A good pair of posts from Daniel Drezner with very interesting developments from Iran and internal debates about our policy towards it.   First, excerpts from a startling article in the Financial Times which claims Iran sought a Libya-esque deal & Drezner's take -

...The US has for 10 months been stalling over an Iranian offer of landmark talks that would see the Islamic republic address Washington's concerns on nuclear weapons, terrorism and Israel - because of divisions within the Bush administration.

...US officials and go-betweens say the talks, which could in return establish normal diplomatic relations between the countries, have been resisted by hawks in Washington who adamantly oppose opening a dialogue with the clerical regime in Iran, which George W. Bush, the US president, branded part of the "axis of evil".

...My initial take -- the deal should have been cut, and probably should still be cut. I say this fully aware that such a deal would be detrimental to the short-term advancement of human rights in Iran.

But then he recants -

Well, don't I feel like the perfect fool.

Post something about possibly cooperating with the Iranian government, and then the Iranian people go and rise up. Click here, here, and here for details.

We'll see where this leads. One wonders whether the complete impotence of "reformers" in the government triggered this outbreak.

I would love for this to pan out -- but I have every confidence that the hardliners are prepared to be as brutal as necessary to stay in power

It's a tough question - do we bet on reforming the power holders or giving power to the reformers?   It's clear in Libya we bet on the former.   In Iran, the reformers are far more viable relative to Libya -- but the real question is are they viable enough?

Situations like this are a big, geopolitical game of chicken and I tremendous respect for the folks who actually have to implement policy while we armchair pundits carp from behind and on all sides.   Do you reduce tensions and get XX% of what you want or keep tensions high to reach for XX+YY% instead?  And all this in the face of the whims and vagaries of fate - tomorrow an even bigger natural disaster than the confidence-shredding earthquake in Bam could hit Tehran.   Could that be the Chernobyl that breaks the camel's back and ushers the new generation into power?  

It's so difficult to predict when / how the Iranian situation will finally unfold.  One thing's for sure - no matter the strategy or its eventual outcome, naysayers will have ample evidence in BOTH directions.  They will no doubt unearth evidence & post screaming headlines that support the anti-position -

• "secret memos" will surface after-the-fact with "unheeded warnings" for / against either side
• one of the top 5 primary arguments for the policy will be found - after the fact - to be simply untrue.   Demands for inquiry from all sides will soon follow
• or arguments that the current regime was "forced" to back a new wave of bombings in the West because America was too unilateral at the bargaining table.   Or, perhaps in PLO/Hamas-like fashion, it was just the other side's extremists & they need our concessions to help bring them back into the fold
• or a grainy photograph of a CIA operative shaking the hand of a cleric will surface - after we've cut the deal with the reformers
• or "our new friends" the Iranian clerics could be accused of massive human rights violations - implemented using a police force paid for in part with an American aid package
• or "our new friends" the Iranian reformers could take power and in its wake unleash a new wave of looting / violence / bloodshed;  Gallup polls 10 days after the fact will that indicate that most Iranians at least preferred the "stability" of the clerical regime to the "chaos" of reformists.   An Al Qaeda spokesman will tell the press that the entire country of Iran is now an even bigger recruiting station for them due to this unrest and Great Satan's hands.

Keep this in mind the next time Michael Moore talks about how we created Saddam or some loser from DemocraticUnderground publishes that pict of Rummy shaking hands with Hussein.  Or the n-th retelling of how CIA sold Saddam / Bin Laden arms in the 80s.  The moral of the story?  Perspective & historical context.   Some choices are misleadingly easy to condemn in hindsight - but we still have to make them eventually.  Perversely, the damning threads of evidence are MORE readily available when the actors had done the research and thus knowingly chose a lesser evil to avoid a greater one.

A myopic domestic & international RealPolitik might simply look at our PR win with Libya and choose the immediate strategy & cut the deal with the clerics.   It would certainly win Bush election points at home (if you're that deeply cynical).  It didn't hurt Clinton with North Korea.

Beyond that, some semi-idealists (of which Drezner was initially one) would point out that such a move would seriously cripple N. Korea, further pressure Pakistan / AQ Khan, and further quarantine the Saudi klepto's.   It would also bring new / more leverage w/ other Mid East entities like Syria and Jordan.   Neutralizing 3 Axis of Evil members in 4 years would be quite a feat. 

Meanwhile other idealists (for ex., Michael Ledeen - a de facto neocon) would argue that loudly backing the reformers and pushing for a de facto coup is not just the proper moral solution but a rather feasible one as well.   And what a strange twist of history that these guys - who most strongly believe in the possibility of fundamental democratic reform & human rights are also the ones almost derogatorily referred to by FT as hawks & Bush Administration hard-liners. 

And how can we forget that other band of pseudo-idealists (Arundhati Roy) who would embrace Iranian leadership in any shape or form as long as America had zero role in defining it.  It doesn't take a genius to guess which policy towards Iran the EU would prefer...

What to do?  I just don't know.   Comments?