Iran Guidance: How Should the US Talk with Tehran?

On Friday in Foreign Policy, Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi of the National Iranian American Council posted a five-point guide on how Washington should "defuse the Iran crisis": 1)Don't Let the Fuel-Swap Deal Hold the Negotiation Process [on Iran's Nuclear Programme] Hostage; 2) Get by with a Little Help from Your Friends (i.e. Turkey and Brazil); 3)Talk to Everyone in Iran -- Directly; 4) Don't Forget Human Rights; and 5) Play the Long Game.

An EA correspondent responds:

Parsi and Marashi's article is a mixture between wishful thinking and valid if impossible-to-realise points. Some of this is the advocacy of yore: you in the US Government are wrong, talk to Iran, sanctions are going nowhere, don't listen to Israel.

The rest of the suggestions are more debatable. The most striking inconsistency contained within the article is the simultaneous call for talking at all levels of the Iranian regime and never forgetting about human rights. Besides the inconclusive nature of talking to say Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani and Ahmadinejad at the say time --- which would mean both becoming convinced that a deal is possible with the Americans and igniting internecine warfare to get the Supreme Leader to give one of them the green light, thus scuppering the whole process --- the idea that talking to the regime will in some way mollify it regarding human rights is also very questionable.

I can't help but think that the last time the US did serious overtures towards old enemies, it succeeded precisely because it threw the human rights issue under the train and opted to engage in political negotiation with the people in command. This is why rapprochement with China but also other actors such as Vietnam proved to be successful for the US.

I frankly believe the US should take a cue from the European Union. Essentially what EU diplomats are doing in Tehran these days is to take stock of the fact that Ahmadinejad is too personally unpleasant for the EU countries to deal with him personally, so they try to skirt him as much as possible and establish relatively serious dialogue with people with whom they can shake hands. So Larijani often meets with European ambassadors and Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki is treated with more deference. But no Ahmadinejad audiences.

Marginalising Ahmadinejad and his stubbornly anti-Western thought is the only way forward for meaningful dialogue with people inside the regime, but even then at the cost of throwing the human rights issue under the train: no regime insider, not even more flexible ones such as Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, will come to terms on that front.

Then comes the issue of talks on the Iranian nuclear programme and the role of Turkey and Brazil, on which I have some points in common with Parsi and Marashi. The Turkey-Brazil influence must work both ways, however. It is now relatively clear that Ankara and Brasilia engaged in diplomatic freelancing in their efforts to win Iran over back in May. They now have to try to pull the West on board with more effort.

Last but not least, and apologies for this long post, I think that all these medical recipes for American diplomacy should come with at least one small warning on domestic Iranian politics. The biggest single hindrance to normalisation of ties between Tehran and Washington is not buried within the technicalities of the elusive Great Deal on the nuclear issue, or on Iran's role in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine or Lebanon. It lies with the petrified "Death to America" slogan that is a firm and unmovable cornerstone of the regime's ideology. It permeates the Islamic Republic's elite (more reformists are still clinging to it than one may imagine) and getting Friday Prayer leaders to accept its demise is at present practically impossible.

Parsi, Marashi and anyone else should deal in some way with the fallout from the solidity and resilience of the anti-American discourse of Iranian politics, because its a mainstay that cannot simply be brushed under the table. It is far more solid that what Mao or the Vietnamese were saying regarding "imperialist" Uncle Sam.