Negotiation and diplomacy still best move on Iran
The recent U.s.-iran tensions raise critical, legitimate questions: Will the Middle East suffer another devastating war? What does the U.S. want — regime change or policy change to temper Iran’s expansionist and destabilizing designs?
The buildup of U.S. forces in the region is in response to perceived threats by Iran and Shia militias under its control against American interests. The United States is deploying an aircraft and bomber force, including B52s, to the Persian Gulf, with the possibility of sending 120,000 troops there to deter an “imminent” Iranian attack. Iran calls
talk of the threat “fake intelligence” and denies any plans to attack the United States, claiming it is acting defensively to counter a possible U.S. attack.
The United States bolsters its claim by pointing to these incidents within the last few days, in which it sees Iran’s hand: sabotage of Saudi oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and a drone strike on a Saudi pipeline claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
After a rocket landed near the U.S. embassy inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, President Donald Trump threatened Iran that if it wants to fight, “that will be the official end of Iran.” This heightened tensions, which had somewhat eased when, three days earlier, Trump told the Pentagon he did not want to go to war and he preferred to negotiate a deal with Iran.
Similarly, Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, whose PH.D. dissertation I supervised at the University of Denver Graduate School of International Studies, now Korbel School, says Iran does not want war with the United States. However, the risk of miscalculations or an accidental flareup cannot be ruled out. By all accounts, another war in the region would lead to further destabilization of the region. And the winner is likely to be Russia, which is already expanding its influence there.
Relations between the United States and Iran took a nose-dive 40 years ago when the Revolutionaries in Iran ousted the U.s.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and kept 52 U.S. diplomats and civilian employees at the U.S. embassy in Tehran hostage for 444 days. Since that time, the mutual mistrust has continued unabated.
Last year, the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and began imposing punitive sanctions, first on financial, energy, and shipping centers, and more recently ratcheted up under a “maximum pressure” campaign to cripple the Iranian economy. Earlier this month, Washington added sanctions on Iran’s iron, steel, aluminum, and copper sectors, ended waivers that allow several countries, including India, Turkey, and Japan, to buy Iranian oil, and designated Iran’s
Revolutionary Guard corps as a terrorist organization.
Sanctions have taken their toll on Iran’s economy — its currency has lost nearly three-fourths of its value, inflation is up 40 percent and the GDP has fallen 6 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. And there is increasing unrest, especially among young Iranians. Will this lead to a regime change? Will it provoke the Revolutionary Guards to strike at U.S. interests, which would then permit the hawks in the Trump administration, such as National Security Adviser John Bolton, to attack? It is worth recalling that a 2015 New York Times op-ed by Bolton was headlined, “To stop Iran’s bomb, bomb Iran.”
Will it pressure Iran to renegotiate a new nuclear accord? Will it compel Iran to stop arming the Hezbollah militia, supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen’s civil war, and propping up Syria’s tyrannical President Bashar al Assad, who continues to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity? It is hard to predict, but all indications are that this economic squeeze is giving the upper hand to hardliners in Tehran.
In the present scenario, with the economy collapsing and unrest on the rise, war is not the answer, Iran’s bad behavior notwithstanding. With the United States already deeply embroiled in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen, another war will not advance U.S. interests. Although Iran has rejected the call for negotiations, assistance from a third party, such as Oman, would be invaluable in bringing the parties together.