Page 2 of 2 Iran riven by nuclear
diplomacy row By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
currently facing so many foreign challenges. A more inclusivist approach by
Ahmadinejad may be called for, particularly on the nuclear front, in order to
minimize that risk.
But the fact remains that the attacks by Rowhani have put the government in an
embarrassing situation and, what is more, those attacks contain a lot of
contradictions. Rowhani may have a point
that "ignoring the viewpoints of others is a prime source of division", or that
"the country is not the absolute property of anyone", yet, on the other hand,
he has barked up the wrong tree when admitting, "the enemy plots against us
every day, has turned the UN Security Council into a trench for itself to put
pressure on others". Rowhani's other comment, about "adventurist" US rulers
"whose rape of this region has made it very clear", does not quite sit well
with his placing the blame on the government for indirectly escalating the
threats against Iran.
Would Rowhani similarly criticize the Cuban government for half a century of
American encirclement and unilateral sanctions, when it is abundantly clear
that Cuba has been punished for standing up to the hegemonic superpower with
valor, heroism, and determination? In fact, Rowhani himself has in the past met
the Cuban leader and openly praised him and, logically speaking, should do the
same for Ahmadinejad, whose steely defense of Iran's nuclear rights, while
endorsing a new diplomatic opening with the US on Iraq, deserve such a
comparison.
Nor can we fully endorse Rowhani's extreme threat perception, cited above,
without a grain of salt. For one thing, the threats of military action against
Iran were equally strong in 2004 and 2005, when Rowhani was at the helm of
nuclear negotiations. But, as this author pointed out more than two years ago,
the Israeli military threats were, and still are, a "myth" in need of debunking
(See Afrasiabi,
Myth of Israeli strike on Iran).
The more realistic possibility of a US-Iran military confrontation, however, as
pointed out by US pundits such as Seymour Hersh, is more and more Iraq-focused,
which, in turn, raises the question for Rowhani and others regarding the
aptness of their apportioning blame to the government when it is evident that
the US's behavior in Iraq, pegging its troop presence to containment of Iran,
requires an alternative explanation than that implicitly offered by Rowhani.
Besides, it is difficult to pinpoint any policy discontinuity with respect to
Iraq since Ahmadinejad took over the presidency (for more on this see the
author's
Dilemmas of Iran's policy toward Iraq).
Yet, none of the above translates into an endorsement of the blanket rejection
of "parallel diplomacy" by Ahmadinejad and his supporters. Rather the point is
to clearly define the nuances and limits of such a diplomacy.
Here, learning from the experiences of other countries, say India whose
politicans are notorious for engaging in "parallel diplomacy" nearly all the
time, is called for. India experts may paint a somewhat different picture of
how "parallel diplomacy" has over the years helped the country's foreign
policy, ie, as a form of supplementary diplomacy, strengthening the country's
diplomatic posture and priorities by adding to the arsenal of diplomatic
communication, crisis management operations, easing the diplomatic "overload",
providing greater finesse particularly in multi-level engagements by, for
instance, improving trust-building, changing perception of the conflict(s),
improving chances for reconciliation, changing the dynamic of negotiations, and
adding to the options for negotiation.
Compared to India, where the opposition parties have time and again engaged in
so-called Track II diplomacy, the example of Rowhani's recent trip to Germany,
his lecture at the European Parliament, and his aborted meeting with the
European foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, reflect a semi-official, as
opposed to non-official or private, diplomatic initiative, that was even
endorsed by members of the Majlis.
Harking back to diplomatic multi-voicing of the Khatami era, when moderate and
hard-line factions appeared simultaneously on the horizon of Iran's foreign
diplomacy, serving the country's different needs, the current efforts at
"parallel diplomacy" should not be nipped in the bud, but rather be refined and
continued, albeit through better coordiation with the Foreign Ministry, the
Cabinet, and the Supreme National Security Council.
It is, indeed, the lack of coordination and adequate inter-governmental
communication that is a primary culprit for today's polarization.
After all, assuming Rowhani would be reinstated as chief nuclear negotiator, it
is hard to see how he would veer away from the present course of action. As the
architect of the 2004 Paris Agreement, Rowhani is well aware that the
short-lived agreement evaporated mainly because the Europeans, who had simply
requested a temporary suspension of nuclear activities and who had pledged to
respect Iran's rights, reneged on their promises under intense pressure by the
US.
To open a caveat here, this author was present at the press conference in
Tehran in November 2004 when Rowhani distributed the text of the agreement with
the European troika (Germany, France, and England), assuring the Iranian people
that the other side had agreed to respect "Iran's right to enrich uranium."(1)
Yet today, instead of criticizing the French and others for dishonoring their
agreement with Iran, Rowhani has chosen to blame the government for, in effect,
losing France to the US. But as stated above, French President Sarkozy has
entered a losing gambit over Iran, seeing how the French companies have
rebelled against the government's directive of not doing business with Iran and
how Sarkozy is increasingly faced with the alternative of either eschewing his
pro-American, anti-Iran stance, or doom himself to political isolation in
Europe and at home. Surely that is not what Rowhani is plotting for his own
future.
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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