With all the ink split and airwaves filled about John Bolton and UN reform, very little in the way of "what exactly do we mean by reform" has been discussed by either proponents or opponents of Bolton's nomination. I admit to a certain sympathy for Tom Friedman's recent takedown of the GOP cries for "UN reform."

"Reforming the U.N." is without question one of the most tired, vacuous conservative mantras ever invented. It is right up there with squeezing "waste, fraud and abuse" out of the Pentagon's budget.

Still, I think Suzanne Nossel does us all a terrific service at Democracy Arsenal in explaining where UN reform really does matter. She outlines a number of key issues, as well as the stands being taken by different players.

Suzanne presents her piece as "on the margin of the Bolton debate." If, however, as has been speculated, the White House is considering pushing Bolton to the Senate floor even if the Committee sends his nomination with a negative recommendation, the sole reason -- other than an assertion of presidential power -- will be to tar the Democrats as "UN-huggers" who don't want an "effective UN." Such a circus will do neither the Democrats nor US foreign policy any good.

For that reason, I think it's extremely healthy for the policy blogs like Democracy Arsenal to expand beyond Bolton himself to the specifics of UN reform. The point is not that the Bush position on reform (at least as it's likely to be pursued by Rice) is either necessarily disingenuous or bad per se. Nor is it that the Bolton opponents are opposing Bolton as a way of undermining Bush's position on the UN. Rather, it's that Bolton is the wrong guy to pursue a reform agenda that is broadly shared on both sides of the aisle.

To make that case effectively requires Bolton's opponents to do more than simply saying "me too." It's not enough to say vaguely that the UN needs reform. That isn't very persuasive, and it has the added negative effect of being just general UN-bashing, rather than focusing on expanding on what the UN does well and changing it where it needs to change.

Suzanne also makes the point that it's important to identify where specific reform priorities overlap with Kofi Annan's proposals, and where the sticking points are. As she illustrates, a lot of those sticking points will be found in disagreements between the US and either Annan or other groups of countries, NOT between a majority of Republicans and Democrats.

Suzanne points us to a recent speech at the UN by Shirin Tahir-Kheli, the person Condi Rice has put in charge of the reform effort and the response to Annan's proposals. There are lots of tricky issues that are finessed in the speech. But I think most of us will find there's much to like in the Rice agenda so far. Which just makes the Bolton appointment all the more maddening and inexplicable!

{cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism}

... of open, accountable government and our system of checks and balances -- including the press -- doing its job, there's this side-splitting piece of work from the normally rather staid Independent Institute, courtesy MaxSpeaks.

But then again, as Eric Martin asks, "Why bother to revise history when you can bury it?"

Here I was, feeling all mellow about how we should be able to rally around some commonsense principles in response to the complex prospects of political changes in the Middle East, and The New Republic strikes again. Their editors sure know how to put me seriously out of sorts. These guys give "idealism" a bad name, and I'm beginning to contemplate embracing "realism" with fervor.

The message from our grand political strategists at TNR is not that we should pull together behind sensible policies to promote better governance and open societies. Oh, that's all well and good, and Teddy Kennedy gets a nice little pat on the head for being a good boy and saying democracy in the Middle East is a good thing. But that's missing the Big Idea -- it's time to get into the democracy bidding wars. Who can be more "pro-democracy." And to give us just the incentive we need, they point to the silent regrets we all must share that Bill Clinton didn't make Middle East democracy the obsession of his administration. If we miss the bandwagon this time, we're really, really, really going to regret it.

The editors certainly make a valid point regarding the track record of the Bush Administration. It's important to force this Administration to pay attention to the long, hard, patient, frustrating slog at the level of institutions. Democracy can indeed be a devil once the details are examined -- both getting there and keeping it functioning to produce stable, effective governments. Fareed Zakaria wrote a best-seller about that in 2003 I seem to recall.

It's also true that one would be hard pressed to find many members of the Bush Administration who have demonstrated they have sound democracy-nurturing or institution-building instincts. They seem to fall either in the "we don't do institutions" school of Donald Rumsfeld or the "Dr Pangloss" school of Paul Wolfowitz. But the evolution of their policies in Iraq over the past year has shown they've done some learning, albeit the hard way, and they should be encouraged -- loud and often -- to keep up the good work, as I hope my most recent comments indicated.

