Mission impossible? True US-Iran
dialogue By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
The US decision to hold a direct dialogue
with Tehran over Iraq coupled with a policy of
isolating Iran over the nuclear-weapons issue and
Washington's often-stated goal of regime change
might seem like mission impossible, yet some
decision-makers in Washington would argue that
under the present circumstances these objectives
can in fact be pursued simultaneously.
But
no matter what transpires from the dialogue over
Iraq, the administration of US President George W
Bush faces a problem about
if
and how really to pursue the policy of regime
change in Iran, which has been formally
articulated under the guise of a new US$75 million
fund to undermine the rule of the theocrats and
promote democracy in Iran that was announced
recently by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Many in the US Congress, pushing for a
similar result under the rubric of the Iran
Freedom Act, argue that by opting to have any kind
of dialogue with Iran, the Bush administration
might be diverted from what they consider the real
mission. Some US lawmakers insist that the US
should recognize the exiled opposition group the
People's Mujahideen Organization (Mujahideen-e
Khalq, or MEK), even though it is deemed a
terrorist organization by the Department of State.
For the moment, however, enough concrete
signals have been received from Tehran to confirm
a positive reaction to the US overtures. These
were initially expressed by Rice at a
congressional hearing last October, wherein she
stated that she had authorized the US Ambassador
to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad to meet with his Iranian
counterpart. Subsequently, Khalilzad confirmed
that both the president and the secretary of state
had given him explicit authorization for this
purpose.
As of this writing, the date and
time of the dialogue have not been finalized and,
by all indications, both sides are engaged in an
intense pre-talks session, sending mixed feelers
toward each other and demonstrating that they have
both arrived at a rather awkward moment in which
neither party quite knows how to begin.
For instance, no sooner had the Iranian
spiritual leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei
given his blessing to the dialogue than a US
spokesperson raised questions about "the curious
timing" and suggested that Iran's decision was due
to the international pressure over the nuclear
issue. In turn, through its mission to the United
Nations, Iran reacted rather negatively, reminding
everyone that Tehran had not initiated the idea of
dialogue.
Hence the fate of the dialogue
is contingent on the state of the Iraq crisis, or
the nuclear crisis, each of which tends to act as
a brake on the other. The fact that the Arab world
has also raised serious questions about the talks
between Iran and the US over their heads cannot be
altogether ignored either, even though,
objectively speaking, the Arabs should welcome any
thaw in the US-Iran relations. It is bound to
benefit the cause of peace in the Middle East.
At this stage the most important thing the
two parties can do is set the ground rules for a
constructive dialogue, one that will be something
more than a "dialogue of the deaf" where both
sides talk past each other. Dialogue is a style of
communication that, to quote the philosopher
Martin Buber, encourages "tolerance and civility".
There is a huge difference, however, between a
genuine two-way engagement on the one hand and a
distorted, pseudo-monological dialogue on the
other.
Another problem is somehow to
insulate the issue of US-Iran dialogue and/or
rapprochement from the competitive contingencies
of electoral politics in both the US and Iran,
which have so far proved yet another brake on the
omnibus of such a dialogue.
Lessons
from the past Unfortunately, for the past
quarter of a century, US-Iran relations have been
predominantly, though by no means exclusively, of
a monological nature - the 2001 dialogue on
Afghanistan being an exception. Both sides have
dwelt mainly on points of disagreement, have
subsumed dialogue to their conflicting
geostrategic jockeying and have evinced studied
indifference to the other side's interests and
concerns. In the worst of times, they have wrapped
their direct or indirect dialogue in comparative
discourses of antagonism and even annihilation.
One of Iran's enduring complaints, most
recently aired by Iran's envoy to the UN on the
popular television program The Charlie Rose
Show, is that all Iran got for its cooperation
on the anti-Taliban campaign in Afghanistan in
2001 was to be labeled a part of the "axis of
evil" in President Bush's January 2002 State of
the Union speech. There is, in other words, a
thick residue of distrust by both sides that would
require a tremendous effort to overcome.
Learning from the past can come in handy
today, in light of the rather endless series of
half-steps stretching back to the hostage crisis
of 1979. Ideally, both Washington and Tehran need
to express an explicit desire to improve relations
with each other, as the very manifestation of such
a desire is a powerful antidote to the harsh
polemics of the past. Clearly, significant hurdles
on the path of rapprochement remain and, as a
result, a further deterioration of relations is by
no means improbable.
