Laura Rozen reports that the six world power negotiating team may not be revamping its package to be more generous with Iran as many were hoping (Russia has not even signed on to the new version yet) ahead of resumed talks which likely won’t take place until January.
[...]]]>Laura Rozen reports that the six world power negotiating team may not be revamping its package to be more generous with Iran as many were hoping (Russia has not even signed on to the new version yet) ahead of resumed talks which likely won’t take place until January.
Many analysts have stated that sanctions relief must be on the table if the goal is to entice Iran to make serious compromises. In July, former top CIA analyst Paul Pillar explained why the “Nothing-But-Pressure Fallacy” is doomed to fail:
…And the story of stasis in the nuclear talks is also pretty simple. The Iranians have made it clear they are willing to make the key concession about no longer enriching uranium at the level that has raised fears about a “break-out” capability in return for sanctions relief. But the P5+1 have failed to identify what would bring such relief, instead offering only the tidbit of airplane parts and the vaguest of suggestions that they might consider some sort of relief in the future. The Iranians are thus left to believe that heavy pressure, including sanctions, will continue no matter what they do at the negotiating table, and that means no incentive to make more concessions.
This worrying development only adds to potential impediments already standing in the way of significant headway being made during the diplomatic process. Iran analyst Trita Parsi discusses “Three Worries about the Next Iran Talks” in Al-Monitor, such as grandstanding versus statemanship, which both the US and Iran are certainly prone to:
]]>…Iran can’t expect that merely stopping enrichment at the 20% level will be sufficient to close the Iranian file and lift all sanctions. At the same time, lifting of both US and EU sanctions must be part of the solution. In previous rounds, Washington refused to put sanctions relief on the table, thinking — innocently perhaps — that pressure alone would bring the Iranians to compromise. Obama administration officials have told experts in Washington that it will likely go back to the table with the same package as in the summer; that is, with no sanctions relief. European diplomats, while admitting that no deal is possible without sanctions relief, tell me that they do not expect any sanctions to begin to be lifted until late 2013 at the earliest. Continued refusal to make sanctions relief part of the mix from the outset will prove to be a decisive mistake.
Laura Rozen has an exclusive on alleged Iranian attempts to establish back-channel contacts with non-official Americans ahead of the (hopefully) resumed nuclear negotiations:
Mostafa Dolatyar, a career Iranian diplomat who heads the Iranian think tank, the Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), which has close ties to Iran’s [...]]]>
Laura Rozen has an exclusive on alleged Iranian attempts to establish back-channel contacts with non-official Americans ahead of the (hopefully) resumed nuclear negotiations:
Mostafa Dolatyar, a career Iranian diplomat who heads the Iranian think tank, the Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), which has close ties to Iran’s foreign ministry, was tapped by Iran’s leadership to coordinate contacts with American outside-government policy experts, including those with former senior US officials involved unofficially in relaying ideas for shaping a possible nuclear compromise, the analysts told Al-Monitor in interviews this week. The IPIS channel is for coordinating non-official US contacts, which in the absence of formal diplomatic ties, have formed an important, if not unproblematic, part of Iran’s diplomatic scouting and Washington’s and Tehran’s imperfect efforts to understand and influence each others’ policy positions.
The appointment is the result of a desire “on the Iranian side for a more structured approach to dealing with America,” Mark Fitzpatrick, an Iran nuclear expert at the Institute for International and Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, told Al-Monitor in an interview Monday, adding that he now doubts that there are agreed plans for direct US-Iran talks after the elections.
But last week former top CIA South Asia specialist Bruce Reidel warned that Iran is sending signals that it will respond forcefully to attacks:
Iran’s capabilities to inflict substantial damage on the Saudi and other gulf-state oil industries by cyberwarfare are difficult for outsiders to assess. Iran is a relative newcomer; until now, it has been mostly a victim. Iranian and Hizbullah abilities to penetrate Israel’s anti-missile defenses are also hard to estimate. Those defenses are among the best in the world, thanks to years of U.S. military assistance and Israeli ingenuity. So it is hard to know how hard Iran can really strike back if it is attacked. Bluffing and chest-thumping are a big part of the Iranian game plan. But the virus and the drone together sent a signal, don’t underestimate Iran.
Presuming the reports are true, it appears the Iranians are making a show of strength prior to the talks, just as the US has with its relentless sanctions regime. This may be because the Iranians want to put more pressure on their negotiating partners to offer a mutually acceptable settlement, or, as Iran hawks claim, because they are stalling for more time to develop a bomb to unleash against the world. While the latter scenario is certainly flashier, it doesn’t exactly square with the facts.
