Whereas his predecessor was brash and outwitted, Obama's diplomacy is already upping the ante on Iran, writes Mustafa El-Labbad Intensive US diplomatic activity in the region over the past two weeks strongly suggests a shift in US plans with respect to Iran. After some six months of peaceful overtures towards Iran since coming to power in the US, the Obama administration now appears to have reverted to long-shelved escalatory tactics. Iran has been high on the Obama agenda in the US-Russian summit, the G8 summit and the US- Chinese dialogues, in all of which Washington appears to have been rallying diplomatic support against Tehran. Virtually every statement by an American official following a meeting with his or her Russian or Chinese counterpart included the formula: "We are in mutual agreement over the need to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear capacities." In the past two weeks, there have been several tangible indicators of a looming confrontation. The first is the green light given to two Israeli nuclear submarines to pass through the Suez Canal into the Gulf of Aden, from which point Iran would be in range for nuclear missile strikes from these vessels. The second is George Mitchell's visit to Syria with the aim of curtailing Iranian influence in the Levant. During this visit, Obama's special envoy on the Middle East gave some encouraging signals to Damascus regarding its influence in Lebanon after it emerges from its international isolation. While Mitchell intends to retain economic sanctions on Syria as a means of leverage in forthcoming negotiations, his talks in Damascus have brought the eventual lifting of sanctions into sight. The third development was US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's visit to Israel where he met with his counterpart Ehud Barak. During this meeting Gates announced that Obama would give Iran until the end of September to begin talks over the Iranian nuclear programme. After months of refusing to do so, the Obama administration has now given Tehran a deadline to respond favourably to its overtures. Moreover, during this latter occasion, one was struck by the fact that Barak stated in Gates's presence that "all the options were on the table" with regards to the Iranian nuclear question. It was the first Israeli hint at possible recourse to force against Iran in the presence of a US official since Obama took office. This was followed by the fourth and most significant stage in the train of escalation so far, which was the visit to Israel by National Security Advisor James Jones at the head of a large delegation that included US intelligence officials and experts from the departments of state, defense and treasury. This is a crisis team. The backbone for any potential action against Iran, its job is to transform an escalatory policy decision into reality on the ground. This visit by the national security advisor at the head of a delegation of this sort signifies more than a declaration of intent. It means that the two sides have gone beyond loose coordination to the examination of details. Perhaps the only signal to Iran that jars with the general tenor during this period was Washington's willingness to turn a blind eye to the invasion by Iraqi government forces of the Ashraf refugee camp located on the outskirts of Baghdad and in which resided members of the Iranian opposition organisation, the Mujahideen Khalq. Granted, the action was Tehran's way of reminding Washington that its influence in Iraq, via its allies in the Iraqi government above all, was too great to ignore. Granted, too, it also served to convey the message to the world that Iran's current internal situation has not diminished its capacity to safeguard its interests in its geographical vicinity. Nevertheless, it is simultaneously true that Iraqi forces could not have entered the Ashraf camp without some form of US approval in view of the continued presence of the occupation forces in Iraq. In giving this approval, Washington signalled to Tehran that it would not stand in the way of a partial annihilation of the Mujahideen Khalq and, hence, that it was in Tehran's greater interests to cooperate with the US, not to oppose it. When taken separately, this signal appears quite placatory. However, when viewed more closely and in the context of developments in the past two weeks it clearly serves the general drive towards escalation -- it is the carrot. If, indeed, the Obama administration is signalling that its patience is wearing thin, what does it hope to gain from giving Iran a two-month deadline to start negotiating? Surely Washington cannot fail to recall how deftly Tehran eluded all the deadlines imposed on it during the Bush era. After all, Tehran's dexterity in this regard has become virtually legendary in the region and the world. In all events, most likely Washington's aim is to eventually up the level of sanctions against Iran. It probably feels that resolutions 1737 and 1747 were not tough enough, that 1803 was even less so and that it will take harsher sanctions to break Tehran's resolve on clinging to its rights with regards to nuclear power. However, the Iranian position has grown stronger since the imposition of sanctions. Iran has succeeded in creating a new de facto reality simply by persisting in the uranium enrichment process and increasing the number of centrifuges in its nuclear facilities. In addition, if the economic sanctions that the Obama administration might be considering are to be effective, as opposed to being merely the only alternative to a bankrupt strategy (as was the case with the Bush administration's approach to Iran), it will have to bring Russia and China onboard. However, because of Moscow's and Beijing's vast interests in Iran, Washington would have to offer them some weighty concessions in other areas of interest to them. This, in itself, would be extremely complicated. The price Washington would have to pay Moscow would involve its allies in the vicinity of Russia and the price it would have to pay Beijing would be to guarantee China a share of the international energy market, which would affect important members of the WTO. Clearly, Obama would find it extremely difficult to meet these demands, which begs the question, again, as to why its tactic of escalation appears aimed at raising the level of economic sanctions against Iran when objective international circumstances and the subjective mindset in Tehran suggest that they will not yield the desired effect. The only conclusion one can draw at this stage is that the Obama administration is upping the pressure in order to drive Tehran to the negotiating table at a time when it faces a shaky domestic situation. Indeed, it is a moment that, from the US perspective, is well worth seizing. Ahmadinejad has been under immense strain because of the legitimacy crisis that gripped Iran in the aftermath of presidential elections in June when mass demonstrations erupted in protest against alleged ballot rigging. Whereas before the election, political divides in Iran ran primarily along what was commonly referred to as the conservative-reform axis, they have since begun to cleave the ranks of conservatives whom we could classify as traditionalists (primarily the clergy), pragmatists (Ali Larijani and those he represents) and fundamentalists (the Ahmadinejad camp). Meanwhile, the US has been busily working to rearrange the regional scene around Iran by extending a nuclear defence umbrella over the Gulf and by continuing the attempts to lure Syria away from Iran. It is operating on the logic that by the combined pressures of a deadline, possible harsher sanctions, a delicate domestic situation and adverse regional changes, Tehran will be compelled to lower its expectations when it comes to the negotiating table. The Obama administration differs from its predecessor in a fundamental respect. It is much more realistic and subtle in its approach. It is applying its soft power towards deepening political rifts inside Iran and shattering Iran's external alliances, whereas the Bush administration placed almost all of its chips on the use of military power as a means to change political realities. Whereas Bush led his country into a regional quagmire and unwittingly presented Iran with the unanticipated gift of neutralising its regional adversaries, Obama's invitation to dialogue has been calibrated to make Tehran understand that he has certain limits and that Iran will not be able to exact a price on the basis of the gains it won by capitalising on the mistakes of his predecessor. Yet, as great as the differences are between the Obama and Bush administrations, they both subscribe to the same tactic, which is to convey certain messages in order to obtain the opposite in substance. Bush played heavily on the theme of military might, constantly beating the war drums in the hope of compelling Tehran to be more cooperative and flexible in Iraq. Tehran deftly succeeded in exposing the hollowness of the threat and turning the situation to its further advantage. Obama's call for dialogue is not, as was commonly thought, necessarily meant to hold the prospect of an established regional status, but rather to exert pressure on Iran using silk gloves. Essentially, it is giving Tehran the rope to hang itself, because if it refuses Obama's peaceful overtures, it will be easier to invoke tougher sanctions and even easier to play on domestic tensions in Iran. As the summer moves to autumn we can expect temperatures to rise around Iran, not because of impending military action but because of the cumulative agitation wrought by developments on several diplomatic and economic fronts, all converging against Tehran, its nuclear inroads and its regional gains.
