Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, Is Obama's Iran Policy Doomed to Fail?
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There's an old joke that goes something like this: A self-absorbed fellow, meeting a friend, launches into an endless soliloquy about himself, then abruptly stops and says, "Well, enough about me. Now, tell me what you think of me." Sometimes Washington has a similar quality to it. A week ago, TomDispatch had three pieces focused onwar, American-style; this week is proving no less thematic; it's focused on how the world is changing just beyond the view of the "sole superpower."
Today, Dilip Hiro, TomDispatch regular and author of Blood of the Earth: The Battle for the World's Vanishing Oil Resources, focuses on how, despite some genuine changes, Washington's Iran policy is, in crucial ways, stuck in the past. He emphasizes, as few in the U.S. do, how a new constellation of forces involving China and Russia is coalescing around that energy-rich country. In fact, just beyond our normal American sightlines, much is happening in the world.
As a small example of a sort that largely escapes mainstream American reporting, and that you're only likely to notice if you visit a website like the War in Context, Turkey, too, is moving closer to Iran and energy is again at the heart of the matter. Among other things, Turkey is now negotiating for a huge expansion of Iranian natural gas supplies flowing from its enormous South Pars field to, and through, Turkey, while its prime minister has just visited Tehran. Tom
Why Obama's Iran Policy Will Fail
Stuck in Bush Mode in a Changed World
By Dilip Hiro
While the tone of the Obama administration is different from that of its predecessor, and some of its foreign policies diverge from those of George W. Bush, at their core both administrations subscribe to the same doctrine: Whatever the White House perceives as a threat -- whether it be Iran, North Korea, or the proliferation of long-range missiles -- must be viewed as such by Moscow and Beijing.
In addition, by the evidence available, Barack Obama has not drawn the right conclusion from his predecessor's failed Iran policy. A paradigm of sticks-and-carrots simply is not going to work in the case of the Islamic Republic. Here, a lesson is readily available, if only the Obama White House were willing to consider Iran's recent history. It is unrealistic to expect that a regime which fought Saddam Hussein's Iraq (then backed by the United States) to a standstill in a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s, unaided by any foreign power, and has for 30 years withstood the consequences of U.S.-imposed economic sanctions will be alarmed by Washington's fresh threats of "crippling sanctions."
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