President Obama’s re-election last month raised hopes that the US government would at last be in a position, politically, to work with Iran towards a negotiated settlement centred on confidence-building and the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This was the basis of the understanding reached this April in Istanbul. It was therefore [...]]]>
President Obama’s re-election last month raised hopes that the US government would at last be in a position, politically, to work with Iran towards a negotiated settlement centred on confidence-building and the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This was the basis of the understanding reached this April in Istanbul. It was therefore a little puzzling that during the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) Board of Governors meeting on 29 November, the US representative was once more engaging in a diplomacy of threats and ultimata.
The issue under discussion was the absence of progress in relation to clarifying concerns about past, but also possibly ongoing, Iranian activities of a non-peaceful nuclear nature, often referred to as a “possible military dimension” (PMD). The US representative asserted that Iran could not be allowed indefinitely to ignore “its obligations” and implied that in the event of a continuing absence of progress when the Board meets in March, the US will argue for Iran to be found in non-compliance with those obligations.
This raises two questions. To what extent is Iran in non-compliance with its IAEA obligations in failing to cooperate to resolve these concerns? And, is Iran likely to become more cooperative as a result of this threat?
It is widely accepted that Iran’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA entitles the agency secretariat to verify not only that all nuclear material declared by Iran remains in peaceful use, but also that such declarations are correct and (most importantly) complete.
Notably, paragraph 73 of the standard NPT safeguards agreement (to which Iran is subject) states that the IAEA may request a special inspection if it deems information made available by a state inadequate for the Agency to fulfil its official responsibilities.
So, insofar as Iran is failing to cooperate to resolve concerns which may reasonably imply the existence of undeclared nuclear material, there is a case for saying that Iran is in breach of its obligation to cooperate.
However, in this instance it’s questionable whether all the activities for which Iranian cooperation has been sought imply with adequate credibility the possibility of undeclared nuclear material. These activities were described in the annex to GOV/2011/65 of 8 November 2011 (the IAEA report used to build support for further sanctions at the turn of the year). A careful reading of that annex suggests that several of these activities, maybe even the majority of them, would not have involved nuclear material.
Of course it could be argued that PMD activities not involving nuclear material, such as missile warhead design work, can imply that at some future stage a state intends to acquire nuclear material which it does not intend to declare. That, however, seems a very tenuous basis on which to base an IAEA non-compliance finding. Moreover, it would also imply that all states that have engaged, even as a precautionary measure, in research into any aspect of the design or construction of nuclear devices should be found non-compliant.
So, my first conclusion is that if the US decides in March to accuse Iran of fresh non-compliance, it should take care to focus the accusation on activities that can reasonably be suspected of involving the use of nuclear material and are manifestly not the figment of some other state’s imagination.
However, to come to my second question, is proceeding in that way likely to be productive? The experience of the last seven years suggests not. Each time the West has resorted to punitive or coercive measures to influence Iranian behaviour, the results have been either unproductive or, worse, counterproductive. Iran was far more cooperative when, between October 2003 and April 2005, a less aggressive diplomacy was used to influence Iran’s leaders.
Furthermore, for some time there have been hints that Iran’s failure to cooperate in resolving PMD concerns is not its last word. On the contrary, cooperation can be expected in return for Western flexibility on sanctions and certain assurances in the context of an overall settlement based on the provisions of a treaty to which Iran insists it’s committed to, the NPT.
Moreover, if Iranian suspicion of Western good faith is one of the greatest obstacles to achieving an agreement, then the priority in the coming months should be to overcome that suspicion. This will not be achieved by seeking yet again to unite the IAEA Board in a humiliating condemnation of Iran, least of all if the legal grounds for that condemnation are not watertight. On the contrary, securing a further IAEA non-compliance finding would be a rum way to go about convincing Iran’s Supreme Leader that the US should no longer be seen as the Great Satan.
If, nonetheless, the US persists on the non-compliance course and succeeds, what then? Will Russia and China allow Iran to be penalized in the absence of evidence that it has decided to make nuclear weapons and therefore constitutes a genuine threat to international peace and security? If they do, will Iran pay any more heed to such a resolution than it has to the five previous Chapter VII resolutions of dubious legitimacy?
