The dramatic reversal of Washington’s collective wisdom — an NIE is the consensus view among the many spook outfits in the US — on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions should reduce the salience of the Iran factor that had dominated the recent discourse on Indo-US relations in Washington and New Delhi.

To be sure, the US review of Iran’s nuclear weapon programme, of course, is not in any way related to considerations of its ties with India. Its consequences, too, could be much larger than the future of the Indo-US deal. After the less alarmist assessment on Tehran’s nuclear weapon programme, the US debate on Iran is unlikely to remain the same. As Democrats and the administration reposition themselves, we could see important changes in US policy towards Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The US NIE on Iran (available at www.dni.gov/press_releases/ 20071203_release.pdf) says, “Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapon programme suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.” Even more important is the explicit suggestion by the American intelligence community that Iran might be prepared to continue its suspension of the nuclear weapon programme if sufficient political carrots were offered to it by the US and the international community. “Our assessment that Iran halted the programme in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”

Expanding on the new US view that Iran might be a rational actor rather than a maverick state, the NIE adds, “some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might — if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible — prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons programme”.

After months of an escalating war of words between Washington and Tehran, including the talk of a World War III by George W. Bush — and mounting speculation that the president is gearing up to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities in his final months as president, the NIE’s conclusions are nothing short of breathtaking.

It is not often that government departments, let alone the security and intelligence bureaucracies, confess their sins in public. Since the earlier judgment highlighting an imminent threat of Iran’s nuclearisation had a huge impact on the policy debate, Washington perhaps sees the new estimate as an opportunity to redesign US policy towards Tehran.

For quite some time many voices in the US establishment have been urging Bush to engage Iran in a direct dialogue. Realists have pointed to the importance of such a dialogue in managing the current US objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which share borders with Iran.

The Bush administration, until now, has been reluctant to embark on such a dialogue. But change is clearly under way in the US policy towards the Middle East. If the recent Annapolis peace conference marked a big departure from the Bush administration’s attitude to the peace process between Arabs and Israelis, the NIE points to potential restructuring of American policy towards the Persian Gulf.

A constructive American approach towards Iran should ease India’s own recent political troubles on Iran. That a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a long-term threat to India’s regional security environment was never in doubt. The problems for India’s diplomacy, especially in the nuclear domain, were more immediate. They were centred on India’s response to the international efforts at compelling Iran to reverse its nuclear weapons programme.

Political lobbies in Washington and New Delhi over the last two years have consistently sought to use the Iran bogey to derail the historic Indo-US initiative. In a strange mutual reinforcement, the Indian communists joined the champions of non-proliferation in the US to make Iran one of the main obstacles to the implementation of an agreement that would allow New Delhi to regain full access to international nuclear energy markets after a gap of nearly three and a half decades.

If American opponents of the deal demanded Indian congruence with US foreign policy on Iran, the Indian comrades demanded defiance of Washington as a proof of New Delhi’s “independent foreign policy”. The UPA, however, rightly refused to accept that Iran is either the touchstone of India’s partnership with the US or the ultimate criterion of foreign policy autonomy.

The diplomatic position that India had crafted for itself on Iran was a principled one. It involved five essentials. One, India was against the further spread of nuclear weapons. Two, Iran has had the right to pursue a civilian nuclear energy programme. Three, Tehran must abide by its legal obligations under the Non-proliferation Treaty. Four, Iran must expressly sort out the doubts about its compliance with NPT raised by the nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. India’s two votes against Iran in the IAEA board of governors in September 2005 and March 2006 were in pursuit of this specific principle. Finally, the dispute between Iran and the international community must be resolved in a peaceful manner. The IAEA is the most appropriate forum for this diplomacy.

With its five-fold approach on Iran fully vindicated, India must now call for an early and comprehensive political dialogue between Washington and Tehran. India must also urge Iran to quickly settle the remaining issues on its compliance with the IAEA and tell Washington to simultaneously start dismantling the multilateral sanctions against Tehran.

The writer is a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore iscrmohan@ntu.edu.sg