So for the record: my predictions about what's going to happen in the Middle East don't reflect any personal interest or political agenda. In fact, as someone who has been committed to bringing an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to reaching peace in the Middle East, the notion that all these wonderful things are not going to happen anytime soon runs contrary to my own wishful thinking.

But as someone who has been a proud member of the Reality-Based Community I need to maintain a certain consistency when it comes to the Middle East. During the debate over the Iraq War, I challenged the notion advanced by neoconservative ideologues that Iraq could be transformed into a liberal democracy as a first step towards remaking the Middle East, and predicted that the Freedom Agenda would produce a big mess in the region. So as President Barack Obama is creating new expectations about his plans to re-energize the peace process and help resolve the clash between Jews and Arabs in the Promised Land, I wish I had faith in his ability to deliver it. But as a hard-core Realpolitik type I need to face reality and to conclude that Obama's peace-processing has reached a dead-end, and that the next round of diplomacy in the Middle East diplomacy would come only after the next round of war in the region.

Indeed, the two most dramatic and serious efforts to make peace between Arabs and Israelis had transpired only after devastating military confrontations demonstrated that the costs of maintaining the diplomatic status-quo were not sustainable. Hence, while American diplomacy helped advance the Egyptian-Israeli peace process, beginning with the disengagement agreement of 1974 and 1975 and culminating in the Camp David Accord of 1978, it was the 1973 Middle East War that opened this road to peace. And it was the First Palestinian Intifadah or uprising (1987-93) that led directly to the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

In the aftermath of the electoral victory of Obama, I had experienced an acute case of foreign policy schizophrenia. The Realpolitik side of my persona remained skeptical about the new president's ability to revive the dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace process. I recalled that in 2000, when Washington had embarked on its last Mideast peace processing, the United States was at the apex of international power in a unipolar world, and the Israelis and the Palestinians were led by strong and more moderate leaderships than today. But even at that time, the Clinton Administration could not significantly advance Israeli-Palestinian. Hence, there was little reason to expect that Obama, leading an overstretched military and an economy in recession, would become an effective peacemaker in 2009.

But applying Samuel Johnson's maxim about a second marriage, that it was "the triumph of hope over experience," hope seemed to prevail in my thinking. It was possible that using use his charismatic and cosmopolitan persona, including his quasi-Muslim roots, Obama would succeed in re-energizing U.S. diplomatic influence in the Middle East and be in position to bring about Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.

Ten months into the new administration it seems that notwithstanding his commitment to resolving the conflict, Obama is finding it close to impossible to move toward an agreement at a time of weak political leadership on both sides and when there is no sign of the narrowing of the gap between the two national communities over the core existential issues that have separated them, such as the fate of Jerusalem and of the "right of return" of the 1947 Palestinian refugees. In reality, the Obama Administration has failed to produce the first scene in the movie in which the Israelis were supposed to end the buildup of new Jewish settlements and the Saudis were expected to respond with "gestures" to the Israelis.

I'm familiar with the counter-arguments. Obama needs to stand-up to the nationalist Israeli government and its supporters in Washington. But let's face it. That's not going to happen any time soon as Obama continues to confront major domestic (health care; unemployment) and foreign (Afghanistan; Iraq) challenges and is not ready to start a costly battle on a new political front even if the guys in J Street are going to fight on his side.

So we are back in square one -- the status-quo -- where the road to Jerusalem seems to be blocked. But we've been there before. In the aftermath of the Israeli victory in the 1967 Middle East War, Israelis governments were operating under the assumption that, "It's better to have war with us having Sinai than peace without Sinai," as Israel's legendary military figure Moshe Dayan put it. By launching the 1973 War, the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat challenged the status-quo and helped transform Israeli strategic calculations. The Palestinian uprising had also shaken-up the status-quo and demonstrated to the Israelis that the long-term occupation of the Palestinian territories ceased to be a realistic proposition.

Hence, expect the current status-quo in the Middle East to be disturbed -- sooner rather than later. Another Palestinian uprising, a new Israeli-Hizbollah war, a confrontation between Israel and Iran -- or a combination of all the above -- would then create the conditions for the next round of Middle East diplomacy. I do hope that Obama will prove me wrong. But I'm afraid that once again, experience is going to triumph over hope.

Whatever the Obama administration's approach to Somalia, it must avoid the failures of the Bush administration. The rise of a popular, moderate Islamic government in 2006 sparked an Ethiopian invasion, for which the United States provided key backing. Washington defended its support of the Ethiopian attack on the grounds that Somalia's Islamic Courts regime was actively harboring known members of al Qaeda, a claim that appears to have been exaggerated.

The resulting Ethiopian occupation of Somalia —in which as many as 16,000 people died—collapsed in early 2009 against the backdrop of one of the world's worst sustained humanitarian crises. Taking advantage of the political and economic chaos, hundreds of desperate Somali fishermen turned to piracy, making the waters off Somalia the world's most dangerous for seafarers.

With the Islamists' return to power earlier this year, under the banner of the new president, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, Washington has a rare chance to reset bilateral relations. The Obama administration should work to build a regional framework for reconciliation, the rule of law, and economic development that acknowledges the unique risks of intervention in East Africa.

Somalia's best hope for peace is the moderate Islamic government that has emerged from the most recent rounds of fighting, despite early opposition from the United States and its allies. There are ways in which the United States could help Somalia escape its cycle of violence and peacefully encourage progress by working with this former enemy, but Washington should err on the side of nonintervention.

Hence, columnist Charles Krauthammer who had expressed "the particular satisfaction of seeing Anglo-Saxon cannonballs puncturing the [French] Tricolor," after watching the naval epic film Master and Commander in November 2003, is now contrasting "Obama's fecklessness" on Iran with Sarkozy's manly attitude towards Tehran's ruling clerics.

That Sarkozy has been expressing his growing concerns over Iran's nuclear program with an uncompromising language may have something to do with his prickly personality or it could reflect his reliance on alarming reports provided to him by French intelligence services. Or perhaps as some suggested, the French have been designated to play the role of the "bad cop" against the American "good cop" in the negotiations between members of the E3+3 group and the Iranian representatives in Geneva.

But instead of searching for a secret agenda to explain the French behavior we should take them at their word. It's more likely that Sarkozy's comments reflect real concerns in Paris about the possibility that the Islamic Republic of Iran is getting close to acquiring nuclear military capability. It may be difficult for American pundits who tend to subscribe to a world-view according to which the French and other foreign leaders either assume the role of anti-American bad guys, as former French President Jacques Chirac supposedly did in responding to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, or play the part of the pro-American good guys, the way President Sarkozy is allegedly doing now, to apply the following Realpolitik axiom: Decisions about war and peace are made in Paris or other world capitals almost always based on existing perceptions of national interest.

Chirac, reflecting the view shared by the French political elites was skeptical about U.S. allegations that Iraq had nuclear weapons or that it had posed any direct threat to French security interests (and he was right). Sarkozy believes that unlike the Iraq ruled by the bungling and secular Saddam Hussein, a resurgent Islamic Republic of Iran (thanks to the Bush Administration's policies) with nukes could pose such a threat to French national security.

In fact, Sarkozy's predecessor in office was also very apprehensive about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Without naming Iran, Chirac in an address he made in early 2006 warned that states which threatened his country could face the "ultimate warning" of a nuclear retaliation. The warning was followed by a French decision to modify its nuclear arsenal to increase the strike range and accuracy of its weapons, according to a report published by the French Liberation. Moreover, in an interview with American and French journalists in January 2007, Chirac suggested that if Iran were ever to launch a nuclear weapon against a country like Israel, it would lead to the immediate destruction of Tehran. According to The New York Times, Chirac explained that it would be an act of self-destruction for Iran to use a nuclear weapon against another country. "Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel?" Chirac asked. "It would not have gone off 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground."

The deconstruction of Chirac's remarks suggests that French strategic planners, not unlike many of the leading U.S. foreign policy realists, have concluded that the most effective response to the threat of a nuclear Iran would be a robust containment and deterrence policy. Indeed, while they continue to publicly threaten a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear sites, the Israelis have been preparing for the "day after" - if and when Iran goes nuclear — by developing a second-strike capability. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said recently that he didn't consider Iran's nuclear program an "existential issue" reflecting the assumption that Israel would be able to deter an Iranian nuclear attack by demonstrating that it could survive a first strike to retaliate effectively against Iran (as Chirac pointed out).

There is no doubt that the acquisition of nuclear weapons could reduce Israel's security margin if and when it tries to respond to potential threats from Iran's regional allies, like Lebanon's Hizbollah. Tehran's nuclear capability could become an element in the strategic calculation, in the same way that the U.S. was constrained in its ability to use conventional military force against Soviet's allies during the Cold War when the doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD) was in place.

Indeed, the utilization of a version of the same doctrine — call is mini-MAD — may explain why the two nuclear military powers of South Asia — India and Pakistan — have been able to preserve a stable balance of power in the region and refrained from going to war since they both had gotten the bomb. In fact, the notion that Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments could decide to join the nuclear club shouldn't cause us too many sleepless nights. There is no reason why Washington should not encourage the French, the Saudis, or the Israelis to protect themselves against a potential threat from a nuclear Iran. The French, working together with other members of the European Union (EU) have all the financial and technological resources they need in order to develop an effective deterrence strategy vis-à-vis Iran. At the same time, the Saudis and the other Arab governments and the Israelis should consider the notion that taking steps to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and create the conditions for regional strategic cooperation in dealing with Iran is in their national interest; after all, a nuclear attack on Israel will probably destroy most of Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

In a way, by continuing to count on the Americans to protect them against a nuclear Iran, the French, the Saudis and the Israelis are trying to avoid making the very costly decisions involved if they are forced to assume the responsibility for their own security. From that perspective, a U.S. military strike against Iran that would probably retard the Iranian nuclear program by a few years would also allow the French, the Saudis and the Israelis and other governments to postpone making some hard choices about their security as they continue to free ride on U.S. military protection.

U.S. foreign policy makers and analysts who are calling on the U.S. to assume that responsibility by either attacking Iran or by providing a "nuclear umbrella" to Israel and the Saudis hope that such a costly American policy would allow the U.S. to continue maintaining its strategic hegemony in the Middle East. After all, if the Europeans and the Middle Eastern end-up demonstrating that they are able to protect themselves without the need to rely on U.S. leadership aka American military interventions, those who in Washington who benefit from securing that leadership could become the main losers.

Remember the good-old days when the perceived Soviet threat had served as an opportunity for politicians, bureaucrats and interest groups, encompassing what President Dwight Eisenhower called the Military-Industrial Complex, to stimulate new arms races in the name of protecting U.S. interests and defending its allies?

Indeed, Republican lawmakers and neoconservative pundits depicted the shelving of Bush-era plans for the deployment of 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic as nothing short of capitulating to pressure from Moscow by abandoning two key eastern European allies, warning in somewhat apocalyptic terms that the move weakens U.S. status in the region and encourages Russian aggression.

Expect the sounding of the alarm by the same critics in the coming days: Beware. The Spirit of Yalta is haunting Eastern Europe and could bring about the "Finlandization" of Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, the Baltic states.

But according to Bush Administration officials and its allies in Congress, the U.S. defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic was not aimed at defending these two countries against a potential threat from Russia — but was intended to protect Europe against future missiles from Iran. Now that the Obama Administration, with the full support of the U.S. military, has proposed to replace the Eastern European based missile defense shield with a more mobile, agile and cheaper naval-based missile defense system, the Republicans and neoconservatives who are deploring this decision seem to be admitting that the main strategic rationale behind the deployment of the missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic was, in fact, to keep Russia — and not Iran — in check.

It was not surprising, therefore, that the Russians — who lest we forget had already dissolved the Warsaw Pact and the entire Soviet Union and withdrawn their military forces from Eastern Europe — have regarded the planned defense system in Eastern Europe, coming after the continuing extension of NATO to their borders, as part of an aggressive American posture. After all, Russia has no plans to deploy a similar system in Cuba.

Those who disregard these genuine Russian concerns tend to draw attention to the alleged fears among Poles and Czechs over the Russian threat to their security and, hence, the need to deploy the U.S. missiles in Eastern Europe. But then, according to opinion polls, majorities in Poland and the Czech Republic have been opposed to the plan.

And if, indeed, both the Poles and the Czechs are so worried about Russia's military might, why is it that in the list of countries ranked by order of military expenditure as a percentage of GDP, Poland and the Czech Republic are respectively in the 95th place and 135th places (according to the World Fact Book 2008 published by the CIA)?

These numbers indicate the relatively low priority these countries place on military expenditure and suggests that their leaders are either not really worried about the threat from Russia; or more likely, they are expecting the U.S. to serve as their protectors. Indeed, reflecting the strategic goals espoused by some of the elites in Washington and in capitals in Eastern Europe, the planned missile defense shield would have served as a "trip-wire" — not unlike the American troops stationed in the divided city of Berlin during the Cold War who were expected to lead to U.S. military retaliation if and when the Soviets attacked West Germany.

But while the American people and Congress had conducted an extensive debate over U.S. strategy in Europe during the Cold War, and the American commitment to protect West Germany from Soviet aggression enjoyed wide bipartisan and public support, the notion that Americans were going to die defending Poland and the Czech Republic against real or imagined Russian threat has never been introduced as part of the national conversation. Instead, those promoting the deployment of U.S. missiles in Eastern Europe had hoped to present the American people with a fait accompli in the form of this trip-wire.

The Obama Administration should be complimented for disrupting this planned sneaky move to press the U.S. into another long-term and costly military intervention at a time when American military forces are overstretched and its budgets are soaring to the stratosphere, and most important, America is not facing a geo-strategic and ideological threat in the form of the Soviet Union.

But as political economist F. A. Hayek warned in his 1944 book The Road to Serfdom, those who during a major war "have tasted the powers if coercive control" will always find it difficult "to reconcile themselves with the humbler roles they will then have to play" in the aftermath of the war. By scrapping the planned missile defense shield, Obama is helping to accelerate this process of reconciliation.

Iran's misery index for the 1991-2008 period is presented in the accompanying chart. It must be stressed that Iran's true inflation, interest and unemployment rates are probably higher than those reported. In consequence, the true level of the index is probably higher than the one in the accompanying chart. That said, the pattern of "ups" and "downs" in the index is reliable.

Several things stand out: the level of the index has been quite elevated during the 1991-2008 period; the Rafsanjani years were a bit of a rollercoaster ride, with a dramatic increase followed by a sharp reduction and then a final up-tick in the level of "misery"; the Khatami years were characterized by relative stability and a mild improvement in the state of economic affairs; and the Ahmadinejad period has been marked by a steady deterioration in economic conditions.

The misery index is not the only metric that measures economic well being. The accompanying chart plots the course of the Iranian rial against the U.S. dollar.

Since 1989, when Rafsanjani became President, the rial has lost 99.3% of its value against the U.S. dollar. The maxi-devaluations during the Rafsanjani and Khatami periods didn't buy Iran anything – except misery.

While the rial's depreciation against the greenback during the Ahmadinejad period has been modest (9.6%), the rial has come under increased pressure as capital flight has intensified since 2007.

Not surprisingly, Iran ranks near the bottom – 137 out of 183 countries – in the World Bank's Doing Business 2010 – a recently released (9/9/2009) report that measures the vitality of free markets and the ease of doing business. The accompanying table indicates where Iran ranks relative to countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Poverty is a scourge which leaves those in its grip to lead lives that are brutish, dangerous, and short. Economic growth is a poverty elixir. From the works of the earliest economists – Richard Cantillon (1680 – 1734), Adam Smith (1723 – 1790) and Jacques Turgot (1727 – 1781) – we have learned that economic liberty is a crucial precondition for sustained economic growth and a concomitant reduction of misery. But what are the elements that produce such a liberal economic order?

Private property and contract rights should be established. The following criteria should guide the establishment of private property: universality, exclusivity and transferability.

Universality guarantees that all resources are either owned or ownable by a private person or entity. Exclusivity guarantees that those who own property have the exclusive right to use their property as long as that use does not harm other property owners. And transferability guarantees that owners can freely transfer their property rights.

Fiscal order and transparency should be established. To establish control over public spending and reduce waste, fraud and corruption – governments should publish a national set of accounts that includes a balance sheet of its assets and liabilities, and an accrual-based annual operating statement of income and expenses. These financial statements should meet international accounting standards and should be subject to an independent audit.

Budget deficits and government spending should be kept under control. One way to achieve control over the scope and scale of government is to require "super majority" voting for important fiscal decisions: taxing, spending and the issuance of debt.

Inflationary pressures should be kept under control. To encourage economic development, inflation rates should be kept low and predictable.

For many developing nations, this inflation objective can best be achieved by abolishing their central banks and replacing them with currency boards that issue fully convertible, stable, domestic currencies, or by simply doing away with domestic currencies and replacing them with convertible stable foreign currencies.

The advantages of open international trade should be exploited. Liberal trade policies facilitate the efficient allocation of resources and stimulate economic growth. This is particularly true in small economies, where real competition can only be obtained by allowing foreign producers to compete freely in domestic markets.

Complex tax systems and excessive tax rates should be avoided. Complex tax systems coupled with excessive tax rates distort behavior and create large disincentives to economic activity, while yielding little revenue.

Subsidies and tax incentives for private industry should be avoided. Subsidies and tax incentives that are designed to achieve particular objectives may or may not actually assist in obtaining those goals. One thing is certain: they distort economic choices and resource allocation, and retard economic growth.

Privileges and immunities should be avoided. For example, state-created monopoly privileges and immunities for unions, such as exclusive representation, compulsory union membership, and immunity from antitrust laws, should be avoided. Privileges and immunities distort markets and act as a drag on economic growth.

Price controls should be avoided. Price controls, including interest rate ceilings, cannot be justified on economic grounds. They tend to vitiate the signaling role that prices should play. Hence, price controls impede the movement of resources from lower-valued to higher-valued uses and result in resource misallocation and lower economic growth.

Market interventions and restrictions on competition should be avoided. Market intervention and restrictions on competition, such as the use of marketing boards, result in the politicization of economic life, inefficient enterprises, resource misallocation, and the retardation of economic growth.

State-owned enterprises should be privatized. State-owned enterprises are inefficient. For example, sales, adjusted profits, and productivity per employee are lower for state-owned enterprises than they are for private firms.

Sales per dollar of investment are lower, profits per dollar of assets are lower, wages and operating costs per dollar of sales are higher, sales grow at a slower rate, and, with few exceptions (petroleum), stateowned enterprises for which accounts are presented properly generate accounting losses that are passed on to taxpayers.

Unclear boundaries between public and private activity should be avoided. When boundaries between the public and private sector are unclear, it is symptomatic of poorly defined property rights. Ill-defined property rights distort resource allocation and retard economic growth. Government bailouts of insolvent private firms are but one example of unclear boundaries between public and private activity.

