 Good cop, bad cop
How to deal with Iran
July 8, 2004
iranian.com
From Roger Howard's Iran
in Crisis: Nuclear Ambitions and the American Response (Zed
Books, 2004). Howard has travelled widely throughout
Iran and has written extensively for many
newspapers and journals, including The Daily
Mail, The New Statesman, The
Spectator, Middle East International, The
Institute for War and Peace Reporting and Jane's
Intelligence Review.
There are many reasons why
Iran deserves considerable
attention from the outside world. But are there also any constructive
measures that the West can take to reduce the risks of domestic
and international confrontation?
As a starting-point, Western government should draw
a clear distinction between
Iranian domestic issues on the one hand and issues that more directly
affect the outside
world on the other. In terms of defusing the political and economic
pressures upon Iran
in a way that benefits the cause of democracy and human rights,
it is highly
questionable that there are any real measures that the West can
take. For at least as
much as their counterparts in any other country, Iranian politicians
generally deeply
resent criticism and interference by the outside world of their
own internal policies and
are very much more likely to ignore international protests than
bow to them. But
because few Iranians would ever question the obvious legitimacy
of the West's
concern for its own security or for the stability of Iran's
regional neighbours, there is
instead a strong case for arguing that Western pressure should
be concentrated on these
issues.
It is in this context that the European Union's
policy of 'critical
engagement' should be
viewed. This approach was initiated by the EU in 1995 and has since
been endorsed by
the European Union's General Affairs Council, which continues
to declare its "continued support for the process
of reform in Iran and in this context ... its
willingness to strengthen relations between the EU and Iran".
But despite
considerable diplomatic efforts, this approach has not achieved
any of the real benefits
to domestic reform that its supporters have always hoped for.
Even
the
example that its supporters cite as evidence of its effectiveness,
the official ban in
December 2002 of the stoning to death of some convicted criminals
is misleading,
since this particular punishment was very rarely practised in
modern Iran in any case:
there were two such cases in both 2001 and 2002. "The truth
about critical
engagement", as one senior Western diplomat has admitted, "is
that its achieved
almost nothing in terms of advancing the cause of human rights
and political reform,
and for every step that we have gone forward there have been
at least as many other
steps back".
Some liberal humanitarians could of course plausibly
counter-argue that the
continuation of such an approach would be justified if there is
no prospect of change
inside the country. In Iran, however, for reasons that have already
been discussed, such
changes are inevitable and Western government can therefore allow
Iran's own
internal dynamics, engineered by profound demographic changes,
to bring about the
reforms they wish to see. When such a crisis point is eventually
reached, they are in a
position to moderate and curb some of the excesses that may very
well eventuate.
By contrast, 'critical dialogue' can be strongly defended
as the best approach to find
Iranian cooperation on the nuclear issue, the Middle East peace
process and the
rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan. The clearest proof that this
is the best approach
emerged on 21 October 2003 when the Iranians took most commentators
by surprise
by striking a deal that was made possible through negotiation and
diplomatic pressure.
If Iran had been isolated by all governments, not just by Washington,
then there would
have been no opening where the agreement could emerge.
This is not to say that there is no room for the
harder line that Washington has always
taken when dealing with Iran, and many Western diplomats argue
that the present
combination of European dialogue and this harsher American stance
is probably the
best approach towards the current Iranian regime. "It's
good to have both a good cop
and bad cop", in the words of one European representative
in Tehran, "so that the
Iranians can never be quite sure what's in store for them. Too
much aggression gives them no incentive to compromise, while too
much leniency will
make them think they
can it all their own way".
Certainly the mere threat of
UN-imposed economic
sanctions against Iran, as the US has sought to impose in retaliation
for any violation
of its nuclear obligations, is enough to make even the most
die-hard conservative in
Tehran think twice about any misdemeanour: even a very brief
embargo on the
exportation of Iranian oil would devastate its economy.
