For most Israeli politicians, the news of the election of moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran, is not good. That it is considered good news by anyone else makes it that much worse.

In Poland last Wednesday, two days before Iranians went to the polls, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that the results would bring about no meaningful change in Iran. Hours before reports of the election’s outcome began to be announced, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israel think tank, that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, would decide who the next Iranian president would be.  The imminent Iranian election would change nothing.

As news of Rouhani’s garnering more than half the votes cast in Iran began to emerge, Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, echoed the widespread view that it is Khamenei who makes all the decisions concerning the Iranian nuclear program, not the Iranian president. “After the elections, Iran will continue to be judged by its actions, in the nuclear sphere as well as on the issue of terror,” Palmor said in a statement.” Iran must abide by the demands of the international community to stop its nuclear program and cease the dissemination of terror throughout the world.”

In a cabinet meeting on Sunday morning, Netanyahu derided not only the possible impact of a Rouhani-presidency on Iran’s policies, but also whether Rouhani even deserved to be considered a moderate since Khamenei had allowed him to run:

“Let us not delude ourselves,” Netanyahu said. “The international community must not become caught up in wishes and be tempted to relax the pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear program. It must be remembered that the Iranian ruler, at the outset, disqualified candidates who did not fit his extremist outlook and from among those whose candidacies he allowed was elected the candidate who was seen as less identified with the regime, who still defines the State of Israel [in an address last year] as ‘the great Zionist Satan.’”

Referring to the unexpected election of Mohammed Khatami as Iran’s president in 1997, the Israeli Prime Minister reminded his cabinet that “Fifteen years ago, the election of another president, also considered a moderate by the West, led to no change in these aggressive policies.”

Perhaps Netanyahu should be reminded that in 1992, he claimed Iran was “3 to 5 years” from having a nuclear weapon. That same year, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres (Israel’s current president) told French TV that Iran would have a nuclear warhead by 1999. This contention, shared by Netanyahu’s political rival, Yitzhak Rabin and echoed here by the Israel lobby, provided much of the impetus to push harder for the anti-Iran sanctions that were a major factor in constraining the ability of the last reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, to improve the economy and gain political capital against regime hard-liners.

In an interview with AP and Reuters, Peres made the opposite argument, praising the election results as a blow to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “who was sure that the people would vote according to his decision.” According to Peres, Rouhani will now have to be judged by his actions, rather than his words.

(Now what would happen if the U.S. were to judge Israeli leaders by their actions rather than their words, with regard to resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict or coming clean about Israel’s nuclear weapons program?)

Knesset Foreign Relations Chair Avigdor Lieberman of the hardline Israel is Our Home party, barred from assuming the post of Foreign Minister until the pending corruption charges against him are resolved, sized up Iran’s president-elect as being “not more moderate, but more sophisticated” than his predecessor. “We have not heard from [Rouhani] any announcements that he plans to stop the nuclear program.”

Minister of International Relations Yuval Steinitz, whose ministerial duties include “Israel’s intelligence efforts on Iran,” told Army Radio on Sunday morning that “the results are a credit to the Iranian people,” but expressed doubts as to whether Supreme Leader Khamenei, who “actually manages foreign affairs, national security and Iran’s nuclear program,” would alter Iran’s “path and behavior.” Steinitz asserted that the election results would have no effect on Iran’s nuclear progress, which he claimed is ever-closer to crossing the nuclear “red line.” Were any changes in to occur, he opined they would come about solely as a consequence of “increased pressure” by the international community. Steinitz therefore insisted that international sanctions against Iran “must continue, regardless of the desire of the Iranian people for progress.”

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni – praised by J-Street last year when she resigned from the Knesset for defining “the ideal of public service in Israel, pursuing her vision of the best interests of Israel with passion, dignity and integrity,” but who immediately jockeyed for and won a cabinet position in the right-wing Netanyahu government elected in January — also told Army Radio that Rouhani’s election would test the West’s determination to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. While Rouhani might seem like a more moderate face for Iranians, Livni was in agreement with her Likud colleagues that it would be “wise” to continue pressuring Iran. “The test will be that of action,” Livni said, parroting the official Israel position that Iran’s new president should be judged by actions instead of words.

MK Zahava Gal-on of Israel’s pro-peace and progressive Meretz party, which is in opposition to Netanyahu’s government, issued a sardonic statement of condolence to Israel’s political leadership on the departure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who for the past eight years has provided a treasure trove of  anti-Israel invective that Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have been able to quote when making their case that Iran is an imminent threat to Israel:

I extend my sympathy to the Israeli government that, with heavy heart and head hung low, must bid farewell to Ahmadinejad, who served as propaganda card and as an excellent source of excuses to avoid dealing with Israel’s real problems,” she said in a statement.

Where will the prime minister turn to now, when someone asks him about the Palestinian conflict? What about the out-of-control budget deficit for which he was responsible?… What about the racism that exists within Israeli society?… What will he do?”

I fear that the election of the moderate Rouhani is not just a blow to the extremists in Tehran, but also to the extremist leadership in Israel, which will now have to replace intimidation with actions.”

Gal-On’s sarcasm is closer to reality than it might sound. After Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the contentious 2009 runoff presidential election, despite charges that his opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, had received more votes, the pro-settler, nationalist news site Arutz Sheva included some quotes reflecting the attitudes of many Israeli politicians and pundits about the 2009 victory of the outgoing Iranian president who Israeli leaders have delighted in comparing to Haman and Hitler, among them:

• Mossad director Meir Dagan told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that “if the reformist candidate Mousavi had won, Israel would have had a more serious problem because it would need to explain to the world the danger of the Iranian threat.”
• Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University, explained to CBS News, “If we have Ahmadinejad, we know where we stand. If we have Mousavi we have a serpent with a nice image.”
• Political commentator Ron Ben Yishai declared Ahmadinejad “a diplomatic asset for the West in general and for Israel in particular. His Shi’ite fanaticism and Holocaust denial have frightened Arab and Western countries and assisted in creation of a global anti-Iranian front.”

So it’s not surprising that, as the results of the 2013 Iranian election became known on Saturday, Deputy Defense Minister Gilad Erdan expressed concern that Rouhani’s reputation as a centrist and the support he received from Iran’s reformists might tempt the West to give Iran “more leeway in diplomatic contacts over its rogue nuclear drive,” agreeing to more talks, and then more talks.

Regardless of the outcome of any Iranian election offering the possibility of change — admittedly not the prospect or an outright promise — Israeli politicos will be displeased, and for the wrong reasons. Expect to hear more from them in the days and weeks ahead in the media, and from the Israel Lobby in the United States.

by Dina Esfandiary

After a long night, the results came in on Saturday: Hassan Rowhani, former foreign minister, former nuclear negotiator and reformist by default will be the Islamic Republic of Iran’s next president. The outcome of this seemingly unfraudulent election has led to surprise and hope both inside and outside Iran. But how much is Iran’s next president willing to do, and perhaps more importantly, how much can he do?

Predicting the outcome of Iranian elections is a thankless exercise — after all, the last four presidential elections in Iran were surprises. But after months of crackdowns and statements that no dissent would be tolerated”, it seemed this election would come and go with no notable change other than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being shooed out in favour of an appointed hardline conservative. Although the crackdown that followed Iran’s fraudulent 2009 election and Ahmadinejad’s turbulent presidency had damaged the system, it seemed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would not risk another four years of uncertainty for a little bit of legitimacy gained from freer elections. But, again, we were surprised.

Iranian authorities even kept polls open late to accomodate a surge of voters who had initially refrained form voting, feeling that their vote would be ignored. But it became apparent that the government was intent on repairing some of the damage done to its system by demonstrating it was capable of holding elections with a high turnout (80% according to the government) and “only minor issues that were fixed quickly”, as stated by the Guardian Council.

Iranians have made clear their desire for change. Some will paint this as a victory for the sanctions regime, while others will see it as Khamenei’s willingness to act leniently in the face of public pressure. But a problem remains: constitutionally, the Iranian president has little power — Khamenei is still the ultimate decision-maker, which suggests the big picture won’t change much.

The president is responsible for the state of the Iranian economy (which Ahmadinejad did little to improve) and the general mood and direction the country is taking. Depending on their relationship, Iran’s new president might be able to sway the Supreme Leader’s views on some subjects.

Rowhani has not revealed his plans for tackling Iran’s major economic problems like rampant inflation, unemployment and the drop in the value of Iran’s currency, the rial. But he has stated that he will begin to address economic problems first. During his campaign, he often criticised government policy on a range of issues, from the nuclear negotiations to the treatment of prisoners, indicating that he would try to tackle them. And during his first press conference as President-elect, to the great relief of many international watchers, Rowhani highlighted that he would make Iran’s nuclear program more transparent and help build mutual trust to end Iran’s international isolation.

But the pessimist in me remembers that Rowhani passed the Guardian Council’s screening. He is a cleric with a long tradition of loyalty to the Islamic Republic; he did not support the opposition in 2009 and supported the clampdown on student protests in the nineties. Some (even more pessimistic than I) believe his recent liberal tendencies were intended to woo the reformists and reinvigorate those who had lost confidence in the system.

And that’s just the first layer of suspicion. Willingness and ability are two separate things. Think Mohammad Khatami’s presidency — his hands were tied.

It is likely, that as many Western analysts are predicting, not much will change, especially in Iran’s foreign policy. The Islamic Republic has already invested far too heavily in Syria for example, and at no point did Rowhani indicate he would revisit this policy during his campaign. On the nuclear front, he focused on critiscizing the government’s handling of the negotiations, not the existence of the nuclear program.

Having said that, it would be foolish to dismiss the events of the past twenty-fours hours because substantial change, especially vis-a-vis the outside world, seems unlikely. Past presidents have been successful in influencing politics as well as the general mood and image of the country. Khatami was also able to loosen some of the restrictions on the daily lives of Iranians. Moreover, the Iranian population is tired of the current state of affairs; they want breathing space from international pressure to address domestic concerns. This recent victory, no matter how uncertain, has made space for some hope and cautious optimism.

– Dina Esfandiary is a Research Associate and foreign affairs and security analyst focusing on Iran, the Middle East and nuclear issues at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Until now, most foreign military assets flowing into Syria have come from Russia, Iran, or Iran’s Lebanese ally, Hezbollah. Arab and Western military aid to the rebels has been far less: lower in volume, composed of lighter weapons, and somewhat erratic. Now that Washington has tipped its hand, its foreign rivals backing the Assad regime can be expected to ramp up their assistance, hoping the regime can increase the pace of its military operations. Since military aid for the regime has been flowing through established channels, the impact of stepping up these deliveries could be felt well before the US can augment markedly its assistance to the rebels. To prevent the Syrian balance of power from potentially shifting further in favor of Damascus, the Obama administration will have to act very quickly to establish a viable pipeline. Tragically, either way, levels of overall violence are likely to escalate noticeably in this increasingly brutal, sectarian conflict.

