by Hooshang Amirahmadi
President Barack Obama’s move towards normalization of relations with Cuba has generated lots of hope and analyses that a similar development may take place with Iran. Jim Lobe, founder of the Lobe Log and Washington Bureau Chief of the Inter Press Service, is one such observer. His recent article offers an excellent elaboration of the arguments. I rarely comment on writings by others, but his article deserves a response.
Lobe writes, “In my opinion, Obama’s willingness to make a bold foreign policy move [on Cuba] should—contrary to the narratives put out by the neoconservatives and other hawks—actually strengthen the Rouhani-Zarif faction within the Iran leadership who are no doubt arguing that Obama is serious both about reaching an agreement and forging a new relationship with the Islamic Republic.”
As someone who has spent 25 years trying to mend relations between the US and Iran, I wish Mr. Lobe and his liberal allies were right, and that their “neoconservative” opponents were wrong in their assessments that after Cuba comes Iran; unfortunately they are not. The truth is that Obama cannot so easily unlock the 35-year US-Iran entanglement that involves complex forces, including an Islamic Revolution.
First, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani used to tell Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that Obama could be trusted, but after 14 months and many rounds of negotiations, they have now subscribed to Khamenei’s line that the US cannot be trusted. Iran’s nuclear program has already been reduced to a symbolic existence but the promised relief from key sanctions, Rouhani’s main incentive to negotiate, is nowhere on the horizon.
During the meeting in Oman between Kerry and Zarif just before the November 24, 2014 deadline for reaching a “comprehensive” deal, as disclosed by the parliamentarian Mohammad Nabavian in an interview, “[Secretary of State] Kerry crossed all Iranian red lines” and Zarif left for Tehran “thinking that the negotiations should stop.” One such red line concerns Iran’s missile program, which is now included in the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
In a recent letter to his counterparts throughout the world regarding the talks and why a comprehensive deal was not struck last November, Zarif writes that “demands from the Western countries [i.e., the US] are humiliating and illegitimate” and that the “ball is now in their court.” Partly reflecting this disappointment, the Rouhani Government has increased Iran’s defense and intelligence budgets for 2015 by 33 percent and 48 percent respectively (the Iranian calendar begins on March 21).
Second, Zarif and Rouhani could not make the “beyond-the-NPT” concessions that they have made if the supreme leader had not authorized them. The argument that Khamenei and his “hardline” supporters are the obstacle misses the fact that while they have raised “concern” about Iran’s mostly unilateral concessions and the US’s “rapacious” demands, they (particularly the supreme leader) have consistently backed the negotiations and the Iranian negotiators.
Third, Lobe’s thinking suggests that the problem between the two governments is a discursive and personal one: if Khamenei is convinced that Obama is a honest man, then a nuclear agreement would be concluded and a new relationship would be forged between the two countries. What this genus of thinking misses is a radical “Islamic Revolution” and its “divine” Nizam (regime) that stands between Washington and Tehran.
The Islamic Revolution has been anti-American from its inception in 1979 (and not just in Iran), and will remain so as long as the first generation revolutionary leaders rule. The US has also been hostile to the theocratic regime and has often tried to change it. No wonder Khamenei and his people view the US as an “existential threat,” and to fend it off, they have built a “strategic depth” extending to Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and other countries.
Fourth, several times in the past the Iran watchers in the West have become excited about elections that have produced “moderate” governments, making them naively optimistic that a change in relations between the US and Iran would follow. What they miss is that the Islamic “regime” (nizam) and the Islamic “government” are two distinct entities, with the latter totally subordinated to the former.
Specifically, the Nizam (where the House of Leader and revolutionary institutions reside) is ideological and revolutionary, whereas the government has often been pragmatic. Indeed, in the last 35 years, the so-called hardliners have controlled the executive branch for less than 10 years. The division of labor should be easy to understand: the Nizam guards the divine Islamic Revolution against any deviation and intrusion while the government deals with earthly butter and bread matters.
Fifth, to avoid a losing military clash with the US and at the same time reduce Washington’s ability to change its regime or “liberalize” it, the Islamic Republic has charted a smart policy towards the US: “no-war, no-peace.” The US has also followed a similar policy towards Iran to calm both anti-war and anti-peace forces in the conflict. Thus, for over 35 years, US-Iran relations have frequently swung between heightened hostility and qualified moderation (in Khamenei’s words, “heroic flexibility”).
Sixth, the Cuban and Iranian cases are fundamentally dissimilar. True, the Castros were also anti-American and are first-generation leaders, but Fidel is retired and on his deathbed while his brother Raul has hardly been as revolutionary as Fidel. Besides, with regard to US-Cuban normalization, Fidel and his brother can claim more victory than Obama; after all, the Castros did not cave in, Obama did. Furthermore, the Castros are their own bosses, head a dying socialist regime, and are the judges of their own “legacy.”
In sharp contrast, Khamenei subscribes to a rising Islam, heads a living though conflicted theocracy, and subsists in the shadow of the late Ayatollah Khomeini who called the US a “wolf” and Iran a “sheep,” decreeing that they cannot coexist. Indeed, in the Cuban case, the US held the tough line while in the case of Iran, the refusal to reconcile is mutual. Furthermore, the Cuban lobby is a passing force and no longer a match for the world-wide support that the Cuban government garners. Conversely, in the Iranian case, Obama has to deal with powerful Israeli and Arab lobbies, and the Islamic Republic does not have effective international support.
On the other hand, we also have certain similarities between the Cuban and Iranian cases. For example, both revolutions have been subject to harsh US sanctions and other forms of coercion that Obama called a “failed approach.” Obama is also in his second term, free from the yoke of domestic politics, and wishes to build a lasting legacy. Despite these similarities, the differences between the Iranian Islamic regime and the Cuban socialist system make the former a tougher challenge for Obama to solve.
