Tag Archives: Iran

Where we are with Iran.

Posted on by
Reply

            The radioactive isotope U-235 can be “enriched” to higher levels of purity by the use of special centrifuges.[1] Enriched to low levels (3.67 percent), U-235 can be used as fuel for nuclear power plants.  Enriched to very high levels (90 percent), U-235 can become the basis for a nuclear weapon.  Enrichment is a slow business in the early stages, but each successive step becomes much faster from higher levels of purity.  According to one expert, it might take a month to enrich U-235 from 20 percent to 60 percent, then a week to go from 60 percent to 90 percent.  However, more centrifuges are required to achieve each higher level of purity.[2] 

            The development of nuclear material is one step.  The development of the technology of making an actual weapon, and the development of ballistic missiles are additional steps.  There is nothing to say that these steps have to be done sequentially, rather than in parallel.    

            Iran had developed a large infrastructure of uranium-enriching centrifuges, along with other elements of nuclear weapons development.  Alarmed, the international community imposed increasingly severe economic sanctions on Iran.  Eventually, the Iranian government agreed to negotiate. 

            The 2015 international agreement limited Iran to possessing 660 pounds of U-235 enriched to 3.67 percent and required the shut-down of many of its centrifuges.  In return, Iran won removal of some—but not all—of the international economic sanctions.  Many other issues regarding Iran’s foreign and military policy were set aside for further negotiations.  Many economic sanctions were retained as leverage for these proposed future talks. 

            President Donald Trump soon abandoned the 2015 agreement and plastered Iran with sanctions.  Iran then began moving away from compliance with the 2015 agreement.[3]  Iran increased its supply of U-235 that had been enriched to 3.67 percent; enriched some of its U-235 to 20 percent; restarted some its centrifuges; and blocked international inspectors from some of their agreed work.  According to a February 2021 report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran now possesses ten times the amount of enriched U-235 allowed under the agreement.  If processed into weapons-grade material, that would be enough for three nuclear weapons.  In addition, Iran has “largely ignored” an agreement on missiles and has allowed an agreement to expire that permits the security cameras to view Iran’s nuclear fuel.[4] 

            There are several ways of interpreting the series of measures taken by Iran.  One way is to see it as slicing the salami, seeing exactly what it can get away with without provoking an attack.  Another way is to see it as a slow ratcheting up of pressure to both force a revival of the 2015 agreement and to improve Iran’s position in negotiations. 

            In the nature of the production process, holding down both the amount of enriched U-235 and the number of centrifuges are key.  In mid-April 2021, Israel caused a major “mishap” at the centrifuge facility at Natanz.  Perhaps several thousand centrifuges were destroyed. 

[1] Rick Gladstone, William J. Broad, and Michael Crowley, “Iran Says It Won’t Make Bombs, But It May Be Inching Closer,” NYT, 18 April 2021. 

[2] Thus it would take 500 centrifuges to move from 20 percent enrichment to 60 percent enrichment, and 600 centrifuges to move from 60 percent to 90 percent enrichment. 

[3] As American bombing in Vietnam showed, this latter strategy doesn’t always work.

[4] David E. Sanger, “On Iran, Biden Walks a Tightrope Between Force and Diplomacy,” NYT, 29 June 2021. 

The Iran Problem.

Posted on by
Reply

            For decades, Shi’ite Iran pursued nuclear weapons, developed ballistic missiles, and supported terrorists around the Middle East as proxies in its war with Sunni Muslims.  With the American people clearly wary of any new war in the Middle East, President Barack Obama’s administration negotiated a multi-national agreement with Iran on part of these issues.  In return for relief from some of the painful international economic sanctions, Iran agreed to limits on its nuclear weapons development program for a limited time.[1]  President Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned the agreement.[2]  Both Iran and the Democrats bitterly criticized Trump’s action.  The election of President Joe Biden, then, seemed to promise a ready return to the agreement by both parties.  Nevertheless, difficulties arose in completing this restoration.[3] 

            For one thing, Iran’s government now wants more than it got from the Obama administration.  It wants more sanctions relief to allow it access to international financial services.  It wants to keep the nuclear-fuel production capacity it built up after President Trump abandoned the agreement.  To increase pressure on the Americans, it announced that it would raise the cap on enriching uranium from 3.67 percent to 60 percent, cutting the time needed to produce nuclear weapons if talks broke down. 

