I’d rather see us take steps to repair our tarnished reputation.

I think we need to do both, and I also see some inherent value in taking a backseat in many situations. I simply believe that American power itself is resented, even when our intent is to project it benevolently.

I am also more concerned about al queda/Taliban strongholds in Western Pakistan, where they have reestablished terrorist training camps, that will be used to plan attacks against new European targets. Shouldn’t that be our main concern? Yet it gets so little attention from the administration, Congress or the media.

Doesn’t bode well for our situation in Iraq, Iran or Rice’s newly resumed role in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

No, but maybe all the more reason that third party talks are the way to go. Definitely sad that we have this state of affairs, but even without Bush’s well-earned unpopularity it might be better to allow other countries to broker deals and leave the US’s tarnished reputation out of it.

I must be in a glum mood- but David Ignatius had a column today in WaPo that didn’t help—–
He states that a new Zogby poll of the six “friendly” ME countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and UAE, only 12% expressed favorable attitudes towards the US. Bush ranked much higher than Israel’s Olmert or Sharon in the poll when respondents were asked which foreign leader they disliked the most. 65% doubt that Americans really want to promote democracy in the ME. The head of the Arab league claimed that Muslims are “losing confidence in the US role as peace broker”. Doesn’t bode well for our situation in Iraq, Iran or Rice’s newly resumed role in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

I do think that SA, Jordan, and Egypt should be helping to stabilize the region, but obviously that type of alliance would do just the opposite.

I agree, Kim, although my hope is that this is more of a good cop/bad cop scene being played out. Perhaps Bandar’s mission is to create a united front in order to make Iran back down. If Tehran sees that obtaining nukes will only lead to a regional arms race that it can’t afford, maybe they’ll forego it.

Interesting too, that these majority Sunni nations are finding common ground with Israel. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” certainly isn’t always the healthiest dynamic, but maybe a shift in the overall hostilities of the Middle East will lead to some good.

I do think the Bush administration has learned from the foreign policy errors of its first term, at least in NK. Although Cheney, Bolton and the rest of the neocons disapprove, we actually saw a diplomatic solution. North Korea was not brought to its knees the way Cheney et al would have preferred, but hopefully the notion that that is how we are to exert power in the world has been discredited.The State Dept has recovered its rightful role, and the VP’s office no longer is running the show.

CS- I wasn’t aware of all of Bandar’s machinations- good catch. If he’s uniting regional powers to use force against Iran, that is truly disturbing. Given Bandar’s close tie to the Bush family, it isn’t unreasonable to think that he is acting as a proxy for Bush/Cheney, who are sensitive to the unpopularity that an attack on Iran would create here in the US. I do think that SA, Jordan, and Egypt should be helping to stabilize the region, but obviously that type of alliance would do just the opposite.

kritter: Another post discussed the Saudis’ backdoor diplomacy with Iran, that is worth a shot, since our CIC can’t bring himself to negotiate directly.

Kim,
I actually read that particular bit of back door diplomacy much more negatively than you do. Apparently Turki was more in favor of diplomacy with Iran, but in Dec (I think it was), he suddenly resigned his post as ambassador. This apparently took place right after Cheney’s visit to Saudi Arabia, and shortly after Bandar visited the US. That visit was ostensibly a vacation to his Aspen lodge, but he stopped over in DC to “refuel” and was said to have had meetings with administration officials during his stopover. Bandar has been a proponent of bombing Iran’s nuclear sites, even to the degree that he seems to be forming a coalition of support between SA, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. If the administration has forced Turki aside by having Bandar become more relevant than the actual SA ambassador, and if the signs are correct about what Bandar is actually doing, I find that disturbing. I have no problem with diplomatic efforts to unite the interests of Sunni nations and Israel to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region, but I hope that they’re not going in the direction of using force against Iran in order to do that.

…and its way past time to accept this.

It’s inevitable that Iran will emerge as a major power influence in Iraq, and it’s a waste of time to go against that tide. Unfortunately, I think there will be a Hezbollah-like arm to the Shiite powers in government.
Since we can’t stop the Iranian influence, I think it’s a shame that our attention is consumed by it instead of focusing on the rising Al Qaeda strength there. Isn’t that our main reason for being thereand the overall war on terror – to fight Al Qaeda?
This war has so many bad aftereffects, it’s hard to even think of them all at one go, but a major one is that we have a made a gift of another area of influence to Iran.
What’s done is done. We should be focusing on AlQaeda in Iraq and on Afghanistan, where the future still holds hope for some measure of success.
To even think of war with Iran is suicidal, in my opinion, not only militarily, but economically and spiritually. It would tear apart whatever slender threads still hold this country together to be recognizable as the country it was just a few years ago.

Thanks Kritter. Okay, I had to look up President Millard Fillmore.

Did you know he was the candidate of the “Know Nothing Party”…a movement that was eventually absorbed into — I swear I am not making this up — the Republican Party?!!!

Look it up yourselves if you don’t believe me. The roots of the Republican party lie in a group whose motto…when asked by anyone…was “I know nothing”.

Hahahahahahahaha…

What a place is the TMV. I learn something new everyday here!!

Another post discussed the Saudis’ backdoor diplomacy with Iran, that is worth a shot, since our CIC can’t bring himself to negotiate directly.

Just give us four years! Just four years, and if we haven’t managed to overthrow the Iranian goverment and install an America-friendly democracy in that amount of times, we’ll simply move onto the next Middle Eastern country!

Cheer up, everyone! We’re only seven years into the New American Century! We still have 93 years to invade–I mean–liberate the rest of the world!

OT: Kritter, I phrased myself badly in the comment on executive powers in Shaun’s post earlier, as I noted. I meant to say that any increase in executive authority, under whatever president, is disturbing. (Hmmm…given the focus of this post on the Iran situation, perhaps not so Off Topic).

I still don’t think that this situation would cause all this, but as jdledell said — if only 25% of it did then it’d be a catastrophe. Plus I really like Brij’s point about prior conflicts taking place within the confines of nation-states while this would be much more of a mess.

If Iraq has taught us nothing else, it is that we cannot remake the ME in our own image. The Iranians are not just like us, many want a theocracy, and resent the intrusion of Western culture. The tribal and religious differences are too deep for us to try to fix with a constitution or an election. We will never be able to win a ground war over there- because we are not willing to turn ourselves into suicide bombers or hack people into pieces.

We lost in Vietnam because the Vietcong were capable of living in hot, filthy tunnels for years, and even had operating rooms set up in them. They would have kept on fighting forever, until the last man. Thats similar to what we face in the Muslim world. Iran may actually unite against us in a spirit of nationalism. In any case few will call us liberators.