Biden may hold unclenched Iranian hand
Posted by seumasach on January 31, 2009
M.K. Bhadrakumar
3oth January, 2009
Eyes trained to watch the Hindu Kush must now turn askance toward Germany where the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy is scheduled to take place next weekend. Organizers of the annual event revealed on Thursday that among the 300 prominent figures from the international arena of foreign, security and defense policy will be a “very high-ranking personality” from Tehran.
Other VIPs include US Vice President Joseph Biden, who is expected to make a major foreign and security policy speech. The big question is: Will the United States and Iran make contact at Munich?
The Jerusalem Post carried a Guardian newspaper report on Thursday that Washington is preparing a letter to Tehran to
rapidly defrost the ties and pave the way for direct talks. The letter will apparently be in the nature of a reply to the congratulatory letter from Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad to US President Barack Obama on the latter’s victory in the November election.
Anyone familiar with the complex ways in which Persians express their heart’s desire will agree Ahmadinejad’s response within hours of Obama’s interview with al-Arabiya on Monday showed Tehran seems quietly pleased with the drift of things. Recent signals, it seems, have been reaching Tehran after all.
Tehran knows a main reason is that it has a crucial role to play in salvaging the crisis in Afghanistan. On Wednesday, the European Union’s External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner flagged the importance of inviting Iran to the EU’s forthcoming “regional conference” on Afghanistan. The ruling Christian Democratic Union of Germany has proposed in the Bundestag the setting up of a “Contact Group” on Afghanistan that would comprise the UN Security Council’s permanent members, as well as the EU, Pakistan and Iran.
On Wednesday, in her first press conference as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton announced that the US will attend the next round of multilateral talks with Iran on the nuclear issue next week in Germany. She said there is a “clear opportunity for the Iranians” to demonstrate “some willingness to engage meaningfully”. Borrowing Obama’s metaphor, Clinton added, “Whether or not that hand becomes less clenched is really up to them. But as we look at the opportunities available to us, we are going to have a very broad survey of what we think we can do.”
So, will the “very high-ranking” Iranian official be arriving at Munich with an unclenched fist? If that happens, will Biden notice it? And will he unhesitatingly extend his own hand? The fortunes of the Afghan war hang by a thin thread.
It is fairly clear that Ahmadinejad, who is riding a wave of popular support inside Iran, is all but certain to win a renewed mandate in the forthcoming presidential elections in June. Therefore, the US administration need not wait for months, as experts previously predicted, to deal with a cohesive Iranian regime. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has publicly stated that Ahmadinejad should remain at the helm.
On Tuesday, the chief of Iran’s armed forces General Hassan Firouz Abadi, who comes directly under the Supreme Leader, implied that “conspiracies” against the incumbent in the Byzantine corridors of Iranian domestic politics have withered away and that Iran needed someone of Ahmadinejad’s “capability and dynamism”. Former president Mohammad Khatami, who was tipped to be a candidate of the reformist camp, has since excused himself from the race.
Arguably, the Iranian regime has also cleared the way for a swift engagement with the Obama era. At a minimum, it seems Iran anticipated that an opportune moment to engage might unceremoniously arise. Tehran knows any number of third parties – not necessarily Israel – might exploit delays to try to subvert a direct US-Iran engagement.
To be sure, the US is in acute need of Iran’s cooperation for the success of its new Afghan strategy. The US’s “surge” strategy is coming under a cloud already. Critics are piling up questions marks and voicing skepticism about its need and efficacy. In his Congressional testimony in Washington on Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admitted that while the US military expects to be able to send three additional combat brigades totaling up to 12,000 troops to Afghanistan between late spring and mid-summer, he remained “deeply skeptical” of any further troop increases. The US commanders in Afghanistan asked for as many as 30,000 more combat and support troops.
Gates suggested the US goals in Afghanistan must be “modest” and “realistic”. He said, “This is going to be a long slog, and frankly, my view is that we need to be very careful about the nature of goals we set for ourselves in Afghanistan.” Critics point out that even a doubling of the current US troop strength of 30,000 will not mean much. Military experts estimate the Afghan insurgency can be successfully overcome only with a force level of half a million troops.
