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calls security into question or precipitates a return by American military forces into Iraq's cities (from which we had withdrawn on June 30 in accordance with the Strategic Framework Agreement) hurts Maliki's claim.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 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 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 Peter Feaver

Secretary Clinton's recent visit to Moscow provides another opportunity to do a midcourse assessment of Iran policy. The assessment is bleak. Very bleak. The "mission accomplished" banners that Obamaphiles were unfurling when the Russians hinted at a greater openness to sanctions look a bit more faded and ironic today in light of reports that the Russians are back to their old script of opposing sanctions as an impediment to negotiations.

I argued earlier that the key intermediate objective of the negotiations with Iran was getting Russia (and China and the European in-laws) on side to impose tougher economic pressure on Iran. Without such leverage, negotiations were very unlikely to succeed.

Of course, the overall objective of those negotiations is to get the Iranian regime to abandon its nuclear weapons program. The Obama team, like the Bush team before it, believes that the only way the Islamic Republic will do so peacefully is if the United States can exert serious economic leverage over the regime so a compromise deal looks attractive -- hence the urgency of the intermediate objective of establishing such leverage.

From the beginning, the diplomatic track has been stymied by two stubborn facts. Fact 1: The U.S. cannot unilaterally generate the sanctions leverage it needs to give diplomacy a chance. Fact 2: The Russians, the Chinese, and sometimes the European in-laws all believe that diplomacy is an alternative to sanctions (and vice-versa) rather than understanding that sanctions are a necessary component of the diplomatic track. In other words, sanctions are what you resort to when diplomacy has failed rather than something you resort to in order to help diplomacy succeed.

The "shocking" news that the Iranian regime had been misleading the international community with a hidden second enrichment program provided a one-time opportunity to bring the international community on side, impose sanctions, and then pursue negotiations. Instead, the Obama team contented itself with the rhetorical support for sanctions the Russians offered -- the vague suggestion that if the Iranians kept up their bad behavior stiffer penalties might follow -- basked in the glow of praise for its deft diplomacy, and launched negotiations.

With Secretary Clinton in Moscow, the Russians sprung the trap. We can't do sanctions, the Russians explained, because that would undermine negotiations. As long as the negotiations are ongoing, the Russians will block sanctions. All the Iranian regime has to do to keep sanctions at bay is to string the negotiations along. As was foreseeable, Team Obama is trapped negotiating with the Iranian regime without significant leverage and without much prospect of additional leverage. This does not guarantee failure, but it does guarantee that the Iranian regime has the strongest possible hand and that the U.S. hole card, the evidence of Iranian duplicity revealed at the U.N. General Assembly in late September, has been played to minimal effect.

ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images

By Peter Feaver

How should we measure success in the talks with Iran that begin today? I propose the following sliding scale.

1. Breathtaking, mission accomplished victory: Iran agrees to abandon its nuclear weapons program, submit to a rigorous verification and safeguards regime, and open substantive dialogue on its support for global terrorism. If this is achieved, President Obama would be a shoo-in for the Nobel Peace Prize. Chance of this happening: I would guess near zero.

2. Demonstrable and significant progress: Iran's continued recalcitrance is identified early by all the relevant players, especially Russia and China, and the UN Security Council responds within a few weeks with a substantial ramping up of de facto sanctions on Iran -- sanctions that involve the effective participation of Iran's chief trading partners, the EU, Russia, China, and India. Chance of this happening: I would guess not zero, but maybe just a 1-in-10 chance.

3. No progress beyond what the Bush team already achieved: Iran's continued recalcitrance provokes a range of global rhetorical censure ranging from Chinese tut-tutting to American (or French or British) bluster. The United States unilaterally increases sanctions pressure, but only incrementally because U.S. unilateral leverage over Iran is minimal. Europeans agree to review their options for an incremental increase of sanctions pressure themselves, but do not commit irrevocably to a ramp up in pressure. Russians and Chinese acknowledge that Iran has not been forthcoming, but block further sanctions on the grounds that these would be counterproductive. Chance of this happening: I would guess this is the most likely outcome, so maybe a 4-in-10 chance.