To enhance the regime’s advantage as much as possible before the full weight of US-related assistance can be brought to bear, both Iran and Russia have the convenience of flying aid directly into Damascus International Airport. Continued chatter about possible limited US no-fly zones in either the south or north that would squeeze the regime’s air power advantage is yet another incentive for this grouping to pull out all the stops in bulking up and energizing the regime’s war effort as quickly as possible. The US decision to leave a number of combat aircraft and related assets behind in Jordan after an exercise has fed such concerns.

Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah declared in response to Washington’s Syrian gambit that Hezbollah would fight in Syria “wherever it was needed”, guided by the “requirements of the (Syrian) battlefield.” This statement seemed to put aside hopes that Hezbollah combatants might restrict their involvement to anti-rebel Syrian military operations near the Lebanese border close to Hezbollah’s home turf, as they did in and around Qusair.

Despite Friday’s White House assertion that its decision was “already finalized,” otherwise somewhat hazy signals emanating from the administration on precisely what it intends to do suggest a policy-change was announced prior to complete agreement on all aspects of the US assistance package. There have been no indications that key US allies most concerned about Syria, like Great Britain and France, were consulted in advance in any detail. If outside impressions of lingering indecision regarding certain aspects of the policy are accurate, and the US revealed its intent to act before finishing the planning, that could prove very costly on the ground for Syria’s rebels. While the American statements have angered and alarmed the Assad regime and its allies, desperately needed concrete assistance for the rebels could be weeks away (and perhaps less than expected).

Supplying the Syrian rebels also could be more difficult, whether from Turkey or Jordan, if the regime succeeds in retaking some additional ground. Rebel holdings within the country are less continuous than they were only six weeks ago. By contrast, fewer regime forces are isolated and are now able to enjoy at least some support from Damascus and other resupply hubs. Any additional regime gains in the north (where its forces began attacking rebel positions in Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, last Friday), or the extreme south, would be especially disruptive to rebel connections with opposition assets across borders or among different rebel units within Syria in need of munitions.

Moreover, rebel holdings inside Syria are comprised of a bewildering patchwork of different factions, a situation likely to compromise US and any related allied-efforts to provide arms selectively to so-called “vetted” rebels. In many areas, such munitions would have to traverse zones held by extremist groups likely to block deliveries to which they have been barred or, amidst realities on the ground outside American control, extract a transit fee in the form of a portion of the munitions for themselves–eroding Washington’s aim to keep its shipments out of the hands of such groups.

And although rebel combatant groups of different stripes have tended to hoard their own supplies, relatively moderate rebels might share some of what they have acquired from the US with militants fighting close by in the interest of mutual survival when desperate in the face of severe regime pressure in combat scenarios. All these possibilities underscore the weakest link in the administration’s goal of keeping arms out of the hands of militants: once munitions are deep inside Syria, their control is bound to be iffy in difficult circumstances as well as in different sectors.

One thing is clear: making more weapons available will intensify the violence. Syrian government and Hezbollah forces will fight hard not to give up the initiative they have seized of late in some key areas. When and if rebels receive new arms and more plentiful ammunition, their resistance will stiffen. Then, if regime advances can be halted, the rebels will try to resume their own offensive operations. So, for a while, the result is likely to be a seesaw struggle, possibly producing more broadly a bloody tactical stalemate.

As for the hope of talks between the regime and the opposition sponsored by the international community, both warring parties might well avoid serious diplomatic engagement until their military positions inside Syria clarify to some extent. This could take many months, with each seeking greater advantage–or, to crush the other. Meanwhile, President Obama plans to discuss his recent decision with world leaders at the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland beginning today, but the US move reportedly is controversial even among British politicians. Reflecting Moscow’s ire after Washington upped the ante so boldly, Russian President Vladimir Putin, emerging from a Sunday meeting with UK Prime Minister David Cameron in London, scornfully characterized the Syrian rebels as brutish “cannibals”.

With President Obama’s decision to step up arms supplies to the rebels there, Syria’s war has become his war. This was not part of his game-plan.

Obama did inherit a mess in the region. This included two seemingly unending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of which has much to do with America’s long-term strategic interests. Add to that the continuing confrontation with Iran, with bipartisan insistence that the US employ all sticks and no carrots. Factor in the paralyzed Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, currently without a glimmer of hope. And top it off with domestic expectations that terrorism, however virulent abroad, will be kept away from US shores.

Obama has not done badly in meeting this set of challenges. He got us out of Iraq. He is winding down the war in Afghanistan. He has not yet had to redeem his pledge on Iran that “all options are on the table”, which could mean another Middle East war. There have been terrorist incidents — an “underwear bomber” in a plane headed for Detroit and a bomb in Times Square, plus the horrendous killings in Boston (though not linked to al-Qaeda or its ilk) — but there has been nothing approaching 9/11. And he has largely kept the Israel-Palestine problem from distracting him from more pressing business.

But Obama has paid prices and given hostages to fortune. To avoid having to honor his pledge on Iran, he depends on the good behavior of two countries: Iran (no bomb) and Israel (no preemptive attack). As outside forces draw down sharply, Afghanistan is likely, again, to revert to chaos, perhaps before Obama’s second term expires, while nuclear-armed Pakistan festers. To keep terrorism at bay while limiting risks to US “boots on the ground,” Obama has embraced the heavy use of drones and sanctioned unprecedented electronic surveillance. The former has provoked debate at home and hostility from Islamabad; the latter has raised domestic concerns about civil liberties not seen since the 1950s. And the Middle East continues to suck oxygen from other demands, notably his efforts to “pivot” US foreign policy toward Asia and the rise of China.

