by Jim Lobe
Since Obama’s announcement last week that he will normalize relations with Cuba, a number of commentators have analyzed what impact this might have on US-Iranian ties, particularly with respect to the ongoing negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
Aside from neoconservatives, such as Elliott Abrams, and other hawks, like Lindsey Graham and John McCain—who predictably deplored the move and worried that Obama’s move portends US surrender at the negotiating table—the Wilson Center’s Aaron David Miller was one of the first to do a more thoughtful analysis of what it might mean for Iran policy. In his post, entitled “After Cuba Comes Iran,” Miller argued that, despite the key differences between the two countries, Obama’s decision to normalize ties with Havana “should be a clear sign of where he might like to go with Iran on the nuclear issue in coming months.”
Paul Pillar, a regular contributor to the National Interest, also alluded to the possibility that the Cuba initiative, coupled with Obama’s more assertive policy shifts on immigration and climate change, could indeed indicate where Obama wants to go with Iran and expressed the hope that these moves will encourage him to inject into the US negotiating position the flexibility that will be needed to conclude an agreement.
In another important contribution published by Voice of America Tuesday, the Atlantic Council’s Iran expert, Barbara Slavin argued what I’ve been thinking (but hadn’t put pen to paper) for the past week:
For those in the Iranian government who are pushing for a long-term nuclear deal with Washington, seeing Obama use his presidential authority to relieve the embargo against Cuba despite the vocal objection of some in Congress should increase confidence that he can waive key nuclear-related sanctions against Iran in a similar fashion.
In my opinion, Obama’s willingness to make a bold foreign policy move that is certain to provoke heated opposition from not insignificant domestic constituencies (that are also overrepresented in Congress) 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.
I asked Farideh Farhi—whose analysis of internal Iranian politics and foreign policy is, as far as LobeLog (among many others) is concerned, the best available—about this Wednesday. She replied by email as follows:
I think Obama did himself a lot of good in changing the perception of him in Iran, as well as the rest of the world, as a weak and indecisive president. I think that perception just received a beating and will help those in Tehran who are making the case that Obama is serious and can deliver on substantial sanctions relief or that he is the best person to deal with (given the fact that he is relieved of election pressures). To be sure, all this will be focused on nuclear negotiations and not normalization of relations that developed in the Cuba situation, but if it happens, it will certainly be a breakthrough that may gradually open the path towards normalization.
Farideh pointed in particular to the official reaction by Iran’s Foreign Ministry to Obama’s Cuba announcement as offering some indication about how it was being interpreted in Tehran. That statement emphasized the president’s acknowledgment that more than 50 years of isolation and sanctions against Cuba had not worked and “I do not believe we can continue doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result.” Obama’s remarks about having learned “from hard-earned experience that countries are more likely to enjoy lasting transformation if their people are not subjected to chaos,” according to Farideh, were also likely to be seen favorably in Tehran as Obama’s repudiation of “regime change.” (Related points were made in another analysis, “If It’s True on Cuba, It’s True on Iran,” published in the Huffington Post by Trita Parsi and Ryan Costello shortly after Obama’s announcement.)
I would add that the fact that the Castro brothers, who have “resisted” Yanqui imperialism and “global arrogance” for even longer than Tehran, are now willing to establish a new relationship with their own “Great Satan” may also count for something in the internal debate that swirls around Ayatollah Khamenei’s office. If, after all, revolutionary Cuba is willing to turn the page with their historic nemesis—defiance of which has largely defined Cuba’s out-sized standing and status in the world—shouldn’t hardcore revolutionaries around Khamenei at least consider the idea, if not of normalisation (which appears out of the question for the moment), then at least moving with greater confidence toward some rapprochement?
That view is shared by Kenneth Katzman, the senior analyst of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Persian Gulf Affairs at the Congressional Research Service. “I think we should also not minimize how the Cuba rapprochement might play in the inner counsels in Tehran,” he said in an email. “Surely, Rouhani and Zarif can now go to the Supreme Leader and say ‘The Castro brothers are at least as distrustful of the United States as you are, and they were able to reach a deal with the United States. Why wouldn’t you do the same??”
Of course, opponents of Obama’s normalization of ties with Cuba will try to rally a Republican-led Congress behind their efforts to restrain Obama’s efforts by, among other measures, denying funding for an embassy, refusing to confirm a nominee as ambassador, and introducing legislation designed to constrain the president’s authority to waive or lift certain sanctions or further ease the trade embargo. And, if they succeed, particularly with respect to the sanctions issue, there’s no doubt that such action will be used by hard-liners in Tehran to argue that Obama lacks the power to follow through on any promises he makes about lifting sanctions and related concessions, in a nuclear deal.
But it’s pretty clear that Obama is determined to fight such actions, and it’s most unlikely that anti-Castro diehards like Marco Rubio and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen will be able to gather enough Democratic supporters to overcome a presidential veto. Indeed, given the strong support for Obama’s action from such quarters as the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Foreign Trade Council, and various agricultural lobby groups whose members are eager to significantly increase their exports to Cuba, normalization’s foes may find it more difficult than they anticipate to rally a large majority of Republicans behind them despite the party leadership’s determination to deny Obama any kind of foreign policy success.
At the same time, any serious effort by the anti-Castro forces on Capitol Hill will pose some difficult questions for key players on Iran, especially the Israel lobby and the various groups associated with it. The Cuba and Israel lobbies have worked closely together for decades—their common interests have converged perfectly in the persons of the outgoing chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former House Foreign Committee chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. And now is the moment when the Cuba lobby needs all the help it can get. Moreover, if the leadership of the Israel lobby believes that normalization with Cuba will make a nuclear deal and rapprochement with Iran substantially more likely, will it decide that this is a fight worth fighting? Of course, the leadership is not monolithic, especially on a question that, at least on the face of it, is so far removed from Israel itself, and it will be very difficult to mobilize all but the lobby’s most right-wing constituents behind preventing normalization with Cuba. But it will be fascinating to watch.
