Letter shows extent of the rift between United States, Iran

U.S. officials dismissed the Iranian president's letter.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- For 27 years, the rhetorical swordplay between the U.S. and Iran has been unrelenting. Iran portrays its latest thrust in the ongoing row with the West, an unprecedented letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President Bush, as a "new diplomatic opening."
Striking a tough and confident tone and with few conciliatory words, Ahmadinejad addressed a host of issues, but only touched on atomic energy and provided no new initiatives for ending the standoff over Iran's nuclear program.
Experts say that rather than being any kind of step toward direct dialogue, the letter reveals just how far apart Washington and Tehran remain, with differences magnified by conservative leaderships on both sides that gain more from saber-rattling than peacemaking.
"We should put our ambitions into perspective. The ambition should be trying to avoid a crisis and confrontation, rather than trying to bring about a [U.S.-Iran] rapprochement," says Karim Sadjadpour, analyst for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, now in Washington.
Criticism
In the letter, Ahmadinejad criticized Bush's handling of 9/11, the creation of Israel and drew comparisons between current U.S. threats against Iran and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. He called the war in Iraq a "great tragedy [that] came to engulf both the [U.S. and Iraqi] people."
He also declared the failure of "liberalism and western-style democracy," and said the U.S. is now subject of "an ever-increasing global hatred."
"People around the world are flocking toward ... the Almighty God," he said. "My question for you [Bush] is, 'Do you want to join them?'"
"Ahmadinejad has made it nearly impossible for the U.S. to engage him directly," says Sadjadpour, referring to the Iranian leader's past remarks that Israel should be "wiped off the map," and doubting events of the holocaust.
"If there is to be any warming of ties ... Iran has got to present a different interlocutor. Ahmadinejad is not the right messenger," he says.
U.S. officials dismissed the 18-page letter, even as Washington this week attempts to rally the U.N. Security Council around a tough resolution to limit Iran's nuclear ambitions. Tuesday, Ahmadinejad said the letter represents the "words and opinions of the Iranian nation."
Dialogue
The official view in Iran is "optimistic, and [the letter] shows that Ahmadinejad is willing to have a dialogue and interact with the international community," says Shirzad Bozorgmehr, deputy editor of the English-language Iran News in Tehran.
During the "Year of the Prophet" in Iran, the president can both reassure hard-liners that he is doing as the prophet Muhammad did in his day -- of writing letters to enemies -- and domestically send the message that he is "not a warmonger," says Bozorgmehr.
"For him it is a win-win situation -- what is there to lose?" adds Bozorgmehr. "The media here are considering it a new opportunity to resolve a crisis, but [the letter] only seems to be a compilation of grudges against the West and U.S. we have heard before."
"This letter is not the place that one would find an opening to engage," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Associated Press on Monday. "There's nothing in here that would suggest that we're on any different course than we were before we got the letter."
Historic hostility
The U.S. severed ties with Iran after militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of that revolution, dubbed America the "Great Satan." The burning of U.S. flags and chants of "Death to America" have been staple fare for years at government-sanctioned rallies.
In 2002, Bush declared Iran part of an "axis of evil," and its clerical rulers are often mentioned in Washington circles as being the "next" target for U.S.-engineered regime change. The Bush administration in February asked Congress for an additional $75 million for "democracy promotion" in Iran.
The historic hostility and suspicion have come to a head over the nuclear issue. Washington accuses Tehran of using a peaceful power program as a cover for acquiring nuclear weapons, and has not ruled out military action. Iran doubts whether any step it takes can convince the West of peaceful intent, or forestall U.S. attempts at regime change.
"This is the first time you have a conservative government in Iran, that is across the board in favor of talking to the U.S.," says Mohammad Hadi Semati, a political scientist at Tehran University, now a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. "But Washington and Tehran are now on two different planes. In the last 27 years, when Washington was ready [to talk], Tehran has not been ready. Now Iran is ready, and Washington is not."
"Both sides have cornered themselves" by their uncompromising rhetoric, says Semati. "It is framed: 'Either the U.S. has to back off, or Iran has to back off, or the middle road is war. There is no other way.'"
The result, Semati adds, "leaves very little room for creative diplomacy."
Incentives
Such diplomacy might bring the U.S. and Iran to the table, as the U.S. has with North Korea -- by offering security guarantees and other incentives in exchange for limiting nuclear programs. But the North Korean "model" has a negative aspect, too, experts say. Pressure to halt nuclear work eventually led North Korea to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and build bombs.
In Iran's case, mutual mistrust runs just as deep.
For Iran, the nuclear issue is "simply a pretext for regime change," says Sadjadpour. "They believe that if they are going to compromise, it's not going to get them out of trouble, but be seen as a sign of weakness [that will] invite further pressure."
Likewise, the U.S. believes "Iran's intentions are not peaceful, and they should not reward bad behavior," says Sadjadpour. "So Iran needs to compromise unequivocally, not based on whatever incentives the U.S. can offer."
Both the U.S. and Europeans are in a further dilemma, he adds. While offering nothing to former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, whose mantra was a "dialogue of civilizations," reaching out to this president "sends the message to Tehran that a belligerent foreign policy reaps rewards."