War
Is Peace, Sanctions Are Diplomacy
Carah Ong
November 23,
2007
(Carah
Ong is Iran policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and
Nonproliferation in Washington, DC.)
The White
House is pressing ahead with its stated goal of persuading the
UN Security Council to pass far-reaching sanctions to punish
Iran for refusing to suspend its nuclear research program. Sanctions
are what President George W. Bush is referring to when he pledges
to nervous US allies that he intends to “continue to work together
to solve this problem diplomatically.” The non-diplomatic solution
in this framing of the “problem,” presumably, would be airstrikes
on nuclear facilities in the Islamic Republic.
With its portrayal
of UN and unilateral US sanctions as part of a diplomatic effort,
the Bush administration has successfully confused much media
coverage of the Iranian-Western confrontation over Iran’s enrichment
of uranium. Sanctions are punitive measures, not serious diplomacy,
and the Bush administration has never undertaken a sustained
diplomatic initiative aimed either at inducing Iran to cease
enriching uranium or at soothing broader US-Iranian tensions.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration’s persistent refusal to take
military options “off the table,” combined with its intensified
rhetoric against Iran, has made sanctions palatable to allies,
as well as to some of the most dovish members of Congress and
the American public -- but without addressing the political disputes
that keep the US and Iran on a collision course. Congress, by
and large, has merely greased the skids.
EXECUTIVE
ORDERS
On September
28, the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the
Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US
-- issued a joint statement, along with Germany and the European
Union, agreeing to wait to discuss a potential third round of
sanctions on Iran until International Atomic Energy Agency Director
General Mohamed ElBaradei and European Union foreign policy chief
Javier Solana delivered progress reports on negotiations with
Iran in November. No sooner had the IAEA released its November
15 report than the Bush administration renewed its push for stiffer
penalties on the Islamic Republic.
US spokespersons
seized upon the IAEA’s statement that Iranian cooperation with
its investigators, while “sufficient” and “timely,” has been
“reactive rather than proactive.” This “reactive” posture, along
with Iran’s blockage of spot inspections of nuclear sites (as
required by the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty), made it impossible for the IAEA to assert that Iran’s
program is geared exclusively toward peaceful generation of nuclear
power, as Iran claims. The US dismissed the positive aspects
of the Agency’s report. As State Department briefer Sean McCormack
put it, “Partial credit doesn’t cut it when you’re talking about
issues of whether or not Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.”
While the report did not give Iran a clean bill of health, its
overall content suggests that there is room for real diplomacy
to resolve outstanding issues.
The Bush administration,
however, had tipped its hand, long before the IAEA report’s release,
that only additional coercive measures would be forthcoming.
In August, it was leaked to the press that the State Department
was considering designating the entire Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps -- created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979
to protect the Islamic Revolution from domestic and foreign foes
-- as a terrorist organization. European allies expressed strong
opposition to the idea, warning that such a unilateral initiative
could alienate Security Council member China, thus forestalling
another round of UN sanctions. The end result was Bush’s executive
order on October 25, imposing new unilateral sanctions and designating
the Revolutionary Guards as a “proliferator of weapons of mass
destruction” and the Guards’ elite Quds Force as a “supporter
of terrorism.”
The basis
for the latter designation was Executive Order 13224, which President
Bush signed two weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks. That
order authorizes the US government to block the assets of organizations
or individuals listed as sponsors of terrorism, as well as their
subsidiaries, front organizations, agents and associates. It
is unprecedented for the United States to use this measure against
the armed forces of another nation.
Several other
entities were listed in the executive order, including the Iranian
Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics; two major banks
and their subsidiaries; and construction, engineering and other
firms owned or controlled by the Revolutionary Guards. Individuals
affiliated with the Guards and with Iran’s ballistic missile
program were also named as “proliferators” to be sanctioned.
Most notably, and inexplicably, absent from this list was Maj.
Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, appointed as commander of the Revolutionary
Guards by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on September
1.
If Bush’s
executive orders exacerbated the divisions among Security Council
members over Iran, there is even more dissension following the
release of the IAEA judgments. European allies have lined up
behind the US position, with France and Britain saying that Europe
could impose its own unilateral sanctions on Iranian oil and
financial industries if the Security Council does not act. China
and Russia, meanwhile, prefer to emphasize the progress that
has been made in securing Iranian cooperation and have vowed
to veto a third round of multilateral sanctions slated to come
up for a vote in December. The parallels to the international
deliberations over Iraq -- wherein US failure to achieve consensus
on sanctions was marketed by hawks as justification for ever
more aggressive US-British actions -- are hard to ignore.
