Closer by an inch – but will Iran respond to America’s overtures?

Emile Hokayem, political editor

• Last Updated: July 17. 2008 10:10PM UAE / July 17. 2008 6:10PM GMT

There may be something real in the current measured optimism about US-Iran relations. In recent weeks, the United States has floated the possibility of opening an interest section, possibly a consulate in Tehran. Then, reactions from Iran about the latest offer conveyed by the European negotiator, Javier Solana, were interestingly constructive. Now, in a clear policy shift, the senior US official in charge of Iran policy will tomorrow join his European, Russian and Chinese colleagues in a meeting in Geneva with Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, to hear his response to the package, and perhaps even discuss it. For years, the Bush administration has refused to sit with Iran to do exactly that. Washington’s position, seen as uncompromising and arrogant by some, had the merit of clarity: as long as Iran continued to spin centrifuges and enrich uranium, there was nothing to talk about. Yet clarity, legalism and even the implicit threat of force fell short of convincing Iran to acquiesce to demands. Hence this new development.

Of course, Washington sources insist on the limited mandate that Undersecretary of State William Burns will carry. But even if Burns’s mere presence at the table will not bring about immediate results, this is a much welcome development in the Iranian nuclear saga. Both countries are vying for regional domination, with an apparent advantage to Iran.

It is tempting to portray this decision as an American capitulation in face of a triumphant Iran. As always, the reality is much more nuanced and has as much to do with stirrings in Tehran as the sense in Washington that a shift in gears was needed.

In reality, if regime change was always a preference of some inside the Bush administration, it never was official US policy. The Iraq debacle and other failures in the region have eroded its power and influence too much for the threat of coercion to be taken seriously. Add to that the American public’s aversion to any new military adventure and the US government’s own, less worrying assessment of Iran’s nuclear programme, and you have all the ingredients not to go to war. This is why Burns himself said to the US Senate earlier this month: “The purpose of our policy is to change Iran’s problematic policies and behaviour by making common cause with as much of the international community as we can.”

Short of an all-out and fanciful overture to Iran, with the risk of the US losing credibility and allies, the European route was the only option. Europe was credible to everyone, including Israel, which dreads the prospects of a nuclear-armed Iran. And it had the economic carrots to entice Tehran.

The other leg of US strategy relied on the United Nations. Washington learnt the bitter lesson of Iraq and sought international legitimacy at every step of the way, to the anger of US hawks. Multilateralism, to their dismay, may be proving its worth. If it were always delusional to expect UN sanctions to decisively alter Iranian thinking, it has had the result of stirring the debate within in Tehran about the cost of an overly confrontational approach.

Tehran was clearly not pleased when Russia and China signed several UN resolutions that portrayed its nuclear programme as a threat to peace. US efforts to convince banks to shut down their activities with Iranian companies have borne their fruits. When a major oil company like Total suspends its Iran projects because of uncertain political prospects, the regime has to take notice.

Moreover, the past few years have shown the extent but also the limits of Iranian influence. After three years of bombastic diplomacy and provocative pageantry to cover his domestic failings, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have strengthened Iran’s position, but the returns are getting slimmer.

If Iran’s growing role and solid alliances in the Middle East are testimony to its power, then its botched attempt to disguise a failed missile launch stands as a symbol of its inherent weaknesses. With a structurally under-performing economy and a population fed up with isolation and heavy-handed clerical rule, Iran is not the giant it could otherwise be, and certainly not the one its leaders boast about.

Iran has also to reconcile its need to pin down the US in Iraq while advancing its own interests. Strangely, it is on this battlefield that both countries have most in common. No wonder that Iran’s Iraq policy seems as confused as America’s.

The ball is now in Tehran’s court. The question is not whether Iran wants to talk – there are clearly many factions willing to do so – but whether it can do so. Its byzantine decision making system is a recipe for internal fighting and paralysis – unless Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, its Supreme Leader, decides otherwise. And Khamenei, who in the words of Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment, is a risk-averse leader who seeks neither confrontation nor accommodation with the US, does not seem to have made up his mind yet.

In recent weeks, however, he has allowed his senior foreign policy adviser, the former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, to conduct a subtle charm offensive towards the Europeans. Velayati even suggested that the offer was an acceptable basis for negotiations. But as to illustrate the factionalism of Iranian politics, Ahmadinejad quickly countered: “Velayati is a respected man. Like everyone else in Iran, he is free to have personal views… But he is not involved in nuclear decision making.”

Burns’ presence at the Geneva meeting is hugely symbolic, but its importance should not be overstated. Iran is believed to be ready to propose a deal that falls short of turning back its technological advances. But an important psychological threshold has been reached. Burns, “a decent, understated, almost shy but very competent and serious man” in the words of an acquaintance, may be the one to prepare the ground for the next US administration to force Iran to choose between two vastly different futures.

ehokayem@thenational.ae