Fareed Zakaria has an interesting article in Newsweek here. In it he suggests that Iran is a rational actor on the world stage. If we think a little more deeply than the Bushies did, we might conclude that North Korea is as well.
A country's or individual's actions can only be judged rational or irrational with regard to their goals and their world view. World views are not always conscious but can be determined by looking at decisions and asking "what would the person or country have to believe and value to do that? So, when both Iran and North Korea pursue nuclear weapons, what must they value and believe?
First, like all countries, they value independence. No country wants to be a vassal state. Second they value the freedom to pursue their own version of the ethno-centric dream. The Iranian dream is far different from the dream of the leadership of North Korea and far different from the American dream.
Now, what do they believe? Well, if an American were to step into Iran's or the North Korean leadership's shoes for a second, we could see they have certain rational beliefs. First, the U.S. lumped them with Iraq in the axis of evil, then promptly invaded Iraq. I wonder what they might believe about our intentions with regard to them? Second, we invaded the one country of the three that was least likely to have an active nuclear program. I wonder what they concluded about the effect of a nuclear weapons program on the American preventative war policy?
Both Iran and North Korea, by continuing their nuclear weapons program, were acting rationally, within their world view and their beliefs.
So, how do you deal with countries once you realize that they are acting rationally within a set of beliefs and values different from your own? Since their values are so different from ours, how do we bend them to our will? How do we subjugate them? How do we turn them into quivering vassal states?
Well, if you are an authoritarian conservative, there is only one answer. You invade and punish and even torture until they do as you say. After all, there is only one valid world view, only one valid set of values... Ours!
Okay, but what if you're not an authoritarian conservative? How do you proceed then? You do what Zakaria is suggesting is available with Iran ... and what you have probably resorted to with your three year old, ... bribery. Not bribery of the pedestrian sort. Not offering tooth rotting candy, but appealing to another value. A value that the party may value even more than nuclear weapons. In other words, you have to find another value.
This is a tactic that is essential to almost all negotiations. Find something else they want. So, what does dear leader Kim Jong Il want even more than nuclear weapons? Respect. He wants to be a respected leader in the world community. He is a petty tyrant, everyone knows that except him. But if all he wants is to be treated with respect, whats the danger? Play the offer of respect against those pesky nuclear weapons that he doesn't really want. And besides, wouldn't a great leader of a fine nation want food for his people? A more open society would get that for him.
How about Iran? As Zakaria says, they are more rational still. They may just want nuclear power, security from American aggression and open trade with the west.
Okay, you may ask, if this is so easy, why couldn't the Bush administration do it? To me, the answer is simple. If being an authoritarian is important to someone, if it forms a central part of his identity, then he cannot simply step outside that identity and into someone else's identity. Could Kim Jong Il realize that he just wanted respect? No. That part of his personality would collapse as soon as he came to that realization. If Bush or Cheney realized that they believed in authoritarian conservatism not because it was true, but because they had a hole in their character, a twisted psyche, they would immediately grow... and thereby begin to transform into someone who no longer needed to be an authoritarian. Conservatives don't believe in negotiations or diplomacy because they can't believe in negotiations and diplomacy. It would destroy them.
That's why this new era can work. Obama can believe in negotiation, because he isn't stuck in the same way. He doesn't believe that ours is the only way.
Obama focuses on the process, not the particular issue. How do we solve the various issues of the day? We get the stakeholders in a room and let them work it out.
But, the conservatives say, not everyone is rational. They may be right, but it may not be who they think.