In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack, US broadcasters showed images of reactions from around the world. In Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- allegedly our allies -- there was cheering in the streets that America had gotten its comeuppance. In Iran there was a candlelight memorial.
This is the paradox of our relationship with Iran. Exclusive of their leaders, Iranians are more like Americans than any other Muslim population. The majority of Iranians – 70% of them – are under 30 years of age, they are sympathetic to American values, and indeed would like them reflected in their own society. They distinguish between the people of America and the policies of the American government. It was the American people who were attacked and killed on 9/11.
Since the Shah fell from power 30 years ago, the US policy toward Iran has been to isolate it and discredit its leaders in the eyes of Iranian society. This hasn’t worked because several significant nations of the world ignore American sanctions, among them Russia, China, and some of Europe. Moreover, sanctions play into the hands of Iran’s leaders, giving them an excuse to blame the country’s economic woes on the US.
But more important, America’s isolation of Iran is precisely what the country’s governing elite wants. As I described in last week’s blog, the more isolated a country is, the more stable it tends to be. Cuba and North Korea are extreme examples of isolated stable societies. As countries become more open, which China is becoming, their people see how the rest of the world lives and realize that openness brings freedom and reforms because the government loses power to control behavior. This can lead to instability and civil unrest if the government doesn’t release its grip on power and allow more civil liberties and a representative form of government to emerge.
Iran’s young population wants openness, access to Western culture, and the opportunity to adapt Western ideals to their culture. Rather than make life more difficult for its citizens with sanctions, we should be doing the reverse in hopes of undermining Iran’s conservatives. Obama should have spoken out, for example, against the violent repression the mullahs unleashed on the Iranian demonstrators last year, letting the Green Movement know that Americans supported them in their struggle for freedom. Instead Obama punted, explaining his reluctance to “meddle” in the affairs of Iran because of what America did there more than a half-century ago.
When one of Iran’s most reliably independent pragmatists, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who at the time was the Iranian president, announced in 1995 that Iran had signed a $1 billion contract with Conoco to develop its offshore gas fields, the Clinton administration was caught off guard. It found itself in the embarrassing position of asking other nations to boycott Iran while it engaged in commercial arrangements.
Secretary of State Warren Christopher immediately attacked the Conoco deal and denounced any transaction that was “inconsistent with the containment policy that we have carried forward,” adding that it put money into "the evil hand of Iran." Since US oil firms are barred from buying Iranian crude oil, their foreign subsidiaries can be a channel to purchase crude and sell it abroad as was planned in this case. Because Christopher’s old law firm had represented Conoco in its multi-year negotiations with Iran, he was compelled to recuse himself from further involvement. Given Christopher’s objections, however, Clinton announced that he would issue an executive order prohibiting the deal, and Conoco was forced to pull out of it.
The Conoco transaction had been the first oil concession granted by Iran to a US firm since the revolution. It finally offered a break in 16 years of relentless anti-American policy in Iran. Rafsanjani’s representatives said the selection of an American company was not based on Conoco’s superior technology or its financial package, but rather it was a political decision, specifically intended to signal a desire to improve relations with Washington. Later, in an interview with an American reporter, Rafsanjani confirmed the motivation for the deal:
“We invited an American firm and entered into a deal ... this was a message to the United States, which was not correctly understood. We had a lot of difficulty in this country by inviting an American company to come here with such a project because of public opinion.”
On the surface, here was the first step by Iran to create a foundation of mutual interests with America on which further reconciliation could be built. The Clinton administration either did not or chose not to pick up on the strategic possibilities the Conoco deal offered, and Clinton surprised Iran by turning it down.
When Bush became president, members of his administration argued for easing or removing sanctions. A review of Iranian relations was conducted with the promise that Congress would be a partner in any sanction reform. It was believed that reengagement with Iran would strengthen the hand of the pragmatists in countering the influence of the conservatives. However, 9/11 closed the door on this and future initiatives for rapprochement.
Then in 2002 the Israelis intercepted an Iranian-backed boatload of weapons headed to Palestine militants. Some believe the scheme was set up by operatives of the mullahs in a way that it would be discovered and would provoke a response from the Bush administration. Whether or not this is true, it was nevertheless disastrous for the reformers. In his State of the Union message later that year, Bush used the term “axis of evil” for the first time and included Iran in it. Iran’s conservatives went on the attack, using Bush’s characterization of Iran as evidence that the reformers were being duped. Thus Bush gave the conservatives exactly the ammunition they needed to turn away from accommodation with the US.
