Playing Iran Posted by Michael Signer

It’s a mild day in Washington, after a cold, harsh winter, and the always-serious streets below my office window are a little less gray than they’ve been for weeks, months... so the crocus I saw on the way to the Metro this morning clearly becomes a metaphor for a blog post.

The Bush Administration's foreign policy is like a lion in winter--shoulders back and roaring, amid an icy, cold, bleak landscape.  It’s sometimes effective.  But winter always ends, unless you’re stuck somewhere permafrost and vulnerable, like ANWAR, or the movie set of "The Day After Tomorrow" (which, okay, I just saw--NetFlix can make even the proudest movie fan do strange things).

All of which leads me to the current situation with Iran.  We started off so icy, harsh, and unyielding, so trash-talking and blustery--we were all Canseco, so little DiMaggio.

But then things started to warm up.  We started working with the EU, and Secretary Rice began focusing on multilateral sanctions (she explained on Face the Nation that we were winning against Iran because they were “uncomfortable with the notion that they have failed to split the United States and Europe on this matter.”) Who could have imagined such an approach in Iraq?

As things seem certainly to be in flux, it's worth asking whether or not we’ll try to know our enemy this time around -- or just go in arrogantly, guns blazing, like in Iraq.  With neocons preening about Iraq, and Iran the next member of the Axis of Evil in our sights, it's incredibly important that we remember the virtues of good, old-fashioned, flexible diplomacy.  We might draw some encouragement from the recent apparent hidden-hand approach of Secretary Rice, focused on the EU, the UN's Security Council, and constantly switching carrots and sticks, rather than the bludgeon of a Rumsfeld, or the airy abstractions of a Perle. 

But the Secretary's approach won't necessarily take once the honeymoon is over.  To the neocon lion, getting to know your enemy is a dewy-eyed, chirping, springlike notion deserving only a dismissive sniff, a toss of the mane, and a calm padding away toward some red meat.  (Though even a sometime warrior like Ollie North admits Sun Tzu -- every hawk's hero -- embraced the notion).

But even if Iran is a member of the Axis of Evil, the idea that their heads are filled with pure evil, an opaque, incomprehensible substance, like some medieval humor -- well, surely this isn't tactically useful.  If we're to do this right, we need to know what Iran thinks like, what motivates them, and where they're coming from.  Most importantly, we need to know what can we expect from our pressure.

I begin with a principle that would make any pomo undergrad aghast -- the meaning of most societies can be unlocked with simple concepts.  A long time ago, I remember reading that some scholar had figured out that America’s entire national identity lies in the word “hi”--our cheery informality, our sociability, our openness to strangers (well, before the Bush Administration).

Along these lines, in September 2003, Philip Gourevitch published an article called "Alone in the Dark" about North Korea.  Gourevitch focused on the Korean concept of han -- a word which“is an anger and resentment that build up, and at the same time a feeling of frustration or a feeling of desires that are unfulfilled. So resentment, frustration, bitter longing are lumped together.”

The point isn't that you can understand the entire psycho-pathology of the North Koreans with a single word.   History and personalities and current events and our own leadership are all ingredients in this causal stew.

But there’s something to be said for an economical approach to understanding your enemy.

So, turn to Iran’s own words.  If you go to the Government of Iran’s web site, you find a fascinating speech titled "Letter to Tomorrow" by President Khatami.  Khatami’s point in the speech -- rhetorical or not -- seems to be to inspire young Iranians to pursue a narrow, Islamic-Iranian quasi-democracy, while rebutting American charges that Iran hates freedom.  He seems to want to claim ground for Iran to go about its own democratic experiment its own way.

In the spirit of Gourevitch’s analysis, let's at least start with what Khatami says.  Look at this passage:

Advancing toward a democratic system demands that a democratic culture be nourished. In our country, this culture can thrive and flourish by relying on Islamic justice and modesty, which have brought justice to the humanity, and have also been the factors contributing to the establishment and consolidation of democratic social relations, norms and practices and democratic political processes as well. It is left to our young generation to contemplate on the exiting historical situation and follow up its brave demand for establishment of a democracy compatible with its religion and culture; recognize both its resources and impediments and deal with them prudently. Democracy is a concept, a path and a process.

