Naming Kerry as top diplomat will not affect U.S.-Iran ties: professor

TEHRAN,Dec.19(MNA) – According to U.S. media it looks likely that Senator John Kerry will be nominated as U.S. secretary of state as part of President Barack Obama’s second term cabinet reshuffle. Nader Entessar, a South Alabama University professor, says the naming of Kerry as secretary of state “will not have a course-altering impact on U.S.-Iran relations” because he “will carry out Obama's directives.” “The course of U.S. foreign policy is affected by many factors and not by one individual cabinet official, and it is ultimately the U.S. president who will have to formulate his administration's foreign policy,” Professor Entessar told the Tehran Times on Monday. Following is the text of the interview: Although personality traits of individuals can and do impact the overall decision-making framework of politicians, U.S. foreign policy is not generally susceptible to the vagaries of individual secretaries of states. Of course, in the past 50 years, there have been a few exceptions. For example, there is no doubt that President Richard Nixon's Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, had a significant impact on the evolution of Nixon's foreign policy, especially towards China. But we have to remember that the most important task of any U.S. secretary of state is to carry out the policies of the U.S. president. In my opinion, Senator John Kerry, who currently chairs the powerful U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and who, according to many reports, will be nominated by President Obama as the next U.S. Secretary of State, will not have a course-altering impact on U.S.-Iran relations and will carry out Obama's directives. Apparently, President Obama will also nominate former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as the defense secretary. In the past, former Senator Hagel has been a strong critic of U.S. approach towards Iran and has advocated a more realistic and practical approach to improve U.S.-Iran relations. Senator Hagel has also been a critic of the one-sided U.S. support for Israel. As a result, the pro-Israeli groups have already started to campaign against Hagel's nomination. But, as I had indicated earlier, the course of U.S. foreign policy is affected by many factors and not by one individual cabinet official, and it is ultimately the U.S. president who will have to formulate his administration's foreign policy. Nader Entessar is professor of the University of South Alabama. He is the author of Kurdish Ethnonationalism (1992) and the co-editor of Reconstruction and Regional Diplomacy in the Persian Gulf (Routledge, 1992) and Iran and the Arab world. (By Javad Heirannia )