The manipulation and repression of private capital markets should be avoided. The manipulation and repression of private capital markets distort the savings and investment process, retard foreign direct investment, promote capital flight, and generally act as a drag on economic growth.

Iran has not only ignored the preceding enumeration, but its populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has flaunted all economic principles. In Iran, private property and contract rights are not secure.

This lack of security, particularly for foreign investors, has thrown Iran's oil and gas development into a cocked hat. For example, the lack of an integrated domestic pipeline system forced Iran to cut gas exports to Turkey last year, casting doubt on Iran as a secure energy exporter.

Fiscal order, transparency and control are nowhere to be found in Iran. Government expenditures are estimated to have increased – in line with President Ahmadinejad's populist proclivities – by 55% during the fiscal 2007-08 through 2008-09 period.

Price controls are widespread. These result in implicit subsidies equal to about 25% of GDP. Explicit subsidies are equal to another 5% of GDP, or about 16% of the central government's expenditures.

Banks are mandated to extend credit to certain favored sectors of the economy. The specific sectors and levels of credit are laid out in Iran's fiveyear development plan.

Even things like privatization are perverted in Iran. For example, when state-owned enterprises are privatized, the majority of the shares are often purchased by other state-owned entities, such as pension funds.

Iran's economic policies have put it in a death spiral whose speed is governed, in large part, by the price of oil.

Most people think of political and civil freedoms when it comes to human rights. And the two are fundamental, to be sure. But most governments which violate these forms of individual liberty also suppress religious freedom.

Indeed, there is a good argument for treating religious liberty as the first freedom. If a government is unwilling to protect basic freedom of conscience when it comes to religious faith, then it is unlikely to tolerate political free-thinking either. In contrast, persuading repressive governments to carve out room for religious worship and practice may act as an important step in creating protected personal space.

Unfortunately, many nations violate this idea. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issues an annual report summarizing the state of religious liberty around the globe. It makes for sober reading.

The USCIRF recently highlighted 27 nations. It recommended that the State Department designate 13 nations, those responsible for "particularly severe" violations of religious liberty, as "countries of particular concern" (CPCs). The Commission named another 11 states to its "Watch List" for engaging in "serious violations" and thus deserving close monitoring. Another three were cited for tolerating abuses and thus were deemed to warrant attention. The State Department tends to follow most USCIRF recommendations, but often with a political twist: in January it provided waivers for Saudi Arabia, America's number one source of oil, and Uzbekistan, seen by Washington as an important military partner.

The Commission's recommended CPCs are Burma, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Burma (or Myanmar) is a top contender on anyone's list of most misgoverned lands. Conditions have worsened over the past year. The Commission reported: "Burma's military regime continued its policy of severely restricting religious practice, monitoring the activity of all religious organizations, and perpetuating or tolerating violence against religious leaders and their communities." Largely Christian ethnic groups, such as the Karen and Karenni, continue to suffer in a war which has raged for decades in eastern Burma.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea likely is worse. Observed the USCIRF: "there is little evidence that the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion exists in North Korea." The regime uses government-controlled religious federations to advance its political objectives. Alas, "anyone discovered engaging in clandestine religious practice faces official discrimination, arrest, imprisonment, and possibly execution."

Eritrea is another top persecutor. That government, explained the Commission, "continues to engage in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom." Most at risk are members of faiths outside of the four officially recognized religions: Sunni Islam, and Coptic, Catholic, and Evangelical Christian. Some of the violations of religious freedom reflect an attempt to protect the Coptic Church, which has links to the government, from new evangelical and Pentecostal denominations.

Iran is one of the great Islamic persecutors. The USCIRF reported that "The government of Iran continues to engage in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention, torture, and executions based primarily or entirely upon the religion of the accused." Unfortunately, just as political freedom is being circumscribed, religious liberty has been deteriorating. At particular risk are Baha'is, Sufi Muslims, and evangelical Christians. The situation likely will grow worse as the regime's political base shrinks, forcing it to increasingly rely on force to survive.

One of the greatest — and most tragic — ironies of the Iraq war is that through it Washington set in motion the destruction of the historic Christian community in that ancient land. Noted the Commission, "particularly since 2006, there have been alarming numbers of religiously-motivated killings, abductions, beatings, rapes, threats, intimidation, forced resettlements, and attacks on religious leaders, pilgrims, and holy sites." Everyone is vulnerable, especially during violent surges, but religious minorities, particularly Christians, Sabean Manaeans, and Yazidis, are at greatest risk.

Communal violence in Nigeria is common, yet, warned the USCIRF, "The response of the government Nigeria to persistent religious freedom violations and violent sectarian and communal conflicts along religious lines has been inadequate and ineffectual." Additional problems include "the expansion of sharia (Islamic law) into the criminal codes of several northern Nigerian states; and discrimination against minority communities of Christians and Muslims."

Pakistan, one of the American government's most important allies, is home to what the Commission termed "the largely unchecked growth in the power and reach of religiously-motivated extremist groups." However, religious persecution precedes recent events. Discriminatory laws are in place and, reported the USCIRF: "Sectarian and religiously-motivated violence continues, particularly against Shi'a Muslims, Ahmadis, Christians, and Hindus, and the government's response continues to be insufficient, and in some cases, is outright complicit."

Although religious repression has ebbed since the days of the Cultural Revolution, the People's Republic of China "engages in systematic and egregious violations of the freedom of religion or belief," explained the Commission. There is a "growing 'zone of toleration' for religious worship and charitable activities," but the authorities continue to attempt to maintain control of religious practice. Step outside of the narrow prescribed limits, and "some religious adherents were detained, imprisoned, fined, beaten, and harassed."

Saudi Arabia, noted for its suppression of political dissent and women's rights, also is essentially totalitarian when it comes to religious worship. Despite promises of reform, the royal government "persists in banning all forms of public religious expression other than that of the government's own interpretation of one school of Sunni Islam and even interferes with private religious practice." According to the Commission, the regime also "continues to be involved in supporting activities globally that promote an extremist ideology, and in some cases, violence toward non-Muslims and disfavored Muslims."

During Sudan's civil war, which lasted until 2005, the regime in Khartoum, explained the USCIRF, was "the world's most violent abuser of the right to freedom of religion or belief." Even today "The government of Sudan commits egregious and systematic violations of freedom of religion or belief in the areas under its control."

Although repression in Turkmenistan has eased since the death of President Saparmurat Niyazov, the Commission cited the government for "its systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom." Indeed, religious practice was virtually banned as Niyazov's personality cult expanded.

Another problem Central Asian republic is Uzbekistan. Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union, reported the USCIRF, "fundamental human rights, including freedom of religion or belief, have been under assault." Backed by a willingness to arrest dissenters, the government "severely limits the ability of religious communities to function and facilitates the Uzbek government's exercise of a high degree of control over religious communities and the approved manner in which the Islamic religion is practiced."

There has been some progress in Vietnam, leading the Bush administration to lift the "country of particular concern" designation in 2006, as part of Congress' approval of that nation's entry in the World Trade Organization. Yet, observed the Commission, "Individuals continue to be imprisoned or detained for reasons related to their religious activity or religious freedom advocacy; policy and government officials are not held fully accountable for abuses; independent religious activity remains illegal; and legal protections for government-approved religious organizations are both vague and subject to arbitrary or discriminatory interpretations based on political factors." Further, repression continues apace for some smaller religious groups.

These are merely the worst persecutors. The Commission placed on its Watch List Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Venezuela.

Conditions have been worsening in Afghanistan with the resurgence of the Taliban. The government of Belarus has systematically violated human rights since it emerged from the break-up of the Soviet Union. The Castro regime in Cuba treats religious organizations as a threat to its authority. Discrimination and violence against Coptic Christians and "non-conforming Muslims" is rife in Egypt. Indonesia has made progress towards democracy, but violence against religious minorities has increased, often with the acquiescence or even tacit support of the authorities.

In Laos, reported the USCIRF, "there have been arrests, detentions, forced renunciations of faith, and forced evictions from villages." The Putin/Medvedev regime has expanded state control over religious groups in Russia. There is no effective government in Somalia, where "radical interpretations of Islam are increasingly manifested." Attacks on religious liberty have been growing more serious in Tajikistan. Turkey limits the practice of Islam and discriminates against non-Muslim faiths. In Venezuela President Hugo Chavez's increasingly authoritarian tendencies have, warned the Commission, "created an environment where Jewish and Catholic religious leaders and institutions are at risk of attack."

Finally, the USCIRF pointed to Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, and Sri Lanka as worthy of scrutiny. All have hosted threats to religious liberty and sometimes tolerated violence against religious believers.

Although Washington cannot make fighting religious persecution a central element of U.S. foreign policy, it can include religious liberty as an essential aspect of its promotion of human rights. In particular, any dialogue with Muslim governments concerned about the treatment of Islam in the West should include a discussion of how those same regimes treat Jews, Christians, Baha'is, and other religious minorities. If the authorities in other nations are unwilling to protect the most basic freedom of conscience regarding religious faith, they are unlikely to be reliable defenders of broader political and civil liberties.

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that Obama's proposed initiative for diplomatic engagement with Iran is all but dead in light of the political upheaval that has followed the questionable outcome of the June 12 presidential election in Iran.The country's internal turmoil, in this view, has diminished the chances of resolving the diplomatic standoff over the Islamic Republic's refusal to freeze its nuclear program. The skepticism that has greeted the new report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), suggesting that Iran has slowed the expansion of its nuclear program is understandable from this perspective.

