Today John McCain outlined his path forward on Iran. He started by mocking Barack Obama's proposals for engagement claiming that they've been tried before and failed. He completely mischaracterized Obama's position which is about tough and direct negotiations. He instead argued for continuing the failed policies of the Bush Administration, calling for more sanctions and international pressure and refusing to engage with Iran. The problem with this approach is that for the past eight years it has yielded no results: Iran has gotten stronger, its uranium enrichment program has continued unabated, and it now possesses 3,000 nuclear centrifuges as opposed to zero. The course that McCain is proposing has yielded nothing. Continuing on this path ensures that at some time in the future whether it be three, five or ten years, Iran will be in a position to attain a nuclear weapon. At that point the President's options will be limited to either striking Iran militarily - a costly endeavor that in the long run is unlikely to slow down Iran's nuclear program - or allowing Iran to go nuclear. Direct diplomacy won't necessarily solve all of our problems but it is surely better than the current failed course, and it is worth trying.
McCain argues that the Clinton Administration already tried engaging in
1998 and that the entreaties were rebuffed. He's right. Supreme Leader
Ali Khamenei vetoed any talks at that time. But McCain is selectively
cherry picking history. The story of the last 15 years between Iran
and the U.S. is one of missed opportunities on both sides. The best
example is from 2003, where right after the start of the Iraq War
senior officials in the Iranian Foreign Ministry sent the "Grand
Bargain fax" to the Bush Administration outlining what a deal between
the U.S. and Iran might look like. The Bush Administration decided not
to respond because of its position of strength at the time and the
belief that Iranian reformists couldn't deliver on their promises. In
the late 1980s and early 1990s Iran worked to have Hezbollah release
all of the American hostages in Lebanon and in exchange expected
greater engagement from the United States. But while the first Bush
Administration had signaled that it would in fact engage after the 1992
U.S. Presidential elections, when they lost, the Clinton Administration
decided instead opt for a dual containment policy. Elements in the
Iranian government who had supported engagement with the U.S. ended up
feeling spurned. The story is much more complicated than: "the U.S.
has tried talking and Iran has refused."
McCain also portrays Ahmadinejad as the man to negotiate with in Iran.
First of all, Obama is not proposing sitting down for direct talks with
Ahmadinejad but with the Iranian government. Second, as Joe Klein has
pointed out - and McCain has refused to acknowledge - Khameini - not
Ahmadinejad - runs Iran's foreign policy.
McCain also claims that Iran has a comprehensive offer on the table
from the Europeans and since it has not accepted, it would never accept
an offer from the United States. But the Europeans don't have massive
armies on both of Iran's borders. They are not perceived as being the
security threat to Iran. Iran is concerned about the United States and
is afraid that if it came to an agreement with the Europeans, it would
then have to renegotiate the entire deal with the United States.
Direct talks with the United States would in fact be meaningfully
different.
McCain argues that talking with the Iranian regime would empower
extremists instead of moderates. But as Matt Duss points out
As for "increasing the prestige" of Ahmadinejad, as Iran analysts Vali
Nasr and Ray Takeyh pointed out last December, Ahmadinejad's prestige
has benefited from the bellicose rhetoric coming from American
conservatives, allowing him "to suppress dissent and divert attention
from domestic woes to international crises he is only too happy to
fuel."
McCain also claims that he will support for comprehensive sanctions,
but those sanctions will be ineffective if they are not agreed to by
countries such as China and Russia, who are significant trading
partners with Iran and to this point have stopped the Bush
Administration from imposing tougher UN sanctions. These sanctions are
nice in theory but McCain won't be able to implement them. In fact,
the only way that they could be implemented was if the United States
made a genuine effort to engage Iran and its entreaties were rebuffed.
Under that scenario the international community would likely be much
more willing to go along with sanctions, if it was perceived that Iran
was wholly in the wrong and all good faith efforts had been made to
resolve the situation.
In the end, McCain's plan is basically the Bush plan. If we continue
down this track then Iran will simply continue to enrich uranium and at
some point whether it be three, five or ten years from now an American
President will be faced with the choice of having to either bomb Iran
or let it go nuclear. Instead, what is needed a comprehensive rethink
of America's strategy.
At NSN we have written a paper on such an approach. It involves direct
and tough negotiations with Iran's government, without preconditions,
on all issues including Iraq, terrorism and the nuclear question. It's
absolutely critical that these talks take place so that at the very
least the Iranians are actually clear about American position and vice
versa and to open up a channel for communication. Our strategy is
also not opposed to economic sanctions and incentives as long as they
are used responsibly as part of an actual strategy to get the Iranian
government to change its behavior. Sanctions without a broader
strategy are useless and only further alienate the Iranians. The
strategy also argues that while we are strongly opposed to a bombing
campaign against Iran and see tremendous costs for such actions,
threats of force can sometimes be useful. But they have to be credible
and they again have to be part of a comprehensive strategy to change
behavior. What we have right now from John McCain and the Bush
Administration is simply needless saber rattling that inflames
nationalist passions on both sides.
No one is actually proposing the straw man position that John McCain
posited this morning. No one thinks that we can simply wish this
problem away through direct talks. But many, including the bi-partisan
Iraq Study Group, believe that there is some benefit to careful, direct
and tough diplomacy. It sure beats McCain's status quo proposal, which
is essentially to do nothing.