Richard Haass is the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, America’s mandarin foreign policy establishment group. He’s served in senior State Department positions under both Presidents Bush. I’d call him a realist centrist with faintly liberal leanings. So imagine my wonder when Rupa Shah sent me a new op-ed he penned for Newsweek calling for regime change in Iran. Not even Henry Kissinger has gotten that far yet for Chrissake!
With all the hype in the article title (Enough Is Enough: Why we can no longer remain on the sidelines in the struggle for regime change in Iran) I was prepared for a really noxious blast, but in actuality Haass’ stance is what I’d call regime change lite. First, he’s not in favor of using violence to change the Iranian regime. So that immediately takes him out of the Ledeen nutcase class of regime change advocates. It seems that what Haass wants is to do everything short of attacking Iran. He believes diplomacy is a dead end and that sanctions would be a useful tool. He also seems to believe that Iran intends to make a nuclear weapon, something with most cautious, deliberate analysts do not concede–yet.
So why is Haass going out on a limb like this? I think it reveals the absolute impotence of the foreign policy establishment in the face of Iran’s impregnable resistance to negotiation and reform. It also reveals an alarming lack of a primary quality that any good diplomat must have: patience. Patience is what the Iran observers I admire most have been counseling for months. Without patience, we are likely to run headlong toward whatever policy option seems to offer some, or any hope of utility. Remember Milton’s excellent saying: “They also serve who only stand and wait.” This is advice that could serve the U.S. well in the current impasse.
Iran is entirely fragmented. No one knows which side is on the ascent. No one knows whether muscular intervention of the type advocated by Haass will hurt our chosen friends in Iran or hurt them. In fact, any intervention that backfires could hurt them very badly. We should remember how vicious the current regime can be. Do we want to goad them into escalating their campaign against the opposition by turning to arrest, torture or assassination of the senior leaders of the reform movement? In this environment the least wrong move could prove disastrous. The vultures in Teheran are prepared to strike at the least opportunity. Why give them what they yearn for?
That is why I believe that Richard Haass’ advice is altogether misguided. I am in favor of vigorously supporting human rights in Iran. But I am not in favor of doing things that appear as if we are intervening deeply into the domestic political situation there. Regime change lite is a very bad idea.
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Perhaps I’m wrong, but my impression is that the CFR has been trending towards the ‘world view’ generally associated with the “neoconservatives”. Consider the fact that within a few days of the final day of the Bush administration the CFR announced they were hiring Elliott Abrams.
SOURCE – http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/01/elliott_abrams/
It might also do well to remember how disastrous American support for a number of “chosen friends” abroad has turned out in the long term, the Shah not least among them. Saddam Hussein, or all those South & Central American tinpot dictators have either turned against their puppet master or were replaced by decidedly anti-imperialist governments (whether democratic or not). The overthrow of Somalia’s Islamist govt by proxy of Ethiopian forces did a truckload of good, too.
In central Asia, especially Uzbekistan, the US and other Western countries have had no problem propping up one of the worst dictatorships in the region (the UK further disgracing itself by the sacking of ambassador Craig Murray).
No one tell me the US want Iran to return to a semblance of democracy for democracy’s, or the Iranian people’s sake. They only need to look to South America to see the consequences of democratic emancipation for the empire.
Mr. Silverstein wrote: “I think it reveals the absolute impotence of the foreign policy establishment >>in the face of Iran’s impregnable resistance to negotiation and reform. “<<
On the first point, Iran's "resistance to negotiation," your facts are in error. Iran has presented several compromise proposals to the US's sole bargaining position that Iran send uranium to France/Russia. Iran has offered to send uranium to Turkey, or to send it in batches, etc. But, Iran HAS been attentive to negotiations, has made good faith counter-proposals, which US has swept aside in favor of its continued truculence.
On the second point, Iran's "resistance to reform," who gave US, Richard Haas, CFR, Israel, or anybody else either the moral authority or the moral legitimacy to demand that Iran "reform" itself? On what model, that of Israel, where politics is so corrupt that IDF makes the decisions? Or US, which is so impotent that AIPAC writes foreign policy resolutions (per Keith Weissman)?
The only just position US has latitude to take with respect to Iran is a. hands off and butts out; and b. respect for the sovereignty of Iran's government and respect for the courage and intelligence of Iran's people to reform their own government on their own terms.
