Vali Nasr | The Atlantic 2019 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights,2019:50-593764<p>The Trump administration tends to view Iran in isolation or as a Middle Eastern problem—a regional nemesis with nuclear ambitions that threatens Israel and America’s Arab allies. This is a mistake. Iran sits at the critical cross section of the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and the vital trade routes cutting across the Asian continent. At the moment, though Donald Trump doesn’t seem to see it, the administration’s Iran policy is reverberating across the globe and helping China in particular, in part by hurting the U.S.’s staunch ally, India.</p><p>Iran is a foreign-policy priority for the administration. Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal among Iran, the U.S., and five other world powers, and now wants Iran to come to the table for fresh negotiations in pursuit of a stricter agreement. Trump’s advisers may also be aiming for more: regime change in Tehran. Their instrument of choice is maximum economic pressure—ever-tightening sanctions that will cut Iran off from the world economy. But Iran has so far refused to budge; it has responded by escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf and threatening to resume full-scale nuclear activity.</p><p>Containing China is another foreign-policy priority. Trump has launched a frontal assault on Chinese trade. But to realize his loftier goal of denying China superpower status, Trump will have to look beyond tariffs to contending with China’s expanding influence across Asia and Africa.</p><p data-id="injected-recirculation-link"><i>[<a href="">Read: Trump’s trade war with China is changing the world</a>]</i></p><p>The Trump administration’s Iran strategy is getting in the way of its plans for China. China has always viewed Iran as an economic prize; America has now made it easier for Beijing to lay claim to it. Chinese trade and investment in energy and infrastructure are poised to fill the void left by European withdrawal. Slowly, Chinese economic influence will grow, perhaps enough to buoy Iran’s economy as it struggles under Trump’s pressure. Benefits of this burgeoning relationship will run both ways.</p><p>Also in China’s favor is how the Trump administration has tried to use India against Iran. In April, the Trump administration told India that it would no longer have an exemption to U.S. sanctions on Iran. It cannot buy Iranian oil, and has to abandon its significant investment in the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman, which allows India to circumvent Pakistan to trade with Afghanistan and Central Asia.</p><p>To Delhi, that means losing precious turf in the Great Game for influence in Asia—which can’t be good for the United States. India alone can act as a counterweight to China on the continent, thanks to its large population, economic potential, and dominant perch over the Indian Ocean and the interconnected waterways that stretch from the Straits of Malacca in the east to the Horn of Africa in the West. India is situated in the midst of China’s ambitious New Silk Road—the so-called Belt and Road initiative that will bring much of Asia and Africa into China’s economic orbit.</p><p data-id="injected-recirculation-link"><i>[<a href="">Dennis Ross: There’s a deal to be had between the U.S. and Iran</a>]</i></p><p data-id="injected-recirculation-link">For India, competition with China starts in West Asia. India has always viewed China’s ties to Pakistan with concern, ties that have deepened over the past decade with China’s pledge to Pakistan of $60 billion in infrastructure development and trade. India matched China’s investment in the Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Makran coast of the Arabian Sea with its own investment in the Iranian port of Chabahar, some 85 miles to the west. India has committed billions to developing the port at Chabahar, as well as industrial developments around it, and the railways and roads that connect it to Afghanistan and Central Asia.</p><p>Forcing India out of Iran will give China yet more power in the region. With India out of Chabahar, Gwadar will become the only access route to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean trade for Afghanistan and Central Asia. Expect China to make its position even more absolute by flaunting U.S. sanctions and moving into Chabahar, integrating it with Gwadar. China is already developing a naval facility in Pakistan between the two ports. It will not be long before Chinese naval vessels join its oil tankers and container ships as frequent visitors to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.</p><p>In the long run, it is China, not Iran, that poses the most serious challenge to the U.S. in Asia and globally. Washington has to put its Iran policy in the context of its larger strategic objectives, and that requires bolstering, not hindering, India’s ability to serve as a counterweight to China.</p>Vali Nasr Press / Hasan SarbakhshianIranian students walk past an anti-American mural.Trump’s Iran Strategy Is Helping China2019-07-12T06:00:00-04:002019-07-12T10:29:27-04:00Forcing India out of Iran will give China yet more power in the,2018:50-572080<p>Last week at the United Nations, President Donald Trum<wbr></wbr>p claimed his administration had made progress in contending with North Korea, and promised to repeat the same feat with Iran. Heaping praise on North Korea and scorn on Iran, he <a href="">told</a> reporters, “It doesn’t matter what world leaders think of Iran. Iran’s going to come back to me and they’re going to make a good deal.” Clearly, Trump believes his strategy of maximum pressure—economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and even the threat of war—will result in historic deals with North Korea and Iran. But even if developments with North Korea have given Trump reason for hope, this is not going to be a winning strategy.</p><p>It’s increasingly clear that what Trump hopes to achieve through a maximum-pressure campaign does not align with the vision of his national-security team: Judging by his behavior with Kim Jong Un and his statement on Iran, his goal is to bring North Korea and Iran into diplomatic talks. Members of his team speak as if they’d rather force the countries’ surrender. Pyongyang and Tehran understand this very well.</p><p>Indeed, at the United Nations last week, Ri Yong Ho, North Korea’s foreign minister, <a href="">rejected</a> any move toward denuclearization—<wbr></wbr>the wholesale and unconditional surrender of nuclear and missile programs—unless it came with tangible U.S. concessions. Pressure, in other words, may have persuaded Kim Jong Un to engage, but pressure alone will not get Trump the deal he covets. Despite Trump’s charm offensive, his administration seems to be pursuing what National-Security Adviser John Bolton has called the “Libya outcome,” a reference to the 2003 deal in which Muammar Qaddafi surrendered Libya’s nuclear program and shipped it out of the country.</p><p>North Korea and Iran may deem the cost of not talking to Trump too high, which implies that they would engage him—but resisting surrender is their priority. This means that maximum pressure as a guiding strategy will have diminishing value over time. Indeed,<strong style="font-size: 1.2375rem;"> </strong>if the president’s national-security team continues with maximum pressure in pursuit of surrender, they’ll encounter resistance from Iran and North Korea. Waiting out the Trump presidency or hoping for the policy to implode could become the two countries’ preferred option.</p><p>What North Korea is looking for is a step-by-step diplomatic process in which the United States offers concessions ranging from a declaration of peace on the Korean Peninsula to the lifting of economic sanctions. Instead, Trump’s national-security team is demanding full denuclearization before offeri<wbr></wbr>ng anything up in return. That looks to be what Washington has in mind for Iran as well.</p><p>Faced with this reality, Pyongyang or Tehran c<wbr></wbr>ould see a benefit in resisting Washington’s <wbr></wbr>pressure strategy. Kim Jong Un is willing to engage in summitry but has yielded little ground on the demand that he unconditionally relinquish his nuclear and missile programs. Iran, for its part, sees little point in going as far as North Korea has. Talking to Trump would effectively kill the international nuclear deal it signed in 2015, which the United States left last May; Trump likely expected that Iran would follow suit, and that he would sign his own deal with Iran. Washington is now ratcheting up economic pressure on Iran, and warning other signatories against doing business with Iran.</p><p>Iran is not reaping any economic benefits inside the deal, but it is unlikely to get any outside the deal either, even if it were to talk with Washington. But if Iran did abandon the deal, it would give up the hard-won right to a nuclear program, which is enshrined in the accord. That is likely why Iran’s President Rouhani said last week that the United States must rejoin the deal before he would talk with President Trump. His thinking: If the Trump administration brought the United States back into the deal, it could no longer look to the Libya model as the goal, and would have to negotiate from the existing baseline of the 2015 deal.</p><p>Of course, it’s not only North Korea and Iran that bear the brunt of maximum pressure. This is a policy levied at the entire international community, which will likely resist the policy, potentially leading to its implosion. Indeed, if America’s isolation at last week’s United Nations Security Council special session, in which it tried to rally support for its policy on Iran, is any indication, maximum pressure has little international backing. While the maximum-pressure strategy received initial support in China and South Korea, that support began to wane after Pyongyang agreed to the Singapore summit. The United States is also threatening its European allies with punishment if they facilitate business with Iran, and India is being forced to forego its investment in the port of Chabahar in Southeast Iran, a gateway to Afghanistan and Central Asia that allows India to balance China’s regional influence. U.S. pressure, meanwhile,<b> </b>has already led Europe, China, and Russia to explore ways to circumvent U.S. sanctions.</p><p>What all this means: The wanton use of maximum pressure by Washington is likely to create a world in which the United States is unable to exercise much pressure at all.</p>Vali Nasr Barria / ReutersTrump departs a press conference during the UN General Assembly.Trump’s ‘Maximum-Pressure’ Strategy Is Destined to Fail2018-10-03T15:28:58-04:002018-10-04T08:17:06-04:00The combined might of punishing sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and even the threat of war won’t compel surrender from North Korea and,2018:50-567077<p>On August 6, Donald Trump’s administration reimposed economic sanctions on Iran that Barack Obama’s administration had lifted when it signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, the anticipated next step following Trump’s decision to leave the deal in May. Since then, the Trump administration has talked about bringing more economic pressure on Tehran not only to end its nuclear ambitions, but also to curb its regional influence and even weaken the Islamic Republic’s hold on power, which led many to see U.S. policy as one aimed at regime change.</p><p>Now it appears that President Trump’s goal is far narrower: He wants his own nuclear deal with Iran, and sees Obama’s deal as an obstacle standing in his way. After removing the United States from the JCPOA, he wants to persuade Iran to follow suit, and then negotiate with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for a new deal of their own—offering Tehran direct talks without <a href="">preconditions</a> just days before the reimposition of sanctions.</p><p>This all sounds just like Trump’s approach to North Korea: saber rattling followed by summitry—which, ironically, isn’t so different from how the Obama administration used severe economic pressure to force Iran to the negotiating table. Trump’s critics, however, don’t think the North Korea strategy will work with Iran. For one thing, Rouhani has said that he cannot trust a president who walks away from international agreements on a whim, one who prefers bullying adversaries over building trust.</p><p>But trusting a new deal with America is a separate matter from whether Tehran should even talk to Washington about the possibility of one. If Iran were to talk to Trump, it would, in effect, be acknowledging the death of the nuclear deal. While at the moment there’s little economic benefit accruing to Iran to argue otherwise, it also has to be careful not to alienate Europe, Russia, and China, which remain in the deal. Iran now has the moral and diplomatic advantage: When it comes to the nuclear deal, it is America that is isolated—not Iran. If Rouhani talks to Trump, Iran would lose that advantage.</p><p>A larger issue for Iran is that it no longer has the leverage it did when it last entered nuclear talks. It has since cashiered its nuclear program, making its leaders skittish about negotiating now. But Iran does not have the luxury of choosing when it wants to talk: The strain of U.S. sanctions deprives it of the time it would need to rebuild the nuclear program as it stood in 2015. Indeed, the results of Washington’s significant economic pressure on Tehran are showing. Iran’s currency has lost two-thirds of its value, and shortages have caused rampant inflation and unemployment; this, in turn, has stoked popular frustration and despair, fueling ongoing protests across the country. Even though the demonstrations do not threaten the regime, they could further embolden Washington, and further weaken Iran’s hand in negotiations.</p><p>Iran no doubt hopes that Europe, but also India, China, and Russia, can find a way to resist American sanctions. But Tehran has to weigh that faint possibility against what it could get by talking to Trump, despite its skepticism about reaching a new deal. Iran’s leaders are surely considering the impact of Trump’s Singapore summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. They have had the opportunity to hear directly from North Korean’s foreign minister, who <a href="">visited</a> Tehran this week.</p><p>Trump has set a conciliatory tone by promising North Korea’s successful denuclearization, pledging to end U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises, and even hinting that he might formally end the Korean War and reduce if not entirely eliminate the U.S. military footprint on the Korean peninsula. Such a tone seemed to drown out the Trump administration’s hawkish voices.<b> </b>When he offered talks with Iran without any preconditions, he exposed a similar tension between his eagerness for successful, one-on-one negotiation, and his national-security team’s instinct to treat Iran as a problem that can only be dealt with through sustained pressure aimed at provoking fundamental change.<strong> </strong></p><p>The problem facing Iran is not that talking to Trump is futile, but that selling the idea at home is difficult. In Tehran, rival factions openly jockey for power and influence. The nuclear deal was a victory for moderates; its demise has favored conservative hard-liners. Iran’s rulers cannot afford to enter talks looking like they were duped by America in the first nuclear deal, and then bullied into negotiating for a second one. Rouhani’s conservative rivals made that point clear, quickly rejecting Trump’s offer. Meanwhile, Iran’s moderates, conservatives, clerics, and security chiefs fear a comeback by Iran’s former populist and anticlerical president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose supporters among the urban and rural poor have taken to the streets in recent months.</p><p>Rouhani’s own response has threaded the needle between counseling caution and criticizing Trump, without rejecting his offer outright. Still, Iran has not yet given a formal response—and one might not come until the Supreme National Security Council, which includes Iran’s senior-most military and civilian leaders, renders its consensus opinion. That opinion could force Iran’s political elite to unite in support of talks, but only if they are convinced that Iran would be at the table with its dignity intact, assured of the potential for tangible economic benefits.</p><p>Iran has to choose between sticking with an increasingly defunct deal and the uncertain promise of a new one. Tehran has to see tangible gain in taking that first step, and Trump has to choose his words carefully—lest he make it near impossible for Tehran to take him up on his offer.</p>Vali Nasr Niesner / ReutersIran's President Hassan Rouhani attends a news conference at the Chancellery in Vienna, Austria, on July 4, 2018What It Would Take for Iran to Talk to Trump2018-08-08T16:24:30-04:002018-08-08T17:05:59-04:00It may not seem like it, but Tehran has a lot to gain from meeting with a U.S. president in search of his own nuclear,2018:50-558785<p>Among the most strident critics of the nuclear deal with Iran are those who believe it furthers the survival of its leadership. By throwing Iran’s rulers an economic lifeline, they believe, the deal is an abject failure. America<wbr></wbr>’s goal, they say, should never have been “denuclearization,” but regime change.