With the announcement that Iran plans to resume its nuclear programs, that country has moved at least into the sights of the United States and European countries as a potential threat that should be dealt with. Unfortunately, the United States, like most "advanced" states, is mentally locked into certain modes of dealing with perceived threats that are likely not only to be ineffective, but to exacerbate tensions.
Just as a thought experiment, why not consider some radically different ways of dealing with Iran and the possibility (which the regime denies) that it is getting ready to produce nuclear weapons? I hope in suggesting such alternatives not to indulge in wishful thinking about the nature of the Iranian regime. But simply demonizing a regime – gratuitously declaring it part of the "axis of evil," for example – seldom adds much to understanding.
Acknowledging more complexity than simple evil or insanity in that regime should help us to understand what might be motivating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to make the kind of outrageous statements he has indulged in recently, and whether they serve more cold-blooded, calculated objectives than simply being provocative. Then we might be ready to consider what seem, in the present context of how political states behave in relation to one another, like counterintuitive actions that might actually defuse the threat and serve genuine U.S. interests.
Standard Responses
The standard response to Iran is embodied in the recent call by Sen. Hillary Clinton for United Nations sanctions – the exact nature left a bit vague but presumably mainly economic sanctions, including cutting off trade – against Iran and her criticism of the Bush administration for "downplaying" the threat Iran’s nuclear program poses. One can see the attraction of sanctions for the standard political mind. They are seen as a way of expressing disapproval yet are well short of war or even using the threat of military force. Proposing sanctions gives standard-issue politicians the ability to feel morally superior to heinous regimes, and moreover to be able to say that they have "done something" to punish a given regime.
You might think they would have noticed, after long experience, however, that sanctions hardly ever displace or even seriously threaten an entrenched regime. In the case of U.S. sanctions against Castro’s Cuba, in fact, the sanctions have almost certainly helped to entrench the regime further, giving Castro an opportunity to identify a hostile external threat as being responsible for the unfortunate results for ordinary Cubans of his own misrule. Whether or not sanctions actually helped the Castro regime (while undoubtedly harming the economic prospects of ordinary Cubans), it would be hard to argue that almost 50 years of sanctions have proven the most effective way to dislodge or discredit the regime.
It is probably best to view sanctions, however, not as a serious tactic, but as a form of posturing, a symbolic gesture. Those who propose them are either ignorant of how sanctions work in the real world or not really concerned that the regime poses anything resembling an imminent threat, so it is safe to deal with them through symbolism rather than strategy.
In the case of Iran, economic sanctions perceived to have been instigated by the United States would almost certainly be welcomed by Tehran, especially if, as is likely to be the case, the sanctions would not be fully honored by Russia, China, and other countries that have significant economic ties to Iran. Indeed, smuggling and other ways of getting around sanctions would almost certainly be a source of unearned wealth for certain officials and functionaries. And any shortcomings in the Iranian economy that keep poor people poor or frustrate the ambitions of educated or middle-class people can be attributed to the "great Satan" that has imposed the sanctions.
Likely Purposes
In analysis for Stratfor.com, George Friedman has suggested that Ahmadinejad is not insane at all, but executing a strategy with fairly definable objectives:
"One of the ways to avoid thinking seriously about foreign policy," he writes, "is to dismiss as a nutcase anyone who does not behave as you yourself would. As such, he is unpredictable and, while scary, cannot be controlled. You are therefore relieved of the burden of doing anything about him. In foreign policy, it is sometimes useful to appear to be insane, as it is in poker. The less predictable you are, the more power you have – and insanity is a great tool of unpredictability. Some leaders cultivate an aura of insanity."
Why would appearing a bit unbalanced be a useful tool to Ahmadinejad? Friedman suggests several reasons. First, on a number of counts, the Iranians haven’t quite gotten what they had hoped to get out of Iraq – a safe satellite or client state. However things turn out, Friedman suggests, "At best, Iraq will be influenced by Iran or neutral. At worst, it will drift back into opposition to Iran – which has been Iraq’s traditional geopolitical position."
This unfortunate outcome (from Iran’s perspective) is partly due, Friedman suggests, to Washington’s manipulation of the Sunni-Shia split in the Muslim world. The U.S. has used the prospect of better relations with Iran, a Shia state, to exact accommodations from Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia.
