by Shawn Amoei

Foreign Affairs

by Shawn Amoei

Foreign Affairs

by Marsha B. Cohen

The New York Times’ op-ed page headlined “Hopes for Iran”, which offers half a dozen cautious to negative views on Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rouhani, unexpectedly links to a “Related Story” published last year: Should Israel Accept a Nuclear Ban? Linking the online discussion — intentionally or not [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Marsha B. Cohen

The New York Times’ op-ed page headlined “Hopes for Iran”, which offers half a dozen cautious to negative views on Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rouhani, unexpectedly links to a “Related Story” published last year: Should Israel Accept a Nuclear Ban? Linking the online discussion — intentionally or not — to a debate over Israel’s own nuclear program and policies may be more remarkable than any of the op-eds’ arguments.

One of the most overlooked and under-discussed aspects of the Iranian nuclear program, at least from an Iranian point of view, is the double standard that’s applied to it: while Israel has an estimated 100-200 nuclear weapons that it has concealed for decades, Iran is treated like the nuclear threat — and Iran doesn’t possess a single nuclear weapon. Adding insult to injury, Israel is usually the first, loudest and shrillest voice condemning Iran and demanding “crippling sanctions” while deflecting attention away from its own record.

“Iran has consistently used the West’s willingness to engage as a delaying tactic, a smoke screen behind which Iran’s nuclear program has continued undeterred and, in many cases, undetected,” complained former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold (also president of the hawkish Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) in a 2009 LA Times op-ed entitled “Iran’s Nuclear Aspirations Threaten the World“:

Back in 2005, Hassan Rowhani, the former chief nuclear negotiator of Iran during the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami, made a stunning confession in an internal briefing in Tehran, just as he was leaving his post. He explained that in the period during which he sat across from European negotiators discussing Iran’s uranium enrichment ambitions, Tehran quietly managed to complete the critical second stage of uranium fuel production: its uranium conversion plant in Isfahan. He boasted that the day Iran started its negotiations in 2003 “there was no such thing as the Isfahan project.” Now, he said, it was complete.

Yet half a century ago, Israel’s Deputy Minister of Defense, Shimon Peres — the political architect of Israel’s nuclear weapons program — looked President John F. Kennedy in the eye and solemnly intoned what would become Israel’s “catechism”, according to Avner Cohen: “I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first.” Fifty years and at least 100 nuclear weapons later, Peres is awarded the U.S. Medal of Freedom, with no mention of his misrepresentation of Israel’s nuclear progress.

According to declassified documents, Yitzhak Rabin, another future Israeli prime minister (who would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994) also invoked the nuclear catechism to nuclear negotiator Paul Warnke in 1968, arguing that no product could be considered a deployable nuclear weapons-system unless it had been tested (Israel, of course, had not tested a nuclear weapon). Warnke was unswayed by Rabin’s talmudic logic but came away convinced that pressuring Israel would be futile since it was already a nuclear weapons state.

In a BBC Radio June 14 debate between Gold and former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw about the prospects for improving relations with Iran after Rouhani’s election, Straw pointed out that Israel has a “very extensive nuclear weapons program, and along with India and Pakistan are the three countries in the world, plus North Korea more recently, which have refused any kind of international supervision…”:

JOHN HUMPHRYS (Host): Well let me put that to Dr Gold; you can’t argue with that, Dr Gold?

DORE GOLD: Well, we can have a whole debate on Israel in a separate program.

JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well, it’s entirely relevant isn’t it? The fact is you’re saying they want nuclear weapons; the fact is you have nuclear weapons.

DORE GOLD: Look, Israel has made statements in the past. Israeli ambassadors to the UN like myself have said that Israel won’t be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.

JACK STRAW: You’ve got nuclear weapons.

JOHN HUMPHRYS: You’ve got them.

JACK STRAW: You’ve got them. Everyone knows that.

DORE GOLD: We have a very clear stand, but we’re not the issue.

JACK STRAW: No, no, come on, you have nuclear weapons, let’s be clear about this.

National security expert Bruce Riedel is among those who have observed Washington’s “double standard when it comes to Israel’s bomb: the NPT applies to all but Israel. Indeed, every Israeli prime minister since David Ben-Gurion has deliberately taken an evasive posture on the issue because they do not want to admit what everyone knows.” Three years ago, Riedel suggested that the era of Israeli ambiguity about its nuclear program “may be coming to an end, raising fundamental questions about Israel’s strategic situation in the region.” Thus far that hasn’t happened. Instead, Israeli leaders and the pro-Israel lobby use every opportunity (including Peres’ Medal of Freedom acceptance speech) to deflect attention from Israel’s defiant prevarication about its own nuclear status and directing it toward Iran.

This past April, Anthony Cordesman authored a paper for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) arguing that Israel posed more of an existential threat to Iran than the other way around. “It seems likely that Israel can already deliver an ‘existential’ nuclear strike on Iran, and will have far more capability to damage Iran than Iran is likely to have against Israel for the next decade,” Cordesman wrote. (The paper has since been removed from the CSIS website, but references to it persist in numerous articles.)

This double standard, and refusal to recognize Iranian security concerns, is not news to Iranians. Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament), assured the Financial Times last September that talks between the U.S. and Iran “can be successful and help create more security in the region. But if they try to dissuade Iran from its rights to have peaceful nuclear technology, then they will not go anywhere — before or after the US elections.” Larijani, who was Iran’s nuclear negotiator between 2005-2007, proposed that declarations by U.S. political leaders that Iran has a right to “peaceful nuclear technology” be committed to in writing.

“Many times the US president or secretary of state have said they recognise Iran’s right to nuclear energy,” Larjani said. “So, if [they] accept this, write it down and then we use it as a basis to push forward the talks…What they say during the talks is different from what they say outside the talks. This is a problem.” Larijani also denied that Iranian leaders were discussing withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) even though the benefits of Iran remaining a signatory — in the face of mounting international pressure campaigned for by Israel while Israel itself faced little to no criticism — seemed unclear. “The Israelis did not join the NPT and they do not recognize the IAEA,” he said. “They are doing what they want — producing nuclear bombs, and no one questions it.”

This past weekend, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour bluntly suggested that up until now, the U.S. has offered Iran few incentives to comply with the international community’s demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program: “Let’s just call a spade a spade. I’ve spoken to Iranian officials, former negotiators, actually people who worked for Dr. Rouhani earlier, and they said that so far the American incentives to Iran in these nuclear negotiations amounts to demanding diamonds for peanuts.”

Ben Caspit, writing in al-Monitor last week week, notes that as soon as the Russians hinted Iran would be willing to suspend uranium enrichment and keep it at the 20% level, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blew off the suggestion as merely cosmetic. The Israeli demand will continue to be  uncompromising, Caspit says, insistent that “…nothing short of complete cessation of uranium enrichment, removal of all enriched uranium out of Iran; termination of nuclear facility activities and welcoming the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would provide sufficient guarantee of Iran’s willingness to abandon the nuclear program. Needless to say this will never happen.”

As Jim Lobe pointed out the other day, Rouhani outlined an 8-point blueprint for resolving the nuclear standoff between the U.S. and Iran in a letter to TIME in 2006. Rouhani stated:

In my personal judgment, a negotiated solution can be found in the context of the following steps, if and when creatively intertwined and negotiated in good faith by concerned officials…Iran is prepared to work with the IAEA and all states concerned about promoting confidence in its fuel cycle program. But Iran cannot be expected to give in to United States’ bullying and non-proliferation double standards.

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 [...]]]> via Lobe Log

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.

By Wayne White

The revival of the threat by a senior Iranian official, Ali Larijani, to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) tends to reinforce the view that the Iranian leadership simply cannot grasp the psychology of the debate within Israel, Western states — and some regional actors [...]]]> via Lobe Log

By Wayne White

The revival of the threat by a senior Iranian official, Ali Larijani, to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) tends to reinforce the view that the Iranian leadership simply cannot grasp the psychology of the debate within Israel, Western states — and some regional actors — over whether the Iran/Nuclear impasse should warrant military action at some point.

Those most frightened by Iranian threats to quit the NPT in countries like the US, Israel, other concerned Western capitals (as well as a few of those in the region inclined to support some degree of potential military action) are the more responsible officials and observers trying to head off such a dangerous military venture. Like many others following this important issue, I personally regard the recent threat as a rather empty one: the Iranian leadership at least has shown by not following through on previous threats along these lines that it appreciates how provocative and risky parting ways with the NPT would be in strategic terms. Indeed, if Tehran did in fact follow through on these threats, actually severing itself from the NPT would increase suspicions dramatically over Iran’s nuclear intentions and undermine the belief that Iran would behave as a “rational” actor if it ever were in possession of a nuclear weapon.

By contrast, of course, many of those taking a tougher stand on the Iran/Nuclear issue outside Iran probably would LOVE to see Tehran take such a dramatically negative step because it would likely shift quite a few people (especially in terms of gaining popular support) toward the view that a resort to arms is the way to go.

If Tehran better understood the dynamics of the debate outside Iran and truly wants to strengthen the hand of those arguing against military action, Iranian decisionmakers could be far more creative — and less counterproductive — in what they say and do with regard to this increasingly divisive and dangerous issue.

Let’s get caught up with [...]]]> Does the selection of Iran’s nuclear czar as its new (interim) foreign minister say anything about nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West? We don’t really know, and given that the next round of talks is only a month away, we might not know until news breaks from Istanbul.

Let’s get caught up with Iran: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sacked Manoucher Mottaki — widely seen as a political figure — on Monday in a surprise move. The outgoing FM, who had long been known to be at odds with Ahmadinejad, was quickly replaced in the interim by the now-former head of Iran’s nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi. Salehi, who was partly educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is known as a technocrat.

Laura Rozen at Politico does Iranian “Kremlinology” with analysis from experts in D.C.. Trita Parsi told Rozen:

“The fact that Salehi, a longtime hand in the nuclear program, replaces [Mottaki] may indicate the nuclearization of Iranian foreign policy,” Iranian analyst Trita Parsi said. “While Mottaki was never central to the nuclear program, the person replacing him and taking over the entire foreign policy machine is a person that for decades has been instrumental to the program.”

“This may indicate, if not renewed seriousness on the part of the Iranians, at least a recognition that the parties recognize that they are close to crunch time and they are fielding their best players as a result,” he said.

I reached out to Iran expert and University of Hawaii professor Farideh Farhi, an expert on Iran’s byzantine politics, who told me both the sacking and the new hire remain a mystery to her. She emphasized that the appointment is an interim one, so Ahmadinejad could have simply put off a more controversial pick that would have aroused opposition in the Majles, or Iranian parliament. We don’t yet know, however, what the pick means for Ahmadinejad’s relationship with the Supreme Leader. Farhi (the links are mine):

Some people are speculating that it may have something to do with [this month's Iran-P5+1 talks in] Geneva and the portrayal of success by the negotiating team inside Iran, giving Ahamdinejad the confidence to do this. One other analyst in Tehran suggested that the presidential advisor [Esfandiar Rahim] Mashaie’s visit this week to Jordan and King Abdullah’s positive response to Ahamdinejad’s personal letter might have given Ahmadinejad motivation to do this. There is indeed a possibility that Ahmadinejad sacked Mottaki the same way he sacked Ali Larijani as nuclear negotiator, without prior approval from [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei. If this is the case then it bespeaks a confident Ahmadinejad since, as I mentioned above, it was merely a month or so ago that Khamenei supported Mottaki by name. If indeed Ahmadinejad did this without Khamenei’s prior approval, it means the game is not yet over.

It sounds like, once again, with Iran and the U.S. inching closer together, uncertainty will hang over the proceedings. If the U.S. comes through on hints, a confidence-building measure could be in the works, so the U.S. will likely be busy no matter what.

“Between now and January,” wrote Robert Dreyfuss on his Nation blog, “the United States is going to have to engage in some spirited, behind-the-scenes talks with Iran to make the negotiations work.” Dreyfuss noted, and focused on, that amid all the the action in Tehran, the U.S. seems to be ready to offer up a fuel swap agreement that, for the meantime, would allow centrifuges to keep spinning in Iran. It’s just the sort of “first step” deal, as Rozen noted, that Salehi hammered out with the Brazilians and Turks in the run-up to the last round of U.S. led UN Security Council sanctions.

Julian Border, at the Guardian, has a good piece covering the optimistic take on Salehi. Just after he pulls a few WikiLeaks docs to show several takes of Western diplomats on Salehi — he speaks good English and is a preferred interlocutor, but seems to not wield much influence in the halls of power — Border summed up the ever-ambiguous “Western diplomat” reaction:

Western diplomats, however, are generally cheered by the appointment because it might mean that their contacts with the foreign ministry will now have more substance. During the prolonged sparring between Mottaki and Ahmadinejad, the ministry increasingly became an empty shell, bypassed over major decisions, and irrelevant on the nuclear dossier.

Rozen, again, has a great observation, via Suzanne Maloney from the Brookings Institution, that Salehi is subject to an EU travel ban. Earlier, it had been reported that Salehi was named in the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution, but apparently this was not right (though the agency which he formerly headed was). Had the UNSC bit turned out to be true, my reaction was that the move could be a provocation. Given that it’s only an EU ban and, as Rozen points out, it gets waived for higher-ups in foreign governments, I don’t really think so.

As I said, could it mean something for nuclear negotiations? Looks like we’ll have to wait for next month’s talks to find out.

Late-breaking: Inside Iran‘s Arash Aramesh has the take of a recent Iranian diplomatic defector. It’s worth checking out for the opinions of someone who was very recently, indeed, on the inside.