Not Totally Out of the Iran Woods

It does bear reiterating that as Headline Junkie says even if Iran doesn't have an active nuclear weapons program there's still ample reason to be concerned about Iran's behavior with regard to nuclear issues. The hope should be that this report will help put a dagger through the heart of loose talk about preventive military strikes and regime change -- talk that had become part of the problem -- and lay the groundwork for a more rational approach to the Iran issue.

It continues to be clear that there are things the Iranians are more interested in than nuclear research, and it also continues to be clear that the decades of animosity between the United States and the Islamic Republic aren't serving the interests of either party very well. Bush seems too deeply invested in his BS to make any bold strokes at this point, but it's always worth pointing out that it was Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who co-chaired the CFR task force proposing a "grand bargain" with Iran, working alongside Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's national security advisor and now in some sense affiliated with the Obama campaign. The wisdom of this approach, not just "diplomacy" but specifically diplomacy aimed at ending the conflict through mutual concessions, is pretty clear even if the US politico-media system often seems too screwed up for anyone to articulate it.

Comments

Hasn't Bush's leadership philosophy imbued the entire conservative side of the ledger with a "My way or the highway" outlook on dealings with other nations? Sure, it's always been an element within the Republican Party but the last 7 years have seemingly cemented it as the only way to do business. Diplomacy is for sissies. Bow to us or there will be hell to pay. There's going to be a long hangover affecting several administrations for the way we've done business lately.

Posted by steve duncan | December 5, 2007 10:02 AM

Now this I agree with. I recommend Ray Takeyh's Q& A on the CFR website (which I also linked in the Hyping the Threat post).

There is still a real issue here with Iran. The NIE points out that, again, the Bush Administration is being misleading regarding the immediacy of the threat and the likely possible solutions, not the fact of a problem. Exactly what they did in Iraq, IMO.

http://www.cfr.org/publication/14953/takeyh.html?breadcrumb=%2Fbios%2F9599%2F

Posted by Chunche | December 5, 2007 10:41 AM

When the history of the Bush Administration is finally written, I think Sec Def Gates may deserve his own special section. We are not privy to the inner workings of the Administration, obviously, but Gates has consistently taken non-nutty positions on tricky foreign policy issues, presumably to the great consternation of the Cheneyites and assorted neocons still with the Administration.

It is always hard to prove a negative, but the fact that we have not gone to war with Iran may be due to individuals like Gates. It can't be easy taking sane positions in the Bush Administration, so Gates deserves some measure of credit.

Posted by owenz | December 5, 2007 10:43 AM

The NIE only address one prong of Bush's two-pronged approach to drive support for a military confrontation with Iran. The other front, and one I think is "relatively" more plausible, is the Iranian incursions into Iraq. The fact that we're discussing the possibility of a conflict with Iran is itself mind-numbing, but a report of a dead or captured US soldier at the hands of the Revolutionary Guard could give the administration more than enough leverage to take military action. We're definitely "not totally out of the Iran woods" yet.

Posted by Drew M. | December 5, 2007 10:50 AM

It does bear reiterating that as Headline Junkie says even if Iran doesn't have an active nuclear weapons program there's still ample reason to be concerned about Iran's behavior with regard to nuclear issues.

Because Iran is reluctant to involve itself in an inspection regime?

After the way the US has undermined the NPT, both through its own actions and its support of other nations (ie. India) who have gutted it, this hardly seems tenable.

In addition, after seeing the way inspections in Iraq was, for years, simply UN sanctioned espionage that made it easier to bomb, and ultimately a means to get it to disarm to facilitate an invasion, I can't say I blame Iran.

Posted by McKingford | December 5, 2007 11:13 AM

To Drew M.'s point, many of the US commanders who were saying Iran was supplying insurgents - and it was - are now saying that support is slowing down.

Many antiwar types describe regime change in Iraq as the worst disaster in human history. An invasion of Iran would blow their minds and they would gain a new appreciation of what a disaster is.

