Foreign Policy In Focus

The drift in Indo-U.S. relations noted by many observers during President Obama’s current term may be reversed if the coming American elections change the setting in Washington. The same may be said of the Indian national elections, which could be held next year (instead of 2014) if the Prime Minister so chooses under India’s electoral system.

In recent days, there have been some interesting developments in the relationship that have caused some optimism in American circles, not entirely matched by Indian commentators. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently returned from a trip to Asia, during which she held talks with India’s Foreign Minister, S.M. Krishna, on May 8th, preparatory to the 3rd U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue to be held in Washington, D.C. on June 13th.

Both parties agreed on the importance of their economic relationship, with Clinton stressing increased trade and investment, and Krishna hoping the relationship “would grow much faster and realize its enormous potential.” There was agreement also on Afghanistan, with Clinton welcoming India’s support for the “people’s efforts to build a more peaceful and prosperous future.” Among other things, India has organized a meeting of potential investors in Afghanistan from the surrounding states, to be held in June.

But beneath the diplomatic rhetoric, Clinton hinted at India’s need to open its markets to American retailers (like Walmart). Krishna in turn urged that more mobility be allowed for their IT and other specialists in the U.S. The Foreign Minister raised with Secretary Clinton India’s concern with American protectionism, a particularly troublesome intimation of which was the restrictive nature of visa applications (challenged by India at the WTO last month) that Indian professionals from the services industry are required to complete, the recent increase in visa fees to $2,000, and the high rejection rate of these applications. Instead of being reassured by the Secretary on this score, he was undoubtedly disappointed to hear that U.S. policy would persist, as would the rise in rejections.

As for the historic civil nuclear agreement signed in 2008, which raised so many hopes in both countries, all that could be claimed by the Secretary was discussions by public-private agents (of India and the U.S., respectively) on how “to move forward together.” But the Foreign Minister urged faster progress “towards contractual steps.”

Finally and most significantly, India’s continued import of Iranian oil was discussed. This is, of course, a key issue for the U.S., which believes strongly that Iran is intent on developing nuclear weapons. To deter these plans, it has declared an oil embargo on Iran, and has been imposing harsh sanctions on those who import oil from that country. But while several nations (mostly European as well as Japan) have been exempted, Washington threatens to impose sanctions on India and China after June 28th, two of the biggest importers of Iranian oil. While India agrees, in general, with Washington on the nuclear issue, and did in fact decrease its much-needed oil imports from Iran several times, Clinton was not prepared to say that India’s concessions (which New Delhi perceives as substantial) would be enough to exempt New Delhi from sanctions by the end of June. Indeed, Clinton repeatedly pressed India -- not only during the talks with Krishna, but also in several hard-hitting and unyielding public statements -- to make further cuts.

The Foreign Minister continued, nevertheless, to acknowledge Iran’s rights as a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and stressed India’s full implementation of all United Nations-mandated sanctions on Iran. He thereby signaled India’s disapproval of what India views as punitive sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.S. and the West in general, which moreover do not adequately take into account India’s urgent need for increasingly expensive fuel imports (with the Rupee weakening sharply) which can be met only partially from alternate sources, due to financial, technical and other reasons. As if to underscore New Delhi’s stance, Indian exporters were holding talks with an Iranian trade delegation in one part of the capital, while Secretary Clinton was meeting with India’s Foreign Affairs Minister in another part.

It remains to be seen if the relationship will indeed be hurt, as Indians have warned, if the U.S. proceeds to impose sanctions on India because of its continued imports of Iranian oil on which the nation is so heavily dependent. Both sides hope that some of the outstanding issues can be resolved at the June 13 “strategic dialogue.” Washington may be more optimistic, given India’s greater flexibility in negotiations (especially compared to China). The pot may have been sweetened the previous week when Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is in New Delhi for talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Defense Minister A.K.Antony, when India is expected to sign additional arms deals. On the other hand, New Delhi may surprise Secretary Clinton this time.

After months of conflating punitive sanctions with diplomatic engagement, President Barack Obama apparently believes he has nearly exhausted his diplomatic options for dealing with Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

“I believe there is a window of time to solve this diplomatically, but that window is closing," he told reporters in Seoul on the eve of a nuclear summit. And given Washington’s apparent distaste for letting any problem in the world go “unsolved,” the president’s words should be read as yet another military threat against the Iranian homeland.

