Publications

Ten years after the attacks of Sept. 11 and the start of the war on terror, it is fair to ask: Where do we stand in this struggle? Listening to the rhetoric of the White House, it would be easy to get the impression that Washington is just days away from declaring “Mission accomplished.” With the death in May of Osama bin Laden at the hands of U.S. commandos, the United States “is within reach of strategically defeating al Qaeda,” newly appointed Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told reporters in July. “I think we have them on the run.” More recently, John Brennan, the White House’s counterterrorism czar, said much the same, telling the Associated Press that the group that carried out the most devastating attacks on the U.S. homeland in American history is “on the ropes.”

Such triumphalism, however, is both premature and unfounded. After all, the contemporary terrorist threat confronting the United States and its allies is considerably larger than just al Qaeda. America today faces a trio of distinct - and daunting - strategic challenges.

With soaring inflation, chronic unemployment and rampant poverty, Iran is nobody’s picture of economic health. So when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued its latest working paper on Iran last month, the rosy assessment contained therein raised more than a few eyebrows.

That study, “Iran - The Chronicles of the Subsidy Reform,” heaped praise on the regime in Tehran for launching a raft of much-needed rollbacks of costly subsidies on everything from energy to foodstuffs. This effort, the report says approvingly, “has created a unique opportunity for Iran to reform its economy and accelerate economic growth and development.”

That rosy view has gained quite a bit of resonance of late. In June, no less prominent a publication than the Economist - using the IMF’s preliminary conclusions as a point of departure - lauded the “exemplary” steps Iran has taken in commencing structural reforms to its economic sector. All of this, of course, must be music to the ears of Iran’s ayatollahs, who in recent months have redoubled their efforts to convince the world that the country is thriving despite the West’s best efforts to ratchet up the costs associated with its nuclear program.

But there’s good reason to think the opposite.

On August 18th, after months of dithering, President Obama finally took a firm stand on the unrest roiling Syria when he announced that “the time has come for President Asad to step aside.” By doing so, the United States has belatedly brought itself in line with the growing number of nations that have abandoned the Syrian dictator as a result of the brutal five-month-old crackdown he has waged against his own people.

But, now that America is well and truly engaged, is there anything that we can actually do to speed Assad’s ouster? In point of fact, there is. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the United States has at least two means at its disposal to pressure the Syrian government—if only it possesses the political will to use them.

Are sanctions capable of derailing Tehran's nuclear drive? Some skeptics reject such measures altogether, preferring to deal with Tehran by either accommodation or containment. Others point to the spotty historical record of sanctions in altering state behavior in arguing that they will similarly fall short of forcing the ayatollahs to rethink their long-standing nuclear ambitions. For example, sanctions were found to be successful in only a third of the 105 instances in which they were applied between World War I and the end of the Cold War.

As the past year has shown, however, Tehran may well turn out to be the exception to the rule—but only if the Obama administration (and Western governments more generally) make swift and skillful use of the economic and strategic means at their disposal.