May 2003 Iranian Offer

[Tom Odom]

New York Times
April 29, 2007
Pg. WK13

Diplomacy At Its Worst

By Nicholas D. Kristof

In May 2003, Iran sent a secret proposal to the U.S. for settling our mutual disputes in a “grand bargain.”

It is an astonishing document, for it tries to address a range of U.S. concerns about nuclear weapons, terrorism and Iraq. I’ve placed it and related documents (including multiple drafts of it) on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground.

Hard-liners in the Bush administration killed discussions of a deal, and interviews with key players suggest that was an appalling mistake. There was a real hope for peace; now there is a real danger of war.

Scattered reports of the Iranian proposal have emerged previously, but if you read the full documentary record you’ll see that what the hard-liners killed wasn’t just one faxed Iranian proposal but an entire peace process. The record indicates that officials from the repressive, duplicitous government of Iran pursued peace more energetically and diplomatically than senior Bush administration officials — which makes me ache for my country.

This article is from Kristof's blog but you can see it all on the Ebird from 29 April.


Tom

[120mm]

It is my opinion that any lasting peace in the Middle East will NOT be the result of an Israeli-Palestinian solution, but rather a US-Iranian detente. We have created a de facto "pocket superpower" by knocking out Iraq as a polity, leaving only Iran. So now, I think it may be time to start eating the sh*t sandwich we've created, hold our collective noses and to build bridges with Iran.

[bourbon]

Book Reveals Details of Iran’s Diplomatic Outreach to Israel by Marc Perelman. The Jewish Daily Forward, Aug 08, 2007

A soon to be released book details previously unknown backroom contacts between Iran and Israel in 2003, when Tehran was pushing the Bush administration into entering comprehensive diplomatic negotiations.

In “Treacherous Alliance,” Trita Parsi, an adjunct professor at John Hopkins University and president of the National Iranian American Council, contends that shortly after Iran proposed a “grand bargain” to the United States four years ago, Tehran made a similar offer to Israel during an academic meeting in Athens.

[bourbon]

Book Reveals Details of Iran’s Diplomatic Outreach to Israel by Marc Perelman. The Jewish Daily Forward, Aug 08, 2007

Dr. Parsi’s book Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States has since gone to print. Parsi was working for Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) at the time and was the intermediary between Ney’s office and the White House. Rep. Ney was chosen by the Swiss Ambassador in Tehran because he spoke Farsi and had spent time in Iran, lesser achievements of Ney’s include championing “Freedom Fries” in 2003 and a 2006 fraud conviction related to the Jack Abramoff scandal.

The Victor? By Peter W. Galbraith reviewing Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States by Trita Parsi. The New York Review of Books, Volume 54, Number 15, October 11, 2007

Parsi has recently published three articles of interest:

Iran and Israel: the Avoidable War, By Parsi, Trita. Middle East Policy, 10/02/07

Long Division, by Trita Parsi. The American Conservative, September 10, 2007

The brewing confrontation with Iran isn’t just about nukes or neoconservative ambition. It’s about regional hegemony.

Iran, the Inflatable Bogey, By Dr. Trita Parsi. Rootless Cosmopolitan, October 10, 2007

" But Netanyahu went beyond just lowering the rhetoric. He tried to reach an understanding with Iran though the help of prominent Iranian Jews[12], he stopped Israeli attacks on Iran within international organizations[13] , he arranged for meetings between Iranian and Israeli representatives at European think tanks[14], and he encouraged Israeli parliamentarians to reach out to their Iranian counterparts at meetings of the Inter-Parliamentarian Union. At one point, he even sought Kazakh and Russian mediation between Iran and Israel. In December 1996, Kazakhstan’soil minister, Nurlen Balgimbaev, who enjoyed excellent ties with Tehran, visited Israel for medical treatment and was approached about arranging a dialogue with Iran to discuss ways to reduce tensions between the two countries. [15]

None of his efforts bore any fruit, though. Iran’s dismissal of Israel’s conciliatory signals convinced the Netanyahu government that just like in the Iran Contra affair, Tehran only wanted to mend fences with the U.S. and had no real interest in rebuilding its ties with Israel.

