Iran: the Case for Talking

In an Arms Control Association issue brief published on January 4, Greg Thielmann ably makes the case for trying to resolve the Iranian nuclear dilemma by means of old-fashioned diplomacy. The ACA’s introduction to the piece forcefully gets across just how drastically and dangerously U.S.-Iranian relations have deteriorated in the last months:

“At the end of 2011, the U.S. Congress passed new legislation to sanction transactions with the Central Bank of Iran. In response, Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz…. Republican presidential candidates meanwhile charged Iran with everything from building nuclear facilities under mosques to declaring its intent to attack the United States with nuclear weapons. And the Obama administration stated repeatedly that ‘the military option remains on the table.’ “

In the meantime, on a slightly more positive note, Defense Secretary Panetta has specified that (only) Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would represent a red line for the United States. And whatever Republican contenders may have been saying, it’s clear the American public wants out of the old wars the country is in and does not want to get into new ones. But today comes news of another assassination in Iran, a sharp reminder that this particular war is not merely a cold one.

Thielmann argues for opening U.S.-Iranian diplomatic channels if only to avoid possibly fatal misunderstandings. Why, if we found it possible to deal with tyrants like Stalin and Mao, he wonders, cannot we deal with the unattractive crowd currently running the show in Tehran?

I have no quarrel with anything Thielmann says here. But let me introduce just two cautionary notes as to the limits of his analysis. First, though his issue brief find many pertinent cautionary tales in the cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States, we should bear in mind that the “real war” (to borrow a phrase from Richard Nixon and Walt Whitman) is not between the United States and Iran but between Iran and Israel. It is not the United States that is assassinating Iranian scientists, condoning such acts, or sabotaging nuclear facilities. Everybody knows it’s Mossad.

So if some real talking is going to take place, Israel needs to be made part of that conversation.

Second, let’s be clear that this is not just a cold war between Israel and Iran. Even during the worst years of the cold war the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union did not openly threaten to literally annihilate each other as living entities. And nor did the two superpowers assassinate each other’s scientists or blow up each other’s factories. What’s going on between Israel and Iran is virtually war, and it’s serious.

The so-called “grand bargain” between the United States and Iran–diplomatic recognition of Iran in exchange for full nuclear transparency, understandings about respective interests in Iraq, perhaps U.S. promises not to interfere in Iran’s domestic affairs for Iranian promises not to support terrorist organizations, maybe even something concerning Israel’s nuclear status and the future of a Middle Eastern nuclear-free zone–that would be much too much to hope for in a U.S. presidential election year. But in 2013? Maybe.