If the December National Intelligence Estimate was the State Department’s way of undermining the Bush administration’s foreign policy, it’s been extraordinarily successful. Some may debate whether the nie was a symptom, rather than a cause, of the fundamental shift in President Bush’s foreign policy. But either way you look at it, in recent months, we’ve witnessed a stunning transformation in the way America deals with rogue states. To paraphrase the New York Times, seven years of don’t talk to terrorists or their state sponsors have been replaced by a new era of openness and diplomacy. The Times wrote,

[A]dministration officials are openly making nice with Syria, holding round after round of talks with Iran over the fate of Iraq, and making preliminary plans for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to visit Libya.And President Bush himself has gotten in on the act—writing a personal (“cordial,” the White House says) letter to the secretive and enigmatic North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il that held out the possibility of normalizing diplomatic relations.

Five years ago, President Bush identified North Korea, Iran and Iraq as the “axis of evil,” saying they were “arming to threaten the peace of the world.” Now, U.S. officials are reaching out to the two remaining members of the evil axis.

At last week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice highlighted three critical areas that shape America’s global leadership: a just economic model (don’t laugh), promoting freedom and democracy (like in Gaza), and the “role of diplomacy in overcoming differences between nations.” On that third point, Secretary Rice said, “Diplomacy can make possible a world in which old enemies can become, if not friends, then no longer adversaries.” She assured the audience that “America has no permanent enemies.” She followed that by saying,

Let me assure you that the United States also has no desire to have a permanent enemy in Iran, even after 29 years of difficult history. Iranians are a proud people with a great culture, and we respect the contributions that they have made to world civilization. We have no conflict with Iran’s people, but we have real differences with Iran’s government—from its support for terrorism, to its destabilizing policies in Iraq, to its pursuit of technologies that could lead to a nuclear weapon. … Ultimately, though, this problem can and should be resolved through diplomacy.

As late as October of last year, President Bush issued a thinly veiled threat to use force against Iran to prevent Ahmadinejad from starting World War iii. Now, U.S. officials are attempting to win over the Islamic Republic with flatteries.

He’s No John Bolton

At the same conference Secretary Rice attended, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, participated in a debate with two high-ranking Iranian officials about the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy. After listening to Iran’s foreign minister and one of Ahmadinejad’s top aides justify their pursuit of uranium enrichment, Khalilzad said, “Iran has the right to pursue a civilian nuclear program and we accept that right. We accept the concern that Iran has about having access to fuel. We have not objected to the Russians providing fuel. And we are open-minded with regard to how the security of supply of fuel can be provided without the risk of proliferation.”

Later, Khalilzad scolded the Iranian officials for not complying with two UN resolutions, but like Secretary Rice, he made it clear that America had no feud with the people of Iran. He said, “Iran is a very important country. We have great respect, of course, for the people of Iran and for its culture and traditions.” President Bush repeated the same talking points two days later in his State of the Union address: “Our message to the people of Iran is clear: We have no quarrel with you. We respect your traditions and your history.” It’s just a few leaders in Iran that America has a problem with. All the others, of course, are friends of America.

The day after the president’s address, when a video of Khalilzad’s debate with the Iranians appeared on YouTube, White House officials reacted angrily, saying he had not been given approval to participate in the discussion. But it’s difficult imagining the State Department being left in the dark about Khalilzad’s participation, given the fact that Secretary Rice attended the first day of the conference. According to the New York Times,

The infighting reflects continuing disagreements within the Bush administration about how to deal with Iran, and just where to draw the line on engaging its nemesis, particularly when the administration’s Iran policy appears to be in disarray. Many State Department officials say privately that they think the administration should directly engage Iran, and without preconditions, a view that is not shared by the White House.

But thanks to the nie, the Times points out, the State Department’s position is surging with momentum. For example, in lobbying for a new round of sanctions against Tehran, the latest UN resolution is much weaker than the White House had hoped for. Efforts to obtain Russian and Chinese support for tougher sanctions were undercut by the release of the nie.

The intelligence estimate “does hurt in that it furthers the view in most of the world that it’s a question of cleaning up Iran’s past record, and that after that, everything’s done,” said George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “I don’t see what the administration can do to change that scenario. This resolution will be the something that’s just a little more than nothing.”Indeed, Bush administration officials have recently been on the defensive in trying to demonstrate why the rest of the world should continue to increase the pressure on Iran.At the forum in Davos on Saturday, Mr. Khalilzad, seated next to Mr. Mottaki, defended the American stance that pressure should be maintained against Iran until Tehran agrees to suspend its uranium enrichment.”It hasn’t been a brilliantly successful strategy so far,” said Gareth Evans of the International Crisis Group, the panel’s moderator, expressing support for an idea increasingly winning favor in Europe, one that would allow Iran to enrich uranium but only with stronger international monitoring and safeguards.

Moderator Gareth Evans, by the way, introduced Zalmay Khalilzad at the Davos debate by listing the ambassador’s numerous credentials, including the “formidable advantage of having a name that is notJohn Bolton.” The insult, laughed at by the international press corps, didn’t seem to bother Khalilzad.

When told about the moderator’s jab, John Bolton upbraided Khalilzad for even taking part in the debate. “When I was at the UN, this would not have happened,” Bolton told Power Line. “Perhaps the State Department or the White House are sending a signal to Iran that our policy is weakening yet again. They should be asked to say one way or the other on the record.”

That Zalmay Khalilzad now represents U.S. interests at the United Nations, instead of John Bolton, shows that America’s foreign-policy shift was in full swing even before the nie came along. In his 16-month tenure as UN ambassador, Bolton encouraged extensive reforms within the international body, which had long been transparently hostile toward U.S. and Israeli foreign policies. Bolton resigned in late 2006, after losing support in Congress due to the Democrats’ election victories in the House and Senate.

Bolton’s replacement, the Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, is much less “controversial” at the UN. His November proposal supporting the Annapolis agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, for example, received widespread support from UN members. The White House, however, withdrew the proposal after Israel’s ambassador complained that he hadn’t even seen the document.

Then, last week, Khalilzad joined two Iranian officials in a foreign-policy discussion in Switzerland, without White House backing.

Khalilzad, who speaks English as a second language, is seriously considering a run for president of Afghanistan in 2009. Gareth Evans was certainly right on one count: Zalmay Khalilzad is no John Bolton.

Lesson of History

Speaking at the Herzliya Conference in Israel last week, John Bolton called the National Intelligence Estimate the most politicized analysis in the history of the U.S. intelligence community. Because of that document, Bolton told his Israeli audience, there is “close to zero likelihood that President Bush will authorize the use of military force against Iran’s program before he leaves office.” The nie, he said, has given Iran “free reign” to “proceed unmolested toward a nuclear weapons capability.”

What an alarming U-turn this is for the Bush administration. In a recent interview with the National Journal, Bolton said, “I think the Bush foreign policy is in free fall at the moment, because the president has abandoned the principles and gut instincts he began to form in 2001.”

What a difference seven years makes. Compare the president’s State of the Union address in 2002—given four months after 9/11—with the one he gave on Monday. Back then, the president said, “History has called America and our allies to action.” The terrorist attack reminded Americans of their obligations to each other, to their country, and their history, Bush said.

Today, instead of building on momentum in Iraq to confront the much larger threat in Iran, the United States has raised the diplomatic white flag of surrender. Secretary Rice is effectively the only voice in the president’s ear, Bolton said in his interview. And she is “advocating the same policies that the State Department bureaucracy has been promoting for the past seven years.”

In her speech at Davos, after assuring Europeans that the United States had no permanent enemies, Secretary Rice said, “The United States is sometimes thought of as a nation that perhaps does not dwell enough on its own history. To that, I say: Good for us. Because too much focus on history can become a prison for nations.”

I had to read it again too. Forget the lesson of history—diplomacy turns enemies into friends!

On Wednesday, our diplomatic partner in Tehran vowed to win the nuclear standoff with the United States. According to Agence France Presse, a large crowd of Iranians in Bushehr—the people America has “no quarrel” with—greeted Ahmadinejad’s message of defiance with jubilant cheers. “I advise you to abandon the filthy Zionist entity which has reached the end of the line,” Ahmadinejad said. “The ones who still support the criminal Zionists should know that the occupiers’ days are numbered.”

This is the government Washington policymakers desperately want America to engage with—and without any preconditions.

History, of course, teaches us that appeasing madmen like Ahmadinejad invariably leads to war, not peace. But in the post-nie world of American foreign policy, we can’t dwell on that lesson too much.