I’ve been fairly disappointed with the level of discussion in progressive circles surrounding the issue of Iran’s nuclear program. For me, nuclear non-proliferation is one of the most important issues facing mankind. And America’s role in preventing nuclear proliferation is critical. It’s nice that we can send aid to tsunami victims in Sumatra and earthquake victims in Haiti and flood victims in Pakistan. It’s important that we can provide peacekeeping forces in the Balkans or in the Sinai. But preventing a nuclear war is our biggest responsibility, and that’s why, for me, our hegemonic role within the United Nations system is never more justified than when we are working on nuclear issues.
One of the things I found most alarming and destructive about the lead-up to the Iraq War was the way in which this serious responsibility was treated unseriously and was actually used as a false pretext for war. It not only undermined our credibility, it undermined our ability to carry out our real responsibilities. It eroded our moral standing in the world, but it also destroyed progressive support for a robust anti-proliferation policy here at home.
So, now, when the president is trying to avoid war and avoid a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, the progressive left is so jaded and cynical that it tends to not acknowledge the legitimacy of the effort at all. I see more effort put into defending Iran’s right to a nuclear weapon than I see concern about the consequences of a nuclear Iran.
The issue of nuclear non-proliferation is complicated, but it deserves a most robust conversation in the progressive community. It should be uncontroversial that the goal is to reduce existing nuclear stockpiles and to prevent new countries from engaging in nuclear weaponization. The president has been pursuing this policy. A little over a year ago, he signed the New START Treaty with Russia. I don’t feel he got nearly enough credit for that. As I see it, the problem comes down to a strain of thought on the left that was given great strength by the Bush/Cheney regime. It’s the idea that America’s meddling in the world, particularly in the Middle East, is nothing more than illegitimate imperialism and a fight for precious resources. It’s a strain of thought that tends to break everything down into simple ideas of fairness: if Israel has nukes, how can anyone deny them to Iran? Who died and put America in charge?
I can’t address all the complexities of the debate over America’s historic and present role in the world in this blog post. I’ll just say that you can’t successfully prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East by saying Israel’s possession of nukes makes it morally impossible to prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. You can’t prevent nations from building a nuclear weapons capability if you don’t have some enforcement arm of the IAEA and the United Nations. America is the country, presently, that has the capabilities to be that enforcement arm. We should talk about what it would mean if China was the enforcement arm instead. Or what it would mean if there were no enforcement arm. We can talk about power-sharing arrangements. But to suggest that the UN should be rendered toothless in the area of nonproliferation seems to me to be little different than John Bolton’s desire to tear down the top floors of the UN building in New York.
In any case, read this excerpt from an interview the president recently did with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. It was done in anticipation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to America starting today.
GOLDBERG: Go back to this language, ‘All options on the table.’ You’ve probably said it 50 or 100 times. And a lot of people believe it, but the two main intended audiences, the supreme leader of Iran and the prime minister of Israel, you could argue, don’t entirely trust this. The impression we get is that the Israeli government thinks this is a vague expression that’s been used for so many years. Is there some ramping-up of the rhetoric you’re going to give them?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think the Israeli people understand it, I think the American people understand it, and I think the Iranians understand it. It means a political component that involves isolating Iran; it means an economic component that involves unprecedented and crippling sanctions; it means a diplomatic component in which we have been able to strengthen the coalition that presents Iran with various options through the P-5 plus 1 and ensures that the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] is robust in evaluating Iran’s military program; and it includes a military component. And I think people understand that.
I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff. I also don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say. Let me describe very specifically why this is important to us.
In addition to the profound threat that it poses to Israel, one of our strongest allies in the world; in addition to the outrageous language that has been directed toward Israel by the leaders of the Iranian government — if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, this would run completely contrary to my policies of nonproliferation. The risks of an Iranian nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorist organizations are profound. It is almost certain that other players in the region would feel it necessary to get their own nuclear weapons. So now you have the prospect of a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region in the world, one that is rife with unstable governments and sectarian tensions. And it would also provide Iran the additional capability to sponsor and protect its proxies in carrying out terrorist attacks, because they are less fearful of retaliation.
GOLDBERG: What would your position be if Israel weren’t in this picture?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: It would still be a profound national-security interest of the United States to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
GOLDBERG: Why, then, is this issue so often seen as binary, always defined as Israel versus Iran?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I think it has to do with a legitimate concern on the part of Israel that they are a small country in a tough neighborhood, and as a consequence, even though the U.S. and Israel very much share assessments of how quickly Iran could obtain breakout capacity, and even though there is constant consultation and intelligence coordination around that question, Israel feels more vulnerable. And I think the prime minister and the defense minister, [Ehud Barak,] feel a profound, historic obligation not to put Israel in a position where it cannot act decisively and unilaterally to protect the state of Israel. I understand those concerns, and as a consequence, I think it’s not surprising that the way it gets framed, at least in this country, where the vast majority of people are profoundly sympathetic to Israel’s plight and potential vulnerabilities — that articles and stories get framed in terms of Israel’s potential vulnerability.
But I want to make clear that when we travel around the world and make presentations about this issue, that’s not how we frame it. We frame it as: this is something in the national-security interests of the United States and in the interests of the world community. And I assure you that Europe would not have gone forward with sanctions on Iranian oil imports — which are very difficult for them to carry out, because they get a lot of oil from Iran — had it not been for their understanding that it is in the world’s interest, to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. China would not have abided by the existing sanctions coming out of the National Security Council, and other countries around the world would not have unified around those sanctions, had it not been for us making the presentation about why this was important for everyone, not just one country.
So, can we have a grownup conversation about these issues, or are we all going to act like we’re just trying to repeat the Iraq War?
My own opinion, based solely on fresh air and tea leaves, is that iran started off simply wanting to build a nuclear reactor to help with their own energy problems. However, the USA and the world community have been such unmerciful dicks about it that I would not bat an eye if they were not actually trying to build a nuke out of sheer bloody mindedness and spite at this stage. Obama at least has been somewhat more grown up over this than the provious administration and has been far more even handed with both sites but still there it is.
It should also be remembered that during the run up to Gulf War II: Bush’s Revenge, North Korea pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty. It was a test as Bush was focused on trying to convince everyone that to attack Iraq, and the result of course was that the US didn;t waise a peep about it as it didn;t want to complicate things by Actually responding to someone saying they were actually building a WND rather than they might have the capacity to start thinking about making them at some point. Of course a year later NK had its nuke. And now here we are talking about Iran having the possibility of thinking about making a nuke…
Ironicly I saw one of the US generals back from Iraq in an interview, in an interview in 2005, statiing that Iran is entitled to have a reactor if it wants it, but that the reactorneeds to be mon itored, which strikes me as a pretty level headed opinion. The compromise of Russia supplying the uranium for the reactor was also a level headed solution, but one that now has had too much idiotic water under the bridge to be concidered by Iran now.
Yes, Korea is also part of the president’s anti-proliferation strategy.
I don’t really understand why your default position is to accept Iran’s official line. I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t be skeptical of claims made by the West, however, the strength of the sanctions regime should be enough to convince you that the world doesn’t take Iran seriously at all. This isn’t simply war-mongering from the neo-cons. This is a global effort to prevent a nuclear build-up in the Middle East.
This isn’t simply war-mongering from the neo-cons. This is a global effort to prevent a nuclear build-up in the Middle East.
So how come it’s never mentioned by the VSP(thanks K-Thug!!) that Israel already has nukes?
Perhaps because Israel has had nukes for forty years without setting off an arms race, while the Saudis and Turks have all but come out an said an Iranian nuke would force them to nuke up.
At this point I need to ask you something, to figure out if it’s worthwhile to have this conversation: do you actually want to talk about the proliferation effects of different countries developing a bomb, or do you just want to make the novel observation that Israel is bad?
So Iran striving for a bomb (which still has not been established – it simply hasn’t) isn’t at all in response to Israel’s possession of 200 of them?
Come on, climb down from this untenable position of Israeli exceptionalism.
.
Started as a comment, developed into a diary – Obama’s Self Interest and Re-election
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Your first sentence is a variation on “I didn’t kill nobody, and it was self defense.
I’m glad I asked the question.
Surely the outright snarling by Israel (possessor of 200 warheads)and the ramped up sabre-rattling by the US is probably cementing the opinion of every nation in the world that the only way to avoid military attack is to actually get to a bomb.
Booman, you never ever address the fact that your nation (along with the cooperation of mine) is the most aggressive in the world. Do you actually buy the fact that stable Iran (which in my lifetime has never declared pre-emptive war with another country) becomes a threat if it had a bomb? Any moreso than our unstable friend Pakistan?
Surely the threat of attack by the United States in response to the Iranian nuclear program is leading other countries to think that having nuclear programs is a good way to avoid being attacked by the United States?
Uh…yeah, surely. Because that makes so much sense.
Get there quickly and secretly. Like Pakistan and India.
Easier said than done. Especially these days.
One of the main threats of an Iranian bomb is that it will cause Saudi Arabia to create a program and put the Gulf States under its umbrella. It may cause Egypt to do the same. The focus on Iran using the bomb on Israel is a bad way of looking at it, but of course Israel is largely to blame for the fact that so many people look at it that way.
It’s also a mistake to focus on the advisability of the US making war on Iran because the entire policy is aimed at avoiding that and avoiding a nuclear arms race.
The president is actually being pretty straightforward in this interview. He is a little polite about Israel’s alarmism, and that’s for political reasons. But it’s not hard to read through that to see what his policy is. His policy is to avoid war and an arms race.
As a broader strategy, he is decoupling Syria from Iran in order to ease pressure on Lebanon and Israel and diminish the power and influence of Iranian proxies in the Arab world generally.
The big picture, with U.S.-Russia, on the Korean Peninsula, and in the Middle East, is nonproliferation and a reduction and safeguarding of nuclear stockpiles, along with a reduction of the power and threat of actors like Iran and North Korea.
And what is your country?
Mine? The great granddaddy of the vicious aggressors, the United Kingdom, of course 😀
I understand what you say, and the Realpolitik can be described in the way you do so (though it could very easily be described differently, Iran could be aiming for Nuclear readiness only, this would not necessarily elicit the Saudi or Turkish arming – which could be read as just convenient statements bolstering the overall US position).
However, more importantly, I’m not sure that America’s broader aim as you describe can be deduced from its actions. For example, Pakistan and India were admitted into Club Nuclear with very few questions asked. Should Japan want to go there (with a stated fear of North Korea but with more than an eye on China) I doubt very much that the US would stand in its way. Israel? Well, if there ever were a prodigal son…(especially one who wasn’t even asked to play by the minimum global rules for possessing the ultimate weapons).
So you see? There is no coherent behaviour over this issue from the US. My suspicion is that Obama’s entire push towards a nuclear-free world was designed almost solely as a wrench with which to apply pressure on Iran (a move admirable intelligence and forethought). I’m sure that his team foresaw that Iran achieving Nuclear readiness would set off a confrontation with it or with Israel. The latter would be a political tragedy and the former a concrete hundreds of thousands more lives lost tragedy.
The people of Iran are not mugs, they know the dangers of being sandwiched between an increasingly unstable Arab world, and the slowly unfolding nightmare of a toppling Pakistan and Afghanistan. They support their country gaining nuclear status – and so it isn’t a democratic deficit at play here (in fact most of the Arab public support an Iranian bomb – according to surveys done by the CS Monitor). My challenge to you is this: what more could/should the US do to reassure the Arab and Iranian public that its aims in the Middle East are not solely based around arming Israel to the teeth and preventing the downfall of the House of Saud? For whilst this is the perception, the Arab/Iranian public will not accept Obama’s broader policy claims.
And putting North Korea and Iran in the same or even adjacent categories is stretching things. Iran is not controlled by a cult – no matter how much we dislike their effervescently Santorum-y religious views (Ahmadinejad for GOP 2012?).
I think you are right and you are far from the only one to make this observation.
This is a very bad time and place to play the self-righteous global bully.
Not that there are any good times or places.
Obama will weasel under pressure from Netanyahu, the Congress, AIPAC, and the entire US establishment as he always does and if Israel attacks Iran Iran will see no daylight between the Israelis and us and will see no way and no reason to confine its response to Israel.
Obama will put us more firmly into their gunsights.
Nice job, O.
For the record I said that I think Iran originally was not trying to build a bomb, but I think they are now. They were willing to accept Russia supplying them with non weapon grade material, for example, unless my memory is way off.
Again based on nothing other than pure speculation, as I said.
Great post.
The only thing I would add is that the effort to draw the line on nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is not some unilateral American initiative, or something we’re doing with a “Coalition of the Billing.” The world community it doing this.
