Where are the wise diplomats?
Day upon day, the Secretary of State, President and
those who stand in firm opposition to current US diplomacy with Iran, make
their pleas to the public.
The gist of the pleas by the Secretary and sitting
President boil down to: “We can get a deal,” although “gaps remain.”
The rejoinder is: “A bad deal is worse than no
deal.”
Within this frame, the arguments go back and forth.
Missing is wisdom, hard-headed, history-anchored,
sage and solemn wisdom.
In essence, one side thinks any deal that retards or
slows the break-neck pace of Iran’s ambition to obtain a nuclear weapon is
worth inking.
The other thinks that approach is wrong-headed from
the start, but that the right approach is to ramp up economic sanctions and
default to force to stop Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon.
Neither of these approaches seems destined to assure
a permanent end to Iran’s misplaced desire for a nuclear weapon.
And there is the beginning of wisdom.
The word “misplaced.”
Never mind that a bad deal would tacitly permit –
even encourage – Iran to press onward in pursuit of a nuclear weapon, and then
a delivery system.
Never mind that resort to even an effective kinetic
response would open a major new battlefront with a well- armed adversary,
trigger the activation of Hezbollah terrorism worldwide, and alienate the very
young Iranian population (which is ironically more pro-West than pro-theocratic
dictatorship).
Never mind that Iran would likely tighten ties – in
either event – with Putin’s anti-Western Russia, and likely accelerate nuclear
research with Russian encouragement.
Never mind that Russia may use any deal or
confrontation as a basis for selling heavy lift missile delivery systems to
Iran, especially if the US stops buying those systems.
Never mind that Iran is presently – and rather
ironically – the leading edge in the Iraqi battle to turn the tide on Islamic
State terror there, and in Syria.
Never mind that neither a deal to “slow down”
development of a nuclear weapon, nor an all-on confrontation, would deter
others in the region from seeking nuclear weapons once Iran got one.
Go back to the word “misplaced.”
Iran actually has a “misplaced” desire for a nuclear
weapon.
Protests aside, that is their desire – but it is
destined to be a pyrrhic victory, inevitably a hollow, useless, senseless
victory.
American diplomats – and European ones for that
matter – seem to miss the forest for the trees, too.
What American diplomats should be doing is not
bickering over terms for continued or verifiably limited nuclear weapons
development.
Nor should they be following Congress into a full-on
battle.
Wise diplomacy looks different.
Wise diplomacy would take a more effective tack.
First, in an old world, highly persuasive,
methodical and relationship-based way, American diplomats should be laying out
what they really know – and what the Iranians likely also know, if they will
ponder facts – about the other states in the Middle East.
For example, a number of other countries are also
within reach or could be within reach of a nuclear weapon.
These states would surely seek one with a vengeance
once Iran got one, or was even suspected of having one.
They would – based on ties to other nuclear states –
likely acquire such a weapon with speed.
Once Shiite Iran has such a weapon, expect a Sunni
state to quickly discover one.
The Middle East, at that point, is wired with a
nuclear tripwire – but only if Iran gets the bomb.
At present, for all the sectarian conflict and
regional terrorism, the on-going battle is purely conventional – and in a
strange way, thus more stable.
At the point where Iran gets the bomb, or is
suspected of having it, and Sunni states acquire nuclear counterforce, all bets
are off.
Nuclear blackmail or threats by Iran would be of no
practical use.
Why?
Because – in a nuclear tinderbox – the outcome would
either be an exchange of nuclear weapons or the inability to coerce other
states.
In effect, the chances of a real and catastrophic
nuclear war across the region – beyond the region – would go from zero to
incalculable, while the ability to effect political change with weapons of any
kind would go to zero.
While seeking a weapon to coerce others, Iran would
lose the coercive power it presently possesses in a conventional world.
Under these circumstances, Iran should be candidly
asked to think about the consequences of fulfilling its dream – what would a
bomb really buy it?
Nothing.
Heightened instability, lack of influence across the
region with conventional weapons, a sudden escalation of odds that Iran would
be destroyed in a regional nuclear exchange, no relief from sanctions, and
global condemnation.
