Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Tuesday the American people delivered their verdict: guilty.

The guilty had this to say to the jury:

Well, there was a — I read those same polls, and I believe that — I thought when it was all said and done, the American people would understand the importance of taxes and the importance of security.

Then as an afterthought the President added:

But the people have spoken, and now it’s time for us to move on.

Mr. President, the American people have moved on and left you in the dustbin of history.

…

This was a victory for our children. This election was for the soul of America. We were either to be a nation of fear that mortgaged all for security, or a nation where liberty becomes the bedrock of security. The American people chose wisely. Ironically, the American people have rescued their nation from the tyranny of the majority. They voted for accountability. They voted against the arrogance of power. The bums have been thrown out.

…

Virginia has a new Senator tonight. His name is James Webb. He is a good and decent man and I expect he will represent the Commonwealth well in Washington.

Tonight America is blue. America is blue tonight because it has cleansed itself. Democracy is thriving in America. That is a hopeful sign, not only for America, but for the whole world.

…

Tonight the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy seem appropriate.  On January the 20th, 1961, President Kennedy declared:

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe–the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans–born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage–and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge–and more.

It is not morning in America, nor is it the twilight. There is a lot of work ahead. There are many miles to go before we sleep.

"Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels." - Albert Einstein

In Salt Lake City yesterday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned against moral confusion in George Bush’s crusade against reason. Mr. Rumsfeld asked his fellow citizens to avoid confusion:

Every war involves mistakes, setbacks and casualties, Rumsfeld acknowledged, and every army has members who do not live up to high standards. However, those negative factors cannot overshadow the hundreds of thousands of honorable men and women who serve with humanity and decency in the face of constant provocation, he said.

“That is important in any long struggle or any kind of long war, where any kind of moral and intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can severely weaken the ability of free societies to persevere,” he said.

The Secretary went on to counsel resolve in combating what he called "a new type of fascism." This new "fascism", or "Islamofascism" as the Bush Administration likes to call it, is apparently similar to the old fascism of quainter times (as Alberto Gonzales likes to refer to most of human history). Mr. Rumsfeld urged all of us to keep our inner Neville Chamberlains in check in these trying times:

Drawing parallels to efforts by some nations to appease Adolf Hitler before World War II, Rumsfeld said it would be "folly" for the United States to ignore the rising dangers posed by a new enemy that he called "serious, lethal and relentless."

I completely agree with Donald Rumsfeld. We should not ignore dangers posed by new enemies, nor should we be morally or intellectually confused about the rightness of our cause. Because I agree with Mr. Rumsfeld, I urge Mr. Rumsfeld and his boss, George W Bush, to abide by this advice or step aside and let those who can meet these challenges carry the burden.

Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Bush have ignored the real enemy in this war, a certain bearded man named bin Laden, in favor of pursuing their neo-con fantasy of making the Middle East safe for oil exploitation. While we wallow in the quagmire of Iraq, Osama bin Laden and his cohorts enjoy the benefits of a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. By any standard, allowing the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks to roam free 5 years after that horrible day is a dereliction of duty on the part of our leaders. It is also a symptom of intellectual confusion, if not intellectual dishonesty, that in response to the 9/11 attacks the Bush Administration attacked a country, which by Mr. Bush’s own admission, had nothing to do with those attacks:

Q What did Iraq have to do with that?

THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q The attack on the World Trade Center?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it’s part of — and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective. I have made that case.

There you have it: al Qaeda attacks us and we attack Saddam Hussein. It is the superpower equivalent of a toddler’s temper tantrum.

Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Bush led us into the war in Iraq with images of mushroom clouds in our cities and flowers at our soldiers’ feet as they liberate Iraq. Either they were intellectually and morally confused when they sold us this quagmire or they were lying. Since the invasion, the Administration’s moral confusion has grown by leaps and bounds. After their initial casus belli of WMD fell apart, the Administration trotted out the "freedom is on the march" argument. To this day they claim that invading Iraq was the right thing to do even when the very rationale for the invasion has been so thoroughly discredited.

Mr. Rumsfeld has been morally deficient in his handling of the Iraq invasion. He was morally obtuse when looting broke out after the invasion due to lack of security (a fundamental moral and legal duty of the occupier); he was morally obtuse when the abuses took place in Abu Ghraib; he has been morally obtuse as Iraqi civilians are being butchered at alarming rates; he has been morally obtuse while massacres like Haditha and rapes of little girls occur on his watch; and, he has been morally obtuse as he signed death letters of fallen American GIs using an autopen. Mr. Rumsfeld and the boss who continues to employ him have demonstrated ample moral confusion in the past 5 years.