Now there is Syria, following the president’s felt need to redeem his pledge that the verified use of chemical weapons would somehow be a “game changer.” But his decision to supply arms to the rebels still does not convey a strategy for the immediate future; show that the US is truly committed to a particular outcome; suggest a realistic basis for negotiations, which are already premised on a predetermined result (President Bashar al-Assad must go); or indicate that the US has a sense of direction for afterwards, in Syria or the region.

Obama is beset from all sides.

Americans who believe military force should be the first choice in asserting US power criticize him for timidity and a failure of leadership, without counting costs down the road, as hammered home by Iraq and Afghanistan. Ditto for those who see Iran as the big bugaboo in the region and fear that it and Hezbollah will be the big winners if the United States does not help the rebels prevail.

Human rights activists criticize him for not toppling Assad straightaway, which Obama himself called for two years ago, as though Syria, in the middle of the world’s most volatile region, is another “Libya” — which, as far as US interests go, could be on Mars. They also ignore the notion that the likely replacement regime in Damascus would take bloody revenge on the Alawites, while the worst of the Islamist terrorists would continue to have free play and also threaten Israel. Meanwhile Britain and France egg Obama on, but so far accept no responsibility for helping to deal with the post-Assad mess.

Missing in all of this is clarity about how Syria fits in the regional picture.

It is only one facet of an expanding Sunni-Shia civil war in the Middle East, unleashed in its current phase when, by invading Iraq in 2003, the US unwittingly ended centuries of minority Sunni dominance over the majority Shias. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Turkey seek to redress the balance by toppling Alawite (Shia) authority in Syria. Meanwhile, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Arab states, Turkey, and Israel are playing out in Syria their competitions for regional influence. Whatever the US does there has to be only one element of a policy that makes sense for the entire Middle East.

It will not be easy for Obama to get on top of his game — America’s game. He has to start by mandating the first truly rigorous assessment of US interests across the entire Middle East since the end of the Cold War. He has to demand coherent, integrated, strategic analysis and planning from his staff. He has to draw in others, including European allies and other stakeholders that can’t be ignored, notably Russia. And he has to follow one key dictum that is so often lost: what matters to the United States must come first.

via The National Interest

Hassan Rouhani’s stunning and sweeping victory in the Iranian presidential election is already generating much debate among expert Iran-watchers about how to interpret this outcome. There are different views, for example, on what inference should be drawn regarding the posture of Supreme Leader Khamenei toward the election. Was this outcome one that the leader might have anticipated and is part of a skillful management of contending factions, or does the election result instead indicate that the leader’s control of Iranian politics is less than was often surmised? There also are different views on what role sanctions-induced economic strain may have had on the election. These are genuine questions on which objective and well-informed observers can disagree. Not genuine is the spin from some other fast-off-the-mark commentators who are endeavoring to deny any significance to Rouhani’s victory and to portray the Iranian regime as nothing but the same old recalcitrant adversary—a spin motivated by opposition to reaching agreements with Iran and the favoring of confrontation and even war with it.

Useful implications for policy toward Iran can be drawn without resolving all these analytical questions, even the genuine ones. Sometimes a particular course of action is the best course under any of several different interpretations of exactly what is going on in another nation’s capital. This is one of those instances. In particular, there are clear implications for approaching the next stage of negotiations on, and policy toward, Iran’s nuclear program—which, for better or for worse, is the subject dominating discussion of relations with the Islamic Republic.

One thing that the Iranian election would have changed no matter what the outcome on election day is that we soon will not have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to kick around any more. The end of his distracting and annoying presence can only be to the good. Perhaps at least a little more serious attention will be devoted in the United States to policy and diplomacy when there is a little less energy allocated to expressing outrage over the outgoing Iranian president’s mistranslated quotes about wiping maps and his other intentionally inflammatory rhetoric.

Rouhani’s win brings to Iran’s presidency the candidate who was least associated with attributes of the Iranian regime that the West finds most offensive. While one must always be careful in affixing labels to individual leaders and factions in Iranian politics, the pre-election characterization of Rouhani as the most moderate of the six candidates remaining in the race until election day is accurate. The election result also is a vote in favor of flexibility and going the extra mile to reach agreement in the nuclear negotiations. In this regard one of the significant aspects of the result is not only how well Rouhani did but also how bad the result was for one of the other candidates, Saeed Jalili, the current nuclear negotiator. Conduct of the negotiations was an issue in the campaign. Yet another candidate, former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati (who possibly could become foreign minister again under Rouhani) pointedly criticized Jalili in one of the candidates’ debates for apparently expecting too much from the other side while offering little in return. Jalili, who before the election had been dubbed the supreme leader’s man and was considered by some the favorite, finished a far-behind third place, with less than a quarter as many votes as Rouhani.

There clearly is an opportunity for diplomatic progress. More to the point, there is a challenge, to the United States and its P5+1 partners in the nuclear negotiations, to do their part to make such progress possible. This is true no matter which of several possible interpretations of the details of politics in Iran is valid. Whether the supreme leader is stage-managing a process that leads to an outcome he has always welcomed, or is being pushed toward that outcome by forces and sentiments he cannot control, the implication for western policy is the same. We should spend less time trying to interpret what’s happening on the other side and more time thinking about how the other side interprets our policies. This is important because a lack of Iranian confidence in the West’s desire and willingness to make a deal and to stick with it almost certainly has been one of the impediments to progress in the nuclear negotiations.