Photo: US President Barack Obama talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani of during a phone call in the Oval Office, Sept. 27, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
]]>Within a few days we will know whether President Obama’s efforts to negotiate an agreement with Iran over the latter’s nuclear power ambitions have proven successful or not and, if final compromises are not reached, whether the talks can be continued. The tens of thousands of words devoted to these efforts by negotiators over the last year have naturally focused on the details of an agreed protocol on the number of operating centrifuges in Iran and the pace of sanctions relief.
The president has invested much political capital into this endeavor and the failure to reach a final accord could end his aim of trying to alter the political and military balance of power in the Middle East. The effort has been so arduous and controversial that he has very carefully avoided a full explication of his strategic aims. The recent letter he reportedly sent to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—the full text of which has not been released—in which he is said to have suggested working together in battling Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria, might be the closest we could get to Obama’s reasoning.
The long freeze in US-Iranian affairs is softening but where that process is headed is yet to be determined. The election last year of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the delegation of authority to him of testing US intent by the supreme leader reflects not only the pressures of broad economic sanctions but also the slight easing of revolutionary strictures, as well as the shared concern by both countries that events were threatening to run out of control. The US policy of aligning with Israel and the Sunni monarchies has long required adjusting, and President Obama has taken on that initiative with Iran in mind.
Every area of the globe presents a complex mix of old and new frictions, serious and minor conflicts of interests, and the rise of new and challenging issues that further the sense of confusion and helplessness. More than anywhere else, the Middle East evades a clear US strategy or a broad domestic political consensus on clear, rational, and practical interests. In the Middle East the United States contends today with the consequences of its failure to bring democratic governments to old societies; the rise of well-armed militias based in part on extremist Islam; severe tensions between political and religious divisions within Islam; waves of anti-western and anti-American sentiment; the regional antagonism to the close US-Israeli relationship; and the regional efforts to adjust the political boundaries of a post-Ottoman world. American financial assistance to the Sunni militias from the Arab monarchies has meanwhile created a monster that defies our interests.
The Bush administration’s efforts to cope with new and old adversaries and challenges typically were military—the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Both have had, charitably, very limited success and have further distorted the political landscape. At the moment, there is no recognizable and acceptable balance of power, no consensus on limits of national rights and no regional institutions to cope with shared questions.
President Obama has recognized this hapless and dangerous condition and accordingly tried to adjust American policies in the region. He has tried to withdraw militarily from Iraq and Afghanistan while pursuing a more diplomatic posture, starting with the Israel-Palestine conflict. Until recently this year, he was also reluctant to engage militarily in Syria, having understood that the collapse of the country’s government would introduce an array of additional threats to regional peace.
Ending the 35-year-long cold war with Iran has also been a top priority in Obama’s vision of America’s future, but resolving fears, both regional and domestic, over Iran’s putative ambitions for nuclear weaponry has been the prerequisite. Beyond allaying fears of regional nuclear proliferation is the hope that over time, a new relationship will constitute a path to political realignments—a new direction for us and the nations of the area.
Of course, the president still has to contend with his predecessors legacy in Iraq. Following the withdrawal of US forces in 2011, Obama repeatedly said that there would be no more US boots on the ground in that country, yet nearly all his military officers have been quoted saying that without ground forces, air power will be insufficient in thwarting the new militant force of Islamic State (ISIS or IS). If not us, then who? Turkey, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt? Wishful thinking; they are hardly equipped for the job.
Iraq, of course, has its own vision and demands. What is necessary is the very ephemeral realization of greater cooperation and coordination of those who recognize a common threat to their well being—if not their existence. Like it or not, Iran can play a significant part in the attempts to defeat IS and find an acceptable solution for Syria, which is currently the most affected by the rise of Islamic militancy.
Quarantining Syria makes little sense; it’s domestic politics may be loathsome but its leaders are not causing American casualties and losses. It may be time for a realistic debate over the role of Syria in its own defense and the struggles against IS and the other extremist forces ravaging the country.
Unfortunately, nothing is easy in the Middle East, and such initiatives will also continue to meet the strong opposition of American conservatives who do not trust Iran and are subject to lobbying pressure from Israel, the Sunni Arab states and Turkey. In this light, the reach for a greater rationality may simply prove impossible.
]]>by Jahandad Memarian
According to a recent special report on Iran in The Economist: “The revolution is over.” The article concludes by suggesting that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s approach to the country’s controversial nuclear program and international relations is a departure from that of his predecessors. While the piece makes several noteworthy points, it fails to mention some important nuances of Iran’s foreign policy paradigm shift, a movement three decades in the making.
Ruhi Ramazani, a veteran scholar on Iranian affairs, has long demonstrated that since Iran’s 1979 revolution, the country’s foreign policy-makers have broken away from a doggedly spiritual paradigm in varying degrees, at times acting directly in opposition to long-held religious, moral, and ideological values. Indeed, the intervening years since the Iranian Revolution have facilitated an evolution of the country’s foreign policy, which has culminated as a hybrid political construct framed by both pragmatism and spirituality, as Ramazani asserts in his book, Independence Without Freedom.
The leader of Iran’s revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, a super-idealist, led the charge toward a more aspirational foreign policy paradigm based on ideals rooted in what Ramazani describes as spiritual pragmatism. To achieve this, Khomeini, at times, allowed deviations from “his ideological line” (Khatti Imam) and adjusted his worldview in response to social and political circumstances. Whether in regard to declaratory or practical policies, no one altered Khomeini’s line more than Khomeini himself.
For example, after the 1979 American hostage crisis in in Tehran, which began the era of ever-increasing US sanctions on Iran, Khomeini declared, “We must become isolated in order to become independent.” Yet following the release of the hostages in 1981 and the liberation of the Iranian port city of Khorramshahr from Iraqi forces in 1982, Khomeini saw his power consolidated at home and turned the lens on his ardent followers. He placed the blame for Iran’s “hermit” status on the international stage squarely on their shoulders. In one markedly critical accusation of his hard-line supporters, Khomeini even went so far as to cite the prophet Muhammad as an example of someone who sent out ambassadors to establish conciliatory relations with the outside world. To demand that Iran permanently cut ties with other countries made no sense, said Khomeini, because for Iran “it would mean defeat, annihilation, and being buried right to the end.”
