“The problem,” they write, “is that democratic reform in Iran is a long-term proposition. As a [...]]]>
“The problem,” they write, “is that democratic reform in Iran is a long-term proposition. As a result, it cannot serve as the basis for an effective U.S.-Iran policy.”
“If the Obama White House were to rest its efforts to dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons on regime change, it would end up with an Iran policy as incoherent as those of the administrations that preceded it.”
Even though President Barack Obama seems to be trying very hard to distance himself from past polices — and avoiding the same results — Burmberg and Blechman write his policy is still muddled. (What are sanctions for, in the end? they ask, for example: “[W]e need to define that end far more clearly.”) The uncertain policy outcomes from the administration’s Iran policy creates room for more radical proposals like regime change:
As support for engagement wanes in Washington, calls for regime change are reverberating in the U.S. Congress and out national media. The idea that we can slay the Iranian nuclear dragon by destroying its autocratic heart will probably become a leitmotif of the House and quite possibly the Senate in 2011.
This seems to be the “forget negotiations” approach taken by a bipartisan group of six Senators who called on Obama to ensure ‘zero enrichment’ in any agreement. It’s almost definitely a deal-breaker for the current leadership of the Islamic Republic — or for even a reformed Islamic Republic.
Brumberg and Blechman explore many of these contradictions. Their piece should be informative for regime change hawks who constantly push the need for more aggressive U.S. support of domestic dissent in Iran (my emphasis):
Political reform will eventually come to Iran, but in manner far more prolonged and partial than that imagined by advocates of a full-scale democratic revolution. This kind of dramatic scenario may pluck a tour heart strings, but it has not been the animating vision of Iran’s reformists. The latter speak for a 25-million urban middle class of Iranians, many whom share one goal: to compel the state to stop forcing religious dogma on the population.
[...]
There is very little the U.S. can or should do to affect this prolonged dynamic [of the reform movement]. The more we embrace Iran’s democratic activists, the more we suffocate them. Iran’s reformists want the international community to stand up for their human rights; they do not want to be pawns of a U.S.-Iranian conflict. In a land where concerns about national sovereignty and religious identity cut across the regime-opposition divide, the quest for democracy will be discredited if it is seen as anything but homegrown.
There is one thing, however, that the U.S. can do promote political decompression in Iran, and that is to make détente with the Islamic Republic a top priority. Sustained U.S.-Iranian engagement would undercut the “threat” that ultra hardliners regularly invoke to legitimate their efforts to pummel or isolate their critics.
That’s been a huge problem of the discourse in the U.S. about Iran — one cannot make a priority both of the nuclear issue and the democracy issue. The same could be said of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The nuclear clock and the democratic clock are not in sync. Those in the United States who propose bombing Iran in order to both slow down the nuclear clock and speed up the democratic clock are being disingenuous. This is not to say that an accelerated democratic clock — leading to reform — won’t be more favorable to the West and may well slow down the nuclear clock itself. But the process of accelerating the democratic clock (a policy of regime change) holds the dangerous (and likely) possibility of backfiring and creating further insecurity and resentment. And insecurity and resentment would seem to be the top reasons behind the Iranian nuclear drive in the first place.
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At the core of the joint study group’s findings is a call for renewed emphasis on negotiations and a condemnation of those Washington policymakers who make official references to “military options.”
The policy group findings include calls for: the U.S. and its allies to offer a transparent package of incentives if Iran reaches a mutually acceptable agreement on the nuclear issue with the P5+1; Washington to signal its clear acceptance of Iran’s enrichment rights; and a willingness for the U.S. to discuss a wide range of issues of mutual concern to the U.S. and Iran, possibly in a bilateral forum.
These steps, as outlined, would aim to reduce the long-standing tensions between the United States and Iran and offer appropriate venues for issues of mutual interest to be discussed. Under this framework, the nuclear issue would be one, but not the only, issue up for discussion by the P5+1 or the U.S. and Iran in bilateral negotiations.
Furthermore, the study group finds that Washington should continue the current sanctions regime but should be pursued through action rather than “language of confrontation, threats and insults.” While the study group acknowledges that “U.S. military leaders must plan for every contingency,” they also emphasize that official references to “military options” undermine Iranians who are in favor of a negotiated solution the nuclear issue. As for an actual military strike, the study group was highly pessimistic about the possibility of success, arguing:
…[A]ir strikes intended to destroy Iran’s infrastructure, whether by Israel or by the United States, would cement Iran’s determination to acquire nuclear weapons, likely end the prospects for a democratic revival in Iran indefinitely, and result in significant military,political, and economic harm to the US and its allies.
Both Congress and the White House have been quick to tie the use, or threatened use, of sanctions or a military strike to threatening rhetoric. Sanctions have frequently been described as “crippling” and “with teeth.” Sen. Lindsey Graham recently quipped the United States should lead a military campaign that should “neuter the regime’s ability to wage war.” This language, according to the joint study group, only plays into the hands of hardliners in Tehran who seek to mobilize public support behind a nuclear weapons program.
Indeed, the report’s observation that a military campaign would be disastrous for U.S. strategic interests was reinforced today by Secretary of State Robert Gates at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO conference.
Reuters reports him as saying:
“A military solution, as far as I’m concerned … it will bring together a divided nation. It will make them absolutely committed to obtaining nuclear weapons. And they will just go deeper and more covert,” Gates said.
“The only long-term solution in avoiding an Iranian nuclear weapons capability is for the Iranians to decide it’s not in their interest. Everything else is a short-term solution.”
(Also see Matt Duss’s analysis of Gates’s remarks.)
And if the strategy of “strategic engagement” fails, the study group argues it will put the United States on a strong footing for dealing with a nuclear Iran.
They conclude:
]]>Strategic engagement will face many hurdles. If it does not succeed, the measures set out in this report will provide a foundation for a policy of deterrence and dissuasion. If, however, strategic engagement helps to advance a comprehensive solution to the escalating stand-off with Iran, it will be far preferable to a march towards war or to a policy directed at deterring Iran after it has succeeded in acquiring a nuclear-weapons capability.