ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iran will not find a better US partner for diplomatic dialogue than the administration of President Barack Obama, according to Kenneth Pollack, a Mideast expert at the Brookings Institute in Washington.
On the third and final day of the annual Middle East Research Institute (MERI) forum on Thursday, a panel of US and Iranian experts debated relations between their two countries, following a historic nuclear deal that Tehran signed this summer.
A discussion titled “The Iran nuclear deal and its impact on regional dynamics,” featured Pollack and John Jenkins from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, as well as Alireza Miryousefi, director of Iran’s Center for Middle East Studies (IPIS).
Miryousefi began his talk by giving theoretical explanations of different types of violence faced by Middle Eastern countries, including economic, political, identity, cultural and imperialist.
Speaking about Tehran’s political goals in the region, he said that Iran does not have expansionist ambitions in the region.
“Iran doesn’t have an expansionary policy in the region. It has not attacked other countries in the last two centuries,” Miryousefi said, insisting that Tehran believes in “cooperation, negotiation and multilateralism.”
He added that Iranians do not want to eliminate Saudi Arabia or any other regional state.
Miryousefi’s comments focused on Iran’s regional relations as a country that seeks cooperation, without shedding any great light on the current US-Iran talks over the Iranian nuclear program.
Jenkins, meanwhile, was more skeptical about Iran’s nuclear deal, its impact and the role of Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East.
“The real answer to the question of the impact of the Iran nuclear deal is, we don’t know,” Jenkins said.
He said Iran and Saudi Arabia are both regional powers that have polarized the region, explaining that sectarian mobilization in the Middle East became a tool for the pursuit of power for both Tehran and Riyadh.
In his comments, Pollack advised Iran to understand the tolerance of the current Washington administration as the best partner Tehran would ever see.
He said he cannot imagine another US president like Obama and his administration and their will to reach an agreement with Iran.
“Is the Iran deal going to be transactional or transformational? US political elite believe it will be transactional,” Pollack said about the US-Iran nuclear deal.
Regarding US foreign policy in the Middle East, Pollack expressed his concern about a shift in Washington foreign policy from the Middle East to East Asia. He explained that focusing on East Asia means the US will be less involved in the Middle East.
Parts of the debate sparked heated comments from both sides. When Miryousefi said that the “United States has always been a part of the problem and not the solution” and called it an “imperialist” power, Pollack responded that if Iran insists on calling the US imperialist, then Washington will respond by labelling it “a sponsor of terrorism.”
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