We as citizens have a right, and indeed an obligation, to question our leaders’ actions when they do not appear to serve the interest of the people. If we abdicate our duty as citizens to hold our leaders accountable, even in a time of war, especially in a time of war, we will have aided in the descent of our society into fascism. When our leaders have marched us into a quagmire as a result of a war of choice, we are entitled to moral and intellectual clarity from those very leaders. We must demand of our leaders the truth at all times - "trust me" does not work in a democracy. A demand by a leader of blind loyalty from the citizenry is the primary ingredient in the soup of fascism.

Now is the time for a leader and statesman to lead us out of the dangers of our time and into a more peaceful world. Now is the time for intellectual and moral honesty. Now is the time for great ideals buttressed by sound execution. A generation ago, John F. Kennedy called upon the world to shoulder the burden of his time:

Now the trumpet summons us again — not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need — not as a call to battle, though embattled we are — but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation," a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

His call to America and to the world remains as urgent today as it was in his time. This country and this world is yearning for a leader of vision and intellect who can rise above the talking points and the politics of division to lead us out of the moral confusion that this Administration has thrust us into. Sadly, George W Bush is not that leader.

[Cross posted at Taylor Marsh]

This Fourth of July was bittersweet for me. It was the first one I spent without my daughter since her birth 5 years ago. I watched our community’s big fireworks show from my driveway rather than the park where family’s gather because I didn’t want to sit there and watch without my daughter on my lap. My daughter is overseas for the summer on vacation with her mom. She wanted to be here today to join our town’s children’s parade with her friends and to sit on her dad’s lap as the fireworks lit up the sky. Instead today she is in the country of my birth and I am here without her in the country of her birth.

Today I want to share with you some of my thoughts on being an immigrant and a Muslim American citizen. This is my story only and I am not sure if there is meaning here beyond one man’s thoughts on his American journey. Nonetheless I share it with you today.

I was born a Muslim in Bangladesh - one of the world’s most populous Muslim countries. I spent most of my childhood there. I have spent part of my childhood and all of my adult life in the United States. Like most children growing up in the Third World during that time, I was fascinated with America. America was the land of Coca-Cola, bell-bottom pants, and Western movies. America was also the land of Thomas Jefferson, FDR and John and Robert Kennedy. America was the land of the Bill of Rights, the Marshall Plan and Martin Luther King, Jr. Most of all, America to me represented possibility. It was the country that could send a man to the moon and unite the whole world in one breathless moment when the first footprint was made on a world beyond our planet. Possibility.

The two Americans I admired the most when I was growing up were John and Robert Kennedy. They both represented possibility. If you go to the Third World, even today you may find in a hut in some remote village a weathered piece of newspaper with an image of JFK. JFK represented America. He sent forth an army across the Third World not to conquer by force but by example. JFK created the Peace Corps - an army of volunteers that spread the decency of America by helping the most unfortunate. JFK also stirred the world by his clarion call from West Berlin. "Let them come to Berlin", he said:

There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass’ sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.

JFK was larger than life. For a boy growing up in the Third World he represented America and its spirit. I finally made it to Berlin as a college student in 1987. I saw the wall that JFK gazed upon. Two years later that wall was to be no more.

Robert Kennedy was hope. His words stirred me as a child growing up on the other side of the planet and they stir me today. Edward Kennedy in his eulogy for his brother quoted him:

There is discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere. These are differing evils, but they are the common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility towards the suffering of our fellows. But we can perhaps remember — even if only for a time — that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek — as we do — nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

…

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.[It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.] Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

 With his voice cracking with emotion, Edward Kennedy concluded:

My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.

As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

Robert Kennedy took the conscience of America to the poorest of the Third World and in doing so touched us all. One can only imagine how different our world might be if this man had been allowed to live. Robert Kennedy to me was possibility.

I came to America, like many before me and many since, for a chance at a better life. I came to America because this country produced men like the John and Robert Kennedy. Even though I have spent most of my life in America I still carry the weight of being an immigrant and a Muslim in post 9/11 America. After 9/11 my loyalties were subject to question. Suddenly instead of my actions, it was my religion and the color of my skin that defined me. I have talked more about my religion since 9/11 then in all my life previously. I have mostly had to defend my religion, and by implication me, from charges that it was a religion that glorified terrorism. Yet, with all that has happened, yet despite this country being senselessly attacked, it is a testament to the tolerant nature of American society that my family and I do not find ourselves in internment camps or some other similarly constructed arrangement. It is quite likely that if an attack such as 9/11 had happened to another country Muslims like me may not have fared so well.

