The Race for Iran

The Obama Administration’s dysfunctional approach to dealing with Iran has many negative consequences for American foreign policy.  Those negative consequences are particularly acute for American interests in Afghanistan.  U.S. officials are beat a hasty retreat from President Obama’s ill-conceived dressing down of Afghan President Hamid Karzai during Obama’s March 28 stop in Kabul.  Obama’s trip to Afghanistan touched off another firestorm of commentary about President Hamid Karzai’s worthiness as America’s “partner”. 

But underlying Obama’s ineffective approach to Karzai—an approach tried previously and unsuccessfully by Vice President Biden and special envoy Richard Holbrooke—is a deeper strategic problem:  America’s war against Al-Qa’ida and the Taliban in Afghanistan was not, is not, and will never be Karzai’s war.  America’s only chance at success there is through a regional strategy for Afghanistan that would necessarily include an important role for Iran.

The United States went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 because Al-Qa’ida had used its sanctuary there to conceive and launch the 9/11 attacks.  America’s goals were to punish and, to the extent possible, destroy Al-Qa’ida and its supporters there, and—for some but not all principals in the George W. Bush Administration—to prevent Afghanistan from again serving as a base for launching mass casualty terrorist attacks against the United States.  Along with military action, both the George W. Bush Administration and the current Obama Administration have argued that achieving U.S. goals in Afghanistan requires a substantial effort at nation building there.

But Americans are hardly entitled to feel affronted when Karzai does not meet our expectations of him as our partner in Afghanistan—whether with regard to combating opium cultivation and trafficking, pursuing “good governance”, advancing women’s rights, or building a genuinely national Afghan army and national security apparatus.  None of those things is a high priority for Karzai.  Indeed, U.S. politicians and policymakers do not serve American interests when they not only indulge in public manifestations of dissatisfaction with Karzai over these issues, but let that disappointment actually shape U.S. policy.

Karzai was not selected by the United States and its international partners to serve as Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban president because he has any military background, management experience, or even significant government service.  (Karzai served briefly as deputy foreign minister in the Islamist Rabbani government, before the Taliban captured Kabul and proclaimed themselves the government of Afghanistan.)  Speaking from my own experience working on Afghan issues in the U.S. government during 2001-2003—first as political adviser to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and then at the White House as the National Security Council’s Director for Afghanistan, Iran and Gulf Affairs—I can testify that Karzai was chosen as Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban president for three basic reasons. 

First, the United States and its partners determined that it was useful to have an ethnic Pashtun occupy the presidency.  Otherwise, significant parts of the Pashtun population—the largest single ethnic group in Afghanistan, representing 42 percent of the country’s population, and the Taliban’s social base—might revolt against a new political structure.  As a non-Taliban Pashtun from an important tribe, Karzai met this criterion. 

Second, the new Afghan president needed to be able to serve as a focal point for national reconciliation, to be achieved through carefully negotiated power-sharing arrangements encompassing the range of Afghanistan’s ethnic, sectarian, and tribal groups.  Of the 30-odd ministers making up the post-Taliban government that emerged from the December 2001 Bonn conference, only one was selected because of plausible claims to technocratic expertise.  Rather, ministers—including those responsible for the military and security forces—were appointed because of their ability to pacify their ethnic, sectarian, and tribal groups and bring them into the process of political reconstitution. 

In this context, Karzai was selected as president because he was a prospectively conciliatory figure with assets that could be valuable for post-conflict stabilization.  Though Pashtun, he could work constructively with representatives of non-Pashtun groups, including some of Afghanistan’s most powerful warlords.  And, while he had supported the U.S. military campaign in 2001, he had not been an ardent Taliban foe.  (In fact, Karzai had initially supported the Taliban after they came to power in 1994, because he believed they might be able to ameliorate Afghanistan’s profound disorder and lawlessness.) 

