President Obama’s first prime-time news conference featured three questions about U.S. foreign policy, chief among them, relations with Iran. Caren Bohan from the Reuters news service asked about President Obama’s strategy for dealing with Iran, and in his reply, President Obama made clear that he is starting over, conducting a formal review of relations with Iran with a view towards diplomatic engagement:
What I’ve also said is that we should take an approach with Iran that employs all of the resources at the United States’ disposal, and that includes diplomacy.
And so my national security team is currently reviewing our existing Iran policy, looking at areas where we can have constructive dialogue, where we can directly engage with them. And my expectation is in the coming months we will be looking for openings that can be created where we can start sitting across the table, face to face, diplomatic overtures that will allow us to move our policy in a new direction.
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Now it’s time for Iran to send some signals that it wants to act differently as well, and recognize that even as it has some rights as a member of the international community, with those rights come responsibilities.
The Washington Post reports that there are some early indications that Iran is starting to reciprocate President Obama’s willingness to engage Iran:
Iran is ready for dialogue with the United States, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday, directly addressing the U.S. administration in his most measured remarks to America since President Obama took office. “The new U.S. government has announced that it wants to create change and follow the path of talks. It’s very clear that true changes should be fundamental and not tactical,” Ahmadinejad said during a massive rally in Tehran to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed shah of Iran. “These talks should be held in a fair atmosphere in which there is mutual respect,” he added, laying out a precondition for any discussions.
The article goes on to note that Iranian relations with the U.S. are complex and there are many players in Iranian decision-making that could derail any warming of relations. Thérèse Delpech, senior associate fellow at the Center for the Study of International Relations (CERI), sounds a cautionary note in this analysis posted to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace website, noting that Iran has used negotiations in the past to stall and gain time for their nuclear program, and suggesting that time limits be placed on new diplomatic efforts.
