Diplomatic move marks Bush volte face

The decision to approve the highest level US contact with Iran since the first shocks of the Islamic revolution of 1979 would have been a big one for any president during the past three decades.

For George W Bush, who famously depicted the country as part of an "axis of evil" and insisted that Tehran rein in its nuclear programme before the US would talk to the regime, the volte face was a significant one.

But the move was preceded by a series of recent signals from American diplomats and military officials anxious to head off the risk of a military confrontation that they considered potentially disastrous. Faced with a groundswell of opinion, Mr Bush ultimately decided to go along with the arguments of many of his underlings.

It is not an outcome that will necessarily please Vice President Dick Cheney, who was already unenthusiastic about the president's decision to take North Korea off the US's terrorist list in line with agreements at the six party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programme. "I think it's clear that Bush has pushed Cheney back twice now," said Steve Clemons at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based thinktank.

The result is that William Burns, the number three at the US state department, will meet Saaed Jalili, the chief Iranian negotiator for the nuclear dispute, in Geneva on Saturday as part of an international delegation led by Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief.

It was Mr Burns who, in Congressional testimony last week, struck perhaps the most conciliatory note on relations with Iran of any US official until the present.

"We have had a relationship burdened by deep seated grievances and suspicions and a long history of missed opportunities," he said, in an apparent allusion to efforts by Iran to reach a deal with Washington in 2003, an outreach then spurned by the US. He added that previous direct US-Iranian talks about Afghanistan had "turned out to be useful discussions in some respects".

In a striking echo of the call by Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, for "tough diplomacy" on Iran, Mr Burns, who took up his position in May, described his favoured approach as "tough-minded diplomacy". He also said the administration would "carefully" look into whether to send diplomats to Tehran to look after US interests – a step that falls short of diplomatic recognition.

Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a leading supporter of engagement with Iran, labeled Mr Burns' comments "music" to his ears, adding that he wished he had heard such a statement in any one of the past five years.

But Mr Burns' testimony was not given in isolation. Many US and European officials have stepped up their efforts to bring about a diplomatic rather than military solution to the dispute, amid warnings from Israel that time is running out before Iran acquires nuclear weapons capacity. A significant number of top US diplomats and military officials believe an Israeli strike could have catastrophic consequences, particularly while fighting continues in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This month Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, spoke out against the risks of an Iranian "third front" on his return from a trip to Israel, where he met with the country's minister of defence and chief of staff.

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Robert Gates, US defence secretary is a long standing advocate of engagement with Iran, having endorsed such a position in a 2004 report he co-chaired with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former US national security adviser, as well as within the Iraq study group of 2006.

The current diplomatic outreach to Iran spearheaded by Mr Solana also created a dynamic of its own. Iranian officials have expressed more interest in the latest proposal put forward by Mr Solana than they did during two previous attempts. The US has also been aware that it needed to do more to win European backing for further sanctions.

Both Washington and Israel have been pushing for the EU to follow up its recent action against Bank Melli, Iran's largest bank, and restrict insurance and reinsurance for Iranian shipping. As in the past, the US is more likely to win European backing for sanctions if it visibly gives greater support for their diplomatic efforts.

But the US shifting stance on Iran is unlikely to be universally popular. Mr Burns has already publicly outlined the US's support for a proposal in which Iran would hold back from building up its nuclear infrastructure for six weeks and the US and EU would refrain from imposing any further sanctions. Washington and Brussels see the proposal as a stepping stone towards full negotiations with Iran involving the US.

But some Israeli officials are nervous about the idea, since during the six weeks Tehran could continue uranium enrichment, which can produce both nuclear fuel and weapons grade material. "The key thing is to suspend enrichment," said one Israeli official. Some of Mr Bush's most passionate supporters are also likely to be dismayed by his decision to back the talks. For this president, of all presidents, the road to relations with Iran is set to be a perilous one.

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