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Year after year the worriers and fretters would come to me with awful predictions of the outbreak of war. I denied it each time. I was only wrong twice.
–- Senior British intelligence official, retiring in 1950 after 47 years of service
Man’s most enduring stupidity is forgetting what he is trying to do.
–- Friedrich Nietzsche
WE ARE witnessing a systemic decline in Russia’s relations with the West. There is a long list of complaints from the industrial democracies regarding Moscow’s behavior, many of them justified. But the U.S.-Russia relationship (and that of Europe and Russia) does not occur in a strategic vacuum. Many of Russia’s contemporary offenses pale before what should be the West’s highest policy priority in the period ahead: Preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. According to a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released on December 3, 2007, it will be difficult to convince Tehran to forego the eventual development of nuclear weapons and Iran could produce sufficient quantities of highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon as early as 2010.
Before we can assess Russia’s relationship with the West, including on the question of Iran, we should first examine the international context in which those relations will occur. This allows us to address the fundamental question: How important is Russia’s cooperation in the next several years on issues clearly most connected to American and allied vital national interests?
Henry Kissinger recently pointed out in a Wall Street Journal interview that the international structure that we have known for 300 years—the Westphalian system that arose after Europe’s wars of religion and is based on the nation-state—is collapsing. The transforming effects of globalism and information technology, the rise of Asia, the relative decline of Europe’s international influence, the surge of radical Islam and the increasing importance of non-state actors are together producing a new world order/disorder.
The increase in China’s power and influence is now a permanent and critical feature of the global picture, and it is still far from clear whether Beijing will become a responsible stakeholder in the international system. Relations between China and Japan are edgy at best. We will have to see whether North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons. I remain skeptical. The long-term trends in Afghanistan are not good. Pakistan, with dozens of nuclear weapons, is vibrating with uncertainty.
The region that is most immediately pivotal to the security of the West—the Middle East—is violent and unsteady. A possible war between the United States and Iran lies ominously on the horizon, if somewhat postponed, according to the latest NIE. Iraq remains gripped in a destructive and bloody domestic political deadlock that prevents reconciliation and stability. Prospects for substantial progress in the Middle East peace process are grim. Lebanon teeters on the brink of chaos. Syria pursues corrosive policies throughout the area. Six years after 9/11, jihadi extremism and the terrorism it spawns are growing, not receding, in most of the region.
In short and as the Soviets used to say, the correlation of forces in the Greater Middle East is moving against the West. Many of our friends are confused and demoralized, and most of our enemies are emboldened—nearly everywhere in the region. Hizballah’s successful resistance to the Israeli Defense Forces in July 2006 in Lebanon was a strategic setback for moderate forces, both Western and Arab. Most important, it again demonstrated that force of arms—the machinery of modern combined air and ground warfare—can be thwarted or at least neutralized by radical Muslim paramilitary forces; a lesson not only learned by Hizballah but also internalized by Hamas, the Mahdi Army and other Shi‘a militias, and the Taliban.
ALL THIS obviously represents a perilous situation for the United States and its allies. It is certainly the most hazardous period in the region for the West at least since the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the possibility of U.S.-Soviet armed conflict. And it is exacerbated by the rapid rise of Iran, now the second-most powerful and influential country in the Greater Middle East after the United States and the most important foreign power operating in Iraq south of Baghdad.
Not only is Iran the rising nation in the area, it seems determined to keep open the possibility of pursuing a nuclear-weapons program. This is a function of a centuries-long ambition to acquire the attributes of a great power and to reclaim Persia’s ancient position as the hegemon of the region. (As one Middle East leader recently said to me, “Think Darius as well as the Mullahs.”) So far, international pressure to persuade or coerce Iran into suspending its enrichment program as required by the UN Security Council has been ineffective. At this writing, there appears to be no progress on the issue in talks between EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the Iranian negotiating team, especially after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared on October 23, 2007 that “Iran will not retreat one iota.” And it appears unlikely that currently discussed UNSC, ad hoc or U.S. unilateral sanctions, which would take years to make a decisive difference, will be strong enough to force Iran to freeze its nuclear enrichment program, especially given that Tehran is now cushioned from the effect of such relatively weak sanctions by an oil price of $80-plus a barrel. As Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has written, “I do not see how the collective actions that we are taking will produce the results that we seek. . . .”
If Iran stays on its current pace of development, it could be approaching a point of technical mastery of large-scale enrichment by the end of 2009. This could provide Iran an irrevocable capability to produce nuclear weapons, even if it had not completed weaponization.
Let me be very clear. President Bush and Secretary Rice are deeply committed to trying to solve this problem with Iran through multilateral diplomacy. They understand that multilateralism, which in the past was regarded by some as only a diplomatic alternative for the United States, has now become a compelling foreign-policy requirement. They genuinely seek to avoid a binary choice by an American president either to attack Iran or to acquiesce to Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons. However, at present there is no evidence that this matter can be successfully resolved, including through unconditional bilateral negotiations with Iran, which I support. (Among other things, I do not see how the United States could attack another country with whom we have refused to have face-to-face talks to try to avoid the conflict.) Mao once advised his cadres during the Chinese civil war to “Talk, talk—Fight, fight.” The Iranian version of this for the period ahead is clearly, “Talk, talk—Enrich, enrich.” Only rigorously severe sanctions would have any chance of changing Tehran’s policy in this regard. As the NIE states, “Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs” and that “Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.” However, thus far the potential costs to Iran of retaining its nuclear-weapons option have been far too feeble to lead Tehran to change course.
If, despite the West’s best efforts, diplomacy fails and the United States attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, Tehran would respond with a variety of countermeasures against the United States and any nation that was seen to be assisting it—both in the region and in the world at large, including probably in the American homeland. This would be a long war, likely lasting for years, since Iran would not surrender. It would inflame the entire Islamic world, strengthen terrorist forces everywhere and, given the projected meteoric rise in oil prices, could well trigger a global recession. As columnist Anne Applebaum observed in The Washington Post, “International support would be minimal, fury maximal, diplomatic consequences appalling.”
Iranian possession of nuclear weapons would have devastating strategic consequences for the West for decades. This is why a prominent Asian leader and strategist told me recently, “If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it will change the world.” And a Middle East monarch noted, “If the United States attacks Iran, there will be serious trouble in the region for 18 months. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, there will be serious trouble in the region for thirty years and beyond.” Should Iran go nuclear, how many Sunni Arab regimes would follow suit and who believes that in a Middle East with multiple nuclear-weapons states, we would not eventually have a nuclear catastrophe in that region, in a Western city or both? As Henry Kissinger stressed on the Charlie Rose show, “In this situation some use of nuclear weapons is almost inevitable.”
IF WE ARE to avoid either of these horrific outcomes, Russia will have to play a central and positive role. We are unlikely to succeed without Moscow. It has a closer relationship with Iran than any nation in the West; trust is too strong a word, but Russia-Iran relations are generally good. It has more influence in Tehran on this issue than any other country. It has a long-time civil-nuclear relationship with Iran, which gives it unique access to the Iranian nuclear elite. Thus, its potential to importantly affect Tehran’s calculations is probably greater than the combined efforts of Europe and the United States. And, most important, Russia must agree if the Security Council is to adopt severe economic sanctions that would have the unambiguous force of international law and might alter Iran’s future nuclear choices.
George Shultz used to stress wisely that setting priorities and making choices among various policies is a crucial and often underutilized element of foreign-affairs formulation and implementation. Having worked three times in the White House, I can confirm that establishing priorities and sticking to them is no easy task for any American administration, perhaps not for any democracy. Over many administrations, Washington is often the undisputed champion of rigid and competing stovepipe policies.
