U.S. Role in the World

This is a follow-up to the previous post about the Russian decision to place short-range missiles in Kaliningrad. In this analsysis for ISN Security Watch, Sergei Blagov suggests that the Russian decision is not an attempt to challenge the new U.S. president (suggested by the timing of the announcement) but instead can properly been seen in the context of the moves and counter-moves by the U.S. and Russia over the issue of missile defense. It remains to be seen if today’s test of a new Iranian long-range missile (the kind the American ABM system is designed to protect against) will have any impact on the Russian decision. The U.S. quickly denounced the missile test.

Glenn Greenwald reacts in this Salon piece to an op-ed in The Washington Post by a Democrat and a Republican urging the next president to immediately prepare for war with Iran. Here is a quote that I find interesting:

It’s just objectively true that there is no country in the world — anywhere — that threatens to attack and bomb other countries as routinely and blithely as the U.S. does.  What rational leader wouldn’t want to obtain nuclear weapons in a world where the “superpower” is run by people like Dan Coats and Chuck Robb who threaten to attack and bomb whatever countries they want?  Even the Coats/Robb Op-Ed argues that Iranian proliferation would be so threatening to the U.S. because “the ability to quickly assemble a nuclear weapon would effectively give Iran a nuclear deterrent” — in other words, they’d have the ability to deter a U.S. attack on their country, and we can’t have that.

My question then is: Is the U.S. creating the world it is reacting against, a world in which nuclear proliferation and anti-Americanism are the primary choices left to rising regional powers? Are we creating the threats, or are we prudently anticipating and reacting to threats that would exist regardless of the path the U.S. takes?

There have been a number of developments in Latin America that on the surface appear to be great challenges for the United States. Venezuala’s president Hugo Chavez has emerged as a leader of a new anti-American movement, welcoming trade deals with Iran and hosting new military ventures with Russia. Bolivia has also signed billion dollar trade deals with Iran to develop natural gas and oil resources. In a new essay posted to the American Diplomacy website, Hal Brands reviews the current state of U.S. relations with Latin America and finds reasons for optimism. Looking forward to the challenges that the next president will face, he identifies five “essential tasks” for the U.S. to accomplish in order to maintain positive U.S.-Latin American relations in the near-term. The new president will face great challenges but will also have an opportunity to open a new chapter in the history of U.S. relations with Latin America, let’s hope he takes advantage of it.

New to the blogroll is one of my favorite internet resources, The Atlantic Community. Here’s what they have to say about themselves:

Atlantic-community.org is a project conducted by the Atlantische Initiative, a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Berlin. The Atlantische Initiative was founded in 2004 in order to promote transatlantic cooperation and strengthen Germany’s foreign policy culture. We believe that the challenges of the twenty-first century can only be overcome if Europe and North America work together. We endeavor to contribute to the development of a strategic community that encompasses all relevant social spheres: politics, business, academia, culture, and the media.

Recently posted to the website is an essay by Fabian Martin Lieschke on Iran’s Strategy is Working in which he makes the case that Iran’s nuclear strategy – one that allows it to buy time and improve its negotiating position – seems to be working. I always find something interesting to read when I visit the Atlantic Community and recommend it to you as a great resource for thoughtful essays on international topics.

Yesterday NBC Nightly News broadcast an interview with Iranian President Ahmadinejad. If you saw the interview, what did you think of it?

As you watch the interview, consider the following: Does he answer the questions posed by Brian Williams? Does he acknowledge the deadline given to Iran? Does he suggest any flexibility about the possibility of Iran suspending uranium enrichment?

The Geneva meeting with Iran over the weekend did not go well. The presence of a U.S. representative apparently made little difference, nor did Iran appear to appreciate the gesture (The Washington Post - Iran Nuclear Talks End Without Agreement):

High-level international talks on Iran’s nuclear program ended inconclusively today in Geneva, with European envoy Javier Solana telling reporters that Iran needed to give a more definitive answer within two weeks.

The meeting was significant because for the first time a U.S. diplomat, Undersecretary of State William J. Burns, joined other envoys in meeting with the top Iranian nuclear negotiator. U.S. officials had said the shift in Bush administration policy was intended to help lead to a breakthrough in the impasse over the Iranian program, but if Iran failed to respond positively, it only would unify the international coalition dealing with Iran.

“It was a constructive meeting, but still we didn’t get the answer to our questions,” Solana said at a news conference. “We hope very much we get the answer and we hope it will be done in a couple of weeks.”

I can’t help but think that Iran passed up an important opportunity to show flexibility and that this does not bode well for an eventual diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis. What happens next? In true diplomatic fashion, the parties resolved to meet again in two-weeks, with continued Iranian intransigence expected to be met with another round of U.N. sanctions. If Iran does not compromise then the Security Council will be forced to consider stronger measures, which Russia and China may well veto, placing Iran on a path toward unilateral military action by the U.S. and Israel. The only real grounds for optimism I see is the prospect that Iran is waiting until after the U.S. presidential election in the hopes that they may get a better deal from the next president.

By now you have heard the news that a U.S. representative will attend a previously scheduled meeting tomorrow with an Iranian representative in Geneva. Although this represents a dramatic departure from the U.S. effort to isolate Iran, a skeptical observer may ask why this such an important move. Do we really expect a breakthrough? An op-ed in today’s New York Times addresses this issue (A Seat At The Table):

Mr. Bush’s decision to send William Burns (Ms. Rice’s third in command and a well-respected former ambassador to Russia) to join the European Union’s foreign policy chief and other top diplomats in talks with Iran makes any incentives package look more credible. It also shifts the diplomatic pressure back to Tehran. And it will make it harder for Beijing and Moscow to resist imposing a new round of sanctions if Iran remains obstinate.

So, the reply to our skeptical observer is that the presence of William Burns will strengthen the West’s negotiating position while creating a diplomatic opening for further engagement, should the meeting go well. Our skeptic may well point out, though, that Burns’ presence does nothing to enhance either the incentives or disincentives presented to Iran in the current proposal regarding uranium enrichment, nor have Iran’s “red lines” changed. Perhaps it is enough to say that Burns’ presence changes the style rather than the substance of the six-party effort to halt enrichment and that this change in style may encourage those on the Iranian side who may be looking for an opening to forge a compromise. In advance of this meeting then, let’s define our expectations: we are looking for some evidence of a new flexibility on the part of Iran, and if we see that, then perhaps we can say that the presence of an American representative was an experiment worth repeating.

Today’s New York Times offers some analysis (Policy Shift Seen in U.S. Decision on Iran Talks) of the potential breakthrough mentioned in the last post, and it looks like oil prices are starting to respond to the lessening tensions between the U.S. and Iran. In this video from The Council on Foreign Relations, foreign policy experts Trita Parsi and Barbara Slavin discuss relations between the United States and Iran, including Iran’s role in Iraq, the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate and prospects for an improved U.S.-Iran relationship. Let’s hope those prospects are brighter after the meeting this weekend.

A quick follow-up to my last post to note that the U.S. appears to be inching toward a new engagement with Iran. According to this New York Times report (U.S. Envoy to Join Meeting With Iranian):

President Bush has authorized the most significant American diplomatic contact with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, sending the State Department’s third-ranking official to Geneva for a meeting this weekend on Iran’s nuclear program, administration officials said Tuesday. The decision appeared to bend, if not exactly break, the administration’s insistence that it would not negotiate with Iran over its nuclear programs unless it first suspended uranium enrichment, as demanded by three resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.

Let’s hope the Iranian leadership will see this as a sign of a thaw and will reciprocate the gesture.

Should we talk to Iran? The U.S. has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since the Hostage Crisis of 1979 (holding the diplomatic staff hostage is generally not conducive to good relations) and the U.S. has used intermediaries ever since rather than risk sending personnel to a country where citizens still routinely gather to chant “death to America” while burning American flags. I’ve been told that such public gatherings are PR stunts and that the Iranian public still has a high regard for the people of the U.S, which is rather a nice thought if it’s true. Could it be that Iranian politicians manipulate domestic public opinion for political purposes? At any rate, when President Bush included Iran in his “Axis of Evil” he signaled there would be no rapprochement with Iran on his watch. More recently, relations with Iran entered into the U.S. primary election debate as candidates sparred over who would be the first to negotiate with Iran. Since the U.S. is officially not talking to Iran, such willingness to meet is seen by some as signaling a future policy shift away from the Bush effort to isolate Iran.

An idea to establish lower level contacts, perhaps as a precursor to re-establishing full diplomatic relations, has been proposed from time to time. Just last month the idea was debated in the press (Jerusalem Post - US mum on Iran interests section report):

The United States refuses to confirm reports about the possibility of opening an interests section in Teheran. Fred Hiatt, a columnist with The Washington Post, wrote Monday that “senior officials” at the US State Department were considering a proposal to open such a section. Through this, the US would be able to reach out to youth groups and dissidents, without re-establishing diplomatic relations with Teheran, Hiatt quoted one of the officials as saying. Hiatt further said the idea had been under discussion for almost two years and could be adopted within weeks.

This week former assistant secretary of state James Rubin endorsed the idea of opening an interest section in Teheran in an op-ed in The New York Times (Our Man in Iran?):

Iran is an anomaly in the Middle East. In Iran, unlike in the Arab world, America is seen as an adversary primarily by the government while most of the Iranian people see it as a country of freedom and moderation. American policy should build on this phenomenon. The more Iranians see the real America, rather than the propaganda version portrayed in their reactionary media, the more they will push for democratic rights at home and moderate behavior abroad. This is where our diplomats come in. The main purpose of sending them to Iran would be to simplify travel for Iranians to the United States.

Rubin contrasts our lack of engagement with Iran with our engagement of Russia and China during the Cold War (when the stakes where much higher) and suggests that a ground-level people-to-people approach may work well even as the governments still do not get along. If President Bush approves the opening of interest section in Teheran he can always say he is following a time-tested winning strategy. I think the American people would like that.