But there is also considerable scope for the US
to change the way in which it deals
with Iran in future. While Washington has never been slow to condemn
the Iranian
government, it remains to be seen if future US administrations
will be equally quick to
promise and deliver rewards in return for Tehran's cooperation
and compromise. The
US government could, for example, give details of the circumstances
under which
existing economic sanctions could, perhaps gradually, be lifted
and also raise the
spectre of potentially offering Iran membership of the World Trade
Organisation (WTO). Earlier Iranian bids to join the WTO have previously
been
blocked by both Israel and the United States, even though membership
would promote
the cause of reform by demanding a major overhaul of the regime's
economic and
political institutions in a way that would further challenge the
hard-liners grip on
power.
There are other measures that the US can arguably
take but which to date have not
been addressed. Washington can ask if its economic sanctions would
be better directed
not at Iran as a whole but instead targeted more specifically at
the extensive overseas
investments that many of the regime's leaders are known to
hold in Western banks.
Obviously any such measures would much more effectively penalise
the material
interests of those who can make decisions about their country's
future instead of the
ordinary civilians who clearly exert no comparable political leverage.
There are also ways in which America can reduce
the level of mistrust with Iran,
thereby creating a more positive climate in which threats of
economic and military
force, as described above, could still be made but probably much
more effectively than
hitherto: if the Tehran regime, instead of thinking that Washington
is implacably
opposed to any and every course it takes, has more faith that
any new notes of
compromise will be rewarded then it will of course be more willing
to strike them.
One such step that the US could take to improve
its relations both with Iran and the
wider Islamic world would be to withdraw, or at least considerably
scale down, some
of its military presence in the surrounding region. Since 9-11
the number of American
military bases throughout the republics of the former Soviet Union
has proliferated and
currently include around a dozen US military outposts in Kyrgyzstan,
Pakistan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and another three in Afghanistan. Moreover
the US military
has staged joint military exercises in sensitive regions that are
close to the Iranian
border, notably with Azerbaijani troops in the strategic oil-rich
Caspian Sea on 14
August 2003.
But in a unipolar world in which America maintains
an unparalleled
military dominance, it is arguable that these bases do less to
serve any constructive
purpose than to symbolise US "hegemony" and rally the
anti-American cause in the
same way that the presence of US troops on the 'holy soil' of
Saudi Arabia has
previously acted as a rallying point for Al Qaeda. By dramatically
scaling down such a
presence, Washington would alleviate Iran's serious and well-founded
concerns for its
own security and much reduce the level of mistrust between the
two countries.
Although such measures might considerably defuse
international tension, it
nonetheless still remains impossible to predict where Iran's
future lies. It may be that
the best-case scenario, hoped for by every independent observer,
will eventuate as the
mullahs, recognising the futility of clinging remorselessly to
power, perhaps
unexpectedly hand over the reins of the political order to democratic
forces, thereby
allowing a new political order to emerge, perhaps painlessly.
But because Iranian politics have long possessed
a capacity to surprise, it is also
possible that the current regime will continue to defy all
predictions and remain in power for far longer than currently
seems likely.
Just as during the turmoil of the immediate post-revolutionary
years, or at particularly
dramatic moments of the war with Iraq, there were times when the
regime's days
seemed numbered, so it is possible that a new conservative government,
even if given
only a very dubious mandate by a low electoral turnout in the February
2004 elections,
could still succeed in staving off opposition with a series of
populist measures and
incentives and thereby maintain its grip on power. The same tactics
were used with
good effect during 2002, for example, when a particularly acrimonious
teacher's pay
dispute that had spilled into violent disorder in the streets was
defused by the offer of
financial subsidies.  In any event, at the time of writing few scenarios
seem to be beyond the realm of
possibility. A US or Israeli military strike, an organised insurrection
or mass street
protests have all also been aired as possible outcomes of the country's
different
tensions. But whatever does in fact eventuate, there can be little
doubt that Iran will
not be far from tomorrow's headlines.
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Good cop, bad cop
