COLUMN: 12-05-2007

Now that the National Intelligence Estimate has been released showing that Iran actually has no active nuclear weapons program (and hasn't for at least 4 years), we should ignore the babble from both sides of the political aisle and actually rethink our strategy towards them. Our history of foreign policy towards Iran over the last 55 years has been one short-sighted blunder after another. From our CIA-funded revolution in the 1950's to install the oppressive authoritarian rule of the Shah to the mismanagement of the hostage crisis and wrong-headed reaction to the popular revolution in 1979, we should actually deal with the situation at hand rather than focusing on historic propaganda. Iran has a more democratic form of government than almost all of our allies in the middle east and we should be encouraging them to move further towards democracy by reforming the non-democratic aspects of their society (especially the ultimate control of the supreme leader over the democratically-elected president and legislature). Unfortunately, our lobbyist-controlled members of congress and president appear to be moving towards the same types of policies that benefit a few influential groups at the expense of the American people and our values and there doesn't appear to be any chance of changing this until we finally remove the corruption of money from our legislative and election processes.