Revolution & Aftermath: Forging a New Strategy Toward Iran by Eric Edelman & Ray Takeyh

Author:Eric Edelman & Ray Takeyh [Edelman, Eric & Takeyh, Ray]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Middle East, Political Science, History, General
ISBN: 9780817921545
Google: rvJEuAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 40539595
Publisher: Hoover Institution Press
Published: 2018-01-15T13:27:00+00:00

OBAMA’S OUTREACH

Barack Obama came into office determined to engage the Islamic Republic. He campaigned as an opponent of “stupid wars” and an advocate for unconditional outreach to American adversaries—including Iran. The new president stressed in his maiden foreign policy speech in Cairo that Iran had a “right to access peaceful nuclear energy” and offered talks “without precondition.”14 The Bush administration’s policy of not participating in the talks unless Tehran first suspended its program was forfeited. Iran obtained a critical concession from the United States without having done anything other than continue its nuclear activities at full tilt. The lesson to Tehran was clear: intransigence could be an effective negotiating technique. It would successfully apply that lesson over the eight years of the Obama administration. As it turned out, dropping the demand for suspension of enrichment was just the first of a cascade of concessions that the Obama White House would make to Iran. As a result, the final agreement that the P5+1 negotiated, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, stands as the most deficient arms control agreement in American history.

Obama would prove to be the architect of his own Iran policy, if not his own unusual strategic doctrine. At its core, the Obama presidency was about propitiating US enemies who, in the mind of the president, had been wronged historically by the American imperium. In the Obama cosmology, Iranian clerics, Cuban communists, and Chinese chauvinists are all victims of centuries of American and Western abuse and exploitation. No agreement with them should demand reciprocity, since they are the disadvantaged parties and America is the superpower. In this view, diplomacy cannot be detached from the expiation of past wrongs.

As the Obama White House plotted its strategy, the Islamic Republic went through one of the most consequential political crises in its history. The presidential election of 2009 featured an array of lackluster candidates who seemed destined to be forgotten. For decades, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had consolidated his authority by vesting control of governing institutions in his young followers. Ahmadinejad was clearly Khamenei’s choice in the summer of 2009 and the muscle of the state was behind his reelection. Nonetheless, former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who had been out of office since 1989, managed to capture the national imagination. His stinging critique of Ahmadinejad’s incompetence and bellicosity resonated with the public. By all appearances, Mousavi won the majority of votes on Election Day.

In an ominous break from tradition, moments after the polls closed, Iran’s official organs began declaring Ahmadinejad the victor by an impressive twenty-three-point margin. In a coordinated campaign, the media outlets quickly followed suit and celebrated the incumbent’s landslide. The morning after the election, Khamenei hailed the vote as a “divine assessment” and warned the opposition against “provocative behavior.” The regime must have thought that warnings and displays of power would overcome the crisis of a transparently contrived election result. Yet the guardians of the revolution badly miscalculated the mood of their citizenry. The ensuing street protests, the largest since

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