Over at Juan Cole’s place, they’re talking about the UN inspectors in terms that remind me of the neocons before the Iraq War, except this time the “anti-American, pro-Saddam internationalists” are now “warmongering imperialists for the American empire.”
That was one of the finest interviews I’ve ever read/heard any president give on any topic ever.
And yet, I kinda think this is all complete bullshit. There can’t ever really be true negotiation or settlement with the Iranian regime. We can negotiate with the Taliban because they have something we need and we have something they need. Even though they kill our guys on the battlefield.
But there’s nothing Iran can offer that we wouldn’t accept with one breath and then make further demands with the next. So let’s say they stop enriching, do the sanctions wind down? Why? Are they not the same regime that killed several thousand of its people in Tehran in 2009? That’s more than were killed prior to the NATO intervention in Libya last year.
Iran has put themselves in a position where their only two outcomes are complete triumph over the combined efforts of the entire world or complete unconditional surrender. And eventual regime change. I think that as long as Khamanei is still alive, they can’t ever buckle under. His continuity is all they have left before their descent into chaos and renewed revolution and religious messianism. This is the slow-moving economic and political catastrophe that reminds me of Iraq in the 90s. And we all know how that ended.
Eh, turns out that fewer people died in Iran in 2009 than I thought. I double checked, and I think I conflated Iran with Egypt’s (surprisingly lethal in retrospect) revolution. I wish this site had an edit function sometimes.
Good on you for double checking, and for adding this comment.
I think it’s worth having a bias towards assuming that national leaders—particularly as nations become more prosperous and have more to lose—have a more or less healthy sense of self-interest when it comes to national security and international affairs. (The lack of use of nuclear weapons over the past 66+ years is a good example of that.)
In other news: Congress considers a law to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from ever establishing rules regulating “farm dust” that the EPA isn’t even considering establishing.
It has been pretty thoroughly demonstrated over these past couple weeks from CIA Director Leon Panetta through your own “liberal” New York Times to the aforementioned Juan Cole that Iran is not building a bomb. It’s all bullshit. Media Kool-Aid.
Iran is no threat, Another God-Damned War is.
Whoosh! Right over your head.
That comment really is a wonderful demonstration of Booman’s point about how far off the left’s radar the issue of nuclear proliferation has become. He doesn’t even know what the term means.
Nuclear prolifer-wha-wha? Iran isn’t going to start a war!
~IOZ
that’s Exhibit A of the really unsophisticated thinking I see repeated over and over again.
Particularly special is the part where we’re solemnly told to ponder what “intolerable” means, because it must mean an aggressive war.
You know, like the one we launched against North Korea.
In second place is the argument that the possibility of a military attack on Iran demonstrates the effectiveness of a deterrent based on not actually building a nuclear weapon.
What? That we can’t go to war over this? That selected excerpt explicitly said it’s no argument that “Israel has them so…?” Do you think we should if no other option works, Booman? If so, we’re going to diverge ways.
If you don’t have any way to “prevent” countries from obtaining nuclear weapons without bombs from airplanes, well, then I guess nuclear non-proliferation is a dead idea. I don’t think it’s dead, and I don’t think we need to drop bombs from airplanes like with Operation Opera.
Put it this way: how far are you willing to go, including militarily, to prevent Iran from obtaining a weapon?
If you don’t have any way to “prevent” countries from obtaining nuclear weapons without bombs from airplanes, well, then I guess nuclear non-proliferation is a dead idea.
The point is, the “If” part of your statement is very much in doubt. Brazil, South Africa, and Libya all drew back from their nuclear weapons programs without a shot being fired.
Meanwhile, the actual harm of nuclear proliferation is quite real.
All of which is to say, noting that a military attack on Iran is a bad idea – an uncontested point – is not all there is to think about on the subject of stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
Yep, and again, explicitly stated was “them getting a bomb is a bad idea.” So I don’t follow your logic. The argument comes down to this: I (and IOZ) agree that preventing them from getting a bomb is a good idea. But we will not allow that to translate into dropping bombs and attacking their nuclear facilities. It’s not an uncontested point, or you wouldn’t have people like THE LEFT up in arms over it, or with half of the MIC that wants a war, Israel’s government which wants a war (even if Mossad does not), etc etc.
It’s not unsophisticated to think that going to war should be uncontested as it’s a really, really bad idea. But IOZ nowhere said that we should just let them get the bomb, or that it’s hypocritical, or w/e else. Just that military SHOULD NOT be an option. That’s it.
Without the threat of military action in this case, economic sanctions operate on the underpants gnome principle.
Step 1: Destroy economy
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Capitulation!
There’s nothing that suggests that the internal position of the Iranian regime is untenable right now. Thus, external threat must be made to maintain momentum and urgency.
We can’t afford to take all of Iran’s oil offline in an abbreviated timeframe. Pressure necessarily needs to come from all outlets to be successful.
I understand that. I’m not saying Obama will use military action. In fact, this interview shows that he knows WTF he’s doing — even if I hate the geopolitics of it on a personal level (just the same as I hate when he talks about Murikah! #1, even though it’s necessary).
But geopolitics isn’t our job. Taking what a politician says at face value, and acting on that, is (well, to a point…). It’s not our job to call bluffs. It’s not our job to know what he’s really thinking. It should just be made absolutely clear that whatever and however he plans to get Iran’s nuclear program up to par with IAEA’s standards, military strikes are a death knell politically.
Why?
I think it is necessary and inevitable that there exist an absolutist anti-war movement. I think it is necessary that people look at the consequences of military action and always avoid committing blunders and immoral acts.
But you can’t have a nonproliferation regime without the credible threat of force.
But you can’t have a nonproliferation regime without the credible threat of force.
Even if it’s a bluff.
That’s the problem, seabe. All of the effort put into compelling Obama to abandon the possibility of a military option, to make an explicit repudiation of it, to stop saying “all options are on the table,” is calling his bluff.
It’s not unsophisticated to think that going to war should be uncontested as it’s a really, really bad idea.
Of course not; it’s what I believe, so it couldn’t be. Heh.
What is unsophisticated is to treat any and all discussion of the problem as a call for war against Iran, and dismiss the entirety of the case against proliferation, including the possibility of its very existence.
Jesus Christ. Have we bombed Iran? Have they built a weapon?
Look at the totality of Obama’s policies. The sanctions. The diplomacy. The mobilization of world opinion. The pressure on Syria. The work with the Arab nations. The leash on Israel. The use of the IAEA. ALL of those things are efforts to prevent Iran from weaponizing without going to war with them.
