According to Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, the spokesperson for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team (2003-2005) and now a visiting scholar at Princeton University, an Iranian nuclear weapon “would provide only a short-term regional advantage that would turn into a longer-term vulnerability”.
Arrested for apparently politically motivated reasons during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, [...]]]>
According to Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, the spokesperson for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team (2003-2005) and now a visiting scholar at Princeton University, an Iranian nuclear weapon “would provide only a short-term regional advantage that would turn into a longer-term vulnerability”.
Arrested for apparently politically motivated reasons during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, Mousavian has become an important source for many in Washington who want to gauge regime thinking.
Among Mousavian’s top 10 reasons for why Iran doesn’t want a bomb is the desire to avoid North Korea-level isolation and regime survival:
9. Deterrence: A major accusation levied against Iran is that once it acquires nuclear weapons, it will use it against the United States and Israel. This makes no rational sense, since any provocation by Iran against two states that possess thousands and hundreds of nuclear weapons respectively would result in Iran’s total annihilation. Iran has publicly acknowledged this fact.
As always, Mousavian concludes by listing the terms that Iran could agree to for a negotiated settlement over its nuclear program:
]]>Tehran would only accept a deal in which the P5+1 recognizes Iran’s legitimate rights of enrichment under the NPT and gradually lifts the sanctions. In return, to assuage Western worries, Iran would operationalize Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa banning nuclear arms, implement the Additional Protocol and the Subsidiary Arrangements (Code 3.1), and cooperate with the IAEA to resolve technical ambiguities and its worries about possible military dimensions. It would also export its enriched uranium stockpile beyond domestic consumption or convert it to fuel rods, cap enrichment at 5 percent, and establish a multilateral consortium for enrichment in Iran.
This package can guarantee Iran’s legitimate NPT rights of enrichment while ensuring that Iran will remain a non-nuclear-weapon state forever.
Although the place and time of the next round of talks on Iran’s nuclear programme have not yet been announced, the manoeuvring by Iran and the United States to influence the outcome has already begun.
Iran sought support for a revised proposal to the talks during the United Nations General [...]]]>
Although the place and time of the next round of talks on Iran’s nuclear programme have not yet been announced, the manoeuvring by Iran and the United States to influence the outcome has already begun.
Iran sought support for a revised proposal to the talks during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) last month, according to a New York Times report Oct. 4. Then, only a few days later, the Barack Obama administration launched a preemptive attack on the proposal through New York Times reporter David Sanger.
The officials suggested the Iranian proposal would give Iran an easier route to a “breakout” to weapons grade uranium enrichment. But that claim flies in the face of some obvious realities.
An Oct. 4 story by Sanger reported that Iran had begun describing a “9-step plan” to diplomats at the UNGA and quoted administration officials as charging that the proposal would not “guarantee that Iran cannot produce a weapon”. Instead, the officials argued, it would allow Iran to keep the option of resuming 20-percent enriched uranium, thus being able to enrich to weapons grade levels much more quickly.
Iran’s nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili issued a denial that Iran had “delivered any new proposal other than what had been put forward in talks with the P5+1″. But that statement did not constitute a denial that Iran was discussing such a proposal, because the Times story had said the proposal had been initially made to European officials during the P5+1 meeting in Istanbul in July.
Obama administration officials complained that, under the Iranian plan, Iran would carry out a “suspension” of 20-percent enrichment only after oil sanctions have been lifted and oil revenues are flowing again.
That description of the proposal is consistent with an Iranian “five-step plan”, presented during the talks with P5+1, the text of which was published by Arms Control Today last summer. In that proposal, the P5+1 would have ended all sanctions against Iran in steps one and two, but Iran would have ended its 20-percent enrichment only in the fifth step.
In that same final step, however, Iran also would have closed down the Fordow enrichment plant and transferred its entire stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium to “a third country under IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) custody”.
Iran has made clear that it intends to use the 20-percent enrichment as bargaining leverage to achieve an end to the most damaging economic sanctions.
Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, the spokesperson for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team from 2003 to 2005 and now a visiting scholar at Princeton University, told IPS, “Iran is prepared to stop 20-percent enrichment and go below five percent. The question is what will the P5+1 provide in return. As long as the end state of a comprehensive agreement is not clear for Iran, it will not consider halting enrichment at 20 percent.”
But the administration’s portrayal of the Iranian proposal as offering a sanctions-free path to continued 20-percent enrichment is highly misleading, according to close observers of the Iran nuclear issue. It also ignores elements of the proposal that would minimise the risk of a “breakout” to enrichment of uranium to weapons grade levels.
The Obama administration criticism of the proposal, as reported by Sanger, was couched in such a way as to justify the U.S. refusal to discuss lifting the sanctions on Iranian oil exports during the four rounds of talks with Iran. A senior administration official was quoted as saying that Iran “could restart the program in a nanosecond,” whereas “it would take years” to re-impose the sanctions.
Paul Pillar, national intelligence officer for Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, noted in a commentary in The National Interest that it is “far easier to impose sanctions on Iran than to lift them” and that if Iran reneged on a nuclear agreement, “it would be easier still.”
Peter Jenkins, British permanent representative to the IAEA from 2001 to 2006, noted in an e-mail to IPS that it took the EU only two months to agree to impose oil sanctions, and that “political resistance among the 27 (EU member states) to imposing oil sanctions would probably be less if re-imposition were required by an Iranian breach of a deal with the P5+1.”
Jenkins pointed out that EU oil purchases from Iran now have experience in getting supplies from other countries which could make re-imposing sanctions even easier.
One U.S. official was quoted by Sanger as complaining that the Iranian proposal would allow Iran to “move the fuel around, and it stays in the country”. That description appeared to hint that the purpose is to give Tehran the option of a breakout to weapons grade enrichment.
But the biggest difference between the proposal now being discussed by Iranian diplomats and the one offered last summer is that the new proposal reflects the reality that Iran began last spring to convert 20-percent enriched uranium into U308 in powdered form for fuel plates for its Tehran Research Reactor.
The conversion of 20 percent enriched uranium to U308, which was documented but not highlighted in the Aug. 30 IAEA report, makes it more difficult to use that same uranium for enrichment to weapons grade levels.
The new Iranian proposal evidently envisions U308 uranium remaining in the country for use by the Tehran Research Reactor rather than the entire stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium being shipped to another country as in its previous proposal.
Former State Department official Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, who has argued in the past that the only purpose Iran could have in enriching to 20 percent is a nuclear weapon, told the Times that the conversion “tends to confirm that there is civilian purpose in enriching to this level”.
But Fitzpatrick told the Times that the Iranians know how to reconvert the U308 powder back to a gaseous form that can then be used for weapons grade enrichment. “It would not take long to set it up,” Fitzpatrick said.
In an interview with IPS, Dr. Harold A. Feiveson, a senior research scientist at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson’s school and a specialist on nuclear weapons, said “it would not be super hard” to carry out such a reconversion.
But Feiveson admitted that he is not aware of anyone ever having done it. The reconversion to 20 percent enrichment “would be pretty visible” and “would take some time,” said Feiveson. “You would have to kick the (IAEA) inspectors out.”
Even Israeli policymakers have acknowledged that Iran’s diversion of 20-percent enriched uranium represents a step away from a breakout capability, as Haaretz reported Oct. 9.
Defence ministry sources told the Israeli daily that the Iran’s reduction of its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium had added “eight months at least” to what the Israeli government has cited as its “deadline” on Iran. The same sources said it was the justification for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dropping the threat of attack on Iran in his U.N. speech.
The deep reduction in Iranian oil revenues from sanctions and the recent plunge in the value of Iran’s currency may well have made Iran more interested in compromise than when the talks with the P5+1 started in April.
Mousavian told IPS, “I am convinced that Iran is ready for a package deal based on recognition of two principles.” The first principle, he said, is that “Iran recognises the P5+1 concerns and will remove all such concerns”; the second is that the P5+1 “recognises the rights of Iran and gradually lifts sanctions”.
But Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has expressed serious doubts about whether the Obama administration is willing to end the sanctions on Iran under any circumstances. In an Oct. 10 speech, Khamenei said the Americans “lie” in suggesting sanctions would be lifted in return for Iran giving up its nuclear program.
U.S. officials “make decisions out of grudge and aversion (toward Iran)”, Khamenei said.
]]>The former ambassador and key Iranian nuclear negotiator, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, writes:
The United States and Iran should aim for the kind of sustained and comprehensive talks that have not been seen for the last three decades. It would be prudent for Washington and Tehran to engage in [...]]]>
The former ambassador and key Iranian nuclear negotiator, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, writes:
]]>The United States and Iran should aim for the kind of sustained and comprehensive talks that have not been seen for the last three decades. It would be prudent for Washington and Tehran to engage in direct talks, at the expert level, prior to the U.S. presidential election in November and the subsequent Iranian presidential election in June 2013. This would allow both sides to prepare the groundwork and strategy for the postelection era. Historic precedent indicates that following their respective presidential elections, both capitals have attempted rapprochement, yet failed in their efforts since there was no prior preparation or coordination.
In response to the far-reaching overtures Iran has made, Washington must put far-reaching proposals of its own on the table. The United States must be ready to recognize Iran’s right to civil nuclear power, including peaceful enrichment, in return for assurances that Iran would remain a non-nuclear state forever. Furthermore, the United States should begin practical cooperation on areas of common interest such as Afghanistan. Issues that matter to both countries should not be held hostage to tensions over Iran’s nuclear program.
If the United States makes the right offer, it is possible to strike a deal that ensures Iran would remain free of nuclear weapons forever. However, Netanyahu continues to assert that Iran is determined to acquire a nuclear weapon and that the diplomatic track has failed. Such allegations are aimed at forcing the international community to decide whether to “bomb Iran” or live with an “Iranian bomb.”—in this formulation, the only options are war or containment and deterrence. Both are terrible choices for the United States and the West.
The founder of the Arms Control Law blog, Dan Joyner, provides a favorable examination of a proposal for ending the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program that was made by former lead Iranian negotiator Hossain Mousavian to David Ignatius this week:
This proposal includes some elements that I hadn’t heard of [...]]]>
The founder of the Arms Control Law blog, Dan Joyner, provides a favorable examination of a proposal for ending the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program that was made by former lead Iranian negotiator Hossain Mousavian to David Ignatius this week:
]]>This proposal includes some elements that I hadn’t heard of before, in particular the “zero stockpile” idea. Obviously, implementation of this idea would be complicated and certainly imperfect. But in principle it does seem to address some of the core concerns voiced by the P5+1, about Iran’s potential ability to “break out” into nuclear weapons manufacture.
It seems to me that this proposal essentially meets all of the reasonable interests and expressed desires of both sides. Under the proposal, Iran would get to keep its nuclear fuel cycle capability, and have its legal right to do so recognized. The P5+1 would get pretty much the maximum reasonable accountability and transparency of Iran’s fissile material stores, with a cap on enrichment at 5%, and the export out of Iran of all uranium enriched higher than 5%, as well as all excess 5% enriched uranium. I think this is exactly the kind of proposal that should be seen as meeting the reasonable interests and requirements of both sides, and that provides a realistic and face-saving way for both sides to claim victory through compromise.
I think that if P5+1 negotiators are smart, they will see this kind of proposal as the best solution they are realistically likely to get to this impasse, and that they will embrace it as providing a way out of the crisis that avoids war.
I’m well aware that Israel, under its current leadership, is unlikely to be satisfied with such a resolution. But that should not stop the P5+1 from being reasonable and pragmatic, and therefore supporting such a resolution, in the interests of international peace and security.
In March, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius suggested that sanctions and “covert actions” should be used to “sink” the Iranian government rather than bombs. Six months later, Ignatius — like Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Goldberg – is offering suggestions for slowing Israel’s alleged march to war with [...]]]>
In March, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius suggested that sanctions and “covert actions” should be used to “sink” the Iranian government rather than bombs. Six months later, Ignatius — like Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Goldberg – is offering suggestions for slowing Israel’s alleged march to war with Iran (I say “alleged” because there is still serious debate about whether Israel would actually follow through on its threats).
After noting that negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) are expected to resume in the next few weeks, Ignatius argues that “bridging” proposals can help the involved parties avoid the roadblocks from the last round of talks. One such proposal comes from Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian negotiator who is now based at Princeton:
He told me this week that in addition to capping enrichment at 5 percent, Iran might agree to a “zero stockpile” of this low-enriched fuel. A joint committee with the P5+1 would assess Iran’s domestic needs, and any enriched uranium would either be converted immediately to the needed fuel rods or panels, or it would be exported.
In exchange, Mousavian argues, the P5+1 would recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium and would gradually lift sanctions.
This intriguing proposal lacks official Iranian support, but it would address Israel’s biggest concern and would surely interest U.S. officials. Mousavian also notes Iran’s willingness to allow much wider inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into what are known as “possible military dimensions” of the Iranian nuclear program. This transparency proposal would allow the IAEA to monitor any possible breakout, but U.S. officials caution that, if the Iranians decided to go for a bomb, they could simply expel the IAEA inspectors and make the dash.
Ignatius also reiterates a point made in March by the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen: the United States needs to establish a “hotline” with Iran. (Mullen had called for the US to utilize “any channel that’s open” for engagement with Iran, noting that “Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we had links to the Soviet Union”, and in July, 11 former US intelligence officials also urged the President to establish a “direct communications link between U.S. and Iranian naval commanders in the Persian Gulf”.)
]]>Here’s a final thought, based on the all-too-real possibility that negotiations will remain deadlocked and Israel will decide to take unilateral military action. In the resulting fog of war, there will be a need for reliable communications in the Persian Gulf and a hotline with Tehran. Establishing these communications links is an urgent priority, as the rumors of war continue.