by Jasmin Ramsey
In a letter today, a bipartisan group of senior foreign policy luminaries urged senators not to pass new sanctions against Iran, warning that additional sanctions would jeopardize ongoing diplomatic efforts and potentially move the U.S. closer to war. The letter’s nine signers include Ryan Crocker, former [...]]]>
by Jasmin Ramsey
In a letter today, a bipartisan group of senior foreign policy luminaries urged senators not to pass new sanctions against Iran, warning that additional sanctions would jeopardize ongoing diplomatic efforts and potentially move the U.S. closer to war. The letter’s nine signers include Ryan Crocker, former Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, Daniel Kurtzer, former Ambassador to Israel and Thomas R. Pickering, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and former Ambassador to Israel, India Jordan, Russia and the United Nations. Last week another former official and prominent expert, Colin Kahl, who who served as the top Middle East policy official at the Defence Department for most of President Obama’s first term, provided an in-depth explanation for why new sanctions now will seriously endanger the diplomatic process with Iran.
The letter was delivered to the co-sponsors of the Nuclear Weapon Free Act of 2013 introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL). The bill would add more sanctions on Iran and purchasers of its oil as well as position the U.S. to support Israel militarily, economically and diplomatically if they choose to take military action against Iran. The full letter is reprinted below.
Chairman Robert Menendez
United States Senate
522 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
January 6, 2014
Dear Chairman Menendez,
We ask you and the other cosponsors of the Menendez/Kirk bill, S. 1881, to review carefully whether that legislation serves U.S. national interests and those of our friends and allies. We believe it does not for a number of important reasons.
The bill will threaten the prospects for success in the current negotiations and thus present us and our friends with a stark choice – military action or living with a nuclear Iran. A military strike would not eliminate Iran’s nuclear capacity and may result in the very thing the U.S. hopes to prevent: Iran deciding to seek nuclear weapons. Living with an Iranian nuclear weapon is exactly the outcome the U.S. seeks to avoid with international negotiations.
President Obama’s decision to test the intentions of the new government of Iran offers the best opportunity in decades to see whether there is a peaceful way to achieve all of our most important objectives. More importantly if Iran were to agree to substantial and verifiable limits on its nuclear program — which they say they are prepared to do – the world would be a safer place than if the international community were to try to achieve such objectives through war.
You and your co-sponsors contend that since sanctions brought Iran to the table to negotiate seriously, then more sanctions or legislated threats of more sanctions would make Iran’s leaders even more determined to give us what we seek. To the contrary, Iranian leaders are more likely to see such Congressional action as a violation of the spirit and perhaps the letter of the Joint Plan of Action of November 24, 2013, and to harden rather than soften their negotiating position. Already, Iranian legislators have threatened to pass a bill requiring enrichment at higher levels — beyond 20% — in response to S. 1881. This kind of tit-for-tat spiral threatens to undermine any possibility of curtailing Iran’s nuclear program.
Once the new Iranian president declared his government’s readiness to negotiate immediately and seriously a comprehensive agreement to give the international community virtually everything it seeks in return for gradual sanctions relief, the Iranians had every right to assume that the US and the other nations involved in the negotiations would proceed in good faith. Based on our experience born of years of dealings with Iran, we do not believe the Iranians will continue to negotiate under new or increased threats.
The outcome of these negotiations is by no means certain. Should the U.S. Congress decide it must unilaterally seek to add even more burdens now on this complicated and critical process, it is unlikely that the goals of our negotiations can be achieved. Moreover our other negotiating partners (UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China) would be displeased and would conclude that the US is no longer proceeding in good faith in accord with the Joint Plan of Action. This bill could lead to an unraveling of the sanctions regime that the U.S. and its partners have so patiently built.
The United States and its allies in the region would better off if relieved of the concern that Iran might acquire a nuclear weapon. Israel would no longer have to be concerned that Iran could present an existential threat and would be in a stronger position to defend itself. This is particularly true in view of the capacity for self-defense inherent in Israel’s overwhelming military power, both conventional forces and its well-known strategic capabilities.
We urge you to take a second look at this legislation, accept that you have achieved your objective of putting down a marker for Iran, but not press this bill to a vote. You do not sacrifice any of your options by doing so. Negotiators now need a chance to continue to their work. We ask that you stand up firmly for the interests of the United States, as you always have, and allow the negotiations to proceed.
Sincerely,
Ryan Crocker, former Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan
Stephen Heintz, President, Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Daniel Kurtzer, former Ambassador to Israel
William H. Luers, former Ambassador to Venezuela and Czechoslovakia
Jessica Tuchman Mathews, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Thomas R. Pickering, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and former Ambassador to Israel, India Jordan, Russia and the United Nations
Paul Pillar, former National Intelligence Officer
Jim Walsh, Research Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Frank G. Wisner, former Under Secretary of State for International Security Affairs and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
Photo: Sens. Blunt (L) and Menendez (R)
With negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program moving to Moscow next week, a draft letter to be circulated among Senators for signature calls on the Obama administration to not offer Iran major concessions without a comprehensive deal on its nuclear program. The draft letter, [...]]]>
Photo: Sens. Blunt (L) and Menendez (R)
With negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program moving to Moscow next week, a draft letter to be circulated among Senators for signature calls on the Obama administration to not offer Iran major concessions without a comprehensive deal on its nuclear program. The draft letter, obtained by ThinkProgress, says that, should the Iranians not take certain steps demanded by the Senators, the U.S. should “reevaluate the utility of further talks.”
