Why Bush Should Go to Tehran
The Road Less Traveled
by Stanley A. Weiss

WASHINGTON - The road to Tehran, American neo-conservatives argued before the invasion of Iraq, goes through Baghdad - first liberate Iraq, then Iran. But more than a year into the American occupation, it is clear that the road to a stable Iraq runs through Iran.

The theocrats of the Islamic Republic can turn the American mission in Iraq into a dream or a nightmare.

The dream is that Washington and Tehran end 25 years of mutual hostility and cooperate on Iraq. As Javad Zarif, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, told me, "We have common interests. A chaotic Iraq ripped apart by ethnic and religious rivalries benefits no one."

In this scenario, Iran and the United States work together, as they did in post-Taliban Afghanistan, to promote economic reconstruction and fashion a broad-based government that, in Zarif's words, is "peaceful, democratic, inclusive and representative."

Tehran as a champion for a democratic, prosperous Iraq? In fact, democratic elections will empower Iraq's majority Shiites, Iran's religious brethren. A federal Iraq will prevent an independent Kurdistan that would incite Kurds in Iran, Turkey and Syria. A prosperous Iraq is more likely to repay Tehran reparations owed from the Iran-Iraq war.

Then there's the nightmare: hardline clerics in Tehran treating Iraqi instability as an opportunity to export their sputtering Islamic revolution. Iran's powerful former president, Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani, said recently of U.S forces in Iraq, "They know that if Iran wanted to, it could make their problems even worse."

U.S. officials in Baghdad already point to "unhelpful" Iranian behavior. Before unleashing his revolt, the radical Moktada al-Sadr met with military leaders in Tehran. Iran's Revolutionary Guards trained and armed the 10,000-strong Badr Brigade, the now-dormant military wing of Iraq's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Will Iraq be a stage for Iranian-American cooperation or confrontation? The schizophrenic nature of both governments now risks the latter.

Realists on both sides constantly flirt with dialogue. After the devastating earthquake in Iran in December, Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "We should keep open the possibility of dialogue." Even as he warned of undermining the U.S. in Iraq, the ever-nimble Rafsanjani said, "For me, talking is not a problem."

But ideologues on both sides constantly undermine any rapprochement. A British diplomat summed up the attitude of Bush administration neoconservatives during the buildup to the Iraq war: "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran." A conservative U.S. publication recently warned against "going soft on Iran." Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has called U.S. attacks on Sadr's forces in Shiite holy cities "shameful" and has labeled talks with Washington as "treason and stupidity."

Given the high stakes in Iraq, what is the best way to ensure that common interests trump outdated ideology? How can the realists on both sides come together?

Seize the moment. For the first time in two decades, Washington can act from a position of unquestioned strength. With American forces to its east in Afghanistan and west in Iraq, the U.S. is Iran's newest neighbor and cannot be ignored.

The real battle in the Islamic Republic is no longer between conservatives and the reformers who were sidelined in February's phony parliamentary election. It is among the conservatives themselves. Religious zealots still chant "Death to America." But pragmatists like Rafsanjani say "deal with America" and can bargain with Washington without being labeled as traitors. With Iran perhaps less than a year from acquiring a nuclear weapon, there is not a moment to lose.

Be bold. For years, Washington and Tehran have expressed a willingness to talk, but only after the other moves first - the U.S. lifting sanctions and ending its threat of "regime change;" Iran ending its support for terrorism, its nuclear ambitions, and its opposition to Arab-Israeli peace. It's time to call Tehran's bluff.

If President Richard Nixon could go to China, and President Ronald Reagan could go to the Soviet Union, President George W. Bush can go to Iran, and should announce his willingness to do so. Like his predecessors, Bush will have to hold his tongue (no more "axis of evil") and defy his political base with the promise of electoral dividends in November. Indeed, taking the initiative with Tehran would show wavering U.S. voters that the bold wartime president can also be a courageous peacetime diplomat.

Imagine the possibilities. The Iranian people, frustrated with their despotic rulers and favoring ties and trade with the U.S., would rejoice. A Bush visit would convey to Tehran's tired ayatollahs what an aide to Gorbachev once told his American counterparts: "We are going to do something terrible to you. We are going to deprive you of an enemy."

Americans opposed to ties with Iran may howl. But what is there to lose? The offer alone would put Khamenei and his extremist mullahs in a mortal bind. Accept and they lose the Great Satan as a scapegoat. Decline and they are exposed as intransigents, further undermining their crumbling regime.

Invite the neighbors. From Tehran, Bush should go to Baghdad for an international summit meeting on the future of Iraq. The United Nations envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, is reportedly considering such a conference under U.N. auspices. Since they all have a vital interest in a united Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia should be invited to attend.

It took U.S. forces just 21 days last spring to travel the road to Baghdad. The return trip - with a stable, peaceful Iraq in the rearview mirror - is taking much longer, and that road will run through Tehran. For Americans, this is a road less traveled. But it may well make all the difference.