Engage Iran's Citizens, Isolate Its Government

Vacillating bolsters the fundamentalist Ayatollahs.

When it comes to grappling with the challenges posed by events in Iran, the Obama administration seems to be at sea. President Obama cited "fixed national security interests" on July 4th as the basis of negotiating with Iran's government despite its increasing unpopularity. A day later, while reaffirming "we will engage," Vice President Biden raised once more the prospect of a preemptive strike by Israel against Iran. Not to be outdone, Secretary of State Clinton while also endorsing "a policy of engagement" muddied the waters further by commenting that if Iran's government did not cooperate "we would ask the world to join us in imposing even stricter sanctions." Essentially the U.S. government lays right where the Iranian hard-liners have placed it with thirty years of intransigence -- uncertain of how to act and ever-hopeful of cooperation.

Realpolitik is not always the best path forward. Negotiating with an Iranian regime that lacks credibility among its own people would be tantamount to conferring international legitimacy upon it. If repression does not curtail negotiations with the current Iranian government at this time, then the United States and its allies will be demonstrating yet again to the Iranian people that the West's strategic interests take precedence to all else. Moreover the United States and its friends will lose twice over for, based on past experience, dialogue with Iran's present leadership is unlikely to produce mutually beneficial results.

Essential changes are underway inside Iran, initiated and sustained by its citizens. Perhaps the emerging coalition of pragmatic mullahs, moderate politicians, economically-strained entrepreneurs, democratic-minded men and women, and activist university students will prevail over fundamentalism. Those social groups played pivotal roles during Iran's Constitutional Revolution in 1906 and Islamic Revolution in 1979. If not now, then in the future, Iranians will succeed -- only they can change their government.

President Obama mentioned an important notion by the medieval Persian poet Sa'di in a video message to the Iranian people for their recent New Year, "The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence." Iranians interpreted Obama's presentation as a statement of solidarity with their aspirations. The United States of America and its partners now cannot afford to not heed the subsequent line of that same verse, "When calamitous times afflict one limb, the other limbs cannot remain inactive." The horrific yet hopeful events in Iran have created an opportunity for western leaders to be politically and morally forceful.

So how should the United States and its allies proceed? The Obama administration and its foreign partners need to concentrate on tangibly engaging Iran's people while strategically isolating that country's hard-line leaders.

First, the United States and its partners could expand information flow, interpersonal contact, and economic cooperation with the Iranian people. Iran's ruling xenophobes seek to isolate their citizens. An open society is the most serious threat to those extremists' authority, generating conditions under which close-minded ideas will be rejected. USAID grants to support civil society and rule of law in Iran together with the Near Eastern Regional Democracy Initiative are beginnings in that direction. So are educational exchanges with American universities. Non-military and non-nuclear commercial ventures should be encouraged as well, for the positive effects of technology among Iran's people have become vividly evident. Facilitating Iranians in their quest to create an open society will encourage dialogue with the West.

Second, Iran's fundamentalist and militant leaders can be held responsible for crimes against their people. U.S. President Obama, French President Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Brown, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban have taken initial steps by condemning the brutal crackdown. Placing tougher travel, communication, technology, and financial restrictions specifically upon high-level Iranian officials and their repressive organizations, via the U.N. Security Council and through multilateral arrangements, would spotlight the unlawful nature of their actions. Even if only partially effective, selective sanctions on the leadership will be appreciated by most other Iranians who have suffered so much for so long.

Third, concerted effort should be directed at attenuating ties between hardliners in Iran and members of Hezbollah and Hamas. Reports suggest that foreign Arab fighters provided assistance recently in quashing the Iranian people's fundamental rights. Attempts by the Iranian government to step-up aiding those militant groups, largely to shore up its own image across the Middle East, will occur. Such ventures must be negated in order to help stabilize the Middle East.

Fourth, claims by Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei and president Ahmadinejad of not developing nuclear weapons need to be discounted as taqiyya -- a Persian term for deception. The ayatollahs' regime is likely to exercise nuclearization as a means of drumming up support within Iran. Their leaders are prone, as well, to come away from current events more convinced that nuclear weapons can coerce the West. Attacking Iran's nuclear facilities is futile for the regime there has the knowledge and resources to rebuild. An assault also will provoke ultranationalist and anti-western sentiments that would undercut building bridges to Iran's people. Directly targeting Iran's leaders and their nuclear program through more forceful, well-enforced, sanctions have better probabilities of success.

Ultimately it is Iran's people who count, not their current regime. Relations with Iran's government cannot be grounded on expectations of its cooperation in nuclear nonproliferation, anti-terrorism, and Middle East peace at the expense of the Iranian people's liberty. Such a compromise will come back to haunt everyone once Iranians expunge the theocracy -- as happened thirty years ago after the United States and its allies sustained engagement with the last Shah when his regime became repressive. Only an Iranian government truly representative of its people's political aspirations, attuned to its citizens' socioeconomic needs, and open to the marketplaces of knowledge and technology will work with the West toward compromise and coexistence. These seemingly obvious issues have tripped up U.S. and other western administrations many a time.

Comments

[Khirad]

"USAID grants to support civil society and rule of law in Iran together with the Near Eastern Regional Democracy Initiative are beginnings in that direction."

Sorry, I'm with Trita Parsi on this one. No! It just falls into the conspiracy theorist's hands (both VEVAK propagandists and enthusiasts abroad). Even if it *is* to just aid people who are genuinely working within the system to improve conditions in Iran, the fact that it comes from *us* puts these groups at peril, and is ultimately counterproductive. We've got an indigenous movement here, let's not stunt it.

