Today, Just Foreign Policy, along with a group of top scholars, experts, and diplomats, will release a Joint Experts’ Statement on Iran that outlines five steps the U.S. should take to promote a new relationship with Iran. Former Ambassadors Thomas Pickering and James Dobbins, Columbia University scholar Gary Sick, and 17 other experts all agree that the current U.S. policy of isolation, military threats and sanctions will not work with Iran and instead call for a new strategy involving “direct, unconditional and comprehensive negotiations at the senior diplomatic level.”

The statement has already grabbed the media’s attention – and, with your help, it is destined to make a stir in Washington.  Can you help spread the word by telling your Members of Congress about this new report?  http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/iran

With the election of Barack Obama, we have an opportunity to change our stance towards Iran. America has voted for change, now give your Members of Congress the tools to fight for it: let them know about this statement and urge them to support direct diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.

JOINT EXPERTS’ STATEMENT ON IRAN

Among the many challenges that will greet President-elect Obama when he takes office, there are few, if any, more urgent and complex than the question of Iran. There are also few issues more clouded by myths and misconceptions. In this Joint Experts’ Statement on Iran, a group of top scholars, experts and diplomats - with years of experience studying and dealing with Iran - have come together to clear away some of the myths that have driven the failed policies of the past and to outline a factually-grounded, five-step strategy for dealing successfully with Iran in the future.

Despite recent glimmers of diplomacy, the United States and Iran remain locked in a cycle of threats and defiance that destabilizes the Middle East and weakens U.S. national security.

Today, Iran and the United States are unable to coordinate campaigns against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, their common enemies. Iran is either withholding help or acting to thwart U.S. interests in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Gaza. Within Iran, a looming sense of external threat has empowered hard-liners and given them both motive and pretext to curb civil liberties and further restrict democracy. On the nuclear front, Iran continues to enrich uranium in spite of binding U.N. resolutions, backed by economic sanctions, calling for it to suspend enrichment.

U.S. efforts to manage Iran through isolation, threats and sanctions have been tried intermittently for more than two decades. In that time they have not solved any major problem in U.S.- Iran relations, and have made most of them worse. Faced with the manifest failure of past efforts to isolate or economically coerce Iran, some now advocate escalation of sanctions or even military attack. But dispassionate analysis shows that an attack would almost certainly backfire, wasting lives, fomenting extremism and damaging the long-term security interests of both the U.S and Israel. And long experience has shown that prospects for successfully coercing Iran through achievable economic sanctions are remote at best.

Fortunately, we are not forced to choose between a coercive strategy that has clearly failed and a military option that has very little chance of success. 

There is another way, one far more likely to succeed: Open the door to direct, unconditional and comprehensive negotiations at the senior diplomatic level where personal contacts can be developed, intentions tested, and possibilities explored on both sides. Adopt policies to facilitate unofficial contacts between scholars, professionals, religious leaders, lawmakers and ordinary citizens. Paradoxical as it may seem amid all the heated media rhetoric, sustained engagement is far more likely to strengthen United States national security at this stage than either escalation to war or continued efforts to threaten, intimidate or coerce Iran.

Five Key Steps the United States Should Take to Implement an Effective Diplomatic Strategy with Iran

1. Replace calls for regime change with a long-term strategy: Threats are not cowing Iran and the current regime in Tehran is not in imminent peril. But few leaders will negotiate in good faith with a government they think is trying to subvert them, and that perception may well be the single greatest barrier under U.S. control to meaningful dialogue with Iran. The United States needs to stop the provocations and take a long-term view with this regime, as it did with the Soviet Union and China. We might begin by facilitating broad-ranging people-to-people contacts, opening a U.S. interest section in Tehran, and promoting cultural exchanges.

2. Support human rights through effective, international means: While the United States is rightly concerned with Iran’s worsening record of human rights violations, the best way to address that concern is through supporting
recognized international efforts. Iranian human rights and democracy advocates confirm that American political interference masquerading as “democracy promotion” is harming, not helping, the cause of democracy in Iran.

3. Allow Iran a place at the table – alongside other key states – in shaping the future of Iraq, Afghanistan and the region: This was the recommendation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group with regard to Iraq. It may be counter-intuitive in today’s political climate – but it is sound policy. Iran has a long-term interest in the stability of its neighbors. Moreover, the United States and Iran support the same government in Iraq and face common enemies (the Taliban and al-Qaeda) in Afghanistan. Iran has shown it can be a valuable ally when included as a partner, and a troublesome thorn when not. Offering Iran a place at the table cannot assure cooperation, but it will greatly increase the likelihood of cooperation by giving Iran something it highly values that it can lose by non-cooperation. The United States might start by appointing a special envoy with broad authority to deal comprehensively and constructively with Iran (as opposed to trading accusations) and explore its willingness to work with the United States on issues of common concern.

4. Address the nuclear issue within the context of a broader U.S. - Iran opening: Nothing is gained by imposing peremptory preconditions on dialogue. The United States should take an active leadership role in ongoing multilateral talks to resolve the nuclear impasse in the context of wide-ranging dialogue with Iran. Negotiators should give the nuclear talks a reasonable deadline, and retain the threat of tougher sanctions if negotiations fail. They should also, however, offer the credible prospect of security assurances and specific, tangible benefits such as the easing of U.S. sanctions in response to positive policy shifts in Iran. Active U.S. involvement may not cure all, but it certainly will change the equation, particularly if it is part of a broader opening.

5. Re-energize the Arab-Israeli peace process and act as an honest broker in that process: Israel’s security lies in making peace with its neighbors. Any U.S. moves towards mediating the Arab-Israeli crisis in a balanced way would ease tensions in the region, and would be positively received as a step forward for peace. As a practical matter, however, experience has shown that any long-term solution to Israel’s problems with the Palestinians and Lebanon probably will require dealing, directly or indirectly, with Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran supports these organizations, and thus has influence with them. If properly managed, a U.S. rapprochement with Iran, even an opening of talks, could help in dealing with Arab-Israeli issues, benefiting Israel as well as its neighbors.

Long-standing diplomatic practice makes clear that talking directly to a foreign government in no way signals approval of the government, its policies or its actions. Indeed, there are numerous instances in our history when clear-eyed U.S. diplomacy with regimes we deemed objectionable – e.g., Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Libya and Iran itself (cooperating in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban after 9/11) – produced positive results in difficult situations.

After many years of mutual hostility, no one should expect that engaging Iran will be easy. It may prove impossible. But past policies have not worked, and what has been largely missing from U.S. policy for most of the past three decades is a sustained commitment to real diplomacy with Iran. The time has come to see what true diplomacy can accomplish.

Project Conveners
Dr. Richard Parker, Project Director, Executive Director, American Foreign Policy Project, Professor, University of Connecticut Law School
Sanam Anderlini, Co-founder, International Civil Society Action Network, Research Affiliate, MIT Center for International Studies

Project Partners
3D Security Initiative
American Foreign Policy Project
International Civil Society Action Network
Just Foreign Policy
National Iranian American Council

THE EXPERTS
Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Co-chair, Vice-Chairman, Hills & Co.; Fmr. U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Russia, Israel
Ambassador James F. Dobbins, , Co-chair, Fmr. Special Envoy for Afghanistan; Rep. to the Afghan opposition after Sept. 11, 2001
Gary G. Sick, Co-chair, Snr. Research Scholar, Columbia Univ. SIPA’s Middle East Inst.
Ali Banuazizi, Prof. of Political Science & Dir.; Islamic Civilization & Societies Program, Boston College
Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Assoc. Prof. of Political Science; Founding Dir., Middle Eastern Studies Program; Syracuse Univ.
Juan R.I. Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Prof. of History, Univ. of Michigan
Rola el-Husseini, Asst. Professor, Bush School of Government, Texas A&M Univ.
Farideh Farhi, Ind. Researcher and Affiliate Graduate Faculty, Univ. of Hawai’i-Manoa
Geoffrey E. Forden, Research Assoc., Program on Science, Tech. & Society, MIT
Hadi Ghaemi, Coordinator, Int’l. Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
Philip Giraldi, Fmr. Counter-terrorism Specialist, CIA
Farhad Kazemi, Prof. of Politics and Middle Eastern Studies, NYU
Stephen Kinzer, Author & Award-winning Foreign Correspondent
Ambassador William G. Miller, Snr. Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Int’l. Center for Scholars
Emile A. Nakhleh, Fmr. Director, Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program, CIA
Augustus Richard Norton, Prof. of Int’l Relations & Anthropology, Boston Univ.
Trita Parsi, Award-winning Author; Pres., National Iranian American Council
Barnett R. Rubin, Dir. of Studies & Senior Fellow, Center on Int’l Cooperation, NYU; Fmr. Special Advisor to the UN SRSG for Afghanistan
John Tirman, Exec. Director, Center for Int’l Studies, MIT
James Walsh, Research Associate, MIT

Disclaimer

This statement is the product of a large group of experts with diverse knowledge, experience and affiliations.  While all members strongly support the general policy thrust and judgments reflected in this statement, they may not necessarily all concur with every specific assertion or recommendation contained therein.

Printable PDF version of the full statement.

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