I'm not sure which gets me more steamed -- the suggestion by the editors that Bill Clinton's efforts were misplaced to focus on strengthening the international economic architecture, halting destabilizing ethnic turmoil in the Balkans and bringing Yasser Arafat to a deal he should have taken, or the notion that the touchstone of US foreign policy for the foreseeable future is taking "democracy" -- whatever that may be -- to the dark reaches of the globe. They just can't get off their hobby-horse of remaking the world.

I do know that their rationale -- that the Bush Administration won't let liberals in on the action in places like Russia if we don't raise the ante -- is proof once again they don't understand how the Bush Administration plays politics. The proper role of liberals in the Bush universe is as punching-bag foils -- regardless of what any liberals actually do or say -- or as members of the anonymous cheering section well hidden behind the pom-poms on the sidelines.

But more important, the issues our policymakers have to deal with can't be addressed by sticking ideological labels on them. As I've noted before, the concept of "democracy" is content-free as a guide for policymaking. The choices facing the US are far more multifaceted and interdependent that some artificial choice between promoting "democracy" or acquiescing in "stability." And a single-minded "obsession" with remaking the world is as likely to erode American strategic strengths on a wide range of fronts as enhance its security from terrorists.

The problems US policymakers have today with Russia are not that Russia isn't democratic. There are certainly aspects of the Russian political system that are part and parcel of the irritations and tensions that are emerging in how Russia interacts with the rest of the world, and recent domestic political trends have exacerbated those external problems. But those problems would remain -- and might be substantially worse -- if Russia were overnight suddenly "democratic" or if "democracy" came to dominate the complex agenda the US and Russia share. Talking in terms of "democracy" is increasingly self-defeating in Latin America, where politicians of all stripes are working their way toward second-generation economic and political changes after the liberalizations of the 90s; and in doing so, they are often defining their visions in terms of how different they are from Washington. Does "democracy" help the US manage the lions' share of issues in its inter-hemispheric relations, which are principally in the economic and social spheres? Does "democracy" help the US find its way forward in defining evolving relations with China, or India, or Japan? Will it help Americans sort out when and where they should support interventions in horrific civil wars in Africa?

I have my own opinions on what US policies should and should not be doing on many of these issues, though I don't believe any are capable of clear-cut answers. What I do believe is clear, however, is that any group of self-proclaimed liberals who would criticize the Clinton Administration for failing to be sufficiently obsessed with democracy needs their collective heads examined. I certainly wouldn't look to them for guidance or trust them with either the fate of the US or of the global system. The French have an expression that I find apt for this sort of self-important nonsense: Ils ne sont pas serieux.

Warning, this is not a thoughtful post. This is a cranky post.

In "Time for a Rethink?" praktike offers a review of positive comments and views from the liberal or "left" part of the American political universe on the encouraging signs of political change in the Middle East. Though he points out some of the continued weaknesses of the Bush Administration's policies, he calls on opponents of the neocon approach to Iraq to get behind those Bush policies we can support. Time to be constructive.

This is not a new theme for prak, and it's an approach I've consistently endorsed. I've advocated elsewhere that opponents of Bush's foreign policy nonetheless give vocal support to specific policies that are consistent with what we ourselves would be promoting if the Bush team weren't still running the show.

With those principles in mind, I have been supportive of the shifts being made gradually over the past six months by the military field commanders in both strategy and tactics. I have been supportive of the shift in approach which appears to have been adopted by the US embassy since the handover to the interim government at the end of June. My most recent endorsements of Bush policies have included supporting the Iraqi elections and the Administration's broad strategy toward Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. I have repeatedly cautioned against reproducing a domestic Vietnam-style polarization. To my way of thinking, an America polarized by foreign policy debates is a dangerous America for the rest of the world. But I have also vigorously opposed the disinformation campaigns that the Bush Administration waged as part of the presidential campaign or the gamesplaying with military budgets and force planning. So I want it understood that these comments are not an attack on prak's overall intentions which I share.

