Kenneth M. Pollack's Blog, page 8

November 14, 2013

How to Assess an Iranian Nuclear Deal

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton (L) speaks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during a photo opportunity before the start of two days of closed-door nuclear talks at the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva November 7, 2013. World powers began two-day talks with Iran in Geneva on Thursday in the hope of hammering out a breakthrough deal to start resolving a decade-old conflict over Tehran's nuclear intentions. Iran rejects western suspicions it wants the capability to make bombs and demands international sanctions are lifted in exchange for any concessions in its nuclear work. It says it needs atom power for energy generation and medical purposes.

We are still a long way from a formal international agreement restraining Iran’s nuclear program, but the contours of a deal — both an interim accord and the final agreement — are slowly coming together. It won’t be perfect, but our worst mistake would be to make an impossible ideal the enemy of a tangible, “good enough” agreement.


When negotiations resume this week in Geneva between the United States, Britain, France, China, Germany and Russia on one side, and Iran on the other, the two parties will concentrate first on sealing an interim deal that would freeze Iran’s nuclear progress in return for some modest relief from sanctions; if that happens, negotiators would turn to hammering out details of the final, critical agreement.


That final agreement is expected to cap Iran’s uranium enrichment and halt its construction of a reactor to harvest plutonium. Moreover, it would bind Iran with far more intrusive inspections than those currently in place (or ever imposed on Iran), and it should carry the threat that sanctions could be quickly reimposed if Iran were ever caught cheating. Thus, Tehran could not manufacture even a crude nuclear weapon quickly, and it would be highly likely that the world would know about it long before such a weapon were ready.


If we can get it, such a final deal should be more than adequate to remove the Iranian nuclear program as a source of fear and instability in the Middle East.


Of course, it still wouldn’t be perfect. It would not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. It would probably allow Tehran to continue some enrichment. In theory, this residual capability could become the foundation of a new Iranian drive for nuclear weapons, possibly even a secret one.


Read more at The Washington Post.



Authors

Kenneth M. Pollack


Publication: Washington Post

Image Source: Denis Balibouse / Reuters

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Published on November 14, 2013 21:00

November 1, 2013

Iran and the Nuclear Issue: The November 7-8 Geneva Round

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani takes questions from journalists during a news conference in New York (REUTERS/Adrees Latif).

Event Information

November 1, 2013
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036


This event has reached capacity and registration is now closed. 



The October 15-16 round of talks between the P5+1 countries and Iran, the first since Hassan Rouhani was elected president, was widely seen as an encouraging first step to resolve the Iran nuclear issue. The Iranians outlined a new proposal and met bilaterally with the U.S. delegation for the first time since 2009. The exchanges in both multilateral and bilateral settings were intensive, detailed, and substantive. Still, Iran and the P5+1 countries remain far apart on key issues. The next round will be held in Geneva on November 7 and 8. Does Rouhani’s election signal a real change in Iran’s policies? What are the prospects for an early agreement?



On November 1, the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative and the Saban Center for Middle East Policy will host a panel discussion to preview the November talks and to assess the outlook for the negotiations. Brookings Senior Fellows Robert Einhorn, Suzanne Maloney and Kenneth Pollack will take part. Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Saban Center, will moderate.



Following opening remarks, the panelists will take questions from the audience.
Participants
Panelists
Ted Piccone

Acting Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy



Tamara Cofman Wittes

Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy



Robert Einhorn

Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative



Suzanne Maloney

Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy



Kenneth M. Pollack

Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy



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Published on November 01, 2013 05:02

October 13, 2013

Iran: U.S. Has Time, Rouhani Doesn't

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addresses a High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament during the 68th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York (REUTERS/Mike Segar).

This week, the United States and its allies will enter another round of negotiations with Iran, this one more hopeful as a result of Hassan Rouhani’s election as Iranian president and his repeated statements that he wants a deal to end Iran’s nuclear impasse.


One of the foundational assumptions of the American approach to these negotiations all along has been that the West doesn’t have time and the Iranians do. As a result, the United States has insisted that the talks cannot be allowed to drag on. They need to be concluded quickly. The rationale behind this assumption is that the Iranians care more about retaining their nuclear program than they do about having sanctions lifted, and their goal is merely to stave off worse measures by the West — either US or Israeli military operations, or even harsher sanctions — while they continue to enrich uranium and draw closer and closer to acquiring a breakout capability. (A breakout capability is the ability to quickly field a workable nuclear weapon. Although the term “quickly” is undefined and has changed significantly over the years, it is often described as meaning “faster than the West could act to prevent it.”)


It was not wrong or misguided to believe this. In the past, there was good reason to believe it was entirely correct. However, today, the evidence suggests that it is fundamentally mistaken, and that it is the Iranians, particularly Rouhani, who face time pressures more than the West.


Read the full article at Al-Monitor »



Authors

Kenneth M. Pollack


Publication: Al-Monitor

Image Source: © Mike Segar / Reuters

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Published on October 13, 2013 21:00

October 1, 2013

Iran’s Nuclear Program and the Choices America Will Face


The Iranian nuclear program is one of the most frustrating, and potentially most dangerous, issues that the United States faces. In my new book Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb, and American Strategy (Simon & Schuster, 2013), I provide an overview of the choices America has in addressing Iran’s nuclear program if it proves impossible to arrive at a diplomatic deal with Tehran: Go to war, or contain Iran--including possibly a nuclear Iran. Neither option is ideal, and both have more problems than benefits.


