COMMENT Iran and
the US: Fork in the road By
Kaveh L Afrasiabi
US Under Secretary of
State Nicholas Burns aptly described the impasse
over Iran's nuclear program as a "fork in the
road". That is putting it mildly, since it implies
the choice between two alternatives, ie, Iranian
suspension of uranium enrichment or United Nations
sanctions.
By choosing to re-raise the
Iran nuclear issue at the UN Security Council next
week instead of letting the UN's atomic watchdog,
the International Atomic Energy Agency, deal with
it, the United
States and its European
allies may have actually taken the wrong turn at
their self-imposed fork.
The former
secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security
Council, Hassan Rowhani, echoed this. On Wednesday
he recommended that Western countries forget about
the UN Security Council and enter serious dialogue
with Iran. "In that case, Tehran may take some
steps that would increase the confidence of the
other side, such as further cooperation with the
International Atomic Energy Agency," Rowhani told
the Fars News Agency.
Also on Wednesday,
representatives of the UN's Permanent Five (the
United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia
and China) plus Germany failed to reach a
consensus on the appropriate response to Iran's
defiance of a UN resolution calling for the
suspension of enrichment-related activities.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin
met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and
reiterated his optimism for a political and
diplomatic resolution of the Iran nuclear dispute.
Germany, which has reluctantly joined the
sanctions bandwagon, has much to lose in lucrative
trade with Iran and, as a result, has been quietly
pushing for a cautious and incremental regime of
sanctions on Iran.
As for China, which has
expressed reluctance for any tough sanctions on
North Korea, in spite of Beijing's strong verbal
condemnation of Pyongyang's nuclear test, the
inter-linkage of the twin nuclear crises has
placed inordinate pressure on China's diplomacy.
It thus remains to be seen whether the country's
top diplomats are up to par with the historic
challenge, which is tantamount to a litmus test of
China's coming of age as a superpower
simultaneously acting as a status quo power and a
global challenger to the present world order led
by the US.
In juggling its UN diplomacy
with respect to the moves at the Security Council
toward sanctions on Iran and North Korea, China
has no perfect options, only imperfect ones, each
of which carries certain negative side-effects.
United States' diplomatic
quandary The fact that there is a US
foreign-policy crisis is by now a well-known and
irrefutable fact, in light of the sinking ship of
Iraq's military occupation, the growing
re-Talibanization of Afghanistan, the complete
failure of a US role on the Arab-Israeli front,
and the twin nuclear crises involving Iran and
North Korea.
By all accounts, US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice has failed the test and
has proved a poor substitute for her predecessor,
Colin Powell, as she has none of his persuasive
and commanding punch.
The fact is that the
United States needs Iran for maintaining regional
stability and there is a growing chorus of
ex-diplomats, such as James Baker, and policy
analysts in Washington advising the US to engage
Iran in bilateral talks. This initiative is
positive, but is set back when the ugly face of
demonization surfaces, as in such titles of
opinion columns as "talking to monsters". Even
Baker's "it is not appeasement to talk to your
enemies" lays the wrong foundation for fruitful
talks, by reinforcing the image of Iran as an
enemy.
Iran and the US need not treat each
other as enemies, given their wealth of shared
concerns with regard to Iraq and al-Qaeda
terrorism. Yet their relations are held hostage by
the poisonous "enemy" image.
The main
problem with the United States' march toward
sanctions on Iran is that it ignores the long-term
consequences of an initiative that (a) will be
immensely difficult to reverse once
institutionalized, (b) exacerbates tensions and
will have likely spill-over effects on issues of
mutual concern in the Middle East, and (c) will
likely fail to reach the intended results anyway,
at least as long as President Mahmud Ahmadinejad
is in office.
Given the above, the best
course of action for the US is to "talk the
sanctions" without, however, "walking" them, given
the fact that for all political purposes the White
House cannot get off the sanctions wagon
altogether. Of course, there is a timeline
involved and the Security Council cannot risk its
prestige by turning into a "talking shop" on Iran
indefinitely. But neither should we discount the
harm to the council's image in the aftermath of
toothless and ineffective sanctions on Iran (and
North Korea).
Bush's small olive
branch Meanwhile, the administration of US
President George W Bush, by giving the green light
to the export of spare parts for Iran's aging
fleet of US-made aircraft, has displayed a timely
gesture of goodwill toward Iran that needs to be
reciprocated by Tehran.
Only through
small, incremental steps can there be real
progress in the stalemated US-Iran relations,
which must be at the same time tied in with
comprehensive dialogue on the broad range of
issues currently freezing these relations.
There are, however, potential flash points
that both sides need to avert, such as a naval
clash in the Persian Gulf, where the US Navy is
about to commence interdiction exercises in waters
close to Iran. For all practical purposes, Iran
considers this maneuver a sign of US bullying, and
in case there is an actual exchange with Iranian
cargo ships in the (near) future, this is sure to
escalate tensions in the oil-rich region.
Again, the problem with the United States'
Iran policy is that consistently the US
neutralizes its own carrot approach with the
simultaneous stick approach that antagonizes
Tehran's rulers, who may otherwise be apt to
reciprocate the positive gestures.
Thus
Burns, who only last week told reporters that the
US refused to give Iran any security guarantees,
is now quoted by reports inviting Iran back to the
table to discuss an "incentive package". Maybe
Burns needs to reread the text of that package
offered by the US and European countries and its
pledge of a security guarantee for Iran, as well
as a promise of Iran's inclusion in a regional
security arrangement, for who is to say that next
week he will not go back to what he said a week
ago?
Toward an alternative US
policy Hypothetically, a prudent US policy
toward Iran would be along the following lines:
Announce that the military option is off the
table. Contrary to popular belief, this will only
generate a great deal of momentum in Tehran toward
compromise and flexibility and make a deal more,
and not less, possible. And what is the Bush
administration to lose by making this declaration
when it is a known fact that in view of the giant
mess in Iraq alone, this administration will not
instigate another costly war in the time it has
left in office?
Pledge to respect Iran's sovereignty and
territorial integrity, in line with the last
agreement that Tehran and Washington inked in
Algiers in 1980.
Pledge to implement the terms of any and all
incentives proposed by the US and its allies,
deemed necessary by Tehran, which has a historical
misgiving about "paper commitments", particularly
with respect to the sale of nuclear "dual nature"
technology.
Pledge to pursue a more even-handed policy
toward the Middle East peace process, which is
currently dead in the water.
Pledge to recognize Hezbollah as a legitimate
aspect of the Lebanese political landscape if
certain conditions are met by Hezbollah.
Consider supporting Iran's idea of a
multinational consortium producing low-enriched
uranium inside Iran.
An American analyst,
Jim Walsh, recently told the US Congress:
"Administration officials are often quoted as
saying that the president intends to keep all
options on the table, including military action.
Curiously, 'all options' does not include direct
talk and normalization. It is time for 'all
options' to mean all options."
Another
scholar, Marc Lynch, has similarly written: "A
policy of engagement and dialogue can offer the
potential for changing preferences and for
identifying common identities and interests
between the US and Iran."
Should the US
contemplate such a feasible course of action, then
the sky is the limit. Iran is prepared to sign a
non-aggression pact with the US and to participate
in the Gulf Cooperation Council's security
schemes, including backing the GCC's idea of a
nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Persian Gulf, if
the price is right. Yet none of this is likely as
long as the US takes the wrong turn at the fork.
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 also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential
latent", Harvard International Review, and is
author of Iran's Nuclear
Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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