Perhaps the most salient example of Khomeini’s pragmatism was Iran’s decision to secretly purchase arms, for its defensive war against Iraq (1980-88), from both the United States and Israel in what came to be known as the Iran-Contra Affair (1985-87). By striking a deal through intermediaries, American and Israeli military supplies were provided to Tehran in return for its cooperation and assistance in securing the release of Western hostages in Lebanon. In negotiating with his adversaries, Khomeini’s pragmatism proved he was focused on the bigger picture for Iran.
Many Iranian leaders have attempted following in Khomeini’s footsteps. Even president Sayyid Ali Khamenei, now the country’s Supreme Leader, adopted similar views under Iran’s “open door” foreign policy and declared, in the summer of 1986, that “Iran seeks a rational, sound, and healthy relations with all countries.”
What would these healthy relations look like for Iran? Consider the example of the high point in US-Iran relations that occurred during the two countries’ decision to cooperate in response to the war in Afghanistan. In late 2001, Iranian diplomats (and even some members of the Revolutionary Guard) domestically lobbied for working with the United States to deliver the mutual benefit of toppling the Taliban and implementing a new political order in Afghanistan. Ayatollah Khamenei conceded and as a result Iran offered airbases, search-and-rescue missions for downed American pilots, the tracking and killing of al-Qaeda leaders, and assistance in building ties with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. But this warming in relations was short-lived. Not long after taking advantage of Iran’s assistance, then-President George W. Bush declared Iran as part of an “Axis of Evil,” thereby instantly destroying the tenuous goodwill the two discordant countries had been working to build.
In another example, during his first two terms, President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani pressed for military reconstruction and economic development as a means of emphasizing the country’s practical needs following the end of the Iran-Iraq war. During his time in office, Rafsanjani invited Conoco Oil, a US company, to bid for the Sirri oil field development project (the largest in Iran’s history at that time). With Khamenei’s approval, Rafsanjani worked to close the Conoco deal, understanding that this act would significantly increase economic relations between Iran and the United States. But not long after the $1 billion deal was awarded to Conoco, the Clinton administration blocked the contract as a “threat to national security.”
There are of course other events in the Islamic Republic’s history proving that from Ayatollah Khomeini to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, many Iranian leaders have genuinely attempted to—even in the face of powerful internal and external impediments—implement a hybrid paradigm, with each leader assigning different weights to practical and spiritual considerations. Considered with this history in mind, Rouhani’s efforts to facilitate compromises in regard to the Iran’s nuclear program are not, as The Economist suggests, a turning point in Iranian politics. They’re merely a continuation of an ongoing trend that should have been noticed by Western analysts long before now.
Jahandad Memarian is a research associate at the West Asia Council and a senior research fellow at Nonviolence International as well as a contributor to Al-Monitor and the Huffington Post. He holds an M.A. in Western Philosophy from the University of Tehran and was previously an Iranian Fulbright scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 2010-11. Prior to that, Mr. Memarian was a researcher at the Iranian Parliament Research Center and worked as a journalist for the Iranian news daily, Hamshahri.
]]>Yesterday, Gary Samore, president of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), published a column on the website of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) arguing that even if talks between the P5+1 and Iran collapse, “Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons in the near term is severely constrained by political and technical factors.”
But Samore seems not to have contacted his office with that sensible sounding message. “It’s time to come down like a ton of bricks on this regime,” Gabriel Pedreira, communications director of UANI, told The Algemeiner, a US Jewish news outlet, on the same day. “We want an economic blockade if real change doesn’t come about. We haven’t seen a single concession from the Iranians, nor has even one centrifuge been destroyed,” said Pedreira.
That’s not what Samore, Pedreira’s boss, wrote. “Despite the impasse over the scale and scope of Iran’s enrichment program, the negotiators have made progress on several other issues, such as converting the Fordow enrichment facility to a research and development facility and converting the Arak heavy water research reactor to produce less plutonium,” said Samore.
And as for Pedreira’s argument that an “economic blockade” would be helpful? Samore acknowledged that a new interim agreement, presumably to be considered if the P5+1 and Iran are unable to meet the November 24 deadline for a comprehensive agreement, would be “resisted by some in Iran” if it is perceived that “it gives away too much nuclear capability without getting enough sanctions relief in return.”
In other words, an “economic blockade,” as Pedreira puts it, would give Iran’s hardliners ammunition to oppose a new interim agreement, which might be exactly what UANI wants.
The organization expressed “disappointment” with the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action, complaining that the agreement “provides disproportionate sanctions relief to Iran,” and has consistently opposed rollback of sanctions as part of an interim deal.
Indeed, both Mark Wallace, UANI’s CEO, and UANI’s mysterious benefactor, billionaire Thomas Kaplan, have expressed more hardline views than Samore, who served in the Obama administration as the president’s Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction until last year.
But the divergence between Samore’s column, in which he is ID’d with his Belfer Center affiliation instead of UANI, and UANI’s contradictory statements the same day, raises questions about how much leadership Samore is offering to the organization and whether his role is more than purely ceremonial. Either way, Samore should probably phone his (UANI) office.
This article was published by The Nation on Sept. 30 and was reprinted here with permission. Copyright The Nation.
]]>Here’s a New Year’s resolution that participants in policy debate in Washington, and especially those in Congress, should make: be honest about your position on Iran. Say what you really want, and make your best arguments on behalf of what you [...]]]>
Here’s a New Year’s resolution that participants in policy debate in Washington, and especially those in Congress, should make: be honest about your position on Iran. Say what you really want, and make your best arguments on behalf of what you really want, and don’t pretend to be working in favor of what you really are working against. The main vehicle for debate about Iran once Congress reconvenes is a bill introduced by Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) that would threaten still more sanctions on Iran and purchasers of its oil, would impose unrealistic conditions to be met to avoid actually imposing the sanctions, and would explicitly give a green light to Israel to launch a war against Iran and to drag the United States into that war. As Colin Kahl has explained in detail, passage of this legislation would be very damaging to the process of negotiating a final agreement with Iran to keep its nuclear program peaceful.
