Iran rejects overture from US

Michael Theodoulou, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: March 22. 2009 9:30AM UAE / March 22. 2009 5:30AM GMT

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has dismissed overtures from the US president Barak Obama. Hasan Sarbakhshian / AP Photo

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, moved with remarkable swiftness on Saturday to scotch any suggestion that the ball was now in Tehran’s court after the US president issued a surprise video appeal calling for a “new beginning” in relations with the Islamic Republic.

Yet while dismissing Barack Obama’s offer of better ties as a mere “slogan”, he pledged that Iran would respond to any real policy shift made by Washington.
Many ordinary Iranians welcomed the US president’s warmly worded, landmark overture on Friday as “fantastic news”.

His speech was the “closest anyone in the US has come to ruling out the military option regarding Iran”, said Farideh Farhi, a renowned Iran scholar at the University of Hawaii.

Ayatollah Khamenei, however, insisted he saw no change in US policy to his country. Action, not sweet talk, was needed, he argued.

“They chant the slogan of change, but no change is seen in practice,” he said.
Issuing a stock challenge to the Obama administration, he demanded: “Did you remove sanctions [which Washington renewed only last week]? Did you stop supporting the Zionist regime? Tell us what you have changed.”

Apart from addressing popular opinion, Ayatollah Khamenei’s intervention was seemingly aimed at stemming divisions within the Iranian leadership between moderates and hardliners over how to respond to Washington’s olive branch.

In a sharply critical tone that contrasted starkly with Mr Obama’s emollient message to Iran’s people and its leaders, he catalogued a long list of past and present Iranian grievances against the United States.

But Ayatollah Khamenei did not rule out mending fences with the superpower. “If you change your attitude, we will change our attitude,” he declared in a televised address to thousands of Iranians in Mashhad. “We have no experience with the new American government and the new American president. We will observe them and we will judge,” he said.

Ayatollah Khamenei holds the last word on major policy decisions, and how Iran eventually responds to any concrete effort to engage his country will depend largely on his say.

Iranian hardliners have voiced suspicions that Mr Obama’s conciliatory rhetoric is a ruse designed to win over Russian and Chinese support for tougher sanctions if Tehran resists a charm offensive from Washington they suspect is calculated to fail.

It did not help that Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, also delivered a message to the Iranian people on Friday in which he predicted that they would “topple” their leadership. Washington rebuffed suggestions that Mr Obama’s message was co-ordinated with Israel’s as a “good cop, bad cop” tactic.

Improved relations with Washington could have major implications for the regime in Tehran. Hardline factions may fear that better ties could act as a catalyst for unpredictable domestic change, analysts say, adding that the danger is Tehran might fall back on entrenched positions if it cannot reach internal consensus.

Most ordinary Iranians will be relieved that Ayatollah Khamenei did not entirely slam the door on the prospect of mending fences with the United States. Mr Obama’s message was seen as a bold departure from the hostile stance of his predecessor, George W Bush, who branded Iran as part of an “axis of evil”.

“In Dubai, the reaction among the Iranian expat community [to Obama’s speech] has been overwhelmingly and universally positive,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iranian-American expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His overture will pressure Iranian hardliners to “justify their often gratuitous enmity toward the United States”, Mr Sadjadpour, who is visiting Dubai, added in a web commentary.

However, commentators in Tehran said Mr Obama should have accompanied his appeal with a practical step, such as easing sanctions against Iran, which Washington renewed only last week.

Farideh Farhi, the Iranian expert at the University of Hawaii, said the ball was now in Tehran’s court. “The Iranians have been calling for a serious conversation and Mr Obama has now promised them one. Let’s see if it happens,” she wrote on a group blog.

Predictably, the response of Iran’s seemingly startled leadership was going to be more hardline and grudging than that of most Iranians. Anti-Americanism has been a cornerstone of Iran’s 30-year-old Islamic Revolution.

But, Mr Sadjadpour said: “Most Iranians recognise that in 2009, the ‘death to America’ culture of 1979 is obsolete – it only prevents their country from fulfilling its enormous potential.”

Many Iranian analysts pointed to an important subtext in Mr Obama’s speech, which was addressed to both the “people and leaders of the Islamic Republic”: he was not trying to drive a wedge between them. “No more the ‘we love the people of Iran but hate their government’ taunt repeatedly brandished by the Bush administration,” Ms Farideh said.

By using the term “Islamic Republic”, Mr Obama had signalled Washington’s acceptance of Iran’s revolution, said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, which promotes dialogue to resolve disputes. “This does not mean that America will not welcome democratisation in Iran, but it does mean that the policy of regime change has been cast aside,” Mr Parsi said. “Obama is focusing on behavioural change, not regime change.”

Persuading a sceptical Iranian leadership that the United States is not set on ousting the regime is central to the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, the most divisive issue between the two countries. Analysts say the regime’s insecurity is the main reason it might want to weaponise its nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is solely peaceful in nature.

Unlike Ayatollah Khamenei, Mr Obama tactfully did not spell out the issues dividing the two countries, but he did allude to the problems between the two countries. “You, too, have a choice,” he said. The United States wanted Iran to “take its rightful place in the community of nations”, but with rights came responsibilities. “And that place cannot be reached through terror of arms,” he said.

Ayatollah Khamenei seized on those words. “He [Obama] congratulated Iranians for the new year, but in the same speech he accused Iranians of supporting terrorism and looking for nuclear weapons,” he said.

The US state department is said to be considering another diplomatic outreach in the form of a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei before Iran’s presidential June elections.

Many Iranians believe that after three decades of mistrust, misunderstanding and mistrust, Mr Obama’s move represents a historic opportunity that must not be missed.
“Tehran should reciprocate by declaring its positive intent and demonstrating its respect for America,” Mr Parsi said.

mtheodoulou@thenational.ae