Talking to Tehran

The big question everyone's been asking is, Is Bush going to war with Iran? This week, the President said that new U.S. allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq were not meant as "a pretext for war." Bush's new defense secretary Robert Gates said two weeks ago that the Pentagon, despite sending two aircraft carriers to the Gulf, is not planning an attack on the Islamic Republic.

To my mind, the more urgent question is, Why isn't Bush talking to Iran? Let's remember up front that this is a mainstream concept, clearly so since December, when the report of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel of former cabinet secretaries, congressmen, an ex-Supreme Court justice and other distinguished Americans, recommended to Bush that the U.S. "should engage directly with Iran" for the sake of achieving American goals in Iraq. The Study Group promoted the sensible view that engagement might encourage constructive Iranian behavior in Iraq and lead to "the broader dialogue that Iran seeks." In 2001, in fact, Bush officials held indirect talks with Iranian diplomats concerning post-Taliban Afghanistan; by most accounts, the discussions were constructive and useful.

Why, however, are the Bush folks tone-deaf on the question of holding a dialogue with Iran on the growing number of crucial issues of concern to both countries? To cite a few: Iran's nuclear program, Iran's support for radical groups like Hizballah and Hamas, U.S. sanctions against Iran, the future of Iraq and security in the oil-rich Gulf.

Since early in Bush's presidency, the idea of coercing Iran, if not changing the regime in Tehran, has been an unshakeable policy irrespective of the ever-changing and increasingly dangerous political landscape in the Middle East. Despite Iranian cooperation in Afghanistan, Bush labeled Iran a member of his "axis of evil" in his January 2002 State of the Union speech. Such was the climate of anti-Iranian hostility in the White House, it seems, that an interesting olive branch extended by the Iranian regime in 2003 went scarcely noticed by senior policymakers (See Washington Post story on this). Or, as Condi Rice testified about the offer before congress last week, "I just don't remember ever seeing any such thing."

What actually happened is that Swiss ambassador in Tehran Tim Guldimann, the channel for American-Iranian contacts in the absence of diplomatic relations, faxed a letter to the State Department on May 4, 2003 reporting an Iranian initiative to improve relations with the U.S. and stating his view "there is a strong will of the regime to tackle the problem with the U.S." His letter introduced a purported Iranian roadmap outlining a prospective wide-ranging agenda for U.S.-Iranian talks. Guldimann's letter also noted that he had several long discussions about the Iranian initiative with the Iranian ambassador to France, Sadegh Kharrazi. Kharrazi happens to be related by marriage to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei and is the nephew of the Iranian foreign minister of that time.

Now that Condi Rice has become aware of the Iranian roadmap, the State Department's new line is that it wasn't really an Iranian offer. The State Department spokesman is saying that the initiative "rather was a creative exercise on the part of the Swiss ambassador." What if it was? Call him a liar and throw it in the trash, then?

The State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, added that the U.S. government will sit down with Iran to discuss the nuclear issue and anything else they would like if the Iranians would only "simply, verifiably suspend their uranium-enrichment activities." Hold on a minute: the Iranians did suspend their enrichment activities, for two years or so starting in 2003, not long after Tehran's apparent approach to the U.S.

It seems Bush had other excuses for not talking to Iran then. Don't forget that in 2003, the U.S. knew that North Korea was also enriching uranium. In that same year, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 2006, it even announced that it had conducted a nuclear test. Instead of boycotting North Korea, the U.S. led the six-party talks that produced this week's encouraging breakthrough--which was warmly lauded by Bush at his White House press conference.

There might have been a time when playing cutsy with Iran served some small, immediate purposes. Nobody is forgetting that the Iranian regime has its faults, serious faults. But with Iran at the heart of so many crises in the Middle East, and with 150,000 U.S. troops stationed next door, the time for diplomatic games has long past. Of the three members of his "axis of evil," Bush has invaded one, made a deal with another, leaving only Iran in a state of limbo. Good for Bush if he is not seeking a pretext for war with Iran. But after the fiasco that Iraq has turned out to be, and after the promise of the six-party talks with North Korea, the administration owes Americans a better explanation of why it effectively blocks a constructive dialogue with Tehran.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo