US-Iran: Taking talks to the next level
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Iran and the United States are gearing up for a new round of discussions on
Iraq and, already, there is a call by a prominent Iranian politician to expand
those talks to broader issues such as Afghanistan, Persian Gulf security, and
the tensions in the Middle East. If adopted, this would mean the beginning of a
qualitatively new type of strategic dialogue.
Mohammad Javad Larijani, the brother of Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear
negotiator and head of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, who
advises the government on foreign policy,
had this to say: "We should not negotiate only about Iraq," citing Iran's
national-interest priorities in support of his position.
In a certain sense, the climate is somewhat ready to leapfrog the nascent
US-Iran dialogue to a more inclusive, broader purview befitting the description
"strategic" given the interconnectedness of various issues.
On the one hand, there is a growing pressure on the administration of US
President George W Bush, particularly by Democratic contenders for presidency
such as Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson, for sustained dialogue with Iran.
Richardson in particular has called on the US government to stop "threatening
Iran" and to offer more tangible incentives to Tehran to gain a compromise on
the nuclear issue.
On the other hand, the momentum for a new round of United Nations sanctions on
Iran has been put into slow motion by the positive outcome of last week's
meetings between Ali Larijani and the European Union's foreign-policy chief,
Javier Solana, and the International Atomic Energy Agency's director general,
Mohamed ElBaradei, culminating in a new visit to Iran by IAEA inspectors in the
coming weeks - to "resolve the ambiguities", to paraphrase Iran's Foreign
Ministry spokesman.
Consequently, with EU and IAEA officials expressing renewed optimism about
peaceful resolution of the Iran nuclear crisis, and ElBaradei's scathing
criticism of any military option as "madness", the stage is set for a real
breakthrough, which may come in the form of an international consortium to
produce nuclear fuel on Iran's territory, in other words the idea first
proposed by President Mahmud Ahmadinjead at the UN General Assembly in
September 2005.
Not only that, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Feisal, has
surprised many, particularly in Washington's policy circles, by proposing a
joint Iran-Gulf Cooperation Council consortium to enrich uranium for peaceful
purposes. Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, has responded favorably
and, irrespective of whether any real movement happens, the mere diplomatic
gestures serve the well-being of Iranian-Saudi relations.
However, in the US, the anti-Iran campaign is in full swing, with the likes of
former ambassador to the UN John Bolton declaring nuclear diplomacy with Iran a
complete failure. He calls for military action and outright regime change. The
relatively "dovish" State Department, headed by Condoleezza Rice, is trying to
put a premium on the "outsourcing" of the Iran nuclear issue to the EU.
"Iran's agreement with the IAEA is on a constructive path," said Gholam-Ali
Haddad-Adel, chairman of the Majlis, Iran's parliament, dismissing all rumors
of Tehran's intention either to suspend its cooperation with the IAEA or exit
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Ali Larijani, on the other hand, has
warned that "sanctions can derail the path of negotiations".
Rightly so, since the targeting of Iran's shipping lanes and curtailing its
civil-aircraft landing rights are among the concrete steps that, if
implemented, will impact Iran's oil exports and affect Iranian travelers.
Not only that, the hawkish US and European politicians and media pundits are
focusing on the EU's US$22 billion export credits to companies dealing with
Iran, hoping that sooner or later the EU will adopt this as a "lesser evil"
compared with the military option, to quote an alarmist editorial in the
Jerusalem Post.
For the moment, the EU's eyes are fixed on the IAEA inspectors' visit to Iran,
emboldened by an unexpected call for delay on UN Security Council action
against Iran by none other than the hitherto reticent UN secretary general, Ban
Ki-moon, echoing the sentiments of Russia, China and South Africa, which have
gone on record asking for more time to the negotiation process above-mentioned.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a meeting with Rice has called for "unity
at the council" on Iran, yet Sarkozy cannot even count on the solid support of
his mirror-image, Germany's right-wing Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is
reportedly also favoring delayed UN action on Iran.
In his rush to ingratiate himself with Washington, Sarkozy risks demolishing
France's hard-earned international reputation as an independent global actor,
thus making him appear as a Tony Blair substitute. But with the new British
prime minister, Gordon Brown, already busy cultivating a different,
un-Blair-like image for himself, Sarkozy is in dire need of nuancing his
campaign promises to bring about a golden new age in US-France relations.
Javad Vaeedi, head of international affairs at Iran's Supreme National Security
Council, has stated: "We are prepared to negotiate for the sake of removing the
concerns of some countries regarding the possibility of diversion from peaceful
nuclear activities in Iran and to propose various guarantees, but at the same
time and reciprocally, our concerns should also be addressed."
After all, Iran has a plethora of national-security concerns, such as with
respect to the armed opposition Mojahedin Khalgh Organization (MKO), currently
under the United States' protective wing in Iraq. Various members of Congress
have called on the US government to remove the MKO from its list of terrorist
organizations and to use it as a "tool" for espionage inside Iran.
Another Iranian concern is about the fate of its five diplomats in US custody
in Iraq, and Washington's stubborn refusal to release them or even to allow a
family visit or a visit by the International Committee of the Red Cross,
linking the fate of those diplomats directly to the proposed new rounds of
US-Iran talks on Iraq's security.
Clearly, the US must do its part to make a strategic dialogue with Iran
possible, or risk the recycling of the history of half-steps and self-reversals
nullifying any incremental progress. The stakes are too high, given the gravity
of Iraq's security crisis and the apparent failure of Bush's "surge" policy, to
repeat the errors of the past.
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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