via IPS News

In the wake of a renewed diplomatic push on the Iranian nuclear front, shared interests in Iran’s backyard could pave the way for Washington and Tehran to work toward overcoming decades of hostility.

“I think that if Iran and the United States are able to [...]]]> by Jasmin Ramsey

via IPS News

In the wake of a renewed diplomatic push on the Iranian nuclear front, shared interests in Iran’s backyard could pave the way for Washington and Tehran to work toward overcoming decades of hostility.

“I think that if Iran and the United States are able to overcome their differences regarding Iran’s nuclear programme, if there begins to be some progress in that regard, then I do see opportunities for dialogue and cooperation on a broader range of issues, including my issues, which is to say Afghanistan,” Ambassador James F. Dobbins, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told IPS at a briefing here Monday.

This summer’s election of Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric with centrist and reformist backing as well as close ties to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has been followed by signals that Iran may be positioning itself to agree to a deal over its controversial nuclear programme.

Rouhani’s appointment of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to oversee Iran’s nuclear dossier has been received positively here by leading foreign policy elites who consider Zarif a worthy negotiating partner.

The Western-educated former Iranian ambassador to the United Nations is slotted to meet with his British counterpart William Hague at the U.N. General Assembly later this month, which could lead to a resumption of diplomatic ties that were halted following a 2011 storming of the British embassy in Tehran by a group of protestors.

Dobbins, who worked closely with Zarif in 2001 after being appointed by the George W. Bush administration to aid the establishment of a post-Taliban government in Afghanistan, told IPS that “Iran was quite helpful” with the task.

“I think it’s unfortunate that our cooperation, which was, I think, genuine and important back in 2001, wasn’t able to be sustained,” added Dobbins.

The U.S. halted official moves toward further cooperation with Iran following a 2002 speech by Bush that categorised Iran as part of an “axis of evil” with Iraq and North Korea.

While President Barack Obama’s “A New Beginning” speech in Cairo in 2009 indicated a move away from Bush-era rhetoric on the Middle East, the U.S.’s Iran policy has remained sanctions-centric – a main point of contention for Iran during last year’s nuclear talks.

Positive signs from both sides

But a recent string of events, which continued even as the U.S. seemed to be positioning itself to strike Iranian ally Syria, have led to speculation that the long-time adversaries may be edging toward direct talks, though the White House denied speculation that this could take place at the U.N. General Assembly.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham also verified the exchange but denied speculation that Syria was a subject.

“Obama’s letter was received, but it was not about Syria and it was a congratulation letter (to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani) whose response was sent,” Afkham told reporters in Tehran in comments posted on the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

That both leaders have publicly acknowledged such rare contact is an important development in and of itself, according to Robert E. Hunter, who served on the National Security Council staff throughout the Jimmy Carter administration.

“This is an effort as much as anything to test the waters in domestic American politics regarding direct talks, regarding the possibility of seeing whether something more productive can be done than in the past. And except out of Israel, I haven’t seen a lot of powerful protest,” Hunter told IPS.

“The Iranians have already backed off on the stuff about the Holocaust by saying it was that ‘other guy’. Now, and this is a reach, but keep in mind that as the slogan goes, the road between Tehran and Washington runs through Jerusalem,” said Hunter, who was U.S. ambassador to NATO (1993-98).

“A serious improvement of U.S.-Iran relations also requires Iran to do things in regard to Israel that will reduce Israel’s anxiety about Iranian intentions on the nuclear front, and on Hezbollah,” he said.

Hunter added that “compatible interests” between the two countries, including security and stability in Iraq and Afghanistan and freedom of shipping in the vital oil transport route, the Strait of Hormuz, could also pave the way to improved relations.

A shift in Iran

Even Khamenei, who has always been deeply suspicious of U.S. policy toward Iran, has given permission for Rouhani to enter into direct talks with the U.S., according to an op-ed published by Project Syndicate and written by former Iranian nuclear negotiator, Hossein Mousavian.

During a meeting Monday with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Khamenei also said he was “not opposed to correct diplomacy” and believes in “heroic flexibility”, according to an Al-Monitor translation.

Adding to the eyebrow-raising remarks was Khamenei’s echoing of earlier comments by Rouhani that the IRGC does not need to have a direct hand in politics.

“It is not necessary for it to act as a guard in the political scene, but it should know the political scene,” said Khamenei, who has nurtured years of close relations with the powerful branch of Iran’s military.

Iran sends out feelers

On Sept. 12, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation Ali Akbar Salehi announced that Iran had reduced its stockpile of 20 percent low enriched uranium by converting it into fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR).

This was described as “misleading” by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) based on how little LEU Iran had reportedly converted to fuel.

“As such, this action cannot be seen as a significant confidence building measure,” argued ISIS in a press release.

But Paul Pillar, a former top CIA analyst who served as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia (2000 to 2005), called this “an example of all-too-prevalent reductionism that seeks to fold political and psychological questions into technical ones.”

“Confidence-building measures can mean many things, but in general they have at least as much to do with perceptions and intentions as they do with gauging physical steps against some technical yardstick,” Pillar told IPS.

“Confidence-building measures…are gestures of goodwill and intent. They are not walls against a possible future ‘break-out’. If they were, they would not be confidence-building measures; they would be a solving of the whole problem,” he said.

Photo Credit: ISNA/Mehdi Ghasemi

by Jasmin Ramsey

Ahead of the technical-level nuclear talks that will take place in Istanbul on March 18 and the top-level talks that will be held in early April, Farideh Farhi, an Independent Scholar at the University of Hawaii and Lobe Log contributor, offers context and insight [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Jasmin Ramsey

Ahead of the technical-level nuclear talks that will take place in Istanbul on March 18 and the top-level talks that will be held in early April, Farideh Farhi, an Independent Scholar at the University of Hawaii and Lobe Log contributor, offers context and insight into what can reasonably be expected in terms of results.

Q): Considering the cautious optimism that was expressed by the Iranians after the Almaty talks (February 26-27), is there a better chance for a breakthrough during the March/April meetings?

Farideh Farhi: It is too soon to think of breakthrough at this point. But the decision on the part of Iran’s negotiating team to portray the slight move on the part of the United States [to offer slight sanctions relief] as a turning point, has given the leadership in Tehran room to sell an initial confidence-building measure in the next couple of months as a “win-win situation,” something the Iranians have always claimed to be interested in. Having room to maneuver domestically, however, does not necessarily mean that it will happen. In the next couple of months we just have to wait and see the extent to which opponents of any kind of deal in both Tehran and Washington will be able to prevent the optimism that’s been expressed from turning into a process of give and take.

At this point, though, it is noteworthy that the first signs of opposition to what happened in Almaty occurred in Washington and not Tehran (see this Washington Post editorial.) In Iran, the questioning that has since emerged is about whether the positive portrayal of a US shift, for example by Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, is justified by an actual shift in Almaty, which some deem as not sufficient to warrant an agreement; at least not yet.

Q): CNN reported on March 2 that Iran was open to direct talks, but Iran has made similar statements before and you’ve pointed out that direct talks have already taken place back in October 2009. What happened during that meeting?

Farideh Farhi: I have written about what happened then here, but in short, during the October 2009 Geneva meeting, which occurred while Iran was in the midst of post-election turmoil, hopes were raised by the Saeed Jalili-led nuclear team, after he met with US negotiator William Burns, that a breakthrough had happened and the US had accepted Iran’s right to enrich uranium in exchange for the transfer of uranium out of Iran (later to be returned to Iran in the transformed form of fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor). But Iran’s tumultuous post-election environment, combined with a lack of transparency regarding the agreement’s details, led to opposition across the political spectrum. Rightly or wrongly, there was a sense in the public that the hard-line power leaders were making a behind-the-scenes-deal with outside powers in order to continue repression at home. Eventually the inability of both Jalili and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to convince others in Iran that the agreement included an explicit acceptance of Iran’s enrichment program led to Leader Ali Khamenei’s withdrawal of support for the agreement.

Q: Why do you think the administration is so focused on direct talks right now while Congress seems to be operating on a completely different beat, and what needs to happen for direct talks to happen again.

Farideh Farhi: The insistence on direct talks, I assume, is about receiving a signal from the Leader that he is interested in resolving the nuclear issue. The problem is that there is also a lack of trust on his side and he needs to be assured that the United States is interested in a process of give and take. He, along with quite a few others in Iran, need to be convinced that bilateral talks are not a trap intended to reignite the international consensus for the further squeezing of Iran, which the Obama Administration has been unable to sustain due to Russian and Chinese refusal to buy in at the United Nations.

