The neo-conservative lobby in Washington DC is working hard to convince President George W. Bush to attack Iran in 2008. There is a consensus among observers in the United States that a Democratic president in the White House would not have the guts to take this step. So the pressure is on to commit George W. Bush to an air strike before he leaves office.
In the February 2008 issue of the pro-Israeli magazine Commentary, Norman Podhoretz placed the responsibility squarely at Bush's feet. Podhoretz argues that Bush should not leave this decision for his successor. Moreover, he insists that air strikes against Iranian targets are best carried out by the United States, not by an Israeli proxy.
The neo-conservative lobby is unrelenting and has a track record in steering US foreign policy in the past decade. Podhoretz was among the original founders of the New American Century think-tank arguing for the supremacy of the United States in the wake of the Soviet collapse, and an ardent advocate of military action against Iraq in 2003. That the US invasion of Iraq prompted a bloody civil war and a complete breakdown of civil structures do not seem to have dampened Podhoretz's resolution.
The neo-conservatives have insisted on the inherent ideological foundations that prevent the Iranian regime from responding to the international 'carrot and stick' approach. Podhoretz argues that 'religious and/or ideological passions' in Iran do not allow for a 'cost-benefit approach'. In other words, the Iranian regime is bent on the destruction of Israel and the United States, and no amount of positive incentives, or threats of negative consequences, would deter it. In this perspective, Iran is presented as an irrational actor, blinded by fanatical rage against the United States and its allies.
This is a gross misreading of the Iranian regime and its objectives. Contrary to assumptions regarding the supremacy of ideology in Iranian foreign policy making, Iran has been quite careful not to jeopardise its geo-strategic interests for the sake of ideology. When its two northern neighbours Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war (1988-1994), Iran supported the Christian state of Armenia against the Muslim state of Azerbaijan, despite extensive cultural, linguistic and, of course, religious links between Iran and Azerbaijan. Tehran feared that an Azeri victory would boost separatist sentiments among Iran's large Azeri ethnic minority who predominantly live in the Azerbaijan province of Iran.
Similarly, Iran