With bilateral US-Iran talks taking place in Geneva today, notably topped for the US by Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, who led earlier secret exchanges, negotiations between Iran and world powers might be entering their final phase  — or not.  

Such is the nature of difficult negotiations, involving countries that, in [...]]]> by Robert E. Hunter

With bilateral US-Iran talks taking place in Geneva today, notably topped for the US by Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, who led earlier secret exchanges, negotiations between Iran and world powers might be entering their final phase  — or not.  

Such is the nature of difficult negotiations, involving countries that, in the case of the United States and Iran, have a 35-year history of bad relations. Such is also the nature of negotiations where the stakes are so high.

Should the negotiations fail, at the extreme Iran might move toward developing nuclear weapons, though it stoutly denies this intention. To keep it from doing so, the US has pledged that the military option “remains on the table,” though it devoutly prefers not to use it or to have its hand forced by Israel.

The qualifier “or not” is necessary because the actual negotiations have been conducted more privately than one would have expected; because the notional deadline of July 20 isn’t a true deadline at all; and because, as happens with such hotly contested and highly complex issues as are involved here, there can be “many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip” even when everyone is acting with the best of intentions.

Counters to skepticism that this round of talks will produce a final agreement include the fact that just about every issue that could be raised has been talked virtually to death. A host of experts has been engaged. The finer points of all issues have long been on the table and have been masticated by all sides “from here to Sunday.”

Indeed, if there are any points where the interests of the parties are not crystal clear, it is not from lack of trying. That doesn’t mean that the different parties — perhaps all of them — have not held back that one last point in hopes of getting a slightly better deal at the 11^th hour, in particular to be able to argue to critics back home, of which there is a plethora, that, in the end “we showed them [fill in the blank] that we are tough bargainers.”

Shades of the Cold War

This is not the first time that negotiations of this importance have come down to the wire in this fashion. During the Cold War, this was typically part of every set of US-Soviet arms control talks, which were just as abstruse, just as contentious to the last niggling detail, and just as freighted with the political need for each side to argue that it had obtained the best deal that was humanly possible.

The parallel is apt. In both cases, long before the negotiating end-game, the people sitting at the table across from one another have understood the terms, both great and small, of the deal that will best suit all claimants and can produce a diplomatic solution. But in both cases, US-Soviet arms control negotiations and talks on the Iranian nuclear program, the devil is very much not “in the details,” but in the politics, and not even in the last little compromises that each side needs in order to counter the critics back home.

The politics are about the nature of the basic relationships between the contending parties. In US-Soviet relations, the need was for both sides to be able to claim that they were equals, that the nuclear symbols of relative power were finely balanced. Whether one side or the other had a few more missiles or warheads or “throw weight” had no strategic significance in the event of conflict: utter destruction to both sides was guaranteed. But the symbols of “equality” or, more prosaically, of “face,” were critical.

Of course, Iran cannot represent itself as the equal of any of its interlocutors, by any relevant measure, but both it and its negotiating partners need to emerge from the talks with a clear sense that they have preserved what is politically essential to them.

There is a second parallel between the Cold War and now. Arms control talks between the US and Soviet Union were only partly about weapons themselves and being able to represent to publics and other countries that “parity” — a stand-in for perceptions of power — was achieved. At least as important was the experience of both sides in getting to know and understand one another in terms of interests, expectations, ambitions, hopes, and fears. The fact that US-Soviet arms control negotiations took place was as important as the results produced, and they played a central role in developing détente and eventually making possible the end of the Cold War.

That positive political result may not result from the P5+1’s (US, UK, France, China, Russia + Germany) negotiations with Iran, but it should not be ruled out. Already, with new leadership in both the United States (President Barack Obama) and Iran (President Hassan Rouhani, generally supported by the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei) the possibilities for détente and perhaps an end to the US-Iran Cold War are being developed at the bargaining table. This is much to be hoped, given that, outside of contention over nuclear matters, there is a good deal that can move Iran and the West in similar directions, not least regarding Afghanistan’s future, possibly also Iraq’s, shared opposition to al-Qaeda and its ilk, and other interests like counter-piracy and freedom of navigation, especially through the Strait of Hormuz.