Authored by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Roy Blunt (R-MO), the draft letter outlines the “absolute minimum steps” Iran must take in Moscow: shutting down its Fordow enrichment facility, ending enrichment of uranium to high levels, and shipping out its stockpile of high-enriched uranium. The letter says that Iran’s agreement to these steps would “justify continued discussions,” but doesn’t outline any other possible concessions.
While that leaves the door open for other possible lesser concessions, the Senators rule out acceding to a key Iranian goal until Iran agrees to the full spectrum of Western and U.N. demands. The New York Times reported that, in Baghdad, Iran asked for “an easing of the onerous economic sanctions imposed by the West,” something the Iranians have “relentlessly” pursued. But the Senators refuse to consider such steps without a comprehensive deal. In the draft letter, they write:
Barring full, verifiable Iranian compliance with all Security Council resolutions and full cooperation with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], including a new, far more intrusive inspections regime under the additional protocol, we see no circumstances under which Iran should be relieved from the current sanctions or those scheduled to come into effect at the end of this month.
That restriction could, in effect, stymie moves toward a “confidence-building” deal. A deal identical to the one mentioned by the Senators — demanding the “absolute minimum steps” but offering little sanctions relief — was on the table in Baghdad. After it failed to advance, an Iranian diplomat told the Christian Science Monitor that Iran would not “accept these things this way.”
The sanctions in question, due to take effect next month, forbid any third-party entity from doing business with Iran’s Central Bank. A European Union embargo on Iranian oil is set to kick in at around the same time.
The Senate letter comes just as preliminary talks indicate potential wiggle room to get a deal. The Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl noted one such conversation in his column today. He added that, while there’s been no promised sanctions relief for tangible Iranian steps, the West has indicated that Iranian “steps will be met by reciprocal steps.”
The Center for American Progress’s Brian Katulis, Rudy DeLeon and Peter Juul noted in a brief last month that sanctions relief will be a top Iranian priority in the next round of talks:
Iran’s interests will be more to come to an agreement that averts the implementation of sanctions than in stalling talks. Tehran’s clock to avoid sanctions is now moving faster than its nuclear program is progressing.
In an op-ed for the Jewish Chronicle, the Ploughshares Fund’s Joel Rubin said that some in Congress “seek to undermine American efforts at political dialogue with Iran by reducing the administration’s negotiating flexibility.” He went on:
The way forward in the near term should therefore be one of negotiating modest, step-by-step, and fully verifiable concessions and agreements. The United States and the other powers at the negotiating table need to be prepared to give some ground in order to make progress toward the outcome we want.
A potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, as well as the nuclear non-proliferation regime. U.S., U.N. and Israeli intelligence estimates give the West time to pursue a dual-track approach of pressure and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Questions about the efficacy and potential consequences of a strike have led U.S. officials to declare that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to resolve the crisis.
]]>Foreign Policy: Despite the treasury’s letter to the Senate expressing “the Administration’s strong opposition” to the proposed Menendez-Kirk amendment to a new Iran sanctions bill, it was passed in senate on Thursday with a unanimous vote. Included [...]]]>
Foreign Policy: Despite the treasury’s letter to the Senate expressing “the Administration’s strong opposition” to the proposed Menendez-Kirk amendment to a new Iran sanctions bill, it was passed in senate on Thursday with a unanimous vote. Included in this post by Josh Rogin is a “best-guess timeline” of the implementation of the Kirk-Menendez sanctions. Robert Mendendez also expressed his anger yesterday over the Obama administration’s criticism of measures which he claims he was encouraged to make.
Huffington Post: According to Trita Parsi, the attack against the British embassy in Tehran was not only an explicit message from the Iranians that they will not respond positively to pressure. It also signals the rise of hardline conservatives in the government who see no boundaries in their quest to undermine President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:
- The attack on the British embassy was not only illegal and disgraceful, it was also a sign of how statecraft in Iran has deteriorated over the past years as a result of internal bickering within the political elite. Key actors within the regime are willing to be take excessive risks on the international stage through reckless actions in order to score points in their petty domestic rivalries.
TIME: The former director of Israel’s national security council, retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, tells an army radio station that the mysterious blast in Isfahan this week was “no accident”:
- “There aren’t many coincidences,” he said, ”and when there are so many events there is probably some sort of guiding hand, though perhaps it’s the hand of God.”
- So given all those factors, with which many nonpartisan and military analysts agree, as well as concerns about an unintended slide from heated rhetoric to confrontation and war, why would a sober, thoughtful defense secretary go so far out of the way to insist that force is not ruled out? Panetta said that the Administration’s goal is to force Iran to choose between a nuclear weapon and re-integration in the region and the world. He knows that diplomacy and economics are the way to achieve that goal — and said so. The Secretary also knows that what he called Israel’s increasing isolation makes things easier for Iran. Hence the invitation to Israel to reach out in its region and alter the dynamic. Panetta, who has developed since arriving at the Pentagon a reputation for speaking off the cuff from time to time, seemed highly calibrated throughout, which made the curtness of his last response, to the question of what Israel should do now, all the more striking: “just get to the damn table.”
Arms Control Association: The U.S. should make the “first move” to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran from becoming a reality since it is still not “imminent nor inevitable” and impose reasonable pressure while offering confidence-building measures:
- Rather than being permanently discouraged by Iran’s unhelpful behavior at Istanbul, the United States and its “P5+1” partners—China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom—should prepare for additional talks with Iran and continue to highlight constructive proposals they are prepared to discuss. This includes outlining the confidence-building steps required to ease the current sanctions regime and end Tehran’s diplomatic isolation.
Al Jazeera English: A timeline of developments surrounding Iran’s nuclear program beginning in 2002.
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