by Derek Davison
In March of this year, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sent a delegation of religious and academic figures to the Iranian religious city of Qom to begin a dialogue with Shia scholars and ayatollahs. According to Bishop Richard Pates, chair of the USCCB’s Committee on International Peace and Justice, the discussion in Qom focused heavily on the morality of weapons of mass destruction. It also revealed that the Catholic Church and the Iranian Shia establishment share similar official views on the subject.
Pates said there was “no discussion” during the trip about capital punishment, a topic upon which there would be clear divergence between the Catholic Church, which opposes the practice, and the Iranian judiciary, which has been executing prisoners at a remarkable rate. But the Iranians were completely open to discussing their nuclear program, which has become an international issue.
“We were told in the clearest terms that Shia Islam opposes and forbids the production, stockpiling, use, and threat to use [weapons] of mass destruction,” said Pates at an event in Washington Wednesday hosted by the Arms Control Association.
“We noted that the Catholic Church is also working for a world without weapons of mass destruction, and has called on all nations to rid themselves of these indiscriminate weapons,” he added.
At several points during the negotiations between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program—the talks are now in their final month before the Nov. 24 deadline—top US officials have called upon the Iranian government to prove to the world that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful.
In a Sept. 27 speech, White House Coordinator for the Middle East Phil Gordon echoed President Obama’s position on the issue by saying that the negotiations “can actually be boiled down to a very simple question: Is Iran prepared to demonstrate to the world that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful?”
More recently, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said Oct. 23 in a widely cited speech that “we hope the leaders in Tehran will agree to the steps necessary to assure the world that this program will be exclusively peaceful and thereby end Iran’s economic and diplomatic isolation and improve further the lives of their people.”
These messages, while undoubtedly intended as much for a skeptical American audience as they are for Iran’s negotiating team, omit the fact that to date, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitors Iran’s nuclear program, has produced no evidence of a current Iranian nuclear weapons program. The US intelligence committee (IC) also reports that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, even if the IC assesses that it does not know if Iran will decide to take this path in the future.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also issued a fatwa several years ago to the effect that the manufacture and use of nuclear weapons contradicts the teachings of Islam and is therefore prohibited. American policymakers and journalists frequently cite this edict, but won’t acknowledge it as a binding element of Iranian policy.
Yet there is evidence that the fatwa worked in the past. In a recent interview, the former Iranian minister of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), Mohsen Rafighdoost, described to Gareth Porter how Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini, prohibited the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons at the height of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, even after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons against Iranian troops. To date, there has been no reliable evidence that Iran used any weapons of mass destruction in that war. Khomeini’s refusal to produce or use WMDs (even in such trying circumstances) formed the basis for Khamenei’s more recent fatwa against nuclear weapons.
“It might be taken into consideration that even though Iraq used chemical weapons in the [Iran-Iraq] War, Iran did not respond with the use of similar weapons,” said Pates in reference to the negotiations.
Pates also noted that his hosts not only “affirmed” the existence of a fatwa against nuclear weapons but also “confirmed that it is a matter of public record and is highly respected among Shia scholars and Iranians in general.” Ebrahim Mohseni of the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland agreed with Pates on that last point.
Mohseni, who was part of the delegation and whose recent polling has helped illuminate how the Iranian public views the nuclear issue, said that a majority of Iranians (65%) share the religious view that the production and use of nuclear weapons is contrary to Islamic principles, and an even larger majority (78%) agree with the sentiment that Iran was right not to respond in kind to Iraq’s use of chemical weapons in the 1980s.
As to whether Khamenei’s fatwa could be reversed, Pates said that the Qom scholars “argued that the fatwa could not be reversed or made to contradict itself, even if Iran’s strategic calculations changed.”
“This would undermine the authority of the supreme leader, which guides, in a general way, Iran’s political class,” he said.
This point was echoed by USCCB Director, Stephen Colecchi, another member of the Qom delegation who pointed out that the fatwa “is clearly pervasively taught and defended within Iran,” and that for Khamenei to contradict his earlier edict “would undermine the whole teaching authority of [Iran’s] system.”
