You’re no doubt aware by now of a proposal by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for Syria to hand over its (still only accidentally acknowledged) chemical weapons to international control, which his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Moualem said Syria “welcomes”. Syrian ally Russia was jumpstarted into action after [...]]]>
You’re no doubt aware by now of a proposal by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for Syria to hand over its (still only accidentally acknowledged) chemical weapons to international control, which his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Moualem said Syria “welcomes”. Syrian ally Russia was jumpstarted into action after Secretary of State John Kerry apparently went off script in London today by floating the proposal (suggested over a year ago by former Senator Richard G. Lugar) and doubting its feasibility in the same sentence after CBS reporter Margaret Brennan asked if there was any way Syria could avert military action:
Sure, if he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community, in the next week, turn it over. All of it, without delay and allow a full and total accounting for that, but he isn’t about to do it and it can’t be done, obviously.
Novelist Teju Cole has broken all this down for us in Twitter-speak
Kerry: We won’t attack…if you do this impossible thing. Syria: Oh? We’ll do it. Russia: They’ll do it. UN: They’ll do it. Kerry: Shit!
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) September 9, 2013
While it’s too soon to get excited with the proposal’s details still in the making, Kerry’s words have taken on a life of their own (though some have suggested this was at least somehow related to a behind-the-scenes diplomatic maneuver). The State Department and White House seem to have forgotten to talk to each other before issuing statements on all this earlier today. State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf called Kerry’s words “hypothetical” and “rhetorical” and said the Russian proposal was considered “highly unlikely”. She also — wait for this — categorically stated that “the Secretary was not making a proposal.” Later the White House said during its daily press briefing that it would take a “hard look” at the Russian proposal, but Press Secretary Jay Carney also repeatedly emphasized that all this would not have occurred without the credible threat of force against President Bashar al-Assad’s alleged actions. He meanwhile urged Congress to vote for an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Syria, which the administration has been strongly pushing for, and which Kerry’s words may have now endangered.
Speaking at the White House during a Forum to Combat Wildlife Trafficking immediately after Carney’s appearance, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she had just met with President Obama and seemed to have the most updated speech on the issue:
…if the regime immediately surrendered its stockpiles to international control as was suggested by Secretary Kerry and the Russians, that would be an important step. But this cannot be another excuse for delay or obstruction.
While many are labelling Kerry’s words a “gaffe”, Clinton strategically tried to frame it as a purposeful move by Kerry, being forced, of course, to include the Russians. Perhaps the White House is hoping everyone will eventually forget Harf’s opposing description.
In any case, here’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting Ben Rhodes with the most recent WH statement:
US will review Russian proposal. We want Syrian CW under intl control. Important that this only proposed bc credible threat of mil action
— Ben Rhodes (@rhodes44) September 9, 2013
It should also be noted that earlier in the day UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had said following the Russian announcement that he was “considering urging the Security Council to demand the immediate transfer of Syria’s chemical weapons and chemical precursor stocks to places inside Syria where they can be safely stored and destroyed” if it was proven that chemical weapons have been used.
It will be interesting to see how Obama tackles all this during his many scheduled interviews today and during his speech to the nation Tuesday night wherein he will urge for military action against Syria, especially considering how a majority of Americans continue to oppose it, even after the release of those horrific videos of the Syrian victims of the Aug. 21 attack.
]]>Sanctions Are Holding Back Our Talks with Iran
by Usha Sahay and Laicie Heeley
There is a consensus in Washington that more sanctions will help convince Iran to halt its nuclear development. On June 3, President Obama issued an executive order — his sixth in two years —
Sanctions Are Holding Back Our Talks with Iran
by Usha Sahay and Laicie Heeley
There is a consensus in Washington that more sanctions will help convince Iran to halt its nuclear development. On June 3, President Obama issued an executive order — his sixth in two years — announcing new sanctions targeting Iran’s currency and its auto industry. Meanwhile, a number of separate sanctions bills are being circulated in Congress, with additional penalties expected to be passed later this summer. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez recently remarked, “The sanctions are working – but they aren’t enough, and they aren’t working fast enough.”
The logic of both the White House and Congress seems to be that we need more sanctions to compel Iran to negotiate and freeze its controversial nuclear program. But our research suggests the opposite: repeated intensifications of economic pressure are not bringing Iran to the negotiating table. In fact, sanctions now appear to be pushing the long-sought-after nuclear agreement further away.