</p><p>These days, those regime-change evangelists, having shrugged off the lessons of the Iraq War, are back at the helm of U.S. foreign policy. John Bolton, Donald Trump’s new national-security adviser, has long advocated regime change in Iran, and more recently has <a href="">argued</a> that the administration should openly embrace it as a foreign-policy goal.<font face="Lyon Display, Georgia, Times, serif"> </font>At the same time, Bolton and his ilk are pushing for a denuclearization deal with North Korea ahead of Trump’s planned summit with Kim Jong Un, the country’s leader. Preparations for the meeting will likely be in full swing by May 12, the next deadline for extending the Iran deal. The Trump administration, in other words, could find itself in the odd situation of tearing down the nuclear deal with Iran while pursuing a similar deal with North Korea.</p><p>With proponents of regime change ascendant, the temptation in the Trump administration to cast the deal aside in an effort to weaken Iran is great. Yet the immediate ripple effects of such a decision will breed dangerous consequences, both in Iran and across the Middle East—ones that the Kim regime will be watching carefully.</p><p>Regime-change advocates were emboldened by t<wbr></wbr>he anti-government <a href="">demonstrations</a> that swept across Iran this past winter. For the first time, economic hardship clearly fueled wide-scale unrest, <a href="">bringing</a> into the streets thousands of urban and rural poor—the very people that the Islamic Republic regards as its base. Iran is already hard-pressed to address domestic economic needs through the nuclear deal. Without the deal, the situation could grow even more dire. That worry has discouraged investment, and last month led to a run on Iran’s currency.</p><aside class="callout-placeholder" data-source="curated"></aside><p>Since the demonstrations, the Trump administration has viewed Iran’s rulers as vulnerable. Additional economic pressure, it believes, could threaten their hold on power. Undoing the nuclear deal would pave the way for a return to punishing international economic sanctions on Tehran—this time, not only for its nuclear program, but for its pursuit of medium- and long-range missiles, and support for the Assad regime in Syria. Such a scenario would restrict trade, discourage foreign investment, and potentially force Iran out of the oil market. This would please Saudi Arabia, whose economy depends on high oil prices. During his visit to Washington, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman <a href="">predicted</a> that the price of oil could rise to $80 a barrel—a price he would need in order to realize his ambitious economic agenda and fulfill the kingdom’s military and political aims. Excluding Iran from oil markets would certainly help realize that prediction.</p><p>With the Iranian economy on its knees, the Trump administratio<wbr></wbr>n thinks Tehran would surrender to a better deal—one that the president, eager to flex his deal-making prowess and outshine Obama, would fancy. But this is a risky strategy. Washington led the negotiations for the nuclear deal, and swore off regime change in the process. If Trump scuttled it not only to improve its terms, but also to inch closer to regime change, it will be difficult to persuade other adversaries with dangerous weapons to seriously consider diplomatic engagement. Without credible diplomatic options, war would become the only path available to the United States to address thorny international issues—the very trajectory that the candidate Trum<wbr></wbr>p railed against.</p><p>Even if Trump gets regime change in Tehran, it may not be the sort he wants. Canceling the nuclear deal and increasing economic pressure on Iran would further marginalize <wbr></wbr>the moderates and pragmatists who favor engagement with the West, while empowering the Revolutionary Guards and their hardline allies. But before that happened (if it happened at all) the instability Washington would hope to sow in Iran could instead surface in countries where it craves stability, most immediately in Iraq. This is because the nuclear deal has provided the United States and Iran with the tacit context to cooperate in Iraq in the fight against the Islamic State. Without the deal, Iraq could once again become a battleground for U.S.- and Iran-backed forces.</p><p>Another unwelcome development that would precede a hypothetical regime change: Iran would likely quickly return to enriching uranium, this time at levels higher than the 20 percent that once so worried the international community. Admiral Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, has raised the stakes further, threatening that if the United States quits the nuclear deal, Iran could even leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which could mean openly pursuing nuclear weapons.</p><p>President Trump, in turn, <a href="">warned</a> on Tuesday that if Iran resumed nuclear activity it “will have bigger problems than [it] ever had before.” That is unlikely to deter Tehran. In fact, the more the United States threatens Iran’s leadership, the more likely it is to seek protection under its own nuclear shield. Washington would then have to switch gears, put regime change on the back burner, and instead woo Iran back to the negotiating table. The United States would have the same economic leverage it had first time around, but Iran’s nuclear program would be more advanced; Iran would have more leverage to get a better deal than the one the Obama administration negotiated.</p><p>On Tuesday, France’s President Emmanuel Macron proposed side agreements that could address the Trump administration’s concerns with the Iran nuclear deal. But Washington has rebuffed Macron’s entreaties. It is not interested in finding ways to stay in the deal; it is looking for ways to wriggle free of the deal. Trump has called the deal “insane” and said that he wants a new one built on solid foundations. That may betray his personal ambition to cut the deal of the century with Iran, but in reality, it is a flight of fancy. Iran is unlikely to quickly acquiesce to renegotiating, not before it gains significant additional leverage, and not unless it sees significant upside in a new agreement. Regime changers will get what they have all along been after.</p><p>If President Trump listens to regime changers around him, it would doom the deal. The lesson of the failure of the Iran nuclear deal for North Korea could be that a deal signed by one president could be reneged by another. The lesson Iran may take from Trump’s nuclear diplomacy with North Korea could be that it should first get what North Korea has—full nuclear-weapons capability along with long-range missiles that could deliver them far and wide—before it agrees to talk again with the United States. Washington may well look back at this moment as one of folly, when it set Iran on the course to become a nuclear-weapons state.</p>Vali Nasr Walsh / APNational Security Adviser John Bolton attends a meeting with President Trump in the White House, in April.The Iran Regime-Change Crew Is Back2018-04-25T04:50:00-04:002018-04-25T10:09:58-04:00That probably spells doom for the nuclear,2018:50-550211<p>Recent protests in numerous Iranian cities and towns caught the world by surprise, and embarrassed Iran’s government and ruling political establishment. But the expectation that the protests would escalate into a popular uprising and unravel the Islamic Republic did not come to pass. Iran’s rulers could take heart from that, but they cannot avoid the broader debates about the future of the Iranian economy and politics that the protests have set in motion.</p><p>These were economic protests. They reflected deep-seated frustration with economic stagnation, mismanagement and corruption, and growing income inequality along with conspicuous concentration of wealth at the top. And their geography spoke to the expanding gulf separating large urban centers, especially the capital city Tehran, from smaller towns and rural areas—which correspond roughly to Rouhani’s political base and that of his conservative and hardliner rivals, respectively. The protests swept through many of those small towns, and mobilized angry voices among the disgruntled lower wrung of society—those most closely associated with the message of the Revolution.</p><p>It is equally important to note what these protests were not. They were not a repeat of a past urban, secular uprising of affluent citizens demanding social and cultural change, freedom of expression, and political participation. And here lies the good news for the Islamic Republic. The most serious threats to the system have traditionally come when Tehran has risen in rebellion—as it did in June 2009 to protest the outcome of the presidential elections that year. At that point, throngs of students and cosmopolitan urbanites formed large crowds that presented an immediate threat to control of the city, and by implication the stability of the ruling order.