New momentum for US-Iran
dialogue By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
New momentum for United States-Iran
dialogue on Iraq has been generated as a result of
this week's Kuwait summit of Iraq and its
neighbors. It will likely trigger a cooling of
tensions between Tehran and Washington in the near
future after several weeks of vitriolic exchanges.
Although on the surface the summit did not
break any ice between Iran and the US, and there
was no direct interaction between US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice and Iranian Foreign
Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, there was sufficient
fuel, both at the summit's open- and closed-door
meetings as well as on the ground in Iraq, to help
improve the hostile climate dominating US-Iran
ties.
This is a welcome mini-turnaround
from barely two weeks ago, when the US ambassador
to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, blamed Iran
for
waging a "proxy war" in Iraq and
undermining the government of Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki by backing Mahdi Army militiamen of
Muqtada al-Sadr. The US is now putting the accent
on "common ground" and "convergence of interests"
that, per an article in the New York Times, means
backing the Baghdad regime against Muqtada's army,
labeled as "outlaws" by Iran's ambassador to
Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi Qomi.
Interestingly, coinciding with Iran's new
willingness to demonstrate its support for the
embattled Iraqi government is the latter's rather
desperate attempt to build bridges with its Arab
neighbors, reflected in Iraqi officials' heavy
emphasis on Iraq's "Arab identity" at the Kuwait
summit. This is part of their efforts to achieve
normalized relations with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
other Arab states and to get much-need debt
relief. Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states own
nearly half of Iraq's roughly US$60 billion to $80
billion foreign debt. The GCC comprises Bahrain,
Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates.
The summit was a failure on
both these accounts, yet it was successful in
building confidence between Iraq and its GCC
neighbors, particularly Kuwait, which has yet to
comply with Iraq's request regarding compensation
to Kuwait for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in
1990-91.
The GCC states are aware,
however, that an indefinite hesitation on the twin
subjects of reopening their embassies in Baghdad
and debt relief will translate into heavier
dependency of the Iraqi government on Iran, which
is seen as playing a balancing act between and
among the various regional and non-regional
players. Enjoying a new level of
self-confidence for gaining quick ground on
Shi'ite militias, the Maliki government may not
want to push too aggressively for a fourth round
of US-Iran dialogue, since doing so would send the
wrong signal to Arab states already sold on their
image of this government as "pro-Iran".
A
reconstruction of that image is now underway, with
some help by Rice, who billed the Kuwait summit as
a milestone in "reintegrating Iraq in the Arab
neighborhood". Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar
Zebari spoke at the summit on his government's
willingness and ability to play a constructive
role in the region, hoping this would be music to
the ears of the GCC states. Yet he must know the
process will be slow and difficult and a measure
of self-distancing from Iran is necessary before
the GCC states and the rest of Arab world can
fully embrace the new post-Saddam Hussein
political order.
Iran, on the other hand,
is keenly concerned about Iraq's political
stability and knows the depth of its own ties with
Baghdad, so it has practically no problem with a
new Arabist turn in Iraq's demeanor or foreign
policy.
Meanwhile, the US has been
displaying a degree of "cognitive dissonance" with
regard to Iran, like a stalled train at a forked
junction. Thus, the old accusations of Iran's
destructive meddling in Iraq continue to go
hand-in-hand with reluctant admissions about
Iran's stabilizing role, yet with no sign of a
definitive resolution one way or the other.
But, if Rice is serious about "building
momentum" for Iraq's breakthrough with its Arab
neighbors, there is no logical reason why she
should not seriously contemplate a parallel
confidence-building process with Tehran. This
could in turn influence Iraq's ties with Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait. The intricate web of
connections between the issues involved here
dictates a broader, long-term thinking on the US's
part, as well as on Iran's, so the current
disputes between them can be addressed, including
the issue of Iran's nuclear program.
Concerning the latter, the International
Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA's) announcement that
Iran has agreed to answer questions about its
alleged nuclear weaponization studies is yet
another indication of Tehran's new flexibility and
willingness to find a diplomatic solution for what
is undoubtedly the country's most serious foreign
crisis, in light of the multilateral United
Nations sanctions on Iran.
IAEA's director
general Mohammad ElBaradei has identified this
issue as the last remaining topic for his agency
"to investigate about past and present Iran
nuclear activities". In other words, Iran's
nuclear dossier is a short step from being
declared "normal" by the IAEA, perhaps as soon as
late May.
In that case, assuming the IAEA
is satisfied with Iran's answers, the UN would
have to find a viable exit for its present
entanglement with the Iran nuclear issue, perhaps
by agreeing to a short-term, mostly symbolic,
Iranian suspension of its uranium-enrichment
program, solely to give the impression of
compliance with UN resolutions on Iran.
The complex, curvy road of US-Iran
relations has always been infested with multiple
mines of divisive issues that warrant a cautious
note next to the optimistic above-said lines. The
situation could easily revert to the incendiary
rhetoric of earlier this month, when the entire US
media were on a war wagon with Iran.
But
with signs of a security improvement in Baghdad
and Maliki's ability to make noticeable advances
against militias, the chances are the road ahead
will be paved with a new measure of goodwill
between Tehran and Washington.
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. He is a
professor of international relations, Bentley
College.
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