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Persian Shrug

[Wall Street Journal, 27Feb07] Edward N. Luttwak - Instead of the irremediably hostile Taliban, Iran now has a friendly Afghan government on its eastern border. Rather than having to face Saddam Hussein's regime, Iran has nothing to fear from an Iraqi government dominated by friends and obedient clients, many of whom lived as protected exiles in Iran for 20 years or more. Having crushed Tehran's enemies, the U.S. finds itself under attack by Iran's rulers, who no longer have to worry about defending their own borders and can instead challenge American interests all over the Middle East, and as far away as Venezuela. Now there is talk of a detente with Iran, that being the standard diplomatic method to deal with a hostile country too powerful to be intimidated or defeated. In this case, it would mean coexistence with Tehran's continued support for Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, and three different Iraqi militias, as well as with Iran's nuclear program. According to Iran's ethnic realities, Persians only account for half the population, and the other half includes many different nationalities increasingly resentful of Persian cultural imperialism, including Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, and Azeris. Certainly there is no reason why Iran should be the only multinational state to resist the nationalist separatism that destroyed the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. There is a better alternative to detente with a repulsive regime, and that is to be true to the Wilsonian tradition of American foreign policy by encouraging the forces of national liberation within Iran. The writer is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
2007-02-27 01:00:00
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