by Gareth Porter
In a critique of the handling of the Iran file by the International Atomic Energy Agency, former IAEA Director General Han Blix has called for greater skepticism about the intelligence documents and reports alleging Iranian nuclear weapons work and warned that they may be used to put diplomatic pressure on Tehran.
In an interview with this writer in his Stockholm apartment late last month, Blix, who headed the IAEA from 1981 to 1997, also criticized the language repeated by the IAEA under its current director general, Yukiya Amano, suggesting that Iran is still under suspicion of undeclared nuclear activity.
Blix, who clashed with US officials when he was head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq from 2000 to 2003, said he has long been skeptical of intelligence that has been used to accuse Iraq and Iran of having active nuclear-weapons programs. “I’ve often said you have as much disinformation as information” on alleged weaponization efforts in those countries, Blix said.
Former IAEA Director General Hans Blix. Credit: Mikael Sjöberg
Referring to the allegations of past Iranian nuclear weapons research that have been published in IAEA reports, Blix said, “Something that worries me is that these accusations that come from foreign intelligence agencies can be utilized by states to keep Iran under suspicion.”
Such allegations, according to Blix, “can be employed as a tactic to keep the state in a suspect light—to keep Iran on the run.” The IAEA, he said, “should be cautious and not allow itself to be drawn into such a tactic.”
Blix warned that compromising the independence of the IAEA by pushing it to embrace unverified intelligence was not in the true interests of those providing the intelligence.
The IAEA Member States providing the intelligence papers to the IAEA “have a long-term interest in an international service that seeks to be independent,” said Blix. “In the Security Council they can pursue their own interest, but the [IAEA] dossier has to be as objective as possible.”
In 2005, the George W. Bush administration gave the IAEA a large cache of documents purporting to derive from a covert Iranian nuclear weapons research and development program from 2001 to 2003. Israel provided a series of documents and intelligence reports on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons work in 2008 and 2009.
Blix’s successor as IAEA director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, recalled in his 2011 memoirs having doubts about the authenticity of both sets of intelligence documents. ElBaradei resisted pressure from the United States and its European allies in 2009 to publish an “annex” to a regular IAEA report based on those unverified documents.
But Amano agreed to do so, and the annex on “possible military dimensions” of the Iranian nuclear program was published in November 2011. During the current negotiations with Iran, the P5+1 (US, UK, Russia, China, France plus Germany) has taken the position that Iran must explain the intelligence documents and reports described in the annex.
The provenance of the largest part of the intelligence documents—the so-called “laptop documents”—was an unresolved question for years after they were first reported in 2004 and 2005. But former senior German foreign office official Karsten Voigt confirmed in 2013 that the Iranian exile opposition group, the Mujahedeen E-Khalq (MEK), gave the original set of documents to the German intelligence service (BND) in 2004. The MEK has been reported by Seymour Hersh, Connie Bruck, and a popular history of the Mossad’s covert operations to have been a client of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, serving to “launder” intelligence that Mossad did not want to have attributed to Israel.
Blix has been joined by two other former senior IAEA officials in criticizing the agency for its uncritical presentation of the intelligence documents cited in the November 2011 annex. Robert Kelley, the head of the Iraq team under both Blix and ElBaradei, and Tariq Rauf, the former head of the Agency’s Verification and Security Policy Coordination Office, have written that the annex employed “exaggeration, innuendo and careful choice of words” in presenting intelligence information from an unidentified Member State of the IAEA on the alleged cylinder at the Parchin military facility.
Blix said he is “critical” of the IAEA for the boilerplate language used in its reports on Iran that the Agency is “not in a position to provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities….”
Blix added that it is “erroneous” to suggest that the IAEA would be able to provide such assurances if Iran or any other state were more cooperative. As head of UNMOVIC, Blix recalled, “I was always clear that there could always be small things in a big geographical area that can be hidden, and you can never guarantee completely that there are no undeclared activities.”
“In Iraq we didn’t maintain there was nothing,” he said. “We said we had made 700 inspections at 500 sites and we had not seen anything.”
Blix emphasized that he was not questioning the importance of maximizing inspections, or of Iran’s ratification of the Additional Protocol. “I think the more inspections you can perform the smaller the residue of uncertainty,” he said.
]]>So much has been written and said about the uranium enrichment aspect of the 14-month nuclear negotiation with Iran that it is hard to look at it with fresh eyes, and starting from first principles. Nonetheless what follows is an attempt to do so. It suggests that the US and Iran are closer on enrichment than once seemed possible, but are still at risk of failing to find common ground in the course of the extension agreed a week ago.
From an international legal perspective the text that matters is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran deposited its last instrument of ratification on 5 March 1970, the same day as the deposit of the US instruments. Under the NPT the US is a “Nuclear Weapon State,” Iran a “Non-Nuclear Weapon State” (NNWS).
The NPT does not prohibit the acquisition of enrichment technology by NNWS. Nor does it impose any limit on the size or number of NNWS enrichment facilities. It merely requires NNWS to use that technology exclusively for peaceful purposes, and to place all the nuclear material fed into and produced by such facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.
In the current negotiation, Iran has assured the US that it takes its NPT obligations very seriously. It has also reaffirmed its intention to use enrichment technology exclusively for peaceful purposes, and to continue to implement the NPT safeguards agreement that it concluded in 1975.
Some people assume that such assurances are worthless. They point to the breaches of the NPT safeguards agreement that occurred between approximately1991 and 2003. However, none of those breaches amounted to evidence of an intention to use enrichment for non-peaceful purposes. And US intelligence has yet to come across any such evidence; suspicion of Iranian nuclear weapon intent has rested on inference, not evidence. States, like people, can make mistakes and then resolve not to repeat them.