</p><p>The important factor in the recent protests, and why they did not resemble the fight against tyranny Trump tried to portray in his tweets, is the dog that did not bark. The urban dissident voices did not join the populist call for economic justice. Why? First, urbanites, as note by the economist Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, have been the main beneficiaries of President Hassan Rouhani’s economic liberalization policies, like his talk of moderation, and have been the main backers of his pursuit of a nuclear deal. They had expected that the deal would end Iran’s international isolation, yield economic benefits, and also improve the political climate at home.</p><p>They saw in Rouhani an orderly path to change. Many among these urbanites actually feared that the protests could lead to chaos, or tilt Iranian politics in favor of their nemesis, the populist demagogue and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.</p><p>Without Tehran joining the protests, they never really posed an existential threat to the Islamic Republic. No regime is truly threatened unless it loses control of its urban areas, and most important among them, its capital city. Iran’s security forces were not organized to contain protests across a large number of small cities, and so were caught unprepared. Even so, without Tehran, the security forces could afford to think of the protests as small fires that would eventually burn themselves out—as they appear to have done.</p><aside class="callout-placeholder" data-source="curated"></aside><p>Until and unless the urban middle classes and the poor join in common cause—as they did in 1979—there will be no revolution. And in this calculus of stability, it is more important to keep Tehran and the major urban centers happy. It is no coincidence that in his first public statement on the protests, the Commander of the Revolutionary Guards tied the protesters to former President Ahmadinejad, hinting that he was being investigated for his role in the disturbances.              </p><p>But it’s not just fears of a Jacobin uprising that have kept Tehran quiet; it’s also Rouhani’s political promise. Rouhani won presidential elections twice, in 2012 and 2015, both times owing to his popularity with urban middle classes—and his firm hold on Tehran’s vote. The protests showed that he is not popular with the poor, but that Tehran’s middle-class urbanites don’t share the same degree of dissatisfaction. If stability depends on Tehran, then the protests have only strengthened Rouhani’s political position.               </p><p>Indeed, Rouhani’s agenda favors Tehran. He has cut subsidies while also raising fuel prices; he has failed to tackle corruption; and has fallen short on delivering on promises of an economic bonanza to follow the nuclear deal. Details of the budget were made public for the first time in December, causing an uproar on social media. Rouhani had hoped that transparency would show that his hands were tied, and that he was not free to divert funding from security forces and religious establishments to entitlement programs. But this did not spare him the wrath of the protesters.               </p><p>Still Rouhani’s gambit may have paid off. The ruling political establishment may no longer be worried about a broader uprising, but it does have to worry about how the protests could influence upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. In fact, the first of the recent protests, in the holy city of Mashad, a bastion of conservatives and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s hometown, was instigated by Rouhani’s conservative critics as the opening act in their campaign to win back the presidency.             </p><p>That move backfired as the protests spread quickly, gained in intensity, and turned against the political establishment as a whole. The demonstrations may have been contained for now, but the Islamic Republic will feel compelled to address the underlying economic grievances they have exposed. Failing to do so will risk opening a deep rift in the conservative camp, and the larger worry that if protests return, next time the urban middle class could react differently.</p><p>No one among Iran’s rulers is keen to turn to populism to silence the poor. That would mean another round of Ahmadinejad-style politics, which will further isolate Iran, weaken its economy, and alienate the urban middle class. Iran would then have traded potential stability in small towns for a more dangerous brand of urban political unrest of the kind the country witnessed in June 2009.</p><p>The only alternative is to continue with “Rouhaninomics,” a mix of liberalizing economic reform and restructuring—including curtailing the economic influence of sacred cow foundations and state institutions, and the Revolutionary Guards—and seeking to attract foreign investment by reducing international economic pressure. The hope would be that the economic strategy that won over the urban middle class can also assuage enough of the lower middle class and the poor to ensure political stability.</p><p>In his comments on the protests earlier this week, Rouhani acknowledged the economic grievances that fueled the disturbances, but added that people do not want to be dictated to about how to live. That was an important first step to cobble together an inclusive political platform that could bring together the disgruntled poor and his urban middle-class base.</p><p>There will be no radical shifts in the offing. There will be resistance to change, but inevitably, the larger debates now are about how to achieve greater economic growth. Those debates will not point to a clear path, but with the protests fresh in everyone’s mind, Rouhani will have the advantage. The protests did not topple the Islamic Republic but it may have more firmly set it on the course it embarked on when it elected Rouhani president in 2012.</p>Vali Nasr the Iran Protests Were Not2018-01-10T14:01:49-05:002018-01-10T22:10:10-05:00Until and unless the urban middle classes and the poor join in common cause—as they did in 1979—there will be no,2017:50-527577<p>Hassan Rouhani has won a clear victory to a second term as Iran’s president. The turnout in Friday’s election was close to 73 percent, with the incumbent taking some 56 percent of the over-40 million votes cast. Turnout in the last election in 2013 was roughly the same. But that year, Rouhani won only 50.7 percent of the vote.</p><p>Still, the significance of this election is not that Rouhani won, but what he did in order to win. This was because, as I learned in discussions with those close to his campaign, in the weeks leading up to the election, his victory was no certainty.</p><p>Many American observers assumed the election would be a referendum on the nuclear deal, and that Rouhani would coast to victory. But, for the most part, that was not the case. Unlike in the U.S. presidential campaign, none of the Iranian candidates threatened to rip up the deal. Even the most hardline candidate said that there was no going back on its terms.</p><p>The election came at a critical time. The region that surrounds Iran is in turmoil. Its neighbors are increasingly hostile toward the country, and are determined to limit its role in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Although there have been no glitches in implementing the nuclear deal, Congress is still talking of scuttling it, and the Trump administration may be set on a path to greater confrontation with Iran. Iranians are worried about unemployment and inflation, pollution and water shortages. They worry about the future.</p><p>At the outset, Rouhani was too centrist to excite the millions who had animated the Green Movement of 2009—reformist and secular Iranians who want real change. So to win, and to win big, he had to run an aggressive, attention-grabbing campaign. He addressed issues Iranians cared about in ways that broke taboos and crossed political red lines. And he promised to lift social restrictions and change Iranian politics and foreign affairs in ways that put him on a collision course with the country’s clerical establishment and security forces. This was not just a simple reelection, or a vote for continuity; it wound up as a bold political maneuver and a significant turning point for Iran.