IRAN: THE 800 POUND GORILLA IS GETTING BIGGER

In a previous post I portrayed Iran as the 800 pound gorilla in the room, the room being the Middle East and our difficulties in finding solutions to our multiple problems in that region, including Afghanistan. It seems that no matter where we turn we bump into the gorilla, whether it be our problems with Iran itself, or Tehran's involvement in Iraq, Israel, or Afghanistan. Unfortunately, it seems that over the past week the gorilla has grown in size.

A major setback for the United States came in Iraq. For seven months we have been waiting for and involving ourselves in that country's inability to form a new government following the early March parliamentary elections. Given the complexities of Iraqi politics, we may be waiting still longer for a final resolution of the problem. But our hopes for a solution satisfactory to the United States took a great leap backwards when the interim Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki reached some kind of coalition agreement with a very anti-American faction headed by Muqtada al-Sadr with whom we had fought a separate war while fighting various insurgent groups within Iraq a few years ago.

If one price of al-Sadr's willingness to support al-Maliki is getting all U.S. troops out of the country, it would bring joy to many of us. Unfortunately, al-Sadr, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Iran, as a key government insider is likely to be the avenue for significantly greater Iranian influence in Iraq. An al-Maliki government will be Shiite dominated and thus already has strong religious attachments to Shiite Iran. Al-Maliki has already shown a willingness to establish a closer relationship with Iran, a relationship that is likely to become even greater via al-Sadr.

While the U.S. may lament the growing Iranian influence in the region in terms of political and military policy, it should be remembered that it is in a significant way a self-inflicted wound. When former President George W. Bush invaded Iraq ostensibly in search of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, he overthrew the major regional counterbalance, Saddam Hussein, to Iranian regional ambitions, thus further empowering those ambitions.

Enhancement of Iranian influence in Iraq through any al-Maliki/al-Sadr agreement again renews the continuously nagging question of how to deal with Iran on a host of outstanding issues ranging from stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions short of the weapons stage, to including Iran as a partner in any international effort to end the Afghan war and bring political and economic stability to Afghanistan, to release of the two American hikers who are facing charges of espionage.

While maintaining international confrontation with Iran on the nuclear issue, President Obama in early August reportedly said that for the United States, Afghanistan is a "separate track" from the nuclear talks. The "separate track" statement recalls the l970's version of the same problem. This was the Cold War "linkage" policy of President Nixon and his chief foreign policy adviser/Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. The "linkage" policy was aimed primarily at the Soviet Union and China, in effect saying to them that if they wanted progress on various issues such as arms control and economic/trade agreements, they would have to stop aiding and abetting revolutions and wars in the third world, including Vietnam. That policy had its biggest failure in Vietnam where it was needed the most to help end the war and our role in it.

Now we seem to be returning to the linkage/separate track issue with Iran. Despite Iran's repeated threats and blustering about the United States and Israel, and the United States being the prime conspirator behind the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Center, Obama has sought to keep open a possible dialogue with Iran on the various outstanding issues. So far there is no evidence of much success for holding direct U.S.-Iranian talks, although David Ignatius in his September 17 column reported that Iran has sent positive messages through third countries about participation in the resolution of the Afghan conflict.

Certainly "separate track" is a more realistic approach than "linkage" since it is not evident how much near term leverage we have to drive any hard bargains if the issues are linked. Except for the various unilateral and U.N. sponsored economic sanctions (which have notable leakages, including military and economic ties between Iran and China and Russia), some of the outstanding near term issues with Iran involve our getting concessions or assistance from Iran. In the mid-term, we can hope that Iran will get a more moderate and agreeable President than Mahmoud Ahmadeinejad, and a religious hierarchy less inclined to view the United States as the Great Satan. In the longer term, improving working relations now might lead to ultimately to the restoration of normal U.S./international/Iranian political and economic relations, including much-needed new U.S. and international investments in Iran, as well as securing political and military stability in the region.

Last week, I asked the question "What does progress look like?" in the Middle East, focusing on the status of the Israeli-Palestinian talks and formation of a government in Iraq. I answered the question, saying, "How can I tell? I don't see any." Viewing events in Iraq over the past week (also, still no progress in the Israeli-Palestinian talks), I can add, "But I do know what a step backward looks like."