SECURITY & DEFENCE

Summer 2009

by Christoph Bertram

The mutual mistrust between the West and Iran over the past three decades may seem overwhelming, but Christoph Bertram argues that President Obama’s willingness to enter into a dialogue with Tehran offers the best chance of building a cooperative new relationship with Iran that could even prevent it from developing nuclear weaponry

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For six years, the European Union has offered the only political negotiating framework for reducing the tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme. That these European efforts failed was due not only to Iran’s intransigence but also to America’s refusal to engage with the Islamic Republic. No solution to the nuclear issue will ever be found in isolation from the overall political relationship between Iran and the West, and here the role of the U.S. is central. President Barack Obama’s declaration that he wants to enter into direct and wide-ranging talks with the Iranian leadership therefore offers the first serious chance of finding an acceptable arrangement on the nuclear question and, at the same time, perhaps of entering into a constructive new relationship with Tehran.

The need to formulate an effective policy towards Iran and the surrounding region has in recent years become more and more urgent. Iran’s ongoing efforts to develop the full nuclear fuel cycle along with its stubborn refusal to heed UN Security Council resolutions regarding uranium enrichment, as well as its failure to respond fully to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s enquiries all represent a real threat to the international community’s efforts to tackle nuclear proliferation. Iran has moreover gained enough power and influence to seriously undermine international stabilisation efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and its links to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to Hamas in Gaza mean that Tehran also has a role in any future resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Much of Iran’s increased regional influence and hostility to the West is of America’s own making. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 resulted, after all, in the removal of Tehran’s chief regional rival – in the shape of Saddam Hussein and his regime – and in the weakening of American power as a result of the long and difficult process of trying to restore stability in Iraq and in Afghanistan. In early 2003, when the Iranian leadership had indicated a willingness to enter into across-the-board negotiations with Washington, and had even hinted at potential concessions on disputed matters ranging from nuclear energy to the recognition of Israel, Washington dismissed the initiative out of hand. And when Tehran’s negotiation with EU countries led to a temporarily suspension of its nuclear enrichment programme between 2003 and 2005, the U.S. offered nothing in return. Since then, Tehran has been given little or no incentive to yield to Western international pressures.

It is to President Obama’s credit that far from shying away from the challenge he has made dealing with Iran a top priority. His opening moves were made remarkably quickly. Scarcely three weeks in office, on the occasion of his first press conference in early February, he announced that “in the coming months, we will be looking for openings that can be created where we can start sitting across the table, face-to-face diplomatic overtures, that will allow us to move our policy in a new direction... There are going to be a set of objectives that we have in these conversations, but I think that there's the possibility at least of a relationship of mutual respect and progress.”

Since then, the President has lost no time in clarifying his approach further. In the most radical departure from the policies of his predecessor, he used the occasion of Iran’s New Year Nawrouz, on March 20 to address the “leaders and people of the Islamic Republic of Iran“ in a video message. In contrast to his own earlier statements during last year’s election campaign, and those of some of his advisers since then, Obama now implies that military intervention is no longer a serious option for the US, explicitly repudiating threats as a means to advance diplomacy. Just as significantly, by implicitly accepting the legality of the Iranian system of government, Obama has abandoned the long-held U.S. objective of regime change in Tehran.
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Thus, with a few bold strokes, President Obama has turned U.S. policy towards Iran around before even completing his first hundred days in the White House. And more can be expected. The new approach suggests an end to programmes embraced by the Bush Administration such as planting nuclear detection devices inside Iran or engaging in secret cross-border operations; the President is also likely to take a clear distance from Congressional resolutions supporting Iranian opposition groups. Not least, he departs from the stance repeatedly adopted by the UN Security Council that Iran must halt its nuclear enrichment activities as a pre-condition to negotiations. And the Administration has announced that it will henceforth formally join the EU in direct talks with Iran.

The success or failure of the new U.S. approach will, of course, be determined not only by Washington’s new flexibility but by the willingness of the leadership in Tehran to engage in serious negotiations on both the nuclear problem and on the overall political relationship. Tehran’s initial reaction wavered between caution, the issuing of declarations of principle and verbal flexibility On February 10, the 30th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution, President Ahmadinejad declared: “The new U.S. administration has announced that they want to produce change and pursue the course of dialogue. It is quite clear that real change must be fundamental and not tactical. It is clear the Iranian nation welcomes real changes and is ready for dialogue in a climate of equality and mutual respect.” Ali Larijani, the influential Speaker of Iran’s parliament – the Majlis – had been more specific when addressing the Munich Security Conference a few days earlier: "The dispute over the nuclear issue is not an unsolvable problem if we stop being entrenched in our positions.”

So far, though, despite these positive signals the group that holds power in the Islamic Republic has shown scant signs of wanting to engage in the huge policy shift that a positive response to America’s advances would imply. The men who run the Islamic Republic remain deeply suspicious and distrustful of U.S. motives and objectives The ‘Supreme Leader” Chamenei is reported to be convinced that even minor concessions on Iran’s part will only intensify the pressure for major concessions, and must therefore be resisted. The leadership is also aware that there is growing disenchantment with the regime within Iran, and is concerned over the emotional appeal that Obama’s personality and his initiative may have for many Iranians. Tehran may therefore prefer to pocket whatever concessions the new U.S. position offers, and pursue new negotiations as little more than a convenient screen behind which to complete its nuclear programme and possibly develop a military nuclear capability.

The one step, of course, that might convince the suspicious sceptics in Tehran and open the Islamic Republic to a deepening engagement with the U.S. would be an offer to lift all economic sanctions in exchange for full nuclear inspection rights for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). But this would demand of making an even more dramatic farewell to past U.S. policies than the initiatives taken so far, and is politically much more difficult for Obama to contemplate.

Ever since the fall of the Shah in 1979, sanctions have been the weapon of choice for successive U.S. Administrations, resulting in a total blockage of economic interaction between the two countries. The resolutions passed by the UN Security Council to make Iran forego further nuclear enrichment also involve the imposition of sanctions, though relatively modest ones. And Iran is being warned of more and tougher ones should new negotiations lead to nought.

But sanctions are almost certainly not the answer. They are likely to be as ineffective as before in producing Iranian concessions, and they will stand out as a contradiction to Washington’s professions of wanting to establish, in the words of Obama’s Nowruz appeal, “a future with renewed exchanges among our people, and greater opportunities for partnership and commerce.“

It is true that economic sanctions against Iran have been biting in the context of a difficult economic situation that has been further strained by mismanagement and corruption, and in recent months by the collapse of energy prices. Tougher sanctions can only hurt Iran further. But the effectiveness of sanctions cannot be measured by the misery they create for ordinary Iranians but by the willingness they engender amongst Iran’s leadership to give in to Western political demands. After 30 years of being subjected to international sanctions, Iran’s Islamic regime has become hardened to such pressure and has grown more determined than ever to resist them. Economic sanctions have so far made no impact on Tehran’s nuclear programme, or on its political behaviour, other than to make it more intransigent on both fronts.

However desirable, therefore, America’s new willingness is to sit down with the Islamic Republic in direct talks, and to forego military threats while dropping its demand that Iran should halt enrichment as a pre-condition for negotiations, this alone is unlikely to unlock the relationship.

Many who are sceptical over Obama’s initiative predict that at worst the direct talks will play into Tehran’s hands, at best will serve to demonstrate Iran’s intransigence to the world, and thus help generate a much tougher international response.

But the sceptics may be underestimating the determination that lies behind Obama’s strategy. The new U.S. President’s objectives are far more ambitious and wide-ranging than scoring a few tactical points before returning to his predecessor’s failed strategy. When Obama initiates a regional approach to the Afghan conflict, he makes clear that he also seeks common ground with Iran, one of Afghanistan’s most important neighbours. When he calls for drastic reductions in nuclear weapons arsenals, he seeks to pre-empt the predictable Iranian complaint about Western double standards. When he speaks of “the possibility at least of a relationship [with Iran] of mutual respect”, he is demonstrating his understanding of Iran’s deeply felt desire for equality with the rest of the world. And by making Iran a top priority in his presidency so early on he is signaling how serious he is about getting results.

President Obama’s opening moves suggest that he is not going to be easily discouraged, and that his refusal so far to contemplate more daring concessions – like the lifting of all sanctions – is not cast in concrete. Of course, progress will be slow, negotiations difficult, early results modest, and the prospect of failure can never be remote.

Yet there is no realistic alternative. Obama’s new approach offers what will for long be the last chance to place the West’s relationship with the Islamic Republic on a more cooperative footing, and at the same time to curb nuclear proliferation. Europe’s governments, who were the first to engage directly with Iran, should do everything in their power to support it.