A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency (34 page)

President Bush, for instance, has long hailed the United Arab Emirates as a “good friend” of the U.S. He repeatedly praised that country and vouched for its reliability and Goodness during the controversy provoked by his administration’s attempt to turn over operations of various American ports to a company controlled by the UAE government.

Yet the position of the UAE with respect to Israel is virtually indistinguishable from that held by Evil incarnate Iran. Both deny Israel’s right to exist. Indeed, the UAE officially prohibits any Israeli citizen even from entering their country, to the point of refusing to allow Israeli athletes entrance in order to attend international sporting events, including an annual professional tennis tournament held in Dubai.

One can get a sense of just how extreme is the UAE’s anti-Israeli position merely by reviewing its official website for tourists, which includes some information about the country’s entrance and visa policies:

General Information

There are several types of visas for visitors to Dubai.

• Nationals of “Israel” may not enter the U.A.E.

• Citizens of the Arab Gulf Co-operation Council member states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia) do not need a visa.

It is not merely that Israeli citizens are barred from entering the country. Note the snide quotation marks around the word
Israel
—to the UAE (and Iran), that is a concept that is not real, that is nonexistent. By rather stark contrast, the UAE does not even require a visa before it welcomes citizens of Saudi Arabia—the country that gave us fifteen out of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers (with two sent courtesy of the UAE, and none from Iran).

There is nothing exceptional about Muslim states refusing to recognize Israel’s right to exist and singling it out for hostility. Malaysia, for instance, is considered to be a perfectly moderate Muslim country and a reasonably friendly nation to the U.S., yet it expressly denies Israel’s right to occupy the territory known as “Israel,” and its formal policy pronouncements are replete with statements like this one:

Bilateral relations with other Asian, African, Middle-Eastern, and Latin American countries would continue to be pursued without neglecting our traditional economic partners in Europe and America. Japan, the European Union, the US, and Australia and the Republic of Korea, would remain Malaysia’s major trading partners as well as the source of investment and technology, particularly in connection with the establishment of Malaysia’s multimedia super corridor. The only exception is Israel.

Iran’s relations with other countries around the world by itself belies the claim that it is some sort of irrational, crazed personification of Evil, a reincarnation of Nazi Germany. Iran has developed cooperative relations and solid alliances with scores of countries in every region of the world, including countries that are also allies of the United States. To varying degrees, Iran has also developed close commercial and otherwise constructive ties with countries as diverse as China, Russia, France, Germany, and numerous others in the Middle East. As a world actor, Iran conducts itself in accordance with the basic principles of rational self-interest.

Moreover—and ironically—Iran has developed a particularly close relationship with the elected Shiite government of Iraq. Thus, the very Iraqi government which American troops are fighting to defend and stabilize has made clear that it intends to pursue a close alliance with its Iranian neighbors.

In September 2006, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki visited Iran and met with President Ahmadinejad. The
New York Sun
documented the extremely friendly relations that both countries vowed to maintain with one another:

Mr. Maliki, who lived in Iran during part of a long exile from Iraq during the rule of ousted leader Saddam Hussein, received a red-carpet reception at the presidential palace before talks with President Ahmadinejad.

Asked at a joint press conference following their talks about allegations that Iran was interfering in Iraq, Mr. Maliki said, “There is no obstacle in the way of implementing agreements between Iran and Iraq.”

“All our assistance to the Iraqi people will be to establish complete security in this country,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said, according to a state-run news agency report of the press conference. “Iran and Iraq enjoy historical relations. These relations go beyond neighborly ties. Our relations will remain excellent,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said.

The Iranian president, on his own website, celebrated the “excellent bilateral ties between the Iranian and Iraqi governments and nations.” And Iran’s official news agency made clear on the day following Prime Minister Maliki’s visit that the event evidenced a true lovefest between the two countries:

Nuri al-Maliki described Iran as the good and great neighbor of Iraq and reiterated that there resides no impediment in the way of the implementation of the agreements signed with Iran.

“We have witnessed Iran’s tolerance and preparedness and the agreements we have concluded in the different political, security and economic areas prove fruitfulness of our visit to Tehran,” he stressed.

It is certainly true that Iran is internally oppressive and a severe violator of human rights. International human rights groups across the spectrum agree that Iran violates basic precepts of liberty. But even in that regard, it is hardly the worst regime around. Quite the contrary, there are close and important allies of the U.S. that are at least as repressive and brutal, in some cases more so. The
Washington Post
reported on Dick Cheney’s activities during one week in January 2006 as follows:

Vice President Dick Cheney met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Tuesday for talks on the political process in Iraq and the West’s standoffs with Syria and Iran.

After meeting with Mubarak, Cheney was expected to travel to Saudi Arabia later Tuesday for talks with King Abdullah….

Saudi Arabia and Egypt—both key U.S. allies—are the two Arab powers behind an Iraqi national reconciliation conference that is expected to convene next month in Iraq to clear the way for a larger Sunni participation in the political process.

Both of those close U.S. allies regularly commit human rights abuses equally as egregious as those of the Iranians. Neither country has established anything close to the democratic processes that allow Iranians to elect many of their leaders. Criticisms of leaders of the type voiced regularly about President Ahmadinejad are strictly prohibited in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where citizens sit in prison for years for far more mild dissent.

