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Does Obama have an Iran policy ? - -

By Amir Taheri


February 21, 2009

A MONTH after he took office, some analysts are starting to wonder whether President Obama has an Iran policy.

What of his controversial policy of opening an unconditional dialogue with the Khomeinist regime in Tehran? Hussein Qashqawi, the Foreign Ministry spokesman in Tehran, told a press briefing last week: "We have had nothing other than some talk about change."

He has a point. For example, Richard Holbrooke's recent demarche to Iran on stabilizing Afghanistan continues the policy of the Bush administration, which consulted Tehran from the start of the post-9/11 Afghan war. (The Bush team also consulted Iran about Iraq.)

Meanwhile, it's unclear who will be in charge of Obama's Iran dossier. Initially, it was rumored that Dennis Ross, a seasoned diplomat and senior scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, would be solely in charge, reporting directly to the president. But, a month into the administration, it's still not clear what role, if any, Ross will play.

And several heavy hitters are fighting over control of Iran policy.

Susan Rice, Obama's UN envoy, opened the hostilities last month by formally claiming control. That invited a riposte from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who pointed out that nothing could be done about Iran without her say-so.

Then a third claimant entered the fray: Samantha Power, the former journalist who is believed to be Obama's closest foreign-policy adviser. As director of the National Security Council's Middle East desk, she insists that Iran falls on her turf. And National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones advances his own claims as the administration's top Iran expert.

The result has been confusion.

The latest noise from the administration is that the president has ordered a "thorough review of policy on Iran."

Did you think Obama had already reviewed a policy that he had vehemently condemned and opposed? Wrong: As in many other cases, he opposed Bush policy without bothering to study and understand it.

The starting point of all this was Obama's campaign pledge to talk to Iran "anywhere, anytime and without conditions." Now, however, one could compile a long list of conditions set by Rice, Clinton, Power and Jones: "Anytime, anywhere" is gone.

In fact, the administration will try to prevaricate until after Iran's June 20 presidential election. The hope is that former President Muhammad Khatami, a mid-ranking mullah and the darling of the Davos crowd, will beat Ahmadinejad and offer Obama an acceptable interlocutor.

There is also the unfortunate fact of three UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran. Legally speaking, America can't ignore them. Politically, it can't stick to them without making Obama's promise of "unconditional talks" meaningless.

The result of all this is the freezing of the situation, handing Tehran precisely what it wanted. While the group of 5+1 (the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) do nothing because they're waiting for Obama to formulate a policy, the Islamic Republic will rush ahead with its nuclear program.

A special study made for the French parliament claims that Iran will have enough enriched uranium for its first bomb by year's end. A report from the International Atomic Energy Agency says much the same.

During the Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton made a shrewd observation about Obama. She said that each time a major crisis took place, Obama . . . made a speech.

Problem is, he seems to be continuing with that method now - making speeches as a substitute for policy.

It works like this: The president makes a speech, orders a review and appoints a special emissary. Sympathetic newspapers praise the president's prudence and wisdom compared to President George W. Bush's gung-ho, trigger-happy foreign policy. The special emissaries are shown on TV going to faraway places and taking pictures with exotic foreign leaders. Think-tank experts then go on TV to remind us that Obama is dealing with problems that are "complex and multidimensioned."

The hoped-for impression is that the problem has been taken care of, allowing the president to move on to tackle some other aspect of his Herculean task.

Remember you first read it here: Obama has no policy on Iran or any of the other major issues of foreign policy, including the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia and China. He hopes to avoid endorsing the policies of his predecessor but is at a loss as to what could be done differently. The result is political paralysis.



    
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