The promoters of the legislation contend that its effect would be just the opposite, and would increase U.S. bargaining power and make it more likely Iran would make concessions we want. It is possible that some members of Congress who might be inclined to vote for this bill, and even some who have signed on as co-sponsors, actually believe that contention. They keep hearing, after all, the trope about how “sanctions brought Iran to the table” and that if some sanctions are a good thing than even more sanctions are an even better thing. But anyone who has thought seriously for more than a minute about this subject—as the chief promoters of the legislation surely have—realizes how fallacious that idea is. Whatever role sanctions may have had in getting Iran to the table, it is the prospect of getting sanctionsremoved, not having them forever increase, that will induce Iran, now that it is at the table, to complete an agreement placing severe restrictions on its nuclear program. It goes against all logic and psychology to think that right after Iran has made most of the concessions necessary to conclude the preliminary Joint Plan of Action, “rewarding” it with more pressure and more punishment would put Iranians in the mood to make still more concessions.
The people doing the negotiating for the United States oppose the legislation because of the damage it would do to the negotiations. Their view is highly significant, no matter how much one might agree or disagree with whatever specific terms the administration is trying to get. If the legislation really would strengthen the U.S. negotiating position, any U.S. negotiator would welcome it.
And if that weren’t enough, counterparts to Kirk and Menendez in the Iranian legislature are providing further evidence of the destructive effect of what is transpiring on Capitol Hill, with the Iranian legislators’ bill calling for Iran to start enriching uranium to a level well beyond what it has ever done before if the United States imposes any new sanctions. This is direct confirmation of how threats and hardline obstinacy, especially at this juncture, beget threats and hardline obstinacy from the other side. The Iranian bill also provides a real-life opportunity for some role reversal. Does this threat emanating from the majlis make U.S. policy-makers more inclined to take a softer line and make more concessions? Of course not.
Kirk and Menendez are not dummies. They surely realize all this. Their legislation serves the purpose of those who want the negotiations with Iran to fail, not to succeed. Chief among those with this purpose is, of course, the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made it abundantly clear that he opposes any agreement of any sort with Iran and will continue to do whatever he can to portray Iran as Satan incarnate and to keep it permanently ostracized. The principal organization in Washington that serves the policy of Netanyahu’s government—i.e., AIPAC—also has its own reason to hammer away forever at the Iranian bogeyman: it’s “good for business,” as a former senior AIPAC executive explained. It is no accident that Mark Kirk is easily the biggest Congressional recipient of AIPAC funds, and Robert Menendez is also among the top half dozen recipients.
Honesty would mean dispensing with the phony issue of whether more sanctions now would help negotiate a better agreement—since they clearly would not—and instead posing the real issue: whether it is in the interests of the United States for the negotiations with Iran to succeed or to fail. That issue can be debated according to several criteria. One concerns the objective of preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon: is that objective more obtainable through a negotiated agreement that imposes major new restrictions and intensified international monitoring on Iran’s nuclear program, or through continued confrontation that offers neither of those things? A second set of criteria concerns which path is more likely to avoid the danger of a new war—supplemented by discussion of the impact of a new war on U.S. interests. Another criterion concerns whether broader U.S. policy in the Middle East is better served by the United States having the flexibility to conduct its own diplomacy with anyone in the region on a case-by-case, issue-by-issue basis, or by being locked into hostility insisted on by third parties.
All of this should be debated from the standpoint of U.S. interests. Those with a special concern for Israel can also ask parallel questions, such as whether Israeli interests are better served by an unending relationship of hostility with another major state in the region, with threats and hatred being perpetually flung by each side at the other, or by following a different path.
Let such an honest debate begin. But an honest debate will barely get off the ground unless we discard the nonsense about how something like the Kirk-Menendez bill supposedly aids negotiations.
]]>by Jasmin Ramsey
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who worked with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani when Rouhani was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and who has been living in the US since 2009 following dubious charges of espionage during the Ahmadinejad administration has returned to Iran, reports the New York Times.
The ambassador [...]]]>
by Jasmin Ramsey
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who worked with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani when Rouhani was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and who has been living in the US since 2009 following dubious charges of espionage during the Ahmadinejad administration has returned to Iran, reports the New York Times.
The ambassador served as an unofficial spokesperson for the Iranian government during his stay in the US where he was a Princeton research scholar. His Dec. 19 participation in an Asia Society expert panel on the Geneva deal that included former top US diplomat Thomas Pickering and former US negotiator Robert Einhorn appears to be Mousavian’s last US public appearance.
When Rouhani was elected during Iran’s June presidential election, some wondered whether the ambassador would go back to Iran to work with the Rouhani administration. It’s not clear why he has chosen to return now — it could be that he has been called back, or that he simply feels it’s safe enough to go home now — but Mousavian said he has returned to Iran “to stay”, according to the Iranian Student News Agency.
I interviewed the ambassador at length in July 2013 following Rouhani’s election. Although Iran and world powers were at that time far from the interim agreement that was signed on Nov. 24 in Geneva, much of it seems relevant even now. Here’s an excerpt:
]]>Q: Your article for the Cairo Review, which was written more than a month before Mr. Rouhani’s election, has generated a lot of discussion over the suggestion that one of Iran’s options is withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Is Iran seriously considering this?
A: As I reiterated in the article published by the Cairo Review, the first and most favorable option for Iran is to continue seeking a peaceful resolution to the standoff. I explained the five major demands the P5+1 [U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany] made in recent nuclear talks to prevent Iran’s breakout capability and to ensure a maximum level of transparency. Iran, in return, had two major demands: lifting sanctions and recognizing Iran’s rights under the NPT. I have also proposed that the world powers and Iran place their demands within a package, to be implemented in a step-by-step manner with proportionate reciprocation.
Withdrawing from the NPT has never been Iran’s intention. The US and Israel have initiated “all options on the table”, leaving open the possibility of a military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. This policy goes against the UN charter, the NPT, and non-proliferation, where nuclear-armed states — the U.S. and Israel — are threatening to attack Iran, a non-nuclear weapon state. Therefore, as long as the U.S. policy of “all options on the table” remains valid, Iran as a sovereign state is forced to also have “all options on the table”.
