Iran vs Saudi Arabia
China Economic Review highlights this WSJ story on American diplomatic efforts to get the Chinese to buy more oil from Saudi Arabia. The idea is that if China buys less oil from Iran, they will be more inclined to support the sanctions the Americans are proposing.
What about a converse situation? Instead of pressuring the Chinese to abandon their Iranian contracts, we could be lifting sanctions and doing more business with Iran. Didn’t someone once say that if goods don’t cross borders, armies will? We should be increasing ties to the Iranians – including business, academic and cultural connections – so as to decrease animosity.
Some will say that this would “reward” the Iranians for “bad behavior.” Nonsense. What have sanctions brought us, except more hostility? Even the Iranian protesters who were out on the streets demonstrating against Ahmedinejad do not favor sanctions against the regime they have far more reason to despise than we do.
If we really care about the brave Iranian souls who were out fighting for democracy this summer, we should reject sanctions and work toward the normalization of relations, which means doing business together.
In principal I agree with you, the whole Tom Friedman McDonald’s theory on war is a good one. But the problem isn’t animosity amongst everyday Iranians–polls repeatedly show that Iranians are some of the most pro-American people in the Middle East. The problem is the government, who have stolen an election, subverted the will of the people, and are now crushing dissent. Adding that to their dangerously messianic ramblings, their Holocaust denial, and their nuclear program, I think that relying on expanding ties is naive. That’s the first I’ve heard about the initiative to get the Chinese to buy Saudi oil, and I think it sounds like one of the good ideas of the Obama administration who deserve a lot of credit for really thinking of ways–short of war–to change the behavior of the Iranian regime. But the problem here is the nature of the Iranian government, and the backing it receives by Russia and China, who not only want to trade with Iran, but also see it as a valuable strategic foil to US power. The carrot at the stick have to be used, and I think that’s what’s going on: offer the Iranians inducements to cooperate, but be ready to make tough choices should they prove to be resistant to reason.