Iran

By David J. Kramer

Surprises?

I have been surprised -- and disappointed -- by the extent to which the administration has been willing to extend a hand to rogue regimes and enemy states at the same time it seems to keep many of its friends at a distance.

Praiseworthy?

The president's speeches in places like Moscow, Accra, and Cairo have, for the most part, hit the right tone and messages. His visit to Moscow in July was well done (though his policy toward Russia since then has raised some serious questions).

Constructive Criticism?

The president personally needs to make a strong and relentless push to address the challenge posed by Iran and tell Moscow that this issue more than any other will define whether the reset efforts with Russia succeed or fail. That Secretary Clinton did not push the Russians on sanctions during her recent visit was inexplicable. Hopefully, Gen. Jones last week raised this. One senior U.S. official recently admitted that the administration didn't know what it wanted/needed to do next. With an end-of-December deadline not far away and Iran up to its usual tricks, the administration better figure out a strategy fast before Israel takes matters into its own hands.

Predictions?

Iran, more than Afghanistan and Iraq, may well be the dominant foreign policy issue next year.

Rick Gershon/Getty Images

Robert Kagan gets the Iranian issue exactly right and his question is also right: What kind of poker player is President Obama? 

Negotiating with Iran is by definition an unavoidable part of pursuing the diplomatic option with Iran. President Obama should not be faulted for trying to negotiate a deal with Iran. But negotiations must remain a means to an end, and here the record with Iran stemming back many years is an unhappy one: the Iranian regime is a master at turning the means into the ends, where the goal increasingly becomes "preserve and prolong the negotiations" rather than "reach a deal." Unfortunately, that seems to be happening again now. All of the players, including Russia, are returning to form.

This is precisely why I argued that it was important to get the negotiating leverage that comes with ramped-up sanctions before negotiations started rather than after they had been shown to fail. If we had that leverage on Iran now, then every delay and every dither would gradually strengthen our hand and weaken Iran's. Our options would improve because theirs would get bleaker. Without that leverage, the opposite happens and is indeed happening right now: every delay and dither puts Iran in a slightly stronger position vis-à-vis the world community.

Perhaps the poker analogy could be improved slightly with one tweak: without the sanctions, we are playing poker with our seat on fire but with the sanctions we would be playing poker with Iran's seat on fire. Even a Nobel Prize winning poker player will have a tough time getting success in the first instance, but even a so-so poker player might have success in the second.

Sunday was another tragic day in Iraq, more than 150 people were killed and another 500 injured in attacks on the Ministries of Justice and Interior in Baghdad. The devastation was another sad reminder of how fragile are the gains bought so dearly by Iraqis and Americans -- military and civilian -- working every day in that country to consolidate progress toward a secure and representative Iraq.

Those who believe Iraq was "the wrong war," or that violence and authoritarianism are endemic in a country with such deep sectarian divisions, or those who practice the soft bigotry of low expectations (as President Bush so nicely phrased it in a different context), and believe Muslims incapable of democracy will likely see these attacks as justification for accelerating our disengagement from Iraq. Such a conclusion is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the domestic politics of Iraq in the run up to their January provincial elections.

War is the extension of politics by other means, as Clausewitz teaches, and domestic politics is what these attacks were about. Iraqi security forces are struggling to prevent such attacks. Prime Minister Maliki's confidence in their ability has always run ahead of their actual performance (as early as 2005 he advocated a security hand over) and he has been party to politicizing their ranks. 

But Maliki is running on a platform of providing security and negotiating the U.S. withdrawal. Anything that calls security into question or precipitates a return by American military forces into Iraq's cities (from which we had withdrawn on June 30 in accordance with the Strategic Framework Agreement) hurts Maliki's claim. And it doesn't just hurt Maliki, it hurts other incumbent politicians, like the Mayor of Baghdad, who also argued for removing blast walls to facilitate movement and commerce and a return to normalcy in the capital.