Working diplomatic backchannels with friendly governments, helping increase internet bandwidth, etc. are some ways I see as helping; as well as engaging Syria to mitigate its anachronistic relationship with Iran via Hezbollah. An Alawite does not necessarily a natural ally make.

With the likes of Mesbah-Yazdi issuing a fatwa sanctioning tricky business, in a sense, the taqiyya point is understood - but I think we can give this a couple years, depending on if we get any actual verifiable evidence they are pursuing their weapons in the meantime.

[Wozzeck]

"Fourth, claims by Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei and president Ahmadinejad of not developing nuclear weapons need to be discounted as taqiyya -- a Persian term for deception."

Your evidence for this claim?

[Wozzeck]

You should share with the CIA any evidence you have of Iran's non-compliance with the NNPT Stating a hunch as though it is fact is "taqiyya", is it not?

[Inquisitr]

We cannot legitimize a non legitimate government.

I agree fully with this article. We should have been helping the people communicate from the get go. I've personally set up multiple proxies to help with communication from Iran, but the US government should have been doing far far more to free communication.

I feel we should have been at the UN from day 1 calling for international help with this. the point about saying enough to get blamed by the mullahs is exactly right so if we're going to be damned, let's be damned.

However I do feel that bombing the facilities must be on the table as long as the current regime rules. They may be able to rebuild, but it must not be allowed to have a working weapon. We just need to be willing to spend the time and resources to ensure the strikes are completely surgical. Dangerous for our troops, but must be done if we get to that point.

As for ecconomics working alone to help reform a society, it hasn't worked so well in China has it? But they have nukes, so we can no longer try and stop them. Economics is all we have. Iran must not get to that point.

[Jamsheed K. Choksy - Huffpost Blogger]

India is a democracy and, even when elections results generate controversy, there are regular universal franchise-based transitions of power. That's why the USA and its allies can work with governments in India and with the Indian people.

[Hass]

As if the US is only engaged with democracies around the world and not repressive tyrannies far far worse that Iran. Our best friend and ally in Egypt, President-for-Life Mubarak, makes a habit of regularly and quite literally shooting voters in the streets to prevent them from reaching ballot boxes -- and yet the US has excellent relations with Egypt (incidentally, Egypt, quite unlike IRan, flatly refuses to sign the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, whilst they have been caught conducting secret nuclear experiments and unexplained traces of highly-enriched uranium have been found there too.)

[Inquisitr]

Mubarak doesn't interfere in other countries like Iran does.

Mubarak has been willing to negotiate in good faith, unlike Iran.

Mubarak does not rule a theocratic government like Iran.

Egypt has no "council of experts" to decide who may or may not run like Iran does.

I can go on, but your analogy is very very weak. China would have been a better example, but still not good enough to do what you're trying to do.

[Zheegool]

"at sea" is an understatement.
The obama administration has basically done everything the mullah's asked for:
- Said enough to allow them to blame the US for interference, without really supporting the people
- Made enough veiled threats of military strikes to galvanize the Iranian conservatives as opposed to trying to divide them
- Shown lack of consistency or unity with European partners to give Iranian mullahs comfort that they will still be able to negotiate after crushing their own people.
It's really very dissapointing, and the level of intelligence one would have expected from the prior administration.

Why is Press TV (the Iranian Govt's english channel) allowed to broadcase from London when BBC and all other foreign press has been banned from Iran?
Why are European diplomats still in Iran after Iranian government imprisons local British embassy employees?
The mullahs in Iran know how to play this game. Keep the enemy on the defensive to avoid showing your own weakness. Push the limit and cross over the red line, and then retreat when you have to since nobody has the will to hold you accountable.
This is how they outplayed the west on the nuke issue, and this is how they have survivied for 30 years in every crisis.
But today the regime is at its weakest ever. Its bluff needs to be called. With smart policy the Iranian people can be supported and their democratic aspirations realized.

[Jamsheed K. Choksy - Huffpost Blogger]

Well put Zheegool.

[Hass]

Give me a break. There was never any actual evidence of voter fraud in Iran (see IranAffairs.com for the breakdown of the claims and counter-claims) and "the people" of Iran are not represented by rioting students and Facebook/Twitter users. A bunch of exiles sitting comfortably abroad make for great armchair revolutionary leaders.

[wereeverywhere]

The regime is at its weakest because the reform movement inserted itself in the IRI's undemocratic process. If the US and Israel could now shut up keep their hands off, it would be a gift to the Iranians. The damage these two countries caused in Iran is incalculable.

[Pye Ian - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree with the author's proposal to engage Iran economically and in tactical means through cultural exchanges. However, the author contradicts himself by, on one hand calling for said economic engagement, and on the other for "more forceful, well-enforced, sanctions have better probabilities of success."

Sure, he means sanctions against nuclear proliferation, but engaging while antagonizing is never a viable mix - especially with a polity as mercurial as Iran's (i.e. showing signs of democratic yearnings one day, while falling back on nationalistic defensive sentiments the next when it comes to their 'nuclear rights').

Washington cannot ignore its wider geopolitical interests, either. I.E. Iran's relations with Pakistan, Moscow, China, Venezuela, et al., who are all married to the mullahs. It is time to change the playbook completely, and start interacting with Iran like we interact with India. The force of economic engagement will eventually bring Iran's fidelities and behavior around.

No other viable, implementable alternative remains.