irredenta

In a recent column posted on Foreign Affairs’s website, former State Department policy adviser, Suzanne Maloney, offers the following assessment of the Obama administration’s sanctions on Iran’s financial and oil industries:

What needs to be addressed is the disturbing reality that the Obama administration’s approach offers no viable endgame for dealing with Iran’s current leadership. The impression that the sanctions are permanent — indeed, the new law does not specify any conditions that Tehran might satisfy in order to lift the siege on its central bank — conforms to Iranian hard-liners’ darkest delusions about Washington’s intentions. By embracing maximalist measures, the White House has come full circle, abandoning, along the way, its earlier optimistic efforts at engagement. In doing so, it has implicitly relinquished the prospect of negotiating with the Islamic regime: given the ayatollahs’ innate mistrust of the West, they cannot be nudged into a constructive negotiating process by measures that exacerbate their vulnerability.

American policy is now effectively predicated on achieving political change in Tehran. Such an outcome will likely prove even more ellusive than productive talks with the revolutionary regime — something the United States has sought for 33-years.

Leaving aside the logical incoherence of the first paragraph (so even though the ayatollahs “cannot be nudged into a constructive negotiation process” given their “innate mistrust of the West,” the Obama administration is still wrong to have abandoned negotiations after trying it for a fair amount of time? - Wait, what?), one really ought to marvel at the shocking ignorance displayed here of internal political dynamics inside Iran. Not only is Iran mired in an acute political crisis not seen since the founding of the Islamic Republic, it is also rapidly turning into a military dictatorship. The plain fact of the matter is that the regime is threatened by a crisis of legitimacy vis-a-vis not only the majority of the population, but also its hardline base of support. The latter is brought on by the intense level of factionalism among ultra-conservative groups more interested in exacting revenge on their once-upon-a-time feudal lords (metaphorically speaking, of course) and re-imagining the virtues of the republic. The upcoming parliamentary elections in the spring are sure to blow the lid off these now mostly polite disputes in a way that would make the regime even more susceptible to mass domestic revolt. 

Considering this climate, only an unqualified guarantee in the shape of a nuclear bomb can calm the nerves of the minority fat-cats at the very top. Khamenei and his acolytes are not under any illusions when it comes to what will ultimately deliver their survival, and so far as I can tell, nor is the Obama administration. I think Obama is rightly testing the shock absorbers of the regime, looking for cracks as they appear. Far from forcing himself into a corner as regards regime change, he seems quite aware of the fact that it is Khamenei & Co. who are the desperate ones looking for a way out of the dead-end alley they entered in 2009. Better to apprehend them now, while their compatriots wish the same, than dither and watch them take a whole nation hostage. 

The belligerent impulse of Iranian officials to keep up appearances (Naval maneuvers, blustery talk, etc.) notwithstanding, the sanctions have thus far been far more effective in reversing the advance of truly egregious, criminal enterprises of the Islamic Republic operating in every corner of the world than anything tried before. The main question going forward is for how much longer the regime is able to keep its base happy through propaganda and forced submission. With multiple nationwide elections on the horizon, we’re about to get a good sense.