President Obama’s re-election last month raised hopes that the US government would at last be in a position, politically, to work with Iran towards a negotiated settlement centred on confidence-building and the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This was the basis of the understanding reached this April in Istanbul. It was therefore [...]]]> via Lobe Log

President Obama’s re-election last month raised hopes that the US government would at last be in a position, politically, to work with Iran towards a negotiated settlement centred on confidence-building and the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This was the basis of the understanding reached this April in Istanbul. It was therefore a little puzzling that during the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) Board of Governors meeting on 29 November, the US representative was once more engaging in a diplomacy of threats and ultimata.

The issue under discussion was the absence of progress in relation to clarifying concerns about past, but also possibly ongoing, Iranian activities of a non-peaceful nuclear nature, often referred to as a “possible military dimension” (PMD). The US representative asserted that Iran could not be allowed indefinitely to ignore “its obligations” and implied that in the event of a continuing absence of progress when the Board meets in March, the US will argue for Iran to be found in non-compliance with those obligations.

This raises two questions. To what extent is Iran in non-compliance with its IAEA obligations in failing to cooperate to resolve these concerns? And, is Iran likely to become more cooperative as a result of this threat?

It is widely accepted that Iran’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA entitles the agency secretariat to verify not only that all nuclear material declared by Iran remains in peaceful use, but also that such declarations are correct and (most importantly) complete.

Notably, paragraph 73 of the standard NPT safeguards agreement (to which Iran is subject) states that the IAEA may request a special inspection if it deems information made available by a state inadequate for the Agency to fulfil its official responsibilities.

So, insofar as Iran is failing to cooperate to resolve concerns which may reasonably imply the existence of undeclared nuclear material, there is a case for saying that Iran is in breach of its obligation to cooperate.

However, in this instance it’s questionable whether all the activities for which Iranian cooperation has been sought imply with adequate credibility the possibility of undeclared nuclear material. These activities were described in the annex to GOV/2011/65 of 8 November 2011 (the IAEA report used to build support for further sanctions at the turn of the year). A careful reading of that annex suggests that several of these activities, maybe even the majority of them, would not have involved nuclear material.

Of course it could be argued that PMD activities not involving nuclear material, such as missile warhead design work, can imply that at some future stage a state intends to acquire nuclear material which it does not intend to declare. That, however, seems a very tenuous basis on which to base an IAEA non-compliance finding. Moreover, it would also imply that all states that have engaged, even as a precautionary measure, in research into any aspect of the design or construction of nuclear devices should be found non-compliant.

So, my first conclusion is that if the US decides in March to accuse Iran of fresh non-compliance, it should take care to focus the accusation on activities that can reasonably be suspected of involving the use of nuclear material and are manifestly not the figment of some other state’s imagination.

However, to come to my second question, is proceeding in that way likely to be productive? The experience of the last seven years suggests not. Each time the West has resorted to punitive or coercive measures to influence Iranian behaviour, the results have been either unproductive or, worse, counterproductive. Iran was far more cooperative when, between October 2003 and April 2005, a less aggressive diplomacy was used to influence Iran’s leaders.

Furthermore, for some time there have been hints that Iran’s failure to cooperate in resolving PMD concerns is not its last word. On the contrary, cooperation can be expected in return for Western flexibility on sanctions and certain assurances in the context of an overall settlement based on the provisions of a treaty to which Iran insists it’s committed to, the NPT.

Moreover, if Iranian suspicion of Western good faith is one of the greatest obstacles to achieving an agreement, then the priority in the coming months should be to overcome that suspicion. This will not be achieved by seeking yet again to unite the IAEA Board in a humiliating condemnation of Iran, least of all if the legal grounds for that condemnation are not watertight. On the contrary, securing a further IAEA non-compliance finding would be a rum way to go about convincing Iran’s Supreme Leader that the US should no longer be seen as the Great Satan.

If, nonetheless, the US persists on the non-compliance course and succeeds, what then? Will Russia and China allow Iran to be penalized in the absence of evidence that it has decided to make nuclear weapons and therefore constitutes a genuine threat to international peace and security? If they do, will Iran pay any more heed to such a resolution than it has to the five previous Chapter VII resolutions of dubious legitimacy?

It’s certainly desirable that light be shed on suspected research into nuclear warhead construction and delivery, especially if it involved or involves undeclared nuclear material. But at last US voters have created political space for the West to revert to less aggressive, less confrontational tactics. At last the West can afford to experiment with a more exploratory, empathetic approach. It would be a pity to squander that opportunity.

The Western members of the P5+1 are showing signs of serious intent, if re-election of President Barack Obama allows nuclear-related talks with Iran to resume in the next few months.

This ought to be cheering news for all who believe that this dispute can be resolved according to the provisions of [...]]]> via Lobe Log

The Western members of the P5+1 are showing signs of serious intent, if re-election of President Barack Obama allows nuclear-related talks with Iran to resume in the next few months.

