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We Don’t Have Natural Allies

There are (at least) three things fundamentally wrong with Frank Gaffney’s article on negotiations with Iran and Syria.  First, he assumes that merely entering into talks with Tehran “legitimates” the regime.  Presumably, this has already occurred when the British, French, Germans and countless other respectable countries talk to them, trade with them and enter into […]

There are (at least) three things fundamentally wrong with Frank Gaffney’s article on negotiations with Iran and Syria.  First, he assumes that merely entering into talks with Tehran “legitimates” the regime.  Presumably, this has already occurred when the British, French, Germans and countless other respectable countries talk to them, trade with them and enter into military cooperative structures with them (e.g., India).  Tehran’s legitimacy in the eyes of the world is actually not in question, except in the United States and Israel, so we would be conferring nothing on them that they do not already possess in abundance. 

Second, he assumes that the United States government has “natural allies” elsewhere in the world, in this case the “Iranian people” (apparently including the “Iranian people” who voted for Ahmadinejad!).  This is entirely wrong.  We have allies, but none of these is a natural ally, because no two states or entities are ever really natural allies.  Their interests may coincide for a time, but they are never permanently aligned and their “natural alliance” is as changeable as the circumstances that bring it into being.  France and Russia became “natural allies” only after the unification of Germany, and ceased to be “natural allies” the moment that Germany was divided.  Now that France and Germany are oddly on good terms with one another, France and Russia have no “natural alliance.”  Alliances fulfill certain functions and address certain needs, and when these functions are obsolete the alliance has no longer any reason to exist, because there are only accidental and never natural alliances.  The very idea of a natural alliance is absurd, and all the more so for a country whose tradition it was and still should be never to have permanent alliances.

Third, he assumes that entering into negotiations means that there can be no turn to other options if the need should arise.  This is demonstrably false.  Does the opening of diplomatic channels foreclose the possibility of ever being able to close them again?  Once you open that door, are you actually obliged to keep it open forever?  Of course not.  This is a scare tactic.  A very lame scare tactic, I grant you, but there it is.  If these negotiations yield nothing of value, there will actually be a stronger push to use punitive sanctions or even less desirable means of coercion.  Not only does this move not “foreclose” the possibility of future military action, but the failure of these negotiations could be used (and will be used by people like Frank Gaffney) to argue that the time has come to act

So, that’s 0 for 3 for Gaffney.  Is there any reason to think that the rest of his fearmongering “analysis” is any more sound?

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