As in the past quarter of century, the
looming presidential election in the United States has made
the Iran debate a fulcrum of presidential contest, with
the Republican and Democratic candidates trying to
outdo each other in Iran-bashing. Like a rehashed
gourmet leftover, the Iran issue gives each candidate
an opportunity to polish his image as tough on
"rogue states" and international terrorism, accusing the
other side of being a softy on Iran's "mad mullahs", to
quote a recent editorial. The exigencies of
presidential elections notwithstanding, one must of course wonder
if Washington's favorite pastime vis-a-vis Iran every
four years constitutes a rational foreign policy.
Indeed, there is a growing chorus of voices from
America's foreign-policy experts who advocate (critical)
dialogue with Iran instead of the hitherto-dominant
approach of confrontation and belligerency, both in the
White House and Congress. Case in point, a recent study
by the influential Council on Foreign Relations
concluded that in the light of Iran's importance,
economically and geostrategically, the US government
should seek to engage the Iranian government in dialogue
as a prelude to diplomatic normalization.
Sadly, the recommendation of this policy group has
coincided with the new revelations of the 9-11 Commission
that some of the September 11, 2001, hijackers transited
through Iran prior to their deadly mission,
inflammatory information seized on by the right-wing media in the
United States thirsting for another military confrontation
in the Middle East. The Iranian government has
responded by acknowledging that because of the difficulties of regulating
the trans-border traffic at the porous Iran-Afghanistan
border the news may have credibility, yet strongly
denied any official complicity with the al-Qaeda
terrorists, citing the latter's radical Sunni and
anti-Shi'ite identity.
Still, there are
lingering suspicions that certain "rogue" elements
within the Iranian Revolutionary Guards may have played
a role in facilitating the transit of al-Qaeda
terrorists, and this suspicion alone is at present more
than sufficient to torpedo any decent chance for even a
mini-breakthrough in the stalemated US-Iran relations in
the immediate future. In fact, the poison in the chalice
of diplomatic alienation may have thickened
substantially both as a result of the new allegations of
Iran-al-Qaeda connections and the recent statements by
the United Nations atomic agency criticizing Iran's less
than full transparency on its nuclear program,
representing a mild setback in Iran-European Union
relations.
Thus to the pertinent question of what
direction are troubled US-Iran relations heading? More
tensions and more serious accusations hurled at each
other, or lessening of tensions, or, perhaps, the continuing
mid-level animosity and "cold war" of the present
moment? Assuming, hypothetically, that the US government
uncovers more evidence of Iran-al-Qaeda connections
in the near future, there is no doubt that whoever
is in the White House a few months from now will be
rather forced to maintain the chariot of Iran-bashing,
irrespective of the areas of shared interests
between the two countries, eg the revived Taliban
threat and the narco-traffic from Afghanistan that
has grown 50 times since the US invasion of that
country. Concerning the latter, since 2000, the US
and Iran have been collaborating through the UN's "six
plus two" initiative against the Afghanistan-led
narcotics.
This is not to mention Iraq:
Iran tacitly approved of the US war to dislodge the
Ba'athist regime, and its explicit blessing of the
postwar transitional government was most recently expressed in
a message from Iran's president submitted to Iraq's
new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, by Iran's diplomat
in Baghdad. Iran is also preparing its case
against Saddam Hussein, who was identified by the UN in
1990 as the culprit behind the bloody eight-year war
with Iran. It remains to be seen if this will include
the affidavit of some 60,000 living victims of Iraq's
chemical attacks, who have sued the US government in
Iran for its complicity with the then Iraqi government
in violation of international protocols banning the sale
of chemical agents used for warfare.
Of
course, in
the larger scheme of things, the power rivalry between
an intrusive superpower bent on hegemonic domination
and an assertive regional power suspicious of outside
powers in the Persian Gulf's oil region constitutes
the nub of present tensions between the two countries,
which promise to remain for the foreseeable future
with or without any breakthrough in diplomatic relations.
Iranian policymakers are openly discussing the
implications of the United States' military bases near Iran's
borders, and some even go as far as referring to the US
as Iran's "new neighbor" sharing a longer border than
the US has with Canada. Such comparisons have their
limitations without doubt, and the fact remains that
Iran is adamant about the need for the US to depart from
Iraq in the near future, based on Iran's own calculation
of its national security interests. Yet with all the
tangible signs pointing in the direction of a long stay
by the US military in Iraq, Iran's leaders have to come
to terms with the inevitable reality of the need to deal
with the uninvited superpower accusing it of pretty much
the same sins as that of Saddam, namely proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction, links with terrorism,
and dictatorship.
Consequently, the stage is set for a
second Bush administration, in the case of there being one
after November 4, to turn the wheels of US power against
Iran, including at the UN by pushing for comprehensive sanctions
on Iran for allegedly proliferating nuclear
weapons under the guise of its peaceful nuclear
program. Not to be outdone by the incumbent, his
rival Senator John Kerry has also upped the ante
against Iran, castigating President George W Bush for overlooking
the "Iran threat" and promising voters to get tough on
Iran if elected.
But realistically, how tough
can the US get on Iran short of causing another upheaval
in international relations? And how many Middle East
countries have to fall to the US military might as a
result of the September 11 tragedies, which may have
been prevented had the Bush administration heeded the
stern warnings of imminent attack by its own
intelligence agencies, as aptly pointed out in the
documentary Fahrenheit 9/11?
The dictates
of prudent international diplomacy by both countries
necessitate the need to engage in constructive dialogue,
as they have been discreetly over both Iraq and
Afghanistan since September 11, to water down their
differences and focus on the sources of actual and
potential shared or parallel interests, and to utilize
the lessons of conciliation and negotiation proven
successful in resolving similar international,
inter-state tensions.
This, in turn, requires
that US and Iranian officials distinguish those
differences that preclude normalization with those that
can be accepted within normal diplomatic relations.
There is always the possibility that some of the
differences may turn out, as a result of face-to-face
dialogue, to be less divisive than hitherto thought,
such as the Palestinian issue, Persian Gulf stability,
and Caspian Sea oil developments. As the seasoned
authors of Iran study at the Council on Foreign
Relations have correctly pointed out, the durability of
ill-will between the two countries is guaranteed to
remain as long as they continue to shun direct dialogue.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author
of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign
Policy (Westview Press) and "Iran's Foreign Policy
Since 9/11", Brown's Journal of World Affairs,
co-authored with former deputy foreign minister Abbas
Maleki, No 2, 2003.
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