Is your alternative to do nothing and see what happens?
Or, just tell Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Egypt to start building their own programs because we’re not going to do anything about Iran’s enrichment and bunkerization of their nuclear program?
We’re trying to rid the world of the nuclear threat, not let it run roughshod over all international efforts to contain and reduce it.
Did I say to do nothing and hope for the best? I believe what I excerpted was exactly what I believe (as I don’t agree with the entirety of IOZ’s point, which is absolute pacifism). And that is, yes, Iran being the next country on the list to have The Bomb is a bad idea. But it’s not worth going to war over. That’s the point.
But it’s not worth going to war over. That’s the point.
Is it worth credibly pretending to think it’s worth going to war over?
No, because maintaining the bluster means that you can’t even have a sensible policy over a world where Nuclear weapons are a reality.
We’ve tried to keep a dam in place. Those who have are allowed to keep and those that do not have are not. This worked in the Cold War, since pretty much everyone was underneath a nuclear umbrella. Now, that doesn’t work.
We now have a world in which the armed powers huff and puff about a nuclear-free world (whilst admitting their allies and those that are powerful enough to take the right) but it’s quite clear that not one of them has the slightest intention of giving up the bomb. And this bragadacio means that we can’t even have a sensible conversation about what we do with these ultimate weapons.
I find this line of thinking crushingly depressing.
So do I, but the conflict between these two NYT op-eds that ran today is worth thinking over.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/opinion/only-crippling-sanctions-will-stop-iran.html?src=un&fe
edurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fopinion%2Findex.jsonp
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/opinion/starving-iran-wont-free-it.html?_r=1&smid=tw-nytopinio
n&seid=auto
The former gets pretty fucking bleak in a hurry. How far are Europe and the US willing to go, especially in light of Iraq in the 90s? Or North Korea? And isn’t destroying the Iranian economy ultimately as undermining to the cause as a military attack? Either way, the Iranian regime is bailed out from its own incompetent and malign behavior, and given an overt and willing foreign conspiracy to pin its grievances on. All the while crushing its people down further and wiping out internal threats.
But can the latter piece’s long term optimism survive the world of realpolitik? Probably not. It’s entirely probable that the United States was the wrong choice to take the lead on sanctioning Iran in the first place, given the two countries’ shared history. But what’s done is done. Further escalation it is.
I’m glad I read both of those, thanks. I’m always amazed that people don’t find the phrases “crippling sanctions” and “aerial bombardment” more synonymous.
We now have a world in which the armed powers huff and puff about a nuclear-free world (whilst admitting their allies and those that are powerful enough to take the right) but it’s quite clear that not one of them has the slightest intention of giving up the bomb.
I think you give up too easily. Arms reduction is a long fight, but it’s not a lost cause.
Also, it doesn’t matter if we haven’t bombed Iran yet. Israel has had a history of bombing nuclear facilities to prevent them from obtaining such capabilities — and did so when their government was less hawkish than it is now. I don’t see why it’s so out of the ordinary for people to be on edge, right out in front, in order to prevent another Operation Opera or Suez Crisis. To make military intervention a “NO OPTION” when everything else has failed. It may or may not fail — I hope it doesn’t. But if it does fail, it should be so politically toxic to fire up the turbojet engines that no one utters “preemptive military strikes.”
Booman that’s not a rebuttal. You yourself haven’t advanced an argument except to assert that your stance “serious” and “grown up”. That’s isn’t an argument. The person you are replying to just presented an argument. If it isn’t serious then it should be easy to issue a rebuttal.
I’m pretty put off by your closing statement. In and of itself it isn’t a very grownup thing to say.
I support putting pressure on the Iranian regime but I’m vehemently opposed to any kind of military action against them.
Take a look at how the Iraq war went and the current debacle in Afghanistan. And yes it’s a relevant comparison. Those wars were sold and waged on precisely the same premise. We imagine that Country X will be a threat in the future therefore we need to take military action to “defend” ourselves. Believe it or not but most countries in human history didn’t launch preemptive wars. It’s a pretty radically agressive one.
Iran hasn’t invaded a neighbor in centuries. Our intelligence agencies have reported no designs on the part of the Iranian regime to launch an attack. That’s something to consider before starting another premptive war with a Muslim country.
I don’t see how you can possibly deny Iran’s links to terror, perpetrated in many different nations for thirty years now, nor why you would draw a separation between uniformed, military aggression and covert aggression. Either way, people ended up dead.
I don’t think anybody, even neocons, are calling for an occupation of Iran. But airpower can be brought to bear as a punitive or enforcement mechanism on other countries in a way that jeopardizes not a single American life, as the Balkan wars or Libya clearly demonstrate.
Now, that’s not what I think should happen, nor do I have a say or particular expertise in the matter. I can’t say it’s what will or won’t happen either, I can’t see the future. But I don’t think making this about the Bush administration and Iraq is responsible. This shouldn’t be about them.
Iran is not Libya or the Balkans. Bombing them will solve nothing.
On a strategic level. You and I are in no way qualified to say what the tactical benefits to destroying Iranian infrastructure would or wouldn’t be. My gut is that blowing stuff up tends to…you know, blow stuff up. Which means it has to be rebuilt, which takes time and resources the regime doesn’t have.
But that’s tactics, not strategy. The psychology of the Iranian regime and its people is paramount to any consideration, I think. Bombing Milosevic or Gaddafi did more than degrade their military capabilities, it demystified them to their supporters. It brought them low. Whereas, with the longstanding tradition of American-Iranian enmity, waging war with Iran makes them the victim of yet another round of American imperialism. Which sets back the goal of regime change.
That’s the entire crux, I think. The US has a two-tracked strategy, one said and one left unsaid. Non-proliferation now, regime change later. The short term tactics of military action compromise the broader strategy. But the Israelis are not obligated to operate on our desired timetable.
about much of the discussion about Iran.
When you commit the US to military action, you are committing this country’s prestige. Taking military action and failing to stop the Iranians from continuing work on nuclear weapons would leave two options:
Of course, this would probably also create a spike the price of oil enough to start a global recession.
I believe the pressure being brought to bare on the President is an attempt by his enemies (and I don’t mean the Iranians) to drive the price of oil up enough without intervention to derail the recovery. In fact, this tactic is far more likely to defeat Obama than something any of the brain dead GOP candidates might do.
