Deep thoughts by Barack Obama, Iran edition

In “Obama explains the Iran deal” I took a look at President Obama’s remarks at the Saban Forum over the weekend (video included at the link). Taking the remarks at face value, Lee Smith interprets Obama’s deep (Smith describes them as “incoherent”) thoughts. Smith writes:

The way Obama sees it, a “diplomatic resolution of this situation is, frankly, greater than what we could achieve with the other options that are available to us.” That’s because, according to the president, you can’t get rid of the knowledge that it takes to make a bomb. “The technology of the nuclear cycle, you can get off the Internet,” said Obama. The technology, he elaborated, “is available to any good physics student at pretty much any university around the world. And [the Iranians] have already gone through the cycle to the point where the knowledge, we’re not going to be able to eliminate. But what we can do is eliminate the incentive for them to want to do this.”

In other words, because there’s no way to bomb the knowledge out of existence, the only real option is to convince the Iranians that it’s not in their best interest to make use of the knowledge they already have.

But of course there are very few college students who can afford the costs of procurement and construction of nuclear weapons facilities, as well as, for instance, a ballistic missile program. It should go without saying, but a nuclear weapons program is far more than the technical know-how it takes to make a bomb. Rather, it is the physical material and infrastructure that goes into the manufacture and delivery of nuclear weapons. By targeting that material and infrastructure it is possible not only to set back a nuclear weapons program but also to convince its stewards that it is in their best interest to abandon all hope of ever acquiring the bomb because every time they rebuild their facilities they will again be hit. It is precisely because a nuclear weapons program is largely its physical aspect, and not its “knowledge,” that it can indeed be destroyed. But Obama has no intention of striking the regime’s nuclear weapons’ facilities, which is why he devoted so much attention to the regime’s technical know-how.

One early clue that the administration had already discounted the military option was its opposition to imposing sanctions. The strategic purpose of sanctions was not to destroy the Iranian economy, or even just to force the regime to the negotiating table. Rather, as many Treasury Department officials saw it, the sanctions regime would prevent the Iranians from obtaining the material (procurement, construction, etc.) needed for a nuclear weapons program. By denying the regime access to the international financial system, sanctions would hinder its ability to buy and build what it needed to make a bomb. From this perspective, the sanctions regime is not just an alternative to military strikes but a foreshadowing of them, conveying one clear message: You will never acquire the physical infrastructure for a nuclear weapons program. Should you somehow manage to skirt the sanctions regime, we will take action to destroy those facilities.

That the regime in Tehran continued to buy and build was all the evidence needed to show that sanctions, regardless of how they might have affected the ability of ordinary Iranians to put food on the table, had failed. At that stage, there was no need for the White House, avowedly determined to prevent rather contain an Iranian bomb, to engage with Tehran except to deliver in person the final warning that the sanctions regime should have made plain: What we could not prevent through relatively peaceful means we will now destroy with force.

In resisting sanctions, Obama showed that he was loath to prevent construction of the program’s physical infrastructure. The idea that he would now order strikes against that physical infrastructure beggars belief. At this stage, the debate over sanctions is simply part of the administration’s campaign of misdirection that obscures the real issue: The point was never to get a deal, or to get the Iranians to negotiate, but to prevent them from acquiring a bomb.

But now Obama says you can’t really stop them from getting a bomb because they already have the knowledge. So he wants to talk instead about how to convince them not to use that knowledge. Sure, the administration admits, sanctions brought Iran to the table, but more sanctions will drive them away from the table. As Obama said Saturday, the Iranians aren’t going to buckle under the sanctions regime. “The idea that Iran, given everything we know about their history,” said Obama, indulging in some cultural anthropology, “would just continue to get more and more nervous about more sanctions and military threats, and ultimately just say, okay, we give in—I think does not reflect an honest understanding of the Iranian people or the Iranian regime.”

In other words, Obama acknowledges that sanctions are not going to make the Iranians abandon their program. Moreover, as Obama now explains, sanctions didn’t even force the Iranians to negotiate. “If the perception internationally was that we were not in good faith trying to resolve the issue diplomatically,” Obama said Saturday, that “would actually begin to fray the edges of the sanctions regime.” That is, sanctions didn’t get Iran to the table. Rather, it was fear that sanctions were about to “fray” that drove the White House to the table—where they promised to relieve sanctions.

I go beyond Smith to argue that Obama has not only given up a military option, but has also accepted Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. Smith’s comments in any event make sense of Obama’s train of thought in the quoted remarks, which are otherwise so obtuse they are difficult to understand.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses