1 post tagged “diplomacy”
Victor Davis Hanson is a man I respect immensely as a pundit writer and historian. I am not so sure I agree with his good intentions of taking the slow route to reign in the global hostility of . Hanson presents a logical and well intentioned approach for America, EU and the United Nations to put the squeeze on Iran without utilizing military confrontation.
Hanson advocates a kind of united American and EU diplomatic assault on Iran through the vehicle of the United Nations slowly squeezing sanctions that Hanson believes will slowly constrict Iran’s compliance to global peace.
Hanson believes Iranian citizens will turn on the Mullocracy and Ahmadinejad if economic and living conditions became unbearable. Frankly I disagree. There is an obvious growing dissent in Iran, however for the most part Iranians have plugged into Shi'ite radicalism hook, line and sinker. We are talking about a regime that sent children as martyrs in the Iraq/Iran war to clear minefields. I doubt a little discomfort will shake Iranian support of radical Shi'itism.
The problem I have with this approach is that the EU is way too invested economically with Iranian oil to stand completely unified with America. Also, the United Nations Security Council has two permanent members with veto power that also are invested in the Iranian economy: Russia and China. That pretty much neutralizes the United Nations as a vehicle to squeeze sanctions successfully to the point for Iran to take notice. The U.N. sanctions (if any) will always be diluted to favor continued economic relations with Russia and China.
The EU is divided on Iran. Germany may be seeing the light (dimly) of Iran’s evil yet I doubt France would pierce the darkness of Iranian evil unless there was a diverted way to attain oil or Iran directly threatened French pride in some way. The British government is already invested in confronting Iranian evil yet there are a huge block of voters that may change that investment. There are many lesser EU members that adore American democracy since attaining freedom from the tyrannical slavery of the overtly Communist former Soviet Union. These lesser members are primarily from what was known in the Cold War days as the Soviet Bloc.
Hanson’s logic and intentions are sound. Hanson’s conclusions are doubtful to get off the drawing board to be executed.