And this one on Iran’s resentment of outside influence.

A generation, which is agonized by dependence, which rightfully considers itself deserving freedom, without breaking away from its own national culture and religion and which is fearful and resentful of extremist and the narrow-minded moves that try to impose their violent and biased guardianship and volition on societies should be made to take charge of its own destiny lest deviated thoughts, narrow-mindedness and illusions hijack the great opportunity afforded to us, our Revolution and our noble people in this era.

These are challenging, messy democratic propositions, smacking less of soaring Jeffersonian vision than cantilevered Madisonian compromise.  In other words, there may be no simple answer to what Iran wants.  Also, unlike our President, I cannot pretend to know the souls of others -- it's certainly possible that Khatami is trying a diplomatic bait-and-switch, a feint toward puppet elections and democratic posturing. 

Setting aside the problems, however, the han equivalent for Iran might well be this:  the political classes are interested in freedom -- but in a distinctly Iranian Islamic form that would avoid what they see as Western decadence, and that would emerge at a slower, more organic, pace. 

The problem is how to combine what they are with what we want.  How do we coax Iran away from nuclear ambitions and toward the democratization agenda?  Will the Iranian national personality run in the direction of lying down before the lion (like the new Libya) or will aggression beget more aggression (as with the Iraqi insurgents)?

The answer will lie in aggressive yet flexible deal-making premised on Iran's own history, culture, and the internal divisions between their democratic visionaries and Islamic hardliners.  We need to understand and embrace the complex internal conflicts of Iran in a modulated, organic diplomacy of pressure and persuasion.  Consider who they are.  Iran still thinks of itself as a revolutionary country; the main bragging right of Khatami’s cabinet ministers seems to be whether they were revolutionaries or not -- indeed, being a guerrilla fighter is a badge of honor.  The country has a lot of young people, and much of Khatami's energy goes toward reconciling their desire for freedom with the conservatives' desire for theocracy.  It’s educated yet paranoid, and riven by tensions between powerful religious conservatives and younger classes yearning to breathe free.  And it desperately wants to retain its own culture; rebuking the perceived decadence of the West was one of the most powerful impulses of the White Revolution, after all. 

It is this country we must play, rather than be played by. 

If we go the other way, we risk backlash rather than democracy.  Three years ago, when the Bush Administration began appealing to the Iranian people to overthrow the Khatami government, Iran's conservatives used the  invasive approach as an excuse to build up their own power. 

This April -- which can be a cruel month -- unintended consequences are the last thing we need in a country already painfully balanced on the knife-edge of tyranny and freedom.  Dealing with this complex society will require a nuanced, flexible approach, rather than a heavy-handed one -- not because we’re wimps, but because we want an easy victory, not a hard one.

Comments

[wow gold]

I like to earn the World of Warcraft Gold very much, I want to have a lot of warcraft gold in the game, i do not satisfy the old equipment and so i have to buy wow gold to buy the new equipment to make me strong. If i am very strong in the game i can get some cheap wow gold as the rewards in the game. So i like the game very much.

[Perfect World Gold]

I hope i can get Perfect World Silver in low price.

[Atlantica online Gold]

If you have Atlantica online Gold, you can get more. If you gave Atlantica Gold to me, I still have my idea to achieve.

[angels online gold]

I hope i can get angels gold in low price,
Yesterday i buy angels gold for my friend.

[runescape money]

I like the runescape gold, my brother usually
buy runescape for me. I appriciate him.

[angels online gold]

Once I played angels, I did not know how to get strong, someone told me that you must have angels gold. He gave me some angels online gold.

[muhtar]

Thank you for your sharing.!
seslichat
seslisohbet

[rokettube]

en azdırıcı porn videoları,
en güzel porn izleme sitesi,
en muhteşem sex izleme yeri,
en kaliteli anal porno mekanı,
bu sitede en tatlı amatör porno kızları bulunuyor,
en kral sikiş videoları,
en uzun porno videoları,
türk pornoda olay var..

[xlarch]

en kaliteli porno videolar,
en güldüren komik videolar ve
en güncel porn videolar bu sitelerde izlenir