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October 6, 2009
Exclusive: Change and Continuity in U.S. Iranian Strategy
In an interview conducted shortly after the announcement of Chicago’s loss in the first round of voting for the site of the 2016 Olympic, Illinois Sen. Roland Burris blamed former President George W. Bush. The Chicago Democrat argued that that the image of the U.S. has been so tarnished during the Bush Administration that even President Barack Obama’s unprecedented personal pitch for the games could not overcome the hatred the world has for the United States. Burris is not running for re-election because he would be trounced at the polls due to his involvement in the scandal of impeached Democrat Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who alleged tried to sell Sen. Obama’s open seat to the highest bidder; the seat to which Burris was appointed.
Burris was recently named to the annual list of the “15 most corrupt members of Congress.” by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Perhaps Chicago’s reputation for crime and corruption had something to do with its rejection by the International Olympic Committee.
The Olympics are small potatoes compared to issues of war and peace. The desire of President Obama and the Democrat Party to blame the previous Republican president for all of the challenges facing America is the kind of partisanship that can damage the conduct of U.S. policy in the world. It is hard to be different when the problems facing the country remain the same despite the shift in administrations. Terrorists, rogue states and rising peer competitor powers have targeted the United States, not just one or the other political party. Foreign rivals are following their own agendas.
Change merely for the sake of change in the U.S. response risks losing the gains made in the past merely to make a partisan point. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Middle East and the continuing crisis with Iran. The incoming Obama team naturally conducted a review of policy, but it has opted to change the wrong things and continue what has been tried and failed.
In his speech to the UN General Assembly September 23, President Obama blamed “anti-Americanism” on “a belief that on certain critical issues, America has acted unilaterally, without regard for the interests of others.” This was a thinly veiled attack on President George W. Bush’s reliance on “coalitions of the willing” for meeting security challenges rather than the UN. When the U.S. led such a coalition into Iraq to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Democrats adopted a new definition of unilateral. It did not matter how many countries were involved. If they all made their decision to act on their own, outside of the UN process, they were all acting unilaterally, and this was somehow illegitimate. Yet, Obama’s next sentence reflected his duty as president and his awareness of public opinion, “Now, like all of you, my responsibility is to act in the interest of my nation and my people, and I will never apologize for defending those interests.” This statement was but a softer version of what President Bush said in his 2004 State of the Union message, “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country.”
Yet, President Bush had gone to the UN initially to seek the Security Council’s approval in an unwise and futile attempt to appease liberal critics who do not feel comfortable acting without foreign permission.
Two days after Obama addressed the UN General Assembly; it was revealed that Iran had been building a second uranium enrichment plant in an underground complex near Qom. Obama did not rush to the UN to seek action, but quickly called a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to denounce Tehran’s nuclear weapons program. Working with allies is always easier than working through a global organization whose members include adversaries who will use the institution to block action. Iran has been able to count on diplomatic support on the UN Security Council from China and Russia.
The first reaction from Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Ma Zhaoxu on September 27th to the U.S.-British-French statement was to say what Beijing has always said about Iran (and North Korea), that “solving relevant non-proliferation issues peacefully through negotiation” was the only acceptable option. Talk is to remain the alternative to action, thus allowing Iran (and North Korea) to continue forward undisturbed and without a threat to their regimes or emerging capabilities. Multilateral negotiations have been in session since 2003 with both Iran and North Korea, in the latter case hosted by China. Both negotiations were launched in response to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in an effort to provide an alternative process that would shield the rogue states from American power. The strategy has worked very well for both Tehran and Pyongyang, and for the broader strategic interests of Beijing and Moscow in constraining Washington.
President Obama at the September 25th press conference endorsed the continuation of this approach. Like the Chinese statement, he has based his policy on remaining “committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran to address the nuclear issue through the P5-plus-1 negotiations.” That is, multilateral negotiations involving the five permanent members of the UNSC plus Germany. It was President Sarkozy and Prime Minster Brown who took the harder line, talking of sanctions and “lines in the sand.” It should be noted that U.S. intelligence had known about the Qom site for years, yet Obama was still willing to repeatedly “reach out” to Iran in an attempt to lower tensions prior to its public disclosure. A new round of negotiations has started which will drain the energy out of the initial reaction to the Iranian provocations.
Diplomacy must be backed with power, and that power is not going to be projected from the UN. It must be generated by coalitions with common interests they are willing to act to protect. And here is where Obama, with his obsession to appear different from Bush, seems determined to throw away the defensive alignment in the Middle East built by his predecessor.
In his General Assembly address, Obama referenced to his June speech in Cairo which was heralded as dispelling the alleged animosity in the region generated by U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, U.S strategic relations with Arab governments were solid throughout the Bush administration. Indeed, liberal critics complained that cooperation was too close in terms of the rendition of jihadist terrorists to Egypt and Jordan for interrogation and detention.
There is no appreciation in liberal circles of the success of the Bush administration in forging an Arab-Israeli alignment against Iran that was tested in Lebanon and Gaza. Instead, the tired dogmas about Iraq being a war against Muslims and the centrality of the Palestinian cause have been trotted out by Obama.
With the Palestinians split between the Fatah faction in the West Bank and the Hamas terrorists in Gaza, there is little chance for a comprehensive settlement that would bring peace. Rather than proclaim that doing the impossible is a prerequisite for U.S.-Arab cooperation, the Palestinian mess should be pushed to the side. This is the only real way to remove it as an obstacle to wider regional cooperation based on mutual interests.
The effort to foster cooperation both among the Arab states and with Israeli reached its peak during the last years of the Bush presidency. During the summer of 2006, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan openly criticized Iran’s Hezbollah proxy for raiding into Israel, triggering over four weeks of heavy fighting in southern Lebanon. The Arab states gave Israel the diplomatic space it needed to mount military operations aimed at crippling Hezbollah.
In 2007, the U.S. offered $20 billion in military aid to Saudi Arabia and the other five members of the Gulf Cooperation Council; $30 billion in aid to Israel; and $13 billion to Egypt over the next decade. According to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the arms sale to the government of Hosni Mubarak would “strengthen Egypt’s ability to address shared strategic goals” with Israel and the other Sunni Arab states. The day after the U.S.-UK-French press conference, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the Iranian threat with Gulf Cooperation Council officials from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman in New York.
There was no Arab backlash against Israel when it bombed a Syrian nuclear facility constructed in collaboration with North Korea and Iran in September, 2007. Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) was wrong when he asserted on Fox News Sunday (October 4th), “an Israeli attack on Iran is a nightmare for the world, because it will rally the Arab world around Iran.” Arab leaders want Iran disarmed, and its expansionist ambitions thwarted. They would rather have the U.S. or Israel do the job than be caught up in another regional conflict like the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88 which killed over a million people.
In 2008, Egypt did nothing to interfere with Israel’s blockade of Gaza or with the targeted killing of Hamas activists and other Palestinian militants. And during the offensive into Gaza at the end of the year, no Arab state lifted a finger against Israel.
Three days after President Obama’s Cairo speech, Hezbollah lost the election in Lebanon to pro-Western candidates backed by a U.S.-Saudi partnership built during the Bush administration which also included France, Jordan and Egypt.
Saudi Arabia has been pressing Russia not to sell Iran its advanced S-300 air defense missile system, threatening to cut off its own future purchases of arms from Moscow as leverage. Tehran wants the S-300 system to guard high value targets like its nuclear facilities from possible Israeli or American air strikes.
When pushed to make public statements by people like Special Envoy George Mitchell, the Arab governments must posture against Israel, but they know from where the real threat to their security comes. Iran, with its support for militias in foreign lands, its nuclear ambitions, and its aggressive Shia faith, poses a much greater threat to the Sunni Arab world than does the Jewish state that simply wants to be left alone.
President Obama needs to understand that positive changes have already taken place in the Middle East. U.S. actions should not seek to revive Arab-Israeli tensions over a nominal Palestine that America’s Arab friends no longer care very much about. Shifting attention from Iranian uranium enrichment to Israeli settlements, as Obama did prior to the Qom revelation, does not serve American strategic interests. Basing diplomacy on common interests is much wiser, which is why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to focus talks with Egyptian President Mubarak back to Iran at their meeting earlier this month.
The U.S. should not appease the illegitimate Iranian regime whose theocrats have subverted a democratic process they have always feared. Obama took another slap at Bush at the UN by saying “Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside. Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect.” Yet, this was after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a driving force behind Iran’s nuclear program and a believer in apocalyptic war, had crushed dissent after he stole re-election. The record of history is that it is very difficult to overthrow a determined tyrant without external support for regime change.
Obama needs to build on the Bush legacy of an ad hoc, but workable, coalition against Iran as the common enemy of both Arab and Jew. That is the realistic approach to building peace among America’s friends and solidarity against America’s enemies. And then from this foundation of strength, U.S. policy can move beyond the failed diplomatic process that has only served to reveal the intractable nature of the Iranian regime and take the kind of action, including military action, that will really make a difference in shaping the future security of the region.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor William R. Hawkins is a consultant specializing in international economic and national security issues. He is a former economics professor and Republican Congressional staff member.
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