Two things have me seriously out of sorts. First -- and more on a personal level than anything I suppose -- I am quite resentful of the notion that somehow, as a vocal critic of the Bush policies regarding the invasion and occupation of Iraq, I have something to explain or apologize for. I don't think I'm misreading the subtext, even coming from those who aren't engaging in the recent rounds of "traitors on the left" triumphantalist hyperbole. The suggestion seems to be that if as critics we "can't admit we were wrong," we're being partisan or we're somehow not for democracy and freedom. That it's our lot to accept the "olive branch" offered by the David Adesniks of a bipartisan policy based on "democracy promotion." Gracious in defeat, don't you know.

Sorry, if there is an olive branch to be offered by the victorious, it should in point of fact be extending the other direction, from those of us who have long advocated policies that the Bush Admnistration is only now begining to adopt. I am eager to be magnanimous in victory, but it appears quite unlikely that my branch will even be acknowledged by the Administration's supporters, let alone accepted by a foreign policy team that's never made a mistake.

This brings me to my closely related second source of crankiness. The so-called "left" is being diverted by the unnecessary self-justifying squawks that have been coming out of the liberal hawks. Those who opposed the first Bush Administration shouldn't be wasting time squabbling on who was more right or more wrong about the war. They should be joining together now be saying to the new Bush team, "Glad you guys have finally come to your senses. Nice to have you back on board." We should be looking forward, trying to make sense of this post-Iraq world that's starting to emerge, to see what we think about the current Administration's priorities and policies as they are starting to take shape.

As I see it, the Bush Doctrine and the Iraq adventure have represented a severe dis-continuity in American foreign policy, and we're now returning to something approaching our normal balance. This is an idea that requires a much longer and more developed essay that's still rummaging around in my brain. For purposes of this discussion, let's simply focus on the issues of political change (not other elements of global politics like NATO or environment, trade etc).   more »

I seem to be on the same wavelength frequently with Stephen M Levine of the Old Town Review Chronicles. In this case, my attack on BushLite -- the use of the neocon mindset and language to frame liberal foreign policy.

Levine explains how attachment to the content-free but high-sounding moral sentiments of the neocons -- whether engaged by right or left -- impedes clear analysis, judgment and policymaking with respect to US policy toward Syria in the aftermath of the Hariri assassination. Though he doesn't frame his remarks in BushLite's terms of "democracy" and "freedom," he argues that such an approach -- of privileging moral sentiment over principles and analysis -- will often get in the way of "doing the right thing." [BTW -- I'd argue that the same sort of blindness is produced by the moral sentiments of those who see the Israelis as "the enemy" of liberty.]

Since Levine's remarks can't be understood out of context, and in any event the Syrian situation is certainly topic du jour, here's the background. Emphasis is mine.

Discussing Israel and Syria, Levine stated that "whatever is called the left" should support the Lebanese people, together with the diplomatic isolation of Syria by the US and France, until Syria is pushed out of Lebanon.

This "anti-Syrian" view (which is also consistent with the Bush Administration's stated policy to ratchet up diplomatic pressure for Syria's immediate withdrawal) was greeted by some surprise by Morgan Feis, a co-blogger. Levine explains:

The reason: because I questioned whether an alliance between the US and Israel to secure Israeli dominance of the region is a good idea. Basically, I questioned whether the strategy enunciated in the infamous ‘Clean Break’ policy paper is the right one. Morgan responded to this by asking whether I would rather see Syrian dominance of the region instead of Israeli dominance.

Levine continues:

I think this response captures something important about the way policy in the Middle East is discussed by neo-cons and certain liberal hawks. For these thinkers, political calculation is one that concerns, above all, the content and quality of one’s political opponents. One does not look at what is the right thing for us to do, one just looks at who is a friend or an enemy. (For certain delusional liberal hawks, the friend enemy distinction maps onto a distinction between morally good regimes and morally bad one’s. This allows them to moralize that which in essence is political).

By this logic, of course one supports Israel and not Syria. But this logic of analysis is totally bankrupt because it has no substance: the question is not whether to support Israel over Syria but a question of how to support Israel. Perhaps supporting Israel means helping Israel recognize that a policy of regional dominance is foolhardy. Perhaps it means trying to achieve a regional piece [sic] even if this means breaking bread with some less then savory characters. Of course, the adjudication of friend and enemy is an important part of the equation that goes into political judgment. However, when it becomes the almost single source of judgment, it clouds clear thinking.

