Roger Cohen: Sanctions won’t work

Sanctions against Iran won’t change anything, writes New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, who argues in his latest column for broad Iranian-American cooperation, along the lines of the France-Britain relationship in the European Union (!?).

Others might draw the opposite conclusion: If sanctions don’t work, a bigger stick might be needed.

Cohen writes:

Sanctions won’t work. Ray Takeyh, who worked on Iran with Dennis Ross at the State Department before losing his job last month and returning to the Council on Foreign Relations, told me that “sanctions are the feel-good option.”

Yes, it feels good to do something, but it doesn’t necessarily help. In this case, sanctions won’t for four reasons.

One: Iran is inured to sanctions after years of living with them and has in Dubai a sure-fire conduit for goods at a manageable surtax. Two: Russia and China will never pay more than lip-service to sanctions. Three: You don’t bring down a quasi-holy symbol — nuclear power — by cutting off gasoline sales. Four: sanctions feed the persecution complex on which the Iranian regime thrives.

A senior German Foreign Ministry official last week told an American Council on Germany delegation: “The efficiency of sanctions is not really discussed because if you do, you are left with only two options — a military strike or living with a nuclear Iran — and nobody wants to go there. So the answer is: Let’s impose further sanctions! It’s a dishonest debate.”

Here’s Cohen’s argument for Iran-U.S. cooperation:

France and Germany fought three wars in 70 years before the bright idea dawned of enfolding their problem into something larger: the European Union. The United States and Iran have not gone to war but have a relationship of psychotic mistrust. The answer can only be the same: Broaden the context…

I believe monitored enrichment on Iranian soil in the name of what Obama called Iran’s “right to peaceful nuclear power” remains a possible basis for an agreement that blocks weaponization. Zero enrichment is by now a non-starter.

For fruitless sanctions to be avoided, the mantra of William Burns, the U.S. under secretary for political affairs who will attend multilateral talks with Iran starting Thursday, must be: “Widen the canvas.”

The Iranian regime is weak. Its disarray was again evident last week; it actually feels threatened by George Soros. Significant factions now view an American breakthrough as needed. They have a favorable view of Burns.

Burns must seek to open a parallel bilateral U.S.-Iran negotiation covering at least these areas: Afghanistan and Iraq (where interests often converge); Hezbollah and Hamas (where they do not); human rights; blocked Iranian assets; diplomatic relations; regional security arrangements; drugs; the fight against Al Qaeda; visas and travel.

Isolated, nuclear negotiations will fail. Integrated, they may not. Iran’s sense of humiliation is rooted in its America complex; its nuclear program is above all about the restoration of pride. Settle the complex to contain the program. Triangulate. Think broad. Think E.U., not Versailles.