Stuck in Bush

Why Obama's Iran policy will fail

Balatarin
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Stuck in Bush
by Dilip Hiro
30-Oct-2009
 

While the tone of the Obama administration is different from that of its predecessor, and some of its foreign policies diverge from those of George W. Bush, at their core both administrations subscribe to the same doctrine: Whatever the White House perceives as a threat -- whether it be Iran, North Korea, or the proliferation of long-range missiles -- must be viewed as such by Moscow and Beijing.

In addition, by the evidence available, Barack Obama has not drawn the right conclusion from his predecessor's failed Iran policy. A paradigm of sticks-and-carrots simply is not going to work in the case of the Islamic Republic. Here, a lesson is readily available, if only the Obama White House were willing to consider Iran's recent history. It is unrealistic to expect that a regime which fought Saddam Hussein's Iraq (then backed by the United States) to a standstill in a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s, unaided by any foreign power, and has for 30 years withstood the consequences of U.S.-imposed economic sanctions will be alarmed by Washington's fresh threats of "crippling sanctions."

Most important, the Obama administration is ignoring the altered international order that has emerged in the wake of the global financial crisis triggered by Wall Street's excesses. While its stimulus package, funded by taxpayers and foreign borrowing, has arrested the decline in the nation's gross domestic product, Washington has done little to pull the world economy out of the doldrums. That task -- performed by the U.S. in recent recessions -- has fallen willy-nilly to China. History repeatedly shows that such economic clout sooner or later translates into diplomatic power.

Backed by more than $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, the state-owned Chinese oil corporations have been locking up hydrocarbon resources as far away as Brazil. Not surprisingly, Iran, with the second largest oil as well as gas reserves in the world, looms large in the strategic plans of Beijing. The Chinese want to import Iran's petroleum and natural gas through pipelines across Central Asia, thus circumventing sea routes vulnerable to U.S. naval interdiction. As this is an integral part of China's energy security policy, little wonder that Chinese oil companies have committed an estimated $120 billion dollars -- so far -- to Iran's energy industry.

During a recent meeting with Iran's first vice president, Muhammad Reza Rahimi, in Beijing, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao stressed the importance of cooperation between the two countries when it comes to hydrocarbons and trade (at $29 billion a year, and rising), as well as "greater coordination in international affairs." Little wonder, then, that China has already moved to neutralize any sanctions that the United States -- backed by Britain, France and Germany -- might impose on Iran without United Nations authorization.

Foremost among these would be a ban on the export of gasoline to Iran, whose oil refining capacity falls significantly short of domestic demand. Chinese oil corporations have already started shipping gasoline to Iran to fill the gap caused by a stoppage of supplies from British and Indian companies anticipating Washington's possible move. Between June and August 2009, China signed $8 billion worth of contracts with Iran to help expand two existing Iranian oil refineries to produce more gasoline domestically and to help develop the gigantic South Pars natural gas field. Iran's national oil corporation has also invited its Chinese counterparts to participate in a $42.8 billion project to construct seven oil refineries and a 1,000 mile trans-Iran pipeline that will facilitate pumping petroleum to China.

Tehran and Moscow

When it comes to Russia, Tehran and Moscow have a long history of close relations, going back to Tsarist times. During that period and the subsequent Soviet era, the two states shared the inland Caspian Sea. Now, as two of the five littoral states of the Caspian, Iran and Russia still share a common fluvial border.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, relations between the Islamic Republic and Russia warmed. Defying pressures from both the Clinton and Bush administrations, Russia's state-owned nuclear power company continued building a civilian nuclear power plant near the Iranian port city of Bushehr. It is scheduled to begin generating electricity next year.

As for nuclear threats, the Kremlin's perspective varies from Washington's. It is far more concerned with the actual threat posed by some of Pakistan's estimated 75 nuclear weapons falling into militant Islamist hands than with the theoretical one from Tehran. Significantly, it was during his recent trip to Beijing to conclude ambitious hydrocarbon agreements with China that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, "If we speak about some kind of sanctions [on Iran] now, before we take concrete steps, we will fail to create favorable conditions for negotiations. That is why we consider such talk premature."

The negotiations that Putin mentioned are now ongoing between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the U.S., Britain, China, France, and Russia) as well as Germany. According to Western sources, the agenda of the talks is initially to center on a "freeze for freeze" agreement. Iran would suspend its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for the U.N. Security Council not strengthening its present nominal economic sanctions. If these reports are accurate, then the chances of a major breakthrough may be slim indeed.

At the heart of this issue lies Iran's potential ability to enrich uranium to a level usable as fuel for a nuclear weapon. This, in turn, is linked to the way Iran's leaders view national security. As a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is, in fact, entitled to enrich uranium. The key point is the degree of enrichment: 5% enriched uranium for use as fuel in an electricity generating plant (called low enriched uranium, LEU); 20% enriched for use as feedstock for producing medical isotopes (categorized as medium enriched uranium, MEU); and 90%-plus for bomb-grade fuel (known as high enriched uranium, HEU).

So far, what Iran has produced at its Natanz nuclear plant is LEU. At the Iran-Six Powers meeting in Geneva on October 1st, Iran agreed in principle to send three-quarters of its present stock of 1,600 kilograms (3,500 pounds) of LEU to Russia to be enriched into MEU and shipped back to its existing Tehran Research Reactor to produce medical isotopes. If this agreement is fleshed out and finalized by all the parties under the aegis of the International Atomic Energy Agency, then the proportion of Iran's LEU with a potential of being turned into HEU would diminish dramatically.

When it comes to the nuclear conundrum, what distinguishes China and Russia from the U.S. is that they have conferred unconditional diplomatic recognition and acceptance on the Islamic Republic of Iran. So their commercial and diplomatic links with Tehran are thriving. Indeed, a sub-structure of pipelines and economic alliances between hydrocarbon-rich Russia, Iran, and energy-hungry China is now being forged. In other words, the foundation is being laid for the emergence of a Russia-Iran-China diplomatic triad in the not-too-distant future, while Washington remains stuck in an old groove of imposing "punishing" sanctions against Tehran for its nuclear program.

Tehran and Washington

There is, of course, a deep and painful legacy of animosity and ill-feeling between the 30-year-old Islamic Republic of Iran and the U.S. Iran was an early victim of Washington's subversive activities when the six-year-old CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Muhammad Mussadiq in 1953. That scar on Iran's body politic has not healed yet. Half a century later, the Iranians watched the Bush administration invade neighboring Iraq and overthrow its president, Saddam Hussein, on trumped-up charges involving his supposed program to produce weapons of mass destruction.

Iran's leaders know that during his second term in office -- as Seymour Hersh revealed in the New Yorker -- Bush authorized a clandestine CIA program with a budget of $400 million to destabilize the Iranian regime. They are also aware that the CIA has focused on stoking disaffection among Sunni ethnic minorities in Shiite-ruled Iran. These include ethnic Arabs in the oil-rich province of Khuzistan adjoining Iraq, and ethnic Baluchis in Sistan-Baluchistan Province abutting the Pakistani province of Baluchistan.

Little wonder that Tehran pointed an accusing finger at the U.S. for the recent assassination of six commanders of its Revolutionary Guard Corps in Sistan-Baluchistan by two suicide bombers belonging to Jundallah (the Army of Allah), an extremist Sunni organization. As yet, there is no sign, overt or covert, that President Obama has canceled or repudiated his predecessor's program to destabilize the Iranian regime.

Insecure regimes seek security in nuclear arms. History shows that joining the nuclear club has, in fact, proven an effective strategy for survival. Israel and North Korea provide striking examples of this.

Unsure of Western military assistance in a conventional war with Arab nations, and of its ability to maintain its traditional armed superiority over its Arab adversaries, Israel's leaders embarked on a nuclear weapons program in the mid-1950s. They succeeded in their project a decade later. Since then Israel has acquired an arsenal of 80 to 200 nuclear weapons.

In the North Korean case, once the country had tested its first atomic bomb in October 2006, the Bush administration softened its stance towards it. In the bargaining that followed, North Korea got its name removed from the State Department's list of nations that support international terrorism. In the on-again-off-again bilateral negotiations that followed, the Pyongyang regime as an official nuclear state has been seeking a guarantee against attack or subversion by the United States.

Without saying so publicly, Iran's leaders want a similar guarantee from the U.S. Conversely, unless Washington ends its clandestine program to destabilize the Iranian state, and caps it with an offer of diplomatic acceptance and normal relations, there is no prospect of Tehran abandoning its right to enrich uranium. On the other hand, the continuation of a policy of destabilization, coupled with ongoing threats of "crippling" sanctions and military strikes (whether by the Pentagon or Israel), can only drive the Iranians toward a nuclear breakout capability.