Saudi Arabia has done most of the funding of Terrorism west of the Arab persian border (thats the border between Iran and Iraq) Its also an oppressive totalitarian fondamentalist regime. Wheres the calls to bomb it?
Individual Saudis, some well-positioned, have funded terrorism.
That’s not the same thing as Iranian state policy.
nor why you would draw a separation between uniformed, military aggression and covert aggression. Either way, people ended up dead.
Yes, people end up dead in both cases, but there are important differences between the two actions. For one thing, a whole lot of people end up dead. For another, your nation’s responsibility is much plainer and more visible. Supporting a partisan proxy like Hezbollah is a much less aggressive act that marching your army into a country.
When it comes to nuclear weapons, giving a nuke to a proxy is much more similar to the launch of an actual military assault than like sending a ship full of AK-47s.
Wait wait wait – did you just write the the Afghan War was “preemptive,” and based on the idea that Afghanistan might launch a military attack on the United States?
Your readership, or at least your comments section, is so weird, Booman.
It’s a small gang, obviously. But how did you wind up with such a heavy percentage of uptight, closeminded leftists? I’ve never quite been able to follow all the Dkos maneuverings and kerfluffle, but it surprises me that you don’t have a more conventional “obot” (if you will) comments section given your political philosophy, choices of topic and access to the administration.
How’s your sitemeter holding up? Do you have a sense of where you “rank” in the context of the greater blogosphere? Because the disconnect between your posts and the comments they attract genuinely confuses me.
There are a lot of people who learned, thirty, forty years ago, one particular set of prisms through which to look at events, and one particular set of categories to fit things into. Left and right.
And they’ll be damned–because it’s too much work, or because those things are too much a part of them, or because no one wants to admit they’re growing old if they have to change them, or acquire a new perspective.
Add to that that the high-water mark of the blogospheric left was the run-up to, and the US kicking off, the Iraq war. It was their Spitfire summer, for a lot of people still blogging. They’ll see everything in that context the rest of their lives.
But why wouldn’t the makeup of the group change in the last few years in reflection of the Obama administration? Smartypants or TPV or whoever are presumably smaller, less established sites (I think?), but the clientele they convince to comment there are much more in tune with the content being posted.
Then again, Steven D. So what the hell do I know?
The Obama administration hasn’t started a war with Iran. In fact they’ve done an order of less sabre rattling on Iran than Bush did who also didn’t attack Iran.
I don’t expect the USA to launch an attack on Iran. There’s a bit of sabre rattling but I doubt it’s going to happen. Iran isn’t really a threat and there’s isn’t an easy military option.
I think you replied to the wrong comment, amigo.
How about some serious talk about the U.S., Booman?
Here’s some.
“What kind of democracy is America,” Safdar asks, “where people do not ask these questions?”
I am asking this question.
Of you, Booman. You have no adequate answer either, other than your usual “Four More Years For The Nobel Peace Prize Winner And Murderer Of Thousands.”
And I am asking another.
If Iranians can see what is going on in Afghanistan…and elsewhere, bet on it…if they can see that “The U.S. has become a process that churns out war – today Afghanistan and (in any real sense) Iraq; tomorrow Iran and Pakistan,” then what assurances can they possibly have that they will not be the next Afghanistan other than arming themselves to the fucking teeth?
“Nuclear proliferation!!!???”
How about the proliferation of violence? Of murder, of theft, of carnage on a totally inhuman, anti-human level?
I am sorry, Booman…your dog here simply will not hunt. Until the U.S. stops its militarily-supported economic imperialist policies there will always be countries that fear its power to the point of arming themselves any way that they can do so in order to hold off the dogs of
conspicuous consumption…errr…I mean the dogs of war.All of the speechifying in the world will not change that fact.
The U.S. murdered and then unceremoniously dumped into the sea the man who best pointed this out over the past several decades.
Remember…another assassinated, dark-complexioned man warned us all 40+ years ago about what happens during the span of Martin Luther King’s inevitable “arc of justice.”
“The chickens always come home to roost,” said Malcolm X.
Watch.
Or…do something about it besides screeching about “Four More Years” of continuing carnage in the name of The American Way.
It takes a village?
Hell, it takes a planet, Booman!!!
The problem is not Iran getting some pissant nukes, the problem is us.
Yes it is.
The scene is just getting larger, Booman. Malcolm spoke of how the U.S. pulls “a 9 inch knife 6 inches out” of the back of those who it has stabbed and further, “not even admitting that the knife exists.” How is this Iran situation different, other than in terms of scale?
And how much larger on that scale will be the chicken-roosting when it finally arrives?
Really, man.
You’d best think on it.
We all should be thinking on it, because what is happening now is eventually going to produce a swarm of chickens that will darken the skies of the entire earth.
Bet on that as well.
Later…
AG
Quite aside from any consideration of the merits of your argument, what strange compulsion drives you to believe that the best way to convince people to your point of view is to quote Usama bin-Laden favorably?
I am quite aware of UBL’s critique of American because I’ve read everything I could that he’s said, both before and after 9/11 and the Iraq War.
I have quoted him to rebut the idea that we were attacked because of our freedoms. But to argue that he’s made the best critique of U.S. foreign policy of anyone over the last several decades?
That’s not the way to go, my friend.
But, more importantly, you agree with his critique, which is why you can’t understand anything I wrote in this piece.
Yes, Booman, I do agree with his critique, although not necessarily with all of his actions in support of that critique. And frankly, I am not trying to “convince people [of my] point of view.” Instead, what I am doing is very much what Gandhi was doing with his own “Experiments With Truth.”
Different levels, same experiments.
Truth(s)? As far as this mortal has gotten in understanding them so far?
Sure. Here are a few.
Experiment?
State these truths…again, “truths” only insofar as this mortal can recognize them…publicly in places where they are being ignored and (as in any good experiment) observe the results.
The results here?
They are being ignored.
Why?
Sleep.
Blindness.
Political exigency.
Choose among them. All three, possibly.
Why?
It’s only natural. We’re only human, as one of my teachers so often and accurately reminded us when we got too…exercised…over the state of things.
But “natural” is not always best, Booman. It’s “natural” to overfarm and deforest the earth. Until of course the ecostructure breaks down. Then it’s “natural” to try to find ways to survive comfortably while not ruining the ecostructure.
And I suppose it’s “natural” to fail at that attempt due to human nature…due to greed, corruption, laziness, gene-sink produced stupidity, etc.
