The Year Of Iran In The White House: The Repercussions Will Be Great
11 January 2013
By Osman Mirghani
There are many indicators to suggest that this year
will be the year of Iran in the White House, with all
the repercussions that will have on our region. The
latest indicator comes in the form of the leaks about
the so-called "Iran-Syria deal", currently being
considered by the Obama administration, with the aim
of moving on both fronts. This begins with reaching an
understanding with Russia on Syria for the departure
of al-Assad and his inner circle, being replaced by a
transitional government of "moderate" Sunnis and
Alawites. As for Iran, the deal is being marketed as a
new initiative from Washington to engage in direct
dialogue with the Iranians about their nuclear
program, on the basis that the alternative would be to
go down the line of tighter sanctions and a covert and
cyber war whilst retaining the option for a military
strike, which would become more probable over time.
Those promoting this deal see something in it for all
parties concerned. America does not want to embark on
direct military intervention in Syria, whilst it is
wary of the presence of jihadists and radical
Islamists in the battlefields against the al-Assad
regime. Russia is now convinced of the impossibility
of al-Assad remaining in power, but the Russians do
not want to look as if they have received a new blow
from the West, which they claim deceived them in
Libya, and therefore the deal for al-Assad to leave
and be replaced by a transitional government including
Alawites and Sunnis will be an acceptable way out. As
for Iran, it does not want to lose everything with the
expected departure of its ally in Damascus, and the
proposed deal opens the door with Washington and at
the same time enables the Iranians to say that they
took part in arrangements for the Syrian transitional
phase.
The reality is that Obama, by launching this expected
new initiative towards Iran, has returned to the same
path he inaugurated in his first term four years ago,
albeit with changes imposed by the different
conditions in the region now, including the events in
Syria and the continuation of Iran's nuclear program
despite sanctions and cyber warfare. In his early days
in the White House in 2009, Obama began to send
signals to Iran to engage in a "constructive
dialogue", open on all issues of dispute between the
two countries. This was followed by a direct message
to the "Iranian leadership" and the Iranian people to
mark the Persian New Year, calling for a dialogue
based on mutual respect. Then, in the middle of that
year, Obama announced his administration's willingness
to engage in dialogue without preconditions to
overcome decades of mistrust and tension that has
prevailed in US-Iranian relations ever since the
Iranian Revolution, the fall of the Shah's regime and
the hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Tehran.
Yet Obama's initiatives faltered and failed to make a
breakthrough in relations. They did not resolve the
most important issue, namely Iran's nuclear program,
or other heated issues for that matter, despite talk
of "limited understandings" on Afghanistan and Iraq.
Events at the time also contributed to the downfall of
this strategy, including the severely-repressed Green
Revolution in Iran, which prompted the US
administration to criticize the Iranian leadership.
These criticisms increased with the lack of tangible
progress on the nuclear front, and the publication of
intelligence reports in Washington revealing that Iran
would be in a position to cross the "tipping point"
and be able to produce a nuclear weapon by 2014 or
2015 at the latest.
Obama's strategy faced heavy criticism at home and
abroad, and questions about its objectives and modest
results. There were even those with the opinion that
he had sent the wrong message to the Iranian
leadership, encouraging them to adopt a more radical
path in the region and making them work towards their
expansion and interference in various directions,
including fuelling conflicts and tensions. This
reading may not be too far from the reality,
especially with the US withdrawal from Iraq and the
growing Iranian interference there with the rise of
Tehran's allies, along with the strong emergence of
the Iranian-Syrian axis on the scene, and the warnings
of the so-called "Shiite crescent" which several
countries considered a direct threat to the regional
balance. Faced with increasing internal and external
pressure, and Obama's frustration at not being able to
achieve a breakthrough with Tehran via his dialogue
initiatives, America's discourse began to change and
take a tougher line in the direction of strengthening
sanctions against Iran and its leadership, in order to
disable its nuclear program. This was an alternative
that the Obama administration favored over military
intervention, which was considered highly dangerous.
So why is Obama today returning to a policy that even
his supporters admit did not succeed in dissuading
Tehran from continuing its efforts to accelerate its
nuclear program?
Perhaps, in his second term, Obama feels more
liberated from the pressures faced by any president
thinking of re-running for the White House, and
therefore he wants to give a second and perhaps final
chance to the policy of "positive dialogue". This is
in the hope that it will achieve better results than
in the past, especially with the changes brought about
by the Arab Spring and the sense that Iran may be on
the verge of losing its most important regional ally
as the Bashar al-Assad regime's grip loosens in Syria,
and what this means for its allies in Lebanon, Iraq
and Palestine. But more importantly than that, the
Obama administration may now feel that its options are
limited because the hourglass indicates that Iran is
soon going to cross the tipping point in its nuclear
program. Based on intelligence estimates and reports,
the economic pressures and sanctions, in addition to
the cyber-attacks, may have slowed down the Iranian
nuclear program but they have not stopped it, and now
the Iranian leadership seem to be accelerating their
nuclear pace.
There is also another factor pushing Obama to try and
experiment with the policy of dialogue with Tehran one
last time, namely the repercussions of the economic
and financial crisis on America and the global economy
as a whole. This has made Washington hesitant and even
worried about the cost of entering into a new war, the
possibilities of which are more distinct with the
likelihood of Netanyahu's victory in the upcoming
Israeli elections. There are those who think that
Obama has strengthened his stance with the nomination
of John Kerry for the next US Secretary of State, and
the possibility of nominating Chuck Hagel for the
Ministry of Defense, both of whom have declared their
support for the policy of dialogue with Tehran, but
not excluding the military option as a last resort.
Whatever the way forward for the US administration,
the repercussions will be great and no one in our
region can ignore this.
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