Talking to Iran
It is much too soon to say whether or not yesterday’s meeting in Baghdad between American Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, signals a new phase in U.S.-Iranian relations, but those of us who have advocated such a course for some time have grounds for hope.
As it happens, I am speaking on the subject of U.S.-Iran relations this evening before the Windham World Affairs Council in southeastern Vermont, just a few miles north of Brattleboro. I’m grateful to the nice people at the School for International Training, a division of World Learning, who were kind enough to give me a desk and a computer for a few hours, and who will be hosting tonight’s talk. Tomorrow I’m off to Concord, New Hampshire, to give the same talk before the World Affairs Council there.
This is the fifth talk that I’ve given on the subject, and if the reception here is anything like what I’ve heard and felt elsewhere, I’ll be encouraged to think that there is a future for U.S.-Iran relations that does not include preventive war. (My remarks are drawn from two Cato papers, one by Ted Carpenter from September 2006, and a second by my colleague Justin Logan, published in December.)
At a minimum, there does appear to be some tension within the Bush administration over the question of engagement versus confrontation with Iran. Military action is hardly inevitable. The mere fact that yesterday’s meeting took place suggests that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and her point person on Iran, Under Secretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, do have influence, and they do not appear to be spoiling for war.
On the other side are Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams, and, it is widely rumored, Vice President Cheney. The Boston Globe reported on Saturday that Abrams’ Iran Syria Policy Operations Group (ISOG) was disbanded several months ago, and the story precipitated speculation that the influence of the regime change contingent within the Bush administration was waning.
Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service, told the Globe ”I think the rationale for [the ISOG] was promoting regime change and [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice is going in a much different direction from that.” Katzman asserted “The regime change school within the administration has really gotten quite a bit weaker.”
Trita Parsi, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University who also heads the National Iranian American Council, adopted a more cautious tone. “At this stage, these are just initial steps towards diplomacy,” Parsi said. “I think we have entered a stage in which the people who were favoring regime change are not strong enough to conduct policy but they are still strong enough to undermine policy. It is too early to count them out entirely.”
For now, I’m with Trita: I’m not ready to pop the champagne cork just yet. For starters, yesterday’s discussions were focused solely on Iraq, and did not deal with touchier subjects, including Iranian human rights abuses and its ongoing nuclear program. Second, it is not clear that the Bush administration, through Amb. Crocker, signaled a willingness to cooperate, and perhaps even compromise, with Iran. If the meeting was merely a venue for the Bush administration to restate its position, then this could just have easily been done through any number of other means.
But the mere act of meeting with Iran is a setback for those, both inside and outside of the Bush administration, who were disdainful of the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations to reach out to Syria and Iran. Many of these same individuals were opposed to negotiations with the Soviets during the Cold War, and they saw Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 as the ultimate sell-out.
These folks will not go quietly into that good night. Just last week, Reuel Marc Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute seized upon the misfortune of Haleh Esfandiari — jailed (and now charged) by the Iranians for allegedly attempting to foment regime change — to advance his “school of thought” with respect to Iran. (He characterizes his analysis of the Islamic Republic as “Suspicious, cynical, hawkish, and religiously oriented.”) To Mr. Gerecht, the Esfandiari case shows “that the regime understands nothing other than brute force.”
Presumably, Amb. Crocker disagrees. Mr. Burns seems to. Secretary Rice met with her Syrian counterpart in Egypt last month, and signaled a willingness to do so again. Are higher-level talks with Iran out of the question? (Conceding that it is impossible to know what is likely to happen next, I like David Ignatius’s approach: mind reading.)
So, in short, this all bears watching. And I’m guessing that means Cato’s ongoing “Iran: The Grand Bargain” speakers series will continue to engender considerable interest.
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