</p><p>Rouhani’s conservative challengers ran a better campaign than most expected. The well-financed, well-organized conservatives also ran on a powerful populist message that appealed to the legions of poor people whose lives have been unaffected by the high drama of the nuclear deal. They questioned Rouhani’s management of the economy, and why he had been unable to secure the economic benefits he had promised would follow the nuclear deal. They claimed they could better protect Iran’s interests abroad and address its problems at home. The conservatives had a point: the economy had improved but continued to sputter, and its benefits had failed to accrue to the poor. And Rouhani was at a loss to explain why the nuclear deal had fallen short.</p><p>Affluent Iranians, who stand to gain the most from the opening of Iran’s economy to the world and relaxation of social restrictions, liked Rouhani but did not believe he would be a change agent. They had welcomed the nuclear deal but were not convinced that it would deliver the economic benefits Rouhani had promised. Moreover, during his first term as president, he had not tackled political reform. Rouhani would have been in trouble if affluent and moderate Iranians did not vote. To win, he needed a high turnout, and the excitement of those who thought nothing would change whether or not they voted.</p><p>Early in the campaign, it became clear that Rouhani was in trouble. His conservative challengers did well in the first of two widely viewed live presidential debates by attacking his record. More importantly, they spoke to average Iranians’ economic woes, which polls had found to be by far their main preoccupation.</p><p>Rouhani had to change. Running as a moderate who had begun to bring Iran back into the international community would not get him reelected—he had to promise more. He suggested that it was possible to get rid of additional sanctions on Iran, even those connected to its missile program, terrorism, and regional mischief. Declaring that he would challenge Iran’s ruling establishment to talk to the United States about the gamut of issues that have defined Iran’s regional policies was bold. But even that was not enough to rouse the 70-percent turnout he would need to win. He needed the votes of secular and reformist Iranians, the ones who had voted in droves for the reformist President Mohammad Khatami, and poured into the streets during the Green Movement. But those Iranians were not moved by his record of moderation and lack of economic growth.</p><p>With polls showing his campaign in trouble, in the last two weeks of the campaign Rouhani reinvented himself as a full-fledged reformist. During the debates and at large rallies, he spoke openly about alleged corruption at the highest levels, involving multi-billion dollars deals with the Revolutionary Guards. He chastised the country’s powerful judiciary, and by implication, its titular head, the supreme leader, for failing to prosecute such blatant cases of corruption. He accused his conservative rival, Ebrahim Raisi, of “having done nothing other trials and executions,” of unjustly prosecuting fellow clerics, and, most controversially, of ordering mass execution of political prisoners in 1988—referring to a purge ordered by the Revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Khomeini—an embarrassing public acknowledgement of human-rights abuses and an indictment of the ruling order, coming from the country’s sitting president.</p><p>Rouhani was explicit in addressing demands for political and cultural freedoms, even talking of freeing popular leaders of the Green Movement who have languished under house arrest since 2009. At his rallies, he surrounded himself with reformist leaders and activists who addressed large crowds about fundamental reforms, and openly criticized the security establishment and its human-rights violations. In a direct challenge to conservatives, he took a group of artists and singers to a rally in the city of Mashad, Raisi’s base. Some of those who sang at his rally had been banned from performing only weeks before by the city’s clerics.</p><p>Now, Rouhani has changed the dynamics of Iranian politics by openly speaking truth to power and legitimating public criticism of the institutions and leaders of the Islamic Republic. He jolted the Iranian electorate across the political spectrum, and persuaded cynical Iranians to vote. Most importantly, he revived the Green Movement that security forces have suppressed for close to a decade at great cost. This was a risky maneuver, which could have provoked the supreme leader. But the reaction did not come, emboldening Iranians daring to hope. Rouhani triumphed when he made it clear that he is no longer merely the moderate bridge between hardline conservatives and eager reformists.</p><p>President Donald Trump has not recognized the significance of the Iranian elections, as was evident from his speech in Saudi Arabia yesterday. <strong> </strong>Trump called on Muslims everywhere to rid their communities of extremism, and to embrace the promise of growth and prosperity. To be sure, Iran still poses serious security challenges to U.S. interests in the Middle East. But the election made clear what Iranian voters want: economic growth and engagement with the world. And that is what Rouhani has promised them.</p><p>In the years ahead, Rouhani is bound to face stiff resistance from conservative clerics and the Revolutionary Guards, whom he took to task during the presidential campaign. But to keep the people on his side, he will have to take risks, with the encouragement and rewards of the United States and its allies—economic and diplomatic engagement—when he does. That cannot be achieved by escalating tensions and confrontation. Washington needs more than a U.S.-Saudi-led containment strategy if it is to take advantage of this moment in Iran.</p>Vali Nasr supporter of Iranian president Hassan Rouhani holds his poster as she celebrates his victory in the presidential election, in Tehran, Iran, on May 20, 2017.How Hassan Rouhani Won in Iran2017-05-22T11:10:34-04:002017-05-22T12:02:05-04:00The nuclear deal was not,2017:50-522528<p>By punishing Syria for its use of chemical weapons, President Donald Trump effectively broke with Barack Obama’s foreign policy toward the Middle East. In a bit of irony for a committed anti-interventionist, Trump enforced Obama’s red line in Syria against the use of chemical weapons, ending the U.S. prohibition on military strikes targeting the regime of Bashar al-Assad. This is not necessarily the start of a larger American war in Syria, but it could be the beginning of the end of the Syrian conflict.</p><p>For opponents of Assad who hope Washington will seek regime change in Damascus, news of the strikes on a Syrian airbase was welcome. The Trump administration may not escalate much further,<strong> </strong>but some expect it to push Russian President Vladimir Putin to break with Assad. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Secretary of State of Rex Tillerson have, in turn, called Moscow either complicit in Assad’s chemical attack, as at least one U.S. official has <a href=";utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_medium=AP">alleged</a>, or incompetent in fulfilling the promise of preventing it. Either way, Tillerson is expected to use his visit to Moscow this week to demand Russia break with Assad.</p><aside class="callout-placeholder" data-source="curated"></aside><p>But the promise of a break is wishful thinking. The chemical attack and the retaliatory U.S. strike may have embarrassed and angered Russia—even if it was given heads up, as reporting suggests—but they’ve given Putin no reason to turn on Assad.</p><p>Today, days after the strike, the balance of power in the war remains the same. Assad and his allies continue to gain new ground in Idlib province and consolidate their hold over the critical corridor stretching from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast. The airstrikes may slow his pace for a time, but he is still winning, and that means Putin will see no need to change his long-term strategy: His prestige and, indeed, very conception of Russia’s great-power status are tied to the outcome of Syria’s war. He took advantage of Obama’s reluctance to intervene against Assad to become the main power broker in Syria. In the process, Assad’s survival has become the measure of Putin’s influence.</p><p>Of course, Russia’s interests in Syria predate even the Soviet Union. The Russian Orthodox Church has close ties to its sister Syrian Orthodox Church; some of the czars <a href="">crowns</a> were said to have been made of Damascene steel. Strategic ties forged during the Soviet era persist to this day. Russia continues to enjoy access to the eastern Mediterranean using the Syrian naval base in Tartus.