Iran, US: Election Tests Diplomacy

US President Barack Obama was careful in external pageaddressingcall_madethe crisis Monday evening to stress that the outcome of the elections was an internal affair for Iran. “I want to start off by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be; that we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran.”

These comments seemed to be part of his consistent attempt to rob hardliners in Tehran of a unifying enemy - the US – that they could use to drum up popular support.

But Obama added he was “deeply troubled by the violence that I've been seeing on television,” and said “there appears to be a sense on the part of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy who now feel betrayed.”

Nonetheless, he pledged to continue his policy of engagement. “I've always believed that as odious as I consider some of President Ahmadinejad's statements, as deep as the differences that exist between the United States and Iran on a range of core issues, that the use of tough, hard-headed diplomacy […] is critical.”

Republican commentators have begun a drumbeat of criticism, accusing the president, in the words of House Republican Whip Rep Eric Cantor of Virginia, of “silence in the face of Iran’s brutal suppression of democratic rights.”

Saying the administration’s reaction “represents a step backwards for homegrown democracy in the Middle East,” Cantor urged Obama to “take a strong public position […] We have a moral responsibility to lead the world in opposition to Iran’s extreme response to peaceful protests,” he said.

And pressure to speak up in support of the demonstrators is not confined to Republicans.

Sen Joseph Lieberman, a centrist Democrat-turned-independent and strong advocate for Israel, urged Obama and his administration to “speak out, loudly and clearly, about what is happening in Iran right now and unambiguously express their solidarity with the brave Iranians who went to the polls in the hope of change and who are now looking to the outside world for strength and support.”

But many Iranian human rights advocates say it would be better for the protestors if the administration maintained its low-profile approach.
“I think it’s wise for the US government to keep its distance,” Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, told blogger Spencer Ackerman. Any expression of political support for the protesters would only “instigate the cry that the reformers are somehow driven and directed by the United States,” Ghaemi said.

“The administration is doing exactly the right thing,” added Trita Parsi, the founder of the National Iranian American Council. “They’re not rushing in and they’re not playing favorites. They might prefer the democratic process to be respected, but that’s different than [supporting a] specific faction.”
Ghaemi said that, instead, support for the protestors ought to be led by the United Nations, and called on Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to denounce Tehran’s crackdown. “We should not have the US lead,” he said.

Within the US, the fact that the election is widely seen as fraudulent is likely to strengthen the hand of hawks, who argue - in the words of former Bush administration UN Ambassador John Bolton -- that whole election was a “charade.”

“If the Islamic Republic blatantly throws an election, why should the White House believe they will honor diplomatic commitments?” asked neo-conservative commentator Michael Rubin.

But in reality, the impact of the election on US outreach to Tehran is likely to be more complicated.

Israeli diplomats used to say that, while you could negotiate with the Lebanese, you could not ever make a deal with them - at least not one that would stick. With Syrians, on the other hand, you could not negotiate with them - but you could make a deal.

There were echoes of that piece of lore in the dilemma US officials faced before the Iranian election - would it be better if a reformist won? Yes, it would be easier - both substantively and in terms of the political optic - to negotiate with a reformist president; but could such a figure ever actually deliver a deal on any of the issues - Iran’s nuclear program, and its support for extremist Islamic groups - that matter to US and global security?

For engagement to succeed, “You have to have a president in Tehran who meets two criteria,” Carnegie Endowment scholar Karim Sadjadpour told reporters in a briefing during the weekend. “He’s someone who is trusted by the [Iranian Supreme] Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei], and he’s someone who the US can work with as well.” The problem with former Iranian president, the moderate and reformer Mohammad Khatami, said Sadjadpour, was that “he met the second criteria but not the first, meaning the US could work with him but he wasn’t trusted by the Leader.”

The problem with Ahmadinejad is “exactly the opposite,” Sadjadpour said. “He’s someone the Leader can work with, and maybe, practically speaking, it could make a dialogue or engagement easier […] But politically speaking, it’s a huge problem.”

“It’s going to be very difficult to sell this [strategy of engagement] politically - both internally within the US and to countries like Israel,” concluded Sadjadpour.
He urged Obama to square the circle by calling for negotiations with Khamenei himself.

“This is important because we should make Khamenei personally responsible and accountable for Iran’s deteriorating economy and political isolation. If Iran doesn’t reciprocate any American overtures I think we should make it clear […] that Ayatollah Khamenei is the impediment.”

Part of the problem for Obama is that the crisis is throwing into sharp relief a tension that has run through his policy towards Tehran since his own election campaign.
The reformers in Iran, with their message of change, their appeal to young people and even their smart use of social media like cell-phone text messages, seem a lot closer to Obama’s own values than Ahmadinejad and the mullahs behind him.

But the president’s strategy is not based on such resonances. It is based on a hard-headed acknowledgment that US national interests require engagement with Tehran. And that realism may be easier with a weakened hardliner in power, constantly casting one eye over his shoulder, than it would be if he had been replaced by a well-intentioned but much less powerful reformer.