Al-Ahram Weekly | Opinion | Negotiating fortunes

Revelations of past approaches to Washington by Tehran illustrate the baseless wash of US propaganda and the changing fortunes of the two players as Iran's hand strengthens and that of Bush weakens, writes Hassan Nafaa*

Are the US and Iran really going to sit down together and talk? If they do, how likely is it that those talks would yield compromises satisfactory to both sides and that would defuse the current tensions before they flare up into a regional war?

The Jerusalem Post tells us that Iran asked Greece to use its good graces to reduce tensions between Tehran and Washington. The Post's report was worded in such a way as to suggest that Iran is desperately seeking dialogue. But then the Iranian foreign minister, speaking from Iraq, announced that his government had changed its mind about entering into direct talks with Washington over Iraq. Explaining this decision, he charged Washington with playing games; that it was manoeuvering to limit the agenda of dialogue to subjects it wants to discuss, rather than demonstrating willingness to discuss all pending issues between the two countries. Meanwhile, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other major US newspapers teemed with commentaries urging the Bush administration to engage direct talks. But what most struck me in the flood of coverage was a report by Gareth Porter published by the Inter Press Service (IPS) agency on 24 May.

Porter, a noted historian and US national security policy analyst, reveals that three years ago, in late April or early May 2003, Iran conveyed a two-page proposal to the US via the Swiss Embassy in Washington for a broad Iran- US agreement covering all the issues separating the two countries. Porter's report contains a number of details that lend credibility to the alleged existence of this document. Above all, he notes that IPS had obtained a copy via Trita Parsi, a specialist on Iranian foreign policy at the School of Advanced International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University. Parsi, in turn, said that he obtained his copy from an Iranian official earlier this year, though he was not at liberty to reveal the source. He added that the document is a summary of an even more detailed Iranian negotiating proposal that he learned about from the US intermediary who carried it to the State Department on behalf of the Swiss Embassy in 2003.

What did Iran hope to achieve by striking a bargain with the US? IPS did not publish the text of the document, however Porter states that what the Iranians wanted was an end to US hostility, the recognition of Iran as a legitimate power in the region, and the freedom to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. In exchange, Iran was prepared, first, to accept full International Atomic Energy Agency supervision of its nuclear programme -- including surprise inspections -- and to sign all protocols and guarantees for ensuring the efficacy of this supervision. Second, to recognise and normalise relations with Egypt; specifically, to align its policies with the Arab countries ready to conclude a peace with Israel on the basis of the Saudi initiative adopted in the Arab summit held in Beirut in 2002. Third, to stop all material support to Palestinian Islamist opposition groups, including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, and to pressure them by all means to halt attacks within Israel's pre-1967 borders. Fourth, to prevail upon Hizbullah to disarm itself and become an ordinary political party in Lebanon, removing all obstacles to the control of the border area with Israel by the Lebanese army.

Presuming the authenticity of the document in question, Porter's report raises a number of questions. One cannot help but to note, firstly, that the proposal was conveyed to Washington within days of the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein. That was a tense time for the Iranian regime, which feared that it would be the next target, if not the actual target of the US invasion of Iraq. It was also a time when the balance of power inside Iran had not yet shifted so solidly towards the conservatives; the document reflected the reformists' positions. Although Porter stresses that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was "directly involved", that involvement has to be understood in light of the Iranian conservatives' fears that the US invasion of Iraq would strengthen the hand of Iranian reformists. Today, the domestic situation in Iran is very different.

It is also important to consider the US administration's response. The US, we recall, was still at the pinnacle of exultation over its lightening victory over Saddam. It had nothing but haughty contempt for the Iranian proposal. Not only did Bush refuse to respond to the Iranian offer to negotiate, he barely paused to consider it. In addition, according to Flynt Leverett, the then senior specialist on the Middle East on the National Security Council, the Bush administration delivered a verbal slap to the Swiss ambassador for having the audacity to forward the proposal to Washington. Undoubtedly, such arrogance and contempt played at least an indirect part in weakening the reformists in Iran and, consequently, paving the way for Ahmadinejad's rise to power.

Although Porter maintains that Iran is still interested in reaching the type of bargain described in his report, I would suggest that this desire is tempered by the fact that Iran is in a much more favourable strategic position than it was three years ago. Certainly, it holds a stronger negotiating hand in the event talks with Washington do take place. The regime is more secure, more confident, and less intent upon reaching an agreement with the current US administration. It has some useful international allies in Moscow and Beijing and regionally in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. True, none can stand up to American might, but they all have influence and their current interests overlap considerably with those of Iran.

The US, by contrast, is in a much weaker negotiating position than it was in 2003. It is in a military quagmire, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and its international moral stature is at its lowest ever ebb and getting worse. Not, of course, that the US has no other option but to negotiate with Iran. The Bush administration still has enormous resources to draw on and, despite all setbacks, still believes that military force is the only way to handle certain international problems, one of which is Iran. In all events, the ideological gap between the Iranian and US regimes is so vast as to make a comprehensive deal between the two almost impossible to imagine. Thus: why was the existence of a two-page Iranian proposal to Washington revealed only now? And why are major US newspapers keener than ever on dialogue with Iran?

One strong possibility is Bush's deteriorating credibility at home. The record of disasters his administration has wrought may have driven some to the realisation that it has become a national duty to restrain Bush's hand. One way to do this is to expose him and his administration for their incessant attempts to deceive the American public. The disclosure of the Iranian document fits well into this scenario as the document clearly gives lie to a major propaganda theme of the Bush administration, which is that the Iranian regime has but one aim, which is to destroy Israel. In fact, the proposal makes it very explicit that Iran is willing to make peace with Israel, just like the so-called moderate Arab states. On the other hand, we could posit that the White House engineered the appearance of the document. In this case, the aim of disclosure would have been to discredit Iran among its allies, in order to strip it of some of its strongest assets, before delivering a decisive blow.

Although I personally cannot see the US and Iran coming to terms at present, this does not mean that the circumstances conducive to productive talks cannot arise in the near future. But for these circumstances to arise, the US must come to the conclusion that the Iranian crisis cannot be solved militarily. At that point, the US will have to be ready to accept Iran as a regional power, which to Iran means becoming a nuclear power.

How do the Arabs stand with respect to all this? Not a single Arab regime is capable of thinking strategically about the long-term impact of these developments on the region and the Arab world. Even if we presume that some Arab regimes are intellectually capable of assessing the situation, they are ill equipped to handle it. How can they when their sole preoccupation is self-perpetuation and they believe the US is the only power in the universe capable of keeping them in power?