Answering Ahmadinejad
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POLITICIANS the world over indulge in campaign stunts, and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is no exception. Facing a presidential election June 12, Ahmadinejad seized upon President Obama's offer to open a US-Iran dialogue as an opportunity to do some electoral preening.
Instead of responding to Obama's proposal for negotiations, Ahmadinejad said he would debate Obama at the United Nations General Assembly "regarding the roots of world problems." He added that there would be no discussion, in any international forum, of Iran's nuclear program. "The nuclear issue is a finished issue for us," he said.
Ahmadinejad's dismissal is an obvious campaign ploy, and it calls for a suitably political response. Obama ought to say he has too much respect for the people of Iran to meddle in its presidential election; that is why he will wait until after June 12 to open negotiations, without preconditions, on all the outstanding issues that have come between the two countries.
This would allow Obama to hold the door open for serious talks with Iran while lending credence to Iranian voices calling for a positive response to the US overture.
To gauge the Iranian public's eagerness for a new relationship with America, one need only consider recent criticisms of Ahmadinejad from Mohsen Rezaei, a former head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps who has the most hawkish credentials of the three presidential candidates authorized to run against Ahmadinejad. Rezaei proposed a step-by-step plan for "reciprocal change" in relations with America, starting with issues such as drug trafficking and the ecosystem of the Persian Gulf and working up to negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. The erstwhile hard-liner even broached the idea of an international consortium that could monitor uranium enrichment inside Iran.
By refusing to allow Ahmadinejad to diminish his call for dialogue, Obama would validate the more receptive positions of Rezaei and the two would-be reformist candidates, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi. In stark contrast to Ahmadinejad, Rezaei has said: "Fundamental changes have occurred in the US society. President Barack Obama is the result of this change. Americans no longer look at the adventurist policy of invading other countries."
Powerful factions in Iran's mixed political system may conspire to keep Ahmadinejad in power. But Obama still should appeal to the popular thirst for a less conflictual relationship with America.
