An articlein Tuesday's New York Times suggeststhat there is a method to the madness of the Republican presidential candidates' hawkish rhetoric on Iran. I had thought that thereason all the Republican candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul) are suchnoisy warmongers is because that is their natural proclivity — and because it pleases donors (like SheldonAdelson, Newt Gingrich's big campaign funder) who base their politicalchoices on Binyamin Netanyahu's desires.
But Times reporter MarkLandler suggests that one of the results of this year's conveniently timed Irancrisis is to present President Barack Obama with a choice of two options, eitherof which the GOP could successfully exploit to defeat him in the election.
As Landler points out:
In late June, when the campaign isin full swing, Mr. Obama will have to decide whether to take action againstcountries, including some staunch allies, if they continue to buy Iranian oil through its central bank.
After fierce lobbying by the WhiteHouse, which opposed this hardening in the sanctions that have been its maintool in pressuring Tehran, Congress agreed to modify the legislation to giveMr. Obama leeway to delay action if he concludes the clampdown would disruptthe oil market. He may also invoke a waiver to exempt any country fromsanctions based on national security considerations.
Under normal circumstances, a president's decision to invoke anational security waiver on any foreign policy matter is hard to challenge. Inthis case, the president's concern that imposing new sanctions would cause oilprices to soar (and disrupt economic recovery) would be good reason to pass onthe latest congressional sanctions law.
But the political consequences of waiving could be dire.
Remember, the sanctions law inquestion is a creation of AIPAC and has been atthe top of its agenda during this entire Congress. If Obama waives it,Netanyahu would use the media to make sure that his displeasure was known. Thelobby, the Republican presidential candidate and even many of AIPAC's Democraticcutouts on Capitol Hill would all scream bloody murder.
Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), perhaps the member of Congress closest toAIPAC, told the Times that he wouldnot look kindly on a waiver and neither would the lobby.
"The first waiver would trigger a whole lot of other waiverapplications, potentially gutting the policy. ... The pro-Israel community wouldnot want a gutting of the sanctions," he said.
But what if Obama just takes the path of least political resistanceand imposes the sanctions as AIPAC wants?
Then, oil prices rise.
According to the Times,"Already, Iran's leaders are maneuvering to drive up oil prices, whether tosignal that sanctions could bring repercussions, or to mitigate the effects ofreduced sales. Iran's threat to shut off the Strait of Hormuz, through which afifth of the world's oil passes, sent prices soaring this month."
The article also quoted Stuart Eizenstat, a former top official at the Treasury and State Department who helped devise our Iran policy during the Clinton administration. According to Eizenstat, "sanctions could harm the economy and his [Obama's] re-election chances."
In other words, Obama will likely be harmed politically no matterwhich way he goes on sanctions.
Of course, the sanctions issue is just a subset of the larger "waror no war" question. The same political forces that support "crippling" sanctions(which may cripple us, our allies and ordinary Iranian citizens more than theIranian regime) also favor keeping the war option "on the table" in case ourefforts to thwart Iran's nuclear program fail.
As is the case with sanctions, there are two options. One is to goto war, a policy that would tear the country (and especially the Democratic Party)apart in an election year. The other is to try to negotiate an end to Iran'snuclear program but, if that fails, simply accept an Iran with a nuclearcapability and "contain" it. That is what we have done with North Korea and Pakistanand did for many decades with the Soviet Union. That course would infuriate thelobby.
Another political lose-lose.
Fortunately, there is a third course, which applies to both thesanctions and the war questions: we can negotiate.
Writing in The Atlantic,Robert Wright, a foreign policy expert, suggests away out of the current deadlock is to establish a nuclear-free Middle East:
The idea is that Israel and Iranwould open themselves up to highly intrusive inspections--of their declarednuclear facilities and of any suspicious undeclared sites--and other nations inthe region would agree to monitoring as well. As Israel became assured thatthere were no nuclear weapons programs afoot in the region, it would graduallyreduce its nuclear stockpile until, years or even decades from now, it had nonuclear weapons--but could live secure in the knowledge that none of itsadversaries had them either. (Israel might preserve "breakoutcapacity"--the ability to produce a nuke in a matter of months.)
Wright goes on to say that the main objection to this plan is the beliefthat Israel would never accept it. But according to a poll conducted by Israel'sDahaf Institute (an equivalent of the Gallup organization) and cited in a New York Times pieceby Steven Kull and Shibley Telhami, that is simply not true.
When asked whether it would be better for both Israel and Iran to have the bomb, or for neither to have it, 65 percent of Israeli Jews said neither. And a remarkable 64 percent favored the idea of a nuclear-free zone, even when it was explained that this would mean Israel giving up its nuclear weapons.
A clear majority also bought into the idea of opening Israel's and Iran's nuclear facilities to "a system of full international inspections."
The same poll finds that only 43 percent of Jewish Israelissupport a military strike on Iran, although 90 percent assume Iran willeventually develop the bomb.
The nuclear-free option is worth pursuing, as is every possiblealternative to war. President Obama should start the process by reaching out toIran quietly, with the single goal of avoiding war, reducing tensions, andending the threats and counter-threats. It is possible he is already doingthat, although the White House (with an eye or two on AIPAC) isdenying it.
One last point: Why is it relativelyuncontroversial to negotiate with the Taliban — who harbored the terrorists whokilled 3000 Americans on September 11, 2001, and who have terrorized millionsof Afghans for decades — but the idea of talking to Iran is considered beyondthe pale?
The answer should be obvious. AIPAC and its congressional cutoutsgo wild at the thought of negotiating with Iran (or Hamas, for that matter) butare relatively indifferent to the Taliban who, of course, is far from Israel.
So we can talk to the thugs of the Taliban to bring about somesort of settlement. But we can't even consider talking to the government ofIran.
What a shameful way to conduct foreign policy.