There is a young populace in Iran. It would be a good move to seek dialouge and appeal to them. The flip side is Iran backs Hezbollah, it seeks the destruction of Israel, and backs shia militias in Iraq. I say try to talk to them, considering the alternative. The fact they hate A-jad speaks volumes. The US intel services should be all over this. Change can come from within, it just needs a lot of help. The final option is a massive air-strike, and the US will need help hitting all those targets. The EU should be interested, since Iran will be able to hit a European city with a nuclear tipped missle.
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What unites them all, however, is Iranian nationalism, and if the nuclear program is seen by Iranians through that prism, it will be unstoppable. Washington's mistake has been to play into that interpretation. Western statesmen should stop declaring that Iran has no use for nuclear power, that it cannot be trusted to enrich uranium. This smacks of paternalism—especially when coming from nations with large nuclear arsenals of their own—and naturally evokes a defensive response.
Instead, Washington and London and Paris should emphasize the costs of continuing to enrich uranium—more than $10 billion to date, according to one estimate. And instead of thundering that Iran is dangerous, President Bush should keep repeating, "We want to have relations with Iran, do business with you, visit your country and have Iranians visit us. We want Iran to join the World Trade Organization and other such bodies. We want you to be a respected nation. But this cannot happen if you do not verifiably end your pursuit of nuclear weaponry and support for terrorism. We are ready to put all this on the table."
We know that Tehran's hard-liners would reject this offer, but it could produce a feisty debate within the regime and outside. It would add to the feeling in the country that this government is mismanaging Iran's foreign policy. It would dramatically alter a stale negotiating dynamic between Iran and the West. If Iran accepted, such an opening would, ironically, strengthen the private sector and civil society, and over time weaken the government's grip on the country. A smart policy could, in the long run, win us both policy change and regime change after all.
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