Obviously, there is some analogical traction in the two situations. “It takes a Nixon to go to China” is now a cliche, but at one time, the idea of Richard Nixon shaking hands with Chairman Mao in ” Red China” would have provoked gales of laughter. Moreso, than the idea of Ahmadinejad shaking hands with Bush would today – the two leaders are, for example, respectfully juxtaposed on Ahmadinejad’s own website. It is hard to imagine hyperideological Chinese Red Guards entertaining something similar in the advent of Nixon’s trip to Beijing.

Like Ahmadinejad’s reputation for Islamist militancy today, Richard Nixon’s anticommuninst credentials were more than secure in 1969. Having ” made his bones” with the Alger Hiss case, his hardline foreign policy positions as Vice-President, his role as Eisenhower’s emissary to the right wing and a record of redbaiting of Democratic opponents, Nixon did not feel a need to even emphasize the issue when running against Hubert Humphrey. The only elections Nixon ever lost, in fact, were the time an opponent outflanked him to the right ( JFK, 1960 ) and in the 1962 gubernatorial race, where anticommunism had less salience as an issue.

Nixon’s political confidence was such that he was always far more concerned about keeping the

” liberal” State Department in the dark about his China policy than he was about the inevitable reaction of the GOP far right, whom he had effectively isolated. With my albeit very limited insight into Iranian political affairs, there does not appear to be anyone in Iran today to ” the political right” of Ahmadinejad; he has the support of the Pasdaran commanders and the most extreme senior Ayatollahs. Supreme Guide Khameini is actually marginally more moderate, as is the powerful former president Rafsanjani.

On the other hand, there some very substantive differences between the two situations as well, strategically as well as in terms of politics or biography. First the strategic differences:

First, the hard ” triangular” relationship of the United States, Soviet Union and China positioned in rivalry to one another is lacking today with Iran. Nixon’s ” China Card ” was a geopolitical Ace of Spades coming up with two aces showing; it caused an earthquake in international relations.

While there is an ” EU card”, an “IAEA card” a “Russia card” and various China, UNSC, India and Iraq ” cards” today in the face-off with Iran, these cards are all more like pairs of threes or twos as far as both players are concerned. None of them help all that much. Like it or not, this issue will be decided bilaterally and the only “ace in the hole” is if Iran acquires a nuclear bomb sooner rather than later.

And most importantly, globalization, with the subsequent diffusion of power and the erosion of old international relations rule sets, have given Iran and the United States more options, fewer restraints and less downstream control over events than statesmen faced in Nixon’s day. Nor is Iran a power on par with China in 1972 or as isolated a state as China was under Mao. These factors probably make miscalculation far more likely with Iran even if the stakes, thankfully, are far lower than during the Cold War.

Now for the politics, Iran’s and Ahmadinejad’s. Dr. Barnett writes:

“Now, the idealists will say, “This is horrible. We trade the mullahs for a real strong man.”

But first things first. We have to kill the revolution and that will a trusted agent (not by us, but by the mullahs). To survive this process, Ahmadinejad needs to deliver. And since we know what he needs to deliver, we finally have some real influence and power over the situation, when we have neither now. Knowing what he needs to survive and knowing it is within our power to grant that, we begin a dialogue that can serve our purposes in Baghdad, Tel Aviv, Beirut, Damascus, Riyadh, Islamabad–all over the dial.

…And the fear-mongers on our side want to have you believe that Ahmadinejad is JUST a nutcase whose irrationality means we must pre-empt and pre-empt now.

We have consistently misread and underestimated the complexity of Iranian domestic politics.

In reality, we have Iran right where we want it and need it to be: needing help from us to survive. If we had any diplomats of Kissingerian brilliance, we’d seize this opportunity and dismantle the mullahs’ rule by 2010 (my prediction going back to PNM). Our biggest problem right now is the lack of strategic imagination and skill among the senior ranks of this administration.”

This is where Iranian ” kremlinology” gets exceedingly tricky.

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