US-Iran: Taking talks to the next level

By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
asiatimes
Iran and the United States are gearing up for a new round of discussions on Iraq and, already, there is a call by a prominent Iranian politician to expand those talks to broader issues such as Afghanistan, Persian Gulf security, and the tensions in the Middle East. If adopted, this would mean the beginning of a qualitatively new type of strategic dialogue.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, the brother of Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator and head of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, who advises the government on foreign policy, had this to say: "We should not negotiate only about Iraq," citing Iran's national-interest priorities in support of his position.

In a certain sense, the climate is somewhat ready to leapfrog the nascent US-Iran dialogue to a more inclusive, broader purview befitting the description "strategic" given the interconnectedness of various issues.

On the one hand, there is a growing pressure on the administration of US President George W Bush, particularly by Democratic contenders for presidency such as Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson, for sustained dialogue with Iran. Richardson in particular has called on the US government to stop "threatening Iran" and to offer more tangible incentives to Tehran to gain a compromise on the nuclear issue.

On the other hand, the momentum for a new round of United Nations sanctions on Iran has been put into slow motion by the positive outcome of last week's meetings between Ali Larijani and the European Union's foreign-policy chief, Javier Solana, and the International Atomic Energy Agency's director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, culminating in a new visit to Iran by IAEA inspectors in the coming weeks - to "resolve the ambiguities", to paraphrase Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Consequently, with EU and IAEA officials expressing renewed optimism about peaceful resolution of the Iran nuclear crisis, and ElBaradei's scathing criticism of any military option as "madness", the stage is set for a real breakthrough, which may come in the form of an international consortium to produce nuclear fuel on Iran's territory, in other words the idea first proposed by President Mahmud Ahmadinjead at the UN General Assembly in September 2005.
Not only that, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Feisal, has surprised many, particularly in Washington's policy circles, by proposing a joint Iran-Gulf Cooperation Council consortium to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, has responded favorably and, irrespective of whether any real movement happens, the mere diplomatic gestures serve the well-being of Iranian-Saudi relations.

However, in the US, the anti-Iran campaign is in full swing, with the likes of former ambassador to the UN John Bolton declaring nuclear diplomacy with Iran a complete failure. He calls for military action and outright regime change. The relatively "dovish" State Department, headed by Condoleezza Rice, is trying to put a premium on the "outsourcing" of the Iran nuclear issue to the EU.

"Iran's agreement with the IAEA is on a constructive path," said Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, chairman of the Majlis, Iran's parliament, dismissing all rumors of Tehran's intention either to suspend its cooperation with the IAEA or exit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Ali Larijani, on the other hand, has warned that "sanctions can derail the path of negotiations".

Rightly so, since the targeting of Iran's shipping lanes and curtailing its civil-aircraft landing rights are among the concrete steps that, if implemented, will impact Iran's oil exports and affect Iranian travelers.

Not only that, the hawkish US and European politicians and media pundits are focusing on the EU's US$22 billion export credits to companies dealing with Iran, hoping that sooner or later the EU will adopt this as a "lesser evil" compared with the military option, to quote an alarmist editorial in the Jerusalem Post.

For the moment, the EU's eyes are fixed on the IAEA inspectors' visit to Iran, emboldened by an unexpected call for delay on UN Security Council action against Iran by none other than the hitherto reticent UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, echoing the sentiments of Russia, China and South Africa, which have gone on record asking for more time to the negotiation process above-mentioned.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a meeting with Rice has called for "unity at the council" on Iran, yet Sarkozy cannot even count on the solid support of his mirror-image, Germany's right-wing Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is reportedly also favoring delayed UN action on Iran.
In his rush to ingratiate himself with Washington, Sarkozy risks demolishing France's hard-earned international reputation as an independent global actor, thus making him appear as a Tony Blair substitute. But with the new British prime minister, Gordon Brown, already busy cultivating a different, un-Blair-like image for himself, Sarkozy is in dire need of nuancing his campaign promises to bring about a golden new age in US-France relations.

Javad Vaeedi, head of international affairs at Iran's Supreme National Security Council, has stated: "We are prepared to negotiate for the sake of removing the concerns of some countries regarding the possibility of diversion from peaceful nuclear activities in Iran and to propose various guarantees, but at the same time and reciprocally, our concerns should also be addressed."

After all, Iran has a plethora of national-security concerns, such as with respect to the armed opposition Mojahedin Khalgh Organization (MKO), currently under the United States' protective wing in Iraq. Various members of Congress have called on the US government to remove the MKO from its list of terrorist organizations and to use it as a "tool" for espionage inside Iran.

Another Iranian concern is about the fate of its five diplomats in US custody in Iraq, and Washington's stubborn refusal to release them or even to allow a family visit or a visit by the International Committee of the Red Cross, linking the fate of those diplomats directly to the proposed new rounds of US-Iran talks on Iraq's security.

Clearly, the US must do its part to make a strategic dialogue with Iran possible, or risk the recycling of the history of half-steps and self-reversals nullifying any incremental progress. The stakes are too high, given the gravity of Iraq's security crisis and the apparent failure of Bush's "surge" policy, to repeat the errors of the past.

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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