May 21, 2006

Merkel Wants Bush to Talk to the Iranians Too

It's not just most Democrats and many Republican foreign policy experts who say the time has come to seriously prepare for dialogue with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Our friends overseas, including very notably Angela Merkel of Germany, reportedly want us to talk directly with the Iranians. From IHT vet and man about Europe John Vinocur:

When Bush says "she's not a fake," take it as meaning this: Bush believes Merkel accepts the necessity of emphasizing Iran's very nontheoretical danger in ways that will prepare the psychological ground in Europe for major economic and diplomatic sanctions.

At the same time, while she has never said so publicly, I was told here Merkel made it clear to Bush in Washington that it would be helpful (read very helpful) if America talked to the Iranians.

Bush answered that if America came in now, the likely result, thinking of the run-up to the war in Iraq, would be to divide the Europeans again. (Not to mention Bush's wobbling conservative base in an election year.)

Merkel's problems are not theoretical. Telling the Germans that Iran specifically threatens them, or detailing her position that an attack on Israel is a violation of German national interests, means opening the way for other German politicians or business interests to say what a good part of Germany may want to hear: that a deal can be done with Ahmadinejad, and that she should stop running interference for the Americans.

Merkel's continuing to give Bush a pass on staying out of direct talks with Iran may bolster Europe's legitimacy as front-line player on issues of war and peace. But it also collides with a not unreasonable argument made last week by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

He said, "As long as the Iranians have a sense that they are negotiating with the Europeans ad referendum" (needing referral for a final decision), "and what they discuss with them will have to be discussed with the Americans, and then come back again to them, I am not sure they will put everything on the table."

Kofi's gotta point, as much as people like to beat up on the fellow.

More, including the perils of creeping Genscherism on the Rhine:

[Merkel] will have to steer hard against the grain to make clear to the country she is not an arbitrator, and Germany not a bystander. To do it, Merkel will have to choose showing she remains the chancellor who, with Iran in mind earlier this year, linked Nazism's abyss to Western democracies' failure to face it down in time.

Here's the type of thinking Merkel's up against: A German editorial writer called last week for a Merkel approach similar to that of Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the German foreign minister from 1974 to 1992 who found a swerve to match almost every problem. As extra inspiration, the article recommended a nothing-for-something type gambit that might have pleased Genscher.

The article's idea, as I decoded it, was leaning on the Americans to offer the Iranians something real and of sufficient magnitude to get Iran to drop the nukes they haven't produced yet. What? It didn't say specifically.

But since the writer suggested that "even against the majority of the population," Germany's elite would have to stand with Israel in an existential situation, it sounded like a call for Israel to be pressured by the United States to abandon its nuclear defenses in a something-for-nothing trade-off with Iran. And for Europe and Germany to be relieved in the process of unwanted discomfort.

Push come to shove on military action in Iran, I don't think we can rely on Europe to be there, even with, say, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel in power. The French have talked big force de frappe talk on Iran, but it's more for neo-Gaullist show than anything real. The German foreign policy elite will hoist a more Genscher-ite solution on Merkel, at the end of the day, involving some form of negotiated out. The Brits? Maybe an assisted sortie or two, if that, but there is little appetite in London for more neo-colonialist misadventures in the Middle East (Can you blame them? What will we do, sent Bernie Kerik in after to train the Teheran gendermarie, whilst listening to Rummy lecture us lil' kiddies about the perils of 'dependency'?). And then, of course, there is a (somewhat theatrically, canny fellow that he is) pissed off Putin, post-Cheney in Riga, and the Chinese, neither of whom have ever been particularly hot, to say the least, on the idea of a war on Iran. The only country that would really be happy to go along for the ride is Israel which, of course, is the one country we wouldn't want to have flying air missions alongside us (worth noting too, albeit surreptitiously, the Saudis and Egyptians likely wouldn't be too distressed to see Iranian nuclear facilities taken out, somewhat ironically perhaps). Now, I've heard a senior GOP type, here and there, whisper: well, we could always let the Israelis do it like they did in Iraq. But this isn't Osirak, alas, and the Israelis might not be able to pull it off (whatever that means). Regardless, any attack would be viewed as having been 'approved' by Washington, so that the Iranians will be hell-bent on scuttling our war aims, in retaliation, in each of Afghanistan and Iraq. Bottom line: the 'coalition of the willing', at the end of the day, would be a very, very small one. Especially if we hadn't even tried to engage the Iranians directly in talks first. Do we have to wait for a Zelikowian study two years hence to move Iran policy up to speed, or can we dispense with another 18-24 months of wasted Euro troika machinations?

Posted by Gregory at May 21, 2006 07:30 PM | TrackBack (0)