The Obama administration came into office determined to alter the terms of the American relationship with Iran. Under the Bush administration, the two countries were virtually on a war footing. Some Neoconservatives wished to use the conquest of Iraq in 2003 as a springboard for a war on Iran. During the years after the invasion of Iraq, as the US was drawn into a quagmire, the Pentagon accused Iran of aiding Shiite militias in hitting British and US troops. In January of 2007, President George W. Bush issued orders for US soldiers to shoot to kill any suspected Iranian operatives in Iraq. He also sent two aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf, to menace Tehran. Senator Joe Lieberman and Arizona’s John Kyl introduced a resolution calling upon Bush to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization, which Bush was glad to do. (This, even though the US federal code defines terrorism as the deployment of violence for political purposes against civilians by non-state actors, whereas the IRGC is a governmental organization and was accused of targeting US troops.) Pentagon officials continually leaked to journalist Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker plans to strike at Iran, and in September of 2007 Vice President Dick Cheney launched a major push for war on that country. The American officer corps and intelligence agencies appeared to step in to stop Cheney’s momentum through open statements that the US military was over-stretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, and via a National Intelligence Estimate, released in November, 2007, which assessed that Iran had no nuclear weapons program. Obama campaigned on taking a different tack, and speaking directly to Iranian officials.
President Obama addressed Iran in his Now-Ruz address of March, 2009, calling for the country to give up support of terrorism, come to the negotiating table, and rejoin the international community. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei replied, “Of course, we have no prior experience of the new president of the American republic and of the government, and therefore we shall make our judgment based on his actions.” Khamenei recalled the past negative experiences that Iran had had with the United States, from the overthrow of Prime Minister Mosaddegh to Washington’s installation and support for the dictatorial Shah. But the Iranian leader did say he would respond to concrete policy changes: “If you change your attitude, we will change our attitude.”
Khamenei voiced some of his main problems with US policy. He implied that the US was behind Sunni Baluch terrorism against the regime in the province of Sistan and Baluchistan near the the Pakistani border. He further implied that the United States uses the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) to commit attacks against Iran. He objected that it was the the US that accused Iran of sponsoring terrorism. He complained that the US routinely charges Iran with trying to build a nuclear bomb. Khamenei and all Iranian government officials strongly deny that accusation, saying they only have a civilian research program for energy purposes; US intelligence assessments do not contradict Khamenei up on all this, but the Washington politicians still speak of taking strong measures stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear warhead. Khamenei views such talk as a threat of aggression and sees the nuclear issue as a mere pretext for US neo-imperialism. Khamenei complained of continued US economic sanctions and boycotts. Finally, he criticized the US for its support of Israel.
This speech laid out the initial Iranian bargaining position. The United States tended to see it as an unserious response or even just a rebuff of Obama, because Khamenei denied the very basis of American policy by asserting that there was no Iranian nuclear weapons program, and turning the tables with regard to accusations of terrorism.
From Washington’s and Tel Aviv’s point of view, the crux of the dispute was Iran’s nuclear enrichment program at Natanz near Isfahan. Uranium naturally occurs in mixed form, with U-238 among small amounts of U-235; enrichment is designed to increase the proportion of the more volatile U-235 in the mix. Enriching to about 5 percent would provide fuel to run a nuclear reactor for electricity. Enriching to 19.75% would provide fuel for a medical reactor producing medical isotopes, used to kill cancer cells. Enriching sufficient uranium 95 percent allows the construction of a nuclear bomb. Knowing how to enrich to 5% or 19.75% is not exactly the same skill set as required to enrich to 95%, and enriching enough material to that level to have a plausible bomb is also difficult.
Iran has about two tons of low-enriched uranium, 3.5%, produced over the past decade. Those who fear (on the basis of slim evidence) that Iran has decided to make an all-out effort and attempt to enrich to 95% for a bomb see these two tons as ‘seed stock’ for future bombs. The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly certified (and did so again in spring 2010) that no nuclear material at the Natanz plant has been diverted for non-civilian purposes.
