Responding to a Nuclear Iran

By Christopher Hemmer
Parameters, Autumn 2007, pp. 42-53.

What should American foreign policy be if current efforts to discourage Iran from developing nuclear weapons fail? Despite the recent resumption of high-level contacts between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the potential for stronger action by the United Nations Security Council, an Iranian nuclear weapon remains a distinct possibility. The current debate regarding US policy toward Iran revolves around the relative merits of a preventive military strike, including the possibility of seeking regime change in Tehran, versus a policy that focuses on diplomacy and economic sanctions to dissuade Iran from pursuing a nuclear bomb. This debate, however, risks prematurely foreclosing discussions regarding a wide-range of foreign policy options should diplomacy and sanctions fail to persuade Tehran to limit its nuclear ambitions.


The choices America would face if Iran developed nuclear weapons are not simply between preventive military action and doing nothing. The calculations America would face are not between the costs of action versus the costs of inaction. A nuclear-armed Iran will certainly pose a number of challenges for the United States. Those challenges, however, can be met through an active policy of deterrence, containment, engagement, and the reassurance of America’s allies in the region.

American Interests

The United States has three strategic interests in the Persian Gulf: maintaining the flow of oil onto world markets, preventing any hostile state from dominating the region, and minimizing any terrorist threat. Given these interests, the challenges posed by a nuclear-armed Iran need to be addressed by a policy that minimizes the threat to key oil production and transportation infrastructure and negates any Iranian bid for regional hegemony. Additionally, any action taken toward Iran has to be weighed against the potential impact it may have with regard to the global war on terrorism and ongoing US initiatives related to nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, such a policy needs to be executed in a manner that avoids any nuclear threat to the United States or its allies.

The end-state the United States should be working toward, as a result of these strategic interests, is an Iran that is an integral part of the global economy, at peace with its neighbors, and not supportive of terrorist organizations. While America’s strategic interests do not include the proliferation of democracy, any acceptable end-state will likely require some measure of democratic reform. Given the fact that anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism are an integral part of the Islamic Republic’s identity, some measure of regime evolution will be required in an effort to advance America’s long-term interests.1

The Perils of a Preventive Strike

Any attempt to disarm Iran through the use of military options would in all likelihood damage America’s interests in the region. While a military option might inflict significant damage on Iran’s infrastructure by damaging or destroying its nuclear weapons program, disrupting its regional ambitions, and possibly serving as a deterrent to future proliferators, the likely costs would far outweigh the benefits.

First, any military action against Iran would send seismic shocks through global energy markets at a time when the price of oil is already at record highs. Since Iran relies heavily on the income derived from oil exports, it is unlikely that it would withhold petroleum from global markets. Iran may, however, threaten to disrupt the flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz or sponsor attacks on key oil infrastructure on the territory of America’s Gulf allies. Such actions could hurt the US economy and potentially bolster Iranian revenue by raising the price of oil. While it is true that the world market would eventually adjust to such actions, as James Fallows has noted, that is a bit like saying eventually the US stock market adjusted to the Great Depression.2

Any direct military action against Iran could also have a significant impact on America’s war on terrorism. Such action would only serve to confirm many of Osama bin Laden’s statements that the United States is at war with the world of Islam. This charge would be difficult to counter, given the fact that the United States has looked the other way for years with regard to Israel’s nuclear program, accepted India as a legitimate nuclear-state, and is negotiating with North Korea regarding its nuclear ambitions.

Any military action against Iran would also undermine America’s nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, due to possible Iranian retaliation in both countries. While Iranian efforts toward stabilizing these two states have been sporadic at best, and purposively obstructive at worst, there is little reason to doubt that Iran could make achieving US objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan far more difficult. Although mostly bluster, there is some truth to former Iranian President Ali Rafsanjani’s argument that as long as American troops maintain a formidable presence on Iran’s borders, "it is the United States that is besieged by Iran."3 The same holds true regarding Iran’s ties to Hezbollah and its presence in Lebanon. By targeting Iran’s nuclear program the United States would unwisely encourage Iranian escalation in a number of these arenas.

Military strikes against Tehran would also undermine Washington’s long-term goal of seeing reform movements succeed in Iran. If the history of military incursions and the Iranian nation teach us anything it is the fact that intervention is likely to solidify support for the current regime. The idea that the Iranian people would react to a military strike by advocating the overthrow of the existing regime is delusional.4 Instead the likely outcome of any direct military incursion would be the bolstering of the current regime.

Moreover, any preventive attack, no matter how effective, is only a temporary fix. First, such a campaign will eliminate only that portion of Iran’s nuclear program known to intelligence agencies. Even after the extensive bombing campaign of the 1990-1991 Gulf War, subsequent inspections discovered large parts of Iraq’s unconventional weapons programs that were previously unknown. More importantly, even if such an attack succeeded in eliminating significant facets of Iran’s nuclear program, it would do little toward discouraging Iran from rebuilding those assets. Thus, even after a fully successful denial campaign, the United States, in a number of years, would likely face the prospect of having to do it all over again.

The Problem with Regime Change

Given the limits of any preventive strike, perhaps the United States should not restrict its goal in Iran to simply nuclear disarmament, but opt instead for the broader objective of regime change. If successful, regime change in Iran could provide for a number of benefits. It may eliminate the Iranian threat of interrupting the flow of oil from the region; it would also send a strong message to potential proliferators about the costs of similar actions; it might diminish Iran’s support for terrorism; even possibly eliminate the threat of official Iranian meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan; and could potentially curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The reason a policy advocating regime change is a bad idea, given its potential benefits, is the fact that such a policy is beyond America’s means. While the United States certainly possesses the capability to eliminate the regime in Tehran, as the invasion of Iraq has shown, eliminating the present leadership is the easy part of regime change. The more difficult and costly challenge is installing a new government. With America’s resources already overly committed in Afghanistan and Iraq, taking on a new nation-building mission in a country far larger and in some ways far more nationalistic than Iraq would be the epitome of strategic overreach.

Additionally, one of the few scenarios where Iran might use its nuclear capability would be if Tehran believed that the United States intended to exercise forcible regime change. A nuclear strike against any American presence in the region might be seen by the leadership in Tehran as its last hope for survival. It goes without saying that once any government has crossed the nuclear threshold, forcible regime change by an external actor is no longer a viable option. The threat of nuclear retaliation would simply be too great. Indeed, this is probably the most important reason why states such as Iran and North Korea desire nuclear weapons. Does this mean that the United States should therefore seek regime change before Iran develops its nuclear capability? No; even without nuclear weapons, forcible regime change in Iran and the ensuing occupation would entail too great a commitment of resources on the part of the United States. Pursuing regime change in Iran as a response to its nuclear program would be akin to treating a brain tumor with a guillotine. The proposed cure is worse than the disease.

A Better Policy: Deter, Contain, and Engage

Fortunately, US policy options for dealing with a nuclear Iran are not limited to preventive military strikes, regime change, or doing nothing. A more promising option would have four key components. First, deter Iran from ever using its nuclear weapons. Second, prevent Iran from using its nuclear status to increase its influence in the region. Third, engage Iran in a meaningful way that encourages the creation of a government friendly to the United States and its regional allies, one that does not sponsor terrorism. Finally, such a policy should reassure US allies in the region that America’s commitment to their security is steadfast. This four-pronged strategy would do a better job of protecting American interests in the region than any military strike or forcible regime change.

Deter

America’s overriding concern regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program is that these weapons are never used against the United States or its allies. Fortunately, the strategy of nuclear deterrence can go a long way in resolving this problem. The threat of annihilation as the result of an American retaliatory strike can be a powerful deterrent. As the United States and the Soviet Union discovered during the Cold War and as India and Pakistan have recently learned, the threat of nuclear retaliation makes the use of such weapons problematic.

The central question in any debate over America’s policies toward a nuclear Iran is whether or not the regime in Tehran is deterrable. If in fact it is, then deterrence is a less costly and risky strategy than prevention. Proponents of the preventive use of military force argue, as did the alarmists in the late 1940s with regard to the Soviet Union and in the early 1960s about China, that Iran is a revolutionary state seeking to export its destabilizing ideology. For these analysts Iran is often depicted as a regime of religious zealots that cannot be deterred because they are willing to accept an apocalyptic end to any conflict.5

While Iran’s track record with regard to its foreign policy does indicate a regime that is hostile to America, nothing would indicate that Iran is beyond the realm of nuclear deterrence. The bulk of the revolutionary fervor demonstrated by the Islamic Republic during its infancy died during the long war with Iraq. Moreover, the power of nuclear deterrence lies in the fact that precise calculations and cost and benefit analyses are not needed given the overwhelming costs associated with any nuclear exchange. Iranian leaders are rational enough to understand that any use of nuclear weapons against the United States or its allies would result in an overwhelming and unacceptable response.

