by David Crist
While the more extreme views of using force for regime change failed to gain ground in an administration bogged down in two land wars, U.S. officials accepted as truth a rumor that the first question asked every morning by Ahmadinejad during his version of the presidential daily briefing was: “Has there been a confirmed sighting of the Mahdi?”
In May 2006, Ahmadinejad sent a long, preachy letter to Bush that read as much as a religious discourse as it did substantive policy. But the letter had been approved by the supreme leader, and Ahmadinejad claimed he’d intended it to start a dialogue with Washington. Apparently, he believed that Bush, as a devout Christian, would respond positively to the Shia religious discourse that permeated the letter.28
The White House first learned of the letter by reading about it in the newspapers. While the administration remained unclear as to its intention, the last thing Bush’s advisers wanted was to get into a discussion about religion, which would only add legitimacy to the Iranian president. Its public rather than private passage to the president struck Nicholas Burns as a publicity stunt and not a serious overture. “It provided the appearance of reaching out, but not in a meaningful way,” he said, dismissing Ahmadinejad’s overture.29 Once again, the U.S. government refused to respond.
Shortly after the election of President Ahmadinejad, Hadley held a senior-level meeting to discuss its ramifications. The election had confirmed many preconceived views. His election appeared as a victory for hard-liners in a rigged election. It showed the lack of credibility the government had in the eyes of the Iranian population. The CIA representative pulled out a map that showed the variety of ethnic divisions within the country, and the discussion turned to the merits of exploiting these divisions. Non-Persians made up nearly 40 percent of Iran’s seventy million people, and many, such as the Kurds in the northwest and the Baluchis in the southeast, had their own guerrilla movements fighting the central government. While the United States knew of other countries supporting these movements, such as Soldiers of God, or Jundallah, in Baluchistan, the prospect of their success had little appeal in official Washington. “The last thing we wanted was for Iran to break apart,” said one former Bush official. “At the time, we were doing all we could to keep that disaster from happening in Iraq.”30
Rice offered a measured response. “We need to take a longer-term strategy to weaken Iran’s geostrategic position.” She suggested increasing support for Lebanon as a way to undermine Hezbollah or “undercut some of Iran’s terrorist friends,” as Rice phrased it. This led to another set of actions supporting the Iran Action Plan “to strengthen the Lebanese government.” Over the next couple of years, the U.S. government provided $885.5 million in economic and military assistance to Lebanon to undercut Hezbollah and Iran.31 Not all of this assistance proved effective. In an effort to improve the quality of the anemic Lebanese police force, the United States provided dozens of Dodge Chargers to outfit the force with new police cars. Many ended up being sold on the black market and suddenly appeared all over the Lebanese streets, as young men enjoyed their muscle cars courtesy of the American taxpayer.
The Defense Department’s Peter Rodman suggested duplicating the Iraqi National Congress by bringing together Iranian exiles and organizing them into a united front against Iran. He hoped it would promote a unity among reformers that would translate into action inside Iran. Others suggested duplicating the Free Iraqi Forces used in the American invasion of Iraq. That idea had failed. After spending $93 million, only one hundred men showed up for training in a camp in Hungary. But Luti believed the idea had failed because of opposition by the military, especially Tommy Franks, and not on its own merits. The Defense Department proposed approaching private groups and Iranian exiles to explore organizing them, perhaps even having the CIA organize a democratic movement inside Iran. If it had been done at the beginning of the administration, Luti believed, they would have been nearly a decade down the path to a peaceful revolution in Iran.
This met with skepticism outside of the civilians at the Pentagon and the White House. The Free Iraqi Forces and Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress were not seen with the same nostalgia in other quarters of the government, especially in light of their questionable ties to Iran and intelligence information on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The CIA had tried similar efforts during the early 1980s, when a large number of Iranians remained sympathetic to the United States, but it had failed to make any inroads in the military or the Iranian government. Rodman’s idea died in deliberations of Abrams and Cheney’s Iran steering group.
