Tehran’s options
While the world debates the significance of the Hamas/Israel prisoner exchange, let me turn back to something that really counts for the United States: Iran’s nuclear program. In the aftermath of the Iran(Car)Tel plot, friend Rashad Mahmood, formerly of Cairo, asks “What would be reasonable Iranian policy to having their nuclear scientists killed (by admittedly much finer spycraft since they haven’t aired any proof of who has done it)?”
This is a reasonable question with some scary answers. Let’s look at some of the (not mutually exclusive) options:
1. They can respond by killing the nuclear scientists of those countries they think responsible for the attacks on their own (presumably Israel, but as Rashad says there is no proof in the public domain). I assume they’ve tried this and haven’t succeeded, or at least we haven’t heard about it.
2. They can accelerate their nuclear program, hide it better, protect the people who work in it and try to get nuclear weapons as soon as possible. They may be trying, but they appear to be failing.
3. They can begin to wonder whether the nuclear program is worth the trouble it is causing and reach an arrangement that reassures friends and foe alike that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons even if it acquires the “fuel cycle” technology required to do so. President Ahmedinejad has proposed something along these lines, but no one is taking him seriously yet, so far as I can tell.
4. They can kill diplomats or citizens of third countries, say Saudi Arabia, that may have little to do with the killing of the Iranians but are hated enemies anyway.
My impression is that they’ve tried at one time or another Nos. 1-3, so far without success. No. 4 doesn’t make any sense to me, but maybe it does to someone in Tehran (and certainly it does to some in DC). The jury is still out on the extent of official Iranian involvement in the IranTel plot.
Meanwhile, the Obama Administration seems to me to be doing the right thing: keeping the focus on the nuclear program and ratcheting up sanctions implementation. This may not bring immediate results, but at least it provides some incentive for no. 3. The trick is knowing when to take Ahmedinejad’s proposition seriously. It is really difficult for outsiders to judge when the right moment comes–we are going to have to trust the White House to call that shot.
Here is the version of what Ahmedinejad has said about limiting uranium enrichment published by the Washington Post:
Q: I understand that you were in favor of the deal you had reached with the United States in 2009, according to which the U.S. would sell you 20-percent-enriched uranium in exchange for Iran exporting low-enriched uranium. But you were attacked by your critics and came under assault and people here could not reach a consensus and the deal fell apart.
Ahmedinejad: In Iran, people are free to express their views. Every day some people criticize the policies of the government. This doesn’t mean that the government is going to abandon their policies. We felt that they wouldn’t give us the fuel required here for our reactor. There were some political leaders who gave interviews in the United States and Europe and they said they want to keep Iran from having access to such fuel. So we realized that they wouldn’t give us that fuel so we had to do it ourselves. Even if they gave us now uranium grade 20 percent, we would not continue with the production of this fuel.
Q: So if the United States sold you the enriched uranium, would you stop enriching yourselves?
Ahmedinejad: Yes. We don’t want to produce uranium of 20 percent. Because they did not give us that uranium, we had to make our own investments. If they start to give us that uranium today, we will stop production.
Q: You reached a deal in Geneva in 2009, and you came back here and the deal fell apart here, and now people in Washington don’t believe a deal is possible.
Ahmedinejad: If they give us uranium grade 20 percent, we would stop production. Those negotiations took place in Vienna. Apparently they know everything. I repeat: If you give us uranium grade 20 percent now, we will stop production. Because uranium grade 20 percent can only be used for such reactors, nothing else.
This is the proposition some commentators think worth considering. Many think it a mirage, but time is on Tehran’s side: even if their nuclear program has slowed, they will eventually get there if there is no verifiable agreement for them to stop.
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Listen to the choir
I am finding myself in good company on Pakistan, where I argued early this month that we need to pick our friends with care even as we target those who are our enemies. In one form or another, I am finding Ann Wilkens of the Afghan Analyts’ Network (whose paper predates my blog post), Bruce Riedel and Christine Fair–all of whom know more about Pakistan than I will ever know–in agreement.
