THE IRAN WARS
Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East
Jay Solomon
Random House
336 pages; $28
It also had quite an effect back in Washington. Whereas Iran had long been a source of bipartisan agreement, the negotiations instantly made relations with the country into a lightning-rod issue between Republicans and Democrats. President Barack Obama prevailed in a major campaign to prevent Congress from rejecting the agreement, and for better or worse, the Iran nuclear deal will occupy a central component of his legacy.
A new book by the Wall Street Journal reporter Jay Solomon, The Iran Wars, offers a gripping account of the developments that paved the way to the deal. The book surveys the multifarious skirmishes between Iranian ambitions and American power projection over the decade-long nuclear crisis - on battlefields and in the banking system, through covert manoeuvres and public outreach, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and in the campaign against ISIS. Mr Solomon's engaging narrative of an expansive, innovative American response to the shape-shifting Iranian threat makes a valuable contribution to a debate that has too often presented Iran one-dimensionally.
Mr Solomon covers a lot of ground quickly, dispensing with the fraught saga of the American relationship with Iran's monarchy, as well as the dramatic 1979 revolution itself, in less than a page apiece. Despite occasionally dropping into Tehran, The Iran Wars doesn't expend much energy contemplating what drives Iranian decision-making on the nuclear issue or its approach to the world. And while the book offers interesting insights into the bilateral confrontation, describing Washington's deployment of financial sanctions and cybersabotage as "a new era in the annals of US national security and diplomacy," Mr Solomon does not explore their implications for future policy.
What Mr Solomon does well is chronicle exactly how this worked - how Washington's efforts to squeeze Tehran's bottom line, including lawsuits, advocacy with international financial institutions and "a global game of whack-a-mole," eventually wore Iran down. The book's emphasis on the fierce jousting between Congress and the Obama White House over the pace and scope of sanctions deftly foreshadows the intensification of partisan politics during the final nuclear negotiations. But Mr Solomon's focus on the domestic politics of sanctions largely overlooks the factors that facilitated their efficacy: The painstaking diplomacy required to generate multilateral consensus for economic penalties against Iran and the advent of unconventional energy supplies and slowing global growth that dampened the need for Iran's oil exports. Sanctions are now widely seen as a silver bullet when it comes to penalising a country for its behaviour, but replicating these conditions and calibrating the penalties themselves may prove more difficult than initially understood.
The Iran Wars is plainly sceptical of Washington's engagement with Iran and the ultimate nuclear bargain. In Mr Solomon's telling, Mr Obama's efforts to reach out to Tehran were "obsessive"; the administration "caved" in the bargaining; the perceived costs of the deal are "substantial"; and implausibly alarmist outcomes - such as a prospective Saudi nuclear weapons programme - are presented as practically inevitable. The deal's detractors receive a generous airing, while the accord's uniquely intrusive verification and compliance measures, which generated strong support among non-proliferation experts, are largely overlooked.
Occasionally this critical slant skews the analysis, such as in the simplistic suggestion that Iranian threats to leave the talks dissuaded Mr Obama from taking action against Syria in 2013. Such bombast from Tehran was routine, and Mr Solomon's failure to mention the array of other factors that shaped White House choices, including vocal congressional opposition to airstrikes, does a disservice to the historical record.
The Iran Wars fires the first extended salvo in the sequel to last year's debate over the deal, moving beyond sparring over the accord's terms to the more straightforward question: Can it succeed? Mr Solomon approaches the nuclear agreement not as a narrow transaction, as Mr Obama and other senior officials repeatedly described it, but as a transformational project aimed at facilitating bilateral rapprochement and a new regional order. On this basis, Mr Solomon finds little cause for optimism, concluding that "the next US administration must be prepared to confront an Iranian regime just as hostile to the West as past ones."
Many supporters of Mr Obama's Iran diplomacy might agree. However, the administration's achievement in deferring Tehran's pathway to nuclear weapons capability makes that challenge less dangerous than it would otherwise be. Mr Obama's successor will need to invest in a comprehensive approach to Iran, and The Iran Wars offers a useful - if somewhat partisan - perspective on the recent track record for such an undertaking.
©2016 The New York Times News Service
Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East
Jay Solomon
Random House
336 pages; $28
Also Read
Three years ago, after a decade of failed talks and costly international sanctions, the effort to prevent Iran from expanding its nuclear programme finally took the form of a diplomatic process. The resulting July 2015 comprehensive nuclear accord had the effect of shaking up a West Asia that was already in turmoil and shifting the tectonic plates of the troubled relationship between Iran and the United States.
It also had quite an effect back in Washington. Whereas Iran had long been a source of bipartisan agreement, the negotiations instantly made relations with the country into a lightning-rod issue between Republicans and Democrats. President Barack Obama prevailed in a major campaign to prevent Congress from rejecting the agreement, and for better or worse, the Iran nuclear deal will occupy a central component of his legacy.
A new book by the Wall Street Journal reporter Jay Solomon, The Iran Wars, offers a gripping account of the developments that paved the way to the deal. The book surveys the multifarious skirmishes between Iranian ambitions and American power projection over the decade-long nuclear crisis - on battlefields and in the banking system, through covert manoeuvres and public outreach, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and in the campaign against ISIS. Mr Solomon's engaging narrative of an expansive, innovative American response to the shape-shifting Iranian threat makes a valuable contribution to a debate that has too often presented Iran one-dimensionally.
Mr Solomon covers a lot of ground quickly, dispensing with the fraught saga of the American relationship with Iran's monarchy, as well as the dramatic 1979 revolution itself, in less than a page apiece. Despite occasionally dropping into Tehran, The Iran Wars doesn't expend much energy contemplating what drives Iranian decision-making on the nuclear issue or its approach to the world. And while the book offers interesting insights into the bilateral confrontation, describing Washington's deployment of financial sanctions and cybersabotage as "a new era in the annals of US national security and diplomacy," Mr Solomon does not explore their implications for future policy.
What Mr Solomon does well is chronicle exactly how this worked - how Washington's efforts to squeeze Tehran's bottom line, including lawsuits, advocacy with international financial institutions and "a global game of whack-a-mole," eventually wore Iran down. The book's emphasis on the fierce jousting between Congress and the Obama White House over the pace and scope of sanctions deftly foreshadows the intensification of partisan politics during the final nuclear negotiations. But Mr Solomon's focus on the domestic politics of sanctions largely overlooks the factors that facilitated their efficacy: The painstaking diplomacy required to generate multilateral consensus for economic penalties against Iran and the advent of unconventional energy supplies and slowing global growth that dampened the need for Iran's oil exports. Sanctions are now widely seen as a silver bullet when it comes to penalising a country for its behaviour, but replicating these conditions and calibrating the penalties themselves may prove more difficult than initially understood.
The Iran Wars is plainly sceptical of Washington's engagement with Iran and the ultimate nuclear bargain. In Mr Solomon's telling, Mr Obama's efforts to reach out to Tehran were "obsessive"; the administration "caved" in the bargaining; the perceived costs of the deal are "substantial"; and implausibly alarmist outcomes - such as a prospective Saudi nuclear weapons programme - are presented as practically inevitable. The deal's detractors receive a generous airing, while the accord's uniquely intrusive verification and compliance measures, which generated strong support among non-proliferation experts, are largely overlooked.
Occasionally this critical slant skews the analysis, such as in the simplistic suggestion that Iranian threats to leave the talks dissuaded Mr Obama from taking action against Syria in 2013. Such bombast from Tehran was routine, and Mr Solomon's failure to mention the array of other factors that shaped White House choices, including vocal congressional opposition to airstrikes, does a disservice to the historical record.
The Iran Wars fires the first extended salvo in the sequel to last year's debate over the deal, moving beyond sparring over the accord's terms to the more straightforward question: Can it succeed? Mr Solomon approaches the nuclear agreement not as a narrow transaction, as Mr Obama and other senior officials repeatedly described it, but as a transformational project aimed at facilitating bilateral rapprochement and a new regional order. On this basis, Mr Solomon finds little cause for optimism, concluding that "the next US administration must be prepared to confront an Iranian regime just as hostile to the West as past ones."
Many supporters of Mr Obama's Iran diplomacy might agree. However, the administration's achievement in deferring Tehran's pathway to nuclear weapons capability makes that challenge less dangerous than it would otherwise be. Mr Obama's successor will need to invest in a comprehensive approach to Iran, and The Iran Wars offers a useful - if somewhat partisan - perspective on the recent track record for such an undertaking.
©2016 The New York Times News Service