by Henry Precht

The recent telephone conversation between Presidents Obama and Rouhani — and their positive descriptions of the exchange – are precisely on target for bringing an end to the Iran-US Cold War.

Distrust has been the background noise for that conflict for more than 35 years. It need not have [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Henry Precht

The recent telephone conversation between Presidents Obama and Rouhani — and their positive descriptions of the exchange – are precisely on target for bringing an end to the Iran-US Cold War.

Distrust has been the background noise for that conflict for more than 35 years. It need not have been so.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the US observed a restriction on dealing with Iranians that was virtually unique in our diplomatic relations: we refused to have contact with the sovereign’s opponents. Even on American soil we declined to sit with anti-regime Iranian students. Once in the 1970s, an enterprising political officer in Tehran made an appointment to call on a prominent bazaar mullah. The Ministry of Court called Ambassador Richard Helms and said the visit would be unwise. The appointment was cancelled. In 1975, visiting Senator Charles Percy was briefed at the American and Israeli embassies. The latter told him that the mullahs were the regime’s greatest threat. Such an analysis was never heard from the Americans.

Come the revolution of 1978 and it soon became apparent that we were in touch with only one-half of Iranian politics — the losing half. Slowly, cautiously, Embassy political officers began to talk to oppositionist Mehdi Bazargan and his friends. In Washington, however, Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher forbade me as an Iranian desk officer to meet with Ibrahim Yazdi who was on his way to serve Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris.

That gentleman, leader of the revolution, remained off limits until about a month before the end game. Bill Sullivan, ambassador in Tehran, proposed that Washington send a representative to meet with the Ayatollah. President Jimmy Carter agreed. Retired Ambassador Ted Eliot was picked to do the job of explaining US policy towards the conflict and urging a more moderate approach for the revolutionaries. The Shah was informed and shrugged, “A great power must protect its interests.”

Carter and his advisor Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski left for the Guadeloupe summit of world leaders and returned with an altered perspective: the call on Khomeini was cancelled without explanation. Sullivan — on a secure phone line — cursed eloquently whoever made that “stupid decision.”

Would it have made a difference if there had been an American meeting and exchange with Khomeini? Might it have overcome the abiding conviction of the Iranian revolutionaries that we were unalterably committed to the Shah’s rule?

Perhaps not. Many on the wrong side of the barricades were convinced that Washington was determined to keep Iran as a subservient ally. But a meeting might — just might — have generated some reflection and questioning of customary wisdom. With follow-up meetings, talks could have led to a more moderate and balanced view of the American role in the region. As it was, in the months that followed, Iranian officials regularly scolded American embassy personnel for “not accepting the revolution.” Assurances to the contrary did not ring true when we refused even to talk to the revolution’s leader.

That was the backdrop for Washington’s efforts to construct a new and more normal relationship with Tehran. In the spring of 1979, Washington named a new ambassador, Walt Cutler, and Charge Charles Naas prepared to depart. Naas proposed that he seek a meeting with Khomeini to absorb the angry old man’s ire but leave the precedent of an exchange for Cutler’s benefit. Washington approved. Iran’s interim prime minister, Bazargan, was enthusiastic; here was evidence that the US was taking a new, fresh attitude towards the revolution. Perhaps a first step towards easing distrust? We hoped so, too.

But it was not to be. The Iranians executed a wealthy Jewish businessman and friend of the Shah, one of a series of judicial murders against the old regime. Led by Senator Jacob Javits, the US Senate quickly condemned revolutionary Iran in a resolution that was drafted without Executive Branch input.

Khomeini was furious at the perceived insult and interference in Iran’s affairs. He was also cautious. “Don’t break relations with them,” he told his associates. “But make them know they can’t treat us like the puppet Shah.” The agreement for Cutler as ambassador was nullified; the visit of Naas to Khomeini was cancelled.

Distrust blossomed. Washington had lost two openings to explain its policy toward Iran and gain a clearer insight as to where the country was headed. When the embassy was seized in November, we Americans had no established connection with the one man who might have ended the crisis. We could only shout at each other across an ocean.

Obviously, talking to an antagonist alone can’t fundamentally alter a relationship. But it can enhance understanding and cast doubt on dogma. Distrust breeds where one doesn’t hear, “on the other hand” or, “have you thought about the issue from this perspective?”

Not talking opens doors and windows to those who would further embitter a relationship out of ignorance, accident or design. The US-Iranian connection is replete with long periods of destructive silence.

If tensions between Tehran and Washington are to be eased, it is imperative that leaders in the two capitals keep up the flow of exchanges — at the most senior level and also between cadres of officials on both sides. Before too long, that would mean reopened embassies and revitalized exchange programs.

Iran is a land nurtured by poetry and rhetoric. Free speech is a prime American value. Relying on these aural talents, it is time for a continuous and growing exchange between the two nations.

by Jasmin Ramsey

Two conversations are presently occurring in Washington about Iran. Hawks and hardliners are searching for new ways to force the Obama administration to tighten or impose further sanctions, and/or discussing when the US should strike the country. Meanwhile, doves and pragmatists have been pointing out the ineffectiveness of sanctions in [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Jasmin Ramsey

Two conversations are presently occurring in Washington about Iran. Hawks and hardliners are searching for new ways to force the Obama administration to tighten or impose further sanctions, and/or discussing when the US should strike the country. Meanwhile, doves and pragmatists have been pointing out the ineffectiveness of sanctions in changing Iran’s nuclear calculus (even though the majority of them initially pushed for these sanctions) as well as the many cons of military action. Although the hawks and hardliners tend to be Republican, the group is by no means partisan. And these conversations do converge and share points at times, for example, the hawks and hardliners also complain about the ineffectiveness of sanctions, but in the context of pushing for more pressure and punishment.

