US Distorts Iranian Nuclear Rights
The U.S. government and Israel itself a rogue nuclear-armed state insist that
the Non-Proliferation Treaty doesn’t give Iran the right to enrich uranium for
peaceful purposes. But the words of the treaty clearly say otherwise, as Flynt
and Hillary Mann Leverett note.
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
Last month, while testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wendy
Sherman, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and the senior U.S.
representative in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran, said, with reference to
Iranians, “We know that deception is part of the DNA.”
This statement goes beyond orientalist stereotyping; it is, in the most literal
sense, racist. And it evidently was not a mere “slip of the tongue”: a former
Obama administration senior official told us that Sherman has used such language
before about Iranians.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at a press conference in Iran. (Official
Iranian photo)
If a senior U.S. government official made public statements about “deception” or
some other negative character trait being “part of the DNA” of Jews, people of
African origin, or most other ethnic groups, that official would, rightly, be
fired or forced to resign, and would probably not be allowed back into “polite
society” until after multiple groveling apologies and a long period of penance.
But a senior U.S. official can make such a statement about Iranians, or almost
certainly about any other ethnic group a majority of whose members are Muslim,
and that’s just fine. Of course, it’s not fine. But that’s the America we live
in.
Putting aside Sherman’s glaring display of anti-Iranian racism, there was
another egregious manifestation of prejudice-cum-lie in her testimony to the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee that we want to explore more fully. It came
in a response to a question from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, about whether
states have a right to enrich under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Here is the relevant passage in Sherman’s reply:
“It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all [and]
doesn’t speak to enrichment, period. It simply says that you have the right to
research and development.”
Sherman goes on to acknowledge that “many countries such as Japan and Germany
have taken that [uranium enrichment] to be a right.” But, she says, “the United
States does not take that position. We take the position that we look at each
one of these [cases].”
Or, as she put it at the beginning of her response to Sen. Rubio, “It has always
been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
does not speak about the right of enrichment at all” (emphasis added).
Two points should be made here. First, the claim that the NPT’s Article IV does
not affirm the right of non-nuclear-weapons states to pursue indigenous
development of fuel-cycle capabilities, including uranium enrichment, under
international safeguards is flat-out false.
Article IV makes a blanket statement that “nothing in this Treaty shall be
interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty
to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes
without discrimination.”
And it’s not just “countries such as Japan and Germany”, both close U.S. allies,
which affirm that this includes the right of non-weapons states to enrich
uranium under safeguards. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South
Africa) countries and the Non-Aligned Movement (whose 120 countries represent a
large majority of UN members) have all clearly affirmed the right of nonnuclear-weapons states, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, to pursue
indigenous safeguarded enrichment.
In fact, just four countries in the world hold that there is no right to
safeguarded enrichment under the NPT: the United States, Britain, France, and
Israel (which isn’t even a NPT signatory). That’s it.
Moreover, the right to indigenous technological development, including nuclear
fuel-cycle capabilities, should a state choose to pursue them, is a sovereign
right. It is not conferred by the NPT; the NPT’s Article IV recognizes states’
“inalienable right” in this regard, while other provisions bind non-weapons
states that join the Treaty to exercise this right under international
safeguards.
There have been many first-rate analyses demonstrating that the right to
safeguarded enrichment under the NPT is crystal clear, from the Treaty itself,
from its negotiating history, and from subsequent practice, with at least a
dozen non-weapons states building fuel-cycle infrastructures potentially capable
of supporting weapons programs.
Bill Beeman published a nice Op-Ed in the Huffington Post on this question in
response to Sherman’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony. (See here
and, for a text including references, here. For truly definitive legal analyses,
see the work of Daniel Joyner, for example here and here.)
The issue will also be dealt with in articles by Flynt Leverett and Dan Joyner
in a forthcoming special issue of the Penn State Journal of Law and
International Affairs, which should appear within the next few days.
From any objectively informed legal perspective, denying non-weapons states’
right of safeguarded enrichment amounts to nothing more than a shameless effort
to rewrite the NPT unilaterally. And this brings us to our second point about
Sherman’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony.
Sherman claims that “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at
all [and] doesn’t speak to enrichment, period.” But, in fact, the United States
originally held that the right to peaceful use recognized in the NPT’s Article
IV includes the indigenous development of safeguarded fuel-cycle capabilities.
In 1968, as America and the Soviet Union, the NPT’s sponsors, prepared to open
it for signature, the founding Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency, William Foster, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the same
committee to which Sherman untruthfully testified last month, that the Treaty
permitted non-weapons states to pursue the fuel cycle.
We quote Foster on this point: “Neither uranium enrichment nor the stockpiling
of fissionable material in connection with a peaceful program would violate
Article II so long as these activities were safeguarded under Article III.”
[Note: In Article II of the NPT, non-weapons states commit not to build or
acquire nuclear weapons; in Article III, they agree to accept safeguards on the
nuclear activities, “as set forth in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded
with the International Atomic Energy Agency.”]
Thus, it is a bald-faced lie to say that the United States has “always” held
that the NPT does not recognize a right to safeguarded enrichment. As a matter
of policy, the United States held that that the NPT recognized such a right even
before it was opened for signature; this continued to be the U.S. position for
more than a quarter century thereafter.
It was only after the Cold War ended that the United States, along with Britain,
France and Israel, decided that the NPT should be, in effect, unilaterally
rewritten (by them) to constrain the diffusion of fuel-cycle capabilities to
non-Western states.
And their main motive for trying to do so has been to maximize America’s freedom
of unilateral military initiative and, in the Middle East, that of Israel. This
is the agenda for which Wendy Sherman tells falsehoods to a Congress that is all
too happy to accept them.
Flynt Leverett served as a Middle East expert on George W. Bush’s National
Security Council staff until the Iraq War and worked previously at the State
Department and at the Central Intelligence Agency. Hillary Mann Leverett was the
NSC expert on Iran and from 2001 to 2003 was one of only a few U.S. diplomats
authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and Iraq.
They are authors of Going to Tehran. [This article previously appeared at
GoingtoTehran.com.]
The Iranian Olive Branch
Iran’s new President Hassan Rouhani renounced again any Iranian interest in
building a nuclear weapon and proposed serious negotiations with the West. But
the question remains: Will the Obama administration spurn Rouhani’s offer of an
olive branch? ask Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett.
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
As New York prepares for the annual opening of the United Nations General
Assembly, the volume of Western media speculation about the prospects for a
U.S.-Iranian diplomatic breakthrough has mounted to impressive levels.
Predictably, much of this speculation amounted to little more than wondering how
many concessions the Islamic Republic’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, is
willing and will be able to make, especially on the nuclear issue.
As usual, we prefer looking at facts and authoritative statements of official
positions over the speculation of journalists and pundits. In this spirit, we
want to highlight a few passages from President Rouhani’s much noted Op-Ed in
the Washington Post.
Three passages seem especially relevant for understanding Tehran’s position on
the nuclear issue. The first presents Rouhani’s definition of “constructive
engagement” (emphasis added):
“It is, or should be, counterintuitive to pursue one’s interests without
considering the interests of others. A constructive approach to diplomacy
doesn’t mean relinquishing one’s rights. It means engaging with one’s
counterparts, on the basis of equal footing and mutual respect, to address
shared concerns and achieve shared objectives. In other words, win-win outcomes
are not just favorable but also achievable. A zero-sum, Cold War mentality leads
to everyone’s loss.”
The explicit reference to not relinquishing one’s rights is, of course, very
much of a piece with Rouhani’s statements, during his presidential campaign and
since his election, that he is not about to surrender Iran’s right, as a
sovereign state and as a non-weapons state party to the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT), to enrich uranium under international safeguards.
Unfortunately, there is no concrete indication that the Obama administration is
prepared to acknowledge this right. In fact, one can find multiple statements
from administration officials over the last five years publicly denying that
there is such a right. (This is, among other things, a legally and
intellectually dishonest reading of the NPT.)
The second passage from President Rouhani’s Op-Ed that we want to highlight here
explains with admirable clarity why the Islamic Republic is not about to
compromise its right to safeguarded enrichment (again, emphasis added):
“We must also pay attention to the issue of identity as a key driver of tension
in, and beyond, the Middle East. At their core, the vicious battles in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Syria are over the nature of those countries’ identities and
their consequent roles in our region and the world. The centrality of identity
extends to the case of our peaceful nuclear energy program. To us, mastering the
atomic fuel cycle and generating nuclear power is as much about diversifying our
energy resources as it is about who Iranians are as a nation, our demand for
dignity and respect and our consequent place in the world.”
President Rouhani goes on to note, “Without comprehending the role of identity,
many issues we all face will remain unresolved.” Indeed. Unfortunately, it
remains far from clear that the Obama administration understands how tightly the
matter of Iran’s nuclear rights is linked to fundamental questions of identity
(like independence and control of the country’s energy resources) for Iranians
who supported Imam Khomeini’s revolution and continue to support the political
order it produced.
