Target: Tehran?

By placing Iran on the Axis of Evil, Bush made an enemy of a would-be ally. Leon Hadar in the American Conservative compares the lost opportunity of diplomatic relations with Iran to the Nixon-Kissenger detente with China. My problem with this is that Iran is no China, and China is no Iran. Two very, very different cultures; will diplomacy work with Iran? I hope so, but it won't be via the same path as with China...More to follow//JW sends.

Indeed, according to a historian of the Sino-American relationship, James Mann, Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, who initiated the opening to Beijing, gave Chinese leaders a clear message that the United States was not going to be involved in China’s domestic politics. When China’s Chou En-lai tried to talk to Kissinger about the wave of violence (also known as the Cultural Revolution) that radical elements in the Chinese Communist Party were leading, Kissinger said that the United States had no interest in China’s affairs at home—and now let’s get to the business of battling the Russian Bear.

This is not the kind of response that a member of the Islamist movement that controls Iran would receive from the Bush administration, which seems more committed to idealistic Wilsonian principles than the traditional realistic policies advanced by Nixon and Kissinger. “Our security is not merely found in spheres of influence or some balance of power,” President Bush declared about the need to use American power to pursue American ideals—as opposed to hard U.S. interests—during his address to the UN.