That said, both sides appear stuck — the hawks, while successful in getting US policy on Iran to become sanctions-centric, can’t get the administration or military leaders to buy their interventionist arguments, and the doves, having previously cheered sanctions as an alternative to military action, appear lost now that their chosen pressure tactic has proven ineffective.

Hawks and Doves Debate Iran Strike Option

On Wednesday, the McCain Institute hosted a live debate that showcased Washington positions on Iran, with the pro-military argument represented by neoconservative analyst Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute and Democrat Robert Wexler, a member of the US House of Representatives from 1997-2010, and two prominent US diplomats on the other side — Ambassadors Thomas R. Pickering, who David Sanger writes “is such a towering figure in the State Department that a major program to train young diplomats is named for him”, and James R. Dobbins, whose distinguished career includes service as envoy to Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti and Somalia.

Only the beginning of this recording (I can’t find any others) is hard to hear, and you won’t regret watching the entire lively discussion, particularly because of Amb. Pickering’s poignant responses to Pletka’s flimsy points — she inaccurately states IAEA findings on Iran’s nuclear program and claims that, even though she’s no military expert, a successful military operation against Iran wouldn’t necessarily include boots on the ground. In fact, experts assess that effective military action against Iran aimed at long-term positive results (cessation of its nuclear program and regime change) would be a long and arduous process, entailing more resources than Afghanistan and Iraq have taken combined, and almost certainly involving ground forces and occupation.

Consider some the characteristics of the pro-military side: Wexler repeatedly admits he made a mistake in supporting the war on Iraq, but says the decision to attack Iran should “presuppose” that event. Later on he says that considering what happened with Iraq, he “hopes” the same mistake about non-existent WMDs won’t happen again. Pletka, who endorsed fighting in Iraq until “victory” had been achieved (a garbled version of an AEI transcript can be found here), states in her opening remarks that the US needs to focus on ”what happens, when, if, negotiations fail” and leads from that premise, which she does not qualify with anything other than they’re taking too much time, with arguments about the threat Iran poses, even though she calls the Iranians “very rational actors”.

While Wexler’s support for a war launched on false premises seriously harms his side’s credibility, it was both his and Pletka’s inability to advance even one indisputable interventionist argument, coupled with their constant reminders that they don’t actually want military action, that left them looking uninformed and weak.

The diplomats, on the other hand, offered rhetorical questions and points that have come to characterize this debate more generally. Amb. Pickering: “Are we ready for another ground war in the Middle East?”, and, “we are not wonderful occupiers”. Then on the status of the diplomatic process: “we are closer to a solution in negotiations than we have been before”. Amb. Dobbins meanwhile listed some of the cons of a military operation — Hezbollah attacks against Israel and US allies, interruptions to the movement of oil through the vital Strait of Hormuz, a terror campaign orchestrated by the Iranians — and then surprised everyone by saying that these are “all things we can deal with”. A pause, then the real danger in Amb. Dobbins’ mind: that “Iran would respond cautiously”, play the aggrieved party, withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, kick out IAEA inspectors and accelerate its nuclear program at unknown sites. Then what, the audience was left to wonder. Neither Pletka nor Wexler offered an answer.

The Costs of War With Iran and the C-Word

While watching the McCain debate, I wondered if Pletka and Wexler would consider reading a recently published book by Geoffrey Kemp, an economist who served as a Gulf expert on Reagan’s National Security Council and John Allen Gay, entitled War With Iran: Political, Military, And Economic Consequences. This essay lays out the basis of the work, which mainly focuses on the high economic costs of war, so I won’t go into detail here, but yesterday during the book’s launch at the Center for National Interest (CNI), an interesting comment was made about the “C-Word”. Here’s what Kemp said during his opening remarks, to an audience that included everyone from prominent foreign policy experts and former government officials, to representatives from Chevron and AIPAC:

You certainly cannot, must not, underestimate the negative consequences if Iran does get the bomb…But I think on balance, unlike Senator McCain who said that the only thing worse than a war with Iran is an Iran with a nuclear weapon…the conclusion of this study is that war is worse than the options, and the options we have, are clearly based on something that we call deterrence and something that we are not allowed to call, but in fact, is something called containment. And to me this seems like the most difficult thing for the Obama administration, to walk back out of the box it’s gotten itself into over this issue of containment. But never fear. Successive American administrations have all walked back lines on Iran.

Interestingly, no one challenged him on this during the Q&A. And Kemp is not the only expert to utter the C-Word in Washington — he’s joined by Paul Pillar and more reluctant distinguished voices including Zbigniew Brzezinksi.

Diplomacy as the Best Effective Option

Of course, if more effort was concentrated on the diplomacy front, as opposed to mostly on sanctions and the military option, Iran could be persuaded against building a nuclear weapon. Consider, for example, US intelligence chief James Clapper’s statement on Thursday that Iran has not yet made the decision to develop a nuclear weapon but that if it chose to do so, it might be able to produce one in a matter of “months, not years.” Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “[Iran] has not yet made that decision, and that decision would be made singularly by the supreme leader.”

