Week of April 14, 2008

Secretary of State Condi Rice wants the Arab states to shield Iraq from Iran's"nefarious influence." Rice seems unaware that she has installed in Baghdad parties like the Islamic Mission Party (al-Da'wa) and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) that are very close to Tehran, and that Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia advised her not invade Iraq because this would happen. And Sunnis, Salafis and Wahhabis would dissuade Iraq's Shiite majority from good relations with their Iranian Shiite neighbors . . . how? Whenever I hear Bush administration officials say something about the Middle East, it is as though I am listening to bad fiction read with a drunken slur. Opinion polling does not find that the Arab publics are afraid of or worried about Iran in any numbers, and in fact Israel's attack on largely defenseless little Lebanon in 2006 made Iran and Hizbullah more popular in the region.

I do think some psychological displacement is at work when a magnificent Holocaust Memorial Museum, in which the criminals are not Americans, precedes a Washington institution of equivalent stature dedicated to the saga of national violence that is slavery and segregation.

During the Cold War, we prevented an attack not only on the U.S. but also on America's allies by extending the American nuclear umbrella -- i.e., declaring that any attack on our allies would be considered an attack on the United States.

Such a threat is never 100 percent credible. Nonetheless, it made the Soviets think twice about attacking our European allies. It kept the peace.

We should do the same to keep nuclear peace in the Middle East. It would be infinitely less dangerous (and therefore more credible) than Cold War deterrence because there will be no threat from Iran of the annihilation of the United States. Iran, unlike the Soviet Union, would have a relatively tiny arsenal incapable of reaching the U.S.

How to create deterrence? The way John Kennedy did during the Cuban missile crisis. President Bush should issue the following declaration, adopting Kennedy's language while changing the names of the miscreants:

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran.

This should be followed with a simple explanation:"As a beacon of tolerance and as leader of the free world, the United States will not permit a second Holocaust to be perpetrated upon the Jewish people."

This policy -- the Holocaust Declaration -- would establish a firm benchmark that would outlive this administration. Every future president -- and every serious presidential candidate -- would have to publicly state whether or not he supports the Holocaust Declaration.

Barack Obama violated two elementary rules of political campaigning. A candidate should never play the role of a political scientist or sociologist analyzing a key electoral swing group from afar, and should never dissect the motivations of less privileged people when talking to a group of privileged people.