Where are America's "million Trotskyites" when you need them?
When Iran' UN Ambassador told the Boston Globe that Iran would "consider establishing an internationally owned consortium inside Iran that could produce nuclear fuel with Iranian participation" - a proposal advocated by such impeccably credentialed members of the US foreign policy establishment as former US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Pickering - America's Trotskyite press could have had a field day.
"The Revolution Betrayed," their headlines could have blared. "Iran Accepts Bush Administration Premise It Has Fewer Rights Than Brazil."
Some accuse the Bush Administration of having a double standard on Iran's nuclear program. But this is misleading. It's really a triple standard. Moreover, Iran has, in principle, accepted the operation of a triple standard.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is premised on a double standard. There's one set of commitments for the nuclear powers - like the United States - and another set of commitments for the non-nuclear powers, like Iran.
Then there's the "actually existing" Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the NPT "as observed." In the NPT "as observed," the nuclear powers don't actually have to do anything, except mumble the word "disarmament" under their breath occasionally, with their fingers crossed behind their backs, while trying not to laugh. The non-nuclear powers, of course, have actual commitments that they are expected to comply with.
What the Bush Administration has been arguing for is a triple standard: one standard for the nuclear powers, one standard for the non-nuclear powers, and a third standard for a group of countries which may be defined as follows: "Iran, so long as it has a government that we don't like."
The Bush Administration argues that because Iran was not transparent about its nuclear program in the past, it has forfeited its right to enrich uranium for a peaceful nuclear program under the NPT, like Brazil.
And Iran, if it accepts the Pickering proposal, is accepting the premise that it should have fewer rights than Brazil. Iran is not, if it accepts the Pickering proposal, contesting the operation of a triple standard. It's simply contesting what the triple standard should be - advocating that the triple standard be international control of an enrichment program on Iranian soil, rather than no enrichment program on Iranian soil at all.
But the Bush Administration refuses to acknowledge that there is a serious Iranian proposal on the table - or that the proposal has supporters among America's foreign policy elite - because according to the Bush Administration the standoff is over whether there can be any enrichment in Iran at all, under any circumstances, ever, so long as Iran has a government that the US doesn't like. So any proposal that countenances enrichment on Iranian soil, is by the Bush Administration's definition, not serious.
This might seem to some like an insider policy debate. But Americans have a big stake in changing the current US policy. Because of the Bush Administration's current policy, the United States and Iran stand at the precipice of war. Because of the Bush Administration's current policy, the United States and Iran cannot cooperate to help bring peace to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. If there were political settlements to the violent conflicts in these countries, which Iran could help facilitate and enforce, U.S. soldiers who are currently on track to die in these conflicts could instead come home and rejoin their families.
Of course, the Bush Administration places a higher value on enforcing its dogma about Iran's nuclear program than it does on the lives of U.S. soldiers.
But what about us?