Iran has a small nuclear reactor given to it by the United States in 1969 for producing medical isotopes of the sort used for instance, to treat cancer. It runs on specially manufactured plates enriched to 19.75%, which is still considered low-enriched uranium. Iran so far cannot produce its own low-enriched uranium to run the reactor, and is running out of the LEU it imported years ago from Argentina for that purpose. The international community’s sanctions on Iran make it difficult to import more such material. Iran’s need for the high end of LEU for medical purposes is viewed by Western negotiators as a bargaining chip.
The turmoil in Iran that followed upon the June, 2009, presidential election, postponed Obama’s planned negotiations with Iran. Large crowds came into the streets, and the regime repressed them determinedly and in some instances brutally. With large numbers of protesters arrested and some of them tortured, it was impossible politically for the Obama team to sit down with representatives of the Iranian regime. As the repression succeeded in late summer, however, and the crowds thinned out, Washington forged ahead on the diplomatic front. In the meantime, Iran announced that it had 18 months earlier begun a new nuclear facility in the side of a mountain at Fardo near the holy city of Qom. The announcement apparently came just ahead of a planned US leak of satellite intelligence on the new site, which had been under surveillance.
On October 1, 2009, delegates of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany met with representatives of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for seven and a half hours for talks on Iranfs nuclear research program. During the day, initial signs of significant progress emerged, raising hopes. In the course of the talks, Iran agreed to allow inspectors from the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the newly announced facility near Qom within the next two weeks.
The big breakthrough appeared to be that Iran agreed to send the majority of its low-enriched uranium (3.5%) to Russia for processing to the roughly 19.75 percent required needed to run its small reactor producing medical isotopes. Iran had about 3200 pounds of low-enriched uranium at that point, and and Khamenei’s representative said Tehran was willing to send 2600 pounds to Russia.
The concession was important to Western Europe and to Israel, because of fears that the stock of LEU could eventually be transformed into high-enriched uranium, over 90 percent, of the sort useful in constructing an arsenal of nuclear warheads. If the LEU stock was not in Iran, it could not be so used. Israeli analysts in particular consistently underestimated how long it would take Iran to achieve the ability to enrich at any but the most rudimentary levels, and Israeli Middle East analysis is influential in Washington. In fact, Iran at that time lacked the ability to enrich to more than about 4.8 percent. Since Iran’s small medical reactor, which needs uranium fuel enriched to 19.75 percent to run, and Iran cannot produce it, it made sense for them to have Russia carry out the enrichment. Iran also agreed to meet again at the end of October.
Sa`id Jalili, Khamenei’s spokesman, told the Iranian press afterwards, “One of the important issues we have proposed in the proposal package is to deal with some of the genuine threats which the human community suffers from and should be concerned about. One of these issues is the issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). WMDs are a threat to the human community, which must definitely be dealt with through international cooperation. The issue of disarmament is the most important one.” He said that all nuclear arsenals should be destroyed, but that all nations have the right to peaceful nuclear energy technology, and he urged a strengthening of the International Atomic Energy Agency and of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Jalili’s comments were an ironic way of referring to Israel’s nuclear weapons, implying that the international community was mistaken to focus on a merely alleged Iranian weapons program while ignoring Israel’s actual one. The remarks were also intended to point to the hypocrisy of the nuclear powers of the UNSC insisting that another country could not even have a peaceful nuclear research program.
For reasons that remain obscure, Iran did not follow through on most of the arrangements, to which it agreed at Geneva in October, 2009. The authorities did permit the IAEA to inspect the Fardo facility. Then head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Muhammad Elbaradei, said that UN inspectors this week discovered “nothing to be worried about” at a new nuclear enrichment facility that was being built in a mountain near Qom. He added, “The idea was to use it as a bunker under the mountain to protect things. Itfs a hole in a mountain.” There were no centrifuges and no nuclear material had been diverted to the site.
On the other hand, Iran never sent its potential feed stock of LEU to Russia for enrichment. My own hypothesis is that the reason for this reversal is that a powerful clique around Khamenei regretted the agreement precisely because it removed from Iran the stock of LEU that Iran had built up. In my view this hesitancy did not derive from any practical plan to use it for bomb making but from its use as a warning to potential aggressors, as an element in a strategy that security specialists call “nuclear latency.” That is to come close to the ability to make a bomb without actually assembling one.
