Jimmy Carter's revenge

As I've mentioned before, the best place to find news on Iran—whether about that country's domestic policies, nuclear weapons program, support for international terrorism, or increasingly hardball diplomacy—is the newsfeed at SMCCDI. Two articles posted there caught my eye in recent days. In light of the ongoing claim by Democrats (most recently in Kerry's nomination speech tonight) that anything Bush can do in foreign affairs we can do better, both pieces warrant a closer look.

First comes The New Republic's Lawrence Kaplan, from last week.

Oops, we invaded the wrong country. Or at least this is the impression created by the final report of the 9/11 Commission, which depicts Iran as a transit point for Al Qaeda members during the run up to September 11. It is an impression the Kerry team has done nothing to dispel. Kerry adviser Charles Kupchan says the news about Iran shows that “rather than focusing on Iraq, where there was no imminent threat to American security,” the United States should have been more vigilant about Iran, “where we know there's a weapons of mass destruction program, there's a fundamentalist theocracy.” In a similar vein, the report has prompted the Kerry campaign's Ann Lewis to complain that “Iran, over the last couple of years, has been moving forward toward getting a nuclear capacity—nuclear capability—and yet this administration's policy is hard to discern.” She's right. The administration's Iran policy is hard to discern. Before they walk into a bind of their own devising, however, Kerry's advisers would do well to take a closer look at their own candidate's stance toward Iran. It is not hard to discern. But it is hard to defend.

At times, Kerry seems to be taking his cues from Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential run, sounding as though he's blasting his opponent from the right while he quietly offers up solutions from the left. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of Iran, where, when you strip away Kerry's hard-boiled rhetoric about preventing the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon, what the candidate offers is a facsimile of the Clinton-era policy of “engagement.” Likening the Islamic Republic to a much less dangerous threat from long ago, Kerry seeks to “explore areas of mutual interest with Iran, just as I was prepared to normalize relations with Vietnam.” Hence, Kerry says he “would support talking with all elements of the government,” or, as his principal foreign policy adviser Rand Beers has elaborated, the United States must engage Iran's “hard-line element”—this, while the candidate tells The Washington Post he will downplay democracy promotion in the region. In fact, as part of this normalization process, Kerry has recommended hammering out a deal with Teheran a la the Clinton administration's doomed bargain with North Korea, whereby the United States would aid the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for safeguards that would presumably keep the program peaceful. To sweeten the deal, he has offered to throw in members of the People's Mujahedeen, the Iranian opposition group being held under lock and key by U.S. forces in Iraq.

It is by no means coincidence that this week's DNC convention highlighted the rehabilitation of Jimmy Carter, whose presidency marked the post-WWII nadir of US influence and prestige. Nor that Kerry's foreign policy team is staffed almost exclusively with Clinton-era retreads—from Richard Holbrooke to (until recently) the light-fingered and stuffed-pocketed Sandy Berger—the same people who, in other words, dithered in the face of the Rwandan genocide, unsuccessfully appeased Kim Jong-il, entertained Yasir Arafat at the White House more often than any other foreign leader, and committed the US military to an interminable Bosnian peacekeeping mission with nary a thought of exit strategy.

Kerry's calls for a rapprochement with Teheran come at a rather inopportune moment. The very regime that Kerry demands we engage, after all, has just been certified as an Al Qaeda sanctuary—and by the very commission in which the Kerry campaign has invested so much hope. The report's finding, moreover, counts as only one of Teheran's sins. Lately its theocrats have been wreaking havoc in Iraq and Afghanistan, aiding America's foes along Iran's borders in the hopes of expanding their influence in both countries, even as they continue to fund Palestinian terror groups. Then, too, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has amassed a mountain of evidence pointing to Iranian violations of the Nonproliferation Treaty. With two nuclear power plants slated to go online in Iran, and IAEA inspectors stumbling across designs for sophisticated centrifuges, even the Europeans and the United Nations have nearly exhausted their efforts to engage the Islamic Republic.

As Kaplan points out, the Bush Administration at times seems to have two very different Iran policies. Nonetheless, three years is hardly long enough to root out a generation at State seeped in the groupthink of realpolitik: a Bush second term will see a much more robust policy towards Teheran. But Senator Kerry—who so often is so vague about his policy objectives—has nonetheless made clear his intent on this matter. And though his springtime claim of support from foreign leaders has long since descended to farce, it is abundantly clear in whose corner the mullahs may be found.

The second article is by Amir Taheri, who sees in the official DNC platform a ringing affirmation not of Clinton's foreign policy so much as—once again—Jimmy Carter's.