A large part of the reason the situation has not deteriorated to an extreme level for American Muslims like me is the Constitution of the United States. Civil liberties represented by the Bill of Rights are very much a fabric of American society. It is those civil liberties that draw immigrants like me to this country and those civil liberties that protect Muslims like me from collective punishment. Yet today these liberties are under threat from our own Government in the name of security. But I believe that the foundations of the Constitution are strong enough to withstand any challenge and, with vigilance, in the end these liberties will survive the onslaught upon them.

I look forward to a day in America when my daughter will be referred to as an American, not a Muslim American. A day when she will be judged by only her actions not her religious beliefs. That day will not come soon, but that day will come. That day will come not because American bombs will win against "terror". That day will come because of the strength of American ideas and ideals. American statesmen like John and Robert Kennedy told the world that day would come. I believe it is possible because this country is about possibility. The world awaits that day, America awaits that day, and I await that day.

The response of the United States to the letter sent by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad amounts to the Superpower version of "Talk to the hand". In my previous post on the subject I had suggested that perhaps a better approach might be to actually talk to the Iranians. But the Bush Administration seems to never miss an opportunity to look monumentally incompetent on the international stage. Thus, with characteristic bravado the Administration dismissed the Iranian letter (the first of its kind from Iran since 1979). I am sure that the chicken hawks in the Administration are patting themselves on the back for their machoness in rubbing the noses of the Iranians in the dirt. The rest of the world however saw the Iranian letter and its rejection by the United States as a missed opportunity. From the Administration’s point of view there is really only one thing left to do: Bomb Iran.

It wasn’t always like this. Back in 1998 the Clinton Administration sent a similar letter to Iran through the Swiss Government in an attempt to begin direct talks with the Government of Iran. CNN reported at the time:

The Clinton administration recently sought to open a government-to-government dialogue with Iran, sources said, sending a secret letter to Iranian President Mohammad Khatami through diplomatic channels in the second week of August.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said Iran did not reply through those same channels, but U.S. officials viewed Khatami’s moderate statements about respect for the American people, made last month and again in a CNN interview this week, as the answer to the U.S. overture.

…

The letter to Iran, sources said, contained no provisos and simply asked the Iranians if they were ready to conduct talks with the United States.

The sources said such a letter would have been signed by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. It was written, they said, after a long administration debate in which one camp argued that Washington should wait for Iran to make the first approach.

In the world of diplomacy events can sometimes move at a glacial pace. With that in mind, the letter from Ahmadinejad may actually have been a reply to the 1998 letter. There may also have been back channel talks between Iran and the United States during the Clinton years:

Contrary to a Washington Post report Friday, sources said, the Swiss channel has been much used for practical communication, not just angry ideological exchanges.

The Swiss government represents U.S. interests with the Iranians. The sources said the Swiss Embassy in Washington regularly spends up to 20 percent of its time on Iranian contact on behalf of the United States. [Emphasis added by me.]

I am probably not in much danger of being incorrect if I believe that these back channel contacts with the Iranians ceased when George W. Bush became President of the United States. The new Administration apparently treats diplomacy as if it’s an unwanted stepchild. They pay lip service to diplomacy being the first option while they are busy undermining it. Secretary Rice, our chief diplomat, had this to say about talking with Iran:

Rice asserted yesterday that "the absence of communication is not a problem with the Iranians" because there have been plenty of proposals advanced through the Europeans and the Russians. But, alluding to Iran’s alleged failure to respond constructively to those proposals, she asked: "What is to be gained if Iran is not prepared to show that it is ready to accede to the demands of the international community?" [Emphasis added by me]

The chief diplomat of the United States is not doing her job. Instead, she has out-sourced U.S. foreign policy to the Europeans and Russians. This Administration wants us to believe that we are in the midst of a dangerous nuclear standoff with Iran and yet it is not even willing to communicate with Iran. Mr. Bush’s assertions that the United States considers diplomacy the primary option vis-à-vis Iran rings kind of hollow in light of Dr. Rice’s bizarre statements.

The Washington Post reports today that Foreign Policy experts from both sides of the aisle as well as foreign diplomats are speaking out and urging the United States to resume direct talks with Iran. The Germans, one of the Europeans who Dr. Rice is relying on, are venting their frustration with Washington:

Germany is one of the three European Union countries that have jointly held inconclusive talks with Tehran. German officials have made little secret of their belief that diplomacy will not succeed without direct U.S. intervention. Ruprecht Polenz, the influential chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the German parliament and an ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, lashed out last Friday against the administration’s policy after returning from a two-day visit to Iran. "Washington’s refusal to join direct talks with Iran won’t make it any easier to achieve a diplomatic solution to the current nuclear dispute," he said. [Emphasis added by me.]

Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who last month wrote an opinion piece jointly with 5 former European foreign ministers urging President Bush to open direct talks with Iran, explained rather succinctly how diplomacy should be practiced:

But Albright said yesterday that the letter, despite its invective and religious musings, should be viewed as an opportunity both for a dialogue with Iran and to influence world opinion. She likened it to President John F. Kennedy’s choosing to selectively respond to — and ignore — conflicting messages from his Soviet counterpart during the Cuban missile crisis.

"In diplomacy, you make your opportunities," Albright said. "Acting in a dismissive way doesn’t get you anywhere." [Emphasis added by me.]

I find Madam Albright’s comparison to President Kennedy’s deft handling of Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis to be very appropriate and instructive here. The Administration would do well to heed these calls for dialogue.

The Bush Administration however does not respond well to good advice. The Bush Administration is likely to dig in further on its hardline stance against Iran. In doing so it is likely to further isolate itself in the diplomatic dance with Iran. The military option, for the Bush Administration, will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. War with Iran is the likely outcome as long as this Administration and its policy of petulant diplomacy continue.

Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has sent a letter to President George W Bush. The letter outlines "the Iranian nation’s views and comments on international issues as well as suggestions for resolving the many problems facing humanity" according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) of Iran. The United States has swiftly and unequivocally rejected the letter:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swiftly rejected the letter, saying it didn’t resolve questions about Tehran’s suspect nuclear program.

"This letter is not the place that one would find an opening to engage on the nuclear issue or anything of the sort," Rice told The Associated Press. "It isn’t addressing the issues that we’re dealing with in a concrete way."

The Bush Administration reacted predictably to this letter from Iran. Thus, in one calculated and nuanced gambit the Iranian Government has isolated the United States diplomatically.

I am reminded of similar letters from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to President John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy’s handling of the letters from Khrushchev stands today as a triumph of diplomacy and demonstrates the power of effective diplomacy in resolving high stakes conflicts. Kennedy understood what this Administration appears not to grasp: that the need for communication is greatest at times when the crisis is at its most severe. Kennedy outmaneuvered Khrushchev by ignoring the belligerent tone of one of Khrushchev’s letters and addressing the conciliatory tone of another. In effect, Kennedy offered Khrushchev a stark choice: either war or a face saving climb down from war. Khrushchev as we all know now chose the only real option available to him.

Like Kennedy, today this Administration is confronted with a similar letter. Iran’s letter should be viewed as an opportunity by the United States. Iran has sent the letter to the United States in an attempt to gain the diplomatic upper hand in this conflict. Regardless of the content or motivation of the letter, it will be seen around the world as an olive branch from the Government of Iran. It is an opening and an invitation for the United States to open back channel communications with Iran. The Bush Administration should seize upon this opportunity by responding diplomatically and directly to Iran. Doing so has two primary benefits. First, it denies Iran the diplomatic upper hand. It shows that the United States is prepared to resolve this matter diplomatically. A positive response by Washington isolates Iran in any future escalation of this crisis. Second, the letter should be viewed as the first step in resolving this crisis diplomatically. The Bush Administration should take advantage of this letter and use it as a springboard for the opening of direct talks with Iran. This crisis with Iran will either be solved diplomatically or through violence. It is in the interest of the United States that this issue is resolved diplomatically.

Diplomacy is a tool that the United States must maintain in its arsenal. Diplomacy is called for most when dealing with states that are hostile to the interests of the United States. Diplomacy is not a game that is only played amongst friends. The goal of diplomacy is the imposition of one’s will on one’s adversary. In that, diplomacy and war have similar goals. There is little room for diplomacy if the governing doctrine of the United States will continue to be "us" versus "them" and any dialogue with "them" is seen as weakness. It is the "them" that we most need to engage and in doing so outmaneuver "them". Engaging the enemy in diplomacy is not a sign of weakness but of strength. The Bush Administration would do well to remember that before it is further isolated on the world stage.

It appears that Iran has won this diplomatic battle. There will be many more to come. If the United States and President Bush are serious about resolving this crisis diplomatically, it must start practicing the craft. Sitting in one corner like an indignant school boy and complaining how evil Iran is only isolates the United States further and helps strengthen Iran’s position in the crisis.

The United States has been given a choice: war or diplomacy. There really is only one viable choice. Whether the Bush Administration will choose wisely remains in great doubt.

"I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true. One, I believe there’s an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody’s soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free." - George W. Bush, April 24, 2006

But wait, there is more:

Bush said he did not remember asking the question of his father, former president George H.W. Bush, who fought Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. But, he added that the two had discussed developments in Iraq.

