The chaos in the Middle East today has happened because the Bush White House never sat down and thought a scenario through, working out how it would respond to every possible permutation in events as they unfolded. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was absolutely right to point out yesterday that the same disastrous error is arising over Iran’s nuclear fuel enrichment. He warned that if, as a result of Monday’s meeting by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran’s refusal to cut a deal on inspection and control of its nuclear program is referred to the UN Security Council, serious dangers lie ahead. Lavrov rightly points out that there is no consensus on handling Tehran in advance of such a meeting. In 2003 the Americans and British tried to cajole and then bounce the council into backing the Iraq invasion and when they failed, went ahead anyway.
The Security Council is even less likely to entertain White House belligerence this time, though President George Bush has insisted crassly that military force against Iran cannot be ruled out. Nothing, of course, could have been better calculated to stiffen Iranian resolve against the Americans; it is unlikely that anyone in the Bush administration took the trouble to work this out either.
The preferred US scenario seems to be a formal UN warning followed by a final warning and then sanctions, but, as the Russians rightly point out, even assuming a consensus existed in the Security Council, would sanctions actually do any good? They would certainly do much evil to ordinary Iranians. We saw how horrific were the consequences for the helpless man on the street during UN sanctions against Iraq.
So when sanctions do not work, what is the next threat that Washington is proposing? It certainly cannot be more violence. America is already stuck in a quagmire in Iraq. Ground-force intervention is therefore impossible. Perhaps possible in the minds of the poor planners of the Iraq invasion is strategic airstrikes with no ground forces to back them up, but even the most hawkish Pentagon neocon must be aware of the global “blowback” caused by the “collateral damage” — dead Iranian non-combatants — caused by intense bombings missions. The only option therefore is the Russian option, which is to keep talking.
Despite noble efforts, Moscow’s latest proposals to work with the Iranians on fuel enrichment on Russian soil have been turned down. The Europeans have also once again been rebuffed at the negotiating table. However, the Russians certainly are not giving up. This is no doubt frustrating for Washington, where they will have imagined that when the Russians had been rebuffed enough, they would swing behind the aggressive US position and then perhaps persuade the Chinese to do so too.
But this is just more woolly thinking from the White House. Far better now would be for the Americans to back down on this issue and let the Russians and perhaps the Chinese as well, take the lead with Iran. America doesn’t have to try to fix everything, and actually do more harm than good.
