The Race for Iran

(Photo Credit: DoD photo by Cherie Cullen/Released)

During overlapping visits to Afghanistan today, Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates accused each others’ governments of playing “double games” in Afghanistan.

Rhetoric aside, the visits highlight the regional competition between the two countries as the United States continues to seek support for additional sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Gates is now in Saudi Arabia, where he is warning Iran that its nuclear ambitions are leading the United States and its Arab allies to build up their defenses and increase security cooperation. Gates’ comments echo arguments made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her tour of the region last month.

– Ben Katcher

(Photo Credit: State Department Photostream)

In an interview with the Associated Press, Brazil President President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva warned that further sanctions on Iran could lead to war in the Middle East and explicitly linked American threats of further sanctions to the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Lula’s statement comes one week after he rebuffed Secretary Clinton’s request for support for additional sanctions in the United Nations Security Council.

Brazil is not alone in its view. As the Leveretts discussed in a post last week, there is considerable opposition to sanctions among Council members.

It is interesting to note that the “rising powers” within the Council – China, Turkey, and Brazil – are all skeptical of additional sanctions and are likely to either water-down or oppose them.

– Ben Katcher

Last week, the Atlantic Council hosted a debate between Race for Iran Publisher and New America Foundation/Iran Initiative Director Flynt Leverett and Foundation for Defense of Democracies Freedom Scholar Michael Ledeen. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius moderated the debate.

As promised, the video of the debate is embedded above and can also be found here.

– Ben Katcher

Robert Dreyfuss, writing at The Nation, explains that unless the United States and Iran arrive at some sort of agreement, Iran is likely to continue to play a “spoiler” role in Iraq.

He quotes a senior Iraqi official visiting Washington as saying yesterday that:

The Iranians have ties with nearly all of the main factions in Iraq…The Iranians, because of their geopolitical position in the region, will have a strong role in Iraq. So the United States, and the international community, need to reach an understanding with Iran.

This statement probably does not come as a surprise to our readers, and unfortunately the Obama administration’s Deputy Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Colin Kahl’s response probably won’t either. Dreyfuss quotes him as responding that:

It’s debatable whether a U.S.-Iran agreement is possible. But I don’t think it’s necessary…I don’t think there’s any probability of Iraq calling under Iranian hegemony.

However, as Dreyfuss points out “the point is that even though Iran may not be able to achieve hegemonic control in Iraq, it can use its muscle — from covert support to violent militias to its widely acknowledged ties to many leading Iranian Shiite religious parties — to make sure that Iraq remains unstable, violent, and prone to sectarian conflicts.”

Kahl’s comments suggest that Obama’s “engagement-lite” strategy is failing in part because the administration has not internalized the fact that none of the United States’ higher-order strategic priorities in the region – including stabilizing Iraq – can be achieved without Iranian cooperation.

– Ben Katcher

Jay Solomon has an informative report in this morning’s Wall Street Journal that highlights the Obama administration’s difficulties generating support for further sanctions against Iran.

Specifically, the administration is concerned that China, Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon – all Security Council members – may either oppose or insist on watering down any sanctions that the United States proposes.

From Solomon’s piece:

Officials involved in the diplomacy fear that China’s stated opposition to tough new sanctions, if reinforced by other players, could weaken any U.N. penalties against Tehran. Though Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon hold temporary seats and can’t veto sanctions—unlike permanent council members including China—they could make it harder for the U.S. to get agreement by sustaining the opposition campaign.

Senior U.S. diplomats have intensified discussions in recent weeks with leaders in China, Turkey, Brazil and Lebanon in a bid to push a sanctions vote at the U.N. on Iran by next month. But on Wednesday, Brazilian officials publicly rebuffed the U.S. during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the capital, Brasilia. “It is not prudent to push Iran against a wall,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told reporters ahead of their meeting. Afterward, foreign minister Celso Amorim said sanctions “could be counterproductive.” Turkish and Lebanese officials have made similar comments in recent weeks.

Solomon’s report appears to support Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett’s analysis that “there is no way that the United Nations Security Council will approve anything approaching ‘very tough’ or ‘crippling’ sanctions on Iran.”

Solomon’s article can be read here.

– Ben Katcher

Stratfor’s George Friedman, recognizing that neither sanctions nor a military strike will produce enduring, strategically significant outcomes for the United States, considers whether there is a third option.

The diplomatic approach consists of creating a broad coalition prepared to impose what have been called crippling sanctions on Iran. Effective sanctions must be so painful that they compel the target to change its behavior. In Tehran’s case, this could only consist of blocking Iran’s imports of gasoline. Iran imports 35 percent of the gasoline it consumes. It is not clear that a gasoline embargo would be crippling, but it is the only embargo that might work. All other forms of sanctions against Iran would be mere gestures designed to give the impression that something is being done. The Chinese will not participate in any gasoline embargo…Since all other sanctions are gestures, the diplomatic approach is therefore unlikely to work.