"You know he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to," Bush said.

Then there are those who prefer a secular country:

"Whatever one’s religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts – including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state." - John F. Kennedy, March 3, 1959

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state." - Thomas Jefferson, January 1, 1802

Then there is of course the Constitution of the United States:

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." - Article VI of the Constitution of the United States

And the Establishment Clause:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." - Amendment I of The Bill of Rights

So why not execute the foreign policy of the United States based on one’s own religious beliefs? What’s the worst that could happen? I mean, Really!

The United States has threatened a nuclear strike on the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Government of Iran has responded to this threat by publicly humiliating the United States. Iran has declared that it has officially joined the Nuclear Club. Though Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon, its announcement that it is now capable of enriching uranium puts the United States, and the international community, on notice that Iran is rapidly becoming the newest nuclear power in the world.

In his latest column in The Washington Post, David Ignatius compares the current impasse with the Cuban Missile Crisis. He writes about the choices President Bush is presented with:

[Professor Graham] Allison argues that Bush’s dilemma is similar to the one that confronted Kennedy in 1962. His advisers are telling him that he may face a stark choice — either to acquiesce in the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a dangerous adversary, or risk war to stop that nuclear fait accompli . Hard-liners warned JFK that alternative courses of action would only delay the inevitable day of reckoning, and Bush is probably hearing similar advice now.

He argues that an attack on Iran will undermine America’s pre-eminent position in the world. He cites Zbigniew Brzezinski to drive home the point:

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, makes a similar argument about Iran. "I think of war with Iran as the ending of America’s present role in the world," he told me this week. "Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it’s still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we’ll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world."

While I agree with Mr. Ignatius and Mr. Brzezinski that an attack on Iran will further undermine America’s relevance in the world, I disagree with the suggestion that we are not already there. I think it is a direct consequence of the war in Iraq that Iran and to a similar extent North Korea are able to throw dirt in America’s face with impunity. By threatening war we have rendered impotent our ability to wage war. Our adversaries know this and know that the vast diplomatic playing field between war and peace belongs to them.

While Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis realized that the goal of war is to achieve your will and not war itself, the Bush administration considers war as an end by itself. Kennedy deftly employed the tools of war, gunboat diplomacy, and the art of political communication in combination to achieve the primary goal - to avoid a nuclear Cuba. His genius, as Mr. Ignatius points out, was to realize that the other side does not necessarily want war. Kennedy cultivated this notion and pounced on it in one brilliant act in high stakes diplomacy: he received two contradictory messages from the Soviet Union, one belligerent one conciliatory, he chose to ignore the belligerent and act on the conciliatory. That single act shifted the dynamics of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The detente that followed can be traced back directly to this triumph of uncommon common sense alone.

The Bush Administration, by contrast, has played the diplomatic game with the subtlety of a jackhammer. It may work well in movies, where you draw a line in the sand and your opponent quickly crumbles and grovels at your feet, but in the real world a show of force is underpinned by multiple of acts of mutual compromise. The Administration however, due to its misadventure in Iraq, has lost the ability to make a credible show of force. When the United States says that we will strike you militarily if condition A is not met, the opposing party knows that this is not a starting point of diplomacy but an inflexible ultimatum. The choices for the adversary now are either capitulate or wage war. From anyone else’s perspective except perhaps that of the United States, the sounder choice is to prepare for war. It is better to fight a war under these circumstances with the final political outcome in doubt than to capitulate with its assured outcome of defeat. This is not to say that the United States cannot win militarily against Iran, it certainly can. But war is not about military victories. War is a political act and its final outcome must be measured with a political yardstick. By that yardstick, a prospect of an American victory in Iran is remote.

President Ahmadinejad of Iran has in recent days struck both a conciliatory and a belligerent tone in his public remarks. This is not a sign of an unstable personality, as many in the Administration appear to believe. It is, on the contrary, a sign that Iran is practiced in the art of diplomacy. The Bush Administration should now be at a moment of decision. Past experience suggests that the Administration perhaps does not realize this and may already have made the decision to go to war. That is a shame. This crisis offers the United States the opportunity to truly remake the Middle East - but perhaps not in the way they had originally envisioned. Iran is destined to be, with an assist from the United States in Iraq, a major power in the Middle East. The United States has an opportunity here to get ahead of this development and broker a new status quo in the Middle East that can usher in an era of regional and global stability. This development is in our National Interest, far more so than a full-scale war in the Middle East.

It is now time to move the conversation to the achievement of this new order in the Middle East.