Barack Obama, the US president-elect, must radically overhaul US policy on Iran by shunning confrontation and jettisoning attempts to isolate the Islamic republic through sanctions, a group of 20 former senior US diplomats and regional analysts urged yesterday.
They warned that a military attack on Iran would "backfire" and called for unconditional, direct and comprehensive negotiations, insisting this was the only way to break a "cycle of threats and defiance".
The report, presented at a conference in Washington hosted by the National Iranian American Council, which promotes diplomacy to resolve nearly three decades of Iranian-US enmity, said: "The United States needs to stop the provocations and take a long-term view with this regime, as it did with the Soviet Union and China."
The analysts urged Washington to replace calls for regime change in Tehran with a strategy that would allow Iran a "place at the table" in shaping the future of Iraq and Afghanistan, where Iran and the United States share common interests.
The group includes Thomas Pickering, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, and James Dobbins, a former US special envoy to Afghanistan and top diplomatic troubleshooter under Bill Clinton and George W Bush.
The group was co-led by one of the United States' pre-eminent experts on Iran, Gary Sick of New York's Columbia University. He served on the National Security Council under former presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and was the principal White House aide for Iran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the ensuing US Embassy hostage crisis.
Their statement said: "Paradoxical as it may seem amid all the heated media rhetoric, sustained engagement is far more likely to strengthen United States national security at this stage than either escalation to war or continued efforts to threaten, intimidate or coerce Iran."
Their advice is in stark contrast to that recently proffered by the so-called Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank that urged Mr Obama from his first day in office to bolster the US military presence in the Gulf and tighten sanctions against Iran. This, it argued, would give Washington a stronger hand in muscular diplomacy to rein in Tehran's nuclear ambitions. If negotiations failed, it added, the United States would then be primed for military action "as a last resort".
That hawkish report was written with the support of Dennis Ross, one of Mr Obama's most influential advisers on the Middle East, who is regarded as staunchly pro-Israeli by Iranians and Palestinians.
Tackling Iran's nuclear ambitions will be one of Mr Obama's foremost foreign policy challenges after he takes office on Jan 20. He has said he would harden sanctions but also has held out the possibility of direct talks in which Iran would be offered improved incentives in return for ending uranium enrichment.
Yesterday's Joint Experts' Statement on Iran came as Tehran sent what could be interpreted as further signals of goodwill to the US president-elect after an unprecedented congratulatory message to Mr Obama by Iran's hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Iran's judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, hailed Iraq's approval on Sunday of a controversial military pact with the US, which allows US forces to stay in Iraq until 2011.
Washington had for months accused Iran of sabotaging the prospect of such a security pact, which is still being lambasted by other influential Iranian politicians and hardline Iranian media as "US-sponsored capitulation" by Baghdad.
But the endorsement of Ayatollah Shahroudi, who is appointed by Iran's all-powerful supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sends a possible message to Mr Obama that Iran will not act as a spoiler against the landmark security agreement.
In another apparent goodwill gesture, Iran's judiciary said Esha Momeni, an Iranian-American student who was detained on security grounds last month, could leave the country. And Tehran said yesterday that it would not hinder an offer by Turkey to mediate between the Islamic republic and the new US administration.
The Joint Experts' Statement on Iran said: "US efforts to manage Iran through isolation, threats and sanctions have been tried intermittently for more than two decades. In that time they have not solved any major problem in US-Iran relations, and have made most of them worse."
The statement also addressed "myths" it said had been used by US hawks to discourage engagement, among them the notion that the religious nature of Iran's regime rendered it undeterrable and that its leadership was implacably opposed to the United States and determined to "wipe Israel off the map".
The statement gave specific examples of Tehran's foreign policy pragmatism over the past 20 years, including its arms trade with Israel during the 1980s and its vital support for the US overthrow of Afghanistan's Taliban regime. Iran's "recent history makes it crystal clear that national self-preservation and regional influence - not some quest for martyrdom in the service of Islam - is Iran's main foreign policy goal", the statement said.
Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, who hopes to become prime minister in elections in February, has urged Mr Obama to maintain a tough line on Tehran, arguing that talks with Iran "may be interpreted as a sign of weakness".
But Israel's military intelligence chief yesterday asserted the time could be ripe for dialogue between Tehran and Washington. "If it fails, it will lead to the strengthening of sanctions," Gen Amos Yadin said. "Dialogue is not appeasement."
mtheodoulou@thenational.ae
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
How Voiss turns words to speech
The device has a screen reader or software that monitors what happens on the screen
The screen reader sends the text to the speech synthesiser
This converts to audio whatever it receives from screen reader, so the person can hear what is happening on the screen
A VOISS computer costs between $200 and $250 depending on memory card capacity that ranges from 32GB to 128GB
The speech synthesisers VOISS develops are free
Subsequent computer versions will include improvements such as wireless keyboards
Arabic voice in affordable talking computer to be added next year to English, Portuguese, and Spanish synthesiser
Partnerships planned during Expo 2020 Dubai to add more languages
At least 2.2 billion people globally have a vision impairment or blindness
More than 90 per cent live in developing countries
The Long-term aim of VOISS to reach the technology to people in poor countries with workshops that teach them to build their own device
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
Crime%20Wave
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