In addition, many in Iran, rightly or wrongly, have come to believe that the US interest in direct talks is only about exacting concessions from Iran or serving its own interests without any attention to Iran’s needs and interests. Experiences such as Iran’s engagement with the US over Afghanistan in 2001, and the three rounds of talk over Iraq in 2006-07, have given the impression that there is no equivalency between what the US demands and what it’s willing to offer. In Iraq, for instance, the US wanted Iran’s help for the resolution of everyday security challenges that the US was facing without acknowledging that Iran also has interests in shaping the political direction of Iraq. There are other examples but the end result has always been Tehran’s increased caution regarding direct dealings with the US.

As of now, the two countries are still far from finding a common language to talk to each other with. Washington is still focused on the resolution of immediate issues of concern, be it Iran’s nuclear program or figuring out a way of getting Iran’s help — or at least reducing Iran’s incentive to create trouble — as it tries to untangle itself from Afghanistan. Tehran, on the other hand, is focused on longer-term strategic issues and the consolidation of its role in the region. For Tehran to enter into a direct conversation with the US, it has to be convinced that it will also get something tangible out of it.

Q: What needs to happen on both sides to increase the chances for progress during the March/April talks, and if you believe that nothing will happen on the Iranian side before the election, what needs to happen generally.

I fall into the category of people who think that something can happen before the election. The fact that the Iranians agreed to have technical talks so soon confirms my belief. The unambiguous signal from Tehran is that the nuclear issue is a systemic matter and will not be affected by the result of the election. Meanwhile, the decision by the United States to shift a bit before the election also signals to Iran’s leadership that it’s not betting on or hoping for the victory of any particular candidate in the election. If it’s sustained, this move, unlike the dynamics we saw during the 2009 election, will take the question of potential talks with the US out of the Iranian electoral equation because some form of them are already taking place.

What needs to happen in the next few months is a demonstration on the part of Tehran that it’s willing to suspend part of its enrichment program in exchange for the suspension of some sanctions on the part of the United States and Europe. Neither of these suspensions need to be consequential or major in terms of broader demands that both sides have on each other. But the acceptance of a mini-step as a first step is by itself a sign that a process — based on a more realistic understanding and expectation of what can be given and taken from both sides — has begun. If this happens — given the contentious dynamics in both countries and ferocious opposition by a number of regional players to any kind of talks between Iran and the United States — it’s a very big deal, even it it continues to occur within the P5+1 frame.

by Peter Jenkins

As I mentioned in a previous piece, I have been dipping into The Arrogance of Power, written by Senator William Fulbright in 1966. It has been a comforting experience in one respect. The divisions within the US foreign policy community that have been so apparent to European observers [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Peter Jenkins

As I mentioned in a previous piece, I have been dipping into The Arrogance of Power, written by Senator William Fulbright in 1966. It has been a comforting experience in one respect. The divisions within the US foreign policy community that have been so apparent to European observers since 2001 have clearly been a characteristic of the world’s only Great Power since the senator offered his diagnosis 47 years ago. Yet the world has survived.

In another respect it has been troubling. The senator saw two tendencies that were evenly matched, and believed that the tendency he characterised as “moderate” could prevail. Yet over the last 12 years, the tendency he characterised as “full of a passionate intensity” (cf. “The Second Coming”, W.B. Yeats) has shown itself to be in rude health, whereas the moderate tendency seems to have suffered a loss of form.

Let me start to clarify what I am trying to say by a lengthy quote from the final chapter of The Arrogance or Power:

There are two Americas.  One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern superpatriots.  One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous;…one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power.

We have tended in the years of our great power to puzzle the world by presenting to it now the one face and now the other; and sometimes both at once. Many people all over the world have come to regard America as being capable of magnanimity and farsightedness but no less capable of pettiness and spite…

After twenty five years of world power the United States must decide which of the two sides of its national character is to predominate – the humanism of Lincoln or the arrogance of those who would make America the world’s policeman…

What seems to be happening…is that the feel of America in the world’s mind has begun to change and faith in “the idea of America” has been shaken for the world…much of the idealism and inspiration is disappearing from American policy but they are not yet gone and by no means are they irretrievable.

