by Henry Precht

Thirty-five years since the Iranian revolution should be adequate time for aspiring Iran hands to turn a deaf ear to the “Death to America” chants from Tehran and the more polite “They can’t be trusted “ pundit wisdom from Washington. Perhaps, modestly and cautiously, we can draw a few [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Henry Precht

Thirty-five years since the Iranian revolution should be adequate time for aspiring Iran hands to turn a deaf ear to the “Death to America” chants from Tehran and the more polite “They can’t be trusted “ pundit wisdom from Washington. Perhaps, modestly and cautiously, we can draw a few lessons from those bad days for the present moment of hope.

First, what we didn’t know back then was a lot and it did hurt us. Our ignorance was profound. We didn’t know the Shah was condemned by cancer. Had we known, we might have treated him more as we did Marcos and less like, say, our toleration of the Greek colonels. Today’s question relates to President Hassan Rouhani’s political health, his physical health seemingly OK. Should we be nervous, i.e., should we act as if he were politically vulnerable? Or should we consider him in adequate shape to engage with our demands? If he faces trouble, can he be saved by respectful attention? Or should we write him off as a foredoomed aberration? The signs from Tehran incline me to believe that he is worthy of considerable political risk on our part.

We knew nothing about dealing with such a massive movement of millions of people in support of the revolution — a phenomenon rarely if even seen before on the globe. Nor did we have a clue about an Islamic government — another development never before achieved on earth. Today, Iran remains a dark zone. We can’t accurately assess the strength of the reform or conservative movements in Iran. How strong is Rouhani and how wide can he maneuver? I expect the White House is better at evaluating its American support for an agreement with Iran. But can it match Rouhani’s willingness to confront critics? We can only hope that authentic, balanced expertise on Iran is available and listened to in the White House.

Second, Washington 35 years ago was unable to address the crisis in Iran because (1) the White House, State Department and other agencies could not agree on an analysis of the reality in Iran and (2) hence could not settle on a sensible policy. The Shah looked westward for guidance; the West looked inward at domestic critics and commentators. The product was drift towards increasing danger. Today, the administration seems more intent on appeasing senators — whence the real threat — rather than educating its public and building unity.

Third, we appeared to think that because everything had always worked out for the Shah, everything would again swing his way. In our superior self-confidence, we ignored the revolutionary demand for “independence” from our sway. We, in our history with Iran, were a big part of our problem. We declined to shift off any initiative to Europeans who might have been more persuasive, who might have helped moderate the crisis. Today, we resist any move by allies to accelerate the pace of an accommodation with Iran, e.g., easing more sanctions.

Fourth, we grasped at other models to fashion a response to Iran. In some quarters of Washington, officials thought the Shah’s generals and their troops might crack down or even stage a coup when it became necessary. But the generals were appointed mainly on the intensity of their loyalty upwards, not their patriotism, creativity or soldierly virtues. Iran was not Pakistan or a South American republic. And its troops were from the same religious background as those fellows on the other side of the barricades. Today, we should at least question whether in their many sub-groups Iranians hold differing opinions on the nuclear question or are more — or less — willing to question the nature of the regime. Preconceived dogmatic certainties preclude realistic analysis.

Fifth, back in 1978-79 we worried that if we treated the Shah rudely, other autocratic friends — Saudis, Sadat, smaller fry — would get the idea that the US would willingly sacrifice them if it became hard-pressed. While it shouldn’t be necessary to learn a patriotic lesson from another’s revolution, America should always put its interests in front of those of smaller, loudly complaining buddies who are rarely totally satisfied with our behavior.

Sixth, Washington’s attention to the slowly, then quickly moving Iranian crisis was blocked by the enormous attention given to the Camp David peace effort with Israel and Egypt. One crisis at a time, if you please. Can Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House handle Iran, Palestine-Israel, Syria and Egypt, et al, at the same time? They must — in some fashion or another.

Finally, the Shah badly needed American advice or, rather, orders on dealing with his rebellious people. President Jimmy Carter, it was said, was confused by the conflicting advice he received and reluctant to take the responsibility of telling another chieftain how to run his country. So no one did. Tough love and courage are requisites of leadership.

Americans are not particularly good at history. We gather a few facts, stick with them, often creating a myth from out of date supposed truths. Now is the ripe time for opening up to changing realities in Iran, modifying myths and constructing a more hopeful future.

by Henry Precht

The recent telephone conversation between Presidents Obama and Rouhani — and their positive descriptions of the exchange – are precisely on target for bringing an end to the Iran-US Cold War.

Distrust has been the background noise for that conflict for more than 35 years. It need not have [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Henry Precht

The recent telephone conversation between Presidents Obama and Rouhani — and their positive descriptions of the exchange – are precisely on target for bringing an end to the Iran-US Cold War.

Distrust has been the background noise for that conflict for more than 35 years. It need not have been so.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the US observed a restriction on dealing with Iranians that was virtually unique in our diplomatic relations: we refused to have contact with the sovereign’s opponents. Even on American soil we declined to sit with anti-regime Iranian students. Once in the 1970s, an enterprising political officer in Tehran made an appointment to call on a prominent bazaar mullah. The Ministry of Court called Ambassador Richard Helms and said the visit would be unwise. The appointment was cancelled. In 1975, visiting Senator Charles Percy was briefed at the American and Israeli embassies. The latter told him that the mullahs were the regime’s greatest threat. Such an analysis was never heard from the Americans.

Come the revolution of 1978 and it soon became apparent that we were in touch with only one-half of Iranian politics — the losing half. Slowly, cautiously, Embassy political officers began to talk to oppositionist Mehdi Bazargan and his friends. In Washington, however, Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher forbade me as an Iranian desk officer to meet with Ibrahim Yazdi who was on his way to serve Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris.

That gentleman, leader of the revolution, remained off limits until about a month before the end game. Bill Sullivan, ambassador in Tehran, proposed that Washington send a representative to meet with the Ayatollah. President Jimmy Carter agreed. Retired Ambassador Ted Eliot was picked to do the job of explaining US policy towards the conflict and urging a more moderate approach for the revolutionaries. The Shah was informed and shrugged, “A great power must protect its interests.”

Carter and his advisor Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski left for the Guadeloupe summit of world leaders and returned with an altered perspective: the call on Khomeini was cancelled without explanation. Sullivan — on a secure phone line — cursed eloquently whoever made that “stupid decision.”

Would it have made a difference if there had been an American meeting and exchange with Khomeini? Might it have overcome the abiding conviction of the Iranian revolutionaries that we were unalterably committed to the Shah’s rule?

Perhaps not. Many on the wrong side of the barricades were convinced that Washington was determined to keep Iran as a subservient ally. But a meeting might — just might — have generated some reflection and questioning of customary wisdom. With follow-up meetings, talks could have led to a more moderate and balanced view of the American role in the region. As it was, in the months that followed, Iranian officials regularly scolded American embassy personnel for “not accepting the revolution.” Assurances to the contrary did not ring true when we refused even to talk to the revolution’s leader.

That was the backdrop for Washington’s efforts to construct a new and more normal relationship with Tehran. In the spring of 1979, Washington named a new ambassador, Walt Cutler, and Charge Charles Naas prepared to depart. Naas proposed that he seek a meeting with Khomeini to absorb the angry old man’s ire but leave the precedent of an exchange for Cutler’s benefit. Washington approved. Iran’s interim prime minister, Bazargan, was enthusiastic; here was evidence that the US was taking a new, fresh attitude towards the revolution. Perhaps a first step towards easing distrust? We hoped so, too.

But it was not to be. The Iranians executed a wealthy Jewish businessman and friend of the Shah, one of a series of judicial murders against the old regime. Led by Senator Jacob Javits, the US Senate quickly condemned revolutionary Iran in a resolution that was drafted without Executive Branch input.

Khomeini was furious at the perceived insult and interference in Iran’s affairs. He was also cautious. “Don’t break relations with them,” he told his associates. “But make them know they can’t treat us like the puppet Shah.” The agreement for Cutler as ambassador was nullified; the visit of Naas to Khomeini was cancelled.

Distrust blossomed. Washington had lost two openings to explain its policy toward Iran and gain a clearer insight as to where the country was headed. When the embassy was seized in November, we Americans had no established connection with the one man who might have ended the crisis. We could only shout at each other across an ocean.

Obviously, talking to an antagonist alone can’t fundamentally alter a relationship. But it can enhance understanding and cast doubt on dogma. Distrust breeds where one doesn’t hear, “on the other hand” or, “have you thought about the issue from this perspective?”

Not talking opens doors and windows to those who would further embitter a relationship out of ignorance, accident or design. The US-Iranian connection is replete with long periods of destructive silence.

If tensions between Tehran and Washington are to be eased, it is imperative that leaders in the two capitals keep up the flow of exchanges — at the most senior level and also between cadres of officials on both sides. Before too long, that would mean reopened embassies and revitalized exchange programs.

Iran is a land nurtured by poetry and rhetoric. Free speech is a prime American value. Relying on these aural talents, it is time for a continuous and growing exchange between the two nations.

