SSAP Issue Paper Iran:
When Richard Nixon announced the Nixon Doctrine He looked for states who could stand in their region and defend the values and principles America stood for. In the Middle East their were two Pillars. One was Saudi Arabia and the other Iran, then under the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Even today there are two major axis in US policy in the middle east one is still our ally but after the Islamic revolution in 1979 the other axis turned against the United States. Iran sponsors terror in Lebanon, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia to name just a few locations. They offer a security umbrella for Syria to defy international norms and laws. But is Iran a cartoonish supervillian with a Pseudo Hitler out to dominate and walk the middle east like a colossus or is their a deeper picture we must look at when we delve into our Public Policy.
To look at Iran and understand Iran in policy I would encourage you to look at a map of the middle east before WWI and a map of the Middle East today. Minus some insignificant issues only the Turks and the Iranians are states that go back that far. Iran was never carved apart in the Versailles Conference. Iran is part of a long tradition going back to the Persian empire in the bible.A large portion of the Persian Gulf shore remains Iranian as it was before. If your map shows oil supply and reserves Iran holds large oil supplies and mineral riches. As Richard Nixon and his foreign policy team recognized Iran would be a power from a perspective of nationalism and resources. But whereas Richard Nixon cultivated Iran as an ally other administrations such as the Carter administration were combative to the Iranian regime, which lead to the reforms that enabled the Iranian Extremists to take control of the political culture of Iran and then they over reacted and the oppression encouraged by that change in policy lead to revolution and American hostages held at an embassy.
But in todays world matters have changed. In the former Central Asian republics of the USSR we see ethnic Persians in control or significant minorities in all of these states. We see ethnic Persians as well in Afghanistan. There is whats called the “Shiite Crescent” in Southern Iraq and Northern Saudi arabia along with Iran. This Crescent puts itself in dominion over a larger part of the oil supply then Just Iran. With these additional factors and the revolution which Iran has sought to Import into Lebanon the role of Iran expanding as a power, which its resources and position in the world enable them to, even more dangerous.
Iran has a large sphere of influence and resources to spread the influence. States around it (Pakistan and India) have developed Nuclear programs. Israel a state who often finds itself on the wrong end of Iranian asymmetric influence has nuclear weapons and Iraq under the Baathist regime attempted to Develop nuclear weapons. And with rumors and tall tales putting secret Nuclear programs in states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt as well. Iran has shown itself desirous of Nuclear weapons through their participation in the AQ Khan network, as well as several covert incidents with former soviet engineers. Iran has developed missiles of longer and longer range which only serve a practical purpose with non conventional warheads. But does this mean Iran is developing Nuclear weapons?
Strong evidence suggests that they are, however they like the Israelis could be seeking a policy of nuclear ambiguity. While Israel has through controlled sources leaked out evidence of a nuclear device they have never tested a device so it is unconfirmed. Could Iran be doing the same and wanting to gain the same security umbrella the Israelis have from Nuclear ambiguity or to negate the Israeli advantage. Not knowing if the Iranians have a bomb could be just as dangerous to Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other states within the sphere of Iran. But there are other issues which are concerning with Iran as well outside of the potential of Iranian Nuclear weapons.
Iraq is an example of the problem Iranian influence plays in the region. A Grand Ayatollah returned to Iraq and offered to lead his people down an alternative pathway. He moved to put the state and the theocratic institutions as separate institutions of power. The religious institutions of Iraq held prominence over the religious institutions of Iran and had a stable and democratic Iraq prospered Iranian claims of Islamic centered authority for their state would become seriously questionable. So Iran's sponsorship of Al-Sadar and others in Southern Iran and the instability and loss of life that came was predictable, especially with the history of Lebanon as another example of this same formula. While the United States government did want to avoid setting up “puppets” in the Iraqi polity but when Iran enters into the picture such a void will be filled by the only actor willing to set up “puppets”
However in Iran the story is not all bleak their exists a youth movement that is vehemently opposed to the current regime. Iranian Labor Unions are seeing people imprisoned for labor disobedience. A Middle Class which has grown in some of the few bright spots in the economy as well as ethnic groups struggling for self determination. The key in US policy is to encourage these groups to peacefully dissent, while standing strong in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and encouraging through our allies and the international community for the Iranian regime to stop supporting terror and stop seeking Weapons of mass destruction. By supporting dissidents within, putting out Military around Iran, and diplomatic Isolation we can put all pressures on them short of military conflict which is the only climate where true diplomacy can work
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Introducing our Executive VP and Treasurer in her own words
by Former Governor Heather Hixon
After I left the Governors office in Oklahoma I looked forward to a life of retirement from the world of living a public life. So I am sitting at my kitchen table typing up my first blog post as I have returned to the the life I set aside. It was about the same time the Bush administration came into Washington and I went on the speaking circuit and enjoying a life outside of the like light. I feel like these years have aged myself, and aged my country. I worked in the State Department, USAID, and for the US at the UN and it isn't my place to attack folks who make choices above my pay grade. However in the current Administration a lot of good ideas in policy have been lost in bad application and implementation. I look at the loss of a lot of important ideas and the political climate of politicians and parties that has made doing what we have to for our own policy the hostage of the 24 hour news cycle. I was at a charity fund raiser and the Chairman of the Board for the Safe and Secure America Project was seated across the table from me. By the desert course I convinced him I was the candidate to direct the outreach for the next election and I convinced myself I should take this job.
My son got interested in the teachings of Rick Warren, on the role of purpose and dedication in life. I think about that sense of purpose and it is a fundamental tale in our American Culture. America was a poor nation who wanted to sell a small set of wares and a large set of agriculture products. A babe in the world of nations, we could have sought a protector or an alliance but the founders had a sense of purpose and a sense of Direction. An America that was a friend to all seeking to live our own way and trade with those who would be our friends. But like my son, we had to learn that purpose alone is not enough. Some times purpose without leadership leads to watching Rome Burn. In that very world John Quincy Adams, who as a young man wrote for President Washington the call to avoid entangling alliances, for President James Monroe drafted the Monroe Doctrine. We didn't have the might to enforce it, and the idea came first from the British government, but the men who were young when Washington liberated this country understood Purpose requires leadership and our young Brothers and Sisters in the Western Hemisphere should not stand under the sword and shield of the British Empire but should be defended by their older brother.
In China, a great and eternal empire stood on the brink of destruction. A revolution threatened to wipe out the people visiting China some of whom held a place of Imperial dominion over China. Our government joined in to defend its citizens, and we then enjoyed on those imperial powers that china should not be cut apart into new Colonial Nations and within the zones of influence all nations should be able to trade and enter to do business. Could we have fought a war to keep China free? Regrettably we could not but some of the freedom we fought for lead to Hong Kong and the rebirth of China as economic nation and perhaps some day a fully capitalist one.
I would like to say all exercise of American power has been as just as those. I could speak to the rebuilding of Germany and Japan among other positive exercises of power in American foreign policy but what is clear in our history is when America withdraws from the World or does not exercise power with Justness and purpose the world and the United States suffers. After the close of World War I short sighted United States Senators and members of the White House decided that we should disassemble our navy. They decided we should ratchet up tariffs and taxes and shut America off from the world. Adolph Hitler and the great depression came as a result. An age where people around the world questioned the values of freedom, liberty, and democracy. We entered in to World War I and World War II late, and after other peoples and other nations paid the price with lives and destruction. The lesson of History shows that America has a purpose, and when we shrug from that purpose the world suffers.
I can't blame those who fought in those Generational wars for the need of shrugging off the Armour of war and putting on the robe of peace, but the world is a place demanding an American leadership. And we can sympathize as we ourselves after the war with communism were offered up those same choices. We entered into a policy we viewed as more moral with our CIA and reduced our human intelligence. We reduced our services by a quarter or a third. We went to turn our swords into plowshares as the empire of the communist world fell by the wayside from the basement of their castle snakes of a new conflict rose out to bite at our ankles. In the smoke of our civil war a snake rose in Mexico where the French Empire put up a puppet king to rule over Mexico and the sides of our Civil war considered the prospect of uniting to free Mexico. In the Boxer Rebellion and in the Monroe doctrine our leadership looked forward but in the 1990s we saw a foreign policy that instead looked backward and did not look for the next threat to our security. Even as the first attack at the World Trade Center, the bombing of the Barracks in Saudi Arabia, to the destruction of our embassy we lacked a government with a vision and drive to put back the Armour that America has so justly wielded in the defense of humanity in this world. Even President Bush when he was elected did not call for the Armour to be slipped on once again. The Armour weak and rusted and loose but young men my sons age went to fight a war with the purpose and drive that has lead to American greatness over the many years. But these men my son's age are fighting without a leader putting the vision of foreign policy forward as the United States fights the third great generational war of American History. So with that in mind I am going to try to advocate for the Justness of America and the Justness of our ability to fight for the values we stand for.
