by François Nicoullaud
Paris, France—This is not the first time that we may have trapped ourselves when drafting UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions that were intended to trap another country—in this case, Iran. The present situation recalls in some respects the period around 1997 when most Security Council members would have liked to rescind, or at least amend, the sanctions adopted against the regime of Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War, as their effects were obviously getting out of hand: widespread corruption, and the dramatic deterioration of the Iraqi population’s state of health, to name a couple. But any change in the sanctions would have required unanimity from the five permanent members of the Council, and that was definitely out of reach. The situation led French President Jacques Chirac to express his frustration. “We want to convince, not coerce,” he said. “I have never observed that the policy of sanctions can produce positive effects.”
We have not yet reached such a dramatic juncture with Iran. But should it become useful to rapidly lift the sanctions imposed by the four UNSC resolutions between 2006 and 2010 in order to secure a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, the Western negotiators may find themselves incapable of delivering and may instead try to kick the can down the road to some point in the distant future.
Aimed at halting Iran’s military, nuclear and ballistic activities, these UNSC resolutions are not the ones that hurt the most. More destructive are those unilateral measures imposed by the United States and the European Union, since they were designed essentially to destabilize the Iranian economy. But the UNSC sanctions carry with them a “pillory effect” that the Iranians perceive, quite correctly, as deeply humiliating. They also provide the legal bedrock upon which the European sanctions, in particular, have been constructed. The Iranians are therefore anxious to see them lifted as soon as possible through a decision by the Security Council to close the file it opened in 2006 and return it to the forum from which it should never have been taken: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The conditions for terminating these resolutions, however, are also overwhelming. In fact, the people who drafted them seem to have been pursuing two not necessarily compatible goals at the same time.
The first goal was to pile up all the preconditions that the authors believed were necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a deliverable nuclear device, including:
Considering the context in which these resolutions were adopted, there was little chance that the Iranians would comply with such an elaborate and comprehensive set of so-called “confidence-building measures,” which would have forced Tehran to abandon virtually all of its nuclear and ballistic-missile ambitions.
The second goal was substantively quite different from the first and indeed somehow contradictory. It aimed to push Iran into negotiations, as illustrated by the formula that was included in all the UNSC sanctions resolutions, which ritually expressed the “conviction” that Iran’s compliance “would contribute to a diplomatic, negotiated solution.” Moreover, if Iran suspended its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the Council declared its willingness in return to suspend at least some of its sanctions in order “to allow for negotiations in good faith” and “reach an early and mutually acceptable outcome.”
As we now know, a negotiation process ultimately was initiated, albeit through a radically different path, as the West dropped its demand that Iran fully suspend all its sensitive nuclear activities before entering into substantive talks. One can therefore assume that the second goal will be accomplished as soon as a comprehensive agreement, which will hopefully emerge from the current round of talks in Vienna, enters into force, thus rendering this dimension of the UNSC’s resolutions totally obsolete.
But of course, the resolutions’ first dimension—the exhaustive inventory of “confidence-building measures”—remains in place. Because confidence is essentially an elusive and subjective feeling, taking this path involves embarking on a long-term, winding and always reversible road, the end of which is only faintly discernible now. Such a process is also hardly compatible with the “on-off” mechanism of the Security Council: there is no chance that its resolutions, once cancelled, could be reintroduced. Hence the strong reluctance of the Western powers to commit themselves to such an outcome.
We also all know that the sanctions are much easier to adopt than to rescind, as they tend to create, in the meantime, their own logic and dynamics. They develop new balances of power and vested interests, if only among those in authority who have dedicated themselves so thoroughly to the sanctions’ implementation and enforcement. One has only to recall the notorious example of the general embargo imposed by the Allies against Germany during the First World War whose continuation for several months after the 1918 Armistice unnecessarily prolonged the suffering of the German people and deepened the bitterness of their defeat.
Are Iran’s negotiating partners ready to learn the lessons of history? The Gordian knot that the UNSC sanctions represent should be slashed asunder, if not immediately upon the signing of a comprehensive agreement with Iran, then at least after a moderately short period in which Iran’s determination to comply with its terms could be confirmed. Such a gesture could also be linked appropriately to the formal ratification by Iran’s parliament of the Additional Protocol that Tehran had signed during an unsuccessful round of talks back in 2003—the two moves being equally irreversible.
This would not mean that pending requests made to Iran, such as the ancient issue of the “possible military dimensions” (PMD) of its nuclear program, would have to be abandoned. But it would mean that these requests would thenceforward be dealt with exclusively by the IAEA. It would also mean that the Council, in light of the progress achieved after the signing of a final deal, would no longer consider the Iranian situation a “threat to the peace” under the terms of the UN Charter’s Chapter VII, the only chapter that authorizes the use of coercive measures against a Member State in order “to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
]]>Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took heat from his right flank on the issue during a 2009 push for [...]]]>
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took heat from his right flank on the issue during a 2009 push for the deal, reportedly telling Turkish interlocutors (who recounted the point to U.S. diplomats) that “the core of the issue is psychological rather than substance… The Iranians agree to the proposal but need to manage the public perception.”
The website EA Worldview also covered the cable:
Ahmadinejad’s barrier to this mission was not the Americans. Instead he faced “serious domestic problems inside Iran… The Turks actually see Ahmadinejad as ‘more flexible’ than others who are inside the Iranian Government.”
A fuel swap deal in which Iran would ship some of its nuclear material abroad for ready-made fuel for a medical reactor has long been bandied about as a confidence-building measure to de-escalate Iran’s nuclear standoff with the West. In the run-up to the latest round of U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran, a group of foreign policy heavyweights called a Brazilian and Turkish mediated deal a “first step,” but the U.S. rejected the deal in favor of pursuing sanctions.
Whether or not one views Ahmadinejad’s recent assertiveness as a good thing, this cable shows that his consolidation of political power might, contrary to early assessments, actually make a fuel swap agreement easier for the president to broker.
All of this is to say that, while it ain’t exactly the stars aligning, the U.S. should take the opportunity of talks this month — as I’ve argued before – to try to revive the confidence-building measure and de-escalate the tense standoff with Iran.
]]>Laura Rozen at Politico reports:
“We have had nearly two days of detailed substantive talks focusing on the Iranian nuclear program and the need for Iran to comply with its international obligations,” European Union High Representative for Foreign Policy Catherine Ashton said in a statement Tuesday at the conclusion of the talks between diplomats from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and Iran.
“We and Iran agreed to a continuation of these talks in late January in Istanbul, where we plan to discuss practical ideas and ways of cooperating towards a resolution of our core concerns about the nuclear issue,” Ashton concluded, walking out without taking any questions from journalists.
Bob Dreyfuss of the Nation offers a good analysis of the talks so far and what to expect going forward. He also comments on a letter sent to President Obama by five Senators (Casey, Gillibrand, Kirk, Kyle and Lieberman), insisting the United States must not negotiate any agreement that would result in uranium enrichment on Iranian soil. The Iranians are sure to reject such a pre-condition.
Dreyfuss writes:
Although the first two days of talks this week didn’t accomplish much, it’s critically important that the talks are happening, and both Iran and the United States are making positive noises about them. Iran, for its part, after saying all along that it wouldn’t even discuss its nuclear program, did exactly that, and the two sides have agreed to continue talking and to meet again, possibly as soon as January, in Turkey. The choice of Turkey is a particulary good sign, since the Turks had repeatedly offered their good offices as mediators in the dispute, and last spring Brazil and Turkey tried to restart the talks by working out an updated version of the October 2009 deal that later fell apart.
As for what’s next, Dreyfuss reports that “insiders” tell him a fuel swap deal might be in the works as a “confidence-building measure.” The deal could allow Iran to maintain enrichment, with the fuel shipped off to Russia for reprocessing. Perhaps this is what inspired the Senators’ ‘zero enrichment’ letter.
All this comports with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent comments in Bahrain (in the presence of Iran’s foreign minister, no less) that the U.S. recognizes Iran’s “right to a peaceful nuclear program,” and an interview just ahead of those conference remarks where she said, “They can enrich uranium at some future date once they have demonstrated that they can do so in a responsible manner in accordance with international obligations.” (Note that the BBC version of this comment has Clinton using slightly different language.)
Stay tuned…
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