The message from Iran: Let's talk

After a resounding US diplomatic defeat and the effective retreat of US power in the region, whether by accident or by design (a design by Obama the left wing radical, as some right wing writers in the US claim), the Rouhani Op-ed comes hot on the heels of Putin's Op-ed at a time of changing power dynamics regionally and perhaps globally. Both Russia and Iran wish to appear as the new regional leaders, the wielders of 'soft power', enlightened and progressive, desirous of dialogue that leads to win-win deals, in other words eager diplomatic beavers, ready to sponsor dialogue between all parties in a Middle East long used to zero-sum politics. And the Arabs, they are no where to be seen on the foreign policy map, they are too busy mopping up the blood from their streets, cleaning up the wreckage of the so-called Arab Spring, still embroiled in zero-sum local tribal politics.
If the US failure was in fact a success for Obama's supposed policy of disengagement from draining foreign conflicts, then its good news, not just for the American people whose government will have more money to spend on healthcare and education and more time to focus on its ailing economy, but for our long suffering region as well. The days of the W doctrine: 'if you're not with us you are against us', are over, gone for good, or so one hopes. In place of hegemonic US power and its liberal use of brute force, is fast emerging a new policy of rapprochement, an unexpected but welcome result of this supposed Obama policy. For the world, this appetite for dialogue and talks and a genuine desire to hammer out 'win-win' deals from both Iran and Russia is good news because it means we will be spared either a protracted cold war or a destructive hot war.

For those Americans sorry to see the US retreat from the brink and see it as weakening the United States, I say this: In 1917 and again in 1941, it was not a hegemonic imperialist United States that defeated the bully of the time. In the first instance it was a reluctant isolationist America that went to war and helped defeat the Kaiser, in the second instance it was an America weakened by years of depressed economic activity that rose to fight and defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Retreating from the brink, giving up power some times takes more courage than hurtling head first into an ill-advised military adventure.


So, the times they are changing, they have to, the US could not sustain its present level of military commitment abroad for much longer. This policy shift, if indeed it is a policy shift, had to happen sooner or later. The only ones who will suffer are US clients in the region, those political parties and countries that have nailed their colors to the mast of the USS Sinkalot, and those who continue to press for a zero-sum outcome which ever side they are on. The new Middle East is a workshop, a workshop for deal making and the settlement of long standing conflicts, or so one hopes.


Rouhani's Op-ed in the Washington Post

Norman Podhoretz: Obama's successful foreign failure

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