What about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talking of wiping Israel off the map or the former President Rafsanjani declaring that while Israel could not survive a nuclear war, the Islamic world could survive a nuclear exchange? Fears related to such rhetoric need to be viewed in a historical context. Similar arguments were made about the Soviets and Chinese as they developed their nuclear arsenals. The fear of many Cold War hawks was that the Kremlin was run by ideologues. Wasn’t it a fact that they did not shirk while watching 25 million of their own killed in World War II; nor did they flinch while millions more were murdered in internal purges? This demonstrated, many argued, that the Soviet leadership would be impervious to the logic of mutually assured destruction. Indeed, at times Mao Tse-Tung offered strikingly similar rhetoric to that coming out of Tehran today. He also boasted about how China could afford to lose millions in a nuclear exchange and still emerge victorious.6 Such worries turned out to be baseless with regard to the Soviets and the Chinese, and such rhetoric proved to be just that, rhetoric. While the bizarre views and hostile statements coming from Iran’s current President are cause for concern, one must also be cognizant of the fact that the President of Iran is not the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and, in reality, has little influence over the nuclear program. The Supreme Leader does, however, and Ayatollah Ali Khameni has distanced himself from the most bellicose of Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric.

To counter these ominous tirades one could look to more reassuring statements, such as Supreme Leader Khameni’s argument that nuclear weapons are un-Islamic.7 More enlightening, however, than comparing dueling quotes, is an examination of what Iran has done in terms of its foreign policy. Iran has shown itself to be pragmatic in its actions to protect national interests, foregoing the activities one associates with a religiously driven revolutionary state.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, contrary to expectations, Iran did not seek to export its revolution to parts of the former Soviet Union, understanding that their national interest lay in forging a solid and profitable relationship with Russia. Iran even went so far as to dismiss the war in Chechnya as an internal Russian matter. Similar calculations of national interests led Iran to support Christian Armenia over Muslim Azerbaijan. Following the 1991 Gulf War, Iran did not push for a Shia revolution in Iraq, fearing that the outcome would probably be too dangerous and destabilizing. Following its isolation during the Iran-Iraq War Iran worked vigorously to improve relations with its Gulf neighbors.8

But does Tehran’s antipathy toward the United States and Israel outweigh its long-term national interests? No; indeed, during the Iran-Iraq War Tehran was willing to engage in arms shipments with the United States and Israel in an effort to further its war against Iraq. Given the difficulties the Iranians had with the Taliban, Tehran has also been fairly supportive of the American intervention in Afghanistan, to include offering the United States the use of its airfields and ports.9 While Tehran was less supportive of America’s subsequent intervention in Iraq, the leadership was astute enough to recognize the benefits associated with the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The point of these examples is not to discount any policy differences that Washington has with Tehran, but to stress that Iran is not run by ideologues, rather by a group of pragmatists devoted to protecting Iranian interests. Leaders who are rational enough to understand that the use of nuclear weapons against America would not be in their national interests.

There has also been a good deal of international media reports related to the fear that Iran might provide nuclear weapons to terrorist organizations. Ironically, the very use by Iran of surrogate terrorist organizations, rather than more overt attacks, is evidence that Tehran is sensitive to the calculations associated with the strategy of deterrence. It is also an affirmation that the Iranian leadership is attempting to minimize the risks to its foreign policy objectives. Such acts argue strongly against any possibility that Iran might provide terrorist organizations with nuclear weapons. Any move of this nature carries with it a great amount of risk; Iranians would lose control over the employment of the weapons while still having to worry that they might be blamed and targeted for response.10

Contain

The second pillar of US strategy toward a nuclear Iran should be a policy of containment, to be certain that Iran does not succeed in exercising its nuclear capability as a tool of coercive diplomacy against US or allied interests in the region. Given Iran’s perception of itself as the historically preeminent power in the region, Tehran can be expected to continue its policy attempting to increase its regional influence at the expense of the United States.

How would the possession of a deliverable nuclear weapon impact Tehran’s foreign policy agenda? One possibility is that a nuclear Iran might be more, rather than less, restrained in its regional agenda. If any of Iran’s actions are driven by a sense of insecurity with regard to America’s intentions (or the threat created by a nuclear Pakistan or Israel, even the possibility of a resurgent Iraq), the security that Tehran would gain from having its own nuclear deterrent could make the nation’s leadership less worried about the regional balance of power. Moreover, possession of a nuclear weapon would certainly increase the attention other world-powers paid Iran. The leadership in Tehran would have to continually worry that if any crisis developed involving another nuclear power the potential foe might opt for a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. The fear that even a limited conflict might escalate into a nuclear exchange could make Tehran more cautious across the entire spectrum of conflict.

While such pressures may play a limited role in Iran’s decisionmaking, it would be unwise for the United States to put too much faith in such possibilities. First, Iran’s regional behavior is only partially driven by security fears. Even if Iran believed there was no threat from the United States, its status as a potential regional hegemon gives it incentive to increase its role in regional affairs. Second, while a limited amount of learning related to nuclear crisis management did take place during the Cold War, it took the United States and the Soviets a number of crises to fully appreciate these lessons.11 Although the existence of this Cold War record might enable Iran to learn such lessons more quickly, the limits of vicarious learning offer ample reasons to doubt that Iran will internalize these dictums without experiencing similar crises.

The result is that Iran can probably be expected to continue furthering its regional agenda in an attempt to increase its stature and diminish that of the United States. At least initially, any increased nuclear capability will likely embolden rather than induce caution on the part of Iran’s leadership. Having gone to great lengths and paid significant costs to develop its nuclear capabilities, Iran is likely to continue testing the regional and international waters. Such efforts are bound to create challenges for the United States and its allies. The good news is that nuclear weapons have proven to be poor tools for coercive diplomacy, especially against states that already possess nuclear weapons or who may be allied with a nuclear power. Nuclear weapons have proven to be extraordinarily effective at two tasks: deterring the use of such weapons against other nuclear powers or their allies, and deterring states from directly challenging the vital interests of a nuclear power. Beyond these two critical tasks, however, nuclear weapons have not proven particularly useful as diplomatic tools of intimidation. For the United States and its allies, a policy of containment against Iranian attempts to expand its influence in the region is the correct foreign policy strategy. Certainly, such a strategy far outweighs any policy based on preventive war.

Engage

To advance America’s long-range goal of an Iran that is part of the global economy, at peace with its neighbors, and not supporting terrorism, Washington would be better served by engaging Iran rather than attempting to isolate it. A policy of engagement could take two forms: the establishment of direct diplomatic relations and the encouragement of Iran’s involvement in the global economy.

The United States broke diplomatic ties with Iran in April 1980, during the hostage crisis. The establishment of direct diplomatic ties between the United States and Iran, however, should not be seen as any form of a reward to Iran or as approval of Iranian policies. Nor should the reestablishment of formal relations be seen as the final stage in some sort of grand bargain. Instead, diplomatic relations should be viewed as part of the normal business of conducting America’s foreign policy. There is little reason to doubt that Iran would portray any US initiative to reestablish diplomatic relations as a victory, as Tehran did with the recent moves by the Bush Administration to engage in direct talks related to the situation in Iraq. America should not let fear of such a reaction stand in the way of any initiative that would advance America’s long-term security interests.

Over the years the United States has found that it needs diplomatic relations with hostile states as well as with allies. Such relationships were maintained throughout the Cold War with the Soviet Union, despite numerous crises and conflicts. In the case of Iran the absence of direct governmental links makes it more difficult to deter and contain Iran. Obviously, Iran would have to concur in the reestablishment of any form of diplomatic relations.

Given the number of domestic challenges the Islamic Republic is facing, most notably a tremendous growth in its youthful population, combined with the incompetence and corruption that has marked its stewardship of the Iranian economy, it is hard to imagine that this regime can continue to avoid collapse without significant reform.12 At the same time, there is little reason to expect that a democratic revolution is imminent. The reform movements that seemed so promising in the late 1990s have largely been defeated. The best strategy for revitalizing these movements is to encourage Tehran’s involvement in the world economy, as opposed to further attempts at isolation. Increasing the Iranian people’s exposure to the world economy is much more likely to increase motivation and expand the resources available to any future reform movement. Iran’s eventual inclusion in the World Trade Organization is one of the carrots currently being held out to Iran as part of ongoing negotiations regarding its nuclear program. Such incentives may advance America’s long-term foreign policy goals in the region even if those efforts fail to negate Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon.