CONGRESSIONAL
PRELUDE
Throughout
2007, in fact, hawks in Congress have been intensifying their
own pressure on the Bush administration to get tough on Iran.
Section 2, Paragraph 14 of the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act,
introduced by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee
on Foreign Relations, said “the United States should designate
the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which purveys
terrorism throughout the Middle East and plays an important role
in the Iranian economy, as a foreign terrorist organization…and
place the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list
of weapons of mass destruction proliferators and their supporters.”
The measure had 325 co-sponsors and passed the House of Representatives
by a margin of 397-16 on September 25.
Though the
bill nods to the view that “the United States should use diplomatic
and economic means to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem,” it
is focused on the necessity of broader unilateral sanctions.
During floor debate, not a single representative spoke in opposition.
The Senate version of the bill, introduced by Sen. Gordon Smith
(R-OR), contains similar language, but has been held up in the
Banking Committee. It is not clear when or if the measure will
come up for a vote.
In any case,
the far more important political cover for the executive order
targeting the Revolutionary Guards was provided during debate
of the 2008 defense authorization bill. Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) introduced Amendment 3017, a non-binding
“sense of the Senate” resolution that expressed the view that
the Guards should be labeled a terrorist organization, citing
as justification the alleged role of the Guards and the Quds
Force in supplying Shi‘i militias in Iraq with money and materiel.
The Kyl-Lieberman
amendment initially contained even more provocative language,
calling on the US to use all means available, including “military
instruments,” to “combat, contain and roll back” Iran and its
surrogates in Iraq. The two paragraphs containing this language
were eventually dropped after several senators and the Democratic
leadership expressed concern that it might be construed as an
authorization for the use of military force against Iran.
Freshman Sen.
Jim Webb (D-VA) was particularly outspoken in opposition to the
amendment, noting that even after the modifications, Kyl-Lieberman
could still be interpreted as an authorization for the use of
force. Nevertheless, on September 26, the amendment passed 76-22,
with the Democratic presidential frontrunner, Sen. Hillary Clinton
of New York, voting in favor, her opponent Sen. Barack Obama
of Illinois not voting and only two Republicans, Sens. Richard
Lugar of Indiana and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, voting against.
The amendment helped to press the Bush administration into action.
HYPING THE
THREAT
Behind both
the White House and Congressional moves is the conviction that
Iran, its protestations of peaceful intent notwithstanding, is
trying to build an atomic bomb. On October 17, the president
told reporters: “If you’re interested in avoiding World War III,
it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran]
from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
In a speech at a Washington Institute for Near East Policy retreat
four days later, Vice President Dick Cheney worded it more strongly:
“The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present
course, the international community is prepared to impose serious
consequences. The United States joins other nations in sending
a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Is the US
conviction about Iran justified? The IAEA does not think so.
Its November 15 report concluded: “The Agency has been able to
verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.”
The concern, as the UN watchdog acknowledged, is that Iran may
be diverting undeclared material to a clandestine bomb-making
effort, but there is no proof that such an effort exists. As
Mohamed Elbaradei told CNN on October 28, there are “a lot of
question marks. But have we seen Iran having the nuclear material
that can readily be used in a weapon? No. Have we seen an active
weaponization program? No.”
As in the
leadup to the Iraq war, hawks are fond of portraying the IAEA
as hapless -- “the UN’s nuclear watchpuppy,” scoffs ex-Ambassador
to the UN John Bolton -- and implying that the US knows more
about Iran’s capacities than is public. Yet the US has long delayed
releasing an updated National Intelligence Estimate on Iran,
requested by Congress in the Fiscal Year 2007 National Defense
Authorization, which became law after it was signed by the president
on October 17, 2006, reportedly because its conclusions are not
alarming enough for the White House’s taste. The most recent
administration estimate of Iran’s capability, delivered by then-Director
of National Intelligence John Negroponte in February 2006, stated
that if Iran continues on its current path, it could “produce
a nuclear weapon within the next decade.” The findings of the
special Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United
States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction further highlight
issues of credibility, revealing that US intelligence on Iran
is as bad or worse than it was on Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion.[1]
The primary
justification for the designation of the Revolutionary Guards
as a “proliferator of weapons of mass destruction” actually had
less to do with nuclear materials, and more to do with ballistic
missiles. According to the State Department fact sheet released
to justify the designation, the Guards Corps has been “outspoken
about its willingness to proliferate ballistic missiles capable
of carrying weapons of mass destruction.” Ballistic missiles
themselves certainly are not weapons of mass destruction, but
the relevant executive order covers both “proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.” Iran’s
ballistic missile program remains largely in its nascent stages,
however. The US intelligence community has consistently estimated
since 1999 that Iran will not have mastered the science of intercontinental
ballistic missiles until 2015. At that point, Iran would still
have to manufacture an arsenal of missiles and weapons to fit
the missiles, putting the actual deployment date even further
into the future. (Also, though the International Code of Conduct
Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation and the Missile Technology
Control Regime are voluntary mechanisms intended to discourage
states from proliferating missile technology, there is no binding
international treaty that prohibits Iran from developing its
ballistic missile capability.)
