Thus Spake Tony Snow
November 15, 2006 Peter
To see the White House “setting the record straight” on Tony Blair’s speech to the Lord Mayor’s banquet on November 13th, you’d think there was more daylight between Bush and his wife and Barney on his Middle East policy than between the leaders of two sovereign states. Odd.
But that’s what Tony Snow said yesterday: “Read his speech, and you’ll see there is no difference between the governments.” That’s a level of unanimity Bush has yet to achieve in his own cabinet and an astounding degree of coordination between two governments whose interests certainly overlap but would hardly be expected to be congruent.
I can only assume Tony sees things a little more clearly from up there. One thing is for certain–bridging the Atlantic Divide is going to take a lot more where that came from before the chattering classes wise up.
November 16th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
It was interesting that Blair married substantive flexibility with ardent rhetoric. I suppose the latter was the concession to the Bush administration. The reality, however, is that the anglo powers are in no position to make demands of Iran. Threats of isolation are counterproductive if they are as empty as Blair’s. His initiative is overdue, his choice of words only amplifies his impotence.
Ideally, we would have sought communication with Iran during the Afganistan invasion. Within limits, Iran had been helpful and we could have approached them from a position of strength. Just as Kissinger’s trip to China strengtened the hand of reformer Deng, there might have been the possibility to transform Iran’s domestic politics. Today, we are operating from a position of weakness and dependency. It will cost us.
We have to recover the initiative. The only way to do that is to extract our troops from the quagmire. Retrenching at the periphery of Iraq will put us into a position where American forces can tip the scales of the civil war. In that situation, Iran will have an incentive to cooperate to prevent the resurgence of Sunni dominance.
The conventional wisdom is, of course, that the Shiites would win a civil war. That outcome is not preordained. In light of Sunni support from Saudia Arabia and the Gulf States, which brings Syria, Egypt, and Pakistan along, a Sunni victory is possible.
In my opinion, a Sunni victory is actually more likely. The Shia militias are disintegrating before our eyes. Sunni’s have greater military expertise in Iraq. In spite of record oil prices, Iran still runs a trade deficit. The support of Arab governments united by Saudi leadership will overpower the paltry contributions of Iran.
Without the United States and Great Britain, Shias will once more become second class citizens. That can become our leverage over Iran. To get there, we need to put ourselves into a position where our troops are no longer hostage to the conditions on the ground and where we can bargain with all sides including Sunnis. That’s when we will be back in the driver’s seat.