The prospect of Iran’s foreign diplomacy in the new year

The new Iranian year has started but challenges in Iran’s neighboring countries have not ended yet and it seems that in 1387 (20 March 2008-19 March 2009) we are not going to see any considerable change of prospect.

 

Crisis still goes on in Iraq, the situation in Afghanistan is going downhill, foreign troops are still remaining in the Persian Gulf, their withdrawal not likely in near future, crisis lingers in Palestine and innocent Palestinians suffer Israeli shell everyday, tensions in Lebanon have not ended while the threat of a civil war looms, Nagorno-Karabakh has become a smoldering fire, Georgia is in a state of chaos and the legal status of Caspian Sea is still unclear.

 

As to Iran the nuclear dossier is kept open by the UN Security Council. Although a new Russian President is going to enter Kremlin and the new American president will step in White House this fall, chances for a major change in Iran-Russia and Iran-U.S. relations are not high. We’re going to have a look at some of the regional and international developments related to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

 

Iraq’s security underwent ups and downs in 1386 (20 March 2007-19 March 2008). The terrorist attacks took heavy tolls of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. With a build-up in troops Bush’s administration reduced the number of terrorist attacks. On the other hand, with a revise in the deBaathification law and encouraging Sunni Iraqis to cooperate with Maleki’s government, America tried to bring this part of the Iraqi nation on board and weaken al-Qaeada and Saddam Hussein’s base.

 

The outcome was transient. True that for a while the number of U.S. soldiers killed and injured witnessed a fall with the reduction of terrorist attacks throughout Iraq, especially Baghdad; however, terrorism has once again spread in Iraq and American troops have become the target of al-Qaeda.

 

While after a fall in casualties the U.S. officials talked build-up policy’s success, they have remained silent after the resurge of terrorist attacks. Iraq has become a crucial issue as the presidential elections are approaching,

 

While the republican McCain supports increasing the number of troops in Iraq, democrat Obama and Clinton pour vitriol on Bush’s strategies in Iraq and both have promised to withdraw troops from Iraq within a short period if they become the next president.

 

In these circumstances the rising insecurity in Iraq will directly affect the result of presidential election and it could put McCain’s victory at risk. On the other hand, it seems that security talks between Iran and United States will continue in the new year.

 

The United States wants that the talks continue and aims to improve security through these negotiations -that are attended by the Iraqi government-. Iran has also stated that it’s ready to help the Iraqi government to establish security. But U.S. allegations about Iran’s behind-the-scene role in fueling strife in Iraq still continue. On the other hand, Iran’s criticism towards the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq has affected the air of negotiations. At any rate, the talks are to continue though with an unclear outcome. It seems that Iraq’s situation continues to be tumultuous in the new year and foreign troops will remain in the country for a lengthy period.

 

Security was going downhill in Afghanistan last year. Though suicide attacks were limited to Iraq at the beginning, they spread to Afghanistan last year, targeting foreign troops and Afghan officials. Meanwhile, Karzai’s administration has no control on Afghanistan, except for some major cities. And note that even in cities like Kabul the suicide attacks have rose in number and made trouble.

 

Although the number of American troops in Afghanistan is less than Iraq, but the critical situation of Afghanistan is also heeded by U.S. presidential nominees. A while ago in his criticism of Bush’s policies in Iraq, Obama said that instead of attacking Iraq, Bush had to focus on Afghanistan to root out al-Qaeda and Bin Laden.

 

Differences in NATO, the military force in command at Afghanistan, are also another problem. While southern Afghanistan, where American, British and Canadian forces serve, is stormy as it witnesses fights between NATO and Taliban, north of Afghanistan where troops of other NATO members such as Germany are deployed, is relatively calm.

 

Recently the United States and some other NATO members have urged Germany to send some of its military forces to south of Afghanistan but up to now the country has rejected this demand. During the latest security conference of Munich held in February, U.S. Secretary of Defense pointed to this issue and said he didn’t want some members of the Trans-Atlantic coalition to battle and die while defending people’s lives while others refused to take the risk.

 

At any rate, Afghanistan’s prospect is not so rosy in the new year and the schism between NATO members and a weak central government will not have a likely success in defeating Taliban that has become more united than before.

 

Election of the new Russian president in the last month of the [Iranian] year attracted the attention of many countries, including Iran. Dmitri Medvedev, the incumbent prime minister and a close friend of Vladimir Putin, is elected as the new president, supporting the predictions that the next Russian government will continue Putin’s way and no major changes are going to take place in Russia’s domestic and foreign policy.

 

This becomes more acceptable when we find out that Putin is going to serve as the next prime minister of Russia. Consequently he will have the chief role in the domestic and foreign policies of the new government. Not a good news for Western countries whose problems with Russia are increasing.

 

But is that good news for Iran? This can’t be answered easily. During his presidency Putin showed that he’s a pragmatic politician for whom personal, party and national interests are the most important things. This behavior can be easily observed in the way he dealt with Iran during the recent years. For example on Iran’s nuclear program, while Russia and China tried to soothe United States and other Western countries’ radical stances –an act they always reminded Iran-, but they never vetoed a resolution of UN Security Council and IAEA Board of Governors and received what they wanted in their negotiations with West.

 

Even Putin’s last year visit to Tehran was to attend the Caspian Sea Summit. In other words, Putin’s long-promised visit happened only during a regional conference. So chances for a significant change in bilateral ties in the new year are not that high.

