White House Policy on Iran in Paralysis
    By Jay Bookman
    The Atlanta Journal Constitution

    Thursday 15 February 2007

    Trying to make sense of the Bush administration's strategy toward Iran may be a fool's game, because it assumes a strategy exists in the first place.

    That doesn't seem the case. Statements and policies issued one day are contradicted the next, perhaps the result of internal White House struggles between hardline and more moderate factions who can't agree on a single approach.

    But if so, that may actually be a sign of progress.

    For a long time, there was no question which approach President Bush favored. In his 2002 State of the Union address, he all but declared war on Iran, Iraq and North Korea by publicly identifying those countries as "the axis of evil." In hindsight, that was the point at which U.S. foreign policy began to go seriously awry, because at a critical time in our struggle against radical Islam, it committed us to confrontation with countries that had no ties whatsoever to either al-Qaida or the attacks of Sept. 11.

    From that point on, diplomacy and serious negotiation have been ruled out as options in dealing with Iran and its partners in evil. Sure, such approaches might have helped to change how those regimes behaved, but the Bush White House had no real interest in that goal; its ambitions were larger, to change the regimes themselves, and thus remake the world.

    In early 2003 we moved against the weakest of the three, Iraq, with the goal of ousting Saddam Hussein and replacing him with a government friendly to the United States.

    Once Iraq was pacified, many in the administration expected to move next against the government in neighboring Iran. If the regime did not collapse under the pressure of tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers at Iran's borders, the option of invasion was clearly on the table.

    In fact, our fixation on regime change may have cost us a golden opportunity. At one point in 2003, before the enormity of our mistake in Iraq was evident, a worried Iranian government sent word through the Swiss that it might be willing to compromise on a wide range of critical issues, from its nuclear program to recognition of Israel. But the administration, refused to pursue that opening, even chastizing the Swiss for bringing it to us.

    A similar chain of events played out with North Korea. Whenever its leadership made awkward noises about negotiating a settlement, they too were rebuffed. The Bush administration treated it as a matter of principle - there would be no agreement with the North Koreans like that negotiated by the Clinton administration regarding its nuclear program.

    In essence, we were giving the regimes in Iran and North Korea the same choices we had offered Saddam: They could commit suicide, or be killed. Not surprisingly, they decided on a third option, pursuing a nuclear capability that would make invasion too costly.

    Finally, though, the futility and danger of our policy toward North Korea became too obvious to ignore, forcing a change of course. Earlier this week, the Bush administration announced it had concluded a fragile deal with the North Koreans much like the Clinton deal that conservatives had long condemned.

    Tellingly, the deal was criticized harshly by John Bolton, the former administration hardliner whom the U.S. Senate refused to confirm as ambassador to the United Nations.

    "It's a bad signal to North Korea and it's a bad signal to Iran," Bolton said, accusing the administration of giving in to North Korea "on point after point after point."

    With Iran, however, the internal administration struggle between hardheads and realists remains unsettled. In Iraq last week, anonymous U.S. officials, including high-ranking military officers, laid out a case accusing Iran's top officials of supplying Iraqi insurgents with military hardware for use against our troops, which is potentially grounds for war.

    But in subsequent days, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has twice publicly disagreed with that briefing by his own officers, saying he is not convinced that Iran's government is playing a direct role. In comments yesterday, President Bush seemed to take both sides.

    For now, the administration seems paralyzed. It has heeded the warnings of our military professionals that with our forces already overstretched it would be foolish to seek another war. But its hardliners retain the power to block any effort to negotiate a peaceful settlement.

    The result is an administration perfectly willing to accept war, but unwilling to prevent it.