Bush's zero-sum fiasco with Iran.

The Bush administration is now trying to rally Arab rulers against Iran, forgetting that an unnecessary invasion of Iraq was what has brought about this mess in the first place.

By Dilip Hiro

• Bush in a humiliating zero-sum Iranian game of his own making

Bush's woefully misguided invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, carried out under false pretences, has not only drained the United States treasury, but reduced Washington's standing in the Middle East in a way not yet fully grasped by most commentators. Whereas Washington once played off Tehran against Baghdad, while involved in a superpower zero-sum game with the Soviet Union, the Bush administration is now engaged in a zero-sum game, as a virtual equal, with Iran. That is, America's loss has become Iran's automatic gain, and vice-versa.
To grasp the steepness of Washington's recent fall, recall that until Saddam Hussein's disastrous invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the zero-sum doctrine in the region applied only to Iraq and Iran, two minor powers on the world stage.

Having emerged in a self-congratulatory mode as the "sole superpower" after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. now finds itself competing with a secondary power in the Middle East. This humbling realization seems to have finally penetrated the minds of top policy makers in the Bush administration, causing concern.

More than anything else, that explains the sudden spurt of presidential interest in healing the long-running Israeli-Palestinian sore by holding a Middle East conference in Annapolis, Maryland. The real objective of the Bush team had more to do with mollifying Arab leaders in order to hold them together in its ongoing confrontation with Tehran than realizing a genuine urge to create a viable, independent Palestine within a year.

With his invasion of Iraq in 2003, George W. Bush diverged wildly from the policies of his two Republican predecessors: his father, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Both of them had proved erudite enough to maintain the zero-sum game between Iraq and Iran.More on the story.