The election of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 poisoned US-Iran relations even further. Unlike Rafsanjani and Khatami, the preceding two presidents, Ahmadinejad is firmly in the camp of the conservatives. He is unlikely to be open to any accommodation with the West as were Rafsanjani and Khatami. By denying the Holocaust and Israel’s right to exist as a country he is openly provocative. And he has emerged as the spokesman for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which resumed on his watch. Since his disputed presidential election in June 2009, Ahmadinejad has had to contend with grassroots disaffection with his administration, and on August 4, 2010 there was an attempt to assassinate him.
The development of nuclear energy is popular among the Iranian people. Surveys have variously shown it is supported by 80% to 90% of the population. The nuclear weapons program is less popular, but it is still supported by half of the population. However, the fact that Iran’s regional neighbors – Pakistan, India, and Israel – have nuclear weapons makes it likely that Iran will continue pressing forward to join them. Even regime change and replacement with leaders like Rafsanjani and Khatami would not likely cause the nuclear program and perhaps the weapons program to be suspended.
This poses a dilemma in managing our relationship with Iran. Unlike North Korea or Israel, both nuclear but stable countries for different reasons, Iran is not stable, making it a dangerous owner of nuclear weapons. Sooner or later there will be a showdown between the opposition and the ruling elites. When that happens, Iran will become destabilized for an unknown period and may descend into chaos until a successor government takes control. Nuclear materials and technology could go in every direction. There is no way that an outside agent, like the US, can make the showdown happen before the Iranian people want it to happen, but there are ways to avoid having nuclear weapons around during protracted instability.
Here are two options.
The Obama administration has been clear that a military strike is on the table if other means fail. Predictably, that would play into the hands of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad who would try to use it to silence the reformers and rally the people around the government, which may or may not be successful. An air strike, however, would have limited success. Even with “bunker buster” bombs, some facilities are safely deep under the ground and all of them are widely scattered in anticipation of an air attack. If we attack, a retaliatory response against Israel is possible, because Iran’s leaders would surely implicate Israel’s collusion. If some but not all of Iran’s nuclear facilities are destroyed, it is possible that Iran’s nuclear program would still be set back a number of years. It’s also possible that the opposition could succeed in convincing the Iranian people that their nuclear weapons program wasn’t worth risking another attack, particularly if the US could make a credible threat that it would destroy weapons-making capacity if it is rebuilt.
If Obama decides to attack, he would not act peremptorily, meaning that he would go to great lengths to get the UN behind him, and he would try to make it a multilateral effort, even though the US would do the heavy lifting. However, one need only reflect on Bush’s attempt to get the UN to authorize a strike against Iraq to understand how long it would take to get UN concurrence to attack Iran – if ever. The Europeans and the UK (now lacking Blair) would agree to the Iranian threat, drag their feet, advise patience, and opt for more sanctions. Unless Obama is willing to go it alone without allies, he would be stuck waiting for the UN to resume relevance.
Equally important would be the willingness of the American people to initiate a military action on yet a third front, tired as they are with the slow pace of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. And the acquiescence of the countries in the Persian Gulf region would also be needed for fly-over permission and staging support. After being bombed, Iran wouldn’t be a good neighbor for perhaps years, and we would need the support of the neighborhood before disturbing its peace.
The second option is similar to the first except that its goal would be to make the case for avoiding a military confrontation. A good poker face is needed to make this approach work. Obama would have to tell the Iranian leadership in the most compellingly credible terms that the US absolutely will not permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons and that it will attack without notice unless the weapons program is immediately, verifiably, and permanently terminated. Moreover, if an attack is launched its sole purpose would be to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, not to achieve regime change, and military hostilities would end when that objective was accomplished. However, if Iran retaliates against the US or any other country, the US will press the attack until Iran is no longer able to retaliate. In other words, military action will only escalate if Iran causes it to escalate. It is a conflict Iran cannot possibly win.
