THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 35, February 21, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
IRAN: TABLE TALK
By Dr. Michael Rubin & Danielle Pletka
WESTERN EFFORTS TO INDUCE IRAN'S POLITICAL REGIME TO END ITS ACCELERATING NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM &
THE USE & SPONSORSHIP OF TERRORISM: THE FUTILITY & OUTRIGHT DANGER OF THE WEST'S SEEKING
ENGAGEMENT & DIALOGUE WITH THE IRANIAN LEADERSHIP -- THE IRANIAN REGIME'S EXPLOITATION OF ENGAGEMENT &
DIALOGUE TO ADVANCE ITS AGENDA & CONTINUE THREATENING WORLD PEACE --THE WEST'S MISUNDERSTANDING OF
THE NATURE OF POLITICS IN IRAN -- FAILURE OF WESTERN ANALYSTS TO COMPREHEND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE
IRANIAN REGIME'S IDEOLOGICAL UNDERPINNINGS
FULL STORY:
Iran faces a deadline today to suspend its enrichment of uranium or, according to the terms of a United Nations
Security Council resolution unanimously adopted last December, face further sanctions. While it is only proper that
the world wait for the deadline to pass before responding, Tehran's answer is already clear. Gholam Reza Aghzadeh,
head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, has said that "Iran will not comply with the United Nations Security
Council Resolution 1737."
How will the West respond? Earlier this month, Sir Richard Dalton, until recently Britain's Ambassador in Tehran,
called for direct talks between U.S. and Iranian officials and suggested the West modify demands that the Islamic
Republic suspend uranium enrichment. Unfortunately, his eagerness for dialogue is being echoed and amplified
elsewhere, especially in the wake of the Bush administration's deal to pay North Korea for similar disarmament.
Needless to say, former luminaries such as ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and ex-President Jimmy Carter
think sitting down with the mullahs is a very good idea, UN Security Council resolutions notwithstanding.
Why not talk? The logic of engagement sounds good. But experience shows that engagement means something
different in Iran than in the West.
In May, 1992, for example, then German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel launched a "critical dialogue" with Tehran.
Berlin sought to use trade and incentives to encourage the Islamic Republic to alter its behavior. And, indeed, it did.
But not in the way Mr. Kinkel expected.
On Septermber 17, 1992, Iranian hit men assassinated three Iranian dissidents and their translator in a Berlin
restaurant. The subsequent German investigation determined that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Foreign Minister Ali Velayati ordered the murders. What about the dialogue?
"We don't give a damn about your ending the critical dialogue," said Supreme Leader Khamenei upon hearing the
German court ruling. "We never sought such a dialogue."
Neither Iran's terrorism nor intelligence indications of an accelerating nuclear weapons program dampened European
enthusiasm for engagement, however, especially after the election of President Muhammad Khatami and his
subsequent call for a "dialogue of civilizations." "There is more to be said for trying to engage and to draw these
societies into the international community than to cut them off," EU External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten
explained in February 2002. And engage they did.
Between 2000 and 2005, EU trade with Iran almost tripled. Officials from both sides of the Atlantic fawned on the
"reformist" Mr. Khatami. But the rapprochement -- including an embarrassing "apology" for past American sins
against Iran from Ms. Albright -- did not stop Mr. Khatami from flying to Moscow in March, 2001, to sign a $7 billion
arms and nuclear technology deal. Indeed, under Mr. Khatami, Tehran spent more on arms than it had under Hashemi
Rafsanjani.
Iran's exploitation of engagement to advance its agenda is the rule rather than the exception. In December, 2001, in the
midst of what many cite as the heyday of Iran-U.S. cooperation in Afghanistan, Iranian forces dispatched 50 tons of
weaponry to Palestinian militiamen to derail a U.S. and European-brokered ceasefire between Israeli and Palestinian
forces. On June 8, 2002, three days after a Palestinian Islamic Jihad suicide bus bomber killed 17 Israelis, the Islamic
Republic announced a 70% increase in that group's funding.
Western efforts to game the Iranian system, in short, misunderstand the nature of politics in the Islamic Republic.
Politicians rise and fall, but the Supreme Leader's authority remains supreme. Rhetoric notwithstanding, the Iranian
President is more figurehead than commander. Factional differences add color to the Iranian scene, and there are
nuances in economic and social policies. But politicians do not alter the regime's ideological underpinnings.
