Yesterday we charted the way Secretary of State John Kerry’s seemingly off-handed answer to a question about how Syria could deter a US strike morphed into what’s now being referred to as the “Lavrov Proposal“. As far as I can [...]]]>
Yesterday we charted the way Secretary of State John Kerry’s seemingly off-handed answer to a question about how Syria could deter a US strike morphed into what’s now being referred to as the “Lavrov Proposal“. As far as I can tell, it was Kerry’s predecessor Hillary Clinton who first publicly described the proposal for Syria to turn in its chemical weapons to international monitors as a US-Russian initiative (before she talked about endangered wildlife), rather than Russia seizing upon a US slip of the tongue, which is what it really looked liked. Well, while the proposal was actually first brought up by then-Senator Richard G. Lugar a little over a year ago, more people are now pushing the notion that Kerry’s gaffe wasn’t one at all, including the Secretary of State himself. Kerry provided his description of what went down on Monday during his remarks at the House Armed Services Committee today (emphasis mine):
Yesterday, we challenged the regime to turn them over to the secure control of the international community so that they could be destroyed. And that, of course, would be the ultimate way to degrade and deter Assad’s arsenal, and it is the ideal weapon – ideal way to take this weapon away from him.
This is how Kerry “challenged” Bashar al-Assad to hand over his chemical weapons:
Kerry continued that Russia “responded” to his challenge by saying they would come up with a proposal and that President Barack Obama would take a “hard look” at it if it was produced within a limited time. (Interestingly, the President hasn’t ruled it out.) Kerry also argued something we’re hearing over and over again now: this potentially good outcome would not have been possible without a credible threat of US military force.
After Kerry announced this US “challenge” in London during the question/answer period of a press briefing and Russia announced it had a proposal within a few hours, former United States Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip J. Crowley tweeted why this could be a life preserver for Obama:
#Putin just offered #Obama a lifeboat, a diplomatic solution that allows the postponement of a vote on military action he may well lose.
— Philip J. Crowley (@PJCrowley) September 9, 2013
#Obama gains from the #Russian offer. If #Assad gives up the weapons, problem solved. If not, it strengthens the case for military action.
— Philip J. Crowley (@PJCrowley) September 9, 2013
Today, former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller repeated some of Crowley’s arguments while arguing that Kerry did not act as a “careless pawn”:
I’m told by a senior administration official that Kerry’s comment was not as offhanded as it seemed. According to this official, Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, first discussed the idea back in the spring. They returned to it more seriously last week, and Putin and Obama talked about it in at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg. The official said the administration sees the danger that the Russians or the U.N. will make it a delaying tactic, but that “in Kerry’s mind and in the President’s mind, it can be a win-win:” either you disarm Syria of its chemical weapons quickly and verifiably, or by exhausting a credible diplomatic option you win support for tougher measures against the Assad regime.
Of course, that still doesn’t explain why this alleged US challenge was presented only after Kerry was prompted with a question from a CBS reporter and why the State Department initially categorically denied that Kerry had made a proposal. Here’s a reminder of yesterday’s Daily Press Briefing with Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf (emphasis mine):
QUESTION: — did not make this statement until after he found about what the Secretary had said.
MS. HARF: Mm-hmm. But the Secretary was not making a proposal. The Secretary was making a –
QUESTION: How is that? Go ahead.
MS. HARF: Thank you. The Secretary was making a rhetorical statement and you read the whole quote, which I actually appreciate you doing. Look, he’s not about to do this. That was – that’s what the –
*Update: Al-Monitor also reports that this proposal was in the making before Kerry’s comments on Monday. It still seems like Kerry at least jumped the gun, which is understandable, considering that he’s probably been going on less than 3 hours of sleep. In any case, here’s why all of this could unfortunately be going nowhere.
]]>News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 10
“Nuclear Mullahs”: The former executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, summarizes the debate over Iran’s nuclear program and concludes that no war with Iran is far better than a preemptive war and hopes for a [...]]]>
News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 10
“Nuclear Mullahs”: The former executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, summarizes the debate over Iran’s nuclear program and concludes that no war with Iran is far better than a preemptive war and hopes for a change in US policy toward Iran following the 2012 presidential election:
At the end of this theoretical exercise, we have two awful choices with unpredictable consequences. After immersing myself in the expert thinking on both sides, I think that, forced to choose, I would swallow hard and take the risks of a nuclear Iran over the gamble of a pre-emptive war. My view may be colored by a bit of post-Iraq syndrome.
What statesmen do when faced with bad options is create new ones. The third choice in this case is to negotiate a deal that lets Iran enrich uranium for civilian use (as it is entitled to do under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty), that applies rigorous safeguards (because Iran cheats), that gradually relaxes sanctions and brings this wayward country into the community of more-or-less civilized nations.
