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2 IRAN AND THE US TALK
Now, that wasn't so bad ...
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Finally some good news for US-Iran
diplomacy, stranded on the rocky road of seemingly
intractable hostilities and suspicions for nearly
three decades. US and Iranian diplomats in
Baghdad, meeting "businesslike" at the office of
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to discuss Iraq's
security on Monday, reported solid progress, even
a "broad policy agreement" on Iraq, and will likely
meet
again in the near future.
According to
Nicholas Burns of the US State Department, the
American people should prepare themselves for a
normalization of relations with Iran. He said the
US is on the verge of sending an ambassador to
Libya, has a "high-ranking diplomat in Cuba" and
is even talking with Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, so
why not Iran?
Henceforth, in light of
probable steady progress in US-Iran dialogue in
the coming months, Burns' candid statements will
most likely be mirrored in Iran, depending on the
nature of follow-up meetings and developments. Any
premature "quickening the process" may backfire,
however, and there are still too many divisive
issues, particularly with respect to Iran's
nuclear program, that could torpedo any
incremental progress such as with respect to Iraq.
"Iran is a major player in the region and
cannot be ignored," Admiral William Fallon, the
new US commander in the Middle East, stated on the
eve of the Baghdad meeting, reminding the Iranians
once again, "The US has no intention of leaving,
as Iran would like to see happen." Can they, then,
become each other's partners for regional
security?
The answer depends on what
Tehran and Washington can achieve over their major
"clashing interests". Do those interests outweigh
the shared, paralleled (eg, with respect to
Lebanon, now plagued with al-Qaeda insurgency), or
coinciding interests between them?
This is
a complicated question and requires long-term
policy approaches by both sides. Consistency is
vitally important too. Reporting on the Baghdad
meeting, the New York Times put this as a
"significant shift in President [George W] Bush's
approach toward the Iranian government".
A
number of US pundits have interpreted it as a
solid defeat for hawkish anti-Iran politicians led
by Vice President Dick Cheney, and a victory for
the duet of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The split
within the US government will linger much longer,
however, and it is premature to call the doves'
upper hand anything other than tenuous at this
stage.
The signs are that Washington's
neo-conservatives are regrouping, desperately
trying to salvage their sinking ship of Iran
policy by holding an emergency meeting in the
Bahamas under the title "Confronting the Iran
Threat: The Road Ahead". Their frustration with
the new US opening toward Iran will grow with each
US-Iran meeting that, if followed consistently,
will pave the way to eventual normalization.
Already, the White House has dissolved a
special "pressure" committee on Iran (and Syria),
which had been formed as an inter-agency
policy-coordination mechanism exploited by the
Cheney group. It is unclear whether this mean the
US will also backtrack its approach toward covert
activities inside Iran.
Concerning the
latter, on the eve of the Baghdad meeting,
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad broke the news that
Iran had uncovered several US-backed espionage
networks in western, southwestern and central
Iran. Ahmadinejad also mentioned that the US had
"sent 40 messages requesting a meeting on Iraq".
According to earlier reports, particularly
by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, the Central
Intelligence Agency is behind the Sunni terrorist
group Jundallah operating out of Pakistan, which
has conducted a number of bomb attacks against
Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Iran has reportedly
responded by attacking US forces, eg in Karbala,
through its proxies. According to Assadolah Zarei,
a Tehran political analyst, Iran is convinced that
the US has had a role in the recent spate of
bombings in Najaf and Karbala.
Such
tit-for-tat proxy operations will likely continue
as long as Iran and the US do not reach a broad
strategic agreement on regional
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