But progress in the next round of talks is still a possibility, according to the Arms Control Association’s Daryl Kimball. “Whatever happens after the election, the most important thing is that the P5+1 process resumes and that it be a much more dynamic negotiation that is not simply a reiteration of previous well-understood positions,” he said in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations.
Iran expert and Lobe Log contributor Farideh Farhi meanwhile warns that inflexibility on both sides will impede a peaceful resolution to this decades-long dispute:
The reality is that the current sanctions regime does not constitute a stable situation. First, the instability (and instability is different from regime change as we are sadly learning in Syria) it might beget is a constant force for policy re-evaluation on all sides (other members of the P5+1 included). Second, maintaining sanctions require vigilance while egging on the sanctioned regime to become more risk-taking in trying to get around them. This is a formula for war and it will happen if a real effort at compromise is not made. Inflexibility will beget inflexibility.
Reuters reports that Western powers are examining “long-shot options” for the next possible round of talks with Iran:
One option could be for each side to put more on the table – both in terms of demands and possible rewards – than in previous meetings in a bid to [...]]]>
Reuters reports that Western powers are examining “long-shot options” for the next possible round of talks with Iran:
One option could be for each side to put more on the table – both in terms of demands and possible rewards – than in previous meetings in a bid to break the stalemate despite deep skepticism about the chances of a breakthrough any time soon.
Years of diplomacy and sanctions have failed to resolve a dispute between the West and Iran over its nuclear program, raising fears of Israeli military action against its arch foe and a new Middle East war damaging to a fragile world economy.
“The next meeting would have to be well prepared,” said one Western diplomat. “There could be interesting new developments, like more demands and more concessions.”
Of course, as Farideh noted this week, inflexibility on both sides will impede a peaceful resolution to the decades-long dispute:
]]>The reality is that the current sanctions regime does not constitute a stable situation. First, the instability (and instability is different from regime change as we are sadly learning in Syria) it might beget is a constant force for policy re-evaluation on all sides (other members of the P5+1 included). Second, maintaining sanctions require vigilance while egging on the sanctioned regime to become more risk-taking in trying to get around them. This is a formula for war and it will happen if a real effort at compromise is not made. Inflexibility will beget inflexibility.
Sunday’s New York Times story that the US and Iran have agreed in principle to direct bilateral negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program provides opportunity for a more honest conversation on Iran than the presidential candidates have had so far. Well, at least this is my hope.
I know the NYT [...]]]>
Sunday’s New York Times story that the US and Iran have agreed in principle to direct bilateral negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program provides opportunity for a more honest conversation on Iran than the presidential candidates have had so far. Well, at least this is my hope.
I know the NYT report has already been rejected by the US and Iran. But the rejections on both sides have a similar quality. Despite the Iranian refusal to meet with the US in the talks that began in Istanbul last April, neither has rejected the possibility of bilateral talks as an outgrowth of the P5+1 process. And both have said that talks within the P5+1 frame will begin in late November (time and place to be determined). In any case, the P5+1 frame has increasingly become a venue dominated by US demands.
But the value of the NYT revelation or leak is not in the reporting of an agreement on a potential meeting but in the impact it may have on the nature of the conversation about Iran’s nuclear program. The reality is that the presidential race has so far managed to avoid the real Iran question. Certainly there has been grandstanding and threats. There was the frenzy over the need to set red line or deadline for Iran which was thankfully calmed — at least temporarily — by Prime Minister’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s inane performance at the UN.
The campaign has also been full of sounds bites regarding the seeming contrast between “having Israel’s back” and “not allowing daylight between Israel and the United States”. But there has been no conversation regarding the rapidly approaching decision time regarding Iran. No conversation regarding whether the United States, after years of offering what it knew would be refused, is willing to offer something that Iran can accept.
Everyone knows what the elements of the offer are: limits on levels of enrichment combined with a more robust inspection regime in exchange for calibrated reduction of some of the sanctions. There are many details to be worked out in difficult negotiations, but these details cannot even begin to be addressed without public acceptance of some enrichment in Iran or the acknowledgment of Iran’s proverbial “inalienable right.”
Why do I say that there is a rapidly approaching decision time for which direction to go in? Well, sanctions have worked to create economic havoc in Iran. No doubt both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Leader Ali Khamenei are primarily responsible for the deteriorating conditions. But their responsibility lies not in their incompetence in managing the economy per se but in their miscalculation. Khamenei, in particular, suspected negotiations would not go anywhere (at least, this is what he keeps saying) but he failed to prepare the country for his publicized “resistance economy.”