            For another thing, the United States government now wants more than it got from the Obama administration.  It wants immediate agreement to limits on Iran’s ballistic missiles and its support for proxy terrorism.  Furthermore, the United States wants to push out the duration of the agreement to prevent Iran from building a weapon for much longer than the original agreement.[4] 

            For yet another thing, Israel sees Iran’s government as a deadly enemy.  It sees the nuclear weapons program, the ballistic missiles, and the regime’s constant denunciations of Israel as warnings of a new Holocaust.  Israel has done everything it can—short of a bombing campaign conducted in co-operation with a nearly-as-skittish Saudi Arabia—to slow down Iran’s weapons programs.  Israeli intelligence purports to believe that Iran is much closer to making a weapon than do Americans.  The Israelis disliked the original deal, will really dislike any softer deal, and may see a no-deal as lighting a fuse. 

            The Iranian regime that negotiated the agreement with the Obama administration[5] has passed its sell-by date.  The Biden administration’s negotiations  took place under the shadow of a looming Iranian election likely to be won by “hard-liners”[6] who had criticized the original agreement.  In fact, this is what happened.  In contrast, the recent Israeli elections changed nothing except the prime minister. 

[1] I supported the agreement then and support it now.  That doesn’t mean that the critics of the agreement didn’t have valid points.  It’s just a case of “half a loaf is better than none” when the alternative is to start bombing. 

[2] His administration either re-imposed or created new sanctions for a total of 1,500. 

[3] Steven Erlanger and David E. Sanger, “Two Nations Divided By a Common Goal,” NYT, 10 May 2021. 

[4] Since these seem to have been the major Republican complaints about the original agreement, it would appear that we are actually experiencing Donald Trump’s second term, just without the egregious personal behavior.  See also: China policy, North Korea policy, Afghanistan policy, illegal immigration policy. 

[5] President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. 

[6] “Hard liners” is a term from the Soviet-American Cold War.  American observers often conjectured that a struggle took place within the Kremlin between “hard-liners” and “soft-liners” or “moderates.”  For a time, British diplomats applied the same sort of analysis to understanding the pre-war Nazi regime.  At least in the latter case, the distinction between “hard-liners” and “moderates” was purely wishful thinking.  Probably an example of projection. 

Durable Dictatorship.

Posted on by
Reply

            One way of understanding why the 1930s and 1940s were so terrible is to look at the 1920s.  In the aftermath of the First World War, two European governments fell to revolutionary regimes.  The Tsarist, and then the Provisional governments fell to revolution from the left, Bolshevism.  The liberal constitutional Italian government fell to revolution from the right, Fascism.  In both cases, however, the revolutionary movements were stopped short of their radical hopes.  Powerful constituencies were willing to tolerate some change, but rejected anything that harmed their own interests. 

In the case of Russia, the peasantry formed the main stumbling block.  They controlled the food supply, they formed the majority of the population, and they had gained possession of both their own land and that of the aristocracy.  Communism threatened private property, their private property.  So Lenin settled for the “New Economic Policy”: private property in land, private commerce in food, and government control of urban industry and international trade.  There things stood until the arrival of Stalin.   

In the case of Italy, multiple “old elites” formed the stumbling block.  The aristocracy dominated the military and the bureaucracy, the monarchy remained an important focus of loyalty, and big business and big agriculture controlled the economy.  They wanted the Socialo-Communist left and the unions destroyed, but they wouldn’t tolerate anything that threatened their power.  So Mussolini settled for the trappings of dictatorial power for himself and jobs for his followers. 