The military option has its own risks. First, its success depends on the quality of intelligence on Iran’s nuclear facilities and on the degree of hardening of those targets. Second, it requires successful air attacks. Third, it requires battle damage assessments that tell the attacker whether the strike succeeded. Fourth, it requires follow-on raids to destroy facilities that remain functional. And fifth, attacks must do more than simply set back Iran’s program a few months or even years: If the risk of a nuclear Iran is great enough to justify the risks of war, the outcome must be decisive….

As long as the problem of Iran is defined in terms of its nuclear program, the United States is in an impossible place. Therefore, the Iranian problem must be redefined. One attempt at redefinition involves hope for an uprising against the current regime. We will not repeat our views on this in depth, but in short, we do not regard these demonstrations to be a serious threat to the regime. Tehran has handily crushed them, and even if they did succeed, we do not believe they would produce a regime any more accommodating toward the United States. The idea of waiting for a revolution is more useful as a justification for inaction — and accepting a nuclear Iran — than it is as a strategic alternative.

Friedman also posits that Iraq – not the nuclear issue – is the key strategic issue between the United States and Iran. I agree that Iran’s future role in Iraq is of immense importance to the United States, but would also add that Iran possesses the power to play a “spoiler” role in two other conflicts of immense importance to the United States: Israel-Palestine and Afghanistan.

Friedman’s key insight is that pushing Iran to give up a key instrument of leverage (its nuclear program) without any significant concessions on our part is simply not going to happen. We will not know whether “engagement” can work unless the United States recasts the nuclear issue as part of a broader set of strategic issues between the United States and Iran.

Friedman’s entire article can be read here.

– Ben Katcher

The Wonk Room’s Matt Duss takes down Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz’ op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, in which the two writers argue that the United States should lead an international campaign to impose gasoline sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Duss’ post can be read here.

– Ben Katcher

(Armymil’s photostream)

In a previous post on this blog, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett described what they identify as the increasingly polarized strategic environment in the Middle East. They explained that

On one side of this divide are those states willing to work in various forms of strategic partnership with the United States, with an implied acceptance of American hegemony over the region. This camp includes Israel, those Arab states that have made peace with Israel (Egypt and Jordan), and other so-called moderate Arab states (e.g., Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council).

On the other side of this divide are those Middle Eastern states and non-state actors that are unwilling to legitimize American (and, some in this camp would say, Israeli) hegemony over the region. The Islamic Republic of Iran has emerged in recent years as the de facto leader of this camp, which also includes Syria and prominent non-state actors such as HAMAS and Hizballah. Notwithstanding its close security ties to the United States, Qatar has also aligned itself with the “resistance” camp on some issues in recent years. And, notwithstanding Turkey’s longstanding membership in NATO and ongoing European “vocation”, the rise of the Justice Development Party and declining military involvement in Turkish politics have prompted an intensification of Ankara’s diplomatic engagement in the Middle East, in ways that give additional strategic options to various actors in the “resistance” camp.

While the “pro-American” camp retains considerable resources and influence, the “resistance” camp has made impressive strategic gains since the turn of the millennium—in no small part, because of the George W. Bush Administration’s strategically counterproductive approach to the region. Against this backdrop, the “pro-American” camp clearly hoped that President Obama would re-legitimate America’s leadership role in the Middle East and deal effectively with the region’s most pressing strategic challenges—with the Palestinian issue and Iran at the top of that list. But, as we have met with senior diplomats and officials from the “pro-American” camp in recent weeks, we have been struck by the accelerating pace at which our interlocutors’ concern about the direction of the Obama Administration’s Middle East policies is mounting. They are becoming increasingly dubious that President Obama will “deliver” in the Middle East—on Palestine, on Iran, in Afghanistan, and on other important regional issues.

The importance of this analysis has been laid bare by Secretary Clinton’s recent trip to the Middle East and the United States’ growing arms sales to its allies in the region.

In this context, I thought I’d share this “Strategic Comment” published by The Institute for International and Strategic Studies back in November.

The report documents the large arms purchases by the Gulf countries and notes that in 2008, UAE and Saudi Arabia spent more than any other developing countries on arms-transfer agreements, committing $9.7 billion and $8.7bn respectively. The report goes on to explain key trends in Middle Eastern arms purchases including the deployment of missile defense systems.

Here is what the report concludes:

The bases and weapons purchases illustrate the dichotomy of Gulf thinking regarding Iran. Some Gulf states fear that Iran, with its size and wealth, aspires to the status of regional superpower. Were Iran to have nuclear weapons – or a ‘break-out’ capacity that could quickly furnish it with weapons – rulers fear Tehran could dictate to them in military and economic matters. They do not want a nuclear Iran. At the same time, however, they are concerned about the possible consequences of a hard Western line against Iran, and especially of military action aimed at disabling its nuclear programme. They fear that Tehran’s response would be to lash out not at the West, but at the West’s friends in its neighbourhood. Hence their increased expenditure on defence, missile shields and foreign bases.