In this video, I emphasize that if there is a diplomatic way to achieve concessions from Iran regarding its nuclear program, that is by far the best option. But if diplomacy is not effective and the U.S. is faced with the choice of going to war or containing Iran, containing Iran is the better path – a strategy the U.S. has used for the last 34 years.


“While his endorsement of containment may be considered heretical within the bounds of the conventional policy debate here in Washington, it reflects a sober, reasonable and tremendously well-informed analysis,” writes Iran @ Saban blogger and Brookings Senior Fellow Suzanne Maloney.



Hear me discuss Unthinkable with Robin Wright of the United States Institute of Peace during a Brookings event on September 16.



Video




Authors

Kenneth M. Pollack


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Published on October 01, 2013 07:34

September 24, 2013

Here's the Deal the U.S. and Iran Should Make Right Now

An Iranian citizen living in Hungary attends a demonstration in Budapest to protest human rights violations.

When Hassan Rouhani, the new president of Iran, speaks at the United Nations General Assembly this week, the world will hold its breath.


Well, we should. Although there is understandable skepticism from various quarters, the available evidence strongly suggests that Rouhani is the real deal: a genuine reformer looking to change Iran inside and out. In particular, he clearly wants an end to the multilateral sanctions and is willing to compromise on Iran’s nuclear program to get it.


The rough outlines of a nuclear deal seem to be crystalizing as fast as ice-nine. Iran would halt enrichment of uranium beyond 5 percent purity, accept limits on how much low-enriched uranium it could have in the country, cap the number (but not the quality) of centrifuges it would retain, forswear plutonium separation, and agree to an intrusive inspections regime usually referred to as the “Additional Protocol plus.” In return, the international community would lift most, if not all, of the multilateral trade and financial sanctions imposed on Iran.


Such a deal would be a godsend for the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and our other allies in the region and beyond. If we can get such a deal, we should take it.


But the current giddiness should also put us on our guard. We have seen other moments like this with Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East that ultimately proved disappointing. For roughly two decades, experts on the Middle East have believed that the broad contours of an Israeli-Palestinian peace were well known. During the 1990s, it seemed inevitable that just such a deal would be struck and the conflict finally ended. Of course, it never happened. We still think we know what the deal looks like, and most believe it self-evident that Israelis and Palestinians should accept it. But they haven’t, and few expect they will any time soon.


We need to prevent the traps that have hamstrung the long-expected Israeli-Palestinian peace from doing the same to a U.S.-Iranian nuclear deal. Here's how: 




Address American Concerns



Among Americans, there are three principal concerns about this deal: that the Iranians will cheat on a deal and surprise the world with a nuclear arsenal, as the North Koreans did; that even if the Iranians don’t cheat, the deal will leave Tehran with a latent nuclear weapons capability that it might someday exploit; and, finally, that Iran’s behavior beyond its nuclear ambitions—its support for terrorism and efforts to destabilize the Middle East—may cause some to oppose a deal that fails to address those issues.


To minimize the risk that Iran would even try to cheat, a nuclear agreement needs to contain two critical features that—as we learned, painfully, with Iraq and North Korea—are key to successfully disarming a state that does not want to be disarmed. First, the deal needs to include provisions for intrusive, comprehensive, surprise inspections and continuous monitoring. As in Iraq, U.N. inspectors need to be able to go anywhere at any time, without delay. That permission was absent from North Korea before 2006, from Iraq before 1991, and from Iran today, allowing all three to build and operate secret facilities for some time. However, the additional protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty was designed with just this danger in mind. It empowers a U.N. inspection regime akin to the one in Iraq after the Gulf War ended in 1991. We need to remember that those inspections did eventually work, even if it took at least five years to convince Saddam to shelve his WMD programs.


Moreover, the Iraq experience demonstrated that inspections need to be unhindered and comprehensive, but not perfect. Before 2003, we believed that the inspections could only be a success if they found every jot and tittle of Saddam’s hidden WMD programs, assuming that he would keep making progress with whatever was left. What we learned from our post-invasion studies of Iraq’s WMD programs was that the inspections worked not because they found every trace of those programs, but because they found more than enough to keep the sanctions in place. And because Iraq could not bear the sanctions, Saddam eventually gave up all of his WMD, even those which the inspectors did not find.




What may be harder for many Americans and other Westerners to accept is that, as part of any negotiated resolution, Iran is going to have to be allowed to retain the ability to enrich uranium and to have a limited program to do so.




Nevertheless, the Iraq and North Korea experiences demonstrate that inspections alone are insufficient. Only if intrusive inspections are tied to the threat of painful sanctions can they work. In North Korea, the threatened sanctions were inadequate—mostly just the withholding of benefits that Pyongyang valued less than a nuclear arsenal. In the case of Iraq, the inspections were backed by draconian sanctions which Saddam ultimately concluded he had to have removed, even if it meant surrendering his WMD. There is an important codicil to the Iraq example that's relevant to a possible Iran deal: Saddam only planned to give up his WMD temporarily and was working assiduously to undermine the sanctions, at which point he planned to start rebuilding his programs. Thus, inspections may only work as long as the threat of sanctions is credible.


