What Next In Iran?

I recommend Juan Cole's analysis of yesterday's Revolution Day demonstrations in Iran, which the government seems to have had well in hand. Internet access was shut down, preventing pro-reform demonstrators from employing the real-time protest strategies they'd developed over the past months, and security services were out in force to intimidate, beat and arrest the anti-government crowds that did gather.

I have to disagree, though, with Cole's suggestion that the regime "checkmated the Green dissidents." Check, more like. It was clearly a discouraging setback for the Greens, who appeared to have some momentum coming out of the Ashura demonstrations that they were not able to capitalize on yesterday, but it's a long game. I think the Greens continue to represent a credible challenge to the system, but I don't know of anyone, apart from the usual neocon hallucinators, who says that the Islamic Republic is in imminent danger of collapse. Based on statements both from movement leaders and street activists, I think the Greens themselves understand that this process is going to take a while, and has a range of possible outcomes, and so should we.

As for the best policy on Iran going forward, on Wednesday I did a bloggingheads with Eli Lake of the Washington Times, we discussed this among other things. I described my view that the "realism" versus "regime change" narrative that seems to have taken hold among some in Washington is not productive, and the Obama administration should perhaps take a page from the Cold War (the actual Cold War, not the comic book version that conservatives peddle) and continue to seek some accommodation with the Iranian regime over its nuclear program (and keep the onus on the regime through continuing engagement), but which also puts human rights solidly on the agenda.


As I note, based on past U.S. treatment of Middle East peoples as disposable instruments in the maintenance of regional power balances (aiding both sides in the staggeringly destructive Iran-Iraq War, for example) Iranian democrats have a lot of reason to believe that the U.S. would sell them out in favor of a chance to resolve the nuclear impasse with the regime. I hope the Obama administration will make it clear that we won't.

Even though I'm skeptical for a number for reasons that a nuclear deal is still possible, understanding that domestic Iranian nuclear enrichment is broadly supported by the Iranian public, even the Greens, I think it's worth considering offering an explicit recognition of Iran's right to peaceful domestic enrichment, as opposed to the implicit recognition of already-enriched uranium contained in the Tehran Research Reactor deal. But rather than presenting this as simply an attempt to sweeten the pot, it should be accompanied by a demand that Iran commit to abide by its international human rights obligations, and the creation of some sort of verification regime along the lines of Helsinki Watch. This won't provide the soothing satisfaction of an Iranian capitulation, but it could possibly bring Iran's nuclear program under control, while also helping to create space for Iranian reformers to continue their work.

(Cross-posted from Wonk Room)

This Man's Death Is Not Your Talking Point

Working in his capacity as amplifier of Israeli alarm over Iran, Jeffrey Goldberg passes this along regarding the murder of Ali Moussavi, a nephew of opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi:

From the Times: "Moussavi was first run over by a sport utility vehicle outside his home, Mr. Makhmalbaf wrote on his Web site. Five men then emerged from the car, and one of them shot Mr. Moussavi. Government officials took the body late Sunday and warned the family not to hold a funeral, Mr. Makhmalbaf wrote."

Now imagine this regime with nuclear weapons.

While I think Mr. Moussavi's death represents an escalation, we already know that the Iranian regime was brutal. Here's an interesting little factoid, though: The number of nuclear-armed brutal regimes who have never actually used their nuclear weapons is only every single one of them.

Another Bad Argument For Iran Strike: 'The Worst Might Not Happen!'

Today, Iran's leading daily newspaper featured an op-ed by a conservative Iranian university professor insisting that there is only one way to deter the American war on Iran that all serious Iranian analysts believe is coming: A massive wave of guerrilla attacks on American military facilities.

This tells us a lot about Iran. They really are a bunch of crazies intent on blowing up the Middle East. Look at what they publish their leading newspapers!

Oh, wait -- the op-ed is actually in this morning's New York Times, and it's written by an American conservative, Alan Kuperman, who argues that there's "only one way to stop Iran": by bombing them. Trotting out the most overworked noun in the conservative foreign policy vocabulary, Kuperman writes "in the face of failed diplomacy, eschewing force is tantamount to appeasement."

We have reached the point where air strikes are the only plausible option with any prospect of preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Postponing military action merely provides Iran a window to expand, disperse and harden its nuclear facilities against attack. The sooner the United States takes action, the better.

Kuperman doesn't bother to mount an argument about Iran's intentions or capabilities -- he simply presupposes that Iran wants a weapon, will get one soon, and that nothing short of military action can change this:

Incentives and sanctions will not work, but air strikes could degrade and deter Iran’s bomb program at relatively little cost or risk, and therefore are worth a try. They should be precision attacks, aimed only at nuclear facilities, to remind Iran of the many other valuable sites that could be bombed if it were foolish enough to retaliate.

Ah, yes, "precision attacks" that wonderful salve for the modern, sophisticated warmonger's conscience. This paragraph, by itself, should have disqualified Kuperman's op-ed from running in any serious publication. The amount of work that "relatively" is doing is here is pretty staggering. One can argue that the benefits of a strike outweigh the risks and costs. I think that's clearly wrong, but one could argue it. But stating that those costs and risks would be "little" -- even "relatively" -- is a flat out, bald-faced admission that you just haven't bothered to do the work.

Kuperman uses Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility as an example of a strike that worked to delay a regime's nuclear program. He says nothing about the fact that the Osirak example is one of the reasons that Iran has dispersed and buried its nuclear facilities around the country, though he does suggest that "Iran’s atomic sites might need to be bombed more than once to persuade Tehran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons."

Considering the consequences of such a strike for American troops and allies in the region, and for Iran's domestic opposition, Kuperman's argument amounts to: "Hey, the worst might not happen!" In Kuperman's defense, he's not alone here. I have yet to hear any advocate of an Iran strike do better.

Kuperman has a history of providing intellectual cover for policy choices that result in huge numbers of deaths. In a 2000 Foreign Affairs essay, he argued that humanitarian intervention in Rwanda would've just made things worse. In 2006 op-ed, he suggested that Darfur's victims kind of had it coming. It is utterly unsurprising that he should now apply his brand of human bean-counting to the thousands of Iranian (and American, and Iraqi, and Israeli) casualties that would very likely result from the action he advocates.

It is, however, deeply discouraging that the New York Times would choose to run it. The Weekly Standard and National Review already exist for promoting this sort of harebrained militarism. The Washington Post's editorial page, too, has, at least in regard to foreign policy, long since devolved into a neoconservative rat's nest. If we're not to repeat the tragic mistakes of the very recent past, then the Times needs to start insisting on quite a bit more intellectual rigor from its guest opinionators.

Cross-posted from the Wonk Room.

The Mullahs Versus 'The Mullahs'

Here's an easy way to tell where someone stands on the Iran question: If they constantly refer to "the mullahs" (religious leaders) who rule Iran, then you're most likely dealing with someone who is disdainful of U.S.-Iran engagement, who thinks that the only problem with the Bush administration's 2003-06 hardline approach was that it wasn't hard enough, and who buys the nonsensical "Islamofascist" construct that powered the "Global War on Terror." You're probably also dealing with someone who either hasn't been following, or would like to ignore, the way that the Iranian system has been changing, especially in the wake of the June 12 elections, from one controlled primarily by "the mullahs" into one that, though still presided over by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and furnished with a fading veneer of religious legitimacy by a cadre of extremist clerics, is increasingly a military dictatorship controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

While using "the mullahs" in such a pejorative fashion may allow certain commentators to communicate their prejudices in a marginally acceptable way and stoke fear of scary guys in robes and turbans, it also elides one of the most important aspects of the current situation in Iran: The role of the mullahs in confronting "the mullahs."

Flipping through the TV channels late last night, I landed on the 700 Club just as Pat Robertson was offering his, err, "analysis" of Iran. Suppressing with great difficulty the urge to turn away from the stupid, I watched as Pat assured his viewers that the Iranian people "hate those mullahs," but then noted that the latest anti-government demonstrations had occurred at the funeral of the dissident Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Montazeri, "one of the better-liked mullahs." I could see on Pat's face that he realized that he'd just kind of clowned himself, but this is the situation that a lot of conservatives find themselves in now. Having fulminated for years against "the mullahs," they're unsure how to react to an Iranian opposition movement powered in considerable part by mullahs.

And not just mullahs, but Islamist mullahs, such as Montazeri himself, who even though he had turned against what the Iranian Islamic Republic had become, remained a firm believer in the principles of the Iranian revolution, in the idea of an Islamic Republic, and in the appropriateness of Islam as the organizing force in society.

Noting Montazeri's passing, neoconservative analyst Michael Rubin (who, though an occasional "mullah"-baiter himself, has also been very clear-eyed about the costs of a military strike on Iran, unlike many other neocons) gets part of the way there:

While the media focuses on popular protests in Iran, such as those which occurred in Iran after this summer's flawed elections, the real Achilles Heel to the Iranian regime is Shi'ism. Simply put, it is hard for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to claim ultimate political and religious authority when he is outranked by many clerics who oppose him and his philosophy of government.

Rubin's right: Shi'ism supplies a powerful anti-authoritarian critique, and Khamenei's meager religious credentials make it difficult for him to convincingly push back against it (the fact that his government has been murdering people in the streets certainly doesn't make it easier). It's very important to recognize, however, that these critiques are not just being generated from within Shi'ism, but also from within Islamist Shi'ism of the same sort that enlivened the 1979 Iranian revolution. Having ceaselessly condemned Islamism as inherently inhumane and undemocratic, many conservatives are now simply unable to appreciate the manner in which Islamist arguments have been redeployed against the Iranian regime's inhumane and undemocratic behavior.

Given the resonance of Islamist arguments, in both their Shia and Sunni variants, to significant numbers of Muslims throughout the world, developing a more nuanced view of the various trends that have too often been carelessly grouped under the scare-term "Islamist" is essential in order to cultivate a more serious and rigorous U.S. policy discussion about political reform not only in Iran, but in the broader region. We shouldn't have any illusions that Islamists are our allies, but neither should we presume that they're all necessarily our enemies. As events in Iran show, moderate Islamists can be an important source of religious legitimacy for the forces of reform.

Cross-posted from the Wonk Room.

Blatantly Foolish

This bit from Peter Galbraith's article on how George W. Bush helped establish Iran as the Middle East's new regional hegemon deserves more attention:

"In May 2003, the Iranian authorities sent a proposal through the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, Tim Guldimann, for negotiations on a package deal in which Iran would freeze its nuclear program in exchange for an end to U.S. hostility. The Iranian paper offered "full transparency for security that there are no Iranian endeavors to develop or possess WMD [and] full cooperation with the IAEA based on Iranian adoption of all relevant instruments." The Iranians also offered support for "the establishment of democratic institutions and a non-religious government" in Iraq; full cooperation against terrorists (including "above all, al-Qaeda"); and an end to material support to Palestinian groups like Hamas. In return, the Iranians asked that their country not be on the terrorism list or designated part of the "axis of evil"; that all sanctions end; that the United States support Iran's claims for reparations for the Iran-Iraq war as part of the overall settlement of the Iraqi debt; that they have access to peaceful nuclear technology; and that the United States pursue anti-Iranian terrorists, including "above all" the MEK. MEK members should, the Iranians said, be repatriated to Iran.

Basking in the glory of "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, the Bush administration dismissed the Iranian offer and criticized Guldimann for even presenting it. Several years later, the Bush administration's abrupt rejection of the Iranian offer began to look blatantly foolish, and the administration moved to suppress the story. Flynt Leverett, who had handled Iran in 2003 for the National Security Council, tried to write about it in the New York Times and found his Op-Ed crudely censored by the National Security Council, which had to clear it. Guldimann, however, had given the Iranian paper to Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, now remembered both for renaming House cafeteria food and for larceny. (As chairman of the House Administration Committee he renamed French fries "freedom fries" and is now in federal prison for bribery.) I was surprised to learn that Ney had a serious side. He had lived in Iran before the revolution, spoke Farsi, and wanted better relations between the two countries. Trita Parsi, Ney's staffer in 2003, describes in detail the Iranian offer and the Bush administration's high-handed rejection of it in his wonderfully informative account of the triangular relationship among the United States, Iran and Israel, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States."

Parsi was quoted in a June 2006 Washington Post article on the Iranian offer:

"Parsi said that based on his conversations with the Iranian officials, he believes the failure of the United States to even respond to the offer had an impact on the government...Iranian officials decided that the United States cared not about Iranian policies but about Iranian power.

The incident "strengthened the hands of those in Iran who believe the only way to compel the United States to talk or deal with Iran is not by sending peace offers but by being a nuisance," Parsi said."

