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No substitute for policy
Did Bush make a mistake by sending his envoy to talks with Iran in Geneva?
- By Amir Taheri, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:41 July 25, 2008
- Image Credit: Illustration: Seyyed de la LLata/Gulf News
Believing that life comes in "two-week" chunks, the 5+1 Group has given Iran another fortnight to provide an answer to a deal it proposed almost two months ago. When the deal was first presented to the Islamic Republic by the European Union's foreign policy "czar" Javier Solana the understanding was that Tehran would give its answer in two weeks' time. When that didn't happen, the 5+1, that is to say the five veto-holding members of the United Nation's Security Council plus Germany, graciously offered another fortnight.
Many observers had claimed that Tehran was prevaricating because the United States had not directly joined the 5+1 negotiating team. Recently, in Geneva, that changed. The US was represented by its third highest ranking diplomat William Burns. And, yet, the Iranian delegation asked for another fortnight of "reflections".
Did President George W Bush make a mistake by sending Burns to Geneva?
Those who think Bush can do nothing right, have exhausted the thesaurus in search of adjectives to label his decision.
To drive the point home, we are also told that this is the first time since the Islamic revolution in 1979 that Iran and the US engage in a diplomatic encounter.
Not the first time
As always, reality is more complicated. This is not the first time that the two sides meet.
In November 1979, President Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Bzrezinski met Ayatollah Khomeini's Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan in Algiers to offer the newly created Islamic Republic a strategic partnership. Three days later, Khomeinist students raided the US Embassy and seized its staff hostage.
During the hostage crisis Carter sent his Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan, disguised with the help of a wig and other theatrical props, to Paris to meet Khomeini's Foreign Minister Sadeq Qotbzadeh, again with a sack full of carrots.
In 1980, Warren Christopher, Carter's Deputy Secretary of State, led a team in talks with Iran's deputy premier Behzad Nabavi. The talks led to the Algiers accord and the release of hostages in exchange for a US pledge not to take action against the hostage-holders and their political masters.
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan sent his former National Security Advisor Robert C. McFarlane on a secret mission to Tehran with a key-shaped cake, a copy of the Bible autographed for Khomeini and a Colt .45 for the ayatollah, in a bid that triggered the "Irangate" scandal.
Joint efforts
During the first George Bush and Bill Clinton presidencies, American and Iranian diplomats met at least a dozen times, notably on joint efforts to end the civil war in Tajikistan and the Armenia-Azerbaijan war over the Karabagh enclave.
Under President George W. Bush, the two sides have talked on several occasions since 2002 over Afghanistan and Iraq.
In May 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice invited the Islamic Republic to talks. Tehran dismissed the invitation as a sign of US weakness and accelerated its uranium enrichment programme.
Tehran sees Washington's decision to attend the Geneva talks as a victory for the revolution. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has gone further and called on his followers to "prepare for a post-American world".
Once again, reality is more complicated.
To start with, the Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei has had to set aside a law passed by the Islamic Majlis (parliament) banning diplomatic contact with the American "Great Satan". The Geneva encounter may be painful for Washington "neocons". But it is even more so for radicals in Tehran. The talks are about one thing only: Tehran's response to the EU offer that hinges on the central demand that the Islamic Republic comply with resolutions passed by the United Nations' Security Council.
The resolutions have a bottom line: Iran should verifiably disband its uranium enrichment programme, thus jettisoning all possibility of developing an atomic bomb. Tehran says it will never do that, even if that means war.
The 5+1 group insist they will not accept anything less and that Tehran's refusal could lead to other resolutions that in time, could lead to military action under Chapter 7 of he UN Charter.
Once the two weeks "breathing space" is closed, three courses seem possible.
First, Tehran might comply with UNSC resolutions in exchange for face-saving measures. This would be good news if only because it would postpone the prospect of nuclear-armed mullahs pursuing dreams of world conquest.
The second possibility is that Tehran will not budge. Ahmadinejad believes that the US is "a sunset civilisation" and that the other 5+1 states lack the will or the ability to stand up to the Islamic Republic. He counts on the possibility of Barack Obama becoming the next US president. Obama has hinted that he is prepared to ignore the UNSC resolutions. He has also said he will abandon Iraq, allowing the Islamic Republic to move into the gap, creating a new and stronger Shiite bloc.
Good news
However, Tehran's refusal to comply with the UNSC resolutions will also be good news. It would prove wrong all those who claim that the current crisis is solely due to Bush's refusal to authorise dialogue with Iran.
The third possibility is diplomatic fudge of which Burns is a master.
He is the architect of the fudge over Libya, letting Colonel Muammar Gaddafi off the hook in exchange for abandoning a nuclear project that turned out to be no more than a pie in the sky. More importantly, Burns helped shape the deal with North Korea, another "Axis of Evil" member. By pulling down a cooling tower in front of TV cameras, plus a few other symbolic gestures, Pyongyang has managed to buy time to get out of its economic and political impasse.
Whatever the outcome of the talks, one fact will not change: the Khomeinist regime is not like any of its neighbours, nor indeed any other system in the world. Its ambition is to reshape the Middle East, and later the rest of the world, after its own fashion. For its part, the US also wishes to create a new balance of power in the Middle East. Unless, one side gives in, the two rival ambitions are bound to clash at some point.
For 30 years, everyone, including the US has been talking to the mullahs, in the hope of changing their behaviour. The problem, however, is not the behaviour of the regime, but its nature.
Talk is no substitute for policy. In 1990, James Baker, then US Secretary of State, held high profile talks with his Iraqi counterpart Tariq Aziz. The talks proved that neither side could retreat from its basic position. The rest, as always, is history.
Amir Taheri is an Iranian writer based in Europe.
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