Rouhani’s election presents the United States and its partners with a test—of our intentions and seriousness about reaching an agreement. Failure of the test will confirm suspicions in Tehran that we do not want a deal and instead are stringing along negotiations while waiting for the sanctions to wreak more damage. Passage of the test will require placing on the table a proposal that, in return for the desired restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities, incorporates significant relief from economic sanctions and at least tacit acceptance of a continued peaceful Iranian nuclear program, to include low-level enrichment of uranium. The sad fact is that the criticism Velayati leveled at Jalili’s negotiating approach could be applied just as easily to the approach of the P5+1, which so far have coupled their demands about the nuclear program with sanctions relief that is only a pittance compared to the large and ever-growing array of sanctions applied to Iran. Passage of the test also means not making any proposal an ultimatum that is coupled with threats of military force, which only feed Iranian suspicions that for the West the negotiations are a box-checking prelude to war and regime change.

The Iranian electorate has in effect said to the United States and its Western partners, “We’ve done all we can. Among the options that the Guardian Council gave us, we have chosen the one that offers to get us closest to accommodation, agreement and understanding with the West. Your move, America.”

via The National Interest

Sometimes a child is able to drag a parent into doing something the parent might not really want to do—say, taking the kid to an amusement park—through a two-step process. The first step is to nag, repeatedly and insistently, about going to the park. The parent, not wanting to be bothered about such a chore, tries to buy time and assuage the child by saying that they aren’t going to the park now but they will when a suitable day arises. After some time goes by and the trip to the amusement park still has not been taken, the child’s theme becomes, “But you promised.” The issue is framed no longer just in terms of the pros and cons of going to the amusement park but also in terms of the parent’s credibility. The parent, worried about maintaining credibility of both promises and threats on other possible matters, gives in.

A similar process is occurring with some of those who, for whatever ill-conceived reason, would welcome a war with Iran. With some of the same people, it is occurring also with the nearer-term issue of intervening in the civil war in Syria. In each case step one is agitation in favor of threatening the use of military force. Step two is to argue that unless the threat is carried out, U.S. credibility will be damaged. Similar to the child who wants to go to the amusement park, the same persons whose urgings led us to get into an option-reducing box then yammer about the damage that results from being in that box, unless we get out of it in the particular way they want.

On Iran, it is hard to know exactly how President Obama, in his innermost thoughts, views the nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is a fair guess that he does not subscribe to the repeatedly expressed notion that those activities constitute the Greatest Threat to Mankind in Our Time. He clearly does not want a war with Iran. But he is faced with repeated, insistent nagging about this from the government of Israel, and thus from those in the United States who support that government, and thus with all of the U.S. political implications that implies. Not wanting to have his presidency completely sidelined by such things, he tries to buy time and assuage the naggers by saying that an Iranian nuclear weapon would be unacceptable and that all options are on the table to prevent that eventuality. His statements are already fodder for lots of warnings about how badly U.S. credibility supposedly would be harmed if he does not make good on the promise he seems to have made. Some of the loudest voices in making those warnings are those whose pestering pressured him into making the promise in the first place.

On Syria, Mr. Obama seems to have allowed himself to be pushed into a similar box, with earlier statements about how President Assad must go and more recent ones about the use of chemical weapons as a “red line.” Some of the pressures to which he has been responding involve the same sort of two-step tactic as is being used on Iran. A glaring example is provided this week by Michael Singh of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. In an opinion piece titled “How to Make Diplomacy on Syria Succeed,” Singh argues that the United States “must credibly put on the table the option of military intervention,” including direct operations by U.S. forces and not just the arming of Syrian rebels. In a separate piece published on the same day and titled “U.S. Credibility on Iran at Stake in Syria,” Singh talks in the same breath as mentioning the “military option” that “Washington’s failure to push back on Iranian aggression in Syria” is undercutting “the credibility of Western warnings.” He goes on with more ominous language about a “vicious cycle” of lost influence in which “not just for Tehran” but elsewhere in the region “American influence is everywhere diminished.” What a deliciously constructed chain of entrapment: starting with the innocent goal of supporting diplomacy on Syria, we are led to threats of military force, and then to actual use of force, and then to the big prize of confrontation with Iran.

There are many things wrong with this, too numerous to mention them all. What Singh says, for example, about the impact of threats of U.S. military intervention on Syria diplomacy is inconsistent when considering the impact on both the thinking of the Syrian regime and its backers, on one hand, and the rebels and their backers, on the other. The commonly heard assertions about how threats of military force ought to aid the nuclear negotiations with Iran naively overlook how such threats are more likely to have counterproductive effects on Iranian perceptions and incentives, by lending credibility to the belief that Washington only wants regime change and to any arguments within the Iranian regime that it needs a nuclear deterrent. The talk about how actions in one theater are supposed to shape perceptions of U.S. credibility somewhere else also is inconsistent with the actual record of how governments assess the credibility of other governments.

Perhaps the most offensive thing about this approach is the manipulation involved in first pushing us—and our leaders—into a difficult position and then pushing us to do even more harmful things to get out of that same position. In a general way this is related not only to a kid who pesters his parent to go to the amusement park but also to the kid who killed his parents and then called for mercy because he was an orphan.

via IPS News

Despite Thursday’s announcement that President Barack Obama has decided to provide direct military assistance to Syrian rebels, what precisely the administration has in mind remains unclear.

Analysts here are also questioning whether the decision is part of a deliberate strategy – and, if so, what that strategy is – or whether it is instead another in a series of efforts to relieve growing pressure from its allies in Europe and the Gulf and hawks at home to take stronger military measures designed to shift the 27-month-old civil war decisively in favour of the opposition.

“When Julius Caesar actually crossed the [Rubicon], he proceeded rapidly to mission accomplishment in accordance with a sound strategy,” noted retired Ambassador Frederic Hof, a Syria specialist at the Atlantic Council who has long called for stronger U.S. military intervention.