There are also several resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council (UNSC) between 2006 and 2010 that make legal demands of Iran. But none of them imposes limits on the size and number of Iranian enrichment facilities. Still less do any of them outlaw Iranian possession of enrichment technology for peaceful purposes. One of them requires Iran to cooperate with the IAEA to resolve concern that Iran has engaged in research into nuclear weapon-related technologies. Iran has been doing that since November 2013, albeit with increasing hesitancy.
In the Iranian case another perspective is as important as the legal perspective; it is the confidence-building perspective. This was crucial to an attempt to resolve the problem peacefully in the wake of the IAEA Director General reporting the safeguards breaches to which reference is made above, because these breaches had undermined confidence in Iran’s peaceful intentions.
In the autumn of 2003, Iran volunteered, in the interest of confidence-building, to go beyond the requirements of its NPT safeguards agreement and make available to the IAEA the information and access required by the Additional Protocol (AP). Tehran also undertook to suspend activity at its only enrichment facility while it negotiated longer-term confidence-building measures with the UK, France and Germany (E3). The Iranians implemented these short-term measures scrupulously and ceased doing so only after they had grasped that nothing less than renunciation of the enrichment option would satisfy the E3.
In the current negotiation, various reports suggest that Iran has so far volunteered to renew application of the AP, de facto initially and later de jure; to accept limits on the size and number of its enrichment facilities during a confidence-building period; to refrain from producing uranium enriched to more than 5% U235; to convert some of its under 5% U235 uranium (LEU) into forms in which it would not be readily available as feed material; and to send the rest of its LEU stock to Russia for use in the fuel that the Rosatom corporation is supplying to the power reactor at Bushehr. Iran’s negotiators also have reportedly suggested that they are ready to extend the Bushehr fuel supply contract well beyond 2021.
In parallel, Iran has negotiated that Rosatom will help build two further power reactors and will supply them with fuel throughout their operating lives.
In confidence-building terms, this amounts to an impressive package. With only 10,000 IR-1 centrifuges in operation in only one facility, and its LEU stock unavailable to serve as feed material, Iran would need at least six months to produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for one nuclear device. With only 8000 IR-1s and no LEU feed, Iran would need at least eight months.
And if the Bushehr supply contract were extended to 2031, Iran would only need to consider increasing the available quantity of separative work units (a measure of centrifuge output) in the late 2020s.
In other words, Iran is offering a package that exceeds its NPT obligations by a wide margin. IAEA inspectors would be able to acquire confidence that there are no undeclared nuclear activities or material in Iran. The international community would know that it had six to eight months at least to react to any sign of Iranian misuse of its enrichment capacity for non-peaceful purposes.
So why in Vienna did it seem that this package is not enough for the US? That is for representatives of the US administration to explain. Past statements suggest that they will say that they need certainty that Iran will be incapable of producing (“cannot”) even one nuclear weapon.
That may sound reasonable but is in fact an unrealistic goal. It would require Iran not only to destroy all its centrifuges but also to wipe the minds of its engineers clean of all their knowledge and experience of enrichment technology. It also puts the negotiation at risk of the same fate as the 2003-5 E3 negotiation, because Iran is unready to build confidence by closing down its enrichment program. And it runs counter to the spirit of the NPT, since the NPT bases nuclear non-proliferation on self-restraint, political will, and deterrence through verification, not on nuclear technology surrender.
If instead the administration admits that it cannot literally “close all pathways” to a weapon but claims that it needs at least 12 months to react to any break-out attempt, then they should be asked why six to eight months would not be enough.
It is self-evident that 12 months of additional sanctions would not cause Iran to abandon a break-out attempt. Eight years of sanctions have failed to persuade Iran to re-suspend enrichment. Post-1918 history is littered with failed sanctions policies.
On the other hand, 12 months are more than are needed to get UN Security Council approval for the use of force to prevent break-out and to act on it—or for a coalition of the willing to form in the unlikely event of Russia or China threatening to veto a UNSC resolution. In 1990, only six months were needed for the US to gain approval for and prepare a massive operation to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. As recently as last April, Secretary John Kerry was formulating the goal as “six to 12 months.”
This analysis will be misconstrued by some as an apologia for Iran. Others will realize, I hope, that it is an attempt to clarify the progress that has been made on enrichment over the last 12 months; to explain why the current Iranian offer is reasonable from a legal and from a confidence-building perspective; and to counter the pernicious influence on US negotiating goals of people who want the bar set so high that Iran will refuse the jump.
]]>by François Nicoullaud
Paris, France—This is not the first time that we may have trapped ourselves when drafting UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions that were intended to trap another country—in this case, Iran. The present situation recalls in some respects the period around 1997 when most Security Council members would have liked to rescind, or at least amend, the sanctions adopted against the regime of Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War, as their effects were obviously getting out of hand: widespread corruption, and the dramatic deterioration of the Iraqi population’s state of health, to name a couple. But any change in the sanctions would have required unanimity from the five permanent members of the Council, and that was definitely out of reach. The situation led French President Jacques Chirac to express his frustration. “We want to convince, not coerce,” he said. “I have never observed that the policy of sanctions can produce positive effects.”
We have not yet reached such a dramatic juncture with Iran. But should it become useful to rapidly lift the sanctions imposed by the four UNSC resolutions between 2006 and 2010 in order to secure a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, the Western negotiators may find themselves incapable of delivering and may instead try to kick the can down the road to some point in the distant future.
