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 Jasmin Ramsey
Dennis Ross, President Obama’s former top Middle East aide, writes that the exclusion of Hashemi Rafsanjani from Iran’s June 14 election signals that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is uninterested in a nuclear deal:
I say that not because Rafsanjani would have been capable of initiating [...]]]>
by Jasmin Ramsey
Dennis Ross, President Obama’s former top Middle East aide, writes that the exclusion of Hashemi Rafsanjani from Iran’s June 14 election signals that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is uninterested in a nuclear deal:
I say that not because Rafsanjani would have been capable of initiating a deal on his own — any deal he might strike would still have to be acceptable to the Supreme Leader — but because if the Supreme Leader were interested in an agreement, he would probably want to create an image of broad acceptability of it in advance. Rather than having only his fingerprints on it, he would want to widen the circle of decision-making to share the responsibility. And he would set the stage by having someone like Rafsanjani lead a group that would make the case for reaching an understanding. Rafsanjani’s pedigree as Khomeini associate and former president, with ties to the Revolutionary Guard and to the elite more generally, would all argue for him to play this role.
Alireza Nader, a Rand analyst specializing on Iran, tells LobeLog the election has more to do with the power struggle in Tehran than Iran’s nuclear program. “Rafsanjani’s disqualification was a result of the rivalry between the former president and Khamenei. The nuclear program is important in Khamenei’s calculations, but it doesn’t appear to be the most important motivation,” said Nader.
In a Rand report released today, Nader expands on this notion, arguing that Khamenei is “primarily concerned with regime security”:
Khamenei will still play the decisive role on nuclear policy after the election. But the next Iranian president could have an opportunity to defuse some of the tensions created by Ahmadinejad. This is not to suggest that the election will lead to an immediate resolution of the crisis, but it is safe to assume that the next president will be less polarizing and more diplomatic than his predecessor. This could provide a limited easing of the nuclear stalemate, but the true problem for Iran’s nuclear program stems from conflicting interests between the United States and Iran, not from vexing personalities.Ross, unlike Nader, does not even allow for the possibility that a new presidential era in an economically pressured Iran — now free from the rabble-rousing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — could present an opening for a less “intransigent position.”
Unlike Nader, Ross doesn’t even allow for the possibility that a new presidential era in an increasingly pressured Iran — free from the rabble-rousing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — could present an opening for a less intransigent position. Still, Nader admits that Iran’s next president is likely to pursue the Supreme Leader’s nuclear policy:
…Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator with the P5+1 and one of the main presidential candidates, tends to parrot Khamenei’s discourse of “resistance” regarding the United States. From Tehran’s standpoint, the answer to new and harsher sanctions could be a policy of greater intransigence, a policy that would be supported by both Khamenei and possibly the new president.
As if on cue, the Supreme Leader made another speech yesterday (for the anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s death) urging the presidential candidates not to submit to Western pressure. “Some, following this incorrect analysis – that we should make concessions to the enemies to reduce their anger – have put their interests before the interests of the Iranian nation. This is wrong,” he said.
The US’ current approach has failed to compel Tehran to change it’s nuclear stance, so why not try something new? Enter the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, which published a report on the Iranian sanctions regime this week. ”To make genuine progress on the Iranian nuclear issue, the Obama administration and Congress must shift their focus toward sanctions relief and compromise, rather than sticking with the pressure-only approach that’s proving increasingly counterproductive,” write Usha Sahay and Laicie Heeley. Of course, the opposite seems to be happening.
]]>It’s the Iranian New Year (Nowruz) and on this day I’m missing my family, as well as thinking of the millions of Iranians who are dealing with the allegedly unintended consequences of the US-led sanctions regime on Iran.
Iranian expatriates don’t agree on much, but there’s a growing consensus that broad [...]]]>
It’s the Iranian New Year (Nowruz) and on this day I’m missing my family, as well as thinking of the millions of Iranians who are dealing with the allegedly unintended consequences of the US-led sanctions regime on Iran.
Iranian expatriates don’t agree on much, but there’s a growing consensus that broad and sweeping sanctions, which are supposed to be aimed at the Iranian government, are impacting ordinary Iranians the most — and in destructive ways. The National Iranian American Council has accordingly produced a campaign video, featuring 12 well-known Iranian-Americans, explaining why they’re against broad sanctions on Iran.