</p><p>Strengthening Putin’s ties to Assad is their shared concern with containing Islamic extremism in the Arab world and Afghanistan, lest it spread to Russia’s Muslim regions and periphery. Syria has become ground zero for Putin’s containment strategy, and Russians are quick to point to the large number of Chechen jihadis fighting there to make their case. Putin, however, sees the Assad regime as a bulwark against extremism, and has embraced a strategy for defeating extremism that starts with keeping Assad in power. Hence, Putin sees Assad’s opposition, and the Islamic State, as the immediate obstacles to his containment strategy. And, further: As long as the largely Sunni jihadis are waging war on Assad, the threat they pose to the Russian homeland is diminished.</p><p>This common cause against the Sunnis has allowed Iran and Russia to forge deep military and intelligence ties. Over the past five years, Iran has, in turn, created a formidable integrated force, consisting of Shia militias and fighters, from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, to volunteers from across the Arab world, to Pakistan and Afghanistan, all trained and under the command and control of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. This is a regional strategic asset of material value to Putin. Defending Assad is about more than just the future of Syria: It is also about using this Shia force to serve Russia’s broader interests in the Middle East. It is for this reason that Turkey or the Arab states supporting the opposition have found it so difficult to wean Moscow off Tehran.</p><p>Russia surely hopes that the American strike was a one-time punishment of the Assad regime. With U.S. intervention against Assad<strong> </strong>currently limited to enforcing red lines, the fundamental balance of power on the ground will remain in Assad and Russia’s favor. However, Putin would resist a broader American initiative to force regime change in Syria—indeed, he’s reportedly even resisting meeting with Tillerson.<strong> </strong>That would diminish Russia’s role in the conflict, and ultimately be construed as a defeat for Putin. He would rather intensify the fighting in the short run to further empower Assad than give time and space for regime change.</p><p>Those who think a deal with Putin on Syria is plausible should first ask what he’d get in return for folding up his elaborate strategic investment there—his prize would have to be bigger than Syria. The options include the recognition of the annexation of Crimea, or of Russia’s sphere of influence in Ukraine, and a halt to NATO and European Union encroachment on what Russia sees as its turf in Eastern Europe. The United States is unlikely to deem Syria worth exchanging Europe for the Middle East; as such, building a Syria policy on the promise of Putin parting ways with Assad is unwise.</p><p>The Trump administration could, however, force Russia to sunder ties with Assad by drastically increasing the U.S. military presence in Syria. That would risk direct confrontation with Russia, and effectively force Washington to take ownership of the Syrian war, which Trump would be hard-pressed to sell to the American people.</p><p>America’s interests in Syria would be best served by a diplomatic process that stops the carnage, ends the refugee flows, focuses attention on eradicating ISIS, and also reduces regional tensions. The Obama administration’s diplomatic initiatives, including rounds of meetings with Russia, and then international conferences with the opposition and regional stakeholders in Syria, failed because a policy of non-intervention against Assad gave Washington no leverage. Tillerson now has new leverage: The United States has demonstrated that it will intervene militarily against Assad. Russia will no longer assume that Assad could pursue war for maximal gains with impunity.</p><p>Russia and Assad will no doubt test American resolve, and the Trump administration will be compelled to convince them through force. But its recent actions need not lead to an expanded U.S. war in Syria. Rather, the Trump administration could instead see military action as the bedrock of a diplomatic strategy to end the civil war. Diplomacy has to be backed by the use of force. This would threaten Russia’s position enough to enlist its support in compelling Assad’s cooperation. A credible diplomatic process would deny Assad what he seeks through continuation of the conflict—he would likely be a casualty of a successful diplomatic settlement—but Russia could still realize much of what it seeks in Syria. And a diplomatic settlement that would keep America out of the war is in Putin’s interest.</p><p>In Moscow this week, Tillerson has the opportunity to explain that the United States could strike again, and insist that Putin tightly control Assad’s actions, while also agreeing to a new U.S.-led diplomatic effort whose success alone could avert further U.S. action in Syria. Leading this process would bolster American standing in the region and across the world, and also curtail Russian ambition.<strong> </strong>Tillerson now has an opportunity to lay out a diplomatic plan for ending one of the most devastating conflicts of our time.</p>Vali Nasr Roberts / ReutersU.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks about the chemical weapons attack in Syria.Why the Russians Aren’t Likely to Break With Assad2017-04-11T11:15:19-04:002017-04-11T11:17:03-04:00U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has arrived in Moscow with a near-impossible,2016:50-508553<p>After decades of global stability, anxiety and unpredictability are now ubiquitous. A vacuum of American leadership is eroding long-standing alliances and emboldening challengers to the international order. Nowhere is this trend more evident<strong> </strong>than in the Middle East. The region’s conflagrations, its array of power-brokers, old alliances, and new coalitions, will test Donald Trump, and demand that his administration clearly define America’s priorities and interests there. Europe and Asia will be watching.</p><p>Trump has criticized the Iraq War, and forswore repeating such costly interventions—hinting that he will continue the Obama administration’s pivot away from the region—but his posture toward the Islamic State and Iran could put the United States on the same path that led to that conflict. Trump promises closer collaboration with traditional Arab allies, who want the United States to help end the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Yet that conflicts with the priorities of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has thrown his support behind the Assad regime, but with whom Trump would like to make common cause. Nor can the United States defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria—Trump’s top priority—while also confronting Russia and Iran, which <a href="">backs</a> <a href="">some</a> of the most powerful militias fighting the Islamic State. It cannot, in other words, choose both its Arab allies and Russia in Syria, nor both fight ISIS in Iraq while picking a fight with Iran.</p><p>While defeating ISIS in its strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa is a key step, it is only a first step. For Trump, preventing the rise of a successor to ISIS will require a diplomatic effort aimed at reaching political settlements in both Iraq and Syria. That means taking stock of the region’s changing needs.</p><aside class="callout-placeholder" data-source="curated"></aside><p>Since Republicans last held the White House, the long-standing regional order that Washington relied on for decades has disappeared. In its place: a contagion of conflict fueled by popular protest against sclerotic authoritarian regimes, and sectarian and tribal fighting over scraps of broken states. All this, as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey jockey for influence to protect their interests where they must, and further them where they can.</p><p>Obama largely<strong> </strong>sidestepped dealing with any of this, focusing instead on defeating ISIS. What would happen after ISIS was his successor’s concern. Trump cannot afford such insouciance. The Middle East overshadowed Obama’s pivot to Asia, and it could do the same to the president-elect’s foreign and domestic priorities. The task for Trump is to<strong> </strong>arrive at a new regional order, one that would repair the frayed map of the Middle East and shore up its governments.</p><p>For decades, the United States relied on dictatorships to ensure regional stability.<strong> </strong>That bedrock is no more. The so-called Arab Spring popular uprisings buffeted state institutions, first provoking social strife, and in the worst instances, civil war. Sects and tribes—filial identities long hidden behind the edifice of dictatorship—saw threat and opportunity in the ensuing chaos, igniting paroxysms of violence that led to more disorder.