During the discussions about how to influence Iran, the idea of reopening an American consulate in Tehran emerged. On December 16, 2005, senior officials met at the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House to discuss the idea of establishing a consulate in Iran. J. D. Crouch presented a paper recommending a number of options, from opening a simple interests section in either the Swiss or the Polish (viewed as a more supportive ally, especially on Iraq) embassy to a larger consular office manned by U.S. Foreign Service officers. This direct presence in Tehran would provide a better venue to push the prodemocracy programs through easier access to visas for Iranian students and direct contacts with the Iranian population by American officials. It would allow poorer Iranians to reach the United States, as currently Iranians had to travel to Dubai or elsewhere to apply for an American visa.
Both CENTCOM commander John Abizaid and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Peter Pace liked the idea, chiefly because they hoped it would lead to talks with the Iranian military and decrease the possibility of an unintended war in the Gulf. Michael Singh, who had the Iran portfolio at the NSC, agreed with the generals and pushed the idea of an interests section in Tehran. A pragmatist, Singh was under no illusions that this would lead to any thaw between the two nations. “It was more a means than a strategy,” Singh said. But he believed it would allow for better insight into Iran and its opaque government, which would help the United States to craft a better strategy to counter the Islamic Republic. It would also show the world that Iran, not the United States, remained the obstacle to better relations.
The idea found few supporters. Dick Cheney opposed it, as did Elliott Abrams. Any diplomatic contact with Iran only afforded legitimacy to the mullahs. Hadley worried that it would appear to be a concession to Iran. After thirty years without an American diplomat in Tehran, it would send the wrong signal. Reestablishing diplomatic relations was a significant step, and the United States needed to receive some major concession in return for such a highly visible action; otherwise, it would look as though Washington had capitulated.32 William Luti opposed it as well, although he conceded that it provided a means to getting the CIA back into Iran. John Limbert had reservations too. As a former embassy hostage and one of the few Persian experts left in the senior Foreign Service, he did not feel the United States should risk sending diplomats while Iran continued to glorify the embassy takeover with stamps and publicly sponsored rallies every November 4.33 The idea died.
While the rhetoric inside the NSC shunned diplomacy with Tehran, the one woman who had the ear of the president viewed this differently. Having been the national security adviser, rather than impose the White House’s view on the diplomats, she soon adopted their view of the need for engagement with Iran. On America’s two main antagonists, Iran and North Korea, Rice turned to diplomacy to resolve the crises. This immediately clashed with the views of the vice president, who considered talks with those two countries a waste of time and endeavor. “Rice made concession after concession to the North Koreans and turned a blind eye to their misdeeds,” Cheney penned in his memoirs.34 While Abrams and others agreed with the vice president regarding Iran, Rice’s close rapport with the president (and Hadley) allowed her to bypass the hierarchy and obtain Bush’s approval without her ideas being vetted through Abrams and the NSC. “Cheney and Rice were at loggerheads,” said one NSC official who worked Iran during the second term. “Cheney wanted to take a tougher line
on Iran.” This put the two most powerful advisers at odds, and again the Bush policy vacillated.
Secretary Rice hoped to improve the chances of diplomacy by reaching out to Iran’s chief benefactors, China and Russia, and including them along with the three European countries in negotiations with Iran. The United States had tried appealing to Vladimir Putin during Bush’s first term, John Bolton having succeeded in getting President Bush to raise the issue with President Putin in the spring of 2002. While Putin privately told Bush that he too viewed Iran as a security threat, his public statements and actions took just the opposite tact. Bolton pressed the International Atomic Energy Agency for action, but the process moved too slowly for Bolton, who blamed Powell for coddling the Europeans during the incessant negotiations, despite the uncovering of numerous instances of Iranian deceit that showed the true aim of their nuclear ambitions.35 Rice renewed this effort in 2005, traveling to Moscow in October to attempt to sway Vladimir Putin as to the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran. The IAEA found Iran to be in noncompliance with the nonproliferation treaty safeguards and referred the issue to the United Nations Security Council.
