Iran War Watch: What is Bush Planning?

George Bush is on what will hopefully be his last tour of Europe and he has made is views clear. "All options are on the table." Like with many things the President says - what that means is rather cryptic. It appears that the negotiations with the Europeans are the Administration's last attempt to build up a robust and goal-orientated mechanism to deal with Iran. It is likely to produce warnings, hand-shakes but little else.

The trouble is that they don't share the same goals. Bush and most Republicans want to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons full stop, whereas the Europeans and some democrats want to 'slow the clock ticking towards nukes down, whilst speeding up the clock ticking towards democracy.' Privately most Europeans think they can live with a nuclear Iran. It remains to be seen whether or not the Americans can. The US has fought hot, cold and prudent wars to prevent regional powers from dominating spheres of the globe. German in Europe, Japan in Asia, the USSR on every continent and then Saddam in the Middle East. Supremacy is for the 'Hawks' an ideological end in itself. It remains to be seen if that vision will endure.

Bush is putting two mechanism in place simultaneously - a diplomatic one and a military one. However the overriding strategy is that of fear. The idea is that the Iranians will back down either in the face of sanctions or strikes. This is bound to fail. The dynamic towards nationalism and glory as a way of justifying the regime is in motion in Iran and fear of the US only increases the Iranian sense of isolation, vulnerability and pride. It will only push them to increasingly hardline and aggressive leaders. We need a change of strategy.

Either we need to other Iran some kind of grand bargain. For instance excellent sources of mine can confirm that the Gulf States have been working behind the scenes for over a year to get Iran to accept either nuclear facilities in their territory or a strict international monitoring system and a consortium to manage them. Fear will not force them to accept these proposals. Instead we should examine what we could trade in exchange. Iraq is already lost to Iranian influence. It might be a place to start. This might not be the best of solutions. The fundamental myth of the Iranian revolution is that it will stick it to the West and American in particular. Another alternative, instead of guaranteeing the regime's survival would be a series of pacts and agreements with Israel and Arab allies of the US based on a cold-war containment strategy. If Iran does acquire nuclear weapons the same way the USSR did, containment might just work again.

The only alternative to these strategies is to continue to pursuing Bush's two failed strategies. And the diplomats along with the Generals will tell you that they just aren't working.