This ought to be cheering news for all who believe that this dispute can be resolved according to the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), enhanced by some well-chosen, voluntary confidence-building measures.

Yet scepticism remains in order. Why? Several past opportunities to resolve the dispute through negotiation and confidence-building have been squandered. Two vital questions also remain imponderable: is Iran’s Supreme Leader really interested in a nuclear settlement, and will Israeli politicians resist the urge to exercise Israel’s formidable powers of influence in Western capitals to close down the political space for a negotiated outcome?

The Supreme Leader has not hidden his distrust of the United States and his aversion to the West’s “dual-track” approach. In August 2010, for instance, he is reported to have said: “We have rejected negotiations with the US for clear reasons. Engaging in negotiations under threats and pressure is not in fact negotiating.” And at Friday Prayers on 3 February 2012 he said:

We should not fall for the smile on the face of the enemy. We have had experience of them over the last 30 years… We should not be cheated by their false promises and words; they break their promises very easily. They feel no shame. They simply utter lies.

Does he, in addition, calculate that a nuclear settlement would not be in the interest of the Islamic Republic, even if the terms were fair and consistent with the NPT?

I have come across people who believe that this is the case. They argue that Iran’s leaders need the nuclear dispute to prevent a thaw in relations with the US which might bring about unwelcome social change; to mobilise popular support for the Islamic Republic; to distract attention from political repression, human rights abuses and the corrupt practices of an elite; and to excuse economic mismanagement.

I have no evidence for saying that this view is mistaken. If, however, I try to look at the issue “from the other side of the hill”, it seems to me that the Supreme Leader could afford to give up the nuclear dispute as a domestic political instrument; he would still be left with several other ways of arousing indignation against the West and of avoiding a thaw in relations with the US. And in cost/benefit terms, the gain from a nuclear settlement — if it results in the lifting of all nuclear-related sanctions —  looks to me enticing.

On the other side of the equation, we are all familiar with the arguments Israel’s leaders will deploy if they do not want a nuclear settlement. They will claim that an Iranian enrichment capacity, though not outlawed by the NPT, and even if subject to international inspection, represents a threat to Israel’s survival.  They will remind us that Iran is the world’s “leading sponsor of terror”, even though many of us know that the process which leads to a state being branded a “sponsor of terror” is highly political and highly partial. They will assert that continuing uranium enrichment in Iran will compel Saudi Arabia and Turkey to violate their NPT obligations and become nuclear-armed. They will point to Iran’s lamentable human rights record.

We are also familiar with their motives: to convince the US that Iran remains a threat to US interests in the Middle East, against which an indispensible ally, Israel, is a necessity (cf. Trita Parsi’s A Single Roll of the Dice); to justify an absence of progress in the Middle East peace process; to distract attention from their lack of interest in a Middle East free of Israel’s nuclear weapons; and to create common ground with Gulf monarchs who fear and loath Iran.

Until now Israel’s political harvest from keeping the Iran Nuclear pot at simmering temperature has been rich (I hope I can be forgiven a mixed metaphor). So it is hard to imagine that Israeli politicians will abstain from applying pressure on the West in 2013, if Iran fails to do their job for them by aborting renewed negotiations, and if things appear to be heading towards a settlement.

Yet the story could have another ending. Perhaps this time Western politicians will recall their primary responsibility: the welfare of those who elect them. Safeguarded Iranian nuclear activities pose no threat to the security of these voters. These voters are paying a price for the imposition on Iran of oil and other trading and investment sanctions. And a war on Iran, inevitable in the absence of a negotiated settlement, would entail risks to Western living standards, as well as to Western lives.

But enough! These musings will seem the stuff that dreams are made of if Governor Romney is elected and some of his neoconservative advisers are let loose on Iran policy.

- Peter Jenkins was a British career diplomat for 33 years. He specialized in global economic and security issues. His last assignment (2001-06) was that of UK Ambassador to the IAEA and UN (Vienna).

It’s not easy for a European observer of US politics to understand why the US Congress seems so much more concerned by Iran’s nuclear activities than by those of North Korea (the DPRK). Congressional pressure on the White House to put a stop to Iranian activities seems never-ending and Congressional majorities [...]]]> via Lobe Log

It’s not easy for a European observer of US politics to understand why the US Congress seems so much more concerned by Iran’s nuclear activities than by those of North Korea (the DPRK). Congressional pressure on the White House to put a stop to Iranian activities seems never-ending and Congressional majorities for anti-Iranian resolutions are staggering. In comparison, when did Congress last pass a resolution requiring the administration to take action against the DPRK?

On the face of it, this makes little sense. To a European, North Korea looks to be a greater and more actual threat to US interests than Iran.

North Korea is sitting atop enough plutonium for perhaps a dozen nuclear weapons. Two underground nuclear tests have shown that the North Koreans are able to put together nuclear devices, though experts surmise that these are still somewhat rudimentary.

