Robert Kagan and Regime Change in Iran Posted by David Shorr

I've started posting on TPM Cafe as a regular blogger, with this post in response to Bob Kagan's WaPo op-ed yesterday. But there's more to say about the following passage at the end of Bob's piece:

The worst of it is that the Tehran regime is now desperately trying to buy time so it can regain full control of the country in the face of widespread anger after the fraudulent presidential elections in June and a still-vibrant Iranian opposition. For the clerics, an endless negotiating process is not merely a means of putting off any real concessions on its nuclear program. It is also, and more important, a way of putting off any Western sanctions that could produce new and potentially explosive unrest in their already unstable country.

To put it mildly, mixing the issues of the nuclear program and Iran's political turmoil is not helpful. In my other post I've already highlighted the distinction between holding off from seeking new sanctions and "an endless negotiating process." Now I want to stress the need to choose between two mutually exclusive policy goals: stopping Iran from getting the bomb or regime change. You simply can't pursue both at the same time.

The expression of people power after the June election fiasco was truly inspiring, and greater openness of the Islamic Republic is a thing to be hoped for. But apart from the problem of Iranian hard-liners exploiting any American involvement as a convenient excuse for their own repressive acts, there is a direct and inevitable trade-off between reaching a nuclear deal and holding out for different leaders. As a practical matter of domestic political reality, the turmoil could very likely push Iranian leaders to resolve the nuclear issue, but regardless of our sympathies, such politics is among the Iranians.

Just think about it. If you lead the Iranian government to believe that the United States' real objective is to remove them from power, won't they have good reason to doubt that cooperation on the nuclear program would earn them any benefit? What incentive is there to make a deal? And is Bob Kagan really saying that "potentially explosive unrest in [an] already unstable country" is a good thing?

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This approach had always been a key element of a "grand bargain" with Iran. The United States had to provide some guarantee to the regime that it would no longer support opposition forces or in any way seek its removal.

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