After the last spectacular attack, against the Foreign Ministry on Aug. 19, Prime Minister Maliki responded in a stridently partisan fashion, blaming Sunni and al Qaeda as one, conducting arrests and crackdowns that have a suspicious political tilt against his political opponents. While the U.S. military spokesman tried to put a good face on the Iraqi government's reaction, comparing it to the crasser political manipulation of the Aug. 19 bombings, Maliki's statement in the aftermath speaks for itself:

The cowardly acts of terrorism which occurred today must not weaken the resolution of Iraqis to continue their journey and to fight the followers of the fallen regime, the Baathists and al-Qaeda."

This, before the government had any reasonable idea of who conducted the attacks. There are numerous political factions that could benefit from delegitimizing the Maliki government's record, not least rival Shi'ia who excluded him from being their standard bearer in the election.

But the good news is that political pluralism has taken root in Iraqi politics. Maliki couldn't win the support of a Shi'ia-only slate organizing for the January elections, so he opted to build a cross-sectarian slate. He's not trying very hard, mind you, as his statement blaming Sunni for Sunday's bombing shows. But his effort to appeal across sectarian lines was his Hail Mary (so to speak) and shows he believed voters would reward the choice. Vice President Tariq al Hashimi, a Sunni, is likewise tacking beyond sectarianism to broaden his prospective political base. 

This is a hugely important development, seldom seen in fragile societies. Usually, as with the Balkan elections of the early 1990s, politicians prey on voters' mistrust and trend toward extremes which is why elections in factional societies are so often polarizing and foster an upward spiral of violence.

In the last provincial elections, nearly all incumbents were voted out of office, a strong signal that average Iraqis believed they weren't doing their jobs. And voters weren't just "simplifying the map," moving to the sectarian extreme out of fear: Shi'ia voted out Shi'ia, Sunni voted out Sunni, Kurd voted out Kurd. What Iraqi political elites took from that election is the fundamental commandment of democracy everywhere: Thou Shalt Respect the Voters.

Talking to Iraqi politicians (as I did the past couple of weeks around their country), what is most striking is the extent to which they sound like small-city politicians in our own country. They worry about power outages and sewer systems and the quality of education for youngsters. They're mad at the central government for not funding activity they consider its responsibility. They rail against corruption -- even as many of them practice it -- and fear exposure by the free media that is burgeoning. Accountability has come to Iraqi politics, and the politicians know it.

A representative government is struggling to emerge in Iraq. It may not succeed in bridging the sectarian tensions, corruption, and long shadow of decades of authoritarianism that inhibits initiative. In Iraq, strong cultural undercurrents cut against the kinds of behavior that make successful democracies successful. But Iraqis want it, and political elites are responding. This is good news for Iraq and for the advancement of our values in the world.

AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images

By José R. Cárdenas

Kudos to the House Foreign Affairs Committee for scheduling a joint subcommittee hearing Tuesday on Iran's activities in the Western Hemisphere. While the foreign-policy establishment has understandably been focused on myriad global crises elsewhere, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime has been steadily expanding its reach in what it undoubtedly sees as America's "soft underbelly." The House hearing follows a blockbuster (but, unfortunately, little noticed) speech last month at the Brookings Institution by legendary New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau detailing the growing ties between Iran and Hugo Chávez's Venezuela.

Morgenthau, whose base in New York makes him one of the country's premier experts on international financial transactions (especially those of the unsavory kind), charged that Iran and Venezuela are establishing "a cozy financial, political, and military partnership" that is "rooted in a shared anti-American rhetoric and policy." "The Iranians," he said, "calculating and clever in their diplomatic relations, have found the perfect ally in Venezuela. Venezuela has an established financial system that, with Chávez's help, can be exploited to avoid economic sanctions. As well, its geographic location is ideal for building and storing weapons of mass destruction far away from Middle Eastern states threatened by Iran's ambition and from the eyes of the international community." He said, "Now is the time for policies and actions in order to ensure that the partnership produces no poisonous fruit."

As if on cue, two days after Morgenthau's speech, the tiny principality of Andorra announced the freezing of bank accounts of several individuals said to have close ties to Chávez as part of an international investigation into terrorism financing. The move came amid a U.S. Treasury Department investigation of accounts and financial activity linked to Chávez family members and Venezuelan government officials, according to an Andorran newspaper. The paper said the bank accounts, in Miami, Panama, China and Andorra, could be used to transfer funds to terrorist groups including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Hezbollah, Hamas, and ETA.

