Disarming Tension - 'Obama Goes to Iran'

Even Richard Nixon's most reviled critics have come to accept one aspect of his presidency that can't be faulted, this was his administration's relationship with China. At the height of the Cold War in 1972, Nixon shocked the international community by going on a official state visit to the People's Republic of China. The president, who became a household name in the 1950s by being a staunch critic of communism in all shapes and forms, turned Cold War relations on a pivot by opening communications with the communist state of China. This meant China was perceived as being friendly to America and the two had a common foe in the Soviet Union. 'Nixon goes to China', is now a popular phrase used in the reporting of international politics when a politician takes a unprecedented action in terms of diplomacy to engage with a perceived enemy. 

Now in 2013, does the world need a 'Obama goes to Iran' moment to solve a major headache in Middle East for American foreign policy makers? The region in political terms has become increasingly unstable due to a number of quick changes in governments and the rise of the public voice. Tunisia, Egypt and Libya can attest to this. The public opinion through the use of protest managed to topple the long standing regimes in charge of these countries. 

However, Iran is different. Despite western media reports, the public at large still support the current government and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The 2009 presidential elections that led to the 'Green Revolution' have been misrepresented in Western Media. Polling by a non-profit institute 'Terror Free Tomorrow' showed that support for Mahmoud Ahamdinejad was in his favour by a margin of 2:1 over his political rival Mir-Hossein Mousavi of the Green Party. 

This was a greater margin than the actual results of the election. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had the popular consensus of Iran and the Green Revolution that followed the election results was the reaction of a minority of the Iranian population voicing their opposition. 

The mainstream media in the international community reported that the election results were rigged. Rigging is a possibility, so far though, there is no conclusive evidence to support the claims that the election was rigged.  The absence of a free press in the country failed to show that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was very popular inside of Iran at the time, this is contrary to how the media outside the country portrayed the president, “It was a story that seemed to write itself. But it was also a story that the West -- and the American media in particular -- was destined to get wrong in ways both large and small."

The hope for the current Iranian Government to be toppled by a public uprising is highly unlikely. This means to create a dialogue with Iran, the United States will need to engage the Iranians on their nuclear aspirations. So far the sanctions, political language and Obama's last month assurance to the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel that there is, "not a lot of daylight", between Israel and the United States on assessments of the status of Iran's nuclear program, have shown the United States are unwilling to engage with Iran and meet them half-way on issues. 

Is there a chance for all parties involved to meet on some common ground in regard to the nuclear issue? To answer this the rationale behind Iranian desire for nuclear weapons needs to be addressed.

Iran’s military spending is low in comparison to other countries in the Middle East. The building of nuclear weapons acts as a cheaper alternative for national security. The build up of nuclear arms deters would be aggressors in the Middle Eastern region. The nuclear program acts as a military defensive strategy. This defensive strategy interferes with United States interests in the region. To the United States, “Iranian deterrent capacity is considered an illegitimate exercise of sovereignty that interferes with U.S. global designs. Specifically, it threatens U.S. control of Middle East energy resources, a high priority of planners since World War II” (Chomsky). 

Iran has the fourth largest oil reserves in the world. This is why the development of nuclear weapons puts into jeopardy United States control of energy resources in the Middle East. The weapons would allow the Iranian Government to defend itself against attacks on the country by foreign nations who might attempt to gain access to its resources. 

The United States focuses on Iran in the Middle East as a large threat while there are already nuclear armed nations in the Greater Middle Eastern region that have volatile relations with each other. This can be observed in the relations between Pakistan and India. 

According to Foreign Policy Magazine, Pakistan poses the biggest risk in the region on their ‘U.S. Nuclear Annihilation Vulnerability Ranking’. This is due to the fact that Pakistan, “represents the greatest existential threat to Israel because of its nuclear capability, domestic instability, and hostility to Israel” (Asal). 

Iran shows a significantly lower threat to Israel as it has no known nuclear weapons and because Israel possesses an arsenal of nuclear weapons that it can use to defend itself with. The biggest potential threat that Iran can pose with the acquisition of nuclear arms is not nation warfare but the supplying of weapons to terrorist organisations.

           

Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, Iran has had a history of supplying terrorist organisations with funding and weapons. Some of the most notable Iranian backed terrorist attacks include the bombing of the United States Embassy in Beirut in 1983, the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992 and the bombing of the United States Air Force housing complex in al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia in 1996. 

Iran is a country that sponsors terrorist groups, most notably Hezbollah. The supporting of these groups is not just ideological but also tactical. Iran funds groups that will weaken the countries around their borders which strengthens its security as it has a lower budget than other militaries in the region. 

It is the willingness of the Iranian Government to support such activities that makes Iran a larger threat if the country was to acquire nuclear weapons. If the threat that the United States fears is the state sponsorship of terrorism, then once again, a nuclear armed Pakistan poses a far greater risk than Iran. The Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) is the Pakistani intelligence agency that has known ties with a number of terrorist groups including one of the United States most sought after group Al-Qaeda.

