11 February 2007
Who will blink first, the US or Iran?
Recently, from his perch at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, Germany's
former foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, wrote a commentary warning of the dangers
in an American military attack against Iran. His views are significant
in that they are shared by many Bush
administration critics in the
United States and Europe.
With the US Navy
building up its offensive capability
in and around the Gulf, and
President George W. Bush ratcheting
up the pressure on Iranians
inside Iraq, Fischer concluded:
"Basically, there are two possibilities, one positive and one negative. Unfortunately, the positive outcome appears to be the less
likely one. If the threat of force ... aims at preparing the
ground for serious negotiations with Iran, there can and
should be no objection. If,
on the other hand, it represents an attempt to prepare the American public for a war against Iran ... the outcome would
be an unmitigated disaster."
Fischer
is adamant that a war against
Iran will plunge the Middle East into an "abyss." It would strengthen
the Iranian clergy, put Iranian democrats on the defensive, and ensure that the
"the dream of 'regime change' in Tehran would not come true." He insists that there
is still time to secure "a long-term freeze of Iran's nuclear program," mainly because the country's level
of nuclear development does not call for immediate military action. The US must pursue diplomacy, but this requires an American willingness to talk to Tehran, which "is afraid of regional
and international isolation." Iran can be changed
from within, Fischer believes, "So why the current
threats against Iran?"
Much of what Fischer argues is
convincing. The chances that a US military attack would be
successful in totally destroying Iran's nuclear capability are not high. The Iranian backlash
in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East could end up causing
much greater headaches for the United States than the already trying
situation existing today. Regional sectarian polarization between Sunnis and Shiites would rise if Iran were to strike back against America's Arab allies; Islamists might seize the initiative on both sides of the divide,
which would only further damage US effectiveness in the region. Domestically, Bush would have to convince a deeply skeptical Congress and public that bombing Iran is worthwhile. Given the present
mood in Washington, this is unlikely.
But
there are two problems in Fischer's analysis and that of other
administration critics. First,
Iran is plainly intending to build a nuclear device, and in the face of this the international community has repeatedly vacillated. Fischer's anxieties, which he wears
on his sleeve, create a sense that he would
prefer to let Iran have an atomic
weapon than allow the US to prevent this from
happening. That's because his case is all carrots and no sticks. Fischer accepts that brinkmanship can produce good
results, by paving the way toward
serious negotiations; but he so undermines
the argument in favor of using force, that that psychological merits of employing brinkmanship come to nothing.
Yet sticks can work. There was an exception to
international dithering on Iran last December, when the United Nations Security Council passed a sanctions resolution against Tehran. Later this month,
the International Atomic Energy Agency will
review whether Iran has complied. Though it was watered
down, the resolution supposedly took the Iranian leadership by
surprise. In a report highlighted by the French daily Le Monde, the foreign affairs
committee of the Iranian Parliament warned of the dangers of
sanctions, which could
force Iran "to modify its
national priorities and devote a major part of its resources to preventing an
important social upheaval, which
may cause a deterioration
of the standard of living for a significant
portion of the population." President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been severely
criticized by other members of Iran's leadership for having
so polarized relations with the international community, that Security Council members were able to find common ground.
His authority has been weakened, and recently
he and Iran's nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, disagreed publicly over the
president's prerogatives on
nuclear matters.
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Ahmadinejad could end up a victim of his overconfidence. His line has been that the US is a paper
tiger. It talks tough on Iran, but otherwise is too
bogged down in Iraq to pose a danger to Tehran. That rationale
has encouraged the president to raise the stakes with
Washington, probably tacked
on to a calculation that if
there were a standoff with the
Americans, Ahmadinejad would gain at home. Yet this has divided
Iran's leaders over what policy to pursue. That's why displaying apprehension, like Fischer does, is the
wrong stratagem to adopt with the
Iranians. If you're playing
a game of chicken, don't blink.
A
second problem that Fischer
and Bush administration detractors
need to sort out is what negotiations with Iran would involve. The critics
insist the administration should talk, but without explaining what it should talk about, whether the US is in the best position to initiate such a dialogue today, or even whether Iran will take the exchange
seriously.
The US may be better off waiting until several factors
kick in before talking - particularly if the building of a
nuclear weapon is not imminent. Iran will soon face more economic hardship from the
steady lowering of oil prices due to Saudi excess production. The Bush administration's surge option in Baghdad and in Anbar Province has the potential to strengthen its hand if it can improve
security in Iraq. In Lebanon,
Iran's ally Hizbullah has seen its margin
of maneuver reduced by an angry Sunni counter-reaction
to its efforts to overthrow
the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. And throughout the Arab world, Iran is perceived as more of an enemy than ever
before. These developments, and others, suggest that the Bush administration might be better
off waiting for Iran to float
a compromise package first, rather
than panicking and doing so
itself - handing Iranian hard-liners proof that Washington cannot afford a confrontation.
A
US war against Iran is a bad idea.
But the essence of brinkmanship
is to create the impression that war is a
good idea - in fact a smashing one. Bush is stubborn enough,
and infuriated enough by Iraq, that the Iranians can't be quite sure of what he will
do next. The US can turn this
to its advantage. Yet, until now,
it's also true that the administration has dealt with Iran within the context
of an international consensus, through the UN and in accord with its Arab
allies - everything it avoided doing before
invading Iraq. So, when critics like
Fischer cannot acknowledge this change, when they justify using
force to open the door to bargaining, then virtually reject, without evidence, that the US might
be playing a subtle mind game,
you do wonder what their point is: to resolve a crisis that Iran created, or just to knock Bush down a peg?
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY
STAR.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=79423#