Confronting this dilemma by tightening their embrace of the West – and doing so openly – represents a gamble for the Gulf’s rulers: it is an implicit acknowledgment that however much they may spend on weapons, their security, ultimately, lies with outside powers. With the closure of American facilities in Saudi Arabia and, eventually, Iraq, and an accompanying scaling-down of operations in Kuwait, the trend is obviously towards a smaller overall US footprint in the region. This, however, must be balanced against the new wave of weapons sales, the French base in Abu Dhabi and the significant expansion of American naval facilities in Bahrain. When the dust settles there may well be fewer foreign troops in the Gulf than there were a decade ago, but with Iraq no longer a strategic threat to its neighbours this was to be expected. The remaining forces are very openly focused on Iran. It is too soon to say whether Iran, looking from across the water, sees a threat or a deterrent.

You can read the full “strategic comment” here.

– Ben Katcher

(Photo Credit: Defense Department Photostream)

CENTCOM Commander General David Petraeus stated on Meet the Press yesterday that the United States is now pursuing the “pressure track” as a means to halt Iran’s nuclear program.

It appears that the administration is banking on one of two things happening. Either increased sanctions will make life so difficult for the Islamic Republic that it will capitulate and somehow give up or alter its nuclear program in a way that is beneficial to Western interests, or the Islamic Republic will collapse and a new government will emerge that is more eager to deal with the United States.

Last Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor General Jim Jones made comments directly linking sanctions to regime change in Tehran – suggesting that they think the second scenario above is a likely outcome. But what if the regime, which has persisted for 30 years despite immense international pressure and war, survives?

Even if more sanctions compelled Iran agreed to concessions on the nuclear issue, the United States has other very important interests with regard to Iran. The only way to prevent Iran from continuing to play “spoiler” in other areas such as peace with Israel and stabilizing Iraq is to fundamentally reorient and improve U.S.-Iranian relations.

The question we should be asking is, “What if the Islamic Republic manages to survive and does not agree to major concessions with regard to its nuclear program?” Then “the pressure track” will have only served to exacerbate the mutual hostility between Washington and Tehran and we will be even further from the kind of strategic opening that is so important for American interests.

– Ben Katcher

I have pasted a copy of yesterday’s IAEA Board of Governors Report on Iran below.

IAEA Report Iran 18Feb2010

– Ben Katcher

The International Crisis Group published an “Update Briefing” yesterday on “The Iran Nuclear Issue: The View From Beijing.”

The report is an excellent summary of the strategic, political, and economic sources of China’s policy toward the Iranian nuclear issue.

Its conclusions are largely consistent with, “Moving (Slightly) Closer to Iran
China’s Shifting Calculus for Managing Its “Persian Gulf Dilemma,” a mongoraph written by Race for Iran Publishers Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, along with Georgia Tech University Professor of International Relations John Garver.

It should also be noted that the report sources substantially both from the monograph and from this blog.

Some notable highlights from the report:

General Zhang Zhaozhong of China’s National Defense University told the ICG that “the enrichment technology of Iran is very primitive…Iran does not have very large quantities of uranium ore… And it’s a very long process from processing nuclear materials to actually developing nuclear weapons. Iran does not have the required facilities, equipments, or technology.”

The ICG reports that “[Chinese] analysts also had no qualms suggesting that China does not mind the [Iranian nuclear] issue tying up U.S. resources and attention.” This calls to mind The Washington Note Publisher Steve Clemons’ conversation with the Deputy Director of the Policy Planning staff of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who told Clemons that “We are trying to figure out how to keep you Americans distracted in small Middle Eastern countries.”

The report refers to Iran’s “binding” strategy, by which Iran is attempting to “bind” China to its economy and hydrocarbon resources by inducing Chinese investment. The latest evidence of this is Sinopec’s deal with NIOC to provide $6.5 billion for the joint development of two refineries.

The ICG concludes that while economic factors are key to China’s relations with Iran and opposition to sanctions, containing U.S. influence in the Middle East and maintaining a balance of power in the region are also central goals of Chinese strategy.

The full report is absolutely worth a read and can be found here.

One is left with the conclusion that supporting “crippling sanctions” does not fit into China’s management of its “Persian Gulf Dilemma.”

– Ben Katcher

Stephen Kinzer, former New York Times reporter and author of an endearing book about Turkey called Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds, is spot on in his analysis of the Obama administration’s policy toward Iran.

In laying out the American approach to Iran, Clinton showed how little US foreign policy has changed since the last years of the Bush administration. President Bush famously explained that he would not negotiate with unfriendly regimes because he didn’t want to “reward bad behaviour”. He wanted states like Iran to change of their own accord, not as a result of negotiation but as a pre-condition for being allowed to negotiate….

A more promising approach would be to tell Iran what President Nixon told China 35 years ago: if you agree to consider all of our complaints, we will consider all of yours. Clinton has made clear that the US will make no such offer. Instead it clings to the decades-old American policy toward Iran: make demands of the regime, threaten it, pressure it, sanction it, seek to isolate it, and hope for some vaguely defined positive result.

Some of America’s most seasoned diplomats are eager for the chance to see what kind of a “grand bargain” they could strike with Iran. An ideal one would curb the nuclear programme, guarantee some measure of protection for brave Iranians who are being brutalised for defending democratic ideals, and give Iran security guarantees that might lure it out of its isolation and lay the groundwork for a new security architecture in the Middle East. Instead the US has fallen back on sabre-rattling. This pleases Israel, war hawks in Washington, so-called American allies like Saudi Arabia – and most of all, President Ahmadinejad and his reactionary comrades in Tehran. They thrive on confrontation, and are doing all they can to bait the US into attacking their country. It is a strategy as effective as it is dangerous.

