THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 100, April 13, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
WHAT IRAN REALLY THINKS ABOUT TALKS
By Dr. Michael Rubin
THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY & U.S. POLICY TOWARD IRAN: IRAN'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM & U.S. DIPLOMACY --
PRESIDENT OBAMA EMBRACING DIALOGUE WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY & THE IRANIAN REGIME EMBRACING DIPLOMACY
WITHOUT SINCERITY -- OBAMA'S WILLINGNESS TO TALK & NEGOTIATE PERCEIVED BY THE IRANIAN POLITICAL
LEADERSHIP AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO AVOID INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS &, AT THE SAME TIME, CONTINUE ITS
ENDEAVOR TO DEVELOP A NUCLEAR MILITARY CAPABILITY -- OBAMA'S IRANIAN POLICY AS A FOREIGN POLICY THAT IS
UNWISE, UNREALISTIC, ARROGANT, NAIVE, & DANGEROUS
FULL STORY:
On April 9, 2009, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's atomic energy agency, announced that the Islamic
Republic had installed 7,000 centrifuges in its Natanz uranium enrichment facility. The announcement came one day after
the U.S. State Department announced it would engage Iran directly in multilateral nuclear talks.
Proponents of engagement with Tehran say dialogue provides the only way forward. Iran's progress over the past eight
years, they say, is a testament to the failure of Bush administration strategy. President Barack Obama, for example, in his
March 21, 2009, address to the Iranian government and people, declared:
". . . [Diplomacy] "will not be advanced by threats. We seek
engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect."
Thus, our President fulfills a pattern in which new administrations place blame for the failure of diplomacy on
predecessors, rather than on adversaries. The Islamic Republic is not a passive actor, however. Quite the opposite: While
President Obama plays checkers, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei plays chess. The enrichment milestone is a
testament both to Tehran's pro-active strategy and to Washington's refusal to recognize it.
Iran's nuclear program dates back to 1989, when the Russian government agreed to complete the reactor at Bushehr. It
was a year of optimism in the West: The Iran-Iraq War ended the Summer before and, with the death of revolutionary
leader Ayatollah Khomeini, Iranian leadership passed to Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, both considered moderates.
At the beginning of the year, George H.W. Bush offered an olive branch to Tehran, declaring in his inaugural address:
"Good will begets good will. Good faith can be a spiral
that endlessly moves on."
The mood grew more euphoric in Europe. In 1992, the German government, ever eager for new business opportunities
and arguing that trade could moderate the Islamic Republic, launched its own engagement initiative.
It didn't work. While U.S. and European policymakers draw distinctions between reformers and hardliners in the Islamic
Republic, the difference between the two is in style, not substance. Both remain committed to Iran's nuclear program.
Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, for example, called for a "Dialogue of Civilizations." The European
Union (EU) took the bait and, between 2000 and 2005, nearly tripled trade with Iran.
It was a ruse. Iranian officials were as insincere as European diplomats were greedy, gullible, or both. Iranian officials
now acknowledge that Tehran invested the benefits reaped into its nuclear program.
On June 14, 2008, for example, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, Mr. Khatami's spokesman, debated advisers to current Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the University of Gila in northern Iran. Mr. Ramezanzadeh criticized Mr.
Ahmadinejad for his defiant rhetoric, and counseled him to accept the Khatami approach:
"We should prove to the entire world that we want power
plants for electricity. Afterwards, we can proceed with
other activities."
The purpose of dialogue, Mr. Ramezanzadeh argued further, was not to compromise, but to build confidence and avoid
sanctions. "We had an overt policy, which was one of negotiation and confidence building, and a covert policy, which
was continuation of the activities," he said.
The strategy was successful. While, today, U.S. and European officials laud Mr. Khatami as a peacemaker, it was on his
watch that Iran built and operated covertly its Natanz nuclear enrichment plant and, at least until 2003, a nuclear
weapons program as well.
Iran's responsiveness to diplomacy is a mirage. After two years of talks following exposure of its Natanz facility, Tehran
finally acquiesced to a temporary enrichment suspension, a move which U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called "a
little bit of progress," and the EU hailed.
But, just last Sunday, Hassan Rowhani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator at the time, acknowledged his government's
insincerity. The Iranian leadership agreed to suspension, he explained in an interview with the government-run news
Web site, Aftab News, "to counter global consensus against Iran," adding:
"We did not accept suspension in construction of
centrifuges and continued the effort. . . . We needed
a greater number."
What diplomats considered progress, Iranian engineers understood to be an opportunity to expand their program.
In his March 24, 2009, press conference, Mr. Obama said, "I'm a big believer in persistence." Making the same mistake
repeatedly, however, is neither wise nor realism; it is arrogant, naïve and dangerous.
When Mr. Obama declared on April 5, 2009, that "All countries can access peaceful nuclear energy," the Iranian
state-run daily newspaper, Resalat, responded with a front page headline, "The United States capitulates to
the nuclear goals of Iran." With Washington embracing dialogue without accountability and Tehran embracing
diplomacy without sincerity, it appears the Iranian government is right.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
Military Weaponry & International Security:
Weapons of Mass Destruction & Arms Control
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 the Wall Street Journal, April 13, 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/2115/what-iran-really-thinks- about-talks)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
April 13, 2009
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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