PATRICK LAWRENCE: Brighter US-Iran Prospects
July 22, 2019
Despite the seemingly escalating risks of war, last week also produced an
unexpected drift toward the mahogany table.
By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News
There was no shortage of alarming incidents in and around the Persian Gulf
last week. But the risks of open conflict between Iran and the U.S. are
easily misread. The prospects for substantive diplomacy between the two
sides are steadily brightening, recent events notwithstanding. This
represents an advance for President Donald Trump in his intramural battles
with the assertive hawks among his foreign policy advisers. Still more
significantly, Washington now appears to be discovering the limits of hard
power in the 21stcentury.
Trump announced last Thursday that a U.S. naval vessel patrolling the
Persian Gulf had downed an Iranian drone over international waters a claim
Tehran has rebutted with persuasive evidence. On Friday the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards navy briefly detained one British-owned tanker and
continues to hold another while investigating alleged infractions of lawful
conduct at sea this in apparent retaliation for Britains earlier seizure
of an Iranian tanker off Gibraltar.
Still from video released by Irans Revolutionary Guards showing
helicoptered troops taking over a British tanker. (YouTube)
It was a week of escalating tensions, as numerous press reports noted. Top
British military officers warned Boris Johnson, who is likely to succeed
Theresa May as prime minister on Tuesday, that he faces a major
international crisis that could easily tip over into war.
There is always the possibility that a miscalculation on the ground or a
commanding officers bout of bravado could spark a military confrontation.
But setting this aside, the week delivered strong new indications that Trump
and the leadership in Tehran are both now given to negotiating differences.
In the best of outcomes, any such talks will be extended and
all-encompassing.
Iran Sends Diplomatic Signals
Hassan Rouhani and Mohammad Javad Zarif, respectively Irans president and
foreign minister, both signaled last week that Tehran is open to new talks
under certain conditions. On the U.S. side, Trump and Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo did roughly the same. We are not looking for regime change. We
are not looking for that at all, Trump said Tuesday. Well see what
happens. But a lot of progress has been made.
Two days after those remarks, Politico reported that Trump had accepted Sen.
Rand Pauls proposal, advanced during a round of golf the previous weekend,
to represent the White House in talks with Iranian officials. The Kentucky
senator is noted for his vigorous opposition to military adventures a
position in keeping with the presidents ostensible views. It is not clear
who Paul might meet, or where and when any such encounter could take place.
But Trumps decision to accept Paul as his emissary is a savvy move to
circumvent the hawks among his foreign policy advisers, chief among them
National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has in the past called for regime
change in Iran.
Bolton, often (but not always) with Pompeos support, has pressed for a
highly confrontational Iran policy since he joined the administration last
year. It now emerges that he played a leading role in conjuring the
Gibraltar incident out of thin air, effectively using Britain as an
unwitting tool to advance his hyper-hawkish Iran agenda.
The marked drift toward diplomacy last week represents an important,
potentially decisive setback for Bolton and the White Houses hawkish
factions. Washingtons hawks sustained another blow Saturday, when The New
York Times published the astonishing remarks of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Irans
former fire-breathing, often objectionable president who preceded Hassan
Rouhani. He is a businessman and therefore he is capable of calculating
cost-benefits and making a decision, the hardline Ahmadinejad said of Trump
in an hour-long telephone interview with the Times. We say to him, lets
calculate the long-term cost-benefit of our two nations and not be
shortsighted.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, center: Lets not be shortsighted. (Tasnim News
Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Hardliner Split
There are two remarkable things to note in this unexpected turn in the
direction of the mahogany table. It reveals a split among Irans
conservative factions that was hitherto not apparent. If hard-liners are
coming to favor negotiations with the U.S., it is plain which direction the
wind blows in Tehran.
Second, it is notable that Ahmadinejad proposes a comprehensive settlement
that advances bilateral relations beyond the 40 years of animosity that have
followed the 1979 revolution deposing Irans last shah, who enjoyed
extravagant American support over nearly three decades. The signal here is
not to be missed: Military solutions to long-term crises are less and less
effective in an era of emerging powers such as China, Russia and Iran.
There are two other prominent cases demonstrating this point. One is
Afghanistan. After 18 years of pointless war, American diplomats have been
in direct talks with the Taliban since last October. The latest round,
during which the two sides negotiated the withdrawal of U.S. troops, took
place in Qatar last month.
The closer parallel is with North Korea. Kim Jong-un, the Norths leader,
articulated Ahmadinejads point long before Irans former president spoke to
the Times: It is time to close the door on a protracted period of animosity.
The thought suggests a long view of history rarely evident among American
political figures.
Prior to his first summit with Kim, Trump was the fire-breather. As he
repeatedly threatened the North with obliteration, fire and fury, and much
else, naval task forces and nuclear-capable bomber squadrons operated
perilously close to the Norths territorial waters and airspace. But the
mid2018 summit in Singapore radically shifted the administrations
position. While Bolton and Pompeo sabotaged the second TrumpKim summit,
held in Hanoi last February, Trump continues to press for the top-down
diplomacy he plainly favors, as his informal encounter with Kim last month
at the 38th parallel attests.
Trumps desire to negotiate with Pyongyang has prompted extensive opposition
in Washington from the first.
Widening Bipartisan Support
But this, too, now changes. In a startling piece published earlier this
month, the Times reported that Trump now has widening bipartisan support to
build diplomacy with North Korea. It went on to note that Stephen Biegun,
Trumps special representative for North Korea, was recently in Brussels and
Berlin to cultivate diplomatic channels to Pyongyang.
Stephen Biegun taking questions in Seoul, Oct. 8, 2018. (State Department)
This remarkable shift appears to be nearly across the board with the
exception, of course, of über-hawkish camps such as Boltons. To underscore
this point, the Times then quoted none other than Michael Morell, once the
CIAs acting director and since a consistent advocate of an aggressive U.S.
military posture. A negotiated solution is the only solution to this
problem, Morell said. There isnt a military option. Theres not a covert
action option. So getting back to talks with the North Koreans is important,
and I think thats a good thing.
It is an inevitable thing, too. In truth, military interventions in either
Iran or North Korea have never been a realistic prospect. Pyongyang could
launch missiles into Seoul in less than an hour; estimates of the troop
strength required to invade Iran run from 100,000 to nearly 2 million. These
are nickel-plated deterrents. The bluster in both cases has been hollow, the
expensive deployments to the Persian Gulf and the waters off North Korea
pointless.
It is very unlikely Trump understands our moment for its historical import.
But in his preference for deal-making over war-making, he stands on the
right side of it by happenstance. Hard power has never been more plainly in
eclipse. A long age draws slowly to a close, what violence there is to come
notwithstanding.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the
International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, author and lecturer.
His most recent book is Time No Longer: Americans After the American
Century (Yale). Follow him on Twitter @thefloutist. His web site is Patrick
Lawrence. Support his work via his Patreon site.
