USADI Dispatch

A publication of the U.S. Alliance for Democratic Iran


Volume III, No. 6                                                                                                                                                  March 24, 2006


USADI Commentary

 

Desperate Clerical Measures

 

In March 1990, one year into his first term as president, Hashemi Rafsanjani mocked President Bush Sr. for taking a telephone call from someone posing as Rafsanjani offering a one-to-one talk between the two countries. “America is very much in need of talking to Iran, and praise be to God, is deprived of this. Iran is so important that the biggest power in the world, the biggest bully on earth, tries to contact its officials by telephone,” Rafsanjani said. The hoax set up by the clerical regime then sought to embarrass President Bush over the issue of the “talk”.

Sixteen years later, one wonders what sort of ploy Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is working up with its March 2006 overture for talks with the United States.

The US national security adviser Stephen Hadley chas orrectly described Iran's last week overture a ploy to “divert pressure.” Other senior officials called it "a stunt" and a “puffery. With five day delay, Khamenei did his own spinning. "If (talks) mean opening up an arena for deceitful Americans to continue their bullying attitude, talks with America on Iraq are banned," he said.

The supposed one-to-one talk, which seems rather doubtful to ever take place, is not the first time the two sides hold talks. In months preceding the 2003 Iraq war, Washington and Tehran held private official talks in Geneva. At the time, the administration thought it had reached an agreement with the mullahs not to meddle in Iraq after Saddam Hussein. According to a May 12, 2003 report in the Wall Street Journal, “In January [2003]... the Iranians were told that one of the U.S. war aims was to eliminate the [main Iranian opposition] Mujahedin-e-Khalq, a longtime Iranian goal. In return, the U.S. asked Iran not to send armed fighters into Iraq.” The mullahs, however, could not let go of their strategic goal of establishing a client regime in Iraq; even in exchange for elimination of their mortal enemy, the Iranian Mujahedin. They reneged on the deal and unleashed their forces into Iraq to exploit the post-war security and political vacuum.

The idea of talk over the issue of Iran’s unsavory role in Iraq was first made last November by the US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, and the clerical regime immediately rejected it. So question is why now Tehran is making a similar overture? Is it, as many of Tehran’s apologists say these days, from position of strength? What is in it for them? It is not certainly out of love for the world peace and the good of humanity.

Tehran’s diplomatic and foreign policy machine has had an astonishing dive in recent months and the theocratic regime has been faced with an increasingly emboldened and restive populace at home. On the day Ali Larijani, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and its top nuclear negotiator, made the offer, he appeared in a closed-door session of Iran’s Parliament. Coming under pressure about the wisdom of his overture, Larijani told the parliament that “the preservation of the regime has the highest priority and the Supreme Leader has placed the safeguarding of the regime at the top of Iran’s foreign policy strategy in the nuclear issue.”

Tehran understands full well how the regional and nuclear equations have changed to its detriment since last November. In Iraq, not only the Iran-influenced United Iraqi Alliance did not get the parliamentary majority as expected by Tehran, it now has to face a nascent but rising Iraqi anti-fundamentalist front consisting of Kurds, Secular Shiites, and Sunnis parliamentary blocks.

On the nuclear front, Tehran’s last minute pulling of a Russian “stunt’ did not prevent the referral of its nuclear case to the UN Security Council. The momentum against mullahs’ nuclear violations gained further speed when Washington joined by Britain and France moved quickly for a Security Council action.

Meanwhile, Washington has found a new focus for its Iran policy which amounts to a multi-faceted, multi-pronged diplomatic offensive. The newly published US national security strategy states that “we may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran.” Adding to Tehran worries, there has been a rising call in the US Congress and some policy circles for the removal of Iran’s main opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations; a move which would serve as the clearest sign yet that Washington is serious about indigenous regime change in Iran.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. With the green light from the Supreme Leader Khamenei, Larijani made the “talk” overture primarily to throw a monkey wrench at the ongoing campaign in the Security Council against its nuclear drive. The mullahs’ ploy also intends to reverse the recent diplomatic and political setbacks abroad which have already emboldened Iranians who have sensed the growing vulnerability of the clerical regime, evident by the rising popular and labor unrest in recent months.

Given the real intentions of Tehran, no matter how tactically beneficial it might have been, Washington’s positive response was not wise. Even if the talks never take place, Tehran has already scored some point. The positive response has sent a contradictory signal to people in Iran who were recently assured of the American campaign to isolate their ruling despots and “support for their democratic aspirations.” Tehran could also benefit by putting Washington in a position to be seen as violating its own stated policy of no negotiation with the state sponsors of terrorism.

Nevertheless, the clerical regime has made even a bigger miscalculation by making the offer. It can not deliver what is expected of it in Iraq, and at home there is a political price to be paid, similar to Khomeini’s acceptance of cease-fire with Iraq which he famously likened to drinking from a challis of poison. Still, this terrorist tyranny should have been deprived of the opportunity to make any gains on its self-preserving desperate overture for talks. (USADI)

 

USADI Commentary reflects the viewpoints of the US Alliance for Democratic Iran in respect to issues and events which directly or indirectly impact the US policy toward Iran

The US Alliance for Democratic Iran (USADI), is an independent, non-profit organization, which aims to advance a US policy on Iran that will benefit America through supporting Iranian people’s aspirations for a democratic, secular, and peaceful government. The USADI is not affiliated with any government agencies, political groups or parties.
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