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February 05, 2006Bush to Iran: Win Your Own FreedomFrom Bush's SOTU: The same is true of Iran, a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people. The regime in that country sponsors terrorists in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon -- and that must come to an end. (Applause.) The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions, and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons. (Applause.) America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats. ..."and win your own freedom". I'm guessing some of those advocating a U.S. led regime change in Iran will be let down by this SOTU line, no? Especially as there doesn't appear to be a mighty Iranian Ahmad Chalabi to airdrop into Nasariya or some such, alas...Note also that Bush specifically stated that the world "must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons". Bush is traipsing carefully here, as he realizes that the huge majority of Iranians--including of the reformist variety--wish to have nuclear weapons just as regional actors like the Pakistanis, Indians and Israelis already do. And is it just me, or is there a slight rhetorical shift here? Before, if memory serves, Bush would typically say, more generally, that Iran writ large couldn't be allowed to achieve nuclear capability. In the SOTU, he very purposefully specified the "regime" (or is that a permanent fixture whomever leads the government)? itself couldn't achieve nuclear capability. Reader input on this point would be appreciated, as I haven't researched it in detail. Is there a real shift here, or is Bush just somewhat randomly swapping phraseology so that there is no real discernible pattern on this point? Frankly I'd be surprised if anyone in the Beltway would be excited about a nuclear Iran whether run by Ahmadi-Nejad, Rafsanjani or, even, a Khatami type...but hey, there's bad, and there's really bad.... UPDATE: Via David Sanger, this Administration quote, bolstering my case case there may be a real rhetorical shift at play here: "Look, the Pakistanis and the North Koreans got there, and they didn't have Iran's money or the engineering expertise," said one senior official who is instrumental in putting together the American strategy. "Sooner or later, it's going to happen. Our job is to make sure it's later." By that time, he said, the hope is that a changed or different government is in power in Tehran." Interestingly, perhaps, note John McCain has now staked out more hawkish terrain on this issue than the Bush Administration, at least per the Administrations's relatively recent Iran policy pronouncements. Posted by Gregory at February 5, 2006 02:19 AM | TrackBack (0)Comments
Greg, the SotU language itself has no significance apart from its example of the use of language to avoid making news. The important question is what American policy is actually being pursued toward Iran. The public policy toward Iran's acquiring nuclear weapons is clear enough. The non-public policy, including military options, isn't, which is fine at this point. What isn't fine is that most thoughtful people agree that the Iranian problem isn't just the possibility of an Iranian bomb but the chance that nuclear weapons could be acquired by the current regime, the heirs of the homicidal Khomeini government of the 1980s. What is being done to address that problem. Well, we know that the regime is plagued by corruption, that it is spending billions on arms and enduring international trade sanctions while thousands of victims of the Bam earthquake two years ago are still living in tents, and that another major earthquake in Iran will kill thousands more people now living and working in buildings incapable of standing up to one. We know also that to some of the most enthusiastic Muslim terrorists in the world Shiite Muslims are as deserving of death as any Westerners, yet the Tehran government reserves most of its efforts to posing as an opponent of the West. Could something useful be done with facts like these? It seems to me it could. You wouldn't even need much in the way of covert operations; most of the work could be done with public diplomacy. It isn't as if Iranians are completely unaware of what is happening in their own country, after all. They just aren't used to the idea that it is their government's responsibility to look after threats to their lives and property before gratifying its own vanity. If we have an interest in undermining the clerical regime in Tehran, it seems clear enough where its weak point ought to be. I don't know if the Bush administration is thinking along these lines. I don't know either if they it is doing anything along these lines either. It just doesn't look that way. Posted by: Zathras at February 5, 2006 02:51 PM | Permalink to this comment
I admired the President's SOTU phrasing on this issue. Although I am willing to be corrected (as always), as far as I know almost nobody advocates a U.S.-led regime change in Iran by military action. For example, Amir Taheri, a pro-American Iranian expatriate who strongly supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, has never supported a U.S.-led invasion of Iran. In an interview with al-Iraqiya in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal, President Bush stressed that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was not the first of many invasions to come. Rather, he stressed that the Saddam Hussein regime had failed to respond to diplomatic entreaties, or to comply with repeated U.N. resolutions, over a period of 12 years. Military action is not a wise approach to the current situation vis-a-vis Iran, for several reasons. A Desert Fox type campaign of bombing suspected nuclear sites would kill many innocent Iranian civilians (but remember, "When Clinton Lied, Nobody Died") and thereby enrage ordinary Iranians as well as much of the Muslim world, without necessarily delaying the Iranian regime's nuclear weapons program. Muqtada al-Sadr, who is part of the soon-to-be-ruling coalition in Iraq (although he doesn't deserve to be) has announced that his "Mahdi Army" will defend Iran from the U.S. (How patriotic of him.) Also, the U.S. Army is already overstretched, with more than enough work to do in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since military action is highly undesirable, a diplomatic approach is needed, and I think Secretary Rice and the Bush administration are doing a very good job with this. For diplomacy to succeed, it is important to avoid alienating U.S. allies or the Iranian people, and I think the President's careful phrasing in the 2006 SOTU accomplishes this goal. Posted by: Arjun at February 5, 2006 03:09 PM | Permalink to this comment
Actually, Bush has been rhetorically separating the Iranian people and the Iranian regime for some time now. The MSM, every year, is surprised that he is capable of this nuance. Posted by: Bruce Chang at February 7, 2006 06:33 PM | Permalink to this comment
I don't see why they'd be surprised. Before the attack on iraq Bush made a big deal separating the iraqi people versus Saddam. He said he was going to kill (or possibly capture and put on trial and then kill) Saddam. And he was going to free the iraqi people. He hasn't killed Saddam but he did get both of Saddam's legitimate sons killed. And only about 120,000 iraqis other than Saddam have been killed, maybe. The estimates are pretty unreliable, it could easily be twice that number or perhaps as low as half that number.
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Gregory Djerejian, an international lawyer and business executive, comments intermittently on global politics, finance & diplomacy at this site. The views expressed herein are solely his own and do not represent those of any organization. More About the Author Email the Author Recent Entries
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