This, of course, is fine for the political forces that take advantage of intellectuals whose critical faculties are paralyzed by the polarizing effect that this logic introduces into political discourse. Indeed, this is the secret of success for extreme nationalist or populist movements. Hopefully, our liberal intellectuals will in the future be better able to resist this demented political logic.

Good guys-bad guys; democrats and tyrants; freedom on the march: this is the language of non-thinking and non-policy. Of relegating the "how" -- the important stuff that makes or breaks policy -- to the realm of "my way or the highway." Of self-justification wrapped in language that deflects, dismisses and denigrates open and serious discussion. Of mass mobilization.

Levine's arguments reinforce my quarrel with Beinart and TNR's constant calls to put "liberal values" of democracy and freedom at the centerpiece of foreign policy.

The road they propose is simply illiberal -- based not only on elites calling the shots, but insulating their real strategies in ersatz moral trappings. And if the trappings aren't ersatz -- if they really will dictate policy -- then they'll lead to very bad policymaking. As Levine points out, they interfere with any clarity of assessment of reality and analysis of options.

I would add to that list -- the more successful you are in mass mobilization through defining enemies and stirring high moral passion, the less latitude you will enjoy in decision-making. You become prisoner of the political dynamics you have unleashed.

I see that Daniel Drezner really, really likes Sebastian Mallaby's book about the World Bank and its head, James Wolfensohn. I just started it last night, and so far it's as good as Drezner says. As is my wont, I'd like to share a brief passage from it that relates to the current Colemanian brouhaha over Kofi Annan and the UN (btw, I'm willing to admit that I could well be wrong on the politics and/or the merits, especially given McCain's position).

Here's Mallaby:

We veer between contempts for international bodies--the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and likewise the World Bank--and unrealistic pronouncements on what they ought to do: forge peace, banish financial instability, lift every person out of poverty. It has become commonplace to say that our global institutions are not up to the challenge of our unprecedented global interdependence. But the reason for this mismatch lies partly in our shizophrenia. Sometimes we pour scorn on the Bank and other international bodies, and starve them of resources. Sometimes we talk as though they must have superhuman strengthm and we lumber them with impossible objectives.

That graf could have been written by our own inimitable Ms. Nadezhda, no? More concretely:

When President George W. Bush took office, it was the contempt that seemed most threatening. In 2001 and 2002, the Bush Treasury assailed the Bank with a mixture of aggression and plain ignorance, as this book will describe later [Note: I haven't gotten there yet. -p]. In early 2003, the Bank was left out of the planning for Iraqi reconstruction by the Pentagon, even though it had valuable experience from other nation-building exercises. The Pentagon's attitude did not prevent the Treasury from attacking the Bank for doing too little in Iraq; days after Jim Wolfensohn visited Baghdad in the summer of 2003, and days before a World Bank expert was killed by Iraqi insurgents, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial broadside about the Bank's lack of involvement in the country. Throughout this period, the very idea of the international system was called into question; some parts of the administration believed we lived in a unipolar world--that the United States was the international system. The unipolar fantasy is a trap, for it is only in military matters that American power is overwhelming. In the economic realm, the United States is the leading power, but it is not the only power; it depends on foreigners to open up trade, to prime the pump of global growth, and to provide savings that pay for the federal government's spending habits.

Idiots. Thomas Barnett would probably agree that you can't, er, connect "the Gap" to "the Core" unless you, um, actually try to connect them to the Core. Argh.

I'll likely never take the time to offer a comprehensive review once I finish the book, so treasure this brief snippet accordingly.