Another recent worrying development is Chávez's admission that Iran is helping Venezuela explore for uranium. According to a new paper from my colleague Ambassador Roger Noriega, a Canadian uranium exploration company, U308 Corp, recorded a substantial source of uranium in the border region between Guyana and Venezuela. It just so happens that Iranian companies and others with Middle Eastern backgrounds now operate mines, a "tractor factory," and a cement plant in the same area; at least two of these facilities have direct access to the navigable Orinoco River, which provides a ready route to the Atlantic Ocean.

Chávez's assurances that he would only use nuclear energy for peaceful means ring somewhat hollow when you consider yet another incident earlier this year where Turkish authorities seized cargo headed from Iran to Venezuela that contained lab equipment capable of producing explosives. The shipment was labeled "tractor parts" for the aforementioned "tractor factory."

Complicating matters further for U.S. interests in the region is the fact that Chávez has used his friendly relations with other like-minded radicals to gain further entrée for the Iranians in the Americas. Iran has signed trade, investment, and assistance deals -- and, in some cases, weapons deals -- with Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua. Even the Big Boy of Latin America, Brazil, has gotten into the act, defending Iran's nuclear program and preparing to host Ahmadinejad on a state visit in late November 2009.

Fortunately, these issues and no doubt many more will be examined by House subcommittee members. It is long past time to bring greater scrutiny to Iranian activities in the Western Hemisphere and develop appropriate responses. Continuing to investigate shady financial transactions and sanctioning perpetrators is a given, as well as working with our allies to monitor Iran's trading relationships with countries in the hemisphere. But more is needed. For starters, the Obama administration should strengthen our relationships with those countries who aren't interested in what Chávez and Ahmadinejad are selling, and that means seeking congressional approval for the Colombia and Panama free trade agreements that have lain dormant since January. It should also breathe new life into the Pathways for Prosperity in the Americas initiative, a group of 14 hemispheric countries working together to extend the benefits of free trade throughout their societies. The point is the vast majority of Latin Americans are loath to see their countries getting involved in contentious global controversies in which they have no stake, but they need to see the United States visibly and actively promoting an alternative way forward.

Granted, the administration's foreign-policy plate continues to be full with pressing matters. But when you recognize that the Iranian regime is playing for keeps, and that its Western Hemisphere strategy is an important part of its efforts to evade international scrutiny -- and sanctions -- regarding its nuclear program, then certainly its activities close to home merit more high-level attention and response.

Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images

By Kristen Silverberg

Mike's piece from earlier today is balanced and thoughtful, but I don't agree with his view that completion of this deal will provide the United States with valuable insight on Iran, other than to remind us that the Iranians are shrewd negotiators. Iran is getting more out of the deal than it's giving.  Although it has been described as a P5+1 breakthrough, ultimately the deal may undermine U.S. efforts to resolve the nuclear issue.

The argument in favor of the deal is that a decision by Iran to ship most of its enriched uranium stocks out of the country would give the United States and its allies assurance that, at least in the short-term, Iran could not deploy a nuclear weapon. Advocates of the deal say that for the time it would take Iran to restock its supply of low enriched uranium and then to further enrich the supplies to weapons grade fuel, the international community could rest easier knowing Iran would not be in a position to deploy a nuclear weapon.

It is not clear how much time Iran would need to restock its supply of low enriched uranium given the IAEA report that Iran has greatly enhanced its enrichment capabilities in recent months. Iran has now installed 8,300 centrifuges at Natanz, although they are using only 4,600, so may have the capability to speed up enrichment efforts when they decide to bring the additional centrifuges on line. Moreover, the disclosure of a hidden facility at Qom reminds us of the low likelihood that we have a complete picture of enrichment activities in Iran. At most, the deal will buy about a year in which the international community may be at decreased risk of an Iranian effort to move to breakout.