The “bottom line” coming out of the Qom dialogue, according to Colecchi, is that “we’re asking our people, our government, and others…at least take [the fatwa] into account.”
“It is a factor, and it might make the negotiations easier to really understand the nature of Iran,” he said.
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Photo: (From left) Seyyed Mahmoud, US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Bishop Richard Pates, Bishop Denis Madden, and Stephen Colecchi meet in March at the Ayatollah Marashi Najafi Library in Qom, Iran. Credit: CNS/Courtesy Stephen M. Colecchi
]]>via IPS News
Despite an agreement between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) to resume long-delayed talks about Tehran’s nuclear programme in Kazakhstan at the end of this month, few observers here believe that any breakthrough is in the offing.
That belief was [...]]]>
via IPS News
Despite an agreement between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) to resume long-delayed talks about Tehran’s nuclear programme in Kazakhstan at the end of this month, few observers here believe that any breakthrough is in the offing.
That belief was reinforced Thursday when Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared to reject a U.S. proposal, most recently put forward by Vice President Joseph Biden at a major security conference in Munich last week, to hold direct bilateral talks.
While Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akhbar Salehi, initially welcomed the offer, provided Washington desisted from its “threatening rhetoric that (all options are) on the table,” Khamenei said in a speech to air force officers Thursday that such talks “would solve nothing”.
“You are pointing a gun at Iran saying you want to talk,” he said. “The Iranian nation will not be frightened by the threats.”
“(I)t simply doesn’t lie in (Khamenei’s) nature to agree to talks from a position of weakness – and certainly not without the protection of having the talks be conducted by an Iranian President who he can …blame for any potential failure in the talks,” wrote Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), on the ‘Daily Beast’ website Thursday.
“Khamenei would rather wait till after the Iranian elections, it seems, in order to both find ways to shift the momentum back to Iran’s side and to hide behind Iran’s new President in the talks,” according to Parsi, author of two award-winning books on U.S.-Iranian relations.
He was referring to the widespread notion here that the cumulative impact of U.S.-led international economic sanctions against Iran, as well as the raging civil war in Syria, Iran’s closest regional ally, has seriously weakened Tehran and “forced” it back to the table, if not quite yet to make the concessions long demanded by the administration of President Barack Obama and its allies.
Those include ending Tehran’s enrichment of uranium to 20 percent; shipping its existing 20-percent enriched stockpile out of the country; closure of its underground Fordow enrichment facility; acceptance of a highly intrusive inspections regime by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); and the clearing up of all outstanding IAEA questions related to possible past military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear programme.
In exchange for those steps, according to U.S. officials, Washington – and presumably the other P5+1 members — would be prepared to forgo further UN. sanctions against Iran; assure the supply of nuclear fuel for Tehran’s Research Reactor (TRR), which produces medical isotopes; facilitate services to Iran’s aging civilian aircraft fleet; and provide other “targeted sanctions relief” that, however, would not include oil- and banking-related sanctions that have been particularly damaging to Iran’s economy over the past two years.
Gradual relief from those more-important sanctions would follow only after full and verifiable implementation of Iran’s side of the bargain.
Until such a deal is struck, however, Washington is committed to increasing the pressure, according to U.S. officials who say the administration remains committed to a strategy of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon by military means, if necessary.
Indeed, in what one official described as “a significant turning of the screw”, the administration announced Wednesday that it had begun implementing new Congressionally mandated sanctions that would effectively force Iran’s foreign oil purchasers into barter arrangements. To avoid sanctions, buyers would have to pay into local accounts from which Iran could then buy locally made goods.
It’s generally accepted that such so-called “crippling sanctions” are responsible, at least in substantial part, for the 50-percent decline in the value of the riyal, galloping inflation, and a major increase in unemployment in recent months.
At the same time, however, there is growing doubt here that the sanctions are achieving their purpose – forcing Iran to accept the stringent curbs on its nuclear programme demanded by the U.S. – or that they are likely to achieve that purpose within the next 18-24 months.
That is the time frame in which most experts believe Tehran could achieve “breakout capacity” – the ability to be able to build a nuclear bomb very quickly – if it decided to do so.
