Slowly, hesitantly, President Obama is reaching out to Iran. But even as he does so, his administration is divided over its approach – and already anticipating failure.
The commitment to dialogue with both Iran and Syria is unequivocal. It is an area where President Obama is making a clear break with the policies of his predecessor. But there are four complications.
Who is in charge? Within the State Department, the key figure – the main ‘address’, as they say in Washington – is William Burns, an experienced figure who dealt with Iran during the Bush administration. But also involved is Dennis Ross, who in February was appointed as ‘Special Advisor to the Secretary of State on the Gulf and southwest Asia’. Ross is a veteran diplomat who is controversial in some circles because of his close ties to Israel. In December he wrote in Newsweek that the Bush administration hadn’t applied enough pressure to Iran – and that the way to achieve tougher and more effective sanctions was ‘to focus less on the United Nations and more on getting the Europeans, Japanese, Chinese and Saudis to co-operate’. If Ross becomes the Iran negotiator – which, at this point, is unclear – Iranian officials may refuse to talk to him.
Who to deal with? The US administration realises that the main decision-maker in Tehran is not the combative and controversial President Ahmadi-Nejad but the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. But how to get through to the Leader? The feeling is that the process must begin at a lower level and then progress to a higher one. Finding the right channel is not easy.
When to begin? A further complication is the Iranian presidential election in June, in which Ahmadi-Nejad is expected to seek a second term. His main challenger from the reformist wing of Iranian clerical politics is former president Khatami. Some fear that to begin the process of talking to Iran now would be exploited by Ahmadi-Nejad and might help him win re-election – which no one wants. But the dominant view is that it would be a mistake to wait, and that there is an urgent need to begin the process of dialogue as soon as possible.
What to talk about? Should talks be confined to the nuclear issue – or broadened into a so-called ‘grand bargain’ embracing Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran’s support for Hizbullah and Hamas? The hope is that the dialogue will begin with a narrow focus on 31 March, when Iran has been invited to take part in an international conference on Afghanistan to be hosted by the Dutch and chaired by a senior UN representative. The idea is to begin with issues where there is common ground – such as the need to stabilise Afghanistan and Iraq – and, over time, to broaden the dialogue to bring in more contentious issues. There are likely to be back-channel discussions to prepare the ground for more formal talks.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already hinted – during her first foray into the Middle East – that the talks may fail. And, for their part, the Iranians suspect that the Obama administration is merely dressing up old policies in new language. Such pessimism is not surprising. The two sides have had no sustained dialogue (merely occasional conversations) over the last thirty years. Moreover Iran is firmly committed to continuing its nuclear programme, which it sees as a symbol of its status as a major regional power in the Middle East and in Central and South Asia.
Iran is in self-confident mood. With the departure of George Bush from the White House, it believes the threat of military action against it has disappeared. There is little chance it will make significant concessions on the nuclear issue or abandon its support for what it regards as anti-Israeli resistance movements – support which enhances its regional prestige.
Some analysts are already warning that the real test for President Obama is yet to come: what to do by, say, the end of the year if the attempt to reach a diplomatic understanding with Iran has run into the sand?
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