Columbia University Professor Gary Sick, who served as an Iran specialist on the National Security Council staffs of Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan, examines US Persian Gulf Policy in Obama’s Second Term in the next issue of Aspenia, the Aspen Istitute Italia’s highly regarded journal on international affairs. Dr. Sick’s entire article is available on his
Columbia University Professor Gary Sick, who served as an Iran specialist on the National Security Council staffs of Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan, examines US Persian Gulf Policy in Obama’s Second Term in the next issue of Aspenia, the Aspen Istitute Italia’s highly regarded journal on international affairs. Dr. Sick’s entire article is available on his personal blog, but following is his answer to the burning question on the mind of every observer of the so-called Iranian nuclear crisis.
Is Agreement Possible?
The differences between Iran and the United States, which have prevented a resumption of diplomatic relations for 34 years since the Iranian Revolution, are rooted more in the domestic politics of the two countries than in their respective foreign policies. In the United States, attitudes toward Iran were permanently crystallized by the 444 days that Iran held American diplomats hostage. In that heavily televised crisis, Iran came to be perceived as an unruly mob of fanatics waving their fists and shouting “Death to America.” No American politician wins any votes by taking a moderate stand on Iran; instead, there is a competition to demonstrate who can take the hardest line. Hence the proliferation of harsh sanctions and the denunciation of former Senator Hagel for his expressed preference for a diplomatic solution.
Iran, in turn, is a product of its revolution, which was anti-American as much as anti-shah. Iran today is still being governed by some of the same people who made the revolution, and they cling to the old slogans. In many cases, slogans are all that remain of a revolution that has failed to produce efficient governance and has replaced legitimacy with repression. There is a heavy measure of paranoia in the aging Iranian leadership, which prefers to blame Western interference for all its troubles, rather than critically examine its own failings.
The historical landscape of U.S.-Iran relations is littered with misunderstandings and missed opportunities. It takes real political courage in Washington and in Tehran to articulate a negotiating agenda based on compromise and mutual confidence-building. Each side is wedded to its maximum demands, fearful that the other side will trick them or simply pocket any concessions without a reciprocal gesture.
If the international community is willing to accept an Iran that, like Japan or dozens of other countries, has the technical capability to produce a nuclear weapon, it would almost certainly be possible to negotiate a settlement of the nuclear issue. Western negotiators have instead insisted that Iran must give up its entire uranium enrichment program. Iran, for its part, insists that its rights to pursue a full nuclear fuel cycle must be acknowledged before any progress is possible. That is a recipe for the kind of inertia and stagnation that have characterized the nuclear negotiations for the past decade.
What is required is a working agenda that defines an end point that is acceptable to Iran but is preceded by a series of verifiable steps and confidence-building measures. The West must accept that Iran is permitted to conduct a civilian nuclear energy program, and Iran must accept limitations on its stockpiles of enriched uranium and extensive international monitoring of its nuclear activities. Both sides have indicated at times that this arrangement would be acceptable, but neither has yet been able to put a persuasive negotiating package on the table.
In his first term, President Obama indicated his willingness to engage with Iran, but his actions fell short of his words. If he is willing to invest real political capital and diplomatic creativity in a negotiating process, he could change the face of the Middle East. Past history, however, provides little basis for optimism.
]]>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 [...]]]>
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.
]]>
The end of the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran has been an occasion for pundits on all sides to engage in post-game spin. In Iran, the spin began right in the middle of the summit when Iranian television mistranslated — read lied about — Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s words to present his position on Syria as not that different from Iran’s. Once the summit was over Hossein Shariatmadari of Kayhan, whose editorials usually give a lesson to hardliners regarding how to frame an argument, didn’t repeat the lie regarding Syria. But he put new words in Morsi’s mouth and attempted to convince his readers that Morsi’s stance regarding Syria so contradict his positions on Palestine, Egypt’s ability to be a “strategic ally” to Iran, and “the necessity to combat Israel and support the resistance axis”, that Morsi will soon change his mind. “In the Tehran summit, Mr. Morsi announced Egypt’s new identity and this new announced identity is not in line with support for the opposition in Syria [particularly] alongside America, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. For sure Morsi’s position will change in the future,” Shariatmadari ended his column confidently.
Outside Iran, the urge to frame the summit has taken a different form. Iran’s relationship to the West is after all a win-or-lose game not only in the current Iranian leadership’s mind. So Morsi’s support for the Syrian opposition, Ban Ki-moon’s criticism of Iran’s non-compliance with UN Security Council resolutions regarding its nuclear program, and its human records, are interpreted as a defeating blow to Iran’s efforts to showcase itself as a country that it is not isolated. Even though Morsi had already called for Syrian regime change at the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah two weeks earlier (where Iran cast the only vote against Syria’s expulsion), somehow his stating of an already stated position in support of Syria’s opposition — with no mention of Iranian, Russian, or Chinese support for Bashar Assad — turns into the “slamming” of Iran and even more ambitiously, a diplomatic disaster as far as the whole summit goes, thereby underlining Iran’s isolation.
What few are willing to acknowledge is that post-event spin is usually geared towards different audiences. Even more likely is the fact that such spin is geared towards the already converted. Those expecting failure got one. Those hoping for a statement regarding Iran’s non-isolation also received a decent amount from global participants and more importantly, from their point of view, a fairly strong statement of support by NAM for Iran’s nuclear program.
For those of us less interested in keeping score, the summit nevertheless provided a few interesting highlights and/or revealing points regarding Iran’s external relations and domestic politics. Let me mention three.
- 1. Given Iran’s geographic location and resources, it is simply not good business for many countries in the neighborhood to isolate Iran. And at least from the looks of things, the sanctions regime imposed by the West is being perceived as an opportunity by some countries. Nothing illustrates this better than Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Tehran. Tellingly, he and the large contingent who came with him were met at the airport by Iran’s Economy Minister, Shamseddin Hosseini. And before embarking on his 4-day visit, his staff made clear that bilateral economic relations were on his mind.
Iran and India currently have about $15 billion worth of trade with each other but the balance is heavily in favor of Iran to the tune of more than 4 to 1 and that has turned into a real issue because of sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union on financial transactions between the two countries. Getting paid in Rupees for 45 percent of its exports to India has been a partial solution but India is hoping to increase its export of agricultural goods as well as machinery as another alternative. In other words, both countries continue to work hard to find ways to get around sanctions because it’s worth it. This does not mean that sanctions are not bad for Iran or that they are not constraining Iran’s optimal use of its resources. The current opportunity costs of the sanctions regime are huge for Iran. But Iran’s location and resources are countervailing forces that cannot be ignored. Furthermore, there are quite a few countries that see the sanctions regime as an opportunity. This dynamic will likely continue to inspire US efforts to openly attempt to impose new ways of restricting Iran’s international trade while other countries openly collude with Iran to find ways to get around those attempts.
2. International engagement is good for Iran. As far as I am concerned, the most important lesson of Ki-Moon and Morsi’s visit lies in the value of engaging Iran directly. Many of those who are now touting Ki-moon’s and Morsi’s words of wisdom in Tehran should remind themselves that they tried hard to prevent these folks from going there. That their words and actions have created a conversation in Iran is a good thing made possible by the Iranian desire not to appear, nor be, isolated. Ki-moon in no uncertain terms identified his purpose in his speech at the Foreign Ministry’s School of International Relations, “to highlight the cost of Iran’s current trajectory, both at home and in the international arena.” He also made the case that ‟Any country at odds with the international community is one that denies itself much-needed investment and finds itself isolated from the thrust of common progress.” Ki-moon’s skillful focus on the basic contradiction in Iran’s foreign policy — wanting to be a respected member of the international community while loudly and unskillfully challenging some of the established codes of conduct of that same international community — is a lesson for all.
3. The NAM summit was a showcase for the outside world with really no domestic implications, but it did tell us something about the current shape of Iranian politics. It told us that the Leader Ayatollah Khamenei now sees himself in charge of even implementing Iran’s foreign policy and not just setting the “general direction of the country” and letting the president engage in the task of executing these general directives as delineated by the Islamic Republic’s Constitution.
Even the appearances were awkward. Khamenei entered the summit room first followed by former president and current chair of the Expediency Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is also an unelected official. Iran’s current president followed next and was mostly treated as a non-person by the Iranian media. Comparing this to the last major international meeting in Iran, which was the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in December 1997, is telling. Fresh from being popularly elected, Mohammad Khatami took charge of the meeting and Khamenei had almost no presence. Furthermore, as a popularly elected president, Khatami had no need for underlings to shower him with accolades regarding how incredibly insightful and important he is. There was no need to have someone like former foreign minister and current senior advisor Ali Akbar Velayati to lie to the Iranian audience that Ki-moon, in a private meeting with Khamenei, identified him not only as the leader of Iran but also as “the leader of the Islamic world.” How incredibly ironic that the man who routinely speaks in the name of the inalienable rights of the Iranian people in the face of Western hostility now has to rely on ingratiating promoters who try to elevate his international role with the hope of enhancing his domestic standing.
