NEW YORK — The American neo-cons who have driven policy in the Middle East for the past five years blinked on Iran last week, and made an offer to engage Tehran directly and diplomatically. This coincided with my working visit to the United States, where it has been fascinating to observe close-up the political neo-cons in their natural habitat as they evolve and adapt to the changing world around them.
Iran is Washington’s first serious political challenge since 2001. The American response suggests that the neo-cons’ hold on power is changing slowly but steadily, and that the Bush administration is capable of clear thinking and diplomatic sobriety when it puts its mind to it. This dynamic is not primarily about Iranian nuclear power and weapons. It is also about the nature of American power, and how that power is projected around the world and subsequently resisted by the world.
The new offer on nuclear power, trade, security and other issues that was given to Iran on June 6 by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana is an important symbol of Washington’s evolving worldview. The United States’ foreign policy-making team is slightly humbled, having been stunned by the realization that Iran almost single-handedly resisted both many years of American-Israeli threats, and a few recent years of European and United Nations diplomatic engagement, cajoling, inspections, and mild intimidation. Iran achieved significant technical breakthroughs in enriching small amounts of low-grade uranium, despite the Western threats, warnings and constraints. Washington has grasped that its aggressive policies have failed, and more of the same would lead only to new forms of failure.
So it is important to acknowledge the change in the American position vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear industry ambitions that is inherent in the offer given to Iran this week. We should give the United States a small round of applause for behaving with more realism than romanticism, and more maturity than militarism.
This is partly due to the recapture of American foreign policy-making by more sensible centrists who are driven by the dictates of realistic and reasonable compromises, rather than by a chauvinistic and predatory vision of American greatness that is destined to define the whole world. Five years after the neo-con crowd actively took control of Washington’s foreign policy in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the first signs of a slow shift back to rational and sensible diplomacy are symbolized by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acting like the diplomatic bunny that has just been given a fresh set of batteries to go along with a new policy line.
Iran must respond wisely in order to move this process forward, so that negotiations could lead to an agreement whereby Iran has its nuclear industry while also assuaging Western fears that it will also develop a nuclear bomb. The terms on offer by the UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany reportedly require Iran to immediately suspend its uranium enrichment activities in return for a package of economic and technical incentives, including talking with the United States as part of the existing European delegation. This is unlikely to fly, but it certainly offers the basis for an agreement that can be worked out, for three reasons.
First, the United States continues to treat Iran like a truant child that must be scolded and punished. Second, Washington projects bravado rather than realistic diplomacy, by making a direct dialogue with the United States a prize worth Iran’s unilateral suspension of its enrichment program. This is presumptuous and deeply offensive to Iran, which has just shown that it can manage very well without the invitations to tea at the White House that seem to drive the policies of so many other leaderships in the Middle East. Third, Iran should have no problem in principle suspending its small uranium enrichment program.
Tehran has suspended other parts of its nuclear program in recent years within the context of dignified, balanced diplomatic engagement with the West, via the Europeans. It can do so again if it secures important gains such as security guarantees and a full nuclear fuel cycle on the horizon. This will not happen if Condoleezza Rice continues to simultaneously woo Iran and warn it of dire woes if it rejects its new American suitor. Psychological therapy may be important today for confused American leaders who continue to learn about how to live in a world that is not afraid of their threats and does not agree to their easy resort to military assaults and regime change policies; but, it is not a serious basis for formulating American foreign policy.
This is a potentially historic moment that must not be wasted or missed. As the United States subdues its triumphalist tendencies in the face of a defiant and determined Iran, and makes important if limited gestures of realistic accommodation, the government in Tehran should offer reasonable concessions in return, including suspending enrichment for a while, in order to secure the real prize of winning the respect of the United States and the world.
Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.
Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 07 June 2006
Word Count: 836
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