Kinzer’s short article can be read here.

– Ben Katcher

We have pasted below the text of an analysis of Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to the Middle East by Rami Khouri for Beirut’s The Daily Star.

The link to Khouri’s column is here.

Why Chuckles Greet the Hillary Show
by Rami G. Khouri

BEIRUT — American secretaries of state have been coming to the Middle East to create all sorts of complex alliances against Iran for most of my happy adult life, and every time this show passes through our region I learn again the meaning of the phrase “lack of credibility.” Hillary Clinton is the latest to undertake this mission, and like her predecessors her comments often are difficult to take seriously.

We are told that her trip to the region has two main aims: strengthen Arab resolve to join the United States and others in imposing harsh new sanctions to stop Iran’s nuclear development program, and harness Arab support for resumed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. These important issues also represent two critical diplomatic arenas where the United States has both taken the lead and also achieved zero results. Either the actors involved — Arabs, Israelis, Iranians — are all chronically or even chromosomally dysfunctional (for which there is some evidence) or the United States is a particularly inept party to assume leadership in these endeavors.

The weakness in both cases, I suspect, has to do with the United States trying to define diplomatic outcomes that suit its own strategic objectives and political biases (especially pro-Israeli domestic sentiments in the US). So Washington pushes, pulls, cajoles and threatens all the players with various diplomatic instruments, except the one that will work most efficiently in both the Iranian and Arab-Israeli cases: serious negotiations with the principal parties, based on applying the letter of the law, and responding equally to the bottom-line rights, concerns and demands of all sides.

Two Clinton statements during her Gulf trip this week are particularly revealing of why the United States continues to fail in its missions in our region. The first was her expression of concern that Iran is turning into a military dictatorship: “We see that the Government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the parliament, is being supplanted, and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship.”

Half a century of American foreign policy flatly contradicts this sentiment (which is why Mrs. Clinton heard soft chuckles and a few muffled guffaws as she spoke). The United States has adored military dictatorships in the Arab world, especially states dominated by the shadowy world of intelligence services. This has become even more obvious since Sept. 11, 2001, when the US has intensified cooperation with intelligence services in the fight against Al-Qaeda and other terror groups.

Washington’s closest allies in the Middle East are military and police states where men with guns rule, and citizens are confined to shopping, buying cell phones, and watching soap operas on satellite television.

Countries like Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Libya, the entire Gulf region, and others are devoted first and foremost to maintaining domestic order and regime incumbency through efficient multiple security agencies, for which they earn the friendship and cooperation of the United States. When citizens in these and other countries agitate for more democratic and human rights, the US is peculiarly inactive and quiet.

If Iran is indeed becoming a military dictatorship, this probably qualifies it for American hugs and aid, rather than sanctions and threats.

Mrs. Clinton badly needs some more credible talking points than opposing military dictatorships. (Extra credit question for hard-core foreign policy analysts: Why is it that when Turkey slipped out of military rule into civilian democratic governance it became more critical of the United States and Israel?)

The second intriguing statement during her Gulf visit was about Iran’s neighbors having three options for dealing with the “threat” from Iran:
“They can just give in to the threat; or they can seek their own capabilities, including nuclear; or they ally themselves with a country like the United States that is willing to help defend them…I think the third is by far the preferable option.”

This sounds reasonable, but it is not an accurate description of the actual options the Arab Gulf states have. It is mostly a description of how American and Israeli strategic concerns and slightly hysterical biases are projected onto the Arab Gulf states’ worldviews. These Arab states in fact have a fourth option, which is to negotiate seriously a modus vivendi with Iran that removes the “threat” from their perceptions of Iran by affirming the core rights and strategic needs of both sides, thus removing mutual threat perceptions.

This is exactly the same option the United States used when it negotiated détente and the Helsinki accords with the Soviet Union for decades (and whose results ultimately caused the collapse of Communism). Why the United States does not use the same sensible approach to the perceived threat from Iran is hard to explain, other perhaps than two reasons: The United States would have to deal with Iran (and other defiant Middle Easterners) through negotiations rather than haughty neo-colonialism, and, Israel would have to submit to nuclear inspections and stop its aggressive behavior.

– Ben Katcher

The New York Times’ White House correspondent Helene Cooper appears to confirm Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett’s suspicion that the Obama administration is using “engagement” with Iran as a way to garner international support for tougher sanctions, rather than as a means to open negotiations on a comprehensive set of issues between the two countries.

Here is what Cooper says in her New York Times piece:

But Iran is where the administration is pinning most of its hopes about the perception of American engagement. At a news briefing on Thursday, the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, presented this latest metamorphosis of the administration’s thinking: that engagement is not necessarily about the two adversaries, but rather, about the worldview on America. The White House, he said, is trying to get Russia and China to join the United States, Britain, France and Germany — a group referred to in diplomatic circles as the P5+1, for the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany — in imposing harsher sanctions against Iran for its pursuit of a nuclear program. While it remains unclear whether the effort will succeed, Mr. Gibbs said Mr. Obama’s outreach to Iran had paved the way for a united Security Council resolution.