The foremost need of American foreign policy is a renewal of dedication to an “idea that mankind can hold to” – not a missionary idea full of pretensions about being the world’s policemen but a Lincolnian idea expressing that powerful strand of decency and humanity which is the true source of America’s greatness.

I imagine that I don’t need to defend the assertion that the Teddy Roosevelt tradition has been in rude health since 2001. What grounds have I for claiming that the “humane, “generous”, “moderate” and “judicious” tendency is going through a bad patch?

In November’s US Presidential election one candidate manifestly represented the “superpatriot” tendency, the other stood for moderation and the judicious use of power. The moderate candidate won. This should be reason for hope and rejoicing for all those outside the US who prefer the country’s moderate face and who fear the possibility of a third war in the Persian Gulf. It is not, though.

President Obama let his first term pass without striving to resolve the greatest current threat to world peace, the Iranian nuclear dispute. He allowed himself to be deterred by advisers who were more concerned with conciliating Israel and Congress, and keeping in tune with (an ill-informed) public opinion, than with showing the statecraft that would be needed to crack such a tough nut. All of this emerges clearly from the writings of Trita Parsi and lately, it seems, Roger Cohen, who recently penned a scathing piece based on a book by Vali Nasr – all of which is hardly surprising if, as some of my US friends allege, the President has no real interest in foreign policy.

And now the second term is getting off to no better a start. The 6-world power P5+1 are travelling to Kazakhstan with the same stale proposals in their briefcases. Washington appears reluctant to follow-up an offer of bilateral talks by making the demonstration of good faith for which Tehran has asked, preferring to imagine, perhaps, that Ayatollah Khamenei has ruled out any bilateral process. Senior members of the administration continue to trot out the same old rhetoric of penal pressure.

There’s still time for the moderate tendency to up its game, I suppose. But will it? Can the men and women who lead it recognise two of the unspoken assumptions of Senator Fulbright and others of his generation?

- it is the responsibility of statesmen to form and lead opinion;

- statesmen take short-term political risks to avert the long-term national risks of inaction.

Pity the rest of the world if they can’t.

Photo: President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and senior staff, react in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, as the House passes the health care reform bill, March 21, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) 

by Peter Jenkins

I was in Berlin on Monday when Iran’s Foreign Minister, MIT-educated Ali Akbar Salehi, spoke to a large audience at the premises of the German Association for Foreign Policy (DGAP). I heard Minister Salehi repeat what he had said the previous day in Munich — that Iran is [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Peter Jenkins

I was in Berlin on Monday when Iran’s Foreign Minister, MIT-educated Ali Akbar Salehi, spoke to a large audience at the premises of the German Association for Foreign Policy (DGAP). I heard Minister Salehi repeat what he had said the previous day in Munich — that Iran is ready to respond positively to Vice President Joe Biden’s offer of bilateral talks — and spell out the expectations with which Iran would approach such talks.

Reports of a statement by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, on 7 February have suggested a subsequent contradiction of the Foreign Minister’s statement and that the Leader has closed the door to bilateral talks. I do not believe this to be the case.

Knowing Minister Salehi well (we were diplomatic colleagues in Vienna for more than two years) I am confident that he would not have spoken publicly of Iran’s readiness to engage in talks had he doubted the Leader’s readiness to authorise them. He is both highly intelligent and prudent. He enjoys the Leader’s confidence and is therefore familiar with the Leader’s thinking.

Moreover the Leader did not explicitly rule out bilateral talks. He merely voiced deep scepticism as to whether they would lead to a resolution of the nuclear dispute. He did so in terms consistent with his past utterances and with one of Minister Salehi’s underlying messages on Monday.

The Minister diagnosed a loss of reciprocal confidence as the crux of the US/Iran problem. He suggested that this would lead Iran to look for evidence that Vice President Biden’s offer is “authentic” and not a “devious” manoeuvre.

The Minister was, he said, aware of reasons to think that the offer is authentic. President Obama is clearly a leader who “wants to walk away from war, bloodshed and negativism” and who believes in settling disputes through negotiation. Former Senators John Kerry and Chuck Hagel have taken “a balanced view” in past public statements.