That, of course, won’t happen before November. Any U.S. concession now would be decried by Republicans as an abandonment of Israel and a reward to a government that recently beat a democracy movement bloody. We can only hope that after the election we get some braver, more creative diplomacy, either from a liberated Obama or (hope springs eternal) a President Romney who has a Nixon-to-China moment.
“U.S. Attack on Iran Would Take Hundreds of Planes, Ships, and Missiles”: Noah Shachtman breaks down Anthony Cordesman’s assessment of what the United States would have to commit militarily if it were to launch “preventive strikes” against Iran’s nuclear sites. Cordesman seriously doubts Israel’s capacity to execute an effective attack and doesn’t necessarily favor the US doing it for the Israelis as Matthew Kroenig did late last year. In short, the costs would likely be monumental while the benefits would be short-lived:
* “Israel does not have the capability to carry out preventive strikes that could do more than delay Iran’s efforts for a year or two.” Despite the increasingly sharp rhetoric coming out of Jerusalem, the idea of Israel launching a unilateral attack is almost as bad as allowing Tehran to continue its nuclear work unchallenged. It would invite wave after wave of Iranian counterattacks — by missile, terrorist, and boat — jeopardizing countries throughout the region. It would wreak havoc with the world’s oil supply. And that’s if Israel even manages to pull the mission off — something Cordesman very much doubts.
* The U.S. might be able to delay the nuclear program for up to 10 years. But to do so, it’ll be an enormous undertaking. The initial air strike alone will “require a large force allocation [including] the main bomber force, the suppression of enemy air defense system[s], escort aircraft for the protection of the bombers, electronic warfare for detection and jamming purposes, fighter sweep and combat air patrol to counter any air retaliation by Iran.”
Here’s a visual representation of what a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would like.
“How to Tackle Iran”: The RAND corporation’s Dalia Dassa Kaye writes that Israel’s Iran policy and the US’s response to Israeli sabre-rattling can have damaging effects including a war that few want or need. Meanwhile there are other options and existing assurances that should be considered:
Rather than public posturing aimed at encouraging the United States to make such firm declaratory policies – creating a sense of mistrust and tension in U.S.-Israeli relations that can only benefit Iran – Israeli officials should work with their American counterparts to quietly seek common strategic understandings on what type of Iranian endgame is acceptable and what conditions would need to be in place for force to be contemplated.
At the same time, the United States can continue the wide array of “assurance” policies already underway to ease Israeli concerns over Iran and bolster its military capabilities. With all the apparent doubts among Israel’s political elite that they can’t count on the United States, it is easy to overlook the unprecedented levels of military assistance and cooperation between the two countries.
U.S. military aid to Israel has reached record levels, providing Israel with the most advanced American weapon systems. President Obama and other senior administration officials have also made a number of public statements suggesting that U.S. policy is not to contain Iran but to prevent a nuclear weapons program. In the backdrop of such statements is a steady U.S. military buildup in the Gulf region, including the bolstering of naval vessels and fighter aircraft that could reach targets throughout Iran.
“‘America the brittle?‘”: Stephen Walt reminds us that the US is secure and that the only way to get Americans to support militarist foreign policy is by scaring them into believing otherwise:
…The United States is very secure by almost any standard, and most countries in the world would be delighted to be as safe as we are. For this reason, most Americans don’t worry very much about foreign policy, and the only way you can motivate them to support the sort of activist foreign policy that we’ve become accustomed to since 1945 is to constantly exaggerate external threats. Americans have to be convinced that their personal safety and well-being are going to be directly affected by what happens in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, or some other far-flung region, or they won’t be willing to pay the costs of mucking about in these various places. Threat-mongering also depends on constantly overstating our adversaries’ capabilities and denigrating our own. So senior officials tell sympathetic journalists that our foes are “resilient” and clever and resourceful, etc., while bemoaning our alleged lack of fortitude. The good news is that it’s not true; if anything, Americans have been too willing to “pay any price and bear any burden” for quite some time.
“Tenacious Sanctions”: Paul Pillar writes that a US trade sanction from 1974 targeting the Soviet Union that’s still in effect even though it’s economically damaging demonstrates how this diplomatic tool can easily morph into a double-edged sword:
This baggage demonstrates how it is far harder to remove a sanction—either a special-purpose injunction such as Jackson-Vanik or placement on a list such as the one for state sponsors of terrorism—than to impose it in the first place. Imposition is usually a gesture of disapproval rather than a well-conceived tactic to elicit a change in behavior. Moreover, lifting of a sanction, regardless of changes in conditions that may justify lifting, gets perceived as making nice to the regime in question, and that can be a domestic political liability. As a result, sanctions that have already demonstrated their ineffectiveness get perpetuated; any disagreeable behavior by the targeted regime, even if it has little or nothing to do with the reason the sanction was imposed, is portrayed as a reason to keep the sanction in place.
