There are calls coming from within the United States government for direct dialogue with Iran in order to achieve a breakthrough in the nuclear confrontation. The New York Times and other major U.S. media reported May 27 that the U.S. State Department has begun internal discussion about ways to talk to the Iranians. Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeline Albright and former defense secretary William Cohen have already openly called for dialogue.
It would be hard to say at this point what course these calls for dialogue will take, because Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have both maintained ultra hard-line positions on the invasion of Iraq and on Iran’s nuclear program, and they are opposed to talking to the country. But with continuing political instability in U.S.-occupied Iraq and rapidly deteriorating American public opinion regarding their administration, the expectation is that it will be hard for president George W. Bush to ignore the suggestion forever.
What makes us take note of this new mood is that these recent calls for dialogue represent a call for the revision of the Bush Administration’s fundamental unilateralist foreign policy. Soon after September 19 last year, when a dramatic agreement was reached during the fourth round of six-party talks, Cheney and other neocons rejected what had been agreed upon and began making a bigger issue of North Korea’s human rights, as U.S. policy returned to its previous strategy of seeking regime change.
Even when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. has neglected dialogue and made links with anti-government elements within that country out of an obsession with regime change, and in doing so it has created an explosively tense situation. If the U.S. resolves the nuclear crisis through dialogue with Iran, it will be establishing a basis for stabilizing the confused situation in Iraq. That would ultimately have a positive effect on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, as well.
[Editorial] Will the U.S. talk to Iran? |
