Pressure builds for Iran talks

WASHINGTON – Amid concern that the U.S. is drifting toward eventual confrontation with Iran, a growing number of influential statesmen, Republican senators and foreign policy experts are stepping up pressure on the Bush administration to consider doing what no U.S. administration has done in 27 years: talk directly with Iran.

In a series of recent congressional hearings, think-tank conferences, op-ed essays and media appearances, Republican heavyweights – including former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., and Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. – have publicly urged the administration to avert from the current path of escalation in favor of joining European allies in direct talks with Tehran.

The public campaign parallels private efforts by GOP insiders, foreign policy specialists and U.S. allies abroad to influence the thinking of key administration officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Elliot Abrams, who oversees Iran policy at the National Security Council. Both have had meetings with foreign diplomats and outside experts recently at which the subject of U.S. diplomacy with Iran has been raised.

“I think the administration is gradually and with some reluctance moving in the right direction,” said a central figure in the Republican foreign policy establishment who is trying to shift the administration’s stance on the issue of talks with Iran. “But I don’t think they are taking initiatives now. I think they are being dragged.”

The administration’s stance toward Iran, refusing direct talks while allowing other nations to negotiate, has paid few dividends and could add to the unpopularity of future sanctions or military action, he said. But the administration may be forced to change as a result of “pressure from Europeans, from the Russians, and the general sense that they are just on a wicket they can’t sustain there,” he said.

“They are grudgingly moving toward a notion of some kind of direct talks,” the foreign policy expert added.

As pressure on the White House intensified in the last week, there were signs of slight but significant shifts in the administration position last week. Spokesman Tony Snow repeated the administration’s refusal to consider direct talks but said things could change if Iran suspends its uranium-enrichment efforts and commits to halt them permanently.

“When that happens, all right, then there may be some opportunities,” Snow said.

A decision to talk to the Iranians would be a dramatic departure from the administration’s strategy of isolating the Tehran regime and leaving negotiations to European allies. Critics of engagement, including Vice President Dick Cheney and influential neoconservatives, say such talks would legitimize a duplicitous regime and represent a blow to Iranian human rights activists and dissidents who hope to eventually overturn the regime.

Pressure for talks involving the United States began to build after the collapse of a Russian-sponsored compromise on Iranian nuclear enrichment earlier this year and following disagreement in the last month within the U.N. Security Council on the best approach.

“Some of the E.U. members were nervous that things were really going downhill very fast and headed to military confrontation,” said one nongovernmental energy consultant knowledgeable about the internal debate.

Lugar held two days of testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations committee earlier this month, featuring speaker after speaker who proposed some form of dialogue.

“The witnesses generally shared the view that no diplomatic options, including direct talks, should be taken off the table,” Lugar said.