Pompeo and Victory Without Bullets: Efforts To Control Iran's Destabilizing Actions In Syria
02 May 2018By
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
"We are experiencing tough times, we have to face the challenges courageously
and strongly… we need powerful diplomatic efforts in the Middle East to
control Iran's destabilizing actions in Syria, Yemen and the region". This was
a part of new US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's speech to his staff, who
amount to more than 70,000.
The US has a huge capability to weaken and possibly eliminate any regime it
opposes, without shooting a single bullet, Pompeo said. That almost happened
to the Iranian regime when Washington imposed further sanctions in 2006 after
a Security Council resolution in response to the regime's insistence on
pursuing its nuclear project.
Sanctions included banning the export of many goods, including refined oil
products to Iran, preventing banking transactions, suspending financial
transactions between Iran and most of the world's banks, and preventing
international oil companies from producing oil in Iran. Washington granted no
insurance for Iranian oil tankers and built an electronic wall that blocked
all dealings including registering websites and internet services. Without
dollars, information, banks and insurance, the Iranian regime was stuck; it
could not trade, import nor fulfill the needs of its people.
The events required complicated diplomatic work, political patience, and
knowledgeable intelligence agencies to make sure that the decisions were being
implemented; this was what Washington succeeded in during this period. Due to
these immense pressures, the Iranian regime resorted to communicating in
private with, after three years, Obama's administration asking to negotiate.
These communications coincided with the Green Revolution in Tehran, which
strongly impacted the regime. Then a long set of talks started between the two
sides. Iran then had to be more submissive after the revolution in Syria, its
strategic ally in the region. In exchange for Iran to suspend its nuclear
project for military purposes, the US administration agreed along with its
European allies to make a secret deal to lift economic sanctions on Iran while
refraining from toppling the Syrian regime. The Iranians, who are skilled in
bargaining, realized that President Obama was ready to give them more in
return for the agreement. Thus they took double what they wished for,
including large amounts of financial payments which suspended all the hostile
campaigns against them and overlooked their military expansion in the region.
Even with Washington's serious mistakes, the diplomatic work it led for years
had resulted in an important agreement that forced Khamenei's regime to yield
without shooting a single bullet. This is the power of US diplomatic tools as
described by Pompeo in his speech a few days ago. It seems it is doing the
same thing with the North Korean regime. What's worrying is that the same
mistakes made in dealing with Iran might be repeated with North Korea, given
the similar circumstances. The current administration needs an urgent
preliminary assessment of the situation before November, when the midterm
elections will be taking place. The president's party should win one of the
two chambers, or else he will lose a lot of his authority and become hostage
to his rivals in the Democratic Party.
However, using diplomacy only to force the regime in Tehran to respect UN
principles by suspending its activities and interventions in Iraq, Syria,
Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen would succeed but would not achieve quick results. The
advantage of diplomacy is that there is no blood nor bullets, but it is very
slow and its results may be too late for heated issues, such as wars.
The fear is that the North Korean regime would use Washington's pressing
desire to have a historic nuclear agreement to exert more pressure. I do not
rule out that the North Korean leader would try to rescue Khamenei, his ally,
by convincing the Americans that retreating in any of their commitments to the
Iranian deal would affect their credibility in their negotiations with him. My
fears might not be real, but we know well the relationship between the two
radical regimes.
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is the former general manager of Al-Arabiya
television. He is also the former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, and the
leading Arabic weekly magazine Al-Majalla. He is also a senior columnist in
the daily newspapers Al-Madina and Al-Bilad.
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EsinIslam.Com
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