Coffee and Caipirinhas: Why Iran will negotiate with Turkey and Brazil

Much has been made about the stymied P5+1 process.  Iran’s recalcitrance has made it difficult to see any way forward.

There is, however, a hopeful avenue toward a solution. 

Earlier in the year Turkey and Brazil were able to negotiate a settlement to the impasse.  Yet, the P5+1 coalition were less than enthusiastic about its prospects.  Maybe they were right, but what can we take from Turkey and Brazil’s success?

On the surface it looks like Turkey and Brazil attempting to usurp the traditional powers, but scratch the surface and we may get an entirely different view. 

Iran analysts—ones that best know and understand Iran—should easily see that the P5+1 will never work.  They (the P5+1) are all former colonial powers or relatively established global power brokers.  Iran doesn’t have a history of positive relations with either group. 

The Russians and British dominated Iran for nearly two hundred years by dividing the nation into spheres of influence.  No decision was made without the approval of either country.  Iran, or Persia as it was known then, was one of the main pawns in the “Great Game.”  Iranians—pro-regime or not—can recite a litany of complaints against both powers.  It’s no wonder why they are apprehensive when dealing with either country.

I don’t have to explain why the US is going to have difficulty negotiating with Iran.  Recent history should be enough.  But, it must be said that there was a time when Iranians looked on the United States as the bastion of hope.  When the Russians and British were using Iran as their play toy, Iranians sought out the US as an arbiter.  After all, it was the US that had been able to throw off the yoke of colonial Britain.  Most Iranians looked upon the US as their savior from the damaging effects of the “Great Game.”  That love affair ended in 1953, when the CIA funded an overthrow of a democratically elected Mohammad Mossadeq.  Since that point, Iranians viewed the US like they did the Russians and British. 

While the other three members don’t have such a negative history with Iran as the three above, their association will make them just as guilty.  The French and Germans have been tainted by colonial behavior.  Iran has also accused them of enabling Saddam’s use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War.  China’s inclusion in this is a little more difficult.  They have—until recently—protected Iran from the type of sanctions freshly enacted and have been a major buyer of Iranian oil.   Lately all three have endorsed policies that Iran could view as openly anti-Islamic--the French banning the chador; the Germans blocking Turkey’s membership to the EU; and China’s anti-Uighur policy. 

In Brazil and Turkey, Iran finds a partnership in a new alliance that wishes to buck the status quo in international politics.  Turkey looks to redefine itself and renew its once glorious past as a global power player.  Brazil it is the new kid on the block attempting to prove itself to the rest of the world. 

The relationship is and will be much more than coffee and caipirinhas—Iranians drink tea and alcohol is strictly forbidden in the Islamic Republic.  It’s about—and will remain so—the fact that all three wish to strike out on their own.  They want to show the rest of the world that they can be responsible players without operating inside a western dominated framework—a new non-aligned movement, if you will.  The more pressure the P5+1 puts on Iran, the more likely they’ll find Iran becoming recalcitrant.  If they use Brazil and Turkey to negotiate with Iran, while simultaneously attempting to build a relationship with the Iranians (ala Hal Saunders and John Limbert), maybe they’ll find an Iran much more willing to play within the framework. 

But then again who knows, as Winston Churchill said about Russia, Iran is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma” (thank you Meir for pointing me to that quote).  Or maybe Ahmadinejad secretly likes coffee and caipirinhas.  In the end, the P5+1 should remember that Iran “will never conform to a foreign script or its impatient timeline,” as Hooman Majd so beautifully illustrates in his most recent book The Ayatollah’s Democracy.