‘We Need Iran in Geneva to Stop Spread of Terror Throughout Middle East’
Wednesday January 15, 2014
Iran could bring to Geneva-2 its good relations with Assad, Iraq and Turkey, which are necessary for a political solution, Hillary Mann Leverett, author and expert on Iran, told RT.
RT: The UN Secretary-General has just reiterated his support for Iran being at Geneva-2. Since it's an UN-sponsored event, is that enough to make that happen or not?
Hillary Mann Leverett: Unfortunately, at this point it’s not. At this point both Russia and the United States have the veto power on who may attend, on which delegations may attend. [Russia is for Iran] but the US is not. At this point the US is blocking Iran’s participation.
RT: Yesterday the US Secretary of State John Kerry as good as invited Iran to take part. Yet back home a few hours later, the State Department laughed off any such invitation. Why the mixed signals, do you think?
HML: I don’t know [if] he messed up. I think what it demonstrates is the real incoherence in strategy and policy coming out of Washington, London and Paris, which seeks to somehow not just have negotiation, but to have essentially a table where Syria just comes to surrender. And that’s not something Syria is going to do, it’s not something Iran is going to support. I don’t think that’s something Russia or the vast majority of the countries around the world would support, but that’s essentially what Washington, London and Paris are trying to do. But it tends to be incoherent because it’s just not possible.
RT: We've had the significant thaw in the US-Iran relations: there's a good progress between them on the nuclear program. So why is Washington so hesitant to work with Tehran on Syria?
HML: It’s very strange. When I was at the White House and the State Department within the US government, I negotiated with the current Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif over Afghanistan. We negotiated with the Iranians, with the Russians very effectively to deal with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the Afghanistan. So there is a real track record of the US being able to work with Iran, with Russia on a really difficult problem.
It doesn’t make sense that the US doesn’t want to solicit Iran’s participation and work with Iran on this issue, except that America's so-called allies, particularly in Saudi Arabia and others in the Gulf, don’t really want to see Iran’s participation there because they don’t want Assad to be able to consolidate his authority in his country.
Read the full interview here.
Flickr/US Mission Geneva