Najmedin Meshkati and Guive Mirfendereski argue in the Los Angeles Times that sanctions against Iran have been ineffective at substantially curbing its alleged nuclear ambitions:
Policies of restriction or containment through sanctions and economic mechanisms do not work. In a porous world, sanctions are largely ineffective. Sanctions didn’t change [...]]]>
Najmedin Meshkati and Guive Mirfendereski argue in the Los Angeles Times that sanctions against Iran have been ineffective at substantially curbing its alleged nuclear ambitions:
]]>Policies of restriction or containment through sanctions and economic mechanisms do not work. In a porous world, sanctions are largely ineffective. Sanctions didn’t change the behavior of Saddam Hussein or Moammar Kadafi (despite what some think, other factors forced Kadafi to disarm hisnuclear program) or affect North Korea, and Cuba has survived in spite of comprehensive U.S. sanctions. Where a U.S. sanctions policy has been successful, it has been coupled with constructive or positive engagement: the ending of apartheid in South Africa and of communism in Eastern Europe, Arab-Israeli peace (through U.S. engagement of Jordan and Egypt), protection of intellectual property in China — all have come about because of influence through involvement.
Proponents of further tightening of the so-called crippling sanctions or the oxymoronic “smart sanctions” on Iran point to the significant drop in Iran’s oil exports, shortage of foreign currency and the economic hardship in Iran as evidence of the effectiveness of sanctions. However, the sole intended consequence of all these sanctions has been zero insofar as scaling back or curtailing Iran’s nuclear program.
To anyone trying to guess where this year’s re-engagement of Iran by the Obama administration is likely to lead, two things look clearer in the aftermath of the 18-19 June talks in Moscow.
First, the administration appears to have thought better of the idea of tolerating uranium enrichment, even at [...]]]>
To anyone trying to guess where this year’s re-engagement of Iran by the Obama administration is likely to lead, two things look clearer in the aftermath of the 18-19 June talks in Moscow.
First, the administration appears to have thought better of the idea of tolerating uranium enrichment, even at low levels, in Iran. The distinction President Obama drew earlier in the year between opposing the development of nuclear weapons (his position) and opposing the development of a nuclear weapons capability (the Israeli position), and the signal implied when the President authorised a resumption of talks with Iran even though Iran had failed to commit to suspending its enrichment activities–hitherto a pre-condition for such talks–have turned out to be misleading.
In Moscow, the US and its EU allies once more placed emphasis on the suspension of enrichment (a so-called “international obligation” which Iran must implement fully to secure a deal) and they declined to give Iran the assurance it wants that these talks will eventually result in the West tolerating enrichment.
Without that assurance Iran is unwilling to embark on the process of concession-making that is diplomatically termed “confidence-building”. Iran believes that it has a treaty right to master the nuclear fuel cycle provided it submits all nuclear material in its possession to International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) inspection. It also considers the UN Security Council resolutions that the West has sponsored to override that treaty right to be illegal. (The resolutions are certainly not a proportionate response to Iran’s IAEA safeguards non-compliance.)
Second, neither the US nor its EU allies seem inclined to purchase Iranian confidence-building by granting Iran the other thing (apart from “recognition” of its Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) rights) that it craves: some measure of relief from the sanctions introduced by the US and EU (without UN authorisation) in the course of the past winter. Instead the West has sought to obtain concessions by offering what look like baubles for Iran’s negotiators.
On the face of it, therefore, re-engagement has been a failure. It has not sparked the give-and-take, the reciprocity that characterises almost all successful negotiations. It may have contributed to a pre-electorally useful drop in gas prices, but that drop is more likely due to a weakening global economic outlook. It has failed to deliver the Iranian capitulation that would complicate life for proponents of another war in the Gulf or regime change in Iran.
There is, however, an important difference between the 2009 version of engagement and the 2012 version. This time around neither side, it seems, is in a hurry to declare the process dead.
That this should be the case for the US and its allies is hardly surprising. In an electoral year the administration has every interest in heeding the American public’s preference for what Winston Churchill called “jaw-jaw” over “war-war”. And if diplomacy can contribute to lowering the cost of gas and make it harder for Israel to justify an aerial strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, so much the better.
What’s less obvious is what motivates Iran to help spin out talks that are going nowhere.
Iran does have an interest, of course, in making it harder for Israel to justify a strike. But Iran has never taken such Israeli threats very seriously and the opposition to a strike voiced by Israeli intelligence and military professionals earlier this year will have reinforced that inclination.