That’s where we are today, Booman, on another level. We have over-farmed the human ecostructure, and it is failing.
There’s another truth fer ya, bunky.
More experimentation on my part, I guess.
So it goes.
I do keep trying, though.
Yes I do.
Later…
AG
Proposition 1: It is a bad thing for nuclear weapons to become more widespread.
Proposition 2: The truth value of Proposition 1 does not depend on the nation of origin of the person who states it.
Are either of these points wrong?
I think it’s a bit disingenous to suggest that people opposed to preemptive war are for increased nuclear proliferation.
I’d assert that the threat of being attacked has been the underlying cause of nuclear proliferation and that’s been true since Hiroshima.
The notion that we can eliminate the impulse for nuclear proliferation gby premptively attacking nations seems analagous to killing lung cancer by chain smoking.
I think it’s a bit disingenous to suggest that people opposed to preemptive war are for increased nuclear proliferation.
Good thing nobody has done that, then. Perhaps, instead of wondering what I might be ‘suggesting,’ you could address what I’ve stated explicitly.
I’d assert that the threat of being attacked has been the underlying cause of nuclear proliferation
I’d assert that the threat of being attacked is not something that can be completely eliminated from the world, and that the impulse towards nuclear proliferation, and therefore nuclear proliferation itself, would continue to exist even in the absence of the bad ol’ United States. Iraq wasn’t fearful of an American attack when it began its nuclear program under Saddam – they were our ally at the time, and their main military competitor was Iran.
I don’t doubt for a second that Bush’s Axis of Evil mentality and actions were the driving force behind Iran’s acceleration of its nuke program. The thing is, that observation, and even the adoption of a pacifist American foreign policy, would make neither Iran’s nuclear program, nor non-proliferation in general, go away.
Then how about a slightly more serious and sophisticated policy position on nuclear weaponry than:
“Don’t you dare build a nuclear bomb, or there will be consequences…”
There have been all kinds of sticks offered to Iran.
Or are you just against the idea of there being consequences for nuclear proliferation in general?
Fine, good propositions. But I think the existing US position rests on the following:
Proposition 3: All options, including aerial bombardment and all-out war, should be used to prevent Proposition 1 coming to pass
I’m not sure many of us can stomach that one.
If you really mean it when you say you think that 1 & 2 are fine and good, then fretting about 3 can’t be the only thing you have to say about the issue. You actually have to deal with the problem and advocate for the options you like.
The biggest obstacle to acquiring nuclear weapons is the acquisition of a sufficient number of trained expert who know how to make a bomb. This expertise is growing rapidly among all nations of the world – the only way to stop would be to perform security checks on all physics and Engineering students studying at US and European Universities.
I’ve been bitterly disappointed with the administration’s strategy for dealing with Iran, and with the West in general. I believe that dictating the terms of an agreement, and then using sanctions to cause the Iraqi people to suffer until they say uncle and agree to our demands is a lousy way to get their cooperation. I think if we were willing to negotiate in good faith, and to bear in mind that Iraq does have the right under the treaty’s we’ve signed to process uranium, we could find an agreement that would recognize that right while also addressing the west’s concerns. As it is, Iran has made counter-proposals (such as allowing Turkey to hold its uranium while other parties prepare the enriched uranium needed for their research reactor), and we’ve just ignored them. Ironically, Obama was criticized during the 2008 election for saying he’d be willing to meet with leaders of Iran without precondition, but as it turns out, he hasn’t been willing negotiate much at all.
You know what negotiations are going on with the Iranians?
Wow, your security clearance must be pretty impressive.
BTW, your slip is showing. Iraqi, Iraq.
Let’s stop and try to contemplate the day when Iran will have run out of oil. And not even have a nuclear reactor to generate electricity. Yes, by then the US will be a major exporter of oil and have run OPEC completely into the ground. The US has no need to comtemplate the world-wide competition to get more oil from dwindling sources. Because you see, the US will decide who gets what and have the luxury of being energy independent. What has Iran done exactly wrong? Someone please tell me. What did Iraq ever do wrong? As if the US is so concerned about justice, freedom and——oh, oh, oh, the righteous cause of nuclear nonproliferation.
Only the US never does wrong.
And I can add, nor does Israel. No wrong.
Read More.
It amazes me that Bush did this much damage to the progressive movement.
I think what you aren’t getting, BooMan, is that the President of the United States’ commitment to nonproliferation and nuclear arms reduction is a big part of the reason why people like Quentin are now sneering at the issue.
Look at the flip-flop such people did about the Libyan Arab Spring, the moment President Obama sided with them. Heck, I saw the same thing happen in certain circles regarding the Green Revolution in Iran. The moment Obama made even his feeble expressions of sympathy, Matt Yglesias’ comment threads became flooded with statements about Ahmedinejad being a proletarian man of the people, and the protesters being elitist CIA dupes who’d been repudiated by the Iranian people in the fairest elections the world had ever seen.
It’s amoral enemy-of-my-enemy thinking, with the very special addition of the “enemy” in question being the United States. If the United States is for something, they’re against it. If the United States is against something, they’re for it – even if that thing is nuclear proliferation.
I’m not saying that attitude defines the entirety of Obama’s critics, but the shoe certainly fits in this case.
I expect this kneejerk argument — essentially, “They Hate America!” – from neocons, not from you.
Personally, I find it both frustrating and inexplicable that nuclear disarmament is virtually dead as a priority issue on the left – indeed, among the elite political class, there’s as much robust support for it from realpolitik people on the right (Schultz, Kissinger) these days. And America’s slide into preemptive, aggressive wars as a SOP has shifted the foreign policy concerns of even the few progressives who still actively care about peace issues. Nuclear disarmament is all but forgotten.
That said, even among people who do care about disarmament, there’s a difference between supporting use of the limited points of leverage (mostly economic) that the West has to stop a potential development of nuclear weaponry by Iraq, and thinking that the US should take the lead role in that effort. Obama IMO has done a good and necessary job of internationalizing the opposition to Iraq’s possible acquisition of nukes. But the basic problem is that the US isn’t appropriate as the lead actor, not because Everything America Does Is Bad, but because Iran’s possible development of nukes has a very specific regional context, and the US is not a neutral player in that context.
