Call it President Obama’s “October surprise.” This past weekend, just days before tonight’s much-anticipated presidential debate on foreign policy and national security, the New York Times reported that the White House appears to be on the cusp of a diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran—and that direct, one-on-one negotiations over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear effort could take place in the near future, following the U.S. presidential election in November.
You've got to feel a little sorry for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. With his nuclear brinksmanship and inflammatory public rhetoric, Iran's firebrand president is accustomed to hogging the international spotlight. But recent days have seen him making news for a different reason entirely. Ahmadinejad is now fighting for his political life against domestic opponents who blame him for the country's current fiscal crisis.
Quite suddenly, it seems, Iran’s economy is in serious trouble. In recent days, the country’s national currency has fallen to record lows against the U.S. dollar. On October 1st alone, the value of the Iranian rial declined by some 17 percent, collapsing to 34,700 to one American dollar. (It has since reportedly fallen still further). All told, the rial has lost more than 80 percent of its worth over the past year.
When it comes to American policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran, one approach has tended to crowd out all others. Over time, economic sanctions have come to be seen as something of a catch-all—a panacea of sorts for the West's nagging problem with the Iranian regime and its persistent nuclear ambitions. As a result, policymakers in Washington, as well as their counterparts across the Atlantic, have invested tremendous time and energy in crafting an elaborate framework of economic pressure against the Iranian regime.
At first blush, Argentina seems like an odd choice of partners for the Islamic Republic of Iran. The South American nation holds the dubious distinction of being the first victim of Iranian terrorism in the Western Hemisphere, suffering terrorist attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets in Buenos Aires that were carried out by Iranian-sponsored radicals in 1992 and 1994. Yet today, relations between Argentina and Iran are unmistakably on the upswing.