"... "This sounds like the kind of travel a chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee would -- and should -- undertake," said a White House official, adding it would be at Sen. Kerry's own behest.
It's unclear whether Iran would welcome the visit, and it would be controversial within both countries. The Iranian government has rebuffed other recent White House efforts to establish a direct dialogue.
The Obama administration hasn't decided whether to make Sen. Kerry its official representative if he goes, but as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Kerry can visit if the White House and Tehran both approve.
Many opponents of Tehran's regime oppose such a visit, fearing it would lend legitimacy to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a time when his government is under continuing pressure from protests and opposition figures....
A trip by Sen. Kerry could provide the Obama administration a last-minute chance to directly convey its views to Iranian leaders before the U.S. moves to increase financial pressure on Tehran in an effort to derail Iran's nuclear programs.....
If he goes to Tehran, it would be the highest-level mission by a U.S. official in three decades. Lower-level meetings have taken place recently between the U.S. and Iran in third countries, which also could still be an option for Sen. Kerry.
Oliver North, a national security council staffer for President Ronald Reagan, secretly visited Tehran in 1986 for talks on trading arms for U.S. hostages in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. But other than that, the highest-level U.S. official to visit was James Billington, the former head of the Library of Congress, who went for a six-day cultural exchange in 2004.
Sen. Kerry and his staff, according to people briefed on the deliberations, have explored the idea of Sen. Kerry writing to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to assess his office's interest in the senator meeting senior Iranian leaders.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff also has considered proposing a parliamentary exchange with the Majlis, Iran's principal legislative body. Its speaker, Ali Larijani, was formerly Iran's chief nuclear negotiator and remains an important player....
Frederick Jones, a spokesman for Sen. Kerry, said he couldn't discuss any deliberations between the senator and the White House. Mr. Jones stressed, however, that no trip has been scheduled. "Is he planning now on going to Iran? The answer is no," said Mr. Jones.
The White House has already sent two letters to Mr. Khamenei seeking a more direct dialogue on the nuclear issue, and has received little of substance in return, according to U.S. officials...."
2 comments:
What offer could Kerry take to Iran that would persuade Tehran that the U.S. was serious about addressing its concerns?
If Kerry goes just to talk Tehran into accepting discriminatory nuclear restrictions that do not apply to Israel, his trip will only make matters worse.
Were he to put on the table an offer to accept the long-term principle of a single regional nuclear standard, Tehran might well take notice. Such a revolutionary move would also go far toward justifying Obama's Nobel Prize. But would Obama dare to go this far?
Two considerations suggest that Washington should move very cautiously down the laudable road of raising the level of diplomatic contacts with Tehran.
1. The timing is not as propitious as it was when Nixon went to a China very worried about the USSR. Tehran still needs to be persuaded that the U.S. will deal honestly and that it needs to deal at all.
2. The sorry historical record of U.S. diplomatic incompetence, especially the absurdities of Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal, suggests the need to minimize the possibility of further U.S. errors. The unprofessional U.S. handling of the uranium exchange deal in recent weeks only underscores the dangers of a high-level, high-visibility U.S. mistake.
Therefore, the idea of a parliamentary exchange with the Majlis sounds, at this point, far better because more cautious, lower level, more incremental. This is the time to avoid headlines and conduct further technical work. Many players contribute to Iranian foreign policy decision making: contact them.
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