A resistance economy cannot be created overnight; certainly not when the economic helm of the country is in the combined hands of a populist president who underestimated the force of sanctions and a cantankerous Parliament caught between the demands of higher ups and pressures from lobbies and constituencies.
Not that Khamenei does not want a deal. He does and the encounters of the past four years have exhibited his openness to talks whenever there was hope in or detection of a degree of flexibility in the US position. But these encounters have also shown that he perceives himself as standing at the helm of a highly contentious political terrain that demands addressing certain bottom lines for Iran.
With the draconian economic measures imposed on Iran in the past year, the same political terrain makes quite impossible the acceptance of a deal that does not bring about some immediate, palpable, even if small, relaxation of the sanctions regime.
Some would say that this is precisely why this is no time for flexibility on the part of the United States. It will be throwing a lifeline to Khamenei and “them,” whoever they are. Now that sanctions are working, going for the throat is the right thing to do, they say. In response to this argument, which is also prevalent among some in the Iranian Diaspora who yell hard, accusing any country negotiating with Iran of being a traitor to the cause of the Iranian people, I would say that they are not adequately aware of the social and ideological forces than can be mobilized inside Iran to maintain a defiant, albeit limping, country.
Unless Khamenei and company are given a way out of the mess they have taken Iran into (with some help from the US and company), chances are that we are heading into a war in the same way we headed to war in Iraq. A recent Foreign Affairs article by Ralf Ekeus, the former executive chairman of the UN special Commission on Iraq, and Malfrid-Braut hegghammer, is a good primer on how this could happen.
The reality is that the current sanctions regime does not constitute a stable situation. First, the instability (and instability is different from regime change as we are sadly learning in Syria) it might beget is a constant force for policy re-evaluation on all sides (other members of the P5+1 included). Second, maintaining sanctions require vigilance while egging on the sanctioned regime to become more risk-taking in trying to get around them. This is a formula for war and it will happen if a real effort at compromise is not made. Inflexibility will beget inflexibility.
An additional benefit from directing the conversation away from whether to attack Iran and how to sanction it further is the positive impact on the nuclear debate inside Iran. There is no doubt in my mind that the conversation that has focused on attacking or sanctioning Iran until it kneels or submits has had the effect of making the hardliners defiantly louder and silencing those pushing for the resolution of the “Amrika issue.”
The loudness of the defiant folks rests on a simple argument again articulated last week in no uncertain terms by Khamenei himself: America’s problem with Iran is not the nuclear issue and talks for the US are not intended to resolve the nuclear standoff; they are a means to extract surrender from Iran.
If Khamenei is not correct, then a clearer public articulation of the extent of compromises the United States may be contemplating in order to resolve the nuclear standoff can encourage a conversation inside Iran as well. My bet is that it will also empower those pushing for Iran to show a bit more flexibility in its bottom line.
]]>I don’t know the answer to the question I’ve posted above, but today’s news may offer an indication:
The EU imposes new sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program and reaffirms its said commitment to reaching a peaceful, diplomatic solution:
…the objective of the EU remains to achieve a comprehensive, negotiated, long-term settlement, [...]]]>
I don’t know the answer to the question I’ve posted above, but today’s news may offer an indication:
The EU imposes new sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program and reaffirms its said commitment to reaching a peaceful, diplomatic solution:
…the objective of the EU remains to achieve a comprehensive, negotiated, long-term settlement, which would build international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear programme, while respecting Iran’s legitimate rights to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in conformity with the NPT, and fully taking into account UN Security Council and IAEA Board of Governors’ Resolutions.
Israel nods approvingly but doesn’t rejoice:
[Benjamin] Netanyahu, speaking Tuesday at the start of a meeting in Jerusalem with European Union member state ambassadors, called the sanctions “tough” and said Iran was “the greatest threat to peace in our time.”
“These sanctions are hitting the Iranian economy hard, (but) they haven’t yet rolled back the Iranian program. We’ll know that they’re achieving their goal when the centrifuges stop spinning and when the Iranian nuclear program is rolled back,” he said.
As does the former EU and US terrorist-designated organization the Mujahadeen-e Khalq (aka MEK, NCRI, PMOI) while reaffirming its commitment to regime change in Iran:
Therefore, although comprehensive sanctions are an essential and indispensible element to stop the clerical regime’s nuclear weapons project, the ultimate and definitive solution for the world community to rid itself of the terrorist mullahs’ attempt to acquire nuclear weapons is a regime change by the Iranian people and Resistance. Thus, recognizing the Iranian people’s efforts to overthrow religious fascism and to establish democracy in Iran is more essential than ever.
Iran complains loudly while tooting its resistance regime horn and allegdly hitting back against cyber attacks waged against its nuclear program.
And all the while average Iranians (and terminally ill ones) continue to carry the brunt of the weight:
]]>The measures come as Iran’s economy continues to reel in the wake of previous Western sanctions targeting the country’s crucial oil exports and access to international banking networks. Iranians are suffering economically amid inflation and the sharp devaluation of the Iranian currency against the dollar.
Shop owners in downtown Tehran said that prices had risen 50% since last month and that they were expecting things to only get worse.
Amir Mosayan, who sells watch batteries wholesale, said that immediately following the sanctions the price of his goods went up 70%.
European leaders are telling their publics that the latest EU sanctions are to persuade Iran to talk to the P5+1 about its nuclear program. In the House of Commons, on 24 January, Foreign Secretary William Hague said the sanctions represent “peaceful and legitimate pressure on the Iranian [...]]]>
European leaders are telling their publics that the latest EU sanctions are to persuade Iran to talk to the P5+1 about its nuclear program. In the House of Commons, on 24 January, Foreign Secretary William Hague said the sanctions represent “peaceful and legitimate pressure on the Iranian government to return to negotiations”.
This begs a question: why does Iran need to be coerced into negotiating? Surely it is in Iran’s interest to take every opportunity to convince the P5+1 that it intends to abide by its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) commitment to place all nuclear material in its possession under International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) safeguards and to refrain from manufacturing or otherwise acquiring nuclear explosive devices—and that the 18 years during which Iran pursued a “policy of concealment” were an aberration that Iran’s leaders now regret.
The answer lies, I suspect, in the letter that EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton sent to Iran’s nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, on 21 October. The letter was made public by the EU on 20 January. It contains the following sentences:
We remain committed to the practical and specific suggestions which we have put forward in the past. These confidence-building steps should form first elements of a phased approach which would eventually lead to a full settlement between us, involving the full implementation by Iran of UNSC and IAEA Board of Governors’ resolutions.
Dr. Jalili and his advisers could be forgiven for interpreting these sentences to mean that there is no point in turning up for talks unless they are committed to satisfying UN and IAEA demands in full. It looks as though the real goal of sanctions is not to get Iran back to the negotiating table, but to get Iran to give way on the demands that it has spent the last six years declining to concede.
These demands have become increasingly baroque with the passage of time, but in essence they remain unchanged since 2006:
- - suspension of all enrichment-related activity and of the construction of a heavy water moderated reactor (HWRR);
- application of the Additional Protocol;
- resolution of all outstanding IAEA safeguards inspection issues.
This brings us to another question: why are the P5+1 so determined to get Iran to implement all the demands that, using their political muscle, they have persuaded the Security Council to adopt? After all, they could have recognised that over time some of these demands have become less relevant to the global community’s non-proliferation needs, and that some might more readily be accepted by Iran in the context of an open-ended search for common ground through the give-and-take of a genuine negotiation.
Suspension of all enrichment-related activity stands out as the demand that now least serves a practical non-proliferation purpose. Suspension was first conceived, in 2003, as a way of halting Iran’s progress towards the mastery of enrichment technology, while the IAEA looked into the nature and purpose of the activities that Iran had undertaken when pursuing a “policy of concealment”. Now the P5+1 look like a hapless groom trying to shut the stable door long after the horse has bolted: Iran has developed three or more centrifuge models and appears to have overcome most, if not all, of the technical problems involved.
Of course suspension would put a halt to the accumulation of low-enriched uranium (LEU) by Iran. But Iran’s LEU stocks are not in themselves a proliferation threat. They are under IAEA safeguards. Any attempt by Iran to draw on them for use in a clandestine enrichment program would be brought immediately to the world’s attention. The calibration of future LEU production to reactor fuel needs is something that Iran might be ready to concede in the context of a genuine open-ended negotiation.
Suspension of HWRR construction is probably too far advanced now for Iran to be ready to write off its investment. But from a proliferation perspective this suspension is no more vital than the suspension of LEU production. Once completed, the HWRR will be placed under IAEA safeguards. Any diversion of spent fuel rods, containing plutonium, to a reprocessing plant would be quickly detected. Besides, there is no evidence to date that Iran intends to build a reprocessing plant; hence there is good reason to think that Iran might be ready to foreswear reprocessing as part of a balanced deal.
Continuing P5+1 insistence on reapplication of the Additional Protocol is entirely reasonable, but is another demand that Iran would almost certainly accept if it felt that the playing-field were level. It must be apparent to Iran’s leaders that the Majles vote to terminate application prior to ratification was a classic own goal.
