A No Fault Divorce
In the summer of 2010, between the relentless onslaught of news about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (Iranians might have derived some measure of Schadenfreude from BP’s—once the Anglo Persian Oil Company and the entity for which the British and U.S. governments overthrew an Iranian government—woes and potentially bankrupting future litigation against it), headlines in New York also referenced the state’s impending change to its law to allow “no fault” divorces. Until now, and a relic of more religious times, divorce between a couple could only occur in New York if one party was at fault—leaving couples who could agree on everything including the wisdom of separation to cite various reasons for a matrimonial split, such as abandonment or adultery, on the part of one party regardless of veracity. The introduction of “no fault” divorce, long opposed by the Catholic Church, will bring New York in line with many other states in the union who have moved closer to an ideal of secularism espoused by the American intelligentsia. (Few non-New Yorkers know that New York has also only allowed liquor sales on Sundays since the beginning of the 21st Century.) But as we New Yorkers ponder a future where couples no longer must lie to secure a divorce, divorce on a larger scale—between nations—weighs heavily on the mind of those following events in the thirty-year saga of U.S-Iran relations, perversely at their possible lowest in the age of “hope” and “change” in the American body politic.
The American-Iranian divorce, officially recognized when the U.S. broke off diplomatic relations in 1980 but really instigated on November 4, 1979, when the American Embassy in Tehran was seized and its employees taken hostage, is perhaps the best example of a split that would benefit from a “no fault” attitude if future reconciliation, or just civil relations, are to be contemplated. Of course in reality there is no such thing as a “no fault” divorce—a misnomer if there ever was one—as what it really means is an equal fault divorce, one where no party accepts blame, but the mere act of the split implies that something was very wrong in the relationship, a wrong that could never be attributed to anything but the behavior or personalities of the parties involved.
For thirty odd years since their acrimonious split, neither Iran nor the U.S. have fully accepted responsibility or “fault”, and have consistently blamed the other party for the state of tension between the two nations. In a marital divorce, no matter how vicious, it wouldn’t really matter much once the split was finalized—the couples would move on with no intention of ever reconciling—but in the case of nations, particularly two nations whose histories and common interests are inextricably tied to each other, the desire for rapprochement—even a renewed love affair based on mutual respect—plays out in every diplomatic move, every announcement, and every public relations maneuver either party makes. But until both Iran and the U.S. acknowledge their mistakes, and assume their fair share of the blame for their estrangement, neither will their divorce be finalized, nor will the opportunity for true reconciliation present itself. As such, for the nations to contemplate accepting a “no fault” divorce might be step toward putting the ugly squabbling behind them, and creating an atmosphere where an inter-state romance can bloom once again.
To be fair, both sides have made attempts to accept “no fault” in their divorce, and to agree that some blame is at least mutual. President Clinton (one who was no stranger to on-again off-again romances) sought to accept some blame when he instructed his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to express “regret” for U.S. involvement in the 1953 coup against the government of Mossadeq. And former President Khatami was the first Iranian leader to ever express “regret” for the taking of American hostages. But both attempts were perhaps half-hearted—like a couple who are willing to cede some ground but too proud or stubborn to fully accept responsibility for their actions—and as we know neither president was able to get beyond the acrimony between their two countries, let alone even meet. And since then, relations have reverted to playing the blame game. Whenever their divorce is raised in public, Iran blames the U.S. not only for its history of meddling in its affairs, but for the divorce itself, pointing out that it was the U.S. that unilaterally broke off relations with Iran in 1980. A specious argument, to be sure, and one that, like a jilted husband who refuses to accept that his behavior contributed to his wife’s rejection, ignores the fact that the U.S. broke off relations because Iran first occupied its embassy and held its diplomats prisoner, and then refused, as international law demands, that it release them. The U.S., of course, wasn’t entirely faultless, even in the case of the hostage crisis, not if one is to take into consideration the history of American involvement in Iran. As Peter Beinart (editor of The New Republic) cleverly observes in his new book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, “To some degree, foreign policy is all about deciding in which direction you’d rather be wrong.”
Whether they knew it at the time or not, the Iranians had made a judgment that in the case of the hostage crisis, they would rather be wrong by keeping the Americans prisoner, rather than releasing them immediately and be wrong about U.S. intentions to overthrow the new revolutionary government in Tehran. Hindsight might tell us that the U.S. did not in fact intend to overthrow the nascent Islamic regime, but without that knowledge, Tehran made a calculation on direction that was not without logic. But recognizing that Iran made a foreign policy choice based on its interest, and on deciding in a manner Beinart describes, does not absolve Iran of blame, and perhaps it was this understanding that led Khatami to express his regret over the affair (or at least regret that Americans had been so offended). Similarly, in the case of the 1953 coup, America under a new president, Eisenhower, decided it would rather be wrong about Iran’s potential fall to communism under Mossadeq (and therefore decided to remove him), than be wrong about his ability to actually bring about true democracy in Iran (and support him, as President Truman had done). This also does not absolve the U.S. of blame, something President Clinton understood during his presidency and President Obama does so today.
Today’s problems in the relationship between Iran and the U.S. are naturally of a different order, but almost everyone recognizes that almost all problems stem from those two events; the Mossadeq affair first, and the hostage crisis second. As such, they are a good starting point for both the U.S. and Iran to begin to acknowledge that despite their wounded pride, they are, like a fighting married couple, willing to accept “no fault” even as they effectively admit to “mutual fault”. It was former President Khatami who, of all Iranian leaders, was the first to admit that Iran could accept responsibility for its faults, and who also was the first Iranian leader to blame the state of affairs between Iran and the U.S. on “hardliners on both sides.” Khatami’s moves toward “no fault” were rebuffed by two American presidents, and President Obama, who intending to accept blame for past U.S. mistakes vis-à-vis Iran has admitted to them on more than one occasion, has met the rebuffs of the Iranian leadership (which to be fair, has made attempts to reach out to the American administration itself, only to be rebuffed). Leaving aside the issue of whether the Obama administration’s Iran policy, which now includes threats, sanctions and isolation, all intended—as the administration claims—to get Iran back to the negotiating table, is a shrewd one, or whether Iran’s policy, expressed mostly by President Ahmadinejad in a defiant and at times belligerent tone, the fact remains that both countries have become hostage to their history of mistrust, antagonism, and vitriolic rhetoric. Whether Obama has decided he’d rather be wrong about Iran’s nuclear program (and take every step to prevent its development) than be wrong in accepting it and possibly face a nuclear-armed Iran, or whether Iran has decided it would rather be wrong about U.S. intentions toward it (and refuse engagement) than be wrong in compromising and possibly face American subversion of the regime or even a planned “velvet” revolution, should now be irrelevant. As a first step toward even the possibility of a rapprochement and mutual understanding, both sides need to get to the “no fault” stage of their split—and recognize that the rhetoric of blame has not achieved anything in the last thirty years of Iran’s divorce (or the last fifty years of Cuba’s divorce) from the U.S. The U.S. might have learned a lesson from Turkey and Brazil, who recently effectively played the part of marriage counselors seeking to bring a couple back together, rather than play the wounded spouse and storm out of the therapist’s office, and Iran might have learned over the past year that its rhetoric can turn off even some of its closest friends, who have now seemingly sided with the U.S. on the Tehran-Washington split.
If Beinart’s observation is correct, Iran and the United States could do worse than decide on accepting “no fault” as a direction they’d rather be wrong on, rather than using pride as factor in determining the direction of their foreign policies. Pride, after all, is the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, which should matter greatly to two nations that both proclaim strong belief in the messengers of God. Or one would think so.