“Remaking Bagram”: A day after the New York Times reported on US efforts to transfer its detention operations to the Afghan government in accordance with a March 9 Memorandum of Understanding, the Open Society Foundations (OSF) released a report finding that the agreement and US-retained management and authority over parts of the Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP) at the Bagram airbase have resulted in an “Afghan internment regime” and “differences in understanding” about who controls the handling of suspects and detainees. (Find my related report here.)
]]>Michael Ledeen, Foreign Affairs: The neoconservative pundit has been arguing for years that the US should foment regime change [...]]]>
Michael Ledeen, Foreign Affairs: The neoconservative pundit has been arguing for years that the US should foment regime change in Iran byway of direct or indirect US support to Iranian dissident groups. This month he reiterates that argument while evaluating the Green Movement as a potential carrier for his proposal. The following are some of Ledeen’s key points (notice how he begins by stating that sanctions have been ineffective and will likely remain so and ends by arguing that the US’s “sanction regime” should continue anyway):
- Yet history suggests, and even many sanctions advocates agree, that sanctions will not compel Iran’s leaders to scrap their nuclear program.
- And, although war might bring down the regime, it is neither necessary nor desirable. Supporting a domestic revolution is a wiser strategy.
- Given the potential for a successful democratic revolution in Iran — and the potential for a democratic government to end Iran’s war against us — the question is how the United States and its allies can best support the Green Movement.
- …the time has come for the United States and other Western nations to actively support Iran’s democratic dissidents.
- Meanwhile, the West should continue nuclear negotiations and stick to the sanctions regime, which shows the Iranian people resistance to their oppressive leaders.
- Iran’s democratic revolutionaries themselves must decide what kind of Western help they most need, and how to use it. But they will be greatly encouraged to see the United States and its allies behind them. There are many good reasons to believe that this strategy can succeed. Not least, the Iranian people have already demonstrated their willingness to confront the regime; the regime’s behavior shows its fear of the people. The missing link is a Western decision to embrace and support democratic revolution in Iran — the country that, after all, initiated the challenge to the region’s tyrants three summers ago.
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal: For months the Journal’s editorial board published hawkish articles about Iran on a weekly basis. We highlighted some of them here, here and here. Then they stopped, perhaps due to the heating up of the presidential campaign and the crisis in Syria. But in July the board returned to reminding readers about its hawkish position on Iran, first by arguing that current sanctions are not strong enough and filled with “loopholes” while advocating for more “pain”, and then by claiming that Congress should propose the “toughest” sanctions bill possible to the President, considering how he may be a “pretender on sanctioning the mullahs”. (The “Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act” was passed this week and is expected to be signed into law by Obama shortly. As noted by the Jewish Telegraph Association, “for the first time in actionable legislation, the measure defines the capability of building a nuclear weapon as posing a threat to the United States”, which of course brings the US closer to the Israeli “red line” on Iran):
The Administration will resist these stiffer penalties, as it has consistently resisted previous Congressional attempts to impose the harshest possible sanctions. But that’s all the more reason for the conferees to present the President with the toughest bill possible, and see where he really stands.
If Mr. Obama is a pretender on sanctioning the mullahs, then you can be sure he isn’t inclined to stop their nuclear program by other means. The Israelis will draw their own conclusions, if they haven’t already.
Foundation for Defense of Democracies: The neoconservative-dominated Washington think tank that has been working hard to shape the Obama administration’s Iran sanctions policy (through executive director Mark Dubowitz) congratulates Congress for passing the “compromise bill” mentioned above because it brings the US closer to implementing Dubowitz’s recipe for ”economic warfare” against the Iranian regime:
“But Iranian nuclear physics is beating Western economic pressure and diplomacy, as the centrifuges keep spinning, and the Iranian regime continues its campaign of murder abroad and at home. While this bill is an important step towards economic warfare against the Iranian regime, much more needs to be done. Iran’s leaders need to be persuaded that the U.S. is committed to using every instrument of state power to counter the Iranian threat.”
Dan Senor, New York Times: The former Iraq war hawk turned Mitt Romney foreign policy adviser (see two recent profiles here and here) drew media attention last week for alleging that Romney respected Israel’s right to pre-emptively strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to the NYT’s politics blog:
“If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respect that decision,” Mr. Senor said.
Previewing Mr. Romney’s remarks, Mr. Senor explained: “It is not enough just to stop Iran from developing a nuclear program. The capability, even if that capability is short of weaponization, is a pathway to weaponization, and the capability gives Iran the power it needs to wreak havoc in the region and around the world.”
