Close up: Not a bluff By Salama A Salama When Arab countries follow the new policy President Obama is pursuing with Iran, it is in the hope that the Americans are just bluffing. They'll tempt Iran with talks and then trick it. The simple notion that the right time has come for dialogue is simply too far fetched. The Obama Nowruz speech cannot be the start of a new friendship. After all, Obama renewed the sanctions on Iran as soon as he took office. And he didn't make specific proposals in his speech, only the general rhetoric about mutual respect and the need to end the estrangement. Certainly the animosity of three decades cannot end so simply. The Americans must have something up their sleeve. For the alternative is unbearable. The thought that we have been taking sides with the Americans against Iran for years, without ever questioning why we needed to do so, is quite painful. For the entire presidency of George W Bush all America seemed interested in was to form a front of Arab moderates against Iran. Now America seems to be changing tack. But has it consulted any of its Arab allies first? Has it asked for their opinion? Does it really care what they think? These questions come to mind at this juncture. And we all know that the Americans have talked to the Israelis, heard them out, and cared for what they think. There is no doubt that the Americans and Iranians are trying to outsmart one another. After all, there has been nothing but bad blood between the two ever since radical students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took dozens of hostages. There has been no letting down in hostilities ever since. Washington supported Saddam Hussein for a long time just to spite the Iranians. The Americans now speak of shared interests and of Iran's rightful stature in the region, but so far they're still on their guard. And Iran is hemmed in on all sides by US military presence. So, maybe the Americans are bluffing after all, or so some Arabs hope. Scepticism aside, this is an exciting time. It's like a game with the Americans making overtures and the Iranians playing hard to get. It is also a lesson for the ever-bickering Arabs. If America, a country with serious grievances against Iran, is ready to talk, maybe we can too. For decades, Washington has been trying to bully Tehran and the result was that the Iranians have become self- reliant, and at least halfway nuclear. Obama's America is much smarter than Bush's, and it knows what it wants. It's not just future Iranian nukes that bother Washington. The Americans want more than the dismantling of Tehran's nuclear programme. For one thing, they want the Iranians to help them sort out other things in Afghanistan -- a country that threatens to bog NATO troops down for years. The Iranians, for all their bluster, know that it's good for them to talk. And they have helped the Americans out in the past, especially in the offensive against the Taliban in 2001. That's why Tehran has been included in the conference Washington is holding on Afghanistan. The Arabs who hope that nothing will come of Washington-Tehran talks are being silly. Times have changed, and we must learn how to be flexible too. So what if Tehran has a street named after Anwar El-Sadat's assassin? This is not the kind of thing that prevents countries from speaking to each other. We cannot let the Americans and Israelis set the pace of events in the region. We need to stay ahead of the game.