“We would not be here unified in the P5+1 were it not for engagement,” Mr. Gibbs said. “Because we engaged, it demonstrated to the world that the choices that Iran made were choices that it alone had to vouch for.”

That is a far cry from the argument Mr. Obama has made in the past about why American and Iranian leaders needed to talk. In his speech to the Muslim world from Cairo last June, Mr. Obama spoke of the need for both nations to overcome decades of mistrust.

“There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect,” he said. Mr. Obama even acknowledged that the role the United States played in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government in 1953 was a source of some of the tension, then added that “rather than remain trapped in the past, I’ve made it clear to Iran’s leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward.”

You can read Cooper’s full news analysis piece here.

– Ben Katcher

The National Journal Online is hosting a forum for national security analysts that asks “What Should Obama Do Next on Iran?”

The forum includes responses from Michael Brenner, Paul Pillar, Steven Metz, James Jay Carafano, Robert Baer, and Daniel Byman.

National Journal suggested that each contributor choose one of the four options below:

1. Continued gradual pressure from the U.N. Security Council, combined with other U.S.-led, non-U.N.-approved sanctions targeted narrowly at the Revolutionary Guards and hardliners associated with Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.
2. “Crippling” sanctions, to include a ban or even embargo on refined petroleum imports to Iran, as urged by the U.S. House and Senate and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
3. Full open and clandestine support for the opposition “green movement.”
4. Military strikes against Iran’s nuclear complex.

Sadly, engaging in comprehensive negotiations with the Islamic Republic is not even on the menu of options to be considered.

Only University of Pittsburgh Professor of International Affairs Michael Brenner endorsed a ‘grand bargain’ approach. He said

The only avenue that holds out any hope of reaching a modus vivendi with the current regime (and perhaps a successor – if there is one) is a comprehensive approach. That is to say, for the West to put on the table the elements of a grand bargain that may entail: lifting the economic and diplomatic embargo; and fashioning a place for Iran in a Gulf security arrangement. The Iranians, in turn, would have to put in play everything that concerns us. Anything short of that is shadow play, and a waste of energy.

The full forum can be read here.

– Ben Katcher

The Race for Iran Publisher Flynt Leverett and Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S. and the Twisted Path to Confrontation Author Barbara Slavin debated the state of the opposition movement in Iran, the latest on the Iranian nuclear issue, and Obama’s Iran policy.

Leverett criticized the Obama administration for failing to offer a comprehensive agenda that could provide a strategic opening to the Islamic Republic and for continuing Bush-era overt and covert efforts to destabilize the Islamic Republic – noting that President Nixon ordered the CIA to stand down covert operations in Tibet prior to his historic trip to China.

Slavin claimed that the two letters President Obama sent to the Supreme Leader constitute a serious offer of engagement, and questioned the comparison to Nixon’s opening to China. According to Slavin, China was prepared for an opening, while the Islamic Republic today is not.

The full video can be watched above or at this link.

– Ben Katcher

Flynt Leverett, appeared on PBS’ NEWSHOUR last night with Institute for Science and International Security President David Albright and University of California Riverside Professor Reza Aslan to discuss events in Iran yesterday – the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Republic – in the context of U.S. policy.

In the clip above, Leverett argues that the Islamic Republic is more stable than many western commentators have indicated.

He compares events since the June 11 elections to the revolution of 1978-79 that overthrew the Shah, noting that in the twelve months prior to that revolution, Iranian security forces gunned down tens of thousands of protesters. In contrast, slightly more than 100 people have been killed since last year’s June 11 elections.

Leverett’s bottom line is that support for the opposition in Iran should not get in the way of doing “serious strategic business with the Islamic Republic as it is and not as some might wish it to be.”

The 11 minute clip is available here.

– Ben Katcher

David Kenner over at Foreign Policy has compiled a list of political analysts who are advocating that the United States bomb Iran.

The list includes Middle East Forum Director Daniel Pipes, American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow John Bolton, Commentary Editor at Large Norman Podhoretz, Foreign Policy Institute Fellow Joshua Muravchik, U.S. Air Force Retired Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, and Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Max Boot.

It is striking that many of these analysts are the same folks who advocated “regime change” in Iraq. Despite the horrific consequences of America’s ongoing occupation of Iraq, these analysts are now advocating bombing Iran.

Kudos to David Kenner for putting together this important list. His full article is available here.

– Ben Katcher

(President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao reach out to shake hands after a press conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Nov. 17, 2009. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Amidst the bravado surrounding President Ahmadinejad’s announcement that Iran will start enriching uranium to 20 per cent purity, the Financial Times reported yesterday that China has passed the European Union as Iran’s largest trading partner.

According to the FT, China’s annual trade with Iran is more than $36.5 billion and consists primarily of swapping Chinese consumer goods and machinery for Iranian oil, gas, and petrochemicals. The article also noted that China now relies on Iran for 11 percent of its energy needs.

The finding is indicative of a broader trend: China’s growing willingness to work with the Islamic Republic, despite objections from the United States and Europe.

For a thorough analysis of Beijing’s strategic calculus with regard to balancing relations between Iran and the West, read Moving (Slightly) Closer to Iran: China’s Shifting Calculus For Managing Its Persian Gulf Dilemma, and outsanding monograph by John Garver, Flynt Leverett, and Hillary Mann Leverett.

Given China’s steadfast refusal to support meaningful sanctions on Iran, Washington is left to determine whether it can circumvent Beijing while crafting its Iran policy.

German Marshall Fund Transatlantic Fellow Andrew Small suggests that China’s intransigence on a variety of issues is leading American and European policymakers to reconsider their policies of strategic engagement toward China.

These ideas include

Threats of targeted measures that limit Chinese free-riding, such as stricter sanctions against Chinese companies dealing with Iran. Punishment for currency manipulation, and carbon tariffs.

A move from comprehensive to selective engagement and integration. Parts of the vast architecture of dialogues and summits may be dismantled. Right now, China is the one to cancel and postpone dialogues, and Western powers are the perpetual demanders. This can be stopped. The headlong rush to give a new seat to China at every table in every international process can also be slowed.

A move to a less Sino-centric engagement and integration policy. Rather than making a bilateral beeline for Beijing, more effort could be employed in coordinating China policy with other like-minded countries. The United States has plenty of room to deepen its cooperation with its treaty allies in Europe and Asia has considerable scope. But more diplomatic energy could be focused on other potential members of a progressive coalition — India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa. Expanded economic, technological, security, and trade advantages can be offered to those countries that are willing to act as system-strengtheners rather than spoilers.

More consciously competitive policies could be initiated in areas where disagreements on values are likely to persist, such as aid policy or dealing with rogue states. The West would focus less on reaching agreement with China and more on maneuvering around it.

Some of these ideas are good – particularly the notion of coordinating American and European China policies and engaging a broad range of global stakeholders on issues of strategic import – but a key aspect of coping with China’s rise will be to acknowledge that many policies will be ineffective without Chinese support.

A policy of isolation and coercive sanctions on the Islamic Republic is one of those policies. It is foolish to pretend otherwise.

– Ben Katcher

(President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates walk from the Oval Office to the Old Family Dining Room for a working lunch with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, May 18, 2009. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said this morning that “the only path that is left to us at this point, it seems to me, is that pressure track but it will require all of the international community to work together.”

However, it is quite clear that key members of the international community – specifically China and Russia – are not prepared to impose the kind of “crippling sanctions” Secretary of State Clinton has called for.

Given the reality of great power discord on this issue – and Gates’ own admission that a unified international position is required for sanctions to have a chance to work – it seems clear that the sanctions path will be self-defeating.

– Ben Katcher

This is a video of Panel 1, which featured WorldPublicOpinion.org Director Steven Kull and Washington Post Director of Polling Jon Cohen.

This is a video of Panel 2, which featured New America Foundation/Iran Initiative and Race for Iran Publisher Flynt Leverett, and authors Hooman Majd and Barbara Slavin.

The New America Foundation/Iran Initiative is hosting an event today to discuss what the Iranian public really thinks on key issues and the implications for US foreign policy.

Since the Iranian elections last June, there has been no shortage of commentary surrounding Iranian public opinion, but comparatively little evidence-based analysis.

WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) will present the findings of an in-depth analysis of twelve well-documented polls from three different sources addressing the central questions of whether the Iranian people perceive their government as illegitimate, how they voted in the June 12th election, and how the opposition views the US and Iran’s nuclear program.

This event will STREAM LIVE today from 12:15pm – 2:15pm simultaneously here at The Race for Iran and over at The Washington Note.

The full agenda is below.

Panel #1: Analysis of the Polling Data

Steven Kull
Director
WorldPublicOpinion.org

Jon Cohen
Director of Polling
Washington Post

Panel #2: Implications for U.S. Policy

Flynt Leverett
Director, Iran Initiative, New America Foundation
Publisher, The Race For Iran

Hooman Majd
Author, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ

Barbara Slavin
Author, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation

moderator
Steve Clemons
Director, American Strategy Program
New America Foundation
Publisher, The Washington Note

– Ben Katcher

(US President Barack Obama chairing a historic session of the United Nations Security Council on 24 September 2009)

This is a guest note by Steve Clemons, director of the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program. This post originally appeared on The Washington Note, of which Steve is the publisher.

There is a giddiness that has taken hold in some foreign policy circles in Washington that the Obama administration is showing more courage all of a sudden and is finally breaking away from its courtship of China and is flirting with unilateral paths to ratcheting up pressure on Iran.

This new trend is evident in pushing forward a large arms sale package to Taiwan, in a planned Obama meeting the Dalai Lama, and in Hillary Clinton publicly chastising China’s minimalist participation in global efforts to redirect Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.

Read the full post »

Ömer Taşpınar, a Fellow at the Brookings Institution and one of Washington’s leading experts on Turkey, is concerned that the United States’ increasingly hostile policies toward Iran do not bode well for Turkish-American relations.

