[R-G] Obama's Iran strategy

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-mcmanus22-2009feb22,0,118591.column

Doyle McManus:
Obama's Iran strategy
The Obama administration is likely to opt for a policy of containment  
in the event that Tehran acquires nuclear capabilities.
Doyle McManus
February 22, 2009
President Obama is working against time to untangle 30 years of enmity  
and prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb, but even his own  
advisors know the chance of success is slim.

So they also have been working on Plan B: What do we do if Iran gets  
the bomb?

Today, the Obama administration is debating its Iran policy behind  
closed doors. Last year, however, four of its key appointees wrote  
about the issue as private citizens, and their writings suggest they  
are already planning for how to handle a nuclear Iran.

Dennis Ross, the former Middle East peace negotiator who is expected  
to be named as Obama's top Iran advisor, argued for giving diplomacy a  
chance to work but suggested that containment might have to be the  
future course of U.S. policy.

"Maybe, even if we engage the Iranians, we will find that however we  
do so and whatever we try, the engagement simply does not work," Ross  
wrote in a September report published by the Center for a New American  
Security, a think tank that has supplied several appointees to the new  
administration. "We will need to hedge bets and set the stage for  
alternative policies either designed to prevent Iran from going  
nuclear or to blunt the impact if they do."

If diplomacy fails, another Obama advisor wrote in the same report,  
the alternative "is a strategy of containment and punishment." That  
was the conclusion of Ashton B. Carter, Obama's reported choice as an  
undersecretary of Defense, who also warned: "The challenge of  
containing Iranian ambitions and hubris would be as large as  
containing its nuclear arsenal."

Most (and maybe all) of Obama's advisors see the costs of attacking  
Iran as outweighing the benefits. If Iran gets closer to acquiring  
nuclear weapons, they've warned, military action won't look any more  
appetizing than it did under George W. Bush.

But that doesn't mean the United States would do nothing. Instead,  
Obama aides suggested in their writings, the U.S. should pursue a  
Persian Gulf version of the containment strategy used against the  
Soviet Union during the Cold War.

What would that mean? For starters, a nuclear-capable Iran would face  
continued, serious pressure from the United States and its allies to  
dismantle whatever it had built. Obama might declare that a nuclear  
attack on Israel would be treated as an attack on the U.S. homeland.  
And the U.S. military would act to bolster Iraq, Saudi Arabia and  
other Persian Gulf states against conventional-warfare threats from an  
emboldened Iranian regime.

And there is some optimism among administration officials that a  
nuclear Iran would practice restraint. Gary Samore, Obama's top  
advisor on nuclear proliferation, and Bruce Riedel, who is running  
Obama's review of policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, wrote last year  
that a nuclear-capable Iran, while undesirable, would not be the end  
of the world. For example, they argued, it seems unlikely that Tehran  
would give nuclear weapons to terrorists.

"If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it is likely to behave like other  
nuclear weapons states, trying to intimidate its foes, but not  
recklessly using its weapons," Samore and Riedel wrote in a report for  
the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations. "As  
such, Iran will be subject to the same deterrence system that other  
nuclear weapons states have accommodated themselves to since 1945."

None of this thinking means Obama has abandoned hope in negotiations  
to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons. At this point, one  
official said, the administration is focusing on Plan A, not Plan B.  
But it's welcome evidence that behind the slogan of hope lies a  
realistic appraisal of the possible outcomes.

During his presidential campaign, Obama called the idea of a nuclear  
Iran "unacceptable," and offered to meet with the Tehran regime  
without precondition to persuade it to change course. And his advisors  
agree that there's still a window for diplomacy.

Samore and Riedel forecast that Iran is "at least two or three years  
away" from being capable of building a nuclear weapon, and note that  
there are several stages between capability and deploying a bomb --  
stages at which the United States could still work to freeze the  
program and contain Iran's behavior.

The first step, Ross wrote, would be to gather support from Europe,  
China and Russia. (Undersecretary of State Bill Burns is working on  
that already.) Next, Obama would seek direct, comprehensive talks with  
Tehran -- with a tangible threat of tougher economic sanctions if the  
Iranians don't cooperate, and the promise of rich rewards if they do.

So what should we expect? The contacts with Iran might start with  
secret talks in Europe between special envoys on both sides, but  
they're unlikely to begin before Iran's presidential election in June.  
To pave the way, Obama and his aides have toned down their rhetoric on  
Iran and talk mostly of outstretched hands and mutual respect. (They  
are learning to live without the phrase "carrots and sticks," which  
Iranians say should be used only when talking about donkeys.)

Negotiations won't be easy, and they won't be fast. It's not even  
clear whether the faction-ridden Tehran government will be able to  
agree on a coherent negotiating position.

Still, Obama has two advantages his predecessor didn't. First, he has  
sent unambiguous signals that he's ready to talk with Iran and  
recognize its legitimacy. That gives Tehran no clear reason to walk  
away, and Russia and China no easy excuse for opposing tougher  
sanctions.

Second, with oil revenues tanking, Iran's mullahs are likely to be  
feeling more vulnerable -- perhaps the only silver lining in the  
global financial crisis. Russia, Iran's biggest arms supplier, and  
China, Iran's biggest nonmilitary trading partner, will have less to  
lose from joining in sanctions if Iran is cutting back on foreign  
purchases.

Ross, Carter, Samore and Riedel all declined to talk last week when  
asked if they wanted to expand on what they wrote last year. But their  
work on Iran before they joined the government adds up to this  
forecast: Negotiations with Iran are worth trying, but they're not  
likely to succeed.

If talks fail and Iran moves closer to acquiring nuclear weapons, the  
United States and its allies will have three options: more sanctions,  
even though they haven't worked; containment, including a stronger  
security commitment to Israel; or war.

And of those three unpalatable choices, containment -- with all its  
uncertainties -- will look like the middle way.

doyle.mcmanus at latimes.com