EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Hard Realities Force a Shift in US Policy Toward Iran

EURASIA INSIGHT

HARD REALITIES FORCE A SHIFT IN US POLICY TOWARD IRAN
Kamal Nazer Yasin 6/09/06

The announcement that the United States is willing to engage Iran concerning Tehran’s nuclear program marks a victory for Iranian diplomacy. At the same time, it remains unclear whether the US move will bring a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis any closer.

Since US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced May 31 that the United States would be open to joining European Union nations in direct negotiations with Tehran, Iranian leaders have sent mixed signals, with some elements within Iran’s opaque political system indicating a willingness to explore a compromise. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

On June 6, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, gave a tepid response to proposals by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany that are designed to encourage Iran to forsake its nuclear research program. The Bush administration and other governments insist Iran strives to develop nuclear weapons, while Tehran maintains its program is designed for solely civilian applications. Despite Larijani’s evident caution, some experts were encouraged by the fact he saw the international proposals as containing "some positive steps."

The international package, which was formally presented in Tehran by Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy commissioner, was reportedly incentive laden. According to sources in Tehran, Iran would gain the ability to buy US agricultural equipment and spare parts for the country’s aging commercial airliner fleet if it agreed to suspend its nuclear research efforts. Iran would also receive a security guarantee under the international offer.

Following bilateral talks in Paris on June 9, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac expressed optimism that US entry into the negotiating process would improve the chances for a successful outcome.

Iran badly needs access to US technology in order to revive the country’s stagnating economy, but officials in Tehran have sent clear signals that they are in no hurry to strike a deal. On the same day Solana unveiled the incentive package, Iranian officials announced they had resumed uranium enrichment activities. That throws the future of negotiations up in the air, given that US President George W. Bush has set the Iranian suspension of such actions as a precondition to American participation in talks. The US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said the "ball’s in Iran’s court," in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

Iran seems to be playing a different game. The country’s outspoken president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, indicated that Iran would not offer any immediate concessions to reciprocate the US decision to enter into direct talks, and hinted that Iranian officials might use the opportunity of face-to-face discussions to raise non-nuclear related issues.

"They [American officials] should not think that if they hold talks with Iran, it means they have given any concession to [Tehran]," the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying June 8. "They make decisions against Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. We intend to hold talks with them on the roots of corruption, discrimination and cruelties."

The Bush administration’s decision to conduct direct discussions with Iran marks a momentous shift in American policy, which since the 1979 hostage crisis had promoted Iran’s international isolation through economic sanctions and a refusal to engage in face-to-face diplomatic exchanges. In 2002, Bush branded Iran as a member of the so-called "Axis of Evil."

Several experts indicated the Bush administration still would prefer not to talk to Iranian officials, but added that recent diplomatic bumbling on Washington’s part forced the White House to acquiesce. "There was simply no other alternative," said Gary Sick, an Iran expert and a former member of the US National Security Council. "The coalition against Iran was falling apart thanks to US refusal to join the multilateral talks."

In recent months, Iran has made successful diplomatic efforts to garner support from non-aligned nations, including Brazil and Indonesia. Meanwhile, the EU-3 -- France, Britain and Germany � have complained that their efforts to negotiate an end to Iran’s nuclear program were being undermined by a US lack of cooperation. In addition, the position of Russia, which wields veto power in the UN Security Council, has been drifting away from that held by the EU and United States. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

US policy-makers concluded that Iran was taking advantage of evident splits within the international community, and that if the United States did not do something soon to close the gaps, these divisions would become irreparable and any chance for a diplomatic solution could be lost. "Bush had no choice but to change course," Sick said.

According to David Albright, the president of Institute for Science and International Security in Washington DC, hubris in neo-conservative circles helped cloud the Bush administration’s judgment. In recalling one conversation shortly after US forces invaded Iraq in 2003, Albright said: "I told them an international effort was needed immediately to halt the Iranians’ program before it was too late. These guys all had such a holier-than-thou attitude. They said what’s the worry, we’ll just turn East (from Iraq) and soon there’d be no Islamic Republic to threaten anyone."

David Mack, vice president of the Middle East Institute, thinks the US about-face is significant from three angles. "First, talking directly to Iranians is an important development in itself. Second, joining Russia and the Europeans means US is distancing itself from its earlier unilateralism. Third, the United States is changing its position by allowing for some degree of enrichment by the Iranians," he told EurasiaNet.

While the shift in the US position has cheered foreign policy realists in Washington, the move has prompted anxiety and disappointment among American neo-conservatives, who retain considerable political clout despite the fact that events in the past few years have revealed many of their foreign policy ideas to be half-baked. Michael Rubin, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and an early advocate of regime change in both Iraq and Iran launched a blistering attack on the White House, calling its new Iran policy "a strategic blunder".

Another expert at AEI, Michael Ledeen was similarly surprised and dismayed over the recent turn of events. "The way it is playing out, they have trapped us and we are tricking ourselves," he told EurasiaNet. "We are giving this tyranny a big incentive (by allowing limited enrichment) and a lot of other goodies instead of punishing them for flouting their commitments under the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency]. Now the Iranians are saying we like parts of this package and we don’t like some other parts; so let’s negotiate."

Mack said he found neo-conservative complaints to be somewhat ironic: "Whenever there was criticism of this administration, they (neo-conservatives) would say that people at State [The State Department] and the CIA were undercutting the President’s policies. Now that President Bush has made this change in policy, they are saying he is buckling under pressure."

Editor�s Note: Kamal Nazer Yasin is a pseudonym for a freelance journalist specializing in Iranian affairs.

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