Way to Go, George…Way to Go

Not a single shot has or ever will be fired, yet we have finally and unwittingly already lost a war with Iran that we have been waging since 1979. Throughout that time, the foreign policies of Messers Reagan, Bush and Clinton have been one of containment, at least maintaining a sort of status quo with the Iranians that has seen our relations with its government ebb and flow with the ascension and decline of both moderate and radical mullahs in Tehran and Qum. The one constant that marked each administration’s approach to Iran was a wary diplomacy that understood the need to maintain a dialog with Tehran without losing sight of the undercurrent of hatred and resentment amongst Iran’s more radical mullahs toward the West that drove much of that country’s foreign policy. At its worst, the relationship (since the end of the hostage crisis in 1980) was an ostensible standoff. Never…until now…was that policy dominated by one country or the other.

As I have suggested on numerous occasions, the blueprint for the destruction which has been wrought by the Bush administration is found in the September 2000 Project for a New Century white paper, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century” which was co-authored by a number of persons who were or are members of the Bush team including Rumsfeld and Cheney surrogates, Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby. It is in that paper that the triumvirate of Iraq, Iran and North Korea are grouped together and identified as the object of our scorn and later branded by Bush as the “axis of evil” in his 2002 State of the Union address. It is in that paper that the framework for the war which was launched in March 2003 was laid out in some detail, positing the need for the United States to establish forward military positions in the Persian Gulf in order to help foster a western-style democracy and to protect U.S. (oil) interests in the region. Positing that the United States could not permit a few small “rogue” powers with arsenals of ballistic and nuclear weapons to threaten our security, its authors wrote, “We cannot allow North Korea, Iran, Iraq…to undermine American leadership, intimidate American allies or threaten the American homeland itself. The blessings of the American peace, purchased at fearful cost and a century of effort, should not be so trivially squandered.”

Well, the implementation of the PNAC strategy has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its authors. I would suggest, however, that those wildest dreams are waking nightmares not only for the strategy’s neocon authors, but for this nation and its allies. Indeed, what we are witnessing is the unfolding of the most poorly conceived and dangerous foreign policy in my lifetime…one that has not only failed to secure the peace for the United States and its allies, but succeeded in reducing the United States to a bit player in the drama that is unfolding in the Persian Gulf and across Asia.

With war drums beating in the background, flushed with memories of quick victory in Kuwait and Iraq in 1992 and in Afghanistan in 2001, Mr. Bush, time and again, took to the podium to describe Iran as a member of the evil triumvirate, to describe the threat posed by Iran to American interests and to make clear that he and his government would never deal with Iran so long as it supported and fomented terrorism in the Gulf region, the Middle East and throughout the world. Unwittingly or otherwise, these speeches served to galvanize the Iranian electorate (who historically are very heterogeneous and not overly enthusiastic about the teachings of their radical mullahs) and made possible the election of the very conservative, very radical and quintessentially anti-American, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Unfortunately no one in the Bush administration seems to have recognized the threat that this little man posed to Western interests. Indeed, it is still not clear whether anyone in this administration fully understands how this megalomaniac has turned the tables and usurped control over western and Persian policy in the region and policy through much of Asia and the world. In a word (or two), Mr. Ahmadinejad has and continues to play Mr. Bush like an old, finely tuned Gibson twelve string.

Understanding the western and Asian (particularly Chinese) dependence upon oil, Ahmadinejad has pressed his insistence upon developing Iran’s nuclear capability, playing the United States and Western Europe against Russia and China, with the expectation that a consensus could and would not be reached concerning sanctions that might interfere with Iran’s nuclear aspirations. When things began to look bleak for Iran (that is, that the Russians and Chinese began to indicate their willingness to support some sanctions and controls of and toward Iran), Iran unleashed Hezbollah to begin its assault on Northern Israel. Though, I suspect, neither Iran nor Hezbollah fully expected the violence and duration of the Israeli response (itself acting as a surrogate for the United States in the region), the point was nevertheless made: if you push or threaten us with sanctions and possible military action, Mr. Ahmadinejad says, we can very easily instigate violence any where and at any time of our choosing. The tactic worked. There was little talk of sanctions while the world’s attention was drawn to Lebanon during the summer of 2006 and little talk of sanctions since.

Moreover, with the Bush administration having been repudiated by the American electorate and unable to fashion a strategy for extricating ourselves from the quagmire it created in Iraq, the administration is now anxiously awaiting the report of James Baker’s, “Iraq Study Group” which will strongly recommend that the United States seek the assistance of Iran and Syria in trying to bring the sectarian violence under control in order to allow us to begin to withdraw our forces from the country.

What a mess Mr. Bush has made of our policies and standing. After years of criticism and condescension, how dangerous…how degrading…how embarrassing for this nation to now try to repair its relations with Iran by asking it to help us put out a conflagration that we started but cannot stop. Would it certainly have been better for all concerned to have continued the dialog (albeit an arms length one) with Iran that had been started by the three presidents who had preceded Mr. Bush in the White House so as to not lose the policy stand-off that has prevailed since Mr. Reagan took office in January 1981?

Instead, because of this nearly catastrophic policy to isolate rather than contain Iran, we now find ourselves in the extraordinary position of asking our avowed enemy (at least in the eyes of the PNAC neocons) to help us get out of Iraq. The consequences of our going, hat in hand, to Mr. Ahmadinejad under these circumstances, will be far-reaching, to say the least and unquestionably not in concert with our security interests at home and abroad. With question, the issue of Iran’s nuclear aspirations will be put on hold for the foreseeable future giving Iran the time it needs to complete its nuclear (weapons?) program. given that Mr. Ahmadinejad will certainly be an even more significant player on the world stage if and when the issue of Iran’s nuclear program is next before the United Nations, the likelihood of the UN or anyone else agreeing upon and enforcing a strategy for limiting Iran’s aspirations is likely nil.

Moreover, as I’ve written in the past, the United States’ ill-conceived strategy for removing Hussein and inserting a Western style democracy has not only failed but resulted in the election of a Shiite-led government that has concluded that its best chance for success lies with establishing relations --- nay, an alliance --- with the Shiite-based governments in Iran and Syria. Rather than an ally in the so-called, “war on terror”, we have likely given voice to a government that has and will find more in common with other Shiite-based led governments. Indeed, to avoid appearing as though they’re involvement in the region is dependent upon US policy and the recommendations of the Baker report, Iran has invited both the Maliki and Assad governments to meet with him in Tehran this weekend to “discuss” how to bring the sectarian violence to an end. Given that both Iran and Syria have both supported and fomented that violence through the insertion of weapons and foreign-born fighters into Iraq, bringing the violence to an end, though not a simple task, is likely to meet with far more success than the United States “stay-the-course” strategy of recent years. Further still, Syria and Iraq, this morning, announced a resumption of diplomatic ties that had been severed more than twenty years ago.

These formalized ties, as I’ve argued, will create a swath of anti-West/anti-American/anti-Israeli governments from the West Bank to Afghanistan making the PNAC strategy for global domination by nation building a reality. What our place will be in this burgeoning reality remains to be seen. It will, under any circumstance, be a messy and complicated reality that Mr. Bush will leave behind when his reign comes to an end in 2008 making the choice of his successor a messy and complicated one…and a critical one.