A report released this week by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation concluded that sanctions are not “working” the way they should be. Yes, they’ve hit Iran’s economy hard — but that doesn’t mean the policy is succeeding. Crucially, sanctions haven’t persuaded Iran’s leadership to come to an agreement with the West and may have begun to strengthen the Iranian regime and cement its determination to continue defying the international community.
How is it that sanctions are doing the opposite of what they were supposed to? This wasn’t always the case. Particularly in the early years of the Obama administration, when the President exerted considerable political muscle to get international allies on board with tough penalties on Iran, sanctions helped signal to Tehran that the international community was serious about the nuclear issue. Moreover, by focusing on sanctions instead of taking the drastic step toward military action, the President showed a preference for resolving the impasse through diplomacy rather than war.
Since then, however, a curious thing has happened. Thanks to the sheer number of sanctions that have been put in place, the American commitment to a diplomatic solution appears increasingly hollow. Theoretically, Iran should be interested in talking to the West in order to negotiate for sanctions relief. But the actual process of lifting sanctions is far more complicated than it appears — a number of legal and political hurdles have prevented the U.S. and its European allies from credibly committing to significant sanctions relief during negotiations with Iran.
For instance, sanctions passed by Congress require another act of Congress before they can be repealed and U.S. lawmakers would be loath to pass such legislation for fear of appearing weak on Iran. Another problem is that many sanctions are written with built-in conditions that need to be met before they can be terminated. Some of these conditions are so out of reach that Iran may no longer see a point in even showing up for the negotiations.
Due to all the strings attached to sanctions legislation, Iranians perceive the U.S. as being more interested in sanctions than in coming to an agreement.
Even as these legal and bureaucratic difficulties stall the diplomatic process, the impact of sanctions within Iran is also hurting U.S. interests. Rather than weakening the defiant regime, sanctions have actually given the Iranian government the ability to manage the economy and consolidate its power. Through patronage, currency manipulation, and other methods, Iran’s leaders have taken advantage of the sanctions by forcing people in dire economic straits to rely on special government favors.
Meanwhile, younger Iranians and political moderates — who, somewhere down the line, could be useful allies for the U.S. — are seeing their economic and political power diminished. They’re also starting to blame the West for their woes.
In the long term, then, sanctions are eroding American influence in Iran. And in the short term, sanctions aren’t giving the U.S. and its allies the leverage they need in nuclear negotiations. More sanctions, according to our research, will not solve this problem. In fact, more sanctions will make the problem harder to solve. As veteran Middle East diplomat Ryan Crocker recently warned, “…it seems to me that the more you press this regime, the more they dig in.”
On June 3, while unveiling the new executive branch sanctions, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney noted, “Even as we intensify our pressure on the Iranian government, we hold the door open to a diplomatic solution.” Carney’s comments obscured a troubling reality: sanctions no longer go hand in hand with the diplomatic process. Rather, sanctions are hindering efforts to negotiate with the Iranians and to resolve the problem peacefully.
Economic sanctions could have served as a useful element of a sophisticated, multi-faceted effort to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. Now, however, sanctions are fast becoming the entirety of our policy — and a policy of pressure alone has little chance of succeeding. To make genuine progress on the Iranian nuclear issue, the Obama administration and Congress must shift their focus toward sanctions relief and compromise, rather than sticking with the pressure-only approach that’s proving increasingly counterproductive.
]]>Q And on Egypt [President Barack Obama] made very clear and Robert Gibbs made very clear that we can’t dictate, we [...]]]>
]]>Q And on Egypt [President Barack Obama] made very clear and Robert Gibbs made very clear that we can’t dictate, we can’t take sides. But clearly we’ve taken sides in Iran, right?
MR. CARNEY: We take sides with the people of countries who are expressing their opinions peacefully, who are making legitimate grievances known peacefully, who are assembling peacefully. And we took sides with the people of Iran. We continue to. And we take sides with the people of other regions who are trying to do that. We find very — extraordinarily hypocritical the reaction of the Iranian government to — on the one hand, supporting the demonstrators in Egypt and on the other hand brutally repressing their own people and preventing them for expressing their same –
Q And that’s in Libya and Bahrain, too? Are we taking sides?
MR. CARNEY: Well, we have made clear — it’s not a binary choice. We are on the side of –
Q It’s sounding like in Iran it’s a binary choice. We’re taking sides with the people against the government. Are we taking sides with the people in Bahrain and Libya?
MR. CARNEY: We are taking sides against violence, the use of violence against peaceful protesters. And we have — it’s pretty clear from what we’ve said about how we feel about the use of violence in Bahrain and how we felt about it in Egypt. And that’s the side we’re taking.