“Although the administration’s crossing [decision] is significant, welcome, and long overdue, it is far from certain whether this particular legion will move smartly toward an objective or simply mill around the river bank.”

The White House tied the decision to escalate the “scope and scale” of military aid to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Syrian Military Council (SMC) to the U.S. intelligence community’s determination that the Syrian forces had used chemical weapons – albeit “on a small scale” – against rebel forces in multiple battles over the past year.

It also cited the deepening involvement of Iran and Hezbollah militants from Lebanon in support of the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad, whose departure from office Obama has repeatedly demanded since hostilities first broke out more than two years ago.

The announcement, however, followed a series of intensive internal meetings over the past two weeks, as it became clear that the regime’s forces had made a series of battlefield advances – most importantly by capturing, with Hezbollah’s help, the strategic western town of Al-Qusayr close to the Lebanese border – that threatened to tip the war decisively in Assad’s favour.

With pro-government forces and Hezbollah fighters reportedly preparing a major assaults on the key city of Aleppo and other “moderate” opposition leaders appealing desperately for weapons, the administration has found itself under pressure from both its allies abroad and hawks here to “do something” that could halt, if not reverse, the regime’s momentum and restore the “strategic stalemate” that Washington considers essential to any prospect for a political settlement.

But what precisely that “something” is or will be remains unclear. In a briefing for reporters Thursday evening, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes repeatedly avoided answering the question, insisting, however, that Washington will increase “the scope and scale” of direct aid to the SMC which so far has received mainly humanitarian and “non-lethal” assistance.

According to various published reports, Obama has indeed decided to provide small arms and ammunition but still pending are decisions on rebel requests for anti-tank weapons and shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. Washington had previously ruled out the latter, in part due to Israel’s concerns that they could be used against its aircraft, particularly if they fall into the hands of radical Islamist factions among the anti-Assad forces.

But hawks here have argued that small arms and even anti-tank weapons are at this point insufficient to redress the rapidly tilting balance of power on the ground.

“The president must rally an international coalition to take military actions to degrade Assad’s ability to use airpower and ballistic missiles and to move and resupply his forces around the battlefield by air,” declared Congress’s most visible interventionists, Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham late Thursday. “We must take more decisive actions now to turn the tide of the conflict in Syria.”

They and others have called for Washington to create “no-fly zones” along Syria’s Turkish and Jordanian borders that would both safe havens for refugees and rebels and permit the latter to be trained, armed and supplied for operations against government forces inside Syria.

Hof has urged that such a zone also be used protect a rebel government that could gain formal recognition from the United States and other allies, request heavier weapons and eventually go to peace talks as diplomatic, as well as military, equals of the Assad government.

While Rhodes told reporters that Obama has “not made any decision to pursue a military operations such as a no-fly zone”, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that a Pentagon proposal still under consideration calls for a limited “no-fighting” zone extending up to 40 kilometres inside Syria that would be enforced by U.S. and allied aircraft operating from Jordanian airspace.

In recent months, Washington has set up Patriot air-defence batteries and sent fighter jets to bases inside Jordan, where it has also been secretly training rebel and Jordanian forces on securing chemical-weapons facilities and weapons in the event the Assad regime collapses, according to some reports.

Some analysts who have opposed escalating U.S. involvement in the civil war agree that directly supplying arms to the rebels would be unlikely to turn the military tide, certainly in the short term, and could carry additional risks.

“Selective arms shipments could [spur] clashes between rival rebel groups. Extremist elements might attack more moderate rebel units receiving better arms, driven by need, resentment or both,” according to Wayne White, the former deputy director of the State Department intelligence unit on the Near East, who noted that this could actually strengthen the regime. Indeed, he added, the “rebel military vanguard” for some time has been the “radical Islamist in character – even Al-Qaeda affiliated”.

He also expressed scepticism about the effectiveness of a no-fly zone, noting that it would risk swift escalation. “The rebels would remain at the mercy of the regime’s other heavy weapons on the ground, thus tempting those establishing any sort of no-fly zone to attack regime ground targets as well.”

“The first step on the slippery slope is always easy, but it’s much harder to actually resolve a conflict or to find a way out of a quagmire,” wrote Marc Lynch, a Middle East expert at George Washington University, on the eve of the White House announcement.

For Lynch, who has long urged Obama to resist calls to escalate Washington’s intervention, the key issue is what U.S. policy ultimately aims to achieve and whether providing military aid or taking more aggressive measures will help achieve them.

“Should Syria be viewed as a front in a broad regional cold war against Iran and its allies or as a humanitarian catastrophe that must be resolved?” he asked, noting that very different strategies should be followed depending on the answer to that question.

At the moment, according to Lynch, “advocates of arming the rebels switch between making the case that it would strike a blow against the Iranians (and Hezbollah) and that it would improve the prospects for a negotiated solution.”

While the White House clearly framed its decision this week in the latter terms, it may nonetheless add momentum to those who tend to view the Syrian conflict more as part of the larger conflict against Tehran the model for which, according to Lynch, “would presumably be the jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan – a long-term insurgency coordinated through neighbouring countries, fuelled by Gulf money, and popularised by Islamist and sectarian propaganda”.

via IPS News

Iran’s June 14 presidential election results, announced the day after, was nothing less than a political earthquake.

The centrist Hassan Rowhani’s win was ruled out when Iran’s vetting body, the Guardian Council, qualified him as one of the eight candidates on May 21.

Furthermore, a first-round win by anyone in a crowded competition was not foreseen by any pre-election polling.

Until a couple of weeks ago, conventional wisdom held that only a conservative candidate anointed by Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could win.

