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The official Bush Administration response was curt. “Dismissed” was the word used in every paper’s lead. “This letter isn’t it,” the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said. “The letter appears to be more about changing the subject,” the White House press secretary chimed in. And President Bush himself told a group of Florida reporters, “It looks like it did not answer the main question that the world is asking, and that is, ‘When will you get rid of your nuclear program?’ ”
In other words, stamp that letter “Return to Sender.” As these responses correctly suggest, the immediate context for Ahmadinejad’s letter is Iran’s pursuit of the kind of nuclear technology that could enable it, at some point, to build a bomb. Iran’s “program,” unlike Iraq’s under Saddam, exists, and it is extremely dangerous. No one really knows what to do about it. Thanks in part (but only in part) to the Iraq fiasco, going to war, in the air or on the ground, is a very, very bad idea. That leaves diplomacy, backed by the threat of sanctions. The Administration’s dismissal of Ahmadinejad’s letter is of a piece with its broader approach, which is a refusal to negotiate, or in any way to engage, directly with Iran and its opaque government. The bankruptcy of this approach grows daily more apparent. Those who have lately called for changing it include not only Democrats like former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright but also Republicans like Richard Armitage, a former deputy Secretary of State; Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations; and Senator Chuck Hagel, of Nebraska.
As Henry Kissinger—another ex-Secretary of State, and another Republican supporter of engagement with Iran—noted last week in the Washington Post, the letter is not without significance, since it is “the first direct approach by an Iranian leader to a U.S. President in more than twenty-five years.” As for the letter itself, though, Kissinger said that the “demagogic tone” of it “merited its rejection.” How unimaginative. Isn’t the letter’s demagoguery precisely what requires (even if it doesn’t “merit”) a response? It’s true that the letter offered no specific openings on the nuclear issue. But there is such a thing as public diplomacy. Ahmadinejad’s letter was an example—and, both despite and because of its lunacy, a pretty effective one. The struggle against Islamist extremism, the Administration often reminds us, is, among other things, a battle of ideas.
One can imagine a letter from an American President. It would go beyond nuclear warnings to ask a few questions of its own—questions about the Iranian regime’s suppression of freedom of expression, routine use of torture, domination by unelected clerics, and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities. It would refute, in detail, Ahmadinejad’s ugly fantasies about the Holocaust and 9/11, which are common currency among parts of the Muslim public. Much of Ahmadinejad’s letter is devoted to religious hectoring, culminating in an appeal to Bush’s faith. The Iranian President writes that he has “been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus (Peace Be Upon Him) and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth.” One can imagine an American President responding that he believes in the rule of the people, righteous and unrighteous alike, exercised through democratic institutions. It’s a little harder to imagine that response from this particular American President. But one can dream.
The official Bush Administration response was curt. “Dismissed” was the word used in every paper’s lead. “This letter isn’t it,” the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said. “The letter appears to be more about changing the subject,” the White House press secretary chimed in. And President Bush himself told a group of Florida reporters, “It looks like it did not answer the main question that the world is asking, and that is, ‘When will you get rid of your nuclear program?’ ”
In other words, stamp that letter “Return to Sender.” As these responses correctly suggest, the immediate context for Ahmadinejad’s letter is Iran’s pursuit of the kind of nuclear technology that could enable it, at some point, to build a bomb. Iran’s “program,” unlike Iraq’s under Saddam, exists, and it is extremely dangerous. No one really knows what to do about it. Thanks in part (but only in part) to the Iraq fiasco, going to war, in the air or on the ground, is a very, very bad idea. That leaves diplomacy, backed by the threat of sanctions. The Administration’s dismissal of Ahmadinejad’s letter is of a piece with its broader approach, which is a refusal to negotiate, or in any way to engage, directly with Iran and its opaque government. The bankruptcy of this approach grows daily more apparent. Those who have lately called for changing it include not only Democrats like former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright but also Republicans like Richard Armitage, a former deputy Secretary of State; Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations; and Senator Chuck Hagel, of Nebraska.
As Henry Kissinger—another ex-Secretary of State, and another Republican supporter of engagement with Iran—noted last week in the Washington Post, the letter is not without significance, since it is “the first direct approach by an Iranian leader to a U.S. President in more than twenty-five years.” As for the letter itself, though, Kissinger said that the “demagogic tone” of it “merited its rejection.” How unimaginative. Isn’t the letter’s demagoguery precisely what requires (even if it doesn’t “merit”) a response? It’s true that the letter offered no specific openings on the nuclear issue. But there is such a thing as public diplomacy. Ahmadinejad’s letter was an example—and, both despite and because of its lunacy, a pretty effective one. The struggle against Islamist extremism, the Administration often reminds us, is, among other things, a battle of ideas.
One can imagine a letter from an American President. It would go beyond nuclear warnings to ask a few questions of its own—questions about the Iranian regime’s suppression of freedom of expression, routine use of torture, domination by unelected clerics, and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities. It would refute, in detail, Ahmadinejad’s ugly fantasies about the Holocaust and 9/11, which are common currency among parts of the Muslim public. Much of Ahmadinejad’s letter is devoted to religious hectoring, culminating in an appeal to Bush’s faith. The Iranian President writes that he has “been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus (Peace Be Upon Him) and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth.” One can imagine an American President responding that he believes in the rule of the people, righteous and unrighteous alike, exercised through democratic institutions. It’s a little harder to imagine that response from this particular American President. But one can dream.
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