Potential economic sanctions against Iran related to its nuclear program need to be carefully addressed. Iran’s stagnant economy, as well as its reliance on the international energy market, make it acutely vulnerable to economic sanctions.13 While the threat of sanctions may be useful in dissuading the development of nuclear weapons, it is less clear that the actual imposition of sanctions would advance US foreign policy interests. While economic sanctions might extract a high toll on the Iranian economy, the reality is that the political effect that accompanies such sanctions often strengthens, rather than undermines, a regime. Sanctions tend to increase a government’s control over the country’s economic activity, thereby starving potential opponents of resources. Sanctions can also create a "rally round the flag" effect that permits a regime to blame international hostility for the state’s internal weaknesses.14

In the case of a nuclear Iran, sanctions are only likely to be useful under a fairly stringent set of circumstances. To significantly impact Iran’s economy, any sanctions regime would have to be multilateral and include at a minimum the United States, European Union, Russia, and China. Sanctions would also have to be properly targeted against the leadership of the current regime and not structured in such a manner as to inflict indiscriminate damage to Iran’s economy. Finally, penalties inflicted by the sanctions need be directly attributable to the regime’s development of nuclear weapons.

Creating sanctions that meet these requirements would not be easy. The importance of Iran as a market for Russia and an energy supplier to China makes any sanctions regime a tough sell in Moscow and Beijing. The complicated and often opaque nature of Iranian domestic politics also presents a challenge to the development of "smart sanctions." Finally, given the distrust that exists in Iran regarding the history of external interventions, it is doubtful that any sanctions regime would be interpreted as anything except another attempt to interfere in internal politics. In all likelihood, the United States would be better off by not making sanctions the focal point for its policies regarding a nuclear Iran. Engagement has often proven to be a surer path to regime evolution than economic isolation.15

Reassure Iran’s Neighbors

The final portion of a US strategy toward a nuclear-armed Iran should focus on convincing Iran’s neighbors that the American commitment to their security remains strong. If the United States wants regional powers to resist Iranian attempts at expanding its influence, then Washington needs to bolster security ties in the region. Improving security cooperation with Iran’s neighbors could advance a number of American interests beyond simple containment. Such efforts could also help increase the security of the oil infrastructure in the region, as well as expand intelligence cooperation related to international terrorism.

A more definite US security commitment to Iran’s neighbors may also decrease the chance that the development of a nuclear weapon would increase the threat of nuclear proliferation in the region. Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia have been cited as states likely to respond to any Iranian nuclear capability with increased nuclear programs. Egypt, however, has been able to tolerate a nuclear Israel for more than 30 years, as well as accommodate Libya’s weapons programs. Given that historical precedent, it is unlikely that an Iranian bomb would dramatically change Cairo’s calculations. Similarly, Turkey’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its desire to join the European Union are likely to dissuade Ankara from attempting to join the nuclear fraternity. Saudi Arabia and the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, however, would more than likely attempt to strengthen security ties with the United States in an effort to bolster their position against a nuclear Iran.

Part of America’s strategy regarding regional allies needs to focus on assuring individual states that as long as Iran is contained, the United States will not take any preventive military action. While the Gulf States certainly would prefer that Iran not develop nuclear weapons, it is also important to recognize that they fear any US-Iranian conflict more than they fear the prospect of a nuclear Iran.16 America’s most promising strategy toward a nuclear-armed Iran should be the development of a security architecture based on deterrence and containment.

Conclusion

The United States should be under no illusions regarding the problems that a nuclear-armed Iran would present. The challenges that development would pose for American interests in the region would be monumental and lasting. The strategy of deterrence, containment, engagement, and reassurance provides the framework for achieving America’s long-term regional objectives. Such a strategy would minimize disruptions to the international flow of oil, blunt Iran’s attempts at regional hegemony, stabilize US efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and aid in countering the global war on terrorism. Ultimately, it will provide the time that reformers in Iran need to recast the Iranian government from within. It is this reformation of Iran’s government that will offer the best guarantee for preserving America’s interests in the region.

When US diplomat George Kennan proposed the doctrine of containment against the Soviet Union at the outset of the Cold War, he argued that Soviet diplomacy was:

At once easier and more difficult to deal with than the diplomacy of aggressive leaders like Napoleon and Hitler. On the one hand it is more sensitive to contrary force, more ready to yield on individual sectors of the diplomatic front when that force was felt to be too strong, and thus more rational in the logic and rhetoric of power. On the other hand it cannot be easily defeated or discouraged by a single victory on the part of its opponents.... [I]t can be effectively countered not by sporadic acts which represent the momentary whims of democratic opinion, but only by intelligent long-range policies.17

Admittedly, the Iran of today is quite different than the Soviet Union of the 1940s. It represents what is at best a regional rather than a global challenge, and its distinctive Persian and Shia ideologies are likely to have limited appeal abroad. These differences aside, Kennan’s insight still applies. Iranian nuclear ambitions can best be deterred by means of an intelligent long-range foreign policy, not the threat of military intervention.

NOTES

1. On regime evolution versus regime change, see Richard N. Haass, "Regime Change and Its Limits," Foreign Affairs, 84 (July/August 2005), 68.

2. James Fallows, "The Nuclear Power Beside Iraq," The Atlantic Monthly, May 2006, 32.

3. Quoted in Kamram Taremi, "Iranian Foreign Policy Towards Occupied Iraq, 2003-2005," Middle East Policy, 12 (Winter 2005), 42.

4. For examples of those who argue that decisive military action against Iran could cause a favorable regime change, see Arthur Herman, "Getting Serious About Iran: A Military Option," Commentary, 122 (November 2006), 28-32 and Norman Podhoretz, "The Case for Bombing Iran," Commentary, 123 (June 2007), 17-23.

5. For example, see Bernard Lewis, "August 22," Wall Street Journal, 8 August 2006, A10; William Kristol, "It’s Our War," The Weekly Standard, 24 July 2006; Charles Krauthammer, "The Tehran Calculus," The Washington Post, 15 September 2006, A19; and Efraim Inbar, "The Need to Block a Nuclear Iran," Middle East Review of International Affairs, 10 (March 2006), 85-105.

6. On the comparison between Iran’s rhetoric on nuclear weapons and earlier statements from Mao, see Ray Takeyh, "Confronting Iran: Take Ahmadinejad with a Grain of Salt," The Los Angeles Times, 19 November 2006, M1.

7. Kenneth M. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America (New York: Random House, 2004), 237; and Michael Eisenstadt, "Deter and Contain: Dealing with a Nuclear Iran" in Henry Sokolski and Patrick Clawson, eds., Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran (Carlisle, Pa.: US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, October 2005), 227-29.

8. See Ray Takeyh, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic (New York: Times Books, 2006), 59-82; Robert O. Freedman, "Putin, Iran, and the Nuclear Weapons Issue," Problems of Post-Communism, 53 (March/April 2006), 41; and Mohsen M. Milani, "Iran: The Status Quo Power," Current History, 104 (January 2005), 30-36.

9. Pollack, 346-47.

10. For a discussion of the issues involved in deterring states from supplying nuclear weapons to terrorists, see Caitlin Talmadge, "Deterring a Nuclear 9/11," Washington Quarterly, 30 (Spring 2007), 21-34.

11. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., "Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet Security Regimes," International Organization, 41 (Summer 1987), 389-90.

12. Ray Takeyh and Nikolas K. Gvosdev, "Pragmatism in the Midst of Iranian Turmoil," Washington Quarterly, 27 (Autumn 2004), 33-56; Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr, "The Conservative Consolidation in Iran," Survival, 47 (Summer 2005), 175-90; and Jahangir Amuzegar, "Iran’s Theocracy under Siege," Middle East Policy, 10 (Spring 2003), 135-52.

13. Kenneth Pollack and Ray Takeyh, "Taking on Tehran," Foreign Affairs, 84 (March/April 2005), 20-34; and Abbas Milani, "U.S. Foreign Policy and the Future of Democracy in Iran," Washington Quarterly, 28 (Summer 2005), 41-56.

14. See, for example, Meghan L. O’Sullivan, Shrewd Sanctions: Statecraft and State Sponsors of Terrorism (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), especially 284-320.

15. Haass, 71.

16. Judith S. Yaphe and Charles D. Lutes, Reassessing the Implications of a Nuclear-Armed Iran (Washington: National Defense Univ., Institute for National Strategic Studies, McNair Paper #69, August 2005), 19.

17. X [George Kennan], "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs, 25 (July 1947), 575.

Dr. Christopher Hemmer received his doctorate from Cornell University. He currently serves as an Associate Professor of International Security Studies at the Air War College. He is the author of Which Lessons Matter? American Foreign Policy Decision Making in the Middle East, 1979-1987.

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Ninety years since the Russian Revolution: The prospects for socialism in the twenty-first century (2)

By Nick Beams
World Socialist Web Site, 26/11/07

The origins of Bolshevism lay not in the attempt of Lenin to fashion a dictatorship, as the various right-wing historians maintain, but in the far-reaching conclusions he drew from the struggle waged in the socialist movement against the conceptions of Bernstein and his followers in the Russian movement, the so-called Economists.

Responding to the growth of the Russian working class and its rising militancy—a product of the industrial boom of the 1890s—the Economists maintained that the task of the party was to organise the economic struggle and, where necessary, give it an immediate political character, in the form of demands for reforms. In other words, the Economists’ perspective was to steer the socialist movement in Russia into the channels of trade unionism.

