The Iran End Goal

As we mentioned in The Short List last week, new talks are underway between Iran, the US, and a handful of other nations.  According to Matthew Fuhrmann, Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, it's time for a diplomatic offensive.  The concept of a diplomatic offensive is maybe just slightly more ethereal then the concept of diplomacy itself, but I think Mr. Fuhrmann hits on the right tone, though I disagree with some of his points.


Mr. Fuhrmann's argument is largely predicated on the idea that Iran is "reaching a critical juncture about its willingness to build nuclear weapons."  From there, Mr. Fuhrmann considers how far Iran is willing to go for a nuclear weapon and at what price.  Correctly, he says that Iran is not North Korea, and it unwilling to starve its populace to achieve nuclear weapons technology.  The rest of the argument hinges on the notion that Iran can be convinced to abandon its nuclear program.


He believes setbacks that Iran has faced, both those designed by sanctions and those precipitated by a recent economic decline in Iran gives the world more time and a chance to later the tone.  "[H]arsh rhetoric, gradually tighter sanctions, and covert actions will not solve the problem," according to Mr. Fuhrmann, "it will only buy time."  Given the goal of having Iran abandon its nuclear program, and given this moment when Iran might be more amenable to negotiations, Fuhrmann advocates for some minor economic concessions to Iran.  Give them a little more carrot then stick, so to speak.  He believes giving Iran some concessions could help the US and our allies regain some trust with Iran, provided, of course, we followed through on the concessions.  From there more good will could be established and diplomacy could take its course as we, limitedly, welcome Iran back to the international fold and Iran abandons its nuclear program.


I agree with Mr. Fuhrmann that the tone is off, that concessions need to be on the table, and that sanctions serve to only delay Iran.  However, where I disagree is the idea that Iran will give up its nuclear program.  Given the current government, the current governing bodies, and the current toxic levels of enmity between the US and Iran, I can see no reason to believe abandonment of the program is on the minds of Iran's decision makers.  I tend to think that the acquisition of nuclear weapon technology is as much a matter of national pride as it is self defense for Iran.  Given that i don't think Iran will abandon its nuclear program anytime soon, I fall short in offering legitimate ways forward.  Suffice to say, concessions aren't a bad thing and they have to be part of the discussion, but clearly the whole strategy has to be tethered to what our end goal is.

Negotiating with Iran

Our good friend, Reza Marashi, got published somewhere people actually read. His article with Trita Parsi on 5 tips to make the next round of US-Iran negotiations better then the last recently published in Foreign Policy magazine is an interesting and quick read.

While I defer to Reza on just about everything Iran, I have some thoughts to share (that's what the blog is for after all):

1. Tip #3 is the biggest tip of all in my opinion. There was a study put out by the RAND Corporation last year titled Mullahs, Guards, and Banyards. If you want to have the first clue about Iran power dynamics, it's a must read. It also really reinforces Tip #3. There are so many stakeholders in Iran. You could draw a Venn diagram, but in the end it would look like a bad acid trip with all the overlapping circles. I think it's important for the U.S. to remember that there are people in position of power in Iran interested in working with us and while we can't cater to them exclusively, it's an opportunity.

2. Could we get a corresponding article about what Iran can do to make the negotiations productive? That's like saying "Thank you for the apples, but how about some damn oranges!" but I had this nagging feeling reading the tips that the U.S. had to do X, Y, and Z and Iran did not. Thirty years of enmity will cause that kind of reaction.

3. Let's accept we were wrong to support the Shah the way we did. Let's maybe even apologize. Guys, as a nation we messed up in Iran. We messed up in a lot of nations during the Cold War, but the reaction in Iran was perhaps the most stark and the relationship sense likely the worst. It is not a sign of weakness to apologize. It's a sign of humanity and a dignified gesture (since we can't undo what happened) befitting a superpower. Our arrogance and own ignorance/denial of history make us look childish.

One final thought: It's all connected. The Islamic revolution of 1979, the overthrow (and subsequent hanging) of Bhutto by Zia al-Haq, the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and America's impotence in the entire region is all connected. We spent many decades messing about in the affairs of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and I don't think we could be considered a net positive. Negotiating with Iran, earnestly, patiently, and in anything resembling good faith could be the first step in trying to reverse the reviled perception of the U.S. in the region.

DeMint-ed

Republican roustabout and scattered election handicapper Sen. Jim DeMint made a bid for a new nom de guerre, that of Last of the Cold Warriors as the Senate took up consideration of the Obama administration’s “New Start” treaty with Russia. DeMint railed against the treaty claiming it limits America’s missile defense options (which is false), give Russia veto power over consideration of missile defense options (which is false), and “doesn’t render their weapons useless.” (which is true)

DeMint points to text in the preamble of the treaty, where at the behest of the Russians, it is stated the two countries “recogniz[e] the existence of the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms.” Sen. DeMint is concerned this will limit US options for missile defense later, and yet if we’re talking preambles, I haven’t heard of a Supreme Court decision being determined in the affirmative or in the negative by citing the preamble as a restrictive clause.

DeMint also makes note of a statement released by the Russians after the signing of the treaty indicating an objection to the US missile defense program and declaring it will withdraw if they feel the treaty is at odds with Russian national security. This strikes me a pretty boiler plate diplomatic maneuvering, but subtlety is not Sen. DeMint’s strong suit. He claims this gives Russia veto power over US missile defense options, which is frankly balderdash.

It’s also worth noting, both the language in the preamble and the accompanying unilateral statement were responses by the Russians to President Obama’s complete refusal to put binding language into the treaty that limited US missile defense options.

The oddest point of DeMint’s objection is his belief that our current missile defense program would not be capable of stopping, or even severely impeding a full scale Russian nuclear assault on the US. That is a true statement, but I am compelled to ask why we need to spend what could be trillions of dollars to put in an extensive system with a history of dubious results to combat a threat that essentially evaporated nearly 20 years ago?

Sen. DeMint didn’t answer that question, and why should he? He was the one doing the questioning on Tuesday, but it’s a question we should consider. It reflects dangerously outdated thinking. The entire military direction of the United States, at the behest of our military and civilian leadership is realigning to address the military concerns of a post-modern geopolitical system. I would ask that Sen. DeMint join them in a new way of thinking. Yet, that’s like asking a lot from a man who hasn’t had a new thought since the Cold War.

Iran, Warmongering, and the New York Times

Every now and again, the New York Times lends its editorial pages to an individual bent on bombing Iran. Last year, it allowed Benny Morris to publish a saber-rattling screed that argued for an immediate Israeli or American assault on Iran—thankfully, Benny Morris’s call was ignored.

Wednesday, the Times allowed Alan J. Kuperman to echo Morris’s call and urge bombing of Iran. Kuperman’s unpersuasive argument—that bombing would not undermine Iran’s opposition movement and that Iran’s response would either be negligible or deterrable—is based on a selective, inapt reading of history as well as a gross overstatement of Iran’s current activities and the United States ability to respond. Absurdly, Kuperman premises his argument on the (incorrect) notion that Iran has violated international law and then suggests, ultimately, that the United States take action that would clearly violate international law.

Kuperman suggests that bombing Iran would only temporarily retard Iran’s opposition movement. He finds authority for this proposition in the NATO bombing campaign in Serbia in 1999. He notes that NATO bombing temporarily bolstered Milosevic’s popularity but that within a short time, pro-democracy forces ousted Milosevic. But opposition movements are necessarily parochial—to claim that because, in the one instance of Serbia, external use of force only temporarily and weakly magnified the citizenry’s nationalism, that similar external use of force in the case of Iran will have a similarly weak effect is nonsensical. Kuperman has here indulged nothing more than a post hoc, ergo proctor hoc logical fallacy. Indeed, examples of attacks resulting in a rallying-around-the-flag effect abound: the United States following Pearl Harbor or September 11 are instructive.

Kuperman further tortures reason by arguing that the United States could attack Iran and suffer relatively little cost because of the size of the US air force. Kuperman believes that Iran would not retaliate for a strike against its nuclear facilities because Iranian retaliation would invite a wider bombing campaign. Given the large (and growing) deployment of American troops in countries neighboring Iran, and the ability of the Iranians to exert influence in each of those countries—to say nothing of Iranian cooperation vis-à-vis Afghanistan—Iranian retaliation for American bombing would appear to be guaranteed. The threat of additional American bombing is unlikely to serve as a deterrent for Iran because the amount of bombings required to make Iranian retaliation cost prohibitive is quite large. History has demonstrated that the threat of air assault on an entrenched regime does little to dissuade such a regime in its offensive actions; that only a lengthy, wide reaching bombing campaign, or a bombing campaign coupled with a ground assault puts an end to the offensive action—see, for example, the NATO bombing campaign in Serbia in 1999 or the air war in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Unlike either of those examples, bombing Iranian nuclear sites (and the wider bombing campaign Kuperman invites following the inevitable Iranian retaliation) does not have the benefit of either legality or moral force. Though not Security Council authorized, NATO bombing in Serbia was widely by the international community seen as a moral necessity to end Milosevic’s genocide in Kosovo. While an Osirak-like strike would likely receive mild public condemnation and private support, a wider bombing campaign would be vociferously condemned, reviled, and would only further undermine US public diplomacy goals in the developing world. It would also be illegal.

It is also no answer for Kuperman to assert that Iranian retaliation could be weathered because Iran already aids its proxies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Though Kuperman is correct, he conflates Iranian proxies with those forces actively engaged in combat with the United States. He also ignores that any materiel support Iran may give to these proxies could be ratcheted up and that the proxies who aren’t harrying US forces could be unleashed.

Finally, bombing Iran’s nuclear sites will not solve the problem. As Kuperman himself notes, there are likely nuclear sites US intelligence is unaware of, US bombing may not effectively reach many of the hardened Iranian sites, and destroying even those sites will not halt—it may at best delay—Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Unilaterally bombing Iran’s nuclear sites may not be the worst policy option available to US decision makers, but it is close.