lily
02-05-2007, 10:58 PM
Interesting op-ed piece (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16931493/site/newsweek/?rf=nwnewsletter)
Liar’s Poker
In the showdown between Iran and the United States, both sides are bluffing.
But that doesn’t make it any less dangerous.
Web-Exclusive Commentary
By Christopher Dickey
Newsweek
Updated: 6:18 p.m. ET Feb 1, 2007
Feb. 1, 2007 - Ever since I read an article last year by poker historian
(and poet and novelist) James McManus about the Iranian art of bluffing, I’ve
been re-thinking the confrontation between Tehran and Washington.
McManus argues, most recently in the current issue of Card Player Magazine,
that the Iranians actually invented poker, or a game quite close to it,
which over the centuries made its way to France, across the Atlantic to New
Orleans, then up the Mississippi with riverboat gamblers. His basic point is
that chess, where all the pieces are visible on the board, is not a very
useful metaphor for Middle Eastern politics the way the Persians play the
game. It’s what’s hidden—what your opponents don’t see, and the way you make
your bets on that—which gives you strength.
President George W. Bush, with his instinct for throwing all the cards up in
the air, appears to have been persuaded of this principle, only very slowly.
In 2003 he passed up a “grand bargain” offered by the mullahs, when they
still feared America’s wrath. If Washington would drop sanctions and quit
pushing for regime change in Tehran, they said they’d open up their nuclear
program completely and help Bush stabilize the region. The White House took
a pass.
Almost four years later, now that we’ve been bled white in Baghdad, the
limits of American patience and endurance are as obvious as a stack of
hand-scribbled IOUs in a pot where brightly colored chips used to be, and
the grand bargain is no longer on the table. So Washington is trying the Big
Bluff. Having demonstrated its weakness, it wants to talk up its strength.
As missile batteries and aircraft carriers are deployed near Iran’s
frontiers, anonymous administration officials fuel speculation that a
military attack is all but inevitable.
It’s not. Neither the United States nor Israel (the wild card) wants an
open, all-out war. But in this bluffing game it’s useful to create what
McManus calls a “narrative” to keep the mullahs guessing. Washington wants
Tehran to believe that at some point, like gunslingers in an old Western,
the Americans might sweep away the cards and chips, throw over the table,
draw their Colt .45s and start shooting, just as, well … just as they did in
Iraq.
In the meantime, there are many more cards to be dealt, and we aren’t even
close to the nuclear no-limit climax.
Liar’s Poker
In the showdown between Iran and the United States, both sides are bluffing.
But that doesn’t make it any less dangerous.
Web-Exclusive Commentary
By Christopher Dickey
Newsweek
Updated: 6:18 p.m. ET Feb 1, 2007
Feb. 1, 2007 - Ever since I read an article last year by poker historian
(and poet and novelist) James McManus about the Iranian art of bluffing, I’ve
been re-thinking the confrontation between Tehran and Washington.
McManus argues, most recently in the current issue of Card Player Magazine,
that the Iranians actually invented poker, or a game quite close to it,
which over the centuries made its way to France, across the Atlantic to New
Orleans, then up the Mississippi with riverboat gamblers. His basic point is
that chess, where all the pieces are visible on the board, is not a very
useful metaphor for Middle Eastern politics the way the Persians play the
game. It’s what’s hidden—what your opponents don’t see, and the way you make
your bets on that—which gives you strength.
President George W. Bush, with his instinct for throwing all the cards up in
the air, appears to have been persuaded of this principle, only very slowly.
In 2003 he passed up a “grand bargain” offered by the mullahs, when they
still feared America’s wrath. If Washington would drop sanctions and quit
pushing for regime change in Tehran, they said they’d open up their nuclear
program completely and help Bush stabilize the region. The White House took
a pass.
Almost four years later, now that we’ve been bled white in Baghdad, the
limits of American patience and endurance are as obvious as a stack of
hand-scribbled IOUs in a pot where brightly colored chips used to be, and
the grand bargain is no longer on the table. So Washington is trying the Big
Bluff. Having demonstrated its weakness, it wants to talk up its strength.
As missile batteries and aircraft carriers are deployed near Iran’s
frontiers, anonymous administration officials fuel speculation that a
military attack is all but inevitable.
It’s not. Neither the United States nor Israel (the wild card) wants an
open, all-out war. But in this bluffing game it’s useful to create what
McManus calls a “narrative” to keep the mullahs guessing. Washington wants
Tehran to believe that at some point, like gunslingers in an old Western,
the Americans might sweep away the cards and chips, throw over the table,
draw their Colt .45s and start shooting, just as, well … just as they did in
Iraq.
In the meantime, there are many more cards to be dealt, and we aren’t even
close to the nuclear no-limit climax.