PARIS, 21 July 2004 — Is Iran shaping up as an issue in the American presidential election campaign? A month ago, the question would have appeared fanciful. Then the assumption was that violence in Iraq would use up all the space there is in such a campaign for foreign policy.

Now, however, there are signs that, at some stage in the campaign, Iran might come up as an issue over which President George W Bush and his Democrat challenger Sen. John F. Kerry are clearly divided. The division over Iran is more pronounced than that over Iraq.

Both Sen. Kerry, and his vice-presidential running-mate Sen. John Edwards, voted for the liberation of Iraq last year. Both still maintain that toppling Saddam Hussein was a good idea and that the US should help Iraq build a democratic system, which means keeping American troops there for as long as necessary.

Where Kerry and Edwards attack Bush with regard to Iraq is on the issue of pre-war intelligence analysis and the way the president “sold” the idea of evicting Saddam to the Congress.

That kind of difference, however, is not pronounced enough to swing many votes. Those who were opposed to the liberation of Iraq will not forgive Kerry and Edwards for having backed Bush last year. And those who believe that, regardless of the Byzantine concerns about intelligence reports before the war, liberating Iraq was a good idea will not be impressed by Kerry’s post-factum doubts.

Iran, on the other hand, offers Bush and Kerry an opportunity to demonstrate their different approaches to the issue of dealing with regimes that, rightly or wrongly, are perceived as hostile to the US and/or its allies. In a broader perspective the issue would enable Bush and Kerry to debate their views on how American power should be used in the post-Cold War world. Several issues of immediate concern are pushing Iran into the American presidential agenda.

The first concerns Iran’s alleged program to build an arsenal of nuclear weapons. There is a growing consensus, even in European circles, that Tehran has taken the strategic decision of “going nuclear”.

The question is no longer whether or not anyone could persuade Tehran to change its mind on an issue that lies at the heart of its new defense doctrine known as “difaa bazdarandeh” (deterrence-defense). Ardeshir Zahedi, a former foreign minister of Iran, put the case neatly in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. He said the real question was whether the region, and beyond it the world, could live with a nuclear-armed Iran under the present regime.

The nuclear issue is likely to reach the Security Council this autumn, perhaps on the eve of the American election.

The Bush administration has not developed a clear policy on the Iranian nuclear weapons’ issue. Last year it endorsed European Union efforts to persuade Tehran to abandon the military aspect of its nuclear program. With those efforts now at an end, the Bush administration is reverting to unspecified threats to dissuade Tehran from “going nuclear.”

Kerry, on the other hand, has proposed what could, in diplomatic terms, be described as “a flight of fancy”.

His idea is simple: The US and its allies should offer to provide Iran with as much enriched uranium as it needs for producing electricity and, at the other end of the cycle, receive the total amount of spent uranium fuel for reprocessing. In other words, Kerry is inviting Tehran to give the US control over both ends of their nuclear program.

Although some in Tehran have welcomed Kerry’s offer, there is little chance it will be accepted by the Islamic Republic.

The second issue that is propelling Iran into headline news concerns the future of Iraq and Afghanistan. Both countries are scheduled to hold elections soon. And Iran is determined to play a role in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

In Afghanistan, Iranian-backed elements could end up winning almost 30 percent of the seats in a future Parliament. That could put them in a position to form a broader coalition with other anti-American elements to gain control of the future parliament.

Although support for Iran is less strong in Iraq, but it should not be underestimated.

As Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said, the “New Middle East” that is to emerge after the fall of the Taleban and Saddam must “conform to what Iran wants, not what Washington dictates.”

The third issue that is shaping up concerns Palestine. The disintegration of the Palestinian leadership under Yasser Arafat and the dismantling of the Hamas by the Israelis are creating a vacuum that Tehran hopes to fill. Iran is strongly supported by Syria which is equally determined to oppose Washington’s attempt at reshaping the Middle East. Tehran still believes that control of the “Palestinian cause” could give it a leadership position in the Muslim world and enhance its defenses against military action by the US and/or Israel.

Groups that want the US to adopt a “regime change” policy on Iran are building up a case against the Islamic Republic. These groups, which include many Iranian-Americans, hope to persuade Bush to adopt a tougher position on Iran.

Other groups, again including some Iranian-Americans, however, are campaigning for a dialogue between Tehran and Washington. Kerry‘s senior foreign policy aides have already said they favour such a dialogue. The dialogue idea is also promoted by a new “task force” led by Zbigniew Bzrezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, and Robert Gates, the former CIA director and a protégé of former President George W.H. Bush.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and a former US ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke are also campaigning for “normalization” of ties with Tehran.

Because of its internal divisions, the Bush administration has not been able to develop a policy on Iran. While Bush himself has described Iran as part of an “axis of evil”, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has praised Iran as “a sort of democracy” which the US must accommodate.

The presidential campaign might force the Bush camp to dispel the mental fog that has shrouded its thinking on Iran for almost four years. And that, in turn, could compel the Kerry camp to come up with more realistic ideas of how best to deal with a regime which, regardless of its merits and demerits, cannot be ignored in one of the world’s most sensitive regions.