The new year may have brought with it some signs of progress toward a comprehensive deal between world powers and Iran, lending credence to one of Graham Fuller’s 2015 predictions for the Middle East. However, any movement toward a nuclear agreement must now contend with a potentially game-changing complication: the desire of a new and more hawkish Republican-led Congress to impose additional sanctions on Iran regardless of how the talks are progressing.

The Associated Press reported on Friday that the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China) had reached a tentative agreement with Iranian negotiators on a plan to have Tehran ship some portion of its stockpiled low enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia. The agreement would presumably be along the lines of the arrangement that was first reported by IPS’s Gareth Porter in October whereby Iran’s stockpiled LEU, as well as much of its newly enriched LEU, would be converted by the Russians into fuel for its Bushehr civilian nuclear facility.

If the AP report is accurate, the deal could represent a major breakthrough in one of the core areas of dispute between the parties: the size of Iran’s uranium enrichment program. The P5+1 have sought to limit the number of centrifuges that Iran would be allowed to operate under the terms of a deal in order to lengthen the amount of time it would take the Iranians to produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a single nuclear bomb if it chose to pursue one (Iran’s “breakout time”). But Iran has balked at the idea of reducing its centrifuge program. However, another element in the “breakout time” calculation (part of the so-called “Rubik’s Cube” of a final nuclear deal) is the amount of LEU that Iran has stockpiled. Were Iran to agree to ship its LEU (which can be fairly easily enriched to levels required for weaponization) to Russia for conversion into fuel rods (which cannot be easily converted to a weaponizable form), then Iran’s “breakout time” could be extended with only a relatively minor –and perhaps even no — reduction in Iran’s current centrifuge capacity.

It should be noted that the AP report contained no specifics, saying simply that “both sides in the talks are still arguing about how much of an enriched uranium stockpile to leave Iran.” It also offered no indication that the deal would motivate the US/P5+1 negotiators to alter their demand that Iran cut its current number of operating centrifuges by over 50%, to 4500, under a final deal. In addition, Iran’s foreign ministry quickly dismissed the AP report, with spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham saying that “no agreement has been reached yet on any of the issues [being discussed] during nuclear talks,” although that denial could reflect diplomatic posturing on Iran’s part.

Other news out of Tehran, however, has offered a more encouraging sign that the sides may be moving closer to a deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday argued that Iran should be prepared to accept some limits on its uranium enrichment program if doing so could help achieve a larger aim:

Speaking to an economic conference in Tehran, Rouhani both countered hard-line critics worried Iran will give up too much while also attempting to signal his administration remains open to negotiation with the six-nation group leading the talks.

If “we are ready to stop some types of enrichment which we do not need at this time, does it mean we have compromised our principles and cause?” Rouhani asked.

He responded: “Our cause is not linked to a centrifuge. It is connected to our heart and to our willpower.”

Rouhani’s remarks caused a bit of a social media storm, with some reputable analysts, including Suzanne Dimaggio who heads the Iran initiative at the New American Foundation, suggesting that a final deal is on the horizon.

Important speech by #Iran‘s @HassanRouhani today: “Our ideals are not bound to centrifuges.” Preparing for a deal. http://t.co/f9CB66RT9G

— Suzanne DiMaggio (@suzannedimaggio) January 4, 2015

Additionally, Rouhani seemed to suggest that he could put the terms of a final nuclear deal to a national referendum, possibly in order to bypass potential opposition from hardliners in the Majles (Iran’s parliament) and higher up the country’s religious and political hierarchy. As Juan Cole notes, the results of such a referendum could still be overruled by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but Khamenei may be reluctant to overrule the will of a majority of the Iranian public.

Unfortunately, these positive developments take place amid the rise of a new threat to the ongoing negotiations, not from hardliners in Iran’s parliament but rather from hardliners in the newly installed (as of Saturday) US Congress. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) visited Israel late last month and told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there would be a vote on the previously stymied Kirk-Menendez bill (to impose additional sanctions on Iran) sometime in January, and that the new Congress would “follow [Netanyahu’s] lead” on dealing with Iran and the nuclear talks. Putting aside the astonishing sight of a US senator pledging allegiance to a foreign leader, sanctions are a clearly decisive issue for Tehran. The imposition of another round of broad US sanctions, even if they are made conditional on Iran abandoning the talks or breaking its obligations under the existing negotiating framework, would strengthen hardliners in Tehran who have long argued that Washington cannot be trusted. The Obama administration has pledged to veto any additional sanctions on Iran so long as talks are ongoing, but that may not matter; Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) told reporters last week that he expects the new Congress to pass a new sanctions bill with veto-proof majorities in both the House and the Senate.

The most recent extension of the talks called for a final framework to be in place by March 1 and for a full deal to be reached by July 1. It seems likely that most Republicans in Congress will do their best to scuttle the talks before either of those deadlines can be reached, putting negotiators (who will meet again Jan 15. in Geneva) on an even tighter timeframe.

