Deny them an enemy
Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 2:29AM Survey Says Iranians Favor Free Election Of Their Top Leader, By Robin Wright, Washington Post, March 9, 2008; Page A17
As I've said for years now: the Iranian public is our one great asset in this struggle with the mullahs, so little desire from me to alienate them on the nuke issue, where we seem to give everyone in the region our okay to pursue nuke energy but not Iran. We know what the fix is on their nukes: transparency in return for guarantees of no hard kill. Our fear is entrenched leaders fearing their own, armed with nukes and a desire to create some splendid little diversion abroad that gets them the continued dynamic of U.S. antagonism, which in turn allows them to keep justifying their repression at home. But we're getting that scenario anyway, without tapping into the one asset we should access: their public. So the key question becomes, How to access this population in a way that it's their demands, not poisoned by association with or support from us, that drive the internal political process. Shortest answer to me? We promote growing connectivity, which will be more eastward than westward in implementation, and we deny them an enemy, pushing their sources of new connectivity (India, China, Russia) to temper their behavior. We can either accept the East's desire to make their money and get their energy from Iran and bring them into the enforcement mix that way, or we can try to keep them out and push them to enforce on the basis of no economic gain. I personally like incentivized partners, and I like to take advantage of stuff like this: "But now, almost nine out of 10 [Iranian] voters surveyed want the top political position [Supreme Leader] to be accountable to voters, the poll found."
Remind you of recent Cuban polls that said 87% want to pick their next leader?
But what this approach takes is a whole different attitude on the part of the U.S. regarding enforcement. Right now we see ourselves as the only sheriff in town, and so everyone plays all angles on us instead of our targets, with the end result being we're the ones largely being contained.
And I find that an annoying end to the Bush administration.
Reader Comments (5)
Admittedly, the world is a scary place; paranoia is appropriate. However, delusional paranoia is deadly, especially for eighteen year-old PVT Murphy. When the war in Iraq began he couldn’t drive his parent’s car to Wal-Mart in Home Town, US of A. Now he’s driving an up-armored HMMWV in Baghdad. The world knows that ours days of clubbing it into a better place, a better place for all people, is coming to an end. Likewise, they will wait out this administration and play their cards with the next. They know this administration can not sell a third war, in particular at a time when the American people are worried about the economy.
Caving in heads has a unique quality, so does subtlety, in particular when it comes to influencing people under a hostile government. Forceful, in-your face policy reinforces their governments message, and provides that government a common enemy upon which the can rally nationalism around.
We have broken our big-stick on the heads of two nations, notably Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s time to play nice. The axis of evil still exists; obviously our plans to neutralize them have been ineffective. Let’s sell the world on McDonald’s, Coke, and a large helping of good-will. Maybe we should try to be the confident, yet benevolent, big brother as opposed to the neighborhood bully … the delusional, paranoid, swinging-at-phantoms, bully.