Nuclear Hostage Crisis

Michael Rubin has written a good piece on the current crisis with Iran. Especially telling is his summary of the diplomatic efforts of the past 20 years, and where its gotten us.

On April 1, 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini declared the Islamic Republic, mutual antipathy was not assured. On Nov. 1, 1979, U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Iran's Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan met in Algiers to discuss resumption of relations. In order to scuttle rapprochement and embarrass moderates, hard-line students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, holding 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Khomeini used the subsequent crisis to consolidate hard-liner control.

Seven years later, a misguided U.S. attempt to engage Iran sparked the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. In March 1986, U.S. National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane traveled secretly to Tehran to spearhead rapprochement as part of a scheme to divert proceeds from arms sales to the Nicaraguan resistance. Within days, pamphlets appeared on Tehran University bulletin boards condemning "the visit of an American official." On Nov. 3, 1986, Ash Shiraa, a pro-Syrian Lebanese magazine, detailed the secret contacts. While the scandal paralyzed Ronald Reagan's second term, the leaks originated not in Washington but in Tehran. The betrayal of Reagan's confidence had nothing to do with the U.S., but rather with an internal Iranian power struggle.

The Clinton administration took its own misstep toward reconciliation when, on Sept. 15, 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright arranged to meet alone with her Iranian counterpart on the sidelines of a U.N. Afghanistan conference. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi stood her up. Slights also matter. What Washington shrugged off as a minor embarrassment projected U.S. weakness to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's inner circle.

Nor has engagement only backfired with Washington. Berlin spearheaded engagement with Tehran in 1992, but suspended it five years later after a German court found top Iranian officials, including Messrs. Khamenei and Rafsanjani, complicit in ordering the murder of dissidents in Berlin. But Brussels renewed engagement with vigor two years later after Iranian President Muhammad Khatami called for a "Dialogue of Civilizations." Between 2000 and 2005, European Union trade with Iran almost tripled. The regime invested the hard currency not in civil society but in its weapons program. Speaking softly while wielding a big carrot backfires.

http://www.meforum.org/article/925