Whither the Revolution or Wither the Revolution?

By agreeing in principle to open talks with the Iranian dictatorship, President Bush has made the Europeans temporarily happy at a steep price: a) extending the timeline for Iranian advances in nuclear capability; b) allowing Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier and serial violator of civil and human rights, to claim the prize of American recognition of the regime; c) holding out the possibility of offering the regime “security guarantees,” which in turn would d) abandon the goal of democratic revolution for the Iranian people.

By agreeing in principle to open talks with the Iranian dictatorship, President Bush has made the Europeans temporarily happy at a steep price: a) extending the timeline for Iranian advances in nuclear capability; b) allowing Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier and serial violator of civil and human rights, to claim the prize of American recognition of the regime; c) holding out the possibility of offering the regime “security guarantees,” which in turn would d) abandon the goal of democratic revolution for the Iranian people.

How did we get here? The President began five years ago with a broad understanding that repressive governments in the Middle East were the fuel of Islamic radicalism and terrorism, and that the West was partly culpable because it treated reform in those countries as a threat to the stability that brought cheap oil to market. He properly noted after 9-11 that we had neither stability nor cheap oil. “Regime change,” he said, would come to the region and would come in one of three ways:

• A regime could change itself – a la Libya in one way or the UAE in another – understanding change to be a precondition for continued governance
• A regime could be changed by its people – the overthrow of a dictator
• A regime that engaged in activities that threatened its neighbor or the world could be changed by force of arms – Iraq, or potentially, Iran.

In each case, the hope, though not always the reality, was for a better, less threatening government and the possibility of advancing liberty and human rights.

Since change by force was a last resort, theAdministration permitted the EU-3 and the Russians to try to negotiate away capabilities that could go into an Iranian nuclear weapons program. After three years, we are three years closer to an Iranian bomb and have not learned the real lesson of regime change – the first way, which is the best way, requires the credible threat of the second or third way.

People fueled by ideology and money (think Hamas, Hezbollah or Arafat) don’t negotiate away their assets and deeply held beliefs because you ask them nicely. It is hard to imagine what the President’s emissary will say to get Ahmadinejad to snap his fingers and say, “OMG, you’re right! I never thought of that! Quick, let’s get rid of the Iranian nuclear program.”

Maybe the President is calling Iran’s bluff; maybe he’s hoping to sow dissention in Iranian governmental ranks. Maybe he thinks the Europeans, the Russians and the Chinese will be more amenable to stiff sanctions if the Iranians don’t meet American conditions. More likely, by having to bring our “allies” into line on this, we have negotiated ourselves into lowering the bar for acceptance of the Iranian thugocracy, making the possibility of democratic regime change in Iran more remote.

Coupled with backtracking on Egypt, ignoring the Syrian support for armed Palestinians in UNRWA camps in Lebanon, and failure to stem the tide on international recognition of Hamas, if asked, “Whither the Revolution,” one might reasonably answer, “Wither the Revolution.”