Add another dimension, Friedman suggests. When the mullahs took power in 1979, Iran was the center of revolutionary, militantly anti-Western Islam. It had to make accommodations (even with Israel, as the Iran-Contra affair brought out) to survive during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, and became a more conservative state during the 1990s. With some two-thirds of Iranians having been born since 1979, the "revolutionary" mullahs are now widely seen by Iranians as the old guard holding down the aspirations of young Iranians, many of whom are surprisingly Internet-literate.
At the same time, the Iranians saw al-Qaeda, a mostly Sunni phenomenon with roots in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, move to the forefront as the most conspicuous Islamic revolutionary force. "It was time for the next phase," Friedman believes. "It had to reclaim its position as leader of the Islamic revolutionary movement for itself and for Shi’ism."
Results
Denouncing Israel and resuming nuclear research and production therefore announced that the policy of partial accommodation with Europe (partly designed to peel Europe away from the United States) was over. The intention of getting a nuclear weapon would make Iran the only real threat to Israel and a much more powerful regional player in a Middle East containing mostly Sunni states. And it suggested to other Muslims that "Iran was prepared to take risks that no other Muslim actor was prepared to take." Al-Qaeda was a piker.
It is just possible – and this is still speculative at this point, of course – that the recent purported message from Osama bin Laden was in part a response to some of these moves by Iran to reassert itself as the primary revolutionary Islamic force in the world. Bin Laden, if he is still alive, and what is left of al-Qaeda is he isn’t, might be feeling a need to reassert themselves as a still-relevant force and more significant than Iran.
If this is so, there could be some interesting interplay in the contest to be seen as the most radical revolutionary Islamic force. Friedman goes so far as to suggest that Iran’s leaders "might welcome a (survivable) attack by Israel or the United States. It would burnish Iran’s credentials as the true martyr and fighter of Islam."
Instead of the Predictable
The predictable course for the United States in the face of all this maneuvering is about what has been happening – maneuvering to get votes in the UN Security Council for some kind of sanctions regime, which includes a delicate minuet with Russia and China, which have significant economic relations with Iran and could cast a Security Council veto. Presumably there will also be moves to try to get International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back into Iran.
What if we went another way entirely?
Instead of plumping for sanctions and symbolic gestures, the United States could surprise everybody by announcing that it is resuming full diplomatic relations and entering into direct negotiations with the Iranian government rather than outsourcing negotiations to Europe. At the same time, unhampered trade and economic relations would also be resumed.
The U.S. could save face for this about-face by announcing that its real concern is the ordinary people of Iran, not their rotten rulers, and that open trade and open relationships are the best way to improve the condition and prospects of ordinary Iranians. It would be a tactical question whether to mention in public also that free trade and open markets are the most effective way yet discovered to undermine a dictatorial, oppressive regime and that the United States has finally learned this important lesson. Whether this is said in public by U.S. officials or not, however, plenty of commentators will make such observations.
At the public level, the United States can simply say that whatever political or geostrategic disagreements it might have with the Iranian regime, it is moving to a post-imperial policy of open economic relations with all countries, which would be beneficial to U.S. citizens as well as ordinary people in the rest of the world, even as political and other differences are dealt with at the political level.
I think it would be best if the United States sincerely believed this. It is worth noting, however, that many people, especially in the Muslim world, would be skeptical. Conspiracy theories as to what secret deals are behind such a shift in policies, what huge sell-outs of the Islamic revolutionary cause have been made by the Iranian leaders to get such an unexpected accommodation from the United States, would abound. It might be tactically advantageous for the United States to deny any such special deal with all innocence, while not being unhappy that they are in existence.
I don’t happen to think it’s true, as so many piously proclaim, that free countries and democracies don’t engage in aggressive geopolitical behavior or start wars. (For one thing, how do you explain the U.S. engaging in an aggressive "war of choice" against Iraq unless you posit that it is no longer free or democratic?) I do think, however, that countries that have a stake in one another economically are marginally less likely to go to war with one another.
It should be the policy of a United States that really wants to promote peace in the longer run, then, to promote economic interdependence wherever and whenever possible. Iran would be a fascinating place to start. And such an unexpected policy might well be the best way to begin to defuse whatever real risk to others is likely to develop if Iran actually does develop nuclear weapons.
This is a thought experiment in its early stages, subject to change if conditions change. I do think it’s worth discussing, however.
