A shift in policy – or smoke and mirrors?
The US – Iran confrontation
By: Mehri Madarshahi
The eyes of the entire world are again on Iran and its relationship with the West and in particular the United States. Are we on the verge of a genuine breakthrough and sea change in policies and strategies, or are we witnessing nothing but an elaborate game of smoke and mirrors?
A flashback: on 29 January 2002, in his State of the Union address, President Bush declared his war on terror and identified States like Iran, Iraq and North Korea, as well as “their terrorist allies namely Syria and Libya”, as the “axis of evil”. They were suspected of seeking weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and as such posing a grave and growing danger to the world peace. A year later, the landscape had changed dramatically: Iraq was invaded, Libya volunteered to abandon its nuclear ambitions under American pressure, Syria was silenced. Then, just a short while ago the six party negotiations with North Korea led to an agreement on nuclear disarmament. Iran, the last of the three axis powers, thus remains the last major threat.
President Bush is nearing the end of his term in the Oval Office and there are doubts whether or not he will precipitate a direct confrontation in line with his Administration’s formula “All options are on the table”. Other factors also play an increasingly important role: the immense stress placed on US ground forces in Iraq, war fatigue among the general public in the US, serious doubts about the assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities and uncertainty about the reactions in the US and the world about an eventual military strike. In light of this, should the possibility of a military intervention wane, this may leave room for other avenues, including that of a proxy war.
Contradictory public statements, including those by Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, have given rise to assumptions as to what options vis-à-vis Iran could and would eventually be considered at this late stage. In her statement of 3 June 2008 to AIPAC she restated that “All options remain on the table” and that “a regime that denies the Holocaust, threatens, murders its neighbors’ citizens, and seeks to destroy a member of the United Nations should not be allowed to cross the nuclear threshold”. This corresponds to what President Bush stated a few weeks ago before the Knesset, ‘For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Various “strike packages” and “strategic concepts” for possible action against Iran have been developed and discussed by US strategists, often with the involvement of Israeli experts. Vice President Cheney declared in January 2008 that “the Israelis might well decide to act first” hinting strongly at the proxy option. Are such veiled and implicit threats part and parcel of psychological and illusory war games and are they meant to keep the enemy on the edge?
Recent open declarations by Israeli officials on “unilateral action against Iran” also signaled a shift from the previously stated position that the “Iranian problem is a global problem”. Displaying their readiness for action, Israel conducted a few weeks ago a military maneuver across the eastern Mediterranean that was interpreted as a message to Iran to stop its nuclear activities – or else. This “dress rehearsal” was meant be interpreted as a “writing on the wall, that If diplomacy does not yield results, Israel will take military steps to halt Tehran’s production of bomb-grade uranium”.
Nevertheless, Israeli strategists unsure about reactions among the public in the Middle East and North and East Africa, who broadly favor Iran, decided to pursue simultaneously an appeasement policy with those perceived an immediate danger to the implementation of its putative master plan. As a first step, Israel decided to remove some stumbling blocks by striking deals with her sworn enemies, namely Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and President Assad in Syria. Such a strategy of appeasing Arabs was seen as denying Iran of possible sources of support from its proxies. While the sudden revival of the “land for peace” proposal, driven by Qatari and Saudi interlocutors, may hold the promise of a Palestinian State, prisoners swap with Hezbollah and direct peace talks with Syria could also be seen as part of a grand design for an encirclement of Iran and denying it of external support which it counts on.
To push for a further isolation of Iran, other actors – important for the Middle East gambit – also needed to be enlisted. In his latest trip to Russia, the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud-al-Faisal offered a particular deal to Russia: in exchange for Moscow’s phasing out cooperation with Teheran, the Saudis pledged to buy air defense systems, helicopters and tanks from Russia or, in other words: to facilitate Russia’s re-entry as a major player into the Middle East arena. Russia is one of the major trading partners of Iran and Moscow is helping Tehran to build its first nuclear power station in Bushir.
The most critical decision
The legendary US Senator William Fulbright once said: “The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership…. a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures”.
An attack on Iran would endanger the passage of a large share of oil from the Middle East. Iran controls the narrow waterway of the Strait of Hormuz, through which daily 40% of the world’s oil exports pass, and even a temporarily blockage of this passage could conceivably send oil prices to skyrocketing level with all negative effects on the world economy. Would the major countries of the European Union and the two permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia and China, mandated with the solemn responsibility of maintaining international peace and security, stand by and allow the US and its proxies to engage in another ruinous war which may plunge the world into even greater instability and economic difficulties? But would such an attack really be able to eliminate all Iran’s nuclear facilities dispersed across the country? What would be the reaction of countries within and outside the Middle East? How vulnerable would US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan be in the wake of an attack on Iran? How would the world deal with the deeply seated Iranian sense of nationalism? What would be the long-term price of any miscalculation?
