WHITE HOUSE CLEARED JAMES BAKER TO MEET WITH A "HIGH REPRESENTATIVE" OF TEHRAN'S GOVERNMENT

Door to Iranian dialogue creaks open
By Jim Lobe

"...a legendary fixer for the Bush family announced that the White House had cleared him to meet with a "high representative" of Tehran's government.

Former secretary of state James Baker, who co-chairs a bipartisan, congressionally appointed task force called the Iraq Study Group (ISG), said that the timing of the meeting with that representative, whom he declined to name, had yet to be arranged, but that permission for such a meeting to take place had been granted.

"I'm fairly confident that we will meet with a high representative of the [Iranian] government," he said at a press conference at the US Institute of Peace, one of several think-tanks, including the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Center for the Study of the Presidency, and Baker's own Houston-based Institute for Public Policy, that support the ISG's work.

Such a meeting would no doubt feed speculation that Baker, a consummate "realist" who reportedly has been privately critical of the Bush administration's Middle East policies, could help tilt the balance of power within the administration in favor of fellow realists, centered in the State Department.

They generally support greater flexibility in dealing with perceived US foes in the region, and against right-wing hawks led by Vice President Dick Cheney who have steadfastly opposed engagement with both Iran and Syria.

Indeed, Baker also announced on Tuesday that his task force would meet this week with the foreign minister of Syria, against which the Bush administration has mounted a diplomatic boycott for almost two years. The task force has already met with Damascus' ambassador in Washington, as part of a series of meetings with Washington-based envoys from Iraq's Arab neighbors.

The ISG was launched by Congress and quietly endorsed by the White House in April at the suggestion of a senior Republican lawmaker, Frank Wolf, who expressed growing concern about both the increasingly obvious deterioration of the situation in Iraq - and the threats it posed to the larger region - and the increasingly rancorous and partisan tone of the domestic debate about the war.

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All participants have been ordered repeatedly by Baker not to talk to the press or anyone else about the ISG's deliberations until its work is concluded, probably early next year, so as not to influence the mid-term congressional elections in November. Hamilton said the group's final report and recommendations would be made public immediately after they were submitted to Congress and the president.

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"He's always been a proponent of dialogue," said Trita Parsi, an Iran expert and author of Treacherous Triangle: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States, who suggested that the Baker talks may offer an opportunity for "informal talks" with Iran and, in any event, "should help reduce the negative trend and the loss of trust" between Tehran and Washington. "I think the fact that the talks will take place is quite significant in and of itself," he said.

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the director of the Baker Institute, Edward Djerejian, who also served as an ambassador to Damascus and as Baker's top Middle East adviser in the State Department during the 1991 Gulf War, called explicitly for the Bush administration to engage in direct talks with both Syria and Iran on a range of issues.

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Djerejian, who has advised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and mentored her public-diplomacy chief and longtime Bush adviser, Karen Hughes, told an interviewer on National Public Radio early last month. Rice, who has tried with limited success to move US policy in a more flexible direction, particularly with respect to Iran, has reportedly come largely to share that view, but has been thwarted by Cheney and other senior officials, including Elliot Abrams, the neo-conservative director of Middle East affairs in the National Security Council, in implementing it.

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Many observers believe that, at the very least, a strong recommendation by him or the group as a whole that Washington directly engage Tehran would be difficult for the administration to resist, particularly if current trends are not reversed. "It seems to me that Rice has gotten the latitude from Bush to pursue this sort of alternative course with Iran and the broader Middle East," Clemons said, adding: "But it doesn't mean that the president has bought into the process."

Ten months ago, the Bush administration in fact agreed to a suggestion by its ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, to initiate talks with Tehran about stabilizing Iraq, but Washington subsequently backed away from the idea. "


Pertinent Links:

1) Door to Iranian dialogue creaks open by Jim Lobe