This, however, involved a fundamentally opposed class orientation and perspective, because trade unionism—the struggle of workers against their employers for better wages and conditions, and even for legislation to protect their interests—never goes beyond the framework of capitalist society.

In his book What is to be Done? Lenin established that the necessity for the party, and the character of its political tasks, arose from the very structure of capitalist society.

While the working class spontaneously gravitated towards socialism, the ideology of the bourgeoisie nevertheless spontaneously re-imposed itself. This was because that ideology had existed for hundreds of years, because it was sustained by the basic social relations of capitalism, and because the ruling classes held the material foundations of culture in their hands.

Accordingly, Lenin insisted, an organised struggle had to be waged to bring socialism into the working class from without—that is, from outside the immediate conflict between the working class and the employers. In this lay the historic task of the party.

More than 100 years on, there is no conception that draws greater fire from the opponents of Marxism than this. Those who are on the "left", begin by pointing out that Marx had insisted that the emancipation of the working class was the task of the working class itself. They then go on to assert that Lenin substituted the role of the working class with professional revolutionaries, who exercised a dictatorship over the working class.

In fact, there is no contradiction between Marx and Lenin. The socialist revolution can only be carried out by the working class. But the working class can only emancipate itself, and the whole of humanity, if it acts as a politically independent force. That political independence is established and re-established through the continuous struggle waged by the revolutionary party against all those political tendencies that try, in one way or another, to subordinate the working class to the capitalist order.

Lenin’s opponents within the socialist movement repeatedly attacked him for his "quarrelsome" attitude, "hair-splitting", "sectarianism" and "dogmatism"—in short all the charges that opportunists have leveled against Marxists ever since.

Lenin’s intransigence was based on a definite political conception: that the differences within the socialist movement were not disputes over words, but expressed the pressure of different class forces and tendencies. His conception was to be powerfully vindicated in the course of the explosive events that were to lead to the Russian Revolution.

Bernstein’s attack on the Marxist perspective—his denial of any tendency within capitalism towards breakdown, and hence the necessity of socialist revolution—flowed from the upswing in the fortunes of capitalism from the mid-1890s.

But there was another, no less powerful, shift in the structure of world economy and politics that was also to exert a major influence. The last quarter of the nineteenth century saw two interconnected processes: the formation and consolidation of the nation-state system in Western Europe, and the growth of the working class, resulting from the expansion of industrialisation within the new political framework.

Marx had located the origins of the socialist revolution in the conflict between the growth of the productive forces of capitalism and the old social relations within which they had become trapped. While he had emphasised that capitalism developed as a world-historic force, his analysis was increasingly interpreted in a rather mechanical fashion. The starting point became, not the world economy, but the framework of the newly developed national states.

As Trotsky was later to explain, that was how the socialist parties of the Second International conceived of the socialist revolution. The hour of socialism would arrive when the productive forces within each national state had developed to their fullest extent. In this view, the major countries of Europe—Britain, Germany, Italy, France and Russia—were regarded as separate entities, moving towards the same destination, but at different points along the track. Germany was in the lead, the others were following behind, and Russia, still ruled by a feudal aristocracy and awaiting a bourgeois revolution, was a long way back.

Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution

The first Russian Revolution in 1905 shattered the foundations of this historical schema. Strikes and demonstrations, the like of which had never been seen, erupted against the tsarist autocracy, signifying the emergence of a new era. Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, elaborated in the course of the tumultuous events themselves, provided both an understanding of what was taking place and a perspective for intervening. Like all developments in Marxist theory, his creative response was grounded on a profound historical analysis.

Every Marxist agreed that Russia faced a bourgeois revolution—in other words, that the central political task was to overthrow the tsarist autocracy and establish the democratic freedoms that had been won in the West. But how was this to be carried out? Russia was not the France of 1789, where the revolution was led by the bourgeoisie, at the head of the masses of Paris and the peasantry, and where the working class had not yet come into existence. Nor was it the Germany of 1848, where the emergence of the working class was enough to frighten the bourgeoisie into the camp of reaction, but where the working class was not sufficiently powerful to take power into its own hands.

Russia faced a bourgeois revolution ... but where were the Russian equivalents of the French revolutionists, Danton and Robespierre? They did not exist. And there were no concentrations of artisans and craftsmen, petty producers in the cities, as there had been in Paris. Instead, there were masses of industrial workers.

Plekhanov, the father of Russian Marxism, insisted that Russia’s development had to follow the path taken by Western Europe. Accordingly, the working class had to proceed with "tact", so as not to frighten the bourgeoisie and prevent it from carrying out its designated historical task—the bourgeois revolution.

Lenin, while agreeing with Plekhanov on the bourgeois character of the Russian Revolution, penetrated more deeply into its class dynamics. The bourgeoisie, he insisted, was incapable of carrying out the role assigned to it in Plekhanov’s schema. The working class would have to take forward the most radical form of the bourgeois democratic revolution.

At the heart of the Russian Revolution was the agrarian question—namely, the overthrow of all the remnants of the feudal state. This meant that the landholdings of the nobility, on which that state rested, had to be expropriated. Lenin argued that the bourgeois-democratic revolution would therefore take the form of the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry". The proletariat and the peasantry would share state power and would carry forward the bourgeois-democratic revolution to its fullest extent.

Trotsky’s perspective differed with those of Lenin and Plekanhov, and it involved a fundamental shift in perspective. Both Lenin and Plekhanov, notwithstanding the differences between them, shared a common starting point: they assessed the revolution according to the level of development, and the relation of class forces, inside Russia. Trotsky insisted that the revolution had to be assessed from the world situation within which it was unfolding.

Trotsky shared Lenin’s assessment of the Russian bourgeoisie and his criticism of Plekhanov on that question. But he went further and pointed to the weakness in Lenin’s position. The formulation of the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry" did not address the question of which class would play the leading role.

Lenin’s perspective was, he noted, a kind of self-denying ordinance: the proletariat having come to power would have to stop at purely democratic measures and not challenge the power of the bourgeoisie. But this schema would be contradicted by the dynamic of the revolution itself. The working class would be compelled, by the logic of its own struggle, to take political power and overthrow the bourgeoisie. That was one of the lessons of the revolution of 1905, when the bourgeoisie resisted purely democratic demands such as the eight-hour day with closures and lockouts. In order to secure such democratic demands the working class would have to wrest political power from the bourgeoisie and initiate socialist measures.

But the question then arose: How could the working class maintain power when it formed only a minority of Russia’s population, and was vastly outnumbered by the peasantry?

Considered from the standpoint of the situation within Russia, Trotsky’s perspective was unviable. But that was just the problem ... the revolution could not be correctly conceived from the standpoint of Russia alone, but only within the world context. Then altogether different conclusions followed.

The proponents of the schema advanced by Plekhanov were wont to cite Marx’s comments that the development of capitalism in England showed the future of every country—the implication being that Russia had some considerable distance to travel before it would come to the socialist revolution.

Trotsky replied that this was to interpret Marx in a completely mechanical way. The development of English capitalism was not a kind of stereotype that other nations would have to follow. It was necessary to analyse the processes of capitalist development in the spirit of Marx himself. Then it was clear that the development of capitalism in Britain was not some kind of model for other nations, but rather the start of an economic process that had outgrown the framework within which it had initially developed—in Britain—and now embraced the whole world.

In June 1905 Trotsky elaborated his perspective: "Binding all countries together with its mode of production and commerce, capitalism has converted the whole world into a single economic and political organism. Just as modern credit binds thousands of undertakings by invisible ties and gives to capital an incredible mobility which prevents many small bankruptcies but which at the same time is the cause of the unprecedented sweep of general economic crises, so the whole economic and political effort of capitalism, its world trade, its system of monstrous state debts, and the political grouping of nations which draw all the forces of reaction into a kind of world-wide joint-stock company, had not only resisted all individual political crises, but also prepared the basis for a social crisis of unheard-of dimensions. ...

"This immediately gives the events now unfolding an international character, and opens up a wide horizon. The political emancipation of Russia led by the working class will raise that class to a height as yet unknown in history, will transfer to it colossal power and resources, and will make it the initiator of the liquidation of world capitalism, for which history has created all the objective conditions" (Leon Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution and Results and Prospects, pp. 239-240).

World War I

All the issues of program and perspective that had arisen in the course of the 1905 revolution were to emerge in an even more explosive form in August 1914, when the long simmering tensions among the capitalist great powers erupted in World War I. The outbreak of war marked the end of the historically progressive phase of capitalist development and the opening of a new epoch in which, as Frederick Engels had warned, mankind was faced with the prospect of socialism or barbarism.

It is difficult to convey the scope of the violence, as young men, some little more than boys, were sent over the top, day in day out, to be mown down by machine gun fire. From the cell where she had been imprisoned by the German imperial government, Rosa Luxemburg described the unfolding catastrophe.

