The Persian Abyss: Talking about talking

Anyone who has followed the endless, sometimes painfully monotonous, US presidential marathon has most likely heard the three major candidates' positions vis-à-vis Iran - all of whom have unfortunately taken incoherent stances regarding their characterization of diplomatic engagement.

The Republican nominee, John McCain, seems to have forfeited his once "maverick" persona in exchange for a carbon copy of George Bush's foreign policy (i.e. not negotiating with "rogue nations" or conversely engaging terrorist organizations). A few weeks ago he pledged that he would be Hamas' "worst nightmare" [1]. In the United States, and in many Israeli policy circles, this popular Palestinian militant group has been incorrectly labeled as an "Iranian proxy". Yet, even if we assume that this oversimplification of complex and endemic Palestinian politics is true, the same John McCain, in 2006, stated that the United States should now "deal" with Hamas, since they had become the elected Palestinian government [2].

Hillary Clinton, in a bizarre turn of events, has even attempted to be more hawkish than the current US Vice President, threatening to "obliterate" the Islamic Republic, offering a nuclear umbrella not only to Israel but also to America's colonially inherited Arab autocracies in the Middle East in the wake of a rising Iran. Albeit, this same woman has promised that she would drastically reduce the American military occupation of Iraq, according to her so-called "Three-Step Plan", which would apparently redeploy American military personnel within 60 days of her inauguration [3]. However, to do this, even as the Senator herself has attested, would necessitate the cooperation of neighboring countries, including that of Iran, which is undoubtedly the most influential and powerful actor in war-torn Iraq. So this begs the question, how can an American president threaten to "obliterate" a nation whose lack of cooperation renders an American withdrawal from Iraq near impossible?

Barack Obama, initially proposing a radical shift from the past 8-year diplomatic inertia, previously pledged that he would meet, without "preconditions", with heads of states that are antagonistic to American objectives. However, in recent weeks, has now seemed to alter his position, arguing that "preparations", most likely at the mid-diplomatic level, must be made before engaging in one-to-one talks with leaders such as Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [4]. Although the Illinois Senator may be able to parse and ultimately distinguish the meaning of "preconditions" from "preparations", this ill-defined strategy does not augur well for those wishing to seek a fundamental shift in US diplomatic deportment.

Therefore, the principle question remains - What does "talking" really mean? In other words, what is the conceptualization of diplomatic initiative?

Since the American president's recent speech at the Israeli Knesset, wherein he inanely linked engaging in wise diplomacy with Iran to the WWII "appeasement" of Adolph Hitler by UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, a fusillade of political salvos has been exchanged amongst the various factions of America’s fragmented foreign policy elite. However, students of history understand that "appeasement" was and is not discourse. Regarding Hitler and the notion of "appeasement", many nations had open diplomatic contact with the Third Reich. "Appeasement" came when the Sudetenland of the former Czechoslovakia was offered to the revanchist Germans in exchange for the possibility of peace and stability in Europe. This is the reality behind this tired slogan that, unfortunately, has been mimicked in many US policy circles.

Yet the truth remains - the problems that the United States has with nations such as Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela are not related to WWII historiography. None of these countries are expansionist, yet even if borders are one of many points of contention between them and the American government, the disputes between each of these nations and those that are unmentioned, with the United States, are deeply rooted in past grievances that are diverse from one another, being endemic to the ethos and the psyche of each respective society. Therefore, in order to achieve success - to be defined as a drastic change of behavior by governments deemed "threatening" to the US interests - a blanket policy or a generalized formula to address each nation will be futile.

For example, the American row with Cuba is deeply rooted in Cold War hysteria that does not apply to current geopolitical realities. The Cuban island at one point was correctly perceived as a Soviet base, possibly a launching pad for Soviet missiles against the American mainland. With the death of the Soviet Union, US policy towards the beleaguered island has become astonishingly anachronistic, serving no purpose save for garnering the anti-Castro Cuban vote in South Florida, all the while punishing the average citizen of the weak and feeble Communist State. No reasonable political scientist could argue that Cuba, in any way, shape, or form, is somehow a threat to the US or its interests. Furthermore, Venezuela's recent animus against the United States stems primarily from American economic deportment in Latin America - only to be heightened by the possible US complicity in the 2002 attempted coup against the Chavez government.

Regarding the Iranian issue, American perception of Iran and its supposed threat has been so divorced from reality, that any nuance in understanding the legitimate security concerns of the Islamic Republic virtually evades the current administration in Washington. As I have mentioned in a previous article, Iran is a nation that has been invaded three times by massive armies in the last century. It is a people whose culture and identity has largely been shaped by existential threats. The use of chemical weapons upon Iranian soldiers and civilians alike by an American proxy, and the subsequent lack of international condemnation, to this day, shapes the foreign policy of the leadership of the Islamic Republic. Moreover, the historical role of the United States in internal Iranian affairs, similar to American behavior in certain Latin American countries, and the fact that the United States has yet to reconcile with the loss of their puppet Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the self-proclaimed Shah, is still a grievance that affects the political hierarchy of Iran. These facts are paramount in explaining current US- Iranian relations. Without properly addressing these, along with several other economic, security, and political issues, no dialogue between the United States and Iran will bear any fruit.