I believe the Iranian regime saw how quickly the US took out the Taliban (neighbor to the east) and the Baathists (neighbor to the west) and decided to play it safe. They're not crazy/stupid like Saddam who thumbed his nose at the UN out of some sort of misplaced pride.

I thought Headline junky put this well:
"But on a very practical level, there are three reasons why Iran's mastering of the nuclear fuel enrichment cycle while remaining non-compliant with the NPT poses real threats to regional and global stability. To begin with, it further de-legitimzes the NPT at a time when it has already been severely destabilized. (Yes, the US-India deal contributes to this process.) Second, it has already caused a rush on the nuclear bank, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Morocco and Libya already declaring their intentions to go nuclear within the next 15-20 years. (Keep a close watch on Turkey, which for the time being has had trouble finding a seismically safe location for its declared nuclear ambitions.)"

Thanks Iran!

Posted by Peter K. | December 5, 2007 11:14 AM

The wisdom of this approach, not just "diplomacy" but specifically diplomacy aimed at ending the conflict through mutual concessions, is pretty clear even if the US politico-media system often seems too screwed up for anyone to articulate it.

If it's not a common plot on '24,' no one in the US politico-media system knows how to talk about it.
.

Posted by Grand Moff Texan | December 5, 2007 11:16 AM

Iran is still in violation of the UN Security Council on its nuclear enrichment, and probably is still working toward nukes, but here are the key issues right now:

The permanent U.S. government (career State Department, Defense Department) doesn't want to go to war with Iran now. The current NIE is a shot across the bow of the Bush administration about this.

Iran doesn't want to go to war right now either. That's why they've slowed down the flow of weapons into Iraq.

So, there won't be any bombing of Iran while Bush is in office. Will the NIE also fatally weaken the diplomatic campaign to increase the sanctions on Iran for non-compliance? Probably.

Bottom line: this will come to a head under the next president.

Posted by Fred | December 5, 2007 1:09 PM

Last night I wondered (though not on this site) whether Iran could be playing the same fan dance with regard to a nuclear program that Saddam did with his biological and chemical WMDs -- that is, deliberately leaving the rest of the world uncertain as to whether or not it has one, thus trying to deter potential attackers without provoking the US or Israel into a flat-out deterrant attack. Turns out I'm not the only one wondering: http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2007/12/05/the-wmd-bluff-is-iran-doing-the-exact-same-thing-iraq-did.aspx .

Also note Headline Junky's imeidately preceding comment that one of the nations most wary of Iran is France:http://www.headlinejunky.com/permalink/2007_12_04_whose_estimate.php .

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | December 5, 2007 3:07 PM

Lots of sensible comments and useful links. Thanks.

Anyone who imagines that the NIE report means our troubles with Iran are over is deluded, but it certainly is good news in the sense that it adds to the feeling that we've got more time on this; and it should finally make at least some of the panic-mongers clam up. In practice, the Administration has for the most part been doing exactly as should--working in a deliberate multilateral way to put boundaries around potential proliferators. Now if they can set the stage for a meaningful deal with Iran, probably to be sealed by the next President, it will be major progress. Of course the campaign is sure to get in the way.

Posted by Robert Powell | December 5, 2007 3:47 PM

We’re “not totally out of the Iran woods” because none of the Serious Foreign Policy Pundits is yet courageous enough to point to the 800 pound gorilla staring them in the face, i.e. the 200 plus nuclear warheads in Israel pointed at Iran.

Instead, they all mount Serious Arguments (see, for instance, today’s op-ed page of the WaPo) showing why and how Iran should be made to yield on all the issues that the US considers significant.

But the Iranians are, and should be, smart enough to realize that the whole point of this approach is to strengthen and reinforce the existing regional “balance” that allows Israel, the US’s junior partner, to retain military hegemony in the region.