In exchange, the deal comes with an implicit (and perhaps explicit) understanding that the P5+1 will not impose additional sanctions. Once the fuel leaves Iran, it will much harder to convince the Europeans, let alone the Russians and Chinese, that continued pressure is appropriate. They will interpret and tout the deal as an example of Iran's willingness to negotiate in good faith and will drop talk of further sanctions. As Iran's Provisional Friday Prayer Leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said at Friday prayers in Tehran a week ago, "Prior to the talks, they used to speak of suspension and sanctions against Iran but after the talks, there has not been any word of suspension or sanctions."

As a practical matter, as Mike points out, Iran will have earned the international community's acceptance of its continued enrichment activities. In other words, the international community may think it can breathe easier for a year, but, in exchange, the Iranians will have taken themselves off the hook for further sanctions indefinitely. 

The deal looks even worse if you credit the views of experts who believe the current Iranian supply of LEU may be defective. If that's true, Iran hasn't sacrificed anything to earn itself the right to continued enrichment. 

And, of course, the deal, negotiated in direct talks between the U.S. and the Iranian regime, puts the United States in the position of legitimizing a government whose legitimacy has been courageously challenged by the Iranian people. 

The real purpose and impact of the deal was the one Director General Elbaradei outlined in his press conference: "I very much hope that people see the big picture, see that this agreement could open the way for a complete normalization of relations between Iran and the international community." This agreement is designed to relieve tensions, not to resolve the continued threat of Iran's nuclear program.

BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images

By Michael Singh

When companies are faced with making a decision between multiple risky options, they will often seek out information in order to reduce their uncertainty. So, a pharmaceutical firm will conduct clinical trials in order to determine if a drug is safe or dangerous, information that could mean the difference between profitable sales and damaging litigation. Such an investment in information is never free -- indeed, it often comes at a significant cost that must be weighed against the value of the knowledge obtained.

In this sense, the recently concluded U.S.-Iran talks in Geneva can be considered a diplomatic purchase of information. The United States, by offering to remove Iran's low-enriched uranium and turn it into the raw material required to make medical isotopes, is testing Iran's claim of peaceable intent and the Obama administration's hopes for engagement. If the Iranians comply, they may be open to further compromise, perhaps as a result of the political pressure they have faced at home since the summer's election turmoil. Their refusal, on the other hand, would serve as a clear signal of intransigence and lead Washington to pursue an alternative path. The most likely result is somewhere in between -- Iran gives no clear answer, but seeks to draw out talks and divide the P5+1 -- meaning that the United States has to ensure that we and our allies agree on what constitutes an acceptable response from Tehran. Whatever the result, it is a bold and innovative gambit by the United States, and the Iran hands at the National Security Council should be commended for devising it.

Like all purchases of information, however, this one comes at a cost. The P5+1 have had to accept the uranium enrichment which Iran has conducted in recent years in defiance of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. Even if it ultimately does not reach a deal to send its LEU abroad, Iran will surely seek to pocket this concession and declare a measure of victory. Similarly, by presenting the admission of IAEA inspectors to the until-recently-covert Qom enrichment plant as a concession, Iran gains tacit international acceptance of a facility built in defiance of its Nonproliferation Treaty obligations. If the P5+1 accepts this fait accompli and negotiates to limit rather than eliminate uranium enrichment in Iran and to monitor rather than shut down the Qom facility, the result could be a dangerous one for the stability of the Middle East and the viability of the global nonproliferation regime.

Another cost of the current U.S. initiative is that it risks demoralizing Iran's ascendant political opposition by bolstering the regime at a time when its legitimacy at home appears to be waning. Given that an internal transformation in Iran may be the best hope for long-run peace and stability in the region, any action that risks delaying it could be costly indeed. None of this is to say that the current approach should not be tried, given the paucity of attractive options; it is simply to say that it is not free. At some point the purchases of information must end, and a decision must be taken. A pharmaceutical company that conducts many clinical trials but sells no drugs eventually finds itself out of business.

