The European Union is finally ready to back stronger sanctions against Iran. Presented by a choice between more, tougher sanctions and the "military option," the EU is all for sanctions.
Wow! What a shock! Also why bother?
The nature of diplomacy is simple. The goal of all diplomacy is to gain advantage for a country and its national interests as subjectively defined. Like all political operations diplomacy is a search for power, its maintenance, expansion, or, at the very least, protection. The practice of diplomacy comes in two forms: The use of coinciding national interests as a base for furthering mutual self-interest or the employment of coercion.
Most of the time diplomacy proceeds by the embellishment and expansion of mutual self-interest. Even bitter rivals such as the US and the Soviet Union could find and expand upon mutual self-interest. During the most frigid periods of the Cold War both governments shared the self-interest of survival, so conflicts were tacitly limited well below the nuclear threshold. From that minimum basis engagement, seeking an expansion of mutual interest was often profitable--even if getting there was frustrating to say the least.
Coercion has often been counterproductive. An excellent example of this nasty reality is found in the record of US-Cuban relations particularly during the immediate aftermath of the Castroite takeover. For a series of reasons which no doubt seemed rational at the time, the US embarked on a series of escalating coercive measures.
The result was Cuba ran to the Russian Bear. Another consequence was the ability of the Castro regime to use the US hostility as an excuse for every economic failure which afflicted the nation. Still another easily foreseen outcome was the Castroite exportation of its ideology to other parts of Latin America. The list could go on almost without end. Suffice to say that the American efforts at coercing Castro into compliance with our policy demands led to such critical events as the Bay of Pigs and, far more importantly, the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Further back in our history, coercive diplomacy directed against Imperial Japan resulted in a rather important consequence: Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific. Coercion, even the relatively mild sort of economic sanctions, can lead to foreseeable and unfortunate results such as World War II.
On many other occasions coercion has simply been ineffective. Cast your memory back to the use of the US military as the globe's largest SWAT force in Operation Just Cause. The run up to that adventure in regime change was marked by escalating economic sanctions. The H.W. Bush administration was certain that economic pressure would have to work given that Panama used the Yankee dollar as its circulating medium. It didn't. The only alternative to a humiliating admission of failure was the "military option."
This brings us to Iran.
Non-coercive diplomatic engagement depends upon the pre-existence of coinciding national interests. Without some matrix of prior mutual national interests there is little, if any, cause to believe that engagement will have a positive result.
To put it bluntly: There is no coinciding national interest between the US and Iran. This is not the case with regard to many of the EU countries. Germany, France and Italy all have substantial trade interests with Iran. But, the trade is arguably more important to the entrepreneurs of these countries than it is to Iran.
The Iranians, particularly that state within a state, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, have shown both creativity and persistence in evading the impact of the sanctions already in place. Further sanctions would bring more creativity and more persistence in its wake. Given the willingness of China and Russia to turn the Nelsonian Eye on the sanctions as well as the new avenue opened by the close relationship between Iran and Venezuela, there is no doubt that Iran will not be fatally injured by any conceivable set of additional sanctions.
Absent a base of coinciding national interests and given a relative immunity to economic pressures, there is little reason to conclude that either engagement or another round of sanctions will produce any movement on the key issue of Iran's nuclear program. That is a critical predicate.
A second critical predicate that reinforces the first is the power of nationalism in the Iranian collective mind. In so far as the regime can place responsibility for internal pain on the external actors led by the mullahs' two main enemies--the US and Israel--it plays to nationalism and thus furthers regime consolidation and support. As the historical record shows clearly (again think Cuba), external pressure is the best friend a government can have.
Remember the key rule of international politics including war--pressure consolidates long before it fragments.
Admittedly, the Obama administration must go through the motions of seeking to resolve the challenge presented by the Iranian nuclear program through the mechanisms of engagement and non-violent coercion. The administration--and the rest of us--should have no expectations of success emerging from this process. Anything else is pure delusion.
This implies that there are only two options available in the real world. One is accepting the Iranian nuclear capacity. The other is war. (Let's call it what it is.)
To say the least, neither option is palatable. Accepting Iran as a de facto nuclear power implies that non-proliferation is a dead duck. If Iran can get the bomb--or at a minimum--a breakout capacity, why not other countries? It is necessary to consider a world in which Burma, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and a host of other countries with ambitions and fears have the ability to plant radioactive mushrooms.
Not pleasant is it?
(Of course, it is always possible to entertain delusions of a nuclear weapons free world, but the more countries that have the Big Bomb the more will think they must have one too simply for survival if no other reason.)
Air and missile strikes carried out on the Iranian nuclear complex as well as necessary associated targets ranging from air defense installations to government facilities could, probably would, halt the nuclear program for at least some years. However, the cost could outweigh the benefits. Since it is never possible to calculate the cost-benefit ratio until long after the war has ended, the prudent government must base its pre-war appraisal on the worst realistic case.
Anyway the question is examined, the costs of a strike or strikes against Iran are greater than the benefits. While the US (or in high probability the Israelis) have the physical capacity to abate the Iranian nuclear nuisance, the metaphorical fallout would be quite significant.
If there is no base for engagement from the existence of coinciding national interest and no real potential for coercive diplomacy (including the war option) having a good outcome, where does that leave the US and the rest of the world?
Well, if one is of the High Minded persuasion, that is if one really, really believes that we exist in a post-nationalist world, it is possible to dream of a UN sponsored removal of nuclear weapons from the globe. Outside of academic and similar elite circles in the US and Western Europe, the notion of a post-nationalistic international political dynamic is without traction, or even the least appeal.
The alternative is to accept the existence of a nuclear armed Iran and all that implies. Regional political dynamics will be altered--profoundly. The potential of nuclear proliferation will be augmented, perhaps exponentially.
If the reality of a nuclear capable Iran is accepted, the time has come to contemplate how the US can conduct its international relations in order to minimize the damage to its national and strategic interests. The time has come to look for ways in which the US can employ the new reality to its advantage--difficult or even impossible as that may seem.
Certainly, the US and the other parties of the P5+1 must go through the motions. They must do the diplomatic yada-yada which will ensue in Turkey and elsewhere. If the expectations are low enough, it might be a useful exercise--at least as far as clearing the decks is concerned.
But, there can be no doubt that as the palaver spins so do the centrifuges. Iran will not be deterred nor diverted this late in the game. Whether any nation likes it or not, Iran will join the nuclear club shortly.
The conclusion?
Simple, but unpleasant. The real foreign policy challenge for President Obama and Company is crafting a way to exploit to our advantage the altered balance in the region--and the world. This will require a degree of thought and realpolitik orientation not seen since George Kennan, Dean Acheson, and Harry Truman developed and implemented the ultimately successful Doctrine of Containment over a half century ago.
Can the current administration match the brain power and realism demonstrated by these long dead giants? That is the key question.
The Geek has his doubts. Lots of them.
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