Omid Memarian
omid@memarian. Info
The United States will not initiate a dialogue with the Iranian government, given the possible boost for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-elections efforts next June, according to Suzanne Maloney, former State Department policy advisor and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
During his campaign US President-elect Barack Obama insisted on negotiating with Iranian leaders, regardless of the extensive political risks. But considering Iran’s domestic politics, American diplomats prefer to wait and see who will be Iran’s president in 2009. Many believe that Iran’s worsening economic situation, demonstrated by its high inflation, skyrocketing unemployment and the fall of oil prices, all of which have prevented Ahmadinejad from fulfilling his promises to the Iranian people, might change the result of the upcoming elections.
However, Maloney admits that, “Ultimately the U.S. needs to deal with Iran irrespective of who the president is,” adding “We learned in 1997 and 2005, both for good or bad, that who holds the presidency in Iran really does matter. It isn’t a game changer in the sense that the president has limited authority and capacity to alter Iran’s policies, but he can absolutely change the context of Iran’s domestic policies, treatment of its own citizens and Iran’s foreign policy.”
Excerpts from the interview follow:
Rooz (R): Regarding the upcoming June presidential elections in Iran, would the new administration initiate direct dialogue and communication with the Iranian government in the coming six months?
Suzanne Maloney (SM): My recommendation would be that there should be at least some signaling and some preparations that take place well before the Iranian presidential elections in June. I think to appear to wait for the Iranian elections would taint any American effort that comes subsequent to the elections and would taint any candidate who might be perceived as favoring that. Obviously there is a lot of concern about boosting Ahmadinejad’s prospects in the election. I tend to be somewhat skeptical about how much positive influence Washington, or any administration in the U.S. could have on what is effectively an internal process in Iran.
R: Regarding the long time challenges between the Iranian government and the U.S. since the revolution in 1979, does it make any difference that Ahmadinejad is in the office or a moderate President?
SM: We’ve learned in 1997 and 2005, both for good or bad, that who holds the presidency in Iran really does matter. It isn’t a game changer in the sense that the President has limited authority and limited capacity to alter Iran’s policies, but it can absolutely change the context of Iran’s domestic politics, it’s treatment of its own citizens and of Iran’s foreign policy. So it does mater who is president. But ultimately the U.S. needs to deal directly with Iran irrespective of who the president is.
R: Can Obama administration live with a nuclear Iran?
SM: No one in Washington is genuinely prepared to have that kind of conversation now, in part because there is reason to believe a deal can be fashioned that would prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold. Obviously there’s been an enormous amount of progress made during the Bush administration by the Iranians in developing their nuclear infrastructure, but they have not yet reached the point of no-return, depending how you define that. The focus of the efforts is, and should remain, on preventing Tehran from reaching that point.
R: Regarding the difficulties that the U.S. is currently facing in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is it possible that the U.S. compromise on Iran’s nuclear activities?
SM: I don’t’ see any ready compromise from Washington enabling Iran to retain a significant enrichment capability. It is a bit too far from most of the Washington policy community. However, once negotiations and direct talks begin, is there someway that a face-saving measure can be devised so Iran can continue to uphold what it calls “nuclear rights” and, in the rest of international community, remain confined a mechanism that provides enough security and certainty about how any Iranian nuclear activity would be oriented? That would be the ultimate focus of negotiations. I don’t think anyone in Washington would say “nothing ever”, because that was the position of the Bush administration and it effectively was forced to roll back over time. But the point is that the objective is full suspension. That needs to be the “going in” the position of the Obama administration, as they start negotiations.
R: What might Hilary Clinton’s nomination as Secretary of State change in regards to Obama’s approach towards Iran, given that the two had major differences on dealing with Iran during the primary elections?
SM: Of course they had major differences during the campaign, but the campaign is now over, and Mr. Obama is the president-elect. It would be his determination as to what the foreign policy of this country will be. The Secretary of State obviously will have a lot of capacity to shape the way we deal with a variety of problems. But in effect, the decider on these issues is Mr. Obama. It’s important not to overstate the differences between them. They both argued that during the campaign, as in fact did Sen. McCain, that the negotiations were possible and we don’t want an Iran with nuclear weapon. So I don’t think the distance between them was so terribly great. But certainly the tenor of the conversation was very different and Mr. Obama, to his great credit, took a tremendous political risk and coming out early and in a very forth-right manner in favor of direct negotiations, a position that is much more consistent with U.S. history and has been born out by the later twists and turns in the Bush administration.
R: If Iranians do not give up their program, will the U.S. pursue other paths or options like military attacks?
SM: Sanctions are absolutely going to be a part of American diplomacy toward Iran for the foreseeable future. That’s been a consistent feature of our diplomacy since 1979. No new administration was going to come in and either have the political capital in Washington or frankly the justification in terms of wholesale Iranian reversal to completely dismantle sanctions regime when it comes to Iran. The question is, what sort of sanctions are going to be meaningful in persuading Iran to change its course? I think it’s clear from what the Bush administration has done that we are able to put in place some measures that create additional inconvenience, costs and pain for the Iranian government and people. But it is not clear those sorts of measures have the focusing impact on specific Iranian policies for which they were intended. I am afraid that there may be a little over optimism here in Washington now that price of oil has dropped considerably in recent months and Iran’s own economic turmoil will force it to make some sort of reversal. If we look back on Iranian history, these kinds of policy reversals have been very slow in coming, and they typically have not been the result of a short-term economic crisis.
No American president can or should ever take the military option off the table, per se. We have a military and it’s intended to deal with potential threats to the American people. That said, I would not expect this administration to talk casually about the military option. I don’t think there is anyone in the mix of senior officials who has anything but a very pessimistic view of what a military approach would bring, both in terms of its impact for US- Iran dynamics and its impact on the broader region. So, I don’t think you see anyone who is eager to move in that direction. It would be a choice of last resort for almost any administration, and I am confident that it’s not going to be front and center among our policy options in the foreseeable future.
R: How about Israel? Is there any scenario in which Israel attacks Iran to stop its nuclear program, without green light?
SM: There has been a lot of concern about that in the past few years. We don’t see any real change in Israeli policy other than a little bit of moderation in the rhetoric. The Israelis will only act if they were to get a green light from Washington; they will not act without it. I don’t expect that they will get that green light. Israelis correctly read Obama’s victory in the elections here and have indicated that a military attack is not a policy they are going to consider anytime soon. The focus will be on diplomacy for next few years, and if there is no progress and if there in fact is a worsening of the situation, then we can have this conversation. Yet this is hypothetical, and I don’t think anyone in the U.S. is focusing on the hypothetical that diplomacy will fail.
