Published: May 4 2007
Some things are so obvious they need to be said aloud before anyone takes any notice. Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, perhaps had this in mind the other day when he suggested that the time had come for the US to normalise relations with Iran.
Over the years I have heard many European and one or two American policymakers make the same observation: for all the residual trauma of the 1979 hostage crisis, and Washington’s (mostly justified) concern about Tehran’s contemporary support for terrorism, US interests would be better served by engagement.
The difference was that Mr Solana spoke out publicly – and at a moment when he is acting as the west’s principal interlocutor in the dispute about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He has also been working closely with Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, in efforts to restore a semblance of stability to the wider Middle East.
Mr Solana made his remarks at the 2007 Brussels Forum, the annual transatlantic gathering hosted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He had travelled to Brussels from Istanbul where he had met Ali Larijani, Iran’s nuclear negotiator.
His was not, though, as some suspected and others had hoped, a choreographed initiative ahead of Ms Rice’s expected meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh with Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian foreign minister. Rather, Washington was irritated. A senior US official told me that Mr Solana had “gone too far” in pressing the case for US engagement.
The remit for Ms Rice’s encounter with Mr Mottaki confined discussion to Iraq. In her description, it was “not an opportunity to talk about US-Iran issues”. As for a broader dialogue, there is a US offer on the table. But it is conditional on Iran’s suspension of its uranium enrichment programme.
As Mr Solana’s comments indicated, there is a chicken-and-egg dilemma here. The position of moderates in Tehran, who might be willing to negotiate a way out of the nuclear deadlock, is undercut by Washington’s stance. “It is very difficult,” as Mr Solana said, “to continue in a situation where Iran is considered a country with whom you cannot organise some sort of dialogue.”
The more so because any long-term solutions to most of the myriad conflicts in the wider Middle East will depend, at the very least, on Iranian acquiescence. That, in turn, requires a deal between Washington and Tehran. Put bluntly, Iran is a powerful regional player, one left a great deal stronger by America’s failure in Iraq. As a source of much of the tension in the region, it cannot be excluded from efforts to rebuild security.
To make this case, is not, and the “not” bears repeating here, in any way to endorse or condone the present regime in Tehran. Given the history, one can see why the present US administration – indeed any US administration – might be sensitive about this. One of the unfortunate by-products of George W. Bush’s foreign policy has been a certain blindness among critics as to the nature of America’s adversaries. Too often nowadays, tyrants are afforded the benefit of the doubt.
Iran is often spoken of as a state rich in cultural and intellectual heritage, with a national temperament that inclines to engagement with the rest of the world. We would all profit from Iran’s reintegration into the international community. So would Iranians. But for the moment, it is governed by a regime described by Human Rights Watch – scarcely a US stooge – as one of the world’s most repressive. Alongside routine suppression of individual freedoms, the Tehran regime systematically abuses human rights, including by the use of torture and extra-judicial execution. Support for terrorism abroad has become a central instrument of its foreign policy.
As much, though, as President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad presides over a loathsome government, Iran – the country as opposed to its present rulers – does have legitimate strategic interests and security concerns. One way or another it has to be recognised as a powerful regional actor.
Washington’s mistake is to equate diplomacy with surrender. By continuing to ostracise Tehran, it has trapped itself in a mindset that says to restore relations would be to reward the bad guys.
This is to misunderstand the purpose and utility of diplomacy – to confuse means with ends. The reopening of formal and regular channels of communication need not in any way confer approval. By my count, the US has diplomatic contacts with just about every other nasty autocrat in the world. Diplomatic dialogue with Iran would be the means to the end of discovering whether differences – over the nuclear programme, Iraq and support for Hizbollah – are susceptible, or otherwise, to negotiation.
Decades of silence have amplified mutual misunderstanding – and empowered the radicals in Tehran. Talking would dispel confusion and misrepresentation in Iran of America’s present intentions. As things stand, there is precious little to challenge those in Tehran who say a nuclear capability is the only sure guarantee against US aggression.
Even the most optimistic among European diplomats are uncertain whether it is possible to conclude a strategic bargain to settle the nuclear question. We do know, though, because Tehran secretly tabled such proposals in 2003, that Iran has been willing to discuss all the relevant issues. Mr Solana’s judgment seems to be that that remains the position.
Engagement should be seen not as a substitute for “grand bargain” but rather as a way of properly exploring whether such a compact is possible. One plausible outcome would be the further exposure to international scrutiny of Iranian intransigence. In that case, the US would emerge stronger from the process.
US officials answer that Washington has shifted its position. Its present offer includes talks about anything Iran cares to raise. The only condition – and one, the officials remind you, that has been endorsed twice by the United Nations security council – is that Iran suspend its enrichment programme. Ms Rice’s open door in Sharm el-Sheikh, to the Syrian as well as the Iranian foreign minister, is cited as further evidence of America’s diplomatic intent.
A fair-minded appraisal of US diplomacy over the past year would acknowledge these shifts – though it might add that force of circumstance has played a part. But Washington is still missing the obvious. It has nothing to lose from starting a conversation with Tehran and, whatever the eventual outcome, something to gain. That, after all, is a fair definition of good diplomacy.