Tag Archives: Iran

Politics of Spite

09 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by in Iran, Middle East

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As predicted, US president Donald Trump has led the United States out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. The agreement, which was supposed to increase international (Western) oversight into Tehran’s nuclear programme and hopefully rein in its nuclear ambitions, was one of the few unambiguously positive legacies of Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, but ran into opposition even during the delicate negotiations. Critics tried to add riders involving their pet projects – usually human rights or missile development – to the deal in an attempt to derail process. Consistent with his pre-election criticism for once, Trump had called the JCPOA a bad deal and promised to repudiate it if elected.

America’s European partners – Britain, France, Germany, and Russia – have parted ways with Washington and declared their intent to continue adherence to the JCPOA; China has so far been mute but already threatened with a trade war with the United States, it is highly likely that it, too, will follow the Europeans in holding on to the Iranian nuclear deal.

It is not yet clear what the fallout of the American departure from the JCPOA will be. Although the rhetoric of the exit has been focused on how the agreement did not go far enough in preventing Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, the fact that Trump administration officials have stated that sanctions will be “snapped back” indicates that they believe Iran to be in breach of its obligations under the JCPOA – although most technical experts disagree with this evaluation.

Given that the other members of the E3 + 3 – particularly Britain, France, and Germany – will not be following the US example, the interesting question is if Washington intends to sanction their businesses and banks under the recently passed Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) as India fears its defence dealings with Russia might. This would cause an enormous rupture in in the US and world economy as China is the United States’ single largest trading partner and Britain, France, and Germany are together the fourth largest ahead of Japan. Yet if Trump does use his presidential discretion to waive sanctions and exempt these four countries, it would be too blatant an act of political hypocrisy if the same treatment was not extended to others over Russia and North Korea as well as over Iran.

In February 2018, Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of the French oil & gas giant Total, openly called for the implementation of the 1996 European Union Blocking Regulation, a law that prohibited European firms from cooperating with foreign demands that are in violation of international law or hurt European sovereign interests. Denis Chaibi, a senior diplomat in the European External Action Service, commented that the EU was looking at a variety of options and the blocking regulations would not be difficult to implement.

Ultimately, these are political instruments and businesses would be hurt either by European penalties for obeying US sanctions or the denial of access to American markets due to US sanctions. Obviously, firms would prefer having access to the far larger American markets than pin their hopes on soaring Euro-Iranian trade and the threat of blocking regulations is empty. States are supposed to exercise restrain and caution and a tit-for-tat exchange between the United States and its three primary European allies will hurt everyone. More to the point, the multinational supply chains of most large industrial houses today means that there would be few European firms that are not exposed to the United States and are free to do business with Iran.

Internationally, many countries would be pulled into the US wake for similar reasons; most countries are fairly integrated into the US economy and their national economies are not robust enough to withstand the loss of the American market. Additionally, others may have political reasons to reluctantly support Washington. India, for example, has been trying to purchase high-end American weapons systems and seeks Washington’s cooperation on several crucial issues such as defence technology and the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific. It is most likely that India will have to bear the damage done to its own ambitions in Chabahar and the International North-South Trade Corridor (INSTC). Delhi will have even more to lose if Tehran responds to Delhi’s distancing by handing the responsibility for the Shahid Beheshti port over to Beijing.

If India can persuade the United States for a partial waiver on trade as it had done last time, its importance to Tehran would rise again only to the extent that other countries stop or reduce links with the Islamic republic.

Saudi Arabia, considered to be one of the beneficiaries of the American abnegation of the JCPOA, will enjoy in the short-term the spike in oil prices that is bound to follow Trump’s decision. However, this entire episode will have reiterated to Iran that the only way to be truly safe from American interference, as an Indian general is supposed to have observed after the First Gulf War in 1991, is to acquire nuclear weapons. Tehran seems to have been acutely aware of this note – Iran’s ambitions, as revealed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent document dump, were to posses just five nuclear warheads than an entire arsenal.

Riyadh has only managed to stoke Tehran’s determination and not douse it. The JCPOA was designed to give the international community breathing space to consider how best to dampen Iran’s love of the Bomb – it was never meant to provide a permanent solution as there are none. As non-proliferation experience has illustrated, the determined country will acquire nuclear weapons regardless of the financial and political costs to it and the willingness to pay such a high price will attract unscrupulous suppliers. The classic example of this is Pakistan, whose nuclear journey would have taken far longer had it not been for the generous acts of commission by China and of omission by the United States.

