Confusion on US-Iran policy

ANTIBES, France — One of the most difficult challenges facing the Obama administration is how to handle Iran.

The president made it clear before he took office that he wanted to open a dialogue with Iran and end the 30-year standoff with the Islamic Republic. Iranian officials had been indicating for the past few years that they were ready to talk. Now, in view of the current turmoil in that country, Obama seems to be uncertain how or even whether he can grasp the Iranian nettle.

Which Iranians should America talk to? Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s “Supreme Leader” and officially the ultimate arbiter in the land, seems to be losing his grip on events. Iranian demonstrators openly challenge his authority.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has just taken office for a second term after an election that appears to have been rigged, has lost credibility with millions of Iranians who believe their votes were stolen. And his policies and actions are now being questioned by some of his own hard-line backers.

Above all, a significant minority of the population seem to have lost their fear of a repressive government. Night, after night thousands shout from their rooftoops “God is Great” (a rallying cry of the revolution that toppled Iran’s previous regime in 1979) and “Death to the Dictator” (by which they mean Ayatollah Khamenei). Brutal repression by thuggish government militias has reduced the size of daytime demonstrations on the streets, but has not stopped them.

The surprising thing about this anti-government movement is how long it has gone on. The big student riots of 1999 were suppressed by the government after several days. But the demonstrators behind this new movement — young people, women, middle class professionals, even clergymen – keep coming back for more. The outside world sees very little of this, except in the furtive cellphone videos taken by the demonstrator themselves.

These new “citizen journalists” hide their cellphones up their sleeves or in small containers. They have developed their own journalistic code and often begin a video with a closeup of a street sign and the front page of a local newspaper to authenticate when and where the video was shot. They frequently change their email addresses and use other techniques to avoid being tracked down by the authorities.

But despite their efforts, it is hard for foreign governments to assess the real situation in Iran. The United States had lousy intelligence cover of Iran in the years leading up to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in the Islamic Revolution. Most of the American news media also missed the big story that the old Iranian regime was in danger of collapsing until it actually happened. (I know, because I was there before it happened and could not get my company to run my report.)

Much the same situation prevails today. America still seems to have spotty intelligence from Iran and the Iranian clampdown on foreign and independent media has stopped most first hand reporting from the country. The Obama administration is flying blind as it tries to find a way to bring Iran to the negotiating table and prevent it from producing a nuclear weapon.

The administration has complicated matters by imposing a deadline on the Iranian government: Either agree to open talks on your nuclear program by September or face “crippling” sanctions. Imposing a deadline on a country whose decision making machinery is in a state of flux is not a wise move. It looks even less clever when both sides know that really tough sanctions would not work without the agreement of China and Russia (and that seems unlikely).

The administration’s embarrassment is obvious. The White House believes the Iranian election was rigged, but does not want to foreclose the possibility of negotiations with the new Iranian government. So it acknowledges that Ahmadinejad is president but refuses to send him a letter of congratulations. Other foreign governments have taken equally meaningless stances.

Confusion, hypocrisy and a lack of accurate, firsthand, knowledge of the situation on the ground are the hallmarks of America’s relations with Iran. Better news reporting from the scene over the years might have helped the United States handle the current crisis in a more intelligent way. But then, you could say that about every other foreign crisis America faces.