During George W. Bush's eight-year presidency, the U.S. position in the world underwent a sea change. From the Clinton administration, Bush had inherited a legacy of 92 months of continuous economic prosperity, a budget in surplus, and the transformation of the U.N. Security Council into a handmaiden of the State Department. What he passed on to Barack Obama was the Great Recession in a world where America's popularity had hit rock bottom and its economic strength was visibly ebbing. All this paved the way for the economic and political rise of China, as well as the strengthening of Russia as an energy giant capable of extending its influence in Europe and challenging American dominance in the Middle East.

In this new environment expecting the leaders of Iran, backed by China and Russia, to do the bidding of Washington means placing a bet on the inconceivable.

AUTHOR
Dilip Hiro is the author of Blood of the Earth: The Battle for the World's Vanishing Oil Resources (Nation Books), among other works. His forthcoming book, After Empire: The Birth of a Multipolar World, will be published in January 2010, also by Nation Books. First published in tomdispatch.com.

Balatarin
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ex programmer craig

benross

by ex programmer craig on Sat Oct 31, 2009 04:55 PM PDT

You make good points but only in regards to Iraq/Iran. In general Cold War policy was not about "balance" - it was about winning. Vietnam, Afghanistan and the many conflicts in Latin America are examples of that. If Iran and Iraq had gone to war while the US and Iran were still on good terms, I think the US would have done everything in its power to ensure Iran won the war. There would have been no talk about "balance of power". But the way things played out I think the US didn't want Iraq to "win" because Iraq was a Soveit client and we wouldn't have wanted the Soviets to chalk one up in their column... especially with all the oil involved. But on the other hand we obviously couldn't let Iran defeat Iraq, either, because that would have been seen as a vindication and a victory for Khomeini's revolutionary ideology, which stated that the US was the "Great Satan". So in that war, yes... I agree with you... it was a US goal that neither side should win.

And by the way, I don't think Saddam needed a "green light" for that war, and I don't think he got one. I think the US would have been perfectly happy if that war had never happened.


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benross

Don't worry Craig. American

by benross on Sat Oct 31, 2009 03:01 PM PDT

Don't worry Craig. American shipments were coming nonstop during the war. Only more expensive and through a middleman. This was the whole point of the revolution wasn't it?! U.S policy was to keep the balance of military power between two countries. If Russia couldn't mange, U.S took the load.

Those who throw garbage around here don't know what they are talking about. 


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Mola Nasredeen

Wrong again!

by Mola Nasredeen on Sat Oct 31, 2009 02:41 PM PDT

The rightwing propaganda by the so called x-pc never stops. His watered down misinformation machine produces lies non stop. This is what he says to Q about the origins of Saddam's chemical weapons:

"Your claims about the west providing Saddam with chemical weapons have been debunked so many times it's really difficult to believe you still subsribe to that nonsense"

And this is how it really was when it came to the collaboration of Western countries with Saddam to build his chemical weapons in the 1980's:

"German firms such as Karl Kobe helped build Iraqi chemical weapons facilities such as laboratories, bunkers, an administrative building, and first production buildings in the early 1980s under the cover of a pesticide plant. Other German firms sent 1,027 tons of precursors of mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and tear gasses in all. This work allowed Iraq to produce 150 tons of mustard agent and 60 tons of Tabun in 1983 and 1984 respectively, continuing throughout the decade. Five other German firms supplied equipment to manufacture botulin toxin and mycotoxin for germ warfare. In 1988, German engineers presented centrifuge data that helped Iraq expand its nuclear weapons program. Laboratory equipment and other information was provided, involving many German engineers. All told, 52% of Iraq's international chemical weapon equipment was of German origin"

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction


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ex programmer craig

Q

by ex programmer craig on Sat Oct 31, 2009 02:12 PM PDT

Compared this to what Saddam got from the US and USSR, France and Germany, Persian Gulf countries? Are you kidding me?

Don't forget China!

The amount of aid Saddam recieved from the US was neglible. The most valuable assitance the US provided Saddam was intel, mostly satellite monitoring and electronic surveillance provided by the US Navy. And that was towards the end of the war. Your claims about the west providing Saddam with chemical weapons have been debunked so many times it's really difficult to believe you still subsribe to that nonsense. Saddam's chemical weapons program dates back to the 1970s, and the only blame the west has in the whole thing is selling Saddam the raw materials that he used to create WMD.

And, what you don't say is that Iraq was a Soviet client. They used Soviet equipment and weapons, they copied the Soviet military structure, and they were trained by the Soviets. They even had Soviet "advisors". The Russians are your friends, right Q? Why complain to the US about that? Why not complain to your Russian buddies? 

