For the umpteenth time, the U.S. and Iran have come close to an open war neither side wants.
The Israelis strike a building within the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, killing senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Iranians, with unintended irony, protest this violation of diplomatic premises, and almost start a war with Israel by launching hundreds of drones and missiles that the U.S., given ample warning, helps to intercept. The Israelis launch a counterstrike to demonstrate its ability to evade Iran’s defenses. That appears to end the exchange until the next round.
Sooner or later, if the U.S. and the Islamic Republic are going to avoid such a lose-lose conflict, the two sides will need to stop shouting and start talking. Forty-five years of exchanging empty slogans, accusations, threats, and denunciations have accomplished little beyond furthering a few political careers and feeding a sense of self-righteousness. For successive U.S. administrations, Iran remains a problem that will not go away.
To paraphrase Trotsky, “You may have no business with Iran; but Iran has business with you.” For Iran, the U.S. remains an obsession. The more Iran’s hated rulers denounce it, the more attractive it becomes — as both a role model and a destination — to a savvy population suffering from inflation, unemployment, and the stern, misogynistic dictates of an aging and ossified ruling elite.
The Islamic Republic, despite the wishes of many Iranians and their friends, is probably not going away soon. In the first months after the fall of the monarchy, the most-asked question in Tehran was, “When are THEY leaving?” (Inhaa key mirand?). Forty-five years later THEY are still in charge and show no signs of packing their bags.
Why should we talk to the Islamic Republic, when it has the appalling history that it does? Why should we talk when its overriding policy principle is, in the words of one Iranian official, “opposition to you”? We need to talk because talking (and listening) to an adversary means serving our national interests by communicating. Talking never means either approval of or affection for the Islamic Republic.
Talking to the Islamic Republic is not going to bring down that government, persuade the ruling clerics to step aside, or persuade them to stop repressing its women, musicians, journalists, lawyers, students and academics. Talking is not going to end the ruling clerics’ bizarre obsessions with controlling every trivial detail of Iranians’ private lives. What talking does is allow each side to present its point of view and to correct the dangerous “mythperceptions” that have prevented the U.S. and Iran from breaking out of a 45-year downward spiral of futility.
For what has happened when the two sides have not talked? What has happened, for example, when the Islamic Republic’s representatives at meetings refuse face-to-face meetings with their American counterparts? What has happened when one side ignores, or rejects outright, proposals from the other to meet in at setting of mutual respect?
Whenever two sides — neighbors, relatives, countries — for whatever reason, cannot talk, each side becomes, to the other, simultaneously sub-human and super-human. “Superhuman” means the other is capable of anything. In this case, a superhuman Iran can build and deliver a nuclear weapon in weeks, manipulate proxies to do its will anywhere, and rebuild the mighty Persian Empires of Greek and Roman times. On the other side, a superhuman United States can guide events in Iran and subvert its young people through a powerful, hidden network of agents – journalists, intellectuals, writers, etc. – ready to obey instructions from Washington.
As for being “subhuman,” in this view neither side is constrained by any sense of morality or humanity. It will do (and since it is also superhuman, can do) anything. In such a case, the superhuman we fear and the subhuman we despise. When such a powerful and evil adversary threatens us, we feel justified in taking any action against it, because that adversary will stop at nothing and has only one goal: to destroy us by any means possible.
At one level, leaders in both Tehran and Washington seek to avoid an Iran-U.S. war. Although Tehran’s ruling clerics care little for the lives of ordinary Iranians – who would be the victims of such a war – they do care about staying in power and continuing to enjoy their villas and foreign currency accounts. A war with the U.S. would threaten their good life. In Washington, both Democratic and Republican presidents have known that “another stupid war” in the Middle East is a political loser. In 2016, Trump ran against such wars, and his message was powerful. Although he foolishly abandoned the Iran nuclear deal and made a bizarre threat to blow up “52 historical sites” in Iran, he clearly had no stomach for a war. He summarily fired his national security adviser, a paid shill for the cultists of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), when he pushed the president toward confrontation.
Does Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu want to drag the U.S. into a war with Iran? To all appearances he does, not only to rid Israel of a declared enemy, but, more important, to keep himself in power. The Israeli premier has used Iran to manipulate the U.S. and even to intervene directly in American domestic politics. The more extreme the rhetoric and actions from Tehran, the better for Netanyahu. It is said he went into mourning when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — notorious for his curious anti-Israeli rhetoric — left office in 2013. But he can usually depend on the Islamic Republic to help him both by overplaying its weak hand and by raising the volume on its tired slogans.
Wars often begin with both sides saying they want peace. But miscalculations, underestimating or overestimating the other side, and third-party actions can push a country down a path it knows is self-destructive. Talking to the Islamic Republic will be hard, but it is worth doing if it can keep both sides off a road to disaster.
