Iran's Response: Trying to Play the Game

In the wake of the UN's blistering offensive against nuclear proliferation lead by the new head of the UN Security Council, President Obama, Iran responded in a manner more suiting to North Korea. The fact of the matter is that Iran is beginning to squirm under the pressure and their actual power in the structure of world powers is beginning to emerge along with their grasp of the diplomatic process.

In my last post, I talked about the subtleties of diplomacy between Russia and the US. When it comes to the subject, Russia and the US have a long and rich history and provide us with a wealth of diplomatic back and forth from which we can perceive plenty of patterns and innuendo. But, the fact of the matter is that the relationship between Russia and the US is unique because it involves complex economic and military elements. Also, while the Cold War helped revolutionize the diplomatic process, it is more of an exception than a rule due to its one-of-a-kind nature. What we see in the back and forth between Russia and the US is like a ballet or a game of chess.

When it comes to countries like Iran or North Korea, diplomacy is more like a bull fight. North Korea is notorious for agreeing to terms and then reversing course, usually with a new round of missile tests and public condemnations of the West. They employ this strategy because, in the past, it gives them short term leverage to get resources including food, medical supplies, and oil. Iran, faced with becoming as isolated as North Korea, is beginning to adopt the same strategy in order to fight off a new round of international sanctions.

After the recent meetings on nuclear proliferation, Iran has issued biting criticism of the UN, saying that they are simply following orders from Western powers, while re-affirming their rights to nuclear energy in the same breath. They followed up their public rantings with a fresh round of missile tests, showing off a new short range missile that wouldn't take too much modification to be nuclear capable. Together, these two events show that Iran is becoming desperate. Instead of engaging the UN and following through on their promise to open up their sites to IAEA inspection, Iran issues blistering criticisms and puts on the military version of a dog and pony show, thinking that it will get them some kind of leverage.

The gut check here is one of chagrin. Things got a lot worse for North Korea before they got any kind of material concessions from the West. Considering the the fact that the recently revealed secret nuclear facility is near a military base, Iran's "diplomatic gestures" are more likely to induce a new round of sanctions than elicit concessions. While the Western world hasn't reached a consensus on the status of Iran's nuclear weapons program, things certainly aren't looking peaceful, especially since Iran still hasn't opened up any of their facilities to IAEA inspection, including the not-so-secret facility. Maybe now, Russia won't be so suspicious of our mobile missile interceptors.

Fruits of Our Labors: Squeezing Iran

Current analysis would indicate that the critics were right when they criticized Obama's scrapping of the Euro missile shield, saying it would embolden Russia. In diplomacy, just like in business or any other profession that involves trading or negotiating, all parties have a vested interest in eliciting concessions from the other side while minimizing concessions of their own, especially when it comes to major issues or national interests. The main reason to not make concessions when it comes to one's national interests (in the case of the Euro missile shield, national security) is literal: conceding on one's national interests weakens one's soft and hard power. The secondary reason, having perhaps an even more significant impact, is the fact that making concessions weakens one side's bargaining power and gives opposing sides the perception that the one side is willing to back down, thereby opening the door to aggression by opponents.

However, what often goes unnoticed is that there are two different types of diplomacy: public and private. There is what we as citizens and information consumers see and there is what actually goes on between nations. Simply put, what we read in the news paper and what policy think tanks put out is based on official accounts released by governments and close analysis of news sources. That account isn't always the whole story. When it comes to the relationship between the US and Russia, what we get in the news is rarely the whole story. If you read between the lines, you can begin to see that the current situation over the Euro missile shield isn't exactly how it appears.

When Obama chose to scrap the Euro missile shield, he did compromise on one aspect of our national security. However, the Euro missile shield was a good example of why pursuit of absolute security is in fact counter productive as it was pushing our relationship with Russia to the brink and possibly putting us on the path to a military confrontation. Nixing the Euro missile shield helped our diplomatic position with Russia, giving us a boost in relations and giving us credit with Medvedev. The effects of this concession can be clearly seen in the debate over Iran's nuclear program, a program which would not exist without Russia's assistance. Earlier this month, Russia wholly opposed new sanctions on Iran. Following Obama's scrapping of the Euro missile shield, Russia did a u-turn and now will support new sanctions on Iran while praising Obama's move in the same breath.

With Russia's help, the US is turning up the heat diplomatically on Iran and they are starting to squirm. The first piece of evidence is that Iran spontaneously admitted to the existence of a secret nuclear facility that, by all reports, is still under construction. Of course, Israel wasted no time in declaring this facility a nuclear weapons factory. Iran continued to backpedal, saying that they would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the newly revealed nuclear facility in the hopes that they could beat back accusations that they are violating IAEA regulations. But, their efforts aren't working. The new revelation simply gives the US and international opposition more ammunition in their push for new sanctions. While China is still blocking new sanctions, Russia's change of heart is providing the US with key support that enables us to put the screws to Iran. Remember, Russia is currently the sole source of nuclear fuel to Iran.

