May 16, 2006

More Iran

More support for B.D.'s general Iran view from the FT:

The world is entering a critical moment over the Iranian nuclear controversy, one that will decide whether a prolonged stand-off will now spiral into conflict or settle into crisis management that might yield a workable compromise. There may not be a solution. But, if there is to be any hope of one, the strategic and tactical parameters of Iran policy need to change. Until now, there has been a blur of belligerent ambiguity in Washington about whether the objective is to ensure Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons capability or to topple the mullahs in Tehran. That being the case, the policy options on offer seem to have hardened into sanctions or military action, despite two years of robust European engagement with Iran the US licensed rather than supported.

Much recent debate has been fatalistic, especially since Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, Iran's mercurial and messianic president, claimed a breakthrough in enriching a small amount of uranium, a step towards mastering the technology needed for an atomic bomb.

The dismal choice, in many summations, is now between mullahs with nukes, or an attack on Iran's nuclear installations, the fall-out from which could be even more dangerous.

There is no point in mincing words. An attack on Iran would backfire viciously. It would hoist oil prices to $100-plus a barrel; Iran's war games last month in the Straits of Hormuz and test-firing of missiles that could easily reach every oilfield in the Gulf were meant as a deadly reminder of that. Tehran's confidence, moreover, is not without foundation.

Iran's theocrats, after Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's election, are now political masters in their own house and floating on a sea of oil revenue. The US invasion of Iraq has expanded Shia influence in the Arab heartland for the first time in eight centuries. America is bogged down in Iraq and militarily stretched, while Tehran can use its network of allies and proxies, not just in Iraq but across the Levant and the Gulf, to retaliate, internationally as well as regionally. Current western policy means that the Iranian regime is not easy to isolate, at home or abroad.

Confrontation suits the mullahs, despised by many Iranians for their venality as well as theocratic zeal. Bellicose western rhetoric has made nuclear power a totem around which to rally the nation, like the nationalisation of oil that prompted the Anglo-American coup against the nationalist Mossadegh government in 1953.

Mr Ahmadi-Nejad made this telling link in his letter to President George W. Bush last week. Idiomatically strange to western ears, this letter touches on issues such as Palestine and the right to technology that resonate in the Islamic and developing world.

Internationally, competition for Iran's energy supplies further undermines a united response, but the false dichotomy between military action or sanctions is also fracturing a brittle big power consensus. With the Iraqi precedent in mind, Russia and China suspect the US wants a tough United Nations Security Council resolution as a prelude to war. That, plus the biting criticism of Russia by Dick Cheney, vice-president, sunk any possibility of an agreed resolution in New York last week. But that failure also led to Washington backing a renewed European effort to offer Iran incentives in return for full nuclear cooperation and transparency - a ray of light in the gloom.

The opportunity now exists to turn the tables on Tehran: to put forward an offer that recognises that Iranians have legitimate security concerns while acknowledging that others have so too. Thus a realistic threat that Iran faces isolation in the world should be accompanied by a serious offer to negotiate.

Iran would have to halt uranium enrichment and stop work on its heavy water reactor, as well as fully account for past and current nuclear activity. The US would have to complement European trade and investment carrots with security guarantees (including not to invade) and by facilitating regional security arrangements. This is an opportunity that must be seized.

An attack on Iran would proliferate further the lethal hybrid of Islamism and nationalism incubated by the invasion of Iraq, fusing an irreducible identity into an undeterrable ideology. That would be a catastrophe.

And here's Ralph Peters (yeah, I know, we've had our differences) advocating we talk with Iran. It's not just hapless BD who has become a Geoffrey Dawson, as Hugh writes...

Indeed, there are subtle signs the Administration might be moving in the direction B.D. is advocating:

So far Bush's hard-line stance hasn't changed: no one-on-one talks, period. Instead, Washington is still subcontracting Iran diplomacy to Britain, France and Germany. But as the diplomatic impasse continues, and Pentagon officials voice misgivings about future military options, the administration's firm line may be wavering. The chief U.S. negotiator, Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, has indicated to colleagues that he is mainly waiting for the right moment, when America's leverage and its chances of success are maximized. "Whereas in recent months the U.S. response was 'It's impossible to do direct talks,' now the refusals from Washington are not so unequivocal," says a senior European envoy who works with Washington and wants to remain anonymous because of diplomatic sensitivities.

After finding itself isolated over Iraq, the United States aims to avoid further isolation in the standoff with Iran. The Bush administration is seeking to appease its own partners, especially German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has argued publicly that only Washington can break the impasse with Tehran. Bush may be feeling a bit chastened, too, by a new balkiness within his own military. The preparation and updating of U.S. target lists for Iran continues, but according to two officials who spoke anonymously because they are not authorized to brief the media, the Pentagon brass has told Bush that the military is pessimistic about the efficacy of airstrikes against Iranian sites. [emphasis added]

More soon.

Prediction: negotiations with Iran will fail even if the USA gets involved. And if they "suceed" watch for a North Korea situation where 10-20 years later you find out the incentives were simply taken and the bombs built in the 'new' facilities.

I cannot see how the Iranians think that the USA would not agree to a reasonable deal (see Nork deal, see Qaddafi) but that we need a confidence building measure first to see if we are dealing with serious players or not.

Or is the calculus really:

European incentives

I just don't buy it, sorry.

Posted by: Aaron at May 16, 2006 12:41 PM | Permalink to this comment

Prediction: negotiations with Iran will fail even if the USA gets involved. And if they "suceed" watch for a North Korea situation where 10-20 years later you find out the incentives were simply taken and the bombs built in the 'new' facilities.

I cannot see how the Iranians think that the USA would not agree to a reasonable deal (see Nork deal, see Qaddafi) but that we need a confidence building measure first to see if we are dealing with serious players or not.

Or is the calculus really:

European incentives

I just don't buy it, sorry.

Posted by: Aaron at May 16, 2006 12:42 PM | Permalink to this comment

I cannot see how the Iranians think that the USA would not agree to a reasonable deal (see Nork deal, see Qaddafi)

I can, actually. Its pretty reasonable for Iran to conclude that the US will just go back on any deal if necessary in the future and invade Iran. After all, they saw the widespread exaggeration and outright lies used to invade Iraq.

I don't think thats the only factor -- I believe the Iranians genuinely want nukes, but that factor should be considered.

Posted by: erg at May 16, 2006 02:10 PM | Permalink to this comment

If we bomb the mullahs, all the Middle Eastern Jacksonians, Jeffersonian, and Federalists will rise up and overthrow the Islamo-fascist tyrants.

Your liberalism prevents you from seeing their inevitable liberation by right-wing Westerners!

Posted by: NeoDude at May 16, 2006 04:52 PM | Permalink to this comment

BD, good catch that the Admin is leaning more towards wiggle room for engagement. I'd like to hope so, but I think it's purely tactical - see Russia, China, and the Security Council.

But hey, doubt and internal conflict may be enough. If Bush doesn't bomb Iran before November, he very unlikely to do it at all, barring a game-changing act of provocation by Iran.

I don't think talks are likely to lead us to the Promised Land and a general rapprochement, either. We shouldn't base our desire for talks on that thesis. I base mine on the theory that they create less bad effects than military action.

Posted by: glasnost at May 17, 2006 01:08 AM | Permalink to this comment