SAMUEL KUBANI/AFP/Getty Images

By Jamie M. Fly

The Obama administration's Iran policy should rightly be criticized for a variety of reasons. The administration wasted their first five months in office, doing little more than sending a backchannel message to Ayatollah Khamenei while failing to make a serious effort to build leverage by turning the President's popularity in Europe into support for sanctions.  
 
During the post-election tumult in June, President Obama dithered, first refusing to criticize the very regime with which he hoped to negotiate and expressing concern about the situation only after worldwide horror as regime-backed militias slaughtered protesters in the street.  
 
Then, in September, when Iran offered its standard non-response to a renewed offer by the P5+1, the administration jumped at the offer to negotiate, culminating in an Oct. 1 meeting in Geneva between the P5+1 and Iran, including Under Secretary of State William Burns.
 
The Obama administration has thus pursued engagement at all costs and not built up the leverage that will be required if Tehran is to be persuaded to reconsider its march toward a nuclear weapon.  
 
This is a record worthy of criticism, but in the wake of the Geneva talks, some critics have taken their skepticism about the Obama administration's approach too far.
 
At the talks, Iran reportedly agreed to let international inspectors into its newly revealed uranium enrichment facility at Qom and to transfer a significant amount of its stockpile of low enriched uranium (LEU) at Natanz to Russia and France for further processing in order to turn it into fuel for its medical research reactor in Tehran. In the days following the talks, the Iranians have cast doubts on what was actually agreed, making the upcoming Oct. 19 meeting in Vienna to discuss implementation of the arrangement an important sign of how serious the Iranians are.
 
Some conservative critics have criticized the Geneva talks and these supposed agreements, arguing that they are just Iranian ploys to buy more time and that talking to Tehran at all legitimizes a repressive regime. It is valid to question whether in the post-June 12th political environment, the United States should be negotiating with discredited leaders rather than trying to undermine them, but given the Obama administration's insistence on engaging Tehran, the proposed LEU transfer deal concocted by the administration is an intriguing confidence building measure that, if implemented, will reduce the short-term threat posed by Iran's nuclear program.
 
Despite the ongoing debate in the press about the status of Iran's work on weaponization of a nuclear device, the key wild card right now is the production of the fissile material required for a nuclear weapon. Although most analysts believe that Iran would attempt to produce the highly enriched uranium (HEU) required for a weapon at a covert site like the recently revealed facility at Qom, the growing stockpile at Natanz is currently the greatest known threat posed by Iran's program. Although any Iranian attempts to reconfigure Natanz to produce HEU or to transfer the LEU to another site would likely be discovered by the international community, Iran could use the stockpile as a bargaining chip in negotiations, much as North Korea has used its Yongbyon reactor to extract concessions during the Six Party process.

If Iran is not provided the fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor, it will strengthen the regime's argument that Iran is being denied the use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. It could also result in Iran reconfiguring its centrifuges at Natanz or Qom to enrich uranium to higher levels.

Instead of hastening such a scenario, if implemented, the Geneva plan would get the bulk of Iran's declared stockpile out of the country for up to a year. Critics point out that given Iran's mastery of centrifuge technology and expanding number of centrifuges, Iran could recoup the transferred fuel in a matter of months. That may be true, but if Iran follows up such an agreement with no additional concessions, it is difficult to imagine that the Obama administration will be able to ignore domestic and Israeli pressure to pursue sanctions.

In today's Washington Post, David Ignatius speculates that Iran's stockpile of low enriched uranium may not be as dangerous as once thought.  He describes the view of one expert that because of certain impurities in the LEU, Iran may be unable to further process the LEU into fuel for their research reactor or HEU for a weapon without advanced technology which they do not have. Ignatius speculates that perhaps this is why Iran is willing to look to Russia and France for assistance. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to back up this argument and regardless, the goal of the United States should be to keep Iran from even trying to produce HEU, not assuming that if they try they will be unsuccessful.

Others argue that, by assisting Iran with the conversion of its LEU produced in contravention of multiple United Nations Security Council Resolutions, the administration and its partners have accepted Iran's right to enrich uranium. However, the Security Council resolutions remain in force, the P5+1 continues to demand that Iran freeze enrichment, and the administration has repeatedly stated that it will not accept a nuclear Iran.

