The Stanley Foundation has an excellent new report on the US-Iranian relationship titled "Iranian and Western Interests Are Closer Than You Think." They're not necessarily closer than I think, since I already sympathized with this line of argument, but they're certainly closer than is generally supposed in the United States. Highly recommended.
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Closer Than You Think
24 Jun 2008 01:49 pm
Comments (9)
What is this Stanley Foundation and can we try it for treason?
At a sufficient level of vagueness, anything is true.
For example:
The West should be ready to make an acceptable, detailed offer and have detailed, reciprocal, step-by-step timing—unlike the European Union’s (EU) offers during its negotiations with Tehran that fostered Iranian resentment. The EU’s proposals asked for a halt to all enrichment-related activities without a detailed timing of the political and economic “compensations” to be paid to Iran (technology transfer, economic and commercial new agreements, acknowledgment of Iran’s role in the region) and without framing a reciprocal, step-by-step roadmap for defusing the crisis. In Tehran, the general perception (rightly or wrongly) has been that the EU’s offers contained few guarantees for Iran.
Yeah, but there is a reason the EU has not make a detailed offer (and very few Westerners are even able to make the obvious statement that there has been no detailed offer, much more often we read about how "generous" the offer is).
All of the sanctions currently on Iran are there for Iran's anti-Israel policies. The West does not want to remove the sanctions for non-proliferation, leaving the anti-Israel policies in place, and therefore has nothing to offer.
Before the West can make a detailed offer, it has to make a decision to reduce sanctions independent of Iran's anti-Israel policies, which it has not made yet, and the authors of this study can either advocate that or advocate continuing the same policies.
Otherwise, the West has to do what it is doing, pretend to have an offer that it can only deliver after Iran has suspended enrichment, at which point Iran will learn that the offer is the same as the offer since 1980, adopt the Shah's policies toward Israel and get only slightly less than the Shah's economic incentives. An "offer" everyone knows Iran would reject.
So either make a decision to reduce the sanctions on Iran's anti-Israel activity or keep going as we're going.
To talk about "negotiations" or "good faith" without discussing the specific concessions the West should be prepared to make at this point is to say nothing.
What does the Stanley Foundation suggest should be in this detailed offer it suggests the West should make?
Oh, and
The high price that Tehran is paying in terms of isolation for its anti-Israeli position is still considered by the radicals and the traditional conservatives as a reasonable price for maintaining one of the ideological pillars of the regime, and for granting Iran an extra theatre of confrontation (South Lebanon and Hezbollah militias). However, Ahmadinjad’s appeals for Israel to be wiped off the map, as well as Iran’s increased support to militant groups in the region calling for the destruction of the state of Israel (most notably, Islamic Jihad and Hamas), are worrying many Iranian politicians—even many in the traditional conservative camp.
This is still considered a reasonable price not only to traditional conservatives, but to over 70% of Iran's population according to the polls I've come across. In other words, Iran's popular support for continuing to pay the costs imposed for its support of the Palestinians is higher than US popular support for the costs the US pays to support Israel.
The policies of supporting anti-Israel groups may or may not be worrying to someone in Iran, I've never seen a public statement questioning these policies, even from moderates, even when the moderates are visiting the West. But worrying or not, they have broad support that the Stanley Foundation would rather ignore.
Good points, Arnold.
The concept that the Iran sanctions are there solely for Israel's benefit is one I haven't seen before - not even in our email discussions of last year.
I assumed the sanctions were put in place because of the US reaction to the overthrow of the Shah and the hostage crisis, rather than explicitly because of anything that Iran did at the time against Israel.
If I remember correctly, Israel was even dealing with Iran with weapons sales as part of the Iran-Contra thing later. Wikipedia says this:
The affair emerged when a Lebanese newspaper reported that the U.S. sold arms to Iran through Israel in exchange for the release of hostages by Hezbollah.[11] Letters sent by Oliver North to John Poindexter support this.[12] The Israeli ambassador to the U.S. says that the reason weapons were eventually sold directly to Iran was to establish links with elements of the military in the country."
Apparently the concept was that the Israelis wanted to establish contacts with Iranian moderates in the Iranian military - presumably for spying purposes and to destabilize the Iranian government. The US wanted to obtain the release of hostages held by Hizballah in Lebanon.