After I left the Governors office in Oklahoma I looked forward to a life of retirement from the world of living a public life. So I am sitting at my kitchen table typing up my first blog post as I have returned to the the life I set aside. It was about the same time the Bush administration came into Washington and I went on the speaking circuit and enjoying a life outside of the like light. I feel like these years have aged myself, and aged my country. I worked in the State Department, USAID, and for the US at the UN and it isn't my place to attack folks who make choices above my pay grade. However in the current Administration a lot of good ideas in policy have been lost in bad application and implementation. I look at the loss of a lot of important ideas and the political climate of politicians and parties that has made doing what we have to for our own policy the hostage of the 24 hour news cycle. I was at a charity fund raiser and the Chairman of the Board for the Safe and Secure America Project was seated across the table from me. By the desert course I convinced him I was the candidate to direct the outreach for the next election and I convinced myself I should take this job.
My son got interested in the teachings of Rick Warren, on the role of purpose and dedication in life. I think about that sense of purpose and it is a fundamental tale in our American Culture. America was a poor nation who wanted to sell a small set of wares and a large set of agriculture products. A babe in the world of nations, we could have sought a protector or an alliance but the founders had a sense of purpose and a sense of Direction. An America that was a friend to all seeking to live our own way and trade with those who would be our friends. But like my son, we had to learn that purpose alone is not enough. Some times purpose without leadership leads to watching Rome Burn. In that very world John Quincy Adams, who as a young man wrote for President Washington the call to avoid entangling alliances, for President James Monroe drafted the Monroe Doctrine. We didn't have the might to enforce it, and the idea came first from the British government, but the men who were young when Washington liberated this country understood Purpose requires leadership and our young Brothers and Sisters in the Western Hemisphere should not stand under the sword and shield of the British Empire but should be defended by their older brother.
In China, a great and eternal empire stood on the brink of destruction. A revolution threatened to wipe out the people visiting China some of whom held a place of Imperial dominion over China. Our government joined in to defend its citizens, and we then enjoyed on those imperial powers that china should not be cut apart into new Colonial Nations and within the zones of influence all nations should be able to trade and enter to do business. Could we have fought a war to keep China free? Regrettably we could not but some of the freedom we fought for lead to Hong Kong and the rebirth of China as economic nation and perhaps some day a fully capitalist one.
I would like to say all exercise of American power has been as just as those. I could speak to the rebuilding of Germany and Japan among other positive exercises of power in American foreign policy but what is clear in our history is when America withdraws from the World or does not exercise power with Justness and purpose the world and the United States suffers. After the close of World War I short sighted United States Senators and members of the White House decided that we should disassemble our navy. They decided we should ratchet up tariffs and taxes and shut America off from the world. Adolph Hitler and the great depression came as a result. An age where people around the world questioned the values of freedom, liberty, and democracy. We entered in to World War I and World War II late, and after other peoples and other nations paid the price with lives and destruction. The lesson of History shows that America has a purpose, and when we shrug from that purpose the world suffers.
I can't blame those who fought in those Generational wars for the need of shrugging off the Armour of war and putting on the robe of peace, but the world is a place demanding an American leadership. And we can sympathize as we ourselves after the war with communism were offered up those same choices. We entered into a policy we viewed as more moral with our CIA and reduced our human intelligence. We reduced our services by a quarter or a third. We went to turn our swords into plowshares as the empire of the communist world fell by the wayside from the basement of their castle snakes of a new conflict rose out to bite at our ankles. In the smoke of our civil war a snake rose in Mexico where the French Empire put up a puppet king to rule over Mexico and the sides of our Civil war considered the prospect of uniting to free Mexico. In the Boxer Rebellion and in the Monroe doctrine our leadership looked forward but in the 1990s we saw a foreign policy that instead looked backward and did not look for the next threat to our security. Even as the first attack at the World Trade Center, the bombing of the Barracks in Saudi Arabia, to the destruction of our embassy we lacked a government with a vision and drive to put back the Armour that America has so justly wielded in the defense of humanity in this world. Even President Bush when he was elected did not call for the Armour to be slipped on once again. The Armour weak and rusted and loose but young men my sons age went to fight a war with the purpose and drive that has lead to American greatness over the many years. But these men my son's age are fighting without a leader putting the vision of foreign policy forward as the United States fights the third great generational war of American History. So with that in mind I am going to try to advocate for the Justness of America and the Justness of our ability to fight for the values we stand for.
OOC: Whats going on here.
The Safe and Secure America Project is a Special Interest group in the game ROAD TO POWER and will serve as a resource for said organization in the Game. I play the Character who runs the SIG for game purposes. So any words typed up here after this point will be In Character and in the game Universe.
the side bar with my picture is who I am OOC. There will be an IC post about my character in the game
the side bar with my picture is who I am OOC. There will be an IC post about my character in the game
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