One hopes that sober minds would be reflected in Iran’s reaction. But the threat is only credible if the US is willing to see it through and launch an attack subject to these terms. Whoever blinks first loses.
This is the paradox of our relationship with Iran. Exclusive of their leaders, Iranians are more like Americans than any other Muslim population. The majority of Iranians – 70% of them – are under 30 years of age, they are sympathetic to American values, and indeed would like them reflected in their own society. They distinguish between the people of America and the policies of the American government. It was the American people who were attacked and killed on 9/11.
Since the Shah fell from power 30 years ago, the US policy toward Iran has been to isolate it and discredit its leaders in the eyes of Iranian society. This hasn’t worked because several significant nations of the world ignore American sanctions, among them Russia, China, and some of Europe. Moreover, sanctions play into the hands of Iran’s leaders, giving them an excuse to blame the country’s economic woes on the US.
But more important, America’s isolation of Iran is precisely what the country’s governing elite wants. As I described in last week’s blog, the more isolated a country is, the more stable it tends to be. Cuba and North Korea are extreme examples of isolated stable societies. As countries become more open, which China is becoming, their people see how the rest of the world lives and realize that openness brings freedom and reforms because the government loses power to control behavior. This can lead to instability and civil unrest if the government doesn’t release its grip on power and allow more civil liberties and a representative form of government to emerge.
Iran’s young population wants openness, access to Western culture, and the opportunity to adapt Western ideals to their culture. Rather than make life more difficult for its citizens with sanctions, we should be doing the reverse in hopes of undermining Iran’s conservatives. Obama should have spoken out, for example, against the violent repression the mullahs unleashed on the Iranian demonstrators last year, letting the Green Movement know that Americans supported them in their struggle for freedom. Instead Obama punted, explaining his reluctance to “meddle” in the affairs of Iran because of what America did there more than a half-century ago.
When one of Iran’s most reliably independent pragmatists, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who at the time was the Iranian president, announced in 1995 that Iran had signed a $1 billion contract with Conoco to develop its offshore gas fields, the Clinton administration was caught off guard. It found itself in the embarrassing position of asking other nations to boycott Iran while it engaged in commercial arrangements.
Secretary of State Warren Christopher immediately attacked the Conoco deal and denounced any transaction that was “inconsistent with the containment policy that we have carried forward,” adding that it put money into "the evil hand of Iran." Since US oil firms are barred from buying Iranian crude oil, their foreign subsidiaries can be a channel to purchase crude and sell it abroad as was planned in this case. Because Christopher’s old law firm had represented Conoco in its multi-year negotiations with Iran, he was compelled to recuse himself from further involvement. Given Christopher’s objections, however, Clinton announced that he would issue an executive order prohibiting the deal, and Conoco was forced to pull out of it.
The Conoco transaction had been the first oil concession granted by Iran to a US firm since the revolution. It finally offered a break in 16 years of relentless anti-American policy in Iran. Rafsanjani’s representatives said the selection of an American company was not based on Conoco’s superior technology or its financial package, but rather it was a political decision, specifically intended to signal a desire to improve relations with Washington. Later, in an interview with an American reporter, Rafsanjani confirmed the motivation for the deal:
“We invited an American firm and entered into a deal ... this was a message to the United States, which was not correctly understood. We had a lot of difficulty in this country by inviting an American company to come here with such a project because of public opinion.”
On the surface, here was the first step by Iran to create a foundation of mutual interests with America on which further reconciliation could be built. The Clinton administration either did not or chose not to pick up on the strategic possibilities the Conoco deal offered, and Clinton surprised Iran by turning it down.
When Bush became president, members of his administration argued for easing or removing sanctions. A review of Iranian relations was conducted with the promise that Congress would be a partner in any sanction reform. It was believed that reengagement with Iran would strengthen the hand of the pragmatists in countering the influence of the conservatives. However, 9/11 closed the door on this and future initiatives for rapprochement.
Then in 2002 the Israelis intercepted an Iranian-backed boatload of weapons headed to Palestine militants. Some believe the scheme was set up by operatives of the mullahs in a way that it would be discovered and would provoke a response from the Bush administration. Whether or not this is true, it was nevertheless disastrous for the reformers. In his State of the Union message later that year, Bush used the term “axis of evil” for the first time and included Iran in it. Iran’s conservatives went on the attack, using Bush’s characterization of Iran as evidence that the reformers were being duped. Thus Bush gave the conservatives exactly the ammunition they needed to turn away from accommodation with the US.
