Engaging Iran

During last week’s Presidential debate, one of the clear differences between the candidates was their approach to Iran. Senator McCain was a forceful advocate of continuing the policy of confrontation that was the policy in place during President Bush’s first term. Senator Obama, on the other hand, advocated for a policy of engagement to help resolve the disputes between the countries.
A policy of engagement has begun to emerge during Bush’s second term as the neo-conservatives in the Defense Department and Vice President Cheney’s office have begun to lose influence. This change has manifested itself in such things as the direct participation of senior diplomat Nicholas Burns in nuclear talks with Iran and the floating of an initiative to establish a US Interest Section in Tehran.
The Interest Section is a small, but important, step as it will bring American diplomats to Iran to begin to better understand the complex dynamics of Iran and will make it easier for Iranians and Americans to get visas and encourage interaction among ordinary citizens.
This week, in an extended interview with Iranian English language paper, Iran Daily (The article is here.), Gary Sick, a member of the Security Council under President Clinton and currently Professor of International Affairs at Columbia, raised the possibility that President Bush would take advantage of the window of opportunity between the elections and the inauguration of the new president to open the Interest Section.
This time period is a “window of opportunity” for three reasons.
Number one, the elections are over (unless we are still counting ballots in Florida) and therefore campaign politics will not come into play. Doing it before the elections would give Obama a chance to say; “I told you so. Even President Bush agrees that we should engage Iran”.
Number two, Congress will most likely be out of town for the holidays. This is important because the MEK (Mujahedin e’ Khalq), the violent Iranian opposition group advocating for a hard-line policy of regime change in Iran, has the best Congressmen money can buy on their side. They would try to prevent engagement.
Number three, doing it before the new President takes office would create “facts on the ground” which would be hard for a new President to reverse even if he wanted to.
It will be interesting to see what happens.