Israel is by far the greatest security threat – conventional or nuclear – to Iran, and the US is both an enormous funder of the Israeli military and a critical political enabler of Israel’s actions (however illegal they become) at the international level. Also too, you have the direct calls for Iranian regime change that have permeated the US political class for years, and that have been buttressed by years of aggressive covert acts on Iranian soil. If I’m Iranian leadership, how seriously am I going to take a call to unilaterally forgo weapon development from a country that could be ruled next year by leaders committed to overthrowing me?
The US is not a neutral player here – just as it’s not in the Palestinian issue – and so the “special responsibility” Booman cites is in many ways counterproductive here to the bottom line (no new nukes) goal. Acknowledging that reality is not the same as saying everything the US does is bad.
Obama has probably played this about as well as he can. And unlike 2002-3, the White House is not where the calls for preemptive war are coming from. What we’re getting is primarily a US media campaign orchestrated by Netanyahu and his American supporters, and that is what the Usual Suspects on the left are responding to.
Lastly, there’s plenty of evidence that actual military strikes would be counterproductive to the actual goal of preventing or ending an Iranian nuclear weapon program. A lot of the criticism directed at seabe and others here seems based on the notion that opposing war (or the threat of it) means not taking nonproliferation seriously. If military strikes themselves would be counterproductive, is threatening their use, even as a bluff, productive? So far, it hasn’t been – if anything, the bluster from Israel and some quarters of the US has simply strengthened the Iranian regime’s resolve. And Tehran so far has been more than willing to call the bluff.
Brazil, Turkey, and Libya all walked away from nuclear research because they got positive economic and military benefits by doing so. To me, the real discussion is whether bombing Iran, bringing its economy to its knees, funding terror inside its borders, or other punitive measures can possibly be successful without positive inducements as well. Do we want to destabilize a nasty government, or do we want to stop them from getting nukes? We probably can’t do both.
I expect this kneejerk argument — essentially, “They Hate America!” – from neocons, not from you.
I think it’s your knee that is jerking. The neocons were wrong to dismiss the entirety of the criticism on these grounds, and you’re just as wrong to deny that it exists at all. Just look at what gets posted here.
But the basic problem is that the US isn’t appropriate as the lead actor, not because Everything America Does Is Bad, but because Iran’s possible development of nukes has a very specific regional context, and the US is not a neutral player in that context.
So you’re very serious about the international community taking nonproliferation seriously, but you want the United States to not lead, but rather, get out of the way and let this very serious, important effort that you support so strongly to be led by one of the other actors that is rushing to take the bull by the horns. Like…?
I’m a big UN supporting, international community, multilateral type. I wish there was a stronger global watchdog. There isn’t. The US doing its best to work multilaterally, to lead from behind, in the effort to prevent proliferation is the most humble foreign policy we can have without abandoning nonproliferation as a goal.
I agree very much with you about the need for positive inducements. Russia providing Iran with nuclear material would be a positive inducement indeed for a country seeking to develop a domestic nuclear energy industry. Better relations with the U.S. would be a powerful inducement to a country that has suffered because of its bad relations with the U.S. I think it’s a near-certainty that Iran is being offered real inducements, the way North Korea was. As you say, the saber-rattling from the US government itself has been pretty minimal. I see this as all part of a process involving quiet negotiations.
It’s quite odd to see you criticizing Obama for not preemptively weakening his bargaining position.
By the time Iran runs out of oil, they will have well-developed solar energy resources. And will have been able to finance them with the inflated oil revenues from the price bubble created by the speculators in this crisis.
The issue is pretty narrow. Iran has had a nuclear reactor for medical isotope manufacture and research ever since Eisenhower provided it to the Shah. Iran has embarked on a program of enriching uranium to, it says, keep this reactor going. There has been a lot of speculation (and maybe a little intelligence work back when Valerie Plame Wilson was CIA) that Iran was seeking to enrich uranium to create either (1) a nuclear capability or (2) a nuclear weapon itself. This has caused a dispute and politicking over the findings of the IAEA in relation to Iran’s nuclear program. As a consequence Iran has retaliated by keeping IAEA inspectors in country on a tight leash.
We have a case here of complementary paranoia. Iran is paranoid about US imperialism because of past (the coup against Mossadegh) and present (war in Iraq) US behavior. US policymakers are paranoid about Iran because of past (seizure of hostages at US Embassy in Teheran) and present (lack of “appropriate” transparency about their nuclear program).
American exceptionalism gets in the way of US policy for a lot of countries who ask where is US commitment to reducing nuclear weapons on their part (and Russia as well). And of course, what about Israel. When is the IAEA going to inspect Israel? When is the US going to let the IAEA conduct regular inspections in the US?
Hear hear. It upsets me that this basic argument is cast as somehow an ossified fossil of “left” thinking. Or as Obama derangment syndrome.
I’m with Sully on this. It’s not a great thing if Iran gets nukes, but we can work to contain it just like the Soviets. And even if we can’t do that as well, then it’s still not worth invading Iran.
So I’m not interested in talk of military options at all, except in as much as they Israel to shut the fuck up about things until the end of the election. Any reasonable ally would have abandoned Israel a while ago, sticking with them just makes no sense.
Just like we’ve worked to contain Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. And if Iran gets nukes, Saudi Arabia will start being envious. Turkey will start worrying whether NATO really will protect them.
There is a whole bunch of issues that will arise out of Iran actually getting one or more nuclear weapons.
The more difficult position to assess is if Iran stops short and just has a nuclear capability like Japan. For that to happen there would have to be some assurances of non-aggression on the part of the US and some US position on its probable response to Israeli aggression.
None of the countries involved will take the military option off the table. That is seen as the trump card. But to affect the negotiations, the parties must not think that talking about military options are idle threats.
And some of what President Obama is likely to say publicly will be aimed at quieting US war hawks like Graham, McCain, and Lieberman (especially Lieberman). What is being said diplomatic might or might not be quite different. Same goes of Ahmedinejad.
As long as negotiations are going on and the normal chest-beating that is a part of that, the conflict is unnerving but tolerable.
The problem is all of the rumors swirling around Israeli intentions. And on the left, the expectation is that Obama cannot rein in Bibi even with a $3 billion leash because of the Israel lobby and an election year (and Obama’s own style of negotiation).
There has been fairly good reporting that the neither the IDF, Mossad, nor the US DoD wants to conduct strikes because of the possible regional ramifications. So we are left with Bibi, those in his government to his right, the US GOP, and Joe Lieberman wanting to go to war. And the US media, almost alone, beating the drums of war.
It’s nice background music to negotiations as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. And that’s what worries the progressives you are arguing against. More specifically their worries are that GOP pressures in an election year will cause Obama to go to war for domestic political reasons.