In reality, much of Washington’s concerns about Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons (which some experts put at least 5 to 10 years away) and ballistic missiles capability have been sparked by fears for the safety of Israel and the oil- producing Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. Yet, no war was ever prompted by one factor alone. In any analysis, the strategic importance of Iran to the US and in particular its role in the global energy equation should not be ignored – as has been the case in the decision to invade Iraq. For its part, Iran has immense resources and it is becoming a major supplier of oil and natural gas to China, India, and Japan. It is the geopolitical dimensions of energy, and Iran’s potential to export significant quantities to the United States that may influence the Administration’s strategic calculations.
According to a recent estimate by Oil and Gas Journal, Iran harbors the world’s second-largest pool of untapped petroleum reserves estimated at 126 billion barrels (one-tenth of the known world total), second only to Saudi Arabia. With a slight increase over its present production of 4 million barrels a day, Iran could play a significant, if not decisive role in the global energy equation. Saudi Arabia is now producing close to its maximum sustainable capacity of about 10 million barrels a day. This level of output might probably be difficult to raise significantly over the next 20 years while global demand is expected to rise by over 50%.
More importantly may be Iran’s possession of large reserves of natural gas. Oil and Gas Journal estimates Iran having over 900 trillion cubic feet of gas, or approximately 16% of total world reserves (second to Russia with 1,680 trillion cubic feet). Iran’s gas reserves represent the equivalent of about 155 billion barrels of oil, taking into account that some 6,000 cubic feet of gas can produce the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil. This, in turn, means that Iran’s combined hydrocarbon reserves are equivalent to some 280 billion barrels of oil, trailing just slightly behind Saudi Arabia’s combined supply. At present, Iran is producing only a small share of its gas reserves, about 3 trillion cubic feet per year. This means that Iran is one of the few countries capable of supplying world markets with much larger amounts of natural gas in the future.
Given the present global concerns about climate change and the environment, rising demand for oil and gas and their dramatically increasing price, coupled with an acute shortage of oil refining facilities, Iran is bound to play a critical role in the future of the world’s energy.
No doubt, major US energy companies would be eager to engage with Iran in developing its vast oil and gas supplies. At present, however, not only American companies but also all foreign companies are for all practical purposes prohibited from doing business with Iran, given the different sanction regimes by the United States and the UN Security Council. Nevertheless, Iran supplies over 15% of China’s oil requirements. In October 2004, Iran signed a $100 billion, 25-year contract with Sinopec, a major Chinese energy company, for joint development of one of its major gas fields and the subsequent delivery of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China. US pressure to curb investment in the Iranian energy sector by outside firms, however, has already resulted in halting activities by Royal Dutch Shell, Repsol YPE and most recently Total of France.
In search of a diplomatic solution – and thus responding to a world-wide hope for a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear quandary, which also has spilled over into the US presidential campaign – the Bush Administration now seems to have modified, at least temporarily, its longstanding position of “not negotiating with Iran unless it halts completely its nuclear enrichment activities”. The number 3 person of the State Department, Under-Secretary of State William Burns participated this weekend in the 6 nations Geneva talks on the Iranian nuclear programme. The decision of the US to participate in these negotiations at this senior level – even if only as an observer – was welcomed by the European partners “as a big change and a clear signal to the Iranians of the engagement and commitment to a negotiated solution by the US”.
The meeting materialized notwithstanding Iran’s rejection of the 6-power precondition to suspend all nuclear activities. However, prior to the Geneva talks, Iranian officials had openly embraced the incentive package put forward by the US, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany. The Foreign Ministers of the G-6 had set out a scenario in which Iran would get a temporary reprieve from economic and financial sanctions in exchange for freezing – at the present level – its enrichment activities. During this period the two sides would then work out the modalities of further negotiations. The 19 July talks ended with no conclusion but an understanding that upon resumption of the negotiations in a few weeks, Iran would provide some proof of suspension of its nuclear activities. Dana Perino, the White House spokesperson, stated that “if they don’t accept this offer, one, there will not be negotiations and, two, there will be additional sanctions”.
The added difference is that any failure of these negotiations would be a boon for John McCain who attacked Democratic rival Barack Obama’s willingness to talk with enemies of the US, including Iran.
The trillion dollar question (i.e. the cost of the Iraq war so far) is: should the Geneva talks and the sudden willingness of the US be seen as part of the “grand plan” and another piece of the on-going stage fights or are, this time, both key parties, US and Iran, seriously interested in resolving the present impasse which poses a real danger to world peace and prosperity?
Maybe the comment by Joseph Cirincione, a non-proliferation specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C. may show the direction “No nation has ever been coerced into giving up a nuclear programme, but many have been convinced to do so by the disappearance of the threat.”
Friendly relations between these two on- and off-friends and foes would not only benefit the world community at large, but would also be of considerable advantage to each of them. In such circumstances, the US would need to acknowledge Iran’s need for security and its potential role as one of the most important allies in issues pertaining to war and peace in the region – as already once recognized (in the 1970s) by Henry Kissinger.
In return, for its part, Iran may need to pledge to abandon its posture of belligerence by accepting to behave according to the accepted international norms and standards.
If this miracle were to come true, it would be a triumph for Bush’s legacy!