Bernd Debusmann

Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

In the long-running Western debate over what to do about Iran’s nuclear program, fresh language has been as rare as fresh ideas. But here’s a novel phrase worth noting: “Striking Iranian nuclear sites is like mowing the grass.” How so?

The man who coined the simile, Middle East scholar Aaron David Miller, argues that no strike, or series of strikes, could permanently cripple the Iranian capacity to produce and weaponize fissile material. Absent complete success in wiping out Iran’s hardened and widely dispersed nuclear sites, “the grass would only grow back again.” The Iranians would “reseed” the grass “with the kind of legitimacy that can only come from having been attacked by an outside power.”

The presidential hopefuls of America‘s Republican Party could do worse than take note of that assessment. In the first foreign policy debate of the Republican primary race on November 12, all but one of the nine would-be presidents supported an attack — by the United States or Israel — on Iran to stop it from getting the bomb, if sanctions failed, as they have done so far.

Unlike the presidential candidates, Miller is familiar with the subject. Now a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, a Washington think tank, he worked for 25 years in senior roles at the State Department as a Middle East negotiator and adviser. He is not alone in arguing that an attack on Iran would only delay, but not end, Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

In the United States, a long list of prominent experts on Iran and nuclear proliferation share that view and in Israel, Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad, the foreign intelligence service, has called bombing Iraq “a stupid idea” and repeatedly warned that an attack would have disastrous consequences for Israel.

The latest round of the “to bomb or not to bomb” debate, a recurring theme for the better part of a decade, was triggered by a November 8 report from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which said Tehran appeared to have worked on designing a bomb and may still be conducting secret research to that end.

The qualifying word “may” quickly disappeared from most media reports and from discussions of the issue. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a few days after the IAEA report’s publication that it did not reflect the full extent of Iran’s nuclear program and warned that “Iran is closer to getting a bomb than we thought.”

That is music to the ears of Republican critics of President Barack Obama, whom they accuse of lacking firmness in dealing with the Iranian government and failing to rally international support for sanctions tough enough to convince Tehran that it is time to give up its nuclear ambitions.

Foreign policy is not likely to play much of a role in the 2012 presidential election and Obama has an impressive record of foreign policy successes, from the killing of Osama bin Laden to the U.S. role in ending the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. But in a country whose citizens regularly name Iran as the greatest threat to the United States, according to Gallup polls, any perception of weakness towards Tehran could become an issue.

VOTE FOR OBAMA, VOTE FOR THE IRANIAN BOMB?

“If … we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon,” Romney said at the Republican foreign policy debate. “And if … you elect me as the next president, they will not have a nuclear weapon.”

How would he prevent this? If he were president, he explained in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, he would impose tougher sanctions, regularly send aircraft carriers into the Mediterranean and the Gulf, speak up on behalf of Iranian dissidents and increase military assistance to Israel.

“These actions will send an unequivocal signal to Iran that the United States, in concert with allies, will never permit Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. Only when the ayatollahs no longer have doubts about America‘s resolve will they abandon their nuclear ambitions.”

For sanctions to work, they need to be global and there is no good reason to think that a Republican president would have more success than Obama in convincing China and Russia to agree to additional economic pressure against Iran. Obama’s latest attempt came in meetings with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao at a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation this week.

The outlook for the future of this confrontation looks as bleak now as it probably will after the 2012 U.S. elections — learn to live with an Iranian bomb or start yet another war with consequences nobody can predict.

(You can contact the author at Debusmann@Reuters.com)

Could the administration of President Barack Obama hasten the downfall of Iran’s government by taking an opposition group off the U.S. list of terrorist organizations? To hear a growing roster of influential former government officials tell it, the answer is yes.

The opposition group in question is the Mujadeen-e-Khalq (MEK) and the growing list of Washington insiders coming out in its support include two former Central Intelligence Agency chiefs (James Woolsey and Michael Hayden), two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Peter Pace and Hugh Shelton), former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge and former FBI head Louis Freeh.

The MEK was placed on the terrorist list in 1997, a move the Clinton administration hoped would help open a dialogue with Iran, and since then has been waging a protracted legal battle to have the designation removed. Britain and the European Union took the group off their terrorist lists in 2008 and 2009 respectively after court rulings that found no evidence of terrorist actions after the MEK renounced violence in 2001.

In Washington, initial support for “de-listing” came largely from the ranks of conservatives and neo-conservatives but it has been spreading across the aisle and the addition of a newcomer of impeccable standing with the Obama administration could herald a policy change not only on the MEK but also on dealing with Tehran.

The newcomer is Lee Hamilton, an informal senior advisor to President Obama, who served as a Democratic congressman for 34 years and was co-chairman of the commission that investigated the events leading to the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York.

“This is a big deal,” Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, two prominent experts on Iran, wrote on their blog. “We believe that Hamilton’s involvement increases the chances that the Obama administration will eventually start supporting the MEK as the cutting edge for a new U.S. regime change strategy towards Iran.” The Leveretts think such a strategy would be counter-productive.

But speakers at the February 19 conference in Washington where Hamilton made his debut as an MEK supporter thought otherwise. Addressing some 400 Iranian-Americans in a Washington hotel, retired General Peter Pace said: “Some folks said to me … if the United States government took the MEK off the terrorist list it would be a signal to the Iranian regime that we changed from a desire to see changes in regime behavior to a desire to see changes in regime. Sounds good to me.”

The Obama administration’s policy is not regime change but the use of sanctions and multi-national negotiations to persuade the government in Tehran to drop its nuclear ambitions. So far, that has been unsuccessful. Two rounds of talks between Iran, the U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany in January ended without progress and did not even yield agreement on a date for more talks.

NO POLICY CHANGE BUT SHARPER RHETORIC
That did not change Washington’s “no regime change” stand. What has changed is the tone of public American statements on Iran since a wave of mass protests swept away the authoritarian rulers of Tunisia and Egypt and forced the governments of Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria and Saudi Arabia to announce reforms. In contrast, Iran responded to mass demonstrations with violent crackdowns.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the U.S.  “very clearly and directly support the aspirations of the people who are in the streets” of Iranian cities agitating for a democratic opening as they did in 2009, when Washington stayed silent.

Like the U.S., Iran labels the MEK a terrorist organization and has dealt particularly harshly with Iranians suspected of membership or sympathies. In the view of many of its American supporters, the U.S. terrorist label has weakened internal support for the MEK. How much support there is for the organization is a matter of dispute among Iran watchers, many of whom consider it insignificant.

At last week’s Washington conference, however, speaker after speaker described it as a major force, feared and hated by the Iranian government. General Shelton called it “the best organized resistance group.” Dell Daley, the State Department’s counter-terrorism chief until he retired in 2009, said the MEK was “the best instrument of power to get inside the Iran mullahs and unseat them.”

The decision to give legitimacy, or not, to the group is up to Hillary Clinton. Last July, a federal appeals court in Washington instructed the Department of State to review the terrorist designation, in language that suggested that it should be revoked. Court procedures gave her until June to decide.

(You can contact the author at Debusmann@Reuters.com)

Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Who says that the United States and Iran can't agree on anything? The Great Satan, as Iran's theocratic rulers call the United States, and the Islamic Republic see eye-to-eye on at least one thing, that the Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) are terrorists.

America and Iran arrived at the terrorist designation for the MEK at different times and from different angles but the convergence is bizarre, even by the complicated standards of Middle Eastern politics. The United States designated the MEK a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997, when the Clinton administration hoped the move would help open a dialogue with Iran. Thirteen years later, there is still no dialogue.

But the group is still on the list, despite years of legal wrangling over the designation through the U.S. legal system. Britain and the European Union took the group off their terrorist lists in 2008 and 2009 respectively after court rulings that found no evidence of terrorist actions after the MEK renounced violence in 2001.

On July 16, a federal appeals court in Washington instructed the Department of State to review the terrorist designation, in language that suggested that it should be revoked. But Hillary Clinton’s review mills appear to be grinding very slowly.

A group of lawmakers from both parties reminded Clinton of the court ruling this week and drew attention to a House resolution in June -- it has more than 100 co-sponsors and the list is growing -- that called for the MEK to be taken off the terrorist list. Doing so would not only be the right thing, the six leading sponsors said in a letter, it would also send the right message to Tehran. Translation: using the terrorist label as a carrot does not work, so it's time to be tough.

Come January, when a new, Republican-dominated House of Representatives begins its term, Clinton and President Barack Obama are likely to come under pressure from hawkish members of congress to act tough towards Iran, further tighten economic sanctions and ensure that those already existing don't erode.

The influential House Foreign Affairs Committee will be headed by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, an enthusiastic MEK-backer, who said in a recent interview with Reuters correspondent Pascal Fletcher that the West must make clear it means business about implementing sanctions against Iran. "If...we convey a sense of weakness and a lack of resolve, the centrifuges (in Iran's uranium enrichment program) keep spinning."

GROUP BLEW WHISTLE ON NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Ironically, it was the MEK which gave the first detailed public account of Iran's until-then secret nuclear projects at the cities of Natanz and Arak, in 2002. The disclosure greatly turned up the volume of the international controversy over Iran's intentions. (Iran's leaders firmly deny that work on nuclear bombs is underway).

Iran's nuclear program is likely to rise close to the top of Obama's foreign policy agenda in the second half of his mandate, particularly if there are no signs of progress in the on-again, off-again attempts to break the present stalemate. The next talks are scheduled for Dec. 5, between the so-called P5+1 (U.N. Security Council members Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States, plus Germany) and Iran.

Other than getting the United States in sync with its Western allies on their assessment of the MEK, what would taking it off the 47-strong American list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations change? In the United States, it would unfreeze frozen funds and allow the group to reopen its office and operate freely as an advocacy group.

In Iran, it would deprive the government of an all-purpose scapegoat to taint all reformists with the MEK brush. In arresting alleged members or sympathizers, Iranian authorities routinely mention that even the United States considers the group terrorist. In their letter to Clinton, the legislators argued that the U.S. designation allowed Iranian officials to "further justify their draconian punishments".

How much support the MEK, whose leadership is based in Paris, enjoys in Iran is a matter of dispute and many experts rate it as insignificant. But there is no dispute over draconian punishments for Iranians judged to be members or sympathizers. That prompts charges of "waging war against God", which is punishable by death.

The MEK's appeal to the Washington court in summer was its fifth petition. It remains to be seen how long the United States. and Iran will stay on the same page on the matter.