 

Last year Caspian Sea Summit in Tehran was a landmark event for cooperation between littoral states in order to finally hammer out a legal regime for the world’s greatest lake. The 1921 and 1940 treaties were not discussed for the first time and sub-basin partition was accepted by all parties. This faced criticisms inside Iran from those who believed there was no necessity to disregard the previous treaties when no new agreements have been achieved.

 

Critiques also asked for the reason Iran consented to sub-basin partition while before that in its officials stances the country always supported joint sovereignty. Of course Tehran Summit document rather focused on political issues and the legal regime was not finalized. The matter was conferred to the group of experts to be re-discussed in Baku Summit in the new year. Holding a summit at this level after several years of freeze in talks on the Caspian Sea was considered a success per se.

 

Due to contraction of bilateral treaties between some littoral states and the strict stance of all the five Caspian Sea neighboring countries, finalization of the Caspian Sea legal regime appears far-fetched, unless some flexibility is shown.

 

The two countries continued to have strained relations in the last year, their tone becoming more vitriolic at occasions. The bilateral talks in Iraq did not influence Iran-U.S. relations and as the officials of both sides stressed, the security negotiations had nothing to do with bilateral problems. American officials have repeatedly remarked that if Iran halts its uranium enrichment program, they are ready to start bilateral negotiations on issues of mutual interest.

 

Rejecting United States’ demand, the Islamic Republic of Iran has stated that negotiations with U.S. are not on its agenda. However; Ahmadinejhad has declared that he is ready to have a debate with U.S. president, a proposition not welcomed by Americans. Of course during the last year nuclear negotiations, Iran announced its preparedness to start unconditional talks with 5+1, which was rejected. After ElBaradei’s last report, Iran doesn’t follow this policy anymore.

 

Iran has once again become a hot topic for presidential nominees of U.S. elections. McCain, Obama and Clinton have expressed their opinion about Iran and negotiations with the country. While the republican nominee has adopted a harsh stance against Iran and has talked of war with the country if it attains nuclear weapons, the democrats have promised to start talks with Iran if elected as U.S. president.

 

Obama has even stepped further and has said that he is ready for unconditional meeting with his Iranian counterpart, but let’s keep in mind that not all promises made by nominees become realized. The powerful Israeli lobby mustn’t be forgotten and definitely the next U.S. president must consider Israel’s concerns expressed either directly or through its lobby.

 

Due to the harsh stances of Bush’s administration towards Iran and its attempts to pass other resolutions against Iran in UN Security Council, Iran-U.S. ties are becoming increasingly complicated.

 

After the NIE report in fall, the possibility of a military attack on Iran is weaker than ever and U.S. officials have frequently stated that they don’t wish to start a war on Iran; however, it is so unlikely for Bush to take any constructive step towards Iran in the remaining time of his presidency.

 

In case of McCain’s rise to presidency significant changes will occur in bilateral relations, though McCain has less influence of neo-cons in comparison with Bush. If the next U.S. president is a democrat, there’s a chance that Iran-U.S. ties witness some changes or a propagandistic move be made by the new government. However, because of the topsy-turvy nature of the relations and power of Israel’s lobby major changes do not seem so likely.

 

A major shift took place in Iran’s nuclear dossier in the last year which was the agreement between Iran and IAEA on a modality plan to solve the remaining problems. Iran’s close cooperation with IAEA, including interviews and inspections during 6 months, were reflected in ElBaradei’s report that talked of conclusion of the 6 remaining problems.

 

However, under America’s pressures ElBaradei referred to alleged studies claimed by Americans, naming it as the only remaining problem. But in the modality plan that both parties had agreed on, this matter was considered a minor issue, not one of those 6 problems. Another important event was the report by 16 intelligence organizations of United States that reported Iran has halted its military nuclear activities since 2003.

 

From the viewpoint of Iran, that has always denied claims of having a military agenda, the NIE report was a Parthian shot on America’s claims that Iran follows non-peaceful military plans. It corroborated Iran’s stance that the UN Security Council doesn’t have any legal competence to handle its nuclear dossier. ElBaradei’s last report reinforced Iran’s stance that not only the country does not follow military goals, but its nuclear record is fully transparent. So the UN Security Council can not interfere with this case and Iran’s nuclear dossier must be only judged by IAEA as a normal case.

 

Resolution 1803 that was passed after ElBaradei’s report proved that Iran’s nuclear case is merely political and has nothing to do with Iran-IAEA cooperation. Approval of this resolution revealed another truth: that on its nuclear program, Iran can not rely on friendly members of UN Security Council, whether they are powers such as China and Russia, or Islamic countries and members of Non-Aligned Movement. Iran toughened its stance after the resolution, announcing that from now on it would only negotiate with IAEA.

 

The three-month deadline stated in this resolution will end within 2 months and it seems that United States and its European partners will try to pass another resolution. Of course the Americans will follow the policy of unilateral sanctions and try to bring more countries on board.

 

Since the 6 remaining problems have been concluded, the United States will focus on alleged studies and push IAEA to adopt a tougher position on this matter. In its contacts with other countries, United States always stresses that Iran hasn’t abided by resolutions 1737, 1747 and 1803, so it has become necessary for the UN Security Council to continue investigation of Iran’s nuclear program and pass a next resolution.

 In this situation, it seems that other members of the Security Council are not able or are not willing to reject the upcoming resolutions. The only members that have the capability to do so are China and Russia, but whether they do it or not is not clear and previous cases show that they’ll ultimately deal with the United States and agree on resolutions.