In the 1930s Stalin and Hitler exploited changed conditions to carry through real revolutions.  For Stalin, it was the death of Lenin and the disputed succession that followed, coupled with the legacy of debates on the best path forward to an actually Communist Russia.  This allowed him to play off factions within Bolshevism while mobilizing the intense enthusiasm of younger Communists.  For Hitler, it was the immense shock of the Great Depression to the society and politics of the Weimar Republic, followed by the commanding needs of mobilization for war.  In both cases, all the old barriers to sweeping change were destroyed. 

These examples may have value in understanding why some authoritarian regimes survive while others fail.[1]  One theory holds that dictatorships born out of revolution endure because the revolution destroys the old institutions, eliminating both enemies and anyone who could provide an alternative; and because the revolutionary movement packs the institutions of power with fanatics committed to maintaining the new order.  This theory may explain why Communist Cuba, Communist North Korea, Communist China, and Islamist Iran all remain standing many decades after their creation.  

One thing not sufficiently emphasized by this analysis is the role of terror.  Right to the end of their lives, Hitler and Stalin commanded police forces that had deeply penetrated the nightmares of their subject people.  Fear compelled compliance. 

Why then did these supreme examples perish?  Hitler lost a war Germany couldn’t win.  The Soviet Union’s rulers lost their nerve at a critical moment in 1989.  Those lessons may have been lost on Western observers.  They aren’t likely to have been lost on current dictators. 

[1] Max Fisher, “How Iran’s Government Has Endured in the Face of Instability,” NYT, 21 June 2021. 

The War with Iran 10 January 2020.

Posted on by
Reply

The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 created both opportunities and dangers for Iran.  On the one hand, it toppled an enemy leader (Saddam Hussein) and liberated the fellow Shi’ites of Iraq to dominate a “democratic” government.  On the other hand, it put the powerful military of Iran’s American enemy right on the country’s door-step.[1]

An important role in developing the opportunities and confronting the dangers fell to General Qassim Suleimani.  Suleimani occupied a powerful position in Iran’s government.  The New York Times has described him as “an American vice president, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and C.I.A. director rolled into one.”[2]  Suleimani worked to increase the power of Iraq’s Shi’ite majority, extend Iranian influence over Iraq and into Syria, and push the Americans to pull out.  Some Americans and a good many Iraqis died in the ensuing violence.  Both the Bush II and Obama administrations had thought about killing him.  Both seem to have decided that killing Suleimani would not advance American strategic interests at those particular times.  Clearly, President Trump and his closest advisors made a different decision.  On 3 January 2020, an American drone fired two missiles that killed Suleimani and some of his myrmidons.

It is impossible at this early date to foresee the long-term consequences.  Still, it is possible to suggest some factors that will influence events.  First, the killing of Suleimani is unlikely to deepen the existing abyssal hostility between the two nations.[3]

Second, domestic factors will push Iran to retaliate for the assassination.  General Suleimani in the front rank of Iran’s leaders.  Trying to deter the United States from weeding-out other leaders could push Iran’s hardliners toward action.  The same is true of maintaining the regime’s legitimacy in the eyes of the public.  You can’t get out big crowds every year to chant “Death to America!” in the streets and then go “Never mind” when you get slapped in public.

Third, there is a huge imbalance of power between the United States and Iran.  American superiority in conventional weapons would probably preclude a real Iranian conventional attack on American forces.  The recent missile strike in Iraq both hit a remote facility with few Americans present and was telegraphed hours in advance to allow the Americans to take cover.  At the same time, President Trump claims to want to end the “endless wars” launched by the Bush II Administration.  That desire should bar any attack on Iran by American ground forces.

This reality could shape the behavior of both sides.  Iran can pursue an “asymmetrical” response.  Iran could use allies like Lebanon’s Hezbollah or Iraqi Shi’ites to attack American forces or American interests.  Those would not have to be limited to the Persian Gulf or even to the Middle East.  One key factor might be how robust are American defense and intelligence resources for dealing with such “asymmetrical” threats.

On the other hand, American air power is there and ready to be used.  For example, Iran firing missiles at American ships in or around the Persian Gulf would trigger air strikes.  Those strikes might not be very restricted.  They would inflict still greater public humiliation on the regime.

So, future headlines may be full of car bombs and “smart” bombs.

[1] At the same time, the Americans were occupying Afghanistan on Iran’s eastern border.  You can see how Iranian leaders might get a little skittish.

[2] Max Fisher, “Is There a Chance Of a Wider War?” New York Times, 4 January 2020; Amanda Taub, “Will Strike Deter Attacks, Or Lead to Even More?” NYT, 5 January 2020.

[3] It is now impossible to know if the policy pursued by the Obama administration would have led to an actual improvement of Iranian-American relations or merely postponed the current confrontation.

The Attack on Iran 9 January 2020.

Posted on by
2

“Trump did it, so it must be the wrong thing.”  Fair rule of thumb/heuristic device.  However, seen in a historical perspective, some further thought may be in order.

First, the military historian John Keegan dissected the liberal mindset with regard to international order on the eve of the Second Iraq War in 2003.  He called this mindset “Olympianism.”  According to Keegan, it “seeks to influence and eventually control the behavior of states not by the traditional means of resorting to force as a last resort but by supplanting force by rational procedures, exercised through a supranational bureaucracy and supranational legal systems and institutions.” Keegan regarded this view as delusional, but widespread.  He describes the “Olympian ethic” as “opposition to any form of international action lying outside the now commonly approved limits of legal disapproval and treaty condemnation.”[1]

European states weren’t the only ones touched by “Olympianism.”  The Report of the 9/11 Commission tells readers that the US Government struggled to respond to the early attacks by Al Qaeda.  These early attacks included the bombing of two embassies in East Africa, and the attack on the USS “Cole” during a port call in Yemen.  The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency doubted he had the authority to kill some foreign terrorist just because the terrorist was trying to kill Americans.  Much thought went into how to capture Osama bin Laden.  Many Republicans, but also Democrats, belabored President Bill Clinton over the missile attack on a suspected Al Qaeda site in Khartoum, Sudan.  The evidence in the 9/11 Report suggests that the Clinton administration then slow-walked the investigation of the “Cole” bombing so that it wouldn’t be forced to do something that would lead to a further tide of abuse.  Attempts to kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan with cruise missiles failed because the diplomatic proprieties required the US Government to inform the government of Pakistan that the US would be flying cruise missiles across its territory.  This in spite of the fact that Pakistani intelligence had close ties to the Taliban government that was sheltering Bin Laden.

The response to the killing of Qassim Soleimani suggests that “Olympianism” has taken hold elsewhere.

Second, the war correspondent-turned historian Thomas Ricks has sought to explain the poor performance of the US Army in recent wars.  In his explanation, during the Second World War, Chief of Staff George Marshall and ruthless subordinates like Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley, transformed a sleepy, gerontocratic peacetime army into a devastatingly effective instrument of war.  They did so, in part, by getting rid of any commander who didn’t cut the mustard.  After George Marshall and his followers had passed on, the Army reverted to a cautious, self-protective rather than self-critical, bureaucracy.[2]  Generals don’t get fired, except for egregious personal misconduct—when it comes to public attention.

If Ricks is correct in his analysis, how should we understand the apparent lack of enthusiasm in the Pentagon for the strike at an Iranian leader who has been asserting his country’s influence throughout the Middle East at the expense of the United States?

Third, it seems unlikely that President Trump’s order to kill General Soleimani is going to have a worse outcome than the decision by the Bush II administration to invade Iraq or the decision by the Obama administration to overthrow the government of Libya.

[1] John Keegan, The Iraq War (2005), pp. 109, 115.

[2] Thomas E. Ricks, The Generals: American Military Command From World War II to Today (2012).  See also: https://waroftheworldblog.com/2015/08/10/command-crisis/

Iran Amuck 26 June 2019.

Posted on by
Reply

Like his predecessors and a great many other people, President Donald Trump opposes the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran.[1]  A host of countries had imposed severe economic sanctions on Iran to coerce the country into an agreement.  President Barack Obama negotiated a multi-national[2] agreement that would delay Iran’s progress toward a weapon in exchange for relief from international economic sanctions.  The goal was to stop Iran’s nuclear program at a line one year away from constructing a nuclear weapon.  The alternative course would be war with Iran.  American public opinion at the time opposed a new war, so a deal made sense.

The nuts-and-bolts of the issue are that: a) it takes a lot of effort to get uranium from 3.67 percent purity to 20 percent purity; it takes much less time and effort to get uranium from 20 percent purity to 90 percent, the level required for a nuclear weapon.

The agreement required Iran to hold a maximum of about 600 pounds of “low-enriched” (3.67 percent purity) uranium until 2030 and no high-enriched uranium.  Iran already had more than 600 pounds of low-enriched uranium, so Iran exported the surplus.  The agreement also required Iran to submit to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

As a presidential candidate and as an elected president, Trump disparaged the Iran agreement as “the worst deal in the world.”  In the view of President Trump and other critics of the agreement, one problem is that the agreement isn’t a permanent solution.  It ends in 2030.  After that, Iran will be free to pursue its nuclear ambitions once more.[3]  Furthermore, the agreement did not constrain Iran’s actions in other areas like Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, or in the development of ballistic missiles.  For American allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, the agreement stank to high heaven.[4]  Another .problem is ballistic missiles.  Iran possesses missiles that can hit most Middle Eastern countries (e.g. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan).

In May 2018, President Trump withdrew the United States from the multi-lateral agreement with Iran.  Since then, the United States has imposed increasingly severe economic sanctions.  Both Iran and the other parties to the agreement continued to abide by the terms.

In June 2019, Iran announced that it, too, would withdraw from the agreement.  Iran would begin stockpiling nuclear fuel above the threshold set by the agreement.  It might also begin enriching that fuel above the level needed for nuclear power plants and toward the level needed for a nuclear weapon.  Among the current unknowns are whether Iran has the technical capacity to make a bomb, and whether Iran had the technical capacity to miniaturize a bomb to fit on a ballistic missile.  The answers are not readily apparent.

IF Iran sprints toward completion of one nuclear weapon, THEN how will the United States respond?  IF Iran is just bluffing, THEN the ayatollahs may hope that other countries will push the United States into accommodation.  IF not, THEN can Iran survive a hi-tech war?

Both Iran and the Obama policy are about to be tested.

[1] Michael Crowley, “How the Nuclear Deal Splintered into a Crisis,” NYT, 18 June 2019.

[2] Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China.

[3] President Obama seems to have believed that the Iranians would get fed-up with the clowns running the country before 2030.  Then a new Iranian government would pack in guns for butter.  I hope so.  However, President Obama also bet on the “Arab Spring.”  Some places actually play politics more hard ball even than in Chicago.  So,…

[4] Could they persuade someone in a position of authority to see it their way?  If so, how?

Iran–and we all should run.

Posted on by
1

Iranian-American relations haven’t been good since the revolution of 1979 overthrew Shah Reza Pahlevi.[1]  Sometimes they are less-bad.  Right at the moment, they are more-bad.  During the Obama administration, Iran pushed on many fronts that menaced not the United States, but its allies and clients.  All of this put both Israel and Saudi Arabia on edge.  They saw—and still see—Iran as determined to make itself the dominant state in a re-ordered Middle East.  The twin pillars of this dominance would be a series of client states in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon; and nuclear weapons with the ballistic missiles to deliver them.  The re-ordering might include the annihilation of Israel and the limitation of America’s role in the region.  In the wake of the disastrous Iraq war, the American people clearly didn’t want another big war in the Middle East.  Sensibly, the Obama administration’s diplomacy focused on a successful effort to constrain Iran’s nuclear program.

That left many other issues unresolved.  In May 2018, President Trump chose to leave the nuclear agreement.  He has re-imposed economic sanctions and has sought to coerce other countries to impose an effective embargo on Iranian oil.

On the left, there is a suspicion that the president believes that regime-change in Iran offers the only reasonable solution.[2]  President Trump’s rhetoric both attacks the Iranian ruling elite as corrupt and illegitimate, and celebrates Iranians who protest against that government.  However, the Iranian regime wields powerful tools against dissent.

