Today in the World: Ahmadinejad the humorist

Ahmadinejad is giving us some brilliantly insightful economic analysis:

Iran's President Ahmadinejad has said his country will not be damaged by falling oil prices.

This is despite the fact that the country relies on oil for the vast majority of its export earnings and government revenue.

He insisted the fall in oil prices would not cause major problems, even if it dropped to five dollars a barrel.

Gotta give it to him, he can be funny.

How to deal with Iran

Karim Sadjadpour has a 6 point plans on how to deal with Iran. Here are his 6 recommendations:

1. Build confidence on issue of common interest
2. Understand where the power lies
3. Speak softly
4. Don't let the spoilers set the tenor (ie interests groups in Iran or allied with Iran that benefit from a confrontational US-Iran relation)
5. Maintain an international approach
6. Get the timing right
   

These are all very good points. Obama should not rush to try to solve the Iran problem in a few months. He should start diplomacy slowly and build a relationship. He should recognize that doing that while acting tough might be popular domestically in the short term, his long term interest is to play nice to try to bring back Iran in the fold of the international community. Negotiating this way with Iran would make Obama susceptible to attacks by hawks and neocons who would paint him as naive, but I think it is a risk worth taking because the odds of a success are fairly high. A point not mentioned would be to also negotiate with Syria in an attempt to normalize its relation with Israel and the US; the dual goal being peace with Syria but also a weakening of Iran's position in the region, which would reflect itself at the negotiating table.

Via Matthew Yglesias

Syria or Iran first?

Indeed, the Syrian elite itself may be split over Western overtures and their Iranian relationship. Whether or not it is as quixotic a dalliance as the Times suggests, it is correct that Iran is the key, and a resolution of that standoff will force Syria to move so as not to risk further isolation. -Boz

I think the logic is backward here. After eight years of a Bush administration which strengthened Iran's standing in the region through a succession of blunders, Iran's position is strong enough to be able to extract significant concessions on any sort of deal it would agree to sign with western powers. I do not think that a new President in the White House will magically shift the balance of power in the Middle East; we saw how that worked at Vienna in 1961 in regard to Russia. Iran has few incentives to give up on its nuclear program now; it knows that if it manages to build nuclear bombs, the balance of power will be further shifted toward them. I think the smart thing to do is weaken Iran's position through diplomacy and then reach a deal, rather than attempt to do so when Iran's position is strong.

Syria has shown its willingness to negotiate with Israel and to work with the west even during the Bush years. The leaders of the country are largely secular and come from a small religious minority of the population (Alawite) who have had problems of their own with fundamentalists. Therefore, they do not have any ideological objections to cooperation against terrorism. While allegedly "allied" with Iran, Syria is definitely the minor partner in the operation. The odds are that they dislike Iran's new influence in Lebanon through Hezbollah, since Syria considers Lebanon its own backyard. Again, Syria has no ideological commitment to its alliance with Iran, it is simply a marriage of convenience by two countries hated by the west. I think Syria would be much easier to bring into a peace deal with the west and Israel, by giving them back Golan Heights, normalizing relations and maybe recognizing its "special relation" with Lebanon*.

Making a deal with Syria would improve chances of reaching a satisfying peace deal with Iran, especially if other policies intended to isolate Iran diplomatically such as improved relations with Russia are pursued.

*The caveat is that this strategy depends on a Livni win in February.

Via: Arthur Goldhammer

Iran calls Iraq to resist the Security deal

The Iranian parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, has called the Iraqis to reject the US security pact.
He said Washington's goal was to "strengthening comprehensive U.S. hegemony in Iraq." and he called for continued resistance: "The Iraqi nation and parliament should realize that the time for resistance is not over yet,".

That should give pause to those who bemoan the massive influence of Iran in Iraq. But why would Iran be opposed to a deal that effectively makes Iraq a nation independent from "US meddling" in about 2-3 years if they thought they could control it? The logical conclusion is that their influence is not that deep inside Iraq despite religious similitude with the new rulers of the country; else they should welcome the withdrawal of the US.