The Iranians will never yield on their rights (established under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) until and unless the entire Middle East (including the state of Israel) becomes a nuclear free zone.

Posted by Justin X | December 5, 2007 4:37 PM

Chunche: "The NIE points out that, again, the Bush Administration is being misleading regarding the immediacy of the threat and the likely possible solutions, not the fact of a problem."

There IS NO problem. This IS the problem with the NIE. They claim - without any evidence - that Iran HAD a nuclear weapons program.

It is now EASIER for Bush and Cheney to "prove" that Iran has RESTARTED their (nonexistent) program.

Moomaw's point makes no sense. The consensus is that, even if Iran HAS a nuclear weapons program, they do NOT have nukes now. Iran is thus NOT playing the Israeli "don't ask don't tell" policy of nuclear ambiguity.

Iran MIGHT conceivably be playing the "nuclear intentions ambiguity" option - but that's a pretty weak option because it IS clear that IF Iran wants a nuke, once it has mastered the nuclear fuel cycle AND has centrifuges which can enrich to weapons-grade level (which they do NOT have now - the P-1's can't do it), they are clearly able to have a nuke at some point.

The evidence points to the probability that Iran has a "dual-capability" nuclear energy program - one that, like Japan, can be converted to produce nuclear weapons IF need be at some point in the future - and for the same reasons as Japan (faced with China) - Iran faces Israel.

Meanwhile, as Justin X correctly says, until Israel is disarmed of its nuclear arsenal and put under the NPT, Iran has no motivation to change his "dual capability" program into a single capability energy program.

And in fact, it can't do so. Because Iran needs nuclear energy, and there is no way it's going to trust an external nation to control its supply of nuclear fuel. Accept assistance from other countries, certainly. And the US should be one of those countries. But rely on the US or Russia to provide fuel permanently. Never happen.

Therefore, the US and Israel are simply going to have to accept the fact that Iran will eventually have the ability to build nukes if and when they decide they must.

Therefore the optimum Western foreign policy is to convince Iran that it is under no existential threat or regime change threat from either the US or Israel.

Finally, this phraseology one sees, that Iran is "non-compliant with the NPT" is simply false. The IAEA's stated position is that Iran was not fully compliant with the NPT in the PAST because of their actions in conducting the initial stages of their nuclear energy program with some secrecy. The reason they did so, of course, is obvious - exactly the situation we have now.

Today, however, the ONLY issues the IAEA has with Iran are concerning clearing up past actions. According to the IAEA, Iran is entirely compliant with the NPT NOW.

Furthermore, the IAEA would like Iran to ratify the Additional Protocol, to allow for more and more intrusive inspections to add confidence to the assessment that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. Iran has signaled that it would do so if sanctions imposed so far were to be scaled back or dropped, and its rights under the NPT recognized, and no more pressure was put on its nuclear equipment supplier nations (which pressures have been ongoing for decades now.)

The bottom line: The solution to the "problem" entails three efforts:

1) Disarm Israel and set up a "nuclear weapons free zone" in the ME. Iran wants this.

2) Take regime change off the table by the US and Israel. And do so convincingly, I might add - which entails points 1 and 2).

3) Recognize the Iranian regime and its rights under the NPT and assist - or at least do not impede - its nuclear energy program.

One might add that restoring diplomatic recognition to the Iranian regime and establishing formal diplomatic relations is a necessary first step.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 6, 2007 4:17 AM

That should be "entails points 1 and 3".

Also I will concede that technically Iran is "non-compliant" with the NPT NOW to the exact degree that they have not fully explained their PAST actions NOW.

Which is becoming a moot point, since they have resolved several such questions in the past couple months, and the IAEA is continuing the discussions.

In any event, such "non-compliance" is no peg to hang either sanctions or military action on, as ElBaradei has said, since several other nations have been in the same position in the past. Brazil, if I remember correctly, is one of them.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 6, 2007 5:35 AM