‘The Bush administration is floundering’

WASHINGTON: Two leading US policy analysts say the American policy shift on Iran announced by US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice exposes the lack of strategic direction in the Bush administration.

Iran expert and Editor of Middle-East Quarterly Michael Rubin, who is also a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, feels that this new initiative is not going to stop Iran from going nuclear as it gives greater bargaining power. “There is no doubt the Bush administration is floundering,” he says, “and the State Department believes that being more like our allies (the EU and Russia) will soften hurt feelings. The problem is that softening hurt feelings may not be enough to stop Iran from going nuclear.”

He is not alone. Joseph Cirincione, Senior Vice President for National Security and International Affairs at the Centre for American Progress (a centrist non-partisan thinktank), told DNA that the US is “strategically exhausted” and that with this shift in policy, “it is merely buying time until it thinks of a better way to tackle Iran.”

Ever since Rice announced the new policy on Wednesday, a wave of indignation has swept most of the US intelligentsia, with many commenting on how Iran has manipulated American strategy by flexing its nuclear muscle. In his Thursday column in The Washington Post, columnist Glenn Kessler wrote: “The Bush administration’s decision to consider sitting down with the Iranian government underscores a central truth of diplomacy: Nuclear weapons buy leverage.”

Cirincione feels the announcement has as much to do with EU-3 pressure as with Bush’s popularity ratings which have fallen to an all-time low of 31 per cent last week. “He needs something big as prepares to leave office in 18 months. In his desperation, he has announced a policy shift that puts his on the negotiating table with Iran, and perhaps later, even North Korea.” There are more than just murmurs about how the Iran issue has created a line between the hawks and the doves in the US, respectively led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Rice.

Rubin, whose latest book Eternal Iran provides the historical backdrop to understanding Iranian pride and a sense of victimisation, feels Rice’s statement will be viewed as a victory by the Iranian president. Cirincione, meanwhile, feels that the announcement may have more to do with pleasing Russia and China who have always been against sanctions or military action against Iran. “It will be a mistake to think of this as a coherent, thoughtful policy,” he says.