Snug as a Feature, Not a Bug, in a Persian Rug
Gary Farber is onto important news about the actual effects of America’s “pro-democracy” program for Iran. It’s getting lots of people arrested, and various Iranian reform leaders abroad warned the State Department and others against stamping “Made in the USA” all over Iranian dissident groups within the Islamic Republic.
I class the following with the perfectly reasonable conspiracy theories: The Bush Administration’s Iran hawks put such fanfare into our “support” for Iranian democrats because they want to provoke a crackdown – meaning, more of one than Iran would probably get up to anyway without any encouragement. That way Iran looks even worse than it does on its good days and down the line hawks can say, “See, we tried that feel-good internal reform stuff. Now it’s time to bomb their ass.”
I probably don’t believe that, though. More likely, the US government started loudly “helping” Iran’s liberalizing groups because the US government must always be doing something about everything. Iran is a problem and Iranians could be freer, therefore the US government must have a role to play because it is inconceivable that the US government could not have a role to play – a constructive one. If playing that role makes things worse for really existing Iranian reformers that is a damn shame, but it doesn’t mean the US government shouldn’t have gotten involved with the project because the US must always get involved. And you know, it’s not like the consequences are falling on America’s men of action – the consequences take place safely abroad.
Most likely, I think, there are people in the State Department who understand that it’s the kiss of death to tar local reformers with the American brush, but they want to head off yet one more unjustifiable and stupid war and the only way to do that is to offer an action plan, because the president loves the action and, as noted above, the US government must always be seen to be doing something. There’s a chance it might work, after all, and the next president may have more sense, Iran may become the New Prague by accident, or maybe the pig will learn to sing.
Comment by Thoreau —
June 9, 2007 @ 9:16 pm
I think that all of the elements you describe are probably present in varying proportions.
In the first category, I doubt any evil mastermind is saying “Hah! We will fund the reformers and thereby provoke an assured pretext for war! And then the sharks with laser beams on their heads will destroy the Iranian Navy! Muah ha ha ha ha!”
However, they could very well be saying to themselves “OK, let’s let the peacenik appeasers try their ’soft’ approach, and when it fails spectacularly and just makes things worse then people will see that there’s no other option besides war. If this is what it takes to rule out the other options, so be it.”
(Disclaimer: I think we have plenty of options besides war. I’m merely describing the mentality of certain people in DC.)
Comment by Cryptic Ned —
June 9, 2007 @ 9:17 pm
You’ve outdone yourself with this post title.
(also, I agree with the substance of the post I suppose)
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
June 9, 2007 @ 10:22 pm
I’ve always thought there was an important lesson to be learned from looking at the attitudes of various governments in the region toward the U.S. and comparing the attitudes of the governments with the attitudes of the people. Seems to me there’s an inverse relationship there.
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And I’ve always thought “dear Lord, let’s not have the U.S. make a big deal out of supporting the reformist factions in Iran. Surely that’d be the kiss of death.”
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Sounds like Uncle Sam is puckering up…
Comment by Grant Gould —
June 10, 2007 @ 5:21 am
I think Thoreau has it right here — conspiracy-theory logic is a good way to express particular alignments of interests and policy and to understand policy outcomes. This isn’t because groups are conspiring, but because it’s easier to understand results as following from positive action.
In reality, though, what “conspiracy” results generally are is people looking at a stupid or evil policy and saying, eh, I could try to fix it, but why bother as it serves my larger interests anyway. The conspiracy is really a conspiracy of apathy in the face of all of the idiocies and inconsistencies that naturally bubble up in any policy.
Someone, sooner or later and probably sooner, was bound to come up with the fund-Iranian-dissidents plan. All that is required is for the hawks to not bother killing it. And sure enough, they have no reason to kill it. It looks and acts like a conspiracy, but it’s really just aligned interests forming a sort of evil spontaneous order.
Comment by the talking dog —
June 10, 2007 @ 9:08 am
Pro-American sentiment among Iran’s general populace was pretty high for decades because (1) their own theocracy sucks so much and (2) we were TOTALLY DISENGAGED from the place– our mantra of “we’ll let you’all have self-determination” was actually TRUE, at least for some period of time between 1979 and… somewhat recently.
So now…besides getting our ideological allies locked up, we are ALSO helping to undermine that goodwill we have, by sheer force of our neglect, managed to build up for so long! It’s a neocon win win!!!
I’m reminded of when the Israeli government more or less tacitly supported Abu Mazen after Arafat died (and hence his Fatah movement); surely, I thought, the Israelis are smart enough to realize that Palestinian street-creds and support are almost defined by how much you will PISS OFF ISRAEL… surely Israel doesn’t want to undermine the party most amenable to it… or does it?
I’ve never quite figured out if that was strategy, conspiracy, or incompetence (though last year’s Lebanon fiasco does support “c” as an option).
The good news here with Iran is that the Bush Administration is running out of time to organize and carry out any kind of significant incursion into Iran… the bad news is that it has plenty of time to do less significant things that still get us mired there too…
Comment by Gary Farber —
June 10, 2007 @ 12:04 pm
Digressively, Thomas Ricks has a Military Envisions Longer Stay in Iraq piece. Quite a shocker, eh?
Comment by Gary Farber —
June 10, 2007 @ 12:05 pm
Hmm, fouled the link. One more time.
Comment by Barry —
June 10, 2007 @ 6:25 pm
I see the military ‘envisioning’ a longer stay, right up until the withdrawal is peaking. I’ve seen various ideas tossed out about keeping a small presence, but none of them take into account of the fact that Iraq is a ‘red zone’ for the US military. Anything outside of large, fortified bases is subject to attack. Large, fortified bases are subject to harassement.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
June 11, 2007 @ 12:49 pm
I doubt any evil mastermind is saying “Hah! We will fund the reformers and thereby provoke an assured pretext for war! And then the sharks with laser beams on their heads will destroy the Iranian Navy! Muah ha ha ha ha!â€
You’re probably right. It’s a known fact that Cheney is physiologically incapable of laughter.