With Iran, painful sanctions are already in place. They helped bring Rouhani to power, and convinced Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to at least let him explore a deal with the West. The danger is that if the sanctions are simply lifted, Iran may no longer feel the pressure to abide by its part of the deal, especially because it is typically so hard to get the U.N. Security Council to agree that a country has violated its international obligations and to impose (or re-impose) sanctions. For that reason, it would be preferable to leave the sanctions in place and simply suspend them for renewable periods. That way, any time that Iran is suspected of cheating, it would only require an American, British, or French veto to snap the sanctions back in place. However, as long as Iran held up its end of the deal, the sanctions could be suspended indefinitely—an approach to long-term situations that national governments and international organizations employ all the time.


What may be harder for many Americans and other Westerners to accept is that, as part of any negotiated resolution, Iran is going to have to be allowed to retain the ability to enrich uranium and to have a limited program to do so. That means that Iran will always have some residual capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons. There is no good reason why Tehran should need this capability, but it has become a matter of national pride for the Iranians. Given how much the Iranians have invested in this program, how much progress they have already made, how committed to it they have become, and how much pain they have endured to hang on to it, it is simply not plausible that they will agree to give it up altogether.


This is a limit we should be willing to accept. It may not be ideal, but it should be more than adequate. If Iran’s enrichment capability is capped and constrained by intrusive inspections, and of greater importance still, its ability to work on weaponization is precluded by those same inspections, that residual capacity would be minimal. It would take Iran at least six months and probably more like a year to assemble a crude nuclear device, once it decided to do so, and it would be highly likely that the inspectors would discover such a gambit long before it came close to fruition. Even the Israelis understand this, with former Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak indicating that he is ready to accept ongoing Iranian enrichment and even possession of a small stockpile of low-enriched uranium as part of a deal with Iran to cap and inspect its nuclear program.


Finally, we should not assume that even if we can somehow achieve the elusive nuclear deal with Tehran, it will mean the end of all of our problems with the Islamic Republic. Even Rouhani and his stunningly moderate foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, have warned that Iranian relations with the United States may never be friendly. Tehran will doubtless continue to support insurgents, terrorists, and others determined to subvert American allies. For this reason, the United States needs to distinguish between its own unilateral sanctions and the multilateral sanctions imposed on Iran over the past seven years  in response to its defiance on the nuclear issue. The latter should be suspended, whereas the former ought to remain in force as long as Tehran’s other objectionable behavior does not change. However, secondary sanctions that the U.S. imposes on other countries for refusing to comply with our newest unilateral sanctions also need to be withdrawn—both because Tehran will probably insist, and because our failure to do so will bring us into conflict with our trade partners in Europe and East Asia.



Address Iranian Concerns



We won’t be the only skeptics going into this deal. Many Iranians are equally dubious, especially the regime’s hardliners, who continue to see the U.S. as hell bent on overturning the Islamic Republic. To a considerable extent, it is going to be up to Rouhani and the Iranian moderates to address their problems. But we should be prepared to help.



Rouhani may ultimately need more than the removal of the multilateral sanctions. He may need the U.S. to pledge, as we did to Cuba after the 1962 Missile Crisis, that we will not invade or otherwise try to overthrow the Iranian regime. He may need a commitment from the international community to help Iran develop its nuclear energy sector, which can be done by providing lightwater reactors that would not significantly bolster Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons. He may also need economic support from international financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. He might even want to try to bring Iran into the World Trade Organization, although that seems unlikely given Khamenei’s insistence that the WTO is a subversive organization whose requirements would undermine the Islamic regime. The United States and our allies ought to be ready and willing to agree to any or all.



Moreover, we also ought to hold out the prospect that if Iran is willing to make deeper concessions, so should we. For instance, if the Iranians were willing to give up their support for terrorism, end their opposition to an Arab-Israeli peace, and otherwise cease trying to harm American allies, the U.S. should be willing to extend positive economic benefits such as trade credits, investment guarantees, and even aid programs. We could also offer to accept Iran as a political player in the region, including Tehran in events like the Geneva talks on Syria. Finally, if Iran were willing to curb its own arms purchases, deployments, and military operations, we ought to be open to establishing a regional security forum that could forge confidence building measures and perhaps someday arms control agreements that would help Iran address its legitimate security concerns and allay the fears of its neighbors as well.



All of this seems far away. Doubtless it is. But Rouhani has taken a bold step forward and appears to want to take more. We should not ignore our concerns, just as he cannot ignore those of his domestic rivals. But we must be ready to address all of them, take some risks on our side, and help him to convince others in Tehran to do the same. This may well be our best chance to solve one of the greatest problems facing the Middle East and American foreign policy. We may not have another. And if we cannot grasp this one, we will be left with a choice between the two worst options of all: living with a nuclear Iran, or embarking on another war in the Middle East to prevent it.