Since Iran
lacks the ability to reach the United States, the Bush administration
has tried to focus attention on the “threat” of its shorter-range
missiles. Just two days before the sanctions rollout, Bush delivered
a speech at the National Defense University in which he spoke
of Iranian “ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel and
Turkey, as well as American troops based in the Persian Gulf.”
He further cited the Iranian ballistic missile program as a justification
for a heavier US military presence in Eastern Europe: “Today,
we have no way to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian
threat, so we must deploy a missile defense system there that
can.”
Congress has
been complicit in bolstering the perception of peril emanating
from Iran’s missile program. On July 12, the Senate passed, by
a vote of 95-0, an amendment introduced by Sen. Jeff Sessions
(R-AL) to the defense authorization bill. The amendment states
that it should be the policy of the United States to develop
and deploy, as soon as technologically possible, an effective
defense against “the threat from Iran.” Congress has cut the
entire $85 million in requested construction funding for the
new missile defense sites in Europe, however, perhaps heeding
Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ comment (made the same day of
Bush’s speech) that such sites need not be operational until
Iran actually tests missiles capable of flying overhead.
DISABLING
ENGAGEMENT
The unilateral
US steps were clearly intended to stoke the fears of Security
Council members that, in the absence of stronger UN sanctions
on Iran, the Bush administration might take additional measures
on its own. In the short and medium term, however, the more important
question is their effect on the behavior of the Iranian regime,
and there they appear to be a mixture of the toothless and the
counterproductive. The direct effect of the designations is to
freeze assets of the named Iranian entities on deposit in US
financial institutions, but it is unlikely that such assets exist.
As for indirect
effects, the Bush administration’s prophecy of Iranian belligerence
may be self-fulfilling: The Revolutionary Guards are deeply embedded
in the country’s political and economic structure. They operate
a vast and nebulous network that usually does not act in unison
or take a single position. Both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
and one of his stronger political opponents, 2005 presidential
candidate and Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqir Qalibaf, hail from
the Guards’ ranks, for instance. Differences of opinion among
the Guards very much reflect the broader disputes in Iran today:
There are those who want greater openness and increased engagement
with the outside world and those who do not.
Some members
of the Revolutionary Guards have expanded their role in the formal
economic arena, especially the oil and gas sector. These members
have been badly affected by economic isolation and sanctions
because of their need for external expertise to maximize their
enterprises’ productivity. On the other hand, Guards who are
involved in black-market activities, including oil and weapons
smuggling, have no interest in increased engagement. For them
isolation is a boon, as it is for the middlemen and brokers in
Iran and Dubai who launder money and otherwise help businessmen
in Tehran to skirt trade restrictions. US policies that pressure
allies doing business in Iran play directly into the hands of
enemies of engagement.
On the political
level, of course, US sanctions allow hardliners to argue that
moderates are deceiving themselves about the possibility of a
rapprochement with the West. In the wake of the designations,
many former Guards commanders who had been disillusioned with
Ahmadinejad’s defiant stance have closed ranks behind him. Others
have been silenced, the most prominent example being former Guards
commander Mohsen Rezaei, whose Baztab website was shut
down by the authorities for its criticism of the government.
Though it
is unclear whether the Security Council will be able to reach
agreement on a third round of sanctions, side effects of US unilateral
sanctions are already visible. In November, the World Bank suspended
$5.4 million of aid scheduled for projects in Iran until it can
find financial institutions other than the blacklisted Bank Melli
to handle the transactions. The aid package was intended to assist
Iran with recovery from the deadly Bam earthquake in 2003, as
well as with water treatment, environmental management and urban
renewal. Also in November, corporate giants Yahoo! and Microsoft
removed Iran from the country lists of their webmail services.
