Iran

This is a sort of collection of what I’ve thought in the past week:

First of all, what I don’t understand.  Taking as a starting point Charles Krauthammer’s assertion that

This revolution will end either as a Tiananmen (a hot Tiananmen with massive and bloody repression or a cold Tiananmen with a finer mix of brutality and co-optation) or as a true revolution that brings down the Islamic Republic.

what I want to know is, why do we assume that any sort of sharp resolution has to occur? So long as the military stays loyal to the current regime, can’t the regime just stonewall, whether or not they resort to violence? The protestors aren’t themselves going to resort to large scale violence, and they have no direct way to force the regime to listen to them.  Now, I’m not sure I can think of any analogous situations where a repressive regime just waited out protests.  But repressive regimes do all sorts of unnecessary things, such as repressing people in the first place.

In any case, I don’t mean to suggest that this is likely to happen.  I’m asking a question: what’s your model of popular protest that rules it out? I don’t have such a model, and my interest is to stress skepticism: I don’t think we collectively understand the dynamics of this sort of situation.  Several commentators have suggested that the ultimate determinant is the military’s stance: will they eventually be willing to open fire on civilians and protestors? I think that’s right, but my question is prior: what causes the situation to develop to a point where the military faces that choice? (Since I started composing this paragraph Friday night, we’ve seen violence, and a cessation of protests, but not the full confrontation that was threatened.  Sadly, it’s good news that at most a few dozen have died.  So I think the question remains interesting).

Note that the Tiananmen protests lasted some seven weeks before the massacre.

Second, much of the debate within the United States has concerned how Obama should react to developments.  During the campaign, various conservative voices said that Obama could not change our relationship to the world merely by being conciliatory.  In fact, this argument had substantial merit, as some people really did have a mental picture where it was just President Bush who had spoiled our relationship with the world, despite myriad reasons why we will remain antagonistic to many countries.  What I don’t understand is how that’s compatible with the current calls for Obama to denounce the Iranian regime.  Does America have influence only when we offer context-free condemnations, but no influence when we negotiate?

But I oscillate between that very realist assessment that nothing Obama says can help, but could hurt, by offering Khomeini a soundbite, and the thought that he could have said more.  Of course a direct statement to say that Mousavi ought to be prime minister is out of the question (and undesirable for other reasons as well).  All comments should be framed in universal terms, in terms of the values that make a society democratic.  However, on top of condemning violence, Obama could have commented on the underlying circumstances.  Violence or no, the suppression of protests is illegitimate, and incompatible with the ideals of free elections.  The same is true of internet censorship as well as restricting the presidential candidates.   Would it have been impossible to frame a statement that spoke up for those values without playing into the hands of Khomeini? That’s not obvious to me, and I don’t know why someone would be confident that it is.  Bear in mind that we can afford to offend the Iranian regime as much as we want to.  It’s only if we say something that angers the Iranian people that there could be negative consequences.

Lastly, while I understand Will Wilkinson’s hesitation, I have to disagree with him about our investment in the welfare of the Iranian people.  He writes:

When people feel pressure to signal, and it’s free, they’ll signal. But sending the signal creates a small emotional investment in the overt message of the signal — solidarity with opponents of the ruling Iranian regime. As every salesman knows, getting someone to make a big, costly commitment is best achieved by getting them to first make a tiny, costless commitment. The tiny, costless commitment of turning Twitter avatars green is thin edge of the persuasive edge for the neocons who would like to sell the public a war in Iran. Since I would rather not be Bill Kristol’s useful idiot, I will conspicuously leave my avatar as is, and continue hoping for the best.

It sounds as if he’s saying “don’t care about the fate of the Iranians because there are people who’d abuse that concern to push bad ideas.”  But that’s a problem with the abuse, and a reason to reject militarism.  Nor does it make sense to say that we shouldn’t be concerned because we can’t act.  If there were a way to prevent violence and repression against the Iranian people, we would have to consider it.  The green twitter icons were always meant to be symbolic.

The reason I wouldn’t “go green” is that I’m not so sure I’m willing to endorse the message.  Green is the color of Mousavi’s movement, and it symbolizes the entire movement, not just the desire to protest peacefully.  So far as that’s what they’re about, we should be in solidarity with them.  His label of ‘reformist’ does not mean that we should be interested in fully supporting him.  Even ignorance would make me wary of the symbolic import of “going green”, and what’s worse, Mousavi’s history within Iran doesn’t make me confident that he’s a model of liberal values (Will has a followup that mentions of these concerns, but I don’t think it justifies his original stance).

A Small Gift To The Iranian People

It’s a very small intervention, but I think that this story is damn cool. A State Department official emailed Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey on behalf of the Obama administration to request that they change the timing of scheduled maintenance so that it would fall during nighttime in Tehran.

Laughter is the Best Medicine

No gays in Iran, says Ahmadinejad

I’m going to take back a lot of my previous doubts concerning the wisdom of inviting Ahmadinejad to Columbia. There’s certainly no danger that he would gain dignity via the encounter.

Ahmadinejad in New York

So far I’ve heard of two cases about what’s acceptable during Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York. First of all there’s the decision to prohibit him from laying a wreath at ground zero, which he has been prohibited from doing. Though the objective consequences of this decision will likely be slim, it is almost impossibly unreasonable. What could be a problem with him placing a wreath? Are we afraid that a conciliatory gesture would slow the run-up to war? (To my mind, it is actually strange that Ahmadinejad would make such a gesture, since he usually seems as bellicose as the Bush administration). Perhaps the thought is that Ahmadinejad might somehow himself be in danger, but that would not explain John McCain’s thuggish claim that “he should be physically restrained if necessary.” McCain inhabits a fantasy world in which Ahmadinejad would personally charge ground zero shoving heroic firefighters out of the way. McCain himself would be at the rim of ground zero, wrapped in an American flag and would tackle Ahmadinejad, finally preventing him from detonating his explosives into a big hole in the ground.

Back in the real world, there’s an interesting case involving Columbia, which has offered Ahmadinejad a chance to speak and answer student questions. I’m of two minds about this but (novel phrase for me approaching), I may actually agree with William Kristol that this is a bad decision. Columbia’s president plans to ask difficult questions before Ahmadinejad speaks, but one wonders what good it does to publicly challenge Ahmadinejad on the issue of whether the holocaust happened. Does it serve the purposes of Columbia as an educational institution to have a lively debate on the subject? I think not.

Today’s Links

1. Give your kids alcohol so that they won’t binge drink.
2. A moderate was selected to head the Iranian commission that selects its Supreme Leader.
3. Israel has less crazy detention policies than we do.

Could the US Be Arming Turkish Criminals?

And if we are, should Turkey invade us? Weapons that the United States distributed to Iraqis have been appearing in Turkey, possibly in the hands of Turkish militants. Sheds new light on the fact that Iranian weapons may have been present in Iraq.

One point that’s very hard to deal with properly is the interplay between the fact that the United States is adopting a double standard with regard to Iran, and the fact that the Iranian regime is generally much worse than we are. On the one hand, we’re obviously doing everything we’ve charged them with (interfering in another nation’s affairs by arming factions in a civil war), on the other, you don’t really want the Iranian government to influence anyone’s affairs.

Escalation

A really good point from Matthew Yglesias: even if you think Iran is trying to interfere in Iraq, it doesn’t make sense to confront them over it. The reason is that the United States has basically thrown everything it has at the Iraq conflict, whereas Iran has a lot more room for escalation. Or put another even easier way: things aren’t working now, so why think that picking one more fight will help?

Hillary Contradicts Herself

Short version:

“I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table,” Mrs. Clinton told Bloomberg Television in an interview in April 2006, responding to a question about how the Bush administration would try to prevent Iran from building up its nuclear program.

Incidentally, reading this article gave me what I call iterated deja-vu: the sensation of having previously felt deja-vu in response to seeing what you are currently seeing.

