Aaron David miller and Mitchel Hochberg
By Aaron David miller and Mitchel Hochberg
Nobody knows how the Iranian nuclear dilemma is going to end. A good deal, a bad deal, no deal, a US or Israeli military strike — or none of the above? But amid all the uncertainty, at least one thing seems pretty certain: The mullahs are playing three-dimensional chess while the US is playing checkers.
This is not to say that the Iranians are diplomatic and strategic geniuses. After all, if they were that clever, they wouldn’t be reeling under the impact of nation-crushing sanctions that are destroying their economy. Nor would everyone’s favourite mullah — President Hasan Rowhani — be sending Rosh Hashanah tweets to all his would-be Jewish friends.
The checkers reference is also not meant to suggest that the Obama administration is clueless about how to deal with Iran. While the president’s handling of the Syrian chemical weapons issue did at times resemble a Marx Brothers movie, the administration knows the stakes on Iran are higher — and that, precisely because of Syria, it must be more disciplined, focused, and deliberate.
Yet Iran has certain natural advantages that the US lacks. This doesn’t invariably mean the US will lose and Iran will win at nuclear roulette. But it does mean that Tehran can be far more agile, devious, and strategic in its quest for a nuclear weapons capacity than Washington can be in its effort to stop it.
There are brief explanations of these important advantages.
Big doesn’t always translate into smart and effective, and small doesn’t necessarily mean weak. The Middle East is littered with the remains of great powers that wrongly believed they could impose their will on small tribes.
Compelling and coercing nations not to do something they deem vital is no easy matter. The record, as my Foreign Policy colleague Micah Zenko points out, isn’t all that great. Big global powers like the US have many things to do, and they are distracted and tire easily. Smaller ones like Iran that live in a dangerous neighbourhood can’t afford to do the same. They’re focused intensely on just a few things: physical security, survival of the regime, maintaining religious and national identity, historical grievances, wounding and trauma, and fear of bigger powers.
They become quite adept at manipulating and manoeuvring around these larger powers to achieve their goals, both because of their will and because of their knowledge of the real estate: They know their region’s back alleys, sand traps and complicated ways.
In recent years, the US has come to Iran’s neighbourhood all too often and with too little knowledge of the landscape. With our overwhelming military power and technological superiority, we can remove leaders and weaken groups hostile to our interests.
But the locals can and do make us pay big time. (See: Lebanon, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq.) A decade after we’ve left, all our schemes and dreams won’t have changed much on the ground. Two decades later, if locals remember we were there, it usually isn’t fondly.
Iran has been particularly deft in capitalising on these sorts of US mistakes. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan weakened the Taliban and eliminated Saddam Hussein — two of Iran’s adversaries — and bolstered its regional standing. Iran has also manoeuvred deftly, and thus played well, in regional developments like the Syrian crisis. It has backed President Bashar Al Assad, exploited his regime’s Hezbollah connection, and managed along with the Russians to keep the regime afloat.
The US-Russian agreement on chemical weapons has also furthered the Iranian goal of legitimising the Syrian leader and has raised questions in the minds of the mullahs about whether we are prepared to use military force in the Middle East.
Finally, thanks largely to its smaller, nimbler status, Iran has withstood sanctions, political isolation, cyberwar, and the efforts of three successive US administrations to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Indeed, in 2013, Tehran is closer than ever to attaining the capacity to weaponise within a relatively short period of time. And who knows? They may be even nearer than we and the Israelis realise to crossing that threshold.
We really don’t know what the Iranian game is. Are we on the cusp of a new era in the US-Iranian relationship with a deal on the nuclear issue that will lead to a broader regional modus vivendi?
Or is the Rowhani diplomatic offensive designed to buy time, probe for weakness and division in allied ranks, neutralise the Israeli military option, and reinforce through charm and sweet talk an American president’s already strong preference for diplomacy over war?
Nor does the US fully grasp its own game. There is tremendous uncertainty about what, in the end, to do about Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon. Do we bomb if diplomacy fails? Do we contain? What do we do if/when Israel decides it must use force? Our policy oozes indecision. And it shows.
Iran is a country driven by a profound sense of insecurity and entitlement — a very bad combination of personality traits in an individual, let alone in a nation.
The Iranian leadership can lie, dissemble, and pursue this two-track strategy without blinking an eye and without fear of any domestic backlash, all in an effort to see what kind of sanctions relief it can achieve and what it has to pay for it.
If the price isn’t right, it can recalibrate, turn on a dime, and effortlessly return to the hard-line rhetoric of Rowhani’s predecessor.
For President Obama, investing in Rowhani thus means risking being made to look the fool should the process reach the point where the mullahs determine that what we’re offering isn’t sufficient to meet their needs.
And, while this budding relationship congeals, the US president is in the uncomfortable position of having to explain every negative Iranian statement or action. Yet Iran has positioned Rowhani as a risk the US feels it must take.
Iran is a free agent in negotiating with the US. We aren’t in as enviable position. Whatever political constraints Khamenei faces, they aren’t nearly as narrowing as ours. Between Congress and US allies — Israel but also Saudi Arabia — the US position must take into account an array of suspicions and fears, some of them at times competing with each other.
Congress is critical for sanctions relief and for the domestic consensus required for any foreign-policy initiative, particularly one as big as this. And the notion that the Obama administration will somehow have a free hand to ignore Israeli needs strains the bounds of credulity to the breaking point.
AUS presidents and government negotiators measure their lives in four- and eight-year increments — that is, the terms of administrations. Iran, by contrast, plays the long game, the generational game. Sure, Iran wants sanctions relief.
In addition to the limited time frame of his second term, Obama is up against two clocks that are ticking down to a place he’d rather not be: a military option.
First, there’s the clock showing that Iran is nearing the point of no return — the much-feared breakout capacity. That, in turn, influences the second clock: Israel’s own timeline for making the agonising decision about its military options.
As for the Israelis, the mullahs may well take their chances and wager that the temporary setback to their nuclear program would be outweighed by the political benefits they might gain from an Israeli strike.
It’s a roll of the dice. But Iran, with all its advantages over the US and its allies, just might take the risk. Indeed, the message from Tehran might be: Come and get us. And, by the way, welcome to the neighbourhood. WP-BLOOMBERG
By Aaron David miller and Mitchel Hochberg
Nobody knows how the Iranian nuclear dilemma is going to end. A good deal, a bad deal, no deal, a US or Israeli military strike — or none of the above? But amid all the uncertainty, at least one thing seems pretty certain: The mullahs are playing three-dimensional chess while the US is playing checkers.
This is not to say that the Iranians are diplomatic and strategic geniuses. After all, if they were that clever, they wouldn’t be reeling under the impact of nation-crushing sanctions that are destroying their economy. Nor would everyone’s favourite mullah — President Hasan Rowhani — be sending Rosh Hashanah tweets to all his would-be Jewish friends.
The checkers reference is also not meant to suggest that the Obama administration is clueless about how to deal with Iran. While the president’s handling of the Syrian chemical weapons issue did at times resemble a Marx Brothers movie, the administration knows the stakes on Iran are higher — and that, precisely because of Syria, it must be more disciplined, focused, and deliberate.
Yet Iran has certain natural advantages that the US lacks. This doesn’t invariably mean the US will lose and Iran will win at nuclear roulette. But it does mean that Tehran can be far more agile, devious, and strategic in its quest for a nuclear weapons capacity than Washington can be in its effort to stop it.
There are brief explanations of these important advantages.
Big doesn’t always translate into smart and effective, and small doesn’t necessarily mean weak. The Middle East is littered with the remains of great powers that wrongly believed they could impose their will on small tribes.
Compelling and coercing nations not to do something they deem vital is no easy matter. The record, as my Foreign Policy colleague Micah Zenko points out, isn’t all that great. Big global powers like the US have many things to do, and they are distracted and tire easily. Smaller ones like Iran that live in a dangerous neighbourhood can’t afford to do the same. They’re focused intensely on just a few things: physical security, survival of the regime, maintaining religious and national identity, historical grievances, wounding and trauma, and fear of bigger powers.
They become quite adept at manipulating and manoeuvring around these larger powers to achieve their goals, both because of their will and because of their knowledge of the real estate: They know their region’s back alleys, sand traps and complicated ways.
In recent years, the US has come to Iran’s neighbourhood all too often and with too little knowledge of the landscape. With our overwhelming military power and technological superiority, we can remove leaders and weaken groups hostile to our interests.
But the locals can and do make us pay big time. (See: Lebanon, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq.) A decade after we’ve left, all our schemes and dreams won’t have changed much on the ground. Two decades later, if locals remember we were there, it usually isn’t fondly.
Iran has been particularly deft in capitalising on these sorts of US mistakes. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan weakened the Taliban and eliminated Saddam Hussein — two of Iran’s adversaries — and bolstered its regional standing. Iran has also manoeuvred deftly, and thus played well, in regional developments like the Syrian crisis. It has backed President Bashar Al Assad, exploited his regime’s Hezbollah connection, and managed along with the Russians to keep the regime afloat.
The US-Russian agreement on chemical weapons has also furthered the Iranian goal of legitimising the Syrian leader and has raised questions in the minds of the mullahs about whether we are prepared to use military force in the Middle East.
Finally, thanks largely to its smaller, nimbler status, Iran has withstood sanctions, political isolation, cyberwar, and the efforts of three successive US administrations to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Indeed, in 2013, Tehran is closer than ever to attaining the capacity to weaponise within a relatively short period of time. And who knows? They may be even nearer than we and the Israelis realise to crossing that threshold.
We really don’t know what the Iranian game is. Are we on the cusp of a new era in the US-Iranian relationship with a deal on the nuclear issue that will lead to a broader regional modus vivendi?
Or is the Rowhani diplomatic offensive designed to buy time, probe for weakness and division in allied ranks, neutralise the Israeli military option, and reinforce through charm and sweet talk an American president’s already strong preference for diplomacy over war?
Nor does the US fully grasp its own game. There is tremendous uncertainty about what, in the end, to do about Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon. Do we bomb if diplomacy fails? Do we contain? What do we do if/when Israel decides it must use force? Our policy oozes indecision. And it shows.
Iran is a country driven by a profound sense of insecurity and entitlement — a very bad combination of personality traits in an individual, let alone in a nation.
The Iranian leadership can lie, dissemble, and pursue this two-track strategy without blinking an eye and without fear of any domestic backlash, all in an effort to see what kind of sanctions relief it can achieve and what it has to pay for it.
If the price isn’t right, it can recalibrate, turn on a dime, and effortlessly return to the hard-line rhetoric of Rowhani’s predecessor.
For President Obama, investing in Rowhani thus means risking being made to look the fool should the process reach the point where the mullahs determine that what we’re offering isn’t sufficient to meet their needs.
And, while this budding relationship congeals, the US president is in the uncomfortable position of having to explain every negative Iranian statement or action. Yet Iran has positioned Rowhani as a risk the US feels it must take.
Iran is a free agent in negotiating with the US. We aren’t in as enviable position. Whatever political constraints Khamenei faces, they aren’t nearly as narrowing as ours. Between Congress and US allies — Israel but also Saudi Arabia — the US position must take into account an array of suspicions and fears, some of them at times competing with each other.
Congress is critical for sanctions relief and for the domestic consensus required for any foreign-policy initiative, particularly one as big as this. And the notion that the Obama administration will somehow have a free hand to ignore Israeli needs strains the bounds of credulity to the breaking point.
AUS presidents and government negotiators measure their lives in four- and eight-year increments — that is, the terms of administrations. Iran, by contrast, plays the long game, the generational game. Sure, Iran wants sanctions relief.
In addition to the limited time frame of his second term, Obama is up against two clocks that are ticking down to a place he’d rather not be: a military option.
First, there’s the clock showing that Iran is nearing the point of no return — the much-feared breakout capacity. That, in turn, influences the second clock: Israel’s own timeline for making the agonising decision about its military options.
As for the Israelis, the mullahs may well take their chances and wager that the temporary setback to their nuclear program would be outweighed by the political benefits they might gain from an Israeli strike.
It’s a roll of the dice. But Iran, with all its advantages over the US and its allies, just might take the risk. Indeed, the message from Tehran might be: Come and get us. And, by the way, welcome to the neighbourhood. WP-BLOOMBERG
