Nuclear Iran: Didn’t the U.S. Already Try This Strategy in Iraq?

A new “preventive war” is the talk of Washington following the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report released this month It said that Iran is not disclosing all aspects of its nuclear program and has not halted uranium enrichment activities. Speeches by the Iranian president have exacerbated the crisis. The IAEA has found no evidence of research or diversion of materials toward atomic weapons in Iran. But Washington still argues that Tehran’s concealment of its nuclear research program makes it untrustworthy to operate a domestic nuclear fuel cycle—even for civilian needs. For a detailed analysis see FCNL’s new blog: The Quakers’ Colonel.

Last week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote an 18-page letter to President George W. Bush. The White House immediately dismissed the Iranian president’s letter as a philosophical ploy designed to derail tough United Nations Security Council action to stop Iran from expanding its nuclear program.

Yet a group of Iranian scholars suggested during a press conference at FCNL that the U.S. might be wrong to dismiss the first direct communication from an Iranian leader to a U.S. president in more than two decades. This week, Henry Kissinger made the same argument. “If America is prepared to negotiate with North Korea over proliferation in the six-party forum, and with Iran in Baghdad over Iraqi security, it must be possible to devise a multilateral venue for nuclear talks with Tehran that would permit the United States to participate—especially in light of what is at stake,” writes Kissinger in a op-ed published in the Washington Post.

U.S. Rhetoric Toward Iran Sounds Familiar

President Bush insists that the U.S. is committed to exhausting all diplomatic options to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But the U.S. refuses to talk with Iran and the recent history of U.S. preventive war in Iraq has led some people in the United States and many people internationally to question U.S. intentions toward Iran today.

The president’s own rhetoric in the last few weeks sounds very similar to statements just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Asked about how the U.S. will stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, Bush responded: “The first option and the most important option is diplomacy. As you know, I’ve made the tough decision to commit American troops into harm’s way,” Bush told an audience in Florida last week. “It’s the toughest decision a president can ever make. But I want you to know that I tried diplomacy. In other words, the president has got to be able to say to the American people diplomacy didn’t work.” Our own view is that the “coercive diplomacy” of this administration has failed, and that the administration should now try smart diplomacy as the alternative, not so-called preventive war.

White House officials argue that a credible threat is necessary to force Iran to comply. The United States is pressing for a UN Security Council resolution sanctioning Iran for re-starting its uranium enrichment program. But, in early May, both China and Russia declined to endorse a condemnation under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. Over the next one to two weeks, the European Union - 3 (Britain, France, and Germany) is putting together a new packet of “carrots and sticks” to entice Iran to reconsider its defiance and accept international control of the fuel rods necessary to run its Russian-built reactor.

The U.S. is backing the EU-3’s efforts. But the administration’s insistence that “all options are on the table” is escalating tensions between two countries, whose leaders do not understand each other, have a long history of hostility that occasionally boils over into violence, and have almost no diplomatic relations. But as the case of Iraq clearly demonstrates, war is not the answer. As military analysts note, should the U.S. launch military action against Iran, the 130,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq would be in immediate danger. “This is a dangerous game of chicken,” warns Ahmad Sadri, a scholar who coordinated 200 academics, experts and former government officials to sign a letter warning the administration of the dire consequence of U.S. military action against Iran.

Congressional Debate on Iran

FCNL urges policy makers to exercise caution in the matter of imposing sanctions on Iran. As imposed on Iraq in the 1990s, the economic sanctions exacted a devastating effect on masses of innocent civilians and weakened any internal critics of the Iraqi regime. The effects of those economic sanctions would almost certainly would have risen to the level of war crimes had they been judged by the rules of war, which prohibit the targeting of civilians. The U.S. should not risk a similar outcome in Iran.

Many members of Congress embrace the calls for sanctions and support the president’s characterization of Iran as part of an “axis of evil” in the world. But some seasoned members of Congress are offering a different view. Senator Richard Lugar (IN) warned in April against imposing sanctions on Iran and called for talks between the U.S. and Iran. This view resonated with Senator Chuck Hagel (NE), who argued in an editorial last week “any lasting solution to the Iranian nuclear threat has to address the broader interest of Iran, the US, the region and the world.” FCNL has learned that several senators are considering initiatives to encourage face-to-face negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.

We at FCNL believe the that the U.S. ought to engage Iran bilaterally and through the UN and other multilateral venues to develop and implement procedures for safeguarding fissile materials, while permitting Iran to develop peaceful nuclear energy programs in accordance with the provisions of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. War is not the answer.

Reprinted from the Friends Committee on National Legislation”.