We Need to Talk With Iran

Saturday marks the first anniversary of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election as Iran’s president. Despite the Iranian opposition’s continuing efforts to contest the outcome and advance political liberalization, Ahmadinejad and his allies have largely succeeded in consolidating their hold on power by using brute force to repress the reform movement. Hopes that a popular uprising might topple the regime have fizzled.

Meanwhile, the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program is escalating. The Iranian regime continues to defy the international community’s efforts to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. The closer Iran gets to developing a nuclear weapon, the greater the likelihood that Israel, with or without U.S. help, might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

With diplomacy having failed to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, critics of engagement charge, it is time to resort to coercion before Iran crosses the nuclear Rubicon. A rising chorus of voices now forswears engagement with Iran’s rulers, insisting that it is time for the regime to go.

But closing off dialogue with Iran would be a precipitous and dangerous mistake. Even fierce adversaries can settle their differences through negotiation. The United States and its allies should keep the door open to dialogue until the 11th hour for four compelling reasons.

First, tighter sanctions make sense only as a diplomatic tool, not as a blunt instrument of coercion. The new sanctions simply are not severe enough to intimidate Iran into submission, and more restrictive ones would not pass muster within the Security Council. Accordingly, if tougher sanctions prove to be useful, they will do so by confronting Iran with a united diplomatic front, thereby encouraging Tehran to make a deal to end the country’s isolation. New sanctions are warranted as a complement, not an alternative, to diplomacy.

Second, the costs of abandoning diplomacy are so high that continued engagement makes sense even as Iran refuses to budge. To give up on diplomacy is to leave the international community with two ugly options: living with a nuclear Iran or carrying out a preventive military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations.

A military strike would likely have worse consequences. Even if a strike were an operational success, it would only set back Iran’s nuclear program by several years, while giving the regime a new incentive to acquire a nuclear deterrent and build better hidden and defended nuclear facilities. In response to an attack, Iran might well seek to obstruct shipping in the Persian Gulf, potentially triggering oil shortages and soaring prices.

Iran could also intensify efforts to fund and arm insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, imperiling both countries. And it could launch attacks on U.S., European and Israeli targets on a global basis. Such prospects make continued diplomacy nothing short of mandatory.

The third reason for pursuing dialogue is that factional infighting and political intrigue within the Iranian regime make for considerable political fluidity. Admittedly, turmoil in Tehran brings inconstancy to Iran’s foreign policy, but internal jockeying for power also means that a coalition alignment favoring a negotiated settlement just might fall into place.

Finally, even as stalemate continues on Iran’s uranium enrichment, continued engagement may offer a roundabout means of arriving at a bargain on the nuclear issue. Dialogue with the United States could focus on areas, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where the two parties share a measure of common ground. Joint efforts to combat drug trafficking in Afghanistan, for example, could help dilute the mutual antagonism and distrust that contribute to blockage on the nuclear front. Iran remains several years away from mastering the technology needed to build nuclear weapons, which provides time to search for such diplomatic openings.

With Iran having spurned Obama’s offers of compromise, it is tempting for the U.S. administration to turn its back on dialogue. But the stakes are too high to abandon engagement. Even with new sanctions in the offing, dialogue still offers the best prospect for peacefully resolving what may be the world’s most dangerous dispute.