Afrasianet - Alan Ayer - American writer Mark Twain famously said, "If your task is to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning, and if it's your job to eat two frogs, it's better to eat the bigger one first."
When it comes to war with Iran, President Trump has at least one very abhorrent frog to eat, but instead of reaching for the foodware, he continues to desperately rummage through the menu for other options. There are no other options, and it is long past time for this administration to eat the frog.
But first, we should be grateful that the administration has finally realized, six months into this ill-conceived war, that superior U.S. military power will not translate into strategic success.
While President Trump is to be commended for abandoning a failed policy (at least until after the midterm elections), it is unfortunate that he has replaced it with an equally flawed one, one announced by Treasury Secretary Scott Besant at an August 24 press conference.
"We should be grateful that the administration has finally realized, six months into this ill-considered war, that superior U.S. military power will not translate into strategic success"
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The revelation of Operation Economic Outcast, like so many other matters related to the administration's Iran policy, was "full of noise and anger, and meant nothing," in Shakespeare's words.
According to Secretary Besant, the administration's latest strategy is to tighten secondary sanctions against countries that do business with Iran, hoping to "bring about a collapse in the Iranian economy" or "cut off Iran's economic lifeline."
Repeating President George W. Bush's point of dialogue after 9/11, "Every country, in every region, now has to make a decision. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," Bisant warned, "Those who stand with the United States will reap the fruits of our partnership, and those who associate themselves with Tehran should expect to participate in the isolation of a declining regime."
First, let's note that it's hard to say that this policy will fail, while the Secretary has been quite unclear about its ultimate goal. If the goal is to "bankrupt the Iranian economy," let's assume the unlikely and say we've achieved it.
If the administration's goal is to force Iran to surrender and abandon its red lines, for example to relinquish its supposed right to enrich uranium on Iranian soil, hand over 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium to the United States, and allow intrusive inspections of its nuclear and military facilities, such a goal seems highly unlikely.
Even the most modest goal of allowing Iran to return to its pre-war status is highly unlikely. This latest U.S. policy to end the war is far more likely to fail as its predecessors did, i.e., it will actually make the lives of ordinary Iranians much worse, but it won't force the Iranian regime to abandon its main red lines.
"U.S. economic pressures are unlikely to soften Iran's position, as the IRGC assumes that any such concession will only accelerate their downfall"
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The first reaso: The "process of economic isolation" theory is based on the idea that if the United States makes the lives of ordinary Iranians miserable enough, they will effectively pressure their leaders to reach a compromise with the United States, a premise that is deeply flawed.
The Iranian regime, unlike President Trump, is not facing midterm elections anytime soon that could weaken its power, the Iranian regime has built over decades a massive and effective apparatus of repression of its citizens, and as recently as January of this year, it has shown that it is fully prepared to crush thousands of its citizens in order to stay in power.
The U.S. government's accelerated narrative of Iran's growing economic hardship is largely irrelevant, because impoverishing the Iranian people does not force its leaders to soften their strategic priorities.
It should also be noted that the regime's elites running Iran—which ordinary Iranians call "sanctions dealers"—are already benefiting financially from U.S. sanctions, because they control the means to circumvent them. Not only will they be the last to be economically hurt by any U.S. economic tightening, but they will also be the first to benefit from them.
The second reason: The current Iranian regime, which is more militarized, militarized, and less risk-averse than the Iranian leadership we eliminated at the beginning of the war, is presumably engaged in an existential battle with the United States.
It is a given that the United States will continue to seek to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran, using a combination of military means, economic warfare, cyberattacks, and provoking internal insurgency.
"For the aging IRGC officers currently running Iran, any concession in the face of sustained U.S. pressure will only increase, not decrease, the pressure"
As Reed Poole and Matthew Seboll argued in The Lost Art of Coercion: Why Trump's Aggression Is a Sign of Weakness (Foreign Affairs Magazine article): "... Threats alone are not enough for coercion to work, because even highly credible threats fail if they are not conditional. For coercion to work, the target must trust that he or she will be able to avoid harm through compliance."