Authors

Kenneth M. Pollack


Publication: New Republic

Image Source: © Karoly Arvai / Reuters

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Published on September 24, 2013 09:30

September 23, 2013

Short of a Deal, Containing Iran is the Best Option

An Iranian long-range shore-to-sea missile called Qader (Capable) is launched during Velayat-90 war game on Sea of Oman's shore near the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran (REUTERS/Jamejamonline/Ebrahim Norouzi).

Editor’s Note: Kenneth Pollack argues that America needs to be prepared for containment of a nuclear Iran in the event that attempts at using diplomacy to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons fail.  While the idea of living with a nuclear Iran is distasteful to Washington, he writes, this does not mean we should not prepare for it.


This week, Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, will address the United Nations General Assembly. His message is likely to be a sharp change from the adolescent belligerence of his hard-line predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr. Rouhani is a genuine reformer — but his desire to move Iran in a new direction should not blind the United States to the difficulties of achieving a diplomatic solution.


Mr. Rouhani has hinted that he is willing to compromise on aspects of Iran’s nuclear program for the sake of repairing relations with the rest of the world and having economic sanctions on Iran removed. But he has also warned that he cannot hold off his hard-line rivals forever, and it is unclear whether the Iranians will be willing to make the kind of concessions that America and its allies want. Ultimately, it is the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not Mr. Rouhani, who would make the final decision on a deal. He has shown little inclination for one, although recent statements from the leadership offer hope that their position may be softening.


If it cannot reach a diplomatic deal, America will face a choice between two alternatives: using force to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear arsenal or containing a nuclear Iran until its regime collapses from its own dysfunction.


It is going to be a difficult choice. For that reason, we need to start thinking about it now. We cannot afford to have our diplomatic efforts collapse suddenly and, as in Syria, be forced to lunge forward unprepared.


Sizing up the two alternatives, I favor containment over military operations. I say that, however, understanding that each option has more drawbacks than advantages, that there are circumstances when a military strike would be preferable, and that those who advocate the military option merit a hearing.


Read the full article at The New York Times »



Authors

Kenneth M. Pollack


Publication: The New York Times

Image Source: © Handout . / Reuters

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Published on September 23, 2013 11:24

September 22, 2013

The Deal the U.S. and Iran Should Make Right Now

Iranian President-elect Hassan Rohani speaks with the media during a news conference in Tehran.

When Hassan Rouhani, the new president of Iran, speaks at the United Nations General Assembly this week, the world will hold its breath.


Well, we should. Although there is understandable skepticism from various quarters, the available evidence strongly suggests that Rouhani is the real deal: a genuine reformer looking to change Iran inside and out. In particular, he clearly wants an end to the multilateral sanctions and is willing to compromise on Iran’s nuclear program to get it.


The rough outlines of a nuclear deal seem to be crystalizing as fast as ice-nine. Iran would halt enrichment of uranium beyond 5 percent purity, accept limits on how much low-enriched uranium it could have in the country, cap the number (but not the quality) of centrifuges it would retain, forswear plutonium separation, and agree to an intrusive inspections regime usually referred to as the “Additional Protocol plus.” In return, the international community would lift most, if not all, of the multilateral trade and financial sanctions imposed on Iran.


Such a deal would be a godsend for the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and our other allies in the region and beyond. If we can get such a deal, we should take it.


Read the full article at newrepublic.com »



Authors

Kenneth M. Pollack


Publication: The New Republic

Image Source: © Fars News / Reuters

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Published on September 22, 2013 21:00

September 18, 2013

The United States and Iraq: A Time for Remembrance and Renewal

Iraqi security forces carry Iraqi flags as they parade during a handover ceremony at the government headquarters in Ramadi.

Event Information

September 18, 2013
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036


Register for the Event

With a number of crises in the Middle East developing with ever greater intensity, many Americans wish to turn inward. While the Obama administration wishes to turn eastward toward Asia and the Pacific, the problems of the Middle East will not allow it. Amid debates over Middle East policy, Iraq is a recurring subject. It is used as a warning, as a specter and even as a curse. Rarely is it cast as a U.S. interest, let alone as an ally. Yet Iraq is suffering its own crises, and it is largely forced to weather them alone. Buffeted by the events in the wider region, struggling with its own internal fissures, Iraq soldiers on.


Largely overlooked by Americans and most of the rest of the world, Iraqi oil production has expanded so that it is the second largest exporter in OPEC and as such a critical element in the health of the global (and American) economy. In the spring, Iraq held provincial elections that were remarkable for being free and fair, for delivering a striking political outcome and reaffirming the demand of the Iraqi people that their country cling to its nascent democracy despite the rising tide of violence. And lying on the eastern flank of the Arab world, spanning the ethnic and religious divides of the Middle East, almost alone among the states of the region, Iraq has sought to maintain some degree of neutrality in the fights that threaten to consume their part of the world.


Americans may wish to forget Iraq, but we should not. Iraqis cannot afford to forget about the United States.


On September 18, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy will host His Excellency Lukman Faily, Ambassador of Iraq to the United States, for an address and discussion on Iraq’s current circumstances, events in the region and an outline of Baghdad’s thinking about a new partnership with Washington. Senior Fellow Kenneth M. Pollack will moderate the discussion, as well as a question and answer session following Ambassador Faily’s remarks.