Nonetheless, Iran will be looking to the US to pursue engagement with consistent “sincerity” and to eschew public threats of military action while talks are underway.
Provided this is so, the Minister saw grounds for optimism. It was “about time both sides got into a bilateral process”, about time “reason and wisdom prevailed”.

I flew back to London feeling a little more hopeful about the possibility of a negotiated solution to the nuclear dispute. It seemed to me that at last Washington and Tehran were tuning into the same wavelength.

This is all the more encouraging in that there is little sign that the 26 February meeting between Iran and the 6-world power E3+3 will produce anything of much significance.

In London and Paris, foreign ministers are nursing grudges against the Iranian government that are born of past ministerial experiences; they are doing nothing to encourage officials to be more creative than in 2012.

The tendency is still to demand that Iran abandon the production of 20% enriched uranium and close the Fordow plant, and to offer little in return.
Positions are distorted by seeing Iran as a guilty party, fortunate to be given a chance to build confidence that it intends to be a virtuous global citizen if ever it is granted release from the shackles of sanctions.

The strategic objective of influencing the future calculations of Iran’s leaders, to minimise the risk that will see advantage in exploiting their possession of a dual-use nuclear technology for military purposes, is being neglected.

If the past is any guide to the future, the hope of bilateral progress will soon be dashed. The wrong inferences will be drawn from the Leader’s 7 February statement. Israel will intercept an arms shipment destined for Hamas or Hezbollah. An Iranian plot to murder an ambassador will be uncovered. An Iranian scientist will be assassinated. Congress will pass a resolution forbidding any diplomatic contact with an “evil regime”. White House advisers will staff all flexibility out of the US opening position.

Yet for the time being I shall nurture hope, and, like my former colleague, count on reason and wisdom prevailing.

via IPS News

Despite an agreement between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) to resume long-delayed talks about Tehran’s nuclear programme in Kazakhstan at the end of this month, few observers here believe that any breakthrough is in the offing.

That belief was [...]]]> by Jim Lobe

via IPS News

Despite an agreement between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) to resume long-delayed talks about Tehran’s nuclear programme in Kazakhstan at the end of this month, few observers here believe that any breakthrough is in the offing.

That belief was reinforced Thursday when Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared to reject a U.S. proposal, most recently put forward by Vice President Joseph Biden at a major security conference in Munich last week, to hold direct bilateral talks.

While Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akhbar Salehi, initially welcomed the offer, provided Washington desisted from its “threatening rhetoric that (all options are) on the table,” Khamenei said in a speech to air force officers Thursday that such talks “would solve nothing”.

“You are pointing a gun at Iran saying you want to talk,” he said. “The Iranian nation will not be frightened by the threats.”

“(I)t simply doesn’t lie in (Khamenei’s) nature to agree to talks from a position of weakness – and certainly not without the protection of having the talks be conducted by an Iranian President who he can …blame for any potential failure in the talks,” wrote Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), on the ‘Daily Beast’ website Thursday.

“Khamenei would rather wait till after the Iranian elections, it seems, in order to both find ways to shift the momentum back to Iran’s side and to hide behind Iran’s new President in the talks,” according to Parsi, author of two award-winning books on U.S.-Iranian relations.

He was referring to the widespread notion here that the cumulative impact of U.S.-led international economic sanctions against Iran, as well as the raging civil war in Syria, Iran’s closest regional ally, has seriously weakened Tehran and “forced” it back to the table, if not quite yet to make the concessions long demanded by the administration of President Barack Obama and its allies.

Those include ending Tehran’s enrichment of uranium to 20 percent; shipping its existing 20-percent enriched stockpile out of the country; closure of its underground Fordow enrichment facility; acceptance of a highly intrusive inspections regime by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); and the clearing up of all outstanding IAEA questions related to possible past military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear programme.

In exchange for those steps, according to U.S. officials, Washington – and presumably the other P5+1 members — would be prepared to forgo further UN. sanctions against Iran; assure the supply of nuclear fuel for Tehran’s Research Reactor (TRR), which produces medical isotopes; facilitate services to Iran’s aging civilian aircraft fleet; and provide other “targeted sanctions relief” that, however, would not include oil- and banking-related sanctions that have been particularly damaging to Iran’s economy over the past two years.

Gradual relief from those more-important sanctions would follow only after full and verifiable implementation of Iran’s side of the bargain.

Until such a deal is struck, however, Washington is committed to increasing the pressure, according to U.S. officials who say the administration remains committed to a strategy of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon by military means, if necessary.

Indeed, in what one official described as “a significant turning of the screw”, the administration announced Wednesday that it had begun implementing new Congressionally mandated sanctions that would effectively force Iran’s foreign oil purchasers into barter arrangements. To avoid sanctions, buyers would have to pay into local accounts from which Iran could then buy locally made goods.

It’s generally accepted that such so-called “crippling sanctions” are responsible, at least in substantial part, for the 50-percent decline in the value of the riyal, galloping inflation, and a major increase in unemployment in recent months.

At the same time, however, there is growing doubt here that the sanctions are achieving their purpose – forcing Iran to accept the stringent curbs on its nuclear programme demanded by the U.S. – or that they are likely to achieve that purpose within the next 18-24 months.

That is the time frame in which most experts believe Tehran could achieve “breakout capacity” – the ability to be able to build a nuclear bomb very quickly – if it decided to do so.

Indeed, in recent weeks, Iran began installing advanced centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility that, if fully activated, could significantly accelerate the rate of enrichment. The move was seen as an effort by Tehran to strengthen its position before the P5+1 meeting in Almaty Feb. 26.

Moreover, the assumption that the economic woes imposed by the sanctions would drive such a deep wedge between Tehran’s leadership and the population that the regime risked collapse is also increasingly in question.

While a majority (56 percent) of respondents said in December that sanctions have hurt Iranians’ livelihoods “a great deal”, according to a poll of Iranian opinion released by the Gallup organisation here Thursday, 63 percent said they believed Iran should continue developing its nuclear programme. Only 17 percent disagreed.

When asked who should be blamed for the sanctions, only 10 percent of respondents cited Iran itself; 70 percent named either the U.S. (47 percent), Israel (nine percent); Western European countries (seven percent); or the U.N. (seven percent).

“This may indicate that sanctions alone are not having the intended effect of persuading Iranian residents and country leaders to change their stance on the level of international oversight of their nuclear program,” noted a Gallup analysis of the results.

Its credibility, however, was questioned by some Iran experts who noted that increased security measures taken by the regime may affect the willingness of respondents to speak frankly to pollsters.

In light of the most recent developments, including Khamenei’s rejection of Biden’s offer and the installation of the new centrifuges at Natanz, Iran hawks here are urging yet tougher sanctions and moves to make the eventual use of force more credible – appeals that are certain to be greatly amplified next month when the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) holds its annual convention here

At the same time, however, there appears to be a growing conviction within the foreign-policy elite that ever-increasing sanctions and threatening military action are unlikely to work, and that Washington should offer be more forthcoming about sanctions relief to get a deal.

Indeed, the administration’s commitment to resorting to military action, if necessary, to prevent Iran from obtaining a weapon is also increasingly being questioned, as a growing number of foreign-policy “greybeards” are calling for a strategy of “deterrence” if and when Iran reaches breakout capacity.

“In the end, war is too costly, unpredictable and dangerous to be a practical option,” noted Bruce Riedel, a former top CIA Middle East and South Asia analyst who was in charge of preparing Afghanistan policy on Obama’s transition team in 2009 and remains close to the White House from his perch at the Brookings Institution.

The “stark choice” between a diplomatic solution and war that Obama’s commitment to prevention has created, he wrote to the “Iran Primer” this week, “is a mistake”.

“But there is a good chance that (Secretary of State John) Kerry and Obama will bail themselves out of this trap by re-opening the door to containment, although they would probably call it something else.”

Photo: President Barack Obama speaks at Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, 4 June 2009. In his speech, President Obama called for a ‘new beginning between the United States and Muslims’, declaring that ‘this cycle of suspicion and discord must end’.  

Laura Rozen reports that the six world power negotiating team may not be revamping its package to be more generous with Iran as many were hoping (Russia has not even signed on to the new version yet) ahead of resumed talks which likely won’t take place until January.

