But how to unite Europe and Russia behind the idea of sticks—sanctions—if Iran refused the carrots? On Easter weekend, using pencils in three different colors, Rice sat in her Watergate apartment constructing an elaborate series of steps along three parallel tracks, leading to a new Iran policy. Before flying to New York on May 8 for one last round with the Russian and Chinese foreign ministers at the United Nations, she showed the color-coded calendar to Nicholas Burns, her point person on Iran. It was the kind of complex, phased diplomacy usually constructed by her staff. This time, the secretary of state was so engaged she did it herself.
Unfortunately, Rice didn’t count on Iran stealing her diplomatic spotlight. On May 8, knowing the United States would be challenging his proxies on the Security Council, President Ahmadinejad released a letter he’d written to President Bush. It was eighteen pages, largely consisting of insulting accusations cloaked in religious rhetoric. At one point, Ahmadinejad wrote Bush, “Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ, the great Messenger of God…but at the same time, have countries attacked?”
That day, Rice came to NBC’s New York headquarters for lunch with our top executives and anchors. I asked for her analysis of the letter. She said they still didn’t have an official translation, but her initial reading from public reports suggested that it failed to address the major issue between the United States and Iran—Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Hours later, the White House dismissed the letter as a rambling tirade designed to disrupt efforts to constrain Iran’s nuclear research. Still, there was no denying that for the first time since Iranian students seized American diplomats as hostages in 1979, Iran was proposing direct talks with the United States.
Rice was ready to take on the hardliners in the administration who opposed any diplomatic contact with Iran. She had an influential ally—Henry Kissinger, who believed that the president could be missing an opportunity. Why not lay out America’s conditions for engagement with Iran? After clearing his ideas with Rice, Kissinger wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post saying, “If America is prepared to negotiate with North Korea over proliferation in the six-party forum, and with Iran in Baghdad over Iraqi security, it must be possible to devise a multilateral venue for nuclear talks with Tehran that would permit the United States to participate—especially in light of what is at stake.”
But no one in the Bush administration was willing to acknowledge the Iranian letter directly. They viewed it as insulting and not a legitimate opening worth exploring. Bush had authorized a diplomatic overture, but only on his terms. Was he making an offer he expected Iran would refuse? I wondered whether neoconservatives at the National Security Council and the Pentagon really thought they had military options against Tehran, as they and their allies claimed. Despite their misjudgments about Iraq, did they plan to target Iran’s suspected nuclear sites, if they could find them? Or was all their rhetoric just more saber rattling to keep Iran on edge?
The night of Iran’s missive, we were summoned to the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria where Rice and the other foreign ministers were meeting on the twenty-third floor to discuss the issue. We were told we’d be briefed shortly, as soon as they finished their dinner. For hours, we sat on the tufted velvet loveseats in the hotel lobby, watching the New York nightlife swirling around us. We had no way of knowing that tempers were erupting upstairs.
Russia’s foreign minister LaVrov was furious about comments Nick Burns had made to the press in Moscow about Russia’s arms sales to Iran. And he was angry that the week before, Dick Cheney had accused Russia of using its oil and gas riches to blackmail its neighbors. Standing up to what she took to be Russia’s bullying tactics, the newest member of the club, Britain’s inexperienced foreign secretary Margaret Beckett, rose to Burns’s defense, sternly admonishing Lavrov “not to attack a colleague.” For the novice diplomat, from which little was expected, it was a moment surprisingly resonant of the “Iron Lady” herself, Margaret Thatcher. But for the time being, there was no hope of reaching agreement within the United Nations.
Over the next few weeks, in secret meetings with Burns and a handful of other trusted aides, Rice constructed her own Iran initiative. If it worked, it could become her foreign policy legacy. It might even help overcome criticism over her support for the war in Iraq. It was a policy the president would never have permitted Colin Powell, Rice’s predecessor, to pursue. During the first term, the president rarely sided with Powell when the secretary of state came in conflict with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The two camps fought constantly. Instead of brokering compromises, Rice—as national security advisor—usually sided with the vice president and the defense secretary. She either agreed with them or, critics say, she was not inclined to challenge the president’s comfort zone. Iran was a frequent battleground.
The Clinton administration had opened secret talks with Iran. Both the United States and Iran wanted to control the Taliban regime on Iran’s border in neighboring Afghanistan. Perhaps that mutual concern could lead to agreements on other issues, including terrorism. When the Bush administration took office, Powell had tried to keep the back channel conversation going. But Rice—perhaps reflecting the Cheney/Rumsfeld view—shut it down. The secretary of state tried again after a giant earthquake hit Bam, in southeastern Iran, the day after Christmas 2003. Powell saw it as a chance to use the offer to provide emergency supplies as a wedge for a limited diplomatic opening, and the president agreed. But this time Iran wasn’t ready for a broader conversation. The Iranian ambassador said “not now” and the American initiative was stillborn.
