The Oil Drum

You raise some valid points but there are also some things I have to disagree with. You complain of a double standard, comparing the outrage caused by a call  for "destroying the Taliban" (none) and Ahmadinejad´s call to remove/relocate Israel (a lot).

Well, the Taliban were basically a movement , whose members joined voluntarily, that took over a state. The call was never to wipe out the people of Afghanistan, or to wipe out all people in Afghanistan who shared the Taliban´s dominant ethnicity (Pashtun) or their religion. The call was to destroy the Taliban government and the Taliban movement.

Ahmadinejad´s comments were however not directed against a movement, they were directed against an entire people.  and the existence of their nation. You could now argue that Israel is simply a piece of land that has been hijacked by a radical political movement (Zionism), like Afghanistan was hijacked by the Taliban. There remain however still much more important differences, like the fact that Israel has long since become a people, and that their nation, at least in certain borders, is fully recognized by the international community.

Just because Pipsqueek's opinion coincided with the majority of people in the world, that is not automatic justification... that's rightousness

Let's remember who has been responsible for Iran's turmoils in the last century?  Who has directly attacked Iran before?  Its a pretty long list, but Israel, Iraq and the US can be considered pretty high up on that that one.

Israel and Iran have to my memory never met on the battlefield. (In fact Iran clandestinely procured arms from Israel in the 1980s!) Iraq, the US, Britain, and the USSR all are responsible for aggressions, terrorism, or intervention against Iran. However, Iran is also responsible for plenty of its own turmoil! But Israel?

What is it with the fixation on Israel? Think of Egypt and Jordan, they have fought multiple wars with Israel, are they still calling for Israel´s annihilation; no, they have signed for peace. For Iran, Isreal is really a foreign country, where perhaps certain foreigners are oppressing certain other foreigners. The situation in Israel infringes on Iran no more than apartheid in South Africa did. The questions of Jews in Palestine yada yada El Kuds bla bla is irrelevant. If Iran feels threatened by Israeli nukes, that is another matter. But Ahmadinejad has not called for an end to Israel´s nukes, he has called for an end to Israelis.

Your point regarding the prerequisites for true negotiation is well taken. The approach of the US is that they will act against Iran if they do not give up their nuclear energy program, however if Iran does agree to give up the program, it appears guaranteed that the US will claim that the program is continued in secret anyway, and attack just the same (see Iraq), and even absent the nuclear issue the US have dedicated themselves to destabilize and regime-change Iran and take over their country. And any program that would allow verification to the standards that the US is willing to accept would mean posting US personnel all over the country, aka giving up to occupation without a fight, as the US will never accept a verification by the UN (again, see Iraq).

So indeed there is nothing to negotiate as long as this position is held, and that is why I assume the Iranians have come to the conclusion that a US/Israeli attack is inevitable anyhow; Ahmadinejad´s goal seems to be to rekindle the flames of early revolutinary hysteria and circle the wagons. He doesn´t mind feeding the flames.
The problem is, that even if we assume the EU and US come to the conclusion that there is no real threat, we cannot realistically expect Israel to ignore the situation. The Jews have learned two lessons the hard way, 1) do not be patient, obedient and rely on others to help you in your hour of need; 2) if someone says he wants to kill you, believe him.

Your hypothetical conditions would in my eyes be totally acceptable, if we add to them, 1) a guarantee that Iran will respect the rights of Iraqis to come to their own decision about their future (if they WANT an Islamic republic, so be it), 2) a reasonable solution to the 'terrorist support' issue (easy, actually), 3) guarantuees to freedom of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz so Iran doesn´t abuse its position by threatening with closing shipping for every little thing it wants. But of course this is all parallel-universe stuff.

If I were president of the United States, ha ha - well if I suddenly got remote-control of Bush´s brain I would still have the problem that the situation has developed to a point were it is very close to getting out of control - and this is one thing that Ahmadinejad does have a lot of responsibility for. If he had continued playing a different hand he would still have full support of Russia and goodwill of Europe, due to his statements he has lost this. However if a different strategy could have been  followed, well I would start by thinking about the following things.

