But if the turmoil in Iran has made Obama’s policy of engagement less promising, it may have made a potential Plan B of multilateral sanctions more potent. “Whatever reluctance there was in European capitals will have been mitigated by violence after the elections,” notes Maloney. Russia and China, who are key to any successful sanctions, have long been reticent to confront Iran. But Obama seemed to make some headway with Moscow this week, when Russia and the U.S. agreed to jointly produce an assessment of the threats that Iran’s nuclear capabilities could pose to their countries. “We will be conducting a review of that and making assessments to find ways that the United States and Russia can co-operate more effectively,” Obama said. “That’s going to be very important.”
The two sides also discussed a global nuclear summit that could be hosted by Russia. And without mentioning Iran by name, Medvedev indicated he shared Washington’s concerns about Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. “It’s our common, joint responsibility, and we should do our utmost to prevent any negative trends there,” he said. “And we are ready to do that. Our negotiations with President Obama have demonstrated that we share the same attitude toward this problem.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Western nations that if they “meddle” in Iranian politics, Iranians would “unite against their enemies into one fist.” That seems unlikely, given the rifts within Iran’s ruling elite. On July 4, while meeting with relatives of those detained after the election, former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who supported Mousavi, said the post-election events had caused “bitterness.” Though Rafsanjani denied there was a power struggle, the influential cleric, who heads the Assembly of Experts that appoints and removes the supreme leader, couldn’t hide his criticism of the government: “I don’t think that [anybody with a] vigilant conscience is satisfied with the current situation.” And the next day, a group of high-level clerics criticized the election results, even as some hard-liners called for Mousavi to be tried as a traitor and foreign agent. Tellingly, in a speech on state radio, Khamenei called for national unity while appearing to ignore such calls. “Friends should not be treated like enemies for the sake of a mistake,” the supreme leader said.
True to form, Obama remained hopeful. Iran’s “governing elites are going through a struggle that has been mirrored painfully and powerfully on the streets,” he said, after meeting Medvedev. “The fact that we have both said we are willing to work with Iran, at the same time as we have been very clear about our grave deep concerns with respect to not just the violence, has created a space where the international community can potentially join and pressure Iran more effectively.”
But the President said it will take time to see whether diplomacy can achieve anything. “Ultimately, we’re going to have to see whether a country like Russia, for example, is willing to work with us to apply pressure on Iran to take a path toward international respectability, as opposed to the path they’re on,” Obama said. “That’s not something we’re going to know the results of for several more months as we continue to do the hard diplomatic work of putting this coalition together to tell Iran: ‘Make the better choice.’ ”
Pages: 1 2
