If anyone doubted Iran's hand in the potential confrontation with the U.S. over its nuclear program, then May 29th should have put those doubts to rest. Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, had just completed a trip to Iraq, a trip that like his predecessor Kamal Kharrazzi's included a tête-à-tête with Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf (something no American has been granted), when a roadside bomb destroyed a bus carrying Iraqi workers to Camp Ashraf, (the Iranian opposition group MEK's headquarters), killing thirteen and wounding fifteen. Camp Ashraf and the Mujaheddin, under the protection of the U.S. military, are not insurgency issues, nor are they Shia/Sunni issues: they are solely Iran/U.S. issues. As such, the bomb was a not-so-subtle reminder to the U.S. of how freely the Iranians can operate in Iraq, and how some very nasty circumstances might await Americans there should a military conflict with Iran arise.
Two days later on June 1, but probably coincidentally, Condoleezza Rice delivered a statement to the Iranians that offered direct talks (albeit if the Iranians first caved) for the first time in twenty-seven years of troubled relations between the two countries. Whether Ms. Rice has dramatically turned the administration around on Iran or whether she's their patsy du jour, the spin from the State Department and from the White House (echoed in the U.S. media) is that last week's agreement on a package of incentives for Iran if it were to give up uranium enrichment, along with Ms. Rice's statement to the Iranians, are indications of strong U.S. diplomacy, and even that the U.S. gaining the upper hand in its conflict with Iran. The reality is quite different.
The U.S. has done as well as it can under the circumstances, but the diplomatic initiatives, spun as advances for America, are actually retreats and in some ways a defeat. Up until now, the U.S. has consistently made it clear that it desires a full Chapter 7 resolution on Iran in the Security Council (and that it might form another "coalition of the willing" if that doesn't work); Russian and Chinese objections have rendered moot a strong resolution allowing for sanctions and the use of force. The U.S. has also consistently argued that "all options are on the table"; today, according to the agreement reached with Russian and Chinese participation, some options most certainly are not, at least not with any international legitimacy, even if Iran chooses the so-called sticks over the so-called carrots. Lastly, the U.S. has pointedly refused direct communication with Iran for almost 27 years; last Wednesday John Bolton was dialing the phone number of his Iranian counterpart at the U.N., asking if he could fax over the statement by his boss. (Mr. Bolton's subsequent remark that it was time for the Iranians to "put up or shut up" betrayed either his neo-con tendency to subvert diplomacy or his sheer idiocy. Anyone with a clue about Iranians, the culture and their language knows that the term "shut up" translates as a deep insult in Farsi, far more so than intended in English, but besides that, with the statement he was undoubtedly pained to have had to deliver to the Iranians, wasn't it the U.S. that had just chosen to "put up" rather than shut up"? A day later, Mr. Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, pointedly used the same language to dismiss Ms. Rice's statement that Ms. Rice had used to dismiss President Ahmadinejad's letter to President Bush, neither "putting up" nor "shutting up". He also added, in reference to Ms. Rice's allusion to democracy in Iran, that a nation whose presidency was decided by judicial decree was not in position to judge the state of democracy in Iran.)
If the U.S. continues on the diplomatic path it claims it has chosen, it will have to make many more concessions to Iran before any agreement can be reached on the nuclear issue. Iran, emboldened by the dire position the U.S. finds itself in Iraq (and perhaps even Afghanistan), has no reason to give in to what it believes are unreasonable U.S. demands, but has every reason to negotiate with the U.S. from its position of strength. The last time Iran and the U.S. negotiated an agreement was in Algiers in 1981, and Iran, newly at war with Iraq, was desperate to rid itself of the American hostages it had been holding for over a year. What the Iranians managed to secure in the agreement, known as the Algiers Accord, was a pledge from the U.S. (as its very first point):
Point I: Non-Intervention in Iranian Affairs
1. The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United
States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs.
They're going to want something a bit more substantial than that this time around.