This statement is also interesting:
The Iranian government confirmed the Ash-Shiraa story, and ten days after the story was first published, President Ronald Reagan appeared on national television from the Oval Office. In his speech on November 13, Reagan confirmed the transactions and stated the reasons for them:"My purpose was... to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the U.S. and Iran] with a new relationship... At the same time we undertook this initiative, we made clear that Iran must oppose all forms of international terrorism as a condition of progress in our relationship. The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there."[6]
In other words, the main thing Reagan was trying to do clearly was to help the US because the hostages involved were American hostages in Lebanon seized by Hizballah. It's not clear to me that Reagan was primarily motivated to help Israel directly - except in the sense that presumably he intended to use the suggested rapprochement with Iran to get Iran to stop supporting Hizballah, to Israel's benefit.
Could you establish your point that the sanctions were established for the benefit of Israel more clearly by referencing US statements made at the time the sanctions were put in place?
Shhhhhhhhhh.
Goldberg and Kirchick might hear you.
I've always considered it obvious that the US sanctions against Iran that continue to this day were the result of Iran's anti-Israel policies, just because there is no other disagreement between the two countries. I've considered sanctions aimed at punishing Iran's support for anti-Israel groups, or opposing US actions taken fairly clearly in support of Israel as quasi-direct sanctions on Iran's anti-Israel national position - which I'll point out again is very close to the position any state in the region would take if it was anywhere near democratic. For example, it is the position Lebanon is taking now that the near majority Shiites are coming close to a representative level of power and it is the position any nationalist Iraqi would take, such as Sadr, who the US so strenuously opposes.
Anyway, I just found this, a history of US unilateral sanctions and I'll quote some and annotate some.
Carter AdministrationUS unilateral sanctions against Iran began almost a quarter of a century ago after the take-over of the US embassy in Tehran (November 1979). President Carter responded immediately by issuing Proclamation 4702, imposing a ban on the importation into the US of Iranian oil. Ten days later, he issued Executive Order 12170, which blocked all property within US jurisdiction owned by the Central Bank and Government of Iran. In April 1980, President Carter issued Executive Order 12205, instituting an embargo on US exports to Iran (including restrictions on financial transactions) and Executive Order 12211, imposing a ban on all imports from Iran and prohibiting US citizens from traveling to Iran or conducting financial transactions there. Once the US hostages were released, the US revoked the previous executive orders, with the exception of the order blocking Iranian Government property within US jurisdiction, and committed the US not to intervene in Iran’s internal affairs.
So the hostage sanctions look like they essentially started and stopped under Carter.
Reagan AdministrationFollowing the 1983 bombing of the US embassy and marine barracks in Lebanon, the Reagan Administration on 20 January 1984 declared Iran “a sponsor of international terrorism”. This designation made Iran ineligible for various forms of US foreign assistance. A year later, the Administration withheld funds from international organizations equal to the amounts allocated by those organizations for Iran and in 1988, US Executive Directors of international financial institutions were required to vote against issuing loans to Iran. In August 1986, the US prohibited Iran from receiving US arms (including spare parts) under the US Arms Export Control Act.
By Executive Order, a ban was imposed on US imports of Iranian crude oil and all other Iranian imports in October 1987 because of Iran’s “active support of terrorism as an instrument of state policy” and its “aggressive and unlawful action against US flag vessels and merchant vessels of other non-belligerent nations engaged in peaceful commerce in the international waters of the Persian Gulf.” The order was precipitated by congressional criticism of US Government purchases of Iranian oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
Now, real sanctions against Iran began because of Iranian support for anti-invasion groups in Lebanon. I hope I don't have to argue that the US occupied Lebanon in support of the Israeli occupation. It wasn't for oil.
The "belligerent activities in the gulf" were the result of the Iran-Iraq war. The US and Israel's explicit policy during that war was "dual containment", which hoped to keep each of the two countries close enough to parity that each could be progressively weakened by a prolonged war.
The actions against Iran by the Clinton Administration were part of the “Dual Containment” policy of his Administration, aimed at both Iran and Iraq. The purpose of the dual containment policy was to isolate those two countries and, by increasing the strains under which they must operate, generate the “break-up and gradual mellowing” of their power. It is interesting that President Clinton imposed economic sanctions against Iran only after severe criticism from EU countries, which argued that US companies continued to import $4bn worth of Iranian oil while they had been pressured to cooperate with the US containment policy. Germany, for example, had under US pressure given up plans to supply Iran with a nuclear reactor. President Clinton wanted to show that his policy vis-à-vis Iran was consistent.Iran-Libya Sanctions Act Of 1996 (ILSA)
President Clinton had been under considerable domestic pressure to act against Iran following the January 1995 take over of both Houses of Congress by Republicans who wanted to embarrass him and were courting the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the main Jewish lobby organization in Washington. AIPAC’s pressure on the Administration and Congress to act against Iran had been very strong for some time for a number of reasons. In the first place, Iran was said to support terrorist activities against Israel, which had been subjected to a series of bombings perpetrated by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad since the spring of 1994. The attacks accelerated in 1995 and caused a political victory of Netanyahu over Peres. Moreover, Israeli intelligence had informed the US Government that Iran was acquiring components for nuclear weapons and also registered concern about Russian plans to assist Iran in the completion of a civilian nuclear power reactor in Bushehr (the same reactor the US had pressured Germany not to build).