It’s Been 12 Hours and I Still Can’t Think of a Title

This BBC article describing the television footage of Americans accused of spying in Iran contains an extremely odd sentence.

The programme alternated between their “confessions” and dramatic pictures of the so-called Velvet Revolutions in eastern Europe to suggest there was a US-led plot to overthrow the Iranian government.

I can’t tell if this a misjudgment by the creator of the film, a sign of public opinion towards the Velvet revolution, or just an indication that people would not associate the pictures with anything other than scenes of unrest. Update: Part Two here.

News About Nukes

Back in high school, one of the most enjoyable debate topics was that nuclear weapons are immoral–if I recall correctly, the category error was part of the resolution. Two simplistic assumptions were typically made which have probably warped my sense of the issue: that the use of nuclear weapons between two actual nuclear powers would involve near absolute destruction for both of them, and that all nuclear powers would be equal in their, uh… “nuclearity.” The first assumption was occasionally challenged by someone who argued that the destruction effected by nuclear weapons was continuous with what could be done by conventional means (i.e. Dresden).

With those points in mind, I’ll note that there’s an old but fascinating post about how the United States has nuclear superiority with respect to Russia and China, and that this fact may actually make our situation with respect to them more dangerous rather than less. Also, it appears that the North Koreans probably have no more than a dozen nuclear warheads, whereas we have thousands.

Finally, onwards to the point: if what happened in North Korea is in anyway representative, it raises the question of how seriously we should take Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It goes without saying that it should be a top foreign policy priority of the United States to avoid a nuclear-armed Iran. However, given the slow state of the Iranian nuclear weapons process, it seems that the risks of war with Iran (even just aerial strikes, as Podhorrez has proposed) would be too high to undergo, given the threat.

Side note: This debate topic was one of the only ones which provided an occasion to apply one’s knowledge of calculus. People often made the claim that nuclear war would create an “infinite harm.” In one round, a fellow responded by claiming that deterrence would reduce the chance of such a war to zero, and then exclaimed that “infinity times zero is still zero!” Sadly, while everyone on my team was familiar with calculus, this guy’s opponent wasn’t, and the round missed the chance for an XKCD moment.

Cheney Influencing Bush on Iran

Within the administration, Cheney is the most hawkish on Iran, Rice is prominently advocating a diplomatic approach, and Bush isn’t good at having his own opinions. A new Guardian article reports that Bush was paying more attention to Rice in the past, but now is tilting towards Cheney’s point of view. It’s bad news, but the sources also say that decisions aren’t likely to be made until next year. Via Sobi.

Iran and Iraq Parallels

Apropos my previous post about the Senate’s declaring that Iran is committing acts of war, we have the Iraq Liberation Act
of 1998 which proposed a United States policy of favoring regime change in Iraq without thereby authorizing the use of the armed forces. Since real plans for war with Iraq didn’t appear until we had an insane but popular administration in power, the current prognosis isn’t necessarily too bad. Source: David Weigel.

An Inconvenient Fact

From talking points memo, a report that the largest contingent of foreign fighters in Iraq comes from Saudi Arabia, ahead of Syria and Iran (which is not even mentioned).

Update: Juan Cole points out the other obvious fact about the report, that foreigners are only .7% of the prisoners we have in Iraq, and thus are a very small part of the insurgency.

War With Iran?

I just learned from a Juan Cole post that the Senate has amended the defense authorization act to state that Iran is committing acts of war against the United States. The vote was 97-0. The news seems to already be a day or two old, and this is the first I’ve heard of it–there’s nothing in the Times or the BBC. And that’s the good news: the press would’ve perked up its head for something that would actually mean war.

It’s also indicative of the weird logic that governs politics. As one of Cole’s sources asks: Having officially affirmed that Iran is waging war on American forces, how, pray tell, can you then deny the president when he asks (if he asks) for authorization to “defend our troops”? In the real world, politicians aren’t bound by messy realities like accepting the logical implications of what they’ve said. Full-scale war against Iran would be too unpopular to pass, and while enough hysteria might be whipped up, this unreported Senate resolution won’t be what does it.