Aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, Vice President Dick Cheney warned Tehran that Washington is ready to use its naval power to prevent the Islamic Republic from closing off its vital sea lanes for oil supplies, “gaining nuclear weapons” or “dominating” the Middle East.
"Throughout the region our country has interests to protect and commitments to honor," Cheney told thousands of U.S. sailors on the nuclear-powered USS John C. Stennis, just 150 miles off Iran’s coast.
“With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike. We'll keep the sea lanes open. We'll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.”
Cheney issued the sharp warning on Friday during his Middle East tour, where he is seeking support from Washington’s Arab allies to help improve the situation in war-torn Iraq and curb Tehran’s growing influence in the region. His tour started just a few days before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes his own trip to the Gulf. Analysts say the two visits indicate the growing rivalry between Washington and Tehran for influence in the region.
According to an article on the Washington Post, Cheney’s warning is part of a two-track campaign by the Bush administration to attack Tehran while leaving the door open to negotiations. As the vice president was warning Iran in the Gulf, the State Department was working to set up a meeting in the next two weeks between top American and Iranian officials in Baghdad, U.S. officials said. The talks, which would only focus on Iraq, represent an alternative to a failed Iraqi attempt to bring Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with Iran’s foreign minister at an international summit on the future of Iraq held in Egypt last week, sources said.
Iran confirmed today that it accepted an official U.S. request through the Swiss embassy in Tehran to hold talks with American officials in a bid to improve security in Iraq. "Iran has agreed to talk to the U.S. side over Iraq, in Iraq, in order to relieve the pain of the Iraqi people, to support the government and to reinforce security in Iraq," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said.
Some administration officials refer to the U.S.’s approach as a good-cop, bad-cop strategy, while others say that it reflects a deep policy divide, particularly between the State Department and the vice president's office.
A top U.S. diplomat said Cheney’s speech against Iran was not even circulated in the government before it was delivered. “He still kind of runs by his own rules,” he said.
When President Bush ordered the two carriers into the Persian Gulf last year, top U.S. officials said the decision was part of a wider campaign aimed at gaining some negotiating leverage. The Bush administration has also been pressing European banks and firms to stop doing business with Iran in an effort to disrupt its efforts to recycle its oil profits.
But all these measures, including two UN sanctions resolutions, have failed to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Tehran has made clear it wouldn’t give up its right to develop a peaceful nuclear program. It seems that Cheney cannot realize that Iran is not like Iraq. In fact, his recent warning was similar to others he issued in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. At the time, his speeches also reflected divisions within the administration over how to deal with Saddam Hussein. But the circumstances with Iran are different. American officials say so many troops are tied up in Iraq, and Iran is so much powerful that it can cause disruption in the region and in the oil markets; any attack against Tehran’s nuclear facilities would simply be an enormous mistake.
"This (Cheney’s warning) is about saber-rattling and power projection," one senior State Department official said Friday. "And who better to do it?"
Despite the vice president’s tough talk, the United States knows that it needs Iran’s help to stabilize war-torn Iraq.
State Department officials hope the expected Baghdad talks can later involve top officials and address a broad range of issues to pave the way for a long-term bilateral process. But analysts say Cheney’s warning could stall such diplomatic efforts.
In fact, Washington has limited leverage in using either diplomacy or pressure to win Iran's cooperation, given that the realities in Iraq increasingly favor Tehran.
"There's a critical difference between U.S. time and Iranian time when it comes to Iraq," said Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The U.S. is under more pressure by the day to leave Iraq as soon as possible. Iran is watching, on the other hand, a political structure where Iraqi Shias with close ties to Iran are gaining in power."
Other analysts say the U.S. strategy is simply contradictory.
"On the one hand, U.S. policy involves a series of coercive steps – UN resolutions, financial sanctions, arresting Iran's operatives in Iraq, trying to mobilize the Gulf states against Iran, giving the kind of speeches with symbolism -- that is quite comprehensive," said Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations.
"On the other side, it's an offer to negotiate that is not well laid out. But the conciliatory effort is totally negated by the coercive steps, which is why it's not working."
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