Iran-United States Relations Once again in the Spotlight
Iran-United States relations were discussed this week by both the U.S. Congress and the Iranian Parliament
This week the U.S. Congress and the Iranian Parliament [Majles] discussed Iran-U.S. relations from different aspects. A few days ago a report was presented in the Iranian parliament that contained significant information about Iran-U.S. relations since the Islamic Revolution.
The report, carried out by the Investigation Board on Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, was read by Kazem Jalali, member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee.
According the report, the transitional government headed by late Mehdi Bazargan that ruled the country in the early months after the revolution had failed to regulate Iran-U.S. relations. The report also directly criticized later governments. The bottom line of the report is that Iran has not gained its rights deservedly.
At the same time, the U.S. Congress had a hearing session with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates this week, reviewing Iran-America relations. Gates started with response Republican Arlen Specter’s criticism on asking for a halt in Iran’s nuclear activities as precondition for bilateral talks. He cast doubts if the talks would be productive while in Iran Ahmadinejhad in power.
Gates added that the United States may have missed the chance to engage Iran in 2003 to 2004, during Khatami’s presidency, but with Ahmadinejhad’s presidency there is a ’a resurgence of the original hardline views of the Islamic revolutionaries’ in Iran.
Ironically Gates has doubted the likely result of direct talks with Ahmadinejhad while he had previously called for continuation of Iran-U.S. talks and contacts between two countries.
Iran has currently become a critical issue in presidential campaign between Democrat and Republican nominees and it will be of no surprise if candidates’ attitude towards relations with Iran would determine the outcome of elections.
Extreme Views of U.S. Presidential Candidates
In a controversial remark pointed targeting senior American military officials and U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Barack Obama, Democrat senator and presidential hopeful demanded negotiations with Iran to establish security in the Arab country. Obama stated that adding to diplomatic contacts with Iran for this aim was necessary.
Obama said: "if the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maleki can have normal relations with Iran, then we have to talk with them [Iranians]. I don’t think we can make things better without their participation." He also promised to start direct talks with Iran if he became president.
On the other hand, Hillary Clinton thinks totally different. In flashpoint of her presidential campaign, she threatened to obliterate Iran if the country launched a nuclear attack on Israel. According to Hillary Clinton U.S. is ready to respond massive retaliation if Iran attacks Israel.
Also Republican John McCain criticized Obama for his mild attitude towards Iran, saying that he downgrades Iran’s threat. McCain stated that Obama’s preparedness to carry out direct talks with hostile countries like Iran "betrays the depth of Senator Obama’s inexperience and reckless judgment". McCain had also previously accused his democrat opponents of not paying attention to Middle East threats.
However, presidents of both countries think different. Both Ahmadinejhad and Bush believe that such remarks are common during a presidential contest and shouldn’t be taken serious.
Last week, marking Israel’s 60th anniversary in Knesset, George W. Bush compared those who call for talks with terrorists and radicals to the ones which had appeased Nazis at the brink of the Second World War. The remarks were interpreted as an attack on Barack Obama.
Meanwhile, Mahmoud Ahmadinejhad, the Iranian president, has said that some American officials favor military action against Iran but they’re not able to actualize their plan. He said that their days are over and warned Americans to leave Middle East as soon as possible.
While the exchanges become bitter, leading to accusations and escalation of tensions, hopes for continuation of negotiations on Iraq or any other issue seem irrelevant. If the current course of events continues, efforts to probe the relations during the past 30 years, defend rights of each party during the break-up or assessing the possibility of direct interaction and talks between two countries –on issues of mutual interest and not related to third party issues like Iraq- can’t be fruitful.
Through direct talks removal of misunderstandings, suspicions and accusations are facilitated, while interests of both parties and their ideological attitudes can remain intact.