Perhaps the greatest beneficiary of the American walkout is Israel. On the one hand, the reintroduction and expansion of sanctions hurts the Iranian economy and removes funds that might have otherwise gone to fund the Hezbollah and its adventures in Syria but on the other, the European and Iranian decision to continue observing the JCPOA keeps the checks on the Iranian nuclear programme in place for at least the next decade. If the archives reveal 30 years down the line that this was a game of good-cop-bad-cop, this would be a strategic masterstroke by Benjamin Netanyahu.

The one certainty at this moment is that Iran is not as isolated as it was prior to 2015. Even if Europe falls in line with America’s wishes, Russia and China are both unlikely to go along with the West this time. Both countries have been antagonised by Trump’s sanctions and threats of a trade war to be receptive to cooperation. This opens the door for greater Russian and Chinese influence in the Middle East. Russia also gains by the rift that has been created between Europe and the United States over the Iranian nuclear programme.

In some ways, Trump has just given Iran’s hardline clerics a lease of life. There have been several signs that Iranians citizens are frustrated with their government and the poor economy. Some analysts were even hopeful of organic reforms that would gradually move the country from its extreme Islamic views. Trump’s abandonment of the JCPOA underscores everything hardliners warned against – that the United States is not a trustworthy partner and it ultimately seeks the total subjugation of Iran.

If Washington expects Tehran to come back to the negotiating table, it may have a long wait. Rather than re-engage with a party that has shown bad faith, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani may simply choose to wait out his American counterpart in the hopes that Trump’s successor would be more amenable to the Obamian status quo.

It is not clear what the Trump administration sought to achieve by leaving the JCPOA. If anything, it draws attention to the Iranian bogey in American minds and the ghosts of 1979 that such policies would have any support in the houses of legislature or with the citizens. Pace the political acrobatics that are about to ensue over the coming days, the ultimate prize is the withering of the Iranian nuclear weapons programme. It is not clear if anyone in the White House had kept that in mind while thinking about abruptly walking out of an international treaty.

This post appeared on FirstPost on May 10, 2018.

A Rebirth of American Power

20 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in India, South Asia, United States

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The United States released its latest National Security Strategy (NSS) document on December 18. By and large, these releases are more important for the intent they personify than any actual policy decisions and the Trump administration’s first NSS is ripe with symbolism. The NSS comes as no surprise, staying close to the rhetoric and tone Donald Trump used during his election campaign last year and as president these past twelve months. That in itself is a drastic change in the way America sees the world and its role within the international community.

Trump’s NSS boldly announces the return of the United States to the world stage after a long spell of quasi-isolationism following the Cold War. As Washington tried to put together a consensus or a strong majority in its international actions, the perception was that the White House squandered away American dominance. The contours of the conflict in Syria and Libya especially showed an indecisive superpower whose best days, many said, are past. The new NSS intends to remedy this by strengthening the four pillars of American security: the protection of US soil, the promotion of American prosperity, the strengthening of the US military, and the advancement of American global influence. While all administrations promise the first two, it is the road map the Trump administration has for the latter two that make this security document interesting.

Trump wishes to substantially build up the US military again in support of a more aggressive posture against America’s enemies. The NSS differentiates between three kinds of threats requiring different tactics. At one level is the threat of Islamic extremism and international crime syndicates; these will be opposed by military force as well as sanctions that target operations networks. At a second level are the threats posed by rogue states such as Iran and North Korea, directly as well as from clandestine proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to state and non-state actors; the United States wishes to weaken such powers through strict sanctions and erect enhanced missile defence systems to blunt any aggressive designs from Tehran or Pyongyang. The NSS specifically mentions that such measures are “not intended to undermine strategic stability or disrupt longstanding strategic relationships with Russia or China.”

The third level of threats, however, includes these same countries. The Trump administration believes that these threats will need to be faced through strengthening American space and cyberspace capabilities, re-establishing America’s lead in nuclear (energy) technology, advanced computing, and green technologies, combatting unfair trade practices and market distortions, and reviewing the visa process to curb industrial espionage.

