THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA

An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 179, September 20, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
Home Page   Main Menu   Recent Articles   Site Map   Website Index   Issues & Controversies
  Cyberland University   Political Science, Philosophy, & History: Lectures   U.S. Constitution
  American Constitutional Law   American Constitutional System   American Political System
  Conservatism, Liberalism, & Radicalism   How America Goes to War
  World War IV: Islamist Terror War Against the U.S.A. & the West

THE U.S.A. VERSUS IRAN
By Dr. Michael Rubin

UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY & THE PROBLEM OF IRAN:  THE ABSOLUTE IMPOSSIBILITY OF EMPLOYING DIPLOMACY AS AN EFFECTIVE INSTRUMENT OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY IN DEALING WITH THE THREAT TO THE U.S.A. & THE WEST POSED BY THE ISLAMIST POLITICAL REGIME IN IRAN -- OVERT & COVERT WARFARE AS THE ONLY POSSIBLE MEANS OF SOLVING THE IRANIAN PROBLEM -- MASSIVE PREEMPTIVE & RETALIATORY MILITARY ACTION, THOROUGHGOING PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE & FORCIBLE ELIMINATION OF THE PROBLEM, RATHER THAN FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO NEGOTIATE & COMPROMISE WITH THE IRANIAN REGIME
FULL STORY:   The Iranian government continues to enrich uranium, despite U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's generous package of incentives -- and in defiance of the Unites Nations August 31, 2006, deadline. Still, European officials hold out hope for the success of diplomacy. On September 15, Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said;

    "We are really making progress. Never before have we had a level of engagement . . . as we have now."

Diplomats will look for any hopeful sign from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's forthcoming U.N. speech. But can talk work? Successful diplomacy requires that both sides negotiate in good faith and honor commitments. That Tehran's track record undercuts confidence should not surprise. From its very inception, the Islamic Republic has eschewed diplomatic norms.

On November 4, 1979, Iranian students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, holding 52 hostages for 444 days. Warren Christopher, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State during the crisis, called the Iranian move a "flagrant violation" of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. But Iranian officials endorsed the seizure. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini praised the students. His successor as Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, showed support with a visit to the U.S. Embassy soon after its seizure. Ironically, while the Iranian leadership often demands apologies for transgressions both real and imagined, it continues to uphold the righteousness of hostage seizure, underscoring official contempt for diplomatic convention.

Still, the Embassy seizure might be long forgotten had Tehran's disdain for diplomatic norms been the exception, rather than the rule. While the Iran-Contra Affair is remembered today for the Reagan administration's attempts to circumvent Congressional prohibition of funding of the Nicaraguan resistance, it also illustrates the inadvisability of trusting Tehran.

In 1986, former U.S. National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane's traveled to Tehran. President Ronald Reagan sought to win the release of American hostages in Lebanon, but, as soon as Washington compensated Tehran for its bad behavior, its militias accelerated hostage seizure. Diplomatic enticement -- bribery by another name -- backfired. But diplomacy is not just about incentives; it is also about trust. What could have been just a failed initiative turned to scandal when, on the seventh anniversary of the Embassy seizure, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, today the Chairman of the Iranian Expediency Council, broke a pledge of secrecy and revealed the meetings to the international press.

Iranian authorities showed diplomatic duplicity once again after Khomeini issued a declaration calling for author Salman Rushdie's death. Four months before Khomeini's death, then-president Khamenei demanded that Mr. Rushdie apologize, in exchange for cancellation of a religious edict ordering his murder. Mr. Rushdie apologized, but the Iranian government nevertheless kept the bounty in place. President Khamenei was insincere, his diplomacy was a tactic. By winning an apology, he confirmed Mr. Rushdie's guilt.

Iranian lying should not surprise; what should is how often Western governments fall prey to it. The British government demanded that Tehran lift the bounty on Mr. Rushdie's head as a precondition to re-establish diplomatic relations. On September 24, 1998, the Iranian government said it would do nothing to harm Mr. Rushdie. No sooner had London and Tehran exchanged ambassadors, than Iranian authorities once again reversed themselves.

