Tag: Iran

We're approaching a critical moment, and David Ignatius, on a string of scoops, has a must-read on a quiet Obama-Erdogan outreach to Khamenei. Money quote:

President Obama has signaled Iran that the United States would accept an Iranian civilian nuclear program if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei can back up his recent public claim that his nation “will never pursue nuclear weapons.”

This verbal message was sent through Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who visited Khamenei last week. A few days before traveling to Iran, Erdogan had held a two-hour meeting with Obama in Seoul, in which they discussed what Erdogan would tell the ayatollah about the nuclear issue and Syria.

The Iranian foot-dragging on the location of the upcoming talks could be interpreted as buying time to figure out how to respond to Obama. The details of inspections will also be critical. But Iran is struggling through sanctions – it's set to lose a third of its oil exports by mid-summer. And they must surely fear a potential attack from a president other than Obama after next January, let alone an Israeli rogue attack.

In some ways, we are approaching a key test of the Obama strategy with Iran. If there's a breakthrough, it will help change the paradigm of the West's relationship with the Iranian people, who are our natural allies.

Steven Cook calms fears that Iranian nuclearization would cause its neighbors to follow suit:

Most important to understanding why the Middle East will not be a zone of unrestrained proliferation is the significant difference between desiring nukes and the actual capacity to acquire them. Of [Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt], the one on virtually everyone's list for possible nuclear proliferation in response to Iran is Turkey. But the Turkish Republic is already under a nuclear umbrella: Ankara safeguards roughly 90 of the United States' finest B61 gravity bombs at Incirlik airbase, near the city of Adana.

Gary Sick freaks out about the economic consequences of war with Iran:

One might expect disruptions in oil delivery and loading in Arab ports up and down the Gulf, some because of sabotage but others from cyberattacks on the control systems. Iran would attribute these to “the hand of God,” but the more pragmatic effect would be a very substantial portion of the world’s oil suddenly removed from world supply. If sustained over more than a few weeks, the scramble to replace large volumes of Persian Gulf and Caspian oil would drive up the price of oil, and gasoline, to unprecedented heights. That would constitute a huge tax on the world’s economies, just at the moment when they were showing signs of recovery from the Great Recession.

Relatedly, Brad Plumer wonders how much sanctions intended to slow Iran's oil output will drive up oil prices:

From Iran’s perspective, the biggest calculation to make is whether the drop in exports will hurt more than the benefit the country is experiencing from rising oil prices as tensions flare. A March poll of oil traders, conducted by Reuters, found that Iran could see its oil revenues cut in half, by $50 billion, if exports fall to 1.5 million barrels a day and it has to sell some of its oil at a discount. But that’s assuming that oil averages roughly $115 per barrel through the year — lower than its current price.

Quite a few, according to a new war game exercise reported by Haaretz:

According to a war simulation conducted by the U.S. Central Command, the Iranians could kill 200 Americans with a single missile response to an Israeli attack. An investigative committee would not spare any admiral or general, minister or president. The meaning of this U.S. scenario is that the blood of these 200 would be on Israel's hands.

Amir Oren's conclusion?

At 8:58 P.M. on Tuesday, Israel's 2012 war against Iran came to a quiet end. 

But in a world of bluffs, double-bluffs and counter-bluffs, who knows? Other reports suggest more sinister possibilities.

David Slungaard worries that there are fundamental differences between deterring the Soviets and deterring a nuclear Iran:

Should Iran cross the nuclear threshold, attempts by the U.S. to construct effective deterrence strategies will require accurate information regarding Iran’s strategic capabilities and signals. Therefore, attempts by Iran to camouflage, project, or distort their capabilities will likely further frustrate the ability of Tehran and Washington to communicate clearly and decipher deterrence ‘signals’ correctly. Without the presence of ‘communication hotlines’ or effective signaling – both critical pieces of crisis management during the Cold War – the likelihood of conflict rises dramatically.

