THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 178, July 21, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
NOW BUSH IS APPEASING IRAN
By Dr. Michael Rubin
THE IRANIAN POLITICAL REGIME & U.S. DIPLOMACY: CURRENT U.S. DIPLOMACY BREATHING NEW LIFE INTO
MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD'S FAILING REGIME -- THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S REVERSAL OF POSITION & CURRENT
APPEASEMENT OF IRAN -- DIPLOMATIC MALPRACTICE ON A CARTER-ESQUE LEVEL -- THE SIGNIFICANCE & CONSEQUENCES
OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT'S WEAK-KNEED, FLIP-FLOP FOREIGN POLICY TOWARD IRAN: GIVING THE APPEARANCE
OF U.S. WILLINGNESS TO YIELD TO THE ISLAMIST REGIME'S BLUNT DEFIANCE OF THE U.S.A., CONTINUATION OF THE
REGIME'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM, & IRANIAN-BACKED TERRORISTS' MURDER OF AMERICAN TROOPS IN IRAQ --
FACILITATING AHMADINEJAD'S RE-ELECTION AS IRANIAN PRESIDENT IN 2009
FULL STORY:
On May 31, 2006, Condoleezza Rice drew a red line in front of Tehran's nuclear enrichment program. "The Iranian
government's choices are clear," she said. "The negative choice is for the regime to maintain its current course. . . . If the
regime does so, it will incur only great costs." She also offered an olive branch: "As soon as Iran fully and verifiably
suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the United States will come to the table with our EU-3 colleagues
and meet with Iran's representatives."
Two years later, Iranian officials have installed more than 3,000 centrifuges in a facility designed to hold 50,000. On July 9,
2008, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) tested missiles which could reach Israel; the same day, Iranian Web
sites carried President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's pledge to launch a satellite, an event that would demonstrate a mastery
of intercontinental ballistic missile technology. Nevertheless, just 10 days later, Undersecretary of State William Burns
joined envoys from France, Britain, Russia, China, and Germany in talks with Saeed Jalili -- Iran's nuclear negotiator and
an Ahmadinejad confidant -- about incentives to give to Tehran.
The package already on offer is rich. The Bush administration has promised to support Iranian construction of a
light-water reactor and provide it with nuclear fuel. In addition, the U.S. will help overhaul of Iran's energy infrastructure
and cooperate in high-technology industries. At any point, Tehran can simply walk away, keeping its rewards.
European diplomats welcome the U.S. reversal. "The presence of an American is good news," French Foreign Minister
Bernard Kouchner said. "France has always said that not only sanctions need to be imposed, dialogue is necessary."
Iran is less kind. "America has no choice but to leave the Middle East beaten and humiliated," says Mohammad Jafar
Assadi, chief of the IRGC ground forces.
Diplomacy is not wrong, but President Bush's reversal is diplomatic malpractice on a Carter-esque level that is breathing
new life into a failing regime.
The Iranian government has spent billions of dollars -- money that might have been better spent on refineries and gas
turbine power plants -- on a nuclear program that has failed to produce a single kilowatt of electricity.
Now, as the regime rations fuel and the city institutes roving blackouts, Iranians realize the price of the Islamic Republic's
adventurism.
Even with record oil prices, mismanagement has driven the Iranian economy into the ground. On July 14, 2008, the
Ministry of Housing reported an "historical" 125% rise in housing prices. The same day, Tabnak, a news Web site run by
a former head of the IRGC, admitted foodstuff inflation had reached 50% annually. On July 8, 2008, a National Iranian Oil
Company executive acknowledged in the Iranian press that, without significant investment in infrastructure, Iranian oil
production would decline each year by 300,000 barrels a day. But those investments are not coming from abroad. Almost
every headline-grabbing energy contract remains unfulfilled.
Nor is oil Iran's only flagging industry. According to the Iranian press, carpet exports have dropped 10% and pollution has
decimated the caviar-producing sturgeon in the Caspian Sea. State-owned factories owe workers weeks of back wages.
Bus driver Mansour Ossanlou, Iran's Lech Walesa, remains in prison after forming the Republic's first independent trade
union. In the past month alone, Iranian workers have struck for unpaid wages at the Khodro automotive plant (which
assembles Peugeots), the Alburz Tire Company, and the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane factory.
The U.S. State Department places its about-face in the context of multilateralism. This is nonsense. By agreeing to suspend
its demand for a cessation of uranium enrichment, Washington is signaling to Tehran that it need not adhere to three
current U.N. Security Council resolutions. Rather than reinforce diplomacy, the White House reveals that its red lines are
illusionary.
While European diplomats hope regime pragmatists might re-inject responsibility in the Iranian debate, Ms. Rice's State
Department has bolstered Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his fellow travelers. As Ahmadinejad begins his re-election
campaign, he can say he has successfully brought Washington to its knees through blunt defiance, murder of U.S. troops
in Iraq, and Holocaust denial. Should he win re-election in 2009, he will have Mr. Bush's whiplash diplomacy to thank for
his greatest -- and, given the state of his economy, perhaps only -- victory.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Michael Rubin, a Ph.D. in History (Yale University) and a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, Islamic culture and Islamist
ideology, is Editor of the Middle East Quarterly, a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School, and a resident
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical
Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001) and is co-author, with Dr. Patrick Clawson,
of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Dr. Rubin served as political advisor to the Coalition
Provisional Authority in Baghdad (2003-2004); staff advisor on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense
(2002-2004); visiting lecturer in the Departments of History and International Relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(2001-2002); visiting lecturer at the Universities of Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan (2000-2001); Soref
Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (1999-2000); and visiting lecturer in the Department of History at Yale
University (1999-2000). He has been a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Leonard Davis Institute at Hebrew
University, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs.
The foregoing article by Dr. Rubin was originally published in the Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2008, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/1933)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
July 21, 2008
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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