With the third anniversary of the War in Iraq, our attentions have turned, naturally, to Iran. A while ago (before Iran’s nuclear program was making front-page news), I was talking to a friend about liberal interventionism, and of course, Iran came up. What did I ultimately propose to do, she asked, about the human rights violations there? I said there was no justified interventionist action we could possibly take. We both agreed that the use of force wasn’t a good option, and the U.S. has been embargoing Iran since 1979, so that clearly hasn’t worked, either. She suggested we spend money to fund democratic movements there, and I pointed out that they already have somewhat of a democracy and that we wouldn’t be able to help that way.

We have (as we’ve had from the beginning of the occupation) a civil war in Iraq and Iran, who have more influence in Iraq than anyone besides the U.S., have offered to talk with the Americans, who have been hammering Iran’s supposedly civilian nuclear program in rather threatening terms.

Lately, the Bush administration has been talking about Iran in much the same way it had been talking about Iraq in 2002, so I thought I should write about the challenges we face with Iran. Now, I just fixed this blog’s search engine so that I could look for all the occurrences of the word “Iran” in the past two-and-five-sixths years. Here’s a small review:

So now it comes as no surprise that Iran is talking tough about ramping up its nuclear program, which it says it needs for civilian purposes–a claim as likely to be true as Bush’s claim that Iraq was an imminent threat. Now, just because they have nukes doesn’t mean they will use them; in today’s nuclear environment, atomic weapons are more of an insurance policy against invasion. And who’s the only country which does any invading anymore? Why, the only country which has ever used nuclear weapons in a war (on civilian targets, nonetheless). Some might say that the overextension of U.S. troops at present neutralies any military threats we might be able to hang over other countries’ heads, but it’s just as likely we could “redeploy” all of our troops from the civil-war-ravaged states of Iraq and Afghanistan into Iran if we felt it might get the President’s approval rating back above 29%.

The facts of Iran’s support of terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, its human rights abuses, and involvement in Iraq are known; many have long said that the causus belli against Iran was a much stronger case than against Iraq. A few days ago, political analysts were all over Bush’s speeches mentioning Iran, but they couldn’t decide whether he was taking a hard or soft line against the regime:

The international community is also speaking with one voice to the radical regime in Tehran. Iran is a nation held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people, and denying them basic liberties and human rights. The Iranian regime sponsors terrorists and is actively working to expand its influence in the region. The Iranian regime has advocated the destruction of our ally, Israel. And the Iranian regime is defying the world with its ambitions for nuclear weapons. America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats, and Iran’s aggressive behavior and pursuit of nuclear weapons is increasing its international isolation. When Iran’s case was brought before the IAEA earlier this month, 27 nations voted against Iran, including Russia and China and India and Brazil and Sri Lanka and Egypt and Yemen. The only nations to support Iran were Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela. Now Iran’s case will be taken up to the U.N. Security Council. The free world is sending the regime in Tehran a clear message: We’re not going to allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.

So far, it sounds like the kind of rhetoric the White House was spouting against Iraq in 2002. Iran is pursuing weapons of mass destruction, is a threat to its neighbors, etc. For those who still recall the hype with which Bush whipped up the nation’s war machine in preparation for Iraq, it certainly seems like this speech qualifies as a “hard line” against the Islamic republic. But then, take a look at the next part of the speech:

The world’s free nations are also worried because the Iranian regime is not transparent. You see, a non-transparent society that is the world’s premier state sponsor of terror cannot be allowed to possess the world’s most dangerous weapons. So, as we confront Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions, we’re also reaching out to the Iranian people to support their desire to be free; to build a free, democratic, and transparent society.

Bush’s complaints about Iran’s democracy not being transparent are ironic, to say the least. The Bush White House has done everything in its power to make the American government more opaque than any administration since Nixon, yet when an Islamic democracy whose inner workings are a matter of public record wants nuclear weapons, suddenly Americans deserve transparency–not from their own elected government, but from someone else’s.

Iran’s human rights violations are legion. But the government is democratically elected, even the clerical branch. Just having elections is no safeguard for human rights; just ask any of the ‘enemy combatants’ at Guantanamo. The political oppression in Iran is a blueprint for a semi-facist theocracy which justifies itslef according to religious and democratic principles. Transparency is really the least of their problems; repression is carried out in the name of the people and in the light of day.

The United States government under Bush is nowehere near as repressive as Iran, and it’s extremely unlikely that it could ever become that bad. But America is heading down a similar path of domestic spying and political repression in the name of ‘security’ and so forth. Bush was right in this regard; the increased opacity of government is what enables this kind of violation of rights to happen, and the pseudo-populism he espouses cloaks a campaign against free speech and popular dissent.

Again, Bush isn’t anywhere near as bad, solely in terms of internal repressive policies, as Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Iran’s president. Ahmedinejad is no less of a controversial figure in his own country, by the way. Although Ahmadinejad was elected with over 60% of the vote against reformer and former President Rafsanjani, his opponents claimed election fraud and that the clerical branch of the government had illegally intervened in the election to help his campaign effort.