Finally, while I do not think that the Cuban course will be followed for Iran any time soon, I do think that certain developments are generating the imperative for an US-Iran reconciliation in the near future. On Iran’s side, they include a crippled economy facing declining oil prices, a young Iranian population demanding transformative changes, and the gradual shrinking of the first-generation Islamic revolutionary leaders.
On the US side, the changes include an imperial power increasingly reluctant to use force, rising Islamic extremism, growing instability in the Persian Gulf and the larger Middle East, and the difficulty of sustaining the “no-war, no-peace” status quo in the absence of a “comprehensive” deal on Iran’s nuclear program. However, on this last issue, in Washington and Tehran, pessimism now far outweighs optimism, a rather sad development. Let us hope that sanity will prevail.
Photo: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani greets a rally in commemoration of the Islamic Republic’s 35 anniversary of its 1979 revolution in Tehran, Iran on Feb. 11, 2014. Credit: ISNA/Hamid Forootan
]]>The stated rationale for the United States casting on Tuesday one of the very lonely votes it sometimes casts at the United Nations General Assembly, on matters on which almost the entire world sees things differently, warrants some reflection. The resolution in question this time endorsed the creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East and called on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to renounce any possession of nuclear weapons, and to put its nuclear facilities under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. A nuclear weapons-free Middle East and universal adherence to the nonproliferation treaty are supposedly U.S. policy objectives, and have been for many years. So why did the United States oppose the resolution? According to the U.S. representative’s statement in earlier debate, the resolution “fails to meet the fundamental tests of fairness and balance. It confines itself to expressions of concern about the activities of a single country.”
You know something doesn’t wash when the contrary views are as overwhelmingly held as on this matter. The resolution passed on a vote of 161-5. Joining Israel and the United States as “no” votes were Canada (maybe the Harper government was thinking of the Keystone XL pipeline issue being in the balance?) and the Pacific powers of Micronesia and Palau. The latter two habitually cast their UN votes to stay in the good graces of the United States; they have been among the few abstainers on the even more lopsided votes in the General Assembly each year calling for an end to the U.S. embargo of Cuba.
An obvious problem with the United States complaining about a resolution on a topic such as this being an expression of concern about the activities of only a single country is that the United States has been in front in pushing for United Nations resolutions about the nuclear activities of a single country, only just not about the particular country involved this time. The inconsistency is glaring. Iran has been the single-country focus of several U.S.-backed resolutions on nuclear matters—resolutions in the Security Council that have been the basis for international sanctions against Iran.
One could look, but would look in vain, for sound rationales for the inconsistency. If anything, the differences one would find should point U.S. policy in the opposite direction from the direction it has taken. It is Iran that has placed itself under the obligations of the nonproliferation treaty and subjects its nuclear activities to international inspection. Since the preliminary agreement to restrict Iran’s nuclear program that was negotiated last year, those inspections are more frequent and intrusive than ever. Israel, by contrast, has kept its nuclear activities completely out of the reach of any international inspection or control regime. As for actual nuclear weapons, Iran does not have them, has declared its intention not to have them, and according to the U.S. intelligence community has not made any decision to make them. Neither Israel nor the United States says publicly that Israel has nuclear weapons, but just about everyone else in the world takes it as a given that it does, which would make it the only state in the Middle East that does.
One might look, but still in vain, for justifying discrepancies that go beyond the respective nuclear programs of the countries in question but still involve questions of regional security and stability. What about, for example, menacing threats? Iran and Israel have each had plenty of unfriendly words about each other. Iran’s words have included bloviation about wiping something from pages of history; Israel’s have included more pointed threats of military attack. What about actual attacks? Israel has initiated multiple wars with its neighbors, as well as launching smaller armed attacks; The Islamic Republic of Iran has not started a war in its 35-year history. Terrorism? Well, there were those assassinations of Iranian scientists, with some later attacks against Israelis being an obvious (and not very successful) attempt by Iran at a tit-for-tat response against those responsible for murdering the scientists. And so forth.
Singling out one country in a multilateral context can indeed cause problems. The resolution the General Assembly passed this week need not involve a problem, however, since it was not calling for differential treatment of anyone—only for Israel to get with the same program as any state in the Middle East that does not have nukes and adheres to the international nuclear control regime.
Iran, by contrast, is being treated much differently from anyone else. Tehran already has acquiesced to some of that differential treatment, but Iranians unsurprisingly wonder why Iran should be subjected to more such treatment, or indeed to any of it. They wonder, for example, why Iran should be subject to unique restrictions that several other non-nuclear-weapons states that also are parties to the nonproliferation treaty and enrich their own uranium are not. Such wonderment is almost certainly a factor in Iranian resistance to making the sorts of additional concessions that many in the United States are expecting or demanding that Iran make. The differential treatment should be kept in mind in any discussion in the United States about who has made bigger concessions than whom and about what would or would not constitute a fair and reasonable final agreement.
Then there is the irony—although Iranians might use a more bitter word than irony—of Israel leading the charge in constantly agitating about Iran’s nuclear program (and by trying to torpedo an international agreement to restrict that program, making the issue fester and thus making it more possible for Israel’s agitation to go on forever).
This article was first published by the National Interest and was reprinted here with permission.
]]>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.
]]>A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has time to get its pants on. –Winston Churchill
Opponents of a nuclear agreement with Iran are mobilising once more. A recent letter to colleagues from the chairman and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee sponsored by Ed Royce (R-CA) and Eliot Engel (D-NY) contains almost as many distortions of the truth as the annual address to the UN General Assembly of the current Prime Minister of Israel.
Here are some of those distortions.
Iran’s nuclear program poses a severe threat to the national security of the United States and our allies. How can the nuclear program of a state that is not known to possess nuclear weapons and is assessed by US intelligence not to have taken a decision to acquire nuclear weapons pose a severe threat? Do the comparable nuclear programs of Brazil and Japan pose a severe threat to their neighbours? Does Israel’s nuclear program pose a severe threat to its neighbours?
For several years, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has sought Iran’s cooperation regarding evidence that Tehran has conducted extensive research and development on a nuclear weapon. What the IAEA has reported is evidence of research, not of development. And some of that evidence is open to non-nuclear interpretations. The possibility that some of it has been fabricated cannot be excluded.
Last November, Iran agreed to disclose information on such “potential military dimensions” to the IAEA. Last November Iran agreed to “resolve all outstanding issues that have not already been resolved by the IAEA”. In the Nov. 11, 2013 agreement there is no reference to a “possible military dimension”. The relevant part of subsequent IAEA reports is headed “Clarification of Unresolved Issues.”
Iran has failed to fully cooperate with the IAEA and has failed to meet its latest deadline. Iran has failed, partially, to meet a recent deadline but the Director General of the IAEA has not reported any failure to cooperate.
We remain deeply concerned with Iran’s refusal to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Director General of the IAEA has not reported any failure to cooperate. In all manner of processes the missing of deadlines is liable to occur.
For several years, the IAEA has attempted to work with Iran to resolve this central issue, but Tehran has refused. In February 2012 Iran agreed with the IAEA a plan of work for resolving outstanding issues. After a change of government in Iran, in November 2013, Iran and the IAEA agreed to a Framework for Cooperation. Since November 2013 Iran has provided the access and information requested by the IAEA on 16 out of 18 occasions.
In its September 5, 2014 report, the IAEA stated that Iran had failed to meet its latest deadline, even as it continued to demolish structures and construct others at the Parchin military base, where clandestine nuclear-related activities have reportedly taken place. The latest IAEA report is devoid of any linkage between the recent missing of a deadline and construction work at the Parchin military site.
If Iran’s nuclear program is truly peaceful, “it’s not a hard proposition to prove.” Actually it’s a very hard proposition to prove. How can a state “prove” that it does not have some small secret fissile material production facility somewhere on its territory? That is why the IAEA is never ready to offer more than “credible assurances” that a given nuclear program is truly peaceful.
The only reasonable conclusion for its stonewalling of international investigators is that Tehran does indeed have much to hide. That Iran may have something to hide is a reasonable conclusion. But it is not the only reasonable conclusion.
We are concerned that an agreement that accepts Iran’s lack of transparency on this key issue would set the dangerous precedent that certain facilities and aspects of Iran’s nuclear program can be declared off limits by Tehran. Iran is under an international legal obligation to submit all nuclear facilities where nuclear material is present to IAEA inspection. There is not the remotest possibility that the current negotiation with the US and others will result in their trying to persuade the IAEA Board of Governors that certain Iranian facilities should be excluded from the scope of Iran’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA.
Both the IAEA Board of Governors and the IAEA secretariat are determined to resolve questions that have arisen in relation to what the IAEA terms “nuclear-related” research in Iran, most of which is thought to have taken place, if at all, more than ten years ago. The IAEA secretariat is highly competent and knows its job. Its task will not be facilitated by the circulation of misleading information about the nature of Iran’s participation in that resolution process.
Photo: The Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu with US Rep. Ed Royce (left) and US Rep. Eliot L. Engel in Jerusalem
]]>by Derek Davison
One of the unintended consequences of the decision to extend the international talks on Iran’s nuclear program is the growing number of neoconservative calls for even more pressure on Iran. So it was on July 28 that the Gemunder Center Iran Task Force, a creation of the Jewish [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
One of the unintended consequences of the decision to extend the international talks on Iran’s nuclear program is the growing number of neoconservative calls for even more pressure on Iran. So it was on July 28 that the Gemunder Center Iran Task Force, a creation of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), hosted a panel discussion, “The Elusive Final Deal with Iran: Developments and Options Going Forward,” the participants of which all agreed on the need to “pressure” Iran now, and presumably forever, or at least until a new regime takes over in Tehran (which will be any day now, surely).
The substance of the discussion closely mirrored JINSA’s July 17 report, “Improving the Prospects for an Acceptable Final Deal with Iran,” which also focused on “pressure.” The panel repeatedly made the case for more pressure, which highlighted the shifting goalposts that have marked the neocon approach to the talks between Iran and the P5+1 (US, UK, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) since they began.
America and its allies were supposed to pressure Iran into negotiating and bringing its nuclear program into compliance with international expectations. Now that Iran is (again) negotiating and is in compliance, the calls for increasing pressure continue from neoconservative think tanks and certain actors on Capitol Hill.
When Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations talks about the importance of increasing pressure on Iran while “giving them a way out,” it’s not quite clear how that differs from what has already happened up until this point. Now American pressure is supposed to leverage not just Iran’s participation in the talks, not only its compliance with its NPT obligations, but also inspire Iranian capitulation to the agenda of American hawks. Iran’s failure to capitulate is proof positive that it hasn’t been pressured enough. Either the Iran hawks aren’t getting the hang of this “negotiating” thing or they consider “pressuring” Iran the end, not the means.
So what should pressure amount to when it comes to Iran and the nuclear talks? According to the JINSA report, Iran “respects only strength” (that really is a direct quote), so naturally a “credible” military threat is required. This requires more public threats of a military response, more public pledges to defend America’s regional allies from alleged Iranian aggression, more public tests of US “bunker buster” weaponry like the Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP), and more weapons sales, including MOPs, to Israel.
