A Beginning, Not an End: The Inside Story on US Talks with Iran

As American and Britain news agencies continue to misunderstand and misrepresent President Obama's strategic approach on Iran --- the BBC's Justin Webb was particularly bad on Tuesday morning when he summarised his interview with the President --- Foreign Policy's blog The Cable offers an essential view from inside the Administration.

Using sources from the Interagency Working Group on Iran, The Cable knocked back the idea that the US was pursuing negotiations merely to set up tougher economic sanctions when the talks inevitably fail: "They insist there is hardly a prevailng assumption the effort will fail, and they are doing everything in their power to make it succeed."

The blog reveals that the "negative" camp inside the State Department is, unsurprisingly, led by Dennis Ross. They are arguing for in-depth negotiations even before the completion of Iran's Presidential elections while at the same time contending that Tehran has failed to discuss US communiqués. This sets up their case for "an accelerated deadline for responding to U.S. overtures".

(Clearly it is Ross's group who are leaking to the press the misleading tale that President Obama has given Iran until the end of the year before moving from talks to tougher sanctions. By coincidence, David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy --- who has written a book with Ross on US-Iran relations, to be published next month --- has been putting out this line on BBC Radio as I type.)

Importantly, the Ross camp is opposed --- and arguably overruled --- by two leading officials, Obama's Afghanistan-Pakistan envoy Richard Holbrooke (who sees Iran's cooperation as a significant and possibly essential element in a US resolution of the Afghan problem) and the National Security Council's Director of Iran Affairs, Puneet Talwar.

So far the Holbrooke-Talwar line has ensured that the Obama Administration does not treat negotiations with Iran, especially before the end of the Presidential campaign, as "make or break". While Ross' negative message was boosted by its intersection with Israel's drumbeat for an Iran-first approach, it has then been dented by Tel Aviv's playing of the Tehran card to stall on any movement regarding Palestine.

So, far from seeing the autumn and winter as the endpoint of US-Iran talks, with either significant Tehran concessions or an American suspension of the talks to concentrate on economic sanctions, look for the end of 2009 to mark the beginning of a longer-term discussion.

Video: Obama Interview with BBC (1 June)

Related Post: Audio of Obama Interview with National Public Radio (1 June)

Before setting off for the Middle East and Europe, President Obama gave the British Broadcasting Corporation's Justin Webb 15 minutes on Monday. Webb's questions were surprisingly challenging, but Obama was able to speak in general platitudes about the need for a US explanation about its "hunt for extremists" to the Muslim world, for a two-state Israel-Palestine solution, and "for Iran to set aside ambitions for a nuclear weapon". Still, there was one significant passage --- which we'll analyse in a separate post --- where Obama called on Arab States to make concessions so Israel would engage in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and other countries.