It’s certainly desirable that light be shed on suspected research into nuclear warhead construction and delivery, especially if it involved or involves undeclared nuclear material. But at last US voters have created political space for the West to revert to less aggressive, less confrontational tactics. At last the West can afford to experiment with a more exploratory, empathetic approach. It would be a pity to squander that opportunity.
]]>It’s not easy for a European observer of US politics to understand why the US Congress seems so much more concerned by Iran’s nuclear activities than by those of North Korea (the DPRK). Congressional pressure on the White House to put a stop to Iranian activities seems never-ending and Congressional majorities [...]]]>
It’s not easy for a European observer of US politics to understand why the US Congress seems so much more concerned by Iran’s nuclear activities than by those of North Korea (the DPRK). Congressional pressure on the White House to put a stop to Iranian activities seems never-ending and Congressional majorities for anti-Iranian resolutions are staggering. In comparison, when did Congress last pass a resolution requiring the administration to take action against the DPRK?
On the face of it, this makes little sense. To a European, North Korea looks to be a greater and more actual threat to US interests than Iran.
North Korea is sitting atop enough plutonium for perhaps a dozen nuclear weapons. Two underground nuclear tests have shown that the North Koreans are able to put together nuclear devices, though experts surmise that these are still somewhat rudimentary.
North Korea has also acquired the capacity to enrich uranium. Western experts have seen a relatively small enrichment plant at the main DPRK nuclear research centre. There has been speculation that there exists a larger plant deep within the mountains in the North of the country.
Iran has no plutonium. Iran possesses enough low-enriched uranium for half a dozen nuclear weapons but has so far shown no sign of wanting to enrich this material to the 90% level required for weapons. The Iranians are not suspected of having conducted nuclear tests; they may not be capable of assembling a workable nuclear explosive device.
North Korea expelled the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the end of 2002, and has only allowed them back in for a brief period since. Over the last ten years no state has received as many IAEA inspections as Iran, whose two enrichment plants were declared to the IAEA before they started to operate.
North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in early 2003, having failed to correct the nuclear safeguards non-compliance declared by the IAEA in 1993. Iran corrected its pre-2004 safeguards failures within two years of their discovery; it expressed regret over these transgressions; and ever since it has affirmed the fullest of commitments to the NPT, to which it became a party fifteen years before the DPRK.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons are viewed as a threat by two of the US’s most valuable allies: Japan and South Korea (the ROK). These two allies are crucial to the US’s defence of its strategic interests in the Western Pacific. In the event of hostilities between the US and China (heaven forefend!) Japan would offer the US vital staging facilities, akin to those the US would have enjoyed in the UK if the US needed to go to war on the European mainland.
US strategic interests in South West Asia are on the wane. The US is now self-sufficient in natural gas and imports less than 12% of the crude oil it consumes from the Gulf; it could quite easily switch to African and American suppliers if Saudi and Iraqi supplies were threatened. Over the last decade the risk of Iraqi transfers of WMDs to Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda acquisition of safe havens in the Middle East has been eliminated (albeit at a price!).
Since the end of the Cold War, over twenty years ago, no single power has been capable of challenging US influence in South West Asia, whereas China is increasingly seen in the US as an emerging challenger to the US in East Asia.
When it comes to making belligerent noises, Iran’s leaders can’t hold a candle to those of North Korea. And the average alienist would surely find it easier to treat the former than the latter.
In 2011 US merchandise exports to the Far East were worth $286 billion and imports $718 billion. Comparable figures for South West Asia, including Turkey and Israel, were $71 billion and $108 billion. Far Eastern investors supply the US with a far larger percentage of external credit than do Middle Eastern investors. Far Eastern corporations are major employers and tax-payers in the United States.
All of these very basic facts must be familiar to Congressional staffers, if not to members of Congress. So how can one explain the disproportionate attention that Congress pays to Iran’s nuclear activities?
I have a theory. But I think it would be more appropriate for me to leave readers to come up with their own answers. I suspect that most will be honest enough to admit to themselves that they have a pretty shrewd idea as well.
]]>A recent incident reminded me of the strong emotions that underlie thinking about Iran by some officials and ex-officials in the United States and parts of Europe.
In this instance, an academic who had questionedwhether Iran’s safeguards agreement gives the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) a right to demand that Iran [...]]]>
A recent incident reminded me of the strong emotions that underlie thinking about Iran by some officials and ex-officials in the United States and parts of Europe.
In this instance, an academic who had questionedwhether Iran’s safeguards agreement gives the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) a right to demand that Iran account for activities not involving nuclear material (a valid question, in my view) was accused of being “the Ayatollah’s lawyer.”
I have come across other instances in which experts declining to assume the worst of Iran’s nuclear intentions have been labelled “apologists” and accused of giving comfort to the enemy.
These incidents and experiences when I was still in active service, suggest to me the existence of a faction that considers Iran a hostile state and sees Iran’s nuclear activities as a threat to national defense.
Is it reasonable to perceive Iran’s nuclear activities as a threat to national defense? Since the end of 2007, the US intelligence community has told us that we cannot assume that Iran’s leaders are determined to acquire nuclear weapons. Other intelligence communities, including Israel’s, appear to have come around to the same view.
Iran’s nuclear research has allowed them to master a technology – enrichment – that can be used for both civil and military purposes, and they possess enough nuclear material to make dozens of nuclear weapons. But one cannot infer from this that they intend to acquire nuclear weapons and are therefore a threat. One can only infer that they have the potential to acquire weapons and are therefore a potential threat – in a world full of potential threats.
Is it reasonable to perceive Iran as hostile to the US and Europe? Iran’s interests and views diverge from ours at many points. Iran believes it was a mistake to tolerate the creation of an exclusively Jewish state in the Levant; we do not. Iran supports the right of Lebanese Shi’a to resort to force in self-defense; we consider Hezbollah terrorists. Iran has longstanding ties to the Syrian government; our sympathies are with the Syrian opposition. Iran is at odds with Saudi Arabia in Iraq and the Yemen; the Saudis are our friends. And so on.
But to be on opposite sides of a dispute taking place on neutral ground, so to speak, is not the same thing as being in a state of hostility. Nations can have conflicting interests and opposing views without being enemies. It happens all the time.
Iran’s official security doctrines imply a defensive, not an offensive orientation. Contacts with Iranian officials suggest that Iran’s leaders find political advantage in demonizing certain Western countries but are not bent on attacking them. If Western intelligence agencies are aware of Iranian plans to start a war against the US, Europe or Israel, it is surprising that this intelligence has not been leaked.
So perhaps one can legitimately say that the case for seeing Iran as an enemy and as a threat to our homelands is unproven.
So what? Perhaps it is unreasonable to see Iran in these terms, but does that matter? Yes, because it colors the Western approach to the nuclear problem. It leads us to place undue weight on the application of pressure to induce Iran to submit to our wishes; to misrepresent evidence to justify additional pressure; and to advance contentious interpretations of Iran’s safeguards agreement, the IAEA Statute, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the UN Charter, to prejudice the international community against Iran and justify measures that harm Iran.
Pressure can of course play a useful role in dispute resolution. It can be necessary. But the dose has to be right. Too much pressure can be counter-productive, stimulating defiance and a determination to concede nothing. Over-reliance on pressure can turn policy into a one-trick pony.
Misrepresenting evidence has been a recurrent feature of the last ten years. In 2002, for instance, we claimed that Iran had no intention of declaring the Natanz enrichment plant because no declaration had been made before construction began; yet at that time Iran was only obliged to declare plants 180 days before the introduction of nuclear material. Last year, we claimed the IAEA had found evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme; yet the evidence, still unconfirmed, was of research into how to make nuclear weapons, not of the construction of weapons.
As for contentious interpretations, they are too numerous to list. One of the most egregious, though, is the claim that Iran may not enrich because it is in non-compliance with the NPT. Not only would an impartial court (if such existed) be challenged to determine that Iran has been in NPT non-compliance since its pre-2004 safeguards failures were corrected; but the NPT is without provision for the forfeiting of rights, and in the 2003-5 period the Europeans fully accepted that Iran’s suspension of enrichment was a voluntary confidence-building measure, not an obligation, as did the IAEA Board of Governors.
A more dispassionate approach would allow us to see the Iranian nuclear problem more clearly, as an instance of past non-compliance with NPT safeguards obligations that has generated distrust in Iran’s nuclear intentions. The problem can be resolved by giving Iran an opportunity to rebuild confidence in its intentions, particularly in its future resolve to respect the NPT.
If the US and parts of Europe cannot bring themselves to take a dispassionate view, they should step aside and allow the lead to pass to states which can be dispassionate. NPT compliance is the business of all 189 states that are NPT parties; it ought not to be the preserve of a handful of states that have axes to grind, still less of a state – Israel – that is not even a party to the NPT.