It follows from this that while the US would be hard pressed in permanently preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon (apart from adopting the costly and morally repulsive “mowing the lawn” option), it could certainly compel the Iranians to make the decision to rush for a bomb by finally making the military option credible — as Israel has pushed for — or following through on that threat.

So where to go from here? Enter the Iran Project, which has published a series of reports all signed and endorsed by high-level US foreign policy experts, and which just released it’s first report with policy advise: “Strategic Options for Iran: Balancing Pressure with Diplomacy”. There’s lots to be taken away from it, and Jim Lobe, as well as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have covered it, but it ultimately boils down to the notion that the US needs to rethink its policy with Iran and creatively use the leverage it has gotten from sanctions to bring about an agreement. Such an agreement will likely have to be preceded by bilateral talks and include some form of low-level uranium enrichment on Iranian soil and sanctions relief if Iran provides its own signifiant concessions. The report also argues for the US to engage with Iran on areas of mutual interest, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

During the Wilson Center report launch event, Amb. Pickering summed up the status of negotiations with Iran as follows: “Admittedly we should not expect miraculous moves to a rapid agreement, but we’re engaged enough now to have gone beyond the beginning of the beginning. We’re not at the end of the beginning yet, but we’re getting there.” Later, Jim Walsh, a member of the task force and nuclear expert at MIT pointed out that 20-percent Iranian uranium enrichment, which everyone is fixated on now, only became an issue after Iran stopped receiving fuel for its Tehran Research Reactor and began producing it itself. In other words, the longer the US takes to give Iran a deal it can stomach and sell at home, the more the Iranians can ask for as their nuclear program progresses. “The earlier we can get a deal, the better the deal is likely to be,” he said.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Iran should be key topic at hearings: The former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter urges the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to include a discussion about the implications of a “self-generated” war with Iran during its upcoming hearing. Key paragraph:

It follows that a failure to reach a satisfactory negotiated solution with Iran [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Iran should be key topic at hearings: The former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter urges the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to include a discussion about the implications of a “self-generated” war with Iran during its upcoming hearing. Key paragraph:

It follows that a failure to reach a satisfactory negotiated solution with Iran should not be viewed as the trigger for a new U.S.-initiated war that is not likely to be confined just to Iran. A more prudent and productive course for the United States would be to continue the painful sanctions against Iran while formally adopting for the Middle East the same policy that for decades successfully protected America’s European and Asian allies against the much more dangerous threats emanating from Stalinist Russia and lately from nuclear-armed North Korea. An Iranian military threat aimed at Israel or any other U.S. friend in the Middle East would be treated as if directed at the United States itself and would precipitate a commensurate U.S. response.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Mohammad Ali Shabani, How to Talk to Iran: The Iranian perspective provided by a former lead Iranian negotiator (now at Princeton) and a SOAS doctorale candidate. Any deal with Iran needs to offer Iran a face-saving way out, they argue:

While Tehran views a deal on its nuclear program as being in its self-interest, Western leaders need to grasp that it would be devastating for Iran’s aberu to take the first step solely in exchange for promises. The dominant discourse in Tehran portrays the 2004 decision by the former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami to suspend uranium enrichment on a voluntary, temporary basis as a failure because it resulted only in humiliating calls by the West for an indefinite suspension. The moral of this narrative is that placing maslahat above aberu, even temporarily, leads to nothing good.

Trita Parsi, Is A Deal With Iran In The Offing?: The Iran expert, whose book, A Single Roll of the Dice – Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran topped Foreign Affairs’ Best Books of 2012 on the Middle East list, describes the motivation behind the US-led Iran sanctions regime in his analysis of whether a deal is possible this year:

…the deal must not just prevent a nuclear weapon in Iran, it must also put Iran “back into its place” within the regional pecking order. While acceptance of limited enrichment in Iran opens the way for a nuclear deal, strangulating sanctions are deemed necessary to remind Tehran and other regional powers who is the de facto hegemon in the region—and who isn’t.

Reza Marashi, Step by Step with Iran: The former Iran desk state department staffer and analyst argues that a step-by-step process based on reciprocity provides a framework for the least bad option for both sides of the Iranian nuclear spectrum:

Tehran would stop enriching to the 20 percent level; ship out its stockpile of corresponding uranium to a mutually agreed-upon third-party country; shut down its Fordow facility; and reduce its existing stockpile of low-enriched uranium below the level needed for any possibility of weaponization. In turn, Washington would suspend key banking sanctions, back a suspension of the EU oil embargo, and freeze new sanctions initiatives. Under this arrangement, both sides are trading an equal number of concessions, which in turn builds trust, buys time for negotiations to continue, and helps disarm spoilers in Washington, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Brussels and Riyadh.

Joe Klein, Obama’s Next Foreign Policy Battle: The TIME political columnist sums up how the battle over Chuck Hagel’s nomination as Secretary of Defense factors in to the tug-of-war between Israel lobby groups in the US and the President and his allies:

And then there’s Iran. A nuclear deal may be negotiated this year. The Iranians are suffering economically; there are indications that they are ready to talk. But any such deal will be vehemently opposed by Netanyahu and the neoconservatives. The Hagel nomination, if it comes, will be the warm-up act for those battles. It is a fight that would send an important message about the President’s intentions–to Iran, to Israel and to the out-of-touch leaders of the American Jewish community.

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, Former Supreme National Security Chief: Crass talk is not foreign policy: The title says it all. A key quote from a former Chief of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council:

“It is not clear whether the actions that have been undertaken in these last couple of years were engagement or confrontation. If we want to have a role in global decision making, we must in reality choose engagement…Let’s define “offensive”; “offensive” means an action we undertake which doesn’t allow the enemy to implement his plan against us or a conspiracy he wants to commit against us, and we move one step”.

David Axe, Iran Unveils Copycat Arsenal: The Danger Room’s military correspondent provides a rundown of Iran’s makeshift though still potentially dangerous weapons arsenal:

But that doesn’t mean all of Tehran’s weapons suck. Far from it. While some of the sillier Iranian gear is obviously meant mostly for fleeting propaganda purposes, the main hardware is grounded in experience and hardship. Driven by desperation and shaped by the isolation that comes with widening external sanctions, Tehran’s copycat arsenal could contain a few nasty surprises for the U.S. and its allies in the unlikely event that tensions over Iran’s nuclear program come to blows.

WASHINGTON, Dec 6 2012 (IPS) - Increasingly distressed over the possible consequences of Israel’s recent steps to punish the Palestinian Authority (PA) and consolidate its hold on the West Bank, a number of prominent voices here are urging President Barack Obama to exert real pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [...]]]> via IPS News

WASHINGTON, Dec 6 2012 (IPS) - Increasingly distressed over the possible consequences of Israel’s recent steps to punish the Palestinian Authority (PA) and consolidate its hold on the West Bank, a number of prominent voices here are urging President Barack Obama to exert real pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reverse course.

His government’s announcement that it will build 3,000 new housing units in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and expedite planning for the development of the area known as E-1, the last undeveloped area that links the northern and southern parts of the West Bank, is seen here as a particularly damaging provocation both for Palestinians and the administration itself.

“Construction in E-1 would make it almost impossible to provide a future Palestinian state the contiguity it needs to be viable and cut it off from East Jerusalem,” warned Debra DeLee, president of Americans for Peace Now (APN), a Jewish peace group.

“Without a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Israel is doomed to become a bi-national state, which means an end to the Zionist vision of an Israel that is both Jewish and democratic,” she added in an appeal to Obama to “personally intervene with …Netanyahu and demand that his government reverse its decision.”

Unlike several European countries, notably Britain, France, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden, the U.S., one of only nine countries – out of 188 – that voted against the PA’s diplomatic upgrade, has not yet formally protested Israel’s actions.

Indeed, its initial reaction to Israel’s announcements was relatively muted. Calling the moves “counter-productive” to the goal of resuming peace talks, the White House simply “urge(d) Israeli leaders to reconsider these unilateral decisions…” After three days, the State Department released a statement noting that construction in the E-1 area would be “especially damaging to efforts to achieve a two-state solution.” Obama himself has been mum on the issue.

The relative mildness of the U.S. response to date has suggested to many here that the president has no intention of taking on the Israeli leader in a renewed effort to get a peace accord, a goal he pursued with considerable earnestness in the first 18 months of his administration before essentially giving up pending the outcome of this year’s election.

Given the Israel lobby’s strength with both sides of the aisle in Congress, Obama may want to avoid more bruising battles in his second term with Netanyahu, whose right-wing coalition is considered likely to win next month’s parliamentary elections, and his powerful supporters here.

He may wish instead to focus on domestic priorities, further reducing the U.S. “footprint” in the Greater Middle East, and consolidating his “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific.

Nonetheless, there is little love lost between Obama and the Israeli leader, who all but publicly endorsed Obama’s Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, during the election campaign.

An hint of that bad blood surfaced this week amidst reports that, in a high-powered, off-the-record meeting with prominent Israelis and their U.S. supporters at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center last weekend, former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who remains close to Obama, accused Netanyahu of having “repeatedly betrayed” the president.

Emanuel, currently the mayor of Chicago, singled out Israel’s latest moves against the PA, which he reportedly described as particularly galling, given Washington’s support for Israel during its brief war last month against Hamas in Gaza and its lonely opposition to the PA’s diplomatic upgrade at the U.N.

Some believe the president may be waiting to take action until he resolves more-urgent business, notably averting the so-called “fiscal cliff” at the end of this month, then negotiating a bigger deficit deal early next year, and getting a new foreign-team up and running.

Others, including former President George W. Bush’s top Middle East aide and a staunch defender of Netanyahu, Elliott Abrams, believe Obama may be playing a double game by, on the one hand, muting U.S. displeasure with Israel while, on the other, encouraging Washington’s European allies to distance themselves from Israel – as they did during last week’s U.N. vote.

The decision by Germany, which has long defended the Jewish state’s actions in world forums, to abstain on the Palestinian vote, reportedly came as a particular shock. Indeed, the only European nation joining the U.S. in the lonely “no” column was the Czech Republic.

“The sense that the Netanyahu coalition can’t get along with Europe or the United States may hurt Netanyahu with Israeli voters – which is perhaps the precise objective of this entire effort,” Abrams wrote in National Review Online.

