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Michael Ledeen: Europe's Ritual Dance
The European "solution" to the threat of Iranian atomic bombs bids fair to join the "peace process" as the most boffo running gag in the history of show biz. Every few months, the elegantly dressed diplomatic wizards from London, Paris, and Berlin race across a continent or two to meet with Iranians dressed in turbans and gowns, and after some hours of alleged hard work, they emerge with a new agreement, just like their more numerous counterparts engaged in the peace negotiations. The main difference is that the peace-process deals seemed to last for several months, while the schemes hammered out with the mullahs rarely last more than an hour a week or two. Otherwise, it's the same sort of vaudeville routine: a few laughs, with promises of more to come.
| "Oh, charades! I love charades!" |
The latest Iranian shenanigan may have set a record for speed. On Monday they announced they had stopped the centrifuges that were enriching uranium. On Tuesday they asked for permission to run the centrifuges again. The Europeans sternly said no. The next scene will be at Turtle Bay, with brief interruptions for somewhat off-color remarks about sexual harassment at high levels (so to speak) of the United Nations.
No serious person can believe that the negotiations are going to block, or even seriously delay, the Iranian race to acquire atomic bombs. The European posturing is the Western counterpart of the Iranian deception, a ritual dance designed to put a flimsy veil over the nakedness of the real activities. The old-fashioned name for this sort of thing is "appeasement," and was best described by Churchill, referring to Chamberlain's infamous acceptance of Hitler's conditions at Munich. Chamberlain had to choose between war and dishonor, opted for the latter, and got the former as well. That is now the likely fate of Blair, Chirac, and Schroeder. They surely know this. Why do they accept it?
| Chirac and Schroeder do it out of habit. They can't conceive of the idea of Islamic nukes destroying Paris or Berlin, and there's all that lovely money to be made before crunch time comes, far down the road on somebody else's watch. They assume they'll always Realpolitik themselves onto the winning side, and for some reason they never conceive that the Merkins will be the winning side — from their standpoint the odds are too long. I'm not sure what Blair's doing; perhaps he's giving it one last good, honest effort before coming to the conclusion that the ayatollahs need to be assisted to the trashbin of history... |
They accept it for many reasons, of which two seem paramount: They have huge financial interests tied up with the Iranian regime (billions of dollars worth of oil and gas contracts, plus other trade agreements, some already signed, others in the works); and Iran is the last place in the Middle East where they can play an active diplomatic role. This is particularly acute for France, which knows it will long be a pariah to free Iraqi governments, and views Iran as its last chance to thwart America's dominant role in the region.
| Not all is hopeless. There are alliances to be made under the table with the Soddies and Egypt and a possibly resurgent Libya. There are North African alliances to be built with Algeria as the keystone. There's Turkey to be toyed with, shown the Europrize but never allowed to quite touch it. And Jacques should keep in mind that memories in the Middle East are all very short term or very long term, with a big blur in the middle; five years after the Merkins are gone, there's every chance that La Belle France could be riding high again in Baghdad. |
Sad to say, there is no evidence that the Europeans give a tinker's damn either about the destiny of the Iranian people, or about Iran's leading role in international terrorism, or about the Islamic Republic's joining the nuclear club. They are quite prepared to live with all that. I think they expect Iran to "go nuclear" in the near future, at which point they will tell President Bush that there is no option but to accept the brutal facts — the world's leading sponsor of terrorism in possession of atomic bombs and the missiles needed to deliver them on regional and European targets — and "come to terms" with the mullahcracy.
| They're making the assumption the U.S. will be willing to "come to terms" with a fundamental disruption to the balance of power in favor of Islamism, when the U.S. is engaged in a war with that very Islamism. Their political bedrock involves a world without major war in its future (or its present). Their recurrent attempts to redefine the WoT as something other than a real war is a symptom of that. If it's akin to the war on drugs or the war on poverty or the war on AIDS, then there's no Anzio involved, no Tarawa, and no Dresden. There's only "provocations," "aggressions," and "responses." Their current level of indignation with the U.S. is because we're no longer playing by those rules, having inconsiderately received another Pearl Harbor before they've gone through September, 1939. |
In other words, as the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal have wryly commented, the real goal of the negotiations is to restrain the United States, which, left to its own devices, might actually do something serious.
| If Europe had still been negotiating with Hitler in late 1941, I suspect we'd have gotten much the same reaction after Pearl Harbor: suck up the casualties, go to the negotiating table, and don't upset the apple cart. Things will come out in the end. |
If President Bush found a way to prevent Iran from acquiring atomic bombs, it might well wreck the Europeans' grand appeasement strategy. There is certainly no risk that the United Nations will do anything serious, which is why the Europeans keep insisting that it is the only "legitimate" forum for any discussion of the Iranian nuclear menace. At the same time, I rather suspect that the Europeans, like many of our own diplomats, would be secretly pleased if someone else — that is to say, Israel — were to "do something" to rid them of this problem.
| I agree. It would change everyone's negotiating position, of course, but it would also damage Israel's "legitimacy," as the Osirak raid did at the time. The Ãbereuros' fear, though, is that the U.S. will "do something," which would add to a basically unbroken string of successes since the Reagan administration, with the glaring exception of the Europhile Clinton years. Apres we thumped Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and a few other fairly rabid states decided to join the U.S. side to greater or lesser extents, because they had visions of similar scenes taking place in their own countries. After the fall of Baghdad, Libya decided to hang up its own nuclear pretensions and Syria briefly came around before Teheran jerked the Boy President's chain. Enthusiasms have cooled as we've become bogged down in the minutiae of occupation, but they'll fire up again if we deliver a thorough thumping to the ayatollahs. Eventually the enthusiasm will remain or the mad dogs and mullahs will find themselves moving up the list. That points to an eventual naturally developing American sphere of influence, which the Euros see as a zero-sum game. |
When they whisper that thought to themselves in the privacy of their own offices or the darkness of their own bedrooms, they mentally replay the Israeli bombing of the nuclear reactor in Osirak, Iraq, in 1981, an attack they publicly condemned and privately extolled. They would do the same tomorrow, sighing in relief as they tighten the noose around Israel's neck. Rarely has the metaphor of the scapegoat been so appropriate: the burden of our sins of omission loaded onto the Israelis, who are then sacrificed to atone for us all.
| I'd call that thinkful wishing at this point. Like the press's vision of generals, they're fighting the last war, rather than the next one. If they really do think that way, they're looking at process, rather than result. Iran's one of the two axes of terrorism and knocking down the ayatollahs would fundamentally swing the balance of power our way, to the Euros' zero-sum detriment. A world without ayatollahs leaves only a very naked Soddy Arabia to push terrorism. The remainder of the bad guy world is either dependent on the princes — like Chechnya and Paleostine — or ineffective on the larger world stage — like the Liberation Tigers or Lashkar e-Taiba. |
This may seem sheer wishful thinking, but wishful thinking is an important part of foreign policy. The idea that "we don't need to do anything, because so-and-so will do our dirty work for us" has in fact been central to Western strategy in the Middle East for quite a while.
| That's worked well, hasn't it? |
For example, it was practiced by Bush the Elder in 1991 at the end of Desert Storm, when the president openly mused that it would be simply wonderful if the Kurds and Shiites overthrew Saddam Hussein. They tried it, foolishly believing that if things went badly the United States would support them. But Bush the First was quite serious about his wishful thinking, and stood by as Saddam slaughtered them — the scapegoats of the hour — by the tens of thousands.
| That raised enough problems to be overcome in the runup to the most recent war. And it's put local populations on their guard against trying the same thing. So the end result was detrimental to our interests. Better not to talk about it if you don't intend to help it succeed. |
Similar wishful thinking is now at the heart of European — and probably a good deal of American — strategic thinking about the Iranian nuclear project. That it is a disgusting abdication of moral responsibility and a strategic blunder of potentially enormous magnitude is both obvious and irrelevant to the actual course of events.
| It's like banging yourself on the thumb with a hammer. You don't set out to do it. Only when the hammer's on its way do you actually realize you're doing it. And only in rare instances are you able to stop it before you cause yourself considerable pain. Maybe the phenomenon needs a title, something like "The Law of Stupefied Momentum." |
I do not believe Israel will solve this problem for us, both because it is militarily very daunting and because successive Israeli governments have believed that Iran is too big a problem for them, and if it is to be solved, it will have to be solved by the United States and our allies. Whether that is true or not, I have long argued that Iran is the keystone of the terrorist edifice, and that we are doomed to confront it sooner or later, nuclear or not.
| I don't see it as the keystone, but as one of two parallel and occasionally allied axes. I certainly agree with the rest of the statement, though. Iran is more militarily powerful than Soddy Arabia, especially with its own nuclear program, but not as diplomatically and culturally intricate a problem. So I'd guess it'll be sooner, rather than later. |
Secretary of State Powell disagreed, and he was at pains recently to stress that American policy does not call for regime change in Tehran — even though the president repeatedly called for it.
| Along with the people in the streets. The argument against taking on Iran militarily is collaterally killing people who support us. Once the iron hand's removed, of course, they'll tend toward the Franco-European approach, since on the surface it's a more rational and humane approach to governance, but we can't hold that against them. Israel's going to do the same thing, assuming peace is ever achieved with the Paleos. It's entirely possible both Iran and Israel will be Francophile nations 30 years from now, assuming there's still a France. |
And the president is right; regime change is the best way to deal with the nuclear threat and the best way to advance our cause in the war against the terror masters. We have a real chance to remove the terror regime in Tehran without any military action, but rather through political means, by supporting the Iranian democratic opposition. According to the regime itself, upwards of 70 percent of Iranians oppose the regime, want freedom, and look to us for political support. I believe they, like the Yugoslavs who opposed Milosevic and like the Ukrainians now demonstrating for freedom, are entitled to the support of the free world.
| It's certainly something to try before expending the men, money, and resources that'll be involved in war. But I think ultimately it's going to come down to war, and it'll probably happen next year. |
Even if you believe that a nuclear Iran is inevitable, is it not infinitely better to have those atomic bombs in the hands of pro-Western Iranians, chosen by their own people, than in the grip of fanatical theocratic tyrants dedicated to the destruction of the Western satans? And maybe it isn't inevitable. Faster, please.
Posted by: tipper 2004-11-30 |