This thesis would make sense of everything known about Iran’s program. We know,for instance, that Iran is making a drive to close the fuel cycle and to be capable of independently enriching uranium to at least the 5 percent or so needed for energy reactors and also to the 20 percent needed for its medical reactor. We also know that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave a fatwa in 2005 that no Islamic state may possess or use atomic weapons because they willy nilly kill masses of innocent civilians when used, which is contrary to the Islamic law of war (which forbids killing innocent non-combatants). On June 4, 2006, Khamenei gave an address on Iranian state television reaffirming these principles:
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“The American and Zionist propagandists say Iran is a threat to the world. This is the second issue. Iran is not a threat to any country and everyone knows this fact about Iran. We have not threatened neighbouring countries. We have friendly and brotherly ties with all the countries of the region. Our government has healthy and good relations with European countries. These relations with Europe will be even better in the future, when gas plays a more important role as a source of energy. . . |
| “Their other issue is [their assertion] that Iran seeks [a] nuclear bomb. It is an irrelevant and wrong statement, it is a sheer lie. We do not need a nuclear bomb. We do not have any objectives or aspirations for which we will need to use a nuclear bomb. We consider using nuclear weapons against Islamic rules. We have announced this openly. We think imposing the costs of building and maintaining nuclear weapons on our nation is unnecessary. Building such weapons and their maintenance are costly. By no means we deem it right to impose these costs on the people. We do not need those weapons. Unlike the Americans who want to rule the world with force, we do not claim to control the world and therefore do not need a nuclear bomb. Our nuclear bomb and our explosive powers are our faith, our youth and our people who have been present on the most difficult scenes with utmost power and faith and will continue to do so . . . |
While it is possible to dismiss Khamenei’s pledges and his condemnation of nuclear weapons as a cynical ploy, it is also possible that he is sincere in these sentiments. A great deal hangs on which is true.
The classical Islamic law of war on which Khamenei is depending forbids killing innocent non-combatants such as women, children and unarmed men; ipso facto it forbids deploying nuclear weapons. Some analysts have objected that Iran has chemical weapons and that these would as much violate the stricture as nuclear warheads. It is not in fact clear that Iran has a chemical weapons program, but in any case chemical weapons have for the most part been battlefield weapons used against massed troops or in trenches. Having such a program does not imply intent to kill innocent civilians. Whereas making a bomb does imply such intent and is therefore considered by most Muslim jurisprudents incompatible with Islamic law.
Another suggestion made by critics or those puzzled by the seeming discrepancies between Iran’s pronouncements and apparent policies is that Khamenei is not a genuine Shiite jurisprudent. They note that he has eschewed having followers inside Iran. The latter point is correct, but Khamenei is in fact a mujtahid or independent jurist and has the standing to issue a fatwa or considered ruling on the law.. A mujtahid may always decline to accept muqallidun or followers, which Khamenei appears to have done for Iranian nationals, without that affecting his legitimate right to issue fatwas. The theory of ijtihad or independent jurisprudential reasoning holds that the law inheres in the reasoning processes of the jurisprudent; whether the jurisprudent has followers or not is irrelevant to the discovery of the law in a particular instance. Moreover, as rahbar or supreme leader, Khameneifs pronouncements on such matters might even be seen as a hukm or standing governmental command. The hukm’s or decrees of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic and the first supreme leader, were considered to be unchallengeable and to have the force of law even after his death. Finally, since Khamenei, as the head of state, sets policy on such matters, what difference, in any case, would it make what exact jurisprudential standing his fatwas enjoy? The only real question is whether he is lying and insincere. Lying about so serious a stance would be a dangerous ploy on his part, in a state premised on Islamic jurisprudence.
The National Intelligence Estimates of 2007 (firmly) and 2009 (a little more cautiously) affirmed that that there is no nuclear weapons program and that Iran has done no weapons-related experiments since 2003. Thatis, the 16 US intelligence agencies say after exhaustive espionage and investigation that they assess with fair confidence that there is no Iranian weapons program now and that there hasn’t been one for some time. On the other hand, those who agree with the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, as well as with the International Atomic Energy Agency, that there is no evidence for Iran having a nuclear weapons program have to explain Iran’s insistence on closing the fuel cycle and being able to enrich uranium itself.
