Foreign Affairs Editor Gideon Rose Discusses Obama's Iran Deal and the Real Threat of The Middle East
These Questions originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. Answers by Gideon Rose, Editor, Foreign Affairs, on Quora.
Q: How does President Obama's Iran Deal look now that a few months have passed?
A: Much of the hullabaloo over the Iran deal earlier this year was political rather than substantive. The JCPOA is a solid arms control agreement trading sanctions relief for a decade-long pause in Iran's quest for a bomb. It's a typical Obama response to a foreign policy challenge: No war, no appeasement, a team effort with other great powers to try to come up with a practical solution to a significant but limited problem, and the creation of conditions in which progress might be made on broader issues over time. Most US foreign policy professionals supported it, not because they thought it would bring on nirvana but because it seemed a useful step forward and the alternative courses of action all seemed significantly worse. The only reason it was so controversial was because it became a political football, caught up in the "Obama is a dangerous America-hating wuss and so anything he does must be awful" madness
What's been most interesting to watch since the completion of the deal has been the fight about it raging on the Iranian side. Hardliners there opposed it too, but the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has the last word and he made sure it went through. He did so because he wanted relief from the economic sanctions, not because he wants to move towards détente with the United States (something the more moderate President Rouhani, Foreign Minister Zarif, and their allies might be open to). So look for general Iranian compliance with the deal, but not much broader liberalization or engagement, at least for a while.
...
Q: Do foreign policy experts think that President Obama has done a good job dealing with terrorism?
A: There's a range of opinion about this among foreign policy professionals, but the center of that range is probably more favorable to Obama than you might gather from listening to general public discourse. Why? Because most professionals recognize that the immediate terrorist threat to the United States isn't nearly as great as the cable channels would have you believe, and there aren't a lot of silver bullets in this area. So, while some professionals might be critical of this or that move (or lack of move) by the administration, most of them know that there's not some obviously better policy lying around waiting to be implemented. What's notable about most of the administration's critics on this front is how few actual sensible or constructive suggestions they have for what else to do.
...
Q: What risks do US interests currently face in the Middle East?
A: Oy, this is a doozy. I think President Obama did a nice job summarizing U.S. interests in the Middle East in his speech to the UN General Assembly in 2013:
The gist of it was this:
The United States of America is prepared to use all elements of our power, including military force, to secure our core interests. . . . We will confront external aggression against our allies and partners. . . . We will ensure the free flow of energy. . . . We will dismantle terrorist networks that threaten our people. . . . And finally, we will not tolerate the development or use of weapons of mass destruction.
Those are the things the U.S. is prepared to fight for, in other words. "To say that these are America's core interests," Obama continued, "is not to say that they are our only interests." Other goals, such as regional peace, prosperity, democracy, and human rights, were also important. "But . . . we can rarely achieve these objectives through unilateral American action, particularly through military action," he said. Instead, they could and should be pursued through longer, broader group efforts--policies that would erect sustainable incentive structures to nudge things forward over time.
Critics fault Obama for letting conflict rage and turbulence spread throughout the region. And it is true that the American withdrawal from Iraq and nonintervention in Syria were ultimately followed by the rise of the Islamic State, or ISIS, a vicious terrorist ministate, in the badlands of those countries.
But looking at recent history, the president concluded that the region's various domestic problems are neither easily solvable nor his to solve. After all, as the former administration official Philip Gordon has noted, "In Iraq, the U.S. intervened and occupied, and the result was a costly disaster. In Libya, the U.S. intervened and did not occupy, and the result was a costly disaster. In Syria, the U.S. neither intervened nor occupied, and the result is a costly disaster." And in Yemen, one might add, the United States relied on drone strikes and active diplomacy, and the result is a costly disaster. If the Middle East is bent on convulsing itself in costly disasters, as seems unfortunately true these days, trying to play a constructive role from the sidelines rather than getting embroiled directly represents not weakness but prudence.
A good overview of current US policy toward the region is this, which makes the best case I've seen for the Obama administration's take:
These questions originally appeared on Quora. - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:
- Bloggers: How can bloggers interested in Foreign Policy get noticed?
- ISIS: Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS): What's the future of the Islamic State?
- Prominent Thinkers: Who are the best foreign policy thinkers under 40?
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
