Prof. John Tirman of the MIT Center for International Studies has issued a paper calling for "A New Approach to Iran", and which espouses a "Need for Transformative Policy".
I haven't had a chance to read the full report but skipped quickly down to section entitled "NUclear Weapons" -- which was a disappointing subtitle based on what it implies -- but the text was far more balanced. Here's a taste:
While it is popular to depict the E3 and U.S. engagement as serious diplomacy wrongly rebuffed, it is far from certain that this is accurate. American statements and bargaining positions have not had the ring of a serious undertaking, instead offering demands and preconditions that assume an outcome (the suspension of enrichment), and couched in relentlessly hostile language that continually imply military strikes are actively considered. As recently as March 3, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated in a press conference with the Israeli foreign minister that “We intend to do all that we can to deter and to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. That is our stated policy. That is the goal of any tactic that we employ.” The statement, one of several on the same trip, reflects little if anything different from the Bush administration. Alarms are rising about the nuclear material Iran has accumulated through enrichment—from none other than the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff—with misleading statements about Iran having enough to build a bomb: it must purify the enriched uranium, fabricate it into a deliverable weapon, and fashion a delivery vehicle, all done reliably—a daunting set of tasks that place it years away from weaponizing, if indeed that is the path they’re on. The IAEA reported in March that no uranium had been diverted, and the director of national intelligence corrected that impression a few days later, telling the Senate that "the overall situation – and the intelligence community agrees on this – [is] that Iran has not decided to press forward . . . to have a nuclear weapon.”
More broadly, the United States remains committed to a politically weak course by insisting on a tight interpretation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) for some nuclear have-nots, but a loose reading for nuclear haves. Article VI of the NPT commits the nuclear states to disarmament, which they neglect. Worse, of course, is the absence of sustained rebuke for the newer nuclear powers, Israel, Pakistan, and India, which is the sort of hypocrisy that is ignored in American politics but is taken seriously elsewhere. Ridding U.S. policy of this inconsistency would reassure the global community that we’re willing to be held to the same standards as others, a key tenet of successful foreign relations.
This is essentially what he has to say about Israel:
Needless to say, a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem would do more than anything else to remove Iran from the Levant. That decision rests with Israel... Iran could use some of its influence to push Hamas in serious negotiations—if Hamas were at the table. But the leader on this matter is clearly Israel, with a strong role for American pressure. Blaming Iran for Hamas’ and Hizbollah’s aggressive activities is a red herring: it is at most a secondary player.
And that's why this paper won't be taken seriously. Tirman apparently knows it himself, when he says:
There is a troubling tendency in the last decade or more to act as though Israeli policy must be matched in Washington. Apparently, the Israeli government believes it can set the contours of U.S.-Iran diplomacy, and many in Washington believe that American policy in the region requires very close consultation with (or even approval by) Israel.
Bingo. It is about time American political pundits accepted the fact that the tail wags the dog, and so the US is institutionally incapable of really reaching out to Iran, Obama or no Obama.
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