Iran Special Analysis: A US Move to "Sanctions for Rights"?

The most interesting spin out of the US in recent days is in a Saturday article in The Wall Street Journal by Jay Solomon, "U.S. Shifts Iran Focus to Support Opposition".

The headline is a bit misleading, since the core issue is whether (in fact, how rather than whether) the Obama Administration will be pursuing and presenting additional sanctions against Iran: "The White House is crafting new financial sanctions specifically designed to punish the Iranian entities and individuals most directly involved in the crackdown on Iran's dissident forces, said...U.S. officials, rather than just those involved in Iran's nuclear program."

The presentation, however, is telling. For weeks, the set-up for sanctions --- for example, in the articles of David Sanger and William Broad in The New York Times --- has been that they were essential to punish Iran for breakdown of enrichment talks and Tehran's move toward a military nuclear capability. Now, for the first time, the message is not just that "rights" should take priority but that there may be a change of power in Iran: "The Obama administration is increasingly questioning the long-term stability of Tehran's government and moving to find ways to support Iran's opposition 'Green Movement'."

Read it: the authority of President Ahmadinejad is no longer assumed, even bolstered, by the US approach. An Administration source declares, "The Green Movement has demonstrated more staying power than perhaps some have anticipated. The regime is internally losing its legitimacy, which is of its own doing."

So which US officials are now tying "targeted sanctions" to this shift away from Ahmadinejad and visions of a new leadership? Here's the big clue:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gathered over coffee at the State Department this week with four leading Iran scholars and mapped out the current dynamics, said U.S. officials. One issue explored was how the U.S. should respond if Tehran suddenly expressed a desire to reach a compromise on the nuclear issue. Mrs. Clinton asked whether the U.S. could reach a pact without crippling the prospects for the Green Movement.

In September, Clinton and her advisors had a similar discussion. The leading Iran scholars on that occasion? "The Carnegie Endowment's Karim Sadjadpour, the New America Foundation's Afshin Molavi, the National Iranian American Council's Trita Parsi, the Council on Foreign Relations' Ray Takeyh, the Woodrow Wilson's Haleh Esfandiari, Brookings' Suzanne Maloney, and George Mason University's Shaul Bakhash."

In recent weeks, Parsi's NIAC has been pushing the approach of targeted sanctions linked to rights, not the nuclear issue, and Takeyh has been promoting a rights-first policy. So I suspect that The Wall Street Journal article is declaring a convergence between the Obama Administration and the private sphere.

If so, welcome back Green movement. And President Ahmadinejad may have lost his nuclear prop from Washington.

Comments

[Ali Khamenei]

     Only the Americans suffer the sanctions of evil deeds. We have erased the sunspots and brought cold across all American farm land including the citrus groves of Florida.
     We will suffer no sanctions.
     The Iranian Parliament and Councils may seem complicated to the decadent world, but they are quite organized and honorable compared to the Great Satan's government of scoundrels.
     Corrupt America cannot in the midst of their political chaos and recession even attempt to apply economic sanctions of any kind. Their Economic Ayatollah Czar of Treasury seems unable to control the un-Speakable of the House, Nancy Pelosi. She presided over a Stimulus Package which was full of pork, and she has become known as the Sow of the House. President Harry Reid of the Senate feeds the piglets. Our President Ahmadinejad is quite upright in comparison.
     While American farmers tend to the Sow, shivering in the cold, we offer to the world:
Aluminum Sows of P1020 99.7%, and/or 99.5%, 500-2000 MT per month on IRALCO option. Delivery continuing until September 2010.
         Price: BASE ON LME average of the month prior to the month of scheduled shipment plus premium on CFR BANDAR ABBAS OR BIK/PERSIAN GULF.
Bid Bond: EURO 50000 to be transferred to following account:
Beneficiary: IRANIAN ALUMINIUM COMPANY, ACCOUNT: 300073620
Beneficiary Bank: EXPORT DEVELOPMENT BANK OF IRAN - ARAK. SWIFT CODE: EDBIRTHARK

     Europe (except for the UK) supports the IRGC by buying Aluminum Sows from their company the Iranian Aluminum Company.
     We enforce sanctions against the Sow.
     No one has sanctions against the Aluminum Sow
The best Sow wins.
The Telecommunication Company of Iran is ever more powerful and they will söw the sow everywhere the IRGC triumphs.

