The State of Play with Iran
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Amir Taheri is at his finest on this one. Sometimes I'd compare him to Sy Hersh for all the interesting leaks he gets on all things Iran-related.
This article makes a far better case for not launching missile strikes against Iran than the bug-eyed pronouncements that Bush is secretly planning to invade or what have you -- it'll just hand them a PR victory and won't do much.
Of course, by the same token, all serious attempts at recent diplomacy with Iran -- including a herculean effort under the Clinton administration -- have failed. In order to apply broad multilateral pressure to Iran we'd have to get the Europeans to see that same failure of diplomacy. That's not likely, IMHO, because in reality the European insistence on "diplomacy" is more realpolitik than anyone actually believing it will accomplish anything.
That leaves us with few good options. There is no "grand bargain" to strike with Iran that would leave us better off than our current sabre rattling (Which at least has been partly responsible for Ahmadinejad's party's loss in the polls), a military attack would be counterproductive, and in the end we're stuck in reactive mode.
This mood is reflected by most of the Iranians I know - "Iran's run by a bunch of assholes, but America can't invade and there's nothing to gain by talking to them either."
This article makes a far better case for not launching missile strikes against Iran than the bug-eyed pronouncements that Bush is secretly planning to invade or what have you -- it'll just hand them a PR victory and won't do much.
Of course, by the same token, all serious attempts at recent diplomacy with Iran -- including a herculean effort under the Clinton administration -- have failed. In order to apply broad multilateral pressure to Iran we'd have to get the Europeans to see that same failure of diplomacy. That's not likely, IMHO, because in reality the European insistence on "diplomacy" is more realpolitik than anyone actually believing it will accomplish anything.
That leaves us with few good options. There is no "grand bargain" to strike with Iran that would leave us better off than our current sabre rattling (Which at least has been partly responsible for Ahmadinejad's party's loss in the polls), a military attack would be counterproductive, and in the end we're stuck in reactive mode.
This mood is reflected by most of the Iranians I know - "Iran's run by a bunch of assholes, but America can't invade and there's nothing to gain by talking to them either."
!
What will make these direct talks different than the direct talks in the 90s, where we bent over backwards and failed to get anything to show for it?
To a man, they seemed to come away with a remarkably similar conclusion:
"We offered them everything they could have possibly hoped for and then some, certainly light years beyond anything Bush or a future Democratic president could offer them. We bent over backwards, and at the end they said "no deal". Why? The problem wasn't our offer, the problem was the internal character of their regime. Their domestic political situation makes serious diplomacy with them a dead end, no matter what our offer is or how we talk to them."
The people who've actually tried diplomacy with Iran, instead of vaguely postulating about the wonders of it on blogs, have come away embittered by the experience.
But what is clear is that the current rhetorical stance the administration takes on Iran isn't working.
Perhaps the diplomatic gambit of having talks, and then blaming Iran for not reciporcating in kind could help us get out of this box.
But its a risky move for any head of state, particularly Bush who put himself in a deep hole with his "axis of evil" rhetoric.
So is it wait until '08?
It is conceivable that Bush, between the Presidential election and Inauguration Day, might launch a strike against Iran. If the Democratic nominee wins, then Bush would be taking the last steps against Iran that he can take before a more credible diplomatic operation takes over. If the Republican wins, then he could either pre-arrange to strike Iran and allow the President-Elect to openly criticize the move, repudiate it, and call for immediate talks with Iran (the Iranian facilities now having been reduced to rubble and any Iranian weapons programs shut down), or he could be asked to withhold a strike by the President-Elect in order to help facilitate adoption of the new administration's desired Iran policy.
I think that Bush's only real shot to hit Iran, if that is his intention, will be the few months after the '08 elections and before he leaves office, when there will be essentially no way to enforce oversight of the White House.
If he seems to have exciting leaks, I would guess that's because some of the best paid PR people in the world are feeding them to him, in order to propagandize for a war.
In addition to the outright lies and/or reckless errors, his writing is inflammatory, continually inserting biasing "spin", pointless negative adjectives, such as "fanatical". Ahmadinejad's comments to 60 Minutes that over 40% of the US does not have health insurance, and 1% of the population is in prison seemed well-informed and rational to me.
If he seems to have exciting leaks, I would guess that's because some of the best paid PR people in the world are feeding them to him, in order to propagandize for a war.
In addition to the outright lies and/or reckless errors, his writing is inflammatory, continually inserting biasing "spin", pointless negative adjectives, such as "fanatical". Ahmadinejad's comments to 60 Minutes that over 40% of the US does not have health insurance, and 1% of the population is in prison seemed well-informed and rational to me.
He is also a frequent writer at National Review!