North Korea has also acquired the capacity to enrich uranium. Western experts have seen a relatively small enrichment plant at the main DPRK nuclear research centre. There has been speculation that there exists a larger plant deep within the mountains in the North of the country.

Iran has no plutonium. Iran possesses enough low-enriched uranium for half a dozen nuclear weapons but has so far shown no sign of wanting to enrich this material to the 90% level required for weapons. The Iranians are not suspected of having conducted nuclear tests; they may not be capable of assembling a workable nuclear explosive device.

North Korea expelled the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the end of 2002, and has only allowed them back in for a brief period since. Over the last ten years no state has received as many IAEA inspections as Iran, whose two enrichment plants were declared to the IAEA before they started to operate.

North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in early 2003, having failed to correct the nuclear safeguards non-compliance declared by the IAEA in 1993. Iran corrected its pre-2004 safeguards failures within two years of their discovery; it expressed regret over these transgressions; and ever since it has affirmed the fullest of commitments to the NPT, to which it became a party fifteen years before the DPRK.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons are viewed as a threat by two of the US’s most valuable allies: Japan and South Korea (the ROK). These two allies are crucial to the US’s defence of its strategic interests in the Western Pacific. In the event of hostilities between the US and China (heaven forefend!) Japan would offer the US vital staging facilities, akin to those the US would have enjoyed in the UK if the US needed to go to war on the European mainland.

US strategic interests in South West Asia are on the wane. The US is now self-sufficient in natural gas and imports less than 12% of the crude oil it consumes from the Gulf; it could quite easily switch to African and American suppliers if Saudi and Iraqi supplies were threatened. Over the last decade the risk of Iraqi transfers of WMDs to Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda acquisition of safe havens in the Middle East has been eliminated (albeit at a price!).

Since the end of the Cold War, over twenty years ago, no single power has been capable of challenging US influence in South West Asia, whereas China is increasingly seen in the US as an emerging challenger to the US in East Asia.

When it comes to making belligerent noises, Iran’s leaders can’t hold a candle to those of North Korea. And the average alienist would surely find it easier to treat the former than the latter.

In 2011 US merchandise exports to the Far East were worth $286 billion and imports $718 billion. Comparable figures for South West Asia, including Turkey and Israel, were $71 billion and $108 billion. Far Eastern investors supply the US with a far larger percentage of external credit than do Middle Eastern investors. Far Eastern corporations are major employers and tax-payers in the United States.

All of these very basic facts must be familiar to Congressional staffers, if not to members of Congress. So how can one explain the disproportionate attention that Congress pays to Iran’s nuclear activities?

I have a theory. But I think it would be more appropriate for me to leave readers to come up with their own answers. I suspect that most will be honest enough to admit to themselves that they have a pretty shrewd idea as well.

Although the place and time of the next round of talks on Iran’s nuclear programme have not yet been announced, the manoeuvring by Iran and the United States to influence the outcome has already begun.

Iran sought support for a revised proposal to the talks during the United Nations General [...]]]> via IPS News

Although the place and time of the next round of talks on Iran’s nuclear programme have not yet been announced, the manoeuvring by Iran and the United States to influence the outcome has already begun.

Iran sought support for a revised proposal to the talks during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) last month, according to a New York Times report Oct. 4. Then, only a few days later, the Barack Obama administration launched a preemptive attack on the proposal through New York Times reporter David Sanger.

The officials suggested the Iranian proposal would give Iran an easier route to a “breakout” to weapons grade uranium enrichment. But that claim flies in the face of some obvious realities.

Obama administration officials complained that, under the Iranian plan, Iran would carry out a “suspension” of 20-percent enrichment only after oil sanctions have been lifted and oil revenues are flowing again.

That description of the proposal is consistent with an Iranian “five-step plan”, presented during the talks with P5+1, the text of which was published by Arms Control Today last summer. In that proposal, the P5+1 would have ended all sanctions against Iran in steps one and two, but Iran would have ended its 20-percent enrichment only in the fifth step.

In that same final step, however, Iran also would have closed down the Fordow enrichment plant and transferred its entire stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium to “a third country under IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) custody”.

Iran has made clear that it intends to use the 20-percent enrichment as bargaining leverage to achieve an end to the most damaging economic sanctions.

Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, the spokesperson for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team from 2003 to 2005 and now a visiting scholar at Princeton University, told IPS, “Iran is prepared to stop 20-percent enrichment and go below five percent. The question is what will the P5+1 provide in return. As long as the end state of a comprehensive agreement is not clear for Iran, it will not consider halting enrichment at 20 percent.”

But the administration’s portrayal of the Iranian proposal as offering a sanctions-free path to continued 20-percent enrichment is highly misleading, according to close observers of the Iran nuclear issue. It also ignores elements of the proposal that would minimise the risk of a “breakout” to enrichment of uranium to weapons grade levels.