"The scene has thoroughly changed. The six weeks’ march to Paris has become a world drama. Mass murder has become a monotonous task, and yet the final solution is not one step nearer. Capitalist rule is caught in its own trap, and cannot ban the spirit that it has invoked.

"Gone is the first mad delirium. ...The show is over. The curtain has fallen on trains filled with reservists, as they pull out amid the joyous cries of enthusiastic maidens. We no longer see their laughing faces, smiling cheerily from the train windows upon a war-mad population. Quietly they trot through the streets, with their sacks upon their shoulders. And the public, with a fretful face, goes about its daily task.

"Into the disillusioned atmosphere of pale daylight there rings a different chorus; the hoarse croak of the hawks and hyenas of the battlefield. ... the cannon fodder that was loaded upon the trains in August and September is rotting on the battlefields of Belgium and the Vosges, while profits are springing, like weeds, from the fields of the dead. ...

"Shamed, dishonoured, wading in blood and dripping with filth, thus capitalist society stands. Not as we usually see it, playing the roles of peace and righteousness, of order, of philosophy, of ethics—[but] as a roaring beast, as an orgy of anarchy, as a pestilent breath, devastating culture and humanity—so it appears in all its hideous nakedness."

With the outbreak of war, Trotsky deepened the analysis he had advanced in 1905. The war was a result of the eruption of the contradiction between world economy—the growth of capitalism as a world system, with every part tied to the whole—and the division of the world into rival and conflicting nation states. Each of the capitalist great powers sought to resolve this contradiction by establishing itself as a world power, leading to the struggle of each against all. The contradictions of the capitalist economy could only be solved on a progressive basis through the world socialist revolution, not as some distant perspective, but as the only realistic answer to the barbarism of imperialism.

The outbreak of war established the objective significance of the intransigent struggle waged by Lenin inside the Russian social democratic movement against opportunism.

The parties of the Second International—above all the German Social Democratic Party, the largest section of the Second International—betrayed the working class by voting for war credits. This historic betrayal demonstrated that the tendencies Lenin had fought were not some Russian phenomenon, but existed on an international scale.

These tendencies had their roots in the historical development of capitalism. The same processes that had led to the global struggle of the major capitalist powers had also led to the corruption of the leaderships of an upper stratum within the workers’ movement. The resources plundered from the colonies, the development of financial parasitism, formed the material foundations for the creation of a labour aristocracy.

Social chauvinism, the open abandonment of internationalism and the collaboration of the social democratic leaders with their "own" bourgeoisie could not be put down to the individual failings of individual leaders. The betrayal was not an individual, but a social phenomenon. It was necessary to uncover its material roots.

"The bourgeoisie of all the big powers are waging the war to divide and exploit the world, and oppress other nations. A few crumbs of the bourgeoisie’s huge profits may come the way of the small group of labour bureaucrats, labour aristocrats, and petty-bourgeois fellow travellers. Social chauvinism and opportunism have the same class basis, namely, the alliance of a small section of privileged workers with ‘their’ national bourgeoisie against the working-class masses; the alliance between the lackeys of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie against the class the latter is exploiting" (Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 22, p. 112).

The leaders of the Second International had betrayed the working class in supporting the war, and the International could not be revived. It was dead so far as the socialist revolution was concerned. It was necessary to found a new international, the Third International, to re-organise and reorient the international workers’ movement.

Lenin first made this proposal, not in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, but in 1914-15 under conditions of extreme isolation. As Trotsky later explained, it appeared that internationalism had "disappeared at once in the fire and smoke of the international carnage". And when it did reappear "like a dim flickering light" from separate groups in different countries, it was written off by the various representatives of the bourgeoisie as the dying remains of some kind of Utopian sect.

But the revolutionary internationalists, in contradistinction to all the opportunists of their day—and of ours—did not proceed according to what appeared to be immediately realisable at the time, or what seemed to command support. They based themselves on the objective logic of events. The masses had been deceived by the bourgeoisie, which had used every foul and reactionary national prejudice in support of its war aims. They had been betrayed by their own leaders. But the bourgeoisie could not meet the needs of the masses, whose disillusionment would soon unleash social and political upheavals on an international scale.

To be continued

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Criminal More (Formerly) Enjoy Democracy

Indonesia and Policies Lesson after Reformation 1998
Criminal More (Formerly) Enjoy Democracy

By: Wawan Kurniawan

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap" (Napoleon Bonaparte)

Title above be a message title at a one Indonesia biggest newspaper daily, Kompas (01/12/05, yard g), meagrely pemodifikasian from author. Appear question: does true such? May be. Democracy opens opportunity to every strength to come up at public policies space. Not only that, democracy makes whoever, belong criminal, hold power and restrain government, sure on condition that if he gets belief and people choose it.

Quit of question, does he get that belief with money, charisma, media engineer, or to be parasite in certain policies party, if pocket voice nest as according to vote treshold, swing him be people deputy or executive leadership at some level. For criminal, insignificant its way, important the result. If anyway there law and rule, the willing to follow and obey only merely proforma merely.

Defect moral should load only operative outside policies arena. Only fulfilled by particles profan that overcrowd honest ones. machiavellisme necessity. True what said Benjamin Disraeli, "In politics there is no honor".

Our Young Democracy

Democracy in indonesia not democracy that find the finals form as in United America or English. Democracy history both of them has long tradition: tens even hundreds years. Word freedom and right there [are] in inauguration speech george washington in 30 Aprils 1789.

They have many experiences handles ekses democracy, one of them with brace legal authority. One of [the] example axis court that can reach out for white house. Case I Lewis Libby (vice president staff head Cheney) government important official example that can be fished by axis law. Meanwhile, indonesia court (only) can fish to who? you have known the answer.

From time observation, indonesia democracy stills young aged. democracy youthfullness implicates in disability overcomes horizontal conflict like ethnic conflict and religion (Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, 2004). Why does that thing can happen? In young democracy, easiest road to gets support (voice) with exploit resource policies shaped grudges primordial communities likes tribe, ethnic, regional, and religion. Sometimes, without pay even also, those grudges is spin-in the strongly with public emotional spirit and delegation willing indentity. Therefore, it is not strange, case Poso and Ambon still blaze in husk through years the long. International Religious Freedom Report 2005 that is made by US Department of State stills to register second that place name in sub title abuses of religious freedom (state.gov, 08/11/05).

In young democracy also operative doesn't brook difference. When one group be winner then hold power, operative policies attitude" sweep the board" ; prohibit to present it group other. Or, if not so, policies koersi be choice. With the result that, there two effects dependent: first, when appear opposition, existing extreme opposition with special typology: enemy must fall as soon as it pass manner everything. Fareed Zakaria describe that as situation that this does not have to happen, but often does. Second, faksionalisasi acute. This happen in one organization which is on initially visible solid. But, soliditas that leav at the post the destruction time. Particularly, after power cake very sweet that is in hand. Struggle between faction in one organization even also happen. Group makes group again, chip makes chip again. This phenomenon can be seen in several parpol and mass organization in indonesia.


One matter again, in young democracy, the idealism of Robert Dahl may there may not. Dahl (1999) in the book On Democracy idealize democracy can prevent power autocrat unrighteous and cruel, guarantee rights base citizen, protect people main importance, prepare to chance vast for selfdetermination, push human development, aim kesederajatan policies, promoting peace, emphasized moral responsibility, and produce welfare.

Is age democracy bring influence in progress or triumph a country? Yes. Eldest democracy at world richest nations at world (Michael McFaul, Democracy Promotion as a World Value, The Washington Quarterly, Winter 2004-2005). At that nations, democracy is assumed as value that influence patterned thinking and daily action, beside also as government system. For indonesia, we must admit democracy here still only as government system. Our democracy is (still)s democracy to fear society, not to free society.

Elite Democracy

At government system model and ideology whatevers, always there influential person nest that is called elite. At communist country, elite communist party daily boards. At monarchy country, palace circle centre elite. In also democracy" admit" that, although more diaspora and also permit elite opposition.

In best democracy at world now, that is US, elite front neokonservatif that cover government official, right religious (Christian right), iindustrialist, and conservative intellectual. Daalder and Lindsay in book America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy called that front as hegemons. James Man (2004) menamai they are as vulcan.

They are this is said as a group secret that take over country abroad wisdom strongest at world or a ideology group very little but use power bot quite the ticket to mix into axis connection with country other, make a kingdom and throw away international law (Economist, 26/04/03).

For indonesia society paternalis, elite be past feudal inheritance beside also protection need. People needs pattem as elite need legitimization. With a heavy heart, we must admit that a large part simple operative indonesia people, there are politican who there pattem that can give generosity gas oil, food and clothing sufficiency, job field space, housing ease, without necessary look at to who and how does that pattem. thereby criminals smile.

Then, where good people who and honest. They are alone. Eliminate to corner of live. They become patient at home ill. Such as those which said Horace Mann, "We go by the major vote, and if the majority are insane, the sane must go to the hospital."

(Sidoarjo, East Java, 27/12/05)

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Indonesia and Corruption (More) Acute

Indonesia and Corruption (More) Acute
by: Wawan Kurniawan

Transparency International Indonesia (TII) gives year-end present bitter to indonesian. After international accomplishment" honourable" that is sixth corrupt position from 159 countries, TII take aim deeper to internal institutions. The result, policies party is corrupt institution at this country is followed by parliament, police, customs, court, judiciary, and tax (Jawa Pos, 24/12/05). While in 2004, TII laid customs and court is first and second.

When comparated with TII report in the early year 2005 with subject same that laid customs, police, and TNI (Tentara Nasional Indonesia/Indonesia National Military) in position one, two, and three (Jawa Pos, 18/02/05), there new institutions that step into corruption arena and surprisingly (correcter said ironic) direct leading (lead).

TNI downs from top three. Necessary payed, economy social foundations that move be shelter TNI still to managed fund big enough. There guess corruption also happen at foundations.

Customs, court, and police stills to survive. Customs is one of [the] income centre (revenue center) government. Person traffic and goods is permanent source with big income.

Also hold rein monitoring smuggling. import luxurious car smuggling case some time then, they say involve officers police, pull public attention. And so it is with case oil ilegal. Latest, rice import case that being processed.

Report agreement result LPEM UI (Universitas Indonesia/Indonesia University) and World Bank mentions there corruption 7 milliards at customs, while TII declare there leakage 23 milliards. Bo wonder when does president imply repair in customs body.

Police as case investigator institution even be case producer institution. Begin from import luxurious car case, money miliaran in bill 15 top brass persons pati(high officer as general) by report Pusat Pelaporan dan Analisa Transaksi Keuangan (Reporting Centre and Finance Transaction Analysis) (Jawa Pos, 04/08/05), markup project radio network and communication development means as big as Rp 60,2 milliards (on report Blora Center), ship deliverance smuggler oil at Jawa Timur (East Java) in September, then up to bribe case BNI (Bank Nasional Indonesia/Indonesia National Bank) 46 that penetrated 1,3 triliun. Three pati essences is ascertained related to this government bank case.

Same thing happens at court and MA (Mahkamah Agung/Supreme Court). From case sales, judge deviation, up to mafia court that cover structural official also functional. Andi Andojo who come famous because his bravely to open court corruption case, ever say if suppose building walls MA can speak, they will testify about various" rot" in place MA that.

Parable pat water at belanga face splash self, corruption at police, court, and MAx more tarnish excpectation law enforment at this country. Why expect legal institutiion if those institutions monkey law as delicious as it.

New Player

For class realist, policies struggle to get power (Morgenthau, 1985: 27). Harold Lasswell (1936) said that with term "who gets to what, when, and how" (who gets what, when, and how). That mean party is tool gets power.

In word other, policies party principal function looks for and defend power (Ramlan Subakti, 1999: 116) although has function derivation likes articulation, agregate, socialization, recruitment, participation, guide, communication, and policies controller. And power, follow Soltau in dAn Introduction to Politics, the capacity to make one's will prevail over that of others, even against these others wills. Meanwhile, follow Alfred de Grazia in The Elements of Political Science, power is the control over disposition of valued things.

Based on two explanations about that power, perceivable that any function derivation parpol has only one estuary, that is exploitation. Because eksploitatif here's parpol be corruption source. Lord acton called that with expression" power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" . If parpol corrupt, parliament as automatic the environment is corrupt.

Year 2005 be year punishment to all period legislative member 1999-2004. So they are finished hold a position, corruption whom they do forced open along that function time ending. They are malefactor at trial and final menetap at jail. Does same thing happen at year 2010 when does member DPR (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat/National Representative) and DPRD (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah/Regional Representative) period 2004-2009 finished the task time? i don't know.

Not yet counted also corruption at departement, BUMN (Badan Usaha Milik Negara/State Ownership Corporation), LSM (Lembaga Swadaya Masyarakat/NGO), and privat enterprise. Clear, corruption long has gnawed this nation at every layer. Corruption makes us more fall and weak. Corruption causess massif poverty (there around 40 million poor person), minimize natural resources, wane it state's stock exchange, the porous national security defense, high education cost, enlarge abroad debt, and strengthen dependence in foreign aid.

With honour taste, we have haved nation-take term Kwik Kian Gie (2003)-flipper that lose independence because corruption. Indonesia is banana republic.

(Sidoarjo, East Java, 25/12/05)

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Putin's Power Vacuum

By Masha Lipman
Washington Post, 14/07/07

There's a sea of rumors and theories raging about the Russian presidential succession and what Vladimir Putin would do after-and if-he stepped down. The diversity of theories is impressive, illustrating how unpredictable and potentially unstable the situation may become. The range of guesses made by pundits, Kremlin insiders, political analysts and experts at home and abroad is getting broader, not narrower, as the election draws nearer. Moreover, those who venture guesses don't seem to be basing them on even partial knowledge; rather, it's a desire by each to sound more interesting than the other guy.

The list of potential successors starts with the prime minister's two deputies, Sergei Ivanov and Dmitri Medvedev, whom Putin has pushed to the fore. Both have been given ample television coverage and have become generally popular, though if Putin changes his mind, the public will be "informed" who the new favorites are by a shift in coverage.

There's no shortage of hypotheses about who the real candidate may be if, as a common theory goes, Ivanov and Medvedev are merely meant to divert the public's attention. Policy moves, Putin's casual remarks or any reshuffling in the top tiers of officialdom are being scrutinized for clues regarding the future configuration of power.

The pool of Putin's potential "heirs" also includes the chairman of the railroad monopoly, the Kremlin chief of staff, a prominent regional governor, the prime minister and the mayor of St. Petersburg as well as a few other high office-holders.

The guessing game has spread far beyond the circles of serious political analysts. This week Echo Moskvy, a popular political radio station, asked listeners to pick their dream president from figures in classic Russian literature.

Those too cautious to make concrete predictions speculate on whether the new president will be weak, so that Putin would remain the decision-maker even after stepping down, or strong, meaning Putin would have to exit Russian politics.

This leads to another field of guesswork, regarding Putin's future employment. While former U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski sees Putin as a "colleague, a boss or a deputy of [Gerhard] Schroeder" (the German ex-chancellor now serving as chairman of a prospective Russian-German gas pipeline), some Russians envision Putin as chairman of the International Olympic Committee. Others believe he will become prime minister; chief justice of the Constitutional Court; head of the Russian Security Council; chairman of a massive charity fund; leader of the biggest pro-Kremlin party; or chairman of the two biggest Russian energy companies, which would merge so that Putin would be at the helm of the world's largest energy company.

Obviously, such speculation is pointless. What we are trying to figure out is not the result of an interplay of interests represented in democratic institutions-Russian politics has been deinstitutionalized so that no institution is relevant except the omnipotent president and his top aides. We're trying to guess the workings of one man's brain, a man to whom secrecy is a primary concern.

As political analysts try to guess whom he'll anoint-and the Russian people stand ready to accept any choice he makes-Putin generally declines to comment. When he does answer questions, he dismisses talk about succession or anointment. Russia will have a competition like any other democratic country, he said a few months ago.

The two men regarded, at least for now, as the leading possible successors also pretend not to understand what this successor jive is about. This year, Ivanov said he was too busy with his current job to worry about the presidential race. "I don't think about this at all," he said.

He's right not to think about it, because what he-or anyone else-thinks is of secondary importance. The decision will be Putin's, and whether he's chosen yet is anybody's guess. Even four years ago the Kremlin already had full control over who would-and wouldn't-run for president. The 2004 race was farcical, so much so that the speaker of parliament's upper house, who was running for president himself but declared he was a supporter of Putin, explained his candidacy by saying that "when a leader who is trusted goes into battle, he must not be left alone. One must stand beside him."

This time the election may again be a farce, but the stakes are high. The political upper class has evolved into groups with conflicting interests. Putin has been able to maintain balance among them, but when he is no longer able to serve as arbiter, their struggle for power and property may break the fragile stability. Moreover, during Putin's tenure, many long-overdue reforms were suspended, and the quality of governance has deteriorated. Putin's successor will inherit heavy burdens. But the way this person is likely to be selected leaves little chance that he'll rise to the task.

Masha Lipman, editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Pro et Contra journal, writes a monthly column for The Washington Post.

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Russia's political roulette

By Ariel Cohen, Ph.D.
Heritage Foundation, 27/04/07

Boris Yeltsin, who passed away April 23 at age 76, was an unlikely revolutionary. A successful member of the Soviet ruling class, he did his utmost to bring down the communist system. In the process he led the dismantlement of the Soviet Union, attempting to create, for the first time in Russia's 1,000-year history, a modern nation state. He almost succeeded.
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Mr. Yeltsin, the son and grandson of peasants from the Ural Mountains, who were punished by Josef Stalin, was a loyal apparatchik in the big industrial city of Sverdlovsk, the heart of the Soviet military-industrial complex. He zealously overfulfilled construction quotas and led the effort to destroy the Ipatyev House, where Nicholas Romanov, the last czar, his family and his entourage were held and brutally executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

But when promoted to Moscow under Mikhail Gorbachev to become the country's construction boss and later, Moscow City Communist Party secretary, Mr. Yeltsin became a populist and challenged the ruling Politburo. He was kicked out in 1988, only to return as an elected member of Supreme Soviet and the first competitively elected chairman of the Russian Parliament. In 1991, he convincingly won Russia's presidential election.

Mr. Yeltsin valiantly led the Russian Parliament and the throng of citizens who stood against the Russian tanks of the August 1991 communist hard-liner coup. As the coup failed, Mr. Yeltsin sidelined Mr. Gorbachev and managed the divorce of the Soviet Union member republics, which became final in December 1991. Shortly thereafter, on Christmas Day 1991, the Soviet Union expired.

The new state Mr. Yeltsin led, the Russian Federation, faced empty coffers, pillaged by communists, no working institutions and runaway inflation. Communists and their nationalist allies wanted revenge. The country was in turmoil.

By firing his leading economic reformer Yegor Gaidar in December 1992 and appointing the former gas minister Victor Chernomyrdin as his prime minister, Mr. Yeltsin slowed the pace of reforms and allowed corruption to flourish. Unlike Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Baltic States, Russian reforms were piecemeal and lacked a serious legislative base, which had to be completed later.

Russia also lacked a constitution, while the anti-reform Supreme Soviet threatened to impeach Mr. Yeltsin and tried to amass power. In autumn, 1993, Mr. Yeltsin took his political reform plan to a popular referendum, which he won, and later ordered the Supreme Soviet disbanded. He sent troops to prevent the legislature from gathering. The Supreme Soviet and its supporters attempted an armed insurrection. Mr. Yeltsin's power hanged by a thread for the second time in two years.

Having put down the insurrection, Mr. Yeltsin failed to disband the Communist Party or purge the system of its supporters. Unlike Solidarity leaders in Poland, Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic, and Baltic anticommunists, Mr. Yeltsin was a part and parcel of the old system, and did not and could not fill the government with anticommunists, who, in Russia, also lacked administrative or security experience.

Mr. Yeltsin failed to complete the legal proceedings against the Communist Party; failed to purge security services (crucial for the future); and launched a war against separatist Chechnya, which would play a key role in Russia's slide back to authoritarianism. He never managed to put together an effective economic reform package, and the brief recovery in 1996-1997 ended with the disastrous financial crisis of August, 1998, which brought in the hard-liner Yevgeny Primakov as prime minister and set the reformers back even further.

Still, Mr. Yeltsin did not use power to suppress opposition parties and allowed an unprecedented freedom of the media. After Mr. Primakov was fired, Mr. Yeltsin briefly tried the former Interior Minister Sergey Stepashin as prime minister, only to replace him with a loyal and tough head of the secret police, the Federal Security Service. The new prime minister, appointed in the summer of 1999, was Vladimir Putin.

By then, Mr. Yeltsin's health has deteriorated. He had suffered a couple of heart attacks-both connected to his political battles, the first in 1988, when he was the first man to oppose the Soviet Politburo and came out on top. The second attack happened during the touch-and-go presidential election campaign on 1996, where he closed the gap from low single-digit support in February to win the election in summer. In fall, 1996, Mr. Yeltsin underwent a quintuple bypass. The media and acquaintances reported serious problems with alcohol abuse.

Mr. Yeltsin left Russia weak but relatively free. The country has a diffuse power structure, which includes the presidency, the legislative branch, elected regional governors, and outspoken media. The middle class has started to grow; freedom of religion and movement have been enshrined.

Today, Russia is much wealthier, steadily growing about 7 percent annually since 2000. It has a flat 13 percent income tax and a 24 percent corporate income tax. Foreign investment flows in at an unprecedented rate; capital flight all but stopped.

Mr. Yeltsin, however, failed to secure his most precious gain-freedom-beyond his presidency. The constitution he rammed through in late 1993 granted unprecedented powers to the president. The post-Yeltsin centralization of power includes appointed governors; a pliant parliament; state control of all TV channels and most radio and print media; and the breaking of the oligarchs' political power.

Mass demonstrations that occurred under Messrs. Gorbachev and Yeltsin today are inconceivable, as shown in the recent March of Dissenters, when 9,000 heavily armed riot police broke up 2,000 peaceful demonstrators. While Mr. Yeltsin failed to leave behind a functioning rule of law system, his successors dismantled the little that was left.

Mr. Yeltsin, like his predecessor and successor, is a transitional figure on the long road from Russia's communist empire to some destination we still cannot see.

But we will remember Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin as someone who meant well-and tried to get his country back to the family of nations, to freedom and humanity, so often lacking in Russia's tortured history.

Ariel Cohen is senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the author of "Russian Imperialism: Development and Crisis" (1998).

(First Appeared in Washington times)

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Play ball with Russia

By Dimitri K. Simes
Los Angeles Times, 22/03/07

The Kremlin softened its position on Iran; now it rightfully expects the U.S. to listen up on Kosovo.

Here's some good news: Russia is moving toward cooperating with the United States when it comes to Iran. This week at a Senate hearing, a State Department representative indicated that Russia could be expected to press Iran on the matter of nuclear proliferation. It's also becoming clear that the Kremlin would support further sanctions against Iran and would withhold nuclear fuel from the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But that good news could change.

The Kremlin's movement toward the U.S. position on Iran comes in part from a reluctance to see a nuclear-armed Iran, concern over Ahmadinejad's unpredictability, eagerness to avoid a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and frustration over contractual disputes with Tehran. But it is also a gesture toward the Bush administration and European powers that Moscow wants to be viewed as a responsible player in the world arena.

Now Russia is waiting for the U.S. response on issues important to the Kremlin. First up is the question of independence for the Serbian region of Kosovo. Populated by ethnic Albanians, Kosovo was an integral part of Serbia until 1999, when a U.S.-orchestrated NATO intervention-without a U.N. Security Council mandate-seized the territory and established what is essentially a U.N. protectorate under de facto administration by NATO.

Now, with billions of dollars spent, NATO wants to end its mission. On March 26, the United Nations is expected to consider gradual independence for Kosovo. The Kosovo government has embraced the proposal, but Serbia, which wants to regain control of Kosovo, rejects it. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica complains that by granting Kosovo independence, the United Nations would for the first time formally break up a sovereign member state without its consent.

But much more than the rights of the Serbs and the Kosovars is at stake, and this is where things get complicated. Moscow, which has a veto on the Security Council, has made clear that it will oppose any plan opposed by Serbia. Except, possibly, under one set of circumstances: Moscow could theoretically be persuaded to abstain on the condition that independence would also be granted to pro-Russian separatist enclaves in the country of Georgia.

Like Kosovo vis-a-vis Serbia, those Georgian enclaves-Abkhazia and South Ossetia-have enjoyed effective independence for years, and their populations have lists of grievances against Georgians. Georgia, however, considers them its territory, and Georgia is quickly becoming the No. 1 U.S. client state in the Caucasus.

A reasonable solution would be to find a compromise that would win Serbia's support by either falling short of complete independence or by allowing a few areas of Kosovo to remain in Serbia, thus setting a middle-of-the-road precedent for Georgia's regions as well.

But for an influential group of neoconservatives and liberal interventionists inside and outside the Bush administration, compromise is unacceptable. For them, foreign policy is a morality play; the Russians are the bad guys and should be taught a lesson rather than being "rewarded" with a deal.

Thus, for example, Richard Holbrooke-an architect of the U.S.-led attack on Yugoslavia in 1999-accuses Russia of daring to "defy" the U.S. and its allies on Kosovo and says the issue is "a key test of Russia's relationship with the West." Holbrooke likewise urges that inviting Georgia to join NATO, with South Ossetia and Abkhazia included, should become a "test case of the Western relationship with Russia." It is easy to predict Moscow's reaction.

Meanwhile, Holbrooke has an ally inside the Bush administration-Dan Fried, assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs. Fried maintains that whether Moscow likes it or not, Kosovo will not be a precedent for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. "It just isn't, and it won't be," he declared at a State Department briefing.

The only problem is that although Russia cannot stop Kosovo from becoming independent, it can prevent a Georgian takeover of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Russian military has contingency plans not only to block any possible Georgian offensive into the two territories but to strike back at Georgia proper. For its part, the Georgian parliament has passed a resolution supporting NATO membership, and its parliament speaker, Nino Burjanadze, explained that membership was important because it would help "to restore the territorial sovereignty of Georgia."