</p><p>The most intense competition is between Sunnis and Shiites. This is a political rivalry that has been enshrined in the division of power in states across the region, from Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq in the north, to Bahrain and Yemen in the south. More broadly, it also afflicts Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Every turn in the regional collapse has ineluctably stoked the Iranian-Saudi rivalry.</p><p>As a consequence, the Arab world has been pulverized. Iraq and Syria are, for all intent and purposes, no longer nation-states in control of their territories. Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf emirates have been spared the worst of the upheaval. But after long relying on America for their security, they now lack the capacity to manage the region on their own. Saudi Arabia’s strength has also been sapped by low energy prices, uncertain leadership, and its taxing war in Yemen.</p><aside class="callout-placeholder" data-source="special-report"></aside><p>Power in the Middle East has moved from its Arab heartland to Turkey and Iran. Turkey weathered a failed coup, but does not seem to have lost a beat in aggressively pursuing its regional agenda. In a replay of the erstwhile Ottoman-Safavid division of the Middle East, Turkey and Iran are now poised to step into the regional vacuum. The two frequently coordinate their positions on the Kurds,<strong> </strong>and have signaled a willingness to shoulder some of the burden that Washington either cannot take or does not want.</p><p>Turkey’s efforts to cultivate regional influence have had mixed success. Its hopes of swaying power in Egypt, Libya, and Syria, were dashed early on, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s<strong> </strong>Ottoman ambitions remain strong. Whereas America’s Arab allies have <a href="">largely</a> shunned direct<strong> </strong>military involvement in Iraq and Syria, Turkey has sought a greater role in operations to push ISIS out of its strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa. Its primary focus is to contain Kurdish nationalism, but it also sees itself as protector of Sunni interests in Iraq and Syria.</p><p>Iran is an even more important factor in the region’s future. It has long sown regional instability, while also doing much of the fighting against ISIS, emerging as the sole regional power wielding influence in Baghdad, Damascus, and Sanaa. It is in Washington’s best interests that Iran use that influence constructively.</p><p>Throughout the campaign, Trump depicted America’s military adventures in the Middle East as wasteful fool’s errands. Yet he also vowed to defeat ISIS, which implies that unless he reverses course and embraces costly interventions, he’ll have to work with Arab allies, Turkey, and Iran. Similarly, any tenuous peace to be achieved in the region will require regional actors’ support for, and enforcement of, political settlements in Iraq and Syria, given the role of their respective clients in the conflict.<strong> </strong></p><p>Russia is already following this strategy, engaging both Iran and Turkey in planning for the endgame in Syria. If the United States cooperated closely with Putin over Syria, it would have to join his framework. It would be better if the United States, rather than Russia, were the architect of such a framework. The United States could extend it to include Iraq as well, but also gain the support of the Arab world. In so doing, it could limit Russia’s ability to maneuver in the region, and leverage those gains in Europe.<strong> </strong>Yet from the perspective of America’s own objectives, it would be better if the United States, rather than Russia, outlined and worked toward its own vision of a settlement—one that included Iraq as well, and could garner broader support in the Arab world. Doing so could limit Russia’s ability to maneuver in the region.</p><p>Turkey is a NATO ally Washington can work with.<strong> </strong>But relations between Ankara and Washington have been frayed. Trump would have to repair the damage. Turkey’s domestic politics will be a point of contention, but greater investment in diplomacy and trust-building could facilitate an agreement over the future status of Syria’s Kurdish region, paving the way for closer collaboration in launching operations against ISIS. That would be the basis for a broader agreement over the final status of Syria.</p><p>Iran is unlikely to emerge as a working partner for the United States any time soon. Still, the two nations have reduced tensions through the nuclear deal, which has served as the basis for tacit cooperation in rolling back ISIS in Iraq. Scrapping the deal will not help build on those gains in the pursuit of regional stability. Rather, it would further destabilize the Middle East. U.S. gains in Iraq could unravel, the Syria war would continue to fester, and the specter of greater instability would spread everywhere that Iran has influence, from Afghanistan, to Yemen, to Lebanon. Washington would be faced with fighting Iranian influence, while contending with Sunni extremism<font face="Lyon Display, Georgia, Times, serif"><b> </b></font>without Iran’s help.</p><p>Better, then, for the Trump administration to accept the nuclear deal and further its implementation. Isolating Iran may satisfy the critics of the nuclear deal, but it will not serve America’s broader interests in the Middle East.<strong> </strong></p><p>Those interests lie in pursuing order in the Middle East, not in expanding the scope of its conflicts. Washington’s leverage with Turkey and its Arab allies, the nuclear deal with Iran, and gains it has made against ISIS in Iraq, could be a basis for achieving broader political settlements in both Iraq and Syria, and ultimately the region. That may not be easy, but living with the alternative—calamitous wars, more refugees, and terrorism— will be infinitely harder.</p>Vali Nasr Ernst / ReutersDonald Trump addresses a Tea Party rally against the Iran nuclear deal at the U.S. Capitol.Trump's Big Test in the Middle East2016-11-25T04:50:00-05:002017-03-06T15:58:10-05:00The president-elect will encounter a region convulsed by,2013:50-274907<img alt="ximorsi.jpg" src="" width="675" height="412" class="mt-image-none"><p><span class="credit" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; text-align:right; display:block ">How Hwee Young/Reuters</span> </p><p> If we put a map of the world on the wall and put red pins on the conflict zones that most threaten American security and tax its resources, and green pins where economic growth is fastest and the promise of wealth greatest, we would see a lot of red pins clustered in the Middle East and a lot of green pins dotting Asia. So it should not come as a surprise that President Obama made "pivoting" away from the Middle East and toward Asia the cornerstone of his foreign policy. He saw the writing on the map, so to speak, and decided that the future of America should be entwined with the prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region and China and not with the troubles of the Middle East. </p><p> The pivot's aim, on the face of it, is economic: boosting the amount of business that America does with Asia's booming economies, both investment and trade. Those plans, however, collide head-on with China's regional ambitions. The pivot, to succeed, must block China's hegemonic impulse and contain its rise in its own backyard. Containing China, therefore, thinks Washington, is the real strategic challenge facing America in the coming decades. </p><p> But this sort of thinking poses a false choice between the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. America is right to think that its rivalry with China will play out in Asia -- but Beijing and Washington have very different conceptions of what Asia is. America thinks of Asia as the arc from the Straits of Malacca to the Sea of Japan: the area from Myanmar to the east, or, in other words, the region we call Southeast Asia (Myanmar,Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc.) plus Northeast Asia (Japan, North Korea, South Korea). China, however, thinks of Asia as the entire vast landmass -- the world's largest both in area and population -- that stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. </p><p> On this larger playing field, China is expanding its reach, across the continent and toward Europe, pivoting west just as America is pivoting east. In China's view, the Middle East is integral to Asia's power politics, while America, with its shrunken conception of Asia, thinks of the Middle East as excess baggage in a Pacific-focused