The Obama administration criticism of the proposal, as reported by Sanger, was couched in such a way as to justify the U.S. refusal to discuss lifting the sanctions on Iranian oil exports during the four rounds of talks with Iran. A senior administration official was quoted as saying that Iran “could restart the program in a nanosecond,” whereas “it would take years” to re-impose the sanctions.

Paul Pillar, national intelligence officer for Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, noted in a commentary in The National Interest that it is “far easier to impose sanctions on Iran than to lift them” and that if Iran reneged on a nuclear agreement, “it would be easier still.”

Peter Jenkins, British permanent representative to the IAEA from 2001 to 2006, noted in an e-mail to IPS that it took the EU only two months to agree to impose oil sanctions, and that “political resistance among the 27 (EU member states) to imposing oil sanctions would probably be less if re-imposition were required by an Iranian breach of a deal with the P5+1.”

Jenkins pointed out that EU oil purchases from Iran now have experience in getting supplies from other countries which could make re-imposing sanctions even easier.

One U.S. official was quoted by Sanger as complaining that the Iranian proposal would allow Iran to “move the fuel around, and it stays in the country”. That description appeared to hint that the purpose is to give Tehran the option of a breakout to weapons grade enrichment.

But the biggest difference between the proposal now being discussed by Iranian diplomats and the one offered last summer is that the new proposal reflects the reality that Iran began last spring to convert 20-percent enriched uranium into U308 in powdered form for fuel plates for its Tehran Research Reactor.

The conversion of 20 percent enriched uranium to U308, which was documented but not highlighted in the Aug. 30 IAEA report, makes it more difficult to use that same uranium for enrichment to weapons grade levels.

The new Iranian proposal evidently envisions U308 uranium remaining in the country for use by the Tehran Research Reactor rather than the entire stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium being shipped to another country as in its previous proposal.

Former State Department official Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, who has argued in the past that the only purpose Iran could have in enriching to 20 percent is a nuclear weapon, told the Times that the conversion “tends to confirm that there is civilian purpose in enriching to this level”.

But Fitzpatrick told the Times that the Iranians know how to reconvert the U308 powder back to a gaseous form that can then be used for weapons grade enrichment. “It would not take long to set it up,” Fitzpatrick said.

In an interview with IPS, Dr. Harold A. Feiveson, a senior research scientist at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson’s school and a specialist on nuclear weapons, said “it would not be super hard” to carry out such a reconversion.

But Feiveson admitted that he is not aware of anyone ever having done it. The reconversion to 20 percent enrichment “would be pretty visible” and “would take some time,” said Feiveson. “You would have to kick the (IAEA) inspectors out.”

Even Israeli policymakers have acknowledged that Iran’s diversion of 20-percent enriched uranium represents a step away from a breakout capability, as Haaretz reported Oct. 9.

Defence ministry sources told the Israeli daily that the Iran’s reduction of its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium had added “eight months at least” to what the Israeli government has cited as its “deadline” on Iran. The same sources said it was the justification for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dropping the threat of attack on Iran in his U.N. speech.

The deep reduction in Iranian oil revenues from sanctions and the recent plunge in the value of Iran’s currency may well have made Iran more interested in compromise than when the talks with the P5+1 started in April.

Mousavian told IPS, “I am convinced that Iran is ready for a package deal based on recognition of two principles.” The first principle, he said, is that “Iran recognises the P5+1 concerns and will remove all such concerns”; the second is that the P5+1 “recognises the rights of Iran and gradually lifts sanctions”.

But Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has expressed serious doubts about whether the Obama administration is willing to end the sanctions on Iran under any circumstances. In an Oct. 10 speech, Khamenei said the Americans “lie” in suggesting sanctions would be lifted in return for Iran giving up its nuclear program.

U.S. officials “make decisions out of grudge and aversion (toward Iran)”, Khamenei said.

Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.

John Bolton, Mark Wallace & Kristen Silverberg, Wall Street Journal: This week members of the via Lobe Log

Lobe Log publishes Hawks on Iran every Friday. Our posts highlight militaristic commentary and confrontational policy recommendations about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.

John Bolton, Mark Wallace & Kristen Silverberg, Wall Street Journal: This week members of the hawkish American Enterprise Institute and United Against Nuclear Iran were given the stage by the Wall Street Journal to advocate for further isolating Iran by barring it from the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. Curiously, the authors begin by claiming that “Many believe that only military force will stop Iran” without indicating who that “many” may be. In fact, Israeli officials are divided about the merits of attacking Iran. Meanwhile, hawks in the US who advocate for striking Iran are outnumbered by high-level current and former Western officials who maintain that diplomacy is the best tool for dealing with Iran. Facts aside, the authors argue that their recommendation, which is “one step short of force”, should be implemented because

Iran’s continued participation in the U.N. and the IMF affords it international legitimacy and platforms to advance its agenda—gutting economic sanctions, among them—and undermines important Western foreign-policy interests.

Michael Oren, Wall Street Journal: Israel’s ambassador to the US argues for imposing more “crippling sanctions” and a “credible military threat” against Iran:

At the same time, the president has affirmed Israel’s right “to defend itself, by itself, against any threat,” and “to make its own decision about what is required to meet its security needs.” Historically, Israel has exercised that right only after exhausting all reasonable diplomatic means. But as the repeated attempts to negotiate with Iran have demonstrated, neither diplomacy nor sanctions has removed the threat.

A combination of truly crippling sanctions and a credible military threat—a threat that the ayatollahs still do not believe today—may yet convince Iran to relinquish its nuclear dreams. But time is dwindling and, with each passing day, the lives of eight million Israelis grow increasingly imperiled. The window that opened 20 years ago is now almost shut.

Read a response to Oren’s article by British diplomat and former IAEA representative Peter Jenkins, here.

David Feith, Wall Street Journal: An assistant editorial features editor at the Journal tells Americans that their government is “misleading” them about Iran and implies that the US should align its “red line” on Iran (a nuclear weapon) with Israel’s line (nuclear weapon capability) while questioning the President’s resolve to attack Iran:

Would this president, so dedicated to multilateralism (except where targeting al Qaeda is concerned), launch a major military campaign against Iran even without Russian and Chinese support at the U.N.? Do Iran’s leaders think he would? Or have they noticed that American officials often repeat the “all-options-on-the-table” mantra as mere throat clearing before they list all the reasons why attacking Iran is a terrifying prospect?

Those reasons are plain to see. An attack could lead to a major loss of life, to regional war, to Iranians rallying around their regime, to global economic pain. And it could fail.

But the question that counts is whether these risks outweigh the risks of a nuclear-capable Iran. That’s a hard question for any democratic government and its citizens to grapple with. The Obama administration’s rhetorical snow job only makes it harder.

Feith’s line of reasoning will only seem curious to those who are unfamiliar with the Journal’s regularly hawkish editorial board pieces about Iran.

Mark Dubowitz, Foreign Policy: The executive director of the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who recently advocated for waging “economic warfare” against Iran (read a response here), warns institutions and individuals against doing business with Iran:

Would-be sanctions busters beware: Any and all profits derived from Iran’s lucrative energy sector are now officially illegal unless you have received a waiver from the Obama administration. Congress and the White House recently closed significant loopholes in Iran’s energy, finance, shipping, insurance, and nonproliferation-related sanctions. The bottom line: Anyone doing business with Iran is putting themselves and their businesses at risk.

While Dubowitz refers to himself as “humble” in his article, he is a self-styled Iran sanctions “expert” who has reportedly done much to shape the US’s Iran policy. Yet, after years of enthusiastically calling for crippling sanctions against Iran, Dubowitz still expresses doubts:

In the end, the success of the sanctions depends not on the sanctions busters, who may have little material impact on Iran’s ability to extend its economic day of reckoning, but rather on the one question that has yet to be answered about sanctions’ efficacy: whether the regime’s economic expiration date — when Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s cash hoard falls low enough to set off a massive economic panic — occurs before it has developed the capability to cross the threshold to a nuclear weapon.

To anyone trying to guess where this year’s re-engagement of Iran by the Obama administration is likely to lead, two things look clearer in the aftermath of the 18-19 June talks in Moscow.

First, the administration appears to have thought better of the idea of tolerating uranium enrichment, even at [...]]]> via Lobe Log

To anyone trying to guess where this year’s re-engagement of Iran by the Obama administration is likely to lead, two things look clearer in the aftermath of the 18-19 June talks in Moscow.

First, the administration appears to have thought better of the idea of tolerating uranium enrichment, even at low levels, in Iran. The distinction President Obama drew earlier in the year between opposing the development of nuclear weapons (his position) and opposing the development of a nuclear weapons capability (the Israeli position), and the signal implied when the President authorised a resumption of talks with Iran even though Iran had failed to commit to suspending its enrichment activities–hitherto a pre-condition for such talks–have turned out to be misleading.

In Moscow, the US and its EU allies once more placed emphasis on the suspension of enrichment (a so-called “international obligation” which Iran must implement fully to secure a deal) and they declined to give Iran the assurance it wants that these talks will eventually result in the West tolerating enrichment.

Without that assurance Iran is unwilling to embark on the process of concession-making that is diplomatically termed “confidence-building”. Iran believes that it has a treaty right to master the nuclear fuel cycle provided it submits all nuclear material in its possession to International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) inspection. It also considers the UN Security Council resolutions that the West has sponsored to override that treaty right to be illegal.  (The resolutions are certainly not a proportionate response to Iran’s IAEA safeguards non-compliance.)

