by Robert E. Hunter

What did the guy say? Truth is the first casualty in war. And that other guy? “If you don’t learn from history…” Both bromides apply to what is happening with regard to Ukraine, as US government officials (other than Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, the one calm voice) [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Robert E. Hunter

What did the guy say? Truth is the first casualty in war. And that other guy? “If you don’t learn from history…” Both bromides apply to what is happening with regard to Ukraine, as US government officials (other than Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, the one calm voice) and the commentariat are trotting out Cold War analogies. It’s always difficult in crises, especially with a certified Bad Guy on the other side, to step back, calm down, try to understand “how we got from there to here,” and then figure out an approach that has a chance of being successful, in terms of our interests and the values we hope are shared by others.

To start with, Crimea is Russian (Tatar, actually, but it is too late to do much about that). That is Fact One. (Fact two: Vladimir Putin is, indeed, a thug). It was given as a birthday present to Ukraine in 1954 by Nikita Khrushchev, himself a native-born Ukrainian. This administrative change didn’t mean much until 1991 when the Soviet Union broke up and Ukraine emerged as a sovereign state with this bit of Russia embedded in it. Crimea might have reverted to Russia then, as the Czechs and Slovaks agreed to their “velvet divorce.” But few people thought then in terms of tidying up borders and ethnicities where such an action might just make matters worse and so Ukraine became independent with what territory it previously had under the Soviet Union — on balance, in my view, the correct approach.

One theory in the early 1990s was that redrawing borders in Central and Eastern Europe to align ethnicities to sovereignties was a fool’s errand or worse. Much of the mess of ethnicities and borders was a product of the 1919 Paris peace negotiations, and there was no point in the 1990s of trying to sort out the puzzles that Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, and Georges Clemenceau had been unable to solve. The theory further held that immersing these mixed-up countries collectively in NATO as well as in the EU would eventually lead peoples to value the resulting democracy and prosperity over ago-old ethnic hostilities. Thus Hungary was told it had to give up claims to Transylvania, which was transferred to Romania in 1921 in the Trianon Treaty, or it could forget about joining NATO. It was a no-brainer; even so, Hungary is one Central European country where memories of the “old days” of Empire still linger in many minds.

Hungary is a good analogue to Ukraine, but without the same result, in part because neither Ukraine nor Russia has been offered membership in either NATO or the EU. The former is too mixed up in terms of its population’s composition to be a “clean” fit, and including it fully in the formal Western institutions would be a clear provocation to Russia. For its part, Russia would be too big for NATO and the EU to swallow; it would totally distort those institutions and it isn’t interested anyway.

Historical missteps

One big Western mistake was declaring at the 2008 Bucharest NATO summit that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO.” These words were designed to placate those who wanted to set those two countries on a path of NATO membership without necessarily meaning it — like the often-made, cynical European promises that Turkey will join the EU. The statement was also designed to give something to US President George W. Bush, who was pushing the Ukrainian and Georgian causes, without meaning anything real. But it did. Saying that a country “will become a member of NATO” means that the allied countries making the pledge are — from that moment onward — prepared to extend to the country in question that critical Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which provides that each ally will come to the rescue of any other ally attacked from abroad. Two leaders accurately read this declaration: President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia and President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Believing, incorrectly, that NATO “had his back,” Saakashvili poked at the bear, and the bear struck back. The net loser was Russia because Western trust in Russia’s willingness to be a real Western country plummeted. At that time, I wrote that Putin had chosen to attack Georgia to set an example, because no Western country really cared about it — indeed, no NATO allies that had expressed willingness to include Georgia as a member of the alliance lifted a finger to help it, thus showing that the Bucharest declaration was vacuous. But, I wrote, Russia had better be careful about Ukraine because, since it lies on a direct line between Russia and Western Europe, Russian pressure there would have much graver implications.

When Central European countries were considered for (serious) NATO membership, Ukraine and Russia were places apart. Thus instead of offering membership, NATO negotiated a “Distinctive Partnership” with Ukraine, with a Charter (which I negotiated for NATO) that was far less than membership; and it negotiated a NATO-Russia Founding Act in 1997 and in 2003 that further extended NATO-Russia cooperation, including a NATO-Russia Council at NATO headquarters, with Russia present as an equal with the Western allies. Ukraine would not exactly be in limbo, but it would also not, at least for now, be a serious candidate for any form of membership in Western institutions that could legitimately be seen by Russia as drawing a line between it and the West. A delicate balance was struck, with Ukraine being offered a Western “vocation” and without Russian oversight, but also without damaging possibilities for Western cooperation with Russia.

A further premise of this approach was that the West and Russia would explore ways to work together and support Russia’s efforts to increase prosperity so that, in the fullness of time, Ukraine’s full sovereignty and independence would be acceptable to most, if not all Russians. Maybe this goal was out of reach, we shall never know. Maybe Putin (and his ilk) have all along been interested in recreating the Russian (Soviet) empire to the extent possible, by intimidating some neighbors and chopping into the sovereignty of some others.

But the moment for trying was lost. I argued at the time that Russia should immediately be brought into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), now the World Trade Organization (WTO), in order to hasten its economic engagement in the West and hence its prosperity but that was not done: Russia “had to meet the criteria for membership.” Criteria be damned, this was a political step. Similarly, the US Congress only repealed in 2012 the 1973 Jackson-Vanik Amendment limiting trade with the Soviet Union, which was originally designed to get it to permit Jewish emigration (an issue that died with the dissolution of the Soviet Union) and also designed to try killing US-Soviet détente.

Then there was the US decision to deploy elements of ballistic missile defenses in Central Europe, against today’s North Korean missiles and, in theory, those that Iran might have at some point in the future. Russia balked, arguing that this system would risk blunting its nuclear deterrent. The US has argued long and hard against this and it’s correct. The Russians obviously understand the point, as does any first-year student of nuclear strategy (I have worked on it for a half century). But that is not the issue. The missile defenses in Central Europe are an affront to Russia, demonstrating once again that it lost the Cold War; and, as the Russians argue, if a counter to future Iranian missiles were needed, that time is far in the future. At the same time, various Central Europeans see the missile defenses in the same light as do the Russians: a form of continued containment of Russia. Further, the missile defenses, like some other NATO military activities in new allied states, violate the spirit, if not the letter of precise commitments made to Russia at the time of the NATO-Russia Founding Act (I was present when the key US unilateral declaration on this point was drafted by a US official on a napkin in the NATO restaurant in Brussels).

What comes next

So, without repeating all the news of the last few weeks, “What is to be done?” as Nikolay Chernyshevsky said and Lenin repeated. This depends on the immediate possibilities of Putin’s three courses of action: to shift Crimea back to Russia and challenge anyone to do anything about it; to sit tight with his troops there (as he has done in disputed regions of Georgia); or to accept that he has made his point and agree to some face-saving formula to withdraw his troops, perhaps with UN monitors (so far rejected by Moscow) and perhaps some intensification of Crimea’s semi-autonomy within Ukraine that would benefit the Russians who live there.