The world economy would bear substantial costs if the United States took steps to significantly escalate the conflict with Iran over its controversial nuclear programme, according to the findings of a Federation of American Scientists’ (FAS) special report released here Friday.

Based on consulations with a group of nine bipartisan [...]]]> via IPS News

The world economy would bear substantial costs if the United States took steps to significantly escalate the conflict with Iran over its controversial nuclear programme, according to the findings of a Federation of American Scientists’ (FAS) special report released here Friday.

Based on consulations with a group of nine bipartisan economic and national security experts, the findings showed the effects of U.S. escalatory action against Iran could range from 64 billion to 1.7 trillion dollars in losses for the world economy over the initial three-month term.

The least likely scenario of de-escalation, which would require U.S. unilateral steps showing it was willing to make concessions to resolve the standoff, would result in an estimated global economic benefit of 60 billion dollars.

“The study’s findings suggest that there are potential costs to any number of U.S.-led actions and, in general, the more severe the action, the greater the possible costs,” Mark Jansson, FAS’s special projects director, told IPS.

“That being said, even among experts, there is tremendous uncertainty about what might happen at the higher end of the escalation ladder,” added Jansson, the second author of the report after Charles P. Blair, an FAS senior fellow on state and non-state threats.

The six plausible scenarios of U.S.-led actions against Iran included isolation and a Gulf blockade, which would include U.S. moves to “curtail any exports of refined oil products, natural gas, energy equipment and services”, the banning of the Iranian energy sector worldwide (incurring an estimated global economic cost of 325 billion dollars), and a comprehensive bombing campaign that would also target Iran’s ability to retaliate (incurring an estimated global economic cost of 1.082 trillion dollars).

The report is explicit in not endorsing any particular policy recommendation, although others are not so reticent.

United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI) and the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) are leading hardline Washington-based advocacy groups arguing for sweeping economic measures against Iran.

“The White House must build on this momentum, intensifying economic warfare in an effort to shake the Islamic Republic to its core,” wrote FDD executive director Mark Dubowitz in June.

Paul Sullivan, an economics professor specialising in Middle East security at Georgetown University, told IPS that, “The fact that the hardest core of the neoconservative ‘strategists’ have not thought through the costs of escalating conflict with Iran is proof of their group intellectual inadequacy.

“The main effects to the U.S. if there is escalation is through the price of oil and increased military and other national security costs,” said Sullivan, who evaluated the scenarios as an expert but could not comment on the specific figures due to Chatham House Rules.

“If there is an attack on Iran, with the expected counterattacks the price of oil could quite easily go to 250 dollars or higher. This could push the U.S. right back into a recession,” he said.

As tensions rise over the decades-long dispute over Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, analysts are increasingly examining a range of costs associated with escalating the so-far cold conflict between the U.S. and Iran.

The Iran Project Report released in September showed that the cost of Iranian retaliation would be “felt over the longer term” by the U.S. and could result in a regional war.

“In addition to the financial costs of conducting military attacks against Iran, which would be significant…there would likely be near-term costs associated with Iranian retaliation, through both direct and surrogate asymmetrical attacks,” according to the report, which was endorsed by a long list of high-level, bipartisan national security advisers.

The Iran Project report’s findings support the notion that greater escalatory action will result in greater costs – shown in financial terms by the FAS findings: “A dynamic of escalation, action, and counteraction could produce serious unintended consequences that would significantly increase all of these costs and lead, potentially, to all-out regional war,” notes the report.

An Oct. 19 event on the economic and military considerations of war with Iran at the Center for the National Interest (CNI) offered similar assessments.

“You could lose eight million barrels a day of production, and it would not come back quickly,” said J. Robinson West, who has also held senior positions in the White House, the Energy Department, and the Pentagon under various Republican administrations. “We believe the price of oil will go above 200 dollars a barrel.”

On Oct. 20, the New York Times reported that the U.S. and Iran had “agreed in principle for the first time” to direct negotiations.

But Tehran and Washington did have “limited bilateral talks” in 2009 “when the Iranian leadership saw a potential in the newly elected Obama administration to address some of Iran’s bottom lines regarding the country’s right to enrichment,” Farideh Farhi, an independent scholar and affiliate graduate faculty at the University of Hawai’i, told IPS.