Sanctions may not alter the behavior of the Iranian government,
but they certainly hurt the people of Iran.
SILVER LINING
One positive
outcome of the October 25 designations is that they have reinvigorated
efforts in Congress to put the brakes on the White House’s Iran
policy. Following the administration’s announcements, Reps. Walter
Jones (R-NC), Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), Ron Paul (R-TX) and Bill
Delahunt (D-MA) held a press conference to introduce a bill designed
to restore Congress’ role in declaring war. Along with two co-sponsors,
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) also introduced a resolution stipulating
that “any offensive military action taken by the United States
against Iran must be explicitly approved by Congress before such
action may be initiated.”
Sen. Webb,
who had broached a similar resolution in March, stepped up efforts
to find co-sponsors for his own bill. After being attacked for
her vote in favor of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, Sen. Clinton
signed up as a co-sponsor. Webb also initiated and sent a letter
to Bush signed by 30 senators emphasizing “that no offensive
military action would be justified against Iran without the express
consent of Congress.”
While he did
not sign Webb’s letter, presidential candidate Obama introduced
his own resolution on November 2. It seeks to clarify that the
use of force against Iran is “not authorized by the Authorization
for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq, any resolution previously
adopted, or any other provision of law.” Meanwhile, Sen. Hagel
sent a personal letter to Bush on October 17 urging the president
to “offer direct, unconditional and comprehensive talks with
Iran.”
DIPLOMATIC
OPTIONS
These pending
resolutions and letters have not exactly tied the White House’s
hands, but they do inject a vitally important point into the
political discourse: Just as the notion that sanctions and economic
pressure are diplomatic tools is flawed, so too is the notion
that the only strategic choices before the US are war or capitulation.
Such was the false choice posed by the Bush administration with
regard to Iraq. There is in fact a wide array of alternatives
available to the US for resolving tensions with Iran, but the
political will to get to the negotiating table has been lacking
on both sides.
To break the
impasse, the US should determine which elements of the offer
made by Iran in 2003 to settle outstanding disputes might remain
a feasible basis for talks. Washington should also drop its insistence
that Iran suspend enrichment of uranium before such talks can
begin. In effect, this insistence transforms the outcome of negotiations
into a precondition for starting them. Dropping the precondition
would signal to both Iran and European allies that the US is
sincere in its repeated expressions of preference for real diplomacy.
In the near
term, the US could offer confidence-building measures to help
bridge the enormous gap in trust between the two countries. At
a minimum, the US should pledge non-interference in Iran’s domestic
affairs, which is, in any case, its legal obligation under the
terms of the Algiers accord signed in 1981 to end the hostage
crisis. The Bush administration could repeal Office of Foreign
Assets Control restrictions that prohibit US non-governmental
organizations from obtaining licenses to work inside Iran, or
offer to replace engine parts in the aging fleet of Iranian civilian
aircraft. The US could also lift restrictions on visas, allowing
for an increase in citizen exchanges, which would in turn foster
the growth of constituencies in Iran calling for a government
that is fully integrated into the international community.
For its part,
Congress can divert to other programs the funding for “democracy
promotion” in Iran in the foreign operations bill. The secrecy
surrounding the distribution of these funds has created immense
problems for Iranian reformers and human rights activists. Aware
of their own deep unpopularity, the hardliners in Iran are terrified
by the prospect of a “velvet revolution” and have become obsessed
with preventing contacts between Iranian scholars, artists, journalists
and political activists and their American counterparts. Such
gestures may not be successful, but they are a risk worth taking
in order to create the conditions necessary for advancing diplomatic
engagement.
The Bush administration
has insisted that the international community place the Iranian
nuclear issue on the front burner. Yet the US itself has not
directly engaged Iran in negotiations, preferring to farm out
direct contacts to the European Union. Since Iran does not pose
an imminent threat to either the US or its allies, it is unlikely
that Iran would evoke so much international concern minus US
pressure. There is time, albeit limited, for the US to desist
from its punitive measures and its threats of more to come, and
to pursue bold and tough-minded direct diplomacy instead.
Note
[1] Commission
on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding
Weapons of Mass Destruction, Report to the President of the United
States, March 31, 2005, ch. 7, available online at http://www.ise.gov/docs/wmd%20report.pdf.
------
CORRECTION: Due to an editor's error, this article initially stated
that Sen. Jim Webb is seeking co-sponsors for Sen. Richard Durbin's
bill demanding Congressional approval for military action against
Iran. He is seeking co-sponsors for his own bill. We regret the
error.
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