In other words, the aggressive unilateralism of our hardliners strengthened their hardliners. It bears repeating: Here we had Iran offering not just to talk, but even agreeing in advance to the U.S.'s main demands: transparency in Iran's nuclear program, cooperation in Iraqi security and reconstruction, and ending support for terrorism against Israel. Not only didn't the Bush administration pursue it, they didn't even respond. In a presidency almost completely defined by its successive foreign policy blunders, this will surely be remembered as one of the worst.

Guilt by Assertion

Reporting from Iraq, Michael Totten writes about how Muqtada al-Sadr's Jaysh al-Mahdi have infiltrated the Iraqi security services. Totten makes some interesting observations, talks to some Iraqis, but then gives us this:

The Mahdi Army is Iran’s major proxy in Iraq. It is, in effect, the Iraqi branch of Hezbollah.

The Iranians know what they’re doing. Lebanon was their proving ground. The Revolutionary Guards built Hezbollah from scratch along the border with Israel and in the suburbs south of Beirut during the chaos of civil war and Israeli occupation. In Iraq they’re simply repeating the formula, only this time more violently.

I've seen it repeatedly asserted that Sadr is an Iranian tool, usually by right-of-center types who are trying to gin up a war with Iran, but have never seen any evidence for it, and Totten offers none. Most of the reporting I've seen from Iraq doesn't support that contention, and my own research on Sadr and his movement strongly argues against Sadr's being an Iranian agent.

The problem here is that Totten throws his assertion into the middle of some actual reportage, and then Powerline parrots it, and on up the food chain until it's simply an article of faith among conservatives, just like the Saddam-al Qaeda connection and the WMDs to Syria nonsense, to be folded into the larger argument for war with whomever, all the time. (In one of those delightful examples of unintentional irony that continually crop up like leafy spurge amid the defiant know-nothingism of rightwing blogdom, a later Powerline post is entitled "Never let the facts stand in the way of a meme." Heh, indeed.)

I don't think it's correct that the Pasdaran (Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) built Hezbollah from scratch. The Pasdaran trained and indoctrinated several breakaway extremist Lebanese Shia factions which became Hizb 'Allah ("Party of God.") The claim is even less true of the Mahdi Army, which developed, like Muqtada's entire movement, out of the clerical activism of Muqtada's father, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadeq al-Sadr. A central element of the elder Sadr's program, and now Muqtada's, is opposition to Iranian influence. While his pro-Arab nativist rhetoric has alienated Muqtada from a significant portion of Iraq's Shia clerical hierarchy, many of whom, including Grand Ayatollah Sistani, are of Persian origin, it has endeared him to Iraq's Arab Shia underclass, which is where he finds his greatest support.

If any group can be said to have been created by the Pasdaran "from scratch," it is the Badr Brigade, the militia wing of SIIC (formerly SCIRI), formed out of Iraqi exiles and defectors, and POWs from the Iran-Iraq War. It is the Badr Brigade that continues to serve as "Iran's major proxy" in Iraq, constantly battling the Mahdi Army for control of Shia neighborhoods in southern Iraq. However, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of SIIC (and former commander of the Badr), is now George W. Bush's friend , so it won't do to point this out.

This isn't to say that Sadr receives no Iranian support, he certainly does, as do various groups in Iraq, directly and through proxies. After their offers to help stabilize Iraq were rebuffed by the Bush administration, elements in the Iranian government clearly foresaw the coming chaos, and starting hedging their bets, getting their fingers into different pies, betting on various horses to win, and mixing every possible metaphor, as a way to produce the best possible outcome for Iran. It is true that Sadr admires and emulates Hezbollah. Like them, he has fashioned a political identity that combines sometimes contradictory elements of populism, nationalism, pro-Arabism, and pan-Shiism. The tendency of some to elide these elements in favor of a "Iranian tool" narrative indicates a failure to appreciate some of the complexities of Iraqi-Shia identity, and, of course, an attempt to gin up a war with Iran.

There is one thing Sadr and Iran undoubtedly do share, however. The U.S. has effectively done for Sadr in Iraq what we've done for Iran in the wider Gulf region: Pursued a series of policies which seem to have been designed in a lab to facilitate his becoming the dominant actor.

Update: Eric Martin has some other observations.