Iran on the other hand was a US client. Iran used US equipment. US weaponry. US trainers. US advisors. And we all know what happened with that, right? You throw your sponsor over the side and then complain that nobody helps you? If Khomeini had any brains he would have taken Saddam's peace offer as soon as it was made, and gotten the Soviets to switch sides just in case war started again. Because, sereiously Q... how stupid do you have to be to fight a country that is backed by both of the world's super-powers? Especially when those super-powers don't even like eachother!


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Q

Nousha, YOU are the real propagandist here

by Q on Sat Oct 31, 2009 01:50 PM PDT

and that is clear from your every post.

Yes, there was ONE shipment of weapons which were not the ones IRI had paid for, and there was certainly help from Syria and Libya at various times. But no one considers these "aid" from foreign powers. Iran did buy weapons wherever it could buy them, of course. But these were not the $Billions in gifts and loans that Saddam received, including the chemical weapons components bought from US /Europe on credit. What "aid" did Iran receive?

Compared this to what Saddam got from the US and USSR, France and Germany, Persian Gulf countries? Are you kidding me?

You are not kidding of course, you are a pro-Israel propagandist. Probably one of the ones who has been disgraced in this website already and are now back under a different name.

The reason I'm sure of this is because of the style of argument Israel-firsters always put forward. For example, they (either out of idiocy but more likely propagandistic purposes) consider Iran's "support" of Hezbollah on par with US support of Israel. Nevermind the ridiculous discrepancy in power and magnitude, not to mention legitimacy.

So, now you opportunistically use the same pro-Israel playbook thinking your audience is just as idiotic as the FOX News watchers of US and Israel. What Iran "received" was beyond negligable compared to Iraq, and everyone knows it. Only propagandists try to inflate it.

Just like a professional propagandist you go after the messenger (Hiro) when you can't stand the message. Character assassination is a signature trademark of all propagandists.

Nice try "nousha"!


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Mola Nasredeen

"Obama gets it, but it can't be said about the rest of our

by Mola Nasredeen on Sat Oct 31, 2009 01:00 PM PDT

respected politicians. Why?

1. He's the son of a single mother with a black father direct from black Africa.

2. He was raised in a struggling family.

3. He lived in a Muslim country and his father was a muslim. His white mother never changed his middle name, Hossein. They were comfortable with his middle name, tolerant family.

4. He's a product of Chicago activitism, a no non-sense progressive movement with deep roots in American social history, hence very edutated about political upheaval in Iran, Palestine and the Middle East in gerenral.

Obama gets it but he's facing many obstacles, so many lobbies and so little time.


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vildemose

Nousha-Arezou: Whether

by vildemose on Sat Oct 31, 2009 08:08 AM PDT

Nousha-Arezou:

Whether Mr. Hiro is left, right or cener left or north left or whatever, he is right. The sanctions will only create windfall profit for the IRGC who is in charge of the black market and all the other parallel/underground economy in Iran. How is that going to weaken the IRI? It's not going to create  leverage for the US to use in negotiating a deal.

But I give you that, Mr. Hiro is a liar and not a friend of Iran or Iranians. He is probably getting paid per book and article either by Russia or the Islamic Republic....


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Ali Akbar

I find it interesting that the focus of the ....

by Ali Akbar on Sat Oct 31, 2009 05:46 AM PDT

discussion is still on oil....

 

Already the united states is developing NEWER Technologies that will wean it industries from any dependence upon crude oil... It is unfortunate the US abandoned  it's energy policy in the 1980's and attached it's future to crude oil... If you want to blame anyone blame the American voter for being short sited in electing such charlatans 

 

Also if the American economy goes under  it will take China with it and from what I see I doubt seriously that China can handle any more unrest...

 

As far as the UN is concerned???  It has proved to be a joke and it seems that all the UN is good for is providing american comedians with material for their monologues...  Remember them naming Iran to head the human rights commission??? Thats like naming the Imperial Wizard of the KKK to head the NAACP....


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Nousha Arzu

Dilip Hiro

by Nousha Arzu on Sat Oct 31, 2009 05:43 AM PDT

is a world-famous leftist, and a friend of the IRI. His writings for over 30 years prove this very fact. And here, again, he's promoting the cause of the IRI, i.e., admonishing the US to finally accept the devil we all know all too well, the IRI that is, give them a security agreement, a life insurance policy that is, and all will be so much better in our screwed up world.

My fellow compatriots, Mr. Hiro is no friend of the Iranian people --whatsoever. Like a typical self-dilluted, know-it-all lefty, polluted with his own dellusions of grandeur and righteousness, he's on the wrong side of the Iranian equation, yet again.

