 |
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2008, page 64 Waging Peace NIAC Iran Conference on Capitol Hill
THE NATIONAL Iranian American Council (NIAC) organized an April 8 conference titled “Breaking the U.S.–Iran Stalemate: Reassessing the Nuclear Strategy in the Wake of the Majlis Elections.” The event was moderated by NIAC’s president and co-founder, Trita Parsi. The first panel discussed the Majlis (parliamentary) elections and possible impacts. Scott Peterson, current Istanbul bureau chief for The Christian Science Monitor, described how in the recent elections conservatives disqualified the majority of reformist candidates linked to former President Mohammed Khatami, who were dubbed by the media as “enemies and traitors.” “The conservatives will never let themselves lose another election again,” Peterson stated, adding that it is not time for change in the Iranian government. “Presidential politics in Iran are obviously more about personalities,” he observed. In Peterson’s opinion, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be preparing a second run for president by waging successful campaigns in provinces all over Iran, “dishing out cash, toys, and sending ministers to find, finance, and check up on scores of projects.” According to panelist Barbara Slavin, senior diplomatic reporter for USA Today and current Jennings Randolph fellow at the U.S. Institute for Peace, “The main slogan was ‘I feel your pain’…because the economy is a major issue in Iran.” Using the Majlis elections as an indicator of upcoming presidential candidates, Slavin introduced three men from the “so-called pragmatic conservatives”: former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani; Mohammad Baqr Qalibaf, Ahmadinejad’s successor as mayor of Tehran; and Mohsen Rezaie, former commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. While she was in Iran covering the March 14 elections, Slavin said she was told that the current Majlis speaker, Haddad-Adel—whose daughter is married to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s son Mojtaba—is a favorite for 2009’s presidential elections. Ahmad Sadri, professor of sociology and chair of Islamic World Studies at Lake Forest College, provided an answer as to why Iranians participate in elections many outsiders considered to be “rigged.” “Participation in the elections prevents total domination by theocrats,” he explained, “and a huge landslide can overrun the theocratic stopgaps and lead to historical victories such as that enjoyed by Mohammed Khatami in 1997.” Peterson, Slavin and Sadri agreed that the Majlis elections will not chart a new path for Iranian nuclear development—which, the panelists concurred, has been sewn into the fabric of Iranian pride and national identity by Ahmadinejad’s administration. The second panel went on to address this issue. Ambassador Thomas Pickering, current vice chairman of Hills & Company, co-authored a March 20 New York Review of Books article on Iranian nuclear development. Outlining its three main points, he said that “the United States should be open to talk with Iran without any preconditions” and that Washington should “propose that there be multilateral or multinational enrichment in Iran” in order to meet civilian needs while preventing stockpiling of enriched materials. Lastly, Pickering supports “wide-ranging international inspections [beyond the IAEA’s Additional Protocol] connected to the acceptance of this proposal by…Iran and the West.” Acknowledging that no proposal is perfect, Pickering stressed that “whether this will work or not, of course, depends heavily not just on whether Iran accepts it, but whether others—principally the United States—are prepared to propose it.” Dr. Hans Blix, chairman of the independent Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission in Sweden, stated that, under the Nonproliferation Treaty, which it has signed, Iran has “the right and freedom to build enrichment facilities for the enrichment of uranium and reprocessing fuel for non-weapons purposes.” This has resulted in a “stalemate” over the enrichment of uranium on Iranian soil. Saying he is “skeptical of the format in which the contacts with Iran have taken place,” Blix noted that for Tehran “to suspend its enrichment program as a precondition for talks about the future of the program seems curious…[and] somewhat humiliating.” Perhaps what is needed, he said, are offers including “guarantees against attack from the outside and attempts at regime change” within Iran, as well as “guarantees that the Security Council would not raise any obstacle, any sanction to the purchases [of uranium] in the world market” as long as Iran remained free of a nuclear fuel cycle. Noting that the conference date was National Nuclear Day in Iran, physicist David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), urged that the time has come “to consider new approaches.” Agreeing with his fellow panelists, Albright supported a “move away from the imposition of unilateral sanctions.” “The U.S. needs to spend less [time] thinking about military options,” he argued, and instead “negotiate directly with Iran.” Albright identified as two important points future proposals must provide “incentives to offer Iran” as well as a recognition that “a suspension is not permanent cessation.” The keynote address was delivered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), whose California constituency “has a large and growing Iranian community.” Citing Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon as examples of men who took bold moves which yielded significant payoffs, Senator Feinstein called for a “fresh approach and fresh ideas” in place of the Bush administration’s rejection of diplomacy with Iran. “Only by talking and bringing to bear the best efforts of diplomacy can real progress be made,” Feinstein emphasized. “The process is likely to be difficult, but the results may well be significant, and one day…it could lead to a more stable and peaceful Middle East.” —Nina Hamedani |
|||||
