Left of College Station

Why the United States must look towards the future and not the past in foreign policy with Iran.

With the economic stimulus and recovery package set to pass a final vote and subsequently to be signed by President Obama, hopefully the new administration can begin to shift their focus in different areas. The present economic crisis has presented a difficult situation for the new administration; the entirety of the message coming from the White House has been about the economy and the stimulus plan. Most of the rhetoric that has filled the media environment and the blogosphere has been about the economy and the stimulus plan. The problem is that the economic problems facing the United States and the rest of the world are the largest stack of papers on an already cluttered desk.

One of the priorities of President Obama during the campaign was to change the tone of foreign policy; specifically Obama promised to change direction in dealing with countries such as North Korea, Iran, and Cuba. Iran should be the highest priority simple because of the volatility of the Middle East and because of the difficulty that an unstable Middle East places on our ability to eliminate terrorist networks.

The politics in Iran are not necessarily unlike the politics of any other country; there has always been a dynamic between the more moderate leaders and the hard line leaders. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad uses political rhetoric to speak to his base in the same way that any other politician speaks to his base; while the rhetoric that Ahmadinejad uses to focus on the United States and Israel is offensive and repressible it is not done without political calculation.

Hillary Mann Leverett describes former national security advisor (and former Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice’s positions on diplomatic relations with Iran:

Condoleezza Rice dismissed then President Khatami as a potential diplomatic partner for the United States. Indeed, the erstwhile Sovietologist compared Khatami to Mikhail Gorbachev, arguing that by engaging Khatami, the United States would risk missing the opportunity to find the Islamic Republic's Boris Yeltsin.

Having a “Gorbachev” as president of Iran would actually be of great benefit; it was in fact through negotiations with Gorbachev that the ground work was laid for the ending of the Cold War and Yeltsin being elected was made possible.

When it comes to foreign policy with countries like Iran we must realize that the conventional wisdom and everything that has been support by neoconservatives is not a constructive way to operate. Above all we must realize that we are dealing with a culture that is fundamentally different than ours, and we cannot expect to have a successful foreign policy without an understanding of their culture and politics.

Possibly one of largest mistakes, among many, in Iraq was not fully understanding the culture and the politics of the Iraqis. This mistake was probably the largest contributing factor to the quagmire that the United States military was imbedded in after the invasion and subsequent fall of the Iraqi regime. If we want to successful deal with our enemies then we must first understand them, and we must not look to conventional wisdom. If we can successful deal with Iran then it opens many doors for the United States in foreign policy, on of which could be a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.