While such a strategy may indeed bear fruit, others insist that the stakes for the U.S. are too high to forgo more-assertive tactics toward Israel’s leadership, particularly as it has itself moved increasingly rightward. This is particularly true in light of the Arab Awakening and the rise of political Islam throughout the Middle East.

“The clear trend is toward both greater religiosity and greater identification with the Palestinian cause,” noted Amb. Chas Freeman (ret.), a top U.S. Middle East specialist, in a recent lecture in which he also argued that Israel’s “mid-November assault on Gaza has simply re-inforced the regional view that Israel is an enemy with which it is impossible to peacefully co-exist” and that Israel’s land grabs were making a two-state solution increasingly improbable.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as national security adviser to former President Jimmy Carter, argued that Obama should seize back the initiative from the influence of the Israel lobby in Congress, stressing that he can overcome opposition there “if he stands firm for ‘the national interest’.”

Last week’s U.N. vote, he noted, “marks the nadir of the dramatically declined global respect for U.S. capability to cope with an issue that is morally troubling today and, in the long run, explosive.” The greatest opportunity for taking action, he added, would be in the first year of his second term.

Similarly, Paul Pillar, a career CIA analyst who also served as National Intelligence Officer for the Near East from 2000 to 2005, called this week on his nationalinterest.org blog for Obama to treat Netanyahu much the same way as he is dealing with Republicans in Congress over the budget: “by taking his message campaign-style to the country.”

“His appeal over the heads of members of Congress is a recognition that the opposition party understands only the language of political force. But Mr. Obama also has had enough bitter and frustrating experience with Netanyahu to warrant reaching similar conclusions regarding dealing with Israel,” he wrote, noting that policy toward Israel has become “just as much a domestic issue as the budget,” particularly in light of the Israeli prime minister’s own interference in the U.S. elections.

Moreover, he noted, a very recent survey conducted by the Saban Center’s Shibley Telhami found that 62 percent of the Israeli Jewish electorate hold favourable opinions of Obama, suggesting that a “charm offensive” there by the U.S. president could yield dividends.

Last week I attended an event hosted by the Arms Control Association and the National Iranian American Council on how to make diplomacy work with Iran. I wrote about it here. Keynote speaker Zbigniew Brzezinski was the last to speak and showed up minutes before he took [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Last week I attended an event hosted by the Arms Control Association and the National Iranian American Council on how to make diplomacy work with Iran. I wrote about it here. Keynote speaker Zbigniew Brzezinski was the last to speak and showed up minutes before he took the stage. The former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter politely denied an interview request with Voice of America before making his way to the podium, whereupon he joked about being presented with — as a child — the opportunity to become the foreign minister of Iran during the Shah’s era.

Around this time last year, the famed geostrategist was urging the Obama administration to engage Iran when few were so bold. Now, when many are talking about diplomatic strategies to avoid a costly war, Brzezinski is discussing US options if diplomacy fails.

Brzezinski emphasized that he prefers a “negotiated outcome that meets to some extent the principle desires of our negotiating side but doesn’t necessarily humiliate the Iranians”, and that war would be an “act of utter irresponsibility” and “significant immorality if the United States was part of it.” He also showed a little of his characteristic pep when he stated that the US shouldn’t follow like “a stupid mule, whatever the Israelis do.” But his focus on what to do if talks head nowhere — as they have in the past — suggests he’s not optimistic about their prospects.

There have been some positive signs from the White House. On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US wants bilateral talks at Brookings’ Saban Center. The administration also expressed opposition to yet another sanctions bill approved on Friday by the Senate. But as Josh Rogin notes in his report, the Obama administration has often touted the sanctions regime pushed by Congress even while criticizing it. Add to this Iran’s own paranoid, hardening domestic political environment, and Brzezinski’s position is hard to dismiss.

Following are 4 options Brzezinski offered should talks fail. From the transcript:

Then, what really are our options in that setting?  My bottom line answer to the question which I have just posed is that there are no good options.  But there are, of course, still options, but they range from the worst to the least bad.  But at least, there’s a choice.  The least attractive – the worst, in fact, would be if the United States and/or Israel, or jointly, attacked Iran.  I think that is a fact.  I have spoken to that many times.

So let me merely say in brief that this would produce a regional crisis and widespread hatred, particularly for the United States because the United States would be seen as the deciding partner in such an undertaking, whether jointly with Israel or subsequent to Israel or by the United States alone.  The United States would be drawn into, therefore, a protracted conflict in the region, first of all with the Iranians and perhaps the Iranian people as well.

For while the attitudes of the Iranians by and large, to the extent that we can tell, towards the United States are not hostile and on the whole, in the larger cities, quite benign, a conflict in which the United States was acting as, in their perspective, an aggressor and engaging in military action would certainly precipitate long lasting hatred for the United States.  And that would be a fact of life in that part of the country, and not an insignificant one since it would involve some 85 million people.

In the more immediate perspective, of course, there would be regional disruption.  The region would be literally set aflame with the conflict probably spreading through Iraq to Syria, creating one large belt of conflict, complicating our withdrawal from Afghanistan, particularly in the western parts of Afghanistan where Iran has the capacity to make life miserable for us.  It would be disruptive of course in terms of the security of oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, even if it was kept open by the United States.  But still, even then the price of insurance for the flow of oil would dramatically increase.

