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Weekly Commentary
The
Making of a Sound Iran Policy
There is no secret that successive American administrations have
been bedeviled on how to formulate a sound policy toward Iran’s
ruling theocratic dictatorship - the first of its kind in the
modern times.
A range of policies from unilateral concession to containment
have been tested to crack this policy conundrum. They have been
either ineffective or simply backfired, resulting in a more
impudent Tehran.
Unfortunately, the Iranian people have paid the heaviest price
for these misguided approaches, which only served to prolong the
brutal, corrupt, and dysfunctional rule of the mullahs. In the
meantime, the security challenges posed by Tehran only became
more perilous.
Until the revelations on Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program
in August 2002, the prevailing thought in the West was that
although Tehran posed a security challenge to the regional and
global order, it did not represent a clear and present danger.
That is no longer the case.
As the two main camps have been sparring over the direction of
the much-anticipated policy position of the second Bush
administration on Iran, they are in almost total agreement on
the need to deal with Iran’s nuclear weapons program, its
support of terrorism and its destabilizing campaign in Iraq. The
policy of “no policy” cannot go on any longer, they correctly
argue.
But a review of what’s on the table makes it clear that when it
comes to substance, no matter which camp prevails in making its
case, the US would still end up suffering from an Iran policy
paralysis.
The engagement camp, which despite the repeated failure of this
policy in all its variations over the past two decades, still
presses for a new round of engagement, has nothing to build its
case on except the other camp’s failure to make a realistic
argument to support its “regime change” proposal.
In a nutshell, the engagement advocates’ main argument is that
although Tehran is immensely unpopular and loathed by Iranians,
it is well-entrenched due in large part to the lack of an
organized opposition. And with the military option out of the
question, the argument goes, the only chance for success is
engagement based on package of carrots and sticks. Tehran
welcomes this line of reasoning since it is fully aware that
there won’t be any meaningful sticks.
The other camp correctly dismisses the argument for engagement
and sees the removal of this regime as the only way to resolve
the major national security challenges Tehran poses. It,
however, fails to articulate how this regime change would come
about. To be sure, the Iraqi-style invasion of Iran does not
constitute a viable solution. There are some in this camp who
vaguely talk about the regime change from within Iran by the
Iranian people but offer no concrete ideas on how a US policy
would work to support this goal. Nor do they outline how the
anti-regime democracy movement inside Iran could be helped
politically and diplomatically in a constructive, meaningful and
realistic way.
The fact is that engagement or military invasion is not the
answer. The only viable policy toward Iran would be one which at
its core recognizes that only a change of regime in Iran should
be achieved by relying on the Iranian people and organized
opposition that has been challenging the regime for the past
quarter century.
This policy should also articulate the practical means by which
the United States would throw its diplomatic and economic weight
behind the democracy movement and the democratic opposition in
Iran. Washington’s support if done in a serious, transparent,
and meaningful manner is not going to be a “kiss of death” for
the opposition as some experts fear.
That said, this support must by necessity include reaching out
to anti-fundamentalist Iranian opposition groups who have been
fighting for a secular and representative government in Iran.
As Washington is grasping the sheer extent of the destructive
and multi-facetted threat Iran poses to the well-being of
Iranians and to the security and stability of the region, it
should recognize that the call of Iranians for a regime change
must be heeded and the door to engagement must be shut. (USADI)
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United
Press International
January 10, 2005
The Iran dossier
WASHINGTON -- As soon as President
George W. Bush brushes the confetti off his lapels and returns
to the Oval Office from his second inaugural parade on Jan. 20,
he will find a series of "presidential papers" on Iran,
requiring his immediate attention, waiting for him.
Well-informed Washington insiders say the nation's top think
tanks have been scurrying over the last several weeks to put the
finishing touches on comprehensive policy papers, or
presidential directives that would help the Bush administration
formulate a policy on Iran for the next four years.
The abridged version of these exhaustive papers will be along
the line of "What the heck do we do with Iran?"
… It remains unclear what course U.S. policy regarding Iran is
likely to follow, but according to more than one analyst, the
second Bush administration will delve into the Iran dossier with
renewed vigor.
The Iran dossier comprises three aspects: first, the Islamic
Republic's pursuit of nuclear weapons technology; second, the
United States' accusation that Iran supports terrorism; and
third, Iran's involvement in Iraq. These are all points that the
president will have to address.
"U.S. policy will have to shift to the policy of supporting
democratic opposition to bring about regime change," Alireza
Jafarzadeh, president of Strategic Policy Consulting, told
United Press International. Barring a change of regime in Iran,
Washington should get used to the idea of a nuclear-armed
Islamic Republic, as all indications are that Iran is set to
follow its desire to join the nuclear club.
However, warns Jafarzadeh, the world cannot afford to allow Iran
"to acquire the nuclear bomb as well as erect a sister Islamic
Republic in Iraq while suppressing its own population."
