Talking with a region: lessons from Iran, Turkey and Pakistan.

The headline-grabbing foreign-policy initiative of Obama's election campaign was that his administration would talk to Tehran "without preconditions." The idea that American diplomacy in the Middle East needs renewal is evident, and the Obama presidency has brought with it hopes that a new diplomatic initiative might aid the most intractable foreign-policy issues in the region. Perhaps Obama's charisma, international appeal and emphasis on engagement will provide America with a new and productive diplomatic influence that it has so clearly lacked of late. However, the Obama strategy has been to pursue "tough direct diplomacy," emphasizing the potential sticks of economic pressure and political isolation. (1) This has been further elaborated in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement that "smart power" will be at the center of U.S. foreign policy. Smart power, Clinton suggests, will emphasize diplomacy but also includes military and economic coercion. It therefore remains an open question whether U.S. foreign policy will turn to a strategy of long-term influence through persuasion or remain rooted in coercion, the default position regarding Iran for the past 30 years.

It should be remembered that America will need to find a way to work with the patchwork of diplomatic relationships within the region. While for the past eight years the Bush administration's foreign policy has used only hard power, inter-regional diplomacy has evolved. The recent Mumbai attacks have brought India-Pakistan tensions to the fore, but this historical tension should not detract from the less visible cooperation among regional neighbors. Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, in particular, form a geographical and diplomatic link that has increasingly proved productive. Thus, contrasting directions have emerged in the politics of Iran and its neighbors. In the glare of world media and intense focus from policy makers, is the international condemnation of Iran's nuclear program, tension between India and Pakistan, and claim and counter-claim about state sponsorship of destabilizing nonstate groups in India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. Less recognized is a gradual but decisive trend towards cooperation among states in the region. In plain contradiction to the pernicious notion of a Shia crescent, this trend has been gaining strength in the past several years and will become still more important with the twin pressures of economic downturn and the politics of fossil fuels. This trend has been demonstrated by a trade agreement, announced in July 2008, among Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. (2) Perhaps most symbolically, it was demonstrated in the invitation extended by the Saudi royal family to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend the hajj. The question is not, therefore, will Obama talk to Tehran, but will the United States find a place of persuasive influence within the complex regional diplomatic dynamics?

The trend towards regional cooperation among Turkey, Iran and Pakistan is crucial to understanding the issue of Iranian nuclear weapons in two ways. First, negatively, the cooperation among these countries and others in the region has created a context in which the "hard power" asserted by Western governments and institutions, particularly the United States, is inappropriate. Coercive economic power is becoming increasingly undermined by Iran's economic partnerships. Military action would have untold consequences for Turkey and Pakistan, states that are already fragile and crucial to regional stability and the struggle against global terrorism. Second, both negatively and positively, important lessons are to be learned from the current political context in Turkey and Pakistan and their relations to the Iranian regime. Both states will be crucial if soft-power efforts are to be successful. In both, the public perception of the United States has plummeted in recent years. At the same time, there have been instances of cooperation and diplomacy between these states that could be the key to future stability. The religious context in these countries is also essential to the future of the region. (3)

IRAN

Hard Power and the Nuclear Issue

Hard power is defined as the ability to force an entity to do something, typically through economic coercion or military force. This stands in contrast to soft power, the ability to persuade or attract agreement in order to achieve objectives. (4) UN Resolutions 1696, 1737 and 1747 (2007) all emphasized the importance of "political and diplomatic efforts to find a negotiated solution guaranteeing that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes." (5) This wording was dropped in Resolution 1803 (March 2008), but there was a continued emphasis on diplomatic efforts in the document. However, underpinning the resolutions has been the hard-power threat of sanctions, which were increased in Resolution 1803 to include a number of individuals and companies thought to be linked in some way to the Iranian nuclear program. It should be emphasised that these efforts remain predicated on a notion of hard power so long as the emphasis, practically and rhetorically, is on coercion. Particularly in the context of threatening language used by the Bush administration, it is difficult for diplomacy to be seen consistently as such, but it is certainly diplomacy predicated on hard power, or what Anthony Newkirk refers to as "strategies of tension." (6) In October 2007, the Bush administration imposed the strongest economic sanctions against Iran since the 1979 revolution. The 2007 designation of the Revolutionary Guards Corp as a terrorist organization allows the government under U.S. law to freeze assets and obstruct funding of any foreign business that supports it. (7) With partial success, the U.S. government has attempted to prevent European energy companies and banks from doing business with Iran. (8) Even diplomacy, then, is predicated on coercion. In fact, the Bush administration's logic concerning Iran was that only hard power is ...