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Gerecht: Bush has lost his nerve
So what do we do? We can certainly try to support the democracy movement and dissidents in Iran more aggressively. But this is going to be an enormously difficult task even under the best of circumstances. Detest the ruling clergy as they may, Irans young men still appear unwilling in any significant number to meet the regime on the streets. Although Irans growing democratic culture is unlikely to be stopped, and its pro-American disposition is unlikely to change unless Washington goes Scowcroftian and seeks to placate Tehran, a militant, dictatorial Islam remains strong among the countrys ruling elite. And the circumstances in Washington arent propitious. The CIA hates pro-democracy covert action (its difficult, requires a level of knowledge and linguistic skill which is beyond todays clandestine service, and is always politically problematic in Washington). The State Department doesnt like it either, and doesnt trust the CIA to undertake such action (an astute judgment call on States part). And many European officials are equally queasy about such things, seeing them as counterproductive to the spirit of dialogue and the undying European hope that the US will make some grand bargain--which means any serious democracy-promotion inside Iran is verboten. The Bush administration ought to begin a crash course in covert and overt Iranian democracy-promotion, firing all those in the bureaucracies who seek to sabotage the mission. But this isnt going to happen. Although a sense of urgency about Iran is growing in Washington, the administration has not--despite occasional rhetoric from the President, Vice President, and Secretary of State--been shocked into much action. As with so many other major foreign-policy issues, the Bush administration, worn out by Iraq, is operating on momentum, capable only of continuing the logic of policies from the first term. It does not want to see the Iranian train wreck ahead of it. The administration is pushing an approach that it really doesnt believe will work, but it doesnt want to break from the process since that, among other things, will inevitably force the administration to have the great Iran debate: Is it better to preventively bomb the clerics nuclear facilities or allow the mullahs to have nuclear weapons? And if the administration were to acquiesce to the clerical bomb, it would, of course, empower its worst enemies in Tehran and spiritually invigorate all Muslim radicals who live on American weakness. The United States and the Europeans have now aligned the West against the regime in Tehran. Acquiesce and the revolutionary hard core triumphs. We will whet their appetites, externally and internally. As Iranian society continues to sheer away from the ruling elite, that elite has kept its radicalism, especially among the diehards raised in the Revolutionary Guards, like Ahmadinejad. Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-14 |
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