And now a question for our knowledgeable readers: do the regional combatant commands (e.g. CENTCOM) have liaisons to major international bodies like the World Bank, does the State Department handle those things on the ambassadorial level, are there interagency coordination groups back in Washington, do they employ their own development specialists, etc.? To make this more concrete, how (if at all) would someone in charge of World Bank development projects for Nigeria coordinate with United States European Command, who runs training projects for the Nigerian military (but doesn't talk about it on its website)? I bring this up in light of my growing concern about the militarization of American foreign policy. I thought this passage from Dana Priest's The Mission was particulary illuminating:

Operation Focus Relief said a lot about the times. For decades, the federal government and Washington's inside-the-Beltway brain trust had poured money into studying the Third World and Africa. Even so, no one had gotten very good at mapping out, and then executing, long-term strategies to solve Africa's massive problems. Funds and programs came and went with each new administration and each new majority in Congress. As a result, sixty U.S. soldiers might walk through hip-deep bushy fields with a battalion of underfed Nigerian soldiers, showing them how to conduct an ambush, but no cadre of U.S. economists flew there to train officials in the country's economic ministry. No legion of agronomists camped out in the middle of nowhere to help improve farming techniques. Battalions of teachers did not deploy to repair the educational system. The Peace Corps was marginalized and outdated.

Using the American military to address global problems had become almost a reflex in Washington. But even the best U.S. troops could deal only with the symptoms, not the causes, of incipient problems. Military programs did little to help political systems move from dictatorship to democracy, or economies from government control to the free market.

I echoed my concern in comments to Steve Clemmons, and a smart commenter responded:

Praktike, don't blame the CinCs (sorry, I mean "combatant commanders"); as Congress gutted our foreign service, the task of diplomacy didn't go away, it just devolved to the military. The CinCs are very cognizant of the importance of diplomacy, and they'd like a heck of a lot more civilian support in what they're doing. Our elected officials, Republican and Democrat, have basically abdicated much of their responsibility and forced unwanted responsibilities upon military leaders. (Shades of "The Origins of the Military Coup of 2012.")

To be clear: I don't blame the CinCs (most of whom "get it" and are trapped by the system). I blame Congress. Development alone won't solve the terrorism problem (and as Mallaby says, the World Bank can't exactly wave a magic wand), but boosting failed or failing states is part of a long-term solution. States that work and can find hope for their people are states that will fight terrorism. But we're eating soup with a knife on a global scale here, or using hammers on what look like nails but are actually screws, or whatever. I'm sure there's some cliche that sums it all up.

In any case, this has to change, because we're trying to solve problems too late, with too few resources, and sometimes with the wrong resources. Maybe we have to get more creative about boosting the non-military capabilites of the regional commands, or at a minimum, improve our coordination with, say, the World Bank, which employs thousands of brilliant technocrats. It benefits from having a board that, unlike the United Nations Security Council, isn't set up in such a way that politics routinely interfere with doing good; unlike the UN, it's well-funded and highly driven. Still thinking out loud here ... maybe the State Department should be reorganized to match the regional commands. Why, for instance, do State's geographic divisions not match the Pentagon's? Why doesn't "jointness" extend beyond the military?

Now ... tell me why none of these inchoate thoughts are realistic. Imagine that George Bush is not the current president if that helps my case.

Note: good thinkin', Matt, but the U.S. is not about to give up its veto.

This isn't a life and death matter, but it does illustrate the absurd traps our legislation or regulations often set for our foreign policy when we try to address one issue and end up producing other problems. Somewhere there ought to be an administrative proceeding for the State Department or other agencies to administer exemptions from blanket prohibitions. The problem has received increasing attention in the area of visas and foreign students, where our more stringent recent policies are being applied in a fashion that undermines all too frequently the strong economic, political and cultural interests America has in openness.

For a society that prides itself especially on openness to ideas and freedom of speech, this episode is postively perverse. It was described originally in the Christian Science Monitor by Farzaneh Milani, a native of Iranian who is director of Studies in Women and Gender at the University of Virginia.

Shirin Ebadi - a human rights lawyer and one of Iran's first women judges - is however, forbidden to publish her memoirs in the United States because of a trade embargo against three countries: Sudan, Cuba and Iran. Coming from a land that has no exact equivalent for the term "to sue," the 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate is suing the American government. Challenging the regulations imposed by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, Ebadi calls the ban "a critical missed opportunity both for Americans to learn more about my country and its people from a variety of Iranian voices, and for a better understanding to be achieved between our two countries."