The worst thing for the United States to is to draw red lines, especially ones that we cannot and will not honor. President Barack Obama came perilously close to doing so by saying that “there will be costs.” Sanctions have been trotted out (the standard “feel good” response when military action has to be ruled out), and some US hotheads are already talking about beefing up NATO defenses and holding military exercises in Central Europe. Secretary of State John Kerry has said that “all options are on the table,” a phrase from the playbook on Iran. All” options, Mr. Secretary? Yes, there will be ”costs,” in that Western trust in Russia, vital for it to have productive economic relations, has gone down even further, and Russia cannot pursue the autarkic policies of the Soviet Union. But what is most required now is coolness under pressure and serious thinking about the future.

It is long past time to complete the construction of the “Europe whole and free” and at peace that George H.W. Bush called for that — with Ukraine and Russia — has been so long delayed. That is in the realm of diplomacy, and it takes the following shape: to convene a series of efforts to sort out security and economic arrangements that attempt to achieve several principles and objectives. These include:

1) Ukraine is sovereign and will not have its future determined against its will by outsiders but the overwhelming Russian ethnicity of the Crimean people will get more recognition than heretofore;

2) Russia will have a proper and honored place in the security, political, and economic arrangements that are agreed as part of the process proposed here, provided it is prepared to “play by the rules” (“a voice but not a veto,” in NATO parlance);

3) NATO and the EU will be directly involved, beginning with the institutions for working with Ukraine and Russia that already exist;

4) the US and Russia will also deal directly with one another, in line with the broader diplomacy, as the two countries that, in the end, have to reach agreement on the future of European security;

5) ditto in regard to the European Union with Ukraine and Russia (and the two together);

6) in the process, various Russian proposals for European security need finally to be looked at seriously, but with the proviso that the Russian idea of replacing NATO is not on the table; yet some role for the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) can be considered.

Can such a process be properly developed and eventually be made to work? As with any such effort, doubts will be heavy. Putin’s appetite may be too great and he might allow Russia to be isolated; and US leadership and imagination may be lacking. But there is no way to judge since this necessary work has been postponed already for two decades. It has to begin with forbearance, now, by Putin; a calming influence from Washington; with discussions involving the US, Western Europeans (including NATO and the EU), Ukraine, and Russia; and with the recognition by all parties that the alternative is continuing crisis, instability, and human regression for all, with no winners and all losers.

“Leadership,” Mr. Obama?

by Robert E. Hunter

With the collapse of the latest round of negotiations over Syria’s future, the tragedy of its people — of all ethnic and religious backgrounds — continues into its third year. Military forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are doing better than was expected a few months ago.  The [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Robert E. Hunter

With the collapse of the latest round of negotiations over Syria’s future, the tragedy of its people — of all ethnic and religious backgrounds — continues into its third year. Military forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are doing better than was expected a few months ago.  The opposition, a heterogeneous group directing their disparate energies to the common goal of ending Assad’s rule, is increasingly dominated by Islamist extremists. Meanwhile no outside country has been prepared to act to bring the conflict to a halt and take responsibility for what comes next.

The phrase “outside country” is assumed to mean the United States, ignoring the fact that Europe is far closer and, as hundreds of thousands of refugees flee Syria, many will find their way to that continent rather than America. But the European Union is in dis-union over economics, uncertain of its foreign policy future — though it has now succeeded in Ukraine where the US failed — and still expects Washington to look after shared Western interests in the Middle East.

For the US to take the lead and pursue effective diplomacy, it must decide what final outcome to Syrian fighting will best suit American interests and values — begging the question of whether the US or anyone else can determine results. Washington has still not made this decision. If and when it does, it must also convince its friends and allies in the region to follow suit and, in the case of some of them, to stop poisoning the well. As of now, that course is unlikely, as each regional country pursues its own interests, heedless of the best interests of the Syrian people as a whole.

Much of what has been happening in Syria stems from the political, cultural, economic, and — to a degree — religious earthquake that began in Tunisia in December 2010, and spread to Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, sweeping up Syria in the process. But what is happening in Syria has proved to be more complicated and perhaps more consequential than what has been happening in the other “Arab Spring” countries.  Unlike Libya, Syria is not remote from the rest of the region; unlike Bahrain, its struggles are already spilling over onto other countries; and Syria’s turmoil is impacting other US foreign policy concerns, including negotiations with Iran and those between Israel and the Palestinians.

To begin with, the Syrian civil war has become part of the age-old struggle between the descendants of the Prophet — Sunni vs. Shia. The latest round began when the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq toppled a Sunni minority government that had for centuries dominated its Shia majority. For Sunni states, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and to a degree Turkey, Syria is payback time. That means doing all they can, both directly and with whatever support they can muster from the US and Europe, to depose Assad and, with his departure, the political dominance of the minority Alawites (a Shia sect).

Syria has also become a surrogate struggle for preeminence in the region, pitting Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arabs against Iran and perhaps also Turkey. To top it off, rich Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE have been providing inspiration, cash, and thus access to arms to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations to operate in Syria, just as they have been operating in Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, in the last-named country killing Americans and other troops in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The Saudi government has not been directly involved, but it has not stopped the heinous practice, while the US has turned a blind eye.

Further, at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Israel, the US has blocked Iran’s participation in the Geneva talks on Syria, a sine qua non for success that might give Iran some incentive to reduce its own destructive role in Syria as well as Lebanon, a role motivated in part to show that Iran cannot be excluded from planning over the region’s future.

Unfortunately, by proclaiming two years ago that “Assad must go,” President Barack Obama fell into a trap and made himself and the United States handmaidens to Sunni and Saudi-led political objectives.  The premise of diplomacy has thus been “transition” beyond the Assad regime, rather than just searching for an end to the conflict, even if Assad were left in place. But given that he is not likely to negotiate his own demise (figuratively and perhaps also literally); and given that the Alawites have little confidence about their own survival in the chaos that would likely follow Assad’s departure, it is no wonder that diplomacy has led nowhere.

Further, Obama and his team have not been willing to say “we got it wrong” in calling for Assad to step down, rather than viewing that as a possible, if desirable, result down the road. Few leaders have the courage to admit being wrong, and the President would be hammered in the media and on Capitol Hill if he did. Nor has the United States done more than make vague declarations of hope to show the Alawites that they would not risk life and limb if Assad did go — perhaps as the result of a coup d’état by disaffected Alawite military leaders. So, “negotiating the transition” remains the (untenable) premise of diplomacy.

