Foreign Policy and Nukes

By JASON SIBERT

Foreign policy, and international law also, follows the pushes and pulls of the power of individual nation-states and the handful of city states left in the world.

However, the pushes and pulls of foreign policy become increasingly intertwined with partisan politics here in the United States. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran and imposed sanctions on the country. Some predicted at the time that this move would empower hardliners. It did!

Iran recently elected a hardliner, Ebrahim Raisi, as president. Hardline politicians in Iran stick to the fundamentalist ideas of the 1979 revolution and are less willing to engage with the west. There’s a strong movement to move the country away from its fundamentalist roots amongst the young in Iran. Reaching out to the country via arms control, a nice security move due to Iran’s volatile relationship with most of the world, reaches out to the segments of the public that are open to engagement with the outside world. It encourages pro-western ties.

Raisi will not be responsible for making foreign policy, as it is set by a number of government officials and signed off by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. American officials are in Europe working with diplomats on restoring the deal. Raisi said he’s open to restoring the deal, but will not meet with President Joe Biden or negotiate with the United States over its ballistic missile program.

There is a lesson to be learned from our recent interactions with Iran, a theocratic regime whose politics is at odds with the ways of a democratic republic. The polarized nature of American politics is working against a more stable international order. Trump wanted to undo much of what President Barack Obama did, and this had an impact on foreign affairs. It seems as if our approach to international law and arms control will change when we see a change in the presidency, something that makes our country a less-reliable partner to any country wishing to be a partner.

The upsurge in right wing populism, incompatible with internationalism in any of its forms, makes arms control challenging. This means there will be more arms in our world, very dangerous arms to be exact. The only way to defeat right wing populism is to build a politics that affirms democracy and embraces arms control.

Both democracy and arms control rely on the power of reason to solve problems. and both are messy. Those who believe in the democratic way of life need to stand up and be heard, especially social democrats who believe democracy should be extended into the economic realm. Those who believe in democracy must also demand some continuity between presidencies in terms of contributions to order and international law, providing the changes that were made were positive.

Many cheered at the defeat of Donald Trump in 2020, and Recep Erdogan in Turkey suffers from waning popularity. So does Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. However, Vladimir Putin continues his hold on Russia, China practices a harder authoritarianism under Xi Jinping, and one can never tell whether or not Marine LePen will be the president of France. Most important, who knows what will happen here in the US in the election of 2024. We must organize!

Jason Sibert is the Executive Director of the Peace Economy Project in St. Louis. Email jasonsibert@hotmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2021

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