Obsessions are dangerous, because in any conflict, be it political, economic, or military, they create vulnerabilities that can be exploited by one's adversaries -- not to mention one's purported allies. That is because obsessions shape the Orientation of one's Observation - Orientation - Decision - Action (OODA) loop in a way that induces one to see and act on what one "wants" to see rather than what "is." When this happens, one's decision cycle looks inward and becomes disconnected from its environment, and as a result, the actions decided on will not have the desired outcome. The mismatch between desires and reality will then feed back into subsequent decision cycle, and if the obsession is not corrected inside the decision-maker's orientation , the mismatches will amplify themselves in subsequent actions. Left unaddressed only one outcome is possible: what the American strategist Colonel John Boyd, the inventor of the OODA Loop, used to call "incestuous amplification," or an increasingly self-referencing decision making spiral, that by "talking to itself, succumbs to an inevitable evolution into chaos.

America's amplifying obsessions with Israel are creating just this kind of evolution, and there is no better example than in our increasingly dangerous self-referencing policy towards Iran, which itself is now turning into an obsession.

The downward spiral becomes apparent when one tries to examine the results of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit to the Middle East through the eyes of those she was trying to win over. Her aim was to shore up our Arab "allies" in a unified anti-Iran policy. But as Rami Khouri, a highly-regarded observer of politics in the Middle East (bio), explains in this commentary in Lebanon's Daily Star (also attached below for your convenience), Clinton's efforts devolved into yet another version of our old self-referencing effort to shore up a pro- Israeli, neo-colonialist, foreign policy that is doomed to fail again.

Why chuckles greeted Hillary's Gulf tour

By Rami G. Khouri

Daily Star [Lebanon]

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=111835#

American secretaries of state have been coming to the Middle East to create all sorts of complex alliances against Iran for most of my recent happy life, but every time this show passes through our region I learn again the meaning of the phrase ýlack of credibility.ý Hillary Clinton is the latest to undertake this mission, and like her predecessors her comments are often difficult to take seriously.

We are told that her trip to the region has two main aims: to strengthen Arab resolve to join the United States and others in imposing harsh new sanctions to stop Iranýs nuclear development program; and to harness Arab support for resumed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. In both of these critical diplomatic initiatives the US has taken the lead and achieved zero results. Either the actors involved ý Arabs, Israelis, Iranians ý are all chronically, even chromosomally, dysfunctional (for which there is some evidence) or the US is particularly inept when assuming leadership.

The weakness in both cases, I suspect, has to do with the US trying to define diplomatic outcomes that suit its own strategic objectives and political biases (especially pro-Israel domestic sentiments). So Washington pushes, pulls, cajoles and threatens all the players with various diplomatic instruments, except the one that will work most efficiently in both the Iranian and Arab-Israeli cases: serious negotiations with the principal parties, based on applying the letter of the law, and responding equally to the rights, concerns and demands of all sides.

Two Clinton statements during her Gulf trip this week were particularly revealing of why Washington continues to fail in its missions in our region. The first was her expression of concern that Iran is turning into a military dictatorship: ýWe see that the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the Parliament, is being supplanted, and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship,ý Clinton said.

Half a century of American foreign policy flatly contradicts this sentiment (which is why Clinton heard soft chuckles and a few muffled guffaws as she spoke). The US has adored military dictatorships in the Arab world, and has long supported states dominated by the shadowy world of intelligence services. This became even more obvious after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when Washington intensified cooperation with Arab intelligence services in the fight against Al-Qaeda and other terror groups.

Washingtonýs closest allies in the Middle East are military and police states where men with guns rule, and where citizens are confined to shopping, buying cellular telephones, and watching soap operas on satellite television. Countries like Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Libya, as well as the entire Gulf region and other states are devoted first and foremost to maintaining domestic order and regime incumbency through efficient, multiple security agencies, for which they earn American friendship and cooperation. When citizens in these and other countries agitate for more democratic and human rights, the US is peculiarly inactive and quiet.

If Iran is indeed becoming a military dictatorship, this probably qualifies it for American hugs and aid rather than sanctions and threats. Clinton badly needs some more credible talking points than opposing military dictatorships. (Extra credit question for hard-core foreign policy analysts: Why is it that when Turkey slipped out of military rule into civilian democratic governance, it became more critical of the US and Israel?)

The second intriguing statement during Clintonýs Gulf visit was about Iranýs neighbors having three options for dealing with the ýthreatý from Iran: ýThey can just give in to the threat; or they can seek their own capabilities, including nuclear; or they ally themselves with a country like the United States that is willing to help defend them. I think the third is by far the preferable option.ý

This sounds reasonable, but it is not an accurate description of the actual options that the Arab Gulf states have. It is mostly a description of how American and Israeli strategic concerns and slightly hysterical biases are projected onto the Gulf statesý worldviews. These states in fact have a fourth option, which is to negotiate seriously a modus vivendi with Iran that removes the ýthreatý from their perceptions of Iran by affirming the core rights and strategic needs of both sides, thus removing mutual threat perceptions.

This is exactly the same option the US used when it negotiated dýtente and the Helsinki Accords with the Soviet Union (and whose results ultimately brought about the collapse of Communism). Why the US does not use the same sensible approach to the perceived threat from Iran is hard to explain. Perhaps two reasons explain it: Washington would have to deal with Iran (and other defiant Middle Easterners) through negotiations rather than haughty neo-colonialism; and, Israel would have to submit to nuclear inspections and end its aggressive behavior.

Rami G. Khouri is published twice-weekly by THE DAILY STAR.