Iranian Brinksmanship and a Rancid Dead Duck Bush Administration

When the American mainstream media throws a quick glance at it paints such an abstract simpleton’s view of the problem as to be completely void of merit. Now is not the time for jingoistic bravado and bull-headed pride. The Iranian ‘problem’ impacts the stability of the Middle East and pretty much everything wrong with the world. Remove the Iran / U.S. diplomatic tumor and you unleash dialogue, economic and political stability and, above all else, the possibility of peace in the Middle East.

The world is staring at the brinksmanship of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad and the tainted schoolboy thinking of the Bush administration and the world does nothing but hold its breath and pause. Month after month, year after year has passed but perhaps finally the ever-decreasing circle of U.S. threats, U.N. chatter, and sanctimonious Iranian responses might just possibly be near an end. Something, or someone, has got to give. Fortunately, or unfortunately, both sides to the problem - Bush and Ahmadinejad - are in dire straits.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad has run out of options. His gas tank is literally empty and his political engine is close to stalling. President Bush’s term in office draws to a close and has all the zest of a rancid dead duck. Both leaders have lost the support of their powerbase. Both are embroiled in resentment, rumor and failure. Both could use a foreign policy success - some degree of closure, of face-saving. An opportunity exists for both Iran and the U.S. to resolve the nuclear issue, embrace a common Iraq security plan and provide some degree of stability and upbeat dialogue to the middle east.

In the new few days Ahmadinejad will travel to New York City to address the United Nations Security Council as it debates new sanctions against an increasingly isolated Iran. Iran is out of poker chips and its obstinate refusal to cease the enrichment of uranium - the catalyst for America’s dismissive vitriol - is the sole reason for the U.N. impasse.

Iran is in a power crunch. Despite having the world’s third largest oil reserves, Iran is increasingly unable to meet its ever-expanding domestic energy demands. Iranian citizens have long enjoyed heavily subsidized domestic oil prices, and the governing Mullah’s Sovietesque central command of the Iranian economy has created massive unemployment, rising inflation, decaying civil infrastructure and a hugely inefficient welfare system. Their oil production facilities neglected and ignored for years, are exporting less oil each year that can only exasperate Iran’s economic woes. While other oil exporting nations have enjoyed the cash cow that is high gas prices, Iran has suffered from trade sanctions and U.S. inspired barriers to its economic development.

Iran’s unwillingness, or perhaps inability, to pay the Russians for the construction of the Bushehr nuclear reactor has seriously damaged the one country Iran has always relied upon for political and economic support. Russia has publicly withdrawn its resources from the nuclear project under the pretense of political strife but Russia has long been a whore to contentious business practices so Iranian payment problems seem the more likely cause for Russia’s anger with the Mullahs.

Such is Iran’s desperate need for energy that it has even gone so far try and lure European nations away from Russian natural gas via Iranian gas pipeline deals in exchange for access to their electricity grids. Albania, a stalwart ally of Russia, has closed a ‘natural gas for electricity‘ deal with Iran that has encouraged other former Soviet states to examine similar deals as they try to remove the monopolistic yoke of Russian natural gas. This certainly won’t help improve RussoIranian relations.

So now is the time for the United States to gingerly place its diplomatic toe into the chilly waters that separates its national security interests in the Middle East from those of the Iranian leadership. An open and honest dialogue with Iran does not represent weakness. At the very least it publicly demonstrates to a very anti-American world that a resolution for the Iranian ‘problem’ is a resolution for a more stable Middle East. Period.

Opinionist.com