Time For A Change--Iran

Of late it seems as if every "foreign policy expert" has come out either for or against opening some sort of dialogue with Iran. Even former Agency analysts and fieldhands have come out of the shadows with a view on the necessary next step in the dance between Washington and Tehran.

Looking at the problem through the lens of history, the Geek is persuaded that the time for talks has come. The Geek has come to this conclusion by considering the effects of the self-donned chastity belt of "non-recognition." The US demonstrated a marked preference for ignoring the reality of political changes of which it did not approve over the course of the Twentieth Century.

For a few years we pretended that revolutionary Mexico did not exist. Then for more than a decade we turned a Nelsonian eye to the Soviet Union. After World War II we went to the absurd length of ignoring unpleasant facts of political reality in China. Every Administration from Ike to W. Bush averted their eyes from the island of Cuba.

Of course we cocked our collective snoot at Iran since 1979.

In every one of these cases except the last two, the US finally had to get a grip on reality and engage in normal diplomatic relations. In every case the policy of non-recognition had no useful effect. The illusion of some sort of moral purity never matches the cold, hard reality of dealing with a government--no matter how unpleasant it may be--as one more nation-state with interests.

The mullahocracy of Tehran and its puppet sham parliament and president are obnoxious. The Tehran regime is unpleasant in the extreme. Nonetheless it exists. We have to deal with it. We have to get over its insults, its threats, its internal repression, its sponsorship of lethal groups.

We have to talk with the mullahs, or at least their frontmen. We have to talk directly, face to face.

Opening direct, public, high profile relations is not necessary. Nor is such desirable. It is not in our better interests.

The process followed by the Nixon administration with respect to China provides a useful template. The coinciding interests of the US and Iran regarding Iraq and Afghanistan provide the necessary context.

Neither the mullahs nor ourselves wish to see a close approximation of civil war in Iraq. Neither ourselves nor the mullahs want to see Taliban back in power in Afghanistan. (In a related matter, neither Tehran nor Washington hopes to see a Taliban in control of Pakistan.)

While the sporadic low level conversations between US and Iranian personnel in Iraq have been without real useful result, they provide the opening wedge. Using backchannel means of communication we should arrange for a suitable mid- to high-level member of the Obama Administration to make an unannounced trip to Tehran.

(The same level of secrecy which attended Kissinger's first trip to China is no longer possible. The media are no longer so cooperative as to sit on a story as they once were.)

If the mullahs refuse the offer or prove disastrously uncooperative in maintaining the low profile nature of the trip and conversations, fine. The Lads in Tehran will have made their choice. We--and the world--will know where the mullahs stand. There will be neither reason nor demand that we try again or try harder or offer more concessions.

If, however, the visit proves productive, the basis will have been laid for a path toward normal diplomatic relations. There will be ground on which to build regarding the vexing issues of nuclear material production, sponsorship of terrorist groups, and so forth.

Most importantly, the attempt at low-visibility diplomacy will help to answer a vital question. It will help provide an understanding of the most important single question confronting the world regarding the nature and character of the Iranian government.

The question?

Is the source of Iranian conduct eschatological or not? Is the government and the mullahs in the back room oriented toward international affairs with the perspective of a real world oriented nation-state or is it seeking the end times, the coming of the Mahdi through the mechanism of apocalypse?

The answer to this question is fundamental to all other considerations of policy toward Iran. We have to get the answer ourselves. Only the conduct of the Iranians from the very first contact will provide a basis for an accurate answer.