Iran: The Debate We Should Be Having

Cheryl Rofer:

July 24th, 2015 at 4:08 pm

Great post!
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I think that all of us who are in favor of the agreement feel that it is not a cure-all for the region’s problems. I suspect that many of us would agree that your questions, or something close, are the bigger ones that should engage us as we move forward.
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The Middle East is a mess. I think we can agree on that even if we don’t agree on the causes. The Middle East has been a mess for so long, that causes almost don’t matter, and I say that as someone who thinks that understanding causes can often help in figuring out future strategies. And I would extend that “mess” back to when there was less military action in the area and more strongman dictators, because they were damaging their countries’ and peoples’ futures. Which is what we are in now.
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One way to work on a tangled ball of string (metaphor change!) is to pull on loose ends. The removal of chemical weapons from Syria was a loose end, as were getting the nuclear equipment out of Libya, attempts to shape the attempted revolution in Egypt, military intervention in Libya, trying to find an Israeli-Palestinian solution, and many more Western interventions. The Iranian nuclear program is one of those loose ends.
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None of the earlier loose ends has led to particular success, but the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA) might. One thing it does is to remove an immediate threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon. That would make all the other problems harder to solve.
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I think that some of the objections to the JCPOA are, in fact, an objection to any sort of deal at all with Iran. That objection, it seems to me, is an argument for the status quo. But there is no status quo in the Middle East right now. Syria would be a mess with or without Iran’s intervention. Egypt would have its own problems. Can Saudi Arabia continue to oppress its own people and export salafism? And the Israel-Palestine open wound continues. What part of this status quo is desirable or in US and European interests?
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Yes, the deal opens the way for a larger Iranian participation (good and bad) in the region. But Iran is a large country, and it is looking outside itself, also in good (trade) and bad (terrorism) ways. To my mind, better to open some of the more positive channels rather than suppress into the negative ones.
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We don’t know how things will turn out. But did we know that about the Middle East before?
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Your two questions are a valuable guide to where we go from here. Interesting times.
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David Rothkopf’s argument here is a nice example of what I think of as the status quo argument.

Grurray:

July 24th, 2015 at 8:06 pm

To your first question about the reasons for intervention, a third should be added, and that is the social justice doctrine of ‘Responsibility to Protect’, which hasn’t quite worked out that well either. You could argue that the Kurds have been beneficiaries, but it seems they are more like a proxy army rather then a group of ‘little people’ to be ensconced. Perhaps justification is too hard to articulate and qualify in our turbulent times and should just be left to, ‘you know it when you see it’.
An interesting model of intervention is the French, who swoop in whenever stability is judged to be threatened in one of their former colonies. Maybe this is a way to prop up their sense of national pride and pump up their diminished place in the world. It could also be an acknowledgment that there’s an intrinsic reason why some areas developed in certain ways, and that some areas simply require punitive, restorative measures.
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One quibble I have in this otherwise excellent post (so far, heheh) is regarding the notion that the Shia are more tolerant than the Sunni. It does appear that way in examining their system of jurisprudence and some of their practices. On the other hand, Lebanon is bit more complicated. Micheal Aoun is indeed allied with Hezbollah, but the Lebanese Forces, a Christian faction from the civil war turned political party, is aligned with Saudi Arabia. It’s leader was just caught begging the petro-sheiks for money in the last wikileaks dump
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2015/Jun-20/303082-leaks-reveal-geagea-pleaded-saudi-for-money-to-finance-bankrupt-party.ashx
The other main Christian group, the Kataeb is aligned with Israel, although they don’t generally publicize it because the squeaky wheel in Lebanon has a tendency in to get oiled – by those tolerant Shia, if you know what I mean.
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Maybe there’s a lesson there in the Levant for our Rube Goldberg balancing act of Middle East policy. I believe part of Iran’s urgency for signing the deal, other than no chance of ever finding an American leader willing to deal with them ever again, is that they’re conceding the Syrian civil war is lost. Now Iran is jockeying for position to preserve their remaining spheres of influence through their usual methods of deception, ambiguity, secrecy, hypocrisy, and bribery – tactics as old as the Middle East. Given the low cost to benefit ratio, we should think about doing the same.

T. Greer:

July 27th, 2015 at 9:08 pm

Thank you for the kind words Cheryl. I agree that “some of the objections to the JCPOA are, in fact, an objection to any sort of deal at all with Iran.”

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I think the root cause of this attitude is–on average–less about the regional order and its status quo, and more about President Obama. Five Thirty Eight notes that opinions about the deal track opinions about Obama very closely. This makes sense, really. Most Americans don’t know anything don’t know anything about nuclear science or the IAEA. All they know is that Obama has negotiated a deal. If you trust Obama, then you will trust his deal. If you do not trust the president’s intentions or capacity (personally I’m not a fan) then there really is no reason to trust what he has negotiated, or perhaps more importantly, his ability to enforce what has been negotiated. I had this exact conversation earlier this week with a friend of mine. His position basically came down to: “Obama supports a deal, and Bibi doesn’t. Bibi’s grasp on reality is a hell of a lot better than Obama’s. That is really all I need to know.”

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One would assume that analysts with domain relevant expertise are a bit less partisan than this, but I am not sure they are. Had a hardnosed GoP president negotiated this exact deal I suspect that many of those who object to it would do so far less stridently–or would support it altogether. Again, there is something to this. A hardnosed GOP president could credibly threaten to re-impose sanctions, launch airstrikes, or whatever, if the Iranians were not cooperating. I don’t think most people on the right side of the isle think Obama has the gumption for that sort of thing. They simply don’t trust him to enforce with good faith.

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Of course, this cuts both ways; one could just as easily complain of liberal analysts willing to excuse Obama and his deal of any problems. This is why assessing the deal is difficult–I don’t quite trust anyone to give me honest analysis. Those I trust most tend to be from people like Michael Koplow, who usually take one side of left/right debate but here find themselves on the other (Koplow is a strong supporter of Israel, views Iran as the biggest regional threat, and mildly supports the deal), or commentary from countries quite removed from the deal, like most of the stuff showing up in the Indian press.

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@Grurray – you may be right; Shi’a toleration in the ME may just reflect the distribution of power there, which is not in their favor. They need to make friends with whoever they can to survive, it seems. But I’ll stick to my guns on the long term and global implications of what is happening there. Outside of the ME there are very few Shi’a terrorists.