4. Less progress than what the Bush team already achieved: Iran's continued recalcitrance even after the U.S. has played its "hole card" of the evidence of Iranian duplicity concerning the second enrichment site splits the international coalition and key members, likely Russia or China, blame the United States for its mishandling of the negotiations. Chance of this happening: I fear this is the next most-likely-outcome, so maybe a 3-in-10 chance.

5. False progress is achieved: Desperate to show progress, the United States accepts a fig-leaf arrangement, or merely declares the negotiations fruitful when they are not, and so there is neither true progress towards Iranian relinquishment of their nuclear program nor increased leverage imposed on them to make a deal in the next round more likely. Chance of this happening: I don't think this is as likely as some Obama critics think, but there is a non-trivial possibility of this happening, perhaps barely a 2-in-10 chance.

6. U.S. capitulation: Desperate for a deal, the United States follows the advice of some and signs a grand bargain agreement that "resolves" the issue by preemptively conceding to all of Iran's demands, including the demand that the world community stop complaining about the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Chance of this happening: not likely, probably only marginally more likely than outcome #1.

It should be noted that when Dennis Ross, a key player on the Obama team, outlined his strategy for Iran, it was essentially the Bush administration strategy and so was likely only to produce what the Bush team had been able to produce -- or a slight improvement thereupon. While he hoped for Outcome #1, he acknowledged that it might more realistically only achieve #2 in the medium-term. For that reason, I do not think it is fair to declare the strategy a failure if it doesn't achieve #1. However, if it doesn't achieve #2, I think it is fair, and perfectly within the terms established by Team Obama, to declare it a failure.

By Michael Singh

Earlier today, President Obama, British Prime Minister Brown, and French President Sarkozy dramatically confirmed that Iran has been covertly building near the city of Qom a second uranium enrichment facility. Obama said the "size and configuration" is "inconsistent with a peaceful program," suggesting that it is intended for military purposes. The revelation will prompt very different reactions from different people.

Some will find the news shocking. And that the Iranian regime would so brazenly flout the international community and the IAEA, despite Iran's own assurances of cooperation and the very real possibility of war or harsh sanctions, is something indeed. Others will find it utterly predictable, based both on the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate's December 2007 conclusion that "Iran would probably use covert facilities ... for the production of highly enriched uranium for a weapon" -- and on Iran's history of evasion. Iran concealed its first uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, opening it to IAEA inspections only following its public disclosure by Iranian dissidents in 2002, and continues to refuse to answer the IAEA's questions about its work on nuclear weaponization.

The Iranian regime and its backers will have a different reaction altogether -- they will insist that Tehran had no obligation to disclose the existence of the facility, having unilaterally terminated its implementation of the part of its NPT Safeguards Agreement requiring advance notice of the construction of nuclear sites. Thus far, Iranian nuclear officials have confirmed reports about the enrichment plant while insisting that it is for civilian purposes, and Iranian President Ahmadinejad has warned that it would be a "mistake" to press the regime on the issue.

Whatever one's reaction, the actions now taken in light of this news by Iran and the international community will be decisive. Obama, Brown, and Sarkozy were right to stress the need for the IAEA to investigate it seriously and for Iran to meet UN demands which it has heretofore disregarded. One can expect that the information revealed today will be used not only to press Iran to treat seriously the talks that are slated to begin on Oct. 1 in Geneva, but also to convince recalcitrant partners Russia and China (whose leaders are present in Pittsburgh but did not join Obama, Brown, and Sarkozy on the stage this morning) to support tough sanctions against Iran in the likely event that those talks prove inconclusive. If in fact Iran does not comply with international demands, then Moscow and Beijing will be put to the test -- if they refuse to support sanctions even in light of this new deception by Tehran, they are unlikely ever to do so, and the U.S. and its allies will need to move forward without them or weigh other options.

However, even if Iran, whether out of a genuine policy shift or simply an effort to forestall sanctions, embarks on negotiations and promises cooperation, this revelation will severely diminish the international community's confidence in the regime's sincerity, as Sarkozy noted today. As a result, the possible compromises -- whether promises from Tehran not to enrich or some form of "limited enrichment" on Iranian soil -- will look less attractive to the U.S. and its allies. If Iran could repeatedly assure the IAEA of its cooperation and publicly deny wrongdoing while at the same time secretly building an underground enrichment plant, what confidence can one have in an agreement that depends vitally on the regime's willingness to uphold its promises?

At the very least, today's revelations will mean that any agreement must contain water-tight verification provisions. However, they also mean that the international community's "no-deal option" -- a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities -- will look more attractive. Sarkozy suggested today that "everything must be put on the table" likely will reflect greater support for the military option in Israel, the U.S., and elsewhere. Israel's decision, in particular, about whether to exercise that option will likely be heavily influenced not only by Iran's reaction to today's news, but also by that of Washington and the P5+1.

Today's revelation represents a crisis of confidence not only for international diplomacy with Iran, but also for the global nonproliferation regime. That both Syria and Iran could covertly build nuclear facilities despite IAEA activity in these countries suggests that rogue regimes have little respect for international nonproliferation rules. If the IAEA and the international community fail to act in response to the information revealed today, their attitudes will be vindicated and global counter-proliferation will be a shambles.

Gordon Brown suggested that Iran's "serial deception" meant that the "international community must draw a line in the sand." Such lines have been drawn in the past, and Iran has trampled them. What is needed now is not another ephemeral line, but international cooperation -- not only from the U.S. and Europe, but also from Russia and China and the world's emerging powers -- to build a firm wall that stops Iranian nuclear weapons progress and other illicit proliferation activities cold. If we cannot muster the determination to build such a wall and defend it, then we should gird ourselves for a far more dangerous world.

By Peter Feaver

It does not look like the world will wait while we sort out healthcare. On the contrary, it is looking more and more like gut-check time for our wartime Commander-in-Chief. He is facing serious challenges in both of his major military conflicts, Iraq and Afghanistan, and very ominous clouds on a third front, Iran. I think in his first 8 months or so in office President Obama has surpassed the gloomiest predictions about how he would handle the portion of the job for which he had the least preparation. But the next couple months will really test his mettle.

The challenge on the Iraqi front is multifaceted, but the aspect that may be most critical will be how he deals with Iraqi over-confidence. The recent bombings underscore that it is woefully premature to declare "mission accomplished" in the counter-insurgency. The 2007 surge strategy reversed the trajectory in Iraq, but there is still a long way to go. Perhaps the phased withdrawal laid out under the Status of Forces agreement will be gradual enough to meet President Obama's cleverly-formulated goal of "leaving Iraq more responsibly than we went into Iraq." But ever since we transferred sovereignty to Iraqi authorities in 2005, a persistent pattern has emerged: Iraqis have been over-confident in their ability to govern and provide security and have been underwhelming in their delivery of the same. They have done well where U.S. forces have been well-aligned, well-resourced, and well-led. They have done much less well in other areas. Unfortunately, U.S. leverage over the Iraqis is diminishing on an almost daily basis and the faster we pull out the faster our leverage erodes.

This is a challenge to Obama because the facts on the ground in Iraq may require that he resist the political instincts he has honed in a domestic context, all of which will be pushing him to get out of Iraq as fast as the logistics train will let him.

The domestic context is also a critical factor in the Afghanistan challenge. As a recent Washington Post poll makes clear, public support for the Afghan mission is starting to wobble. There is even a slim majority giving the negative answer on the "is it worth it" question. I have never liked that question because it involves almost hopelessly complex and incommensurate judgments. From a policy point of view, what matters the most is the public's stomach for continuing the fight and I do not believe that the "worth it" question taps into that well. The poll is somewhat more encouraging on the dimension that the Gelpi-Feaver-Reifler model identifies as key: optimism about eventual success. The public shows continued optimism on that score and I believe that translates into a reservoir of public support that President Obama can tap.