Indeed, in recent weeks, Iran began installing advanced centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility that, if fully activated, could significantly accelerate the rate of enrichment. The move was seen as an effort by Tehran to strengthen its position before the P5+1 meeting in Almaty Feb. 26.
Moreover, the assumption that the economic woes imposed by the sanctions would drive such a deep wedge between Tehran’s leadership and the population that the regime risked collapse is also increasingly in question.
While a majority (56 percent) of respondents said in December that sanctions have hurt Iranians’ livelihoods “a great deal”, according to a poll of Iranian opinion released by the Gallup organisation here Thursday, 63 percent said they believed Iran should continue developing its nuclear programme. Only 17 percent disagreed.
When asked who should be blamed for the sanctions, only 10 percent of respondents cited Iran itself; 70 percent named either the U.S. (47 percent), Israel (nine percent); Western European countries (seven percent); or the U.N. (seven percent).
“This may indicate that sanctions alone are not having the intended effect of persuading Iranian residents and country leaders to change their stance on the level of international oversight of their nuclear program,” noted a Gallup analysis of the results.
Its credibility, however, was questioned by some Iran experts who noted that increased security measures taken by the regime may affect the willingness of respondents to speak frankly to pollsters.
In light of the most recent developments, including Khamenei’s rejection of Biden’s offer and the installation of the new centrifuges at Natanz, Iran hawks here are urging yet tougher sanctions and moves to make the eventual use of force more credible – appeals that are certain to be greatly amplified next month when the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) holds its annual convention here
At the same time, however, there appears to be a growing conviction within the foreign-policy elite that ever-increasing sanctions and threatening military action are unlikely to work, and that Washington should offer be more forthcoming about sanctions relief to get a deal.
Indeed, the administration’s commitment to resorting to military action, if necessary, to prevent Iran from obtaining a weapon is also increasingly being questioned, as a growing number of foreign-policy “greybeards” are calling for a strategy of “deterrence” if and when Iran reaches breakout capacity.
“In the end, war is too costly, unpredictable and dangerous to be a practical option,” noted Bruce Riedel, a former top CIA Middle East and South Asia analyst who was in charge of preparing Afghanistan policy on Obama’s transition team in 2009 and remains close to the White House from his perch at the Brookings Institution.
The “stark choice” between a diplomatic solution and war that Obama’s commitment to prevention has created, he wrote to the “Iran Primer” this week, “is a mistake”.
“But there is a good chance that (Secretary of State John) Kerry and Obama will bail themselves out of this trap by re-opening the door to containment, although they would probably call it something else.”
Photo: President Barack Obama speaks at Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, 4 June 2009. In his speech, President Obama called for a ‘new beginning between the United States and Muslims’, declaring that ‘this cycle of suspicion and discord must end’.
]]>Iran seems to be maintaining its previous stance on uranium enrichment — a key issue for Western powers and Israel — ahead of proposed talks by the 6-power P5+1 negotiating group. On Tuesday, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation (AEOI), said Iran would ”not suspend 20 percent [...]]]>
Iran seems to be maintaining its previous stance on uranium enrichment — a key issue for Western powers and Israel — ahead of proposed talks by the 6-power P5+1 negotiating group. On Tuesday, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation (AEOI), said Iran would ”not suspend 20 percent uranium enrichment because of the demands of others.”
Iran insists that it has an “inalienable right” to enrich uranium on its soil. That right is guaranteed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran is a signatory, but the US and Iran appear to interpret it differently. Several UN Security Council resolutions also demand that Iran suspend its enrichment program until IAEA concerns are satisfied.
The US believes Iran is working towards nuclear weapon capability, but has not decided to build a nuclear weapon. Interestingly, some high-level US foreign policy luminaries have called the US position of 0% Iranian enrichment untenable, as Tony Karon has reported.
Laura Rozen points out that Abbasi-Davani’s comments “came a day after Iran’s foreign minister struck a conciliatory tone, expressing optimism about prospects for progress at upcoming nuclear talks.” Last week, Herman Nackaerts, the deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the agency had a “good meeting” in Tehran even though Iran refused to allow the agency to enter its Parchin military site at this time.
