Story highlights Hillary Mann Leverett: Middle East less stable than at any point in modern history

United States needs constructive ties with all major regional states, including Iran, she says

Hillary Mann Leverett, co-author of "Going to Tehran: Why America Must Accept the Islamic Republic of Iran," served at the National Security Council under Presidents Clinton and Bush. She is CEO of Strategic Energy and Global Analysis (STRATEGA), a political risk consultancy. The views expressed are her own.

(CNN) In September 2002, then-former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a U.S. congressional committee "there is absolutely no question whatsoever" that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was developing nuclear weapons at "portable manufacturing sites of mass death." Once Hussein had nuclear weapons, Netanyahu warned, "the terror network will have nuclear weapons," placing "the security of the entire world at risk."

In Netanyahu's view, America should only improve relations with an Iran that stops its regional "aggression," its support for "terrorism," and its "threat[s] to annihilate ... Israel." In other words, America should not improve relations with an Iran whose regional influence is rising.

In reality, Iran's rise is not only normal, it is actually essential to a more stable region. As nuclear talks with Tehran enter a decisive phase, rapprochement with a genuinely independent Iran -- not a nominally independent Iran whose strategic orientation is subordinated to U.S. preferences -- is vital to halting the decline of America's strategic position.

Washington has long worked to consolidate a highly militarized, pro-American Middle Eastern order. Yet these efforts -- pursued across Democratic and Republican administrations and intensified after 9/11 -- have clearly failed. As a result, the Middle East today is less stable, more riven with sectarian and ethnic conflict, and more violent than at any point in its modern history. And America, in a textbook illustration of "imperial overstretch," has made itself weaker, both regionally and globally.

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