Nicholas Burns followed up with eleven trips to Europe, pushing a new UN resolution calling on Iran to cease enrichment. The United States launched a supporting public affairs campaign to undermine Tehran’s case for its own enrichment capability and to highlight Iran’s violations of the nonproliferation treaty and IAEA safeguards. John Bolton helped forge the policy by meeting with the head of the atomic agency to keep the pressure on Iran by curtailing technology transfers that would aid Iran’s program and by aggressive nuclear inspections. Iran responded to the accusations with defiance and restarted uranium enrichment.
Over Easter weekend in April 2006, Condi Rice stayed in her apartment at the famed Watergate in Washington and crafted a two-page proposal for a new strategy regarding nuclear talks with Iran. Her recent trip to Europe had exposed divisions among the six nations involved in the negotiations, and crafty diplomacy by Iran had exploited these differences. Rice recommended a two-track strategy. On the one hand, the United States would offer bold incentives for Iran to give up the production of all nuclear fuel, while on the other hand simultaneously proposing stiff sanctions if it did not comply. As part of her plan, Rice raised the possibility of the United States playing its biggest card: actually sitting down and talking with Iran.36 European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana told Rice, “They want America. That’s all they want—America.”37 As a carrot for ending their enrichment, the United States would do a dramatic turnabout in its delegitimacy stance and meet with the Iranians. The president remained intrigued but unconvinced.
On May 19, 2006, Rice attended an NSC meeting on the way forward. She proposed reengaging with the five Security Council members and Germany in offering a series of incentives in return for Iran’s ceasing enrichment and giving up its designs for a nuclear weapon. The United States would pursue multiple tracks from talks to sanctions. If Iran agreed to stop enrichment, the United States would help by unfreezing some Iranian assets and placing any further sanctions on hold. More important, the United States would join talks directly with Iran on any issue, and Rice suggested relaying this directly to Ali Larijani, Tehran’s chief negotiator and the head of Iran’s national security body, through established Arab channels. For once, the gathering supported the idea. According to one source, even the vice president agreed, saying, “The offer might work, largely because it would force the choice back on Iran. When it failed, there would be no doubt Iran had scuttled it.” Bush worried that it might be seen as a reward to Iran, especially when its actions in Iraq actively undermined the U.S. effort. But he did not want to be accused of not pursuing every option to resolve the nuclear standoff. This was the type of consensus decision Bush liked, and with Rice holding such sway with him, her opinion became first among equals.
In May, the president agreed. Rice publicly proclaimed that if Iran created the necessary conditions for negotiations by meeting its UN Security Council obligation to suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities, the United States would be willing to sit down to discuss the nuclear issue or anything else Iran wanted. She intimated that normalization of relations could follow. Rice’s offer to meet the Iranians at any time and in any place if they suspended enrichment became a staple slogan in the secretary’s press conferences.
Although Nicholas Burns believed the talks would fail, he thought that would not necessarily be the end of the discussions. “What we were looking for was a sustained engagement. It was not that we liked them—we opposed everything they were doing to us—but we had not had anything but episodic meetings for the past thirty years. If we could just get them to the table, we could get an idea of their bottom line and see if there was a deal to be made between the United States and Iran.”38
In Vienna on June 1, 2006, all the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany presented the proposal to Iran. In return for halting its uranium enrichment and transparency with its nuclear program, the United States would ease sanctions and permit the sale of a light-water reactor, with Europeans offering to help modernize Iran’s oil and gas industry. The six nations even dangled the possibility that Iran could eventually be allowed to resume enrichment if it complied with all outstanding concerns and if it could be verified as a peaceful program.39 Condi Rice added the biggest shift by agreeing to join the talks and sit down with Iran, a move that offered improved relations in other areas. But again, only after Iran had ceased enrichment.
