Obama drafts open letter to Iran

Thursday, January 29: The Obama administration's plan to thaw US-Iran relations developed further yesterday when it emerged that presidential aides have drafted an open letter to the Iranian people that will either be sent to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or released in public. The letter has been through multiple drafts since November last year and comes in reply to a long message that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (pictured) wrote to Barack Obama congratulating him on his election victory.

The Guardian reports that in the letter America assures Iran that it does not want to overthrow the country's Islamic regime but calls on the state to stop sponsoring terrorism. The letter is intended to open up a channel of diplomacy that Obama hopes will eventually lead to face-to-face talks between American diplomats and officials from a country that George Bush labelled as part of the 'axis of evil'.

However, a Tehran-based analyst has told the paper that diplomatic relations will still be difficult to build. "There will be disputes inside the system about such a letter," he says. "There are lot of radicals who don't want to see ordinary relations between Tehran and Washington."

Writing in the same paper, Julian Borger says the letter is only the first step in a very difficult process with one particular obstacle. "There is one thing everyone agrees on – it is impossible to do any kind of business with the current Iranian president" – and Ahmadinejad is up for re-election in June. However, "the arrival of a soft-talking [US] administration may change the mind of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, about the sort of president he wants to see elected."

For Simon Tisdall, this is an impressive start for US foreign policy under Obama. "After the endless conflict and numbing nihilism of the Bush years, it is almost as if America is once again opening itself to the world, is suddenly seeing straight, is becoming itself and in the process, rediscovering its values," he says. "For countless people in countless countries, this development is little short of inspiring. Even in the desiccated, cynical gaming rooms of foreign policy diplomacy, it is heady stuff."

FIRST POSTED JANUARY 29, 2009