Second, neither the US nor its EU allies seem inclined to purchase Iranian confidence-building by granting Iran the other thing (apart from “recognition” of its Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) rights) that it craves: some measure of relief from the sanctions introduced by the US and EU (without UN authorisation) in the course of the past winter. Instead the West has sought to obtain concessions by offering what look like baubles for Iran’s negotiators.

On the face of it, therefore, re-engagement has been a failure. It has not sparked the give-and-take, the reciprocity that characterises almost all successful negotiations. It may have contributed to a pre-electorally useful drop in gas prices, but that drop is more likely due to a weakening global economic outlook. It has failed to deliver the Iranian capitulation that would complicate life for proponents of another war in the Gulf or regime change in Iran.

There is, however, an important difference between the 2009 version of engagement and the 2012 version. This time around neither side, it seems, is in a hurry to declare the process dead.

That this should be the case for the US and its allies is hardly surprising. In an electoral year the administration has every interest in heeding the American public’s preference for what Winston Churchill called “jaw-jaw” over “war-war”. And if diplomacy can contribute to lowering the cost of gas and make it harder for Israel to justify an aerial strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, so much the better.

What’s less obvious is what motivates Iran to help spin out talks that are going nowhere.

Iran does have an interest, of course, in making it harder for Israel to justify a strike. But Iran has never taken such Israeli threats very seriously and the opposition to a strike voiced by Israeli intelligence and military professionals earlier this year will have reinforced that inclination.

Iran has no interest in lower oil prices. But perhaps it reasons that bringing the Istanbul process to an end would not have much of an effect on prices, given the worsening economic outlook and the expansion of oil production under way in Gulf States allied to the US.

Perhaps, then, the answer is that Iran’s leaders are hoping that President Obama will be re-elected and that he will award them for their cooperation in keeping the show on the road until November by softening, early in his second term, the US position on enrichment and sanctions.

If so, will they be disappointed? At any time tolerating enrichment and removing or relieving sanctions will be politically costly for whoever occupies the White House, so widespread is Congress’ animosity towards Iran. The line of least resistance for an Obama II administration would be to back the judgement of those who claim that Iran will eventually capitulate under the weight of sanctions.

But it is not impossible that the President and his closest advisers have realised that a negotiated solution tends to be more durable than a solution imposed on a prostrate foe. That, after all, is a lesson that can be drawn from 19^th and 20^th century European history and from the 1783 Treaty of Paris between the US and Great Britain. Machiavelli once wrote: ”I believe that forced agreements will be kept neither by a prince nor by a republic”.

It’s unclear what “a broader proposal” would look like but the implication that it would be “accompanied by a military threat” is cause for foreboding. How much time has to pass before some in [...]]]> Laura Rozen’s article “US Mulls Seeking Broader Deal In Nuclear Talks With Iran” is extremely interesting but also worrying.

It’s unclear what “a broader proposal” would look like but the implication that it would be “accompanied by a military threat” is cause for foreboding. How much time has to pass before some in the West understand that sticks don’t work with Iranians, who are not donkeys. Our Western addiction to coercion reminds me of what Talleyrand said about the Bourbons after the Restoration: “They learnt nothing and they forgot nothing”. In any case isn’t it a little early to be “doubting the viability of an incremental deal” and changing track? It’s only two months since the United States agreed, in Istanbul, to a “step-by-step” negotiation based on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the principle of reciprocity. Does the US so easily go back on its word? God help the rest of the world, if so.

Some of us are not surprised that the Baghdad offer was unattractive to Iran. It would not have attracted us had we been representing Iran. Instead of offering some of the sanctions relief of which Iran is in sore need, the West offered no additional sanctions–and this in return for one of Iran’s strongest negotiating assets: the 20% enrichment activity at Fordow. It was rather like a mugger saying to a victim:” Hand over your wallet and I promise to stop kicking you.”

Incidentally, the “reversibility” of a freeze at Fordow would be no greater than the “reversibility” of a Western promise to abstain from further sanctions, or even to freeze the implementation of sanctions not yet in force.

US frustration over Iranian refusal to meet bilaterally is understandable. But Iran’s position is not incomprehensible. The Supreme Leader has made very clear that he has no confidence in the US. “[Americans] break their promises very easily. they feel no shame…they simply utter lies.” The trust deficit is not one-sided. Mutual confidence-building is required.

Surely the right call at this point is not to tear up the script and start afresh, but to try to come up with a better package of incentives and to set up a mechanism that permits intensive negotiation?

And wouldn’t it be sensible to turn a deaf ear to Israel? Israeli Ministers have made clear that they do not want this negotiation to succeed, because they know that a condition for success is recognition of Iran’s rights under the NPT (a treaty to which Israel has not seen fit to become a party). Israel’s refusal to join the NPT as a Non-Nuclear-Weapon State has created a big political problem for all in the West who regard the NPT as a more effective bulwark against nuclear proliferation than all the tricky wheezes of the “counter-proliferation” gang, and ought to vitiate Israel’s moral right to pronounce on nuclear non-proliferation issues.

