Strategic thinking in Tehran

Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace makes an astute point about negotiations with Iran:

For many years now, so many of us have argued that if the U.S. can engage Iran and reintegrate it in the international community and open up its economy, this would foment political reform in Tehran. I think people fail to realize that [Supreme Leader] Khamenei understands that argument very well, in fact he probably agrees with it, and for precisely that reason he’s resisted confidence building with the U.S.

This strikes me as the central point.  It’s so blindingly obvious, I can’t believe I missed it.  The Iranian government has no incentive to negotiate because it’s bad domestic politics.  The Iranians are thinking long term and given the current situation where the threat of strong multilateral sanctions seems remote, it makes no sense to give into US demands.  First, the Iranian government has good reason to fear if it gives in on nuclear policy, the US government will pressure the Iranians on other issues, including political reform.  Second, giving in to the US could demonstrate the regime is weaker than it appears.  Third, standing up to the US is an important domestic policy because it allows the government to portray the demonstrators as US agents.  For a number of good reasons therefore the Iranian government has no incentive to negotiate. I see three ways to change this incentive.

First, the US could credibly commit to invading Iran.  Given that US forces will be bogged down in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, this is not a realistic policy.

Second, the US could credibly commit to biting multilateral sanctions.  However, it is not clear that immense economic pain would be a strong enough incentive.  Lots of leaders, such as Robert Mugabe and Kim Jung Il, are content to economically impoverish their citizens if it is necessary for maintaining political control.

Third, the Obama administration could jump to the dark side, offering the Iranian government assistance with cracking down on the protestors in return for nuclear cooperation.  Sadly, the US government has a history of this sort of thing.  Ever heard of Jeane Kirkpatrick?  I suspect the Obama administration would not consider this a very pleasing option since a Noble prize winner assisting in repression of democratic reformers is horrible politics.

I don’t think any of the above are realistic polices.  I only raise them to point out how weak Obama’s hand is at this point in time.  The Iranian government faces no incentive to negotiate with the Obama administration because it fears losing political control at home if it does.  Changing this incentive is not easy.