America And Persia Have Two Clear Choices: Rapprochement or War

"Nearly three decades of U.S. policy toward Iran emphasizing diplomatic isolation, escalating economic pressure, and thinly veiled support for regime change have damaged the interests of the United States and its allies in the Middle East. U.S.-Iranian tensions have been a constant source of regional instability and are increasingly dangerous for global energy security. Our dysfunctional Iran policy, among other foreign policy blunders, has placed the American position in the region under greater strain than at any point since the end of the Cold War. It is clearly time for a fundamental change of course in the U.S. approach to the Islamic Republic.

"By fundamental change, we do not mean incremental, step-by-step engagement with Tehran, or simply trying to manage the Iranian challenge in the region more adroitly than the Bush administration has done. Rather, we mean the pursuit of thoroughgoing strategic rapprochement between the United States and Iran: the negotiation of a U.S.-Iranian 'grand bargain.' This would mean putting all of the principal bilateral differences between the United States and Iran on the table at the same time and agreeing to resolve them as a package.

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"It is clearly in the national security interest of the United States - -and in the interest of America's regional allies -- for the next U.S. administration to try to get Iran to work with us whenever and wherever possible, rather than against us. This cannot be achieved by trying to coerce Tehran into near-term (and imminently reversible) concessions. Rather, the only way to achieve this is by entering into comprehensive talks with the Iranians without preconditions, with the goal of resolving bilateral differences, normalizing bilateral relations, and legitimizing a significant and positive Iranian role in the region. That is the essence of the 'grand bargain' approach."

"If we want Iran to work cooperatively with the United States and our Middle Eastern allies in forging a more stable regional order, we need to be prepared to offer Tehran an alternative strategic paradigm -- a paradigm in which Iranian decision-makers can see that they can meet the Islamic Republic's most fundamental strategic needs more effectively by cooperating with the United States and our allies than by working at cross-purposes against us.

"This alternative paradigm -- which I have frequently described as a 'grand bargain' or, as some have suggested, a '"grand agenda' -- would start from the premise that Iran is not just a problem to be managed. In much the same way that President Richard Nixon understood that strategic rapprochement with the People's Republic of China was imperative for American interests in the early 1970s, strategic rapprochement with the Islamic Republic is now truly imperative for American interests in the Middle East. At this point, the United States cannot achieve any of its high-priority objectives in the greater Middle East -- in the Arab-Israeli arena, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, with regard to energy security, etc. -- without a more productive relationship with the Islamic Republic."

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