January 31, 2009
Time to Open an Embassy in Tehran
That the Iranians are claiming that Obama's willingness to talk to them shows they've won is no surprise -- they're going to claim that, no matter what. If we followed the advice of some in the comments and bombed Iran, guess what they'd claim? That they won. For a more recent example, see: al Qaeda claiming they have us on the run in Iraq, Hamas claiming they won in Gaza, etc.
The significance is that it shows how obsessed the regime is with the perception that it’s winning its ideological battle with the west, to the extent that even rare attempts at rapprochement from the U.S. are sneered at as crude concessions of defeat. Like I’ve said before, that bodes very, very ill given how much national pride they’ve invested in the nuclear program. How can they make a deal with America to give up nukes when they’ve built their identity on defiance of America? Why, it’s practically a national slogan.Propaganda matters, but it's only one part of the larger war against Islamist aggression. There is a very good reason why we not only should be talking to the Iranians, but also normalizing diplomatic relations: because US embassies are good for two things, attracting large number of stone throwers/flag burners; and serving as the central nexus of US efforts to gather intel.
It's why we have an embassy in Damascus, China, Russia, and Venezuala. It's why we need one in Cuba and Iran.
I'll concede that opening diplomatic relations with these two countries would be a win in the bad guys column, but sometimes you need to concede a small victory to your enemies in order to win the larger war.
I'll even concede that most State Department employees are a bunch of pansies. The values they've institutionalized, regrettably, are largely those of left wing academics and Wilsonian dreamers.
But junior diplomats are only part of the contingent in any given embassy. I used to spend quite a bit of time in the Moscow embassy. In the on-site quarters of one of the Marine guards. Trust me, you don't want to mess with one of these guys.
Think about it, and next time someone shouts that we need to be bombing Iran and not talking to them, fine. But where should we bomb? That is the kind of question an embassy "Assistant Attache for Cultural Affairs" is responsible for knowing the answer to.
And, as an example of what intel looks like when we don't have an embassy involved in espionage and gathering information: see Iraq.
By Rusty at January 31, 2009 08:52 PM | | l digg this