There are plenty of questions that should be raised about the administration's Iran strategy. But given that the administration has decided to engage, the LEU transfer is a worthwhile first step. The question is whether Iran has actually agreed or whether Geneva was a feint to buy time. We'll know more after next week's meeting in Vienna.  
 
Criticism of this administration is often warranted, but Republicans should give them credit for out of the box thinking when warranted as well.

JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

By David J. Kramer

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came away from her visit to Moscow this week with mixed results. The two big ticket items involved Iran and the human rights situation inside Russia.

By all appearances, Clinton struck out on moving Russia closer to supporting sanctions against Iran should current negotiation efforts fail. "We did not ask for anything today," she said, in a rather stunning admission. "We reviewed the situation and where it stood, which I think was the appropriate timing for what this process entails."

That she would not try to push Russia toward supporting sanctions is hard to believe -- and, if true, frankly irresponsible. More likely, she tried and failed but was putting the best spin on it. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's comments after his meeting with Clinton clearly indicated continued Russian resistance to any sanctions push. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, never a supporter of getting tougher toward Iran, reinforced this position in comments from Beijing on Wednesday when he argued that discussing sanctions now against Iran would be "premature."

This contrasts with comments Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made in New York last month and that he reportedly reiterated in his private meeting with Clinton on Tuesday. The Kremlin, however, has not publicly challenged either the foreign minister's or prime minister's contradictory comments, even though the president is ultimately in charge of Russian foreign policy (the idea that Medvedev would slap down Putin is rather laughable). Yet these conflicting messages cause confusion about who calls the shots in Moscow. Then again, perhaps the situation is very clear: it is Putin and not Medvedev (more on this in a future blog entry). What a shame, then, that Putin was in Beijing, not Moscow, during Clinton's visit. All this is not a surprise to those of us who have been saying that Russia is unlikely at the end of the day to support tough sanctions against Iran -- even in exchange for the Obama administration's regrettable decision September 17 on missile defense (which, by the way, was handled abysmally).

In contrast to the bad news on Iran, Clinton's comments on the human rights situation inside Russia were a pleasant surprise. In spite of her short shrift of human rights concerns in the past (recall her comments on the way to Beijing in February when she said she didn't want those issues to "interfere" with other pressing matters), Clinton made clear the concerns of the Obama administration about the deteriorating situation inside Russia.  Her meeting with human rights and civil society activists was a very good follow-up to President Obama's similar meeting in July. Her interview with independent radio station Ekho Moskvy and her remarks to students at Moscow State University (MGU) also touched on these issues in a strong way.

"I think all of these issues -- imprisonments, detentions, beatings, killings - it is something that is hurtful to see from the outside," Clinton said at MGU. "Every country has criminal elements, every country has people who try to abuse power, but in the last 18 months ... there have been too many of the incidents," adding that not enough was being done to "ensure no one had impunity from prosecution ... I said that this is a matter of grave concern not just for the United States but for the Russian people, and not just for activists but people who worry that unsolved killings are a very serious challenge to order and the fair functioning of society," Clinton said. In an innovative society, she observed, "people must be free to take unpopular decisions, disagree with conventional wisdom, know they are safe to peacefully challenge accepted practice and authority."

In her interview with Ekho Mskvy, she highlighted the attacks on journalists and human rights defenders, noting they are "of such great concern. ... in the last 18 months ... there have been many of these incidents. ... I think we want the government to stand up and say this is wrong."

Her strong statements on these issues were especially important given an unnecessary and unfortunate situation caused by an article in the Russian newspaper Kommersant earlier in the week based on comments made by NSC Senior Director Michael McFaul suggesting that human rights concerns would receive less attention from the Obama administration. The thrust of the Kommersant article seemed out of synch with Obama's handling of the issue in July, with Clinton's comments this week, and with McFaul's own passion for human rights over his career (and I've known him for some 16 years). Clinton stepped into the fray and allayed the concerns, at least for the time being, of those who were worry that human rights issues will fall down the list of priorities in the interest of the Obama Administration's overall "reset" policy with Moscow. 

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