Iran

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Why the Rush with Iran?

If you'd like an alternative take on the latest round of Iran nuclear talks, try Flynt Leverett's and Hillary Mann Leverett's corrective in the National Interest. They condemn the rush to impose what they call an artificial deadline on Iran to accept our pre-conditions, even if those are more generously defined. Instead, they put the negotiations in the context of consistent Iranian efforts to use issue-specific cooperation as a way to engage a "comprehensive diplomatic agenda," efforts consistently disappointed by this and previous American administrations. The Leverett's suggest that recent shifts in American posture have created a receptive climate in Iran to once again try to arrive at some sort of grand bargain. But that opportunity will be lost if we once again reduce the negotiating track to a deadline-enforced single-issue track.

There's a danger, in the Leverett's argument, of getting lulled into the kind of longterm, potentially fruitless negotiations that in essence give the Iranians time to proceed with their technological advances in the nuclear fuel cycle. But there's also the chance that by treating the roots, the leaves take care of themselves.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Negotiating with Iran

Last night, Iran's less than satisfying response to the P5+1's latest offer on the nuclear standoff was leaked to the press by a European source. Today, the Bush administration leaked the news to both the Times and the AP that William J. Burns, the third ranking State Dept. official, will attend this weekend's meeting between the EU's Javier Solana and Iran's nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. It's the highest-level contact between the two countries, but there are a number of caveats:

The officials emphasized that Mr. Burns’s participation was a one-time decision, that he would not meet one-on-one with Mr. Jalili and that he would reiterate the administration’s demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment.

I'd be curious to know who leaked the story, and what faction in the internal administration wrangling over Iran that Burns belongs to. His Congressional testimony on Iran from just last week (.pdf) is an equal dose of firmness and openness to dialogue, therefore hard to decipher. The Times article frames the decision to send Burns as a response to some background noise coming out of Iran that ". . .led the administration to conclude that there could be more chance of a diplomatic resolution than some Iranian declarations and a battery of missile tests last week suggested." 

But Burns' presence remains ambiguous, in that it signals what amounts to a reversal in the American position of no discussions without a freeze in Iran's uranium enrichment program, at the same time that the message he's being sent to deliver communicates the exact opposite. In combination with last night's leak, it plays to the court of public opinion to create the perception of an American willingness to negotiate, thereby effectively raising pressure on Iran to come up with something substantive at the meeting. The question is whether the Iranians will perceive it in the same way.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Wednesday, July 9, 2008

The Iranian Threat

I found this Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation chart via Matthew Yglesias last night. As you can see, it uses a side by side comparison of U.S. and Iranian military capacity to effectively debunk the idea that Iran poses any kind of existential threat to the United States. Yglesias acknowledges the risk to regional stability represented by Iran acquiring a nuclear weapons capacity, but says that's "a far cry from saying that Iran is, as such, any kind of serious military threat."

My first thought last night was that this line of argument is convincing because it blurs the distinction between existential threat and military threat. In particular, it ignores the fact that Iran is aggressively pursuing a ballistic missile capacity which will soon put it in the position of striking Israeli targets, and eventually put European capitals within range. My first thought this morning was that had I posted that thought last night, the news that Iran just test launched a Shahab 3 missile capable of reaching Tel Aviv would have made me look like a genius. 

The fact is that for over twenty years now, Iran has been a hostile nation that has exercised a destabilizing influence in the region and demonstrated a willingness to use force -- including terrorist attacks carried out by proxies and state agents -- to further its interests. They are not the only nation that fits that description, but they are the most prominent among the group. The fact that American policy towards Iran over that time might not have been ideally formulated to modulate that posture is an exacerbating factor, but not a causal one, and it doesn't make Iran's posture any less real.

For a variety of reasons, it would be counterproductive to try to achieve our strategic objectives vis à vis Iran through military means. That means we need to engage them diplomatically, which entails allowing for a realistic recalculation of Iran's regional status, to our detriment. But we need to do that clearsightedly, which means recognizing both the difficulties of negotiating with Tehran (the response to the P5+1's latest offer on the nuclear dossier is an example), and also the threat a hostile Iranian state poses to our interests and those of our allies.

The case against a military approach to Iran can be made without minimizing or ignoring the military threat Iran poses. It is far from being existential, either to the U.S. or to our allies. But it exists.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Sunday, June 29, 2008

Syber War

The new Sy Hersh piece is up at the New Yorker and -- with the caveat that it might be time to coin a term along the lines of a "Friedman Unit" to describe Hersh's Iran reporting -- to the extent that his account of the Bush administration's covert operations against Iran is accurate, the operations are misguided for all the obvious reasons. Hersh identifies most of them, but leaves unmentioned the fact that encouraging ethno-sectarian faultlines as a means of undermining the Iranian regime is logically inconsistent with the Western strategic consensus that identifies the effects of ethno-sectarian conflict as one of the principle threats to regional and global stability, and repairing them as the emerging justification and goal of military intervention. It's reassuring to note that Vali Nasr, in the piece, dismisses the effectiveness of applying such a tactic to Iran due to the country's well-established national identity, but I remember hearing the same logic used to explain why Iraq's Shiite community would be resistant to Iranian influence in Iraqi internal politics.

Another point that Hersh treats obliquely is that the groups we're supporting covertly, in particular PJAK but to a lesser degree Jundullah, represent threats to our friends as well as to Iran. Hersh mentions the tension this might cause us with Turkey and Afghanistan respectively, but it's worth noting that, as Turkey's security cooperation with Iran regarding Kurdish guerillas in northern Iraq illustrates, our covert Iran policy is also working at cross purposes with our overt Iran policy, namely to isolate Tehran from its neighbors.

But to my mind, the greatest risk of these covert operations is not so much the threat they pose to our Middle East policy, so much as the threat they pose to the health and integrity of our domestic political institutions. The degree of secrecy in which the current administration's covert operations are shrouded is all the more worrying given the Bush administration's willingness, according to Hersh, to keep not only Congress but to a large degree the uniformed military chain of command in the dark about covert operations as well.

That takes on added significance in the context of the upcoming presidential transition. Most of the discusion of that transition has focused on the conduct of the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the need for institutional and operational continuity. But with so much of the Bush administration's counterterror and now Middle East policy taking place off the books and being arguably illegal, there's reason to worry about whether or not we'll ever really track all of it down. And that raises the very real risk of these operations becoming rogue operations directed by a private chain of command, if they're directed at all.

A lot of this has to do with executive overreach, and both Barack Obama and John McCain have discussed ways in which they would return the executive branch to the Constitutional framework largely ignored by President Bush. But the guiding logic of all of the operations discussed by Hersh is the War on Terror, which the Bush administration has used to justify the Commander-in-Chief override of the oversight process. The next president should declare the War on Terror over in a legal sense, even while pursuing it operationally. It would send the right message to Americans, to American agents and to the region that we're ready to shine some light into the shadows, instead of operating in them.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Iran   

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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Engagement vs. Provocation

Diplomatic engagement with Iran is inevitable, not because they're "ten feet tall and on a roll," as this WaPo article (via Laura Rozen) puts it, or even because they're "dangerous, and clever, and good at asymmetric warfare." Diplomatic engagement is inevitable because it's the only official means of communication between nations besides war, and war is in neither Iran's nor our interest. On the other hand, I don't think that diplomatic engagement should be organized under a logic of "[T]hey have a lot of vulnerabilities -- and. . .we can exploit them." At this point, too, how to manage the second most thorny strategic challenge facing the country (I put Russia first) is a question best left to the incoming administration. The opening of a State Department interests section in Tehran during the last six months of a Bush administration comes across as yet another provocation. The opening of a State Department interests section in Tehran during the first six months of a new administration comes across as an initial feeler. So it's a good idea, but for the wrong reasons at the wrong time.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Iran Proposal Signals American Shift

In case you haven't seen it yet, ISIS (via Laura Rozen) has posted an English-language version (.pdf) of the EU3+3 Iran proposal I referred to yesterday. And in comparing it to the last concrete offer made in June 2006, it's very clear that the major difference is in the political incentives added to sweeten the deal. Here's the political component, circa 2006:

Support for a new conference to promote dialogue and cooperation on regional security issues.