Case in point, consider his outright deceit, that Iran fought the Iran-Iraq war "unaided by any foreign power." Now we all know that the Israelis, yes those zionist pigs, greatly helped out the IRI with military weapons during the Iran-Iraq war.

The zionist pigs were not so piggish then.

And even Mr. Hiro himself explains in his book, The Longest War, how Vietnam enormously helped Iran with spare parts for its Shah-era American-made weaponry (as there were much of it left over by the Americans after their exit from Vietnam). And yet, Mr. Hiro says here that no foreign power helped Iran.

So why do you deliberatly exaggerate the self-sufficiency, prowess and inevitability of the morally bankrupt, economically incompetent IRI, Mr. Hiro? What more do you wish to accomplish with your blatant propaganda piece?

 

LONG LIVE THE GLORY OF KUROSH 


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Q

Dilip Hiro writes for Iranian.com ?

by Q on Sat Oct 31, 2009 01:02 AM PDT

Wow, what a pleasant surprise! I have been following your writing for years. Thanks for the article.


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ex programmer craig

Well

by ex programmer craig on Fri Oct 30, 2009 09:27 PM PDT

You did a pretty good job of summing up the problems of Iran, China and Russia. That's quite a good team by the way!

However, I think you underestimate how dependent China is on the US (and on US goodwill) going into the future. It's our money that is making them rich, after all! Ron Paul said so! And oil... yeah they are going to need oil for sure... more than they'll be able to get! But oil is something that people can take, if they have to. If push comes to shove I'm guessing for China it will be US > Iran. And besides, the Chinese just like us better. We're special like that.


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pedro

American foreign policy dead end.

by pedro on Fri Oct 30, 2009 09:11 PM PDT

50 years of bad foreign policy and grave mistakes towards iran created this mess for America. Now, the once superpower must bend over to Chinese and Russians. loosing Iran as a friend by arrogently overthrowing its democratically elected president, was a big mistake. At the time schwartscof an eisenhower were very proud of Themselves and congratulated each other for spending as little as 95,000 dollars in two weeks time to overthrow the Mosaeghes as president, which was orchestrated to benifit USA. I wonder where are they now and how their children cope with the present economic and political situation in USA. Look at the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan, how many American lives was lost and still counting due short sighted oil seeking policies? If Iran's democraticly elected government was not overthrown, the whole region was diffrent today. Iranians by nature like America, more so if the country was left alone to continue with its democracy. Look at todays Iran, It is a time bomb, it is a hot bed of humen rights violations, torure, rapes and behind the doors executions, rampent crimes, infested with drug use and plays a big role in drug trade, lately trying to enrich uranium for nuclear weapon. Islamic republic exports terrorisem and billions is sent to to support terrorist activities and training to lebanon Syria, and now venezuela. 95,000 dollars was spent in the 50's to overthrow Iran's democraticlly elected government, is now costing America Hundreds of billions of dollars and many American lives to fight terrorisem and bring democracy to the region. It just does not make sense to spend dolars to remove democracy in Iran, and now spend dollars to force democracy to Iarq and Afghanistan.


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shushtari

no surprise....

by shushtari on Fri Oct 30, 2009 07:02 PM PDT

the chinese and russian butchers are very similar to the mullahs in that they also suppress and oppress their own people- so it's a match made in heaven

unfortunately for us as iranians, we are suffering the consequences of the idiotic policies of the famous moron- jimmy 'the peanut' carter....who single-handedly delivered iran to the hands of the devil....and the rest is history....

putin and the chinese don't give a crap about iran or its people- they just want to suck our oil and gas wealth....once that's gone, they'll leave iran like a dead corpse.

 

i pray that we get to get rid of the mullahs so that we can cut the hand of these dirty animals from our homeland and it's wealth

god knows how many trillions of our nation's wealth has been wasted on funding arab terrorists who have murdered our people at the orders of the akhoonds- from jaleh square to the recent protests.

and the devil khomeini insulted the shah for spending money on the 2500 years of persian history in 1971.....

as they say in farsi- 'nooshe shah joon....' i wish he had spent 10 times  more.....

javid iran 


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Mola Nasredeen

"Who's fighting al-Qaida?"

by Mola Nasredeen on Fri Oct 30, 2009 06:06 PM PDT

I asked.

"United States of America" Said Hazrate shotor.

"Who else is fighting al-Qaida?" Wondering.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran" said he.

"Natural alliance then?" I commented.

"Indid" said he indifferently. 


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