The consequences of America’s diminished clout

If you think the only problems surrounding the Iran nuclear talks are bellicose rhetoric, lack of any real progress and the looming prospect of strikes on Iranian nuclear sites from Israel, you’re mistaken. There are a lot more.

Let’s consider three recent developments. Iran just announced that it has nearly 6,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges (it takes about 3,000 to start a nuclear weapons program). Exorbitant oil prices increase market pressure for a peaceful and quick resolution, given Iran’s plentiful oil and natural gas. Tehran has a week to consider a “freeze-for-freeze” deal offered by the P5+1 Coalition (the five permanent Security Council members and Germany) to halt enrichment to avoid new sanctions.

Republicans and Democrats are calling on the White House to ratchet up pressure on Iran by tightening sanctions that have been ineffective so far. But this overlooks the biggest obstacle of all.

The coalition is attempting to lure a petro-state off the nuclear weapons path when oil prices are historically high. For several years, companies in coalition nations have wanted to tap Iranian oil and gas reserves, and the White House was so concerned that petroleum sanctions might smash the precarious coalition that it weakened an Iran sanctions bill in 2006.

The daunting reality of a thirst for cheaper oil and natural gas has thus prevented multilateral sanctions that actually put pressure on Iran’s petroleum economy.

Iran can logically be expected to reject the “freeze-for-freeze.” If Tehran could rely on Russia and China to block tougher sanctions — both countries have companies exploring Iran’s petroleum reserves — and call the coalition’s bluff, this would freeze progress toward a diplomatic solution and make a military one still more likely.

But even this profound challenge is not the main obstacle to progress. The most important stumbling block is the fact that America now has diminished power to engineer major diplomatic breakthroughs by creating effective coalitions.

This is due to the administration’s rejection of all things international. Our lead-up to the Iraq war, Guantanamo and the sanctioning of torture have made allying with the U.S. toxic to foreign governments, and separation from American policy safe. Our security interests have been undermined.

As the Iran case proves, our diplomatic efforts now depend mostly on circumstances rather than on our international authority. Only when talk of military strikes intensified did Britain show serious interest in oil sanctions. Only then did France pressure Total to bow out of a $10 billion gas deal with Iran. Russia’s and China’s cooperation has typically been at its highest only when Iran’s standing was at its lowest.

Our new deficiency was apparent during Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) tour of Europe; he had to plead with NATO nations for a deeper military commitment in Afghanistan, a mission that clearly affects European interests, given successful terrorist attacks on its soil.

President Bush has hit some triples in the diplomacy diamond, but these have been either unilateral (the peace agreement that ended a 20-year civil war in Sudan) or conducted with other nations whose immediate security interests gave them no choice but to collaborate (the six-party North Korean non-proliferation talks). But none of this disproves the contention that we are no longer capable of blasting a foreign policy home run against the odds.

Our power no longer insulates us entirely from the scrutiny of the world. So the seeming belief that the administration’s actions would have no effect on its global agenda exposes its tragic flaw, of being a 20th-century presidency in a 21st-century world.

I have a note for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). You have the unfair burden of proving that your global sensibilities don’t mirror Bush’s. Your view of waterboarding as torture, and your own world tour this year, make a good start. But if you don’t close the deal, winning the White House won’t mean as much as you think when it comes to any international effort, fair or not.

Mikhail is a former staff writer for The Hill.