Both Presidents are religious conservatives belonging to apocalyptic sects, and both have been faltering with regards to their effectiveness within their own governments. Both seem to think taking a harder line against each other will result in greater internal political support, regardless of the larger implications for regional stability and world peace.

These are the kind of nutjobs we have running the asylums.

At any rate, let’s return to Bush’s plans for the new most-dangerous-country-in-the-world:

To support the Iranian people’s efforts to win their own freedom, my administration is requesting $75 million in emergency funds to support democracy in Iran. This is more than a fourfold increase over current levels of funding. These new funds will allow us to expand radio and television broadcasts into Iran. They will support reformers and dissidents and human rights activists and civil society organizers in Iran, so Iranians can organize and challenge the repressive policies of the clerical regime. They will support student exchanges, so we can build bridges of understanding between our people and expose more Iranians to life in a free society. By supporting democratic change in Iran, we will hasten the day when the people of Iran can determine their own future and be free to choose their own leaders. Freedom in the Middle East requires freedom for the Iranian people, and America looks forward to the day when our nation can be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran.

So this is the so-called soft-line diplomatic solution: tens of millions of dollars of propaganda! The problem is, the very reformers Bush supposedly want to fund in their mission say that the taint of American support harms them more than it helps. Here’s an excerpt from a must-read Washington Post article:

We are under pressure here both from hard-liners in the judiciary and that stupid George Bush,” human rights activist Emad Baghi said as he waited anxiously for his wife and daughter to emerge from interrogation last week. “When he says he wants to promote democracy in Iran, he gives money to these outside groups and we’re in here suffering.” The fallout illustrates the steep challenge facing the Bush administration as it seeks to play a role in a country where American influence is called unwelcome even by many who share the goal of increasing democratic freedoms.

“Unfortunately, I’ve got to say it has a negative effect, not a positive one,” said Abdolfattah Soltani, a human rights lawyer recently released from seven months in prison. After writing in a newspaper that his clients were beaten while in jail, Soltani was charged with offenses that included spying for the United States.

“This is something we all know, that a way of dealing with human rights activists is to claim they have secret relations with foreign powers,” said Soltani, who co-founded a human rights defense group with Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. “This very much limits our actions. It is very dangerous to our society.”

So, in announcing his big diplomatic plan, he has essentially cornered the very people he purports to want to help. And anyone who has an understanding of Iranian society could have told him as much. Unfortunately, our history of involvement with Iran has yet to yield a single positive result (more about that in a minute), and we aren’t making any progress with this stupid initiative.

Now, I’d like to take the opportunity to call out the Democratic Iran-hawks on their blustering and supremely dangerous demagoguery. I’m thinking, in particular, of presidential hopeful Evan Bayh, who thinks he can outflank the Republicans on the right by echoing Bush’s Iraq rhetoric for Iran (emphasis mine):

First, Iran must be made to understand that a nuclear Iran is not negotiable. We will not let a government that calls for the end of the United States or Israel acquire a nuclear weapon. It is that simple. With that as our non-negotiable position, the administration must immediately go to the United Nations Security Council and call for strong economic, political, and diplomatic sanctions. If its nuclear activities persist, there will be consequences beyond that, including the use of force. We cannot afford to wait. The Iranian government must understand that if its nuclear activity continues, it will be treated as a pariah state.

Second, supplies of refined gasoline to Iran should be cut off. Iran may be one of the world’s largest exporters of oil, but currently imports 40 percent of their refined gasoline. By cutting that supply off, the Iranian economy will be hurt badly.

Third, Iran must be isolated diplomatically, financially, and culturally. Their delegations should no longer be welcomed in countries around the world. Iranian assets should be frozen and financial and banking ties severed. Travel to and from Iran should be cut off and international flights should not be allowed to land or originate from the country. Most importantly, Iran should be denied the foreign investment for its energy sector that it so clearly craves.

I used to think (way back in 2002) that there’s no way we would be stupid enough to try and occupy Iraq because it’s a no-win situation. Now I know that no matter how improbable the logistics of attacking and “liberating” a country about 3.7 times Iraq’s size and 2.6 times larger population-wise, we might still do it if, say, we’re feeling down about the size of our military-industrial erection.

American exceptionalism is the word of the day here, folks. I know we have inherited this great “can-do” attitude about the world, and in many respects it has served us well. But this idea that we can achieve any foreign policy goal if we just set our minds to it is tragically false. After WWII we got the idea that if we send enough troops, money, or both, we can effect any change we desire in the world in our own interests. You’d think that Vietnam would have dispelled this notion, but somehow we managed to neutralize the lessons we should have learned (I blame Sylvester Stallone and Rambo, for one).