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Published on September 18, 2013 09:02

September 16, 2013

Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb, and American Strategy

Iranian President-elect Hassan Rohani speaks with the media during a news conference in Tehran.

Event Information

September 16, 2013
2:30 PM - 4:00 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium

1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC


Register for the Event

Lying behind the turmoil over Syria is another, greater challenge. It is the challenge of a nuclear Iran, which already haunts our Syria debate. President Rouhani's election has revived the hope of many that a negotiated resolution of this issue is still possible. However, the history of U.S.-Iranian relations leaves room for considerable skepticism. Should these negotiations fail too, the United States will soon have to choose between the last, worst options: going to war to prevent a nuclear Iran or learning to contain one. A nuclear Iran is something few in the international community wish to see, but many fear that a choice will have to be made soon to either prevent or respond to that reality. Can the U.S. spearhead a renewed international effort to prevent a nuclear Iran, or will it be forced to do the unthinkable: to determine how to contain a nuclear Iran?


In his new book, Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb, and American Strategy, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Kenneth M. Pollack tackles these daunting questions. Pollack delves deeply into what the U.S. can do to prevent a nuclear Iran, why the military options leave much to be desired and what the U.S. might have to do to make containment a viable alternative. On September 16th at 2:30pm, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted Senior Fellow Kenneth M. Pollack to discuss these sobering issues. Robin Wright, a United States Institute of Peace distinguished fellow and author of several highly-regarded books on Iran, moderated the discussion, after which the author took audience questions.


Audio

Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb, and American Strategy

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Published on September 16, 2013 11:30

September 10, 2013

Syria, Chemical Weapons and the U.S.: Debating the Proposal From Russia

President Barack Obama walks from his residence to the Oval Office.

A diplomatic gambit to induce Syria to give up its chemical weapons has added a new twist to the intense Washington debate over possible military strikes there. How will the new proposal affect dynamics in Congress as a vote to authorize military force looms? Could the Russian proposal to have Syria turn over chemical weapons to international inspectors revitalize conflict-resolution efforts through the United Nations Security Council? Brookings experts discussed the repercussions for Syria, the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. This post is an edited version of the conversation among Tamara Cofman Wittes, Michael Doran, Jeremy Shapiro, Bruce Riedel, Fiona Hill, Bruce Jones and Kenneth Pollack.


Join the conversation on Twitter! See a list of Brookings FP scholars on Twitter HERE or follow @BrookingsFP now.


Portrait: Tamara Wittes Tamara Cofman Wittes

Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Senior Fellow,  Foreign Policy Program


Now that Syria has agreed in principle with the Russian proposal to turn over its chemical weapons stockpiles to international supervision, the U.S. government is in an even bigger pickle. So:  how could one make lemonade? Since the threat of force apparently produced a significant new concession, how could the United States sustain the momentum coercive diplomacy?


a)  Is there a way that international supervision over chemical weapons – locating, inspecting, securing, removing, destroying – could be used as a means of slowing/stopping the military conflict in Syria or constraining the Syrian regime’s use of conventional firepower against civilians?


b)   Could this Russian proposal be combined with other diplomatic elements to promote a negotiated “solution” to the underlying conflict – that is, could this be leveraged to compel Syrian participation in Geneva II or something like it?


c)  Could the Russian proposal be combined with international criminal accountability for the chemical weapons use and other law-of-war violations that would effectively end Bashar al-Assad’s reign? – for example, perhaps the United States could agree to back off of strikes and support a UNSC resolution, iv Russia agrees that the resolution refers Assad to the ICC and Syria has to hand him over immediately?


DoranMichael Doran

Roger Hertog Senior Fellow,  Foreign Policy Program Saban Center for Middle East Policy


This proposal, to my mind, should not be seen as Russia working with the United States toward an outcome that gets rid of Assad.  It represents Russia finding a way to let President Obama retreat from the battlefield with honor.  If Obama bites, and I suspect he will, this initiative will be wrapped up in process for months, if not years.  Assad will repackage bottles of Chanel No. 5 and call them chemical weapons.  We will call foul.  The Russians will call for more tests on the perfume.  The same cat and mouse game that we saw that Saddam Hussein played with UN inspectors with weapons of mass destruction will play itself out in a Syria context.  All the while, Russia will back Assad when it really matters.


There are only two ways that this cat and mouse game can be turned to our advantage: 1) While playing games with the Russians, the United States builds a significant coercive strategy to run parallel to the UN process.  And (2) the FSA magically turns the tide on the battlefield.  Absent either of those, we are in, as Tamara says, a pickle.  



Visiting Fellow,  Foreign Policy


Just a few points in response to Tamara’s note:


a)  The regime has been looking for a temporary ceasefire for some time.  It seems to be their view that a pause in the fighting helps them more than it helps opposition.  In part, this is because regime forces have barracks to go to and the opposition doesn’t, in part because regime forces are badly overstretched and can benefit more from time to rest and refit than the opposition.  Also, it is in part because there is much that regime forces can do besides fighting rebels (i.e. closing the border, harassing the population, “recruiting”) while they are not having to deal with the insurgency. 


b) The Syrian regime is on already board with Geneva II—clearly for cynical reasons and in the expectation that it would never require anything of them, but they have always been willing to attend and have even appointed negotiators.  The opposition has not.


c) ICC referral is considered problematic because of the worry that the ICC will use it to take jurisdiction over some Israeli actions (because the Golan is in Syria from the standpoint of international law).  It might be possible to construct a referral that would avoid this, but  other UNSC members would have to play along in any case.


