News from Thursday, July 2, 2009

Körber Policy Paper by Christoph Bertram: A New Strategy towards Iran

Körber Policy Paper No. 6 (“Rethinking Iran. From Confrontation to Cooperation”), another essay in edition Körber Stiftung’s “Standpunkte” series, is now available in English. The author, Christoph Bertram, was the director of Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, from 1998 to 2005.
Bertram notes that the strategy pursued by the West to halt the nuclear activities and counter the regional influence of Iran has failed dismally. That is why a genuine Western effort at détente with Iran which is not limited to the nuclear issue, but addresses the whole range of the relationship, offers the best, if not the only chance to terminate Iran’s nuclear ambitions and lay the ground for a less contentious relationship between Iran and the West. The West would therefore stand to gain considerably if it stopped thinking of Iran as an adversary and began to treat it as a partner. According to the author the test for this is now drawing near. President Obama has indicated that a new approach towards Iran is one of his foreign policy priorities. However, the obstacles to the success of the new approach remain high, especially after the recent disputed Presidential elections in Iran. Yet for the West there are no serious alternatives to engagement with Iran. Bertram argues that to delay engagement as a reaction to the result and circumstances of the June elections does not make sense. The nuclear clock would only keep on ticking.

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