For U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, the cost of Iranian lying is high. While Iranian diplomats pledged not to destabilize Afghanistan and, indeed, cooperate in its reconstruction, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps sent in operatives disguised as school teachers to further instability. As Afghan President Hamid Karzai struggled to wrest control away from warlords, Afghan commanders intercepted a dozen Iranian agents and proxies organizing armed resistance.

In Iraq, too, Iranian diplomacy has been duplicitous. Prior to the Iraq war, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and Iran's UN Ambassador Mohammad Javad Zarif, pledged Iranian noninterference to British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and Zalmay Khalilzad, then President George W. Bush's envoy to the free Iraqis. But, Iranian journalists now describe how, days after Saddam Hussein's fall, the Iranian leadership dispatched 2,000 Revolutionary Guards, replete with radio transmitters, money, and supplies.

On November 18, 2003, Mr. Kharrazi again pledged Iran's good behavior, as regards Iraq.. He lied outright; his promise coincided with a new deployment of Iranian intelligence personnel across Iraq. The Revolutionary Guard stepped up its training of Muqtada al-Sadr's militia.

Hasan Kazemi Qomi, previously Iran's liaison to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, became Tehran's top diplomat in Baghdad. Mr. Qomi assured diplomats that "Iran will not accept anything that destabilizes Iraq." Four months later, Iraqi forces captured 30 Iranians fighting alongside Sadr's militia.

Earlier this month, I traveled to the Middle East to meet Shiite tribal leaders and urban notables from southern Iraq. They described how Iran has transformed its consulates in Karbala and Basra into distribution points for everything from money to shaped charges.

That Tehran uses diplomatic pouches and protocols to safeguard its terrorist network reflects the Iranian government's insincerity. While the West approaches diplomacy with sincerity, the Islamic Republic mocks diplomatic convention to shield subversion.

Iran's nuclear program raises the stakes of its deceit to U.S. national security. There is little doubt that Tehran's nuclear program is not peaceful. On February 14, 2005, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Kharrazi, Secretary-General of Iranian Hezbollah, promised, "We are able to produce atomic bombs, and we will do that." In February, 2006, Mohsen Gharavian, a Qom theologian well connected to the Islamic Republic's staunchest ideologues, called Iran's possession of nuclear weapons "natural."

Iran's nuclear program has advanced through the trust of diplomats and their willingness to provide hard currency in the name of dialogue and engagement. Between 2000 and 2005, European Union trade with Iran almost tripled. Tehran invested much of this money in arms and nuclear infrastructure. For more than a decade, through both the Rafsanjani and Khatami administrations, Iranian authorities hid the existence of a uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and a heavy water plant at Khondab. That Western diplomats label Mr. Rafsanjani a pragmatist and Mr. Khatami a reformer underscores the danger of judging Iranian officials by style rather than action.

In February, 2003, the Iranian authorities opened the secret plants to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors. The IAEA inspectors' subsequent report was damning: Not only had the Iranian government designed the Natanz facility to house at least 50,000 centrifuges, but Tehran had imported from China almost a ton of uranium, and could not account for missing processed uranium. During subsequent inspections, Iranian authorities repeatedly changed their stories when asked about the origin of weapons-grade uranium traces. Subsequent inspections exposed other lies. Finally, on September 24, 2004, the IAEA Board of Governors, after recalling a litany of Iranian mistruths, found Iran in breach of its Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement.

While Iranian officials have made many subsequent pledges to cooperate, their actions belie their words. They have yet to abide by the Additional Protocol's inspection standards and, earlier this year, turned away IAEA inspectors from Natanz in violation of the NPT.

