COMMENT Time
for a u-turn in US's Iran
policy By
Kaveh L Afrasiabi
What is the US policy on Iran
today? This simple question lacks a meaningful
response and, unfortunately, there is little
prospect for any improvement other than the usual
"muddling through" by the lame-duck George W Bush
administration.
By all indication, the
seams around the US Iran policy are foundering,
turning a once coherent, albeit one-dimensional
and even unrealistic, coercive policy of
containment into a hodge-podge, with worrying
signs of incoherence, ambivalence, wait and see
attitude intermixed with half-hearted half steps
dominating the
scene, lacking any sound
framework to work with. In a word, the US's Iran
policy is on the verge of becoming a non-policy.
On the surface, however, there are not
that many overt signs of trouble: the US is
officially committed to "isolating" Iran, curbing
its nuclear ambitions, punishing it for its
sponsorship of terrorism and the like, preparing
for the next round of UN sanctions in light of
Iran's defiance of UN Security Council resolutions
demanding a suspension of uranium enrichment
activities. Yet, increasingly, like a call in the
wilderness, the US is discovering the gaping holes
in its Iran policy that are simply growing larger
and larger, for several reasons.
First, it
is now self-evident that the US's diplomatic
efforts to isolate Iran have not been successful,
particularly in the Middle East and Persian Gulf,
a volatile region unwilling to subscribe to the
US-Israeli cold war blueprint of alliance
formation vis-a-vis Iran. Thus, while Iran and
Egypt are making steady progress to set their
alienated relations on normal tracks, on the other
hand the Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation
Council have gone even further by rejecting the
US's bid to isolate Iran, showing a remarkable new
willingness to establish close relations with
their non-Arab neighbor.
Second, the US is
increasingly troubled by the rapid warming up of
Iran-Russia relations and Moscow's bold new Iran
policy, reflected in President Vladimir Putin's
recent Tehran visit followed by Russia's delivery
of nuclear fuel to Iran and the reports of more
nuclear and non-nuclear, eg, armed, contacts
between the two countries. Already, in light of
the new US intelligence report on Iran confirming
the absence of a nuclear weapons program in
today's Iran, Russia has gone on record opposing
any further sanctions against Tehran, a sentiment
shared by, among others, China, which has
proceeded with new energy deals with Iran, thus
guaranteeing China's role as a top trading partner
with Iran.
Third, after much hesitation
and internal bickering, the US has finally
conceded that Iran is being constructive in Iraq,
and the fourth round of US-Iran dialogue on Iraq's
security scheduled for later this month can be the
occasion for US diplomats to go beyond their
ritual accusations against Iran and to seek a
mini-breakthrough via proactive suggestions.
Fourth, the turmoil in Pakistan must serve
a stern notice to US policy makers that fiddling
around with Iran's security environment is not
wise and the overflowing threats to regional
stability together with Iran's stability role and
good relations with all of its neighbors translate
into a much revised US policy that is not anchored
in Iran-bashing.
Fifth, Iran's supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has sent a signal
that while the time is not right to normalize
relations with the US, nonetheless Iran is
prepared to work in that direction if the US
changes its behavior toward Iran. Khamenei's
statement must be understood, however, against a
backdrop of a long history of broken promises and
contradictory US policies that have more than once
demoralized the forces in Iran's top hierarchy
willing to give rapprochement with the US a decent
chance.
The question is: Is it different
now, or are we apt to see more of the same, that
is, the repetition or recycling of a long-standing
pattern of incremental improvements reversed by
setbacks, partially caused by various backlashes
against those improvements?
Another
question, of course, pertains to the "limits of
the possible" in the way of US-Iran relations,
experiencing three decades of diplomatic
estrangement. The US's Iran containment policy may
need to be recast, perhaps along the lines similar
to, let's say, China or Russia containment and, in
turn, this would mean normal relations coinciding
with power and ideological competition. In other
words, there is no need to anticipate full harmony
as a prerequisite for normalization, rather a
coming to a new understanding by both sides of how
to regulate their disagreements.
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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