Washington's change of tone on Iran’s currently suspended nuclear enrichment program represents a major policy shift. Here suddenly is the “diplomacy” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke about last month which chimes well with the efforts of EU powers, France, Germany and Great Britain, to negotiate a change in Tehran’s nuclear plans.
Though no Bush administration foreign policy pronouncement would be complete without a final threat of a big stick, the plain fact is that the United States is now looking to dialogue and wants the United Nations and the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency to play the lead role in talks. The carrots that the United States is currently offering Tehran are not immediately enticing. Allowing Iran to buy spares for its civilian aircraft and offering to back its application for World Trade Organization (WTO) membership are both of marginal attractiveness.
Though the Iranians have suspended key parts of their nuclear program while the Europeans offer trade concession, they still maintain that the nuclear issue is not itself up for discussion. Hard-liners point to what they see as the hypocrisy of the US position both over its silence over Israel’s nuclear weaponry and its own massive military and civilian nuclear programs. There is of course little or no trust between Tehran and Washington. The Americans are convinced that Iran is bent on acquiring a nuclear bomb. The Iranians believe that America will stop at nothing to destroy the regime which humiliated the United States 25 years ago during the American Embassy hostage crisis.
Times have however changed. Unlike North Korea which, despite its assumed nuclear weaponry, is a regime going nowhere, Iran has an important commercial and political role to play which American enmity is blocking. There are unlikely to be any immediate dramatic breakthroughs in US-Iranian relations but Washington has taken an important first step back from the aggressive, bullying stance which was so unlikely to persuade Tehran to cooperate. The scorn with which the US offer was dismissed in some Iranian quarters should not be taken too seriously. It is rather a response gambit in what will be a long and tough bargaining campaign.
However, Washington’s conversion to moderation and negotiation does seem to have wider significance. The Americans have learned the hard way that the exercise of naked military power creates far more problems than it solves. The idea of a further US military adventure, this time against Iran, is now virtually unthinkable. However as long as this has remained a possibility, Tehran’s posture has been defensive and obstructive. By backing negotiations Washington moves the process to an altogether different level. Now it must be hoped all sides can sit down and start to build trust and identify common interests. Could it be that with Iran, George W. Bush will finally learn that the way to make the world safe is not to kick everyone around and that the odd smile certainly does no harm?