Yet George Bush has entertained both tyrants—the one ruling Egypt and the one ruling Saudi Arabia—at his Texas ranch, a distinction which, as we are so often told, is reserved only for Bush’s closest and most important friends in the world. If internal repression is the metric for determining the new Hitlers in the Middle East, there are several countries (at least) ahead of Iran on that list, including some of the closest friends the Bush administration has in that region.

Indeed, a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is a dependence upon our alliances with some of that region’s most repressive dictators. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum, who helped craft the president’s speeches touting the need to promote democracy in the Middle East, complained on his
National Review
blog in January 2007 about the fact that the president has failed to adhere to his own claimed doctrine:

Having declared war on tyranny, it hardly makes sense to expect the help and cooperation of the tyrants in question. Right? And yet, the foreign policy of the Bush administration has been founded on the assumption that the military regime in Pakistan wishes the US to succeed in Afghanistan and that the authoritarian regimes of the Persian Gulf wish the US to succeed in Iraq.

President Bush’s ostensible veneration of democracy as a measuring stick for the morality of other countries suggests that Iran is far from the top of the list of repressive tyrannies. While the mullahs who exercise true power are beyond the reach of the democratic processes, President Ahmadinejad himself was voted for by Iranians in an election widely considered imperfect though generally legitimate. Lower political officeholders in Iran are routinely chosen via the democratic process, and an independent and spirited opposition movement has flourished in that country.

In addition to the partial democratic rights, Iranian society is far more pluralistic than most other Middle Eastern nations. With some minor exceptions (such as a prohibition on becoming army officers), Jewish Iranians have full rights of citizenship and even have an elected representative in the Iranian Parliament. Many Iranian Jews have relatives in Israel and travel freely between the two countries. Tehran hosts a Jewish charity hospital, one of only four such worldwide. If there is a threat against any synagogue, Iranian security forces protect them. Unees Hammami, a Jewish community leader in Iran, told the BBC in 2006, “Because of our long history here, we are tolerated.”

Additionally, multiple other non-Islamic religions are practiced openly and freely in Iran. The country is home to several Armenian Orthodox churches, where congregants worship openly and without restriction.

In addition to diverse religionists, Iranian women enjoy far greater civic rights than their peers in most Middle Eastern and/or Muslim countries. In 2005, 60 percent of university students and 38 percent of government administrators were female. According to Julie Hill of the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, a third of all Iranian physicians are female, and literacy among women improved from 5 percent at the time of the Islamic Revolution to 55 percent today. Fertility rates have decreased to near-Western levels. And women are elected to Parliament and serve in important appointed positions.

None of this is to suggest that Iran is some sort of beacon of egalitarianism and pluralism or a haven for human rights. As noted, the human rights abuses by its repressive theocratic government are pervasive and severe, and should neither be minimized nor excused. Women are denied numerous, fundamental rights by law. And much of the rhetoric emanating from some Iranian leaders is reprehensible.

But, particularly when compared to other countries in that region, including many with whom the U.S. maintains extremely friendly relations, Iran is far from the bastion of pure Nazi-like Evil it has been depicted to be. Just as those who wished to invade Iraq persuaded Americans to support that war by portraying Saddam as a unique threat and pure Evil, the demonization of Iran is being perpetrated in order to mislead Americans into accepting war against that nation. Put simply, the cartoon picture of Iran painted by those—including the president—who seek belligerence against Iran is simply misleading.

Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons highlights a substantial incoherence with the claim of pure Evil. Iran chose to be a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the framework used to prevent additional countries from acquiring nuclear capabilities, and nobody has claimed that Iran has violated its treaty obligations in any way.

By rather stark contrast, several of the United States’ most critical allies—India, Pakistan, and Israel—not only refused to sign the NPT but have built nuclear weapons, and in Israel’s case developed one of the world’s largest stockpiles, estimated somewhere between three hundred and five hundred nuclear bombs. Several of Iran’s neighbors—who are close allies of the United States—refused to take part in the world’s efforts to stem the tide of proliferation of nuclear weapons, and instead have secretly acquired those weapons and continue to expand their capabilities.

None of the foregoing is to deny that it is preferable for Iran not to acquire nuclear weapons. And particularly since the U.S. president publicly declared Iran to be one of three Evil countries in the world which would henceforth be treated as America’s enemy, it is certainly the case that Iran’s pursuit of its interests has frequently been at odds with America’s pursuit of its own interests. But none of that amounts to anything resembling a picture of pure fanatical Evil.

PROHIBITED DEBATES

J
ust as the cartoonish demonization of the evil Saddam precluded a meaningful national debate about the consequences of invading Iraq, so, too, is the president’s embrace of the same caricature of the Iranians precluding meaningful debate about our policy toward Iran, as well as concerning the Middle East generally. Complex questions that the United States must resolve regarding our overall Middle East policy are urgent and pressing. Yet, in a virtual repeat of the debate-stifling war march into Iraq, arguments that treat these matters as nothing more complex than League of Justice cartoons—in which the Good heroes must and will defeat the Evil villains—dominate discourse, ensuring that no meaningful debate occurs.