Iran has no interest in lower oil prices. But perhaps it reasons that bringing the Istanbul process to an end would not have much of an effect on prices, given the worsening economic outlook and the expansion of oil production under way in Gulf States allied to the US.
Perhaps, then, the answer is that Iran’s leaders are hoping that President Obama will be re-elected and that he will award them for their cooperation in keeping the show on the road until November by softening, early in his second term, the US position on enrichment and sanctions.
If so, will they be disappointed? At any time tolerating enrichment and removing or relieving sanctions will be politically costly for whoever occupies the White House, so widespread is Congress’ animosity towards Iran. The line of least resistance for an Obama II administration would be to back the judgement of those who claim that Iran will eventually capitulate under the weight of sanctions.
But it is not impossible that the President and his closest advisers have realised that a negotiated solution tends to be more durable than a solution imposed on a prostrate foe. That, after all, is a lesson that can be drawn from 19th and 20th century European history and from the 1783 Treaty of Paris between the US and Great Britain. Machiavelli once wrote: ”I believe that forced agreements will be kept neither by a prince nor by a republic”.
]]>Two thoughts at this point are relevant for the future of Iranian negotiations: First, the openness of both sides to “expert-level” talks — such as those between the assistants to EU foreign policy chief Lady Catherine Ashton and the Iranian representative to the talks, Saeed Jalili — is at least an effort to take things from the general and procedural toward the potentially specific. The Iranian side seems to be interested in a step-by-step process that will make obligations reciprocal and presumably equal in some fashion, and that is based on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the latter element a code word that conveys the Iranians want acceptance of their right to enrich uranium, presumably for civil purposes only. Such an agreement could be in accord with the treaty, but it would run counter to the Security Council resolution that seeks a freeze on enrichment in Iran. There are now new openings for progress. Experts could help bridge the gaps. The parties’ willingness to try to do so will be a further positive signal.
The second thought: The current political situation provides some impetus for progress. Given a willingness on both sides to seek agreement, the pressure of sanctions against Iran, and Israeli interest in some kind of a military strike before the US elections, efforts to maximize this opening would constitute a wise and fruitful course of action.
And this is how Pickering ended his recent testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, more words from the wise:
]]>An Iranian friend of mine who has played an important role in Iranian foreign policy over the years once told me that “The historical record shows that every time we have been ready, you have not been, and every time you have been ready, we have not been.” Maybe we can emerge from that position of the past to begin with some small things – that we can find the way to pull the curves mutual of interest together rather than have them continue to bend apart.
- MULLEN: We haven’t had a connection with Iran since 1979. Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we had links to the Soviet Union. We are not talking to Iran, so we don’t understand each other. If something happens, it’s virtually assured that we won’t get it right — that there will be miscalculation which would be extremely dangerous in that part of the world. [...]
QUESTION: Are you specifically talking about military to military contact, or a broader set of engagement between the two countries?
MULLEN: I’m talking about any channel that’s open. We’ve not had a direct link of communication with Iran since 1979. And I think that has planted many seeds for miscalculation. When you miscalculate, you can escalate and misunderstand. This isn’t about agreeing or disagreeing. [...]
My own experience is, it sort of depends on the country what the most effective channels are. Some of them are diplomatic. Some of them are political. Some of them are mil-to-mil. Some of them are economic. But we have not had a clear channel to Iran since 1979.
[...] Any channel would be terrific and I don’t have a preferred one based on what the hopes would be.
This is not the first time that Mullen has spoken in favor of this. As I noted in a July 2008 post, when Mullen had just returned from Israel to make clear to official there that the Bush administration (apparently with the exception of Dick Cheney) opposed an Israeli strike against Iran or even too much talk about it, he spoke to the issue at some length:
- “No, I’ve — when I talk about dialogue — actually, I would say very broadly, across the entirety of our government and their government, but specifically that would … need to be led, obviously, politically and diplomatically. And if it then resulted in a military-to-military dialogue, I think that part of it certainly could add to a better understanding about each other. But I’m really focused on the diplomatic aspect.”
“…We haven’t had much of a dialogue with the Iranians for a long time, and I think if I were just to take the high stakes that …I just talked about a minute ago, part of the results of that engagement or lack of engagement, I think, is there. But as has been pointed out more than once, it takes two people to want to have a dialogue, not just the desire on one part.”
[Asked whether he's saying there's a need for dialogue between the United States government and the Iranian government, he says] “…I think it’s a broad dialogue. I think it would cover the full spectrum of international — and it could very well certainly cover the dialogue between us as well.”
