So what to do?

Obama has taken a losing hand and transformed it into a victory over Iran

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So what to do?
by Gary Sick
04-Jan-2010
 

Pretend for a moment that you are the president of the United States and you have gotten yourself into a bit of a hole with your Iran policy.

First you offered to negotiate with Iran over nuclear (and potentially other) issues without the Bush preconditions. But there were powerful political forces that felt this was an example of your inexperience and even appeasement tendencies. So you unwisely accepted a six month deadline for the negotiations to show that you meant business. You tried to soften that by saying you would take another look at the issue at the end of the year, but everyone ignored that and let you know that January 1 was the drop dead date to solve all the negotiating problems with Iran.

In the meantime, the most serious internal revolt in thirty years exploded in Iran. It was not clear how this would affect the behavior of the regime on international issues. Some said the regime was weakened and vulnerable and so would more readily yield to pressure; others thought Iran's rulers would become more belligerent internationally to compensate for their internal weakness.

You had a couple of rounds of meetings with the Iranians and jointly came up with a fiendishly clever ploy. Iran would ship out quite a lot of its low enriched uranium (LEU), thereby reducing its stockpile that might be turned into a bomb, and Russia and France would provide them with more highly enriched fuel to be used in their research reactor that makes medical isotopes. Everybody wins. But when the Iranians took this home, they were savaged by their own political opposition for buying a pig in a poke. In disarray, they backtracked and started looking for a face-saving alternative, specifically to conduct the swap on Iranian soil or, later, in Turkey.

This situation was complicated by the discovery (or Iranian announcement, we're not quite sure) of a previously unannounced uranium enrichment site which was immediately inspected by the IAEA. Some think that this was Iran's Plan B, to have a separate enrichment capability if the primary site at Natanz was bombed by Israel or the US; others think the site was intended as a covert production line to produce a bomb. The punditocracy decides that it was a covert bomb production line.

Moreover, the punditocracy, which had already decided on the deadline of January 1, now decides that the Iranians negotiated in bad faith and the negotiations were at a total dead end. The congress, which had reluctantly stayed quiet on the subject, now returned to its usual political game of looking tough by bashing Iran. Sanctions bills threatening interdiction of gasoline shipments to Iran were passed overwhelmingly in the House and were due to pass with equal margins when the Senate returned in January.

Your critics (who wanted merely token negotiations followed by crippling sanctions and, if possible, war) rubbed their hands in anticipation. A leading neoconservative gleefully remarked that everything was proceeding according to script. AIPAC issued a triumphant declaration as gasoline sanctions rolled through the congress -- see here.

So, Mr. President, here you are on January 1. The "deadline" is upon you. Your allies and your opponents in congress are ready to hit you with a dilemma -- either impose crippling sanctions or look like an appeaser. Yet you know that gasoline sanctions are perhaps the worst idea to come out of the Congress since they opposed the purchase of Alaska. The sanctions would enrich and empower the Revolutionary Guards, undercut the Green opposition, identify the US as the enemy of the ordinary citizen in Iran, and possibly start us down the slippery slope to another disastrous war in the Middle East. But it looks great on a bumper sticker, and Glen Beck will savage anyone who dares oppose it.

So what to do?

Well, Mr. President, you have some cards of your own up your sleeve. You know that Israel is not really going to attack Iran. They can't do anything significant without US help, and George Bush already told them not to expect that. But they have invested so much in their campaign to convince the Israeli population and the entire world that Israel's survival as a nation is imminently in peril that they can't be seen to back down. They might welcome some help to get them off their own sticky wicket.

You also know that the Iranian nuclear program is nowhere near a bomb and has actually made little progress in that direction for years, regardless of the punditocracy consensus to the contrary in defiance of the facts. There is plenty of time if you can just calm the domestic political furor.

It's time for some strategic leaking.

First, give an exclusive interview to the Washington Post just before the New Year's "deadline" -- that makes two major points: (1) The administration's policy of engagement has succeeded in creating turmoil and fractures within Iran's leadership, i.e. the policy has been a success, not a failure; and (2) the administration is planning for highly targeted sanctions that will hit the Revolutionary Guards rather than the average Iranian citizen. That sends a clear signal to the congress that its infatuation with petroleum sanctions is not replicated in the White House, for all the reasons listed above, and to the uber hawks that there will be no rush to war with Iran in the new year. At the same time, launch a major rhetorical campaign by the president in support of the civil and political rights of the Iranian opposition.

It works. The increasingly hawkish Washington Post editorial board commends the president for his "shift" on human rights (though piously calling for more) and ignores the sanctions game in congress.