Suggested ground
rules 1. Each side must strive for a clear
understanding of the other side's interests as
well as problems. This is both a precondition and
a result of dialogue, and it requires serious
homework in advance. Thus, for example, the US
must put the recent impressive week-long military
exercise in the Persian Gulf in the context of
Iran's post-September 2001 security worries,
instead of misconstruing them as a sign of
militarism or offensive purposes.
2. Each
side should have a clear understanding of its own
interests and priorities. This implies an
eagerness to articulate one's position and a
willingness to have it scrutinized. Part of the
United States' problem, therefore, is to engage in
some strenuous intramural debate about the
long-term purpose of its military presence in
Iraq: Is it designed mainly as an anti-Iran
deterrence force or something else?
As for
Iran, there is need for much greater public debate
on whether or not the time for normalization of
relations with the US has arrived and how this is
likely to impact Iran's national interests. With
respect to Iraq and its current dangerous descent
toward a civil war and the potential for spillover
into Iran and other neighboring countries, both
sides need to express their determination to halt
this unwanted situation in favor of peace and
stability in the region.
3. Each side must
work to "water down" differences with the other
side. This can be achieved by analytically
distinguishing between differences, separating
those that preclude normalization from those that
can be accepted within normal diplomatic
relations. Examples of this can be found in the
diplomatic history of both countries, such as
America's relations with Russia and China and
Iran's relations with the other Persian Gulf
states. This distinction helps to winnow the list
of differences and rank them either as
corresponding interests, such as combating
terrorism; conflicting interests, such as US
unilateralism in the Gulf and parallel interests,
such as Gulf stability, Iraq's national unity and
the containment of Iraq's civil strife.
There is always the possibility that some
of the differences may turn out to be less
divisive than hitherto thought, such as the
Iranian antipathy to a transitional US-led
multinational military presence until the
situation in Iraq is stabilized. In light of this
possibility, each side must exhibit a genuine
willingness to revise its understanding and
interpretation of the other side. A chief
prerequisite for all this is Washington's
understanding that stability is not a one-way
phenomenon, and that US power does not by itself
necessarily guarantee stability.
As with
China, US relations with Iran will most likely be
buffeted by various problems for the foreseeable
future with or without diplomatic normalization.
Yet instead of coercive diplomacy, the US would be
well advised to implement the options of
conciliation and negotiation.
4. Each side
must maintain a constant willingness to engage in
sustained, constructive dialogue instead of
half-hearted attempts without meaningful
follow-ups. To minimize the effects of
discontinuity, a preliminary roadmap for dialogue
agreed upon by both sides is needed, so that a
movement toward improved relations is not stalled
by any counter-dialogue momentum it generates.
Also, it requires a continuous "positive
signaling" that incrementally prepares public
opinion in both countries for normalization. A
good example is an opinion article by Iran's envoy
to the UN, Mohammad Javad Zarif, reiterating
Iran's anti-nuclear-weapons stance that was
published simultaneously in the New York Times and
the International Herald Tribune.
5. Both
sides must strive to engage in dialogue in good
faith. This means avoiding public arguments over
who made the first move, as well as avoiding the
perception that dialogue is for political
"expediency" and not aimed at the possibility of
any eventual good emerging from the discussions.
Unfortunately, the climate for US-Iran dialogue
today is rife with serious misgivings about the
other side's motives and characterized by a
running mill of accusations and
counter-accusations.
Some elements in the
US recently attacked Iran for allegedly being a
haven for al-Qaeda terrorists, and this author was
struck, in the course of listening to a recent
interview by the Voice of America, about how
determined are the efforts to make this allegation
stick at this sensitive juncture. In response, the
author pointed at the varying positions of the UN
Security Council's Committee Concerning al-Qaeda,
Taliban, and the Associated Individuals and
Entities, praising Iran's cooperation with this
committee.
In conclusion, lingering
suspicion about motives can be cleared away by
deepening the process of dialogue and broadening
its scope by initiating a North Korea multilateral
dialogue, for instance. Questions about the
motives and intentions can be cleared up, however,
only when the discrete issue of Iraq's stability
is telescoped into the larger issues blocking
normalization. Perpetuation of ill-will between
the two countries is guaranteed as long as they
continue to shun direct dialogue on the "mother of
all issues" - the nuclear issue.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the
author of After Khomeini: New Directions in
Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and
co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear
Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume
XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu.
He is also author of
Iran's Nuclear Program:DebatingFactsVersusFiction.
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