Posts tagged iran
Contain Israel, Compel Iran
From the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion, here is an opinion piece I’ve just written with Nina Tannenwald, a colleague (and former dissertation adviser) at Brown for CNN Opinion. Originally, we had much more on the internal politics in Iran and Israel, but op-ed page editors being who they are, they forced us to get rid of them! Oh well…
Moving forward, the challenge for the Obama administration is to manage Israeli misgivings about the utility of an aggressive diplomatic approach toward Iran while simultaneously offering Iran a face-saving exit out of its defiant posture.
Much like high-stakes diplomatic crises of previous eras involving nuclear weapons, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, averting war depends as much on decisions made in Tel Aviv and Tehran, as it does on the ingenuity of American policymakers. If President Obama plays his hand well, he may be able to succeed at containing Israel’s military threat and compelling Iran to back down on its nuclear program.
Iran, U.S. need a crisis exit ramp
At the link is my latest take on the crisis between the United States and Iran and what could be done to alleviate it. It is on the CNN Opinion page. It concludes:
U.S. policy has been one of pressure leading to negotiations. Iran has also pursued a dual-track policy of threats combined with offers of negotiation. These policies have resulted in the prospect of a war that would be disastrous to all. What we need right now is a crisis exit ramp. Perhaps this is the moment to explore the negotiating track that both sides say they prefer.
I tend to agree with almost anything Sick has to say on Iran, but this piece has left me puzzled. First, it amounts to yet another voice in the chorus that purports to be asking for “both sides” to step back from the precipice of conflict when it fact its prescriptions only concern the US. Now I’d be the last person to defend American foreign policy objectives, but surely the current standoff is largely do to the belligerence of the Islamic Republic for refusing to compromise on its enrichment activities. I’ve yet to read an honest, cogent argument taking to task the Iranian leadership for taking their country to the brink of war (just to ensure the survival of the regime). And this brings me to the second problem with this line of argument: whatever happened to understanding the domestic sources of foreign policy? As any good student of international politics would know, domestic politics play an important role in the foreign policy calculus of any state, especially autocratic ones that often find it convenient to combine national and self/regime interests together. At a time when the odious cabal in charge of Iran are literally raping and pillaging the human and natural resources of their country in the service of misbegotten interests, surely Iran watchers can muster the courage to step outside of their stereotypical roles and put forward a script more amenable to the interests of the Iranian people. Avoiding war is certainly the foremost objective; but it can be put with a hell of a lot more balance and sincerity than simply asking the US to back off.
Obama is Right on Iran (for now)
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.
“”The Obama team holds no illusions about Colonel Qaddafi’s long-term importance. Libya is a sideshow. Containing Iran’s power remains their central goal in the Middle East. Every decision — from Libya to Yemen to Bahrain to Syria — is being examined under the prism of how it will affect what was, until mid-January, the dominating calculus in the Obama administration’s regional strategy: how to slow Iran’s nuclear progress, and speed the arrival of opportunities for a successful uprising there.
In fact, the Iran debate makes every such chess move in the region more complicated. At the end of this era of upheaval, which the White House considers as sweeping as the changes that transformed Europe after the Berlin Wall fell, success or failure may well be judged by the question of whether Iran realizes its ambitions to become the region’s most powerful force.
“”There is no doubt that Egypt cannot go back to what it was under Mubarak, but the shape of the future system is very much dependent upon the presence of the youth, women, and the working people in articulating and pushing for their democratic demands in the public sphere. A crucial lesson from Iran for the progressive secular forces – the left, liberals, feminists, artists, and intellectuals – is not to sacrifice their secular democratic demands, and not to trust the army, the Islamists, or the traditional elite.
At a time when progressive forces are not prepared to provide an alternative or clear leadership, preventing the total collapse of the old regime may not necessarily be all negative, as it may provide time and space for progressive forces to get better organized. Yet again, another lesson from Iran is that in the post-revolutionary anarchy there is always the danger that the reactionary forces will use the religious beliefs of the masses to get the upper hand.