The gut check here is fortuitous. Obama's first major diplomatic move is proving effective despite what the critics are saying. He is re-dedicating the US to the diplomatic process and it is paying off. However, the next twelve months are key to testing whether new boosts in relations and new opportunities are utilized or squandered. While Obama's redoubled diplomatic efforts are currently working for Iran, Venezuela is fast becoming a new crisis right in our own backyard. But, now that Obama is heading up the UN Security Council, his re-dedication to diplomacy is going to be infinitely more effective as he now has a direct channel to world leaders and an international body that has the authority to authorize and enforce international actions. While the UN faltered, became stagnant, and even irrelevant under Bush, the UN will be reborn from the ashes under Obama. Hopefully Obama is just as effective at being a world leader as he is at public speaking.

Moving Forward: Scrapping the Euro Shield

So far, Obama's critics have been criticizing him for talking massive amounts of change during the election and failing to follow through on his key word. Until today, Obama hadn't changed much in the field of foreign policy or diplomacy aside from his world tour to reassure world leaders that he had in fact won the election. Today, however, Obama made his first significant change in diplomacy and foreign policy by scrapping the Euro missile defense shield, a major point of friction between the US and Russia toward the end of the Bush administration.

The Euro missile defense shield was a plan developed under the second Bush administration that included radar and missile interceptor stations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia didn't receive this plan very well for a couple of reasons. First, the Bush administration made it extremely arbitrary. They sent then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Russia on a couple of diplomatic visits to essentially inform Russia that the shield was going up rather than to consult with Russia. Second, the reasons that the Bush administration was giving for why the missile shield was needed were seen by the Russians to be invalid and even phony.

Russia didn't respond well to this "inform rather than engage" diplomacy. Russia perceives Eastern Europe to be within its sphere of influence and this missile shield to be a violation of the unwritten balance of power, essentially a form of encroachment by the West. They issued grievances to that end which were ignored. The Bush administration was holding fast to the argument that the missile shield was needed to shoot down any missiles that could be launched by terrorists even though no terrorist group to date had the capability of launching an ICBM. Russia perceived this argument as a smokescreen to the West's true goal of encroaching on Russia's sphere of influence. Putin even went so far as to call it the start of a new Cold War and threaten military action.

But, in his first major break from the Bush administration's style of diplomacy and foreign policy, Obama decided to scrap the Euro missile shield in the hopes that the beginning of a new Cold War would be averted. The gut check here is hopeful and optimistic. Since Obama is actually starting to engage the Russians in diplomacy and showing them that we're willing to make significant changes, he will more than likely succeed in resetting relations between the two countries and increase our soft power with Russia. There are those that already criticize this move by saying that scrapping the Euro shield will embolden Russia, and they're not necessarily wrong. However, Russia is already a resurgent power in the grand scheme of things, and we need to salvage relations between our two countries if we're going to be able to work with them on curbing the Iranian and recently announced Venezuelan nuclear programs. After all, we can't have Russia going around dispensing nuclear technology to countries we think might be trying to make a bomb.

Top Got Topped

In July, two luxury hotels were blown up by suicide bombers in Jakarta, Malaysia. This dastardly act of terrorism came just in time for the anniversary of the Mumbai attacks last year. At the time, no group had come forward to claim responsibility for the bombings, but Indonesia authorities had linked it to a Jemaah Islamiyah splinter group lead by a notorious terrorist known as Noordin M. Top.

Today, Top got topped when Indonesian authorities engaged Top and his entourage in a gunfight and ensuing siege. The Indonesian authorities gave him an opportunity to surrender, to which Top and his men answered with more gunfire; so the authorities responded by blowing up the building where Top and his men were hold up.

The gut check here is simple. Top's group was responsible for a dastardly act of terrorism that ended the lives of many civilians. If he had been caught alive, he would have been executed anyway. At least this way they don't have to waste the time and money on conducting a trial. Now, if only we were as effective at hunting down singular terrorist leaders as the Indonesians, bin Laden wouldn't stand a chance. The Indonesians found Top two months after the Jakarta bombings. That's some serious motivation.

Nuclear Proliferation: Venezuela

The newest arrival to the nuclear proliferation party is no longer trouble-making Iran.  After his recent meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has declared that his country will develop nuclear energy with Russian help.  Chavez directly addressed the immediate concern by saying that they're not looking to develop a bomb (like we believe him) so we shouldn't bother with them like we bother with Iran (like we're just going to let it happen).

If Chavez hadn't already been making so much trouble in Latin America / South America, this might have been unexpected.  The fact of the matter is that Chavez and Russia have been so close over the past several years, Russian media calls him "Russia's comrade-in-arms-and-oil."  However, nothing quite illustrates the relationship between the two countries like big numbers, specifically the $20 billion joint oil venture and the $2.2 billion credit for Russian weapons.  Both of those numbers come from deals struck during the same visit as the nuclear technology deal.

But, reading further into that arms deal may provide a bit of information that is relevant to the nuclear energy debate, specifically that Venezuela is buying rockets from Russia.  Chavez has been at the center of arms race controversy with his buying habits over the past several years.  While Chavez insists the military hardware he acquired from Russia is purely for defense, Colombia has to wonder.  Furthermore, one has to wonder if this deal was a form of deterrence for when Chavez breaks the nuclear energy deal to the press.  Whatever the reasons, Chavez can't actually think that breaking this kind of news now with Obama about to head up  the UN Security Council is going to go over well.

The gut check here is incredulous.  While it is believable that Russia is looking to expand their venture into the nuclear energy market, it is completely unbelievable that they haven't learned a single thing from their experiment with Iran.  Iranian nuclear energy hasn't gone smoothly to say the least.  There is an international governmental organization known as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that determines who gets to play with nuclear materials.  Russia circumvented the IAEA on its deal with Iran, and look where that got them.  Russia is once again circumventing the IAEA on a nuclear deal, so they clearly didn't learn that lesson.  Now, Venezuela, of all countries, is the one country that could start a full blown arms race and potentially completely destabilize the entire region.  Assuming that this deal actually goes through, Russia is fast becoming a facilitator of nuclear proliferation, something the UN, the IAEA, and the US are committed to opposing.  This new deal with Venezuela, right in our backyard, promises to produce some political fireworks.

Elections: Politics and Violence

In my post last week, I predicted that Afghanistan's Presidential election last Thursday would not go smoothly. In fact, Afghanistan now faces all of the challenges I outlined: legitimacy concerns, fraud allegations, and continued violence. During the election on Thursday alone, Taliban militia sought to disrupt the voting process by launching a number of attacks that caused polling centers in the South and East to be closed. They also made good on their threat of cutting off the inked fingers of voters in certain areas, specifically women. But, election day violence by the proclaimed enemies of the state is the least of Afghanistan's concerns.

The largest threat to stability, progress, and viability of a democratic system in Afghanistan is legitimacy of the government. Simply put, if people don't believe the elections are legitimate (voting fraud, electioneering, etc.), they will not hold the government to be legitimate. If the government is seen to be fraudulent, the

democratic system will fail and violence will consume that which we have already put so much blood, sweat, and tears into building. Since last Thursday, many allegations have come out about voting fraud. Even the UN is saying that a large portion of votes cast may be fraudulent.

The immediate impact of fraud claims is best exemplified by Iran's Presidential election in June wherein mass protests broke out following the election prompting a months long violent and bloody crackdown on political opposition. A bloody and oppressive crackdown by the government isn't a possibility in Afghanistan because that kind of reaction would completely destroy any legitimacy the government would have had. However, some of the losing candidates are planning to organize mass protests while the leading challenger has previously threatened the same. The likelihood of these protests turning violence, especially if radicals or militants were to show up, is very high.

The gut check here is foreboding. An early release of polling data indicates Karzai has won last Thursday's election in a relative landslide (72% of the vote so far compared to 23% of his biggest challenger). However, that data appears to be inaccurate as this AP article indicates that Karzai and his top challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, both have around 40% of the nationwide vote and are headed for a runoff. Unfortunately, a runoff presents a situation that must be scrutinized heavily. If Karzai were to gain a large margin in the vote, it will literally fodder for fraud claims. If the fraud claims aren't handled correctly, independently investigated, and cleared by the UN, things could get very ugly and the consequences for the US's strategy could be dire. As it stands, like an ominous cloud on the horizon, there are almost certainly going to be protests in the coming days and weeks. The only question is will they be big enough and worked up enough to turn violent?

Elections: Mark II

Here in the US, Wednesday the 19th is winding down. In Afghanistan, Wednesday the 19th has already happened. It is a funny thing to think that a place half the world away is experiencing what we would consider the future. However, in the early hours of election day in Afghanistan (it is after 1 am on Thursday the 20th at the time of this writing), two things have become clear: there will be blood and there will be controversy.

After yesterday's posting, an attack occurred in the heart of Kabul wherein insurgents caused the deaths of civilians and American troops, indicating that they are unafraid of walking directly into the lions den in order to cause fear and chaos ahead of the election. However, that being said, Afghani voters are turning out to register and vote in former Taliban strong holds or under direct threat of violence by the Taliban, indicating that Afghanis are too invested in achieving peace and democracy to be stopped by fear.

The gut check here is optimistic. Election day is underway and the polls officially open in mere hours. Even though violence occurred on Wednesday and many were hurt while several died (including poll workers), Afghani security forces are on alert and Afghani voters will not be deterred. These are promising signs that Afghanistan will make it through Thursday's Presidential election, even if it isn't unscathed.