Coming on the heels of the Senate’s passage of a bill authorizing President Obama to impose a new round of sanctions against Iran (a truly counterproductive policy), Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett diagnose a drift in Obama’s Iran policy that, sadly, rings true:
Obama has moved, during just one year in office, from relatively forward-leaning expressions of interest in engaging Iran on the basis of “mutual interests†and in an atmosphere of “mutual respect†to rhetoric reminiscent of President George W. Bush’s description of an “axis of evil†(North Korea, Saddam Husayn’s Iraq, and the Islamic Republic of Iran) in his 2002 State of the Union address. Last night, Obama equated Iran’s nuclear activities with North Korea’s nuclear weapons program—even though there is no doubt that North Korea has built nuclear weapons and no evidence that the Islamic Republic has done so or even tried to do so. (For good measure, the President effectively put the status of Iranian women in the same category as that of their Afghan sisters. While one can take issue with restrictions still in place on Iranian women, the educational, professional, and social standing of women in the Islamic Republic is among the highest in the greater Middle East and clearly superior to the status of women in Afghanistan.)
There was no mention of engaging Tehran in last night’s speech. Instead, the emphasis—as during George W. Bush’s administration—was on isolating and punishing Iran. With regard to the nuclear issue, in particular, Obama said that “as Iran’s leaders continue to ignore their obligations, there should be no doubt: They, too, will face growing consequences.†(Departing from his prepared text at this point in the speech, the President added starkly: “That is a promise.â€)
To the extent that there is room left in Obama’s Iran policy for diplomacy, it is diplomacy of the sort pursued by the George W. Bush administration during its second term in office—engagement with America’s regional and international allies, to marshal support for intensified multilateral pressure on Iran, not engagement with the Islamic Republic with the aim of resolving differences and realigning U.S.-Iranian relations. One could accurately characterize this as diplomacy about Iran, rather than diplomacy with Iran. It certainly does not amount to “change we can believe inâ€.
As if tacking with the prevailing winds, Richard Haass recently penned an article explaining why he has abandoned engagement in favor of regime change in Iran. The rationale is dubious: unlike prior gambles by the Bush administration that the Iranian regime was on the verge of collapse, this time it really is, and so it’s worth a stand-off. Consequently, the means Haass sets forth to instigate the impending regime change amount to little more than reheated Bush administration leftovers – a meal that failed to satisfy the first go round.
Haass would have US leaders espouse more vocal anti-regime rhetoric, heighten the focus on regime human rights abuses, loosen the flow of Internet-based information to Iran, increase funding of the “opposition” via the Iranian diaspora (one wonders if such funding would be welcomed by many in the Green movement), refuse to meet with the regime in any capacity and, presumably, sprinkle a cup of pixie dust on the whole endeavor to make the lead balloon fly.
Regime’s do not fall from such pin pricks (Reagan didn’t actually tear down that wall with a speech), but the consequences will harm US interests regardless. The Iranian regime will grow more adversarial in posture, correctly perceiving the United States as intent on usurping its rule. As a result, it will have even more incentive to develop nuclear weapons, and on an accelerated timeline. In the process of raising the temperature between Washington and Tehran, hardliners in Iran will be strengthened, the population will rally around the flag and the reform movement will be more plausibly linked to foreign powers that are working to manipulate foundational Iranian political institutions. Suffice to say, this association will not bolster the popularity of the reformers.
Daniel Larison’s takedown of Haass is worth noting (see, also, Stephen Walt):
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. [...]
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.
I’m reminded of the conservative critique of Obama’s purported affinity for diplomatic solutions. The insinuation was that Obama was hopelessly naive in his belief that simply extending a hand, and then talking to adversarial regimes, will achieve results. While tautological, the criticism seemed shallow at the time. I would have argued then that of course Obama realizes that diplomacy is more than a meet and greet, or a clever speech; that engagement is a substantive process involving meaningful negotiations, with significant give and take and sometimes painful compromise, all facilitated by a gradual move toward normalized relations.
From the vantage point of one year passed, I’m not so certain anymore.
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