Karzai got off to a reasonably good start during his first couple of years in office.  But, from his perspective, the first priority in Afghanistan must be stopping the fighting among ethnic, sectarian, and tribal groups that has plagued the country for decades.  For Karzai, this objective clearly trumps high priority items on America’s wish list for Afghanistan, such as “good governance” and “capacity building”.  Moreover, by 2003, Karzai had recognized that stopping Afghanistan’s ongoing civil war would only happen through power-sharing on a national scale—power-sharing that would have to include the Taliban to be effective.  This put Karzai even more profoundly at odds with Washington’s policy preferences.  At the same time, America’s military efforts in Afghanistan began prompting an increasingly severe local backlash against what was perceived as a never-ending U.S. occupation—for which Karzai was seen as the primary “lackey”—that has consistently generated unacceptably high civilian casualties.

Because of this impasse, neither Karzai nor Washington has been able to achieve much of what each most wants—and the Taliban have been able to reassert their influence and gain control over ever greater portions of territory.  From his first day in office, Karzai has never had control over any of his ministers, let alone over a single Afghan soldier, police officer, or government bureaucrat.  Nevertheless, both the George W. Bush Administration and the current Obama Administration have regularly succumbed to the temptation to dump on Karzai for failing to do things he sees as harmful to national reconciliation through power sharing, such as fighting the Taliban and pursuing “good governance”.  

Senior U.S. commanders acknowledge there is no purely military solution in Afghanistan.  President Obama has indicated that America’s military commitment there is not open-ended.  But, if the United States is to withdraw military forces from Afghanistan over the next several years, the Obama Administration needs to embrace precisely what Karzai can offer—national reconciliation through negotiated power-sharing arrangements—and set aside the delusion that Afghanistan can be “stabilized” through domestic transformation along Western lines.     

This would mean supporting Karzai in pursuing his most urgent challenge—bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table with other Afghan factions while keeping the most strongly anti-Taliban elements at the table, too.  That requires a serious diplomatic strategy to elicit the cooperation of Afghan factions’ most important external backers.  Washington should be supporting Karzai’s efforts to reach out to Saudi Arabia, which has longstanding ties to the Taliban, to enlist their help in incentivizing the Talban’s cooperation. 

But, Iran’s role is especially critical in defining and implementing a serious regional strategy for Afghanistan.  As I have testified from own experience in government service, Tehran provided essential support for standing up a post-Taliban government in 2001-2002.  If there is to be a stable political settlement in Afghanistan, Iran’s contributions will once again be indispensible.  Rather than criticizing Karzai for building a constructive relationship with Iran, Washington should be supporting his efforts to reach out to Tehran.  This is essential if Iran is to be persuaded to accept the Taliban’s inclusion in a political settlement, while, at the same time, using Afghan groups to which Iran has ties as a long-term check on the extent of the Taliban’s power and reach. 

Hamid Karzai remains a potentially valuable partner—but only if Washington pursues a realistic strategy in Afghanistan.   

–Hillary Mann Leverett

We have argued that the Obama Administration’s approach to Iran sanctions is, truly, a “dead end” policy and that the only way out of this dead end “is to get serious about nuclear diplomacy with Iran—first of all, by reaching agreement on a plan to refuel the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR)”.  Although the Administration continues to depict Iran as having rejected the possibility of working with the international community to refuel the TRR, this is not an accurate representation of reality. 

Since October 2009, the Islamic Republic has accepted “in principle” the idea of a “swap” deal for refueling the TRR—that is, a deal in which some part of Iran’s current stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) would be exchanged for new fuel assemblies for the TRR.  Iranian officials—including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki—have reiterated this position on numerous occasions over the past six months. 

That this remains Iran’s position on the TRR issue was confirmed yesterday in Washington by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, at a press conference at the Turkish Embassy (see Ben Katcher’s post) and at an invitation-only session at the Council on Foreign Relations.  At the Council, Davotuğlu was adamant in his insistence that a diplomatic solution to the current nuclear impasse is “still possible—on the TRR especially”.  Davutoğlu “has traveled to Iran five times since August and spoken for more than 14 hours with senior Iranian officials and politicians, including the Supreme Leader, in an effort to broker a compromise” on the issue.  Thus, he speaks with both deep knowledge about and a nuanced appreciation of Iranian negotiating positions.    

