Times Online January 25, 2007
New US strategy on Iran emerges from Davos
Anatole Kaletsky
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19149-2565451,00.htmlThe real value of Davos is in making connections - not just in the sense of networking and schmoozing with important people, but also in relating seemingly disparate events and ideas. Overtly the main themes at Davos today were terrorism and Iraq – and the story, as presented publicly by Iraqi and US politicians and officials, was all about wresting back control of Baghdad from terrorists, with al-Qaeda and Shia death squads bearing equal blame. In contrast to American officials, who simply repeated President Bush’s mantra that "failure is not an option", Iraqi politicians have a more realistic and nuanced view.
As Abd Al-Mahdi, the Vice-President, noted privately after his appearance at a plenary session: "The Americans actually have two options: either they stay or they withdraw. But we Iraqis don’t have any options. If we don’t succeed on ending the violence with the present strategy, we just have to be patient and keep trying. Unlike the Americans, we don’t have an exit strategy from Iraq." The same was true, he noted, of Iraq’s neighbours Iran, Syria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. This was why Iraqi politicians were constantly urging President Bush to start talking to Iraq’s neighbours and warning the White House that any military attack on Iranian nuclear installations, whether by America or Israel, could spill over catastrophically into Iraq.
Why, then, did President Bush refuse to start talking to Iran and Syria, as recommended by the Baker-Hamilton commission? Why instead did he seem to be increasing military tensions with Iran? Iraqi officials wouldn’t speculate on this beyond the obvious remark that "firmness from America could be a way of bringing Iran to the negotiating table". But delving beneath the surface of this self-evident objective, three strands of a more interesting and hopeful strategy begin to emerge in conversations with Middle Eastern analysts and politicians at Davos.
Start with the premise that America is indeed being tough on Iran in order to strengthen internal opposition to the extremist confrontational policies of President Ahmadinejad. The purpose is not necessarily to trigger the removal of Ahmadinejad, but rather to shatter Iran’s present grandiose delusions of regional hegemony and bring Iran into negotiations from a position of relative weakness, rather than its present perceived strength.
Three strands of policy are now being directed to achieving this internal shift in Iranian politics. The first is, obviously, the US effort to reduce violence in Iraq – or failing that, at least to mount a show of strength against the Iranian-backed Shia militias and to remind Tehran that America retains its capacity to deploy overwhelming military power.
The second is the sabre-rattling over Iran’s nuclear programme, especially the semi-public threats of Israeli bombing, perhaps even with tactical nuclear weapons. America’s announcement that two aircraft carrier battle groups will move to the Gulf within a month or so are clearly a reminder that Washington still has plenty of firepower to attack Iran directly or to back Israeli bombing – and also to protect international oil shipments through the Gulf against Iranian retaliation. These deployments and public warnings do not necessarily suggest that an actual attack on Iran is likely but rather that America wants Iran to realise that it is playing for very high stakes in its confrontation with the West.
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