The Iran Debate Just Got Serious

Vladimir Putin is delivering the kind of warning that hearkens back to the Cold War.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin met his Iranian counterpart Tuesday and implicitly warned the U.S. not to use a former Soviet republic to stage an attack on Iran. He also said countries bordering the Caspian Sea must jointly back any oil pipeline projects in the region.

At a summit of the five nations that border the inland Caspian Sea, Putin said none of the nations' territory should be used by any outside countries for use of military force against any nation in the region. It was a clear reference to long-standing rumors that the U.S. was planning to use Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, as a staging ground for any possible military action against Iran.

"We are saying that no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third powers for use of force or military aggression against any Caspian state," Putin said [...]

Putin has warned the U.S. and other nations against trying to coerce Iran into reining in its nuclear program and insists peaceful dialogue is the only way to deal with Tehran's defiance of a U.N. Security Council demand that it suspend uranium enrichment.

"Threatening someone, in this case the Iranian leadership and Iranian people, will lead nowhere," Putin said Monday during his trip to Germany. "They are not afraid, believe me."

This is but another of the many consequences that would arise from a sustained bombing campaign on Iran. There's still going to be an Iran after any strikes, and their retaliatory capability would be greatly strengthened by having a nation like Russia on their side. Not to mention that a nuclear-armed country like Russia could provide the bomb and make irrelevant all of the US efforts to denuclearize the Persian Gulf.

The point is that when people talking about the Iranians being such-and-such time period away, or some bombing effort taking them back x number of years, they're talking as if progress toward a nuclear weapon proceeds at a constant pace. In practice, one of the factors that determines how quickly you can proceed is the international context. Right now, things are pretty tricky for Iranian nuclear scientists. Military action that doesn't reflect a firm, UN-backed consensus grounded in some reasonable interpretation of international law (military action that does reflect such a consensus seems very, very unlikely but in principle it could happen) could dramatically alter that.

In other words, our threats are making it easier for Iran to obtain and sustain nuclear technology, and we see the same phenomenon with our efforts at democracy promotion which are killing pro-democracy reform factions in that country. American policy in Iran over the past 50 years has sought to control the country and its resources, stalled political and economic growth, and pushed out the only actual reformers, men like Mohammed Mossadegh, upended in the 1953 coup. Akbar Ganji, one of the leading political dissidents inside Iran, who has demanded that the Bush Administration STOP supporting him, explains:

In the very first years after the Islamic revolution, a group of Iranian citizens occupied the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took its diplomats hostage. These radical forces cited American policies toward Iran to justify their conduct. In fact, radical forces in Iran—especially some of its security and military forces—have always used accusations of “enemy conspiracies” to justify repressive policies. Today, politicians with close ties to the military establishment have taken control of the Iranian government and are trying to manage the cultural and political arena in the style of a police state. These policies are, in turn, aggravating hostilities and allowing the Bush administration to justify its belligerence. Thus the vicious cycle continues [...]

We can already see this dynamic at work. After the 1997 election of Mohammad Khatami as president of Iran, civil society, human rights, and political freedoms became the dominant concerns in Iranian political life. The current U.S. military threat has given the Iranian government a freer hand in repressing Iran’s budding civil society in the name of national security, provided a pretext to entrust key political posts to military and security officers, and so eclipsed democratic discourse that some Iranian reformists see themselves caught between domestic despotism and foreign invasion.

I think Peter Galbraith put it best in a fantastic NY Review of Books article detailing how Iran has emerged as the victor in the Iraq debacle. Right now America has two policies toward Iran; removing the nuclear threat and regime change. But they act as cross purposes to one another. Removing the nuclear threat through air strikes would only rally popular support for the regime, and negotiating with the regime to stop their nuclear program is also impossible as long as the stated goal is their destruction; it's akin to saying "Come out and throw your weapons away so we can negotiate what jail to throw you in." Furthermore, funding "pro-democracy" groups merely brands them as puppets of US policy, and this fear of being overthrown only forces government crackdowns AND makes them seek the bomb to build up a deterrance.

Even though they can't accomplish it, the Bush administration leaders have been unwilling to abandon regime change as a goal. Its advocates compare their efforts to the support the US gave democrats behind the Iron Curtain over many decades. But there is a crucial difference. The Soviet and East European dissidents wanted US support, which was sometimes personally costly but politically welcome. But this is immaterial to administration ideologues. They are, to borrow Jeane Kirkpatrick's phrase, deeply committed to policies that feel good rather than do good. If Congress wants to help the Iranian opposition, it should cut off funding for Iranian democracy programs.

Right now, the US is in the worst possible position. It is identified with the most discredited part of the Iranian opposition and unwanted by the reformers who have the most appeal to Iranians. Many Iranians believe that the US is fomenting violence inside their country, and this becomes a pretext for attacks on US troops in Iraq. And for its pains, the US accomplishes nothing.

What we have right now is the Defense Department as one of the last remaining checks on this deeply misguided policy toward Iran, as practically the only thing standing in the way of military action. That's a frightening thought, and Gates certainly isn't getting the kind of backup from a Congress that, at least on paper, still holds the power to declare war. Those who are adamant that Iran must not have nuclear weapons must understand that the vehicle to ensure that is not in belligerently stating "all options are on the table" over and over again. Only through constructive engagement, not hawkish and reckless rhetoric and votes which up the ante by declaring a foreign army a terrorist organization, will me meet anything close to the objectives that would increase regional and global stability. We have to understand that our bungling in the Middle East has resulted in us losing all the leverage in the debate with Iran. Military strikes would be insane. Negotiations may not produce results. Would-be allies are allying against us. Our policies have put us in this difficult position, and the same kind of policy is not likely to get us out.