I think the Iranians are probably prudent not to “give a damn†about any UNSC resolution that may emerge about their nuclear development program. The encouragement that China and Russia are giving them will, no doubt, convince them that whatever the Security Council does come up with will be so much hot air.
Of course, if the EU3 and the United States were to exert real efforts towards convincing the Russians and the Chinese in allowing a resolution with real teeth to emerge and then complying with it themselves, I believe that the Iranians would give a damn and there’d be some chance of averting a genuine disaster.
Hope springs eternal.
Speaking of hot air, Allahpundit has much, much more.
I think the russians and chinese are trying to be careful not to give us anything to use to say the UN pre-approved our attack on iran.
They had agreed to sanctions on iraq with an enforcement clause, and we used that to justify an invasion. Why should they do anything to help justify our next war?
Please recall that I’m opposed to either invasion of Iran or bombing Iran. The reason that the Russians and Chinese should support some muscular action against Iran short of military force in which they would participate is that it would minimize the likelihood of military force being used against Iran. As I see it the Russians and Chinese are on the horns of a dilemma. For decades they’ve taken the position that the UN shouldn’t interfere in the internal affairs of nations for any reason whatever (they have the most to lose—it’s an understandable position). The problem with opposing all actions against the Iranians is that it maximizes the likelihood of the most strenuous possible action being taken which, considering Russia’s and China’s enormous economic interests in Iran, would be against Russian or Chinese interest. I’d like to see the EU3 and the United States convince the Russians and Chinese to support some real sanctions against Iran so that war could be avoided.
You make sense to me. But first, it strains credibility that they would participate in our attack on iran. And if the UN does anything about iran they have strong reason to think we will use it to justify an attack.
Like, say they agree on sanctions with the claim that they will be enforced because the iranian nuclear program must stop. We then announce that sanctions are not working to stop the iranian nuclear program and so when we bomb iran we are following the will of the UN.
If they don’t want us to attack iran, the best way they can stop us is to be clear and unambiguous that neither they nor the UN in any way give us permission to do so.
Put yourself in their place. How would you do it?
Imagine you’re a russian strategist. Who’s the bigger threat, iran or USA? Ah. Right. So what do you do? In the short run you sell iran air defense stuff. You let the US threat go to the Security Council where you can block it. And then when it looks like the attack is about to go through anyway, when the iranians are feeling most scared and most ready to give concessions, you offer a deal. Mutual defense pact. Russian troops in iran helping “protect” things. Trained russian crews for the air defense. Russian nuclear deterrent. About that time, maybe your diplomacy might deliver one of the ‘Stans, and they throw the americans out of our bases there and let the russians in. We feel humliated but how long would it take us to make new war plans given those developments? And the russians announce that since they’re guarding the iranian nuclear power sites nobody has to worry about them making nuclear weapons there. Iran is under the russian nuclear umbrella, they don’t need their own nukes.
Now imagine you’re a chinese strategist. Who’s the bigger threat, iran or USA? Right. So what do you do? It’s only natural to offer a mutual defense pact as part of your deal for low oil prices and a pipeline and alll. But why clinch the deal now? There’s time. You let the US threat go to the Security Council so the iranians get nervous before you veto it in some humiliating way. Then just before the US attacks you get the last iranian concessions and announce the deal. And you announce that since the americans are clearly insane warmongers it is necessary to declare sanctions. So they dump their dollars, and they suddenly stop selling to us, and they sequester whatever US assets they have, and they stop paying us royalties on any technology, computer games, books etc of ours they use. And they ask the rest of the world to go along. Anybody who has debts to us should consider them cancelled.
Of course this would disrupt the world economy. But if europeans etc complain, the chinese can ask, “Would you rather have the world economy disrupted by a nation that starts an illegal war, or by a nation that prevents an illegal war?”. Of course, we might attack anyway. From there it’s all downhill. When we destroyed the USSR we didn’t fight their army. We hit their economy until they couldn’t pay their army, and the soviet army melted away for awhile. Could that happen to us? We might find out.
We are a far bigger threat to russia and china than iran is. What about the rest of the world? Aren’t there nations that benefit if we prevail? I can think of some. Israel. Taiwan. The government of kuwait. South korea? Maybe. Japan? Possibly. Canada? Perhaps. I can easily think of thirty other nations that might be better off under our hegemony but it’s debatable and our friends have been losing that debate recently.
I agree it makes some sense for russia and china to appease us so we won’t attack iran. But there’s some evidence that we wouldn’t actually slow down the attack much. We’d just use their agreement as evidence that the whole world was behind us, and we’d use whatever it did to weaken iran to make the attack easier, and just keep right on going. So why should they appease us again? Failure of nerve?
On this point I disagree. Russia has nearly a century’s worth of experience that indicates precisely the opposite. Russia is not the Soviet Union. There is no Russianism for Russia to spread. And Russia has enormous problems of its own which antagonizing and opposing the U. S. won’t do a darned thing to solve. I don’t have a problem in the world with Russia spreading Russian influence. I don’t believe that influence-spreading is a zero-sum game.
The only way that sort of antagonism genuinely makes sense is if communism was, in fact, just a stalking horse for Russian imperialism as many (including me) believed. However, given the issues that really face Russia (as a speaker of Russian and long-time student of Russia I’m pretty aware of them) if Russians are still holding out for world domination it’s just schizoid fantasy.
A similar argument can be made about China. Chinese influence and American influence are not a zero-sum game. Historically, there’s not a lot of evidence that China is expansionist. And they’ve got internal problems that antagonism against the U. S. won’t solve.
Now look at a map. Iran is in the same neighborhood as both Russia and China. Both Russia and China are actually materially threated by Islamism within their borders. That Islamist terrorism is mostly Saudi-supported at this point. The Saudis and Iranians are in competition for dominance. Perhaps Iran will be content with letting the Islamist terrorists threatening Russia and the Islamist terrorists threatening China be beaten down by the Russians and Chinese, respectively. I doubt it. I think it’s more likely that they’ll fund their own groups of terrorists. Remember as far as the Iranians are concerned Russia and China are sideshows, the Muslim world is the circus.
Both Russia and China have elected curry favor with the Iranian regime. I think that’s counterproductive to their own interests.