The answer I have proposed, which explains all the anomalies elegantly and concisely, is that Iran is seeking nuclear latency. Latency is the possession of technological knowledge and of equipment that would allow the production of an atomic bomb on short notice if an extreme danger to national autonomy reared its ugly head. The reason for the construction of the Qom facility, in this reading, would be that the Natanz facility is too easily bombed or struck with missiles. Afterall, the Israelis and some Americans have repeatedly threatened to strike it. A nuclear enrichment program such as that at Natanz, which is subject to being wiped out by a military strike, cannot truly provide nuclear latency. The Qom facility was necessary in the regime’s eyes if the latency strategy was to be preserved.
In my view, Khamenei decided some time ago on a policy of nuclear latency, for two reasons. Nuclear reactors lend Iran a hope of energy independence. Iran produces 3.8 million barrels per day of petroleum and uses about 1.5 mn. barrels per day itself. As more and more Iranians begin owning and driving automobiles, and as the Iranian urban sector expands, Iran itself will eventually use up all of its daily petroleum production, leaving it without the petroleum income windfall upon which its government depends. This situation already obtains in Indonesia, a founding member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which produces about a million barrels a day but which uses it all domestically and even imports some petroleum. At that point, Khamenei fears, Iran would be inexorably drawn back into the neo-liberal, America-centric order that had dominated Iran under the shah.
The regime has every reason to maintain latency and no reasons to go further and construct a nuclear device. The latter step would attract severe international sanctions and widespread opprobrium with a risk of isolation and immiseration, as is obvious in the case of North Korea. On the other hand, nuclear latency would help fend off aggressive attempts at regime change by the Western powers or Israel. This point becomes clear if we consider the Bush administration’s war on Iraq. Bush more or less announced an intent to go to war at the United Nations General Assembly in September, 2002. His attempt to get a UN Security Council resolution on this issue, his agreement to have UN inspectors sent back in, and US logistical movements delayed the rush to war. The initial plan involved sending the 4th Infantry Division to the eastern Mediterranean in preparation for having them march through Turkey into northern Iraq. Politicking with Turkey’s AK Party was time-consuming and in the end the Turkish parliament voted against allowing American troops through. At the same time, Bush maneuvered to get the 3rd Infantry Division, the Marines and British forces prepositioned in Kuwait. Bush’s armor and infantry were not ready to cross over into Iraqi territory until some nine months after he announced his attentions. If Iraq had in fact had nuclear latency, the Iraqi scientists could simply have put together a warhead in fall of 2002 and detonated it in January, 2003, forestalling the war. I am arguing that Iran may very well desire to be in precisely that position (rather than in the position in which Iraq actually found itself, of being helpless before a foreign invasion).
Even if my thesis that Iran seeks nuclear latency were accepted, might there not be a chance that in the future the leaders of the Islamic Republic might seek a weapon even in the absence of an immediate threat of invasion? Stanford political scientist Scott Sagan noted in one of his essays that one impetus to seek an actual bomb is regime and national pride in the country’s modernity. But I would argue that this motivation does not exist in the case of Iran, since the Islamic Republic is a critic of the alleged horrors of modernity and because it defines nuclear bombs as shameful, rather than something to boast about. There is nothing inevitable about Iran moving toward possessing a nuclear weapon. Latent nuclear states sometimes give up their latency and foreswear even a nuclear option. Brazil and Argentina mothballed their programs in the 1980s, either because they saw each other as insufficiently threatening or because their move to democratic rule lessened the power of the military-industrial complex in each country that had been pressing for atomic bombs.
