The binary end-state for Iraq seems to be whether the bulk of the country will be controlled by Sunni Islamic extremists or Shiite Islamic extremists. Neither are good outcomes. Yet, the fact that the U.S. is not driven inexorably to choosing a side allows Washington to focus on a more important issue in the Middle East: nuclear proliferation. The largest threat to the West from the region today is not the spread of ISIS or collapse of Syria. It’s the specter of a nuclear arms race in the Persian Gulf. U.S. policy should focus clearly on that issue when deciding whether or not to intervene in Iraq.

How are the two issues connected? Nuri al-Maliki’s role as an Iranian proxy should be fairly clear by now. In the near complete absence of American influence in Iraqi current events, Maliki’s replacement—Haider al-Abadi—was appointed with Iranian approval and unquestionably will be its proxy as well.  While more respectable perhaps than groups like Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad to Western audiences, they will all dance to the same tune played by the Guardian Council in Iran nonetheless. By words at least, U.S. policy seems to prefer the Shiite solution over the Sunni solution. Whether words alone can shape that outcome right now is questionable.

There appear to be few, if any, constants in U.S. Middle Eastern policy in recent history. Sitting governments friendly to America were suddenly abandoned in Egypt and Tunisia after decades of support. Egypt surrendered to the original (in the modern era at least) Sunni Islamic extremists—the Muslim Brotherhood. In Libya, the quasi-secular and tamed extremist, Muammar Qaddafi, was replaced with more orthodox Sunni extremists following an American bombing campaign behind a European facade. The message is that clearly the role of dictator is not a favorable factor in American decision-making.

 

What Would Machiavelli Do?

Yet when demonstrations rose up in Iran in 2009, by doing nothing we appeared to “favor” the sitting Iranian government. If this shows a Shiite bias, that would be belayed by American acquiescence to a 2011 not-so-brutal crackdown—at least by Middle Eastern standards—on Shiite protesters in Bahrain.  And in the case of Syria, Bashar al-Assad went from “He has to go” to a partner in negotiating chemical weapons disarmament—after he had already gotten use out of them. Ironically, Assad strengthened his diplomatic position with the possession and use of chemical weapons. So Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and WMD “red lines” would appear to have died in the cradle with Assad’s rebirth.

When President Obama decided to partner with Assad for chemical weapon disarmament rather than punish him for gassing his own people, America instantly allied itself by proxy with IranAssad’s essential sponsor.

Whether Shiite or Sunni, revolutionaries or incumbent regime, hostile or friendly, the only universal factor in U.S. policy seems to be whatever the moment requires. If there is a silver lining to this inconsistency, it is that American policymakers are free to pursue tailored foreign policy approaches unburdened by any overarching grand strategy or accusations of inconsistency. A Machiavellian approach applied to Iraq might pr