The challenge for Obama is that his military advisors and independent experts may believe that eventual success requires the commitment of additional troops and resources to Afghanistan. And on the question of more troops, the recent poll makes clear, Obama does not have a reservoir of support -- indeed, the numbers are running nearly 2-to-1 for reducing rather than increasing troops. President Obama could shift those numbers, if he came to believe that an increase was necessary and if he committed the political capital and the bully pulpit to the job. But he would be dealing primarily with skeptics within his party. He enjoys robust support from across the aisle. His problem is with the majority opinion of his own party. At a time when he is facing a within-party backlash over health care, can he also do what it takes to bring his partisan troops in line?  As Will Inboden points out, the great presidents with which he likes to compare himself managed this tricky maneuver; the not-so-great ones he does not want to emulate did not.

The third great Commander-in-Chief challenge is still on the horizon and not (yet) predominantly military in form: Iran. Over the next couple months, the deadlines President Obama himself set for his Iran policy will come due. By mid-September, we will see whether the Iranians respond meaningfully to the offer of direct negotiations. By the end of the year, President Obama has promised to reassess whether this gambit has yielded results. At best, the Israelis may be on a similar clock; at worst, their clock may be ticking even faster. That means that within a few short months, at a time when both Iraq and even more probably Afghanistan will be constituting grave military challenges, President Obama will have a fateful military decision to make concerning Iran. If the diplomatic track does not produce results, and if he chooses to eschew the military option, he still will face the daunting challenge of persuading the Israelis to eschew the military option.

The last several weeks have marked a consequential chapter in how historians will evaluate President Obama's domestic legacy. The next several months could be an equally consequential chapter for how historians will evaluate him as Commander in Chief. For all of our sakes, I hope he performs well.

By Peter Feaver

The Washington Post is spinning this comment from Ali Akbar Velayati, one of Iran's former foreign ministers and an ally of the regime leader Ayatollah Khamenei, as a positive and hopeful sign: "America accepts a nuclear Iran, but Britain and France cannot stand a nuclear Iran." It is true that this statement is, by Iranian standards, a compliment to President Obama, but I am not sure it is a very auspicious omen about the fruitfulness of any coming negotiations with Iran.

To be clear, I do think it is worth negotiating with Iran, under proper conditions. Indeed, I think it is worth negotiating with Iran even if you believe that such negotiations will fail and that the military option is the best of a bad set of options. I am not ready to endorse the military option, but I don’t see how any such option is viable without having conducted more intensive negotiations than we have thus far. Put it another way: It seems to me that negotiations are a necessary precursor to the military option, and they are probably even a necessary precursor to ramping up non-military coercive pressure, too.

But it is dispiriting to see the Iranians praise Obama as someone who “gets it” -- who gets that Iran really needs to be a nuclear power. I don’t think it is necessarily a fair assessment of Obama’s position, but it could be a fairly revealing indication of Iran’s position. And that depresses an already pessimistic assessment about the possibility of achieving a meaningful settlement with Iran that leaves Iran short of nuclear-weapons capability.

The only plausible “acceptable” diplomatic solution I can imagine is one in which we give Iran some sort of fig-leafs on a few key issues: “yes, they have a ‘right’ to control the fuel cycle”; and “yes, they have understandable security needs that make nuclear weapons attractive”; and “yes, even under the NPT, they retain the right some day to leave the NPT if they so chose” and so on. In exchange for these rhetorical concessions and lots of other goodies, Iran would agree to forego these “rights” for some long period of time (at least a decade or more) and would agree to intrusive inspections that verified they were honoring those promises (even if only for a decade or so). This would not solve the Iranian nuclear issue for all time, but it would kick the can far enough down the road to be counted a success. (Note: even the most optimistic outcome for a military option would only delay an Iranian nuclear program by a decade.)

If Velayti was hinting at those sorts of fig leafs in his statement, then I agree with the Post that this is, relatively speaking, a positive sign. But I think he is saying something different: that the Iranians perceive Obama to be so eager to cut a deal with Iran that he will accept a nuclear Iran. If that is the case, then Obama would be starting any such negotiations with a weak hand.

