Tehra, November 30: As CNN reports, “Iranian students stormed the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, breaking down the door, throwing around papers and replacing the British flag with an Iranian one.” This act comes just over a week after the U.S. and UK imposed tougher sanctions on Iran.
To get perspective on both the sanctions and the storming of the embassy, I reached out to Dr. Geoffrey Kemp, who served in the White House during the first Reagan administration as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs on the National Security Council Staff. In this role, he dealt extensively with Iran.
In our discussion, Kemp made three key points:
1) Imposing crippling sanctions on Iran could damage the global economic recovery by upsetting world oil markets.
2) The Iranian regime must have been aware of the assault on the UK Embassy but decided not to stop it.
3) U.S.-Iranian relations need to be understood in light of changing regional dynamics from Syria to Egypt.
The full transcript is below:
Amar C. Bakshi: How significant are the latest round of sanctions?
Geoffrey Kemp: I think they are psychologically significant but I don’t think they’re going to fundamentally change Iranian behavior on the issue of most concern to us – namely their nuclear program.
There are some forms for sanctions that could potentially bankrupt Iran and put it into a precipitous decline. Those sanctions would have to include a really effective way to slow down or stop their oil production, their oil export or their import of refined petroleum.
Any of these measures would run the risk of spooking the world oil markets at the very time when we hope we are on the cusp on a recovery but we all know it’s so precarious that any serious jolt to the international economic system would put us back into a recession.
So I think there’s great wariness on the part of all the countries who support sanctions against Iran of going too far too quickly given this sensitivity of the oil markets.
If you were in the White House, what would you advise President Obama?
I’m not sure there’s much I would say to criticize what he’s done. He’s got to be conversant with the fact that the Iranian regime, for its own reasons, does not want to have a diplomatic dialogue with us. They see this as an ideological battle and the hardliners in Iran actually benefit from their anti-Americanism.
On the other hand, the President has to be aware this is an election season in the United States and virtually all presidential candidates with the exception of Ron Paul are going to be accusing him of being weak in dealing with Iran and putting Israel in jeopardy – as Romney once said, of ‘throwing Israel under the bus.’
Obama needs to appear tough when it comes to dealing with Iran but not to the point where we break with our key European allies who have been with us for the past ten years supporting efforts for us to put constraints on Iran.
Do you have a sense of whether the assault on the British Embassy was coordinated by the Iranian regime or whether it was spontaneous.
Clearly the protesters who broke into the embassy were doing so with full knowledge of the authorities. Since June 2009 the Iranian authorities have been particularly conscious of any civil uprising because of what happened when the Green Movement came into effect.
This [attack on the UK Embassy] didn’t happen without the regime’s knowledge. Whether they formally recommended they do this, I don’t know. But clearly they could have stopped this had they wanted to.
There has been more talk about strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities lately. What do you think of this?
I think it was inevitable that, particularly given the political situation in the United States, no American politician would take force off the table.
On the other hand, any suggestion that we’ve reached a point that there’s no alternative is very wrong and very premature. There are many more sanctions we can impose – not draconian ones. There are many things we can do to make life difficult for the Iranian regime.
Ultimately, the United States and its allies must watch what’s going on in the region. If you think we’re nervous about what’s going on in Egypt, imagine how the Iranians feel about what’s going on in Syria. Until there’s some clear sense of where the Arab Uprisings are going, ironically both the United States and Iran are in a holding pattern.
If the Assad regime were to fall, this would be a bitter blow to Iran and to its allies Hezbollah and Hamas. It would mean Iran would no longer have its Mediterranean foothold. On the other hand, if Egypt were to become more radical, it would no doubt be a huge blow to the United States because it would undoubtedly put major pressure on Israel and intensify the Arab-Israeli conflict.
You can’t really look at the U.S.-Iranian relationship absent this extraordinary series of developments going on in the region. Until several months ago, Iran and Turkey were very close to each other, essentially coordinating their statements about Israel and the United States. Now you have a situation where the Turks are furious with the Syrians. They are even contemplating using force against Syria, which is anathema to Iran.
The whole tapestry of the Middle East is up for grabs, and no one can predict what’s going to happen.
Courtesy: CNN