It was Jafarzadeh who in August of 2002 revealed Iran's Natanz
and Arak nuclear sites to the international community. At the
time he was the spokesperson in Washington for Iran's National
Council of Resistance of Iran, a group otherwise known as the
Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or MEK. The United States had designated the
MEK as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.
Iran's pursuit of its nuclear weapons program is sure to
continue despite periodic disclaimers to the contrary by
officials in Tehran. Well-controlled and carefully orchestrated
visits by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency
are not about to reveal anything, either, as the Iranians have
learned to disperse and camouflage their work…
Now for the first time since 1979, Iran is seeing new
opportunities open up in neighboring Iraq, a country with a
majority Shiite population. Faced with this dilemma, the United
States has three options.
First, the United States can avoid confrontation and continue to
engage Iran in dialogue, hoping that Iran will see logic in
diplomacy. This is the European Union's favorite policy. "This
option produced a 2004 accord with Iran to freeze some of its
nuclear programs that might allow for weapons development,"
Raymond Tanter, a visiting professor at Georgetown University's
School of Foreign Service, told UPI.
The problem with this option is that it failed to produce
concrete results in the past because Iran did not respect prior
agreements. "This route is bound to fail," said Tanter, who
served on the National Security Council staff and as
representative of the secretary of Defense to arms control talks
in the Reagan administration.
Iran's nuclear aspiration is also worrying other countries in
the immediate neighborhood such as Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi
Arabia, each with an important Shiite minority. Furthermore, the
speed with which the United States managed to topple Saddam
Hussein's regime in Baghdad is yet further incentive for Tehran
to arm itself with nuclear deterrence.
The second option, Tanter believes, is for Israel or the United
States to conduct military strikes against Iran's nuclear
facilities. "But because Iran has hidden, hardened, dispersed,
and placed its nuclear facilities in populated areas, military
strikes are unlikely to be effective and may lead to escalation
and expansion of combat," said Tanter.
This leaves the third option -- and the most logical one -- that
of regime change. This option fits in with the hard approach
preferred by the neo-cons in the Bush administration. Both
Tanter and Jafarzadeh believe the Bush administration will opt
for beginning a "process of changing the regime in Tehran"
sometime soon after the second inauguration.
There is one minor snag however, and that is the lack of an
organized opposition able to help bring about regime change. One
of the main opposition groups, the MEK, remains on the U.S. list
of terrorist organizations. To collude with those opposition
forces requires the United States to remove restrictions against
Iranian opposition groups, argues Tanter.
Because the MEK and its associate political umbrella
organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, have
"been instrumental in exposing some of Tehran's key nuclear
secrets, President Bush is likely to favor lifting the terrorist
designation on the MEK in 2005," says Tanter.
"The removal of the MEK's terror designation would be a litmus
test for the new administration to adopt a tougher approach
toward the Iranian regime," said Jafarzadeh.
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The Chicago Tribune
(Editorial)
January 10, 2005
The Iranian puzzle
In the summer of 2002, the Bush administration signaled that it
had abandoned hope that Iran President Mohammad Khatami and his
supporters in parliament could deliver promised democratic
reforms. From that point on, President Bush said, the United
States would seek to support in any way possible the "Iranian
people"--meaning the student protesters who had stormed the
streets demanding reform.
At the time, it seemed that the administration was giving up too
easily on Khatami. Now that shift in policy appears to have been
prophetic. Khatami proved to be an overly cautious politician
who reneged on his promises of increased freedom for Iranians.
In recent weeks, Khatami has conceded that he failed to deliver
on his democratic reforms, claiming that he surrendered to the
will of the country's hard-line theocrats to avoid riots and
preserve the ruling Islamic establishment. "If I retreated, I
retreated against the system I believed in," Khatami said to
Tehran University students. "I considered it necessary to save
the ruling establishment."
To which some students chanted: "Khatami, Khatami, shame on
you!"
Shame, indeed. Saving the ruling establishment is a tragedy for
millions of Iranians seeking greater freedoms. These Iranians,
many of them under 35, overwhelmingly elected Khatami twice in
hopes that he would challenge the tyrannical mullahs, not kowtow
to them...
So the Bush administration was right on Khatami. But the
administration also promised an Iran policy that would foster
freedom by supporting the reform-minded students' crusade
against the mullahs. There's little evidence the administration
has made good on that promise--and if it has, it has not
delivered results.
That leaves everyone with a quandary: What should the U.S. be
doing to destabilize the mullahs and help the democratic
movement?
There's increasing urgency in this question, not only because
Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Iran is also one
of the world's leading sponsors of terrorism; its hard-line
government is a beacon of support for some of the most vicious
terrorist groups in the world.
Iran is a puzzle, but it can be cracked. The regime is hugely
unpopular with its own people...
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