Rice assumed Iran would accept the deal. Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Larijani, was an erudite man with a doctorate in Western philosophy. He had privately confided to Javier Solana that the terms were acceptable, and his public statements showed qualified support for the proposal. Even President Bush appeared upbeat. Speaking to reporters from his ranch, he repeated the offer to talk with Iran and said of Larijani’s answer that it sounded “like a positive response to me.”40
However, disagreements emerged in Tehran over whether to accept it. Larijani appeared to endorse it, only to back away. The opaque nature of the Iranian government made it difficult for U.S. officials to ascertain the deliberations in Tehran, “but it was clear there were disagreements in the Iranian government over accepting the proposal,” recalled Nicholas Burns. When the Iranians asked for more time past the six weeks offered by the six parties, the United States accused them of trying to stall while continuing enrichment. The supreme leader objected to the dictatorial tone of the proposal: stop enrichment or else.
In the end, Iran turned down the offer. Rice had miscalculated. The big card of direct talks with the American government did not seem nearly so significant in Tehran. This was not 2003. Three years after the start of the Iraq War, Iran no longer feared an American invasion nor had much desire to talk with a government that had repeatedly rejected Iran’s overtures. Iranian hard-liners took the U.S. insistence on halting enrichment as a precondition as an affront to their rights to have a nuclear program—illicit weapon programs notwithstanding.
So the Bush administration forged ahead with the stick. With the support of Russia and China, the United States ratcheted up the pressure. On December 26, 2006, the Security Council approved Resolution 1737, which banned supply of nuclear technology and froze the assets of organizations involved in Iran’s nuclear program until Iran halted its enrichment. It also required countries to limit the travel of key Iranians designated as being involved in Iran’s nuclear program. In March 2007, another Security Council measure banned arms sales and froze additional assets. Yet a third, Resolution 1803, passed unanimously in March 2008; it authorized inspections of cargoes bound to Iran suspected of carrying equipment for its nuclear program and squeezed Iranian banks by restricting transactions with Iran’s Bank Melli and Bank Saderat. The United States succeeded in adding thirteen more individuals and twelve companies involved in building Iran’s nuclear program, subjecting them to travel restrictions a
nd freezing assets.
Using executive edicts, President Bush froze additional Iranian assets. Stuart Levey, who had been recommended by Abe Shulsky, headed the effort at the Treasury Department. He succeeded in ending the ability of Iranian banks to interchange with European banks. A serious blow to Iran financially, it isolated Tehran from the world’s economy.
The Saudis helped the American effort. On September 5, 2006, Prince Bandar met with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Bandar expressed Saudi support for efforts to cut off Iran financially and offered to head a tour of Europe to raise awareness of deceptive Iranian banking and business practices that aided its support for terrorism. The United States liked the idea, and on October 10 both Hadley and Rice met with Bandar and expressed American support, with the president adding his similar views during an Oval Office meeting on November 10. The Treasury Department passed Bandar a list of talking points and financial institutions with whom Bandar should meet to stress the importance of isolating both Syria and Iran. Bandar dutifully made the rounds, trying to convince the Europeans to cut off their financial dealings with Iran.
In December 2007, the U.S. intelligence community released a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear program that deflated the efforts to hype the Iranian nuclear peril. The intelligence community judged “with high confidence that in the fall of 2003, Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program.” Assuming it would leak, Bush ordered portions of the NIE declassified. It created a sensation about the need to continue pressuring Iran, and any talk about a military option evaporated. Lost in the postleak hullabaloo about Iran ceasing its weapons program was the fact that Iran had run a covert program and stopped the nuclear warhead design only shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. At the time, Iran feared attack and had approached the United States with its grand bargain that May. Nevertheless, when Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia in January 2008, he opened the meeting with King Abdullah, “Your Majesty, may I begin the meeting. I’m confident every one of you believes I wrote the NIE as a way to avoid taking action against Iran. You have to understand our system. The NIE was produced independently by our intelligence community. I am as angry about it as you are.” Indeed, the Saudis and the other Gulf states were angry. Many suspected the United States had reached a secret accommodation with Iran.