Two months before Powell left office, there was one final opportunity, but it was too late. On one of Powell’s last trips as secretary of state, he found himself seated next to the Iranian foreign minister at a conference in Egypt. It was obvious to both sides that the Egyptians had purposefully, even mischievously, placed them together to foster a dialogue. But neither man had enough leeway from his country’s political leader to engage in meaningful diplomacy. Constrained by both politics and history, they had a cordial conversation, but both diplomats knew they couldn’t go any further.
Where was Condi Rice during all this? One former official told me, with some bitterness, “She was with the rest of them on this. People forget her first four years as though she came in from nowhere.” For four years, as national security advisor, she had readily endorsed the president’s decision to isolate Iran. But by the spring of 2006, as secretary of state, she was able to persuade Bush to reverse course. For the first time, the United States, Europe, Russia, and China would approach Tehran together with a common negotiating strategy.
Administration hawks were holding their fire for the moment, perhaps betting that Iran would never comply. But there were other sources of pressure to take a hard line. In late May 2006, in the middle of the administration’s internal debate over Iran policy, Israel’s new prime minister, Ehud Olmert arrived in Washington for his first visit since replacing Ariel Sharon.
An implacable opponent of Iran, Olmert shared alarming Israeli intelligence with the president and vice president: Tehran was only twelve months from crossing a dangerous red line—a critical breakthrough in centrifuge technology that would bring Iran alarmingly close to building a nuclear weapon. United States intelligence officials believed it would take Iran more than five years to reach that level of technical expertise. The Israelis thought the Americans were naïve. After all, they could afford to be complacent; Tehran’s missiles couldn’t reach Washington. But after his second day of meetings, Olmert came away from a long session with the vice president convinced that the administration would never let Iran get to the point of producing a bomb. He signaled privately that the Bush administration knew its obligations and would not expose Israel to the threat of an Iranian bomb. Despite its misjudgments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush team appeared to be ready, if necessary, to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities in a preemptive strike.
It was a fundamental misunderstanding of the president�
��s thinking, at least at the time. What Olmert, representing one of America’s closest allies, didn’t know was that at that very moment, two weeks after receiving Iran’s letter, the president, at Rice’s urging, was preparing to offer Tehran a deal full of carrots—rich economic benefits, including the light water nuclear reactors the administration had long opposed, if Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program. The United States would join the European negotiations. And the secretary of state was even prepared to dangle the prospect of sitting down with her Iranian counterpart one-on-one—a precursor to eventually restoring diplomatic relations.
A week after Olmert had been holding forth across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House at Blair House, the elegant guest residence for visiting leaders, the secret new Iran policy was ready to be launched. The night before the announcement, Rice called the president one last time. Was he sure?
“Go do it,” he replied.
That night, key allies—including Israel—were briefed for the first time. At the UN, U.S. ambassador John Bolton, a hardliner who had been frozen out of the secret planning, was brought up to speed so he could try to win over fellow conservatives. At eleven o’clock the next morning, Rice unveiled the dramatically new U.S. policy toward Iran—conceived in total secrecy.
Trying to reach over the heads of Iran’s leaders, she said, “President Bush wants a new and positive relationship between the American people and the people of Iran—a beneficial relationship of increased contacts in education, cultural exchange, sports, travel, trade, and investment.”
Then, she boarded her 757 to fly to Vienna, where she and the other foreign ministers would try to agree on exactly what it was they were offering Iran. As she greeted us in the back of the plane, it was obvious that she knew the hard part was still to come.
Having announced an agreement, the ministers now had to make sure they really agreed. That night, they gathered at the stately residence of the British ambassador to Austria. It would be critical to at least appear unified, even if it meant obscuring stubborn differences over how hard to press if Iran’s leaders said “no.” For some reason, the British, who were hosting the meetings, seemed to think it would be easy.
After flying overnight from Washington and working all day, we waited in the hotel pressroom, planning to order dinner while the diplomats talked. Suddenly, we were summoned to the British ambassador’s residence. There was an agreement; a statement was imminent.
In the garden behind the embassy residence, there was an air of anticipation. It was a useful distraction from the miserable cold. We’d been told to expect spring weather. Instead, it was damp and windy. None of us had packed coats. Mercifully, Krzysztof Galica, my ever-resourceful cameraman, loaned me one of his jackets.
For hours, Rice and her counterparts struggled to gloss over their fundamental disagreements. At the suggestion of the Russians, they decided to remove all references to “sanctions”—a red flag to the Iranians. Instead, they played word games—call it diplomatic Scrabble—searching for euphemisms to take the sting out of potential punishments. What’s a five-letter word for “sanctions” that won’t alienate Iran? How about “steps?” Remarkably, Rice willingly accepted these linguistic subterfuges to soften the impact of whatever pressure would be brought to bear against Iran.
As important as the substance of any agreement is how it is presented. Rice and her colleagues knew that even if they didn’t agree on everything, they had to project unity by choreographing a joint appearance for the cameras, a money shot, to symbolize accord.