“ISI and Pakistan have a long and intimate relationship with Osama bin Laden and his terrorist apparatus. Before 9/11, these ties included working together with the Taliban and the Kashmiri terror underground, often against India. Since 9/11, Pakistan has become an enemy of bin Laden and al Qaeda, but the environment Pakistan tolerates inside its borders has allowed bin Laden and al Qaeda to continue to operate there” (Riedel).

It should be noted that Osama Bin Laden, the United States most wanted man, was found hiding in Pakistan. Pakistan creates an environment for terrorist organisations that poses a direct risk to United States security. The Iranian Government has shown signs that they are willing to cut ties with terrorist organisations in the exchange for the acquisition of a nuclear program. This was shown with the failed talks with the EU-3 in 2004 known as the Paris Agreement. 

This agreement failed because of the influence the United States has on the European Union. The Bush Administration argued that Iran could possibly be building covert nuclear arms and that the talks were a way to gain time to build the weapons.

            

The accepting of one state that sponsors terrorism with Pakistan and the condemnation of another with Iran, who was attempting to cut ties with terrorist organisations, shows an evident hypocrisy of the United States foreign policy. The Pakistani Government works with the United States Government on issues of security. However, there are significant trust issues between the two governments. This came to light with the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. 

The United States Government withheld information about the covert attack on Bin Laden’s hideout. President Obama made this decision even though the Pakistani Government has stated in public that it will help the United States with their pursuit of al-Qaeda in Pakistan. As long as the Pakistani Government openly supports the United States, the United States will not act against Pakistan. This means Pakistan will not be pursued to dismantle their nuclear arsenal. 

Iran however will not be allowed to pursue the building of nuclear weapons because of the Government’s belligerence towards the United States. However, it is not feasible for the United States to take military action against Iran, unless the United States is provoked. There are a couple of reasons for this. 

The first is the strain the cost of war would bring on the United States economy. The cost of the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the past decade has created a bill of $3.7 trillion and counting. With a rising debt number, the Government cannot afford to go into another expensive war. The second reason is popularity. No weapons of mass destruction were found when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. It will be hard to sway public opinion to back the government into another war based on weapons of mass destruction. In the recent Presidential election, polls showed that war was very low down on issues that voters were concerned about. The focus on Iran might be an attempt by United States politicians to shift focus from unattractive issues such as the economy.

The United States regularly engage in actions to weaken the state of Iran. This goes against the ideology of liberal internationalism and is also proving to ineffective in the efforts to control the Iranian Governments actions.

Iran has been the subject of various United States backed economic sanctions since the seizure of the United States Embassy in Tehran in 1979. In the last decade these sanctions have intensified with the international concern over Iran’s nuclear program. The Department of the Treasury currently list 34 executive orders that restrict United States businesses from engaging in economic activity with the Iran. These sanctions are an attempt to economically cripple the Iranian economy to force the Iranian Government to halt their pursuit of a nuclear program,

“The latest round of US and international sanctions, passed this year, have gummed up the country's ability to sell crude oil, sending Iran's currency (the rial) to record lows and freezing its banks, including its central banks, from the routine transactions that make global commerce possible” (Murphy).

These attempts by the United States Government of destabilising the Iranian economy are part of its ‘complete sanctions regime’. The most recent proposed initiatives, that were the first since the re-election of President Obama, are the most widespread proposed sanctions to date. 

Sen. Mark Kirk and Sen. Robert Menendez want to attach to a defence bill that, “would target everything from Iranian assets overseas to all foreign goods that the country imports, building on the tough sanctions package against Tehran’s oil industry that the two lawmakers pushed through earlier this year [2012]” (Klapper). These fall in line with the Department of States view of what Iranian sanctions should achieve,

“(1) to block the transfer of weapons, components, technology, and dual-use items to Iran’s prohibited nuclear and missile programs; (2) to target select sectors of the Iranian economy relevant to its proliferation activities; and (3) to induce Iran to engage constructively, through discussions with the United States, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Russia in the “E3+3 process” (Department of State).

These goals are to put a halt in the Iranian nuclear program. The United States Government have expressed that it will not tolerate a nuclear armed Iran. The House of Representatives has shown this with the passing of House Resolution 568 in May 2012. The resolution that was backed by the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee says that, “"containing" a nuclear Iran is not an option, and "urges the president to reaffirm the unacceptability of an Iran with nuclear-weapons capability"” (McArthur).

           

The United States sanctions on Iran are not exclusive to Iranian-American trade but also affect Iranian trade with other international countries. Despite this, there are countries that continue to trade with Iran in an effort to keep good diplomatic ties. 

South Korea has maintained a diplomatic relationship with Iran. South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan argued that, “We will continue with commodities trading using Iran's won-based accounts in South Korean banks […] we will also engage in cultural exchanges in preparation for the future when sanctions on Iran are lifted”. South Korea continues to trade items that are not part of the United States sanctions. 

The trading of items not on the sanctions list is problematic though as the United States has placed sanctions on financial institutions that deal with Central Bank of Iran. The National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA) is the federal legislative law that implements these sanctions. It is reviewed on annual basis and put to vote by the House of Representatives. If passed, it is signed into law by the President. 

