Sanctions and Iranian Pride
1. Additional pressure on Iran has surprised the leaders of the Islamic Republic.
2. Obama is committed to a pathway for Iran’s theocratic regime.
3. A clear set of steps would be set out for the Iranians to be accepted as proof that they are not pursuing a weapons program.
4. The United States acknowledges Iran’s right to pursuit of a peaceful nuclear program if Iran gains the West’s trust on the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.
5. The nationalist and ideological components of Iran’s nuclear program may override the cost-benefit analysis for Iranians.
6. Iranian leaders have to pay the price of wielding the nuclear program to provoke Iranians’ nationalistic sentiments.
7. The US president still considers ‘all options’ to be on the table to prevent an arms race in the region.
The last two points really awaken the curiosity of an Iranian reader.
2.) In the opening pages of the first chapter of his 2004 book Who Are We? American’s Great Debate, the late American political scientist Samuel Huntington makes a symbolic reference:
Charles Street, the principal thoroughfare on Boston’s Beacon Hill, is a comfortable street bordered by four-story brick buildings with apartments above antique stores and other shops on the ground level. At one time on one block American flags regularly hung over the entrances to the United States Post Office and the liquor store. Then the Post Office stopped displaying the flag, and on September 11, 2001, the liquor store flag flew alone. Two weeks later seventeen flags flew on this block, in addition to a huge Stars and Stripes suspended across the street a short distance away. With their country under attack, Charles Street denizens rediscovered their nation and identified themselves with it.
In their surge of patriotism, Charles Streeters were at one with people throughout America. Since the Civil War, Americans have been a flag-oriented people. The Stars and Stripes has the status of a religious icon and is a more central symbol of national identity for Americans than their flags are for peoples of other nations. Probably never in the past, however, was the flag as omnipresent as it was after September 11. It was everywhere: homes, businesses, automobiles, clothes, furniture, windows, storefronts, lampposts, telephone poles. In early October, 80 percent of Americans said they were displaying the flag, 63 percent at home, 29 percent on clothes, 28 percent on cars.1 Wal-Mart reportedly sold 116,000 flags on September 11 and 250,000 the next day (p. ).
3.) One of the first principles taught in the faculties of political science and international relations is how one should develop a ‘gray’ attitude toward international affairs. The students should appreciate the fact that nothing in politics is black and white, and that is the true nature of international relations.
4.) Quite naturally, Iran will also use ‘all options’ on the table to quell the overwhelming pressure of sanctions. Just a few days after Obama’s briefing, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki visited Lebanon; the presidents of Afghanistan and Tajikistan made a trip to Iran; the President of Guinea Bissau met his Iranian counterpart; and Tehran and Ankara decided to upgrade the level of bilateral ties. Iran is using the ‘gray’ areas to demonstrate that things are not as dark as they seem. The Afghan president supports Iran’s nuclear program while his country falls under the boots of tens of thousands of Western soldiers. Iraq’s economic, industrial and economic representatives are frequenting Tehran while they also enjoy close relations with the Americans. Tehran and Ankara have entered a new era of relationship, unprecedented since the Iranian 1979 Revolution. Again, Turkey is a close partner also of the West. Iran’s soft power machinery is meanwhile functioning effectively in Africa. Treating Iran as a pariah state has proved to be just impossible. This is not propaganda, but a reality derived from geopolitical and geostrategic facts.
5.) None of the arguments above are of course trying to imply that sanctions are ineffective; they are indeed, as they have multiplied the price of commodities and services for Tehran. An alliance between the members of the international community, however loose it may be, will increase pressure on Iranian leaders. Nonetheless, the United States or any other foreign country that believes by imposition of sanctions and adding to the pressures the Iranian nation will abandon support for the nuclear program is undoubtedly misled. Despite all the internal rifts, the nuclear program has proved to be a trans-partisan issue and a national demand. Despite all the pressures, Iranian public opinion no more trusts the global powers, particularly as it considers their stance toward the Tehran Declaration, or even their approach towards Iran’s nuclear program only a few years earlier, when a pro-détente Mohammad Khatami was president. Longer memories can easily recall the West’s support for Saddam Hussein during the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq, and that might suffice to dismiss any arguments that things will return to a normal track if Iran only abandons uranium enrichment.
6.) A recent survey by the Brookings Institute shows that in the eyes of 57 percent of Middle East’s Arabs (whose countries are normally on bad terms with Iran) the likely outcome of Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons for the Middle East will be positive. The rate was just 29 percent last year. It seems that arbitrary remarks by an Arab ambassador in a Western country, or Saudi Arabia’s opening of its airspace for Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, are not really a clear reflection of public opinion in their respective countries.
Finally, Iranians trust Americans less than before, have decided not to rely on Russia, and are disillusioned with the European Union. If the Americans insist on adding China, India and Persian Gulf states to this list nothing will change. Two basic points need to be taken into consideration by US decision-making circles: history has shown that employing the language of pressure, sanctions, and war will merely cause the sorrow for its perpetrators. The Iranian nation has tasted the sense of nationalism Huntington has described in his book. It’s not an unfamiliar one.