You’re right. I should’ve formulated that more carefully. I was talking more in the sense of how the foreign policy establishment views Iran’s positions rather than objectively so. So I meant to say that folks like Haass see what they view as Iran’s impregnable resistance to accommodation w. the U.S. agenda, etc.
As for reform, I meant that the Iranian government’s repression of the reform movement has to be deeply alarming for anyone who values civil liberties & democratic values. In the face of stealing the June election and subsequent violence against the reformers, outsiders despair that there can ever be a peaceful resolution of differences within Iran.
Thank you for developing nuance on the first point; afraid the second point still fails the nuance test: “stealing the June election” — many reporters, particularly Iranian and Iranian-Americans with contacts in Iran (or even my firmly pro-Mousavi friend who was in Tehran during the election and subsequent protests) concede that there was probably fraud in the election but that Ahmadinejad would have won even without fraud (therefore, the fraud was foolish). Karrubi, one of Ahmadi’s opponents, has recognized Ahmadi as the elected president http://www.payvand.com/news/10/jan/1247.html Ahmadinejad-as-monster is a creation of Israeli hasbara (perhaps even a projection of Israel’s worst realizations about itself); Iranians make their decisions about their government for their own reasons.
In an earlier conversation I disagreed with you about the extent of “violence” and repression of protesters in Iran; the characterization of IRGC and Iranian govt in general as thugs and brutes. Yes, Neda died on camera; yes, horrible things took place at several mass protests; yes, Iranians are enraged that their government is increasingly sustained by military. But, as another conversation on your blog notes, the US gets its news from media heavily influenced by zionists; increasingly, zionist hasbara seems to be assigning to Iran qualities and behaviors that more appropriately describe zionism. Qualitatively, Iran is different from the way US and Israel treat their people in subtle ways that have to be seen and experienced to begin to understand.
Yoram Peri has written extensively that Israel’s political class is in disarray, and too many policy decisions are overly-influenced by military leaders http://www.international.ucla.edu/news/article.asp?parentid=63646 .
In contrast, in Iran, Rafsanjani piques and prods the topmost leaders, with impunity http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/01/iran-rafsanjani-reminds-khamenei-of-his-task-to-save-the-islamic-republic.html , which suggests to me that the internal debate in Iran is civil, strategic, robust, and entertains influences from the business class, the mullahs, AND the military.
“The only just position US has latitude to take with respect to Iran is a. hands off and butts out; and b. respect for the sovereignty of Iran’s government and respect for the courage and intelligence of Iran’s people to reform their own government on their own terms.”
You said it far better and more concisely than I managed to!
Sanctions? We should do just the opposite: trade vigorously with Iran and thereby strengthen the Iranian middle class, which can then start throwing its weight around and demand changes in the ‘system’.
a thousand times yes, Andy; the Ben & Jerry strategy for dealing with ‘enemies’ — make them a friend.
Francis of Assissi said it also –“Where there is hatred let me sow love”–but he never put cherries together with chocolate bits.
Surprise, surprise! The CFR is neoconservative. Where do you people live?
Over and over again I see even supposedly “progressive” American conversations on Iran that are based entirely on the assumption that there is an “impasse” that must be resolved, and of course that “impasse” is due primarily, or solely to Iran’s “intransigence” in insisting upon exercising its sovereignty and refusing to comply with the United States’ inappropriate imperial demands. The “conversations”, of course, center around the best strategy for resolving the “impasse” by coercing Iran by one means or other to do what America wants it to do (or stop doing what America does not want it to do).
Progressives, at least, should understand that the only reason there is an impasse is that the United States has decided there will be one, and that Iran is, in fact, under no obligation at all to care about how America wants it to behave, nor is America entitled to try to force Iran to conform with its wishes unless Iran is actually threatening actual harm to the United States, which is simply not the case.
The real question progressives should be asking is not what is the best method for gaining Iranian compliance with American demands. The first question progressives should be asking is “where’s the beef?”, and given the obvious answer to the first question, the second question should be “well, then, why are we sticking our noses in Iran’s business at all?”
Hi my name is Ali Iam from Iraq and I m studding phd in political science in Baghdad I think that Iran know become very dangerous ,Violation of human rights in Iran can not be tolerated because they prevent citizens from expressing their opinions and killing protesters and forced women to wear hijab and they judge to death of innocent people just because they are expressing their opinion