The very sensible six-nation agreement reached with North Korea earlier this week to end its nuclear armaments program came at a time when more details were being circulated about an Iranian offer to the United States in Spring 2003 to address all bilateral issues that have chilled relations between Tehran and Washington. The contrast between the American-brokered deal reached with North Korea and the continuing saber-rattling going on with Iran is stark, and perhaps unnecessary. The North Korean agreement was a sign of sensible US diplomacy, which contrasts sharply with the nonsensical approach that Washington has often used on major foreign policy issues. Too often, especially in the Middle East – most especially when exaggerated pro-Israeli interests influence policy – Washington has tended to rely on sanctions, threats and military force more than on the deal-making that has been a routine, even core, element of diplomacy among nations for thousands of years. The North Korean agreement – essentially ending North Korea’s nuclear arms program in return for energy, food, financial aid and normalized relations – indicates that the US is indeed capable of sensible decision-making on the basis of mutually beneficial and reasonable compromises. It confirms that useful results can emerge from diplomatically engaging and negotiating with a country and leadership that one dislikes, disdains or fears. It affirms again that such an outcome is more likely to occur when concerned neighbors are part of the process, as were South Korea, Japan, China and others in this case. The North Korean precedent is very relevant to the Middle East because the US is involved in a direct, perhaps escalating, confrontation with several important players in the region – namely Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and a series of other Islamist movements that reflect huge segments of public opinion. These are unsavory characters in Washington’s view, and should not be approached other than with ultimatums, threats, sanctions, military moves and the like. Yet the policy of confrontation, encirclement and attack that the US has pursued seems only to have made this region a more violent and unstable place. Where Washington does offer to engage and talk, it usually does so on the back of severe preconditions – such as Iran suspending its uranium enrichment program, or Hamas unilaterally recognizing Israel without any reciprocal Israeli gesture to the Palestinians. Such offers to talk, engage and negotiate are not serious, because they cannot possibly be accepted by those to whom they are made. They require the a priori acceptance of American-Israeli demands by Arabs or Iranians, instead of getting to such acceptance through the diplomatic process. Iranians, Palestinians, Syrians and others have a range of both sensible and unreasonable positions on a variety of issues, as does every party to any dispute anywhere in the world. Yet when one side in a dispute offers to talk without preconditions, and to explore how differences could be narrowed and agreement achieved, it would seem useful to call its bluff and explore what can be achieved through peaceful talks. This is immediately relevant because powerful Iranians are once again making gestures towards the US, this time in the person of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was quoted Wednesday as saying that Tehran would remove obstacles blocking negotiations with Washington were the latter to show goodwill towards Iran – in other words, stop threatening to change its regime or attack it. Iran under former President Mohammad Khatami made a similar though more formal gesture to the US in spring 2003, in the form of a letter sent through the Swiss ambassador in Tehran to the Bush administration. Iran expressed a willingness to discuss issues including its nuclear program, support for militant Palestinians, and other regional issues of concern to the US and the Arab countries. The Bush White House ignored that overture, as it has done with the latest Rafsanjani offer, at least in public. The fascinating question is: Why is the US capable of compromises and large doses of healthy humility in a situation like North Korea, but not in the Middle East? No single issue can explain this. It is probably due to several factors, including powerful Israeli influences on US policy, oil and energy issues, the centrality of American-induced transformation of the Middle East to the neoconservative agenda that drives Washington, and continued reactions to the trauma of 9/11 and persistent terror threats. The irony, it would seem, is that the US could achieve meaningful, lasting progress on all these fronts, and a few others that interest it, if it used an approach similar to the one that has achieved a breakthrough with North Korea. It has nothing to lose, and much to gain. So why does it not do so? ……. Rami G. Khouri writes a regular commentary for THE DAILY STAR.
It works for North Korea; why not Iran?
