BOOK
REVIEW Decoding Obama's Iran
policy A Single Roll of
the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy with Iran by
Trita Parsi
Reviewed by Brian M
Downing
Trita Parsi's first book,
Treacherous Alliance (2008), displayed a
masterful understanding of the open and hidden
dealings between Iran, the United States and
Israel over the past 35 years. This impressive
follow-up, a study of events since President
Barack Obama came to office in 2009, is welcome
and exceptionally well-timed.
The new
administration began with hopes of reaching out to
Iran, but despite a promising beginning, no
diplomatic breakthrough came. Parsi attributes
this to inflexibility in Tehran, Washington,
Jerusalem and Riyadh. Politicians and bureau consistently
misinterpret signals from
the other side, are loathe to show flexibility for
fear of appearing weak, and ignore earnest efforts
by intermediary countries. The conflict has become
embedded in the thinking and institutions of all
concerned countries.
Tehran was skeptical
from the start of the Obama administration. Iran
had helped the US to oust the Taliban from
Afghanistan in 2001 and set up a new government
the following year, but the George W Bush
administration remained hostile. Following the US
defeat in Iraq of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iran
made a bold overture to open a wide-ranging
dialogue with the US. But it was rejected; the US
did not speak to evil.
Iran, then, saw
little likelihood that Obama would be able to
break free of political restraints. His selection
of Dennis Ross and Rahm Emanuel as key advisers
did nothing to shake Tehran from its skepticism,
as Tehran deemed them both pro-Israel partisans.
Enmity with the US had been embedded in
Iran's state machinery and in its national
identity. It was part of who they were. It was
also a powerful legitimizing and exculpatory
narrative for the government, which otherwise
faced growing discontent over a stagnant economy.
Further, a settlement with the US would
likely reduce Iran's ability to rally support in
Arab populaces, which was part of a longstanding
policy to weaken Arab rulers and reduce American
influence in the region.
Early in the
Obama administration, discussions took place on
how to reach out to Iran - something the president
had promised in his campaign and inaugural address
as well. The State Department and Pentagon wanted
to negotiate matters in Afghanistan, with the
creation of a stable, non-Taliban country in the
interests of both the US and Iran.
It was
decided, however, that Iranian help in Afghanistan
would put the US in debt at the outset of more
critical negotiations on nuclear research. The
administration opted for Dennis Ross' hybrid
policy of opening negotiations and simultaneously
ratcheting up sanctions - a carrot and a stick.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
pro-Israel forces in the US were not pleased with
this approach. They pressed hard for shorter
deadlines and tougher sanctions - a less
attractive carrot and a bigger stick.
Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states were
also pressing the Obama administration for a
tougher stance after so much folly and inaction
from the previous administration. The Bush
administration's actions in Afghanistan and Iraq
had enhanced Iranian influence so significantly
that the Saudis et al actually thought Iran was
shaping US policy - a lesson that national
security deliberations and paranoid thinking go
hand in hand in many capitals.
The Sunni
states also worried that Obama's zeal for an
agreement might lead him to cede too much to Iran.
This could make Iran a hegemonic power directing a
potent Shi'ite movement in the region and
spreading political Islam at the expense of Arab
rulers. Despite forceful diplomatic and
domestic pressures, the new president held firm. A
less muscular and more flexible approach to Tehran
would be continued.
The approach changed,
but not owing to the predictable reasons. The
fraud of the 2009 elections and ensuing brutal
repression stunned the US administration and
energized its critics. Members of congress
denounced Iran and called for more aggressive
sanctions. The political equation had shifted
decisively.
Divided as to how to respond,
the administration acquiesced to congressional
pressure for a tougher stance. Negotiations went
nowhere and the two countries stumbled into the
present crisis. What Israel and Saudi Arabia could
not do to change Obama's policy, Iran itself did -
and exceedingly well.
The most intriguing
parts of Parsi's book are the accounts from
Israeli figures as drawn from personal interviews
and public statements. Parsi uncovers greater
complexity in Israeli figures than found in the
spokesmen and politicians on either side of the
Atlantic.
Foremost is the view that Iran
is unlikely to use a nuclear weapon on Israel. The
ayatollahs, according to defense minister and
highly decorated soldier Ehud Barak, are pragmatic
actors on the world stage and not mad mullahs.
This of course is at variance with the
heated discourse and insistent pleas for action
that depict the Iranian clerics as unreasoning
zealots bent on bringing about the end of the
world and the Imam's return. The ayatollahs, Barak
feels, know well that a nuclear strike on Israel
would not benefit Iran and that the inevitable
Israeli counterstrike would be swift and
devastating.
Israeli strategists are more
concerned that a nuclear Iran would damage
Israel's aura of invincibility and inevitability,
embolden Palestinian politicians and militants,
and ultimately force a settlement requiring Israel
to cede territory. Parsi, perhaps regrettably,
withholds comment on the soundness of this
reasoning.
Parsi quotes former Mossad
chief Meir Dagan's famous comment from last year
branding the idea of an Israeli attack on Iranian
nuclear facilities "the stupidest thing I have
ever heard". Dagan thinks it would bring about a
regional conflagration whose "security challenge
would become unbearable". Dagan, the likely
director of the campaign of assassinations and
bombings taking place inside Iran, can hardly be
dismissed as a peace activist airing tendentious
musings.
Israeli threats to attack Iran on
its own seek to prod the US into ratcheting up
sanctions, though some figures would like to press
the US into attacking Iran. Sanctions can only
slow down the progress of Iran's program; air
strikes can set the program back markedly.
Israeli strategists, however, accept the
possibility of failure. In the event that
sanctions and attacks do not work, Iran must be
made into a sobering example for other countries
that may seek their own nuclear weapons. Acquiring
them, or trying to, will come at the cost of
onerous sanctions that will cripple the nation
indefinitely.
Making an example out of
Iran, Israeli sources cautiously observe, could
come at the price of a badly weakened democratic
reform movement, a failed state astride the
Persian Gulf and AfPak, and ultimately an angry
nuclear-armed country seeking vengeance.
What to do? Parsi sees a protracted period
of containment - one alternative to war - as
fraught with risks of worsened tensions and
accidental hostilities. He closes by advocating a
new round of diplomacy with less onerous
sanctions, a long-term outlook, better defined
negotiating points, and the use of influential
intermediaries such as Turkey.
But to many
readers, it will not be clear what agreement could
be reached on the nuclear issue, then or now, that
would not entail acquiescence to Iran's nuclear
goals. Many will suspect that Iran's research and
Israel's impatience will not grant us another roll
of the dice.
A Single Roll of the Dice:
Obama's Diplomacy with Iran by Trita Parsi.
(New York: Yale University Press, 2012). ISBN-10:
0300169361. Price US$27.50, 304 pages.
Brian M Downing is a
political/military analyst and author of The
Military Revolution and Political Change and The
Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America
from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached
at brianmdowning@gmail.com.
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Iran, then, saw
little likelihood that Obama would be able to
break free of political restraints. His selection
of Dennis Ross and Rahm Emanuel as key advisers
did nothing to shake Tehran from its skepticism,
as Tehran deemed them both pro-Israel partisans.