Here's the same section from this week's offer:

-Improving the six countries' and the EU's relations with Iran and building up mutual trust.
-Encouragement of direct contact and dialogue with Iran.
-Support Iran in playing an important and constructive role in international affairs.
-Promotion of dialogue and cooperation on non-proliferation, regional security and stabilisation issues.
-Work with Iran and others in the region to encourage confidence-building measures and regional security.
-Establishment of appropriate consultation and cooperation mechanisms.
-Support for a conference on regional security issues.
-Reaffirmation that a solution to the Iranian nuclear issue would contribute to non-proliferation efforts and to relaizing the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including their means of delivery.
-Reaffirmation of the obligation under the UN Charter to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.
-Cooperation on Afghnaistan, including on intensified cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking; support for programmes on the return of Afghan refugees to Afghanistan; cooperation on reconstruction of Afghanistan; cooperation on guarding the Iran-Afghan border.

I was a little lazy last night about tracking down the 2006 offer, which explains why I called the above a cosmetic change. My bad. There's obviously no guarantee that the negotiations will bear fruit, and the uranium freeze (Iran's red line) is still a pre-condition. But keep in mind that the above paragraph bears Condoleezza Rice's signature on behalf of the United States. That, to me, constitutes at least the suggestion of a pretty broad engagement.

That might explain why Iran has declared that it will examine the proposal carefully. Given that the Ayatollah Khamenei, who will ultimately mae the decision, has already expressed that any engagement with the U.S. would have to wait for the next administration, it's very possible that they'll either play for time or flat out reject it. But this is a pretty big shift, even if it is only one on paper for the time being.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Thursday, June 5, 2008

Don't Get M.A.D. at Iran

Sam Roggeveen at The Interpeter (another new addition to the blogroll) makes some good points about Iran's nuclear weaponization program. (Although the only time there was a "D" in Grunstein was back when I was playing pickup ball in NY. No harm, no foul, Sam.) As Sam rightly notes, as important as Iran's intentions (which we can neither prove nor disprove, and which are subject to change) is the fact that any possible weapons capacity is significantly delayed by freezing the weaponization component of their program. That's what's known as a window of opportunity, no matter how slight the opening, and we would be very foolish if we didn't explore every possibility it offers with the utmost seriousness of purpose.

I mentioned the reasons why, even if Iran is deterrable (and I believe it is), an Iranian bomb would be a disaster. But I've always been surprised by how flippant so many people are to the idea of nuclear deterrance as an acceptable outcome of this crisis. My generation is the last to have grown up through young adulthood under the weight of M.A.D., and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Indeed, one of the most exciting promises that grew out of the fall of the Soviet Union was the idea that it would finally be relegated to the dustbin of history. Noah Shachtman at Danger Room reminds us of why.

Instead, M.A.D. has found a new home in South Asia, with all the alarming scenarios that represents. The Middle East makes for an even more worrisome threat environment. In the absence of the necessary trust, President Bush's declarations that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable sound like bellicose threats. That doesn't make them less true. Hopefully the next American president can establish the kind of dialogue necessary to convince the Iranians of that as well.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Iran's Nuclear Intentions

Adam Blickstein is right in arguing that restoring the intelligence community's credibility will be essential to the ability of any future presidential administration to mobilize public opinion for a necessary intervention. Whether or not that's possible in an age of "all info ops, all the time" remains to be seen. There will always be both known and unknown gaps in our intelligence, and how they are used to drive policy is often an essentially political decision. Jeffrey Lewis, in a post I flagged yesterday, called attention to the different ways in which the Clinton and Bush administrations assessed a known gap in intelligence on North Korea. The divergence in their conclusions has as much to do with political considerations as with the longterm strategic cost-benefit analysis.

A good place to start, though, would be in not purposely distorting the known intelligence, for instance, about Iran's nuclear program, as Matthew Yglesias points out in an entertaining post here. That said, it's important to be precise about what the NIE said and didn't say (.pdf), and what we can and can't know about Iran's intentions. The NIE said that Iran has halted the weaponization component of its nuclear program. Most opponents of a war with Iran in particular and the Bush administration's disastrous Iran policy in general latched onto that to argue that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons.

There are two problems with that argument, despite its apparent tautology. To begin with, the production of a deployable nuclear weapon depends on a number of components: weapons grade fissile material, a delivery system, and the actual implosion device necessary to set off the atomic reaction, among others. The NIE basically stated that Iran decided to freeze the last component, probably in response to heightened international concern and pressure. But Iran is still developing the first two components, and they are still just as applicable to any eventual nuclear design. It's the equivalent of building a car frame, refining gasoline, and discontinuing the program that was developing the internal combustion engine.

From everything I've read, the actual weaponization device is not the most arduous part of the process. The uranium enrichment is. Which means that while Iran is no longer developing nuclear weapons, the question of whether it is still pursuing them boils down to its intentions. The fact that it had a weaponization program to begin with leaves little doubt as to its initial intentions. But here's what the NIE had to say about Iran's current intentions:

. . .we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.

There's also this:

Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so. For example, Iran’s civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. We also assess with high confidence that since fall 2003, Iran has been conducting research and development projects with commercial and conventional military applications—some of which would also be of limited use for nuclear weapons.

Finally there's this:

We assess with moderate confidence that convincing the Iranian leadership to forgo the eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult given the linkage many within the leadership probably see between nuclear weapons development and Iran’s key national security and foreign policy objectives, and given Iran’s considerable effort from at least the late 1980s to 2003 to develop such weapons. In our judgment, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons—and such a decision is inherently reversible.

It's important to push back against any distortions of the intelligence, but it's counterproductive to push back to the point of distorting to the opposite extreme. I advocate engaging Iran, because I think that whatever eventual concessions we might mutually make would be strategically less costly than an armed intervention. But we shouldn't be naive. We're dealing with a hostile country harboring adversarial regional ambitions that has been opaque in developing its nuclear program and has a history of nuclear weapons intentions. There are also a variety of regional stability concerns and broader non-proliferation principles that would be jeopardized by an eventual Iranian nuclear weapons capacity, even if Iran itself is deterrable. 

That makes for a much more complicated strategic problem to resolve in just about every possible way. But reality usually does.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Friday, May 23, 2008

The Iran Fallacy

In case you haven't noticed the front page, WPR has got a pretty solid one-two punch of must read articles today. The first, by Charles Crain, discusses the ways in which the Obama-McCain dust up over negotiating with enemies like Iran is divorced from the reality that we already are negotiating with enemies like Iran. The second, by Brian Burton, dissects the ways in which the consensus view of Iran as the source of all the Middle East's problems is divorced from the reality that the Middle East is the source of all the Middle East's problems.

I'd been meaning to make Crain's point for the last few days, so I'm glad he saved me the trouble. And I've been guilty of what Burton is talking about, using the shorthand of "symptom" when referring to Hamas, Hizbollah and Syria and "disease" to refer to Iran. There is the not insignificant detail of Iranian funding, supplies and training, but Burton is spot on in his argument that Hamas and Hizbollah -- and the popular discontent they represent -- would exist independently of Iranian influence. Burton's policy correctives read almost like a diplomatic version of the U.S. Army's new COIN tactics writ large:

The best way to counter expanding extremism and Iranian influence is not through more conventional state-to-state military action or diplomacy. It is by beating Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Sadrists at their own game: Standing up for repressed populations of the region, addressing their local grievances, demonstrating care for their concerns, offering aid and a clear vision of a better future. Extremist groups like these will not fade away until their constituencies have a more attractive alternative, and America should be ashamed if it cannot do a better job than Iran at providing that alternative.

You might remember the discussion we had here on the blog a few weeks back about Barack Obama's foreign policy "crusade." I think that underneath Obama's transformational rhetoric is really just an ambition to put what Burton describes into practice.