Ebadi has a point. Only a tiny percentage of the tens of thousands of new titles made available to the American reading public every year are translated works. Furthermore, with no official relations with the Iranian government, with new prohibitions on direct access to the people, with travel and tourism virtually stopped, it is hard for Americans to see Iran beyond the headlines. Misunderstandings and misperceptions are rampant.

In spite of its long history of cooperation and friendship with the U.S., which was interrupted by the 1979 revolution, especially the hostage crisis, Iran is represented as an intractable enemy. Its dominant image now is that of a country-turned-jailer; a country taking Americans, no less diplomats and emissaries, hostage.
[...]
For well over a century, women have been a moderating, modernizing force in Iran with Shirin Ebadi as one of its most articulate and successful representatives. Her voice, like Sheherazade's, is a beacon of hope and temperance. It should not be silenced. It ought to be heard.

Our friend the Brooding Persian would agree with the importance of women to Iran's ancient past and future, with a somewhat different take in his recent post "Warrior Woman."

And the past generally helps put present in perspective. I mean, who can really be surprised by the existence of warrior women knowing what woman in Iran have done and continue to do every day. It must be in the genes!

As I have said before,... Iranian women are poised to take the helm of this nation in a dazzling sort of way. They are the one consistently belligerent group incessantly challenging boundaries and refusing to be cowered.

The Persian's post is full of great links to materials about Iranian women both past and present. I was especially taken by his recommendation of the author of a forthcoming book dealing with gender and modernity in Iran, Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards : Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity, by Afsaneh Najmabadi.

The issue of identity and modernity, and the gender dimension of identity , is a recurring theme in a number of publications about Iran. Another book to be published early in 2005 is reviewed in Beirut's Daily Star. Portrait Photographs from Isfahan : Faces in Transition, 1920-1950 is a collection of several hundred photographs from the period, assembled by Iranian artist, academic and activist Parisa Damandan.

[The book] focuses on a tight but tumultuous time frame, when Iran was undergoing rapid social, political and economic transformation. Damandan, who was born in Isfahan and remembers her own early experiments with having her picture taken by a professional photographer, returned to her hometown to find evidence of the old studios and commercial practices that once flourished in the ancient city.

The book resulting from her research reveals as much about how photographers worked in the first half of the 20th century as it does about how people in those times saw themselves, how they constructed their identities before the camera and, in turn, how the identity of a nation took shape, fell apart and reformed against a backdrop of industrialization, modernity, political change and looming revolution and upheaval.
[...]
[In addition to telling the story of individual photographers] Damandan adds the story of a city, a country and a people. The book is full of surprises - cross-dressing women, Isfahan's community of Russian prostitutes and the flood of Polish refugees who took up temporary residence in Iran during World War II. And it captures telling evidence of changing times - women casting off and taking up the veil, the significance of gymnasiums as a social space in men's lives, family configurations, gender roles at social events and the growth of industry (textile factories, workers on strike) that is evident both on the landscape and in the photographs themselves.

In addition to Damandan's narrative, "Portrait Photographs from Isfahan" includes essays by Iranian writer Reza Sheikh (who looks at the relationship between portraiture and democracy) and Dutch writer Josephine van Bennekom (who explores the differences between and encounters among Iranian and European portraiture).
[...]

As an interesting aside, the Persian has also been concerned about the problem of Iranian writings being blocked from publication in the US. In this case, the focus was on poetry.

They're at it again! Congress just can't seem to resist sticking their fingers in the foreign policy pie. This time, it's over the International Criminal Court. Granted, not the most sympathetic or easily defended of international endeavors from the US viewpoint. But Congress had already taken a major pot shot at it by conditioning military assistance on agreements to grant immunity to US servicemen.

Now they've buried in the Omnibus spending bill a provision that conditions economic assistance on immunity agreements.

Congress's action may affect U.S. Agency for International Development programs designed to promote peace, combat drug trafficking, and promote democracy and economic reforms in poor countries. For instance, the cuts could jeopardize as much as $250 million to support economic growth and reforms in Jordan, $500,000 to promote democracy and fight drug traffickers in Venezuela, and about $9 million to support free trade and other initiatives with Mexico.