Ever since Senator John F Kerry emerged as the Democrat Party's presumptive presidential nominee last spring, his Republican opponents have been accusing him of harbouring the dream of restoring the Clinton era.

The Democrat Party's platform document, “Strong At Home, Respected In The World”, however, envisages a Kerry presidency that would more resemble Jimmy Carter's rather than Bill Clinton—at least in foreign policy. Nearly half of the pages of the document, just approved at the party's convention in Boston, are devoted to foreign policy, twice that of its predecessor in the 2000 presidential campaign. […]

The Kerry foreign policy would be different from that of Bush in at least three areas:

• Under Kerry, the US would forswear the right of pre-emptive action against its foes. It will employ its military only in a multilateral context, with the consent of the United Nations.

Such a policy would give the UN and the allies, who are not identified, a veto on the use of force by the US. It also means that the US will act only after it is attacked, and not to prevent attack on itself or its allies.

Afghanistan is offered as an illustration of a “good war”. It was right for the US to invade Afghanistan because the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington had been orchestrated by Al Qaeda from Afghan territory. This was also a “good war” because the UN approved it and the allies agreed to take part.

The Iraq war, however, was a bad one: the US should have waited until after an attack from Iraq before reacting. Call it the Pearl Harbor Doctrine, if you like, but, if adopted, it would offer insurance to such regimes as North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Pyongyang and Tehran would know that, short of attacking the US directly, they should fear no military retaliation.

In his acceptance speech tonight, Kerry explicitly rejected the idea of international veto. But if you are a Kerry supporter, look yourself in the mirror and ask if you really, truly believe him.

• A Kerry administration would abandon Bush's commitment to promoting democracy, including by military pressure and/or action. Instead, the US will adopt the “soft power” method, using public diplomacy, battle of ideas, education, development aid, and human rights. (Here, the document echoes themes developed by Carter in 1976.)

This takes us back to detente during the Cold War in which preserving the status quo was more important than reshaping the world on the basis of democratic ideals. The document insists that “democracy will not bloom over night”, echoing Kerry's statement that spreading democracy would not be among his priorities.

I wrote more here on Kerry's relative indifference towards the expansion of democracy.

• In the war against terror, Kerry would put the emphasis on measures that the US and its allies must take within their realm rather than impose on others. This means police cooperation among the 60 countries with active terrorist cells.

The US will orchestrate the freezing of terrorist assets and the closing of terrorist channels of communication.

The problem, however, is that one man's terrorist is often someone else's “freedom fighter”. For example, Syria and Iran will never admit that the Hezballah is a terrorist organization and almost all Arab states refuse to label Hamas and Islamic Jihad as terrorist.

There are also thousands of front organizations, charities, and NGOs, enjoying high patronage in their respective countries, part or all of whose activities could be regarded as terrorist.

The governments concerned are unlikely to disband them to please Washington, especially if refusal to do so entails no costs. The document's suggestion to “name and shame” countries that finance terror is no deterrent. Many Arab leaders would love to be singled out as supporters of Hamas or Islamic Jihad because that would give them an almost heroic profile in their own neck of the wood.

In other words: a return to treating nihilist Islamism as a matter for law enforcement—and since a Kerry administration would display far more carrots than sticks, the net result would be that the reach of such enforcement efforts will limited to our own borders.

Carter or Clinton: the former counseled us to accept the malaise of the late 70s, and impotently watched as Iranian revolutionaries held the nation hostage; the latter regarded cruise missile strikes against an empty camp as answer enough to a growing Islamist threat.

Last fall I stated that a Democratic victory would mean defeat in the broader war. That may not be true. But what is certain is that a Kerry victory will give our enemies good reason to believe that the United States can be alternately attacked and then lulled back into slumber.

And the end result will be that this clash of civilizations will become ever more prolonged, and that the final toll in human life and misery will be ever so much greater.

Anthony,

I think we should accept the Dems at face value. If they're going to showcase Carter, who presided over the worst foreign policy of the 20th Century, that's what they're offering us.

Q: Do the mile-long gas lines come with it?

Jeff,

I would hope that long gas lines would be the only negative result of a Carter-esque Kerry Presidency. However, the fears that I really have in Kerry's administration are seeing the equivalent of the 53 soldiers killed in Carter's half-assed attempt to rescue Iranian hostages. Not only did Carter flinch in the eyes of Islamic aggression, he couldn't even give the bad guys a black eye.

After Kerry's promise to attack only on the basis of an imminent threat, I would expect that the Islamsits will again be able to seize the initiative. The goal shouldn't be the elimination of an immediate threat, it should be the destruction of the infrastructure and foundation which creates and supports it.