The NDAA is concerned with the defence of the United States and its interests abroad. In 2012. NDAA exemptions were given to countries that reduced their imports of Iranian oil. These exemptions meant that countries that reduce their reliance on Iranian imported oil would not be subjected to the United States oil sanctions in trading with Iran. 

The countries that do not have exemptions are the countries least dependent on Iranian oil, “The list did not include China and India, Iran's top two crude oil importers, nor U.S. allies South Korea and Turkey, which are among the top-10 consumers of Iranian oil” (Quinn). Countries that received exemptions in the 2012 NDAA include Japan and 10 European Union countries. 

The European Union has a large number of countries on the exemption list because of the implementation of an Iranian oil ban in the European Union on July 1^st, 2012, “A European Union embargo on Iranian oil comes into effect on Sunday [July 1^st, 2012] with Western governments hopeful economic pain will persuade Tehran to scale back its nuclear work but also mindful they are pushing against the limits of sanctions” (Pawlak). 

However, with China and India continuing to import Iranian oil to help ease their energy crisis, the Iranian Government will continue to have a large market to export to.

            

The effectiveness of economic sanctions against a country is still a widely debated topic in the academic world. There is uncertainty to how effective sanctions against a country can be. Sanctions are most effective when economic interdependence is low in the country that is being sanctioned, “when economic interdependence is low, sanctions are likely to be credible and insufficiently severe, making them more likely to be initiated. The result is that trade interdependence constrains the use of sanctions” (Lectzian). 

China continues to import Iranian oil despite United States and United Nations sanctions. China accounts for up to half of Iran’s oil exports, “At 15.5 million barrels a month, or roughly 520,000 barrels per day, China alone would account for almost half of Iran's total exports last estimated by the International Energy Agency at 1 million bpd in July [2012]” (Aizhu). 

Although the sanctions have not stopped China from importing oil, the volume of oil Iran will be able to export in the foreseeable future is uncertain. There has been unpredictability by the National Iranian Tanker Company to deliver to the Chinese market on time. The reason for the delay of shipments is a result of the 2012 NDAA sanction on financial transactions with Iran. European Companies will no longer insure the National Iranian Tanker Company and this is having effects on its operations. 

The United States sanctions are taking effect on crippling the Iranian economy. If Iran is unable to export oil effectively it will lose a significant source of revenue for the country. Even with interdependence between China and Iran, sanctions on Iran can affect its revenue. The United States sanctions have been designed so that the international community will decrease trade with Iran. This means in the event of a collapse in the economy of Iranian, it will have little effect on other economies due to the lack or absence of trade. In effect, the United States has created a sphere of economic containment with Iran. The most affected by the sanctions will be the Iranian population.

Obama's, 'Nixon goes to China' moment:

What can President Obama do in relation to Iran that would be equatable with Nixon going to China? 

The answer: he should buy Iranian oil. 

Iran's most prominent desire with a nuclear program is to create security, which it feels it lacks in the region. If Obama allows a significant investment of American oil companies in Iran, this will mean that America has a reason to be concerned for Iranian security, a crisis in Iran would lead to a crisis in the American oil supply and have a knock-on effect on the American economy. 

Easing sanctions on the country and becoming an economic partner with it would help break culture barriers. Up to 1979, Iran was the most 'Western' country in the Middle East, these cultural influences have not totally disappeared over the years. 

Even today, with 50% of the population under the age of 25, the days of the Shah ruled Iran are not present in the memory of a generation of Iranians, yet the Western influence still saturates their culture. 

Due to the increasing number of internet users in Iran [by-passed internet restrictions with the use of American software] and the presence of Western television due to satellite technology, there is an increasing large number of the public warming to American culture and way of life,

"They often  look warmly on the United States, which is quite dizzying. In  Pakistan, Afghanistan and Egypt, we Americans hand out billions of dollars in aid and are often hated. I come to Iran, and people hand me gifts!"

The dichotomy of a nation who largely supports the current anti-American government but are increasingly assimilated to American culture should be exploited by United States foreign policy makers.

Along with buying oil, Obama could allow light water nuclear reactors to be built in Iran [even go as far as building them for the Iranians as a gesture of goodwill]. These are nuclear reactors that have the ability to create energy for electricity but are unable to make nuclear weapons. If built the Iranians could agree to a third party security firm to oversee the security of the plants so the material could not fall into hands of a terrorist group who could use it to create a 'dirty bomb'. The United States have built these reactors for countries in the past, including North Korea, as a way of controlling the type of nuclear material being created around the globe. 

To carry this out though, Obama will need to guarantee the safety of Israel. To do this, an increase of a United States military presence in the country, could help reassure the nation of Israel and the pro-Israel lobby, that despite a 21st century détente with Iran it still has Israel's security interests as its top priority. President Obama would be unable to sell the strategy to the American public otherwise. 

Could President Obama pull a Nixon in his final term? It is unlikely in relation to Iran but if it were certain it would not be a 'Nixon going to China' moment.