What America Must Do: Travel to Tehran

It took a war to recognize it, but Iraq is not the key to meeting U.S. goals in the modern Middle East. That distinction goes to Iran. Achieving stability in Baghdad and Kabul, guaranteeing the safe passage of Persian Gulf oil, securing an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, salvaging Lebanon’s democracy, and pushing Syria toward more cooperative policies — all these American objectives have a better chance of being met if Tehran has a place at the table.

Yet the U.S. approach toward the Islamic Republic remains ossified. The mullahs in Tehran continue to be branded as nuclear-obsessed terrorists, treated as international pariahs who only understand threats and isolation. The White House’s talk of World War III reveals a fundamental U.S. error: Iran’s policy tools — the threat of a nuclear weapons program, its ties to Hezbollah and Hamas — are not its policy goals. What the mullahs crave is not nuclear suicide but a legitimate regional role, and they are determined to achieve that influence, with or without American blessing.

That’s why the next U.S. president should seize the upper hand and embark on a "Nixon in China"-like visit to Tehran. Thirty-five years ago, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger sat down with Mao Zedong and transformed mutual enmity into a quasi alliance. That American enterprise scored a Cold War victory against Moscow. The next U.S. president would accomplish a similar strike against al Qaeda and the forces of instability in the Middle East, while guaranteeing that Iran’s nuclear plans remain only on the drawing board.

Unlike most states in the region, Iran was not born this century. It is the world’s second-oldest state after China. Regimes have come and gone in its long history, and change today is certainly a possibility. But an overhaul is realistic only from within; an entire generation has grown up since the Islamic Revolution and is becoming weary of its dictates. Some Russian observers compare modern Iran to Leonid Brezhnev’s Soviet Union — the beginning of the end. Visiting Americans report of ordinary Iranians’ fascination with the American way of life, another familiar Soviet phenomenon.

But whatever the fate of the current regime, Iran itself will survive well into the future, a fact that cannot be said with certainty about several of its neighbors. What is certain is that the only thing that stands between Iran and the nuclear future it threatens is dialogue with the United States, the sole audience it truly craves. The terms will be tough: the lifting of sanctions, security guarantees, the right to a peaceful nuclear program. Mutual agreement on those alone will be difficult, but they will be the only incentives powerful enough to convince Iran to forgo the pursuit of weapons.

Half a century ago, John F. Kennedy understood that he had to deal with the Kremlin to save his country. Nikita Khrushchev, after all, promised to "bury" him, and even if he meant it philosophically, the missiles in Cuba were both real and lethal. Today, the United States can either reach out to a similarly swaggering adversary, or step back and face the consequences. Will it wait until Iran’s missiles are all too real?