The gulf between Iran and the U.S.

When President Barack Obama addressed the nation about building a coalition to fight ISIS, there was a critical word that he never mentioned.

That word was Iran.

The absence of the I-word was telling, because Shiite Iran is a crucial player in any effort to repel the Sunni jihadi of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which it regards as an existential danger. There was rampant speculation that the United States and Iran would cooperate behind the scenes in fighting a common foe, as they did in 2001 against the Afghan Taliban.

Yet the deep mistrust between Washington and Tehran - and a schizophrenic strategy in both capitals - seems to have ruled out any such coordination. It also raises the strong possibility that talks on Iran’s nuclear program - with a critical round now underway in New York - are headed for failure. That would cause a huge new crisis in the Mideast and undercut efforts to “degrade and destroy” the so-called Islamic State.

The administration has long insisted that the Iran nuclear talks be kept separate from discussions of regional problems, lest Tehran seek concessions on nuclear issues in return for cooperation on Syria or Iraq. Since ISIS invaded Iraq, however, Secretary of State John Kerry has said publicly that Washington is open to talking with Iranian officials about the problem, possibly on the margins of next week’s U.N. General Assembly meeting.

Yet Kerry opposed inviting Iran to an international conference in Paris Monday that was meant to rally international support for Iraq in fighting ISIS. Kerry knew that Sunni Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, which are considered crucial to the anti-ISIS fight, would balk at attending if Shiite Iran was present. In response, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei insisted publicly that Tehran would not cooperate with the United States against ISIS, and denounced the U.S.-led coalition. He sarcastically jibed that several American officials had repeatedly urged Iran’s help in private while “lying” in public.

More telling was the reaction of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, a sophisticated diplomat with a Ph.D. from the University of Denver who has led Iran’s push for a nuclear deal under the moderate presidency of Hassan Rouhani. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Zarif ridiculed America’s “coalition of repenters” assembled in Paris, which, he said, had helped create the “Frankenstein” monster - ISIS - that it was now opposing.

Without naming specific countries, Zarif made clear he was referring to Arab Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, which have sent weapons and funds to jihadi in Syria (or let private donors send them), and to Turkey, which still lets foreign fighters cross its border into Syria.

Zarif’s points were valid. But he was disingenuous when questioned about massive Iranian support for the Syrian regime, whose slaughter of Sunni civilians led to the creation of ISIS and the influx of foreign jihadi.

The Iranian foreign minister finessed those truths. Had he “not been disinvited” from Geneva peace talks on Syria, said Zarif, he would have proposed a national unity government in Syria and U.N.-run elections. “We are not saying Assad should be president,” Zarif added, astonishingly, but “if he’s so brutal, kick him out.” Never mind that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad rejected all political reform proposals, to the extent that the U.N. mediator on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, blamed the dictator for the failure of his efforts.

So, despite the interests they share in ISIS’ demise, the United States and Iran won’t be engaging in any open coordination. Zarif did say that if both countries help the Iraqi government and the Kurds “it is up to the Iraqi government to coordinate” their efforts.

However, even more worrying, is the yawning gap that remains in nuclear negotiations between Iran, on the one side, and Washington and five other major powers on the other. A critical round of talks on curbing Iran’s nuclear program will be held during the coming week in New York. With a November deadline, the talks have stalled, creating a real possibility they might fail and create a huge new Middle East crisis - one that would undercut the struggle against ISIS.

“None of the parties wants to admit today that an agreement is not possible by Nov. 24, but realistically, that would be very hard to achieve if there is no major breakthrough this week or next,” says Robert Einhorn, a former top State Department negotiator on the Iran nuclear issue who is now at the Brookings Institution.

Zarif was blunt about the likely effect on Iran’s foreign policy if the talks fall apart. He recalled that when previous talks in which he was involved failed, “the people rebuffed us by electing a different kind of president, who gave me early retirement. Now that I’m back from the dead, it is important to consider the kind of message the international community sends to Iran.”

So Obama refuses to mention the I-word as we fight ISIS, and we can only hope that progress on nuclear talks will be made behind the scenes.

Trudy Rubin is a?columnist for the?Philadelphia Inquirer.