Word: tehran
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...Narrowing the Struggle Practically, this exercise in subtraction starts with Iran. By defining the U.S.'s enemy as "terror," Bush implied that Iran was as big a problem as al-Qaeda. After all, Tehran's mullahs began sponsoring terrorism before al-Qaeda was even born. In so doing, Bush made normal relations with the Islamic Republic virtually impossible. While he didn't actually declare war on Tehran, he initiated the coldest of cold wars: threats of force, no diplomacy and an ideological campaign aimed at making the regime crack...
...Obama's narrower struggle against al-Qaeda, however, a cold war with Tehran makes little sense. For all its nastiness, the Iranian regime doesn't direct its terrorism against the U.S. And Iran's Shi'ite theocrats have a mostly hostile relationship with the anti-Shi'ite theocrats of al-Qaeda. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has caused trouble for the U.S. largely out of fear that if the U.S. prevails in those countries, Iran will be next. But the Obama Administration seems to believe that if the U.S. can convince Iran's regime that it's not next...
...Iranian cold war has shown some signs of a thaw, Tehran's continued defiance of world opinion on its nuclear program notwithstanding. Obama has begun the highest-level diplomatic engagement with Tehran in 30 years and refrained from calling for the overthrow of the regime, even amid mass Iranian protests last summer aimed at accomplishing exactly that. Media coverage of the diplomatic dance between Washington and Tehran focuses on Iran's nuclear program, but by pursuing a fundamentally different relationship with the Islamic Republic, the Obama Administration is also quietly conceding that Iran's militancy is different from the terrorism...
...There are also differences over how to deal with Iran's nuclear program. Although Turkish diplomats insist that Ankara is opposed to any development of nuclear weapons in neighboring Iran, Erdogan has in recent months strengthened diplomatic and trade ties with Tehran, which is a key gas supplier to Turkey. The Turks abstained last month in a U.N. vote condemning Iran's nuclear activities, despite China and Russia's support for it. Erdogan has also criticized Western leaders for turning a blind eye to Israel, widely seen as the Middle East's only nuclear power - albeit an undeclared one. Turkey...
...Iran can also use political levers against U.S. interests in Kabul. Dobbins points out that the Northern Alliance constituencies with which Tehran has strong connections - the Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks - are also key support bases of Abdullah Abdullah, whom Karzai beat in this year's fraud-ridden election. "The most damaging thing that Iran could do would be to encourage these elements ... to cease supporting the [Karzai] government and essentially open a third front in the current civil war," he says...