Had the Protocol remained in force since 2006, the IAEA might well have concluded by now that there are no undeclared “nuclear activities or material” in Iran, greatly complicating the task of any who wish to exploit the nuclear controversy for ulterior purposes. (The alleged nuclear-related studies, which now constitute the only major issue on Iran’s IAEA file, fall outside the scope of IAEA safeguards. The IAEA mandate for investigating them comes from the Security Council, not from Iran’s NPT safeguards agreement. Such studies are “nuclear-related activities”, not “nuclear activities”.)
These alleged studies are nonetheless the biggest obstacle to a peaceful settlement. They cannot be ignored but they are problematic because:
- - The West asserts that the evidence for them is authentic but seemingly lacks the means to satisfy Iran that they are not forgeries.
- Initially the IAEA secretariat took a sceptical view of the authenticity of this evidence. In the last two years the secretariat seems to have become more confident that the material is authentic, but they have not spelled out why in sufficient detail for those who are free of all political influence to be able to form their own judgements.
- Iran may well be deterred from making an avowal and moving on—assuming there is something for them to avow—by the thought that the West might try to use an avowal to persuade non-Western members of the Security Council to further tighten UN sanctions, or authorise an attack on Iran (though I suspect that now Russia has achieved WTO admission it will be more robust in resisting Western pressure for anti-Iranian Council resolutions).
A solution to the alleged studies issue is not inconceivable, however. In the context of a genuine, open-ended negotiation one can imagine Western diplomats finding ways to reassure Iran that an avowal will not be misused—unless, as some fear, Western policy is driven not by non-proliferation goals, but by some ulterior purpose.
Other Obstacles to a Peaceful Settlement
The inflexibility apparent in Baroness Ashton’s letter, and the West’s apparent failure to take a fresh look at how Western non-proliferation goals might most realistically be achieved, are not my only reasons for feeling pessimistic about prospects for a peaceful settlement.
First, were there to be a genuine P5+1/Iran negotiation this year, what would the West have to offer Iran? The White House acted on Congressional demands in December and prevailed on EU doubters to adopt oil sanctions in January because, in an electoral year, it wants protection for the President from the charge of being weak on Iran. The White House will not easily surrender that protection by allowing the EU to repeal its oil sanctions in return for Iranian concessions, or offer meaningful US concessions.
Second, Western policy appears to be suffering from a sense of proportion failure. The British Defence Secretary announced in Washington on 5 January that Iran is working “flat-out” to make nuclear weapons. The US intelligence community, however, (and now, if Haaretz can be believed, even the Israeli intelligence community), assesses that the decision to make such weapons has yet to be taken, and may not be taken provided the likely consequences of taking it remain dissuasive.
Then the Canadian Prime Minister said that Iran is a “very serious threat to international peace and security”, followed by President Sarkozy, Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Cameron accusing Iran of being on a path that “threatens the peace and security of us all”. Yet the Security Council has so far failed to determine that Iran’s nuclear activities represent a “threat to the peace”. This is in marked contrast to what the Council has said about North Korea’s nuclear excesses. All this raises questions about Western perceptions of Iran and somewhat undermines the validity of the “international obligations” that the Council has imposed on Iran, and that Iran is frequently called upon to respect. (A careful reading of chapter VII of the UN Charter suggests that a threat to the peace determination ought to precede the creation of obligations under article 41.)
If Western policy-makers really believe that Iran’s nuclear program is a threat to international peace and security, they cannot be expected to accept Iran’s NPT right to enrich (provided all Iranian nuclear material is under safeguards), and consequently hope of a peaceful settlement is vain. The fact that most of the world believes that Iran has yet to become a threat to peace is unlikely to change anything.
The final causes for pessimism (though my list is not intended to be exhaustive) are called Saudi Arabia and Israel. It ought to be well within the range of Western diplomacy to persuade Saudi Arabia that Iran’s nuclear activities still fall short of constituting a threat to Saudi security, and to remind Riyadh that, as a party to the NPT, it is committed to refrain from seeking nuclear weapons. But I have yet to come across evidence of the West taking such a line.
The Israeli case is complicated by ever-changing messages from Tel Aviv. One day Iran’s nuclear program constitutes an existential threat to Israel, the next it does not. One day Israeli pilots are warming up their engines in preparation for take-off to the East, the next senior Israelis are explaining why an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would lead to catastrophe for Israel and the West.
Yet Israel remains hugely dependent on US benevolence. For a non-American it is hard to understand why this does not entitle the US to tell the Israelis to make a vow of silence on Iran and leave the West to settle this controversy in a manner consistent with the provisions of the NPT, and with maintaining the integrity of this vital global regime.
Like most pessimists, I am yearning for my judgements to prove mistaken.