Therein, of course, lay the real threat from Iran.

The Israelis saw danger in a rapprochement between Tehran and Washington, believing this would inevitably see the U.S. sacrifice some of its support for Israel in order to find a larger accommodation with Iran, in pursuit of U.S. strategic interests in the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. Iran would become emboldened and the U.S. would no longer seek to contain its growth. The balance of power would shift from Israel towards Iran and the Jewish State would no longer be able rely on Washington to control Tehran. “The Great Satan will make up with Iran and forget about Israel,” Gerald Steinberg of Bar Ilan University in Israel noted. [16]
Israel’s relative regional importance to the U.S. would decline with a warming of ties between Washington and Tehran. "

[bourbon]

"The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know", By John H. Richardson. Esquire, October 18, 2007.

In the years after 9/11, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann worked at the highest levels of the Bush administration as Middle East policy experts for the National Security Council. Mann conducted secret negotiations with Iran. Leverett traveled with Colin Powell and advised Condoleezza Rice. They each played crucial roles in formulating policy for the region leading up to the war in Iraq. But when they left the White House, they left with a growing sense of alarm -- not only was the Bush administration headed straight for war with Iran, it had been set on this course for years. That was what people didn't realize. It was just like Iraq, when the White House was so eager for war it couldn't wait for the UN inspectors to leave. The steps have been many and steady and all in the same direction. And now things are getting much worse. We are getting closer and closer to the tripline, they say.

"Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad?", By Fareed Zakaria. NEWSWEEK, Oct 20, 2007

The one time we seriously negotiated with Tehran was in the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, in order to create a new political order in the country. Bush's representative to the Bonn conference, James Dobbins, says that "the Iranians were very professional, straightforward, reliable and helpful. They were also critical to our success. They persuaded the Northern Alliance to make the final concessions that we asked for." Dobbins says the Iranians made overtures to have better relations with the United States through him and others in 2001 and later, but got no reply. Even after the Axis of Evil speech, he recalls, they offered to cooperate in Afghanistan. Dobbins took the proposal to a principals meeting in Washington only to have it met with dead silence. The then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he says, "looked down and rustled his papers." No reply was ever sent back to the Iranians. Why bother? They're mad.

[goesh]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

"Revolutionary Guards commander warns Iran will respond to any attack
By ASSOCIATED PRESS "

[redbullets]

It is my opinion that any lasting peace in the Middle East will NOT be the result of an Israeli-Palestinian solution, but rather a US-Iranian detente. We have created a de facto "pocket superpower" by knocking out Iraq as a polity, leaving only Iran. So now, I think it may be time to start eating the sh*t sandwich we've created, hold our collective noses and to build bridges with Iran.

Spot on.

Cheers,

[Ken White]

Khameini? Council of Guardians? Ahmadinejad and the Pasdaran? The Majlis?


The Iraniha aren't even talking to each other all that well.

Nor are they quite at the pocket superpower stage yet. That's not to say we shouldn't talk; just that no one should expect much.

[redbullets]

Maybe not, but they're sure enjoying a good run mucking up the plans of the sole remaining non-pocket superpower.

Cheers,

[Ken White]

Maybe not, but they're sure enjoying a good run mucking up the plans of the sole remaining non-pocket superpower.

Cheers,

They've been screwing with us since 1979. We encouraged it for over 20 years. They are a little more pushy now than they were,say, 10 years ago but not much. Not half as pushy as they were 25 years ago. Hezbollah has been tweaking us and Israel (among others) for that whole time, nothing new there.

They are messing with us in Iraq, true and which was not the case earlier but at some cost to themselves and they can't afford to lose too much there. Biggest possible worry is what they might contemplate doing here...