These developments suggest it’s anyone’s guess at this point whether resumed talks, if they go so far, will lead to substantive progress during the diplomatic process. But it’s easy to forget that while all this is going on, a related cyberwar is quietly taking place.
While telling Israel’s Army Radio that Israel’s “red line” with Iran is still “our top priority”, Moshe Ya’alon, Israel’s Likudnik Vice Prime Minister, brought up the issue today:
“In the meantime, there are interesting things happening in Iran, such as worms, viruses and explosions,” alluding to clandestine cyber-warfare operations targeting the Islamic Republic that many suspect are carried out by Israel.
Yesterday, Iran reported that its computers are being targeted by malware that wipes data from hard drives. The source is unknown.
I’m not sure how cyber attacks, particularly large-scale ones, affect Iran’s negotiating stance or its alleged nuclear ambitions. But is it fair to say that this is an important issue that’s overlooked when assessing “defiant” Iran’s unreasonable stance towards the West, just as the now forgotten issue of targeted assassinations against Iranian scientists was? Not to mention cyber blowback and another potentially calamitous form of warfare that’s slowly being unleashed upon the world, be it from Iran, or anyone else. Those issues may deserve some attention now too.
]]>Gary Sick, who served as an Iran specialist on the National Security Council staffs of Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan, speaks to Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose about an article that he wrote for the magazine in 1987, which still holds up today.
Also don’t miss Dr. [...]]]>
Gary Sick, who served as an Iran specialist on the National Security Council staffs of Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan, speaks to Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose about an article that he wrote for the magazine in 1987, which still holds up today.
Also don’t miss Dr. Sick’s review of a superb new book on US policy during the Iran-Iraq war for IPS News.
]]>Beginning with a reference to a contentious report by the AP that used an alleged Iranian document provided by an “unnamed country” to suggest “that Iran is working on a bomb,” Mark Hibbs, a senior associate in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program, writes that increasing reliance by the International [...]]]>
Beginning with a reference to a contentious report by the AP that used an alleged Iranian document provided by an “unnamed country” to suggest “that Iran is working on a bomb,” Mark Hibbs, a senior associate in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program, writes that increasing reliance by the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) on third-party data can compromise the agency’s political credibility:
The true significance of this document is that it landed in our e-mailboxes in the midst of renewed internal debate about how the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should determine whether member states are in compliance with their nonproliferation obligations. Beginning two decades ago, the IAEA started relying less on information it gathers during its own field inspections alone and more on information that others provide, most of which is open-source, but some of which is not. This third-party data has become central to the IAEA’s work, and it is about to become even more so. The leak of the graph to the AP underscores that if this data isn’t rigorously vetted and handled carefully, the IAEA’s technical and political credibility will be seriously compromised.
Meanwhile the Guardian reports that the IAEA has attempted to tighten internal security by “narrowing the circle of officials and analysts who deal with the most sensitive material.” The measures apparently include prohibiting any Persian speakers from working in the safeguards department to fulfil the imperative task of analyzing documents about Iran’s nuclear program.
]]>As the Iranian leadership prepares to engage in negotiations with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), the conversation inside Iran has moved beyond the nuclear issue to include a debate about the utility of or need for engaging in direct talks, even relations, with [...]]]>
As the Iranian leadership prepares to engage in negotiations with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), the conversation inside Iran has moved beyond the nuclear issue to include a debate about the utility of or need for engaging in direct talks, even relations, with the United States.
Public discussions about relations with the US have historically been taboo in Iran. To be sure, there have always been individuals who have brought up the idea, but they have either been severely chastised publicly or quickly silenced or ignored. The current conversation is distinguished by its breadth as well the clear positioning of the two sides on the issue.
On one side are the hard-liners who continue to tout the value of a “resistance economy” – a term coined by the Leader Ali Khamenei — in the face of US-led sanctions. On the other side is an increasing number of people from across the political spectrum, including some conservatives, who are calling for bilateral talks.