foreign policy. </p><p> America, which is reducing its dependence on Middle Eastern oil, believes it can afford to think this way. China, by contrast, must look to the rich oil and gas fields of Central Asia and the Middle East to keep its surging economy humming. As James Fallows puts it, "As fast as [China's] economy grows, its energy consumption grows faster still. Each percentage point increase in economic output leads to a more than proportional increase in demand for energy." China is the world's second-largest oil importer, behind only the United States. Its demand for oil will double again in the coming 15 years or so. Well before then, in 2020, China is projected to be importing 7.3 million barrels of crude a day -- half of Saudi Arabia's planned output. By that time, China will be the world's number one oil consumer, and its manic rate of urbanization is likely to keep it that way. In the next decade alone, the rise of new Chinese cities, according to a McKinsey report, "will account for around 20 percent of global energy consumption and up to one-quarter of growth in [global] oil demand." Two decades ago, China's large industrial and population centers lay almost exclusively along its east coast. That region remains a dynamo, but people and production -- and the hunger and thirst for energy -- are moving west. China now needs more and more energy for its middle and western regions. </p><p> China's fevered investing in west Asia is designed to create a sophisticated network of roads, railways and pipelines stretching home from the oil and gas fields of northern Iraq and Central Asia. Those land routes will complement the tanker fleets carrying oil and liquid natural gas across the Indian Ocean. There are plans for railway lines connecting Turkey to Pakistan and Iran, and pipelines running west over high mountain ranges into western China or to the port of Gwador, Pakistan, on the Arabian Sea coast. </p><p> To facilitate all this, China is forging close economic ties with Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. Its trade with Persian Gulf monarchies, too, is on the rise. Persian Gulf sovereign funds are pouring investments into China while a growing number of Chinese businesses ply their trade in Cairo and Baghdad. So many Chinese businessmen now visit Irbil in Northern Iraq that local law firms are looking for Mandarin speakers. China is investing billions to buy access to markets and resources, but also to increase its political influence. China's scramble for Africa is being repeated in the Middle East. </p><p> China is naturally concerned about the security of its supply routes. Beijing sees American strategic relations with countries from the Pacific to the Persian Gulf as a noose that could choke China's access to energy. Indeed, in the run-up to World War Two, America, Britain, and the Netherlands did deny energy- and resource-poor Japan access to oil, rubber, and iron shipments from Southeast Asia and the Dutch East Indies. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union cast hungry eyes on the Persian Gulf with the idea of doing something similar to the West. These lessons are not lost on China's strategic decision-makers. They believe access to energy will be at the heart of the next global rivalry -- the one between China and America --too. </p><p> Confrontation between the two powers, whether over energy or markets, is no longer a far-fetched idea but entirely within the realm of possibility -- that is what the American military build-up in Asia is signaling. In a military competition, America has the clear advantage. China knows the U.S. can use its superior sea power to squeeze China's oil supplies; the American armada dominates the Pacific and Indian Oceans and every body of water in between. Two strategic choke points in particular matter to China. The first is the Straits of Malacca -- the narrow, 500-mile long straits separating Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. The Straits of Malacca is a shallow, heavily traveled, easily blocked stretch of water -- in the Phillips Channel, just south of Singapore, it is less than two miles wide. It is the eastern doorway to the Indian Ocean and one of the world's critical maritime choke points. More than 85 percent of the oil and oil products bound for China pass through the Straits from west to east. For Chinese strategists, resolving what they call "the Malacca dilemma" is a major preoccupation. The second choke point is the Persian Gulf. </p><p> In order to escape the Malacca dilemma, China has turned to a series of overland pipelines linking the eastern industrial centers of Shanghai and Guangzhou with western China and Turkmenistan, respectively. China has also looked to Myanmar as an alternate route that avoids the Straits. There, Beijing has had to compete for influence with Delhi. India, too, is growing rapidly, and is looking to the same Middle Eastern and Central Asian sources to sustain its economy. </p><p> Even as it develops overland alternatives, China is building a blue-water navy and has invested in the so-called "string of pearls" strategy of building bases in the Indian Ocean (in places such as Sri Lanka) to protect its sea routes to Africa and the Middle East. There is already a brisk competition between China and India over which country will dominate the Indian Ocean. The two Asian powers eye one another with suspicion even as they cooperate to address the menace of piracy. But China is also worried about U.S. control of the high seas. The Scarborough Shoal row, in which China asserted primacy over the South China Sea and met resistance from several Southeast Asian nations backed by the U.S., brought the problem into sharp relief. At that point, America had already announced that it would deploy 2,500 U.S. Marines to Australia and help the Philippines to upgrade its navy. </p><p> But of equal importance is American naval domination of the Persian Gulf, the source of much of China's future energy supply. It is a critical strategic advantage in managing China's rise, a fact that Beijing is acutely aware of. The U.S., however, does not seem to be. America is focusing on the Straits of Malacca but proclaiming its goal of leaving the Persian Gulf. <em>We will not need Persian Gulf oil and gas</em>, American officials visiting the Gulf states tell their hosts, <em>so we will be shrinking our footprint here</em>. We may not need Persian Gulf oil, but China will, and so will the countries we depend on to balance China in its backyard: Japan and South Korea. The administration has made it clear that we are now in the business of containing China. So should we not be doubling down on the Persian Gulf, a region we have already secured for 60 years, rather than abandoning it at the precise moment that it has achieved new strategic value? </p><p> American retreat from the Middle East will be welcomed in China as a strategic boon: it will give China a free hand to shape its energy security in west Asia, which in turn will give Beijing greater leverage in resisting American pressure in the Asia-Pacific. This region is not only a source of valuable energy to China, but is also a cultural and ethnic bridge to the Turkic Muslim minority living in China's western-most provinces, which gives China a security interest there as well. Until the pivot, China may have worried that American presence could encourage Central Asian states closest to China's western borders to resist Beijing's influence, as is happening in Southeast Asia. Beijing has sought to bolster that influence, integrating parts of the Middle East and Central Asia closest to its borders into its economic orbit, and founding the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a rival to American power styled as a counterweight to NATO or the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). With Iran and Russia's backing, SCO is working to limit American diplomatic presence in the region. </p><p> America has got its Asia strategy wrong. It should start with a broader view of Asia, one that reflects the strategic interests that bind the eastern and western parts of that continent and drive China's role there. In that larger context American presence in the Middle East is an enormous asset that will become more valuable as America's rivalry with China intensifies in the years to come. </p><img id="hzDownscaled" style="position: absolute; top: -10000px;"><img id="hzDownscaled" style="position: absolute; top: -10000px;"><img id="hzDownscaled" style="position: absolute; top: -10000px;">Vali Nasr U.S. Should Focus on Asia: All of Asia2013-04-11T10:28:39-04:002013-04-11T10:56:43-04:00Washington's renewed attention to East Asia shouldn't come at the expense of the rest of the continent.