The Leveretts, the White House and Iran

I have a few more things to say about the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, but this Salon piece by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett deserves special attention.

Flynt Leverett, who left government service after the Iraq invasion, is a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council. Hillary Mann Leverett is a former Foreign Service officer who dealt with Iran. Collectively, they have spent 20 years in national security posts in Republican and Democratic administrations.

Out of government posts, they have written frequently on U.S.-Iranian relations. A year ago, the CIA heavily censored an article they wrote advocating a U.S. "grand bargain" with Iran. What they have to say now in the Salon article, and why the CIA, apparently at the direction of the White House, objected to their New York Times Op-Ed, is worth a close look.

Writing on what they believe are new questions raised by the NIE about the Bush administration's veracity in alleging Iran's nuclear threat, the Leveretts say the "real lie" is Bush's claim that "his administration has made a serious offer to negotiate with the Islamic Republic, and that Iranian intransigence is the only thing preventing a diplomatic resolution."

The Salon article goes on to chronicle how European allies initiated negotiations with Iran in an attempt to "drag" the U.S. into talks that Bush had refused to enter on his own. When the so-called EU-3 proposed a package of incentives to Iran to drop its uranium enrichment program, Bush vetoed a section that would have provided offers of a security guarantee and recognition of a regional role for Iran--rendering the package worthless from Iran's point of view.

The Leveretts maintain that only U.S. agreement to provide Iran security guarantees--for example, that the U.S. does not seek regime-change in Tehran--will entice Iran into a grand bargain, a "strategic deal" that they say Iran's collective leadership desires. They call for a profound reorientation of America's policy toward Iran, akin to the shift in China policy executed by Richard Nixon. "The Bush administration has never offered to negotiate with Tehran on any basis that might actually be attractive to the Islamic Republic's leadership," they write. As a result, they say, "Almost three decades after the Iranian revolution, the potential for the United States to engage the Iranian leadership on the basis of Iran's national interest -- and by doing so generate enormous benefits to America's strategic position-- remains unrealized."

Some questions:

Why didn't the Bush administration seriously explore the "grand bargain" offer that came its way from Iran in 2003?

Why did the White House apparently intervene in censoring the Leverett's 2006 Op-Ed on the subject of a grand bargain?

Why has Cheney continued to push for the option of a military strike on Iran when the Bush administration knew 1) that Iran had made a sweeping offer to negotiate and 2) assumptions that Iran was constructing a nuclear weapon rested, as we now know, on shaky intelligence grounds?

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo