Leverage and Costs in Dealing With Iran

As we all know by now, the Iranian government is in the process of violently suppressing protests against the government in the aftermath of the tainted election. Editorial ink has already been spent with profligate abandon in debating whether Obama should use harsher words in denouncing the violence, so I won't add to that discussion. On a more useful level, we should take a dispassionate view of what the U.S. policy options are in a situation like this. Those options depend in turn on what leverage we have in changing Iran's policy and what cost we are willing to pay to do so.

Our options, as usual, fall into three broad categories: diplomacy, military action, or speechifying. In each case, we need to examine costs and our leverage in the field (i.e. how much effect will our efforts be likely to produce.) Let's start with speechifying, which seems to be the only course of action Obama seems willing to engage in.

In his recent press conference, President Obama made the dire warning that U.S. embassies around the world would rescind invitations for Iranian officials to come to American Independence Day parties. "That's a choice the Iranians are going to have to make," Obama said. There is no word yet on whether liberal Democrats would have preferred that the president take a less confrontational approach regarding celebratory dinners, perhaps announcing instead that the parties would only have open bars for countries that didn't slaughter their own citizens. At any rate, in this case, our leverage -- Independence Day party invitations -- is certainly ours to dispose of as we wish without consultation with the United Nations. It also probably would not negatively affect our relations with third party nations. Overall, the cost of this action is fairly low (in fact, we'll probably save money on party refreshments.) However, it is unlikely that the prospect of its diplomats spending next Saturday night in front of the TV instead partying at a U.S. embassy will dissuade the Iranian government from its repressive acts. In short, Obama's speechifying plan has effectively no cost and no chance of changing anything.

Militarily, we have a tremendous amount of potential leverage but equally intimidating potential costs. Theoretically, military action on our part might be limited to such acts as having our intelligence officers try to spark riots in addition to the ones which have naturally come about. That would not seem a particularly effective course of action because the protests are still ongoing. The risk, however small, of an American role in the protests being uncovered should warn us off of this path. It would be highly detrimental to the protestors if they became associated with the hated West. This action thus exerts little leverage and has a high cost.

Military action could also take the form of punitive air raids announced ahead of time. We could say that attacks against Iranian air defense sites would continue until the Iranian government stopped killing its own people in the streets and perhaps even until it agreed to a recount or new, fair elections. This policy would certainly be a gamble. From a military casualty perspective, American casualty figures would be quite low (potentially nonexistent) and Iranian casualties might be limited to military personnel at the air defense sites in question. The cost of this act would likely be paid in terms of international prestige as nations around the world condemned our aggressive response. Of course, it is possible that if we openly broadcast our actions and the reason for them, condmenation of our acts might be muted. In all likelihood, this policy would elicit some military response from the Iranian government, most likely directed against Israel or our forces in Iraq (e.g. increased Iranian funding of guerilla groups.) In short, this would be a gamble with high risks and, potentially, high gains.

Finally, there are diplomatic options available to the U.S. We could push U.N. resolutions against the Iranian regime or use the bad international reputation that Iran is generating to push through resolutions related to Iran's nuclear program. One might anticipate that China or Russia would veto these resolutions to protect their various business relationships with Iran. If they did use their veto power, their reputation could suffer tremendously as the base reasons for their obstructionism on the Security Council became well known. In that sense, we potentially have a diplomatic win-win situation on our hands. Our economic sanctions have so far been ineffective at eliciting any response from the Iranian government because we lacked any real economic leverage -- China, Russia, and others could always take up the slack in trade generated by the self-imposed sanctions of the U.S., the U.K., and our other western allies. A U.N.-sponsored embargo that included China and Russia would either mean the first meaningful sanctions against Iran or embarrassment for China and Russia as the world witnessed the use of a U.N. veto to protect a murderous government freshly soaked in the blood if its own citizens. Thus, diplomatic action has a moderate potential gain and no cost that I can see.

By the above analysis, diplomatic maneuvering seems like the best option in the present situation. It seems odd that one would have to tell Obama to use the United Nations, but apparently he needs such advice. Also, for God's sake, stop threatening Iran with rescinded invitations to parties. Iran is not a seventh grade girl to be manipulated through juvenile social machinations and pretending that such action constitutes tough minded, realist negotiations mocks everyone involved in the situation, especially us.

This post is also viewable on the New Madisonian, where I'll be posting exclusively starting after tomorrow's post.