Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

ARTICLE: "Nations' Rich Trade With Iran Is Hurdle For Sanctions Plan: A Penalty Over Nuclear Issue Would Sting Europe, China, Russia More Than the U.S.; Ahmadinejad Addressed U.N.," by Neil King Jr. and Marc Champion, Wall Street Journal, 20 September 2006, p. A1.

ARTICLE: "Bush Eases Tone on Iran Nuclear Bid: In United Nations Speech, President Says He Seeks A 'Diplomatic Solution,'" by Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 20 September 2006, p. A8.

OP-ED: "The U.S. vs. Iran: One side is playing for real, the other only for time," by Michael Rubin, Wall Street Journal, 20 September 2006, p. A26.

After the brief flirtation with thinking through invasion/strike options--to include nukes--the U.S. is settling into the reality that Iran has already achieved the sort of quasi-entry into the Core that Saudi Arabia has long enjoyed (it is, for example, a member of the G-20). As the Avis of oil and gas, Iran is just too important to the global economy. The U.S. may have weaned itself off its energy (and we import less than $100 million in nuts and such), but in a tight market, that just forces others into Iran's customer base, as there is only so much capacity to go around.

Moreover, as demand grows, Iran's vastly under-capitalized energy market (especially in gas) is logically due for a lot of FDI. Iran knows this, as do its customers, like China, which is importing 56% more oil from Iran this year compared to last, and has its exports to Iran approaching $400 million. That connectivity is coming, nukes or not.

With nukes, though, Iran slips out of rogue status in the minds of its major customers and into quasi-Core status as a made state that cannot be touched:

Investor confidence has rebounded slightly in recent weeks. "I have several multibillion-dollar clients from Europe who are coming back to Iran this week to re-look at the market," Mr. [Amir Cyrus] Razzaghi [head of a Tehran consultancy] says, "because now they see no chance of any military attack on Iran and very little chance of serious sanctions."

You want your "global test" for the use of U.S. military power?

Well, it's here on Iran. It's here on Iran because on how we screwed the postwar pooch in Iraq.

You mess up as the world's policeman and you get put on probation for a while.

Meanwhile, Iran, seeing the writing on the wall with this administration (the cynical diplomatic offers that only the ideologues call "generous," and the obvious ramping up for a military strike before the second term ends), and makes its moves.

First, it demonstrates its new kingpin role in the region with the Hezbollah pre-emptive strike on Israel.

Second, it lines up its customers to scuttle any serious sanctions effort ('"People fear that once you are on the sanctions route there is no getting off it. They remember Iraq and think it's deja vu," said one European diplomat involved in the process.').

Third, it ramps up its rhetoric to take advantage of all this nose-thumbing at America, tapping into the growing international realization that Bush's post-presidency is now over a year old.

So now the Bush Administration realizes that 25 years of a disconnect strategy on Iran has left us essentially out of the loop globally on this issue. In short, we're not trusted in terms of our leadership (again, largely thanks to the Iraq experience):

European, Russian and Chinese diplomats acknowledge that business ties matter when weighing how to proceed on the sanctions issue, but deny that mercantile intterests drive their diplomacy. "Of course our trade with Iran is important," said a French diplomat, "but it is also reflective of a larger familiarity with Iran that the U.S. now lacks. We are there, and the Americans are not."

Our familiarity with Iran is limited to a handful of rather hawkish think-tank experts and our queer string of diplomatic initiatives over the years, stringing back to the bad taste still in our mouths over the hostages under Carter.

Meanwhile, Europe and New Core Russia, China (and India, which has a solid but quiet relationship with Iran) see a very different Iran:

Iran is unquestionably a promising market. It is the region's largest economy after Saudi Arabia, it is flush with oil wealth and many of its 68 million people yearn for consumer goods largely unavailable for decades. Germany exported more than $5 billion of goods to Iran last year. The Chinese get around 18% of their crude oil from Iran and have many other business relations with the country. The European Union is backing plans for a natural-gas pipeline through Turkey that could collect gas from Iran.

As one expert notes on the Chinese energy imports: "This is just the start. China's energy dependence on Iran is going to deepen considerably."

Meanwhile, Bush is backing off the rhetoric:

Facing increased political attacks heading into midterm elections that could be a referendum on his war policies, Mr. Bush used his annual U.N. address to say that the U.S. would continue to champion democracy in the Muslim world insted of falling for the "mirage" of some perceived stability.

And that's where Bush gets the cart before the horse: globalization is penetrating the Middle East at a rapid pace. All that economic and social connectivity is creating real change and real instability. The political outcomes of that change will take time. Looking for democracy around every corner isn't the way to go, especially if that myopic focus keeps the U.S. from participating in the economic and social penetration of the region, because that connectivity is the driving force for change--not the U.S. military.

As I have said all along: this is all about globalization coming to the Middle East. By toppling Saddam, Bush triggered a lot of new possibilities, but he has squandered too many of them by myopically re-running the whole WMD deal with Iran, instead of running with the great game that Saddam's removal helped trigger (the new fears/reforms/king in Saudi Arabia, the political unrest/movement in Egypt, the Cedar Revolution now wasted in Lebanon, Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon [also now largely wasted], Israel's unilateral withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza [now also largely wasted], and so on and so on). This entire board is moving, with all the chess pieces in play, and Bush chose to make WMD with Iran the whole damn game, which in turn has isolated us far more than Iran in the region.

All our experts say this is all about "trusting" the untrustable Iran.

Our problem right now is that we are no longer a trusted agent in the region, thanks to the choices we've made.

And again, that's too bad. It wastes a lot of effort by the Zinnis and Abizaids on our side, and it isolates our efforts at exactly the point in history when following through on the Big Bang's possibilities is what our entire regional policy should be about.

I know, I know, the Big Bang is dead--except it's not. The real Big Bang is globalization. Bush tried mightily to speed that process up with Saddam's toppling, and he did.

It's just that now we've self-destructively played ourselves out of the game.

Iran is being integrated--on its terms for now. But do you think that as Iran opens up more and more economically, the mullahs are going to be able to control all that popular desire for a better life? Seen it work anywhere else in history?

Ah, but it won't happen overnight, just like Bush's Big Bang didn't work overnight, and Americans are so amazingly impatient. Everything looks good and strategic in retrospect, like Nixon's and Kissinger's detente leading to the connectivity that ultimately tames and fells the Soviet Union (I bow in the direction of the Star Wars myth). But remember, that connectivity strategy took a solid decade and a half to unfold.

What Bush started in the Middle East will ultimately bear fruit, not because of the way he did it, but because the overriding force of globalization--the real driver--will overcome our mistakes, will overcome the mullahs in Iran, will overwhelm the Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia, will surmount it all.

That outcome is not in doubt.

What is in doubt is the timing and the local winners and losers in the region (which naturally shift with time).

Right now Iran is "winning" vis-a-vis the U.S., but in choosing alternative connectivity to that which we offered, the outcome is still the same, and it works just as well for us, so long as we don't do anything stupid that forces fellow Core pillars to choose between us and Iran.

And for that reason alone, I'm glad the presidential season is just around the corner.