President Bush set off a controversy when he suggested that the Democrats favor a policy toward Iran that amounts to “appeasement”, likening it to Neville Chamberlain’s giving in to Adolph Hitler on the eve of WWII. But this is not 1938, Iran is not Nazi Germany, and Amadinejhad is not Hitler.
At the time of the Munich Conference, Hitler had been demanding that the Sudentenland in Czechoslovakia go to Germany or else he would go to war over it. Desperate to avoid war, Britain and France agreed to give it to him in exchange for his promise that this was his last territorial demand, even though we now know that full-scale military action would have made Hitler back down. But of course Hitler was a megalomaniac and fully intended to take over all of Europe.
The basic point about the dangers of appeasement is that giving in to threats only encourages more threats. But Iran is not making territorial demands or threatening war. For all their expressed hostility to the US, meddling in Iraq, and defiance of the international community over their nuclear program, Iran’s leaders are not engaged in some blackmail scheme. Therefore any diplomatic overture to Iran will not automatically cause them to launch a major attack, and yet refusing to talk to them is not exactly compelling them to change their attitude. In short, we have nothing to lose.
Unfortunately, by now we have little to gain. The ideal time for a diplomatic overture with Iran was in the wake of our invasion of Afghanistan. We used the stick, it was time to break out the carrot. In the days after 9/11 there was a huge pro-American rally in Teheran and the Iranian government offered to help us against Al Queada—after all, Iran is Shiite while Al Queada are Sunni. Getting Iran on our side was critical in winning the War on Terrorism, but instead, Bush denounced them as part of the “Axis of Evil”.
What we should have done instead was engage in “back door diplomacy” with Iran’s Revolutionary Council, led by Ayatollah Khameni. We should have said to them, “We’ve been looking the other way while you’ve been supporting Hezbolla, but in the post-9/11 world, we will no longer abide. If you don’t get with the program and support worldwide anti-terrorism efforts, things will go very badly for Iran. But if we do see progress, we’ll begin talks aimed at restoring diplomatic relations and welcoming Iran back into the international community”.
Obviously this is all very dicey speculation. I mean, how can things have gone any better than they have under Bush’s leadership? We’ve got the Iranians and all the other Muslims right where we want them. After all, we all know what cowards they all are.
Now then, as most of us seem to have forgotten, until 2004 the President of Iran was the moderate, pro-Western Khatami. At the time it was understood that the Iranian President has no real power, which is why the emphasis is on getting through to the “Mullahs”, i.e. the Revolutionary Council. But these days, everyone is obsessed with Amadinejhad. Even though he has no means to launch an attack, his words are threatening enough. That is why we should by trying to get through to the mullahs. If Amadinejhad’s stated desire to “erase the Zionist Regime from the map” correctly translates to “nuke Israel and kill millions of people” then we should be putting the question to the mullahs, “What’s up with that?”
I mentioned the “carrot and the stick”, but also in order is a sophisticated game of “good cop, bad cop”. I mentioned “back door” diplomacy with the Revolutionary Council, but was un-specific as to the nature of the envoy. Obviously, who the mullahs would be willing to meet with matters. Perhaps a key ally or the UN should be conducting the talks while warning of what the crazy Americans will do if they don’t come to an agreement. Especially if McCain wins.
If Obama wins, his administraton could be Good Cop to the Republicans’ Bad Cop, but either way, I’m not recommending a state visit between the US President and Ahmadinejad . Triangulating between him and the mullahs is part of the game.
During Ahmadinejad’s infamous visit to the US last year, I wish someone had asked him the following question: “On October 26, 2005, you said that ‘the occupying regime must be wiped off the map’, meaning Israel. My question is, were you ordered to make that statement by your country’s ruling Revolutionary Council?” I think his response would have been interesting. It may well have put him on the spot.
It may very well be that the remark was the announcement of an offical policy to attack Israel with nuclear weapons. Or it may be that he was advocating a one-state solution and calling for elections throughout Palestine–that is, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza–the result of which would be that what is now the Israeli government would no longer exist. But what fun is that?
Some people look at the Middle East situation and see problems. But most people look at it and see justification, which I think is a more optimistic view. That is, if you’re into action and adventure 'n stuff.
He has constantly made it clear, as has been referenced in these debates countless times, that he is not talking about nuking Israel. He is harbouring the fantasy of the State of Israel disappearing as a political entity. He explicitly referenced the disappearance of the Soviet Union. Israel will become Palestine (yeah, right).
Unfortunately that’s both drastically oversimplified, and lacks essential facts. The facts are that, before 9/11, Iran was actively collaborating with Al Quaeda in a number of ways, knowing full well their ideology, methodology and goals. If anything, it was the ‘stick’ that we were clearly wielding after 9/11 that made Iran rethink its support for Al Quaeda.
Except there’s never been an actual, credible Iranian initiative to halt its massive support for global terrorist organizations, only dropping Al Queada from their list of supported organizations. It’s hard to say that a group which still has Hezbollah and Hamas on its payroll is an ally in tWaT.
There was a proposal, delivered to us via Switzerland, which made clear several things 1) there was something of a desire for peace and stability from the Supreme Leader. 2) Despite his power, the Supreme Leader and political leaders could not even possibly make such overtures in public, because they didn’t have the strength to go against the rest of their own government on that issue. 3) Even the metrics of peace and stability were ‘maybe’ issues and what, exactly, was being proposed was never made explicitly clear.
And according to the same NIE, Iran may have restarted its nuclear weapons program by 2007. They found that it was plausible that the program remained stopped, but that they could not confirm it to a high degree of confidence. Specifically, the judgment the NIE rendered was “credibly sourced and plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of
confidence”. Specifically, the intel was not "based on high-quality
information, and/or that the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment. ".
Go ahead and clarify the extent to which Iran was collaborating with Al Quaeda, but if we compelled them to rethink their support for them, then we should have fostered that trend (and then get them to rethink their support for Hezbolla) while pesenting a face-saving avenue, rather than pushing them into a corner.
We could have bloody well tried to get them to be, rather than assuming the worst and acting the worst ourselves.
So instead of engaging in secret talks in hopes of clearing the air, we decided the best way to bring them around was to give them the silent treatment?
Either they want Iran to think it’s going to happen to apply pressure, or they really are going to. Something tells me they’re going to if they can get away with it. I just don’t know what else to expect. I don’t think they can live with an Iranian hegemony, which IMO, if they don’t act now, is a certainty.
Squeels, if you honestly don’t know any of the facts or the specifics you’re requesting I give to you, shouldn’t you google before starting a GD thread? Or at least posting to GQ first?
How do you believe you can run an informed and intellectually fulfilling debate if you don’t know the most basic facts about the situation?
In the future, I’d suggest the google search string “Iran, al Quaeda”.
For now, I’ll do a bit of your research for you.
As for whether or not Iran would’ve known Bin Ladin’s goals, methods and ideology, from the report:
Again, you really, really need to learn about the topic before posting about it.
Assuming that Iran’s support for Al Quaeda was for the same reasons as Hezbollah is simply false. Assuming that the US’ reaction to Hezbollah was the same as to Al Quaeda is simply false. Assuming that all the factions in Iran’s government would have even rolled over and stopped supporting Hezbollah just because some factions did is, again, simply false.
You are using an idiosyncratic and invented definition of “assuming”.
You’re probably doing that, I’d wager, because you’re ignorant of the facts, so you figure that a conclusion must be ‘assumed’ rather than based on decades worth of information. Much like many Creationists talking about how evolutionary trees are just “guesses”. Yes?
That factions within Iran’s government, who cannot simply be ignored any more than they’d be amenable to rapprochement with the Great Satan, exist and support Hamas and Hezbollah and show no sighs of changing their tunes is a fact. That even the Supreme Leader has stated shown that he almost definitely doesn’t have the political clout to oppose them on many matter has, also, been demonstrated.
I’d also point out that your “assuming the worst and acting the worst ourselves” is mere bombast. If that had even a shred of truth, we would have assumed that Iran’s nuclear weapons program was directed at us, that their Hezbollah agents within the US were getting ready to hit us, and, well, we’d already be at war.
We didn’t, we ain’t.
Your rhetoric is running away with you.
And there have been secret talks that have continued to the present date, so again, I’m not sure why you’re posting this sort of stuff without knowing the most basic of facts about it.
That bears not even a passing resemblance to what I actually said.
It seems, in fact, that you focused exclusively on my third bullet point while totally ignoring the second. Cherry picking of that sort neither strengthens nor defends your argument. In fact, it reveals a profound and fundamental failure in your argument.
You seem to be deliberately ignoring what actually happened in order to claim that we “gave them the silent treatment” in order to “bring them around.” The fact that it wasn’t a credible overture with a strong chance of success, due specifically to opposition forces within Iran’s own government, evidently doesn’t even enter into your rhetoric.
Why not?
Very thoughtful of you to provide such sterling research, and very convincing it is, too. But who? What? Your link starts on page two, for some reason, and offers a casual glance little in the way of identifying the source.
As I’m sure you are aware, this issue is very contentious and such contention fosters exaggerated positions, and oftimes, outright lies. Might we have a bit more as to the source of this unequivocal citation?
You are kidding, right?? That looks like it’s from the 9/11 commission report 'luci…what more ‘unequivocal citation’ were you looking for exactly?? Or did you want a pro-Iranian pro-HB/AQ source instead?
To help you look at the first page you missed, here is a link to what I think Fin was using as his source site. Knock yourself out.
Well…apologies then. I guess I assumed that everyone knew what the source was just by looking at it. I’ve skimmed the report in other threads so I recognized it right off. For that matter, just looking at the URL kind of said what it was now that I look more closely.
Well, I THOUGHT you were saying that the 9/11 Commission (final) report wasn’t an ‘unequivocal citation’, so I was asking what WOULD be. That said, as I indicated above, apologies…I guess I didn’t get what you were asking there and didn’t get that you really didn’t know the source.
The headings on literally every other page of both PDF’s of the report that say “The 9/11 Commission Report” ?
They are a very good clue.
But they clearly must be very easy to miss, given what I’m sure was a good faith attempt on your part to analyze the information and not simply dismiss it with content-free snark.
What’s even more interesting, luc, is that I’ve posted these very same links, and the very same quotes, at you and/or in threads to which you were actively posting and responding to/at me.
Curiouser and curiouser.
