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 [...]]]>
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
]]>Lindsey Graham and John McCain, the two-thirds of the Three Amigos who are still in the U.S. Senate since the departure of Joe Lieberman, contributed to the opinion pages of the Washington Post this weekend a short reprise of their familiar positions on front-burner Middle Eastern [...]]]>
Lindsey Graham and John McCain, the two-thirds of the Three Amigos who are still in the U.S. Senate since the departure of Joe Lieberman, contributed to the opinion pages of the Washington Post this weekend a short reprise of their familiar positions on front-burner Middle Eastern issues: act forcefully to defeat the Assad regime in Syria, be obdurate toward Iran, etc. Nothing new here, but it might be worth reflecting for a moment on one of their accusations: that the administration’s “failure in Syria” is part of broader “collapse of U.S. credibility in the Middle East.” Graham and McCain’s particular usage of the term credibility exemplifies something broader, too: a habit of associating the concept only with forceful actions, especially military actions, rather than with any other policy course.
This restrictive concept of upholding a nation’s credibility does not flow from any dictionary definition of credibility (“the quality or power of inspiring belief”). Whether any given action or piece of inaction tends to inspire belief depends of course on context and on what else the state in question has said or done on the same subject. There is no reason to postulate an asymmetry in favor of forceful action or any other kind of action.
There are valid grounds for criticizing the Obama administration’s policies on Syria, especially the overemphasis on the issue of chemical weapons with insufficient advance thinking about what to do if a significant chemical incident were to occur. But the administration’s subsequent seizing on the Russian initiative after the chemical incident in August was in a real sense a making good on its own word about viewing chemical weapons as the most important dimension of the Syrian conflict. That is an unjustifiably narrow way of viewing the conflict, but at least the administration was being consistent, and consistency is an important ingredient of credibility.
The Two Amigos write that the president “specifically committed” to them in the Oval Office “to degrade the Assad regime’s military capabilities, upgrade the capabilities of the moderate opposition and shift the momentum on the battlefield.” Those of us who have not been flies on the Oval Office wall cannot referee that one. But publicly the president has not made the sort of commitment that would warrant the Amigos’ accusation that he “abandoned” the Syrian opposition.
Another erroneous application of the concept of credibility is the senators’ equating loss of credibility with how “Israel and our Gulf Arab partners are losing all confidence” in the administration’s diplomacy, with references to recent indications of the Saudi regime’s displeasure. Displeasing other states, when there has been no failure to live up to a treaty commitment and when the other states—as is true of both Israel and Saudi Arabia—have major differences of interest with the United States as well as some shared interests, has nothing to do with a failure of credibility. Consistent pursuit of the United States’s own interests is much more of a foundation for maintaining credibility.
Graham and McCain do inadvertently give us an example in their piece of how U.S. credibility can be hurt. In referring to the Iranian nuclear issue they say, “We should be prepared to suspend the implementation of new sanctions, but only if Iran suspends its enrichment activities.” This formulation comes out of a letter that eight other senators also signed and that tries to portray this package as a balanced “suspension for suspension” deal. This is a ludicrous play on words. There is nothing reasonable or proportionate about linking a demand for one side to stop completely an ongoing program in return for the other side not piling on still more new sanctions, which doesn’t really entail a suspension of anything. The wordplay is unbelievable. If we want the Iranians or anyone else to believe that the United States is serious about reaching an agreement, this sort of silliness damages U.S. credibility.
]]>by David Isenberg
Last year I wrote a column for the Huffington Post discussing how some of my fellow members of the Chosen People — specifically, Jewish neoconservatives — were doing their best to bring comic relief to the American public in making idiots of themselves by opposing the nomination of [...]]]>
by David Isenberg
Last year I wrote a column for the Huffington Post discussing how some of my fellow members of the Chosen People — specifically, Jewish neoconservatives — were doing their best to bring comic relief to the American public in making idiots of themselves by opposing the nomination of former U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel as the next Secretary of Defense on the laughably spurious grounds that he was insufficiently supportive of Israel and even an anti-Semite.
In terms of sheer unadulterated, one hundred percent kosher, chutzpah, that set a new record for political comedy, and one I thought might last a while.
But, stop the presses! We have a new winner, and it is none other than Sheldon Adelson, the chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation — a gambling tycoon well-known for his support of Israel and Jewish charitable causes. He also owns the Israeli daily tabloid Israel HaYom. As of October 2013, Adelson was listed as the 12th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $34.4 billion.
One might think that with all that money at his disposal, Adelson might be willing to spend a few dollars hiring a tutor to bring him up to speed on current geopolitical realities. But no, showing the same perspicacity and judgment that led him to financially contribute to Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns, we now know, thanks to the Mondoweiss blog, that on Oct. 22 at a Yeshiva University event in New York Adelson said the U.S. should incorporate the firing of a nuclear weapon at Iran into its negotiations strategy. He apparently believes that if Obama shoots a weapon into the desert and then threatens to send the next one to Tehran so it’s “wiped out,” Iran will cease its nuclear program.
Evidently Adelson is in the running for becoming a Jewish version of Donald Trump. Their motto: nothing is too stupid to say, as long as it gets them publicity.
Before going further, we should note that there is a longstanding myth — assiduously cultivated by the private sector — that if you make a lot of money in one particular field, you are somehow qualified to opine in other areas. This is — putting it politely — a non sequitur. Less politely put, it’s sheer fatuousness.
But, if you spread enough money around, you can always find someone willing to say you’re the most profound thinker since Rabbi Maimonides. In this case, the role of posterior sucking interlocutor and softball-tossing moderator was filled by Shmuley Boteach, an Orthodox rabbi best known for his self-promotion.
Adelson’s remarks were so out of touch with reality that one scarcely knows where to begin when analyzing their innate stupidity. But before proceeding, we should thank him, for his remarks resoundingly confirm that having lots of money is no indication of intelligence.
Let’s go to the videotape. Here’s the nut graf:
What are we going to negotiate about? I would say ‘Listen, you see that desert out there, I want to show you something.’ …You pick up your cell phone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say, ‘OK let it go.’ And so there’s an atomic weapon, goes over ballistic missiles, the middle of the desert, that doesn’t hurt a soul. Maybe a couple of rattlesnakes, and scorpions, or whatever. Then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development. You want to be peaceful? Just reverse it all, and we will guarantee you that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes.’
Putting aside his obvious ignorance about the way the National Command Authority over U.S. nuclear weapons actually works, the least of his offenses (hint: it doesn’t involve the commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces picking up his cell phone and calling Nebraska), I should point out the following:
First, ever since the United States was faced with the possibility of a nuclear weapons attack, its policy has been that nuclear weapons can only be used for deterrence, not for war fighting, not even for the purpose of threatening war. Apparently the irony of a Jewish plutocrat espousing a policy formerly advocated by an ex-Nazi scientist — though thankfully fictitiously in the film Dr. Strangelove – escaped Adelson and his publicist.
Evidently, it has also escaped Adelson’s attention that absent an attack on its territory or its allies, the United States has a no first-use policy when it comes to nuclear weapons.
Second, the idea that a nuclear weapon could be detonated somewhere in Iran without harming Iranian civilians is sheer fantasy. Adelson is entitled to recklessly gamble in his own casinos but he has no right to play Russian roulette with the lives of innocent people in another country.
Third, the idea that the threat of using nuclear weapons will shock and awe someone to capitulate to your demands is an option the U.S. has rejected in the past. It was considered by the Truman, Johnson and Nixon administrations during the Vietnam War and was decisively rejected. (For more details on this consider Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons, which was published earlier this year.)
Fourth, threatening to destroy Tehran because the Iranian government won’t comply with your unreasonable (see next point) demand is advocating genocide; something we Jews are supposed to know something about. Think I’m exaggerating? The definition of genocide, coined by a Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin, is “the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, caste, religious, or national group.” While legal scholars debate what constitutes enough of a “part” to qualify as genocide, consider that Tehran has a population of around 8.3 million and surpassing 14 million in the wider metropolitan area and is one of the largest cities in Western Asia.
Finally, as a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Iran has a legal right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes as part of its civilian nuclear energy program (see Article IV of the NPT).
It is true that Iran has been found in non-compliance with its NPT safeguards agreement, and the status of its nuclear program remains in dispute. It is also true that the November 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) later concluded that Iran had halted an active nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003 and that it had remained halted; an assessment with which many Israeli military and intelligence officials also agree.
So, to conclude, while we can thank Adelson for his willingness to offer blatantly insane policy advice and offer us a few laughs along the way, making him a sort of leytsim for the-out-of-touch one percent, we should also be horrified that anybody might take him seriously.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
The trick to finding an agreement between the P5+1 world powers and Iran has become clear: keep Israel and Saudi Arabia out of the room. (But don’t expect them to be happy about it.)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is touring the globe now with his message of doom [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
The trick to finding an agreement between the P5+1 world powers and Iran has become clear: keep Israel and Saudi Arabia out of the room. (But don’t expect them to be happy about it.)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is touring the globe now with his message of doom about an impending Iranian nuclear weapon. “It will be tragic if (Iran) succeeds in avoiding the sanctions,” Netanyahu said in Rome on Tuesday.
That statement comes on the heels of his Meet the Press appearance where he said: “I think the pressure has to be maintained on Iran, even increased on Iran, until it actually stops the nuclear program, that is, dismantles it.”
Netanyahu is an accomplished speaker with the media. He is trying to move the United States closer to his own views on Iran’s nuclear program while minimizing the appearance of a difference between U.S. and Israeli positions on the issue. But, despite proclamations from figures like Vice President Joe Biden that “there is no daylight” between U.S. and Israeli positions on security, the inescapable fact is that such daylight is shining rather brightly between the two erstwhile allies.
That light was on display when Secretary of State John Kerry met with Netanyahu in Rome. While speaking as allies who are in agreement on Iran, they said very different things about what they expect. Kerry stated again that the Obama administration would be seeking concrete proof of a peaceful nuclear program in Iran before lifting sanctions. By now, that’s a standard disclaimer, but it’s so self-evident that it really doesn’t need to be stated.
Or it wouldn’t need to be said but for Netanyahu’s endless warnings about nefarious Iranian plots of deception centered around acquiring the nuclear weapon that both U.S. and Israeli intelligence agree Iran stopped any motion toward a decade ago.
Following the aftermath of the Iraq War and Netanyahu’s blatant attempt to influence the US 2012 presidential election, Bibi has been pushing for more sanctions regardless of whether Iran is being defiant or cooperative. He has also been hinting at unilateral Israeli military action while saying he supports a diplomatic resolution. Netanyahu has refined, but not changed, that strategy in the wake of Iran’s new openness to dialogue with the West following the election of President Hassan Rouhani. Now he is more regularly pointing to specific aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, some of which can indeed be put to use in developing a weapon, but none of which are actually forbidden under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran — not Israel — is a signatory.
In Rome on Wednesday Netanyahu said:
The foremost security problem that we face, as you said, is Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. Preventing that is a goal I share with you and President Obama. And you have said, I think wisely, that Iran must not have a nuclear weapons capability, which means that they shouldn’t have centrifuges for enrichment. They shouldn’t have a plutonium heavy water plant which is used only for nuclear weapons. They should get rid of the amassed fissile material. And they shouldn’t have underground nuclear facilities, underground for one reason – for military purposes.
Here Netanyahu is arguing that an acceptable deal over Iran’s nuclear program should forbid Iran from the very same things that other NPT signatories have access to. The Israeli PM is saying this while calling for sustained sanctions on Iran plus more. The underlying hope here is that if Iran does win concessions, much of the existing sanctions regime would still be in place.
All of this is geared not toward preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon but toward keeping Iran’s economy in deep freeze and limiting its ability to expand its influence in the region. And Netanyahu has some powerful assistance in this endeavor.
Saudi Arabia is at least as concerned about Iran as Israel is. Few doubt that their unprecedented refusal of a seat at the UN Security Council, a spot they’d been trying to attain for years, was motivated in large part by their concern about a U.S.-Iran rapprochement. Their strategy may not be entirely clear (or, for that matter, well thought-out), but Reuters reported on Tuesday that the Saudis were planning a “major shift” in their relationship with the U.S. over Iran, the U.S. decision not to bomb Syria, and Obama’s refusal to support stronger Saudi measures to repress Shi’a protests in Bahrain.
The implication that Saudi Arabia would entirely abandon its cozy relationship with the United States, perhaps for one with Russia or China, is probably a bluff. No other power can come close to America’s ability to fund and arm the Saudi monarchy and its Gulf allies. But they certainly can take some measures to diminish, though not eliminate, dependence on the United States with closer dealings with Russia and China. They could shift some of their monetary holdings away from dollars and U.S. Treasury Notes, and they also could do a lot to increase oil prices, which is a serious hammer to hold over what is still a very fragile U.S. economy.
Thus far, however, the United States seems to be standing its ground in the face of these Israeli and Saudi tantrums. At the Rome meeting, Kerry held fast to what has been the Obama administration’s public position since the historic phone call between Presidents Obama and Rouhani.
While we welcome, and we do welcome, the change of rhetoric, the change of tone, the diplomatic opening that the Iranians have offered through President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif, we have made clear and we are adamant that words are no substitute for actions. And … we will need to know that actions are being taken which make it crystal clear… that whatever program is pursued is indeed a peaceful program… President Obama has made it very clear he will pursue a diplomatic initiative, but with eyes wide open, aware that it will be vital for Iran to live up to the standards that other nations that have nuclear programs live up to as they prove that those programs are indeed peaceful.