As Iran and six world powers scramble to reach a deal over Iran’s nuclear program by the deadline of Nov. 24 in Vienna, Washington is seeing a flurry of last-minute events focused on the pros and cons of pursuing diplomacy with Tehran.

While advocates from both sides made their arguments on Capitol Hill this week, two distinguished former US ambassadors told an audience here Wednesday that a deal between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program offers “huge advantages” and that the chances of a “complete breakdown” in the talks at this stage are low, even if the prospect of a comprehensive accord being signed before the looming deadline is also unlikely.

Stuart Eizenstat, who played a key role in promoting sanctions against Iran under both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, endorsed the diplomatic process with Iran at a Nov. 19 panel discussion hosted here by the Atlantic Council.

“I am of the belief that an agreement is important, and that there are huge advantages—to the United States, to the West, and to Israel—in having an agreement along the lines of what we see emerging,” he said.

Last month the veteran diplomat, who was named special adviser to the secretary on Holocaust issues last year, offered a key endorsement of diplomacy with Iran in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.

Eizenstat, who currently chairs the Coucil’s Iran Task Force, also emphasized the consequences of failing to reach an accord with Iran:

Without an agreement, one always has to ask, “What’s the alternative?” No deal means an unrestrained [Iranian] use of centrifuges, it means a continuation of the Iranian plutonium plant in Arak, it means no intrusive inspections by the IAEA, it means no elimination of [Iran’s] 20% enriched uranium, it means less likelihood of eliminating weaponization, it means undercutting those who are relative moderates in Iran. So there are enormous implications.

Thomas Pickering, who served as Washington’s chief envoy in virtually every hot spot—from Moscow to San Salvador and from Lagos and Tel Aviv to Turtle Bay (in the run-up to and during the first Gulf War)—meanwhile explained why a negotiated settlement to Iran’s nuclear program is highly preferable to the “military option.”

“Nobody believes that the use of force is a guaranteed, one-shot settlement of the problem of Iran’s nuclear program,” said Pickering, who co-runs the Iran Project, which promotes diplomacy between Iran and the United States, along with several other top foreign policy experts.

Pickering also argued that a deal would open the door to “further possibilities” for US-Iranian cooperation on a host of regional issues, most immediately in serving the president’s plan of “degrading and destroying” Islamic State (ISIS or IS) forces in Iraq and Syria and in bringing stability to Afghanistan.

“I remain optimistic,” he said, “but only on the basis of the fact that reasonable people could agree.”

Pickering argued that domestic politics in both countries could be the ultimate impediment to a final deal.

“The real problem is that there is a lot of unreasoned opposition, in both countries, that is affecting the situation,” he said.

On the American side, the “unreasoned opposition” Pickering referred to is rooted in Congress, where key members of the House and Senate advocate the Israeli government’s position that any deal should completely or almost completely dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, which would be a non-starter for the Islamic Republic.

Yet whereas Pickering was critical of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for having “overreached” last November in calling last year’s interim Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) a “historic mistake,” Eizenstat suggested that his hardline stance may actually have toughened the P5+1’s (US, UK, Russia, China, France plus Germany) resolve to minimize Iran’s enrichment program as much as possible.

But Uzi Eilam, the former director general of the Israeli Ministry of Defense Mission to Europe, argued that Netanyahu is “getting used” to the idea that Iran will retain some enrichment capacity under a comprehensive deal.

A deal that includes stringent monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a third party (Russian) commitment to process Iran’s enriched uranium into fuel and assume responsibility for spent reactor fuel would be enough to meet Israeli security concerns even with an active Iranian enrichment program, said Eilam.

Pickering also noted that sanctions relief remains a sticking point, with the Iranians wanting full relief immediately and the P5+1 insistent on maintaining some sanctions in order to ensure Iran’s continued compliance with the terms of the final accord. But he was joined by Eizenstat in arguing that it would be “almost impossible” (Eizenstat’s words) for both sides to just walk away from the talks at this point.

While both Iran and the P5+1 continue to insist that they are focused on reaching a comprehensive accord by the deadline, with just three days to go, it appears highly unlikely.

As to how long the talks would go on in the event of an extension, Pickering argued that “short-term would be better than long-term,” though he acknowledged that “short-term is harder to get because everybody’s tired, they want to go home and think.”

Eizenstat added that the impending political change in Washington, where Republicans will take control of the Senate in January and are expected to oppose any deal with Iran, would make a short extension more desirable than a long-term one.

by Derek Davison

In March of this year, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sent a delegation of religious and academic figures to the Iranian religious city of Qom to begin a dialogue with Shia scholars and ayatollahs. According to Bishop Richard Pates, chair of the USCCB’s Committee on International Peace and Justice, the discussion in Qom focused heavily on the morality of weapons of mass destruction. It also revealed that the Catholic Church and the Iranian Shia establishment share similar official views on the subject.

Pates said there was “no discussion” during the trip about capital punishment, a topic upon which there would be clear divergence between the Catholic Church, which opposes the practice, and the Iranian judiciary, which has been executing prisoners at a remarkable rate. But the Iranians were completely open to discussing their nuclear program, which has become an international issue.