While diplomacy necessarily involves talking to adversaries, Washington should not assume that the Ayatollahs operate from the same set of ground rules. During his long exile in Najaf, Khomeini endorsed taqiya, religiously sanctioned dissembling. From his perspective and that of his followers, the ends justify the means. Hence, Khomeini saw nothing wrong when he told the Guardian newspaper, just months before his return to Iran:

    "I don't want to have the power of government in my hand; I am not interested in personal power."

Tehran may still conduct diplomacy to fish for incentive and reward, but, at its core, Iranian diplomacy is insincere. The Iranian leadership will say anything and do anything to buy the time necessary to acquire nuclear capability. That Foggy Bottom still advises against any strategy that might undercut the possibility of some illusionary diplomatic breakthrough signals triumph, not of realism, but of negligence. Diplomacy cannot succeed, if one side is playing for real and the other only for time.


LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran

Military Weaponry & International Security:
Weapons of Mass Destruction & Arms Control

Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three    Page Two    Page One

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 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 of 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, September 20, 2006, and can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.


Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
September 20, 2006




Return to Top of Page

Go to the WEBSITE INDEX

Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies


Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
Most Recent Articles


Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume VIII, 2006


Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights


Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage

CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION




LINKS TO PARTICULAR ISSUES & SUBJECT MATTER CATEGORIES
TREATED IN THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, U.S.A.:

Africa: Black Africa * Africa: North Africa * American Government 1
American Government 2 * American Government 3 * American Government 4
American Government 5 * American Politics * Anglosphere * Arabs
Arms Control & WMD * Aztlan Separatists * Big Government
Black Africa * Bureaucracy * Canada * China * Civil Liberties * Communism
Congress, U.S. * Conservative Groups * Conservative vs. Liberal
Constitutional Law * Counterterrorism * Criminal Justice * Disloyalty * Economy
Education * Elections, U.S. * Eminent Domain * Energy & Environment
English-Speaking World * Ethnicity & Race * Europe * Europe: Jews
Family Values * Far East * Fiscal Policy, U.S. * Foreign Aid, U.S. * France
Hispanic Separatism * Hispanic Treason * Human Health * Immigration
Infrastructure, U.S. * Intelligence, U.S. * Iran * Iraq * Islamic North Africa
Islamic Threat * Islamism * Israeli vs. Arabs * Jews & Anti-Semitism
Jihad & Jihadism * Jihad Manifesto I * Jihad Manifesto II * Judges, U.S. Federal
Judicial Appointments * Judiciary, American * Latin America * Latino Separatism
Latino Treason * Lebanon * Leftists/Liberals * Legal Issues
Local Government, U.S. * Marriage & Family * Media Political Bias
Middle East: Arabs * Middle East: Iran * Middle East: Iraq * Middle East: Israel
Middle East: Lebanon * Middle East: Syria * Middle East: Tunisia
Middle East: Turkey * Militant Islam * Military Defense * Military Justice
Military Weaponry * Modern Welfare State * Morality & Decency
National Identity * National Security * Natural Resources * News Media Bias
North Africa * Patriot Act, USA * Patriotism * Political Culture * Political Ideologies
Political Parties * Political Philosophy * Politics, American * Presidency, U.S.
Private Property * Property Rights * Public Assistance * Radical Islam
Religion & America * Rogue States & WMD * Russia * Science & Ethics
Sedition & Treason * Senate, U.S. * Social Welfare Policy * South Africa
State Government, U.S. * Subsaharan Africa * Subversion * Syria * Terrorism 1
Terrorism 2 * Treason & Sedition * Tunisia * Turkey * Ukraine
UnAmerican Activity * UN & Its Agencies * USA Patriot Act * U.S. Foreign Aid
U.S. Infrastructure * U.S. Intelligence * U.S. Senate * War & Peace
Welfare Policy * WMD & Arms Control


This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics, civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy, and political philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.



POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS

POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE

Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.

Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs, International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests, Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy

INDEX FOR THE ENTIRE WEBSITE

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z




THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA

An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis

Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor

Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic, Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues