Iran: How bad logic became bad policy

NOTE FROM JOHN: AJ is our newest addition to AMERICAblog. He's a former Department of Defense intelligence officer whose duties included covering Iraq.
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Since we talked Iraq last week, and Iran is back in vogue this week – apparently we're in the "Iran phase" of the immigrants-gays-Iran SCARY rotation – let's look at why the administration seems to be seriously entertaining the notion of some kind of armed conflict with Iran.

Administration policies and tactics regarding Iran are increasingly focused on brinkmanship, which they're happy with because, to them, it's both good policy and good politics. I think the Bush administration honestly believes that Iran's leadership is both irrational and expansionist – the Hitler analogies fly fast and furious on the religious and neocon right – and the only thing one can do with such people, the conservative talking point goes, is confront them. Concurrently, all this talk of war with Iran takes the focus off of Iraq and makes people believe there's another imminent boogeyman out there (The Scary!). And scaring the public, the administration believes, is always a good strategy for helping Republican electoral prospects this fall.

But the Bushies have a warped view of the international political implications of the Iran situation, which is leading to grievous political (and potentially military) missteps. One of the many mistakes they are making is one of the same critical errors they made with Iraq: forgetting that all politics is local. Iranian leaders will always be more focused on their own population than on their region or the U.S. - nationalistic rallying cries are beneficial to oppressive regimes. But, if they can get something that benefits them, some acceptable settlement, they will back off.

The Bush administration perspective, however, is that it's yucky to negotiate with Evildoers. Although I don't disagree with that general sentiment, sometimes talking to people you don't like is necessary to achieving greater interests. Shocking, I know.

The leaders of Iran are sending out all sorts of signals that they are interested in negotiating, but no nation, especially a prideful, honor-based one, can come forward hat in hand. International diplomacy is usually a subtle game, so it's hard for me to imagine how many discreet signals were sent before Iran resorted to rambling open letters and publicly revealing a slowdown in uranium enrichment to try to bring the U.S. to the negotiating table.

Iran is a genuine danger, both to regional stability and potentially to American interests. Even though Iran's religious leadership has said it doesn't want a nuclear arsenal, historically Iran isn't a particularly trustworthy nation. But the fact that this is a genuine international problem makes it even more important that skillful diplomacy – rather than ideological posturing and saber-rattling – be used, or at least attempted.

This kind of situation is where one hopes that smart, capable people can work something out - whether a secret deal, face-saving compromise, or whatever (good luck disaffected State Department careerists!). But for the True Believers, I imagine the idea of compromise with Iran is anathema, so it's up to the reality-based community to call bullshit when necessary... which is going to be often.