After intense negotiations between Iran and world powers (chiefly among them the United States), November 24 saw a historic breakthrough. In a six-month interim agreement, Tehran has committed itself to a substantial freezing of its nuclear program in return for “modest relief” — according to US [...]]]>
After intense negotiations between Iran and world powers (chiefly among them the United States), November 24 saw a historic breakthrough. In a six-month interim agreement, Tehran has committed itself to a substantial freezing of its nuclear program in return for “modest relief” — according to US President Barack Obama — in sanctions. The agreement will be a first step towards achieving a comprehensive solution, with which the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program will be ensured while all sanctions against the country would be lifted.
There has been much speculation over the degree in which the decade-long transatlantic Iran strategy of coercive diplomacy was responsible for reaching this diplomatic victory. Was it the permanent threats of war or the increasingly crippling sanctions which, in the eyes of many Western observers, led Iran to “give in”?
Arguably, it rather was a shift away from that policy of threats and pressure, and towards serious diplomacy aiming at a reconciliation of interests (especially during the month of November), which rendered the deal possible. But yes, without any doubt the sanctions did have an impact.
The sanctions have severely deepened Iran’s economic malaise, considerably harmed a variety of social groups, while part of the power elite quite comfortably adjusted to the situation. Consequently, the power gap separating the state and (civil) society was even boosted.
Yet, the immense damage that sanctions have done to society does not bear much relevance for policy-makers. However, what has gone largely unnoticed by supporters of the sanctions policy is the realpolitik fact that, contrary to its stated goal, the escalation of sanctions was accompanied by an escalation in Iran’s nuclear program. When Obama entered the White House, there were not even 1,000 centrifuges spinning in Iran; today, the figure stands at almost 19,000.
The reason for this is that the West views sanctions through a cost-benefit lens, according to which it can only be a matter of time until the sanctioned party will give in. In contrast, Tehran sees sanctions as an illegitimate form of coercion, which ought to be resisted, for the alternative would be nothing less than capitulation.
Nonetheless, many commentators sardonically insist on praising the sanctions’ alleged effectiveness for aiding diplomacy. This is not only a sign of analytical myopia, but also constitutes the not-so-covert attempt to shed a positive light on the coercive diplomacy that was pursued so far.
In reality, Iran’s willingness to offer concessions is rooted within a wider context.
Firstly, Iran already demonstrated its readiness to compromise over the last three years [28], which the Obama administration did not dare to accept due to domestic political pressures (i.e., his re-election).
Secondly, and this is likely to have been crucial in achieving the agreement in Geneva, Iran’s current foreign policy is primarily not a result of pressure through sanctions. Instead, it is embedded within a specific foreign-policy school of thought which is characterized by realism and a policy of détente.
Notably, with Hassan Rouhani’s election, the “defensive realist” school of thought reasserted power, which had previously been ascendant during Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s and Mohammad Khatami’s administrations. Their prime objective was a policy of détente and rapprochement, especially with the West, but also with neighboring Arab states — specifically, Iran’s geopolitical adversary, Saudi Arabia.
In contrast to the “offensive realists” who took the lead under the Ahmadinejad administration, “defensive realists” do not view foreign policy as a zero-sum game but instead as an arena where win-win situations ought to be explored – especially with the United States. Another pivotal difference between these schools of thought is their estimation of US power.
While “offensive realists” see the superpower’s power-projection capabilities rapidly declining, the “defensive” camp rightly acknowledges that even a US in relative decline can inflict substantial damage on weaker countries like Iran. The historically unprecedented Iran sanctions regime is a prime illustration of the veracity of the latter view.
Ultimately, the nuclear agreement in its core has to be seen as a U.S.-Iranian one, which expresses the will of both sides to secure their interests in a rapidly changing regional landscape. To what extent this will affect Washington’s traditional regional allies in Tel Aviv and Riyadh will be highly interesting to watch.
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* Ali Fathollah-Nejad is a PhD candidate in international relations at both the University of Muenster in Germany and the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) at the University of London.
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[Note: A version of this article will be published in the next issue of the German Middle East journal, Inamo [29]. This article was translated from German into English by Manuel Langendorf [30].]
By Robert E. Hunter
The devil is in the details. This cliché is already being invoked regarding the deal concluded this past weekend between Iran and the so-called P5+1 – the permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, along with the European Union’s High Representative, Baroness Ashton.
Devil and details, [...]]]>
By Robert E. Hunter
The devil is in the details. This cliché is already being invoked regarding the deal concluded this past weekend between Iran and the so-called P5+1 – the permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, along with the European Union’s High Representative, Baroness Ashton.
Devil and details, yes; but if there is such a thing, the “angel” is in the “big picture,” the fact of the agreement itself – interim, certainly; flawed, perhaps; but a basic break with the past, come-what-may. It will now become much harder for Iran to get the bomb, even if it were hell-bent on doing so. The risk of war has plummeted. Israel is safer – along with the rest of the region and the world — even as Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu denies that fact.
This is the end of the Cold War with Iran, (accurately) defined as a state when it is not possible to distinguish between what is negotiable and what is not. Going back to that parlous state would require a major act of Iranian bad faith, perfidy, or aggression, not at all in its self-interest.
In the last few days, the Middle East has become different from what it was before. Indeed, that happened, if one needs to denote “moments of history,” when President Barack Obama picked up the phone to call Iran’s President, Hassan Rouhani, in the latter’s limousine on the way to Kennedy Airport.
Even that moment was months in the making. But psychologically it set in train a sequence of events that is causing an earthquake in the region. And like any good earthquake, the extent, the impact, and even the direction it travels will not be clear for some time. But one thing is clear: much is now different, and despite serious down-side risks, that can be positive if people in power will make it so. As said by John Kennedy, the 50th anniversary of whose assassination also came this past week, “Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man.”
The struggle with Iran has never been just about “the bomb.” Even putting aside the question whether Iran’s insistence on having a domestic nuclear energy program would ineluctably morph into a nuclear weapons capability (or threshold capability, a “screwdriver’s turn” away from a weapon), Iran has posed a problem for the Middle East, many of its neighbors, and outsiders in the West ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. That turned Iran from being a supporter of Western, especially American, interests – a so-called “regional influential” – to being a challenger of US hegemony, the more-or-less accepted predominance of Sunnis over Shiites in the heart of the Middle East, and the comfort level of close US partners among Arab oil-producing states and Israel. That all happened well before Iran’s nuclear program became an issue.