No one has yet done the hard work of fashioning a process whereby all the different sects in Syria would have a reasonable chance of security, equality and fair political representation. “Holding free elections” is a nice slogan; it is not a policy or on its own a serious process for getting from here to there.  And if anyone doubts the difficulty, he or she should take a look next door at Lebanon — to an extent Syria in microcosm — which for decades has tried and failed to find a workable recipe for governance.

This throws outsiders back on second best, which is to try providing humanitarian relief in Syria, as well as relief to the millions of refugees who have fled Syria. It means the US, Europeans, and Russia need finally to devise a diplomacy that has a chance to work for all Syrians, including the Alawites, whatever the outcome for Assad. It also ratchets up the need for the US and other Western states to lean heavily on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arabs to stop using Syria for their own sectarian and geopolitical ends. This includes bringing Iran into the Syria negotiations and then impressing on Tehran that its future in the outside world requires it to limit its regional ambitions.

The Saudi government recently announced that any Saudi citizen fighting in Syria will go to jail when he gets back home. But this is a “day late and a riyal short” and is no doubt linked to Obama’s scheduled visit to Riyadh next month, ostensibly to reassure the Saudis and other friendly regional states that the US will not compromise their interests in diplomacy regarding Syria or with Iran. Between now and then, however, the Saudis should be required to demonstrate their bona fides. The US president must not go to a country that is just throwing gasoline on the fire.

The point should be made in even broader terms: why is the United States rushing to reassure regional countries that it will not sell out their interests either in Syria or with Iran? For decades, the US has moved heaven and earth in an attempt to make the Middle East safe for all our friends and allies, with little or no thanks for doing so and often uncooperative behavior. But with the radical reduction of US dependence on the region’s oil, the balance of advantage has swung radically: friendly local states across the Middle East now depend a lot more on the US than we do on them.

President Obama should use his trip to Saudi Arabia to make that point clearly, while US diplomats fan out to underscore that our patience has run out with rivalries among countries ostensibly on our side, that we will not tolerate efforts to sabotage the talks with Iran, and that if we are expected to help stop the Syrian conflict, we will do so to advance the cause of humanity in Syria and US interests in a region with a chance for peace — not to be a cat’s paw to others’ ambitions.

The US also needs to finally start seeing everything that happens in the Middle East as related to everything else and design policies based on that fact. That involves filling the senior levels of the administration, the State Department, and the National Security Council Staff with people who truly understand the region and can think strategically. If he does this, President Obama can actually start putting the US on the right track to a viable way out of the Syrian tragedy and to fashioning a coherent approach to the Middle East as a whole.

via IPS News

On a purely rational view, it is hard not to be optimistic about the upcoming talks with Iran in Geneva (Nov. 7-8), and about what might follow.

On the Iranian side, the negotiations are now under the direction of a very accomplished diplomat who reports to a President who [...]]]> by Peter Jenkins

via IPS News

On a purely rational view, it is hard not to be optimistic about the upcoming talks with Iran in Geneva (Nov. 7-8), and about what might follow.

On the Iranian side, the negotiations are now under the direction of a very accomplished diplomat who reports to a President who wants to resolve the nuclear dispute once and for all — and the President reports to a Supreme Leader who has authorised a degree of flexibility to secure an agreement. Both President and Leader recognise that Iran has much more to gain by respecting its nuclear non-proliferation obligations than by violating them.

On the Western side, there is a feeling that Iran’s new President has done such a good job of helping Western voters think that he is a decent, moderate and reasonable man, that Western leaders can afford, politically, to be seen to be doing business with him.

The main components of a deal have long been so obvious that negotiators can get down to brass tacks, as people say in the North of England, without much ado.

Iran must allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to locations, documents and individual scientists and technicians that goes beyond what is required according to conventional interpretations of Iran’s NPT safeguards agreement with the IAEA.

Iran must volunteer limitations on its stocks of low enriched uranium and its enrichment capacity to signal that it has no interest in producing, undetected or uninterrupted, enough highly enriched uranium for at least one nuclear weapon.

And Iran must propose ways of reducing, if not eliminating, the theoretical risk that a new reactor under construction at Arak could be used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.

In return the West must reassure Iran that, in wanting the IAEA to shine a light on nuclear weapons research done during the years when Iran had reason to fear Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions, the West is not looking for grounds to impose still more hardship on the Iranian people.

The West must also find a way of protecting from assassination any Iranian researchers whom Iran allows the IAEA to interview. The sad fact is that the IAEA secretariat is so penetrated by certain intelligence services that the risk of at least one unscrupulous state using IAEA data to commission the murder of Iranian researchers cannot be dismissed as fanciful.

The West must also come off the fence and leave Iran in no doubt that at the end of an agreed process it will lift all objection to Iran enjoying the same NPT rights as other NPT parties.

Finally, the West must abandon its niggardly approach to the easing of sanctions in reciprocation for the steps wanted of Iran by the West (above).

For too long Western thinking on sanctions has been flawed by the fallacy that without the pressure of sanctions, Iran will fail to implement whatever voluntary commitments it may offer and will not comply with its non-proliferation obligations. This fallacy stems from an assumption that Iran has no interest in demonstrating that its nuclear intentions are peaceful and in complying with its treaty obligations. In reality, the opposite is true: Iran has a strong interest in signalling that its nuclear program is not a threat to other states, in allaying proliferation concerns expressed by the UN Security Council and in being NPT-compliant. So, Iran does not need to be pressured into honouring its commitments.

The West should also recall that it justified the imposition of the unilateral EU sanctions that have done the greatest damage to the Iranian economy by claiming that these were needed to pressure Iran into engaging, and into doing what the Security Council had demanded. Iran is now engaging; if Iran also offers the desired confidence-building, then logically a commensurate suspension of EU sanctions should follow.

A failure to recognise these two points, and an avaricious hoarding of oil and banking-related sanctions to some undefined point in a distant future, will lead inexorably to the collapse of the talks and to the loss of the best opportunity to end this dispute in a long time.

That is not in the West’s strategic, economic, commercial or humanitarian interests.

So there is much at stake as in Western capitals, in the coming weeks, the battle between reason and politics intensifies. Reason must triumph!

Photo Credit: Fars News/Sina Shiri

via IPS News

Geneva – Iran offered a new proposal in English during talks over its nuclear program here today in a meeting with the P5+1 negotiating team (the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany).

In a closed-door morning session, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif presented [...]]]> by Jasmin Ramsey

via IPS News

Geneva – Iran offered a new proposal in English during talks over its nuclear program here today in a meeting with the P5+1 negotiating team (the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany).

In a closed-door morning session, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif presented a 3-phased offer to the world powers in a PowerPoint presentation titled, “Closing an Unnecessary Crisis and Opening New Horizons,” according to Iranian press reports.

Few details, positive first takes

Iran’s proposal has only been made available to the participating negotiating parties, but both sides concluded the day with positive statements.

“For the first time, very detailed technical discussions continued this afternoon,” said Michael Mann, the Spokesperson for EU High Representative, Catherine Ashton.

A senior State Department official offered the same statement.

Mann later reiterated his positive first take while speaking to reporters but said “there’s still a lot of work to be done,” adding that tomorrow’s session would involve more detail-work.

Iran’s FM, who has been appointed by President Rouhani to lead the Iranian negotiating team, was only present during the morning session. The talks will continue through the 16th at the deputy ministerial level.

Zarif, who is reportedly suffering from intense back pain, did manage to have a bilateral meeting with Ashton following the afternoon plenary.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later met bilaterally with lead US representative Wendy Sherman, the State Department’s Under Secretary for Political Affairs.

A senior State Department official said the discussion was “useful, and we look forward to continuing our discussions in tomorrow’s meetings with the full P5+1 and Iran.”

Sense of Iran’s new proposal

“We have explained our negotiation goals,” said Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Persian to a swarming crowd of reporters before the afternoon session began.

“We want to guarantee Iran’s right to nuclear technology and assure the other side of the table that our nuclear program is peaceful,” said the Deputy FM, who will be Iran’s lead representative to the P5+1 during the remainder of the Geneva talks.

“The first step includes rebuilding mutual trust and addressing the concerns of both sides,” he said, adding that the “verification tools” of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could be utilized during the process.

The final step includes using Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s Fatwa (a religious ruling) against Iran building nuclear weapons as “the most important point,” stated Araghchi.

“Iran will use its own nuclear facilities including its nuclear research reactor for peaceful purposes,” he noted, adding that the last phase of Iran’s offer includes “the lifting of all sanctions against Iran.” 

Hope in Iran, roadblocks in the US

Inside Iran, people were hopeful for a resolution to the international conflict over Tehran’s nuclear program, which has resulted in rounds of unilateral and multilateral sanctions against the country.

Iran’s economy has suffered from a major reduction in its vital oil exports. Almost exactly one year ago, Iran’s currency, the rial, also dropped to more than half its dollar value.

Maliheh Ghasem Nezhad, a 65-year-old retired teacher, told IPS she had voted for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in June and was “very hopeful that this new team can finish this issue soon.”

“We want a conclusion that is good for us and our economy,” she said.

“No one in Iran wants nuclear bombs but we have the right to safe energy. We just want less stress in our daily lives,” Nezhad told IPS.

After years of increasing isolation and economic pressure from the US and other world powers that intensified significantly during the final term of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, much of Iran seems at least open to a deal with the West.

Supreme leader Ali Khamenei raised more than a few eyebrows around the world when he said he wasn’t “opposed to correct diplomatic moves” during a Sept. 17 speech to commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to Iranian press reports.

“I believe in what was described years ago as heroic flexibility,” he said.

But some Iranians remain skeptical about the possibility of a deal.

“I do not think they can get to an agreement because from many sides there are a lot of pressures,” Bahman Taebi, a bank employee who’s 39 years old, told IPS.

“There are countries in our region that do not want Iran and the West to get close, so they try to do everything they can to impede an agreement,” he said, adding that he believed “Mr. Zarif and his team were very capable for the talks and much better than the previous teams.”

Still, the Iranian delegation’s trip to the United Nations General Assembly, which resulted in a historic phone call between Presidents Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani and a private meeting between Zarif and his US counterpart John Kerry — the highest-level official meet between the two countries since Iran’s 1979 revolution — have left Iranians wanting more.

“All I want Dr. Zarif and his team do in Geneva is to continue with the same approach they had in New York,” Reza Sabeti, a 47-year-old private company employee told IPS.

“From what saw in New York, I guess this will be another diplomatic victory for the Rouhani government and also for the US because both sides need an agreement,” he said.

But Iran’s insistence that its right to home-soil enrichment must be recognized as part of any deal remains a problem for the US Congress.

In an Oct. 11 bipartisan letter sent to Obama, 10 senators said “Iran does have a right to a peaceful nuclear energy program; it does not have a right to enrichment.”

The senators, including traditional hawks Sen. Robert Menendez, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Charles E. Schumer, as well as more moderate Democrats, said they “prepared to move forward with new sanctions to increase pressure on the government in Tehran.”

“The administration has to do much more hard lobbying to prevent Congress from enacting measures that could spoil the chance for a sound agreement with Iran,” Paul Pillar, a former top CIA analyst, told IPS.

“The presence of names of otherwise reasonable members of Congress on such letters is evidence of the political power of those endeavoring to subvert the negotiation of any agreement with Iran,” he said.

Photo: Talks between Iran and the world powers including EU Foreign Policy Chief, Catherine Ashton and Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif in Switzerland, Genevam on Oct. 15. Credit: European External Action Service/Flickr

by Shawn Amoei

Foreign Affairs

by Jasmin Ramsey

by Jasmin Ramsey

The US and Iran made history today here in New York City. While many prominent American members of the press, academic, business and think tank worlds were listening intently to President Hassan Rouhani give a speech at a Asia Society/ via LobeLog

by Jasmin Ramsey

by Jasmin Ramsey

The US and Iran made history today here in New York City. While many prominent American members of the press, academic, business and think tank worlds were listening intently to President Hassan Rouhani give a speech at a Asia Society/CFR-hosted event at the Hilton Hotel (where Jim and I were in attendance) and answer questions on some controversial issues later on (including one from yours truly), Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was talking to Secretary of State John Kerry at the UN in the highest-level organized meet between the two countries since the first year of Iran’s 1979 revolution.

Many were wondering what President Obama’s surprising announcement during his UN General Assembly speech about Kerry being directly involved in nuclear talks with Iran and the 6-world power P5+1 would boil down to. As of today it’s resulted in a handshake, a 30-minute meeting, positive reactions from both sides and suggestions of much more to come — hardly a bad start.

Laura Rozen and others have already reported on some of the details, including, for example, the fact that Kerry suggested to Zarif that they chat alone, which Zarif agreed to do. “We had a constructive meeting, and I think all of us were pleased that Foreign Minister Zarif came and made a presentation to us, which was very different in tone and very different in the vision that he held out with respect to possibilities of the future,” said Kerry in his post-meeting remarks. “Now it’s up to people to do the hard work of trying to fill out what those possibilities could do,” he said.

Rouhani seemed happy to see a smiling Zarif enter the Ballroom where around 200 people were seated shortly before the president finished answering a collection of the 40 or so questions that were posed to him. I’m sure the audience was also pleased after Asia Society president and moderator Josette Sheeran convinced Zarif to provide a briefer of the historic ministerial meeting that was hosted by EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton.

Zarif said that during the “very good and substantive meeting” it was agreed that Iran and its negotiating partners would “jumpstart the process” in moving forward by agreeing first to the “parameters of the endgame”; where Iran’s nuclear program will be in a year; deciding on steps that need to be taken to address each side’s concerns; and work towards finalizing them (he may have been referring to the entire negotiation process here) “within a year’s time” — a pleasant surprise for Zarif, who was apparently worried that the quickened timeline that Iran’s new government wants to operate on would have received a different response.

Zarif described his short bilateral meeting alone with Kerry (Rozen tweets that US P5+1 representative Wendy Sherman chatted with Iranian diplomats in the hall during this time) as “more than a chat”, by the way, which contrasts with the “moment” description used by Kerry. We don’t know yet exactly what they discussed during this time, but Zarif did seem very positive about Kerry’s “readiness” to work together, adding that “we now have to match words with actions”, which he hopes will be an “opportunity” rather than a “challenge.”

While the Kerry-Zarif meeting was tonight’s show-stopper, I was impressed by the question/answer period with Rouhani as well. All invitees were given an opportunity to write their questions down on paper upon entering the venue and as far as I can recall, everything that was put forward by Sheeran (the Iranians apparently had no say in what could and couldn’t be asked) focused on Iran’s most controversial issues, including Iran’s political prisoners, women’s rights and the Holocaust (see Mitchell’s post on this topic yesterday).

From what I could see, Rouhani was listening to everything in English and answering in Persian (all attendees had access to headphones broadcasting the audio in English and Persian). The entire 1.5 hour event posted above is worth watching, and I may write about it more before Monday (I have to trek back to DC tomorrow!) but I’m going to focus on my question now, since I’m feeling grateful that it was put forward along with my name. I asked Rouhani how he plans on navigating through domestic opposition to any kind of rapprochement between the US and Iran (at around 54:33), to which he responded:

Well, the government, after all, has actually witnessed a new era, a new environment that has been created by the people, I would say. So given that it’s created by the people, has brought about new conditions inside the country, and just as we are active in social, political and cultural fields, we — and the more we do in those fields, the more we will realize that this way of thought that is beginning to shape based on moderation will get stronger, and this can advance further, as time advances, and those who oppose it will normally just weaken in the process. But this is a long path, having said that, and we are just taking the initial steps here.

I can guess why his answer was not as in-depth as I hoped it would be. You probably can too.

by Wayne White

With the Assad regime already on the rebound, violence has spiked between rebel Islamic militants and more moderate opposition combatants within Syria. Although tensions between such groups have existed for some time, changes in the Islamist lineup in Syria and perhaps impending Western arms shipments exclusively to [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Wayne White

With the Assad regime already on the rebound, violence has spiked between rebel Islamic militants and more moderate opposition combatants within Syria. Although tensions between such groups have existed for some time, changes in the Islamist lineup in Syria and perhaps impending Western arms shipments exclusively to moderate rebel groups have intensified rivalries.  Hezbollah’s entry into the conflict, notable regime gains against the rebels overall, and now the possibility of a rebel-on-rebel conflict within a conflict could reduce considerably the likelihood that the rebels — any rebels — would succeed in taking down Assad and Co. in the near-term.

In just three months the character of the struggle in Syria has taken a dramatic turn in favor of the regime. Rebel forces, reportedly short of munitions of late, have been driven from some key positions near Damascus, along the Lebanese-Syrian frontier, and in central Syria in and around Homs. Since Islamic extremist rebels have been in the forefront of the fighting, shortages of munitions might well have resulted from initial European-US efforts to re-focus collective arms resupply more tightly to embrace only more moderate rebels. Meanwhile, the recent intervention of thousands of fanatical Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon replenished and reinvigorated the regime’s own depleted infantry capabilities.

Rising violence between militant Islamist rebels and cadres of the more moderate “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) appears to have broken out following the assassination of FSA Supreme Military Council member Kamal Hamami by jihadists in Syria’s northern port city of Latakia on July 12 (where Hamami had previously organized one of the first successful FSA combat units). There are different accounts of how Hamami died, but it happened within territory controlled by the relatively new al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which has been pushing aside the previously powerful jihadist al-Nusra Front. Hamami may have gone there for a meeting, and was killed by the ISIL. Furthermore, the ISIL is not at all apologetic — quite the contrary.

Clashes had increased even before the killing of Hamami across rebel-held territory in northern Syria. The ISIL appears more fanatical than even al-Nusra. It has produced footage of its executions of captured leaders of rival rebel groups allegedly guilty of corruption.  And there have been other recent examples of internecine violence. In early July, near the Syrian-Turkish border, heavy fighting broke out between a local moderate group and a rival Islamist cell that resulted in dozens of casualties and the beheading of the Islamist leaders involved.

ISIL, with the approval of al-Qaeda’s leadership, has, unlike al-Nusra (and as its name suggests), expanded its Islamist vision to include practically all the lands of the traditional “Fertile Crescent.” It also appears better organized than al-Nusra and has successfully expanded its influence across quite a lot of rebel-held northern Syria. This ambitious power play inevitably pitted the ISIL against many elements of the FSA, such as the Tawhid Brigade, affiliated with the FSA since last November and fighting in areas in and around the large northern Syrian city of Aleppo. An FSA commander claims that apparently prior to the Hamami killing, ISIL personnel had warned FSA-affiliated groups that the ISIL planned a complete take-over of rebel-held areas of Syria’s sprawling coastal province of Latakia.

Even worse, one ISIL source reportedly has claimed that the entire FSA is now regarded as heretical and an enemy of this burgeoning new extremist grouping. FSA sources indicate they will retaliate harshly.

I warned last month that US and Western plans to provide arms to “vetted” moderate rebel groups would have to be implemented quickly to forestall regime efforts to gain increased military advantage before they arrive. I also noted how regime gains over the past two months already have made moving arms among vetted groups inside Syria more difficult. Yet, no substantial arms shipments seem to have arrived a month later, and politicians in both Washington and London have been attempting to block them.

Meanwhile, the adverse impact inside Syria of the presumption such arms will be delivered has worsened.  Regime forces have made new gains, further disrupting rebel lines of communication. And expanding violence between rebels tagged for arms deliveries and their extremist rivals means that in the opposition’s patchwork of control, groups like the ISIL probably would block (or seize) any arms deliveries attempting to cross territories they control. Moreover, some stronger extremist groups probably would be in a position to seize hefty quantities of such arms from vetted groups. Finally, talk of arms deliveries also may have inflamed moderate-extremist tensions since Islamic militants resent the one-sided nature of the impending aid and, in part, may be seeking to weaken moderate groups to reduce their ability to gain advantage from more and better arms.