As the Times notes, the Romney campaign tried to walk back those comments somewhat, but Robert Wright at the Atlantic didn’t buy the damage control effort.
]]>The New York Times: Yossi Klein Halevi, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and a contributing editor at The New Republic, writes, “Israelis fear that Egypt will go the way of Iran or Turkey, with Islamists gaining control through violence or gradual co-optation.” Hezbollah’s [...]]]>
The New York Times: Yossi Klein Halevi, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and a contributing editor at The New Republic, writes, “Israelis fear that Egypt will go the way of Iran or Turkey, with Islamists gaining control through violence or gradual co-optation.” Hezbollah’s increasingly strong role in Lebanon, Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip, and the downturn in Israel-Turkey relations leads Halevi to comment, “[A]n Islamist Egypt could produce the ultimate Israeli nightmare: living in a country surrounded by Iran’s allies or proxies.” While the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has forsworn violence, “it is small comfort to Israelis, who fear that the Brotherhood’s nonviolence has been a tactical maneuver and know that its worldview is rooted in crude anti-Semitism.”
National Review Online: The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin opines on the developing situation in Egypt and suggests that the Muslim Brotherhood and “anti-Western forces will look to blame Egypt’s problems on the U.S.” “What worries me is this: Today marks the 32nd anniversary of Khomeini’s return to Iran. Most people making dark allusions to Iran forget that more than nine months passed between Khomeini’s return and the seizure of the U.S. Embassy,” says Rubin. “The question then becomes, what grievances can the Muslim Brotherhood or other anti-Western forces manufacture in those nine months to try to appeal beyond their natural constituency of perhaps 25 percent?” Rubin concludes that Obama should avoid making George W. Bush’s mistake of supporting elections in Gaza and “enabl[ing] political groups which maintain militias to claim the mantle of electoral legitimacy.”
Los Angeles Times: Jonah Goldberg, also based at The American Enterprise Institute, warns that the democracy movement in Egypt could turn into “a replay of the Iranian revolution, in which justified popular discontent with an authoritarian ruler was exploited by Islamists who ultimately imposed an even crueler brand of tyranny.” Goldberg goes on to compare political participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to a “contagion.”
]]>“The cables [...]]]>
“The cables reveal how Iran’s ascent has unified Israel and many longtime Arab adversaries -notably the Saudis – in a common cause,” the NYT asserted.
But Gareth Porter and Jim Lobe took a closer look at cables describing conversations with Arab leaders and found that “the Times account seriously distorted the content – and in the case of the Saudis, ignored the context – of the cables released by Wikileaks.”
In fact, the cables show that most Gulf Arab regimes – including Saudi Arabia itself – have been seriously concerned about the consequences of a strike against Iran for their own security, in sharp contrast to Israel’s open advocacy of such a strike. They also show the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait expressing that concern with greater urgency in the past two years than previously.
Porter and Lobe take apart the NYT’s assertion that “a largely silent front of Arab states whose position on sanctions and force looked much like the Israelis,” finding that Arab leaders have expressed serious concern about the consequences of U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
They also find that Saudi language on Iran as reported in diplomatic cables—some of the harshest Arab statements regarding Iran’s nuclear program, according to the NYT—mirror the official position of the Bush administration at the time.
Former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas Freeman, told IPS that such a statement would “fit a pattern of communication with the United States of ingratiating themselves with their protector.”
Porter and Lobe write:
Thomas Lippman, former Washington Post Middle East bureau chief and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, who has written a book on Saudi-U.S. relations, also said that the Abdullah quote would have been in line with the usual Saudi pattern of “telling the Americans what they wanted to hear”.
Cables highlighted in the article also include reports on discussions with senior UAE diplomats, the most recent of which summarizes a discussion between UAE’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nayan and a visiting congressional delegation.
Most recently, a Feb. 22, 2010 cable has the UAE’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nayan, warning a visiting delegation headed by Rep. Nita Lowey, a strong supporter of Israel in Congress, that any “crisis or confrontation in the region [over Iran's nuclear programme] would create oil supply problems world wide.”
According to the cable, the minister ended the meeting with a “soliloquy on the importance of a successful peace process between Israel and its neighbors as perhaps the best way of reducing Iran’s regional influence.”
They look at a number of cables describing discussions with Gulf Arab leaders and conclude:
]]>While confirming growing Arab fears about Iran’s regional clout and nuclear ambitions, the cables suggest that other Gulf Arab leaders – with the possible exception of Bahrain’s King Hamad, the only regional leader with a majority Shi’a population – have little or no appetite for military action against Iran.