Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

American-Iranian Relations: A Code of Conduct and Guide for Action

by Carah Ong [contact information]

April 22, 2008

Far-sighted, responsible U.S. diplomatic leadership is urgently needed to break the impasse in relations with Iran.
Sustained, direct, unconditional and comprehensive talks with the Government of Iran would enable friends and allies of the United States to be more confident supporting U.S. positions if it becomes necessary to increase pressure on the Government of Iran, including appropriate multilateral sanctions. The United States should appoint, at the earliest date possible, a high-level official or Special Envoy for Iran, with the rank of Ambassador and/or of high public standing, which would have the authority to engage in direct, bilateral talks with Iran and in partnership with the international community concerning its nuclear program, as well as broader issues of mutual concern.

U.S. threats of regime change, isolation, sanctions and military action will only have a negative effect and further harden Iran's stance.
The United States should relinquish the rhetoric of regime change, which inevitably evokes the tarnished legacy of U.S. involvement with the 1953 coup that deposed Iran's popularly elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq. This rhetoric simply bolsters nationalist passions that are clearly contrary to the goal such a policy seeks to accomplish. Attempting to isolate the Iranian government also does not serve the cause of democracy in Iran or in the region.

Any U.S. or Israeli military attack on Iran runs the significant risk of catalyzing nationalistic passions within the entire population, which would strengthen the hand of the minority in Iran that that may actively desire a nuclear weapons capability. Any attack would also most likely generate hostile Iranian counterattacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The staggering economic, humanitarian, political and military consequences of a conflict between the United States and Iran would damage American strategic interests for years to come. Confrontation would turn a largely pro-American Iranian populace against the United States, and further damage U.S. standing in the world. Oil prices could soar to $200 per barrel – making $5-per-gallon gasoline a reality.

It would be unwise and unrealistic for the United States to defer contact with Iran until all differences between the two governments have been resolved.
It is to the advantage of both the United States and Iran to identify issues on which critical interests to both countries converge and to try to make progress along separate tracks, even while differences remain in other areas.

Sanctions alone cannot replace diplomacy as a means of resolving differences between nations.
The argument that sanctions and economic pressure are diplomatic tools is flawed, and so too is the notion that the only strategic choices before the United States when it comes to Iran are war or capitulation. Such was the false choice posed by the Bush administration with regard to Iraq. There is a wide array of alternatives available to the United States for resolving tensions with Iran, but the political will to get to the negotiating table has been lacking on both sides.

It is possible to negotiate with Iran without betraying human rights.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch report that executions in Iran – including instances of stoning – have sharply increased under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Making Iran's human rights record a condition of gradual improvement of U.S.-Iran relations would help reduce tensions between the two countries without alienating the Iranian people and undermining America's soft power in Iran.

The U.S. regime-change slush fund (the so-called "program to promote democracy" in Iran) is universally rejected by its intended recipients in Iran because it has undermined work for democracy and reform.
Iranian authorities have used the Bush administration's regime change slush fund as a pretext to clamp down on Iran's civil society with thousands of arrests. The secrecy surrounding the distribution of these funds has created immense problems for Iranian reformers and human rights activists. Aware of their own deep unpopularity, the hardliners in Iran are terrified by the prospect of a "velvet revolution" and have become obsessed with preventing contacts between Iranian scholars, artists, journalists and political activists and their American counterparts.

Iran and the United States have significantly shared interests in Iraq.
The most effective way of achieving their shared goal of a stable Iraq is through sustained, direct, bilateral talks. Both countries support Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and its Badr Corps. In Iraq, the number one solution is for U.S. troops to leave as soon as possible, but this can't be done unless stability is achieved and Iran can help with this.

The reprehensible anti-Semitic statements by Iran's President Ahmadinejad deserve universal condemnation, but they should not be misconstrued as being representative of attitudes held by the vast majority of the Iranian population.

Small steps, such as the authorization of trade between U.S. entities and Iran's relatively small private sector, as well as the lifting of visa restrictions, should be contemplated as confidence-building measures that would create new constituencies within Iran for a government that is fully integrated into the international community.