THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 113, April 30, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
JUST THE BEGINNING
By Dr. Michael Rubin
PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA & UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST: OUTREACH TO
IRAN AS THE FOREIGN POLICY CENTERPIECE OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION -- OBAMA'S BELIEF IN
BORN-AGAIN DIPLOMACY, OPERATING ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT THE U.S.A., IN DEALING WITH ITS FOREIGN
ADVERSARIES, CAN FORGET THE THE PAST & START ANEW -- OBAMA'S COMPLETE LACK OF COMPREHENSION OF REALITY
IN THE ARENA OF IDEOLOGICALLY DRIVEN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD -- HIS ABYSMAL IGNORANCE
OF THE NATURE OF THE IRANIAN POLITICAL REGIME & ITS THREAT TO WORLD PEACE & U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY -- A
HISTORY OF U.S.-IRANIAN RELATIONS SINCE THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION OF 1979 -- WHAT OBAMA NEEDS: COMMON
SENSE & A SERIOUS REALITY CHECK
FULL STORY:
U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama has made outreach to the Islamic Republic of Iran a foreign policy centerpiece
of his administration. At his inauguration, he promised that, if U.S. adversaries would unclench their fists the United
States would extend a hand. Then, in his first major television interview, he told al-Arabiya satellite TV:
"It is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to
express very clearly where our differences are, but
[also] where there are potential avenues for progress.
And we will over the next several months be laying
out our general framework and approach."
He has. U.S. diplomats have sought out their Iranian counterparts at international forums and agreed to meet Iranian
officials without precondition. On March 20, 2009, Obama released a Nowruz greeting in which, without precedent, he
declared: "The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations,"
implicitly recognizing the current government as the legitimate representative of the Iranian people.
Obama believes in born-again diplomacy -- that, whether with Iran, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, North Korea or
Russia, it is possible to forget the past and start anew. Alas, the world does not revolve around Obama nor has the
reason for the poor state of US-Iran relations been simply lack of past effort on the part of the U.S.A..
Every U.S. President has sought rapprochement with the Islamic Republic. U.S. diplomats remained in Tehran
throughout the Revolution, first by choice and later, of course, as hostages. It is ironic that President Jimmy Carter's
desire to engage sparked the Embassy seizure, as Iranian radicals responded to the perceived threat of rapprochement
symbolized by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's handshake with Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan by
storming the compound to disrupt that process. Nevertheless, Carter allowed the Islamic Republic to retain the
Iranian Embassy in Washington for five more months, hoping to keep open a possibility for dialogue.
The Reagan administration also sought relations, even sending former National Security Advisor Robert "Bud"
McFarlane to Tehran. Speaking at the University of Tehran on December 9, 2008, former President Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani ridiculed the attempt, recalling:
"McFarlane came here, and our authorities were not
willing to talk to him. Only our second and third rate
authorities talked to him."
McFarlane returned to the U.S.A. empty-handed.
Twenty years ago, there was again hope for change. The Iran-Iraq war had ended, Ayatollah Rohallah Khomeini was
dead, and Hashemi Rafsanjani, lauded as a pragmatist in the West, won the Iranian Presidency. "I don't want to ...
think that the status quo has to go on forever," U.S. President George H.W. Bush told a press conference shortly
after his inauguration.
President Bill Clinton, too, reached out to the Islamic Republic, even authorizing Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
to engage her Iranian counterpart in a one-on-one meeting, an opportunity lost when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,
shortly before the rendezvous, ordered Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi not to show.
And, despite President George W. Bush branding Tehran as part of the Axis of Evil -- a mild comment compared to near
daily Iranian calls for America's demise -- there was greater engagement with Tehran under Bush than under any
administration since Carter's. Alas, whether in Iraq or Afghanistan, the White House discovered that Iranian diplomats
either did not speak for the Revolutionary Guards or did not keep their promises.
So where does this leave Barack Obama? There is an unfortunate dynamic in Washington in which new administrations
fault predecessors, rather than adversaries, for failure to engage productively. No matter what their preconceptions
before entering the Oval Office, however, all Presidents discover they are powerless to resolve differences with Tehran
when Iran's leadership does not desire it. Hence, while the Presidents or Foreign Ministers of countries like Bolivia,
Eritrea and Senegal, let alone Hamas leaders, receive audiences with the Supreme Leader, the Iranian leadership refuses
to allow US diplomats even to set foot in Tehran. And, while journalists and academics applaud Obama's overtures, they
too often ignore the Iranian response, for example, Khamenei's April 15, 2009, speech at Imam Hossein University, where
he declared: "The recommendation to return to the global order is the same as capitulating to the bullying powers and
accepting the unjust world order."
The Islamic Republic is an ideological entity. It roots sovereignty not in the will of its citizens, but upon the notion that
the Supreme Leader acts as a place holder for the Hidden Imam. As a system, it has failed. Iran's economy is in tatters
and the regime preserves power through the ever more pervasive Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
To deflect responsibility for failure, it pays to have an enemy to rally masses around the flag. Iran's leadership has
determined that the United States -- the "Great Satan" -- is it. Meaningful rapprochement would mean the regime's demise.
Rather than work to improve relations with the U.S.A., therefore, Iranian authorities, either directly or by proxy, impose
ever more obstacles. Alas, Ahmadinezhad's recent speech at Geneva and the arrest of Roxanna Saberi are just the
beginning.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Michael Rubin, a Ph.D. in History (Yale University, 1999) and a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, Islamic culture and Islamist
ideology, is Editor of the Middle East Quarterly, a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School, and a resident
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical
Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001) and is co-author, with Dr. Patrick Clawson,
of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Dr. Rubin served as political advisor to the Coalition
Provisional Authority in Baghdad (2003-2004); staff advisor on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense
(2002-2004); visiting lecturer in the Departments of History and International Relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(2001-2002); visiting lecturer at the Universities of Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan (2000-2001); Soref
Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (1999-2000); and visiting lecturer in the Department of History at Yale
University (1999-2000). He has been a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Leonard Davis Institute at Hebrew
University, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs.
The foregoing article by Dr. Rubin was originally published in Bitterlemons International, April 30, 2009, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/2128/ just-the-beginning)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
April 30, 2009
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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