Senior American officials held confidential talks with Iran about Iraq’s future in advance of the United States-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, and secured a promise that the Iranian military would not fire at United States warplanes that strayed into Iranian airspace, The New York Times reported quoting a new book by a ranking Bush administration official.

The previously undisclosed meetings, which were held in Geneva with Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations and future foreign minister, continued even after American troops seized Baghdad in April 2003.

“We wanted a commitment that Iran would not fire on U.S. aircraft if they accidentally flew over Iranian territory,” Zalmay Khalilzad, a former ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan and the United Nations, wrote in the “The Envoy,” being published this month by St. Martin’s Press.

“Zarif agreed,” he added. “We also hoped Iran would encourage Iraqi Shiites to participate constructively in establishing a new government in Iraq.” Some prominent Iraqi Shiite leaders who had opposed Hussein had long been supported by Iran, which is the major Shiite power in the region.

But the Americans and Iranians had major differences over how to form a new Iraqi government and deal with Tehran’s support for terrorism. In May 2003, the Bush administration halted the dialogue after it accused Iran of harboring leaders of Al Qaeda who were blamed for a terrorist attack that killed eight Americans in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

More than a decade later, Mr. Khalilzad considers the failure to keep open a continuous channel to Iran one of the great what-ifs of the Iraq war.

“I am convinced that if we had combined diplomatic engagement with forcible actions, we could have shaped Iran’s conduct,” he wrote.

The book is being published as heated debate continues over the Obama administration’s policy toward Tehran, including the terms of the nuclear accord the United States and five other world powers negotiated with Iran. (MENA)