Conveniently for Khamenei, nuclear latency is not incompatible with Islamic law. It also has nearly the deterrent effect of actual possession of nuclear weapons, since any attacker could not be completely assured of avoiding a reprisal. Moreover, latency has some of the same geopolitical effects as, say, Israel’s unannounced arsenal does, of signaling that other sorts of power are backstopped by a nuclear option. Even an Iranian nuclear latency would catapult it into the status of a regional superpower, nearly on a par with Israel and Pakistan, a development that is unacceptable to Israel. Iranian nuclear agency would also have potentially highly negative psychological effects on Israel, which have been openly referred to by some Israeli politicians. Minister of Defense Ehud Barak has admitted that keeping Jews in Israel is not a foregone conclusion, given that they can easily live elsewhere, in Europe or the United States, if they so choose. Among the impetuses to out-migration is the tension of living in what is essentially a hostile political environment that sometimes turns into a war zone. In opinion polling, about a third of Israelis say that they would emigrate if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon. One may therefore conclude that nuclear latency would function almost as well in Iran’s psychological war with Israel, in making the latter a far less attractive place to live for Jews. Iranian nuclear latency could be a powerful adjunct to Palestinian population growth in helping the Palestinians win what has been called the ‘demographic war’ with Israel over coming decades. Since the West, and especially Washington, now views Israel as a key ally in securing the Middle East for North American and European economic and political purposes, they view such a challenge to Israeli regional hegemony as highly undesirable and might even be willing to go to war to prevent this development.
A major problem for the West is that nuclear latency is not illegal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. For this reason, a push by the US to have the UN General Assembly condemn Iran for its nuclear activities in 2005 failed badly. I conjecture that the Obama administration and its European allies deploy a rhetoric of stopping an inexorable Iranian march toward possession of a bomb because a push to stop latency has no legal basis. This, despite the lack of good evidence for serious weaponization.
The Obama administration was extremely annoyed with Iran for neglecting to follow through on the October 1 agreement at Geneva. Having failed in this initial foray into direct negotiations, Obama fell back on the tool of applying international economic sanctions on Iran. The Obama team made a push for more stringent UNSC sanctions. Washington met substantial reluctance from Russia and from China, both of which had significant economic interests at stake. Russia had hoped to sell Iran anti-aircraft batteries, and Russian hydrocarbon companies were seeking to develop Iranian oil and gas. On the other hand, Russia had plenty of other markets for its arms, and its own natural gas and petroleum reserves are extensive. China, in contrast, probably needs Iranian petroleum imports and Sinopec would very much like to develop Iranian natural gas fields.
In June, 2010, the Obama administration managed to push new sanctions through at the UNSC. The sanctions were somewhat watered down for the benefit of Russia and China, allowing Obama to secure their vote and avoid a veto. He faced, however, a revolt from the non-permanent UNSC members, from Turkey, Brazil and Lebanon, which refused to vote in favor, thus denying the American initiative the legitimacy that would have derived from unanimity. Turkey and Brazil had put forward their own proposal for resolving the crisis, in which Turkey was substituted for Russia as the country that would hold Iran’s stock of LEU in escrow, and from Turkey it would be sent to a third country for enrichment to 19.75 percent for the medical research reactor.
In addition to the relatively weak UNSC sanctions, the United States applied more strict unilateral sanctions, targeting especially Iranian banks and financial institutions that were alleged to be arms of or to have substantial involvement with the IRGC and other militant Iranian groups. By October of 2010, the new round of sanctions was beginning to have a palpable effect on Iran. Its ability to import from some countries was affected. The Iranian rial began plummeting in its value against the dollar, and dollars dried up in the market, being almost impossible to acquire. The Iranian Central Bank is said to have flown employees to Istanbul just to buy dollars across the counter. This problem was a threat to the standard of living of the middle class, which likes to travel abroad, but not an existential threat to the regime.
In September, 2010, when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to New York to address the UN General Assembly, his regime was still defiant on its nuclear enrichment program and other stances that annoyed the United States. In some ways, despite the financial bite of new sanctions, he came to New York with a substantially strengthened position.
While Ahmadinejad’s enemies in the US Congress, especially those closest to the Israel lobbies, had hoped to pressure Iran by cutting off its gasoline imports, it transpired that the regime is not in fact as vulnerable on that score as some had assumed. The government imported no gasoline in August, having used its petrochemical facilities as refineries and imposed some rationing. While measure this may have been a temporary one, it does show that in a pinch, Iran could avoid drastic harm from a blockade on gasoline imports. Moreover, Iran is building up refinery capacity over the next five years, with an expectation of doubling gasoline production. Gasoline is heavily subsidized and just costs pennies up to a certain amount per month. But prices were being raised on consumption beyond the ration, with an eye to limiting growth in consumption. Raising prices so as to reduce the government subsidy on gasoline would actually probably benefit Iran’s economy. Moreover, the regime may be somewhat protected from public wrath at such a move at the moment, since it can so obviously be blamed on the United States and so borne as a price of national independence.
