Carah Ong at Iran Nuclear Watch has scooped the MSM once again, with the news that Rep. Barbara Lee, D-CA, has introduced a Bill called the Iran Diplomatic Accountability Act of 2008, the goal of which is:
To provide for the appointment of a high-level United States representative or special envoy for Iran for the purpose of easing tensions and normalizing relations between the United States and Iran.
Democratic Representative Barbara Lee's action is doubly important in view of the announcement of the resignation of Nicholas Burns, Condoleezza Rice's "right-hand man" and the lead negotiator in past dealings regarding Iran and UN activities.
According to govtrak, coSponsorsof the measure are (as of Jan. 18, 2008):
Rep. Maurice Hinchey D-NY Rep. Dennis Kucinich D-OH Del. Eleanor Norton D-DC Rep. John Olver D-MA Rep. Maxine Waters D-CA Rep. Lynn Woolsey D-CA
According to Iran Nuclear Watch, the Resolution is the
first of its kind to call for the appointment of a high-level United States representative or special envoy for Iran for the purpose of easing tensions and normalizing relations between the United States and Iran.
The Bill takes notice of the recent NIE finding regarding Iran's suspension of nuclear weapons activity in 2003, and its conclusion that Iran is "quite sensitive to international views and wanted to avoid international confrontation and made a "cost-benefit" decision regarding whether or not to have such a program. "
H.R. 5056 further states, in Findings #6. and #7., that:
(6) Hostile official rhetoric exacerbates tensions and reinforces misunderstandings and animus between the people of the United States and Iran.
(7) A diplomatic solution that includes direct, unconditional, bilateral, and comprehensive talks with the Government of Iran is the only way to resolve long-standing tensions between the United States and Iran.
In other words, there are still sane and patriotic legislators leading our country, and they can be found on the Democratic side of the aisle.
The Bill calls for action to appoint a special representative or envoy to Iran, within the next six months, whose duties will be to
seek to conduct direct, unconditional, bilateral negotiations with Iran for the purpose of easing tensions and normalizing relations between the United States and Iran.
The New York Times reported that Nicholas Burns is leaving his post for, what else, family reasons; specifically, with no job to go to from State, Burns intends to devote his time to "getting his three daughters through college." NYT reporter Helene Cooper says that the White House has nominated William J. Burns to succeed Nicholas Burns at State Department.
Rep. Lee's Bill should make Democrats proud, and should give all Americans hope that we can survive the next 366 days of this failed administration, if we citizens express our support for people like Rep. Lee and her six co-sponsors, while we contact our own representatives with a positive message for a change: the encouragement to support H.R.5056, Iran Diplomatic Accountability Act of 2008.
It will also be important for all Democratic candidates to get behind Rep. Lee's effort.
Rep. Lee's Bill is not the only action being taken to not only avert catastrophe in the Middle East but to lay the groundwork for a more rational relationship with Iran.
In a December 7, 2007 essay for the British American Security Information Council, Middle East analyst Shervin Boloorianexplored the motivations for Iran's 2003 decision to step down from nuclear weaponization.
Boloorian explained that many Middle East scholars are aware that the Fall of Baghdad caused a shockwave in Iran that motivated Iran to offer a "Grand Bargain," which the U.S. ignored. It may also be the case that the Bush administration did not understand the context or the calculus behind Iran's "Grand Offer." Boloorian explains:
While it seems unlikely that the sudden defeat of one US adversary would cause Iran to cease clandestine development in the same year, the threat from Saddam's Iraq, a bitter enemy of the Iranians, had been neutralized. Use of Iraqi WMDs against Iran during the eight-year long Iran-Iraq war was often reported as the principal driving force behind Iran's consideration of nuclear weapons capability, according to leaked national security documents from within Iran, and this likely intensified after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. With Iraq gone, and the US military ostensibly mired in a long term Iraqi stabilization campaign, Iran may have felt secure enough to cease weapons related work.
Boloorian's analysis supports Rep. Barbara Lee's "Finding" that "hostile rhetoric" and pressure will only "exacerbate tensions" between the U.S. and Iran. He writes:
While the Bush administration and hawks in Congress spin the results of the NIE as validation of their hard-line position and containment approach to Iran, their suggestion that stepped up pressure was the means of producing optimal results with respect to Iran is refutable. Assuming that the NIE conclusions are accurate, Iran dropped its weapons program at a time when diplomacy and limited pressure seemed to be in effect.
Boloorian concludes his analysis with a prescription that is consistent with the Resolution Barbara Lee has made the core of H.R. 5056:
By reaffirming that the Iranian leadership is today unlikely to be convinced of foregoing "the eventual development of nuclear weapons," let alone civilian nuclear power, the NIE implies that the current adversarial approach to Iran has not made enough of an impact on Iran's decision-making calculus for the Iranians to change their behavior. Remember, the NIE comes in the wake of the most severe pressure exerted on Iran by US policymakers and the international community to date. Instead the NIE implies that an eventual weapons program is still looming in Iran and possibly inevitable, under the current approach.
From a slightly different perspective but with the same end in view, Dr. Trita Parsi reviewed Israel's interests in relation to Iran, and called for unconditional talks with Iran in an OpEd titled, The Case for Talking to Tehran in the Jewish Daily Forward. Parsi stated that the NIE had created the necessity for a new way of thinking about negotiating with Iran:
A broad diplomatic opening between Washington and Tehran is increasingly likely, and it is a distinct probability that an American-Iranian deal will entail some level of enrichment on Iranian soil. Arab states can be expected to step up efforts at rapprochement in order to avoid lagging behind the United States in warming up to Iran, making a policy of containing and isolating Tehran more and more difficult to pursue.
Parsi is author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings between Israel, Iran, and the United States.
Dr. Parsi will join authorSteven Kinzeras he introduces his new book, All the Shahs Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror in a month-long Folly of Attacking Irantour sponsored by Just Foreign Policy. org. Tentative stops for the Kinzer-Parsi tour include:
Feb. 7: Los Angeles, CA
Feb. 9: Portland, OR
Feb. 11: San Francisco, CA
Feb. 12: Seattle, WA
Feb. 13: Albuquerque, NM
Feb. 14: St. Paul/Minneapolis, MN
Feb. 15: Columbia, MO
Feb. 16: Peoria, IL
Feb. 17: Champaign-Urbana, IL
Feb. 18: Omaha, NE
Feb. 19: Chicago, IL
Feb. 20: Columbus, OH
Feb. 22: Atlanta, GA
Feb. 25: Miami, FL
Feb. 26: Tampa, FL
Feb. 27: Philadelphia, PA
Feb. 28: New York, NY
Feb. 29: Long Island, NY
March 3: Portland, ME
March 4: Concord, NH
March 5: Baltimore, MD
March 6: Washington, DC