But IMO, the fact that it is an election year in the US and next year is an election year in Iran acts as a damper on both Obama and Ahmedinejad in negotiations. Leaders often use the threat of a war during an election year in order to solidify support behind them, but very few launch wars right before an election. Even George W. Bush used the run-up to the 2002 election to roll out the campaign against Iraq, but did not actually order a strike until he had the Congress in his hands.
The knee-jerk reaction on the left is to assume in all situations that either (1) the US is lying or (2) the US is incapable of being an honest negotiator because government is compromised by huge financial interests of US-based corporations. Iraq really was about oil; Dick Cheney and his Energy Task Force divvied up the concessions ahead of time. Is Iran about oil as well?
I think not. I think that the US policy in this case seeks enforcement of a non-proliferation regime and increased regional stability.
The problem is that at some point the US has to tell Israel “No” in emphatic terms. And stop letting Likud from making a one-state solution a fait accompli. The Israeli saber-rattling against Iran obscures the continuing land grab. It’s just a shiny object. But one that could explode.
.
Don’t forget the thrust toward Iran sanctions and its gas/oil reserves by the Cameron regime in the UK. Their agression is renowned and global, think Libya, Iraq, Syria, Falklands and in lock-step with the US on Iran.
Cross-posted from my diary – Obama’s Self Interest and Re-election
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."That’s a pretty broad statement. And mixes a lot of pre-World War II history with recent history. The UK has been sort of a “me too” country to the US on actions that are aggressive. The exception is the no-fly zone and subsequent air campaign in Libya, which was driven by the Sarkozy government.
But the Falklands charge is especially a stretch. The UK has held the Falklands since 1833; the population is of British descent. Argentina’s main claim is propinquity. And it is only recently that oil has become a motivating factor in the conflict.
The UK and US have looked at the Middle East/North Africa region as their oil reserve since World War I. Colonial and neo-colonial. Only sporadically enforced with aggression, often enforced with corrupt puppets.
Until World War II, all major nations had global ambitions enforced with occasional aggression. That was the logic of international relations. It will take longer than 65 years to break those habits of thought. If it wasn’t the US and its allies, there would be some other ambitious country filling the vacuum in the global security environment.
That is why there needs to be international agreement to change the architecture of the global security environment. The United States, having exhausted itself in extending its empire through a failed war in Iraq now has the opportunity to gain that international agreement,
.
The UK has held the Falklands since 1833; the population is of British descent.
You will be the single person to establish by International Law a validity to UK rule over the Falklands. I can’t find an ICJ ruling on the matter, nor has the promise of diplomacy led to an agreement between Argentina and the United Kingdom. Perhaps an independent Scotland may lay claim to the Falklands as most “British” came from Northern Scotland or Shetland Islands.
25 Gauchos and 5 Indians, 2 Dutch Families, 2 or 3 Englishmen, a German family, the remainder were Spaniards and Portuguese, pretending to follow some trade, but doing little or nothing. The Gauchos he said were Buenos Ayreans and their Capataz a Frenchman.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."And the US media, almost alone, beating the drums of war.
It’s strang, isn’t it? It’s like the days of William Randolph Hearst.
Andrea Mitchell is suddenly Mrs. Foreign Policy.
I’m late to this thread, but there are some excellent and thoughtful comments.
My prism – to use a term from down-thread – is that of energy, based upon over 20 years in energy markets, and with over 10 years’ experience of Iran, including five visits, most recently three months ago as an academic speaking on Transition through Gas.
In my view. the principal doctrine of US foreign policy in the last 100 years has been an energy doctrine of energy security, energy security and energy security. We should not be surprised therefore that China’s doctrine is precisely the same.
My analysis is that in 2007 China became able (through funding the US property bubble) to exercise an economic veto over the US neocon project – Real Men Go to Tehran. In a Suez Moment – ie the same way the US wielded an economic veto over British adventurism at Suez – the US were obliged to leave Iraq, and will not attack Iran physically because continuing production from, and equal access to oil reserves in these countries is a red line issue for China.
What we now see is economic warfare – currency wars.
The oil embargoes are completely cynical and counter-productive: the EU are ‘useful idiots’ who do not realise that the US has no friends, only interests. All that oil sanctions achieve is to impose costs upon the likes of Greece and Italy, and benefit China through enabling them to fill their reserves with cut-price Iranian crude.
And the joke – as one or two observers have pointed out – is that because of all the noise and rhetoric, even the discounted price Iran will receive from its remaining buyers has risen, so sanctions are in fact a net benefit to them, even without the political benefits they obtain from them. ie they can blame high fuel prices (and reduce subsidies which they wish to do anyway) on the Great Satan.
EU lose; China and Iran gain and the US could care less.
Currency wars are another issue.
Dollar and Euro sanctions are smarter policy and are having dramatic effects in Iran. But to my certain knowledge – and to the great delight of the gold bugs – Iran has begun (well, actually they had accumulated very significant reserves) shipping in and out hundreds of tonnes of gold in order to pay and be paid.
The ‘smartest’ policy of all is the US/EU SWIFT-boating of Iran. ie to cut Iran off from the EU-based international inter-bank secure messaging system – SWIFT.
This is where it gets interesting.
In my view, the banking system – which essentially died in 2008 and continues in zombie mode – is in fact no longer necessary to intermediate economic interaction, and it is pretty trivial for complementary secure messaging systems to be set up between Iran and its counter-parties, using dollars as the unit of account, maybe, but not as the settlement currency.
In other words even the smartest of policy may have completely unintended consequences, which Wall Street and the City (through which US Inc and UK plc are controlled, unlike eg Russia where power is exercised through Gazprom and Iran through NIOC) really, really, really will not like.
And by the way, there most certainly is a trusted third party intermediating between Iran and Israel, with Obama’s tacit or explicit mandate. He was in Tehran a couple of weeks ago.
Obama’s answer was nonsense.
If Israel were out of the picture our profile in the Middle East would be much lower and Iran would have little incentive to pursue nukes.
And an Iranian bomb is an issue for the US ONLY because the US is Israel’s bodyguard.
Needlessly and directly counter to our own national interests.
More than anything else, Israel and interests associated with that country are the biggest single factor in preventing the US realizing the peace dividend from the end of the Cold War and pulling back from NATO, Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East to our own ground and downsizing the military tremendously.
this is astonishingly wrong on every count.