Good vs. Evil

THE BUSH administration's newly unveiled National Security Strategy might well be subtitled "The Irony of Iran." Three years after the invasion of Iraq and the invention of the phrase "axis of evil," the administration now highlights the threat posed by Iran — whose radical government has been vastly strengthened by the invasion of Iraq. This is more tragedy than strategy, and it reflects the Manichean approach this administration has taken to the world.

It is sometimes convenient, for purposes of rhetorical effect, for national leaders to talk of a globe neatly divided into good and bad. It is quite another, however, to base the policies of the world's most powerful nation upon that fiction. The administration's penchant for painting its perceived adversaries with the same sweeping brush has led to a series of unintended consequences.

For years, the president has acted as if Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein's followers and Iran's mullahs were parts of the same problem. Yet, in the 1980s, Hussein's Iraq and Iran fought a brutal war. In the 1990s, Al Qaeda's allies murdered a group of Iranian diplomats. For years, Osama bin Laden ridiculed Hussein, who persecuted Sunni and Shiite religious leaders alike. When Al Qaeda struck the U.S. on 9/11, Iran condemned the attacks and later participated constructively in talks on Afghanistan. The top leaders in the new Iraq — chosen in elections that George W. Bush called "a magic moment in the history of liberty" — are friends of Iran. When the U.S. invaded Iraq, Bush may have thought he was striking a blow for good over evil, but the forces unleashed were considerably more complex.

Where to start with this train wreck of muddled thinking? As the document cache recovered from Iraq shows with alarming regularity, Saddam wasn't above dealing with al Qaeda and Osama. They had common enemies and could set aside theological differences if needed.

Albright conflates micro needs versus grand strategy. Iran may have issued a token condemnation of the 9/11 attacks, but that doesn't mean that they weren't cheering the result. The same goes for their actions related to Afghanistan. They wanted to keep the US out of the Iranian sphere of influence, and if that meant trying to negotiate the Taliban to exit stage left without US action, then not only do the Iranians curry favor in US diplomatic circles, but the Iranians don't have to worry about US forces on their borders (all while they're thinking about putting their nuclear program into overdrive).

And the fact that some of Iraq's new leadership has friendly relations with Iran is a realpolitik on the Iraqi's part to recognize that they've got do deal with ongoing threats as well. The country isn't fully prepared to deal with a threat from Iran, so playing nice along that border is common sense. Not to mention that there isn't any sense of allegience to Iran considering that Iran and Iraq spent 8 years slugging it out in a truly horrific and bloody war that killed millions on both sides.

So, on top of misreading the situation between Iraq and Iran, she selectively reads the history to try and prove her point about the US strategy of calling evil by its name, instead of playing it the way the US has always done - maintaining the status quo, even when dangers lurk and need to be addressed before it is too late.

Too bad Albright didn't perceive North Korea as evil, as they went nuclear on her watch. Or watched as Pakistan and Iran launched nuclear programs with assistance of the AQ Khan network to obtain nuclear weapons.

The administration is now divided between those who understand this complexity and those who do not. On one side, there are ideologues, such as the vice president, who apparently see Iraq as a useful precedent for Iran. Meanwhile, officials on the front lines in Iraq know they cannot succeed in assembling a workable government in that country without the tacit blessing of Iran; hence, last week's long-overdue announcement of plans for a U.S.-Iranian dialogue on Iraq — a dialogue that if properly executed might also lead to progress on other issues.

Iran is a threat to the US, yet Albright thinks that you can negotiate with an unstable and unrational regime. Look at all the good that did with Clinton handing off negotiating a deal with North Korea on nuclear weapons to Carter in 1994. Yet, there is something to be said about dealing with Iran on Iraq - namely to gather intel on the Iranian regime and try and settle things down at the Iraq/Iran border so that Iraq can get on its feet. That buys the Iraqis time, but time is something that the US does not have when it comes to the Iranian threat of obtaining nuclear weapons.

Third, the administration must stop playing solitaire while Middle East and Persian Gulf leaders play poker. Bush's "march of freedom" is not the big story in the Muslim world, where Shiite Muslims suddenly have more power than they have had in 1,000 years; it is not the big story in Lebanon, where Iran is filling the vacuum left by Syria; it is not the story among Palestinians, who voted — in Western eyes — freely, and wrongly; it is not even the big story in Iraq, where the top three factions in the recent elections were all supported by decidedly undemocratic militias.

Funny, but the Administration has consistently beaten Democrats on foreign policy at every turn, so why should anyone in the Administration listen to Albright whose foreign policy was largely a failure in the Middle East. The sad fact is that the march of freedom is the big story precisely because Bush threw his weight behind that idea and millions of people around the region are better off for it.

Those who aren't better off: terrorists, and terror-sponsoring regimes who happen to be evil. Oh, and members of the Democratic party in the US who have to root for US failures overseas to win elections back home.