Obama’s 2010 Policy and Iran: Misconceptions Guarantee Failure (Guest Voice)
Obama’s 2010 Policy and Iran: Misconceptions Guarantee Failure
by Barry Rubin
A friend of mine is angry, saying I’m too tough on President Barack Obama and that nothing he does pleases me. Well, I wish he’d do more that pleases me, and disconcerts America’s enemies.
True, he has done three good things lately: his Nobel speech, which sounded like it was actually given by a U.S. president; his remarks on the demonstrations in Iran (better six months late than never), and his tough verbal stance about investigating the mistakes that led to the near disaster (though I worry they’re less about dramatic change and more just a show to reassure the public that something will be done). I also pointed out that the administration’s relationship with Israel was pretty good overall.
Yet on the single most important Middle East issue, Iran’s nuclear program and its aggressive ambitions, hints about his policy are getting worrisome both because of what this administration isn’t doing and what it’s obviously thinking. The year has now ended with no major public move toward imposing serious sanctions. True, there are a few statements you can dig out indicating a turn in that direction. Yet what should have happened was a major public speech by December 31 about the administration’s sanction plans. After all, it set that date as a deadline for action ten months ago yet let it pass with no visible action.
There are other bad signs that the administration still doesn’t comprehend the problems it faces. The likely sending of Senator John Kerry to Tehran is a terrible idea. It signals to the Tehran regime U.S. desperation to make a deal and chooses a highly unqualified envoy with too big an incentive to get some hint of agreement at any price.
Of even more concern is the strategy revealed by officials in interviews with the Washington Post: that the sanctions are focused “against discrete elements of the Iranian government, including those involved in the deadly crackdown on Iranian protesters….” In other words, they’ll put sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its front companies.
“We have never been attracted to the idea of trying to get the whole world to cordon off their economy,” a senior U.S. official told the Washington Post, adding, “We have to be deft at this, because it matters how the Iranian people interpret their isolation–whether they fault the regime or are fooled into thinking we are to blame.”
In other words, Obama Administration sanctions on Iran (if they ever arrive) will have three functions. First, as a public relations’ campaign “to avoid alienating the Iranian public” while striking at their rulers. Second, to “force the Tehran government to the negotiating table, rather than to punish it” for being an oppressive dictatorship or for seeking nuclear weapons. Third, it will supposedly bring the most fanatical group of rulers to their knees by attacking their pocketbooks.
It would be hard to device a worse strategy, other than doing nothing at all. The U.S. government thus signals the Iranian regime in advance that it won’t go too far because it wants to avoid making the regime too angry to negotiate. In addition, the strategy encourages Iran’s rulers to manipulate American eagerness for talks in order to stall for time. Then, too, it makes clear that there won’t be a serious effort to undermine the country’s economy. So why should Iranians pressure the regime to change course due to sanctions since it isn’t costing them anything?
Finally, the strategy “hits” the current rulers in their least vulnerable spot. Once again we see the West’s absolutely classical mistake in dealing with revolutionary Islamism: the belief it is responsive to materialist punishments. What are the Revolutionary Guard and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the supreme guide going to say: Oh, my! The Americans are reducing my income! Unless I give up nuclear weapons I won’t be able to buy that new country house, that sports car I’ve been eyeing and the Paris original evening gown for my wife!
Sigh. No matter what sanctions the United States focuses on the Iranian elite that group will still have enough money from within the country to buy whatever it wants.
But there’s more. Ordinary people may not understand the uses of sanctions yet leaders of great nations should. Of course, the ideal is to use sanctions to force the target to change its policies. Just because sanctions don’t succeed in doing that, however, doesn’t mean they failed because there are other goals involved:
–Sanctions seek to weaken the target so that it might be more easily defeated or fall in future.
–Another purpose is to deny the enemy resources, making it less able to carry out its programs.
–Still another is to show one’s own allies a high degree of resolution in containing and countering a threat, thus encouraging their own defiance of the mutual foe.
–Sanctions seek to isolate and discredit the target, denying it allies and the help of others.
For example, sanctions against South Africa and the USSR failed to force directly any major policy shift yet by succeeding in the other categories they eventually contributed to the regime’s downfall
The administration is ignoring all these functions to focus merely on one-which will inevitably not work-of getting the Tehran regime to make a deal. But we know they won’t back down, which is precisely why the regime should be weakened and made to face a tougher challenge to succeed in getting nuclear weapons at a relatively low cost.
Then there’s the idea that sanctions will rally Iranians to believe that America is on their side because they won’t affect the lives of the masses.
Can the United States really determine what the Iranian people are going to think by such methods? If they support or believe the regime they will hate America no matter what it does. If they oppose the regime, they will blame it for Iran’s troubles any way and want a tougher policy against it, though they still might be anti-American despite these calibration efforts. Like the bumper sticker says: Never apologize. Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it any way.
In fact, the administration’s sanctions strategy could have the opposite effect. By being afraid of even non-violent confrontations, Washington would be showing Iranians the power of the regime, its ability to defy the United States which is either afraid or unable to fight back effectively. This could make more Iranians support the government.
