Regimes And Imperialists: Why Neither Party In Iran-U.S. Talks Is Interested In Diplomacy

-Analysis-

After 46 years of open hostility, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States recently decided to resume a diplomatic dialogue. Diplomacy is arguably as old as history, and when we use the term today, we often mean communications able to strengthen official ties between governments.

Diplomacy is a tool to forward the national interest abroad, avoid war and boost friendly ties with other states or international agencies. But while it’s always useful to pursue, it offers no guarantees.

For a start, diplomacy requires self-control and moderation. The current Iranian leadership, a regime born of revolutionary upheaval, has been unrelenting in its hostility to reason and shown its foolishness over decades by giving precedence to intrigue and violence over measured dialogue.

This approach effectively collapsed in recent months with a string of regional setbacks followed by the unwelcome return of the Republican Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency.  Almost overnight, the regime changed its tune to say it was open to talks.

Halting the decades-old, ritual chants of Death to America and Death to Israel, or exotic calls for War To End the Universal Sedition and the habit of trampling on the U.S. flag in entryways and on sidewalks, its rulers seemed to suddenly realize there were other ways of running a country and interacting with sovereign states. After years of discord over what to do with America, all its factions — from arch-conservatives to reformists, ‘collaborationists’ and phony critics — were now cheering diplomacy as the way to go!

As a tool of foreign policy, diplomacy has its ways and modes, including at times a cryptic or symbolic language that requires familiarity from both its protagonists and observers. 

Symbols speak in diplomacy

Take the first session of U.S.-Iran talks, held on April 12 in Muscat, the capital of the Sultanate of Oman. There is symbolism in the city’s name, which in Arabic bears the idea of a precipice or of falling off a cliff — and it looks increasingly like the Islamic Republic is coming right up to the edge. There is also symbolism in the venue where the talks took place, the Beit ul-hiyal, which we might translate as House of Tricks or Deceit. Was a trick afoot at the expense of the Revolutionary guards and regime cronies sent there as diplomatic representatives?

This is the residence of the Omani foreign minister, who was acting as mediator, and again symbolic of the depth of Iran’s decline in recent years. Having wrecked its own diplomatic options and room for maneuver, the regime needed a go-between so talks with the United States could happen at all. But why this particular mediator? Was there symbolism here too?

The Sultanate of Oman is a discreet, conservative entity that has had longstanding, vigorous ties with Britain, the imperial power that called the shots in Iran in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Is Britain playing a role again in Iran’s fate?

Oman is also in the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is essentially standing in the way of Iran’s regional ambitions. Needing the good offices of a Council member – which has, in spite of its diplomatic neutrality, little sympathy for Tehran’s revolutionary cause – is hardly a diplomatic victory for the Islamic Republic. And if the talks are in Muscat, can the parties overlook or ignore the interests of the Arab monarchies? Perhaps the Gulf Cooperation Council sees, and enjoys seeing, the ‘precipitous’ setting of Muscat as the latest in a string of humiliations for a regime nobody loves in the Middle East. 

This may well be about a division of spoils.

A second round of talks is now slated to be held in Rome on Saturday, which also means the parties will likely have to take stock of European interests, making dealmaking harder. There is all the European talk of human rights for example, which irritates the Tehran regime… and likely the Trump administration. In that sense at least they are in sync.

And there is also the Pope: he might offer a prayer for a successful outcome, but his calls for peace in the Middle East might again irk the talking parties. Who needs a pricked conscience when talking business?

Because like Ukraine and its minerals, for Trump, this may well be about a division of spoils. It is a big, ‘beautiful’ deal he would hardly like to share with the Europeans.

General rush… But for what?

Restrictions placed on Iran’s nuclear program pursuant to the 2015 nuclear pact – which Trump ditched in 2019 – will end in October this year. The regime would then no longer face, in legal terms, the threat of snap sanctions for not strictly adhering to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Western powers are thus keen to have a new deal and framework to restrict its nuclear, and even ballistic, activities before then. 

Hardliners in Tehran hated the 2015 pact as a colonial imposition, but it may have prevented the regime’s downfall. Today, there is another hue and cry with its attendant theatricals, over a new deal. And yet, in spite of their defiant discourse, fundamentalist regimes are often the perfect colonial tools and useful minions for the world’s imperialist looters.

For 46 years, the revolutionary mullahs and their mercenaries seemed to be on a mission to bring ruin on the Middle East — not to mention a once-prosperous Iran. Now they have a new mission as conditions have changed, and they must comply or face destruction as Trump has told them. And unlike Ukraine’s hard-pressed president, they can hardly count on the people’s support in their hour of need, given their conduct over four decades.

No, the regime hasn’t turned to diplomacy, when it barely understands the meaning of more basic premises like the national interest, or foreign policy. It will play with words to win itself time and cut itself a better deal. That is the best that can be expected of it.