Aimed at halting Iran’s military, nuclear and ballistic activities, these UNSC resolutions are not the ones that hurt the most. More destructive are those unilateral measures imposed by the United States and the European Union, since they were designed essentially to destabilize the Iranian economy. But the UNSC sanctions carry with them a “pillory effect” that the Iranians perceive, quite correctly, as deeply humiliating. They also provide the legal bedrock upon which the European sanctions, in particular, have been constructed. The Iranians are therefore anxious to see them lifted as soon as possible through a decision by the Security Council to close the file it opened in 2006 and return it to the forum from which it should never have been taken: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The conditions for terminating these resolutions, however, are also overwhelming. In fact, the people who drafted them seem to have been pursuing two not necessarily compatible goals at the same time.
The first goal was to pile up all the preconditions that the authors believed were necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a deliverable nuclear device, including:
- suspending all activities related to enrichment and reprocessing, including research, development, and construction of new facilities;
- suspending all activities related to the construction of a heavy-water research reactor;
- providing immediate access to all sites, equipment, persons and documents requested by the IAEA in order to verify Iran’s compliance with the Security Council decisions and to resolve all outstanding issues related to the possible military dimensions (PMD) of the Iranian nuclear program;
- promptly ratifying the Additional Protocol to Iran’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA; and
- suspending all efforts to develop ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
Considering the context in which these resolutions were adopted, there was little chance that the Iranians would comply with such an elaborate and comprehensive set of so-called “confidence-building measures,” which would have forced Tehran to abandon virtually all of its nuclear and ballistic-missile ambitions.
The second goal was substantively quite different from the first and indeed somehow contradictory. It aimed to push Iran into negotiations, as illustrated by the formula that was included in all the UNSC sanctions resolutions, which ritually expressed the “conviction” that Iran’s compliance “would contribute to a diplomatic, negotiated solution.” Moreover, if Iran suspended its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the Council declared its willingness in return to suspend at least some of its sanctions in order “to allow for negotiations in good faith” and “reach an early and mutually acceptable outcome.”
As we now know, a negotiation process ultimately was initiated, albeit through a radically different path, as the West dropped its demand that Iran fully suspend all its sensitive nuclear activities before entering into substantive talks. One can therefore assume that the second goal will be accomplished as soon as a comprehensive agreement, which will hopefully emerge from the current round of talks in Vienna, enters into force, thus rendering this dimension of the UNSC’s resolutions totally obsolete.
But of course, the resolutions’ first dimension—the exhaustive inventory of “confidence-building measures”—remains in place. Because confidence is essentially an elusive and subjective feeling, taking this path involves embarking on a long-term, winding and always reversible road, the end of which is only faintly discernible now. Such a process is also hardly compatible with the “on-off” mechanism of the Security Council: there is no chance that its resolutions, once cancelled, could be reintroduced. Hence the strong reluctance of the Western powers to commit themselves to such an outcome.
We also all know that the sanctions are much easier to adopt than to rescind, as they tend to create, in the meantime, their own logic and dynamics. They develop new balances of power and vested interests, if only among those in authority who have dedicated themselves so thoroughly to the sanctions’ implementation and enforcement. One has only to recall the notorious example of the general embargo imposed by the Allies against Germany during the First World War whose continuation for several months after the 1918 Armistice unnecessarily prolonged the suffering of the German people and deepened the bitterness of their defeat.
Are Iran’s negotiating partners ready to learn the lessons of history? The Gordian knot that the UNSC sanctions represent should be slashed asunder, if not immediately upon the signing of a comprehensive agreement with Iran, then at least after a moderately short period in which Iran’s determination to comply with its terms could be confirmed. Such a gesture could also be linked appropriately to the formal ratification by Iran’s parliament of the Additional Protocol that Tehran had signed during an unsuccessful round of talks back in 2003—the two moves being equally irreversible.
This would not mean that pending requests made to Iran, such as the ancient issue of the “possible military dimensions” (PMD) of its nuclear program, would have to be abandoned. But it would mean that these requests would thenceforward be dealt with exclusively by the IAEA. It would also mean that the Council, in light of the progress achieved after the signing of a final deal, would no longer consider the Iranian situation a “threat to the peace” under the terms of the UN Charter’s Chapter VII, the only chapter that authorizes the use of coercive measures against a Member State in order “to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
]]>by Dina Esfandiary
Another round of talks between world powers and Iran begins in Vienna this week. Today, both sides want a deal, and fast. The positive atmosphere that characterised the recent rounds will likely endure. Gone are the days of “procedural nonsense,” according to a European negotiator, replaced by “frank discussions.” [...]]]>
by Dina Esfandiary
Another round of talks between world powers and Iran begins in Vienna this week. Today, both sides want a deal, and fast. The positive atmosphere that characterised the recent rounds will likely endure. Gone are the days of “procedural nonsense,” according to a European negotiator, replaced by “frank discussions.” But there remain significant obstacles to a final nuclear agreement. It is unlikely that anything ground-breaking will be achieved in this round of talks. Instead, parties will explore areas of possible convergence and make steady progress towards a potential final deal.
All negotiations are about what parties want and how much they can compromise. What has changed here is not what the P5+1 (the US, Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) and Iran want, but how badly they want a solution. Both sides are painfully aware of the downsides of no agreement. In the words of a participant at a recent workshop hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the best alternative to a negotiated agreement is in this case “very bad” — likely, more sanctions and an Iran closer to a rapid breakout capability. This is why there is a strong incentive to explore areas of potential agreement.
