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US overtures to Iran – invitation for talks |
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Harjit Singh
Last month saw the Bush Administration giving up one of the central tenets of its West Asia strategy. Acting on one of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, it reversed its much criticized policy to isolate Iran and decided to engage both Iran and Syria in a dialogue to bring stability in Iraq. The clout of Iran on the Shias in Iraq, who are in a majority there, to end the sectarian violence between the Shias and the Sunnis was perhaps for the first time recognized by President Bush as part of his policy to bring about peace and stability before bowing to the growing Democrats demand for a pull out from the strife-torn country. The British decision to pull out its forces has made President Bush think of an early call back of his forces, of course, only after stabilization of the situation in Iraq.
The initiative to engage Iran and Syria was announced by US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice in a testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Feb 28. It will see the US and Britain join Iran and Syria and other neighbours of Iraq in talks to try to rein in the country’s sectarian violence. A regional conference, to be attended by Iran and Syria and other neighbouring States plus Russia is being hosted by Iraqi Prime Minister Noor al-Maliki. It is inconceivable that the Iraqi government could have planned such an event, let alone drawn up a guest list, without Washington’s express instructions. The conference, scheduled for later this month, will be attended primarily by foreign office bureaucrats but a Foreign Minister-level meeting is being planned for next month, most probably in Istanbul, Turkey. That meeting will see Condoleezza Rice for the first time sharing a table with the Iranian and Syrian Foreign Ministers who in the past have been accused by the United States of harbouring and sending insurgents into Iraq for mayhem and sectarian violence.
The diplomatic engagement of Iran and Syria is an idea that has broad bipartisan support within Washington and the Baker-Hamilton report advocated it, but the recent escalation of anti-Iranian rhetoric by Bush and his aides had led the world to believe that the report’s realistic prescriptions had been cast aside. Now that wiser counsel has prevailed upon President Bush, his policy of engagement of Iran marks a complete U-turn in his strategy towards West Asia and a shift in his avoidance of high-level contacts with the governments in Teheran and Damascus.
Before a shift in the US attitude towards Iran, the tone of statements emanating from Washington DC had become shriller and stiffer. Iran was accused of links between its intelligence agencies and Iraqi insurgents that led to an attack by US military personnel on an Iranian establishment in Iraq and the detention of diplomatic personnel found there. Another notable development was the movement of a second aircraft carrier of the US fleet into the Gulf from where it can mount an air strike against Iran. But, just as Bush sent in a flotilla of ships to the Gulf, at least three retired US Generals warned against any strike against Iran and expressed the view that a military venture will fail in its purpose and add greatly to regional strife and tensions. Britain too distanced itself from any action the US may take to escalate the conflict and tried to persuade Washington to open talks with Iran.
Iran has given a guarded formal response reflecting a wariness bred by what happened the last time it engaged in serious talks with Washington in late 2001. Only a few weeks after those apparently constructive discussions on Afghanistan, Bush used his January 2002 State of the Union address to label Iran a member of the “axis of evil” along with North Korea and Iraq. But, things are different this time and with the financial and banking quarantine imposed by Washington being felt in Teheran and the upcoming tougher UN Security Council sanctions after it rejected the Council demand to roll up its uranium enrichment programme, President Ahmedinejad has little room for maneuverability. Despite his relentless defiant rhetoric, he appears to be under pressure from parts of his own regime to soften his stance. The recent political churning in Iran has witnessed a significant shift in Iran’s internal dynamics with pragmatists having gained considerable leverage. Among them are former President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani and former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, currently foreign policy adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. Iran’s moderate conservatives, including those with close ties with the supreme leader, have been effective in counter-balancing President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s hardline rhetoric on the nuclear dispute with the West. The tussle between Ahmedinejad’s camp and the moderate conservatives has intensified after the President’s loyalists suffered electoral reverses. The President’s supporters lost the municipal and local body elections held across the country and most notably, the followers of Mesbah Yazdi, Ahmedinejad’s spiritual mentor, fared poorly in the elections to the Assembly of Experts – a key institution of 86 clerics that works closely with the supreme leader.
All eyes are thus focused on the regional conference in Istanbul. But, if Iran believes that in return for its cooperation on reining in the Shia insurgents in Iraq, the US will be willing to make concessions on its nuclear programme, it is barking up the wrong tree. The US is unlikely to mix up the two things although it may be inclined to offer a formula on the lines of the deal struck with North Korea at the six party talks in Beijing which says that Pyongyang would shut-down its lone nuclear reactor in operation in return for aid and lifting of sanctions.
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