]]>When two or more aficionados of the Iranian nuclear controversy are gathered together, the conversation will turn at some point to whether opportunities for resolving the issue peacefully have been missed.
Some see a missed opportunity in the first George W. Bush administration’s refusal to countenance an Iranian negotiating proposal transmitted [...]]]>
When two or more aficionados of the Iranian nuclear controversy are gathered together, the conversation will turn at some point to whether opportunities for resolving the issue peacefully have been missed.
Some see a missed opportunity in the first George W. Bush administration’s refusal to countenance an Iranian negotiating proposal transmitted by Switzerland in May 2003. Others lament the inability of France, Germany and the United Kingdom to accept the limited resumption of uranium enrichment in Iran, in 2005, in return for a range of confidence-building measures and safeguards against the diversion of nuclear material to military purposes.
I regret that it occurred to no one in the autumn of 2003 to link Iran’s voluntary suspension of work on the development of an enrichment capacity to completion of International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) verification under the Additional Protocol, a voluntary but advanced nuclear safeguards standard introduced in the mid-1990s.
On 16 October 2003, the then Director General of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, flew to Tehran to discuss with the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, the contours of a deal with the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK. The proposal, in essence, was that if Iran suspended its nuclear fuel cycle activities, allowed IAEA inspectors the access and cooperation envisaged in the Additional Protocol, and entered into talks with the three European powers (the E3) about the future of its nuclear programme, the E3 would ensure that the IAEA board of governors refrained both from declaring that Iran had been in non-compliance with its safeguards obligations and from reporting that non-compliance to the United Nations Security Council, where the Bush administration was waiting to pounce like a tiger on its prey.
The flaw in the agreement with the E3, as discovered five days later, was the absence of timelines. The Iranians were reluctant to commit themselves to suspension for a particular length of time, because they were hoping to resume the development of an enrichment capacity as soon as the risk of a referral to the Security Council had passed. The E3 were reluctant to press Iran to make such a commitment because they wanted Iran’s suspension to last indefinitely. And the IAEA, if asked, would have declined to say how many years would be needed to complete Additional Protocol verification, because they were conscious of many uncertainties.
Yet had Dr. ElBaradei tried and succeeded in persuading a vulnerable Iran to maintain its voluntary suspension until the completion of Additional Protocol verification, the risk of another war in the Gulf, which the world faces today, would be far less acute.
At the conclusion of an Additional Protocol investigation the IAEA secretariat reports to the board of governors that it is in a position to provide a credible assurance about “the absence of undeclared nuclear activities or material” in the country in question. Had these words been pronounced in relation to Iran at any time since 2003, even the most hawkish of Western adversaries would have found it hard to argue that Iran’s nuclear activities posed a threat to international peace and had to be curtailed. Instead, Iran renounced suspension after two years; the E3 retaliated by engineering a non-compliance report to the Security Council; Iran counter-retaliated by ceasing to allow the IAEA to undertake Additional Protocol verification; the IAEA secretariat has had no option since but to report that it is not in a position to provide Protocol non-proliferation assurances; an alleged proliferation threat has been used to justify a steady multiplication of sanctions; and demands for an (unlawful) act of aggression to destroy Iran’s nuclear plants have grown ever more frequent.
All this begs two questions: why did Iran cease applying the Additional Protocol in 2006 and why have they not voluntarily reapplied it since? Nothing forced Iran to reduce cooperation with the IAEA to the legal minimum in 2006. They could have resumed enrichment work but continued to grant Protocol access. And since 2006 they could have wrong-footed their adversaries by reapplying the Protocol and winning the best guarantee the IAEA can give: “no undeclared nuclear activities or material”.
I don’t know the answers. It’s a puzzle. Is this simply a case of reluctance to lose face by reversing an unwise decision? Are the Iranians worried that granting Protocol access would enable the IAEA to discover undeclared activities and/or material, aggravating Iran’s Security Council predicament? Has Iran lost all confidence in the impartiality and professionalism of the IAEA secretariat, which was accused last year of taking instructions from Iran’s Western adversaries?
