Nixon in Teheran

Michael Hirsch outlines what one can only characterize as an appealing fantasy scenario in which George W. Bush suddenly comes to his senses and decides to have a "Nixon in China" moment and strike a grand bargain with Iran. This is grounded in a fairly sound analysis of the actual situation, but it's pretty obviously not in the cards. Nixon, for all his many flaws, did have a grasp of the basic concept of the Cold War -- that it was about containing the Soviet Union -- whereas Bush's approach to the "war on terror" seems grounded exclusively in fantasy life. We're so far from a diplomatic opening with Iran, that we hear "It’s fair to say that Dr. Rice thought this was a bad idea. A really, really bad idea" when the idea was merely for the President of Iran to talk to members of the Council on Foreign Relations about stuff.

Rice, of course, is the moderate foreign policy voice in the administration. So where the impetus for this is going to come from, I couldn't quite say. Realistically, the only question on the table is whether Bush is going to totally shit the bed by starting a war with Iran (to be sure, with bombs and missiles rather than soldiers and tanks, but still -- it'd be a war) or whether things will drift along dangerously and unsatisfactorally until someone else takes office and gets the chance to try to fix things.

UPDATE: For more on this, you have to read Lawrence Kaplan's explanation of why he doesn't think there'll be a war with Iran soon. Roughly speaking, according to Kaplan, Bush is determined "to go the last mile" with diplomacy "in the name of mollifying the Europeans" and that will take a long time. But this is just the point. The conception of diplomacy held by Bush and what passes for doves in the administration is an odd one. In essence, the White House is willing to give Iran a variety of opportunity to pre-emptively surrender on all issues in order to demonstrate that "diplomacy has failed" and war is necessary. What they're not willing to do is conduct diplomacy, i.e. make good-faith efforts to resolve outstanding issues in US-Iranian relations in a cooperative, mutually beneficial manner.

In essence, then, diplomacy has been taken off the table. Iran will be given time to decide whether or not it wants to surrender, and Bush will be given time to try and shape US domestic opinion in a favorable direction. The policy, however, is one of confrontation and the administration -- like Kaplan -- persists in seeing the crucial variable here as Iran's subjective assessment of American resolve.

Comments

I'm sure that Kaplan article is just super-interesting and all. But I'm not giving TNR one freaking dime to read it.

Posted by dj moonbat | September 21, 2006 11:43 AM

Iran does have some capabilities and assets. The minesweepers deployed are not enough for a sustained defense, but are enough to start a defense.

1)"Use em or lose em" If Iran is certain of an attack, it really might as well hit first, and make the situation more difficult. Unless it thinks is something to be gained diplomatically by waiting to be attacked.

2) If this will be an unpopular war, well Iran gets CNN like we do, reads the same newspapers. How would an Iranian attack confined to the gulf & Iraq play in America? Good or bad for the midterms? If Bush goes to Congress and asks for a resolution, "with what Army?" answered by "We got plenty enough" will not go well I think. I think Iran has incentives to force Bush's hand, or at least determine the timing. Etc.

Posted by bob mcmanus | September 21, 2006 12:16 PM

Most knowledgeable estimates place actual construction of an Iranian fission bomb a few years down the road. That will be enough time so that Dubya can retire to Crawford and cheerfully leave this mess (among many others) to his successor. So, there will probably be no U.S. attack. Israel, however is an entirely different matter...

Posted by Hans Morganthau | September 21, 2006 12:34 PM

Massively off-topic, but I'm really, really confused as to why no one has been blogging this story:

According to the Financial Times, the KSM 14 were transfered from the CIA secret prisons to Guantanamo because the CIA refused to continue running the jails, concerned about legal liability.

Am I missing something? Isn't this pretty juicy news?

Posted by Petey | September 21, 2006 1:01 PM

I keep thinking back to 2003, when I kept wondering, "what if Saddam doesn't have any WMDs? That'd be embarrassing as shit." Isn't this yet another wonderful opportunity to get egg on our faces, and don't you wonder whether Ahmadinejad knows that? Jeez, these guys have been selling overpriced rugs for centuries. This all has that "don't throw me in that briar patch" feel to it.

Posted by roachmotel | September 21, 2006 1:59 PM

I think you are right about Hirsch offering us a fantasy about Bush. But that, I think, just gives us our setpoints. Since the politics of opposition failed in the runup to the Iraq invasion, and since it has slowly become clear that there simply will never be an opposition to all the various fiascos we are watching come true in Iraq, we have to ask about other strategies. And surely the only strategy that works, now, in D.C., is flattery. Just as it has worked in other court societies. Idi Amin's stubborness, reportedly, could be worn down by the application of massive flattery. Bush's vanity, and the hubris of his court and the D.C. set that supports it, is very Amin-esque. So perhaps the Hirsch article should start us thinking about how to particularly tickle Bush's vanity in such a way that he would make him find negotiating with Iran another historic kudo that arises from the native greatness of his heart and mind -- something his official sycophant, Fred Barnes, could insert into Rebel in Chief 2: Superhuman? You be the Judge.

Usually in court societies the flatterer has to start with an outlier. Surely the outlier here is Condi Rice. A campaign of flattering her for being probably the most outstanding voice in diplomacy since Jesus died on the Cross for our sins should be started among those opposed to bombing Iran. Into this praise could creep suggestions that she, and her boss, a Man of Stubborn Integrity, would actually be following the Supreme Blueprint laid down by the Unbelievably Historical Second Inaugural Address (which easily outranks the Gettysburg address) by Condescending to negotiating with the Enemy who is obviously being driven to the table by the Universal Triumph of American Forces throughout the Middle East, to the Acclaim of that Oppressed Population which, apart from the Terrorist controlled Arab Press, holds such Affection and Awe for the Lion of Crawford Texas that they will literally crawl in the dust before him.

Etc., etc. The usual channels of flattery in American politics are Fox and CNN, which are populated almost exclusively by brownnosers. This is the population to aim for.

Posted by Roger | September 21, 2006 3:03 PM

I said it on the other thread, I guess it more properly belows here:

The conception of diplomacy held by Bush and what passes for doves in the administration is an odd one. In essence, the White House is willing to give Iran a variety of opportunity to pre-emptively surrender on all issues in order to demonstrate that "diplomacy has failed" and war is necessary. What they're not willing to do is conduct diplomacy, i.e. make good-faith efforts to resolve outstanding issues in US-Iranian relations in a cooperative, mutually beneficial manner.

Huh???

It seems to me that what the Bush administration is doing is EXACTLY what "diplomacy" is all about. Bush said, if you do X, which is what we want, then we'll give you Y and Z in return. What the heck is so "odd" about that conception of democracy???

Matthew makes less and less sense to me. He thinks that by asking for what we want, Bush has taken diplomacy off the table??? I don't understand Matthew at all.

Posted by Al | September 21, 2006 3:10 PM

It seems to me that what the Bush administration is doing is EXACTLY what "diplomacy" is all about.

Really? When you hear someone described as "diplomatic," you think of a person who screams at other people, and who--when screaming has failed to achieve his/her goals--then proceeds to beat those other people up?

Don't be stupid, Al.

Posted by dj moonbat | September 21, 2006 3:48 PM

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061002&s=kaplan100206

I am so relieved that the Lieberman Weakly says that we won't Bomb Iran for a year.
Of course as the bullshit increases, its gravitational mass, makes time outside the neocon event horizon go faster so what might be two Friedmans in the bubble might be a lame duck session nuking.

Posted by marc sobel | September 21, 2006 3:53 PM

Don't be stupid, Al.

Don't be twisted, hose.
Don't chase yarn, kitten. Etc.

He do love the shell game.

Posted by Jeffrey Davs | September 21, 2006 4:06 PM

Bush and Cheney resign and President Hastert does a deal with the Iranians to get them to drop their nuclear program in return for a nonaggression pact.

