A Possible Path to Change in U.S.–Iran Relations

Abstract

In 1999, I visited Belgrade one month before the start of Operation ALLIED FORCE as a guest of the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs to hear the perspectives of key officials on the possibility of a conflict between Yugoslavia and NATO. While there, I heard Yugoslav officials offer the singular perspective that NATO would not use force, and that threats to do so were used only to get the regime of Slobodan Milosevic to respond to diplomatic efforts by the United States and the European Union. On a basic level, there was simply a refusal to recognize that the threat of attack from NATO was real. This past September and October, I visited Iran as the guest of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to get an idea of where key Iranian officials stood regarding the possibility of a war with the U.S. over its nuclear energy program. It is true that Iran’s religious leadership is conservative on external and internal affairs, and gives considerable weight to the opinions of government hard-liners on foreign and security policy, but they also listen to moderate officials who want peace. Indeed, moderates even have the ear of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the final arbiter on all matters of state. As Ali Jafari, of the Institute for Political and International Studies, stated, “The Guide provides audiences for all who can contribute on important issues.” Unlike Yugoslavia, a true diversity of opinion exists among officials on the nature of the current crisis with the U.S. and, to some extent, the EU. Iran certainly is not the fundamentalist, Islamic monolith that it is portrayed to be. By reviewing both conservative and moderate views held by officials in Iran on issues pertaining to U.S.–Iran relations, this split in opinion can be illuminated. Further, such a review would seem to support the idea that, through the establishment of a positive dialogue with moderate decision-makers and scholars in Iran, and the offer of support for some of their initiatives, it may yet be possible to resolve the current crisis.