{"id":269,"date":"2008-04-22T03:56:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-22T07:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/mesh\/2008\/04\/not_too_late_to_dissuade_iran\/"},"modified":"2008-09-09T15:09:31","modified_gmt":"2008-09-09T19:09:31","slug":"not_too_late_to_dissuade_iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/2008\/04\/not_too_late_to_dissuade_iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Too late to dissuade Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Chuck Freilich<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Is it too late to dissuade Iran from developing nukes? A nuclear Iran does increasingly loom as the likely outcome, not because it is too late, but due to lack of sufficient resolve. Iran is at least two and probably more years away from an operational capability. France has taken a firm position and Britain and Germany are also on aboard, if not as fervently. The Sunni states are manifesting growing alarm, creating new possibilities for enlisting their support. The question now is how to go from P3+1 support in the Security Council to P5 agreement, i.e. how to bring Russia and China on board.<\/p>\n

Iran talks a very good game, warning of the consequences of excessive sanctions, or military action, but let’s not forget who really holds the bigger stick. Clearly the world does not want to go from $110 a barrel oil to much higher prices, but for the international community this is pain; for Iran it is their entire economy. If the world refuses to import Iranian crude, which accounts for 80 percent of Iran’s national budget and a huge percentage of its overall GDP, the Iranian economy collapses. Due to a shortfall in domestic refining capacity, Iran also imports<\/em> 40 percent of its refined gasoline products. Were the international community to cease supplying them, the Iranian economy would be brought to its knees almost overnight.<\/p>\n

So who has the bigger stick? The West does not want to pay the price, but if it comes to this, might temporary dislocations not be preferable to a nuclear Iran? If not through the Security Council, might not at least some U.S. allies agree to extra-UN multilateral sanctions of this kind? And if the self-motivation is lacking, might an American threat to impose a naval blockade on Iran not do the trick, both in its own right, or as a means of inducing the others to join in the sanctions in order to forestall unilateral American action? The last thing most of the potentially recalcitrant international players want is to see a replay of the “American predilection” for unilateralism.<\/p>\n

How then can we get Russia and China on board for serious<\/em> sanctions in the Security Council? Russia objects, not without reason, to enlarging NATO to include Ukraine and to the American plan to deploy an anti-missile system in Europe. The United States claims the system is designed to counter the threat of Iranian missiles to Europe. The danger that Iran would actually fire missiles at Europe is negligible to begin with, but why not get at the true source of the problem through a deal with Russia? No anti-missile system and no NATO enlargement (a worthy cause in its own right, but not an urgent one), in exchange for real sanctions in the Security Council. China does not like being in the position of “odd man out” and is likely to follow suit.<\/p>\n

Should both this approach and multilateral sanctions outside of the UN fail, it would then be time to consider a U.S. naval blockade. The Iranians might seek to exact some small price, e.g. attack a U.S. vessel, but they are not crazy. It would be like a guppy attacking a whale: The Iranian navy and many additional sites would rapidly cease to exist. It is important that we not engage in deceptive, fearful self-deterrence. (The same holds true for the highly exaggerated fears of Iran’s capacity to retaliate against the United States in the event of an attack on its nuclear program.) The Iranians, in any event, will be far more realistic about this.<\/p>\n

None of this is to discount the difficulties involved, but the game is far from over and there is still ample time to deal with it\u2014given American leadership.<\/p>\n

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Chuck Freilich Is it too late to dissuade Iran from developing nukes? A nuclear Iran does increasingly loom as the likely outcome, not because it is too late, but due to lack of sufficient resolve. Iran is at least two and probably more years away from an operational capability. France has taken a firm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1620,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2451,622,2293,2991,2223,2579],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chuck-freilich","category-iran","category-josef-joffe","category-mark-n-katz","category-nuclear","category-russia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1620"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}