[Thomas]

Our Ali Khamenei peacefully smoking the pipe.

Brought to you by the great Uncle Satan and his associated naval aircraft, missiles and other assorted goodies.

Your welcome.

Have a good day.

[Doug]

Mr. Khamenei,
Harry Reid is Senate Majority Leader. The Vice President of the US is also the President of the Senate, but usually a Vice President only chooses to preside over the Senate to cast a tie vote(only time he votes in Senate). The presiding officer of the Senate most times is call the President Pro Tem.... Congress can be rowdy but no executions have yet been suggested or implied. Some committees do work in secret, oh well, no one's perfect. Maybe C-Span can borrow a few of your greens to take pictures...

[Doug]

typo: sorry meant "called"
The US will buy your aluminum if Ahmadinejad shaves his beard and when pigs fly.

[Dave Kimble]

Don't forget that the current opposition leader Mir Hussein Mousavi was Prime Minister in 1985-6 when he was the Iranian end of the Iran-Contra scandal, working with the CIA to buy arms while publicly calling the US the Great Satan.

Don't forget Mousavi was Prime Minister in 1986-7 when he met with AQ Khan and bought enrichment technology off him.

And don't forget that Mousavi was Prime Minister in 1988 when 3,000 (some say 6,000) political prisoners were jailed, tortured and killed in a purge that dwarfs anything Ahmedinejad has done.

But the traitor Haleh Esfandiari says "we can work with him, he is a reformist." http://www.peakoil.org.au/news/index.php?esfandiari.htm "Is Haleh Esfandiari a CIA asset ?" - see her career details and watch the confession video.

[not so fast]

I am surprised you are giving such face-value credibility to this very vague, un-sourced, un-named story. This is after-all Murdoch Media (Murdoch added the WSJ to his stable) -- the same mother-lode for the fake planted stories recently in the London Times about the nuclear "smoking gun."

This time the alleged "scholars" aren't named. And as for that previous group, with the exception of S.B., most would be fairly characterized as inside-the-beltway "liberal hawks" ... chaps not all that different from the neocons. (e.g., is pushing for "faster please")

And just who are the senior green figures are who are alleged to have spoken to "leading" DC think tanks -- and who then via "third parties" gave lists for targeted sanctions? Would that be Makmalbaf? Sazegara? then Clawson then Ross?

[not so fast]

Pardon my hesitation about the credibility of this article. and over-doing regarding this or that scholar meeting with Clinton..... One does not have to be an Iranian to suspect not-so-hidden hands at work here. Can you say Dennis Ross? He's still there....

Look carefully at the quote cited to by Amb. John Limbert. (the genuine Iran hand brought in to try to undo the damage caused by Ross's presence) It rips one quote wildly out of context from his rather guarded, careful interview with RFE. (the interviewer there was trying hard to get him to bait him, but he didn't take it - but never mind, the WSJ has an agenda to push, to they quote him out of context)

[Scott Lucas]

Not So Fast,

Your points taken. I don't take this as a settled line within the Administration --- thus the question mark in the title --- just as a shift amongst some in the Administration to hang sanctions on rights rather than the nuclear issue (note the chorus from Senators McCain and Lieberman this weekend). That would strike me as possible consensus amongst the sanctions-first brigade (including Ross) and those, inside and outside Government, pressing for rights to be at core of Adminstration approach.

S.

[Thomas]

Doug,

Our Ali Khamenei is a satirist.