Their arguments lean in favor of befriending civilians who are truly committed to democracy and willing to build serious democratic institutions while recognizing that elements of the military and intelligence services are our enemies and need at least to be contained if not slapped with sanctions. Ann Wilkens adds a word in favor of establishing the Durand line as the border with Afghanistan. Chris Fair goes into detail on the kinds of diplomatic contacts and capacity-building we need to get into while Bruce Riedel, less interested in the civilian potential, is explicit about slashing military aid and moving towards an adversarial, containment-focused relationship with Pakistan’s military. All favor trade over aid.
It seems to me that the Administration would do well to listen to this chorus of calls for reorienting America’s relationship with Pakistan. How about announcing a re-assessment of the U.S. relations with Pakistan? Or convening a wise persons’ review? The main reason Afghanistan really counts for the United States is Pakistan. We owe it to the forces fighting there and the civilians trying to build an Afghan state to have a hard look at whether adjustments to our Pakistan policies can make their jobs easier.
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Next week’s “peace picks”
Good stuff, especially early in the week. Heavy on Johns Hopkins events, but what do you expect?
1. Strengthening the Armenianj-Azerbaijani Track II Dialogue, Carnegie Endowment, October 17, 10-11:45 am
With Philip Gamaghelyan, Tabib Huseynov, and Thomas de Waal
With the main diplomatic track negotiating the conflict over Nagorny Karabakh apparently deadlocked, more attention is being focused on how tension can be reduced and bridges built through Track II initiatives and dialogue between ordinary Armenians and Azerbaijanis.
Mohamed Salah Tekaya, Tunisian ambassador to the United States; Tamara Wittes, deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs and deputy special coordinator for Middle East Transitions at the U.S. Department of State; Mohamed Ali Malouche, president of the Tunisian American Young Professionals; and Kurt Volker (moderator), managing director of CTR, will discuss this topic. For more information and to RSVP, visit http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2279443878/mcivte
4. Mexico and the War on Drugs: Time to Legalize, former Mexican President Vicente Fox, held at Mount Vernon Place, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, Cato Institute, to be held at the Undercroft Auditorium, 900 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. October 18, noon
Mexico is paying a high price for fighting a war on drugs that are consumed in the United States. More than 40,000 people have died in drug-related violence since the end of 2006 when Mexico began an aggressive campaign against narco-trafficking. The drug war has led to a rise in corruption and gruesome criminality that is weakening democratic institutions, the press, law enforcement, and other elements of a free society. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox will explain that prohibition is not working and that the legalization of the sale, use, and production of drugs in Mexico and beyond offers a superior way of dealing with the problem of drug abuse.
To register for this event, email events@cato.org, fax (202) 371-0841, or call (202) 789-5229 by noon, Monday, October 17, 2011.
Monday, October 17, 2011
7:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Lindner Family Commons, Room 602
1957 E Street, NW
5. Revolutionary vs. Reformist Islam: The Iran-Turkey Rivalry in the Middle East, Lindner Family Commons, room 602, 1957 E St NW, October 18, 7:30-9 pm
Ömer Tapinar, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
Hadi Semati, Iranian Political Scientist
Mohammad Tabaar, Adjunct Lecturer, GW
The Arab Spring has brought Iran and Turkey into a regional rivalry to sell their different brands of Islam. While Tehran is hoping to inspire an “Islamic awakening”, Ankara is calling for a “secular state that respects all religions.” The panelists will discuss this trend and its influences on domestic politics in Iran and Turkey.
The Middle East Policy Forum is presented with the generous support of ExxonMobil.
This program will be off the record out of respect for its presenters.
RSVP at: http://tinyurl.com/3ntfx9o
Sponsored by the Institute for Middle Eastern Stuides
PS: I really should not have missed this Middle East Institute event:
Troubled Triangle: The US, Turkey, and Israel in the New Middle East, Stimson Center, 1111 19th St NW, 11th floor, October 18, 4:30-6 pm
The trilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States has deteriorated in recent years as Israel’s and Turkey’s foreign policy goals in the Middle East continue to diverge. Despite repeated attempts, the United States has failed to reconcile these two important regional allies since the divisive Mavi Marmara incident in May 2010. Please join us for a discussion of this critical yet troubled trilateral relationship in a time of unprecedented change in the Middle East. The discussion will feature Prof. William B. Quandt, Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., Professor of Politics at University of Virginia, Lara Friedman, Director of Policy and Government Relations and Gönül Tol, Executive Director of MEI Center for Turkish Studies, and will be held on October 18 at the Henry L. Stimson Center.
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An orthodox approach to heresy
In today’s news: the Kenyan army is going after El Shabab, the Somali extremist group. The United States is deploying 100 troops to search for Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony. It is a good time to have a look at how to deal with non-state armed groups (NSAGs in governmentese), the subject of a new report from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Of course there are many other examples besides these two most recent ones of armed groups that present big problems in today’s world, even though they belong to no state. Think Taliban, Hizbollah, Al Qaeda in its several franchises, and Hamas (at least before it took over governance in Gaza). Think Mexican drug cartels, Burmese insurgents, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, the Irish Republican Army, Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group, Afghan mujahideen, Maoist insurgents in Nepal, Naxalites in India…
How should states deal with this alphabet soup of armed groups pursuing through violence freedom, justice, dignity, equity, utopia, money, power, God’s kingdom on earth? Those we like we call freedom fighters (Kosovo Liberation Army, Libyan National Transitional Council) and provide weapons and other assistance. The conventional American approach to those we don’t like is to declare them outside the pale, refuse to talk with them (especially if they are labeled terrorist) and go after them with military and police forces. That’s what the Kenyans and Americans are doing today with al Shabab and the LRA. Sometimes this works, at least partially. More often, there is eventually a political settlement.
Political settlements require dialogue, talks, negotiations. That’s where the CFR report comes in. It makes an effort to define why, when and how the United States should “engage” with NSAGs. Let’s be clear: though the report is prepared by an active-duty Foreign Service officer, it is courageously proposing something that has heretofore generally been regarded as heresy, except in specific instances.
That said, Payton Knopf takes an orthodox approach:
- Analyze: leadership, military effectiveness, constituency, territorial control, platform, sponsors, needs.
- Define the U.S. objective: conflict prevention, humanitarian access, intel collection, regime change, reform, weakening the NSAG, encourage moderation, reach a peace agreement, block spoilers.
- Weigh costs and benefits.
The benefits may include preventing, helping an NSAG or a sponsor we like, bolstering the U.S. image, facilitating peace negotiations, gaining intelligence, mitigating violence, empowering more pragmatic factions. Costs can include conferring legitimacy where we prefer not to, undermining a state, taking sides in a conflict, encouraging violence, providing time for an NSAG to prepare for more violence, and triggering domestic U.S. opposition.
This kind of rational, long-term approach to dealing with NSAGs is not, however, what we generally do today, as Knopf points out. Instead we jump on opportunities in the short term when there is no viable alternative, not too much domestic resistance and some reason to hope that things might work out.
Nor are we well-organized or well-staffed for this kind of work. Knopf goes easy on the State Department but makes it clear that its staff is not trained to engage with NSAGs or to do conflict management work in general. He is correct. Nor are the regional bureaus, whose embassies must necessarily regard government officials in the host countries as their primary interlocutors, likely to take up engagement with NSAGs, except in rare instances. The responsibility might appropriately fall to nongovernmental groups, but legal restrictions and a Supreme Court decision have made that problematic.
This leaves us with international organizations–the UN, the International Red Cross, some regional organizations–as vital players in engaging NSAGs. The CFR report does not address this option, but it has done a great service in calmly raising the issues in the American context and placing the heresy of engaging with NSAGs in an orthodox cost/benefit framework.
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Farewell Iraq, more or less
The Americans are reported to be abandoning plans to leave troops in Iraq after the end of the year, with the exception of the Embassy’s usual (and in this case large, more than 150) complement for “defense cooperation” and occasional training missions.