The third passage from President Rouhani’s Op-Ed that we want to highlight
discusses the requirements for diplomatic progress (yet again, emphasis added):
“To move beyond impasses, whether in relation to Syria, my country’s nuclear
program or its relations with the United States, we need to aim higher. Rather
than focusing on how to prevent things from getting worse, we need to think, and
talk, about how to make things better. To do that, we all need to muster the
courage to start conveying what we want, clearly, concisely and sincerely, and
to back it up with the political will to take necessary action. This is the
essence of my approach to constructive interaction.”
President Rouhani certainly is not the first Iranian leader to want the United
States to clarify its ultimate intentions vis-Ã -vis the Islamic Republic.
Unfortunately, it remains far from clear that the Obama administration is or
will be prepared to lay out a clear and positive end game for nuclear talks with
the Islamic Republic, for this would require the United States to acknowledge
Iran’s aforementioned right to safeguarded enrichment as an essential pillar of
any negotiated solution to the nuclear issue.
So, going into UN General Assembly and looking beyond UNGA to renewed nuclear
negotiations with the Islamic Republic, the relevant question is not how much is
Iran’s leadership prepared to concede on the nuclear issue.
Rather, the relevant question is whether Washington is prepared to abandon a
strategic approach to the Middle East that has done profound damage to America’s
own position in this vital region, in no small part, by rendering productive
diplomacy with the Islamic Republic impossible.
Flynt Leverett served as a Middle East expert on George W. Bush’s National
Security Council staff until the Iraq War and worked previously at the State
Department and at the Central Intelligence Agency. Hillary Mann Leverett was the
NSC expert on Iran and from 2001 to 2003
was one of only a few U.S. diplomats
authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and Iraq.
They are authors of
Going to Tehran. [This article previously appeared at
GoingtoTehran.com.]
Obama’s Flailing Mideast Strategy
Not only has the Obama administration presented no hard evidence to support its
charge that the Syrian government used chemical weapons, President Obama’s plan
to retaliate with cruise missiles in violation of international law suggests a
Mideast strategy in disarray, say Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett.
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
As the Obama administration proceeds with its tragi-comic preparations for
military strikes against Syria, with no domestic or international legitimacy, it
is losing allies and partners at an impressively rapid pace, faster than even
the George W. Bush administration was able to achieve at its most egregiously
offensive.
The Arab League, in the end, declined to endorse military action against Syria,
Britain decided not to go on this particular martial walk with its American
master, and, for once, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, is not the only member of
Congress raising his voice against the prospect of another illegal use of
military force by yet another U.S. administration.
Once carried out, the Obama administration’s thoroughly telegraphed strike on
Syria, ostensibly over alleged chemical weapons use there, will mark an
important inflection point in the terminal decline of America’s Middle East
empire. Most importantly, it will confirm that America’s political class,
including President Barack Obama himself, remains unwilling to face the
political risks posed by any fundamental revision of Washington’s 20+-year,
deeply self-damaging drive to dominate the region.
Obama initially ran for president pledging to end the “mindset” behind the
strategic blunder of America’s 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq; in his
first term, he committed to ending America’s war in Afghanistan, too, and to
“rebalancing” toward Asia. But Obama was never ready to spend the political
capital required for thoroughgoing recasting of U.S. foreign policy;
consequently, the dissipation of American power (hard and soft) evident under
George W. Bush has accelerated under Obama.
Obama’s approach to Syria illustrates why. Since conflict started there two and
a half years ago, Washington has had openings for a negotiated resolution. This,
though, would entail power-sharing between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and
oppositionists and cooperation with Russia, Iran, and China to fix a settlement.
Instead, Obama doubled down on reasserting American hegemony.
When unrest began in Syria in March 2011, Obama and his team were desperate to
show, after the loss of pro-Western regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, and nearmisses in Bahrain and Yemen, that the Arab Awakening did not just threaten
authoritarian orders that subordinated their foreign policy to Washington. They
wanted to show that leaders committed to foreign policy independence, like
Assad, were vulnerable, too. They also calculated that Assad’s ouster would tilt
the regional balance against Tehran, generating leverage to force Iran’s
surrender of its right to an internationally safeguarded but indigenous nuclear
fuel cycle.
Two years ago, Obama declared that Assad “must go,” eviscerating prospects for a
political settlement. Obama further damaged diplomatic prospects with three UN
Security Council resolutions effectively authorizing coercive regime change in
Damascus, which Russia and China vetoed. His Syria strategy rested on the
surreal proposition that a staggeringly fractious “opposition,” much of which
publicly aligns with al-Qa’ida and is not supported by anything close to a
majority of Syrians, would unseat Assad, who (according to polls and other
evidence) enjoys support from at least half of Syrian society.
Obama compounded all this with an equally foolish declaration that chemical
weapons use was a U.S. “red line”, giving those looking for U.S. intervention
motive to gas innocent civilians. Now that such weapons have been used, Obama
cannot entertain that oppositionists may be responsible, for this would undercut
his Syria strategy.
His administration has presented no evidence that Assad’s forces used chemical
weapons in Ghouta; when it alleged chemical weapons use at Khan al-Assal in
March, it also offered no evidence of government responsibility. By contrast,
Russia publicly presented a detailed forensic analysis showing that neither the
munitions used at Khan al-Assal nor the chemical agent in them had been
industrially manufactured and that, “therefore, there is every reason to believe
that it was the armed opposition fighters who used the chemical weapons.”
Washington rejected this, and, after trying to derail a UN investigation of more
recent allegations about Ghouta, has preemptively dismissed whatever UN
inspectors there now may conclude.
With these positions, Obama has left himself no option except using force to
preserve U.S. “credibility.” His planned strike, though, is illegal. Even if
chemical weapons were used, it does not justify U.S. aggression. Syria is not a
party to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC); the 1925 Geneva Protocol, to
which it is a party, only proscribes chemical weapons use in war against another
state. Neither designates Washington as its “enforcer.” More broadly, the United
Nations Charter, which America largely drafted, forbids using force except under
two circumstances:
–“[I]f an armed attack occurs against a” member state; regardless of who used
chemical weapons in Syria, no other state was attacked or threatened with
attack, so the “right of individual or collective self-defense” posited in the
Charter does not apply (unless one stretches the definition of “self-defense” to
mean “anything Washington does not like”).
— When the Security Council authorizes force “to maintain or restore
international peace and security”; no such resolution is in effect for Syria,
and Russia and China will prevent the Council from adopting one.
Lack of legality has undermined the willingness of the Arab League and even of
usually reliable hangers-on like Britain to endorse a strike. When Obama moves,
he will have a smaller coalition than Bill Clinton or George W. Bush had for
their illegal wars in, respectively, Kosovo and Iraq.
Obama’s strike will further accelerate erosion of America’s position in the
Middle East. Assad will emerge with greater political support, not less; Russian
and Chinese influence will be enhanced. While backing Assad has cost Iran and
Hezbollah some of the popularity they accrued with Sunni Arab publics from their
long records of “resistance” to Israel and America, both judge that, if either
America or Israel becomes militarily involved in Syria, this will undercut
Saudi-sponsored narratives depicting the conflict in sectarian terms,
transforming it into more Iranian-led resistance.
Obama is about to oblige them, ushering in a regional balance increasingly
tilted against the United States.
Flynt Leverett served as a Middle East expert on George W. Bush’s National
Security Council staff until the Iraq War and worked previously at the State
Department and at the Central Intelligence Agency. Hillary Mann Leverett was the
NSC expert on Iran and from 2001 to 2003
was one of only a few U.S. diplomats
authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and Iraq.
They are authors of
Going to Tehran. [This article previously appeared at The
Hindu, Huffington Post and GoingtoTehran.com.]
Adjusting to the New Iranian Reality
Hassan Rouhani’s inauguration as Iran’s new president revives hope for resolving
the Iranian nuclear dispute, but continued belligerency from the U.S. Congress
and Israeli leaders could dash the opportunity as could American misreading of
regional trends, as Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett explain.
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
As Hassan Rouhani was inaugurated Iran’s new president last weekend, there was
self-referential optimism in Western policy circles about what his accession
might portend. A substantial quorum in these circles sees Rouhani as perhaps
someone with whom the West, to recall Margaret Thatcher’s 1984 assessment of
rising Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, “can do business.”
The traits these observers cite to justify their optimism, Rouhani’s deep
knowledge of the nuclear file, his history of seeking creative diplomatic
solutions, an easier rhetorical style for Westerners than outgoing President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, fluency in English, are real.
But the focus on them suggests that Western elites still look for Tehran to
accommodate the West’s nuclear demands, above all, by compromising Iran’s right,
as a sovereign state and signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to
enrich uranium indigenously under safeguards. This motivates them to interpret
Rouhani’s election as evidence of Iranians’ growing weariness with sanctions
and, by extension, with their government’s policies that prompt escalating
international pressure on Iran’s economy.