Davutoğlu recounts that, initially, the Iranians “were insisting on a simultaneous exchange in Iran, in installments”.  But, while distrust of Western intentions and good faith prompted Tehran to insist on a simultaneous exchange of LEU for finished fuel, Davutoğlu firmly attests to the genuineness of the Iranians’ commitment to a “swap” deal:  “If we had 116 kilograms [of finished fuel for the TRR] today, I assure you that tomorrow I will get you 1,200 [kilograms of LEU] from Iran”.  And, according to the Turkish Foreign Minister, the Iranians have over time become “more flexible” on the precise terms they would accept for a deal on refueling the TRR.  He declined, however, to provide particular details of the current Iranian position.      

Fortunately, some of those details were provided earlier this week in an extended interview with the head of the Islamic Republic’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi.  Indeed, Salehi provided powerful confirmation for all of the elements in Davutoğlu’s assessment of Iran’s posture regarding a TRR deal. 

With regard to the possibility of a “swap” deal, specifically, Salehi held that

“the only difference between us is that the swap has to be made in Iran.  And they say, ‘No, first you have to deliver your uranium to us, and then wait another one year to receive your 20 percent enriched uranium.’  But there is lack of confidence, unfortunately.” 

Salehi then elaborated on three important points. 

–First, Salehi stated explicitly that Iran’s continued willingness to move ahead with a “swap” deal includes a willingness to stop its current efforts to enrich uranium to the nearly 20 percent level required for TRR fuel.  In particular, he says that

“The mere fact that we’ve offered not to enrich uranium to 20 percent, this was a big message sent to the West.  But unfortunately they did not receive the message.  I remember in many interviews I said, ‘Please.  Please listen.  This is a big offer…We keep our promise of [only enriching up to] 5 percent, although it is our right to enrich to whatever level we want.  But we keep our promise to 5 percent.  And please enrich for us the 20 percent.’  But they didn’t.  They started putting conditions after conditions after conditions.  And then we had to start 20 percent enrichment.  And now I am saying we are ready if they—today—say ‘OK, we will supply you the fuel’, we will stop the 20 percent enrichment process.  What else do you want?”      

–Second, on the details of an arrangement to refuel the TRR, Salehi said that Iran would give up the amount of LEU equivalent to what it would receive in finished fuel for the TRR—and would give up the LEU in a single installment: 

“We will give it in one go…the 1,000 kilos of 3.5 percent enriched uranium, in return for the 100 kilos of 20 percent enriched uranium.  You can put that…under the custody of the [International Atomic Energy Agency] in Iran…That deal is on the table.” 

–Third, Salehi notes that it is not incumbent solely on Iran to “create trust”—that the United States “can create trust by making the fuel swap and then return to negotiations without any conditions, without any prior conditions on equal par.” 

So, the Obama Administration could have a deal on refueling the TRR whereby Iran would give at least 1,000 kilograms of its current stockpile of LEU to the IAEA.  The IAEA would have control of that LEU inside Iran—meaning that Iran would have no option to take that LEU back and put it through further enrichment unless Tehran were prepared to shred its relations with the IAEA and put the Islamic Republic in an extremely precarious international position—until finished fuel was provided for the TRR.  Why won’t the Obama Administration take this deal?  Why does the Administration persist in treating the so-called “ElBaradei” proposal for refueling the TRR as a “take it or leave it” proposition?  Can the Administration actually take “yes” for an answer on this issue? 

