As the ink continued to dry on the aid-for-nuclear freeze deal with North Korea, the Bush administration made an important announcement regarding another member of the “axis of evil. It had decided to talk to Iran as part of a regional conference to discuss the future of Iraq. The parties will be sitting together today in Baghdad. The announcement should be welcomed as a long overdue act of sensible diplomacy that might defuse tensions in a rapidly deteriorating Iraq. The question remains, however, whether the talks will lead to a reduction in tension between Washington and Tehran over other Middle Eastern issues, particularly Iran’s nuclear program. That’s unlikely. Because the talks will be limited to Iraq, there is little hope the sides will come up with broader strategic agreements on the region. Even as they speak of Shia militias, Sunni attacks, and the future of Iraq, Iran’s nuclear clock will continue ticking. Unless that uranium elephant in the room is tackled, the US-Iranian dialogue will be, at best, a reprieve from a larger conflict. That’s why the Bush administration should indicate its interest in broader talks with Iran. Shortly after the North Korea deal was announced, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it should be “seen as a message to Iran that the international community is able to bring together its resources, particularly when regionally affected states work together and that the strong diplomacy . has finally achieved results. The reality is, however, that the United States has never engaged in “strong diplomacy on the Iran nuclear issue, and has never engaged Iran. Therein lies a large part of the problem. Indeed, a few years ago the US rebuffed the most creative and far-reaching diplomatic overture Iran has made since the countries broke off relations almost three decades ago. In spring 2003, Tehran sent a message to Washington calling for unconditional dialogue – putting all issues on the table, from its position on an Israeli-Palestinian settlement to the nuclear program. The two-page fax outlining the offer arrived at the State Department and found its way to the desk of Flynt Leverett, then a Middle East affairs advisor at the National Security Council. He forwarded it his superiors. However, somewhere along the way the letter died on the vine, and the administration offered no response. Rice, who was national security advisor at the time, claimed she never received it. The proposal was made when President Mohammad Khatami – he of the dialogue of civilizations – was in power. At the time, Iran offered to the European Union a range of conciliatory measures on the nuclear program, including the one that Washington most insists upon today: suspension of uranium enrichment as a precondition for talks. That was also when the Iraq war was still looking good, when the flush of victory still quickened the breath of US war planners, and when a confident Bush administration could simply shrug off Iranian overtures with a flick of the wrist. Iran suspended its program for two years between 2003 and 2005, as it negotiated with the EU. When it became clear to Tehran that the Europeans were powerless to convince Washington to enter into a comprehensive deal, they changed tack. Iran decided to move toward enrichment again. (Incidentally, Iranian and EU negotiators often commented privately on the absence of a US presence at the table). Around that time, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a populist firebrand with an arsenal of anti-Western and anti-Semitic rhetoric, replaced Khatami. Though he wields far less bureaucratic power than Iran’s unelected clerics, Ahmadinejad has been an effective spoiler, frightening the world with his speeches, undermining Iran’s negotiating position in the process. Today, the world looks much different than in 2003. Iran’s nuclear negotiators are less likely to give the US what they would view as a victory before negotiations even start. As one Iranian official told me, speaking of the demand for a suspension of uranium enrichment: “The US wants us to get to an end result even before we begin. That kind of language suggests that Iran might in fact accept an agreement in which it would suspend enrichment, but on the right terms, in an atmosphere of unconditional dialogue. However, we won’t know what the shape of an agreement looks like until the US and Iran face each other in a negotiation setting where all issues are placed on the table, not just the future of Iraq. The North Korea deal could not have succeeded without the US presence, or without a broader strategic framework. Pyongyang would have seen it all as a futile exercise. North Korea could be a template, but that means the Bush administration must hammer out a broader agreement with Iran. The Iraq talks are a good first step, but also an insufficient one. Aria Mehrabi, an independent consultant, is a member of the leadership Council of the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.
The US must widen its dialogue with Iran
