclear program and placing it in deep underground bunkers. But the legal justification for such an attack would be somewhat different. It would be predominantly pre-emptive or preventive, though it would have reactive elements as well, since Iran has armed our enemies in Iraq and caused the death of many American soldiers.
Daniel Schwammenthal in the WSJ: Director of the “AJC Transatlantic Institute in Brussels”, Daniel Schwammenthal, claims that containing Iran isn’t an option. His argument is published during the same month that an Iran anti-containment bill which would further restrict diplomacy options is being floated in Congress. Schwammenthal criticizes former President Jimmy Carter, journalist Fareed Zakaria and German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, for allegedly “downplaying the significance of the country’s weapons program”, even though U.S. and I.A.E.A. intelligence reports show there is no proof that Iran has a “weapons program”. Schwammenthal doesn’t call for war directly. Instead he rules out non-confrontational options while offering no solutions, but he does end his argument with a heavy dose of alarmism:
Following an atomic attack against a Western city, it would take investigators weeks if not months to determine the culprits, who may never be identified beyond reasonable doubt. It is hard to imagine any Western leader ordering a retaliatory nuclear strike, and thus the deaths of untold numbers of Iranian civilians, on the basis of inconclusive evidence months after the initial attack. Tehran would be quite rational to count on Western scruples in such a case.
The day after Iran’s first nuclear test would not be a normal day. Nor could the danger be contained.
(Check out another frightening article about Iran that was published in the WSJ’s opinion section this week: The Iranian Threat to New York City)
Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post: While quoting well-known hawks, the staunchly pro-Israel blogger seems worried by the prospect of talks between U.S. and Iranian officials:
Meanwhile, critics of the administration are increasingly worried that, in downplaying talk of a military option and dangling the hope for a “diplomatic” solution, the president is headed for a diplomatic morass — either because he naively thinks there is a deal to be made or because he doesn’t want conflict in an election year. Jamie Fly of the Foreign Policy Initiative tells me, “To accept this regime as a serious negotiating partner at this point is ludicrous and will only give them more time to enrich uranium and take the final steps towards a nuclear weapons capability. Just as serious sanctions are finally being implemented is the worst time to ease the pressure.”
Mike Singh of the Washington Institute also cautions: “I think that the real risk is that Iran will once again use talks simply to delay and distract, rather than for a serious discussion of international concerns regarding its nuclear activities. The Iranian regime has a strong incentive to dissipate the considerable momentum of the sanctions campaign.”
James Kirchick in Haaretz: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies fellow and New Republic contributing editor, James Kirchick, urges the U.S. to pursue regime change in Iran:
…the long-term goal of the United States and the entire free world should be the downfall of the mullahs. Washington ought to pursue nonviolent ways of preventing Iran from attaining nuclear weapons, and work to limit its destabilizing behavior. But it must never adopt a policy that would consign the Iranian people to indefinite tyranny.
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- The Diplomat: American Enterprise Institute Scholar Michael Rubin is interviewed on The Diplomat blog on “how sanctions can work with Iran.” Rubin says that sanctions are having both an economic and reputational impact. “[Iranians] look at themselves as a country that was once on par with European countries like Spain and Portugal, and they see themselves now following headlong into the third world,” he says. Rubin advocates tightening sanctions on Iran’s banking sector and on passenger air travel as a way of “[making] life a little bit more inconvenient.” Rubin says he’d “never rule out a military option” but acknowledges that containment might be a more likely path than bombing. He concludes that he’s pessimistic about stopping Iran’s nuclear program with either diplomacy or a military strike and questions whether Israel has the capability to launch military strikes on Iran.
- The Washington Post: The neoconservative blogger Jennifer Rubin writes that “pundits on the left” have for years said that negotiations with Iran should focus on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei instead of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “Scholars and pundits critical of the administration’s Iran engagement policy” have argued that Ahmadinejad is a central player and “talking him out of pursuing nuclear weapons is a dangerous fantasy,” she argues. Rubin points to Ahmadinejad’s firing of Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki as the latest evidence backing up the ‘critics.’ Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations tells Jennifer Rubin that the move is part of an ongoing consolidation of power by Ahmadinejad. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy‘s (WINEP) Michael Singh e-mails her and says: “I view this as just the first move in a power struggle over foreign policy, and it is too soon to tell how it will shake out.” Rubin suggests the latest events support the idea of “reflect[ing] on our current policy,” presumably switching to her own flawed prescriptions for aggressive military action. She concludes: “Those who advocate continued engagement, I would submit, have the burden of proof to demonstrate that we are doing more good than harm in continuing to participate in the Ahmadinejad-orchestrated charade.”
- Jerusalem Post: The right-wing English language Israeli daily has a piece by columnist Michael Freund, who revives the push that U.S. President Barack Obama can save his presidency by attacking Iran. “There is one dramatic step that Obama can take that would have a transformative effect, not only on his standing in public opinion but on the world itself: Take aggressive action to stop Iran’s nuclear program,” he writes, thus resurrecting a meme started by Daniel Pipes and adopted by Elliott Abrams, among others. “The thought of the would-be Hitler of Persia getting his hands on a nuclear weapon is one that should send shivers down the spine of every Israeli and every Westerner,” writes Freund. “Imposing punishing sanctions and using military force if necessary to stop the Iranian nuclear program would rally the American public behind his administration and underscore the fact that US deterrence is alive and well.”