Of course, having fed the Washington Post, the New York Times is jealous and needs its own exclusive. Provide that over the New Year holiday by letting as many as six top administration officials meet privately and anonymously with two NYT reporters to let them in on some more secrets: (1) In another cunning success, the administration has outed the covert Iran bomb production facility at Qom thereby rendering it useless; (2) hint that the administration may be responsible for sabotaging Iran's centrifuges, which accounts for the fact (completely unacknowledged until now, despite being reported for the past two years by the IAEA) that Iran is not actually using about half of its installed centrifuges; (3) reiterate that the coming sanctions are to be aimed at the Revolutionary Guards, not the average Iranian citizen, and are likely to succeed because the regime is so weakened internally; and (4) declare unequivocally that the Iranian "breakout capability," i.e. its ability to shift from nuclear energy to actually building a bomb, is now years away.

This also works. The two NYT reporters, though apparently a bit confused about this U-turn in threat assessment from only three months ago, dutifully report what they have been told. The administration is credited with several successes, and the reporters seem convinced that the White House is showing toughness and skill in derailing the Iranian nuclear rush to the bomb. In the meantime, the reporters scarcely note that the administration is not declaring the negotiations dead after all and is pursuing the Turkish option of a uranium swap. No mention of a deadline.

Finally, the NYT reports that the Israelis have been persuaded that the targeted sanctions now being discussed are worth trying "at least for a few months." That was attributed to a senior Israeli official on the basis of back channel talks, but it had actually been announced by Prime Minister Netanyahu to the Knesset a week earlier in a speech that received almost no attention in the U.S. See here. No more talk of deadlines, crippling sanctions or air strikes.

In short, Mr. President, you have taken what appeared to be a losing hand and, with a few well-placed leaks, transformed it into a victory over Iran. You have converted a lose-lose proposition of crippling sanctions vs appeasement into an Iranian nuclear collapse. The imminent threat of Iran has become an indefinite delay of its breakout capability. The huffing and puffing of the congress has been rendered irrelevant even before it hits your desk. A deadline has become a new beginning of negotiations. And you brought the Israelis along with you, without a peep of complaint. As for the punditocracy, so far so good.

Not bad for a beginner, Mr. President!

AUTHOR
First published in Gary Sick's public blog, garysick.tumblr.com. Sick is an American academic and analyst of Middle East affairs, with special expertise on Iran, who served on the U.S. National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter, and for a couple weeks under Reagan as well.

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ramin parsa

A few more notes...

by ramin parsa on

Sick writes: "Yet you know that gasoline sanctions are perhaps the worst idea to come out of the Congress since they opposed the purchase of Alaska. The sanctions would enrich and empower the Revolutionary Guards, undercut the Green opposition, identify the US as the enemy of the ordinary citizen in Iran..." 

Oh, really? And who, if I may ask, are you to make this judgement? Last I checked, your administration was patently WRONG about everything insofar as Iran is concerned. This is not 1978, Sick! Today, Iranians are not the ignorant sheep that you rightly took them for in 1978. Times have changed. The people of Iran, enlightenend by advances in technology, are far more savvy than you think.

Today, the greater majority of Iranians BLAME the mullahs for everything wrong in Iran! Today, only the regime mouthpieces blame the USA for all of Iran's ills! As such, if there were a gasoline shortage in Iran, YOU CAN BET YOUR LAST DOLLAR that the overwhelming majority of the beleaguered masses in Iran will blame THEIR LEADERS, not HUSSEIN OBAMA!!!

Indeed, the people will blame their leaders for having gotten them in YET another UNNECESSARY mess, specially after HUSSEIN OBAMA has given them so many chances upon chances to negotiate and resolve the nuclear issue, so many flirtations, so many letters, so many oppotunities to settle old scores, so many "Islamic Republic of Iran" references -- not to mention the blatant savagery of the regime in the last 6 months, the widescale torture, the daily rapes of protestors in prison, the famous murders of Neda, Sohrab and others, the fraudulent election itself -- and you still think the Iranian people would blame America for a gasoline shortage???

Now I know why the Carter Adminitration was such a MONUMENTAL FAILURE -- either because it was receiving advice from men who should've been selling women's shoes or perhaps it was receiving advice from men with no souls. Either way, you represent the worst in American politics, and history.


ramin parsa

Gary sick, please GO AWAY!

by ramin parsa on

"Not bad for a beginner, Mr. President!"