What does each side want? The P5+1 want substantial reductions and the dismantlement of some of Iran’s nuclear program. The main issues of concern are Iran’s enrichment capacity, its Arak heavy water (HWR) reactor and the past possible military dimensions of its program. Iran however, aims to preserve as much of its program as possible, and perhaps even expand its capacity. It wants (preferably total) sanctions relief and a clear guideline on the duration of the final agreement. So far, this doesn’t bode well.
Former US official Bob Einhorn encourages negotiators to focus on Iran’s “practical needs”. The November 2013 Joint Plan of Action (JPA) called for a “mutually defined enrichment programme with mutually agreed parameters consistent with practical needs”. The P5+1 believe that Iran’s enrichment needs for a civilian nuclear program can largely be met through foreign supply and that Tehran does not need to enrich on its soil. But after years of political and economic investment into enrichment, Iran can’t just forgo it. The P5+1 demonstrated their understanding of this conundrum when they stopped asking for enrichment to be fully suspended and accepted it on Iranian soil. The trick now will be to find enough common ground over lengthening Iran’s breakout time by addressing the number and efficiency of centrifuges, while meeting Iran’s current and future needs. Iran repeatedly insists that dismantlement is not on the agenda. Whether that is accurate or part of pre-negotiation posturing, exploring P5+1 condoned research and development into advanced centrifuges as an additional sweetener could make Tehran more amenable to such roll-backs.
The Arak HWR also poses a proliferation concern because of its ability to open up the plutonium route to a bomb for Iran. Despite requiring a reprocessing plant, which Iran does not have and so far does not intend to build, the P5+1 have made it clear that maintaining it in its current form is unacceptable. Iran’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi spoke of the country’s willingness to modify the reactor to produce less plutonium to allay Western fears. But the true test is whether the P5+1 can coax Iran to allow the modification of Arak into a light-water reactor. Once again, the P5+1 seem to be exploring positive incentives to address this.
One area of greater agreement is over transparency and verification. Iran insists it is prepared to accept intrusive verification measures to prove the “peacefulness” of its program. In fact, it already did so under the JPA. But the Additional Protocol (AP) is a difficult sell back home. Iranian negotiators are prepared to implement some of its safeguards as long as it’s not branded as such. Iran is also adamant that the scope and duration of these measures must be clearly defined.
This brings us to another important part of these talks: rhetoric. Today more than ever, there seems to be an understanding on both sides about what the other faces back home. Iran knows that US President Barack Obama walks a fine line on these negotiations when it comes to Congress, while the West is clearly more perceptive of the difficulties posed by the hardliners in Tehran and Iran’s need to save face. The P5+1’s willingness to accept suggestions such as implementing intrusive verification measures without naming the AP or framing talks in terms of modernising the Iranian program rather than dismantling it demonstrates this. Some officials recognise the need to ignore Iranian rhetoric, knowing full well that like in the West, the most uncompromising statements are often intended for a domestic audience.
The road to a final agreement is long and complicated. Anything from a small statement by an Iranian or American hardliner to Russian disengagement from the negotiations because of the crisis in Ukraine could derail the talks and take us back to square one. But we keep forgetting how far we’ve come in so little time. A year ago, no one would have thought that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would embrace a more moderate president or that he would agree to an interim deal constraining Iran’s nuclear program. Today, both sides are negotiating wholeheartedly. What they want has not changed. What has changed is how much they want a final solution.
– Dina Esfandiary is a Research Associate and foreign affairs and security analyst focusing on Iran, the Middle East and nuclear issues at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
Photo:EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton (L) opens with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R) during E3/EU+3 – Iran Talks meeting in Vienna on March 18,2014.
]]>by Jasmin Ramsey
Raising expectations for a deal over its controversial nuclear programme, Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif has said that a joint statement on the framework of a nuclear deal could be issued as early as Friday here amid ongoing negotiations with the P5+1 group of world powers.
[...]]]>by Jasmin Ramsey
Raising expectations for a deal over its controversial nuclear programme, Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif has said that a joint statement on the framework of a nuclear deal could be issued as early as Friday here amid ongoing negotiations with the P5+1 group of world powers.
Those expectations have also been raised by an NBC report that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry — who President Barack Obama appointed to oversee the U.S. side of nuclear negotiations with Iran in September — is unexpectedly heading to Geneva now.
While officials from all sides here have remained tight-lipped about what that deal could include, the Iranian foreign minister exclusively told IPS that Iran’s parliament could consider implementing the Additional Protocol — a voluntary legal agreement that would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) increased inspection access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities — as part of a deal if it was convinced that sanctions would be reversed.
“The additional protocol is [only] within the prerogative of the Iranian parliament to adopt and to ratify, but we can consider it if the necessary confidence is built,” Zarif told IPS in an interview Thursday evening.
“[The U.S.] should show that they are prepared to reverse the trend; that is, to stop trying to achieve their objections through pressure on Iran,” said the foreign minister.
“Iran demands respect and equal footing [that is] only done when you are prepared to accommodate the other side without trying to impose your views,” continued Zarif.
“We want to see a situation where Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, including enrichment on Iranian territory, is respected and at the same time all sanctions are removed,” he said.
“We are prepared to address the concerns of the international community in the process,” he added.
Asked by IPS to elaborate on any impediments to a deal, Zarif said that Iran was seeking one that was domestically acceptable.
“For this deal to be sustainable and in fact foster confidence, it needs to be balanced,” said Zarif, a Western-educated academic who worked closely with the U.S. in 2001 in drafting the deal that led to the post-Taliban government in Afghanistan.
“Neither side should be told at home or by detractors outside that they’ve been taken for a ride; you want a deal that can be presented to sceptical publics,” he said.
Zarif also rejected the possibility of Iran suspending its controversial uranium enrichment as part of the framework of a possible deal.
On Wednesday, that idea was expressed by the U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in an interview with CNN.
Menendez told the journalist Christiane Amanpour that Iran should completely “suspend” its nuclear programme before even a pause in more sanctions.
Zarif rejected that notion this evening in a follow-up CNN interview and with IPS.
“From 2003-05 we did in fact suspend [uranium enrichment]; it didn’t lead anywhere,” Zarif told IPS.
“And from 2005 until now, they’ve been pushing for suspension. The result is that in 2005 we had less than 160 centrifuges spinning, now we have 19,000,” said Zarif.
Asked what measures Iran could take to address the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme, Zarif told IPS, “It is in our interest that even the perception that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons would be removed” and Iran “will do anything possible, everything reasonable, to remove those perceptions.”
Iran could address those concerns by operating its nuclear programme in a “transparent, open way with IAEA monitoring,” he said.
Although the Obama administration has recently been lobbying for a temporary pause in the implementation of more sanctions on Iran while talks are in progress, key figures in Congress are voicing resistance against the effort.
A senior administration official told reporters here Wednesday that “Our experts strongly believe that any forward progress on additional sanctions at this time would be harmful to and potentially undermine the negotiating process at a truly crucial moment.”
“In response to a first step agreed to by Iran that halts their programme from advancing further, we are prepared to offer limited, targeted, and reversible sanctions relief,” said the official, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity.
But the Senate Banking Committee is reportedly now poised to move ahead with more sanctions on Iran after the talks conclude here on Nov. 8, according to Reuters.
On Wednesday, a top Republican senator on the Foreign Relations Committee also said he was preparing legislation that would prevent the loosening of sanctions on Iran.
“We’ve crafted an amendment to freeze the administration in and make it so they are unable to reduce the sanctions unless certain things occur,” Sen. Bob Corker told the Daily Beast on Wednesday.
While Iran may currently be far from reaching relief from U.S.-led sanctions targeting its oil revenues and banking sector, it may be getting closer to obtaining relief in other ways as part of a mutual deal.
“A lot of the U.S. restrictions are going to remain, but a good deal that the administration here signs off on could have a big impact on sanctions relief,” Suzanne Maloney, a former State Department policy planning official, told IPS.
“It depends what happens over the course of the next 24 hours…it’s difficult to persuade Congress to back off on any kind of pressure on Iran, but the banking committee’s decision doesn’t mean these provisions automatically become law,” said Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution.
“It’s entirely conceivable that if we see something come out of these talks, these sanctions would either not become law or be implemented,” she said.
]]>Geneva – Abbas Aragchi, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister who is currently leading talks here between Iran and world powers known as the P5+1, told IPS News in an interview this morning at his hotel that Iran is willing to implement the Additional Protocol in the final stage of a mutually agreed upon [...]]]>
Geneva – Abbas Aragchi, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister who is currently leading talks here between Iran and world powers known as the P5+1, told IPS News in an interview this morning at his hotel that Iran is willing to implement the Additional Protocol in the final stage of a mutually agreed upon nuclear deal.
“The Additional Protocol is a part of the endgame,” Araghchi told IPS. “It’s on the table, but not for the time being, it’s a part of the final step,” he said.
According to the Arms Control Association, the Additional Protocol “is a legal document granting the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] complementary inspection authority to that provided in underlying safeguards agreements.” The voluntary but advanced nuclear safeguards standard was accepted earlier by Iran in 2003 and was adhered to but not officially ratified by Iran’s parliament. “The Additional Protocol requires States to provide an expanded declaration of their nuclear activities and grants the Agency broader rights of access to sites in the country,” according to the IAEA’s website.
Asked whether he was expecting any breakthroughs today after an initial positive first day of the two-day talks scheduled here in Geneva, Araghchi said, “Any break through depends on the other side.”
He also seemed to reiterate the “cautious optimism” that an EU official noted here yesterday after Iran presented its new proposal to the P5+1, the details of which remain under wraps.
“We made a very good, logical and balanced proposal yesterday,” said Araghchi, referring to the PowerPoint presentation that was presented yesterday morning by the official head of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is Iran’s Foreign Minister.
“We are looking forward this morning to hearing from [the P5+1] on their counter proposal, what their reaction is today and their evaluation of our proposal,” noted Araghchi.
“It’s to soon to talk about whether we have made any progress but maybe this afternoon when we’ve heard from them we can come to a conclusion if everything is going well,” he added.
“I have a good feeling about it but I cannot judge now,” Araghchi told IPS. He then repeated Iran’s earlier call for identifying and establishing an “end game” for a nuclear deal.
“We believe to make an agreement now, we need to come to an agreement on the common objective, the end game, the final step and the first step,” Aragchi said.
“It’s not useful to decide only on the first step and take that without having a clear picture of the future and the destination,” he said.
“So it’s very important to set the common objective that both sides can agree on,” said Araghchi.
Araghchi also told IPS News that Iran is expecting to return to meet with the P5+1 in Geneva, but did not confirm when or whether the next round of talks would occur at the ministerial level.
“There is a common understanding that we have to meet again soon,” he said. “The level is not decided yet.”
]]>by James A. Russell
The image of the finger-wagging Israeli Prime Minister at the United Nations this week provides the international community with a powerful message: the world — and the United States — must tirelessly search for “yes” as an answer in solving the world’s problems.
Israel’s persistent “no” model in seeking [...]]]>
by James A. Russell
The image of the finger-wagging Israeli Prime Minister at the United Nations this week provides the international community with a powerful message: the world — and the United States — must tirelessly search for “yes” as an answer in solving the world’s problems.