The election of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 poisoned US-Iran relations even further. Unlike Rafsanjani and Khatami, the preceding two presidents, Ahmadinejad is firmly in the camp of the conservatives. He is unlikely to be open to any accommodation with the West as were Rafsanjani and Khatami. By denying the Holocaust and Israel’s right to exist as a country he is openly provocative. And he has emerged as the spokesman for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which resumed on his watch. Since his disputed presidential election in June 2009, Ahmadinejad has had to contend with grassroots disaffection with his administration, and on August 4, 2010 there was an attempt to assassinate him.
The development of nuclear energy is popular among the Iranian people. Surveys have variously shown it is supported by 80% to 90% of the population. The nuclear weapons program is less popular, but it is still supported by half of the population. However, the fact that Iran’s regional neighbors – Pakistan, India, and Israel – have nuclear weapons makes it likely that Iran will continue pressing forward to join them. Even regime change and replacement with leaders like Rafsanjani and Khatami would not likely cause the nuclear program and perhaps the weapons program to be suspended.
This poses a dilemma in managing our relationship with Iran. Unlike North Korea or Israel, both nuclear but stable countries for different reasons, Iran is not stable, making it a dangerous owner of nuclear weapons. Sooner or later there will be a showdown between the opposition and the ruling elites. When that happens, Iran will become destabilized for an unknown period and may descend into chaos until a successor government takes control. Nuclear materials and technology could go in every direction. There is no way that an outside agent, like the US, can make the showdown happen before the Iranian people want it to happen, but there are ways to avoid having nuclear weapons around during protracted instability.
Here are two options.
The Obama administration has been clear that a military strike is on the table if other means fail. Predictably, that would play into the hands of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad who would try to use it to silence the reformers and rally the people around the government, which may or may not be successful. An air strike, however, would have limited success. Even with “bunker buster” bombs, some facilities are safely deep under the ground and all of them are widely scattered in anticipation of an air attack. If we attack, a retaliatory response against Israel is possible, because Iran’s leaders would surely implicate Israel’s collusion. If some but not all of Iran’s nuclear facilities are destroyed, it is possible that Iran’s nuclear program would still be set back a number of years. It’s also possible that the opposition could succeed in convincing the Iranian people that their nuclear weapons program wasn’t worth risking another attack, particularly if the US could make a credible threat that it would destroy weapons-making capacity if it is rebuilt.
If Obama decides to attack, he would not act peremptorily, meaning that he would go to great lengths to get the UN behind him, and he would try to make it a multilateral effort, even though the US would do the heavy lifting. However, one need only reflect on Bush’s attempt to get the UN to authorize a strike against Iraq to understand how long it would take to get UN concurrence to attack Iran – if ever. The Europeans and the UK (now lacking Blair) would agree to the Iranian threat, drag their feet, advise patience, and opt for more sanctions. Unless Obama is willing to go it alone without allies, he would be stuck waiting for the UN to resume relevance.
Equally important would be the willingness of the American people to initiate a military action on yet a third front, tired as they are with the slow pace of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. And the acquiescence of the countries in the Persian Gulf region would also be needed for fly-over permission and staging support. After being bombed, Iran wouldn’t be a good neighbor for perhaps years, and we would need the support of the neighborhood before disturbing its peace.
The second option is similar to the first except that its goal would be to make the case for avoiding a military confrontation. A good poker face is needed to make this approach work. Obama would have to tell the Iranian leadership in the most compellingly credible terms that the US absolutely will not permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons and that it will attack without notice unless the weapons program is immediately, verifiably, and permanently terminated. Moreover, if an attack is launched its sole purpose would be to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, not to achieve regime change, and military hostilities would end when that objective was accomplished. However, if Iran retaliates against the US or any other country, the US will press the attack until Iran is no longer able to retaliate. In other words, military action will only escalate if Iran causes it to escalate. It is a conflict Iran cannot possibly win.
One hopes that sober minds would be reflected in Iran’s reaction. But the threat is only credible if the US is willing to see it through and launch an attack subject to these terms. Whoever blinks first loses.
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