Presidents Barack Obama and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will deliver speeches at the United Nations General Assembly in New York Thursday, but it’s more interesting to note who isn’t speaking about Iran this week: critics of the Obama administration’s “dual-track” diplomatic approach to the Islamic Republic. These critics traditionally fall into three categories—American conservatives and neoconservatives, Israelis, and Arabs—and this fall, each has its own reason for silence. But the combination amounts to that rarest of things these days: broad, albeit unspoken, support for an Obama policy.
The first group that is not barking is American conservatives and neo-cons. Given the opportunity to attack the administration’s approach on Iran they would. But they have traditionally had two options for doing so: criticizing Obama’s outreach to Iran or his failure to make sanctions tough enough. Recently, Obama has refused to accept Iran’s offers of talks. More important, the surprise of the last few months has been the success of the administration’s sanctions push. Few expect sanctions to radically change this Iranian regime’s behavior, but the new sanctions imposed at the UN and other penalties from the US, EU, Australia, Japan and South Korea have hurt Tehran more than even some members of the administration thought they would, constraining the flow of refined petroleum to the country and squeezing its economy elsewhere.
That means critics on the right can’t attack Obama for failing to be tough—indeed, the hardest punch the right has been able to land is to say that Obama’s policy is the same as George W. Bush’s pro-diplomacy approach during his last two years in office. Writing in the National Review, former Bush UN ambassador, John Bolton, said of the Obama and Bush approaches, “Neither has been successful.” In fact, Obama has had more success than Bush did with diplomacy, and for the most part Republicans, conservatives and neo-cons prefer to avoid the subject.
The second non-critic this week is Israel, which in the past has accused Obama of insufficiently focusing on Iran in favor of Palestinian peace talks. Previously, Israeli officials quietly leaked to local and American media that by the end of this year Iran would reach break out capacity—the ability rapidly to construct a nuclear weapon—and that Israel might be forced to launch a military strike. Now, however, there are reports that deficiencies in the Iranian nuclear program have deferred Israeli concerns, and Primer Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has even had positive things to say about the administration’s efforts to pass sanctions at the UN.
The last quiet critics are the Arab states, which have simultaneously attacked the U.S. in public for being tough on Iran while imploring it in private to do more to halt Iran’s perceived march towards nuclear weaponization. The Arabs too like the sanctions success. But they also like the massive weapons sales the U.S. has recently announced it will make to Arab countries in the region. The Arabs, who oppose the Iranian regime, like weapons systems that might be used to help defang the regime Tehran, or at least raise the price of Tehran attacking them.
Things were not always so rosy for Obama and his national security team. There was a point last winter when China walked away from talks and the two-track approach to diplomacy with Iran–sanctions pressure on the one hand and an offer of talks on the other–looked all but dead. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates even sent a memo saying the administration’s Iran policy was not coherent. So the administration deserves credit for sticking with its dual track approach and paying it off with broad support at home and abroad.
That said, the critics may get another bite at the apple if Obama and company reopen the door to talks with Iran in coming days, which they may. The administration will defend itself by saying it has always taken a dual track approach. And even if the administration does tack back to engagement it may become harder for the critics to land a punch against Obama. If Iran again stalls or walks away from talks as it did last year, the administration’s international position would be strengthened, potentially opening the way to more multilateral action against Iran. Which from the looks of it this week is a policy winner at home and abroad.
