WASHINGTON - Amid a new escalation in
threats between the United States and Iran over
Tehran's nuclear program, some prominent US
Republicans are calling for President George W
Bush to engage Tehran in direct talks.
At
the same time, indications that Tehran may itself
be hoping to engage Washington have been growing
steadily, despite the incendiary rhetoric of
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad directed primarily
against Israel, which Bush has pledged to defend.
Whether moderate voices in both capitals,
as well as similar urgings by foreign powers that
are increasingly worried about the
regional and global
repercussions of a possible US attack on Iran,
will prevail remains very uncertain, particularly
given their history of mutual demonization since
the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The
current heated rhetoric between the the two
countries makes the possibility of their sitting
down together to negotiate all outstanding issues
- along the lines of a much-talked-about
"grand
bargain" several years ago - appear more remote
than ever.
Indeed, the rhetoric appeared
to get even more heated on Tuesday when Bush was
asked explicitly about recently published reports
that the United States is planning for a possible
nuclear strike against targets in Iran. He refused
to rule it out, even as he stressed that his
administration wants "to solve this issue
diplomatically, and we're working hard to do so".
"All options are on the table," he
declared in what one expert described as a
virtually unprecedented threat by a US president
to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear
state.
Bush's remarks followed a threat
voiced earlier Tuesday by Ahmadinejad during an
annual military parade. The Iranian army, he said,
"will cut off the hands of any aggressors and will
make any aggressor regret it".
In spite of
the by now well-established cycle of threat and
counter-threat, however, cooler heads from within
ruling circles on both sides are raising their
voices, particularly in the wake of alarming -
though still unconfirmed - reports this month that
US military planning for attacks, including
nuclear strikes, against Iran has moved beyond the
contingency phase.
Last week, for example,
two former senior State Department officials who
served during Bush's first term came out in favor
of comprehensive negotiations with Tehran.
In a column published by London's
Financial Times, Richard Haass, who served as
director of the department's Policy Planning
Office and was a top Middle East adviser to then
secretary of state Colin Powell from 2001 until
2003, argued that an attack, particularly with
nuclear weapons, would prove counter-productive to
a range of US interests and called for direct
talks with Iran.
"Given [the] potential
high costs [of an attack], Washington should be
searching harder for a diplomatic alternative, one
that entails direct US talks with Iran beyond the
narrow dialogue announced on Iraq," wrote Haass,
the current president of the influential Council
on Foreign Relations, in reference to Bush's
decision this year to authorize Ambassador Zalmay
Khalilzad to engage Iran in talks strictly limited
to Iraq.
A possible deal, he went on,
would permit Iran to retain a small, heavily
monitored uranium-enrichment program, in return
for which it "would receive a range of economic
benefits, security guarantees and political
dialogue".
Washington would have nothing
to lose from such an exercise, said Haass, who
also served as the top Middle East aide to former
president George H W Bush during the first Gulf
War. "Presenting a fair and generous offer would
... make it easier to rally international support
for escalation against Iran if diplomacy is
rebuffed," he argued.
Haass's suggestions
were echoed the next day by former deputy
secretary of state Richard Armitage, who told the
Financial Times that he too favored comprehensive
talks with Iran. Though he left the administration
when Powell resigned, Armitage has long been a
personal favorite of Bush and is considered a
leading candidate to succeed Pentagon chief Donald
Rumsfeld if he resigns or is forced out.
"It merits talking to the Iranians about
the full range of our relationship ... everything
from energy to terrorism to weapons to Iraq,"
Armitage said, adding that Washington could afford
to be patient "for a while" because Tehran is
still at least several years from obtaining a
nuclear device.
On Sunday, the
long-standing Republican chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, also
weighed in on a popular public-affairs television
program, the American Broadcasting Co's This
Week.
"I think that would be useful,"
he said when asked about the possibility of direct
talks. He added that Washington should engage Iran
about its role as a major energy exporter in
particular, suggesting that the two countries have
interests in common. "There are issues there," he
said, "which, ironically, we may come out on the
same side with some of the Iranians."
While none of the three is considered part
of Bush's inner circle, their views are taken
seriously by many Republicans on Capitol Hill,
particularly given the growing concern among the
party's lawmakers that the situation in Iraq may
cost it control of one or even both houses of
Congress in the November elections.
"'Realists' like Armitage and Lugar have
been vindicated by [events in] Iraq, so their
credibility has risen at the same time that of
Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney keeps
falling," said one congressional aide whose boss
is a Republican. "People are much more receptive
to their views now even if they're still hesitant
about speaking out."
Pro-dialogue forces
also appear to be active in Tehran, even if they
can hardly be heard over the more radical
Ahmadinejad, who, despite his limited authority in
foreign policy and the nuclear program, is largely
depicted in the US media as the public face of
Iran.
Thus former president Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, who was defeated by Ahmadinejad in
last year's run-off elections but who nonetheless
retains key posts in the regime, said just last
week that the proposed talks between Iran and the
US over Iraq could lead to a more comprehensive
dialogue. He also reportedly asked Saudi Arabia to
help mediate between Tehran and Washington.
And in a move first reported by the
Financial Times but still shrouded in mystery,
Mohammad Nahavandian, a senior aide to Ali
Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National
Security Council who also serves as the regime's
chief negotiator on nuclear issues, quietly
visited Washington this month, apparently,
according to some sources, in hopes of
establishing a back channel to the US
administration.
Although US officials
initially denied any knowledge of his presence,
one source said this week that it prompted
inter-agency consultations that ended when
Cheney's office rejected the idea of meeting with
him on the grounds that it would be a "sign of
weakness". That account, however, could not be
confirmed.
"grand
bargain" several years ago - appear more remote
than ever. 
