Stunningly excellent piece of analysis on Iran sanctions

ARTICLE: Against the Green, By Nader Mousavizadeh, The New Republic, December 23, 2009

ARTICLE: As standoff with Iran continues, U.S. prepares targeted sanctions, By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, December 30, 2009

I quote the end at length:

The fracturing of the Islamic Republic's traditional elite, and the persistence and power of Iran's democratic awakening six months later, make clear that a regime change is under way in Iran--one that is indigenous, sustainable, democratic in spirit, and peaceful in its means. It is the most promising development in the broader Middle East in the past quarter-century. Rather than being viewed as a sideshow, the uprising should be at the core of every policy decision regarding Iran. Western leaders should ask themselves just one question whenever faced with a new set of measures toward Iran: Will they help or hurt the Green Movement?

For all the concern about a fitful and still highly vulnerable nuclear program, a far greater prize is now in sight: a freer society and an accountable government under the rule of law. An opportunity now exists to encourage the evolution of a democratic Iran--through careful, calibrated, and principled policies that refuse to be baited by the crude and bellicose behavior of a usurper president. The premise of Obama's initial engagement approach seemed to reflect an understanding of this extraordinary potential. The question now is whether the shift to a policy of pressure, threats, and further isolation will trade the promise of transformative change for the illusion of a security arrangement with a regime built on an edifice of enmity with the West.

The past six months have made three things quite clear: The regime is unlikely to compromise meaningfully on the nuclear issue, at least not within an acceptable timeframe; it is not going to relax its repression of the domestic opposition; and it is not going to temper its hostile rhetoric toward Israel. Seen through this prism of an implacable regime confronting an unprecedented movement for Iranian modernity and moderation, defaulting to an unimaginative policy singularly focused on non-proliferation may turn out to be a historic mistake. One need not be uniquely expert on Chinese or Russian foreign policy to appreciate that the Western desperation for their support in the councils of global opinion is a veritable Christmas tree of strategic bargaining, with ever higher costs to be extracted from Washington. One does not have to spend long studying the new landscape of global options available to rogue states such as Iran in forging alliances of convenience with rising powers such as Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia to understand that effective isolation in the 21st century is illusory.

In the coming weeks and months, a new Iran may be won or lost. Before being led down a fateful, and strategically barren, path of sanctions and threats focused exclusively on the nuclear program, Obama might wish to consider the question of Iran worthy of a high-level strategic review of its own. He might ask his advisors if a predictable set of tortured Security Council negotiations in February will achieve anything but a further divided international community and an accelerated nuclear program in Tehran. He could probe the possibility of providing Israel with additional security guarantees robust enough to dissuade it from a calamitous strike on Iran. He can press his intelligence agencies to develop further ways to disable and delay the nuclear program through even more creative covert operations. He should ask for a set of credible containment options built around a box of red lines within which the process of democratic reform would have time and space to take irreversible hold. And he might ask himself whom he'd rather greet at the White House in the first visit of an Iranian president since the Islamic revolution: a standard bearer of the Green Movement of 2009 or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Been struggling myself to express just this, but this guy nails it on the head and with great eloquence. I totally covet the piece. It is as clearheadedly strategic as it comes. Contrast it to the woefully myopic bit from Kuperman on how the ONLY option left is bombing Iran.

Just amazingly sensible throughout. Print and put it next to your computer as you continue to read all the idiotic shit "experts" put out on Iran regularly.

This guy can write!