In an article titled, "Good versus evil isn't a strategy", (which millions of us have been saying since day one of this administration's tenure), Albright weaves together the politics, relationships and histories of Iran, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries in a way that average readers can easily understand.
Albright rightly states, "It is sometimes convenient, for purposes of rhetorical effect, for national leaders to talk of a globe neatly divided into good and bad. It is quite another, however, to base the policies of the world's most powerful nation upon that fiction." This neoconservative view of the world, in which the US is the superhero against easily identifiable villains, has been an effective propaganda tool for the Bush administration. It was that strategy that led millions of Americans to support the illegal invasion of Iraq and that the same administration is now using as it threatens Iran on the world stage. But, things are not always as clear cut as they appear to be, as Albright reminds us:
For years, the president has acted as if Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein's followers and Iran's mullahs were parts of the same problem. Yet, in the 1980s, Hussein's Iraq and Iran fought a brutal war. In the 1990s, Al Qaeda's allies murdered a group of Iranian diplomats. For years, Osama bin Laden ridiculed Hussein, who persecuted Sunni and Shiite religious leaders alike. When Al Qaeda struck the U.S. on 9/11, Iran condemned the attacks and later participated constructively in talks on Afghanistan. The top leaders in the new Iraq — chosen in elections that George W. Bush called "a magic moment in the history of liberty" — are friends of Iran. When the U.S. invaded Iraq, Bush may have thought he was striking a blow for good over evil, but the forces unleashed were considerably more complex.
Sometimes, the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Other times they're just your enemy. The current situation in the Middle East has no place for superheroes and villains one can identify by the suits they wear. In reality, all sides actually wear suits cut from the same cloth.
Albright offers three suggestions:
1) "Iraq is increasingly a gang war that can be solved in one of two ways: by one side imposing its will or by all the legitimate players having a piece of the power. The U.S. is no longer able to control events in Iraq, but it can be useful as a referee."
The Bush administration is loath to admit that it has lost control because to do so, in their simplistic world view, would be tacit to saying that the terrorists have won. Albright is correct: events in Iraq have escalated far beyond what Bush can or should control. Diplomacy is the key.
2) "Second, the Bush administration should disavow any plan for regime change in Iran -— not because the regime should not be changed but because U.S. endorsement of that goal only makes it less likely. In today's warped political environment, nothing strengthens a radical government more than Washington's overt antagonism."
The situation in Iran is not the same as pre-war Iraq. The culture is different, the people are different and the political relationships are far more complex. Setting up Iran's president as the new Saddam Hussein and formulating a regime change policy on that basis may play to those who don't understand the realities in Iran, but those in the know must do a better job of explaining the real world ramifications of pursuing the same old neocon strategy of taking out the evil guy and putting in the new good guy. It just isn't that simple.
3) "Third, the administration must stop playing solitaire while Middle East and Persian Gulf leaders play poker. Bush's "march of freedom" is not the big story in the Muslim world,"
Bush's fantasy of spreading democracy that will, in turn, make everything automagically all right is far from the reality on the ground in the Middle East. Democracy is any country is a messy business and does not guarantee flowers and candy for everyone. See: War, Iraq
Albright sums it up:
In the long term, the future of the Middle East may well be determined by those in the region dedicated to the hard work of building democracy. I certainly hope so. But hope is not a policy. In the short term, we must recognize that the region will be shaped primarily by fairly ruthless power politics in which the clash between good and evil will be swamped by differences between Sunni and Shiite, Arab and Persian, Arab and Kurd, Kurd and Turk, Hashemite and Saudi, secular and religious and, of course, Arab and Jew. This is the world, the president pledges in his National Security Strategy, that "America must continue to lead." Actually, it is the world he must begin to address - before it is too late.
Instead of attempting to "lead", the Bush administration must surrender to the fact that all it's really capable of doing is standing off to the side while offering support. Any other posture will be and has been seen as unnecessary and unwanted aggression by those affected. Unfortunately, for all involved, no one is really sure when and if Bush will understand that distinction.
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