The panel also heavily emphasized the idea that America must “compete” with Iran regionally, “interdicting Iranian actions” as Ambassador Dennis Ross put it. This would presumably ratchet up the “pressure” on Iran. But the chaotic state of affairs throughout the Middle East right now makes it almost impossible for the US to adopt an across-the-board policy of opposing Iranian action everywhere. There are three regional flashpoints where Iran is currently active: Gaza, where it may be strengthening its support for Hamas; Syria, where it supports Bashar al-Assad against the rebel factions trying to unseat him; and Iraq, where it supports the Shia-led government (even if its support for Nouri al-Maliki is waning) and opposes the Islamic State (IS).
In Gaza, the US can and will oppose Iranian activity that might harm Israeli interests, but in Syria the picture becomes muddled, since America supports some of the rebels fighting Assad (the Free Syrian Army) but opposes others (the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front and IS, also opposed by Iran). Meanwhile, in Iraq, for all practical purposes the US and Iran are on the same side, backing Maliki (or at least Baghdad) against IS and the Baathist Naqshbandi Army, though Washington has emphasized the need for a policy of reconciliation between Baghdad and Iraq’s disaffected Sunnis. JINSA’s report notes, in something of an understatement, that “the United States has been reticent to counter Iranian attempts to bolster its Shiite allies” in Syria and Iraq. Well, there’s a reason for that; doing so would materially damage US interests in Iraq and would risk the rise of a greater threat in Syria.
The panelists disagreed somewhat on the ideal length of a comprehensive deal. Ross, somewhat more realistically than his fellow panelists, suggested that an acceptable deal would sunset after 20 years, whereas former George W. Bush officials Stephen Rademaker and Eric Edelman seemed to be unhappy with a deal that would ever sunset. Rademaker specifically objects to language in the JPOA indicating that at the conclusion of a comprehensive solution, “the Iranian nuclear programme will be treated in the same manner as that of any non-nuclear weapon state party to the NPT.” While this would still leave Iran subject to Article III of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, specifically its requirement that states comply with safeguards negotiated with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to prevent the development of a nuclear weapon, Rademaker insists that Iran should remain under the terms of a comprehensive deal indefinitely. This is certainly a non-starter for the Iranians, who have been clear that they will only accept a deal under which Iran will ultimately be treated like any other NPT-signatory, but maybe they’re only insisting on that point because the US hasn’t “pressured” them enough yet.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry shake hands after world powers reached an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program on November 24, 2013. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)
]]>by Peter Jenkins
On the face of it, July has not been a bad month for those of us who would like to see the West’s nuclear quarrel with Iran resolved peacefully, not least so that the US, EU and Iran can feel less inhibited about regional security cooperation, and so that [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
On the face of it, July has not been a bad month for those of us who would like to see the West’s nuclear quarrel with Iran resolved peacefully, not least so that the US, EU and Iran can feel less inhibited about regional security cooperation, and so that trade and investment can resume, sanctions having created hardship not just for ordinary Iranians but also for many EU companies.
However, I find it hard to feel confident that on November 25 (or before) we will be celebrating a peaceful resolution — and victory over those in the US Congress and elsewhere who so clearly do not want the negotiations between Iran and world powers to succeed.
My pessimism stems from continuing signs in official statements and media reports that the US administration, somewhat oblivious to logic, is determined to get a deal that would make the Iranian manufacture of nuclear weapons a practical impossibility.
Let me explain why logic is involved.
A rational policy has to rest on one of two assumptions:
a) Iran is determined to acquire nuclear weapons and will do so sooner or later unless it is deprived of all means of producing weapon-grade material;
b) Iran is not decided on acquiring nuclear weapons and can be discouraged and deterred from ever embarking on weapon acquisition by a well-founded diplomatic agreement.
If one’s starting point is assumption a), then there is no point in negotiating with Iran because it has become crystal clear since 2003 that Iran will not voluntarily close all facilities that could be used to produce weapon-grade material or eradicate all the related knowledge that has been acquired. Instead, the logical policy would be to establish a 100-year US/EU presence in Iran, dismantle all nuclear facilities and workshops, and put all of Iran’s nuclear scientists and engineers in internment camps. Let us label this “policy x.”
If one’s starting point is assumption b), then the logical policy is to negotiate an agreement that will minimize the risk of Iran’s leaders ever deciding to ignore their Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations and misuse their nuclear facilities and know-how to produce nuclear weapons. A risk-minimizing agreement is one that provides for extensive external inspection and monitoring of Iran’s use of nuclear materials, and that offers Iran gains that it would be sure of losing were it to decide to embark on weapon acquisition. Let us label this “policy y.”
On the evidence to date, the US and EU have opted for assumption b) but are trying to negotiate an outcome that falls between the goals of policy x and policy y. That is to say, they are pressing Iran to cut the number of centrifuge machines at its disposal to a point where Iran’s theoretical fissile material production capacity would be negligible, and to abandon its efforts to develop more advanced centrifuge models. Let us call what they are seeking a hybrid outcome.
What is impelling them down this path? As far as I can tell, it is a belief that they need a deal that can be sold to a large majority in Congress.
The problem with that objective is that many in Congress have accepted the Israeli line on Iran’s nuclear program and Israel’s Prime Minister is committed to assumption a). These members of Congress are not going to be impressed by a hybrid outcome. They want the full-blooded dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear capabilities that policy x would offer. They will see through the fiction that cutting back Iran’s declared centrifuge capacity to 3000 machines for 20 years or whatever (a Mickey Mouse enrichment program) means that Iran “cannot” acquire nuclear weapons.
And the Iranian government would rather the negotiations fail than commit political suicide by signing on to a Mickey Mouse program.
What’s needed, therefore, is for the US and EU to use the coming month to revisit their assumptions about Iran’s intentions. If they arrive at the conclusion, after all, that Iran is intent on acquiring nuclear weapons, then they should bring the negotiations to a close and set about preparing for war, with a view to offering Israel the prize for which they have long clamored: the dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear “infrastructure.”
