IRAQ - Towards US-Iran Dialogue.

Former secretary of state James Baker, a legendary fixer for the Bush family, on Sept. 19 said the White House had cleared him to meet with a "high representative" of the Iranian government. Baker, who co-chairs a bipartisan and congressionally appointed task force called the Iraq Study Group

"I'm fairly confident that we will meet with a high representative of the [Iranian] government", Baker said at a press conference at the US Institute of Peace. This is one of several think-tanks, including the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the Centre for the Study of the Presidency, and Baker's own Houston-based Institute for Public Policy, which back the ISG's work.

Such a meeting would no doubt feed speculation that Baker, a consummate "realist" who has been privately critical of the Bush administration's Middle East policies, could help tilt the balance of power within the administration in favour of fellow realists, centred in the State Department. They generally support greater flexibility in dealing with perceived US foes in the region, and against right-wing hawks led by Vice President Dick Cheney who have steadfastly opposed engagement with both Iran and Syria. Some of the neo-conservative (neo-con) hawks want to partition the Middle East into as many statelests as 98 for the sake of a "Greater Israel" project.

Baker also announced on Sept. 19 his task force was to meet with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mu'allem. The Bush administration has mounted a diplomatic boycott against the Syrian regime for almost two years. The task force has already met with Syria Ambassador in Washington Imad Mustapha, as part of a series of meetings with Washington-based envoys from Iraq's Arab neighbours.

The ISG was launched by Congress and quietly endorsed by the White House in April at the suggestion of a senior Republican lawmaker, Frank Wolf, who expressed growing concern about both the increasingly obvious deterioration of the situation in Iraq - and the threats it posed to the larger region - and the increasingly partisan tone of the domestic debate about the war.

Baker, who served as Washington's chief diplomat under president George H W Bush, agreed to the appointment after gaining the personal approval of the younger Bush himself. The ISG is co-chaired by former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, who also serves as the head of the Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington, and consists of eight other members divided equally among prominent Republicans and Democrats, including several former senior members of the Ronald Reagan, elder Bush and Bill Clinton administrations.

Aiding the task force, which spent four days in Iraq this month, are some five dozen policy experts and Middle East specialists from think-tanks, academia and the private sector. They range from neo-con hawks, such as Clifford May of the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, to outspoken foes of the original decision to invade Iraq, such as the head of the Middle East Policy Council, retired ambassador Charles Freeman. They are divided into four working groups: economy and reconstruction; military and security; political development; and strategic environment.

All participants have been ordered repeatedly by Baker not to talk to the press or anyone else about the ISG's deliberations until its work is concluded, probably early next year, so as not to influence the mid-term congressional elections in November. Hamilton said the group's final report and recommendations would be made public immediately after they were submitted to Congress and the president.

In their remarks on Sept. 19, the ISG's first public appearance since its formation, Baker and Hamilton said the group had not yet begun discussing those recommendations. Hamilton stressed the urgency and the Iraqi government's responsibility for reversing negative trends. "No one can expect miracles, but the people of Iraq have the right to expect immediate action", he said, adding: "The next three months are critical".

Unlike the elder Bush's other top realist foreign-policy aide, national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, with whom he remains close, Baker has been discreet about his criticism of the younger Bush's Middle East policies. Inter Press Service (IPS) on Sept. 21 quoted Steve Clemons, head of the American Strategy Project at the New America Foundation, as saying of Baker: "He has never overtly criticized Bush" - adding that, unlike Scowcroft, "he has essentially kept a foothold in the administration".

Baker, who led a big effort for Bush in 2004 to reduce Iraq's staggering foreign debt, has confined his public criticism to the way the Pentagon handled the Iraq invasion and its aftermath. Baker, whose law firm has long represented some of the biggest US oil companies, is said to agree with Scowcroft's criticisms of Bush's virtually unconditional alignment with Israel and his refusal to engage Iran and Syria, not only for stabilising Iraq - the ISG's focus - but also for the sake of Arab-Israeli peace.

IPS quoted Trita Parsi, an Iran expert, as saying of Baker: "He's always been a proponent of dialogue". Parsi, author of "Treacherous Triangle: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States", suggested that the Baker discussions may offer an opportunity for "informal talks" with Iran and, in any event, "should help reduce the negative trend and the loss of trust" between Tehran and Washington. He said: "I think the fact that the talks will take place is quite significant in and of itself".

During the recent 34-day war between Israel and Hizbullah, the director of the Baker Institute, Edward Djerejian, who also served as an ambassador to Damascus and as Baker's top Middle East adviser in the State Department during the 1991 Gulf War, called explicitly for the Bush administration to engage in direct talks with both Syria and Iran on a range of issues.

"Despite the tragedy we see unfolding in the region on all sides, this crisis does represent an opportunity to get on with the real core issues in the region, and this will require contacting and dealing with all the players. All the players", Djerejian, who advised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and mentored her public-diplomacy chief and long-time Bush adviser, Karen Hughes, told an interviewer on National Public Radio in early August.

Rice, who has tried with limited success to move US policy in a more flexible direction, particularly with respect to Iran, has reportedly come largely to share that view. But, according to IPS, Ms Rise has been thwarted by Cheney and other senior officials, including Elliot Abrams, the neo-con director of Middle East affairs in the National Security Council, in implementing it.

Whether Baker, in his work on the ISG or alongside, might help establish the kind of dialogue publicly advocated by Djerejian is speculative. Many observers believe that, at the very least, a strong recommendation by him or the group as a whole that Washington directly engage Tehran would be difficult for the administration to resist, particularly if current trends are not reversed.

IPS quoted Clemons as saying: "It seems to me that Rice has gotten the latitude from Bush to pursue this sort of alternative course with Iran and the broader Middle East. But it doesn't mean that the president has bought into the process".

Ten months ago, IPS recalled, the Bush administration agreed to a suggestion by its ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, to initiate talks with Tehran about stabilising Iraq. But Washington subsequently backed away from the idea.