Upon his accession to Supreme Leader, analysts labeled Mr. Khamenei a weak compromise candidate. They
underestimated him, and all who have attempted to encroach upon his power have found themselves marginalized.
Iranians once speculated upon Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi's meteoric rise. A stint in prison ended that.
In 2005, Mr. Khamenei rigged elections to teach frontrunner Mr. Rafsanjani a lesson. The result was Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. And, as Mr. Ahmadinejad himself has proven obstreperous, Mr. Khamenei has built alternative
institutions to undercut him.
Still, the Iranian government is not monolithic, and many academics argue that outreach to more pragmatic factions
might encourage them at the hardliners' expense. This is American mirror imaging at its worst: Mr. Ahmadinejad may
be a bad guy, but that doesn't make Mr. Rafsanjani a pragmatist or Mr. Khatami a reformer. On key issues relating to
nuclear enrichment and terror sponsorship, their differences are rhetorical, not substantive. Thus the "pragmatic" Mr.
Rafsanjani, on February 1, 2007, dismissing UN demands to throttle back nuclear enrichment, stated: "We will break
the [international] consensus through wisdom and bravery and foil U.S. conspiracies against Iran."
Despite the Iranian government's unified commitment to forge ahead with the nuclear program, some Western
observers persist in their belief that the Islamic Republic is searching for a graceful way back from the brink. They
point to mounting economic hardship inside Iran and a backlash against President Ahmadinejad's demagoguery.
Couldn't engagement empower his critics?
This makes no sense. Dialogue and the attendant relaxation of UN sanctions will strengthen and validate the
Ahmadinejad regime.
Far from being susceptible to Western machinations, the Iranians have proven adept at manipulating us. Consider
that, since the beginning of the current tensions, the West has retreated from demands that Iran cease conversion of
yellowcake to uranium gas and end enrichment entirely to the current demand for nothing more than a temporary
suspension of uranium enrichment activities. And all this while Iran funneled weapons to Hezbollah, shipped
explosives into Iraq, and defied UN Security Council resolutions.
Proposals for renewed engagement may be well-intentioned, but they are naive and dangerous, and indeed will
undercut any possibility of a diplomatic solution. Let's review the current situation.
On September 24, 2005, the International Atomic Energy Agency determined that Iran was in violation of its nuclear
non-proliferation safeguards agreement. Still, the IAEA deferred referral to the UN Security Council to give diplomacy
a chance. After consulting with her European partners, on May 31, 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered
Tehran two ways forward: Either Iran could defy its international commitments and "incur only great costs," or it
could suspend enrichment and enjoy "real benefit and longer-term security." The Iranian regime chose to forego the
benefit. On December 23, 2006, the UN Security Council unanimously imposed sanctions.
The 60-day deadline to comply with United Nions demands is up, so what next? Those eager to sit down with Tehran
say that dialogue does not mean abandoning sanctions. This is hardly serious. Washington has already offered and
delivered inducements to the regime -- a clear path to World Trade Organization accession and spare aircraft parts --
in exchange for behavior modification. In response, Tehran has offered no confidence-building measures. All that
remains are direct talks, and even there, Washington has dropped the price from ending Iran's nuclear program to a
temporary suspension of enrichment.
The Security Council has spoken. To change course now would signal the impotence of international institutions and
multilateral diplomacy. History shows that, when the Supreme Leader believes Western resolve is faltering, Iran will be
more defiant and dangerous. Now is not the time to talk. If Washington and Europe truly believe in the primacy of
multilateralism and diplomacy, now is the time to ratchet up the pressure.
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 in the Real World
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) and a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, Islamic culture and Islamist
ideology, is Editor of the Middle East Quarterly 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 of Foreign Relations, the Leonard Davis Institute at Hebrew University, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and
International Affairs.
Danielle Pletka is Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy
Research. Ms. Pletka's areas of research and analysis include the Middle East, South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan),
terrorism, and weapons proliferation. In her capacity as the American Enterprise Institute's expert on Iraq, Pletka has developed
a series of conferences on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, as well as a project designed to promote constitutional democracy in
the Arab world. From 1992 to 2002, she was a senior professional staff member for Near East and South Asia with the United
States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where she was Chief Aide to Senator Jesse Helms. Prior to working with the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pletka was a staff writer for Insight Magazine (1987-1992) and a editorial assistant
with the Los Angeles Time and Reuters, in Jerusalem (1984-1985).
The foregoing article by Dr. Rubin and Ms. Pletka was originally published in the Wall Street Journal, February 21,
2007, and can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
February 21, 2007
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