Iran’s ability to thumb its nose at the U.S., Israel and Western Europe is rooted in its vast petroleum and natural gas reserves. After a difficult 2009 because of the world economic crisis, oil prices are up 15 percent in 2010 on Asian demand. Iran nowadays produces about 3.6 million barrels a day of oil, of which it typically exports about 2.3 mn. b/d (it is the second largest exporter in the Middle East). As a result of the global economic near-depression, prices fell to as low as $33 a barrel at some points early in 2009, and as late as July 2009 they were $56 a barrel. But in late 2009 and through 2010, demand soared again, as China and India turned in impressive growth. Asian demand has sent December futures for raw crude back up to around $82 a barrel. The price of Iran’s heavy crude was $74 a barrel in the first two quarters of 2010, but had only been about $54 a barrel in the same period in 2009.
At anything over $50 a barrel, the regime collects sufficient rent on its petroleum sales to strengthen the state and allow it to reward its political clients and bribe many potential challengers into submission. If Germany’s recent growth spurt is a harbinger for Europe this coming year, prices could firm further. Any US or Israeli military action toward Iran would only cause prices to skyrocket, ironically strengthening Iran further.
With regard to external trade, the long-term impact of the new U.N. sanctions approved June 9 is questionable. Although China has reduced its imports of Iranian petroleum by about 8 percent over the past year, it still is a major importer, and is able to find ways to pay Iran despite US banking sanctions. Even supposed US allies such as Afghanistan and Iraq are doing a booming business with Iran (and ironically, US policy goals in those countries make that trade desirable, since expanding trade will likely contribute to stabilization in both countries.) Afghanistan seems increasingly dependent on Iran for its internet services, and, indeed, dependent on an internet firm owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
This fall, South Korea played one step forward, two steps back with regard to sanctions. It closed the Seoul branch of Bank Milli and sanctioned it and other Iranian firms. But then Seoul turned around and, according to the Financial Times, appointed two banks to handle Iranian payments via the Tehran Central Bank, which is not under sanctions. The government thus insulated the other South Korean banks from possible American sanctions and arranged a way for Iran to purchase its autos and other goods.
Before the latest round of UNSC sanctions South Korea was doing $10 billion a year in trade with Iran, involving some 2,142 Korean companies. Iran’s half of this trade has been largely unaffected (it provides nearly 10 percent of South Korea’s petroleum imports), but South Korea’s exports to Iran have fallen precipitously because of the difficulty of interfacing with Iranian banks under sanctions. Sanctions that hold Iran harmless but punish a key American ally by harming its trade and creating a balance of payments problem are obviously foolish. The Iranian press alleges that South Korean firms are also planning to put money into Iranian industrial towns. Given that Obama has invested a lot of political capital in persuading South Korea to join a free trade zone with the US, and to make changes in its tariffs so as to not have the new arrangements harm the US auto industry, it is a little unlikely that he will seek to punish South Korea for its defiance on the Iran issue.
China is the last major country with a robust energy industry still actively investing in Iran, and Washington entertains dark suspicions that Chinese firms are even transferring to Iran technology helpful to its nuclear energy research projects. This bone of contention is likely to form part of the conversation between Obama and President Hu Jintao before the G20 meeting of the worldfs wealthiest twenty countries tomorrow (Friday). Given severe tensions between Washington and Beijing over the massive and growing balance of trade deficit the US is running with China, which the US attributes in part to an over-valued Chinese currency, and other bilateral issues, Iran will be unlikely to bulk large in their discussions. At the same time, it is likely to be among the more frustrating conversations Obama has with his Chinese counterpart.
