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The Case for Talking to Tehran
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More in Forward ForumIsrael is in state of strategic paralysis. Its longstanding policy on Iran — depict Tehran as a global threat, pressure Washington to prevent Iran from going nuclear, and evade an American-Iranian dialogue — has been dealt a severe blow by the recently released National Intelligence Estimate.
The Iran policy Israel has pursued to date must now be put aside and a genuine effort must be made to develop a Plan B that recognizes the new strategic realities in the region. A broad diplomatic opening between Washington and Tehran is increasingly likely, and it is a distinct probability that an American-Iranian deal will entail some level of enrichment on Iranian soil. Arab states can be expected to step up efforts at rapprochement in order to avoid lagging behind the United States in warming up to Iran, making a policy of containing and isolating Tehran more and more difficult to pursue.
Israeli interests, therefore, would best be served by Jerusalem throwing its weight behind genuine diplomacy with Tehran in order to ensure that it is not left out of an American-Iranian deal.
Momentum for broader diplomacy with Iran is clearly growing in the United States. Even prior to the release of the National Intelligence Estimate, Democratic presidential candidates began recognizing the American people’s exhaustion with the Bush administration’s policy toward Iran. Hawkish statements on Iran are being interpreted by the electorate as a continuation of a discredited neoconservative foreign policy outlook.
A number of presidential hopefuls, including Democratic frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have boldly declared their preference for unconditional talks with Tehran. This is unprecedented: Never before has Iran bashing carried so much political cost.
Regionally, Arab states have sensed the pendulum swinging in Iran’s favor, while recognizing Washington’s inability to swing it back. Accordingly, they are carefully adjusting their positions on Tehran.
Though highly wary of their giant neighbor going nuclear, the Arab states are more fearful of being left to face a nuclear Iran alone. So improving ties with Tehran in the wake of a likely American-Iranian thaw is the strategically wise thing to do.
Last week Egypt sent a high-level delegation to Tehran for the first time since 1979. Earlier this month Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to address the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Qatar. And last week, Saudi Arabia invited Ahmadinejad to participate in the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, another first for an Iranian leader.
The idea, therefore, of an American-Sunni Arab-Israeli alliance being formed to counter Iran’s rise — apparently a key impetus for the Annapolis summit — seems more farfetched than ever.
In challenging these regional developments, Israel is standing increasingly alone. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has apparently recognized as much, telling his Cabinet ministers last weekend to “stop giving statements on Iran and the American intelligence report.” Olmert’s remarks reportedly came in response to Public Security Minister Avi Dichter’s public attack on the National Intelligence Estimate, something the prime minister told to his Cabinet did “not contribute to the campaign [against Iran] or our relations with the White House.”
Indeed, Israel will not have many backers in the United States publicly pushing for a more bellicose approach toward Tehran. The Europeans may sound tough, but in reality, Europe has drawn a big sigh of relief over the National Intelligence Estimate.
The reality is that Israel’s Iran policy is now dead, no matter how hard some Israeli politicians try to keep it on life support.
But is there any Plan B that can compel Iran to shift its hard line on Israel? The short answer is yes.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Iran’s position on Israel is not ideologically driven. Though the ideological component of Iran’s foreign policy is undeniable, it is secondary to Iran’s geostrategic considerations
Iran’s harsh rhetoric on Israel has only been translated into actual policy when Tehran deemed that its ideological and strategic imperatives coincided. When these two pillars of Iran’s foreign policy have clashed — as they did in the 1980s, when the Jewish state made many efforts to get Iran and the United States back on talking terms — Iran’s geostrategic concerns have consistently prevailed.
Today, Tehran perceives its ideological and strategic imperatives as being aligned with regard to the Jewish state. The only factor that can rearrange these forces is a larger American-Iranian arrangement in which Iran can gain political reintegration into the region in return for significant changes in its foreign policy — including on Israel.
The Iranians recognize that no sustainable shift in American-Iranian relations can be achieved without significant changes to Iran’s posture toward Israel. This was made clear in an offer Iran made to the United States in 2003 in which the Iranians indicated a readiness to end all support for Islamic Jihad and Hamas, pressure the Palestinian groups to stop using violence against Israel, turn Hezbollah into a solely political organization, and sign onto the Saudi peace initiative first floated in 2002. In return, Tehran wanted recognition of Iran’s security interests in the region and an end to American efforts to isolate Iran.
Given the right circumstances, Tehran was ready to adopt a “Malaysian profile” on Israel. Much like Malaysia, Iran would be an Islamic state that did not formally recognize Israel and would occasionally criticize Israeli policies, but would refrain from directly confronting Israel. Iran would get out of Israel’s hair in return for an end to Israeli pressure on the United States to isolate and contain Iran.
The proposal was communicated to Israelis by Iranians on numerous occasions, including at a Pentagon-funded conference in Europe in early 2003. At the conference Mohsen Rezai, the former head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, engaged in a question-and-answer session with Israelis and discussed a strategic realignment of American-Iranian relations. The gist of Rezai’s plan was to work out a modus vivendi regarding the Israeli-Iranian standoff.
For Iran, this was a way to decouple American-Iranian relations from the Israeli-Iranian rivalry. As Reza Dehshiri, a senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official, said in late 2004: “In the first year of the revolution, we didn’t recognize Israel, yet we had diplomatic relations with the U.S…. And when necessary, Israel could trade with Iran via the United States. This would be a temporary solution since we cannot recognize Israel at this time…. Israel would in practice be able to reach its goals, and Iran would in practice not oppose Israel’s policies in the region.”
Neither the United States nor Israel, however, responded to the proposal. Though Iran’s pragmatists have suffered greatly since 2003, and though Ahmadinejad is no Khatami, the “Malaysian profile” is still viable. Iranians do not speak about it publicly, since neither Israel nor the United States has shown much interest in it, but officials in Tehran remain convinced that a final deal with the United States will necessitate a change in Iran’s posture on Israel along the lines of a “Malaysian profile.”
A signal from Israel that it supports American-Iranian talks would strengthen the hands of Tehran’s pragmatists and compel Iran’s cautious supreme leader to rein in his more aggressive and ambitious subordinates. Shifting toward a Plan B would also enable Israel to avoid friction with Washington over Iran while achieving changes in Iranian policy that Israeli efforts to date have never even come close to obtaining. If Israel waits too long, however, it may be left out of the deal.
Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, is the author of “Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States” (Yale University Press).
Comments
Trita Parsi's book, TREACHEROUS ALLIANCE, establishes him as one of the most brilliant young analysts on the wider Mideast up and coming. Alas, his analysis for the FORWARD is most disappointing. Let us firstly recall that the Israeli Air Force (AIF) proved itself to be nothing more than like a Nazi Stuka bomber at the start of WWII-- a terror weapon against civilians-- for it failed to destroy or disable Hezbollah and its logistic lines from Iran through Syria. This makes it certain that the only way the IAF can keep its promised threat against Iran is with nuclear bombs (or anti-life neutron bombs, which it has and the US hasn't). So what the Kosher Hawks want is US massive air bombardment instead, for Israel in no way can aggressively apply its nuclear power and survive as a state. But, if Iran gets to go nuclear, then-- and only then-- Israel becomes the sole nuclear deterrent in the Mideast to balance the "takfir" [infidel] Shia bomb on behalf, not only of itself, but the entire Sunni Arab World, which CANNOT afford to go nuclear from scratch. Israel's big fear is that the Russia-China-India pact will indeed supply Iran with the technological jumps with which to get past the techno-walls it now just cannot scale (that's why it stopped its bomb program). But the problem is far more basic. As a great Israeli political theorist argued a few years ago, *Israel is not a state* because it still has no recognized borders, and as a result, no regional diplomacy. After all, as late as 1976, the Likudniks were still insisting on Israel as the Jewish nation between the two rivers, Nile and Euphrates, in their literature (hence, contrary to the fake outrage of the Israeli Ambassador to Wash DC when confronted with this original symbolism, the two blue lines on the white flag between which rests the Star of David). Israel not only suffers a declining birth rate but also a reverse aliyah, serving as something of a giant campus where Jewish youth get the world's best technological education, only to migrate to the West for good jobs. The Israeli Jews are evolving from East Euro Ashkenazim to Mideast Mizrahis with commensurate decline in intellect and economic wherewithal. So now, Israel is the best welfare state and military machine that American taxpayers' money can buy. There is no real Israeli economy, just