How unilateral Iran sanctions may backfire

.... again on a subject the Leveretts have written extensively, Laura Rosen at Politico, here

"Two accounts of how a recent simulation at Harvard with major foreign policy players revealed how Congressional threats of U.S. unilateral sanctions may backfire by unravelling the international alliance.

The first, by the Washington Post's David Ignatius:

The Obama team was confounded by congressional demands for unilateral U.S. sanctions against companies involved in Iran's energy sector. This shot at Iran ended up backfiring, since some of the key companies were from Russia and China -- the very nations whose support the United States needs for strong U.N. sanctions. The Russians and Chinese were so offended that they began negotiating with Tehran behind America's back.

"We started out thinking we were playing a weak hand, but by the end, everyone was negotiating for us," said the leader of the Iranian team, Columbia University professor Gary Sick. By the December 2010 hypothetical endpoint, Iran had doubled its supply of low-enriched uranium and was pushing ahead with weaponization.

The second by another participant in the simulation, veteran NSC Iran hand Gary Sick, below the jump:

1. The US team went to work with a vengeance to get a consensus on sanctions. This didn't bother the Iran team in the least. We didn't think they could put together a package that would hurt us in any serious way, and that proved to be true. But more important, in the process they managed to offend all of their ostensible allies and wasted so much time and effort that Iran was better off at the end than they had been at the beginning. Since this represents a version of actual US strategy (and its results) over now three administrations, I think there is a lesson there that is ignored at our peril.

2. I compare the actions of the US team (and the US government since at least 1995) as the dog chasing the bus -- what do you do with it when you catch it? As far as I could tell, the pursuit of sanctions was essentially an end in itself. What if the US actually succeeded in putting together a reasonable set of sanctions (as, in fact, we have)? Maybe our efforts will please the Israelis and a few others, but does it stop Iran? To be honest, the Iran team scarcely paid any attention to all this massive policy exertion. Admittedly, we felt lonely at times. But we never felt that our core objectives (freedom to proceed with our nuclear plans and our growing appetite for domestic political repression) were at risk, much less the survival of our rather peculiar regime, which was of course our most immediate concern.

3. The offers made by the Iran team were modest in the extreme and transparently deceptive. Yet those offers were where we ended up after all the sturm und drang. No one ever had the courage or imagination to take our puny offers as an excuse to sit us down at the table and begin to push us on our plans and to feel out our intentions. That would have made us actually think. It would have required some real decisions on our part, which in this game we were spared entirely.

4. Just as we largely ignored the ineffective pressure tactics originating from the US, our own words and vulnerabilities were equally ignored by most of the other players. Why did no one go back to the Iranian offer of a negotiating agenda presented in 2003? Or the more recent catalogue of issues introduced as part of the Geneva/Vienna meetings? The reason seems to be the all-consuming obsession with the nuclear issue and the apparent belief that Iran's words, in whatever form, are irrelevant. The nuclear issue is indeed important, but AfPak, Iraq, Hezbollah, Persian Gulf stability, etc. are also not to be dismissed out of hand. And Iran over the years has offered some interesting suggestions that have never been explored. Why not use the meetings with Iran to create some working groups to explore the possibility of progress on issues other than the nuclear one? By broadening our scope, we might actually improve the environment for constructive work on the nuclear issue.

5. It was probably realistic that no one challenged Iran's right to enrich. That has reluctantly been accepted as a fait accompli. But why was there no push to test Iran on safeguards, inspections, or other techniques that might assure the world of reliable and on-going intelligence about what Iran is doing (early warning); or restricting certain key elements of Iran's nuclear program that would lengthen the time required to actually break out into production of a nuclear device Nobody tried.

6. The fact that Russia and China initiated their own secret accommodation with Iran was an interesting development, and one that is also indicative of the way things are going. But I had the impression that they took this initiative out of dismay at the single-minded pressure of the US team futilely seeking their support for a sanctions regime that was fundamentally contrary to their

interests....

Under those circumstances, the outcome was simply depressing!

Used with permission.

The result: that Israel acts alone, and finds itself denounced by the U.S., opening up the largest rift in U.S.-Israel relations since Suez. Or Iran gets the bomb.

Ignatius:

The trickiest problem for our imaginary Obama was his relationship with the fictive Netanyahu. As Burns and Gold played these roles, they had two sharp exchanges in which America asked for assurances that Israel wouldn't attack Iran without U.S. permission. The Israeli prime minister, as played by Gold, refused to make that pledge, insisting that Israel alone must decide how to protect its security. Whereupon Burns's president warned that if Israel did strike, contrary to U.S. interests, Washington might publicly denounce the attack -- producing an open break as in the 1956 Suez crisis.

The two key players agreed later that the simulation highlighted real tensions that the two countries need to understand better. "The most difficult problem we have is how to restrain Israel," said Burns. "My own view is that we need to play for a long-term solution, avoid a third war in the Greater Middle East and wear down the Iranians over time."

Gold said the game clarified for him a worrying difference of opinion between U.S. and Israeli leaders: "The U.S. is moving away from preventing a nuclear Iran to containing a nuclear Iran -- with deterrence based on the Cold War experience. That became clear in the simulation. Israel, in contrast, still believes a nuclear Iran must be prevented."

The game showed that diplomacy will become much harder next year. As Burns explains: "The U.S. probably will get no help from Russia and China, Iran will be divided and immobile, Europe will be weak, and the U.S. may have to restrain Israel."