via IPS News

In the wake of a renewed diplomatic push on the Iranian nuclear front, shared interests in Iran’s backyard could pave the way for Washington and Tehran to work toward overcoming decades of hostility.

“I think that if Iran and the United States are able to [...]]]> by Jasmin Ramsey

via IPS News

In the wake of a renewed diplomatic push on the Iranian nuclear front, shared interests in Iran’s backyard could pave the way for Washington and Tehran to work toward overcoming decades of hostility.

“I think that if Iran and the United States are able to overcome their differences regarding Iran’s nuclear programme, if there begins to be some progress in that regard, then I do see opportunities for dialogue and cooperation on a broader range of issues, including my issues, which is to say Afghanistan,” Ambassador James F. Dobbins, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told IPS at a briefing here Monday.

This summer’s election of Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, a moderate cleric with centrist and reformist backing as well as close ties to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has been followed by signals that Iran may be positioning itself to agree to a deal over its controversial nuclear programme.

Rouhani’s appointment of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to oversee Iran’s nuclear dossier has been received positively here by leading foreign policy elites who consider Zarif a worthy negotiating partner.

The Western-educated former Iranian ambassador to the United Nations is slotted to meet with his British counterpart William Hague at the U.N. General Assembly later this month, which could lead to a resumption of diplomatic ties that were halted following a 2011 storming of the British embassy in Tehran by a group of protestors.

Dobbins, who worked closely with Zarif in 2001 after being appointed by the George W. Bush administration to aid the establishment of a post-Taliban government in Afghanistan, told IPS that “Iran was quite helpful” with the task.

“I think it’s unfortunate that our cooperation, which was, I think, genuine and important back in 2001, wasn’t able to be sustained,” added Dobbins.

The U.S. halted official moves toward further cooperation with Iran following a 2002 speech by Bush that categorised Iran as part of an “axis of evil” with Iraq and North Korea.

While President Barack Obama’s “A New Beginning” speech in Cairo in 2009 indicated a move away from Bush-era rhetoric on the Middle East, the U.S.’s Iran policy has remained sanctions-centric – a main point of contention for Iran during last year’s nuclear talks.

Positive signs from both sides

But a recent string of events, which continued even as the U.S. seemed to be positioning itself to strike Iranian ally Syria, have led to speculation that the long-time adversaries may be edging toward direct talks, though the White House denied speculation that this could take place at the U.N. General Assembly.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham also verified the exchange but denied speculation that Syria was a subject.

“Obama’s letter was received, but it was not about Syria and it was a congratulation letter (to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani) whose response was sent,” Afkham told reporters in Tehran in comments posted on the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

That both leaders have publicly acknowledged such rare contact is an important development in and of itself, according to Robert E. Hunter, who served on the National Security Council staff throughout the Jimmy Carter administration.

“This is an effort as much as anything to test the waters in domestic American politics regarding direct talks, regarding the possibility of seeing whether something more productive can be done than in the past. And except out of Israel, I haven’t seen a lot of powerful protest,” Hunter told IPS.

“The Iranians have already backed off on the stuff about the Holocaust by saying it was that ‘other guy’. Now, and this is a reach, but keep in mind that as the slogan goes, the road between Tehran and Washington runs through Jerusalem,” said Hunter, who was U.S. ambassador to NATO (1993-98).

“A serious improvement of U.S.-Iran relations also requires Iran to do things in regard to Israel that will reduce Israel’s anxiety about Iranian intentions on the nuclear front, and on Hezbollah,” he said.

Hunter added that “compatible interests” between the two countries, including security and stability in Iraq and Afghanistan and freedom of shipping in the vital oil transport route, the Strait of Hormuz, could also pave the way to improved relations.

A shift in Iran

Even Khamenei, who has always been deeply suspicious of U.S. policy toward Iran, has given permission for Rouhani to enter into direct talks with the U.S., according to an op-ed published by Project Syndicate and written by former Iranian nuclear negotiator, Hossein Mousavian.

During a meeting Monday with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Khamenei also said he was “not opposed to correct diplomacy” and believes in “heroic flexibility”, according to an Al-Monitor translation.

Adding to the eyebrow-raising remarks was Khamenei’s echoing of earlier comments by Rouhani that the IRGC does not need to have a direct hand in politics.

“It is not necessary for it to act as a guard in the political scene, but it should know the political scene,” said Khamenei, who has nurtured years of close relations with the powerful branch of Iran’s military.

Iran sends out feelers

On Sept. 12, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation Ali Akbar Salehi announced that Iran had reduced its stockpile of 20 percent low enriched uranium by converting it into fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR).