AIPAC pushed for comprehensive US sanctions against Iran including secondary US sanctions against foreign companies seeking to invest in Iran’s petroleum sector. What followed was a race between conservative Republicans and the Clinton Administration on Iran. President Clinton was under intense pressure to introduce legislation on US sanctions against Iran to avoid passage of even more restrictive legislation introduced by Senator A D’Amato of New York who was supported on this issue by the majority in the US Senate. Despite the Administration’s earlier executive orders (March and May 1995), the Senate passed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) of 1996 (Libya had been added by Senator Kennedy because of the Lockerbie bombing). The bill passed with almost no opposition in the Senate and House, which shows how little power the international oil companies have on matters pertaining to Middle East policy. The bill which finally passed excluded a few of the most onerous components, ie, the prohibition of imports into the US of goods from sanctioned foreign companies and the banning of admission into the US of senior executives of foreign companies investing in Iran.
AIPAC had been involved throughout the entire process. An AIPAC spokesman was quoted saying: “These guys (Congress) wrote their thing (ILSA) with us sentence by sentence.” The purpose of the bill was to reduce Iran’s ability to export oil and gas and thus deny funds for the development of WMD and support of international terrorism. ILSA was to be imposed on US and foreign companies investing $40mn in Iran’s petroleum sector during the first year of enforcement, dropping to a limit of $20mn thereafter. ILSA instructed the president to select at least two of a list of six authorized sanctions. Each alternative was deliberately crafted to fall within the scope of US Government authority. For example, the president could deny access to US financial markets; deny access to US equipment and parts; forbid US Government purchases of goods and services from the offending companies, and so forth.
Here, Iran's offending actions are "supporting international terrorism", which is to say anti-Israel groups and the connection between the sanctions and Israel's proponents is fairly clear.
GW Bush AdministrationThe oil industry was quite optimistic that the Bush Administration would lift the unilateral US oil sanctions. Both Bush and Cheney were oilmen who understood that unilateral sanctions were not working and were discriminatory against US companies.
Various senior future members of the Bush Administration had been quite outspoken in their opposition to unilateral sanctions and the oil industry expected that a Bush Administration would not renew ILSA when it expired in August 2001. AIPAC supporters were concerned when they heard Secretary Colin Powell say during his confirmation hearings that: “differences with Iran need not preclude greater interaction, whether in more normal commerce or increased dialogue. Our national security team will be reviewing such possibilities”.
It came as a surprise to the oil industry that the Cheney energy report in the spring of 2001 favored the use of sanctions as a tool to advance national and global security objectives. While the new Administration was searching for a new policy towards sanctions, super-active AIPAC was pushing for a renewal of ILSA for the following reasons:
· Iran had developed a new missile which could reach Israel;
· Ten Iranian Jewish nationals had been accused of spying in Iran;
· Hamas and other Palestinian organizations were still supported by Iran;
· Statements by Iran against the State of Israel.By March 2001, AIPAC’s primary goal was to renew ILSA and through sanctions deny Iran the ability to support acts of international terrorism and to fund the development of WMD and WMD-delivery systems. AIPAC effectively pressured Congress and the Bush team was slow to react. When AIPAC began its campaign for ILSA-renewal, the new administration had been in office for less than two months and was still putting its officials in place. Separate reviews of US policy toward energy security, sanctions, and Iran were still in their preliminary stages.
The trade promotion group USAEngage and the oil industry, while strongly opposed to the renewal of ILSA, could never catch up with the momentum of the AIPAC campaign and never received clear signals of support from the White House. In June 2001, 74 Senators sponsored a five-year ILSA extension and the Bush Administration proved unwilling to confront Congress on an issue they would likely loose. Senator Schumer of New York was quoted on ILSA extension: “We want to get this done, period. I hope the President hears the message and puts to rest any move to let it sunset.” Faced with a veto-proof majority in favor of ILSA, the Administration finally decided to try to limit the damage by supporting a shorter, two-year extension. They were afraid to try to modify the language of the legislation in a favorable direction because opening it up to debate could result in withdrawal of the presidential waiver authority.
I guess this brings us up to now. Oil companies are essentially impotent to have sanctions removed (as much as they would like to) and there currently is no motivation for the sanctions other than support for anti-Israel groups and the danger that Iran might become nuclear capable and therefore able to give even more support to anti-Israel groups.
Yes, the sanctions from Reagan on do appear to clearly be oriented toward the "anti-terrorism" aspect - which means, of course, supporting Hizballah and Hamas against Israel.
In any event, it's clear that there is no way the US Congress will go against AIPAC and the wealthy Jewish nutcases like Sheldon Adelson and remove sanctions against Iran, regardless of the nuclear or Iraq situations.
Readers can check out this article if you want to see who really runs the US (along with the oil companies and the military-industrial complex). This nut Adelson is so right wing he even hates Olmert and AIPAC! He must be SLC in disguise!
The Brass Ring
A multibillionaire’s relentless quest for global influence.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_bruck?printable=true
Money Quotes:
Last October, Sheldon Adelson, the gaming multibillionaire, accompanied a group of Republican donors to the White House to meet with George W. Bush. They wanted to talk to the President about Israel. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was organizing a major conference in the United States, in an effort to re-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and her initiative had provoked consternation among many rightward-leaning American Jews and their Christian evangelical allies. Most had seen Bush as a reliable friend of Israel, and one who had not pressured Israel to pursue the peace process. Adelson, who is seventy-four, owns two of Las Vegas’s giant casino resorts, the Venetian and the Palazzo, and is the third-richest person in the United States, according to Forbes. He is fiercely opposed to a two-state solution; and he had contributed so generously to Bush’s reëlection campaign that he qualified as a Bush Pioneer. A short, rotund man, with sparse reddish hair and a pale countenance that colors when he is angered, Adelson protested to Bush that Rice was thinking of her legacy, not the President’s, and that she would ruin him if she continued to pursue this disastrous course. Then, as Adelson later told an acquaintance, Bush put one arm around his shoulder and another around that of his wife, Miriam, who was born in Israel, and said to her, “You tell your Prime Minister that I need to know what’s right for your people—because at the end of the day it’s going to be my policy, not Condi’s. But I can’t be more Catholic than the Pope.” (The White House denies this account.)
Perhaps this exchange contributed to a growing resolve on Adelson’s part to try to force the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, out of office. Adelson and Olmert had been friendly since the nineteen-nineties, when Olmert was a member of the hard-line Likud Party. Olmert became Prime Minister in January, 2006, following Ariel Sharon’s stroke. He, like Sharon, came to recognize the inexorability of Jewish-Arab demographic trends. Olmert declared that a two-state solution was the only way of preserving Israel as a democratic state with a Jewish majority, and he said that he was ready to negotiate with the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. Adelson saw Olmert’s actions as a betrayal of principle. He had long wanted to see the Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu returned as Prime Minister, but a revived peace process gave that goal new urgency.
Adelson opposed both Olmert and the peace conference, which was held in Annapolis in late November. The Zionist Organization of America, to which Adelson is a major contributor, ran a full-page ad in the Times, headlined, “SECRETARY RICE: DON’T PROMOTE A STATE FOR PALESTINIANS WHILE THEIR 10 COMMANDMENTS PROMOTE TERRORISM AND ISRAEL’S DESTRUCTION.” The “10 Commandments” referred to the constitution of Fatah, Abbas’s party. “Osama Bin-Laden and Hamas would be proud of Abbas’ Fatah Constitution,” the ad stated. Two weeks before the start of the conference, a Washington, D.C., think tank that shares office space and several board members with the Republican Jewish Coalition—another organization to which Adelson makes significant contributions—circulated an article on its Listserve which asserted, “Olmert is now chasing peace with the Palestinians at all costs, in a desperate attempt to secure his place in world history.”
In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service, Adelson was even more disparaging about Olmert’s motivation. Olmert has faced several corruption investigations, all focussed on the period before he became Prime Minister; Adelson suggested that Olmert was trying to divert public attention from them, and was making concessions to the Palestinians in order “to stay out of jail.” (The most recent investigation of Olmert, which became public in early May, seems to have increased Adelson’s chances of achieving his objective. Olmert has admitted accepting donations, mostly in cash, from an American businessman for his election campaigns since the nineteen-nineties, but he insisted that he did not take any money for his personal use, and denied allegations that he had accepted bribes. He has said that he will resign if he is indicted.)
