Ample evidence that our Iran policy is misguided and likely to result in a worsening situation in the Middle east is provided by Vali Nasr and Ray Takeyh in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, courtesy of Tom P. M. Barnett. In their article, The Costs of Containing Iran, the authors discuss the fallacies of a policy of containment modeled on cold war policy of containment of communism. recommendations.
Washington's Misguided New Middle East Policy
Over the past year, Washington has come to see the containment of Iran as the primary objective of its Middle East policy. It holds Tehran responsible for rising violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lebanon's tribulations, and Hamas' intransigence and senses that the balance of power in the region is shifting toward Iran and its Islamist allies. Curbing Tehran's growing influence is thus necessary for regional security.
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For the Bush administration, however, containing Iran is the solution to the Middle East's various problems. In its narrative, Sunni Arab states will rally to assist in the reconstruction of a viable government in Iraq for fear that state collapse in Baghdad would only consolidate Iran's influence there. The specter of Shiite primacy in the region will persuade Saudi Arabia and Egypt to actively help declaw Hezbollah. And, the theory goes, now that Israel and its longtime Arab nemeses suddenly have a common interest in deflating Tehran's power and stopping the ascendance of its protégé, Hamas, they will come to terms on an Israeli-Palestinian accord. This, in turn, will (rightly) shift the Middle East's focus away from the corrosive Palestinian issue to the more pressing Persian menace. Far from worrying that the Middle East is now in flames, Bush administration officials seem to feel that in the midst of disorder and chaos lies an unprecedented opportunity for reshaping the region so that it is finally at ease with U.S. dominance and Israeli prowess.
But there is a problem: Washington's containment strategy is unsound, it cannot be implemented effectively, and it will probably make matters worse. The ingredients needed for a successful containment effort simply do not exist. Under these circumstances, Washington's insistence that Arab states array against Iran could further destabilize an already volatile region.
I have concluded in the past that Iran is neither containable nor deterrable, but for different reasons than the authors. Their article is long and I will not attempt to summarize their arguments, however, I think the authors make a convincing case that containment of Iran is impossible and that our efforts to do so will fail.
It is in their recommendations that their assumptions come most into play and raise questions that they do not address, let alone answer.
Instead of focusing on restoring a former balance of power, the United States would be wise to aim for regional integration and foster a new framework in which all the relevant powers would have a stake in a stable status quo. The Bush administration is correct to sense that a truculent Iran poses serious challenges to U.S. concerns, but containing Iran through military deployment and antagonistic alliances simply is not a tenable strategy. Iran is not, despite common depictions, a messianic power determined to overturn the regional order in the name of Islamic militancy; it is an unexceptionally opportunistic state seeking to assert predominance in its immediate neighborhood. Thus, the task at hand for Washington is to create a situation in which Iran will find benefit in limiting its ambitions and in abiding by international norms. [Emphasis mine-SW]
Dialogue, compromise, and commerce, as difficult as they may be, are convincing means. An acknowledgment by the U.S. government that Tehran does indeed have legitimate interests and concerns in Iraq could get the two governments finally to realize that they have similar objectives: both want to preserve the territorial integrity of Iraq and prevent the civil war there from engulfing the Middle East. Resuming diplomatic and economic relations between Iran and the United States, as well as collaborating on Iraq, could also be the precursor of an eventual arrangement subjecting Iran's nuclear program to its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. If Iran enjoyed favorable security and commercial ties with the United States and was at ease in its region, it might restrain its nuclear ambitions.
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The system should feature all the local actors and could rest on, among other things, a treaty pledging the inviolability of the region's borders, arms control pacts proscribing certain categories of weapons, a common market with free-trade zones, and a mechanism for adjudicating disputes. For the Gulf states, this new order would have the advantage of bringing the Shiite-dominated states of Iran and Iraq into a constructive partnership, thus diminishing the risk of sectarian conflict. A new security arrangement would be an opportunity for Iran to legitimize its power and achieve its objectives through cooperation rather than confrontation. And it would allow the Iraqi government, which is often belittled by its Sunni neighbors, to exercise its own influence and so expose the canard that it is a mere subsidiary of Tehran. Saudi Arabia and Iran, the region's two leading nations, could move beyond their zero-sum competition in Iraq and press their allies there to adopt a new national compact that would recognize the interests of the Sunni and Kurdish minorities in Iraq.
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Engaging Iran while regulating its rising power within an inclusive regional security arrangement is the best way of stabilizing Iraq, placating the United States' Arab allies, helping along the Arab-Israeli peace process, and even giving a new direction to negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. Because this approach includes all the relevant players, it is also the most sustainable and the least taxing strategy for the United States in the Middle East.
It is possible that the Mullahs who control Iran do not believe their own ideology. This is a difficult question and the authors simply ignore it and its implications, relying on the base line assumption that the Iranian Mullahs are rational and simply want to enhance and advance the Iranian/Persian strategic interests in the neighborhood. As such, their ambitions can be modulated within a new security system as described. This worked with Communism because most of the leadership preferred becoming wealthy to dieing with their failed ideology. It is unclear that this choice would be made in quite the same way by religious theocrats who believe their goal is to reach Paradise.
Even granting that the Mullahs are rational, and can be worked with, however, there is an additional problem beyond any immediate apocalyptic vision that the Iranian Mullahs may possess. Internally, Iran's economy has been structured along lines consistent with their particular take on Sharia law. The Iranian economy is failing to provide its people what they need not primarily because of American led sanctions but because, just as communism and socialism cannot work long term, the socialism cum Sharia practiced in Iran does not work. Under the pressure of such economic dysfunction the Iranian rulers must either liberalize their economy or increase their repression at home and increase the pressure to expand their writ and essentially take from others what they need while creating enemies around whom to rally the population. We have been told repeatedly that attacking Iran would lead to just such an increase in Iranian patriotism; the Iranians do know this, too.
The internal contradctions in Iran can only be managed by the Mullahs by an expansionist foreign policy. Hegemony over the Persian Gulf would allow them to more closely control the price of oil and "encourage" its vulnerable neighbors to pay obeisance to their interests. Further, by accommodating to Iranian interests, as recommended by the authors of the article, we would essentially concede the nuclear bomb to Iran, with all the increased belligerence that would flow from such a weapon and its illusion of invulnerability.
There is no evidence that the Iranians would value or desire peace unless it was the peace of submission. There is no tradition of anything but a zero-sum approach to others in the Middle East and for the authors to suggest that the light will suddenly dawn in the minds of the Arabs and Persians they discuss is as fanciful as any imagined thirst for democracy that the Bush administration once discerned within the tribal societies of the Middle East.
Sadly, finding ways to accommodate to Iran's power will not bring peace anytime soon.
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