The idea of direct talks with the US was openly put forth last Spring by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former president and current chair of the Expediency council, through a couple of interviews. He insisted that Iran “can now fully negotiate with the United States based on equal conditions and mutual respect.” Rafsanjani also conceded that the current obsession with Iran’s nuclear program is not the US’ main problem, arguing against those who “think that Iran’s problems [with the West] will be solved through backing down on the nuclear issue.” At the same time, he called for proactive interaction with the world, and for understanding that after recent transformations in the Middle East, “the Americans… are trying to find “new models that can articulate coexistence and cooperation in the region and which the people [of the region] also like better.” Rafsanjani added that the current situation of “not talking and not having relations with America is not sustainable…The meaning of talks is not that we capitulate to them. If they accept our position or we accept their positions, it’s done.”
In Rafsanjani’s worldview, negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program are merely part of a process that will eventually address other sources of conflict with the US in the region.
Rafsanjani is no longer the lone public voice in favor of direct talks. In fact, as the conversation over talks with the US has picked up, he has remained relatively quiet. Instead, Iranian newspapers and the public fora are witnessing a relatively robust conversation. Last week, for instance, hundreds of people filled an overcrowded university auditorium in the provincial capital of Yasuj, a small city of about 100,000 people, to listen to a public debate between two former members of the Parliament over whether direct talks and relations with the US present opportunity or threats.
On one side stood Mostafa Kavakabian who said
…whatever Islamic Iran is wrestling with in [terms of] sanctions, the nuclear energy issue, multiple resolutions [against Iran] in [international] organizations, human rights violations from the point of view of the West, the issue of Israel and international terrorism is the result of lack of logical relationship, with the maintenance of our country’s principles, with America.
Sattar Hedayatkhah on the other hand argued that “relations with America under the current conditions means backtracking from 34 years of resistance against the demands and sanctions of the global arrogance.”
In recent weeks the hard-line position has been articulated by individuals as varied as the head of the Basij militia forces, Mohammadreza Naqdi, who called sanctions a means for unlocking Iran’s “latent potential” by encouraging domestic industry and ingenuity, and the leader’s representative in the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), cleric Ali Saeedi, who said that Washington’s proposals for direct talks are a ploy to trick Tehran into capitulating over its nuclear program.
Standing in the midst of this contentious conversation is Leader Khamenei, who, as everyone acknowledges, will be the ultimate decision-maker on the issue of talks with the US. During the past couple of years he has articulated his mistrust of the Obama Administration’s intentions in no uncertain terms and since the bungled October 2009 negotiations over the transfer of enriched uranium out of Iran — when Iran negotiator Saeed Jalili met with US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns for the P5+1 side of the meeting — has not allowed bilateral contact at the level of principals between Iran and the US.
Yet the concern regarding a potentially changed position on his part has been sufficient enough for the publication of an op-ed in the hard-line Kayhan Daily warning against the “conspiracy” of “worn-out revolutionaries” to force the Leader “to drink from the poison chalice of backing down, abandoning his revolutionary positions, and talking to the US.” The opinion piece goes on to say that
…by offering wrong analyses and relating all of the country’s problems to external sanctions, [worn-out revolutionaries] want to make the social atmosphere inflamed and insecure and agitate public sentiments so that the exalted Leader is forced to give in to their demands in order to protect the country’s interests and revolution’s gains.
The idea of drinking poison is an allusion to Revolution-founder Ruhollah Khomeini’s famous speech wherein he grudgingly accepted the ceasefire with Iraq in 1988 and refered to it as poison chalice from which he had to drink. Hard-liners in Iran continue to believe that it was the moderate leaders of the time such as Rafsanjani who convinced Khomeini to take the bitter poison, while conveniently omitting the fact that the current Leader Khamenei was at the time very much on Rafsanjani’s side. This time around it is the “worn-out revolutionaries” who, in the mind of the hard-liners, despite being conservative and acting as key political advisors to Khamenei or holding key positions in office, are suspected of pressuring him to accede to talks.
