Breaking the ice with Iran

During the campaign Michael Totten wrote about why Barack Obama’s pledge to renew relations with Iran wouldn’t amount to anything.

Withdrawing all U.S. forces from the Middle East likewise is not going to happen. Obama may want to bug out of Iraq as quickly as humanly possible, but there isn’t even a small chance that he’ll shut down American military bases in Turkey, Kuwait, and Qatar.

Iran’s preconditions are unacceptable. Whatever preconditions Obama would have, if he had any, would almost certainly be unacceptable from the point of view of the Islamic Repubic. The interests of the U.S. and Iran are diametrically opposite, and they have been since 1979. Obama may not understand this, but at least Tehran does.

Supporting this analysis, Barry Rubin provides an amusing anecdote.

The New York Times reports that Ayatollah Khameini rejected the President’s overture.

In his most direct public assessment of Mr. Obama and prospects for better ties, Ayatollah Khamenei said there could be no change between the countries unless the Obama administration put an end to hostility toward Iran and brings “real changes” in foreign policy.

“They chant the slogan of change but no change is seen in practice,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in a speech before a crowd of tens of thousands in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad.

Still as is the case with the Middle East, the reporter throws in the requisite optimism.

Still, he left the door open to better ties with America, saying “should you change, our behavior will change, too.”

This gives tea leaf reader Roger Cohen the pretext to claim that there are tea leaves to read.

View all that as an opening gambit. Khamenei also quieted the crowd when it began its ritual “Death to America” chant and he said this: “We’re not emotional when it comes to our important matters. We make decisions by calculation.”

That’s right: the mullahs are anything but mad. Calculation will demand that Iran take Obama seriously.

This, of course, suits Cohen fine as he believes that reaching out to Iran and keeping Israel at arms length makes sense. Given that he’s been defending Iran’s tyranny, it’s impossible to conclude that he’s judged American interests accurately. More likely he’s judged Israel to be a liability, so he’s happy to have an alternative, regardless of the cost. After all, doesn’t he regard Iran’s nuclear proliferation to be at least a source of instability, if not a threat? Apparently not.

(Cohen mis-titled his essay “From Tehran to Tel Aviv” as he’s advocating a diplomatic move in the other direction.)

But John Bolton does.

While President Obama’s unanticipated Nowruz holiday greeting to Iran generated considerable press attention, his video wasn’t really this week’s big news related to the Islamic Republic. Far more important was that a senior defector — Iran’s former Deputy Minister of Defense Ali Reza Asghari — disclosed Tehran’s financing of Syria’s nuclear weapons program. That program’s centerpiece was a North Korean nuclear reactor in Syria. Israel destroyed it in September 2007.

At this point, it is impossible to ignore Iran’s active efforts to expand, improve and conceal its nuclear weapons program in Syria while it pretends to “negotiate” with Britain, France and Germany (the “EU-3”). No amount of video messages will change this reality. The question is whether this new information about Iran will sink in, or if Washington will continue to turn a blind eye toward Iran’s nuclear deceptions.

Talking with Iran, according to Bolton, will only strengthen Iran’s resolve to develop nuclear weapons.

Finally, on a somewhat related note, Tehran promised Secretary of State Clinton that it would release an Iranian-American journalist from Evin prison.

Earlier this week, the father of the Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, told Lindsey Hilsum of Britain’s Channel 4 News that he had spoken to his daughter, who is still being held in Evin Prison. He added that waiting for her release is “a nightmare.” Ms. Hilsum reported on Channel 4’s World News blog that Reza Saberi said his daughter “didn’t sound terribly good,” when he spoke to her on a telephone in Evin Prison on Monday. “She said life in prison is psychologically challenging.” That is, as Ms. Hilsium says, obviously an understatement. Mr. Saberi added: “We told her to hang on, and not give in. The whole world is with her.”

Two weeks ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the U.S. State Department had been working through intermediaries to win Ms. Saberi’s release, and an Iranian official said that Ms. Saberi would be released “within days.” Her father told Ms. Hilsum that if his daughter was not released by the start of the Iranian New Year’s celebrations this Friday evening, she is unlikely to leave Evin Prison before the end of the two-week holiday.

Why do the proponents of engagement with Iran ignore Ms. Saberi’s fate and this direct rebuff of American diplomacy? And why didn’t President Obama bring her up in his Nowruz message last week? It’s one thing to seek conciliation. It’s another to turn a blind eye to injustice.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.