A piercing analysis of the issues through the fog of Goldbergian "reporting."

Andrew Kacyzinski digs up a doozy of a quote from a 2004 interview. Senate candidate Obama echoes the speech we just heard at AIPAC:

In light of the fact that we're now in Iraq, with all the problems in terms of perceptions about America that have been created, us launching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal position for us to be in. … On the other hand, having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse. So I guess my instinct would be to err on not having those weapons in the possession of the ruling clerics of Iran.

Ron Rosenbaum doesn't believe so:

I thought of the term “Cuba Syndrome” when I read an otherwise unsurprising op-ed in the Times by Dennis Ross in which the veteran Mideast diplomat, among other things, declared Iran “must not have nuclear weapons.” There was something in his imperious tone that made me feel that if I were an Iranian person on the street—not some apocalyptic-minded mullah, perhaps even a participant in the Green Revolution—-hearing this, I would feel my sense of dignity denigrated. It made me think of Cuba, whose people have endured a half century of privations and immiseration because of U.S sanctions and yet have clung to an oppressive police state regime. Why? Because of emotion, the emotion of dignity. Because they didn’t want to be told who should rule them by the United States and be forced to act subserviently. 

These things are often more important to people than new American cars. The connection: Iran would likely continue its bomb program even if a raid left its current facilities in smoking ruins. If only because of the Cuba Syndrome. Even if it took another half century, they would get one nuclear weapon built, or buy one from North Korea or Pakistan. And Israel—which has been called a “one-bomb state,” in the sense that a one-megaton bomb airburst over Tel Aviv would annihilate the country—will never escape that shadow.

Attacking the prospect from an American perspective, Jason Kuznicki is saddened by the fact that many young people in America have a totally different conception of what war is:

In the old wars, there were clear-cut enemies, legal declarations, and expectations on both sides regarding surrender and the return to normalcy. It worked sort of like this: Two sides, each consisting of nation-states or groups thereof, declared war on each other. The side that got the most badly beat up eventually surrendered, and the winner dictated the terms of the peace.

In new wars, no one ever declares anything. We just beat up on a country that did not and cannot attack us. Then we stay there, playing havoc with its domestic politics, spurring nationalist resentment, and getting blown up by IEDs — until the poll numbers drop and we decide it’s time to go home.

Is a deal possible? This is certainly promising:

A high-level advisor to Iran's supreme leader said his country is ready to allow "permanent human monitoring" of its nuclear program in exchange for Western cooperation but also warned Iran is prepared to defend itself against military strikes.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, who serves as Secretary-General of Iran's Human Rights Council and key foreign policy advisor to Ayatollah Khamenei, said the West should sell Iran 20 percent enriched uranium and provide all the help that nuclear nations are supposed to provide to countries building civilian nuclear power plants. He also said the U.S. and the West should accept his country's right to continue what Iran calls its peaceful nuclear program. In return for cooperation from the West, he said, Iran would offer "full transparency."

The Guardian quoted one Hamas leader as saying so. Alan A at Harry's place thinks this was inevitable:

Relationships between patrons and clients in the Middle East are often based on temporary coincidences of interests which are capable, for a time, of transcending ideological divisions and even animosity. But a relationship between an Arab Sunni theocratic terrorist movement, and a Persian Shia theocracy, was essentially a marriage of convenience. Now that the Muslim Brotherhood is poised to take power in next-door Egypt, there’s no need for Hamas to pretend that it loves apostate Alawite or Shia regimes.

Jonathan Tobin, armed with an opposing quote from another Hamas leader, counters:

Ties between Hamas and Iran have become strained, especially after Hamas dropped its support for Tehran ally Bashar Assad in Syria. But it is difficult to imagine the group maintaining a cease-fire in a situation where Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah are both launching missiles at Israel. Though Iran’s financial clout in Gaza has reportedly lessened in recent years, the ayatollahs probably understand the dynamic of Palestinian politics will always force Hamas to resort to violence if given the opportunity.