Engaging Iran

#11: A Resolution to Engage Iran
Negative

“Death to America.” These three words are beaten into the minds of the Iranian people. Now this Congress must look at the issue of establishing diplomatic ties with Iran. The United States has no chance of succeeding in diplomatic relations and we will only waste time, money and manpower, both civilian and military. We must negate this resolution due to the history between the US and Iran as well as the mindset of those we will be dealing with.

Relations between the US and Iran have not always been so terrible. We used to be friends, due to the large amount of oil we received from them. 1n the 1940’s a coup of the monarchy took place, and a democracy was established. Oil was nearly cut off from the west. In 1953 Eisenhower dispatched the then-young CIA to carry out some regime change in Iran. In the U.S.-engineered coup that ensued, Mossadegh -- Iran's only genuinely popular and relatively fairly elected democratic leader -- was toppled and arrested. Pahlavi, the old king of Iran, returned to power, and his ensuing autocracy was marked by greed, incompetence and cruelty. In 1979, decades of pent-up nationalism, hunger for democracy, and rural resentment of Pahlavi's Western ways exploded into a revolution that brought the current religious extremists to power. This is the government we deal with today. We will not succeed in creating diplomatic ties with Iran. One just needs to look at the nuclear power issue between the UN/US and Iran last year. I think we can all agree that diplomacy did not work in that case, so how can the affirmative assume that it will work now?

Finally we must look at the mindset of those who we will be dealing with. Not all Iranians hate us. Some just do the same work their families have done for generations, unchanging even though power has switched hands. They do not really have an opinion about us. Unfortunately we will not be dealing with these people. We will be dealing with the extremists. The people who want to kill us and everything that could relate to us. Leaders who work to bring jihad to the western world. It is unfortunate that people like this exist in the world, but they do, and in Iran these people have come to power. The question we must ask ourselves is: How do you become friends with a person who is willing to die to kill you? The answer: You don’t.

Due to the history between the US and Iran as well as the mindset of those we will be dealing with we must negate this resolution. Diplomacy has no chance of succeeding at this point in time, so there is no point in trying. Some may say that nothing ventured is nothing gained, but we must realize that this venture would only bring about more cries of “Death to America” and, with our western influence so near, possible violent action to remove our presence.