The reality is that Arab Iraqis, even Shiites, see Iranians as Farsi foreigners. During the Iran-Iraq war, Shiites and Sunnis fought Iranians side by side and there are no history of widespread Shiites opposition to the war based on sectarian arguments. Iraqis and Persians might share a religion but there does not appear to be any sign that the former will be submissive to Iran. We saw the relevance of Iran's opposition in the cabinet vote which went 27-1. The lone dissenter was Sunni, so the odds that he voted no because of Iran pressure are, let's say, fairly low. We will see what kind of influence Iran has in the parliament vote, but I doubt it will be impressive.

Now that is not to say that Iran will not have an influence in Iraq. It is one of the major power in the region, along with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and it will have more power than during the Ba'ath years. But those hyperventilating about how the US gave Iraq to Iran can calm down; Iraqis are proud enough not to let foreigners run the show.

There are a few caveats to my argument. Ali Larijani is not Ali Khamenei or Ahmadinejad, what he said should be taken with a grain of salt before we assume that it is the position of the Iranian government. Also, it is possible that Iran oppose the deals because they believe if Iraq waits until BO takes over, it will get a better deal and a faster withdrawal. But it is hard to see why they would get worked up on a 6-12 months earlier withdrawal; the end result would be the same.

Iranian hardliners' worst nightmare

"People who put on a mask of friendship, but with the objective of betrayal, and who enter from the angle of negotiations without preconditions, are more dangerous," Hossein Taeb, deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday, according to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency. -Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post

After having congratulated Barack Obama last week, it seems the Iranian leadership isn't that happy to have to deal with President-elect Obama. The hardliners have been able to use the threats by the Bush administration to rouse nationalist tendencies and support for their policies. The more aggressive the US acted, the more it increased hardliners support among the population despite a very poor management of domestic policies. So the fear is that by being more conciliatory, an Obama administration would shift domestic politics; without a common enemy to blame, the hardliners would have to explain their disastrous policies at home.

For Obama, the best policy in regard to Iran would be to take into account Iranian domestic politics and judge every of his actions based on how this could weaken hardliners internally. The caveat here is that Obama also has to judge how his actions will be seen domestically and in the rest of the world so that will restrain his actions. Then negotiate with the regime; the end goal being an end to domestic uranium production. Without nuclear weapons, the argument that Iran is an "existential threat" disappears; what remains is a moderately strong regional players with a weak economy and plenty of enemies. What Iran would get in return would be an end to its pariah status, as well as a much stronger position regionally compared to a decade ago, thanks to Bush's invasion of Iraq.

Update: I just want to something I did not make explicitly obvious. I don't think Obama should rush into a deal with Iran. They will not have an atomic bomb tomorrow; and the last thing one want is to rush into negotiations unprepared like Kennedy did at Vienna in 1961. The smart move would be to open negotiations at low level; then work slowly while attempting to increase US leverage and weaken Iran's position, for example by negotiating with Syria thus isolating Iran further.

Hat tip: Political Animal

Obama is a dove?

And yet liberals and anti-war types should not declare the new president a kindred spirit too hastily. As Obama himself said in the now famous 2002 speech denouncing the Iraq adventure: "I am not opposed to all wars." It's true that he avoids the phrase "war on terror". But that is not because he thinks there is no war to be fought. His disagreement with Bush was that the latter had failed to define America's enemy clearly. -Jonathan Freedland

This should not surprise anyone who has read about Barack Obama's opinions or anyone who is reading Daniel Larison (if you aren't, you should start now). But the MSM has largely ignored this very important point until now. Obama is a hawk who will merely tilt USA foreign policy slightly. Yes he is for diplomacy with Iran and Syria, but Bush was for diplomacy with Iraqi Sunnis and North Korea; both of which are certainly in the same league as Iran and Syria. So it's not that much of a change. If diplomacy were to fail, Obama has constantly refused to rule out military action against Iran. On the subject of Pakistan and the Taliban, Obama has been more hawkish than the Republicans, favoring strikes within Pakistan itself.

It will be interesting to watch how he acts once in power, but big changes should not be expected. Except, of course, in the tone and general attitude.