By Peter Feaver

I was wrong (and lots of people are adding, "again"). It turns out that Dennis Ross will not be taking up the strategic planning portfolio, as I had previously thought, but will instead take up the broader Middle East portfolio. The wiring diagram is not clear from afar (and may not even be clear from close up) but it looks like he will have a position more like a combination of the roles filled by Elliott Abrams, who covered everywhere the "Near East and North Africa" from Morocco to Iran (but not Iraq), plus Meghan O'Sullivan, who had Iraq and Afghanistan. He also has Pakistan, and so that gives him a remarkably broad regional portfolio that encompasses the two hot war military conflicts plus arguably the most urgent national security problem (Iran). It encompasses the portfolios of two formidable Special Envoys housed at State -- George Mitchell (Israel-Palestine) and Richard Holbrooke (Af-Pak). It also, quite deliberately I suspect, matches almost exactly the portfolio of General Petraeus, CENTCOM commander. That is a lot of grist for one mill, and more world-historical-figures than most mortals could hope to coordinate. But Dennis has formidable talents and will, I believe, work well with Tom Donilon, the deputy national security advisor who is said to have been the one most keen to bring him on board. So I think it will work out well. For my part, I will be interested to see how all these people coordinate with the Global Engagement Directorate which struck me as an intriguing office when it was announced (especially for the region that comprises Dennis Ross's portfolio)  but which, so far as I can tell, is still in the process of getting its sea legs.

As for my old post on the NSC's strategic planning cell, I now believe it is being filled by Ambassador Mary Yates. She has a long and distinguished record of public service. She is a career Foreign Service Officer with an extensive career with emphasis on Africa. She most recently served as the senior civilian advisor at the new military command of AFRICOM. This experience of close coordination with the uniformed and civilian sectors of the Department of Defense -- at the intersection of policy and operations - will be valuable for her in her new post. The key to succeeding in the strategic planning office lies in establishing close working relationships vertically with the top people -- Jones and Donilon -- and horizontally with the other heavyweights at the NSC -- likely to be Ross and McDonough - and diagonally with the other key offices in the White House. If Ambassador Yates can do that, the office has the potential to make useful contributions to the system. The Obama administration likes to think big about domestic and foreign affairs and so it is a good time to be sitting in the "big think" chair.

By Christian Brose

Below is a bloggingheads.tv that I recorded yesterday with Rob Farley, a very sharp scholar and decent guy who, along with a few other folks, keeps a wide-ranging, smart, and quite funny blog called Lawyers, Guns, and Money. Rob also has great headwear! We discussed Iran and North Korea.

By Christian Brose

President Obama’s opening statement on Iran in today’s presser was a welcome increase in his support for Iranian aspirations and condemnation of the government that’s thwarting them. But as the president struggled with the questions that followed -- about whether his stated desire to engage with the Iran's rulers was still viable, whether they would bear any consequences for trouncing the international norms that Obama speaks of so highly, and whether he would accept the election of Ahmadinejad when so many Iranians clearly don’t -- it was increasingly clear that Obama’s desire to hedge his bets on Iran has become untenable. This is Obama’s Iran dilemma.

Hedging, after all, has been the president’s strategy thus far: He has tried (cautiously of late, but more strenuously today) to voice support for the aspirations of Iran’s people and criticism of the regime’s violence against them; at the same time, he has tried to preserve his diplomatic flexibility in the event that the street protests lead to no substantive changes in Iran’s current leadership or its foreign policy. But with each day that Iran’s election stand-off continues, with each day that violence against Iranians continues (and increases), and with each day that the Iranian government further delegitimizes itself in the eyes of an ever-growing number of its people, Obama’s ability to hedge is vanishing.

If one assumes the Iranian regime will survive this unrest, weakened but basically unchanged (and sadly, I think that assumption is right in the short term), then Tehran will claim that any support for Iran’s people is evidence of a U.S. regime change policy and use it as an excuse to shun talks with Obama. And yet, if Obama mutes his support for Iranian demands for justice in the aftermath of this uprising in an effort to engage with the country's deeply discredited leadership, he risks landing America (once again) on the wrong side of Iranian history.

