Friday, March 20, 2009
President Obama speaks to the people of Iran
President Obama has produced a video in which he speaks directly to the people of Iran (watch it here). Blog reax from left and right here.
Commentary
To all those, right or left, who believe that President Obama's is doing something new in this, please refer to any of George Bush's speeches pointedly directed toward the people of Iran. This is something we have tried before, though with at least four crucial differences. It is not at all clear what those differences will mean in practice.
Two of the differences relate to the means of the communication. YouTube has transformed the ability of any world leader to address the world, and this president knows it. YouTube and its ilk was not available for most of the Bush presidency, and by the time it was President Bush's unpopularity was such that his use of it might well have backfired. The other difference is that the Bush administration did not get its act together to translate his speeches into Farsi, at least not in real time. I asked a friend inside the Bush White House why we did not broadcast the president's speeches with simultaneous Farsi translation, and he treated me to a dispiriting review of our public diplomacy capabilities. I note, though, that the Obama White House has managed to cough up subtitles in Farsi (which it calls "Persian") in real time, along with a Persian transcript. So that's one thing our new president is doing better.
There are also two substantive differences, one explicit and one implicit.
Explicitly, President Obama is also addressing the "leaders of the Islamic Republic." He is telling them that the United States recognizes the current regime's right to exist, as it were, and that we are only seeking a change in its behavior. Technically, this was also the position of the Bush administration, but with two crucial differences. First, the track record of the Bush administration was such that its claim that it was not seeking to overturn the regime rang hollow to most observers (although not on the hawkish American right, which was outraged by Secretary Rice's relatively non-confrontational posture).
The other difference is that the Bush administration believed that it needed to sharpen differences between the Iranian people and its regime in order to make progress against the latter's intransigence, and that public communication with the mullahs would weaken the Iranian opposition rather than strengthen it. The Obama administration apparently believes that (1) the Iranian opposition does not matter, or (2) a more accomodating posture toward the regime will not hurt the opposition. It is not clear which position predominates from the video, but since the President omitted any statement of support for the political or human rights of the Iranian people, a sharp departure from the policies of Bush 43, Bill Clinton, and (for heaven's sake) Jimmy Carter, I'm going with door number one.
Implicitly, there is an even greater difference between the Obamans and most previous American administrations (although not Clinton's), and that has to do with its operating "model" of the Islamic Republic. There are two competing conceptions of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and each drives a somewhat different policy.
The hawkish view (and the one to which I subscribe, but on the basis of no expertise) is that Iran as a revolutionary state, bent on extending its revolution wherever it reasonably can. In this view, revolutionary Iran is not unlike the Communist powers in their early years, including particularly the Soviet Union. If this is your model of the Islamic Republic then Iran will take every concession, bank it, and use it as a starting point for the next confrontation. Therefore, it is wise to minimize concessions to those necessary to achieve tactical objectives and otherwise confine Iran in as small a box as possible.
The countervailing view, which is almost certainly the majority position among foreign policy professionals, is that Iran shapes its foreign policy with more or less the same objectives as the typical nation state, and that it responds to similar stimuli. According to this model of Iranian behavior, the Islamic Republic is aggressive primarily because it feels insecure. It feels insecure because of perceived or actual aggression against it, including by the United States. Therefore, it is unwise of the United States to increase Iran's sense of insecurity, whether by posting troops in adjacent countries or hinting that "all options are on the table." Concessions to Iran will beget concessions from Iran.
The Obama administration quite clearly subscribes to the second model of Iran, whereas the Bush 43 administration believed the first model even as practical considerations (such as its own unpopularity, and Iran's leverage over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) forced it to act more along the lines of the second.
In any case, it is hard to imagine a more appeasing overture than the one we saw in President Obama's greeting. We will learn a lot from the reaction of the mullahs. The question is whether that reaction will drive anybody to reconsider which "model" best describes the Islamic Republic's ambitions and behavior.
16 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Mar 20, 09:56:00 AM:
"The countervailing view, which is almost certainly the majority position among foreign policy professionals, is that Iran shapes its foreign policy with more or less the same objectives as the typical nation state, and that it responds to similar stimuli."
Compelling evidence they might be correct in this view would be welcome, because the "hawkish" view, as you characterize it seems to be also the "obviously true" view. Regardless, obscuring differences is never the right way to proceed: it doesn't work at any level of human interaction, ranging from child-raising, to friendships, to commercial relationships, to debate, to national politics and international relations. Obama's pragmatic philosophy as it is on display so far in his foreign policy is naive in it's reliance on "good faith approaches" and bankrupt in it's willingness to accommodate any and all existing regimes, and in the specific case of Iran, a potentially highly destructive approach.
