Atlantic Community:Global Must Read Article "NATO's Iran 'Threat' Conundrum"

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, Asia Times | November 17, 2010

NATO members face a dilemma as to whether Iran should be declared a threat or not. ++ Some countries such as Turkey are opposed to the approach. ++ The chief problem with an "enemy perception of Iran" is that it views Iran through a Cold War lens, whereas in reality it and the West have many shared interests, such as combating drug trafficking, terrorism as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. ++ Yet, in their move to rationalize the European ballistic defense system, NATO's heads are now on the verge of sacrificing those shared interests.

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Thu, Nov 18th 2010, 21:52

Jennifer Nicole Prystupa, NYU-CGA grad student, Silver Contributor (45)

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Interesting article. I don't know if I would categorize the UN's problem of NATO as an "infection," if even to call it a problem at all. The real problem is Security Council reform, and until that happens, the balance of the SC and thus the GA (because of the non-binding resolutions) is in default favor of NATO even if the majority is against what it stands for or does.

In terms of the UN's idea of collective security, I think member states know the occasional ineptness (like a Rwanda) of the UN, for instance, in its peacekeeping forces: the time it takes to fulfill troop levels, the cost of [insert word here] and the essential need of agreeing on anything on the basis of the collective and not the individual. NATO is strictly a military-based treaty organization and is highly efficient and can get the task done rather quickly - it is bureaucratic, of course, but less so than a 192 member organization with a disproportionate North-South divide on the SC...and veto power.

But I can definitely see the Catch-22 ingrained in this Lisbon conference. It will be important to see how Turkey emerges from this...it won't be unscathed either way. If Turkey, as the author says, points the finger at Iran, then it will have severed any leeway it had in brokering or mediating nuclear power deals. On the other hand, if Turkey does not single out Iran, then I wonder how the Turkish military will react to the Erdogan government, especially in regards to the so-called Islamification of Turkey.

In regards to NATO rethinking or adapting to the post-Cold War times and "institutionalizing emerging threats," I see that as hard to break, especially if the Russia experts are right to still see NATO as anti-Russian nearly 20 years after the fall. Nonetheless, it will have to change somewhat just as many governments are changing tactics to prevailing current issues all the time. It will be interesting to track the doings of the organization over time. Any shared interests with Tehran will have to be put on hold until the U.S. and Iran have formal diplomatic relations again, and that will happen long after these talks.