Taspinar dismisses the notion that Turkey is interested in joining with the Arab states to “contain” Iran and prevent a so-called “Shiite Crescent” from emerging across Iran and Iraq.

While Turkey does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, it is much more concerned about possible U.S. intervention in the region, the economic economic consequences of further sanctions and the escalation of diplomatic tensions, all of which Turkey views as destabilizing.

The economic factor should not be overlooked. According to Taspinar

Iran is already an irritant and potential source of crisis in Turkish-American relations. Ankara has significant economic ties and energy contracts with Tehran. The total trade volume between the two countries is $10 billion and expected to double in the next three years — given Turkey’s growing need for natural gas and willingness to lessen its dependence on Russia. As a result, Turkey will resist Western efforts to tighten economic sanctions against Tehran.

– Ben Katcher

Tony Karon, writing in The National, makes a compelling case for why the United States should attempt to strike a deal with the Islamic Republic, rather than wait indefinitely for regime change.

Karon recognizes that support for Iran’s opposition is due to the fact that almost no one believes sanctions will work. Sanctions won’t work, we can’t invade (see: Iraq), a deal with a ‘rogue” regime like Iran is impossible, therefore we must hope and pray that the regime falls and the new Iranian leadership – whomever they are – will want to give away their nuclear program, which just happens to be among their strongest bargaining chips. So the thinking appears to go.

On sanctions, Karon writes that

The striking thing about those sanctions is how little confidence anybody has that they will change Iran’s behaviour. Not surprising, then, that “regime change” is seeing a revival – not via a US invasion, but through the “green” opposition movement that has kept the regime off balance since the June election.

Karon also makes a strong argument for why a new Iranian revolution is unlikely.

The lifeline for those in Washington struggling to close down Iran’s nuclear programme, however, is decidedly “green”. The effectiveness of sanctions and ultimatum-diplomacy won’t matter much if the regime is brought down, goes the argument. So, why bet on doing deals with a regime that’s on the ropes?

Well, for one thing, it’s wishful thinking to imagine that Iran’s regime is about to be swept aside by the masses taking to the streets. A regime collapses only when it has become so isolated that its soldiers and police find themselves deployed against their next-door neighbours. In Iran, the regime and its security forces can still count on support from millions of people. Betting on a successful insurrection in Iran right now is just plain daft. And the leadership of the opposition movement appears to have other ideas.

The question for U.S. policymakers and analysts should not be whether “regime change” is desirable, but whether it is a likely outcome given the relevant facts and historical evidence.

Folks like Robert Kagan and Richard Haass who claim that Iran is on the precipice of revolution – if only the United States would lend a hand – have a responsibility to provide evidence to support their claims.

– Ben Katcher

Politico’s Laura Rozen reports that Japan is trying to work out a uranium enrichment agreement that is amenable to both the United States and Iran. Japan is a logical choice to help broker a deal because it enjoys friendly relations with both sides.

According to Rozen

Under the alleged compromise fuel swap deal that Japanese diplomats quietly briefed U.S. officials on earlier this month, some 70% of Iran’s low enriched uranium stockpile would be moved to Japan, according to what one Washington source, speaking anonymously, was told by the Japanese. Japan would then take responsibility for the stockpile, and ensure the delivery to Iran of fuel rods for nuclear medical use.

Japanese diplomats were said to consult several U.S. officials of the possible plan in Washington around January 15th, including a deputy to undersecretary of state Bill Burns, who was headed to New York for a January 16th meeting of the P5+1 group on Iran. The deal was described as having met a key western demand that Iran was previously said to reject: that 70% of Iran’s LEU stockpile would be moved out of the country in one batch. U.S. officials did not provide comment for the article.

It is good to hear that the Obama administration has not completely given up on diplomacy, but then we learn that a U.S. goal is to get Japan to support additional sanctions, which appear to be becoming inevitable. According to Rozen

Getting at least one of the leading Asian powers, China or Japan, on board the international sanctions push was described as a key goal of the Obama administration to help legitimate any further economic sanctions and to make them more effective, a Washington Asia expert said. But Japan’s support for such measures is not yet a sure thing, and the Obama administration would see failure to get both China and Japan on board any further Iran sanctions push as a disaster, the Japan expert said.

Sanctions are unlikely to work with or without Japanese support, but a constructive Japanese role in the uranium enrichment negotiations could help alleviate some of the recent pressure on the U.S.-Japan alliance.

– Ben Katcher

Iran and Brazil are discussing a joint project to develop ethanol in Iran, according to the Fars News Agency.

The announcement is the latest sign of growing ties between Brazil and the Islamic Republic. As Nader Mousavizadeh noted in Newsweek, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stood beside President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a recent state visit and declared bluntly: “We don’t have the right to think other people should think like us.”

– Ben Katcher

The New York Times‘ Editorial Board fell into lock-step with the Obama administration yesterday, calling for the United States to impose additional sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I have so many disagreements with this article that it is difficult to know where to start, but here are three objections to their analysis.

1. The Board says, “We were glad to see Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly warn China, which seems especially intractable, that it faces diplomatic isolation if it fails to back new sanctions.”

