More good Cohen on Iran, to include a long-used bit of mine

OP-ED: "Realpolitik For Iran," by Roger Cohen, New York Times, 13 April 2009.

Here's the bit that I found immediately familiar, having put it in print numerous times myself (including my last two books):

Imagine if Roosevelt in 1942 had said to Stalin, sorry, Joe, we don't like your Communist ideology so we're not going to accept your help in crushing the Nazis. I know you're powerful, but we don't deal with evil.

Come to think of it, I've used that bit likewise in too many speeches to count.

Likewise:

That's a rough equivalent on the stupidity scale of what Bush achieved by consigning Iran's theocracy to the axis of evil and failing to probe how the country might have helped in two wars and the wider Middle East when the conciliatory Mohammad Khatami was president.

Seldom in the annals of American diplomacy has moral absolutism trumped realism to such devastating effect. Bush gifted Iran increased power without taking even a peek at how that might serve U.S. objectives.

Thus my frequent condemnation of Bush-Cheney: they forced our troops to fight in both Iraq and Afghanistan under the worst possible strategic conditions: increasingly denuded of allies and increasingly afflicted with regional spoilers.

Cohen's description of a comprehensive bargaining approach echoes my own from the February 2005 Esquire piece, but it's a lot better in its details:

Iran ceases military support for Hamas and Hezbollah; adopts a "Malaysian" approach to Israel (nonrecognition and noninterference); agrees to work for stability in Iraq and Afghanistan; accepts intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency verification of a limited nuclear program for peaceful ends only; promises to fight Qaeda terrorism; commits to improving its human rights record.

The United States commits itself to the Islamic Republic's security and endorses its pivotal regional role; accepts Iran's right to operate a limited enrichment facility with several hundred centrifuges for research purposes; agrees to Iran's acquiring a new nuclear power reactor from the French; promises to back Iran's entry into the World Trade Organization; returns seized Iranian assets; lifts all sanctions; and notes past Iranian statements that it will endorse a two-state solution acceptable to the Palestinians.

Cohen then raises the Nixon-to-Tehran scenario.

When I first made that pitch in 2005 (actually dreaming it up spontaneously in response to an officer's question over dinner election night November 2004, at the Air War College in Alabama), I did so simply to break up the conventional thought patterns I saw America locked into regarding Iran.

While I still see this basic outline making sense, I don't think it could happen now, even in a drawn-out fashion. I think Iran, based on its last two decades of experience in war (versus Sadam, then America's three wars on its left [Iraq twice] and right), is committed to joining the nuclear power (as in, weaponization) club.

So while I advocate some shake-it-up visits by U.S. leadership to Iran in the mode of Nixon-to-China, I don't see that dynamic producing much. Instead, I think the rapprochement will be more in the mode of détente with the USSR in the early 1970s, the trick being there isn't a China card to play with Tehran (I mean, cooperating with UAE on nuclear power just doesn't compare).

So I see this path as being a long tough slog now, with some scary bits as we and the region adjust to Iran's nuclear capability. In short, I think we lost our opportunity to make a comprehensive opening deal with Tehran that will include precluding their reach for the bomb.

That's what Bush-Cheney cost us, in my mind.

More likely scenario to me: Israel attacks Iran before the year is out, and then Tehran races to weaponization with the support of the Muslim world.

Then we start having to deal with Tehran in a different manner. To me, the logical near-term course, no matter who wins in June, is to prepare for that eventuality with calm confidence, hence my call to extend nuclear umbrella protection to Israel and others in the region.

That's the best pre-empt right now.

Comments

[Arsalan]

"More likely scenario to me: Israel attacks Iran before the year is out, and then Tehran races to weaponization with the support of the Muslim world."

I don't know....I know Netanyahu and the Likud's tendency towards extremism; but wouldn't a direct attack be suicidal at this point?