Busted Stuff: America’s Disastrous Iran Policy

http://goingtotehran.com/snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory-the-case-for-u-s-iranian-rapprochement-that-obama-must-still-make-leveretts-in-the-national-interest

 Busted Stuff:  America’s Disastrous Iran Policy

By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

Posted on March 27th, 2015

Stakes in the nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 couldn’t be higher for the countries involved—especially for the United States.  After nearly a decade and a half of disastrously self-damaging wars, “counter-terrorism campaigns,” and military occupations in the Middle East, the dysfunction and incoherence of U.S. policy is now on full display, from Iraq to Libya, Syria, and now Yemen.  To recover, Washington must accept on-the-ground realities:  U.S. efforts to dominate the region have failed and the Islamic Republic of Iran is now a rising power with which America must come to terms.

But President Obama has yet to explain why the United States—for its own interests, not as a favor to Iran, or simply because Americans are war-weary—needs rapprochement with the Islamic Republic.  Absent such advocacy, his administration may still reach a nuclear deal with Iran.  But it will lose the political fight at home over a new Iran policy, squandering the chance for a broader strategic opening with Tehran and locking the United States into increasingly steep strategic decline in the Middle East and globally.http://goingtotehran.com/snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory-the-case-for-u-s-iranian-rapprochement-that-obama-must-still-make-leveretts-in-the-national-interest