There is also a third parallel. In its arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union, US presidents faced intense domestic political opposition to reaching agreements with the enemy. In retrospect, no American in his right mind can still declare his opposition to the détente with the Soviet Union pursued by several presidents. At the time, however, critics abounded, leaders were excoriated, and nay-sayers in Congress did their best to undercut the efforts of the White House.

The domestic politics factor

It is far from clear that President Rouhani can surmount opposition in Iran to reaching a deal with the “Great Satan,” even though, at last count, he seems to have the support of the Supreme Leader. Meanwhile, many powerful Iranians, especially in the clerical establishment, fervently hope that the current talks will collapse. Indeed, they would welcome the West raising the stakes so high in the diplomatic end-game that Rouhani will fail.

That is also true in the United States, and this may ultimately result in the undoing of a potential agreement, whatever proves to be possible at the bargaining table.

President Obama is under intense pressure, especially from a significant part of Congress, to be unyielding on a range of matters — the details of which are less relevant than their use to cause him to flounder. Indeed, he has struggled to keep Congress from pressing for increased economic sanctions against Iran, at the very moment when US bona fides are being tested in regard to implementing last November’s Joint Plan of Action and to offering sanctions relief indispensable to a final agreement.

The interests of others

The key to this struggle over the president’s capacity to act in the US national interest is the fact that, unlike the case of US-Soviet arms control negotiations, he must also consider the perspectives of a range of countries in the Middle East, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia.

It’s not just that the US has to be certain that Iran cannot retain a capability at some point in the future to “break out” and move toward a bomb –which is also very much in the American interest. It is also that both Israel and most of the Gulf Arabs oppose, on any terms, potential reconciliation between Iran and the West and especially the United States. This element of their concern is not about security, per se, but about power, and especially Iran’s potential regional role, post-sanctions and post-isolation.

These states are concerned in particular by the prospect of normalized US-Iran relations. It is no surprise therefore, that several of America’s Middle East partners are, at best, ambivalent about signs of possible success in negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. From their perspective, they would welcome the trammeling of Iran’s possible nuclear ambitions; but they oppose Iran’s remerging as a full-fledged competitor for power and influence in the region, potentially a collateral product of success in the negotiations.

The implications of such a development obviously need to be considered by the United States, as leader among Western states, both in the Middle East and beyond, as the possibility emerges of an end to the Iranian-Western Cold War.

As much as they would like the status quo to continue, some local states, notably some Gulf Arabs, are not sitting on their hands. They are already exploring the possibility of changed relations with Iran, as demonstrated by recent high-level exchanges of visits with Tehran. Egypt is also adjusting, symbolized by its invitation to Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s inauguration this week (Iran is sending its deputy foreign minister). China and Russia are meanwhile ready to step up economic and other ties; and the private sector throughout the West is restlessly waiting at the starting gate.

In the final analysis, if President Obama and his Iranian counterparts can weather domestic opposition to an agreement — where Obama faces congressional opposition that is heavily influenced by Israel — we will witness the beginning of fundamental change in the Middle East. It is far from clear, however, that the US government has begun to think through the consequences of this and started to plan accordingly.

Photo: Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman photographed here during last years negotiations in Geneva, will be among the top-level diplomats meeting for bilateral talks in the Swiss city today. June 9-10. Credit: ISNA

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by Thomas Lippman

For the United States, Saudi Arabia, other supporters of the rebels in Syria, and for the rebels themselves, this has been a month of fast-paced, intense diplomatic and political activity. It is tempting after so much time and so many deaths to dismiss all the events [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Thomas Lippman

For the United States, Saudi Arabia, other supporters of the rebels in Syria, and for the rebels themselves, this has been a month of fast-paced, intense diplomatic and political activity. It is tempting after so much time and so many deaths to dismiss all the events since mid-January as the inconclusive comings and goings of people who simply don’t know what to do about the intractable conflict, but it’s also possible to add it all up and see the possibility of an emerging new energy, cohesion, and perhaps more effective action.

At the very least, the events and consultations since mid-January seem to have put the United States and Saudi Arabia back on the same page.

A useful point to begin this review is the visit to Washington in mid-January of Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia’s minister of interior and the most powerful man in the country other than the king. Nayef, who is respected in Washington for his leadership of Saudi Arabia’s struggle against an al-Qaeda uprising a decade ago, saw everyone in the U.S. national security establishment, plus key members of Congress. Not much was said publicly about the outcome, but within a couple of weeks events began to unfold rapidly.

On Feb. 3, a few days before Prince Muhammad left for Washington, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia issued a royal decree making it a crime, punishable by prison time, for any Saudi citizen to fight in a foreign conflict. This reflected Riyadh’s concern about the hundreds of young Saudis who have joined extremist rebel groups in Syria and could some day return to make trouble at home. It also was aimed at deflecting criticism from Washington, where some officials have said Riyadh was not doing enough to cut off the flow of fighters.

That same day, Feb. 3, the White House confirmed reports that Obama will visit Saudi Arabia in late March. This has been a difficult year for U.S.-Saudi relations due to disagreements over Iran’s nuclear program and policy toward Egypt, as well as over Syria. Obama’s planned visit is clearly intended to smooth over some of these differences; the conversations would have been more difficult still if the issue of Saudis going to Syria to fight with the jihadi extremists were still on the table.

On Feb. 12, according to the Saudi embassy, Prince Muhammad met with Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and with Under Secretary Wendy Sherman. She holds the administration’s Iran nuclear portfolio and has strongly defended its interim agreement with Tehran, a deal that caused heartburn in Riyadh. While in Washington, Muhammad also met with CIA officials and with the intelligence chiefs of Turkey, Qatar, Jordan and other supporters of the rebels, according to press reports.

Then the pace of events accelerated.

On Feb. 12, King Abdullah II of Jordan, whose country is straining under the burden of supporting Syrian refugees, met with Vice President Joe Biden to discuss “ongoing efforts to bring about a political transition and an end to the conflict in Syria,” the White House said. Two days later, Abdullah conferred with Obama.

On Feb. 15, the UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva ended, predictably, in failure. Secretary of State John Kerry put the blame squarely on the Assad regime’s intransigence, but regardless of who was responsible, that avenue now appears to have come to a dead end.

The next day, the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army — that is, the non-extremist rebels whom Washington and presumably Riyadh support — announced that Gen. Salam Idriss, the overall military commander who had been increasingly criticized as ineffective, was being replaced. His successor, backed by the Saudis, is Brig. Gen. Abdul-Illah Bashir al-Noeimi. It is too early to know whether he will be able to enlist the support of all the often-divided rebel factions, who are battling extremist forces aligned with al-Qaeda as well as the Syrian army.

Back in Washington, the White House announced on Feb. 18 that Robert Malley, a veteran Middle East hand from the Clinton administration, would return to the National Security Council. His assignment is to manage relations with the often-fractious allies of the Arab Gulf states, a group that includes Saudi Arabia.

A day later, Feb. 19, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Prince Muhammad bin Nayef had taken over as boss of the kingdom’s effort to arm and strengthen the Free Syrian Army and other non-extremist groups. The Post’s Karen de Young reported the next day that the intelligence chiefs, at their Washington gathering a week earlier, had agreed on how to define which rebel groups were eligible for new aid, and on new arms shipments to them. Muhammad, a firm if low-key operative, replaced the mercurial Prince Bandar bin Sultan, whose personal charisma had evidently not impressed the rebels.