My point at the time was that presenting the case in transformational terms risks raising expectations too high. Hamas and Hizbollah didn't just suddenly appear as their constituencies' best hope to get their political grievances redressed. They are the product of over forty years of failed policy, and in many ways their rise reflects a level of desperation which will be difficult to move past. But regardless of whether we actually do end up transforming the Middle East or the world, what Burton (and Obama) is proposing is the right thing to do.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   The Middle East   

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

No Trade-offs, Good Deal

Apparently, House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman didn't get the memo that U.S.-Russia relations are no longer based on trade-offs. More seriously, as the Richard Weitz article I flagged yesterday points out, nuclear cooperation with the U.S. provides Russia with lucrative alternatives to its relatively modest (and at times unpaid) commerce with Iran.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   Russia   

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Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Business Never Personal

A few weeks back, I wrote that the real danger of Gen. Petraeus being promoted to CENTCOM is not so much that his regional strategy might be weighted towards Iraq to the detriment of Afghanistan, although that's certainly a risk. The real problem is that Gen. Petraeus' view of the Iranians is colored by the fact that he's been engaged in a low-level proxy war with them for the past year and a half.

But as this Dr. iRack post over at Abu Muqawama demonstrates, Petraeus isn't alone. Here's the good doctor discussing one possible reason why American policy-makers dismissed Iranian overtures for broad, regional negotiations following the recent fighting in Basra:

In recent weeks, Dr. iRack has been at a number of events with very senior U.S. officials discussing Iran's lethal involvement in Iraq. To a man, these officials have, over the past month, been rocketed by weapons made in Iran (although direct links to the regime remain murky). Dr. iRack is no psychologist, but key U.S. figures on the ground in Baghdad just don't seem to be in the mood to talk to folks with American blood an their hands while they're being shelled.

This, of course, is why it's not a good idea to put people who have been deeply engaged in-theater in broader regional policy positions. Again, the point is not that the Iranians are angels, or that their overture was necessarily credible. The point is that sometimes negotiating with the bad guys gets you a better result than fighting them, and personal animosities have a way of interfering with the judgment necessarily to make that sort of call.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   Iraq   

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Friday, May 2, 2008

Middle Power Mojo

I got some pushback via email on this post about Turkey, and the idea of formulating American foreign policy to take advantage of the leverage offered by regional "Middle Powers." In particular, the question was raised whether having the same policy as Turkey vis à vis Iran is more important than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and more generally whether harmonizing policy with our regional allies should trump our own policy goals. The short answer is no.

The longer answer is that the Turkey-Iran example is complicated by the fact that I think we're trying to impose a flawed tactic (sanctions), in order to achieve an unrealistic strategic goal (containment). And the result is that countries like Turkey, India, and Pakistan, to say nothing about China and Russia, are lukewarm at best. Now, I'm not at all naive about the Iranian regime, and I think that it would be a strategic disaster if it acquired a nuclear weapons capacity. Not for any existential threat it posed to Israel, and much less to us (because I think that Tehran is susceptible to strategic deterrence), but for the destabilizing impact it would have on regional and global non-proliferation. More importantly, it's a safe bet that the Turks have no burning desire to see a nuclear-armed Iran. For that matter, neither do the Russians.

So, to walk the whole thing back a bit, I'm suggesting two things. First, and this was the central argument of my post, we should focus on enlisting the key regional leverage points, which I called the "Middle Powers," to do the heavy lifting for us in terms of regional policy, because for a whole host of reasons, the lighter our footprint right now, the better. Second, to do that, we need to start by finding the common policy goals with our regional allies, and use that as the starting point for formulating policy. In the case of Iran, that would be preventing the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, but not necessarily containment. America is no longer in a position where it can impose unpopular policies on its regional allies, so we need to find ways to achieve our goals through generating consensus, not twisting arms.

A third point, but one that is more difficult to standardize, involves identifying regional players who have got their mojo (for lack of a better word) working and piggy back on their momentum. Turkey, for instance, has demonstrated a very impressive ability to achieve its foreign policy goals over the past several years. France under Sarkozy has shown a knack for picking winners. It would be foolish to let pride keep us from taking advantage of our friends' lucky streaks.

It goes against years of instinct and habit, but until we restore both our soft and hard power, American influence might be best applied by enlisting savvy and sympathetic Middle Powers, and then following their lead.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Foreign Policy   Iran   Turkey   

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Saturday, April 12, 2008

Iran's Iraq Policy Mirrors Our Own

Yesterday's post about recent U.S. and Iranian restraint opening the door to possible engagement might have been premature to the extent that it downplayed the rhetoric now coming out of Washington about Iran's involvement with Iraqi militias. In particular, the events in Basra are now being used to demonstrate the amount of material and training Iran has supplied to the Sadrist militia, both "special" (ie. rogue) factions and those loyal to Moqtada. Future conflicts will certainly bring to light the operational links that Iran has established with other Shiite militias as well, including those that are integrated into Iraq's national security apparatus.

The Bush administration is portraying this influence as "malign", and insomuch as it works in opposition to our stated goals (solidifying Iraqi sovereignty) and our unstated goals (liquidating the most prominent Iraqi figure -- al-Sadr -- that isn't willing to reach a working arrangement with us), it is. But it's important to remember how arbitrary (or subjective) our definition of terms really is: we've identified the incarnation of Iraqi sovereignty as those willing to cooperate with us, from which it necessarily follows that al-Sadr -- who might very well be the most nationalist of Shiites -- and the support Tehran provides him become part of the problem. Food for thought for the next phase of intra-Shiite power consolidation: if we defined anyone who received support from Tehran as an enemy, we'd have no Shiite allies left.

What's also significant is the degree to which our Sunni policy perfectly mirrors Iran's Shiite policy, both in practice (supplying non-state militias fighting against foreign forces) and effect (undermining the government's monopoly on the legitimate use of force). For the time being, Sunnis have identified al-Qaida Iraq as their principle foreign enemy. But with AQI's strength dwindling, it's only a matter of time before they turn their attention to another foreign power with a significant presence in Iraq.

When that time comes, the Sunnis will have a choice between the two foreign powers left in Iraq: the U.S. and Iran. In the first case, we'll find the second front re-opened, in the second we'll find ourselves on the field as the full-scale Iraqi civil war breaks out. In either case, the role of guarantor of Iraqi sovereignty seems almost certain to be even less attractive than it is now.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   Iraq   

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Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Iran in Iraq

Since the Senate Foreign Relations committee seems to be giving Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker a pretty tough time regarding Iran's influence in Iraq and how reasonable it is to believe we can eliminate it, now might be a good time to point out that former Iraqi Prime Minister and head of PM Noori Miliki's Dawa Party, Ibrahim Jafari, was in Tehran on Sunday, where he met with Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani:

Jafari. . .highlighted the Islamic Republic of Iran’s role in solving his country’s problems and said, "Iran seeks to establish peace, security and stability in the region."

Maybe the timing's just a coincidence. Or maybe it has to do with ironing out the wrinkles in the Basra deal. Still, it's hard to believe that Jafari and Maliki don't understand the importance of the Petraeus Report. The appearances of this are radioactive, but I wonder if anyone in Washington noticed.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Update: After reading this from Kevin Drum, it looks like this meeting could be another sign that Iran is increasingly taking Maliki's side in his standoff with al-Sadr. As for how Moqtada's doing, as the title of Kevin's post wonders, I'd just point out that every time someone counts al-Sadr out, he manages to get back up from the canvas in better shape than before.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   Iraq   

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Cheney in Ankara

You'll recall that last month I mentioned an increase in Turkey's troop commitment in Afghanistan and a more active Turkish role in pushing back against Iran's nuclear program as likely chits for the U.S. signing off on its weeklong incursion into northern Iraq. Well, it seems that Dick cheney flew into Ankara today and met with Turkey's president, prime minister and the Army chief of staff to collect on both accounts. And in a further sign of America's diminished standing in the region, he left more or less empty-handed. (Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan did issue a pro forma declaration urging Tehran to cooperate more fully with the IAEA.)

Now if this were a mob movie, some capo would be busy explaining to the Don in a husky whisper why someone had to get knee-capped, and quick, to keep people in the neighborhood from thinking we'd gone soft. Thing is, if this were a mob movie, chances are Cheney would be the capo sent to do the knee-capping.

