WarSclerotic

US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that Iran’s new President Hassan Rouhani appears to want to open a dialogue with the United States and that he is willing to test whether this is the case.

Obama’s comment in an interview with Spanish-language network Telemundo was the latest indication the president would like to jump from the crisis over Syria’s chemical weapons to a new search for a diplomatic deal to ensure Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon.

Last weekend, Obama revealed he and Rouhani had exchanged letters about the US-Iran standoff. Both leaders will be at the UN General Assembly in New York next week, although White House officials say there are no current plans for them to meet.

“There is an opportunity here for diplomacy,” Obama told Telemundo. “And I hope the Iranians take advantage of it.”

Obama ran for president in 2008 in part by vowing to open a dialogue with Iran.

But there has been no breakthrough and sanctions by Washington and the United Nations to weaken Iran’s economy have gradually been increased to try to pressure Tehran to give up a nuclear program that it denies is aimed at building a weapon.

“There are indication that Rouhani, the new president, is somebody who is looking to open dialogue with the West and with the United States, in a way that we haven’t seen in the past. And so we should test it,” Obama said.

Since the surprise election in June of Rouhani, a centrist cleric, officials from both countries have made increasing hints that they are open to direct talks to seek an end to the decade-long nuclear dispute.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned against falling for Rouhani’s “charm offensive” during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Netanyahu said that both a meeting with Obama scheduled for the end of the month and his address to the UN General Assembly the following day will focus on Iran. Obama and Netanyahu have been in frequent phone contact over the last several weeks amid the Syria chemical weapons crisis.

Obama says it’s hard to imagine Syrian war winding down with Assad in power

Obama also addressed the ongoing crisis in Syria in Tuesday’s Telemundo interview, saying that there will ultimately need to be a political transition in the country in which President Bashar Assad gives up power.

“Keep in mind that it’s very hard to imagine that (the Syrian) civil war dying down if in fact Assad is still in power,” Obama said.

Obama said it is still his goal to “transition him out of power” in a way that protects Syria’s religious minorities and ensures Islamist extremists are not gaining ground inside the country, where more than 100,000 people have been killed in a 2-1/2-year civil war.

“But you know, we’re going to take this one step at a time. The first step right now is to make sure we can deal with the chemical weapons issue,” said Obama.

Afterward, he said, the next step will be to engage all the parties involved in the Syrian crisis and countries that have been supportive of Syria like Russia and say, “We need to bring an end to this.”

UN investigators said on Monday that sarin gas killed hundreds of civilians in an Aug. 21 attack on the suburbs of Damascus.

The chemical weapons deal sealed by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has drawn fire from critics who worry there is no strong enforcement mechanism to make certain Syria carries out its promises to give up these weapons.

Following US President Barack Obama’s acceptance of a Russian-initiated deal to prevent an attack on Syria, Tehran now seems to be eager for a deal of its own. A flurry of reports over the past few days show Iranian leaders speaking of compromise.

Witnessing how easily and quickly Russia was able to mediate a political solution that avoided Western intervention, Iran must be thinking that it can have its cake and eat it too. If it is willing to reach a sizable compromise on some aspects of its nuclear program, without totally dismantling it, then it may be possible not only to put off a US attack, but also to decrease sanctions.

And even if the US balks at a deal, Tehran can use the negotiating time to increase the pressure by further advancing or acquiring a nuclear weapon.

The German website Spiegel Online, quoting unidentified intelligence sources, reported that the new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, is about to propose a deal that includes closing down the Fordo enrichment plant and allowing international inspectors to observe the removal of centrifuges.

This comes on top of news that Rouhani has been exchanging letters with Obama.

Meanwhile, Iran’s new nuclear energy chief has pledged increased cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency ahead of upcoming talks later this month.

Even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that he believes in “heroic flexibility,” according to a report by the Iranian Fars News Agency on Tuesday.

“I agree with the issue that I called ‘heroic flexibility’ some years ago, since this move is highly good and necessary on certain occasions, but with commitment to one main condition,” he said. Khamenei added, “A technical wrestler also shows flexibility for technical reasons sometimes, but he would never forget who his rival is and what his main goal is.”

So it seems “tactical flexibility” means to serve the strategic goal of achieving nuclear weapons in order to gain power and secure the regime against attack.

Prof. Meir Litvak of the department of Middle Eastern history and the director for the Alliance Center of Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University, told The Jerusalem Post it was clear that “Rouhani is trying to improve Iran’s relations with the West because he must relieve the economic pressure on Iran.”

However, there remain some open questions, he said, noting that it was unclear how much leeway Rouhani had. “How far will Khamenei, the conservatives and the Republican Guards allow him to go?”

Litvak went on to add that if Iran were to continue its nuclear activities at their other sites besides Fordo, the value of closing Fordo would be limited.

In any case, he said there were ways Iran might still be able to develop its nuclear capabilities.

Taking a more optimistic view, Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council told the Post, “If these reports are true, then it is very significant because the closure of Fordo has been a central Western objective and the Iranians have thus far shown no sign of flexibility on Fordo.”

“Rouhani is trying to get the world’s attention to infuse new confidence in the negotiations, and with this proposal, he will likely succeed,” Parsi said, adding that “the West should study this carefully, because rejecting it out of hand will make Tehran look flexible and the West intransigent.”

Prof. Ali Ansari of St. Andrews University in Scotland, the founding director of the Institute for Iranian Studies, concurred with Litvak, telling the Post that “Rouhani takes over the reins of government at a time when Iran faces unprecedented political and economic problems.”

Ansari said that Rouhani’s priority “is to place the economy back on a firm footing; and within this parameter his first task is to prevent, and if possible reverse, the sanctions that have been imposed on Iran over the last few years.”

“The first stage of this process is to redefine Iran’s image abroad, not an enormously difficult task given the exceedingly low bar left by his predecessor [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]. At the same time, the damage to Iran’s international reputation is very real and it will take serious substance rather than form for his strategy to answer,” he added.