The Sunni-Shiite FollyThe Bush administration's cockeyed strategy to promote sectarian conflict in the Middle East.

The Iranians are expanding their presence in Iraq, the Saudis are cutting a separate deal with them to contain the strife in Lebanon, and who can blame either party?

PRINTDISCUSSE-MAILRSSRECOMMEND...SINGLE PAGE

FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSE

Yes, as the AP reported Tuesday, this surge of Saudi-Iranian cooperation "could complicate Washington's efforts to isolate Tehran." But it is Bush's abandonment of diplomacy that has left the vacuum that the Saudis and Iranians are now trying to fill. And given the alternative of mayhem and anarchy, their new rapprochement might not be a bad thing.

Iran's expansive ambitions these days are fueled mainly by two sources: high oil prices, which swell its treasury and strengthen its leverage over industrial nations; and the evaporation of its closest, most threatening rivals—Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The irony, of course, is that the United States facilitated both developments—indirectly in the former case (the United States doesn't import oil from Iran, but its extravagant consumption boosts prices on the global market, which enriches the mullahs' regime) and very directly in the latter (the United States overthrew Tehran's chief enemies).

This is not to say that President Bush should have refrained from toppling Saddam or the Taliban in order to keep Tehran holed up. But he should have foreseen the consequences and adjusted his diplomacy accordingly.

In fairness, Bush did just that, initially. In the weeks leading up to the invasion of Afghanistan, middle-level U.S. and Iranian officials held face-to-face talks on cooperative measures for the war. Tehran cut the talks off after Bush's State of the Union Address in January 2002, in which he tied together Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an "axis of evil."

As the invasion of Iraq got under way, the Bush administration's neocons dreamed of fomenting "regime change" in Iran (and maybe Syria) after Baghdad fell. Yet when the American military found itself bogged down in Iraq, Tehran's expansionists were given freer reign still.

Thus was sparked the latest U.S. strategy of herding the Sunni Arab states (especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan) into an alliance against the growing Shiite threat (Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah).

There are three serious problems with this idea.

First, as Michael Young points out in a Slate column today, the Sunni states' leaders don't much like it. They face challenges from Shiite militants in their own cities. Joining a war of civilizations against Shiite strongholds, especially a war led by the much-loathed Americans, would jeopardize their own hold on power. (It doesn't matter, in this sense, whether the war is a hot or cold one.)

PRINTE-MAILRECOMMEND...RSS

FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSE

Fred Kaplan is Slate's "War Stories" correspondent and author of 1959: The Year Everything Changed. He can be reached through his Web site, http://1959thebook.com.

SPONSORED CONTENT

• Leaving Iraq
  What will happen when U.S. combat troops withdraw?
  Fred Kaplan | June 26, 2009
• Disengagement With Iran
  After its fraudulent election, Obama should harden his stance with Iran.
  Fred Kaplan | June 15, 2009
• Obama Couldn't Sway the Iranian Election Even if He Wanted To
  But a lot rides on what he does after the vote.
  Fred Kaplan | June 11, 2009
• Search for more War Stories articles
• Subscribe to the War Stories RSS feed
• View our complete War Stories archive