Page 2 of 2 US-Iran dialogue on a tortuous
path By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
prescriptions. The Kayhan editorial on
Bahrain, for example, which calls for the
reintegration of Bahrain as a "province of Iran",
transpired in this climate. The Foreign Ministry
reacted by reassuring Bahrain of Iran's respect
for that country's "national sovereignty", and yet
it fell short of issuing a direct rebuke to the
newspaper's editorial. After all, didn't Saddam
Hussein use the same logic to justify his invasion
of Kuwait in August 1990? Territorial claims that
seek to turn back the clock of history
simply don't wash.
This aside, it is hardly surprising that
the bulk of the Western media are apt to believe
today that Iran is poised to trigger a new
"offensive" against Israel through its allies and
proxies in the region, partly to offset the
growing Israeli threat against Iran's nuclear
facilities. It is against this threat that Iran
may have gone an extra mile in Ahmadinejad's trip
to Damascus to solidify the Iran-Syria alliance
and to neutralize any US-Israeli "divide and
conquer" strategy to wrest Syria away from Tehran.
Although Tehran has denied media reports
that it gave US$1 billion to Syria to buy Russian
arms in exchange for Syria's refusal to make peace
with Israel, there is probably a grain of truth to
the reports of the secret financial aid. Again,
such moves on Iran's part are better viewed as
"defensive" rather than "offensive" in nature.
The same argument applies to Iraq, where
the US military stubbornly refuses to acknowledge
any positive role by Iran despite evidence of
substantial Iranian economic support for the
embattled Iraqi government. The Iranian mission to
the United Nations recently brought this matter to
the United States' pubic attention with a letter
to the Wall Street Journal, reminding Americans of
Iran's vested interest in "Iraq's internal
stability and national unity" as well as its
continuous support for Iraq's reconstruction
efforts.
However, the US government only
sees a destructive Iranian hand in Iraq, daily
accusing it of smuggling arms and land mines to
the forces opposing US troops. The Iranians have,
in turn, accused the US of arming the extremist
Sunni Iraqis despite the wishes of the Baghdad
government, ostensibly to fight the al-Qaeda
insurgents, per a recent report in the New York
Times.
"It is the US that is not following
a consistent policy, not Iran," a Tehran analyst
told the New York Times reporter, pointing out
that the frequency of clashes between the US and
the Iraqi Army and police is on the rise. Iran has
offered to assist with the training and equipment
of both the Iraqi Army and, especially, the
police. The US has so far resisted the offer.
However, for the first time, the US, which
had accused Iran of aiding the Shi'ite militias
led by the Mahdi Army, has changed its tone on the
latter, with US Admiral Mark Fox recently
conceding that the "broader movement" is "not
terrorist".
"We understand that there are
factions or splinters or pieces of Jaish al-Mahdi
that are still decent and hard-working and members
of society that are not like that," Fox told the
press. This is certainly a welcome step forward
and a timely retreat from the previous US
statements regarding the Mahdi Army, which it had
labeled terrorist, pure and simple. But now the
stage is set to discuss Iran-Shi'ite-militia
relations in an entirely new light within the
framework of the US-Iran dialogue.
After
all, all the polls in Iraq confirm that the
majority of Shi'ites favor the protective role of
the militias, so this calls for a US
reconsideration of the "surge" policy that has set
its eyes on disarming the militias.
However, it is not just the US that needs
to adjust its policies. Certain policy adjustments
in Iran, chiefly aimed at closing the harmful gap
between how it is viewed externally versus its
stabilizing role in the region, are also
necessary. The longer this gap remains, the worse
it will be for Iran's foreign-policy objectives
and interests.
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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