The Pressure Is Working

So Don't apply pressure. I think this is the logic Ali Ansari Is getting at in an odd op-ed in the Guardian. He spends the vast majority of his piece explaining why US pressure on Iran is working, then says we should not keep it up.

The honeymoon is over. Iran's controversial president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has finally come unstuck. His popularity with the Iranian electorate – the subject of much incredulous analysis in 2005 – seems to be falling back at last, and the country's latest exercise in populism seems to be reaping the rewards of unfulfilled promises bestowed with little attention to economic realities.

Those realities have sharpened with the onset of UN sanctions. Ahmadinejad's casual dismissal of the sanctions has apparently earned him an unprecedented rebuke from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei – reflecting growing concerns among the political elite, including many conservatives, who are increasingly anxious at Iran's worsening international situation. As if to emphasise this point, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad's defeated foe in the 2005 presidential election, echoed the condemnation of the president's public complacency, stressing that the threats against Iran were very real. Indeed, as a second US carrier group heads for the Gulf, there is belated questioning of the president's competence. His critics argue that not only does he appear to have courted the anger of the US, but his economic mismanagement and political nepotism have weakened the internal integrity of the Islamic republic – and proved to be a gift to Iran's enemies.

Ahmadinejad was elected on a platform of anti-corruption and financial transparency, and few appreciated how rapidly he was intoxicated with the prerogatives of his office. He very soon forgot the real help he had received in ensuring his election, basking in the belief that God and the people had put him in power. Ahmadinejad soon had a view for all seasons: uranium enrichment. Of course Iran would pursue this, and what's more, sell it on the open market at knockdown rates. As for interest rates, they were far too high for the ordinary borrower, so cut them immediately. And then there was the Holocaust.

The kicker to this: yes it is actually working, but not really:

There can be little doubt that US hawks will interpret recent events as proof that pressure works, and that any more pressure will encourage the hawks further. Yet the reality is that while Ahmadinejad has been his own worst enemy, the US hawks are his best friends. Ahmadinejad's demise, if it comes, will have less to do with the international environment and more with his own political incompetence. There is little doubt that it will take more than a cosmetic change to get Washington to listen to Iran. But the real question mark, as the Baker-Hamilton commission found to its cost, is whether Washington is inclined to listen at all.

This is, I think, is a very odd conclusion to what was a pretty straightforward review of what has gone wrong for Ahmadinejad.

UPDATE: Others are also noticing the incoherence. Dan Riehl, Jules Crittenden, Captain's Quarters, The Belmont Club, BrothersJudd Blog, Hot Air,

categories Iran, World news | Gaius January 29, 2007

Other Links to this Post

  1. The Moderate Voice » Blog Archive » ‘Look! That’s My Boy’ — January 30, 2007 @ 5:46 am

  2. The Right Nation — January 30, 2007 @ 9:04 am

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