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Is there a shift in US policy?
Recent events show that Washington is softening its stance against Tehran.
- By Abdullah Alshayji, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 00:04 July 21, 2008
- Image Credit: Illustration by Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News
We've been very clear that any country can change course," said Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State, at a State Department news conference, last Friday.
Is it an indication of a major shift in US policy in the region, a seismic and lasting shift in strategy and focus, or an aberration of a fleeting tinkering with, as one American analyst calls it, a hail Mary shot?
Or is it a change of plan to achieve US interests through negotiations and diplomacy, as the presumptive Democratic candidate Senator Barrack Obama has been advocating and his willingness to sit down and negotiate with allies as well as foes alike like Iran?
It seems that the US administration is warming up to a dialogue and reconciliation with Iran. There are indications that the US is moving in this direction. It has asked the Under Secretary for Planning Bill Burns to participate, along with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, in talks with Iran to persuade it to suspend its uranium enrichment programme in exchange for economic and political incentives presented to it last month by the 5+1 group (Permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany).
The Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki, in an upbeat assessment over this development welcomed the American move as "new positive approach". He was even optimistic that this could spark talks in the future between Iran and the US over their diplomatic relations that have been severed since 1980. In addition, Iran has welcomed the US move of opening a mission in Tehran, and is also in favour of direct flights between the two countries.
On the other hand, expectation of a breakthrough between the Iranians and Solana-Burns are not high. Saeed Jalili Iran's chief nuclear negotiator pointed out that "Iran enters the nuclear talks with positive intentions". When asked about the US presence in the meeting, Jalili stated, "What are important are their intentions."
What would one make of this major conciliatory shift in US policy on Iraq and Iran? What sparked this change of hearts from an administration that has refused adamantly to set a time-table to withdraw its troops from Iraq? President George W. Bush has argued that setting a time-table "will send the wrong signal to the enemies, if they wait long enough, America will cut and run and abandon its friends".
Now the talk is not even about a long term grandiose security framework, but as US officials state, "In the area of security cooperation, the president and the prime minister agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting inspirational goals".
These goals include turning over more control to Iraqi security forces and "the further reduction of US combat forces from Iraq". It is so vague and needs more explanation. Even one US Congressman describes the time horizon and inspirational goal as "very vague and nebulous". This shift in policy and focus by the US comes on the heel of cutting down the presence of US troops to 140,000, with the likelihood of the withdrawal of more troops before the US presidential election.
Sadiq Rikabi, a senior political adviser to Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, insisted that there were two principles that would determine the military relationship with the US. "No permanent bases and no permanent existence. In such a way, there should be a timetable for withdrawal," he stressed.
The other major shift of the US foreign policy is Iran, where the US has insisted on negotiations with Tehran, the only remaining member of the "axis of evil". The US is now insisting on negotiations with the Islamic Republic.
Although Rice admits Iran is "a difficult and dangerous state ... We have been very clear that any country can change course."
The US Secretary of State insists that "the US does not have permanent enemies" and is willingness "to sit down with her counterpart any time any where any place but after Iran stops its uranium enrichment in a verifiable manner".
There is no doubt that the American dynamics and calculus has shifted in the past six month of this lame duck administration on two fronts which are the front burner in the ongoing heated debates in the US presidential elections.
Senator Barack Obama has been hammering at his rival Republican Senator John McCain's Iraq strategy and the Bush administration's unilateralism as well as his misguided approach of focusing on Iraq and neglecting Afghanistan and going to the real source of Al Qaida's strong. He criticised the obsession with Iraq as a dominant fixture of US strategy which is not making America safe.
Maiden tour
Obama has undertaken a maiden tour to the region (including Iraq and Afghanistan) in a listening and fact finding mission to shore up his image and to allay the fears of the American voters of his security and foreign policy acumen.
In a blistering speech last week, Obama defended his Iraq and Afghanistan strategy and accused the Bush administration of pursuing a "single-minded foreign policy that has cost thousands of lives, tarnished America's image and emptied the nation's coffers - a failed policy which amounts to "lectures without listening".
With such a conciliatory and mending rhetoric, no wonder Obama is the world's pick. His views seem to be adopted, of late, by the Bush Administration which was unthinkable even few months ago vis-a-vis Iraq and Iran. The Bush Administration has departed from its rigid neoconservative oriented dogmatic approach and has adopted a more pragmatic tone i.e Obama's oriented, which if it comes to fruition could improve Bush's sagging legacy.
Senator Joseph R. Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, puts it best by declaring that the Bush Administration has "reversed course and dropped its adamant opposition to a timeline for redeployment of American troops from Iraq. The president has acknowledged the need to transition from a combat mission to one that focuses on training and counterterrorism... The administration is finally facing reality."
Is it reality though or an escape strategy?
Dr Abdullah Al Shayji is a Professor of International Relations and the Head of the American Studies Unit- Kuwait University.
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