What is remarkable is that we are now more than three years later, including more than two-and-a-half years into the administration which, despite Obama’s campaign vows, has, as Paul Pillar wrote just last week, never seriously engaged with Tehran. Instead, the talk is all about more and tougher sanctions, which, of course, takes us in the opposite direction and moves us closer to armed conflict.
]]>Others have [...]]]>
Others have also described Ross as more skeptical [than Mitchell] about the chances of peace, based on his decades-long experience with trying to bring together the parties.
I don’t want to get all new-agey, but if you think something is difficult or impossible to do, the chances of being able to do it are greatly diminished from the get-go.
So why does this Ross guy keep getting jobs that he doesn’t think are possible? I picked up Ross’ book off of my shelf here in D.C., and it amazed me how many times he says you cannot make any kind of deal with the Iranians. Then, Obama put him in charge of making a deal with the Iranians. Ross, we now learn, doubts that a peace deal can be reached in Israel-Palestine, and Obama gives him a job making peace in Israel-Palestine.
On the Middle Eastern conflict, Ross’s credentials for the job are impeccable. After all, he’s been involved in decades — decades! — of failed peace processes. Ross has worked at the Washington Institute (WINEP), an AIPAC-formed think tank, and also chaired the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), an Israeli organization dedicated to “ensur(ing) the thriving of the Jewish People and the Jewish civilization.” (The organization seems to oppose intermarriage with racist-sounding statements like “cultural collectivity cannot survive in the long term without primary biological foundations of family and children.”)
Ross was thought responsible for crafting Obama’s presidential campaign AIPAC speech — yes, the one with the line about an “undivided” Jerusalem that would spike a peace deal if implemented. Ross later reiterated the notion of an undivided Jerusalem as a “fact” in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.
Ross was recently in the news following a secret but not-so-secret visit to the Middle East, which was fleshed out on Politico by Laura Rozen. Rozen was the reporter who carried a rather shocking anonymous allegation about Ross:
“[Ross] seems to be far more sensitive to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s coalition politics than to U.S. interests,” one U.S. official told POLITICO Saturday. “And he doesn’t seem to understand that this has become bigger than Jerusalem but is rather about the credibility of this administration.”
In an update, Rozen carried NSC CoS Denis McDonough’s defense of Ross:
“The assertion is as false as it is offensive,” McDonough said Sunday by e-mail. ”Whoever said it has no idea what they are talking about. Dennis Ross’s many decades of service speak volumes about his commitment to this country and to our vital interests, and he is a critical part of the president’s team.”
But the new Forward article, as MJ Rosenberg points out, backs up the notion that Ross was extremely concerned with “advocat[ing]” for Israel. The source is none other than Israel-advocate extraordinaire Abe Foxman (who doesn’t negotiate on behalf of the U.S. government):
“Dennis is the closest thing you’ll find to a melitz yosher, as far as Israel is concerned,” said the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, Abraham Foxman, who used the ancient Hebrew term for ‘advocate.’”
Do you get the feeling that Ross advocated for Iran? Or, as the Forward article put it (with my strikethrough), has “strong ties to Israel” Iran? Guttman writes that Ross is considered to have a “reputation of being pro-Israeli.” As for Iran? Not quite: Ross’s Iran experience seems to boil down to heading United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a group that pushes for harsher, broad-based sanctions against Iran (despite a stated goal to not hurt ordinary Iranians) and that has criticized Obama’s policy of engagement. Ross left the gig, as with JPPI, when he took the job with the administration.
The group also launched an error-filled fear-mongering video (while Ross was still there; he appears in the video) and a campaign to get New York hotels to refuse to host Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he comes to town each year for the U.N. General Assembly, which hardly lays the groundwork for good diplomacy.
Oh, and about the Iran engagement designed by Ross: The administration’s approach has been questioned by several leading Iran experts. “It is unlikely that the resources and dedication needed for success was given to a policy that the administration expected to fail,” National Iranian American Council (NIAC) president Trita Parsi observed. In December, Ross publicly defended the administration against charges that engagement was less than sincere from the U.S. side. But it is Ross himself who has apparently long held a pessimistic outlook on engagement.
Ross’s 2007 book, “Statecraft: And How to Restore America’s Standing in the World“, is fascinating in light of where Ross has come from, and where he’s taken Iran policy. I was struck at a five-page section of the first chapter called “Neoconservatism vs. Neoliberalism,” in which Ross writes, “[Neoconservatism's] current standard-bearers — such as Richard Perle, David Frum, William Kristol, and Robert Kagan — are serious thinkers with a clear worldview,” (with my links).
Later, in several long sections about the run-up to George W. Bush’s Iraq war, Ross notes that Paul Wolfowitz was highly focused on Iraq before and after 9/11. He also mentions “political difficulties” in the push for war: “Once [Bush] realized there might be a domestic problem in acting against Iraq, his administration focused a great deal of energy and effort on mobilizing domestic support for military action.”
But Ross never acknowledges that some of his neoconservative “serious thinkers” — such as Kristol and his Weekly Standard magazine — were involved in the concerted campaign to mislead Americans in an effort to push the war… just as the same figures are pushing for an attack on Iran. Frum, who does seem capable of serious thinking, was the author of the “axis of evil” phrasing of Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address. The moniker included both Iraq and Iran, despite the fact that the latter was, until the speech, considered a potential ally in the fight against Al Qaeda. (Marsha Cohen chronicled an Israeli effort to squash the alliance, culminating in Frum’s contribution to the Bush speech.)
Ross never mentions that neocon Douglas Feith, a political appointee in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans (OSP), was responsible for cherry-picking intelligence about Iraq within the administration, and whose office was feeding cooked information to the public via Scooter Libby in Vice President Dick Cheney‘s office. Through Libby, the distorted information made its way into the hands of the Standard and sympathetic journalists like ideologue Judith Miller at the New York Times. In August of 2003, Jim Lobe wrote (with my links):
[K]ey personnel who worked in both NESA [the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia bureau] and OSP were part of a broader network of neo-conservative ideologues and activists who worked with other Bush political appointees scattered around the national-security bureaucracy to move the country to war, according to retired Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski, who was assigned to NESA from May 2002 through February 2003. …
Other appointees who worked with… both offices included Michael Rubin, a Middle East specialist previously with the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI); David Schenker, previously with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP); Michael Makovsky; an expert on neo-con icon Winston Churchill and the younger brother of David Makovsky, a senior WINEP fellow and former executive editor of pro-Likud ‘Jerusalem Post’; and Chris Lehman, the brother of the John Lehman, a prominent neo-conservative who served as secretary of the navy under Ronald Reagan, according to Kwiatkowski.
Ross has personal experience with many OSP veterans, working with them at WINEP and signing hawkish reports on Iran authored by them.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Ross was a member of a task force that delivered a hawkish report apparently co-authored by two veterans of OSP, Rubin and Michael Makovsky. (Ross reportedly recused himself as the presidential campaign came into full swing.) Lobe, noting Ross’s curious involvement, called the report a “roadmap to war with Iran,” and added, a year later, that the group that put out the report was accelerating the plan, calling for a military build-up and a naval blockade against Iran.
After taking his position within the Obama administration, Ross released a book, co-authored with David Makovsky, that was skeptical of the notion that engagement could work. Nathan Guttman, in a review of the book for the Forward, wrote:
The success of diplomatic engagement, according to Ross, is not guaranteed and could be unlikely. Still, he and Makovsky believe that negotiations will serve a purpose even if results are not satisfying. “By not trying, the U.S. and its refusal to talk become the issue,” said Makovsky in a June 1 interview with the Forward. “What we are saying is that if the U.S. chooses engagement, even if it fails, every other option will be more legitimate.”
The attitude of Ross and Makovsky seems closer to that of the Israeli government then to that of the Obama administration.
OSP, Feith, the Makovsky brothers, and Rubin are not listed in the index of “Statecraft,” nor have they appeared in the many sections that I’ve read in full.
In his book, Ross does have many revealing passages about concepts that have been worked into the Obama administration’s Iran policy. One such ploy, which has not been acknowledged or revealed publicly, is using Israel as the crazy ‘bad cop’ — a potentially dangerous game. Ross also writes that international pressure (through sanctions) must be made in order to cause Iran “pain.” Only then, thinks Ross, can concessions such as “economic, technological and security benefits” from the U.S. be offered:
Orchestrating this combination of sticks and carrots requires at this point some obviously adverse consequences for the Iranians first.
This view does not comport with the Obama plan for a simultaneous dual-track policy toward Iran — which holds that engagement and pressure should occur simultaneously — and serves to bolster critics who say that engagement has not been serious because meaningful concessions have not been offered. But it does hint at another tactic that Ross references at least twice in the book: the difference between “style” and “substance.” With regard to Iran, he presents this dichotomy in relation to public professions about the “military option” — a euphemism for launching a war. But publicly suppressing rhetoric is only used as a way to build international support for pressure — not also, as one might expect, a way to assuage the security fears of Iran.
But those aren’t the only ideas from the 2007 book that seem to have made their way into U.S. policy toward Iran. In “Statecraft,” Ross endorses the use of “more overt and inherently deniable alternatives to the use of force” for slowing Iran’s nuclear progress. In particular, he mentions the “fragility of centrifuges,” which is exactly what is being targeted by the Stuxnet virus, a powerful computer worm thought to be created by a state, likely Israel, and perhaps with help from the U.S., according to the latest revelations.
Some critics of this website complain that the level of attention given to neoconservatives is too great, but they should consider this: Look at Dennis Ross. He works extensively with this clique, and no doubt has the occasional drink or meeting with them. And, most importantly, he writes approvingly about neoconservatives, noting that their viewpoint affects political considerations of “any political leader.” Because of these neocon “considerations,” he writes, this is how we should view the Islamic Republic: “With Iran, there is a profound mistrust of the mullahs, and of their perceived deceit, their support for terror, and their enduring hostility to America and its friends in the Middle East. … No one will be keen to be portrayed as soft on the Iranian mullahs.”
This from the man that formulated a policy that has offered “adverse consequences” but so far no “carrots.” Ross’s predictions are a self-fulfilling prophecy — and since he gets the big appointments, he gets to fulfill them. Taking reviews of his book with Makovsky, the Bipartisan Policy Committee report, and “Statecraft” as a whole, I’m not at all surprised that little progress has been made with Iran.
But, at least, that was his first try. He’s a three-time-loser on Israeli-Palestinian peace-making. With Iran, I had to put the pieces together, whereas with the Israeli-Palestinian issue, his record is right there for all to see. Putting Ross in charge of peace-making between the two seems to perfectly fit Einstein’s definition of insanity.
]]>Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon on Tuesday, [...]]]>
Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon on Tuesday, with my emphasis:
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration enacted new financial sanctions on Iran’s elite military unit and the country’s largest shipping company, as the U.S. intensifies efforts to choke Tehran off from the global financial system.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s announcement Tuesday comes just weeks ahead of a scheduled second round of negotiations in Turkey between Iran and the international community focused on containing Tehran’s nuclear program, which Iran says is peaceful in nature.
Senior U.S. officials said the new measures illustrate that Washington and its allies won’t relax their financial campaign against Iran even as the diplomatic process continues in late January. “It’s clear that our policy is going to be to continue to impose pressure on Iran so long as it defies its international obligations,” said Stuart Levey, the Treasury’s point man on Iran sanctions.
The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany, held an earlier diplomatic round with Iran on Dec. 6-7 in Geneva. The talks registered little progress and have sparked concern that Iran may seek to use the diplomacy as a means to deflect international pressure while continuing to advance its nuclear capabilities.
The Journal, among other outlets, reported the new sanctions target the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and various linked organizations, including several banks and an insurance company that works with Iran’s state-run shipping company.
As for the notion that the West is skeptical about continuing diplomacy, David Crawford, also at the Journal, had this report last weekend (again with my emphasis):
The U.S. and representatives of the European Union have agreed to impose joint sanctions against Iran in January and are considering breaking off talks with the country, as patience with Tehran’s nuclear activities wears thin, according to people familiar with the matter.
Western officials are discussing making further talks with Iran contingent on Tehran’s progress toward compliance with existing United Nations Security Council resolutions, which call on Iran to cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog. [...]
Some Western officials accuse Iran of playing for time by agreeing to talks but refusing to engage in meaningful negotiations. Senior diplomats from the U.S., U.K. and France met in Paris on Tuesday to chart the new course, amid growing frustration over Iran’s obstruction of IAEA inspections. London and Paris help to coordinate policy for the entire EU on Iran.
Washington Post‘s neoconservative blogger Jennifer Rubin promptly seized on the report and asked:
Could the Obama administration really be stiffening its spine and responding to the advice of those warning that talks with the Iranian regime are counterproductive?
We summed up her blog post thusly in our Daily Talking Points:
]]>The Post’s neoconservative blogger Jennifer Rubin picks up on a Wall Street Journal story where anonymous U.S. officials comment that the United States may soon abandon engagement with Iran. “Could the Obama administration really be stiffening its spine and responding to the advice of those warning that talks with the Iranian regime are counterproductive?” she asks hopefully. She interviews Foreign Policy Initiative’s Jamie Fly, who remarks: “I’m skeptical that they will be the ‘crippling’ sanctions we were promised but have yet to see.” Rubin also speaks to an “advisor to a key senator” who says, “My point is just that they are very well-positioned to pursue a very hawkish policy towards Iran now.” Rubin then espouses her own Iran policy: “The real issue is whether the administration will, if needed, employ force to disarm the revolutionary Islamic state.” She is doubtful, but hopes that the next U.S. president will attack Iran.
