Despite U.S. dismissal, Iran letter had purpose

ANALYSIS

updated 7:13 p.m. ET Dec. 1, 2006

CAIRO, Egypt - The Iranian president’s letter to the American people this week was dismissed by Washington as a crazy propaganda stunt, but there is a rationale behind it: Iran is eager to engage the Great Satan.

With the United States struggling to contain the chaos in Iraq and deal with other problems across the Middle East, Tehran believes it would have the upper hand in any talks with Washington and could win concessions in return for helping ease the turmoil.

So far, Iran’s approaches have gone nowhere. Washington is demanding Tehran stop enriching uranium — a key step in the manufacture of nuclear weapons — before it will come to the table.

Tehran’s style has not helped. It continually rails against “U.S. arrogance,” and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s letter to the American people, released in New York on Wednesday, struck its intended audience as a bizarre political lecture rather than an attempt at dialogue.

The letter branded the Bush administration’s policies a failure and said Americans should press their government to try something new — particularly, withdraw from Iraq.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey called the letter “a public relations stunt” by the Iranian government.

Ahmadinejad surely had an eye on the Iranian public when he sent the letter, trying to show his people he was not just tough but open to talks, but he also may genuinely believe he can persuade Americans by force of argument and ideas.

“He’s ignorant of the attitude of the American people” toward Iran, said Mustafa Alani, an Iran specialist with the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. “He believes that U.S. public opinion will be occupied with his letter and debate it. They (Iranian leaders) have a huge lack of understanding of American public opinion and what moves it.”

New to international diplomacy
Before being elected president in 2005, Ahmadinejad served as the mayor of Tehran and had little experience in international diplomacy. Culture also plays a role in his manner: In Iran — where discussions of poetry and theology are popular obsessions — the abstract debate of ideas is a political tool not seen in the United States.

Iran’s hard-line president has tried such personal contact before. In May, he sent a long letter to President Bush, a combination of religious sermon and political screed, trying to persuade him to change his policies. Soon after, he challenged Bush to a face-to-face debate.

Both approaches were dismissed by the White House — and they fueled Ahmadinejad’s image in the United States as a crackpot, as did his declarations that Israel should be “wiped off the map” and that the Holocaust was a myth.

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