Word: gulf
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Bush clung to his ambitious vision of peace and democracy in the Persian Gulf while assuaging the House of Saud with a $20 billion arms deal. He reaffirmed his devotion to the Iraq war and sent Condoleezza Rice on another "unannounced visit" to Baghdad?as if she could make any other kind. And he issued more warnings to Iran after U.S. warships were threatened in the Strait of Hormuz. "They'd better be careful and not be provocative," Bush said...
...much for careful versus provocative. The menacing audio in the naval incident apparently came not from Iranian boats but from a radio heckler known as the Filipino Monkey?one or more pranksters who have been jabbering over the Persian Gulf maritime channels for decades and who nearly became the first nobodies to start a world war since 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Ferdinand in 1914. Critics said the standoff in the strait illustrated how a single provocateur can exploit global tensions and spark an international crisis. And they weren't thinking of the Filipino Monkey...
...even our closest allies, the Administration's Iran policy amounts to a lurch from one imagined crisis to the next. But between U.S. hype and the rest of the world's indifference lies the stubborn truth about Iran: the most populous and economically thriving country in the Persian Gulf is run by a regime that arrests and tortures critics at home while fueling destabilization and violence abroad. What America needs is a sensible, sustainable Iran policy that can meet U.S. security and economic interests, command international support and withstand the shifting Middle Eastern sands. What would such a policy look...
Bush's latest strategy involves trying to contain Iran by arming Sunni counterweights in the region, like Saudi Arabia and other gulf states. Such a strategy is rooted in the cold war mantra that even if a regime was a "son of a bitch," it should be supported as long as it was "our son of a bitch." It doesn't work. Washington supported both Osama bin Laden and Saddam in the 1980s on precisely this logic, but after 9/11, Bush himself acknowledged that coddling the enemies of our enemies had not made them friends; instead it had helped...
Engaging Iran won't guarantee improved U.S.-Iranian relations or a more stable gulf region. But not engaging means more of the same. The longer we wait to rethink our Iran policy, the greater the likelihood that the next crisis will erupt into a full-fledged confrontation...