So I'll be keeping my eye on this one. Ankara isn't too keen on appearing like Washington's errand boy, so there might just be a short delay for appearance's sake. The NATO summit two weeks from now, for instance, would make a nice, headline-grabbing forum for an Afghanistan announcement.

But if 'No' in this case really means 'No,' that's a pretty big setback for American regional strategy.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Afghanistan   Iran   Turkey   

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Nabucco in Jeopardy, Again

Turkish President Abdullah Gul met with Turkmenistan President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov yesterday, and while both leaders expressed their ". . .mutual will for improving bilateral economic and commercial relations between the two countries," no agreement was announced on whether or not Turkmeni gas will feed the proposed Nabucco pipeline that would make Turkey a gas hub connecting Central Asia with Southern and Central Europe. For Today's Zaman (Turkey), that meant the two countries "agree to boost economic cooperation." For RIA Novosti, citing a Turkish-language paper, that meant "Nabucco trans-Caspian gas pipeline in jeopardy."

WPR contributing editor John Rosenthal recently wrote about the fact that the logic of the Nabucco pipeline, designed to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian gas, doesn't stand up without Iranian reserves feeding it. Which makes the U.S. State Dept's sudden support for the project surprising, and its criticism of other countries for signing energy deals with Iran somewhat hypocritical.

I suppose it could be argued that participation in Nabucco could function as a carrot to try to lure Iran into adopting a more responsible regional posture. But the thing about offering carrots is that they work best when you're not absilutely dependent on the other party to accept them.

I suppose it's also worth noting that Iraq's Oil Ministry has just announced a tender for a pipeline to Iran, designed to transport Iraqi crude to Iran and Iranian refined products back into Iraq. Something to think about the next time someone argues we invaded for the oil.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  European Union   Iran   Iraq   Turkey   

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Thursday, March 20, 2008

Iran Standoff: Running Out of Time

Most Iran-watchers agree that the recent parliamentary elections represent a mild setback for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Pragmatists led by Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ali Larijani roughly split the conservative vote, and even reform candidates, who were suppressed from the ballots in large numbers, managed to pick up some seats. The resulting tension has immediately made itself felt in the standoff that has galvanized world attention and divided the Iranian leadership: the decision on whether or not to pursue Tehran's controversial policy of implementing Daylight Savings Time:

Iran will again use daylight saving time this year despite earlier opposition from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government.

Iran stopped putting the clocks forward in spring 2006 because, although it aims to save electricity by lengthening evening daylight by an hour, the government said there was no evidence to show it cut energy use.

The government said it still opposed using daylight saving time, although parliament voted to reinstate the practice last year.

"The government will be implementing (parliament's) legislation regarding the change in the country's official timing," Government Spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham said.

On a more serious note, an earthquake registering 4.1 on the Richter scale hit roughly 50 miles south of the main uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. No reports yet on damage or casualties.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Saturday, March 15, 2008

Voter Suppression, Tehran Edition

In other election news, Iranians voted for parliament yesterday, although how many actually voted seems to be the first spin battle over the election's significance. Here's how the AP saw it:

Only a handful of voters showed up at many polling stations in Tehran on Friday in Iran's parliament elections, a sign of frustration with a vote that hard-liners allied with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are expected to dominate. . .

Iran's reformist movement, which seeks democratic changes at home and better ties with the West, was largely sidelined in the race after most of its candidates were barred from running by Iran's clerical leadership.

Here's how IRNA, one of Iran's official press organ, saw it:

Iranians responded to the United Nations Security Council's anti-Iran Resolution 1803 by their massive turnout at the parliamentary election on March 14, Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said on Saturday.

Speaking to reporters, he said the Iranian people showed to the world that the resolution which was adopted by the UN Security Council against Iran's peaceful nuclear program had no impact on their national will.

PressTV, a semi-official press organ, put turnout at 65%. I'm leaning towards the AP's version, but that might just reflect my Western bias. Actual results should be available over the next few days.

The big story for the Western press has been the exclusion of the reformists from the balloting. But it's important to remeber that Iran pursued its clandestine nuclear program while the reformists were in power. As for the more pragmatic conservatives like Hashemi Rafsanjani, there's not a whole lot of daylight between his negotiating position and that of Ahmadinejad. In a sermon yesterday, Rafsanjani reiterated the standard Iranian position of negotiations with no pre-conditions (ie. no uranium enrichment freeze). So while the exclusion of the reformists is significant for what it reveals about Tehran's general orientation, I'm not sure it will have a major impact on the particular issue of the nuclear standoff.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Fallon's Gone

Wow. That was quick. The question now is, What just happened? More specifically, what game was Fallon playing? He ostensibly quit because of the implication of a disconnect between him and the White House on Iran, which created an untenable situation. At the same time, given Fallon's past comments and known position on Iran (Bob Gates called the 'resignation' "...a cumulative kind of thing"), there's a lot of reason to believe that this was inevitable and that the Esquire article just forced the White House's hand. Fallon immediately distanced himself from the article, but the article's author, Thomas Barnett, suggested just after the piece appeared that that was disingenuous:

Writing a piece that pretended there was no tension, when it exists in spades, would have been dishonest. Not preparing the American public for the possibility that Fallon's stance may cost him much like it did MacArthur would also have been poor journalism... Finally, it would have been wholly irresponsible...to not raise the issue that what Fallon's doing here is exactly what so many young officers in the military now say wasn't done before Iraq: providing strategic context to the debate about whether or not this country goes to war again...

But let me be clear here regarding any impression garnered from the admiral's "rejection" of the piece: I approached the admiral expressly on the issue of his ongoing stance on Iran, informing him that Esquire was interested in exploring the man and the vision attached to this stance. The subject constituted a major portion of my first interview with him and later ones following the trip.

There's just so many different levels on which to speculate here that it's hard to know where to start. Is this an NIE-type maneuver, broadcasting a tell (ie. Fallon gone = war with Iran) in order to mobilize resistance to the outcome? Is it a ploy to put the fear of Cheney into the Iranians' hearts, in the hopes that they might become more cooperative if they know the countdown clock's been re-started? Is he signalling to the officer corps' that it's now or never to push back against an ill-conceived attack on Iran?

One thing is sure. When a strategic genius like Fallon gives the kind of access he granted to Barnett, he knows what he's doing and he has a plan. I'm not a strategic genius, so it will take me a while to figure out what that plan is.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Thursday, March 6, 2008

Fallon Gets Bashful

Apparently Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon has distanced himself from Thomas Barnett's glowing Esquire profile. Too bad, because Fallon really does seem to have a folk wisdom about how to handle some of the region's trouble spots that in its simplicity offers more substance than some of the more soaring diplomatic initiatives I've seen proposed elsewhere. Here he is on Iran:

"Tehran's feeling pretty cocky right now because they've been able to inflict pain on us in Iraq and Afghanistan." So the trick, in Fallon's mind, is "to try to figure out what it is they really want and then, maybe--not that we're going to play Santa Claus here or the Good Humor Man--but the fact is that everyone needs something in this world, and so most countries that are functional and are contributing to the world have found a way to trade off their strengths for other strengths to help them out. These guys are trying to go it alone in this respect, and it's a bad gene pool right now. It's not one with much longevity. So they play that card pretty regularly, and at some point you just kind of run out of games, it seems to me. You've got to play a real card."

Compare that view of engagement with this one offered by former ambassador (and former Iran hostage) John Limbert, or this one by Thomas Pickering & Co. and you'll see what I mean.

Fallon has been widely portrayed as pushing back against elements in the Bush administration who are itching for war with Tehran, and the article locates his appointment as part of a broader Bob Gates effort to that effect. But his strategic cost-to-benefit analysis shouldn't be confused with being afraid of the Iranians:

And if it comes to war?

"Get serious," the admiral says. "These guys are ants. When the time comes, you crush them."

