A plague on both your houses – Iran and the transatlantic malaise

While Washington is not Paris, things do slow down here in August. We are in between conventions, Congress is out of session, as the members scurry home ahead of the November elections. Washington is a company town that produces government. With the office-holders at the heart of the system gone, those of us whose jobs revolve around them even relax. We take a week’s holiday (not four), the horrific commute becomes easier, people leave earlier (i.e. on time) from work, and lunches are just a little bit longer. But in this period of languor, bigger questions, those that in the frantic rush of the day are so often brushed over, can be dwelt on at length.

This leads me to the brewing crisis with Iran, which is a practical consequence of the poisoned transatlantic relationship. Though it is hard to conjure urgency in a humid August, we have very little time left to head off disaster here. Iran is the primary instance of both the United States and Europe behaving at their worst; here both sides actually approximate the cartoon versions each has of the other. Europe looks as if it is doing a pretty good impersonation of Neville Chamberlain, having wholly divorced diplomacy from any idea of the power that must back it up if it is to be successful. America’s neo-cons, on the other hand, having determined that the mullahs in Tehran are evil, disdain to engage them, even as the elephant in the corner of the room becomes visible.

This is the worst kept secret in the world, unacknowledged by the West in its collective insanity – The Islamic Republic of Iran is about to acquire nuclear weapons. The time has come for the grown-ups to arrive, for the consequences will be profoundly negative if things continue as they are, with Europe living in the post-historical sandbox, while America ignores that Rome is burning.

The European reflexive strategy of engagement without thinking through what this means has proved a disaster over Iran. Rightly criticizing the Bush administration’s lack of diplomatic involvement with the mullahs is a hopeful place to start in constructing a meaningful response to Iran’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons. But Europe’s common strategy goes downhill from here.

I spoke to a high level German official about European overtures to Iran, to what the diplomatic strategy entailed. I was regaled with the usual tales of economic carrots, Iran’s trading links with Europe, and Europe’s ability to cut a deal based on the universal desire (supposedly felt in Iran) to be a member in good standing in the international community, whatever that means. I, as always in the face of such facile policy answers to such difficult policy questions played the part of Banquo’s Ghost in MacBeth, there to spoil the party. “What happens if the carrots don’t work?” He grandly replied, “We will then use our diplomatic stick.” Encouraged I asked what that might be. His horrific reply, gently agreed to by his entourage as if it was obvious to all was, ‘Our stick is that we will withhold the carrot.’

There are moments when I despair of ever convincing continentals that diplomacy must occasionally have significant negative consequences to buttress it if it is to be successful. Withholding aid, applying weak (if any) sanctions, and snubbing Iranian diplomats at cocktail parties is hardly likely to stop a secret nuclear program they have been working on for decades. The stick has to be more than merely withholding the carrot – or frankly, our civilization is lost.

However, the Bush administration has hardly risen to the challenge either. Grandly disdaining even to directly respond to Iranian overtures (made through the Swiss, who diplomatically look after American interests in Tehran), the Bush administration is dealing with Iran third-hand, in the press, and through the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. Neither of these groups is well known for the coercive power they bring to the table.

It is hard to say America’s policy regarding Iran isn’t working, as it is hard to make out any sort of policy at all, unless non-engagement counts. The Bush administration, as they see it, has discovered that there is evil in the world. But we cannot only conduct diplomatic relations with Canada. Engaging states slightly more worrisome would seem more, not less, important than dealing with those that easily agree with us. If the Bush administration fails to learn that international diplomacy requires one to engage others who may be morally suspect, that indeed this is a major purpose of international relations, then I fear for the Republic.

For there are no easy answers where Iran is concerned. Even if America could somehow, some way, foment regime change, the dirty little secret remains that Iranians, be they conservative mullahs or student democrats, all want the bomb. Israel will not be reassured if a democratic Iran, still pledged to drive the Jews into the sea, acquires weapons of mass destruction.

If this fantasy is no policy answer, neither is doing nothing, which given European delusion and American ignorance is de facto the present Western policy. The options may become very stark indeed.

• Option 1 is for the West to accept that Iran has the bomb, and collectively warn that any sharing of nuclear technology, whether orchestrated by Tehran or not, or any nuclear attack, whether devised by Iran or not, will be viewed as an act of war by the people of the Islamic Republic. In other words, we will not blame the French, UK, China, Russia, India, Israel, or Pakistan for a WMD crisis – we will blame only you. Then, and only if they think we mean it, Tehran would have to police its even less savoury friends.

• Option 2 is invasion for the specific purpose of hunting down and disabling Iran’s nuclear program, regardless of the military cost, which would be significant.

Both these options leave to one side what Israel will do, particularly if it believes we continue to do nothing. Both have pitfalls and dangers that beggar description. None of this is being dealt with, and given the present state of transatlantic relations, there is a real danger that this will continue as we sleepwalk over a cliff.

The only hope for policy success is to work together, to devise a coordinated diplomatic strategy where the European good cop and the American bad cop act in unison, where Europeans overcome their amnesia about the role power plays in international relations and the Americans get over the fact that there is evil in the world, and engage Tehran responsibly.

Even in this lazy August, this much must be clear.