Led by the United States, countries challenged by the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution fostered a policy of containing Iran. It included diplomatic isolation, the introduction of economic sanctions, US support – some covert, some open – for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in its war against Iran, and US buttressing of the military security of its regional partners, along with the plentiful supply of Western armaments. There have also been widespread reports of external efforts to destabilize Iran, along with a US predilection, when not also a formal policy, for regime change in Iran, a goal which continues to have its adherents. For example, see here.
Why Iran has now decided to negotiate seriously about its nuclear program will be long debated and will be variously ascribed to swingeing economic sanctions that have increased pressures by average Iranians on their government to do what is needed to get them lifted; to progressive loss of popular support for the mullah-led regime and a “mellowing” of ideology – factors analogous to the crumbling of Soviet and East European communism two decades ago; and to the election of an Iranian president with an agenda different from his predecessor – blessed, one has to emphasize, by the Supreme Leader for reasons he has not revealed.
The current state of possibilities was helped immeasurably by a US administration that has itself been prepared to negotiate seriously, unlike its two predecessors, from the time a decade ago when Iran put a positive offer on the table that went unanswered – as Secretary of State John Kerry noted in early Sunday morning (Geneva time) commentary.
At heart, what has happened in the last two months is that Iran is now back “in play” in the region and is beginning the march toward resuming a role in the international community – slow perhaps, abortive perhaps, but for now pointed in that direction. Assuming that the issue of Iran’s nuclear program can be dealt with successfully – a big “assuming” — that is clearly in US interests. While it is much too soon to “count chickens,” that could lead toward renewed US-Iranian cooperation, tacit or explicit, over Afghanistan, where complementary interests led Iran to support the US overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001. The possibility of Iran’s potentially no longer being a pariah state could lead it to value stability in Iraq over the pursuit of major influence there, which itself is problematic, given historic tensions between the two countries that Shia co-fraternity between the leaderships in Baghdad and Teheran only partially obscures.
It is still a stretch, however, to see Iran’s working to reconcile with Israel (a quasi-ally before 1979), although Iran’s full reengagement in the outside world and especially in relations with the United States can never be completed without Iran’s reaching out to Israel (and vice versa), a feat far more difficult than the diplomacy that began to bear fruit last weekend in Geneva. And for Iran to change its posture toward Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon would require not just alteration of Iran’s ambitions but also changes in policies by other states and groups.
Syria is both symbol and substance of the core problem of Iran’s re-emergence as a serious player in the Middle East. At one level is the slow-burning civil war between Sunnis and Shias that was reignited by the Iranian Revolution and then, when that fire began to be tamped down, by the US-led invasion of Iraq, which overthrew a Sunni minority government dominating a majority Shia population. The war in Syria is at least in part an effort by Sunni states to “right the balance.” In the process, however, Saudi Arabia in particular has been unwilling to control elements in its country that are both inspiring and arming the worst elements of Islamist extremism and which also fuel not just Al Qaeda and its ilk but also the Taliban. They have been primary sources of destabilization in several regional states and have killed American soldiers and others in Afghanistan.
At another level is the state-centered competition for influence in the region – geopolitics. This is also linked to the relationships of regional states with the West and especially the United States. In particular, Saudi Arabia and Israel each has a basic stake in their ties to, and support by, the United States; both stoutly oppose Iran’s reentry into that competition, however modest. Of course, Israel is also concerned by the continuing risk that, somehow, the US (and others) will fail to trammel Iran’s capacity to get the bomb; and also that attention will again swing back to the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But Saudi Arabia faces no potential military threat from Iran. Indeed, to the extent it and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf face a threat or challenge from Iran, it is denominated in terms of Sunni vs. Shia, cultural and economic penetration, and the greater vibrancy of Iranian society – none of which can be dealt with by the huge quantities of modern armaments these countries have accumulated.
Further, as Iran does again become a player and moves out from under crippling sanctions, in the process attracting massive foreign investments, uncertainties regarding Iranian power and potential challenges to its neighbors will lead the latter to cleave even more closely to the United States; and the US will have to continue being a critical strategic presence in the region – its desire to “pivot” to East Asia notwithstanding.
With all these stakes, it is not surprising that several regional states are opposing the US-led opening to Iran and have already signaled a no-holds-barred campaign, including in US domestic politics, if not to scuttle what has been achieved so far, at least to limit US (and P5+1) negotiating flexibility. (Iranian hard-liners will also be working to undercut President Rouhani.) Israel and others can rightly ask that the US not fall for a “sucker’s deal,” though, as Secretary Kerry correctly stated, “We are not blind, and I don’t think we’re stupid.” But they are also worried that they will lose their long-unchallenged preeminence in Washington and with Western business interests. This is not Washington’s problem. Indeed, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria and even to Israeli-Palestinian relations, drawing Iran constructively into the outside world – if that can be done and done safely – is very much in US interests.
Even as things stand now, at an early stage in moving beyond cold war with Iran, President Obama has earned his Nobel Peace Prize.
]]>For months, top Israeli intelligence sources have been providing Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu with assessments that ought to make him welcome the progress being made at the most recent negotiations in Geneva, instead of, as one prominent Israeli journalist put it, a “party-pooper.”
Last month, days before his visit to [...]]]>
For months, top Israeli intelligence sources have been providing Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu with assessments that ought to make him welcome the progress being made at the most recent negotiations in Geneva, instead of, as one prominent Israeli journalist put it, a “party-pooper.”
Last month, days before his visit to the U.S., Netanyahu received a report from the head of Israel’s Military Intelligence (AMAN), Major General Aviv Kochavi. Kochavi’s assessment described the changes in Iran’s internal politics since Hassan Rouhani’s election as president not only as real, but “significant” and “strategic,” according to Barak Ravid of Haaretz: “In particular, Kochavi cited the increased strength of the moderate faction and the fact that 51 percent of the public voted for Rouhani, who was not the preferred candidate of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Kochavi also based his analysis on the stated intention of Rouhani and his cabinet to promote internal reform, increase the country’s openness to the West and end the economic sanctions on Iran.”
The position paper by Israel’s top military assessor stated that the process of change sparked by Rouhani’s victory s “cannot be ignored,” according to Ravid. Netanyahu ignored it. Although Netanyahu received Kochavi’s assessment a few days before he left for the U.S. in late September, the Israeli Prime Minister disregarded it entirely in his speech to the UN on Sept. 30, in which he vilified Rouhani as nothing more than a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” who was no different than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the numerous interviews he gave during and after his visit to New York, Netanyahu complained that all Iranian presidents, whether hardliners or moderate, were all alike, since they served “that same unforgiving creed, that same unforgiving regime,” implicitly calling for regime change in Iran.
Kochavi didn’t question that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. According to Kochavi, the objective of that program has not changed: “Iran still seeks to reach the status of a nuclear threshold state,” in which it could manufacture a nuclear bomb fairly quickly, if and when it decided to do so.” That assessment, however, is a long way from Netanyahu’s hyperbolic insistence that “Iran is developing nuclear weapons.”
Even before the Iranian election in June, Kochavi had been much less histrionic than Netanyahu in his evaluation of the threat to Israel posed by Iran. Along with other Israeli top military and intelligence officials, Kochavi has thus far opposed Israel attacking Iran. Assessing Iran’s nuclear program in mid-March, Kochavi stated, “At this time 10,000 centrifuges are at work, mainly in Qom and Natanz, enriching 240 kilos of uranium, which is enough to produce between five and six bombs, should the Iranian leader decide to make them.” Nevertheless, when speaking at a security conference in Herzliya, Israel, Kochavi nonetheless pointed out that Iran was being careful not to cross any “red lines.” This differed sharply from Netanyahu’s accusations that Iran has been actively engaged in developing nuclear weapons, and had crossed numerous red lines.
Three months prior to Iran’s presidential election, Kochavi hinted that Israel’s intelligence sources inside Iran were reporting that Iranian strategy was under review.
Another top Israeli national security figure whose view diverges from Netanyahu’s hostile response to any diplomatic approach to Iran is Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Israeli defense intelligence and the currently the director of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies.
At the end of September, Yadlin issued a communique in which recommended that Netanyahu “adopt a ‘positive approach’ which welcomes effective dialogue and negotiations as tools that are preferable to a military solution to Iran’s nuclear program, but stressed that ‘dialogue is not a goal in itself, but rather a framework for the process, the goal of which is to neutralize the Iranian military nuclear threat’.”
In the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 15, Yadlin co-authored an op-ed which outlined four types of deals that could emerge from Geneva: ideal; reasonable; bad and phased. The “ideal” agreement approximates Netanyahu’s most minimal demands: an Iranian commitment to dismantle its nuclear program, beginning with the closure of its enrichment facility at Fordow and its yet-to-be-completed Arak reactor. Furthermore, Iran would be required to “ship out its entire stockpile of enriched uranium, which today is enough to produce five to seven bombs.” All sanctions would then be lifted against Iran.
Yadlin also outlines a “less good, but still reasonable, agreement” according to which Iran would retain its right to enrich uranium at a non-military level of 3.5-5%. It would also allow Iran to keep “a small, symbolic number” of centrifuges. Iran would have to re-sign and implement the Additional Protocol, which would enable the IAEA to carry out much more thorough oversight of Iran’s nuclear facilities, including suspected sites. Furthermore, all Iranian nuclear activities would be limited to Natanz; the Arak reactor would be rendered non-functional; and Fordow would be closed. Finally, transformation of enriched uranium to fuel rods would have to be done outside of Iran, just in case the Iranians change their mind about wanting to build a bomb at any time in the future.
While not dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, Yadlin insists a “reasonable agreement” would give the UN Security Council sufficient lead time to detect and prevent the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon. “This compromise would prolong the Iranian breakout capacity timeline to years rather than months, and it may well be preferable to bombing Iran’s nuclear program or accepting an Iranian nuclear weapon.”
Yadlin’s idea of a “bad agreement”–easing of Western sanctions in exchange for Iran’s partial limitation of its nuclear program–is on par with the view of most hawks in the U.S. and Israel. Yadlin also doesn’t approve of a phased building of trust between Iran and the West, through a “process of reciprocal, partial steps” unless all current economic sanctions are maintained. “Only after Iran proves its resolve to abandon all the key elements in its military nuclear program should sanctions be lifted, and not a moment before.” Nonetheless, the fact that Yadlin can conceive of, and advocate, a “reasonable”agreement that falls short of “ideal” but nonetheless is not “bad” is worth noting: “Western diplomats in Geneva need to find their way to a reasonable deal if reaching an ideal agreement proves impossible.”
On Friday, Yadlin accused Netanyahu of “crying wolf” about the agreement with Iran. “It seems like he thinks that this is the final agreement — it is not,” Yadlin told The New York Times. “The real judgment of whether it’s a bad deal or an acceptable deal will be in the end of the negotiating period.”
Former Mossad Director Ephraim Halevy not only has publicly opposed an Israeli attack on Iran as anything but a last resort; he is a longstanding supporter of a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue. In September of 2012, Halevy told Haaretz‘s Ari Shavit that Israel needed to understand the Iranian perspective:
The basic feeling of that ancient nation is one of humiliation. Both religious Iranians and secular Iranians feel that for 200 years the Western powers used them as their playthings. They do not forget for a moment that the British and the Americans intervened in their internal affairs and toppled the regime of Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953. From their perspective, the reason why, to this day, there is no modern rail network and no modern oil refineries in Iran is that the West prevented that. Thus, the deep motive behind the Iranian nuclear project − which was launched by the Shah − is not the confrontation with Israel, but the desire to restore to Iran the greatness of which it was long deprived. I believe that if the West could find a way to propose to Iran alternative methods to acquire that sense of greatness, Iran would forsake the nuclear road. If Iran were offered trains and oil refineries and a place of honor in regional trade, it would consider this seriously.
A month later, in an interview with al-Monitor‘s Laura Rozen just before the U.S. presidential election, Halevy defended President Obama’s willingness to negotiate with Iran as ” very courageous.” He also criticized Netanyahu for “invoking Auschwitz twice a week.” The interview was published amid rumors that the United States and Iran had agreed to hold direct talks on Iran’s nuclear program after the US presidential elections.