President Obama has sent a Nowruz message to Iranians, and perhaps most notably, to Iran’s leaders. But the US position remains unchanged, with more sanctions announced earlier this month and Congress preparing for a potential conflict more than successful diplomacy. Many have argued over the years that Obama’s Iran policy has been influenced by domestic political considerations, which isn’t unusual as far as the making of foreign policy goes. So, I have to wonder, is he listening to Iranians here at home, too?
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
The stakes in President Barak Obama’s impending visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan have risen steadily in recent days. It is taking take place, after all, almost immediately following Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip around the region — but not to the same stops [...]]]>
by Robert E. Hunter
The stakes in President Barak Obama’s impending visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan have risen steadily in recent days. It is taking take place, after all, almost immediately following Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip around the region — but not to the same stops on the President’s tour — which, coming so soon after Kerry assumed office, almost inevitably can do little to advance America’s regional agenda. This agenda includes fostering regime change in Syria and ending its civil war; promoting political stability in Egypt and reinforcing its relationship with Israel; gaining Iran’s compliance on the nuclear issue; and setting the stage for a more salubrious course for the so-called Arab spring than has been seen so far, at least in the Near East. On top of that, Kerry had to deal with a complicating comment by the Turkish prime minister: “It is necessary that we must consider — just like Zionism, or anti-Semitism, or fascism — Islamophobia as a crime against humanity.” That slur did nothing to increase Israel’s confidence regarding its neighborhood.
Also inevitably, an unavoidable linkage between President Obama’s trip and the issue of the Iranian nuclear program was reinforced by the administration’s obligatory recitation of its policies before the annual meeting in Washington of AIPAC, “America’s pro-Israel lobby.” Vice President Biden was most dramatic: “President Barack Obama is not bluffing. He is not bluffing. We are not looking for war. We are looking to and ready to negotiate peacefully, but all options, including military force, are on the table.” That is nothing more than Obama has already said, in one way or another. But it comes immediately after the resumption of talks in Kazakhstan between Iran and the so-called “P5+1” countries — the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the European Union. These talks, containing at most a sliver of hope of future progress, were probably just a “time buyer” in any event — especially to get both sides past the Iranian presidential elections in June. But, now, “confidence-building,” assuming that it’s possible, will have to wait for another day.
President Obama’s trip thus does not begin on an upbeat note for America’s overall ambitions in the region. But on one level, that is almost beside the point. This is, after all, the first time he has been to Israel, more than four years into his presidency. The very fact of his going is thus important. A neat parallel was President Anwar Sadat’s almost-hectoring speech to the Israeli Knesset in 1978. At the time, I asked a leading Israeli whether Sadat’s words undercut his message of peace. “The fact that he was standing there in the Knesset,” my interlocutor said, “spoke so loudly I couldn’t hear what he was saying.”
So Obama will be there, underscoring by his presence not just that the US “has Israel’s back,” but also, made necessary by the fact of his trip, that Israel-Palestine negotiations are on his agenda. But what else?
Certainly, given the administration’s declared objective of restarting the moribund Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” — where Kerry has characterized failure as a “catastrophe” — Obama has to address the subject, and do so in more than pro forma terms. Most important is providing a sense of his own personal commitment, assuming that that is his intent, to seeing the process move forward, a highly-elastic term. One observer with about as much experience as anyone, Ambassador Dennis Ross, laid out his own 14 steps for confidence-building in last Sunday’s New York Times. While quite possibly realistic in terms of confidence-building, they are far from confidence-inspiring and are devoid of significant concrete goals, much less an end point, the so-called “final status.” Notably, Ross did not mention the so-called “Clinton Parameters,” of December 2000, which can be viewed here, and which are widely understood to be the only realistic basis for peace and the “two-state solution.”
While nothing is easy in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, the Clinton Parameters compete for the prize: land-swaps would incorporate most West Bank Jewish settlements into Israel; Jerusalem would be the capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state; Palestine would be essentially demilitarized, with Israel retaining some residual rights of defense; outside peacekeepers (probably NATO) would be introduced; and arrangements would be made for Palestinian refugees, certainly better than their current circumstances. But 12 years after these sensible ideas were put forward — and 33 years since negotiations began — success is not now even remotely in sight.
Obama’s peace mission — if that is how he sees his Near East trip — will be complicated by Israel’s deep security concerns, most immediately the civil war in Syria. Jerusalem and Damascus have had a tacit agreement since the mid-1970s to prevent a breakdown in their uneasy truce, but that is now in jeopardy. And although Egypt’s continuing commitment to its treaty with Israel, the latter’s geopolitical linchpin, will probably hold, this is not something on which Israel can bet the farm.
And then there is Iran and the nuclear conundrum. Of necessity, Obama will have to repeat, and perhaps even reinforce, what Vice President Biden said to AIPAC. He can express hopes for a peaceful outcome, but he will have to underline, and underline again, the military consequences if Iran does not respond in terms that the US, with Israel at its elbow, has set. This will not be the time or place for the US president to lay out a comprehensive strategy for dealing with Iran, including one essential element that has so far been missing: that the security needs not just of the US and Israel, but also of Iran, must all be on the table. Instead, Obama’s trip will be a time primarily to provide, and provide again, reassurances to Israel, the sine qua non for everything else.
This, of course, will do little to move forward efforts to defuse the time-bomb with Iran. But with those efforts necessarily being on hold until after its June elections, nothing should be expected from the US president, other than some reference to giving diplomacy a chance. But what of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process?
An old rule of thumb, based on both the facts and appearance of power, is that US presidents don’t do “fact-finding” or go on “listening tours.” They have mid-level officials to do that. What American presidents are expected to do by both friend (with hope) and foe (with fear), is to lead. Words will not suffice: Obama has already done that in Cairo, Ankara, and Accra with three essays in eloquence that advanced the proposition that hope buttressed by hard work can triumph over experience. Now the world waits to see his Act Two.
There is one thing to do: be bold. Not baby-steps, like those suggested by Dennis Ross — as well as by others over the years — and which have yielded so little for so long. The place to start consists of two steps that go directly to “final status.” First, to endorse in clear-cut terms the Clinton Parameters as the United States’ bottom-line, a formal commitment to a two-state solution — full stop; and second, to promise the diplomatic and other efforts needed to see them through to completion, whatever it takes. I have already argued for the appointment of Bill Clinton as Special Negotiator. Or perhaps the Secretary of State would want to do it, though that would necessarily take him away from the rest of his global duties. But the principle is clear: if the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians is ever to succeed — a huge “if” — the US president has to enunciate a concrete, simple, and unambiguous plan, set his seal to it, and be a bull terrier in carrying it through.
Be bold, Mr. President, or it would be better that you stay home.
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
]]>In last night’s vice presidential debate moderated by ABC News’s Martha Raddatz, Vice President Joe Biden and GOP nominee Paul Ryan (R-WI) focused extensively on the Iranian nuclear program and the US-Israeli response to it. Ryan sought to portray Obama Administration’s public disagreements with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as [...]]]>
In last night’s vice presidential debate moderated by ABC News’s Martha Raddatz, Vice President Joe Biden and GOP nominee Paul Ryan (R-WI) focused extensively on the Iranian nuclear program and the US-Israeli response to it. Ryan sought to portray Obama Administration’s public disagreements with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as sending “mixed messages” to Tehran that would only encourage Iran to develop nuclear weapons, while Biden moved to attack the Congressman’s lack of foreign policy experience.
Ryan started off by reiterating the new Romney campaign red line: no nuclear weapons capability, a position endorsed by Congress and the Government of Israel:
RYAN: We cannot allow Iran to gain a nuclear weapons capability. Now, let’s take a look at where we’ve gone — come from. When Barack Obama was elected, they had enough fissile material — nuclear material to make one bomb. Now they have enough for five. They’re racing toward a nuclear weapon. They’re four years closer toward a nuclear weapons capability.
Ryan asserted that it has been the Republican Party, and not the White House, that has been the primary driver on the sanctions:
RYAN: Mitt Romney proposed these sanctions in 2007. In Congress, I’ve been fighting for these sanctions since 2009. The administration was blocking us every step of the way. Only because we had strong bipartisan support for these tough sanctions were we able to overrule their objections and put them in spite of the administration.
Imagine what would have happened if we had these sanctions in place earlier. You think Iran’s not brazen? Look at what they’re doing. They’re stepping up their terrorist attacks. They tried a terrorist attack in the United States last year when they tried to blow up the Saudi ambassador at a restaurant in Washington, D.C.
And talk about credibility? When this administration says that all options are on the table, they send out senior administration officials that send all these mixed signals.
The Vice President countered that the Republicans have been pushing too hard on sanctions that the rest of the world would refuse to support them:
BIDEN: It’s incredible. Look, imagine had we let the Republican Congress work out the sanctions. You think there’s any possibility the entire world would have joined us, Russia and China, all of our allies? These are the most crippling sanctions in the history of sanctions, period. Period.
When Governor Romney’s asked about it, he said, “We gotta keep these sanctions.” When he said, “Well, you’re talking about doing more,” what are you — you’re going to go to war? Is that what you want to do?
Biden also rounded on Ryan for the Romney campaign’s repeated suggestions that Obama is not serious about preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon should it choose to do so:
RYAN: We want to prevent war.
BIDEN: And the interesting thing is, how are they going to prevent war? How are they going to prevent war if they say there’s nothing more that we — that they say we should do than what we’ve already done, number one.
BIDEN: When my friend talks about fissile material, they have to take this highly enriched uranium, get it from 20 percent up, then they have to be able to have something to put it in. There is no weapon that the Iranians have at this point. Both the Israelis and we know — we’ll know if they start the process of building a weapon.
So all this bluster I keep hearing, all this loose talk, what are they talking about? Are you talking about, to be more credible — what more can the president do, stand before the United Nations, tell the whole world, directly communicate to the ayatollah, we will not let them acquire a nuclear weapon, period, unless he’s talking about going to war.
The two then clashed over Ryan’s (unsubstantiated) assertion that Iran is now “four years closer to a nuclear weapon”:
]]>BIDEN: … they are not four years closer to a nuclear weapon.
RYAN: Of course they are.
BIDEN: They’re — they’re closer to being able to get enough fissile material to put in a weapon if they had a weapon.
RADDATZ: You [Biden] are acting a little bit like they [the Iranians] don’t want one.
BIDEN: Oh, I didn’t say — no, I’m not saying that. But facts matter, Martha. You’re a foreign policy expert. Facts matter. All this loose talk about them, “All they have to do is get to enrich uranium in a certain amount and they have a weapon,” not true. Not true.
They are more — and if we ever have to take action, unlike when we took office, we will have the world behind us, and that matters. That matters.
RADDATZ: What about [former Secretary of Defense] Bob Gates’ statement? Let me read that again, “could prove catastrophic, haunting us for generations.”
BIDEN: He is right. It could prove catastrophic, if we didn’t do it with precision.
The Virginian-Pilot reports that former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates restated his opposition to military strikes against Iran last night. The Republican made the comments to an audience of nearly 2,000 in Chrysler Hall as a speaker for the Norfolk Forum:
Neither the United States nor Israel is capable of [...]]]>
The Virginian-Pilot reports that former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates restated his opposition to military strikes against Iran last night. The Republican made the comments to an audience of nearly 2,000 in Chrysler Hall as a speaker for the Norfolk Forum:
Neither the United States nor Israel is capable of wiping out Iran’s nuclear capability, he said, and “such an attack would make a nuclear-armed Iran inevitable. They would just bury the program deeper and make it more covert.”
….”The results of an American or Israeli military strike on Iran could, in my view, prove catastrophic, haunting us for generations in that part of the world.”
….United Nations sanctions aimed at discouraging Iran’s nuclear ambitions are starting to have an impact on the Iranian economy, he said, and “that’s our best chance going forward, to ratchet up the economic pressure and diplomatic isolation to the point where the Iranian leadership concludes that it actually hurts Iranian security and, above all, the security of the regime itself, to continue to pursue nuclear weapons.”
Gates also said the US Government should indicate that Israeli leaders “do not have a blank check to take action that could do grave harm to American vital interests.” Though Gates describes the Islamic Republic as “one of the greatest risks to Middle East stability and global security in our history,” he has repeatedly argued against preemptive war and strongly criticized Netanyahu’s behavior towards President Obama in a private policy forum.
]]>The only problem, as IPS’s Gareth Porter pointed out on Tuesday, was that the Times story omitted crucial context that made the picture far murkier. This context included Russian denials that the missiles in question even existed.
Today, the Times issued a new story walking back their original analysis. The story notes that “a review of a dozen other State Department cables made available by WikiLeaks and interviews with American government officials offer a murkier picture of Iran’s missile capabilities.” It’s perhaps notable that David Sanger, whose Times reporting on Iran has tended toward an alarmist view of Iranian weapons capabilities, had a byline on the first story but not the second.
The Times should be commended for showing some skepticism about the BM-25 story. Given the paper’s sorry record in the run-up to the Iraq war, let’s hope that this skepticism proves to be the rule and not the exception.
]]>