If there's one thing that startled me about the piece, it was the extent to which American diplomacy seems to be conducted out of the DoD these days. The article describes Fallon as meeting with heads of state in Pakistan, Egypt, the 'Stans and elsewhere, and basically coordinating a diplomatic initiative that seems like a macro regional version of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. But given that his strategic vision for the region seems more dialed in than that of the diplomats, maybe that shouldn't be so surprising.

Via FP Passport. Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   The Middle East   

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Monday, March 3, 2008

IAEA: Revenge Of The Nerds

There's been a lot of reaction to yesterday's WaPo article about a technical presention to diplomatic representatives of IAEA member states that followed up on the IAEA's Iran report. Some have interpreted the presentation, which revealed documentary evidence of Iranian weaponization efforts up to and slightly after 2003, as a vindication of IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei, who had previously been accused of carrying Tehran's water.

So I thought I'd point out that last week, a well-informed source I spoke to following the delivery of the report flagged the presentation -- which significantly was given by Olli Heinonen, the IAEA's head of safeguards -- as evidence of the internal tension between the technical wing of the IAEA (ie. the inspectors on the ground) and the political wing (ie. ElBaradei and his circle). According to my source, Heinonen's presentation grew out of the sentiment among the inspection teams that their "work is not faithfully reflected in ElBaradei's statements." He didn't say it explicitly, but the clear implication was that the followup presentation was an attempt to end run ElBaradei, who presents the IAEA's reports to the Board of Governors, and get the incriminating evidence directly into the record.

He directed my attention to an article in Le Monde from two weeks previous. Here's the key graf:

Within the IAEA, very strong pressures have appeared. . .

According to a source within the Agency, who requested anonymity, the heads of the inspections teams are "unhappy" and privately express their "incomprehension" of what they perceive as Mr. ElBaradei's intention to give Tehran a free hand. "He wants to close the file," the official regretted, "despite incoherences that persist in the explanations furnished by the Iranians, and despite the fact that the information that they've delivered isn't complete." Translated from the French.)

I didn't emphasize the point because I thought the allegation was already a matter of public record. But the reaction to yesterday's WaPo story seems to warrant a re-visit.

A word, too, about the NIE, because there's also been something of a dismissive attitude towards people who worried that it might have an adverse impact on international resolve to maintain pressure on Iran. I'd point out that the overwhelming popular reaction to the NIE was to ridicule the Bush administration's hawkish posture and absolve the Iranian program of any weaponization intentions. The problem wasn't with the former, but the latter which, by conflating a suspension of weaponization programs with the renunciation of a desire for weapons, amounted to a significant misreading of the report's implications.

Moreover, with regards to the IAEA and verification of NPT compliance, the previous existence of the weaponization program as well as Iran's refusal to be forthcoming about it amount to major violations of its NPT obligations. So if the third round of sanctions is back on track, I'd argue that it's because of an intense lobbying effort that included flooding the zone with intelligence to refocus attention on the very serious violations that were obscured by the impact (if not the actual content) of the NIE.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Sunday, March 2, 2008

Gaza Outsourcing

To get a sense of what's going on in Gaza right now, just go read Laura Rozen. She's got all the essential links and analysis. One thing, though, that I haven't seen mentioned yet among all the talk of possible local brushfires (Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, etc.) is the impact Hamas-Israel and Hezbollah-Israel conflicts might have on Iran's activity in Iraq. The Iranians have already demonstrated how much they can contribute to improving the security situation there. A three-front war between Israel, Hamas, Fatah and Hezbollah would seem like the kind of scenario they would use to demonstrate how much they can contribute to worsening it.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   Iraq   The Middle East   

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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Turkey, The Kurds, And Iran

Over at WPR, I spoke with a well-informed European official about the IAEA's Iran report. On a hunch, I asked him what kind of strategic impact Turkey -- which has really stayed on the sidelines of this issue -- could make by actively siding with the West's position. Without hesitation he said it would make a huge difference. In addition to the obvious reasons (Islamic country, regional power, etc.), he explained that Turkey is one of the countries in the region he would be most worried about seeking a nuclear weapons capacity should Iran aquire a nuclear bomb. Although he did not explicitly connect the dots, I interpreted that to mean that by coming down firmly on the side of containing the Iranian program, Turkey would send a strong signal to the rest of the region of their own intentions. That in turn would shore up Western efforts to enlist other regional players to contain, rather than compete with, the Iranian program.

That's important to keep in mind for putting Turkey's Iraq incursion into context. American military commanders emphasized the difference yesterday between the U.S. receiving advance notice of the incursion and the U.S. approving the incursion. But that's a distinction very few people will find convincing, least of all the Kurds, who reminded the U.S. (in the form of a resolution by the Kurdish Regional Parliament) of its obligation to defend the territorial integrity of Iraq. (The resolution also notably called for the closure of Turkish Forward Operating Bases in Iraqi Kurdistan that date back to the 1990's.)

My source categorically refused to speculate on a potential quid pro quo. But should Turkey adopt a more vocal position in opposition to Iran's nuclear program, it would to my mind suggest a priority shift in American strategic calculations in the region, and reflect the extent to which Washington considers the Iranian program a very serious threat.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   Iraq   Turkey   

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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The IAEA Iran Report

I just posted a background interview with a well-informed European official on the impact of Friday's IAEA Iran report over on the World Politics Review blog. It's worth a read, so click through.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The Softer Side Of McCain

There's been a lot of speculation about what a John McCain presidency would mean in terms of America's military adventurism. But anyone worried about McCain's hawkish declarations regarding a 100-year occupation of Iraq should find this video, courtesy of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, reassuring. McCain, it seems, has accepted the limits of American military influence, and once President would focus more on "culture-building" and "velvet revolution" operations funded by his friend and co-conspirator, "Jewish tycoon" George Soros.

I should note that the idea that America is trying to gather intelligence through recruiting a sympathetic network of influential and well-placed Iranian elites is not at all farfetched. But when the motivations behind that campaign get boiled down to a basement cabal funded by "Jewish tycoons", it gets pretty pathetic. This stuff reminds me of the kind of rumors being circulated about Barack Obama, with the difference being that the Obama slime is being funded by private interest whackjobs, and this is the product of an Iranian government ministry.

Big hat tip to Small Wars Journal for catching this priceless reminder of just what kind of government we're dealing with in Tehran.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   Politics   

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Sunday, February 24, 2008

The IAEA Report: Ad Out For Iran

Via Laura Rozen at MoJo, who has an excellent post on the subject, comes this .pdf file of the IAEA's Iran report. Laura has some analysis from Jacqueline Shire of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), and Arms Control Wonk has more worth reading here and here. A quick comparison of this report with the last one released just prior to the NIE indicates that while Iran has shed more light on various elements of the program, the sheer weight of the new allegations raised (thanks to American intelligence sharing) make the bottom line a net loss for Tehran.

This is reflected in the two reports' key findings summary, which are more or less "copy & paste" replicas of each other, with the exception of certain weathervane sentences which almost uniformly adopt a more severe tone this time around. So for instance, whereas last November's report spoke of Iran's "need to restore confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear programme", Friday's report refers more bluntly to "the confidence deficit created as a result" of Iran's decades-long clandestine procurement program.

The one exception is the IAEA's assessment of the general progression of its relative understanding of the Iranian program. Last November's report complained that, despite recent Iranian cooperation, "the Agency’s knowledge about Iran’s current nuclear programme is diminishing" due to the previous information blackout dating back to early 2006.

This Friday's report is comparatively, if guardedly, more generous:

The Agency has recently received from Iran additional information similar to that which Iran had previously provided pursuant to the Additional Protocol, as well as updated design information. As a result, the Agency’s knowledge about Iran’s current declared nuclear programme has become clearer.

Nevertheless, the passage is directly followed by this less enthusiastic note:

However, this information has been provided on an ad hoc basis and not in a consistent and complete manner. The Director General has continued to urge Iran to implement the Additional Protocol at the earliest possible date and as an important confidence building measure requested by the Board of Governors and affirmed by the Security Council.