U.S. economic pressures are unlikely to soften Iran's position, as the IRGC assumes that any such concession will only accelerate their downfall.
"The Obama administration has worked intensively with allies in a serious and ongoing manner to implement multilateral sanctions against Iran, helping to bring it to the table of diplomatic negotiations, and leading to the 2015 JCPOA"
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Reason three: As the military adage famously says, "The enemy has the right to vote," and accordingly, Iran's likely response to the "process of economic isolation" will not be a submissive surrender, but an aggressive escalation.
If the United States succeeds in stepping up economic pressure on Iran, it will at some point lead to Iranian military retaliation, not only against U.S. bases in the region, but also against U.S. and Gulf economic and energy targets.
Thus, this latest U.S. initiative is inherently escalatory, as it may not succeed in causing tangible economic pain to the Iranian leadership, or it may succeed and provoke Iranian aggression to stop it.
Reason four: For this policy to work, it requires three factors that the United States does not have:
• Full cooperation from Iran's main economic trading partners, including China, the UAE, and Turkey.
• time.
• An efficient U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy to implement it.
For the first factor, despite the UAE's recent announcement of ending trade with Iran, the fate of this entire initiative depends on China, Iran's most important trading partner, and history has shown that China does not accept U.S. economic intimidation.
Regardless of China's stated reluctance to cooperate, the implementation of sanctions requires an effective administrative organ of U.S. foreign policy, which the administration has eliminated.
The Obama administration has worked extensively with allies in a serious and ongoing manner to implement multilateral sanctions against Iran, helping to bring it to the table of diplomatic negotiations, and leading to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
This administration, which is unable or refuses to do the hard work required by multilateral diplomacy, has instead chosen to threaten the rest of the world in the hope of forcing everyone to comply with its orders.
Finally, such sanctions take time to bear fruit, and given Iran's ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz, or at least significantly restricting it, we do not have that time.
The administration's attempts to influence markets with just words are failing: prices in the US are starting to rise, bond markets are starting to panic, and no management talking points, no matter how many times they are repeated, will be able to convince people that success is on the doorstep.
So, given that the Trump administration is now taking a side road that leads to a stalemate, what exactly is the best (or rather least bad) "frog" it should swallow?
"For the administration, withstanding the political blow now, two months before the midterm elections, is better than two months of increasingly bad economic news from the ongoing conflict"
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There are problems with even this simple goal:
First, Tehran currently believes that the U.S. administration has not suffered enough losses to bolster deterrence against any future attacks, so the strait must remain closed for the time being.
Second, it may be too late for U.S. diplomacy, even if this administration is willing and able to try. After waging two wars in just over a year, killing Iran's leadership and more than 3,000 Iranian citizens, and causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage, the soil from which a diplomatic solution could emerge is far less fertile, if not completely barren.
In addition, Iran wants a lot of money, now, and not in an indefinite future. So the United States may have to offer an "incentive" of at least lifting the embargo on frozen Iranian assets, something that will be difficult to convince the American public of.
Finally, such a truce would not be acceptable to our Gulf allies, left alone by the U.S. security umbrella, looking for "security alternatives" to compensate for unreliable U.S. protection. At the very least, it would leave them to make their own separate peace with Iran, given the Trump administration's apparent indifference to their security.
Similarly, no part of this "least bad" solution will be readily accepted in the United States, but it is likely the inevitable price to avoid a much worse option in the future.
For the administration, withstanding the political blow now, two months before the midterm elections, is better than two months of increasingly bad economic news from the ongoing conflict.
Let us get rid of the idea that the nuclear deal will be better or even as good as Obama's : The administration's goal now should be to restore maritime traffic in the strait.
President Trump has broken something fundamental in the Middle East that cannot be restored, but he must now, at best, seek to mitigate the damage.
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Alan Air – American diplomat and former member of the core team for nuclear negotiations with Iran.
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