Leverage

Tom Friedman says we can't negotiate with Iran yet because we don't have enough leverage. We need to get the leverage first, and then we talk. Mostly, I find this whole line of argument wrongheaded for the reasons David Shorr outlines.

But we also need to get real here for a moment and recognize that we're the United States of America and despite the damage Bush has done we have plenty of leverage. We're a giant rich country and they're a medium sized middle income country. We have military forces in two of Iran's neighbors, we maintain sanctions on Iran that hurt their economy. Our closest ally in the country is a rich nation with a power military establishment and nuclear weapons, their closest allies in the region are non-state militia groups. We have plenty to offer Iran that would be valuable to them insofar as they're willing to change their behavior in ways that are valuable to us. That's all the leverage you need to start a process of negotiation.

Comments

The whole negotiate with Iran bit is sillyness. It is like saying we can't negotiate with Cuba. What could we possibly offer them? I mean Cuba buys nothing from the US, therefore they don't want anything from the US. Superb logic.

Posted by freddiemac | June 2, 2008 9:24 AM

I know what he's saying. I have ordered 3 cases of leverage and I keep hearing it's backordered until late January.

Posted by El Cid | June 2, 2008 9:25 AM

Friedman sees a deal as something you can only force the other guy into rather than as an exchange for mutual benefit. Why does anyone take him seriously as a foreign correspondent?

Posted by Helter | June 2, 2008 9:35 AM

Yeah, really. What Little Tommy means by "negotiate" is "make demands."

Posted by Bat of Moon | June 2, 2008 9:38 AM

I made some of the same points Matt did in my comment yesterday to David Shorr's post. I'll add here that I find it hard to believe that Friedman honestly believes the stuff he is writing about US leverage with Iran. He seems to be playing some sort of political angle whose purpose eludes me. Iran is literally surrounded by US allies - except for Turkmenistan - including neighboring countries in which the US military is currently operating. We have large naval forces right off its coasts. We have air bases in the region and could strike them at any time. We are punishing them with sanctions, and still have some of their assets frozen from 1979. As leverage goes, this is about as good as it gets in international affairs.

Posted by Dan Kervick | June 2, 2008 9:39 AM

Friedman!

"Those negotiations succeeded, though, not because Mr. Bush was better “prepared,” but because, at the time, shortly after the invasion of Iraq, Mr. Bush had leverage. Iraq had yet to fall apart."

Oh brother!

How does one use Friedman and his ego based column as the bases for an intelligent discussion, when so many times Friedman is ruled by radical, far rightwing hysteria. Friedman has become completely unhinged on MANY occasions, and that said, perhaps it would not be such a bad idea to give columnist term-limits, the way I think we need to give congress members term limits, because sometimes a congress person, like certain columnist, get so full of themselves as to have become completely irrational and therefore worthless.

Friedman exhibits the behavior of rightwing preachers – like the late Jerry Falwell, predicting that at any moment God will exact his mighty thunderbolts from the blue.

What is this "theory" that talking to Iran is any sign of weakness at all? There is not bases for that idea in any form of reality. If we wait for "Mission Accomplished" it will only further weaking US resources anyways. Friedman isn't making sense anymore, so why further subject ourselves to the trivial task of reasoning with Friedman irrationalism?

Posted by Me-again | June 2, 2008 10:03 AM

Maybe we need to send Tom to Tehran so he can tell them to "Suck on this!"

Posted by Grogor | June 2, 2008 10:25 AM

I got a haircut and a mustache wax in Dubai yesterday, and my barber was wearing a bluetooth headset and chatting with an Abkhazian day-trader in Zurich. I overhead him say something profound about this globally interconnected world we live in. He said, "The global economy is like a quiche lorraine, and we're all just islands of bacon in a sea of cheese, wrapped in the same flaky, delicious crust."

And I said to myself, "My God, he's right." And this is why the next six months in Iraq are so incredibly, crucially important. Because if we pull out of Iraq too soon, the quiche will collapse into soggy chaos and the entire oven may begin to smoke.

Posted by Tom Friedman | June 2, 2008 10:42 AM

you're right, if all you want to do is start a process of negotiation. I haven't read little Tommy on this, but to me what you're describing is weight not leverage. We can and do have all the weight in the world on our side of the lever, but it cannot be "leveraged" without a fulcrum. The fulcrum in North Korea, for example, has seemed to be famine. It will generally be a dire condition or perception inherent to the state itself that provides the opportunity of a fulcrum; it won't come from an outside agent. The modern history of sanctions, for instance, is not one of success.

Posted by along | June 2, 2008 11:07 AM

It looks like the contest for the dumbest columnist on the New York Times is becoming a close contest between Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd (Kristol is not dumb, just insane).

Posted by SLC | June 2, 2008 11:10 AM

How's this for leverage: Iranians tend to be young, pro-American and anti-mullah. When you have influence over a nation's people against the state, you have some pretty damn big heaping piles of leverage.

Posted by Reality Man | June 2, 2008 1:18 PM

Maybe we should wait 6 months...

Posted by Silver | June 2, 2008 3:38 PM

So who's your closest ally - the UK? I wouldn't look to us for much help in the coming decades. Little bit financially embarrassed, old chap. Could you lend us a fiver til the end of the week?

Posted by David Mills | June 2, 2008 5:38 PM

How full of baloney are you? If this country follows any of your advice, it will have exactly zero leverage; but, of course, when you live in your fantasy world, negotiating from weakness is something that makes sense.

Posted by robertl | June 2, 2008 7:34 PM