Gentle Diplomacy with Iran will not Work

Mr. Jacoby may come to regret what he wishes for: an armed attack on Iran (Gentle diplomacy with Iran will not work, Boston Globe, February 10, 2010).

Neither Mr. Jacoby nor I know what is going on in behind the scenes diplomacy, so to label it a failure is premature and unhelpful. What is clear is that like the Cold War Soviet Union, there are hawks and doves in Tehran; a fact never mentioned by Mr. Jacoby. That the mixed signals coming out of Tehran about their nuclear program provide an opportunity for skillful diplomacy to reinforce the doves and undermine the hawks in order to reach an acceptable agreement.

It seems to me that opening a third war front by an attack on Iran would be virtually impossible. Yes, an initial attack might be successful but what of the aftermath?

I am one with Winston Churchill on this one: "Jaw-Jaw is better than War-War."

The fragility of the global nuclear order

I am horrified that Graham Allison, a Harvard Professor/Administrator, and Ernestino Zedilo, an IAEA Commissioner, managed to write a column about the Fragility of the Global Nuclear Order (Boston Globe, September 30, 2008: A11) without once mentioning the forthcoming treaty on nuclear cooperation between the US and India.

This horrendous treaty gives India a pass on the requirements of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. They will receive nuclear assistance from the United States without having to comply. Today, your sister newspaper, the New York Times (A bad India Deal, September 30, 2008: A30) editorialized that passage of the treaty "would make it even harder to rein in Iran's (and other's) nuclear ambitions."

Your authors did your readers a disservice by failing to point out that with this treaty, the United States is contributing to the fragility of the nuclear world order.

Sent to Boston Globe

Admiral Fallon leaves

It seems as though a thin line separating us from war with Iran has been removed by the retirement of Admiral Fallon (Top Mid-East Commander Retires, New York Times, Wednesday, March 12, 2008: A1, A10). It is to be hoped that his successor in the position will continue his practice of speaking truth to power.

First General Shinseki, now Admiral Fallon, two respected military experts have been devalued and ignored by the civilians manager in the Pentagon and the White House. It is particularly distressing hat the second ouster took place under Secretary Gates whom I always thought had a firmer grasp of reality than his predecessors and whom I expected to be able to stand up to pressure from the White House.

How can we stop this Administration leading into what would be an impossible war with Iran? I worry because there seem to be enough enablers in the House and Senate to allow the President to do anything, even another disastrous war.


Sent to New York Times

AG won't probe CIA

You quote Professor Dawn Johnsen of Indiana University as saying "People who rely on [sic] good faith on an Office of Legal Council opinion should not be prosecuted even if it turns out that the opinion was wrong" (AG won't probe CIA on torture laws, Boston Globe, February 8, 2008: A 2).

It seems to me that her position is dangerously close to the Nuremberg Defense that "I was just obeying orders." We should expect better of the men and women in our government. They, and that includes the President and the Attorney General, should know that torture should never be used.

It is discouraging too that the author of the so called torture memoranda, John Yoo still enjoys has law professorship at Berkeley whilst only the lowest members in the political and military hierarchies have suffered as a result of his "wrong" opinion: the soldiers of Abu Ghraib who also relied on climate created by the dissemination of these poorly reasoned opinions.

Sent to Boston Globe

Bush Fumbles Iran

After reading Mr Kristof's column (Diplomacy at its worst, New York Times Week in Review, April 29, 2007, page 13), I too "ache for my country."

We should also remember that the Bush Administration had a second chance at rapprochement with Iran when in May 2006, the President of Iran sent a letter full of philosophizing to President Bush. The approach was rebuffed by Secretary Rice who said "There is nothing concrete here."

Maybe not in the letter's content, but the very concrete existence of the letter suggested that some faction in Iraq was interested in pursuing a dialog with the United States despite being rebuffed in 2003.

One would have hoped that Secretary Rice, a Soviet expert, would have drawn the lesson from the Cuban Missile crisis that it was useful to reinforce the doveish elements and ignore the hawkish elements among our adversaries.

It would have been useful to engage in further discussions with Iran. Why did the administration fail to do so?
Sent to New York Times

May 9th. 2006
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

The President receives a letter from the President of Iran -- the first high level contact initiated by Iran since 1979. How does the administration respond? Condoleeza Rice says that there is nothing concrete in the letter (Iranian Writes to Bush. New York Times, May 9th. 2006).

I expected better from Dr Rice who is, after all, a distinguished scholar of US-Soviet relations. At the time of the Cuban missile crisis, the Americans noticed that two kinds of messages were emanating from Moscow -- harsh and uncompromising letters and those with a more conciliatory tone. The analysts concluded that Hawks and Doves in the Kremlin were jockeying for and temporarily gaining positions of influence. The US responded with a subtle psychological response, reinforcing the conciliators with responses and extinguishing the influence of the hawks by ignoring their messages. The outcome was a success for world peace.

It maybe that a similar struggle is going on among the higher echelons of the Iranian government. But the US is responding with a knee jerk rejection of the overture -- there is nothing concrete here.

Nothing concrete! The very existence of the letter, however philosophical in tone, is a concrete indication that someone in Iran wants to talk. Let us seize this opportunity not reject it out of hand.
There is no hurry. The Iranian crisis has dragged on for a year or so. There is still work to be done at the United Nations to get our allies on board in the Security Council. A few more months of careful negotiation might result in a satisfactory outcome for all.