By contrast, what would foreswearing nuclear
weapons, stopping all bomb research and the nuclear weapons program buy it?
A non-nuclear Middle East for now, complete relief
from sanctions, the ability to continue using conventional weapons, and
preservation of rough order.
Which of those two options – intuitively – would a
wise Iranian diplomat choose, if carefully presented with the facts?
There is a second tool that wise American diplomats
should use.
Advanced data analytics and predictive analysis.
What?
Share these ideas with the Iranians in a negotiating
session?
Yes, to a degree – with deliberation and candor,
yes.
Here is how and why.
We can show – and they can see the assumptions,
factual predicates, risks and full trajectory of events – that if they do
achieve, or are perceived to have achieved, a nuclear bomb, never mind a
delivery system, the level of regional fear, crisis responses, scrambling for
nuclear counterforce, defensive and offensive reactions, and instability across
the region –perhaps even globally – would become overwhelming.
Run the scenarios.
Run the software that projects events, origins,
timetables, likelihoods, and then ask them if any of those eventualities are
worth getting the bomb.
Ten bets to one, they all end badly, badly for the
region and yes, badly for Iran.
If the future is inherently uncertain, predictive
analytics should be highly persuasive in describing the likely endgames.
The boomerang effect of an Iranian bomb would be –
or should be – highly persuasive.
That is, after all, why other aspiring nuclear
aspirants have historically given up the aspiration; it is ultimately more
self-defeating than redemptive.
Argument No. 2 is this: Beyond spurring a nuclear
Middle East, and the diminished power Iran would have in such a nuclear
neighborhood, the added chances of self-destruction become multiples higher;
data analytics may even show the rough timeline for a nuclear conflict to
occur, once Iran has the bomb.
The putative advantages disappear, and the negative
effects go sky high, mathematically exponential if not vertical.
So let us stop murmuring about this and that bad
solution, and revert to an old idea: Wise and thoughtful, intelligent and
candid diplomacy.
Hide and seek is a child’s game; nuclear hide and
seek is reckless.
Instead, let us take a page from the past – from
effective negotiators like George C. Marshall, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald
Reagan – and protect the future.
Let us pursue the sort of diplomacy that amounts to
cogent and persuasive presentation of incontrovertible facts, existential
consequences and recognition by Iran that the bomb is the last thing that they
should want.
That sort of hard-headed persuasion, frank dialogue,
real interfaces during the tenure of Colin Powell as Secretary of State,
produced a complete dismantling and disavowing of nuclear ambitions by at least
one Middle Eastern country, with results that the Middle East did not go
nuclear, sanctions on that country got lifted, and the battle-space remained
conventional and diplomatic, not nuclear-tipped.
We need that kind of leadership today.
We need wise diplomats, wise members of Congress,
not the hurly-burly of politics or the crazy notion that a real answer is
beyond us.
It is not beyond us.
We should not be content with the bad choice between
a bad agreement and a bad kinetic reaction if there is no agreement.
Where, I wonder again, are the wise men that once
took such issues seriously, and gave us the peace from which we negotiate
today?
That wisdom, circumspection and straight talk,
direct appeals to enlightened self-interest and clear-headed presentation of
facts, is needed now.
<><><><><>
Robert Charles
Bobby Charles founded a national security and law
enforcement focused consulting firm, The Charles Group, LLC in 1999 upon
leaving service as Staff Director and Chief Counsel for the National Security,
International Affairs, and Criminal Justice Subcommittee (GRO) in the House of
Representatives from 1995-1999. Charles also served Subcommittee Chairman J.
Dennis Hastert, onetime Speaker of the House, as chief staffer to The Speaker’s
Task Force on a Drug Free America from 1997-1999 and as top staffer to the
Bi-Partisan Drug Policy Group from 1995-1999. Bobby rejoined The Charles Group,
LLC as President in April, 2005 after serving from 2003 to 2005 as Assistant
Secretary of State, for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
(INL), under Secretaries Colin Powell and … show moreCondoleezza
Rice.
Bobby received his J.D. from Columbia Law School in New
York, M.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University in
England, and A.B. from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
