Iran-US Dialogue Will Begin From Where No Ideology Can Defeat American Power:.

** Crown Prince Abdullah's Talks With Bush Did Not End The US Intent To Hit Iraq & Get Saddam's Regime To Be Overthrown

** No One In Baghdad Would Dare Tell Saddam That The Arab/Islamic Street And Moscow Are The Wrong Horses To Be On For His Survival

** Iraq's Oil Embargo Has Proved To Be A Failure, With Russia Having Been The First To Raise Exports

** Damascus Is Particularly Worried By What Sharon Has Achieved In Washington

NICOSIA - That no ideology in the world stands the chance of defeating the US is the point from which a dialogue between Tehran and Washington will begin. APS learns this is the conclusion reached by some of the most powerful members of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), the highest foreign policy making body in the Jaafari Shiite theocracy.

Whether the other SNSC members will finally agree to this conclusion remains to be seen. But, APS is told by a highly placed source in Tehran, a final decision on the matter will have to be taken before the US gets the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq overthrown. If it is not taken, another window of opportunity will close. The previous one missed was immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

The traditionalist and reformist factions in the theocracy are in the midst of a fractious debate on relations with the US. The significance of this debate is seen from the fact that it was the traditionalist Supreme Leader, Ayat. Ali Khamen'I, who quietly authorised an assessment by the SNSC on the best options for beginning a dialogue with the US. The authorisation does not mean that Khamen'i himself is in favour of talks, the source says, but rather that there is a strong momentum in favour of rapprochement which he could no longer ignore.

Publicly Khamen'i has twice ruled out a dialogue with the US in the past seven weeks, most recently on May 1, when he said direct talks would not reduce American pressures but would only allow them to be applied directly on Iranian negotiators. His rejection in mid-March came after US Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, offered to meet with Iranian legislators. At the time, Khamen'i had warned: "Negotiations are not the way to a solution. Those who think of negotiations when they are under threat reveal their own weakness and incapability".

However, the source says, even some of Khamen'i's allies among traditionalist media commentators have begun to question Iran's capabilities in the face of US power or US pressures on the theocracy. There is more pressure within Iran for improving relations with the US from both the public opinion (especially among the youth) and from the reformist faction of the theocracy. Khamen'i's move to authorise the assessment is seen as a gesture in the direction of these segments of society. But it remains to be seen whether such a gesture, without any credible action, would be sufficient in the current global as well as domestic political climate. Reformist President Mohammed Khatami and his allies had indicated their thinking way back in January 1998, a few months after he took over the presidency in a landslide victory, when he said on 'CNN' the time had come to break down the "wall of mistrust" between the two countries.

The thinking among the reformists is that if the current window of opportunity (i.e. before a US-led attack on Iraq) is also closed, then the options available to Iran after Saddam is removed would involve greater compromises. In the post-Saddam environment, regimes which have taken positions not in line with what the US tolerates will have much less room to manoeuvre.

There is no consensus in the theocracy about whether the US will succeed in installing a viable pro-American regime in Iraq. There could well be a completely different situation on the ground, perhaps resulting in an eventual partition of Iraq in a way that may badly affect Iran.

In such a scenario, if Tehran has remained isolated from the US, the prospects for maximising strategic benefits would be slim - as the US would not allow Iran to gain from the results in the Shiite part of Iraq. Tehran could also risk causing a US-led assault on its own territory, which might lead to a revolution against the theocracy.

By contrast, the reformist faction's thinking goes, if a dialogue with the US is initiated before an assault on Iraq, all Tehran would have to do is stay on the sidelines, watch the US-Iraq game being played out, and pick up the pieces. The reformists point out that, had such a policy been applied in the Afghan scenario, when only behind the scenes contacts occurred, Tehran would have been much better placed than it is today.

Iran is being kept out of Afghanistan as much as possible by the US amid charges in Washington that Tehran has armed those elements who are opposed to Kabul's interim leader Hamid Karzai.

Some reformist intellectuals argue that ideologies and religious fanaticism have no place in today's world, and point to the fate of the Taliban. Rather, they believe the only way to render the US harmless is through ideas which can have an impact on the democratic mindset of the American empire. They point to the powerful notion of a "dialogue of civilizations", which President Khatami proposed when he first took office in 1997. They believe that similar ideas, couched in the logic of mutual economic benefit, would have a significant impact on US policy towards Iran - and US businesses are ready to engage with Iran. The US oil majors are eager to return to Iran.

Strategists looking at the bigger picture - namely Iran's geo-strategic position, now being relatively the most stable country between Central Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, as well as Iranian gas exports to Europe and Central Asian oil and gas exports via Iran to Europe and the Persian Gulf - can see immense mutual benefits in engagement with the US.

It would be impossible for all this to materialise unless the leading theologians on both sides of the argument in Iran come to a conclusion in favour of close relations with the US. For that conclusion to be reached, those unwilling to talk would have to overcome the notion that the strength of ideology can defeat the combination of military, economic and technological supremacy that the US has. But such a conclusion will not be reached easily.

Members of the SNSC who favour rapprochement with the US are balanced by those who fear that good relations between Tehran and Washington will lead to the downfall of the theocracy, with any decision taken by the council requiring ratification by the Supreme Leader.

Expediency Council head Ali Akbar Rafsanjani - the former president of the republic who chairs the powerful Iranian Centre for Strategic Studies - is poised to play a crucial role in moving things forward. He is said to favour rapprochement with Washington. But he will not take a final position until he is confident of the Supreme Leader's ratification.

Rafsanjani is also concerned that the Americans are prone to making serious errors of judgement in their relationship with Iran. For example, the reformist theologians were badly let down by Washington immediately after Sept. 11 when, despite the outpouring of support for the US on Iranian streets and strong condemnation of the attacks by Iranian leaders, the US failed to capitalise on the goodwill.

Similarly, despite Iranian co-operation in the war against the Taliban, the US showed no real appreciation of Iran's role in assisting the Northern Alliance or of its public support for the Karzai government. Balancing delicately between the reformists and the traditionalists, Rafsanjani will not risk his political weight by wrongly estimating American responses.

Infighting between the traditionalists and reformists now concentrates on the former's suspicion that the latter will take advantage of improved relations with the US at the expense of the conservative camp. Hardline theologians have moved to undermine the SNSC's committee set up to assess Iran's options for an engagement with the US.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sadegh Kharrazi, who is related to both the Supreme Leader and reformist Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, was dismissed in recent weeks. As the man in charge of co-ordinating the committee, Sadegh Kharrazi he was accused to having "gone too far". He had a meeting with an American official before a consensus on relations with the US had been established.