“We were told in the clearest terms that Shia Islam opposes and forbids the production, stockpiling, use, and threat to use [weapons] of mass destruction,” said Pates at an event in Washington Wednesday hosted by the Arms Control Association.

“We noted that the Catholic Church is also working for a world without weapons of mass destruction, and has called on all nations to rid themselves of these indiscriminate weapons,” he added.

At several points during the negotiations between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program—the talks are now in their final month before the Nov. 24 deadline—top US officials have called upon the Iranian government to prove to the world that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful.

In a Sept. 27 speech, White House Coordinator for the Middle East Phil Gordon echoed President Obama’s position on the issue by saying that the negotiations “can actually be boiled down to a very simple question: Is Iran prepared to demonstrate to the world that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful?”

More recently, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said Oct. 23 in a widely cited speech that “we hope the leaders in Tehran will agree to the steps necessary to assure the world that this program will be exclusively peaceful and thereby end Iran’s economic and diplomatic isolation and improve further the lives of their people.”

These messages, while undoubtedly intended as much for a skeptical American audience as they are for Iran’s negotiating team, omit the fact that to date, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitors Iran’s nuclear program, has produced no evidence of a current Iranian nuclear weapons program. The US intelligence committee (IC) also reports that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, even if the IC assesses that it does not know if Iran will decide to take this path in the future.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also issued a fatwa several years ago to the effect that the manufacture and use of nuclear weapons contradicts the teachings of Islam and is therefore prohibited. American policymakers and journalists frequently cite this edict, but won’t acknowledge it as a binding element of Iranian policy.

Yet there is evidence that the fatwa worked in the past. In a recent interview, the former Iranian minister of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), Mohsen Rafighdoost, described to Gareth Porter how Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini, prohibited the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons at the height of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, even after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons against Iranian troops. To date, there has been no reliable evidence that Iran used any weapons of mass destruction in that war. Khomeini’s refusal to produce or use WMDs (even in such trying circumstances) formed the basis for Khamenei’s more recent fatwa against nuclear weapons.

“It might be taken into consideration that even though Iraq used chemical weapons in the [Iran-Iraq] War, Iran did not respond with the use of similar weapons,” said Pates in reference to the negotiations.

Pates also noted that his hosts not only “affirmed” the existence of a fatwa against nuclear weapons but also “confirmed that it is a matter of public record and is highly respected among Shia scholars and Iranians in general.” Ebrahim Mohseni of the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland agreed with Pates on that last point.

Mohseni, who was part of the delegation and whose recent polling has helped illuminate how the Iranian public views the nuclear issue, said that a majority of Iranians (65%) share the religious view that the production and use of nuclear weapons is contrary to Islamic principles, and an even larger majority (78%) agree with the sentiment that Iran was right not to respond in kind to Iraq’s use of chemical weapons in the 1980s.

As to whether Khamenei’s fatwa could be reversed, Pates said that the Qom scholars “argued that the fatwa could not be reversed or made to contradict itself, even if Iran’s strategic calculations changed.”

“This would undermine the authority of the supreme leader, which guides, in a general way, Iran’s political class,” he said.

This point was echoed by USCCB Director, Stephen Colecchi, another member of the Qom delegation who pointed out that the fatwa “is clearly pervasively taught and defended within Iran,” and that for Khamenei to contradict his earlier edict “would undermine the whole teaching authority of [Iran’s] system.”

The “bottom line” coming out of the Qom dialogue, according to Colecchi, is that “we’re asking our people, our government, and others…at least take [the fatwa] into account.”

“It is a factor, and it might make the negotiations easier to really understand the nature of Iran,” he said.

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Photo: (From left) Seyyed Mahmoud, US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Bishop Richard Pates, Bishop Denis Madden, and Stephen Colecchi meet in March at the Ayatollah Marashi Najafi Library in Qom, Iran. Credit: CNS/Courtesy Stephen M. Colecchi

by Derek Davison

A former senior analyst for Mossad, Yossi Alpher, told an audience in Washington Thursday that Israel sees the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) as an “urgent” national security concern, but the context of his talk at the Wilson Center implied that the extremist Sunni group does not top any Israeli list of threats. In fact, Alpher seemed to suggest at times that the actions of IS, particularly in Iraq, may ultimately benefit Israel’s regional posture, particularly with respect to Iran. He also called the American decision to intervene against IS “perplexing.”

Iran, unsurprisingly, topped Alpher’s list of “urgent” Israeli security threats, but he downplayed the prospect of a nuclear deal being struck by the Nov. 24 deadline for the negotiations and focused instead on the “hegemonic threat” Iran allegedly poses. Indeed, the former director of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies was mainly concerned with an Iran strengthened by close alliances with Iraq and Syria as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon and now potentially expanding its reach into Yemen, whose Houthi rebels have made major military gains in recent weeks.

Alpher identified the threat of extremist/terrorist organizations as Israel’s second-most urgent threat, but within that category he placed Hamas and Hezbollah ahead of IS. He allowed that IS “threatens to reach very close” to Israel, particularly if it manages to make inroads in Jordan, where polls indicate that a significant minority of the population does not see IS as a terrorist group, and where there has been vocal opposition to King Abdullah’s support for the US-led anti-IS coalition. Indeed, Alpher suggested that Israel should try to defuse current tensions over the Temple Mount, which have caused Abdullah to suffer politically at home, in order to forestall an increase of IS sympathy within Jordan.

Several of Alpher’s later remarks seemed to suggest that the activities of IS in Syria (at least those that have targeted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) and in Iraq may actually pay dividends for Israel. If the primary threat to Israel’s security is, as Alpher claims, Iran, and not just Iran’s nuclear program but also its regional hegemonic aspirations, then any movement that opposes Assad—a long-time Iranian ally—and that threatens the stability and unity of Iraq—whose predominantly Shia government has also developed close ties with Tehran—is actually doing Israel a service. It apparently doesn’t matter if that group might also someday pose a threat to Israel. It’s in this context that Alpher described America’s decision to intervene against IS as “perplexing.” He questioned the US commitment to keeping Iraq whole, noting that an independent Kurdistan would be “better for Israel,” and said that, as far as Syria’s civil war is concerned, “decentralization and ongoing warfare make more sense for Israel than a strong, Iran-backed Syria.”

The tone of Alpher’s remarks on IS echoed a number of recent comments from top Israeli government and military figures. Earlier this month, the IDF’s chief of staff, Lt. General Benny Gantz, told the Jerusalem Post that “the IDF has the wherewithal to defend itself against Islamic State,” and then went on to describe Hezbollah as Israel’s most immediate security concern. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon also told PBS’s Charlie Rose on Sunday that Israel is contributing intelligence to the anti-IS coalition, but suggested that it was doing so because it has “a very good relationship with many parties who participate in the coalition,” not because it perceives IS as a near-term threat to Israel. Finally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 29 made several references to IS, but only as a secondary threat to Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program or in conflating IS with Hamas and, really, every other Islamic extremist group in the world.

Alpher made pointed criticisms of the US-led effort against IS in an exchange with Wilson Center president and former House member, Jane Harman, who pushed back against his characterization of US “mistakes” in the region. He was particularly critical of the Obama administration’s handling of Egypt, arguing that it “made things worse” by failing to support the Mubarak regime in 2011 and trying instead to “embrace” the democratically elected (and now imprisoned) Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, and then by failing to welcome the military coup that eventually put current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in office.

Harman questioned whether a stronger show of American support for the increasingly authoritarian direction of Egypt’s politics would hinder any effort to counter the anti-Western narrative upon which much of IS’ support and recruitment is based. Alpher’s answer, and indeed a recurring theme in his remarks, was that the question of narratives and terrorist recruitment is irrelevant to an Israeli security framework that is focused only on the most immediate threats (or, as he put it, “on what will bring short-term stability”).

The emphasis on the short-term is one of the defining features of Netanyahu’s term in office, particularly in his dealings with the Palestinians, but also in Israel’s broader security posture, and it may well cause greater problems for Israel in the long-term.

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by Derek Davison

Turkey, nominally a member of America’s new anti-ISIS coalition (well, maybe), has for some time now been refusing to allow Kurdish reinforcements and weapons to cross its Syrian border into the besieged city of Kobani. Due to its resistance to even allowing assistance to cross into Kobani, Turkey has faced large Kurdish protests in several cities, to which it has responded in occasionally brutal fashion. Yesterday, Turkey escalated this Kurdish crisis by shelling positions connected to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in the southeastern part of the country, supposedly in response to a PKK attack on an army outpost in Hakkari. The PKK is affiliated with the Syrian People’s Protection Units (YPG), the group currently trying to defend Kobani from Daesh (ISIS or ISIL). For a country that seemed on the verge of joining an anti-ISIS coalition just a few days ago, the decision to bomb Kurds, rather than Daesh, is naturally raising some eyebrows.

The PKK shelling comes only about a day after Turkey publicly denied that it has given the US permission to use its Incirlik air base to launch sorties against Daesh and al-Qaeda/Jabhat al-Nusra targets in Syria, which directly contradicts earlier US reports. Talks are ongoing with respect to the use of Incirlik, with new President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government still insisting, more or less, that it won’t seriously get involved in Syria unless the coalition turns its real focus to getting rid of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey is its own nation with its own national priorities, and it has never been shy about the fact that its number one priority is making sure its Kurdish population doesn’t get any funny ideas about independence.

Turkey’s real rooting interest in Syria is against the YPG and other Syrian Kurds. The fact that Iraqi Kurds have achieved significant autonomy from Baghdad is worrying enough to Ankara; if Syria’s Kurds achieve a similar level of autonomy, the Turks believe that their Kurdish population will try to follow suit. Assad is thus their main target, not Sunni extremists like Daesh, because Assad has been allied with Syria’s Kurds throughout the country’s more than three-year-long civil war, and has been ceding increased autonomy to them. For added measure, the Turks argue that, while they’re as opposed to Daesh and similar groups as anybody, those groups can’t be removed from Syria until Assad is ousted, since the Syrian dictator has been propping up extremists all this time as a counterweight to more moderate opposition groups. The Turks have a point here, or would have had one if this were 2012 or 2013, but now it seems that Daesh is standing up pretty well on its own and is an immediate enough threat to Iraq that diverting coalition resources to unseating Assad could actually be counterproductive to the goal of degrading Daesh.

