by Jim Lobe
Seemingly overshadowed by the crisis in Crimea and the disappearance of the Malaysian airliner, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu just don’t seem to be getting the kind of momentum in their perennial jihad against Iran that they’re used to coming out [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
Seemingly overshadowed by the crisis in Crimea and the disappearance of the Malaysian airliner, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu just don’t seem to be getting the kind of momentum in their perennial jihad against Iran that they’re used to coming out of AIPAC’s annual policy conference.
It’s true that the more than 10,000 AIPAC activists sent to Capitol Hill to lobby their representatives immediately after the conference May 4 should have been pleased by the House’s passage a day later by a 410-1 margin of the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act. It’s been a major priority for the group since last year and one that authorizes $1.8 billion dollars in additional U.S. weapons shipments to Tel Aviv, which already receives on average of about three billion dollars in annual U.S. military aid. It also opens the possibility that Israelis wishing to come to the United States would not require a visa.
But AIPAC’s and Netanyahu’s top priority — getting a new Kirk-Menendez sanctions bill against Iran enacted — clearly moved out of reach six weeks before the conference when all but 16 Democratic senators refused to sign on as co-sponsors and buck their president who had pledged to veto any such bill on the grounds that it risked undermining ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran. With Plan A thus scuttled, AIPAC moved to Plan B, a non-binding resolution that would lay out conditions — several of them clearly unacceptable to Tehran — for any comprehensive deal with Iran which, if not included as part of the deal, would result in Congress’s refusal to fully lift U.S. sanctions. In that case, too, the White House made its strong opposition clear, and the effort quickly collapsed.
That left Plan C — a (necessarily non-binding) letter from lawmakers to Obama — laying out what conditions its authors expected to be included in any final agreement with Iran over its nuclear program. As I described last week, there were actually two letters, both approved by AIPAC: a Menendez-Graham version in the Senate whose harsh tone and demands (a final deal “must require”, etc.) no doubt more accurately reflected the views of both AIPAC’s leadership and Netanyahu than the softer version (“We are hopeful that a permanent diplomatic agreement will require” etc.) that was co-authored by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Minority Leader Steny Hoyer. Both letters were ambiguous on key points — to what extent would Iran’s existing nuclear program have to be dismantled and specifically whether a limited uranium enrichment program would be deemed acceptable – and thus subject to different interpretations.) When the House version was subsequently endorsed by Senate Armed Services Committee chair Carl Levin (and, as I understand it, has since gained the support of more than 20 other Democratic senators, including most of the leadership) precisely because it appeared to give the administration more diplomatic space to negotiate a deal, AIPAC’s leadership was reportedly caught once more on the backfoot. Of course, as I noted last week, the White House still opposes both letters, but the fact that AIPAC’s plans 1, 2, and its preferred version of 3 have all been set back must give the administration considerable satisfaction. (I heard — but cannot confirm — that, at the conclusion of a White House meeting with top AIPAC officials back in early January, one of them told a senior administration official point-blank, “You have to know that we’re going to beat you on this.”)
AIPAC has kept silent on the number of senators who have signed either letter. At first I understood they were trying to persuade senators to sign the Menendez-Graham version only and actively lobby them against the Cantor-Hoyer-Levin letter. But that then embarrassed their allies in the House, so the group began asking — with some success — senators to sign both letters, thus contributing to the growing impression on Capitol Hill that the nation’s most powerful foreign policy lobby simply doesn’t have its act together.
In any event, AIPAC is now actively pushing House members to sign Cantor-Hoyer, which apparently is the best it thinks it can do under the circumstances. As of Wednesday afternoon, according to AIPAC’s tally, 293 members had signed the letter, but 138 — including a surprising number of far-right Republicans, like Michele Bachmann, Joe Barton, and Louie Gohmert, who probably think AIPAC has turned way too mushy — have not. This is now ten days after the end of the AIPAC conference! For an organization whose top lobbyist less than ten years ago bragged that he could get 70 senators to sign on a napkin within 24 hours and which is used to the kind of virtually unanimous votes that took place last week for the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act, this is pretty pathetic. It cannot help that AIPAC got virtually no press during its conference and has gotten some really terrible reviews in Israel, notably one by Gideon Levy (admittedly a peacenik) in Haaretz, which was reposted by M.J. Rosenberg here.
In doing so, however, the group is misrepresenting what the letter actually says. For example, AIPAC says:
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) are circulating a bipartisan letter addressed to the President delineating the necessary terms for a final agreement with Iran, including dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program.
But the actual letter states:
We are hopeful a permanent diplomatic agreement will require dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear weapons-related infrastructure, including enrichment-, heavy water-, and reprocessing-related facilities, such that Iran will not be able to develop, build, or acquire a nuclear weapon.
Of course, AIPAC is spinning the letter in favor of its hoped-for interpretation, but there is a substantial difference both tonally and literally in what the two statements say.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu appears increasingly and openly frustrated by the lack of attention his histrionics about Iran has been getting. Last week’s seizure by Israeli commandos of the KLOS-C merchant ship in the Red Sea off the coast of Eritrea and Sudan was no doubt timed to immediately follow Bibi’s anti-Iran tirade at AIPAC and his continuing presence in the U.S. He gave vent to that frustration in Eilat this week where he keynoted the display of the captured, supposedly Gaza-bound Syrian-made M-302 rockets which, according to Israel, had been hidden aboard the vessel in Bandar Abbas under sacks of Iranian cement, by fulminating about the “hypocrisy” of the West, especially EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who was then on a visit to Tehran, in not treating the incident with the seriousness that he believed it warranted (as if, for example, there were no “hypocrisy” in a nuclear-armed non-member of the IAEA constantly complaining to the same body about Iran’s nuclear program).
Now, it may be that those rockets were intended for Gaza, although Israel has not yet disclosed any of the evidence on which it based that charge, and most experts who have addressed this issue have expressed considerable skepticism about the Israeli thesis, especially in light of Egypt’s destruction of so many of the tunnels that link the Sinai to Gaza and the military regime’s enhanced intelligence cooperation with Israel on both the Sinai and Gaza since last July’s coup d’etat in Cairo. (Given that cooperation, why wasn’t the shipment intercepted by the Egyptians when it passed through southern Egypt or the Sinai?)
