Can Obama make a grand bargain with Iran over Syria?

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http://www.juancole.com/2014/02/grand-bargain-syria.html

Can Obama make a grand bargain with Iran over Syria?
By Juan Cole | Feb. 12, 2014
(By Shahram Akbarzadeh)

The last round of talks to bring some relief to the humanitarian disaster in Syria achieved remarkable nothing. The anti-Assad delegation traded barbed insults with the Syrian government delegation and all left the meeting with the reaffirmed conviction that the other side cannot be trusted. But something peculiar happened on the side of the talks. A minor PR episode that holds significant potential for the geo-politics of the Middle East.

Speaking in Israel a few days before the Geneva II talks on Syria, the US Secretary of States John Kerry suggested that Iran may have a role to play in the talks. It is hard to know if this was a thought-through proposition or an impromptu thought-bubble. Kerry is gaining a reputation for the latter, ala the destruction of Assad’s chemical weapons to avert US military action. The suggestion that Iran could be involved in Syria talks caused a major backlash and the idea was promptly withdrawn.

This episode was quickly superseded in the media reports by the fast moving pace of the crisis. But it did signal a tentative yet tectonic shift in the regional power balance. The prospects of a rapprochement between the United States and Iran has the potential to rewrite regional alignments. The talks on Iran’s nuclear program is a case in point. Under Hassan Rouhani’s presidency, Iran has made a bold move to break out of its self-imposed isolation. Rouhani was elected with a mandate to free Iran of the crippling sanctions and negotiate on Iran’s nuclear program. His electoral message that the turning of the centrifuge should not come at expense of people’s livelihood stroke a cord. To date, talks have progressed well and Iran has agreed to suspend uranium enrichment to 20% in return for the easing of some sanctions. The Iranian Foreign Minister has shaken hands with the US State Secretary to seal the deal. This achievement is of course reversible. Nonetheless it is a remarkable departure from the pattern of animosity that had come to characterise US-Iran relations.

Kerry’s suggestion that Iran could play a role in the international efforts to address the deadlock in Syria is grounded in two key assumptions. It is an acknowledgement that Iran has a stake in Syria and, more importantly, that Iran could work constructively with the West. These are contested assumptions of course, especially the latter. Critics of US-Iran rapprochement dismiss the notion that Rouhani is genuine about repairing relations with the United States and Iran’s neighbours and accuse him of being a wolf in sheep’s skin – a rouge to ease sanctions. It may be too early to pass judgement on Rouhani’s intentions and his ability to bring such radical change, given the nature of the Iranian regime. But his government has suggested that Iran is not wedded to Bashar al-Assad and this is big news, just as big as the advances in nuclear talks.