It is easy to see where the hard-line American path will lead: a major dispute with Russia over the independence of remote regions that have little to do with U.S. interests. But the dispute itself will have an effect on very important American interests, by undermining efforts to have Russia onboard with American policy toward Iran and as a responsible partner on other issues.

U.S.-Russian relations cannot exist on two parallel tracks: one in which we demand the Kremlin's cooperation on such things as nonproliferation and terrorism, and another in which Russian perspectives are contemptuously dismissed. It's clear which track is best for U.S. interests.

Dimitri K. Simes is president of the Nixon Center and publisher of the National Interest magazine.

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Saudis Aim to Roll Back Iranian Influence in Region

Council on Foreign Relations, 16/03/07

Saudi Arabia seems very active these days diplomatically. King Abdullah has met with the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Saudis have more or less put together an informal alliance of other Sunni majority states in the region. And they have even reportedly met with Israelis. What's going on here?


Interviewee: F. Gregory Gause III, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Vermont
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

F. Gregory Gause III F. Gregory Gause III, a leading Saudi Arabia expert, says the intensified Saudi diplomacy of recent weeks has been largely aimed at containing Iranian influence in the Middle East. Citing Lebanon and the Palestinian peace process as examples, Gause says the Saudis are trying "a sophisticated way to limit Iranian influence in places where the Iranians seem to be getting stronger."

The Saudis are playing a delicate balancing game. On the one hand, they want to contain Iranian influence. There's not much they can do in Iraq right now. But certainly at the peripheries of Iranian influence they're trying to roll it back. On the other hand, they don't want an open confrontation with Iran. They remember the 1980s when Ayatollah Khomeini was castigating them and the Iran-Iraq war was going on. That wasn't a comfortable time for them. The Saudis are playing a pretty nuanced balance-of-power game. Bring the Iranians in, talk to them, try to make deals with them where deals can be made, say perhaps in Lebanon, but at the same time, try to—in a sophisticated way—limit Iranian influence in places where the Iranians seem to be getting stronger.

Is this apart from the U.S. efforts in the Security Council on suspending Iran's nuclear program?

It's parallel. There's nothing the Saudis can do about Iranian nuclear stuff except signal that if the Iranians go nuclear, they'll consider going nuclear too. And they've made those signals. However, the Saudis can work in the region to try to constrain and contain Iranian influence, particularly in Arab contexts, in Lebanon and among Palestinians—not so much in Iraq these days. Their approach to Iran is parallel to the United States' efforts but not exactly the same. The Saudis are more reluctant to confront Iran directly than many people in Washington are.

On Lebanon, it has seemed to be a lot quieter recently. Hezbollah was threatening to bring down the government in Lebanon. Do you think that these talks the Saudis had with the Iranians helped calm it down?

There's clearly something going on in Lebanon. There's now talk across the divide between the government and the opposition forces led by Hezbollah. Whether it's going to actually lead to some kind of solution, that's up in the air because Syria's involved in that too. One of the major issues, of course, is this international tribunal on the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, as well as a number of other Lebanese figures. The Syrians are against that because it will probably implicate some people in the Syrian government. But the Saudis are working very hard to try to get that done because if they can be the power broker in Lebanon, it will reduce Iranian influence in Lebanon—in that Hezbollah would be working through Saudi Arabia to deal with the government—and it will reduce the chances of some kind of blowup in Lebanon that could spread and perhaps draw the Israelis in, as in last summer.

Talking about the Israelis, high on the agenda right now is this Saudi peace plan that was offered after 9/11 by then Crown Prince Abdullah, now King Abdullah, which calls for a return to the pre-1967 [War] borders for peace. The Israelis, under U.S. prodding, have shown some interest in this. This is going to be reapproved at an Arab League meeting?

Yes. It's going to come up again at the Arab League summit, which is next week in Riyadh, but I don't think it's going to be a major thing. I think they're just going to reaffirm their support for the peace plan. You know, the details of that plan are a nonstarter. They're a step backward from where the [Ehud] Barak government and [Yasir] Arafat were in 2000 and early 2001. It's more of an atmospheric thing. I don't think it's going to be a basis for any kind of forward movement on the Arab-Israeli peace process.

The Saudis brokered the meeting between Hamas and Fatah, which has led now to the apparent formation of a new Palestinian government. Is this a big deal for the Saudis?

It is a big deal for the Saudis, but in relation to Iran more than in relation to the peace process. Hamas had been increasingly reliant on Iran, politically and financially. And the Saudis are trying to bring Hamas back into their fold, as it were. So for the Saudis, the bigger goal there was to cut Iran out, and if the cost of that is a Hamas-Fatah deal that the Israelis don't like and the Americans don't like, and doesn't really advance the peace process, well, so be it. The Iranians have had their wings clipped.

And that's the deal on this Palestinian government. One can look at the new Palestinian government and say, "Well, they didn't explicitly accept Israel's right to exist, and thus the West and Israel aren't going to deal with them and shouldn't deal with them," That seems to be the American and Israeli position. One could also look at the personnel in the government: the new foreign minister, Ziyad Abu Amr, and the new finance minister, Salam Fayyad, both of whom are pretty moderate and have worked with Western institutions and Western countries before, and one could say, "Maybe we should engage these guys." It's an open question. One could almost do a "good cop, bad cop" on this and have the Europeans engage and the Americans hold back.

Do you have any information about these reported meetings between Saudis and Israelis?

I don't have any kind of private information on that. I have no doubt they occur.

This is by Prince Bandar, the former ambassador to the United States?

Yes. This wouldn't be the first time that Prince Bandar had met with Israeli officials.

Oh, I see. I didn't realize he had been doing this.

Yes. He actually was pretty open when he was ambassador in Washington about trying to facilitate contacts between the American Jewish community and Saudi officials. It's a short step from there to meet with actual, real live Israelis. His reputation certainly in the region is someone who's willing to have those kinds of meetings. And it fit very much into the fear in Saudi Arabia about Iranian influence and the general American push to try to organize some kind of regional front. It fits into new Saudi activism in Lebanon, because obviously the Israelis are an interested party in what goes on in Lebanon. And the Palestinians too. So it fits in a lot of ways, it just makes a lot of sense. The number of sources who have reported this is pretty substantial.

On overall U.S.-Saudi relations, how would you describe them right now?

I'd say they're pretty good. Certainly the crisis of 9/11 has basically been put in the past. There's cooperation on the security front, and on the war on terrorism issues, [ but] perhaps not so much as people in the United States would like, particularly on financing issues—the private money coming out of Saudi Arabia funding groups, whether in Iraq or al-Qaeda affiliates.

The United States would like to see a more active Saudi role there, but there is cooperation. There's a general agreement on trying to limit Iranian influence. But there are differences of opinion. That's clear on the Palestinian issue, with the Saudis basically being the godfathers of this new Palestinian government. There are differences of opinion on how to deal with Iran down the road. The Saudis fear direct confrontation because they fear they'll be the ones on the front line when the Iranians retaliate, whereas people in the U.S. government would be more likely to contemplate a confrontation with Iran. But relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia aren't too bad right now. OPEC [Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries] hasn't cut its production, so basically the Saudis are saying, "We'll keep production where it is," and they can live with oil prices in the fifty-dollar-per-barrel range rather than up toward seventy dollars [per barrel].

Talk a bit about the Saudi role, or lack of, in Iraq. Do they have any influence on the Sunnis in Iraq?

I'm quite struck by how passive Saudi Arabia has been on the Iraqi front since the war. They were really caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, they didn't like the way things were going. They didn't like the increasing Shiite influence in Iraq. They didn't like the Iranian influence in Iraq. On the other hand, they're not going to actively support people who are killing Americans. Because that would severely damage their relationship with their major security partner, the United States. And also, they have their own problem with these al-Qaeda types at home. They're much more wary than they were when we both were helping to fund the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union. The Saudi government is much more leery of this Salafi jihadist Sunni opposition in Iraq. I don't doubt at all that there are private sources in Saudi Arabia who are helping to fund the Iraqi insurgency, and of course, Saudis are involved as recruits in the insurgency, fighting against the United States.

But the government has been pretty passive. Now, that doesn't mean they don't have influence with Iraqi personalities. They undoubtedly have contacts with tribal figures, Sunni and Shiite probably, but definitely Sunni. But it doesn't seem like they're exercised the kind of influence that they've exercised in Lebanon or among the Palestinians.

And I guess the latest developments have, in effect, fulfilled your Foreign Affairs article of a few years ago, saying the U.S. policy of promoting democracy in the region wasn't necessarily a good thing?

Well, the administration's largely backed away from the democracy push. You still hear that rhetoric, but I don't see any practical application of pressure to Egypt or to Jordan or to Saudi Arabia. In Egypt and Jordan we've seen reversions from the more open political environment of the Egyptian election in 2005. In Jordan we've seen a steady whittling away of political freedoms. In Saudi Arabia there's been no movement since the municipal elections. And you just don't hear anybody in the administration talking about that anymore.

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