Was this what you told Jimmy Carter after he destroyed the Shah, and Iran, in 1979? I'm sure it was, Gary!  By the way, you do know that your former boss was absolutely the WORST president in US history? You do know that, right? And how do you feel, knowing that you played a part in the destruction of a very noble land, and the deaths of a million innocent people? How do you sleep at nights, knowing that so much innocent blood has been spilled in the last 30 years, not just in Iran, but all over the world, as a result of your administration's policies vis-a-vis Islamic fundamentalism???

By the way, your boy Khomeini has turned Iran into the prostitution and heroin addict capital in all of Central Asia. And you people thought the Shah was bad. In fact, per capita, there are more heroin addicts in Iran than anywhere else in the world. Six hundred thousand prostitutes in Tehran alone, 40% of which are married women. Stonings, child executions, massive brain-drain, massive corruption, massive inflation, massive unemployment, not to mention the deaths of nearly one million Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war, a war that your old boss sponsored in order to force the mullahs to play ball on the hostage front, a war that cost the lives of thousands of 10-year-old boys who were sent by your boy Khomeini to walk over mines. But hey, they did have plastic keys to Heaven around their twisted necks! 

How do you sleep at nights, Sick, knowing that you and your perverse ilk, including the craven and callous Brzezinsky, ushered in the darkest era in Iran's history?

I'm sure you sleep well, because men like you have no souls.

 


Hovakhshatare

Gary, and his whole clan of so called Iran experts

by Hovakhshatare on

make me... Sick


rointan

OBAMA SUPPORT IRANIAN RESISTANCE!!

by rointan on

Mr Obama dont Send John kerry to Iran,please support Iranian people,boycot Iranian government before they make the NUCLEAR BOMB!! support Iranian opposition,support MOJAHEDIN of IRAN,let IRANIAN people decide what kind of government they want,don't help KHAMENEIS government,historically American government will help Ahmadinejad's Dictator government,but mr Obama whether you help Iranian government or not,Iranian people will destroy the Terrorist MULLAHS government of Iran.Dowh with KHAMENEI--Ahmadinejad,,Long live IRANIAN PEOPLE!!!


Saeed D.

maa raa be kheir to omid nist, shar maresaan!

by Saeed D. on

Wow... I hope Obama or its administration do not read your article. You put the fate of a country in the hands of newspaper reporters (liberal papers too :0) using poor poker player bluffs. Your article is excellent for a liberal that his only goal is to prove that the other guy is/was wrong.

If you are not going to help, please do not hurt the movement. US government (through experts like you) has an excellent record of making the wrong call when it comes to Iran. I am sure they will not disappoint us this time either. I am sure dealing with Nuclear Iran makes better analysis/articles and keep people like you busy with guessing.

"maa raa be kheir to omid nist, shar maresaan!"

 


Veiled Prophet of Khorasan

Gary Sick

by Veiled Prophet of Khorasan on

 

I have to agree with shushtari. I mistrrust this  man. He had his hands deep in what created the mess in Iran. I don't care what he has to say now and would rather he just shut up and go away. I  get a feeling that he is up to no good and is somehow trying to prop up his buddies in the "Islamic Republic". He burned us once and will do zo again.

I also think that the "nuclear" issue is a smokescreen to keep the Mullahs in power. We don't need nuclear power or weapons. The IRI and its supporters want to  use  a non issue to pit Iran against the West and thus label any opposition as "Western Spies".  I hope we don't fall for it.


MM

Targeted sanctions vs. Broad-based sanctions

by MM on

Excellent.

Just what I have been arguing all along in the past few days "Targeted sanctions work.  Broad-based sanctions mainly hurt the people of Iran".

Other stories on this thread.

Jerusalem Post: 'We seek sanctions on Iran gov't to avoid harming civilians'

UTube:Video: Obama's advisers: technical problems with Iran's nuclear

Fox: Clinton: US Not Closing the Door on Talks With Iran

BBC: US discusses Iran 'next' steps' with partner nations

Christian Science Monitor

Washington Post


vildemose

Gary Sick, finally finding a

by vildemose on

Gary Sick, finally finding a moral compass.


Jaleho

Gary's Sick's BEST article :-)

by Jaleho on

It is clever not just because of the stuff that it proposes, it is clever because this is exactly what will happen, me thinks!


shushtari

yo.....sick.....

by shushtari on

aren't you the one, along with your idiot boss, carter, that helped usher the destruction of iran at the hands of the mullahs??????!!!

instead of giving your opinion, go and repent in hopes of perhaps getting better acommodations in hell along with khomeini and khalkhali