If, on the other hand, they conclude that assumption b) remains valid, then they should have the courage of their convictions and should ask of Iran the following: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to Iran’s nuclear program extending well beyond what is required by the NPT, the progressive resolution of all IAEA concerns, a raft of voluntary confidence-building measures, and a reaffirmation, at the United Nations, at the IAEA, and at the 2015 NPT Review Conference, that Iran does not seek and will not seek nuclear weapons.
Some will underestimate the deterrent strength of such an agreement because they cannot grasp that the psychological determinants of human decisions are as important as the material products of human ingenuity. But many others will understand the deterrent pressure on Iran of knowing that any move towards weapon acquisition is not only likely to be detected by the IAEA but will also cause immense damage to the reputation of a state that requires a good name to make its way in the world.
I witnessed the loss of prestige that Iran suffered in 2003 when members of the IAEA heard that Iran had pursued “a policy of concealment” for 18 years. I find it very hard to believe that Iran’s ruling elite can or will want to risk a repeat of that humiliation. Ten years later, I believe they have learnt their lesson.
Such considerations will cut no ice in some parts of Congress, I realize. But the administration has a trump card: the wisdom of crowds; that is to say, the good sense of the American people. The American people showed a year ago that they could understand that a constructive outcome to the use of chemical weapons in Syria — Syrian adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention — was preferable to killing yet more Syrians. They will surely understand that deterring the misuse of the nuclear technologies that Iran has mastered is preferable to killing a whole lot of Iranians — and adding to the long US casualty lists bequeathed to the nation by President George W. Bush.
Photo: US Secretary of State John Kerry sits across from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Vienna, Austria, on July 13, 2014, before beginning a bilateral meeting focused on Iran’s nuclear program. Credit: State Department
]]>by Francois Nicoulaud
“No deal is better than bad deal:” that’s the mantra that has been heard ad nauseam in the recent past and presented as self-evident of U.S. toughness in the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
But is it really so? Of course, everybody knows what “no deal” means. It is [...]]]>
by Francois Nicoulaud
“No deal is better than bad deal:” that’s the mantra that has been heard ad nauseam in the recent past and presented as self-evident of U.S. toughness in the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
But is it really so? Of course, everybody knows what “no deal” means. It is more difficult to discern at what point a deal becomes bad, rather than good, or even average. But plenty of experts are ready to help. A bad deal, they tell us, is a deal which would allow the Iranians to produce the material necessary for a bomb in less than six months. A bad deal is a deal which would not clarify once and for all what kind of research the Iranians have been pursuing in the past for manufacturing a nuclear explosive device. A bad deal is a deal which would allow the Iranians to pursue their ballistic missile program. And so on… One ends up understanding that any deal less than perfect would amount to an unacceptably bad deal.
But such an approach goes against any diplomatic process in which compromise and give and take are key notions. It leads to the conclusion that a perfect deal is a deal which does not have to be negotiated, a deal in which the winner takes all. And indeed, there are people who believe that non-proliferation is too important a question to be submitted to any kind of compromise. It deserves only perfect deals.
History, though, does not confirm this approach. The mother of all non-proliferation agreements, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), concluded in 1968, was in each and all its articles one big compromise. A few countries were allowed to develop nuclear arsenals, others not. The countries that agreed to forsake any military nuclear ambitions were allowed to bring their nuclear capabilities up to the thin red line beyond which could start the manufacturing of an explosive nuclear device. Nobody was happy at the result when the Treaty was signed and nobody is satisfied today by the state of affairs that has developed since.
Thus, the NPT was a deeply imperfect agreement, and indeed, a kind of bad deal. But would a “no deal” have been better? Obviously not. In a different field, the strategic arms limitation agreements concluded during and after the Cold War between the US and the USSR, later on Russia, and signed on the US side by Presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Obama… were certainly deeply imperfect. But, again, would “no deals” have been better?
Considering the Iranian negotiation, one could risk being provocative by saying that almost any deal (at least in the ambit of the current negotiation) could be better than no deal at all. No deal means the unchecked development of the Iranian program, the continuing increase of its enrichment capacities and stock of enriched uranium, the completion of a reactor of the plutonium-production type, and eventually the resumption of active research on engineering a nuclear device. By way of consequence, it would mean a growing tension between the international community and the Islamic Republic, possibly culminating in strikes on its nuclear facilities and in armed confrontation.
Compared to such a prospect, a far less-than-perfect agreement could appear indeed as highly desirable. Let us remember that international relations are nurtured by iterative and evolutionary processes. “Solve-all”, perfectly designed agreements, the epitome of which could well have been the Treaty of Versailles, seldom produce brilliant and lasting results. What is critical is to grab at the right moment the maximum of what is within reach. The art of diplomacy lies precisely in the ability to first discern, and then to join and knit together the extremes of what can be willingly accepted by the conflicting parties. It incorporates also the humility of leaving to others the task of solving at a later stage questions not yet fully addressed or wholly answered, in the knowledge that new circumstances created by an agreement will create new possibilities for progress. It keeps in mind that even an imperfect agreement, if faithfully implemented by the parties, can be a kind of confidence-building machine, opening the way to further advances. This is precisely what happened with the November 24 Joint Plan of Action between the P5+1 and Iran: that accord was transitory and therefore essentially imperfect, but it created the proper atmosphere for a more ambitious step forward.
Given the current state of the negotiations, how can these general considerations be translated into concrete terms? Let us limit ourselves to the most difficult point; that is, the acceptable level of Iranian enrichment activities. Here, the obvious line of compromise turns around capping them for a few years the present level of employed enrichment capacity – expressed in Separation Work Units (SWU) in order neutralize the consequences of the possible introduction of more efficient centrifuges. The figure to be retained would then be between 8,000 and 10,000 SWU per year.
For this, the Iranians have to admit that they do not need to develop an enrichment capacity on an industrial scale (about 50,000 SWU per year and over) as long as do not break ground on the main structures of their future nuclear power plants. And they should take advantage of this interval to develop more productive and more secure centrifuges than the primitive, outdated model that forms the bulk of their present stock of working centrifuges. They also need to progress significantly in the technology of nuclear-fuel manufacturing in order to be ready in due time if they want to meet at least partially the needs of their future nuclear power plants.
On the other side, the West should consider the enormous political difficulty the Iranian government would face if it had to dismantle even part of the nation’s hard-won enrichment capacity. It is true that accepting the preservation of this capacity at its present level would open the theoretical risk of the Iranians quickly acquiring significant quantities of highly enriched uranium, thus opening the way to the bomb. But considering the self-destructive consequences of such a blatant breach of agreement, the risk is very limited indeed, and by all means much more limited than the risks raised by the absence of any deal. Is this risk really unmanageable for the coalition of the world’s most powerful countries, given the sophistication of their diplomatic, intelligence, and contingency-planning capacities? Of course, such a compromise could be easily depicted with equal vehemence as a bad deal on both sides. And that is why it is probably the right compromise, and a fair deal.
Photo: The P5+1 foreign ministers, with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif at United Nations Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, November 24, 2013. Credit: State Department photo/Public Domain
]]>by Charles Naas
Following months of positive reports about the negotiations between world powers and Iran over its substantial nuclear program, the mood has turned somewhat pessimistic, despite verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran has met its commitments under the November 2013 Join Plan of Action.
The negotiating teams have been unusually [...]]]>
by Charles Naas
Following months of positive reports about the negotiations between world powers and Iran over its substantial nuclear program, the mood has turned somewhat pessimistic, despite verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran has met its commitments under the November 2013 Join Plan of Action.
The negotiating teams have been unusually disciplined in terms of leaks but official briefings have indicated that some major technical issues are on the way to being settled. Encouraging? Yes, but from the beginning of the talks it was realized, or should have been, that the day would come when Iran’s long term plans for a sizable nuclear energy program and the need for large amounts of enriched uranium would be front and center.
The past is prologue. Roughly 5 decades ago, we negotiated for several years with Iran over future nuclear cooperation until there was little hope left and went aground for some time over who would control the possible reprocessing of spent fuel from the US supplied enriched uranium. In the reprocessing of spent fuel, small quantities of plutonium could be separated and used in power plants or nuclear bombs.
The US side offered a variety of solutions, such as a bilateral plant; buy-back of the fuel; shipping the spent fuel for reprocessing to European facilities; and multi-national enrichment and reprocessing firms. Iran, however, refused all such ideas until President Jimmy Carter and the Shah directly reached a compromise agreement. The president was able to satisfy the Persian monarch’s personal and national pride that Iran would not be treated unfairly. The success of the Iranian Revolution in February of 1979 prevented the legal enactment of that treaty.
Now the concerns over reprocessing have been replaced by deep concerns over enrichment. The present Iranian government, like its royal predecessor, has planned a substantial civilian power program that has tentatively selected 16 areas for the construction of 1000 MW reactors. None, it is believed, has had a shovel of earth removed as yet, however in the view of the lengthy construction time and the vast expenditures required for reactors, issues such as security and supply for sufficient enriched uranium are vital.
At present Iran has 9,000 first stage and 10,000 second stage — IR2 — centrifuges. In all the years that some of them have been operating, Iran has been provided a little over 11,000 kilograms — roughly 5 tonnes — of enriched uranium. This supply is sufficient for 5-7 bombs if further enriched but is totally insufficient for civil reactor needs.
For example, Iran’s one completed reactor at Bushehr needs roughly 21 tonnes of enriched uranium as yearly replacement fuel that will be sold by Russia. The new reactors — which are at least a decade away — will require roughly 70-80,000 tonnes of fuel to start power production, and annual replacement fuel of about 21-25,000 tonnes per reactor. Iran’s negotiators have proclaimed that to meet its future requirements, Iran will need at least 100,000 advanced centrifuges. If in fact Iran pursues its civilian objectives, that figure is modest.
So far Iran has insisted that its future needs must rely on domestic production and depending on imports would make Iran highly vulnerable to political differences and crises. This position is given added weight by the fact that the six powers across the table have been imposing sanctions for a decade.
The position of the P5+1 (US, UK, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) has been that Iran should reduce its current centrifuges to a number that can only provide enriched material for medical research and isotopes, and depend on imports from reliable producers for future reactor fueling.
The parties are an ocean apart. In response to the negotiating crisis, emergency bilateral sessions took place between Iran and each of the P5+1 members to examine whether there is enough “give” to hold out the hope that compromises can emerge. (Unhappily, as with Carter and the Shah, we do not have leaders who understand or trust each other.) The bilateral talks also give Iran opportunities to test whether cracks are possible within the six. If each side holds to its position, the negotiating effort could be extended for at least a six month period or end.
One potential way forward that requires careful study would be to stipulate that a specific number of additional centrifuges may operate and that the enriched uranium should be put aside under especially rigorous security for a particular future reactor. Whether the US Congress, Israel and Iran’s conservative cabal, not to mention the other five powers, could live with this kind of solution is questionable. But each leader, especially Presidents Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani, have put great effort into this possible opening of modest relations after three decades of mistrust.
Presumably neither views failure with equanimity, although Obama has consistently said that success was no more than 50% likely.
If failure seems likely, there are many questions that have to be addressed now and not await a crisis:
These are parlous times. Are we doing every thing possible to strengthen our hand?
This article was first published by LobeLog.
Photo: US President Jimmy Carter and Iran’s Shah Reza Pahlavi share a drink in 1977, two years before the monarch would be overthrown by a popular revolution.
]]>by Peter Jenkins
An article in the latest issue of the International Security journal goes to the heart of US and European nuclear non-proliferation policy. The author, Scott Kemp, an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, raises a fundamental question: is proliferation best prevented by supply-side measures [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
An article in the latest issue of the International Security journal goes to the heart of US and European nuclear non-proliferation policy. The author, Scott Kemp, an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, raises a fundamental question: is proliferation best prevented by supply-side measures (attempts to restrict the availability of certain technologies) or by influencing the demand side (the national interest calculations that underpin decision-making on nuclear weapon acquisition)?
The question has divided the US nuclear community since 1945 and is unlikely to be resolved by this one article, well-researched and highly intelligent as it is. Nonetheless, Kemp’s conclusion merits substantial debate, not least in the wider foreign policy community. It is that a rebalancing of nuclear non-proliferation policy is advisable, away from over-dependence on supply side restrictions and towards greater reliance on influencing states’ motives and calculations.
Kemp justifies his conclusion by surveying the extent to which controlling one type of nuclear technology — the use of centrifuges to enrich uranium — can be relied on to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, and by demonstrating that controls have been and will be porous and permeable.
Technological and industrial developments since 1945 have moved the proliferation-potential boundary outwards to where the building of a uranium enrichment plant lies within the reach of many states. The required information has long been in the public domain. The tools and equipment needed to build rudimentary centrifuge machines are unsophisticated. The risk of remote detection of a small clandestine plant is small. Thirteen of the twenty states that have built enrichment facilities have done so without recourse to outside help — and several others could have gone it alone.
Kemp is careful to distinguish between over-reliance on technology controls and denying that controls have any merit. He is not advocating the elimination of controls. On the contrary, he recognises that controls can make the task of building and operating centrifuges more arduous by forcing states to develop the technology indigenously and to spend time troubleshooting the challenges that will inevitably arise. Controls can also limit the ability of states to build high-performance centrifuges.
But where centrifuge technology is concerned, Kemp’s sympathies clearly lie with Niels Bohr, Robert Oppenheimer, and other Manhattan Project scientists who warned that controls could only provide a temporary hurdle, not an insurmountable barrier. Like them, he also believes that enduring protection “can only come from the political organization of the world”.
Mercifully, much of that political organization now exists, thanks to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force in 1970. Early doubts about how effective a barrier the NPT would be have been confounded. All but the four nuclear-armed states (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) and South Sudan, which has had more pressing priorities, are parties to it. Only nine states are known or suspected of having engaged in clandestine nuclear activities after becoming parties; and all but two of those (Iraq and Syria) have chosen or been persuaded to abandon their clandestine activities well short of nuclear weapons acquisition.
Why has the NPT been so effective? Kemp leaves that question to be answered by others. My sense is that NPT parties see mutual security benefits in maintaining this regime for as long as possible, certain grievances notwithstanding, and have no appetite for engaging in a nuclear arms race with their neighbors. An element of deterrence may also enter into the equation: latecomers to the nuclear-armed clubhouse cannot be sure of getting in unscathed.
But I hope someone more qualified than I will undertake the thorough assessment Kemp calls for at the end of his article:
While the specific causes of proliferation abstinence lie beyond the scope of this article, the subject clearly merits deeper analysis by both policymakers and academics as such factors are probably the most viable basis for the future of the non proliferation regime.
More immediately, Kemp’s conclusion begs important questions in relation to the current negotiations between Iran and the P5+1: if technology restrictions can never be more than a hurdle to centrifuge-based nuclear weapon acquisition, is it essential that the US and EU insist on a dramatic cut in the number of operating centrifuges at Iran’s disposal during the interim phase of a comprehensive solution?
Would the US and EU be wise to walk away from the negotiation if, for domestic political reasons, Iran were to refuse to dismantle any of its 19,000 centrifuges and to operate any fewer than 9,000 at any one time?
Should the US and EU be ready to close the deal if Iran can demonstrate convincingly that it has no interest in acquiring nuclear weapons — with no motive for incurring the near-universal condemnation that a nuclear “break-out” would trigger — and backs up the demonstration by accepting that verification of its nuclear program can remain at current levels indefinitely?
I know what I think. But what, I wonder, do the US administration’s “counter-proliferation” experts think, and what advice are they giving to the US secretary of state and president? I fear they may be on the other side of the post-1945 divide.
This article was first published by LobeLog.
Photo: The first meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Review Conference of the Parties to the NPT, United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland on April 1, 1974. Credit: UN
]]>by Peter Jenkins
The parties to the current negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program are being discreet about the details, as is sensible. Nonetheless, from the occasional statement or remark to journalists it is possible to form some impression of the issues that are causing the greatest difficulty.
These include restrictions [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
The parties to the current negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program are being discreet about the details, as is sensible. Nonetheless, from the occasional statement or remark to journalists it is possible to form some impression of the issues that are causing the greatest difficulty.
These include restrictions on Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium during an interim period, the duration of that period, the phasing of sanctions relief, and, a late-comer to the agenda, restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program.
If, as the remarks imply, the gap between positions on such issues is still wide, it does not follow necessarily that the negotiating deadline of July 20 will be missed. It is all too common for negotiators to keep the most painful concessions in reserve until the 11th hour, in the hope that they will not be needed.
It will, however, be interesting to review some of the problems that have come to light and to imagine ways of handling them.
Duration of the interim period
Al Monitor’s Laura Rozen reported May 15 that an Iranian source said it is the Iranian team’s expectation that “after the signing of a comprehensive deal, there will be an interim period,” where there will be restrictions on Iran’s program “and the [possible military dimensions issue] will be resolved.”