Of course, exactly what problem remains to be “solved” is a little less clear on further examination.

In a lengthy interview with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, a sometimes-hawkish journalist with close ties to both the Obama administration and the Israeli defense establishment, Obama emphasized that preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon “is profoundly in the security interests of the United States, and that when I say we're not taking any option off the table, we mean it. We are going to continue to apply pressure until Iran takes a different course.”

One might get the impression that Obama is accusing Iran of building a nuclear weapon—and that the goal of sanctions, therefore, is to persuade the Iranian regime to stop. However, the president also conceded to Goldberg that “our assessment, which is shared by the Israelis, is that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon and is not yet in a position to obtain a nuclear weapon without us having a pretty long lead time in which we will know that they are making that attempt.”

By its own assessment, then, the United States is sanctioning Iran over a nuclear weapons program that neither the Mossad nor the CIA nor the president of the United States himself believes to exist. And they’ve repeatedly promised military action if the sanctions “fail” to make Iran give up a program that no one believes it has in the first place! In his 45-minute interview with the president, Goldberg never once seemed to catch onto this.

Nor is it an issue of inspections. Iran has already admitted inspectors into some of its more sensitive nuclear installations, and yet the U.S. Congress is still trying to push through ever newer rounds of sanctions against the regime.

Iran’s Supreme Leader even called possession of nuclear weapons "a sin” and “against Islamic rules.” The Supreme Leader may not be the most credible source on the matter, but that’s about as close to a Rushdie-style fatwa against nukes as one is likely to hear.

So why the sanctions?

The most sinister explanation is that the sanctions are little more than a prelude to regime change. If sanctions “fail” – and they can’t really succeed, since the problem they purport to address is a fantasy – then America’s Iran hawks will have checked off yet another box on the road to war.

But although Obama’s posturing toward Iran has been on balance quite hawkish, the president himself seems keen to avoid an overt military confrontation with the Islamic Republic—at least in an election year.

Maybe there’s another reason. Obama hinted as much when he told Goldberg that “as Israel's closest friend and ally,” it is incumbent on the United States to “point out to them that we have a sanctions architecture that is far more effective than anybody anticipated; that we have a world that is about as united as you get behind the sanctions.” According to the president, then, the primary purpose of U.S. sanctions on Iran is to persuade Israel that both the United States and the international community are committed to Israel’s security—and, therefore, that there’s no need for Israel to do something rash like unilaterally attacking Iran.

Put another way, Obama is sanctioning Iran to influence Israel’s behavior. One could almost forgive Iran for feeling a little burned up about it.

Of course, once upon a time, a nuclear-armed country making open threats to attack a regional rival—particularly one that has never admitted IAEA inspectors and has chalked up a recent history of invading neighbors, bombing civilian population centers, and working with a terrorist organization to assassinate civilian nuclear scientists—would have found itself a prime target of international sanctions.

Apparently these are not ordinary times. But if Obama is concerned that his efforts at “diplomacy” are going nowhere, maybe it’s because he’s sanctioning the wrong country.

Peter Certo is an editorial assistant at the Institute of Policy Studies as well as IPS Special Project Right Web.

First, Bernard Finel of the National War College writes about how Iran war hawks try to have it both ways.

But what is most interesting to me is the contradictions. The Iranian regime is fanatical and genocidal, and yet it will respond to an attack through limited means. The Iranian regime is unpopular at home, but we can’t wait to allow those dynamics to run their course. Iran is committed to the rapid pursuit of nuclear weapons, but their response to a strike will be sufficiently desultory as to buy several years of time. There is a narrow window of opportunity such that in six months Iran’s program won’t be vulnerable, but it take them five years to reconstitute it.

He adds, in a droll understatement: "I'm not sure all of those can be simultaneously true." 

Next, at Foreign Policy, Jason Rezaian writes about a misconception on the part of Tehran (emphasis added):

As some Western and Israeli leaders hold out hope for a domestic uprising that rearranges Iran's political system, they seem unable to grasp this essential fact. Even in the face of severe economic and political isolation, no existential domestic threat is worrying the Islamic Republic's leadership as it did in the months following the 2009 presidential election. Air attacks on Iran's nuclear program, meanwhile, are viewed as a manageable inconvenience.

