It was inevitable that neoconservatives would greet the news of a negotiated settlement (even a mere interim one) with cries of appeasement and Munich. But let's all hand it to the Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens who goes one better, claiming in what appears to be all sincerity that the six month accord negotiated in Geneva is actually worse than Munich. Take that.
Stephens has dug himself something of hole here, not least because he's more or less run out of hyperbolic road. What happens if the U.S. and Iran actually negotiate a conclusive settlement? It seems like that's the time to trot out the "worse than Munich" stuff ... keep the powder dry and all that.
But beyond the rhetorical dead-end, there's some utility in Stephens' rhetoric. It's something of a testable hypothesis. Here's what Stephens argues will happen as a result of this six month deal:
After Munich came the conquest of Czechoslovakia, the Nazi-Soviet pact and World War II. After Paris came the fall of Saigon and Phnom Penh and the humiliating exit from the embassy rooftop. After Geneva there will come a new, chaotic Mideast reality in which the United States will lose leverage over enemies and friends alike.What will that look like? Iran will gradually shake free of sanctions and glide into a zone of nuclear ambiguity that will keep its adversaries guessing until it opts to make its capabilities known. Saudi Arabia will move swiftly to acquire a nuclear deterrent from its clients in Islamabad; Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal made that clear to the Journal last week when he indiscreetly discussed "the arrangement with Pakistan." Egypt is beginning to ponder a nuclear option of its own while drawing closer to a security alliance with Russia.
So we have three concrete predictions: 1. the Mideast will have a new "chaotic" reality; 2. Iran will "shake free" of sanctions; 3. Saudi Arabia will acquire a nuclear weapon.
I actually think Stephens might be right about the second prediction -- there's ample precedent here (Iraq, North Korea) and plenty of incentive for Iran to wiggle free. As for the third, it wouldn't be surprising either, though I think it's less likely. Still, we can only wait (anxiously) and see.
But it's the first prediction that's most significant and most easily dispensed with. The Mideast has been chaotic since, well, forever. It never seems to dawn on commentators complaining about the loss of U.S. leverage in the region that during the Reagan presidency (the one neocons pine for), one of the largest wars since the second World War was fought in the Middle East. That was chaos. U.S. leadership and regional influence under the sainted Reagan consisted of running interference for a dictator who neocons later concluded was the next Hitler while he used chemical weapons. The war ended in a stalemate with a million people dead and was followed by another invasion quickly thereafter that forced America to intervene.
Now Stephens would have us believe that this is the high water mark for American leadership in a region that was calm and pacified under Pax Americana. And, who knows, we may all look back from some future calamity and conclude it was. I hope not. But the relevant yard stick here is not the relative degree of chaos and misfortune in the Middle East but the extent to which such misfortune touches on U.S. security and the well-being of Americans. It seems dubious that this interim deal with Iran, which may well collapse anyway, has thrown those things sharply in jeopardy.