Equally disconcerting is that the U.S. government continues to believe that much of the regime wants a deal in which it will give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, it’s just too divided and busy dealing with internal conflict to make a decision.
Whatever back-channel intelligence has been handed out-remember the 1996 scandal when the Iranian regime fooled the Reagan administration into thinking it was divided in order to get American missiles to use in the Iran-Iraq war?–this Iranian regime is not split between moderates and radicals. How has the United States scared regime elements to the point they want to make a big concession? Does any Iranian politician still in power believe he can give up on the nuclear campaign and still stay in office given the views of that country’s supreme guide and president?
Two other fantasies on the administration’s part add to the mess. One is the idea that the engagement effort has somehow undermined the regime because it is so attractive to some leaders and the masses. An official told the Post that the effort to engage “has had an unsettling effect on people in the regime. It has made it more difficult to demonize the United States and say it has been the root of all evil.” This is a fantasy.
In addition, the administration is still pretending that its strategy of engagement has won over Russia and China for tougher sanctions, despite the constant statements from these two countries that they aren’t interested.
One “clever” technique was Obama telling the Chinese that they should support tough sanctions since if Iran did get nuclear weapons Israel would then attack and China’s own energy supply would be jeopardized. The Chinese opposition to sanctions runs deep: fear of antagonizing Iran, of jeopardizing their energy supplies right now, and of setting a precedent that might someday be used against itself.
When the U.S. government so clearly misunderstands the situation and how countries interact with it, the odds of Washington’s policy being effective are zero. If you want a guarantee that there will be lots of violence and defeats for U.S. interests, follow the Obama Administration’s strategy.
Here’s what needs to be done: show the revolutionaries that the West is courageous, that they cannot win, isolated them and deny them of every possible asset. The United States should not attack Iran, except with words, aid to its own allies and the opposition, and sanctions that weaken the regime. If you want an alternative to war this is the one to pursue.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org. This is cross posted from that site.
12 Responses to “Obama’s 2010 Policy and Iran: Misconceptions Guarantee Failure (Guest Voice)”
You make good points in your article but I still want to give Obama a little slack, as we don't know what is going on behind the scenes. Perhaps Obama is practicing as Teddy Roosevelt called it “speaking softly but carrying a big stick”. After all Obama stepped up using more Predator drone attacks on terrorists. For example, he may be brokering deals with other allies to aid the dissidents in Iran, thus weakening the regime from within without jeopardizing our status with other countries such as China. There maybe many strategies in play that we cannot even guess at or gather from what the administration publicly states.
I know this is all just speculation on my part but I don't see Obama doing anything different than Bush with the exception of the tough language. Tough language which got us nowhere. Unless we can get China and Russia in on sanctions any good they may do might be to late. Of course what do I know I'm just an ordinary person.
By the way I hated the Bush administration and did not support Obama in the last election and do not support him now on most issues.
One of my favorite skits from SNL was “Mr. Subliminal” with Kevin Nealon. If he performed the article above, he would slip the word “oil” in every third syllable..lol…
Here's a sanction that will work. Deprive Iran of US oil revenues in a significant way. Ouchies. They'll still have China and Russia to sell to, until our cool new eco-cars catch on there and those nations figure out they'd rather not be beholden to OPEC like we were for decades…that and the smog that will worsen what is already a threshold situation in China's bigger cities at least.. I say we win the war with technology that antiquates fossil fuels to such an extent that the Middle East in general will get kicked back to a basic-sustainable livelihood instead of making a killing like they are now.
Then watch the politics change over there..
Besides, when filling your head with hate for Al Qaida, it's important to remember it's origins. Try this thought on for size when you are considering how “evil” our “enemies” are. How would you feel if the arab nations conspired to first infiltrate our ag industry, then when we insisted on our rights to control the assets of corn, they invaded the Midwest, siezed our cornfields, bombed St. Louis, Des Moines and Omaha. Then anyone who resisted their efforts or spoke out against them or even dared to take action against them were labelled “terrorists” and then they were hauled off to a foreign outpost where they were systematically tortured.
That is EXACTLY what we did with their sovereign oil That was what Iraq was all about under Cheneyco. and well before them.
Now, how much do you “hate” those “evil bastards” for demanding that we pull out of their region and respect their sovereignty, and for doing so forcefully so we get the message? Two wrongs don't make a right I agree, but you cannot blame them for acting cohesively and nationally to drive out a foreign and tryrannical invader.? Our oil companies/GOP/military have been over there dicking [subliminal pun intended] around for decades, infiltrating and trying to run the place. Israel, our 51st State, wouldn't even be an issue if it weren't for oil and the Haifa Pipeline and Port. For those same decades these oil bastards have been meanwhile aggressively waging a war on alternative technology…burning down labs in the night, threatening patent applicants and buying out anyone who actually somehow succeeded through the patent process…all to keep us dependent on their imports from the land they've been dicking with.
This is what berthed Al Qaida, which would not exist but for the simple fact of oil greed.
