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.