|
Trending Topics
|
Don't Let Iran Stall for Time
(New York Times) Michael Singh - The real question is not whether America should talk to Iran, but how to get the Iranians to talk to us in earnest. Every American president from Jimmy Carter on has reached out to Iran. But such approaches have never led to improved relations. Iran shrank from any broad bilateral thaw because it feared engagement with the U.S. more than it feared confrontation. "Resistance" to the West - and especially to the United States - was a founding principle of Iran's Islamic regime. While Iran has gradually normalized relations with many European and Asian allies of Washington, it has not done so with the U.S. or America's ally Israel. To lose those two nations as enemies would be to undermine one of the regime's ideological raisons d'etre. As a result, serious engagement with the U.S. is likely to be only a consequence of a strategic shift by the regime, rather than a cause of it. And so far, no such shift has taken place. So the U.S. must be more creative in the ways it uses engagement and pressure to hasten a change in Iran's strategic outlook. As the U.S. and its allies increase pressure on Iran, it is vital that the Americans remain steadfast in their demands, rather than respond to Iranian obstinacy with increasingly generous offers. If Tehran believes it can wait out pressure or escape it via a narrow technical accord rather than a more fundamental reorientation, it will surely do so. As the possibility of conflict looms larger and talks drag on, the U.S. and its allies should worry more about ensuring that whoever is on the Iranian side actually comes ready to bargain. Otherwise, any American-Iranian talks will not be a diplomatic breakthrough; they will just be another way station on the route to war. The writer, managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, was the senior director for Middle East affairs at the U.S. National Security Council from 2005 to 2008.