Still, I’m prepared to believe that high-level IRGC hard-liners who, like AIPAC and Netanyahu, are unenthusiastic, to say the least, about Hassan Rouhani’s efforts at rapprochement with the West, may have behind such a shipment, and may even have hoped that it would be discovered, precisely in order to undermine the nuclear talks. (I think Mitchell will be writing more about this question shortly.) But what is so interesting is precisely the lack of interest in Netanyahu’s charges on the part of western — and especially U.S. — mainstream media and politicians. Granted, the Ukraine crisis and the missing airliner are taking up an awful lot of news oxygen these days, but when the Israelis shout really loud, especially about terrorism and Iran, it usually gets attention. Not this time. Writing for Al-Monitor, Ben Caspit wrote an excellent piece about this Tuesday entitled “Israel fears it has lost world attention on Iran.” It seems the world has tired of Bibi and sees him increasingly as the boy who cried wolf, as hinted at in an interesting analysis posted Wednesday by Haaretz’s editor, Zvi Bar’El.
On the other hand, consider this colloquy at yesterday’s State Department press briefing. The final sentence is a little worrisome:
QUESTION: Can we go to Iran?
MS. PSAKI: Sure.
QUESTION: Your counterpart at the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Marzieh Afkham, described the whole ship episode and the press conference that took place – the ship that was allegedly going to Hamas – as a farce. And she described it in very graphic terms like Mr. Netanyahu is trying to sort of complicate whatever efforts you’re having in the negotiations. Could you comment on that?
MS. PSAKI: I would stand by the comments I made yesterday about the ship containing Iranian weapons. I spoke extensively to that yesterday. So I don’t have any –
QUESTION: Okay.
MS. PSAKI: — I think the facts are the facts in this case.
QUESTION: So let me ask you again. You have your own evidence, your own gathered evidence that this ship was laden with arms.
MS. PSAKI: The Israelis are the lead on this.
Photo: Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu at a press conference in Eilat regarding weapons he claims were bound for Gaza by Iranian order. Very few foreign press were reportedly in attendance.
]]>The quality [...]]]>
The quality of this Joint Plan of Action is particularly apparent in the enhanced monitoring provisions which Iran has offered.
Iran has agreed to:
A very interesting innovation in the Plan of Action is the agreement to establish a Joint Iran/E3+3 Commission to address plan implementation issues and to work with the IAEA to facilitate resolution of past and present issues of concern. Iran has long argued that some of the demands for cooperation made of it by the IAEA Director General and his subordinates fall outside the IAEA’s legal authority and are unreasonable. This new Commission will provide Iran with a forum in which it can set out such cases, confident that at least two other members of the Commission, Russia and China, will be ready to give impartial consideration to its arguments.
This Commission is also likely to facilitate resolution of questions relating to possible research by Iran into the technology of nuclear devices. Such research is believed to have taken place during the years when Saddam Hussein either ran a nuclear weapons program or was suspected of wanting to resurrect that program after its dismantlement by the UN and IAEA.
Together these provisions in the action plan amount to a very promising package. They make possible state-of-the-art verification of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program. Such high-quality verification was never available in the only state that has developed nuclear weapons while adhering to the NPT, North Korea — nor in Iraq prior to 1991 and between 1998 and 2003.
]]>by Marsha B. Cohen
Last Tuesday (Oct. 29) administration officials met with what the Israeli daily Haaretz describes as a ”coterie of Jewish leaders.” Only four Jewish organizations were represented: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC); the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); the American Jewish Committee (AJC); and the Conference of Presidents of Major [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
Last Tuesday (Oct. 29) administration officials met with what the Israeli daily Haaretz describes as a ”coterie of Jewish leaders.” Only four Jewish organizations were represented: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC); the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); the American Jewish Committee (AJC); and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.
Speaking for the administration during the one hour “off the record briefing” were White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice, her deputies Ben Rhodes and Tony Blinken, and Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman. Sherman is the senior State Department official representing the U.S. at ongoing talks over Iran’s nuclear program. The next round of negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, plus Germany) are scheduled for Nov. 6-7.
The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations issued a news release that evening: “Leaders of several Jewish organizations participated in an off-the-record discussion with senior Administration officials about issues of the highest priority for the U.S., for our community and for America’s allies, halting Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”
“We had a constructive and open exchange and agreed to continue the consultation to enhance the prospect of achieving a transparent and effective diplomatic resolution,” the release said. “We welcome the reaffirmation of the President’s commitment to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear capability and that all options remain viable to assure that end.”
Numerous Jewish groups that are usually invited to Israel-related get-togethers — including representatives of the Orthodox and Reform movements and the younger “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobbying group, J-Street, which has been very supportive of Obama’s foreign policy agenda — were not on the guest list. According to the Times of Israel, the White House had postponed a meeting scheduled for Monday with a broader range of Jewish groups. Instead, a meeting was set up for Tuesday with attendees from “organizations that had challenged the administration’s policies on Iran.”
The attendees included the Conference of Presidents Chairman Robert Sugarman, Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein, and former Conference Chairman Alan Solow. Abraham Foxman, who accused Secretary of State John Kerry the other day of having made “inappropriate” remarks about the use of “fear tactics” to undermine diplomacy with Iran, represented the ADL. Also attending were AIPAC’s Executive Director, Howard Kohr, and Jason Isaacson, the Director of Governmental and International Affairs at the American Jewish Committee.
Speaking for the National Security Council, Bernadette Meehan said in a statement that the purpose of the meeting was for the administration to reassure the Jewish organizations that “the United States will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, and that our preference is to resolve the issue peacefully through diplomacy.”
Pro-Israel groups have been supportive of congressional determination to impose new and stiffer sanctions against Iran even as the new Iranian administration of Hassan Rouhani has stated its determination to resolve the nuclear issue. Pro-Israel groups are supporting the congressional push for more crippling sanctions while the White House is arguing that any new sanctions should be put on hold for at least the duration of the next round of talks.
If the White House entertained the hope that an intimate and “off the record” gathering of pro-Israel, Iran policy hardliners who purportedly represent the views of American Jews would be kept quiet, there was a major miscalculation. Citing “sources familiar with the meeting,” Chemi Shalev of Haaretz initially reported early Friday morning that the pro-Israel Gang of Four had agreed to tone down their demand that new Iran sanctions be enacted immediately, without waiting to see whether the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 will reveal any signs of progress.
According to Shalev, the Jewish organizational leaders had agreed to grant the Obama administration “a limited ‘grace period’” of 60 days only after the administration assured them that no current sanctions would be eased and that no Iranian funds frozen in banks around the world would be released. By Friday afternoon, however, Shalev had found an anonymous source affiliated with an organization represented at the meeting who categorically denies that any commitment was given for any such moratorium. “In fact,” the source told Shalev, “we will support it.” Furthermore, according to Shalev, “Sources in the Jewish establishment emphasized that they did not make any commitment to refrain from supporting new sanctions in their private dealings with the U.S. lawmakers.”
The Jerusalem Post‘s Michael Wilner also reported on Friday afternoon that the organizations at the meeting had not agreed to desist from their efforts in support of new Iran sanctions. “I can tell you, within AJC, no decision has been made to revisit support for the Senate measure,” David Harris, Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee, told the JP. “There’s no process in place to reconsider our decision.”
Christians United for Israel (CUFI) is also mobilizing its million-plus Christian Zionists to urge their members of Congress to “support legislation to tighten the sanctions on Iran and to do everything in your power to ensure the prompt final passage of this measure.”
Although mainstream pro-Israel organizations have always insisted that U.S. support for Israel is bi-partisan and have been very reluctant to turn support for Israel (which includes staunch opposition to any improvement in relations between Israel and Iran) into a “wedge issue,” the neoconservative Washington Free Beacon turned to its own anonymous sources to accuse the Obama administration of having repeatedly “screwed pro-Israel groups.” Alana Goodman quoted “a senior official at a top pro-Israel organization” who claimed “the pro-Israel community has helped the White House out of several political binds recently and has only received problems in return…Now the administration is demanding favors, to say nothing of trust.”
Update (Nov. 3): In response to Chemi Shalev’s reports on Friday, Abraham Foxman of the ADL confirmed to Haaretz on Saturday that the four major pro-Israel groups had agreed to abide by a limited “time out” during which they would not push for stronger sanctions on Iran.“That means that we are not lobbying for additional sanctions and we are not lobbying for less sanctions,” Foxman told Haaretz as well as other U.S. media outlets. A few hours later, however, a statement by AIPAC’s president, Michael Kassen, contradicted Foxman’s claim, insisting there would be “no pause, delay or moratorium” in AIPAC’s efforts to seek new sanctions on Iran.
]]>via IPS News
Even with potential U.S. strikes against Iranian ally Syria looming, Washington and Tehran appear to be preparing for the resumption of nuclear talks.
U.S. foreign policy analysts have been bustling since the Aug. 4 inauguration of Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, who may have ushered in a new [...]]]>
via IPS News
Even with potential U.S. strikes against Iranian ally Syria looming, Washington and Tehran appear to be preparing for the resumption of nuclear talks.
U.S. foreign policy analysts have been bustling since the Aug. 4 inauguration of Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, who may have ushered in a new era of Iranian diplomacy and international relations.
“As the architect of the sole nuclear agreement between Iran and the West – a not inconsiderable achievement given the depth of mistrust – Rouhani presents a real chance for making progress in nuclear talks,” Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group, told IPS.
“Under [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, although the two sides were sitting at the same table, one side played chess, the other checkers. Under Rouhani, they are more likely to play the same game, albeit according to different rules,” he said.
“To succeed, the two sides need to do what they never truly did during the past few years: bargain,” added Vaez.
Iran’s announcement on Thursday that its nuclear negotiating file would be moved from its Supreme National Security Council to its Foreign Ministry, which is headed by Mohammad Javad Zarif, has also received a cautious nod from the White House.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Thursday that the United States was aware of the reports.
“The inauguration of President Rouhani presents an opportunity for Iran to act quickly to resolve the international community’s deep concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme,” she added.
The implication that the Western-educated Zarif will be overseeing Iran’s nuclear dossier may boost an apparent growing conviction here that Rouhani, who appointed Zarif to the FM in August, is someone whom Washington can work with.
He made powerful acquaintances, including with then-senators Dianne Feinstein, Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel, during his tenure as Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations (2002-2007), although his contacts with U.S. diplomats date back all the way to the 1980s when he helped negotiate the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon.
“Zarif…is one of the smartest, funniest people I’ve ever met in professional life…and I don’t think he believes it’s in Iran’s best interest to have a nuclear weapon personally,” said nuclear policy expert George Perkovich, at a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace briefing Thursday.
But Perkovich cautioned that Zarif is also a “formidable” negotiator who “unlike some of their predecessors” is neither “dumb” nor “ideological”.
“And so…we’re going to have to be sharp and on our game because if you’re trying to do stuff that’s just patently unfair and unbalanced, they’re just going to be able to slap us around the head rhetorically,” he added.
While no official date has been set, negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group could resume as early as this month, though it remains to be seen how U.S. military action against Syria might affect them.
For Vaez, “A limited U.S. strike on Syria is more likely to delay than derail nuclear talks with Iran.”
He also told IPS that that Rouhani has put aiding Iran’s ailing economy and ending its isolation at the top of his agenda and will not let Syria “spoil” his plan.
“Losing both Syria and an opportunity for sanctions relief will constitute a double blow to Iran’s strategic interests and its new president’s agenda,” said Vaez.
While Rouhani has not personally, unlike hardliners in Iran, cast blame on Syria’s rebels for the alleged chemical attack, he has stated that the issue should be handled by the U.N. and warned against foreign military action.
“Iran, as it has stated before, considers any action against Syria not only harmful to the region but also to U.S. allies and believes that such a measure will not benefit anyone,” said Rouhani at the 14th Summit of the Assembly of Experts on Wednesday.
The careful line that Iran is walking on Syria, considered a long-time partner in Iran’s resistance bloc toward Israel, could result in an Iranian shift away from its ally as it pursues its greater interests.
“Syria has become Iran’s Vietnam, and [Bashar al-] Assad’s extensive use of chemical weapons, in equal parts amoral and stupid, had magnified Tehran’s quandary,” Mark Fitzpatrick, a non-proliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), told IPS.
“With the leadership divided over how to respond, the hardliners are doubling down on their unqualified support for Assad, while Rouhani and other pragmatists are distancing themselves. Those divisions mean Iran will not respond militarily to a limited U.S.-led attack, though the flow of Iranian military arms may intensify, if enough Syrian airfields survive the tomahawk strikes,” he said.
“However difficult the mess Obama has on his hands over Syria, it’s nothing compared to the trouble Rouhani has been presented by his ‘ally’ in Damascus,” said Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick added that while it’s not clear how such a move would play out, “Any real solution to the Syrian mess will have to involve the key outside players, including Iran.”
For now, Rouhani and Zarif at least appear to be holding true to what Rouhani said would be Iran’s policy of “constructive interaction with the world” during his first presidential press conference.
Rouhani’s eyebrow-raising Rosh Hashanah greeting on Twitter Wednesday was followed by a similar one by Zarif (his second official Tweet) who proceeded to tell U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s daughter that she shouldn’t confuse his government with that of his predecessor.
“Iran never denied [the Holocaust],” Tweeted Zarif in response to a request by Christine Pelosi to “end Iran’s Holocaust denial”.
“The man who was perceived to be denying it is now gone. Happy New Year,” replied Zarif.
But the potential of additional sanctions on Iran pushed through by Congress during this critical time and the persistent negative effects of decades of mutual mistrust between Iran and the U.S. will temper hopes for a quick resolution to the nuclear issue regardless of what happens in Syria.
U.S. and Israeli fears that Iran could achieve the capability to dash toward a nuclear weapon by as early as 2014 according to worst-case assessments also increases urgency here.
To date, the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iran has not made the decision to pursue nuclear weapons.
“The issue then is not whether Iran will make decision in 2014 to dash for nuclear weapons. We don’t know whether they will or whether they want to and probably the probability is that they won’t, but they might,” Colin Kahl, the Pentagon’s top Middle East advisor during Obama’s first term, told IPS at the Carnegie briefing.
“The issue is more, from a U.S. perspective, that this becomes the last moment that the intelligence community can come to the president and say, boss, we’ll know when they move to nuclear weapons,” he said.
“If we lose the ability to detect [Iran’s dash toward a weapon], the ability to prevent nuclear weapons goes down dramatically and the military option then slips off the table… if I’m right…whatever your assessment is, and say that’s the amount of time we have for a diplomatic deal, that means you have 12-18 months. So let’s get on with it,” Kahl told IPS.
]]>by Mohammad Ali Kadivar
In a historic letter to President Barack Obama, 55 Iranian political prisoners describe the effect of the crippling sanctions regime on the Iranian people and plead for a new approach to the nuclear issue. They write:
Mr. President! We believe it is time to replace sanctions [...]]]>
by Mohammad Ali Kadivar
In a historic letter to President Barack Obama, 55 Iranian political prisoners describe the effect of the crippling sanctions regime on the Iranian people and plead for a new approach to the nuclear issue. They write:
Mr. President! We believe it is time to replace sanctions with an effort to achieve a mutually acceptable resolution of the nuclear issue. To achieve such an end and given the chronic nature of the deep-rooted conflict, all sides concerned should strive for a dignified solution in which no party will be considered the loser. Such a solution should be based on genuinely addressing international concerns about Iran’s nuclear program by the Iranian government on the one hand and acknowledging the legitimate rights of Iran to peaceful nuclear energy, in compliance with international legal standards, by the US and the West on the other.
For the last four years, Iran’s political prisoners have operated as a visible and influential actor in a severely repressed political atmosphere. They are now becoming an important voice in Iranian foreign policy by sending messages to politicians in Tehran and Washington.
The letter’s cosigners are politicians, journalists and democracy activists who were imprisoned during and after the government’s crackdown on the 2009 uprising against the fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The heavy-handed response suddenly increased the number of political prisoners in Iran to hundreds — at times even thousands. Many of them included prominent figures in Iran’s political and civil society.
In Iran, imprisonment operates as a conventional method of silencing political dissidents, but many of these prisoners continued their oppositional activities from the beginning of their sentences. What made this new round of prison activism more effective was the Iranian opposition movement’s strong Internet presence. When the Green Movement emerged in Iran, many analysts pointed to the activists’ innovative use of digital technology in initially organizing the electoral campaign and then publicizing information about protest events and regime atrocities.
The government’s crackdown attempted to stifle the public presence of Iran’s democracy movement, but the activists turned the Internet into an oppositional space. This included sharing updates about political prisoners’ situation and actions and spreading open letters smuggled from the prisons.
Sociologists refer to “abeyance structures” as spaces and communities through which social movements continue to exist in periods of repression and public inactivity. Ironically, prisons were a major abeyance structure for Iran’s Green Movement after the 2009 crackdown. During the years of the Green’s decline, Iranian prisoners sustained activity both through direct actions, such as hunger strikes, as well as adopting positions on issues through individual and collective open letters.
In addition to individual strikes against the abuse of prisoners’ rights, hunger strikes were also organized in solidarity with other prisoners and against regime atrocities conducted outside prison walls. In the most stunning example, 12 political prisoners went on hunger strike in 2011 after fellow prisoner Hoda Saber died after prison guards beat him while he was hunger striking against the tragic death of another activist on the outside, Haleh Sahabi. This collective action led to a burst of solidarity among Iranian dissidents inside Iran and among those in exile.
Prisoners also engaged in radical political positions in a country where political activists fear hosting meetings in their homes. In one of the boldest examples, political prisoner Abulfazl Ghadiani publicly accused Leader Ali Khamenei of despotism and compared him to Iran’s pre-revolutionary autocratic monarchs.
In other open letters, prisoners reflected on Iran’s political landscape and offered strategic analyses of Iranian politics and proposed courses of action. In discussions about boycotting or participating in the recent presidential election, Zia Nabavi, an exiled student sentenced to 10 years in prison, argued that Iran’s civil society needs active citizenry who won’t be easily discouraged by destructive authoritarian actions and will act with hope and rationality. He endorsed Hassan Rouhani in that letter and encouraged all democracy supporters to actively participate in the election. As with other letters by political prisoners, that letter became part of the pragmatic wave that resulted in Rouhani’s electoral victory.
During his campaign, Rouhani suggested his election could result in the release of political prisoners. That was one of the major demands that Rouhani’s supporters made during his electoral campaign and in celebrations of his victory. This will be one of the major tasks of the new president’s first term.
All these factors have provided political prisoners with a unique place in Iran’s political landscape. They are, after all, the people who have paid the highest price in fighting for freedom and equality for the Iranian people. A year before the election, Hamid Reza Jalaeipour, a prominent reformist sociologist, stated that political prisoners are even more important than reformist organizations. For all these reasons, the prisoners’ recent letter to President Obama contains significant ramifications for politicians in Washington and Tehran.
The message to Washington is clear. Regardless of whether the goal of sanctions or calls for military action is to empower the Iranian people, a suffering element of Iran’s democracy movement is stating that sanctions have been disempowering and should end.
Iran’s political prisoners are also teaching all of us an important lesson: one should not sacrifice the people’s wellbeing and interests for personal revenge. These prisoners had many reasons to ask for more sanctions on a government that has illegally imprisoned them for unjustifiable reasons, deprived them of their most basic rights and tortured them and their families. But they prioritized the Iranian peoples’ interests and asked both Iran and the US to engage in constructive diplomacy rather than blind hostility.
Let us hope that Iran’s leaders, especially Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, learn this lesson and facilitate the release of these prisoners while starting a new era in Iran’s foreign policy.
- Mohammad Ali Kadivar is a sociology PhD candidate and teaching fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He studies global democratization and popular mobilization and writes about Iranian politics in Farsi and English.
Photo Credit: Nima Fatemi
]]>by Farideh Farhi
After more than a month of intense speculation in Iran, Hassan Rouhani’s nominees for 18 cabinet posts were announced on the day of the new president’s inauguration. By law, Iran’s presidents have two weeks after taking office to offer their nominees to the parliament for confirmation hearings. However, as [...]]]>
by Farideh Farhi
After more than a month of intense speculation in Iran, Hassan Rouhani’s nominees for 18 cabinet posts were announced on the day of the new president’s inauguration. By law, Iran’s presidents have two weeks after taking office to offer their nominees to the parliament for confirmation hearings. However, as an indication of the task-oriented “competent” government to come, Rouhani followed through on his promise to announce his picks on Aug. 4.
The parliament will begin the confirmation process, which should not take long, next week. There is no guarantee that all the ministers will be approved (several of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ministers who were nominated in his first term were not). But as of today, the bet is that they will all pass, even if a couple face a few hurdles.
Cabinet appointments are watched closely in Iran, not only because ministers are key actors in guiding the direction and management of their ministries, but also because they say something about how the newly elected president will run the country and the compromises he is willing to or must make. In any contested political terrain, including Iran, compromises result from negotiations with other centers of power.
I will get to Rouhani’s compromises shortly but let me first say a little about the power of Iranian ministers.
Traditionally, ministers mostly have substantial control over the operation and appointment of their ministerial team. They are hence vulnerable to individual parliamentary interpellation and impeachment if deemed of insufficiently fulfilling their duties.
I say mostly because this tradition of ministerial independence was severely violated during the Ahmadinejad era, when he and members of his office routinely intervened in the internal matters of various ministries, underwriting many expulsions of top-level appointees as well as the ministers themselves.
Other presidents have also intervened in the appointment process of various ministries. Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani appointed a conservative minister of interior but then intervened in the appointment of many provincial governors, which is the prerogative of the interior minister. Driven by his interests, Ahmadinejad went much further and in effect became a meddling president at every level. Rouhani has promised to change that dynamic and the list of his cabinet nominees suggests he has mostly chosen individuals who will be agenda-setters in their own ministries and not agenda-takers. But he did make compromises and in the areas where he made major compromises, such as the Interior Ministry, he will likely act like Hashemi Rafsanjani and influence the gubernatorial appointments.
Hard Choices
The choice for the Interior Ministry is Abdulreza Rahmani Fazli, who is currently the director of the Supreme Audit Court, which is connected to the parliament. This body’s most important task is to issue yearly assessments of the financial operations of all government institutions and the extent to which their financial operations have been keeping in line with the budget as passed by the legislature.
Rahmani Fazli has been in the news for the past couple of years because of his office’s reports on missing funds that were discovered during Ahmadinejad’s presidency. But he is also a traditional conservative and a very close ally of parliament speaker Ali Larijani. His appointment was therefore a disappointment for Rouhani’s reformist backers who had hoped for someone with a clear record of support for citizens’ political and civil rights. (The interior minister also appoints the chief of police and licenses political parties and civil society organizations).
Rouhani also caved in at the last minute by nominating Mostafa Pourmohammadi, currently the head of Iran’s Inspectorate Office and Ahmadinejad’s minister of interior before he was fired at the end of the previous president’s first term. More importantly, Pourmohammadi was a prosecutor of the revolutionary courts and then deputy intelligence minister in the 1980s. He was implicated in some of the most horrific acts, including mass executions, against political prisoners.
Pourmohammadi is not a hardliner and in fact ran for president as a traditional conservative. But appointing him as justice minister does pose a question, to say the least, for a president who campaigned with the slogan of moderation and descuritization of the political environment — even if the justice minister is effectively the least powerful cabinet position.
It is true that the minister of justice is chosen among the four nominees offered by the head of the Judiciary and has no power in the selection of judges or its internal workings. It is also true that there is a saying in Iran that the justice minister is essentially the mailman between the Judiciary and the other two branches. Still, the appointment is a cave-in, likely to protect other ministerial nominees considered more important to Rouhani and effectively more essential in terms of influence.
In the arenas of foreign policy and economy, Rouhani did not make compromises and nominated individuals who are very close to him and his views. In foreign policy, Rouhani’s dilemma seemed to have been not about compromise but choice. He ultimately chose Javad Zarif over his deputy at the Center for Strategic Research, Mahmoud Vaezi, who was also considered a very strong choice. Others have written about Zarif’s appointment as an “olive branch” to the US. But it is a more important signal to the rank and file of the Foreign Ministry as well as the country as a whole.
Zarif represents the best and the brightest that the post-revolution Foreign Ministry has produced. He climbed the ranks without the help of religiously or politically important familial relations. Zarif’s important appointment is therefore a confirmation of Rouhani’s promise of a competent government. Yet to come, of course, are other foreign policy related appointments, in which Zarif will have quite a bit of say, including on Iran’s representative at the UN and a couple of deputy ministers. The latter becomes particularly important if the decision is made to return the handling of the nuclear file to the Foreign Ministry and send someone in the rank of US Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman to talks with the P5+1 nuclear negotiating team.
Vaezi, meanwhile, went to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, where he was director general many years ago. I am not sure if Vaezi is happy with this appointment. There are even rumors — and rumors in Iran should never be trusted — that at the end of the day, Vaezi had to be convinced to take up the position at the prodding of former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. He does however have Rouhani’s strong backing and personality to lead the effort if the decision is made to reduce the influence the Islamic Revolutionary Guards has wielded in this ministry (an IRGC commander was leading it during the past couple of years).
This ministry’s revenues from cellular service usage is enormous. Last year it was the third highest depositor of money into the Treasury after the Ministry of Petroleum and the Ministry of Economy and Finance (which is in charge of taxation).
The question of the IRGC being engaged in too many economic activities is now front-and-center in Iranian politics. Prominent MP Ahmad Tavkoli even went as far as suggesting that the country’s leadership has to be decisive in limiting the IRGC’s and security forces’ role in the economy. Vaezi will be at the center of this fight should it take place.
Tackling Iran’s economy
In general, the desire to get state organs out of the economy seems to be the glue that holds together a largely neo-liberal economic team. It is one of the strange ironies of Iranian politics that the leftists of the 1980s were turned politically reformist and economically mostly neo-liberal in the late 1990s and continue to be so. It is true that the reaction Mohammad Khatami’s neoliberal policies elicited in the form of Ahmadinejad’s justice-oriented populism — at least rhetorically — has now been acknowledged and the economic policies pursued will try to strike a balance between “development” and “justice” and not simply assume that development will lead to the downward trickling of wealth. But the thrust of Rouhani’s center-reformist economic appointments indicates more concern with production and productivity in both the industrial and agricultural sectors.
Almost all of the economy-related ministers — with the exception of the minister of energy, Hamid Chitchian, whose political affiliation is not clear to me and seems to be a bureaucrat who has climbed the ranks of that ministry — are of a center-reformist mold. Bijan Namdar Zangeneh, who was Khatami’s petroleum minister, is nominated to return. Mohammadreza Nematzadeh, who was the co-chair of Rouhani’s campaign, will lead the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Commerce. Abbas Ahmad Akhundi will lead the Ministry of Road and Transportation, Ali Rabii will lead the Ministry of Labor, Cooperatives, and Welfare and Mahmoud Hojjati, who was Khatami’s minister of road and transportation, will return as minister of agriculture.
The only odd appointment in this list of like-minded and highly experienced officials is the minister of economy and finance, Ali Tayebnia, who comes in with little known experience and a mostly academic background. He was reformist candidate Mohammadreza Aref’s economic advisor during the presidential campaign and reportedly has academic expertise in monetary and taxation policies. It’s an odd appointment because of his dearth of experience. But perhaps the idea is that he will be part of an economic team that will be led by two key Rouhani economic advisors: Ishaq Jahangiri, a founding member of the center-reformist Servants of Construction party, former governor and minister of industry, who will be the first vice president — and Ali Nobakht, who will likely head the resurrected Management and Planning Organization. Also involved in economic decision-making is Rouhani’s chief of staff, Mohammad Nahavandian, currently the head of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Not yet known is the person who will be appointed as the head of the Central bank of Iran (CBI). This position, like the positions of the first vice president and head of the Management and Panning Organization, does not require parliamentary approval. So far, the heads of Iran’s two largest private banks have been mentioned as potential CBI appointees.
Political boldness
Irrespective of whether one approves of the neo-liberal tendencies of these individuals, one has to marvel at the fact that three of these nominees were former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi’s 2009 campaign advisors, and one is possibly former president Khatami’s closest political advisor. These appointments come in the midst of dire warnings by Hossein Shariatmadari of the hardline Kayhan Daily against appointments of “supporters of sedition” to key positions. Indeed, there is no doubt that Zangeneh will have a tough time getting by the parliament. But he is backed by his stellar record in both the ministries of energy and petroleum and the fact that his diehard opponents have so far failed to find any financial shenanigans on his part. He is “squeaky clean,” an academic who lives in Tehran told me.
Another minister who may have difficulty getting through is the nominee for the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, which supervises the university system. Jafar Milimonfared was not Rouhani’s first choice. His first choice was received as too reformist and elicited harsh reaction from hardline and conservative forces. Still, Milimonfared was deputy minister of the same ministry during the Khatami era and even became its caretaker for a short when it was between ministers. This position elicits sensitivity because the new minister may reverse the Islamicization trend that has been pursued in Iran’s universities and remove some of the appointed faculty in the past 8 years. So, the fight is over both ideology and pork.
Interestingly, the nominee for Irans’ Education Ministry, Mohammad Ali Najafi, is expected to pass through relatively easily. He is also a founding member of the centrist Servants of Construction party and was until recently a member of the Tehran city council. Many considered him to be a more appealing reformist candidate for president than Mohammadreza Aref, who withdrew his candidacy in order for the reformists to line-up behind Rouhani. Najafi was the director of the Planning and Budget Organization (later renamed as the Management and Planning Organization) under Khatami. He was also the minister of culture and higher education when Mousavi was prime minister,.
This leaves the three key ministries of Defense, Culture and Islamic Guidance, and Intelligence — all of which ended up with a compromise choice. Note how I say a compromise choice and not an imposed choice. If the reported names are valid, none of the three nominees – Hossein Dehghan for Defense, Ali Jannati for Culture and Islamic Guidance and Hojatoleslam Seyyed Mahmud Alavi for Intelligence — were among Rouhani’s first choices. But these individuals cannot be considered as anyone else’s imposed choice either.
All three have worked for Hashemi Rafsanjani or Khatami and all three have a good relationship with Rouhani. Dehghan is a member of Rouhani’s Moderation and Development party, and Alavi was his link to Qom during the presidential campaign. And Jannati, whose father Ahmad Jannati is the Secretary of the Guardian Council, is much closer ideologically to Hashemi Rafsanjani than his father. He was deputy minister for international affairs at the ministry of culture and Islamic guidance during Hashemi Rafsanjani’s presidency and ambassador to Kuwait during Khatami’s presidency. He has the distinction of being removed from office by Ahmadinejad twice; once as deputy minister of the interior and once as Iran’s ambassador to Kuwait. Those working in the art, music and publishing world would have preferred a more reformist-minded nominee, but they are not complaining — at least not yet. This ministry has operated in such an erratic manner — for example by granting permission for movies to be made and then refusing to allow their release after much cost and effort — that anyone who brings consistency as well as lesser interference will be appreciated for now.
All in all the cabinet seems well-balanced with regard to Iran’s widely disparate political strands as well as the electorate that coalesced to make Rouhani’s victory possible. Expectedly, it features no hardliners since they were the clear losers of the presidential election. It does include a number of traditional conservatives but the cabinet mostly bends to the middle, as promised, while some individuals who are very close to former reformist president Khatami have been slated for key positions.
We’ll just have to wait and see if they will survive their confirmation hearings. The deputy-level appointments, which for many of those who deal with the various ministries are sometimes even more important than the ministerial heads, come next. It will take quite a few months before the depth of Rouhani’s efforts and commitment to instilling change will become clear.
Photo Credit: Roohollah Vahdati
]]>by Peter Jenkins
I had the pleasure of talking to Ambassador Hossein Mousavian around the time when the thoughts that underlie his controversial article, “Five Options for Iran’s New President”, were forming in his mind. His mood, it seemed to me, was more pessimistic than I had known [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
I had the pleasure of talking to Ambassador Hossein Mousavian around the time when the thoughts that underlie his controversial article, “Five Options for Iran’s New President”, were forming in his mind. His mood, it seemed to me, was more pessimistic than I had known it before. He was starting to despair of the Obama administration finding the political courage to square up to Congress and Israel, and clear a path to the resolution of the nuclear dispute by offering Iran toleration of a peaceful nuclear program and meaningful sanctions relief.
I am therefore inclined to see Mousavian’s highlighting of withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as an attempt to stiffen the administration’s resolve by reminding them of the potential cost of continuing to allow this dispute to fester.
I am also inclined to see it as a reminder to all of us that since 2001, the US, UK and France have been abusing the NPT, and that this is short-sighted and foolish. But before I elaborate on that, let me make a few points about Iran and NPT withdrawal.
Mousavian suggests that the NPT has failed to bring any benefits to Iran. Really? The NPT has delivered a world in which there are only four nuclear-armed states, in addition to the five Nuclear Weapon States. In 1970, when the NPT entered into force, people feared that by now there would be 20 nuclear-armed states. A largely nuclear-weapon-free world is a great benefit for all, including Iran (and the great free-rider, Israel).
Mousavian implies that withdrawal from the NPT would be a painless option for Iran. Of course, he knows better than that. “You ain’t seen nothing yet” is how the US, UK and France would react to withdrawal.
Even more painfully, I suspect, for the Islamic Republic’s leaders, all the hard work put into establishing Iran as a responsible international actor, albeit nobody’s poodle, would be undone. Only a handful of non-aligned states would sympathise. Iran would lose the friendship of Russia and China, two states that take their NPT responsibilities very seriously. Iran would revert to its outcast status of the early 80s.
Mousavian intimates that the world should accept the Supreme Leader’s fatwas as a better guarantee of Iran’s non-proliferation commitment than adherence to the NPT. That is fanciful, I am afraid. Rightly or wrongly, the world fears that what the Leader bans today, he can licence tomorrow.
Mousavian is on much firmer ground when he accuses the US and its Western allies of abusing the NPT as an instrument of pressure. Article IV of the NPT does not oblige the holders of dual-use technologies to make those technologies available to other NPT parties, as Iran has sometimes seemed to be claiming. Equally, however, it does not confer a right to coerce other NPT parties into surrendering technologies that they have developed for themselves, provided the technologies are in peaceful, safeguarded use.
In 2003, after the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had reported several Iranian failures to comply with its IAEA safeguards obligations, there existed, to my mind, a moral and political basis for requiring Iran to suspend the use of dual-use technologies. But that justification faded once those failures had been corrected and once the US intelligence community had concluded that Iran was no longer decided on getting nuclear weapons.
Sadly, this abuse of the NPT is of a piece with other short-sighted missteps that, over time, can undermine Non-Nuclear Weapons States’ (NNWS) support for the treaty:
- in 2001 the George W. Bush administration went back on a commitment made to NPT-parties by the Clinton administration to achieve the early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, and reduced funding to the CTBT Provisional Treaty Secretariat;
- in 2004 President Bush proposed a freeze on the peaceful use of dual-use technologies by NNWS, but then insisted that covert South Korean research into uranium enrichment did not amount to IAEA non-compliance;
- in 2005 the Bush administration set about asking for an exception, to benefit India, to an understanding that Nuclear Suppliers would only make nuclear material and equipment available to non-NPT nuclear-armed states under very restricted circumstances;
- at the 2005 NPT Review Conference the US and France all but said out loud that Article VI of the NPT is for the birds; and the US protected Israel from non-aligned pressure for a conference on creating a nuclear-weapon-free Middle East.
Obviously things have improved since Barack Obama moved into the White House. At the 2010 NPT Review Conference, the US signed on to a final document that brought it back into concurrence with the compromises on which the NPT is founded; and the US and Russia signed an agreement that demonstrates a will to move towards nuclear disarmament. Just recently, President Obama made plain his desire to move further in that direction.
But when it comes to Iran, nothing has changed. The administration, like a weasel caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, seems paralysed by a Congress that Israel’s Prime Minister has bewitched. No attempt is made to challenge Congress with an analysis of the implications for Iran policy of the relevant provisions of the NPT. Instead, Congress is left to luxuriate in the conviction that international treaties can be a useful tool for policing the rest of the world but can be ignored by the good, old U.S. of A.
Mousavian’s mood may have improved since Iranians elected a president with whom Western leaders can afford to be photographed; and since it became blindingly obvious that the West needs Iranian cooperation to restore peace to Syria (and in Afghanistan from next year). But until Mousavian sees the administration stand up to Congress on Iranian policy, he is likely to continue fearing the worst.
]]>Sanctions Are Holding Back Our Talks with Iran
by Usha Sahay and Laicie Heeley
There is a consensus in Washington that more sanctions will help convince Iran to halt its nuclear development. On June 3, President Obama issued an executive order — his sixth in two years —
Sanctions Are Holding Back Our Talks with Iran
by Usha Sahay and Laicie Heeley
There is a consensus in Washington that more sanctions will help convince Iran to halt its nuclear development. On June 3, President Obama issued an executive order — his sixth in two years — announcing new sanctions targeting Iran’s currency and its auto industry. Meanwhile, a number of separate sanctions bills are being circulated in Congress, with additional penalties expected to be passed later this summer. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez recently remarked, “The sanctions are working – but they aren’t enough, and they aren’t working fast enough.”
The logic of both the White House and Congress seems to be that we need more sanctions to compel Iran to negotiate and freeze its controversial nuclear program. But our research suggests the opposite: repeated intensifications of economic pressure are not bringing Iran to the negotiating table. In fact, sanctions now appear to be pushing the long-sought-after nuclear agreement further away.
A report released this week by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation concluded that sanctions are not “working” the way they should be. Yes, they’ve hit Iran’s economy hard — but that doesn’t mean the policy is succeeding. Crucially, sanctions haven’t persuaded Iran’s leadership to come to an agreement with the West and may have begun to strengthen the Iranian regime and cement its determination to continue defying the international community.
How is it that sanctions are doing the opposite of what they were supposed to? This wasn’t always the case. Particularly in the early years of the Obama administration, when the President exerted considerable political muscle to get international allies on board with tough penalties on Iran, sanctions helped signal to Tehran that the international community was serious about the nuclear issue. Moreover, by focusing on sanctions instead of taking the drastic step toward military action, the President showed a preference for resolving the impasse through diplomacy rather than war.
Since then, however, a curious thing has happened. Thanks to the sheer number of sanctions that have been put in place, the American commitment to a diplomatic solution appears increasingly hollow. Theoretically, Iran should be interested in talking to the West in order to negotiate for sanctions relief. But the actual process of lifting sanctions is far more complicated than it appears — a number of legal and political hurdles have prevented the U.S. and its European allies from credibly committing to significant sanctions relief during negotiations with Iran.
For instance, sanctions passed by Congress require another act of Congress before they can be repealed and U.S. lawmakers would be loath to pass such legislation for fear of appearing weak on Iran. Another problem is that many sanctions are written with built-in conditions that need to be met before they can be terminated. Some of these conditions are so out of reach that Iran may no longer see a point in even showing up for the negotiations.
Due to all the strings attached to sanctions legislation, Iranians perceive the U.S. as being more interested in sanctions than in coming to an agreement.
Even as these legal and bureaucratic difficulties stall the diplomatic process, the impact of sanctions within Iran is also hurting U.S. interests. Rather than weakening the defiant regime, sanctions have actually given the Iranian government the ability to manage the economy and consolidate its power. Through patronage, currency manipulation, and other methods, Iran’s leaders have taken advantage of the sanctions by forcing people in dire economic straits to rely on special government favors.
Meanwhile, younger Iranians and political moderates — who, somewhere down the line, could be useful allies for the U.S. — are seeing their economic and political power diminished. They’re also starting to blame the West for their woes.
In the long term, then, sanctions are eroding American influence in Iran. And in the short term, sanctions aren’t giving the U.S. and its allies the leverage they need in nuclear negotiations. More sanctions, according to our research, will not solve this problem. In fact, more sanctions will make the problem harder to solve. As veteran Middle East diplomat Ryan Crocker recently warned, “…it seems to me that the more you press this regime, the more they dig in.”
On June 3, while unveiling the new executive branch sanctions, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney noted, “Even as we intensify our pressure on the Iranian government, we hold the door open to a diplomatic solution.” Carney’s comments obscured a troubling reality: sanctions no longer go hand in hand with the diplomatic process. Rather, sanctions are hindering efforts to negotiate with the Iranians and to resolve the problem peacefully.
Economic sanctions could have served as a useful element of a sophisticated, multi-faceted effort to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. Now, however, sanctions are fast becoming the entirety of our policy — and a policy of pressure alone has little chance of succeeding. To make genuine progress on the Iranian nuclear issue, the Obama administration and Congress must shift their focus toward sanctions relief and compromise, rather than sticking with the pressure-only approach that’s proving increasingly counterproductive.
]]>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 [...]]]>
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:
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.
]]>by Charles Naas
The second round of talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan between the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) and Iran ended just about where they started — no advance from the March talks and the glimmer of hope that perhaps some kind of momentum could be established. Unlike Almaty [...]]]>
by Charles Naas
The second round of talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan between the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) and Iran ended just about where they started — no advance from the March talks and the glimmer of hope that perhaps some kind of momentum could be established. Unlike Almaty I, no date was set for a continuation of the negotiations. Western diplomats offered mixed messages about what happened during the two lengthy sessions. In fact, there should be no mystery about the sick snail pace of the negotiations The two sides are not on the same page and are talking past each other. As long as this continues, an understanding will be highly unlikely.
The P5+1 are focused on an agreement that is limited to the nuclear issue and as restrictive as possible on Iran’s program in the future. When negotiations began during the Bush administration, the US demanded that Iran cease all uranium enrichment which Iran was producing at the reactor fuel level of 3.5-4% as a condition for the talks. That was a non-starter and quickly put aside when Iran decided to enrich uranium to 20% at its Fordow facility, which is buried deeply in a mountain near the holy city of Qom. Twenty percent enriched uranium can be enriched to explosive level in as quickly as 3 months or less if Iran decides to race for a bomb. Fordow has, therefore, become the central concern of the P5+1, though the revised proposal reportedly softened the demand for its total closure. It’s unclear whether the 6 powers have explicitly or implicitly recognized Iran’s right to enrich uranium to fuel its future power reactors. The Six have reportedly offered small-scale sanctions relief and the sale of selective goods to Iran, but otherwise continue to take a hard line on keeping the talks tightly tied to nuclear affairs.
It has become clear that Iran’s position is based on the principle that it’s a fully independent and equal member of the world community and will go to extreme lengths to avoid accepting a lesser status. Call it Iranian pride, self respect, history and ambitions for the future. The two times in modern history that Iran was forced to accept foreign dictate — the 1907 Russian-UK Agreement on spheres of influence and the World War II occupation — still rankle, as does the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadegh in 1953. In line with this principle, Iran insists that it has all the rights of the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — to which it was an early member — and that this includes the full fuel-cycle from enrichment to reprocessing of spent fuel.
Iran has been consistent. In the mid-1970s, the US and Iran engaged in lengthy talks about a new treaty to permit US cooperation on the sale of reactors to the Shah’s very ambitious power reactor program. Iran’s negotiators adamantly assumed the same position that they operate on now: Iran should be regarded and treated as the proud and sovereign nation that it is. Iran has, therefore, rejected any restrictions on its civilian power reactor program but has apparently indicated some willingness to cooperate on the output of Fordow. But this was likely expressed in an ambiguous manner and remains insufficient for the P5+1. The Six’s offer of slight sanctions relief has also been implicitly spurned.
By its mere presence at the meetings, Iran has accepted the premise that its nuclear program is both important and contentious, but its objectives are far-reaching in contrast to the Six’s aim of restricting discussions to nuclear affairs. Iran will not move far, if at all, without significant sanctions relief, and, as a final step, the conclusion of all UN and other sanctions against it. Beyond these measurable aims, Iran has indicated that negotiations should be expanded to include an examination of the power realities within the region and on how Iran is perceived by major powers. The more ambitious Iranians who are involved with the country’s international concerns see Iran’s long history; its central geographic position; the size of its population; its realizable great wealth from petroleum; and the potential from its rapidly growing, educated population (particularly in the sciences), as inevitably leading it to a form of regional hegemony. These negotiators have carefully and with some subtlety melded their objectives.
The strenuous diplomatic process with Iran has been taking place in the background of more than thirty years of enmity and decades of steadily increasingly, painful sanctions. American threats of “all options are on the table”, cyber warfare directed at Iran’s enrichment facilities and substantial US and allied military forces in the Gulf, have added to ongoing tension and feed Iran’s concern that we really are aiming for regime change. Our strong ties with Israel, which compel us to support the notion that an Iranian ability to build a nuclear explosive poses an existential threat, also amplifies Iran’s distrust.
On the other hand, the US and others have alleged that Iran is a major supporter of international terrorism and that it has the intention of at least getting to the point where it could rapidly create a nuclear weapon. Iranian denials of such plans, and Leader Ali Khamenei’s Fatwa, have had no resonance in the Obama administration. Add to this an emerging friction in current political alliances within the Middle East. Iran — and the Russians – support the other Shi’a states, Syria and Iraq, and parties such as Hezbollah. The US, UK, France and Germany have sided with the Arab Sunni monarchies, the Syrian rebels and Israel.
At this point, neither side has moved significantly from its opening position. Unless both sides give their negotiators new and more flexible instructions, movement towards an agreement is highly unlikely. Meaningful change is domestically difficult, but it may be worth continuing talks simply to have an established site for future exchanges as problems arise. So far, perhaps the main positive result has been the seemingly successful process of breaking ice between Iran and the US.
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