What is interesting is that despite the chumminess Trump has been accused of having with Moscow, his administration’s NSS clearly calls Russia out for attempting to weaken US influence in the world and drive a wedge between Washington and its allies. “Russia want[s] to shape a world antithetical to US values and interests…seek[ing] to restore its great power status and establish spheres of influence near its borders.”

In a stark departure from previous NSS documents, the Trump administration reserves its harshest tone for China. Rumoured to want to get tough with China, the George W Bush administration was distracted by terrorism in the Middle East and ultimately “welcome[d] the emergence of a strong, peaceful, and prosperous China” in its 2002 NSS and maintained focus on trade relations and development with a gentle nudge towards internal democratic reforms in its 2006 document as well. The succeeding Obama administration was more interested in achieving some progress on human rights and climate change with China while maintaining strong trading ties as its NSS documents from 2010 and 2015 reveal. Taiwan and denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula are mentioned too but in a conciliatory tone rather than as a challenge. The Trump administration’s NSS, however, launches into a jeremiad against Beijing:

China seeks to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reaches of its state-driven economic model, and reorder the region in its favor.

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For decades, U.S. policy was rooted in the belief that support for China’s rise and for its integration into the post-war international order would liberalize China. Contrary to our hopes, China expanded its power at the expense of the sovereignty of others. China gathers and exploits data on an unrivaled scale and spreads features of its authoritarian system, including corruption and the use of surveillance. It is building the most capable and well-funded military in the world, after our own. Its nuclear arsenal is growing and diversifying. Part of China’s military modernization and economic expansion is due to its access to the U.S. innovation economy, including America’s world-class universities.

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Although the United States seeks to continue to cooperate with China, China is using economic inducements and penalties, influence operations, and implied military threats to persuade other states to heed its political and security agenda. China’s infrastructure investments and trade strategies reinforce its geopolitical aspirations. Its efforts to build and militarize outposts in the South China Sea endanger the free flow of trade, threaten the sovereignty of other nations, and undermine regional stability. China has mounted a rapid military modernization campaign designed to limit U.S. access to the region and provide China a freer hand there. China presents its ambitions as mutually beneficial, but Chinese dominance risks diminishing the sovereignty of many states in the Indo-Pacific.

The important question for Delhi is what this means for India and its relations with the United States, at least for the next two years. Superficially, the NSS is a godsend for India – not only does the document identify India’s main rival as a threat to the United States but it also targets Delhi’s perennial nuisance Islamabad through its counter-terrorism aims. In addition, Washington recognises India as a “Major Defence Partner” and declares its intent to expand defence and security cooperation as well as “support India’s growing relationships” including “its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region.”

Indo-US relations have clearly come along way since Bill Clinton’s desire to come down on Delhi “like a tonne of bricks” and “cap, rollback, and eliminate” its nuclear programme after Pokhran II. The credit for transforming Indo-US relations goes to Bush ’43 and his administration’s willingness “to help India become a major world power in the 21st century,” but even such a pro-India White House spoke of the South Asian giant largely in terms of its relations to Pakistan, democracy, development, and economic growth; the Obama administration was even more tepid. This latest NSS makes, in that sense, another great departure from its predecessors.

The Trump administration’s prioritisation of the Indo-Pacific region, the Australia-India-Japan-United States Quad as a key regional institution, and recognising Delhi’s potential as a provider of regional security and stability is certainly a promotion for India. This good news does not come unalloyed: regardless of what this White House – or any administration before it – says, the true measure of relations can only be supporting policies. The United States has for long promised to compel Pakistan to abandon its support of terrorism but next to nothing has been done in that regard. Hafiz Saeed, one of the most wanted men in America, walks free and even participates in Pakistan’s politics. US aid is yet to come with stringent preconditions and sanctions against Islamabad have not been mentioned even as a joke.

Similarly, Trump was hawkish on China during his election campaign and even began his presidency with a call to the Taiwanese president. However, he has since mellowed and not followed through on some of the economic punishments that had been under consideration to persuade Beijing to stop market distortions and intellectual property theft. It would be foolhardy for India to fully bank on the United States and assert itself on the Himalayan border and in the Indian Ocean against a stronger foe just yet.

Delhi bears some of blame for the United States’ ambivalence in the Indo-Pacific – its ideological compulsions have historically prevented it from becoming a useful ally to Washington and thereby increase its influence with the superpower. As a result, the United States has looked elsewhere to meet its needs and contributed to the spiral of mistrust between the two estranged democracies. This was particularly evident between 2004 and 2008 when India dragged its feet in response to the Bush White House’s enthusiasm for strategic relations. This is slowly changing now but the pace may not be enough to satisfy India’s strategic regional interests.

If Delhi can stop tripping over its hollow phrases like non-alignment, strategic autonomy, and partnership of equals, the Trump administration’s NSS presents a real opportunity for India to forge greater economic and military ties with the United States. The ripple effect will open doors to better ties with other US allies as well. A demonstration by India that it is willing to play like the big boys could set a higher trajectory for India-US relations.

If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem…

06 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Israel, Middle East

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“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,” sang the Israelites, “may my right hand forget her cunning, may my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth.” That was approximately 2,600 years ago during the Babylonian captivity, a memory preserved in Psalm 137. To most Israelis, US president Donald Trump’s decision to declare his country’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was simply a late awakening to a most basic fact.

To the rest of the world, Trump’s actions, as always, were reason for hyperbole and haranguing. The spokesman for the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said the US was “plunging the region and the world into a fire with no end in sight,” and the Palestinian envoy to the UK, Manuel Hassassian, added, “He is declaring war in the Middle East, he is declaring war against 1.5 billion Muslims.” As can be expected, criticism has been sharpest from Muslim states and with a little more diplomatic decorum from Europe, Russia, and China. In addition, analysts of all stripes have been all over print and the airwaves predicting great upheaval in the Middle East and the derailment of decades of patient US diplomacy.

It is unclear, however, how much of the breast-beating is warranted. The primary argument against Trump’s declaration seems to be that it will cause unrest in the Middle East. Yet when in the past several decades has something not caused unrest in the region? What is the guarantee that there will be no violence in Gaza if the United States desists from the announcement? Can anyone even distinguish the chaos due to the US declaration from the upheaval, tumult, riot, violence, or disturbance that are routine to the region, and at that point, does it really matter?

The countries of the Levant are swirling in a whirlpool of chaos, instability, and terrorism that has been largely of their own making for almost a decade. Arab street decries any move by the international community that may benefit Israel as detrimental to peace and stability, implicitly encouraging a complete blockade and destruction of the Jewish state.

It must also be remembered, as Tzipi Hotovely recently alluded to, that Israel has constantly lived in a state of undeclared war. Any more unrest that is promised by the terrorists of the Middle East will hardly be noticed in the quotidian deadly exchanges with Hamas, Hezbollah, the occasional Syrians, and other armed thugs.

Another point of criticism of the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has been that it violates international law – Jerusalem is seen as occupied territory and any change of demographics on disputed land or official recognition to it is illegal. However, this fails to recognise that the United States has merely recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel but has not defined the boundaries of the city – that is still left to the Israelis and Palestinians in future peace negotiations.

One might argue that Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel muddies its role as an impartial arbitrator. Yet that ship, at least in Arab eyes, has already sailed – no one views the Great Satan as a neutral judge. What Arabs and Israelis both count on is the diplomatic, economic, and military wherewithal the United States is capable of bringing to bear upon the side that violates a peace agreement.

What will Trump’s announcement have on the other states in the region? Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei has warned of dire consequences but it would be an unusual day when the Islamic Republic does not threaten to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Trump’s announcement may force the Palestinians to show strength through terror and this might fray relations between Fatah and Hamas that had only recently been mended with much difficulty. However, Jerusalem does not recognise any Palestinian player as a genuine partner for peace – translation: dial down the terrorism – and there is no missed opportunity here.

Ankara has threatened to cut off diplomatic ties with Israel but relations have already been frigid between the two American allies after the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010. Egypt and Jordan, the two Arab states Israel has peace treaties with, have also not reacted positively to the news. Yet it is not sure what either Abdel Fattah el-Sisi or King Abdullah will or can do as neither country has had a particularly good past with the Palestinians.

The real question is about Saudi Arabia’s reaction to this all. Traditionally, Riyadh has stoked the Palestinian crisis periodically and refused to recognise the Jewish state. Recent rumours, however, have left several commentators murmuring about a clandestine US-Israel-Saudi Arabia alliance to contain Iran’s expanded influence in the Middle East after a successful turn of events in Iraq and Syria. The whispers became even louder after Trump tacitly supported a great purge in the Saudi royal family by the crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman. This has always seemed far-fetched to me and Washington’s recent dousing of Saudi ambitions in Lebanon – Saad Hariri’s removal – leaves one thinking that there are still some kinks in that plan.

More importantly, there were even rumours that Mohammad bin Salman had secretly flown to Israel to meet with its leaders to discuss a Palestinian peace plan, a normalisation of relations, and Iran. Such delicate ventures may be beyond the crown prince in view of his streak of recklessness on display in dealing with other crises such as Yemen. While there is indeed a temporary alignment of interests between Israel and Saudi Arabia, one bête noire does not a rapprochement make.

It is also unlikely, if such a triumvirate ever existed, that the topic of Jerusalem would not have cropped up. In that case, despite Riyadh’s official dismay at the US decision, it will be interesting to see what it actually does. Yet what about the impact on US ties with its other allies in the region such as Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates? Regardless of what State Department mandarins think, this administration has made it quite clear that American allies around the globe have not done enough. It is not improbable that Trump prefers to deal with Riyadh alone and coerce the “smaller” allies with the former’s help.

Could the Jerusalem declaration be part of Trump’s personal “charm?” The president is enveloped in legal battles and his administration has yet to be fully staffed or retain any member for a decent period. Trump had also promised during his election campaign that he would recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the US embassy to the city. The Jerusalem declaration not only distracts his opponents from the domestic quagmire but also delivers on a campaign promise, thus reinforcing his image to his base, perhaps, as the anti-politician. It is also possible that Trump is using his declaration as a bargaining chip to force the Palestinians to the negotiating table, the message being that there is much to lose by holding out.

Ultimately, the issue is more religious than national as Hassassian’s statement clearly reveals. As the Oslo Accords and the failed Camp David Summit in 2000 demonstrated, Jerusalem is not a negotiable issue for either side. The Arabs want to control their holy site, the Haram al-Sharif; the Jews remind us that when that was the case before 1967, they were not given access to their holy sites. More than geopolitics, it is this facet that will shape the reaction of the Arab states to American recognition of Jerusalem as the Israelis capital – it would be political suicide to even sit idly by as the United States moved its embassy to the disputed city.

It is altogether a different matter to discuss Palestine’s right over Jerusalem or even its own existence, given that it has never existed as a state – before 1967, the West Bank, along with Jerusalem, was occupied by Jordan and the Gaza Strip by Egypt. The Palestinian government Cairo set up in the Strip, ironically, was not recognised by Jordan.

Israel’s reaction to Trump’s announcement has so far been muted but the bubbling joy underneath the uncharacteristically nonchalant surface is palpable. The most reaction came from Naftali Bennett, the leader of the HaBayit HaYehudi and the Minister for both, Education and Diaspora Affairs, who is said to have written to the US president, “thank you from the bottom of my heart for your commitment and intention to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” Otherwise, the government has generally been quiet. The Israeli commentariat, however, has been effusive, Caroline Glick calling the decision 70 years late but welcome and Arsen Ostrovsky reiterating that Jerusalem is the “eternal & undivided capital of the State of Israel and the spiritual homeland of the Jewish people!” Most Israelis probably relate to the words of HaAvoda leader Avi Gabbay. When asked about the imbroglio that had resulted from Trump’s announcement he replied, “When my parents came from Morocco to Jerusalem, I can assure you they didn’t check the State Department website to see if it’s the capital or not. They knew Jerusalem was the capital and just came.”

But what does Trump’s declaration really matter? Jerusalem is the seat of the Israeli government as President Reuven Rivlin remarked, and no military in the Arab world is capable of removing them from it. No borders change on the ground and no one falls one the wrong side of a line; territories are not swapped. Is the whole drama not purely symbolic? Perhaps, but society is not so cynical yet that symbols have lost their value. And in the Middle East, few symbols are bigger than the City of David.