Basirat, a hard-line website affiliated with the IRGC’s political bureau, has taken a different tact and instead of denouncing pressures on Khamenei, has published a list of “Imam” Khamenei’s statements which insist on long-standing enmity with the US. Presumably, the intended purpose is to make it as hard as possible for him to back away from those statements.
The hard-liners face a predicament, which is essentially this: Having elevated Khamenei’s role to the level of an all-knowing Imam-like leader, they have few options but to remain quiet and submit to his leadership if he makes a decision in favor of direct talks. Hence their prior moves to portray any attempt at talks as capitulation at worst, or unnecessarily taking a bitter pill at best.
It is in this context that one has to consider Khamenei’s potential decision over the issue of direct talks. Whether he will eventually agree to them is not at all clear at this point and in fact is probably quite unlikely, unless the US position on Iran’s nuclear program is publicly clarified to include allowance for limited enrichment inside Iran.
In other words, while Khamenei may eventually assent to direct talks, the path to that position requires some sort of agreement on the nuclear standoff — even if only a limited one — within the P5+1 frame and not the other way around.
The reality is that US pressure on Iran has helped create an environment in which many are calling for a strategic, even incrementally implemented, shift of direction in Iran’s foreign policy regarding the so-called “America question.” But this call for a shift can only become dominant if there are some assurances that corresponding, and again, even incrementally implemented shifts, are also in the works in the US regarding the “Iran question.
- Farideh Farhi is an independent researcher and an affiliate graduate faculty member in political science and international relations at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. A version of this article appeared on IPS News.
]]>By Michael Brenner
Graham Allison and Shai Feldman, the two distinguished authors of the “Coming Clash over Iran“, have reduced the complicated, contentious issue of Iran’s relations with the United States to the tenor of dealings between Washington and Jerusalem. Means, methods and strategies for “keeping them on the same [...]]]>
By Michael Brenner
Graham Allison and Shai Feldman, the two distinguished authors of the “Coming Clash over Iran“, have reduced the complicated, contentious issue of Iran’s relations with the United States to the tenor of dealings between Washington and Jerusalem. Means, methods and strategies for “keeping them on the same page” is, they suggest, the priority concern. In so doing, they have demonstrated the problem while adding nothing to the search for a solution.
They begin with the odd proposition that “the two country’s leaders seemed to be able to set aside their mutual animosity and distrust, working together to defuse the crisis” in Gaza. What they did in fact was collaborate to create the crisis. Then, when their plans went awry, they hopped on the Morsi bandwagon so as to cut their losses. In the process, they strengthened Iran’s hand.
The glaring truth is that to the extent that President Barak Obama accommodates Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the chances of a settlement with Tehran go down. The prerequisites for finding a modus vivendi are two-fold. One is for the Obama administration to make an independent, sober assessment of American stakes in its relations with Iran and to set that as the reference mark for fashioning policies to secure them. The other is to recognize that only a comprehensive approach that embeds the nuclear issue in discussions of wider security concerns holds out the prospect of success. Unhappily, there is no evidence as yet that we have begun to proceed accordingly.
– Michael Brenner is Professor Emeritus of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and a Fellow of the Center for Transatlantic Relations SAIS Johns Hopkins. His commentaries appear regularly in the Huffington Post and a number of news outlets elsewhere in the world.
]]>Academics Graham Allison and Shai Feldman predict a “Coming Clash over Iran” between the United States and Israel in the National Interest. Significant developments during the next 6 months — further Iranian nuclear progress; potential reinvigorated attempts at diplomacy by the US and Iran; more Israeli apprehension [...]]]>
Academics Graham Allison and Shai Feldman predict a “Coming Clash over Iran” between the United States and Israel in the National Interest. Significant developments during the next 6 months — further Iranian nuclear progress; potential reinvigorated attempts at diplomacy by the US and Iran; more Israeli apprehension about Iran’s nuclear program; and an Israeli election that may result in an even more right-wing Israeli leadership — may result in further strain in US-Israel relations over the Iran issue. The authors accordingly discuss how the two countries can avoid further strain, such as by agreeing on “rules of engagement” for conducting future dialogue about Iran:
…Specifically, they should agree to avoid the kind of public squabble on Iran in which they were engaged before the U.S. elections. Instead, their discussions of this issue should follow the quiet manner in which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President George W. Bush dealt with Syria’s nuclear reactor, destroyed in 2007.
