The Layers and Limits of Diplomacy With Iran

Reuters
August 3, 2020 Topic: Security Region: Americas Blog Brand: Lebanon Watch Tags: IranNuclearSanctionsWarMiddle East

The Layers and Limits of Diplomacy With Iran

While the relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia is important for de-escalating some tensions in the region, is not the decisive conflict involving Iran in the region.

Axis Three: Iran-Israel 

The third and most difficult axis is between Iran and Israel, where there is no potential for negotiation or direct diplomacy in the foreseeable future. Israel has a chance for peace and normalization with the Palestinians and the Arab world if it moves away from annexation and returns to a serious diplomatic negotiation process. But, at least for now, it has no such pathway with Iran. The ideology of the Islamic Republic has it committed squarely to hostility to Israel, and Israel sees Iran as its primary nemesis and an existential threat. This means that regardless of progress in Iran-U.S. or Iran-Saudi relations, Iran’s Israeli-facing deployments in Lebanon and Syria are unlikely to be on the table in the foreseeable future. Washington shouldn’t expect much support from Israel on attempts at nuclear or regional diplomacy with Iran. The best that can be hoped for is indirect messaging between Israel and Iran—through Russia, or other third parties—to manage their baked-in conflict and to avoid dangerous miscalculation that could lead to all-out war.

Conclusion 

In sum, a three-pronged strategy in which U.S.-Iranian negotiations—a combination of pressure and intelligent, forward-looking diplomacy—plus broader regional diplomacy, is the most significant and important approach to calming tensions and de-escalating conflict in the Middle East for the next U.S. presidential administration. But it is also critical to understand that the horizon of such talks will remain mainly limited to the nuclear file, and maybe progress on missile issues. The main challenge of Iran’s direct and proxy deployments in several countries of the region remains unamenable to a negotiated solution in the foreseeable future. This means that diplomacy can defuse some of the elements and edges of the conflict system that Iran, the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia are in, but cannot dismantle it and that a policy of continued pressure on Iran over its proxy deployments in the region is likely to continue until that larger matter is resolved.

The United States should also be mindful that it is operating at a credibility and legitimacy deficit in the region and the broader international system. Foreign policy success in the Middle East will depend on Washington’s ability to address the diplomatic deficits that have accumulated over time but particularly over the past four years.

John Bolton and other hawks routinely express their frustration with diplomacy. Its movement is slow and its gains often limited, but the cudgel of war has been used all too often in the Middle East and has only led to more conflict and disintegration. A new administration has a chance to bring back diplomacy to the fore of Middle East policy. It might not be able to resolve the complex array of conflicts that the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran are embroiled in—that may be more of a generational challenge—but it can remove threats from the table, de-escalate conflict in the region, bring limited but desperately needed relief to millions of people who are paying the price for these complex conflicts, and avoid the specter of yet more or broader wars.

Ross Harrison is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and is on the faculty of the Political Science Department at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches courses in Middle East Politics and U.S. Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East. From 2004-2020 he was on the faculty of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He is the author of Strategic Thinking in 3D: A Guide for National Security, Foreign Policy and Business Professionals (2013).

Paul Salem is president of the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. He is the author and editor of several books including, Winning the Battle, Losing the War: Addressing the Conditions that Fuel Armed Non State Actors (ed. with Charles Lister, MEI 2019); Broken Orders: The Causes and Consequences of the Arab Uprisings (In Arabic, 2013), Bitter Legacy: Ideology and Politics in the Arab World(1994), and Conflict Resolution in the Arab World (ed., 1997).

Harrison and Salem have edited two books together: From Chaos to Cooperation: Toward Regional Order in the Middle East (2017) and Escaping the Conflict Trap: Toward Ending Civil Wars in the Middle East (2019). 

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