Ahmadinejad only a little over a year before faced massive and repeated protests in the streets of Tehran, his capital, over the obvious irregularities in the announced voting results of the June, 2009, elections. Observers wondered if his regime might be toppled. But for the government to fall would have required a split in the security forces, which never took place. Other sections of the Iranian elite, including the ranks of the grand ayatollahs and the high civilian politicians, did split. But the opposition leaders, Mirhossain Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, ultimately proved unwilling to lead a genuine political revolution, nor could they attract the loyalty of enough military officers and ordinary people to do so. The security forces stood firm with Ahmadinejad and the popular ferment on the streets has subsided into a behind-the-scenes human rights movement that seems to have little prospect of early success, though it could be significant over the medium term.
Regionally, within the Middle East Iran has a good geopolitical position. Iran benefits from the good will generated for it in the Muslim world by its strong support for the Palestinians (especially Hamas in Gaza). Reckless Israeli moves, including the Gaza War, the attack on the Mavi Marmara civilian aid ship, and continued colonization of Palestinian land, have increased Iran’s stature in the region.
Turkey has stood with Iran, declining to support increased sanctions and running interference for Tehran with regard to its civilian nuclear energy research program. Turkey, which, like South Korea, does $10 billion a year in commerce with Iran, is openly defiant of the U.N. and U.S. sanctions, and intends to triple its foreign trade with the Islamic Republic over the next five years. Turkey has successfully negotiated a free trade zone with Lebanon, and is seeking to expand it to Jordan and Syria, and Iran will likely benefit from this European Union-like Middle Eastern trade bloc as well. Iran is still close to Syria. The Arab publics say in opinion polls that they have no fear of an Iranian nuclear warhead.
Iran’s client, Hizbullah of Lebanon, is part of that country’s national unity government. It arranged for a hero’s welcome for Ahmadinejad in Beirut in October of 2010, during which the Iranian president scandalized Israel with a visit to the southern border, from which he denounced Tel Aviv. The Sunni Prime Minister of Lebanon, Saad Hariri, moved closer to Syria this fall after long years in which he blamed Damascus for the 2005 assassination of his father, a stance that split Lebanon into pro-Syrian and anti-Syrian factions. With Beirut making up with Damascus, Hizbullah may be strengthened, and a Tehran-Damascus-Beirut-Ankara sphere of friendship and economic exchange emerge.
Iran has excellent relations with Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, in contrast to the security problems it had faced from the Taliban in the 1990s. Indeed, it recently was shown that it has Karzai on a retainer of $2 million a year, and it allegedly has many other high Afghan officials on its payroll.
The US has proved so far unable to unseat the Shiite-dominated government in Iraq in favor of ex-Baathist secularist Iyad Allawi. Pro-Iranian Shiites are likely to play an important role in any government that is formed in Baghdad. Iran showed its influence in September, 2010, in finally overcoming the reluctance of the Muqtada al-Sadr faction (with some 40 seats in parliament) to support Tehran’s favorite for prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, with whom the Sadrists had had a feud.
Perhaps in response to the impact of the new, summer 2010, UN and US sanctions on Iran, Tehran announced in early November that it would seek to reopen negotiations with the West over its enrichment program. Lady Catherine Ashton, the equivalent of the foreign minister for the European Union, is said to be planning to meet with the Iranian foreign minister. The United States and its allies warned Iran, however, that the terms being offered in any new round of negotiations would be harsher than in 2009, presumably as an incentive for Tehran to follow through on its commitments this time.
The Obama administration clearly still favors a combination of pressure, via sanctions, and direct negotiations, as a way of dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. Administration officials such as CIA director Leon Panetta believe that a crisis point is still two years in the future, at least. In contrast, the Israeli leadership began a campaign for military action after the November 2 midterms, in which pro-Israel and pro-war Republicans swept to power in the House of Representatives. The Obama administration moved quickly to quash war talk, with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates openly voicing his disagreement with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that the time for a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities had come. In the meantime, the US has been reduced to arming Saudi Arabia to the teeth, with a $60 billion arms deal, as its main way of responding to the powerful Iranian diplomatic position in the region. That is, after a period of direct US intervention in the Gulf region during the past 20 years, the US appears to be moving back to the proxy strategy of Nixon-Kissinger in the 1970s, which involved farming the Persian Gulf out to the Shah to police? a sign of relative weakness in the region.
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