Recent news out of Israel prompts me to write briefly about a recent experience.

Three weeks ago I was asked to serve as an adviser to the participants in a dispute-resolution exercise at a British academy. The focus of the exercise was Iran’s uranium enrichment programme. The participants were divided into four teams: Iran, [...]]]> By Peter Jenkins

Recent news out of Israel prompts me to write briefly about a recent experience.

Three weeks ago I was asked to serve as an adviser to the participants in a dispute-resolution exercise at a British academy. The focus of the exercise was Iran’s uranium enrichment programme. The participants were divided into four teams: Iran, Gulf Arab states, Israel, and the West.

After various alarums and excursions that took the participants to the brink of a war in the Gulf, the Israelis decided that they should talk to the Iranians. A “high-level Norwegian diplomat” was conjured up to convey a request for talks to Tehran. The Iranian team was unready to engage directly but was content for the Norwegian to shuttle back and forth as an intermediary.

When time ran out, Iran and Israel were on the verge of agreeing to cease demonising each other; to refrain from interfering in each other’s affairs; to desist from covert operations against each other; and to accept each other’s nuclear and missile assets in return for some kind of no-first-use assurance. In short, they were heading towards a mutually acceptable modus vivendi. This seemed likely to lower tensions in the region and reduce the likelihood of a war that might end up costing many lives and affecting the living standards of billions.

The Western team was relieved by this development and hastened to settle the enrichment dispute by concluding an NPT deal with Iran. The Arab group had decided early on that their over-riding interest was to avoid the outbreak of conflict in the Gulf. They had set out to strengthen their relations with Iran and to build bridges between Iran and the West—even at one early point between Iran and Israel, albeit unsuccessfully. So they had no difficulty with an NPT deal, recognising that the most likely alternative to a negotiated settlement of the nuclear dispute is conflict, sooner or later.

I am not pretending this scenario can be transposed to the real world. All the participants in this exercise were British. Their understanding of relevant historical and cultural factors was limited. Their emotions were hardly in play, not enough, at any rate, to impact on their reasoning. And yet….

Israel’s defence and intelligence professionals seem to have come to the same position as their US counterparts. They not only believe it would be hard to destroy all Iran’s nuclear assets from the air; they also doubt whether this is necessary in the absence of evidence that Iran is bent on making nuclear weapons. (In the absence of such evidence there is no chance the UN Security Council would authorise an attack; so the use of force would also be a violation of international law.)

These professional assessments make it logical to cease threatening Iran with damage and destruction unless it abandons an activity, uranium enrichment, which is permissible under the NPT. They make it logical, instead, to focus on minimising the risk that Iran’s leaders will decide to use enrichment capability for military purposes.  Hyping the Iranian “threat”, conducting covert operations that include the assassination of innocent scientists, imposing pressure on the West to wage economic war against Iran, and repeated threats to use force are not risk-minimising policies. Arriving at some sort of mutual non-aggression understanding is.

Risk-minimisation would of course be a momentous inflection for Israel’s politicians.  Since 1992 they have been playing up Iran as a threat to Western states, as well as the survival and security of Israel, and they have been pressing the West to hurt Iran economically. It is a clever policy that has brought significant political advantages.

Perhaps, though, a point has been reached at which the risks are starting to outweigh the gains. By dint of threatening to attack Iran unless the West tightens its grip on the Iranian economy, Israel is starting to affect global living standards through higher oil prices, and Israel is pushing the world towards a war that could cripple the global economy through energy shortages. North Americans may be ready to forgive Israel for hiking the price of gas and reducing their living standards; Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans may be more resentful.

So the moral courage and integrity of Israel’s defence and intelligence professionals deserve a cheer. They are implying that there is no justification, whether from a realistic threat perspective or under international law, for attacking Iran economically or militarily. Can one hope that Israel’s politicians can now work up similar courage and integrity and recognise two things?

First, that Israel’s long-term interest as a member of a global community lie in abandoning a twenty-year policy that is starting to have unintended consequences, modest at this point but potentially grave: damage to the global economy and living standards everywhere.

Second, that Israel can hope to trade both the abandonment of that policy and acquiescence in an NPT deal between Iran and the West for a non-aggression understanding with Iran, enhancing the security of Israeli citizens.

In short, it’s time Israeli politicians went looking for a “high-level Norwegian diplomat”.

– Peter Jenkins was the UK’s Permanent Representative to the IAEA for 2001-06 and is now a partner in ADRg Ambassadors. View an archive of Peter’s Lobe Log contributions here.

By Peter Jenkins

Joby Warrick and Greg Miller reported in the Washington Post on 8 April that White House officials are confident that Iran is not engaged in making nuclear weapons.

