President Bush apparently convinced European leaders to support additional sanctions against Iran during his farewell tour of Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example, said that “one cannot exclude another round of sanctions.” Bank Melli and other Iranian financial institutions would be the main targets.
That’s good news, but the difficulties inherent in sustaining this coalition inevitably raise the question of far Germany and other European countries are willing to go to keep the pressure on Iran—and what the United States can do to help sustain transatlantic unity.
On the one hand, there seems to be something approaching a consensus in Europe on the need to constrain Iran’s nuclear program and even for the European Union to flex its muscles a bit in pursuit of that objective. For example, the European Union has reportedly agreed on what action to take against Bank Melli, even if (contra Gordon Brown’s embarrassing assertion yesterday) the EU has not in fact agreed on when to take action.
Still, with energy prices soaring to record levels and the global economy on a downturn, the chances of mobilizing international support for sanctions targeting Iran’s economic lifeline, its oil and natural gas exports, are slim to none. But there is still plenty that can be done on the sanctions front, particularly in the financial sector.
What does seem clear, however, is that President Bush’s saber-rattling towards Iran—his stock reminder that “all options are on the table”—is singularly unhelpful. It rattles politicians in Europe more than it gives pause to mullahs in Iran, who know that the United States is uniquely vulnerable to retaliation so long as there are 150,000 American troops in Iraq.
Why Bush insists on repeating this swashbuckling mantra at every turn boggles the mind. Everybody knows that military force is always hypothetically available, so why keep trumpeting it when the practical result is to put our allies in an exceedingly awkward spot: how to sell a foreign policy of putting pressure on Tehran to domestic audiences while at the same time distancing oneself from Bush’s bellicose (and failed) policy towards Iran?
Consider the plight of Chancellor Merkel. She’s comparatively hawkish by European standards—her political party recently endorsed missile defense installations in Europe. But her ruling coalition, comprised of the Social Democratic Party and her Christian Democratic Union, is beginning to fracture due to internal disputes ranging from minimum wage policy and health care reform to German foreign policy on China’s human rights record. National parliamentary elections are scheduled for fall 2009, but one cannot dismiss the possibility of early elections.
Now consider this in light of the fact that European publics—and I’m not joking here—tend to regard Bush’s policies as a greater threat to world peace than Iran’s. For example, nearly half of the German public, according to a recent poll conducted by Stern, a German language weekly, sees the United States as a bigger threat to world peace than Iran. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), a leading German newspaper, noted that even Russian President Putin received a warmer farewell from Europe before he left office.
Small wonder, then, that Merkel has bent over backwards to make it clear that the UN in New York, and not the White House in Washington, will remain the center stage for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, and why she insisted on thorough implementation of the latest round of UNSC sanctions before moving on to harsher measures.
Sanctions are almost always effective in the sense that they hurt the target country. That is certainly true in Iran’s case, where sanctions have exasperated conditions in its already dysfunctional economy. But sanctions are seldom successful in actually changing the target government’s policies unless the international community—or at least the United States and Europe—is committed to the endeavor over the long term. Sustaining this commitment in the case of Iran is difficult enough, but Bush’s saber-rattling only makes it harder.
Fabian Lieschke, a graduate student at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service interning with me for the summer, co-authored this piece and was the driving force behind it.
The “new” sanctions were so heavily telegraphed to the Iranians that they are not really sanctions at all, just a request to Iran to put its spare cash somewhere else. Meanwhile, it allows the Europeans to run down the clock on George Bush without military action being taken. Expect to see another burst of sanctions from Europe in late August/early September which will hopefully postpone any military action hopefully into the New Year and then the new President can start to deal with Iran in a manner that most likely will be successful.
The only spanner in the works could be the Israelis who believe that it is a doable mission to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites.
Jerusalem’s military leaders claim that Tehran could curtail every Israeli military campaign — in the Gaza Strip, for example — with only the credible threat of a nuclear strike. Despite its military strength, they say, the country would be practically defenseless. Even worse, the mere existence of an Iranian nuclear bomb, the government in Jerusalem believes, would trigger an exodus of the educated elite that could spell disaster for the country, both economically and culturally. “Iran would be in a position to destroy the Zionist dream without even pressing a button,” says Ephraim Sneh, a retired general and cabinet minister for many years.
The Israeli attitude to Iran having nuclear weapons suggests to me that Israel currently does not want a two state solution and may even intend in future to try expanding into further parts of the former British Mandate of Palestine such as Jordan as is the stated policy of some parts of the ruling coalition in Israel.
An aerial attack on Iran will merely delay the Iranians from acquiring nuclear devices unless Israel is prepared to invade and occupy Iran and even with full US support, they could never achieve that. The only alternative is to accept the Arab offer which Iran has said will satisfy them if the Palestinians agree to it. Ironically, maybe Iran being able to suggest it has nuclear devices will actually bring peace to the Middle East, it won’t be quite the peace that the Zionists have in mind but there will almost certainly be a place for the Jews in the Middle East.
If the Israelis attack Iran, I can see little chance of the EU allowing the closer ties that the Israelis seem desperate for. The offer of substantive talks with the EU on this will be used to run out the clock on the ‘favorable window of opportunity’ for Israel because there is no such thing.
Andy and Fabian, I wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion that Washington is doing “saber-rattling” regarding Iran.
The expression “all options are on the table” is mostly used when Bush is asked by a journalist whether the military option is conceivable or being considered. So what is he supposed to reply? “No, it is not conceivable”? What a great victory it would be for Ahmadinehad, who would then be able to argue successfully in Tehran that his escalation of the crisis and inflammatory rhetoric actually work.
Note also that Bush, Gates, Rice et al. keep hammering the message that they want to resolve the crisis through diplomatic means.
Finally, I do not see any element to support your assertion that European leaders such as Merkel, Sarkozy et al. are in any way embarrassed by the current rhetorical posture of the US administration.
I do agree, however, that sanctions are more likely to be efficient if there is a dedicated commitment over the long term. And that, my friends, is not a given.
kerbihan —
You’re right that Bush usually offers the mantra in response to questions from journalists, who love to bait him to say something provocative that will make a great headline.
But that doesn’t mean Bush has to take the bait. Any politician worth his salt knows how to deal with questions like this. It’s easy: Bush could simply say that he’s focused on diplomacy now and isn’t going to speculate about the future. The military option exists regardless of whether it’s publicly expressed.
Look, Bush knows what he is doing. He is choosing to answer the question with his stock mantra because he thinks it increases the pressure on Iran. But he is wrong–it undermines it.
Actually, Andy, I also disagree with your contention that Bush is “repeating this swashbuckling mantra at every turn”. That’s unsubstantiated so far. Did you actually count the number of times he did? How many times did he use the expression, say, in the past three months? Or during his trip to Europe? He did not use it at all, for instance, in the press conferences he had in the United Kingdom and France.