It’s worth noting what many Iranians themselves are saying. Yes, high-profile dissidents like Shirin Ebadi and Akbar Ganji, as well as other Iranians, have urged Obama not to do or say anything that would unwittingly strengthen Iran’s ruling elites. But for much the same reason, I imagine, they and other Iranians have also been equally outspoken in urging Obama not to deal with Ahmadinejad and his government -- or at least not to do anything that undercuts the desires of Iran’s people for democracy and human rights.

Consider this from Ganji:

The Iranian people are saying the Ahmadinejad government is a coup d’etat government. They’re asking that no government accept the legitimacy of his government. This is what most people want, for no government to work with the Ahmadinejad government.

Or this question that the indefatigable Nico Pitney asked Obama today on behalf of one of his Iranian readers:

Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of what the demonstrators there are working to achieve?

Or this plea from an Iranian student identified as Mohammad speaking yesterday to CNN:

Americans, European Union, international community, this government is not definitely -- is definitely not elected by the majority of Iranians. So it’s illegal. Do not recognize it. Stop trading with them. Impose much more sanctions against them.

My message … to the international community, especially I’m addressing President Obama directly -- how can a government that doesn’t recognize its people’s rights and represses them brutally and mercilessly have nuclear activities? This government is a huge threat to global peace. Will a wise man give a sharp dagger to an insane person? We need your help, international community. Don’t leave us alone.

If the Ahmadinejad government hangs on (which it seems quite likely that it will), and if Obama remains committed to engaging with it (which he has given every indication that he does), then he only has one option, as I see it, of not leaving Iran’s people feeling that America is selling out their aspirations: Obama must make it clear that when he and his administration finally do sit down with Iran’s discredited leadership, they will not only raise the nuclear issue, but also Iran’s abuses of its citizens’ human rights, the fate of Iran’s political prisoners, and the need for democratic reforms -- and what's more, America will insist on progress on all these fronts, because we have seen that this is what the Iranian people want.

Iran’s leadership would surely bristle at this, and they’ll probably refuse to enter into talks unless issues like human rights and democracy are dropped from the agenda. That will heighten Obama’s dilemma. He ran for president pledging to engage Iran without preconditions. He won that debate, and the election. Now, in light of the dramatically changed (and still changing) circumstances inside Iran, the new debate is whether America will allow Iran’s rulers to get away with putting preconditions on their engagement with us.

By Christian Brose

But privately Obama advisers are crediting his Cairo speech for inspiring the protesters, especially the young ones, who are now posing the most direct challenge to the republic's Islamic authority in its 30-year history.

One senior administration official with experience in the Middle East said, "There clearly is in the region a sense of new possibilities," adding that "I was struck in the aftermath of the president's speech that there was a connection. It was very sweeping in terms of its reach."

This, too, from later in the same article:

Obama's advisers say the outreach may have contributed to the defeat in Lebanese elections a few days later of a coalition led by Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed party, that had been predicted to win. In recent days, administration officials have pointed to the Iranian demonstrations as further evidence of Obama's possible influence in the region.

As a rule, I try not to make claims for which there is no discernable evidence (extolling my own virtue aside). In part, this is because I remember how we in the last administration tried to make the argument that our rhetoric of freedom helped to explain the remarkable events of 2005: Mahmoud Abbas's election as Palestinian president, all those purple fingers in Iraq, the Cedar Revolution that ended Syria's occupation of Lebanon, and so on. In retrospect, it turns out it was about them, not us.

I'm not saying that Obama's speech in Cairo or his general approach to the Middle East did not "inspire" the outcome of Lebanon's election or "influence" the recent uprising in Iran. But I have not seen, read, or heard one fact that leads me to believe how this is the case, nor does the unnamed source above offer anything beyond faith-based assertions. So until some evidence is presented, I'll continue to hold my default position, which is that the behavior of Lebanese and Iranians -- and plenty of other peoples as well -- has virtually everything to do with their own personal, social, economic, and political circumstances and little at all to do with Barack Obama, George W. Bush, or the United States of America, no matter how much we wish it were so.