If this assessment shapes Western policy toward Tehran after Rouhani’s
inauguration, America and its European partners will not only squander yet
another chance to realign relations with Iran. They will also ensure further and
far more precipitous erosion of their standing and influence in the Middle East.
Such an interpretation, first of all, misreads who Rouhani is and what he
represents. Rouhani is not an “ultra-Green” radical, out to deconstruct the
Islamic Republic into some secularized alternative; properly speaking, he is not
even a reformist. He is a conservative cleric, from what Iranians call the
“modern right,” launched in the 1980s by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, Rouhani’s mentor and patron.
Far from being an antagonist to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei,
Rouhani enjoys Khamenei’s confidence. In 2005, after newly installed President
Ahmadinejad replaced Rouhani as the Supreme National Security Council’s
secretary-general, Khamenei kept Rouhani on the Council as his personal
representative.
From a Western perspective, Rouhani’s diplomatic record might seem relatively
accommodating; when he was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator in 2003-2005, Tehran
suspended enrichment for nearly two years. Rouhani’s approach has been
criticized in Iran, for Western powers offered nothing significant in return for
suspension.
In his presidential campaign, though, Rouhani strongly defended his record,
arguing that, far from betraying Iran’s nuclear rights, his approach let it
avoid sanctions while laying the foundation for subsequent development of its
enrichment infrastructure. In his first post-election press conference, he made
clear that the days when Iran might consider suspension “are over.”
Beyond misreading Rouhani, reigning Western narratives prevent Western powers
from accepting and dealing with the Islamic Republic as a system. Alongside
other indicators, Rouhani’s election should tell Westerners this system is more
resilient than they recognize.
Unlike the Shah’s Iran, Mubarak’s Egypt, or Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy, the
Islamic Republic doesn’t operate in service of the United States or any other
foreign power. It has endured decades of U.S.-instigated military, clandestine
and economic pressure, yet still produced better results at alleviating poverty,
boosting health and education outcomes, and improving the social status of women
than either the Shah’s regime or any of its neighbors, including American allies
like Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
More fundamentally, the Islamic Republic’s core project of integrating Islamic
governance with participatory politics continues to command the support of most
Iranians living in their country. The election Rouhani won showed that the nezam
(system) works as designed, letting candidates who accept its constitutional
framework to compete vigorously by advocating divergent approaches to domestic
and international issues.
Iranian voters, more than 70 percent of whom took part, acted like they believed
they had meaningful choices and that their votes mattered. High-quality polls
and the election results show that Rouhani (the only clerical candidate) won for
good reason: he ran an effective campaign, did well in three televised (and
widely watched) debates, and broadened his base through adroit politicking.
Rouhani’s inauguration might also remind Westerners of something they should
already know: Iranian presidents are neither all-powerful nor powerless. The
presidency is an important power center in a system that balances multiple power
centers, e.g., the Supreme Leader as well as parliament and the judiciary,
against one another. America and its partners should stop trying to play Iran’s
public against its government, or one power center against others, and instead
engage the Islamic Republic as a system.
This is especially important on nuclear matters, for, in Tehran, terms for an
acceptable nuclear deal are set by consensus among the Leader, the president,
and other power centers. After Rouhani becomes president, that consensus will
continue to rule out surrendering Iran’s right to safeguarded enrichment;
Western powers will still need to accept this right as the basis for an
agreement.
Just as unwillingness to deal with the Islamic Republic as a system warps
Western diplomacy with Iran, it also undermines the Western position in the
Middle East more broadly. For this system’s animating idea, integrating Islamist
governance and participatory politics, appeals not just in Iran, but to Muslim
societies across the region. Iran is the only place where this idea has had
sustained, concrete expression, but it is what Middle Eastern Muslims choose
every time they are allowed to vote on their political future.
America and its European partners disdain coming to terms with this reality, in
Iran and elsewhere. Disingenuous rhetoric notwithstanding, Washington still
prefers secular authoritarianism, as in its support for the Egyptian coup, a
naked effort to restore Mubarakism without Mubarak.
Alternatively, the United States works with Saudi Arabia to promote antiIranian, and, in the end, anti-American) takfeeri militants, as in Libya and
Syria, witlessly disregarding the inevitably negative consequences for its own
security. Either way, American policy systematically undermines prospects for
moderate and popularly legitimated political Islamism to emerge in Sunnimajority Arab states.
Today, with Middle Eastern publics increasingly mobilized and their opinions
mattering more than ever, this amounts to strategic suicide for America and its
allies. To begin recovering its regional position, Washington must come to terms
with the aspirations of Middle Eastern Muslims for participatory Islamist
governance. And that can only start by accepting the uniquely Islamist and
fiercely independent system bequeathed by Iran’s 1979 revolution,the legitimacy
of which is powerfully affirmed by Rouhani’s accession.
Flynt Leverett served as a Middle East expert on George W. Bush’s National
Security Council staff until the Iraq War and worked previously at the State
Department and at the Central Intelligence Agency. Hillary Mann Leverett was the
NSC expert on Iran and from 2001 to 2003 was one of only a few U.S. diplomats
authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and Iraq.
They are authors of the new book, Going to Tehran. [This article originally
appeared at AlJazeera.com.]
Explaining Iran’s ‘Surprise’ Election
Iran’s election of centrist Hassan Rowhani has confused the mainstream U.S. news
media which was primed to reprise its favored narrative of “rigged” voting but
now is going through contortions to explain the “surprise” result. Or one could
read Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett’s book, says Dave Schneider.
By Dave Schneider
The dogs of war in the U.S. media bark and, in true Don Quixote fashion, it’s a
sign that authors Hillary and Flynt Leverett are on the move. In their
electrifying new book, Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms
with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the former National Security Council experts
who were forced out of their positions for their opposition to Washington ’s
war-mongering and occupation take on the growing myths told by the U.S.
government about Iran .
Liberals, conservatives and centrists in the U.S. media hysterically attacked
Going to Tehran as soon as it came out. The Wall Street Journal derided the
Leveretts as “Washington ’s most outspoken defenders of the mullahs.” In a
particularly nasty hit-piece called “I Heart Khomenei.” Laura Secor of the New
York Times called the book “one-sided” and a “mirror image” of the anti-Iran
propaganda churned out by the U.S. government. Foreign Affairs claims they
“overargue” their case for ending U.S. hostilities. The Weekly Standard accused
them of “paranoid dogmatism.” The New Republiccalled the book “an act of
ventriloquism,” presumably with the Iranian government as the puppet master.
When I see a book receive universal condemnation from the corporate-owned media,
I take it as a sign that I need to read it. And ultimately every anti-war
activist in the U.S. owes it to the people of Iran to check out this wellresearched, persuasive and highly readable case against war with Iran. After
all, we live in a country where Argo, a ludicrous xenophobic hit-piece on the
Iranian Revolution, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 2012 Oscars.
As the Leveretts show in their book, the U.S. government and the corporate media
work hand-in-glove to dominate the narrative on Iran, telling and repeating all
sorts of myths and falsehoods to build the case for war against a large,
independent, oil-producing country in the Middle East. Going to Tehran sets the
record straight.
The book focuses on dispelling three elements of the U.S. mythology around Iran,
breaking each into three-chapter parts. First, it challenges the myth that Iran
is an irrational state “incapable of thinking about its foreign policy
interests,” arguing instead that the Islamic Republic is incredibly rational in
its fight for survival as a revolutionary state in a region historically
dominated by U.S. imperialism and Israeli militarism.
Second, it unravels the myth of Iran as an illegitimate state, by showing the
overwhelming popularity of the Iranian government and refuting the
unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud in 2009. Finally, it challenges the
myth that the U.S. can or should topple Iran through sanctions, diplomatic
isolation and the threat of war.
A Strike Against Imperialism
The Leveretts devote a serious chunk of their book to tracing the roots and
trajectory of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and detailing the history of U.S.,
Israeli and Iraqi aggression against the Islamic Republic. They contextualize
Ayatollah Khomenei’s Shi’a Islam, which strongly focused on social justice and
anti-imperialism, and they detail the Iranian people’s history of resistance to
the brutal U.S.-backed Shah monarchy.
Khomenei’s thought and popularity casts a long shadow, even into Iranian society
today, and the Leveretts give him appropriate treatment. Agree or disagree with
their analysis, you have to admit that it’s a far cry from the cynical
chauvinism of most Western commentators, who paint a crude (and often racist)
caricature of the leading figure in Iran’s revolution.
Equally important is their handling of the Iran-Iraq War called the “imposed
war” by Iranians. In that war, then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launched a
U.S.-backed war of aggression against Iran. The Iranian people, inspired by the
revolution’s promise of self-determination, sacrificed dearly to defend their
country, with well over a million killed from both sides in the eight-year war.
