Follow us on social

Screen-shot-2021-12-17-at-2.40.54-pm

Threatening war with Iran won't save the nuclear deal

Prominent hawks want Biden to put military strikes on the table in JCPOA talks, the latest sign that Washington is allergic to diplomacy.

Analysis | Middle East

Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept has a good piece responding to a letter published today by Michèle Flournoy, Leon Panetta, General David Petraeus, Dennis Ross and a few others, urging Joe Biden to break the nuclear deadlock with Iran by issuing military threats. 

I am quoted extensively in the piece. I am including my quotes below, while also adding a few additional thoughts. Here’s what I told Jeremy:

The exaggerated faith in the miracles that U.S. military threats can deliver is not limited to any one party in the United States but is intrinsic to the establishment religion that American security is achieved through global military hegemony.

Rather than being the solution to the crisis, the military threat the U.S. poses to Iran is a key reason why the Iranian nuclear program has expanded. The more a country is faced with military threats, the more it will demand a nuclear deterrence.

Donald Trump’s military threats and broad economic sanctions are precisely why we are in this mess right now. To believe that more Trumpian conduct by the United States will break the nuclear deadlock bewilders the mind. 

Trump’s exit from the deal and the lack of confidence that the United States will stay in the deal beyond 2024 has profoundly undermined the value of American promises of sanctions relief. The Iranians are hesitating largely because they do not believe that the economic benefits the U.S. promises will be forthcoming. No amount of military threats will change that fundamental weakness in the U.S. negotiating position.

Having said that, I do believe — as I hinted at in my recent piece for MSNBC — that the fear of war was an important factor for the parties getting serious about diplomacy in 2013. Both the United States and Iran believed that war would be the outcome if talks failed. This helped sharpen the choices of both sides and helped muster political will — again, on both sides — that enabled the compromises manifested in the JCPOA.

But here’s the difference from what Petraeus et al are calling for: Obama didn’t issue any military threats. Rather, the structure of the situation was such that it was clear to all that war was the likely alternative to a deal. 

Today, as I explain for MSNBC, the structure is different. Issuing (empty) threats will not change that. It will only make diplomacy more difficult. 

So, shouldn’t the situation be changed so that the parties once again have no choice but to muster the necessary political will?

No, it should not for a very simple reason: We got lucky last time. It could just as easily have ended in a disastrous war.

Neither side can control the situation. De-escalatory options are imprecise and unpredictable, to the extent that they even exist. The idea that we can dial things up and down at will without the other side having a say, without factoring in the risk of the other side miscalculating, is simply irresponsible.

We should not constantly lower our expectations of leaders and diplomats. It is fundamentally reasonable to expect that leaders on both sides can and should muster the courage to strike a reasonable compromise without a disastrous war hanging over the heads of the American people and the peoples of the Middle East.

Photos: DOD public domain
Analysis | Middle East
Why no one should take this hawkish think tank seriously

Screengrab via youtube.com/@PBSNewsHour

Why no one should take this hawkish think tank seriously

QiOSK

Foundation for the Defense of Democracies CEO Mark Dubowitz shared a graphic on the X platform this week purporting to place blame on President Biden for Iran’s increasing stockpile of high enriched uranium — material that can be used in nuclear weapons — when in reality it’s Dubowitz, his organization and their allies in the Trump administration that are largely responsible.

“Facts are stubborn things,” Dubowitz said before showing the graphic. “Iran’s nuclear expansion has occurred under the Biden administration’s failed Iran policy of maximum concessions.”

keep readingShow less
Senegal dodges crisis as authorities certify opposition victory

Senegal's president-elect Bassirou Diomaye Faye speaks during a press conference in Dakar, Senegal March 25, 2024. REUTERS/ Luc Gnago

Senegal dodges crisis as authorities certify opposition victory

QiOSK

Political outsider Bassirou Diomaye Faye will officially be declared the next president of Senegal Friday after cruising to victory in this week’s elections just 10 days after being released from prison.

Faye won 54% of the vote, allowing him to avoid a second round matchup with former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, the Dakar Court of Appeals announced Wednesday. Ba has conceded defeat and congratulated Faye, as has current President Macky Sall.

keep readingShow less
Where are the US ships on the Gaza aid mission now?
File:US Navy 030530-N-0000X-002 Sea trials of USNS Benavidez (T ...

Where are the US ships on the Gaza aid mission now?

QiOSK

The Army and Navy ships that have left the U.S. for a massive humanitarian aid project in Gaza are still making their way across the Atlantic, with two still at ports in Florida and Virginia. It will likely take until mid-April for the vessels to reach Gaza and begin building a temporary causeway to facilitate the entry of life-saving aid into the strip.

Looking at real-time satellite imagery tracking military vessels, it looks like the USAV Gen. Frank Besson Jr., an Army support vessel that left Fort Eustis, Virginia, on March 10, has been moored and presumably refueling at a port in the Azores, Portugal, since Friday. It is at the half-way point between the U.S. and its final destination of Cyprus (nearly 5,000 nautical miles total). At an average speed of 10 knots, its journey will take nearly two more weeks, depending on weather conditions, once it gets going again.

keep readingShow less

Israel-Gaza Crisis

Latest