• The NPT is basically bogus. It was ridiculously flawed for the purpose it was originally (allegedly) intended to serve, and it has been turned into a totally different instrument. I am not surprised that many nations ignore it.


• A minimum step is for Christ´s sake to totally 100% ensure that all nuclear-armed nations are held to the responsibility that they may not attack a non-nuclear nation with nukes first, in any conflict. Otherwise all bets are off and anyone feeling threatened MUST race for nukes. If that means some bunkers remain theoretically unbustable, live with it. Total control is impossible


• The goal of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons has morphed into a denial of all nuclear technology to nations the US doesn´t like. this has served to greatly increase the motivation to get nuclear weapons technology in fact. Maybe we need a new policy of proliferation management, that works primarily to defuse the motivations to get nuclear weapons


• In this context it is important to see that getting nuclear weapons is not a point of no return. There are enough instances of nations giving up nuclear weapons that already existed (South Africa, Ukraine) or giving up nuclear programs that were more advanced than Iran´s (Argentina, Brazil). The case of South Africa is interesting because its motivation for nuclear armament rested entirely on the ideological position of the regime. With the ideology of the regime abandoned, the nukes were also abandoned


• A policy of nuclear balance recognizes that a situation where some are expected to be defenseless is not stable. It is very well possible that even a fully democratic Iran would still be interested in nuclear weapons.


• Mutually assured destruction is a principle that many people understand. Even most religious fanatics understand it - as long as they believe they are doing God´s work on Earth and it pleases God for them to do more of it. The one kind of fanatic that ignores M.A.D. is the apocalyptic, who believes that Earth has run its course and the Second Coming/Rapture/Return of the Mahdi is imminent. The problem with Ahmadinejad is precisely that he has uttered statements regardin the Mahdi, and himself being surrounded by a godly aura, etc that suggests he may be this kind of fanatic. Most other leaders of Iran are not apocalyptics, as the notion of the Islamic Republic and Velayet-e-faqih have always been to enact godly governance on earth. However if you have someone with nukes, who believes that the time for governance on earth is over, there is a problem


• The unhealthy fixation on Israel needs to be resolved in order to have a real peace process. The Arab nations, Iran, and other Islamic nations who occasionally butt in are mostly abusing the Palestinian conflict to deflect the attention of their people from other issues - for decades. This does not mean to say that there is not a real problem with the acts of Israel. However the Arab nations, Iran et al are not really focusing on the issues and especially the Arabs have in reality done very little for Palestine. Also, isn´t it funny how the Russians have slaughtered far more Msulims in Chechnya but this is no obstacle to good relations between Teheran and Moscow? The Iranians are culturally, ethnically, historically and religiously not any closer to Palestine than the are to Chechnya.


• the US has developed a political pathology (which is inherited from one administration to the next) that requires total dominance and control of all areas that affect its interests. Such as the Persian Gulf. The strategic goal of "keeping Iran from developing into a regional heavyweight in the Persian gulf" is idiotic because Iran is the natural heavyweight in the place that is called the fucking PERSIAN Gulf. The attempt to control  this region, so that no regional power can exert control over too much oil (they might raise the prices!) has cost the US far more in terms of trillions of dollars, and eternal enemies, than it might have cost the US to let reginal powers develop and compromise with them (they still need the oil money). Iran would be a good candidate as they are so interested in industrialization! Instead, the US are fixated onto not letting anything slip out of their iron fist and are instead losing much more. How many kids are there now in Iraq, who witnessed the barbaric massacre of their families by Americans? It is almost a certain fate that some of these will grow up with a determination to carry the destruction of all they knew worth living back into the heart of America and make all of these foreigners feel the same way. America has not been helping itself this way. Its obsession with "total" and "full spectrum" dominance is responsible for the almost instinctive ad-hoc Anti-US coalitions that have been springing up. The US political class needs to learn to be content with always wanting the largest piece of the cake, not always wanting all of it.