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.
Hellbound and Down 