By , at
Fri Mar 20, 10:20:00 AM:
I don't subscribe to either view. As described by a recent article in Foreign Affairs, it is probably more useful to think of Iran's government as a sultanate, with Ali Khamenei as the "supreme leader." All the attention paid by the MSM to Ahmadinejad and the mullahs only strengthens the Sultan's position and distracts us.
By 
Counter Trey, at
Fri Mar 20, 11:08:00 AM:
I think Obama's message is very similar to the following message at 7:30 minutes to 9:17 minutes from a different president:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3bI71P_8O8&feature=PlayList&p=159E0D882F1B03D2&index=31
I expect similar results
By dave in boca, at
Fri Mar 20, 12:17:00 PM:
Squealer has the right tone, and in the meantime, self-hating anti-Semitic Jews like Ezra Klein [and the kiddie-korps JournoList peanut gallery for whom he is the pied piper] is singing hosannas to the Bowler-in-Chief as he rolls another gutter ball.
By , at
Fri Mar 20, 12:31:00 PM:
I'd say Obama is reversing the bin-Laden/Bush ploy.
In fall 2004, bin Laden issued inflammatory proclamations to help get Bush elected, because an antagonistic and militaristic US policy would help Al Qaeda's positioning and recruitment in the Islamic world.
Similarly, in the runup to the previous Iranian election, the unpopular-in-Iran Bush issued aggressive proclamations that helped elect the hardliner Ahmadinejad. Whether Bush knew what he was doing is unclear, but having a hardliner in the symbolic Iranian presidential role was helpful to the Cheney faction.
Obama is trying to neutralize the use of anti-American rhetoric that benefits the hardliners in Iranian domestic politics. He's helping the opposition.
By , at
Fri Mar 20, 12:43:00 PM:
"Obama is trying to neutralize the use of anti-American rhetoric that benefits the hardliners in Iranian domestic politics. He's helping the opposition."
And if you click your ruby slippers together 3 times you'll be back in Kansas in time for lunch ...
By , at
Fri Mar 20, 12:57:00 PM:
Brian Schmidt:
Obama is trying to neutralize the use of anti-American rhetoric that benefits the hardliners in Iranian domestic politics. He's helping the opposition.
The opposition, you say. Since the mullahs vet all who run for office in Iran, no one who opposes in any form the rule and the policies of the mullahs will ever make it to elected office.
The opposition.
Yeah, right.
We are dealing with the rulers of Iran, NOT with the opposition. Like the difference between Brezhnev and Solzheynitsin.(spelling)
By , at
Fri Mar 20, 12:58:00 PM:
OT, but Barack's teleprompter is upset with him:
"It's days like this that make me miss the days when He and I would walk the streets of Chicago, doing community activism. Sure, it took Him 30 minutes to set me up, and sometimes he couldn't get the extension cord to reach an electrical outlet, or the folks he wanted to talk to would walk off because they had better things to do, or the glare off my screen made his remarks unreadable. But it was a simpler time, when he could stay on script and didn't feel the need to "speak his mind," and we were a team."
By , at
Fri Mar 20, 01:05:00 PM:
As one would expect, the Iranian government's public response has the same resolve so evident in all their utterances. the wind is blowing hard, so I suggest we just zip up and get ready for trouble.
By I R A Darth Aggie, at
Fri Mar 20, 04:56:00 PM:
the Obama White House has managed to cough up subtitles in Farsi
Yes. Wonderful. Nice.
But, given the recent inablity to translate "reset" into it's proper Russian equivalent, we should perhaps wait and see if the translation to Farsi is any better.
By , at
Fri Mar 20, 08:32:00 PM:
At some point the established fear of oil supply disruption will be overcome by the fear of actually having to live with a nuclear, terror sponsoring, fanatical Iran. This will be the moment where the certainty of a small nuke war will seem ever so much more desirable than the certainty of a large one a little later on...
By Escort81, at
Fri Mar 20, 11:20:00 PM:
I am pretty skeptical regarding any meaningful engagement with the Mullahs, but I think the video is pretty harmless. I don't think that it incrementally invites more adventurousness from the IRGC or Kuds, since the Mullahs tend to move those chess pieces with care. Hezbollah and Hamas are under somewhat less direct control and can be wildcards, yes, so the Israelis might be on extra alert. But I don't see much downside, or upside, for that matter.