Israel’s persistent “no” model in seeking accommodation with its various antagonists is exactly the wrong approach — one that has placed it outside most acceptable norms of international behavior. A world of persistent war and confrontation may suit Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party, but it does not serve American or global interests.
After years of confrontation over its nuclear program and support for terrorism, the outstretched hand of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to the US and the international community provides an opening for both countries to end the state of undeclared war that has raged between them since 1979. Arriving at a settlement to end this state of overt hostility and bringing Iran back into the global community of nations would make the world a safer place.
To be sure, taking “yes” for an answer from your antagonists can be difficult. American foreign policy is full of examples. During the Cold War, the United States (through Republican and Democrat administrations) simultaneously negotiated arms reductions with its mortal enemy, the Soviet Union, while they were also engaged in a bitter and dangerous international rivalry.
It was a difficult political sell at home. Hardline Republicans and, at the time, neoconservative Democrats, opposed any compromise with an adversary that many argued was inherently evil, untrustworthy and bent on our destruction. It took great political courage for President Richard Nixon and his successors to pursue the arms control talks while American versions of Netanyahu lectured them on the dangers of such a folly.
Luckily for us, we reached an arrangement with our adversary and took “yes” as the answer to limiting our respective nuclear arsenals, which also helped manage our political relationship. The unintended consequences of arriving at “yes” in the nuclear arena helped us to arrive at a series of subsequent agreements with Russia that will see substantial reductions in our respective nuclear arsenals over the next decade. The world will be a safer place for it.
More recently, the disastrous consequences of abandoning the “yes” policy option stares the United States in the face. America’s 8-year war in Iraq in no small measure unfolded over a 15-20 year period during which the United States boxed itself in politically by refusing to take “yes” from its adversary Saddam Hussein. In 1997, the US foreclosed any “yes” options in Iraq when it formally adopted regime change as its official policy — a decision that, at the time, had everything to do with domestic politics and little to do with a sensible strategy.
I was among the audience in 1997 as a Pentagon staffer when then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave a speech at Georgetown University explaining the US policy of supporting regime change in Iraq. Neither I nor anyone else could foresee the consequences of slamming the door on the possibility of taking a “yes” answer from Saddam Hussein. Earlier that year, I had initialed an internal policy paper to my boss, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, urging him to lobby the senior reaches of the Clinton administration to seek a deal with Saddam — a suggestion that surprisingly made it to his desk but that was of course never taken seriously.
Following the Albright speech, the Clinton administration allowed itself to be forced by neoconservatives and others into adopting the ill-conceived Iraq Liberation Act in 1998 that formalized regime change into law — a law subsequently cited in the October 2002 authorization for the use of military force against Iraq. The war that followed was a human, economic and military disaster for all its participants, but the path to war had stretched back into the 1990s by a series of seemingly innocuous decisions that had foreclosed accommodation and the possibility of “yes.”
These two foreign policy episodes represent opposite poles for American decision makers and, to be sure, simplify the challenges of arriving at “yes” with adversaries. The arms control agreements that were reached with the Soviet Union resulted from years of painstaking work by committed public servants from both sides through the ups and downs of the overall political relationship. They happened because both parties shared an interest in a “yes” outcome and were prepared to take steps to convince each other about their seriousness.
In the case of Iran, the United States has every incentive to similarly pursue “yes” as the answer and should be under no illusions that the process will be any easier than it was with the Soviet Union. The polarized and fractured domestic political landscape that is exploited by the Israel lobby and others presents the Obama administration with a serious political challenge. As illustrated by the Sept. 23 letter to Obama signed by 79 Senators, the overwhelming preference seems tilted towards “no” and continued pressure and confrontation. Netanyahu further amplified the volume for this approach at the UN this week.
Interestingly, the issues facing the two antagonists pale in comparison to those faced in the US-Soviet Cold War conflict. The path to a US-Iran deal is relatively clear: Iran must honor its obligations as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), open its facilities at Fordow and Parchin for inspection as called for in the treaty, agree to implement the Additional Protocol, and provide the requested information to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about its past nuclear research that was almost certainly part of an illicit weapons program. In short, Iran must agree to have a nuclear program with the kind of transparency that’s called for by the NPT. For its part, the United States must agree to lift sanctions and be ready for an agreement to reach a broader political accommodation if Iran takes these steps. All should recognize that, as was the case with the Soviet Union, such agreements depend on reasonable verification steps and confidence building measures by both parties that demonstrate a commitment to “yes.”
The Obama administration’s stumbling into a “yes” answer with Syria, which may result in the elimination of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons stockpile, suggests that keeping policy options open for solutions that may not be immediately apparent can result in positive outcomes.
The United States needs to keep “yes” on the table as a solution to its standoff with Iran and resist the pressure from those who seem to prefer war and confrontation. The world will be a safer place if we can get to a “yes” with our adversary; after more than a decade of war in the Middle East, it is our responsibility to focus our best efforts on this challenging endeavor.
Photo: Gerald Ford and Leonid Brezhnev signing a joint communiqué on the SALT Treaty in Vladivostok, November 24, 1974
]]>by Peter Jenkins
In defence of his 2003-05 record, Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rouhani writes, “While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan. In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.”
Some claim [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
In defence of his 2003-05 record, Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rouhani writes, “While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan. In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.”
Some claim this as evidence that Rouhani duped and tricked his European counterparts in the negotiations that took place in Tehran in October 2003.
That interpretation is wrong. I will explain why.
The agreement that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and his French and German counterparts (the E3) reached with Rouhani on 21 October 2003 specified that Iran would suspend “all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities as defined by the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency]”.
The E3 hoped that Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the IAEA, would produce a definition of enrichment that would stop work at the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) at Isfahan, which was due to start converting uranium ore (yellowcake) into uranium hexafluoride, the feed material for centrifuge enrichment, in the course of 2004.
Instead, ElBaradei defined enrichment as the operation and/or testing of centrifuges; the installation of centrifuges; the introduction or use of material in any facility capable of isotopic separation; and the construction, testing or operation of any isotopic separation facility.
In doing so, ElBaradei opened the way for Iran to complete, hot test and start up production at the UCF without breaching the Tehran agreement with the E3. Iran also continued to manufacture, assemble and test centrifuge machines — while honouring its commitment to suspend the activities specified by ElBaradei…
As soon as the E3 could, they set about trying to renegotiate the Tehran agreement to close these loop-holes; but it was only in November 2004, in Paris, that they finally got Iranian agreement to extend the suspension to “all enrichment related activities, and specifically the manufacture and import of gas centrifuges and their components; the assembly, installation, testing or operation of gas centrifuges; and all tests or production of any uranium conversion installation”.
It follows that Rouhani is entitled to claim that the agreement he negotiated in October 2003 allowed Iran to complete and start up the UCF. This achievement, however, stemmed from ElBaradei’s judgement that a narrow definition of enrichment would be more accurate than a broad definition. The achievement was not the result of trickery or deceit.
Let me also deal with the breakdown of the Tehran and Paris agreements in the course of 2005.
Trickery and deceit played no part in that breakdown. The essential cause of the breakdown was the E3’s rejection of an Iranian proposal, in March 2005, that Iran resume enrichment to a limited extent and under rigorous IAEA monitoring. The rejection led Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to think that the E3 sought an indefinite suspension of enrichment, which he had never intended to concede (as the E3 knew full well). The proximate cause was a resumption of activity at the UCF in August 2005, on the Supreme Leader’s orders.
The E3 took the view that Iran had gone back on its side of the Tehran and Paris bargains, but did not consider that reversal treacherous or dishonest, because Rouhani had never undertaken to maintain suspension indefinitely.
Instead, seeing the reversal as releasing them from their side of the Tehran bargain, the E3 set about arranging for the IAEA to forward to the UN the Director General’s 2003 report of Iranian safeguards non-compliance. They hoped that the UN Security Council would turn suspension from a voluntary measure into a binding requirement, and that Iran would feel obliged to comply. The Security Council delivered; Iran’s lack of compunction in ignoring the Council’s diktat was plain for all to see.
As I have written before, the big misfortune in October 2003 was that no one insisted on linking Iranian suspension to the completion of IAEA investigations under the Additional Protocol. The justification for suspension was a (palpable and widespread) loss of confidence in Iran’s nuclear intentions. An IAEA assurance — under the Additional Protocol — that all nuclear material and plants in Iran had been declared, would have re-built confidence and led all but a handful of IAEA members to conclude that Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium for civil purposes under IAEA safeguards. The hold-outs would have been unable to persuade the Security Council to make suspension mandatory and impose sanctions.
Anyway, the lesson to be drawn from Europe’s experience nearly a decade ago is that Iran’s president-elect is not some wily Oriental who cannot be trusted; he is rather a defender of Iranian interests who drives a hard but honest bargain and is true to his word.
Photo Credit: Abdolvahed Mirzazadeh
]]>by Peter Jenkins
Last week, while visiting Israel and Jordan, President Barak Obama publicly emphasised that there is still time to resolve the nuclear dispute without resorting to force and that this is his preference. For peaceniks everywhere, those were encouraging words.
But, advertently or not, the President’s words also revealed [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
Last week, while visiting Israel and Jordan, President Barak Obama publicly emphasised that there is still time to resolve the nuclear dispute without resorting to force and that this is his preference. For peaceniks everywhere, those were encouraging words.
But, advertently or not, the President’s words also revealed two of the most perplexing aspects of his administration’s Iran policy: their insistence on making unique demands of Iran, and their reluctance to give weight to US intelligence findings.
Let me try first to explain what I mean by “unique demands”.
In Jordan the President said: “Now if in fact what the Supreme Leader has said is the case, which is that developing a nuclear weapon would be un-Islamic and that Iran has no interest in developing nuclear weapons, then there should be a practical, verifiable way to assure the international community that it’s not doing so”.
Since 1970 there has been an almost universally accepted “practical, verifiable way” of providing such an assurance. It is to adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), submit all nuclear material to international monitoring, and convince international inspectors that nuclear material is not being diverted to non-peaceful purposes.
Since the late ‘90s, a supplementary measure, known as the Additional Protocol, has also gained acceptance. It enables international inspectors to satisfy themselves that a given state has placed all the material in its possession, and not just a part of it, under safeguards.
As it happens, Iran has been a party to the NPT since 1970, and for all but the years between 1991 and 2003 it has satisfied the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that the nuclear material in its possession has been in peaceful use.
For two years (late 2003 to the end of 2005) Iran also applied the Additional Protocol; and since 2005 it has reiterated a readiness to re-apply this instrument if sanctions introduced to coerce Iran into giving up the dual-use technology of uranium enrichment are lifted.
So there is no reason to think that Iran is unready to do what other states do to provide practical, verifiable grounds that they are not developing nuclear weapons. When, therefore, President Obama implies that this would not be enough, he also implies that a unique standard of confidence-provision is being set for Iran.
Some would say that this is reasonable. Iran’s failure to declare to the IAEA small quantities of nuclear material over a 12-year period, and their use in research apparently related to nuclear weapons acquisition, rightly provoked suspicions about Iranian intentions.
But neither the NPT nor IAEA rules provide for the imposition of unique standards on states that have been in non-compliance with their IAEA obligations; they simply require correction of the failures that gave rise to a non-compliance finding. For other states returning to conformity, by making the necessary corrections, has been enough.
Furthermore — to come to the second perplexity — since late 2007 the justification for suspecting that Iran has weaponization intentions has dwindled, thanks to the effectiveness of US intelligence operations. On several occasions, the Director of National Intelligence has reported a high probability that Iran has not decided to acquire nuclear weapons although it seeks the option to produce them (which it can be dissuaded from doing through intelligent diplomacy).
In other words, Iran is no longer suspected, by those whose job it is to know best, of being engaged in the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Additionally, Iran is ready to provide ongoing assurances to that effect in the same way that other states do. Yet the President of the United States is asking for more.
What form might “more” take? The President gave a hint when he alluded, in Israel, to Iran needing to meet its “international obligations”. In the past that phrase encompassed not just NPT and IAEA obligations, which Iran assumed voluntarily, but also the obligations imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council since 2006.
This is controversial because those obligations were imposed to force Iran into abandoning uranium enrichment at a time when suspicions about Iran’s nuclear intentions were still acute. Once the US intelligence community reported “with high confidence” that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program, to what extent has it been just or reasonable to demand that Iran meet these “obligations”?
A past head of US Strategic Command once remarked that when a threat assessment changes, the strategic posture should also change. This wise observation seems to have passed over the heads of those who are responsible for formulating US (and EU) policy towards Iran. The risk remains that one day most of us will come to regret that.
]]>by Peter Jenkins
I was still a serving diplomat in Vienna when, in January 2006, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran had resumed uranium enrichment, suspended since November 2003. Like my Western colleagues, I feared the worst. I assumed that Iran was going to install as many centrifuges [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
I was still a serving diplomat in Vienna when, in January 2006, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran had resumed uranium enrichment, suspended since November 2003. Like my Western colleagues, I feared the worst. I assumed that Iran was going to install as many centrifuges as it could as quickly as it could, and that within a very few years Iran’s production of enriched uranium would bring into existence an intractable nuclear deterrent capability (even then I doubted Iran wanted an offensive nuclear capability).
I would have been incredulous had someone assured me that seven years later Iran would only possess some 16,000 assembled centrifuge machines; that Iran would only be operating some 60% of these; that it would only just be starting to install some 3,000 machines of a more advanced and efficient design, which it first obtained in 1995; that it would only have produced 8,300 kg of enriched uranium; and that less than 30% of this production would have been enriched to the intermediate level of 20% U235.
Of course, there are people who say that Iran would dearly love to have built more machines and produced more enriched uranium since 2006. For all I know, these people are right when they tell us that a number of technical impediments, some contrived by the West, and procurement problems have slowed progress.
But the latest IAEA report (GOV 2013/6 of 21 February) makes me think, as some previous reports have, that this may not be the whole story. I sense that Iran is deliberately adopting a cautious, measured approach to the expansion of its nuclear program. I speculate below about possible reasons for this.
In this latest report, the headline grabber has been Iran’s declaration to the IAEA of plans to install 18 cascades (some 3,000 machines) of the more advanced IR2m type. This has been greeted with alarm in some quarters and with condemnation by Western governments.
That was predictable but is not strictly rational. These machines are being installed at the Natanz plant, not the less vulnerable (to aerial attack) Fordow plant. They are to be used, Iran has declared, to enrich uranium to 3.5%, not 20%. They are being introduced in modest quantities (Western enrichment plants contain tens of thousands of machines). Could Iran be signalling that the West should not be alarmed: Iran has no intention of using these machines for the rapid “breakout” that is the stuff of Mr. Netanyahu’s nightmares?
Equally noteworthy are two other IAEA findings. Iran is still only using 4 out of a possible 16 cascades at Fordow to enrich uranium to 20%. And of the 47 kg of 20% U235 produced since November at Fordow and Natanz combined, some 60% has been transferred to Isfahan and converted from gaseous to metallic form.
One consequence of this is that only 167kg of the 280kg of 20% U235 produced since early 2010 is still available in gaseous form for enrichment to weapon-grade, were Iran to start re-configuring the Fordow cascades in order to “breakout”. And of this it seems likely (the IAEA report is silent) that fewer than 100kg are located at Fordow, assuming that at least a portion of the 130kg produced at Fordow has been transferred to Isfahan.
Could this be a signal that Iran has no intention of giving Mr. Netanyahu a pretext for another bout of war fever by approaching his “red line” of 240kg of 20% U235 hexafluoride ready for higher enrichment?
Anyway, it would have been nice if Western governments could have come up with a more clever reaction to the IR2m declaration than to don their global policeman’s caps and issue a stern reprimand to a sovereign counterpart. If they are really alarmed that after 17 years Iran is at last installing a more advanced design of centrifuge, why not make the few, simple policy adjustments that are needed to draw Iran into a serious negotiation?
The rational response to the introduction of more efficient centrifuge machines is to seek to increase the timeliness of the IAEA’s detection capabilities. This can be achieved by persuading Iran to re-apply the Additional Protocol. Western negotiators will find their Iranian counterparts open to persuasion provided Iranian concerns are also addressed.
After all, one does not need to be a genius to surmise that Iran’s cautious expansion of its nuclear program aims in part at bringing the West to the negotiating table — just as Western governments aim at “bringing Iran to the table” by piling on sanctions. This would be an amusing irony were the mutual incomprehension not potentially so dangerous.
Photo: Ali Akbar Salehi, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, meets IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano at the IAEA’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria on 12 July 2011.
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