Andy Grotto of Arms Control Wonk offered this assessment, which I think sums things up well:

There is a clear pattern here. For activities that have a colorable civilian rationale, Iran is suddenly happy to offer one. Since the IAEA is not in the business of second-guessing the sincerity of its member states in the absence of a technical rationale, it must accept these explanations unless and until new data comes along that calls the original rationale into question. And for activities that only have a weapons purpose, Iran plays the “How can you trust the Americans?’ card and simply refuses to engage the evidence.

From the analysis I've seen so far, every indication is that the new report does nothing to undermine the third round of UN sanctions being considered by the Security Council, and actually adds some credibility to the case for them. That's not to say they'll go through. The current makeup of the UNSC (Libya occupying the rotating presidency and South Africa's expressed reticence) presents structural challenges, and there's the possibility that Russia, stung by the handling of Kosovo independence, might not be in the mood to strike a deal. But this report, which just last week was being touted as a whitewash, looks instead like it might re-invigorate the effort to keep the pressure on Iran.

That leaves the question of just where the "diplomatic track" should be headed. I'll try to come up with some thoughts on that for later.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Saturday, February 23, 2008

Putting Time On The Clock

There's been a lot of speculation about just how far the latest IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program would go towards letting Tehran off the hook. The fact that the U.S. turned over longheld intelligence to the IAEA and that France ratcheted up the rhetoric significantly is a measure of just how anxious Washington and Paris were about the possibility.

The report was just distributed to the IAEA Board of Governors yesterday and bits and pieces are starting to leak out, including portions that confirm increased Iranian cooperation with various outstanding issues, some of which the IAEA felt comfortable enough with to close. Not surprisingly Iran is claiming that everyone from Mohamed ElBaradei to Ban Ki-Moon have vindicated their claims of a peaceful program, and is repeating its demands to return the dossier from the UN Security Council's jurisdiction back to the IAEA. (Significantly, there are no direct quotes of these officials in the Iranian press.)

But this statement by Mohamed ElBaradei today is about the strongest language I've seen him use with regard to the three outstanding issues that Iran still refuses to cooperate on: explaining evidence of past weaponization programs, implementing the Additional Protocol of intrusive inspections, and suspending its uranium enrichment program as ordered by the Security Council. On the question of the Additional Protocol, ElBaradei was particularly adamant:

In addition to our work to clarify Iran's past nuclear activities, we have to make sure, naturally, that Iran's current activities are also exclusively for peace purposes and for that we have been asking Iran to conclude the so called Additional Protocol, which gives us the additional authority to visit places, additional authority to have additional documents, to be able to provide assurance, not only that Iran's declared activities are for peaceful purposes but that there are no undeclared nuclear activities. On that score, Iran in the last few months has provided us with visits to many places, that enable us to have a clearer picture of Iran's current programme. However, that is not, in my view, sufficient. We need Iran to implement the Additional Protocol. We need to have that authority as a matter of law. That, I think, is a key for us to start being able to build progress in providing assurance that Iran's past and current programmes are exclusively for peaceful purposes. (All emphasis added.)

The extent to which ElBaradei has couched his criticisms of Iranian obstruction in the past is one of the principal reasons -- along with the misreading of the NIE findings -- that Iran has managed to drag this standoff out for as long as it has. While the report has yet to be released and in all likelihood is written in the same diplo-speak as its predecessors, if it at all reflects the kind of impatience ElBaradei seemed to convey in his statement, it just might salvage the efforts to maintain international pressure on Tehran.

If so, it could possibly mark a turning point in this crisis. Iran had a real opportunity in the aftermath of the NIE report to deep six the U.S./EU negotiating stance. If they had just handed the keys of their program over to the IAEA, this case would have been closed by now. Instead they've taken piecemeal confidence-building measures that are more like two baby-steps forward (program documentation and explaining traces of highly-enriched uranium on centrifuges) followed by one giant leap back (revealing a next-gen centrifuge program), all while refusing to freeze enrichment or allow intrusive acccess to IAEA inspectors.

In many ways, the NIE left the U.S./EU playing for time. Above all, the challenge was to maintain the credibility of continued pressure long enough for the NIE report to lose some of its urgency. By highlighting Tehran's continued obstruction, this latest IAEA report just might do the trick.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Thursday, February 14, 2008

Russian Roulette

I've seen a couple of posts and articles around the web today flagging Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's comments condemning Iran's missile and uranium enrichment programs. From the BBC via Andy Grotto over at Arms Control Wonk, here's the oft-cited money quote:

We don't approve of Iran's permanent demonstration of its intentions to develop its rocket sector and continue to enrich uranium.

It seems to square with a recent change in tone coming out of Moscow. But if you take a closer look at Lavrov's full comments, this time from ITAR-TASS, there's definitely some room for skepticism as to just how full circle the Russians have come in their stance on the Iranian nuclear program:

However, international law does not prohibit these actions...

...[T]here is a certain positive moment in this problem. This moment is related to Iran’s cooperation to close the issues, which emerged earlier due to its nuclear activity. At present, these problems are being solved satisfactorily and we’ll wait for the IAEA director-general’s report.

The ITAR-TASS translation is a bit mangled, but Lavrov was basically calling for both sides to calm down and quit engaging in provocative behavior. For the Iranians, that means avoiding missile launches and freezing its uranium enrichment until the IAEA closes its file. For the US and EU3, that means avoiding accusations that the Iranians are steps away from developing a nuclear bomb that they'll then unleash on the world. In other words, while Lavrov's remarks are definitely reasonable, they're only reassuring if you believe the Iranian program is inherently peaceful in nature.

I'm increasingly of the belief that the Iranians have nuclear weapons ambitions, even if they're willing to be extremely patient to attain them. After all, their current program is the fruit of twenty years of painstaking clandestine efforts, and is constructed in such a way as to superficially mask the military component, even while the underlying structure seems transparently revealing. So if the Russians really have come around, I'd like to see them say so in more unambiguous terms than those used by Mr. Lavrov.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   Russia   

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Friday, February 8, 2008

Iran Endgame?

If this Asia Times Online article by MK Bhadrakumar is correct, a tectonic shift in the Iran nuclear standoff took place last week which garnered almost no media attention at all. Last Sunday, I flagged remarks made by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak that signalled what seemed like a hardening of tone towards the Iranian regime.

According to Bhadrakumar, to understand Kislyak's remarks and their significance, one need only look to the agreement signed three days before between US Commerce Secretary Carlos Guttierez and Sergei Kiriyenko, the director of Russia's state nuclear agency, Rosatom. The deal cleared the way for Russia to directly supply American nuclear power plants with reactor fuel derived from the reverse processing of its weapons-grade uranium. Previously, the deals had to be routed through an American intermediary agency that applied a 100% tariff, effectively keeping Russian fuel out of the lucrative American market. Kiriyenko estimated the deal's value at $5-6 billion over the next ten years.

Bhadrakumar adds some further dots (America's tacit approval of Russian nuclear fuel deliveries to Iran's Bushehr reactor, and its support for the Russian-sponsored uranium-enrichment bank as the foundation of a reinvigorated non-proliferation regime) before connecting them by suggesting that America has agreed to a de facto US-Russian nuclear energy cartel in return for a tougher Russian line on the Iranian nuclear program.

If so, the good news would be that, in answer to The Economist's top story this week, no, Iran has not won. The bad news being that Russia has. This would signal an enormous legitimation of Russia as a balance-tipping power that can leverage its troublemaking capacity for serious commercial and strategic concessions. And yet another validation of the idea that the long-announced multi-polar world is indeed upon us.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   Russia   

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Sunday, February 3, 2008

Russia, France & Iran

In what can only be considered very encouraging news, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak defended the sanctions against Tehran agreed upon by the "P5+1" and now being considered by the UN Security Council:

"When this document is made public, you will see that it contains serious signals for Iran and envisions a certain expansion of the earlier sanctions", Kislyak said in an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax...

"Iran should fully cooperate with the IAEA's Board of Governors, and, among other things, get back to the implementation of the additional protocol on control, freeze uranium enrichment and take some other measures pending the work to untangle all difficult problems", he said.

He added that the matter remained one of political will, presumably in Tehran. But China's political will is essential to any resolution of this crisis as well, so it's reassuring to see that Chinese banks have cut back their operations in Iran and with Iranian businesses, albeit reluctantly, due to pressure from America's banking sanctions.

