[Mb-civic] FW: Right Course on Iran

[Golsorkhi]

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From: Samii Shahla <shahla at thesamiis.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 12:06:08 -0500
Subject: Right Course on Iran


washingtonpost.com
Right Course on Iran


By Patrick Clawson

  Wednesday, January 12, 2005; Page A21

  Susan E. Rice ["We Need a Real Iran Policy," op-ed, Dec. 30] derides
as "bizarre" President Bush's statement that "we're relying upon
others" to take the leadership role in stopping Iran's nuclear program.
She dismisses out of hand the Bush administration's acceptance of
European leadership on this issue, claiming that "obviously" the
president has not had a "born-again conversion to multilateralism."

  In fact, relying on European leadership is the smart course, and the
unilateral U.S. initiative that Rice recommends would impede efforts to
stop Iran's nuclear program.

  Any U.S. offer to engage Iran would only sideline the negotiations
between Iran and the European Union. And Europe is better placed to
take the lead, given the history of distrust between the United States
and Iran. Europe is trusted by both sides.

  Rice dismisses Bush's statement that "we don't have much leverage with
the Iranians right now," on the grounds that the United States could
offer Iran significant incentives. But much of what she suggests the
United States offer Iran consists of things that the hard-liners
running Tehran do not want. Consider the normalization of relations,
which Rice proposes as an incentive. The hard-liners have no desire for
a U.S. embassy in Tehran; the onslaught of Iranians seeking visas would
be an embarrassment to them. And normalization would provide Washington
with a more high-profile platform for which to raise the full range of
its concerns about human rights and democracy. Indeed, as Kenneth
Pollack, the Clinton administration's National Security Council Iran
officer, notes in his new book, "The Persian Puzzle," Iranian officials
complain that "any criticism of Iran's internal affairs . . . is
disrespectful," which "make[s] it clear that Iran is simply not ready
for a meaningful relationship with the United States."

  Rice calls for the United States to offer Iran incentives "in exchange
for a full and verifiable halt to Iran's nuclear program as well as
termination of its support for terrorism and anti-U.S. elements in Iraq
and Afghanistan." But no Iranian political leader has expressed the
slightest interest in following Libya's example by giving up terrorism
and weapons of mass destruction. As the Iranian presidential campaign
heats up before next May's elections, the candidates are competing as
to who can go farthest in insisting that Iran will keep its current
foreign policy stance, while denying that they will make concessions to
the United States. The idea of a "grand bargain" with Iran, which Rice
advocates, is rejected as "not a realistic or achievable goal" by the
longtime advocates of a more active U.S. diplomatic engagement with
Iran who signed a recent Council on Foreign Relations report on the
subject.

  Rice implies that the European Union is either unable or unwilling to
promote the kinds of policies the United States wants regarding Iran.
In fact, in the latest round of European-Iranian talks last month, the
European side raised not only the issues of weapons of mass destruction
but also of terrorism, Arab-Israeli peace and human rights. Europe has
insisted that progress in dealing with Iran requires progress on all
four fronts -- a more comprehensive stance than Rice proposes. Indeed,
in June 2003, Europe suspended negotiations with Iran about a trade
agreement when there was no progress on the full range of European
concerns. And in August 2003 the leaders of Britain, France and Germany
took the unprecedented step of bluntly telling Iran that it had to give
up something to which Tehran had every right under international law --
its uranium enrichment program -- or it would be hauled in front of the
U.N. Security Council, where it could face diplomatic or economic
sanctions.

  Given the lack of interest by Iranian hard-liners in what the United
States has to offer and the strong stance Europe has taken in talks
with Iran, the wisest policy is what the Bush administration is doing:
supporting European leadership. The proper role for the United States
now is to bolster the European initiative by encouraging others --
specifically, Russia and China -- to signal their support.

In the past, when Iran has been convinced that it faced a united
insistence by the major powers on some course of action, it has made
major concessions, as shown by its October 2003 suspension of uranium
enrichment and the November 2004 Paris accords, which led to the
current Iran-Europe negotiations. The Bush administration's focus on
great-power consensus about Iran's nuclear program is the best way to
make progress; the unilateral initiatives Rice proposes would be at
best a diversion. Oddly enough, the sharpest critics of the Bush policy
are those who complain about Bush administration unilateralism. The
reality of multilateralism is that sometimes others take the lead and
we follow.

The writer is deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy.

  © 2005 The Washington Post Company
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2303-2005Jan11.html?
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