The Leveretts show how the “imposed war” still impacts Iranian policy today,
seen in the election and re-election of war veterans, like current President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for political offices.
U.S. policymakers constantly refer to Iran as a theocratic dictatorship, but the
Leveretts expose this argument as baseless, chauvinistic and out of touch with
ordinary Iranians. They write, “Most Middle Easterners do not think that the
Islamist features of Iran’s political system make it undemocratic. For most
Egyptians and other Middle Easterners, the ‘main division in the world’ is not
between democracies and dictatorships but between countries whose strategic
autonomy is subordinated to the United States and countries who exercise genuine
independence in policymaking. For most people in the Middle East, the Islamic
Republic is on the right side of that divide.”
The Leveretts argue that this divide between imperialist and anti-imperialist
countries explains Iran’s rising stock in the Middle East. After decades of U.S.
wars and occupations, people in the Middle East support those forces that resist
imperialism, rather than the Gulf monarchies that kowtow to Washington’s agenda.
Counter-Revolution Defeated
It does not seem like four years ago that Iran held its last presidential
election, which triggered the so-called “Green Movement.” With the 2013
elections just behind us, the Leveretts revisit some key facts about the
election in 2009 that were overlooked and distorted by the U.S. media. By
examining polls, debate transcripts, voting patterns and Iranian election law,
the Leveretts prove that Ahmadinejad legitimately won the 2009 election.
They write: “The facts were evident for anyone who chose to face them: neither
Mousavi nor anyone in his campaign nor anyone connected with the Green Movement
ever presented hard evidence of electoral fraud. Moreover, every
methodologically sound poll carried out in Iran before and after the election
fourteen in all, conducted by Western polling groups as well as by the
University of Tehran indicated that Ahmadinejad’s reelection, with two-thirds of
the vote (which was what the official results showed), was eminently possible.”
Far from the popular rebellion that the U.S. media portrayed, the Green Movement
receded just weeks after its beginning. The Green Movement represents the
interests of businessmen tied to Western banks and corporations, well-off
students, urban intellectuals and professionals, rather than the majority of
Iranians. Many Iranians view the Green Movement as an attempted counterrevolution backed by the U.S. aimed at destabilizing a popular government that
supports the Palestinian liberation struggle, Hezbollah in Lebanon and other
resistance forces which the Leveretts examine in detail.
Even if the U.S. media refused to acknowledge the truth, the Iranian people
clearly understood that the Green Movement was a threat to the independence of
Iran. A Charney Research poll from 2010 found that “59% of responders said the
government’s reaction had been ‘correct’; only 19% thought it ‘went too far.’”
According to the opposition’s numbers, about 100 people died in clashes with
security forces. The Leveretts show that the protests regularly led to
opposition-instigated violence, to which the state then responded. Most
insightful of all, the Leveretts compare the hypocritical reaction to the Green
Movement by the U.S. to the violent crackdown on African American and Latinos
outraged at the 1992 Rodney King verdict. The State of California sent in the
National Guard and killed 53 people for demonstrating against this racist
miscarriage of justice, but rather than condemning government violence, the U.S.
media called the uprising a ‘riot.’
Why did a solid majority of Iranians support Ahmadinejad in 2009 and approve of
the government’s harsh response to the attempt at counter-revolution? The
Leveretts argue in chapter four, entitled “Religion, Revolution and Roots of
Legitimacy” that the Iranian people, especially poor farmers and workers,
experienced real progressive gains from the revolution in 1979.
In spite of economic sanctions and external threats, “the percentage of Iranians
living in poverty less than 2% by the World Bank’s $1.25-per-day standard is
lower than that in virtually any other large-population middle-income country,”
including Brazil, India, Mexico and Turkey. Iran’s rapidly expanding public and
low-income health care services have increased life expectancy by 21.9 years
since 1980, according to the UN Development Programme. This serves as a model
that even universities and NGOs working in Mississippi are implementing.
Literacy rose from 40% under the Shah to 99% in the present-day Islamic
Republic; voting suffrage is universal and religious minorities have guaranteed
representation in the Majlis (parliament).
Despite Western Islamophobia, women’s rights in Iran have (in some ways)
drastically improved. In addition to six months of paid maternity leave far
higher than the U.S. “the majority of university students in Iran [and] the
majority of students at Iran’s best universities are now female.” Some of the
evidence the Leveretts present around issues of gender will genuinely surprise
readers. For instance, they say that “rulings from [Ayatollah] Khomenei
recognizing transgendered identity as biologically grounded, today provide the
legal basis for free elective gender-reassignment surgery.”
While Iran still has many contradictions, related to gender and the role that
working people play in society, the Leveretts argue that the Iranian people
elect to build on the progressive gains rather than overturning them. The Green
Movement represented a step backwards in the history of Iran, and the majority
of Iranians recognized that.
Setting the Record Straight
The Leveretts won themselves no friends in the political establishment with
their chapter entitled “Myths and Mythmakers.” By far the strongest section of
the book, they analyze the neo-conservatives, liberal interventionists, the
Israel lobby and the Iranian expatriates as four distinct but inter-related
groups that fuel anti-Iranian sentiment in the media and in Washington.
Many of these so-called ‘experts’ monopolize the corporate-owned press in the
U.S., despite having never read a word of Farsi. Although these groups do not
all outwardly advocate U.S. military intervention, the Leveretts show how even
the more well-meaning liberal critics repeat the same myths told by the neo-cons
and warmongers, effectively strengthening their case for a strike on Iran. It is
disturbing to think that the U.S. media still gives a platform for the most
vocal cheerleaders of the disastrous Iraq War Thomas Friedman of the New York
Times and the xenophobic CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack to spew their venom against
Iran.
Even readers convinced that Tehran has nefarious intentions would benefit from
the Leveretts’ book. In 1987, current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
delivered a speech to the UN laying out a fundamental distinction between
opposition to U.S. imperialism and support for the people, saying, “This
indictment is directed against the leaders of the United States regime and not
against the American people, who, had they been aware of what their governments
have done against another nation, would certainly endorse our indictment.”
Facing the hostile threat of a nuclear-armed Israel, and the U.S. military
occupation of Iran ’s next-door neighbors Afghanistan, and previously Iraq – the
people of Iran want peace and solidarity with the people of the U.S., not
another war.
Going to Tehran is written primarily to persuade policy-makers to abandon the
current U.S. strategy of toppling the government of Iran. Throughout the whole
book, the Leveretts seem frustrated at the very likely possibility that their
well-researched case against war with Iran will go unread by politicians.
However, the primary audience that will benefit from Going to Tehran is not
lawmakers, but rather anti-war activists. Anti-war organizers could use the book
as a starting point for reading groups and teach-ins about the nature of U.S.
aggression.
The disorganized response by the U.S. anti-war movement to NATO’s attack on
Libya proves the need for a unified, principled, anti-imperialist opposition to
war that seeks to build meaningful international solidarity. And in 2013, Going
to Tehran is an important contribution to that struggle.
Dave Schneider’s review of Going to Tehran originally appeared at Fight Back!
News.
Toward a US-Iranian Detente
With Iran’s election of Hassan Rohani as the new president, the West is
confronted with the PR dilemma of not having Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to kick around
anymore. But there is a route to a more constructive relationship, if Official
Washington would lessen its hostility, write Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett.
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
Last Friday’s presidential and local council elections in Iran show that the
Islamic Republic is far more stable and politically dynamic than Western
conventional wisdom commonly acknowledges.
Moreover, the election of Hassan Rohani, who headed the Islamic Republic’s
Supreme National Security Council for 16 years and was Tehran’s chief nuclear
negotiator with the West for much of that period, presents Washington with an
opportunity, for Rohani understands the U.S.-Iranian diplomatic agenda in an
existential, granular way.
If, though, the Obama administration wants to engage a new Rohani administration
effectively, and to put U.S.-Iranian relations on a more positive trajectory, it
will need to overhaul U.S. policy in four fundamental ways:
First, Washington must accept the Islamic Republic as an enduring political
entity representing legitimate national interests. Virtually since the Islamic
Republic’s creation out of the Iranian Revolution, American elites have declared
it is an illegitimate order, so dysfunctional and despised by its own population
as to be at imminent risk of overthrow.
In reality, the Islamic Republic is a legitimate order for most Iranians living
in Iran. Its animating idea, the ongoing project of integrating Islamist
governance and participatory politics, appeals not just in Iran, but to Muslim
societies across the Middle East.
Despite decades of military, clandestine, and international economic pressure,
it has achieved more progressive developmental outcomes, e.g., in alleviating
poverty, delivering health care, expanding educational access, and (yes)
improving opportunities for women, than the Shah’s regime ever did, and has done
better in these areas than its neighbors (including U.S. allies like Saudi
Arabia and Turkey).