Another rebel weakness overall is declining popular support. Over the past 18 months, local populations under rebel control in the north (from which we receive the most reliable reporting) have become more alienated by moderate rebel domination, which often has been dysfunctional and corrupt. Increasingly, Islamist rule became a preference, as it was accompanied by far less corruption, civil courts, and even some social services. With the rise of ISIL, however, much of that appeal has dissipated as well, with its more rigorous imposition of strict Sharia rule sullied by executions of inhabitants for alleged collaboration with the Assad regime or moral offenses.

Clearly, the collective opposition cause in Syria is in crisis. The most formidable rebel forces remain Islamic extremist, but they and their rivals are wasting combat power in self-destructive in-fighting. Moreover, the Jihadists’ rising militancy, broader ambitions and aggressiveness against rival rebel groups have not only potentially eroded their own ability to obtain foreign arms, but hurt efforts to secure arms for other rebels as well.

All this is splendid news for the Assad regime (and its allies) because earlier this year the government probably hoped only to keep hanging on. Now, however, it has been able to set its sights higher on the possibility of regaining control over still more lost territory. Yet, Syria continues to bleed with about 100,000 dead, vast numbers made homeless, much of the country already in ruins and real doubts as to whether central authority of any sort can be re-established over all of Syria in the foreseeable future.

via Sanctions Law

For over a year now, those in the sanctions policy and legal worlds have been discussing the difficulties that food and medicine exports have had in reaching Iran. A large part of this discussion has focused on US sanctions targeting Iran’s financial sector and how [...]]]> by Erich Ferrari

via Sanctions Law

For over a year now, those in the sanctions policy and legal worlds have been discussing the difficulties that food and medicine exports have had in reaching Iran. A large part of this discussion has focused on US sanctions targeting Iran’s financial sector and how that has impacted the ability of exporters to receive payments for the sale of US origin food and medicine. These discussions have not been in vain, as there are many significant problems arising from US sanctions that are directly contributing to the problem. However, one area is often overlooked in this discussion: EU sanctions have also been complicit in causing financial institutions to shy away from dealing with Iran, thereby furthering the inability of exporters to receive payments for their shipments. This is particularly relevant because US sanctions require all payments for authorized activity between Iran and the US to go through third-country banks, and for many years those transactions were facilitated by European banks. Also, there were numerous EU companies that were reexporting US origin food, medicine, and medical devices to Iran and were receiving payments in their European bank accounts for those exports. Those companies now face difficulty in doing so.

In addition to the fear of massive penalties from the US or possibly sanctions, the unwillingness of some EU banks to deal with Iran stems from three EU Council Regulations, EU Council Regulation 961/2010 (25 October 2010),EU Council Regulation 267/2012 (23 March 2012), and EU Council Regulation 1263/2012 (21 December 2012). These regulations require EU banks to consider the product or services and parties involved in a transaction with Iran, as well as whether authorization is required for the transaction and who is obliged to provide for such notice or authorization. Furthermore, unlike in the US, in many cases the EU banks themselves are responsible for obtaining the appropriate license for facilitating the payment and/or providing notice of their facilitation of the payment. This creates a greater burden on the EU banks when dealing with such payments than those placed on their US counterparts.

This burden becomes particularly apparent when comparing what the notice/authorization requirements of the two jurisdictions are. In the US, any amount of food and most types of medicine can be exported to Iran undergeneral license authorization, meaning that there is no need to obtain a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) or to provide notice to the US government. However, in the EU, the facilitation of transactions related to food and medicine exports does have requirements. Here are how those EU notice/authorization requirements break down:

1) Any transaction under 10,000 € does not need to be reported.
2) Any transaction under 100,000 € requires notice to be provided.
3) Any transaction over 100,000 € requires authorization to be provided.

So while in part EU banks are concerned about facilitating payments with Iran due to fears rooted in the US government’s issuance of massive penalties and settlements against a number of European banks over the past several years, they also have a number of regulatory hoops to jump through when facilitating these payments. It is true that the beneficiary could apply for the license without the EU bank knowing. However, irrespective of the compliance obligations being met, it is believed that many EU banks would refuse the transaction if they knew of its nature and that the beneficiary had acted in such a way.

It would be unimaginable to go into Bank of America and ask them to procure a license from OFAC so that a US exporter client of theirs could engage in trade with Iran and receive payment for such trade. As it stands now, most US banks don’t desire processing a transaction authorized by OFAC even when the account holder has obtained the license themselves, much less when the bank would have to take on the added work of drafting, submitting and waiting on an OFAC license application. And yet, that is exactly what the EU banks are tasked with doing.

So this is all the EU’s fault then, right? Not at all. US sanctions have contributed to the problem in a variety of ways from massive penalties to the wielding of secondary sanctioning authorities.

It should be understood that non-US sanctions, and the way they are crafted, have also contributed to the failure of food and medicine exports in reaching Iran. Since the US has taken the lead on the implementation of sanctions targeting Iran, it should also take the lead on how to address the unintended consequences of those sanctions and their implementation.

Special thanks to Nigel Kushner from W Legal for his insight that contributed to the drafting of this post.

The author of this blog is Erich Ferrari, an attorney specializing in OFAC matters. If you have any questions please contact him at 202-280-6370 or ferrari@ferrariassociatespc.com.

by Wayne White

Mali finally signed a ceasefire with Tuareg separatists negotiated by the UN and the EU, potentially opening the way for the return of a central government presence to the key Saharan provincial capital of Kidal. Mali also recently secured a major Western aid package. Yet, tensions between the government [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Wayne White

Mali finally signed a ceasefire with Tuareg separatists negotiated by the UN and the EU, potentially opening the way for the return of a central government presence to the key Saharan provincial capital of Kidal. Mali also recently secured a major Western aid package. Yet, tensions between the government along with its southern Malian base and the northern Tuaregs remain high. Meanwhile, with foreign troops inside Mali, Islamic extremist groups with ties to al-Qaeda have shifted their base of operations to southern Libya, have become more difficult to track, and lately have been raiding Mali’s vulnerable eastern neighbor, Niger.

Late last year, militants of the MUJWA (Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa) capitalized on a Tuareg separatist rebellion in northern Mali to thrust south in an attempt to seize the entire country, advancing nearly to the Malian capital of Bamako. French forces intervened, along with some allied African forces, especially from Chad, to drive them mostly out of Mali, killing hundreds of extremist fighters. That left the Malian Tuareg in peril in their surviving enclave in the north centered on Kidal. The ceasefire with the Tuareg NMLA (National Movement for the Liberation of the Awazad — the Berber Tuareg name for the hazy Saharan region spanning northern Mali, northwestern Niger and southern Algeria) was needed to recover the rest of Mali before the national elections scheduled for July 28.

The humbled NMLA had little choice in the matter. Malian forces had been advancing on Kidal, threatening to attack if no agreement was reached (in which the NMLA agreed to disarm). Deep tensions persist because southern Mali’s African populations remain angry and resentful toward the NMLA for accepting jihadist aid that nearly led to the collapse of the country, and the Tuareg remain fearful of renewed southern repression. An Amnesty International report released last Friday accused the MNLA of abuses (holding southern prisoners, as well as robbing, beating and executing them), but also described Malian security forces’ overall human rights record as “appalling,” which is the reason why French and Chadian forces in Mali have only reluctantly turned militant prisoners over to Malian authorities. They fear more Malian government executions and torture, seen in various areas across the south.

So although a ceasefire has now been worked out with the MNLA, carrying with it the possibility of greater autonomy for the Tuareg north, restoring any real trust will take time. Nonetheless, relations between Tuareg and southerners in Mali must be repaired to the extent that both sides can settle into some sort of working relationship.  This means, most importantly, no further Tuareg-Malian government violence or jihadist penetration into the Tuareg north because one inevitably leads to the other.

In dealing with the threat posed by the MUJWA and other jihadist groups — all with links to al-Qaeda — Mali cannot be viewed in isolation. The largely Saharan Sahel region from Mauritania in the west to Chad in the east is much like Mali in terms of north-south tensions between southern capitals and populations tied closely to sub-Saharan Africa on the one hand and less settled Tuareg populations in the north with links to North Africa. So with southwestern Libya having precious little functioning central or even localized tribal militia governance, this trackless void now hosts most all the al-Qaeda linked extremist elements once thriving inside Mali. They now harbor ambitions to consolidate while continuing to lash out at western and unfriendly African targets.

First the notorious Mokhtar Belmokhtar unleashed his al-Qaeda linked break-away Islamist Masked Brigade in retaliation for French victories over jihadist forces in Mali against the Amenas natural gas facility in southeastern Algeria. It was seized along with hundreds of hostages in late January, triggering a major crisis. Then, probably responding to false reports of his death in April, he claimed partial responsibility for simultaneous May 23 MUJWA attacks against an army barracks in Niger’s northern provincial capital of Agadez and the French-owned Somair uranium mines at Arlit, deeper in the desert northeast of Agadez, killing 25. French forces had to intervene to wipe out the last of the Agadez barracks attackers. Also in May, apparently because Chad played the leading African role in Mali against the jihadists, a probable MUJWA attack on Chad’s consulate in the southern Libyan city of Sabha left one dead.

Belmokhtar and other extremist leaders have learned some survival skills from their defeat in Mali. French and Western forces using aerial surveillance to locate militant convoys for targeting have now observed that jihadis no longer travel in large convoys, but rather in single or only several vehicles difficult to distinguish from private and commercial vehicles (that frequently have to travel “off-road” because of the paucity of infrastructure). Also, MUJWA and other extremist groups have recruited large numbers of disaffected sub-Saharan Africans who can infiltrate countries like Niger better than their Algerian, Tuareg and other northern cadres. Despite French, US and British reconnaissance aircraft and drones participating in widespread monitoring of this huge region, a US official recently admitted: “At any given time, they could be anywhere.”

Another problem has been weak regional cooperation. Niger and more distant Chad are doing just about everything they can to help. But Algeria, from which much of this Islamic extremism originally emanated in the late 1990’s as Algerian rebel militants retreated farther into the desert, resents French involvement in the region. Algiers gave only minimal assistance to the campaign in Mali. And Mauritania flanking Mali to the West downgraded ties with Mali in 2010 over the Malian release of a Mauritanian al-Qaeda detainee in a hostage situation. Such local drawbacks caused French President Francois Hollande to concede in late May that, albeit reluctantly, French forces may have to be used elsewhere in the Sahel well beyond Mali.

Mali remains a work in progress with a dicey national election fast approaching to hopefully advance its transition back to a more democratic system lost in a 2012 coup. And clearly a lot remains to be done to achieve a final compromise with the MNLA in the north to suppress further bloodshed. These needs prompted last month’s generous $4.3 million Western aid package to help get Mali back on its feet.  Meanwhile, still formidable extremist leaders and combatants regrouping in lawless southwestern Libya promise more regional violence and will remain a daunting challenge to counter-terrorism and anti-insurgency efforts elsewhere in this vast, arid, impoverished region.

Readers who recall that four years ago a new US President seemed eager to defuse the West’s quarrel with Iran over its nuclear activities may wonder why we are all still waiting for white smoke. I am not sure I know the answer, but I have a hunch it has something to [...]]]> by Peter Jenkins

Readers who recall that four years ago a new US President seemed eager to defuse the West’s quarrel with Iran over its nuclear activities may wonder why we are all still waiting for white smoke. I am not sure I know the answer, but I have a hunch it has something to do with a lack of realism on one side and a profound mistrust on the other.

The lack of realism is a Western failing. The US and the two European states, France and the UK, that still have the most influence on the EU’s Iran policy, ten years after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) first reported certain Iranian failures (long since corrected) to comply with nuclear safeguards obligations, are still reluctant to concede Iran’s right to possess a capacity to enrich uranium.

These Western powers know that the treaty which governs the use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), does not prohibit the acquisition of uranium enrichment technology by the treaty’s Non-Nuclear-Weapon States (NNWS).

They know that several NNWS (Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa) already possess this technology.

They know that the framers of the treaty envisaged that the monitoring of enrichment plants by IAEA inspectors would provide the UN Security Council with timely notice of any move by an NNWS to divert enriched uranium to the production of nuclear weapons.

Nonetheless, they cannot bring themselves to tell Iran they accept that Iran, as a NNWS party to the NPT, is entitled to enrich uranium, provided it does so for peaceful purposes, under IAEA supervision, and does not seek to divert any of the material produced.

One of the reasons for this goes back a long way. When India, a non-party to the NPT, detonated a nuclear device in 1974, US officials decided that it had been a mistake to produce a treaty, the NPT, which did not prohibit the acquisition of two dual-use technologies (so-called because they can be used either for peaceful or for military purposes) by NNWS.

The existence of a non-sequitur in their reasoning, since India was not a party to the NPT, seems not to have occurred to them. They set about persuading other states that were capable of supplying these technologies (uranium enrichment and the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel) to withhold them from NNWS.

This could be defended, of course, on prudential grounds. However, it caused resentment among the NNWS who felt that their side of the NPT bargain was being eroded surreptitiously; ultimately, like all forms of prohibition, it was short-sighted, because it encouraged the development of a black market and enhanced the risk of clandestine programmes, unsupervised by the IAEA.

Denying Iran the right to enrich uranium, and trying to deprive Iran of technology that it had developed indigenously, (albeit with help from the black market), seemed more than prudential in 2003. It seemed a necessity, because at the time there were good reasons to think that Iran had a nuclear weapons programme.

Nevertheless, by 2008, the US intelligence community had concluded that Iran abandoned that programme in late 2003 and would only resume it if the benefits of doing so outweighed the costs.

Despite that and subsequent similar findings, this prohibitionist mind-set is still prevalent in Washington, Paris and London. It is one explanation for a lack of progress since President Obama first stretched out the hand of friendship four years ago.

Another explanation is Israel. Israel shares with North Korea, Pakistan and India the distinction of being one of only four states that do not adhere to the NPT. It nonetheless enjoys considerable influence over US, French and British nuclear non-proliferation policies. Israeli ministers are deeply opposed to Iran possessing a uranium enrichment capability.

They may or may not believe what they frequently claim: that Iran will use its enrichment plants to produce fissile material and will use that fissile material to attack Israel with nuclear weapons, directly or through Hezbollah. In reality, few outside Israel believe this, and many inside are sceptical. However, they do not want Israel’s room for military manoeuvre to be reduced by the existence of a south-west Asian state that could choose to withdraw from the NPT and seek to deter certain Israeli actions by threatening a nuclear response.

A third explanation is Saudi Arabia. Leading Saudis are as opposed as Israeli ministers to Iran retaining an enrichment capability. They are less inclined than Israelis to talk of this capability as posing an “existential” threat; but they share the Israeli fear that it will erode their options in the region. They also fear that it will enhance the regional prestige of their main political rival, an intolerable prospect – all the more so now that Iran and Saudi-Arabia are engaged in a proxy war in Syria that seems increasingly likely to re-ignite sectarian conflict in Iraq.

Finally, there remains strong hostility to Iran in some US quarters, notably Congress. This makes it difficult for any US administration to adopt a realistic policy of accepting Iran’s right to enrich uranium, relying on IAEA safeguards for timely detection of any Iranian violation of its NPT obligations, and minimising through intelligent diplomacy the risk of Iran’s leaders deciding to abuse their enrichment capability.

On the Iranian side, the lack of trust in the US’ good faith has become increasingly apparent. It is in fact a hall-mark of Iran’s supreme decision-taker, Ayatollah Khamenei. One hears of it from Iranian diplomats. The Ayatollah himself barely conceals it in some of his public statements.

As recently as March 20, marking the Persian New Year, he said: “I am not optimistic about talks [with the US]. Why? Because our past experiences show that talks for the American officials do not mean for us to sit down and reach a logical solution [...] What they mean by talks is that we sit down and talk until Iran accepts their viewpoint.”

This distrust has militated against progress in nuclear talks by making Iran’s negotiators ultra-cautious. They have been looking for signs of a change in US attitudes – a readiness to engage sincerely in a genuine give-and-take – and have held back when, to their minds, those signs have not been apparent.

Instead of volunteering measures that might lead the West to have more confidence in the findings of Western intelligence agencies (that Iran is not currently intent on acquiring nuclear weapons), the Iranian side has camped on demanding that its rights be recognised and nuclear-related sanctions lifted.

Unfortunately, this distrust has been fuelled by the Western tactic of relying on sanctions to coerce Iran into negotiating. Ironically, sanctions have had the opposite effect. They have sowed doubts in Ayatollah Khamenei’s mind about the West’s real intentions, and they have augmented his reluctance to take any risks to achieve a deal.

Compounding that counter-productive effect, Western negotiators have been reluctant to offer any serious sanctions relief in return for the concessions they have asked of Iran, whenever talks have taken place. One Iranian diplomat put it this way: “They ask for the moon, and offer peanuts.”

Here part of the problem is a continuing Western hope, despite all experience to date, that unbearable pressure will induce Iran to cut a deal on the West’s unrealistic (and unbalanced) terms.

Another part is ministerial pride in having persuaded the UN Security Council, the EU Council of Ministers, and several Asian states to accept a sanctions regime that is causing hardship among ordinary Iranians (but from which Iran’s elites are benefitting because of their privileged access to foreign exchange and their control of smuggling networks). It sometimes seems as though causing hardship has ceased to be a means to an end; it has become an achievement to be paraded, a mark of ministerial success.

Many of the factors listed in the preceding paragraphs have been visible during the latest round of talks between the US and EU (plus Russia and China), which took place in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on April 5 and 6, 2013.

According to a draft of the proposal to be presented to Iran which Scott Peterson described in The Christian Science Monitor on April 4, the US and EU demanded:

• the suspension of all enrichment above the level needed to produce fuel for power reactors [5% or less];
• the conversion of Iran’s stock of 20% U235 into fuel for research reactors, or its export, or its dilution;
• the transformation of the well-protected Fordow enrichment plant to a state of reduced readiness [for operations] without dismantlement;
• the acceptance of enhanced monitoring of Iranian facilities by the IAEA, including the installation of cameras at Fordow to provide continuous real-time surveillance of the plant.

In exchange, the US and EU offered to suspend sanctions on gold and precious metals, and the export of petrochemicals, once the IAEA confirmed implementation of all the above measures. They also offered civilian nuclear cooperation, and IAEA technical help with the acquisition of a modern research reactor, safety measures and the supply of isotopes for nuclear medicine. In addition, the US would approve the export of parts for the safety-related repair of Iran’s aging fleet of US-made commercial aircraft.

Finally, the proposal stressed that additional confidence-building steps taken by Iran would yield corresponding steps from the P5+1, including proportionate
relief of oil sanctions.

The initial Iranian response on April 5 seems to have been less than wholeheartedly enthusiastic. On the first day of the talks they irritated the US and EU negotiators by failing to react directly to the US/EU proposals. Instead they reiterated their demand for the recognition of Iran’s rights and the lifting of sanctions as preconditions for any short-term confidence building curbs on their 20% enrichment activities.

On the second day, however, according to Laura Rozen, writing for Al Monitor on April 6, and quoting Western participants in the talks, Iran “pivoted to arguing for a better deal.” The Iranian team started to make clear what they would require in return for curbing Iran’s 20% activities, notably the lifting of “all unilateral sanctions.” These mainly comprise the oil and financial sanctions imposed in 2012.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” a US diplomat said. “There was intensive dialogue on key issues at the core of [the proposed confidence building measures].”

Will that pivot be a turning-point? The latest proposal clearly falls far short of what Iran seeks by way of clarity that ultimately the US and EU can accept Iran retaining a dual-use enrichment capability, and by way of relief from oil and financial sanctions. There has been no sign that the US and EU can bring themselves to offer significant movement on either of these points.

Yet, a scintilla of hope can be drawn from the fact that on April 6 there may have been the beginnings of a haggle. If both sides can resume their talks in that haggling mode, progress may finally be achievable. Haggling is central to any good negotiation. Until now it has been sorely lacking in dealings with Iran under President Obama.

This article was originally published by the Fair Observer on April 10th, 2013.