Few expected the election of a self-identified independent and moderate who was not well-known outside of Tehran.

And few thought participation rates of close to 73 percent were in the cards.

The expected range was around 60 to 65 percent, in favor of the conservative candidates who benefit from a solid and stable base of support that always comes out to vote.

But the move, a few days before the election by reformists and centrists — guided by two former presidents, Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani — to join forces and align behind the centrist Rowhani proved successful and promises significant changes in the management and top layers of Iran’s various ministries and provincial offices.

Rowhani has also promised a shift towards a more conciliatory foreign policy and less securitized domestic political environment.

The centrist-reformist alliance occurred when, in a calculated action earlier this week, the reformist candidate Mohammadreza Aref withdrew his candidacy in favor of Rowhani, whose campaign slogan was one of moderation and prudence.

But the strong support for Rowhani, underwriting his first-round win, was made possible by an unexpected surge in voter turnout.

A good part of the electorate, disappointed by Iran’s contested 2009 election and the crackdown that followed, had become skeptical of the electoral process and whether their vote would really be counted.

They also questioned whether the holder of any elected office now could make a difference in the direction of the country.

Low voter turnout was the expectation. But with the centrist-reformist alliance, the mood of the country changed.

Serious debate began everywhere, including in homes, streets, shops and electronic media, about whether to vote or not.

As more and more people became convinced, Rowhani’s chances increased. Hope overcame skepticism and cynicism.

The case for voting centered on the argument that the most important democratic institution of the Islamic Republic — the electoral process — should not be abandoned easily out of the fear that it will be manipulated by non-elective institutions.

Abandoning the field was tantamount to premature surrender, it was argued.

Reformist newspaper editorials also articulated the fear that a continuation of Iran’s current policies may lead the country into war and instability.

Syria, in particular, played an important role as the Iranian public watched a peaceful protest for change in that country turn into a violent civil war through the intransigence of Bashar al-Assad’s government and external meddling.

The hope that the Iranian electoral system could still be utilized to register a desire for change was a significant motivation for voters.

Beyond the choice of Iran’s president, the conduct of this election should be considered an affirmation of a key institution of the Islamic Republic that had become tainted when the 2009 results were questioned by a large part of the voting public.

The election was conducted peacefully and without any serious complaints regarding the process.

Unlike the previous election, when the results were announced hurriedly on the night of the election, the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of conducting the election with over 60,000 voting stations throughout the country, chose to take its time to reveal the results piecemeal.

Other key individual winners of this election, beyond Rowhani, are undoubtedly former presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Khatami who proved they can lead and convince their supporters to vote for their preferred candidate.

Khatami in particular had to rally reformers behind a centrist candidate who, until this election, had not said much about many reformist concerns, including the incarceration of their key leaders, Mir Hossein Mussavi, his spouse Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi Karrubi.

Khatami’s task was made easier when Rowhani also began criticizing the securitized environment of the past few years and the arrests of journalists, civil society activists and even former government officials.

Meanwhile, Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose own candidacy was rejected by the Guardian Council, sees his call for moderation and political reconciliation confirmed by Rowhani’s win.

He rightly sensed that, despite the country’s huge economic problems — caused by bad management and the ferocious US-led sanctions regime imposed on Iran — voters understood the importance of political change in bringing about economic recovery.

Conservatives, on the other hand, proved rather inept at understanding the mood of the country.

They failed in their attempt to unify behind one candidate and ended up stealing votes from each other instead.

The biggest losers of all were the hardline conservatives, whose candidate Saeed Jalili ran on a platform that mostly emphasized resistance against Western powers and a reinvigoration of conservative Islamic values.

Although he was initially believed to be the the favored candidate due to the presumed support he had from Khamenei, he ended up placing third, with only 11.4 percent of the vote, behind the more moderate conservative mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.

The hardliners loss did not, however, result from a purge. It is noteworthy that other candidates besides Rowhani received approximately 49 percent of the vote overall.

While this election did not signal the hardliners’ disappearance, it did showcase the diversity and differentiation of the Iranian public.

Rowhani, as a centrist candidate in alliance with the reformists, will still be a president who will need to negotiate with the conservative-controlled parliament, Guardian Council and other key institutions such as the Judiciary, various security organizations and the office of Leader Ali Khamenei, which also continues to be controlled by conservatives.

Rowhani’s mandate gives him a strong position but not one that is outside the political frames of the Islamic Republic.

He will have to negotiate between the demands of many of his supporters who will be pushing for a faster rate of change and those who want to retain the status quo.

His slogan of moderation and prudence sets the right tone for a country wracked by 8 years of polarized and erratic politics.

But Rowhani’s promises constitute a tall order.

Whether he will be able to lower political tensions, help release political prisoners, reverse the economic downturn and ease the sanctions regime through negotiations with the United States remains to be seen.

But Iran’s voters just showed they still believe the elected office of the president matters and expect the person occupying that office to play a vital role in guiding the country in a different direction.

Photo Credit: Mohammad Ali Shabani

Some other articles of interest include Reza Aslan’s unique discussion of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s legacy, a former political prisoner’s spotlighting of the Iranian peoples’ struggle and what the international community should and shouldn’t do about it, and arguably the most thoughtful essay written on Iran’s 11th election since its 1979 revolution, Farhi’s “Should Iran’s Election Really be Discounted?“.

