Articles on the Iran run the gamut from the application of “Military” power vice “Diplomatic.” “Economic ” incentives used to encourage peaceful resolution while the news media provide “Information” that includes the full range of potential possibilities. The unintended consequence mentioned in the article is bolstering Ahmadinejad’s re-election campaign.
Now Bush Is Appeasing Iran, (Wall Street Journal)…Michael Rubin, July 21, 2008, Pg. 11
…Diplomacy is not wrong, but President Bush’s reversal is diplomatic malpractice on a Carter-esque level that is breathing new life into a failing regime. The Iranian government has spent billions of dollars — money that might have been better spent on refineries and gas turbine power plants — on a nuclear program that has failed to produce a single kilowatt of electricity.
On May 31, 2006, Condoleezza Rice drew a red line in front of Tehran’s nuclear enrichment program. “The Iranian government’s choices are clear,” she said. “The negative choice is for the regime to maintain its current course. . . . If the regime does so, it will incur only great costs.” She also offered an olive branch: “As soon as Iran fully and verifiably suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the United States will come to the table with our EU-3 colleagues and meet with Iran’s representatives.”
Two years later, Iranian officials have installed more than 3,000 centrifuges in a facility designed to hold 50,000.
While European diplomats hope regime pragmatists might reinject responsibility in the Iranian debate, Ms. Rice’s State Department has bolstered Ahmadinejad and his fellow travelers. As Ahmadinejad begins his re-election campaign, he can say he has successfully brought Washington to its knees through blunt defiance, murder of U.S. troops in Iraq, and Holocaust denial. Should he win re-election in 2009, he will have Mr. Bush’s whiplash diplomacy to thank for his greatest — and, given the state of his economy, perhaps only — victory.
Mr. Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
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