Indeed, those who assume that the politically shaky and insecure regime in Tehran is unable to respond to Obama's overtures have concluded that Iran will now try to make temporary and meaningless gestures in order to buy time to complete its uranium enrichment.

This assessment reflects in part what its proponents argue is a realistic interpretation of what is taking place in Iran. But no one really knows much about the debate — if at all — that is taking place in Tehran in response to Obama's call for a fresh start with Iran.

To a large extent, the pessimistic appraisal of the policy options that are available for Washington is based also on a judgment of what the Obama Administration ought to do now — notwithstanding the concrete response to its engagement offer from Iran. Indeed, opponents of an American opening to Iran argue that any move on the part of the Obama Administration to engage Tehran over the nuclear issue as well as other policy differences between the U.S. and Iran would amount to bestowing international legitimacy to the current President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Such engagement would also arguably strengthen the political power of the ruling Ayatollahs as they attempt to suppress an authentic pro-reform movement.

But the argument that the Obama Administration shouldn't "reward" the Iranian President and his disfavored political allies is based on several misjudgments.

First, this view assumes that the ruling clerics' desire to acquire nuclear military capability is a reflection of their radical, anti-Western and anti-Israeli agenda. In fact, having a nuclear bomb has been a national goal shared by almost all the main political factions and ideological orientations in Iran — including the religious fundamentalists and the secular liberals — going back to the late Shah of Iran. If anything, the perception among Iranians that Washington is trying to retard their national nuclear project could help the Iranian president rally support by depicting the members of the opposition as American stooges.

Moreover, it is time to concede that replacing a pragmatic policy to encourage an unsavory regime to change its policies with an approach based on the regime's de-legitimization only helps to perpetuate its power and to ensure that it would move to protect itself against perceived U.S. threats. That even includes — like in the case of North Korea — going nuclear.

Engaging Iran as part of an effort to freeze its nuclear program would not be a reward to the Ayatollahs. It would be part of a strategy to advance U.S. strategic interests which successive American administrations have implemented by engaging anti-American totalitarian regimes (Soviet Union; China) as well as those espousing anti-Israeli and even anti-Semitic views (Saudi Arabia) which, unlike Iran, have not even pretended to hold free elections.

Obama should also recognize that a reversal of his engagement policy, or even an attempt to slow it down, would only play into the hands of the extremists in both Tehran and Washington. It would create a diplomatic vacuum in which an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear sites would become inevitable.

Indeed, the danger with subscribing to the current conventional wisdom on Iran is that it could prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Following years of political turbulence and economic troubles, however, an historic election produced a major electoral realignment in the patron state. A freshly elected and very popular president took dramatic steps to transform his nation's foreign policy, especially towards the Middle East. He withdrew military forces from an occupied Arab country and went to great lengths to improve ties with other countries in the region.

In the face of this historic change, Israel grew increasingly worried about whether the new president would continue maintaining the close, unshakeable relationship pursued by his predecessors. Its growing concerns notwithstanding, the Jewish state decided to dismiss its patron's advice and launched a military strike against a Middle Eastern country. The patron's new president condemned the attack and began the process of ending the diplomatic and military alliance with its Middle Eastern client. Israel thus set out in search of a new powerful patron.

When French President Charles de Gaulle took steps to terminate the 20-year French alliance with Israel in the aftermath of its military victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, his decision sent shockwaves around the world. Israel and France had been close since the late 1940s, and their relationship turned into a full-blown strategic alliance after the popular and charismatic Egyptian army officer Gamal Abdel Nasser began providing assistance to rebels fighting French colonial rule.

In 1956, Israel joined France and Britain in an elaborate and ill-fated plan to attack Egypt and retake the Suez Canal after Nasser had nationalized it. In addition to providing Israel with sophisticated military technology, including French-made Mirage and Mystère jets, the French helped the Israelis build a nuclear reactor and a reprocessing plant. The Israel-French alliance aimed at containing the growing power of Pan Arabism was a central component in Israeli national security doctrine at the time.

But de Gaulle's election in 1958 changed all that. Confounding many of his supporters, de Gaulle embraced a transformative foreign policy agenda that led eventually to granting independence to Algeria in 1962 and to a process of repairing relations with Egypt and the rest of the Arab World. With tension rising in the Middle East in 1967, de Gaulle pressed the Israelis not to attack Egypt and declared on June 2 an arms embargo against the country, just three days before the outbreak of the war. De Gaulle's position in 1967 at the time of the Six Day War played a part in France's newfound popularity in the Arab world, while Israel turned towards the United States for arms and diplomatic support.

Could U.S. President Barack Obama play the role of an American de Gaulle? Would a decision by Israel to reject Obama's advice against launching a military strike against Iran's alleged nuclear sites lead to a historic reassessment in the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem?

Historian Margaret Macmillan cautions in her new book Uses and Abuses of History that while history provides useful analogies for understanding the present, they can also lead to serious errors in judgment.

So, what distinguishes the French and U.S. cases? Well, for one thing, U.S. foreign policy has traditionally been more heavily influenced by the power of public opinion, the media, and Congress than French policy, which tends to be determined by a powerful executive and elite groups. The pro-Israel orientation of the U.S. Congress has clearly played an important role in constraining any U.S. president from trying to re-orient the direction of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Hence, the expectations are that Congress will play that long-established role if Obama decides to "do a de Gaulle."

Nevertheless, recalling the dramatic changes in French-Israeli relations in the 1960s provides us with an instructive case in point. Relationships between nation-states, and in particular between patrons and clients, are subject to change. And many Israelis, as I discovered during a recent trip to the region, are all too well aware of this.

In fact, the de Gaulle/Obama analogy was raised several times in interviews I had with Israeli officials and political analysts, reflecting the growing concern in Israel, and especially in the Likud-led government of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, that President Obama is intent on reshaping U.S. strategy in the Middle East. Indeed, during my visit, I was struck by the sense of inevitability shared by both Israelis and Palestinians that Washington would eventually adopt an activist role in resolving the conflict over the Holy Land.

But notwithstanding such fears on the Israeli side — and glimmers of hope among Palestinians — Obama and his aides have yet to issue any comprehensive Middle East peace plan or to take any other steps that hint of historic change, a la de Gaulle.

President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have repeatedly asserted established U.S. positions, including the need for Israel to withdraw to the 1967 lines — with minor territorial adjustments — as part of an Arab-Israeli accord; opposition to the establishment of Jewish settlements in the occupied Arab territories; and support for the idea that the control over Jerusalem, including its religious sites, should be shared by Israelis and Palestinians.

Nevertheless, the perception in Washington and in Middle East capitals is that "something" has changed in the U.S. approach. But that "something" reflects more a change in tone and style than one of substance. There is also the sharp contrast between Obama and the George W. Bush government, which put dramatic emphasis on U.S.-Israeli ties and common interests in fighting extremism in the region. Compared to the rhetoric of Bush's neoconservative advisors, the Obama team and its restatement of long-standing U.S. policy goals could easily appear to be ground-shaking.

the election of Benyamin Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel also provided Obama with an opportunity to create the perception that "something" was indeed changing in the U.S. approach to the Middle East. Netanyahu has long been a favorite of U.S. neoconservatives. After their humiliating fall from power in the United States, the neocons seemed to have won a major political victory in one of the outposts of the U.S. empire with Netanyahu's election. By endeavoring to distance himself from both Netanyahu and his neocon cheerleaders, the Obama administration has been able to market its message of change in the Arab World.

The political and ideological affair between Netanyahu and neoconservatives goes back to the Reagan presidency and the final years of the Cold War, when Bibi served as Israel's representative to the United Nations and later as ambassador to Washington. The first generation of neoconservative intellectuals — including Richard Perle, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, and Max Kampleman — occupied top foreign-policy positions in the Reagan administration at the time. To the then-ruling Likud Party, the policies of the Republican Party seemed to offer Israel time to consolidate its hold on the West Bank and Gaza as Washington viewed the Arab-Israeli conflict through a Cold War lens, identifying Palestinian nationalism as an extension of Soviet-induced international terrorism.

As the Cold War came to end, Netanyahu returned to Israel to serve first as foreign minister and then as prime minister. He proved masterful in replacing the moribund Soviet threat with a new Middle Eastern bogeyman, persuading many beltway allies that with the Soviet Union gone, Israel could help protect U.S. interests in the Middle East against Arab nationalists (Saddam Hussein), Muslim fundamentalists (the mullahs in Iran), and the PLO, which was transformed in the Likud-neocon spin from a radical left-wing to a radical Islamic terrorist group. But George H.W. Bush and his realist foreign-policy advisers didn't buy into this narrative and decided to confront the Likud government over the issue of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

After his reelection in 1996, Netanyahu paid a visit to neoconservative icon Richard Perle in Washington. According to journalist Craig Unger, the topic of their conversation was a policy paper that Perle and other analysts had written for an Israeli-American think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic Political Studies. Titled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," the paper proposed a radical new vision of Israeli policy. The paper proposed that by waging wars against Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, Israel — with U.S. support — could reshape the political landscape and thus ensure its security.

Netanyahu's meeting with Obama in Washington early this year took place eight years after such ideas helped inspire one of the worst strategic fiascos in U.S. history — the 2003 invasion of Iraq. To say that Obama, unlike his predecessor, had very little interest in listening to the Israeli prime minister's Middle East tutorials would be an understatement. Instead, Obama demanded that Netanyahu cease settlement expansion in the West Bank.

