Fareed Zakaria: Not the Time for Big Sticks

[flpoljunkie]

Not the Time for Big Sticks

Obama should hold the bravado and respond reasonably to Iran's conciliatory signals

By Fareed Zakaria
Monday, Sept. 30, 2013

When the Obama administration was selling the case for military action against Syria, it used every argument it could come up with, from preserving international norms to preventing another Holocaust. Most of these were exaggerations or bad history, but one could have dangerous consequences for U.S. foreign policy.

Almost every senior U.S. official--President Obama, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel--asserted in some way that we had to act militarily in Syria to preserve U.S. credibility with Iran. There is a mountain of scholarship in international relations that has carefully examined the notion of maintaining credibility--and most of it concludes that there is little gain in doing something simply to maintain credibility. Countries know that circumstances differ wildly in international relations and that what you might do in one situation says very little about what you might do in another, different situation. You really don't need to attack country A to let country B know that you're a tough guy.

What credibility did the U.S. gain by invading Iraq and then persisting in the mission when it was falling apart? What credibility did it gain by escalating with troops and money in Vietnam, largely because of concerns about reputation? If Washington uses careless rhetoric, the solution is not to follow up with careless military action just to be consistent. That does not impress people. It tells them that the U.S. is proud enough to throw good money after bad.

This has been a particularly bad time for Obama officials to thump their chests about credibility because for the past few months, the Iranian government has been sending remarkably conciliatory signals. These started with the election of Hassan Rouhani as President, which was a repudiation not simply of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but also of the ruling Iranian establishment. During the campaign, Rouhani vigorously attacked the most hard-line candidate in the race, Saeed Jalili--thought to be the favorite of the Supreme Leader--for being unable to come to an agreement with the international community and ease any of the sanctions arrayed against Iran. "It is good to have centrifuges running, provided people's lives and livelihoods are also running," he said in a debate, to great applause.

more...

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2152427,00.html

[JoePhilly]

1. Zakaria is stretching here.

We had 8 years of nothing but "chest thumping".

What the Obama administration just did in Syria is a far cry from the Yosemite Sam like spectacle that was the Bush administration.

What gives the Obama administration "credibility" in this instance is that Obama stood strong and demonstrated that he was willing to use military means if that became necessary. Basically, he wasn't bluffing. But having said that, Obama was calm, patient, and circumspect throughout.

That creates credibility. Obama was not bluffing. He did not want to intervene militarily in Syria, but he was ready and willing to do so.

Iran is a different country and it has its own set of issues, but their leaders now know for sure that they can't simply count on calling an Obama bluff sometime down the road.