That same day, Feb. 19, Deputy Secretary Burns delivered a speech that was widely depicted as a preview of what Obama will say to King Abdullah next month: the United States is committed to its strategic partnership with the Arab Gulf states, and will not be bamboozled into a permanent agreement with Iran that would leave Tehran with any path to nuclear weapons. Telling the Saudis what they want to hear, Burns said that in Syria, “the simple truth is that there can be no stability and no resolution to the crisis without a transition to a new leadership.” That is, Bashar al-Assad must go, as the Saudis and Obama himself have long demanded, and Riyadh should not interpret the agreement by which Syria is due to give up its chemical weapons as U.S. acquiescence in Assad’s legitimacy.

Meanwhile, of course, Syrians are dying by the thousands as the government continues to bomb civilian areas, and there is no end in sight. Even if Assad steps down, Burns said, the United States has “no illusions” about “the very difficult day after — or, more likely, the very difficult years after.” 

Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah are still supporting Assad. It is possible that he could survive to preside over some rump state. But it does appear that the working program of those who want to get rid of him is, at least, less messy and disorganized than it was a month ago.

*This post was revised on Feb. 25 to make an adjustment to the sequence of events.

Photo: Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud (left) with Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul Azi

As the Iranian leadership prepares to engage in negotiations with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), the conversation inside Iran has moved beyond the nuclear issue to include a debate about the utility of or need for engaging in direct talks, even relations, with [...]]]> via Lobe Log

As the Iranian leadership prepares to engage in negotiations with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), the conversation inside Iran has moved beyond the nuclear issue to include a debate about the utility of or need for engaging in direct talks, even relations, with the United States.

Public discussions about relations with the US have historically been taboo in Iran. To be sure, there have always been individuals who have brought up the idea, but they have either been severely chastised publicly or quickly silenced or ignored. The current conversation is distinguished by its breadth as well the clear positioning of the two sides on the issue.

On one side are the hard-liners who continue to tout the value of a “resistance economy” – a term coined by the Leader Ali Khamenei — in the face of US-led sanctions. On the other side is an increasing number of people from across the political spectrum, including some conservatives, who are calling for bilateral talks.

The idea of direct talks with the US was openly put forth last Spring by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former president and current chair of the Expediency council, through a couple of interviews. He insisted that Iran “can now fully negotiate with the United States based on equal conditions and mutual respect.” Rafsanjani also conceded that the current obsession with Iran’s nuclear program is not the US’ main problem, arguing against those who “think that Iran’s problems [with the West] will be solved through backing down on the nuclear issue.” At the same time, he called for proactive interaction with the world, and for understanding that after recent transformations in the Middle East, “the Americans… are trying to find “new models that can articulate coexistence and cooperation in the region and which the people [of the region] also like better.” Rafsanjani added that the current situation of “not talking and not having relations with America is not sustainable…The meaning of talks is not that we capitulate to them. If they accept our position or we accept their positions, it’s done.”

In Rafsanjani’s worldview, negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program are merely part of a process that will eventually address other sources of conflict with the US in the region.

Rafsanjani is no longer the lone public voice in favor of direct talks. In fact, as the conversation over talks with the US has picked up, he has remained relatively quiet. Instead, Iranian newspapers and the public fora are witnessing a relatively robust conversation. Last week, for instance, hundreds of people filled an overcrowded university auditorium in the provincial capital of Yasuj, a small city of about 100,000 people, to listen to a public debate between two former members of the Parliament over whether direct talks and relations with the US present opportunity or threats.

On one side stood Mostafa Kavakabian who said

…whatever Islamic Iran is wrestling with in [terms of] sanctions, the nuclear energy issue, multiple resolutions [against Iran] in [international] organizations, human rights violations from the point of view of the West, the issue of Israel and international terrorism is the result of lack of logical relationship, with the maintenance of our country’s principles, with America.