Gary Sick, who served as an Iran specialist on the National Security Council staffs of Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan, speaks to Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose about an article that he wrote for the magazine in 1987, which still holds up today.

Also don’t miss Dr. [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Gary Sick, who served as an Iran specialist on the National Security Council staffs of Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan, speaks to Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose about an article that he wrote for the magazine in 1987, which still holds up today.

Also don’t miss Dr. Sick’s review of a superb new book on US policy during the Iran-Iraq war for IPS News.

Today in the [...]]]> Something of a little blog firestorm was sparked when the Washington Post‘s neoconservative blogger Jennifer Rubin claimed that George W. Bush deserved credit for setting in motion the Tunisian uprising against its U.S.-backed dictator because the seed that sprouted popular revolt was Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

Today in the New York Times, WINEP fellow Martin Kramer is quoted warning against the dangers of the reemergence of Tunisia’s Islamist party, Al-Nahda, widely regarded as one of the most progressive versions of Islamism on the planet:

Martin Kramer, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who had long criticized Mr. Ghannouchi of Al-Nahda, argued that the party’s professions of pluralism could not be trusted. “Islamists become the more moderate and tolerant of pluralism the further away from power they are,” he said.

For Kramer, this is little more than the latest campaign in a decades-long crusade against Islamism. After Sept. 11, 2001, he went so far as to say that all Islamism breeds terrorism, holding up Lebanon as an example where democratic inclusion has wrought stumbling blocks, but also citing problems with radical Islamism in U.S.-backed dictatorships like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Kramer has been denouncing the Tunisian Islamist movement since the early 1990s, when the main party’s now-exiled founder called for attacking U.S. interests in response to the first Gulf War. But those sorts of views have been moderated in the ensuing two decades. In the Times profile of Al-Nahda’s leader inside Tunisia, he says women should choose to wear veils (and called for political quotas “until they get their voices”), and  doesn’t even have a problem with bikinis and sipping wine.

But Kramer doesn’t care for these subtleties, espousing that Islam can play no role in politics at all, ever. Naturally, Kramer is an unflinching supporter of an ethnocratic Israel, though, to be fair, Kramer is consistent — he has flirted openly, elsewhere in the Middle East, with anti-democratic “minority rule”:

In Iraq’s Sunni triangle, they like their tribes and they might want a tough-minded sheikh to keep order among them; in the Shi’ite south, they might wish to venerate a white-bearded recluse in a turban, and have him resolve all their disputes; and so on. What they crave is not democracy, but sub-national self-determination…

(Tell them what they want, Dr. Kramer…)

America cannot revive the Ottoman empire, but it might take a lesson from its legacy: that empire is most effective when it is invisible, that there are things worse than minority rule.

I don’t know what Kramer thinks of Iraq today, but I do know what Rubin thinks of it. It’s Bush’s gift that keeps on giving! Here’s her description of the Iraqi state, emphasized by me:

The left blogosphere seems to have wigged out over the suggestion that George W. Bush and the successful emergence of a secular, democratic Iraq has anything to do with all this.

(While Kramer opposes some Middle East autocrats, he doesn’t note that fervent Islamism, as in Iran’s 1979 revolution and establishment of an Islamic Republic, is often a reaction to U.S. support for these autocrats, as with the CIA toppling of a secular, democratic coup to re-install the Shah in 1953.)

Yet, in a world where Kramer and Rubin warn and warn and warn about Islamism — even in moderated forms — here are the first words of the constitution (PDF) of this “secular, democratic Iraq”:

The Preamble

In the name of God, the Most merciful, the Most compassionate

The document continues in Section One:

Article 2:

First: Islam is the official religion of the State and is a foundation source of legislation:

A. No law may be enacted that contradicts the established provisions of Islam.

B. No law may be enacted that contradicts the principles of democracy.

C.  No law may be enacted that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms stipulated in this Constitution.

Second: This Constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and guarantees the full religious rights to freedom of religious belief and practice of all individuals such as Christians, Yazidis, and Mandean Sabeans.

Article 3:

Iraq is a country of multiple nationalities, religions, and sects.  It is a founding and active member in the Arab League and is committed to its charter, and it is part of the Islamic world.

Iraq is not so secular, after all.

Will Kramer denounce the government of Islamic Iraq? Will Rubin admit that, since she holds up the example of Islamic democracy in Iraq (not secular, though with minority protections), perhaps her “real concern” for any “specific sign of an Islamist presence” may not be so sound?

