Negotiating with Iran about Iraq

Gareth Porter has a very informative article on the hopes and assumptions behind the talks between the US and Iran on stabilizing Iraq.  And he makes a credible case that the US-Iran negotiations over Iraq have revealed a distinct split on Iran policy between Condi-Condi on the pro-negotiation side and the hardline neoconservatives on the other.  The article is Iran, Iraq Crises Converge Despite U.S. Hardliners Inter Press Service 03/21/06.  He writes:

Although the administration seeks to keep cooperation with Iran over the crisis in Iraq separate from its strategy of isolation of Iran, the evolution of the Iraq crisis may make such separation impossible. The discussions on Iraq will have to involve various political formulas which the United States and Iran could both support. Iran would be asked to help sell the militant Shiite parties on a settlement plan with unpalatable compromises for those same parties.

If the Iranians become more deeply involved in the internal negotiation in Iraq, and the usefulness of their role becomes widely recognised, it will certainly be more difficult for the United States to resist political-diplomatic pressures to talk with Tehran about the larger issues threatening the peace of the region - Iran's nuclear programme and the U.S. efforts to isolate and destabilise the regime.

The US, especially the hardliners, have wanted to avoid these negotiations over Iraq for fear that they might lead into broader diplomatic compromise to defuse the confrontation over Iran's nuclear power program.  Describing how Rice publicly declared an openness to negotiations with Iran over stabilizing Iraq, he relates how National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and another anonymous "senior administration offcial" tried to shoot down the idea:

The attacks by those associated with the administration's hard-line policy toward Iran revealed sharp differences over which is more important -- isolating Iran diplomatically, or taking advantage of its influence within the Shi'a political leadership in Iraq to help settle the crisis there.

The Dick Cheney-Donald Rumsfeld group, whose views were expressed by Hadley and the anonymous officials minimising the importance of talks with Iran, clearly careless about what happens in Iraq than they do about maintaining the policy of implicit, if not explicit regime change in Tehran.

Iran, on the other hand, is hoping that the talks on Iraq will lead to wider negotiations:

In agreeing to help the United States on Iraq, the Iranians are primarily interested in the possibility of using talks on Iraq as a bridge to broader diplomatic negotiations with Washington. The Iranian intelligence official told Hilsum that Tehran would accept the U.S. offer for talks but wanted them to be in a neutral country, hoping they would eventually lead to a dialogue on the nuclear issue as well.

And, if Iran shows itself to be helpful in this situation, as it was previously in Afghanistan, there's always the possibility that cooler heads will prevail in applying the brakes on the buildup to war with Iran that's been going on.  The hardliners are driving for that goal.  But the current Iraq-related negotiations represent, in Porter's judgment, a setback for the "Iran hawks":

But they have already lost the battle against talks with Iran on the stabilisation of Iraq. Those negotiations are likely to increase the pressure for bilateral negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme and Iranian security concerns.

The convergence of the two issues is being driven both by the need of the United States and Iraqi political factions for Iranian help in resolving the sectarian violence and political deadlock in Iraq, and by Iran's desire to reach a broader settlement with Washington.