Renunciation of Reality

by H.D.S. Greenway

With carrier battle groups crowding the Gulf, and with the Bush administration beating the battle drum to a degree not heard since the buildup to the Iraq war, one can only conclude that either this is a demonstration of coercive diplomacy par excellence, or that the United States is going to attack Iran. President George W. Bush and the Pentagon continue to deny "for the umpteenth time" that an attack is being planned. They say that diplomacy is in play. But that is what they said about Iraq long after the decision to go to war had already been made. The case for coercive diplomacy is that efforts to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions, and Iran's meddling in Iraq, will have no effect unless the nailed club is in the diplomatic bag. Iran has become too cocky, the reasoning goes, taking advantage of American weakness in Iraq. Let the Europeans propose the carrots. The role of the United States is to enable diplomacy with the stick. Optimists argue that Bush will not bomb Iran's nuclear facilities because they are so spread out that an air strike would only temporarily delay an Iranian bomb, and that America does not have the troops to contemplate a ground invasion. Still others point out that although Iran's theocracy is becoming increasingly unpopular — especially among the young — military strike would instantly harden public opinion against the United States and delay the day when mullah influence begins to dissipate. Realists who know the Middle East argue that an attack on Iran would have untold consequences that would damage the United States even more than the occupation of Iraq has done. I heard one of America's foremost experts on Iran, Gary Sick of Columbia University, say on National Public Radio that he didn't think war was on the way because he didn't believe that the White House had completely "renounced reality." And there you have the nub of the question. Pessimists argue that the hallmark of the Bush presidency is the renunciation of reality. Bush turned his back on the "realists" that made up his father's national security team. He ignored the Iraq Study Group's recommendations for de-escalation and containing America's failure in Iraq, as well as its recommendations for talks with Iran and Syria. Vice President Dick Cheney is still in denial about Iraq and is still talking about progress being made while the raveling of Iraq unfolds before him. In Cheney's world the executive branch has all power over foreign and military matters, and he is already on record as saying that election of a Democratic majority in Congress will have no bearing on administration policy. Bush continues to raise the fear stakes, going on about the demonic plans of Islamic extremists to take over the Muslim world and restore a caliphate — ignoring that Al Qaeda's radical Sunni goals would not include the apostate Shiite. The president has said that Iran will not be allowed even the knowledge to create a nuclear bomb. Pessimists will also remember that when the Iranians offered the administration an olive branch, saying they would curtail their activities with Hezbollah and Hamas and cooperate in Iraq, the White House was unprepared even to discuss it. Colin Powell told Newsweek that he favored restarting talks with Iran, which had been very helpful to the United States in Afghanistan, but that "there was reluctance on the part of the president to do that." Powell thought Bush wasn't prepared to talk to a regime he didn't think should be in power. The administration's position has been: We don't talk to evil, and to do so would be a betrayal of the Iran's huddled masses longing to be free. Perhaps the Bush administration still thinks regime change is the answer, that a military strike would topple the rotten Tehran regime like the proverbial house of cards. Pessimists can just hear Cheney arguing that he and Bush have only two years left to do the Lord's work before they are followed by weaklings and cowards, whether they be Republican or Democrat. As the U.S. Congress debates and considers what to do about Iraq, the shadow of a far greater foreign policy mistake hovers over Iran. Optimists hope that Bush will stick to Winston Churchill's maxim that jaw, jaw is better than war, war. But pessimists fear that the administration's heart is more with Otto von Bismarck who said that "the great questions of our time are not decided by speeches and majority decisions ... but by iron and blood." © 2007 Boston Globe Discuss This Article click here... ###