A hallmark of the Obama administration’s Iran policy has been a dual track approach to its contentious nuclear programme: diplomacy, and pressure on the regime.
But pressure will not achieve its stated goal, namely, that Iran suspend enrichment of uranium on its soil and return to the negotiating table with the West.
Perhaps Western and Israeli leaders have a difficult or impossible time separating Iranian rhetoric from reality, but anyone who knows the Iranians should easily recognise that they’re not exaggerating or lying when they say they refuse to compromise in the face of threats, or whenever “carrots and sticks” are promoted as a policy to force them to change their behaviour.
As Iran prepares to sit down again – for the first time in over a year – to negotiate its nuclear programme with the P5+1, the chances for a diplomatic breakthrough remain as slim as ever, notwithstanding US claims that the international sanctions regime is “working”. Sanctions, designed to punish Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, force it to negotiate from a weakened position, or to weaken the regime to the breaking point, have clearly not achieved their objective and if anything, the pressure on Iran makes it even more intransigent.
If Iran were to give up its right to a nuclear programme in the face of pressure from foreign powers, it would be a catastrophic defeat for the government of the Islamic Republic. A revolutionary leadership that declared from the moment of its victory over the Western-allied monarchy that it would pursue an independent path in international relations, will not under any circumstances give in to Western demands.
The latest round of UN sanctions, as well as unilateral US and EU sanctions, were apparently not designed to not hurt ordinary Iranians. But during a recent interview with the BBC’s Persian Service, President Obama said that he expects the Iranian people to blame their own government and not the US, for whatever hardship they suffer. A shockingly naïve statement that displays a complete lack of understanding of nationalism, basically akin to asking ordinary Americans to blame their own government for its foreign policy when they suffer a terrorist attack. People may blame their government for many things, but they don’t generally blame their government for the actions of a foreign one.
Sanctions are indeed hurting ordinary Iranians – “Ali the Plumber” if you will – by contributing to inflation, and severely impacting investment and unemployment. If one goal of debilitating sanctions is to induce the people to rise up against their leaders, Western leaders are misreading not just the Iranian leadership, but the opposition and the Iranian people too. And those who believe sanctions should not be just linked to the nuclear issue but also to Iran’s human rights record, in the hope of empowering the opposition, also misread the nature of that opposition, mistakenly ascribing to it a desire for a realignment of Iran’s strategic position from independence to ally of the West.
Sanctions, or even threats of military action, will ultimately be self-defeating. Turkey and Brazil, two countries that understand Iran and Iranians better than either the US or the Europeans, have insisted that diplomacy alone is the only solution to the nuclear crisis. Perhaps it’s time we listen to them, if we don’t want to listen to the Iranians themselves.
Hooman Majd is author of
“The Ayatollahs’ Democracy”
and UN Global Experts