In the dying days of his dim two-term presidency, President George Bush has thrown aside the useless belligerent lever he has tried to use on Iranian over its nuclear program and turned at long last, to diplomacy. However, even the presence in Geneva on Saturday of Undersecretary of State William Burns, the third highest-ranking US diplomat, at a EU meeting with Iran’s nuclear negotiator is still hedged with threatening talk. Tehran’s nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili is due to deliver his government’s response to a UN offer of economic and technical aid, if Iran suspends its nuclear fuel enrichment program and permits full International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.
A Bush official warned that Saturday’s meeting was “a one-time deal.” Such a statement is not helpful. The Iranians have already signaled that the Geneva meeting is going to focus on further negotiations and may not, therefore, include a definite reply to the UN offer. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana is too wise a politician to demonstrate any frustration at what may be yet another Iranian delay.
Not so the Americans. Once again, Bush thinks he can come barging into a delicate process and issue threats. His braggadocio reduced Iraq to chaos, threatens Afghanistan with the same, has poisoned relations with Moscow and has been instrumental in plunging the Palestinians into yet more bloodshed and dissension. Will this man never learn?
Washington is also making it clear that Burns will have no separate talks with Jalili, but will merely take part in the main meeting chaired by Solana. Perhaps all this continued bluster has a lot to do with the U-turn the White House has just made. Bush had vowed not to talk to the Iranians until they suspended their fuel enrichment program. But this is just what his administration is doing even though, along with the news of the Burns’ Geneva mission, came the lame repeat that nothing would happen until the enrichment stopped. The plain fact is, however, that the enrichment has not stopped but Washington is effectively now talking to the Iranians.
This for Tehran is, therefore, a victory, just as the US-Iranian talks last year about Iraq’s collapsing security situation, was another triumph because, albeit through gritted teeth, the Americans were accepting that Iran was also part of the solution, not just part of the problem. And indeed it has been Tehran’s reining in of the Shiite militias that has, with the Sunni community’s rejection of Al-Qaeda butchers, underpinned the relative success of the US surge.
So the American and the Iranians know how to negotiate sensibly with one another over a highly sensitive issue. A big reason Bush won Iranian cooperation over Iraq was that he was not threatening reprisals if it was withheld. US negotiators were also able to demonstrate that Iraq’s descent into factional chaos would damage Iranian as well as US interests. If Bush is at all wise, he will be letting Undersecretary Burns use his experience and discretion in Geneva Saturday and not ordering him to issue yet more foolish threats.
