Will the troubled ‘marriage’ of U.S., Iran turn toward acrimony or amity?

By Colleen Walsh

Harvard News Office

A nuclear reactor, a hostage crisis, an unpopular coup, an “axis of evil.” All are part of the complex dynamic between the United States and Iran, where history and tensions run deep.

“I compare them to a once happily married couple that’s gone through a bitter divorce,” said Barbara Slavin A.B. ’72, author of “Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation,” at a Harvard Law School (HLS) program Dec. 5 at Langdell North.

Iran’s animosity stems in part, said Slavin, from the early 1950s when the United States helped overthrow its popular prime minister and from U.S. support of Saddam Hussein during the brutal, eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

Iran exacted its own harm in 1979, said Slavin, when the Iranian government supported militant students who took U.S. diplomats and other U.S. citizens hostage and held most of them for more than a year. The United States condemns Iran’s support of terrorist organizations and its nuclear enrichment program, which it fears will lead to nuclear weapons.

There have been happier times in this “marriage,” said Slavin. Ironically, the United States provided Iran with its first nuclear reactor for research purposes. And, Slavin said, Iran assisted with the American defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But, she added, relations were severely damaged in 2002 when George W. Bush included Iran in his “axis of evil” triumvirate during the State of the Union Address.

The history and future of the United States’ relationship with Iran was the focus of last week’s discussion sponsored by the HLS Program on Negotiation. It couldn’t have been timelier, coming on the heels of a new National Intelligence Estimate that reported that Iran ceased its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The Bush administration has taken a hard line with the Middle East nation in recent years, in large part over its concern about such a program.

“We had no idea what great timing we had,” said Robert H. Mnookin, Samuel Williston Professor of Law, director of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project, and chair of the Steering Committee for the Program on Negotiation, who introduced the talk. “We couldn’t have planned it better.”

The panel, which included Mnookin, Slavin, and James K. Sebenius, Gordon Donaldson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, examined the implications of the new report and possible strategies for reconciliation. Much of the discussion was given over to Slavin, senior diplomatic correspondent with USA Today, who has traveled extensively in the Middle East and Iran, and recently interviewed the country’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad.

Along the way, efforts have been made at negotiation from both sides, but always with limited or no success, Slavin said. In 1997 the election of the reformist President Mohammed Khatami offered some hope for change, but even during his time in office, little progress was made.

Part of the ongoing problem, Slavin contended, is the provocative rhetoric employed by the United States, common in the current Bush administration but also in use during the Clinton years.

Terms like “regime” instead of “government” are harmful she said, when used by U.S. leaders in reference to Iran. She alluded to a 2000 speech by Madeline Albright where the former secretary of state praised Khatami and apologized for the United States’ role in the 1953 coup and the support of Hussein. “But she made a mistake and I think it’s a fatal one,” said Slavin. “She distinguished between Khatami and what she called the “unelected,” a direct insult, Slavin said, to Iran’s supreme leader.

Opposition from factions within each country is another obstacle. In response to a question from Mnookin about internal conflicts that impede the process, Slavin claimed that some officials, including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton can, and have, threatened the process. But Iran has its own share of internal troubles that make broad mandates difficult, she acknowledged.

“It’s the most fractured politics, every other guy thinks he should be president,” she said. “There was always the fear on the Iranian side if they made an overture to the United States and it didn’t work, they would be humiliated and of course their rivals within the system would take advantage and destroy their careers.”

Though the author called Ahmadinijad a “creepy guy” and an ill-informed ideologue, she maintained much of the responsibility for failed talks lies with the United States and the current administration.

At the end of her recent book, Slavin attached a comprehensive agenda for negotiations compiled by Iranian officials just after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s rule, which lists the extensive concerns on both sides. Mnookin said it was a striking document that was modeled in the “classic dispute system design.” But despite its thoughtfulness, the Bush administration wasn’t interested, claimed Slavin.

“Condoleezza Rice told me that she doesn’t even remember seeing this offer, which I find hard to believe since it was circulated widely,” she said.

Slavin was optimistic that the new National Intelligence Estimate offers hope for the possibility of reconciliation. So too does a new acceptance by top officials in Iran who have openly acknowledged talks with the United States, previously taboo, are now considered acceptable.

Mnookin asked if an arrangement that would allow Iran to keep its enrichment capabilities as long as they were subject to strict oversight would work. He described it as a type of “international enrichment facility on Iranian soil.”

Minimal enrichment with maximum supervision was a proposal that one could put on the table, Slavin agreed.

In the end, she suggested, successful negotiation between the two countries will rely in part on the absence of inflammatory rhetoric; willingness on behalf of the Bush administration to come to the table without preconditions, and a healthy dose of trust and respect.

“I think there’s a way to talk to both of them that’s respectful,” she said.

And while Bush and Ahmadinijad may not be the ones leading the process, there are skilled negotiators on both sides, she offered, who are up to the task.

“I don’t think it’s impossible.”

colleen_walsh@harvard.edu