Meanwhile, relations between Tehran and Paris continue to deteriorate. Both countries summoned each others' ambassadors, France to protest President Ahmadinejad's comments about the imminent demise of the State of Israel, and Iran in a tit-for-tat response. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman also pointedly criticized France's plans to establish a permanent military base in the UAE, explaining that Tehran was opposed to any increased foreign military presence in the region.

The French role in the Iranian crisis can't be understated. Both London and Berlin have expressed only tepid support for America's unilateral sanctions, and the likelihood of either of them signing on with their own was remote even before the NIE. Now, America's credibility has been effectively torpedoed. The Bush administration's overly aggressive posture when it was actually in a position to impact the crisis was bad enough. But the brutal aftermath of the NIE report combined with the Bush administration's lameduck status are a fatal cocktail.

France, on the other hand, has maintained a credible and consistently firm opposition to the Iranian enrichment program, and if there is a third round of UN sanctions, it will be largely due to France's very aggressive lobbying for it. Likewise for EU or EU3 sanctions. In fact, it's safe to say that France's resolve has prevented a complete unraveling of the US/EU position in the aftermath of the NIE and the anticipation of a new administration in Washington. So it's no surprise that Paris has to some extent replaced Washington as public enemy no. 1 in Tehran.

I've criticized Nicolas Sarkozy in the past for being a very opportunistic politician who carefully picks his battles. Usually what he looks for before investing any of his political capital in trying to resolve a standoff is a situation where everyone knows the solution, but for lack of a face-saving way to reach it, no one is willing to compromise. His m.o. is to then lean on the right pressure points to generate the political will necessary to get everyone to sign on the dotted line, and then take the credit for saving the day.

That hasn't been the case at all with the Iran crisis. Last summer, he very vocally implicated France in the heart of the crisis at a time when many were concerned about the militarist tone coming out of Washington. Some interpreted his comments as indicating his support for a military strike, but my own sense was that by reassuring Washington about how serious he took the threat, he was actually attempting to walk the Bush administration back towards a negotiated settlement. In the meantime, the NIE effectively left him out on a precipice, very noticeably alone. But to his credit, he has not backed away one inch (or 2.54 centimeters) from the very precarious ledge he found himself on. And if the West does manage to stand Tehran down on its uranium enrichment program, it will be in large part due to the enormous political risk he has taken.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   La France Politique   Russia   

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Friday, February 1, 2008

Revenge Of The Crazies

This backgrounder from The Economist is about as cogent a presentation of where things stand in the Iran nuclear crisis as I've read so far. They reference all the significant developments, both foreign and domestic, to illustrate why anyone who takes the threat of the Iranian program seriously should be very, very discouraged right now.

Last week it seemed like a third round of UN sanctions might happen in spite of the NIE, but already there are signs (this time from South Africa, which holds a non-permanent seat on the Security Council) that international opinion is far from galvanized on the urgency of the measures. Even a watered-down third round would be significant, because it would offer multi-lateral cover for more unilateral American or EU sanctions that might pressure Iran to take a more flexible negotiating position.

But the fact is that there aren't that many promising options left. Iran has a number of pots on the nuclear stove -- mastering the nuclear fuel cycle, experimental labs that the IAEA has yet to inspect, a heavy-water reactor under construction -- all of which could eventually be plugged into a jumpstarted weapons component that has been frozen but not dismantled.

Of course, none of that would happen overnight, and it's not certain that any of it would actually happen at all. But anyone who has taken a close look at this issue and read the NIE carefully has to concede that it's possible. And even if it's true that a nuclear Iran could be deterred, that's still a huge existential burden to place on an already volatile region. It's also an assumption based on a binary theory of deterrence. If the entire region goes nuclear, on the other hand, the calculations become exponentially more complex. And with such short delivery times, the margin for error or miscalculation grows even slimmer.

I'm not sure what the answer is, because there's no way to put the NIE genie back in the bottle. As Bush's recent sabre-rattling tour of the Middle East demonstrated, no one's really taking this administration seriously anymore. Condoleeza Rice has been reduced to basically begging the Iranians to accept our pre-conditions so we can negotiate directly, but really, at this point they've got no incentive to, and have as much as said that they'll wait to see what a new administration offers.

If there's any hope, it's in a third round of UN sanctions, and even that would just be for what it would offer in terms of US and EU sanctions. But it looks like in our zeal to restrain the crazies in Washington, we've unleashed the crazies in Tehran. And now we'll have to live with the consequences.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Friday, January 25, 2008

Threats

Remember how removing the threat of an American military strike was supposed to allow the political faultlines in Tehran to resurface, enabling Iranian moderates to push back against Ahmadinejad's brand of radicalism? Not happening. In fact, according to the LA Times, so many of the reform candidates for Iran's parliamentary elections have been barred from running that they're threatening to boycott the elections entirely should Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei reject their appeal.

On the other hand, a more credible threat is being mounted from Ahmadinejad's right by former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani. As negotiator, Larijani was able to balance an appearance of flexibility with a refusal to compromise. So he represents more of a change in tone than policy from Ahmadinejad.

In any event, I'm increasingly of the opinion that, in the final analysis, the actual consequences of the Iran NIE will bear no resemblance to what people predicted at the time of its release.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Thursday, January 24, 2008

The New Black Gold

As if all the soap opera-like drama of the past couple weeks involving pipeline shutdowns and jockeying for supply routes through Eurasia and the Balkans weren't enough, now comes news that Iran and Russia are spearheading an effort to bring the long-rumored "natural gas OPEC" to fruition. A draft drawn up by Iran last year and tweaked by Russia will be presented this June to the members of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum. The group's member nation's control 73% of the world's gas reserves and 42% of its production.

Needless to say, such a cartel poses a strategic problem for the US and EU. But there are plenty of faultlines that they could take advantage of to create a wedge between Iran and Russia. In particular, Iran is in desperate need of foreign investment to develop its natural gas capacity. The fatal flaw of current American policy is that by continuing to drive Iran and Russia together in a tactical arrangement, eventually we'll have helped them form the basis of a strategic alliance.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   Russia   

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Thursday, January 24, 2008

Third Round Of Iran Sanctions

I didn't notice much discussion of them, but there were a couple of major developments on the Iran nuclear dossier yesterday. To begin with, representatives of the 5+1 (the permanent UNSC members and Germany) who met in Berlin announced that they'd agreed on a text for a third round of UN sanctions against Iran. The new sanctions themselves are largely watered down from what the US and the EU 3 had been hoping for before the release of the NIE in December. But the fact that despite the NIE's findings, Russia and China were willing to keep the matter before the Security Council -- instead of referring it back to the IAEA as Iran has demanded -- sends a signal to Tehran that there's a price to pay, albeit a symbolic one, for its strategy of confrontation (with the EU) and delay (with the IAEA). It also strengthens the credibility of an American/EU sanctions threat by providing multi-lateral cover to the assertion that Iran is still not in compliance with its NPT obligations.

Meanwhile, for the first time Iran allowed IAEA inspectors to visit its advanced centrifuge laboratory, where it is developing a new generation of more dependable enrichment technology. The visit is the first of a series of outstanding compliance issues that Iran has promised to resolve with the IAEA within the next four weeks. In the past Tehran has used Security Council sanctions as an excuse to cease cooperating with the IAEA. Should it adopt the same approach this time, look for a strong push from Washington (with a major assist from Paris) for a US-EU round of sanctions. That could be determinant, since the actual sanctions to be included in the UN resolution will have little coercive effect. The risk is that such a push could threaten the fragile support of Russia and China at the UN.

Ironically, Iran has been using the NIE as proof of the civilian nature of its program, instead of fully satisfying the IAEA's inspection regime and thereby removing the legal basis for sanctions. Given that the West was able to get this round of sanctions in spite of the NIE, that strategy might prove to be shortsighted.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Pipeline Faultlines

In the latest development in the ongoing pipeline diplomacy roiling the Middle East and Europe, Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, announced that Iran was willing to supply gas for the EU's Nabucco pipeline project. Most significant about the announcement, which comes on the heels of two major Russian gas deals that strengthened Moscow's grip on European supply routes, is that Mottaki made specific mention of Europe's desire to diversify its gas sources.

Obviously, the offer must be understood principally in the context of the ongoing nuclear standoff, as an Iranian attempt to weaken European opposition to its uranium enrichment program and create a wedge between Washington and its European allies. In light of today's announcement about the agreement reached over a third round of UN sanctions, that's unlikely to happen. Even if the sanctions were watered down to bring Russia and China on board, they are symbolically extremely significant.

But the offer also coincides with Tehran's lingering and increasingly bitter dispute over a gas delivery contract with Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan has shut down its pipeline to Iran citing technical problems, but most observers believe the move, coming in the midst of a particularly cold Iranian winter, is a bareknuckled attempt to renegotiate the contract to reflect the higher price (roughly double) that Moscow recently agreed to pay for Turkmenistan's supplies.

If the Iranian offer signals a potential faultline in the Iran-Russian tactical alliance, it's one worth pursuing. While sitting on the second largest known natural gas reserves (after Russia), Iran would need enormous investment to develop its extraction and delivery capacities, which explains its vulnerability to Turkmenistan's tactics.

So far, the Russians have continued to supply the nuclear fuel to the Bushehr reactor, and their reticence has contributed to watering down the latest round of UN sanctions. But Moscow did sign on, and its efforts to solidify its energy position have come at the expense of Iran's domestic supplies. In response, Iran seems to be signalling that its allegiance is not set in stone, and that for the time being all its alignments are tactical rather than strategic in nature.

Posted by Judah in:  European Union   International Relations   Iran   

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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Process vs. Method

The GAO basically confirmed what I'd suggested last night. The impact of unilateral American sanctions against Iran is questionable at best. Meanwhile Iran has racked up $20 billion in energy contracts with foreign firms since 2003. You do the math.

The reason Iran is maintaining such an intransigent posture on uranium enrichment is that they're convinced they can get away with it. And that's a direct consequence of the Iran NIE report. Take that report away and Tehran's recurring delay tactics with the IAEA, combined with its confrontational negotiating stance with the EU, would almost certainly have provoked a third round of UN sanctions, and perhaps even meaningful ones at that.

There's a lot of good to be said about the Iran NIE, not least of which being that it was an accurate reflection of the US intelligence community's thinking on Iran's nuclear program, as opposed to a cooked up report meant to support an already decided upon policy. That does not necessarily make it the truth, but it is a victory of process over cynicism.

But as recent comments by President Bush made clear, it's done nothing to change the Bush administration's opinion of the Iranian nuclear program, and had only a minor impact on the tone of American rhetoric. By torpedoeing any hopes for further UN sanctions, it's also made it more likely that one or both of the worst case scenarios (as Nicolas Sarkozy put it, an Iranian bomb or the bombardment of Iran) will wind up occurring.

Process is good. But sometimes a bit of method helps, too.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The Strait Skinny, Redux

To follow up on a post from yesterday, I found this comment regarding transit passage and the UNCLOS at Eagle Speak:

When I used to teach this to surface officers in the pre-command course (PCO) the points I stressed were "...continuous and expeditious transit..." and "...normal modes..." of operations. Under the later condition radars and sonars may be operated. Moreover, since warships as extensions of US territory have the inherent right of self defense in accordance with the UN Charter guns may be manned and "destructive fire" can be justified if under attack. As for the helicopter it was always my practice to have one airborne during transits of crowded waterways like the SOH as an extension of my shipboard sensors and to provide for safe navigation. The only restriction is that it must be launched and recovered in international waters (except in cases of emergency) and that its passage must be continuous and expeditious as well.

Dr. Arasbiabi has a poor understanding of both naval operations and American history. The Iranians certainly have a right to identify warships passing through the SOH (his term "inspect" connotes something entirely different to me) but they may not impede their passage. "Freedom of the seas" has been a bedrock principle of American foreign policy since our Republic's earliest days.

So maybe we are back to provocative episodes with a CB prankster grafted on top.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Sanctions vs. Incentives

In the process of digging around for something to tie a few Iran-based stories together, I actually got around to reading the UN sanctions resolution to see just what kinds of economic activities had been prohibited. Not much, it turns out. Anything relating to uranium enrichment is off the table, as are Iranian arms exports. A handful of nuclear-related organizations got blacklisted and had their foreign assets frozen, and a number of high-ranking officials involved with the nuclear program were forbidden to travel abroad. (There's a summary of the sanctions here.) But besides that, it's hard to see how they're supposed to put the squeeze on Tehran.

So it's no wonder that the Bush administration has resorted to unilateral sanctions (most notably a banking blacklist that's gotten some results but is gradually being weakened), as well as exerting bi-lateral pressure in order to isolate Tehran economically. It's also no wonder, given Iran's enormous gas and oil reserves, that for every one step forward on the isolation front, there's three steps back. (Step one, step two, step three.)

The biggest surprise I got from reading the UN resolution, in fact, is the pretty generous package of incentives codified into the resolution's 2nd Annex titled "Elements of a long-term agreement" (scroll about halfway down the link), all in return for Iran quite simply suspending its uranium enrichment activity, submitting to the Additonal Protocol it has already signed with the IAEA, and satisfying all of the IAEA's outstanding concerns about the history of its program (which allows the IAEA to account for material and verify that nothing's been diverted towards military uses).

It's a pretty comprehensive incentive package, which makes Iran's adamant refusal to suspend its enrichment program while at the same time refusing to comply with its obligations under the NPT (which would legitimize its right to the nuclear fuel enrichment cycle) all the more incomprehensible. One of the reasons for their high-risk posture is obviously that they feel pretty confident they can get away with it. But if the goal is really just to increase its domestic energy supply (despite its massive reserves, Iran has an underdeveloped domestic energy sector), it seems like a less confrontational stance would accomplish the goal more quickly and with more longterm stability.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Monday, January 14, 2008

The Strait Skinny

Kaveh Afrasiabi makes the claim that far from being a case of Iranian provocation, the recent incident in the Strait of Hormuz was actually a case of the American vessels invoking the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea on the one hand, while violating it on the other:

According to Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgiff, the US ships were "five kilometers outside Iranian territorial waters". Yet, this is disputed by another dispatch from the US ships that states, "I am engaged in transit passage in accordance with international law."

Given that the approximately three-kilometer-wide inbound traffic lane in the Strait of Hormuz is within Iran's territorial water, the US Navy's invocation of "transit passage" harking back to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, (UNCLOS) is hardly surprising.

Among the subsequent violations that Afrasiabi identifies, the videotape released by the Pentagon showed an American helicopter hovering over the convoy, despite the fact that the launching of aircraft is expressly forbidden during transit passage. The US has also been engaged in sonar soundings in the Strait, which under the terms of the Convention requires the consent of the states bordering the passage. Furthermore, the use of force against the states bordering the passage is also forbidden, making the firing of warning shots against Iranian vessels technically illegal as well, especially if the Iranian vessels are engaged in enforcing Tehran's sovereign rights within its territorial waters under the terms of the Convention.

Now the US is technically not a signatory to the UNCLOS. But if what Afrasiabi is maintaining is true, what the US Navy has described as a pattern of provocation on the part of Iran is in fact an American attempt to enjoy the protections of the Convention while not respecting its obligations. And the Iranian response becomes more understandable.

Posted by Judah in:  Iran   

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Sunday, January 13, 2008

Back In The Red Zone

There's a trifecta of stories today featuring Iran. Any one of them would strike me as pretty alarming. But the three together seems like a very clear indication that we've entered something of a critical moment in this long-simmering stand-off.

For starters, IAEA chief Mohamed ELBaradei wrapped up his visit to Tehran where he met with President Ahmadinejad, but also with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who rarely meets with heads of multi-lateral organizations. The significance of the talks boils down to two principle announcements. First, while reaffirming their defiance of American pressure, the Iranians have agreed to fill in the missing elements of the history of their covert nuclear procurement program within the coming m