Michael Ledeen: Why talking to Iran is pointless
[Mr. Ledeen is resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His book, "The Iranian Time Bomb," is forthcoming from St. Martin's Press.]
For some time now, the chattering classes have debated whether the United States should negotiate with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both sides have endowed the very act of negotiating with near-mythic power.
The advocates suggest that "good relations" may emerge, while opponents warn it is somehow playing into the mullahs' hands. Both seem to believe that the three recent talks in Baghdad are historically significant, since they are said to be a departure from past practice.
That claim is false. Every administration since Ayatollah Khomeini's seizure of power in 1979 has negotiated with the Iranians. Nothing positive has ever come of it, but most every president has come to believe that a "grand bargain" with Tehran can somehow be reached, if only we negotiate well enough.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, first left, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, top center, and Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi, first right, during security talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Baghdad Monday, May 28, 2007.
Washington diplomats have steadfastly refused to see the Iranian regime for what it is: a relentless enemy that seeks to dominate or destroy us. This blindness afflicted the first American negotiators shortly after the 1979 revolution, and has been chronic ever since, even though Iran declared war on us in that year and has waged it ever since.
During the first negotiations in early 1979, shortly after the Revolution, the Iranians denounced American meddling, and the Americans lamented Iran's dreadful human-rights practices. The Iranian negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister for Revolutionary Affairs Ibrahim Yazdi, said that Iran had just undergone "the cleanest revolution in world history," even though mass executions were underway throughout the country.
Yet American diplomats were optimistic that a grand bargain could be struck. The Iranians wanted arms, and American military men sat down to work out the details of new sales. On the diplomatic front, Assistant Secretary of State Harold Newsom reported that: "the Iranian suspicions of us were only natural in the post-revolutionary situation but that after a transition period common interests could provide a basis for future cooperation-not on the scale of before but sufficient to demonstrate that Iran has not been 'lost' to us and to the West."
This was written almost precisely a month before the American Embassy in Tehran was seized in November, 1979. For the next 444 days, diplomats talked and talked, until, minutes before Ronald Reagan's inauguration, the hostages were ransomed out.
Five years (and a new set of hostages) later, the Reagan administration commenced secret negotiations with the mullahs, using American, Israeli and Iranian back channels....
Read entire article at WSJ
For some time now, the chattering classes have debated whether the United States should negotiate with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both sides have endowed the very act of negotiating with near-mythic power.
The advocates suggest that "good relations" may emerge, while opponents warn it is somehow playing into the mullahs' hands. Both seem to believe that the three recent talks in Baghdad are historically significant, since they are said to be a departure from past practice.
That claim is false. Every administration since Ayatollah Khomeini's seizure of power in 1979 has negotiated with the Iranians. Nothing positive has ever come of it, but most every president has come to believe that a "grand bargain" with Tehran can somehow be reached, if only we negotiate well enough.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, first left, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, top center, and Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi, first right, during security talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Baghdad Monday, May 28, 2007.
Washington diplomats have steadfastly refused to see the Iranian regime for what it is: a relentless enemy that seeks to dominate or destroy us. This blindness afflicted the first American negotiators shortly after the 1979 revolution, and has been chronic ever since, even though Iran declared war on us in that year and has waged it ever since.
During the first negotiations in early 1979, shortly after the Revolution, the Iranians denounced American meddling, and the Americans lamented Iran's dreadful human-rights practices. The Iranian negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister for Revolutionary Affairs Ibrahim Yazdi, said that Iran had just undergone "the cleanest revolution in world history," even though mass executions were underway throughout the country.
Yet American diplomats were optimistic that a grand bargain could be struck. The Iranians wanted arms, and American military men sat down to work out the details of new sales. On the diplomatic front, Assistant Secretary of State Harold Newsom reported that: "the Iranian suspicions of us were only natural in the post-revolutionary situation but that after a transition period common interests could provide a basis for future cooperation-not on the scale of before but sufficient to demonstrate that Iran has not been 'lost' to us and to the West."
This was written almost precisely a month before the American Embassy in Tehran was seized in November, 1979. For the next 444 days, diplomats talked and talked, until, minutes before Ronald Reagan's inauguration, the hostages were ransomed out.
Five years (and a new set of hostages) later, the Reagan administration commenced secret negotiations with the mullahs, using American, Israeli and Iranian back channels....