Why do I not quite believe this? First, because training missions can last a long time. Second because no one is talking about the substantial numbers of contractors who will need to be in Iraq to support military sales (like the F16s). And third because a lot of the counter-terrorism cooperation with Iraq is presumably done by the CIA, which doesn’t put out press releases about it.
Still, it is a major development that Iraq will be without overt foreign fighting forces on its territory for the first time in more than eight years.
Is it a good thing? There are people in Washington concerned that this more or less complete withdrawal will open the door to greater Iranian influence. And there are Iraqis–many in Kurdistan but also some in Anbar, Ninewa and elsewhere–who think it would have been a good thing for the Americans to stay. Kurds, Christians and many Sunnis see the American presence as protection.
But this “decision,” if we can call a failed negotiation a decision, is positive in other ways. It was taken on the Iraqi side under popular pressure–Prime Minister Maliki is reported to have thought he couldn’t get approval to extend an American presence through the parliament. I’d call that kind of decisionmaking democratic, which is not a word many people are using today to describe Maliki’s Iraq. Without American troops, the Iraqis will have to bear the full brunt of the responsibility for keeping the country stable, including by confronting the Iranians if they overstep. No more Uncle Sam will take care of it for you.
Will the Iraqis be up to the challenge? I don’t pretend to know, but they are certainly more capable than at any time in the past eight years. Bad things still happen in Iraq, on a more or less daily basis. But security has improved, oil production is up, services are marginally better and people are worried about corruption, which is one of my personal indicators that the worst of the physical violence is coming to an end.
What is not clear is how long they’ll keep the more or less democratic system of governance we bequeathed them. Maliki shows signs of grabbing for power by appointing army commanders loyal to him personally, ignoring the parliament, pressuring the constitutional court and stiff-arming both his coalition partners and the opposition. His ungenerous reaction to Iraqi protesters calling for better services and more democracy, as well as his support for Bashar al Assad, have raised a lot of eyebrows.
Iraqis should bear the responsibility for ensuring that the democratic system prevails. Keeping it propped up with American troops was helping Maliki consolidate his position, and seemed to provide precious little leverage over his decisions. I find it hard to believe that either Kurds or Sunnis will accept a Shia autocracy, and there are lots of Shia who will object as well. Iran will not find Iraqis any easier to push around than the Americans did. Maybe it is time to take off the training wheels altogether and hope for the best. We’ve got a lot of other things to worry about.
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There are still things to do about Syria
I’m an enthusiast, as most Americans I know are, for our ambassador in Damascus, Robert Ford, so here is his Skype performance with Andrew Tabler yesterday at The Washington Institute:
TWI is good about writing up its events quickly, so I won’t attempt that. Just a few high points:
- There is a lot of chatter about revolutionary violence, which inevitably will lead to more regime violence, alignment of minorities with the regime and ultimately sectarian conflict;
- The newly established Syrian National Council (SNC) needs to develop a serious program for how it will govern that promises protection for minorities, establishes broad legitimacy within Syria and attracts international support;
- Concerted multilateral pressure targeting regime individuals, the central bank, the state-owned Commercial Bank and oil sales will hamstring the regime and weaken the allegiance of both the merchant class and some military elements to the regime;
- Regional pressure and openness to refugees, especially from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, can also help.
While Russia and China blocked a UN Security Council resolution, they are now urging reforms and might be convinced to go along with international monitors focused on establishing the facts of what is going on. If Bashar al Assad then refuses them, it will reflect badly on him.
Policy conclusions:
- Discourage violence, help the opposition with the tactics of nonviolent civil resistance, including general strikes;
- Help the SNC develop its governance program, with ownership clearly staying with the Syrians;
- Tighten up sanctions;
- Form a regional Friends of Syria including neighboring countries;
- Talk with the Russians and Chinese about international monitors with a UN mandate.
PS: Some courageous Syrians, said to be demonstrating Friday in Damascus:
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