One thing, however, is certain: if Iran wants to put an end to repeated Western calls for it to prove that its nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful, reapplying the Additional Protocol is the solution. The one and only proof of a peaceful programme that the non-proliferation community cannot contest are the assurances that can result from the IAEA’s Protocol investigations: “no undeclared nuclear activities or material”. Those words are the key to demonstrating to the world that there is no nuclear proliferation justification for sanctioning Iran or threatening her with devastation.
]]>To anyone trying to guess where this year’s re-engagement of Iran by the Obama administration is likely to lead, two things look clearer in the aftermath of the 18-19 June talks in Moscow.
First, the administration appears to have thought better of the idea of tolerating uranium enrichment, even at [...]]]>
To anyone trying to guess where this year’s re-engagement of Iran by the Obama administration is likely to lead, two things look clearer in the aftermath of the 18-19 June talks in Moscow.
First, the administration appears to have thought better of the idea of tolerating uranium enrichment, even at low levels, in Iran. The distinction President Obama drew earlier in the year between opposing the development of nuclear weapons (his position) and opposing the development of a nuclear weapons capability (the Israeli position), and the signal implied when the President authorised a resumption of talks with Iran even though Iran had failed to commit to suspending its enrichment activities–hitherto a pre-condition for such talks–have turned out to be misleading.
In Moscow, the US and its EU allies once more placed emphasis on the suspension of enrichment (a so-called “international obligation” which Iran must implement fully to secure a deal) and they declined to give Iran the assurance it wants that these talks will eventually result in the West tolerating enrichment.
Without that assurance Iran is unwilling to embark on the process of concession-making that is diplomatically termed “confidence-building”. Iran believes that it has a treaty right to master the nuclear fuel cycle provided it submits all nuclear material in its possession to International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) inspection. It also considers the UN Security Council resolutions that the West has sponsored to override that treaty right to be illegal. (The resolutions are certainly not a proportionate response to Iran’s IAEA safeguards non-compliance.)
Second, neither the US nor its EU allies seem inclined to purchase Iranian confidence-building by granting Iran the other thing (apart from “recognition” of its Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) rights) that it craves: some measure of relief from the sanctions introduced by the US and EU (without UN authorisation) in the course of the past winter. Instead the West has sought to obtain concessions by offering what look like baubles for Iran’s negotiators.
On the face of it, therefore, re-engagement has been a failure. It has not sparked the give-and-take, the reciprocity that characterises almost all successful negotiations. It may have contributed to a pre-electorally useful drop in gas prices, but that drop is more likely due to a weakening global economic outlook. It has failed to deliver the Iranian capitulation that would complicate life for proponents of another war in the Gulf or regime change in Iran.
There is, however, an important difference between the 2009 version of engagement and the 2012 version. This time around neither side, it seems, is in a hurry to declare the process dead.
That this should be the case for the US and its allies is hardly surprising. In an electoral year the administration has every interest in heeding the American public’s preference for what Winston Churchill called “jaw-jaw” over “war-war”. And if diplomacy can contribute to lowering the cost of gas and make it harder for Israel to justify an aerial strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, so much the better.
What’s less obvious is what motivates Iran to help spin out talks that are going nowhere.
Iran does have an interest, of course, in making it harder for Israel to justify a strike. But Iran has never taken such Israeli threats very seriously and the opposition to a strike voiced by Israeli intelligence and military professionals earlier this year will have reinforced that inclination.
Iran has no interest in lower oil prices. But perhaps it reasons that bringing the Istanbul process to an end would not have much of an effect on prices, given the worsening economic outlook and the expansion of oil production under way in Gulf States allied to the US.
Perhaps, then, the answer is that Iran’s leaders are hoping that President Obama will be re-elected and that he will award them for their cooperation in keeping the show on the road until November by softening, early in his second term, the US position on enrichment and sanctions.
If so, will they be disappointed? At any time tolerating enrichment and removing or relieving sanctions will be politically costly for whoever occupies the White House, so widespread is Congress’ animosity towards Iran. The line of least resistance for an Obama II administration would be to back the judgement of those who claim that Iran will eventually capitulate under the weight of sanctions.
But it is not impossible that the President and his closest advisers have realised that a negotiated solution tends to be more durable than a solution imposed on a prostrate foe. That, after all, is a lesson that can be drawn from 19th and 20th century European history and from the 1783 Treaty of Paris between the US and Great Britain. Machiavelli once wrote: ”I believe that forced agreements will be kept neither by a prince nor by a republic”.
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