By Peter Feaver

One important thing seems to be missing in President Obama's commentary on Iran and much of the commentary about Obama's commentary: We want to create and deepen fissures within the Tehran regime -- check that, we need those fissures -- because that is the only plausible way that a diplomatic deal on the nuclear file could be struck.

At key moments in recent days, as Obama has struggled to salvage his Iran policy from the street riots of Tehran, it has appeared that he is waiting/hoping for someone, anyone, to consolidate power there so that he can get back to the urgent business of sitting down for lengthy negotiations. But those negotiations only have a chance of bearing fruit if our Iranian interlocutors believe that their negotiating position is a decaying one -- that the deal they could strike now is better than the deal they could strike later. Otherwise, they will keep "negotiating" and wait for the better deal. That is why an ascendant Iran -- one with oil and natural gas revenues soaring and a fully consolidated hard-liner regime in uncontested domestic control -- is a lousy negotiating partner. It would simply dictate unfavorable terms to us on a take it or leave it basis and keep progressing steadily towards nuclear weapons status. We could get a "deal," but it would be the sort of "deal" advocated by those who essentially argue, "let's just learn to love the Iranian bomb."  

To make diplomacy work, what is needed is a sweet spot of pressure that shifts the Iranian calculus to the opposite stance, where the deal they feel they can strike now is better than the deal they could strike later because their negotiating position is eroding. Now, achieving this sweet spot is difficult, because the Iranian decision-making system is closer to a unit-veto system than ours -- factions find it easier to block action than to mobilize for action. Thus, at least at lower degrees of fissures, the wider the fissures, the greater the pressures towards inaction (fruitless negotiations). However, it is reasonable to hope that at extreme levels of fissures, the cross-cutting pressures might tilt the other way. Or, rather, it is unreasonable to hope that any other plausible Iranian negotiating partner would give us a deal we would want, and so this is our best shot at steering between two undesirables: military action or living with an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Financial sanctions that activates business pressure on the regime and thereby deepens fissures within the political elite seemed to be our best shot at fissure-exacerbation, but the Bush administration struggled to get sufficiently tough economic sanctions. The Obama team wasn't making much progress on this front either, even though their erstwhile Iran czar, Dennis Ross, understood it was a necessary ingredient.

Well, the ham-handed way the Ahmadinejad faction manipulated the election results has managed to exacerbate faction fissures within the Tehran regime beyond any level seen in recent years. Obama is right that, insofar as the nuclear file goes, and insofar as the world as it was a week or so goes, a consolidated Ahmadinejad presidency would not have been much worse than a consolidated Mousavi presidency: Ahmadinejad is discernibly worse, but neither would have been a very good negotiating partner.

But a lot has happened in the past week, and it is not at all clear that the Mousavi of today is "much of a muchness" with Ahmadinejad. He is no nuclear dove, but he could be a Gorbachev-like figure whose tolerance for partial reform to reignite the revolution has the unintended effect of sowing the seeds of the regime's own destruction. At a minimum, the populist outrage Mousavi has stirred means that the election (and resulting protests, of course), far from consolidating power within Tehran, is pushing the regime closer to the cracking point. A regime that is cracking from within may be the only one that would accept a nuclear deal we could live with. To be sure, that sort of deal would have to offer face-saving fig-leafs to let the hobbled regime "declare victory" -- but a cracked regime is the only kind that would have the requisite strategic horizon to accept it.

So the administration should be doing whatever it can to let those fissures widen. Obama is right that he has to be careful not to act in a ham-handed way that lets the Ahmadinejad faction rally Persian hyper-nationalism with bogus charges of American meddling. He should choose his words artfully, and not treat Iranians to the type of rhetorical abuse that they heap on us with on a daily basis, for instance. But our interests here are clear: the regime should be seen as discredited for discreditable action, and even if Khamenei succeeds in installing Ahmadinejad over Mousavi, as seems likely (but by no means certain), we want the faction that has mobilized the street protests to be as strong as possible.

It is not clear that the Obama team has figured out how best to accomplish this. It is not even clear that they understand this is what needs to be done.