I doubt it. Neocons like Rubin will simply go on ignoring the Islamic character of Iraq when it is convenient to use the country as example of what can be accomplished by going to war.

Take, for example, Iran’s Green Movement, which Rubin and her ideological comrades like Reuel Marc Gerecht claim to support (all the while calling for an attack on Iran that will likely blunt the movement’s chances of success).

Undoubtedly, the Green Movement has an element that pushes for the end of the Islamic Republic, but this is not a monolithic view among the movement’s supporters. Many of its adherents want a reformed Islamic Republic, as with the opposition leadership inside Iran. If one prefers to think of the Green Movement as leaderless, he still cannot deny that figures like Mir Hossein Moussavi and his wife, Mohammad Khatami, and Mehdi Karroubi, do not constitute an important place within the movement.

Neocons, nonetheless, unabashedly call for regime change by any means in Iran, ignoring the fact that the only viable opposition movement there is divided on the issue of maintaining the Islamic Republic.

The notion that moderate, democratic strains of Islamism exist — as with most ideologies — and should be allowed to enter political discourse is blasphemy to these rigid ideologues. (Neoconservatism, for its part, seems not to have a moderate strain.) Kramer insists that his call for blanket exclusion of Islamism “has nothing to do with Islam per se”– but one has to wonder.

The former New York Times journalist’s previous book, All the Shah’s Men, is a must-read account of the CIA orchestrated 1953 coup that unseated a secular democratic [...]]]> In the newest edition of Foreign Affairs, Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol has a review of Stephen Kinzer’s latest book, Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future.

The former New York Times journalist’s previous book, All the Shah’s Men, is a must-read account of the CIA orchestrated 1953 coup that unseated a secular democratic Iranian government in favor of returning the Shah to power. Kinzer demonstrates how those events, which most Americans know little about, led to a radical blowback 25 years later when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini created the Islamic Republic.

In his latest volume released this summer, Kinzer argues for a radical shift in U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Iranians and Turks both have democratic inclinations and vibrant middle classes to support civil society, he notes, as well as a disdain for Sunni radical groups like Al Qaeda. According to Kinzer, the United States should form a strong alliance with these countries to promote democracy and combat extremism.

In his review, Akyol notes this argument may be construed as “counterintuitive” because of Turkey’s recent assertiveness and the heightened U.S.-Iran tensions over the nuclear issue. Nonetheless, he considers Kinzer’s rationale for resetting the alliances as “a long-term project”with “ample grounding in the modern history of the region.”

Since Akyol is Turkish, his review naturally focuses on that corner of the triangle. Following is a section from the review on Iran, reproduced in full with my emphasis:

CARROTS ARE FOR DONKEYS

Still, Kinzer’s power triangle could not emerge in today’s world. Iran, he writes, “would have to change dramatically” and turn into a democracy before such an alliance could be formed. How that would happen — a truly daunting question — is unclear, but in the meantime, Kinzer proposes a twofold strategy: engage with the current regime as effectively as possible and wait for the day when the country’s democratically minded (and, as he calls them, “reliably pro-American”) masses make their way to power.

Engagement, of course, is already the Obama administration’s stated policy, but Kinzer urges Washington to be bolder, that is, to launch “direct, bilateral, comprehensive, and unconditional negotiations” with Tehran. Nixon’s diplomatic breakthrough with communist China, he reminds readers, came at a time when Beijing was supplying weapons to North Vietnamese soldiers, who were using them to kill Americans. “Nixon did not make good behavior a condition of negotiation,” Kinzer notes. “He recognized that diplomacy works in precisely the opposite way. Agreement comes first; changes in behavior follow.”

Kinzer also criticizes the tone of current U.S. diplomacy, which does not give the Iranians what he thinks they are really looking for: “respect, dignity, a restoration of lost pride.” This makes a so-called carrot-and-stick approach to Tehran counterproductive. That “may be appropriate for donkeys,” Kinzer writes, “but not for dealing with a nation ten times older than [the United States].” The key to turning Iran from foe to friend is not to make Iran’s regime feel more threatened; it is to make it feel more secure.

Even then, there are many imponderables about Iran, and the current regime may be unwilling to partner with the United States no matter the tone of U.S. overtures. Kinzer’s only advice here is for the United States to avoid being emotional, “do nothing that will make that partnership more difficult to achieve when conditions are right,” and, if negotiations do begin, make “no concessions to Iran’s regime that weaken Iranians who are persecuted for defending democratic values.” Yet Kinzer leaves unclear how that delicate balance could be maintained and offers little guidance for policymakers looking for a more practical road map.