Would this have been possible if we’d chosen to put our weight behind supporting President Khatami and the Reformist revolution that was brewing in Iran when we went after Iraq? If we hadn’t labelled Iran the “Axis of Evil” would it have been possible to build support with them to have them help us fix up Iraq?
Here is an article I read recently about Iran in relation to what we’ve done to Iraq.
Not with the new hardliner who rode to power on the wave of the anti-US backlash from the Axis of Evil speech and subsequent veiled threats of invasion. Heck, those extremely unhelpful noises meant that Reformists weren’t even on the ballot papers.
I agree that the “Axis of Evil” label wasn’t (isn’t) productive, never mind the attitude. However, neither do I think “putting our weight behind” this-or-that candidate would be.
I remember when a group of private citizens in a certain foreign country “put their weight behind” one of the candidates in a recent American presidential election. That didn’t go over very well. Is it really so difficult to imagine Iranians or others having a similar response?
What we need is better ethical standards for dealing with sovereign countries. The Golden Rule, for starters. Diplomacy. International law. And, sure, maybe the occasional little pressure when called for, within reason.
How? The Hardliners have all the power and nothing we say will change that. Iran is not yet as crumbled as the USSR, but the same approach will work with time. Principled opposition that says to the entire world that Iran is a regime of evil, a supporter of evil causes, and cruel to its own citizens. You can’t deal with the Mullahs, and the President of Iran has no useful powers. You can only be firmly opposed to Iran.
Besides, AFAIK the Mullahs pretty much invalidated every other canidate aside from the own hardliner, so it wouldn’t matter what the election results were.
If I may ask, what is so bad about Iran? I recoil at the barbarity of elements of Sharia Law as much as any, but one can find such atrocity from Indonesia to Algeria, with the brutal theocracy of Saudi Arabia being a prime example. The Iranian regime does not seem to be especially evil, and every country arguably “supports evil causes” to some extent by association (see especially Pakistan, which also somehow gets a pass even though it actually has nuclear weapons). Is it its Israeli-style nuclear power stations that require special treatment, such that if it only sought development via fossil fuels it would be just another quasi-democracy?
It would be far better IMO to simply leave Iran alone. All this demonising plays into the hands of those hardliners who, like US NeoCons, can target the more liberal opposition by trumpeting an external threat.
I remember Tamerlane did a post about this subject a few months ago (IIRC) and seem to recall that his conclusion was that the Reformists in Iran were actually more anti-American and more radical (from an Iranian nationalist standpoint) than the mullahs.
Even if my memory is totally muddled and I have it backwards, I doubt that the US endorsing that Reformists would have helped us build a coalition in Iran, or even move the US and Iran to a closer relationship. The only thing that would have helped build a coalition with Iran or maintain a close relationship with them would have been if the Shaw had somehow managed to retain power and the revolution had been thwarted somehow. Not saying this was necessarily a desirable outcome mind you, only that once the revolution happened and US hostages were taken, with all the anti-American venom unleashed by the new rulers of Iran, the die was pretty much cast on future relations. Its going to be a long time and probably take a fairly radical regime change in Iran before the US is ready to mend fences. Of course, I said the same thing about Libya too, and seem to be proved wrong there as well so…
I think the ‘Axis of Evil’ was a terribly stupid idea, but I’m also going to say no. While Iran hated Hussein for his invasion, I doubt they would have wanted a big US military presence right next door. I can’t imagine Iran being an open ally with America on terms like that.
There is no way the US could ever build any sort of coalition with Iran. One thing most people have learned in the west is that folks in the Middle East have long memories. So Operation Ajax is still very fresh in the mind of most Iranians.
As usual Tamerlane says it. The difference between the Reformists and the conservatives is that the former support reforms to modernize Iran, like economic reforms, while the latter is opposed, preferring a society in accordance with the text in the Koran. None of them look at the west as friends.
