West Asia At War: Repression, Resistance and Great Power Games

by Talmiz Ahmad

Given the neocon ascendancy in Washington, an attempt at a ‘grand bargain’ in US–Iran relations initiated by the latter at that time was doomed to fail. This was a document prepared jointly, in April 2003, by an Iranian diplomat, Sadegh Kharrazi, the son of Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, and the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, Tim Guldimann (in the absence of US–Iran diplomatic relations, Switzerland was looking after US interests in Iran). Its final form was approved by Kharrazi, Khatami and Ali Khamenei.11 In the document, Iran agreed to detach itself from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, transform Hezbollah into a political party, address US concerns relating to nuclear weapons, help the US stabilize Iraq, make peace with Israel and accept a two-state solution to the Palestine issue. In return, Iran asked for removal of sanctions, an end to threats of regime change, recognition of its interests in Iraq and the broader region, an exchange of Al Qaeda and Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) members in each other’s custody, and acceptance of Iran’s right to access WMD technology, without developing weapons, to which it was firmly opposed.12 It appears that the document was viewed positively by the State Department, but Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney rejected it on the ground that ‘we do not speak to evil’. Later, Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, blamed the neocons for this failure to enter into dialogue with Iran.