I think that even though as Mike says, the Russians and the Syrians could and would use a process like this to wrap the US around the axle as in Iraq (the so-called “full Primakov”).  I would note the following:


1) Any coercive diplomacy effort that is unwilling to accept surrender is nothing but an excuse for war.  Obviously, in this and any other case, surrender is difficult to define and implement verifiably.  But it is probably worth the effort because otherwise every threat is simply a prelude to action or an occasion for a humiliating climb down.


2) It is not a small thing to get Assad to admit that he has chemical weapons and to get him to even to commit to give it up to the international community.  He has not accepted such responsibility to the international community before.  This will be deeply humiliating and will undermine him within his own regime, for what that’s worth. 


3) You can’t make lemonade from pickles (trust me, don’t try).  But the best path forward in my mind for the administration, is to double down on Sec. Kerry’s statement and to amend the ask to Congress to authorize force if Assad does not relinquish the chemical weapons within seven days.  This might help get the authorization through the House, which looks pretty hairy at this point.  The Assad regime will assumedly not get this done in seven days, but will play for more time as Mike describes.  But at least at that point, Obama will have shored up his Congressional flank.


Michael Doran


Jeremy, it is important not to present acceptance of a diplomatic process as a change in the balance of power.  It is not.  Assad is a master at trading acceptance of process for tangible gains from us.  And we are masters at letting him do so while calling our capitulation strategic genius.  This, I predict, will be another such episode, of which there are countless examples that I could site.


Having dealt ourselves this hand, I suppose we have to play it out.  But we should play it hard.  Insist that they sign the convention tomorrow.  Make them reveal all of their sites to the UN the day after, etc., etc...If they won’t— and I predict they won’t— then we must assume that we are being played for the suckers that, time and again, we have shown ourselves to be.


As for looking for excuses for war, it is Assad who has been slaughtering people wantonly for two years. And this proposed "surrender" is hardly intended to stop that war.  It is merely intended to give the United States a way to step aside so that the slaughter can continue unimpeded.


Tamara Cofman Wittes


Notwithstanding the "Shapiro Gambit"— write into the congressional resolution a requirement that Assad give up his chemical weapons in seven days OR ELSE— I think we may well end up back in NY arguing over terms of a resolution to sanctify this "fulll Primakov". So I ask: what elements should U.S. government demand in a UNSC resolution? Whatever the US can get into a resolution could in the right circumstances provide Chapter VII cover should Syria fail to comply, justifying use of force down the line. 


My initial list:


1) Cease-fire and other components of the 2012 Annan Plan (humanitarian access, journalistic access, freedom of assembly and expression, release of detainees). It might be true that a temporary cease fire would help Assad more than the rebels. But the rebels and those supporting them also need time to get their stuff together, and the other Annan Plan provisions (withdrawal of army from population centers, release of detainees) would weaken Assad more than the pause would refresh him, I think.


2)Declaration of Syrian culpability for August chemical weapons attack. Even the Iranians have relented; Syrians are, by accepting this Russian offer, acknowledging that they have chemical weapons and that their chemical weapons capability is a problem. It's only a baby step from there to Russian acknowledging the likelihood of Syrian regime culpability.


3) Carefully crafted ICC referral restricted to acts undertaken within the context of the internal conflict (to avoid Israeli vulnerability)


I figure you ask for all three and you yield on #3.


Others?


RiedelBruce Riedel

Director,  The Intelligence Project , Senior Fellow,  Foreign Policy Saban Center for Middle East Policy Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence


Since the administration has made the issue chemical weapons, not regime change, it has no choice but to explore Putin’s offer.  The only way to destroy safely and completely the chemical arsenal is with Syrian consent.  Of course, the Syrians will drag it out and cheat, and the UN – which will get the mandate to do the mission – will prevaricate.   Our intelligence on the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal is not going to be able to say definitively how much agent and precursors they have or how many bombs and rockets have been weaponized.  It will be lucky to say where all the production sites are.  So the Syrians will make a declaration and the UN will have to do inspections (in the middle of a war) to verify it.  And that could take years, while the civil war continues with conventional weapons.


Among members of Congress, I imagine there is a lot of anguish over Obama’s decision and a real worry that a “yes” vote would spark a primary challenger from the left, as well as some anger at AIPAC for turning this into a test of loyalty. The bottom line is that there are 240+ “no” votes already in House, well above the 217 needed. A drowning man takes any life raft, even a Russian one.


My only question is why Putin did not offer this in St. Petersburg when he could probably have gotten a majority of the G20 to sign up.  I guess they calculated that Kerry would sooner or later open the door. 


Fiona Hill

Director,  Center on the United States and Europe ,Senior Fellow,  Foreign Policy , The Stephen and Barbara Friedman Senior Fellow


As for Bruce’s question about why not at the G20—it is better to save the offer until you get into the thick of the Senate debate, showing a “bigger bang for the buck” and better dramatic effect to come in at the 12th hour. He already got plenty of mileage and scored plenty of points out of the G20.