Besides, other major hitches remain.
First, European countries remain averse to making troop contributions. According to Robert Hunter, former US ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during the Bill Clinton administration, there could at best be only some “token response” if Washington made a new appeal, despite the “extraordinary goodwill” for Obama among Europeans. “I rather suspect if the United States pushes too hard on asking for new forces, it will lead to a rebuff,” Hunter said.
The US will be compelled to hasten the search for a political solution even as robust attempts to regain the military momentum from Taliban continue. This is where Iran’s cooperation is critically needed. It is never easy to finesse a contradictory strategy of “Talk, talk; fight, fight”. Iran can help keep the western, northern and central regions of Afghanistan calm while the US focuses on pacifying the south and southeastern provinces and the Afghan-Pakistan border areas. At the very least, Iran should not meddle with US operations there. In his testimony, Gates warned of Iranian interference in Afghanistan.
Second, despite all the propaganda, the US would know it has no better ally than Iran in combating al-Qaeda and the Taliban. However, this could work in different ways. It could pose problems if the US embarked on a genuine dialogue with the Taliban without having a degree of Iranian acquiescence. Iran can easily undermine any inter-Afghan talks.
On the other hand, the US can use Iranian opposition to the Taliban as a bargaining chip to get the latter (and Pakistan) to pare down any excessive claims on power sharing in a future set-up in Kabul. Finally, Iran will be a useful partner to persuade the non-Taliban protagonists. Most important, the US should ensure Tehran does not resent any mediatory role by Saudi Arabia.
Third, Iran can help to put together any credible loya jirga or other form of inter-Afghan dialogue that is needed to legitimize any new regime in Kabul.
Fourth, if the US chooses to look beyond Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the interim and decides to engineer a new political dispensation in Kabul, it will run into serious difficulties without tacit Iranian concurrence. Kabul has just announced the date of the presidential elections as August 20. Karzai is making a serious bid for re-election and has begun networking with erstwhile mujahideen figures in a bid to boost his candidacy, many of whom are in Iran’s orbit of influence. Of course, Tehran has a serious choice to make here.
Karzai maintained an easy equation with Tehran despite US attempts to get him to allege Iranian interference within Afghanistan. Thanks to Karzai’s goodwill, Iran enjoyed a level playing field within Afghanistan. As a result, government-to-government ties and Iranian trade and cultural activities gained and overall Iranian influence flourished.
Tehran must seriously ponder if its interests are served by Karzai’s exit at this juncture or not. Tehran stands to gain out of a genuinely independent Karzai who asserts Afghanistan’s sovereignty and resists the US diktat. Karzai is becoming assertive and is even demanding a SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) with the US on the Iraqi model, which would give Kabul decisive say in critical matters such as where the US troops should be based and how they operate.
Karzai is openly seeking Russian military aid. As Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta put it, “our Afghan military personnel, pilots in particular, are familiar with and have been trained in Russian techniques. And some of the Russian helicopters work well in our mountainous areas. So if the Russians help us in these areas, we … are not opposed to it”.
Fifth, even if a “grand bargain” with Iran over the Afghan situation is some way down the road, the US is far better off engaging Iran directly than leaving Tehran to “gang up” with other regional powers. Finally, US-Pakistan relations have entered a critical period. The Predator drone strikes on Pakistan’s border areas have become controversial. Islamabad feels distressed about Washington’s decision to appoint a special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan but keep India and the Kashmir problem out of the envoy’s directive.
Nothing could alter the Afghan calculus more than if a Tehran-Islamabad axis emerges, unlikely as the prospect may seem at this point. But then, in the quicksands of Afghan politics, anything can change overnight. Therefore, if Biden, the grey cardinal of the US foreign policy establishment, extends his hand to a distinguished Iranian personality with unclenched fist at Munich next weekend, he will be doing so not a day too soon.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
In These New Times 
Leave a comment