Page 2 of 2 Tehran ignores the
bluff and
bluster By M K Bhadrakumar
American interlocutors. He
negotiated with US ambassador James Dobbins in
2001 the post-Taliban transition in Afghanistan -
and indeed would have taken forward the dialogue
beyond the Afghan problem but for the contrariness
of the Bush administration's Iranian objectives at
that time.
Clearly, Khamenei himself
endorsed Monday's talks with the US, though he
insisted that they be restricted to matters
concerning Iraq's security. The day after Khamenei
spoke in Mashhad, Ali
Larijani, the secretary of
the National Security Council, offered that the US
could count on Iran's cooperation to break the
stalemate over Iraq's security problems. Again, on
May 18, Mottaki repeated, "If the US officials ...
have a serious will to remedy the situation [in
Iraq] ... then these negotiations could be
fruitful."
Tehran has consistently
signaled that it is prepared to look for solutions
in Iraq; that it is not stuck on ideological
issues; that there could be common ground between
Iran and the US; that Iraq's stability is a matter
of common interest; that the extremist Salafi
movements in Iraq pose as much a threat to Iran as
to the pro-US regimes in the region; that Iran is
prepared to look beyond a Shi'ite-dominated
government and work toward genuine intra-Iraqi
reconciliation; and, above all, that Iran is keen
to address its strategic problems with the US.
As a former general in the Revolutionary
Guards and prominent strategic analyst, Hussein
Alaii, put it, "The United States needs Iran, and
the two sides are in complete consensus that they
must closely cooperate to resolve the Iraq crisis
... Tehran is prepared to put aside its
differences with the US for the time being and
work together."
The influential secretary
of the Human Rights Headquarters of Iran's
Judiciary, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, told the
official Iranian news agency in an interview on
Monday that next week's talks with the US
regarding Iraq will be a "good test for the US".
"If Washington shows goodwill and is
committed to the conventional principles of
negotiations, then this will be effective in
resolving other regional problems as well," he
said.
Conceivably, Tehran sent a
high-level delegation (including Mottaki, Ali
Larijani and Mohammad-Javad Larijani) to
participate in the World Economic Forum summit in
Amman last weekend with the expectation of using
all available back channels - including the
Jordanians and other pro-Western Arabs - to
communicate with the US. Mohammad-Javad Larijani
said in Amman that it is possible that Iranian and
US officials will also discuss issues related to
Iran during the talks in Baghdad. "We will not
spare any efforts to restore peace and stability
to Iraq and support that country's territorial
integrity," he added.
Tehran has refrained
from reacting to the series of unfriendly moves by
Washington in recent days. On Wednesday, Speaker
of the Majlis (parliament) Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel
called on Washington to abandon its "hostile
behavior" toward Iran, as it is not consistent
with the United States' professed willingness to
talk, but he went on to endorse Iran's decision to
hold talks with the US.
Ahmadinejad has
brushed off the "enemy's hue and cry and
psychological warfare" as of no real consequence.
Addressing commanders of the Revolutionary Guards
in Tehran on Thursday, he said Washington is
resorting to various stances from time to time
ranging from military threats to economic
sanctions to calls for direct negotiations. But
the US tactic "will bear no fruit ... We have got
closer to our final goals, with the grace of God."
Clearly, Tehran factors that the US
remains wedded to a plan of comprehensive
containment of Iran. But Tehran is confident that
for a variety of reasons - Europe's need to
diversify energy sourcing; the United States'
overstretch in Iraq and Afghanistan; volatility in
the oil market; tensions in US-Russia relations -
the plan will not work.
Tehran knows that
the US is in need of Iran's cooperation to
extricate itself from the crisis in Iraq. UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon implicitly
underscored Iran's growing regional influence when
he telephoned the Iranian foreign minister on
Thursday to seek his help in defusing the
developing crisis in northern Lebanon.
Equally, Tehran knows that the US doesn't
really have a "military option". (According to the
latest Angus Reid Globe Monitor survey in May,
released by CNN, 63% of American respondents would
oppose the Bush administration if it took military
action in Iran.) More important, Iran estimates
that Washington's efforts of assembling a phalanx
of pro-Western Arab regimes and Israel, working in
tandem to confront the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas
axis, are floundering.
Mottaki did some
plain speaking on the sidelines of the Amman
forum. He openly rejected the Saudi peace
initiative (adopted at the Arab League summit in
Riyadh in February), saying it was doomed to fail.
"No capital for Palestine, no for the returning of
refugees numbering 5 million Palestinians ... We
can recognize more than 132 plans for peace in the
last 30 years. Why were these plans or initiatives
not met or realized?" Mottaki posed derisively.
Thus Iran isn't in any tearing hurry as
long as tensions with the US remain in check.
Meanwhile, focus has shifted to a far more
important topic - the downstream impact of the
latest report on the Iran nuclear issue by the
International Atomic Energy Agency that the
country could make a nuclear bomb in about three
years. Also, the prospect of Lebanon teetering on
the edge of civil war presents itself as an
opportunity to play the role of conciliator.
The talks on Iraq may have become a
sideshow. Iran rightly estimates that the United
States' Iraq quagmire is after all not going to
vanish. With just two days to go, Tehran had yet
to name its diplomat to sit across the table from
Crocker.
M K Bhadrakumar served
as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service
for more than 29 years, with postings including
ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-98) and to Turkey
(1998-2001).
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