To those who follow closely the Iranian nuclear controversy this came as no surprise: it’s what the Director of National Intelligence has [...]]]>

By Peter Jenkins

Joby Warrick and Greg Miller reported in the Washington Post on 8 April that White House officials are confident that Iran is not engaged in making nuclear weapons.

To those who follow closely the Iranian nuclear controversy this came as no surprise: it’s what the Director of National Intelligence has been saying since late 2007. What struck was that the administration is now spreading this good news. Only a few months ago it was leading the American public to believe that the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) had found proof of an Iranian nuclear weapons program (which it hadn’t).

The contrast is stark, and encouraging for those who think that war with Iran to destroy its uranium enrichment plants would be a disaster. It suggests the administration has understood that negotiating a deal based on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is now the West’s wisest option, and that the upcoming talks in Istanbul offer an opportunity to launch a negotiation. An NPT deal would allow Iran to pursue a peaceful nuclear program unmolested, in return for its offering the best possible guarantees that all its nuclear material will remain in non-military use.

So for the first time in more than two years there can be hope that this ongoing conflict will have a peaceful outcome.

The timing looks good. Last month’s parliamentary elections have left Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stronger politically than at any time since 1989. His power is comparable to that of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in August 1980 when he authorised the opening of negotiations for the release of the US embassy hostages.

Even though the Iranians have shown no sign of buckling under the pressure of ever tighter sanctions and know that the West’s military option is deeply unattractive to any of sane mind, the West has good cards in its hand. Sanctions are hurting Iran and Iran has an interest in getting them lifted, provided the price is right.

It’s now become apparent that the closure of one of Iran’s two enrichment plants, the small underground facility at Fordo, will be a Western objective. If it’s a pre-condition for moving beyond initial talks into a negotiation, as suspension of all enrichment has sometimes been, the game will soon be over. If it’s left for discussion at a much later stage, Iran will jib at closure, but perhaps some alternative to closure can be found: a permanent on-site IAEA inspector presence, for instance.

The West will also be targeting Iran’s small stock of 20% enriched uranium, according to David Sanger and Steven Erlanger in the New York Times (8 April). This looks less likely to raise Iranian hackles than plant closures. But Iran will be looking for assurances of access to the stock to produce fuel plates for the US-supplied Tehran Research Reactor.

Capping future enriched uranium production at below 5% is also likely to be negotiable, provided Iran is allowed to feel confident that the West will meet any future needs for 20% fuel without fuss.

So if the parties can find some way of moving beyond opening positions into a search for ways of giving expression to common interests, a negotiated outcome looks feasible.

That said, the scope for a negotiation to founder on cultural misunderstandings, negative prejudices born of past clashes, political in-fighting, and the interests of the West’s Middle East “allies” cannot be discounted.

In 2007, a promising opening evaporated when Iran’s chief negotiator clashed with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was the President’s turn to be thwarted by domestic rivals in 2009. Then, in 2010, the timing of Iranian assent to a confidence-building proposal brokered by Turkey and Brazil cast doubt in Western minds about Iran’s sincerity.

The US negotiators must guard against a tendency to blind self-righteousness where international obligations are concerned. Although the US approach to international law has often been selective, Americans tend to treat non-Americans as miscreants when the latter err. It would be counterproductive to make Iran’s negotiators, who crave mutual respect and equality, feel like criminal suspects engaged in plea-bargaining.

However, the greatest threat to a successful outcome is likely to come from Middle East “allies”.

Since 1992, both leading Israeli parties have strived to convince Washington of Israel’s value to the US as an ally in a post-Cold War Middle East. For these Israelis, Iran’s nuclear programme has been manna from heaven—just what’s needed to persuade Americans that Iran is an evil state bent on destroying Israel, and that Iran’s programme, if left unchecked, will precipitate nuclear proliferation in an unstable region.

US neoconservatives, in thrall to dreams of reshaping the Middle East, have provided a ready echo chamber for these (highly questionable) propositions. These constituencies, Israeli and American, have no interest in the normalisation of the Iranian nuclear case through an NPT deal.

Meanwhile Saudi Arabia, though it appears to have refrained from poisoning the wells of American opinion, has been implying that it will ignore its NPT obligations if Iran is allowed to enjoy nuclear technology that the Saudis themselves are decades away from mastering. So any prospective deal that leaves Iran in possession of enrichment plants may well provoke Saudi protests.

Will President Obama be strong enough to resist pressure from these quarters? Has the administration understood that Iran’s nuclear programme is a symbol of a geostrategic shift–Iran is slowly returning to the ranks of Asia’s greater powers–and that wisdom lies in accommodating a shift that can only be prevented at the cost of hardship to much of mankind? Time will tell.

– Peter Jenkins was the UK’s Permanent Representative to the IAEA for 2001-06 and is now a partner in ADRg Ambassadors.