Beyond its treatment of the TRR issue, the Salehi interview is worth reading in its entirety, regarding nuclear matters as well as a range of other important issues.  Among other things, Salehi says about as clearly as one can that Iran is not seeking to make nuclear weapons: 

“We have indicated this…many times.  Not me—our President, our Supreme Leader.  It’s against our tenets.  It’s against our religion.”  When asked, if the policy changed and he was asked to begin working on weaponization, Salehi says bluntly, “Of course I wouldn’t accept it…Because this is against my religion.  And this is what my Supreme Leader has said.  The Supreme Leader is not only a political leader.  He is a religious leader as well.  How can he change his words so easily?”    

Additionally, Salehi’s words below should be read by all those who continue to circulate the false and completely ahistorical argument that the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy is irrevocably grounded in hostility to the United States.  Noting his years of graduate study at MIT and his regret that U.S.-Iranian relations are so poor, Salehi says,

“I have a lot of respect for the US…For the people of the US.  And I’ve always said this:  I do not consider the US as a country.  I think the US belongs to the whole human kind.  It’s a human heritage…I don’t think history will be able to produce another country like the US.  Because it’s a country that has served humanity so much, in terms of technology, in terms of science…Most of my professors were from the US.  Even my Bachelor’s degree is from the American University of Beirut.  Again I had a lot of US professors there.  I feel indebted to them.  This is part of my religion.  You know, whoever teaches you something, you are indebted to them for your life.  So my respect goes for the entire US people.  But you see this is different when it comes to the actions of their government.”   

There is something badly amiss if, by seriously engaging people like that, the United States cannot put its relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran on a more positive and productive trajectory. 

–Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

(Photo Credit: usembassylondon’s photostream)

This post also appears at The Washington Note.

As The Washington Note Publisher Steve Clemons noted on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night and in this post about a New America Foundation/American Strategy Program event tomorrow with Noble Laureate in Economics Thomas Schelling, the question of how to cope with Iran’s nuclear program requires a serious, non-dogmatic analysis of what the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran would likely be and how other states would likely respond.

One of the keys to any successful strategy toward Iran will be to garner the support of regional stakeholders. Turkey, which shares a border with Iran, enjoys friendly diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic, and has a seat at the United Nations Security Council, is undoubtedly one of the key players.

I had the privilege of attending a press conference yesterday at the Turkish Embassy in Washington with Turkey Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who is considered the chief architect of Ankara’s increasingly active, forward-leaning foreign policy posture. The Foreign Minister was in town along with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for President Obama’s 47-nation nuclear summit this week.

Not surprisingly, the session focused on the challenges posed both by Iran’s nuclear program and the American-led drive for sanctions.

Davutoglu’s position was very clear. Turkey respects the right of every nation to develop civilian nuclear energy (Turkey is cooperating with Russia on its own fledgling program). At the same time, Turkey opposes nuclear weapons anywhere and everywhere – especially in the volatile region of the Middle East. Therefore Turkey supports Iran’s right to a civilian nuclear program, but opposes any effort Iran may make to weaponize its program.

While steadfastly opposing an Iranian nuclear weapon, the foreign minister offered several reasons for Turkey’s reservations concerning the American-led drive for sanctions. He noted that Turkey opposes sanctions in principle because they lead to destabilization and increase the likelihood of conflict.

On Iran specifically, Turkey opposes sanctions for four main reasons.

First, Iran is Turkey’s second largest supplier of natural gas. Turkey is not blessed with sufficient energy resources to meet its needs and does not have the luxury to cut trade ties with one of its most significant energy partners.

Second, Davutoglu pointed out that the people of Turkey and Iran share a broad cultural and historical relationship. One-third of Iranians are Azeri Turks and Tehran is the second-largest Turkish-speaking city in the world. Turkey is hesitant to support sanctions which will inevitably harm ordinary Iranian people.

Third, Iranian cooperation is key to preventing crises in the region and resolving regional conflicts including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel-Palestine.

Fourth, Turkey suffered in a very visceral way from the U.S.-led sanctions on Iraq following the first Gulf War. Turkey’s impoverished Southeastern region suffered from the decline in cross-border trade with northern Iraq. This economic instability, in turn, contributed to increased violence between the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Turkish Army.

Instead of sanctions, Turkey supports more diplomacy. The foreign minister said that he continues to talk to the Iranians on a very regular basis and is encouraged by progress on the Iranian position with regard to the TRR “fuel-swap” proposal, though he refused to elaborate on that point.

Davutoglu also refused to comment on whether Turkey might support a sanctions resolution at the Security Council, noting that he could not comment until Turkey is presented with the details.

– Ben Katcher

NPR’s Corey Flintoff interviewed Flynt at length for a story he published today, “Will China Help Sanction Iran’s Nuke Program?”; he also linked to our piece on this subject from April 13.  Corey reports that, after President Obama’s bilateral meeting with Chinese President Hu, “White House national security aide Jeff Bader told reporters that the Chinese were ‘prepared to work with us’ and said the agreement was another sign of international unity against Iran.”  Taking a critical look at this statement, Corey cites Flynt that the Chinese, in fact,

“are following a familiar playbook:  although the Chinese have signed on to three previous sanctions resolutions, he says they have substantially delayed and weakened every one of them.  The reason, Leverett says, is that sanctions could interfere with China’s own substantial investments in Iran, as well as an important source of oil…Leverett says Chinese diplomats are adept at drawing out the negotiations over proposed sanctions and removing any provisions that might have teeth.  They have already expressed displeasure over a proposal to ban new investment in Iranian energy projects.” 

For perspectives more sympathetic to the Obama Administration’s pursuit of new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Corey brings in the Carnegie Endowment’s Karim Sadjadpour, an ardent supporter of the Green movement whose predictions about Iranian politics over the past year have proven consistently wrong, and Brookings’ Suzanne Maloney.  Defending the Administration’s approach, Karim says, “When countries like China and Russia are onboard, it prevents Iran from being able to frame this as a struggle between Islam and the West.”  Karim also argues that, once the United Nations Security Council passes a sanctions resolution, the United States and its European partners can impose “more economically consequential” sanctions on their own:  “In other words, UN sanctions are the starting point, not the finish line.”  Suzanne, for her part, argues that, while it may be true that negotiations with China will produce a less rigorous set of sanctions against Iran than if Washington were working only with European partners, “a resolution that has the support of the world’s major powers is more important than the question of whether the sanctions have economic bite.” 

While we are sure this was not the intention of either Karim or Suzanne, their remarks graphically underscore the utterly futile and ultimately counterproductive nature of the Obama Administration’s current policy course.  Three previous sanctions resolutions against Iran have been passed by virtually unanimous votes in the Security Council—and with the five permanent members, including Russia and China, voting in favor of all three resolutions.  (Russia and China voted for these resolutions after prolonged negotiations that went on much longer than the United States would have preferred, and after making sure that the texts which were ultimately adopted by the Council were heavily watered down from what the United States and its European partners had originally proposed.)  The impact of those resolutions on Iranian decision-making was, essentially, nil. 

Given this historical record, what is the basis for arguing that this time around, somehow, it will be different?  In fact, if the Obama Administration succeeds in securing the adoption of a new sanctions resolution in coming months, it will not only be vastly watered down from what the Administration and its European partners originally proposed—it will also be passed by a more divided Council than was the case with the three previous sanctions resolutions.  So what, exactly, is the point of this exercise? 

On this point, Corey again cites Flynt that the Obama Administration does not have a serious strategy for dealing with Iran any more than the George W. Bush Administration did, and that the Obama team’s pursuit of sanctions is effectively a way to kill time:

“[It’s a way] to show various constituencies, at home and abroad, including Israel, that you’re being tough on Iran”, while fending off pressure, at home and abroad, to pursue more coercive approaches—including military confrontation and/or the overt embrace of regime change as the objective of U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic, coupled with material support for Iranian oppositionists.

