The Right Response to Iran
BY Herschel Smith
15 years, 6 months ago
The Obama administration is struggling to find the right response to the elections and aftermath in Iran.
The political unrest in Iran presents the Obama administration with a dilemma: keep quiet to pursue a nuclear deal with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, or heed calls to respond more supportively to the protesters there — and risk alienating the Shiite cleric.
President Obama and his advisers have struggled to strike the right tone, carefully calibrating positive messages about the protests in an effort to avoid giving the government in Tehran the excuse to portray the demonstrators as pro-American. Nevertheless, the Iranian Foreign Ministry yesterday summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents American interests in Tehran, to complain of “interventionist” comments by U.S. officials, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
In an apt summation of the administration’s position yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters: “We are obviously waiting to see the outcome of the internal Iranian processes, but our intent is to pursue whatever opportunities might exist in the future with Iran.”
The explanations for this reticence are mainly twofold. First there is the romantic belief in the virtue of the vote. As long as it can be demonstrated that the consequences resulted from free and fair elections, then the goal has been met to reflect the will of the people. But the notion that it is the duty of the U.S. to spread democracy across the globe doesn’t have many supporters, and rightly so.
History has shown that democracy doesn’t always yield results that are in the interests of our own security, and the pursuit of ambitions that would have a deleterious affect on our sovereignty and security would make a two-headed monster of U.S. foreign policy. It is – or should be – the duty of the State Department, the Armed Forces, and the intelligence community to further the security of U.S., not to sacrifice it for romantic ideals. The administration’s observations that Ahmadinejad may have actually won the election or that we should not involve ourselves in Iran’s electoral politics are a ruse. Even if Bush flirted with pressing the growth of democracy throughout the world, the Obama administration has demonstrated absolutely no such tendencies.
The second explanation for this reticence has to do with seeing the world through pragmatic eyes. Oddly enough, with the silence of the administration this argument has primarily been advanced by Bill O’Reilly on behalf of the Obama administration over the past several nights. If we are seen as taking sides against the Iranian regime, the argument goes, then the power centers of Iran (the Mullahs, Iranian Revolutionary Guard) can make things much more difficult in Iraq and Afghanistan, and thus we have had to walk circumspectly.
The problem is that this argument presupposes that Iran has made a deliberate choice to stand down in military actions in both countries as a result of some good will towards the U.S., while the very same choice is simultaneously contrary to the best interests of the Iranian regime. This behavior, if true, would go directly against history and everything we know about the Mullahs. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the Mullahs have made such a good will gesture concerning either Iraq or Afghanistan.
But the likelihood is that neither of these two explanations comes anywhere close to being right. The deep confusion, the dumbfounded silence, the childish bewilderment, betrays a more serious problem. The administration doesn’t know how to respond because this isn’t supposed to be happening.
Rather than there being evil inherent in other regimes, it’s supposed to be the heavy-handed meddling, the arrogance and the poor foreign policy of the U.S. that has caused the problems throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. The world is supposed to be populated by good people who have only the best of intentions, and with enough coaxing, explanations, good will, promises, arguments and lawyerly presentations, peace and cooperation will be and must be brought to the world.
Only when Obama looks across the scene, the vote has obviously been rigged, the IRG stands ready to brutalize its own people, the Mullahs still want nuclear weapons, and the Mullahs have cast their lot with Ahmadinejad as the puppet du jour. The fruitful negotiations that the administration so desperately wants show no hope of getting off the ground, and even if they did, they would be with an illegitimate regime.
None of this comports with the world view. As Netanyahu was recently told by an American official, “We are going to change the world. Please, don’t interfere.” But as we are beginning to see, situations that contradict the world view don’t result in amending that world view. They simply stupefy the administration. Thus they stare in disbelief and silence as Iran goes up in flames. It’s all a matter of presuppositions and world view.
On June 18, 2009 at 10:03 am, Warbucks said:
Actually, this blog bridged to other public blogs with open access, probably holds greater power in offering enlightenment to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, than does any public comment offered by “any” US Administration.
In the loneliness of the night, when the great realization sets in upon the Ayatollah, that endorsing political leaders no longer sustains the faith, he will face his own shadow-self and either come to serve the people or serve himself.
The internet seems to be changing everything.
On June 19, 2009 at 12:50 pm, TSAlfabet said:
Captain, with all due respect, I believe that you have omitted something from this, your latest post: an ending.
Your critique of the administration’s non-response is well framed, but the title talks about the “Right Response.” Your post does not suggest what that “right” response would be. Please do not leave your devoted readers hanging and update this post with a sample speech that you would give as POTUS.
Also, I am compelled to disagree with you– a rarity– on your observation that history teaches that democracy “doesn’t always yield results that are in the interests of our own security…” Examples, please.
By way of pre-emptive strike, let’s not cite the so-called elections in Gaza as an example of democracy. Or the ones in Iran, either, for that matter. Hamas was elected as a result of intimidation and lack of alternatives. Certainly, once elected, Hamas showed that it is a blood-thirsty thugocracy, so in any case there is no need to include them in the family of representative governments. Iran, of course, is showing just what a fraud their ‘theocratic democracy’ has always been. Victor Davis Hanson has observed that democracy is to be encouraged as true, representative governments rarely, if ever, wage war against another one. So it made perfect sense for Bush 43 to encourage democratic movements throughout the world. If only he had put more money where his mouth was and funded some of those movements. In general, the U.S. does not have any problem with truly representative governments. Certainly such governments are not a security threat to the U.S. In fact, if we survey the globe, every security threat to the U.S. is such to the degree that they lack true, representative government. It is one thing for dictators (like Chavez) to hold an election and fool the people into voting him in. A true, representative democracy has taken hold when the people can vote him out.
