Syria and Iran: To Engage or Not to Engage By Michael Shank International Herald Tribune/Daily News [WEBSITE VERSION] November 17, 2006
As the United States veers from its modus operandi in Iraq and contemplates alliances with Syria and Iran to remedy Iraq’s catastrophic reality, the question of dialogue remains at the fore. Does the US engage, or not engage, in talks with Syria and Iran? While US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claims that she will “talk to anybody, anywhere, anytime” because she is “not afraid to talk to anyone,” in practice it is quite the opposite. Notwithstanding the potential gains that may come from engaging Syria and Iran vis-à-vis Iraq, gains that will benefit the Iraqi people and improve US-Syria and US-Iran relations, the US has either severed all communication links, as in the case of Syria, or predicated conversations on so many conditionalities that it makes constructive negotiation impossible, as in the case of Iran.
Take Syria. Last year, the US decided to recall US Ambassador to Syria Margaret Scobie, leaving a vacancy in official US diplomatic relations with Syria. Though the seat remains empty, Syria may be better off without Ambassador Scobie. In visiting with the ambassador in Damascus shortly before her departure, it became clear to this columnist that her interaction with Syria’s government officials was not only minimal, it was painfully inadequate. With over 20 years as a Foreign Service officer in the region, basic language skills and cultural nuances eluded her. Yet the State Department, not Ambassador Scobie, is responsible for this insufficiency as department protocol enforces strict and limited parameters on language proficiency — a counterintuitive policy when considering effective diplomatic mechanisms.
If the US wants to effectively engage Syria, the doors remain open in Damascus. Yet the State Department continues to fail to recognize Syria’s role in calming Iraq. Ambassador David Satterfield, the State Department’s top official on Iraq policy, claimed recently in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee that Syria is not part of the solution. In dismissing Syria, Satterfield disregards potential liaising with, for example, Syria’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Hassoun, with whom this columnist met not long after the invasion of Iraq to discuss opportunities for interfaith diplomacy. As Syria’s most highly regarded Islamic leader, Sheikh Hassoun has the capacity and the legitimacy to assist in addressing salient sectarianism within Iraq. Ambassador Satterfield’s decision to implicitly discount the grand mufti is detrimental not only to Iraq’s future but also to US-Syria relations.
Take Iran. Numerous overtures and invitations by Iran’s political and religious leadership to dialogue with the US have produced little response: the Bush administration consistently rejects the invitation, stating that all nuclear ambitions must first be abandoned. Regardless of the fact that US conditions for talks significantly overstate Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity — currently at 5 percent, a capacity sufficient for nuclear power but 80 percent below what is required for nuclear weaponry — they are resoundingly offensive to Iran’s political and religious leadership. Iran’s leadership witnesses the inconsistency of US restraints on global nuclear ambitiousness and is crying foul. Since the Bush administration continues to refuse diplomatic engagement with Iran, the nation’s President Ahmadinejad elects alternatively, and not surprisingly, to meet with US religious leaders, a trend which characterized the president’s September trip to New York when he met with 45 religious leaders from Christian and Muslim faith backgrounds.
If the US wants Iran’s assistance in Iraq, the US approach to dialogue must shift dramatically. A modicum of respect goes far in Iran — something the Bush administration continues to rebuff. What became clear to this columnist in conversations with the Majlis (Iran’s parliamentary body) in Tehran and Shiite sheikhs in the holy city of Qom was that dialogue as a political or religious tool is never discarded, despite divergence of viewpoints. US conditionalities as prerequisites to dialogue are, therefore, incongruous with Iranian political and religious norms. Qom might be willing to assist in quelling the violence in Iraq but only if the US is willing to court their assistance respectfully and with deference to dialogue. This does not require the US to forego its interests in seeing Iran dismantle its nuclear ambitions (however controversial that task may be); it merely requires that the US treat as equals the political and religious leadership in Tehran and Qom, respectively.
Remedying the chaos in Iraq, a deeply infested sore plaguing the Bush administration’s political track record, requires a dramatic shift from the US’s modus operandi. The US, which is arguably responsible for a death toll that estimates between 150,000–600,000 Iraqi deaths, must consider the potential lives saved by engaging in dialogue with Syria and Iran. US stubbornness continues to cost lives in Iraq, an immoral and inexcusable policy tack when diplomatic and dialogic alternatives remain waiting in the wings. At minimum, the US must engage the religious, if not the political leadership in Syria and Iran, lest Iraq’s 100 deaths per day continue unabated. Whereas dialogue has the potential to impede bloodshed, US obstinacy does not.
Michael Shank is with the George Mason University Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. He wrote this piece for The Daily Star Egypt.