The Emporia Gazette

February 14, 2012

• Headlines
• Sports
• Forums
• Weather
• Classifieds

• Help
• Log in
• Home

• E-mail story
• Post a comment
• iPod friendly version

Just as there are stages of grief, there are stages in the relations between nations. When those relations turn sour, there are usually three sequential stages — dissatisfaction, diplomacy (sometimes accompanied by economic sanctions) and war. The central stage is traditionally intended to avert the necessity of the third stage.

In its dealings with Iran, the United States seems to have substituted threats for quieter — and often more productive—forms of diplomacy. The vice president’s recent statements about Iran make it clear that he — and probably the president — thinks that the only way to sway an essentially hostile Mideast government is to make it clear that the United States is just itching for an excuse to send in the bombers and perhaps, the troops.

The threats may be enough to make the government of Iran rethink its commitment to its nuclear program, but they might also increase the Iranian determination to develop its own nuclear weapons. In the absence of any concerted effort at the upper levels of the Bush administration to pursue other forms of diplomacy, it appears that the administration has already decided that war with Iran would be a good thing.

That is possible. The Americans most vocal in supporting the idea of yet another Mideast military adventure are the same neocons who decided — sometime before the turn of the century — that the United States needed to go to war with Iraq. The neocons proved to be woefully wrong in their assessment of the possible benefits of war with Iraq, but that has not, apparently, diminished their influence with the White House — particularly with the vice president.

The White House may still be enamored of the policy of pre-emptive war and Mideast domination by creating presumably grateful new democracies, but times have changed in the rest of the nation. Most Americans have jumped off the neocon bandwagon. To those Americans, the vice president’s threats are just as frightening as he intends them to be to the Iranians.

At this time, a war with Iran — even one pre-emptive strike on nuclear labs — would been seen as proof not of American determination but of the administration’s undiminished taste for international aggression.

It is time to stop threatening war with Iran and to begin serious diplomatic efforts to persuade the Iranian government to act as responsible members of the international community.

Of course, diplomacy might not work. And, someday, it might be necessary to confront Iran with military might — but not now, and not by this administration.

It no longer has the credibility to lead the United States into a new war.