![Following a largely preordained election, Vladimir Putin was sworn in last week for another six-year term as president of Russia. Putin’s victory has, of course, been met with accusations of fraud and political interference, factors that help explain his 87.3% vote share. If this continuation of Putin’s 24-year-long hold on power makes one thing clear, it’s that he and his regime will not be going anywhere for the foreseeable future. But, as his war in Ukraine continues with no clear end in sight, what is less clear is how Washington plans to deal with this reality. Experts say Washington needs to start projecting a long-term strategy toward Russia and its war in Ukraine, wielding its political leverage to apply pressure on Putin and push for more diplomacy aimed at ending the conflict. Only by looking beyond short-term solutions can Washington realistically move the needle in Ukraine. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, the U.S. has focused on getting aid to Ukraine to help it win back all of its pre-2014 territory, a goal complicated by Kyiv’s systemic shortages of munitions and manpower. But that response neglects a more strategic approach to the war, according to Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who spoke in a recent panel hosted by Carnegie. “There is a vortex of emergency planning that people have been, unfortunately, sucked into for the better part of two years since the intelligence first arrived in the fall of 2021,” Weiss said. “And so the urgent crowds out the strategic.” Historian Stephen Kotkin, for his part, says preserving Ukraine’s sovereignty is critical. However, the apparent focus on regaining territory, pushed by the U.S., is misguided. “Wars are never about regaining territory. It's about the capacity to fight and the will to fight. And if Russia has the capacity to fight and Ukraine takes back territory, Russia won't stop fighting,” Kotkin said in a podcast on the Wall Street Journal. And it appears Russia does have the capacity. The number of troops and weapons at Russia’s disposal far exceeds Ukraine’s, and Russian leaders spend twice as much on defense as their Ukrainian counterparts. Ukraine will need a continuous supply of aid from the West to continue to match up to Russia. And while aid to Ukraine is important, Kotkin says, so is a clear plan for determining the preferred outcome of the war. The U.S. may be better served by using the significant political leverage it has over Russia to shape a long-term outcome in its favor. George Beebe of the Quincy Institute, which publishes Responsible Statecraft, says that Russia’s primary concerns and interests do not end with Ukraine. Moscow is fundamentally concerned about the NATO alliance and the threat it may pose to Russian internal stability. Negotiations and dialogue about the bounds and limits of NATO and Russia’s powers, therefore, are critical to the broader conflict. This is a process that is not possible without the U.S. and Europe. “That means by definition, we have some leverage,” Beebe says. To this point, Kotkin says the strength of the U.S. and its allies lies in their political influence — where they are much more powerful than Russia — rather than on the battlefield. Leveraging this influence will be a necessary tool in reaching an agreement that is favorable to the West’s interests, “one that protects the United States, protects its allies in Europe, that preserves an independent Ukraine, but also respects Russia's core security interests there.” In Kotkin’s view, this would mean pushing for an armistice that ends the fighting on the ground and preserves Ukrainian sovereignty, meaning not legally acknowledging Russia’s possession of the territory they have taken during the war. Then, negotiations can proceed. Beebe adds that a treaty on how conventional forces can be used in Europe will be important, one that establishes limits on where and how militaries can be deployed. “[Russia] need[s] some understanding with the West about what we're all going to agree to rule out in terms of interference in the other's domestic affairs,” Beebe said. Critical to these objectives is dialogue with Putin, which Beebe says Washington has not done enough to facilitate. U.S. officials have stated publicly that they do not plan to meet with Putin. The U.S. rejected Putin’s most statements of his willingness to negotiate, which he expressed in an interview with Tucker Carlson in February, citing skepticism that Putin has any genuine intentions of ending the war. “Despite Mr. Putin’s words, we have seen no actions to indicate he is interested in ending this war. If he was, he would pull back his forces and stop his ceaseless attacks on Ukraine,” a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council said in response. But neither side has been open to serious communication. Biden and Putin haven’t met to engage in meaningful talks about the war since it began, their last meeting taking place before the war began in the summer of 2021 in Geneva. Weiss says the U.S. should make it clear that those lines of communication are open. “Any strategy that involves diplomatic outreach also has to be sort of undergirded by serious resolve and a sense that we're not we're not going anywhere,” Weiss said. An end to the war will be critical to long-term global stability. Russia will remain a significant player on the world stage, Beebe explains, considering it is the world’s largest nuclear power and a leading energy producer. It is therefore ultimately in the U.S. and Europe’s interests to reach a relationship “that combines competitive and cooperative elements, and where we find a way to manage our differences and make sure that they don't spiral into very dangerous military confrontation,” he says. As two major global superpowers, the U.S. and Russia need to find a way to share the world. Only genuine, long-term planning can ensure that Washington will be able to shape that future in its best interests.](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/media-library/following-a-largely-preordained-election-vladimir-putin-was-sworn-in-last-week-for-another-six-year-term-as-president-of-russia.jpg?id=34283894&width=1245&height=700&quality=90&coordinates=0%2C77%2C0%2C77)
