Trita Parsi’s first book, Treacherous Alliance (2008), displayed a masterful understanding of the open and hidden dealings between Iran, the US, and Israel over the last thirty-five years. This impressive follow-up 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 to set up a new government the following year, but the Bush administration remained hostile. Following the US defeat 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 as well. 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, where the US and Iran have common interests in a stable, non-Taliban country.
It was decided, however, that Iranian help in Afghanistan would put the US in debt at the outset of the more critical negotiations on nuclear research. The administration opted for Dennis Ross’s 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 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 Af-Pak, 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.