It's all about the “O” alright.. Who bombed the World Trade Center? American oil barons. Follow the breadcrumbs backwards…
The author, like most wingnuts, is deluded that there is any “win” possible in bombing the capital of a major Middle East nation. Nothing could threaten our own peace and security more than mobilizing the entire Muslim world against us with yet another unprovoked attack. Intelligence experts say destroying every current nuclear facility in Iran would set them back only a few years. Is it worth another 2-10 9/11s? Not to me.
Will sanctions work? No. Get a grip. Iran will develop nuclear technology. There's a simple word for those who think we can keep technology from their hands. Idiots.
It's been a while since I have read a Blog post that PO'd me more than Mr. Rubin's. Obama has been in office for a year, proceeding cautiously with a complex and dangerous Iranian situation. For 8 years the Bush administration knew about Iran's nuclear program and did absolutely NOTHING but twiddle it's thumbs. Did Rubin go after Bush and accuse him of malfeasance and incompetence for how he handled Iran? No – he kept his mouth shut about a Republican. In Rubin's eyes a Republican can do no wrong and a Democrat no right.
Mr. Rubin must think we are stupid not to see thru his ridiculous position. If he wants his ideas to be taken seriously, he should outline what he thinks what has been tried and failed over the last 9 years and what and why these new steps should be taken. Otherwise it's nothing more than partisan drivel.
What if President Wishy-Washy gave a speech, hinting that the US would not be too upset if Israeli jets hit Iran's nuclear sites? Would the Sunni arabs support the Shia Iranians against Israel or the US?
I can assure you that the vast majority of muslims, Sunni and Shia, would go bats..t crazy if either the US or Israel bombed Iran. While Sunni's and Shia don't like each other, they like non muslims even less. If we keep up this war on all muslims (their perspective) by bombing even more countries that are predominately muslim (we're doing it in Pakistan, Afganistan, Iraq, Somalia , Yemen with our Israel allies doing it in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria) it's going to get to the point were we have 1.2 billion enemies. Then what are our choices – neutron bombs for all their cities?
“For 8 years the Bush administration knew about Iran's nuclear program and did absolutely NOTHING but twiddle it's thumbs.”
Your rewrite of history is pathetic at best, if not intentionally disengenuous. You fancy yourself an expert on Iran's nuclear program?
Who got it started?—your liberal Democrat buddy LBJ
When did it get seriously re-engaged after the 79 Revolution?–in the mid 90″s under the watch of your liberal Democrat Bill Clinton
Was there any evidence of centrifuges or uranium enrichment activities existing when Bush took office? Answer–No (prove me wrong)
In fact, in 2003, the consensus intelligence reports concluded Iran had not yet succeeded with any viable nuclear program………….and wasn't it you liberals who have lectured incessantly that we “have to have proof” of WMD's before we do anything?? Haven't I read a hundred posts here at TMV from your fellow liberal Iranian expert buddies, ChrisWWW and Rudi, during the last years of Bush that Iran had nothing beyond a small pile of yellowcake?
Yet, despite the liberal experts' incessant assurances of “nothing goin' on here in Iran” did not George Bush renew every year he was in office the very same sanctions your buddy Bill Clinton thought were the appropriate ones?
Did it not take until the NIE report of December 2007 before there was verified evidence of Iran's nuclear weapons program?
If the US was to then do something other than twiddle thumbs at that point, who would originate further sanctions or actions…….the House of Representatives??…controlled by a Democrat majority?
Call it bad luck for Obama that Iran waited for him to get elected before it came out of the closet with its nuclear saber rattling……….however, it is squarely a problem he owns………and no amount of deflection by liberals changes that fact…….and that 2010 will be very telling for Obama foreign policy…….not only with respect to Iran, but with respect to Russia, China, North Korea and Venezuela too.
CO – You gave me the laugh of the day. Right on schedule – it's all those damn democrats fault. Bush and the Republicans did everything right. I just made the point that Bush was not successful in changing Iran's behavior(nor North Korea or Venezuala). If you want to go back in time, it was Eisenhower which first approved Iran's nuclear program and reactor construction. Here is a link to CFR paper which discusses the Bush Admin and IAEA concerns over Iranian enrichment plans in 2002 and 2003.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/16811/irans_nucl…
It is understandable that if empire America will lie and lose life under false pretenses to go to war in Iraq (for resources), that the Iranians should feel insecure about the American presence in the region. For the life of me I don't know why we are pursuing a policy of anointing some countries as sufficiently upstanding to have nuclear weapons and others as not. It seems natural that all in the region would be interested in an agreement where all who hold Nuclear weapons and those who do not (yet) work to get rid of all! Why not? What are the sticking points there?
The atomic genie has been out of the box quite awhile. I don't think it is unreasonable to try and limit its use for weaponry as long as we hold the lion's share. Shear pragmatism.
Shear arrogance, selectivism, …………practical under any other name
known as the bully approach. We will oppress as long as we can. You'd
like John Bolton. He thinks so too. We have our way because we
can…………….that is the kind of attitude that has the rest of the
world weary with us……
Unlike you, probably, I prefer not to have a lot of guns in my neighborhood-New York City. Where it used to be more common to hear gunshots, now it is mostly the howls of Dems irate with whatever the Bush blame de jour is.