Iran

Ok, i love George Bush foreign policy, but there's a shift that needs to be made. The Bush administration is being very forceful in its endeavor to weaken and bring into line state sponsors of terrorism, but it has been difficult at best. the iraq war has weakened the strength of our spheres of influence, and a weakening influence mixed with rising world powers makes for difficult circumstances. what i believe need to be done in the middle east is as follows.

1) a true act of peace towards Iran, something like opening dialogue, inviting an Iranian head to DC, putting an Iranian in space, or sending an American politician to Iran. Many people think this would be a bad thing to do, because Iran sponsors terrorism, hates Israel, and is developing nuclear technology. A genuine act of peace toward Iran would help lead to stable relations with Iran. the US can have relations with Iran and still not see eye to eye with them on Israel or nuclear technology. what relations will do is allow us to show Iran and the rest of the world that when you commit acts against American interests you will be hurting the peace that we want. Relations with the US would make Iran a more important player in the world stage, and would officially make them the power of their region. Iran wants this. Iran has a wonderful society, with technological advances in science, and a society more open to democracy or more democratic ways. In order to maintain their role as the respectable power in their region they will want to maintain good relations with the US, and this will mean their assistance with Iraq and restraint on hezbollah. Don't get me wrong, they will still support hezbollah and make moves against Israel, but they would do this regardless of their relations with the US. by opening relations with them they would show some restraint to maintain their standing. Iran does not like Al Qaeda, and would likely help us against Al Qaeda in order to show that they are ready to be a major world player(though they would stil back hezbollah, we would see this as a step in the right direction). the world would see a this more open and willing US and some of the strength of spheres of influence would there again. this way on the nuclear issue, we would have more sway with Iran. by maintaining these Iranian relations we would place Iran as the power in their region, and they would maintain stability in order to show the world that they are peaceful.


Part 2 will come later!