When considering the morality of interventions, I find it useful to try the “shoe-on-the-other-foot” test. For example, what would happen if Ahmadinejad were to employ the same reasoning Bush is using against us? After all, the U.S. is a classic example of an aggressor; while America (again, the only nation to have actually used nukes in wartime) retains the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and refuses to disarm in the name of self-defense, it has attacked and destroyed two bordering states and threatened the Iranian regime, all the while trying to shame Iran for “meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs” without the slightest hint of irony. We already placed sanctions on Iran a generation ago, and our history of supporting the brutal regime of the Shah, twice deposing democratic Iranian governments in the name of oil security, hasn’t garnered any credibility with Iranians. An American invasion in the name of democracy would only destroy any hope for it in Iran, as we did in the 1970s.

The shoe-on-the-other-foot test applies to our ridiculous “democracy initiative” as well as for any military invasion. Imagine if Iran bombarded us with broken English leaflets urging us to junk the Electoral College or guarantee paper trails for electronic voting machines–do you think it would help or hinder our democracy? What if Iran were to funnel money to the the DNC or MoveOn.org the way we propose to fund democracy initiatives? It’s a fool’s errand, and liberal interventionalists are just the fools to propose it.

Bombing Iranian civilians as punishment for Ahmadinejad’s nuclear aspirations makes as much sense as Iran bombing the US as punishment for Bush’s recent violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. There is no greater threat to the Muslim world than the United States, as we have been demonstrating for the last five years. Our sabre-rattling has had the predictable effect of driving Iran to the hard right, and dropping $75 million worth of leaflets is not going to convince anyone that we have their best interests at heart.

Speaking of Iranian elections, the damage we did in 2005 by helping elect the mystic madman Ahmadinejad (not to mention strengthening Iran’s position in the Middle East immeasurably since the invasion of Iraq) is nothing compared to the potential Iranian voters will have this year to set back the progress-clock in the upcoming clerical elections.

As I’ve pointed out before, the Iranian system is set up to moderate progress by means of clerical intervention. Later this year, the Assembly of Experts, who meet annually, will be popularly elected. The cycle of Iranian democracy is simple: reformers are elected to Parliament and make modest progress, then they are barred from running for reelection by the Council of Guardians so that conservatives can regain power. Rinse, repeat. The Assembly are clerics, popularly elected to eight-year terms; they, in turn, elect the Velayat-i-faqih, or Supreme Leader from among themselves, who then appoints the Judiciary and half of the Council of Guardians.

If there is any real progress that will be made in Iran, it will have to begin with the Assembly elections, which have eight-year repercussions. If our actions convince Iran it will soon be under attack, the people will likely elect some real reactionaries and hopes will be set back for another eight years, losing another generation to extremism.

Real ‘progress’ in Iran will never be made until the people elect moderate clergy. A clergy which understands the value of free speech and civil rights for women. The United States was in such a position a two hundred years ago, when the clergy was racist and sexist and so forth, but over time the people have forced the message further toward humanism with every generation.

Take the Catholic Church, for example. They just voted out the idea of “Limbo” the other day. Why? Because it caused problems in the minds of ancestor-worshipping potential converts to think their ancestors would never get to Heaven. Poof! Cardinals vote–dogma forever changed! The rules are more flexible than people realize. All religions are slowly, slowly getting more inclusive, some faster than others. Orthodoxy just makes it harder, but some people will abandon or change the things they don’t like.

So, of course, our pal, Georgie, has marshalled all of his energies to command a brutal expedition in radicalizing Islam by invading Iraq and Afghanistan. We get ourselves in front of the whole world with images of dead and tortured civilians because we think that a humiliation strategy is the most appropriate response to dealing with Arab sensibilities. We think that trying to inspire fear in people with our formidable progress in destabilizing Iraq will help our cause. We’re like the drunken idiot in a bar trying to fix a broken jukebox by smashing the glass and fumbling with the records.

Sorry, but there are some things the U.S. Armed Forces under Bush are not qaulified to do, and it’s time we stopped pretending. Like so many prominent conservatives lately. Elephant said to me the other day that we could have accomplished our neocon-style goals in Iraq if we had sent a different army, say, a force of 200,000 language specialists from all around the world. I agree it probably would have worked better, but the fact remains that you can’t really start a democracy overnight from the top down. And if we were to invade Iran’s fledgling democracy, for example, we would irrevocably poison the well for generations to come (right now we’re working on poisoning one generation at a time).

So now Iran has offered to talk to the U.S., presumably about nuclear weapons and Iraq. Are they offering a deal? Will they ask the U.S. for permission to join the nuclear club in exchange for exerting some influence with worldwide Islamist elements? And would we take such a deal?

President Bush is now saying that he will deal with the issue of Iran’s nukes with “diplomacy,” and with the way our military resources have been wasted, one has to wonder whether there are really any other viable options. And the $6 billion dollar question remains–what effect does an overextended military have on the delicate balance of mutually assured destruction?