A Reply to Alan Dershowitz on Iran

            I spend my time tending to the Tragic Commons in which the foibles of American politics takes place. That gives me more than enough to do.

            But Alan Dershowitiz, the prolific Harvard civil rights and civil liberties lawyer just wandered out of his depth, and somebody should call him out on it.

            In an exclusive interview he gave to the left-leaning British Observer, Dershowitz said that President Obama was “an abject failure when it comes to dealing with Iran.”

            “When Obama first set out the red lines, he specified 24/7 inspections—we didn’t get that.  He set out that Iran would never have nuclear weapons—we didn’t get that.  He set out to end the nuclear facility at Fordow—we didn’t get that. He has crossed his own red lines at least three times.”

            For Dershowitz, “the problem is that we negotiated as equals and were playing checkers against the people who invented chess. . .The end result is that now we are going to be equals because they are going to have nuclear weapons, and once they have nuclear weapons they are essentially equals, we can’t take them on, we have no viable military threat against them, so it was a double disaster.”

            Perhaps its his perch as a law professor at Harvard or his ubiquitous presence as a public intellectual that leads him to spend time cataloging the trees in the forest instead of contemplating the forest as a whole.  He’s also hawking a book.

            I’ve spent a lot time in conference rooms dealing with people who didn’t much like each other, didn’t much trust each other and sometimes had to be physically restrained so as not to injure each other.  Despite that, these people often came to agreements because what was offered by the other side was better than continuing to litigate or walking away from a business deal.

            Negotiators always go into negotiations understanding that their initial positions will have to change if they expect to reach a deal with the other side, regardless of what they’ve said publicly. Dershowitz’s colleagues at Harvard’s Program on Negotiations should tell him that ever since Getting to Yes:Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In appeared on the scene in the early 1980s, sophisticated negotiators focus on interests and not on positions.

            Thus, regardless of the positions Dershowitz accuses Obama and the negotiating team of having abandoned, they still could have negotiated an outstanding deal that protected or advanced American interests.  What we really care about is setting up a regime of inspections and accounting that does everything reasonably possible to prevent Iran from joining the nuclear weapons club.  If the deal does that, it is a success.

            What Dershowitz’s analysis lacks is any appreciation at all of the fact that negotiators frequently make public declarations for internal political consumption that vary sharply from what they say to each other behind closed doors.  And like most of the other opponents of the nuclear deal, he doesn’t seem to understand what this negotiation was really all about for the Iranians.

            The Iranians certainly wanted the sanctions lifted.  But more than that, they wanted precisely what Dershowitz would have denied them: respect. He says “Now why are you [Iran] accepting the sanctions if you’re never, ever going to be able to develop a nuclear weapon?  Let’s figure out a way of ending the sanctions by you dismantling the nuclear program and allowing 24/7 inspections.  We have the military powers that you don’t.  You’ll never get a nuclear weapon.”

            Dershowitz assumes that Iran was willing to endure sanctions because it was determined to acquire a nuclear bomb to use against the United States and its allies.  There’s no evidence of that, and, in fact, there’s no evidence that Iran even wanted a nuclear weapon.  Iran has expressly foresworn the development of nuclear weapons and the initiation of a nuclear holocaust.< http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Nuclear-weapons-unholy-Iran-says-Islam-forbids-2580018.php>  There’s also no evidence that Iran’s leaders have religiously inspired death wishes.

            It’s just as likely that Iran sees itself as a modern, well-educated industrial society entitled to be treated like any other country under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to which it is a signatory. Why, it could ask, should the U.S. and its allies be allowed to dictate to it?

            Let’s put it in human terms.  Suppose you and I are neighbors and you’ve more than once said some things that I felt were threatening. You even give money to groups that target people of my religion.  You think that whatever you said was provoked by my behavior.  I’m stronger than you are, though, and have threatened to beat you to a pulp if you attack me.  I offer to end the tensions between us if you’ll agree that I may strip search you (full body cavities) in public whenever I want.  Would you go along or would you fight me?

            I don’t profess to know whether the agreement will actually advance our interests better than maintaining the status quo.  It appears to buy us at least another 10 years of a nuclear free Iran.  That’s better than an Iran that can manufacture weapons grade uranium two or three months from now.  I’m prepared to accept the judgment of American and P5 + 1 experts who say that the agreement will cut off all secret routes to an Iranian nuclear weapon and make undetected cheating highly unlikely.

            Did we get a perfect deal?  Probably not..  But we probably did get the best deal possible under the circumstances.