Iran:A Not-so-Strange Bedfellow

February 19, 2007

A not-so-strange bedfellow

DAVOS, Switzerland Thomas Friedman

Here's a little foreign policy test. I am going to describe two countries -- "Country A" and "Country B" -- and you tell me which one is America's ally and which one is not.

Let's start: Country A actively helped the United States defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and replace it with a pro-U.S. elected alliance of moderate Muslims. Country A regularly holds sort-of-free elections. Country A's women vote, hold office, are the majority of its university students and are fully integrated into the work force.

On 9/11, residents of Country A were among the very few in the Muslim world to hold spontaneous pro-U.S. demonstrations. Country A's radical president recently held a conference about why the Holocaust never happened -- to try to gain popularity. A month later, Country A held nationwide elections for local councils, and that same president saw his candidates get wiped out by voters who preferred more moderate conservatives. Country A has a strategic interest in the success of the pro-U.S., Shiite-led, elected Iraqi government. Although it's a Muslim country right next to Iraq, Country A has never sent any suicide bombers to Iraq, and has long protected its Christians and Jews. Country A has more bloggers per capita than any country in the Muslim Middle East.

The brand of Islam practiced by Country A respects women, is open to reinterpretation in light of modernity and rejects al-Qaida's nihilism.

Now Country B: Country B gave us 14 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 . Country B does not allow its women to drive, vote or run for office. It is illegal in Country B to build a church, synagogue or Hindu temple. Country B helped finance the Taliban.

Country B's private charities help sustain al-Qaida. Young men from Country B's mosques have been regularly recruited to carry out suicide bombings in Iraq. Mosques and charities in Country B raise funds to support the insurgency in Iraq. Country B does not want the elected, Shiite-led government in Iraq to succeed. While Country B's leaders are pro-United States, polls show many of its people are hostile to America -- some of them celebrated on 9/11 . The brand of Islam supported by Country B and exported by it to mosques around the world is the most hostile to modernity and other faiths.

Question: Which country is America's natural ally: A or B?

Country A is, of course. Country A is Iran. Country B is Saudi Arabia.

Don't worry. I know that Iran has also engaged in terrorism against the United States and that the Saudis have supported America at key times in some areas. The point I'm trying to make, though, is that the hostility between Iran and the United States since the overthrow of the shah in 1979 is not organic. By dint of culture, history and geography, we actually have a lot of interests in common with Iran's people. And I am not the only one to notice that.

Because the United States has destroyed Iran's two biggest enemies -- the Taliban and Saddam -- "there is now a debate in Iran as to whether we should continue to act so harshly against the Americans," Mohammad Hossein Adeli, Iran's former ambassador to London, told me at Davos. "There is now more readiness for dialogue with the United States."

More important, when people say, "The most important thing America could do today to stabilize the Middle East is solve the Israel-Palestine conflict," they are wrong. It's second. The most important thing would be to resolve the Iran- U.S. conflict.

That would change the whole Middle East and open up the way to solving the Israel-Palestine conflict, because Iran is the key backer of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Syria. Iran's active help could also be critical for stabilizing Iraq.

This is why I oppose war with Iran. I favor negotiations. Isolating Iran like Castro's Cuba has produced only the same result as in Cuba: strengthening Iran's Castros. But for talks with Iran to bear fruit, we have to negotiate with Iran with leverage.

How do we get leverage? Make it clear that Iran can't push us out of the gulf militarily; bring down the price of oil, which is key to the cockiness of Iran's hardline leadership; squeeze the hard-liners financially. But all this has to be accompanied with a clear declaration that the United States is not seeking regime change in Iran, but a change of behavior, that the United States wants to immediately restore its embassy in Tehran and that the first thing it will do is grant 50,000 student visas for young Iranians to study at U.S. universities.

Just do that -- and then sit back and watch the most amazing debate explode inside Iran. You can bet the farm on it.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070201/NEWS/702010530/

Paul Krugman: Scary Movie 2 Paul Krugman wonders if the administration is about to commit yet another catastrophic mistake:

Scary Movie 2, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: Attacking Iran would be a catastrophic mistake, even if all the allegations now being made about Iranian actions in Iraq are true.

But it wouldn’t be the first catastrophic mistake this administration has made, and there are indications that ... a powerful faction in the administration is spoiling for a fight. ...

[L]et’s talk about the basics. Are there people in Iran providing aid to factions in Iraq...? Yes, probably. But you can say the same about Saudi Arabia, which is believed to be a major source of financial support for Sunni insurgents — and Sunnis, not Iranian-backed Shiites, are still responsible for most American combat deaths.

The Bush administration, ... with its close personal and financial ties to the Saudis, has always downplayed Saudi connections to America’s enemies. Iran, on the other hand, which had no connection to 9/11, and was actually quite helpful ... after the terrorist attack, somehow found itself linked with its bitter enemy Saddam Hussein as part of the “axis of evil.”

So the administration has always had it in for the Iranian regime. Now, let’s do an O. J. Simpson: if you were determined to start a war with Iran, how would you do it?

First, you’d set up a special intelligence unit to cook up rationales for war. A good model would be the Pentagon’s now-infamous Office of Special Plans, led by Abram Shulsky, that helped sell the Iraq war with false claims about links to Al Qaeda.

Sure enough, last year Donald Rumsfeld set up a new “Iranian directorate”.... And ... McClatchy Newspapers ... reported that “current and former officials said the Pentagon’s Iranian directorate has been headed by Abram Shulsky.”

Next, you’d ... repeat ... the highly successful strategy by which scare stories ... were disseminated to the public.

This time, however, the assertions wouldn’t be about W.M.D.; they’d be that Iranian actions are endangering U.S. forces in Iraq. Why? ... Congress [won't] approve another war resolution. But if you can claim that Iran is doing evil in Iraq, you can assert that ... Congress has already empowered the administration to do whatever is necessary to stabilize Iraq. And by the time the lawyers are finished arguing — well, the war would be in full swing.

Finally, you’d build up forces in the area ... to prepare for the strike and, if necessary, to provoke a casus belli. ...ending several aircraft carrier groups into the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf, where a Gulf of Tonkin-type incident could all too easily happen, might be just the thing.

O.K., I hope I’m worrying too much. Those carrier groups could be ... just as a warning.

But you have to wonder about the other stuff. Why would the Pentagon put someone who got everything wrong on Iraq in charge of intelligence on Iran? Why wasn’t any official willing to take personal responsibility for the reliability of alleged evidence of Iranian mischief, as opposed to being an anonymous source? If the evidence is solid enough to bear close scrutiny, why were all cameras and recording devices, including cellphones, banned from yesterday’s Baghdad briefing?

It’s still hard to believe that they’re really planning to attack Iran, when it’s so obvious that another war would be a recipe for even bigger disaster. But remember who’s calling the shots: Dick Cheney thinks we’ve had “enormous successes” in Iraq. http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/02/paul_krugman_sc.html

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