Does anyone seriously think that China is concerned about being “diplomatically isolated” if it refuses to go along with sanctions? It is hard to imagine what “diplomatic isolation” even means in a world in which China owns nearly one trillion dollars worth of U.S. treasuries.

Besides, Clinton is making a curious argument. She is, in effect, saying that China’s energy security requires that it join the United States in imposing additional sanctions. Not surprisingly, China seems to have concluded that, in fact, its interests are better served by preserving cooperative relations and increasing its energy agreements with the Islamic Republic, a country with enormous oil and natural gas reserves.

See this post by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett for more on China’s interests in Iran and its management of its “Persian Gulf dilemma.”

The Board also says that while additional sanctions must be pursued, “the door must remain open to negotiations.” But going down the sanctions path and engaging in good-faith diplomacy are mutually exclusive. It is wrongheaded to think that the Islamic Republic will negotiate with a country that is actively seeking to choke its economy. The idea that Iran might respond to sanctions by begging the United States to negotiate on the nuclear issue is pure fantasy.

Finally, the Times says near the end of its piece that “President Obama needs to speak out more strongly on behalf of Iranians who are peacefully seeking change. But the United States and its partners also must be very conscious of the fierce pride and independence of the Iranian people. Squaring that circle will be extremely hard, but it must be done.”

The problem with this statement is that negotiations cannot succeed if the Islamic Republic perceives that the United States is actively supporting its domestic opposition. It is wishful thinking to think that we can have it both ways.

– Ben Katcher

Secretary of State Clinton, speaking in Paris, warned China today that it risks diplomatic isolation and disruption to its energy supplies unless it helps keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Clinton’s remarks are part of a broader pattern according to which she and other American officials respond to China’s refusal to agree to further sanctions by lecturing China about what its interests are.

Given the relative successes of the two countries’ recent foreign policies in the Middle East, it is no wonder that China does not appear to be listening.

China understands very well its interest in facilitating positive relations with Iran and the risks that supporting a U.S. policy of confrontation may pose.

For a comprehensive study of China’s relations with Iran, consult Moving (Slightly) Closer to Iran: China’s Shifting Strategic Calculus for Managing Its Persian Gulf Dilemma, a monograph co-authored by John Garver, Flynt Leverett, and Hillary Mann Leverett this past Fall.

– Ben Katcher

Daniel Larison over at the American Conservative asks why Richard Haass thinks that repeating the mistakes of the past is a great idea.

Larison is referring to Haass’ article in Newsweek that calls for the Obama administration to adopt a policy of supporting regime change in Iran.

According to Larison

What Haass’ article reminds us is that predictions of major political upheaval in Iran are becoming very much like the consistently wrong string of warnings that Iran is just a few years away from a nuclear weapon. An Iranian bomb is always just over the horizon, and it has been just over the horizon for almost twenty years. It seems that the next Iranian revolution is also always just around the corner, and this always seems to be an excuse for delaying diplomatic engagement that ought to have started years ago. Obviously, opponents of meaningful engagement exploit prospects for internal political change Iran to kill off a policy option they reject anyway. That’s to be expected. What doesn’t make sense is why so many supporters of engagement have begun abandoning a policy that was scarcely tried and has been given no time to work.

Haass represents something no less frustrating than the hawks who exploit internal dissension to push hard-line policies. Haass is one of many advocates of engagement who have lost all confidence in a policy option that they endorsed when Iran was a brutal, authoritarian state with a thin veneer of quasi-democratic practices. Its internal repression and violence did not deter them then, because they concluded that there was little that could be done about this and it was not directly relevant to the most contentious security issues. Since the crackdown after June 12, Iran continues to be a brutal, authoritarian state, but now it no longer wears that thin veneer, and all of a sudden some supporters of engagement cannot call for regime change quickly enough.

Fundamental Iranian state interests have not changed in the last seven months, nor has the compelling logic of engagement with Tehran become any less so. In 2008, the bankruptcy of demonizing and isolating Iran was obvious, and it was associated with a deeply unpopular administration, and so for a time it became unfashionable. For all of six months, engagement was trendy when Obama was widely liked and the policy involved sending Nowruz messages and doing nothing meaningful. It has taken much less time for pro-Green advocacy to displace engagement as the preferred fashion. Incredibly, the impulse to isolate Iran has regained much of its former strength despite its record of abject failure. Politically, pro-Green sympathizers are making it much easier for hawks to advance measures designed to isolate and punish Iran, because they are resisting the one alternative course of action that will avoid the imposition of more sanctions or military action. Sanctions will, of course, mainly harm the Green movement and do nothing to change regime behavior, and scrapping engagement will ensure that Washington continues to have zero influence over what Tehran does inside or outside of the country.

Larison’s entire post can be read here.

– Ben Katcher

The United States Senate passed legislation yesterday that would let President Obama impose sanctions on Iran’s gasoline suppliers and other sectors of its economy.

The notion appears to be that these new sanctions might compel the Islamic Republic to capitulate and give up its nuclear program.

Readers of this blog know that I believe the historical evidence suggests this is a fanciful notion.

More soon.

– Ben Katcher