In this context, it is crucial and urgent that the West’s overriding objective vis-à-vis Russia should be to secure its assistance in curtailing Iran’s nuclear options. But to do that, and in the spirit of Metternich’s comment that “the obvious is always least understood”, we need to substantially change our current approach to Moscow. In the first instance, this means that it is time for the West, including the United States, to stop trying to reform Russian domestic politics—end what Henry Kissinger calls “the American tendency to insist on global tutelage.” In overly emphasizing that subject with Moscow, we are reducing the West’s chances of success in by far the most critical issue before us—preventing an Iranian bomb.
President Putin has obviously moved Russia away from the path toward a Western-style liberal democracy attempted during the Yeltsin era—albeit in a highly flawed and tenuous manner—to the Kremlin’s vision of a strong and highly centralized “sovereign democracy.” Serge Schmemann has explained it like this in the International Herald Tribune:
[Putin’s] rise is a logical consequence of the brutal disappointment of the Russians with the course of events since the collapse of Communism—the hyperinflation, political wars, crony privatization and the financial crisis of the 1990s, along with the humiliations—perceived and real—inflicted by the West, from NATO expansion to endless preaching.
Russians have clearly embraced Putin’s course, as evidenced by his authentically high approval ratings of 70–80 percent. Based on a recent poll, one out of three Russians would like to see Putin become president of Russia for life. In short, there is a new sense of dignity and confidence in Russia, and ordinary Russians give Putin the credit as shown in the December elections for the Parliament. Although they were certainly flawed, they did demonstrate that Putin is the most genuinely popular political leader in the G-8. As another premier American diplomatic figure of the twentieth century recently stressed to me, “The West’s present preoccupation with Russian domestic policies and practices would make sense if Russia had no history and no enduring political culture.”
The West must contend with the impending reality that however Putin chooses to continue to wield power, his economic policies and the highly centralized political structure will remain in place in Russia for the foreseeable future. To remember Dylan Thomas, the Russia we now face “will not go gentle into that good night” anytime soon. The Russia we now see is fundamentally the Russia we are going to get. And the Russian elite are not going to accept Western intervention into their domestic affairs until, as they say, “the crayfish whistles on the mountain top.”
However, the West does have significant ability, which we are currently exercising, to sour Russia’s relations with the United States and Europe and to undermine our joint capacity to cooperate with Moscow regarding the Iranian nuclear threat because of our persistent public preoccupation with the shape and substance of Russia’s domestic political practices. We should greatly reduce the frequency and the volume of our public pronouncements on this subject, while privately, of course, condemning it.
Having said this about the West and Russian domestic politics is not to underrate the difficulties of interacting with Moscow on its external policies and often raw pursuit of power politics and spheres of influence. Russia’s foreign policy under Putin is in the classic 19th-century European mold and seeks to reassert Russia’s traditional role as a great power; reestablish its dominant position in the former Soviet sphere; and promote and secure markets for its energy exports which advance its geopolitical and geoeconomic objectives.
In this circumstance and unlike during the Yeltsin era, Putin’s Russia perceives Western influence in neighboring states as a direct threat to its abiding vital national interests, as evidenced by its harsh reaction toward the alleged role of the West in “orchestrating” the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 as well as continuing Western interest in both those countries, including possible NATO membership.
Russia is vehemently opposed to American plans to install U.S. missile-defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic by 2012, rejecting American assertions that Iran will possess weapons capable of directly threatening Europe and the United States. Although I do not agree, the Russian establishment perceives these U.S. systems in Eastern Europe as a direct threat to Russian national security. Russia has clashed repeatedly with the United States and the EU over the independence of Kosovo, where Russia has continued to oppose the “dismemberment” of Serbia.
Russia and the West differ on the future of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE). We have disagreements with Russia within the OSCE on the proper role of election observers in the former Soviet space. We have arguments with Moscow on the post-START and post–Treaty of Moscow regime after the START agreement expires in 2009. We oppose Russian arms sales to Syria and Iran. We have disputes with the Putin government regarding Russia’s external energy policy and its sometimes coercive character regarding its neighbors. We haggle over the final terms of Russia’s entry into the WTO. With all these differences presently in play, there is no doubt that in the Kremlin, indeed within the entire Russian national-security elite, there is a pervasive feeling that the West is simply unwilling to take Russia’s national-security concerns into account in any serious way.