In early November, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, who is widely respected in Washington, was scheduled to appear with Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, at the opening of the Saban Forum, an event in Jerusalem organized by the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Adelson phoned the event’s chair, Haim Saban, an Israeli-American businessman, and asked him to contribute to a campaign that he was organizing against the Olmert government; Saban declined. Adelson then asked if he would sign an ad; again, Saban refused. Whereupon, Adelson accused him of funding anti-Israel research at the Saban Center. Saban was surprised, but suggested that when the center’s director, Martin Indyk, was next in Las Vegas he and Adelson could talk. Not long afterward, Indyk met with Adelson at his office at the Venetian, on the Las Vegas Strip. According to a person familiar with what happened at the meeting, Adelson berated Indyk for hosting “terrorists” like Fayyad, who he said was a founder of Fatah. Indyk is said to have replied that Fayyad was never involved in terrorism and was not a member of Fatah, and that Adelson’s problem was really with Olmert, because he dealt with Fayyad. Adelson stood his ground, and declared that the Olmert government was an illegitimate government and should be thrown out. (Indyk declined to comment on what he said was a private conversation. Saban confirmed his exchange with Adelson.)
Historically, most mainstream American Jewish organizations don’t publicly oppose the government of Israel, but in the weeks before and after the Annapolis conference a number of groups were strongly critical. Among them was One Jerusalem, founded in 2000 to protest any peace accord that would include Israeli concessions on Jerusalem. One Jerusalem has received contributions from Adelson. A week before the Annapolis conference, One Jerusalem’s chairman, Natan Sharansky—the former Russian dissident, who has moved to the right on the political spectrum since immigrating to Israel—announced a major campaign against any division of Jerusalem, and against the peace initiative. One Jerusalem referred to Annapolis as “the Munich Conference of the 21st century.” After Olmert asserted Israel’s right as a sovereign state to make decisions regarding its national security, One Jerusalem posted an article on its Web site, headlined, “OLMERT TO WORLD JEWRY: SHUT UP.” Later, as Olmert’s negotiations with Abbas continued, another piece announced, “OLMERT DECLARES WAR ON ISRAEL.”
Adelson has long preferred a low profile in many of his political activities. But one of his maneuvers did appear in the press. He has been a generous donor to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, the dominant lobby of American Jewry regarding U.S. policy toward Israel. Since the nineties, Adelson has helped underwrite many congressional trips to Israel, sponsored by an AIPAC educational affiliate. (Adelson pays only for Republican members.) Last year, he contributed funds for a lavish new office building in Washington, D.C., for the organization. In November, shortly before the summit, he learned that AIPAC was supporting a congressional letter, signed by more than a hundred and thirty members of the House of Representatives, that urged the Bush Administration to increase economic aid to the Palestinians, an initiative that the government of Israel also supported. Adelson was furious.
AIPAC is not accustomed to being attacked publicly from the right; its critics generally charge that its conservative policies toward Israel favor the status quo over a peace accord. But AIPAC has traditionally insisted that it seeks to further a close American-Israeli relationship, whether the government of Israel is left, right, or center. In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Adelson said of AIPAC’s support of aid for the Palestinians, “I don’t continue to support organizations that help friends committing suicide just because they want to jump.” AIPAC has not made any policy shifts, and it is not clear whether Adelson will continue to contribute to the organization.
When Adelson was merely rich, he wrote checks for causes that he favored and for politicians whom he supported. Occasionally, he demanded to be heard. But he did not expect to play a significant role in U.S. foreign policy, or in Israel’s strategic decisions, or in the fate of a sitting Israeli Prime Minister. That was before he acquired many billions of dollars. (He has assets of twenty-six billion dollars, according to a Forbes list published in March.) His political expenditures and his expectations have increased proportionately. Not long after Bush’s encounter with Adelson last October, an Israeli government representative said that Bush, describing it to another Israeli official, had remarked wryly, “I had this crazy Jewish billionaire, yelling at me.” (The Israeli official does not recall the conversation; the White House said that it had no comment.)
Conspiracy theories aside, sanctions are usually counterproductive, and they certainly are in this case. We need full engagement with Iran, not just the opening up of their oil market but also handing out lots of student visas, expediting cultural and economic exchanges, and boosting tourism. Ditto Cuba, Ukraine, and others.
Comments closed July 08, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
The United States and Iran have more pragmatic interests and converging strategic needs than are generally perceived: avoiding Iraqi and Afghan fragmentation, coordinating antidrug smuggling, and working on new, more sustainable security arrangements in the Gulf area to name a few.
Strategic alliances are Iran's antidrug.
Posted by phil | June 24, 2008 2:05 PM