Iran accepts US Afghan invitation

Looks like the ball has finally got rolling! Try to remember that what are needed if the road to detente is to be secured are baby steps, but this latest development is, at least in my humble opinion, very significant. But also, as I have reiterated on numerous occasions we ought not to get ahead of ourselves. According to the BBC report (linked to below), Hillary Clinton has already ruled out the possibility of "substantive" talks.

Iran's agreement to attend and Clinton's own pre-emptive exclusion of the possibility of broader talks puts paid to the naysayers who blame Iran for not throwing all caution to the wind by wholeheartedly embracing this supposedly "unprecedented" move by the Obama admin (which has also extended by another year sanctions against Iran initiated under Bill Clinton) and seized on the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei's less than enthusiastic reply to Obama's Nowruz greeting, which while being undoubtedly important, should nonetheless be viewed soberly (read Phil Wilayto’s article below to puts these latest events in context). Diplomacy is a painstaking and draining process - there is still a long way to go even if this is a positive step in the right direction. The June presidential election will be very important in deciding the course of US-Iranian talks and their possibility for success.

Ironically, the victory of Ahmadinejad or someone of lesser stature with whom Khamenei feels comfortable and secure with may well provide the necessary opening for US-Iranian talks to come to fruition. In this way, the Supreme Leader will be able to receive the credit for detente as opposed to the more "undesirable" eventuality in which praise would be lauded on a rival personality in the elite – fuelling inter-elite and inter-factional squabbling. Whether this is good for the internal political situation Iranians today face is another question entirely and one I'll have to leave for another time. The Leader however may well feel secure enough, compared with times past, to let the future president share in the glory. Time will tell.

BBC News, Thursday, 26 March 2009

Iran has agreed to attend a US-backed international conference on Afghanistan next week, but Washington played down the prospect of a high-profile meeting.

While US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also due to attend, the state department said she had no plans for a "substantive" meeting with Iran.

Iran's foreign ministry said it had not yet decided whom it would send to the one-day conference at The Hague.

Both countries have an interest in a stable Afghanistan.

"We will participate in the Afghanistan meeting," said Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi Ghashghavi.

"At what level, I don't know yet, but we will participate."

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