The Democrats on Iran Posted
by: Jon Henke on Thursday, April 06, 2006
The QandO Blog
At Red State, Baseball Crank writes on Iran, citing two Kevin Drum posts...
(1) "If Democrats don't start thinking about how they're going to respond to this, they're idiots."
(2) "Democrats ought to figure out now what they think about Iran. [...] The chances of this coming up as an issue this year are strong enough that it would be foolish not to be prepared to deal with it."
The reaction of the liberal punditocracy to the Iranian problem has been very frustrating. Sure, they acknowledge that it's a very serious problem — but they seem convinced that the problem is electoral rather than geopolitical. Baseball Crank takes note of that, writing that "implicit in his framing of the question is what we already know: you have to speak in tactical-electoral terms to get Democrats to pay attention to a serious threat to national security".
Unfortunately, at least in the prominent public discourse, the Democratic approach to Iran seems to be to frame it in domestic political terms, and to agitate for meetings, talks and negotiation. The only mention of Iran in the Democrats recent Real Security [pdf] platform was as follows...
- Redouble efforts to stop nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea.
Re-double — that'll stop 'em. And if that doesn't work, they'll triple the effort. The Democratic Party: you can't stop our multiplication!
But while some Democratic pundits are accusing Republicans of fear-mongering and exacerbating the Iranian problem, another, more expansive release [pdf] from the Democrats claims Iran's "devious behavior indicates that it is racing to join the nuclear weapons club", that Iran is the "#1 state sponsor of terror" and has "meddled in Iraq and Afghanistan, armed militants hostile to Israel and harbored al Qaeda suspects", that a "nuclear Iran threatens regional and global security" and "[e]ndanger[es] world oil supplies". ("oooiiiillll!")
Meanwhile, their prescriptions for the Iran problem — actually a word-for-word transcription of this July 2005 report from the National Security Advisory Group; apparently it took them a year of polling to decide that it would be an effective electoral foreign policy strategy — are as follows...
- What Should Be Done Now: An Alternative Diplomatic and Military Strategy
To achieve any deal the U.S. government must settle on a course of action. A five-year global moratorium on all new enrichment and reprocessing, as called for by Mohammed El Baradei, is the key.
* Will require international cooperation in assembling both a bundle of carrots and an arsenal of sticks.
* U.S., the EU3, Russia, and the IAEA need to present Iran with a bargain, packaged as an offer Iran cannot refuse.
* It would offer cover for Iran to comply with an international obligation without explicitly yielding to American or EU3 demands.
The doable deal:
* EU3 delivery of important economic benefits under the terms of an agreement. Iran is eagerly seeking trade and investment.
* No U.S. objection to the supply of spare parts for U.S.-origin aircraft and negotiations with Iran about its entrance into the WTO.
*Credible assurances by the U.S. not to attack Iran to change its regime by force – if Iran ceases all work on its reprocessing and enrichment facilities that could support a nuclear weapons program.
* Slow-rolling of fuel delivery by Russia until Iran agrees to comply with the five-year moratorium.
* A combined Russian-EU guarantee to give Iran the opportunity to buy additional civilian nuclear reactors.
* A promise by Russia to provide an internationally-guaranteed supply of fuel for these reactors and removal of spent fuel at bargain prices.
Carrots are not enough:
* Iran should be concerned that it has no realistic possibility of making its enrichment and reprocessing facilities operational.
* Accordingly, Iran should understand the existential threat of a military response under some conditions.
On the merits, that's not really a bad strategy. It's a bit uncomfortably similar to the unfortunate Agreed Framework in which we agreed to subsidize North Korea's civilian nuclear program in exchange for North Korea pretending it was just a civilian nuclear program. On the other hand, beyond a little up-front concessions, they're not proposing something radically different than we're already doing. But If Iran really is determined to acquire nuclear weapons — and the Democratic plan acknowledges that Iran has made "avowals not to step back from its right to enrich" — that puts us exactly where we are now.
So does the Democratic base know that, even as Democrats criticize Bush for considering a preemptive strike on Iran if they continue their race to "join the nuclear weapons club", the Democratic Party insists it will do exactly the same thing for exactly the same reasons?
What are the odds the Democrats strategy would succeed? I'm agnostic. Perhaps Iran is just trying to "win security guarantees from the United States". If so, then a basket of concessions and security guarantees could be effective, leaving Iran better off and the US worse off than the status quo ante, but both of us better off than with military confrontation. But if Iran is determined to follow the North Korean path and achieve nuclear weapons, then our willingness to make these kinds of concessions leave them in an excellent negotiating position.
And the geopolitical incentives involved point to an eventual Iranian nuclear program. As Ehsan Ahrari points out, "China, Russia, and Arab nations view the Iranian nuclear program as a way to constrain the West" and their differences give Iran a great deal of negotiating room — and protracted negotiations could be the security cover they need to develop nuclear weapons. Plus, everybody is well-aware that any military strike on Iran — initiated by a Republican or Democrat — would likely result in "Iranian missile and truck bombs against targets in Iraq, Turkey, Israel, Jordan. . .and truck and car bombs in Europe and the United States".
Ultimately, as Matt McIntosh pointed out, the "Iranian public overwhelmingly supports the nuclear program, and it’s the one thing the entire regime is united on. They want it for regional prestige, influence, and security."
Iran is a difficult foreign policy problem. There's no clear solution here — just a series of bad ideas, improbable paths and difficult compromises. When Republican and Democratic pundits accuse each other of being unreasonable on the question of Iran, they're probably more interested in solving electoral problems than in solving geopolitical problems. At the end of the day, if both Parties are unwilling to accept a nuclear Iran, then our options are fairly limited and the course of this problem will be pretty much the same regardless of which Party conducts US policy.
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