This somewhat more even-handed U.S. position has irritated Netanyahu. During his visit to Washington, Netanyahu stressed the need to deal with the potential threat of a nuclear Iran before taking steps to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians, a position that has been rejected by Obama, who has stressed that the two issues be handled congruently.

While Netanyahu has grudgingly announced that he would support the creation of a limited Palestinian state — albeit, one not acceptable to Palestinians — the Israeli government has continued to resist U.S. pressure for a complete cessation of Jewish settlement construction. Some political analysts remain skeptical about whether the Israeli leader is truly willing to embrace a two-state solution or is just trying to buy time. In any case, the conventional wisdom in Israel is that a confrontation between Obama and Netanyahu would lead to the collapse of the current Israeli government and to a new election in Israel, which could force Washington to put on hold its diplomatic push for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The simple truth is, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians — whose leadership is sharply divided — have leaders with sufficient charisma and authority to make the hard choices that would put the two communities on a path toward even superficial reconciliation.

Can President Obama fill the political vacuum in Israel and Palestine and start pressing the two sides to consider making painful compromises? Will Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Arab states be able to assist the Americans if and when they decide to jump into the cold water of the Middle East peace process? Will Iran and its regional allies attempt to sabotage U.S. efforts or decide to jump on the U.S.-led bandwagon? Will Obama have the political backbone to confront the powerful groups in Washington backing Netanyahu?

These are a few of the questions being asked by observers in the Middle East and elsewhere as they wait for Obama to launch his long-awaited Middle East initiative in the coming months. But another key concern is whether — Obama's good intentions notwithstanding — the erosion in U.S. strategic and economic power might set enormous constraints on the president's ability to transform U.S. policy in the Middle East and bring peace to the Holy Land. In the end, it may require a reckless attack by an intransigent client state on a Middle East regime to get the global patron to make the difficult steps necessary for lasting change.

Now we have two new examples of Americans projecting democratic values onto murky foreign upheavals. One occurred in Honduras, where the military ousted left-wing President Manuel Zelaya and sent him into exile. American opinion leaders immediately took sides. The Obama administration stressed that Zelaya was democratically elected and demanded that he be restored to office. Conservatives asserted that Zelaya's opponents were the real democrats. This was not an old-fashioned Latin American coup, they insisted, noting that the army chiefs acted only after both the Honduran supreme court and national legislature urged them to do so. Zelaya, American critics charged, was a Hugo Chavez clone who unconstitutionally sought to extend his term and create a dictatorship.

Both American factions deserve awards for naïveté. Given the long history of military coups in Central America, it strains credulity to believe that the Honduran military acted merely at the behest of civilian judges and legislators. And one should not assume that those civilian factions were spurred by pure motives rather than engaging in a mundane power struggle.

The Obama administration's attitude was even more obtuse. The president's position was reminiscent of Bill Clinton's Haitian policy in the mid-1990s, when the U.S. threatened to invade if the military junta didn't restore elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Never mind that Aristide was both erratic and autocratic. Never mind that his followers routinely tortured and murdered political opponents. Never mind that his corrupt economic policies made the situation in a desperately poor country even worse. The fact that he won an election seemed to be all that mattered to his hero worshipers in the United States. Obama administration officials appear to regard the Honduran situation in much the same way, conveniently ignoring Zelaya's abuses.

While there was a split along ideological fault lines in the United States regarding the Honduran turmoil, there was pervasive enthusiasm about the anti-government demonstrations in Iran. Here were pro-Western democratic reformers struggling against religious zealots who blatantly stole a presidential election.

As is often the case, the narrative contained a kernel of truth. Iran's regime is certainly one of the more stifling on the planet, and there seemed little doubt that the hardline clerics maneuvered to keep Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power. (The announcement of final results barely four hours after the polls closed, when 40 million paper ballots were cast, was compelling evidence of fraud, as was Ahmadinejad's startling ability to carry long-standing reformist strongholds.)

Yet the many Americans cheering the demonstrators who took to the streets to challenge the results painfully oversimplified the situation. To start, the "reformist" presidential candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, was not exactly a secular democrat. During the 1980s, he served as Ayatollah Khomeini's prime minister and ordered the imprisonment or execution of thousands of regime critics. In the recent political struggle, Mousavi and many of his followers appeared moderate only when compared to Ahmadinejad and other Islamic fire-breathers.

Republicans who pressed President Obama to endorse the demonstrations predictably equated the Iranian opposition with Eastern Europeans who resisted the Soviet occupation of their countries during the Cold War. But Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, and most other prominent dissidents were genuine democrats, albeit often with rather left-leaning economic views. The political makeup of the Iranian opposition was decidedly cloudier. Key players who backed Mousavi included former presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami, as well as approximately 40 percent of the Guardian Council, the assembly of senior mullahs. Virtually none of those individuals could be mistaken for committed democrats. On balance, the tumult was at least as much a split within the clerical hierarchy as a true democratic rebellion, a point that largely eluded Americans who urged the Obama administration to get involved.

This was hardly the first time that the U.S. had viewed allegedly democratic movements in other countries through the prism of American values. In April 2005, President George W. Bush described Ukraine's Orange Revolution, led by Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, as "a powerful example of democracy for people around the world." "The ideals of the new Ukraine are the ideals shared by Western civilization," he asserted. That praise was relatively restrained compared to his assessment of the achievement in Georgia.

In a May 2005 speech in Tbilisi, Bush hailed Georgia's democrats for creating the template for Crayola revolutions: "Before there was a Purple Revolution in Iraq or an Orange Revolution in Ukraine or a Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, there was a Rose Revolution in Georgia." He continued, "Your courage is inspiring democratic reformers and sending a message that echoes around the world: Freedom will be the future of every nation and every people on Earth." Georgia, he added, was "building a democratic society where the rights of minorities are respected; where a free press flourishes; where a vigorous opposition is welcomed and where unity is achieved through peace."

Four years later, the bloom is definitely off the Rose Revolution. There is mounting evidence implicating President Mikheil Saakashvili in political corruption and human-rights abuses. In September 2007, Irakli Okruashvili, an opposition leader and former defense minister, reported that Saakashvili had instructed him to have a Georgian economic oligarch assassinated. More generally, he accused the government of "dishonesty, injustice and repression." In response, Georgian authorities arrested Okruashvili.

Even if lurid tales of assassination plots remain unsubstantiated, other abuses do not. A 2008 report by the International Crisis Group concluded that Saakashvili's government "has become increasingly authoritarian." A 2007 Human Rights Watch report accused the regime of "taking serious steps" to undermine human rights and the rule of law. Saakashvili's administration has brutally suppressed opposition street demonstrations, jailed dozens of political critics, and just before the crucial January 2008 election, shut down opposition media outlets, including the country's main television station. International observers refused to certify the May 2009 parliamentary elections as either free or fair. Even Freedom House, an early admirer of the Rose Revolution, concedes in its new Freedom of the World 2009 report that Georgia ranks as only "partly free" and that the trend arrow is pointing down.

The situation in Ukraine is only marginally better. The Orange coalition has degenerated into a comic opera rivalry between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, with the latter periodically making common cause with Viktor Yanukovych, an old-style communist pol whom U.S. officials scorned as a Russian stooge. Corruption charges continue to dog Yushchenko's administration: his young son tools around the streets of Kiev in a six-figure sports car. The president's approval rating is now in the single digits, and Tymoshenko's is not much better. Once again, an American-lauded "democratic" revolution has become an embarrassment.

Such developments mock the breathless enthusiasm that the Bush administration and most conservatives expressed for the Rose and Orange Revolutions. It would be a mistake, though, to conclude that misplaced support for foreign "democratic" political movements is the exclusive fantasy of conservative Republicans. It is a bipartisan folly.

Before and during the Kosovo War in 1999, liberal politicians and pundits in the United States lionized the Kosovo Liberation Army. Sen. Joe Lieberman gushed, "The United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values." In realty, the KLA was a motley collection of unreconstructed communists, Albanian nationalists, organized crime thugs, and Islamic extremists. Lieberman's paean verged on the obscene. Unfortunately, his fondness for the KLA was only slightly greater than that exhibited by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, United Nations ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and the other Clinton administration officials directing Washington's policies in the Balkans.

Perhaps the most notorious example of our policymakers linking America's fortunes to sleazy foreign movements was our support for Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress in the years leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Despite longstanding indications that Chalabi and company were corrupt political operators with disturbing ties to Iran, neoconservative cheerleaders treated Chalabi as the George Washington of Iraq. The INC exploited that gullibility to feed the U.S. government and the American news media bogus information about Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to al-Qaeda and Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.

Chalabi's lame excuse that he and his associates were "heroes in error" did not allay suspicions that the deception had been deliberate. His democratic credentials and his political support inside Iraq proved to be illusory. When elections were held for Iraq's parliament, his party garnered barely 0.5 percent of the vote. So much for the political giant that Washington believed would lead Iraq into a new democratic era.

One would hope that policymakers might learn from these bruising experiences. But the Iran episode suggests that they continually fail to appreciate cultural differences or complexities. Consider the portrayal of Lebanon's Cedar Revolution as a democratic surge. Lebanon's political arena is a labyrinth of opaque and shifting alliances involving pro- and anti-Syrian forces; Sunni, Shi'ite, and Druze factions; and at least two major — often feuding — Christian groups. Sorting all that out taxes even the most knowledgeable experts. Yet the talking heads on Fox News saw fit to pontificate about Lebanon's political struggle.

The attempt to portray events in Iran as a replay of the ouster of Soviet puppet regimes in Eastern Europe is erroneous on many levels. While Eastern Europeans may have welcomed an American embrace, few Iranians would. Washington was seen as the enemy of Eastern Europe's imperial oppressor, the Soviet Union. Yet Middle Eastern populations — rightly or not — regard the United States as their region's imperial oppressor.

Furthermore, whether or not foreign movements are genuinely democratic should have little bearing on U.S. foreign policy. Even if Mikheil Saakashvili were the second coming of Thomas Jefferson, it would have been unwise for the United States to go nose to nose with a nuclear-armed Russia when war broke out last year between that country and Georgia. In the same fashion, a victory by anti-Ahmadinejad forces would not necessarily solve the issue of Tehran's nuclear ambitions. That program began under the Shah, not the clerical regime, and there is no evidence that a new, more moderate government would give it up.

Why are Americans so susceptible to being gulled? Cynics might argue that our leaders do not actually believe that most supposedly democratic upheavals are genuine, but portray them as such if the insurgent faction is amenable to Washington's economic or strategic goals. They stress alleged democratic credentials to soothe an American public that would balk at embracing questionable movements or regimes on the basis of realpolitik. After all, throughout the Cold War, Washington routinely portrayed friendly autocrats, no matter how brutal, as members of the "free world." At one point, Vice President George H.W. Bush hailed Ferdinand Marcos for his "commitment to democratic principles," even as the Philippines groaned under martial law imposed a decade earlier.

Yet one should not underestimate the capacity of even jaded politicians to engage in self-delusion. How else does one explain George W. Bush's embarrassing assertion that he had looked into the eyes of Vladimir Putin and seen the soul of a good man?

Ordinary citizens can be even more susceptible to wishful thinking. Americans are understandably proud of the values symbolized by our revolution and enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. For more than two centuries, we have expected other societies to emulate that model. At times this has occurred. On too many other occasions, Americans have mentally shoehorned unsavory political movements into the category of liberal democracy. To win support from the United States, foreign factions have become adept at telling us what we want to hear. But for our psychological, as well as our political and strategic well-being, we might pause before automatically embracing the next gathering of dissidents in some far-flung capital as newborn democrats begging for our aid.

As the neoconservative ideologues were drawing the parallels between "Islamofascism" and Nazism, envisaging the rise of a liberal democracy on the banks of the Euphrates, and debating whether Ahmed Chalabi should be marketed as the Adenauer or the De Gaulle of the New Iraq, a friend forwarded me a brief survey he had just completed: "One-Hundred Reasons Why Iraq Is Not Germany and Japan." In it he explained why the neoconservative historical analogy was so silly, mostly because it was, well, ahistorical and failed to take into account the many differences among, say, Iraq, Germany, and Japan — or for that matter, between Germany and Japan, or Iraq and Iran — with regard to geographic location, demographic makeup, and cultural and religious traditions.

Serious social scientists who try to apply such all-encompassing models as "modernization" to explain political and economic change around the world recognize that they need to take into consideration the unique historical context of the region or country that they are studying. But when it comes to pop sociologists and American journalists parachuting to this or that international "hot spot," not to mention the global crusaders managing U.S. foreign policy, everything seems to fall into very neat Manichean categories.

Indeed, according to this interpretation, the Good Guys are usually referred to as "Westernized," "modernized," "reformist," "secular," and "democratic," which also means that they are "pro-American" — not unlike the demonstrators in the streets of Tehran protesting the designation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as winner of Iran's recent presidential elections.

They are usually under attack by Evil, represented by those who can be identified by the antonyms of the aforementioned adjectives, like the "anti-American" and "anti-Western" ayatollahs ruling Iran.

Manicheanism was one of the major Gnostic religions of Iran, originating in Sassanid Persia. But the philosophical dualism that seems to dominate the current debate on the U.S. response to the political upheaval in Iran is very secular and American in nature. Its grand narrative of an America standing up to ideological monsters abroad by supporting people "like us" evolved during the 20th century under the influence of Wilsonian fantasies and against the backdrop of World War II and the Cold War.

In fact, when it came to the actual foreign- policy decisions that were made by U.S. presidents and their advisors, Machiavelli, not Mani, was the main influence on American policymakers. It was the cunning Realpolitik of Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau — and not Wilson's idealism — that determined the political outcome of the Great War. In World War II, the United States and Great Britain had no choice but to ally with Stalin, a ruthless dictator, in order to achieve a military victory against the Axis Powers, while during the Cold War, President Richard Nixon launched the opening to China in the midst of the bloody Cultural Revolution as part of a strategy to checkmate the Soviet Union.

Whenever U.S. policymakers and pundits were guided strictly by their Manichean vision, their decisions only spelled disaster for U.S. national interests. Treating North Vietnam as an integral part of the Soviet Bloc and failing to identify the powerful nationalist component in Ho Chi Minh's strategy made the extraction of U.S. forces from Southeast Asia more difficult. Much of the intellectual basis for the "War on Terror" and the ensuing Iraq war reflected the fallacy of an existing monolithic Islamofascist bloc — disregarding the secular, if not anti-Islamic fundamentalist orientation of the Iraqi and Syrian Ba'ath regimes or dismissing the historical conflict between the Sunnis and the Shiites in the Middle East. Moreover, the U.S.-led campaign to promote democracy in the former Soviet Bloc after the collapse of communism, and our encouragement of the "color" or "velvet" revolutions in such places as Ukraine, Georgia, or Lebanon, were based on the assumption that the drive by individuals and groups in these nations and societies to oust their ruling elites was motivated primarily by universal ideals of democracy and liberalism and by the appeal of joining the West. But the American narrative seemed to disregard a critical element in these developments. These revolutions were impelled by powerful nationalist, ethnic, and religious forces, like the anti- Russian sentiments found in Poland, Hungary, and Georgia or among the Ukrainian majority in Ukraine; not surprisingly, members of the Russian minority in Ukraine opposed the Orange Revolution. Similarly, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon pitted Maronite Christians and Sunni Muslims against Shiites backed by Iran, while the political changes in Iraq in the aftermath of Saddam's ouster empowered the Arab Shiites and the Kurds while weakening the former Sunni controlled elites. To make the story line even more complex, what many Americans see as a linear process of democratization and liberalization could be seen as the playing out of intra-elite rivalries — which is part of what happened in Russia and Rumania after the fall of the Communist Party.

The political crisis in Iran seems to combine all of these elements and more. There is no doubt that some of the demonstrators in the streets are members of a more urban and Westernized elite. But these Iranians are not necessarily "pro-American" — any more than the Chinese protesters in Tiananmen Square were. In fact, many of the former Chinese student activists have become part of a rising Chinese nationalist movement that recognizes the deep tensions between U.S. and Chinese interests. Hence, one shouldn't be surprised if the secular democrats protesting against the ayatollahs today transform into fervent Iranian nationalists — and press for nuclear weapons — if and when they come to power.

The fact that the protests in Tehran have the potential to challenge the ruling religious elite has less to do with the enthusiasm of the young and cool demonstrators and more with the power exerted by two of the former leaders of the Iranian revolution and members of the ruling elite: former prime minister and presidential contender Mir-Hossein Mousavi and former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. In the past, both were involved in directing anti-American terrorist activities and in managing Iran's nuclear manufacturing, and it is doubtful that they will reorient Iranian domestic and foreign policies if they succeed in their campaign to deny the presidency to Ahmadinejad. In fact, they could prove to be more assertive and more effective in managing Tehran's relationship with Washington.

Iran is not like China in 1989 or Russia in 1991, but like . . . Iran in 2009. She may or may not be undergoing major political changes. Even under the best-case scenario — a gradual erosion in the power of the ayatollahs — Iran, with her strong sense of national identity, religious vitality, talented people, huge oil resources, and links to Shiite communities in the Middle East, will remain a self confident and forceful regional power whose interests are more likely to collide than to coincide with those of the United States, the only global power with a massive military and a diplomatic presence in the Middle East. Taking into consideration the long history of conflict between the United States and Iran, any attempt on the part of Washington to intervene in Iran's changing politics would only make it more difficult for the United States to engage Tehran on a range of policy issues that affect U.S. strategic (nuclear weapons) and economic (oil) interests. History teaches us that Iranians are not necessarily like us — and that they do not necessarily like or hate us. The most effective way to create the conditions necessary for improving U.S. relations with Iran is to recognize that historical reality.

Unfortunately, few Americans, including in the U.S. government, understand the intricacies of the ongoing political struggle in Iran. In fact, pervasive ignorance is but one consequence of having little diplomatic presence or other contact there for years. Moreover, Washington has brought many of its problems on its self. In 1953 the U.S. government terminated Iran's earlier democracy by orchestrating the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh, Time's 1951 Man of the Year, died under house arrest by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

For a quarter century Washington backed the shah's dictatorship. After years of repression, Islamic fundamentalists emerged stronger than liberal secularists, leading to the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Then the United States supported Iraq's Saddam Hussein after he invaded Iran. Later, President George W. Bush termed Iran a member of the "Axis of Evil" even as his administration destroyed the Iraqi regime which had helped restrain Tehran's regional ambitions.

Senator John McCain unintentionally spoke the truth when he stated: "The president saying that we didn't want to be perceived as meddling, is, frankly, not what America's history is all about." All too true, unfortunately. Meddling has been a constant of U.S. policy towards Iran.

This history continues to afflict America's relationship with Iranians. Persistent threats of military strikes and cheery jingles about bombing campaigns—which undoubtedly would have killed some of the demonstrators whose cause the U.S. government now champions—also taint Washington's call for democracy. So, too, the preelection admission of such neoconservatives as Max Boot and Daniel Pipes that they would prefer the reelection of Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Not all Iranians are likely to see Washington as a disinterested advocate of the best interests of the Iranian people.

Americans should still encourage a freer society in Iran. Liberty is a principle that transcends country and culture. Former–Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi uneasily wears the opposition mantle, but the recent election obviously was unfair: even the Guardian Council made the astonishing admission that more than 100 percent of the eligible voters cast ballots in fifty cities. The burden of proof was on Ahmadinejad to demonstrate that he would have won even without fraud, but the regime offered threats instead of evidence.

More important, the overall system is rigged, with tight control over who can even run for office. The most important policies are set outside of government. Many of the thugs deployed to protect the regime represent a parallel Islamic ruling structure—beyond even the theoretical control of the state. The regime has compounded its abuses by rounding up human-rights activists, journalists and other critics. Washington has nothing at stake in the particular form of political system in Tehran. But Americans should take the side of individual liberty and representative government.

However, those demanding vocal public expressions of U.S. government support for the opposition fail to explain how doing so would actually promote reform. After all, Washington's hostility to Iran's Islamic government is in its thirtieth year. The Bush administration spent eight years loudly declaring its opposition to Tehran's politicians and policies with little effect. Pious public proclamations risk turning into little more than selfish acts of moral vanity.

The Iranian regime already is pushing the line that Washington was behind the protests. Some on the Left speculated about Washington's influence over the demonstrators: if the CIA sponsored crowds in 1953, then why not now? The Obama administration's plan to fund Iranian opposition groups is likely to exacerbate such suspicions. Yet popular unrest, sometimes exploding onto the streets, has been evident for years. And the latest demonstrations were much broader than in the past: no outside manipulation could have brought out millions of people in the face of repression to demand that their vote be respected. Their courage speaks for itself.

But for the U.S. government to be perceived as interfering—yet again—in Iran's affairs would retard rather than accelerate reform. Ahmadinejad has won on force but lost on legitimacy: Moussavi, fellow reform candidate Mehdi Karroubi, and former-President Mohammad Khatami continue to criticize the fraudulent result. The worst thing Washington could do is turn the issue into a conflict between the U.S. and Iranian governments instead of one between the Iranian government and its people. And if Moussavi unexpectedly triumphed, the United States would not want to be tied to him either. After all, he looks moderate only in comparison to Ahmadinejad.

While unlikely to help unseat the current regime, expansive statements of U.S. government support and generous cash grants risk giving democracy activists a false sense of security. It wouldn't be the first time: Hungarian revolutionaries confronting the Soviet Union in 1956, Shiites rising against Saddam Hussein's regime in 2001, and Georgians battling Russian forces in 2008 all appeared to treat American verbal endorsements as a precursor to armed intervention on their behalf.

Nevertheless, some American analysts who a few weeks ago were urging a bombing campaign against Iran—which Iranian dissidents say has played into the regime's hands—unsurprisingly contend the ongoing crackdown is (yet another) reason to end engagement with Tehran before it has begun. Yet standing for human rights has never meant refusing to talk, else Washington would have had no contact with the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong's China, Eastern Europe or a variety of third-world dictatorships during the cold war. (Indeed, taking that principle seriously, the U.S. government would not have dealt with many of its own allies, including the shah, who routinely violated human rights.)

However, the nuclear issue is too important to leave unaddressed. Military strikes might only delay Iran's possible development of nuclear weapons. Moreover, such an attack would increase Tehran's incentive to develop an arsenal. U.S. intelligence does not believe that Iran has an active weapons program underway, though the mullahs may hope to create "turn-key" capability; military action likely would remove any doubt in the regime's mind about the desirability of possessing an atomic deterrent.

Moreover, war would destroy the democracy movement and solidify support for the regime. Worse, the violent, destabilizing consequences would ripple throughout the Muslim and Arab worlds, starting next door in Iraq, where one hundred thirty one thousand U.S. troops remain on station.

Tighter sanctions would increase pressure on the regime, but it's hard to predict their effectiveness. Certainly they are more likely to work in tandem with diplomacy, with carrots offered as well as sticks deployed. As America's UN Ambassador Susan Rice put it, "It's in the United States' national interest to make sure that we have employed all elements at our disposal, including diplomacy, to prevent Iran from achieving that nuclear capacity."

Human rights are important in their own right. But outside pressure is likely to have the least impact on changing Iran's internal political system. Moreover, even reducing repression in Tehran would not guarantee a satisfactory resolution of Iran's possible nuclear ambitions. After all, Iran first exhibited interest in acquiring nuclear weapons under the shah. Even a liberal, secular government might decide to maintain a nuclear option for geopolitical reasons.

In contrast, solve the nuclear issue, and there will be greater chance of improving human rights in Iran. Even then, ruling clerics will not want to yield power. However, reducing international threats while increasing international contacts would further weaken a regime now largely discredited by electoral cheating and brutal repression. In fact, sharp divisions have emerged among the ruling elite.

Reaching a negotiated settlement over Tehran's presumed nuclear ambitions was never going to be easy. It will be even harder now, especially in the near-term, with the regime attempting to rebuild its authority and legitimacy. But over time the effort is worth pursuing, if for no other reason that no other good options remain. Moreover, success would be the best means of improving human rights.

Moving forward in the aftermath of the post-election crackdown will be especially difficult, since Washington doesn't want to appear to accept the election results or the regime. So the administration should move slowly, probably much more slowly than it once had hoped. Washington has little choice but to eventually move ahead, however.

Those who would not talk to Iran would effectively abandon the best chance of resolving the nuclear issue and improving human rights. The United States should unabashedly promote the principles of a free society. But the Obama administration has correctly made caution the keystone of its response to Iran's fraudulent election. Carefully calibrated engagement is the best strategy for encouraging a freer, and nuclear-free, Iran.

Indeed, the Bush administration's Freedom Agenda was challenging the status quo in the "old" Middle East by using U.S. military and diplomatic power to promote democracy in Iraq (by ousting Saddam Hussein and holding free elections), in Lebanon (by forcing Syria to withdraw its troops and holding elections) and in the Palestinian Authority (by pressing for elections), a process that would eventually produce political reforms in the rest of the Middle East, including in Iran.

Ignoring the lessons of history, and dismissing warnings about the hurdles facing a campaign to implant Western-style democracy at gunpoint, the Bush administration inadvertently helped to give birth to a "new" Middle East in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, that was in some ways, less peaceful, less tolerant, and less democratic than the "old" one. And these efforts all had the effect of strengthening Iran.

The recent good news has been that President Barack Obama seemed to favor the more realistic U.S. approach towards the Middle East that assumed the need for American diplomatic engagement with the existing regimes in the region. Focused on securing U.S. interests, the Obama team has downplayed the importance of exporting American-style democracy. Notwithstanding the soaring rhetoric of his historic address in Cairo, Egypt, President Obama seemes to be going back to the "old Middle East.

There is no doubt that Obama's rejection of neoconservative grand designs of fighting Islamofascism and remaking the Middle East, and his commitment to renew the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, have helped reduce anti-Americanism while empowering those players that favor stronger ties with the U.S. and the West.

From that perspective the victory of the pro-Western coalition in Lebanon's parliamentary election, as well as the energizing of the reformist forces during the presidential election in Iran, could be attributed in part to the impact that Obama's message has had on political groups calling for political change and openness to the world. Such individuals are now less concerned that they would be perceived as puppets of an anti-Muslim and militaristic U.S.

But Obama's Cairo address should not be seen as the launching pad for a new and gentler American campaign —using soft power this time — to democratize the Middle East.

To be sure, Washington and its allies should be relieved that the coalition led by Hizbollah, and backed by Iran, has failed to emerge as the winner in the election in Lebanon. But the outcome of the election there should not be misconstrued as a victory for liberal democracy. The system of confessionalism that exists in Lebanon helps to secure the power of recognized religious groups based on demographics. But the current arrangement is based on a distribution that reflects the results of the last official census taken in 1932. Claims that the winning coalition necessarily represents liberal values are undermined by the revelation that it received considerable financial support from Saudi Arabia, the medieval, autocratic regime that —unlike Iran — doesn't permit women to vote in elections.

In fact, the elections in Lebanon and Iran (as well as earlier contests in Iraq and the Palestinian Authority) point to the fact that the drive for democracy — and, in particular, the push for elections — poses a threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East. These elections have empowered social groups, including the working class and the rural poor, who tend to be more conservative, more religious and more nationalistic in their political outlook and who don't necessarily share the more secular and liberal values of the West.

Watching the young and "cool" men and women in Tehran, demonstrating in support for the "reformer" Hossein Mousavi (who is actually a member of the political Shiite establishment), many Westerners seemed to have adopted the wishful thinking that Iran is on a brink of a Western oriented democratic revolution. The notion that the majority of Iranians may not be "like us" and don't share our dreams or aspirations — and who actually support Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — was clearly very difficult to accept.

But any move on Washington's part to further isolate the ayatollahs in Tehran in order to force political change there would likely be as ineffective as the effort to punish the communists in Beijing in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Instead, as in the case of China, U.S. diplomatic and economic engagement with Iran could help create conditions more conducive for economic and political reforms and perhaps without the added pain of those birth pangs.

President Obama's response to North Korea's nuclear test encapsulated Washington's approach. Pyongyang, he indicated, faces a stark choice. If Kim Jong-il's regime abandons its quest for nuclear weapons, there is an opportunity for North Korea to gradually become a normal member of the international community and enjoy an array of diplomatic and economic benefits. Conversely, the president warned, Pyongyang would only "deepen its own isolation" if it continued its attempt to develop a nuclear arsenal. Washington has backed up the president's warning by pushing for tighter economic sanctions from the UN Security Council.

The Obama administration's approach to Iran is a bit more subtle and nuanced, but it ultimately hints at a similar binary choice. The key difference is, as Obama indicated in his Cairo speech, that Iran would be allowed to have a "peaceful" nuclear program — as long as Tehran abided by all international agreements and safeguards for such programs. The United States has never been as flexible regarding North Korea. Washington's goal remains a complete, verifiable and irreversible end to Pyongyang's entire nuclear program.

Although the Obama administration's offer of carrots is more generous to Tehran than to Pyongyang, the stick remains essentially the same: painful isolation of both countries if they refuse to cooperate. But U.S. policy makers need to ask whether that threat is either feasible or wise. Evidence suggests that it is neither.

Washington is unlikely to achieve the degree of isolation that might compel either North Korea or Iran to change its policies. Although Beijing is upset with its North Korean client for the latest nuclear and missile tests, Chinese officials have steadfastly opposed imposing truly rigorous sanctions on Kim Jong-il's regime. And without China's full-fledged cooperation, economic sanctions against Pyongyang will prove only marginally effective.

The chances of successfully isolating Iran are even more remote. Both Russia and China have dragged their feet about tougher measures against Tehran, and the existing sanctions system leaks badly. Moreover, unlike small, poverty-stricken North Korea, Iran is a midsize power with considerable clout in its region.

Washington's strategy is likely to prove just effective enough to cause those countries economic problems, thereby irrevocably antagonizing both regimes and creating even greater incentives for dangerous behavior. U.S. policy makers need to face some troubling realities. First, it seems increasingly unlikely that either Tehran or Pyongyang will be dissuaded from pursuing nuclear ambitions. Short of launching military strikes to take out their programs — a step that could easily trigger full-scale wars in the Persian Gulf and Northeast Asia — the global nuclear weapons club will probably have two new members within the next few years.

That being the case, policy makers need to ask themselves whether it is a good idea to try to isolate those countries. For the United States in particular, do we really want a situation in which we have no formal relations with two nuclear-armed powers?

Such a strategy would be extremely dangerous. Working to isolate those regimes would exacerbate tensions and increase the possibility of a fatal miscalculation. For example, if the United States and other countries impose additional economic sanctions on an already impoverished North Korea, the incentives would increase for Pyongyang to seek revenues from other sources. And one such source would be to sell nuclear technology to any paying customer.

Pyongyang and Tehran are also aware that Washington has previously tried to use the isolation strategy against other "breakout" nuclear powers, without much success. The United States and its allies sought to use sanctions to get India and Pakistan to reverse course following their nuclear tests and the deployment of arsenals in the late 1990s. Those measures seem like quaint memories today, as the United States soon concluded that it needed to forge close ties with both countries.

It is likely that despite issuing threats and waging ineffective campaigns to impose sanctions against North Korea and Iran, the United States and the rest of the international community will ultimately have to accept reality and come to terms with the newest members of the global nuclear-weapons club. Trying to isolate nuclear powers, even obnoxious and unpredictable ones like Iran and North Korea, is a futile and potentially dangerous approach. A better strategy is to hold our noses and attempt to establish a reasonably normal diplomatic and economic relationship with such countries.

One group of Americans, however, has remained silent. They have not appeared on radio or television. They have no blogs. They would have been incapable of operating a typewriter, let alone a personal computer. Nonetheless, the nation's Founders would approve of key elements of Obama's speech.

How do I know? While they can't Tweet from the grave, their words and writings span the generations, and President Obama wisely connected U.S. policy in the 21st century to the principles that formed the Republic.

In his Cairo speech, Obama reminded his audience — or perhaps taught them for the very first time — that the United States was not now, nor ever has been, at war with Islam, or with any other religion. He quoted John Adams, who saw no reason why the United States could not enjoy good relations with Morocco, the first country to recognize the United States. When signing the Treaty of Tripoli, Adams wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims."

President George Washington affirmed the nation's respect for all religions in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. Washington rejected the notion that the new government "tolerated" particular religions, because that implied that it was through "the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights." On the contrary, Washington explained, "the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens."

In fairness, quotes can be taken out of context to serve many ends, good or ill. Fifteen minutes on Google could reveal comments by the Founders, including Washington and Adams, that would land a modern politician in a mandatory diversity training seminar. So much for the principle of racial equality in 18th century America, say the skeptics.

Still, for all their faults, the Founders views on foreign policy are worth recalling. They believed that the new nation should advance human rights and the cause of liberty by its example, not by force. They believed that military force was sometimes required, as does Obama today, for example, when he pledged to "relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security." By the same token, the Founders realized that war was one of the primary vehicles whereby governments infringed upon individual liberty, and they sought ways to limit the government's propensity to wage war, particularly by giving the power to declare and fund wars to Congress.

Some of our recent leaders seem to have forgotten that. Others, to the extent that they are aware of these Constitutional limits, have sought to remove them. They have taken their cues from a group of thinkers who scorned John Quincy Adams's admonition that America ought not go "abroad in search of monsters to destroy," and the Founders' broader vision of "sitting atop a hill and leading by example" as, in the words of William Kristol and Robert Kagan, synonymous with "cowardice and dishonor."

President Obama obviously disagrees. In Cairo he cast his lot with the earlier generation, quoting Thomas Jefferson who said "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be." The speech signals the president's belief that we would be richer, freer, and safer if we adhered more closely to the wise standard that our Founders set for us. For that, Americans and non-Americans alike should be pleased.

Western efforts to reach out to Islam are increasing. However, many Muslim states want to end all Western criticism of Islam. At their behest, last November the United Nations General Assembly denounced the "defamation" of religions, complaining that "Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism." Nations were enjoined "to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs."

Let us stipulate that some US government policies offend Muslims. And that most Muslims do not support terrorism. Nevertheless, rather than promoting religious tolerance, most Islamic governments routinely persecute minority faiths.

For instance, six of the 10 top persecutors making up the "Hall of Shame" created by International Christian Concern (ICC) have largely Muslim populations. Of 27 countries targeted for religious persecution by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), 17 had Muslim majorities.

Islamic states are not monolithic, but those which largely leave religious minorities alone are the exception. Of Morocco, reported the State Department last year: "The Government places certain restrictions on non-Islamic religious materials and proselytizing." State added, "There were reports of societal abuses or discrimination toward those with different religious beliefs, and converts from Islam to other religions." Moreover, the regime "generally confiscates Arabic-language Bibles and refuses licenses for their importation and sale despite the absence of any law banning such books."

Last year the State Department reported on Jordan's declining religious liberty, reflected in "[t]he government's handling of apostasy cases, expulsion of approximately thirty foreign Christian religious workers, and instances of individual and organizational harassment based on religious affiliation." Moreover, "[m]embers of unrecognized religious groups and converts from Islam face legal discrimination and risk the loss of civil rights, including threats to their person and/or family."

Recently, Obama visited Turkey, where two years ago Islamic extremists tortured and murdered three Christians. The State Department warned: "Violent attacks and continued threats against non-Muslims during the reporting period created an atmosphere of pressure and diminished freedom for some non-Muslim communities." Converts from Islam "sometimes experienced social harassment and violence from relatives and neighbors."

ICC places Egypt in its Hall of Shame, noting pervasive mistreatment of Coptic Christians, who "are widely discriminated against as a result of the discriminatory policies of the country and the bias of Muslim officials. There have been many instances in which, in some localities, Muslim extremists looted and burned down Christian owned businesses and homes, maiming and killing Christians."

In Afghanistan discrimination and persecution are also increasing. USCIRF warns that "Conditions for freedom of religion or belief in Afghanistan have become increasingly problematic." Three years ago a Muslim convert to Christianity, Abdul Rahman, barely avoided execution.

Pakistan treats Christians "as second-class citizens," reports ICC. The State Department has written that "[l]aw enforcement personnel abused religious minorities in custody. Security forces and other government agencies did not adequately prevent or address societal abuse against minorities. Discriminatory legislation and the Government's failure to take action against societal forces hostile to those who practice a different religious belief fostered religious intolerance, acts of violence, and intimidation against religious minorities."

In Iraq "there have been alarming numbers of religiously-motivated killings, abductions, beatings, rapes, threats, intimidation, forced resettlements, and attacks on religious leaders, pilgrims, and holy sites," explains the USCIRF. The smallest religious minorities have suffered the most. Roughly half of Christians have been driven from their homes.

As for Iran, the State Department reported that "Government rhetoric and actions created a threatening atmosphere for nearly all non-Shi'a religious groups, most notably for Baha'is, as well as Sufi Muslims, evangelical Christians, and members of the Jewish community." The USCIRF reports on deteriorating religious freedom, "including intensified physical attacks, harassment, detention, arrest, and imprisonment."

The State Department explained that "[t]here is no legal recognition of, or protection under the law for, freedom of religion, and it is severely restricted in practice" in Saudi Arabia. The Commission says that the Saudi government has been "engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief."

The list goes on.

Obviously Obama cannot center American foreign policy on promoting religious liberty abroad. However, the freedoms of conscience and religious faith are critical aspects of human rights. Any genuine dialogue with Islamic states must address the fact that many of them routinely and sometimes savagely repress religious minorities.

Let's continue to encourage dialogue with Muslim nations. But let's put all issues on the table, including religious persecution.