For live election updates in English, consider following the New York Time’s generally excellent Lede Blog, this Tumblr site, IranWire, and on-the-ground tweeters Najmeh Bozorghmehr, Thomas Erdbrink, and Tehran Bureau, which tweets messages from its Iranian sources regularly. Some other perceptive Tweeters include Golnaz Esfandiari, Arash Karami, Omid Memarian, Abas Aslani, Scott Peterson, Reza Marashi, Hooman Majd, Laura Rozen, Meir Javedanfar, Muftah and Barbara Slavin.

I’m sure I’ve accidentally left out a lot of other excellent resources, but it’s hard enough keeping up with my own Twitter feed at this point!  For now, everyone is anxiously awaiting the results (extended voter times are just about to end) as much as they are hoping for the votes to be counted fairly…

The Obama Administration finally has decided to provide lethal military support to the Syrian rebels. Yet, if Washington’s main focus is providing arms, a detailed review of just that one option suggests it probably would not be enough to prevent some additional regime successes. Moreover, giving arms only to so-called “vetted” (or moderate) rebel groups could aggravate tensions between disparate opposition camps, perhaps leading to rebel infighting. Some believe a US goal in supplying arms now (aside from bolstering the rebels) would be to re-balance the situation as a prelude to negotiations. Yet, getting the many combatants-—especially the rebels–to stand down is unlikely, so the outcome of limited arms shipments could be familiar: more prolonged bloodletting and destruction.

Ideally, any robust US arms resupply to “vetted” rebels should have begun 18 months ago, when the rebels had established themselves as a viable counter to the regime, and the number of Islamic extremists in their midst was far more limited. A decision to do so now would risk being too selective militarily to have much overall impact. Also, some portion of whatever arms are supplied could trickle into extremist hands. And the option of having the US better coordinate the flow of arms to the opposition, if the amount of arms provided were not increased substantially, might not accomplish all that much in altering the situation to rebel advantage.

To elaborate on the country-wide military balance, even if supplies of arms successfully could be confined to relatively moderate rebels (although that distinction is a bit blurry inside Syria), they have not been the most successful opposition combatants against regime forces. The rebel military vanguard has been radical Islamist in character–even al-Qaeda affiliated–for some time now, a deeply disturbing trend in and of itself.

Then there is the thorny question of exactly what arms to provide. The rebels want large quantities of shoulder fired anti-tank rockets (like RPG-7’s) and surface-to-air missiles (like SA-7’s), as well as a far steadier supply of various types of ammunition. “Vetted” rebels probably should have been receiving large quantities of RPG-7’s and a reliable flow of ammunition long ago. But supplying SA-7’s or their equivalents is a different story, since any secured by terrorists could be used with great effect against commercial airliners–even US military transports in various regional venues.

Perhaps SA-7’s could be given in small numbers to “vetted” fighters to test how much of a difference these weapons actually would make and whether some of them would end up with extremist rebels. Monitoring such leakage effectively, however, would pose an extremely difficult challenge for US and other allied intelligence agencies. And, of course, there is the problem of possible straying from any such restricted policy by some regional suppliers (such as Qatar, which many suspect has been supplying rebel extremists).

Still, which rebels to supply aside, even an upgraded and more reliable flow of munitions to them might not enable the opposition to halt or reverse the momentum regime forces have seized, at least over the near-term. Thousands of Hezbollah combatants already are in the field with plentiful supplies and training. The regime rebound also appears to have been driven in part by an intensified fear within its popular base of the consequences of a Sunni extremist victory (probably with good reason).

Only a more complex and demanding no-fly zone in rebel-dominated northern Syria, in the south where the regime has made gains, both, or across the country entirely could remove the rebel need for SA-7’s, but such a course carries with it the very real potential for escalation. With a massive advantage over the rebels in armored vehicles and heavy artillery, even in the face of a no-fly zone suppressing Syrian aerial activity, the rebels would remain at the mercy of the regime’s other heavy weapons on the ground, thus tempting those establishing any sort of no-fly zone to attack regime ground targets as well.

Still worse, the lack of effective military coordination among many rebel groups has been a major tactical disadvantage more weapons-—and training–would not correct. This allows regime and Hezbollah forces to concentrate in selected locales (possibly Aleppo next) to maximize their advantage. Meanwhile, less coordinated rebel elements would likely remain unable to do likewise on a comparable scale (especially if the many hard-fighting extremist rebel cadres were left under-armed). Another growing problem for the rebels is popular support: excesses on the part of extremist elements have alienated significant numbers of Syrians previously supportive of the opposition in some key areas under rebel control.

An additional potential risk of selective arms shipments could be clashes between rival rebel groups. Extremist elements might attack more moderate rebel units receiving better arms, driven by need, resentment, or both. Some al-Qaeda in Iraq militants flowing into Syria already are veterans of combat against Arab forces allied to the US. Rebel infighting has occurred in past rebellions, such as the savage fighting that broke out between the less fanatical Islamic FIS and the militant GIA during their battle against the Algerian regime in the 1990’s.

A conflict within a conflict possibly pitting the extremist al-Nusra Front & the like against more moderate rebels exclusively receiving arms from the US and its allies would worsen an already complex and ugly maelstrom. Instead of strengthening the rebels, any infighting resulting from an inequitable distribution of arms would weaken both rebel factions–something the government eagerly would exploit to its advantage (as happened in Algeria).

It is no wonder it took the Obama Administration since late last summer to formulate a policy on lethal American support for Syria’s rebels, with limited regime chemical weapons use only partly driving yesterday’s decision. But even by mid-2012, supplying enough weapons to make a difference without providing them to extremists already had become an iffy proposition militarily. And with the opposition disunited, with some component groups bitterly opposing talks and rebels now regaining hope for victory over the regime with US help, useful diplomatic engagement also seems less promising than when Secretary John Kerry went to Moscow early last month.