The election of Rohani, a moderate conservative, hardly signifies a fundamental
challenge to the Islamic Republic (despite the wishful thinking of some who
overestimated the Green movement’s significance four years ago). On the same day
that Rohani won the presidency, conservatives took 70 percent of the more than
200,000 local council seats up for grabs across Iran.
In short, the Islamic Republic isn’t going anywhere. Even among Iranians who
want the Islamic Republic to evolve significantly, most of them still want it to
be, at the end of the day, an Islamic Republic of Iran.
Washington needs to accept this reality if it wants to negotiate productively
with Tehran. Among other things, acceptance would mean calling off the “dirty
war” America is conducting against the Islamic Republic, including economic
warfare against civilians, threatening secondary sanctions against third
countries in violation of U.S. WTO commitments, cyber-attacks, and support for
groups doing things inside Iran that Washington elsewhere condemns as
“terrorism.”
When President Richard Nixon took office in 1969, believing it was strategically
vital for America to realign relations with the People’s Republic of China, he
ordered the CIA to stand down from covert operations in Tibet, and ordered the
Seventh Fleet to stop aggressive patrolling in the Taiwan Strait. Nixon did
these things so that when he reached out diplomatically to the Chinese
leadership, they would know he was serious.
The Iranian leadership needs to see comparable steps from President Obama,
rather than the farce of Obama’s “dual track” policy, whereby Iran is threatened
with the “stick” of open-ended intensification in America’s dirty war if it
won’t surrender its internationally-safeguarded nuclear program for the “carrot”
of perhaps being allowed to buy airplane spare parts from the West.
Second, Washington must deal with the Islamic Republic as a system, and stop
trying to play Iran’s public against its government. On a positive note, the
White House press statement about the Iranian presidential election refers to
Iran by its official name, “Islamic Republic,” something the Obama
administration has refused to do since 2009.
But the statement does not congratulate Rohani; it congratulates the Iranian
people “for their participation in the political process, and their courage in
making their voices heard against the backdrop of a lack of transparency,
censorship of the media, Internet, and text messages, and an intimidating
security environment.” Such a posture will not facilitate productive diplomacy
after Rohani takes office.
Similarly, Washington should stop looking for Iranian “moderates” who, by U.S.
definition, are moderate only because American officials believe they might be
willing to subordinate some of Iran’s sovereign prerogatives for more economic
ties to the West.
The Clinton administration tried working around Ayatollah Khamenei and dealing
only with reformist President Mohammad Khatami during Khatami’s first term. A
decade later, the Obama administration tried working around President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and dealing directly with Khamenei. Every time, the tactic fails,
and will fail again if Obama repeats it on a newly inaugurated President Rohani.
The Islamic Republic was designed to encompass multiple, competitive power
centers, e.g., the Supreme Leader, the presidency, parliament. As Leader,
Khamenei has allowed three presidents, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad
Khatami, and Ahmadinejad, to pursue very different, self-defined agendas, but
has also restrained them when he judged their agendas might weaken the Islamic
Republic’s identity and long-term security. Khamenei’s relationship with
President Rohani is likely to play out in similar fashion.
Washington does not help its cause by trying to manipulate one power center
against another. In Tehran, deciding to realign relations with America will take
a consensus, a consensus encompassing both Leader and President.
Third, Washington must recognize Iran’s legal right, as a sovereign state and as
a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to enrich uranium under
international safeguards.
As we wrote last month, “If Washington recognized Iran’s right to enrich, a
nuclear deal with Tehran could be reached in a matter of weeks”; but “as long as
Washington refuses to acknowledge Tehran’s nuclear rights, no substantial
agreement will be possible.” This will be no less true under President Rohani
than it has been previously.
There is a strong consensus in Iran, cutting across the factional spectrum,
ratified by Ayatollah Khamenei, and supported by public opinion, that the
Islamic Republic should not surrender its nuclear rights.
In this year’s election campaign, Rohani was criticized for his approach to
nuclear diplomacy with the West; in 2003-2005, during Rohani’s tenure as nuclear
negotiator, Tehran agreed to suspend uranium enrichment for nearly two years,
and got nothing from the West in return.
Rohani, who holds advanced degrees in both Islamic law and civil law, vigorously
defended his record, arguing that his approach helped Iran avoid sanctions while
laying the ground for subsequent expansion of its enrichment infrastructure.
Looking forward, he explicitly committed himself to defending the Islamic
Republic’s right to enrich. There will be no nuclear deal absent U.S.
acknowledgement of that right.
Fourth, Washington must stop cooperating with Saudi Arabia and others to spread
violent, al-Qa’ida-like Sunni extremism across the Middle East as part of an
ill-conceived strategy for containing Iran.
This strategy is currently on display in Syria, where, from the onset of unrest
in 2011, the Obama administration has sought to use an opposition increasingly
manned and supported by foreigners to overthrow the Assad government and damage
Tehran’s position. The administration is now stepping up support for the
opposition, saying explicitly this is intended to prevent Tehran and its allies
from “winning” in Syria.
The Islamic Republic has demonstrated that it can be a constructive partner in
fighting the spread of violent Sunni extremism. By escalating the conflict in
Syria, Washington will, first of all, enable the deaths of tens of thousands
more Syrians; it will also, as it has done before (e.g., in Afghanistan and
Libya), incubate a long-term security threat to itself and to all countries with
an interest in Middle Eastern stability.
The only way out of the Syrian conflict is serious diplomacy that facilitates a
political settlement between the Assad government and its opponents. Iran is
critical to achieving this.
If Washington really wants better relations with Tehran following Rohani’s
election, the course is clear.
Flynt Leverett served as a Middle East expert on George W. Bush’s National
Security Council staff until the Iraq War and worked previously at the State
Department and at the Central Intelligence Agency. Hillary Mann Leverett was the
NSC expert on Iran and from 2001 to 2003 was one of only a few U.S. diplomats
authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and Iraq.
They are authors of Going to Tehran. Versions of this story previously appeared
in The Hindu, see here, and in Huffington Post, see here.
Iran’s ‘Paradox’ of a Fair Election
Four years ago, the U.S. news media pronounced Iran’s elections a fraud despite
no hard evidence, and predicted a similar outcome again this year. But the
election of Hassan Rouhani is now hailed as a democratic victory, a paradox
addressed by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett and Seyed Mohammad Marandi.
By Flynt Leverett, Hillary Mann Leverett and Seyed Mohammad Marandi
The United States’ perennially mistaken Iran “experts” are already spinning
Hassan Rouhani’s victory in Iran’s presidential election as a clear proof of the
Islamic Republic’s ongoing implosion. In fact, Rouhani’s success sends a very
different message: it is well past time for the U.S. to come to terms with the
reality of a stable and politically dynamic Islamic Republic of Iran.
Three days before the election, we warned that U.S. and expatriate Iranian
pundits were confidently but wrongly positing how Iran’s election process would
“be manipulated to produce a winner chosen by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei a “selection rather than an election” consolidating Khamenei’s
dictatorial hold overIranian politics.”
Many, like the Brookings Institution’s Suzanne Maloney, identified nuclear
negotiator Saeed Jalili as Khamenei’s “anointed” candidate; the Washington Post
declared that Rouhani “will not be allowed to win.”
By contrast, we held that Iran was “in the final days of a real contest”, during
which candidates had “broad and regular access to national media,” had
“advertised and held campaign events,” and had “participated in three nationally
televised (and widely watched) debates.” The election “will surprise America’s
so-called Iran ‘experts’,” we wrote, for the winner will emerge “because he
earned the requisite degree of electoral support, not because he was
‘annointed’”.
The real contest
Rouhani’s victory demonstrates that the election was a real contest, and that
the perceived quality of candidates’ campaigns mattered greatly in many
Iranians’ decisions for whom to vote. In the end, most Iranians seemed to
believe and acted as if they believed that they had a meaningful choice to make.
Besides the presidential ballot, Iranians voted for more than 200,000 local and
municipal council seats with more than 800,000 candidates standing for those
seats a “detail” never mentioned by those constantly deriding the Islamic
Republic’s “dictatorship”.
Certainly, Western “experts” were wrong that former President Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani’s disqualification had driven Iranians into a state of political
alienation and apathy. Rafsanjani is, at this point, not a popular figure for
many Iranians; he almost certainly would have lost had he been on this year’s
ballot. Rafsanjani’s sidelining was a necessary condition for the rise of
Rouhani, a Rafsanjani protégé.
More broadly, Rafsanjani’s dream has been to build a pragmatic center in Iranian
politics, eschewing “extremes” of both conservatives or “principlists,” as they
are called in Iran and reformists. Instead, he has antagonized both camps
without creating an enduring constituency committed to a centrist vision.
The election of Rouhani the only cleric on the ballot, who campaigned against
“extremism” in all forms and was endorsed by Rafsanjani may contribute more to
realizing Rafsanjani’s dream than another unsuccessful Rafsanjani presidential
bid.
