THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 92, June 1, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE DAMAGE IS DONE: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S
BAD IRAN MOVE
By Dr. Michael Rubin
IRAN, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, & UNITED STATES DIPLOMACY: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION & ITS DIPLOMATIC
BLUNDER IN THE DISPUTE WITH IRAN'S ISLAMIST POLITICAL REGIME -- OFFERING TO NEGOTIATE WITH THE IRANIAN
LEADERSHIP & PROVIDE INCENTIVES FOR IRAN TO REFRAIN FROM DEVELOPING A NUCLEAR MILITARY CAPABILITY --
PROVIDING GRIST FOR MAHMUD AHMADINEJAD'S DOMESTIC PROPAGANDA MILL & UNDERMINING U.S. CREDIBILITY IN
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
FULL STORY:
It did not take long for Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad to slap down U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's offer
of direct talks. "Rice's comments can be considered a propaganda move," Ahmadinejad told the Islamic Republic News Agency.
Rice's announcement that U.S. officials were prepared to both offer the Iranian regime new incentives and sit down with it was a
strategic fumble. Not only did Rice provide Ahmadinejad with an opportunity to humiliate the "arrogant power" to his domestic
audience, but she also undercut what little international credibility the U.S.A. retains.
On its surface, the U.S. initiative was traditional diplomacy. Rice offered both carrots and sticks: "We are agreed with our
European partners on the essential elements of a package containing both the benefits, if Iran makes the right choice, and the
costs, if it does not." But the devil is in the details. The stick — if Iran remains noncompliant — is a vague European and
Russian commitment to consider sanctions at the United Nations. What specific sanctions? Not decided. What time frame?
Undetermined.
Should Washington trust European and Russian sincerity when it comes to a fundamental threat to U.S. national security? In
Bush's calculation, the worst outcome would be for the Islamic Republic of Iran to possess nuclear bombs. For many
Europeans, though, the idea that the U.S.A. might act forcefully to deny Iran nuclear weapons is a greater threat. And, so, they
encourage an administration more eager to please the international audience than to lead it once again to entangle itself in
multilateral obfuscation.
It is tempting to believe engagement can succeed, but precedent suggests otherwise. In early 1992, Berlin inaugurated a policy
of critical engagement with Iran, believing that dialogue and concession could draw the Islamic Republic into the norms of
international behavior. Soon after, on September 17, 1992, Iranian government assassins murdered four Iranian dissidents in
Germany. On April 10, 1997, a German court found that a committee composed of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iranian
President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian had ordered the hit. Rather than moderate,
European concessions convinced Iranian leaders that they could get away with murder. They did.
After delivering to their Iranian counterparts a strongly worded tongue-lashing, European officials tried again. Between 2000
and 2005, European Union trade with Iran almost tripled. Oil prices surged. But, rather than invest its windfall in civil society
and basic infrastructure, the Iranian government — at the time, in the hands of socalled reformists — poured its hard currency
into a clandestine nuclear program. On September 24, 2005, the International Atomic Energy Agency found Iran in
non-compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty's safeguards agreement.
European negotiators tried once more. On November 15, 2004, the Iranian government agreed to suspend uranium enrichment
— the same demand Rice made yesterday. Iran got what it wanted: A decision not to refer the matter to the United Nations.
The next day, the Daily Telegraph reported, that Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said "he was confident that Tehran was
taking its commitment seriously." European backslapping was short-lived. Iran decided to backslide on its commitment and
again began to enrich uranium. It was typical Tehran behavior. Iranian diplomacy consists of one step forward, two steps back.
Western officials meet backsliding — however large — with a click of the tongue; they mark forward progress, however slight,
with concessions. That the net vector is backwards matters not when diplomats just seek to win the next promise or transitory
deal.
European governments are not the only ones who have experienced Iranian insincerity. Washington has too. Prior to the Iraq
campaign, the Iranian government pledged not to interfere. They broke their promise within days of the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Today, Iranian intelligence has free reign over southern Iraq and, increasingly, Iraqi Kurdistan. None of this should come as a
surprise to Washington. Iranian government officials consider U.S. red lines to be drawn with pencil on sand.
