ANOTHER BUSH REGIME BLUNDER?

This Bloomberg mini-review of 2 books about U.S.-Iran relations, "Bush Team Snubbed `Grand Bargain' on Iran's Atomic Work in 2003," provides this very interesting tidbit:

Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- In May 2003, an Iranian envoy sent the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush a proposal that was either too good to refuse or too good to be true.

The Iranian proposal arrived via a Swiss intermediary just days after Bush had declared ``Mission Accomplished'' in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Slavin and Parsi write. In it, Iran offered to open its nuclear program to inspections; to halt its support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories; to help disarm Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon; and to move toward recognition of Israel.

The U.S., in return, would end economic sanctions and recognize that Iran had legitimate security concerns. This ``grand bargain,'' as one U.S. diplomat called it, had been cleared by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, according to Slavin and Parsi. That alone gave the proposal gravitas.

The Bush government never bothered to reply.

``I honestly don't remember seeing it,'' U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a congressional hearing in February 2007. Rice was Bush's National Security Adviser in 2003.

In her Congressional testimony¹, Rice had this to say about the fax:

SEC. RICE: (Referring to microphone) No, that's on, great. Thank you.
First of all, on the Iranian file, I think it is absolutely -- as Chairman Obey says, we've had 27 years of policy toward this particular regime, going back now to the time when they held our diplomats hostage under every conceivable violation of international law that one could imagine.

And I'll just repeat, Chairman Lowey, that at the time that this supposed offer came in, I think if you read the comments of Deputy Secretary Armitage, former Deputy Secretary Armitage, about the nature of this fax, it will perhaps explain why it is not a document that seems to have gotten the broad attention of the administration. Its parentage was unclear; its --


PBS's Frontline, in its Showdown with Iran section, interviewed Armitage about the fax and this is what he had to say:

It had been our view that the Swiss ambassador in Tehran was so intent -- and I mean this positively -- but he was so intent on bettering relations between "the Great Satan," the United States, and Iran that we came to have some questions about where the Iranian message ended and the Swiss message may begin.

I remember talking with people from our Near East division about a fax that came in from the Swiss ambassador, and I think our general feeling was that he had perhaps added a little bit to it because it wasn't in consonance with the state of our relations. And we had had some discussions, ... particularly through intelligence channels with high-ranking Iranian intelligence people, and nothing that we were seeing in this fax was in consonance with what we were hearing face to face. So we didn't give it much weight.


Finally, the WaPo reported, "In 2003, U.S. Spurned Iran's Offer of Dialogue," that some knowledgable people thought we had made a big mistake:

Paul R. Pillar, former national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, said that it is true "there is less daylight between the United States and Europe, thanks in part to Rice's energetic diplomacy." But he said that only partially offsets the fact that the U.S. position is "inherently weaker now" because of Iraq. He described the Iranian approach as part of a series of efforts by Iran to engage with the Bush administration. "I think there have been a lot of lost opportunities," he said, citing as one example a failure to build on the useful cooperation Iran provided in Afghanistan.

Richard N. Haass, head of policy planning at the State Department at the time and now president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said the Iranian approach was swiftly rejected because in the administration "the bias was toward a policy of regime change." He said it is difficult to know whether the proposal was fully supported by the "multiple governments" that run Iran, but he felt it was worth exploring.

"To use an oil analogy, we could have drilled a dry hole," he said. "But I didn't see what we had to lose. I did not share the assessment of many in the administration that the Iranian regime was on the brink."


¹Federal News Service
February 16, 2007 Friday
HEARING OF THE STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE;
SUBJECT: FISCAL YEAR 2007 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL REQUEST;
CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE NITA LOWEY (D-NY);
WITNESS: SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE;
LOCATION: 2359 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING

LENGTH: 19329 words