Page 1 of
2 Why Iran spurned a US
handshake By M K Bhadrakumar
"Unfortunately, the wounds of this world
are too deep and can't be closed easily, and maybe
only one meeting is not enough," former Iranian
president Mohammad Khatami reportedly remarked
last Friday in Rome as he headed for a meeting in
the Vatican with Pope Benedict XVI.
Khatami could as well have meant another
meeting the same day that almost took place (but
didn't) in the Egyptian Red Sea resort
of Sharm
al-Sheikh between Iranian Foreign Minister
Manouchehr Mottaki and his American counterpart,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
According to senior US officials in Rice's
entourage, the presence of a female Russian
violinist in a red dress in the dining hall where
the delegations gathered was too risque for
Mottaki's Muslim sensibilities, so that he
brusquely left as Rice arrived. So the opportunity
of a close encounter between the two gladiators -
one representing the lone superpower and the other
from the notorious "axis of evil" - was derailed.
Other US officials offered the consoling
explanation that Rice was better off that way,
since Mottaki lacked personal stature or gravitas
in Iran's secretive power structure. As for Rice,
she simply chuckled, saying it was a good
opportunity lost in Sharm al-Sheikh, but she
wasn't used to chasing men. What else could the
mirthful lady say about the Persian snub?
But the Iranians had a rational
explanation for why Mottaki didn't like being
seated across the dining table from Rice. A
Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Tehran on
Sunday, "Basically, a meeting between the two
foreign ministers was not on our agenda." He
explained that Tehran estimated that contrived
setups like that at Sharm al-Sheikh didn't serve
any purpose.
"The problems between Iran
and the US are numerous and with long precedence,
and should be examined with patience and
tolerance," he said. Therefore, any Iran-US
diplomatic negotiations should be prepared well.
"Goodwill and a resolve to settle the outstanding
issues are among such measures. If the ground is
prepared, then the way would be prepared, and
there would be the opportunity for resuming and
reviving relations," the spokesman said.
It was apparent in the run-up to the
international conference on Iraq at Sharm
al-Sheikh on Thursday and Friday that Iran was not
carried away by all the spin that Washington gave
that a Rice-Mottaki meeting on the banks of the
Red Sea would be a historic turning point.
Tehran was astute enough to draw the
conclusion that the conference was as much about
Iraq as about saving US President George W Bush's
position politically at home, even as a resurgent
US Congress dominated by the Democrats was
beginning to question the wisdom of the
continuation of the war. More than two-thirds of
the American people feel that their president is
persisting with the senseless, brutal war more as
a vanity fair.
Thus Tehran took the
position early enough that the conference in Iraq
would be useless unless it touched the essence of
the problem rather than turning out to be a US
shadow play enacted out of Bush's numerous
predicaments.
Even vis-a-vis the
pro-American regimes in the region, Tehran had
disagreements on this score at Sharm al-Sheikh
insofar as its priority as regards the Iraq
situation is on reintegrating Iraq into its Arab
environment while Tehran pursued several key
objectives intrinsic to the Iraq situation. These
include the political legitimacy of Iraq's present
government, Iraq's security and stability, the US
occupation of Iraq, and covert support of the
Sunni insurgency by certain Arab regimes.
First and foremost, there is no doubt that
an important consideration for Tehran in deciding
to participate in the conference was its interest
in enhancing the standing of the Iraqi government.
Mottaki told his Iraqi counterpart, Hoshyar
Zebari, at Sharm al-Sheikh, "Your visit to Tehran
and our idea that the goals of this conference
should be transparent and following Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki's contact with President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad on the issue, Iran decided to attend
the conference." From Tehran's point of view,
there is no plausible scenario for replacing
Maliki, and indeed there are limits on the
leverage that Washington exercises on his
government. Tehran also appreciates that Maliki
operates in a difficult environment where, as Time
magazine recently wrote, he is "plainly hedging
his bets, acceding to US demands but at the same
time cushioning Shi'ite militias from coalition
attack".
There are instances galore of
Maliki being compelled to hold out pledges to the
White House, and then proceeding to ignore them,
or simply feeling it expedient to reinterpret
them, or at times he even emasculating his own
pledges in the downstream.
And all the
while, he is at once riding on Shi'ite empowerment
and letting the Shi'ite street be led by Muqtada
al-Sadr and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The
result is, to quote Time, "Certainly, the Iraqi
leaders must assume that the cost in lives and
treasure of the US remaining in their country with
no prospect of victory will become prohibitive to
Washington ... The US can't win in Iraq, in the
sense of turning it into a stable country
supporting US policies in the region. But nor is
it ready to accept the consequences of declaring
defeat."
Iran could see beforehand that
Washington had no real plan for the Sharm
al-Sheikh conference. Therefore, it decided that
it must do what it could to focus on the Iraqi
file, especially with Saudi Arabia's increasing
preoccupation with Iraq, and the United States'
increasing preoccupation with the Saudi role. As
Zebari put it, both Tehran and the Maliki
government were keen that Iraq shouldn't become a
"secondary issue" at Sharm al-Sheikh. (Egypt as
host country concentrated its energy on using the
occasion to refloat the Arab Initiative born out
of the Arab League summit in Riyadh in March.)
Iran is carefully watching Saudi Arabia's
projection into Iraq as the most assertive Arab
power, though Tehran remains confident that Saudi
assertiveness is not necessarily tantamount to
effectiveness, nor is its muscular diplomacy
sustainable. It must remain a matter of anxiety,
however, for Tehran that prominent Wahhabi clerics
in Saudi Arabia such as Saffar al-Hawali, Nasr
al-Omar and Abdullah bin Jibreen have raised the
call for anti-Shi'ite violence in Iraq - and the
Saudi regime hasn't yet clamped down
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
