FCNL Letter to President After Iran Sanctions Urging Engagement

Jul 7, 2010

July 7, 2010

Dear President Obama:

Three months ago we wrote to urge you to redouble your efforts at diplomatic engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. We specifically urged you to make a patient and flexible effort to achieve a uranium fuel-exchange agreement with Iran. A fuel agreement, first proposed by the United States, had the potential, we believed, to break through decades of U.S.-Iran hostility and mistrust to lay the basis for further negotiation and agreement to resolve international concerns over Iran's nuclear program and other issues.

Instead, when Brazil and Turkey succeeded on May 17, 2010 in persuading Iran to agree to a fuel exchange on terms similar to those previously proposed by the United States, your administration announced the next day that it was moving ahead with a new round of UN sanctions against Iran. Secretary of State Clinton termed the sanctions announcement "as convincing an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran [by Turkey, Brazil and Iran] over the last few days, as any we could provide."

In the six weeks since Secretary Clinton's abrupt dismissal of the fuel exchange agreement and of Brazilian and Turkish diplomacy, the UN Security Council has approved new sanctions against Iran, the U.S. and other countries have imposed more unilateral sanctions, and Congress has passed-and you have signed into law-a new sanctions bill (H.R. 2194) that, among other things, seeks to impose hardship on the Iranian people by reducing Iran's ability to import gasoline to meet its domestic needs.

We are alarmed by this course of events. The eclipse of diplomatic engagement by these multiple sanctions actions threatens to put the U.S. on a course leading to military action against Iran. Few observers expect sanctions to change Iranian nuclear policies. When sanctions fail, pressure for military action will grow.

When you signed the Iran Sanctions Act on July 1 you said that "The door to diplomacy remains open." The new sanctions will ensure that Iran does not walk through that door, however, unless the United States takes dramatic steps to revive the now moribund engagement track.

We urge you to take two steps to demonstrate that the United States is ready to pay more than lip service to diplomatic engagement. First, publicly invite Brazil and Turkey to resume their efforts to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran and reiterate that the United States remains ready to engage Iran in talks on a broad range of regional security issues as well as its nuclear program.

Affirmation of the role of middle-powers that have credibility in Iran will strengthen Iranian moderates who are ready to address international concerns over the nuclear program. Making clear that the United States seeks Iranian cooperation to help stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan and build a regional security framework will likewise reduce opposition in Iran to engagement with the United States.

Second, we urge you to signal unmistakably to Iran that the United States has suspended covert operations intended to undermine the Iranian regime. Unchallenged press reports make clear that the previous U.S. administration authorized covert operations against Iran that included a campaign of propaganda and disinformation, manipulation of Iranian currency and international financial transactions, support of minority Arab and Baluchi groups in Iran, and incursions into Iran by U.S. special forces based in southern Iraq that included kidnapping members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

To what extent this covert war against Iran has continued under your administration is less clear. It is clear, however, that the "Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order," signed by U.S. CENTCOM Commander Gen. David Petraeus on September 30, 2009, includes reference to Iran. The New York Times reported May 24, 2010, after viewing a copy of the order that the "directive appears to authorize specific operations in Iran, most likely to gather intelligence about the country's nuclear program or identify dissident groups that might be useful for a future military offensive."

While the nature and scope of secret U.S. operations against Iran are unknown to the U.S. public, the existence of a continuing covert program is well-established. Such a secret war against Iran is incompatible with diplomatic engagement. To say that the door to diplomacy remains open while covert operations continue is disingenuous. When President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger sought to engage China and transform U.S.-China relations, they suspended U.S. covert operations against China. They did not seek a quid pro quo, and they made sure that China took notice of their action. Their action opened the way to the U.S.-China rapprochement that has served U.S. interests well for more than thirty years.

A U.S. rapprochement with Iran will serve U.S. interests by resolving concerns over Iran's nuclear program, securing Iranian cooperation in stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan, and helping to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. A U.S. rapprochement with the current Iranian regime is also much more likely than a relationship of spiraling hostility to reduce human rights violations in Iran and foster the Iranian reform movement.

It was your declared policy of reaching out to Iran on the basis of mutual interest and mutual respect that, in the view of many Iranians, generated the hope that helped spark the reform movement. The best way to promote the reform movement, as well as the best way to solve the problems posed by Iran's nuclear program, is to refocus the policy of your administration on diplomatic engagement. Doing so in the wake of the recent multiple sanctions actions against Iran requires decisive action.

We urge you to take such decisive action to change course from a tack that is carrying the United States toward another catastrophic military conflict in the greater Middle East and to turn toward the advantages of a peacefully negotiated outcome that may endure for decades to come.

Sincerely,

Joe Volk
Executive Secretary PDF Version