Occidental Malakut

Is the foreign policy of the second term of Bush presidency a logical continuation of his foreign policy in his first term? Does the succession of Mrs. Rice instead of General Powell indicate a different message in the American foreign policy? Or is the American foreign policy independent of individuals? Are the recent statements of Condoleezza Rice in the American Senate on Iran a follow-up to the policy of the “Axis of Evil” or do they convey a new message to Iran? 

JK: Well, as the pundits say, time will tell exactly what strategy the US will pursue. In my opinion, in my judgment, the hope that there will be a sea change in the American foreign policy is implausible. It’s rather utopian, because I think it underestimates the trajectory, the momentum of American geo-military policy, that has been building up. And it should be kept in mind, as well, that there are some troubling signs within the American polity domestically. I am referring here to the very interesting book by John Micklethwait in which he argues that actually there is a long-term shift taking place at the level of the American citizenry that the centre of political gravity has begun to swing permanently to the right of, say, the European political spectrum, and that American liberalism, which was in favour of, which has historically favoured, multilateralism and negotiation has been shy of military violence, but liberalism is in some kind of terminal decline. I think this needs to be taken into account in any estimation of what the Bush administration in its second term will do. I am not persuaded, at this stage, of, for instance, the position of the British Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister, who are making reassuring noises about the change of strategy that is likely to appear in Washington towards a more consensual multilateralist, non-violent approach. We have no evidence for that at this point, and indeed with the occupation continuing in Iraq and a deep American interest in Iran, the chances are, I think, that we will see a continuation of the American strategies and this raises questions, I think, about the whole subject of democracy and of democratization both within Iran and in the region and within the United States itself.

• Are the nuclear issues the major problem of the Iranian foreign policy? Is it correct to assume that the issue of “Axis of Evil” and the remarks of Mrs. Rice are a sign of finding an excuse for the confrontation of Iran with American national interests and harnessing the so-called ‘rogue states’ who are not in harmony with the international community and the American order for the modern world?
  
• How could the Iranian government avoid the experience of Iraq? Do you think that the experience of Libya or even North Korea could be used to stop the direct military invasion of the US?
  
• There is a perception that if the Iranian government, given the recent messages and indications of the American authorities, comes to the conclusion that the military invasion of the US is inevitable and the nuclear case is nothing but an excuse to take pre-emptive action, then the current negotiations of Iran and the EU are bound to fail and the confrontation has practically started. This seems to be what the extremists on both sides are looking for and indeed find their survival in.

JK: You are right that a tension has been building up between EU political strategy on the one side and the American bull in a china shop or Bush in a china shop approach. And the difference, which we can see, with the Islamic Republic of Iran caught right in the middle, is, I think, based on the last half generation of political experiences in Europe on the one side and in the United States on the other. The Europeans, and I think this holds for diplomats, whether French, German or British or others, better understand that democracy, the democratization of power, and that the parliamentary constitutional system with periodic elections and the social preconditions of that flourish only when there is a geo-political milieu, a region, so to say, in which there is security. The worst thing from this point of view, the strongest factor against democratization, is enforced military pressure on a whole population and on its territorial borders, which is currently what the United States thinks is the best method of kick-starting democratization, a certain bulldozer effect. Or one could say a Humvee theory, or still a bomber theory of democracy which, I think, jeopardizes democracy. So this is the first point that there is a clear difference, not only in the style of dealing with the nuclear question but there are also serious consequences potentially at stake. 

On the subject of nuclear inspections and nuclear power for military and civilian usages, the best outcome, I think, and what is urgently required, is the development of an internal public discussion within Iran about the pros and cons of that issue. The worst outcome would be an immediate reaction in which itself, that the nuclear issue itself, symbolically in fact, is a direct threat to the state of Iran and to its proto-civil society and other institutions, and here, it seems to me, the European approach seems to be a better one for at least raising the question of how what Karl Deutsch once called a “security community” can be built within the Middle-East region and wider. I think this is a fundamental dispute in which the Europeans are beginning to see that countries such as Turkey, Iraq and Iran are actually now neighbours of the expanding European Union and that there is a European interest in pacification, of reduction of military pressures, and that this cannot be done by force of arms. The American perception which is that of the dominant power, of the dominant global power, seems to be full of hubris, of arrogance, a lack of humility, the presumption that through force of arms there can be a sort of Napoleonic transformation of the Middle East, as if sending armies and weapons can kick-start power sharing on a scale that the region hasn’t known. So, in short, the United States seems to me to be using the nuclear issue as an alibi, as a weapon, as a stick with which to beat a regime that it does not like, a regime about which it knows actually very little. The level of ignorance in Washington of the complex internal dynamics within Iran, the changes that have visibly and invisibly come about during the last decade or so, the whole long term transformation that has come about since the revolution of ’79. I mean this is poorly understood in Washington, and better understood in the European capitals, which is not to praise, not to put the EU on the pedestal, but it is to highlight a different geo-political strategy which has very different implications and potential consequences for the people of Iran.