The invitation to Iran from UN Ambassador Susan Rice and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is pretty clear; the U.S. will talk if Iran is serious about talking. The Bush Administration's position that we would only talk with Iran about their nuclear weapons program after they had discontinued their nuclear weapons program was nonsensical and, predictably, didn't go anywhere. The Obama Administration is offering Iran a pragmatic reset, an opportunity to move the ball upfield.
And just like the al Qaeda reaction to the Obama presidency, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is apparently unnerved by the prospect of no longer having the opportunity to cast the U.S. as the enemy of the Iranian people. In response to the Obama inauguration, Mr. Ahmadinejad came out swinging and aiming for the fence, demanding apologies for a variety ofU.S. foreign policy positions.
Mr Ahmadinejad laid before his audience the ever-growing list of grievances Iran holds against the US:
- American support for the coup that unseated a democratically elected Iranian government in 1953
- American backing for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war
- Support for the "Zionist regime" [Israel]
- Launching the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq under the pretext of
9/11 - an incident as questionable as the Holocaust, he suggested. (Link)
Not coincidentally, Ahmadinejad just announced his intent to run for a second term and the apology demands are nothing more than posturing for the Iranian electorate.
In elections scheduled for June 2009, the increasingly unpopular (and,
therefore, increasingly desperate) president will most likely find
himself competing with the popular reformist (and relatively pro
Western) former president, Mohammad Khatami.
While the Iranians dumping Ahmadinejad and choosing the more pragmatic Khatami would be welcome news to the U.S., the question of Iran's nuclear capability would remain. Reza Aslan has a good essay outlining the issues that complicate the conversation with Iran. Mr. Aslan argues the time to force Iran to halt uranium enrichment has passed, seven years squandered by the Bush Administration's refusal to talk directly to the Iranians. But, he argues there may still be time to convince the Iranians they needn't weaponize their capabilities.
It
may be difficult for most Americans to fathom, considering the
confident blustering of Iran’s leaders, but the regime is in a state of
utter panic over its national security. When I was in Iran a couple of
years ago, people were staring at the sky, waiting for American or
Israeli bombs (in Iran, they are one and the same) to drop on them at
any moment. Although the regime’s paranoia has somewhat subsided with
the election of Obama, Iran still has reason to feel threatened. After
all, this is a country that is literally encircled by American forces—
the US maintains a military presence in Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Turkmenistan, Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and the
United Arab Emirates. Iran’s as-yet nonexistent nukes may pose an
existential threat to Israel, but Israeli’s very real nuclear missiles
are currently pointed directly at Tehran. Every action that Iran
takes—from its support of Hizbullah and Hamas to its pursuit of nuclear
technology—must be viewed through the prism of the country’s
all-encompassing sense of threat. If Iran has learned anything from its
fellow axis of evil members, it is this: the country without nuclear
weapons (Iraq) was destroyed and forcefully occupied; the country with
nuclear weapons (North Korea) is being bribed into giving them up.
Iran may not actually want nuclear weapons. They are expensive to maintain, impossible to conceal, and, considering the uproar their But of such weapons would cause, far too politically risky. But there is no doubt that Iran would at least like the option of weaponizing its nuclear program in a hurry should the need arise. At the very least, it would like to give the impression that it can deter any threat to its national security with the utmost force. Only by convincing Iran that it has nothing to fear, either from Israel or from the US, or from the growing chorus of Arab states lined up against it, can we convince it to reign in its nuclear ambitions.
Talking with Iran, in and of itself, is neither good or bad. Concessions would have to be made by both the U.S. and Iran if any meaningful progress will be made to deter Iran's interest in a nuclear weapon capability, and it's not apparent that either side is willing to make these concessions.
But as Reza Aslan points out, the schizophrenic foreign policy posturings of the Bush Administration did nothing to advance U.S. interests, and a good deal of time was lost then as Iran was developing capability and capacity to enrich uranium.
The smart, pragmatic thing to do is start talking directly to Iran.
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