Sattar Hedayatkhah on the other hand argued that “relations with America under the current conditions means backtracking from 34 years of resistance against the demands and sanctions of the global arrogance.”

In recent weeks the hard-line position has been articulated by individuals as varied as the head of the Basij militia forces, Mohammadreza Naqdi, who called sanctions a means for unlocking Iran’s “latent potential” by encouraging domestic industry and ingenuity, and the leader’s representative in the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), cleric Ali Saeedi, who said that Washington’s proposals for direct talks are a ploy to trick Tehran into capitulating over its nuclear program.

Standing in the midst of this contentious conversation is Leader Khamenei, who, as everyone acknowledges, will be the ultimate decision-maker on the issue of talks with the US. During the past couple of years he has articulated his mistrust of the Obama Administration’s intentions in no uncertain terms and since the bungled October 2009 negotiations over the transfer of enriched uranium out of Iran — when Iran negotiator Saeed Jalili met with US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns for the P5+1 side of the meeting — has not allowed bilateral contact at the level of principals between Iran and the US.

Yet the concern regarding a potentially changed position on his part has been sufficient enough for the publication of an op-ed in the hard-line Kayhan Daily warning against the “conspiracy” of “worn-out revolutionaries” to force the Leader “to drink from the poison chalice of backing down, abandoning his revolutionary positions, and talking to the US.”  The opinion piece goes on to say that

…by offering wrong analyses and relating all of the country’s problems to external sanctions, [worn-out revolutionaries] want to make the social atmosphere inflamed and insecure and agitate public sentiments so that the exalted Leader is forced to give in to their demands in order to protect the country’s interests and revolution’s gains.

The idea of drinking poison is an allusion to Revolution-founder Ruhollah Khomeini’s famous speech wherein he grudgingly accepted the ceasefire with Iraq in 1988 and refered to it as poison chalice from which he had to drink. Hard-liners in Iran continue to believe that it was the moderate leaders of the time such as Rafsanjani who convinced Khomeini to take the bitter poison, while conveniently omitting the fact that the current Leader Khamenei was at the time very much on Rafsanjani’s side. This time around it is the “worn-out revolutionaries” who, in the mind of the hard-liners, despite being conservative and acting as key political advisors to Khamenei or holding key positions in office, are suspected of pressuring him to accede to talks.

Basirat, a hard-line website affiliated with the IRGC’s political bureau, has taken a different tact and instead of denouncing pressures on Khamenei, has published a list of “Imam” Khamenei’s statements which insist on long-standing enmity with the US. Presumably, the intended purpose is to make it as hard as possible for him to back away from those statements.

The hard-liners face a predicament, which is essentially this: Having elevated Khamenei’s role to the level of an all-knowing Imam-like leader, they have few options but to remain quiet and submit to his leadership if he makes a decision in favor of direct talks. Hence their prior moves to portray any attempt at talks as capitulation at worst, or unnecessarily taking a bitter pill at best.

It is in this context that one has to consider Khamenei’s potential decision over the issue of direct talks. Whether he will eventually agree to them is not at all clear at this point and in fact is probably quite unlikely, unless the US position on Iran’s nuclear program is publicly clarified to include allowance for limited enrichment inside Iran.

In other words, while Khamenei may eventually assent to direct talks, the path to that position requires some sort of agreement on the nuclear standoff — even if only a limited one — within the P5+1 frame and not the other way around.

The reality is that US pressure on Iran has helped create an environment in which many are calling for a strategic, even incrementally implemented, shift of direction in Iran’s foreign policy regarding the so-called “America question.” But this call for a shift can only become dominant if there are some assurances that corresponding, and again, even incrementally implemented shifts, are also in the works in the US regarding the “Iran question.

- Farideh Farhi is an independent researcher and an affiliate graduate faculty member in political science and international relations at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. A version of this article appeared on IPS News.