If you believe, as I do, that above all, President Obama is a politician interested in advancing his domestic agenda, then it follows that he is entirely capable of responding with force if the Mullahs do something provocative beyond their usual bandwidth of plausibly deniable mischief making. That is, if President Obama believes that at some point in the future, sliding poll numbers are jeopardizing his health care or environmental initiatives, he would be perfectly happy to take out Iran's only oil refinery (assuming sufficient provocation) so as to regain the Blue Dog votes and pick up some Republicans. It is not as if the left will abandon him because he whacks somebody -- in fact, I'd bet we'd see a few entertaining reluctant hawk posts at Huffpo and Kos. He likely understands the lesson of the Carter presidency vis-a-vis Iran, and probably doesn't want a repeat of that. It wouldn't be the first time a Democratic POTUS took an aggressive foreign policy stance to win the favor of key House and Senate members to advance historic domestic legislation (LBJ).
By , at
Sat Mar 21, 12:56:00 AM:
All Islamic states are revolutionary states, in accord with Muhammad's example, who (paraphrased from a Hadith) "will not rest until Islam rules the whole world". Over time they may be in varying states of quiescence and fervor, but the Quranic injunction to emulate Muhammad is eternal. It's downright scary to watch the left (and sadly much of the right) discount and ignore religious motivation for Islamic aggression even while the aggressors publicly expose and discuss those motivations on Arabic- and Farsi-language television stations.
By , at
Sat Mar 21, 10:28:00 AM:
There's nothing wrong with being a revolutionary nation, though believe me I know the difference between the one in Iran and the one in America, the revolution of human freedom is a tangible goal of the material world rooted in realism, the revolution in Iran seeks a glorious end to the material world so that the reward of the so-called hereafter, eternal praise and adoration (a celestial North Korea) -- this anti-realism, mass death and destruction of world populations is the goal of all truly faithful and sincerely radical believers -- note I said radical (extremist) believers.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Mar 22, 09:58:00 PM:
"In fall 2004, bin Laden issued inflammatory proclamations to help get Bush elected, because an antagonistic and militaristic US policy would help Al Qaeda's positioning and recruitment in the Islamic world."
1) Why couldn't it just be that bin Laden hated President Bush and wanted to say bad things about him? It's not like it was the first time he said mean things about America or its leadership.
2) What makes you think Americans as a group gave a shit about OBL's opinions?
3) If that was the plan, it *completely* backfired.
"Similarly, in the runup to the previous Iranian election, the unpopular-in-Iran Bush"
In 'Guests of the Ayatollah,' the author relates a story of when he visited the old American embassy which had since been made into an anti-American museum. One of the IRGC guards there found out he was American and gave a smile and a thumbs-up and said, "George Bush OK!"
Given the absolute unreliability of public polling in what amounts to a police state, this anecdote is as reliable a gauge of opinion as anything.
"issued aggressive proclamations that helped elect the hardliner Ahmadinejad. Whether Bush knew what he was doing is unclear, but having a hardliner in the symbolic Iranian presidential role was helpful to the Cheney faction."
Samples would be nice. Also, some proof that such proclamations were both propagated in Iran and had a noticeable effect on public opinion with regard to the elections. Because if Americans don't give a shit about OBL's opinions during our own elections, I can't imagine why Iranians would give a shit about GWB's opinions during theirs.
By , at
Thu Mar 26, 12:31:00 PM:
I posted this comment elsewhere on this interesting blog.
I'm not quite sure if some of the posters and commentors here are intelligent or stupid, perhaps the "intelligently stupid" applies.
For one, I think there are some postures designed for the American and Iranian populace. TigerH should observe that Obama did in fact directly accuse Iranians of terrorism, in as much as he imbedded the following obviously insulting bombshell into what was otherwise basically a very culturally-sensitive love-note:
"You, too, have a choice. The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right — but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create."
This insert was meant to be a terror-bad behavior proviso effecting the appearance of political condescension to the Iranian populace.
He obviously meant to discredit his overall message to the typical Iranian populace who, like the general American populace, are not familiar with intra-government dialogue which often contrevenes public statements. Khatemi simply obliged by pointing out the discrepancy, in puzzlement.
Readers should recognize the Obama Noruz message as an obvious start to a major new attitude toward Iran's government, contrasting what President Cheney advocated, in a way that would be tenable to both the Iranian populace and the American populace.
Imagine Iranians hearing Obama's message without the condescension-proviso--they would think we are setting them up! Imagine Americans hearing Obama saying all these goochy thoughts without the proviso--that was obviously to make this outgoing message digestible to the still-skeptical Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike.
Not hard to figure out.