As well as errata and misconceptions, we also handle Iran irony. Rezaian again.

Iran's sanctions profiteers also have their choice of luxury goods to choose from in Tehran. An insane proliferation of European luxury cars has been building in the capital for several months -- a Maserati dealership is set to open any day now, just off one of central Tehran's main squares. Some Iranians see their country's capacity for unchecked consumption as progress, but it's also a reminder that the economy is still functioning, even if top White House officials insist that sanctions are "working."

Blame for the suffering that the Iranian public is enduring due to inflated prices caused by sanctions lands squarely in the lap of the West, especially the United States. Nevertheless, it might behoove the Iranian rich to demonstrate some solidarity with the Iranian public and refrain from buying Maseratis, Ferraris, and Western fashion goods.

Finally, James Risen in the New York Times:

And today, despite criticism of that assessment from some outside observers and hawkish politicians, American intelligence analysts still believe that the Iranians have not gotten the go-ahead from Ayatollah Khamenei to revive the program.

“That assessment,” said one American official, “holds up really well.”

It’s 1994 all over again in North Korea, and that’s not good news for the country. The nuclear crisis continues to burn. There are food shortages and flooding. Jimmy Carter has gone to Pyongyang. Relations between North and South have sunk to new lows. And the country is preparing to pass the reins of power from father to son.

But this time around, Groundhog Day in Pyongyang looks even grimmer. In 1994, the nuclear crisis was averted at the last minute. In 2010, no one is even at the negotiating table (no one even knows where the negotiating table is!). Jimmy Carter visited Pyongyang in 1994 and secured a nuclear deal with long-time leader Kim Il Sung. Just last month, Carter returned to North Korea and won the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes, an imprisoned U.S. citizen. But he didn’t get a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (the current leader and son of Kim Il Sung) and couldn’t announce any larger breakthrough. Meanwhile, in South Korea, the new hard-line government of Lee Myung Bak in Seoul has suspended most contact with the North after the sinking of a South Korean ship in March. Seoul is currently sitting on twice the amount of rice that it usually has in storage, partly as a result of not sending the surplus northward. It costs the South hundreds of millions of dollars to store the rice it isn’t sending.

And then there’s the transfer of power, which is attracting the most headlines outside the country. In 1994, Kim Il Sung died rather soon after Jimmy Carter’s visit. But his son Kim Jong Il had been preparing to take over for at least two decades. This time around, Kim Jong Il has chosen his youngest son, Kim Jong Eun, who is reportedly only in his twenties. According to defector reports, there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm for Kim Jong Il when he took over after his father’s death. This time around, according to The Washington Post, there is even less excitement, perhaps because even North Koreans don’t know much about Kim Jong Eun.

Pyongyang is preparing this week for a party conference to herald the leadership change. Don’t confuse this gathering with a party congress, North Korea watcher Andrei Lankov warns. “In North Korea it has become an established tradition that a party congress should be accompanied by lavish celebrations and expensive gifts to both the elite and the general public,” he writes at Asia Times. And this time around, the state just doesn’t have the money to indulge in such largesse.

And what is the Obama administration doing to take advantage of possible new leadership in Pyongyang? Sending Jimmy Carter was certainly a good idea. Announcing $750,000 in humanitarian assistance in the wake of the floods in North Korea was also a positive step. Dispatching North Korea envoy Stephen Bosworth for consultations next week in Seoul, Beijing, and Tokyo is also wise. But at the same time the administration has announced new sanctions against Pyongyang. "In many respects, what's happening is the Obama administration is going back to the hard-line Bush approach to North Korea that Democrats had criticized," says Michael Green, who was once part of the Bush administration.

But the Bush administration turned on a dime back in 2006 and embarked on an engagement policy with North Korea that almost bore fruit. The Obama administration should welcome the new leadership in Pyongyang with a similar offer of engagement. Why leave all the surprises to the North Koreans?

Lord Palmerston—twice England’s prime minister during the middle 1800s—once commented, “England has no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only permanent interests.” Watching the fallout over Brazil’s and Turkey’s recent diplomatic breakthrough on Iran brings Palmerston’s observation to mind: while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was hailing our “friends” support for tough sanctions aimed at Teheran, much of her supporting cast were busy hedging their bets and deciding that their interests just might lay elsewhere.

True, Russia and China signed on, but their endorsements were filled with ambiguity and diplomatic escape hatches.

As Clinton was dismissing the efforts of Brazil and Turkey, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said his country “expressed its welcome and appreciation for the diplomatic efforts of all parties.” A Foreign Ministry spokesman added that the agreement to send 58 percent of Iran’s nuclear fuel to Turkey for enrichment “will benefit the process of peacefully resolving the Iran nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations.”

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for “urgent consultations with all interested parties, including Iran, to decide what to do next,” hardly a call to arms. His First Deputy Prime Minister, Sergi Ivanov, said that while his country was “supportive” of the U.S., it was drawing a “red line” at sanctions that were “suffocating” or would affect ordinary Iranians.

He then added a pinch of Palmerston: “We have a completely different position. We have a trading relationship, and the potential to develop it. We have energy interests, human interests, and tourism.”

The Russians also made it clear that they would be unhappy with unilateral sanctions by the U.S. and the European Union. Such unilateral actions would be “of an extraterritorial nature beyond the agreed decision of the international community and contradicting the principle of the rule of international law, enshrined in the UN Charter,” according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The U.S. State Department’s claim that the “international community” is behind the U.S. is increasingly sounding like whistling past the graveyard.

Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna said the Brazil/Turkey/Iran deal was “a constructive move,” and pointed out that India has a “deep desire to have a friendly relationship” with Iran. He also pointed out that “The U.S. has its own foreign policy and India has its own.”

The Arab League’s General Secretary Amr Moussa said he hoped the agreement would “solve the current problem regarding the Iranian nuclear file.”

United Nation Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, “We hope that this and other initiatives may open the door to a negotiated settlement.”

France’s President Nicholas Sarkozy, normally hawkish on Iran, called the deal a “positive step.”

Even the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Supreme Commander, U.S. Admiral James Stavridis said the fuel swap deal was a “a potentially good development.”

This should hardly come as a surprise; just follow the ruble, the yuen, and the franc.

In his visit to Ankara earlier this month, Medvedev said, “Russia and Turkey are strategic partners, not only in words but genuinely.” That was certainly strange talk about a key member of NATO with which Moscow has gone to war in the past.

But with rubles at stake, who worries about history?

Medvedev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed 17 agreements worth some $25 billion, including building four nuclear power plants. The two countries also discussed Russian participation in a Black Sea- Mediterranean pipeline that would make Ankara a player in the Central Asia energy game. The Turks also seem to be more favorably disposed toward Moscow’s South Stream natural gas pipeline to Europe.

And lastly, the Russian president said he would push to raise bilateral trade from $40 billion a year to $100 billion within five years.

If the U.S. thinks the Russians are going to have a falling out with the Turks over the Iran sanctions, then delusion is the order of the day in Washington.

And China? Brasilia’s number one trading partner, which loaned Petrobras $10 billion to develop Brazil’s huge South Atlantic subsalt oil deposits? And just signed an agreement with Brasilia to develop a joint defense industry (no doubt lured by the $20-plus billion that Brazil is handing out in defense contracts)? Will China go to the mat for the U.S. over the Iran sanctions? See “order of the day” above.

France appears to be playing the dog that didn’t bark. Might Gallic discreetness have anything to do with a $12 billion defense deal with Brazil for 50 helicopters and four Scorpene submarines? Could it be the $10.2 billion Brasilia is shelling out for 36 of France’s Rafale fighter jets? The Rafale is very a cute airplane, not terribly fast, that came in third in an open competition with fighters made by Boeing and Saab. But as Rhys Thompson of ISN Security Watch notes, “The Brazilian government reiterated that the final choice of a fighter jet would be based on political and strategic considerations and not primarily guided by technical aspects.” In short, we buy your cookies, you be nice to us in return (and maybe lower European Union tariffs for Brazilian agricultural goods).

As more and more countries line up behind the Turkish-Brazilian deal, it looks less and less likely that the Security Council will pass sanctions, in part because the deal is a good one and represents a sea change in international power relations. But also because countries like Russia, China, India, and France are also keeping Lord Palmerston’s dictum in mind.