Halevy sees the “end game” of the negotiations with Iran as being of primary importance and urgency. In what appears to be an argument for a speedy wrap-up of an agreement, Friday’s New York Times quoted Halevy as saying, “The more you enter stages, the less you can be certain that you will get what you need in the end.” For Halevy, the desired end of the Iran negotiations would be an Iran without nuclear weapon capability that has reconciled itself to Israel’s existence. Halevy told Rozen in an interview last week:
“IF, if, the nuclear file is closed, and sanctions removed, it will bring economic relief…[and] a renewed view from Tehran of the opportunities the world is offering. And then, if there will be a desire to move beyond the nuclear issue, then the Iran regime will be able to turn to the public and say, ‘we should no longer be in the business of fear mongering. If we want to move forward with the US, it will be difficult while maintaining a state of belligerency against one of the US key friends and allies.’”
Ralph Ahrens of the Times of Israel reports that Doron Avital, a former commander of Israel’s elite reconnaisance unit Sayeret Makhal and more recently member of Israel’s Parliament (Knesset) from the Kadima party, discussed Iran’s nuclear program with a former general from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards at a a recent academic conference held at a French chateau.
“There’s been a serious shift toward the West,” Avital told The Times of Israel, “and if I take everything that he said and corroborate it with what I heard recently from [military intelligence commander Maj. Gen.] Aviv Kochavi and [newly retired national security adviser] Yaakov Amidror, then I think there has been a strategic shift and not just a tactical one.”
Avital implied that his attendance at the conference had been with the knowledge and tacit approval of Israel’s Ministry of Defense. “I have friends in the political and defense establishments and of course I updated them before leaving and after returning.” The Defense Ministry declined to confirm any knowledge–or interest–in Avital’s attendance at the event.
Another Times of Israel article by Lazar Berman on Oct. 31 reported that senior Israeli officials were said to have met “with representatives from an array of regional states — including Iran — and other major powers” in Switzerland. The topic of the meeting was the convening an international conference on making the Middle East a region free of weapons of mass destruction.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry refused to comment on the report.
Taken together, these under-publicized reports indicate that the views of Iran held by many well-informed Israelis in the military, defense and intelligence establishment are far more nuanced than Netanyahu’s harsh and histrionic opposition to any but the most maximalist “deal” with Iran would lead one to believe. Unfortunately these assessments seem to be unknown to members of Congress, as well as to spokespersons for “pro-Israel” organizations and think tanks who are determined to prevent any agreement with Iran or strangle it at its inception.
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– You won’t succeed on Broadway if you haven’t any Jews.
–Song from Spamalot
The Associated Press and The Guardian and are reporting [...]]]>
– You won’t succeed on Broadway if you haven’t any Jews.
–Song from Spamalot
The Associated Press and The Guardian and are reporting that Siamak Morsadegh, the Jewish representative in Iran’s Parliament (Majlis), will be one of two parliamentarians accompanying Hassan Rouhani to New York next week, when the new Iranian president addresses the United Nations and meets with heads of state from around the world. Word that Morsadegh (alternatively spelled Moreh Sadeq) would accompany Rouhani apparently originated in a tweet early this morning.
This would be the first time an Iranian president brought a Jewish lawmaker to the UN with him, according to the AP. In September 2000 (not “the 1990s”, as reported by the AP), Speaker of Parliament Mehdi Karroubi brought Morsadegh’s predecessor, Morris Motamed, with him to New York as part of an Iranian delegation to a conclave of 150 parliamentary speakers from around the world organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
According to The New York Times, Motamed “had tried to reassure the Americans that the Jews in Iran — numbering 25,000 to 30,000, down from a high of 80,000 to 100,000 before the 1979 revolution, he said — were living as well as their Muslim neighbors.” Several Jewish members of Congress met with the five visiting Iranians, among them the late Sen. Arlen Spector, a Republican, and two Democratic members of the House from New York, Gary Ackerman and Eliot Engel. Engel, now the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has been one of the most avid proponents of sanctions against Iran in Congress.
The second parliamentarian who, it was announced, would accompany Rouhani to New York, Ahmad Reza Dastgheyb, is a prominent reformist representing Shiraz and a member of the Majlis Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy.
Morsadegh, a 47-year-old physician from Shiraz who serves on the Majlis’ health committee, accompanied President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as part of a delegation to the European Parliament in 2008 (not 2012, as reported by AP), the same year he was elected to succeed Motamed. Like other Jewish Majlis representatives before him, Morsadegh has been critical of Israeli policies toward Palestinians and has been reluctant to criticize Iran’s top leadership.
“We are living in a religious country as a religious minority,” Morsadegh told the European Jewish Press in an interview during his visit to Brussels. “Of course we have some problems. I don’t want to say that everything is ok. But at this moment we don’t have major problems. Our day-to-day conditions are improving and our situation is now more stable and better than it was in the early years of the Iranian revolution when Jews and Muslims weren’t equal.”
Nevertheless, The Tehran Jewish Committee, the community’s central body, protested against a 2006 conference on the Holocaust attended by several prominent Holocaust deniers. Morsadegh said the conference did not represent the views of most Iranians, and that Ahmadinejad’s views on the Holocaust were personal, rather than that of Iran’s leaders. Iran’s new Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, recently tweeted much the same.
Iran’s Jewish population in Iran declined to 25,000 from some 100,000 three decades ago, according to Reuters, although Israeli sources claim it is now closer to 10,000. Nonetheless, Iran remains the largest Jewish community in the Middle East except for Israel. Sixty percent of Iran’s Jews live in Teheran; the others in large cities such as Isfahan and Shiraz. According to Morsadegh, there are 40 synagogues in Iran, half of them in Teheran.
While in Brussels five years, Morsadegh opined that Iran’s nuclear research was for peaceful purposes, and that nuclear weapons could not be used in the Middle East, with so many small countries next to one another. He also said he did not believe Iran was seeking a military confrontation with Israel.
One possible glitch in Morsadegh’s travel plans could be a delay or denial of a visa to come to the U.S. During the 2000 visit by Karroubi and Motamed, two other members of the Iranian delegation could not travel because they had not received the necessary visas. No doubt, Morsadegh’s presence alongside Rouhani in New York would add to the remarkably positive mood music that the new government has been playing in advance of next week’s now much-anticipated visit.
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