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May 28, 2008

Exclusive: Iran Won’t Trade Away Its Power

William R. Hawkins

The presidential campaign debate has focused recently on how to deal with Iran. The official website of likely Democrat nominee Sen. Barack Obama presents the following statement: "Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior. Obama would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization [WTO], economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations."

Sen. Obama has been criticized for offering to jump into talks with Iran's militant leaders without "preconditions." Of more concern, however, is what Obama (and his advisors) think is a credible basis for negotiations. Can anyone seriously think that either Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or theocratic "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would rather have their country be a member of the WTO than a nuclear power dominating the Middle East?

The faith that liberals place on trade to improve international relations is an error that is centuries old, but continues to reappear as an example of the influence of hope over history. This is not a partisan complaint, as economic liberals exist in both major political parties.

Before he was president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick was U.S. Trade Representative during President George W. Bush's first term. In a 2002 speech to the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, Zoellick cited Norman Angell's 1910 book The Great Illusion for inspiration. The book was written in opposition to a plan to expand the British Royal Navy in the face of a rising Imperial Germany. Angell argued that financial and commercial interdependence made war impossible in the modern era, and thus a larger fleet was unnecessary. He was proven dreadfully wrong four years later when World War I broke out. Yet, there was an attempt to revive Angell's theory after the war. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933, the same year Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

Angell's followers wanted to appease Hitler to preserve peace. If Hitler felt secure, they argued, he would have no reason to use force. Germany would shift its industry would from armaments to consumer goods, mellow in outlook, and become a "normal" country. A typical statement of this school was that of Frank Ashton-Gwatkin, head of the Economic Section of the British Foreign Office, "I myself believe, however, that this nearly mortal complaint will yield to the radioactive treatment of increased world trade instead of cutting out Hitlerism with a knife."

Ashton-Gwatkin wanted to form an Anglo-German economic bloc beginning with a "reduction of customs barriers" which would provide "the key to European peace." This scheme had the support of Neville Chamberlain, whose name has become synonymous with appeasement. It was also popular among British businessmen, who formed an Anglo-German Society in 1935. In their book The Appeasers, Martin Gilbert and Richard Gott cite a 1936 memo from a London banking house which talked of "Nazi Moderates" who it was possible to "come to an understanding and co-operate with" to avoid war. British banks continued to make loans to German industry until the outbreak of World War II.

Some people did not have to wait to feel the full shock of Nazi aggression to see where appeasement was heading. Winston Churchill saw the rising economic strength of Germany being converted into military power and diplomatic influence. He warned of Germany's growing economic capabilities "with her factories equipped to the very latest point of science by British and American money." Churchill understood that it was folly to increase the resources available to a regime whose foreign policies were at odds with those of his own country.

Churchill and Chamberlain were both members of the Conservative Party, but represented very different intellectual traditions. Chamberlain was, in the words of Kenneth W. Thompson, "the archetype of bourgeois conservatism....derived from a decaying liberalism under whose colors the businessman in the nineteenth century achieved his now precarious eminence." In contrast, Churchill was a classical conservative, heir to a long aristocratic tradition of state-centered power politics and unending rivalry among nations and empires. Thompson's concluded in his study Winston Churchill's World View that this "Tory tradition... having suffered less disillusionment and dismay over the abrupt and violent reappearance of barbarism and violence, was better able to meet the threat by organizing resources of power against predatory foes." Though ridiculed as an alarmist and warmonger in the 1930s, Churchill is now regarded as one of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century.

The Angell sophistry was revived yet again during the Post-Cold War optimism of the 1990s. The buzz word "globalization" implied a peaceful planetary culture based on consumerism supplied by business ties that transcended borders. In 1999, President Bill Clinton claimed that "perhaps for the first time in history, the world's leading nations are not engaged in a struggle with each other for security or territory. The world clearly is coming together." But it hasn't turned out that way. A lesson of history is that the expansion of economic capabilities is often used to settle old scores and support new ambitions. The bloody record of the 20th century accompanied a period of unprecedented economic growth.

Despite his criticism of the Bush Administration, Obama's Angell-style approach to Iran would differ very little from U.S. policy since 2003. Obama has opposed "saber-rattling" threats to cripple Iran's nuclear program by military action. But in reality, President Bush has endorsed the diplomatic efforts of the EU-3 (France, Germany and England) to persuade Tehran to give up its nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic benefits and mutual security - the same formula Osama has stated would be the basis of his efforts. This approach has already failed.

The EU-3 have only offered "carrots," which Iran interprets as weakness. Tehran has asked "where's the beef?" and has found the West has gone vegetarian. Iran leaders now feel so confident that no one is going to lift a finger against them that they have stepped up theviolence of their militia proxy Hezbollah against the Lebanese government that these same Western powers claim to support - again calling their (our) bluff.

With its nuclear program moving ahead, terrorist-militia groups active across the region, and plenty of high-priced oil to trade, the Tehran regime does not feel it needs to make concessions to those in Europe and America who are unwilling to back their diplomacy with muscle. Iran thinks it can have it all.

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