But there has to be a “basis” for the duration of that interim period, according to the Iranian source. If the restrictions should last for 10, 15 or 20 years, the parties have to “examine” the basis. “Why 20 years?” he asked.
A solution to this problem would be to agree that the duration of the interim period will be determined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in the sense that it will be co-extensive with the time required by the Agency to affirm that there are no undeclared nuclear facilities or material in Iran and, in effect, that Iran’s nuclear program is as peaceful as that of any other Non-Nuclear-Weapon State (NNWS) party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The “basis” or rationale would be that requiring Iran to accept constraints on certain nuclear activities is logical for as long as it can reasonably be questioned whether Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful. Once the IAEA has found the same grounds for confidence in the peaceful nature of Iran’s program as exist in other NNWS, this rationale would no longer be logical.
A similar solution was proposed in January 2004, in relation to the duration of the suspension of uranium enrichment that had been agreed in Tehran on October 21, 2003. On that occasion it was rejected by Iran because Tehran hoped to be able to resume enrichment well before the Agency would be able to provide grounds for confidence — and rejected by the UK, France and Germany because they wanted the suspension to last indefinitely, if not forever.
Ten rather grim years later, can the parties bring themselves to accept this logic and bend it to the cause of an agreement?
The phasing of sanctions relief
Arash Karami reported May 21 that a spokesman for the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee told Iran’s Tasnim News that the P5+1 said after an agreement “we have to prove our goodwill. They will then remove sanctions one by one,” over a period of ten years.
It is not hard to imagine how unappealing such an offer must seem to an Iranian government that is banking on sanctions relief to improve the living standards of ordinary Iranians.
Iran will have understood long ago that the US administration will require many years to persuade Congress to repeal the nuclear-related sanctions that Congress has imposed. But Iran must surely be hoping that non-US and particularly EU firms will be free to trade and invest in Iran within months of agreement on a comprehensive solution.
“Iran would not mind front-loading the final deal,” another Iranian source told Rozen. “Iran would take all the measures [agreed] at the beginning of the deal, and expect its counterpart to do the same.”
It tends to be forgotten that when, on January 23, 2012, EU Ministers agreed to what Foreign Secretary William Hague described as an “unprecedented set of sanctions against Iran,” their aim was to coerce Iran into a nuclear negotiation.
“This is a major increase in the peaceful, legitimate pressure on Iran to negotiate over its nuclear program,” Hague told the House of Commons the next day.
If EU Ministers such as Hague are concerned about legitimacy, there is a chance that it would trouble their consciences to maintain such “unprecedented” (an euphemism for draconian) sanctions not just after Iran’s appearance at the negotiating table, but even after the conclusion of a comprehensive negotiation. And if legitimacy is not a concern, perhaps they can at least be persuaded to lift EU sanctions by all the EU firms that are hoping to resume normal business with Iran.
Iran’s ballistic missile program
“Iran also rejects that its ballistic missile program should be a subject for discussion with the P5+1, Iran’s negotiators have repeatedly said,” wrote Rozen May 21.
For their part, US negotiators have justified the inclusion of this issue on the agenda, despite the absence of any reference to it in the November 24 Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), by recalling the JPOA reference to “addressing the UN Security Resolutions” (the last of which, 1929 (2010), contains a brief missile-related provision).
As a justification this leaves a bit to be desired. The reference to UN resolutions is in the preamble of the JPOA, not in the final operative section, which itemizes the agenda for the current negotiation. It is uncommon to consider preambular wording as binding on the parties to an agreement.
Moreover, the relevant bit of operative paragraph 9 of resolution 1929 (2010) scarcely lends itself to the sort of restrictions that Israeli leaders and their Congressional supporters have been demanding that the administration obtain. It reads “[The Security Council] decides that Iran shall not undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches…”
These words are clearly no basis for requiring Iran to surrender or destroy any of the ballistic missiles in its possession. At most they provide an opening for requesting that Iran refrain from testing some of its existing stock (those “capable of delivering nuclear weapons”), and from developing new models with that capability.
But even that request is contestable. Iran could deny that it possesses a nuclear weapons delivery capability. Since an internationally agreed definition of what constitutes that capability is lacking, and since that capability is contingent on being able to produce warheads of an appropriate diameter, US negotiators might end up wishing they had suggested, instead, a debate on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Such objections might sound semantic; but the US, which has long relied on semantics to deny that Iran has a right to enrich uranium, would be ill-placed to jib at a dose of its own medicine.
It’s the Politics!
Speaking to the press on May 16, a senior US administration official said: “We’re focused on how all of the elements fit together to ensure Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon.”
It must be hoped that the senior official meant to say “will not”, and not, “cannot.” Indeed, if these negotiations are about denying Iran the capability to produce nuclear weapons, they are doomed to fail.
It is in the nature of nuclear weapon technology that once a state has passed a certain threshold, as Iran has, it can produce nuclear weapons, sooner or later, if it makes that decision. It is not axiomatic, however, that states will choose to do so.
On the contrary, since 1970 the evidence is that very few weapon-capable states want nuclear weapons; most recognize that their security is better served by backing the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.
This perception has been well articulated by Scott Kemp, a former adviser on nuclear non-proliferation at the State Department. In an interview with the MIT News office Kemp said, “We need to get past the idea that we can control the destiny of nations by regulating access to technology. International security must ultimately resort to the difficult business of politics.”
The current negotiation can succeed if the West’s goal is political: denying Iran a rational basis for wanting nuclear weapons. Since President Hassan Rouhani’s words and deeds suggest that he recognizes Iran will be more secure, and more prosperous, as a fully compliant NPT-state without nuclear weapons, this is a realistic goal.
Photo Credit: FARS News/Majid Asgaripour/
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