And there is a further uncertainty involved in that kind of an operation, namely how successful would it be.  In fact, in estimates by Israeli experts regarding Israel’s potential to be decisively effective, are pessimistic.  And American estimates depend on the scale of the American attack.  Even a relatively modest attack by the United States would inflict in any case serious casualties on the Iranians, precipitating the death of a large number of Iranian scientists and probably, in some cases given the location of the facilities, also civilians.

And there is still the unknown factor of what happens if radiation is released as a consequence of these attacks.  And that could be a significant factor in terms of civilian casualties, particularly in places that are larger, semi-metropolitan.  And of course, some facilities that would be destroyed are located – for example, Isfahan.

All of that, I think makes an attack not a very attractive remedy for dealing with the problem, a problem which then would pale in insignificance compared to the consequences of the attack once the dynamic consequences were set in motion.  So I dismiss that as a serious alternative.  I think it would be an act of utter irresponsibility and potentially a very significant immorality if the United States was part of it.

A second alternative, not either very good – neither are very good is a campaign of covert subversion – ranging from sabotage through assassinations, maybe even to cyberwarfare – directed at Iran in order to prevent it from acquiring an effective nuclear weapon.  I think the result of that is troublesome, not in terms of its immediate outcome because the asymmetry of capabilities between the United States and Iran is so wide that obviously Iran would be much more negatively affected.

But in the longer run, we cannot entirely dismiss the fact that inherent in such a strategy one sets in motion a degradation of the international system, a degradation of the international rules of the game, which could prove, in the longer run, very damaging to American national interests, if one assumes that the United States wishes to be essentially a status-quo power, not one that precipitates massive disruptions of the international order, but has a national interest in consolidating the international order and, indeed, even in expanding its international effectiveness.

So the losses in that sense to American national interests of such a campaign would be significant.  And it is not clear that they would necessarily lead to the desired – otherwise desired outcome, namely deprivation of Iran of capability to have a militarily significant nuclear potential.  Indeed, implicit perhaps in that second strategy would be an eventual outcome very similar to the first strategy, that the United States would find it necessary, would find itself compelled or driven by others into undertaking option one, but making it even in a more negative context.

The third not desirable option, but perhaps somewhat less immediately destructive, is of course a policy of the continuous imposition of sanctions on Iran that would range from painful to strangulating.  That is to say, a policy in which one assumes that at some point Iran would accommodate and accept an outcome which otherwise was not achieved in the process of negotiations.

This is a complicated undertaking because it’s very difficult in that context to clearly distinguish between what sanctions are designed to achieve the nuclear objective, and which ones are designed to achieve other objectives on the grounds of which they were initially imposed.  For example, support for Hezbollah and for other so-called terrorist organizations.

In other words, will we be trying to change the behavior of the regime?  Would we be trying to force it to comply with our position on the nuclear issue?  Or would we be trying to change the regime?  Careful discrimination of this context is very difficult to achieve and, hence, it is also very difficult to envisage an outcome in advance that would be clearly productive insofar as the original point of departure for the sanctions is concerned.

And that brings me to the fourth and least – the least objectionable of the bad options, all of that being based on the assumption that we’re not able to achieve our desired outcome by serious negotiations.  And that is to combine continued painful, but not strangulating sanctions – and be very careful in that distinction – with clear political support for the emergence of eventual democracy in Iran, an objective with which I think many Iranians would associate themselves.

And at the same time an explicit security guarantee for U.S.-friendly Middle Eastern states, including Israel, modeled on the very successful, decade-lasting protection of our European allies from an overwhelming Soviet nuclear threat, and also modeled on the successful protection of South Korea and Japan from the recently emerged North Korean threat, and perhaps earlier on, implicitly but not explicitly, from possible Chinese intimidation.

We succeeded in that policy over many decades and with good result for all concerned, including the Soviet Union and us, including the Russian people and the American people, and certainly to the benefit of those whom we were protecting.  We now know, for example, from secret Soviet war plans, that the Soviets were contemplating, even in the case of the conventional war in which they were moving westward, the use of nuclear weapons against cities.

For example, on the third day of a Soviet offensive, according to Soviet war plans, tactical nuclear weapons, several of them, were designed or were targeted for use against Hamburg – a very large urban center.  And there were others in Western Europe, depending on how the offensive was moving forward.  All of that was avoided by a policy of deterrence that was credible.

This is then the fourth option, which is not the same as the achievement of our objective, but it is an option which creates a condition which might endure for quite a while, because it is difficult to imagine any Iranian regime embarking on a nuclear adventure if it simply has the bomb.  What does that mean, it simply has the bomb?  Has it really been tested?  Is it already related to delivery system?  Does one use it when one has only one?  Does one wait until one has 10?

One has to consider in these circumstances the consequences of their use.  And given an explicit commitment by an overwhelmingly stronger nuclear power, which has demonstrated a willingness to protect with others with credibility and commitment, I think that at least is some degree of assurance that we are gaining time in a very turbulent setting, in a very turbulent time.  And that in itself is an advantage.

This is not an argument for it to be the central focus of our policy.  Obviously a negotiated outcome that meets to some extent the principle desires of our negotiating side but doesn’t necessarily humiliate the Iranians and forces them into an unconditional surrender, so to speak, is still preferable.

