<div dir="ltr"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 9:28 AM, No Weatherman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:no.weatherman@gmail.com">no.weatherman@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
ACS:<br>
<br>
I have no interest in justifying the Bush administration's approach to<br>
Iran unless he is secretly preparing to take out their nuclear program<br>
though I would rather see Israel launch that strike.<br>
<br>
I'm curious to know, however, if you believe it would be profitable to<br>
sit down with Ahmadinejad and what exactly you believe it could<br>
accomplish.</blockquote><div><br>First of all, we can't destroy Iran's nuclear program without carpet-bombing Tehran, where the bunkers that contain the enrichment centrifuges actually are; at that point, Iran is perfectly capable of directly disrupting our actual military goals in Afghanistan and Iraq, its two neighbors. Is doing incremental damage to the Iranian enrichment program worth creating two failed states on either side of Iran*? No one who knows anything about foreign policy (other than the deliberately ignorant neoconservative camp) believes that it's actually possible to cause irreversible damage to the Iranian nuclear program using anything short of a preemptive nuclear strike on multiple Iranian sites.<br>
<br>Iran's only purpose in obtaining a nuclear weapon is to deter us. Despite our saber-rattling rhetoric about Iran being the a nation-as-suicide-bomber, it -- like Libya -- has certain rational foreign policy goals; further, unlike Libya and despite the disproportionate influence of the Guardian Council, Iran's democratic institutions actually have some leverage against the rulers. This means two things:<br>
<br>(1) Reducing Iran's perceived need for a nuclear deterrent through security guarantees might be an effective strategy in mitigating its pursuit of a nuclear deterrent.<br><br>(2) Reducing military pressure from Iran removes a major issue from the Iranian theoconservatives' quiver. This gives competent (but still hostile) moderates like Khatami the electoral room to take power in upcoming elections.<br>
<br>(3) Direct diplomacy has worked. Contra Roger, it worked in Libya. Read the Ron Suskind article linked below. It worked in North Korea under Clinton, and under Bush's second term.<br><br>(4) Direct diplomacy doesn't hurt. The best argument conservatives have is that it raises the other nation's perceived power and prestige. But what does that actually *mean*? Are you saying that the legions of intelligence analysts in every foreign nation are unable to accurately divine the fact that we cannot actually achieve our goals through military force because we are committed in two adjacent countries which Iran has the military capability to seriously muck up?<br>
<br>Incidentally, you're lying when you're saying you you're a PUMA. You support not one of Hillary Clinton's stated policy positions.<br><br>-- ACS<br></div></div><br>(1) <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0610.suskind.html">http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0610.suskind.html</a><br>
(2) <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/07/AR2008080703026.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/07/AR2008080703026.html</a><br></div>