Going into the campaign, Rouhani’s biggest weakness was foreign policy; in
2003-05, during Rouhani’s tenure as chief nuclear negotiator, Tehran agreed to
suspend uranium enrichment for nearly two years, but got nothing from Western
powers in return. In fact, criticism of Rouhani’s negotiating approach was an
important factor in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first election to the presidency in
2005.
During this year’s campaign, Rouhani effectively addressed this potential
vulnerability, arguing that his approach allowed Iran to avoid sanctions while
laying the ground for the subsequent development in its nuclear infrastructure.
Moreover, Rouhani’s campaign video included praise from armed forces chief of
staff General Seyed Hassan Firouzabadi, which bolstered Rouhani’s perceived
credibility on security issues.
In the week between the third candidates’ debate on foreign policy and election
day, polls showed with accumulating clarity that Rouhani was building the
strongest momentum of any candidate, along with Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer
Qalibaf who came in second, and whom we flagged two days before the vote as a
likely contender with Rouhani in a second-round runoff.
By election day, polls showed Rouhani pulling ahead of Qalibaf and his other
opponents a sharp contrast to Iran’s 2009 presidential election, when no
methodologically sound poll ever showed former Prime Minister Mir Hossein
Mousavi ahead of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Key to Rouhani’s success was his ability to forge coalitions, especially with
reformists. Rouhani is not himself a reformist. He belongs to the Society of
Combatant Clergy, the conservative antipode to the Assembly of Combatant Clerics
founded by Mohammad Khatami who became Iran’s first reformist president in 1997
and other reform-minded clerics.
Overall, Rouhani’s share of the vote was higher in small towns and villages,
where people are more conservative, than in larger cities largely because he is
a cleric.
The real reformist on this year’s ballot was Mohammad Reza Aref, who served as
Khatami’s first vice-president. Aref, however, proved a lackluster candidate and
attracted little popular support. Other reformists pressed him to quit after the
final candidates’ debate, which freed Khatami to endorse Rouhani. While
reformists were not the core of Rouhani’s electoral base, their votes were
crucial to getting him over the 50 percent threshold.
Iran’s 2013 presidential election also confirms a point we have been making for
four years that, contrary to Western conventional wisdom, no hard evidence has
been put forward showing that Iran’s 2009 presidential election, when
Ahmadinejad won re-election over Mousavi and two other opponents, was “stolen.”
No Post-Election Gatherings
Even so, Iran’s political system adopted last year a law creating an election
commission to oversee and certify the Interior Ministry’s conduct of the 2013
election. This and other systemic responses to potential or real abuse such as
the closure of the Kahrizak Detention Centre where cases of police brutality
were reported after the 2009 election demonstrate the Islamic Republic’s
capacity to reform itself.
Pointing this out in the West prompts slanderous accusations of murderous
appeasement but those who make such accusations are consistently proven wrong,
as Iranian politics regularly defies their cartoonish and derogatory
stereotypes.
The biggest difference from 2009 is the behavior of the candidates themselves.
This year, all of the candidates agreed not to hold post-election gatherings or
make statements about the outcome until all votes were counted and final results
officially announced.
They stuck to this agreement as the Interior Ministry periodically announced
partial results coming in from polling stations across Iran. Despite the fact
that president-elect Rouhani won by just 261,251 votes over the 50 percent
threshold, his rivals immediately issued messages of congratulations, as did
Ayatollah Khamenei.
Compare that with 2009, when while polls were still open and no votes had been
counted Mousavi declared to have official “information” that he had won “by a
substantial margin.” This set the stage for him to claim fraud and call
supporters into the streets to protest, giving birth to the Green Movement.
When Mousavi failed to back up his charge of fraud with a shred of hard
evidence, the Greens’ popular base shrank dramatically because they were no
longer challenging a particular election outcome, but the very idea of the
Islamic Republic as a political system.
Notwithstanding the Greens’ failure, the movement has ever since been a primary
vessel for the fantasies of Iranian expatriates, pro-Israel advocates and
Western interventionists that Western-style secular democracy would replace
participatory Islamist governance in Iran.
But reformists and their centrist allies who support the Islamic Republic, even
if their visions for its future differ from those of Iranian principlists
distanced themselves from the Green Movement. This enabled them to regroup and
to learn lessons from the 2009 election, from Rafsanjani’s presidential defeat
in 2005, and from Khatami’s setbacks during his presidency that proved crucial
to Rouhani’s electoral success this year.
The United States and the West need to get over the pernicious wishful thinking
that the Islamic Republic is not an enduring and legitimate system for Iranians
living in their country.
And the Islamic Republic’s core features of participatory Islamist governance
and foreign policy independence have broad appeal not just in Iran, but for
hundreds of millions of Muslims across the Middle East. It’s time for the U.S.
to come to terms with that reality.
Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett are authors of Going to Tehran: Why the
United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran (New York:
Metropolitan, 2013) and teach international relations, he at Penn State, she at
American University.
Seyed Mohammad Marandi is professor of North American Studies and dean of the
Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran. [This analysis originally
appeared at AlJazeera.]
Misreading Iranian Politics
Every four years when Iran holds presidential elections, U.S. journalists travel
to Tehran, hang out with middle-class English speakers and when the vote tallies
are in insist that the electoral outcome must have been rigged. But that
typically reflects a lack of U.S. media objectivity about Iran, say Flynt and
Hillary Mann Leverett.
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
This year’s Iranian presidential election is likely to produce a strong
political figure who will have a significant impact on the Islamic Republic’s
foreign and domestic policies, helping to ensure Iran’s continued internal
development and bolstering its regional importance.
Yet every four years, a combustible mix of pro-Israel advocates, Iranian
expatriates, Western Iran “experts,” and their fellow travelers in the media try
to use Iranian presidential elections as a frame for persuading Westerners that
the Islamic Republic is an illegitimate system so despised by its people as to
be at imminent risk of overthrow.
Iran’s election processes, pundits tell us, will be manipulated to produce a
winner chosen by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei — a “selection
rather than an election” — consolidating Khamenei’s dictatorial hold over
Iranian politics. Either Iranians will be sufficiently outraged to rise up
against the system, commentators intone, or the world will have to deal with
increasingly authoritarian — and dangerous — clerical-military rule in Tehran.
But this year’s presidential campaign, like its predecessors, challenges
Westerners’ deep attachment to myths of the Islamic Republic’s illegitimacy and
fragility. The eight candidates initially approved by the Guardian Council
represented a broad spectrum of conservative and reformist views. While one
conservative and the most clear-cut reformist — neither of whom attracted much
support — have withdrawn, they did so not from intimidation but to prevent
conservative and reformist votes from being dissipated across too many
candidates from each camp.
Contrary to an engineered selection, Iran is in the final days of a real
contest. Candidates have had broad and regular access to national media,
(including the broadcasting of extended videos about each candidate prepared by
their campaigns), have advertised and held campaign events, and have
participated in three nationally televised (and widely watched) debates.
High-quality surveys by both Western and Iranian pollsters show that the
campaign is having a powerful effect on the eventual outcome. Western pundits
and journalists have regularly identified nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili as
Khamenei’s “anointed” candidate and the clear “front-runner.” But high-quality
polls have never identified Jalili as the clear front-runner.
As election day looms, moreover, polls conducted after the final debate show
Jalili losing ground to three rivals: Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf,
former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezae, and former nuclear
negotiator Hassan Rohani (the only cleric on the ballot).
The data strongly suggest that no candidate will win a majority of votes cast on
June 14 — meaning there will almost certainly be a second-round runoff on June
21 between the first round’s two best performers. Among the four leading
candidates — Jalili, Qalibaf, Rezae, and Rohani — Qalibaf seems best positioned
to make a runoff; more voters now say they will cast first-round votes for him
than for anyone else.
As Jalili, Rezae and Rohani compete, effectively, for the second runoff spot,
all three have substantial organizational networks. But Rezae and Rohani emerged
from the debates with rising popular support; Jalili did not.
And Rohani is working to mobilize reformist and centrist voters behind him;
former presidents Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (arguably the quintessential
Iranian centrist) and Mohammad Khatami (the Islamic Republic’s only reformist
president) have both endorsed him. Neither Jalili’s runoff spot nor his secondround victory is anywhere close to a “sure thing.”
More broadly, all four serious contenders have long records of service to the
Islamic Republic. Their dedication to the Iranian Revolution and the political
order it created is beyond question. Yet each advocates a distinctive
presidential agenda and leadership style to advance the Islamic Republic’s
domestic and international interests over the next several years.
The relevant question is not whether the Islamic Republic meets Western
preferences for selecting political candidates — clearly it doesn’t — but
whether most Iranians believe they have meaningful choice in this year’s
election. On this point, polls suggest that first-round turnout will be around
70 percent — not as high as 2009’s extraordinary 85 percent, but respectably
high compared to previous presidential elections. Whichever candidate ultimately
emerges as Iran’s next president, it will be because he earned the requisite
degree of electoral support, not because he was “anointed.”
