from Hoover InstitutionNonprofit Organization in Stanford, CaliforniaConciliation And Delusion: The Case For Maximum Pressure On Iran“Anyone who will say that religion is separate from politics is a fool; he does not know Islam or politics.” -Khomeini.
American policies toward Iran have produced disappointing results due, in part, to a lack of appreciation for the ideology that drives Iran’s theocratic dictatorship. Conciliatory approaches toward Iran across multiple administrations have suffered from a narcissistic, self-referential tendency to assume that U.S. actions were the principal determinants of Iranian attitudes and behaviors. Despite the consistent failure of western efforts to mollify Tehran since the revolutionaries took power in 1979, President Joe Biden’s administration is poised to again pursue conciliation with proposals to lift economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for temporary commitments to curb its nuclear program. Conciliation will fail. It is past time to base Iran policy on what the historian Zachary Shore calls strategic empathy and the fundamental recognition that a revolutionary ideology drives and constrains Iran’s theocratic dictatorship. A strategy of maximum pressure that aims to force Iranian leaders to make a choice between either acting as a terrorist state or suffering the consequences of economic and diplomatic isolation is the best approach. The long-term goal should be to encourage a shift in the nature of the Iranian regime such that it ceases its permanent hostility and ends its proxy wars.
The future Middle East matters to the United States. Peace, stability and prosperity in the region impacts our vital interests. The four factors outlined here could dramatically affect the U.S. capacity to safeguard our interests in the near to mid-term. The United States is a global power with global interests and responsibilities. The U.S. ability to protect those interests is impacted by the key regions that link the world together and the global commons (air, sea, space, cyberspace) that connect them. The regions are Western Europe, the Greater Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. If these areas of interest and the commons that connect them are relatively peaceful and stable then the U.S. can more confidently exercise its influence as a great power, either being in or getting to the place America needs to be to protect our vital interests.
Yes, Iran really matters and so does the Middle East. Despite signs that the Biden administration hopes to downplay U.S engagement in the region, U.S. national interests remain at stake there. Notwithstanding major changes and upheavals, most of these interests continue to be relevant for America’s national security and for its allies and partners. In order to make sense of the reasons for U.S. involvement, and of Biden policy toward Iran, this essay briefly inventories those interests. It then considers initial indications that Biden and his foreign policy team had come to recognize the shortcoming of previous U.S. regional policy, not only that of Donald Trump, but also the Obama administration. This analysis then examines recent policies suggesting that the Biden Middle East policy is in the early stages of repeating the policy mistakes of the Obama administration in which many key participants were personally involved. The essay concludes by assessing the reasons for a failure to absorb lessons and adapt policies to changing realities.
The core state in the Arabian Peninsula is Saudi Arabia. The rest are small countries with less than one million citizens each. Hence, if we want to talk about Gulf policy towards Iran we need to talk about Saudi policy. Competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran existed before the Iranian revolution but at that time both countries were allies of the US. According to the Nixon Doctrine, they were the twin pillars of security in the Gulf facing the Soviet threat. After the outbreak of the Iranian revolution the two countries became enemies. Ruhollah Khomeini ridiculed the house of the Saud as stooges of the Americans. The export of the revolution was put as a preamble in the Iranian constitution. The Gulf monarchies immediately saw the Iranian revolution as an existential threat, and relations with the U.S. imploded over the hostage crisis. The assault by Saddam Hussein that precipitated seven years of war with Iran was financed by the Gulf countries and is looked on with great bitterness by the Iranians for the injustice of its cause and the heavy price the country paid.
Why Iran Matters For American National InterestThe negotiations in Vienna about a return to the JCPOA are continuing, at least as of this writing in late May. Perhaps there will be a breakthrough soon, one way or another, even before this Caravan goes to press, or the talks may drag on into the summer until a compromise is reached or until one side decides to call it quits. It is pointless to make predictions, but it is certain that the outcome will matter a lot to American national interest. An American capitulation to lift all sanctions without Iran returning to the terms of the JCPOA--as well as to additional measures concerning sunset clauses, ballistic missiles, regional destabilization and human rights violations--will be a strategic defeat for the United States. On the other hand, an expanded Iran deal that includes those additional terms could be a significant diplomatic victory for Washington, as well as a boon for the Iranian people, the stability of the region and global order.
Iran In China’s Grand StrategyChina does not have a fixed Iran doctrine. And Iran does not have a historic China doctrine, as it usually places its geostrategic emphasis on the Middle East, the United States, and Europe. But the two revolutionary regimes are coming together. Iran now serves as an important part of China’s overall strategic approach to world affairs, an approach that is fundamentally determined by an orthodox Marxist-Leninist understanding of international power dynamics. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) envisions an epic struggle on a global scale between the international anti-communist forces, led by the United States, and the global socialist cause, led by the CCP since the demise of Communism in the former Eastern bloc under the Soviet Union. This basic understanding of the struggle has led to the development of a deeply-held strategic paranoia in Beijing. The Party has inculcated a peculiar set of doctrinal principles that place the CCP at the center of a well-coordinated international containment scheme designed to stifle the CCP from carrying out its historic socialist mission to its logical and ideological conclusion. According to all core CCP leaders, from Mao Zedong, to Deng Xiaoping, to Jiang Zemin, to Hu Jintao, to Xi Jinping, the CCP must implement a series of measures at any cost to counter the anti-communist containment, and survive and eventually triumph as the leader of a new model of global governance. Two of these measures now involve Iran: the strategies of breakout and diversion.
The conflict in Yemen is poorly understood in the United States. The general view in policy and government circles is that Saudi Arabia is the principal cause of the crisis, and that if the Saudis can be made to stop their military campaign against the Houthi rebel movement, the war would end quickly. Furthermore, this conflict is often mistakenly characterized as one between the regional powers of Saudi Arabia and Iran or one between Sunnis and Shia Muslims. It is in fact first and foremost a civil war, the most recent of several wars between Yemenis that began in 1962. Thus, it is internal dynamics that drive Yemenis to fight each other, and this war is unlikely to end quickly no matter what Saudi Arabia does or is made to do. After considerable resistance and perhaps willful naïveté, Washington finally appears to be accepting this reality.
Iran has been a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984. Through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Qods Force, Iran has forged relationships with like-minded militias in neighboring countries, but primarily in Iraq. The Badr Corps (also referred to as Badr Organization) has historical ties stemming back to the Iran-Iraq War. Badr fought alongside Iran’s IRGC against Saddam Hussein and his forces. Between Lebanese Hezbollah and Badr, Iran paid attention to the importance of surrogates. These groups are at the center of Iran’s asymmetric doctrine.
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from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXEDThis Is What Could Trigger Big Growth in CPI InflationBottom line: how the Great Monetary Inflation of 2011/12 will end and whether it includes a combustion process into high sustained CPI inflation are wide-open questions at this point. The balance of present and past evidence suggests that no combustion is still one mainstream scenario where an endogenous process of asset inflation turning to asset deflation sets in first. The small size of the history laboratory, however, does not include for the modern era (since say 1919) another decade and potentially more of virulent asset inflation without a meaningful monetary counterattack.
Why Stimulus Does Not StimulateCongress is hard at work on a stimulus bill. Doubtless their efforts will pay off. Does anyone stop to ask what it is about stimulus that stimulates? And what, exactly, does it stimulate? Start by spending a lot of money that the government does not have, borrow the difference, and the central bank prints the difference and buys up the debt. But does that increase the production of useful things? To answer this, we look at an unlikely friend, Keynes and his General Theory.
