by Mohammad Ali Shabani
by Mohammad Ali Shabani
Iran and the P5+1 — the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany — are set to resume nuclear talks in Kazakhstan on 26 February, but little appears to have changed since their previous meeting in Russia last summer.
In [...]]]>
by Mohammad Ali Shabani
by Mohammad Ali Shabani
Iran and the P5+1 — the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany — are set to resume nuclear talks in Kazakhstan on 26 February, but little appears to have changed since their previous meeting in Russia last summer.
In terms of concessions, the P5+1’s “updated” proposal reportedly includes an “easing” of sanctions targeting exports of gold and precious metals to Iran. This is in addition to last year’s offer of selling Iran aviation spare parts and providing fuel for a medical reactor and other civil nuclear cooperation.
The P5+1 doesn’t seem to have changed its demands. Iran continues to be urged to stop enrichment to 19.75%, shut down its Fordow plant and ship out its stockpile of this grade of uranium. Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, a Western official has said the P5+1 wants its demands to now “build in buffer time” to ensure that it would take Iran “more time to restart Fordow.” The same Western official insisted that “we use very careful wording such as decreasing readiness of Fordow”, emphasizing that “these are face-saving words.”
The only Iranian reaction specific to the reported P5+1’s demands so far has come from influential MP Alaeddin Borujerdi, who reportedly said that “Fordow will never be shut down.” Pointing to the site’s well-protected nature, Borujerdi added that “our national duty is to be able to defend our nuclear and vital centers against an enemy threat.” To be clear, parliament has little say over the nuclear issue. However, according to former chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani, members of the parliamentary national security & foreign policy commission (which Borujerdi heads) used to be invited to meetings of the foreign policy committee of the Supreme National Security Council. In short, while Borujerdi has little say over the nuclear issue, he likely has real insight into debates within the body in charge of the matter.
More broadly, Iran’s Supreme Leader said in a speech Saturday that the Islamic Republic doesn’t want atomic weapons, adding that if it “intended to possess nuclear arms, no power could stop us.” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Washington to show “logic”, underscoring that “this is the only way to interact” with Iran. Crucially, he linked this argument to a portrayal of American-devised sanctions as the main obstacle to dialogue between Iran and the United States.
It is encouraging to see the P5+1 start recognizing the importance of saving face for Iran. However, from an Iranian point of view, the crucial element of reciprocity is still lacking in the group’s offers.
Iran started enriching uranium to 19.75% at its Fordow plant on February 9th 2010. It did so after failing to purchase fuel for its US-supplied Tehran Research Reactor, which produces medical isotopes used in the treatment of over 800,000 Iranians.
Ever since, the United States and the European Union have imposed unilateral sanctions targeting Iranian banks, shipping and insurance, oil sales, repatriation of crude export revenues, sales of gold and precious metals — the list continues.
Demanding Iranian acceptance of “stop-shut-ship” is tantamount to asking Tehran to turn back the nuclear clock to February 8th 2010.
From Tehran’s point of view, that might be a possibility — if the sanctions clock would be turned back three years, too.
That’s not what the P5+1 reportedly has in mind. US sanctions targeting Iran’s barter trade with gold came into effect on February 6th this year. Offering to “ease” such penalties in Kazakhstan on February 26th would amount to offering to turn back the sanctions clock three weeks.
The P5+1’s current posture can be viewed through two lenses. On one hand, the mainly Western members of the group may simply think it’s unnecessary to make any serious concessions, motivated by the belief that time is on their side. In this vein, the P5+1 might be preparing the ground for more pressure on Iran by starting to play the blame game.
On the other hand, the P5+1 may be ready for serious concessions, but consciously avoiding making Iran an offer it can’t refuse. As the Western officials who leaked the P5+1’s position underscored, the lack of flexibility is due to a belief that Iran won’t agree to anything before its crucial June presidential elections. This view is shared by most analysts. Thus, presenting an offer that’s designed to be rejected on fair grounds may in fact be a way to avoid putting the Islamic Republic in a position where it will face sole blame for a potentially continued deadlock. Implicit here is a signal from the P5+1 that it’s willing to wait for Iran to get its house in order before resuming serious negotiations.
Regardless of which of the two scenarios is most accurate, the six months from now until the inauguration of the next Iranian president in August need not be a waste of time. All sides must take the opportunity to examine common positions so the ground can be prepared for tangible progress on the nuclear issue when the time is right.
- Mohammad Ali Shabani is a doctoral researcher at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London and the Editor of Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs.
Photo Credit: European External Action Service
]]>You will not hear me say this often, but Hossein Shariatmadari — Iran’s irascible and intractable editor of the hardline Kayhan daily — makes one important point in this editorial. Although a few months ago Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei referred in general terms to the fact that Iran had been [...]]]>
You will not hear me say this often, but Hossein Shariatmadari — Iran’s irascible and intractable editor of the hardline Kayhan daily — makes one important point in this editorial. Although a few months ago Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei referred in general terms to the fact that Iran had been involved against Israel’s previous attacks against Lebanon (2006) and Gaza (2008), this is the first time that both the Iranian and Palestinian leaderships have officially and unabashedly acknowledged Iran’s military support.
Shariatmadari does not address the question of what has led to this new official posture since his piece is really not about what has brought about this change but a convoluted attack — based on fabricated quotes — on reformists who in his words have been directly or indirectly supported by the Israeli government in order to weaken the Islamic Republic’s support for the “resistance.” What else could the protestors’ chant — Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, I give my life to Iran” — in the post-2009 election environment have meant but “playing in the wolves’ team,” Shariatmadari asserts. But what Shariatmadari takes for granted is that the hardline position on the need for Iran’s support for resistance in Palestine has not only been vindicated but become common sentiment as well.
This is a debatable assumption since one of the basic disagreements between those in Iran who have called for a less confrontationist foreign policy, and those who continue to push for an offensive or aggressive foreign policy (siast khareji-ye tahajomi), has been over Iran’s role beyond the Persian Gulf region. While the former does not see Iran’s involvement in broader regional issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as serving the long-term interests of the country, the latter argues that regional links will check Israeli threats and enhance Iran’s standing vis-à-vis the United States. While the former worries about the additional threats an offensive foreign policy — which it calls adventurist — will bring for Iran, the latter insists that the only deterrent to international “bullies” is a show of strength and resolve combined with just a pinch of Nixonian madman posture.
But the decision on the part of Iran to publicly own up to its military and financial support for Hamas does hint at the possibility that the hardline position may have become consensus at least for tactical purposes as Iran prepares to re-engage in nuclear talks with the United States within the 6-world power (p5+1) framework.
As I mentioned in a previous post on Iran and Gaza, Tehran’s initial response to the Israeli attack was rather cautious and conceding of Egyptian leadership. The chair of the Parliament’s National Security of Foreign Policy Committee, Alaeddin Borujerdi, went as far as to say that Iran had nothing to do with Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel. But in the span of a couple of days — surely after a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) — a decision was made to not only announce Tehran’s financial and military support, but also state the country’s pride in doing so. Similar language used by Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and IRGC commander Mohammad Jafari — both members of the SNSC — suggests prior coordination.
This was done despite at least one warning in the press that the Gaza attack was “an Israeli conspiracy to destroy the opportunity for talks between Iran and the West.” It was also done despite worries that the war was mostly about testing the Iron Dome and deterrence against Iranian missiles. I am unable to access the editorial in the daily Jomhuri-ye Eslami from a few days ago, but if I remember correctly, it said something like Israel now knows a lot more about Iran’s capabilities than the other way around.
Despite these concerns, Iran’s assertive posture is probably the result of the calculation laid out by Sadeq Kharrazi, deputy foreign minister in the reformist era and current publisher of “irdiplomacy”, a website dedicated to foreign policy. He suggests that Iran’s concrete support for Hamas essentially steers attention away from Iran’s conduct in Syria and towards the “paradoxical behavior” of the “traditional leaders of the Arab World and Turkey” which “do not take any measures to militarily support the Palestinians while they continue to send ships filled with ammunitions and arms to Syria’s opposition.”
But his hopes, which I think also underwrite Iran’s openly supportive posture towards Gaza, are as follows:
The complicated crises of the Middle East and its equations are becoming more complex day by day, and one cannot confront them with the policies of the past. The US and other world powers must know that the equation of the Middle East region will not be solved without the presence of all regional powers. Perhaps one of the objectives of the Zionist regime behind attacking Gaza was to weaken or delay the possibility of dialogue between Iran and the US—and to overshadow it—but it seems that the crisis in Gaza, more than ever before, proved to Obama that he needs to interact with Iran as the proponent of dialogue, revolutionary and Jihadist ideas in the region, so that part of the problems of the region, from Syria to Gaza, can be solved with Iran’s support.
Bottom line: the Islamic Republic is making a point that it is part of a variety of problems in the region; making it part of the solution to these problems will require a different US approach.
This is an argument that Kharrazi, proponent of a grand bargain with the US, has been making for a long time. The glitch in this argument is that US policy makers have remained unimpressed with Iran’s regional clout either because they do not find it impressive enough (despite trumpeting it for domestic purposes), or because they think Islamic Iran is structurally unable to be helpful in wielding its clout. They have instead opted for isolating Iran through a ferocious sanctions regime.
Now, with Gaza, the Islamic Republic is making the same argument in a more concrete fashion. The problem of course is that in the Middle East, playing hardline usually begets hardline.
Nevertheless, hardline is what Tehran has decided to play at this moment and public announcements about Iran’s military support for Hamas in spite of presumably crippling sanctions should be viewed as a statement — bluster or not — regarding the failure and even danger of policies that try to bring about regional security at the expense of Islamic Iran’s insecurity.
- Farideh Farhi is an independent researcher and an affiliate graduate faculty member in political science and international relations at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.
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