Maybe Bush Just Got the Spelling Wrong

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27063-2003Dec1.html

washingtonpost.com
The Iran Challenge


By Richard Cohen

Tuesday, December 2, 2003; Page A27


As far as we know, Iraq has not been a prime sponsor of terrorism under
Saddam Hussein in the recent past; Iran was -- and is. As far as we know,
Iraq did not have a functioning nuclear weapons program. Iran does. So who
did we go to war against? Iraq. Maybe someone in the White House can't
spell.

Whatever the explanation, the decision to make war on Iraq has cost the
United States plenty when it comes to dealing with Iran. In the past month
the Bush administration has been repeatedly rebuffed by our European
allies -- Germany, France and even Britain -- over how to deal with Iran's
not-so-secret nuclear weapons program. The United States wanted to use the
stick; the Europeans prefer the carrot. Iran is now chomping away like Bugs
Bunny.

Do not be confused. Unlike the run-up to the Iraq war, this is not a matter
of the Europeans quibbling with Bush administration pronouncements that Iran
is developing a nuclear weapons program. The signs of one are unmistakable.
The Germans in particular are convinced that Iran is -- or was -- developing
a nuclear weapons program, and they don't like it one bit.

But this time our allies are even more reluctant to follow the lead of the
United States. The last time around, that led to war in Iraq over -- you
will remember -- a weapons of mass destruction program that has yet to be
found. Only Britain went along, and Tony Blair is paying the price for it in
public approval. It now seems apparent that on the question of WMD alone --
never mind links to al Qaeda -- Washington didn't know what it was talking
about.

So, over Washington's objections, the Europeans are taking a less
confrontational approach with Iran. As a high German official explained it
to me, the Europeans think they can convince Iran it has more to gain by
aborting its weapons program than by sticking with it. "They could have full
trade with the European Union," this official said -- not ostracism.

Good luck to the Europeans. If Iran persists in developing nuclear weapons,
then its neighbors may follow -- Turkey, Syria, Egypt and possibly Saudi
Arabia. Israel already has such weapons, plus detailed knowledge of Iranian
nuclear installations. The Middle East, one of the world's most unstable
regions, would be armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. In the hands of
some of those regimes, that would be bad enough, but if the weapons fall
into the laps of terrorist groups, the cradle of civilization may well be
its grave. Do I have your attention?

The Iranian challenge is both a formidable and a frightening one. Iran is
without a doubt a sponsor of terrorism. It supports Hamas, Islamic Jihad and
Hezbollah, and has run guns to the Palestinians. The State Department has
called the regime an "active state sponsor of terrorism" -- and here, too,
the Europeans do not quibble. And just to add to the gloom, Iran is a
justifiably paranoid state. In the 1980s it fought an eight-year war with
Iraq in which Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons and rained missiles on
Iranian cities. Iran is not about to allow that to happen again.

For the United States, the stakes are greater in Iran than they were in
Iraq. Yet the administration has squandered its leadership role with
reckless name-calling -- Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, makes up
George W. Bush's "axis of evil" -- and by going to war in Iraq for dubious
reasons. The upshot is that both the Europeans and the Vienna-based
International Atomic Energy Agency are disinclined to follow Washington's
lead. This is especially true of the IAEA's director general, Mohamed
ElBaradei, who was bullied and vilified by the Bush administration for his
perplexing refusal to agree that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. That
time has so far proved him right has only confirmed this proud Egyptian's
judgment -- and the Bush administration's lack of any. The Bush
administration wanted to take the Iranian matter to the Security Council,
which can impose sanctions. The Europeans and ElBaradei favored a softer
approach. Of the 35 nations on the IAEA board, only three -- Canada, Japan
and Australia -- went along with the United States. The Europeans got their
way, and Iran indicates it will cooperate.

It could be that Washington made an example with Iraq -- and Iran got the
message. But it seems more likely that Iran (and North Korea) learned that
once you get designated "evil' " you'd better accelerate your nuclear
weapons program. Whatever the case, it now seems clear that through clumsy
diplomacy, unbridled arrogance and an insistence on taking out Saddam
Hussein for reasons that have not been vindicated, the United States comes
out of Iraq with its authority diminished. The world respects its might. Its
judgment is another question altogether.



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"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so
long as I'm the dictator." - GW Bush 12/18/2000.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt

"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of
Iraq."
-- Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz,