The Neoconservative ideology was ruling Iran-US relations

With George Bush presidency coming to an end, Iranian Diplomacy has started discussions on eight years of his government and its implications for Iran. Here is a commentary on the issue by Dr.Ali Bigdeli, a university lecturer and an expert on international affairs.

George Bush’s ruling was based on religious views and due to this fact; it was basically different from all previous US governments. The Neo-conservatives’ ideology is based on leading the world to the peace and stability as stated in neo-conservative charter and George Bush was one of the leaders of this movement who stepped foot on the White House.

The neo-conservative ideology is a mixture of extremist protestant and Jewish thinking and has an extremist viewpoint on all secular phenomenons. Neo-conservatives wait passionately for Jesus Christ advent and believe that "He, who is not with us, is against us".

These religious viewpoints caused the neo-conservatives’ ignorance of international commitments and even the UN charter. This was most evident during the first round of George Bush presidency. According to the peculiar ideology of the neo-conservatives, anyone acting contrary to US interests had no fate but to be eliminated. The policies of the US towards Iran during the eight years of Bush presidency were also included in the same categorization.

During this period, Iran was labeled as a member of Axis of Evil, a terrorism supporter and a fundamentalist country. These labels were all stemming from the religious viewpoint of Bush and his team at office.

The other side of the story was that George Bush did not have enough social and political common sense for presidency and this led to the US fighting against many Islamic countries including Iran.   

If we compare policies of the republican government of Bush with the democrat government of Bill Clinton regarding Middle East Islamic countries and Iran, we would see that Clinton acted according to his party’s principles and had an internal look to the American society. But the republican government of George Bush looked over its borders. One of the most important differences of Clinton and Bush was in their viewpoint on Middle East conflicts. Clinton proposed the Road Map to decrease the tensions of US and Middle East countries but Bush stretched the resolution of Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the end of his presidency and it bore no results.

On US-Iran relations, one should say that Bush’s mistake was assuming Iran as an enemy. The US was using these fantasized enemy countries and was hiding behind them to reach what he wanted to achieve. At the same time, Iran was also making an enemy of the US and the two countries did not take one step back. This led to their inability to reach a common point of agreement.

Due to this fact, Iran and many other countries in the region believe that by the election of Barack Obama as the US president, it would be possible for the US and Middle East countries to achieve a common point and resolve differences.