Our Diplomacy Toward Iran Is Afflicted with Theocratic Overtones
Now, even Hugo Chavez has picked up the theocratic tones of diplomatic discourse started by George Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Juan Cole comments:
Hugo Chavez referred to US President George W. Bush as "the devil"in his speech before the UN general assembly on Wednesday, complaining that the stench of sulphur still hung in the air at the podium. Chavez crossed himself at the mention of Bush, a folk Catholic way of fending off Satan.
Bush himself opened the way for these sorts of comments with his 2002 State of the Union address, where he mysteriously allowed the Neoconservative lightweight David Frum to put into his mouth the phrase "the axis of evil" in referring to Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Critics at the time complained that they weren't an axis.
But the real problem is that "evil" is not a political term, it is a theological one. The president of a civil republic has no business trafficking in the rhetoric of evil. Besides, the best ethical theory sees evil as an attribute of acts, not of persons or countries. "Iran" is not "evil." Iran's governing officials may occasionally do evil things, but they are actions, not essences. If you call a person or a country "evil" you are demonizing them.
Having made Iran a demon, Bush refused to talk to it. At the time he put Iran in the axis of evil, reform President Mohammad Khatami had presided over candlelight vigils in Iran for the United States in the aftermath of the al-Qaeda attacks, and had called for people to people diplomacy and a "dialogue of civilizations." President Khatami has his flaws, but he was not and is not "evil."
So, having theologized international relations and turned them into moral absolutes, it is natural that Bush is subsequently paralyzed.
Bush started it. He started talking about other countries and leaders as "evil." He bears the responsibility for this importation of the absolute into our political discourse.
And having set up these theological absolutes, Bush became bound by them. He had to invade "evil" Iraq, because it was . . . evil. Bush keeps saying that Saddam Hussein was "dangerous" even if he did not have weapons of mass destruction. Apparently he was "dangerous" because he is "evil." His dangerousness was not related to actual capability to accomplish anything (which was low). He was intrinsically evil and dangerous.