Most of these substantive differences between Moscow and Western governments shrink in centrality when compared to the short- and long-term costs that the West would incur through a war with Iran or Tehran’s possession of a nuclear arsenal. And therein lies our current core problem: Persuading Russia to cooperate fully regarding Iran. Do we in the West really believe that we can acquire Russian cooperation on issues that matter most to us, while ignoring issues that matter most to them? Do we actually think that is the way things work between and among strong nation-states? That is certainly consistent with neither my reading of history nor my long experience in government. As Winston Churchill once emphasized (and current Western leaders could usefully take note), “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
Let me stress here that I am not suggesting that the West give Russia a free hand in neo-imperialist instincts that Moscow might have in the former Soviet sphere, allow Western security policy to be designed by the fsb or permit Russia to take unimpeded advantage of current U.S. difficulties in the Greater Middle East. Of course not. But there are strategic priorities, tactical trade-offs and creative compromises possible here that need to be considered by Western governments. Cannot the West adopt flexible and moderate compromise on at least some of these disputatious issues we presently have with Moscow: the timeline of U.S. ABM deployments to Eastern Europe; the issue of entry of new NATO members from the ex-Soviet space; the status of Kosovo; the contours of the CFE Treaty; the future of strategic-arms control; Russia’s entry into the WTO and so forth? Is there no give in Western policy on any of these issues? If not, why not?
Any of these moves on the West’s part would not be offered up unilaterally with the hope that Russian policy toward Iran would inevitably and fundamentally toughen. Rather, they would be explicitly linked to a Russian approach to Tehran in step with Western strategy. This is particularly urgent because Russia and the West currently differ so significantly on the issue.
This past October, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Japanese counterpart that “North Korea poses a fundamental threat, but Iran does not.” It seems doubtful that the Russian government actually believes this. Moscow’s intelligence on the Iranian nuclear activities is probably at least as good as that of the United States. When he met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on October 10, Putin stated: “We don’t have information showing that Iran is striving to produce nuclear weapons. That’s why we’re proceeding on the basis that Iran does not have such plans.” Putin then visited Tehran and repeated the same point publicly. When asked about whether Russia would support tightening economic sanctions on Iran, in the aftermath of the announcement of new unilateral U.S. sanctions, Putin replied, “Why worsen the situation by threatening sanctions and bring it to a dead end?”
Nevertheless, the Kremlin agrees that a nuclear Tehran would be a real danger. After meeting with Sarkozy, Putin conceded that not only is a nuclear-armed Iran not in Russia’s interest, but opined that it would pose a greater threat to Russian national security than to European or U.S. vital national interests.
So it is up to the West to convince Russia that, regarding Iranian nuclear ambitions, Moscow’s long-term equities are best served by comprehensive and full-fledged cooperation with the West. But we only have a chance of doing that if we substantially narrow our policy differences with Russia on many of these other matters. In the end, this strategy might not work. Moscow may currently be too defiant to collude with the West. It may decide that its long-term relationship with Iran trumps Western nuclear preoccupations. Putin and company may conclude that it is inevitable that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons and that joining Washington and its allies in a self-defeating enterprise makes no sense. Moscow may wonder if the next American president will follow the same muscular policies regarding Iran as the current one. So such a Western initiative could well fail. But given the stakes involved, it is worth a try. The new nie has given us somewhat more time to avoid a war with Iran. We should use it, including in Moscow.
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Robert D. Blackwill is the president of Barbour, Griffith and Rogers International, a Washington government affairs, consulting and lobbying firm. He was the deputy national security advisor for strategic planning and the U.S. ambassador to India, 2001–2004.
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