And whether the next Iranian president is named Jalili, Qalibaf, Rezae or
Rohani, he will almost certainly prove to be a highly consequential figure in
the Islamic Republic’s political history. The Islamic Republic’s last four
presidents — Seyed Ali Khamenei (now Supreme Leader), Rafsanjani, Khatami, and
outgoing incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — were all accomplished figures in
office, winning re-election and substantially affecting both domestic and
foreign policies.
Yet all four also had to deal with — and were, at times, deeply frustrated by —
other power centers in the Islamic Republic’s constitutional order, including
the Supreme Leader and the popularly elected parliament.
This dynamic will continue into Iran’s next presidency. Since succeeding Imam
Khomeini, the Islamic Republic’s founding father, as Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei
has ascribed high priority to maintaining balance in the system — balance among
ideological factions and among constitutionally defined power centers.
As Leader, Khamenei allowed Rafsanjani, Khatami, and Ahmadinejad to pursue large
parts of their self-defined and very different presidential agendas; but he also
restrained them when he judged that their initiatives might weaken the Islamic
Republic’s identity and long-term security. Khamenei will continue playing this
role after Iran’s newly elected president replaces the term-limited Ahmadinejad
in August.
Parliament will also continue constraining presidential prerogative. Under
speaker Ali Larijani, parliament pushed back with increasing intensity against a
range of presidential initiatives and interests during Ahmadinejad’s second
term. For pro-Ahmadinejad Iranians, this was unfortunate; for Ahmadinejad
opponents — especially among conservatives — it was gratifying. The more
important point is that this is how the Islamic Republic is designed to function
— and almost certainly will function after the next president takes office.
Americans and most other Westerners have never been able to take the Islamic
Republic seriously as a system — one reason successive U.S. administrations
have, for three decades, bought into perennially mistaken, agenda-driven claims
of the Islamic Republic’s vulnerability and impending collapse.
Westerners must tune out constant efforts to demonize Iran’s revolutionary order
if they are to look soberly at the reality of Iranian politics. For only then
will they be able to see the Islamic Republic as a polity with which their own
governments can (and should) come to terms
Flynt Leverett served as a Middle East expert on George W. Bush’s National
Security Council staff until the Iraq War and worked previously at the State
Department and at the Central Intelligence Agency. Hillary Mann Leverett was the
NSC expert on Iran and from 2001 to 2003 was one of only a few U.S. diplomats
authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and Iraq.
They are authors of Going to Tehran. [This article originally appeared at
HuffingtonPost.]
Obama Shies from Iran Nuke Deal
Official Washington’s ideology of “tough-guy-ism” has prevented a potential
breakthrough in nuclear talks with Iran. Afraid of being called weak, President
Obama has balked at accepting Iran’s right to enrich uranium even at low levels
and under international supervision, Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett say.
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
To maintain the illusion of some prospect for progress in nuclear diplomacy with
Tehran, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will meet with
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, in Istanbul next week.
Purportedly, Ashton will see if the P5+1 dialogue with Iran can be put back on
track after yet another round of nuclear talks with Iran failed last month.
Publicly, Western officials blame the failure either on the Islamic Republic’s
upcoming presidential election or on that old fallback, Iranian “intransigence.”
In reality, talks failed because America and its Western partners remain
unwilling to recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium under international
safeguards.
As a sovereign state, Iran is entitled to enrich, if it chooses; as a party to
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it is entitled to do so under
safeguards. The NPT explicitly recognizes signatories’ “inalienable right” to
use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. That this inalienable right
includes the right to enrich is clear from the NPT itself, its negotiating
history, and decades of state practice, with multiple non-weapons state parties
having developed safeguarded fuel-cycle infrastructures potentially able to
support weapons programs.
If Washington recognized Iran’s right to enrich, a nuclear deal with Tehran
could be reached in a matter of weeks. As long as Washington refuses to do this,
no substantial agreement will be possible.
Yet the Obama administration is no closer than its predecessor to accepting
safeguarded enrichment in Iran. This is partly due to pressure from various
allies, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Britain, France, and their American supporters,
who expect Washington somehow to defy legal principle along with political
reality and compel Tehran to surrender indigenous fuel-cycle capabilities.
But the real reason for U.S. obstinacy is that recognizing Iran’s nuclear rights
would mean accepting the Islamic Republic as a legitimate entity representing
legitimate national interests. No American president since the Iranian
Revolution, not even Barack Hussein Obama, has been willing to do this.
Washington’s unwillingness is grounded in unattractive, but fundamental, aspects
of American strategic culture: difficulty coming to terms with independent power
centers (whether globally or in vital regions like the Middle East); hostility
to non-liberal states, unless they subordinate their foreign policies to U.S.
preferences (as Egypt did under Sadat and Mubarak); and an unreflective but
deeply rooted sense that U.S.-backed norms, rules, and transnational decisionmaking processes are meant to constrain others, not America itself.
Because these attitudes are so fundamental, it is unlikely Obama will invest the
political capital required to bring America’s Iran policy in line with strategic
reality before his presidency ends. And so the controversy over Iran’s nuclear
activities will grind on.
The world has experienced such diplomatic stasis before. In 2003-2005, Britain,
France, and Germany worked (ostensibly) to prepare a nuclear settlement with
Tehran; Iran suspended enrichment for nearly two years to encourage diplomatic
progress. The initiative failed because the Bush administration refused to join
the talks unless Tehran was willing to abandon pursuit of indigenous fuel-cycle
capabilities.
In 2009-2010, efforts to negotiate the exchange of most of Iran’s then-stockpile
of enriched uranium for fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor collapsed for
similar reasons. In the May 2010 Tehran Declaration brokered by Brazil and
Turkey, Iran accepted all of Washington’s terms for a fuel swap, yet the Obama
administration rejected the Declaration because it openly recognized Iran’s
right to enrich. Three years later, the administration is once again undermining
chances for diplomatic success with its inflexibility regarding Iran’s nuclear
rights.
The world has also seen what happens when America and its European partners
demonstrate bad faith in nuclear diplomacy with Tehran, Iran expands its nuclear
infrastructure and capabilities. When Iran broke its nearly two-year enrichment
suspension in 2005, it could run less than a thousand centrifuges; today, it has
installed 12,000 centrifuges, more than 9,000 of which process uranium gas to
produce enriched uranium.
In February 2010, Iran began enriching uranium to the near-20 percent level
needed to fuel the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) after the United States and its
partners refused to sell the fuel; Iran consistently offered to suspend near-20
percent enrichment if it could obtain an adequate fuel supply for the TRR. After
Obama torpedoed the Tehran Declaration, Iran accelerated production of near-20
percent uranium and began indigenously manufacturing fuel plates for the TRR.
With America and its European partners once again blowing an opening to accept
Tehran’s nuclear rights and close a nuclear deal, we are likely to see another
surge of nuclear expansion in Iran. Certainly Iran will continue enriching, at
the 3-4 percent level needed for power reactors and at the near-20 percent level
needed for the TRR, and installing more efficient centrifuges. Iran also plans
to commission a heavy water reactor, perhaps as early as next year.
Although the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) consistently certifies
that no nuclear materials have been diverted from safeguarded Iranian
facilities, all of these steps will be cited by Israel, the pro-Israel lobby in
Washington, and other U.S. constituencies hankering for military action as
evidence that time for diplomacy has run out.
Additionally, the Islamic Republic may find legitimate reasons, for example,
building maritime reactors, to begin enriching above 20 percent. While such
higher-level enrichment would be done under IAEA safeguards, this would also be
interpreted in America and Israel as provocative Iranian “escalation.”
Obama would prefer to avoid another U.S.-initiated war in the Middle East; thus,
he will keep endorsing ploys (like Ashton’s trip to Istanbul) to maintain a
façade of diplomatic “engagement.” But his unwillingness to revive America’s
deteriorating regional position through serious diplomacy with Tehran will
increase pressure on him to order U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities
before his presidency’s end.
Rather than openly abandon the delusion of U.S. hegemony in the Middle East,
Obama will try to placate hawkish elements by escalating America’s ongoing
“dirty war” against the Islamic Republic, including economic warfare against
civilians, threatening secondary sanctions against third countries in violation
of U.S. WTO commitments, cyber-attacks, support for groups doing things inside
Iran that Washington elsewhere condemns as “terrorism,” stoking sectarian
tensions, and fueling further violence in Syria to prevent Tehran from “winning”
there.
But that, too, will only further destabilize the Middle East and bring America
and Iran ever closer to overt confrontation.
Flynt Leverett served as a Middle East expert on George W. Bush’s National
Security Council staff until the Iraq War and worked previously at the State
Department and at the Central Intelligence Agency. Hillary Mann Leverett was the
NSC expert on Iran and from 2001 to 2003 was one of only a few U.S. diplomats
authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and Iraq.
They are authors of the new book, Going to Tehran. Direct links to previous
postings of this article:
http://goingtotehran.com/what-u-s-failure-in-nuclear-diplomacy-with-iran-will-me
an ;
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/why-the-failure-in-almaty-is-a-big-deal/ar
ticle4686641.ece?homepage=true;
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/05/2013589151459212.html
Hypocrisy Over Iran’s Nuclear Program
In recent decades, the U.S. government and news media have treated international
law as a matter of convenience and hypocrisy, applying rules self-righteously
when they’re useful and ignoring them when a hindrance. The dispute over Iran’s
nuclear program is a case in point, as Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett explain.
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
The controversy over Iran’s nuclear activities has at least as much to do with
the future of international order as it does with nonproliferation. For this
reason, all of the BRICS countries [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South
Africa] have much at stake in how the Iranian nuclear issue is handled.
Conflict over Iran’s nuclear program is driven by two different approaches to
interpreting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT); these approaches, in
turn, are rooted in different conceptions of international order.
Which interpretation of the NPT ultimately prevails on the Iranian nuclear issue
will go a long way to determine whether a rules-based view of international
order gains ascendancy over a policy-oriented approach in which the goals of
international policy are defined mainly by America and its partners.
And that will go a long way to determine whether rising non-Western states
emerge as true power centers in a multipolar world, or whether they continue, in
important ways, to be subordinated to hegemonic preferences of the West, and
especially the United States.
The NPT is appropriately understood as a set of three bargains among
signatories: non-weapons states commit not to obtain nuclear weapons; countries
recognized as weapons states (America, Russia, Britain, France, and China)
commit to nuclear disarmament; and all parties agree that signatories have an
“inalienable right” to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. One
approach to interpreting the NPT gives these bargains equal standing; the other
holds that the goal of nonproliferation trumps the other two.
There have long been strains between weapons states and non-weapons states over
nuclear powers’ poor compliance with their commitment to disarm. Today, though,
disputes about NPT interpretation are particularly acute over perceived tensions
between blocking nuclear proliferation and enabling peaceful use of nuclear
technology.
This is especially so for fuel-cycle technology, the ultimate “dual use”
capability, for the same material that fuels power, medical and research
reactors can, at higher levels of fissile isotope concentration, be used in
nuclear bombs. The dispute is engaged most immediately over whether Iran, as a
non-weapons party to the NPT, has a right to enrich uranium under international
safeguards.
For those holding that the NPT’s three bargains have equal standing, Tehran’s
right to enrich is clear, from the NPT itself, its negotiating history and
decades of state practice, with at least a dozen states having developed
safeguarded fuel cycle infrastructures potentially able to support a weapons
program. On this basis, the diplomatic solution is also clear: Western
recognition of Iran’s nuclear rights in return for greater transparency through
more intrusive verification and monitoring.
Those recognizing Iran’s nuclear rights take what international lawyers call a
“positivist” view of global order, whereby the rules of international relations
are created through the consent of independent sovereign states and are to be
interpreted narrowly. Such a rules-based approach is strongly favored by nonWestern states, including BRICS, for it is the only way international rules
might constrain established powers as well as rising powers and the less
powerful.
Those who believe nonproliferation trumps the NPT’s other goals claim that there
is no treaty-based “right” to enrich, and that weapons states and others with
nuclear industries should decide which non-weapons states can possess fuel-cycle
technologies.
From these premises, the George W. Bush administration sought a worldwide ban on
transferring fuel-cycle technologies to countries not already possessing them.
Since this effort failed, Washington has pushed the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group to
make such transfers conditional on recipients’ acceptance of the Additional
Protocol to the NPT, an instrument devised at U.S. instigation in the 1990s to
enable more intrusive and proactive inspections in non-weapons states.
America has pressed the UN Security Council to adopt resolutions telling Tehran
to suspend enrichment, even though it is part of Iran’s “inalienable right” to
peaceful use of nuclear technology; such resolutions violate UN Charter
provisions that the Council act “in accordance with the purposes and principles
of the United Nations” and “with the present charter.”
The Obama administration has also defined its preferred diplomatic outcome and,
with Britain and France, imposed it on the P5+1: Iran must promptly stop
enriching at the near 20 percent level to fuel its sole (and safeguarded)
research reactor; it must then comply with Security Council calls to cease all
enrichment.
U.S. officials say Iran might be “allowed” a circumscribed enrichment program,
after suspending for a decade or more, but London and Paris insist that “zero
enrichment” is the only acceptable long-term outcome.
Those asserting that Iran has no right to enrich, America, Britain, France and
Israel, take a policy- or results-oriented view of international order. In this
view, what matters in responding to international challenges are the goals
motivating states to create particular rules in the first place, not the rules
themselves, but the goals underlying them.
This approach also ascribes a special role in interpreting rules to the most
powerful states, those with the resources and willingness to act in order to
enforce the rules. Unsurprisingly, this approach is favored by established
Western powers, above all, by the United States.
All of the BRICS have, in various ways, pushed back against a de facto
unilateral rewriting of the NPT by America and its European partners. Since
abandoning nuclear-weapons programs during democratization and joining the NPT,
Brazil and South Africa have staunchly defended non-weapons states’ right to
peaceful use of nuclear technology, including enrichment.
With Argentina, they resisted U.S. efforts to make transfers of fuel-cycle
technology contingent on accepting the Additional Protocol (which Brazil has
refused to sign), ultimately forcing Washington to compromise. With Turkey,
Brazil brokered the Tehran Declaration in May 2010, whereby Iran accepted U.S.
terms that it swap most of its then stockpile of enriched uranium for new fuel
for its research reactor. But the Declaration openly recognized Iran’s right to
enrich; for this reason, the Obama administration rejected it.
The recently concluded 5th BRICS Summit in Durban saw a joint declaration that
referred to the official BRICS position on Iran: “We believe there is no
alternative to a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. We recognize
Iran’s right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy consistent with its
international obligations, and support resolution of the issues involved through
political and diplomatic means and dialogue.”
At the same time, the BRICS have all, to varying degrees, accommodated
Washington on the Iranian issue. Russian and Chinese officials acknowledge there
will be no diplomatic solution absent Western recognition of Tehran’s nuclear
rights. Yet China and Russia endorsed all six Security Council resolutions
requiring Iran to suspend enrichment.
Beijing and Moscow did so partly to keep America in the Council with the issue,
where they can exert ongoing influence, and restraint, over Washington; at their
insistence, the resolutions state explicitly that none of them can be construed
as authorizing the use of force against Iran. Still, they acquiesced to
resolutions that make a diplomatic settlement harder and that contradict a truly
rules-based model of international order.
Russia, China and the other BRICS have also accommodated Washington’s increasing
reliance on the threatened imposition of “secondary” sanctions against thirdcountry entities doing business with the Islamic Republic. Such measures violate
U.S. commitments under the World Trade Organization, which allows members to cut
trade with states they deem national security threats but not to sanction other
members over lawful business with third countries.
If challenged on this in the WTO’s Dispute Resolution Mechanism, America would
surely lose; for this reason, U.S. administrations have been reluctant actually
to impose secondary sanctions on non-U.S. entities transacting with Iran.
Nevertheless, companies, banks, and even governments in all of the BRICS have
cut back on their Iranian transactions, feeding American elites’ sense that,
notwithstanding their illegality, secondary sanctions help leverage non-Western
states’ compliance with Washington’s policy preferences and vision of (U.S.dominated) world order.
If the BRICS want to move decisively from a still relatively unipolar world to a
genuinely multipolar world, they will, at some point, have to call Washington’s
bluff on Iran-related secondary sanctions. They will also have to accelerate the
development of alternatives to U.S.-dominated mechanisms for conducting and
settling international transactions, a project to which the proposed new BRICS
bank could contribute significantly.
Finally, they will need to be more willing to oppose, openly, America’s efforts
to unilaterally rewrite international law and hijack international institutions
for its own hegemonic purposes. By doing so, they will underscore that the
United States ultimately isolates itself by acting as a flailing, and failing,
imperial power.
Flynt Leverett served as a Middle East expert on George W. Bush’s National
Security Council staff until the Iraq War and worked previously at the State
Department and at the Central Intelligence Agency. Hillary Mann Leverett was the
NSC expert on Iran and from 2001 to 2003 was one of only a few U.S. diplomats
authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and Iraq.
They are authors of the new book, Going to Tehran. Also posted at:
http://goingtotehran.com/whats-at-stake-for-non-western-powers-in-the-iranian-nu
clear-issue ;
http://thebricspost.com/the-iranian-nuclear-issue-whats-at-stake-for-the-brics/
; http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/04/201343015211353590.html ;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/flynt-and-hillary-mann-leverett/the-real-reason-am
erica-c_b_3178637.html?utm_hp_ref=world