A subtle caveat is found in the conclusion:
Despite the depth and breadth of the U.S.-Israeli alliance, each is a separate national state with its own national interests. Each has a democratically-elected government that is responsible for protecting its nation’s vital interests as it sees them. And neither can be expected to subcontract its survival to the other.
]]>
According to former top advisers to George W. Bush and Barak Obama, the United States will preventively strike Iran in 2013 if no diplomatic settlement is reached over its nuclear program. From the Times of Israel:
During an on-stage discussion with Dennis Ross and Elliott Abrams halfway through the [...]]]>
According to former top advisers to George W. Bush and Barak Obama, the United States will preventively strike Iran in 2013 if no diplomatic settlement is reached over its nuclear program. From the Times of Israel:
During an on-stage discussion with Dennis Ross and Elliott Abrams halfway through the evening, Washington Institute director Robert Satloff asked the former officials, “Will either America or Israel employ preventive military action against Iran’s nuclear program – yes or no?”
The two replied in unison, “yes.”
“Will this happen in 2013?” Satloff pressed.
“Yes,” said Ross.
“Yes, I agree,” added Abrams.
Last week the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) said Iran could be referred to the United Nations Security Council if it had “not begun substantive cooperation with the IAEA” by March 2013. This caused Micah Zenko to speculate about a deadline for a US attack, while others suggested the path is simply being prepared for another resolution.
Some well-informed Iran watchers are saying that Ross and Abrams’ prediction is on par with that of White House insiders. Whether that’s true or not, it’s undeniable that pressure will be very high on Obama to ‘do more’ if no headway is made with Iran in the next 6 months.
But according to Zenko, deadlines, while helpful on the pressure-front, can also be detrimental:
]]>Setting a March deadline provides some certainty and perhaps coercive leverage to compel Iran to cooperate with the IAEA. But declaring deadlines also places U.S. “credibility” on the line, generating momentum to use force even if there is no new actionable intelligence that Iran has decided to pursue a nuclear weapon. Based on what we know right now, that would be a strategic miscalculation.
According to Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, the spokesperson for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team (2003-2005) and now a visiting scholar at Princeton University, an Iranian nuclear weapon “would provide only a short-term regional advantage that would turn into a longer-term vulnerability”.
Arrested for apparently politically motivated reasons during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, [...]]]>
According to Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, the spokesperson for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team (2003-2005) and now a visiting scholar at Princeton University, an Iranian nuclear weapon “would provide only a short-term regional advantage that would turn into a longer-term vulnerability”.
Arrested for apparently politically motivated reasons during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, Mousavian has become an important source for many in Washington who want to gauge regime thinking.
Among Mousavian’s top 10 reasons for why Iran doesn’t want a bomb is the desire to avoid North Korea-level isolation and regime survival:
9. Deterrence: A major accusation levied against Iran is that once it acquires nuclear weapons, it will use it against the United States and Israel. This makes no rational sense, since any provocation by Iran against two states that possess thousands and hundreds of nuclear weapons respectively would result in Iran’s total annihilation. Iran has publicly acknowledged this fact.
As always, Mousavian concludes by listing the terms that Iran could agree to for a negotiated settlement over its nuclear program:
]]>Tehran would only accept a deal in which the P5+1 recognizes Iran’s legitimate rights of enrichment under the NPT and gradually lifts the sanctions. In return, to assuage Western worries, Iran would operationalize Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa banning nuclear arms, implement the Additional Protocol and the Subsidiary Arrangements (Code 3.1), and cooperate with the IAEA to resolve technical ambiguities and its worries about possible military dimensions. It would also export its enriched uranium stockpile beyond domestic consumption or convert it to fuel rods, cap enrichment at 5 percent, and establish a multilateral consortium for enrichment in Iran.
This package can guarantee Iran’s legitimate NPT rights of enrichment while ensuring that Iran will remain a non-nuclear-weapon state forever.