This is, truly, a “dead end” policy.  The way out, for the Obama Administration, is to get serious about nuclear diplomacy with Iran—first of all, by reaching agreement on plan for refueling the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR).  As both the head of the Islamic Republic’s Atomic Energy Organization and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu have indicated within the past 24 hours, a deal on refueling the TRR is eminently reachable.  We will take that up in greater detail in our next post.  

–Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

In a recent radio interview with “Voices of the Middle East” , Flynt makes an important point: the “Iranian exception” in the Nuclear Posture Review is very harmful to already badly damaged perceptions in Iran of America’s fundamental attitude toward the Islamic Republic. (The interview is roughly 20 minutes long; to go directly to Flynt’s contributions, fast forward five minutes into the podcast.)  

We have previously emphasized that the “Iranian exception” in the Nuclear Posture Review, from a purely strategic perspective, actually incentivizes Iran to move toward weaponization of its expanding nuclear capabilities.  However, a www.TheRaceForIran.com reader in Iran argued that the real issue regarding the “Iranian exception” in the Nuclear Posture Review is not the prospect of “any change in Iran’s policy regarding its nuclear program”, but rather

“that the Iranians see Obama and even the U.S. media in a different light than before.  To see a U.S. president threaten a nation with mass murder and then see that the U.S. and Western media is not outraged is a clear sign that Iran should never trust the U.S.” 

This is an extremely important point.  As Flynt notes in the radio interview, the Iranian exception in the Nuclear Posture Review will “feed into a growing perception in [Iran] that the Obama Administration is not really serious about improving American relations with the Islamic Republic.”  As we have written previously, official Iranian reaction to the Nuclear Posture Review is emphasizing the illegitimacy of an American threat to use nuclear weapons against the Islamic Republic.  This almost certainly reflects not simply a political calculation about how to “score” the most points against the United States in the court of international public opinion, but also genuine revulsion and outrage in Iranian society against a perceived nuclear threat to the Islamic Republic.  (Keep in mind that the Islamic Republic actually experienced the downing of a fully-loaded civilian airliner, Iran Air 655, by a U.S. Navy vessel in 1988 and was the target of WMD attacks by Iraq in the 1980s.)      

In this regard, we wanted to respond to an argument from our respected colleague, Greg Thielman.  We admire Greg very much—during the run up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he was one of the few stalwarts in the State Department who showed genuine integrity and courage in analyzing the intelligence on Iraqi WMD.   In a comment on www.TheRaceForIran.com , Greg agrees that “the nuclear threat against a non-nuclear Iran, implied by the [Nuclear Posture Review], is counterproductive”.  He notes that, at an on-the-record briefing at the Council on Foreign Relations last week, State Department senior nonproliferation adviser Robert Einhorn denied that the Nuclear Posture Review threatened the use of nuclear weapons against Iran, contending that “the U.S. makes an explicit pledge in the [Nuclear Posture Review] to NPT members in good standing and merely notes that some countries are not affected by this pledge”.  Greg then goes on to argue that

“there is nothing new to the U.S. nuclear threat against Iran.  At least three previous administrations have made explicit that the U.S. reserves the right to respond to CW or BW attacks with nuclear weapons.  George W. Bush’s inclusion of preventive war in his 2002 military doctrine implied that the U.S. would have been willing to use nuclear weapons against Iran even if Iran had not attacked anyone.  The 2010 [Nuclear Posture Review] is therefore accurate in claiming:  ‘this does not mean that our willingness to use nuclear weapons against countries not covered by the new assurance has in any way increased’.”    

Greg’s presentation is, in its own terms, completely correct.  But the “Iranian exception” in the Nuclear Posture Review is counterproductive, as Greg readily agrees it is, because of its impact on Iranian perceptions of U.S. credibility and U.S. intentions toward the Islamic Republic.  The Nuclear Posture Review is meant to show the world that the United States is reducing the role of nuclear weapons in its defense posture—except where Iran and perhaps one or two other countries are concerned.  In our view, the United States should not be threatening nuclear first use against anyone.  

–Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett