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Obama and Iran: the Clinton dilemma

By Emma White - posted Monday, 19 January 2009


On January 20, Arab and Iranian leaders in particular will breathe a collective sigh of relief as Barack Obama is sworn in as President of the United States of America.

The relationship between Washington and Tehran is now more important than ever as renewed fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hamas in Gaza threatens to engulf the region in violence.

Obama’s presidency is a chance for the US to reshape its relationship with Iran away from the failed policies of the Bush administration and towards a new era of co-operation.

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Sitting only a few feet away on the podium at the inauguration will be Obama’s new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who many fear will be a thorn in the side of Obama’s promise of a new dawn of American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Barack Obama’s November 2008 presidential election victory was greeted with enthusiasm by Middle East leaders.

Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League, told reporters that Obama’s election to the presidency was a “watershed” moment for relations between the US and the Middle East, and that Obama must bring “a policy of honest brokership” to the region.

In a landmark gesture, the day after Obama was elected; Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent Obama a congratulatory letter urging him to reshape America’s relations with Iran.

"The great Iranian nation welcomes real, basic and fair changes in behaviour and policies" Ahmadinejad said.

Iran and the US severed diplomatic ties in 1979 after Islamic students held US diplomats hostage in Tehran during the Islamic revolution which ousted the US-backed regime of Shah Pahlavi.

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After three decades of hostility, Obama’s presidency brings hope that relations between Washington and Tehran may finally be able to move to a more stable footing based on engagement not fear and mistrust.

A nuclear standoff sits at the heart of the division between Tehran and Washington.

Tehran protests that its nuclear power program is a peaceful one, compliant with the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. Washington officials, however, insist that Iran’s civilian capabilities can quickly be turned to military purposes.

In Global Trends 2025, a new report written by the US National Intelligence Council, Iran’s nuclear program is identified as a key security threat to maintaining stability in the Middle East.

“A nuclear-armed Iran spawning a nuclear arms race in the greater Middle East will bring new security challenges to an already conflict-prone region”, the report said.

Just how Obama deals with Iran’s nuclear ambitions will be a critical test of his presidency. Will he keep his campaign promise to shift policy away from the failed Bush approach of threats and containment and negotiate with Iranian leaders to resolve this nuclear security dilemma?

One complication which could frustrate Obama’s vision is Hillary Clinton. While Obama represents a new approach, his new Secretary of State, Clinton must subordinate her previously stated ideas on Iran. There is the danger that fundamental policy differences between the two may result in a lack of coherence in US foreign policy towards Iran.

Clinton and Obama clashed over this issue during their bitter campaign for the 2008 Democratic Primary votes. Obama clearly outlined his preferred approach of engagement, telling reporters that he was willing to meet Iranian leaders to discuss issues of overlapping interest with Washington including nuclear proliferation, terrorism, stability in Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Clinton, in contrast, ridiculed Obama for wanting to sit-down and negotiate directly with Iranian leaders without preconditions. “I thought that was irresponsible and frankly naïve”, she said.

Detractors of Clinton’s appointment see her 2007 Senate vote in favour of declaring Iran's 125,000 strong Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organisation as proof that as Secretary of State she will maintain an aggressive stance towards Iran.

According to Dr Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, the impact of this vote led to a “further entrenching of US-Iran relations in a paradigm of enmity”. “Without negotiations,” Parsi declares, “the two countries will gravitate toward conflict”.

Washington seems to have lost its appetite for launching targeted military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. However, Clinton’s comments during the Democratic Primaries campaign that as president she was willing to “totally obliterate” Iran has its leaders understandably worried and leads to the obvious question: has Obama taken too big a political risk in appointing a Secretary of State whose political ambitions and aggressive Iranian stance are well known?

Perception is important in international relations. US leaders in particular must carefully choose candidates for the top diplomatic job. Experience cannot be the only consideration. What an appointment signals to the international community about new government foreign policy intentions is just as vital.

Hillary Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State is problematic. Her appointment sends the message that hope of a more moderate and imaginative Middle East policy from Washington is just that - hope.

Iranians have not forgotten that after a period of relative harmony under President George Bush Snr - a reward for Tehran’s neutrality in the first Gulf war - it was Bill Clinton who, in 1996, reinstated tough economic sanctions against Iran by signing the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. In 2002 US-Iran relations further deteriorated when the current Bush administration accused Iran of being in an “axis of evil” along with Iraq and North Korea.

Policymakers in Tehran saw the deterrent value of having nuclear capability in 2003 when the US invaded Iraq, which had no nuclear capability, yet negotiated with North Korea who did have such a capability. This reinvigorated Iran’s desire to continue its development of nuclear technology as a measure against an Iraq-style invasion.

Despite attempts by Iran in 2003 and again in 2006 to instigate diplomatic negotiations with Washington on issues including their nuclear program, the Iraq war, and Tehran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah, Washington continued to follow a policy of isolation refusing to speak with Iranian leaders.

A Joint Experts' Statement authored by a group of prominent Iran experts, released in November 2008, warns Obama’s new administration that a continuation of the Bush strategy will be counter-productive. Instead, they call for “direct, unconditional and comprehensive negotiations” with Iranian leaders.

“US efforts to manage Iran through isolation, threats and sanctions have been tried intermittently for more than two decades,” the report said. “In that time they have not solved any major problem in US - Iran relations, and have made most of them worse.”

Both Arab and Iranian leaders are optimistic that Obama will move away from the toxic policies of the Bush administration’s that have destabilised the Middle East. Obama must capitalise on this reservoir of goodwill felt towards him. No long-term solution to Middle Eastern regional security can be found without the constructive engagement of Iran.

If Obama is to succeed in convincing Tehran to halt its nuclear program he must offer a bold new approach based on engagement. To do this, he must not allow his new Secretary of State’s hawkish stance on Iran to derail his foreign policy vision.

Obama risks a unique opportunity to improve relations between Washington and Tehran, if he proves unable to manage Clinton.

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About the Author

Emma White is a researcher in the Department of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of New South Wales. She holds a Masters of International Studies from UNSW. Emma speaks fluent French and has spent many years working and travelling abroad and has resided both in the United States and France.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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