To begin with, I would be interested to know how much control the Iranian government exercises over General Suleimani’s activities. It’s a common error when analyzing the enemy to assume that they operate the same way that we do and that they are always perfectly executing the sinister plan that they had in mind, as directed from the top. I don’t discount the control that the Ayatollah Khameini exerts over him, but I wonder how much latitude and discretion the general has in conducting operations. There may not be the same strict control of the civil over the military that there is in Western countries.

One minor point about President Ahmadinejad: his comments about destroying Israel are caustic and troubling, but I have to believe that at least some of that is for purely domestic consumption to galvanize an ethnically diverse population (who aren’t all necessarily in favor of the current regime and who may entertain separatist desires) against a common enemy. That’s just good politics, and it helps for regime preservation, too.

Which leads me to my final point: does anyone else think it’s time to begin engaging with Iran on a more substantial diplomatic level? We’ve painted ourselves into a corner by calling Iran a state-sponsor of terrorism, and the US doesn’t deal with terrorists. But what made them this way? Since the revolution in 1979, the US has done everything it can to make Iran a pariah state and isolate it from the civilized world. Certainly the US has a legitimate complaint when it comes to how things unfolded with the hostage crisis. However, the conditions became ripe for the revolution to occur in the first place because the US supported the shah and his oppressive police state because they were good allies against the Soviet Union. Well, the USSR doesn’t exist anymore, so maybe it’s time to re-evaluate our position.

Believe me, I’m not an apologist for Iran, but I think it’s important to consider the factors that led to the 1979 revolution, the history that’s happened since then, and the US’s actions towards Iran pre- and post-revolution. Didn’t the US support Iraq against Iran during their long and bloody war of attrition? Is that a legitimate grievance, i.e. the US enabling of the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iranians? Is it any wonder that a state that considers the United States to be an existential threat is pursuing nuclear weapons, the only means of deterrence that it thinks the US understands?

I think that there is an important historical parallel to consider here, and that is the US’s relationship with the People’s Republic of China. Following the Communists’ 1949 victory, the US worked for 24 years to bring down that regime, and it even fought two hot wars against the PRC: an overt one in Korea and a covert one in Vietnam, where the PRC had thousands of advisers. In fact, it was with the PRC’s help (to some degree) that the US was ultimately able to extricate itself from Vietnam. With the recognition that both sides had interests in East Asia, the US and China were ultimately able to come to a “modus vivendi” and restore normal relations in 1979. Are the US and China “friends” today? Of course not, but they have figured out a way to live together without trying to destroy each other. I believe that the same opportunity exists for US-Iranian relations. If we talk to them, it doesn’t mean that we have to be their friends. But we both clearly have interests in the Middle East, so it is logically in both sides’ interests to reach an accommodation that allows for the peaceful pursuit of those goals. As we learned with the Soviets and Chinese, the revolutionary fire didn’t really spread as its proponents had envisioned, and the same can be said of the Iranian revolution; there is no threat in that regard now (as there may have seemed in 1979-80).

After 30 years of shutting Iran out, isn’t it about time to talk to them?