A regular feature appraising the logic of an editorial from the week's news.

Today's Editorial: Detente with Tehran? Ilan Berman argues in today’s Washington Times that the West should not make any accommodations with Iran. He offers three reasons to support his case.

First he says that Iran’s ideology makes it “far more than simply a nation-state.” This he bases on Iran’s 1979 constitution which tasks Iran’s clerical army with more than simply national defense, but also “fulfilling the ideological mission of jihad in God’s way; that is extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world.” This sentence in the constitution shows, Berman believes, that Iran “was—and remains—a radical revolutionary movement.” As such its goal is “not to become a part of the world community, but to overturn it.”

On this point we must note that Berman is not trying to argue that Iran is not a nation state as has generally been done with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, but simply that it is more than a nation state due to its interest in expanding its revolution. The same could have been said of the former USSR. Being a communist state the USSR was interested in expanding the communist revolution and supported radical militant groups to do so. It was not simply interested in using its military for “national defense.” Yet the U.S. was able to successfully engage diplomatically with the USSR and signed several treaties with the Soviets during the Cold War. It doesn’t logically follow then that being “more than a nation state” should exclude Iran from diplomatic conversations.

The second point Berman makes for his case is strategic. The Bush administration has imposed the condition that Iran “suspend it’s uranium enrichment prior to any dialogue.” Berman argues that this precondition keeps the Iranians from using protracted negotiations to stall for time to make more progress on their program. However, Berman does not provide us with an argument for why no dialogue will in any way keep the Iranians from making progress with their nuclear program.

Berman believes his last reason to be his “most compelling.” “In the next five to ten years,” Berman argues, “irrespective of what transpires on the nuclear front, Iran’s current leadership will give way to a new ruling order.” A bargain with Iran could lead to the “alienation of Iran’s young, pro-Western population.” However, he offers no reasons why a deal with Iran will alienate this young, pro-Western population. That it would do so is simply stated without a valid argument made for it.

While Berman’s premise that the U.S. should make no accommodations with Iran may well be true, he makes no valid arguments for his case.