At the behest of the State Department, a provision has been aded for executive waivers for NATO members and other key allies. So the countries most likely to be affected are the small poor ones that aren't strategically important to the US. Likely the ones most in need of the assistance, of course.

[UPDATE 1:30PM EST 11-29-04] Further information on which countries would be affected and the political battle lines within Congress is in a OneWorld.net piece today by Jim Lobe.

I generally enjoy the prose stylings of Atrios, James Wolcott, Kevin Drum, and even Steve Gilliard on occasion.

But, like Matthew Yglesias, I think they really ought to keep their opinions to themselves until they've actually read The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Betweeen Iran and America. Having just finished the book, I think it's wrong to suggest that Pollack has simply gone through The Threatening Storm replacing q's with n's. If anything, the book is meant to forestall a foolish course of action such as a military invasion (he's got a section aptly named "The Case Against Invading Iran") or a covert regime destabilization campaign (there's another section called "The Ghost of Kim Roosevelt").

Pollack's nuanced case is duly replete with qualifiers and caveats, but the bottom line is that, as "our least bad option," he favors a "Triple Track" approach consisting of the following elements:

• Hold Open the Prospect of the Grand Bargain
  
• A True Carrot-and-Stick Approach
  
• Preparing for a New Containment Regime
  

He says on p. 385:

[J]ust because the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons does not quite justify the extraordinary price of an invasion does not mean that it is not a threat or that it would not justify other actions by the United States that might not be as costly as an invasion but could still require considerable sacrifices. Foreign policy is rarely an all-or-nothing activity--that either a threat is great enough to justify paying any price, including invasion or nuclear strikes, or else it is not a threat at all and therefore does not justify paying any price. Most foreign policy problems fall somewhere in between, and the Iranian nuclear threat still falls toward the higher end of the spectrum.

Failing to succeed would meaning learning to live with a nuclear Iran, which would be pretty bad but not the end of the world.

I should warn potential readers that the book is quite sloppy in parts, probably the result of a headlong rush to publication. Pollack often appears to directly contradict himself within the same paragraph.

For instance, on p. 16, amid a discussion of 19th century Iranian history:

Entire Iranian industries were thus wiped out by foreign competition, impoverishing Persia's middle class and artisanry. At various points, European creditors pressed the shah to sell off Crown lands to repay debts, increasing the power of the landlords at the expense of the central government and further diminishing royal revenues in the future. Moreover, these new duties brought the shahs increasingly into competition with Iran's rising middle class, composed largely of merchants and business (called bazaaris because their place of business was the bazaar, meaning "market" in Persian) who were being penalized for the government's financial mistakes. (my bolding)

Try making sense of that.

That's only a minor example of Pollack's discombobulating prose-- the big picture is equally muddled. Iran has been mostly helpful in Iran and Iraq, he says, but Iran has reverted to its bad old ways from the 1990s. Khatami has lost his mojo and the hardliners from that time period are back in charge, but the current regime "does not have a history of reckless behavior." It's been nearly impossible to get the Europeans, Japanese, and Chinese to go along with punishing Iran for its bad behavior, but it will be possible to get the Europeans, Japanese, and Chinese to go along with a multilateral sanctions regime. Strangely, there's no mention of Iranian support for Muqtada Sadr or most of the other predations described in US News, although Pollack does cite one November 2003 attack by Iranian guerillas on a Fallujah police station as an example of bad behavior. Sadr's name doesn't even appear in the index. If Pollack believes the swirling accusations about Iran's involvement in the insurgency to be false, he should have made some effort to debunk them rather than letting them stand. I was also troubled by Pollack's use of Wikipedia as a source on the 1973 Oil Crisis (aren't there books on that subject?), and I imagine I could find other problems if I cared to look. Not to mention the fact that Pollack has never been to Iran, and doesn't speak any Farsi.

My bottom line: I can't recommend this book unless you know little about Iran, don't follow the news, and can't bother to read the James Fallows piece or Pollack's burgeoning list of editorials on the subject. But don't believe the knee-jerk reactions from left blogistan, either. Pollack should have done a better job, but this isn't Threatening Storm II.

Advice? George Bush don't need no stinkin' advice.