On the right, there is a hope that confrontation will force the Iranians to make concessions in other areas as well.  Many experts doubt that Iran’s leaders will bend.

Will Iran’s leaders do something stupid?  For its part, Iran has raised the possibility of closing the Straits of Hormuz at the outer end of the Persian Gulf in retaliation for American actions.  Some 40 percent of the world’s oil passes through the Straits in tankers.  They tried this during the long Iran-Iraq War in the Eighties.  The US Navy began convoying tankers.  On 22 July 2018, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that President Trump was running the risk of “the mother of all wars.”[3]  Trump responded in kind.  If Iran actually did try to close the Straits of Hormuz, then the possibility of military conflict would become very real.  It seems unlikely that American air and naval forces operating from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and the Arabian Sea would stop at suppressing Iranian forces around the Straits.  Very heavy air attacks could follow on Iran’s nuclear facilities and key regime assets like the Revolutionary Guard.  So, Iran probably will not close the Straits.

It seems equally unlikely that American leaders will do something stupid.  Americans still don’t want a big war in the Middle East.  Iran’s nuclear program can only be constrained voluntarily.  Nuclear weapons are a matter of science, engineering, and money.  Iran has all three.  An attack would not necessarily do more than postpone the Iranian program.  An attack would sent Iran in pursuit of other, indirect ways of striking back at American interests in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Maybe Vladimir Putin will quietly mediate a settlement.

[1] Rick Gladstone, “A War of Words With Iran Risks Spiraling Beyond Control,” NYT, 24 July 2018.

[2] It worked OK from 1954 to 1979.  We’ve had forty years of hostility in return for twenty-five years of cooperation.

[3] Saddam Hussein used the same phrase when faced with an American invasion in 2003.

Operation Iraqi Future.

Posted on by
Reply

Between 2011 and 2014, unanticipated events in the Middle East created problems that are now moving toward critical phases.  In 2011 a long, complicated civil war broke out in Syria.  By and large, the Obama administration evaded involvement.  Also in 2011, the Obama administration believed that it had escaped the Iraq quagmire.  The United States and Iraq could not agree on terms for the continued American presence in that troubled country.[1]  American troops pulled-out.  Various forms of Hell marched in.  In 2014, the troops of Islamic State (ISIS) drove east out of civil war-torn Syria.  They soon over-ran the Western (largely Sunni) areas of Iraq.  Iraq’s Shi’ites toughened-up; Iran sent arms and men; and the United States supplied air-power.  In 2014, Russia seized the chance created by a political crisis in Ukraine to re-take the Crimea and to sponsor rebel groups in two districts of eastern Ukraine.  International economic sanctions on Russia followed.

In 2016, Russia forged an alliance with Iran to defend the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war.  The joint intervention of the two powers now seems to have confirmed that the regime will remain in control of western Syria at least.  The 2016 Obama/Kerry agreement with Iraq[2] fended-off a war between the United States and Iran while facilitating an American-Iranian war against ISIS.  Victory over ISIS appears[3] to be at hand.

President Trump ran on a platform of opposing Iran.  Doubtless, Secretary of Defense James Mattis has done his best to rein-in the President until the CrISIS is over.  Still, the day will come when ISIS has been beaten and the Americans and Iranians can think anew about their relationship.  Iraq will find itself a pawn in that relationship.

What happens next in Iraq and Syria?  Iraqis are divided over which “friend” to support.[4]  Do they favor the United States or Iran?  Iran has real advantages: Iran is Shi’ite and the majority of Iraqis are Shi’ite; Iraq’s Iranian-armed militias have played a large role in the defeat of ISIS.  The government of Iraq is full of pro-Iranian Shi’ites.  The argument for keeping America engaged in Iraq after the defeat of ISIS springs from this same Iranian domination.  Keeping the Americans involved offers the best guarantee that Iran won’t just turn Iraq into a puppet.  Also, there will have to be some kind of reconciliation between Sunnis and Shi’ites of post-ISIS Iraq.  An American presence might limit Shi’ite oppression of their none-too-loyal Sunni countrymen.

Russia and Iran disagree on the final outcome in Syria.  Russia chose sides in the Sunni-Shi’ite civil war inside Islam, but wants to limit its involvement in the struggle.  To avoid becoming mired in the larger conflict, Russia favors a compromise in Syria that would meet the demands of some Sunnis (although not the Westernized young people beloved of Westerners).  Iran hopes to see Bashar al-Assad turn Syria (or his portion of it) into a Shi’ite bastion.[5]

Iran and Russia will stick together; America and Iran—and Russia—may fall out.  Still, room exists for pragmatic diplomacy.  People just have to seize the chance.  But what chance?

[1] Iraq’s Shi’ites wanted the Americans out so that they could go about the business of misgovernment unimpeded.  Iraq’s Sunnis wanted the Americans to stay as a check on the Shi’ites, rather than out of love for the country that had destroyed their country and their own place at the peak of that country.  The Americans were—and are—weary of war in the Middle East.  President Obama sought to meet this desire of the voters.

[2] Until the memoirs come out, when it may be renamed the Clinton-Kerry or Clinton-Obama deal with Iran.

[3] Count no man happy until he is dead.

[4] Yaroslav Trofimov, “Iraq Faces Balancing Act Between the U.S. and Iran,” WSJ, 17 March 2017; Yaroslav Trofimov, “Russia, Iran Need Each Other, Despite Differences,” WSJ, 17 February 2017.  .

[5] Over the long-run an Iranian client-state in Syria on the frontiers of Israel—a sort of super-Hezbollah—would challenge the security of Israel in a profound way.

A Fateful Moment.

Posted on by
Reply

Currently, the American list of terrorist organizations in the Middle East includes al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, and many other groups.[1]  Now the Trump administration is considering adding both Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard and the Muslim Brotherhood to the list.

What are the arguments for and against such steps?

A Sunni-Shi’ite civil war tears at the Middle East.  Russia has made a clear choice to back the Shi’ite side.  Iran leads the Shi’ite cause, is unique as an Islamist state, and is hostile to both the United States and Israel as well.  The Obama administration refused to choose, causing a good deal of distress among its Sunni allies and Israel.  Despite these real diplomatic problems, an attack on Iran’s nuclear program would have opened a larger conflict at a moment when Americans were fed-up with war in the Middle East and ISIS banged at the gates of Baghdad.

The Trump administration is re-thinking this policy.  The Revolutionary Guard is an independent military force that answers directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran.  Over the years it has also spread into a powerful position in the economy.  In addition, it plays a leading role in Iran’s covert operations.[2]  The Trump administration believes that Iran plays a disruptive, hostile role in the Middle East.  Targeting the Revolutionary Guard makes sense as a starting point.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928.[3]  Eventually, getting nowhere with violence, the Egyptian core of the Brotherhood abandoned that in favor of concentrating on its other social programs.  The Egyptian movement has off-shoots elsewhere.  There are affiliates in Morocco, Tunisia, and Jordan.  Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, is another off-shoot.

In the wake of 9/11, the Bush and Obama administrations pursued a policy of engagement with any Muslim group that sought political power by peaceful and democratic means.[4]  Thus, in 2012 the Obama administration embraced the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohammed Morsi in Egypt.  However, important American allies in the Middle East have long considered the Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization.  These allies include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.[5]  Also, Israel is deeply hostile to Hamas.

Again, the Trump administration is considering reversing course by declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.  However, Turkey’s Islamist government supports the Brotherhood, which it sees as a similar movement.  Since the Egyptian coup, the Brotherhood has been allowed to maintain offices in Istanbul and to operate a television station that broadcasts throughout the Middle East (including to Egypt).  Moreover, millions of Egyptians still support the Brotherhood, albeit they’re keeping their heads down at the moment.

The Muslim Brotherhood is an umbrella organization.  Many of its members in many Middle Eastern countries remain committed—for now—to peaceful means.  Would declaring the Muslim Brotherhood further alienate its members?  Would it drive some of them to using violence?

So, a fateful moment in which caution should prevail over bold action.  Bold action in 2003 led to the invasion of Iraq, “and all that implies.”

[1] Felecia Schwartz and Jay Solomon, “U.S. Weighs Terror Label for Two Groups,” WSJ, 9 February 2017.

[2] I realize that it is inflammatory to say so, but the historian in me sees organizational and political parallels between the Revolutionary Guard and the SS in Nazi Germany.  I do not mean to suggest any moral equivalence.

[3] Yaroslav Trofimov, “The Pitfalls of Blacklisting Muslim Brotherhood,” WSJ, 27 January 2017.

[4] While this is admirable in theory, one cannot help wondering if it is merely cosmetic in a region of authoritarian governments.

[5] That said, Saudi Arabia has eased up a little in its hostility to the Brotherhood.  Conversely, Egypt experimented with toleration for the Brotherhood in 2012-2013, only to restore the military dictatorship by a coup.

Obama in the Middle East.

Posted on by
Reply

Was President Obama wrong to avoid intervention in the Syrian Civil War?  Was he wrong to seek escape from Iraq and to hesitate to commit American forces to the war against ISIS?  These questions matter on several levels.  For one thing, there are an awful lot of dead people, no?  Could the huge death toll of the Syrian Civil War been avoided, to say nothing of the Western hostages butchered, and the Jordanian pilot burned to death, and the Yazidis murdered, and the Iraqi soldiers massacred after surrender?

For another thing, we’re in the death throes of an American presidential election.  The aspiring successors to President Obama both criticize his eight years of restraint.  Recently, a gaggle of American diplomats used the free-speech channel at the State Department to dissent from administration policies, and current-Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged their viewpoints.  Whoever wins the election in November 2016, the United States is likely to be blowing up things on a grand scale soon afterward.

Lonely voices defend the president.[1]  To the surprise of no one who has spent time studying the history of international relations, countries define for themselves and then pursue their individual interests.[2]  Sunni and Shi’a Islam are now engaged in a great civil war in the Middle East and elsewhere.  As a result, Saudi Arabia and Iran are at daggers drawn.  Or perhaps it is the other way around.  Saudi Arabia and Iran are at daggers drawn, so there is a Sunni-Shi’ite civil war.  It’s a tricky business.  In any event, Iran backs the Shi’ite majority in Iraq and the Alawite minority in Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen.  Saudi Arabia backs the Sunni rebels in Syria, and the government in Yemen, and does nothing very evident to oppose ISIS in Iraq and Syria.  Neither country will bend before American will.

Then, Americans often believe that the course of events is determined by Americans.  For the Right this often means that the United States must just “stand firm” in a Viagraesque way.  For the Left, this means that the United States, usually at the behest of big business, picks the winners in foreign social conflicts.  Neither interpretation could be further from the truth.[3]  The domestic balance of forces determines the outcomes of conflicts.  The United States merely accommodates itself to the de facto government.  In the case of the “Arab Spring,” President Obama’s initial idealism soon got short-circuited by reality.  In similar fashion, his idealism, and the foolishness of Hillary Clinton, led to a disastrous intervention in Libya.  On the core issues, however—Syria, Iraq, Iran—President Obama has been reluctant to intervene in foreign civil wars.  Just as Britain and France hesitated to intervene in the American Civil War.

Most of all, the Middle East just isn’t that important to America at the dawn of a new century.  Fracking has reduced world dependence on Middle Eastern oil.  The Middle East has oil but no industry.  The Russo-American conflict is no longer about existential issues.  Even terrorism can’t destroy America or Western Europe.

Political scientist (and former Obama Administration advisor on the Middle East) Marc Lynch concludes that “America can be more or less directly involved, but it will ultimately prove unable to decide the outcome of the fundamental struggles by Arabs over their future.”  The voice of reason.

[1] Marc Lynch, The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East (Public Affairs, 2016).

[2] “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”—Thucydides.

[3] See, for example, Chiarella Esposito, America’s Feeble Weapon: Funding the Marshall Plan in France and Italy, 1948-1950 (Praeger, 1994).