For a glimpse into this view, particularly in terms of staunch pro-Israel Democrats, read what the archetype of this group, outgoing chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee California Rep. Howard Berman, has to say. Berman gave an interesting interview to the Israeli daily Haaretz where, at times getting combative (literally), he reveals some of the thinking behind the even timid support of U.S. President Barack Obama’s Iran policy.
Let’s start with a minor quibble, but a big picture one. Seeking something to praise in U.S. foreign policy, Berman cites engagement with the Muslim world:
By and large, I think that to have a war with a billion Muslims is not a viable policy. We have to engage with the forces of modernity in the Muslim world. We have to separate moderates from extremists, and engagement that is designed to achieve that makes compelling sense to me.
The “separate” stuff is pure imperial divide-and-conquer strategy. For many of the hardline pro-Israel types, the idea that U.S. policy plays any role in creating enmity toward the U.S. is sacrilegious. In their view the U.S. must, therefore, consolidate its supporters, rather than alleviate legitimate grievances among those who don’t. And the qualifier “by and large,” which means “generally,” is troubling: it implies there could be specific situations where going to “war with a billion Muslims” would conceivably be sound policy.
But never mind my harping on tragically misplaced turns of phrase, let’s look at what Berman had to say about Iran policy. First and foremost, of course, is that the “military option” — let’s call it ‘attacking Iran’ — is “on the table” (interviewer Natasha Mozgovaya’s questions are bolded by me):
Israeli politicians are wondering why the U.S. administration took the military option off the table, even if they didn’t say so explicitly.
The military option is not off the table. It’s on the table.
The Iranians apparently don’t think so.
Who knows what they really think?
Berman goes on to discuss why he thinks that the international diplomacy and the posture of engaging Iran is useful: because it builds “international support”:
We don’t know if the current strategy is going to work. We do know that two years ago we had the most limited, worthless set of multilateral sanctions on Iran that were not enforced, and all the U.S. efforts to make them stronger were to no avail. And the U.S. position on Iran was not the international position, the U.S. was isolated and everyone wrote that Iran is rising in influence.
Two years later we have tough sanctions at the Security Council, and the U.S. and Europeans imposed more far-reaching sanctions. We have evidence it’s causing pain in Tehran inside the regime, Iran feels the pressure and is isolated, and the U.S. position as a result of this administration’s policies has developed international support.
What we don’t know yet is if it will change the regime’s behavior on the nuclear issue. But we are in a much better position to create that change than we were two years ago. And we need to stay very resolved on this, we need to impose sanctions on companies that are undermining our efforts, and we need to build even more international support. This is an example of this administration’s effective use of diplomacy.
One might be forgiven for thinking that an effective use of diplomacy would be to negotiate a deal with the Iran to resolve the nuclear impasse. But for Berman, the focus of diplomacy seems only to serve the cause of isolating Tehran with sanctions. This ambiguity is something U.S. Institute of Peace expert Daniel Brumberg and the Stimson Center’s Barry Blechman took issue with in a recent article on Foreign Policy‘s website:
If, as administration officials insist, sanctions are a “means rather than an end,” we need to define that end far more clearly. If it is stopping Iran’s nuclear program, then let’s be clear: sanctions may be slowing that program down, but by themselves they will not compel Iran’s leaders to comply with the International Atomic Energy Commission or the UN Security Council. To get the attention of Iran’s current leaders, we must decide whether the goal of sanctions (or for that matter, engagement) is to set the stage for war or for sustained peace negotiations.
Clearly for Berman, sanctions — including diplomacy aimed at more rigid sanctions — are an end in and of themselves, though they could be the prelude to something far more daunting: the prospect of war with Iran. Most experts, including Brumberg and Blechman, agree that sanctions and isolation are unlikely to end the nuclear impasse with Iran. The only way to do that, one might surmise, is a negotiated deal, which will require concessions that we can be sure Congressional Iran hawks will balk at.
Berman’s perspective only lends credibility to those critics who questioned whether engagement was ever earnestly tried by the Obama administration. If the Obama foreign policy is based on Berman’s line, it’s likely those critics correctly analyzed the administration’s position.
]]>