Bush & Iran (2)

Maybe the Bush White House should just call it Operation Confront Iran. Gary Sick of Columbia University, who was the principal aide for Iran in the Carter White House during the Islamic Revolution and hostage crisis, has authored a new paper he titles America's Iran Strategy. Written well before Bush's State of the Union speech last night, it is a valuable analysis that is a must-read for anybody wondering whether the U.S. is going to attack Iran or not.

The professor and executive director of Columbia's Gulf/2000 Project believes an emerging U.S. strategy for the region seeks to build a tripartite coalition loosely comprising the U.S., Israel and Sunni Muslim Arab allies--predominantly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan-- to confront and contain Shiite Muslim and specifically Iranian influence in the region. Sick notes how U.S. policies since 9/11 unintentionally gave Iran "a strategic gift of unparalleled proportions," which put the Sunni Arab governments further on the defensive last summer when the Iranian-backed Hizballah group fought off Israel's onslaught in Lebanon. One of the appealing qualities of the tripartite strategy, Sick notes, is that it changes the subject and distracts public attention from the disaster of Bush's Operation Iraqi Freedom. Another is that antipathy to Iran is still so widespread in the U.S. nearly three decades after the hostage crisis that a strategy of confronting Iran--if not attacking Iran-- is likely to win easy support from Democrats and Republicans alike. Well, you heard the congressmen and women applauding.

Perhaps the good news, if there is any, is that the strategy does not necessarily entail a U.S. military attack on Iran, in Sick's view. Ironically, Sick cites knowledgeable observers who believe that despite Ahmadinejad's hard-line rhetoric, Iran may be ripe for a deal that would entail understandings about Iraq as well as its nuclear ambitions. But, Sick suggests, the coalition to confront Iran is more about politics than genuinely seeking changes in Iranian policies much less finding a negotiated solution with Tehran.

Take a good look at what Sick has to say about things. Few Americans have spent as much effort studying Iranian politics or knows them better. As I viewed the SOTU last night, Bush practically announced the formation of OCI and validated Sick's analysis of what his administration is up to. Bush shifted the U.S.'s focus to Iran, warning of the "escalating danger from Shia extremists...determined to dominate the Middle East." He spoke of "working with Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and the Gulf states" to bolster the Iraqi government. Bush didn't mention Israel in this regard, but maybe he didn't have to: Israeli leaders, who bear the scars of battles with Hizballah in Lebanon, have been sounding the alarm about Iranian influence in the region for years. Some people believe that Israel rather than the U.S. may even launch a preemptive strike to take out Iran's growing nuclear program.

By Scott MacLeod/Cairo