I have emphasized the part about Iran being held to the same standards as other states that have non-weaponized power because that is a very clear open door that the Iranians can actually reach. With full transparency that confirms what intelligence services have been maintaining for over six years — that Iran stopped pursuing weapons research in 2003 — Iran can be free of sanctions and the threat of war. It is precisely this point that is sending Israel and Saudi Arabia into apoplexy. And we can expect both their rhetoric and lobbying to intensify over the course of the next year, a year which Iran has identified as the length of time that a deal can be reached.
This will not be a simple matter. The politics around peace with Iran will become very intense. There will be real questions raised about whether the gains for the United States will outweigh the potential difficulties with Israel and Saudi Arabia — the US’ staunchest allies in the region for decades. Those won’t be easy questions to answer, but the overriding point will remain: Israel and Saudi Arabia need the United States even more than we need them (far more in Israel’s case). It seems like Obama and Kerry are subtly trying to assert that idea, which deserves popular support here.
Photo: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Credit: UNmited States Department of State/Flickr
]]>by Mark N. Katz
How does Moscow regard the ongoing negotiations between the P5+1 world powers and Iran on the latter’s nuclear program? The answer is not immediately apparent, as high-level Russian Foreign Ministry officials have made somewhat contradictory statements on this issue since the latest talks in Geneva.
On Oct. 17, [...]]]>
by Mark N. Katz
How does Moscow regard the ongoing negotiations between the P5+1 world powers and Iran on the latter’s nuclear program? The answer is not immediately apparent, as high-level Russian Foreign Ministry officials have made somewhat contradictory statements on this issue since the latest talks in Geneva.
On Oct. 17, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov appeared pessimistic about the prospects for an agreement when he acknowledged that while advances had been made, “There is a great distance separating the position of the Iranian side and the group,” and that this distance, “is counted in kilometers but the advance is measured by half-meter steps.”
On the very same day, however, the Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich, offered a different assessment when he described the first round of talks in Geneva as “very positive.”
Two days earlier, an article in the Russian newspaper Kommersant cited unnamed Russian diplomatic sources as “feeling only a cautious optimism” and advising onlookers “not to expect an instantaneous breakthrough.” The article further quoted unnamed Russian experts saying that it is “not only wrong but also dangerous to expect any breakthrough decisions from the Geneva meeting.” To say that an expectation of a positive outcome from these talks might be overly optimistic would be understandable, but everyone involved in them likely realizes this. To say that such expectations are “dangerous,” though, suggests there are those in Moscow who are uncomfortable either with these talks or how they are taking place.
An Oct. 18 article by Oleg Gorbunov on the Russian website, politkom.ru, suggests why. “Russia remains unhappy about the unspecific and highly inscrutable results of the negotiations,” writes Gorbunov, “because the diplomats can see that nobody intends to force Tehran to abandon its weapons.” Western governments involved in the talks would certainly disagree with him on this!
Gorbunov goes on to observe:
It is beneficial for Moscow…to adopt a moderate stance in the negotiations, waiting until either the West gets tired of the process dragging on or the Iranians feel that the negotiations are no longer any use to them. Then the negotiations would become deadlocked, which would enable Moscow to begin [to seize] the initiative, as happened, for example, in the case of a Syria settlement.
It is not at all clear, of course, that if talks between Iran and the West regress into deadlock that Russia will be able to salvage them. Gorbunov’s analysis, though, seems to reflect a Russian fear that the negotiations in Geneva may be less about resolving the Iranian nuclear issue and more about arranging a general rapprochement between Iran and the West that could marginalize Russia’s role in the region. And if insufficient progress on the Iranian nuclear issue forestalls such a rapprochement, then so much the better. Interestingly, this view also suggests that only when Iran and the West are at loggerheads does Moscow see itself as having leverage over them both.
]]>by Ali Reza Eshraghi
News media accounts of reactions from Iran to the recent talks in Geneva remind me of a joke that has gone viral there:
A salesman shows a variety of hearing aids ranging in cost from one to a thousand dollars to a customer, who then asks, “How well does [...]]]>
by Ali Reza Eshraghi
News media accounts of reactions from Iran to the recent talks in Geneva remind me of a joke that has gone viral there:
A salesman shows a variety of hearing aids ranging in cost from one to a thousand dollars to a customer, who then asks, “How well does the one dollar one work?” The salesman responds, “It doesn’t work at all! But, people speak louder when they see you wearing it.”
For the first time, different political factions within the Islamic republic of Iran are in agreement about President Hassan Rouhani’s method for resolving the nuclear issue and negotiating with the United States. But local and international media coverage has focused on Iranian radical groups who have shrunk in size and been marginalized after June’s presidential election. While this group occupies a small space in Iran’s current nuclear discourse, it has been presented as a major actor by the media.
Much of this coverage focuses on Kayhan, the Iranian daily newspaper, and its editor-in-chief, Hossein Shariatmadari, who has openly criticized the Iranian delegates for keeping the details of their negotiations with the P5+1 powers (the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany) confidential. For Shariatmadari, this secrecy is an indication that the Iranian delegation is making a bad deal.
Of course, Khayan and Shariatmadari are not the only ones who have criticized Iranian diplomats for keeping things under wraps when it comes to the nuclear issue. In October 2009, when the Saeed Jalili-headed negotiation team was trying to make a deal with the P5+1 in Geneva, Iranian reformist media also complained about the lack of available details on the discussions.
At that time, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the sidelined candidate of Iran’s 2009 presidential election, accused the negotiators of trading the long-term interests of Iranians for “nothing” in a statement.
And last year — amid rumors of a meeting between Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior aide to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, with American officials — Kalameh, the flagship website of the opposition Green Movement, demanded that the negotiations be “transparent and [conducted] in front of people.”
Shrinking prominence
This time it’s the hardline Kayhan that has printed the loudest complaints against the confidential negotiations. But things are different now. Not long ago, each time Kayhan started a game of ball, it was immediately picked up and passed around in the Principlist front. Today, no one is willing to play along with the well-known daily.
Indeed, other conservative media outlets affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) apparently have no problem with the nuclear negotiations remaining confidential. Here is Sobh-e Sadeq, the official IRGC weekly, expressing satisfaction in its post-Geneva talks coverage:
“The Iranian delegation stressed the importance of respecting Iranian nation’s red lines, as well as the need of change in the position of the West from selfishness to a win-win interaction. [Our delegation] would not back down from the nation’s rights.”
Even more surprisingly, the IRGC has absorbed Rouhani’s vocabulary and is talking about a “win-win interaction with the US.” The Javan daily, another media outlet associated with the IRGC, stressed on Monday that the actions of the Rouhani administration “have the permission of the Supreme Leader.” Javan took this a step further by arguing that even if the administration was unsuccessful in the negotiations, Iran would still emerge victorious because it would be obvious that it was the Americans who, contrary to their claims, have no interest in resolving disputes and restoring relations.
Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, the head of the Majlis Principlist faction whose daughter is married to the Supreme Leader’s son, has also supported the confidentiality of the nuclear negotiations. Considered a hardliner, Haddad Adel, who used to favor Kayhan, could have remained silent in this debate. But he has criticized the newspaper for basing its suspicion of Iran’s diplomatic team on what he considers “the words of the Zionist media.”
With such remarks, Haddad Adel is — perhaps unintentionally — paving the road for reformists to launch a more powerful attack against the radicals. Mir-Mahmoud Mousavi, the former Director General of the Foreign Ministry and the brother of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, has also accused Iranian hardliners of using the language of Israeli hardliners. He believes they both “are trying to weaken Iran’s position in the talks.”
The position of Haddad Adel, the IRGC or even Ahmad Khatami, the radical and sometimes callous Tehran Friday Prayers Leader who also said Rouhani’s administration should be trusted, has confused analysts who measure Iranian politics with a who-is-closer-to-the-Supreme-Leader tape. These pundits are uncomfortably surprised each time they come across such perplexing results. The last such surprise occurred during Iran’s 2013 presidential election when Saeed Jalili, Iran’s nuclear negotiator who was touted as a favorite of the Supreme Leader, lost the vote.
After Ahmadinejad
Of course, it’s crucial to observe certain significant developments in Iran’s nuclear and foreign policy discourse that have occurred since Rouhani took office a few months ago. First, Iranian media can now write more openly and include a variety of opinions about their country’s controversial politics. This is why Mohammad Mohajeri, the editor-in-chief of the popular Khabar Online website and former member of the editorial board of Kayhan, reminded Shariatmadari that Jalili’s former negotiating team had tougher restrictions for the press. Before, “the press would get some burnt intelligence and were then told not to even discuss that useless information because of the confidential nature of the talks.” Compare that situation to the present when trying to gauge the level of change. Last week, for the first time, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took a group of Iranian reporters from various media outlets to Geneva. Each day they were briefed repeatedly by members of the Iranian team.
That the reformist media are not alone in attacking and quibbling with the hardliners is another new development. The moderate and progressive Principlists, in an unwritten division of labor with the reformists, have taken on the task of silencing the radicals themselves. Popular news websites affiliated with the Principlists like Alef, Khabar Online and Tabank have constantly — albeit with a softer tone — criticized Iran’s radicals since the talks in Geneva.