a dollar backed shekel. Olmert, has a secret plan (as did Sharon) to be a bad-ass Jabotinsky-like Zionazi for a little while and then switch suddenly into a Buber like "light onto the [Arab] nations" benevolent Zionist, whose nation is integrated economically, security and culturally in a Semetic-- a few million Jews and many million Arabs-- family. Towards that end, Israel needs a point d'apuit and the Iranian bomb is all it can come up with. For a decade now, Israeli academics and security experts have been analyzing the Iranian nuclear potential. Over and over again they unanimously concluded that Iran's bomb would be no threat to anyone because it is only meant as a deterrence to a future Saddam-- particularly in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. But the Arabs don't know that, so they will come running to Israel for diplomatic and military unity. The fly in the ointment is the Palestinians, for there are still forces in Israel that dream of apartheid through Bantustan Palestinian enclaves. Only a complex two nations-and-two peoples rolled into one solution can resolve this chronic competition. That is why Sharon broke with Likud. But the man who could then pull it off-- God bless him-- was robbed of time by a stroke. And so, weak Olmert is stuck with an Israel that is going broke. Desperate, in March 2006, he begged Bush for an extra $10 billion that year and Bush then turned the Israeli soldiers into his mercenaries to start a Lebanon-->Syria-->Iran war that he could use as an excuse to take Iran, as he did Iraq, for his own reason: a crescent of Shia ruled Iraq-Iran complex, friendly to the US, to provide cheap oil to meet the need to fill-er-up our SUVs and make Bush remembered as a hero in American History. When he saw that the AIF was a dud, Olmert was man enough to pull back. But now he is dealing with Bush on behalf of the Mideast Jewish-Sunni Alliance against the 2007 NIE. I recall when the Shah told Nixon that he would need to adjust oil prices to demand. The CIA then sought to do to the Shah what it did to Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam-- when Diem wanted an "entre nous vietnamiens" neutral peace-- a Buddhist Coup. This time, the Shah was to face the treat of a Shia Muslim coup through Khomeini. So when the French notified Langley that "we have him on our soil, do you want us to kill him?" the CIA said: NO, protect him so we can use him to cower the Shah. Well, the CIA got more religion than it bargained for, as Khomeini manipulated the Communists and leftists and shop keepers to make Iran his Islamic Republic. But Wash DC did not fear this until radicals took over the US Embassy in Tehran and pieced together the shreds of documents that proved the Khomeini-CIA collusion. From that day on, the radicals ruled Khomeini instead of Khomeini ruling Iran. Parsi's book shows the absence of a real Israel-Iran animosity. But it doesn't show how much more critical Iran was to Israel as a way of getting the Arabs on its side by becoming their nuclear umbrella. The bragging by professional Jews like Nilsson don't really tell how stupidly-late is the petty-cash US grant for fossil fuel independent energy now provided by the US. Any nation that develops such energy sources will become filthy rich, leasing its technology to the World. But Israel would be more responsible, working with the Arabs to save their one-crop banana republics from economic collapse by helping them develop high-tech economies. Towards that end many forward looking young Israeli technocrats are also learning Arabic instead of English only. Lastly, the Israeli efforts to create a Jewish demographic match to the Palestinians with a Soviet Jewry Inc campaign to get Moscow to "let my people go," was a dud because only 15% of those Russian Jewish olims were high-tech educated. So now Israel pays out more in welfare than in wages; that's why it is on an American umbilical cord, more than ever since 1948, despite Netanyahu's promise to be free of foreign aid by 2010. This makes Israel as vulnerable to the future as the Arabs. Using the Palestinians as its salesmen for Israeli leadership of the Arabs out of the Middle East one crop darkness would be ideal. But also needed is an Iran nuclear industry-- military and peaceful-- that will glue the Arabs to Israel. Fear has made the Middle East a mess and fear conquered by high-tech education can make it a most productive part of the global economy. In truth, neither the Israelis, Arabs nor Persians are too proud to save the future for their children. The only problem is that somehow the current hate-fest that makes this massive Semitic family dysfunctional needs to be overcome. For that to happen, fear of the Iranian bomb is key, the 2007 NIE notwithstanding. Israel's days as a well rewarded "light onto the [Arab] nations," as Zionism's forefathers wanted, may yet come to be out of an illogical fear of a worthless Iranian bomb.
Daniel E. Teodoru
Parsi was one of the guys involved in trying to pass along a conciliatory letter from an Iranian official to the United States, and argue that it hand the support of the highest levels of the Iranian regime...the other guys he worked closely with were part of a pro-Iran lobby group in the U.S. and I think one of them is in jail now...
that said, there's no reason why the U.S. shouldn't begin talking to Iran in some way, on the DL...why restrict our options?
Sopporting the policy of U.S. Iran dealing by Israel, although can carry negative domestic response by Iranian officials, but in back of their minds it would make even the hardliners happay. The most effective and lasting relationship between the U.S. and Iran needs to happen when both countries are run by hardliners. This minimizes the risk of failing the relationship. No body can acuse the other side being American agent.
At the heart of Trita Parsi's analytical acumen lies his preeminent understanding of the recurrent dynamics of tension, fusion and fissure between the strands of ideology and pragmatism in Iranian foreign policy since the Islamic Revolution.
What is this "hard line on Israel" from Iran, anyway? Get the MEMRI/Mossad mush out of your ears and study the actuality.
A few old bursts of vague, prophetic Islamist rhetoric about how Jerusalem must be recovered and the Zionist entity will "inevitably" fade away. A modicum of assistance to nationalist movements in Palestine and Lebanon which Israel beats up. A spate of undocumented accusations that Iran was supplying IEDs against US troops (yet the "Surge" was not concentrated in the northern border areas, where it was meant to be interfering with our glorious crusade for eternal Iraqi freedom).
Against that, set not only the NIE report Owhose broad conclusions had been formed as long ago as early 2006), but the centuries of Persia/Iran as a cautious, non-belligerent state, the repeated and specfic declarations by its guiding clerics that nukes are un-Islamic, the lack of responsibility for war and foreign affairs by Ahmadinejad and his own statements in US media that he has no dislike for Jews as a people.
Contemplate the continued, unmolested existence of 25,000 Jews in Iran-- a relatively pluralistic and democratic Muslim country-- compared with the oppression unleashed on them in "liberated" Iraq.
Ask why, when the flame of the Islamic revolution against "our guy" the Shah and the hostage crisis burned higher, Iran's robed leaders were already prepared to cut secret deals with Reagan's men. And why in 2003, despite the provocation of Bush's Axis of Evil outburst, Iran proposed a "grand bargain" for the US and Iran to settle the post-Saddam, pre-Taliban recovery mess in their backyard.
Bush has behaved like a petulant child, but he won't be around long. Only a klutz could fail to see that it makes more sense to talk to Iran than to drive it, and its precious energy reserves, further into the arms of China and Russia. Only a neocon or a shill for the military industrial complex, which always needs a Big Scary Nazi-type Enemy, could go on agitating for the heat to be turned up.
Very few of Iran's young, well educated people hate Americans. Only bullying. The mullahs know that, and they will not risk loss of control by pitching Iran into an anti-American crusade when the country is already being hurt by sanction and dreads another ruinous war like the one Jimmy Carter fomented in 1980.
Fingering Iran, which was helping us hunt down OBL and the Taliban right up to when Bush suddenly included it in his Axis of Ebil, is a remarkable example of the neocons' deskbound, dogmatic ineptitude in foreign policy,
A relatively modern, even fairly liberal country was driven into a corner of political hostility to America; meanwhile we prop up Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, whose Arab and Sunni Muslims are far more intrinsically inclined to fundamentalism and terrorism than Persia's. Iraq, the other secular-ish biggie in the area, is also being forced to become more Islamist by political reaction against the Great Satan and the little one. Again, we turn people who feel nothing against us as Americans into enemies of our state: not for what it is, but for what it does to their state.
Is there anything this administration cannot bungle-- any objective whose opposite it does not achieve?