Foggy Bottom's fundamental misunderstanding of Iran is dangerous. There was little surprise to Rice's about-face.
Undersecretary of State for Policy Nicholas Burns has long urged direct negotiation; he can be persuasive. There is a mantra in
Foggy Bottom — inculcated in diplomats from their very first day in the A-100 class — that any problem can be solved with
discussion and negotiation. In some cases, this is true. But it also reflects a projection on the part of U.S. diplomats who feel
that all problems are political and solutions lie only in discovery of some magic formula of incentives and compromises. But
multiculturalism is not just about celebrating diversity. It is also about recognizing that those from other nations and cultures
can have different ideologies, values, and thought processes. Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the
New York Times:
"Diplomacy is much more than just talking to your friends.
You've got to talk to people who aren't our friends, and even
people you dislike."
Perhaps. But does Khamenei view diplomacy the same way? Where did Iranians learn the art of negotiation? In some swank
Virginia institute or in the bazaar? How did a lifelong seminary education shape Khamenei's perception of the West?
If Rice's offer was just a misstep — to be forgotten like Madeleine Albright's — then no harm done. But Rice set a precedent.
Her offer may have sought to solve one problem, but it signaled to other nations that the path to concession and recognition
lies through proliferation, not compliance. Washington's handicap has always been the triumph of shortterm fixes over
longterm strategy. Why should any country voluntarily forfeit a nuclear program, as South Africa and Brazil once did, or
nuclear weapons, as did the Ukraine and Kazakhstan?
The damage caused by Rice's offer to the people of Iran may be irreversible. She can speak of how "President Bush wants a
new and positive relationship between the American people and the people of Iran." But, if so, why recognize and legitimize
the unelected regime which is oppressing the Iranian people? In 1953 and 1979, the U.S. government supported an unpopular
leader against the will of the Iranian public. Why, in 2006, should we make the same mistake a third time?
During his second inauguration, Bush declared:
"All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The
United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your
oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand
with you."
Nothing could be further from the truth. The wholesale abandonment of those seeking liberty goes beyond Iran. When Rice
announced the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Libya, she did not mention constitutional democracy.
Likewise, Rice has broken her promises to the Egyptian people. On May 25, 2006, Egyptian police beat and sodomized a
24-year-old protester Muhammad Sharkawi. His crime? Holding a sign reading, "I want my rights back." The Egyptian
government has denied him medical attention, and those monitoring his case in Cairo say his breathing is labored, due to
cracked ribs, and he is urinating blood due to other internal injuries. Both the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassy in
Cairo remain silent.
On September 20, 2001, President Bush declared, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." With Bush's decision
to abandon freedom-seekers across the region, and reward a terror-sponsoring Iranian regime in noncompliance with its
international commitments, the White House has signaled to the world: Stand with us if you want, but we only respond when
you're against us.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
Europe, Europeans, & American Foreign Policy
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
Page Two
Page One
The Problem of Rogue States:
Iraq as a Case History
National Strategy for Victory in Iraq
North Africa -- The Arab States of Islamic North Africa
Egypt, Arabs, & the Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Michael Rubin, a Ph.D. in History (Yale University) and a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, Islamic culture and Islamist
ideology, is Editor of the Middle East Quarterly and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research. Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, 2001) and is co-author, with Dr. Patrick Clawson, of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005). Dr. Rubin served as political advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad (2003-2004); staff
advisor on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense (2002-2004); visiting lecturer in the Departments of
History and International Relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2001-2002); visiting lecturer at the Universities of
Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan (2000-2001); Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (1999-2000); and visiting lecturer in the Department of History at Yale University (1999-2000). He has been a fellow at
the Council of Foreign Relations, the Leonard Davis Institute at Hebrew University, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and
International Affairs.
The foregoing article by Dr. Michael Rubin was originally published in National Review Online, June 1, 2006, and can
be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
June 1, 2006
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