Bijan Moghaddam, the managing director of the widely circulated Jam-e Jam daily and the former political editor of the hardliner Fars News Agency, has warned the radicals that the “Iranian society has banished them” and asked hardliners to voice their criticism logically and “without creating a ruckus and swearing.”
Finally, there is now a visible rhetorical shift in the debate over Iran’s foreign policy. Critics of Rouhani’s diplomacy team do not merely rely on mnemonic tropes and the Islamic Republic’s ideological repertoire in their arguments. They are also invoking Iran’s “national interest” in criticizing the administration’s diplomatic method. Such changes are even visible in Khayan’s tone. For example, the daily recently criticized Rouhani for publically announcing ahead of the Geneva talks that the treasury is empty, saying that such statements would weaken Iran’s negotiating position.
In such an atmosphere, it’s not surprising that critics of the government’s foreign policy claim they are aiding the administration’s negotiating strategy. As a radical commentator recently said in an interview with the Javan daily, “President Rouhani can use the views of those opposing the talks with the US as powerful leverage to haggle with the US.”
Photo: Gholam Ali Haddad Adel greets Hossein Shariatmadari. Credit: Jam News
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
The talks between Iran and the “P5+1” countries last week bring to mind Winston Churchill’s 1942 description of World War II: “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
This characterization is even more profound than it [...]]]>
by Robert E. Hunter
The talks between Iran and the “P5+1” countries last week bring to mind Winston Churchill’s 1942 description of World War II: “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
This characterization is even more profound than it first appears. Today we are witnessing a roll of the dice throughout the Middle East. The “negotiations” over Iran’s nuclear program betoken a major shift in psychology and perceptions, notably about power, influence, and national interests. They involve the United States and almost all other countries in the region, which for so long have assumed the immutability of the Iranian-Western confrontation. Of course, that confrontation could now begin to crumble, with wide-ranging geopolitical implications in the region and beyond.
Most immediately, the talks appear to be getting down to brass tacks regarding what Iran is doing with its nuclear program; what it will do to reassure the world that it will not acquire a nuclear weapon or even move toward what is called a “breakout capability;” and what the United States and others will do in exchange. “In exchange” involves the sanctions that have been progressively imposed on Iran since the Islamic Republic’s birth in 1979. But it could also include other steps, some tangible, some intangible, whereby Iran would be readmitted as a legitimate state in international society, free from the shackles on its potential as a highly educated and creative nation with the most American-friendly population in the region.
So much of what will happen now involves the technical details of Iran’s nuclear program, which only a handful of people, both in Iran and the West, really understand.
More important, however, is the politics. Will the Iranian government move far enough to embrace a deal acceptable to the US and the other P5+1 members (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany)? Will the P5+1 accept that Iran does have the right to a peaceful nuclear program and some level of uranium enrichment? And, if there is a meeting of the minds, can a potential deal be sold to Iran’s Supreme Leader and the multiple constituencies in the West that claim the right to be heard?
The answer to the first part of this last question may depend on the will of a single individual (and his own complex politics). The answer to the second part will depend not just on President Barack Obama and the other P5+1 leaders — but also on the US Congress and especially Israel. US allies and partners lining the Persian Gulf and outliers like Turkey must also be satisfied.
If a potential deal does take shape, a titanic struggle will take place in this country, pitting President Obama against those who would oppose virtually any deal, however reasonable by objective standards, measured in terms of US national interests. Those parts of Congress responsive to Israel’s perspective will be joined in opposition by the “Friends of Saudi Arabia” and other regional oil countries. Silently in the corner will be the Western companies that pour advanced weaponry into the Arab States of the Persian Gulf — although, if the US does take pressure off Iran, arms sales to still-anxious countries could even increase.
But far more is at stake in the Middle East than Iran’s nuclear program and creating barriers against its ability to build a bomb. We are seeing the first break in the solid containment wall that was erected at the end of the 1970s due to fears that an Islamic revolution would spread its contagion. Except in a few places, that did not happen. Indeed, the greater threat both to Western interests and to regional countries now comes from al-Qaeda and its ilk (which, unlike Shia Iran, are Sunni).
In recent years, concerns have focused on Tehran’s nuclear program. But even before that, there was a policy of containing Iran, in many ways reflecting a general regional contest for power and influence. This contest reflected worries that Tehran and Washington might one day be reconciled. It is perhaps the best explanation for the (opaque) reasoning behind Saudi Arabia’s first campaigning for a seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC) and then, when successful, abruptly declining it. Indeed, with a break in the diplomatic barrier to Iran, Saudi Arabia is less sure that it will continue to stand higher in US regard than an Iran that is “behaving itself” — thus its recent antics. Ironically, the Saudi’s initial pursuit of the UNSC seat had always seemed strange: Security Council members are expected to set and follow standards that are alien to Riyadh.
For its part, Israel is competing for regional influence and to preserve, unchallenged, all the primacy it has in the US. It has effectively used the legitimate fears of an Iranian bomb to oppose any reconciliation between Washington and Tehran while positioning itself as America’s only friend there. This gambit was always risky; should the US and Iran come to terms on the nuclear issue and unfreeze other aspects of their relations, Iran could again become a “player” for influence, at least in the Middle East, with Israel and the oil-producing Arab states.
What happened in Geneva last week, therefore, is only “Act Two” of a lengthy play with elements of a psychological drama (“Act One“ was the Obama-Rouhani phone call). But if Iran plays its part (by no means certain); and if — assuming that a reasonable nuclear deal can be struck — President Obama shows the mettle with domestic naysayers that he showed on debt and default, then major, positive developments may become possible in the Middle East for the first time in years.
]]>Geneva – Abbas Aragchi, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister who is currently leading talks here between Iran and world powers known as the P5+1, told IPS News in an interview this morning at his hotel that Iran is willing to implement the Additional Protocol in the final stage of a mutually agreed upon [...]]]>
Geneva – Abbas Aragchi, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister who is currently leading talks here between Iran and world powers known as the P5+1, told IPS News in an interview this morning at his hotel that Iran is willing to implement the Additional Protocol in the final stage of a mutually agreed upon nuclear deal.
“The Additional Protocol is a part of the endgame,” Araghchi told IPS. “It’s on the table, but not for the time being, it’s a part of the final step,” he said.
According to the Arms Control Association, the Additional Protocol “is a legal document granting the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] complementary inspection authority to that provided in underlying safeguards agreements.” The voluntary but advanced nuclear safeguards standard was accepted earlier by Iran in 2003 and was adhered to but not officially ratified by Iran’s parliament. “The Additional Protocol requires States to provide an expanded declaration of their nuclear activities and grants the Agency broader rights of access to sites in the country,” according to the IAEA’s website.
Asked whether he was expecting any breakthroughs today after an initial positive first day of the two-day talks scheduled here in Geneva, Araghchi said, “Any break through depends on the other side.”
He also seemed to reiterate the “cautious optimism” that an EU official noted here yesterday after Iran presented its new proposal to the P5+1, the details of which remain under wraps.
“We made a very good, logical and balanced proposal yesterday,” said Araghchi, referring to the PowerPoint presentation that was presented yesterday morning by the official head of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is Iran’s Foreign Minister.
“We are looking forward this morning to hearing from [the P5+1] on their counter proposal, what their reaction is today and their evaluation of our proposal,” noted Araghchi.
“It’s to soon to talk about whether we have made any progress but maybe this afternoon when we’ve heard from them we can come to a conclusion if everything is going well,” he added.
“I have a good feeling about it but I cannot judge now,” Araghchi told IPS. He then repeated Iran’s earlier call for identifying and establishing an “end game” for a nuclear deal.
“We believe to make an agreement now, we need to come to an agreement on the common objective, the end game, the final step and the first step,” Aragchi said.
“It’s not useful to decide only on the first step and take that without having a clear picture of the future and the destination,” he said.
“So it’s very important to set the common objective that both sides can agree on,” said Araghchi.
Araghchi also told IPS News that Iran is expecting to return to meet with the P5+1 in Geneva, but did not confirm when or whether the next round of talks would occur at the ministerial level.
“There is a common understanding that we have to meet again soon,” he said. “The level is not decided yet.”
]]>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 [...]]]>
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 Mitchell Plitnick
In most corners of the world, the news that a presentation by Iran at its meetings with the 6 world power P5+1 team in Geneva today was greeted warmly by their interlocutors aroused optimism and a hopeful feeling. Not so in Israel, where any hint of rapprochement [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
In most corners of the world, the news that a presentation by Iran at its meetings with the 6 world power P5+1 team in Geneva today was greeted warmly by their interlocutors aroused optimism and a hopeful feeling. Not so in Israel, where any hint of rapprochement with the Islamic Republic is viewed as an apocalyptic security threat.
“We heard a presentation this morning from Foreign Minister (Mohammed Javad) Zarif. It was very useful,” Michael Mann, spokesperson for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, said. “For the first time, we had very detailed technical discussions, which carried on this afternoon. We will continue these discussions tomorrow.”
That is about as promising a beginning as one could hope for. Shortly after the presentation, though, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu evoked the threat of a pre-emptive strike on Iran. At an event marking forty years since the Yom Kippur War, Netanyahu the hawk was perhaps more radical than he has ever been.
The 1973 conflict between Israel, on one side, and Egypt and Syria on the other, taught Israel “not to underestimate the enemy, not to ignore the dangers and not to give up on preemptive strikes,” according to Netanyahu.
“Back than we paid the price of self-illusion,” he said. “We will not make this mistake again…There are cases when the thought about the international reaction to a preemptive strike is not equal to taking a strategic hit.”
According to Barak Ravid of Ha’aretz, “Netanyahu also pointed out that ‘peace is achieved through force,’ as exemplified by the fact that in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur war, Israel signed peace treaties with both Egypt and Jordan.”
Netanyahu is willfully distorting history. In fact, the 1973 war demonstrates the foolishness of his current course of action. Israel had an opportunity, in 1971, to get the same deal with Egypt it would eventually strike at Camp David, but then-Prime Minister Golda Meir would not even consider it. Egypt decided to attack Israel as a result, intending not to destroy the Jewish state (in fact, their early and sustained military success in that war came as something of a surprise to the Egyptians) but to press the recalcitrant Israel into the very peace deal that came along a few years later. Jordan is completely irrelevant; that peace deal came over two decades later, and was the result of far different circumstances.
The saber-rattling plays well to Netanyahu’s right flank, which is wringing its hands right now less over the Iranian nuclear issue than over what they fear Netanyahu might be willing to bargain away to the Palestinians at the behest of the Americans. These fears are likely unfounded, but they are prominent in Netanyahu’s mind as he tries to cooperate with the United States without alienating the right wing that dominates his government.
But there is more to it than that. Netanyahu has made his name on anti-Iran ranting, and on raising the global alert level when it comes to Tehran. But he is aware that the status quo is not to the liking of Europe or the Obama administration. Obama wants to step back from the war posture his country has been in for the past years, and Iran has opened the door to a serious possibility of doing so.
But there is no reason to believe that the U.S. and E.U. are going to settle for anything less than clear verification of peaceful uses of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Netanyahu surely knows this as well. No, this is about maintaining sanctions on Iran to prevent it from regaining its economic stability and enabling it to pursue its ambitions of a stronger position in the region. More to the point, Netanyahu is very concerned that any deal with Iran could lead to a number of possibilities he will find unpalatable: far greater concessions to the Palestinians than he wants to make, compromise of Israel’s own nuclear arsenal, or an increased Iranian role in ongoing crises in the region.
None of those prospects warms Bibi’s heart. But the matter is, for the moment, largely outside of his control. The recent experience of the U.S. citizenry overwhelmingly following their British cousins’ lead and rejecting intervention in Syria is not entirely indicative of what might happen if talks with Iran fail and fears of an Iranian nuclear device escalate again. But it certainly illustarted the far higher bar for military action that has been set in the United States.
Still, if a deal is struck with Iran, it is very likely that Netanyahu will appeal to his many friends in Congress to obstruct it. He may find that to be a very difficult road. Unless the deal can be presented convincingly to the U.S. public as a foolhardy one that will allow Iran to produce a nuclear weapon covertly, it will be a very tough sell indeed. Obama and the E.U. are not likely to produce such a deal. Netanyahu knows this, and so he is raising the specter of an Israeli pre-emptive strike once again.
The problem with that threat is that, at least for the moment, it doesn’t seem very credible. Netanyahu can talk all he likes about Israel’s independence and freedom to act on its own. But, as Johnny Depp memorably said in the film Pirates of the Caribbean, “The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do.” Yes, Israel has the ability to get planes to Iran and strike some of their nuclear sites. They do not have the ability, however, to do so as effectively as the United States, and such an Israeli strike could only damage Iran’s nuclear program, not destroy it. The cost of such a venture is likely to be very high, and it could well damage Israel’s standing in Europe as well as cost it in a big way with Russia and, most especially, Muslim states.
The fact is, without the United States, an Israeli strike is much less effective and far more dangerous for Israel. It would more likely cause a massive backlash from the powerful Israeli military than deter Iran in any way.
What this really sounds like is less of a threat and more like the wailing of a desperate man who sees his ambition to crush Iran’s regional influence crumbling under the weight of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s dreaded “charm offensive.” With the United States Congress wrapped up in its self-inflicted shutdown and the Obama administration striking the right pose of welcoming Iranian initiatives while maintaining its stance that sanctions won’t be lifted until material and verifiable steps to comply with UN resolutions have been taken, Netanyahu has few options. Despite Netanyahu’s best efforts, a verifiable non-nuclear-armed Iran could well be the result of the current talks. His angry threats only prove that he fears that far more than he fears an Iranian nuke.
Photo: E.U. Foreign Affairs chief Catherine Ashton, with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Credit: European External Action Service/Flickr
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