It is the absence of these key factors and the lack of a rudimentary understanding of basic Middle Eastern history that allows for the dissemination of innuendo and the oversimplification of enigmatic political dilemmas to subsist. Consider Tom Friedman's article in the NY Times just a few weeks ago. In his piece, Friedman attempted to construct a paradigm that somehow proposes that the United States has now entered a "new Cold War" with Iran, even citing Israeli journalist Ehud Yaari’s concept of "Pax Iranica" [5]! Although this analysis may feed into Ahmadinejad's ego or the conspiracy theories rife within Saudi-controlled Arab press, I fail to see the purpose of such a ridiculous notion.

Certainly Iran is a direct benefactor of the current climate within the Middle East and the broader Muslim World, partially caused by the failed policies of consecutive American administrations, yet by no means is the Islamic Republic the basis of them. Brian Burton's insightful article in World Politics Review elucidates the fact that although Iran has utilized the various political movements in the Arab World for their advantage, the genesis of these movements spawned from economic and political injustices levied out by America’s Arab autocracies upon their own citizenry:

...lumping together disparate Arab political movements as "Teheran's friends" glosses over their root causes and offers a grossly oversimplified prescription for dealing with them. Neither Hizbullah nor Hamas nor the Sadrist movement originated in Iran; all were formed due to local grievances and achieved power by addressing those grievances. Hizbullah arose in opposition to Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon and the political and economic exclusion felt by the Lebanese Shiite population. Hamas emerged during the first Palestinian intifada against the Israelis as a religious alternative to Yasser Arafat's exiled Palestine Liberation Organization. Moqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army gained support because they embodied the nationalistic aspirations of Iraq's long-repressed urban Shiites. What all three of these movements have in common is that they have been able to solidify the loyalties of local constituencies. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Sadrists provide jobs, homes, medical care, and leadership to destitute populations who have suffered malign neglect and oppression, often at the hands of governments aligned with the United States. It is the loyalty of these underprivileged populations, gained through effective local leadership and measures to alleviate everyday suffering, that accounts for their rise. The leaders of these respective groups can and do channel popular discontent into support for their own violent political agenda, but it must not be forgotten that it is the effective provision of services and support to local populations that form the foundations of these militant groups.

Emphasizing that radicals across the Arab world are "Iranian-backed" encourages US policymakers to wrongly look to Iran as the source of all problems...[6]

Burton's assessment is one that is attuned to the pulse of broader Middle Eastern and Islamic society, a culture and identity that has consistently been left out of the Golden Palace that US-aligned comprador elites and rulers created for themselves. Furthermore, although the relationship that Hizbullah and the Shia militias in Iraq have with Iran is quite unique in that the Islamic Republic was an inspiration in their formations, they cannot be viewed as simply an arm of Iran. In addition, Hamas in the Palestinian territories and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, with their satellites in Jordan, were all formed as a response to the illegitimacy and ineptitude of their host governments - all of which are deemed Moderate Arab States and allies of the United States.

As it relates to Iran, there is no doubt that the Islamic Republic has a great amount of influence over these groups, yet one must ask how this influence was initially attained. The fact is that the Islamic Republic of Iran was born out of the same circumstances that spawned all the aforementioned entities - pro-Western governments whose autocratic proclivities over their own populace eventually rendered them illegitimate. And for all the internal pathologies that the Islamic Republic possess, for there are many, the Iranian government is, oddly enough, much more democratic than the Arab nations whose reliance the United States depends upon for access to cheap oil and a Middle Eastern presence. The various political movements that have become so antagonistic towards American objectives have built an extensive base of support that is deeply rooted in their respective societies. Therefore, as strange as it may appear, the main weapon that is utilized by Iran’s hybrid government is the same calls for democracy that the Bush administration has inculcated in their rhetoric, and only in their rhetoric. The 2006 Hamas electoral victories, which arguably was the most free and fair the Arab world had ever experienced, and the 2005 stunning victory of Muslim Brotherhood in the repressed Egyptian parliamentary elections were clear indications of the transformation of the Arab body politic [7]. If Iran is somehow perceived as rising power, it is certainly not by the cunning of Iranian leaders but more by default.

So what does this all mean? Simply put, when attempting to engage in diplomacy with either Iran, the various violent political factions of the Arab world, Latin American leftist leaders, or any such government that is antithetical to the United States, American statecraft must understand the roots of each crisis, the legitimacy of each nation states' discontent, and the possibility of rectification.

References:

1. http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/25/mccain_hamas/

2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/15/AR2008051503306.html?hpid=opinionsbox

3. http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/Iraq/

4. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jgNrscc8uvyp-L659qdXVCK2OAhgD90QV3C80

5. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/opinion/14friedman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

6. http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=2176

7. "Islamist Win Big in Egypt Election: Banned Party takes 20% of Parliament seats: Violence Mars Vote." Associated Press (December 9, 2005):