But short of that, if in fact the negotiations do not succeed in the near term, I think a shift by the United States to a combination of sanctions, but oriented specifically to the promotion of internal democratizing change and at the same time to serve as a deterrent and involves all of our friends in the Middle East, is the best option – or it’s the least objectionable options of the options that have failed otherwise in the achievement of their ultimate objective.

By James Russell

As suggested most recently by Stephen Walt, a regrettable and recurring theme of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy in the Gulf and the Middle East over the last four years has been the lack of any sense of strategic priorities or objectives in the region. What lies [...]]]> via Lobe Log

By James Russell

As suggested most recently by Stephen Walt, a regrettable and recurring theme of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy in the Gulf and the Middle East over the last four years has been the lack of any sense of strategic priorities or objectives in the region. What lies ahead for the president’s second term?

I wish I thought that the administration had (gasp!) actually examined the possibility of containment (remember the strategy that won the 50-year Cold War?) as a viable strategy both to convince Iran not to build its own nuclear weapon and/or deal with the Islamic Republic if it does cross the nuclear threshold.

But “containment” has now become a watchword for those concerned about the political correctness surrounding the terminology we are supposed to use to discuss strategy and policy options to achieve related objectives. Actual strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski was himself loathe to even mention containment during a recent speech about Iran because it’s becoming such a loaded political term.

The unfortunate truth is that this country can’t have any kind of real and informed opinion about whether to go to war with Iran until it decides on its strategic objectives and is prepared to subject its strategy to open and transparent debate in the marketplace of ideas. There was once a day when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee actually served this purpose. Imagine that!

Instead, we are today left with the Israeli lobby and its acolytes proclaiming a coming day of doom if Iran gets the bomb and the marginalization of commonsensical arguments from people like Walt and Paul Pillar who are asking the basic questions about strategic objectives that should be answered before the United States decides to go to war with Iran.

And, we are left with the Iraq war model in which attempts are simply made to present a case that war is somehow inevitable. Even more disturbingly, we are left with a legislative branch that seems mindlessly bent on pushing the country down the path to war, step by step, with its ever-tightening noose of sanctions that only increase the chances of war and Iran deciding that it has no choice but to build its own bomb.

In this void of strategic thinking, the Obama Administration seems to trundle along managing the inbox in a haphazard and unpredictable way.

Syria burns; the Israelis tell the US to get stuffed once more while fully ready to jam a JDAM down the throat of anyone that sneezes in their direction; Egypt could be descending into a dictatorship; Bahrain and the Gulf States teeter; Iraq falls into Iranian orbit — and that’s just the beginning.

But what is the Administration really worrying about, according to the press? Who exactly makes it onto the drone strike joint prioritized effects list (those to be assassinated). If ever there was a tactical problem in searching for a strategy, it is this issue — strategy turned on its head. How the president found himself picking out and/or participating in the monthly target list meetings (reminiscent of President Johnson in the 1960s) is frankly mind-blowing, but says a lot about the lack of strategic direction for a country that is still the leader of the free world.

How do we explain this lack of direction? It’s easy to blame advisers on the National Security Council who are not strategists and the fact that we are now “between” new cabinet secretaries. It’s easy to blame our regional brain lock by the Israeli lobby. It’s easy to blame a disinterested public and their elected representatives. All of these have in some way contributed to the current state of affairs in which a straightforward and commonsensical argument by a Stephen Walt vanishes into the proverbial wind. This is all true — except that it’s been a hallmark of the last four years. The US has essentially “made it up” as it went along.

I wish I could say that I thought the next four years would be different, and I fear for the future and the prospect of more ill-advised wars started for spurious and stupid reasons that are disconnected from well thought out strategy and policy.

- James Russell is an associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. From 1988-2001, Mr. Russell held a variety of positions in the Office of the Assistant Secretary Defense for International Security Affairs, Near East South Asia and the Department of Defense. The views in this post are his alone.

Amidst reports that stalled negotiations with Iran over its controversial nuclear programme may soon be jump-started, many here are arguing that a mutually negotiated settlement remains the most effective option for resolving the dispute and averting the threat of war.

“We believe there is time and clearly there is an [...]]]> via IPS News

Amidst reports that stalled negotiations with Iran over its controversial nuclear programme may soon be jump-started, many here are arguing that a mutually negotiated settlement remains the most effective option for resolving the dispute and averting the threat of war.

“We believe there is time and clearly there is an interest from all parties to reach a diplomatic solution,” said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, co-host with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) of a conference here today titled, “Making Diplomacy Work”.

“Diplomacy is the obvious option, but it’s not obvious how to make diplomacy succeed,” said NIAC president Trita Parsi, who chaired the event that aired on C-SPAN Monday.

The U.S. and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since the 1979 Iranian revolution. The conflict has been mostly cold, but the threat of war spiked this year following a pressure campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Obama administration has set the U.S.’s “red line” at development of a nuclear weapon, but the Israeli red line is Iran’s acquirement of nuclear weapon-building “capability”, or Iran crossing into a so-called “zone of immunity” where it can create a nuclear weapon at Fordow, the underground uranium enrichment facility that’s impenetrable by Israeli air strikes.

Asked how he would advise the president if the Israelis carried out a strike against Iran, keynote speaker Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former National Security Adviser under President Jimmy Carter, said he would have appropriately advised the president before that point and that U.S. national security should not follow that of another country.

“It’s very important for clarity to exist in a relationship between friends. I don’t think there’s any implicit obligation for the United States to follow, like a stupid mule, whatever the Israelis do,” said the famed geostrategist.

Jim Walsh, a nonproliferation expert at MIT, stated that military strikes against Iran would compel it to expel International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) inspectors and dash for a nuclear weapon as a deterrent against future attacks.

“What do we get if there’s war?” asked Walsh. “An Iran with nuclear weapons.”

In contention with the Israeli red line is the notion that Iran already has the ability to create a nuclear weapon, should it make the decision to do so, according to experts.

“Since 2007, Western and U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran is nuclear capable,” said Kimball, who previously told IPS that the objective should thus be aimed at affecting Iran’s will.

“We must be honest about this, there’s no difference between a centrifuge at Fordow and Natanz, it’s only harder to bomb Fordow,” said Walsh.

Walsh also noted that “mistrust” between the U.S. and Iran and a focus on singular issues are impediments to the diplomatic process.

“They both want to get a deal around issue of 20-percent (enriched uranium), they want to play small ball, get something and push the can down the road. This is a mistake. You are shrinking the negotiating space,” noted Walsh.

Ahmed Sadri, a professor of Islamic World Studies at Wolf University, argued that the next few months provide the perfect window of opportunity for the U.S. and Iran to seriously move the diplomatic process forward.

“Now is the right time, after American elections and right before Iranian elections,” he said, adding that “if there is no relationship (between the U.S. and Iran), negative feelings are reinforced.

“Leader Ali Khamenei has a very conspiratorial and paranoid mind…But just because you’re paranoid that there’s a crocodile under your bed doesn’t mean there isn’t a crocodile under your bed,” said Sadri.

According to Rolf Ekéus, the former head of the United Nation Special Commission on Iraq, sanctions-relief must be on the table to provide Iran with enough incentive to give up its alleged ambitions.

“Iraq was praised by the IAEA…but it turned out they were cheating, that’s why one had to create another arrangement…containing a very important U.N. dimension that respected boundaries and the independence of Iraq,” said the Swedish diplomat.

“This was a functioning system which allowed good behaviour to get sanctions relief; bad behaviour was met with tough language from the Security Council, not individual governments, Israel or anyone,” said Ekéus.

Ekéus also emphasised that “regime change must be taken off the table” as Iranians should be “left to take care of it” and the U.S. should stop “hiding behind the P5+1” and engage Iran on mutual regional interests.

“Iran is huge now, its influence is enormous, but it’s shaky all over. The P5+1 is not the appropriate player if you want to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.

Brzezinski emphasised that the diplomatic process is not dead, but listed options the U.S. should consider if negotiations completely fail.

The worst choice would be a U.S. joint or Israeli attack, which would “produce a regional crisis and widespread hatred particularly for the U.S.,” said Brzezinski, dismissing it as an “act of utter irresponsibility and potentially significant immorality of the U.S.”

The least objectionable of the worst options – all of which should be considered only after the U.S. failed to achieve its desired outcome through negotiations – would be a type of containment.

“We combine continued painful, but not strangulating sanctions – and be very careful in that distinction – with clear political support for the emergence of eventual democracy in Iran…and at the same time an explicit security guarantee for U.S.-friendly Middle Eastern states, including Israel, modeled on the very successful, decades-lasting protection of our European allies from an overwhelming Soviet nuclear threat,” he said.

Brzezinski added that Iran has not endured as a sovereign state for centuries because it was motivated by suicidal tendencies like initiating a war that would invite a devastating U.S. attack.

“The sooner we get off the notion that at some point we may strike Iran, the better the chances for the negotiations and the better the chance for stability if we couple it with a clear commitment to the security of the region, designed to neutralise any potential, longer-range, Iranian nuclear threat,” he said.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, political scientist and former adviser to Jimmy Carter, opposed the war on Iraq and criticized the U.S.’s handling of Afghanistan. His criticism of the U.S.’s “special relationship” with Israel resulted in him being shunned from the Obama administration after opposition from the so-called Israel lobby. But he is also demonized by progressives, [...]]]>

Zbigniew Brzezinski, political scientist and former adviser to Jimmy Carter, opposed the war on Iraq and criticized the U.S.’s handling of Afghanistan. His criticism of the U.S.’s “special relationship” with Israel resulted in him being shunned from the Obama administration after opposition from the so-called Israel lobby. But he is also demonized by progressives, who take issue with his realpolitik approach to international relations. Regardless, at the age of 83, he is one of the few voices of reason on U.S. foreign policy (and sometimes on domestic issues too).

In this clip from late October, Brzezinski discusses Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, one of the few mainstream shows who still feature him. (His daughter, Mika, is Scarborough’s co-host.) On Iran, Brzezinski repeats calls for engagement and reminds us that the Islamic Republic plays a key role in stabilizing both Afghanistan and Iraq. If it is prevented from having one, and the U.S. does not ramp up it’s diplomatic efforts, Iran will respond accordingly, especially after the U.S. has emboldened it and bolstered its influence with the two disastrous wars it has waged and is now leaving behind.

The entire segment is well worth watching in full.