Iran's Offer to US

When I speak about Iran and the grand bargain that should be made, I'm not alone in this thinking. The Iranians themselves led the way. Read this story and really think about the implications for what this president is doing. Right, left, up down, whatever.

Story from the BBC. In 2003, seeing what was happening with the downfall of Hussein (and then) the Taliban, the two largest Sunni opponents of Iran, Tehran sent the US a memo offering the following:

Tehran proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion. Offers, including making its nuclear programme more transparent, were conditional on the US ending hostility.

And guess who turned it down?

But Vice-President Dick Cheney's office rejected the plan, the official said.

Cheney wants a war with Iran. He has for quite some time. He believes in unilateral American power supported by a unilateral (excuse me unitary) theory of presidential power. End support for militants, stabilize Iraq in return for:

In return for its concessions, Tehran asked Washington to end its hostility, to end sanctions, and to disband the Iranian rebel group the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq and repatriate its members.

The other big news is--surprise surprise--Ayatollah Khamenei who never was a big fan of President Ahmadinejad has told him to stay out of the nuclear issue. The piece came out in Khamenei's press outlet--the state run press which he controls. Not some underground dissident paper.

So let's recount:

--Ahmadinejad's supporters lost in the (open) elections for city council.
--His theological supporters, principally Ayatollah Yazdi, lost in the election for Assembly of --Experts who decide on the next Supreme Leader bc SL Khamenei rigged the election for Ahmadinejad's crowd (the Islamic revolutionaries) to lose.
--He is openly rebuffed by Khamenei's newspaper.
--In the Assembly Elections Rafsanjani, the man whom Ahmadinejad beat, former President of Iran, and Khamenei's pick (a conservative not a radical populist ala current Prez), is picked to lead the group.
--During the infamous Holocaust Conference, students burned Ahmadinejad in effigy and chanted Death to the Dictator (i.e. Ahmadinejad) and state-run television showed it!!! ie. The Supreme Leader wanted that showed.
--The Legislature has voted to shorten his presidential term by 18 months.
--The Conservatives and Reformists are aligning for a pragmatic center to kick out the radicals, with it seems the Supreme Leader's tactic approval.

Now please tell me this isn't the sign of a lame duck President? The Grand Bargain will come at a higher price now because Iran played nice in Afghanistan and with this memo in Iraq--again this is prior to Ahmad. election. This is the working and mindset of the Khamenei, the man who actually holds power, as well as perhaps Rafsanjani.

And the US labeled them the Axis of Evil. Cheney arrogantly tossed their proposal aside because he wanted to invade and put some regime change 2.0 on. Because we didn't lock them to help stabilize Iraq, they clearly have their agenda for the country and went after it. We don't take them up on the offer, they give IED to insurgents who kill and maim American soldiers. Again, which is at the footstep of the VP's door--he is (partly) responsible for their deaths, loss of life, limb, and sanity. Not solely responsible, but from my faith point of view, when he dies he is going to have to answer to God for that. So I'm not saying that lightly--I'm mean that quite seriously.

Of course Iran's goals and the US for Iraq--stable, unified, ally in War on Terror--were/are not the same, but our goals were never feasible. Iran already does and will have its influence there; when they offered to bring us into that orbit we were beyond ignorant and arrogant to say no. And we are paying an enormous price for this administration's stupidity and blindness in this area.

I'm not saying Iran is not an authoritarian regime. It is. I think authoritarian regimes that are experiencing dropping birth rates (calling Mark Steyn, they better get some babies going in Tehran), mass exodus in the form of "brain drain", economic recession across the classes even as oligarchs are getting rich off oil, Iranian prostitutes all over the world (talk about civilizational decay) are exactly who not to bomb.

Iran like the Soviets will collapse on its own. Its ideology, its formation of human social, economic, religious, and political realities has failed. It has, in integral speak, not met the quadratic conditions or the evolutionary grain. It will fall if only the US doesn't bomb them. Period.

Like I always say, the conservatives do not have enough faith right in our own tradition. In this case the neocons just as with the Soviets. It was one thing to be supplying the Mujihadeen while simultaneously having open lines of communication, SALT treaties, detente, etc. Do that first and then target the IED and networks in Iraq. Then watch the Iranian Gorbachev emerge. This is 1970s Brehznev Soviet Union--still spouting ideology about world conquest, still open to funding terrorists, but bleak and eaten away from within domestically. How can Bush and Cheney be this dumb?