As for a right response to Iran, there is absolutely no reason why the U.S. cannot clearly state that the use of force (and particularly lethal force) against peaceful demonstrations is unacceptable and, further, that the U.S. will not recognize a government that has been installed at the point of a bayonet. The Iranian people deserve at least that much. This, of course, flies in the face of Obama’s worldview, as you ably point out, so nothing like this is going to be said until after a massacre occurs or until after a popular uprising succeeds, in which event, Obama will forget all about his present cowardice.
On June 19, 2009 at 1:03 pm, Herschel Smith said:
As always, great comments. I appreciate disagreement that makes me reconsider my position.
As an extreme example, let’s not forget that Hitler was elected (based on a nationalistic premise). As a much less extreme example, Maliki was democratically elected, and thus far has both courted the radical Mullahs in Iran and refused to make good on paying the Sons of Iraq and incorporating them into the security apparatus.
I guess the fundamental point is that we shouldn’t pursue democracy in Iran for the sake of democracy. We aren’t sure what we’ll get. We should pursue whatever is in the best interests of the U.S., whatever that may be.
Right now, it’s the overthrow of the Mullahs. If that can happen by democratic means, then we should support democracy. I doubt that it can. I think it will come as a revolution. Is this the beginning? After that, perhaps democracy. But what if democracy in Iran means the continued pursuit of a nuclear weapon with which to threaten the balance of the ME?
I think you could write just a good a speech as I can. Give is a go in the comments here.
On June 20, 2009 at 11:22 am, TSAlfabet said:
Yes, I wondered whether you would use Hitler as an example, Captain.
Again, I think we should distinguish between authoritarian/fascist governments established by a one-time vote (like Hitler and Hamas) and governments which are truly representative, i.e., where the people have the actual power of changing the leadership in a peaceful, democratic fashion.
This is an important distinction and I will happily take your example of Iraq as a model. Iraq is certainly no shining beacon of democracy– it has struggled mightily with sectarianism, cronyism and corruption. (Hmmmm… strangely enough, those last, two features seem very familiar to this American). Nonetheless, there has been at least one, peaceful transfer of power– from the transitional PM to Maliki and at least two, significant votes by the people that were certified as free and fair and resulted in a clear shift of power in the parliament. It is undeniable that Iraq is not acting according to U.S. interests, but that is how it should be. Iraq should act in its own interest just as the U.S. should act in its own. But there is a vast difference between the Iraq that the U.S. has birthed into existence– a democracy– and any of the other Arab regimes in the Middle East. There is little doubt that Iraq and the U.S. will maintain important strategic ties and good relations for the forseeable future and there is little prospect that Iraq is going to invade its neighbors or start supporting islamic terrorism again, so long as its leaders remain subject to re-election. Clearly Iraq has been a huge win for the U.S. and U.S. interests in the Middle East.
Hitler, on the other hand, while he may have initially come to power on the back of German voting, quickly used the levers of power to crush all opposition and extinguish democracy in Germany. The U.S. and Europe had ample time to recognize the danger that he posed, but chose to do nothing. (Again…. seems very familiar in 2009).
You make a good point about Iran: what might come out of this? No one knows, but it is not too much of a reach to say that there are obvious democratic forces at work in Iran right now and should those forces somehow prevail it is inconceivable that the current authoritarian government could remain. The people have seen that the veneer of democracy in Iran heretofore has been a sham and they will not put up with its continuation. It is almost axiomatic that the new Iran, so long as it is truly representative, would not support terror throughout the world. Those policies have always been unpopular to the average Iranian. It may, however, still wish to pursue nuclear weapons as a measure of national pride, but we have far less to fear from a democratic state with nukes than a totalitarian one, and a democratic state, presented with significant incentives to abandon nuclear weapons, is far more likely to consider that as a real option. Consider South Korea and Japan, both of which are fully capable of developing nukes but have not. All of this is a win-win for the U.S.
So, let’s have that speech encouraging democratic revolution in Iran. Democracy is always a good thing for the U.S. It is not simply pie-in-the-sky idealism; it brings tangible benefits to the U.S. Yes, it is messy and imperfect. It may annoy us (like the Europeans do all the time) and may not ensure policies that benefit us directly (as in South Korea in the 1990’s) but the alternatives are always worse.
On June 30, 2009 at 10:06 pm, Warbucks said:
We need to think through a new passive “communication dimension” of foreign policy initiative that initially seems to serve most free-world interests: task military grade communication and observation satellites and drone platforms to enable “public and/or media access” to observe events and or report out information in sealed off societies that refuse to allow the media to do their free market reporting of observations.
While this might prove embarrassing from time to time it would only apply to countries that restrict or prohibit the free market media from doing their job. Rules of engagement would obviously need to be carefully thought through.
Free the media or we will enable your actions to speak for themselves to the world. There is nothing more compelling to change tyrants than 4 or 5-billion wittinesses. Would this serve only the agents of change and not the agents of freedom and liberty? Yes it could be used against or for, our goals. There would be no guarantee it would work for our national interests at all times. On the other hand, it’s not as though we concede any heretofore unknown spy technologies, and with low level drones flying above 55,000 feet, we have a virtual bird’s eye view of every bloody nose, license plate, and untied shoelace. At least engage the idea and give it a trial run.