- Foreign Policy: On FP‘s Shadow Government blog, Washington Institute for Near East Policy visiting fellow Michael Singh compares Iran’s diplomatic outreach to Africa with its alleged “shadowy network of arms smuggling, support for terrorism, and subversive activities.” Singh, a former George W. Bush National Security Council official, produces a long list of transgressions, some of them mere allegations. “These activities, taken together with Tehran’s refusal to cooperate with the IAEA on its nuclear activities and callous violations of its own people’s human rights, paint a picture of a regime which pursues its own security by flouting international rules and norms of acceptable behavior,” he writes. He calls for sanctions to be “vigorously enforced” and says Iran’s activities should be a lesson that “even a resolution of the nuclear issue would only begin to address the far broader concerns about the regime and its activities.”
- Wall Street Journal: In his Capital Journal column, Gerald Seib writes, “The goal of the U.S. and its allies right now is to make sure Iran has to make hard choices.” With Iran denying they are seeking nuclear weapons while pointing to Israel’s arsenal, ” Seib notes this gives a sense of the “gulf” between Iran and the United States. He says “the best the U.S. and its allies can hope for right now is to slow down the Iranian program on the one hand, while increasing the cost of continuing it on the other.” Carnegie Endowment Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour told Seib: “Negotiations likely won’t resolve our dispute with Iran. But they can help contain our dispute with Iran and prevent it from escalating.”
- The Washington Post: The Post‘s increasingly neoconservative editorial board, led by Fred Hiatt, is challenging Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s opposition to a military strike on Iran. “To be clear: We agree that the administration should continue to focus for now on non-military strategies such as sanctions and support for the Iranian opposition. But that does not require publicly talking down military action,” writes the Post. The editorial notes that Gates’s comments are widely viewed as pushback against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that a “credible military threat” is a necessary component of diplomacy with Iran. To pushback against Gates, the Post employs the exact same talking point Netanyahu used: “[W]e do know for sure is that the last decision Iran made to curb its nuclear program, in 2003, came when the regime feared – reasonably or not – that it could be a target of the U.S. forces,” said the editorial. Eleven days ago, Netanyahu said: “The only time that Iran suspended its nuclear program was for a brief period during 2003 when the regime believed that it faced a credible threat of military action against it.” A report from the Stimson Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace recently said that pressure “should be pursued through prudent actions rather than through a language of confrontation, threats, or insults. Threats and coercion will be far more effective if they are implicit rather than explicit: a key element of over-all US policy, but not the sole basis of that policy.”
- The Washington Times: Ben Birnbaum reports on the efforts of Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), head of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on terrorism, to get a State Department briefing on why the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) remains on the U.S. list of foreign terror organizations. MEK activists have a well-known presence on Capitol Hill, and members of Congress have as recently as this week taken up their cause. ”This isn’t the same MEK that was assassinating people during the shah’s regime and was committed to Marxism,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). He added the organization was not the same as 30 or 40 years ago despite its leadership has remaining constant since 1979 and only publicly renouncing violence in 2001. Abbas Milani of the Hoover Institution tells Birnbaum that members of Iran’s Green Movement have a “range of views” on whether the MEK should be brought back into the fold. But Omid Memarian, a dissident journalist who served time in an Iranian prison, said: “Politically, they are dead. They have no place in Iran’s politics.” Most analysts believe this to be the overwhelming view of Iranians in Iran because the MEK fought for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, and continued to take money from him until 2003. Nonetheless, Miliani casts doubt on this view as nearly unanimous, saying only that “some people” believe it.
- The Wall Street Journal: Iran has given Germany “a lesson in the futility of appeasement,” writes the WSJ editorial board. Following the return from the trip of five German law makers promoting “cultural exchange”, Iranian authorities moved forward on Tuesday and charged two German reporters with espionage.” The editorial writers suggest that as long as Iran holds the two journalists, German politicians will find it very difficult to impose harsh sanctions against Iranian banks which do business in Germany. “If having their journalists treated as hostages is what Germany gets for its ‘critical dialogue’ and ‘cultural exchange’ with Iran, then maybe it’s time for her government to take a tougher line,” concludes the WSJ.
- Foreign Policy: Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) Visiting Fellow Michael Singh writes on Foreign Policy’s Shadow Government blog that Iran’s public campaign of expanding diplomatic and trade relations in Africa is really an extension of its “shadowy network of arms smuggling, support for terrorism, and subversive activities.” Singh warns these activities “paint a picture of a regime which pursues its own security by flouting international rules and norms of acceptable behavior.” He concludes that vigilance will be required in finding “new points of pressure” and enforcing existing sanctions against Iran while, at the same time, “even a resolution of the nuclear issue would only begin to address the far broader concerns about the regime and its activities, making a true U.S.-Iran reconciliation far away indeed.”