I can dream, can't I?

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 21, 2006 4:32 PM

Rice, of course, is the moderate foreign policy voice in the administration.

Rice may very well be a moderate, but IIRC, during the days of Bush I, Rice, the Soviet expert, called the fall of the USSR wrong (because she was following the whacko-cold-war-right line of "it's all a sham by those clever Ruskies to trick us") while the neo-con crew (eager to take credit for winning the cold war) called the collapse correctly. From that, Rice has learned that even in areas where she ought to know more than the neo-con crew, she should defer to them.

So I doubt if Rice will, based on her own experiences, have the confidence to stand up to the neo-con crew even if she feels differently than they (which is a big if to begin with) -- although it's perhaps less a sure thing than some people on the left fear that the neo-cons really wanna attack the nation they so carefully helped arm in the 1980s or have we all forgotten Iran/Contra?

Posted by DAS | September 21, 2006 4:34 PM

More to the point, Nixon, for all his flaws, had an intellect and was prone to use it, which is how a basically unlikeable guy could become President.

Pause for amusing fantasy about what Nixon would have thought and said about G. W.

Posted by James | September 21, 2006 4:50 PM

while the neo-con crew (eager to take credit for winning the cold war) called the collapse correctly.

Called it or predicted it? They most certainly did NOT predict it. They may have (partly) seen the collapse for what it was, but so did most people on the planet.

The fall of the Soviet Union was one of the few times I ever sided with George HW Bush. (I'm sure the knowledge of that warms his long winter evenings.) "Prefer the devil you know to the devil you don't."

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 21, 2006 5:06 PM

Jeffrey Davis,

Definitely "called it", not "predicted it". At the time, there was some doubt as to what was happening ...

Posted by DAS | September 21, 2006 7:03 PM

Obviously Bush is not negotiating in the same way that Matthew would be in his place. How about some details? What would you offer Iran that Bush wouldn't? What would you give up in the negotiation that he wouldn't? Specifics, please.

What does "mutually beneficial" really mean? What do we get from Iran, and what does Iran get from us in your scenario that Bush would never agree to?

Posted by bellwether | September 21, 2006 7:39 PM

Roger's hilarious post above is the most workable program I have seen for avoiding war with Iran.

Posted by MQ | September 21, 2006 8:03 PM

No bombing of Iran until after the polls close in November, says I. The repercussions with respect to (a) our tenuous situation next door in Iraq (15 million Shi'ites can kick us out of the country), and (b) domestic gasoline prices, will ensure that Bush holds off that long.

After that, all bets are off.

bellweather: what we want from Iran is (1) a nuke program that doesn't try to make the jump from the 5% U-235 level sufficient for power generation, to the 90% purity needed for bombs (enforced by frequent inspections of any and all possible nuclear-related facilities), (2) cessation of their support of violent radicalism in other countries (especially Hezbollah), and (3) a commitment to military noninterference with Iraq.

What they want from us is (4) diplomatic recognition and (5) economic integration with the rest of the world.

Would you be willing to trade 4 and 5 for 1, 2, and 3? I sure as hell would.

James: damned straight. Nixon was evil and paranoid, but at least he was intelligent and (mostly) connected with reality. Bush is neither.

Posted by RT | September 22, 2006 9:51 AM

"i.e. make good-faith efforts to resolve outstanding issues in US-Iranian relations in a cooperative, mutually beneficial manner."

What do we have that Iran wants that is also worth giving up their nuclear program?

France, Russia and China have made it clear that sanctions aren't on the table. So we can't give up the threat of sanctions.

Will setting up an embassy and restablishing diplomatic ties be carrot enough? Seriously?

So what do they want that we can give them? Free hand in Iraq? Flights to resupply Hezbollah.

Posted by Sebastian Holsclaw | September 22, 2006 1:45 PM

Are you a terrorist, stupid, or simply anti-American? Go back where you came from - we don't need your kind in this graet Country. You're garbage!!

Posted by Anna Huszar | September 23, 2006 9:20 AM