This was described as “misleading” by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) based on how little LEU Iran had reportedly converted to fuel.

“As such, this action cannot be seen as a significant confidence building measure,” argued ISIS in a press release.

But Paul Pillar, a former top CIA analyst who served as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia (2000 to 2005), called this “an example of all-too-prevalent reductionism that seeks to fold political and psychological questions into technical ones.”

“Confidence-building measures can mean many things, but in general they have at least as much to do with perceptions and intentions as they do with gauging physical steps against some technical yardstick,” Pillar told IPS.

“Confidence-building measures…are gestures of goodwill and intent. They are not walls against a possible future ‘break-out’. If they were, they would not be confidence-building measures; they would be a solving of the whole problem,” he said.

Photo Credit: ISNA/Mehdi Ghasemi

by Peter Jenkins

For the last week the British government has given every sign of being in a dreadful muddle over how to react to the suspicion that chemical weapons (CW) were used in the suburbs of Damascus early on 21 August.

Two words that ought to have featured prominently in ministerial [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Peter Jenkins

For the last week the British government has given every sign of being in a dreadful muddle over how to react to the suspicion that chemical weapons (CW) were used in the suburbs of Damascus early on 21 August.

Two words that ought to have featured prominently in ministerial statements, “due process”, were entirely absent. Instead, Messrs William Hague and James Cameron spoke at times as though the UK and its Western allies were fully entitled to act as judge, jury and executioner.

I hope I won’t offend US readers if I say that Europeans half expect that sort of mentality from US leaders. We look on the US as a country in which habits formed in the Wild West in the nineteenth century resurface from time to time. But from our own European politicians, schooled by centuries of intra-European conflict, we look for more measured and cautious responses.

Reinforcing the impression of indifference to international legality, British ministers seemed hopelessly confused about how the precipitate use of force that they were advocating could be justified, and about what it was supposed to achieve.

At one moment President Bashar al-Assad had to be “punished”; at another the West had to “retaliate” for his use of CW (although so far Western nationals are not reported to be among the victims).

Some statements suggested that the West should act to uphold an international norm against the use of CW, others that the West had to act in order to protect Syria’s population from further CW attacks (although none of the military measures reportedly under consideration can come close to delivering “protection”).

Mercifully, as of 29 August, it looks as though Messrs Hague and Cameron are at last starting to come to their senses, sobered perhaps by parliamentary resistance to signing a blank cheque for a resort to force and by opinion polls suggesting that the British public is opposed to force by a margin of more than two to one.

To those of us who are familiar with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) this pantomime has been puzzling.

Syria is one of (only) seven states that have not ratified the CWC. The rational way to proceed, however, is to treat Syria, mutatis mutandis, as though it were a CWC party, since the norm enshrined in the CWC dates back to 1925 and is, effectively, a global norm, a norm that no state can reasonably reject (unlike the so-called “right to protect”, propagated by Mr. Blair and others, which is far from being universally accepted).

The relevant provisions of the CWC can be summarised as follows:

- CWC parties are entitled to request “challenge inspections” to clarify possible instances of non-compliance with the Convention’s prohibitions, and to have this inspection conducted “without delay”;

- The inspection team will produce a report which contains factual findings as well as an assessment of the cooperation extended by the inspected party;

- The inspected party has a right to comment on that report and to have its comments submitted to other parties;

- The parties shall then meet to decide whether non-compliance has occurred, and whether further action may be necessary “to redress the situation and to ensure compliance”.

Note the emphasis on giving the inspected party a right to comment before parties come to conclusions about what the inspection report implies. This could be especially important in the Syrian case if, as leaked signal intelligence implies, a Syrian army unit used CW last week against the wishes of the Syrian Ministry of Defence.

Note, too, the emphasis on redressing the situation. What matters in Syria now, if the UN inspectors report that government CW were used last week, is that the government take steps to ensure that this never happens again. Ideally, the UN Security Council (acting, so to speak, on behalf of CWC parties in this instance) can persuade the Syrian government to adhere to the CWC and destroy its CW stocks under international supervision. There will be no resistance to that outcome from Russia, Iran or China, all fervent supporters of the CWC.

Note, finally, the absence of any reference in the CWC to the “punishing” of non-compliance. That is consistent with a view that it is inappropriate for sovereign states to treat one another like common criminals (a view to which the West eagerly subscribes when the non-compliant state is Israel). Of course, if the Syrian government wishes to punish the commander(s) of any unit(s) found to have been responsible for last week’s outrage, this is another matter.

By giving priority to “due process” and “redressing the situation” Western leaders have an opportunity to set a good precedent for the handling of future challenges to global norms.