The twin pillars of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy framework are a willingness to negotiate with adversaries and to collaborate with other nations to bring about stability and peaceful change.
This approach is idealistic and realistic at the same time. It assumes that engagement is a necessary first step, and negotiation is always better than autistic hostility that could lead to military conflict. It focuses on mobilizing the major powers, aligning them on both means and ends, and applying continuous pressure to recalcitrant states.
Iran presents a particularly complex conundrum. It appears resolute in its pursuit of nuclear technologies suitable for both civilian and military use. It is a center of fundamentalist extremism. It fosters Middle Eastern instability and its theocracy is under increasing internal pressure from domestic reformers seeking more open political processes and a more modern civil society. As all these issues are linked, often in ways invisible to observers, it is more important than ever for the major powers to be precise in directing pressure on Iran.
The U.S. position – engagement and, if necessary, a willingness to use sanctions – is shared by the UK, France and Germany. Less clear are the Russian and Chinese positions, complicated by both deep economic ties to Iran as well as an apparent desire to continue to keep the U.S. off-balance. Unless Iran engages in serious negotiations on its nuclear program the U.S. will press again for worldwide “crippling” sanctions against the regime. In his State of the Union address, Obama noted that “there should be no doubt. ... [Iran] will face growing consequences.”
Since Iran has successfully ignored three earlier Security Council resolutions, it is not clear that the fourth now making the rounds of the Security Council will produce desired results. But as a part of the overall concerted international pressure on the regime, it is a necessary step. Chinese and Russian acquiescence, if not outright support, will help. Two major instances of sanctions in the latter half of the 20th century lead to opposite conclusions about whether sanctions work: In South Africa, they clearly contributed to gradual erosion of support for the white minority regime and peaceful transition to majority rule. In Cuba, they have not.
The sanctions-and-engagement strategy has been complicated by the rise of widespread opposition movements in Iran. But international engagement with the regime may have helped to produce the political crisis. At the very moment when the U.S. and its partners extended an offer of dialogue rather than hostility, it appeared to many Iranians that the regime refused to respond. Coupled with a fraudulent presidential election, this helped fissures to spread among the clerical and political leadership.
Critics of the sanctions-and-engagement dual strategy believe that engagement only strengthens the Iranian regime and weakens the opposition movement. They believe Obama should overtly support the opposition “green movement” instead of trying to deal with the Khamenei regime.
On Jan. 30, the New York Times and the Washington Post both editorialized about Iran, in sharply different ways.
The Post argued that Obama's strategy keeps “the administration focused on the least likely scenario for success — a deal with the current regime — instead of a more likely one, which is an opposition victory. It could cause the administration to take steps that undermine the green movement, such as conducting more negotiations with the government while failing to do that which could tip the balance of power to the opposition.”
The Post believes that “the [Iranian] regime professes unconcern about another round of sanctions – perhaps with some reason. But it does not hide its terrors and paranoia about the possibility that the United States would help to sponsor a popular ‘color revolution.’ If the object of sanctions is to punish the regime and force it to make concessions, why not begin to do what it fears most?”
The New York Times takes the opposite position: “Some experts say the government is so weakened that the United States should withdraw its offer to improve relations and focus solely on regime change. No one has put forward a compelling plan for achieving that, but military action would be a disaster. As we saw in Iraq, talk of regime change can be an unpredictable and dangerous game.”
It is fair to question the effectiveness of sanctions, especially if they broadly hurt the people of Iran and only marginally affect the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the leadership. They are responsible for the nuclear program. Financial and travel restrictions are useful in this regard, as are further restrictions on dual-use technologies. Creative proposals such as last fall’s plan to provide Iran with uranium enriched in another country in quantities suitable for nuclear power plants, as well as power plant construction, are worth another chance. Increased Farsi broadcasting by the BBC and other news organizations, along with efforts to circumvent the Iranian Internet firewall and free up more internal dialogue, can also be useful. Sanctions focused on companies that sell advanced censorship and surveillance technologies the regime can use to track opposition groups and suppress internal dissent could also be useful.
But overt support for internal Iranian opposition movements and leaders will backfire. While the 1953 CIA-engineered coup against popularly-elected Prime Minister Mossadegh is little-remembered in the U.S. or Western Europe, it is front and center in Iran’s historical memory. Iranians, whether part of the authoritarian regime or its opponents, are nationalists who resent meddling in their internal affairs. The easiest way to discredit the internal Iranian forces working for change is to link them, even rhetorically, to the U.S. and its partners, allowing the regime to discredit them as “tools of the West.”
A more sophisticated support for the principles of free and open debate, free assembly open and fair political processes and elections, and a transparent civil society, should be maintained. By voicing support for internal change that many nations can agree with, it nonetheless avoids the political kiss of death of direct linkage between external forces and internal organizations and leaders.
At the same time, the Obama administration has made it clear that “all options are on the table” and is building up the Gulf States’ and Saudi Arabia’s ability to defend themselves against potential Iranian attacks. Regional deterrence of Iranian military adventurism and anti-missile defense against Iranian attacks may help convince the regime that its neighbors are also concerned, and capable of action – not merely the U.S. or Israel.
Patient pressure, public and private, coupled with creative bargaining proposals may yet lead to progress on the nuclear issue. The Iranian political elite is in disarray – especially divided over the brutal tactics and political executions that have been used to suppress dissent. But we should not assume that division extends to the nuclear issue and that a more “moderate” Iranian regime would be any less nationalistic. Properly and patiently handled, the dual strategy of engagement and sanctions still holds the most promise for solving the Iranian conundrum.