On Wednesday, President Obama denied the Times report but did not dismiss the notion of one-on-one talks. In fact, he strongly suggested that the U.S. would seriously engage if the Iranians proved their sincerity.

“If Iran is serious about wanting to resolve this, they’ll be in a position to resolve it,” he said during his first press conference following his successful presidential re-election campaign.

“The situation is different now insofar as the Iranian leadership is much more sceptical of Obama’s words regarding his desire to resolve the nuclear issue instead of going for the Islamic regime’s jugular after a show of desire for talks,” said Farhi.

“To be sure, there will always be hardline naysayers in Tehran no matter what. A similar situation exists in the U.S.. But if the past is any guide, Tehran will come around and abandon its current resistance to bilateral talks if it sees a potential for breakthrough,” she said.

The answer to this question is simple: there is no such thing as one Tehran. Opinions vary and arguments to back up the case for either Barak Obama or Mitt Romney are sometimes unexpected. The way it looks now, the hardliners prefer Romney. Just listen to the argument made by [...]]]> via Lobe Log

The answer to this question is simple: there is no such thing as one Tehran. Opinions vary and arguments to back up the case for either Barak Obama or Mitt Romney are sometimes unexpected. The way it looks now, the hardliners prefer Romney. Just listen to the argument made by the former MP and deputy secretary of the hard-line Society for the Followers of the Path of the Islamic Revolution, Parviz Sarvari:

Some people who are influential in the country have reached the conclusion that Obama must win in this election and this view unfortunately exists that we have to do something for Obama to win the election…Under current conditions even Mitt Romney is to our interest and it has always been shown that when Republicans have come to power, they have had war-mongering behavior and have diverged from Europe, China, and Russia and in these conditions the Islamic Republic has always been able to have more interactions with  Europe, china, Russia, and other countries. Republicans have shown that they are paper tigers and make more noise but do not act. Effectively their threats have never been a threat to us. As it happens, the most attacks and pressures against Iran have been during Democratic periods.

On the other side of the spectrum stands former vice president and reformist, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, who writes:

In the current American election, given the painful unilateral sanction policies that have been pursued against the nation of Iran by the administration of Mr. Obama and the harsher and more violent policies of Mr. Romney, which is closer to the military option, there are two views. The American hardliners who follow Israel welcome Mr. Romney’s election more and I think there are hardliners in Iran who also welcome this choice so that conflict and confrontation with the main enemy become more evident. In the same way part of the [Iranian] opposition which [is after] overthrow is also of the belief that Romney can better and faster bring the Islamic Republic to its knee. But in the midst of this commotion, my thinking is that Mr Obama will be elected with quite a bit of distance from Mr. Romney and all in all this is better for the world and our country.

Considering that Abatahi was imprisoned after the 2009 election and has essentially become a persona non grata within the power circles of current Iran, his opinions probably do not carry much weight. However, his view that President Obama will be re-elected is also shared by foreign policy heavy weights such as Ali Akbar Velayati, the former foreign minister and current senior advisor to Leader Ali Khamenei. Categorically denying recent reports of his meetings with US officials, Velayati relies on US polling data and suggests that Obama will probably be the victor.

Will it make a difference who wins for Iran? “America is America,” Velayati shrugs. In the past 34 years since the revolution, the Islamic Republic has “tested a variety of US presidents, Democrats and Republicans” and “we do not need of their kindness.” The bottom line for Velayati is that no matter who gets elected, Iran will not give in to the US demand to suspend “peaceful nuclear work” because “even if we waive our right temporarily, they will bring forth another excuse.”

Velayati does not reject negotiations but admits that as far as he knows, no decision has been made to talk to the US directly. But, the whole tenor of the interview suggests that Tehran is getting ready for another round of negotiations with the US within the frame of P5+1 at the end of November with the assumption that Obama will win.

At the same time, the interview makes clear that, with or without Obama, the level of mistrust is extremely high, at least among the current decision-making circles. Those inside Iran who are calling for concessions in the nuclear talks in exchange for the end of sanctions, Velayati says, do not understand the international environment. “I do not know a country in the world that has retreated against the unjust demands of Western powers and they have [in turn] fulfilled their promised concessions.”

- Farideh Farhi is an independent researcher and an affiliate graduate faculty member in political science and international relations at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.