Containing Iran

Jonathan Rauch proposesa different strategy for dealing with Iran than the stark dichotomy of war or appeasement:

…the United States urgently needs instruments that can hurt Tehran short of launching a major war. Those include propaganda and aid campaigns, support for the mullahs’ domestic political opponents, and economic pressure. All are easier said than done, but the cumulative effect even of flawed efforts can be significant, as the Soviets learned.

In particular, Iran’s fragile and unbalanced economy depends on oil exports. Today’s tight oil markets allow Iran to use oil as a weapon, but the leverage, argues Michael O’Hanlon, a Brookings senior fellow, could be reversed if some slack were introduced in the market. To be in a position to threaten Tehran with an oil embargo — which would hurt Iran even if not all countries participated — “all we would need is about 5 million barrels a day of spare pumping capacity, which is about 5 to 6 percent of the world total.” That would take some time but is do-able with help from, for example, biofuels, O’Hanlon says.

Most controversial, but possibly most important, would be a concerted effort to develop unconventional military capabilities, including covert operations, counterinsurgent efforts, and — yes — dirty tricks. Published accounts by Pollack and others tell of a 1997 intelligence operation (details remain classified) with which the United States hit back after Iran sponsored a terrorist attack on American forces in Saudi Arabia. Stung, Iran backed off. “I think we ought to make a much bigger effort to do this,” says Pollack, adding, however, that we also “ought to be realistic about what we can accomplish.”

hat tip:  Outside the Beltway

He’s playing my song as you might guess from my many posts on Iran.  These are all things I would hope we have been doing and certainly should be doing in a more muscular way.

I think that Mr. Rauch is a little stingy in his regard for Iran:

Iran has positioned itself as a regional power and must be dealt with as such.

A quick look at a map and demographic and economic information for Iran will show that Iran is a regional power just as Germany is in Europe.   But I agree with this point wholeheartedly:

That will mean talking to Iran instead of at it, negotiating rather than demanding.

Will it be enough?  We’ll never know unless we try.

4 comments… add one
  • Jay Mulberry Link

    Dave–

    Here is a different approach to sanctions.

    Creative sanctions could work on Iran
    By PETER D. ZIMMERMAN
    Published February 12, 2006
    ________________________________________
    LONDON – There is ample evidence that under the former Shah of Iran, Iraqi nuclear scientists were well supported in their efforts to build nuclear weapons. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, however, most of that work stopped because Ayatollah Khomeini apparently opposed atomic arms. His successors, however, harbor nuclear ambitions. Iran protests that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful. The smell of cordite is in the air, however, and that object on the table looks a lot like a Glock.
    At Natanz, Iran is building a plant to enrich uranium, and at Isfahan it is building conversion plants to make the feed gas for the enrichment plant. Iran plans to construct 50,000 centrifuges, just enough capacity to keep the power reactor it is building at Bushehr fueled, or to produce 10 or 12 nuclear weapons a year. For 18 years Iran concealed its uranium enrichment activities from the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
    Iran has obtained documents telling it how to cast hemispheres made out of highly enriched uranium. I know of no use for such hemispheres except in a nuclear weapon. Iran has also produced large quantities of the radioactive isotope Polonium-210, whose principal use is in triggers for nuclear weapons. The available facts do not prove that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, but they are consistent with it, and they are not disputed by Iran. Perhaps most telling is Iranian behavior toward the IAEA: Iranian officials have left unanswered many critical questions, for example, regarding the weapons design information they have received, the procurement of more powerful centrifuges, and the purchase of special alloys that are very useful in centrifuges.
    In short, the IAEA was right to report Iran’s behavior to the U.N. Security Council, but also right to build in one final month in which to persuade Iran to terminate enrichment activities. If there is no resolution to the problem when that month expires, Iran will go on the Security Council’s agenda for international action.
    The question for the Security Council is apt to be “now what?” International economic sanctions are likely to lead to misery and corruption. Iranian recalcitrance may ultimately require such coercion, but there are some more creative options to think about first. There is a more modern tool available: communications bans. By flicking a few switches and altering a few lines of code, Iran can be dropped back to the 1970s. Only a few communications satellites serve the country, and only a few transponders on those are used. Insist that satellite operators turn off the links.
    The Internet is not merely a place to get e-mail; it is an essential research tool, and a critical inter-tie for the global financial networks and trade. It is also relatively easy to deny it to a country. The Net’s master servers could readily be programmed to reject any connections from Iran and any communications destined for it. Indeed, the Net is likely so flexible that it could turn off only computers associated with the government, the financial establishment and the oil industry while still letting most citizens have limited access.
    During a communications and information blackout, if the Iranians wish to purchase anything from diapers to diamonds, let them put a paper check in the mail and send it off. If some country wishes to buy oil from Iran, it can put a purchase order in an envelope. If a mullah makes an international call, it ends in a busy signal. Such sanctions would not eliminate Iranian trade and commerce, merely retard it and do so in a way calculated to remind every member of the government and elites, every day, that Iran is what it most wants not to be: a pariah state.
    Sanctions which exclude Iran from the global information flow will first annoy and then bite hard, but they should do comparatively little to harm the average Iranian, not depriving him or her of food, water or medicines. I would expect Iran to seek to hack its way around the cutoffs, but with the hardware and the best hackers in the hands of the states imposing sanctions, hacking will be extremely difficult.
    If the Iranians do not agree to terminate their uranium enrichment activities by next month, action by the U.N. Security Council will be in order. Creative sanctions aimed at Iran’s status in the world and its links to the rest of us are worth contemplating and trying.
    — Peter D. Zimmerman, a nuclear physicist, is professor of science and security at King’s College London. He was previously chief scientist of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and science adviser for arms control at the U.S. State Department.
    © Copyright, St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.

  • Jay, that’s one reasonable approach. Frankly, I doubt that it would be quite as effective as Zimmerman believes: the Internet was designed specifically with the objective of routing around such interruptions. But it’s certainly worth a try.

  • I’ve gotta tell you that the Mullahs in Iran will love the idea of unplugging the internet cord. The Iranian rightwing has proposed a plan to disconnect Iran’s internet connection from the rest of the world and make it an intranet rather than internet.

  • Fletcher Christian Link

    They want nuclear weapons. Let’s give them some. A live demonstration, nice and close to where the mullahs live.

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