In the days leading up to the announcement, the president had won approval for the broad outlines of a deal with his two most critical counterparts in the negotiations, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and France’s Jacques Chirac. Their negotiators had been given drafts of options. But how should they describe this balance of rewards and sanctions? If the package appeared to be too concessionary, it would inflame conservatives; if too punitive, the Iranians would reject it out of hand.
As an important signal that their offer was serious—not just an American publicity stunt—the foreign ministers agreed on an unusual pledge of secrecy. They would not reveal any specifics until they presented the package to Tehran. For politicians and professional diplomats, taking an oath of silence is like asking an addict to go cold turkey. Their work done, they ordered in dinner.
Shivering in the garden outside, we knew nothing of their progress, only that the talks were dragging on hours longer than anticipated. Unlike the newspaper reporters who were able to go to their rooms and sleep after our plane had landed that morning, the television correspondents had to start preparing right away for our morning news broadcasts. After appearing on the Today show I switched gears to start gathering material for Nightly News. None of us expected the meetings to go on into the night.
For hours, British security aides still kept us locked outside in the garden, save for occasional trips to the bathroom inside. I found myself repeatedly visiting the restroom just to get warm.
By ten p.m., the winds had picked up and the temperature had dropped to forty degrees. Our camera crews were standing in position, frozen on their feet. The press corps was increasingly restless. Was this turning into a debacle for American and British diplomacy? The only logical explanation was that the Russians had once again balked.
Soon the British realized they had a problem: an international mob of hungry, cold reporters and no outcome in sight. Suddenly, with the diplomatic touch for which Her Majesty’s foreign service is justly known, someone ordered white-jacketed waiters to appear with silver trays of beer and wine. Instantly, the surly press corps became more reasonable. The scene even began to resemble a cocktail party, even if it were one where the guests were both captive and frostbitten. Rice’s aides rushed upstairs to warn the ministers that they should stop eating dinner and issue some kind of statement, no matter how brief, to feed the hungry media beast outside.
When they finally emerged, the single speaker was the rather starchy British foreign secretary. The carefully calibrated joint statement contained precisely 140 words (138, if you didn’t count “thank you”). Despite the long wait, they refused to take a single question.
It was getting late. My broadcast deadline of twelve-thirty a.m. no longer seemed very far off. We were brought back to the hotel to await a briefing. Usually, that means a senior official will anonymously give us unverifiable details of the negotiations, invariably self-serving.
This time, the official arrived at exactly midnight. He somewhat breathlessly declared themselves “very, very satisfied” with the commitments they had received. It was immediately clear that the word “sanctions” had been erased. The briefer said there would be “negative” repercussions if Iran did not accept, but he wouldn’t specify what they were.
Since the live camera position was a fifteen-minute taxi ride away, I was calculating how much longer I could listen to his diplomatic dodges without missing the deadline for our broadcast. It was time to go.
The taxi driver got lost, and spoke no English. My producer, who knew far more German than I, translated frantically. We got there just in time. But because of a heavy load of domestic news, including the official start of the first hurricane season since Katrina, the Nightly News broadcast didn’t have time for a detailed, scripted report. My story had to be boiled down to a live crosstalk of less than one minute.
Standing alone with my crew in the middle of the night outside the British residence, I explained how the Russians had finally agreed on a common approach toward Iran. Summarizing the briefing for Brian Williams, anchoring from New Orleans, I concluded: “This will be presented to Iranian diplomats by Europeans this weekend. And they’re trying to avoid the use of the word ‘sanctions,’ hoping to make it sound as benign as possible to make it easier for Iran to say yes.” It was fifty seconds, and not a second over.
When I finally got to my room at two in the morning, I slept fitfully, worried that I wouldn’t hear the alar
m clock. We were leaving the next morning, but first would each get five minutes to interview the secretary for our morning shows. I was told I’d go first, at nine a.m. in Vienna—three a.m. Washington time. One of Rice’s aides, Josie Duckett, would serve as timekeeper to make sure none of us exceeded the allotted time. What could I possibly ask in such a brief interview that would be at all surprising? Or elicit an unscripted response?
I wanted to explore the limits of what she would say about the agreement. How far had she brought the Russians? What concessions had the United States been forced to make? But I also couldn’t escape the conviction that all of this could have been negotiated more favorably four years earlier, at the beginning of 2002, when oil was nineteen dollars a barrel, and Iran had a fledgling reform movement, more moderate political leaders, and was years from building its first nuclear centrifuge.
Rice was adept at circumventing questions she didn’t want to answer. Perhaps it was her training as a professor, but she always stuck to her lesson plan, no matter how unruly the student—or reporter. It was no different on this occasion, despite her fatigue after negotiating well into the night. When she strode into the room for the interview, Condoleezza Rice sat down across from me and sighed. Visibly exhausted, she said, “I’m a morning person.” Apparently, her diplomatic colleagues are not.
The State Department’s time clock was already running. I hurriedly asked whether Iran’s instant rejection of the proposal that morning was definitive?
Talking Back Page 3