Jeremy Shapiro


Despite the fact that the Shapiro gambit would greatly strengthen the U.S. hand in NY, I suspect that Tamara is right and that both the administration and the Congress will gladly kick that can down the road.


Still, I would have a different approach to the resolution, while acknowledging everyone’s point that any inspections regime is a long, complicated and nightmarish road.  I don’t think we should re-open the same old arguments over the Annan plan—the Russians and the regime have long since learned how to game those provisions and they are so 2012 anyway.  And why argue about culpability if we can get the chemical weapons out—the eventual case against Assad for war crimes is looking really solid regardless of chemical weapons Let’s focus on the two areas that Russians have indicated they want to work and on which we have some credibility: humanitarian and chemical weapons disposal.


1) Get the UNSC to authorize UN humanitarian ops in the Syria without Syrian regime approval (not just a guarantee of access but actually moving ahead without approval of specific operations, NGOs etc.).  If we want to help Syrians, this is the best thing we could to do. It would open the liberated areas of the North especially to large-scale humanitarian relief finally and might end up creating de facto safe zones. The Russians may agree, they have often talked about the need to improve the humanitarian situation in Syria; the Syrian regime would be furious.  In the end, this might alter the balance more than cruise missile strikes.


2) As much detail as possible on the chemical weapons eradication operation to include some date certain, inspection etc.  I think a key question will be how to do this in the middle of a civil war in a way that keeps the weapons and inspectors or monitors safe through local ceasefires, UN protectors, etc.  Frankly, this may be an insoluble problem, but we could at least profit from it to form a coordination body between the FSA and Syria military under UN chairmanship to coordinate and protect movements of weapons and material.  Getting contacts between the Syrian military and the FSA at that level could be useful later.


3) Sanctions— we should put into place a system of prospective sanctions if the regime is found in violation.  Oddly, the U.S. Treasury’s financial sanctions are the most underutilized and underappreciated asset in the struggle against Assad.  If we could put in place a UN financial sanctions regime, we would (for complicated reasons) unleash the awesome power of the U.S. Treasury’s much feared Green Shade Brigade.   It is a long shot to get to implementation on these, but once again if we can use UN sanctions to finally cut off Syrian access to international financial system, we will have done much more harm to the Syrian war machine than through cruise missiles or even much larger air strikes.


4) The big fight will be over Chapter VI vs. VII, but in the end it doesn’t matter much if the administration is backing this up through the unilateral threat of force.  Under any circumstances, to use force we will have to come back to the UNSC and get approval from the Russians and Chinese or go ahead without UNSC approval.  At that stage, I don’t think it matters much whether an earlier resolution referenced Ch7 —the legitimacy or lack thereof of later actions will come from other quarters.  I would open negotiations with Chapter VII but settle for Chapter VI if we can get (1), (2), and (3).  The Russians will go home thrilled that they have stymied us in our usual effort to get Chapter VII cover for later actions and perhaps will not notice (or care) that they have weakened the Syrian government considerably.


5) I’m not sure the ICC is a good bargaining chip.  Beyond the Israel complication, why do we want it?  What if the Russians accept it and the ICC in its infinite wisdom starts opening cases against opposition commanders with a history of eating livers or executing prisoners on YouTube?  There are a lot of war crimes in Syria. The ICC will never add moral clarity to Syria until one side is victorious and probably not even then.  (My motto on this is “No Victor’s Justice until Victory”).  In the end, we won’t be able to talk to some opposition commanders and Assad will just go merrily on his way like Basher in Sudan.


Bruce Riedel


It is important to note that in Iraq UN inspections worked. UNSCOM and IAEA inspectors destroyed far more of Saddam's arsenal than allied military strikes. The inspectors also discovered the Iraqi arsenal was bigger and more dangerous than U.S. intelligence believed. The effort took years to do its work and required frequent applications of U.S. and U.K. military power to succeed. The UNSC provided a clear and comprehensive mandate that did not include regime change.


Jeremy Shapiro


I always thought that it was intriguing that the Iraqi inspections worked for the weapons of mass destruction, but not for the political problem that the United States actually had.  That became defined over the course of the 1990s as the presence of the Iraqi regime.  Similarly, these inspections have a prayer of working on their own terms (although the presence of an actual civil war makes it even harder than Iraq), but whether they solve our political problem is a separate question. 


In recent days, Obama has moved the debate away from regime change and his “Assad must go” declaration toward the more narrowly-defined chemical weapons problem.  If he can hold that line in U.S. domestic politics and get a chemical weapons-focused UNSCR, then the inspections conceivably could work for the chemical weapons problem and thus for Obama’s political problem.  But of course, as has been widely noted, chemical weapons don’t really have much to do with the larger problems in Syria, so the war and suffering there will continue and events may conspire to bring the regime change issue back into U.S. domestic politics. 


Bruce Jones

Director,  Managing Global Order , Senior Fellow,  Foreign Policy  


To Jeremy’s point:  I don't think it will be that hard to get Chapter VII. But the French will introduce language of automaticity - i.e. if the proposal fails (which it must do) then the UNSC is pre-approved for enforcement action. The Russians will fight this hard. That's where the diplomatic game will be in New York now. The UN chemical weapons inspectors report will come in one week and looks to be hard for Assad defenders to handle. 


Kenneth M. Pollack

Senior Fellow, Foreign PolicySaban Center for Middle East Policy


I see both Bruce Riedel and Jeremy's points as key. 


The inspections DID work--and worked where bombing (by the United States and Israel) failed. But even then Saddam disarmed only in stages, and the last stage was probably not until sometime in 1995-97. Perhaps Bashar will be smarter than Saddam and give up completely much sooner. 


But as Jeremy rightly points out, doing this in the midst of a civil war makes this completely different--and much harder than Iraq. I think it a mistake to think you can carry out business-as-usual inspections in the midst of a civil war. The civil war will constantly affect the inspections, and probably in ways we can't foresee right now. 


Moreover, we also need to remember that even after Saddam gave up his weapons of mass destruction, he tried to preserve the fiction that he still had them as a deterrent against a Shi'a rising--i.e., exactly the threat that is now Bashar's reality. He too must worry that the opposition will be both heartened and emboldened if he is forced to give up his chemical weapons--and his own folks might be demoralized or lose confidence in his leadership. 


This is going to be very hard.


Michael Doran


It's going to be very hard moving asymptotically close to impossible. Don't forget: we actually were committed to stripping Saddam of his weapons of mass destruction. Obama wants to strip Assad of chemical weapons the way that I want to lose weight. Am I committed? Yes. Do I believe it's the right thing to do? Yes. Am I going to give up that piece of chocolate cake?  Well....  


Putin and Assad know that Obama wants Syria to just go away. He is being pushed into involvement against his fundamental political impulses.  They are providing him with a palliative: "Hey, Barack, this chocolate cake is GLUTEN FREE.”  Obama has a political interest in not getting too wrapped up in the details of implementation.  And as Christopher Dickey said this morning, the devil will exploit the details. If Obama balks at the details, he then has to carry out a strike or, worse, actually develop a Syria policy.  He doesn't want to do either, so he will willingly participate in the charade.


Bruce Jones


Anyone who believes the Kerry-Lavrov plan – or Obama-Putin plan, or Putin gambit, or whatever we’re supposed to be calling it – to tackle Syria’s chemical weapons capacity is an easy exit to this crisis is kidding themselves, or trying to kid us. But it might – might – change the diplomatic dynamics.


First, the practicalities. This is not a matter of sending in a couple of inspection teams. To verify let alone dismantle and transfer Syria’s chemical arsenal, as it’s estimated and reported, would take hundreds of inspectors, deployed across the country. They would have to be given strong guarantees, but no one would trust those unless the inspectors were backed up by a strong international security presence to look after their safety and facilitate their access. After all, when the UN sent a small chemical weapons inspection team to Syria in August, they were shot at. In the context of a stable situation with reliable parties and a cooperative – or compliant – government, this would be hard, but feasible. In the context of a hot war, and with distrustful parties on the ground, it’s nigh-on impossible.


Second, the politics. There are two scenarios here – and one puts the Russians in a bind. If the western powers at the UN treat the Russian support for this proposal with a large dollop of skepticism, they’ll stick firmly to the lessons they learned in the 2003 debates over inspections and enforcement in Iraq. That is, they’ll set out clear conditions for implementation of the proposal, and set out tough enforcement measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter if the implementation stalls. At this, the Russians will balk. But if the West is firm, that leaves Russia with two unpalatable choices: back a genuine, serious disarmament process backed by an international security presence – and a necessary cessation of hostilities – that they would then be on hock to deliver; or block their own proposal in the Security Council, which would leave them looking spectacularly disingenuous and strengthen the hand of those who want action against Assad. Bear in mind that in the coming days, as well, the UN’s existing chemical weapons inspection team will share their data with the UN Secretary-General, and given how clear both the western intelligence is and how strong reports by independent actors like Human Rights Watch are, it’s a reasonable bet that the UN report will make build not weaken the case against the Assad regime. The EU, for example, has said there should be no military action before the UN report – but they certainly haven’t ruled out support for it after it.


Third, the pessimism. There is, of course, another scenario. It is that everyone desperately grabs for this vague glimmer of light here, to avoid confronting the darkening mess that they were in diplomatically and politically. They turn a half a blind eye to the unrealism of the disarmament proposal, and sign off on a resolution that can’t be implemented and can’t be enforced. Then we’re into a “deck chairs on the Titantic” scenario. 


All of this, and all we’re talking about so far is the chemical weapons issue. There’s nothing in the debate right now that tells us where we’re going on the broader question of the Syrian crisis. There’s a “fantasy world” scenario where the necessary conditions for inspection are actually put in place and we end up with both an outcome on the chemical weapons and the crisis itself – but the odds of that are fractional. In the land of the realistic, the issue at stake here is how the UNSC and the UN chemical weapons team report alters the diplomatic landscape. Pace much of today’s commentary, Russia’s hand is weaker than it looks. 



Authors

Tamara Cofman WittesMichael DoranJeremy ShapiroBruce RiedelFiona HillSalman ShaikhBruce JonesKenneth M. Pollack


Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

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Published on September 10, 2013 13:59

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