By Michael Singh

While the remarkable turmoil in the aftermath of Iran’s presidential election has captured the world’s attention, other news relating to Iran has slipped by relatively unnoticed. Last week, the head of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency told Congress that Iran and North Korea were cooperating on ballistic missiles. Diplomats in Vienna told the press that Iran had denied an IAEA request to install additional monitoring cameras at the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, and IAEA director-general Mohammad ElBaradei asserted that Iran desires nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, two Hizballah operatives were reportedly arrested in Azerbaijan, bearing Iranian passports. 

The juxtaposition of these activities with the ferment in the streets of Tehran reveals two altogether different Irans struggling with one another -- one marked by political dynamism and a hunger for justice, and another that is autocratic, bent on projecting power, and in which elected officials have little influence. To Iranians, this sort of conflict follows a familiar pattern in Iran’s history. To Westerners, it has been eye-opening. What is surprising to outside observers is not that Iran’s elections were rigged, but that their manipulation has elicited such a powerful response from the Iranian people. 

While policymakers in the United States and elsewhere pin their hopes on the first, vibrant Iran, they must deal with the stark reality of the second, harsher one. This may explain the unusually cautious statements emanating from the White House, including President Obama’s own statement to the effect that Ahmadinejad and his challengers are not much different as far as the United States is concerned. This begs the question: Upon which Iran should U.S. policy be focused? Can the United States successfully support freedom in Iran without endangering its “tough diplomacy” aimed at the Iranian nuclear threat? 

In formulating an answer, it is important to note that prospects for U.S.-Iran engagement, never too great, have been diminished by the election and its aftermath. The Iranian regime’s willingness to flout international opinion and the yearnings of its own people reveals either overconfidence or, conversely, serious insecurity. A cautious regime might see an opportunity in President Obama’s offer of dialogue, but a regime that is either supremely confident or shakily insecure is unlikely to grasp Obama’s outstretched hand. A confident regime is likely to dismiss the consequences of defiance, and an insecure one will see any opening to the West as a threat rather than a prize. 

The results themselves suggest that engagement with the United States is not the regime’s top priority. Whereas his challengers argued during their campaign for improving U.S.-Iran relations, Ahmadinejad heaped scorn on those who would pursue “détente” with the West. He was supported by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who pronounced himself “ideologically disinclined” toward U.S.-Iran reconciliation and urged Iranian voters to reject candidates who would reach out to Washington. 

Nevertheless, whatever chances exist for successful engagement with the Iranian regime will not be dimmed by a vigorous defense of the rights of the Iranian people; rather, those prospects would paradoxically be enhanced.   

This crisis provides an opportunity to demonstrate to the regime that it will face multilateral penalties for flouting international norms, a lesson clearly transferrable to the nuclear question. While our allies may vary in their views on the risks posed by Iran’s nuclear program and the best way to deal with it, the regime’s actions against its own people are drawing broad condemnation from across the world. If even this global outcry is not translated into concrete action, Iran’s leaders will draw the lesson that the international community’s resolve has dissipated and will act accordingly.

Furthermore, vigorously defending Iranians’ rights, both now and in the context of any future dialogue with Iran, could enhance U.S. credibility inside Iran and boost support among Iranians for a compromise with the West.

Some have argued that Iranians will naturally resent any perceived involvement by foreign powers in their affairs, citing as an example the American-backed overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadeq in 1953. This reading of history strains credulity. Iranians’ wariness of outside powers arises in large part from Western indifference to the oppression of Iranians and failure to support their struggle for justice, whether in the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-11, or during the Mossadeq era. Iranians do not want outsiders, including the United States, to pick winners in their elections. But silence in the face of a violent crackdown in Iran would compound these historical errors, not reverse them.   

Iran is a multifaceted nation which demands a multifaceted U.S. policy. A successful approach to Iran will require the United States to simultaneously confront head-on the challenges posed by both Irans evident today -- to support the first Iran, which is demanding justice, and to deter the second, determined to challenge international security. If we fail to do so, we will unwittingly be writing yet another tragic chapter in the troubled history of U.S.-Iran relations.