Rooyesh

In the wake of escalating tensions between United States and Iran, touching on both the nuclear standoff and the situation in Iraq, the two sides need to take tangible steps aimed at reducing the escalating tensions between them, and the sooner the better.

But those steps, such as confidence-building measures in the Persian Gulf that would avert an accidental war between the U.S. and Iranian navies, must be anchored in a better understanding of each side’s intentions and interests - both in Iraq, Afghanistan and the broader region.

Unfortunately, today’s climate in U.S.-Iran relations is fogged by poisoned rhetoric, accusations and counter-accusations, labeling and misperceptions. One such misperception is that the United States and Iran operate at complete cross-purposes in Iraq and today’s Iraq represents a theater of “zero-sum” conflict between Tehran and Washington.

Yet, a clue that the picture is, indeed, much more complex and there are coinciding interests between the two nations was given by Iran’s Ali Larijani, the head of powerful Supreme National Security Council, in his recent interview with the Arabic network, al-Jazeera, when he stated that Iran is not in favor of an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. This echoes an earlier statement by Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, in his recent interview with the Financial Times, stating that Iran favors an orderly, gradual withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq.

Such news from Iran may be surprising to the hawkish U.S. politicians and media pundits, who portray Iran as America’s mortal enemy. Yet this is not so, when seen from the prism of Iran’s national security interests, and especially given Iran’s concerns about conflict spillover, refugees, and the like, that would result from a chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. In fact, Iran’s willingness to hold rounds of direct dialogue with the United States on Iraq’s security, ending 27 years of diplomatic non-communication, reflects those shared interests.

Iran has given generous economic assistance to Baghdad’s government and has a burgeoning trade with Iraq that exceeded $2 billion last year. Iran has a vested interest in a politically and economically stable unified Iraq, and is opposed to Iraq’s disintegration.

Similarly in Afghanistan, where the United States and Iran cooperated in bringing about the downfall of the Taliban in 2001, the government of Kabul has adamantly rejected White House allegations of Iranian support for the Taliban. Iran is concerned about the resurgence of the Taliban insurgency, backed by al Qaeda, as well as about the growing drug traffic from Afghanistan, which takes the lives of hundreds of Iranian law enforcement officials each year.

At the same time, Iran is worried by the United States’ post-9/11 encirclement of Iran, categorization of Iran as part of an “axis of evil,” and, more recently, the branding of Iran as a new cold-war enemy that precludes the politics of “engagement” recommended by the Iraq Study Group. From Iran’s vantage point, the U.S. military’s plan to build a base near the Iran-Iraq border, ostensibly to prevent the flow of arms into Iraq, is a convenient excuse for a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq.

What is needed is continued multilateral talks and diplomacy in order to de-escalate the dangerous crisis over Iran’s nuclear program, which has been certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency, after extensive inspection of Iran’s facilities, to be devoid of any evidence of military diversion. In light of the steady progress in Iran-IAEA cooperation, the direct dialogue between the United States and Iran on Iraq’s security, and Iran’s ability to play an even more constructive role in regional stability, the stage is set for a thaw in U.S.-Iran relations. With sufficient political will on both sides, Washington and Tehran can achieve this by adopting concrete confidence-building measures and by imposing a mutually agreed-upon moratorium on demonizing each other.

A start would be for the United States to release the five Iranian diplomats seized by U.S. forces in the Kurdish city of Irbil. Another would be to explore the idea of an “incidents at sea agreement,” whereby the chances of accidental maritime warfare between United States and Iran would be minimized.

What’s necessary is not the “grand bargain,” as called for by some American pundits, but concrete baby steps aimed at incremental improvement of the U.S.-Iran climate - something that is feasible, and yet sadly lacking today. Given the potential flash points in the region and the proximity of the U.S. military to Iran, it would be imprudent not to pursue those steps, in the interests of regional and global peace.

Abbas Maleki, a former deputy foreign minister of Iran, is a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Kaveh L. Afrasiabi teaches international relations at Bentley College and is the auth of books on Iran’s foreign and nuclear policies.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Major powers said on Friday they had “serious and constructive” talks about new U.N. Security Council sanctions aimed at trying to force Iran to halt its uranium enrichment activities.

But the officials of the five permanent Security Council members and Germany said they will keep pursuing a “dual track” approach to Iran — trying to persuade it to abandon enrichment via negotiations while considering new sanctions.

Western nations, which suspect Iran may be seeking to develop an atomic bomb under the cover of its civil nuclear program, have demanded Tehran suspend its uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for a bomb.

Iran says its nuclear program is to generate power so it can export more of its oil and gas and has so far rebuffed three U.N. Security Council resolutions — including two that imposed sanctions — demanding it halt uranium enrichment.

“The discussions were serious and constructive,” U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said on behalf of the political directors of Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany after they met in Washington.

“They had a detailed discussion of the elements of a new United Nations Security Council Resolution, as well as possibilities of continued dialogue with Iran,” he added.

“They reaffirmed their commitment to maintain a dual track approach on Iran’s nuclear activities.”

While France and Britain strongly back a U.S. push for harsher Security Council sanctions, China and Russia oppose this. Other European nations also have qualms about further sanctions.

NEW FINANCIAL SANCTIONS?

The Security Council on December 23 imposed trade sanctions on Iran’s sensitive nuclear and advanced missile programs. On March 24, the 15-nation body froze the assets of 28 groups, companies and individuals and banned Tehran’s arms exports.

New U.N. Security Council measures under consideration include additional financial sanctions and an inspection of cargo to and from Iran to search for banned nuclear-related materials, diplomats have said.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who on Sunday raised the specter of war with Iran but has since backed away from his comment, stressed diplomatic efforts to end Iran’s suspected nuclear arms program.

“It is important to note that we have set out a diplomatic path that includes negotiation as the preferred means by which to resolve this issue,” Rice told reporters at a joint news conference with Kouchner.

“We will seek further resolutions in the U.N. Security Council should Iran not take up the negotiating track,” Rice added, noting the Security Council had used both asset freezes and visa bans to punish Iran in the past.

“There are any number of ways that we can expand those efforts,” Rice said.

Kouchner reiterated France’s support for stronger penalties for Iran from the Security Council.

“We may hope that there will be a third resolution to reinforce the sanctions, which up until now have not been very effective,” Kouchner told reporters.

Source: The Reuters

IN MAY last year, when the Americans first offered to join direct talks with Iran over the future of its nuclear programme, French diplomats were jubilant. At last, their line went, the Americans were giving a chance to diplomacy, as the French had long advocated; military options seemed in retreat.

So what was Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister and co-founder of Médecins sans Frontières, a humanitarian charity, doing this week declaring with regard to Iran that “it is necessary to prepare for the worst…the worst is war”? France’s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has long argued for both a tougher stance towards Iran than that of his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, and a warmer approach to America. In the last months of his presidency, Mr Chirac mused publicly that it might not be so dangerous after all if Iran acquired a nuclear bomb.

Mr Sarkozy, by contrast, on a trip to Washington a year ago while a presidential aspirant, called that prospect “terrifying”, and declared that, to prevent it happening, “all options should be left open”—a deliberate echo of Bush administration language. In August, President Sarkozy spelt out bluntly the stark alternatives that he wanted to avoid: “the Iranian bomb or bombing Iran”. Mr Kouchner appeared to ratchet up the pressure. In a broadcast interview, he said not only that war against Iran was something to be prepared for, but that French officers were putting together “plans”, though he stressed that these were evidently “not for tomorrow”. This formulation was even bolder than George Bush’s in public. Iran’s state-controlled news agency replied testily that “the new occupants of the Elysée want to copy the White House”.

What to read into this apparently belligerent French posture? French diplomats, some of them privately taken aback at Mr Kouchner’s comments, insisted that his remarks had been taken out of context and that there was no change in policy. Military contingency plans, they say, are just a routine exercise in scenario planning. “The point is not that all options are on the table,” says one top diplomat, “but that all the risks are on the table.” Mr Kouchner himself, on a trip to Moscow, designed in part to drum up Russian support for a third UN sanctions-bearing resolution on Iran, also toned down his words. “Everything must be done to avoid war,” he said, arguing that negotiations and sanctions were the priority and that there were “no threats of war, at least not from France”.

In reality, under the hyperactive Mr Sarkozy, the French are impatient with the slow progress in winning support among Security Council members for a new UN resolution. Russia and China are stalling, arguing that they want to wait for Iran to answer questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s watchdog. This is why, while still working on the UN track, the French are also pushing for sanctions outside the UN, through the European Union. The idea would be for EU countries to get their companies, including banks, to stop activities in Iran, rather as America has done. French diplomats say they have not asked French companies to withdraw, but that they are already advising them not to tender for new contracts. A European sanctions regime of this sort, which the British also favour, could help on two counts: to persuade America that there is more mileage in diplomacy, while also showing the Iranians that their delaying tactics will not get the world off their backs.

The French are not pushing for a military option. What they want at this point is to persuade the public of the danger presented by Iran, to carve out a bit more manoeuvring room for diplomacy, and to make sure the Iranians know that France under President Sarkozy is serious about keeping up the pressure on them.

Source: The Economist