Michael Singh
Foreign Policy
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http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/avoiding-the-containment-trap-with-iran
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In
one of the most memorable lines of his March 4, 2012, speech on the
Middle East, President Obama declared, "Iran's leaders should understand
that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent
Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon." However, containment is rarely a
policy one prefers, with its implication of preventing a bad situation
from getting worse. Instead, it tends to be the policy one is left with
once other realistic options have been exhausted.
Avoiding
containment, therefore, has less to do with declarations about the
future, and far more to do with sound strategy today: We must prevent
ourselves from being maneuvered into a corner where we have little
choice other than to accept containment as our de facto Iran policy.
Instead of emphasizing what we may do if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon,
or is on the cusp of doing so, the U.S. should focus on denying Tehran
the necessary building blocks to reach that point -- in other words, a
nuclear weapons capability.
North Korea provides a case in point. It would surprise most
Americans to learn that the United States provided North Korea with over
$1.3 billion in assistance from 1995 to 2008. This aid, along with
other benefits, such as North Korea's removal from the list of state
sponsors of terrorism and the unfreezing of key assets, was provided
even as the U.S. and its allies spent countless dollars more defending
themselves from the dangers emanating from Pyongyang, and as North Korea
made steady progress toward a nuclear weapon, culminating in a pair of
nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.
The North Korean regime was given
relief, not in exchange for irreversible denuclearization, but for
"confidence-building measures" (CBMs), which stopped short of addressing
Washington's core concerns. The net effect, however, is that diplomatic
confidence has instead been undermined due to the North's reversals,
and Pyongyang has reportedly assembled a nuclear arsenal despite
withering international pressure. While Iran and North Korea are
different in many regards, these outcomes should nevertheless be bracing
for those involved in the nuclear negotiations with Tehran, into which
similar language regarding interim agreements and CBMs has crept.
In
order for the talks resuming this week in Baghdad to provide a path to
Iran's denuclearization -- rather than a slippery slope towards
containment -- the Obama administration should avoid three key mistakes.
First,
the U.S. should not provide relief from sanctions in exchange for
anything less than the full suspension of uranium enrichment by Tehran,
and other hard-to-reverse steps such as the removal of Iran's enriched
uranium stocks and dismantlement of its key fuel fabrication facilities.
This
is necessary for three reasons: First, it prevents Iran from using the
talks simply to derail the pressure campaign against it, only to renege
on its commitments later, as it has done in the past. Second, it
prevents Iran from legitimizing its uranium enrichment program and
thereby gaining technical mastery of the enrichment process, which would
be a boon should the regime later kick out inspectors. Finally, it
would simplify the task of detecting Iranian cheating. If Iran is
permitted a legitimate enrichment program, then the IAEA and Western
intelligence agencies must seek to detect diversion of uranium or other
material and personnel to a possible parallel, clandestine program,
whereas if Iran is not permitted such activities at all, any
enrichment-related work would be a red flag and a cause for punitive
action.
Second, the U.S. must take care not to reward Iran for
provocations. Decision-makers in Tehran cannot help but be pleased that
the international community is now focused on Iran's 19.75 percent
enrichment work and treats its 3.5 percent enrichment as a fait
accompli, or that their once-secret facilities at Natanz and Arak seem
likely to remain in operation in the nuclear proposals put forward by
the P5+1.
Washington has tended to focus its energies on each
marginal advance by Tehran, such that what the U.S. now appears willing
to do in return for a limit on Iran's enrichment activities is
equivalent to what had previously been offered for a full suspension of
enrichment. This constant re-drawing of U.S. redlines may seem sensible
in the diplomatic heat of battle, but the perverse effect is not to cap
Iran's activities, but to encourage further nuclear progress.
Finally,
the U.S. must not neglect the bigger picture. It is a common fault of
policymakers -- or any decision-maker, for that matter -- that near-term
costs and benefits are given a disproportionate weight relative to
longer-term ones. For example, there is a great deal of analysis of the
impact of military action against Iran on the price of oil, but little
on the long-term effect of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon or of a
policy of containment on oil prices.
Any nuclear deal which stops
short of fulfilling the U.N. Security Council's repeated demand for the
full suspension of uranium enrichment by Iran, among other things, holds
the possibility of eroding U.S. influence in the Middle East,
undermining U.S. deterrence broadly, strengthening the Iranian regime,
and damaging the integrity of the global nonproliferation regime.
Washington tends to exaggerate the benefits of a deal with Iran, given
the short lifespan of past agreements, and underestimate these long-term
costs.
Too often, a compromise on Iran's nuclear program has been
presented by its advocates as a Hobson's choice -- accept a bad deal,
or invite military conflict. The real choice is between ineffective
diplomacy which provides Tehran with much-sought relief, yet leaves
Washington's concerns unresolved and U.S. policy on a slippery slope
towards containment -- or a firmer approach which provides Tehran with
no benefits until it yields its nuclear weapons capabilities
irreversibly. Negotiations and agreements are useful insofar as they
advance our national security interests, but should never be seen as
ends in themselves. The leverage the U.S. has built up has been
hard-won, but can be easily lost, and should not be yielded too readily.
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Michael Singh is managing director of The Washington Institute.
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