Egypt’s Masses-Induced Coup d’Etat | The Mark
A wonderfully sober-minded analysis and commentary by my former undergraduate professor and mentor, Saeed Rahnema. Many friends and colleagues have been asking me about well-informed sources on the region; well, you can do much worse than starting with Prof. Rahnema’s writings.
“ Somewhere, everywhere, Nowruz kept being itself, no matter where or when; as long as there was spring, there was Nowruz. Even as we changed more and more, to the point of being unknowable even to ourselves, it was the only thing that could anchor us to the old within the new, an idea that took me decades to wrap my head around.”
Ringing In the Persian New Year, 1390 - NYTimes.com
Happy Persian New Year, everyone! Best wishes in 1390 to Iranians (and non-Iranians) everyone.
Focus on Freedom: In Solidarity with Iranian Filmmaker Jafar Panahi
A great panel which I had the pleasure of participating on. the video of the panel will be available on the Watson Institute webpage soon.
gary's choices: Wikileaks, Iran and War
The latest Wikileaks information dump includes an enormous body of cable traffic dealing with the US and Iran. Most of it simply confirms what most people already believed:
(1) Israel constantly sounded the alarm that action had to be taken immediately if Iran was to be stopped in its nuclear…
List of statistically superlative countries
IranLargest pistachio producer, output of 230,000 tons
IranLargest saffron producer, 93.7% of world’s total production
IranLargest producer of berries
IranLargest producer of stone fruits
IranLargest producer of Berberis
IranHottest surface temperature ever recorded, 70.7 °C (159 °F) recorded at Dasht-e Lut
IranMost number of people killed in a blizzard, 4000 people died in 1972 Iran blizzard
IranHighest rate of brain drain in the world
IranHighest ratio of female to male school enrollment
IranLocation with the highest natural background radiation, annual dose of 260 mSv
IranMost number of major earthquakes, 5.5+ Richter Magnitude
IranMost accurate calendar in use, Iranian calendar
IranHighest annual prevalence of opiates use, 2.8% of population
IranLargest number of former national capitals, 31 former capital cities
IranWorld’s oldest country, Established ~3200 BC
IranHost to the world’s largest population of foreign refugees, Mostly Iraqi & Afghan refugees
IranLargest producer of Turquoise
IranWorld’s largest producer and exporter of handmade carpets
IranWorld’s fastest growth rate in science and technology, 1000% increase of science & technology output in nine years
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Who knew Iran held such interesting records!
Your find interesting superlative statistics about your country here.
The New Yorker: In a rare interview with a Western reporter in Iran, the President denied repressing the opposition. “Everyone is free,” he said.
The previous afternoon, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, Ahmadinejad’s senior media adviser and the director of IRNA, Iran’s official news agency, had called me to his office and politely suggested that I could be “more than just the President’s interviewer, but an instrument of peace.” I had it in my power, he said, to relay Iran’s “honest and good intentions to the United States.” When I raised the topic of Israel, he affected a mournful look. “Israel is unfortunately doomed,” he said. “I say this without any animosity but as a statement of fact. The rest of the world demands it, and the United States should separate itself, because it can gain nothing from this relationship except more trouble.” He smiled and added, “It is like a mother with a spoiled child, a child that is disobedient and which the mother does not discipline, but also a child which bothers the neighbors.”
When I suggested that a military confrontation might be a likelier prospect than peace, Javanfekr looked astonished. “You actually think that the United States, after everything—the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—can still attack Iran?” he said. “They don’t even know what’s going on inside their military command in Kabul”—an allusion to the scandal in which General Stanley McChrystal was removed from his command—“so how can they hope to know what’s happening here?”
As I left Javanfekr’s office, he gave me a letter to forward to Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary. In it, he mentioned my interview with President Ahmadinejad and suggested that the White House should “positively reciprocate” by granting an interview with Obama, the first with a U.S. President by an Iranian reporter.
Read this.