So the question of the day for America’s foreign policy establishment, particularly the neoconservative elements within it (who already oppose Erdogan’s government over its alignment with the Muslim Brotherhood and its tense relations with Israel), seems to be: “what can America do about Turkey?” It’s never considered sufficient to say, “well, that other country’s national interests just don’t coincide with America’s, and I guess we’ll have to adjust for that.” No, any failure on the part of another supposedly sovereign nation to recognize that America Is Exceptional And The Indispensable Nation is An Insult and Must Be Dealt With Harshly.

Turkey is a “non-ally” and America should move its regional military bases into Kurdish Iraq, says the Wall Street Journal, presumably because the Turks are refusing to commit their army to fighting a war on America’s behalf. US officials are reportedly angry because Turkey “want[s] the U.S. to come in and take care of the problem,” except, you know, the US is the one for whom “it” (Daesh) is apparently a problem, not the Turks. From the serious reactionaries we’re even hearing calls to “kick Turkey out of NATO,” a course of action for which NATO seems to have no precedent or procedure, and that, like most reactionary policy ideas, would create maximum disruption while accomplishing nothing constructive. Say NATO does kick Turkey out—what then? Do the Turks suddenly see the error of their ways and make amends? Why would they do that? What if NATO divides on the question of expelling Turkey? Is there any possible outcome of pursuing Turkey’s expulsion from NATO that would have a positive impact on the fight against ISIS?

The fact that Turkey would apparently rather let Daesh slaughter and enslave the Kurdish defenders of Kobani than do anything that might benefit long-term Kurdish political aims may be immoral, unconscionable, even indefensible on a humanitarian level, and it’s fine to condemn Turkey on those grounds, but as a pure calculation of national interest, what Turkey is doing shouldn’t surprise anybody. It’s not as though America hasn’t greatly wronged the Kurds in the past, when it was in US interests to do so. It’s also worth noting that the UK and Germany have also opted out of direct military involvement in Syria, but nobody seems to be talking about expelling them from NATO or moving American military hardware to other countries in Europe.

It may be that Turkey will still come around to America’s position on Daesh, or at least closer to it; recent Kurdish protests aside, Ankara’s Syria policy has been consistently unpopular within Turkey, and PKK threats to break-off peace talks with the government over its inaction in Kobani may yet force Erdogan’s hand. But if Erdogan is swayed, it will be because of domestic politics, not American pressure or threats.

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The US stance on Iran’s uranium enrichment program, according to recent media reports, is softening.

In other words, Washington might agree to a technical workaround on the issue of dismantling centrifuges or accept a higher number of active centrifuges than it had previously been seeking in international negotiations with Iran.

But if the P5+1—that is, the five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany—and Iran fail to reach an agreement on a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program by the November 24 deadline, the reason will be quite obvious, as this quote from a Western diplomat reveals: “On the core issues, we remain pretty far apart,” the diplomat told a group of journalists on September 26. “On enrichment, we are not there yet. … There are significant gaps, but we are still expecting significant moves from the Iranian side.”

Like Samuel Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon, waiting the length of the play for a character who never appears on stage, the P5+1 have been “expecting significant moves from the Iranian side” on uranium enrichment for over seven months now, since talks on a comprehensive deal began in late February. Those moves haven’t materialized. Some politicians in the United States and Europe are both irritated and mystified at Iran’s “intransigence” in the face of US “flexibility.”

But they shouldn’t be.

Iran’s Concessions

Iran already made some pretty significant moves to reach last year’s interim agreement. Iran’s leaders agreed to freeze their nuclear program in place, to drastically cut their stockpile of enriched uranium, and to cooperate with stringent monitoring and verification processes—agreements that they have kept.

In return for these concessions, they got about $7 billion in sanctions relief and the promise of more negotiations. The deal to extend the talks that was reached in July gave them another $2.8 billion in sanctions relief. So, the total to date is $9.8 billion—which is a lot of money, but it’s less than 3 percent of Iran’s 2013 GDP. That number is similarly unimpressive when compared to the $100-plus billion in Iranian assets still frozen under the sanctions regime.

Also working against the possibility of “significant moves from the Iranian side” is that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, by all available evidence, has more to lose politically by making major new concessions to the P5+1 than he does by walking away from the table. The Iranian public is prepared for the nuclear talks to fail and they’ve already decided that the United States and the rest of the P5+1 will be primarily responsible for their failure. That’s not to say that Iranian hardliners won’t use the failure of the talks to score political points against the moderate Rouhani. But whatever damage he would take in such a scenario pales in comparison to the amount of public hostility he would engender by agreeing to a deal that drastically cuts Iran’s enrichment capacity from where it is now—a concession that nearly three-quarters of the Iranian public would reject.

Logically, the P5+1 position makes little sense. If Iran were going to concede to the P5+1′s wishes with respect to uranium enrichment, why hasn’t it done so already? What has changed since July, when the first deadline for a deal came and went, that would make Iran more amenable to the P5+1 position now? If anything, the extension of talks has placed so much attention on Iran’s commitment to its enrichment program that to acquiesce to American demands would likely be more politically damaging for Rouhani now than if he had done so in July.

Rouhani’s Maneuvers

Rouhani’s recent speech to the UN General Assembly did not have the air of someone who was desperate to reach a nuclear agreement under any terms, given its emphasis on protecting Iran’s nuclear rights. He said:

We are committed to continue our peaceful nuclear program, including enrichment, and to enjoy our full nuclear rights on Iranian soil within the framework of international law. We are determined to continue negotiations with our interlocutors in earnest and good faith, based on mutual respect and confidence, removal of concerns of both sides as well as equal footing and recognized international norms and principles. I believe mutual adherence to the strict implementation of commitments and obligations and avoidance of excessive demands in the negotiations by our counterparts is the prerequisite for the success of the negotiations.

He made sure to place blame, should the talks fail, on unfair Western (i.e., American) demands and a desire to stifle Iran’s development, both points that polls say are critically important to the Iranian public:

Arriving at a final comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran will be a historic opportunity for the West to show that it does not oppose the advancement and development of others and does not discriminate when it comes to adhering to international rules and regulations. This agreement can carry a global message of peace and security, indicating that the way to attain conflict resolution is through negotiation and respect, not through conflict and sanction.

Beyond Metrics

What’s worse is that, by waiting for Iran to concede on a few thousand centrifuges in order to lengthen its “breakout time,” the P5+1 risks missing the opportunity for a historic chance to reintegrate Iran into the international community. MIT nuclear security expert Jim Walsh has pointed out that in past arms control agreements, it is inevitably the process of reaching the agreement itself—and the political and diplomatic changes the agreement enables—that ensures the long-term success of the arms control process. The painstakingly negotiated details about numbers of armaments or uranium enrichment capacity are never as important as that political change.

A comprehensive nuclear deal has the potential to reincorporate Iran into the international community for the first time in 35 years and could cement the strength of Rouhani and his fellow moderates within Iran’s fractious internal political system. Changing Iranian politics and the way Iran interacts with the rest of the world would have immense benefits for arms control as well as on a vast array of other regional and international fronts, benefits that can’t be boiled down to a simple—and flawed—calculation of Iran’s nuclear breakout potential.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has observed that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” But the definition of a “bad deal” needs to be about more than breakout metrics and minimizing Iran’s enrichment capacity. The P5+1 must stop defining the success of a comprehensive deal purely on metrics and instead consider the intrinsic value that such a deal will bring with it. President Obama’s own address to the UN included a call to Iran’s leadership to “not let this opportunity pass.” The United States and the P5+1 would be well-advised to heed the same call.

This article was first published by Foreign Policy in Focus and was reprinted here with permission.

by Derek Davison

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s recently concluded trip to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly offered signals that Iran’s complex political establishment is, at least right now, quietly going along with the push toward an internationally agreed deal over Iran’s nuclear program. This was the message of two experts on Iran, independent scholar Farideh Farhi, and business consultant Bijan Khajehpour, who offered their assessment of Rouhani’s visit in a Sept. 29 discussion sponsored by the Wilson Center.

The messaging around Rouhani’s UN trip began before he left Iran, with a two-hour meeting between the Iranian President and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that Farhi, a Lobelog contributor, characterized as “a concerted, public effort to suggest unity,” adding that “the public representation of the two executives of Iran’s political system…consulting and strategizing is a powerful signal regarding unity at the top, at least on the particulars of the nuclear issue.” This show of unity, she argued, was both an effort to show support for the negotiations and to lay the groundwork for a domestic narrative that would blame excessive US demands, rather than internal political dissention, if the negotiations fail to reach an agreement

In fact, Farhi pointed out that the recent public displays of a harmonious Iranian leadership actually began when Khamenei was hospitalized for prostate surgery in early September. The “unprecedented” coverage of the Supreme Leader’s hospital stay included interviews with Khamenei himself both before and after his surgery as well as a parade of public hospital visits from high-profile moderate political figures like Rouhani and Expediency Council Chairman Hashemi Rafsanjani, as well as conservatives including judiciary chief Sadeq Larijani and Guardian Council Secretary Ahmad Jannati.

Farhi also described the high level of optimism over the prospects of a final deal that she encountered while in Iran, saying that she “has yet to meet a person [in Iran] who says that there will not be a nuclear deal.” She attributed this optimism to “the honest belief, on the part of the Iranian population at least, that a systemic decision has been made to resolve this issue, and since that systemic decision has been made, it is going to happen one way or another.”

The fact that Rouhani made the trip at all could be taken as a sign that he believes a deal is possible. “He would not have come to New York City if he did not think that an extra effort to push for a resolution to the Iranian nuclear dossier was worth a try,” said Farhi, who teaches at the University of Hawaii. She noted that the threat posed by the group that calls itself the Islamic State “has given Tehran yet another boost in its effort to try to convince the United States to move away from policies that in the Iranian discourse are identified as an American thinking that relies on force and pressure to change Iranian policy.” Rouhani’s UNGA speech envisioned that once the nuclear issue was resolved, “an entirely different environment would emerge for cooperation at regional and international levels.”

Yet the lack of progress in the talks held on the sidelines of last week’s UNGA may have changed Rouhani’s mind, and his final press conference before returning to Iran struck a relatively pessimistic tone. He noted that “time is short” and that whatever progress was made at the UN, the steps taken “haven’t been significant.”

For his part, Khajehpour suggested that Rouhani, who was elected with the triple mandate of negotiating a nuclear deal, improving Iran’s international relations, and turning the economy around, has begun to shift the emphasis from the nuclear portfolio to Iran’s economic improvement, touting, for example, a significant turnaround in Iran’s GDP growth since he took office last year. He also cited a recently signed trade accord between Russia and Iran, which Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh claims will “boost current bilateral trade from around $1.5 billion annually by tenfold over the next two years,” as a sign that Iran is not waiting for the conclusion of the nuclear talks to improve its international standing. Khajehpour argued that closer ties with Russia accomplish a number of Iranian aims: they offer Iran a “plan B” if the talks fail, they give Russia an incentive not to block a deal with the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany), they show the rest of the powers that Iran is not desperate to reach a deal, and they quiet internal critics who fear that a nuclear deal would leave Iran dependent on the West for its continued economic development.

Regardless of the eventual outcome of the nuclear talks, Farhi argued that Rouhani and Khamenei need to work together—Rouhani because he will have to find a way to advance his presidential agenda at least through the 2017 elections, and Khamenei because he will need the support of Rouhani’s team of technocrats in managing Iran’s economy (if only to share the blame should it begin to decline again).

Farhi countered the suggestion that Rouhani may find himself marginalized, as reformist president Mohammed Khatami was in his second term (2001-05), in part by arguing that reformists have learned from Khatami’s experience and will temper both their demands for and criticism of Rouhani’s performance. She also predicted that Iran must “return to an internal discussion, negotiation, and conflict about how to repair the wounds that were caused by the 2009 elections.” According to Farhi, the process of “recreating a state that is better reflective of the diverse population makeup of Iran, and the sentiments of the country, and ultimately establishing a less chaotic political and electoral process will have to begin, and may already have begun.”

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by Derek Davison

WASHINGTON—A top advisor to President Obama said that a deal over Iran’s nuclear program could lead to a new era of relations.

“A nuclear agreement could begin a multi-generational process that could lead to a new relationship between our countries,” said Phil Gordon, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region, in a speech Saturday to the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). “Iran could begin to reduce tensions with its neighbors and return to its rightful place in the community of nations.”

But the special assistant to the president put the onus on Iran for reaching a final nuclear deal.

“Negotiations over this issue are obviously enormously and technologically complex…but the issue itself can actually be boiled down to a very simple question: is Iran prepared to demonstrate to the world that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful?”

“We strongly hope that it is, and the P5+1 [US, UK, Russia, France, China plus Germany] negotiations currently going on offer a real opportunity for it to do so,” he said.

Gordon added that the administration would only accept a deal that would “cut off all possible paths” to the development of a nuclear weapon.

Iran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), insists its nuclear program is peaceful but has been negotiating over it since 2006. The country’s economy has been seriously harmed by an international sanctions regime.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said a comprehensive final accord would be a “historic opportunity for the West to show that it does not oppose the advancement and development of others and does not discriminate when it comes to adhering to international rules and regulations” in his Sept. 25 address to the UNGA.

“This agreement can carry a global message of peace and security, indicating that the way to attain conflict resolution is through negotiation and respect not through conflict and sanctions,” he said.

But no headway was made during talks between Iran and the P5+1 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last week as both sides try to reach a final deal by the self-imposed Nov. 24 deadline.

“We do not have an understanding on all major issues, we have some understandings that are helpful to move this process forward and we have an enormous number of details still to work through,” a senior US official told reporters in New York Sept. 26.

“We still have some very, very difficult understandings yet to reach, and everyone has to make difficult decisions and we continue to look to Iran to make some of the ones necessary for getting to a comprehensive agreement,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Beyond the discussion of the nuclear negotiations, Gordon touted dramatic improvements in US-Iranian relations just in the past year.

Noting that Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif have remained in regular contact since the historic Rouhani-Obama telephone conversation during last year’s UNGA, Gordon said: “we have gone from almost no [U.S.-Iran] contact at all, to contacts even at the foreign ministerial level being almost routine.”

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Iranians are open to a nuclear settlement along the lines of what their government has already proposed in ongoing negotiations with world powers, according to a survey of Iranian public opinion jointly conducted July 11-17 by the University of Tehran Center for Public Opinion Research (UTCPOR) and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM). However, their willingness to accept further Iranian concessions for an agreement is limited by the belief that Iran’s nuclear program is important for the country’s future advancement, a sense that Iran should not be singled out on the issue of nuclear power, and deep mistrust of US motives in its dealings with Iran.

With respect to the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (US, UK, Russia, France, China plus China), the survey gave the more than 1,000 respondents a list of nine hypothetical concessions that Iran could offer toward reaching a deal and asked whether they believed each concession “is acceptable,” “could be acceptable,” or “is not acceptable.” A majority said that four either were or could be acceptable: 1) giving the P5+1 assurances that Iran will never produce a nuclear weapon (79% acceptable); 2) allowing current international inspections to continue (76%); 3) permitting more inspections (62%); and not enriching any uranium above 5% for an agreed-upon period (57%).

Two concessions, however, were deemed unacceptable by the majority: 1) dismantling “about half” of Iran’s currently operating centrifuges (70% unacceptable); and 2) limiting nuclear research (75% unacceptable). Feelings about the remaining three concessions were mixed: limiting stockpiles of enriched uranium for an agreed-upon period (49% acceptable vs. 44% unacceptable), freezing the number of active centrifuges for an agreed-upon period (46% vs. 45%), and not upgrading centrifuges for an agreed-upon period (42% vs. 47%).

While the devil is always in the details, the findings suggest that the Iranian public is open to, or will at least tolerate a deal that puts temporary limits on Iran’s uranium enrichment program (even freezing it at current levels, as Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif recently suggested) and that includes substantial international oversight. But they will not accept a deal that rolls back that enrichment program or hinders Iran’s nuclear research.

Feeding into these sentiments is a deep Iranian mistrust of the P5+1’s motives—or really U.S.’s motives—in targeting Iran’s nuclear program in the first place. When asked why America is concerned with Iran’s nuclear program, 75% responded agreed with the statement “Iran’s nuclear program is only an excuse and the U.S. is pursuing some other goals.” Asked what those goals are, 53% cited an American desire to “dominate Iran or block its development,” while 11% said the U.S. “is trying to change Iran’s domestic political order.”

The Iranian people seem particularly concerned with the importance of nuclear research to Iran’s scientific development (94% say a peaceful nuclear program is “necessary,” and limiting nuclear research activities is the least popular possible Iranian concession). There could be an opening for a deal along the lines of the one proposed earlier this week by the Arms Control Association, which would allow Iran to continue its nuclear research while delaying the deployment of whatever advances it makes, but the Iranian public seems unlikely to accept the ACA’s requirement that Iran scale back its existing enrichment program.

Iranians also do not trust that the United States will actually follow through on promises to lift sanctions if Iran complies with its obligations under a final agreement—74% believe that America would maintain the sanctions and simply change the rationale behind them.

During a Sept. 17 event to unveil the poll’s findings, the CISSM’s John Steinbruner pointed out that “our prime problem is conveying to [the Iranians], in a credible way, that we do not intend to overthrow the Islamic Republic,” a task that (as he noted) is complicated by the fact that, well, some of “us” actually want to do precisely that.

The data, as former diplomat Hillary Mann Leverett noted, also suggests (in line with what Adnan Tabatabai wrote here in July) that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani does not “need” a nuclear deal to ensure his political future. Study co-author Ebrahim Mohseni reported that, when asked who they would blame most if the nuclear talks fail, 40% of respondents named the US and another 20% cited the P5+1. Only 9% said that they would primarily blame the Iranian government for a failure. And only 28% would place any blame at all on Iranian officials if the talks were to collapse, compared with 59% who would not blame them at all. This suggests that, as Leverett said, “there is no significant constituency in Iran” that would support a nuclear deal concluded entirely on Washington’s terms just for the sake of making a deal.

Moreover, the survey found that only 18% of Iranians expect Rouhani will be “very successful” in concluding a nuclear agreement, and only 14% expect him to be “very successful” in getting economic sanctions against Iran reduced. Yet 85% of Iranians have a favorable opinion of him (51% “very favorable”), and 68% credit him with improving Iran’s economic situation even with most of all the sanctions still in place. When it comes to those sanctions, 85% agree they have had a negative impact on Iran’s economy, but a slight majority, 53% say that the economy is “good,” suggesting that the pain of the sanctions isn’t driving Iranian public opinion. Rouhani’s domestic support appears strong and is unlikely to be heavily affected if the talks fail, since Iranian expectations on that front are not especially high.

Panelists at the CISSM event also emphasized the degree to which Iranian attitudes are dictated by their sense of fairness under international law, and of Iran’s rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Mohseni noted that there is “a great deal of eagerness [for Iran] to be a cooperative member of the international community,” but not if that membership comes at the cost of Iranian sovereignty or its nuclear rights. Iranian officials have said that they will not accept what they term “nuclear apartheid,” an outcome where Iran’s nuclear program is subject to international scrutiny and requirements that are not placed on other NPT signatories.

Ultimately, the results of the UTCPOR/CISSM survey suggest that the Iranian public will accept some level of extra scrutiny and requirements for a defined period of time, but there are limits to what they will tolerate.